Lands of the Linnorm Kings
The Lands of the Linnorm Kings are the homelands of the Ulfen people and are kingdoms as wild and untameable as the people who live there. Nestled on the northwestern tip of Avistan, it is a realm of taiga and marshland that spends much of the year frozen beneath layers of snow, a place utterly inhospitable to all but the hardiest people.
History
The Linnorm Kings rule, in name at least, Avistan’s extreme northwest—a frigid, rugged land of rich taiga, treacherous marshes, and great boulder-strewn moraines left by departed glaciers. The coastline is bracing and cool, and it rains half the year and snows heavily during the rest. Further to the east, the land grows increasingly colder, up to the frozen borders of Irrisen, which seized the eastern reaches of this domain 1,400 years ago and shows no intention of returning them.
Life is hard for the natives of this realm. What land is not frozen marsh is heavily seasoned with stones and boulders, and starvation is often a grim specter in the depths of winter. As a result, many able-bodied adults engage in trade in the summer months, bringing from the south additional food, luxuries, and various oddities of the Inner Sea. Such travelers also pack their axes and small, circular shields, in case an opportunity to plunder presents itself. Every citizen is a viking at heart, and distant lands are less dangerous than this cold homeland.
It is not only the cold and the creatures of the wild that make this land so perilous. The wilderness between the steadings is also dominated by fey creatures and linnorms, for rifts between Golarion and the First World run through this land. Fey creatures are common here, along with gnomes, azatas, trolls, and nature spirits. There are enchanted animals that can both plead for their lives and utter dire curses against their attackers, and more deadly creatures as well. The most dangerous of these otherworldly creatures are the legendary linnorms, vast beasts said to be Golarion’s first dragons, and the beasts a warlord must slay if he is to become a Linnorm King.
The vast reach of land occupying the northwestern corner of Avistan has long been the home of the Linnorm Kings. No one is quite sure where the first Linnorm Kings came from—they were certainly in power long before the first explorers from the south ventured into the rugged northlands. The Linnorm Kings are not only masters of this harsh realm, but of the sea itself. As early as –473 ar, Linnorm King Ulvass led a fleet of barbarians west to discover Arcadia and establish Valenhall as an earthly paradise. Through the ages that followed, stories of exceptional Ulfen have emerged—but for most of Avistan, the legends and tales of Ulfen raiders on dragon- headed longboats are what haunt dreams and capture the imagination.
The single greatest defeat and shame to visit the Lands of the Linnorm Kings remains the Winter War of 3313. It took less than 30 days for the Queen of Witches, Baba Yaga, to carve away the eastern reaches of these lands and claim them as her own nation of Irrisen, a defeat that the Linnorm Kings still seethe over. Yet Irrisen’s borders are well defended, and as long as the Linnorm Kings remain divided, they have no hope of reclaiming their lost lands.
People
The days of easy pillage from the south are mostly over, as Ulfen raiders can no longer pass through the Arch of Aroden into the Inner Sea unaccosted. At the same time, the Ulfen are increasingly hired as sailors, marines, and bodyguards throughout Avistan, perhaps because they combine great seamanship, ruthlessness, and exotic looks.
Ulfen men and women set great store by personal appearance, valuing their flowing locks, tight braids, and well-kept furs of ermine, mink, and fox. They wear necklaces of amber, carved narwhal horn, and mammoth ivory, as well as finely worked bronze and silver in a braided style. They consider themselves the handsomest men and women in all Avistan, and the damnable thing about it, to other peoples, is that they are often right.
Ulfen hailing from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings are typically sailors and traders; those from the Irrisen lands ruled by Baba Yaga are more often riders than sailors, although they share cultural ties. The Ulfen traditionally keep thralls—slaves whose period of service ends in a set amount of time. Children born to thralls are always born free, and thralls can file a complaint against a harsh or unfair master (which shames the master, certainly, but also runs the risk of a master’s fury). Thralls have been either captured in battle or condemned to service by a thingmar, a court of justice of the Ulfen consisting of the victim’s peers, overseen by an elder jarl or chief. Even chiefs or jarls can be condemned as thralls if they have foresworn an oath, killed a child, or betrayed their fellow warriors.
Ulfen men are fond of competitions both athletic and alcoholic. Their athletic contests often occur at the approach of winter or the start of spring and include climbing ice walls, hurling timbers of various sizes, axe throwing, sled pulls, and races on foot and on snowshoes. Swimming is not a skill that Ulfens value, although sailing and rowing are. The drinking competitions happen during great feasts, when the Ulfen men boast of their ability to down kegs or even barrels of mead, ale, and cider. Outsiders tend to take away from this a view that Ulfen are boors and louts, which is not entirely true. Their boorish loutishness tends to be conf ined to special occasions such as feast days—Ulfen men who try this approach at other times find that Ulfen women mock them mercilessly. Few care to repeat the experience.
Ulfen women are often powerful druids and priestesses of Desna or Torag. The men are most often rangers and barbarians, and worship Erastil, Gorum, or Torag, although they have druids and priests of Desna among their numbers as well. As a group, the Ulfen are more adventurous than most—the wilderness of the Linnorm Kings and Irrisen is too thinly settled for anyone to live long who cannot prosper in the wild and find food and shelter when bad weather sets in. Yet most Ulfen are not heroes, but rather trappers, hunters, farmers, and fisherfolk, according to the season and their own family heritage.
In general, dueling and feuding are popular pastimes among the Ulfen, with great emphasis on personal honor and the value of a sworn oath. Insults are usually answered with axe and shield pushes, and while dueling is always considered purely a temporary argument, fought to the first blood and forgotten as soon as it is over, feuding is a more serious thing. In a feud among the Ulfen, entire families and clans can go to war over a conf lict as simple as the proper way to mend nets or the rights to a particular salmon spawning ground. Sheep and cattle raiding are also popular pastimes.
Finally, no discussion of the Ulfen would be complete without mention of the high incidence of lycanthropy among them. The curse of lycanthropy is not considered an especially dishonorable state among the Ulfen, but rather a mark of favor from nature spirits. During the full moon, those who suffer from it and cannot control their violent urges are required to stay in a longhouse or spirit house, which is barred with silver and stocked with enough food to satiate even the largest appetite.