Norrlander

The people of the Norrlands.
Given the difficulty of traversing the mountains that surround this region, and the even greater difficulty sailing through the treacherous northern waters, the Norrland people remain largely isolated from the rest of the empire. Because of this, there has been little intermarriage within the region and the Norrland people retain some strikingly unique physical features--including the tendency towards snow-white hair and slate-gray eyes.
It is sometimes speculated, with a somewhat humorous intent, that perhaps the Norrlanders adapted to better camouflage with the ice and snow.
Despite this isolation, or perhaps because of it, the nobleman of the central region have long had a fascination with the elusive beauty of Norrland noblewomen, and historically intermarriages in that direction (with Norrland women travelling to the central region to marry Vi-blooded nobleman) are not unknown. In just this past generation, Emperor Egilhard III and Duke Sigeberht Jordaine each married a Norrland noblewoman, a pair of sisters from an island called Haroe. Thus, it may be said that Norrland blood runs through imperial veins.
These recognizable Norrland features are more common in the far-northern islands, and there is somewhat more diversity of appearance amongst the mountainous mainland Norrlanders.   
Culturally, the Noorlanders have a reputation as a harsh, unforgiving, and strange people. Perhaps they have absorbed the personality of the land around them, which could in no way be described as hospitable.