Ideas for a viking campaign needed

[Rackhir]

That's ok, Norway's not a member!

Ah okay, plunder away then. I understand France is especially ripe for ravaging, pillaging and taking tourist photos at this time of year. I knew I should have checked that. Well, sorry about the hijack in any case.

One of my favorite adventures from my early D&D days was where our character's village came under attack by ship borne raiders. We had to organize the defense of the village, fight through skirmishes, finally beat their main force and then just as they were defeated, a local orc tribe attacked and we wound up forted up in a small monistary. Surrounded by orcs and desperately trying to keep them from overwhelming us. You probably don't want to do this until they have accumulated some power, at least 3rd level, since they will need a fair amount of combat skill and enough HP to have some endurance in combat. We did also try following the raiders back to where they came from.

The adventure path module Forge of Fury was one of the best them in my opinion. It should be able to be reworked to be more grim and gritty and fit in with your campaign better. The dwarven forge seems particularly appropriate and the lure of the weapons from there should prove a powerful pull.

There was a viking movie in which one of the characters had a "magic" stone (ie. a loadstone - read primitive compass) that enabled him to navigate in foggy and bad weather. Having something like that stolen might make for a good first adventure and could later tie into the attack on the village.

 

[David Howery]

Hmm... I recall running a one-shot Viking adventure... I sent the PCs to Vinland (although it was before Leif's time, so no colonies yet)... IIRC, the PCs were chasing down an outlaw who did something bad to the PCs' king, basically a blood vengeance thing... they ended up on Long Island, battling Skraelings there (the outlaw had taken up with a tribe of them) and the verbeeg chief who led them....

 

[replicant2]

Inspirational viking reading

Someone earlier in this thread mentioned Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga as reading material and I'll second that heartily, adding War of the Gods and The Broken Sword, also by Anderson.

All three books are lean (260, 300, and 200 pages, respectively), bloodthirsty, and feature the nordic elements of tragic fate, treachery, christianity vs. paganism, revenge, giants and trolls. Anderson is awesome and totally underrated as a fantasy author. I'd compare his powerful style to a Martin or a Howard.

Also, The 13th Warrior has been mentioned repeatedly as a film to watch. While it's not bad, in my opinion it pales beside the novel on which it's based, Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead. It's a great look at viking culture featuring orgies, death duels, human sacrifice, and the warrior's code. Not to mention some great quotes:

"Praise not the day until evening has come; a woman until she is burnt; a sword until it is tried; a maiden until she is married; ice until it has been crossed; beer until it has been drunk."

"The deeds of dead men are sung, and also the deeds of heroes who live, but never are sung the deeds of ordinary men."

Try also Harry Harrison's The Hammer and the Cross. It's not as well-written as Anderson's or Crichton's stuff but it is positively savage, faithfully and barbarically describing the viking systems of revenge and justice. Like Anderson it describes the clash of the "hammer" -- the pagan faith in Thor, Odin, and the Norse pantheon -- vs. the "cross" of christianity.

 

[Desdichado]

Ah okay, plunder away then. I understand France is especially ripe for ravaging, pillaging and taking tourist photos at this time of year.

Yeah, but it's France. Aren't they always?

 

[Jolly Giant]

Someone earlier in this thread mentioned Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga as reading material and I'll second that heartily, adding War of the Gods and The Broken Sword, also by Anderson.

Try also Harry Harrison's The Hammer and the Cross.

I've heard praise of Mr Anderson's books before, but havn't been able to get my hands ony of them. I really liked Harrison's Hammer & Cross trilogy, though, so much I read them twice in fact. And you say Anderson's are better? Gotta get me some of those!

Actually I was thinking of using the theme from the Hammer & Cross series as a long term story arc. Very brief synopsis: Vikings plunder English monastery and find ancient roman "blueprints" for various war-machines. The vikings, who have the finest steel in the world at that time, realize they can build these machines in better and more powerful versions than the romans ever could. The norsemen get more dangerous than ever and start conquering Europe. The pope gets nervous as his allies fall before the Norse and musters all remaining allies to an all-out against the vikings.

