Myrkheim
The harsh, unforgiving land once considered the cradle of Giantkind, now a monument to their obsolescence
Our nature will be the death of us, Geirolf. The rodent-things south of the mountains - the little-folk - already surpass us more and more with each passing year. We stand on the brink of extinction, pushed back and herded to these northern lands like livestock, and still we bicker like indolent, hibernating bears. Perhaps the ancestors were right - we deserve our fate, after all. We should have cast off the yoke of Dai-Yukai rule long ago, when we had the drive and the strength. Now, we've grown old and indolent - too stubborn, too long-lived, and too comfortable to cast off their shackles even though we know that their methods will only lead us to extinction. I had thought the Sunbreakers fools, to speak so openly against them so long ago...ancestors, I even helped destroy them. Now I fear they may have been right. ...Did you know they think us animals, Geirolf? The little-folk call us 'a degenerate subspecies'. They teach their children of our follies. Make amusing stories of our hubris. Tell tale of us as animals too long-lived to adapt or change. I am no longer certain I can refute them.
Geography
As one of the northernmost locations in all of Zheng-Kitar just barely south of the great northern ice caps, the land of Myrkheim's geography is expectedly frosty - however, unlike the Shenchuan Tundra which stands as a similar northern locale, the isle of Myrkheim is rather famous for its mountainous, hilly geography thanks in large part to the truly monstrous Nidavellir Mountains that run across the isle from west to east. These mountains, which cleanly divide the large isle into a distinct northern and southern expanse, are surrounded by rolling foothills and massive changes in elevation that surround countless mountain streams that cascade down from the tops of the mountains down into the snowy landscape far below - and are one of the primary reasons that truly flat and level land is such a rarity in its mountainous geography.
Rather notably, the southern reaches of the isle tend to more strictly 'inhabitable' - a greater frequency of Geothermal Hot Springs and larger bodies of standing freshwater standing solely within these southern reaches where the climate is more "Wooded Tundra" than true Frozen Desert - especially when compared to the lands north of the Nidavellir Mountains, which see an altogether colder and more inhospitable climate. All corners of the isle are known to be especially wooded, though the forests of the southern reaches tend to be more numerous but altogether more "mundane" - while those of the more frigid northern reaches tend to be altogether more enormous and otherworldly, boasting much higher populations of Dire White Oak than the southern reaches of the isle, especially within the reaches of The Aevinwode which is known to be the single largest remaining contiguous population of Dire White Oak trees in the entire material plane.
Altogether, though the southern reaches of the isle tend to be slightly more inhabitable and thus more of a natural hotbed for civilizations of all kinds throughout the eons, the northern reaches of Myrkheim are quite notorious for their wondrous and fantastical ruins of ancient empires and crumbling civilizations long abandoned - all preserved in the frigid ice and the freezing cold for untold thousands of years. A great many of these ruins, as well, as known to be of ancient True Giant empires and civilizations from times long past - likely the only ones of their kind that remain in all of Zheng-Kitar.
Finally, the geography of the Nidavellir Mountains themselves is something of an anomaly - standing as the tallest mountain peaks in all the known world, the heights of the mountains in the Nidavellir Range are so ludicrously gigantic that even the ancient tales of the True Giant tribes that have lived on the isle since the distant days of antiquity speak of them as insurmountable obstacles and towering peaks that put even the likes of the Tripalm Spine Mountains to utter shame. Due to their extreme height, the mountains make for an utterly near-insurmountable barrier between the isle's north and south expanses, such that even the Giants themselves are known to not cross the range lightly - making them the largest continuous natural geographic barrier in all of Zheng-Kitar.
