In terms of actual residents, Withereach is composed exclusively of Nordenfiir. Following the recent coup d’état and assassination of Jorn Irvad the Only, it has become host to elves, Of the Tusk, and Witches – though it is under the understanding that they are guests of de facto town champion, Vand.


The gender composition sits at approximately 50/50, with no acknowledging of gender alternatives outside of the Male/Female binary.


Following Irvad the Only’s failed regime, over 85% of the population suffers from Silicosis due to overwork in the mines. The sound of coughing is as much a feature of the town as its mud – and because of this, the strained cough of the town’s miners is sometimes known as “the Withereach Bark.” It is with rare exception that one lacking this cough is viewed as anything but an outsider having yet to pay their dues.


Additionally, Irvad’s reign lead to a decimation of an entire generation’s cultural foundations. The current age of Withereach’s “Lost Generation” spans from 16-34, of which a majority have failed to achieve their Svalen spirit-form.

Withereach is a mining colony within the Nordengaard nation. Its purpose is to mine iron and ship it back and that’s it. However, under the recent reign of Jorn Irvad and his company store, iron output has achieved unmanageable levels for a healthy, functioning, sustaining community. Since his ousting, Withereach still continues to function as a mining colony, however, they have taken to trading (on the sly) the precious gems and Black Ice (Obsidian) recovered in the process for supplemental ore to not alert the crown. This effort, by all indications, has been successful.


EVERYONE is expected to contribute to the mining efforts.


Withereach has no other exports but its mining products. However, it has a number of skilled craftspersons. These makers are allowed to perform their work in lieu of regular mining shifts because they are the best in town. This is the only thing which keeps them from having to do occasional shifts in the mines. For the common people, this scheduling is determined by the Workers’ Union and is generally believed to be doled out fairly.

Withereach is a small, coastal mining colony located on the southern tip of Eretejva Tundra. It’s cold, as typical for the region, but tends to only be covered in snow in the Winter. For the most part, it’s muddy, a bit rainy, and pretty glum. Its government was overturned recently and is in transition to being more communistic. As such, currency tends to be only worth the material it’s made of, the people, instead, preferring to trade things of *actual* value.


They are inhospitable to non-Nordenfiir outsiders, unless there is a resident to vouch for them.


As it was once a famous battlesite many, many years ago, there are still some fortified structures and battle armaments being maintained. This is to include some mild artillery to ward off would-be adversarial ships. In addition to this, there are “Dreadguard totems,” or what are currently regarded as “Spooky Sticks,” spaced out along the coast as well as the main roads used to ward off undead. It comes from old, somewhat forgotten Nordenfiir sympathetic magic and was essential for the days immediately following the humiliation of Captain Haymar’s army. The ritual for their creation is still practiced, even if some of the details are fuzzy.


The surrounding lands are populated by dangerous peat bogs, immensely poisonous flora, frigid cold and snow, treacherous mountains, land, and sky, and really, a whole lot of nothing before you get to something again. With the exception of hunting game, the monstrous wildlife surrounding Withereach are not soloable – One would need to bring friends or they would most certainly die.

The architecture is more or less how you would expect. Watch Vikings, copy and paste. The houses line the coast, stacked onto the hills. Close enough to foster community, while far enough away to not be overwhelming. They are quite barebones and do little to keep the air out.

The Mine- This is the lifeblood of the town, and nearly all residents work here, or have at some point. It is a source for iron, precious gems, and Black Ice (Obsidian).


The Charred Ruins of the Jorn Estate- Burned down in the recent uprising, this is blacked ruins to Irvad the Only’s estate. It was obscenely large, like the swollen tick on the town’s back that he was. Now it is nothing. One day, the people will build over it. For now, it stands as a reminder what happens to slavers.


Central Firepit- The site of town meetings, orgies, feasts, etcetera. If you’re a guest, it’s likely where you’re sleeping.


The Bogs- West of the town is Bogland, the gravesite of many a-wanderin’ explorer. It spans for miles, filled with sinking bogs that, should one not be careful, will swallow the adventurer whole. On the other side, however, is a small island occupied giant spiders, spider-demons, and, more importantly, witches, but, to get there, takes DAYS of cautious movement. The Witches know a secret way, however.


