Since the first days of the world, when the Greatfather and his six mighty sons walked the land, Magnar has been the homeland of the Born: children in their tongue. A dozen centuries have passed since those heady days, and in that time the children of the Greatfather's sons have tamed the rugged lands of Magnar and carved out six great realms, one for each of the Greatfather's sons. The hosts of the vengeful dead have been laid to rest forever and the trolls have been banished to their lairs deep in the mountains. Invaders too have come to despoil the birthright of the Born; the Thalasan invaders, bringing horses and magicks, succeeded in destroying one of the great realms, but they too were ultimately repulsed. Every enemy of the Born, unbowed children of the Greatfather, has been laid low. Magnar was their hard-earned birthright and for hundred of years, the Born have assumed that their homeland would be theirs to inhabit for all time.
But now, Magnar faces a threat greater than all the revenant hosts, savage trolls, and Thalasan fleets combined; an adversary that no amount of courage nor skill at arms can repulse. The doom of the Born is no mortal army, but Magnar itself, for an unending winter has seized the land. Snow is now liable to fall within weeks of the summer solstice, and the tremendous glaciers of the mountains creep into the valleys, crushing villages and forests alike in their inexorable advance. Famished and desperate, the northern realms plunder their southern neighbors. As war rages across frigid Magnar, the court of the Master's Citadel at Draath has descended into madness. So great is the courtly turmoil that the Master has been assassinated for the first time in 700 years.
There is a new Master of Magnar, Evar Varvudda. Never expecting to become Master, Evar became a sailor and traveled to distant lands across the Sturmsee, the Sea of Tempests. Now that he has returned, Evar speaks of bountiful, verdant lands to the south. Faced with the imminent doom of Magnar, the Master of all Born has suggested the unthinkable: that all Bornic men, women, and children abandon the Greatfather's birthright and establish a new homeland for the children of the Greatfather.
Introduction
This is an interest check for Children of the Greatfather, an advanced nation roleplay set in a low-fantasy medieval world. This roleplay focuses on the five realms of Magnar, a septentrional landmass with a culture and climate similar to that of the greater Scandinavian region of Europe's medieval era. Due to a rapid climatic shift akin to the so-called Little Ice Age that occurred in medieval Europe, Magnar's climate has quickly become too cold to sustain its agrarian society. The Master of Magnar - who is essentially the king of this land - has suggested relocating the entire population to the more temperate lands across the sea.
I am looking for 4-5 competent storytellers who can post regularly to control one of each of the five realms of Magnar. I may allow any extra players to assume control of the native civilizations of the southern landmasses, or the non-Born population of Magnar. I am looking for writers that can weave together a compelling story that fits the setting. Creative, setting-appropriate worldbuilding is another skill I am seeking in applicants.
Lore and Setting
History of Magnar
According to legend, the Greatfather inhabited Magnar since the birth of the world. He roamed the valleys and mountains of the land, exploring a land inhabited only by the beasts of the woods and hills. He spoke to the animals and the trees, befriending them and learning their wisdom. To the Greatfather's dismay, all living things around him eventually died. From the whales of Magnar's stone gray seas, to the mighty icewalkers of Magnar's northern reaches, all living things on Magnar met their end sooner or later. Even the trees, the longest-lived of all the Greatfather's friends, eventually declined and died. The immortal Greatfather could only watch as mortality claimed all life around him. The Greatfather walked Magnar for nearly three thousand years, searching in vain for another immortal being in whom he could confide.
From the heavens, the valkyries watched the Greatfather's melancholy search. The valkyrie Nystra took pity upon the Greatfather and descended to Magnar to befriend the Greatfather. The Greatfather was elated to meet a fellow immortal being, and he took Nystra as his wife. Nystra bore the Greatfather six sons over the course of their marriage - the very first of the Born. The Greatfather was tremendously proud of his new family, and together the Greatfather and his children explored Magnar, teaching them all of the wisdom he had learned in his solitude among the beasts. Nystra taught the Greatfather and his sons the ways of the valkyries - how to settle down and live in a domicile and be civilized.
