Resurrecting the Grand Duchy of Irongrim

Many moons ago, when I was still at school, a friend and I, both keen players of what was then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (this was 1987 or thereabouts) dreamed up a new campaign area called the Grand Duchy of Irongrim. There were two regions to this world, and Irongrim was part of one region. It was very much a committee-generated campaign setting, but I think that is what made it work.

The plan was never, however, to set RPG games in this environment. We wanted to create a multi-player feudal political environment, very similar in fact to what was later created by George R. R. Martin with his Game of Thrones series. Our world still included magic, demi-human races and other such tom foolery, but the humans were most certainly in charge.

Irongrim was a classic feudal society. It sat on the eastern shore of a continent, and across the sea from it was a second continent ruled over by a powerful empire that had a Byzantine feel to it. Irongrim had been an imperial province but had successfully rebelled against the empire and become its own state, ruled by a Duke from Irongrad, its capital.

The realm was dominated by at least 12 baronial factions, possibly more. One plan included having up to 30. Part of it was still ruled by a small colony of wood elves who had successfully fenced themselves off from humanity using a massive, magically-grown wall of thorns called the High Hedge. Relations with the elves were cordial, bot not many of these folk ventured out into human lands.

To the west was a massive dyke, originally raised by slave labour, designed to keep out hostile nomadic tribes that dwelt out in the wastes to the west. I originally envisaged these people as very similar to the Huns or Tartars, generally more concerned about their herds of goats and sheep, but with the potential to become very dangerous if united. I was reading a lot of David Gemmell when I was 16-17, and was partly inspired by the Nadir tribes from Legend and The King Beyond The Gate. I went on to study the Mongol empire in my first year at university.

To the north were mountains, including a number of dwarf holds. These chaps were fiercely independent and I envisaged them as somewhat like the highland clans of medieval Scotland - under nominal control from Irongrim but in reality very troublesome and reluctant to have the Duke interfering in their affairs. Beyond them there lay a somewhat chaotic realm inspired by dark ages Norway, a collection of jarls ruled occasionally by a king, but generally more interested in piracy and feuding.

Finally, to the south was a gulf / inlet, on the other side of which, 10 leagues or so, lay the Sultanate of Hahsir. Yes, this was our Arabian Nights realm, but it was 90% desert, much of it uninhabited or roamed by warlike nomads. The civilized bits were the towns and cities along the coast. The sultan claimed most of this large realm - five or six times the size of Irongrim in terms of space, but likely about the same size in terms of population. The sultan had a pretty impressive navy but lacked the ability to really invade Irongrim.

So there we have it. Two kids dreamed this up at school. Our plan was initially to use it as the setting for miniatures wargames campaigns, but at that time neither of us had either the space or the budget for such. We subsequently turned it into a sort of informal Diplomacy-inspired campaign game, with a number of players managing realms and submitting their orders to a GM who interpreted the results. It was very rules light. I recall getting my ass kicked during the naval blockade of an island similar to Rhodes that I was trying to take off the Empire. I didn't reckon with the governor's siege engines. I also recall assigning one of my best generals and a small party of adventurers to the quest for a magic sword which I believed would solve all my problems - rumours picked up by my court astrologer indicated that this could be a game changer at a time when my fleet was in tatters.

Sadly we never really played this to a conclusion, as A-level exams got in the way, and then we were sucked into playing other games like Blood Royal and Titan. I also remember TSR brought out Birthright for AD&D in 1995 which reminded me a great deal of the Irongrim project, although Irongrim's magic was more under stated. I've also lost all the magnificent maps we created.

So why bring up Irongrim again? For the most part because I now have more miniatures to my name, plus some scenery to be able to put on wargames like the Fords of the Isen and Kachas Pass. Secondly, I've stumbled across an interesting and generic campaign system that could work well, helping to generate battles for fantasy armies. I'm going to take a closer look at this to see where it takes me. The objective would be to try to get as many figures from the various types I own on the table as possible - for example, some Games Workshop Bretonnian knights and some Wargames Foundry Republican Romans, among others. The more the merrier!