Bear Island

[Winterstark]

Hi everyone, cool forum you've got here =)

I've begun creating a roleplaying campaign for A Game of Thrones RPG, and I decided my players will start their adventures on Bear Island in the Bay of Ice.

Now, I need plenty of data about the island. Geography, history, data about House Mormont, their resources, way of life, anything I can find. So, does anyone here have a good link, maps, or maybe encyclopedic knowledge about the topic, I'd be very grateful

[Ser Hippie]

From what I remember, Bear Island is basically wilderness (trees, animals, etc.) without much in the way of civilization.

As for the Mormonts, here's what I remember of them off hand

Maege Mormont (Lady of Bear Island) is the sister of Jeor Mormont (late LC of the NW).

Maege has 5 daughters - Dacey (killed at the Red Wedding), Alysane, Lyra, Jorelle, and Lyanna.

Jeor had one son - Jorah Mormont, who was knighted for valor after being the second man into Pyke during the last battle of Balon Greyjoy's rebellion. He later won a tourney, and with it the hand of Lynesse Hightower. They returned to Bear Island, which she hated, and he lost all his money trying to buy things to make her happy, tried to sell poachers to slavers and fled into exile. Became a sellsword, Lynesse left him, and he found his way to Viserys and Dany, etc. etc. Upon his exile, Maege became Lady of Bear Island.

The only other tidbit I can remember offhand is Dacey describing the picture of a woman that symbolized Bear Island - where the woman was holding a baby with one hand and an axe in the other (or something like that)

[Guest Other-in-law]

Here's a tidbit that's mentioned at the Concordance under the Stark section but not the Mormont section:

"King Rodrik Stark won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts, or so it's said. "

I think the wrestling victory would have been over the King of the Iron Isles (of house Hoare, perhaps?), or possibly an Ironborn bannerman, and the earlier family that held it of the Starks was house Woodfoot.

[Spring Bass]

I think it described the Mormont family living in homes built out of wood, rather than stone in ACoK.

[Man of Many Faces]

Taken from Ser Jorah in a Danerys in ACoK, when telling her about his home of Bear Island:

My home...you must understand that to understand the rest. Bear Island is beautiful, but remote. IMagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. The hall of the Mormonts is built of huge logs and surrounded by an earthen palisade. Aside from few crofters, my people live along the coasts and fish the seas. The island lies far to the north, and our winters are more terrible than you can imagine, Khaleesi.

[joluoto]

I guess the nature of the Island would be boreal forrest and stony cliffs. And we know the sea is frozen during winter, and wildling raiders sometimes cross the ice to raid them.