Nuskar Pass Alliance

When Luxanna finally arrived at the alliance site, spring had already descended upon Demacia to the south. On the Sagragra Plains of Freljord, however, the Breath of Anivia had merely weakened somewhat. The howling, biting winds still swept down from the great glaciers of the far north, crossing the frozen Sea of Frost before enveloping the entire continent of Freljord.

The cold winds weakened somewhat after crossing the Varal Mountains, but their power remained extraordinary. Under the chill winds that blew year after year, the bay south of the Varal Mountains and north of Frostport remained covered in thick layers of ice throughout the year.

Here, the sea ice that never melted and the ice sheet covering the land fused completely into one, forming the largest mixed plain in Western Freljord—the Sagragra Mixed Plains.

The farther east one went, the more the flat Sagragra Plains were squeezed between the Dragon Ridge Mountains to the south and the Iceclaw Mountains to the north, gradually narrowing until, at the point where the two mountain ranges came closest—less than a thousand yards apart in a straight line—they formed Freljord's most spectacular natural pass: Nuskar Pass.

From a distance, Nuskar Pass looked like a gap cleaved into two tall, orderly hedge walls. To enter the environmentally superior Lakstak Plains of Central Freljord from the Western Freljord Subcontinent, one had to cross the Dragon Ridge Mountains and Iceclaw Mountains, whose average elevation exceeded five thousand meters. Unless one had the ability to do so, this was the only route.

So it was no exaggeration to say that whoever controlled Nuskar Pass controlled the gateway to Western Freljord. For precisely this reason, even to the Freljordians, who had no tradition of building cities, Nuskar Pass was an ancient and imposing stronghold.

Generation after generation of Western