Adventures in the North (3: Villages of the North)

ADVENTURES IN THE NORTH

VILLAGES OF THE NORTH

PART ONE

By Grant Hoeflinger

Svofnir wiped the foam of his ale from his lips and smiled with satisfaction.

“An excellent brew!” he complimented the barmaid before taking another deep drink of his tankard. “I’ve traveled far and wide, visiting more villages than I can recall, and I tell you truthfully: this is the best ale that I’ve tasted in any tavern.”

“Any man can boast that they’ve traveled the length of the land to worm their way into the graces of a tavern keep,” scoffed one of the men at the table next to Svofnir. “I myself have traveled as far as any other karl in this village, but I’ve only visited enough places to count on one hand!”

“Your right or your left?” asked Svofnir, careful to keep his face neutral. “I notice you have only four fingers on the left.” The man’s companions laughed raucously, and the nine-fingered man glared dangerously at Svofnir, but the wanderer went on as though he took no note. “Perhaps four or five places is far for you, my friend, but to Svofnir the Wanderer, Fireteller and one who is versed in the tales and lore of the Red Muse, that means nothing. I have forgotten more villages, towns, and armed encampments many times over the years that I’ve lived. Truth be told, it takes a thing of true note, like this ale here, to even earn a place in my memory for long.”

“Like what?” asked another of the men at the nearby table, still chuckling at his insulted companion. “Tell us a tale, skald, of a village that’s earned a place in your head.”

“Very well!” Svofnir exclaimed, finishing off the last of his tankard. “I’ll need more of this excellent ale to wet my throat!” he called to the barmaid. “What shall I tell you of? Skalvel’s Keep? No, that place was dull. Harrow’s Stand? Nay, the name held more interest than anything there.” Svofnir pursed his lips together as he tried to remember all of the villages he had passed through. He was still thinking when his next tankard was delivered, and had finished half of it even as the men at the table gibed and goaded him for his silence.

“Ah-hah!” Svofnir roared triumphantly once he settled on a tale to tell, quieting the mocking men. “You’ve no doubt heard of Thron, that great city on the coast, that withstood a siege told in many an epic tale? North and East of Thron, but not so far as to reach Wolfheim, there sits a town called Ristilheim. The folk of Ristilheim are a hearty bunch of Einheriar with no small bit of Fenrir blood[C1] , living so close to Wolfheim, and the majority of them are fine folk with all of their fingers.” This line drew another chorus of laughter from the table, and another glare from the nine-fingered man. “A fine place it is, but you’d not take note of it were you to simply lay eyes on it. It looks not too different from this place, in fact.’

“No, what sets Ristilheim apart from so many places in my mind are the Hakkidottir and Varinsson clans. You’ve heard of the Varinssons, I’ve no doubt; they make weapons coveted by many a huskarl across the land, all forged in the ancient forges at Ristilheim, and their pockets have grown heavy with the coin from it. The Hakkidottir are descended from Ristil Hakkidottir, who, as I am sure you can surmise, founded the town. Proud warriors each, with several of their elders joining the Varinsson elders whenever a thing needs to be called. A shame it is that the two clans hate one another so passionately that their things can never reach a decision, for if a Hakkidottir calls for guilt, a Varinsson will surely call for innocence, even if the evidence screams the contrary. So great is the hatred that the Hakkidottir have for the Varinsson, it is said that their skill in battle comes from refusing to use any weapon made at a Varinsson forge. Using only lesser weapons it requires more skill to make up for their shoddy craftsmanship.”

“It sounds like you remember more about the people than the place,” snapped the nine-fingered man.

“Some would argue that the people are the place,” Svofnir countered. “But in this case, what I truly remember is a statue at the center of Ristilheim, broken and toppled on its side. It is not often you see such a monument—and based on its size and grandeur, that is what it had been meant to be—left in such a state so openly. So when I drank with the Hakkidottir that afternoon I asked about the statue, and I asked the Varinssons when I dined with them later that evening. Both told a different side of the same story, but between the two I pieced together what I believe is the truth.’

