The Age of Vikings Companion is a new expansion for Chaosium’s Age of Vikings roleplaying game. It follows the company’s long tradition of releasing companion books to expand the core rules of games such as Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Stormbringer, and many others.
Like those books of yore, this new 173 page hardcover both broadens and deepens the world of Age of Vikings. It presents optional rules for character creation and religions, a system for generating a community of nonplayer characters with which your Age of Vikings heroes can interact, a bestiary with a range of opponents - human and animal, mythical and monstrous - as well as five new adventures.
New Hero Options
Using the new hero options, your Age of Vikings characters can now hail from as far afield as Byzantium, England, Ireland, Scotland, or Scandinavia. They might be Finns or Sami from the far north or Slavs from eastern Europe. While the Companion focuses on why these heroes might visit Iceland, it leaves the door open for you to fulfil the promise implicit in the name Age of Vikings and spread your sagas across a mythically infused Europe in the late ninth century. The description of each culture weaves a tapestry of epic adventure into which you can embroider the deeds of your heroes:
- In Constantinople, a young basileus struggles to assert his authority in the face of a revolt by the rebel general and would-be emperor, Bardas Skleros.
- The rivalry between the boy-king Edward and his half-brother Aethelred threatens to tear apart the nascent Kingdom of England.
- In Ireland, Brian Boru succeeds to the throne of a minor regional kingdom and swears vengeance on the Norse king of Hylmrekur (Limerick) for the treacherous murder of his brother.
- The Scandinavian homelands are sundered between Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark, a recent convert to Christianity, and the Aesir-worshipping Haakon Sigurdsson, Jarl of Hlaðir and overlord of Norway.
- Jarl Haakon recently gave sanctuary to a young exile from the lands of the Rus - Valdamarr of Hólmgarðr (also known as Volodymyr / Vladimir of Novogrod) - who now seeks swords to reclaim his birthright.
New Cultures and Religions
As well as homeland skill bonuses for each of the new cultures, the Companion expands rules for religions to include Christianity, Baltic-Finnic and Slavic paganism. The Faiths chapter significantly deepens the rules for the Norse gods - adding three new deities (Ægir, Rán, and Oðinn’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn), favored skills that garner an additional bonus from dedication point spends, and a range of new divine abilities.
Divine abilities allow heroes with sufficient devotion to a god to spend dedication points to manifest some of the deity’s power. For example, devotees of Æegir can call upon him to grant the ability to breathe underwater. Supplicants to Baldur can channel his gifts to restore a person to full health, while Þór’s most faithful followers can summon a divine hammer to wield against their enemies. Each Norse god grants two divine abilities - as does the Christian God. The Finnic pantheon gets two divine abilities in total, with the invitation for gamemasters and players to create more of their own. The Faiths chapter also has rules for pagan heroes that convert to Christianity to varying degrees, and for heroes who reject the capricious gods entirely.
Take Flight and Expand Your Horizons!
The Companion also broadens and deepens the mythical world of Age of Vikings. You can now create heroes from Iceland’s mythical races: dwarves, hidden people, jötunn (giants), sealskins, and even ravens. A band of raven heroes are the focus of the adventure “A Ravenous Heart”. This scenario, with its challenge of playing a physically fragile raven, is the best example of the kind of change of pace you can bring to your Age of Vikings game with new options presented in the Companion.
The other four adventures range from the one-shots “Cattle Raid!” and “The Hunt” to the longer and episodic “Gone Viking” and “Trade”, which each represent one side of the classic Viking raiders versus traders dichotomy. All of these adventures are loosely based in the Eastern Stronghold Fjord region of Iceland, providing a home-base for your Icelandic heroes. This region is also the default setting for the forthcoming Saga of the Fire-starter campaign. Therefore, you can run the Companion adventures as a campaign prelude, settling the heroes into the region, perhaps with a community of vibrant nonplayer characters generated using the Companion’s community generator.
Taken all together, the Age of Vikings Companion is a collection of vibrant new threads that you can weave into your very own Viking saga.
