Jarlsburg: An Introduction

For those who have been following the blog for awhile, you might remember the posts on Jarlsburg as the Ironcloaks game rolled on, but since I'm spotlighting it in this year's A to Z Challenge I figure some more information should be presented.

The city came into being on a whim, I was running a pick up Pathfinder game for three players and I decided on an urban setting in the middle of the Blood War.  I really enjoyed the Dwarven Jarl figures from MageKnight and and felt Jarlsburg channelled that, as well as had a germanic vibe which set well with my memories of Warhammer's the Old World.

I think that Pathfinder game lasted two sessions, but several months later I wanted to set up a DnD Next playtest game that would easily allow players to move in and out.  A game based on city guards made sense, which led me back to Jarlsburg.

Essentially Jarlsburg is my Lankhmar or Greyhawk, a free city ruled by an oligarchy of powerful personalities where the strange and unusual happen more often than not, but a small group of (hopefully) dedicated losers stand fast and hold the line and, more importantly, sweep away the evidence so the populace is mostly unaware that anything monstrous just occurred.