The Hjaltland settlers found open grazing land and wide possibility before the events later remembered as Fires at the Fjordgate, but the islands were not empty of old danger. Undead rose from a barrow on the main island, goblins threatened a family of badgers, and adventurers came to help the settlement survive long enough to become a home.
Caleb Gandalfson traveled from Niðaróss to Hjaltland, and MechaKirby, Amelia Frodedottir, and Skrappe Frappe were also part of the fighting remembered from this arc. The undead threat included zombies and an ogre zombie, with a Draugr Stone tied to the danger rising from the barrow. Clearing the dead protected the settlers, but it also opened a deeper road into the campaign's older mysteries.
During the Hjaltland adventure, the party rescued a family of badgers that goblins were attacking. While helping the badgers, Caleb used his Wand of Wonder, and it cast a permanent Enlarge effect on one badger. That enlarged badger became Bitey Boy Brock, and this is how Brock met Skrappe Frappe.
Beneath the barrow, the party found a tunnel leading toward Atlantean ruins. Caleb discovered a brass brazier that helped him summon his owl familiar, and he later found the Atlantean Arcanist's Guide to Wandcraft. What began as a settler defense against undead and a badger rescue became another sign that Atlantean traces lay under more than one edge of the world.
Hjaltland also gave the campaign gentler wonders. The parties befriended tiny flame-breathing Terrible Terrors, Brock became Skrappe's giant badger companion, and the islands remained a place of grass, settlement, and strange old passages rather than only a battlefield. By the end, Hjaltland stood as a viable frontier and a separate lead into Atlantean history.