"Where is the horse gone, where the young rider? Where now the giver of gifts? Where are the seats at the feasting gone? Where are the merry sounds in the hall? Alas, the bright goblet! Alas, the knight and his hauberk! Alas, the glory of the king! How that hour has departed, dark under the shadow of night, as had it never been."
We used Sagas of the Icelanders for this adventure, and such game mechanics as it needs are given in those terms, but other options are GURPS Vikings and Vikings. Regardless of the system, you will certainly find the Icelandic Saga Map useful.
If you're running the adventure as the lead-in to a campaign then the characters are young (15-19 years) and begin with two relationships instead of the usual four.
Overview
Thorkill
Whalerider lives at Kolbeinsvik up in the Strands in north-west
Iceland. In his youth he was a renowned trader and raider, now he owns much of
the land from Arness to Kaldbak and is the big man in the district. The characters are sent by their family in the far south to trade goods with Thorkill, but a complication requires them to spend the winter with him.
Daylight
At this time of year the sun rises at 10:00 and sets
at 14:00, with three hours of twilight either side. So it’s full dark from 5pm
till 7am.
Arrival
The characters are bringing spices and furs, which
their father is trading with his old shipmate Thorkill for
wood (mostly driftwood that fetches up along the coast). Thorkill has agreed to send them back with men and mules to
carry the wood, which takes more space than the goods they’ve brought.
It's sunset and the characters have been travelling all day in freezing fog. They're cold, they're tired. Coming down off the Thorskafjord Moor, they see a big
man who seems to have a bloody burden on each shoulder. He lumbers up and tells
them he’s Ulkar No-Name, “so now you
can tell everyone you met nobody on the road.” He doesn’t smile. “I’m bringing
these two sheep for the feast.” Wouldn’t it have been easier to herd them back
and slaughter them at the house? “I didn’t think of it.”
But there’s a snag
Thorkill hasn’t yet got the wood together to send back, and
so he says the characters must stay for the frost festival Þorrablót”) when a sacrifice is made in honour of Frost and Snow, the
sons of Jokul the Giant in mythology.
The characters can sit about the house as
guests, or they can join in chores if they choose to. If they volunteer to do
that, it’s an opportunity to meet Audun Haldorson the foreman who
says that the wall needs mending on his farm. It’s not actually for Thorkill,
but it would help indirectly as it would free up Audun’s time.
If so they might meet Audun’s headstrong son Bakki,
who is their age and will surely propose a swimming contest (in the sea,
freezing) or a wrestling or drinking match, or a dice game (use wyrd). Bakki
usually tries to get them to do this instead of work, and is likely to be
derisive if they refuse, so there’s opportunity for Honour to be questioned.
About half the wood has so far been made ready,
including a pine tree trunk that would make a magnificent mast for a ship.
Thorkill’s brothers pause each day to look at it and say what a hardship it
would be to part with that, maybe the characters can make do with some
driftwood roots instead, etc, etc. It’s just a wind-up.
The household
- Thorkill (38)
- Asdis (wife, 26)
- Ongul (brother, 35)
- Skeggi (brother, 34)
- Ulkar (illegitimate
brother, very strong, 39)
- Senuna (a beautiful
Irish thrall, 19)
Rumours include:
“Ulkar is Thorkill’s half-brother, but he’ll never
acknowledge him. He gets seated at meals like a labourer and never gets
included in family decisions.”
“When will Thorkill have your goods packed to send
back? In his own good time, like everything else.”
“Thorkill went raiding in his youth to prove himself
as bold as his father, but Kar Drangson was as fierce a man as any of us will
meet in this life, and with his sword given him by the Danish king he was a
match for any three warriors of these days.”
“The bandit called Thorn has worried his way into
Thorkill’s side since last winter. He preys on those crossing the moors and he’s
been tracked as far as Ymir’s Tooth Mountain, but nobody knows where he has his
lair.”
“You’ve been invited to the frost festival?” Sucks his
teeth. “You know it involves a sacrifice, don’t you?” (This is just locals
winding up some young outsiders.)
