I have, until the absolute shutdown imposed by the holiday season - been working pretty strong on development for Ragnarok the RPG of the Viking Apocalypse.

Now, for the past few years I have been running sessions of Ragnarok, the Skirmish-level miniatures game, in which each player controls between 10 and 40 or so figures or so, each representing a single person or monster, and attempts to fulfill his or her Victory Goals (which vary according to the scenario and forces involved). If you have come by Comicpalooza in Houston (and you definitely should because it is a fantastic convention at which we at D-Infinity go all out to entertain), you might have seen or played in one of these sessions.

But at some point, it occurred to me that the core of the Skirmish game would work very nicely as an RPG system. So I have been writing that up with the intent to publish - and the design ideal that it mesh with the Skirmish game, which will mean that You can take your heroes from the RPG and seemlessly hop them over to a Skirmish environment!

I love the idea of a group of RPG heroes being involved in a larger engagement - something that would be a nightmare to handle for most RPGs and migraine-inducing for GMs. I am very interested in having a literal horde of orcs or similar face off against a band of warriors, which may include, or even comprise, your tabletop RPG characters.

So that is what I have been messing around with.

My goal is to get the RPG written first, then jump back into the Skirmish game - which already exists as a significantly altered version of Chevauchee (from Skirmisher Publishing) and meld the two together. To make this easier, I began with the core mechanic and principles in Chevauchee, modifying as I went. 

One of the things that I added was the concept of the Norn Die, and that is what I want to talk about today. If you took a look at the video playthrough of Hall on the Barrowlands - a D-Infinity Live Plays episode we did a while back, you might have heard mention of the Norn Die.

In Norse Myth, the Norns are divine beings who measured the lives of all other beings, determining their course, and their extent, often described via the metaphor of spinning, weaving - and ultimately cutting - the cloth that makes up mortal life.

The Norns affect the dark age and medieval Norse mind in many ways, but perhaps the most significant is a sort of fatalism. The idea is often expressed in sagas, that one's fate should be embraced rather than railed against. But while fatalism as a concept can lead to apathy and contemplation of the pointlessness of existence, for many Norse heroes, it seemed to encourage them to excel in the circumstances of their accepted fate - seeking to gout out with a bang, as it were. At other times, presented with their fate, heroes have been known to refute its validity, claiming that they will strive just as mightily against it.

Both of these views of fate work well for the Norn Die in Ragnarok, which reflects the attention of Fate and the Gods upon the actions of mortal heroes.  Here is how it works:

Whenever a Hero rolls to accomplish some task in which he is skilled he rolls 3D6, one of which is visually distinct from the rest (the Norn Die). If the rolled result of the Norn Die also comes up on one or both of the other dice, something special happens.

If the matched roll is 2-6, the Hero gains a Bonus Die for each Match. So if you roll a 4 on your Norn Die, as well as another 4 on one of the other dice, you get a bonus die. If you rolled three 4s, you would gain two bonus dice.

On the down side, if you Match your Norn Die on a 1 (or double 1s), the 1 is counted against your current roll AND the GM gets a Bonus Die (or Bonus Dice) instead, Which he is able to use against your or your friends in future.

In the next Ragnarok Development Diary, we will discuss in more detail what can be done with those Bonus Dice - on eithe rside fo the GM screen. To anyone who has ever gamed before, it is probably pretty clear by now that Bonus Dice for you is GOOD, Bonus Dice for the GM, is BAD!

Stay Tuned!