Not THAT Skaldia!!!!

Well, the best laid schemes of mice and me...

I think I may have read about 100 pages of Kushiel's Dart.  Like everyone else, I was looking forward to the spicy parts, which I never really got to and eventually gave up on.  I won't get side tracked explaining why I wasn't all that taken by the novel, but I will say that I remember being bored.

I was googling 'Skaldia' to see if my blog posts would come up in the search, and I found a whole bunch of stuff on Kushiel's this and Kushiel's that.  As it turns out, there is a country in this series called "Skaldia," and it is based on our world's Teutonic countries with slavery and a dose of D/s for good measure.  I really do not want anyone who may play in my vision of The Land of The Linnorm Kings to think that it is any way related to this series of books... (like the people I play RPG's with ever heard of this book until I just blogged about it)... But I really like the name Skaldia... so what do I do?  Do I keep the name Skaldia or do I come up with something else? 

I think I'll stick with Skaldia... it is my vision of how Skyrim would be fit into Golarion, and this post is my disclaimer that I took nothing from the  Kushiel's this and that series. Comments, gentle reader, are welcome.

If you would like to try out Kushiel's Dart for yourself, you can purchase a  copy through my affiliate link by clicking here, I will get a little commission. 

What are Jadwiga?

East of Skaldia is Irrisen, the land of eternal winter.  Irrisen is a feudal matriarchy ruled by the "Jadwiga" or Winter Witches.  The Jadwiga have a LOT of problems, and are probably the worst detailed race of all Golarion, yet I've seen many blogs expressing a fascination with them, and with Irrisen in general... and I agree... What's not to like about a land where it is always winter and the rulers are evil witches (and usually depicted as attractive).  In my book, quite a bit, but I will have to fix it if I intend to run a LotLK campaign, because the history and fate of Irrisen and Skaldia are locked together.

My first problem is the name "Jadwiga."  The name of the race is "Jadwiga" (pronounced "Yahd-wee-gah... I have no idea where to put the emphasis).  The gazetteer says that they take this name from the first queen of Irissen, Jadwiga.  This is just plain ignorant.  Its like the English calling themselves the Elizabeth, or the Elizabeths.  They must have a name for themselves, and there must be a name that others call them... again, the Germans do not call the English, the Elizabeth or Der Alfred or Der Henry.  I suggest that using the word "Jadwiga" to name a race should sound equally ludicrous as calling the English, the Elizabeths.  So that's problem one: determine a racial name for the white witches.

They are definitely NOT human.  Here is what the gazetteer says.

The Jadwiga are the direct descendants of the Witch Queen Baba Yaga, who travels to Golarion once a century to install a new daughter to the throne of Irrisen. Even though Baba Yaga hales from somewhere else in the Great Beyond, the Jadwiga appear, and seem to be fully human.

They (or at least the females) are the "daughters" of Baba Yaga.  Baba Yaga is everything that you would think a traditional witch to be, and I have never seen her depicted as anything other than a hook-nosed, toothless hag.  She is never in the company of men, nor does any legend state that she has or had a husband.  So how is she having all these attractive daughters?  As a witch, she does like to steal children, so its possible that her "daughters" are actually children that she has stolen form Golarion or other worlds.  However, they do not seem to age or die of natural causes, of course, their expertise in the arcane arts may explain this.

They are the ruling class of Irrisen, with the descendants of Elvanna, the current queen of the land, holding the highest political and social positions.  This will change in 4713 AR when Baba Yaga returns to remove Elvanna and the first generation of her children from Irrisen and replaces them with a new daughter and progeny.

Lets consider this; every 100 years, Baba Yaga (BY) comes to Irrisen, removes the current queen from her throne and instates another of her (BY's) daughters as queen.  She also takes the first generation of the current queen with her when this is all done.  This raises the following questions:

1) Are the daughters of BY all in Irrisen or does she bring a new daughter with her every 100 years?

2) How many children does the typical queen have and who is their father?  The gazetteer never mentions a husband or make concubines or anything of that nature.  Just how is the queen having babies, and how quickly does a new queen have them in order to replace all offices held by the previous queen's children?  If these winter witches are, indeed, human, there is no way they can enough children to be duchesses and countesses to replace the ones that were taken with the former queen in less than 25 or 30 years.

Of course, I understand, this is a game for gamers much younger than myself, and many biological details are left out or just taken for granted, but these gamers are old enough to know about the birds and the bees, and  some fundamental laws of nature need to be followed, or written off by magic.

But that's not the worst of it.  If  the land is locked in eternal winter (for 1,400 years), what are these Jadwiga and their Skaldian serfs eating?  The gazetteer addresses this with the "winter-yew."  The only indigenous trees that remain in Irrisen are fir trees.  Some animals can use these for food, but not most of the herd animals, and especially not the people living there.  The winter-yew, however, is a fir-like tree that was brought to Golarion by the Jadwiga from... somewhere else.  The winter=yew or "witch tree" has cones that contain edible seeds, I can only imagine that people have also learned to grind theses seeds and make cereals and breads and maybe they even ferment them to make alcohol,  but I can't believe that this is all these people have to eat.  The bark is also edible and grows back quite rapidly, but nowhere is it mentioned that the people of Irrisen farm the witch tree.