Dead Bears Clubhouse- Tucked away in a tree somewhere Northwest of the town rests the former home to a now-defunct group of child adventurers known as the Dead Bears Club. Nearly two decades ago, Jorn Irvad’s extreme work demands left many of Withereach’s “Lost Generation” unattended by their parents. So, for about a five-year period, these delinquents formed a Monster Hunting Club, and were reasonably successful until they weren’t. These days, the place has been abandoned, the ladder lifted, and can be quite difficult to find without a surviving member’s guidance. The fort remains cluttered with makeshift weapons, hidden candies and snacks, and hand-drawn (and colored) Bestiaries and Monster Hunter’s Guides featuring useful strategies and techniques for fighting off the local fauna of Southern Eretejeva.


Haymar’s Folly/Bitter Bay and the Withereach Port - The port, really, is little more than a single dock at the end of a long pier. It is set up on the bay known as Haymar’s Folly to Withereach, and Bitter Bay to those at the bottom of it. It was the site of a locally famous skirmish (documented below), and is the current resting site of many unfortunate, but quiet, dead. In the Winter, the bay freezes entirely, making it quite impossible for ships to sail through. Meanwhile, one can literally walk to the other continent. When the bay is thawed, however, the corpses of the dead or their pieces still sometimes wash upon the shore. This is known locally as the Rotting Tide.

Haymar’s Folly

In the time of the Nordenfiir dissension, when they rebelled from the slavery of the Vel Anir, or someone else – it changes, they were tracked and pursued across the frozen bay of Haymar’s Folly by an entire battalion of baseline humans lead by the cowardly and idiotic, but terminally vain, Colonel Haymar.

Upon reaching the hard land, the battalion was met by a sizable force of Nordenfiir who kept the small army from advancing. Rather than admit defeat, Colonel Haymar dug in on the frozen bay, building ramparts and setting up camp, continuing his career-making and career-ending campaign against the Nordenfiir on the beach.

The days would pass, turning into weeks, then months, until finally, the Spring came, and the ground in which Haymar had built has staging ground began to thaw. As the ice turned the water and the soldiers had nowhere to go but forward into a bunch of pissing-themselves-laughing Nords, they fell into the waters where they drowned and froze to death.

Colonel Haymar was recovered and shipped back to his handlers, where the bay would become known to the bitter hearts and bitter men, who met bitter defeat and bitter end, in the bitter cold of the bitter depths upon what they would now call Bitter Bay.

To this day, pieces of that lost battalion still occasionally wash upon the shore of Withereach.


The Rise and Reign of Irvad the Only

Once upon a time, the people of Withereach worked in the iron mines as a point of pride and public service, shipping off a steady supply of ore, and precious gems, and Black Ice. They did their daily duty on behalf of King Iovard; and the King, in turn, supplied them with housing, and food, and school services. Their work was well-rewarded, and their work was well-done. And so it was for years and years and years. One day, however, the Jorn of Withereach passed away, leaving his position to his son, Irvad, the first of his name. The people of Withereach took no objection to this – While they were all warriors by point of heritage, their Svalens identified more with cave work; with fostering community and giving to the tribe. There was no reason to fight Jorn Irvad for his position – though, if they had, they would have found that Irvad the Only was no slouch.

The people begin to find that newer goods were showing up in town. More traders passing by, like clockwork, bringing better food, and blankets, and supplies, far beyond what the King ordinarily supplied. The reason for this would be revealed later by the Jorn with the opening his own storefront. He announced that he would be introducing a currency, rewarded for hard work in the mines. Currency would now be the mechanism by which the people of Withereach would ensure their lanterns had oil, and their clothes without holes, and their tables well set so their children were well fed. More currency meant better items. More currency meant more work. The people of Withereach were hard working, so this not only seemed fair, but sure win for everyone involved.

And so it was that more the relaxed work hours became more rigorous. Where the day had once ended long before sundown, they were now mining into the night, using their own lamp oil to where the daylight faded. In fact, the work became its own reward – you paid for your own resources for the opportunity to make currency. For a few years, it seemed like everyone had enjoyed an increase in quality of life. The miners did not seem to see as much of their family as they once had – were no longer the same vested members of a community --, but they knew that, one day, after they paid for the new doors and the lamplights and when the kids got out of school and joined the mines themselves – they would be able to relax on the currency they had saved from all the work they put in now.

The shop became less and less consistent, however. Some months, the meat was rotten, sometimes the portions meager, but the price did not fluctuate. “Tough times in the world,” Irvad would allege. “It’s what the traders charged. You’re getting a fair rate.” Though, while the miners seemed to be working harder for less, Jorn Irvad only seemed to get richer – his estate even populating a mercenary detail of errant barbarians and Dark Elves, many of which were former guards of Nordengaard on Irvad’s seemingly infinite take.

