The First Wanderer, The Giant-Friend
Era: c. 600 Years Before Haugaeldr (600 BH)
Titles: The Ice-Breaker, The Bridge-Builder, The Story-Keeper
In the early years of the Great Frost, as the world first began its deadly transformation, the man known as Lorik emerged as a legend. He was not a king or a warrior, but a wanderer of immense stature and heart who stood as tall as the proto-giants beginning to appear in the mountains. His most famous tale, "The Long Walk," began when his expedition was caught in the first truly apocalyptic blizzard. His ship was splintered, his crew lost. Lorik survived by carving a shelter in a glacier with his own hands, and later fashioning a chisel from his own frozen leg bone to escape when the entrance sealed shut.
For years, he walked south through the newly-formed icy hellscape, living among the isolated clans of humans, dwarves, and halflings who were reeling from the sudden climate shift. He learned the new, deadly geography—the unstable ice bridges, the hidden geothermal vents that now meant life or death, and the behavior of the beasts transforming under the Frost-Grasp's influence. Most importantly, he learned that in this new world, solitary survival was a myth.
Lorik's greatest achievement was the "First Bridge" across the newly-formed Chasm of Howling Winds, a massive fissure torn open by the freezing earth. The chasm now divided two Lítillfólk communities, dooming them to isolation and starvation in the deepening cold.
Lorik saw not just an obstacle, but a necessity for survival. For two years, he worked in the biting cold, quarrying stone, weaving ropes from the hides of the new, shaggy frost-beasts, and directing construction. He was the living crane, the human pillar around which the community rallied. When the bridge was complete, it wasn't just a path of stone; it was a lifeline, a symbol that even in the face of a dying world, cooperation could forge a future. This act is the spiritual foundation of the Stone-Wright Guild, embodying their core tenets: that precision and small-scale work are the bedrock upon which civilization endures, even in an age of giants.
Lorik is also credited with the "Solitary Pact," the philosophical core of the Jötun-Bane Brotherhood. He tracked a monstrous, frost-twisted bear—the "Great-Fang"—the first of the new, terrifying megafauna, which was decimating the game a struggling settlement depended on. He didn't hunt it for glory, but for survival. For an entire winter, he tracked the beast, learning how it used the new ice formations for ambush and where it denned. The final confrontation was a patient, brutal contest in a blizzard, where Lorik used his wits and hard-won knowledge of the changing land to triumph.
He returned with the beast's pelt and a simple lesson: "Do not hunt the beast because it is there. Hunt it because it threatens the hearth. Understand this new world better than it does, and your victory is already written." This ethos of pragmatic, knowledgeable, and purposeful hunting in a transformed world is the sacred text of every Jötun-Bane hunter.
Lorik the Unfrozen vanished into the ice, his body never found. But his legacy is woven into the fabric of Niflheimar.
For the Stone-Wright Guild, he is their patron saint—the ultimate artisan who used strength in service of creation and community in an era of collapse.
For the Jötun-Bane Brotherhood, he is their spiritual founder. His "Solitary Pact" is their guiding principle, and his legendary hunt is their archetypal saga of adapting to a monstrous new world.
For all Lítillfólk, he is a symbol of audacious capability from the dawn of their struggle, a man who proved that courage and wisdom could carve a path through the ice and save a people.
Lorik represents the moment the Frost-Grasp descended, and the moment humanity first chose to fight back not with brute force, but with bridges, knowledge, and an unbreakable will to endure.