The Wild North
After a hundred thousand years, the last glacial period of the ice age has come to an end.
Ice caps that once covered much of North America and Eurasia retreated away, affecting the world into climate chaos.
Cold-weather animals became fewer and fewer until there was nothing left, only leaving modern better-adapted animal species to take their place everywhere else in the world.
Everywhere that is, except one.
There was precisely only one part of a continent; the like of which you would never find it in the world, even today.
Setting about 1,000 years after 10,000 years,
there is one region located at Northwest from Sweden, Southeast from Iceland and South from Greenland at the North Sea.
And that region (untouched, undisturbed and unsinkable) since the Nordic era remains as if today as the most long-forgotten wonder of the world.
Here in a network of islands, isles and atolls of the very far North are the very region, allegedly known as the "Nordic Triangle".
Not since the Bermuda Triangle has such a place where storms and serious weather is commonly everywhere.
All around this Northern region, the waters are often cold to the bone, even in the winter - particularly lasting about four long months containing the coldest conditions since the last ice age.
The Nordic Triangle has acres of bluish-white snow and frost, dark gray mountains of rock and freezing waters where ice floats everywhere.
The plants and flowers that grow here in the barren lowlands look very familiar to those we find in other tundra plains.
Stands of boulder and gray stones are found scattered as well.
These flats in lower areas of land too have small lakes, ponds and stagnant pools where water is never rare to find for a drink.
Yet there are only a few waterfalls connected with rivers and streams all across the Nordic Triangle as the lifeblood of the ecosystem.
In the long winter months however, water can be freezing with ice and frost - presenting a little challenge to get at the quenchable water.
Surrounding the tundra-temperate lowlands and shivering marshes are vast quantities of dark wooded forests, taiga areas containing conifers, deciduous trees and bushes make these forested habitats highly dense where the sunlight barely penetrates through the darkness.
Dark it may be, but it is a perfect environment for many night-prowlers in pursuit of prey, yet still a constant ground containing terrors for a lone human being.
Some of the trees though can be larger than life.
Found only in certain parts of the Nordic Triangle are massive gigantic sinkholes and chasms that reach as deep as the height of Sequoia trees.
And down at the bottom of these chasms and pits, lives a menagerie of hideous bottom-feeding scavengers that rove alone or in ruthless packs in search of food that accidentally slip and drop to its death - barely alive, dead or injured.
Nordic Triangle's chasms are sure grim-ending hellholes.
But the most common environment of the entire long-forgotten Northern region is mountains, dwarfed by today's highest peaks.
Whether snow-covered or mainly rock-covered, mountains and uplands here mark the domain of other life-forms - the like of which are adapted to life up in the cold mountainous terrain.
However, there are dark colonies of heinous brash beings deep in the caves and tunnels of mountain tracts, lurking at night when hospitality is unaware of appending danger.
The Nordic Triangle is home to more than thirty civilizations in six-divided tribes, races and colonies that thrive against the daily struggle from weather elements and threatening perils of hostility.
Some are hunting villages, others include fishing and animal-trapping; a market of goods for survival.
All of these Northern villages however have warriors, soldiers and fighters among them, providing security and regulations from their masters.
The boldest of the bunch are vikings and berserkers, accurately strong men full of brawn other than brains, very unaccustomed to fear and pestilence.
Inuit tribes are more fishing people, Sami folk are claimed to be the very first reindeer herders, added with sufficient hunting, fishing and trapping animals for their pelts and food.
Slavic and Asiatic races have two ways of accomplishing with their attributes; the Slavic method or the Asiatic method.
Slavics are confident and cunning at manufacturing traps and other contraptions for battling off enemies and bringing down animals.
Asiatic clans however rely on stealth and strategy to fight their opponents.
However, anything that men can do, women can do the same.
There are also five-remaining villages that are more primitive than the rest, harboring clans of traditional primeval hunters who doggedly maintain their talents and methods of bringing down large animals like their ancestors.
Yet three out of six learned archery as much as the Asiatic taught them well.
Living among five Northern races and tribes of human however are also a race of dimunitive folk known as dwarves.
Short but remarkably tough and incredibly strong, they have the best skills and attributes ranging from metal-forging to weapon-manufacturing, from stone-mining to prop-crafting, and from wood-craving to toy-making.
