The Whitefang Confederation
Many fangs, one jaw.
At a Glance
| Founding | Forged from thirty-two warring tribes at the close of the recent war of unification (not in the deep past) |
|---|---|
| Unifier | Rammstein "the Red" Whitefang, who bound the north under Ash's guidance |
| Government | A confederation of the northern tribes under a single High Chieftain |
| High Chieftain at the Dawn of the Present Age | Rammstein "the Red" Whitefang (heir: his son Ramsey; daughter: Rahlia) |
| Peoples | Humans of the north, some carrying ancient Wood Elf blood, some ancient Jotun blood, mixed in long ago |
| Languages | The Common Tongue, alongside the old tongues of the tribes |
| Dominant Faith | The old tribal gods, each tribe its own; Arivatan Solonism is kept, but rarely |
Overview
The Whitefang Confederation is the youngest power on the Continent and one of its fiercest, a union of the hardy human tribes of the frozen Northern Wastes forged only in the recent war of unification. For all the ages before it, the north was not a nation but a battleground: thirty-two warring tribes, feuding without end, and no hand strong enough to bind them, until one was found.
Its people are human, though not only human. In the deep past the blood of the Wood Elves and the blood of the Jotun were mixed into the northern line, and though the ages have thinned both, they run in the Confederation still, in a people known for their hardiness, their honor, and their gift for war.
Geography
The Confederation holds the Northern Wastes, the cold frontier at the top of the Continent, beyond the Abaddon Mountains that wall it off from the kingdoms of the south. It is a hard country of snow and stone and deep timber, and chief among its features is the Untamed Forest, whose game and fish have fed the northern tribes since before any of them kept a name.
People & Culture
The people of the north are humans shaped by a merciless land, hardy, honor-bound, and reckoned among the finest warriors and scouts the Continent has ever produced. In the deep past the lines of the Wood Elves and of the Jotun married into theirs, and though that inheritance has faded across the ages, it surfaces yet: in an unusual longevity here, an uncommon strength or size there, and in a natural affinity for magic that runs stronger in the north than in most human lands.
For all the world's talk of northern savagery, the Confederation counts its people by merit and by honor and by nothing else. Gender is no bar to standing here, and worth is reckoned in deeds. Its culture is a warrior's culture, of clans and oaths and the long memory of feuds only lately laid to rest. The tribes speak the Common Tongue, and each keeps besides the old speech of its own people.
Government
The Whitefang Confederation is exactly that, a confederation: the thirty-two tribes of the north bound under a single High Chieftain. It is a new thing, and a fragile one, for the north has no long habit of obedience. What holds it together is the man who made it, Rammstein "the Red" Whitefang. His own tribe, the Whitefang, was the smallest and the weakest of the thirty-two; it was Rammstein himself, and the sway he held over chieftains far mightier than he, that kept the peace and, in the end, forged the union. He rules now as High Chieftain, a widower since the loss of his wife Thyra to a wasting sickness, with his son Ramsey as his heir and his daughter Rahlia beside him.
Economy
The north is a poor country, and the Confederation was poorer still in its warring days, when every tribe's hand was raised against the rest. Its wealth is what the land yields to those hard enough to take it: furs and meat from the game of the Untamed Forest, and fish drawn through the ice of its frozen waters. It is a living wrung from a cruel country, and the people who wring it are the harder for it.
Religion
The north keeps the old faith, or rather the old faiths, for the tribal gods of the Wastes are many, and each tribe has long kept its own. Arivatan Solonism has found a few adherents here, carried north by trade and treaty, but only a few; the gods of the cold, the hunt, and the ancestors hold the north far more surely than any creed of the south.
Military
War is the north's oldest art, and it has few equals at it. The tribes of the Wastes are peerless scouts and trackers and ferocious warriors, and the strain of Jotun blood that surfaces here and there among them produces fighters of exceptional size and strength. In open battle and in the long stalking war of the wilderness alike, few forces on the Continent would willingly meet the north on its own ground.
History
The Thirty-Two Tribes
For all the ages of the Continent, the Northern Wastes were no kingdom but a long war. Thirty-two tribes held the north, feuding without end, too proud and too many to be bound by any one of their number. The Whitefang tribe was the least of them all, small and weak; but its chieftain was not. Rammstein the Red held a sway over the north out of all proportion to the strength of his people, and it was that sway, and little else, that kept the endless feuding from swallowing the Wastes whole.
The Unification
The union came late, and it came with the Emperor. Under the guidance of Ash, and by the strength of Rammstein the Red, the thirty-two tribes were at last bound into one: the Whitefang Confederation, named for the least of the tribes because it was the greatest of the chieftains who made it. What no northern age had managed, a single generation achieved, and the north passed from a byword for chaos to one of the Continent's most formidable powers within the span of a few short years.
The Present Age
For readers caught up to the most recent volume of the Soulfire saga.
The Confederation stands with the Outer Alliance, the north's strength given to the Emperor's cause, its warriors among the elite of his armies and its tribes the shield of the Continent's northern march. Rammstein rules as High Chieftain still. His son and heir, Ramsey Whitefang, is the Second Apostle of the Emperor and the husband of Darcia of Chandran; his daughter, Rahlia, is betrothed to Karna Sutekh, Prince of Khemareth, binding the young northern union to the old kingdoms of the south.