This is information on playing in a historically–based Medieval Scandinavian RPG that should help inform players on making characters.

Common Knowledge of the World

• Life is hard. You live in the furthest reaches of the North, and the cold and snow create many difficult aspects of life.
• Magic is real but is unseen. Magic makes up the fabric of the world, but few have ever seen explicit workings of it. Words and runic writing is intimately conneted to the practice.
• Many creatures stalk the night. Trolls, elves, and other land spirits exist, but avoid humans if they can avoid it.
• Foreigners bring strange things. Their religion, their magics, their tales, are all strange and unknowable.

Creating a Character

You might be inspired by one of the classic archetypes of this culture: berserker raiders, skalds, or seers. Or you may choose to be a free man, a karl, who by choice or circumstance has ventured from home.

Create an evocative name for your character. You may choose a name of the format “[Name] The [Descriptor].” You then get any specific traits for your name. If you don’t have any ideas, roll on Cairn tables for a name and a virtue.

You may take any gear that makes sense for your character, and as allowed by the referee. You can probably hold 4 non-worn items.

You start with 4 hits, add more depending on your traits or gear (e.g. armor).

Things You Could Do

As a player in a setting like this, you might:

• explore the lair of some foul beast
• explore ruins left by past raids
• seek out a wizard to perform divination magic.