Hfnia Coast
The Hfnia Coast is the stretch of frozen ocean that encircles the continent, as well as the continent’s rocky shore. The ice sheet is constantly shifting, threatening to close off any channel, trapping anyone miles away from open water; or crushing the hulls of the great ships used to navigate the arctic waters, leaving their crew stranded and at the mercy of the beasts that hunt out on the ice, and deep in the water below.
The shifting sea of ice is as dangerous as the numbly white Atilan Ice Fields, and the glacier covered Gilrail Mountains. During the darkness of winter the ice sheet extends even further away from the coast, closing off Arctica’s interior until the coming of the spring thaw.
Points of Interest
Tollmar Isle
More of a massive stone than and island, Tollmar Isle is a stationary monolith in an ever changing sea of ice. Sitting some forty miles to the west of the continent proper, this slab of stone rises over four hundred feet above the surface of the shifting ice, standing straight toward the sky as if it was place there on purpose.
The expeditions that have travelled to this monolith, and yet it’s purpose is still as mysterious as ever.
Darnora Whirlpool
Dominating a bay that never freezes along the eastern shore of the continent, the Darnora is a raging whirlpool spinning down into the icy depths of the Tamraine Ocean.
The roar of the water can be heard from miles away, lending the lands around it a strange and ominous feeling of dread, and it is not hard to believe that those waters would pull anyone or anything down in to the frozen layers of the Hells.
Ecology
Most of the creatures who call Hfnia home live in the dark and cold ocean under the ice sheet, rarely coming to the surface.
The short northern summer is when most of the creatures can be seen, when the deep blue waters of the Tamraine Ocean is somewhat free the cover of the ice.
White Sharks
Growing up to twenty feet in length, these great sharks silently glide through the bone chilling northern waters searching for prey. They hunt everything from fish, to people sized squid, to the relatively smaller whales who reside in these chilled waters.
Without the larger marine reptiles that dominate the warmer waters of Orzaal’s southern oceans, the white shark is one of the non-reptiles who are at the top of the food chain.
Humpback Whale
These massive mammals spend most of their time here, in the cold waters off of Arctica’s coast. Their displays of bounding out of the ocean is a sight to behold, and has been recorded for generations, if not millennia by those brave souls who have travelled so far north.
Travellers can also hear their songs when you’re below decks: hauntingly beautiful calls that travel far and wide through the freezing depths.
Sea Serpents
Many kinds of sea serpent are known the world over, so it should come as no surprise that these predators of the deep are found here too. To make them even more terrifying, it is up here in the frigid arctic waters that these serpents grow to immense sizes.