Map A.03 - Jotunheim

Arctic region reaching from 82.34°N south to 72.51°N. An obscure seafaring region, known only to a few civilised captains, whalers, who have dared venture this far into the Barents Sea. There is no sea route north of Rusin, the larger of two islands comprising the Realm of Jotunheim, for the Barents Sea is forever frozen; likewise, no ship can reach the Dandanmoth Islands, the presence of which is limited to myth. The only passage on the map between the Barents and the Kara seas is the Vimur River, a misnamed strait whose narrowest width is 660 yards. Most years, the strait remains frozen; access to the Kara is safest around the south end of Gusin Island, not shown on the map.

Also shown on the map is the northernmost tip of the Yamal Peninsula, extending north and south 430 miles. This land, and the Yavey Peninsula, are collectively a part of Biyetia.

Hexes are 20 miles in diameter. Total area depicted equals 366,450 sq.m.

Hydrographic Features

The silence of these great waters is intense. The northern regions, much of the year, are often eerily still, the ice so thick and so long-standing that it absorbs sound rather than carrying it. The occasional movement of a distant floe or the deep, resonant crack of shifting pressure is all that disturbs the quiet, aside from the wind itself. It is a sea that does not change with time but instead waits, a frozen void where the weight of the ice has kept all but the most determined from venturing too far. The sea beneath is a mystery, locked away by centuries of unmoving ice, unbroken save for the rare upheaval where shifting masses collide and reform.

Barents Sea

This far north, the sea is a frozen, inhospitable wasteland of ice-choked waters and treacherous winds. South of this latitude, some ships may find passage in late summer, but beyond this point, the sea hardens into a near-permanent mass of shifting pack ice, blocking all but the most fleeting of openings. The cold is unrelenting, and the dark months bring an expanse of desolation, where the ice groans under the weight of winter storms, and the wind howls across an ocean that is more land than water. The currents here, sluggish but unyielding, push and pull at the frozen mass, grinding floes together in a slow, relentless battle.

No ship can pass north of Jotunheim, for the Barents Sea is frozen to its depths, an unbroken field of ice that stretches beyond reckoning. It is said that whalers who venture too close in winter hear strange echoes upon the wind — sounds that do not come from the living. The wind never ceases, driving sheets of ice across the water, carrying with it the bitter scent of salt and the distant, hollow groaning of the pack.

Kara Sea

Likewise, the Kara at these latitudes is a desolate, ice-ridden expanse where the seasons offer little relief from the grip of the north. Even in summer, the extreme north remains a wilderness of broken floes, vast ice sheets and drifting bergs that crowd together in an unending procession. The wind drives the ice into ridges and pressure walls, where fractured blocks are piled one upon the other, forming obstacles higher than a ship's mast.

This region is shaped by the slow, grinding currents that move the ice westward, toward the Barents, but here the process is sluggish, hindered by the sheer volume of frozen water that remains in place year-round. Massive ice fields stretch for leagues, locked together in a jagged, impenetrable mass. Open water, when it appears, is fleeting — brief leads that snake through the frozen landscape, offering only temporary passage before closing without warning. The unpredictability of these movements makes this sea dangerous to all who would cross its northern edge. A ship venturing too far might find itself surrounded, trapped in ice that might not break for years at a time.

Jotunheim

The islands of Jotunheim create frozen wilderness, a place where the forces of ice and stone have shaped a landscape that only frost giants have tried to tame. Rusin and Gusin stretch for hundreds of miles, made of fjords and glaciers that form a formidable barrier between the Barents and Kara Seas. The southern reaches, though still inhospitable, offer some break in the unyielding ice, where rocky promontories emerge from the frozen expanse. The northern half, however, is an entirely different world — an empire of ice, where no break in the cold exists and where glaciers, mountains and sea ice form an unbroken, merciless dominion.

Across both islands, coastlines are jagged and treacherous, marked by towering cliffs of rock and ice, broken by deep fjords that cut into the land. Icebergs calve from the glaciers, drifting into the sea in slow, silent procession. The wind is ceaseless, moving through the frozen corridors of the land, shaping the snow into great drifts and grinding ice against stone. Summers bring little reprieve, offering only brief thaws before the world hardens again beneath the frost.

The northern island, by far the more hostile of the two, is a world of mountains, glaciers and unbroken winter, where the land is crushed beneath immense rivers of ice that flow from the interior toward the frozen sea. The highest peaks remain snow-covered year-round, their sheer faces battered by the elements. The lower slopes are no less forbidding, buried beneath thick sheets of ice that seem as eternal as the land itself. The ground, where visible, is shattered and lifeless, stripped of any softness by the relentless march of the cold. Here, glaciers dominate, some stretching for dozens of miles, their surfaces fractured by deep crevasses, their depths concealing ages of ice locked away beneath their frozen crusts. In places, these massive glaciers reach the sea, where they crack and break, forming towering ice cliffs that loom over the water before collapsing into drifting bergs. The interior ice fields are vast and impenetrable, rising in frozen domes that press the land downward beneath their weight.

The weather of the north is violent, unpredictable and utterly unforgiving. Storms sweep in from the Arctic, blinding and relentless, turning the land into a howling white void where even the most experienced navigators can lose their way. The long winters bring endless darkness, a time when nothing moves and even the ocean lies silent beneath the ice.

