Utgård is a land of bitter winters and cool summers. It was once Jotunheim, the home of giants. But with the coming of man, their population has dwindled. After man ventured to the icy lands of Jotunheim, the giants of Jotun discovered the humans to be resourceful allies. With the Awakening God, all grudges have been cast aside and men and giants fight side by side. The alliance with the humans has estranged the Gygjas and their Vaetti servants, who no longer aid the giants. Instead, human seeresses have become influential. In the heart of Utgård lies the magical Well of Urd where the Norns gather and divine the future of the world. The giants of Utgård are immensely strong and resilient. They are born in the cold and do not suffer from cold climates. The people of Utgård prefer to live in cool provinces.

From Dominions 5 Manual note on the inspiration for Vanheim, Helheim, Niefelheim, Jotunheim, Midgård, Vaettiheim, and Utgård:

These are all nations sprung from old Norse myth. The Poetic Edda and some later tales, combined with general conceptions of Iron Age Scandinavia, are the main sources. Vanir, Aesir and Giants are ancient antagonists in these myths. The Aesir, being perceived as gods, have been made pretenders in Dominions. Not that Vanir weren't, but they seem less so than the Aesir in most instances. As with most nations of supernatural origin, it seems fitting that their magic fades with each passing age as humans become more and more numerous. Niefelheim, Jotunheim, and Utgård are part of the history of a single nation through the ages.

Utgård is a giant nation which fields giants with extreme cold resistance at the price of suffering susceptible to shock. The sole recruitable Sacred Troop, Garmhirding is a berserker with high damage that can be the platform for a variety of combat blessings. These sacred troops can be supported by Jotun Javelinist and other excellent, if expensive, fortress recruited troops to expand with minimal losses against independent provinces. As size 4 giants, getting surrounded by high damage troops or hit by Lightning Bolt are the main dangers to early expansion forces, and like any giant nation the supply needs and growing upkeep of expansion armies can slow down what would otherwise be an unstoppable early advantage.

The addition to Humans in the LA, let you build cheaper, more reliable army chaff, and if mixed with giants, reduce the penalty that enemy harassment inflicts.

The witches and wolf-sorcerors of Utgård province-wide access to and Magic at every Laboratory Fort, although they have the low magic skills typical of the Late Age.

Utgård has a high hit point, high damage, capital-only sacred, but no out-of-capital sacred troops. This gives some incentive to have an bless focused on the early game if any bless is desired. Sacred Jotun Jarl leaders lead troops and can even be geared up, but unlike many nations Utgård recruited mages are not sacred. Instead, Utgård can win fights using their numerous mages. Utgård witches can mass Communion Slave to their Norna Communion Master to power combat magic, and Utgård can bring to bear powerful spells fueled by excellent blood hunters like the Jotun Skratti, which can transform into a blood sniffing werewolf (the werewolf loses one point of but gains ]).

On top of having good access to blood hunting, Utgård national spells include the Illwinter, which causes to spread around the world, bringing unrest and a new Niefel Giant recruitment option. Their special and Conjuration spells give their armies the flexibility to add animal and undead forces to shore up their numbers.

If a Pretender can mange the giant-sized appetite and upkeep of their forces, Utgård will be a force for their lesser neighbors to fear.

Being the descendants of Frost Giants, Utgård has a national preference for +1 Cold. Their longdead reanimation will mix in longdead Giant with normal undead.

Races	Troops	Magic	Priests	Buildings
Frost Giants: Cold Resistance (15) Shock Vulnerable (5) Unit Size 4	Recruited Giant Heavy Infantry Sacred Giant Berserkers Boulder-Throwing Siege Giants Human Support/Chaff	Blood (3,Rare 4) Astral (3,Rare 4) Death (3,Rare 4) Nature (2,Rare 3) Water(2) 25% chance to get level 3 for Death, Astral and Blood. 2.5% for 3 Nature. Water maxes at 2.	One Holy 2 Commander Best Leadership Commander is Level 1 Holy	Giant Fortresses hold extra food
Humans and Hags: Normal Baseline Statistics	Summoned Bears Sacred Fearsome Berserker Wolf Fire Resistant Poisonous Stealthy Hot Trample Pigs Cold Aura Draug that get just get bigger when killed 4 Dwarves that hold up the Sky	Illwinter Summon Glosos Brood of Garm Sloth of Bears Seith Curse Awaken Jotun Draugar Summon Dwarf of the Four Directions

