Sigrun and Agnir

 

Accompanying Ingvar to the Giantdowns is his great aunt Sigrun, her husband Agnir Stoneshield, and their young daughter Liv.  Sigrun knows that Ingvar’s half-brothers will resolve the succession dispute when their father finally passes.  She pleaded with her husband to move his farm to the frontier that is the Giantdowns, and convinced Ingvar to seek his fortune where his mother and Sigrun grew up.  It’s a desperate move to protect her only child and by extension her nephew if chooses to travel with them.   

Agnir knows the danger his family is in and the decision to move to the Giantdowns was neither a quick nor an easy decision.  He explored the Giantdowns with Lief decades ago where both found wives but not before facing constant threats of bandits, humanoids, and restless dead.  He’s under no illusion about his daughter’s future in such a hard place, but Lief’s once united family is separating into armed camps.  Agnir is taking his family, his livestock, and the freemen willing to brave the Giantdowns to the lands of his wife and Ingvar’s mother. 

Ingvar Liefsson

 

The first player character in our duet campaign is Ingvar Liefsson, a young mercenary and adventurer from Dhoesone.  Ingvar grew up near the border with Stjordvik and was exposed to both the traditional way of Rjurik life along with the more progressive culture of farming and city life that is settling into the Highlands.  Like most traditional Rjurik upbringings, Ignvar learned to hold an ax and shield from an early age.  As befitting his elevated social status in Dhoesone, he is also a capable horseman and can fight mounted.

Ingvar has his sight set on exploring the Giantdowns where his mother Ylva was born and raised.  Ylva died young and Ingvar has few memories of her.  She was the third wife of Lief Stoutspear, an older upper-class warrior and successful herder originally from Stjordvik.  Ingvar has several half-brothers and sisters from his father’s previous marriages, most of whom do not want to see their inheritance go to Ingvar.  Knowing his father extreme age and poor health, it will only be a matter of time before his brothers make their move to seize control of the family’s wealth. 

The Giantdowns

 

For our return campaign to Birthright and the lands of Cerilia, we’re going to start the adventures in the Giantdowns.  The Downs are perfect because there’s not an established kingdom there, giving a non-regent character the opportunity to build a kingdom from the ground up.  It’s also an old land with a lot of history that is detailed in the 1997 supplement King of the Giantdowns.

The Giantdowns are located in the Northern Marches of western Cerilia which is the main continent for the setting.  The Northern Marches is a somewhat wild area that serves as a buffer between three of the four human cultures.  In this buffer area, there are several small baronies and kingdoms and that includes non-human kingdoms like Thurazor (Goblin), Tuarhieval (Elf), Mur-Kilad (Dwarf). 

The Downs themselves are an uncivilized and settled region claimed by no one but still home to both human and non-human inhabitants.  Humans, Dwarves, Oroks, Goblins, and others all survive here.  The Rjurik made the region home when they landed on the shores of Cerilia almost 2000 years ago and pushed inland.  They live there still eking out an existance in the small family farmsteads of traditional Rjurik life.  Rumors say the Dwarves make the Silverhead mountains home, but no one knows for sure.  The non-human tribes roam the full length of the downs raiding human farmsteads and each other.

The living inhabitants of the Giantdowns aren’t the only inhabitants.  The Downs themselves get their name from row upon row of low evenly spaced hills.  Adventures and grave-robbers have found tombs and treasures in those hills.  They’ve also reported seeing ancient dead walking about – meaning the living are not the only ones to call the Downs home.

AD&D Birthright: Returning to my favorite D&D setting

 

Dungeons and Dragons was a huge part of my hobby hours as far back as elementary school.  Countless hours were spent delving into dungeons or exploring continents while our characters grew in power and wealth.  When we started, each game was really a one-off encounter until we stumbled onto the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.  From that moment forward our games were set in some type world with its own people, history, and geography.  It made our games more exciting to see the world change to our successes and failures.  

Everyone had their own favorite setting.  I think Forgotten Realms always held a special place if not the favored setting for most of the people I adventured with over the years.  Others favored Dark Sun with its post-apocalyptical fantasy setting or Dragonlance with the heroic focus on characters.  None of us played in the Greyhawk setting with the exception of playing Greyhawk Wars.  Some even preferred home-brewed settings where you had the complete control to create the setting, cultures, and history.  With the launch of Birthright in 1995, it became the favored setting for me.  No setting released before or since can hold a candle to cultures and history of the continent of Cerilia as far as I am concerned.  

One of the design elements that made Birthright so compelling to me was that it merged the character development in standard play with the mass battles of Greyhawk Wars.  Up to that point your D&D character could attract followers and build castles at high levels but there were really no rules for running your own realms.  Often there wasn't much your small personal army could do but garrison your castle for you while you were exploring dungeons.  Birthright changed all of that and even let you run a realm right at the start of character creation. 

I ran a campaign for almost two years in this setting before graduating college and taking a Commission in the Army.  The new career didn't give me much time for my old hobby, but I kept my box set and a few of the books from the 1995 release.  After 25 years, it's about time to return to Cerilia but this time as a player.  With 'GM emulators' prevalent after the COVID outbreak, I am free to explore and rule my own kingdom in Cerilia.  

I hear the Giantdowns is a good place to start.