Bodvar Bjarki ploughed into them now, hacking two handed, his only thought to do as much damage as he could before he fell. And now they fall in heaps before him, one on top of another, and both his arms are bloodied to the shoulder, and he felled so many, the dead were stacked all about him. He stormed on as if he was insane.
~ The Saga of Hrolf Kraki
~ The Saga of Hrolf Kraki
Summary:
- A low fantasy world based upon the Roman Empire at its peak
- Characters are members of a warband within a larger Viking inspired invasion of said fantasy equivalent Roman Empire. Warriors of great kind and a ruthless reputation, how this actually plays out depends on the players.
- This is a roleplay about a very interesting clash of distinctive cultures and how said clash affects and shapes the rest of society oh and the journey of this warband through this campaign
- The idea of the roleplay is to have fun both with the combat and telling the story of this war and the characters that live within it, while the main focus is upon this warband there will be occasional snippets of information of the rest of those moving and dealing within the world
- The Roleplay starts right at the beginning just as the Warband’s longship crests upon the shores of the empire and will progress from there.
- There is going to be a lot of lore and world building below, not all of it is necessary to read but it will give you a better sense of the world in its current state. :)
In Character Information:
This is a story following a small warband in the midst of a massive clash of cultures. Our tale begins in the 900th year of the Red Age but to warriors of the north knew it without number, in the midst of an endless eon of snow covered plains and raging seas: the year of the landfall. The great Vattin Empire stands in the midst of the peak of its expansionist policy. This great empire have come to conquer most of the outer world subjecting all that may resist underneath their dominion. These imperialists efforts bring with them the “benefits” and “privilege” of civilization crushing tribal identities in a subjected class system and enforcing the strict worship of Keyshaw god of war and glory, and patron god to the imperial throne. This conquest has gone unchecked for some time the might of the massive professional army that the Empire can field for its military action crushing those that resists and forces the hands of those that would rather surrender to pledge allegiance to the Empire.
And yet there are now rumors of longships landing far to the northwest in the territory known as Tysk, huge in their proportions as long as seventeen men arms stretched out touching finger to finger on its side. Thirty sets of oars jutting out from the wood, with large sails adrone with the image of a great snarling beast. The warriors that step off of these boats were tall and strong covered in hides of bear and mail easily cutting down any resistance that the northern fishermen tried to put up. The Provincial Governor of Tysk, Calirus Morrant a veteran of the Vattin Military quickly rose up part of the Provincial Guard to quell these barbaric invaders only for his own troops to be slain to the last man by this warriors from the ships but taking a large portion of the warriors with them, the peasants having witness these battles telling tales of men and women fighting with the strength of twelve men and shattered shields in single blows.
This would be the first clash between the Vattin Empire and those whose name would become synonymous with fear the Drengr. These warriors came from across the sea from the lands beyond in seek of new foes and glory. The name translates roughly to “Those Of The Warrior’s Heart”. These warriors come from an entirely different culture and world thousands of miles away from the known world, a culture not dominated by emperors or bureaucratic planning but of survival and war, for hundreds of years they were little more than nomadic tribes waging war against one another for food and survival but today these former tundra nomads are united under a great Warrior King, the embodied will of the Great Spirits that drives them not to kill one another but to kill those who are weak and so deserve it. Having swept through their own lands they know crossed the sea smelling the scent of blood and the call of challenge that awaits them.
They are warriors, and now they have their prey.
OCC Information:
As you may have already guessed this is a story about Vikings... well fantasy vikings but vikings still the same - the Drengr coming from a land across the sea have landed in the known world and are ready to set set fire to it all. These warriors while seemingly barbaric in nature have spent many years in their own land crushing those that would stand against their warbands and have adapted over time to become an organized force if one that rallies on strength and speed rather than sound tactics and unit placement. But they have never fought a foe such as the Vattin Empire whose on imperialistic tendencies have forged their armies into strong and disciplined forces who prove a willing challenge to the Drengr. This is the story of this conflict.
The warriors of the north think that this will be another great slaughter and the Empire thinks they are little more than barbarians and the Empire has put down more than a few barbarians in its years. And yet what would follow would be one of the longest wars ever recorded in the history of the known world and certainly the bloodiest of them. A conflict that would shape the history of the world to come, where peasants become heroes, warrior kings die in glorious combat and empires teeter on the edge of ruin.
And yet there is more. This as mentioned above is also a story of a clash of cultures. The Vattin Empire is already filled to the brim with at least a dozen races who have been subjected by its army and all of these races each with their own cultural identity all more less stuck together. And now they have the Drengr coming from across the sea whose on cultural ideals and practices are much different than that found common within the empire. And as these warriors march south this conflict of ideals soon becomes apparent as The Empire fights to keep order, to maintain civilization and with it prosperity, while the Drengr fight for glory and with it freedom to those that can take it.
The Characters will be part of one of the many Drengr warbands that set foot in the known world. Men and women, young and old chosen not by rank or status but by skill of the blade as is the way of the Drengr. They are either Drengr proper or they are slave folk captured in battle and having proved that they have skill were assimilated into the Raed as the Drengr do not care for race or origin only for skill. And in this way they are sent to kill those that would try and stop them. To bring down the enemy and ravish in their still fresh blood.
