Crown of the World
Frozen and forbidding, the Crown of the World stretches across Golarion’s arctic circle, containing its polar ice cap—called the High Ice—as well as an outer ring of bleak mountains, evergreen forests, and stormy seas. Its primary human residents are the Erutaki, whose hundreds of different tribes live in scattered fishing villages or follow mammoths and caribou across the ice, while Ulfen and Tian enclaves dot the taiga called the Outer Ring, forgoing the comforts of southern nations for the freedom of the wildlands. They are joined by scattered settlements of snowcaster elves, dwarves, and frost giants, as well as more predatory residents like wendigos, dragons, and remorhazes. Yet the majority of the Crown consists of icy desolation, trackless wastes occasionally interrupted by strange ruins. The most famous of these ruins is the Nameless Spires, an alien city of star-shaped buildings and 2,000-foot-tall towers positioned at the North Pole, believed by some scholars to date back to the planet’s formation. Despite the obvious danger it presents, the Crown of the World sees plenty of visitors due to the Path of Aganhei, the overland trade route connecting Avistan to Tian Xia. Every summer, caravans looking to avoid the dangerous and costly sea routes between the two continents race across the ice in a journey that can take several months.
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