Gravaskar
Where the Storm Carve the Stones and the Dead Ride the Wind
Gravaskar is the iron spine of the Kaldurreach — a land of black pines, wind-scoured fjords, storm-drenched cliffs, and glacial highlands where every crag bears a name and every cairn marks the passage of an ancestor. It stretches from the thunder-wracked coasts of the Starwake Sea to the towering Silver Bastions that rise along the southern border with the Lyran Commonwealth. To live in Gravaskar is to endure — not in defiance of the land, but in rhythm with it.
The terrain is carved by elemental fury. Valleys of jagged slate split the land like old scars, filled with mist and echoing with bird calls. Mountains loom like sleeping gods, their peaks white with eternal snow, and their lower slopes dressed in dense, dark forests. The pines grow tall and straight, twisted only where lightning or frostbite has kissed them. Wolves hunt in the shadows, and ravens follow lone travelers with eyes that gleam with something older than hunger. Inland, the highlands of Gravaskar rise into wind-beaten plateaus, where goat-herders build turf-roofed homes against basalt cliffs and longhalls cling to the edges of coldwater lakes. Villages are scattered and hardy, built from black stone and driftwood, their hearthfires ringed with whale-oil lanterns and runes meant to keep out both spirits and storms.
The people of Gravaskar are forged like their land: hard-eyed, proud, and steeped in old ways. They know the taste of salt and smoke, of snowmelt and blood. Oath-stones stand in the center of each settlement — smooth, flat slabs upon which feasts are sworn, marriages are bound, and grudges are declared. These stones are sacred, as are the bone-altars of the windward hills, where runes are carved and songs sung for the dead who journey into the Starwake. Though isolated by terrain and temperament, Gravaskar is the wellspring of Kaldurreach culture and strength. Its longship timber is the finest in the north, its ore-rich cliffs yield black iron and frost-steel, and its mountain forges are kept hot year-round by venting stone-fires deep beneath the earth. It is said that every blade in the Stormthane’s personal guard was quenched in snowmelt from the Thundering Rill, a glacial stream that once froze solid during the year of five moons — and thawed only when the war ended.
But Gravaskar is not silent. Its wind speaks in gusts and gales, and its people listen. When the stormwinds carry omens, skalds rise to sing them. When the wolf howls thrice without an echo, wise elders light wardfires and sharpen their axes. Every storm, every snowfall, every crack of distant thunder is a warning — or a call.
Gravaskar remembers. It keeps the names of the fallen. It feeds the forges of the future. And when the Kaldurreach marches, it marches from Gravaskar.
“We do not break the land. We become what it breaks us into.” — Forge-Priest Haldrin of the Hollow Flame
