> And when the rain cloak of Skyfall Lake just isn't wet or
> cold enough... how about an isolated mountain valley on the
> ocean edge of Valind's glacier?
You mean the northern edge? The western edge of the Glacier is far out on the ocean, without any mountains ever shown in any maps.
I'd make it the edge near the White Sea if you want mountains or at least hills to go with the Glacier.
> Barbarian type pcs, close interaction with new types of
> elder races and powers, mysterious raiders and no contact
> with the outside world for centuries. Much skiing, shivering,
> avoiding avalanches and sheltering from supernaturally
> powerful thunderstorms.
For a slightly cosier version of this, think of lava beds below the Glacier - huge domes melted into the ice from below, with islets peeking out of the icy torrent which gets occasionally steamed up where it encounters new volcanic activity.
You get to see no sky, just the icy dome above. There is light - diffuse, through the ice, depending on the season. You'll get things like ice-encased Aurora Borealis. It will be possible to raise some kind of crop (something like rice-paddies in the melt-off puddles?).
Hollri might attack in the shape of kamikaze icicles. Trolls will roam the higher, dry clefts of the glacier. (Other?) Vadrudings might enter the region.
I'm even inclined to give this enclosed place a population of polar bears and other arctic (and ice age tundra) megafauna.
There might not be any timber available, which should provide for an interesting technology based on beast bones or cast-rock artifacts (from the lava streams). Heating would be available from carrying cooling lava. Fires would be discouraged as they poison the air.
For further inspiration, think Viking Iceland, Jules Vernes' "Journey to the Middle of the Earth", and Alan Dean Foster's "Icerigger" trilogy. The choice of the magic system is up to you, about any should be applicable. This might even work as an apostate Mostali or very strange aldryami outpost.
Another, similar exotic setting could be one of the nearer underworlds, where some earth people (sort of humans, or very minor daimons) cohabitating with giant shrews or moles fight off invading troll giant insect herders. They'd need some source of light in their vast main cave, but that could be a fallen Star Captain chained to a pillar in the middle of the cave.
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