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The vast, icy Northlands of Midgard are equal parts deadly and beautiful. The dwarves, trollkin, and humans who call these lands home are hardy folk who are reliant on customs that seem foreign to those in warmer lands. Northlander society is built not only on the custom and bonds of kin, but also the felag—the fellowship and partnership between those who understand the daily struggle to survive.

Nowhere is the felag more evident than in the many longhouses and meadhalls of the Northlands. Frequently, longhouses serve as the focal points for Northland chieftains, jarls, and kings to reward their subjects and assure their ongoing oaths. Meadhalls permeate all levels of society, where even the most common folk can revel during the long winter nights—provided they have the coin.

This article presents Kuppar of the Flame, a longhouse outside Kupparsheim.

Thursrike: Land of Giants

Many of Midgard’s oldest structures are found in the swath of frigid prairies known as Thursrike. These are the untamed lands of the giant folk, where the colossi are known to battle and gods shed their masks and hunt.

The residents of these ancient lands are now hill giants, ogres, and trollkin, who occupy massive fortifications that housed the Thursrike’s mighty residents of yore. In between these redoubts, the smaller folk shepherd vast herds of livestock, including sheep, shaggy cattle, and aurochs, which feed and clothe the giantish population of the Northlands.

Surrounding the more cultivated pasturage are the treacherous barrens. These wild lands are populated by remorhazes, white dragons, thuellai, liosalfar, and warlike bands of yeti (see Monster Vault and Tome of Beasts 1). However, brave and foolhardy explorers can also discover many of the earliest structures built on the flattened face of Midgard, as well as the treasures they hide.

Kupparsheim: A Thawing Fort

Giants’ myths describe how Kupparsheim seemed ancient when giants took their first strides on the flattened face of Midgard. This minor fortress with short stone walls has been long abandoned due to its construction atop a field of ice.

A year ago, Rakhred Longstriker and her expedition of foolhardy dwarven pathfinders took refuge in its walls while fleeing a white dragon, upon whose land they had unknowingly trespassed. The dwarves waited within its walls until the spring thaw, while the white dragon prowled the horizon.

The thaw revealed to Rakhred and her cohort that the first two levels of the fortress were but the tip of a greater mystery—two previously unknown levels of Kupparsheim were revealed by the melting ice. Once the resourceful pathfinders drained the levels, they discovered strange murals forgotten by time, perhaps hinting at Kupparsheim’s first purpose. The dwarves also found several giantish stairwells leading deeper into the fort, which are frozen shut by more resilient ice.

Kuppar of the Flame

While most of her pathfinders left the inhospitable climes of Thursrike, Rakhred and a few close allies remained in Kupparsheim. News of her discovery has reached other pathfinders, occultists, and fortune seekers, who have flocked by the dozen to Kupparsheim to plumb the secrets of the fort.

Atop the fort, Rakhred has built a modest stone structure to house visitors and protect them from the elements. She cleverly used the ruins of Kupparsheim as the walls to the north and east, while the south and western walls are built from a mixture of rubble and old growth wood. It’s not majestic, but the structure bears the hallmarks of stout dwarven artifice.

Given its isolation, the pathfinders of Kupparsheim depend upon each other for survival. The pathfinders rotate hunting game in the Thursrike lands. Those at the fort use rain and melted hunks of ice to brew crisp pilsners. Others collect firewood from spots within eyesight of Kupparsheim’s walls.

Most importantly, Rakhred’s stone structure maintains the fire that provides wintertime heat needed to cook food, warm bones, and stoke the fires that they use to melt the ice below Kupparsheim. Slowly, Rakhred and her felag are excavating the next level of the fort, although their efforts are slowed by the need to siphon the melted water up two levels and then out of Kupparsheim.

One halfling pathfinder, perhaps frostbitten enough to think that puns were appropriate, coined the name “Kuppar of the Flame” for Rakhred’s roost. The name stuck, especially given that the flame protected by the stone structure keeps away the chill and allows the pathfinders to dig deeper below the frozen rime encapsulating Kupparsheim.

Drinking Buddies

At any given time, a dozen persons of interest drink at Kuppar of the Flame. Such individuals may include:

• Biev Flink is Trylleri, one of the human cultures who have long lived in the Northlands. While many of his kin prefer to live deep in the forests, far away from anything “reaver” or “dwarven,” Bivi has made his home in the grassy plains of Thursrike. While unafraid of the giants, dragons, and other monsters and on its grassy plains, the Trylleri is no fool; the pathfinders who have taken root near his home distract his foes and protect his family. Rakhred barters with Beiv to supply wood and other kindling in exchange for goods from the south, and the Trylleri’s greed has perhaps distracted him from asking why the pathfinders require so much fuel for their fires.

• Ajo hunts wild game, and this halfling believes the larger the prey, the tastier the meat. Ajo’s last hunt was in the Southlands, which yielded numerous trophies for her lodge in Barsella. She came to Kuppar of the Flame to hunt yeti, an unsuccessful endeavor that resulted in the death of two fellow hunters and her own near-maiming. Ajo currently earns her keep at the fort by hunting smaller game than she likes. (Recently, she has begun harvesting aurochs from a herd that are destined for the belly of Grudlach the Cantankerous. Inevitably, this hill giant will learn where his meals are going and take revenge.)

• Mira appears as an unassuming elf who claims to have refused the call of the Great Retreat, instead preferring to range the Northland wilderness. In reality, this frost haired woman is Mirselvrit, a polymorphed white dragon who is oathbound to keep the Dweller Below frozen, trapped in the bowels of Kupparsheim. The dragon doesn’t know who or what the Dweller Below is. She knows only that she inherited this oath from her great-grandmother. However, Mirselvrit knows that approaching Kupparsheim too closely in dragon form draws unwanted attention, as a foolish galavant approaching its walls led to the current predicament of dwarves trying to thaw the prison of her charge. “Mira the elf” appears not to attract the attention of the Dweller Below, so the dragon spends her time trying to subtly undermine Rakhred’s efforts to establish a more permanent outpost.

Adventure Hooks

Use the following threads as adventure hooks involving Kuppar of the Flame:

• After learning of Kuppar of the Flame, the Rule of Rime has grown interested in what could cause such a thaw in frigid Thursrike. At the instruction of the Frostbound Oracle, cultists engaged in a pilgrimage called the “Wanderings of the Frozen Heart” in hopes of locating the answer to the thaw. Having deduced Kupparsheim’s role as a prison for something elder and evil, the cultists have captured Rakhred and intend to use the dwarf for a ritual to crack open the prison. Can the PCs find Rakhred before the Rule of Rime uses her body to unleash an ancient evil upon Midgard?

• Booze and mead are among the hardest supplies for Kuppar of the Flame to keep in stock. Several pathfinders have taken to brewing ale, using melted ice from below the fort to mash the hops. The first batches have raised the pathfinders’ spirits. But something in the water causes aberrant, rampaging behavior in its drinkers. Even the dwarves. Perhaps some of the PCs can find a remedy before everyone in Kupparsheim loses their minds, including an adult white dragon . . .

• The PCs have been hired for the season to escort a group of wealthy explorers north to Kupparsheim and then return them home. Upon arrival, they find Kuppar of the Flame abandoned. Do they investigate and discover the pathfinders’ disappearance? If they leave Kupparsheim, do they find themselves similarly afflicted by whatever caused the disappearance?

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