Sudlands

A land on the southern edge of the continent, the Sudlands are cold and unforgiving.

Mountain dwarf city states and human jarls struggle for power, and often raid the rest of the continent by sea with their longships, while in the wilderness, nomadic tribes of wood elves and humans herd reindeer and sometimes even mammoths across the tundra. Many fear the Sudlanders for their ferocity, but they would argue they are no worse than the rest of the lands of the continent, and merely doing what they must to survive.

Sudlanders worship powerful giants, instead of the Divines, and indeed, many giants make these lands their home.

History
The Sudlands were home to giants ever since the Age of Myth. Indeed, while they are not known to regular mortals, Sudlanders insist that the giants even have entire hidden cities in the mountains and clouds of the land.

The elves of the Sudlands are a mysterious lot. As evidenced by the many abandoned ruins in the wilderness, a powerful elven kingdom existed in the Sudlands during the First Age. Nowadays, however, the only elves found on the continent are mystical wood elf tribes, who are often revered as semi-divine by the local humans and dwarves. What caused this shift in the elves of the Sudlands is unknown, but it is believed they were some of the first to leave behind their old ways near the end of the First Age.

During the Second Age, the dwarves of the Sudlands were the first to secede from the Dwarven Empire after making a deal with the giant gods. The local dwarven kings began calling themselves "jarls", a giant term. Many human chieftains followed suit, taking up the cause of the giants as well.

Worshipers of Kalve, the king of the giants, believe they are destined to conquer the entire world. This is the only way mortals and giants alike will one day be able to stand up to the forces of Jalumi when she covers the entire Surface World in frost at the end of the world, and even then, they believe that only a handful of mortals and gods will survive to rebuild and begin a new cycle. This is often used as an excuse by Sudland warlords to go on more raids and conquer more territory.

Inspiration
The Sudlands are based off norse culture, but also the culture of many different finno ugric people.