Why Pay to Play?™

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 © 2003-2010,

Steigerwald EDV Verlag, all rights reserved.

News Dungeons Daring Info FM8 Info Pathfinder Info OGL Impressum

Help for Members of Armed Forces

Current: March 20, 2010

Scenes from the Jörðgarð World

Jörðgarð - Back in Full Production

Beginning in March 2010, the Jörðgarð campaign setting returned into full production and once more has the main focus of the developing Vintyri™ Project.

For those unfamiliar with the past history, two events in 2008 and 2009 caused the project group to substantially reduce the time it could spend on the Jörðgarð setting in favor of two other projects:

· We were offered the opportunity to help complete and publish the free and open Dungeons Daring™ role playing game. Because we thought that this new game would make a perfect rules system for Jörðgarð, we took on the project. Dungeons Daring was released in late 2008. We're pleased with the gradual but substantial success the game has gained to date.

· Cartography has been a problem area for the Vintyri Project for some time. In earlier days, we used the program Campaign Cartographer™ 2 Pro from ProFantasy Ltd. for previous products. However, CC2 Pro 2 fell far short of our technical specifications for Jörðgarð. The successor, Campaign Cartographer 3, met many of those specifications, but it is totally incompatible with our open source concept. Therefore, we needed to find a new program and were quickly successful, with the release of the outstanding Fractal Mapper™ 8 program from NBOS Software. That notwithstanding, our hopes were not realized that a third party would produce the type of mapping symbols critically needed for Jörðgarð. In the end, we had no choice but to make this substantial graphical library ourselves. After 15 months work and only secondary attention being paid to Jörðgarð, the last element of the Vintyri Cartographic Collection was released in March 2010.

What that means to those interested in Jörðgarð is that our full attention once again is being devoted to development of the three books that will comprise the campaign setting. You'll find the current status available here under the News column.

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 that will run hand-in-glove with the Dungeons Daring™ RPG. We also are taking a very close and positive look at releasing an edition for the excellent Pathfinder™ RPG (3.5) of Paizo Publishing LLC.

The Jörðgarð package will consist of downloadable maps and software aids as well as three books in PDF format. All of these will be free open source, open gaming products. The books are:

· Book 1, Atlas of the Jörð. The Jörð is the name of the gaming world. It has two hemispheres. The eastern hemisphere will remain completely undeveloped as a place where game masters can insert their own creations if they choose. The western hemisphere will be described in detail in the Atlas, but the degree of detail will vary from area to area. Some parts of the hemisphere will be developed thoroughly. Others will have all of the necessary details but also will leave room for game masters to improvise. And some areas will be only loosely described, being reserved for game masters to do their own work. A key part of the Jörðgarð concept is the idea that game masters will have a guarantee that there will be no official Jörðgarð products that further detail certain areas. The goal is to assure game masters that they can exercise their own creativity without worrying whether their own creations will be in conflict with future official products. The Atlas will be released in a version that is independent of RPG rules systems.

· Book 2, Game Masters Guide. At present, we are giving strong consideration to the release of two versions of this volume, one for the Dungeons Daring RPG and one for the Pathfinder RPG. This volume - in each version - will be tied completely to a game system, giving the game master all of the rules information, NPC statistics, etc. that are necessary to run a campaign.

· Book 3, Urð's Heimskringla. This volume also will be released in a version that is independent of RPG rules systems. It's a completely optional volume that will detail the history of the Jörð. It is designed for those game masters who take a strong interest in the history of their settings.

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

· All texts will be offered in a Jörðgarð Reference Document in the fully editable ODF Open Document Format of the free open source product Open Office.org.

· 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 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.