Welcome to Darkguard

Vikings vs. Cthulhu

Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons, 1981 edition! Or at least the re-release of Basic/Expert D&D from 2019, known as Old School Essentials. This is the world of Darkguard! You are on the continent of Iterron, so far the only known continent. As for this first campaign, expect to be in the harsh and lonely nation of the Kingdom of Ashtree. Like in most of the countries of Iterron, Ashtree suffers from the brutal and unforgiving wilderness, which holds all of the outlaws, monsters, and the eldritch horrors that are responsible for said monsters. Ashtree is a nation that has been in a constantly fluctuating war with the Isle of Aberravinor and the Aberravinian colonies, and now they're trying to avoid a second war with their powerful neighbor, the Kingdom of Haralyn. Citizens are panicking due to a supposed return of the Lovecraftian deities that came before, and adventuring opportunities are abound. If you don't care about the feel of the world, skip ahead to the next section.
I would like to include a few touchstones for this world (and the culture of Ashtree in general) so that you can get a clearer picture in your mind about what Darkguard is like. For more information on my own inspiration (sometimes called an Appendix N by the OSR community), see the world meta. For one, Scandinavian folklore is definitely a big influence, as well as works on Norse mythology and legends, such as the Poetic and Prose Eddas, Beowulf, The Saga of Grettir, etc. H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith are pretty large influences on cosmic horror in general, which Darkguard has a generous dose of, so prepare for the Old Gods to arrive. Sword and sorcery works, especially Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Dying Earth (by Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance, respectively), are very important to D&D as a game and to this world's low-magic, sword and sorcery feel. If you don't care about reading up on stuff, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim nails the feel I'm going for quite well, sans the Old Gods.

What You Need to Start

You don't really need all that much, honestly. First, I should point you in the direction of the Necrotic Gnome website, which has all the Old School Essentials material you would ever need. However, just to start playing, you can go to the website and download the basic rules from it right here: https://necroticgnome.com/products/old-school-essentials-basic-rules Now, if you are willing to pay money and get something that is actually