The frost giants of Jotunheim, numbering no more than 3,000, are the undisputed lords of this frozen dominion, their way of life shaped by the merciless land they inhabit. Towering and powerful, they live in scattered strongholds carved from the ice itself or hewn into the walls of mountain valleys, their halls vast and echoing, warmed only by the fires they tend and the great beasts they hunt. Their culture is one of strength, endurance and tradition, for only those who can master the cold, command their kin and endure hardship may rule among them. They hold deep respect for age and wisdom, for only those who have survived centuries in Jotunheim have truly proven themselves. Their gatherings are rare but momentous, marked by feasts of frozen meat, solemn retellings of past glories and contests of raw might, where strength is displayed and alliances are forged. They know no fear of man, for few men have ever set foot upon their land, and fewer still have left it alive. To the frost giants, the ice is eternal, their home unchallenged, their rule unbroken.

Dandanmoth Islands

This broken archipelago of ice-crusted mountains, frozen straits and shifting glacial masses, scattered across the northernmost waters of the Barents Sea. This is a land where the ice never fully retreats, where winter is a constant force, and where even in summer, the sea remains choked with drifting floes and towering icebergs. The islands rise like jagged teeth from the frozen ocean, their peaks standing high above the surrounding waters, shrouded in mist and the ever-present gales that sweep in from the Arctic.

The coastlines are steep and formidable, defined by sheer cliffs of rock and ice, broken by deep fjords that cut inland before vanishing beneath glacial overhangs. Massive glaciers dominate the interior, pressing outward toward the sea, where they calve into towering icebergs that drift silently into the surrounding waters. Unlike Jotunheim, where glaciers form a continuous mass, the Dandanmoth Islands are fractured and unstable, their icefields broken by sharp ridges and deep crevasses, their slopes prone to sudden collapse as the frozen land shifts beneath its own weight.

Between the larger islands lie narrow, ice-clogged channels, some passable in the height of summer, but most sealed year-round by the relentless encroachment of the ice. In places, fast ice — frozen seawater anchored to the land — extends for miles, making it impossible to determine where the land ends and the ocean begins. In others, leads of open water appear unpredictably, only to vanish again within hours as the ice shifts and closes in. The few natural harbours that exist are unreliable, their inlets often blocked by immense walls of pressure ice, making landfall all but impossible.

The interior of the islands is a bleak, windswept wasteland, where bare stone and ice dominate the landscape, and where no signs of life appear beyond the occasional drifting seabird or wandering ice bear. There is no soil, no shelter, no warmth, only the ever-present cold and the slow, grinding motion of the ice that reshapes the land year after year. Snowdrifts fill the valleys, and the wind sculpts the ice into eerie, twisted formations, standing like frozen monuments in a place where no man has ever settled.

The islands are almost wholly unknown to humankind, a place so distant and inhospitable that few have even speculated about its existence. The elves of Ulthua, the northern elvish kingdom, claim to have ventured to these frozen reaches in ages past, yet the islands remain shrouded in myth. Whether the Ulthuans truly set foot upon their shores or merely sighted them from afar is uncertain, and they speak of them only in half-remembered legend, rather than in the precise language of explorers and mapmakers.

What little is spoken of the Dandanmoth Islands is wrapped in an older and deeper mystery. Among elvish lorekeepers, it is said that Bahamut, the platinum dragon, makes his home in these frozen lands, dwelling beyond the reach of gods and mortals alike. Whether this is truth or mere fable is unknown, for none have ever come close enough to say what truly lies within the island's heart. If Bahamut indeed resides there, it would explain why the land remains unseen — guarded by the cold, hidden by the ice and veiled from those who have no right to find it.

Belyeye

This is a barren, wind-lashed expanse of frozen tundra, low marshes and permafrost that never fully softens, even in the brief thaw of summer. Flat and featureless, the land offers little beyond patches of hardy grass, shallow pools of ice-rimmed water and stretches of snow-covered earth. The surrounding Kara Sea is treacherous, clogged with shifting ice that grinds against the shore, and in winter, the island merges with the frozen sea, indistinguishable from the vast sheets of ice that stretch beyond sight. The air is cold and dry, carrying the distant scent of salt and decay, while the sky, pale and heavy with cloud, seldom allows the sun more than a weak, grey light.

This land belongs to the quaggoths, who roam in packs, moving between snow-covered dens and the broken coastlines where prey is most easily caught. Their thick, pale fur is caked with ice and dirt, their clawed hands well-suited for digging through frost and rending flesh alike. Though hunched and savage in appearance, they are neither slow nor mindless, capable of coordinated ambushes, crude but effective traps, and vicious, unrelenting pursuit.

Those who have glimpsed the island from afar describe strange shapes moving through the fog, the distant howling of creatures that do not fear the cold. The quaggoths claim the land as their own, and no outsider who sets foot on its shores does so unnoticed. There are no landmarks, no settlements, no safe places to hide — only the wilderness, the cold and the silent, watching presence of the island's true rulers.

Adjacent Maps

A2: East Spitsbergen	A3: Jotunheim		A4: Kara Sea
B3: Yak'Margug		B4: Ob Gulf

See Sheet Maps