Against the Jotuns

[Thotas]

All the stuff about Sleipnier ... see, if I'd been a player, my interpretation would've gone a bit differently. As noted in the quote from wikipedia, the gallows was seen as a metaphoric horse for hanged men, as in dead ones. Likewise, Odin's hanging on the tree for nine days is a (ritualistic) death, a common part of shamanistic religions. Odin's connections to morbidity are extensive, and one of them is that Sleipnier also represents the funeral bier. That's where the eight legs come from -- two pall bearers at each end is four people, each with two legs is eight. So telling me I have to climb upon Terrible Odin's horse to get where I'm going would have me trying to figure out if I needed to actually die or if there was just some symbolic thing I could do ...

 

[RainOfSteel]

It struck me that the main antagonists (giants and drow) both draw a good deal of their inspiration from Norse Mythology. So I've decided to adapt the modules to 3.5, and tweak them to reflect a more Nordic flavor. [...]

That rocks!

If the characters descend into Niflheim by way of Yggdrasil, have them:

1 -- Meet the dragon, Nidhogg, at the base. Fight, flee, or sneak? What, it's only CR 20-30, or something like that.
2 -- See Hvergelmir. It's a good place to meet the Norns. It's also a good place to learn cryptic information or get final boons.
3 -- After passing those challenges, have them face crossing the Elivagar (eleven rivers). Splashing water from the rivers could, conceivably, form new giants when the drops hit the ground on the banks (if the rivers made Ymir, what can drops do?). Oh yes, the rivers are all poisonous, and the one that runs to Hel's gate, Gjoll, is freezing cold and has knives flowing through it. Undead fiendish advanced frost giants that can fire knife storms and are immune to edged weapons may live in the river. Huzzah! Good thing the PCs probably will be smart enough to avoid a swim.

Gah! The possibilities flow away in an endless cascade!

This is the best idea I have seen in a long time.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

How do you plan to handle the kuo-toa, if at all? Perhaps they are a degenerate caste of Alfheim residents, who worship an aquatic aspect of the Midgard Serpent ...

Funny you should mention that. There is an interesting parallel between Norse and Greek mythology probably steming from some ancient and forgotten Indo-European stories. One story relates how Kronos & Rhea wrestled with Ophion and Eurynome for the Throne of Heaven (instead of castrating Ouranos). When Kronos won, he tossed Ophion out of Heaven and into the River Ocean. Note that Ophion is Greek for serpent. Opion did not die and in some stories he becomes synonymous with Okeanos, encircling the world which sounds a lot like Jormundganðr the Miðgarð serpent. The merfolk of some Greek stories are called ophionides or children of Ophion.

So to me it is not at all a stretch to fill in the gaps and state that the Miðgarð serpent is in fact the fallen god the Greeks called Ophion. And that he is worshipped by merfolk and other sentient aquatic races and probably nagas as well. The Kuo-Toa can now be said to worship Ophion/Jormundganðr and waiting for Ragnarok.

In his house at sunken R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu Jormundganðr lies sleeping…



On a related note, check out this wikipedia entry for Bloop. Apparently, the US Navy discovered a sound in the South Pacific that cannot be explained. It fits the pattern of what an animal would make but no known animal makes such a sound. Interestingly enough, it is also the general location for sunken R’lyeh per HPL…!

 

[RainOfSteel]

On a related note, check out this wikipedia entry for Bloop. Apparently, the US Navy discovered a sound in the South Pacific that cannot be explained. It fits the pattern of what an animal would make but no known animal makes such a sound. Interestingly enough, it is also the general location for sunken R’lyeh per HPL…!

Now that is pretty interesting. Too bad they didn't track down the sound when they had the chance.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Svartalfar (lit. black elves) and drow were originally the same creatures; drow is the celtic name for svartalfar (aka dokkalfar; which means "dark elves"). They were much shorter than humans, though; they looked more like skinny dwarves with black skin and hair.

Odin sacrificed his eye to Mimir for a drink from the well of knowledge (located on Jotunheim, btw, not Midgard). Later he sacrificed himself to learn the magic of the runes. He ran his spear (Gungnir) through his chest into Yggdrasil. He hang impaled on Gungnir for 9 days, before the healing power of Yggdrasil (aka the tree of life) brought him back to life. Mimir had nothing to do with this episode though.

