I’ve read and heard a lot about “spiral campaign development” from folks like Sly Flourish and Matt Colville over my short time GMing, but I haven’t ever really done it. So I thought I’d go through the process by creating a town for my Northlands campaign idea, then building off that to further develop a sandbox campaign.
This article may include potential spoilers, so players should stay away…
Design Considerations
After looking at a list of names of cities and towns in Norway, I created a name with bits of names I liked. The players’ village is named Kolvik. According to the setting information in the Northlands chapter of the Midgard Worldbook, there seems to be plenty of room to drop in a small village wherever you choose on the map, along with adding neighboring settlements and minor towns. This is one of the things that really draws me to Midgard. While the Forgotten Realms have a great history of canon and adventures, you can really make Midgard your own.
This town needs to accomplish a few different goals for my campaign vision. First, it needs to have patrons for the party at low levels, but not powerful enough that they could just do the things they’re asking of the characters. Second, it will be a community of multiple ancestries, and these will reflect the choices the players make during character creation. It needs to be large enough to support raiding parties and later on warfare, but small enough that the characters can become very important figures.
Spectacular Settlements by Nord Games provides a great framework to randomize some details about settlements. Even if you don’t use what you roll up it can help you recognize what you actually want to make by providing examples.
Town Details
Town: Kolvik
Location: After a lot of thought and research on the Northlands, I think the best location for this type of village is in Trollheim. It is built in a fjord, in the Western portion of Trollheim. (Design Note: This geographic placement provides the village a fairly central location for engagement with other communities in the Trollheim region, and also means you can use the threat of trollkin and dwarven reavers along the coasts, and giants from as far as Jotunheim. The other kingdoms nearby can also be reached fairly quickly).
Age: Kolvik is an old settlement, with at least one hundred fifty years of history passed down by the skalds.
Hardships: The village was raided by marauders. The losses were crushing. This raid was conducted by a tribe of Thursir giants two years ago. The village calls this even the Dark Time or Myork Tid (Design note: This keeps any groups that might happen to be player ancestries from being major enemies and creating awkward situations for characters. Other reaver villages can also be antagonists, but this way the primary enemy in the low-level portion of the campaign will be evil giants and other monsters). Additionally, some of the village’s warriors disappeared alongside those of Jarl Asvaldr of the Havardr six years ago when he went on his great Southward raid.
Size: About 30 standing structures, but had almost double before the raid. They are all simple longhouses housing extended families while the roads are dirt and rutted, often turning to mud in the autumn and winter.
Environment: The village is built in a fjord. Access is difficult by land due to the rocky terrain, but that doesn’t always stop monsters like the Thursir giants. The other approach is via the shallow fjord, which can only be navigated by ships and boats with a shallow draft, like longships.
Specialty and Resources: The village is particularly known for its high quality woolen garments, sought after by many traders. It also has many sheep to support this industry, and also is known for selling its goat milk and cheese to nearby settlements. A few small fields and patches are used for vegetable and wheat farming, but much of the village’s grain must be imported. Many families also fish the fjord and streams to supplement their diet.
Population: There are several hundred souls in Kolvik, living in extended family groups. There are several ancestries represented (the specifics depend on the players’ choices about their ancestries and families).
Disposition: The villagers are as a rule unfriendly to outsider side to their past sufferings. They observe all the Northlands rules of hospitality, but do their best to discourage visitors. Only scalds bringing tidings of the wider Northlands are more welcome.
Defense: When crime occurs, the villagers generally form a disorganized group to apprehend the wrongdoer and bring them before the chieftain for judgement.
Wealth: Around half of the population is severely impoverished. No one in Kolvik is particularly wealthy, but some families do go hungry due to their losses in the past several years and when crops or trade is bad. Raiding would go a long way toward helping these people become more prosperous, and they are likely to be very open to joining raiding parties.
Crime: Theft is not unheard of in Kolvik. Generally criminals are seized by the community. They must face the judgment of the chieftain or face the one they have wronged in holmganga (dueling). Blood feuds can occur in this way when one family feels that they have been wronged by another or a holmganga triggers further challenges. Duels and blood feuds have been less common within the community the last several years due to collective hardships.
