The terrain of Asgard is rugged with high snow-capped mountains into the north, glaciers, great forests in the southern lowlands, and tundra between. The land supports a variety of creatures including musk ox, moose, foxes, bears, and mammoths. Bitterly cold and often entirely snow-bound, life is hard and bleak.
A far-northern nation comprising the eastern portion of Nordheim, Asgard is home to the blond-haired blue-eyed Æsir, a virile and rough-hewn race of warriors who fight by day and carouse by night. They are hunters and gatherers who relish battle but only to loot and pillage, not as a means of expanding their borders. Given their lack of agricultural knowledge and their disdain for even the herding of animals, they wouldn’t know what to do with conquered land even if they had it.
The Æsir live in tribal units with no single king, though each tribe has its own leader who typically presides in a timber-roofed great hall. The many tribes of Asgard have formed an informal alliance with Cimmeria to the south, but Vanaheim to the west and Hyperborea to the east remain the Æsir’s most hated and ancient foes.
The history of the Æsir is that of nomadic tribal folk, migrating from the north, driven by unfathomable instinct, even passing fertile lands. Along the way they fought the Picts, who had survived the Cataclysm yet reverted to a savage way of life. Led by a warrior named Niord, the Æsir encountered the Valley of the Worm, where Niord lost his life slaying the titanic creature who gave the valley its name. His sacrifice was remembered and the lands of his people later bore the name Nordheim, for him.