Characters could use Look into someone’s heart to
figure out if a rumour is true or just the locals getting a rise out of them.
Audun the foreman
Thorkill’s foreman is Audun Haldorson (35) a free man with his own farm at Kaldbakvik. Thorkill
has bought up every other farm in the district that his family didn’t already
own because of the haunting of Kar the
Old, who died twelve years ago and whose ghost is said to walk the shores.
The bandit
Thorn and
his four men are outlaws who hide out in the mountain and watch
for traders they can rob. Their lair is in a tunnel that runs right through the
mountain.
Towards sunset it’s as though the day peels back, so
that already you can see stars while there is still a glimmer of pale blue, orange
and red along the horizon. At such a time character might, looking up at the
mountain, see the blood-red light of the dying day somehow mirrored in a
pinprick gleam in the middle of the black cliff.
Unless you know the way up, it is a hard climb to the
caves where the bandits live. For the last twenty feet it’s likely their
lookout will have spotted you, too, so there’ll be a barrage of rocks raining
down on you before you reach them. [When you tempt fate for the climb; ideally Berserker
or Fight
with many against many for the fight at the top.]
The barrow
At night you can see a pale green light billowing
around the headland. This comes from Kar the Old’s barrow. (When would they see that? Probably when going outside to empty their bladders.)
Audun: “That’s
why people are in a hurry to get home before sunset at this time of year. No
one wants to meet Kar walking on the shore. When Kar was buried, Thorkill was in Norway. He took
it hard, not for love but because Kar had much of his wealth buried beside him
in the barrow. But Kar’s ghost has enriched Thorkill anyway, by terrorizing
people into selling him their farms.”
The interior chamber is narrow, only room for one at a time. They feel around until they find horse bones, then their feet slither on silver coins and they blunder into the back of a carved chair. It’s heavy, though. It doesn’t give when they push it. Wait – there’s somebody sitting in it…
In fact: Ulkar
is prone to narcolepsy and wanders off in a daze by night, either wandering the
shore or entering the barrow by
means of a tunnel that emerges a hundred yards along the beach. So they will have quite a fight with him – that’s
Accept a
physical challenge at -1 ongoing
for darkness; in the cramped conditions it’s not possible for another character
to assist by spending bonds. It will go better for them later if they don’t
kill Ulkar.
The treasure includes the short sword Kar used to wield, which is the finest weapon any of
them have ever seen. Its blade looks blue in daylight and in torchlight almost
seems to reflect the blood it’s thirsty to spill. Thorkill will not part with
this: “You must do something worthy of fame before I give you the sword, for I myself
could never get it from my father as long as he lived.”
The festival
At the feast they are given strong drink, then the
youngest is bound with silk ribbons and carried out to the bonfire. [A character could Consider an
uneasy situation if concerned.] He is shown to the flames and the
men say, “Now this one will sacrifice to you, sons of the ice.” He’s then
carried to a hut to lie with Senuna, the thrall; the only sacrifice, his virginity.
If somebody wants to essay a poem or song, so much the
better. Our Icelanders campaign is historical, so there's no magic, but you'll want a numinous moment to evoke the solstice spirit, so how about giving the characters a spectacular view of the northern lights "like the hem of Odin's cloak brushing middle-earth".
The opening quotation is from J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of "The Wanderer". The pictures are by the acclaimed illustrator John Vernon Lord, whose grandson happens to be one of our players. John coincidentally grew up in the same Derbyshire town as my dad. Much of the story has been swiped from Grettir's Saga, and I urge you to read that before running it. May the High One grant you peat for your fire, mead for your cup, and boon companions to share the long evenings of storytelling and merrymaking with.
* * *
The opening quotation is from J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of "The Wanderer". The pictures are by the acclaimed illustrator John Vernon Lord, whose grandson happens to be one of our players. John coincidentally grew up in the same Derbyshire town as my dad. Much of the story has been swiped from Grettir's Saga, and I urge you to read that before running it. May the High One grant you peat for your fire, mead for your cup, and boon companions to share the long evenings of storytelling and merrymaking with.
