Nordguard: The Story

Across Thin Ice is the first book of the Nordguard Trilogy. Hopefully (barring meteor showers and unfortunate blizzards,) will be released the end of 2010/early 2011. Each book should come in around 90 full color pages and will be published by Sofawolf Press.

The North is an untamed and harsh country, offering few rewards and promising nothing but constant hardship. It is ruled by the winter, populated by scattered tribes and the half-starved strays known as the Maguraq. The White Land is truly the last frontier.

Under the flag of the United Territories, thousands travel north, seeking their own manifest destiny in the land of the midnight sun. It is an age of exploration: people come to test themselves against the wild land and chart the vast snowbound wastes. It is also an age of industry: whaling and fishing are a lucrative business and diamonds, copper and gold are waiting in the frozen ground, ripe for the taking.

In this cruel place, one organization comes into being with the noble goal of exploration, rescue and aid for all: the Nordguard. Responsible for cutting trails, carrying the mail and recovering lost travelers, their dangerous job is never done.

In the late autumn of 1903, a distress call from one of the northern mines has come over the wire. The nearest seaports are frozen solid with the early winter and a rescue attempt must be made by land. Pi and her team--the best the Nordguard has to offer--are called in to make the risky run to the Tartok Mine.

Tensions are building in the north as three great nations rest on the edge of war, licking old wounds and brooding over ancient enmities. And now, something sinister has been unearthed in Tartok, inciting slaughter and bringing death to the White Land.

The team soon finds that they might be in over their heads. Traveling in the company of an arrogant military officer and a green field surgeon, pursued by relentless hunters and pushed into the grip of a much larger conspiracy, their survival rides on thin ice.

The story of the Nordguard parallels our own universe and shares several similarities in geography, industry and political climate. It is the turn of the century—railways crisscross the civilized world, the first mechanized assembly lines are put to use, telegraphs and wireless radio signals have brought the great nations of the world together in an age of industry and invention. Science has broken new ground: the quantum nature of energy is discovered in Berlin, the Wright brothers make the first successful flight of their heavier-than-air craft and in psychology, Freud publishes his book ‘Interpretation of Dreams.’

This is an age of dauntless enterprise, intrepid spirits and the resolute belief in manifest destinies.

In the Americas, the United Territories govern much of the northern continent, sharing it’s borders with the French settlements known as the Kebek Nations to the east and the stolid Russian Federation to the west of the McKenzie Range.

Industry and commerce has exploded over the continent with new fervor. Steel is the epitome of big-business on the east coast. Inventions ranging from the first automobile and electric washing machines to thumbtacks and air conditioning have begun to revolutionize the country. The West has long been won and boasts vast tracks of land for the taking. On the plains, families stake out new homesteads as they strive to fill the spaces between the American coasts. With first wide-scale manufacturing of tin cans and preserv-atives, fishing has reached new heights of demand, needed to supply food to an ever-growing population. Tracks of forest throughout the heartland are plowed for timber to make way for expanding farmland. All creatures of the south labor together in the unified goal of industry, under the flag of the Untied Territories.

Only one frontier remains unconquered in the Americas: the Arctic.

Many have set their sights north in hopes of finding glory and gold. Few ever return. The northland is still wild and its people are untamed, appearing barbaric to the southern ‘summercoats’. In the White Land, the law of tooth and claw still commands. In desperate times, the eating of another animals’ flesh is a dark necessity. Above it all, the winter reigns supreme and rules with cruel indifference, taking with both hands.

Despite this, the military Corps of the United Territories has pushed its way into the north over long, desperate years. They’ve established forts and outposts to keep a weary eye on their civilized neighbors and repel the savage natives. At the same time, with business booming in the more gentle southern territories, newly incorporated Companies have sent money and men north to establish trade communities in the endless effort to exploit the virgin landscape. The northland has become pocketed with mines, both those privately operated and with the giant mining complexes funded by the Companies. They dig deep for copper, gold and other precious metals, making many men rich. The Companies also employ fleets that prowl the known waterways, whaling, sealing and fishing.

Expeditions by ship continually travel north, either from the Americas or the European nations in hopes of discovering a Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Other intrepid explorers sail toward the Pole, hoping to be the first to reach it and have their names recorded in history. Many of these expeditions simply vanish, never to be found and lost for the ages.

THE NORDGUARD
Civilzation, in all forms, finds that to conquer the arctic embodies man's ultimate triumph over Nature. In the same spirit of the early arctic explorers who trekked north in hand-drawn sledges, the same forces of civiliztion in the world of the Nordguard steadily head north, prepared to push the boundries of their nations and culture into the very heart of the White Land.

As the first permanent establishments grew on the fringes of the northern borders, the civilian outfit known as Nordguard came into existence. Later funded and trained by the military Corps, their humble beginnings boasted no more than a single team dedicated to keeping the trails open to travelers and running the mail between outposts and mines. Many years later, the Nordguard has flourished, growing into an elite Search and Recovery organization. They are charged with cutting new trails, maintaining the old, running mail overland and aiding those in need. Their job is ceaseless and difficult, but their strength of character is exemplified in their company motto:

“Always Running, Never Tiring,
So That Others May Live.”

Albert Kerstof, founding member of the Nordguard