The Ice Clans

The Southern Nomads inhabit the steppe country that girds the end of the world. Beyond their territories lie blasted polar wastes: black rock, white snow, blue ice, and a sun that drives people mad. There are people who live there, and to their northern brethren they are holy people, closer to the sky and the stars than any other. They say that if you look into their eyes you can see, buried deep within, the gigantic wheeling of the constellations, the glittering arcs of cosmic bodies, the frozen void space that is the home of the sacred progenitors of cognition. The men and women of the Ice Clans are tall and rangy. They eat only meat and blubber, and they do not work metal, though some will carry knives and other steel and iron necessaries traded with their northern neighbours. They are stereotyped as direct, simple minded, and prone to casual violence. Their reputation with other nomads is something like that of the Mountaineers to the Baronials - simple, honest, pious, wrathful,…