The Frozen Wastes

Our game takes place in the Frozen Wastes of Ahirom, a large magical continent. When we play DnD, our characters will be navigating the frozen remnants of kingdoms and cultures, some of which survived, some thrived, and some crumbled.   The event that made the world the way our adventurers know it was called the Great Freeze. In our first few sessions, we will be creating Ahirom in its height, leading up the frozen apocalypse.   In the height of Ahriom, there are three massive kingdoms: one in the mountains made up of five clans of Dwarves and led by the Crystal Council; one of human horselords spread across the Great Steppes and inspired by the Mongols; and the final, an advanced kingdom of Phoenician-inspired elves living on an expansive archipelago. These are all huge for the time, at least a population of 100,000.   In our first session, any player who wants to can create their own smaller kingdom, faction, city-state, or similar.   The population will be smaller—about 20,000 max—and will be a smaller geopolitical power than the three massive kingdoms, but besides that, you aren’t limited. If you want to make a secret coven that has branches across the continent, you can; if you want to make a small kingdom of orcs that is renown for their elite mercenaries and strawberry shortcake, you can. It’s completely open.   You can feel free to come with any ideas you want, or none at all. The first session, we will be doing a series of prompts to help you flesh out your kingdom and put it on the map, and interconnect it with the rest of the continent at large.  

The Prophecy

After that session, we will play the Quiet Year. If you aren’t familiar, Quiet Year is a really fun settlement making game where we get prompts as a group and flesh them out together.   The premise is that tens of thousands of people across the continent received a magical, holy, or telepathic message from an unknown source. It was all exactly the same.   It warned of the coming Great Freeze, and told all who listened to gather in a particular location. That will be the setting of our Quiet Year game, and we will have one year to build a settlement together that can survive.