Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder 2 for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we head to the savage lands of the north and unleash our inner rage.
Bretagard Stronghold
Bretagard Stronghold lies to the far north, where the pine trees end and the eternal snows begin. Here, on the edge between savagery and civilization is where some of the fiercest warriors in the world can be found. They’re not particularly well trained or disciplined, but they’re as fierce as the land in which they make their living.
The Bretagardans come from all races and backgrounds, no one is turned away, as long as they’re willing to fight and able to survive the trek here. That is the first test that anyone who comes here faces: Surviving the trek on their own. Anyone who doesn’t make it on their own is turned away from the warrior’s calling and told to return to the warm bosom of civilization.
Lay of the Land
Bretagard lies on the edges of a great pine forest, and from the walls can be seen a great snowy expanse. It is always cold, and the rivers are sluggish around here, filled with piles of ice.
The stronghold itself is built to withstand anything short of a dragon attack and has repulsed giant attacks on occasion. The walls themselves are nearly 5 feet thick and made of strong pine lumber. The reason for this isn’t that it’s stronger than stone, as it isn’t, but the lumber is easier to replace when inevitably broken. Besides, once frozen, the lumber is almost as hard as granite anyway. Inside the halls are cold, but the walls are covered in thick hides to try and keep out the extreme cold.
Dangers
The dangers near Bretagard are many. Giants, a white dragon or two, bears, hungry wolves, winter wolves, and even an ice demon have been known to appear here. But they’re not the actual threat that most adventurers will find here. That’s the weather and the berserkers of Bretagard. Because that is what most of them are: unable to control themselves once battle is joined and blood is spilled. Anyone who joins becomes one of these undisciplined warriors, but they start to lose themselves in the violence – where it can be channeled towards the betterment of the civilized societies that live south of here. By going here, they’re able to do some good without hurting anyone.
However, those who do not join up are sometimes caught up in the fights that the Bretagardans get themselves into with brutish monsters, giants, and the like. There they are considered to be “acceptable collateral damage.” Most traders who come to Bretagard know very well to avoid it when it’s in the middle of a regional war. While supplies are needed at that point, no one will come close.
Kim Frandsen
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