Kaldheim

Kaldheim is a large, storm-wracked plane, notable for its hostile weather and unusual phenomena.

## **Harsh Weather**

Much of Kaldheim's extreme weather can be traced to its unique cosmological arrangement. The planet is tidally locked with its sun in a spin-orbit resonance, resulting in local days equivalent to nearly 180 standard Bralian days. During the Day Season, temperatures at the equator exceed the limits of survivability for almost all creatures, while the polar regions are nigh on tropical. The Night Season brings the opposite, with the equator seeing snow and the polar areas freezing solid. These wildly varying temperatures create savage storms that tear across the planet on a regular basis, making permanent habitation impossible. Kaldheim’s population is thus heavily migratory: some clans migrate from the polar to the equatorial regions, while other clans make do with mobile caravans constantly circumnavigating the planet in order to stay in the twilight regions. Likewise, much of Kaldheim's fauna is migratory, as well as a good deal of its flora (to the consternation of visitors: many off-worlders have re-boarded their spelljammers and left the planet at the first sign of crawling grass or leaping bushes).

## **Migratory Clans**

The population of Kaldheim is fractured into numerous clans, each of which has their own methods for enduring the harsh weather. These methods mostly keep clans out of each others way, with the exception of the Vaeng, who frequently prey upon Uppnidr clans taking refuge in the polar regions, and the Seidirkona, who have contact with all tribes.

##### Astaljos Clan

The Astlos Clan follows the light, ever circling the planet around the equatorial regions. Their caravans are swift, pulled by massive hulking mammoths. Theirs is a life lived in twilight and in the gentle snow of the oncoming Night Season. They are an optimistic and cheerful people, walking in lands still warm from the touch of the sun.

##### Ottaljos Clan

The Ottaljos are the counterparts to the Astlos, fleeing the oncoming dawn instead of chasing the sunset. They too, circle the equator, but since they are nearly always on the opposite side of the planet from their counterparts, have very little contact with them. Their philosophy tends towards fatalism and grim practicality, their face always towards the dark horizon.

##### Uppnidr Clans

The Uppnidr take a different approach to the Astaljos and Ottaljos, instead migrating latitudinally. During the height of Day Season, they live in the circumpolar regions, enjoying the tropical weather but always on guard for Vaeng raids. When the sun begins to sink, they migrate towards the equator, and weather Night Season at the equator, making their home beneath the still-warm earth as it slowly cools and enjoying community with their family members from the opposite hemisphere. They depart for the poles as the sun begins to rise. The Uppnidr are the most populous of the clans, and are numerous in number. Their lifestyle is also much more palatable to offworlders, offering a mere two migrations per year as opposed to the constant nomadic travels of the Astlos and Ottaljos.

##### Vaeng Clans

The Vaeng are raiders, operating from the poles. The sun rolls around the horizon for them, and following it leads them towards the Uppnidr who are arriving in the polar regions for Day Season. They have adapted to permanent life on the poles, a constant twilight experience punctuated only by their raids into the circumpolar regions.

##### Seidirkona Clan

The Seidirkona are keepers of the Laeradr, and the closest thing to an elite class on the planet. Their mastery over portals allows them to keep in contact with the other tribes, and it is through their efforts that any sort of political consensus on galactic affairs can be reached. They, too, appear to be nomadic, shifting between trees as the weather dictates. However, rumour holds that there is a secret location known only to the Seidirkona where they gather to live free of the constant shift between night and day. None, however, have gained enough trust with the Seidirkona to validate that theory.

## **Laeradr**

The Laeradr (sing. Laerad) are huge trees notable for both their extreme hardiness and their metaphysical properties. Laeradr are able to endure both blazing heat and freezing cold, and are some of the few species of flora that do not migrate. This, combined with a height that often reaches several hundreds of meters, makes them highly valuable as landmarks. In addition, each Laerad is linked to the others via strange, mist-like portals that appear within their branches. The trees are jealously guarded by the Seidirkona clan, who utilise the trees to avoid the extreme conditions of their world. Some theorise that the Laeradr are simply the budding branches of a single organism, whose roots traverse the core of the planet, but the Seidirkona refuse to allow investigation, considering the trees to be sacred expressions of the Goddess.

## The Goddess

Kaldheim's tidal lock produces huge temperature imbalances, and subsequently, ferocious storms. Nearly every clan is accustomed to the cry of "Storm!" and the sprint for shelter. All storms, however, pale in comparison to the Goddess, a titanic thundersnow hundreds of miles in size that circles the planet, and a physically manifested deity to the Seidirkona. To be caught in the Goddess is to come face-to-face with divinity in its raw form, and very few survive such an ordeal. Despite the destruction, the Goddess leaves behind a cleansed land, ready to regrow and reform, and it is only in her wake that new Laeradr are able to grow.