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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9839784" data-attributes="member: 58172">Different cultures have different sensitivities. For Norse, appropriation is welcome. Also playfulness, fun and humor are normal. On the other hand, accurate representation is important. For example, dont portray vikings as-if Conan the Barbarian, because this is inaccurate and many people do find it disrespectful. If unsure about something, dont call it by the Norse name. For example, it is fine to have a loosely inspired Valkyrja-esque concept, but then call it a "Fatalist" rather than a Valkyrja.The Vanir are Norse, but correspond Saami and Finnish concepts. They especially relate to burial customs: Freyja is the main carer for those in graves, and a collector of half of those who die in combat. Freyr relates to the horse meat that the dead are buried with. Njörðr relates to the ship burials and ship-shaped burial stone markers: the sea brings pleasant warm climate to the near arctic.To represent the Norse concepts, the æsir and vanir, and alfar and dvergar, and jötnar, are natural features of the Material Plane. These natural influences project across the Ethereal Border. They arent human but sometimes take the form of a human as an avatar. The Ethereals observe the overlapped Material Plane, and the powerful ones can manifest physically into the Material Plane.Altho these nature beings are Ethereal, the corpses of the grave have both a negative aspect that Hel presides over, and a positive aspect that Freyja (with other æsir women) presides over. In other words, the underworld divides up regionally, where some of it is Shadowfell and some of it is Feywild.D&D level advancement works normally, and any nature being (æsir, alfar, etcetera, including humans) can be low level while certain individuals are high level, even epic.Avoid the English term "gods". Under Roman Empire influence, Germans worshiped them, but the remote Norse never did. The Norse term "goð" means an "invoked one". It is ok to ask an æsir or jötnar or vanir or dvergar or alfar or human ancestor for help, but it is the same as asking a neighbor for help.Seiðr is specifically mind magic: D&D telepathy, enchantment, domination, suggestion, phantasm, and by extension objectively real illusions. Subjective visualization and objective reality are a blurry boundary, and a "strong" mind can will reality into existence.Fate magic (divination, luck, bless, etcetera) is Spa.Warrior magic, called Ljóð "songs", is much like honorable Paladin protective magic. If a Bard can do it, it is probably Norse too.A Norse setting that takes place in the present or the future is a good idea, and helps avoid the problem of misrepresenting the past. For example, taking all the tropes from Norse sagas and eddas but remixing them in new ways that happen in the future, feels fine. There is no intention to represent the Norse during the Viking Period. The character might be a grandson of Þórr rather than him himself, so there is artistic freedom for how to characterize the grandson.</blockquote>

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