New domain: Nidinghjem

[Rock of the Fraternity]

From the shores of the ocean known as the Usikkert Hav to the high mountain peaks of Hagehjem, Nidinghjem is a country that tests the strength and wits of man and creature alike.

The weather is harsh, with snow piling up waist high during the dead of winter, and even the shadows of the vast forest called Bjorneskogen seeming to boil in the heart of summer.
Dire predators are abroad in forest, field, sea and sky; eagles, bears, boars and wolves; sea leopards, sharks and orcas.
In spite of this, the land is lush. Once the snow melts, farmers rush to tend their fields and can easily reap two harvests before autumn arrives. There is always food to be had in the Bjorneskogen, even in the dead of winter; lesser wolves, boars, bears, edible roots and bark.
It's a good land, so long as you don't weaken.

The typical Nidinhjem settlement has high walls, stone if available, but always girded with prayers and spells provided by Druids, Clerics and Sorceresses.
Nidinhjem's humans are divided in the dominant Raner people - brave warriors and seafarers raised to respect strength and honour above all other things - and the subjugated Bybygger people, whose ancestors gave up the right to battle for knowledge of engineering and farming. The Raner long ago conquered the Bybygger and now govern Nidinghjem. In spring, summer and autumn they fish, hunt, trade and raid; in winter they feast upon the bounty yielded up by Bybygger farming.

According to myth, the Dverger craftsmen and the magical Svartalver dwell in the caves and tunnels underneath Nidinghjem's surface, but these creatures are but rarely seen on the surface. Trolls are a far more common sight, and one of the reasons why settlements need high walls; a strong Raner might have a Troll's head on his wall to mark his skill in battle, but Bybygger are not allowed to carry any weapon larger than a dagger, and would be slaughtered in their hundreds if they lacked defenses. Goblins are but a nuisance, not only because they will mob lone travellers who penetrate too deeply into the Bjorneskogen, but because they hide from Raner warbands instead of meeting them head-on and happily lend their aid to hated utstott, outcasts from decent society.

As the Raner govern the land and the Bybygger, they are themselves ruled by the Radet av Klaner or council of clans, which consists of the most acknowledged and high-ranked male warriors of each Raner clan and answers to the klanhode: the strongest, most accomplished warrior in the land. Every warrior who desires the title is free to challenge the current klanhode to a battle to the death, winner take all.
'All' includes the hand of fair Olga Ingenmannsdatter, the greatest sorceress in all the land and leader of the Vevernes Rad. Just as the Radet av Klaner consists of the land's most acknowledged men, so does the Vevernes Rad consist of the land's most acknowledged women, these being each Raner clan's most powerful Sorceresses.
Olga Ingemannsdatter is recognized as the greatest Raner Sorceress alive, and also as the preserver of tradition. By her magic, she has lived for generations, and shows no sign of aging. By her iron determination and merciless perseverence, she has personally killed or driven out every Raner man and Bybygger who dared try to touch the arcane mysteries, and oversees the execution of every Bybygger to try and learn the warrior arts. She is hailed as a paragon by her own people and feared by the farmers.

She is also the Darklord of Nidinghjem.

Olga grew up vanaeret - a disgraced one - in the holdings of the Raven Clan of Ranen.
In those days, the Ranen did not rule all the land. Their clans were smaller, the cities of the Bybygger were taller and they had warriors. The clans' Druids counceled diplomacy, and they traded with their farming neighbours instead of raiding them as of old.
Olga's mother, Helga Ravnensdatter, had given birth to her not only out of wedlock, but also from a union with a foreigner; an utstott who had intruded past the borders of Nidinghjem-that-was, had raised steel against Ranen warriors and also lashed out at them with arcane magic.
Although Helga often told her child that her father had been a kind, clever and honourable man in his own way, and that he had earned respect from quite a few clans during his stay in the land, Olga would not listen. She disdained her mother's stories of her father as some brave adventurer, who had come to Nidinghjem-that-was to silence and seal the bones of an ancient god of evil, who had mixed his blood and his wickedness into the earth of all the world, and who had been forced to leave in order to continue his mission.
She seethed with rage at the way the other children would tease her and some of the crustier adults excluded her from activities traditionally beholden to pure-blooded members of the clan. More than anything, she wanted to gain honour and respect, to be seen as an honourable Ranen warrior. In order to achieve this, she put in twice as much effort as any of the other children. She learned to recite the clan's poems of knowledge by heart; she struggled to gain mastery over sword, spear and shield; she fished, she hunted, she ran in the clan's footraces in all four seasons. But it never seemed to be enough.

