Thoughts on Starting a Nordlond Campaign

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by DAT

The first items I want to get other's insights into is a combination of:
1. What point total to start with (250, 187, 125, or 62)?

Personally, I'd lean hard towards 125 points, so that you can be capable (and the various Meatgrinder tests showed these characters to be remarkably robust) and grow into higher point, higher reputation characters over time. The campaign supports all play levels, though.

2. Where to start (Konunasborg, Akkerisborg, Nordvorn, other)?

If you start anywhere but Nordvorn you'll need to do some worldbuilding. Akkerisborg is probably the next region that needs/wants a large worldbook in my mind, since that will take the various large settlements on the Jotunnain and complete the set, so to speak, of borderland towns.

3. What backgrounds to allow encourage (Northern Nordlond, Southern Nordlond, Far Traveller, Combinations)?

Southern Nordlond is imperiled by the long war with the Neveri nomads (totally not Mongol hordes/Dothraki who read ACOUP) so there's lots of experience to be had there. It's got some ugly terrain, and it's mildly warmer than the north...but not a ton. The "breadbasket" in the middle is pretty civilized, so to speak. I won't say that the folks there don't believe the stories of wild faerie and trolls, but they're a more-distant threat. Characters from this region are likely to want to head north or south to find adventure, because that's what the town criers say is to be found, but are likely to be a wee bit surprised when they find it. How far you push the "genteel city folks vs barbarian country dwellers" is a bit up to you.

4. What races to allow (human; human plus NF; human, NF, and standard)?

Choices here will impact the rest of your world. If you allow some of the more unusual races as "normal," then that informs pretty much everywhere. "I've never seen a dragonborn before" is unlikely, etc. Nordlondr Folk does give a proper nod to the races in Adventurers, so there's that.

5. What languages and cultural familiarizes (CFs) to add (everyone has Nordlond language, only natives have the CF; add additional languages and CFs based on backgrounds and races)?

This seems good; the DFRPG assumptions are a bit like Star Wars: everyone speaks English unless the plot calls for them to not.

Even if the CHARACTERS have Cultural Familiarity, the players probably don't, and this can lead to expectations mismatch or a requirement for the GM to be constantly doing exposition on the culture.

If I start with 62 point DtG characters, then a more local start (Nordvorn or maybe Akkerisborg), Northern Nordlond background, mostly human (but some NF races), and Nordlond language and CF makes sense. I see this as a zero-to-hero journey.

Then 62 or even 75-point characters will serve you well. Doing something unusual and allowing 87-point characters (start with an extra upgrade module) would give that "better than most" feel without negating nigh-on 200 points of awesome coming in the future if you're planning a long campaign. Starting with two upgrades rather than one also allows more variability in starting character capabilities.

At 250 points I’d start the party meeting in a tavern in Konunasborg (or sailing into Konunasborg if all are Far Travelers), open up all backgrounds and races, and expand the language and CF list.

Konungsborg (King's Fort) will require some real worldbuilding on your part...that's not a BAD thing, but it's work. It will need a massive, impressive dwarf-built fortress, and population is going to be in the 20,000 to 25,000 range at least in my mind. It's the most populous city in Nordlond, and the seat of the royal house of the king - House Torengar. The queen is of house Iyiling.

If I open up Far Traveler backgrounds (because of course as soon as I give players a rich extensive setting, they immediately ask about playing analogs to Ninja, Samurai, Arabians, Roman Legionaries, escaped slaves from Roman, etc. who aren’t from the setting) I sort of want the Nordlond setting name and general direction (East across the Reidur Sea, South, Southeast, Southwest, West). Are there any canon simple descriptions floating around of what other lands and peoples are in the wider Nordlond world? Yes I can always make them up, but I dislike having to retro fit something if I don’t have to.

There are some. You might want to pop into my Discord and I can share maps and stuff there. There's also a lot of related material in my Dragon Heresy RPG (derived from D&D 5e), including full color maps and some culture stuff.

