The Mammoth Lords
At its most granular level, the Mammoth Lords are comprised of Kellid tribes as small as a few families in number. These tribes form larger groups called followings, which themselves can include hundreds of tribes. A following is when two or more tribes join together to follow a particularly powerful warrior or leader, known as a herder, who has proven themselves through acts of great courage, strength, or guile, and is backed by a following's most prominent family.
When a herder dies, often while attempting another epic feat to impress their followers, each tribe of their following either elects to either follow a new hero who must have achieved similarly spectacular feats, split into their original family tribes, or try to join another following.
The Kellid followings and tribes scattered across the land are almost all nomadic, and the Realm has no capital or even cultural gathering place. Its people spend the year following the herds of great beasts across the land and only make their way to the cities when they must. Its towns mostly exist to serve foreign travelers. The Kellids believe that they are the chosen people of the land, a belief that is strengthened by their zoic fetishes.
Foreign Relations
Relationships with giants
The Kellids of this region have a somewhat contradictory relationship with giants. They war against giant tribes almost constantly, but are known to take in captured giant children and raise them as their own. Having a giant in one's tribe is a sign of power among the Mammoth Lords followings, and the children are raised as honored members. Some mystics regard these giants with near religious fervor, and in time many giants learn to identify with the tribe and fight to protect them.Foreign travelers
Despite its remote location and inhospitable climate for much of the year, the realm receives frequent visitors from other lands. The orcs make frequent raids from the Hold of Belkzen to the south in order to capture megafauna to use in their war machines. The servants of the Irrisen winter witches are constantly raiding from the west, hoping to expand their realms, and the demons to the east attack and withdraw according to their own chaotic logic. Most of the land's visitors come, counter-intuitively, from the north, and it is here where most of the settlements are located. The trade route from Tian Xia known as the Path of Aganhei begins at the town of Icestair, and from there travels over the Crown of the World to the distant Successor States. Visitors are reminded that a Mammoth Lord's word is both bond and law, and that all tribal members are suspicious of any magic that is not part of their own shamanistic tradition.Fauna
The most famous inhabitants of the land are its megafauna, including mammoths, mastodons, aurochs, bison, armored glyptodons and giant sloths. They are hunted by the land's powerful native predators including cave lions and smilodons. Tales of these enormous creatures fill the taprooms and taverns of the south and attract many a bold explorer or daring merchant to the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. These beasts fetch a huge price in the markets of the south if they can be captured alive. Many never make it that far, as most such expeditions have to return through the Hold of Belkzen, a dangerous proposition itself which is made worse by the orc's covetous love of these hugely powerful beasts. The Kellid tribespeople of the Realm move with ease among the megafauna, taking them only when they need meat, fur, or beasts of burden.Laws
The northlands can be deadly, and many would-be warriors have fallen prey to the dangers of the land before ever facing a foe in combat. Those
who do battle in these harsh lands and survive are well-versed in the following unspoken rules.
Always fight with the sun at your side. If the sun is at your back, its reflection on the snow and ice can be as blinding as the sun itself.
Be careful where you sound the horns of war, lest your own army be defeated by an avalanche.
In a harsh northern winter, warm mittens and good boots will serve you better than a masterwork sword. A warrior with
numb hands cannot wield a sword, and one with frostbitten feet can neither stand and fight nor run and hide.
The carcass of a slain beast is both food and shelter in the harshest winter.
Taking an Ulfen hostage in battle can be profitable, while killing one is costly. Do not slay an Ulfen, particularly a rich one,
unless you are prepared to pay weregild for his corpse.
A sword forged from cold iron might be twice as expensive as one of steel, but surviving a battle against a linnorm or
the wild fey of the North will more than pay for its cost.
Never leave an enemy to die alone in the cold. Warriors should die with hot blood on their hands, not with ice in their veins.
The man who passes the sentence should swing the axe.
Type
Geopolitical, Nomadic tribe
Government System
Tribalism
Power Structure
Provisional government
Economic System
Traditional
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Controlled Territories
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