Kentogorod Town

**Kentgorod** is a fishing town dedicated to hunt whales and other massive sea beasts to sell their meat, fats and skin. Trade with Kentgorod is rare, though, as the sea is filled with floating icebergs, sea monsters and dense fogs, near impassable for most outsiders. Most of the trade is made following the coastline, connecting with the Kingdom of Gold.

## The Lost Town in the North

The town of Kentgorod is a place as frozen in time as the great glaciers that surround it. Seemingly immune to the march of the seasons, Kentgorod is one of the oldest inhabited places in all Zemyland. And further from it being a nation that has grown in power and prestige over the millennia, Kentgorod stays as modest and inward as it has always been. We do not know when was that strip of land inhabited for the first time or why, and not even the strange ruins around the town shed any light about this matter, but it does not bother the locals. It is said that many people who want to leave their lives behind and never go back march towards Kentgorod. The two known routes to reach the town are through the near suicidal ways of the inner zemylander continent, crossing the Corteau Canyon and the White Frost Tundra to the valleys between the White Mountains and the Perpetual Frost Peaks, or the certainly suicidal route through the sea. Both routes are well known by the both the snow elves and hyperboreans, who have had extensive dealings with the kentgorodians in the past, but as they will always tell you, the people of Kentgorod prefer to be left alone.

Many historians that have travelled to the arctic town have marveled at the age of some of its ruined buildings, citing that many of those ruins may be thousands of years old. The locals, however, shrug about hearing those facts, seemingly only interested in the present, never the past or the future. Indeed, for as much as some of the ruins of the port town may fascinate the outsiders, the inhabitants of Kentgorod live in pretty much the same houses their forbearers build in times immemorial, repaired over and over again.

The one element that brings pride to the kentgorodians are the piles and piles of bones left at the edges of the city. Indeed, thousands of giant skeletons lay in mountains near the feet of the glaciers, left there after the kentgorodian whalers have ripped from their carcasses all meat, skin and oils they can use. The range of species that can be found in these bone piles has attracted many experts and bone collectors, usually with the intent of buying some of the rarer remnants for collections and museums elsewhere in the world. However, only rarely they will sell their prizes to strangers, and will always reject the outsiders’ money.

## The People of Kentogorod

Although historians are generally in agreement with the fact that Kentogorod was first founded as a fishing port by humans, nowadays it is open to many people of various ethnic groups and races from all around Zemyland, or beyond. Hyperboreans, Zemylanders, Snow Elves, Dwarves and even Trolls can be found in Kentogorod, each with their own unique story that they chose to leave behind, preferring to seclude themselves in this frozen corner of the world.

The leader of Kentogorod fashions the title of "Lord Captain" and serves for life. He is voted into power by all the captains of the most important vessels of Kentogorod. The Lord Captain is mostly responsible for the maintenance of the town, as well as providing its citizens with the necessary supplies before winter arrives. Apart from that, the people of Kentogorod are relatively autonomous, and most fleets and their crews are able to do as they wish when outside the town.

## The Monster Hunters

Kentgorod is at the furthest point north in Zemyland, surrounded by great glaciers hundreds of meters tall. Harsh winters are a constant, with liquid water being a commodity. The sunlight brings no heat, and the night brings only powerful winds and freezing storms. There is no vegetation there, and the few lichen and fungi that can be obtained are grown in underground tunnels. Thus, the only source of nourishment that can be found is the sea. As such, the kentgorodians have dedicated all their efforts to master all the ways of seafaring. However, the northernmost parts of the Sea of Wraiths is filled to the brim with some of the most horrible monsters in all of the world’s seas. Monstrous creatures with unimaginable shapes and sizes thrive in the area, eating other terrifying creatures and making even the biggest ship that dares sailing there nothing more but a quick grub. The people of Kentgorod have spent millennia hunting those monsters, and thriving against all odds. The hardened kentgorodians sail in great ships made out of carefully chosen bones, both light and resistant, submersed in oils to make it float better. The sails and ropes are made out of leathers and fish scales. All this makes kentgorodian ships unique in all Giantstep. Usually a sighting of a kentgorodian monster hunter ship is considered, by sailors from all the world, as a bad omen, since that means a sea monster is nearby.

## The White Whale

The kentgorodians have many legends about the White Whale. This particular entity is said to eat apex monsters, and only emerge to breath once every century. Kentgorodians used to launch massive expeditions to hunt down this king of the sea, but none have returned victorious. The luckier ones got back to port bruised and with the ships barely holding on. The unluckier ones never came back. After so many failed attempts, the population began worshiping the White Whale as a great deity, the Spirit of the Sea itself. Ivory sculpts of the being decorate the insides of every kentgorodian home, and paintings of the White Whale are added to every ship in cinder and soot. That doesn’t mean the kentgorodians won’t try to hunt the creature, however. Now more than ever, the kentgorodians search all corners of the Sea of Wraiths for a clue of where the White Whale will appear next: krakens bitten in half, sea snakes with their tales chopped off… any remnants of floating meat left alone by the denizens of the sea means that the creature that did it command the instinctual respect and fear of them all. And only one being can do that. The very few times they locate the White Whale, all young are made to participate in the hunts, as a rare opportunity to show their courage. Even if an entire generation doesn’t come back, the kentgorodians believe this hunts will bring distinction and good look in future hunts.

## The Underground Tunnels

Hunting is the lifeblood of Kentgorod. However, even the kentgorodians can suffer from periods of bad hunts, when their expeditions either find nothing or they end up with their prey escaping. In these situations, there is a serious risk of starvation, since the frozen lands of northern Zemyland are either covered in impassable glaciers or sterilized by the permafrost. There is no agriculture possible, and so the kentgorodians depend on the sea for nourishment. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t have alternatives or backups. Over the centuries, the kentgorodians have dug a deep and complex series of tunnels. The tunnels are some of the few sources of true heat in Kentgorod, protected from the blizzards and the cold winds from outside. In these tunnels, the kentgorodians hoard tons and tons of treated meat, just in case there are long periods of poor hunts.

This pantries hold meats from hundreds of different species, some of which have not been seen in centuries. The rooms are made as dry as possible, with little to no light and as sealed as they can from the outside. This not only helps to preserve the meat, but also to keep it away from the predators. For there are creatures living in the underground. Most kentgorodians believe the small, rat-like creatures that stalk the passages used to be parasites of sea monsters, that somehow evolved to live outside of their host and sneak in the meat rooms. They have a great variety of forms, all of them designed to hide and sneak away from the vigilant kentgorodians, to then break through the protected walls to the great prizes inside. Despite their seemingly inoffensive nature, their persistent nature and the high rate of breeding once they get their paws on meat makes them a very serious threat to the livelihood of Kentgorod.