The Frozen Wind
The Frozen Wind believe that civilization is a disease and that they are the quarantine. From the wooded and overgrown sections outside major settlements in the northern Merican wastelands, these war-focused Natural One tribes wage a campaign of containment against any human expansion beyond existing city walls.
Their methods are deliberate and thorough. They ambush caravans with throwing axes, javelins, and short blades. They sabotage railways and cut telegraph lines. They slaughter settlers who attempt to build beyond established boundaries. The dead are burned down to their last to prevent sentient resurrection, and undead corpses are tied to trees as warnings to any who follow. Homes and caravans are ransacked and burned to ensure nothing remains usable.
Two groups are exempt from the killing. Rovers are spared because the Frozen Wind believe they will never truly be part of civilization; the open road always calls them away from the city. Children are spared for a crueler reason. They are released to return home and spread terror among the walls, ensuring that the people inside stay cowering where they belong.
The Frozen Wind stalk the woodlands around the Iron Works and the forests beyond, a confederation of tribes unified by a single conviction: that the walls of the city are the only cage strong enough to contain the corruption, weakness, and illness that settlement breeds. Everything they do is in service of keeping that cage locked.
Their methods are deliberate and thorough. They ambush caravans with throwing axes, javelins, and short blades. They sabotage railways and cut telegraph lines. They slaughter settlers who attempt to build beyond established boundaries. The dead are burned down to their last to prevent sentient resurrection, and undead corpses are tied to trees as warnings to any who follow. Homes and caravans are ransacked and burned to ensure nothing remains usable.
Two groups are exempt from the killing. Rovers are spared because the Frozen Wind believe they will never truly be part of civilization; the open road always calls them away from the city. Children are spared for a crueler reason. They are released to return home and spread terror among the walls, ensuring that the people inside stay cowering where they belong.
The Frozen Wind stalk the woodlands around the Iron Works and the forests beyond, a confederation of tribes unified by a single conviction: that the walls of the city are the only cage strong enough to contain the corruption, weakness, and illness that settlement breeds. Everything they do is in service of keeping that cage locked.
