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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7611474" data-attributes="member: 58172">[sblock="Mythological accuracy"]Note, this Paladin class archetype strives for mythological accuracy concerning the worldview of Norse aborigines, according to Old Norse texts and archeological assessments of the Viking Period during during 800 to 1100.The resulting D&D class option seeks to be useful for both Norse and Nonnorse regional settings. To translate these concepts into the art and mechanics of D&D necessarily incurs some distortions. Perhaps the main one here is how the Oath of the Ein-herjar conflates together several Norse concepts into a single identity.The magical features of this Ein-herjar class archetype mainly derive from the Ljóða-tal, a list of song effects that mindforces chanting can achieve. This kind of magic is called galdr ‘chanting’. Warriors do it for protective effects. Also texts elsewhere relate to some of the effects in this list. It is proper to call someone who knows this singing magic that the Ljóða-tal describes, a galdra-mannr, literally a ‘human of chantings’. But I reserve this name for a full caster psionic archetype for the Bard class. Note, the list of effects in the Ljóða-tal correlate somewhat to the D&D core Paladin with the Oath of Devotion.The name Ein-herjar is chosen somewhat improperly to emphasize the warrior aspects of galdr magic. Strictly, the Norse term ein-herjar only refers to the (dead) sacred ancestral warriors. Even after death, their minds persist and commingle in the sky with the nature beings there, namely alfar and æsir. These humans spend their days with the val-kyrjur, who are apparently alfar women. The alfar personify good fates, and these women themselves decreed the fate of a good death. Val-kyrja means ‘a chooser of the killed one’. It is a nickname for a specific kind of nornir who relates to a fateful death in combat. These alfar women are themselves warriors, and master the sacred ancestral magics of mindforces like humans do. Alfar generally master many kinds of magical traditions. The val-kyrjur host a daily feast for the fallen human warriors to eat as guests in a longhouse above in the sky among clouds. These humans are in some sense immigrants, who become æsir, being adopted into the clan of the æsir. Some of these val-kyrjur ally with the æsir jarl Óðinn, whose longhouse is called Val-hǫll, the ‘hall of the killed ones’. Other val-kyrjur ally with the vanir Freyja, who is herself an immigrant to the æsir. Rarely, the term ein-herjar means something else. For example, in Loka-senna, the thunder being Þórr is sarcastically called an ‘ein-heri’, the singular form of ein-herjar. In this context, the literal meaning of ein-herjar, ‘army of one’, applies to anyone who is courageous enough to fight single-handedly against an opponent or against an army.A fundamental concept in the Norse worldview is, all nature beings, including humans, learn and achieve the same kinds of magic in the same ways. An effect that one being does, an other being can learn to do.Form travel (ham-far) outofbody in a virtual ‘form’ (hamr) made out of mindforces (hugar) is a common concept in many Old Norse texts. The Ljóðatal alludes to it. Relating to galdr magic, warriors project outofbody in human forms to visit the æsir in a longhouse in the sky, to study galdr there. Relating to seiðr magic, the ‘mindforces’ of shamans ‘ride’ in the forms of animals. In Sturlunga Saga, an ominous sighting two suns in the sky accompanied by alfar riding on the land, assumes the alfar sunlight beings are projecting their mindforces to become either human-like riders or horse-like transports. In Vǫlundar-kviða, Vǫlundr is an alfar together friends who are alfar men and alfar women called val-kyrjur. All of them can shift their form into a white swan. The æsir Óðinn can project his mindforces in the forms of two ravens, whose names are ‘the thought’ and ‘the memory’. Many jǫtnar normally appear in the form of an animal. Some dvergar do too, such as Fafnir and Ótr.Norse warriors strive to emulate their sacred ancestors, including their magic, especially the galdr that protects during combat. These human warriors share a deep affinity with the alfar and the æsir, and the ein-herjar, all of them nature beings, the minds of the sky.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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