 

[Frost]

As mentioned above (although, no one seemed to comment) Frost & Fur is a d20 book with tons of Norse material (feats, classes, rune magic, etc.). I recommend picking it up at Overstock.com (40% off!). It's a sweet book and although I do not own Frostburn, I've heard its more helpful in a "realistic" Norse setting than Frostburn.

Also, read "Eaters of the Dead".. the book that the 13trh Warrior is based on. It's an excellent read, better than the movie. Basically, it's a retelling of Beowulf from an outsider's (i.e. objective) view point.

 

[Eremite]

I've been tossing up ideas for a Norse-like campaign based with this underlying premise: Ragnarok has come but what was prophesied does not happen and the world breaks. I was thinking that Loki made a deal with Utter Chaos/Far Realm/the Galchutt of Chaositech which caused the prophecy of Ragnarok to unravel. Odin is now missing and the world is adrift on some great primordial sea. I also inspired by the River of Worlds mentioned in either (or both) FFG's Portals & Planes or MotP.

 

[Jolly Giant]

As mentioned above (although, no one seemed to comment) Frost & Fur is a d20 book with tons of Norse material

There's definitely stuff in Frostburn that I'll be using, as I mentioned above.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I'm currently mulling over the idea of starting the campaign with the war between Avaldsnes and Sevland. Let me go over some bits of local history (taken from Snorre):

These "kingdoms", and two others as well, were all located on the same island; neither of them were bigger than a few miles across. King Augvald of Avaldsnes is launching an invasion against Sevland. It's the last in a series of revenges and counter-revenges in a feud that started with disappearance of one sheep...

King Augvald had no sons, but he had 4 daughters who were all trained warriors and served as his personal bodyguard ("shield-maidens" they were called). He also had a cow (yes, a live cow!) that he believed to have magical properties and that he brought with him everywere, even at sea or on to the battlefield. Unfortunately for Augvald the King of Sevland knew how important the cow was to him and had instructed his best warriors to not bother with the enemies; go for the cow!

So the cow is killed, pierced by several spears, at the start of the battle. Augvald sees this and is convinced that now all is lost. He runs from the battlefield, down to the rocks by the sea and throws himself into the water. He's in full armor, so he sinks like a stone and drowns. His daughters, the shield-maidens, are so loyal to their father (or just don't want to serve as wenches under the King of Sevland) they follow their father to the death; jumping into the sea and drowning by his side.

The battle is over, almost before it has begun. There is no King of Avaldsnes anymore and no heir to the throne. Some of Augvalds men hurry back to Avaldsnes to serve and protect their Queen, others desert and join up with the Sevland forces.

The King of Sevland (whos name eludes me at the moment) launches an immediate invasion against Avaldsnes to revenge Augvalds invasion attempt. It's an easy victory, since a good portion of the Avaldsnes army is now on his side.

He doesn't get to reign for very long, though. A certain Harald the Fair-haired (see earlier post) is bent on ruling all of Norway and he starts with Avaldsnes, considering that to be the most strategically import place in Norway. Years later, when he has fulfilled his quest of conquering and won his girl, King Harald settles down at Augvalds old place at Avaldsnes. (End of history lesson )


I think this is very cool bit of local history that I'd love to work into the early parts of my campaign. I'm not really sure where to place the PCs, though... :\ Avaldsnes? Sevland? Diplomats from a third King come to try and calm the two hotheads down? Free agents caught up in the events somehow?

Anybody have good ideas about how to make this work? Other, completely different, ideas still welcome too of course!

 

[Jolly Giant]

Does nobody have any ideas/comments re. King Augvalds saga? I think the story is cool, but I'm not sure if it's suited for a campaign. What will be the PCs part in these goings on? I don't want to leave them as just spectators to what the NPCs are doing. Anyone have an idea about how the story could be used?

One option could be to let the PCs be warriors in Augvalds army who are away on a raid while all this is going on and comes home to find a new king has taken his place. But where do I go from there?