Narthalf

The Fire Tundra is a vast, open plain scoured by the winter gales and storms off Ekkaia and the Landless Land, which mark its northern boundary. To its east lies the Bay of Desolation and the forbidding Aeglir Arvethed; to the west, the Ered Rhívamar and Berg Cradle Bay. The tundra extends southward as far as Rast Losnaeth. The Fire Tundra is named after the steaming pit of Morgoth's Well that lies at its heart. The fumes and glow from the volcanic basin can be seen from miles away and are used as a landmark by those who wander the region.

The sedge, grasses and herbs of the Fire Tundra are not particularly thick or lush in summer, yet its flat expanses support numbers of elk, reindeer and musk ox, followed by numerous wolf packs (white wolves dominating the northern reaches of the tundra, dire and grey wolves roaming the south). White fox, snowy owls and tundra hawks take on summer grey colors and hunt lemmings and hares. Snow leopards from the Ered Rhívamar can be found along the western fringes of the tundra, while the dreaded death shrew is common among the rockier outlying foothills of the Aeglir Arvethed.

There is no better word to describe the Fire Tundra in winter than "cold." The elk and most of the reindeer migrate eastward around the Aeglir Arvethed and the southern Bleak Mountains to the Lakeland. Other mammals hibernate or live under or on the snow. A frozen landscape remains, endlessly battered by bitterly cold winds and storms from the north. It is wandered by Trolls, a rare Giant or two, and scattered herds of barren-eround reindeer and musk ox.

Jäämies villages, seldom numbering over two hundred inhabitants, hug the northern shores of Berg Cradle Bay. These Jäämiehet live by whaling upon the bay and bartering with the Merimetsästäjät who dwell there, and by hunting the Fire Tundra. Travelers may use their well-appointed settlements as base camps for expeditions into the tundra beyond; the villagers' knowledge of skills and equipment needed for journeys on the open plain is unmatched. During the frenzy of hunting, fishing  and foraging in spring and summer, the Jäämiehet are usually unavailable as bearers, guides or mercenaries, and travelers must pay a high price to lure a Jäämies away for such purposes.

During the summer months, the Jäämiehet and Merimetsästäjät establish camps further inland for hunting the tundra herds. These camps are set up and abandoned quickly, since they must closely follow the movement of the herds, and travelers should not expect to find them again after a space of more than two weeks. The hunters normally aid strangers in need, but have very little to spare—the summer hunt means survival in winter, and they must harvest as much meat from the reindeer and elk herds as possible before the great herds migrate out of the area.