Every eight generations, when the malevolent moon Morrslieb waxes full in front of its benign cousin Mannslieb, a terrible storm rages through the crevasses and chasms of the World's Edge Mountains. Jagged ridges are silhouetted like the broken teeth of some titanic beast as lightning flashes and thunder roars. Before a great chasm that splits the mountains like a gigantic axe wound, hundreds upon hundreds of Northmen kneel in the pelting hail and snow, chanting sonorously as their captives are sacrificed and hurled bodily into a cavernous lair. Then, as the storm reaches its terrible climax, a terror from the prehistory of the world bursts forth with a roar that shakes the roots of the peaks themselves - Kholek Suneater awakes, and all the world trembles at his wrath.[1a]