[ ] Review the characters

Strong Start

Old Shuck – A gravelly growl reverberates from the throat of a large, shaggy black wolf. A single, glowing eye dominates its face.

Scenes

Old Shuck
Yarlia’s Whisper - the alpine creeper and the cloudhoof assassins
The tomb of Yarila

Secret and Clues

[x] Haunting country byways and backroads, black shucks are credited with countless murders, missing wayfarers, and the wholesale slaughter of entire caravans and patrols. Black shucks hide in the cover of fog and stride quietly across ponds, creeks, and other fog-shrouded bodies of water to ambush weary travelers stopping for a drink.
[x] A black shuck toys with its victims as often as it murders them, but this enigmatic entity is reported to show random kindness toward lost children, guiding them home. Grim rituals can summon a black shuck to terrorize individuals, or even whole families, compelling it to haunt and beleaguer them and their household, sometimes for generations.
[ ] Yarila - who is she? What happened? Why is she cursed?
[ ] The dragons claim that they are all directly descended from the stars, and that their wings once brought them (and their favored servants) through the endless darkness to stony realms of iron, gold, and ice.
[x] Even some of the lesser races can sense the Void and its ancient power. Those few souls are drawn to the Void, to death and power and an entirely false sense of controlling fate. These are the Void Speakers, who see the strands of Fate and sometimes warp them.
[x] The Void Speakers are often warped or driven mad by their proximity to power, and yet they are unified in their dark beliefs. Void Speakers share a common language, said to be the language of the dragons at the dawn times
[x] Ancient stories tell of the creation of all existence by means of spoken words that spun reality from the Void. These words of creation were powerful, but as light generates shadow, so too does creation cause destruction.
[x] Ley lines are the scales of Veles, the bones of the world, the blood that makes Midgard live and makes its magic strong. They are invisible rivers of power, and the connecting elements of shadow roads and ancient wards as well as the spells of liches and the living.
[x] The world of Midgard resembles a coin surrounded by a snake. The serpent is Veles.
[ ] Both Vardesian and the Goat of the Woods are deities who’s pantheon includes the Void.
[ ] The Duchy of Perun’s Daughter, as outsiders call it, lies several days downriver from the Free City and is a land of some interest to the people of Zobeck for two reasons: The nation controls the River Argent’s connection to land and trade venues on the shores of the Ruby Sea, and its matriarchal and matrilineal country is ruled by the demigoddess Vasilka Soulay, the daughter of Perun, god of war and thunder and the greatest god of the East.