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Jörðgarð™ is a product of the Vintyri™ Project, a subsidiary of Steigerwald EDV Verlag. Jörðgarð, the Vintyri Project, Dungeons Daring™ and Steigerwald EDV™ Verlag are trademarks of Steigerwald EDV Verlag. This entire website is Copyright © 2003-2013, Steigerwald EDV Verlag, all rights reserved.

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Jörðgarð - Coming in 2013

Our first two important Jörðgarð releases are Urð's Heimskringla, the history of the Jörð, and a huge illustrated and mapped volume called The Northwest. Urð's Heimskringla now is available. For more information on this first Jörðgarð volume, click here! It has been released as a 402-page, illustrated and fully bookmarked PDF file and as a 348-page Open Source Reference Document in versions for OpenOffice.org® Writer and Microsoft® Word 97 to 2010. Jörðgarð is planned for release in versions for both Dungeons Daring™ 3^rd Edition and the various OGL 3.5 games.

The Northwest now is in its final development stage. Our last playtest release produced quite a number of excellent suggestions that we are in the process of implementing. As a result of playtester feedback, we are substantially expanding the Kingdom of Slovania, which is intended as a large staging area for adventures in the Northwest. Slovania already is the most detailed area of the northwest, but our testers still wanted considerably more information on this key area. That's one of our two main priorities at present. The other is continuing with the Campaign Cartographer™ 3 version of the Vintyri Cartographic Collection.

The Northwest is planned for release in the 3^rd Quarter of 2013. The Northwest thoroughly details the continents of Ása and Énéa in the northwesternmost corner of the gaming world known as the Jörð, a gaming setting that has its roots in real world mythology. The Northwest deals specifically with continents based upon Finnish mythology and the Eddaic Icelandic mythology in a time before and shortly after Odin and the other Norse deities migrated northward. The key areas covered are:

· The island known as Northland (Norðland), a dark elven enclave ruled by the Witch Queen Luohi. Northland is a mix of Icelandic and Finnish lore.

· The coastal nation of Karelenland (Karelenmaan), based upon Finnish mythology as retold by Elias Lönnrot in The Kalevala.

· The ruins of the Æsir Empire. In such works as Snorri Sturluson's Poetic Edda (also known as the Younger Edda), one learns how Odin, Tyr and other Nordic deities migrated from Thrace in Asia Minor (Ása) to the north. The fallen Æsir Empire is what remains of their former homeland in Ása. In the current year upon the Jörð, Óðinn (Odin) and the other deities already have left the old empire and migrated to Miðgarð and Ásgarð. Much of the ruins of the empire now are in the hands of undead draugs and bitter, surviving Æsir druids, magi and rangers.

For more than a year, the Vintyri™ Project been releasing one new Jörðgarð map weekly for free download. You can get an overview of the already released maps by clicking here. The maps to date all are locations from The Northwest. More are coming.

The Jörðgarð campaign setting - like all Vintyri products - is being released as free, open source, open gaming material. Unlike many open gaming products, the work of the Vintyri Project, including Jörðgarð, also is released on an open source basis. This means, among other things, that the Jörðgarð texts are available in easily editable form, and the original Jörðgarð maps, in Fractal Mapper™ 8 format, also are available and can be modified in any manner that one might wish.

These maps are available for personal and commercial use at no cost under the terms of the Open Game License 1.0a. They may be used as is in Jörðgarð campaigns, or they may be modified to any extent desired for use in other RPG campaigns. The maps are available in two formats:

· As complete, ready-to.use flat maps in JPG-format. (These maps are found under the Map-of-the-Week menu option.)

· As fully editable maps in the FMP-format of Fractal Mapper 8.

All Jörðgarð texts will be available not only as illustrated and bookmarked PDF files but also in Open Source Reference Documents in versions for OpenOffice.org Writer and Microsoft Word 97 to 2010.

Gaming Books

On schedule for 2013 and 2014:

· Urð's Heimskringla - the history of the Jörð. (Already released)

· The Northwest - detailed maps, descriptions and gaming statistics for the continents of Ása and Énéa (2013).

· Game Master's and Players' Guides (2014)

· Atlas of the Jörð (2014)

Scenes from the Jörðgarð World

What is Jörðgarð?

Jörðgarð is:

· A campaign setting, that is, a world in which one can run fantasy role-playing adventures.

· An RPG environment that is rooted in but not fanatically adherent to several real world mythologies.

· An open source, open gaming product. It is an open gaming product in the sense that it is being released under the Open Game License Version 1.0a. It is an open source product in which all texts and maps will be available not only as PDFs but also in editable form to make it possible for game masters and game developers to modify all elements to fit their own campaign desires and their own product designs.

· A gaming world in two versions, one that will run hand-in-glove with our own free open game, open source Dungeons Daring™ RPG and a second version that will be compatible with the OGL 3.5 system used by such popular RPGs as Pathfinder® from Paizo Publishing® LLC, True20™ from Green Ronin Publishing LLC and Dungeons & Dragons® Version 3.5 from Wizards of the Coast® Inc.

Technically, the Jörðgarð World will have some aspects not common to most campaign settings:

· All texts will be offered in Jörðgarð Reference Documents in the fully editable ODF Open Document Format of the free open source products Open Office.org and Libre Office.org. This format also can be opened in Microsoft® Word 2007 and 2010 as well as Word 2003, if the free converters for Word 2003 have been installed.

· All maps will be offered in their native Fractal Mapper™ 8 formats. This will give each game master licensed for FM8 the ability to modify and/or expand upon the official maps. To do so, the game master will need the Fractal Mapper 8 program.

· The maps also will be designed to serve game masters and gaming groups who are involved in online campaigns or who run tabletop campaigns aided by a digital projector or a laptop LAN system.

· Game masters who do not have access to Fractal Mapper 8 will have no difficulty using the campaign setting. They merely will not have the ability to edit, modify or manipulate the original maps in their native format.

· The Jörðgarð setting will not use drawings of bikini warrior maidens, comic book style pictures or other exaggerated graphics. Our illustrations for the most part will be photographs of actual sites in the real world that are ideal representations for a fantasy RPG setting.

· Jörðgarð is being developed in part based upon mythologies in various areas of the real world. Several areas are based upon the Eddic or Norse mythology, the Celtic Tuatha de Danaan as Sidhe, the Finnish Kalevala and Slavic mythologies. This does not mean that the world will replicate these mythologies. Rather, it will attempt to adapt their elements to make them suitable for good RPG campaigns. The world also will be developed to allow reasonable and logical travel between areas with varying mythological roots.

· Material from the history of our own world is being used and adapted as the basis for several totally fictional lands within the Jörðgarð World.

· Jörðgarð will attempt to combine the best elements of static and dynamic worlds. The end release documents will be current to the Vintyri Year of 1406. Timeline information will be provided for official events which will occur in the years 1407-1416. This will give game masters who want a dynamic world a 10-year span of defined change. As of the Jörðgarð Year 1417, the world will be static. There will be no official Jörðgarð definitions for events beyond that time, giving game masters a free hand to develop their own futures.

Publication of the Jörðgarð World under the Open Game License will give all gamers worldwide the right to develop additional unofficial Jörðgarð World material and to distribute it as they wish, free or commercially, without royalty payments to us or restrictions other than compliance with the Open Gaming License.

Help for members of armed forces

We've received inquiries from members of armed forces of various nations who are stationed in foreign lands and who are unable to access our download site. If you fall into this category, please inform us by E-Mail at info@vintyri.org, and we'll try to resolve the problem.