The last two posts of 2010 will be my favorite posts and your favorite posts. This isn’t a popular blog by most any standard, and most of you have started reading or subscribed in the last few months. I’ll point to my favorites and hopefully you’ll enjoy those as well.
Junkie Medusa is something I wrote when I was reading through my boxed set of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy RPG. This is the third part of the Rethinking Medusa series. Looking back at it now, I am even more determined to work her into an adventure.
My first series of posts on monsters, the Hydrae posts, remains a favorite. I will definitely make the Lernean Hydra and some of its former heads a powerful agent in a campaign world.
My first attempt at creating a setting involved mashing up the Norse Mythos with the Medieval Church. It’s still clumsy and needs detail, but I’m short on time to research and update it until late spring. Still, I used it as part of my background for running Death Frost Doom and it seemed to work pretty well. That setting is also a favorite.
How could you not pick this as your favorite?
My all-time favorite post to date remains the Create Familiar spell. With a face like that, it’s a shoo-in.
To continue the mashup of ancient Norse mythology and the medieval Christian church, let’s talk about turning the undead.
I just ran an adventure in a setting where the undead were unknown. As far as I know, this is consistent with Norse mythology in the real world.
In the setting, there are vampire stories, but they’re just stories. Then a cleric of the Aesir met some walking corpses. The player of course moved to turn the undead, but the character would be pointing his silver Yggdrasil at the zombies as a measure of desperation, commanding the souls to leave the bodies (“The power of Thor compels you!”). And the undead halted, however temporarily. A crude attempt that was effective at that moment when emotions were high.
The undead in this temple long before the characters were born, long before Thor built a temple to Odin. So there would be no existing tradition of repelling the undead. Where might the cleric turn to improve his results? I think it likely that the cleric and party, should we continue this as a campaign, need to consult a shaman, who would be more attuned to using spiritual powers to ward off threats that are older.
Many times religious traditions have absorbed older ideas and characters. Perhaps a shaman’s god would be considered an aspect of an existing saint or being in the established church. Perhaps this would become a wrathful version of a saint or demigod, much as wrathful demons were held by Buddhists in Tibet to be wrathful forms of bodhisattvas.
This of course might be seen as heresy by the established church, putting the cleric at odds with his order…
Nobles and merchants who have lived to a ripe old age, or who have fallen sick, or who are about to die for any reason that has nothing to do with battle have been known to hire headsmen. These solitary and despised figures attack and kill an old, sick or dying customer of means to ensure that they head to Valhalla and not Folkvangr (Freya’s realm) which in my gaming world is where the souls of non-warrior folk go after death.*
Headsmen typically don’t believe in any of the myths or teachings of the Church, or perhaps they see themselves as damned to live with Hel anyway. The Church has, since the time of Thor, held that killing the sick, helpless or unarmed is a grave sin, which leads to the dark underworld overseen by Hel. (My, what a wonderful divergence from the vikings of old!).
The Church of Aesir has eased off of that position over time and in fact now actually performs this last rite for a hefty donation, sending official Church Headsmen. While shunned for performing such a distasteful profession, these men make a very good living and are known for their discretion and ability to perform their duties with a minimum of pain inflicted and mess made.
Families rely on discretion as none of them would openly admit to hiring a headsman. When a old man’s pyre is lit and he lies there in full battle regalia, the family usually explains that he died in battle with an intruder, assassin or bandit. Everyone then understands exactly what happened and no one says a word.
Those who preach religious reform, who are not afraid to speak up, point to this as part of the degeneracy and hypocrisy of the Church.
Headsmen can typically be found in big cities, especially Nornland’s capital Olafstaad. Wherever nobles and merchants congregate, in other words.
*In the real world, the myth is she takes half the honorably killed warriors to her realm, leaving Odin the rest. Not only should you not confuse this stuff with the real world, but don’t confuse it with real myth, mmkay?
Let’s say that Thor, son of Odin, came to Earth about eight centuries ago and established a temple to Odin, preaching the love of the All-father to the savage tribes who worshiped various local deities. He was originally a bad-ass cleric for Odin, who took him up around level 14 or so.
Odin adopted Thor and set him on a high peak in Valhalla from which to watch over the members of the One-eye clan (his chosen). When the One-eye clan conquered a tribe, the local deity was absorbed in the pantheon and became a figure in the myths of Valhalla. Thor is second only to Odin in adulation and depiction in religious art. Several books of the Holy Eddas are attributed to Thor and he is seen as the human connection to the Allfather.
Loki is Odin’s other adopted son. Many stories portray him as a trickster and the one who initiated (or hazed) other gods and saints who entered Odin’s radiance. He is also the god of fallibility, confession, submission to punishment and redemption.
Loki the trickster is a merry figure of mischief and is the patron of bards and entertainers. Loki the fratricide is the god of deception and fallibility (he tricked Hodr into killing his brother Baldur). This aspect of Loki is said to punish those who kill their kin or guests. Loki the repentant is the god of confessing and taking one’s punishment (in this version, he found his way to Odin and confessed, and was this punished as is popularly depicted). As reward for his eons punishment for his sins, he will be allowed to fight to defend the lives of his children, even though he is fated to die in that battle and despite the fact that they are the enemies of the Aesir. Such is the mercy and wisdom the the Allfather.
