TRoS for Icelandic Sagas?

[johnmarron]

As I drove in to work this morning past the fjord (we actually have one where I live in Maine), the early morning sun reflecting off the boats in the icy water, and the flight of a raven across the steep, snow and fir covered rocky slope put me in mind of Vikings and sagas.  I think TRoS is a natural match for a saga based game.  The sagas are rife with dramatic potential.  They’re full of conflicting loyalties, driving ambitions, fiery passions, clashes of faith, generations long blood feuds, and surprisingly exciting legal battles!   In short, they are up to their non-horned helmets in SAs.  If I ran such a game I’d probably go with a pretty straight historic/family saga based setting.  I think you could have an exciting and engaging game just based around feuding families in a small part of Iceland.
   If you wanted to fantasy it up, I think you’d need to rethink the powerful sorcery system currently in the game and shift it to a more subtle, perhaps rune-carving based system.  You could probably even keep the vagaries, but tone down the possible effects and tie everything into items.  Casting would require successful craft rolls, and botches would have negative effects (I recall one incident in which Egil Skallagrimson cures a kid who is suffering because some other runecarver  mis-cut a healing rune).  The game already has a northern European flavor, so the non-humans fit pretty well.  I’d also come up with some more gifts and flaws (or at least rename some, like bad wyrd for unlucky), like Berserker (ignore pain), Iron-Won’t-Bite (+TO vs metal weapons), Second Sighted (read someone’s wyrd and/or obscure prophetic visions), Troll Blooded (+ST and TO, -SOC), etc.
   Has anyone tried something like this, and if so, how did it go?

John

[Hereward The Wake]

They are a wonderfull source for RPing. I think it would work very well, if you have a group that are fairly familiar with the underlying concepts of honour, family ties etc that hold that society together. It could go fairly wrong if you had a group that went about it in the wrong way.

JW

[Valamir]

I believe John Kim has posted pretty extensively in some of the other forums about his use of the icelandic sagas...I think he used Role Master for them.  You could probably do some searches, and then hit him up with some questions.

[Salamander]

Good sources for inspiration and concept can be found in Njall's Saga and the Heimskringla if you can find them. There are a few others, but I can't remember them right off the top...

[Kaare Berg]

When you're at it, check out the Norwegian King Saga's by Snorre (icelandic writer), another great source of inspiration. I am playing with the idea myself.

As far as I can remember magic was called Seid, and was seen as unmanly. You might want to include some social stigmas around magic users.

Just 2 cents from a fjord far north

[johnmarron]

Thanks for the pointers, everyone.  I read John Kim's thread back when it was active.  I was mostly curious if anyone had done the work to tweak the more supernatural elements of the game to a nordic feel.  If I went with a straight family saga/historic game I could use TRoS "out of the box".  In any case, this is mostly just idle musing.  With a new baby in the house, my gaming is going to be pretty minimal for a while.

John

[Hugin]

There's a nice free rpg based on norse/saxon mythology called Wayfarer's song at:

http://mythogames.150m.com/folder_01/wayfarer_intro.htm

It has lots of great ideas about how to present a norse-flavoured game with specifically tailored background, minions, mores etc. I'm working on a TRoS campaign based loosely on a saxon-version of medieval Sweden but this is a big influence.

Definately worth a look.

Dave

To bring the dead to life is no great magic. Few are wholly dead: blow on a dead man's embers and a live flame will start.
--Graves

[Kaare Berg]

just wasted some more work hours on this here's a resource I found:

I haven't had time to check these out but if they deliver what promised then:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/

Should get your creative juices flowing.

[Salamander]

When you're at it, check out the Norwegian King Saga's by Snorre (icelandic writer), another great source of inspiration. I am playing with the idea myself.

That is the Heimskringla, compiled and edited by Snorre Sturlson, if I am not mistaken.

[Kaare Berg]

rigth you are!
And in the intrest of prompting my home-country's histroy I tracked down a version in english, free on the net for you all.

(Actually what I am looking for is someone to do all the work since I am incurably lazy.....) ;)

[Sigurth]

I'm probably going to try a Vinland campagin or a Kamerand campaign if I use Hârnworld and Ivinians v p-Earth and Scandinavians. As well as taking inspiration from John Kim's site (as indicated by Mr. Mazza above) I also think that here's a book I ordered that will definitely help.

Atlas of the Year 1000.

it's also at amazon.com but there are only 3 left!

believe it or not Chaosium is also distributing this book for use with Cthulu Dark Ages