The Longhouse Sessions is a 4-part series setting the stage for adventures in the Northlands. Discover the world, its characters, and gather the tools you need to begin a saga of your own!
The door of the longhouse creaks open, spilling red firelight across the snow. A burst of hot air, acrid smoke, and the scent of roasting boar greet you, a welcome respite from the cold.
Within, two well-armed reavers trade barbs while a small audience listens attentively, some folk passing coins between each other after a particularly good bout of insults. Bearfolk, dwarves, giantkin, and other, stranger folk toast to health, or good trading, or to success during the next raid.
Danger, glory, and opportunities to make your reputation are everywhere in the Northlands. It’s here where your saga begins.
Cue up some Wardruna (or Amon Amarth, if you’re feeling spicy), your next campaign is going to be set in the Northlands! We’ve got plenty of ground to cover before the Northlands Worldbook releases. This setting has all the ingredients for an epic campaign, and we can lay groundwork for our time in the Northlands well before we gather players around the fire for Session 0.
Why the Northlands?
There’s already plenty of space at your table for horned helms, meadhalls, and shieldwalls, right? Do we really need a whole Norse-inspired campaign? How many monasteries can one party sack?
In a word: Absolutely. There’s a lot more to the Northlands than rolling up to the nearest shore with ten of your besties and stealing what isn’t tied down. “Murderhobos hit the whale-road” is good for a few sessions, but a campaign in the Northlands offers you and your players a chance to tell stories that are WAY more interesting than what you’ll find in a standard Viking Age setting. Let’s take a look at some unique features of the Northlands that influence how we prepare our campaign.
Gods Walk Among Us!
Not content to rest on their laurels receiving worship and dropping in whenever you’ve got enough scraped together for a Resurrection spell, the gods of the North are an active presence in the world, embodied in physical form and out there just . . . meddling.
The plots and schemes of the gods are an integral part of our Northlands campaign, and an essential element of what makes the Northlands feel magical. Power politics with monarchs and emperors is one thing, but putting your party on the Hnefatafl board of the gods in something else entirely. Divine rewards and dire consequences wait on every square.
The Tangled Web of Fate
All Northlanders know their fate is one thread among many. Luck, prophecy, and the whims of fate permeate the Northlands setting. Is our party’s fate bound together? Have they somehow become unbound from their destinies? Will they embrace their fates, or attempt to defy them?
Usually when I roll up a new character, I start with an idea of who they are already. I produce reams of unread, rarely-referenced backstory to explain how my character ended up a Level 1 nobody killing rats in Halfdan’s Alehouse for two coppers a tail. Instead of focusing on the beginning, Fate shapes our Northlands campaign and asks players to think about where their characters will be at the end.
What Is Your Character’s Ultimate Fate?
| d6 | Fate |
| 1 | The end comes after my adventuring days are long behind me, surrounded by family and friends, celebrated for my wit and wisdom. |
| 2 | I finally succumb to my wounds atop a mountain of slain foes. The sound of my allies’ voices raised in victory echoes in my ears. |
| 3 | Vaporized doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. I am erased from existence by a furious god. |
| 4 | I carved a vast dominion out of the North before being betrayed by those closest to me. |
| 5 | Doom comes while exploring the vast ocean in search of unseen lands. There is a tremendous crack, and an ancient sea-beast drags my vessel below the waves. |
| 6 | I stand with the vanguard of the gods beneath the World Tree. I issue a blast from my horn, signaling the coming of Ragnarok. |
Sagas and Songs Shape the World
Sometimes literally. But even when bards aren’t using their pipes to magical effect, the Northlands is a setting governed by reputation and a complex sense of honor, often communicated in stories and songs.
In the North, your reputation is both a blessing and a curse. Where every day is a struggle for survival against well, everything, your party will have to deal with a world where honor is sometimes at odds with good, and word travels swiftly on the skald’s lyre. Our campaign will also ask our party to carefully manage their legend, lest an overhyped band of heroes suddenly find themselves explaining to a group of villagers that while they may have heard our heroes were capable of slaying a pair of lindworms, the reality is quite different. Will they meet their legend head-on?
There’s Still Going to be Raiding, Right?
Of course! The Northlands is more than Viking raiding and pillaging, but it’s definitely that too!
If your players want the full Twilight of the Thunder God experience, it’s there. But if you or your players don’t relish the prospect of a 7th season of Vikings, the Northlands offers a setting where characters struggle not only against the elements, but against fate itself. It’s a world where prophecy and omens carry as much weight as troop of armed warriors. Where the battle between the gods and the forces of destruction are not only facts of life, they’re literally playing out in front of you!
What role will they play in this greater story? If the thought of setting foot on a dragonship leaves you feeling green, The Northlands offers a deep world of storytelling opportunities outside standard Viking fare. Here are a few suggestions to spark our Northlands campaign:
| d6 | Your Saga Begins . . . |
| 1 | . . . after an unnaturally warm spring thaw reveals a long-forgotten standing stone bearing a fearsome prophecy. |
| 2 | . . . when a longship brimming with reavers raids your village in search of loot and captives. |
| 3 | . . . as a mysterious stranger with a too-wide smile enlists your party to procure a seemingly innocuous item from a dour, one-eyed acquaintance |
| 4 | . . . with news of war between the bearfolk of Bjornrike and the reavers of Wolfheim over a stolen pot of sacred honey. |
| 5 | . . . on an embassy to the Black Tower of Boreas, the North Wind, to beg a favor for your people. |
| 6 | . . . in the fighting pits of Wolfheim, saddled with a debt to one of the Reaver Kingdom’s more unhinged denizens. |
Next Time
With some themes and threads to weave through our Northlands campaign, it’s time to talk characters and conflict! Who lives in this land of ice, snow, and regular insult-contests? Who dreams of adventure here, and what kind of adventure can you find that doesn’t involve a few months of seasickness and piracy?
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