Age of Vikings - A practical review

“Adventure in an Iceland of myth and legend, a vibrant land on the edge of the known world, where Vikings seek honour and fame through adventure.” Doesn’t that get your heart pumping and the blood running through your veins?

The Age of Vikings TTRPG showcases a world of myth and adventure in the deep and vibrant setting of Icelandic sagas. A story of bold heroes seeking honor, protecting their home and family, and earning glory through epic deeds! Become a Viking, set sail on the North sea, raiding in the summer, and farming the rest of the year. Experience the many opportunities for adventure both home and abroad. Hunt trolls and outlaws and fight for foreign kings.

Age of Vikings is a TTRPG published by Chaosium Inc. available in hardcover for $59.99 and a digital for $29.99. At 314 pages it’s packed with eye-catching and evocative artwork throughout. It uses the Basic Roleplaying engine, successfully implemented for more than 40 years, that powers Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest and Pendragon. A time tested classic. This book has everything you need divided into eighteen chapters with a glossary, bibliography and an index. I shall review each chapter in turn.

Chapter One introduces the Age of Vikings game with an overview on law and family feuds, honor and blood oaths, magic and monsters. There’s guidance for running an historical rather than mythic game. Those new to roleplaying will benefit from a helpful guide to roleplaying, what the players and GMs roles are with materials essential to the game. An Icelandic language pronunciation guide, adds a touch of verisimilitude and a two page “an example of play” showcases the flow of roleplaying itself and how to read dice. TTRPGs have lots of acronyms so a glossary of terms is a welcome addition finishing with a metric to imperial conversion table.

Chapter Two covers character creation starting with your name. A large list of possibilities is given along with nicknames. Icelandic sagas deal with passions and your character has a rating for honour, loyalty and love. How these are used in the game is detailed in chapter ten. Your family history is determined next from the viewpoint of your grandfather and father. And covers the period from 900 to 970 at which point your character takes over. While it’s entirely optional, it’s fun to create a background of battles fought and lost and events witnessed from your relatives perspective allowing you to craft a more holistic background, a welcome inclusion which will enhance your role playing experience. As it takes time this step is best excluded for one-shot games. It’s on to the nitty-gritty of determining your characteristics of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power and Charisma and calculating attributes such as movement rate, magic points, hit points (by hit location), encumbrance and reputation.

Each hero has a fylgja or spirit animal to guide them through their adventures. With the animal keyed to their personality, like the mighty Bear and the cunning weasel, a nice touch. Skills are determined next with an obvious emphasis on the icelandic setting. There are the usual: dodge, ride and sword and the unusual: Skaldic Poetry, Go Under the Cloak and Seiður Magic. Skills have a base change modified by your characteristics and then added to with six homeland skill bonuses. Vikings had strong beliefs expressed in their worship of a large pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. You choose three from a list including each one embodying different ideals. Óðinn represents Magic, War, Wisdom while Týr’s are Courage, Glory, Justice. Worship is rewarded in devotion points which are spent to provide skill bonuses based on the Gods ideals. Your family is next and tables determine if you’re single, married and number of siblings. What meager wealth and equipment you might start with is based on your farm’s activity and location. Fortunately you start with a weapon of some kind. Finally you decide on your hero's distinctive features. A character and farm sheet follows with six pre-generated characters to pick from if you can’t wait to play.

Chapter Three details the game system which is based on the basic roleplaying system. It has been played for over forty years so it works well and covers any situation which might present itself in-game. Everything boils down to a d% roll against a skill or a characteristic roll if opposing someone or something else. What to hit that monster with your sword? Then roll under your sword skill, want to beat it in an arm wrestle? then consult the resistance table for your strength against theirs to determine a % of success. Everything is straightforward and logical and once you get the hang of it, pretty much second nature.

Combat is lethal with the high possibility of losing precious limbs making every fight a suspenseful and tense affair. Healing comes in the forms of medical, natural and magical. Don’t expect to heal up quickly as combat can take a real toll on your health. The chapter concludes with spot rules for alcohol including drunkenness and drinking contests (hurray!), chases, and various environmental hazards such as, drowning, asphyxiation, falling, poison and all the other unpleasant things that tend to befall adventurers. We end with weather and wind tables.

Chapter Four describes the skills available to your character including their application in the viking setting. Some include descriptions of varying results for critical successes to fumbles which are all useful to the GM when adjudicating results.The mundane skills are covered first, so climb, ride fast talk and so on followed by the mystic in the form of under the cloak, prophecy runemagic, second sight, Seiður Magic and worship. All are colorful and appropriate to the setting.

Chapter Five is the all-important combat section covering both magical and melee. Your DEX ranks determine initiative followed by your statement of intent. Combat is fast and furious with opponents exchanging blows while dodging and parrying. Special and critical hits are devastating and even weapons can be damaged. This is a realistic simulation of close quarters fighting, and not to be taken lightly. A selection of viking weaponry and armour is detailed, with rules for aimed blows, darkness, disarming, grappling, knowback, mounted combat and shield walls. A useful combat example concludes this essential chapter.

Ships and sailing feature heavily in a viking setting and is the focus of chapter Six.

