Ice Reaver

The windswept glaciers, the frozen mountains, the vast cold plains beneath the shadow of the encroach- ing ice—these hard lands are home to the fiercest peoples of Thule. The barbarians of the cold lands live off the great herds of caribou that roam the tundra or the teeming seals and fish of the frozen coasts, but when the herds or pods move on, these hardy warriors soon turn their attention to differ- ent prey: The civilized peoples of the warmer lands. Riding giant elk or rowing dragon-prowed galleys, the reavers of the north strike with terrible speed and savagery, pillaging and plundering their way across Thule’s remote marches. From Nar to Quodeth, the reaver tribes are names of terror and dread.

As one of these northern raiders, you are at home in the frozen lands. Your world is simple: The strong survive, and the weak perish. You regard the city-folk of the south as soft and decadent, and despise their hedonistic ways even when you choose to sell your axe or spear as a mercenary. The gods gave you the power to strive and to slay when you were born, and you intend to carve your way to greatness with your bloody sword or axe.

Most ice reavers are humans of Nimothan descent, simply because Nimothans make up the great majori- ty of the raiding peoples of Thule’s northern wastes. They stubbornly cling to their homelands even as the snows grow deeper year by year. A few tribes in the eastern highlands of Thule are Kalays; centuries ago these were the hardy frontiersmen Inner Sea cities, but over the generations they became more and more isolated, adopting the barbaric ways of their neigh- bors. Finally, a small number of dwarf clans with no citadel of their own share these bitter lands with the human tribes, and follow a similar lifestyle.

Key Identity: Human (Nimothan or Kalay), dwarf, barbarian, fighter, ranger, bard.