[hider=Altgarde]
Long ago when wanderers still pressed far to the north that would later become the [i]Northern Reaches[/i], there arose a kingdom on the borderlands, one ruled by men known further south as "barbarian kings". Brutes some would say, but such dishonorable and disparaging terms never left their lips in person, rather only behind closed, barred doors in fits of frustration. The true story of Altgarde is far more telling than such utterings, in that the initial kings of this cold forest land were the first line of defense against the [i]actual[/i] outsiders and men beyond. They settled it not for their own gain, but for the benefit of those they once served; a reward and honor to fight on behalf of their reigning monarch.

It grew not because of any attraction for many who found themselves there arrived out of some unpleasant necessity. No, rather it remained and endured still despite deep winters and long falls as the men of the land came to embrace its ruggedness. They were free to rule and take from it what they saw fit, paying their debts to the crown not in gold, but in safety. The riches they reaped were their own and many warrior-lords arose through contests of strength. Man and woman alike proved their grit, be it the customs of traveling the wilderness unarmed upon a challenge to a mountain top, or in fair contest of strength and skill; a blunted sword or axe wielded in the lame hand, the other bound to their belt behind their back.

To outsiders the people of [i]Altgarde[/i] were quite queer in their strangeness, never a people for many words and with a propensity for challenging dissenters with unusual and strange contests of individual prowess. However, the realm's [i]Shield of the North[/i] did not last forever. The promise of personal riches at the cost of work drew in more and more eager hands and mouths while the threat ever dwindled away in the face of swelling numbers. Age old cultures of the [i]Kingdom of Altgarde[/i] began to wither and die upon their fruitful vine, most notably with a tax levied upon them from beyond; tradition had been broken and the land splintered into fierce conflict. Now too broken to face the threats of the land, it was not more than a generation or two of meddlesome folk later that it fell away entirely.

The [i]"Wvalgentar a'Wuden"[/i] or the [i]"Winter War"[/i] approached, just as its name implied, with the fall of the countryside's most remorseless of seasons. A tremendous chill unlike anything known to man since he first began his history in the realm enchanted the very earth and seeped deep into the soil. This age of ice brought with it the great glaciers and storms of the [i]Northern Reaches[/i], but worse yet the most mighty of beings that had only been seen in rare myth. Powerful, grand beasts both men and animal descended on [i]Altgarde[/i] not as knowing invaders, but seekers of opportunity; the great watery divide had once again been frozen over.

Broken by their own infighting and consumed by the complacency of the southern states, the factions of the shattered kingdom only realized too late what their oncoming fate was. Thorps, villages, towns and soon cities fell as nature began to reclaim them before their eyes. Winters grew longer and more unbearable, with the beasts and men becoming more aggressive in pursuit of their quarry. True barbarians, long thought chased out, began their marauding attacks against the last fringes of [i]Altgarde[/i], mercilessly laying claim to whatever scraps they could scrounge. Nightfall became one of the greatest enemies of all lesser folk, for the very wolves at their door had become real and the safety of flame had become an increasingly valuable commodity. 

For nearly two decades the failed rebellions fought a losing battle against the north, that was until the south paid them dear mind. Scholars, now mesmerized and awed by this turn of events unlike anything they knew prior, had but stories of ages past to work with; legends and rumors of a terrible power of nature, something forgotten until now. Wisely an entourage was sent into the heart of [i]Velkhan[/i], the last remaining kingdom on the borderlands. Through their studies, pressing deep into the stretches of the wild in all corners of the region, they uncovered the barrows of the past; tombs of long dead druids. It was clear now what was to come, for the cycle was evident upon the very walls they explored, sheet after sheet of parchment scrawled in record.

The magical winter descended upon the realm to give it new life later as a spring.

The corruption and fall of the realm was both a metaphorical and practical thing, a time where [i]Altgarde[/i] itself needed to wane in importance of its summer. These lost people knew this truth well and had prepared for it for quite a time, long beyond their physical life and long before their history could be known. But there was more to it than this. Something more sinister awaited the region, which now prowled with dangerous beasts and roving packs of men. Before the scholars could make it known, they vanished without a trace; consumed by the savage powers at work within the forested mountains, rolling cold plains and infinite white face that stared down upon the world.

