Need ideas for homebrew setting

[intregus]

Hey playground. I'm fleshing out an area of my homebrew setting on the continent of Tyr.

My players are enroute sailing to the Frozen North. It's supposed to feel like ancient egypt only instead of being a hot sand desert its a frozen one. Pyramids made from giant ice blocks engineered by frost giants. Oasis's of hot springs with pine trees instead of palm trees etc. I think you get the idea. They are heading there to plunder a tomb in search of an ancient staff.

Here is everything I have written about this place so far.

The Frozen North
The north wasn’t always a frozen desert. It use to have vegetation but when the ice devil Net’Amon left hell to become a “god” in his own right he came to the mortal plane and used his power to plunge the north into a frozen wasteland. Net’Amon got the Frost giants to help him conquer the north and create a society with him as Pharaoh. Net’Amon used the strength of the frost giants to create great works of architecture including immortalizing him with the grandest tomb ever built. Frost Giants ruled over the frozen north until a woman, Ag’det over threw them. The Frost Giants killed her family and took her in as a pet. After years of praying to every god with no semblance of help Ag’det’s despair turned to scorn and she burned with rage. In this moment of crazed thinking she attempted to reach out to the universe itself, specifically the sun’s unbridled power, for one last attempt to find help in the form of the burning, raging sun and she found it. Something happened in Ag’det, she was filled with the energy of the sun, and she used this cosmic power to break free and annihilate her captors. Using this incredibly strong source of power she overthrow the frost giants, enslaved them and has claimed the title of pharaoh for herself! She is now known as the Ag’det the Burning Dread.

I'm just looking for any thoughts or fun ideas that I could have for different societies or races that might live there.

In my head the primary folk that live up there would be frost giants and humans but I'm open to just about anything!

So does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Spectrulus]

Dwarves could probably be common, possibly carving their homes underground rather than into mountains if the terrain is flat.

A society of White Dragonborn could make sense as well.

More exotic... Goliaths would not be out of place, nor Centaur, or a variant lizardfolk.

[Corsair14]

Frost Dwarves and frost halflings. Have a look at Dragonlance, they have an entire race of hostile walrus men. White dragons are obvious inhabitants. Dire fuzzy creatures, frost trolls. Remoraz(frost worms). Theres a lot you could do.

[Rhunder]

Some lesser devils(with cold fluff) might be making themselves smaller kingdoms(one to three towns) and could be possibly fighting each other which would make anyone living in those towns wishing for a savior.

Roaming nomads and hunters following herds could be expected. This wasn't uncommon before farming so areas where farming is hard or impossible, it's probably a thing. Oral history would be big for them, so exposition and quest hooks are possibilities.

[MrStabby]

I like the idea of devils running the cities but demons, having been defeated, are left scouring the wastelands outside of civilisation. Large cities have teleportation circles but smaller towns need dangerous travel to get to. It could really play up the exploration side of a world and help give rangers a space in it.

For bad guys I could see some form of spiritual simulacra: Anyone who dies of cold in the snowy wastes has a chance of their spirit being trapped in the ice and rising again to animate some snow. Bands of dead travellers that ran out of fuel haunt caravan routes and are manifest as snowmen that take their old form. Once defeated their spirit returns to their corpse and they build a new body from the ice. They can be permanently defeated by thawing their corpses.

Dwarfs, buried deep under the earth but use Iron Golems for most of their surface work (Iron as I suspect fire damage might be a bit OP in the campaign setting unless fiends take a big role). The dwarfs love the heat and as the temperature at the surface drops they have been driven deeper and deeper leaving eerie abandoned settlements close to the surface.

The Efreet king has long ruled a small domain inside a large volcano. As the temperature dropped the one oasis of warmth in the icy expanse became strategically important for both trade and diplomacy granting him immense power and wealth. He rules a fairly cosmopolitan enclave with an iron fist; his servants will rescue travellers but only in exchange for a decade of servitude.

Mamoths - now the prime way of travelling are valuable and are bred and sold by Ogres in the highlands. Trade has brought the ogres wealth, making them more peaceful than their kin in warmer climes but they can be prone to anger if they feel they are trying to be tricked or cheated.

[MagneticKitty]

Dwarves could probably be common, possibly carving their homes underground rather than into mountains if the terrain is flat.

A society of White Dragonborn could make sense as well.

More exotic... Goliaths would not be out of place, nor Centaur, or a variant lizardfolk.

Fire dragonborn and those fire newt things from volo's (reflavor lizardfolk) would be interesting as pioneers of the frozen land since their internal heat might make them better suited to handling the cold

A Tabaxi tribe modeled after snow leopards
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/3f/2a/893f2a98e0965b5124facfb421714ce0.jpg

Check out Plane Shift: Amonkhet which is Egyptian themed for an anubis race

Fire/water/air genasi might thrive here.