In truth, Olga's zeal frightened and alienated her clanmates. Even the adults who had not cared a whit about her parentage were put off by the violent tantrums she threw whenever things did not go her way, or when she failed to master skills the first time. The clan's Druids worried about the naked disdain and hatred the girl displayed for their Bybygger neighbours, and the way she would recite the oldest, darkest poems that encouraged raiding and bloody-handed murder as the key to entering the blessed afterlife of the five gods. Every child dreaded having to train with Olga, who would fight like she wanted to kill them, and frequently ambushed and beat bloody anyone who had the misfortune of defeating her in training. Helga's friends felt sorry for her whenever her hellion of a child screamed abuse at her, blaming everything she thought was wrong with her life on the fact that Helga had fallen in love.

When Olga hit puberty and awke to her sorcerous potential, the Raven Clan breathed a sigh of relief. Children who displayed the gift were, by tradition, sequestered in the camp of the Klanen av Vevere, the Clan of Weavers: this was a clan made up of the Sorcerers born out of all the other clans. There Olga would need to learn mental and emotional discipline and spend years honing her craft.
Apart from poor Helga, who shed bitter tears, everyone in the Raven Clan was happy to see the wretched girl go into the care of the harsh taskmistresses of the Klanen av Vevere. The Raven Clan's Druid personally guided Olga to the Weavers' hold and made sure the taskmistresses knew what to expect.

In some ways, Olga hated the years that followed: the Vevernes Rad-that-was, the council that ruled the Klanen av Vevere, was indeed strict with her. If she rebelled, punishment followed at once. No one, not even the least apprentice within the clan, was impressed by her or feared her. Her waking hours were filled with lessons and meditations.
To an energetic young girl, the transition was at first torturous. But as her powers of magic started to grow, Olga slowly started to find a craftsman's joy in her studies. Even if she still ran races against other apprentices or just against the wind whenever she had a free period, even if she did train in the shadows of the Bjorneskoge with sticks, Olga started to anticipate learning new things.
She especially anticipated visits from her clan's Druid, who would come once every few months with gifts he said came from her mother: scrolls of arcane lore that deepened her insight and even kindled her development of new spells. Olga marveled that her mother, who earned her keep by hunting and tanning pelts, had managed to access such treasures. Whenever she asked the Druid about it, the old greybeard ignored her and just went on his way.
There was a secret there, but Olga could not untangle its strands.
Soon enough, she had different, confusing matters to concern her. One of the other students at the Klanen av Vevere, a girl from the Bear Clan, had a brother named Freiki. Freiki was tall for his age, strong and handsome. He would come visit his sister at the Weavers' hold, and Olga found herself loitering around so she could see him - and he could see her.
One thing led to another (with a little surreptitious aid from the clan's taskmistresses) and Olga found herself head over heels in love. She committed to joining the Bear Clan as its Sorceress, as soon as the taskmistresses released her - and also as Freiki's wife. The day she was acknowledged as a full-fledged Sorceress, Olga and Freiki exchanged vows and left for his clan's holdings.

These were the good years. Love dulled the edge of Olga's rage at her mother's carelessness and her initial status as vanaeret. The warm welcome she received in the Bear Clan and her high status as its Sorceress smothered them to coals, glowing under ashes. She worked hard to keep her clan safe, working hand in hand with the Bear Clan's Druid to maintain the wards that kept out Trolls, Goblins, and hungry predators.
If some things irked her - men doing work traditionally assigned to women and the other way around, boys trying to learn arcane magic from her or girls trying to learn the Druid's craft - Freiki's love and kindness soon soothed these irritations away. The ongoing gifts of arcane scrolls, sent to her by way of the Raven Clan's Druid, kept her busy and entertained when Freiki was away.
Then came the day that Olga realized she was pregnant, and all anger was gone from her life. Olga sang the most joyous poems of both the raven Clan and the Bear Clan before the altars of the five gods, she had a smile for everyone, and the sun seemed to shine brighter in the sky as her belly swelled and the child ripened for birth under her heart.

Until the day came that the sun dawned black in the sky, and the snows came swirling down the flanks of Hagehjem in the heart of summer.

