Bear Tundra
Kardesia, Land of the Great Bears, the Northern Glaciers, Rockfell, Raider Country. The Bear Tundra is known by many names, perhaps because it has never chosen one itself. A wild land, where ice is the dominant culture, and civilization (or the meanest semblance of it) is a mere afterthought to the imperceptibly slow, inexorably mighty machinations of the land itself. The Bear Tundra is more elemental force than geographic location, and so too are its peoples. Grim barbarians without concept of self, the broken remnants of a once-wise race, bicker incessantly amongst one another, and this is all that saves the lands to the south from utter conquest at giant hands. Meanwhile great ursine warriors lounge in halls that roar with the voice or forges, and ring with the song of hammers day and night.

Physical Geography


The frozen expanse of the Bear Tundra is the most northerly part of Allornus, but thanks to its lower terrain it does not suffer from the eternal darkness that Nardaan to the west does. It reaches from the snowfields in the south where it melds uncertainly with the Ghanish lands, to the coastal glaciers in the north where they meet the sea, and the region is bisected in the east by the Cinizern Mountains, a region of high plateaus and white mountains rising like stark sentinels out of the featureless fields and anchoring the glaciers on their northern foothills. Here in the higher lands geysers form lakes of perfect blue, and activity beneath the surface makes the land warmer, succouring small forests and timid creatures who have never braved the freezing plains that flank their tenuous haven.

Bear-Tundra.jpg

par 2: the snowfields

par 3: the mountains

par 4: the glacier and the shadowed cape

Spirit of the Land

tba

Political Geography


par 1: overview

par 2: tribal cultures, the kardesian and orgryn bands

par 3: barchak enclaves

Setting Trait (1): The Council of Bears Easily the most civilized race of the tundra, as well as the dominant military power, and most desirable traders, the Barchak rule supreme over the whole tundra from their little nor-eastern pocket. They are revered here, for strength, wisdom, and culture. And while they are often barbaric, they are far from primitive. To go to the Barchak for aid or advice is to ask the whole bear tundra to be at your back - an almost inconceivable boon. And to violate their segregated communities is almost unthinkable.

Social Geography


par 1: overview

par 2: hunter/gatherer tribes and raiding

par 3: isolated barchak, ruled by large alpha-females

Setting Trait (3): Masters of the Waves The Kardes are the inheritors of all the seafaring lore of the ancient mariners, long lost to the Mhulak who have kept much wisdom. The Kardes catamaran and trimaran roundships are rude things compared with the floating cities of old, but they are sturdier, faster, and more agile than anything else on the water, and only the Kardesian reavers remember the secrets of navigating on the open ocean - and these seem more borne in the blood than the memory, and even when they have conceded to teach them, no outlander has fully grasped their lessons.

Roundships

For all of their fractured culture, and their adamant Karda, the barbarians of Kardesia owe their supremacy in the north to one thing: roundships.

Major Races and Cultures


maintain formatting

Timeline


Few folk of the frozen north-east care to mark the passage of years, and so most agree that the southern Ghanda's Count (GC) is as good a way to track such things as any.

GC 1232 Present Day.

The Bear Tundra and Kardesia
The Snow Plains, The Cinizern Mountains, Rockfell, The Glaciers, The Frozenland
Director's Miscellany Amenities, Culture, Gear, Prices, Professions, Random Encounters, Sample Characters, Series Loglines, Small Settlement Generator, Supporting Cast Generator