The last king of Vorgath marched a thousand soldiers into the Frostreach Tundra to find the cause of the Dimming. None returned. The lords who defied his final order formed the Hearthward Compact and seized the empty throne.
The Last King
Vorgath the Third — called the Sun-King — was ruling when the Dimming occurred. He was seventy-three years old, respected but fading, the last of a dynasty that had ruled for nine centuries.
In the chaos of the First Black Dawn, the king made three fateful decisions:
- He ordered the royal granaries opened and distributed grain to the capital's poor. This saved thousands of lives — and depleted the crown's reserves.
- He commanded the lords to share their hearth-fires with the peasantry. They refused. Three lords who obeyed were murdered by their peers within the season.
- He marched north into the Frostreach Tundra at the head of a thousand soldiers, following reports of a strange light on the ice. He believed he would find the cause of the Dimming — and a way to reverse it.
He did not return.
The Aftermath
The Hearthward Compact was formed within the year by the lords who had refused the king's order. They seized the empty throne, the royal granaries, and the capital's central hearths. There has been no king since.
The Sun-King's March is the subject of countless songs and ghost stories. Some say the king and his soldiers still walk the Tundra — frozen, but not dead, trapped between the Cold Below and the Hollow Crown's will. The Ashbound Covenant claims he reached something on the ice and that it kept him.