The World of Valhalla

What follows is told the way it is told in the taverns of Midgaard, which is to say with more confidence than evidence. The scribes of the Paladins have their manuscripts, the elves have their songs, and the dwarves have a rather shorter version involving ale. Where they agree, it is probably true. Where they disagree, go and look for yourself.

Before there were lands there was the ash tree Yggdrasil, whose roots drink from the well of the dead and whose crown is lost in the Ethereal Realms. The gods made their home in its upper branches and called it Asgaard, behind golden gates that stand at the end of a long field of unkempt grass. Mortals who walk the astral road far enough can reach those gates and hear, somewhere beyond, the faint sound of screaming; the gods have never explained it and the wise do not ask. At the roots of the tree stands Helgate, and under the volcano at Danalek lie the fiery planes of Hades, nine deep, whose gate burns with a fire that is not hot and whose exits are never where you left them.

Between crown and root hang the mortal lands: the Mainland, oldest and most travelled; the vast and strange continent of Zinleetah; forested Alquenburg; the deserts, bazaars and forty thieves of Khorsabad; jungle Amazonia; frozen Ulfdalir and Nidavellir in the north; the sunken Lost City of Atlantis; the graves and pits of Mouaudia; Serpent Island, Jarnvidur of the Nether Realms, the West Teutons where the skaven breed, Dragon Island where Tiamat's temple still stands, and the Lunar Realm with its Black Valley and its Temple of Armageddon, which the moon-priests insist is purely ceremonial.

Odin is the first of the gods and the patron of those who go looking for trouble; the beggars' pantry in Midgaard is called "Odin Saves" and no adventurer past their twentieth level can bring themselves to take food from it. Palio is the goddess who dictated the last page of the third manuscript to the scribe Brion, and who, with Odin, took the mortals' side against the dragons. Frey gave the elves their humble, patient power over growing things, and it was dissatisfaction with Frey's gifts that drove the dark elves underground. There are others: the nameless dark gods the dark elves pray to, the titans on Mount Othrys, and whatever is worshipped in the Citadel of Night. The gods are real in Valhalla. They answer prayers, they sometimes walk the roads, and asking them for free equipment is a commandment broken.

The dragons are the oldest creatures in the world, older than the elves, and in the days before King Cromwell their power was absolute. Ancalador and Tiamat and their winged followers held the sky, and anything on two legs that could not fly was a nuisance at best and a meal at worst. The road from East Udgaard Tower to the gates of Old Midgaard was walked only by the brave or the foolish. Trade did not exist. Each race guarded its crafts as secrets, because trust between races was hard found.

Then Odin and Palio, who had little love for the overbearing dragonkind, took a hand. They favoured a mortal king, Cromwell, and while the king drew the dragons' eye, Sir Gehron led the final charge. The power the gods poured into that army of mortals did not run out when the battle ended: it is the flame that still burns as magic in the hearts and faith in the swords of every race. Neither dragon was proven dead. Tiamat withdrew to her island temple. Ancalador was last seen limping toward the barren lands near Danalek with his tail between his legs, and the smoking mountain there has never been quite quiet since. The celebration lasted a full year of moons, and even the dwarves came above ground for the human mead and halfling ale.

The dragons' dark followers had no stomach for a fair fight. They slithered and crawled into the underground lands, which is why the Underdark, the Wight Warrens, the Goblin Caves and the Hobgoblin Caves are still there, still full, and still waiting for the ill-equipped.

The years are counted from the dragons' defeat and called the Years of the Healing. The boy king's council spent six years walling New Midgaard, and the walls have never yet received an arrow. Then came the road, and the great ships of Torsbay, and the scouts: in fifteen years they found Xiyang and Khorsabad across the southeastern sea, land routes to the halfling villages of Tassel Grove in the northwest, and the river to Nymgaard. Races that had never seen one another met, and distrusted each other on sight. By the 150th year goblins were raiding the gnome mines east of Urland. By the 155th the guilds, long believed to be a myth told by adventurers after one too many pints, came out into the open and began recruiting "newbies", as the young were already called. By the 168th year the adventurers had learned that nobody comes home alone from the darkest places, and the first clans were sworn. On the 3rd day of the Month of the Ancient Darkness, Year 270, the people of Valhalla realised that the gods had turned their attention elsewhere, and the clans built their halls, hired their guards, and opened their banks. Some of them still hold the good of Valhalla as their first law. Some do not.

Humans are the youngest race and, by sheer numbers, run most of the world from the throne of King Welmar. The elves keep the forests of Elfdom and Etz-Nab with patient spell-weaving and will not forgive goblin-kind. The dwarves of Fortress Farginok forge the best steel in the world and hate giants on principle; their cousins the gnomes cut the gems in the king's crown. The halflings of Tassel Grove brew legendary ale, breed famous thieves, and have exactly one mortal enemy. The brownies, ambassadors of the fairy folk, guard the elven woods with summoned armies and rains of lightning. The half-elves and half-orcs live between two peoples, and the half-ogres will die for a friend and kill for an insult. Beneath it all the dark elves dig their cities, bend the goblins to their will, and in their necromancers' laboratories made two things the world did not ask for: the trolls, and from troll and ogre the regenerating, uncontrollable grolls, who make excellent warriors and terrible neighbours.

The gods built the mortals one more place, and named it Valhalla, the hall the whole world is called after. When you die your soul goes there and waits, while your body and everything on it lies where it fell. Up to your fifteenth level your soul is anchored to your body, and a little over an hour after death corpse and goods are carried back by unseen hands to the Village Crypt below the temple of Udgaard. After that you need a Soul Anchor, and the only one who knows how to make one is a shaman among the gremlins. Hurry regardless: the giant worker ants of the Red Anthill roam the land collecting the dead, and nobody who has gone into the mound after a friend's corpse speaks fondly of it. Priests can shorten the stay with resurrection or raise dead. Either way you come back poorer in experience and richer in caution.

Udgaard

The village where everyone begins, with the Temple, the Healing Center where Father Nicholas changes professions, the New Player Guides' offices (the Owlbear, the Griffon, the Dragon and the Raven), the sewers, and Mammon's Nest where Smith keeps the bank.

Midgaard

The capital, as old as the first DikuMUD and named out of Scandinavian myth. Royal Avenue, the Paladins' manuscript, the Dark Knights, Randall's wand shop, Bob's bank, a library with a certain book in it, and a sewer system with a reputation.

Haon-Dor and the Cypress Forest

Old, dark woods close to home where newcomers learn what "levels 3 and up" means on a signpost.

Thorbardin, Vasklor, Galgachus, Souragne

The other cities of the Mainland: a dwarven stronghold, a castle town, and the night-city of Souragne ruled by the Sorcerer Queen.

Kithyrn's Tower and the Wizard's Mansion

Where the Mainland's magicians live, and where their experiments got out.

Zinleetah

Across the sea: Xiyang, the celestial city of Yamato and its ruins, the City of Troi, the holy Mount Chen, Castle Ravencurse behind ten zones of forest, plague-plain and tomb, the Demon Realms and the siege that never ends, and the Lake of Souls.

Khorsabad

The Arabian city of bazaars, the Gaumbi desert, the Garden of the Gods, and the house of the Forty Thieves, who are not a myth.

Alquenburg

Fjords and vineyards, the monks' cellars, the Mushroom Forest, Baardek Keep on its beach, the Druid and Ranger guilds, and at its heart the World Tree itself.

There are two hundred and seventy-four zones at the last count, written over more than three decades by people who played here first. The list above is not a map. There is no map; that is rather the point.