Vikings
Summary
Vikings were Scandinavian people from the 8th to 11th century, a period in which societies based in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, making use of their long-ships set forth to trade and colonize areas including Northern France, the British Isles, Russia, Iceland, Greenland and even reached North America (though the settlements they set up there did not last). They also made a habit of bathing and washing their hands frequently. Probably because they had to have about two dozen dudes on a small boat for a long time, so you would regularly bathe if you didn't want to be That Guy. They only stopped when France, of all countries, rolled a nat 20 on Diplomacy by offering Normandy to duke Ralo. Once they were allied, they started going soft, so to counteract that Anglo-Saxons conquered a place and named it Anglo-land. Eventually just called it England.
Unlike popular belief; they did not wear horned helmets
Culture
Vikings believed that when they died in battle (Preferably in a totally fuck-awesome way) they would go to a place called Valhalla to become one of the Einherjar (Chosen Slain) or to the Fólkvangr (the realm controlled by Freyja, the Nordic god of love, prosperity, spring and being foxy as hell; also a death goddess and war goddess, which is why she gets half the chosen warriors in the first place. All in all Freyja's hall Sessrúmnir is not at all a bad place to end up), where they would chug booze, eat all the meat and cheese they wanted, and (if that actually managed to get dull) participate in massive murderfests only to be fully healed the next day and ready to do it all over again. On the other hand, if they died in bed or in a totally lame way (such as AIDs or cancer or... actually anywhere but battle is lame) they would instead go to a totally boring place called Hel where NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED! EVER! And if that weren't bad enough, people who committed what the vikings saw as the unforgivable sins, like oathbreaking, went to a prison overseen by the goddess of the dead. The ceiling is made from the bones of serpents, which drip burning venom, the halls are waist-deep in cold, slimy blood, and there is nothing to drink but goats piss and nothing to eat but rotten food (basically a Minnesota Vikings game). The exception is if you died while giving birth, then you got go to Valhalla, go woman!
That said, there was the third way to die. Dying at sea was totally cool for the Vikings, for while the Battle-junkies went to Valhalla and Freya, and the lame ones went to Hel, the Sea-Bears went to the Halls of Aegir, god of the sea, where they got their own Watery Valhalla.
Vikings aren't known for being nice, for a good reason. During their raiding paries, they would steal anything that wasn't nailed down. If it was nailed down, they'd try and steal the nails and if that didn't work, they'd burn it, and if they couldn't burn it, they'd FUCK it!
Later some of the smarter Viking warlords started to conquer shit rather than rape, pillage and kill everything in their sight. For quite a long time a large chunk of France and Italy, and the entirety of England and Russia where ruled by Vikings or their descendants, although they all got quickly assimilated into the nations they've conquered, to the point when they started to think of themselves as French/Russians in just a two or three generations after settling in.
In Modern Fiction
Vikings and the honorable Neanderthals are some of the closest that the real world has ever had to dwarves, but they should not be confused as such. While they had a penchant for axes and could use anything, including body parts and broken furniture, as a weapon, Vikings were just unspeakably awesome humans (they couldn't handle as much booze as a dwarf, though only just). Vikings that rode Dragons even more so. Vikings are not to be confused with barbarians either, despite any combination with the former resulting in awesome. Vikings are also notable for pledging themselves to Chaos and becoming werewolf supersoldiers.
The Vikings have also finally gotten their own TV show starring Vladimir Kullich.
Viking Longships
The thing that put the Vikings on the map were their Longships (or LongBOAT if you're not American). Basically these were large canoes made from planks with a mast to catch the wind. They could, however handle rough northern seas very well, and allowed some Vikings to reach such exotic locales as Newfoundland centuries before other Europeans.
Sometimes to save travel time, the Vikings would pull their Longships overland for kilometers. No joking, no hyperbole. A few tricks (like log rollers) helped, though. One of them (Oleg, the prince of Kievan Russ) even mounted his longships on wheels to quickly move them into Constantinople harbor, bypassing the defensive chain pulled across the path (which possibly inspired the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II when he used a similar trick to help him capture Constantinople).
Their Longships also had an early warning system so that people could tell wether they were going to fuck them up or not. It's to do with the shields: If the Shields were on the outside of their Longships, then they were coming to trade goods. If the Shields were not on the outside of their Longships, then they were going to use them in battle, and you should run for the hills (if you get that far...)
Gallery
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When Elspeth Tirel needs backup, these are the people she calls.
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Pillaging colorful brick villages since 576 A.D.
