Perched against a sheer wall of glacier and stone at the edge of the tundra, Bannen is a stark and brooding city of stone halls, wind-worn towers, and firelit streets. Snow never melts here—it is shoveled, carved, and built around. The people are tough, practical, and deeply suspicious of things buried or forgotten.

Locals call Bannen “The Vigil,” for it was founded centuries ago as a watchpost over the ancient barrows sealed beneath the frozen earth. The name “Bannen” itself derives from an old word meaning Bane—not in malice, but in reverence. For the people here believe they are the bane of something ancient… or perhaps that something ancient is the bane of them.

In dark corners and deep cellars, older folk still speak of Gunvald the Barrow King, a half-forgotten warlord-sorcerer said to have forged pacts with death and winter before he was betrayed and entombed. They say Bannen was not built to house the living, but to guard the gates of the dead.

Many dismiss this as superstition. But every so often, the wind howls a little too long, or something thuds beneath the ice—and the hearthfires are stoked a little higher.