This is a fantasy role playing system based on Norse myth
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FateOfTheNorns"This Fate of the Norns Bundle features Pendelhaven's Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok FRPG of epic Viking action in the Twilight of the Gods. The sun and moon have disappeared, devoured by the wolves Skoll and Hati. Fimbulwinter envelops the worlds of the cosmic tree Yggdrasil. Aesir and giants prepare for war. Mankind has descended into anarchy. In this Age of the Sword, new heroes arise who command the power to shape the outcome of Ragnarok.
Like the Norse sagas that inspired it, Fate of the Norns has a long history. Originally distributed in the '90s as a free demo .PDF, the game went through three editions (1993, 2002, 2005-6) without ever seeing print. Only with the August 2012 Fate of the Norns Kickstarter campaign did the rules make it onto paper -- and how.
The lavish full-color 20th Anniversary Edition (2013) updates the game's inventive and well-tested Runic Game System (RGS), which replaces dice with "mystic rune stones" based on the Elder Futhark. Your customized Essence bag contains the runes bound to your character's powers and abilities -- red runes (physical traits), blue (mental), and green (spiritual) -- and this bag also doubles as your character's life force (hit points). When the character, or "dweller," takes damage, you remove runes from your bag. You lose access to the powers bound to those runes, so damage feels very real. When your dweller dies, the Valkyries may carry off the character to Valhalla or Glassisvellir. The more dwellers you get into the heavens, the more new features in the game are unlocked for your next dweller. Your "Disir" (afterlife) level carries with you -- you, the player -- through your later Fate of the Norns adventures.
Pendelhaven expanded the Norns line through successive Kickstarters for Denizens of the North (March 2014), Seith and Sword (Feb 2015), and Lords of the Ash (Sept 2015). This all-new Fate of the Norns Bundle presents much of the Fate of the Norns line, including all the rulebooks, adventures, and even fiction, for a bargain price.
We provide each ebook complete in .PDF (Portable Document Format). Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these books have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.
Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this offer's pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries leaving daily to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
The total retail value of the titles in this offer is US$165. Customers who pay just US$12.95 get both titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $65) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 369-page Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok core rulebook in its beautiful full-color 20th Anniversary Edition (retail price $30) ; the full-length introductory adventure Fafnir's Treasure (retail $15), which includes a print-and-play set of mystic runes; and the novel-adventure combo Seith and Sword (the adventure) (retail $10) and the full-length book that inspired it, Seith and Sword (the novel) (retail $10). (As a convenience, we also include the free Archetypes Compendium.)
Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $24.95 to start, also get our entire Bonus Collection with five more titles worth an additional $100, including the two massive rules expansions and lorebooks, Denizens of the North (retail $30) and a href="
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/215328/Fate-of-the-Norns-Ragnarok-Lords-of-the-Ash" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lords of the Ash (retail $30); the adventure Dead Man's Blade (retail price $15); and another fiction-scenario pair, Horn of the Kraken (the adventure) (retail $15) and Horn of the Kraken (the novel) (retail $10).
This is a very pretty game, but I was a bit put off by some aspects of its presentation - the actual number of words per page is fairly low, around 400 words on some of the DENSER pages, often much less,. with lots of graphics filling up the space. A friend who has seen it said "A... distinctive art style. Lots of background on mythic Vikingness, lots of rules (buy our runestones!), very little"you are X who do Y".
Unfortunately I tend to agree - I think it has some good ideas, and a lot of information about Norse myth, but the authors don't seem to have grasped the idea of concise presentation. If I wanted to run a campaign with this setting I'd probably look elsewhere, e.g. GURPS Vikings covers some of the background, or go back to translations of the original myth and wing it from there.
