The steppe is a place of extremes. The winters are routinely deadly, while the summers are intense enough to melt candles from their wicks. In any season, sudden winds can whip a man from the saddle.
It is the domain of the kroke, a 1,200-lb flightless bird that can just as easily tear a man in half with a kick as fit an entire head in its thick beak. These are in turn preyed upon by gangs of Haast eagles, which are themselves more than bold enough to sup on manflesh at whim.
The people of this region, Altonians, are wild in equal measure to the beastly tendencies of the land. Once they were nomads, and rode in force against all lands on krokeback. Still they build no castles of their own. The three castles they hold along the Tounbank Rill were built by an invading king who quarried the stone at The Montaignes long ago.