As you can see, there aren't a lot of 'reasons' for things to be as they are in Irrisen, and that's something I'll have to give long thought on.  These are a few of my current ideas to answer the questions:

1) The 'Jadwiga' are not human.
2) They do not reproduce like humans do.
3) They either have, or ARE terraforming their chosen part of Golarion.
4) They either do not need food, or subsist in ways totally alien to Golarion
5) They need the humans

I'd really love to hear what other people have to say, so please leave comments to this post, if you have any of the answers I seek, of if I'm completely wrong.

Religion of Skaldia

Much like the Romans worshipped the gods of the Greeks under different names, so do the Ulfen worship the same gods as the rest of Golarion, only under different names, and, for the most part, these gods are pretty much the same.

Chief among the Ulfen gods is Erastil or, as they call him, Veiomar, "The Lord of the Hunt" and "The All Father."  They place an emphasis on Veiomar's primal hunting aspect, but still revere him as the 'father' or leader of the clan of the gods.  The laws of loyalty to one's group be it family, community or clan are considered to be Veiomar's doctrines, as well as the law of hospitality, and those who violate these laws are subject to his wrath.  Some of those who worship Veiomar consider the wolf, an apex predator in Skaldia, to be sacred.  Their stories of Veiomar tell of a great wolf that travels with him as a brother, and hunts by his side.  Loremasters tell that these wolf-worshiping Ulfen were the first to have lasting relationships with outsiders and the mispronunciation of the word "wolven" is the origin of the cultural name "Ulfen."  (Those Ulfen who live a seafaring life call themselves "Skalds") All worshippers of Veiomar long to travel to his hunting grounds, Veioland, if they die in his favor, especially if they die defending their family, community or group.  Some small wolf cults believe that they will be hunters in Veioland and all others incarnated as deer or other prey.

Seggar "The Shield Brother" is the name the Skaldians use for Gorum.  Seggar is the god of war and combat in general.  He is the shield brother of Veiomar, but tales rarely tell of the two fighting side by side, except against some mythic linnorms.  If die valiantly, you travel across the sea to Valenheim the home of the gods.  There, if you are found worthy, you are allowed to cross the whalebone bridge and drink among ancient heroes in Sovngarde, the mead hall of the gods.  there you will remain as long as your name is spoken among your countrymen or sung in songs.

Desna is worshiped as Moedhernie "the Seafarer" or "Sky Mother"  Those Skalds who invoke the name of Seggar as they hack their enemies' limbs off, will have only one shrine on their linnorm-crested ships; the butterfly shrine of Moedhernie, the seafaring sky-mother who places the stars in the sea of the sky to guide them through the unpredictable chaos of the sea.  In their tales she is the chief Shield maiden of Veiomar, and commands the Valkyrie.

The dwarves in Skladia worship Torag, a god of their homeland.  They believe Torag is the creator and 'father' of all things.  Their clerics often argue with those of Veiomar as to who is the more powerful, true father or which is, in general, better than the other, but each respects the other, and open conflict has never broken out between the two.  Dwarves and some scholars argue that Torag was worshipped in Skaldia long before any of the other gods.  As evidence of this they refer to a statue of Torag found in some ruins that they believe are remnants of an Azlanti building. 

Some ancient texts call the Azlanti of Skaldia "Dwemer," but no one knows the origin of this word or even what it truly means.

*All the "Skaldian" deity names were created/made up by me using an English/Norse dictionary... or what sufficed for an English/Norse dictionary.  I'm also toying with the idea of using the gods and deadra of Skyrim/Tamriel in my campaign setting.  That would keep the flavor of Skyrim, and lends itself to an actual mythos/pantheon instead of just the haphazard deities in Pathfinder (I say haphazard, I've not yet read all there is to read on the religions of both Tamriel and Golarion.

The Saga of Skaldia

Since our last adventure, our party has started playing through the Pathfinder Adventure Path Rise of the Runelords.  I've opted not to write or journal about our adventures here, because its published material, and I didn't want to post a bunch of spoilers for folks who may not have played it.  Yes, there are many sites out there that do post these spoilers, yet another reason not to journal about our adventures there... it's been done.

So that leaves me with this blog, and yet another thing I may have started only to let fall to the wayside.  Well, as my group only meets once a month, we will be playing in Runelords for quite some time.  That leaves me plenty of time to work on our next adventure... adventure path (?)... if the gang wants me to game master...

I've recently been reading through the Pathfinder AP, Kingmaker, which presents the not so novel idea of the table top RPG sandbox.  What is a sandbox campaign, you ask?  Depending on who you ask, you may get several different answers, but in short, a sandbox campaign is one where the players decide which events will happen next.  Instead of following a structured plot designed by the game master, they decide what course of action will happen next.. where they will go etc... As you could imagine, this could entail a LOT of prep-work for the Game master, and you would be right.

I'm thinking that there are two ways to go about this.
1) flesh out every inch of the setting where the players will be adventuring so that you have something for any direction they may go...
2) Outline the area and have 3 to 5 "quests" on hand for them to select.  As they quest, the area will get fleshed out.
...and of course, always have a bunch of pre-rolled random encounters.

There are also so many other cool things in the Golarion settings that never come into play in the adventures, like the various knightly orders and guilds and the pathfinder society.  I thought it might be cool to also incorporate those in order to have players try to be a knight or a guilds man etc...

I really like Skyrim, and The Land of the Linnorm Kings offers the perfect setting for a Skyrim-esque sandbox adventure.  The only problem is the name of the region.  "The Land of the Linnorm Kings" must be the most ignorant name of any region in all Golarion.  Therefore, that's the firs change I'll make... The people who live in The Land of the Linnorm Kings call it Slakdia... and Skaldia belongs to the Ulfen!!!