In November 2024 we presented the all-new Vikingverse Bundle featuring When the Wolf Comes, Ian Stuart Sharpe‘s science-fantasy RPG of Vikingverse action from Schwalb Entertainment based on Shadow of the Demon Lord. The Vikingverse is set during a reimagined Ragnarök, the doom of the gods. Fated to be devoured by the great wolf Fenrir, Óðinn defied the Norns by changing destiny – by granting forbidden knowledge to the Norse kingdoms. Now, in this alternate present, expeditions of Widefarers, Runemasters, Song Smiths, Thread Riders, Numberwitches, and other Norse heroes travel the Yawning Void via the greenways of Yggdrasil, the Worlds Tree. The Níu Heimar (Nine Homeworlds) are your setting for sagas of phenomenal trial or great personal sacrifice. Ragnarök has struck throughout the shattered timelines; the Fates send your heroes, pawns in a cosmic game, to stand against doom across the Kingdom of the Heavens. In this elementally hazardous universe, perhaps all that matters is how you meet the end.
Ian Sharpe has developed the Vikingverse in fiction and comics. Along with the RPG line, these works show wild imagination, yet are shaped by a rigorous, almost scholarly fidelity to the spirit of the original Norse sagas and historical Viking culture, flensed of pop-media interpretations that have been hijacked by creeps. “Norse symbols, once coveted by the Nazis for their raw power and ancient heritage, are now contested by rival groups of pagans, Neo-Nazis, and advertisers seeking to exploit them for their own benefit,” Ian wrote in the first entry on his Vikingverse blog (25 Nov 2023). “Vikings themselves have become a symbol, representing at best adventure, risk, individual spirit, and daring – and at worst, xenophobia, purification of ethnicity, and male violence. But this imagery is largely mediated through popular culture, rather than from the original folklore of North Germanic pre-Christian Europe.”
“The way we perceive Vikings today has little to do with the reality of the Viking Age and everything to do with the way we want to see ourselves. It is the greatest of ironies that Vikings, once demonized as the scourge of Europe, are now a talisman for those who are mortally afraid.”
Cowards have no place in the Vikingverse. Like its model, Shadow of the Demon Lord, When The Wolf Comes is a game of courage and epic struggle. It’s set in a parallel timeline where the Vikings never lost a battle, yet Ragnarök has brought the Norse Empire to its knees. After discovering Yggdrasil, a vast intelligence that seeded life throughout the cosmos, the kingdoms of menn migrated to far-flung exoplanets. These so-called realms of the gods bring new materials and deadly perils.
Across the Nine Homeworlds, modern menn with restless fleets wield technology indistinguishable from magic. Where once they bowed to the Æsir, now they worship money and fame. New sciences bring immortality within tantalizing reach. The Æsir and Vanir have escaped all searches, though their mysteries are still found everywhere. The elites of menn have stolen the fruit of Yggdrasil and changed their very nature, birthing nightmares. Meanwhile, the unfathomable Norns twist mortal lives to their intricate designs, as they try to rethread the timelines from echoes of pasts that never existed.
The standalone 392-page When The Wolf Comes corebook lets you build futuristic Norse characters from Berserker to Wolfshead, as well as living legends like dvergar, the monstrous jötnar, and the Álfar. Lead warbands in pursuit of fame and plunder, and tell new sagas of secrets, sacrifice, ritual, and war. Master spell-song and seiðr – or learn to harness your hamr, hugr, and other Gifts of Nature. New rules, compatible with other Demon Lord games, cover fate, technology, honor and shame, shell shock, and lineages. Let your enemies fear your weapons, and your allies be heartened by your courage – and should you fall, be sure it is a glorious end, worthy of song and the pride of future generations.
But no need to be dour – it’s not the end of the world! Oh, wait….
This Vikingverse Bundle presented the entire Vikingverse line for an unbeatable bargain price. There were seventeen titles in our Vikingverse Collection (retail value $61) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete When the Wolf Comes core rulebook; three short but intense rules supplements – Space Vikings, Doomcraft, and Death Metal; the character expansions Paths of Honor and Paths of Shame; and the complete 11-part Thought & Memory Saga Campaign Bundle:
- Thought & Memory Saga, an introductory overview
- 01 Nobody Dies in Hjalpmakaar (also in the When the Wolf Comes core rulebook)
- 02 The Book of Daniel
- 03 The Ghost Signal
- 04 Finnbogi’s Wake
- 05 Horror of Fangstone Mine
- 06 Blood Bath at Rodrekr’s Drift
- 07 The Ship of the Dead
- 08 The Scar on the Sky
- 09 The Well of Fate
- 10 Mother’s Night
- 11 The Raven Roads
Actual Play Entertainment posted a free four-episode When the Wolf Comes podcast series where designer Ian Sharpe guided the cast through Thought & Memory Saga.
