Blood, Iron, and the Peace of the Hearth

In the 1st-century tribal world, justice wasn't settled in a courtroom. It was settled with steel – but even steel had rules. ⚔️

According to historians like Tacitus, tribal custom gave a wronged husband the right to enact swift, brutal vengeance for betrayal.

But there was a catch. The 'peace of the hearth' was a sacred concept across Celtic and Germanic tribes. Your hall was a sanctuary. Shedding blood at your own hearth – even to rightfully execute a betrayer – was a massive spiritual taboo.🩸

Taking a tribesman's life also immediately risked a violent blood feud, unless a formal 'blood price' was paid and the pollution cleansed by fire.🔥

In my prequel, Rhine of Blood, Chieftain of the Sequani, Artorix, discovers a betrayal and executes his wife's lover without a second thought. But the blood spills on his sacred hearth.🛖

Stripped of his authority by the tribal council and forced to burn his own home to ash to cleanse the shame, Artorix is left with nothing but his title. A Chieftain on a leash.

His only path to redemption? Leading a bloody, desperate raid against a Roman tax collector.🐺

The history is real, and the consequences are brutal.

Get Rhine of Blood now.