Æsir

Motif

“By drawing runes or weaving threads, one may perform a jarteign.”

Purview

Wyrd

The Wyrd Purview encompasses the magic used by the Æsir and their worshippers to foretell and manipulate the fates spun by the Nornir. These include galdr (spells and charms) cast through runes or chanting, spá (prophecy), and the practice of seiðr in emulation of the Nornir.

Virtues

Fatalism and Audacity

Description

Forged from fire and ice, the clashed the moment they met. It had to be done. They were Æsirand the Jötnar (the giants) born into a world with nothing and with no land to call their own. Odin and his brothers ripped Ymir asunder and with his flesh, bones, brains, and blood, they created the mountains, the ocean, the clouds, and the lands of Miðgarðr. As fate would have it, Bergelmir and his wife were the only two giants to survive, becoming the progenitors of their race. They fled to Jötunheimr — a wild place filled with beasts that inhabited dark forests. Relentlessly battered by the Æsir and storms alike, the Jötnar had a choice — to live and mate with the Æsir or exist to torment their enemies until the great wheel turned.

The Æsir dwelled in Ásgarð, a civilized and law-abiding land, surrounded by a thick wall. Eventually, a second tribe of Gods appeared, calling themselves the Vanir. They hailed from Vanaheim — a land with sacred halls, woods, and fields. The tribes coexisted with nothing but peace in their hearts until it was discovered the Vanir possessed the art of seiðr, a magic of incredible potency. Odin, seeker of all things mystical, sought to take the knowledge by force. The war proved one thing — that each tribe could gain the upper hand, but neither could truly succeed. After much bloodshed on both sides, the Titanic opponents of both devastated the Gods. The Æsir absorbed their rivals into their ranks and thus preserved themselves in difficult times.

Born in the wastes and ruin of Northern Europe among Germanic warriors and Nordic pirates, the Æsir are the product of this shotgun wedding millennia ago, and the dichotomy still shows today. The Æsir do not regard the past as better than the present. In fact, they appear more at ease these days, for they are bound by Fate, and look to the future with dread.

Titans

Reviled and rejected, the Titans of the land, the sea, the sky which the Æsir later stole from them Oftentimes, the boundary between Titan and God rests on a question of favour, intermarriage, or which version of an Edda someone consults; the ties between Titan and God are old, convoluted, and sometimes look an awful lot more like a network of scars. Some take their drive from a desire to once more ascend to prominence, some simply attempt to move on, and some live only to destroy what was stolen from them; they’d rather burn themselves to ash than leave the Æsir one plank of wood on which to stand.