Lore · Cities & Peoples
Halas & the Northmen
McNaff’s, the Gwenavyne raft and the long run into Everfrost: Halas felt like a village. That was on purpose.
Dun Lir
Before Halas there was Dun Lir, capital of the Northern Nation and seat of the King of the North. Legend says the Marr twins carved its valley themselves and showed it to Dugan the Golden, the first king, which would explain why it sits almost exactly in the middle of the coast. By the time of the tyrant Killian Blood-Axe it was a real city, and his palace had grown to twelve storeys and nearly two hundred feet.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Realms of Norrath: Everfrost Peaks, History (RPG, 2003)
The giants come
The ice giants destroyed it the simple way: they climbed the Everfrost Peaks above the city and hurled boulders down on it. They killed the king and his family, tore down what was left, buried the ruins under dirt and gravel, and built their own keep on top. When the giants were finally defeated, the rebel Burke Wingfoot persuaded the northmen never to centralise again. The tribes went home, and the valley lay empty.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Realms of Norrath: Everfrost Peaks, History (RPG, 2003)
Bran’s dream
Two decades later a young Bear-tribe shaman named Bran dreamed that the Tribunal wanted a new village on the shores of Loch Lir, one that belonged to no single tribe. He found a Mammoth-tribe carver named Willem who had dreamed the same, and as they travelled they found others in every tribe. Two dozen of them reached Loch Lir. Digging into the stony ground, they found that many of Dun Lir’s cellars had survived, and moved into them.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Realms of Norrath: Everfrost Peaks, History (RPG, 2003)
Focus, or distraction
Then dwarves appeared over the mountains: friendly scouts from Moradhim, a mining town settled from Kaladim. Trading with them made Bran see that the North could not stay hidden. With the tribes’ agreement, Loch Lir would become the meeting and trading place for outsiders, built to look like a capital so the rest of the North could be left in peace. The dwarves helped build it over ten years. Bran named it Halas, which, depending on how you say it, means either “focus” or “distraction.” A council of elders still rules it.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Realms of Norrath: Everfrost Peaks, History (RPG, 2003) · Library of Erudin: Halas (On the Town of: Halas, 2008)
Its end
EverQuest II remembers Halas’s fate: worn down by years of war with snow orcs, it was finally razed by burning fragments of Luclin falling from the sky, fulfilling a shaman’s prophecy: “On the night of fire, Halas shall be consumed by earth.”
Sources: Library of Erudin: Halas (Handbook of the Ravens of the North, EverQuest II)
A city built as a trap
The RPG’s Everfrost Peaks says Halas was built “as both a stronghold and a trap.” It is a half-circle against the mountains, fronted by a stone wall about 60 feet high and wide enough for four northmen to walk abreast. The lake piers stop 20 feet short of the wall, and stone doors are lowered like drawbridges to meet them. Each ring of buildings stands higher than the last, rising toward the Council Building, and the streets twist and slope upward. Balconies and porches are forbidden, but citizens may paint their homes however they like, so Halas is “a riot of colors and murals.” Channels cut from Loch Lir carry fresh water to wells, and a second set flushes refuse back to the lake.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Halas (Realms of Norrath: Everfrost Peaks — City Structure)
Life in the cold
The official On the Town of: Halas article says nearly all barbarians worship the Tribunal, though warriors often honour Rallos Zek too. Thieving is frowned upon but tolerated, as long as the victims are not other northmen. Young pupils must survive Everfrost almost as a rite of passage, and the city’s smiths turn out some of the finest weapons and armour in Norrath. Taverns are everywhere, because the cold “is the best quelled at hearthside with soothing glass of the finest barbarian ale.”
Sources: Library of Erudin: Halas (On the Town of: Halas — 2/15/08)
Halas at war
The in-game Halas Gazette shows Halas acting when others did not. When the trolls and dark elves marched on Gukta, the northmen alone sent an elite force to try to break the siege. The Gazette later reported that the troops “pierced through the potent fear” of the troll army but were beaten on the field, and only a few escaped “the axe of Ykesha’s army.” The RPG adds that as night falls, shamans place spiritual protection on the doors, and people retell the old story of the lich Miragul threatening Halas.
Where the sources disagree
- The 2002 Game Master’s Guide calls Halas the birthplace of the barbarians; the 2003 Everfrost Peaks book says Halas was founded long after the barbarians’ first capital, Dun Lir, fell.
Keep reading
Retold in our own words from the sources linked under each chapter; short quotes are marked and sourced. The illustration is an original AI-generated painting made for this page alone, not from the game.