“As I’d said, the two clans hated one another, and this hatred was as old as anyone could remember. At one point, however, the elders of both clans decided that they needed to try to make peace with one another, so they married off several of their sons and daughters to the other clan in a large ceremony that left the whole of Ristilheim celebrating the occasion. To mark this momentous peace, the clans paid for a master sculptor to produce am edifice in the likeness of Hefreya, in the hopes that the Queen of the Gods would bless the marriages and bring peace to their clans.’

“Alas, amid the festivities one of the new Varinsson grooms fell to squabbling with a new Hakkidottir groom, and the two came to blows. Now, when those two started fighting, every other clan member quickly followed suit, for you must back your fellow clansman if they come to blows. The brawl quickly turned into a fevered battle, until the two men who started the fight crashed full force into the statue of Hefreya, causing it to fall to the ground and shatter in places. They say that all of the marriages that day shattered at that same time, and the two clans despised one another even more after that.”

“Why keep the statue there then?” one of the men listening demanded.

“I never learned,” Svofnir said with a shrug. “Every time anyone I spoke with reached that part of the story, they were screaming and yelling about how it was the other clan’s fault, and someone from the other clan would arrive to challenge the assertion. I watched at least three fights start in the short time I was in Ristilheim, just because of the story about that statue.” Svofnir laughed at the memory.

“So is it the statue that makes you remember that place?” the nine-fingered man asked, still glaring at Svofnir.

Svofnir smirked at the man. “Wander as far and as wide as you will, to four villages, five villages or more, but I challenge you to forget a place where a mere story about a broken statue can lead to fights so vicious that lives are at risk.” The wandering skald looked about for the barmaid. “Now, if only I had another tankard of this excellent ale…”

*

Here’s an experiment: close your eyes, and picture a “typical” fantasy village, the ubiquitous setting visited by uncounted literary heroes, RPG and video game adventurers, and most fantasy films and television shows. In all likelihood, you visualized something out of a Western European history documentary: wooden hovels with thatch roofs, mud roads, filthy and grimy all over, filled with downtrodden peasants trying to survive their daily lives.

Here’s another experiment: how many villages, or even towns, from the sources above can you name off and provide details for? How many from your last campaign, or the one before that? Think of your favorite campaign ever, the one you and your group wax nostalgic for when you reminisce. How many villages did your group visit during the course of the game, and how many of them can you actually remember any details about?

The generic fantasy village is a quick and easy trope, something that game masters can easily pull out of their bag of tricks in a hurry when trying to come up with a location for their players to visit. The problem, and the bane of sandbox-style game masters, is that such generic villages are boring. In a hobby that is all about creating interesting and exciting evenings filled with adventure, political machinations, and other grand backdrops to explain the player characters’ activities, “boring” does not cut it. Many of us have full lives outside of gaming, and who hasn’t complained about the difficulty of meshing multiple adults schedules to allow for even four hours every other week to hold a game session? You want as much of those game sessions dedicated to the meat of your game, with as little time wasted in reviewing what took place last time. For that, you need a means to make your settings interesting, which will help make them memorable.

But how best to do that without spending hours of prep time covering lavish details for locations where your players may only spend a twenty minutes? This article aims to give you tools and strategies to help develop locations quickly and effectively to help them stand out in your players mind without exhausting all of your free time between, or even during, game sessions. Whole books could probably be written to focus on this topic, and for an excellent treatment of developing sandbox game communities, this author recommends looking at any of the games published by Sine Nomine Publishing©. Kevin Crawford, the author of these games, provides excellent information on sandbox gaming in general, and has multiple products available for free (with paid versions, should you wish to support his excellent work) that can help a time- or idea-strapped game master much needed aid.

