The Germanic Tribes

The Germanic Tribes to the East are fractured, but powerful - they are a warlike and magically powerful faction, their forests full of Druids and crazed Barbarians. Though the tribes raid the Eastern reaches of the Gallic and Roman Empire, their power is curtailed by their disunity, as well as the constant specter of the invading Huns to the West. If they were to overcome both of these roadblocks, they could become a power to rival even the Romans to the West. In battle, they can call upon massive treants, packs of wolves, and spirits of the forests themselves.

One of the most powerful leaders of the Tribes is High King of the Ostrogoths, elected leader of the multi-species Grand Alliance that controls much of Dacia and Central Europe. Athanaric is a refugee like many of his subjects - once, the Ostrogoths and many of the other Germanic tribes held sway over the Black Sea and the northern Baltic, living in a barbarian paradise of intertribal conflict and honorable battle - they lived, they laughed, they died, and they honored their gods. But recently, he has been forced to flee farther and farther west by the ongoing invasion of the warlike Huns, putting him and his people in a difficult position - they are hemmed in by the mounted hordes of the East, and by the Rhine and Danubian Limes to the West. This geopolitical vice grip has made the Germanic tribes more and more desperate year by year, and Athanaric sees no other way out except through Roman lands. He has mobilized his people, and many of the surrounding human, Draconic, Aelven, and Dwarven tribes, into a massive alliance that test the legionary defenses, seeking a way out of their forested prison.