Trudvang



Trudvang is a world of fairy tales, heroic deeds, trolls, and dragons, where much of the land is covered in primordial forests full of darkness and mystery. It is a world of sagas, legends and myths. A place where nature rules over all with greater power than men, elves, dwarves, and Wildfolk combined. A world of magnificent mountains, roaring rapids, and deep, enchanted forests.

It is a land of extreme wilderness and ancient tradition. Trolls lurk behind moss-covered rocks and pierce the cover of night with their yellow eyes in search of unwary travelers on the muddy Darkwood roads. Great horsemasters thunder across the plains of Mittland with swords and shields upon their mighty steeds, in search of conquest that will allow them to take their place among the heroic kings of old. To the east, in the Stormlands, a hard and grizzled folk shed blood in the name of the gods of storm and chaos. Bound by ancient customs, they seek to honor their forebears and clan in defying the untamed wilderness that they call home. To the west the Viranns sit in lofty towers of stone, seeking ancient knowledge that mankind thought lost forever, while in the south the elves seek to understand why their gods once left them in their time of greatest need. Under mountain, rock, and stone, the sons of soot hammer away at their anvils by the roaring logi furnaces in the underbelly of the world. And to the farthest north there is only the great ice plains, a place so cold and dark that it is said that none can remain alive there longer than they can remain awake.

As a campaign setting, the world of Trudvang is imbued with great mystery and adventure but also sadness and weariness to a certain extent. In contrast to many other fantasy worlds, Trudvang is highly influenced and colored by Norse and Celtic mythology and history in all forms. In creating the world, great inspiration has been drawn from many places, but none are more apparent than the art of John Bauer, the Finnish national epic Kalevala, and the story of Beowulf.

Trudvang is made up of the Stormlands to the east, Westmark to the west, and Mittland between the two. There is also the archipelago of Soj in the south where the elves make their home, and the wild Nhoordland to the north where trolls, Wildfolk, and all sorts of unsavory characters dwell in the shadow of the great mountain range called Jarngand and the deepest forest of them all: Darkwood. To the farthest north, where only hrimtursirs roam, there is the Great White, where few dare venture. To travel across such a vast continent is no light matter. Merely traveling from city to city or from forest to forest can be the focus of an entire campaign. The wanderers and heroes who undertake such a magnificent trek will soon find that nature itself can prove to be the mightiest adversary of all.