Vanaheim is much like Asgard but has something that Asgard does not: a coastline. The terrain is rugged with high snow-capped mountains into the north, great forests in the southern lowlands, and tundra between. The land supports a variety of creatures including musk ox, moose, foxes, bears, and mammoths. Separated from Asgard, Pictland, and even Cimmeria by a range of mountains, the Vanir largely hold to the coastal islands and fjords, but continue to raid across their entire country. To the north is their Arctic Circle, where their ancient forebears once migrated from and now is largely left alone.
A far-northern nation comprising the western reach of Nordheim, Vanaheim is home to the red-haired blue-eyed Vanir, a virile and rough-hewn race of warriors who fight by day and carouse by night. They are hunters and gatherers that relish battle but only to loot and pillage, not as a means of expanding their boarders especially against their hated foes, the people of Asgard.
The Vanir live in tribal units with no single king. Though each tribe has its own king who typically presides in a timber roofed great hall. Lacking interest in farming, their ships become the source of their wealth, trading all the way down the coastline to Zingara and even Argos, but that is how they behave when in civilized coastal waters. On the southern coast of Vanaheim, their dragon-prowed ships stalk their own shores, mostly preying upon one another with raids on their small sea-towns. Occasionally they brave the Pictish coastline, but there is not enough of worth there to warrant the trouble, and generally they are driven back whenever their trespasses grow too bold.