Kallavesa
Overview
This is the ancestral home of the Kallavesi, a land of cold stagnant bogs. The land changes through the seasons, but always has a feeling of brooding stillness. In the warmer months it is a boggy marsh cut through with streams and fjords. In the winter the waterways freeze over and the whole land is covered with frost and snow. The marsh serves as the national graveyard and this is a place of ancient secrets and mysticism. The stories of the mystics say that in ancient times a flight of crows flew over the marshes scattering feathers into the waters below. Where each feather landed, a Kallavesi emerged from the marshes.
Thanes' halls are traditionally constructed entirely from wood here and those built in marshy areas are raised up on stilts. Many halls in Kallavesa are built around sacred places or places with a magical reputation.
Parts of Kallavesa, especially the West Marsh have a reputation for being haunted. Several vicious battlegrounds lie drowned beneath the boggy marshes, and not all the spirits of the dead warriors rest easily. The Jotun have raided across the narrow sea from Kallsea or from the territory that is now Mitwold, since time-out-of-mind, and in pre-Imperial centuries there were irregular border skirmishes with the Marchers. Orc and human dead alike lie in the deep pools of the western and southern marshes.
Recent History
The marshes of Kallavesa are the final resting place of the great heroes and heroines of Wintermark. Alone of all previous Emperors and Empresses, Empress Britta was interred in the marshes rather than resting at Necropolis. The Highborn have built a shrine and appointed a Guardian of Britta's Shrine, but the body itself (or as much of it as was recovered from the Thule) rests beneath the waters of Kallavesa.
Major Features
Rundhal
Once the capital of Kallevesa, in Ruhdahl where mystics sent dreams to the Steinr, and where the wise met to choose the monarch of Wintermark before the Empire. It is still a place of utmost importance to those who follow the Kallavesi traditions, and is where many of the oldest traditions are passed on. Scops come to the round hall to learn the stories and songs that tell their nation who they are and inspire heroes across all of Empire.
Masi
Home to the dead and those who guard them. Funerals are held here, the marshes the resting-places for the greatest dead of Wintermark, although occasionally fierce disputes arise between the Keepers of Masi and the Stewards of the Dead in Highguard’s Necropolis as to where great Winterfolk should lie. When the Feni break out of their woodlands to the south, it is the warriors of Masi who force them back.
Westerhal
Once the second settlement of Kallavesa, home to the small fleet of boats that tried to keep the coast safe from barbarian raiders. Now its importance has dwindled, in part due to the rise of Meade in the Marches, which has much better access to wood and stores.
Wittal
A place of learning, of study of herbs and plants for their medicinal and magical properties. Many Grimnir have spent a season or more studying here, as have healers from further afield, even a few from far Urizen. Some never return from foraging expeditions into the deep-woods.
The Sovevann
The weed-choked waters at the heart of Kallavesa, boundaries and waterways shifting and reform all the time, as small islands of floating reeds drift on unpredictable currents. Attempts to build permanent structures here are stymied by chaotic nature of the floating islands and the presence of several large colonies of marshwalkers who will not tolerate the disruption of their marshy territory.
The Tree of Swords
A lone elm tree in a glade hung with the swords of dead Wintermark warriors, maintained by the Kallavesi at Wittal. Weapons are hung there of warriors who died with their quests uncompleted. It’d said that if the tree ever flowers, the warriors will return.
Regions
Kallavesa Marsh
Keywords: Marsh
Rikkivesi
Rundhal Marsh
Keywords: Marsh
Skymark
Sovevann
Keywords: Marsh
West Marsh
Keywords: Marsh
Wittal Grove
Where the trees join the marshes, on the shores of the Westmere, stands the small port of Fisk. Before there was an Empire, Fisk was an armed camp watching the orcs of what is now Mitwold (and later, the Marchers who displaced them). After the formation of the Empire, the warriors largely left Fisk and the traders moved in. Today, Fisk is a small but prosperous port allowing adventurous ship owners to trade with Meade and the Marchers and even with foreigners across the sea as far as the Asavean Archipelago and the Sumaah Republic.
OOC Notes
- All the regions of Kallavesa are under Imperial control