Vikings used three types of ships: the knörr (cargo ship), the dreki (dragon ship), and fishing boats. Other ships make an appearance like the Cog, longship and Bireme. Ships, like characters, use a sheet to record their statistics such as: sea worthiness, structure points, her captain and crew. Comprehensive rules provided covering sea voyages, vessel damage and repair, survival and disasters at sea and weather. Naval combat rules cover boarding actions, missile combat and seasickness!

Chapter Seven describes the daily life of a viking from Icelandic geography, settlements and their unique norse social structure. We’re told about family life with the importance of marriage, children, clothing, and economics. There’s an excellent full-page yearly calendar. Vikings considered raids an honourable endeavour. Rules cover selecting a settlement to raid, looting and returning to the ship, with an example given.

Chapter Eight describes law and government with details on resolving issues through conflict such as duels and blood vengeance, courts and assemblies.

There are even rules to conduct court cases with players assuming the roles of prosecutors and defenders.

Chapter Nine details the vikings strongly held religious belief in their norse pantheon. All the Gods are described in terms of their influence and ideals.

A full page chart shows the hierarchy of the Aesir and Vanir godly tribes along with a short discussion on christianity and a temple map.

Chapter Ten covers the character's passions of fear, hate, honour, loyalty and love Reputation which measures a hero’s fame, notoriety, and renown and their status amongst their fellow icelanders measuring renown, wealth, and place within society. A fascinating read.

Chapters Eleven and Twelve cover rune and Seiður magic. Runes are categorised into three groups of eight, called ætts. Each reflecting the ideals of the gods associated with. Each rune is illustrated and described in terms of meaning and areas of power, and their gaming effects. Lögur, for example, means water and grants bonuses to shiphandling, navigation and swimming. Runes can also be used in combat with the Hagall rune summoning a deadly hailstorm. A runemagic cheat sheet summarises the rules. Seidar magic is analogous to shamanism communing with spirits, powers of the land, and the gods in the form of lengthy rituals and has a vast array of effects. There are rituals for divination, clairvoyance, healing, bringing good luck, controlling the weather and causing harm through curses.

Chapter Thirteen chronicles the vikings mythology from their very beginnings when Iceland was created by the great dragon Sváfnir who swam in the molten filled rocks in the bowels of Miðgarður. Óðinn, Vili, and Vé then created humans from the trunks of fallen ash and elm trees breathing life into them. It’s onto recorded history with the arrival of the Greeks naming the land Ultima Thule.

The Roman period is covered as well as the Irish hermits. An exhaustive timeline follows covering over two hundred years. An insightful and informative discourse.

Chapter Fourteen is a gazetteer of Iceland following established horse paths as well as less traveled and unexplored areas. All corners of the island and to places of importance in the West, the Westfjords region, the North, the East, the South, and the Central Highlands are covered along with multiple adventure seeds to facilitate a GMs own scenario creations. We have the Whale Fjord where the PCs must kill an evil whale to avenge a fisherman and Örn’s Fjord where weary adventures can find sanctuary and healing. A superb two-page map of Iceland only adds to the grandeur of this magnificent mythological island. And there’s a section on other nations such as the Byzantine Empire, England, Finnmark and France, Ireland, Normandy and Scotland should you wish to include them in your campaign. A map shows this wider world. Great stuff!

Chapter Fifteen concerns the Icelandic belief that living alongside norse settlers are the mysterious hidden people. Similar to humans, these beautiful and peaceful people can only be seen by those with second sight. They’re rumored to possess wondrous magical powers, skilled at magical curses, precognition and communicating in dreams. Their true nature and history are revealed along with how to handle encounters.

Where would we be without monsters? Age of Vikings is no expectation and chapter sixteen presents us with a whole host of malign creatures to fight. There are human opponents in the form of fierce berserkers, the undersea merfolk, terrible trolls, beasts and monsters. There are animated corpse draugur who live in mounds jealously guarding their treasures. Heart eating fallen ravens, the lake-dwelling equine Nykur, and the nigh unkillable shell monster. Even the ocean presents its horrors with its gigantic kraken and serpentine sea serpents. Wicked whales can swallow a ship, the whole crew and all!

Characters learn from their adventuring experiences, improving their skills and capabilities. Chapter Sixteen discusses the important topic of character advancement. Heroes mark off skills used in their previous adventure to make an experience check a quarterly religious festival. Success grants them an increase in said skill by +1d6 percentiles. Paying for an instructor is another option. During downtime characters can also manage their farm, marry and have children with tables providing a series of random family events.

Chapter Seventeen presents a short scenario which involves the national assembly or Alþing. Where the adventurers become involved in cases of murder and divorce. A good foundation for a campaign.

So my final thoughts? This is a phenomenal product with incredible depth and playability. Iif you want to play this as an adventure game, fighting monsters of myth, raiding settlements and plundering treasure, this has all the tools you’ll need. Likewise if you prefer a more realistic approach by experiencing life as an Icelandic warrior with strong beliefs from a rich cultural heritage then this game can accommodate that as well. All-in-all if you have any interest whatsoever in Vikings then this book comes with the very highest recommendation.

Grab your copy of Age of Vikings on Quest Portal VTT.