Eventually, Nystra tired of the company of the Greatfather and left. Horrified by his wife's disappearance, the Greatfather left his sons to their devices as he went out to find Nystra. The Greatfather searched Magnar for many years, and eventually found her in the haunt of the troll Shebalog. Nystra had taken Shebalog as her new husband, and with him had sired many sons and daughters. Overcome with jealousy, the Greatfather went into Shebalog's cave in the dead of night and killed Nystra and Shebalog with a heavy rock. Upon seeing the blood of his wife on his hands, the Greatfather wept loudly. Hearing the terrible cries from the chambers of their parents, Shebalog's children fled the cave in the night and scattered across Magnar.
A remorseful Greatfather returned to his home to see his sons once again. He encountered Eshkag, one of his sons, in the woods outside the house, scrabbling about in the dirt eating acorns and roots. When questioned as to why he was doing this, Eshkag explained that his brother Seolhi had striken him blind in a fight, and that he could not find his way back home.
A furious Greatfather returned with Eshkag to find his home was in shambles. His sons had succumbed to infighting, and their disputes had caused the house to fall into ruin. Seeing that his children could not be trusted to live together, the Greatfather elected to divide Magnar amongst his children. The Greatfather sent the children to the far-flung corners of the land so that they would not fight amongst themselves. Eshkag, however, was in no condition to fend for himself, and so the Greatfather allowed Eshkag to stay with him.
In their own corners of Magnar, the sons of the Greatfather established their own houses, and eventually encountered the daughters of Shebolag. The Greatfather's sons took these women as their brides, and sired the second generation of the Born. And as their children grew up, the Greatfather was horrified to find that his own children continued to age. Due to the wounds inflicted by Seolhi, Eshkag was the first son to pass away. He died in the Greatfather's arms, who was as saddened as he was bewildered, for he did not understand how the offspring of two immortal beings could be mortal. But the valkyries in the heavens had conspired against him. Seeing the Greatfather murder their sister Nystra enraged the valkyries, and so they placed the curse of mortality on all of Nystra's children - that the Greatfather would never again find company in a fellow immortal.
The Greatfather could only watch as his children withered and died like all other beings. Refusing to watch his progeny die like all other life, the Greatfather departed the realms of the Born and has never since been seen.
In the absence of the Greatfather, his children multiplied across Magnar. The houses established by the first Born grew into estates with plenty of wheat and livestock. The great forests of Magnar were thinned to build homes and palisades for their estates. Great swathes of forest were cleared to create pasturage for sheep and cattle, particularly in Magnar's southern hills. The oldest and most established estates were those built by the original sons of the Greatfather, and these typically became the seats of each of the six realms. Smaller estates sprang forth, and the masters of these estates pledged their fealty to one of the six realms in return from protection from livestock thieves and banditry. As the six realms accumulated wealth, their masters became increasingly avaricious. Realms attacked one another to plunder cattle and other wealth. The incessant raiding and pillaging led to mass starvation among the common folk, and killed many men of fighting age.
It became clear that something had to be done to stop the rampant warfare. It was apparent that a leader among the Born was necessary in lieu of the Greatfather. Magnar needed a master above all masters. Isvald Lastrund, the Lastrund Master, suggested at a feast of the six masters of Magnar that Mastery of Magnar be a rotating title. The Master of one realm would serve as master; upon his death, the master of the realm next in line would assume mastery of all Magnar, based upon the order of birth of the forebear of each realm. An election was summarily held, and Isvald Lastrund was named the first Master of Magnar.
