This looks like a good training resource for would-be Vikings.
This looks like a good training resource for would-be Vikings. It appears to be written as a how-to and includes some nice pictures of treasure hordes and other set decorations for your Sagas story.
Reminded of this link, thanks to Bret Gillan.
Reminded of this link, thanks to Bret Gillan.
I got Giulianna Lamanna reading Njáls Saga as we were waiting for the PDF to come out.
I got Giulianna Lamanna reading Njáls Saga as we were waiting for the PDF to come out. She’s about half-way through it now, and totally wants to play a lawyer like Njáll, and eventually become Lawspeaker. I think she probably wants to play a woman, too. Would that make her quest harder? What sort of opposition do you think she’d realistically face?
The secret to a happy home:
The secret to a happy home:
“[the latrine room] at Stöng seems to be an enormously large structure for its purpose. It appears large enough to have permitted every member of the Stöng household to have relieved themselves simultaneously.” – William R. Short, Icelanders in the Viking Age
True story:
True story:
Since the mid-1800s my Icelandic friend’s family has owned Fjaðrárgljúfur (see link for photos), rich farm land and a canyon in southern Iceland (right at the very bottom center of this community’s image, in fact.) Part of Thor II was filmed there. I joked that I hoped his ancestors fought a Norse God for the land, and instead he told me this story about how they actually got it. I retell it with permission.
—
“There is a dark family secret that was kept so well hidden for so long that it was actually forgotten. My great-grandfather was probably the last one to know all the details. But we know the aftermath involved a ghost. The ghost of my great-great-(great?)-aunt, to be more specific.
“The land was originally owned by a large family that was wiped out in The Mist Hardships in the 1700s. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B3%C3%B0uhar%C3%B0indin) 80% of Iceland’s livestock and about a fifth of its people died in the Mist Hardships, and this farmer and his family was included. After which there were many claims to it, until in the mid-1800s a rich and important man fell in love with it and bought it.
“He intended to retire there in his old age, but since his important rich guy things kept him away until then, he leased it out to a farmer. My great-great-great-aunt went to work at the new farm as a housekeeper. And then some horrible things happened. We don’t know what, but the farmer was kicked out before he drunk himself to death, and the rich guy lost his appetite for the land.
“My great-great-great-aunt did not want to leave, though. At all. She just wanted to sit and look at the view. All day, always. So my young great-great-grandfather bought the land and took over. He became a rich and important man off the land.
“My great-great-great-aunt lived there until her old age. Always sad. Always looking at the view. Her ghost then kept up the practice.
“My family had a long standing feud with one of our neighbors. After my grandfather died, we realized nobody knew exactly why. Tight lipped men, the men in our our family.”
—
I thought you’d find this interesting.
– Kevin
I played the goði in one of the one-shots Jason Morningstar ran at Origins, Arnar Firebeard.
I played the goði in one of the one-shots Jason Morningstar ran at Origins, Arnar Firebeard. I imagined him as the Stringer Bell of the Icelandic Commonwealth: a man capable of terrible violence, trying to make it all just business. My family kept wanting to leap to treachery, deceit, and betrayal, but I cautioned them to keep those as back-up plans when all else failed. Well, when I walked into my daughter’s home to find my adopted son over the dead body of the son I was about to marry to a rival goði’s daughter, that’s about when all else failed. I came up with a plan to save my bacon with lies and treachery, which immediately blew up in my face.
It was a great game. Getting the PDF when I got home, I saw some of the changes between the version Jason had to run, and the final version. In particular, I keep thinking about how differently things might have gone for Arnar if considering an uneasy situation had been a move available to him. I almost certainly would have used that when I walked in on that scene, rather than going straight to the treachery that cost me everything. I probably would have asked “What is the most I can make out of this situation?” and “What is a honourable way out?”
It was a great game; I’m just reflecting on how these small changes could have had a really big impact on how it unfolded.
I’m running into some trouble just sharing Jason Morningstar’s post about how to run a one-shot, so I’m going to try…
I’m running into some trouble just sharing Jason Morningstar‘s post about how to run a one-shot, so I’m going to try good ol’ copy-and-pasting. Everything below is from Jason Morningstar, not me.
I ran Sagas of the Icelanders (which probably needs its own community here) three times at Origins, and each time it went well.
My advice for convention one-shots:
* Start with a pre-defined relationship map. Be flexible, but keep it all in and around a single family with a Goði on top.
* Leave out the Man, Woman and Monster. Consider leaving out the Child and Thrall. These are all excellent playbooks but favor long-term or more passive play.
* Spend a minute – literally one minute – explaining the time and place, let them review their moves, and answer questions the moves prompt about Iceland in 900AD. Provide as much context and cultural advice as people want in play, but enthusiastically roll with stuff that comes up in play that is “incorrect”.
* Be easy about letting people switch moves as the fiction develops – if they picked one that won’t see use, just change it.
* The relationships and bonds they choose are what the session is about. Build a front centered on a big event that introduces new people. Make these new people a problem. I used a wedding in each of the three sessions I ran and that was perfect.
Here’s the relationship map and handout I used, which worked well. The players chose a playbook and placed themselves on the r-map (some roles, like Goði, don’t get a choice where to fit in). A wedding is implied, as is some malfeasance.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3441990/one-shot_handout_v3.pdf
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3441990/one-shot_handout_v3.pdf