It has become a subject of interest to the resisting crowns of [i]Altgarde[/i] such as the [i]Kingdom of Altgarde[/i] itself, the entire [i]"Winter War"[/i], some going so far as to discover their old roots to survive within it. However, most fear its presence above anything else. There exists no church now in the region that does not preach its arrival as anything less than punishment for their crimes of cowardice and greed and no temple that dares speak of the magic thought to be involved. Those who do know, the ones who have joined with the land of old as their long dead ancestors did, are not sharing; they have rediscovered that primal power. Magic has again sprung to life from the very earth in that sense, beckoning those who would dare do the unfeeling bidding of the land.

Though such "traitors" are vilified and perhaps rightfully so. Perhaps it was them, those who tapped into these tombs before the scholars themselves, who rediscovered the ancient powers and called upon them for their own benefit, but none can be certain. The war among the people and against the environment itself rages, barely held off for now and drawing ever greater attention with each passing year...
[/hider]
The region is less a kingdom than it is anything now, made up of five or so "states", one of which is official and recognized as a proxy state of a greater monarchy while the rest are varying forms of unofficial ascensions. Historically, the environment belongs to no one and there's no certainty among the people, even educated people, of the actual line of pedigree. Thus, as one can imagine, it has become a contest of hearsay and claimed legends, be them true and false. While the leaders of these factions skirmish with each other however, their people live in growing fear of the ever longer nights and the wild outside.

While not entirely shrouded in snow, one can view the environment as a mixture of high tundra, alpine forest, cold grasslands and at its most modest, "cold forest". People have been pressed increasingly south, with the majority of refugees having fled several generations ago from the creeping cold. The majority of such people in exodus had nowhere to go and either starved or settled where they could, making meager livings for themselves. The wild life is made up of both megafauna and regionally appropriate fauna, everything from the woodland chipmunk, prairie dog, deer, elk and the like to bison, ground sloth, mammoth and so forth. Predators are exceedingly dangerous, with the most "mundane" being bobcat, foxes or lynx, up to wolves, dire wolves, giant wolverines, grizzly bears, cold lions and various sabertooths.

Magical beasts are more common than magical monsters, but the latter are your associated winter wraiths, ice elementals, wood trolls, and the sort. They are not frequent threats, but they are difficult to best in a land where fire is considered precious and essential to life. More menacingly is that the environment, while bountiful to those who know how to hunt and gather, often has powerful and unpredictable weather in its mountainous terrain and [i]almost seems to target regular folk.[/i] The seasons, by proxy, are less pronounced and generally all varying states of cold, but can be beautiful and exotic when entire carpets of wildflower blossom; a site few would ever see or imagine.

Magic itself in the land is a close kept, almost dead secret. Those who do command it know it as a source granted from nature, something one needs to tap into in their soul and draw out from the land itself, making it outright deadly because of how exaggerated it can become. A bolt of flame might be unimpressive, but a whirlwind turns into a small hurricane of tearing crystalline ice and snow. As such and because of the people's beliefs, it is almost entirely unknown; prior to recorded history of humans, this magic was more common than the arcane studies, but was used like some now is through faith and connection.

With regard to faith, the dire situation has turned many churches into places of apocalyptic threat. Almost all of the major practices, short of the minor more culturally locked, view the very assault by the environment itself and nature as punishment by the divines for the greed their people gave into. People go so far as to hold mass destructions of objects of wealth, like meltings of gold, silver, finery and the like as sacrifice and casting it into deep lakes, hoping that it will stop the advance. The overall mood of the people is one of a crushed spirit, not only because their environment has turned from bountiful to grey and skeletal, or so they see and believe, but because their noble lineage and line exists not at all anymore. They are viewed as poor savages whose very skin is cold to the touch by outsiders, despite these rumors and misleading failing to be true.

The overarching objective of this submission? A place where the environment and its people are out to get you. Not because they are evil, corrupt or anything, but because that's just the nature of it.