Both the Ranen and the Bybygger were caught unawares by the unnatural weather. Crops withered and died on the fields, cattle left out to pasture froze to death over night. Every child still dreaming under its mother's heart was stillborn with the falling of night, and the snow kept falling.
In her grief, Olga barely registered the appearance of the first visitor: a vile-looking Troll who wore armour and a smug, evil leer. The beast shouted at the Bear Clan's hold from beyond bowshot, announcing the coming of his master, the Frost Giant Vederstyggelighet pa Havet. Not satisfied to wait for the end of days prophesies by the five gods, his master was bringing death to all of the 'weak races', including humanity, NOW.
The monster fled before the outraged Bear Clan warriors could strike it down with steel and fire - and the snow kept falling.

A great meeting of the clans was called, with every warrior, Druid and Sorceress invited to attend. Olga was one of them, black rage at the Frost Giant smouldering in her heart.
When voices rose to hunt the monster down in his den and slay him, Olga raised her voice to join theirs. Whenever raiding parties were assembled to attack the Trolls, Goblins and beasts that served the Giant, Olga raised her fist to join them. It was all Freiki could do to make her eat and rest before she utterly broke down. Even the magic scrolls could not hold Olga's interest now; none of their secrets were sufficient to meet her utter hunger for the destruction of her foe.

A hunger that went unsatisfied.
No matter how many times the united Ranen clans raided into the Bjorneskogen, trying to cut a path through the monstrous hordes and find the home of the Frost Giant, they never even managed to reach the foothills of Hagehjem. Countless waves of monsters marched out of the snow-swept depths of the woods, and the snow kept falling.
There were whispers that the clans might have to retreat across the sea, in search of the summer warmth now driven out of Nidinghjem-that-was, but there came a great change before they could.
To Olga's dismay and disgust, the next time the clans gathered to discuss tactics, they were joined by envoys from the Bybygger cities and the secretive Dverger and Svartalver from beneath the earth. No matter how much the idea disgusted Olga and no matter how vehemently she argued against it, the clans voted to make alliance with these outsiders ... and they helped make the difference.
Now when the raids plunged into the forests, they made headway. They could get to the great earthworks raised at the foot of the mountains, could see - though not yet reach - the fortress of ice-caked stone where dwelled the Frost Giant.
Olga felt that the enemy was within reach. All she needed was to close the final distance, and for that she might use magic. There had to be a spell that could carry her and an elite Ranen strike-force into the Frost Giant's holdings. If only she could compile it fash enough. If only she could find the final clues to complete this essential magic. She prayed to the five gods to help her ... and they replied.

Another clan-meet was called, with Ranen, Bybgger, Dverger and Svartalver all represented. And marching into the meeting as honoured guests: a collecting of utstott as vile as any Olga had ever seen. They were men and women who plied both the Druid's art and that of the Sorceress. Archdruids they named themselves, and they spoke to both the land and to the dead.
Marching at their head was the vilest of them all, a man who called himself a Gravewalker: a student of the ancient god of evil who had seeded all the earth with his essence before he was slain, a man with a mission to find and burn the taint away or else to seal it.
Olga's own mother walked on this man's arm, the way a Ranen woman walks beside her husband.
Olga's father had returned in the hour of Nidinghjem's greatest need.

She would not meet him at first. Rather, she charged out of the meeting-hall. But Freiki, her beloved husband, forced her to return.
Where did she think the magic scrolls had been coming from all this time, he asked her. Did she honestly believe that a huntress and tanner of skins could afford such things? To Olga's shock, she learned that Freiki had visited with her mother several times when he was away from home, and that Helga had told him how she'd contacted the man who impregnated her all those years ago that his child had the gift just as he did. All those magical insights that had helped her shape and hone her craft had been a gift from the man she had grown up despising...

And Olga conceived of a plan.

