The Tree at World's End

Despite the dangers that lay in wait, there are some travellers who venture north into Hyperborea.  Be they diplomats, spies, or intrepid hunters, they tend to follow the valley of the Grey River, upstream if they are coming from the Vilayets Sea.  There is a point where the steep-sided valley of that river softens, allowing travellers to head north along the flanks of the Mountains of the Grey Apes.

Whilst this is certainly not the least dangerous route - the mountains have their name for good reason - it is a simpler task than heading across the bleak and often snow-covered plains of central Hyperborea, in which it is all too easy to lose bearings and sanity.

Some three hundred miles north along this trail, there is an immense and ancient tree, whose roots, it is said, run down into deep caverns beneath the Grey Mountains in which lay untold wealth.  Although there are no true borders in these parts, the Tree at World's End is commonly held to mark the entrance into Hyperborea.  The Witchmen themselves hold to this idea, and when they are visited by embassies important enough to warrant their attention, they meet them beneath the branches of this tree.

Over time, it has become custom to accept that the shadow of the Tree offers, by daylight or on moonlit nights, asylum to any who seek it.  The truce ends when it is no longer possible to distinguish the colour of the cones that grow on the tree, from the branches.