Several hundred years of relative peace ensued, and Magnar's population swelled. Wars between the realms continued to occur, but were much fewer. The Masters of Magnar had established a lasting peace among the realms. But the peace was shattered with the arrival of the Thalasans. A seafaring people from across the Sturmsee, the Thalasans arrived first as a small number of traders, greedily exchanging furs, pelts, and ivory from walruses and icewalkers for exotic goods from the southern lands. But within two years of their initial arrival, a massive fleet of great Thalasan warships landed on the southern coast of Magnar. Cohesive, well-organized armies of soldiers bearing metal armor disembarked from these ships and effortlessly routed the disorganized warbands of the Bornic defenders and their exotic siege engines laid waste to the primitive estate fortification. Most terrifying of all, perhaps, were their horses: exotic animals from the south that the Born had never encountered before.
Within months, the Thalasan hosts had driven the Born into the northern hinterlands of Magnar. The Realm of Lastrund had been utterly vanquished at the Siege of Draath, the southern realms had fled into the North, and Ysmor Blacktooth, Master of Magnar, was skewered by a Thalasan lancer at Byrno. Mastery of Magnar fell upon Solveig Eshkag. Solveig recognized that continuing to attack the Thalasans in a piecemeal, uncoordinated fashion would spell doom for all of the Born. Unity among the Greatfather's Children would be utterly necessary. Solveig approached the Master of the Seolhi - the perennial nemesis of the Realm of Eshkag - and offered material support for Seolhi boats to waylay Thalasan supply ships arriving and returning to the south. He persuaded his fellow masters not to waste their warriors in futile counterassaults of their captured estates, but to conduct brief nighttime raids and ambush small cohorts of Thalasans traveling the countryside.
Solveig's coalition was very effective at hamstringing the Thalasan advance into northern Magnar, but he knew that he would not be able to expel the Thalasans without help. He turned to the non-Bornic peoples in the icy north of Magnar, and met with Lypaak, a king among the sons of Shebalog. In exchange for assurance that the Born would leave the far north of Magnar in peace, Lypaak assembled an army to assist Solveig and the Born in freeing Magnar from the Thalasans, complete with a cohort of reindeer-mounted warriors.
Seolhi pirates had captured correspondence from the Thalasans that indicated that their hosts were mobilizing to capture Narskur - the Eshkag stronghold and center of Solveig's resistance. With this knowledge, Solveig recognized an opportunity to deal a decisive blow against the Thalasans. At the plains near Yorvask, the northward-marching Thalasans encountered the largest army ever assembled by the peoples of Magnar. An effective charge by reindeer-mounted javelineers caught the Thalasans off guard, giving the Sons of the Greatfather and Shebalog the opportunity to charge into the Thalasan infantry and engage them in their preferred one-on-one melee. After hours of intense fighting, Solveig and Lypaak's armies emerged victorious, and the Thalasans were killed to the last man. A number of Thalasan horses captured after the battle became the forebears of most horses in Magnar today.
Following the great victory at Yorvask, Solveig and the children of the Greatfather marched directly against Draath - the former seat of the Realm of Lastrund. There, they encountered a mighty citadel where the Lastrund estate had stood a year before; a tower of stone built in the Thalasan fashion. Donning the armor and clothing of Thalasan warriors slain at Yorvask, Solveig's mightiest warriors approached the gates of the keep pretending to be Thalasan soldiers. Once inside the keep's gates, the Bornic warrior lashed out savagely against the garrison inside and opened the gates for the Solveig's army waiting just beyond the treeline. The Thalasans inside the keep were utterly butchered, and Solveig personally beheaded the Thalasan lord. The Thalasan commander's severed head was paraded atop a pike when victorious Solveig returned to Narskur, and eventually a goblet was fashioned out of his skull. The remaining Thalasans scattered across Magnar were eventually slain by vengeful Born or sailed back home - either on their own ships or commandeered Bornic boats - never to return again.
