The Hinterlands

"'Men do not survive in the Heart of the Hinterlands. There is no way a civilized being could possibly thrive in such a cold and harsh environment. No way a human being could possibly retain their sanity and morality in such a horrid place. No...Only monsters survive in the Hinterlands.'""-Sarn Haust, Famous Explorer"

Geography/Environment
The Hinterlands can best be described, in the kindest way possible, as a frozen wasteland of savagery and brutality. With so little land not affected by a permanent snowy tundra, there is little food that naturally grows in the Hinterlands. The wildlife thrives off of eating each other, so carnivorous beasts tend to be the only ones that are truly abundant. Some herbivores, such as elk, do survive and produce herds if they are lucky. Still, though, the more southern part of the land prove useful. During half of the year, it could be akin to that of a temperate climate. It provides a decent living area, and could even sustain a small kingdom or civilization. However, the farther in-land one travels the more hostile and cruel the landscape becomes. The green beauty slowly fades into a bleak whiteness, the land becoming caked with the soft colors of snow. Although it is beautiful at first, it quickly becomes nothing more than maddening when it is all that remains. The worst part of the Hinterlands is that, if the freezing and blistering winter does not claim you, and the wildlife does not tear you apart, there are worse creatures to deal with. For indeed the Hinterlands is home to beings, if they could even be called human anymore.

Culture
With such a cruel landscape, the humans surviving there became nothing more than mindless savages. The lifestyles lived by the barbarians in the North can be described as, “short, violent, and brutal.” Those that call the Hinterlands home rarely tend to live longer than their 50’s, their wounds eventually catching up to them or something stronger taking them out. That is simply the way of life there, and it is seen as an honorable way to die. A large amount of nomadic factions claim the Hinterlands as their land, and so constant war ravages the tundra over who owns what. Sometimes the clans will trade their goods with each other, forming alliances with each other, and other times they even confederate and consolidate into a larger tribe. But more often than not, a tribe is wiped out of existence by another one through the act of war and slaying their populace down to the last member. Of the various tribes, one of the largest is that of the Vanahelmlings. The Vanahelmlings personify the idea of the Hinterland Savages, often leading raids against the civilized City-states of Antimone when they are not busy murdering the other tribes which rise against them. It is a kill-or-be-killed life in the Hinterlands, and some explorers even report certain tribes resorting to cannibalism to sustain themselves. Although that cannot be confirmed for all tribes, it does not deter from the simple truth that is the way of life in the Hinterlands. To survive, one has to be made of absolute iron and steel. For even the slightest hint of weakness will lead to death. Only the strong survive.

Features
Deemed unsettleable by the other great nations, The Hinterlands has been abandoned by most. Those who live there are as tough as the beasts that prowl the icy mountains. Next to Xuma’an, The Hinterlands has been deemed the most difficult continent to live on due to the insane number of bandits that live there. Wolves and bears are the smallest issue that someone who tries to live here would face. Unlike the other continents, the bandit clans in The Hinterlands could easily number into the hundreds. For criminals all over the world, it has been labeled as a haven, but not a safe one.