//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: The Legend of Arcadian 
// by DustyDominic 
//------------------------------//

In the days of old, there was a great disturbance in the Griffon Kingdom.

King Hakon of the Griffons was not in full control of his kingdom. A great many griffon nobles disfavored his rule. They thought him ineffective and soft on the enemies of the Kingdom. He had issued some warnings against attacking the ponies to the south in Ceomhar and north in Allemane, as they had become quite capable of defending themselves. He advised his subjects to tone down their aggression against their pony neighbors, despite the traditional griffon way of killing, and often cooking, the weakling ponies.

Most of it had remained as merely loud grumbling and political resistance to the King, but there had arisen a terrible new problem. An ambitious brute who went by the name Brandhard the Mighty made his bones slaughtering ponies and griffons who crossed him, and had become a folk hero for many of the griffon subjects. Nobles supported him, and he became almost a warlord in his own right. They championed his cause, and Brandhard knew he could be the King. So he built his reputation and increased his power. King Hakon knew that Brandhard could overthrow him within a decade, likely even sooner. Something had to be done.

There was another facet of the situation. Brandhard was massive physically, and he was a skilled warrior. He therefore boasted that he was unstoppable in combat. He was so boastful, he claimed that he could best any -- be they beast, pony, or even another griffon -- in one-on-one combat. He claimed that, with only his battleaxe and no armor, he could take on a fully-armored warrior of any stripe. Many challenged him to a fight to the death, and all were slain.

Many of those slain were ponies, eager to slay the scourge of the North, who casually demolished their villages and killed their thanes without a second thought. He laughed at them, but he accepted their challenges. They were summarily killed, each and every one of them. It seemed like this blood-hungry brute would take over the Griffon Kingdom, and as the new King he would lay waste to the Capallian ponies, divided as they were by hundreds of years of clan warfare, decimating their people and enslaving the rest.

Such was the despair in the lands at this time.