The Everfrost
A protectorate of ArnesseHouse Hale
The Everfrost is a vast tundra beyond the Barrier Mountains. To outsiders it is a haunted waste. To the clans who live there it is a home that has made them as hard as the ice.
The Land and Its People
The Everfrost lies past the Barrier Mountains and the Northern Marches, bordered by the lands of Richter and Innis. It is a land of ice, hunger, and spirits that are said to wander the wastes forever.
This page describes the protectorate as it stood in 763, when the Annwyn appeared. The last section follows what became of its people there.
One temperate valley breaks the cold. Wintervale lies between the two Fells known as the Hammer and the Anvil, and it grows most of the food that feeds House Hale. The armies of the house train and quarter there, on the shores of Giantsfall Lake. In every other direction the Everfrost stretches away. Goods cross it on foot or on great sledges pulled by caribou, and the Winter River is the main road for trade.
The northmen descend from the Great Tyr people. Survival in the Everfrost demands that everyone hold a useful role, and a clansman takes pride in never asking for help until there is no other choice. The society this produces is strong in its individuals and poor in its unity. Before Brynhild the Shieldbreaker, the clans governed themselves through oaths, family ties, and open war.
Two peoples live under the name of Hale. The Winter Lords of Grimfrost resemble the lords of the south, although the north has made them harder. The clans keep much of their old independence, so long as they pay their taxes and answer the call to war. Several of the northern high houses have no southern lineage at all, because the Laws of Vassalage forced House Hale to raise key clans to that rank late in the Eldritch Age. The Angari, the Volsung, and the Karn never accepted such status and take pride in that refusal.
House Hale
Brynhild the Shieldbreaker united the clans in the time of darkness and became the first lady of House Hale, claiming descent from Halyn the Just. She took the bear for her banner, because bears were known to avenge a slight. Her marriage to Lord William Bannon in 14 A.S. began a long alliance between the two houses.
That alliance led House Hale to help destroy the Old Gods in the Great War, and among the fallen was its own god, Kallea the Lawbringer. She died cursing her killers and promising vengeance. The Hales gave her body a warrior's burial in the Old Ways. It is still whispered that her curse is the reason no member of the house ever knows peace.
House Hale's soldiers helped Giles II win the Battle of Lanton in 751, and they hunted down the infant called the Witch Prince. In 753 Lord Talbot Hale married the King's half-sister, Lady Emma. By 763 the old friendship had soured. The King treated his northern allies as servants, and many in the Everfrost feared that the Aurorym would one day judge them as it had judged Giles I. Ynglinga, the bone priestess who had replaced the Fayne at Lord Talbot's side, liked to say that a darkness was coming and that Hale should look to itself. Some whispered that Lady Emma's children, or even Lord Rangvald Thorby, had a claim of their own to the throne.
The High Houses
House Hammerfrost of Castle Brightstone
Lord Calder Dane rules the breadbasket of Hale from a castle of pale pink stone. His house was founded by Corveaux knights, yet he has also claimed two great bears of his own and keeps a Bera altar in his hall.
House Coldhill of Hagsteeth Keep
Lord Colborn Brynjolf guards the pass to the plains of Thorby. The Get of Ursin train on his land, although any of his family who join them must sever their ties with the house.
House Ravndal of Clovershire Castle
The poor farmland of Raven's Rest serves as the training ground of the Knights Valkyn. Lord Arnulf Ravndal is often overshadowed by the Valkyr Master who spends much of her time there.
House Thorby of Harelton Manor
This old Corveaux house lost much of its land after a failed uprising. Its motto is "Death before failure," and no heir has lived past forty in seven generations. Lord Rangvald Thorby believes that his grandfather, Eddard Frost, left him a claim to the throne.
Houses Aesir and Elfhild
Both clans received part of Thorby's land for fighting on the side of the Lords of Hale. The Elfhild are often led by women, and the spear of their ancestor Eydis Catclaw hangs above the hearth of their hall. Their city of Icegarden is known for its woodcarvers and its contests in carved ice.
