House Bruce, The Fierce

House Sigil & Coat of Arms: The Bear

The Bear is an opportunistic animal, heavy but powerful as it prowls through the forests and mountains. The Bear takes what it wants in the summer days and sleeps away it's worries in the winter months.

The House of Bruce is just as fierce and even more territorial, so much so that any who do not serve under the bear-banner are unwelcome in the Snowlands.

The Bear hunts in the blue sea and trudges amongst the snow, a versatile killer, much like the Snow-killers of the south themselves.

House Colours: Dark Azure

Location: The Northern Snowlands

Current Ruler: Lord Robbert Bruce

Ancestral Weapon: Hrunting

Family Traits: Red of hair, Strong and lean of build, Eyes of Pale blue. Distrusting of strangers, Cunning and Ferocious warriors.

Description:

The House of Bruce is well known as the mighty lords of the cold north, ruling amidst ivory fields and icy crags in the lands of salt and snow. True it is known that the Bruce are the ferocity of Britannia, harsh warriors with little place in peace and luxury, but are the Snowbears of old really what they seem?

There is no room for the sluggish in the Snowlands, and although always harsh and cold, the battle-hardened people of Snow were not always so. It all began 1000 years ago, in the Birth Aeon before the Kirk of Heptagus tamed the lands with its faith, in a time when a different house held the title of Pendragon Kings; the Rule of House Vortiger.

For many years, the snowlands were nought but a ferocious battle-ground where brother killed brother for scraps of food, mothers would sell their sons for the promise of a warm night by the fire, and Nomad Angal lords banished into the frosted forests by the Black-King fought in endless civil wars of hideous conquest.

Chaos rained, and there was little likelihood in taming these beastly lands... until the Flag of the bear flew on Nornish longships and subtly invaded the Northern shores.

There were no less than 500 hundred men and women warriors that settled in the Tall-berg of Igor's Reach; made up of many spiralling towers of ice that had slashed out to sea and frozen in place. It was here that this nornish clan, banished from their homeland for their brutality, would call their new home. Headed by a fearsome warlord, known as Wallace the Bruce.

Wallace the Bruce was a calculated mind and a fearless tactician, with his council of Ten brothers, He learned of Old Britannia's suffering to the Dragons of old and the Black-King who mastered them. With his knowledge of the plains, He sent his forces amongst the populace, learning their ways and adopting many as their own, pulling many a soul into his cause; to unify the Snowlanders or melt the snows with their blood.

The Northern warriors were truly staggering, but none stops the bear from taking his territory and the knights of old stood no chance against a hoard of Nornish Warriors, who feared no pain nor ****, who had no life to live than by the sword and axe.

Finally, after many years, the Bruce were successful in their campaign, cutting and adopting their way into Britannia, with ambitions of pushing further south, towards the Kingdom capital of Camelot.

But what Jarl Bruce had failed to learn in his quest of the Bear, was that Dragons do not fly North, and when He marched his hoards in contest with The Black-legions of King Vortiger, 10,000 levies, warriors, raiders and even nearly lord Bruce himself, were massacred by the Dragons of old, 10 years of warring and ambition, turned to ash in two days.

Burnt and blackened, Wallace Bruce knelt in surrender at the feet of King Vortiger, sobbing, whining, begging for him and his men to be spared. But the Black-King saw Bruce's tactics, he saw how many bent their knees to the Bruce and pleaded diligently.

"You owe me a Kingdom, Bruce. Kneel before me now, become my Vassal and the Nornes and the Snowbloods will be spared. Or the Bear will walk these lands, nevermore."

Wallace Bruce and his forces left the battlefield that day, not as Mighty Jarls of the North, but Lords of the Snow.

And so we must ask, are the Bruce really as "Fearsome" as they seem?