[dragoeniex]

At each major settlement, there could be an 'eternal flame' required by Ag'det to be well-tended and always displayed high. These may or may not be magical, but they are definitely not everlasting on their own. The frost giants (or any given enslaved race) are tasked with having designated flame keepers to guard and honor these flames to serve as a reminder of fire's sovereignty in the frozen wastes. It's long, arduous work to keep these going, but if the keepers don't comply, then either they'll be dragged off to Ag'det- never seen again... Or she'll send a representative to give the whole settlement a demonstration of why they should have listened.

If she's more charismatic or cunning, maybe she's found some powerful magic or allies of the opposing element. And whenever a flame dies, instead of a show of fire force, the town or group of keepers is frozen over. Skin black with frostbite levels of nasty. This would put the fire in more of a revered symbol of protection-type role. But if she's unhinged and all kinds of vindictive, I think spiteful power display works well.

I'd be curious to know about groups of people who might be willingly following her. Did she free anyone enslaved by the giants when she took over- intentionally or otherwise? And with her harnessing the power of the sun, are there any areas that are legitimately doing better because of her intervening? Would be really interesting to have her seat of power be a location all lush and green and-- flipping flibbergibbets, was that a butterfly??? -- Might depend on whether or not you want to put hard thought behind whether there's earth beneath the ice and snow in general, timeline, etc; but a contrast would be neat. And it could contrast a variety of ways depending on what you think Ag'det's ideal environment would be.

Related to the "is anyone gladly following her" line of thought: It'd be fun to see a reptilian race of guards who absolutely adore her but are only found near her capital. Because lizards love them some sunning rocks, and of course they'll fight to the death to protect the Bringer of Luxurious Naps.

[Falcon X]

The Uldra are a great fae-folk from the 3.5 Frostburn book. They are gnome-like with blue skin. Very emotional and are often seen trying to liberate animals from humans.

I had strong heart halfling in my icy wilderness setting. They had some fishing colonies and small cities. Of course, they were fairly isolated and thought they were humans :)

The spellscale race is one I find oddly charming in this setting. They are very gypsy-like in my head cannon. They could easily be nomads up there, left over from when the earth was green.

Orcs. They have to live away from other society, so the frozen waste is as good a place as any.

[ImproperJustice]

I like the idea of Inuit / Eskimo Halfling hunters.
Their low profile, light wait and broad feet enable them to move swiftly over snow and frozen ice.

They have complex burrows that run deep under the snow keeping their villages well hidden.


Have tenous relations with the Ice Folk: Kobold hunters that do not avoid over hunting and ruin their hunting grounds.

[intregus]

Thanks everyone! These are all great ideas and are helping me a lot!

I like the lizard person race idea but where would they have come from before Ag'det rose to power if it's a frozen wasteland?


At each major settlement, there could be an 'eternal flame' required by Ag'det to be well-tended and always displayed high. These may or may not be magical, but they are definitely not everlasting on their own. The frost giants (or any given enslaved race) are tasked with having designated flame keepers to guard and honor these flames to serve as a reminder of fire's sovereignty in the frozen wastes. It's long, arduous work to keep these going, but if the keepers don't comply, then either they'll be dragged off to Ag'det- never seen again... Or she'll send a representative to give the whole settlement a demonstration of why they should have listened.

If she's more charismatic or cunning, maybe she's found some powerful magic or allies of the opposing element. And whenever a flame dies, instead of a show of fire force, the town or group of keepers is frozen over. Skin black with frostbite levels of nasty. This would put the fire in more of a revered symbol of protection-type role. But if she's unhinged and all kinds of vindictive, I think spiteful power display works well.

I'd be curious to know about groups of people who might be willingly following her. Did she free anyone enslaved by the giants when she took over- intentionally or otherwise? And with her harnessing the power of the sun, are there any areas that are legitimately doing better because of her intervening? Would be really interesting to have her seat of power be a location all lush and green and-- flipping flibbergibbets, was that a butterfly??? -- Might depend on whether or not you want to put hard thought behind whether there's earth beneath the ice and snow in general, timeline, etc; but a contrast would be neat. And it could contrast a variety of ways depending on what you think Ag'det's ideal environment would be.

Related to the "is anyone gladly following her" line of thought: It'd be fun to see a reptilian race of guards who absolutely adore her but are only found near her capital. Because lizards love them some sunning rocks, and of course they'll fight to the death to protect the Bringer of Luxurious Naps.

I really like the eternal flame stuff on settlements there!

And she did free others. In my head the frost giants enslaved anything they could, so she does have followers but I wasn't sure if they should be primarily humans or orcs or whatever.

The way I see Ag'det is very charismatic. She hates oppression and wants to oppress, oppressors......so kind of hypocritical but very veangful. So the people she freed she's a good pharaoh too. She isn't blatantly evil but she relishes in enslaving the frost giants or anyone who would oppress others. Does that make sense?

Anyway thanks! This is great!