North of the Wall

Quick answers

Is Iron Realms free to play?: Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download. Play offline with no account, or sign in to join the live realm. Nothing is for sale during the Alpha; when purchases open they will buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?: No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the Alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.
How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?: Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.

Beyond the Wall, something stirs each week. North of the Wall is a cooperative muster: your whole alliance throws its strength at a shared foe on a timed field, and everyone who rides shares the spoils.

The boss

Four original creatures rotate through the muster, one a week, in order: the Frostbound Colossus, the Rime Stalker, the Barrow Wraith and the Frost Matriarch.
Seven days to a muster. A fresh week opens a fresh boss and resets every member's score to zero.
The boss's total HP climbs a little every week, so a long-lived alliance's muster stays a real fight rather than a formality.

Dealing damage

Send an assault and it lands for roughly your own army's power, jittered a little each time so no two strikes feel identical. Every assault from every member of your banner lands on the SAME boss HP pool — a real, shared target the whole alliance watches fall together, not a private number only you can see.

The reward ladder

Rewards are paid by YOUR OWN cumulative damage this week, across five milestone tiers running from a few thousand damage up past 180,000 — resources at the lower tiers, gems stacking in at the top. The ladder pays out even in a week your banner falls short of felling the boss, and crossing a higher tier pays every tier you skipped on the way. Nothing carries over: the week resets the boss and every member's score together.

Winning it

Assault whenever you can spare the army. There is no form-up window and no ground to hold — every strike either lands now or it doesn't happen this week.
Chase your own tiers, not just the kill. The milestone ladder pays you directly; a week the boss survives is still a week you were paid for showing up.
Every member's damage counts toward the same pool. A quiet member who assaults just once still moves the shared HP bar — worth a reminder in the banner's chat.

It is the reliable weekly payday for an active banner, and a good reason to keep an army trained in peacetime. Pair it with the alliance guide.