Sanctuaries (GW2)  

Guild Wars 2 Wikibase™

When the great storm had finally passed, the kodan saw their gift from Koda. Great sections of the seas had frozen, creating floating islands of ice. And the kodan climbed onto these and so could now live upon the land and the sea. And they watched and they learned and they hunted.

The kodan build and maintain cities of ice known as Sanctuaries. These Sanctuaries float on restless seas far to the north, beyond the lands where the norn have traveled. These Sanctuaries are spiritual havens as well as shelters, and at their icy core, the Voices live in shrines to Koda. In order to teach enlightenment, maintain a certain distance from the world, and meditate on Koda's true wishes, each Sanctuary's Voice shuts themselves off from the world. Only the battle-leader of each Sanctuaries, the Claw, has the right to approach the Voice and ask for guidance. That guidance and spiritual wisdom is then brought back for the benefit of every kodan in the tribe.

However, with the rise of the Elder Dragon Jormag, the great ice ships of the kodan were driven apart. Some fled to the north; others were capsized, torn apart, and destroyed by the dragon's wrath. Some few escaped southward, cut off from their fellows by the destruction and rising tide. The land to the far north cracked and shattered with Jormag's waking, allowing the icy northern ocean to flood through and create new, inland seas on which the kodan were cast adrift.