She returned to the clan-meet, and bade her sire a frosty welcome. He was understanding and kind, so kind.
When she told him of her thought that a spell of transport could carry a small team into the Frost Giant's hold and allow them to kill him, he praised her thinking. When she asked him if he could help her develop the spell, he acknowledged that he could - but he warned her of the dreadful strength of a Frost Giant.
Olga's father suggested a further refinement of the plan. He was a Gravewalker, one who knew how te bestir and how to settle the evil essence of the dead god. If Olga carried him along on her raid, he could bestir the dead god's wickedness in the presence of the Frost Giant in the shape of a lesser titan of pure malice. Such beasts were mindless and lusted for dominance and slaughter; more than likely it would batter itself to death against the Frost Giant, either killing it or creating an opening for the raiders to slay him.
The plan was dangerous, to be certain, but it offered a chance of success where none had existed before. In the days that followed, Olga studied alongside her father and some of the wisest loremasters among human, Dverger and Svartalver. She learned of secret magic used by other Clans of Ranen, by the Bybygger, by people beyond the land of Nidinghjem-that-was. Her father's stories of the wider world stunned and dazzled her; the world was so much larger than she had ever known, its people so varied, so very un-Ranen.
And frequently, the father she had never known would bow his grey-haired head to her and apologize for not being there. He would even weep, cursing the duty and the destiny that had kept him moving, forever moving, to prevent the return of the evil god. All he had been able to do for her, he said, was to send the scrolls - until his duty brought him back to Nidinghjem-that-was.
In seeing his feelings of sorrow and shame, his bone-deep regret and weariness, Olga felt her heart waver a few times.

But she persevered, studying with the others and, at night, by herself. Even Freiki was not allowed to disturb her at these times.

With all the help she received, Olga managed to complete the spell. To her shock, so did some of the other loremasters present for the study sessions. Almost all of the Archdruids who had come to meet the need of Nidinghjem-that-was managed it.
Her father retreated in isolation, to ready his own great spell: the gathering of the evil god's essence into a titan-beast. Olga was resolved to her path now, and readied herself.

The day of the raid came, and Olga's father begged her to stand at his side during the battle. He wanted to show her that he trusted and treasured her, he said. Olga agreed.
To her distress, Freiki demanded the right to stand by her side and defend her during the battle to come. She could not say no to him in this, and so when she and the other loremasters cast their spells and carried the raiding party into the Frost Giant's keep, her husband and father were at her side.
Vederstyggelighet pa Havet, the Frost Giant who aimed to destroy the world, was as big a monster as anyone had feared - and worse. Olga and the other loremasters hurled spell after spell in his direction, with some of Olga's magic falling short and falling among her allies - but doing no harm anyone could notice. The present warriors hurled themselves upon the monster until their bodies were broken by his dread hammer.
Still he did not fall. Still he raged that he would pulp all the raiders for the impertinence of entering his hold.

And then Olga's father completed his own great spell, and the black titan rose from the floor of the Frost Giant's hold.
If Vederstyggelighet pa Havet was terrifying, the titan was an abomination. Olga could barely bear to look upon it as it hurled itself on the Frost Giant and the two fell to blows fit to rend the earth. Many of the other loremasters cried out with terror and tried to flee, using the same spell that had carried them in - but the magic failed.
Exhausted from his great effort as he was, Olga's father clearly understood what had happened and looked on his daughter with dismay - briefly before she stabbed him in the stomach with a dagger and cast her own spell of teleportation, carrying the protesting Freiki with her. She carried him to the allied armies' base camp, in full sight of the Frost Giant's hold.

She alone had escaped the battle. All the others who could travel, she had struck deliberately with a spell she developed in private, one to block travel. Now when the battle was won, only the Ranen would have the magical secrets she had gathered, and the Ranen would sweep all others away.
It was no foul Frost Giant that would rule the world, no dead god of evil. It would be Olga, and Olga alone who would gain great honour for her Clan and her people. She laughed with joy at the thought, and so did not see the horror on Freiki's face. While armies clashed and raged all around her, with panicked monsters trying to flee the mounting conflagration in the Frost Giant's hold and the battle of the two evil titans reaching a crescendo, Olga laughed and laughed and laughed.

She was still laughing when the fortress of ice-laced stone exploded, and destructive energy swept all away. The cold of it stole her breath away, the power of it stole her flesh away, and her angry and treacherous spirit fell into darkness.
Darkness and Mist.

Olga awoke in the ruins of the Frost Giant's keep, which has since restored and claimed as her home and the home of the Vevernes Rad. She was whole, in full possession of her magical powers and her full strength.
She was stronger than ever. Winter's cold could not touch her anymore, nor magical cold. With one hand, she could hurl great boulders. All the vile things of winter - Trolls, a new breed called Dread Trolls, wolves and boars both normal and dire - answered to her call.
In Nidinghjem-that-is, the world is arranged to her liking. The once prideful Bybynger are now subjects of the prideful Ranen, reduced to serfs in the cities that were once theirs. The stunted Dverger and the arrogant Svartalver hide from her - no, from the Ranen! - beneath the arth. Men who practise women's arts and women who practise men's arts are spat upon and driven into the wilderness to die or live wretched, lonely lives.
If ever Olga wants to trap those who would flee her land, she has but to will it and a wall of countless swords, forged of ice, springs up at the border of her domain.
Let the larger world rot and be forgotten, Olga has Nidinghjem and it has her. All should be well and perfect.