Loki’s feasts are held mid-summer and consist of three days of drinking, tricks and outrageous behavior (relative to one’s community standards of course–in some villages there’s debauchery, in others, people don’t wear their hats or greet their elders). This is followed by three days of repentance for all one has done the previous year.
Loki’s children are Jörgunmandr, the Midgard Serpent, who is the satan figure in this church. He is part of an unholy trinity with Hel, demon queen of the underworld and Fenris, the wolf as his siblings/other parts. They lead the giants and demons against the gods. Their chief pleasure is bringing sadness to Odin and to Freya by ensnaring mortal’s souls and dragging them to Hel.
In the afterlife, souls will naturally go to one of two places: Those who fought and died bravely in battle join Odin in Valhalla. Those who are householders, craftsmen or warriors who do not die bravely or in battle join Freya in her realm, which is said to be a place where one experiences only the joys of their previous professions or roles in life and none of the sadness or pain.
Those who do not believe in the Allfather, or who carelessly allow themselves to be carried away by demons or turned into werewolves by the sons of Fenris will descend into Hel’s realm. There they will suffer the usual punishments ascribed to hell for all eternity (that is, until Ragnarok, when everything ends).
Freya is an elfin queen and has her own realm, where those who die peacefully spend the afterlife. She is a fertility goddess and is, in the tradition of the ancient Nornlanders, wife to many gods. Until about 600 After Thor, she was also Odin’s wife in the doctrine of the church. When King Alaf IV established monogamy as the law of the land, the Church revised its teachings and doctrines to claim that Frigya, the aspect of Freya that was Odin’s queen, was in fact a separate goddess named Frigg. Freya’s day was renamed to Frigg’s day and the new goddess was held up an an example of proper womanly virtue to Nornland women. Freya’s chapels were shuttered and her prayers banned for almost a century.
King Branden convinced the Great Father (head of the Church) to restore Freya’s place as the queen of the afterworld for householders in 786 A.T. Her status as an elfin goddess was used to justify the King’s designs on the elfish islands to the south.
While Frigg is revered by housewives and mothers, Freya is the patroness to women wishing to conceive, prostitutes, the terminally ill, farmers wishing for a good harvest and lovers.
Next time: The structure of the Church, a bit of its history and the various offices and roles of the cleric of the Aesir.
From the Management: Let me note something that should be obvious: I have not researched the eddas of the vikings, nor have I read a great deal on medieval religions. I am shamelessly borrowing this and that and mashing it up. I will be doing more research on these later, and certainly refining it if I ever use it for more than my own gaming sessions and blogging.
It was watching some recent documentaries on the dark ages and this video that lead me to a mashup of the Norse and medieval catholic church as background for the Labyrinth Lord-based one-shot. The following is almost verbatim from my intro text in the section for clerics:
The only sanctioned church in Nornland is The Church of the Aesir, known simply as “the Church.” Think of this church as similar to the medieval catholic church. The All-Father is the creator, his son Thor was created to protect and save man. Freya, Tyr and even Loki are like the saints. Giants and demons are evil and Jormungandr (the serpent) is the devil (aided by Fenris and Hel). Valhalla is for fighters, but there is a realm for good laypeople as well, overseen by Freya in her realm. Your holy symbol is a silver tree, Yggdrasil, with Odin hanging from it during his great ordeal.
The second most popular religion in Nornland is the outlawed and secretive Circle of All. The All is an energy field created by all living things, and is represented in its many faces by the many gods and spirits that mankind reveres. This religion comes from lands far south of Sudland, but is viewed by the church and persecuted by the king as a deception of the Serpent. Members of this faith are directed to use law or chaos as needed to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Those in the Circle have certain phrases and symbols known only to fellow initiates.
Clerics may choose to be a cleric of the Church or a cleric of the All posing as a cleric of the Church (or suggest something different before we play). Either way, clerics served as chaplains and healers in the war. They have chain mail armor provided by the church and a church-issued weapon +1. This may be any blunt weapon or a spear.
Option 1) Church Clerics
Because of your experience and close alignment with the Aesir, your healing spells do an extra +1 HP healing while in Nornland. You must be lawful in alignment to stay in favor of the All-father.
Option 2) Clerics of the All
Once per adventure (or week) you may re-use any one spell you have already cast for that day. You may use any weapon, including edged weapons, but you better have a good explanation if anyone asks. You are neutral in respect to law and chaos.
More tomorrow.
Update:
Title changed for greater accuracy plus a note.
From the Management: Let me note something that should be obvious: I have not researched the eddas of the vikings, nor have I read a great deal on medieval religions. I am shamelessly borrowing this and that and mashing it up. I will be doing more research on these later, and certainly refining it if I ever use it for more than my own gaming sessions and blogging.
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