Problems of love and transition of power in mythic Viking Age north.

When the first Northmen started their journeys on the vast eastern rivers three generations ago, they were the exiled and the scum of the earth. Most of them never returned.

Eventually some of them did though, and the northern reaches bore witness to men with boasts of great deeds. They and the silver they carried with them would change the north forever.

Hårik was one of these men. He left as an outcast, but when he returned, he carved a nation on the islands with silver in one hand and a sword in the other. The lands he claimed once belonged to seal-hunters and merchants but under his rule they became a haven of power. He took over the trade routes of fur and slaves and soon it was next to impossible to travel to Birka or Uppsala without going through lands that were under his dominion. He and his land, Åland as he called it, was known throughout the lands all the way to the far north of Kainu and Turja.

Hårik’s travels and adventures are but a memory now. He had three sons who all met a grim death in faraway lands and his only heir left is his stubborn daughter Aino. She inherited her tough wits and temper from her late mother, a woman from the deep forests of Häme. So tough and determined she is that even after seeing sixteen summers, her father, the king hasn’t been able to wed her.

The winter past was a gruesome ordeal for old Hårik. He coughed and moaned through most of it and even the spring warmth hasn’t brought back all of his strength. So it was that he took up a dire talk with his daughter: This summer she would choose a mate, or leave the lands forever with no legacy at all.

Through all the spring merchants and travelers have been spreading the word. Before the last flames of the midsummer bonfire went down to embers, Aino would finally choose a mate. And not just a mate – but a future ruler for the kingdom of Åland as well.

It is the eve of the midsummer festival. The great marketplace of Åland is filled to the brim with folk. Men of varying talents from near and afar have come to demonstrate their power and skill. The air is filled with anticipation as the great bonfires are lit. Tomorrow it will all be over.

Before the feast has started a man comes from the north, with ten longships. Nine of them are filled with warriors. Dark and silent they are and of a brooding nature. The last boat bears his servants: those doomed men and women who have to follow his every move and fulfill his every dark desire.

Viima is a witch from far-north of Turja. The bones he carries with him bear countless spirits of old. Men whisper that he has struck a pact with spirits so powerful that even death itself doesn’t dare to take him to the Underworld.

Viima is after the lands of Hårik and if he gets what he wants, they become the dark extension of his power. Power that can reach far from these rocky shores. Aino will be cast among his servants … or worse.