All is not perfect.
Olga is immune to the cold, but the heat causes her great discomfort. She can go where she wishes in winter, she can bear spring and autumn, but summer forces her to retreat to her keep she claimed as her own. When she looks in the mirror, her skin is the same ghastly shade as that of the Frost Giant she once wished to slay, even if no one else sees it.
Freiki, the first man Olga ever loved, was at her side when she first awoke in the keep. But he is frozen in a block of ice that she has been unable to shatter or freeze. All the other men she's married have been as nothing to her, and inexplicably succumb to hypothermia soon after entering her bed.
The children she's borne these men are a source of endless disgust to her. Some are born Calibans, twisted by her powerful magic. Some are Ogrekin. A very few are born human, but invariably disappoint her; sons who show the gift for Sorcery, daughters who feel called to the path of the Druid. Most of Olga's brood has died by her own hand.
There are rumours that some Archdruids survived the explosion of the keep. They either wander lands far away or return to lurk at the edges of her domain and in the shrines of three of the five gods atop the Hagehjem. Olga may not enter these shrines for reasons she does not understand - or at least, for reasons she refuses to accept.
The gods themselves have changed. Where once there were Urd, Verdandi and Skuld to symbolize past, present and future, now there are Ezra, Hala and Brightwell. The two male gods have devolved into Wud the trickster and Dann the wanderer, respectively gods of cunning and deceit, and bloodlust and raiding. Some people secretly worship the dead god and tread the path of the Gravewalker with malign intent.
And worst of all, there are rumours that the first Gravewalker Olga ever met, her father, somehow survived his injuries and managed to teleport out of the keep before its destruction. Olga worries that it might be possible; she never tagged her sire with the spell that prevents travel, and he was strong enough to survive a belly-wound. But if he lives, why has he not sought her out to take his revenge? This question reduces Olga to sleepless nights, in which every shadow fills her with paranoia...

[Mistmaster]

Another domain where Archibald Everlast would shake things up merely traveling in it with his wagon.

[Speedwagon]

Interesting Domain concept! I'm guessing this is an Island of Terror that can function without need for trade with other Islands or Clusters in the Mists? And what inspired you to come up with such a concept (and so well detailed at that) on such short notice? I'm trying to come up with Islands of Terror so that my Ravenloft has a bit more variety than Cores and Clusters but I keep finding myself loathe to use such an isolated locale, even if places like Souragne, Farelle, Staunton Bluffs, G'Henna and Bluetspur work just fine as Islands.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Interesting Domain concept! I'm guessing this is an Island of Terror that can function without need for trade with other Islands or Clusters in the Mists? And what inspired you to come up with such a concept (and so well detailed at that) on such short notice? I'm trying to come up with Islands of Terror so that my Ravenloft has a bit more variety than Cores and Clusters but I keep finding myself loathe to use such an isolated locale, even if places like Souragne, Farelle, Staunton Bluffs, G'Henna and Bluetspur work just fine as Islands.

Thanks for the kind words. ^_^

While Nidinghjem can indeed support itself, the Ranen do sail the waves of the Unsikkert Hav whenever the weather allows. I picture there being some Mistways in the Misty border, which allow them to pop up in faraway oceans, raid or trade, then return. These Mistways open and close based on the seasons, rather than more mystic triggers.

As for how I came up with this Island of Terror: I've been playing a game called Heroine's Quest this past week, and my imagination was triggered. ^^;
The concept of the Gravewalkers hails from my having read that some evil wizards of Middle Earth practice magic by manipulating the dark essence of Melkor/Morgoth, which he spread over the world before he was cast into the Void.
The Archdruids hail partially from Terry Brooks' Shannara-series, partially from Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant-books, and in part from a now-defunct webcomic called Dungeoncrawl Inc.
I'm working on prestige classes for both.

If you have inspiration for an Island or Cluster, I say go for it. Life is short. Create while you may.