A hard-won victory over the Thalasans belonged to the Greatfather's children, but many Born predicted that they would return to avenge their fallen kin and conquer Magnar in earnest. But 630 years have passed since the Battle of Yorvask, and the Thalasans have never been seen again. Their conquest of Magnar ended in defeat, but the Thalasans left an indelible mark upon Magnaran culture during their brief reign. Most of these innovations have been martial in nature. Foreign weapons like maces and halberds have been adopted by the Bornic warriors who previously used only axes and swords, and Thalasan-inspired war machines like the ballistae are now utilized by the wealthier masters. Fortifications are now built out of stone if possible. The Thalasan-built citadel at Draath, the example from which all Magnaran stoneworkers draw inspiration, now serves as the court of the Master of Magnar. Perhaps the most revolutionary change to Magnaran society is the introduction of the horse. Cavalry have turned the art of warfare on Magnar on its head, and have forced warriors to adopt new tactics and weapons to counter the threat of horse-mounted foes.
The Thalasan contributions contributed more than just new ways of waging war. Thalasan loanwords and place names persist - particularly in the south of Magnar. Thalasan traders left behind an appetite for foreign goods such as spices and fruit wines. And the Thalasan encounter kindled an interest in the wider world beyond Magnar. This interest has driven some adventurous Born to brave the Sturmsee and see what lies beyond Magnar's shores.
Application
For the time being, I need nothing but a statement of interest. However, you are welcome to get a head start on your application if you wish. I admittedly hate writing applications, but they are a necessary evil. Remember that people really only skim these to get a feel for your nation, so don't spend a lot of time or effort on your application.
Realm Name: One of the five remaining realms of Magnar. Effectively a duchy or great house. Realm Master: The realms trace their history back to the six sons of the Greatfather, and the master of the realm is a direct descendant of one of the original six sons. Although male masters are much more common - female masters are permissible. Master's Biography: May be combined with Realm History Realm History: May be combined with Master's Biography Realm Seat: The capital of your realm. Not particularly important as you will not be ruling from here for very long. Realm Boundaries/Location: Again, not terribly important at first as the Born will be fleeing their homeland before long. But for the purposes of immersion, it would be nice to know where everyone is relative to one another. When the colonization of the southern lands begins, your realm's boundaries will be more pertinent.
As long as they have existed, the Seolhi have been on the outskirts of Magnar. The Seolhi isles run along Magnar's Western shores, making up an archipelago whose craggy mountains breaks apart sea storms, sparing their Eastern neighbors the damp winds the Seolhi isles are known for. Their harsh, stormy homelands are not by chance or choice; In the earliest years, the Greatfather granted his son Seolh domain of a small, barren formation of islands as punishment for blinding his brother Eshkag in an unarmed duel of strength. Believed to be born from the line of the wickedest of the Greatfather's sons, Seolhi culture has been inherently hard-hearted since its inception -- Children's tales from the isles tend to incorporate grim, straightforward lessons, funerals involve little more than rifling through the pockets and disposing of a corpse, and the societal expectation of the elderly and enfeebled to unburden their families through suicide is so strong that there is a specific Seolhi holiday for it, known as "Wandering Day."
Since Seolh was cast out to the Western isles, the reputation of the area has managed to improve very little, as it has bred a people known for little more than their clannish, territorial nature and their use of ships as year-round homes to escape their homeland's foul weather. They are stereotypically seen as untrustworthy for their insular customs, though this is also because of the multiple instances of cannibalism and shore raiding in times of famine. For their muddy homeland, territorial ways, and the belief that they routinely "eat their own eggs", they are often referred to as "The Turtle-People" by their Born brethren. They have taken this as a nationalistic symbol, particularly due to the prevalence of aggressive snapping turtles in the brackish rivers of the isles.
Following recent weather anomalies, the Seolhi were among the first to unanimously agree to the great migration, as they stand to have the most to gain. They are a maritime culture through and through, favoring seamanship over war or art, and have high expectations of their people's new place in a new Magnar. The Seolhi, after all, are able to take their prized homes with them, while the neighbors who they believe to have spat down on them from their stone towers cannot.
