A Survey of Svarnahelm

Please note that this release is totally free. You are not being charged for it, and the files are freely available to everyone. No need to be a patron!

An entire nation squeezed onto an island of neon-bathed stone towers

Breathe deep the curious fumes and attune to the thrum of spark vials. A corporate executive rides his fliplifts up to an elite Demlin clubhouse above the haze of industrial pollution. A blue-skinned dockie injects a bloated fish with nutritional supplements while muttering solemn gratitute to the Goddess Blynka. A desperate powderist peers through worlds in attempt to leapfrog corporate researchers. A delirious pixie repairs a pipe harvesting arcane gasses from the center of the world. Nine archons meet in Jasper Disk to the discuss the future of the Yanuskor.

Welcome to Svarnahelm, a hyper-capitalist arcane metropolis with a million stories of excess and intrigue yet untold.

You've all been asking for some version of "magic megacity" since Borough Bound started in 2021, and we're finally ready to tackle that task. So, here's how this is going to work:

• Today, we are releasing a primer for the setting, including a hefty guide introducing you to the basics of the setting as well as a district-level map of the entire city.

• Our next borough will be one district of Svarnahelm. While it's not "an entire, fully realized city" as we usually advertise, it should be wholly usable in isolation.

• We aren't going to tackle the entirety of Svarnahelm right away. Instead, we will occassionally return to tackle additional districts throughout the city in between other boroughs.

• Each individual district will get its own "Definitive Edition" release, so you won't have to wait years just to grab the full maps, edited PDFs, and Foundry modules.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to drop a comment here or in our Discord! We are super excited to finally delve into this complex setting and bring you a true RPG metropolis.

A Survey of Svarnahelm

Our first guide introduces you to the basics of Svarnahelm. Nine mega-corporations rule city as both economic powerhouses and the de jure government. We outline each of these corporations with just enough detail to get you started.

Svarnahelm consists of 12 unique districts. If y'all dig the setting, we'll eventually tackle them all! This guide provides an overview of each. Can you guess which one we're going to tackle first? Don't forget the results of our most recent poll.

Finally, we explore the history, government, religion, and cosmology of the setting.

Much of this document functions more as reference material. That is: you absolutely do not need to read this cover-to-cover in order to understand what the heck this setting is. Feel free to just keep it on-hand as you explore individual districts and reference it as needed!

Map

Svarnahelm is a large and complex island. While it may take some time for us to map out the entirety of the setting—if, indeed, that's something you all want—this map should help you run campaigns in the city.

Additional Resources

We've uploaded pngs of all of the logos and icons from this primer here.

Please note that Svarnahelm exists in the same realm as our existing borough Crabwell. Campaigns that explore both cities will have a wealth of lore and NPCs and to draw on.

We'll be making a huge amount of music for this setting. In the meantime, consider checking out Will's painstakingly curated RPG Spotify playlists. In particular, you may want to subscribe to DnD Metropolis, DnD Intrigue, and DnD Crime.