Cairn of Ten Kings
Deep in the heart of Bloodsnow Valley, where the wind cuts like glass and the auroras paint the night in shifting fire, rises a mound of stone and ice unlike any other. Known in fearful whispers as The Cairn of Ten Kings, it is a monument to betrayal, blood, and an unbroken winter. Long ago, ten mighty rulers — human jarls, goliath chieftains, and frost giant warlords — gathered here to forge an alliance against a common foe. What began as a council of unity ended in a massacre. By sundown, every king lay dead, each slain by another’s hand, their warbands scattering in horror.
In the seasons that followed, the survivors heaped the bodies together and sealed them within a single colossal burial mound, ringed with standing stones carved with their names and deeds. The cairn’s builders swore oaths to leave it undisturbed, and for generations no living soul dared to cross its threshold. But in Northguard, oaths weather as swiftly as stone in the wind. Those who have ventured into the cairn in the centuries since have returned — if they return at all — with tales of frostbitten halls echoing with voices that should be long dead.
Legends claim the kings never truly passed into the afterlife, their pride and hatred binding them to the mound. They remain regal yet wrathful, clad in frost-rimed mail, their spectral courts forever locked in the cold war of their final day. To cross the threshold is to be judged — not by mortal laws, but by the cruel honor of the dead, where only one verdict is ever rendered: join them, or feed the snow.
In the seasons that followed, the survivors heaped the bodies together and sealed them within a single colossal burial mound, ringed with standing stones carved with their names and deeds. The cairn’s builders swore oaths to leave it undisturbed, and for generations no living soul dared to cross its threshold. But in Northguard, oaths weather as swiftly as stone in the wind. Those who have ventured into the cairn in the centuries since have returned — if they return at all — with tales of frostbitten halls echoing with voices that should be long dead.
Legends claim the kings never truly passed into the afterlife, their pride and hatred binding them to the mound. They remain regal yet wrathful, clad in frost-rimed mail, their spectral courts forever locked in the cold war of their final day. To cross the threshold is to be judged — not by mortal laws, but by the cruel honor of the dead, where only one verdict is ever rendered: join them, or feed the snow.
Architecture
The cairn is no crude pile of stone — it is a deliberate fusion of funerary traditions drawn from the ten rulers interred within. From a distance, the mound appears as a rounded hill of snow-dusted rock, its base ringed by ten towering standing stones, each carved in a different style and script. These monoliths bear the names and deeds of the kings in their own tongues: curling runes, knotwork beasts, jagged angular glyphs, and broad, sweeping strokes meant to be read from horseback. Time and frost have blurred the words, but the shapes still loom like sentinels around the mound.
The entrance lies between two of these monoliths — a narrow, sloped passage faced in black stone and flanked by carved guardian-beasts: one a wolf with fangs bared, the other a long-horned aurochs, their forms worn smooth by centuries of wind and ice. Beyond the threshold, the passage drops sharply into a chamber whose roof is a vault of overlapping stone ribs, meeting in the center like the keel of an inverted ship. Meltwater drips through seams in the stone, freezing in long, glassy spears that sway gently in the wind’s breath.
The cairn’s interior is built in ten radial halls, each leading to a separate tomb-niche for one of the kings. These niches are lavish despite the ice — some lined with gold panels etched in knotwork, others with tapestries now frozen into stiff draperies. Spears, shields, and war-banners still hang where they were placed at burial, their colors dulled but unmistakable. At the center lies the Council Hall — a circular chamber where ten great stone thrones sit in eternal array, facing inward toward a cracked stone table. Here, the kings are said to gather when intruders disturb their rest, their voices echoing from every hall at once.
The entrance lies between two of these monoliths — a narrow, sloped passage faced in black stone and flanked by carved guardian-beasts: one a wolf with fangs bared, the other a long-horned aurochs, their forms worn smooth by centuries of wind and ice. Beyond the threshold, the passage drops sharply into a chamber whose roof is a vault of overlapping stone ribs, meeting in the center like the keel of an inverted ship. Meltwater drips through seams in the stone, freezing in long, glassy spears that sway gently in the wind’s breath.
The cairn’s interior is built in ten radial halls, each leading to a separate tomb-niche for one of the kings. These niches are lavish despite the ice — some lined with gold panels etched in knotwork, others with tapestries now frozen into stiff draperies. Spears, shields, and war-banners still hang where they were placed at burial, their colors dulled but unmistakable. At the center lies the Council Hall — a circular chamber where ten great stone thrones sit in eternal array, facing inward toward a cracked stone table. Here, the kings are said to gather when intruders disturb their rest, their voices echoing from every hall at once.
The locals speak of it in whispers, as if even the mention of its name might carry on the wind and be heard beneath the ice. The Cairn of Ten Kings… I thought it a mere burial mound until I saw the stones myself. They loom like judges, each watching from their own time-worn throne, daring you to step between them. And inside—by all the gods—the cold is not the kind that bites, but the kind that clings, settling into your bones like an unwelcome claim. I swear I heard a voice, deep and regal, echo through the frost: ‘You dare bring the warmth of life to my tomb? Leave this place and never return.’ It was not a threat. It was a sentence. - Victoria Pendrake
Type
Cairn
Parent Location
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