Writings of Galafid

Author’s Note: The writing of Galafid were originally conceived for the background for my series of adventures involving the search for the Rod of Seven Parts. I scrapped the original background and used a mandate from a god to find the Rod so he could use it to avert a war between the gods.

However, the Lords of Rendelshod proved too interesting to let die, so I used it to flesh out the back history of the World. This led to a non-party adventure in which our group played the eighteen Lords of Rendelshod after they reclaimed their Cleavers and hunted the demon lord Jxtl down. It was an interesting adventure for the party as they got to play the Lords, condemned to Skeleton Warrior existence by Jxtl, while letting me avoid the pitfall of letting players play regular characters that are undead. Given the ease with which eighteen Skeleton Warriors went through armies of demons, it reinforces the idea that undead are NOT player characters!

I decided afterward that Jxtl was only slightly dead and he later recovered and rebuilt his power, although that took another 600 years of game time. While he was no longer a factor in that campaign or the two that followed it (nor my brother’s two campaigns), Jxtl is is a factor in the current campaign.

Most surviving accounts of the Wars of Rendelshod, sometimes called the Sack of the Northern Kingdoms, were recorded by Galafid, the noted sage and adviser to Teroip Stemtarp *, the last Senior Lord of Rendelshod. This noted sage was believed to have been in Stemtarp’s service prior to the beginning of the Wars, stayed with him during the 20 years the Wars lasted, and was finally sent away with the other servitors just before the Lords of Rendelshod faced the Demon Prince Jxtl and lost.

It was believed that Galafid, a human, died shortly after the Wars ended. Every evidence from that time, fragmentary as it is, points to this as a fact. However, accounts supposedly written by Galafid turn up, dated centuries later. An analysis of the age of the documents and the handwriting, as well as the writing style lead most authorities to believe that they are authentic. How this is so is unknown.

Note:

* In the language of that time, the “p” silent so the name Teroip Temtarp is pronounced tear-roy stem-tar.