The dead lords of the old isle, who ruled before the kingdom, before the empire, before any living memory.

The Velgrym do not call themselves this, or did not originally, it is a corruption of the word for the old peoples of the isle, the Vel. They were the ancient warlords, a collection of small chiefdoms and tribes that ranged across the hilly expanse of the isle. They worshipped the Old Ways, and they operated under a pre-feudal tradition.

Very little is known about their exact customs, but whatever they were in life, in death they are something of considerable power: ancient lords interred in the great barrows of the inland hills, preserved by rites that predate the High Faith and the Druidic Circle alike.

They are not mindless undead. Those who have encountered one and survived describe something with will and purpose, a thing that holds court in its tomb-chamber as though the centuries between its burial and now were nothing, and regards the living as intruders into a domain it has never relinquished. Those living closest to the Barrowdowns have begun to enact a sort of practice of tribute, and the dead seemingly honor it.

What the Velgrym want is debated. Some say they merely endure, sustained by old rites they no longer fully understand. Others believe they are waiting for something — the restoration of a compact long broken, a return of powers that once legitimized their rule.

One such lord stirred recently in the Gravehills north of Heathford, claiming the missing bride Diera of Dahia. She was recovered by a party of adventurers, and the Velgrym driven back.