the Nordland Saga
The OOC/IC thread

“In the name of Wodan, how does one fail such a simple task. How does one lose a longboat, how does one lose a warband? Questions like these would make even the smartest men like me twist their head in confusion.” The man with the beard was speaking to a small group of norsemen and women, a group no bigger than ten. Some of the other villagers were watching in silence, as this group was the last remaining bit of the warband of fifty vikingr the chief had sent out. It was still unsure what had happened to the others, as there are mixed accounts between the remaining part of the group. However one thing they all agreed on - it was a slaughter. Not only had they lost valuable lifes in this raiding trip, they also brought back nothing of value. To the chief, this was a great offense. Not only were they now short men and women for the harvest, they also had nothing to show for it. Such an offense must be punished.. but how. The chief leaned his elbow on the arm support of the seat he was sitting in, twisting his short pointy beard. After some time he rose on his feet and extended his arms to the group. “I don't know how one did all the things you did - lose a boat, get a warband killed, return with no spoils of battle. Yet you dare show your faces here. I cannot say what you did to anger the gods, as I am no god. Therefore I do not know what the gods would have seen your punishment be. And as such, I have to exile you from my village. The gods shall decide your fate. Truly, I hope Wodan stays by your side.”

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Hello everyone, thank you for reading through that. If that short introduction was to your liking, then please keep reading. I had an idea for an RP with a setting I had not really seen before - and anything closely related to it was just not suitable enough for me. And if you feel the same way, or you are just looking for a nice RP about a group of people doing what they have to do, then I think you might be interested! If you think so too, please continue reading so I can explain the setting I had in mind.

The Setting

The setting I had in mind for the Nordland Saga would be one where survival is at the center of the story, and no, don't worry. I do not intend for this to be solely a sandbox roleplay. Think of it as such: a group gets thrown into the wild with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing at that time. The first thing they would do is walk away, as this place is no longer their home! After some time they would decide, together or apart, that they needed a place to stay in. And then they realize, they don't need just a place to stay, they need food, water, warmth. And possibly, if your character is sensible enough, he'll realize he needs brotherhood, companionship or in some cases, bloodshed and the call of Valhal. This is what I had in mind when I say ''survival.''

Besides that, it's also a social experiment: what happens when you throw multiple people (okay.. multiple vikingr) together in a group and then see how they react to new situations and new things happening around them? Will someone take charge? Will they stay together? These are all questions that solely depend on the characters - one person might take charge, the others might want a say in what goes on as well. Some will believe companionship will keep them alive, others might think they are better off alone.

In short: this story or roleplay will be about people being banished or exiled from their village and forced out and building a new life. It will also be about norsemen and their corresponding traits.

The Story

What has happened so far, you might wonder? In short, your characters were sent out with the warband to raid a certain area. So, they got in a longboat and sailed! These men and women were however not battle hardened, and the amount of ''experienced raiders'' were countable on two hands. But, the case was the same in the villages they were raiding; most men were part of the militia, or poor farmers who grabbed a pitchfork to protect their homestead. What happened afterwards isn't sure, as all characters could have a different remembrance of the happening. Some could say it was Wodan and he smited and struck down the warband. Others could say it was a trap laid by the enemy, and they were ambushed. Others would simply not remember (''I was asleep, chief!''). Everything is possible, and I would find it interesting to see what people will think happened.

After the death of the majority of the warband, they would head home, without longboat, in a long trek across land. However the chief of their village wasn't all too happy - he lost valuable men and women, he got no new spoils of battle, and he had possibly angered Wodan by losing his warband. To avoid any further conflicts with his own villagers or the gods themselves, he exiled you and your group. What you do afterwards is your call, but keep in mind not to anger the gods too often! Wodan is not very forgiving.

What will you do?

Now one might ask how they will fit in with the group - that's very simple. It's completely up to you! Since the warband consisted mainly of carefully picked men and women from all ranks and professions, you can come up with anything! This is not me saying you can be a dragon, nor is this me saying you can be Wodan's son in human form. However, if you want your character to be a simple carpenter that survived somehow because he held out his spear at the right time then that is what he shall be. If you want your character to be a seasoned raider who knew what to do at the right time (or not, maybe he was a clumsy raider that was just always lucky) then you can be that as well.

