Vikings vs Dinosaurs: Creating a campaign setting for Ironsworn!

BookTenTiger

He / Him
Hey all, in this thread I was brainstorming ways to bring the "joy of prep" to Play to Find Out games like Ironsworn. Once I got a few ideas, I started coming up with a new campaign setting for the game. This is mostly just an exercise in fun, though I am planning on introducing some friends who are brand new to Ironsworn, and this might be a fun campaign setting to do it in.

The idea I had was a setting that brought together two great flavors: Vikings and Dinosaurs.
I started to imagine a peaceful Viking settlement nestled up against a primordial forest full of dangerous dinosaurs. What lay beyond the forest? Why did the Ironlanders want to cross it? I started to imagine a whole world, and this is what I came up with:

Ironhaven
The Green Hell.jpg

(Map is a rough draft)

Generations ago, your ancestors fled war in the Old Lands and landed upon the shores of this peninsula, called the Ironhaven. This new world proved a blessing from the gods: the coasts bountiful in fish, the river waters fresh and sweet, and the hills full of iron. Before long, the population bloomed, and large fortified towns grew wealthy upon the fat of the land.

But a jade shadow has always threatened from the north. The Green Hell, a verdant crescent of forests and swamps. The Green Hell, home to poisonous insects and towering thunder beasts. The Green Hell, where ancient folk spy from the shadows and weave their curses.

The wealth of the Hearthlands has thinned, in recent generations. Clan-chiefs hoard their iron and order increasingly harsh taxes on the villages within their sight. Wars are fought over trade routes and the last of the iron mines. Ironlanders spread north, looking for new sources of ore, of food, of wealth. They push into the Green Hell, and the Green Hell pushes back. Brilliantly-scaled thunder beasts stampede over village walls, tearing at Ironlanders with their claws and fangs. Truces are made, and broken, with the mysterious elves and snake-skinned greniskar. New colonies are founded in the Longstrodden Lands, beneath the shadows of giants.

It is a time of new beginnings and new endings. Will you stay in the Hearthlands and carve out power for yourself among the corrupt clan-chiefs? Or will you plunge into the Green Hell, seeking a life of freedom among the terrors of the wild?


...

I'll continue to post ideas as I come up with them. My hope eventually is to write up the different territories, dinosaurs, etc as they do in Ironsworn, with story hooks galore. I'd also like to reflavor some of the assets to better fit the setting. Feel free to throw in ideas!
 

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BookTenTiger

He / Him
Here's a quick synopsis of the different territories of Ironhaven:

Territories

Goodwater Coast

A shore of islands and shoals, dangerous to ships but bountiful for fishermen. Called Goodwater for the many freshwater rivers that empty into the shallow coastline. The soil is thin, so Ironlanders harvest from the sea, avoiding the occasional marine thunder beast seeking new hunting grounds.

Hearthlands

When people first settled Ironhaven, they found the valleys at the center of the peninsula to be so rich in iron, wood, and game that they thought it blessed by the gods. In their honor, the people here created large iron statues of their gods of mining, agriculture, and travel. As the population of the Hearthlands has grown, the resources have dwindled. Now the wealthy clan-chiefs war against each other, disrupting the once harmonious flow of trade between their fortified towns.

Winewater

Some say this narrow sea is named for the vineyards that climb its steep coastal hillsides. But others know that Winewater refers to the color of the sea after an attack by the powerful pirate families that lay claim to the islands here.

Axe-and-Arrow Hills

A tangled collection of valleys and hills, forests an marshes, the Axe-and-Arrow Hills are richer in game and wood than the Hearthlands, but more bountiful in danger as well. The clans who have established homes here sit adjacent to the Green Hell, and thunder beasts, giant insects, and wandering spirits are frequently encountered in the untamed wilds. In order to survive, the Ironlanders of the Axe-and-Arrow Hills trade with elves and snake-skinned greniskar, and have learned something of their ancient and secret magic.

