Greyhawk Musings: On Krakenheim

“Outside, though perhaps morning, it is still night, but a night of a thousand thrusting colors laid over the shaking stars. The shattering ice still sounds like a drumbeat.”

― Dan Simmons, The Terror

Only the strong survive what the north may bring...

Only the strong survive what the north may bring: Frigid gales off an inclement sea, deep snows fallen from the highest peaks, and ravenous frost that blackens the fingers, the toes, the nose.

Only the strong live here. What’s more, only the strong can strive in such a place. It was for this reason that Vatun led his people to this Rhizian lands, that he may temper them, and steel them for what was to come.

The Fruztii are a tempered people. Like steel, they were thrust into the cold, and emerged stronger, harder, rougher.

Far and wide, they are called the Frost Barbarians; indeed, it from their name that the word “frost” was born. To those who bask in the southern sun, they are as fierce as the frost that took their name, as cold, as icy, and as merciless.

They are wrong. The Fruztii are none of these things.

Their shores are bleak and barren, it is said. This too is wrong. It is a cold land in winter, but it is neither bleak nor barren. It is a land of plenty. Vast herds roam its inland hills. And where rivers roil with Grendep salmon in spring. Its seas teem with life. Herds of seal play along its shoals, char and krill slow a ship’s passage in the banks, and beyond, under the deep blue depths, shining fish as tall as a man school, and whales dive and sound.

It is no wonder why the Fruztii remain.

Jenelrad: Flowing from a lake in the high Corusks that lies in a broad, almost circular pine valley, the pure, cold waters of the Jenelrad flow down to a broad estuary at Krakenheim to Grendep Bay. The river is not navigable, but it is rich in salmon, trout, and greeken (a sluggish, large, carplike fish). [FTAA - 64]

Jenelrad: The pure, cold waters of this river flow down from a lake in the Corusks to a broad estuary at Krakenheim, then into Grendep Bay. [LGG - 152]

Their Hall is in Krakenheim.

A Home by the Sea

It is their capital. Indeed, there only two cities in the whole of Fruztii, Djekul being the other. Their fiords allow no more. Nor their culture. They are a free folk, preferring small villages and thorps and the like to tall, clustered sprawls, where a soul cannot see the sea or their herds. It is for this reason that villages are perched on its rugged coasts, and at crossroads of lands most suited for tilling and grazing, and not amid the pines.

Krakenheim, despite being the capital, is not large, but it is as populous as any other city in that far peninsula. It lays inland, on both banks of the broad estuary of the Jenelrad River.

576 CY

Capital: Krakenheim (Pop 3,300)

[WOGA - 21]

To Sail the Seas

Though rich in harvest from the sea, its growing season is short, and its population sparse by southern reckoning. Only the heartiest of crops flourish in so cold a clime. As to industry, there is little time to waste on luxuries not directly tied to survival. And besides, was not toil for the weak? For slaves? Had Vatun wished his chosen people to burrow beneath the ground, he would have made them dwarves and not seafaring folk. And had he not decreed his people to sail the seas and plunder from those weaker than they?

Longships of the Frost Barbarians raid the southern coast in the spring. The crews of these ships are typical barbarian warriors: brave but undisciplined. In contrast, the Soldiers of the king are well organized, trained, and armed. [LGG – 44]

In truth, they have little skill in manufacturing and mining. They may excel at woodwork and the building of ships, and are blessed with blacksmiths of moderate skill; but they had no knowledge on how to find the ores they need, or how of how to craft superior weapons. Their only recourse is to take what they need. To take one so skilled is a boon, indeed.

The Fruztii did as Vatun decreed for decades, indeed, centuries; but in the end, Vatun abandoned them. The Aerdi, once little more than prey to their longships, had grown, multiplied, and as their numbers swelled, they pressed ever northward, until their farms and settlements, and then their cities encroached on Fruztii soil.

The Aerdi Cometh

The unthinkable happened. The Aerdi displaced them from their southern lands. And despite their best efforts, the Fruztii could not defeat them. There were too many of them. Their walls too high, and too thick, and unlike their palisades of wood, made of stone. The Fruztii broke their blade on the Aerdian shield, and soon found themselves ruled under the watchful eye of their brethren, the Schnai.

And remained thus until Rälff sat upon the throne in his Great Hall, and the Bone March fell, and the lords of Ratik had proposed peace between their peoples. Not only peace, but a cooperation. He listened, even if his brethren did not.

