NorsePlay.

  A girl's body's discovered floating in the open sea by a Viking prince's ship. Barely alive, they spare some of their dwindling water for her, and when she comes to, her eyes open ... to reveal goat-like horizontal pupils! This is the hook for Vei , a two-volume graphic novel , originally a Swedish 12-issue limited series from 2012 CE, and it is a stunningly executed NorsePlay. Writer Sara Bergmark Elfgren & artist Karl Johnsson gift us a re-scripting of Norse Mythology that answers the very real question of why don't the Jotnar or the Aesir just make a pre-emptive attack now to get an early victory and not have to suffer the pyrrhic resolution of end-time Ragnarök? The answer is a détente struck by a longstanding "peace" agreement mediated by a periodic gladiatorial combat. The winning side then for that time gets the domain of contested Midgard, which makes our world & its mortal reverence the key to divine power! This gives us a sweeping story rev...

When Valheim from Iron Gate Studios released in February 2021 CE, it blew up & sold 5M copies in its first month! Watching the initial gaming streams of it, Valheim looked too grindy for my liking, and the premise that there was a separated 10th world also seemed repeated from Marvel Thor back in 2013 CE where Odin cuts off & hides a whole unknown Realm as vengeance for the occupants apparently killing his daughter (and yes, that storyline's a ridiculously heavy-handed retcon for the sake of inserting of Angela from Spawn as Thor's incredibly angry sister [!?!], do not recommend), but then I heard that the Gods make cameo s : The horizon also has a gargantuan view of Yggdrasil looming in the distance as a contextual setpiece. As an aside, there's also a weird craft called The Tolroko Flyer from an unpublished earlier game that can only be unlocked via a cheat, but it doesn't do anything other than litter the landscape & look anachronistic. What I can...

Possibly inspired by the idea of  Disney's multiversal Boastful Loki 's hammer, this 1lb 8 3⁄4 oz wooden mallet is Såssnir the Lost, Loki's lost War Hammer! This one-of-a-kind creation made of ancient reclaimed oak, white ash, & purpleheart is an Etsy offering from OutlawArtbyJAMES, who invented this flavor text lore for it: "Såssnir the Lost is the prized war hammer of the God of Sass - Loki! Who knew Loki had a war hammer with the same power as Thor's Mjölnir? Whomever owns Såssnir is granted the power of the Sassy Asgard"! And it even comes with a Pokémon-style item card: Whatever this other hammer 's provenance or special powers, it wouldn't hurt to have this in the car or carried on your person , just in case of giant problems that require such a solution. [go get Såssnir here , or maybe get a custom NorsePlay'd commission from them and let us know about it.] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Nors...

Witness the power of Mjölnir-rang : This video posted by Jastino Hasni seems to feature a homebrewed boomerang. There's also another similar one posted on Pintrest by Franco Nero: NorsePlay would totally buy these, so if either of these possible creators ever decides to vend, do let us know! In the Norse Lore,  Mjölnir  is crafted by dwarves Sindri & Brokkr with its amazing returning attribute, and  aetiologically this explains why lighting appears to return from its skyward origin point.   #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the  Map of Midgard  project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay.   If you have e mployment/ opportunitie...

  The amazingly kitch chain-wielding Valkyrie product shot aside, this limited edition $9,000 USD Legends Of Valhalla pinball machine features unlocks that include a wizard Valhalla mode, and a super wizard Ragnarök mode. Yes, the honoured hall of the slain can be reached for naught but a quarter . Well, unless the Gods of your local Asgardcade Hall have set it for four quarters, in which case it's still a bargain. The Odin playing field art seems strongly based on Amon Amarth 's Johan Hegg! And who ever suspected there'd be a Mammen Axe unlock in a game? #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the  Map of Midgard  project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. ...

In Neil Gaiman 's American Gods the operating premise for the divine is that the Gods are regionally bound and that their existence & power depends upon those who believe & worship them. In Starz' TV adaptation, Season 3's opening addresses Viking Metal 's celebration & reclamation of Heathen Nordic contexts by kicking off with this scene of faux band Blood Death lead by Johan Wengren (Marilyn Manson!?!): As the story of the ancient Old Gods versus the emergent New Gods of Technology unfolds, we see the Old Gods adapting some of that technology in order to garner digital followers, and Odin (the venerable Ian McShane) connecting with metalheads, bikers, and aggro  fans , which seems appropriate for Mr Wednesday who banks on & rewards those of the warrior ethos. The teleplays expands in notable degrees upon the book, backgrounding & filling out minor characters into fan favourites, and giving us such clever lines as Wednesday's:  "Ask and y...

