voyage of Erik the Red

Does Greenland, and its Viking colonies, exist in 5th Ed canon?

Edit: I accept my mistake - Norse colonies

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They are not "Viking" they were Norse, viking was a job description whereas Norse were the people.

They likely exist in ArM, however with Mythic Scandinavia largely under-represented, it just hasn't been covered. There is a 4th Ed Icelandic saga, so maybe there is Greenland relevant info in there...

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It would be strange if they don't. The diocese of GarĂ°ar, that is on Greenland, was established early 12C, so its existence is duly recorded in Rome.

However, I do not think there is any description of Greenland in 5ed canon. There may well be, as @Jank says, in 4ed canon.

TBH I do not think Greenland is that important. Just going to Iceland is going to be quite exotic enough for most sagas. That little extra stretch of sea does not really add much. If you want to vary, you have Hjaltland (Shetland) and Føroyar too.

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M4 Land of Fire and Ice describes the Colonization of Greenland on p.12f.

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Yes, as said, and possibly more. There may be more exotic Norse settlements near the edge of Midgard, where devouring jotun rage and the great serpent twists his coils. Perhaps an island chain of petty kingdoms and great rune magic.

There's also the possibility of a Vinland colony, for something more grounded. Or a regio Vinland.

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I know that this is not canon, but it is my contention that Jotunheim are the Finnic lands, and that the Jotnar are the same giants that populate Estonian and Finnish mythology. The conflict that the Vanir and Aesir have with the Jotnar being one that mimics the one between the different cultural groups in the Northern Baltic sea region.

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My personal favorite is that the jotnar originate in the region of norway named "Jotunheim".

That region is not even far north in norway and it seems like it should be at least doable to check if there are any jotnar there.

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The mountain area was only named in 19C though.
I imagine that back in the day, people would only think of Jotunheimen as elsewhere, and the Norwegian's elsewhere would make no sense to the Swedes and vice versa.

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My understanding is that the Norse made no permanent settlement in North America. But occupied Greenland for 4 centuries or so.
And they were the first human inhabitants (various peoples referred to as eskimo came later, at least to the Norse regions).

So, were there any Auras/regio of any supernatural alignment other than Magic before Erik the Red arrived?

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I guess you have to design Mythic America before you can answer that, study native myths and work them into the Ars Magica framework. There has been some fandom material on this, hasn't there? I never read it.

If the Danish wikipedia page is right, there were numerous nomadic cultures coming and going in Greenland before and while the Norse colony existed, but the only one present when the Norse arrived lived in the Northwest. Apparently, the Saqqaq culture had been there in the South until 800 BC; maybe they there was a faerie lord who forced them to leave? Can a faerie colony survive for 200 years without human interaction?

EDIT: Sorry. 800 BC would leave a 1800 year gap, not 200.

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Mythic America needed for Greenland Auras?

I thought it was unclear at best if the Inuit predecessors encountered the Norse, at least in the first century or two of settlement. However I am not an expert.

Greenland is an American island, so why not?

Anyway, «unclear» is exactly what I meant too. We do not know whom the Norse met, either on Greenland or in Vinland. They may have fought and lost, they may have blended, or they may not have met them at all. If you want to make a story, you have to make it up.

If memory serves me right, the most recent genetic and archaeological evidence suggests 3 different migration events into greenland. Somewhat unusually the first 2 peoplings of greenland managed to go extinct/leave greenland for good before the the next wave of settlement.

The norse encountered the people who had settled in the second wave of migration. This people then either died out or abandoned greenland before the current inuit people settled there some time later. You should not refer to them as eskimo. That is an offensive colonialist term. Inuit is the name they use to describe themselves.

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I realise eskimo is not correct, but I didn't know the generic term for the various non-Norse peoples (3 waves?) who settled to the North before the colonial era.
And my understanding is that Erik the Red was settling uninhabited lands, rather than colonising inhabited lands.

I did not know that, thanks.

Inhave read thebterm Thule people yoo, but I assume that it's a purely accademic term?

Also, the Beothuk people are hypothesised to be the Skraeling iirc.

Modern-day Greenlanders, as quoted in a newspaper a few years ago, said they were not offended by the term «eskimo». They never were eskimoes. Eskimoes live further West, not on Greenland.

Whether the lands were inhabited or not is not going to be entirely clear when they are used by nomads. Uninhabited when Erik settled, and then inhabited half a year later, maybe?

The Norse and Inuit did know each other at the time of Erik the Red, with records from both Norse and Inuit sources. The first record of contact was by Erik’s son Thorvald, where the Norsemen attacked and captured 8 people and were then attacked in turn.

That does make me wonder, if Mythic Europe adheres rigidly to the medieval paradigm, whether we should presume the Americas would be there to be found in 1220.

Do other story guides and players presume the world we know beyond Ptolemy’s map is there, waiting to be charted?

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I never presume anything until the story needs telling. In other words, if the players decide to travel beyond Greenland or Sahara, or whatever is the Eastern end of the known world, they will find out. Until then they can speculate IC to their heart's desire.

And if they decide to so twice in two separate sagas, I would not make the same decision.

But Greenland is there, because the Pope has dispatched a bishop, and the Pope knows what he is doing, lest God strike him down. (And Greenland is part of the Americas.)

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I seem to have a mental blindspot about this.
Yes it is part of the North American tectonic plate, but historically, and to a degree ecologically and anthropologically, it seems so separate.

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