This icy continent is little known and only its most south eastern edge has been mapped by the peoples of Cerilia, primarily the Rjurik and the Brecht.


For more than half of the year Thaele is ice-bound and in particularly icy winters it is said by some hoary old sea dogs that the ice not only covers the land but the sea freezes between as far south as Aldrud in Hogunmark allowing one to walk between the two continents ("if one is a polar bear or mad" as the Jarls of Hogunmark are wont to retort to such comments).


Thaele has few inhabitants, the Rjurik and Brecht long visited the land during summer to repair ships damaged in storms, harvest lumber, smoke fish, hunt geese and so on but its main use was in whaling where camps would be set up in a number of bays and the great white whales of the ice would be hunted as they traveled south to fatten up for the winter. Historically these settlements were occupied only in summer but of late the Rjurik have formed permanent colonies where people live year-round. This is considered foolish by some Rjurik who say that such ventures have always failed in the past.

Known Rjurik colonies currently surviving in Thaele are:

• Hoekstraad a colony established by Halskapa over a decade ago and ruled by Jarl Haelrya Sivardaan
  
• Tjarvaald a colony established by Stjordvik a few years ago by Queen Ljorrah shortly before her death. The colony is supported by the Three Trees trading guild and its Jarl is Andros Drakken-viir.
  
• Rjalford a colony established by Jankaping 3 years ago and led by Jarl Haldan Njarik, noted for its rugged terrain, ice trolls and Fhoimorien raiders.
  

Native peoples of Thaele are often spoken of but the tales are often incredible, particularly to worldly-wise cosmopolitan folk, tales of sidhe cities of soaring towers of ice are amongst the more credible stories told, even drunken sea-dogs rarely believe the tales of Karamhul cities floating atop burning rock, maidens who can turn into seals, walrus-like men who wield harpoons of ice, great tribes of shaggy ogres who roam the land following herds of reindeer, flocks of white wyverns who dive deep into the sea to hunt whales, of mountains of moving ice or of a land of geysers and boiling mud pits where crops can be raised year round even in the most bitter winter.

Most trade with Thaele passes through the Hogunmark capital of Aaldvika (which also acts as a bridge in sea trade route terms between the civilised southern realms of Anuire and the Taelshore and the Brecht lands and is accordingly quite a sizable port) and is carefully monitored (and taxed) by Freila, Queen of Hogunmark.

Only a handful of captains have the skill to sail the barely charted waters of Thaele and even they do so only in summer, the most famed is Njallkaar Homark, captain of the Dragon's Wing.

Thaele is noted for its mineral wealth, ancient pine forests and extremely unforgiving climate and terrain - one can become rich from a handful of successful trips to Thaele but unless such a fortune seeker is very prepared or lucky, they are far more likely to succumb to the rough seas, cold, and hunters of the land.

NB: P59 and P71 of the Rjurik Highlands contain most of the canon on Thaele.