Between the Varangor and the Sea of Ice lie many cold forests, colder grasslands and coldest islands, a dark land where the sun shines timid and its people live wary, of invaders, impostors, and the beasts that they share a home with.
The Estun are a reclusive people of the forest, they have grown timidly agressive after centuries of dealing with their neighbors. Humans, bugbears and hobgoblins are almost equally represented, with tribes being either of hobgoblins and humans or of bugbears and their beasts. There is no great chieftain that controls them all, but it is known that they settle matters in the center of their domains twice a year.
Hunting , fishing and foraging are the preferred means of survival. Farming is possible, and the shamans would make it all the more fruitful, but the beasts of the forest hunger more than the Estun, and they are bigger and scarier than any single tribe. Elks bigger than huts, bears with claws sharp as swords, eaglehounds hunting in packs, and savage giants roam around, eating anything that fits in their maws. Due to these threats, most settlements are temporary, with the ones on maps being either sites of religious importance, the circle of discussions, or caves that tribes have agreed are for when the times are roughest and they must hide together.
The Estun hold Selune, Sune, Tyr and Bahamut as their patron deities, with many tribes having their own worship and deals with spirits of the land. Necromancy is one of the few things that make the tribes band together as to quash it, and blood magic is unheard of. Most tribes carry their history in a single great totem, carried by the shaman or their greatest beast of burden.
The Human-hobgoblin tribes tend to have a better grasp of metalworking and runecraft, which they learned from their Varangor would-be conquerors. The bugbear tribes never got the hang of iron, instead, they use stone, wood, and flesh. Herds of eaglehounds, domesticated elks by way of friendly spirits and the knowhow of how to convince the lumbering giants to do their bidding.
The Estun have fought every single neighbor for their independence. The Varangor and Letun have been their main enemies, but the Llapock kingdoms have made their attempt, and some minor conflicts have sparked with the Fennoscadi over the islands in the Sea of Ice. In battle, the Estun bring small numbers of experienced warriors, druidic and runic magics and animals, be them summoned or herded. Against most enemies they preffer to close into melee, even against Varangor half giants, which they slam by felling trees at the start of ambushes. If the battle goes south, no pride is lost in fleeing, and disappearing in their own lands which they know like the back of their hand.