Norsca

Hell froze over

"Nothing burns like the cold."

– Will, A Game of Thrones

"The hammer of the Gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, singing and crying
Valhalla I am coming
So on we sail, with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the distant shore"

– Led Zeppelin

"This harsh land breeds the savage. And we revel in it."

– Wulfrik the Wanderer

Far to the north of The Empire, lies a cold, savage, and brutal land. A land where the ground is permanently frozen and blistering winters ravage the land for 8 months of the year. A land where there are as many monsters as there are men. The lands of Norsca.

Norsca is home of some of the Warriors of Chaos and honestly, only a land as barren, brutal and bristling with chaotic energies could produce such a group of madmen, as Norsca is probably the most dangerous place to live in the entirety of the Warhammer world, with its only rivals to the title being Lustria and The Mountains of Mourn. It's a truly shitty place to live, as you'll either be killed by a half-naked barbarian, eaten by something with 7 eyes and 4 ass holes, or raped by something that spilled in from the Realm of Chaos. Fun times. On the bright side, that half-naked barbarian knows he’s a monster and has accepted it, so ironically he has a functioning moral compass and just doesn’t care.

The Norscan Mainland

Yes, those are Chaos Mammoths.

The mainland of Norsca is mostly tundra where the ground is frozen all year round, with it being impossible for any crops or food to grow in the ground due to the permafrost. Around the tundra are large frozen mountains that make traveling around the place even harder. To top it all off the area is also volcanically active and has a few active volcanos and rivers of lava in some areas, just in case the locals weren't having enough fun with the hostile wildlife, and freezing temperatures. What makes Norsca such a dangerous place is its proximity to the Chaos Gate in the north, as it's only a stones throw from the Chaos Wastes, which mutates the people so they are larger and stronger, the animals so they all eat meat and have lots of teeth and even the land, with mountains eroding in the wind to look like skulls bleeding lava. You know, that metal stuff that Nordic people like.

Since nothing grows in the permafrost the people of Norsca have two options: kill and raid for food or starve. This has forced the Norscans to develop their favorite pastime-- pillaging and raping. And they're not picky about who they do it to either: other Norscan tribes, Kislev, The Empire. Hell, at one point they even went to the other side of the planet in Nehekhara and started causing problems until Settra got pissed and chased them back to Norsca.

Surrounded by 3 seas, The Sea of Claws, The Chaos Sea, and The Frozen Sea (yes, they are all filled with monsters and Chaos-tainted wildlife), Norsca has only one direct piece of land that connects it to the rest of the Old World, so if the locals want to go pillaging, they need to build longboats and hope they don't get destroyed by that massive sea serpent with 3 heads Karl saw last week, or go through Kislev and hope a bunch of pissed off Slavs don't run them down on horseback while dancing to excessive amounts of Russian hardbass. However raiding is what the Norscans do best (it's kinda all they can do); it also has the added bonus of appeasing their Gods and a lot of Chaos Warriors start out as Norscan raiders who attracted the attention of the gods, so a lot of Norscans use these raids to try and kick start their "careers" as murder vikings.

The Norse Dwarfs

Norsca is also home to the Norse Dwarfs (not to be confused with the Chaos Dwarfs who live further east), the long lost cousins of the Dwarfs who live in the Worlds Edge Mountains, with their settlements being found in mountains of South East Norsca. After The Great Catastrophe, the Norse Dwarfs found themselves cut off from their cousins further south. This isolation meant the Norse dwarfs developed slightly differently to the other dwarfs and led to them becoming sort of chaos worshipper, with them revering the Chaos Gods but not falling to out-right Chaos worship like their Norscan neighbours. They rely on older Dwarf technology with a considerable Navy of longboats and are very skilled sailor, because when in Scandanavia. When Asavar Kul invaded the south during the Great War against Chaos, the Norse Dwarfs decided to sail south to fight alongside the humans and reunite with their Dawi cousins. Unfortunately after this, the Norscans decided they had had enough of these dwarfs living on their land, and attacked the main Norse Dwarf stronghold of Kraka Drak. Realising the rest of the Norse Karaks were at risk the Dwarfs took the decision to collapse the entire mountain to stop the Norscans from advancing into the rest of the Karaks, and then settled in for a war of attrition. This War ground on for nearly 90 years with most of the population fleeing to the other Karaks over time, until the Dwarfs were defeated and the Kraka Drak was destroyed, however the rest of the Norse Karaks survived with Kraka Ravnsvake taking over as the primary Norse Dwarf stronghold. Since then groups of Norse Dwarfs have returned to Kraka Drak to resettle it and rebuild it to its former might.

Troll Country

Expect no polite reasonable discourse here.

