Brigae Star System

Brigae Star System

Major Holdings – General Information

History

Ahh… Brigae. A name that echoes like steel striking steel, for its soil has been watered more with blood than with rain. Let me set quill to parchment and recount its long, tangled saga, for though archivists may break it into cold dates and dead names, I, Witch Lord Bertwin Gisking Bearspear, have walked the long centuries and heard the thunder of its battles sung by survivors and ghosts alike.

It begins in fire. The year 27,110 AA saw the great slaughter known to us as the Battle of Brigae. There, Warlord Humfrey Umbra Lightningborn, later called the Lightning King, advanced beside his kin, Vidar the Lightning Spear and Alfhild the Quick Lightning, against King Guinevere Gollach Druidborn, the so-called Supreme Lord. In that clash of fleets, where the skies burned brighter than suns, thousands upon thousands perished. Vidar fell, his spear broken amid the wreckage, and so too did Guinevere’s daughter, Gwynefa. The Gollach line cracked, and Humfrey stood triumphant upon the smoking ruins, heir to the lightning of the ancients.

Humfrey claimed more than victory, he claimed a crown. From the ashes he forged the Star Kingdom of Gaint, declaring his house the Royal House of Lightningborn, for his blood was of the Umbra tribe, tracing back to Fjolnir the Raven. With him came settlers of the fallen Star Kingdom of Jut, fleeing the Skane Nebula, who bent their knees and swore fealty in hopes of survival. And though Vidar lay slain, Humfrey named him as king in death, a ghostly brother set into the line of Gaint’s monarchs. Thus was the kingdom born, built upon lightning and remembrance.

In the centuries that followed, faith’s tendrils wrapped themselves into Brigae’s soil. By 27,402 AA, priests of the Feyan Faith came at the bidding of their Pontifex Maximus, seeking to bind the Drala Star Cluster to the dominion of Yah. I recall meeting one, Althea, the so-called Divine Herald, aflame with zeal yet fragile as glass. She and her kin, Melitta and Nicander among them, strove to bring order through faith where kings brought only order through steel. Some fled, some returned, some were set as pontiffs upon Brigae itself. And in time, Brigae became as much a fortress of the Feyan temples as it was of the Lightningborn kings. Mortyn the Builder raised great temples there, charters were granted by Frigg the Stalwart, and for a breath, faith and crown walked hand in hand.

But Brigae’s skies never rest. In 27,553 AA, Angul’s king, Wulfrun the Resolute, swept down in fire and fury. Feyan temples were toppled, barrows desecrated, and the World of Brigae itself was put to the sword. Pontiffs resigned in despair, for the land was too poor, too broken, to sustain their cloisters. I once passed through then, the air reeked of ash, and the voices of the faithful were hoarse with prayer and grief. Yet still the place endured, and by 27,752 AA, Cynewulf the Victorious struck his great blow at Drygahyll, defeating the mighty Uhtred the Great of Angul and restoring Gaint’s independence.

From there Brigae’s tale runs like a stream, moments of peace, moments of fire. Skane reavers gnawed at its moons, like the ice-world of Sceap, in 30,070 AA. Astrid the Wide Ruler of Gewiss bound pontiffs and lords with new charters in 30,076 AA, for the Gewiss ever sought to bind Brigae into their fold. Osgar the Great, with his endless web of wills and legacies, granted Brigae’s richest greatholds to Signy the Wyvern Mane, so that her sister Eadwynn would not gain the honor of guarding their grandmother Hildred’s tomb. Ah, I knew Osgar, sly as a serpent, always trimming wings that might grow too proud.

Then came the Great Savage Crusade. In 30,140 AA, the Skane descended upon Brigae, led by Rowana the Half-Raven, Beowulf the Raven in the Eye, Ragnar the Raven Blade, and a host of warlords with names as grim as their deeds, Oughtred the Old, Sigtryggr the Blade, Beorn the Dauntless’ of my own bloodline’s kin, and others besides. The battle for Brigae was no mere raid, it was a storm to wrench the Gaint Sector from Gewiss hands. Though Oswald the Noble Counsel sought to hold it, the reavers came like nightfall, and Brigae’s halls echoed with screams.

The years that followed were a tangle of crowns and kinstrife. Wulfrun the Lord of Angul, her husband Bjorn, Eadwynn the Wyvern Crown, Signy the Wyvern Mane, sisters and cousins warring in the name of blood, only to spill that blood upon Brigae’s fields. Eadwynn herself perished by her sister’s hand in 30,204 AA, slain in the revolt she began. That death ended her ambitions, but the soil of Brigae drank deep.

Even faith was not spared from Brigae’s tumult. Temples were raised, burned, re-founded, and burned again. Pontiffs came and went, some abandoning their posts under whispered ties to Skane blood or to the secretive Endless Ones. By 30,329 AA, a temple was again re-founded, as though the Feyan faithful could never quite surrender the place, no matter how often it betrayed them.

And yet, Brigae remained a prize. Reavers returned in 30,385 AA, and again in 30,398 AA when Harwyn Forkbeard of Skold, with his lords and his kin, defeated Oswald the Ill-Advised. That bloody clash cost Harwyn his daughter Lathgertha, but it bought the Skane a king’s ransom in credits, for Oswald paid them off to leave Dralan space, a sum so vast the ink of scribes cracked under its weight, though some whisper it was far less than the songs tell.

Even in 30,404 AA, Brigae was still stage to royal processions. Estrid of Auler passed through, on her way to wed Oswald the Ill-Advised, her ships heavy with the steel of her house. A wedding torch upon the ashes of battle. Such is the tale of Brigae.

Brigae is not a world, but a crucible. Kingdoms rise and fall upon it, faith blooms and burns upon it, and the Skane ever circle it like wolves. Even now its name stirs old blood, for the bones of kings and pontiffs lie mingled beneath its soil, and its gates along the Old Great Way make it a threshold no power dares neglect.

I have seen Brigae crowned with glory, and I have seen it brought to ash. In truth, they are one and the same.