5e Norse mythology

[MThurston]

I am only allowing Rangers, Druids and Warlocks as casters into a Viking themed 5e homebrew.

Any ideas on how the Gods would deal out damage? Warlock would have his powers do the damage of their God.

Oden = Thunder
Hel = Necrotic

[The Jack]

I dont think you understand norse/ germanic myth. allow all casters, maybe restrict spells.

Edit: like if you want to restrict things thats fine, but dont do it because you think its viking.

[Unoriginal]

I am only allowing Rangers, Druids and Warlocks as casters into a Viking themed 5e homebrew.

Any ideas on how the Gods would deal out damage? Warlock would have his powers do the damage of their God.

Oden = Thunder
Hel = Necrotic

Thor is literally Thunder. As in, it's literally his name.


I dont think you understand norse/ germanic myth. allow all casters, maybe restrict spells.

Edit: like if you want to restrict things thats fine, but dont do it because you think its viking.

I have to agree with this.

Odin is one of the inspirations of the classic wizard, for example.

[Damon_Tor]

I am only allowing Rangers, Druids and Warlocks as casters into a Viking themed 5e homebrew.

Any ideas on how the Gods would deal out damage? Warlock would have his powers do the damage of their God.

Oden = Thunder
Hel = Necrotic

Is there a good reason you're not allowing clerics? The 5e cleric, at least the relevant subclasses (war, tempest, forge etc) are made to wade into melee and mix it up, and are, in general, far more "viking" than the generally more standbackish warlocks.

And as others have noted, Odin is himself the God of Wizardry more than anything else, so banning a wizard for being "unviking" just shows how little you understand the culture.

And always, PC are exceptional, and should be. Just because you see a given character concept as being unviking doesn't mean having an unviking along on the party is an inherently bad thing. I still love me some 13th Warrior/Eaters of the Dead.

Just let your players do what they want.

[Aett_Thorn]

Also, Skalds (warrior-singers) are basically Valor Bards, and should be considered as well.

[Mjolnirbear]

First: bards. Because skalds.

Second, the Aesir and Vanir a) are like people in that they use whatever comes to hand and b) aren't like Greek gods where each god is his own niche, because they overlap. A lot.

A typical norseman in battle might pray to Odin, Tyr or Thor, but all of them are warriors. At least three are magic-users. Several hunters and huntresses, poets, tricksters, and fertility experts.

So you can't really pigeonhole Nordic gods into one slot each. And Thor doesn't summon lightning or Thunder as much as he's responsible for them, because it's caused by fighting giants.

You're not gonna be able to get a list of damage like you want. You can simply make it up; there is no lore that could give a better answer.

Source: my actual religion

[AureusFulgens]

Also, Barbarians! What screams stereotypical Viking more clearly than a warrior in hide armor charging into battle literally screaming with pure rage?

I think you could make any class but maybe Monks fly in an Old Norse setting. I could see restricting to the melee-capable variants of the caster classes - Valor Bard, Tempest/War/Life Cleric (maybe Light, because who DOESN'T think setting things on fire is Viking-appropriate, am I right?), Moon Druid, Bladesinger Wizard. And certain Paladin archetypes might run into flavor issues. But even then, the sneaky wizard type is totally a Norse archetype. Loki, anyone? At least in his movie depictions, he hardly ever meets anyone hand to hand, and I think that's pretty true to his roots.

As to damage types:
Odin and Loki: Psychic. Both of them being trickster types. Acid also has a certain dark tie to Loki.
Hel: Necrotic is good.
Thor: Lightning or thunder. Maybe thunder is a closer fit.
Hodur: Cold.
Baldur: Fire.

For a start, anyway.

(NOTE: I think we've stayed on the friendly side of the rules on "religion" thus far, hence the fact that I made this post myself, but we're skirting them pretty close. Let's proceed with caution.)

[MThurston]

Is there a good reason you're not allowing clerics? The 5e cleric, at least the relevant subclasses (war, tempest, forge etc) are made to wade into melee and mix it up, and are, in general, far more "viking" than the generally more standbackish warlocks.

And as others have noted, Odin is himself the God of Wizardry more than anything else, so banning a wizard for being "unviking" just shows how little you understand the culture.

And always, PC are exceptional, and should be. Just because you see a given character concept as being unviking doesn't mean having an unviking along on the party is an inherently bad thing. I still love me some 13th Warrior/Eaters of the Dead.

Just let your players do what they want.

Shows how little you know how close to real life I am trying to go.

Ie poison spray is a spore that opens on contact.

Vikings had shamans which I am using Druid for.

I want to keep magic low with flavor for how things work.

Cure wounds could be a bandage with healing moss inside.

The group wants low magic and this is how I am dealing with it.

Odin could grant all damage types by the spell.

Hel would have all necrotic damage.

Thor all Thunder damage.

[MThurston]

Also, Barbarians! What screams stereotypical Viking more clearly than a warrior in hide armor charging into battle literally screaming with pure rage?

I think you could make any class but maybe Monks fly in an Old Norse setting. I could see restricting to the melee-capable variants of the caster classes - Valor Bard, Tempest/War/Life Cleric (maybe Light, because who DOESN'T think setting things on fire is Viking-appropriate, am I right?), Moon Druid, Bladesinger Wizard. And certain Paladin archetypes might run into flavor issues. But even then, the sneaky wizard type is totally a Norse archetype. Loki, anyone? At least in his movie depictions, he hardly ever meets anyone hand to hand, and I think that's pretty true to his roots.

