Pillars of the Neðérim
The most inhospitable land in all Lyrast was once home to the darkest period of the continent’s history. During the First Age, a powerful figure arose among these frozen wastes known as King Zirak. Dwürdeni histories differ greatly from Yrūn memory of the powerful king. The Dwürden remember Zirak as an insectoid leader, who led swarms of mantidae warriors across the Great Steppe, laying waste to civilized lands. Mortals remember the king as an Uren-god, who conquered and ruled great swaths of Lyrast before the emergence of the Ikìtikírittìk. If the Yrūni legends are true, that would place the Mortal race outside Emer long before the first Dwürden record of their arrival in the Second Age. Regardless of the Hoary King’s provenance, his reputation, influence, and power are undisputed. The god-like figure was able to extend the frozen clutches of the north over much of the continent. During his reign, glaciers were seen as far south as Lōd Cìringòn in the Great Shūlū. His armies swept across civilized lands, slaughtering untold numbers, and purging nascent races from the notice of history. Yrūn legends claim that his holdings were passed to his children and were eventually carved into the nations of today. The Cult of Jorn claim that the North Father (one of Zirak’s grandchildren) pushed Zirak’s children beyond the mountains in the late Second Age, and that they settled in the Great Steppe. The story has been handed-down for many centuries as an illustration of the Yrūn rise from savagery. It is said, that the generations of King Zirak and his children were bathed in the blood of barbarism, and not until the generation of Jorn could the Yrūn emerge as a civilized race.
The Ikìtikírittìk claim that Zirak founded Tikì Ikìttir, where descendants of the great leader may still be found. The Ikìtikírittìk claims to Zirak are not unknown to Yrūn theologians. Some have hypothesized that over the centuries, Zirak’s family was transformed by their own monstrousness into the inhuman Ikìtikírittìk. This line of thought suggests that the earliest Yrūn may not have been dissimilar to the Eylfāe, whose biology is reactive to the effects of magic, nature, and virtue.