The most notorious dwarves around are more tougher than their wits, willing to fight any threat they can take.
Dwarves are the only folk that tame and ride on over-sized pigs and goats, including boars, rams and ibex.
In fact, their animals are more popular to their peers besides riding mounts and other uses for mining.
Of course among Inuit and primeval tribes of Northern people, there are giants among them - twice the size of two human individuals together.
Giants are the only non-human races that show no threat to all human race because of their silent-nature but also defensive roles with their great strength even stronger than vikings.
A true burly non-human with blocky or broad facial features and a gruff demeanor would be a very good sample reminder of our previous ancestors from the ice age; the neanderthals.
Life on the Nordic Triangle for every human is indeed hazardous, challenging and unforgiving.
Not only the four long winter months are a hazard, wild animals (adapted to the coldest conditions) are also some of the hazards of harboring vulnerable livestock and human families included.
Predators in particular can be viewed as potential threats, but herbivores are less-likely with only a few exceptions.
Most creatures of the Nordic Triangle come in all shapes and sizes like their predecessors, ranging from highly-alert grazers the size of a sheep to 10 ton monstrous grazer.
Many are not very bright, even others appear to be "naive", unaware of unexpected danger from human hunters unless they are able to defend themselves and their offspring.
As a rule, animals here known as the megafauna are mainly herbivores, simply amiable and accurate to get along with.
The largest plant-eaters around from the cold-temperate lowlands to the dense forests are mammoths and mastodons - descended from their old predecessors that set foot on the Nordic Triangle at the time before the last ice age ended.
Only the fully-grown individuals have fewer enemies of human, where as yet there are tinier exceptions.
There are other animals too; roving woolly rhinos, great-antlered deer and wild boars.
The most common and numerous among them are herds of wild cattle, elk and bison.
They range from the lowlands to other parts of dense forests in search of seasonal grazing or browsing areas.
However, even in a land of cold-weather vegetarians, there are robbers, thugs, bullies and gangsters among them.
Some are pack-hunters, some are ambush-hunters while others live as scavengers - feisty and roguish in nature but still unpredictable.
The biggest of the lot are four species of the cold-adapted bears - two of them are omnivores while the other two however are pure carnivores.
Feral cats are never uncommon, yet the most ferocious species specialize in ravaging flocks of wild sheep on a whim.
Wolves and hyenas are also very common pack-hunters especially scavengers, wrestling over whatever the flesh and bones they can take and eat.
Saber-toothed wolverines are very fearsome for their deadly fangs, coated in white insulating waterproof fur.
The most lethal among others however is the saber-toothed equivalent of big cats - totally well adapted to the cold-weather conditions of the Nordic Triangle.
Even larger animals stand little chance against the strength and will of the great sabertooth.
Yet the most ferocious of all Northern predators is the giant species of tiger - twice the size of a horse, weighing close to a single ton.
Although clearly like the natural world of nature, two big predator species mean confrontation for food and property.
And it happens on the Nordic Triangle every year, resulting in the bloodiest battles; the biggest tiger of all time versus one of the biggest bears of all time.
While living in the shadows of lost ice age giants, dwells a menagerie of the most horrible, ugliest monsters of chasms, pits and sinkholes.
From enormous sluggish worms to chomping-mandible spiders and grotesque beasts of burden, they all appear to be like living-nightmares from hell.
High up in the mountains, lives a grueling variety of bats and hideous flying rats, ravenous and appalling by appearances and odor.
Even others are more demonic-looking but twice as wild as bats.
At night, they appear like ghosts, scavening or hunting they can get their teeth and claws on, either a animal or a human.
On the Nordic Triangle, there are legends of mysterious spirits and ghosts that no other human has sighted whether demigods or spirits look beautiful or unpredictably dangerous.
The most famous of Nordic Triangle's legends is the icy-blue woman demigoddess by the name of Vinteren (Norweigen term for winter).
But even on the Nordic Triangle, there are cryptid-beings dwelling in the shadows of Northern hospitality - including trolls, ogres and the abominable snowman.
In the deep mountains and their caves though, there are mobs, gangs and troops of Northern-tribal goblins who all develop criminal-demeanor and hostility on mortal humans at will, led by the most morbid and violatile 'boss' of the mob.
