Here are more Icehold campaign notes, which were my focus for this week. You can read the first entry and Icehold Index here.

Economy

For much of the year, the fortified town is cut off from any other civilization. Sitting n the far western spur of the Middle Kingdoms, during the summer traders can sail in from the eastern ports of that continent, but also the far western and southern lands of the Ivory Empires, ports in the Spice Gauntlet, and even the Realm of the Jaguar. In addition to sea voyages to Jokullnaf, a few mountain passes lead southeast to the Njor lands and other points in the Middle Kingdoms, though those are passable only in September, and only for a few weeks.

With a typical winter population of 5,000 people, Jokullnaf can swell up to 11,000 in the summer months as merchants flood the city to buy up as much Blue Iron and Firestone as possible, and service folk come with them to provide services the wealthy expect, but there is little need for when they are gone. Numerous Service Guilds exist, including cooks, courtesans, dancers, guards, musicians, and scribes, who own permanent buildings in Icehold which sit nearly empty 8 months out of the year, watched over by a skeleton staff until the work season arrives in summer and its rooms are full.

Though the region around Icehold is mountains, valleys, and tundra, there remain natural resources the locals have learned to harvest and grow. White spruce are common, many growing to more than 100 feet high, and offer nutrition in their needles, inner bark, cones, and seeds. This is most often accessed as various teas, but it can also be used to make beer, porridge, and even a flat bread. Fishing is plentiful and open sea ice fishing, though dangerous, allows that bounty to be caught year-round. Numerous shrubs and bushes flow in the summer, including crowberries which are used to make wines and jams. Other forms of lichens, mosses, and sedges, abound and wyrmlichen can sustain a person for months, though the taste is bitter, sour, and spoiled.

Some herders manage reindeer and musk oxes, and households often raise a small number of hares or clipped snow geese to provide meat in cold months. Insect farming is also common, and considered a fine way to turn lichen into something closer to meat (and, if dried and ground, a kind of flour). Pickling food is extremely common, as is dry freezing and deep freezing in cold pits. Even so, when the Summer trade begins, the desire for honey, flour, and non-local meats is high.

Threats

Though the First Vampire is long since destroyed by the Drakull Campaign, other undead still dwell in the tundra, and during the Long Nights are a significant threat. While some are restless spirits of local folk who died in anger or hate, powerful undead from around the world have moved to the far north to take advantage of their immunity to the cold, and the long stretches where no sunlight can reach them. Though none have built true kingdoms, some have created their own tomb complexes, in the style of their homelands, and created as many servants as they can. None of these major undead have lairs too near Jokullnaf, but they keep an eye on the largest gathering of fresh sapient meat and hot blood, and raid whenever they feel they can.

(Art by DM7)

Other threats include arctic cave bears, ice perytons, snow spiders, white chimeras, and the sparse but significant threats of boreal dragons, drakes, wyverns, and wyrms. A troll kingdom once existed in the lands around the town, driving out or killing most other humanoids, but its population is much reduced and has grown only very slightly over the past century. Some trolls trade with the people of Icehold, others seek its destruction. Yeti also exist in the hillier and rockier regions, apparently existing at a neolithic stage of technological development and with extremely simple language skills. These yeti are often seen by newcomers as nothing more than bipedal beasts, but natives to Jokullnaf are aware they are as smart as any other humanoid, even if their culture is less technologically advanced (at least in part because they do not need or trust fire). Most yeti groups see all other humanoids (even trolls) as interlopers in their lands, and eliminate small groups if they can while avoiding bands too big to attack, but as with any sapient creatures, there are exceptions.

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