This temperate evergreen forest is rich of hemlocks, pines, firs, and ancient redwoods (the tallest trees in the realm, reaching 400 ft.), with an understory of ferns, shrubs, and mosses. The Savage Boreal Coast is perpetually foggy and presents the highest precipitation in the realm, conditions attributed to the position of the Barrier Mountains. The Savage Boreal Coast was originally settled by the Tlingit, who found the region sufficiently familiar to their tastes. They built plank-house villages fronted by brilliantly carved and painted totem poles. Oft they skirmished with Esquimaux, but most disputes were tribal. Then came the wild, red-haired, tattooed savages from across the sea: the Picts. In a long and brutal war that lasted over three centuries, the Picts systematically crushed the Tlingit, but the conquerors soon concluded that the expansion of their empire could not succeed without Tlingit manpower. Tlingit males were castrated and enslaved, or put to the sword, and Tlingit women were taken as wives; consistently and unfailingly these unions resulted in the birthing of twins, and so was born the hybrid race present in that region today, a race that has recovered from the Green Death more quickly than others. Predictably, a cultural divide grew betwixt the Picts of New Pictland and the Picts of the Savage Boreal Coast. The “half-bloods” were influenced by their maternal ancestry and learnt to carve totem poles, masks, and elaborate war canoes. The Picts of New Pictland were solely interested in the war canoes, and at length forbade totem poles. In due time many coastal tribes of the Savage Boreal Coast renounced their ties to New Pictland, and presently few continue to pay tribute to Fidib, where the brooding high king reserves great contempt for the half-bloods. War is inevitable, but unnecessary so long as the savage half-bloods continue to war against one another. Many Pictish villages subsist throughout the Savage Boreal Coast. These are high-walled affairs due to the constant threat of forest monsters. Most contain 800–1,200 individuals (or sometimes more). They still venerate the spider goddess Tlakk-Nakka, but most pay obeisance to Xathoqqua; they also revere the totem spirits of animals and ancestors. Too, clandestine cults are said to make human sacrifices to “The Dimensional Dweller” known as Kraken. Because the half-blood Picts of the Savage Boreal Coast have no common king, they tend to keep themselves in check, as tribal warfare is quite prevalent. They are volatile savages, considered dangerous by all accounts; notwithstanding, they are more apt to trade with outlanders than their cousins across the strait, who consider themselves at war with the world. Their region is bountiful with bear, crab, salmon, and seal, and the bordering mountains rich with gold, electrum, silver, copper, and gems. Lastly, in the foggy depths of the Savage Boreal Coast, where some of the most loathsome monsters lair, thrives the most potent plant species of the realm: the black lotus.
This island has the distinct shape of a wolf’s head facing south; thus, some Half-Blood Pic tish tribes and most outsiders call it Wolf’s Head Island. The island’s geography is a mix of thick temperate bore al rain forests, amid boulder strewn hill lands known as The Tors, that rise to the center of the island into a low mountain range comprising three notable peaks: Shaa Ch’aak’ (Mount Eagle), Shaa Gooch (Mount Wolf), and the central Shaa Yéil (Mount Raven).
This large, sickle-shaped island at the Rim of the World is the homeland of Ixians, a cruel race of men ruled by priests and necromancers dedicated to the snake god, Yig (Apep); too, some pay tribute to Mordezzan or Tlakk-Nakka. Ixian slaver galleys are feared and renowned about the realm, as they always carry sorcerers who enchant and ensorcel the unwary. With the exception of slaves and concubines, non-Ixians are forbidden to roam the island of Scythium; they may visit Fazzuum, however. The island is semiarid and imports much of its wood from other islands, though most structures are built of sandstone. Fields of wheat and rye thrive on the island, which is also rich in mineral resources, such as copper, electrum, iron, and platinum. Several species of lotus are cultivated throughout Scythium, utilized by sorcerers who create deadly powders from the pollen and dried, ground petals of these plants.