House Axeholme of Ulmhelm Castle
Lord Einar Axeholme, a cousin of Lord Talbot, holds the far north beside Potbelly Lake. The festival of Nanna is held at nearby Fairlund in the dead of winter, when northmen gather to set their own light against the dark.
House Batavi
This old clan took land and status from House Hale and holds the logging post of Marya and the stone city of Husklif. Young people of the smaller clans travel to Husklif to test themselves.
The Orders of Hale
The Knights Valkyn
Brynhild is said to have trained the first Valkyn as guardians of the nobility of her house. They number three to four hundred, and they are taught both to fight as individuals and to lead clansmen in battle. Their code dwells on justice to a surprising degree, and a Valkyn may serve in a noble's stead at a trial.
The Get of Ursin
These berserkers walk in the footsteps of the bear spirits. They scar their bodies, drink honey mead mixed with drugs, and enter battle in the bear's rage, when they can barely tell friend from foe. An aspirant must survive the Rimewalk and face Arcas, the Death Bear. To die in battle is their highest honor. Any who reach their fortieth winter walk alone into the Everfrost to meet Arcas again.
The Order of the Winter Wolf
Ser Kellan Innis deserted the Wolf Guard for love of a northwoman and stole warg pups as he went. When the undead killed his wife, he swore to put the dead of the north to rest. His order became a respected force of outriders. Tales persist of the Vargen, a pack of undead wolves led by a knight with eyes of ice.
Customs and Dress
The Vinna
Twelve spirits were remembered by the clans, one for each full moon of the year, and a child became an adult by claiming one of them at its moon feast. For the Bear Moon, a child had to take a cub from its mother's den, without aid, and feed it by hand. For the Warrior's Moon, a child had to climb one of the Fells in the stormy season and return with cloudberries from the summit. The Volkun moon had almost fallen silent, because the bone priests it honored were believed dead. Not every child undertook a Vinna by 763, but those who did were regarded with awe. Northmen considered it the height of narcissism to celebrate one's own day of birth.
Oaths
A clansman was bound less by honor than by his oaths, and the kind of oath set its weight. A beer oath lasted the night and promised hospitality, usually with the words "may you drink as I drink." A fire oath lasted the length of a shared venture, a flower oath a season, and a silver oath a matter of business. A blood oath lasted for life. The most serious of all was sworn on a family's Bera altar. An oathbreaker was held to be less than human, and many would kill one rather than let the curse spread.
The Dead
Almost every home kept a Bera, a small altar with carved figures of the honored dead. The dead themselves were carried into the Everfrost in a procession of flags and torches and left to the creatures of the ice. Their bones were gathered for the altar. When blue and green lights danced in the northern sky, the people shuttered their homes, for those lights were said to be the torches of the Host of the Dead.
Attire
Dress in the Everfrost is practical. Leather and furs keep out the cold, and both men and women wear their clothing in layers. Some women wear apron dresses. Finely worked metal clasps, pins, and leather goods are prized by everyone. The common colors are brown, tan, yellow, blue, and green.
In the Annwyn
House Hale came late. Lady Thora Coldhill settled a place called Harrowgate in 765, a few days' travel north of the fallen Laurent lands, with a strong force of troops and the Get of Ursin. That autumn the champion of House Hale defeated Hammond the Talon in the duel he had demanded. The healers of the Annwyn later cured a shield maiden of the house of the curse of the wolf. In 766 Lady Revanna Hale took charge of Mystvale.
House Hale kept out of the war that followed the King's death. It could not keep out of the end. Harrowgate was the first settlement to fall to Oblivion in 767, and Lady Thora Coldhill, Lord Grimnyr Coldhill, and Tormod Trollsbane were among the dead of that summer.
The Chronicle follows the house from Event V.