Brothers shall strive and slaughter each other;

Own sisters’ children shall sin together;

Ill days among men, many a whoredom:

An axe-age, a sword-age, shields shall be cloven;

A wind-age, a wolf-age, ere the world totters.

The world of Norse mythology is a strange world. Asgard, the home of the gods, is unlike any other heaven men have dreamed of. No radiancy of joy is in it, no assurance of bliss. It is a grave and solemn place, over which hangs the threat of an inevitable doom. The gods know that a day will come when they will be destroyed. Sometime they will meet their enemies and go down beneath them to defeat and death. Asgard will fall in ruins. The cause the forces of good are fighting to defend against the forces of evil is hopeless. Nevertheless, the gods will fight for it to the end*.

Welcome to the Ancient World of the Norse! Does the invitation conjure up ice cold images of battle-scarred, chain mail-clad Viking warriors, great axes in hand, piloting their dragon long ships over storming seas willing to die for their Aesir gods? Good. For this campaign grounds itself in old school 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons while combining a life-long influence of classic Viking iconography, current research and history of the Norse culture, and its greatest influence, the timeless sagas and eddas, to forge a rich, textured, and action heavy world of adventure. The characters live and die step-by-step on the edge of Ragnarok. The concept of the players taking on the roles of kinsmen fosters images of party cohesion, unity and the promise of success in these days of little time. In re-imagining the Giant Series by Gary Gygax in the setting of Norse Magic, players then partake in making themselves part of the great mythic and heroic poems of the mighty northmen. But that is just the beginning…

The game is simple. Player characters find themselves the only survivors of a bloody assault upon their homeland by an army of giants from Jotunheim. Gathered together in grief and rage their powerful god and creator, Odhinn, the “all father,” charges them to pursue the giants to the bowels of Muspell if must be and avenge their fallen kinsmen or die. The ravens Hugin and Munin appear over the bloody battlefield near the mangled shore, fly over the lapping waves and out across the sea. The surviving Norsemen climb aboard the last Viking ship and follow…

May the Gods of Asgard guide your steps. May Thorr’s hammer protect you. May Freyja give you wisdom and magical power, and may Freyr grant you prosperity. Valhall awaits!

It all begins here: Session One.

Note: paragraph one quoted from Edith Hamilton’s Norse Mythology introduction.