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Sagas of Midgard Corebook

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“Organic, cinematic and more epic than anything we’ve experienced with more mechanical RPGs.” -Tabletop Gaming Magazine

“After carefully reading this and absorbing as best I can, I’m convinced you have something genius here… You can be sure I’m going to try to bring the North back to my table now!” -Gabe, Kickstarter Backer

“Just downloaded the rulebook… I read the intro story and I am already completely hooked. Magnificent thing, this RPG of yours. ” -Thor, Kickstarter Backer

What is Sagas of Midgard?

Sagas of Midgard is a cinematic, story-driven RPG set in a mythologized Norse cosmos. We went to Kickstarter on February 8th, 2018 and funded in 90 minutes. With an expected date of February 2019, I’m proud to say that we went live to retail on December 8th, 2018!Ragnrarok

Yeah yeah, we get it. So what’s the deal with the game?

First off, I do want to brag about the art. We spent 100% of the Kickstarter money on the game, and a lot of that was on the art and graphic design of the book. We exceeded our funding goals and we wanted to make the book look as professional as possible as a result.

So we mentioned “cinematic and story driven” above, and those are largely statements of intent. This is because:

Sagas of Midgard is built to allow “Yes, and…” styles of collaborative GMing/playing where players are encouraged via in-game mechanics (more on that later) to try ridiculous things.

We don’t encourage a grid for combat and the math/mechanics are, compared to a lot of other systems, really quite simple. We utilize what we call the “Rollover system”: the player makes all of the rolls. The GM (Skald in our system) determines the difficulty of the roll based on a 1-100 system and tells the player the “Rollover”. The player rolls d100, adds any applicable bonuses, and either succeeds or doesn’t succeed.

Yggdrasil

So what makes Sagas of Midgard different?

This is the most common question we get in interviews. Although we have a lot of different unique mechanics, let’s start with the big one:

Dying is a feature, not a bug. Vikings believed that they had to die in battle to ascend to Valhalla. As such, we had to make dying a little more palatable. Therefore, we decided to give every character a starting ability called With Joy I Cease, allowing him to pass into Valhalla and enter the Sagas as a hero.

With Joy I Cease: In your darkest hour, you call upon the Gods to give you strength for one final act of glory. Advancing toward your enemy, you strike him with a death-blow; with his dying breath he strikes you down as well. Any healing, magical effects, rune effects, or damage reduction effects are ended upon you. Your hit-points are then immediately brought to zero and you die. Any other Heroes within bow range gain 5 Favor. This ability must be used on your turn.

This ability has been central to the theme of Sagas of Midgard: that for a Viking, death in battle is glorious rather than something to be feared. Our playtesters have loved this ability; we’ve seen characters use With Joy I Cease to save their party, elect not to and live through the encounter with 1 HP, and elect not to and get run through and thrown off a high mountain before their next turn.

Because of this,

Character creation is simple. 

Ridiculousness and creativity are encouraged. Between “Raiding Seasons” (game sessions), players are encouraged, in character, to boast about the most noteworthy thing they did in the previous session. The character determined to have done the craziest/most interesting/dumb-but-hilarious thing is rewarded with additional skill points.

Yggdrasil

What’s in the book?

The Sagas of Midgard Corebook features:

A simple, intuitive rules system that values and encourages player creativity and storytelling over number-crunching and rules reference

A rich, fully developed and brutal world in which character death is a feature, not a bug

An intuitive, simple character creation system featuring over 27 Surnames and Titles allowing you to make the kind of Viking warrior YOU want to be

Over 120 Character Powers, including the universal “With Joy I Cease” that allows you to sacrifice your character gloriously to kill any foe

A unique Raiding and Player Settlement system that allows player skill and creativity to overcome challenges and capture cities for their own

24 Runes derived from the Elder Futhark that allow for the use of powerful one-off magics as well as devastating chained effects

39 Savage Monsters, with proprietary “Horde” and “Champion” Templates allowing for epic, large-scale battles in which your Heroes fight through a hundred foes (or more!)

18 Artifacts: powerful magical items that sometimes have a mind of their own

Four beautifully written prefabricated Adventures to take you from your first very raid to the literal end of the world

Alfather

In Summary...

The beginning of our book, before anything about the game itself, is the Ragnarok piece above that we had commissioned from Robson Michel and the first verse of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song:

 We come from the land of the ice and snow

From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow

The hammer of the gods

Will drive our ships to new lands

To fight the horde, and sing and cry

Valhalla, I am coming!

If you think that’s awesome, this is definitely a game for you. 

Sagas of Midgard. What will YOUR Saga be?

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Reviews (0)
Discussions (4)
Customer avatar
Victor S March 17, 2020 6:14 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Wow even the hardcovers are set as pay what you want. Is that intended?
Customer avatar
Blakelee M February 27, 2019 10:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I don't understand what the Odin's Wisdom ability is supposed to do. It doesn't make sense given the rune-casting rules in the book.

Is this an artifact from a previous version of the rules or just unclear text?
Reply
Customer avatar
Nicholas P March 12, 2019 8:31 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hey! First off, thanks for purchasing!

Unfortunately, it's unclear text and we've marked it to be fixed for the next revision.

Basically, the way it works is:

Without Odin's Wisdom, any Hero can use Runes in the positions in which they're cast. So I could use a Rune in its First Position-- if I had the ability, I could chain it with another Rune in its second position and a third rune in its third position.

With Odin's Wisdom, so long as a Hero is only casting one Rune in an action, they can pick any effect on the Rune (First, Second, or Third Position).

Sorry for the delay in response. We don't check down here much, so if you have any further questions hit us up on our website or on social media.

Thanks!
Nick
Customer avatar
Nicholas P January 21, 2019 2:14 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Our website is www.SagasOfMidgard.com if you'd like any additional information!
Reply
Customer avatar
SengKok L November 29, 2020 1:42 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Nicholas the link on the website to the continent map seems to be broken. Sagas is a great addition to the Norse rpg genre and captures the cinematic, larger than life stories from the sagas very well
Customer avatar
Nicholas P December 07, 2018 3:17 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hey everyone! We also have a Rune Deck available here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/251917/Sagas-of-Midgard-Rune-Deck
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Product Information
Electrum seller
Rule System(s)
Pages
176
ISBN
9780692040829
File Size:
310.81 MB
Format
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File Last Updated:
February 03, 2019
This title was added to our catalog on December 07, 2018.
Publisher
Drinking Horn Games
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