Runes & Ragnarök

Ragnarök has fallen and the Twilight of the Gods nears when all will end, as the Norns have foretold from the beginning. The celestial wolves, Skoll and Hati, have finally chased down the Sun and the Moon, and in devouring them plunged Midgard into a time when there is little difference between day and night. The howl of Garm, Hel’s hound, has been heard all across the realms of Yggdrasil, and Fimbulwinter has fallen on Midgard, blanketing all of the known lands in ice and snow so that no man can sow seed or raise crops, and man has been set against man, family against family, karl against karl, kingdom against kingdom, as food and resources grow scare and they are forced to fight to survive. Where the Vikings once raided foreigners for gold and other plunder, and were greatly feared across all of Midgard, now they raid each other. It is the Sword Age, the second act of Ragnarök, the Wind Age when Surt, the Jotun Keeper of Fire, will lead his fiery host across Bifrost Bridge lay siege to Asgard is yet to come. Beyond that lies the Sword Age, when the final battle will be joined between the gods—or Aesir—and the Jotun and Surt will split the sky with a sword brighter than the sun and so set Yggdrasil ablaze with divine fire. After that, who knows? As the gods and the Jotun prepare for battle, the people of Midgard are faced by another threat—the crusaders of the White Christ ride from the south to drive out all Aesir and Jotun, and convert at the point of the sword. Yet even in this time of great stress and desperation, as the gods prepare for war against the Jotun, as in tales and sagas told of old, there is the need for heroes, for mighty warriors, clever skalds, and wily witches, to stand against the chaos of now and the chaos to come. Some will fall in the fight, some will return, and many will take inspiration from those who have fallen before them! Will they change destiny or will they embrace the fate of Midgard and the other realms of Yggdrasil as was foretold?

This is the set-up for Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, a roleplaying inspired not only by Norse myths and sagas, but by the Norse runes too. Published by Pendelhaven, Inc., this is a radically immersive roleplaying game that presents its end of days in swathes of swallowing black, blanketing white, and fiery orange and engages the players and their heroes through thematically appropriate, but challenging mechanics. Make no mistake, there is a steep learning curve to Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, both in terms of learning to play and teaching to play. This is because Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a diceless roleplaying game, instead using the Norse runes or Futhark, as a gaming mechanic. Therein lies one of the first issues with Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök—and that is the degree of buy-in upon everyone’s part. Every player requires his own set of Runes, tokens marked with the Futhark, plus a bag from which they can be dawn. These Runes can be cardboard, but there are more expensive options, including a set of steel Futhark! A print and play option is readily available, but they are not as effective and lack the impact of drawing something physical and uncertain from a bag. In addition, playmats are required for various aspects of the game’s play, and admittedly, all of this combined, especially with the pulling of the Runes from the bag gives Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök a very physical feel at the table.

A Player Character in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a Dweller, an inhabitant of Midgard, whereas the NPC inhabitants are called Denizens. He has three types of Runes—Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. They range in value for a Dweller between one and six, one being weak in that area, whilst six represents the peak of human potential. Beyond that and the Viking is approaching the gods in terms of his abilities. The Runes are colour coded to the three types of Ayetts of the Futhark. Red Ayett for Physical, blue Ayett for Mental, and green Ayett for Spiritual. There are a total of twenty-four Runes, eight per Ayett, plus an extra one, Void, which represents the spaces between the branches of Yggdrasil, and also a Viking’s soul. A Dweller’s life force is represented by Essence, which is also the number of Runes he knows. Destiny is the Dweller’s ability to affect the world around him, represented by the number of Runes his player can draw when resolving an action. The actual drawing process is known as the Wyrd, meaning ‘to reveal your destiny’. In addition, a Dweller knows a number of active powers, passive powers, and skills equal to his Essence for each. Thus, if he has an Essence of six, he knows six active powers, six passive powers, and six skills. These are mapped or bound onto the Runes.

To create a Dweller, a player spends points on Essence and Destiny based on the Level that the Norn—as the Game Master is known in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök—with Destiny costing more than Essence. It is also possible spend the points of Level on upgrades such as ‘Troll-Blood (Aspect)’ or ‘Legend/Infamy’, but these require the character to have Dwellers in the heavens, that is, previous characters having died and gone on valiantly to fight in the afterlife. So, they are not available necessarily until a player has lost one or more characters in heroic circumstances. When they are available, they grant access to certain powers and skills. The player then performs a Wyrd, drawing Runes from his bag equal to the decided upon Essence. A player can also draw for his character’s personality, motivation and ambitions, social standing—which includes net worth and literacy, social connections, and name. These are all optional, but do add flavour to a campaign.

Then the player choses an archetype. Five of these are given in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök and each comes with three specialisations. The three archetypes are the Galdr, who wields rune magic; Maidens of Ratatosk are mischief-makers who seek adventure; Seithkona are witches who inflict spiritual damage; Skalds have been blessed with the Mead of Poetry; and Ulfhednar are warriors who fight like wolfpacks. Each of these has three specialisations. For example, the Maidens of Ratatosk have the Death Dancer, who inspires her allies and frustrates her foes with a flawless mix of death and grace; the Scorn Dominatrix, a dark flower in a bed of weeds capable of distracting her opponents; and the Aggravatrix whose insults and taunts drive her opponents into a rage! In general, the female Archetypes are more interesting than the male or the shared Archetypes, and another issue is that five is not enough! Fortunately, supplements such as Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök- Denizens of the North and Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök- Lords of the Ash.