Because this is a topic that consumes whole chapters in many roleplaying games, and could easily fill a book on its own, this article is being split into two parts to help avoid diluting the topics presented until they are little more than melted snow running down the side of one of the mountains in The Eye. The first part of this article will focus considerable time on the idea of building communities, while the second part will focus on adding features and troubles to help make those communities more unique, and discuss strategies for game masters sharing some of the responsibility for developing a location with their players.

BUILDING COMMUNITIES

The generic fantasy village can sometimes feel like something off of a movie sound stage: cardboard cutouts of empty buildings, with random extras wandering about, nameless and silent. Depending on your gaming style, this might not be a bad thing; if you are running a tightly-paced game, you might not want to really have your players interact with NPCs who don’t further your plot. However, if you are trying to make a place memorable, rather than just the story events that are taking place there, you will need more than just cardboard cutouts. You need that generic fantasy village to be a community.

Communities are messy, chaotic things. They can be somewhat captured in raw statistical data: ninety-six percent of the community consists of Einheriar, four percent are grugni, and there are 200 bondi protecting the village, et cetera, et cetera. Such data may be pertinent should the players decide to recruit warriors, but it will not necessarily stick in the minds of your players or evoke any kind of interest. Compare that to a village whose bondi have mostly been conscripted by the local thane, forcing them to rely on Fernir mercenaries, who have brought some of their families with them, leading to overpopulation issues that have the native Einheriar complaining to the thing of thefts and other crimes that they place at the feet of the foreign Fenrir. Even if your players don’t actually interact with those details beyond background, the sense of community—messy, chaotic, turbulent, community—has a greater chance of sticking in their memories until something even more interesting takes its place.

There are multiple elements that can help make a community come to life for your players: the population of your location, the government overseeing your location, names of important figures, rumors that the player characters can overhear, and the clans that influence the location. You do not necessarily need to generate exhaustive details on these elements, but a few notes jotted down when you first develop a location for your game can give you plenty to work with as the game progresses. Even leaving a blank space to later “fill in” as needed can be useful, because it can remind you that you need to detail the element and provide you a place to keep your notes for future reference. Consistency can help hammer home the sense that your fictional community is realistic.

POPULATION

Population can mean figuring out racial population percentages, but that only scratches the surface of what makes populations interesting. It may seem obvious, but it can be good to know that there are more Einheriar than Ursan in the location you are making. What will truly make your populations come alive is thinking about them less in terms of racial divisions, and more in terms of neighborhoods. If there is a section of the city heavily populated taverns and inns to accommodate travelers, have any commonalities developed in the natives? Are they more accepting of outsiders, or do they mistrust and assume the worst of the strangers that stay with them? What do they think of the local jarl’s decision to bring in foreign mercenaries or barrack bondi inside their businesses? If there are any local craftsmen communities, do they feel differently, and do any differences create tension between the two communities?

GOVERNMENT

The local government is another important consideration when designing a memorable place. Is the city under the rule of a noble jarl, a cruel thane, an influential former huskarl? Are important community-wide decisions made by a local thing composed of the wealthiest farmers and townsfolk? Governing individuals can be useful patrons or dangerous foils for your players’ characters, and there are few communities that lack dissenters or those who are dissatisfied with the current leadership, whether such negative assertions are valid or not. Even if your players don’t interact with the local thing, having the tavern owner complain bitterly about the thing’s recent ruling against his cousin’s husband can create an important sense of realism for players, helping make the place more memorable and interesting.

Chapter Three of The Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting provides an excellent overview of the common forms of government found in the Ice Kingdoms. However, it is implausible that every town or village the player characters come across is home to yet another thane or jarl, and kings are even rarer. That means the most common and obvious form of local government will be the local thing. This can eventually grow dull for players, with every local thing seeming to be made up of the same basic group of individuals in each location they come across; after all, certain occupations will naturally lead to greater influence in any community, and these influential members will certainly be drawn to being part of the local thing.