There was a rumor going around that, following the successful sale of a burlap blanket, that Irvad turned to one of his guards and laughed, albeit quietly, “These stupid fucks will buy anything.” This was widely regarded to be the misinformation of the lazy and deservedly poor.

One fateful day, a miner named Bjarn – the hardest worker, really; never complained – seemed to come down with a bit of a cough. His co-workers asked about it, worrying he would contaminate them as well, but Bjarn was not to miss work – Time was money, after all. Still, they persisted, and he was forced to take a day off. A day which became a week. Bjarn simply was not getting better – blood accruing in the thick spats of mucus that he was hacking up, well into the night. The Jorn was all too happy to provide a doctor (At Bjarn’s expense, mind you) to give a proper diagnosis. The doctor Irvad brought it gave Bjarn a clear bill of health, declaring it simply related to seasonal sinuses. After all, some Nordenfiir has such pronounced issues on account of their keen sense of smell – And, if you consider it, Withereach is a bit south for Nordens.

The Spring came and went and Bjarn continued to cough, worse and worse. Some other people did, as well, though they tried to conceal it. Unable to afford another visit with Irvad’s doctor, Bjarn elected to sneak a trip to see the Bear Shaman Halamarth – a man who rarely saw visitors anymore, as the people were too busy working to attend ceremony. It took Shaman Halamarth not long at all to see what had happened – due to continuous exposure to the dust of the mines under the unsafe conditions that came from the workers being forced to shoulder safety expenses, Bjarn’s lungs were scarred and caked over in rock dust. There was no way he was ever going to get better.

Bjarn and Halamarth rallied the people of Withereach, determined to bring it to the Jorn’s attention. They were able to assemble a small, but reliable posse as they marched on the gates of Irvad’s estate. By now, the credibility of Irvad’s healer was under scrutiny, and an explanation was demanded. Jorn Irvad refused to meet the allegations, or answer any questions, simply choosing instead to send down his mercenary fighters to protect his assets. He was heard by the townspeople who had gathered for the scene to have shouted to his men, “Do what you have to – Just don’t let beyond the gate.” The workers had queued up at his estate only for explanation, not a fight. They were armed with nothing except their fists, their bodies unarmored. And yet, for whatever reason, though no call to shoot was ever heard, the mercenaries opened fire upon the posse with their crossbows. They reloaded and did it again. Perhaps people would have fought if they had understood what was going on, but…nobody really did.

In the end, Shaman Halamarth was the only one left alive.

In the morning, Jorn Irvad would gather the people of Withereach. His healer would proclaim that he had determined the root of the cough which inflicted everyone was none other than witchcraft performed by an embittered shaman who had lost his place in the community. Halamarth was angry that nobody saw value in the old ways which gave the shaman so much authority and power and so conspired with the witches to bring everyone back into his dependency and discredit the Jorn. Halamarth was offered no final statements and was burned alive for his treason. This explanation did not line up in the hearts and heads of the community, but then again, it was logically sound, and it was easier to do nothing than something.


Later that evening, Bjarn and the others were laid upon their ceremonial barges, set off into Haymar’s Folly, and torched as per traditional Nordenfiir funerary rites.

With heavy hearts, the miners would return to work the following morning to attempt to resume their normal lives. However, one final upset appeared in the form of a banner with Norden scrawl, hanging at the mouth to the cave. It read:

“These stupid fucks will buy anything.”


Fall of Irvad

Following the coup in Nordengaard, dissent spread rampant in Tundra of the Bear Wight, and Withereach was a particularly violent participant. The colony itself through a party as Vand, Doggrave, Signe the Bog Witch, and some of the more disgruntled miners sieged Irvad’s compound, arrested Irvad, and hunted, tortured, and killed all who supported or benefitted from the slaver’s rule. The nobility hunting, the orgies, and the feasts went on into the early hours of the next day with Irvad the Only shackled low to be used as a public toilet.


The next morning, as Vand attempted to broker an arrangement with passing traders, Irvad made his play – foolishly – and was crushed under Doggrave’s story-boulder.



