Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok - Core Rulebook

by Andrew Valkauskas

King Harald Fairhair, the great Jarl who unified Midgard's petty kingdoms, father to many high and low born children, has died with no successor. On the evening of his death a dreadful omen appeared in the skies above: two celestial wolves, maws outstretched swallowed the sun and moon! Three years later, after an endless and relentless dark winter, heroes rise to forge their legacies. The great realm of Midgard has splintered into fragments. Jarls with ambitions for the crown have sundered the landscape. Crusaders from the south have invaded the Northlands in search of what caused this terrifying Fimbulwinter. Unearthly forces, guided by the gods and the giants have penetrated Midgard with purpose and ambition. Enter the fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged! Denizens of the North is the first full sized lore book for the Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok universe. This book works in conjunction with the Core Rulebook to add valuable details to your adventuring world. Denizens of the North contains: - Legendary and infamous denizens - Fearsome new monsters - Important and majestic locales - Wondrous magic artifacts - 6 new playable archetypes - A host of new powers and skills - A crafting system for magical items - Mechanics that allow players to found and run a town or outpost - Rules for running exciting naval battles - An adventure suitable for 2 to 6 players

Genres: Role Playing Games

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2013

Reviews

[Marcus Morrisey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art and layout are phenomenal, with full colour pages throughout and many multi-page spreads. The theme is in keeping with the Norse elements and never interferes with the readability of the text. Although I purchased and read the PDF, I handled the hardcover book and the binding was of high quality as was the paper. The author clearly demonstrates a thorough understanding of Norse mythology and writes with a direct and clear prose style, perhaps too much so when summarizing some of the epic sagas, they come off sounding a little dry in places. Nonetheless, this readable style lends itself well to the rules explanations and examples. The system is unique and fun with the primary mechanic being the random drawing of rune stones, which combine and recombine in various permutations to create many possible power chains. Fans of tactical miniature games like 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons will be right at home with this crunchy and satisfying system, but will be playing in far less time using a set of rules that is quick and intuitive once mastered. I can imagine a great deal of time being spent on character optimization, if that's your bag. Ultimately the book earned my 5 rating for how fun and simple it was to play. It makes me want to smash Jotuns in the eternal night of Fimbulwinter right now!

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I held back one star as these rules have some organizational issues. Critical concepts are explained pages, sometimes chapters after the text has made extensive use of them. Rune chains is a perfect example of this. I believe everything necessary to play is in the book, but it is not laid out best for learning the rules.

That said, it IS laid out best as a reference guide once you know how to play already. It has an extensive table of contents and a serviceable index, which many games lack.

The art is consistant and appropriate for the source material. The layout does an excellent job providing the look and theme for the game all the way through.

My group will be giving this game a try over the next month, if we make it past character creation. It is fairly straightforward, but the amount of powers new players have to read up on before deciding might be daunting.

UPDATE: After playing through the introductory adventure, we found the rules to be incomplete and the typos a big problem. The rules need a section describing the expected game experience and how best to achieve that using these rules. There is a steep learning curve without that. We will not be playing this game again. I removed a second star from my rating as a result of actually using the rules.

[Scotty Marinara · Rating 5 out of 5]

gorgeous, interesting role playing game thats got a fresh, gritty, even grim take on the famously opyimistic and uplifting norse mythos! i've never played a game using this system but it uses rune stones for a great portion which is interesting.