I'm trying to say here that you can be anything as long as it's not too crazy. If you think of something but fear it might be a bit too much - just ask. Questions don't hurt me (secretly I love questions, they're fun) and in my country we have a saying: you always have a no, and you can only get a yes by asking.

However do keep in mind the fact that you'll have to survive somehow. A carpenter is probably not very well trained in the art of warfare, so he will probably spend most of his time in combat playing a supporting role, if any role at all. In the same way, a raider or soldier is most likely not well versed in anything but that - fighting or maybe leading. Therefore I suggest a more or less balanced party. But I in no way want to confine you to such, if you want to go full soldier survival then be my guest.

What do I expect?

From this all I expect people mainly to be open minded to other people their ideas, to be unafraid to tell others your ideas and I love getting feedback about everything. So tell me what you think! If you are too afraid that I might find you rude, I'm Dutch and I'm used to it as it seems to be our natural heritage to be rude whenever we can. If you think, well this can be better, then tell me! If you found the last post awesome, then tell me!

Besides that, I am but a man and I can possibly run out of ideas, so I do expect some form of self-sustainance in the form of you sometimes giving me a few ideas for plot or story development. If you want something to happen IC for your character or the group, then just ask me. I'll probably not say no unless it's really stupid. (no dragons damnit.)

What can you expect?

After that list of ''demands'' what can you get in return? An epic story-driven roleplay created by us all. I will try and listen to ideas, suggestions, feedback and actually use it. I will listen to your criticism and try to use that as well. If there's a problem you can't fix yourself, I will help you.

Besides all that, I am ofcourse going to RP with you so I hope you guys will find me a nice guy to RP with as that's generally all this is: just an RP. We should be having fun with it and I truly think with this RP we can.

Now, before we start getting excited I should maybe ask if anyone read through all that and still thinks, YES, this interests me?

In the name of Wodan,

GIVE ME STRENGTH!

Wodan is not pleased with the lack of interest.

WODAN.

Bumpity.

Bump.

Brand new member here, but I would actually be VERY interested in this, if you can get enough people together to get a game going. It's actually very similar to the idea I joined here to post about in the first place. The whole 'handful of people in a wilderness with realistic survival needs building a new community from scratch' thing is something I've been interested in for awhile, but alas the RP chat site I hang out at has pretty much an entire community that only seems to want to play half-demon immortal ninja elves or half-vampire quarter-dragon succubi who look like big-eyed anime girls and the like. Meh.

Anyway, if we get this going I'd probably go for a non-combat role. I'd like to play Selkie as sort of an eccentric lady with a lot of curiosity about the natural world...she could fish and hunt and tinker with things and experiment with medicines, but not clear if you're going for, like, realistic Viking technology levels and gender roles or whatever so I'm not sure if that will work.

Hm, I'm not saying I want dragons flying about and peoples shouting Thu'ums at dragons and killing them, but yes. Realistic Viking technology levels (however.. I think that if it's realistic or makes sense and isn't too RP breaking we could add in little ''discoveries'' so to say? IDK, make it sound logical, I might say yes!) Gender roles are... iffy. On one hand - yes, I do want that certain members of the group would look down on women as that is realistic. On the other hand I do think that, given enough time and IC progress they might change their beliefs.

So.. female warriors or female party members are ofc. allowed to do as they wish but will have to start from a less-accepted position or have to practice their jobs in secret or something.

Thanks for replying, by the way, I was losing faith :( now you restored my faith!

I admit I usually prefer fantasy RPs to realistic historical ones, but I'm talking low-level fantasy; no magic or anything, but I do like being able to drop some of the horrible, horrible baggage of real life cultures while still keeping the cool and interesting stuff, And maybe 'technology levels' isn't the right phrase, but to clarify, in this setting I mostly just mean common sense stuff like 'hey guys, maybe we should bathe occasionally and also not throw rotting corpses directly into the river we drink from' just being accepted as an understood thing. (In other settings it would mean things like sweet custom crossbows and rich people with indoor plumbing, but let's not go crazy here, I understand you want to keep it historical-ish and our characters are supposed to be a bunch of exiled losers anyway... :P )

As far as my question about gender roles, I just brought it up because I was concerned it wouldn't really be realistic to play an unmarried woman who just kind of wanders around doing her own thing...I don't really mind her being looked down on for it though, and I guess I'd be playing her as some kind of foreigner anyway.