If you are looking for a little variety in your setting’s governments, or if you simply need a quick government on the fly, roll on the chart below to determine a sample government with examples that you can quickly pick and choose from to make a community government in a hurry.

1d6	FORM OF GOVERNMENT
1	Anarachy
2	Sole Ruler
3	Thing
4	Council
5	Democracy
6	Figurehead

Anarchy: This location is ruled either by a powerful individual or by seemingly no one at all. This might appear to be some other form of government at first; a mighty warlord holding everyone else in her thrall, or a mob making decisions with no centralized leadership. Anarchies tend to have constant challenges to its leadership as others try to prove that there are stronger and more deserving to rule. Because this method of governance is so chaotic, it is fertile ground to try out multiple leaders or ruling groups in one location.

Sole Ruler: This place is ruled by a single individual, usually a king, thane, or jarl. However, the ruler could also be a village elder who is turned to for guidance by the community because of their wisdom or experience. Sole Rulers can be powerful autocrats or gentle managers, as befits the location.

Thing: Locations governed by a thing do not usually operate on a day to day basis with a centralized seat of government. Instead, the community gathers a regular cast of NPCs together to form a thing whenever a decision that affects the community needs to be made. This may count for the “stereotypical” government in most villages in the Ice Kingdoms.  It may be useful to make the thing consist of members other than just elderly graybeards so that the thing stands out in players mind if they need to interact with it.

Council: Unlike a location ruled by a thing, a council is typically a more formal and regularly-meeting group. It may certainly resemble a thing—in fact, it may act as the community’s thing when Thanelaw needs to be applied to situations—but the members of the council probably spend most, if not all of their time in their leadership positions. They are typically individuals of great influence rather than individuals who are trusted to make just legal decisions. Most areas of the Ice Kingdoms cannot support career politicians, so councils are rare. Democracy: Locations ruled by democracy are rare in the Ice Kingdoms, and can seem as though they exist in a state of organized anarchy. In such locations, the entire community comes together to vote on any decision that affects the community as a whole, with each karl in the community receiving an equal weight in the vote. Thralls in the community do not receive a vote, though in some communities karls can cast votes on behalf of their thralls. Normally, the thralls do not have a say in their votes.

Figurehead: This location, at first glance, appears to be under the control of a single individual as described in the Sole Ruler form of government. However, one or more figures are manipulating this ruler from the shadows and are the real decision makers in that place. While in popular fiction these counselors are almost always nefarious, the ‘real life’ of the Ice Kingdoms knows many positive instances, such as a regent guiding a young and inexperienced ruler.

NAMES

Nothing tells players that a place is forgettable more than fumbling to think of a name when the player characters introduce  themselves to an NPC. Of course, if your campaign involves your players sending their characters back and forth across the entire length of the Ice Kingdoms, keeping track of every name for every single NPC can be a daunting task, even in an age with easy and free access to spreadsheet and database software. If you have the time, energy and means to keep track of exhaustive volumes of NPCs for every location you develop, then good for you!

For those who don’t, consider this trick instead: When developing a new location, pull out a convenient list of names (if you haven’t found it yet, there’s an Appendix in the back of the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting with a convenient list of names appropriate to the region) and jot down three names for NPCs that you think your players are likely to interact with while visiting the location for the first time. You don’t need to assign a role for that NPC in your location if you don’t want to; just have the name ready. Then, when your players decide to strike up a conversation with an NPC, pick one of the names, make some notes about who that NPC is, and move on with your game. After the session is over, if you think the PCs are likely to come back to that location and interact with another NPC, replace the name you used with a new one, maintaining a constant bank of names. Leftover or unused names can be recycled for your next location.

While you can—and should—flesh out more details for some NPCs, keeping a bank of ready to use names can help make your settings more realistic and thought-out, even if you are handling everything by the seat of your pants and a mastery for improvisation.

