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Aug. 15th, 2012 10:22 pmGetting D&D tropes together in a "historical" setting;
It's around 1000 CE and Scandinavians actually stuck with settling Vinland. Back home the population is being converted to Christianity, not always gently, which means most of the settlers are pagan and player characters can be godis or gythias. Given the shallow draft and relative ease in portaging most Viking style ships, there's not much of the New World which is off limits. Tech is limited to realistic for the period, so no armor better than chain or lamellar, coldblood horses for mounts, big longhouses.
The world is in a mini ice age, which explains dire animals. Both Norsemen and Skraelings fill the role of human/humanoid adversaries. Scandinavian and Amerindian myth provides the rest of the weird critters. Adventurers might find themselves fighting spider-women to the north, raiding the lair of an uktena, scanning the woods for dzunuquas or possibly huddle-folk, bargaining for weapons with the svartalfar (jo-ga-oh), being rescued at sea by kushtaka, running from shunka warakins, or being terrorized by rolling heads. The Mississippians were masters of magic now long faded, who left big sprawling underground complexes and might have been progenitors of the jo-ga-oh. Whoever they were, Mississippians may very well have been the people behind Xibalba, in mythology from further south.
The major mythological figure who sets off the entire campaign is Whiskedejak, or Loki - and it is possible that they're the same entity.
It's around 1000 CE and Scandinavians actually stuck with settling Vinland. Back home the population is being converted to Christianity, not always gently, which means most of the settlers are pagan and player characters can be godis or gythias. Given the shallow draft and relative ease in portaging most Viking style ships, there's not much of the New World which is off limits. Tech is limited to realistic for the period, so no armor better than chain or lamellar, coldblood horses for mounts, big longhouses.
The world is in a mini ice age, which explains dire animals. Both Norsemen and Skraelings fill the role of human/humanoid adversaries. Scandinavian and Amerindian myth provides the rest of the weird critters. Adventurers might find themselves fighting spider-women to the north, raiding the lair of an uktena, scanning the woods for dzunuquas or possibly huddle-folk, bargaining for weapons with the svartalfar (jo-ga-oh), being rescued at sea by kushtaka, running from shunka warakins, or being terrorized by rolling heads. The Mississippians were masters of magic now long faded, who left big sprawling underground complexes and might have been progenitors of the jo-ga-oh. Whoever they were, Mississippians may very well have been the people behind Xibalba, in mythology from further south.
The major mythological figure who sets off the entire campaign is Whiskedejak, or Loki - and it is possible that they're the same entity.