This is the capital city of Scythium, home to some 15,000 freemen and an estimated 2,000 slaves of various racial derivations. The city is noted for its massive ziggurats dedicated to Yig (Apep). Fazzuum trades spices, lotus leaves, platinum, and slaves. Its merchants visit cities such as Khromarium and Port Zangerios; too, they might be the only humans to en gage the ape-men of Kor and the orcs of Orcust. Non-Ixian visitors are permitted in Fazzuum, but the city is regarded as dangerous (particularly at night). Owing to the frequency of disappearances, travellers are advised to arrange for safe lodgings and abstain from impairment. Travel beyond the city limits is forbidden to foreigners. Fazzuum is ruled by a mysterious cabal of powerful sorcerers said to be descendants of Green Death survivors. Many received their sorcerous instruction on the fabled isle known as IX; to have survived this ordeal is a testament to their aptitude, dedication, and power. These unseen rulers issue decrees from subterranean depths below the ziggurats; here lurk the deadliest and most colossal snakes in all of Hyperborea.
This cold desert peninsula is one of the most unforgiving regions in all of Hyperborea. Here, at the Rim of the World, terra firma converges with the illimitable Black Gulf. At the very precipice, one of the six Great Obelisks rises some 555 feet from the ground—the only Great Obelisk that rises from land, not sea. Sharath is relentlessly blasted by the boreas, which here finds a singular point of ingress into Hyperborea. The winds blast down like an interminable maelstrom. As a consequence, Sharath is coated with the grey dust of corroding planets and the black ashes of extinguished suns. Orb-like formations rise from the rippled and cratered desert landscape, and men of learning posit these to be half-buried star stones. Sharath has long served as an interstellar port of call for arrivals from Saturn, Yuggoth, other worlds (and netherworlds), and extra-dimensional planes. Too, dæmons, night-gaunts, and other nameless horrors arrive to Hyperborea via Sharath. Sharath’s black, dust-impregnated soils support small forests of mutated scarlet cacti; likewise, patches of leprous lichens and other strange, russet-coloured vegetations are sometimes harvested by Ixian necromancers. In days of yore Sharath was traversed by the first Ixian arrivals, sorcerers who sought to achieve lost Hyperborea. For many generations the Ixians called Sharath their home. They built high-walled citadels that enclosed massive ziggurats, but ultimately the land proved too hostile, so they abandoned Sharath in favour of Scythium. The cities were swallowed by the dust, and those who remained behind were entombed. Presently Sharath is a haunted land. The cold, swollen sun presents as a nebulous, ruddy glow, for the land is ever aswirl in a miasmal haze. When the howling boreas quavers and undulates over Sharath, its vibrations can be heard in distant lands. Certain bards of esoteric learning are acute to this; they call it the “Song of Azathoth”. When men venture to Sharath (usually not of their own accord), most are never seen again; a few return withered, white-haired, and wild-eyed, babbling of nameless horrors, immemorial cities, and magnificent treasures: massive gem formations said to glisten beneath the dust. Poets and madmen tell tales of liches aimlessly drifting across the dust-thick deserts of Sharath.
During the Dark Age, the half-blood Picts of the Savage Boreal Coast migrated down the coast and founded new villages in a region the Tlingit called the Skarag Coast. In their oral tradition, the Tlingit regarded this region as dæmon-haunted, but this would not dissuade their venturesome half-blood descendants. Villages were founded, but relentlessly were these assailed by beasts and unspeakable horrors. The settlers were hard-pressed but soon gained the succour of strange, corpulent men of pink skin and porcine countenance. The unsightly men commanded power and respect in the hostile wilderness, and so they were readily accepted; so too were their gods, netherworldly beings of no uncertain power. The strange men were not quite men at all; in sooth, they were swine dæmons able to assume the quasi appearance of men. In short order they took as wives the daughters of half-blood Pictish settlers; so was born the abominable orc race. The young women bore litters of three to six creatures, their violent deliveries oft killing the human mothers of those earliest generations.
Presently orcs control the majority of the Skarag Coast, except for the tar pits (these being the domain of brutally violent, cannibalistic cave-men). Notwithstanding, Skarag Coast is generally considered dominion of Orcust. The orcs of the Skarag Coast mine iron, copper, and lead.
This stark city of timber and stone is home to some 8,000 orcs who uniformly venerate the Dæmon Lord Thaumagorga and the dæmon princes who serve that dark lord. The orcs of Orcust are a violent, despicable race constantly at war with mankind, raiding, murdering, and raping. Their weaponsmithing and shipbuilding techniques are inferior to those of men; what they lack in craftsmanship, they compensate for in brutality, industriousness, and fecundity, for the orcs breed as animals do, producing litters that grow to maturity in short years (usually a decade).