The settlers have no single agreed name for the continent — that alone tells you everything about the state of things. Norwegians call it Nýströnd (The New Shore). Danes call it Vestrlond (The Western Lands). Swedes call it Landet — simply, The Land. In correspondence back home, the skalds write of Skjaldvik — Shield Bay — after the broad natural harbour where the first ships anchored three years ago.
The region the villages occupy is called Skjaldvik. The continent stretching beyond it has no name yet. That is part of the point.
The northern edge of the settled region. Sheer grey cliffs drop straight into cold sea. The crossing from the Old World ends here — most ships first sight land at the Iron Coast's headlands. Poor farming. Excellent fishing. The cliffs are riddled with sea caves the settlers haven't fully explored.
A deep inlet cutting south from the Iron Coast. Calm water, sheltered from open-sea storms. The best natural harbour in the region. Three of the five villages sit within a day's walk of its shores. Control of the fjord mouth is an unspoken tension between every village.
A wide fertile valley fed by snowmelt rivers running down from the inland hills. Rich black soil — better farmland than most settlers have ever worked. Mild flooding each spring. The valley is where the disagreements about land boundaries are sharpest.
Dense old-growth forest separating the coast from the deep interior. Nobody has mapped its full extent. Timber for boats and buildings comes from its edges. Strange things are reported deeper in — sounds at night, clearings with no trees, stone foundations under the leaf rot.
A broad river rising in the inland hills and emptying into Grjótfjǫrðr. Villages upstream have a natural advantage — they can float timber and goods down. Villages at the mouth control what moves in and out. Nobody has sailed it to its source yet.
Grey-green hills visible from every village on clear days. Unexplored. The ruins are up there.
Skjaldvik is temperate but unpredictable — warmer than Norway, wetter than Denmark. The settlers were surprised by it. Summers are genuinely good for crops. Winters are mild enough that the sea rarely freezes — fishing is year-round in theory, though winter storms are vicious.
| Season | Character | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Snowmelt swells the Blárá | Flooding in low fields |
| Summer | Long days, excellent harvests | Drought (rare but devastating) |
| Autumn | Storm season on the Iron Coast | Boat losses; raiding season begins |
| Winter | Cold, grey, but survivable | Food stores tested hard |
The weather here is not predictable year to year. A village that survived a generous summer should not assume the next will be the same. Skjaldvik rewards those who store deep and plan lean.
Three years ago, the first scouting parties pushing into the Eiðis Forest and up toward the Innlandsfjǫll found them.
Stone foundations. Walls standing to chest height in places, collapsed rubble in others. A road — unmistakably a road, straight and intentional — running from the forest edge up into the hills before vanishing. Carvings on some stones, in no alphabet any settler recognises.
Whoever built this was here long before the Norse. They built with skill. They are completely gone.
| View | People | Stance |
|---|---|---|
| Pragmatic | Mostly Danes | Stone already cut, roads already cleared — take what you can use |
| Superstitious | Rural Norwegians | You don't build on a dead man's hearth |
| Curious | Younger Swedes | The carvings haven't been translated — nobody has tried very hard |