RUMORS AND GOSSIP

In our real world, people spread rumors and gossip all the time, even if they don’t mean to. It is almost a natural part of being a member of a community to want to talk about what is happening in that community, even if the impact seems relatively minor. Having gossip and rumors as a source of information during an adventure is tried and true technique. An overheard conversation can inform a party of a haunted cave to explore, a lost bandit treasure trove, or even news of their PCs’ nemesis operating in the area. Several classic adventure modules have charts to randomly roll on whenever your players would want to listen for local gossip, because overhearing gossip is such a common element, and an excellent way to introduce a side mission or encounter for the players to explore.

How much of the gossip and rumors discussed at the local tavern will really relate to adventure elements? Probably not that much, to be honest. Most of it will be devoid of any adventuring material, but rife with elements related to the local setting, making it feel more alive. If the player characters overhear a group of locals discussing that Hrolf was seen stepping out with Svava just shortly after Svava married Athal, they’ve learned a bit of information about three NPCs they might never meet. Since the locales felt their indiscretions were worth talking about, it will help make these NPCs feel like fixtures of the setting. If the PCs later bump into an angry-looking woman named Drumba, looking for her husband Hrolf while clenching her broom handle tightly, they will have a good idea why she is angry. Little encounters like this can help to make a location “real” in players’ minds. And if the players decide to help Drumba find her husband, the whole encounter, and the setting it took place in, is even more likely to stay fresh in their minds for some time to come.

Remember that too many rumors can overload the players with information, causing them to gloss over the details so that they can stay focused on whatever adventure they are working on. You should probably limit yourself to only one or two rumors during any visit to the village, and don’t forget to update the rumors should the PCs return. If during a later visit to the same village the PCs’ overhear some villagers laughing about how Drumba is keeping Hrolf on a tight leash, then you will create a sense of progression in the life of the village, making it seem more real and alive.

CLANS

In the Ice Kingdoms, one type of community that will have a large amount of influence on any place are the major clans that hold important roles there. Whenever you design a new location, take a moment to consider whether there are any major clans present in your community—or, in the absence of such large clans, why the location lacks any sort of clan presence. Do any of these clans have relationships with one another such as trade alliances or rivalries? Pick a clan name from Appendix E in the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting book and note down a few important clan members and their role in the local community. You can put more detail into these clan members if you like, or save that work for on the spur of the moment when the players’ characters interact with them. Repeat this for as many clans as you feel appropriate for the location. Determine the relationship of each clan toward the others, and you’re one step closer to having a memorable population in your location for the players to interact with.

Clans work similarly to the neighborhoods and communities discussed above under Population, but can be further used to provide a sense of continuity that stretches from one village to the next. Since clans are family units, and there is nothing preventing some members of a family from moving from one village to another, you can have members of the same clan show up in multiple locations and provide your games with an extended family for the players to interact with. Such reinforcements and name dropping (”You passed through Thurft? Did you happen to meet my brother, Arnulf? He took over the family smithy there.”) can help make a place stand out in the minds of your players as much as any single interaction in the location itself.

When developing a location in a hurry, use the tables below and Appendix E in the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting to help quickly develop some clans for use in your new setting.

1d6	No. Of Clans
1-2	2
3-4	3
5-6	4

1d6	Clan Size*
1-4	Small
5-6	Large

1d6	Clan Relationship
1-2	Hostile
3-4	Neutral
5-6	Allied

1d6	Clan Reputation
1	Fearsome
2	Competitive
3	Mercenary
4	Sinister
5	Wealthy
6	Failing

*Hard and fast numbers are not presented for Clan Sizes, because such sizes will be relative to the size of the local population. A large clan in a village might seem more like a small clan in a city. Either represent large clans in a location by presenting more NPCs with that Clan’s surname, or consider having the large clan spread into surrounding and nearby communities, so that the player characters will continue to encounter members of the clan as they explore the area.

