The Ruins of the Ancient Kingdom

The Ruins of the Ancient Kingdom are what's left of a once prosperus and florishing but fell into war and chaos when the eldest prince went to war with his brother to gain all the power for himeself. Mor'du currently uses the ruins as his domain.

History
The man had been the eldest of four sons of a king in an ancient kingdom, all gifted in their own way (the younger three were gifted with wisdom, compassion and justness while the eldest brother was gifted with strength).

When the king passed away one autumn, rather than giving the eldest all the inheritance, he divided the rule among all of his sons, believing their gifts combined would make the kingdom even greater. Filled with selfishness due to mistaking his strength as character, however, the eldest son refused to accept this, and started a war against his younger brothers.

Hoping to turn the tide of the war to his favor, the prince went to the witch for a spell to give him the strength of ten men by offering her his signet ring, and she gave him the spell in a drinking horn, but warns him of making a choice: either he must make amends by reconciling with his brothers or he will suffer a fate trying to fulfill his goal.

When the prince brought his brothers before him by staging up a false truce, to their protests, he drank the spell, which gave him the strength, but to his surprise, in the form of a great black bear. While he would potentially have broken the spell by apologising to his brothers, the prince instead accepted his new form and brought them and their armies down.

He then tried to get his army to rule the kingdom, but they only saw him as a wild creature and turn against him. The bear then attacked his former men, and they either got killed or fled the kingdom, leading to its collapse. The bear, now being named as Mor'du for his history, ended up roaming around the area, his once human consciousness now lost forever because of favoring power over the bonds of family.



Later, Merida and her mother (now turned into a bear) follow a trail of wisps to a foggy ruin, bearing the crossed axes of Mor'du's family. Merida explores, falling after walking on an unsteady piece of rubble. Inside, she finds a throne room very similar to her own family's and a shattered stone carving of four brother, one of the brothers broken from the others. She slowly realizes that the Prince who asked for the strength of ten men indeed had his fate changed, and that man became Mor'du. Mor'du (who resides in the ruins) appears, stalking Merida from the shadows and he charges. Merida fires an arrow straight at his head, but the arrow does no damage whatsoever. Merida hurriedly tries to crawl up through the ruins and reach her mother's paw, with the gigantic bear trying to devour her. At the last second, she leaps and just manages to grab her mother's paw in time as Mor'du snarls and snaps after her. Merida and her mother run as fast as they can away, running to the great standing stones and bashing into them a bit harder, making a hairline crack along one of the great menhirs.