Each Archetype has not one, but three seven-by-seven boards. There is a board each for each Archetype’s Active Powers, Passive Powers, and Skills. There are some base options that Dweller of the Archetype and Specialisation should always have, tied to his Void, and after that, whenever a Dweller gains a Level and higher Essence, he can select other connected options from the board, as well as adding more Runes to his bag to be drawn for the Wyrd. The very outer edges of each board only became available, like the Upgrades when one or more of a player’s Dwellers have died.

Name: Biflindi
Level: 20
Essence: 12
Destiny: 4
Physical: 4
Mental: 3
Spiritual: 5

Archetype: Skald
Specialisation: Poet
Active Powers: Night of the Long Knives (Spell Song) (Void), Melody of Discord, Muspeli Nightmares, Meadows of a Vanagard, Analytical Power Stance, Evasive Manoeuvre, Lunging Attack, Versatile Combat Manoeuvre, Backstab, Power Attack, Apples of Idun, Arcane Shield, Devour Thought
Passive Powers: Suave Singers (Void), Warrior of Song, Carried by Song, Stealthy Striker, Tactician, Fleet-Footed, Insight, Mob Mentality, Leaping Striker, Nimble, Agility, Tactical Advantage, Combat Awareness
Skills: Survival Urban (Void), Sense Motive, Read and Write, Drinking/Wenching, Verbal Manipulation, Omens/Portents, Lore: Personas, Etiquette, Lore: Locales, Perform, Riding, Perception, Lore: Arcana, Feather Fingers

Personality: Cynic
Motivation and Ambitions: Secrecy
Social Standing: Undertaker
Social Connections: Town Guard

Mechanically, under the Runic Game System of Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, when a Dweller wants to undertake an action or perform a skill, his player performs a Wyrd equal to his Destiny. The aim is to draw enough Runes of the right Ayett to successfully perform the action or skill. A player can also morph two Runes of another Ayett into the right one. Each successfully drawn Rune reduces the difficulty of a task, ranging from one for Trivial to five for Unlikely. If it is reduced to zero, the Dweller has been successful, but if the difficulty has been reduced to one or two, it is possible to achieve a marginal or imperfect success. The difficulty is also reduced by the skill level possessed by the Dweller. That sounds simple enough, but a player’s Runes are tracked back and forth across a play mat, whether they are in-play or in-hand, the latter being held to activate Active Powers and thus shift them to the appropriate spaces on the Play Mat. Combat and spellcasting use the same mechanics, plus, in order to use Active Powers, a player will be chaining Runes in order to activate and maintain them, and this requires more knowledge of the Runes and the mapping out of the Rune Chain on a hex map. All of which, when combined with the Play Mat, the boards for the Active Powers, Passive Powers, and Skills, and so on, makes for a very busy table and a lot for each player to keep track of. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök works very hard to teach the rules and show each of these aspects of the game work, but it is a lot to take in and grasp.

For the Norn, there is a great bestiary of Denizens and Thanes. These include some very familiar to the genre and the culture, including the Crusader, familiars such as cats and ravens, polar bear, trolls, and winter rusalki. They are joined by the less familiar, like the Haugbui, cursed undead bound to remain in the land of the living or less familiar versions of the familiar, like Kobolds who wield illusions, telekinesis, and shape changing. Others, like the Mugger and the Zealot, represent Denizens forced to desperation by the changed circumstances of Midgard. Besides a handful of magical items, there is a treasure generator, and also ‘The Saga’, intended as an introductory scenario. It is based on the 13th-century story, ‘Egil’s Saga’. It gives some guidance to Dweller creation and is designed to be played by Ninth Level Dwellers. It is set on the islands of Atloy and Saudoy, to which the owner, Bard, invites King Erik Bloodaxe to a ceremony that will honour Erik’s father, the former king, and also the Vaettir, the spirit native to the island. The Dwellers are forced by a storm to stay on the island as the ceremony takes place and get to feast and participate. Unfortunately, the festivities take a bad turn when the host is killed and the King orders the murderer found. This is an excellent scenario, nicely detailed and nuanced, with scope for the Dwellers to side with the king or even with the culprit if he is found. There is the chance for the Dwellers to prove themselves worthy heroes in the eyes of the king as well and they will probably come away well rewarded. Lastly, Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök includes all of the various Play Mats and play aids that the Norn and the players will need to play the roleplaying game.

Physically, Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a fantastic looking roleplaying game. The artwork is superb, echoing a style that British readers will recognise as similar to the classic children’s animated series, Noggin the Nog, but full of mythic power and energy. The writing could be clearer, but the book does try.

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a fantastically thematic roleplaying, bringing to life the heroics of the great Norse sagas at the Twilight of the Gods. That theme shows in the use of the Runes throughout as the mechanic and in the very physicality of the Wyrd, the drawing of the Runes and placing then to power abilities and so be mighty heroes of the age. Yet both are an impediment to play. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is not a roleplaying game that can be simply picked up and played. It has to be learned and it has to be taught. That takes commitment. It also has to be supported physically. That too, takes commitment. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is the Norse-est of Norse roleplaying games, a game that will deliver a Viking roleplaying experience like no other, but the commitment required means it is no mere casual game.