Withereach, as it exists now, is without a Jorn. While it maintains that Vand is the Jorn should the Nordencrown come snooping about (so as to threaten the new King with notions of possible insurgency), the only thing possessing some semblance of governmental authority is the Worker’s Union, which delegates the mine shifts to which nearly everyone participates. Its economy and governmental structure is a burgeoning Socialism, and the town is small enough so that this, so far, seems viable.


While coin is usually only worth the material its made out of to all Nordenfiir, this is particularly pronounced with the people of Withereach. Having just escaped from the trappings of their materialism, it’s regarded as almost a swindle should someone try to pay for something substantial with little flecks of metal. That said, usually a meal or a drink is fine, for, as previously stated, the coin IS worth the metal it’s made out of.


The years under Irvad has begot a “Lost Generation,” where a majority of the children (though there weren’t many) between the ages of 20 and 35 lack connection to their Svalen and many of their culture’s spiritual tenants. This has resulted in their inability to access their Bear Form, and thus, magic in general. It is also worth noting that anyone 16 or older that was not a craftsman of some kind (with very rare exception) likely now suffers from a miner’s cough due to the time in the mines and its resulting scarring of lung tissue. Those who do not and are not recognized by their craft are seen as outsiders, deserters, and dead-weight.


While Witchcraft is highly taboo in Nordengaard proper, Withereach has begun to budge a little bit in its distaste for the practice. This is largely due to their proximity to the Bog Witches (who have mostly been quiet, decent neighbors over the decades), as well as “Jorn” Vand’s tramping about with them, walking with them about town, and such.


Following what occurred at Haymar’s Folly, the Nordenfiir of Withereach began building “Dreadguard totems” to repel the unquiet dead, usually of the aristocracy, that did not suffer the humiliation of their defeat well and sought to enact revenge on Withereach. These totems are made from the bone of big, scary monsters of the Tundra. The premise, essentially, is that nothing really loses its nature in death, and thusly, the predators in life are the predators in the beyond. It is an old practice and is performed largely as superstition nowadays. That said, they WORK, causing the undead to flee in fear. If they persist, the totem actually comes (un)alive and chews up the cadaver.

That said, the officers of the Haymar’s Folly defeat were destroyed within the first year. The dead that reside at the bottom now were that of soldiers and peasants, who, when given a second chance at something resembling life, usually opt to go home. They were used poorly for the schemes of weak, arrogant men in Life, and they have no intention in wasting their second chance.

There are obsidian deposits in the mines. This is kept a secret. Some of the craftsman use obsidian-edged tools. They hide these from weirdos.

Following the ousting of Irvad the Only, there was a purge of all the nobility that benefitted directly from his schemes, as well as the sell-swords and mercenaries that enforced them. Mercenaries who were active during the time of his reign, or have arrived since then, are simply unwelcome. Those who make their living through the exchange of coin are similarly held in disdain.

In the Winter, the bay freezes entirely. You can walk on it. You can walk on it all the way out to the next continent.

The people of Withereach are inhospitable to outsiders, threateningly so if that outsider is not a Nordenfiir. If one is an outlander, one needs a Withereach sponsor. There are no Inns. If you are not from Withereach, you are sleeping around the central fire (unless someone wants to give you a bed for the night).

As Withereach is to the farthest South, their people tend to be a bit more scantily clad. Often missing whole sections of their armor, it really isn't unheard of to find a warrior who is completely naked. The trope for "Chicks in Chainmail bikinis" really is not spat on so much in the colony, as women will sometimes elect to go topless. The ones who go with the bikinis just need the support.

Eogorath, or “Yograth” locally, is not understood to be the wise, honorable, protector god he is up North. Down in Withereach, his name is sorta slurred into “Yograth,” and his nature is one of dispassionate indifference. Yograth grants no miracles nor answers no prayers. However, he does reward those who help themselves. That is to say that, by doing your own work, you practice doing it, inevitably you get better, then you don’t need any help. By never needing anything, as you’re capable of achieving it yourself, you are now free. Yograth’s Gift to his followers is never needing a god in the first place.

Withereach is understood to be the “Dirty South” of Nordengaard. The people are uncouth, dirty, and dishonorable, often spoken of negatively by the people of Nordengaard proper. There are rumblings of their recent revolt, but it’s yet to grow beyond rumor.


Otherwise, not a lot is known. It’s a town in the sticks run by a bunch of hicks. There is no reason to come here.

*He Is No King of Mine
~*Misery is the River of the World*
~~*Leave all but the memories behind
*Bitter