The Lepen and the Frost Moors

I’ve elaborated on the Lepen in the past but I’ve yet to establish what the land they come from is actually like, and why they usually don’t want to stay there. Behold the Frost Moors, or my terrible hand drawn rendition of it, alongside a model of what a typical Lepen would look like.

The Frost Moors itself is a frozen wasteland where only the strong or the most ruthless can survive. Dotted with massive ice formations that look strangely like trees of blown glass, the land got its name from the first Yocan explorers to visit it, who coined it after witnessing what they believed to be a “frozen swamp,” locked in the midst of an endless winter so that the muck and mud turned to sleet and icy sheets of foul, slippery slime. In time the Lepen would make this land their home, after coming down out of the far northern regions to begin settling inside of natural caverns, which they expanded into what would become the first of the Burrows.

There are five cities in the Frost Moors, or “Burrows,” each the seat of an independent kingdom or “Warren” that answers to none save their own Warrenlords. They are-

Bloodburrow: the seat of the “Blood Steel” trade, where that vampiric metal is refined and used to make weapons for sale to the Yocan and other Lepen settlements. They are one of the only Lepen kingdoms to maintain diplomatic relations with the Yocan to the west, believing that racial enmity shouldn’t stand in the way of great profit.

Blackburrow: the seat of the Lepen religion, where the “Iceclad,” their version of Pontiff, dwells. Alongside his council of nine infertile Lepen females, known as The Gray Oracles, he works to spread the word of their God and to teach His children the way of their people.

Grayburrow: a far, far northern outpost that sits right at the edge of the Great Storm that separates the wider Frost Moors from the inhospitable Gray Wastes. Little is known about the Lepen who dwell here, save that they are consummate assassins and pickpockets, and that one should never put their back to them for too long for any reason.

Steelburrow: the industrial heart of the Frost Moors, where most of its necessities are produced and distributed, chief among them being food grown within vast underground caverns lighted by strange Lepen ice-sorcery(not true magic, they just carve ice in ways that make it an effective substitute for windows, walls, or ceilings). Once the High Warrenlord, the sole ruler of the Frost Moors who could claim dominion over all five kingdoms, ruled from this city; leading his people in the so called “Great Expansion War” against the Yocan. After that legendary warriors death, Steelburrow has become little more than the faded remnant of what could have been a glorious future for the Lepen, decaying into the snow as smoke belches from its chimneys and smog fills the streets.

Farburrow: the farthest outpost of Lepen civilization, and the oldest. Supposedly the first Burrow ever founded by the Lepen, the city’s foundations hold countless secrets about their past and, perhaps, their future. Farburrow is also the only matriarchal kingdom remaining in the Frost Moors after the extinction of the Denmothers, ruled over by a council of nine elder Lepen females known as the Matrons.

Separating the Frost Moors from the ancestral home of the Polar Yoca is the Grand Barricade; a massive Yocan-made wall that is guarded at all times by a stalwart legion of Yocan peacekeepers, known as the Moorwatch. Only those given approval by the Moorwatch are allowed to leave the Frost Moors, such as caravans and pilgrims. The Lepen have discovered ways of circumventing the Barricade, but the Moorwatch is ever vigilant, and each escape route is quickly closed before a flood of Lepen can rush through.