Beruna

Victoria McKinnon
Jun 5, 2022
4 min read

Updated: May 30

Overview

Beruna is a frigid, largely ungoverned realm of ice bridges, fjords, frozen tundra, and tribal settlements clinging to the base of sea cliffs.

Beruna is the ancestral homeland of the Arcadians. Long ago, humans migrated south across an ice bridge to the more hospitable continent of Arcadia and built a civilization there. Those who stayed behind in Beruna never followed. They kept to their old ways; tribal, nomadic, and deeply connected to the land and its spirits.

Beruna has no central government. Its people are organized into tribes led by jarls and elders. They are fiercely independent and resistant to outside authority. Arcadia makes every effort to protect Beruna and preserve its culture, viewing its people as kin. The Silver War was fought in part over Beruna's sovereignty.

Climate and Geography

Beruna is one of the harshest environments on Ilisara's surface. Blizzards are common. The tundra is vast and mostly flat, broken by fjords, glaciers, and the occasional mountain range. Additional dangers roam the land; frost giants, arctic wargs, and yetis in the mountain passes.

An ice bridge forms between Beruna and Arcadia roughly once every seven years during particularly severe winters. It is the primary point of contact between the two peoples and enables trade. When the bridge is not present, Beruna is largely isolated. It does not have developed ports.

Culture

Beruna's people are practical and hardy. Life in the frozen north demands it from childhood. Settlements are small and scattered. Permanent settlements feature timber longhouses, while many nomad camps have structures made of clusters of stone and hide.

Human and dwarven cultures have intermingled in Beruna for so long that the two are largely inseparable. Most of Beruna's humans carry dwarven blood, and most of its dwarves have human kin. The result is a people shorter and stockier than their Arcadian descendants.

Survival is the organizing principle of Berunic life. Mammoth hunts are community events that can last weeks, with entire villages mobilizing to track, drive, and bring down their quarry across the tundra. Orca, mammoth, and elk meat sustains communities through winter. Bones and hides from great beasts become tools, clothing, and shelter.

Frost giants are an existential threat. Berunic settlements are built with escape routes and warning systems designed to respond and flee from frost giants, who enslave and eat humanoid creatures smaller than them.

Beruna's Folk Heroes

Beruna has many folk heroes, comprised of individuals who acquired divinity or great power over the years. These figures appear occasionally throughout the realm, interacting with the denizens of Beruna:

Alba, the Winter Crone

Alba makes her presence known only to those claimed by the cold, frostbitten, on the verge of death. Her touch is that of friendship and warmth; pain and misery flee before her, leaving those blessed by her feeling comfortable and at peace as they succumb to the cold. She is believed to visit those who are about to lose their lives to the cold, her blessing a gift to ease one's transition into the next life.

Pin, the Elder Brother

Only when the aurorae are overhead can Pin be heard scampering over snowy rooftops and clambering across the great branches of the northern trees, singing an unknown song in a forgotten language. He leaves no sign of his passage even when the snows are deep, but for the little fortunes of luck and prosperity that follow in his wake. Often represented by two partially overlapping circles, the right partially obscuring the left, symbolizing his tendency to "leave an extra egg in the coop" as alluded to in oral traditions.

Pan, the Little Sister

Like her twin brother Pin, Pan only appears when the aurorae are overhead. Unlike Pin, Pan is quiet and discrete in her movements and no one knows the sound of her voice; as it is told in the myths, she exploits the attention Pin draws upon himself to sow her own gifts unnoticed: odd coincidences, little misfortunes, and other benign mischief are often attributed to Pan's need to constantly correct the natural balance disrupted by Pin's careless benevolence. Like Pin, Pan is represented by two overlapping circles, except in her's the left partially obscures the right.

Kalian the Calamitous

Kalian was once an elf. She is considered young among the Berunic pantheon. Her domain is the boundary between fresh and salt water — specifically where glaciers meet the sea. She walks the edges of glacial snouts, and where her footsteps fall, icebergs calve. Sailors and fishermen pray to her before crossing glacier-fed waters.

Teren the Wayfinder

Teren of the North was a human hunter who died on Teren's Mountain, lost in a blizzard. His spirit now follows hunters caught in storms, preserving their paths beneath the snow so they may find their way home. The price is a breath off their life for every step he saves. Teren is not considered malevolent. The bargain is considered fair.

Relationship with Arcadia

Arcadia and Beruna share blood. Arcadians descend from Berunic settlers who crossed an ice bridge thousands of years ago. Arcadia has never attempted to govern Beruna, but they are fiercely protective of their ancestral homeland.

The last time Beruna featured in a conflict was the Silver War. Queen Giselle of Aldemere installed an Orosian duke in the Bay of Beruna, attempting to annex it for the Kingdom of Aldemere. The Bay was coveted for its oil reserves and rumors of frost giant treasures buried beneath its ice.

King Lucio Rex of Arcadia viewed the installation as an act of aggression against his kin and sent his armies across the ice bridge in retaliation. Arcadia won after leveraging a new alliance with the Vestian Empire and a rakashan named Kartha Raj. Aldemere's duke was deposed.

Verunism has made no inroads in Beruna. Berunic tribes are too scattered and too invested in their survival to have local legends be displaced by a sun goddess from the Crescents.