Game Design News – Northlands Worldbook

It’s always great when a project you’ve worked on is released to Kickstarter backers and the general public, so I’m excited to see that the Northlands Worldbook is now available to buy in PDF from Drivethrurpg and Kobold Press for both D&D 5.5 and Tales of the Valiant.

Northlands is a brand new “campaign overlay” – it’s part of Midgard, but is easily used as a standalone northern setting in your own campaign or in another world of the Labyrinth. As you’d expect, it’s an epic setting full of gods, giants, reavers, and terrible monsters.

I worked on this project from December 2024 to March 2025, writing Chapter 3, Factions of the Northlands. I’d really enjoyed writing factions for the Labyrinth Worldbook, so was very happy to be asked to come up with nine new ones for the Northlands. This time, I had less word count to play with for each faction, and needed to add status level tables (using the rules from the Tales of the Valiant Game Master’s Guide), which posed something of a challenge! 

Each faction has an overview of its values and goals, information on the roles it can play in a campaign, status levels, key locations, key characters, a table of suitable NPC & monster stat blocks, and adventure hooks. Excellent maps showing typical faction bases are scattered throughout the chapter.

Some of the factions are heroic and are aimed at player characters; others are villainous (and feature in the accompanying Northlands Sagas adventure path). The factions are:

Blood Reckoning – giants out for revenge on the gods and their allies for slaying the first giant Aurgelmir back in the mists of time.

Cult of Ragnarok – founded by three gods – Loki, Boreas, and Chernobog – a cult of malevolent humans, dwarves, and giants that seeks to bring about the end of the world.

Fellowship of Wyrm Slayers – an association of thrill-seeking monster hunters and adventurers who undertake dangerous quests to remote parts of the Northlands to slay the biggest beasts they can.

Glorious Order of Giant Killers – a military organization dedicated to keeping the Northlands safe from giants, with a hidden agenda…

Lodge of the Dancing Bear – a loose group of guides and explorers who are most at home in the wilds of the Northlands.

Shield-Maidens of Sif – a mostly female faction of clerics, paladins, and warriors devoted to Sif the Sword Maiden, Mistress of the Valkyries and Patron of Warriors and Archers.

Skaldic Brotherhood – a guild of skalds (bards and poets) who compose and perform poems and songs celebrating heroic deeds, and gather knowledge and secrets in the hopes of solving the Riddle of the Forgotten Thing.

Steadfast Company of Mile-Steppers – a trusted organization of dwarven transportation experts who convey trade goods, small packages, and people safely and discreetly to almost any Northlands destination.

Storm Reavers – despicable, bloodthirsty outlaws devoted to the storm god Boreas who attack merchant ships crossing the seas and pillage farmsteads and fishing villages, showing no mercy.

I had a great time working on Midgard material again, and it was cool to write stuff for a region of the setting I’d not focused on before. The art in the whole book is excellent and it’s great to see the factions and characters I’ve written appear in Northlands Sagas too. If you enjoy Norse-flavoured settings, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Northlands!

---

If you’d like to keep up to date with my game design work and other posts, please do join my mailing list – there’s a sign up form below and subscribers receive a free Parsantium supplement.