Jotunheim

The realm is a braided continent of moving land. Along the Firemarch, magma seams and soot-forests of iron pillars shelter Surtur’s forges and barracks; along the Rimebound, chalk-white walls and blue-glass crevasses cradle Thrym’s longhouses and storm-shrines. Between them spreads the Glassmiddle: plains of fused obsidian and ice where ancient battles cooled into mirror-stone. Cliff-coast harbors take the form of caldera-fjords, and the “sky” is not sky at all but the glowing underbellies of higher rivers of earth, their red light waxing and waning as the currents shift.  

Notable Locations

The Ash-Anvil

Also known as Surtur’s March, The Ash-Anvil is a chain of moving foundry-bergs bolted together by adamantine spans where giants smelt war-ore shaken free by collisions. Here, chorus-hammers sing the Firelord’s runes into giant-sized blades and gearworks big enough to turn a mountain.  

Hearth-Ice

Also known as Thrym’s March, the Hearth-Ice is a procession of glacier citadels roofed in white furs and dragon-horn crests, with frost-altars carved as double-bladed axes. Skald-halls ring with verse that can move the weather; the right stanza calls a blizzard to curtain an advance.  

The Scoria Fjords

Where lava met avalanche and froze into black glass, salvage crews pry relics from battles long past. Every shard here holds echoes: a boast spoken true makes the glass sing and reveal a hidden path; a lie cracks the pane.  

The Irvin Border

Fortified fords and horn-gates guard the crossings to Asgard. Heimdall’s ward-lights answer challenge-horns from giant watchtowers; on feast nights, duels are fought knee-deep in the river and judged by neutral skalds.  

The Rift of Skyrending

A fault-chasm that opens when the biggest earthbergs “kiss”. Fist-sized hail of cinder and ice rains sideways as the air is sucked, and then shoved, through the cut. Fire giants harvest slag; frost giants harvest rime-iron.  

The Truce-Beam

A colossal fallen tree petrified into stone, spanning two marching bergs; under its boughs guest-right holds if bread, salt, and fire are shared. Many great treaties were sworn here and a few great betrayals avenged the next day.  

The Ancestral Vaults

Cavern-cities branded by runes of both courts, where the most cunning giants keep their giant-sized magic weapons, oath-records, and trophies. Illusion-warrens and talking doors have fooled more than one god-ling.  

Access and Travel

Travelers reach Jotunheim by the Irvin River crossings from Asgard’s great halls, by cliff-roads watched from Everwatch's horn-towers, or by hot gates that open briefly to Muspelheim and cold arches that yawn toward Fimbulwinter. The Infinite Staircase sometimes lands at skald-keeps during feast nights. Way-watchers of Atgelaur have marked safer passes, but the giants are the ones who decide whether a road remains safe.  

Wayfarer's Advice

Bring cold- and heat-gear both, crampons for blue-glass and hobnails for slag, rope teams that know how to lean together, and signal-horns to speak across valleys. Read the wind before you read a map; follow skald-marks that look like art to outsiders and like orders to those who can hear the meter. Declare your intent at the ford, pay respect at the longhouse, and never boast what you cannot prove by dawn. If the Irvin runs low, expect a duel; if the horns answer from Everwatch, keep your hands where Heimdall’s priests can see them.  

Inhabitants

Jotunheim belongs first to giants. Fire giants in soot-bright plate drill with clockwork engines and hell-hound packs, while frost giants in silvered mail and white furs move like avalanches behind walls of sleet. Hill, stone, and cloud giants keep their own steadings and play kingmaker, and the Sirilisch allies of both courts hold specialized quarters in forge-districts and storm-camps. Giants here are clever as well as strong: many are learned smiths, skalds, clerics, mages, and illusionists whose craft can deceive the unwary and the arrogant alike. Petitioners who died roaring defiance rise as skald-souls that duel at dawn and drink at dusk, and a few hollyphants and planetars pass through to witness vows of honor before returning to gentler skies.   There are some many factions, which generally categorized under these:

• Cinder Battalions of Surtur
  Legion-furnaces, gear-siege, and chorus-hammers that build as they march. Their champions bear flaming greatswords inscribed with living runes.
• Rime Axes of Thrym
  War-bands that fight in the teeth of the storm, singing weather into shape and freezing the ground beneath the enemy’s feet.
• Skoraean Neutrals
  Stone-giant enclaves that trade in law-runes, illusions, and the best maps of moving country; they arbitrate challenges and sell silence.
Gadolatzum's Decendents
The Stragglers of Gadolatzum... literally everyone there, are from the royal lineage of the monarchy and they consider themselves the true giants of Giantkind.
• Sirilisch Confeders
  Skilled non-giant allies who run trap-engines, scout crevasses, and craft snow-and-ice works that last a summer in fire country.

Fire and frost make strange weather. Frostfire burns blue and leaves ice-glass behind; Ash-Hail falls marble-hard and pits steel and skin; Avalanche-Song carries for miles, and a verse in the right meter can turn a slide aside. Oaths sworn at certain altars etch themselves into steel or ice; when broken, the metal blossoms barbed script or the rime shatters into hunting sleet. During earthberg kisses, entire corridors drift a pace, way-marks shift, and the careful become locals while the careless vanish.  

Magic and Runes

Spells respect the runes here. A fire-rune cut into a blade lets a smith’s enchantment take in a single night; an ice-rune traced in hoarfrost steadies concentration in a blizzard; and saga-magic, spoken in measured stanzas, counts as both performance and contract. Illusions thrive if they flatter a boast and fail if they contradict a proven deed. Enchantments that compel cowardice sputter; magics that honor challenge and parley gain an edge. Summoned creatures tend to take on einheriar aspects unless tightly specified, and any oath worked into a casting circle will try to assert itself when the spell resolves.

Quakes and “earthberg kisses” are part of the weather; when the slabs grind, the whole sky rings like an anvil and snow falls as sparks.