Bastionate of Steamfall

The Bastionate of Steamfall lies within one of Moria’s strangest and harshest regions, where the searing heat of the world is inverted into an unyielding frozen wasteland. Here, towering glaciers, icebound plains, and snow-laden mountains define the horizon, yet shafts of sunlight still pierce the skies with punishing intensity. When they strike, lakes and drifts melt suddenly, only to refreeze within moments, birthing the nation’s iconic landscape of billowing steam pillars. These shifting geysers of vapor cloak valleys and mountain passes alike, giving Steamfall its name and shrouding it in an ever-present aura of mystery and dread. Those who chose the cold over Moria’s sweltering heat carved their homes here, embracing frost and peril as their refuge.
  Steamfall’s isolation, however, has not spared it from envy. As one of the few regions to offer respite from Moria’s blazing climate, the Bastionate has long been the target of foreign powers eager to seize its lands. In answer, its people have forged a fortress-nation, girded with towering walls, frozen moats, batteries of cannons, and generations of defenders hardened by the cold. Despite these defenses, the struggle is unending: bandit caravans prowl the frozen lakes, their vehicles specially engineered to slash across the ice, forcing Steamfall’s soldiers into constant skirmishes. Yet the Bastionate endures, its banner flying high against all who covet it, a citadel of frost and steam whose people embody unyielding defiance.