Arnulf - totally not Carolingian France. Frankish influence on Viking culture is reversed here a bit, since Nordlond is the large, dominant culture. But these independent counties are "ruled" by an itinerant royal court that moves from place to place as a sort of ruling council. there is a king, but that's something that lasts only as long as the ruling coalition can be held together. Again, this nation mostly exists because my original designs didn't have anywhere for the Vikings to go viking.

Brionnu - totally not Celtic England, south of Arnulf. Government is mostly local, led by "Shepherds" who are basically high-ranking clerics. But it's not a theocracy per se...more like "each parish/region looks to the elder religious figure." Norlondrs like to raid here in the summer. In fact, from a worldbuilding standpoint, Brionnu and Arnulf and, to some extent, Brousha, exist as raiding targets. Names will be Irish, English, Scottish, etc...basically Anglo.

Barakthel - Island kingdom due east of sourthern Nordlond or northern Brousha. 250 miles over the ocean. Strangers not really welcome other than the capital city. Culturally the most similar to Nordlond. Dwarf homeland. I have some cosmology stuff about dwarves in my head (their task is keeping things calm below the earth's surface; humanity is charged with above, though there is cross-over). Names are as in Nordlond: Norse.

Storean - kingdom of the Elfard, a nomistic demarchy (government by random selection to posts). Common saying "only an elf could think of that, and only a kingdom of elves could make it work." It's just enough organization to deal with threats to borders, incursions, and to have vaguely organized relations with other nations as needed. Mostly the elfard don't care much, and the half-elfard run th eplace. Their capital city Svetiliste probably has a name like "the humans kept wanting to go to our capital city, and they kept coming here, so we declared it the capital and well, that's that." Names are Gaelic and Welsh and other elfy-sounding things.

Morevel - totally not Macedonian Greece, really. Due West from Brionnu, Arnulf, and Brousha, and south of western Storean, across the Neveri Steppes. It's not shown on my map, but since you can't really do Greece without boats and Odysseys and the like, the southern border of Morevel is the ocean. Names here should probably be Greco-Roman.

Inthriki - Totally not the history of Kamakura-era Japan, with a bit of Korea blended in. I have notes on this culture, but I don't care for them in retrospect. But there's samurai/hwarang analogs as nobility, rice farms, and current rule is, I believe, a military shogunate analog. The druidic-style Imperial Family is kept at a distance, etc. The history of the Kamakura era in the real world is nuts and cool, in a way that "reality doesn't have to be believable." Famines, storms, political fortunes changing because volcanoes blew up...at least that's what I remember from my notes. Names are China, Japan, Korean in flavor.

Neveri - totally not stereotypical horse nomads...but I've started reading A Collection of Unmitigated Pretentiousness (ACOUP) about horse nomad cultures and have started tweaking it away from "Algars" and "Dothraki" and more towards something that feels as tangible as Nordlond does. The Neveri horse archer gets an entry in the Bestiary, but no character profession templates ... yet.

Brousha - "The Thief-Kingdom of Brousha" was originally the halfling kingdom, run by five oligarchs (and if you're thinking The Five Families from the Godfather...yeah, that) who are basically each in charge of a giant clan. The country has five capitals - the "seat" of each clan/family. Names were taken from Zulu language.

Also on the topic of Backgrounds, is there any generally recognized landmark distinguishing the divide between Northern and Southern Nordlond? The Freysain or the Sispnisain and Wodenain?

Is there also a Central and or Western Nordlond? If so, what landmark distinguish their divides?

-Dan

Vaguely speaking, the Wodenain is the boundary beyond which you're dealing with "the northern wild border" that extends to the Jotunnain.

Between Freyain and Wodenain are mostly great grassy plains, sparsely populated (you can see there aren't a lot of towns there.

Central, "urban" Nordlond is the "breadbasket" between the Freayain and Isa and Vidira rivers (you'll note that "wild border stuff" has -áin for river endings, while -á is used in the "civilized central regions." That was deliberate. Both endings mean river, but -áin is older, from what I could gather at the time.

Further south is a lot of timberland, which is its own source of wealth.

There's not really an east-west. There's "coastal" east, and some surprisingly wealthy settlements on the forest-hill-mountain region that ends at the Vesturham mountain range.