  This 3D rendering of a modern longhouse was made by architecture student Eralp Erkasap. I think this concept is great, something of the pragmatics of a military Quonset hut with the pitched roof of a stave church, eliminating the turf maintenance, and combining the roof as walls at an angle where the snow will mostly slide off. Those slotted and wood-accented gables are a nice touch. I might go with some integrated solar panels, and narrow horizonal sliding shuttered windows for air, light, to keep lookout, and to use as shooting blinds for nearby game, predators, draugr  incursions, and  fire-bearing burners . [go hire Eralp for this & other livingspace designs here .] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately...

While I don't know Hong Kong's Genesis Pens from a knarr's oarhole, they're crafting a line of fountain pens called The Norsemen , and they're apparently out of stock, so maybe they've done something right. Pictured above is the matte-sanded Raven Black version. [translucent Yggdrasil-accented ink window on the Jötunn model.]    With four different designs named after Norse Lore-relevant aspects, their resin barrels are engraved with Nordic motifs, each slightly different from the other three. [opaque frosted, gold-engraved Sleipnir version, inked with matching Bungubox Ebisu Gold (note, the above writing sample is from a swapped in custom nib).] While these open editions retail at around $200 each, the pen has the looks of a $500 limited edition from a more known company, but the default nib is a Polished Steel #6 Jowo, which I have no experience with, though apparently from the above picture, it can be ground or swapped if you felt you needed to custom upgrade...

Given the current darkening of seasons, I've decided to finally examine what mythical Nordic horrors lie within the cinematic forest of Netflix's film  The Ritual (2017 CE, based on Adam Nevill's 2011 CE novel). Like other offerings in the folk horror subgenre, The Ritual also crosspollinates this with the tropes of a monster film , and given its Norse Lore context, it's definitely a NorsePlay from its following elements: 1. The Runes.  Mysteriously carved far too high up on tree trunks out in the middle of a nowhere wilderness forest adjacent to Sweden 's  270-mile King's Trail (Kungsleden), are various runes , mainly Othala (ᛟ), Algiz (ᛉ), and Nauthiz (ᚾ), two also visible as hanging ornaments/ amulet s in the cabin. There's alot in the Norse Lore pinned upon the runes, the most compelling being Odin's  Rúnatal where the Allfather lists the magical uses for them. 2. Human Sacrifice.  The hikers lose one of their party during the night, waking to fin...

Jarnsaxa Rising 's a NorsePlay'd sci-fi/fantasy 18-episode audiodrama cut from the format of classic 1920s radio shows, mixed with much of the higher-consciousness imbued binaural panache of ZBS' productions from the 1970s/80s where galactic cyborg gumshoe Ruby would have to unexpectedly deal with ancient Mesopotamian death goddess Ereshkigal, or spiritual traveler Jack Flanders had to brave a metaphysical landscape that was both within & without himself, except here the tropes & structure are from an expanded re-characterization of Norse Mythology. For Jarnsaxa the jötunness, her axe to grind is with Thor, her ex-lover, and her opportunity for vengeance happens in the corpocratic dystopian future of 2094 CE via possession. In noir backstory style, we're introduced to a pair of company employees sent to investigate why a wind turbine on a Baltic island is generating power when it shouldn't be on at all, and that's the hook the story unfolds on, crossing...

From the hands of the director of Troll Hunter  (2010 CE) comes another foray into the fields of NorsePlay: Mortal (2020 CE). Vagrant American tourist Eric (Nat Wolff) is hiding out in the Norwegian forest, on the lam from an apparent arson fire/murder at his cross-Atlantic family's farm. Eric is apparently emotionally damaged with post-traumatic stress from whatever actually happened, and has nightmares involving fire . Another apparent murder lands him in the local Ossa jail, where rookie psychologist Christine (Iben Akerlie) is called in to speak with him before U.S. authorities are to show up and extradite him. Willing to talk to her, Eric then seems to manifest some electrokinetic powers , which she intuits are related to his volatile emotional state, and manages to talk him down. The film becomes something of a chase movie in its second act, with a final reveal of why Eric is gifted/cursed with his electrokinesis. This dynamic, however, was explored in  The New Mutant...

NorsePlay recently reviewed the Vikingverse series , and I loved it so much, I've reached out to its author & creator  Ian Stuart Sharpe to bring you this Q&A interview filled with all the inquiries his brilliant what-if-the-Vikings-had-conquered-the-world masterwork compelled me to ask.  For background, Sharpe's  career as a published writer started with the first Vikingverse installment, The All Father Paradox (2018 CE), continued with sequel Loki's Wager (2020 CE), gained even more literal public support with his crowdfunded Vikingverse graphic novel,  The Jötunn War (2021 CE), and then an equally fan-supported  Vikingverse -adjacent phrasebook Old Norse For Modern Times (2021 CE).   Sharpe's from London, UK, did some growing up in East Anglia, and now lives in Oak Bay, British Columbia, Canada. His longer tech career includes working for the BBC, IMG, Atari, and Electronic Arts. [Note that this interview does contain spoilers. Now, ont...