As to damage types:
Odin and Loki: Psychic. Both of them being trickster types. Acid also has a certain dark tie to Loki.
Hel: Necrotic is good.
Thor: Lightning or thunder. Maybe thunder is a closer fit.
Hodur: Cold.
Baldur: Fire.

For a start, anyway.

(NOTE: I think we've stayed on the friendly side of the rules on "religion" thus far, hence the fact that I made this post myself, but we're skirting them pretty close. Let's proceed with caution.)

Right now we have the following.

Fighter - Warrior

Rogue - Skirmishes

Barbarian - Berserker

Ranger - Warden

Druid - Shaman

Warlock - Mystic

I will look at Bard.

[JackPhoenix]

Right now we have the following.

Fighter - Warrior

Rogue - Skirmishes

Barbarian - Berserker

Ranger - Warden

Druid - Shaman

Warlock - Mystic

I will look at Bard.

There's a bunch of words, but no sense behind them. Old Norse didn't have "shamans". They had priests, they had sorcerers (or wizards, as the magic was learned rather than in-born) and witches (and all of them could arguably be bards, given the importance of poetry in their magical practices). Odin's self-sacrifice for knowledge would make him a fine warlock in D&D. It seems like you're copying some video game, judging by the names.

And Odin would do damage by stabbing things with his spear.

[MThurston]

There's a bunch of words, but no sense behind them. Old Norse didn't have "shamans". They had priests, they had sorcerers (or wizards, as the magic was learned rather than in-born) and witches (and all of them could arguably be bards, given the importance of poetry in their magical practices). Odin's self-sacrifice for knowledge would make him a fine warlock in D&D. It seems like you're copying some video game, judging by the names.

And Odin would do damage by stabbing things with his spear.

Priest is more Roman than Viking. Druid/Shaman is more in line with them.

Witches/Warlocks were another thing.

And there was no magic, only the belief of it.

[Damon_Tor]

Vikings had shamans which I am using Druid for.

The vikings were pagans, not animists. They had a priest caste like every other Indo-European civilization.

I'd say you're getting your ideas of viking culture from a TV show or something, but I can't think of a TV show that ever got it so backwards.


Priest is more Roman than Viking. Druid/Shaman is more in line with them.

You're basing this on... what, exactly?

[Vogie]

Fighter - Warrior

Rogue - Skirmishes

Barbarian - Berserker

Ranger - Warden

Druid - Shaman

Warlock - Mystic


Wizard - non-charismatic Mystic
Bard - Skald
Cleric - Less-Shifty Shaman
Monk - Warrior, but poor with lighter weapons

Seriously, limiting classes is just a poor excuse for worldbuilding.


If you 100% want to use 5e without using classes, that's fine - just use the UA Sidekicks blocks. Everyone is either a Warrior, Expert, or Spellcaster, but... with funny names.

[GlenSmash!]

This lovely thread has way more information on a Norse setting than I could ever even use.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?652482-Norse-World

This site also has a lovely weapons and armor table to fit a viking campaign.

http://dnd-edit.tumblr.com/search/dark+ages

[VonKaiserstein]

Shows how little you know how close to real life I am trying to go.



This right here is the root of the misunderstanding in this thread.

The Viking times are documented by mythical sagas, with blatant necromancy, berserkers that become animals, runic magic that could control someone by writing their name, and everything about their life controlled by the interference of gods. Even the nonmagical events are mythical- the Viking at Stamford Bridge defies mortal limits, or the guy who was killed by his dead enemy's skull biting his thigh. The whole culture is based around meeting your fate, determined by the gods, well.

So low magic vikings is kind of like asking for tips to play the X-men, but without a lot of powers. Now if your group wants low magic, by all means, ban most magic, but DND is not a great system for this.

[Naanomi]

I can imagine a low-magic Vikingish themed setting, one where if I were restricting classes I’d probably leave Ranger as the real caster (and a few other classes getting light spells... totem Barbarian...); but I wouldn’t go about calling it ‘accurate’ to either history or mythology... though perhaps ‘accurate’ to some particular pop-culturish view of the whole thing

I’m not usually a fan of restricted character options, but we did a Conan-inspired short 5e campaign under just such strictures (Magic was explicitly bad in the setting) that played well

[GlenSmash!]

The vikings were pagans, not animists. They had a priest caste like every other Indo-European civilization.

The line between pagans and animists moves depending on how close you are to authority. -EDIT: This was remarkable true for Christianity at the time too. Rome just couldn't police every hedge-priest out there.- Rural vikings would surely have practiced unique traditions in their relationships to Thunder (Thor), Frenzy (Odin), Lady (Freya) that would seem far closer to animism than structure polytheism. And likely wouldn't much resemble the specific lore that made it into the sagas. Urban Vikings less so. Though I believe large cities (for the time) didn't really even spring up in Scandanavia until late in the viking era. Earlier in the south and later if at all farther north.

It really all depends on what "Viking" theme you really want to bring to the forefront.


I'd say you're getting your ideas of viking culture from a TV show or something, but I can't think of a TV show that ever got it so backwards.

Good heavens this is true. They got naming conventions wrong, gave all their make vikings one of three haircuts and variations on the same leather outfits.

I would love to see a proper viking show were warriors actually were mail.

For all it's flaws the 2004 Beowulf and Grendel had beautiful and accurate costuming, weapons, and armor.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Yep, this is going into religious discussions.