Editing Scrollhammer: Holds of Skyrim (section)

===The Geography of Skyrim===

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Skyrim is a vast and wild land, even after millennia of civilization. While great kingdoms rise in the valleys, strange creatures of all sorts lurk in the tundra and on the icy peaks of the towering mountains: trolls, frost giants, and even the deathly-cold Ice Wraiths against whom success in battle is considered the mark of a true warrior. The heights are covered in snow all year round, and summers are short in the northern climes. Icebergs dot the seas that the great longships and trading vessels navigate, and tales of great krakens and world-serpents lurking beneath the endless ice-filled waves, preying on those who would sail too far north, are told in hushed voices in the inns of the coastal villages.

The central lowland is the heart of Skyrim, where Whiterun and Windhelm were built long ago. High above towers the Throat of the World, and the fortress High Hrothgar, where the few Greybeard monks practice the Thu'um even in an era of its decline. To the east lies the Rift, a vast deciduous forest, and to the west Falkreath Hold, where the conifers grow. Along the northern coast of the land, beyond the northern mountains, are on one end Haafingar, or Solitude, and Winterhold. These two cities have grew rich during the Third Empire through trade, although Winterhold more recently suffered a great decline after a mysterious disaster believed to be caused by the local College of Magic. Solitude, on the other hand, boasts the Bard's College, where the finest musicians in the world are trained in the art of poetry, song and the playing of various instruments.

The Western Reach, on the border of High Rock, Skyrim and Hammerfell, has long been a disputed land. The Nords have laid claim to it many times, but the barbarian Reachmen, hill tribes known to practice strange witchcraft, have often fought to the death over control of its rich natural resources and authority over the region.