Isbrien

Isbrien

This cold landscape is said to hold the earliest known settlements in the world. Ruins of stone buildings can be found all throughout Isbrien, mostly buried by time. Many blend in with the stony terrain, others lie hidden beneath a near-permanent layer of snow or ice. Some of these towns have been upkept or rebuilt over the ruins of older towns.

The capital of Isbrien is a dwarven city, built into the side of a mountain range that connects to cloudreach mountain. This city, called Varnstad, is massive with buildings and streets carved directly from the mountain itself. It's well-lit and kept at a comfortable temperature year-round by geothermal-fueled electricity. This city, which is well-hidden inside the mountain, has many entrances, but most of them are small and not easy to find. It only has three large entrances, two just big enough for a large wagon with huge metal doors, and one that's quite massive, but inaccessible by foot. The only way to reach the largest entrance is by airship, and even then, the gate is armed with cannons and harpoons to trap and shoot down unwanted airships.

There are other dwarven towns in Isbrien, but none come anywhere close to the size of Varnstad. The lands of Isbrien, while frigid and harsh, are well-populated. There are many small towns, villages, and farms; Especially so in the more fertile areas, such as the moorlands known as the gemstone tundra. These rocky meadows set in the middle of Isbrien are named after the crystals which can be found sprouting up from the ground in small clumps. They come in a variety of colors and some even come in shapes similar to flowers. Finding a perfect crystalline flower is thought to be good luck.

An evergreen forest in the northern part of Isbrien called the winter woods is another fertile location in which villages are a little more common to come across. That being said, some parts of these woods are more dangerous than others. Amaroks are a fairly common sight in the deeper parts of this forest, and some have claimed to see them fighting worryx for territory here. What's more, many frostbite manticores claim to have been born in these woods and there are some towns in which the entire population is just these manticores. While they usually wont immediately attack strangers, they don't particularly like them.

To the south, past the mountain range in which Varnstad can be found, lies several ever-frozen waterfalls known as glacier falls. These sit closest to the mountains, and are seen as a warning not to go any further south. For beyond that, the entire south of Isbrien is nothing but fields of ice which never melt, called the ice wastes. It is a barren land with cracks that extend down into the ice for miles. Though no creatures are said to live here, the ice wastes themselves are dangerous enough that no one dares explore the area.

Despite it's population of people, Isbrien is not known as a particularly safe place to go freely exploring. It's harsh weather, cold temperatures, and dangerous creatures have been the end of many an eager traveler.