Ecosystem
All told, the ecosystem of the isle of Myrkheim is famously unforgiving - as a land that has long been the homeland of Giants and inhabited solely by them in any notable capacity for thousands of years, the lands of Myrkheim are enormous, dangerous, and ruthless. Here, the unfathomably gigantic peaks of The Nidavellir Mountains act as a natural windbreak against the freezing wind of the planet's northern ice-caps, warming them ever-so-slightly as the air passes over and through the mountains down into the isle's southern reaches, where the slightly warmed air washes over the hilly terrain and occasionally deposits frigid rain into the Wooded Tundra where the Jugeum Union calls its home.
However, what this means is that the northern reaches of the isle are given no quarter against the frigid polar cells that flow down from the planet of Ea's frigid north pole just a few day's scant journey across the sea to the north - blasted with uninterrupted frost and bone-numbingly cold winds, the northern reaches of the Isle of Myrkheim are the domain of monsters and Giants only; a place where the likes of Humans and other weaker races simply cannot thrive. Here in the north, all environmental factors are cranked up to their maximal values - weather is more intense and lasts for longer than anywhere else on Zheng-Kitar, temperatures are so cold as to snap-freeze flesh in a matter of hours without proper protections, and biting winds scour the lands down to an even rolling drift that stands as somewhat flatter than the lands of Southern Myrkheim.
Regardless of what side of the mountains one finds themselves, a harsh and unforgiving ecosystem is the order of the day - resources are scarce across the isle so all beings both animalistic and sentient alike compete viciously for territory and the resources contained therein.
Ecosystem Cycles
Unlike even the likes of the Shenchuan Tundra, the isle of Myrkheim is not lucky enough to have anything resemble a "Warm Season" or "Summer Months" - not even the handful of weeks out of the year where life warms as is common for the tundra. Instead, the isle is constantly torn apart and flooded with unfiltered, frigid polar winds that tear across the planet traveling south from the northern ice caps which washes over the northern reaches of the isle with enough snowfall and blistering winds to bury entire villages beneath snow and ice in a matter of days.
The south fares only marginally better - here, civilization is possible only thanks to the truly titanic shadow cast by The Nidavellir Mountains that split the isle in half; the biting polar winds hit the mountain's northern face like a freezing hammer, hard enough to literally smooth the mountain's northern faces into a smooth, almost polished exterior as much of the cold air, unable to fully rise and cross the mountain's peaks, washesdown and back north and further blankets the isle's northern reaches in frost and snow as what little warm air exists rises above the mountains and cascades down the opposite side, bringing occasional mountain rains and clearwater springs in its wake.
The ways the isle's denizens interact with this change depend on which side of the isle they call home - those who dwell in the lands of the Jugeum Union on its southern reaches tend to live more stable, village-based lives in the shadow of the Nidavellir Mountains, relying on fishing and hunting the various beasts that cross the mountains to reach the warmer southern reaches as well as a handful of viable farmlands for sustenance while the monstrous residents of the north carve out nomadic lives across the frigid plains, traveling with the roaming polar cells to where the wind is weakest while the strongest among them construct shelters out of ice to brave out the worst of the storms. The isle's beasts, by and large, follow a migratory pattern that sees them migrate back and forth across the Nidavellir Mountains(A feat the Isle's sentient denizens still do not fully understand) with the blowing of the polar cells, often escaping south during the worst of the northern storms only to travel back north once the worst of the storms pass.
Localized Phenomena
In the southern reaches of the isle of Myrkheim, the worst such denizens usually have to worry about are those typical for a frigid climate - snowstorms, blizzards, windstorms, and the like broken up occasionally by the weakened superstorm or tornado that manages to cross the towering natural bulwark of the Nidavellir Mountains; few of which even manage to reach far beyond the mountain range itself or go very far into the Isle's southern reaches.
In the north, however, things are far worse - the north side of The Nidavellir Mountains in particular is the nexus point of a phenomena known to the ancient Jotun and other Giants that dwell in the northern lands as The Shearing, where the winds that travel north from the northern ice caps slam into the mountain's southern reaches with such spectacular force that, as the air is shot high into the air attempting to cross the mountain only to fail and cascade back to earth, the warm air continues to rise while the frigid air, unable to follow, cascades back to the northern side of the mountain face with such force that massive supercells and tornados tear across the northern slopes almost constantly. These winds, powerful enough to shear rock and smooth stone, are dangerous even by the standards of the Giants - and are a primary deterrant for any who wish to cross the mountains in either direction.