The Green Hell

The primordial forests and swamps of the Green Hell are home to true monsters: insects as large as a man, wandering corpses turned mad by magic, and huge, scaled thunder beasts. The elves and snake-skinned greniskar who live here once had thriving civilizations of their own, but all that remains are the crumbled stone walls. Now they worship the thunder beasts themselves. In its western stretches, the Green Hell is made up of sentinel trees, redwoods and sequoias stretching up above a bed of ferns. To the east the Green Hell dissolves into putrid swamp. There are very few passages through the Green Hell, and the trees seems to shift with every journey.

End of All Mountains

It was thought, for a time, that the End of All Mountains marked the end of the world. The tall, imposing mountains stand high above the Green Hell, and are home to flying or cave-bound thunder beasts. When passes were finally discovered, a trade route was created between the Longstrodden Lands and the Hearthlands, though it is a dangerous journey.

Longstrodden Lands

A high plain of cold, dry grasslands stretches as far as the eye can see. Snow tumbles from the sky, and a wicked wind plays between the End of All Mountains and the Tombs. Huge herds of mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, and other large beasts are tended to by giants. Further north, the plains vanish beneath glacial wastelands. As the ore has vanished from the Hearthlands, new mining colonies have been founded in Longstrodden. Miners live in isolated outposts, and send their shipments by raft through the mountains and the Green Hell to their distant homes. Mammoths and other large beasts have also made their way to the Hearthlands, to be tamed, yoked, and put to work.

The Tombs

The End of All Mountains was once thought to be impassable; the Tomb truly are. Though there are rumors that a vast, icy sea exists beyond these ice-white monoliths.

The Weeping Coast

A dangerous, untamed shoreline of jungle cliffs, tumbling waterfalls, and dangerous sea beasts.

Whispers

Do the endless sands of the Whispers lead to a new promised land?
 



zakael19

Adventurer
Just to ride off what I said in the prep thread, I've found it super helpful in playing Stonetop that it has a detailed world full of mysteries - but each mystery is clear it's just "ideas" underneath the header of "thing that exists" and it's up to your table to figure it out.

Where I think you can easily wrok stuff like that in is just start writing lists of questions for each of your zones to ask players to flesh the world out together. If you look at the materials on the KS page here, that might give you some fun ideas of how to take a high level set of ideas like you have for the zones and leave plenty of space for your players (or co-players) to make the world their own as you adventure.
 


Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
my only advice - get rid of the elves ;(, play up the Greniskar and their fallen civilisation instead.

and there must be a dragon in the End-of-All Mountains?

otherwise, awesome set up
 

BookTenTiger

He / Him
my only advice - get rid of the elves ;(, play up the Greniskar and their fallen civilisation instead.

and there must be a dragon in the End-of-All Mountains?

otherwise, awesome set up
Ironsworn has a few mythic peoples in its core setting. I think you're right that I need to either drop or change elves. Here are my thoughts:

Varou: wild wolf people. I'm changing them to snake people in the Green Hell.

Giants: big stubborn people. I'm keeping them basically the same.

Elves: mysterious, masked magic people. I still want this niche, but I'm not sure how to fill it.

One thought is that I could replace the Elves with Greniskar (snake people) as mysterious, magic people. But then I'll need to figure out a "wild, animalistic people" replacement.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
Ironsworn has a few mythic peoples in its core setting. I think you're right that I need to either drop or change elves. Here are my thoughts:

Varou: wild wolf people. I'm changing them to snake people in the Green Hell.

Giants: big stubborn people. I'm keeping them basically the same.

Elves: mysterious, masked magic people. I still want this niche, but I'm not sure how to fill it.

One thought is that I could replace the Elves with Greniskar (snake people) as mysterious, magic people. But then I'll need to figure out a "wild, animalistic people" replacement.
I'd put a Yeti-people in the End of All Mountains as the animalistic people and make the Greniskars the mysterious magic people in the Green Hell. You could even leave the Varou as is in the Axe-and-Arrow Hills
 


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