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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9507803" data-attributes="member: 58172">2000 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer introduces three cultures that remain useful for Greyhawk settings that are in the northern part of the map: Guryik, Uirtag, and Zeai.Guryik are an Inuit-esque seminomagic culture, with dog sleds over snow and ice, etcetera, who associate with the Black Ice. They are Indigenous from an ancient Baklun origin. Uirtag are a Flan grouping who are Dene-esque Indigenous inhabiting the boreal forest.Judging by relevant alphabets, the names should probably be spelled endonymically as Gurjik or Guriik, and Wirtag, but I dont know what these words would mean in the Inuit and Dene languages.The Zeai are Norse-esque, and inhabit the coast north of Blackmoor. The Zeai are especially helpful because they can offer a Nordic origin that is disconnected from the problematic baggage of Suel. The Zeai are related to the Thillonrians but nonidentical.Plus, there is a suitable area of "Icewind" to plug in Forgotten Realms "Icewind Dale" if the DM wishes. From the depictions in the 5e adventure, Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden, my impression is. The Icewind Dale culture seems like a blend of Inuit and Russian cultures. In the context of Greyhawk, the "Icewind" region can be an area where some families from Gurjik and a Russianesque culture from Hyperborea have joined together. Keeping this Icewind region discrete from other Gurjik helps avoid tropes that misrepresent Inuit and Russians.[ATTACH=full]385985[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]385980[/ATTACH]With regard to the Land of the Black Ice, the 2024 DMs Guide says this:"Land of Black Ice. Those who have ventured far north of the Burneal Forest tell of a strange phenomenon. Instead of normal stark-white snow and translucent blue-white ice, there is an endless landscape of deep-blue ice partially covered in snow. Strange arctic monsters prowl these fields of dark ice. Stranger still, a verdant land is rumored to exist beyond the ice, where the sun never sets."The Black Ice is mysterious, as well as mysteriously cold for its latitude. The verdant land beyond it, where the sun never sets would be northward from the Arctic Circle, about the 67° latitude (66.56°), in Hyperborea, and its greenery be the boreal forests of pine trees that are within it.</blockquote>

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