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The vast, icy Northlands of Midgard are equal parts deadly and beautiful. The dwarves, trollkin, and humans who call these lands home are hardy folk who are reliant on customs that seem foreign to those in warmer lands. Northlander society is built not only on the custom and bonds of kin, but also the felag—the fellowship and partnership between those who understand the daily struggle to survive.
Nowhere is the felag more evident than in the many longhouses and meadhalls of the Northlands. Frequently, longhouses serve as the focal points for Northland chieftains, jarls, and kings to reward their subjects and assure their ongoing oaths. Meadhalls permeate all levels of society, where even the most common folk can revel during the long winter nights—provided they have the coin.
This article presents Potmel’s, a meadcavern in the Gloaming Crag.
Bjornrike: The Kingdom of the Bear
At the border between the Northlands and the Rothenian Plain, a small but mighty nation sits the precipice of glory.
To the east, its inhabitants contend the Swive in the Nieder Straits. To the west, they see the precipitous Tunturi Mountains. At their northern border, they are threatened by the Vargrike, the land of wolves (both were and other). To their southern border, they are imperiled by the the Plains of Rhos Khurgan—thirty-two burial mounds of an ancient folk, all of which the Khazzaki hold sacred. In every umbral silhouette, the inhabitants see the dark reflections and distorted expectations of the Shadow Realm—and the denizens that call that plane home.
Welcome to Bjornrike: the kingdom of the bear.
The Court of the Gloaming Crag
Bjornrike is home to ursine fey, werebears, and even the modest bearfolk. While Northlanders brave enough to visit these lands rarely see more than the port city of Bjeornheim, these hardy folk are ruled by King Mesikämmen. “Old Honey Paws,” as he’s called by his friends, cares little for cosmopolitan Bjeornheim, instead choosing to hold court at his capital—a warren of caves and tunnels at the Tunturi’s edge called the Gloaming Crag.
Throughout the Northlands, tales are spun about Mesikämmen’s carousing at the Gloaming Crag. Throughout the year, the king hosts great feasts for his loyal jarls and the dignitaries he seeks to impress. Bowls of mead, both sweet and dry, are lapped from immense stone bowls. Such excess invariably leads to brawling between the bearfolk. (Woe unto any of the lesser folk who are challenged or caught up in such a fracas.)
Fewer tales are told of those at court who cater to Old Honey Paws’s many wishes. One such place is Potmel’s, the King’s second favorite mead hall in the Gloaming Crag.
Potmel’s
While one can find perhaps a half dozen festive halls among the caves and tunnels of the Gloaming Crag, Llewynbwn is considered to be where Old Honey Paws began carousing with his court. The meadcavern’s founder, Cancynen Chorlschild, spent their formative years in the Summerlands as a dancing bear in the Court of the River King. Returning to their homeland of Bjornrike with four casks of mead, Cancynen was invited to Mesikämmen’s court as a fey friend.
Upon reaching court, Cancynen encountered Mesikämmen and his jarls engaged in regular feylike fits of bacchanalia around the Gloaming Crag. Recognizing an opportunity, the dancing bear put their otherworldly hydromel to good use. Hastily constructing some stools and tables and “acquiring” some slightly-dented steel tankards, the former dancing bear set up shop in a moist, expansive cavern lit by luminescent fungus.
The Bear King soon came across Cancynen’s honey pot, where he and his court reveled for one night, and the next . . . and the next. Soon, other bearfolk around the Gloaming Crag copied Cancynen’s model. While Old Honey Paws’s eye wandered to these newer meadcaverns, Potmel’s remained his first love. It was even rumored at court that Mesikämmen used the dancing bear as an advisor for the questions he could not pose to even his trusted jarls.
Under New Management
Finding a decade in the Northlands too cold for their ginger fur, Cancynen returned to the persistent warmth of the Summerlands. Before leaving, the dancing bear passed the title of Potmel’s to Zimhon Tantzeler, a halfling werebear to whom Cancynen had taken a shining. The dancing bear promised the Bear King that they would return on a new moon when truly needed.
Unfortunately, the werebear was better at hoisting hogsheads of mead than running a nightly revel. While the werebear has learned the hospitality skills required around court, it came only after a series of unfortunate blunders—the most public of which resulted in Old Honey Paws having his head stuck in a barrel of holding for three days. (Some say the king still hasn’t fully gotten the smell of rotting trout out of his fur.)
Zimhon endeavors to regain the king’s favor and the title of preeminent meadcavern. The werebear has doubled down on improving the Potmel’s drink selection by adding dry meads from the Moonlit Glades. A local transmuter worked a ventilation system into the cavern to allow for a wood burning stove. It put meat back on the menu.
Zimhon has also expanded into a neighboring cavern and added beds and partitions, providing a place for gallivanting patrons to sleep off the mead. Lastly, he commissioned local druids to grow an unbreakable table from tungsten, promising that any patron who breaks the table will have their night’s tab forgiven. (This gimmick has attracted many carousing jarls to the glow of Potmel’s, where they line the werebear’s pockets buying drinks, hoping to summon the strength to break this table.)
Despite these ipmprovements, Mesikämmen visits other meadcaverns for his nightly revels. The Bear King only visits on the new moon, hoping to see his friend again, returned from the Summerlands.
Drinking Buddies
At any given time, a dozen persons of interest drink at Potmel’s. Such individuals may include:
- Huffathorn vann Rottsten is a low-level functionary in one of Dornig’s three noble families. This elfmarked has come to escort the next Bjornrike ambassador to the embassy in Bad Solitz.
- Shadrach Huntsvilde is a bearfolk ranger from the Moonlit Glades who is a member of the Lantern Seekers, a loose network of unlikely champions of the light. Shadrach lost his closest companion to shadow corruption, and the ranger has come to the Gloaming Crag to seek a new apprentice to watch his back in the umbral forests.
- Perrezvet Abrasha appears to most as a human trader from nearby Vidim, clad in fine clothes made from mink, sable, and otter. These fineries are glamoured to hide their true nature—Perrezet wears bear hide, knit together with the souls of the bearfolk Perrezvet has hunted. He is posing as a trader to get close enough to the Bear King to collect both Mesikämmen’s hide and his soul.
Adventure Hooks
Use the following threads as adventure hooks involving Potmel’s:
- Zimhon has a lead on rare confections from Zobeck that are being delivered to Bjeornheim. The werebear has paid a small fortune to purchase these confections as a gift for the Bear King. He needs hardy adventurers to bring the sweets from the port city—especially considering that Zimhon’s many competitors would love to present the same gift to Old Honey Paws.
- The new ambassador to Dornig was supposed to arrive three days ago. Gloaming Crag’s royal haruspices have divined lupine signs from the intestines. Could the forces of Wargaz the Curel have kidnapped this honored jarl, dragging him back to the frostbitten taiga?
- That couldn’t be Mesikämmen, all alone in a corner? Why is he mumbling about the coming of Fimbulwinter?
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