Winter Nest

The village of Winter Nest is located in the frozen peaks of the White Mountains. It is the home of a civilized tribe of aarakocra.

The unusual buildings of Winter Nest are formed from a mixture of ice, stone, and shaped bricks. To new visitors the village looks like a cluster of towers, giving the appearance that the mountain peak has a crown. There are no roads in Winter Nest and very few connecting walkways between the buildings, as the aarakocra fly rather than walk. Doorways appear all along the face of the buildings, though most are clustered near the top of each tower. Landing platforms and resting perches decorate the outsides of most building. Each tower is topped with a large rounded structure. Most of these sphere-shaped constructs are communal areas, though the highest are the personal quarters of the leaders of Winter Nest.

Life and Society
The aarakocra of Winter Nest called themselves “silvaarak,” which means “people of the silver wing.” They are perceptive, and have great confidence and pride in themselves. This translates into arrogance at times, because the silvaarak believe that their ability to fly makes them superior to all other races. Though they often express sympathy for people unable to fly, this more often comes across as condescending.

The aarakocra have had a difficult time forming friendly relations with others over the years. Only in Kurn have they made dedicated friends. Traders from Winter Nest visit the city-state of Kurn a few times each year for trade. Other attempts to make contact with other communities have meet with failure. Either due to the hostility of the natives such as in Eldaarich and the Bandit States, or the silvaarak’s condescending nature towards other races.

Government and Politics
Winter Nest is lead by Traaka (LG female aarakocra, air cleric 5/elementalist 2) a female aarakocra of many years. Traditionally, the aarakocra are isolationists, and Traaka supports this policy. The isolationist policy was adopted years ago after bad experiences with Eldaarich and later with the peoples of the Bandit States. The policy has kept the village safe over the years and most of the silvaarak want to see it continue.

However, many of the younger generation of birdpeople desire to explore the world beyond the White Mountains. They have been vocal in their wish to explore and make contact with other civilizations, believing they will not experience such bad receptions as those the aarakocra received in Eldaarich or the Bandit States. Pointing to Kurn, these young bloods believe there is opportunity for the silvaarak in positive relationships with outsiders.

Traaka understands the young aarakocra’s desires, but wishes to maintain the status quo for the protection of the village. She is trying to develop a middle path that would allow some exploration without making the location of the village well known to its enemies.

Power Groups
Air Clerics: Winter Nest is ruled by clerics of Air and Ice drawn from the leading aarakocra families. The clerics meet in a large hall in Winter Nest to discuss community issues; when there is a particularly contentious debate, the priests adjourn to the very summit of a nearby mountain overlooking the village. There, perched on the ice and surrounded by the sky, the priests of the two faiths pray for guidance together.

Important Sites
Air Temple: The Air Temple is the grandest structure in the village. The temple is built like a huge brazier, with four legs made of massive evergreen tree trunks dragged up from the foothills centuries ago. These tree boles, each more than 100 feet long, are set in the icy ground and canted to nearly join at the tops. There is a concave plate of ice, 20 feet in diameter, held up between the four posts with a hole 8 feet in diameter cut in its center. Priests of Air preach from the center of the bowl, while congregants gather on the rim of the bowl and on the perches placed at intervals along the legs.

Ice Temple: Smaller only to the Air Temple, the Ice Temple (which is basically another word for water at such high altitudes most of the year) is built of large sheets of translucent white and blue ice, layered upon one another to create a five-sided pyramid more than 40 feet tall. The interior is sunken below ground level dug into the glacier so all the worshippers are surrounded by primordial ice throughout the services. Fresh plates of ice are added to the temple throughout the High Sun.