teach

Here is a map of the northern kingdom, made in the gimp. Nothing fancy.

These are the major towns or areas of the Northern Kingdom, one of the twelve kingdoms of the Sundered World.

Winterhaven - see the Keep on the Shadowfell. This is the town we have been adventuring in.

Fallcrest - see the DMG

Staul's Old Monastary. Located just outside of Fallcrest, Dauven was training the adventurers here until he had gone to Winterhaven on word of relics having been found.

Nordheim - the seat of power in the northern kingdom. The king Alintyr rules from this fortified town. About 5,000 people live in this town or the surrounding area.

North of Nordheim lies the Northern Pines, within which is a large settlement of eladrin and elves known as Salfar.

Two forests lie south of Nordheim on either side of the kings road. These are known as Hognen Forest and Hrolfen Woods. Smaller settlements of eladrin and elves live there. To the east, past the Winterfell Mountains lies Osterheim, a coastal kingdom. Some trade occurs between these two countries. Adventurers can sometimes hire on as guards for caravans as they go through a pass in the barrier mountains. To the south lies the kingdom of Teifgard. The trade is fairly regular between Teifgard and The Northern Kingdom. The two have had a close alliance, with the son of Alintyr betrothed to the daughter of the king of Teifgard. To the north lies the Barrier Mountains and past those lie the frozen reaches, a land of cold winters and unknown beasts. To the west lies a northern tundra, sparsely populated, mostly by nomadic herders and barbarian tribes.

Throughout the kingdom, tiny farming settlements dot the landscape. Up and down Nentyr River small communities of river folk eke out a living. Nordheim lies on Lake Freya, named after an old goddess of the fey. It is the largest lake in the area. Some fishermen do make a living fishing for freshwater fish on it's waters.

This was in an old book that was in the sages tower in Winterhaven that Auggie studied while studying the mirror.

Here's the way the nine planes are detailed out in the book they found. If this is actually the way the planes are oriented, it is unknown as few know of, or if there have been on the other planes. Also, there is only 8 planes listed in this book, even though it makes reference to nine planes in a number of places. However, this book does match the names used by worshippers of the old gods with the names used by the worshippers of the dragon gods (aka the 4e names).

The planes are all connected by the Tree Yggdrasil.

The upper planes are Asgard, home of the gods and connected to the other planes by Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, Alfheim (feywild), and muspell (the elemental chaos).

The middle planes are Midgard (earth), Jotenheim(land of the giants) and Svartalfheim (underdark).

Finally the two lower planes are nifthelm (frozen reaches of the elemental chaos) and hel (the shadowfell). The book implied that all three middle planes can actually be reached by walking. Recently though, the land of the giants has been forgotten by most, and no one has been to the home of the gods since the sundering. The book makes no mention of the astral sea.

For lack of a better name, I've decided to call my campaign world the Sundered World. I thought I'd put up on my blog some of the information about the campaign world that my players have discovered so far. They are currently playing through the Keep on the Shadowfell.

Timeline:

Over 1000 years ago: The world nearly ends. A cataclysmic event occurs. The gods disappear. New continents appear. Dragons first appear.

300-200 years ago: The last Empire rises and falls. The House of Dragontyr from the southern kingdom of Roninitine launches an abititious campaign to update the infrastructure of the 12 kingdoms, but eventually the empire falls under stress from barbarians outside the empire and internal conflict and strife. This is when the keep was built.

Other than that, there isn't much known. I've left the timeline intentionally vague, to allow it grow organically as we play.

To be perfectly honest, I never really liked D&D 3E mythology. MAybe I didn't read the right books or stories, but the gods presented in the Players Handbook had no real ring to me, which was annoying because I like the idea of playing a champion of a god.

Now in 4E I finally have had a chance to DM, and I knew that I wanted to run a campaign in a slightly different campaign world than the standard one presented. I had preordered the Keep on the Shadowfell, being pretty excited by everything I had read about 4E, and so when I had the chance to DM I knew I was going to use the adventure.

What is nice about Norse Mythology is that it does fit so easily into D&D, since many of D&D's roots are in myths and stories that derived from norse mythology.

So the characters live a unnamed world. The major events in the world are as follows. An undetermined time ago a horrible event occurred, which sundered the world, changing the shape of some of the continents and ushering in dragons, which had never been in the world before then. With the dragons came the twin gods, Tiamet and Bahemnet(sp?). During the sundering, stories of the time say, the Gods who used to walk the earth, and protect their people disappeared. Few of their names are still remembered, although those still remembered are worshipped by some, mostly on the edge of civilization. two hundred or so years ago rose a great empire in the twelve kingdoms (the area of the world the pcs are from). Drasityr the great ruled over this empire for 20 years, building outkeeps throughout the north. This is when the Keep on the Shadowfell was built. After Drasityr passed away, the empire quickly fell apart, and the Keep fell into disrepair.

I've got more background that'll have to come later, but one of my favorite things to do as a DM is take a pre-existing module or adventure and make it work for my own story telling.