Borea differs from much material on this site in that it's perfectly real. It's simply the historical European North. Apart from a single exception - you'll find it below because after all this is a worldbuilding site - I offer zero fictional modifications. I monitor Iron Age to 2050, but with marked interest for the centuries (say, 3rd to 7th) which - still rather mysteriously - preceded & equipped the more notorious "Viking age" which followed.

But if it's so "real", why have I resolved to upload material on this specific site? Because the somewhat novel way I've come to understand this region has been greatly swayed by geek culture: Franco-Belgian comics, RPG & wargames both pen-paper & video, science fiction, some Poe & Lovecraft, but perhaps above all the "British eccentric" fantasy lineage: MR James, Lord Dunsany, Tolkien, Philip Pullman, Susannah Clarke.

In total: The fairly modern art of imagineering integrated, holistic, artificial realms which follow their own distinct natural or institutional laws. AKA worldbuilding.

I consider the European North best understood as exactly such a "realm", even though not artificial. That's why I give it its own new(ish) name, Borea, land of the North.

Partly, only partly, it's just a glamour spell. Because minute historical accuracy - never over-interpreting data by one's wishes or whims - is another obsession to me. But the giant cultural-economic influence now exerted over the entire globe by Nordic fantasy fiction - which (since its modern fountainhead was Tolkien the Anglo-Norse philologist) means almost all fantasy books, film, gaming, plus much even outside that genre - is simply incomprehensible without better exploration of its all-too real historical roots.

Conversely, the aura of thematic "unity" which, to this day, the wider Nordic region impresses on denizens as well as outsiders is equally inexplicable without understanding its mythical component. Yes, in one sense, that whole region was in fact artificially conceptualised, "worldbuilt". By its early bards.

I consistently affirm the mature essence of this thematic unity - the Nordic "way of life", or "grand strategy" if you will - as 1) amphibious & 2) counter-imperial.

I did promise one fictional exception - in the tradition of fantasy, RPG, & fully imaginary worldbuilding: It's a bio of my avatar, Skjald of Borea. Find him on my Borea page under "Characters".