The Barrow Builders
Warlords and sorcerer-kings who rose from the Makers' ruin and buried their secrets under hills.
- Scope
- Historical
- Alignment
- Collapsed
- The Stone LordsEnemy
They arose after the rebellion against the Stone Lords and the collapse that followed.
- The Things BelowEnemy
Their age began when rebellion unleashed the Things Below into the world.
The dark-age culture that rose after the Stone Lords fell — a sprawl of petty tyrants, sorcerer-kings, and warlords who buried their dead under earth and stone.
When the servants of The Stone Lords rebelled, those who died in the uprising were honored with simple barrows. Then society collapsed. Later rulers raised barrows for loyal vassals, betrayed ghosts, riches, slaves, and themselves. Dark magic and the power of The Things Below let some reign after death, and later generations overthrew the tyrants and sealed what they could not kill inside the mounds.
Where barrows remain
- The Steplands
- Around Blackwater Lake and Three Coven Lake
- The Flats
- South Manmarch
- Along The Dread River
At a Barrow Builder site
The Hillfolk descend from both Barrow Builders and those who cast them off, which is why they shun the mounds. Sites are smaller and cruder than Maker ruins but often more intimate, haunted, cursed, treasure-laden, and full of human cruelty.