THE WORLD OF STEEL & BLOOD

THE LEGENDS OF DRAGOS, PART IV

THE BROTHERHOOD OF RANGERS

As Told by Grand Scholar Nillios

The Brotherhood of Rangers saw their beginnings during the construction of Brandywine the Clever's great stronghold Winterheart.

In the wake of Brandywine's discovery of the Forsaken Lands and the denizens that dwell within them, an outpost was commissioned to be built.

Ghostforst was built in a period of thirty or forty years and with it, a garrison had to be posted, so that the denizens that dwelled in the Forsaken Lands may never attempt to cross the Crimson Mountains and invade the Winterlands.

The task was entrusted to an old friend of Brandywine the Clever's, a young huntsman by the name of Stonebridge, who was already in the process of building his family's home, the Ice Tower.

Within two years, Stonebridge established the great order of warriors that would be known as the Brotherhood of Rangers.

All houses of the Winterlands pledged soldiers to join the Brotherhood for centuries.

Two other castle outposts would also be established in the centuries after Ghostfort's completion. The Mountain View and Hawk's Eye as they came to be called.

The Brotherhood continued to protect the mountainous border from the denizens of the Forsaken Lands for many centuries and their numbers continued to rise.

Unfortunately, as the centuries passed, the Brotherhood's numbers began to dwindle. Their numbers were said to have been in the tens of thousands, but two centuries after the first "Great Icy Winter", their numbers were seen in the mere hundreds and slowly, as the Conquest of Sargon drew near, the Brotherhood's numbers were less than a hundred.

It was a week before the Conquest that the Brotherhood's leader, Lord Jon Rockwell sent forth a scouting party into the Forsaken Lands for the first time in their history.

Led by his second in command, the Lady Colleen Hornsby, the party ventured further into the enemies' territory and at the foot of a great mountain and the Dreadknot stronghold of Shadowfort, they came upon an earthshattering discovery.

A vast army of 20,000 Dreadknots, Wolf-Men and warriors of the Free Tribes was gathered at the front of Shadowfort. And they were ready to invade the realm beyond the Crimson Mountains.

Lady Colleen and her scouts returned to Ghostfort with all haste to warn Lord Rockwell.

Messengers were dispatched from Ghostfort to warn all of the lords and ladies of the Winterlands and to request for immediate reinforcements.

None took the threat seriously and no reinforcements came to aid the Brotherhood.

And so came the Death Horde and the Brotherhood's final and absolute destruction.

The Horde crushed through the Obsidian Gates with their Ravagers, and they crushed all of the Brotherhood within the walls of Ghostfort and the neighboring township of Coldrock was pillaged and its citizens slaughtered.

The Mountain View was also overrun by the Horde and so was Hawk's Eye. The leader of the Horde, Sargon the Destroyer led the attack on Hawk's Eye and eventually marched south of the Crimson Mountains and conquered the Talltrees and then the Bryants of Blackmoor.