Wikipedia isn't very reliable when it comes to Viking mythology, btw. The English pages in particular are full of errors; the Norwegian and Danish pages are better, but they too have more than their share of mistakes. :\

Glad to see so much Viking love among the RPG crowd! I must hurry up and complete the last few pages of Vikings D20, I see. Nearly done now...

 

[Jolly Giant]

If the characters descend into Niflheim by way of Yggdrasil...

There is but one known route into Niflheim, and that is described in great detail by Snorre. It is the route that Hermod followed when he rode from Asgard to Helheim, to ask Hel to give back Balder.

He starts by going in to a cave under the Gnipahellir (a protruding cliff high on a mountain in Jotunheim). He sneaks past Garm, the fiendish hound that is chained in the cave to guard it. From the cave he follows a tunnel down to Niflheim, then the Hel road through Niflehim to Helheim (the second layer of Niflheim). To get from one level to the next, he must cross the Gjallarbru ("Resounding Bridge"). When a living creature crosses the bridge, even the lightest footsteps sound like thunderclaps, alerting all the dragons and undead of both levels are made aware ot its presence. There's also a giant maiden, Mòdgud, guarding the bridge. The final obstacle is getting past the gates of Hel, into her personal domain.

Pretty cool, eh?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

On a related note, check out this wikipedia entry for Bloop. Apparently, the US Navy discovered a sound in the South Pacific that cannot be explained. It fits the pattern of what an animal would make but no known animal makes such a sound. Interestingly enough, it is also the general location for sunken R’lyeh per HPL…!

In his hosue at R'lyeh, dread C'thulu sleeps farting ...


Jolly Giant's description of the entry to Nilfheim ought to square well with passages beyond the Vault of the Svartalfs. Svartalfheim. Whatever.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Jolly Giant's description of the entry to Nilfheim ought to square well with passages beyond the Vault of the Svartalfs. Svartalfheim. Whatever.

It's not my description, its Snorres! I just trimmed it down a little...

 

[arscott]

There is but one known route into Niflheim, and that is described in great detail by Snorre. It is the route that Hermod followed when he rode from Asgard to Helheim, to ask Hel to give back Balder.

He starts by going in to a cave under the Gnipahellir (a protruding cliff high on a mountain in Jotunheim). He sneaks past Garm, the fiendish hound that is chained in the cave to guard it. From the cave he follows a tunnel down to Niflheim, then the Hel road through Niflehim to Helheim (the second layer of Niflheim). To get from one level to the next, he must cross the Gjallarbru ("Resounding Bridge"). When a living creature crosses the bridge, even the lightest footsteps sound like thunderclaps, alerting all the dragons and undead of both levels are made aware ot its presence. There's also a giant maiden, Mòdgud, guarding the bridge. The final obstacle is getting past the gates of Hel, into her personal domain.

Pretty cool, eh?

Okay. That is just plain awesome. Is that from the Prose Edda?


I'd like to give the characters a chance to make a bit of trouble in Sterich (or its norse-sounding equivalent) before they head up the mountain.

Here's my plan: A king calls for help when a Jotun attacks his city. After the call goes out, his lands suffer further attacks, and his son dies battling the giant. He becomes grief-stricken, and his nephew takes over day-to-day rulership of the kingdom.

The nephew is a bit of a jerk and becomes drunk on authority. He's also a poor warrior and poor strategist and has little hope of defeating the giants. When the PCs arrive, he sees them as a reminder of his weaknesses and a threat to his authority. So he treats them rudely but sets himself up to take credit for their success, much as Lashton does in the original mod.

Hmm... While they have a variety of options for dealing with the nephew, D&D parties are known for being pretty direct. So the next question is, how should I set weregilds?

 

[Jolly Giant]

Okay. That is just plain awesome. Is that from the Prose Edda?

Yup. In the sequence concerning the death of Balder. (As I mentioned, Hermod is travelling to Helheim to ask Hel to return Balder.)