Beyond these terrible winds that wrack the northern face of the mountains, the northern reaches of Myrkheim are particularly wracked with storms of all kinds - particularly supercells, thunderstorms, and tornados that tend to spawn from what is believed to be unnaturally warm currents that flow within the northern bay and around the northern coasts of the isle that mix in a most unpleasant fashion with the frigid polar winds that pass down from the north. These superstorms, often interspersed with blizzards, hailstorms, and all manner of cold-weather phenomena, make the northern reaches of Myrkheim particularly and uniquely inhospitable.
When one adds these together with the occasional supernatural weather phenomena such as Uttercold blizzards and Razor-Hailstorms, and it is little wonder why only the Giants have been able to colonize the isle fully.
Climate
In a word, the Isle of Myrkheim's climate is best described as frigid - but in an altogether more violent way than the likes of the Shenchuan Tundra, whose vast plains and flat expanses make for less violent winds and lower wind chills. Myrkhim, by contrast, is best described by its denizens as having "a heart of ice and a screaming soul". Plagued by heavy winds along its northern and southern reaches which carry bone-chilling temperatures, snow, and ice, Myrkheim's natural chill and high winds are only intensified by the isle's mountains, hilly terrain and deep canyons - each of which only tend to intensify the whipping wind and biting cold to levels that make comprehensive cold protection of any kind nearly irrelevant; the only true protection against the isle's cold is shelter, and its high winds make it almost a neccessity to travel in groups to ensure non-giants are not blown away in the isle's frigid windstorms.
To make things even worse, Myrkheim is plagued by some of the worst thunderstorms, supercells, and tornados that Zheng-Kitar has ever seen - particularly in the northern reaches, where these horrific weather events combined with the isle's already inhospitable climate mean that life there is virtually impossible.
A side effect of Myrkheim's climate has long been its coastlines, which have long proven completely impassible in places thanks to high winds and large ice flows - especially in the north, which boasts an almost impregnable coastline outside of very specific harbors in the unnaturally warm waters of the bay that reaches inland there. For this reason, the southern reaches of Myrkheim have long been lauded even in the days of tribal antiquity as the cradle of civilization - a place where sailors can actually hope to escape out to the open ocean(Albeit on specific timetables and with careful and precise paths) and not get torn to shreds by the wind or frozen solid in an icestorm.
Fauna & Flora
Despite the isle's natural dangers and its deadly climate, the isle of Myrkheim has some of the most diverse flora and fauna in the world - especially in its northern reaches in and around The Aeveinwode, where large natural forests of the legendary Dire White Oak Trees are found. However, just as is common in the Shenchuan Tundra, all flora and fauna here are considered dangerous in equal measure as they have almost universally evolved to viciously and violently compete in a struggle for survival.
Rather notably, there is a large and somewhat unnatural variety of Flora specifically across the isle's northern and southern reaches - most notably the hardy crop known to the natives as Thrytla(Loosely meaning "Giant Grass") - which are mostly believed to have been engineered and spread across the isle purposefully eons ago by the ancient Giants who once ruled the entire Isle. These flora, ranging from the useful wheat-like Thrytla to especially hardy varieties of fruit and vegetables and even especially hardy varieties of flower found beneath the snow and ice, give the land a natural beauty that many do not initially expect at first glance.
