It’s Midgard Monday! Each week, we visit a corner of the wide world of Midgard. Look for standalone content you can drop into your campaign—whether it’s in Midgard or your own homebrew. Find new inspiration each Midgard Monday!

Midgard is vast and filled with different peoples. Wildly different cultures can exist just a few miles apart, each one a potential heritage for your character. Consider this your invitation to raise a tankard, call out praise to Ninkash, and embrace your inner dwarven adventurer!

A stout drink and a bold heart help you claim this achievement: a full set of Ironcrag heritages, drawn from the thirteen major cantons of the Crossroads region of the Midlands. Drink deep, leave a comment, and maybe, just maybe we’ll crush some foes along the way.

Lower Nordmansch

Lower Nordmansch maintains several active forestry projects focused on regrowth and sustainable development. Woodcarving is a common hobby. Residents place sigils and cast runic enchantments on strategically placed trees, allowing them to know when significant threats enter the lands around the canton. Inhabitants maintain carefully crafted training fields, intended to develop combat skills for specific environments.

They balance their communities between surface and subterranean structures, and many underground galleries possessing reinforced, occasionally camouflaged, skylights. Buildings tend to have whitewashed lower floors crafted of stone and one or two floors of intricate wooden construction, with latticework and shutters.

Nordmansch Lower Canton Heritage

The hill canton of Lower Nordmansch enjoys both the deep vastness of galleries carved from solid bedrock, and the dappled groves and stands of pine, yew, ash, and birch which dominate the Ordenn Forest. The underground fortresses nestled within woodlands infused with magic is the kind of place bards tell tales about. Distinct among the Ironcrags cantons, its communities work hard to ensure it stays safe and keeps its unique character.

Common backgrounds for this Heritage include Adherent, Maker, Homesteader, Soldier, and Mercenary.

Axe Familiarity. Gain proficiency with axes. You can begin play with a Nordmansch hand axe.

Lada’s Touch. Gain proficiency with Medicine, and double your PB when making checks regarding Lada, her faith, a particular holiday or activity.

Friends in High Places. Select one other trait from the Upper Nordmansch Canton, which you have due to a period of fostering, extended visitation, or relationship. Replace this trait with the one selected from the other Canton.

Languages. You know Dwarven and one additional language of your choice. Typical Nordmansch Lower Canton heritage characters choose Common or that a frequent trading partner such as Elvish.

Upper Nordmansch

Built all along the face of the mountain with mines piercing deep into the rock, Upper Nordmansch features residences and community spaces that take advantage of natural daylight. Known as the Sentinel, the tripartite peak is extensively honeycombed. Generations of runic adepts replaced torches and alchemical lighting with carved runestones enchanted to capture the sunshine and illuminate caverns with a natural, midday glow. A shaft sealed by a glacier on the summit of the Sentinel allows for a powered water wheel and the distribution of light from the runes using a prism carved of ice.

Nordmansch Upper Canton Heritage

The slopes of the Sentinel and its expansive warrens have served as home for generations of dwarves and adopted residents. You are part of that unbroken tradition of folk who welcomed the sunrise through the Daybreak Atrium while the Golden Choir thrummed hymns from the Twilight Chancel, at least once. The bright halls and crisp cistern water made your time there anything but the gloomy experience most associate with a dwarven hold. You’ve strolled through the garden terraces fed by the glacial melt from the Great Sluice, and enjoyed fruit grown by the rune-bound sunlight.

Common backgrounds for this Heritage include Adherent, Homesteader, Maker, Mercenary, and Scholar.

Kindness Revisited. Due to the fame of Nordmansch mercy, a dwarf or soldier in you encounter might provide you with a small, gracious benefit. When interacting with a new dwarf or soldier, make a DC 18 CHA check. On a success, you receive a small boon such as free directions, a minor favor, an introduction, or some other open door. The value of this reputation is inconsistent but priceless at the right moment.

Runic Lore. Gain proficiency with Arcana, and double your PB when identifying details regarding runes, rings, stone based spells, magic items, or magic weapons.

Friends in Low Places. Select one other trait from the Lower Nordmansch Canton, which you have due to a period of fostering, extended visitation, or relationship. Replace this trait with the one selected from the other Canton.

Languages. You know Dwarven and one additional language of your choice. Typical Nordmansch Upper Canton heritage characters choose the language of a frequent enemy such as Draconic, Giant, or Goblin.

New Background: Free Mercenary Company

You mustered in Tijano or Bundhausen as a member of the Firethroat Regulars, the Free Peshvai Axes, the Ironcrag Exiles, the Rampant Bear Company, the Trollbane Lances, or another free mercenary company and marched into the lowlands to engage the armies of the Blood Kingdom, the Septime Cities and land beyond. Organized military service is familiar to you and you understand its demands, whether that is standing watch, slogging through mud, preparing for an assault, or sharing a meal around a fire.

Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from Athletics, Animal Handling, History, or Persuasion.

Additional Proficiencies: Gain proficiency with one of the following: a shield, a martial weapon, a tool, or a vehicle.

Equipment: A surcoat or uniform jacket clearly identifying your former unit, a mess kit, a signet ring or challenge coin indicating your membership and rank, a pouch containing 10 gp.

Talent

Your time as part of a mercenary company was varied and bloody, as many nobles believe the best way to ensure victory while minimizing costs is to push their sellswords to the front. This earned you benefits through your survival. Choose a talent from this list to represent your experience: Athletic, Comrade, or Vanguard.

Adventuring Motivation

D8	Motivation
1	I was tired of serving lordly ambition; I wanted glory for myself.
2	I lost close members of my previous unit, and decided I wanted to join a smaller, closer-knit band.
3	My former company made choices on the battlefield I found reprehensible. Adventuring fits my moral compass a little more.
4	I argued with and killed a commander. I fled rather than face a court-martial.
5	A turncoat betrayed our unit and escaped. I will find them and make them pay.
6	I enjoyed seeing the world we marched through. Now I want to roam as I please.
7	I want to create my own mercenary company, and you don’t do that on a soldier’s salary. You get it by finding a lost treasure hoard.
8	I did terrible things as a mercenary. Now I want to do good things to make people’s lives better.

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