Example:

Now that we have discussed creating a community for the locations in your game, here is an example for putting it all together. Our PCs are heading from the city of Thron to search for a ruin in Wolfheim, and we want to create a village for them to stop and resupply in along the way, and maybe provide them with some side adventures if the players show any interest.

We come up with a name for our village, Ristilheim. As it lays just outside of the border of Wolfheim, we’re going to make the majority of the population Einheriar, with a smaller number of Fenrir from Wolfheim living in the village. We also decide that a certain amount of the population are of mixed Einheriar-Fenrir heritage, which has no mechanical effect on the setting, but can make for some variety in our population’s appearance. For good measure, we’ll say that there are a few Grugni living in Ristilheim as well, but that their numbers measure only a handful, too small to have a true impact on the village’s society.

We could roll on the Government Table above, and if the players really show an interest in returning to Ristilheim and using it as a base of operations in the future, we will. For now, however, we’ll just assume that the local clans govern themselves and call upon a thing should there be a need.

We don’t really need to detail many NPCs at this point in time, since the players will likely only stop here long enough to buy some new supplies and sleep in the local inn, but we’ll make a small list of names to have on hand should the players take an interest in any NPCs. Referencing Appendix E in the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting, we develop the following names: Geitir Hundingsson, Hvethna Groadottir, Kefsir Eyfurasson, and Nain Ironhorn (we note that the last name is for a Dwarf, just in case one of the PCs seeks a local dwarf out).

We’ve decided that we would like there to be some prominent clans in Ristilheim, so before working on local rumors and gossip we skip to clans. Rolling on the table, we see that there are two main clans in Ristilheim, and they are both large. In a village like this, having two large clans means that the majority of the local population is probably made up of members of these clans. We settle on the Hakkidottirs and the Varinssons as the clan names. Rolling on the reputation table, we find that the Hakkidottirs are fearsome and the Varinssons are wealthy. Taking a moment to think about that, we decide that the Hakkidottirs are famous warriors known for their skill and ferocity, and that they are descended from the village’s founder. The Varinssons are craftsmen of great repute, and making them skilled weaponsmiths makes sense. We roll on the relationship table and discover that the two clans are rivals. That makes for a nice twist, as the warriors are rivals with the craftfolk who forge their weapons. That should provide fodder for some local rumors. We make a note to keep the name tables in Appendix E handy in case our players decide to seek out the clans, and draw a few blank lines in our notes that we can fill in with NPC names later if necessary.

Finally we move on to rumors. The clan rivalry provides an interesting rumor right off the bat: Some younger members of clan Hakkidottir are said to be stealing Varinsson weapons and taking them to the local dwarfs to be re-forged as an insult to the Varinssons. Another rumor says that the local Fenrir are really spies for the tribes that live near the border of Wolfheim, and that they are trying to spread insurrection among the Fernrir-blooded Einheriar so that they will take up arms against Ristilheim should the Fenrir attack. Then we make a note that the master craftsman of the Varrinsons, Skurhild Varrinson (we jot her name down in our notes), crafted a weapon of great power, but came to fear it, and hid it out in the burial mounds of Ristilheim to keep it safe. Finally, we make a note that travelers report attacks that might be roving bandits, or warriors from the neighboring Fenrir tribes.

With those notes we have enough  of a community to build upon. The setting can support t a rich cast of characters for our adventurers to interact with on their way to Wolfheim and a few adventure plot hooks to throw at the players and see if they bite, and a good foundation to build upon to create more details that will bring Ristilheim to life for our players.

*

Creating a memorable village can be simple. By focusing on a few elements such as a setting’s population, government, and local clan units, a GM can, with only a few notes, create the foundation for a realistic and ‘lifelike’ community

In Part Two, we’ll build on that foundation and further enrich your setting. We’ll add features and troubles to it and discuss how to involve your players in the process. Until then, play around with creating communities and revise and expand upon the tables and ideas presented as needed to personalize them for your game.

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