Folk will scratch their living in any place they can, and this is felt in no place in the Kingdom as much as it is in the village of Icetower - the ice-cold, barren rock that towers above the frigid waters of the sea. Those that live there are proud and independent, and rarely venture to the 'soft and pampered' towns of the south.
At the tip of the bay in the north of Endon is the small hamlet of Icetower, named for the lighthouse that watches over the trade ships that pass around the icy cliffs to the north. It is a remote, suspicious community, little trusting of outsiders and which actively avoids any involvement in the affairs of other communities. It was founded by settlers from a land beyond the Long Strait, and though it submits to the lordship of the Kings in Endon, it has a few trappings of that heritage: a jarl, for instance, and a longhouse.
Icetower’s wall protects it from any approach on land, from bands of marauders or bandits, and the vast cliffs reaching down to the sea are barrier enough from any other approach. The villagers have a series of nets and ropes that reach down to the small fishing boats moored on the pebble shore.
On Arrival to Icetower
"A long finger of rock extends above the waves out to the north, and the sea crashes dimly over the wind. On the cliffs above the pebbled beach, on the frostburned patches of grass, a cluster of thatched huts languish between the palisade on the landward side, and the tall, elegant lighthouse above."
The Lighthouse
The tower on the tip of the point, some three hundred feet from the peaks of the waves below, is four hundred years old. It is claimed by some, via folk stories or old carvings, that there was a yuan-ti lighthouse there before, and perhaps even a goliath lighthouse before that, but as the water has eroded away at the cliffs, those old buildings have disappeared into the waves below.
Approaching the Lighthouse
"While the village below it has a feeling of scarcity and rough living, the lighthouse is tall and slender - a spire of silver-grey stone amidst the dark of the stormy sky and the hungry sea below. At its tip, beneath the coned roof, littered with ancient ice and rimmed with icicle-like teeth, the beacon of fire burned before the burnished mirror, shining unceasingly."
The lighthouse is strangely out of place amongst the thatched roofs of the village, and occasionally plays host to travellers and mysterious visitors, who come to speak with the lighthouse-keeper.