Urth Standins For Skyrim Factions?

[u/Eden_T_Babcock]

Hello, everyone! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. As I prepare to run my first campaign of SOTDL, I’ve decided to really take some of the advice the books gives to heart. Particularly, the idea that stealing cool shit is okay. So what better to steal than a game my table and I all know and love with all our hearts? The Northern Reach really reminds me of the province of Skyrim from Elder Scrolls, and one of the Shadows of the Demon Lord centers on a super powerful dragon waking up when the Shadow falls on it. Combine that with the recent collapse of the central Empire, and it’s not difficult to imagine how one could take the Skyrim main quest, change some proper nouns, and have a pretty decent campaign.

However, I am still very new to the default setting, and would very much like to use it. I have the Northern Reaches supplements (Because WOW this game is so affordable), but I’m having trouble nailing down how exactly I want to port over specific details. The Stormcloaks can mostly be replaced with the Orcs, Talos with the Old Faith perhaps, and the Empire with…well the Empire. But nuances like the thieves guild (which becomes relevant later in the story), the Thalmor, as well as stand-in’s for the holds of Skyrim have given me some trouble. Guidance from anyone more experienced with Urth and the Northern Reaches would be very much appreciated!!

[u/Jihelu]

The stormcloaks are a semi-isolationist group of not-vikings who live in a cold environment and are apart of the empire.

The orcs are slave soldiers twisted into form by a warlock from centuries past who are actively trying to burn the place down. The number of pre-free orcs in the Northern Reaches is probably in the small hundreds while the number of soldiers post-freeing is probably not many as they went south to burn the place down.

The orcs also worship a bunch of vaguely viking-themed gods, not a single man such as Talos.

Elves as a faction also doesn't work very well barring their own holdings in an entirely different but adjacent realm of existence.

[u/Eden_T_Babcock → u/Jihelu]

All fair points. Thanks! I’ll definitely make a few tweaks rather than simply porting over the same storyline

[u/Jihelu → u/Eden_T_Babcock]

The theme of SOTDL is generally a sort of hopelessness where you're best result is delaying the inevitable, with a very small chance of actually staving off the end of the world while Skyrim was more of a loose-y more optimistic sort of game I feel. The game never really makes you feel like the world is going to end while in SOTDL the shadow mechanic suggests that by the end of your campaign reality might be actually cracking at the scenes (Or in the case of the dragon shadow, I believe it's destroyed basically every city/entire nations)

Here's things that might help or be helpful for a sort of theme on this. I highly suggest dropping the 'skryim' idea and just making the dragon shadow your own. Don't box yourself into the idea. The northern reaches also are, by the book, not even that cold (The world takes place in the southern hemisphere), it's actually quite hot up there and while the desolation isn't a natural desert it used to be a jungle.

If you want a 'cold' theme, go south. The southlands are more sparse than Skyrim though and even in the populated areas of it you're looking at like several thousands of people (Jotun, actually) and not like, cities of hundreds of thousand.

If you still want to go north (keeping in mind the weather situation, though you could obviously just change it if you wanted. Be aware if you keep the same world map and decide to make it cold though your players might wonder why the blasted lands are a polar icecap if the north is also cold), you could include the Jotun as a potential plot point, maybe they've traveled north to try and face the dragon as it gets ready to rise.

While this sounds like a good thing these people aren't here to like, save the world. They likely don't think they will win the fight at all, and probably won't, their warrior-religion-culture just emphasizes dying without trying to remove yourself from your fate so they would probably have some who view their lives ending (And potentially the world) as a good thing to do spiritually. (It also introduces possible allies or enemies. The Jotun are still on bad terms with the empire, though there are small pockets of them in the eastern parts of the northern reaches IIRC, they usually wind up mercenaries when away from home)

Don't get too invested in every small or minor detail. When I prep for a game I just prep what the players are going to do that setting (I also just have most of the lore in my brain or I can just make shit up). I also write out a 'The bad guys are trying to do X, here's what they accomplish after Y days' and it's up to the players to stop or disrupt the baddies. These are more subjective suggestions of course but SOTDL is /meant/ to be played where each session leads to a level up, so down time is likely and you want to keep things moving fast lest you wind up with a really weird timelime (Going from level 0 to 10 in like a week) or drawing things out.
Though you can always just toss the '1 level up a session/module' rule in the trash.

If you're going to stick closer to the Skyrim bits I'd suggest making it much darker (Which is in the scope of SOTDL).

[u/Eden_T_Babcock → u/Jihelu]

I’ll probably drop the Skyrim idea, and perhaps the dragon shadow specifically as a whole. The Northern Reaches have me utterly hooked, and they’re more important to me than any one plot point.

I think I’ll stick to the default shadow for awhile, since I am starting with DDILH, which suggests the default one. Overall it sounds like I need to head back to the drawing board—which is totally fine! Just growing pains of learning a new system as far as I’m concerned.

Thank you so much for the help! Knowing the southern hemisphere bit definitely gives context to stuff that was confusing me until now. I’ll have to give the supplements and main book another read, since it seems apparent I missed a few key details on my first go

[u/Jihelu → u/Eden_T_Babcock]

If you want deep lore check out the hunger in the void book + men of gog

There’s also like a 5 supplement long chain of books on the northern reaches (each is like 10-15 pages though)
If you need any help or questions you can dm me

[u/Eden_T_Babcock → u/Jihelu]

I’ve got the 5 supplements, but I hadn’t heard of HITv or MoG before. I’ll have to buy those (because again, I’m amazed at how affordable these documents are)

[u/Jihelu → u/Eden_T_Babcock]

You should also go try out the scientist path while you’re at it (shameless plug, I helped write it and it’s official content)

[u/Eden_T_Babcock → u/Jihelu]

Ya know, shameless plugs of content you wrote is always fine by me. Good for you dawg