Religious Observance: The village is fervently devout, seeking to avoid the ire of the gods that many feel came upon them over the last several years. The traditional holidays are observed, and the pantheist village druid carries out rituals for each of the major Northern gods. Wotan is Kolvik”s patron deity. The dark gods are warily respected to avoid their wrath, but folk avoid invoking them and do not participate in their darker rituals.
Important Features
Chieftain’s Longhouse
The chieftain’s longhouse is the center of the village culture and social life. Though it is not as large as some halls, it provides space for many of the village’s important members to feast together. The feasts are not as bounteous as they were many years past, but tales and drink still bring the people together and beat back the chill of winter and fear. It is a point of pride that although visitors are often met with suspicion, they are always invited to eat in the chieftain’s longhouse, maintaining the Northland tradition of bonding over food and story.
Asvard Grisson is the current village chieftain. He is wise and fair in his judgements, but perhaps overcautious since the Myork Tid. He seeks to protect the village at all costs, and worries that the gods are cursing the village for some sort of offense.
Village Bathhouse
A low, windowless building roofed with peat, the village bathhouse provides both a social gathering place and a place for hygiene. Part of the structure is filled with split dried logs for the fires. The bath room has wooden benches around the large stove. The stove in turn is covered in a wrought metal basket full of small round stones which absorb the heat. A bucket of water and a wooden ladle are brought into the bathhouse when in use to pour water on the stones, which heat it to steam and warm the entire room.
Felt hats are worn during bathing to avoid steam burned hair or skin on the head. Bathers also use dried birch branches and leaves to swat themselves while bathing, releasing the plants oils onto their skin. The building is built not far from the waterfront so that villagers can exit and plunge themselves into the cool water of the fjord. A person might do this two or three times over the course of several hours, increasing the amount of time they spend in the heat of the bathhouse after each icy plunge.
Because the community shares the building a certain day each week is set aside for women and men to each bath separately, although in other communities in the Northlands both genders do bathe together. The people of the Northlands bath in these types of lodges all year round, and often sip herbal teas or other purified drinks to avoid dehydration during the bath sessions.
(Design Note: I spent a summer during university studying in the Baltics and got well acquainted with bathhouse traditions there. And in my version of the Northlands the people like their bathhouse visits—just like I did!)
Boathouse
The village has three boathouses, but only one remains in good repair and houses the single longship possessed by the village. In the spring and summer months it is used for trade with nearby villages. The other longboats in the dilapidated boathouses disappeared in the great raid across the Nieder Straits.
The boathouse is often used as a large meeting and gathering hall when the longship is not stored in it during the cold months. In these times, the chieftain’s longhouse is the primary village gathering place.
With sufficient resources the players can construct their own longship and additional ships for the clan during downtime. With only the village longship they are also beholden to the community’s timeline for raiding. With their own ship so long as they marshal sufficient resources they can raid whenever they desire.
Burial Mounds
Set closer to the walls of the narrow and deep valley in Kolvik's fjord lie the burial mounds of its previous residents. Perhaps the characters have ancestors buried here, or if they pass on during the course of their adventures perhaps they will be laid to rest here alongside their treasures.
Druid’s Grove
Under the sun, moon, and stars the people of Kolvik observe religious rites at outdoor altars in the grove. Her there are small altars to the gods of the North. The more popular ones are more well kept, like those of Thor and Wotan. Others are worn and dark, avoided except when necessary like the altars of Chernobog and the White goddess.
Otkel Alfsson is the aged ravenfolk (pantheist) Druid who tends the grove alongside Thorfrithr Kalfdottir. He has a wealth of spiritual knowledge and is a good resource to request assistance in religious or spiritual matters. He can perform low level healing magic and has some powers of divination, but will recommend traveling to larger communities for more powerful clerical magic.
Thorfrithr Kalfdottir is a middle-aged human Druid taking over duties from Otkel Alfsson. She is a devotee of the goddess Sif, and is working to ensure many of the village youth are trained as spear maiden of the goddess. She has similar healing capabilities as Otkel.
Fallen Shrine
The modest shrine to the gods that village had was destroyed by fire in the raid by the Thursir giants and their goblin thralls. Now the village uses the Druid’s Grove for worship, lacking resources to rebuild the shrine.
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