MYTHIC PROVENANCE

In the blood-slick dawn of the Post-Hyborian Age, when man first raised his will against the heavens, the Age of Myth began.

It was Odin—the First and Last King of the Aesir—who cast the world into its next turning by felling Ymir, the Father of the Frost. That battle, though victorious, was no triumph. Odin, though young by the reckoning of the gods, was ruined. His bones shattered, mind unmoored, he was borne from the field near-lifeless, uttering fragmented prophecy in the arms of his bloodline yet to come.

Thereafter he lay in twilight-slumber, not quite dead nor dreaming, tended by ravens and touched only by the voice of his sons—Loki and Thor, conceived before that final battle with their mother, Sigdrifa of the Ice Vault.

THE SWORD

The sword has no name. It is spoken of in whispers only as “He.” No forge touched it. No hammer shaped it. It was sung into being, summoned by Odin himself in the unspoken tongue of the Aesir—a blade of kennings, storm-wrought will, and woven breath.

When Odin fell silent…But it was not taken to safekeeping. No vault received it. No shield-maiden bore it home. The blade vanished in the chaos of the death-field. Some say it walked away. Others claim it lies buried in the spine of a dying star. A few say it chooses its own masters now. The sword did not.

WHISPERS & WARNINGS

It is said the blade seeks battle. It does not lie quiet. It hungers. It has surfaced in the hands of mad prophets, been glimpsed in dreams of dying wolves, and found—just once—in the crater where a would-be god tried to rise. The crater remained. The god did not. Wherever it lies now, one thing is certain: When “He” is found again, the age of slumber shall end—and the gods will bleed once more.