Ragnarok Development Diary - An Axe Age, A Wolf Age!

Currently, I am taking a tiny break (sort of) from development of the Ragnarok RPG - to write the Ragnarok Miniatures game - a skirmish level game based on a set of loosely linked scenarios I developed over several years for running in the Skirmisher Game Pavilion at Comicpalooza in Houston.

(This shows Michael O,. Varhola and I playing Ragnarok: Age of Wolves at Comicapooza 2016).

The subtitle of this post comes from stanza 45 of the Voluspa: the poem from which we get much of our information about the Ragnarok. Composed as the prophecy of a seer, in all likelihood a woman practicing Seidr magic (the "Vol" in Voluspa refers to the word "volva" which is a common term for such women in the viking period), the poem also includes many details of the creation and early mythical "history" of Midgard and the ordering of th Cosmos (as well an naming all the dwarves involved in the stealing of  Smaug's treasure, but that is literally another story).

Stanza 45 goes something like this : You can find the entire poem here.

45. Brothers may fight / and fell each other,
may sisters' sons / kinship stain;
hard is in the home, / whoredom severe;
axe-age, sword-age, / shields cloven,
wind-age, wolf-age, / ere the world falls;
no men will / each other spare.
 

Although this translations uses "wolf age", Age of Wolves sounds a little better to our ear, and is equally possible in th text, so we went with that.

But the rest of the stanza is just as informative of the Ragnarok, or of the early part of it known as The Fimblvintr, literally a Great Winter that goes on unabated for three years, causing death and untold suffering as crops fail, stores are exhausted and the first enemy of Man arises - other men. 

We think of the Ragnarok as an age dominated by all these terrible, mythical monsters - Hel, Fenris Wolf and Jormundgand are the big players, egged on by mommy/daddy Loki. But it is interesting that in stanza 45. the poet foresees the end of the world clearly enough to know that the world may end in fire (with the coming of the sons of Muspell), but the beginning of the end will be the strife of brother against brother, that kinship will be tested - and will lose, and that the wolves will, in many cases, be figurative rather than literal - as men prey upon other men.

An Age of Wolves indeed.

(Here is the battlefield for "A Cold Day in Hel, one of the scenarios at Comicapolooza, that will also be included in the book).

We have chosen to present a skirmish game of small scale battles (roughly 10 to 25 figures on a side is a good number) as representative of the sorts of conflict typical in the early years of the Ragnarok. One Aett (clan) struggling to survive, attacks their neighbors, brigands prey upon orderly communities, vikings descend on coastal villages, etc. But amid all this, there is also the other - monsters roam the land. This is the world of Beowulf and Grendel, of Sigurd and Fafnir, of Frost Giants and trolls and the hidden people of the deep forests - the Huldrfolk. All are represented here, because giants maraud, trolls slay, and the huldrfolk pain as their homes die in the killing cold of the Fimblvintr.

And you can play all of that with the Ragnarok: Age of Wolves Skirmish game - coming soon to a venue near you!