Haloga

Haloga, beyond the Rhiphaen Mountains to the north, is a fertile country of rolling slopes, deep valleys and snow-capped heights, known for its rocky coast and winding fjords and home to the seafaring Vanir. They are fair-skinned, mostly blond or red-haired, and both sexes wear their long hair in a single leather-bound braid. Every grown man wears a beard, of which they are as proud as dwarves; a smooth face marks a man as womanish or at best immature. They keep almost wholly to the northern shores, in clans numbering 100 to 600 under a single warrior chief, in roughly square settlements walled with earth and stone. Each family has a lodge of stone, wood and thatch; a communal hall often over a hundred feet long serves as the warriors' meeting place, with goat and oxen pens, shared forges, smokehouses and sheds for seasoning timber and curing hides set apart. Mainly hunter-gatherers, they also grow hops, barley and millet in fields outside the walls, tended by the women.

They are fine shipbuilders and sailors whose swift, sturdy vessels copy the Jotun dragon ships, carry up to 100 men with oars and sail, and on larger ships sometimes a light catapult for stones or fire. A clan usually has one to three. Warlike and battle-loving, they raid the coasts of Cimmeria, northern Mediterranea, Iber and Alba, striking fast and savagely, burning villages, killing the men and carrying off women as slaves. Despite southern sailors' tales they seldom turn pirate, but they attack Jotun or Fomorian ships on sight, often beating those larger vessels, and mostly ignore the corsairs who rarely come north. A typical warrior has a vest of hide or leather, sometimes reinforced with iron rings or bosses, a wooden shield bound in iron, and an iron helmet adorned with bronze or iron horns or wings; spears and throwing axes are favorites, some prefer battleaxe, war hammer or pole axe with no shield, and the longbow is used but disliked by these close fighters.

They trade little, but some southern settlements deal in amber, plentiful along Haloga's shores and in the mouths of the Kven and Cimer. Larger clans set slaves to dredge for it, and the Vanir use it as money and jewelry, sometimes melting it into rings, necklaces and pendants. Aesgard, a settlement of over 2,000 on the southeast coast, is the chief amber market, drawing ships from Sheba, Tharshesh and Ku, and amber there can be worth its weight in gold or more.

For all their aggression, clans seldom raid each other, and rival chiefs meet to discuss trade, borders and planned raids; they sometimes join forces against troll war-parties, since they hate the Rock Trolls. They clash often with the dwarves over the ore-rich southern Rhiphaens, and they scorn the Cimmerians as inferior, so Cimmerian slaves are always wanted and raids on their villages are frequent. Not openly religious, the Vanir still pay respect to the true elementals of sea and wind; their druid 'priests' raise dolmens, great stone monuments, to the mightiest of these demigods and lead seasonal rites.