As is well known, the Winter Dark lasted eleven centuries. In that time people lived and died without the true light of the sun; they did not know the comfort of her warm touch, or have knowledge of her light, they did not know the feeling of relief when the falling shadows of the morning paved the way for the hope of a new day. The days remained gloomy, overshadowed by the gray Shroud. The nights were dark, filled with terror.
In the lands of Kayomar, where the Paladin-Lords held out against the dark longer than any other, the people suffered. Their masters were merciless, hunting them, burning their homes, hounding them through the dark to feast upon the weak and keep the strong ever off their guard. For in Kayomar the people there hid a greater truth, the Holy Flame. Its origins none knew, but many believed it to be the last lingering spark of the All Father, the last of hope for men, elves, dwarves and all the free peoples.
An order of Paladins held the flame in secret, they moved it from one sacred grove to another, keeping it ever safe and from the grasp of their enemies. They called themselves the Holy Defenders of the Flame and for a thousand years they kept their sacred duty. All the paladins of the order wandered the lands of the west, mendicant knights, wandering in poverty of wealth and at times of arms, but always fighting with honor.
It came to pass that in the 370th year of the Winters Dark that a young paladin, Duncan of Musselberg, found himself joined to the service of a greater Paladin, Henry Auten. Lord Auten's adventures spanned four decades and his blade knew battle from the Tar Kiln in the far north to the Amber Sea in the south. Lord Auten's duties included instructing the young knight in the way of the Order and the sacred duties of sword and honor.
In those days, a foul and wicked master lorded over Kayomar, the half-orc Urual. Urual's mind was dark and his soul burnt with the stain of evil and he ever brooded on the suffering of others. It came to him that if he could destroy the Defenders he could unearth the flame and bring great suffering to all the folk of Kayomar and the world besides. He called on assassins and rangers and sent them into the wild in a concerted effort to hunt the Defenders and slay them through torture and fear. In those days the Paladins had lived unmolested for many years and had grown less weary than they should have been.
So Urual's assassins found them unawares and fell upon them throughout the land. In the lonely wilds where the snow held the world in grip lonely battles unfolded between knights and hunters. With axe and mace, arrow and spear they fought and the sound of the war carried far and wide. In groups and singly the Defenders were hounded and slain, though many more of their pursuers fell, it did not matter.
In the second year of the war Lord Auten and Duncan came upon a field of red slaughter. Four paladins lay upon the tundra and a fifth sat cradleing a small cask. All about them lay six score of the hunters, blood washed and broken. The two crossed the field to the dying knight to see what he held in his grasp, though Lord Auten knew the truth of what the cask held. Gently he took it from the fallen Paladin, frozen in death. Even as he turned to Duncan to speak an orc lept from the snow, its own life wasted in the swords ruin. He stabbed Auten in the throat and opened it in a long broken gash. Lord Auten felt the poison upon the blade burn his flesh even as his blood spilt upon the white.
Duncan's sword opened the orc from chin to groin, but even before he fell, the blade took off the creature's head. Turning he caught Lord Auten in his arms and lowered him to the ground. He blessed him and called upon the Flame to heal the old knight but before the magic could take its place Auten died, his life's blood played out, saying only these words, "the flame boy, the flame."
In grief Duncan lay his six comrades to rest in the frozen ground. He took the fallen enemy and placed them in a mound upon the graves and burned them. In this way he hid the place of his masters burial.
Taking the flame he rode south. But Duncan was a stripling and did not know the secret ways of the order. He did not know where or how to hide the flame and the enemies of his order hounded him day and night for their magics could sniff it out. A grim determination took him then and he called on the people he met on the road and those who gave him shelter to give him aid and to keep the flame true With the flame in hand he blessed the hearths of many homes and set their fires to burning ever hotter, with a hint of the Holy Flame about them. And the flaming hearths spread throughout Kayomar and the enemy could not discern one from the other.
Duncan kept the flame and hid in the wilderness, ever moving, but always shielded by the hearth-fires of the great and small.
His path led him on many strange journeys and through them all he kept the flame close to him and men called him Keeper of the Flame, Hearth-Home, and the Tower of Hope. He proved the first of many to carry the name. In time of years, 56 as men count them, Duncan grew weary of the world, though his body looked youthful as if not a year had passed. He traveled to the ruins of old Du-Guesilon and there he passed the Flame to another of his order and named him the new Tower of Hope. He laid down upon castle floor and left the world.
In all those years people continued to burn holy logs upon their hearths and so the tradition of the hearth log began. From those days long gone the legend of Duncan Hearth-Home, knight of Musselberg remained. Upon the winter solstice people all over Kayomar place a holy log upon their hearths and burn it in memory of Duncan. And to Duncan they prey for their dead, calling on him to guide them to the Stone Fields, for 'tis said that he carried the Flame for so great a time that the light of it burned with him ever after and he uses it to guide the lonely dead on their darkling road.
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