Peoples and Cultures

Norwold’s settled powers are Alphatian, Thyatian, and Heldannic, but the land between the dominions belongs to older peoples, most of them developed by the fan community to fill the gaps canon left [MMB-Region]. Each is drawn from a real-world culture, which is the fastest way for a DM to give it a voice.

Heldanners

The basic human stock of south-central Norwold: farmers, fishers, and herders under their clanheads, sharing the northern pantheon of the Northern Reaches [RC] [MMB-Region]. Their homeland, Heldland, is now the southernmost region seized by the Heldannic Knights, and Heldanners who refuse the Order’s rule flee to refuges like the Altenwald [MMB-Region]. A Heldanner is a Viking-coast commoner under military occupation: a ready source of guides, rebels, and grievances.

Jääkansa and Vaeltajat (the Finnic north)

Two peoples of the far north, inspired by Finnish and Sami cultures [MMB-Region]:

Jääkansa, Finnish-style settled hunters and farmers of Autuasmaa, the lake-and-river country of the northern tundra’s edge. (In this gazetteer they replace James Mishler’s “Kaarjala.”)
Vaeltajat, Sami-style reindeer nomads of the Everwinter Lands, the northern tundra, sharing the waste with lynxmen, lupins, and humanoids.

Canon gives these two little beyond their existence; a DM building them can lean on the Kalevala for myth and on shamanic, animist belief. They are the peoples a party meets at the edge of the map.

Norsenians (the Norse raiders)

Semi-nomadic, Viking-styled barbarians descended from Antalians who reverted to the old wild ways [MMB-Region]. For playing them, the best community reference is Niels Just Rasmussen’s “The Viking Mentality,” which lays out the values that drive a Norse character: guest-friendship, gift-reciprocity, family honor and blood-revenge, and reputation above all, in a three-class society of thralls, karls, and jarls, haunted by vættir, álfar, draugar, and dísir [Rasmussen-Viking].

Vatski (the Slavic boyars)

A Slavic-styled people: once barbarian mountain folk, now a feudal, boyar-ruled society settled in the Ransarn River valley, a main trade route [MMB-Region]. Their trade town Saffir, shared with the Heldanners, sits on a mountain pass and is the setting of the adventure “Krasniy the Red” [MMB-Region]. Think petty princes, feuding retinues, and long winters.

Viaskoda (the Ugric steppe)

The most fully developed northern culture, by Simone Neri: an Ugric/Magyar steppe people (names, helms, and myth all point that way) who dwell on the plains north of the Great Bay, in Viaskaland [Neri-Viask] [MMB-Region]. Their legends say they fled invaders on horseback and were banished from Borea around BC 1700, absorbing the surviving Antalians [Neri-Viask].

The three Banners, about 15,000 each, divided into tribes of 100-1,000 under chiefs who rarely fight within a Banner [Neri-Viask]:
- Azure Banner, nomadic horse-herders of the open plains; spear, bow, and sabre.
- White Banner, forest and valley folk at the foot of the Icereach, often living in ancient dwarven ruins; spear, axe, two-handed sword.
- Red Banner, coastal, seafaring raiders of the northern Great Bay; longships, great swords, horned helms.
The Volek Leiho, the great gathering at the summer solstice (1 Klarmont) for rites, contests, and alliances, where the ceremonial Guldskung can call the Banner to war [Neri-Viask].
Society and faith, men and women near-equal, crime rare and harshly punished; a pantheon of mostly-good Immortals (Isten and Fela born of a primordial pool), mediated by shamans and taltos. Arcane magic is distrusted; its users are the suspect garaboncias. The dead are cremated and celebrated, believed to reach the gods [Neri-Viask].
Relations, they respect and avoid the elves, are friendly with halflings (who grant them passage), fight humanoids and giants without end, and quarrel with the Alphatian lords over land [Neri-Viask].

A party crossing the north will deal with the Viaskoda as hosts, raiders, or allies; their Volek Leiho is a natural set-piece.

Halflings of Leeha

The hin of the Shire of Leeha are the oldest settled folk of the region, there since BC 350, a river democracy of five clans [Alm-Leeha] [MMB-Timeline]. They are friendly with the Viaskoda and tied to Siegeria and Chitine. See the Shire of Leeha and the deep fan material [JTR-Leeha] [Eustace-Leeha].

Elves

Elves hold the great forests as foresthomes. The largest realm is the Barony of Ironwood under Baron Elarianthas Blackblade, pursuing a Great Project to unite them [Alm-Ironwood]. Older clans hold Elfswood and the Whispering Grove (the Glanadyl clan), the Rhien Forest (allied with Foxfolk), and the allied foresthomes of Lothbarth, who honor the Immortal Lornasen [MMB-Region] [Alm-Lothbarth]. The human-led foresthome of White Oak, under Treekeeper Zoltan, is Ironwood’s rival [Alm-Ironwood].

Dwarves

Dwarven clans hold strongholds in the eastern mountains: Kildorkak in the Final Range, allied to Oceansend [Alm-Oceansend]; the gold-mining Takkras of Arcadia [Alm-Arcadia]; and the Evedotardom of Stormhaven, allied to Oceansend from CM1 [MMB-Region] [CM1].

The dragons of the Wyrmsteeth

The Wyrmsteeth Range is a dragon realm in its own right, ruled by a Parliament of Dragons from the hidden, mostly-underground city of Windreach, under the dragon-king Red Death [MMB-Region] [Neri-TG]. The dragons play their own politics against Alphatia, Thyatis, and the Heldannic Order, which makes them a power a high-level party must reckon with rather than simply fight [Agosta-Northlands]. Individual dragons (the gold Sandryth of Arcadia, the black S’hastarl of the Dragon’s Spur, the gold Quentin Jax masquerading as a count) appear in NPCs.

Factions worth seeding early. Giampaolo Agosta’s “Adventuring in the Northlands” lists the shadow organizations that work the region: the Eyes of Vanya (Heldannic spies), the Thyatian Speculatores, the Druidic Circle of Norwold, the Landfall Thieves’ Guild, the Ice Witches, the Dark Avengers, and the Cult of Idris [Agosta-Northlands]. Any of them can run a plot thread from level 1 to 12.