• The ancient seat of the Seolhi monarchy is located in the southernmost tip of the isles, in a cliffside castle known as Urchin's Reach. It is walled off on all sides, with a tunnel entrance through a cove underneath the castle -- this is a protective measure, making the fortress only accessible during low tide, once at daybreak and once again at dusk.
• The Seolhi have contributed relatively few inventions to Magnar's history, though there are three that the isles rightfully take credit for; the lobster crate, the catamaran, and a style of eight-lined poem known as "Sküvosa". Aside from their original creations, the Seolhi isles supply the rest of Magnar through their trades with firstly with salt, as well as pearls, cured meats, and itinerant workers.
The Master of Seolhi, Einar Seolhi, is a man of seven-and-eighty. Though once known for his cunning intellect and shadowy diplomatic tactics -- namely bribery, intimidation, and extortion -- his once-devious mind is now a cloud of fragmented memories and nameless faces. These days, he is lucky if he remembers to wear his crown to court, much less the intricacies of ruling the realm. In fact, it is a well-kept secret within the walls of Urchin's Reach that Einar is unaware of the great migration taking place. For the last three years, he has believed it to be the last month of winter. In his stead, the realm is almost entirely lead by his remaining children, Oren and Suriah Seolhi.
In his youth, Einar Seolhi was known as "The Cloak of The West" for his reliance on secretive dealings and intrigue to rule the isles. His son Oren, on the other hand, is known by his men as "The Hammer of the West". After an attempt at Einar's life some fourty-odd years ago, he sent his only child to be sired as far from the Seolhi isles as possible, being raised by a landowning chieftain north of Magnar in exchange for a few cattle and a large chest of gold. Among the sons of Shebalog, Oren grew as harsh and cold as the land, focusing his waking hours avoiding the torment of his foster brothers and honing his skill with the hinterlander's weapon of choice; the Morningstar.
Oren returned twenty years later, half-blind and covered in a patchwork of scars, but quicker and stronger for having earned them. He is a warrior before he is a prince of the Seolhi court, and having never learned so much as how to rig a sail, his identity as a warrior is paramount in establishing dominance in his interactions. Though his father eagerly awaited his return, gifting him a sizable longboat and ancestral sword upon his arrival, there has always been a sense of bitterness on Oren's end for his father's abandonment, as well as for his return home coinciding with his father's slow descent into delirium.
Nice. We've got a lot of talent between the four of you. I'll give it another day or so for interested parties to throw their hat in the ring before I put up an OOC thread. I'll make a map and jot some lore tidbits tomorrow, so those of you who would like to start on an application early have something to go off of.
I may be enticed. It seems like you have all the players you need, but lack of follow through seems to be a trend so I figured I'd toss in my hat now.
A bit more specificity on what I was thinking, without making an application quite yet, I'd likely go for a 'Holy Land' type deal. Fairly weak military strength, but draws in pilgrims and with them commerce. The church(esque Viking thing) would oppose migration since the land couldn't support pilgrims anymore and there could be some interesting Priest vs. King bits there. I'd definitely go for some sort of theocracy.
@gorgenmastI think you've got a great basis for a story here. I'll admit, I'm not wild about playing one of the Magnar realms (and it looks like there are enough players for that role), but maybe a southern or peripheral territory.
The map and lore fleshing-out didn't materialize, as you can see. Excuses are like assholes and so I won't bother explaining why I haven't made this happen. In any case, my weekend should be much more relaxed and I expect to have a completed OOC thread up by Sunday.
I am thrilled by the outpouring of interest in this concept as well as the WIP faction made up by DeadBeat. Expect a full OOC sooner than later, so in the meantime continue to flesh out your ideas in the meantime.
You have caught my attention, my good man. As a Norseman of birth, I'll be having my eyes on this. If not as the Born-people, then as one local realm that tries to either fight or live with them.