It is rumored that the Baron of Ratik has sent messages to the King of the Schnai proposing four-way cooperation to take the Hold of Stonefist and the Bone March. Supposedly this proposal offers Glot and Krakenheim as possible gains for the Schnai, while the Fruztii and Cruski would divide the Hold, part of Timberway would be returned to the Frost Barbarians, and Ratik would rule Bone March. The reaction to these proposals can not be guessed, but the Schnai are undoubtedly keeping an eye on the joint Fruztii-Ratik ventures of late. [WOGA - 35]

That newfound friendship served the Fruztii well. The Ratikians not only brought southern steel, they brought council, and a prosperity that the Fruztii had not known since ages past.

They still raided with their brethren, but they no longer spent their youth as they had before.

584 CY

Capital: Krakenheim (pop. 3,400)

FTAA – 25

Country Pop.: 55,000

[FTAR#2]

Mindful of how the Fruztii now prospered, their brethren learned the wisdom of cooperation.

At the same time, Iuz suffered his first reverse. The folk of Fruztii, Cruski, and Schnai, long-time rivals of Stonefist, took exception to Sevvord’s bold stroke. Tenh had always supported the barbarians in their struggles against the Great Kingdom and the Bone March. As part of that support, Duke Ehyeh customarily turned a blind eye to the arms trade traveling across Tenh from Rookroost to Krakenheim. Now, however, the Master of the Hold closed the caravan routes, seizing all weapon shipments for his own people. Angered by their loss and feeling betrayed by the “Great God of the North,” the barbarians began to doubt Vatun. Iuz’s alliance of trickery had begun to erode. [GW:ADV – 8]

590 CY

Capital: Krakenheim (pop. 4,500)

[LGG – 44]

While the rest of the Flanaess spent their strength on the hubris of a few vainglorious despots, they remained on their peninsula. Why should anyone wish to rule the whole of the world, they wondered? Why should the people of those nations be bent on such mad notions? Had a jarl so fruitlessly wasted his peoples’ blood on such mad endeavours, he would surely have been cast down, and been replaced by another, wiser, saner headman.

The Rhizians watched. And waited for the coming of the war that never arrived on their shores. And took what advantage availed.

As did Rälff.

He taught his son the wisdom of his ways, and when the old Tiger drew his final breath, and been placed upon his pyre, Hundgred carried on as his father wished, for the Ratikians had proven themselves truer friends than the Schnai and the Criski ever had.

Longships of the Frost Barbarians, often in cooperation with the other Suel barbarians, raid southward in spring to pillage along the coast of the new Great Kingdom of Northern Aerdy and sometimes further south. The crews are typical examples of barbarian warriors, wildly brave but rarely disciplined. No lack of discipline afflicts the soldiers of the king of Fruztii, however; his standing army is highly organized and well trained. The king's men are also well armored with chainmail and shield, bearing swords or battle-axes. Several companies of archers and a small force of cavalry based in Djekul are present.

Hundgred Rälffson

The Fruztii are strongly allied to the Archbarony of Ratik in the south. Their young king has even married a beautiful but headstrong Ratikkan noblewoman eight years his senior. Changes are already apparent in the royal court at Krakenheim, with more formal (or "civilized") trappings in the organization of the government and the military. These changes do not meet with the approval of many of the older jarls, but they remain loyal to Hundgred out of respect for his noble father. [LGG – 44]

But time will tell whether Hundgred is truly as wise as his father.

The other barbarian nations, once strong allies of the Frost Barbarians, have begun to pull away from their more sophisticated cousins. As the Scarlet Brotherhood and Ratik nobles gain more influence at court, old allies feel less welcome. [WGG3e- 8]

One must always give credit where credit is due. This piece is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick Weining. The list is interminable.

Special thanks to Jason Zavoda for his compiled index, “Greyhawkania,” an invaluable research tool.

The Art:

Gudasaga by eagi

World of Greyhawk map detail, by Darlene, from the Folio, 1980

Heorot by celtic-balverine

Across-the-Sea-Pencil-Drawing by jooleya

Victory by ajgiel

Assassin-s-Creed-Valhalla-Eivor by innervalue

Sources:

1015 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, 1983

2023 Greyhawk Adventures Hardback, 1988

1064 From the Ashes Boxed Set, 1992