General description of the units in the nations rooster, any standouts, shared qualities aka temperature, any foreign rec, what makes a good basis to plan around

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Img	Unit Name	—-SpecialAttributes—-	Comments
	Scout 25 4 1	Stealthy(50) Mountain Survival Forest Survival	Good for foreign recruitment and while you have palisades and are building up to forts, they have niche strategic uses for sieging vs assassins but normally they are only made in provinces that have them natively.
	Herse 40 22 1		Cheap 60ld Commander
	Gode 45 11 1	1 sacred	Huamn priest in armour. Can lead Garmhirding expantion parties.
	Jotun Scout 55 7 1	sacred Stealthy(40) mountain survival forest survival snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	replaced by normal scout as the nation's scout. What can't be taken away from him is that fact he is a stealthy Raider thug. Give him some blessed water to activate his blessings along with other gear, and he will steal provinces from enemy PD.
	Jotun Herse 75 41 1	sacred snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	the giant vertion of the Herse. Less likly to die from ranged attacks and can benifit from always active blesses like Insperational.
	Seithkona 85 1 2	111 11 supply bonus(10) Fortune Teller(5%) female	Your research monkeys and make up most of your communions. Don’t cast high-level rituals but Astral, Death, and Nature are Strong when in a communion. Your going to have a lot of Seithkona, so dumping is extra bless points. Once you get enough Skratti, you can have Seithkona be empowered by the turbo communion.
	Jotun Gode 110 19 2	2 sacred snow-move Forest Survival resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	Simple, fairly priced H2 priest, some leadership capabilities. Can be used to lead medium sized parties of Sacreds
	Jotun Jarl 130 41 2	1 sacred snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	Decent Priest commander with 80ld.
	Norna 210 1 4 Capital Only	2211100%+10% 11 supply bonus(10) Death Curse spirit sight Fortune Teller(20%) female	She is one of your ritual and communion masters. Can be a 332 or get 1 in blood. They bring in big astral, Death, and nature to the battlefield. the 1 in Blood is useful as she has crosspath spells with the other magics she knows.
	Jotun Skratti 220 3 4	121100% sacred snow-move Forest Survival resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) Shapechanger (Jotun Werewolf and Jotun Wolf)	The Star of Utgård commander lineup. Skratti are shapeshifters and gain 10% regeneration in werewolf form, which enables them to be good thugs with only minor investment on items. Also, they give you reliable access to 2 and 3 and the 1 randoms can be equipped with a Thistle Mace to cast Foul Vapors once you have access to Serpents Blessing or Purifying blood. On top of that they are extremely good communion slaves for turbo communions. with the baseline 10% in ww form + a master casting Personal Regeneration + potentially a shroud (if you happen to have a regen bless) can easily bring the skratti up to30% regeneration. This way 4 Skratti can support an unholy amount of Gygja spamming skeletons and casting other spells for an infinite amount of time. If you feel that´s still not enough you can add in Soul Vortex and put some trolls, or sacred giants(if you have regen bless) on guard commander around the skratti.