Or I could just rework the whole character concept. None of this is set in stone, I just sort of jumped in with the kind of char I usually play. I'll just wait and see if anyone else joins first though and maybe tweak mine a little to fit better.

What you say is what I'd consider to be a yes - stuff like that should be able to be implemented as a sort of advancement.
I think that maybe it might be better to finetune it or come up with something new - I don't see an unmarried woman being able to do fishing, hunting, knowing about medicine etc. There's simply no incentive for the village to learn her all that so she múst be self taught, meaning she'd likely be an outcast I think. Either way, if you are set on her knowing all that being a non married woman I think that if you put it down right in the CS I would accept it and then later ask you to change it if it réally réally doesn't fit.

Hey this sounds pretty cool
And btw, vikings had the most empowered (i use that word loosely) women of the ancient world. They could own land, get divorced, ect. Although they weren't permitted in raiding bands or even to hold weapons in some cases. But anything domestic, including finances, was the woman's job. They were considered wise in most lore too

I see, I assumed the general ''women are SCUM'' attitude because Vikings are so, so hard to find any reliable info on. But the scale of realism will be so that they can be in a warband.

Well, I am going to throw myself into this roleplay. I've always liked the Viking world but I could never find one which was open. I am looking to be in a less of a close combat role but a more ranged combat role. That should place at either a warrior or a hunter. Also, the Vikings taught practically everyone in their villages how to fight(except women) so that they could protect the village while the others are out raiding. They weren't trained like your regular warrior would be but they could wield a sword well enough to kill someone. But, if they tried to fight a Viking warrior they would die. They also might not be entirely capable of killing wolves or bears.

Yeah, they were a militia of sorts. I doubt a normal peasant was trained enough to kill a wolf or bear, cause I think most of them trained for human vs. human combat. AFAIK conventional weapons were small handaxes, spears and a large shield, swords being reserved for the soldiers themselves (aka more trained people) as well as bearded axes (the two handed axes that served as pole-arm/axe.

So this militia would wear normal clothes, in some cases leather, and practically never mail or such (other than after a raid, when they had looted. In that case.. possible.)

However, I said I was open to suggestions. Do as you please, ask me if it's OK and if I think it would fit in the setting well enough I'm totally cool with it.

For reference: what do you think of when you think Viking-combat-battles thingies? Do you see a sort of 300-esque movie playing out in your head or ..?

Well, Vikings are best described as wild. They rarely used complex formations such as a Phalanx or the Turtle as would have been used by Spartans and Romans. Vikings preferred a fighting style which focused more on a surprise attack. They just rushed into the battle as soon as possible and fought with a fever. They were the ones that Romans called Barbarians, which was generally used to describe how the Vikings fought. A Viking warrior would typically be in a state of 'bloodlust' which contributed to the Romans hatred for them. Vikings were almost the exact opposite of a Roman Platoon or Battalion.

Now, this is not to say that they don't use tactics. Some Vikings used the normal tactic of waiting out their opponents. If they were entrapped in a keep, the Vikings would surround the place with fires and wait for them to come running out. They also took to hunting the villagers instead of rushing in. They would send a few Vikings in to terrorize the villagers and run them out of town and then they would have several archers posted around the village to pick them off. Either way, the villagers would die in the raid.

I think you are confusing the Germanic tribes and the Vikings, which raided England much later on. Referring to the shieldwall here.

Consider me interested, too. I would probably also play a female, not a warrior lady but probably more of a hunter, good with a bow and all that. Seems like it would come in handy when suddenly exiled from the group.

Certainly. Do you all deem 3 people interested enough, considering the party would consist of 4 people then (I wanna play, myself, too). Should I wait or get that OOC up ASAP?

Are there going to be NPCs in our exiled group, or is it going to solely consist of our player characters? I think I'm fine with it either way, actually. Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to add people in after getting it set up.

That's how I planned to do it, add them in later. I don't think NPC's would be smart, but it would make stuff more interesting. But it wouldn't have the same ''we're a bunch of exiled misfits'' feel, more like a ''we are a warband lets kill people''. How do you lot feel about having multiple characters?

I have no problem with other people having multiple characters if they want, but I think I'd stick with just one. I also think I like the idea of no NPCs now. Might make things more interesting if all of the survival aspects have to be done by our characters, and can't just be dumped on random viking people with no names.