Galinn Rune-Tongue

Master of the River Gjöll

Hvergelmir is the well from which all cold rivers flow. The river Gjöll originates from this spring, flowing through Ginnungagap and into the world of the living, separating it from the world of the dead. The river is said to be freezing cold and have knives flowing through it; these knives are in-fact shards of never-melting ice which carry within eiter, the substance of magic, spat by the snakes and dragons dwelling within Hverglemir. These shards, refined, yield precious gjölldust, an ingredient necessary for awakening runes.
The tumult of Ragnarok opened a rare handful of caverns to the famed river Gjöll. No fewer than three are overseen by the cruel Galinn Rune-Tongue, so named for the perverse hobby of the gjölldust-addled to cut symbols into their tongues in a bid to increase their power. His stronghold, Urdarbrunn, was built on ruins of Sigtuna on the shore of Mälar, Sweden, a bay of the Baltic Sea.
Galinn employed acquaintances to harvest from the river Gjöll; when exposure to the poison fumes turned them into mindless brutes, he instead enthralled the evil dead, the Helbuar, to pick from the river. The poison of the Gjöll likewise bleeds into the lands around Urdarbrunn, wilting the plants and driving away the animals. Galinn’s folk therefore rely on the sea. Yet – ice is ever encroaching on the far coasts, the chilling fingers of Niflheim drawn towards the river Gjöll.