Tower of Ascension

The Winterlands are commonly divided into several broad subregions:

The Winterlands are a vast northern region of snowbound cities, frozen roads, ancient fortresses, sacred ruins, and haunted battlefields. To outsiders, the Winterlands are often imagined as a single frozen wilderness. In truth, they are a patchwork of rival cities, holy sites, barbarian tribes, military orders, old divine scars, and stubborn communities that have learned to endure where softer realms would perish.

The region is defined by two great powers: Wintershield, the cold and pragmatic city saved by the Frostfell, and Thronstadt, the sacred theocratic city founded around the The Finding of the Flame. Between and beyond them lie frontier settlements, ancient roads, mountain keeps, cursed plains, tribal territories, and places where the dead do not always rest.

The Winterlands are not merely cold. They are old.

Every city here was built atop an earlier wound. Every road crosses a battlefield. Every shrine remembers a miracle, a massacre, or both.

The Winterlands are a place where survival is considered a virtue. Hospitality is sacred, but so is preparation. A stranger may be given food and shelter without question, then asked pointed questions once the door is barred and the fire is lit.

The people of the Winterlands tend to value:

• Endurance over comfort
• Duty over sentiment
• Faith proven through hardship
• Practical mercy
• Strong walls and stronger oaths
• Respect for the dead
• Suspicion of easy warmth, easy promises, and southern politics

The region’s great divide is spiritual as much as political. Thronstadt looks to the Flame as the heart of civilization, law, and divine protection. Wintershield honors Lazareth as the cold savior who broke Feng’s host before its walls. The Icengrim tribes see winter not as a thing to survive, but as a godly truth to embrace. These beliefs do not always lead to war, but they shape every alliance and insult in the north.

The history of the Winterlands is usually told through four great events: the Shattered Age, the Frostfell, the Finding of the Flame, and the Emberlight War.

During the Shattered Age, the balance of the divine order was broken. After the Major Gods ascended and restored their fallen companion Krom, Feng took advantage of the weakened gods and spread his tyranny across much of the eastern world.

His armies drove entire peoples into flight. Some fled toward the ancient Spire and founded what would become Wintershield. Others fled west and gathered around the place where the Flame would later be revealed.

The Frostfell, also known as the Wrath of Lazareth, was the divine winterstorm that saved Wintershield from Feng’s host. As the city neared collapse, an unnatural blizzard descended on the besieging army. The Spire protected those within the walls, while Feng’s forces froze, fled, or died in what became the Boneyard.

This event transformed Wintershield forever. Worship of Lazareth became central to the city’s identity, and the people came to see winter not only as a threat, but as a divine shield.

At roughly the same time as the Frostfell, the western Winterlands faced Feng’s armies as well. There, beneath the stone of the Last Camp, the divine Flame was discovered. The first Keeper of the Light arose from this miracle and led the faithful in breaking Feng’s western host.

The city of Thronstadt grew around the Flame, and the Church of the Flame became one of the greatest religious and political powers in the Winterlands.

The Emberlight War was the great conflict between Thronstadt and Wintershield, born from centuries of theological rivalry, political suspicion, and competing claims over who truly saved the Winterlands during the Shattered Age.

To Thronstadt, the Flame represented civilization, law, mercy, and divine order. To Wintershield, Lazareth’s winter had preserved the north when all hope failed. The war left both cities scarred and ensured that even in peace, the Winterlands would never be spiritually unified.

The Tuskgar people came to the Winterlands after fleeing Southscar following the ascension of Beck, who bore a personal grudge against them. As followers of Lazareth, the Tuskgar hoped to find safety in a region where their god held greater power.

Their arrival added another layer to the Winterlands’ already complicated religious and political order.

The Winterlands have no single ruler. Authority is divided between cities, councils, theocratic offices, military orders, tribes, and old noble houses.

Important regional figures may include:

• The Keeper of the Light
• Lord Valkenbane
• Knightly Grandmasters
• Lazarethite high priests and mortuary lords
• Tribal jarls of the Icengrim peoples
• Commanders of the White Guard
• Scholars of the Ember Library

Religion is the central fault line of the Winterlands.

The cultures of the Winterlands vary widely, but several customs are common across the region.

In many Winterlands communities, refusing shelter during a killing storm is considered a grave sin or crime. Guests may be disarmed, questioned, watched, or required to swear oaths, but they are rarely left outside without cause.

The dead are treated seriously throughout the Winterlands. Burial, cremation, preservation, or ritual exposure vary by faith, but neglecting the dead is considered dangerous as well as disrespectful.

Every settlement has traditions around storing food, repairing walls, banking fires, salting roads, checking roofs, and marking safe paths before deep winter. A lazy autumn can kill more people than a sharp sword.

Oaths carry great weight. In Thronstadt, oaths are bound to law and Flame. In Wintershield, oaths may be sworn before cold stone, grave markers, or the Spire. Among the Icengrim tribes, oaths are often sworn over blood, bone, or winter steel.

The Winterlands survive through trade, manufacturing, education, mining, fortified roads, and maritime commerce. Food is always precious, and grain imports are a strategic concern.

The Winterlands are cold, but not uniform. The south and west have fortified roads, highland valleys, and settled cities. The east bears cursed lands and ancient battlefields. The north becomes increasingly hostile, giving way to tundra, glaciers, frost giant territories, and tribal realms.

• Sudden whiteout blizzards
• Killing cold
• Avalanche-prone mountain passes
• Thin ice over blackwater lakes
• Haunted snowfields
• Long winter nights
• Frostbite and exposure
• Dead zones where divine or necromantic power lingers
• Roads that vanish beneath seasonal snow

Travel in the Winterlands is dangerous even in peacetime. Roads are often marked by stone cairns, blue lanterns, carved bone poles, or Flame shrines. In remote regions, travelers hire guides not merely to avoid getting lost, but to avoid old battlefields, cursed graves, tribal boundaries, and monster migration paths.

Common travel routes include:

The Winterlands face threats from monsters, weather, politics, religion, and history itself.

• Frost giants
• Undead warbands
• Winter wolves
• Remorhazes
• Ropers and deep predators near under-roads
• White dragons and lesser drakes
• Hags of winter, hunger, or grief
• Spirits from the Boneyard
• Far Realm intrusions in remote tribal lands
• Shadow creatures haunting old ruins and mountain settlements

• Rivalry between Thronstadt and Wintershield
• Suspicion between the Church of the Flame and Lazarethite authorities
• Tribal raids and retaliatory crusades
• Disputes over relics from the Shattered Age
• Arguments over the true legacy of the Frostfell
• The uneasy status of Icengrim worshipers
• Old grudges from the Emberlight War

• Starvation winters
• Collapsing ice roads
• Sudden divine or arcane storms
• Cursed snowfields
• Plague in sealed winter settlements
• Ghost lights leading travelers off safe roads
• Long supply lines vulnerable to raids