Ancestries of the Frozen Steppes
Eyr's Frigid North
The northern steppes, taigas and boreal forests of Svyr and Eyr are a harsh terrain. Resources are less accessible despite a great wealth of it under the permafrost and granite. The seas are frozen for much of the year, only opening in the brief heat of summer. The cold and drear broadly breeds two types of cultures here- clannish isolationists and the commune-oriented. Universally, the frigid north forces its people to form a thick callous, a survivalist mentality and a stalwart grit.
The Frigid North of Eyr is not thoroughly peopled. It is a sparsely-populated and rural land with only pockets of civilization, usually around vital resources. It is days between even the most rudimentary of settlements. This realm feels like one of untamed wilderness, dangerous and dark between the torchlight of habitation. The land has formed cultures that use religion and superstition to bulwark against their fear.
Northern Humans
Humans exist in the North, but they form only a sizeable minority. To say they have tamed the North is laughable. The North forces their submission with wild animals and harsh weather. Humans very much live at the whims of the North and thus they tend to be a hardy but also austere people.
Krasznya
A dour and unsmiling people, the Krasznya call themselves such for their ancestry's tendency to have red hair (Krasz means "red"). The Krasznya have a penchant for authoritarian leadership and a preference for superstition and draconian interpretations of faith. The Krasznya have endured centuries of hardship, from nature, from invasion, and from each other. The Krasznya say that everything is their enemy- even themselves.
As a people, the Krasznya view life as a thing to be endured. The joy of life is getting up and smirking at a foe to show them you are still standing. The Krasznya also have a particular love for revenge. They have a ruthless pragmatism, self-reliance and collective ennui. When one can't trust your lawmakers and princes, you can't trust your neighbors, you can't trust nature and you can't trust even your family, one might be forged as a person who is shrewd with their words and cautious with their actions.
Svyrlunder
The communally-minded Svyrlunders are a seafaring and mercantile people. Though they have their Ealdors and Jarls who are the ancestral landowners, their culture is centered on the power of the guilds and merchant houses.
Northern Cousinfolk
The Nearfolk- other Mortal beings native to Arhun- exist to round out the majority of denizens in the Frozen North. Each deal with the Humanfolk and each other differently. The first to have claimed this unforgiving realm were probably the Orcs- the "Kazarn Horde." Next came the Humans, first from the south and then from the islands of Svyr. And with the Humans were as always their stalwart but diminutive allies, the Smallfolk.
Vault Dwarves
The Vault Dwarves appeared in these parts only a century ago. They claim they are returning to their ancestral birthright and retaking these mountains for Dwarfkind. But they are being very tight-lipped about where they came from (but that is nothing new). These Dwarves feel they owe no one answers or explanations- fairly typical of Dwarves worldwide. While they are cautiously open to trade with Humans and Smallfolk, any suggestion that they are usurping the mountains or invading territory is met with an aggressive (though not usually violent) response.
Kazarn Orcs
The Orcs of the migratory Kazarn hordes have earned the begrudging respect of the Humans and Dwarves of northern Eyr. The relationship has been fraught with peril and a lot of blood has been spilled on all sides. When the proto-Krasznya first came to these icy lands, the Kazarn killed and subjugated many of them. As numbers, birth rate and technology began to favor the Humans, they started hunting and clearing out the Kazarn villages and trading posts.
"Malenkya" Smallfolk
The Smallfolk of the North- affectionately called Malenkya by their Human cousins- are of the Hearthwise branch of their kin. This part of the world doesn't have native Wanderwise.
Northern Wyldfolk
Though they may resemble Mortal Ancestries in action and appearance, the Wyldfolk come from the Wyldlands- either the Beastlands or the many pockets and halfways-between of the Fairewyld. Some have lived generations in the material plane, but remain distinctly "Fey" in origin. The Wyldfolk are quite rare, accounting for less than ten percent of the already sparse population.
Winterwise Gnomes
Snowstrider Elves
Kneazles
Covered in a thick, velvety mange of cement-colored fur, the Kneazles are the northern brand of Goblinoid. They are a nocturnal ancestry that prefer to live in caverns and abandoned mines. The strangest aspect of the Kneazle is they bring an ambient chill with them. Even on a warm summer day or near a hearth, a Kneazle's presence adds a stiff wintry chill.
Beast Wyldfolk
Boarfolk
Ravenfolk
Bearfolk
The Bearfolk of northern Eyr are exceptionally isolationist and very rare. Bearfolk are solitary: they care neither for outsiders or truthfully their own kind much of the time. There may be as few as a hundred Bearfolk on all the ice fields of the Eyrish north and they only form a community in the summer months to trade and find mates.
Northern Undead
Vampires
Upyri
The self-styled "noble undead" of these frozen lands are similar to the Strikja of the Tzimyska-sphere. Similar to those undead, the Upyri are masters of their form, the weather and the minds of animals. The Upyri do not skulk through the urban citycityscapes. They dominate an area of someisolated partsrural terrain like the tyrants of Eyr. old.