Natural Resources
Despite its harsh climate and ruthless fauna, the isle of Myrkheim has a great wealth of natural reasources - most notably, the only surviving populations of the legendary Jugeum Dire White Oak Trees that can be found in the world. However, even putting that aside Myrkheim is a wondrous place full of all manner of resources ranging from the unique fruits and crops grown by the natives(Each engineered for survival in a cold climate) to the notoriously resource-rich Nidavellir Mountains, which is believed to hold such a vast bounty of mineral wealth and other as-of-yet undiscovered natural resources that were it to finally be cracked open it could fund an entire empire for decades. However, cracking the Nidavellir Mountains is not so easy a task, as the Mountain Range itself is formed of a poorly-studied rock that is so difficult to mine and break that even the Ezdhûl that have been contracted to mine out its depths report extreme difficulty doing so.
History
The history of Myrkheim stretches back into the dim days of antiquity, before even the Advent of the Spirit Kings - here, True Giants such as Jotun and Dai-Yukai as well as a host of other species of Giant have long called the island home, even thousands of years ago before the very first Human settlers sailed to Myrkheim's shores. Unfortunately, much of this period of the isle's history has been lost to all but the Giants themselves - but what is known is that the True Giants of the isle were already an old and established civilization even as The Yema descended upon Zheng-Kitar after the Defeat of the Sapphire Elves; and while they experienced some light persecution at the hands of The Yema, the True Giants were largely spared a genocide thanks to the tribal natures and simple, shamanistic lifestyles that saw them only tangentially pay homage The Spirit Kings, treating them as "foreign deities" in favor of folk deities that, ironically, have now been lost to time in the eons since as the first settlers from the mainland brought their religion and culture with them.
However, these giants were not immune to the chaos of those times, and it was during these times that the first settlers, driven away from their homes by the chaos of that era, fled from their homes in what is largely believed to now be sections of The Glacial Drift, Blackgrave Isles, and the lands of modern-day Seoghar - setting out on an impossible journey across the water and braving what was previously impassable ice storms, frozen inlets, and ship-rending thunderstorms and landing upon the southernmost shores of the isle unto a land that, until then, had been largely inaccessible. Believing they had found a promised land safe from The Yema that were slaughtering all they held dear, these settlers unfortunately found themselves quickly at the mercy of the True Giants who had forged a sprawling empire across the isle, and had existed there in relative isolation since the dawn of time - and these survivors, though they would eventually be spared butchery at the hands of The Yema, were quickly forced into slavery at the hands of their new Giant overlords that they would not escape from for a thousand years or more...though they would, ironically, slowly meld their own culture with that of the giants that had enslaved them over the coming centuries until eventually, the Giants would in time embrace the spirit kings whose denial had once saved their life, leaving their old folk deities and cultural traditions largely abandoned as the eons wore on.
It was not until the future First High Thane of the lands that would go on to become Jugeum, a man by the name of Orvar that had once been little more than another one of the thousands of slaves the Giants kept across the isle, led the enslaved smallfolk of the Isle's Southern Reaches into rebellion did the descendants of those settlers finally know freedom - beating the Giants back time and again over decades of warfare with his ragtag militias and his trusty hammer Nidavellir(For which the mountain range itself is now named), Orvar beat their former captors back across the mountain range, leaving his hammer embedded upon its highest peak to symbolize the end of war across the isle. In the eons since, the people he led to freedom have largely built the framework of the modern day Jugeum Union out of the lands freed by that ancient hero so long ago. Now, with a majority of the giants having pushed back across the mountains and into the isle's inhospitable north, the isle is cleanly divided between the giants who once called the isle their birthplace and the smallfolk who broke free of their shackles of slavery to carve their own path, as Giants are hunted with vicious abandon in the south by those who even now recall with indignity the eons of enslavement suffered by their ancestors.
Of course, not all giants are banned from the isle's southern reaches nor hunted with impunity - most famously many Jotun make their home within the Jugeum Union(Which only fuels rumors that ancient Jotun were responsible for aiding the Hero-King Orvar in breaking free of enslavement at the hands of the Giants), as well as a handful of other species of True Giants capable of accepting the rule of the Union and its "smallfolk".
Alternative Name(s)
The Isle of Myrkheim, Jotunheim
Type
Subcontinent
Owning Organization
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