Map A.09 - Melville

Incomplete map. Labels are a convenience until further design is applied.

Arctic region reaching from 82.34°N south to 72.51°N, including a vast frozen archipelago of hundreds of islands. Entirely undiscovered by European civilisation but according to legends, occupied by unknown human tribes.

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

Features

Qikirtaugiaq

Called "the almost-island," in reference to its fragmented coastline and deep inlets. A vast, remote landmass in the Arctic Archipelago, lying between the icy waters of the Viscount Melville Sound to the south and the McClure Strait to the north. Its rugged coastline is marked by deep inlets and fjords, while its interior consists of rolling tundra, barren ridges and occasional rocky plateaus. The terrain is shaped by the relentless forces of frost and wind, with permafrost underlying nearly every part of the island, ensuring that even in summer, much of the ground remains frozen just beneath the surface.

Winter dominates the island for most of the year, with temperatures plunging far below freezing and howling winds scouring the landscape. Ice and snow cover the land almost entirely, retreating only briefly during the short, cold summer when hardy Arctic vegetation, such as mosses, lichens and dwarf willows, takes root in sheltered valleys. Wildlife is sparse but resilient, with muskoxen roaming the tundra, Arctic foxes scavenging along the shores, and polar bears occasionally appearing along the ice-bound coast. The surrounding waters, though often frozen, support seals and other marine life, while migratory birds arrive in summer to breed before retreating south once the cold sets in again.

Ikurnak

"The place that swallows," an locked beneath ice and snow for nearly the entire year, its rocky ground buried beneath thick permafrost and towering glacial ridges that crack and shift under the pressure of the wind. Unlike other Arctic lands where sparse tundra takes hold in the brief summer, Ikurnak remains almost entirely barren, its surface carved by relentless storms and sculpted into lifeless, jagged formations of frozen earth. Few creatures dare to linger here, for the land is treacherous and fractured, riddled with deep crevasses and sudden sinkholes where the ground has been hollowed from below. These unnatural formations are the work of the Remorhaz, great heat-radiating serpents that burrow through the ice, carving vast tunnels as they hunt whatever strays too near, consuming rock for sustenance.

Tuvaittuaq Strait

"The place that is never open," for the body of water remains ice-bound for much of the year; this is a frigid and treacherous strait, lying between the northern shores of Qikirtaugiaq and the icy barrier islands that extend toward the mainland. For most of the year, thick pack ice grips the narrow waters, shifting with the wind but rarely yielding a clear passage. Only during the briefest of summer thaws does the sea ice weaken, and even then, towering ice floes drifting in from the frozen western ocean often choke the channel, making travel perilous and uncertain.

The land on either side of Tuvaittuaq is stark and unyielding, with barren ridges of frost-shattered rock rising from the frozen shorelines. The few rivers that empty into the strait remain locked in ice for all but the warmest weeks of the year, their meltwaters spilling into the sea in sudden torrents before winter seizes them again. The cold winds that whip through the strait an utterly inhospitable frozen expanse. In summer, seals and occasional whales move through the broken ice, shadowed by hunting polar bears. The Inuit, ever watchful of the shifting ice, may travel the frozen surface in winter, using it as a bridge to cross between distant hunting grounds. But for most of the year, the strait remains what its name suggests — a passage seldom open, a place where the ice rules, and where even the sea itself seems frozen in time.

The Arctic Ocean

Where it meets Tuvaittuaq and the shores of Qikirtaugiaq, the ocean is a realm of shifting ice and relentless cold. This stretch of sea remains frozen for much of the year, its surface a vast expanse of jagged pack ice, broken only by narrow leads of open water that appear briefly in the summer months. The wind howls across its endless whiteness, carrying the sharp scent of salt and frost, while towering pressure ridges rise where the ice grinds against itself, forming jagged barriers that drift with the slow, unceasing currents.

The ice is a living force, advancing and retreating with the seasons but never truly relenting. Even when summer brings the sun low upon the horizon, the great ice fields linger, shifting and groaning as they fracture, sending massive floes drifting southward into the strait. Along the shores of Qikirtaugiaq, the ice presses hard against the land, locking the island in a frozen embrace that only the fiercest storms or warmest winds can break.

This is a place where few dare to travel. The Inuit who venture near know the ways of the ice, reading its movements with a practiced eye, but even they treat these waters with caution. Seals and the occasional bowhead whale haunt the shifting leads, while polar bears patrol the ice's edge, watching and waiting. In the endless winter darkness, the ice tightens its grip, and all movement ceases — until, with the returning sun, the slow, inevitable cracking begins once more, and the Arctic Ocean stirs to life.

Adjacent Maps

A8: Arctic	A9: Melville		A10: Bathurst
B12: Yukon		B13: Barrens

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