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Img	Unit Name	—-SpecialAttributes—-	Comments
	Huskarl 10 12 9		light Human chaff that pepper the rare lightly armour enemy with javelins. Axes deal more damages while Spears repel and ignore the repel of shorter weapons. Get better on mass if you add fire to your communions.
	Huskarl 10 12 9
	Human Godihuskarl 10 20 9		Medium Human Chaff. Wear more armour then Huskarls for 10 more but have no javelins. Better at line holding and do slightly better against crossbows.
	Human Godihuskarl 10 20 9
	Human Hirdman 13 22 16		more elite version of the Human Godihuskarl. Holds the line better with their higher defense Skill.
	Jotun Bondi 20 15 11	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	cheap hard hitting frontline option, with mediocre protection and combat skills
	Jotun Javelinist 30 17 17	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	good unit for early expansion and decent throughout the game. Their high damage Javelins are capable of thinning out the enemy frontline before the melee engagement. Besides that, they are similar to the Jotun Bondi with slightly better stats
	Jotun Spearman 30 39 17	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	good line holders with decently high protection and repel chance due to their spear, who can still put out some damage, but with fairly high resource costs and mediocre combat skills
	Jotun Axeman 30 39 17	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5)	similar to the spearman, but sacrificing the spear repel for higher damage with their axe.
	Jotun Hurler 30 11 17	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) siege bonus(5)	If they hit with their stones they likely get a kill, but the range is fairly low and they only have two shots. After this, they can somewhat hold their own in melee but are strictly worse than other options for this purpose with only 6 Defence Skill and no shield, which also makes them vulnerable to opposing missile fire. The main use is as siege chaff, where they truly shine.
	Jotun Huskarl 35 21 20	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) bodyguard(1)	The cheapest of the Giant bodyguards, with slightly better stats than the linemen. They are sum-what spamable but their light armour resigned them to protecting mages.
	Godihuskarl 40 31 24	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) bodyguard(1)	more expensive Huskarl has a Spear for Repels and a javelin. Better at bodyguard work since assassins don't expect ranged attacks.
	Jotun Hirdman 50 41 31	snow-move resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) bodyguard(1)	Expensive, but have good stats. If you have the gold you can make a small and elite giant army that is easy to point buff.
	Garmhirding 55 9 28 Capital Only	sacred snow-move Forest Survival resist cold(15) shock vulnerability(5) berserker(2)	The werewolf finally drained out of them leaving them an angry giant with big axes. In the Crossbow age, they serve the role of armor destroyers in addition to gaining a blessing.

Sloth of Bears: Conj3 8 2 ( Great Bearx10+) Large balls of HP for nature gems and you already have plenty of that.

Summon Glosos Conj 3 13 2 ( Glosox9). Trampling sacred poisonus Stealthy boars with a Heat aura. Trampling can curvent some very high prot values like from Ulm plus Heat aura can help expand into Hot nations that though they could counter with scales.

Awaken Jotun Draugar: Conj4 15 2 ( Jotun Draugx3) summon undead giants with fear and chill aura and hit harder when at half heath. Situational pick over summoning 5 Wights, with Jotun Draug better at the grind game.

Brood of Garm: Conj4 10 2 ( Jotun Wolfx5) Damage Dealing Wolfs with Fear. Useful to supplement your numbers during a early war.

Summon Dwarf of the Four Directions: Conj8 62 43. Summon Dwarf of the Four Directions. Shared between the Jotun and Vanir nations. Summon one of the four Dwarf smiths. You would have to get a pretender to cast it, but you get a strong 432200% caster and forger for your troubles at the cost (or benefit) of some hurricanes ravaging the world. Your unlikely to summon all four, but having them all missing benefits only the Vanir line the most.

Seith Curse: Thaum5 3 11.Inflict a Curse on a target and the caster. Situational but is way to better deal with a thug by increasing its chances to pile up affliction.

Illwinter: Blood6 120 53. Cheap for what a blood global. Something to end a game with. Cause the world grows colder, increases unrest slowly, and enemies get raided by Niefel Giants and Jotun Wolfes.

What magic path/mages define your nation, what can you level, e.g., thunderstriking, astral, elementals, earth buffs, blood, what is recruitable anywhere and good, what are some summons you are likely able to get and are useable

What is the best spell you can use in combat. What spells the best support your national lineup, Is their weakness that you need to fix? Any tricks you should be aware you have?

What is the best ritual you could cast. Are their any globals you want up, any units you should be summoning? Are there any Generic rituals few nations can cast?

Do you have any National items(Construction Level, Price, and required Paths). Any unique generic items few other nations can forge? What item would be useful on your unit lineup (non-standard recommend thug gear)?

do you have a game plan? Anything you should always be working toward? Any National weaknesses?

What kinds of scales dose your nation like? Do they require any to function? Any blesses your sacreds would like? Do you desperately need an awake expander? Examples of Pretenders?

How to expand, potential pitfalls and how to get around them, obvious weakness strength, how much do you have to focus on war/infrastructure

what is the first big research rush, what is the first big powerspike, where do you shift recruitment to? what are the big magic diversity issues, are there particular globals you should gun for

How do you close out the game if you are in it, is the high-level research stuff you can do uniquely well, does your nation fall off, aka do you have to force things to conclude swiftly

youtube of someone discussing the nation
guide page on steam??
forum thread or AAR