Goblins live and hunt as both bottom-feeders and aggressive-killing violators, mercilessly brash to anything they will take out by force, especially giants and mortal-beings.
Among them however are roving bands of tusky-fanged orcs that all develop similar hunting, killing and stealing tactics as their cousins.
Many are not very bright though, even the roughest orcs have the wits and hindsights of a duller person.
But other orcs too have monstrous creatures of their own, taught and bred as mounts for territorial disputes on humans, giants and even other orcs.
Where there are giants in the lowlands and uplands, there are other types of giants that stood three times as tall as their cousins - only more temperamental and hostile.
Even a trio or a band of giants are a nuisance, known for hurling boulders in fury or sport, causing rockslides with their brutal strength and other acts of aggression and violence.
Deep in the center of the Nordic Triangle's hazardous mountains lives the most legendary and powerful creature - a emperor of all it surveys; the dragon.
Not the comical kid-friendly kind you see from cartoons and stuff.
These dragons of the far North are big, mean and more dangerous than their breaths.
No other land animal even comes close.
The largest, most dominant and unchallenged species above all other dragons of the Nordic Triangle is prominently known as the mountain bull for its spectular pair of curvy black horns like a bull.
Only the males have bony horns for defense, confrontation and mostly stabbing their prey items on the ground.
Each group of mountain dragons is led by the dominant male who fathers all the offspring and only allows certain adult or young males to mate with the females.
During the breeding season, some of the young males will form a small bachelor group, sparring their honing skills until they are eventually ready to risk winning the dominant bull dragon for leadership of the group.
These fights between hormonal-change male dragons usually start with roaring displays while brandishing their curvy horns, then massive clashes of horn-to-horn will ensue, and finally aerial dogfights to the death are oftentimes very often.
Many times, several challenging bull dragons and dominant males count on their horns, giant necks, muscles and bull-charges to carry on throughout the day, useful for defense and for combat.
Nothing else can take on a fierce bull dragon, although rivaling challengers are the only potential threat no less, vengeful and bloodthirsty on a whim as well.
But being so big is also defensive to keep the adults safe.
Female mountain dragons have important roles in a group; defending their offspring, marking their property and hunting any prey they need to feed their families and themselves.
They also lay a number of twenty eggs (the size of a cannonball) in rock-piled nests, insulated by fiery breaths of their mothers who keep them warm and safe during the long winter seasons and further on.
When the furnace-temperate nests are threatened by egg-thieves and marauding carnivores (including goblins, orcs and bats), female mountain dragons will gather together to form a defensive sphere around the nest, using their size, horns, manes and strength to fend off intruders - either by rearing back on their hind legs and stomp their lethal-clawed front limbs or by breathing red-hot flames to burn away opponents.
When the eggs hatch after three months of incubation, all the dragon hatchlings are fully protected by their mothers, aunts and cousins, regardless of their parenthood.
Mature female mountain dragons will leave the main group to join other groups which prevents inbreeding, while others maintain and assist in defense and guard duty.
As mentioned, mountain dragon groups are often led by dominant male dragons known as 'bulls' who keep their eyesight and smell for potential predators and vengeful rivaling challengers.
But the most famous dragon species of the far North can have fewer adversaries to combat for food, territory and dominance.
There are other kinds of dragons that develop more than just their fiery breaths, teeth and claws, and long whip-like tails are their additional weapons of choice as well.
A single opponent has a few chances to withstand such a notorious dragon.
Despite their defensive weapons and fiery breaths, all dragons have a few things in common, living in their daily struggles against the coldest weather conditions.
Dragons absolutely do not devour humans neither demolish villages because of their appetite containing strictly large animals and other dragons.
But because they never destruct human settlements, they are shown more self-conscious in nature, avoiding conflict and further competition.
Although most people have reason to hunt dragons (but not all of them) for the sake of their most important livestock and land they depend on for their daily lives.
They may never know any better, but we still do the same hunting on other animals in the modern world, depending on what we need for our homes, clothing, food and property, even sometimes to protect our community from the unpredicting nature.
Life on the Nordic Triangle is full of hazards and surprises.
Up in the sky however, when you think the Northern lights at night are brighter than ever, hazards on the coldest-weather region at the far North are unforgiving, untamed and definitely a real challenge for survival.
But this is why the Nordic Triangle is also too cold, too hazardous and above all, too much dangerous.