The Steading
Ervenian Era, 1051 AB
The Steading is a brutal hunting-ground lashed together from slagged hills, bone-palisades, and smoke-buried feasting yards, the Steading is Grolantor's petty kingdom writ large: a place where hunger is law, boasts are binding, and the answer to every slight is a thrown boulder. It squats primarily on the chains of Cathrys, but once each cycle it heaves toward Jotunheim like a drifting war-camp, raiding and roaring before slouching back into its red dusk.
Customs
Never refuse a challenge, never show weakness, and always bring something to the table; guests who offer a dish earn an hour’s parley, those who win a contest earn safe passage to the next fire, and those who cheat are chased across the plains by every hungry thing that heard the skull-drums.Geography
The Steading rolls in long, meat-fat plains of trampled grass and char pits, broken by kettle-lakes that burp scalding broth and mesas planed flat into eating-tables; thornwoods knot into kill-corridors where prey is driven, and wind-carved boulder fields form natural alleys for ambush and rock-throw. Smoke from a thousand cook-fires braids the sky into a greasy ceiling, and everywhere the ground remembers feasts: grease-slick ruts, splintered rib-pickets, and the long, low echo of skull-drums that draws beasts to their end.
Notable Locations
Great Bone-Steading
Grolantor’s trophy-hall of rib-arches and beard-belt banners; audience is a contest, not a petition.Pit of a Thousand Kettles
Cauldron-lakes where cooks duel with spice and prey; the steam itself judges.The Throwing Fields
Wind-scoured lanes with ranged-mark stones; rock-duels settle rank and insult.Double-Mouth Gate
Ettin shrine whose twin jaws open on Cathrys or Jotunheim depending on which head you feed first.Beard-Belt Gallery
A jeering corridor hung with braided dwarf-beards; dwarves pass only by winning a craft-or-grit trial.Wrathwood
Thorn-labyrinth that reshapes around hunters; those who bleed on the briars gain the shortcut — once.Giant’s Table
A cliff-top banquet slab where feast-oaths are sworn; lies drop you straight into the boar pens.The Skull-Drum Stacks
Tower of stretched hides and bone; its cadence can call a stampede from miles away.Grease-Chain Bridge
The shifting span that tethers the Steading to Ysgard on raid-nights; slick, steep, and contested.The Larder Below
A cavern of cold breath and hanging carcasses; prey that survives a night inside emerges touched by the plane.Travel and Access
Shrines of club and stew-pot open as gates when you win an eating or drinking contest and thump the altar with a full-belly belch; hill-giant steadings across the planes form hearth-doors when a feast is declared in Grolantor’s name; once per cycle the Raid-Bridge lashes the Steading to Jotunheim, letting war-bands spill across and, with luck and trophies, back again. Leaving is easiest after sating the table, or by being hurled from the mesa in defeat.Inhabitants
Hill Giant petitioners bellow and bicker, ettins argue with themselves in stereo, Ogres and Cyclopes trail the feast-trains, and shator demodands skulk as craven “overseers”, more terrified of the god than loyal; dire boars, thunder-elk, and rock-backed aurochs roam in unruly herds, and knot-haired cauldron-hags bargain spice for stories best left untold.Localized Phenomena
Thump-Quakes
Drumbeats travel as shocks; missed saves spill mounts, topple scaffolds, and loosen cliff-meat.Hunger Wind
A hot, spice-reeking gust that imposes fatigue until you eat; those who refuse grow irritable and reckless.Boulder Weather
Hail gives way to fist-sized stones, then proper boulders when boasts get too large.Boast-Oaths
Spoken boasts bind; fail them and the ground becomes treacherous underfoot until you make amends.Feast-Lull
After great meals, a torpor fog lies low; stealth improves, but waking giants is a legendary risk.Trait Type |
Description |
|---|---|
| Gravity | Normal, but boulder-falls and “thump-quakes” ripple outward whenever the skull-drums sound. |
| Time | Special - Changes sporadically, often times quicker than the prime and sometime slower. In additional, it is Timeless while in Cathrys. In Jotunheim time flows as normal. |
| Shape & Size | Finite, wide basin with wandering edges; margins drift night-to-night as if the camp is forever being “moved”. |
| Morphic Traits | Divinely Morphic (Carceri reshapes to torment or imprison souls; only deities or demigods can alter terrain) |
| Elemental Energy | None dominant. |
| Alignment | Chaotic Evil |
| Magic | Effects of strength, growth, and hunting (locate prey, speak with animals, enlarge) are subtly bolstered; effects of foresight, elaborate illusion, and refined intellect are dulled or go muddy. Spells that conjure prepared food arrive over-salted and undercooked unless you win a cooking contest first. |
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