The Wrath of He Who Must Not Be Named.

Artist - Sirena Mesa - Artstation.com

The Burning of Sjoen

Ringvolstad is the largest and greatest of all the Valsgardi cities, however it is not alone. The Valsgardi built 9 settlements, most of them near the sea. One settlement was on the shores of the inland sea, Sjoen.
Sjoen was a lumber mill town, where life revolved around the felling and harvesting of the massive Ygdrasili Redwoods. The town thrived, until the town it was devestated by fire. The exact cause of the fire is debated. There were few survivors, and the stories they brought with them to Ringvolstad were not believed, and written off as tales of the grief maddened.
The official story is that the mill caught fire, and the wind caused the fire to spread to thatched roofed buildings one by one until most of the town was swallowed in flame.

Anga's Story

The story the survivors tell is not that simple. What follows is the account of Anga, wife of Rolf the mill operator.

"It was a day like any other, hot, not a cloud in the sky. The men were working for fill an order for a large shipment of lumber to be sent out to Oldwyd in three days time, so everyone was working long hours. Even the women and children helped to strip bark and clear away the sawdust.
Klaeri was upset that her husband was not at home, and she came to the mill around midday, raising a scene, demanding he come home right now, their goats had broken the pens and were running amok in their crops.
Borg, Klaeri's husband, tried to calm the woman and get her to go home and wait for him to get home. He couldn't leave with so much work to be done. Klaeri became enraged, and the Overseer of the mill told them both to leave and not to come back, Borg no longer had a job, thanks to the repeated outbursts of Klaeri.
Borg begged the overseer not to fire him, and that he would ensure that this would never happen again. The Overseer warned him that if it did, he would they would both be banished from Sjoen.
Klaeri was not happy about this, and her anger continued to rage, and Borg had to forcefully remove her from the mill. She was screaming when he shut the gate on her face, threatening revenge for this embarrasement.
Not a minute after, She stood outside the gates of the mill and removed a blade from the sheath on her leg, she screamed "his name" and drug the blade across her throat, spilling her lifesblood on the front of her clothes.
Immediately the town went into a panic, the workers of the mill scrabled away, escaping towards their own homes, abandoning everything as quickly as they could.
In the distance we could hear a rumbling roar, and within moments he erupted from the forests edge, thundering towards the mill at an incredible speed. His great brown body lumbering at full spead, roaring tremendously.
He attacked the first people he came across, tearing them apart with his great jaws, throwing their bodies into a ruined pile where they fell. Then he was on to the next, there was no escaping him.
I don't know how the fire started, it could have been someone with a torch trying to make him flee. It could have been from a falling brazier, knocked over in the commotion, I don't know. All I do know is that it was the mill that caught on fire first, and it didn't take very long at all for the fire to jump from building to building.
Mine own husband died trying to protect me from The Brown One, he held got in the way long enough for me to get into the water and swim out as far as I could. There were a few others who made it into the water with me, and we swam down the shore line until we were a safe distance away from the destruction and we watched as our home burned and our loved ones screamed until they died.
When I close my eyes I can still hear The Brown One's ferocious roaring. We waited until the next morning to return to Sjoen, but it was beyond saving. Most of the buildings were destroyed and our loved ones lie on the ground in charred lumps.
It took us 5 days to walk to Ringvolstad, walking along the shores until it ended, then following the river to the Sea.
-Anga the Fire Kissed

Artist - Massimo Righi - Artstation.com

Hrtkos

The Valsgardi God of Destruction
Hrtkos is the embodiment of rage and destruction. He does not contemplate, he devours. There is nothing that stands in his way.
Hrtkos spends the eons hibernating in his cave, apart from the world, and enjoying the space, until he is summoned. It is known that there is power in a name, and for Hrtkos it is especially true.

Summoning Hrtkos

If one wishes to summon Hrtkos, one must merely speak his name and give a gift of blood. The greater the gift, the more powerfully enraged he becomes.
Hrtkos, like many of the Valsgardi gods, does not bestow love, or protection upon the people, unleashing him is like calling a kracken from the depths.
Only destruction can become of it. He can lay entire armies to waste under his mighty claws, ripping them apart with his gnashing teeth.

Hrtkos' Legacy

The world is so fearful of his wrath that his name is forbidden to say out loud, for fear that it will summon him.
Without the accompanying gift of blood, his name does little aside from driving even the most fearsome foe to fear.
The only way to quench Hrtkos' rage is to offer a second gift of blood, equal to or greater than the gift that summoned him.
If no gift is given he will take his fill of blood from the place that he is summoned to.
The fear of Hrtkos is so powerful, the people of Vallsgard have created various other names for him, to describe him, or to threaten their children into being obedient.

Common nicknames:

He Who Must Not Be Named
The Brown One
Bernon
Brown Death
The Rage