The Kaldurreach
By wind and steel, by salt and storm
Clinging to the jagged fjords and frozen highlands along the northern rim of the Sphere, The Kaldurreach is a realm of enduring stone, howling sea, and firelit vengeance. Once fragmented clans of seaborne raiders and mountain warlords, the Reach now stands as a cold, hardened nation, unified under blood-pacts and storm-oaths. Its people are feared as reavers, but they see themselves as the storm’s chosen — forged in hardship, tested by ice and iron, and bound by their ancestors' deeds.
The Kaldurreach is not lush nor generous. It is a place of bitter winters, salted wind, and jagged coastlines where longships slide from cliff-harbored coves like wolves from shadow. In the interior rise glacial plateaus and basalt peaks, threaded with deep mountain passes and treacherous paths — the domain of hard-willed jarls, oathbound warriors, and ancient stones wrapped in moss and frost. To survive here is to be sharp of wit and stronger of will. The people of the Reach live by three pillars: honor, inheritance, and ordeal. Raiding, though condemned by softer realms, is considered a sacred tradition — a test of strength, courage, and cunning. Those who fall in battle are sung into the wind, their names etched into driftwood and loosed upon the Starwake Sea. Skalds remember them, and longhalls echo with their stories.
Though often seen as brute warriors by outsiders, the Kaldurreach keeps its own fierce traditions of magic — runecasters, stormbinders, and bone-singers whose chants stir the sea and ward their hulls with ancestral strength. Their seers, called Galdurkin, wear veils of raven feathers and iron rings, and speak only in verse when reading the fate of kings. Longships bearing the crest of the black wolf or the broken helm sail as far south as the Sea of Veils, trading ore, furs, and whale oil for gold, spices, and rare scrolls. But they are not without enemies. Their legacy of raids has earned the enduring hatred of Clan Seabhac, whose dreamseers were butchered at Ironsky Crag — a sin the wind has never let them forget.
Governance in the Reach is led by the Stormthane, chosen by duel or declaration at the Assembly of Stone — a gathering of all jarls and galdurkin beneath the roots of an ancient, hollowed mountain where the oldest runes are carved. The Stormthane commands the longships in war, resolves disputes among jarldoms, and must endure three sacred tests upon ascension: silence, salt, and steel.
To the Great Houses of the Sphere, the Kaldurreach is a cold and unruly thorn — not yet organized enough to threaten in full, but too strong to be ignored. To the Clans, they are a northern shadow that creeps too close to the fire. But to their own, the Reach is a home with no roof but the stars, no master but the storm.
“We are born in the howl, not the hush. Say our names with salt in your mouth, or not at all.” — Stormthane Yrja Blackwake
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
Leader
Leader Title
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