Just north of Kislev is the part of Norsca known as Troll Country. As its name suggests it's infested with trolls along with a whole bunch of other angry monsters, including but not limited to Manticores, Chimeras, Dragon Ogres, Skin wolves, Ice wolves, regular wolves, Drakes and Giants. No people live there, as it's just too densely populated with monstrous creatures that no one could settle in the area and even if you could establish a settlement you would spend all your time fighting off the local wildlife. The only people that actively go to Troll Country are Chaos champions looking for challenges to fight, and Chaos Lords who lost their flesh-eating horse and want to replace it with something more exotic. Like a twin-headed manticore that shits napalm. The one thing that could actually be called the ruling body of Troll Country would be Throgg The troll king (a fitting title indeed). Throgg lives in an Icy labyrinth in the northern part of Troll Country where he is surrounded by other trolls and he ponders about destroying the civilised races and repopulating it with intelligent monsters, a task he's a little stuck on as he is the only intelligent troll in the entire species.

Actually there is one actual settlement in Troll country. Hellpit, the stronghold of Clan Moulder. Hellpit is...an absolute fucking nightmare city. Underground and hidden from everyone, the twisted animals of Troll Country make wonderful things for Moulder to experiment on, and the large quantity of Warpstone and Chaotic energies help fuel their twisted imaginations. Honestly, think of the worst experiments you could ever do to an animal. Well, the Clan moulder has done that, got bored, and started doing even worse things to people, animals and other Skaven. Things that you can't even begin to imagine. The Dark Elves and their slavers and beastmasters have absolutely nothing on Clan Moulder and what they do in Hellpit.

Norse Forces Through the Ages

The Norscans have the distinction of being one of the oldest distinct human factions; Warhammer Fantasy Battles 1e started with only four human factions - the "Men of the West" (who were sort of a hodgepodge of the Empire and Bretonnia), the "Men of the East", the "Men of the Orient" and finally, the "Men of the North" - aka, the Norse.

That said, they had their teething problems. Despite being one of the oldest factions, the Norscans were never really that fleshed out beyond being "Knockoff Vikings"; they could field various human troops named after Nordic social classes and had berserkers at one point, but they just didn't have anything special. Starting with 3rd edition, they began to be assimilated into the Chaos army, and by 4th edition they were all but gone. 6th edition saw the brief return of Norse Marauder characters in an issue of White Dwarf, who were basically cheaper, unarmored Chaos Champions who could ride Cold Ones, but that last flash in the pan was quickly spent.

WAP Presents: Norsca

The Warhammer Army Project never met an Oldhammer idea they didn't like, unless it was officially retconned by Midhammer - so they probably won't be doing a Warhammer Armies: Slann book any time soon. Having already created army books for Albion, the Amazons of Lustria, Araby, Cathay, Estalia, Nippon, the Pirates of Sartosa, and Tilea (via Dogs of War, as well as their own expanded takes on the Empire and Bretonnia), they decided that the Norscans needed to be separated from their Chaos associations and made a fully independent Warhammer Vikings force.

The Warleaders are the King' and the Jarl, who represent your standard Lord and Hero choices respectively. For the obligatory wizards, you have the Lord-tier Vikti and the Hero-tier Seer, who can use the Lores of Fire, Beasts, Heavens, Shadow and Death.

Skalds are Norscan bards; they can't be your army's general, but they instead serve as a more potent form of battle standard bearer, able to sing specific songs to bolster their unit and combining the BSB and unit musician roles into one

Beastmasters serve as the leaders and tamers for the various Norscan monsters that follow the army.

Bondsmen are the infantry of a Norscan force, representing the young fighters who serve under the various Jarls. Their elite counterparts are the Huscarls.

Marauders represent those Norscans who have embraced the service of the Dark Gods of Chaos; no longer part of the Bondsmen, but not yet risen to the rank of Chaos Warrior.

Reavers are Norscan pirates, who naturally flock to join the horde when it marches to war.

Whalers are tough, rugged sailors who provide a vital role to the survival of the Norse tribes.

Thralls are normally used as sacrifices to the Dark Gods, but may be drafted as expendable infantry troopers.

Horsemen are, obviously, the cavalry of the Norscan forces.

Berserkers need no elaboration.

Hunters are usually drawn from the ranks of Norscan exiles, who have managed to survive in the wilderness by learning the arts of stealth, woodscraft and archery, and may be permitted to lend their aid to a Norscan army in need.

Shieldmaidens are warrior-women who have mastered the arts of using their shields to compensate for their lesser bulk compared to the mighty menfolk of the North, and who occupy an odd place in the typically quite patriarchal Norscan society.

Valkyries are former Shieldmaidens who have returned from the wilderness touched by the gods, imbuing them with magnificent wings and the blessing of the gods, which earns them much fearful respect from their menfolk.

Ulfwerenar are Norscan werewolves, able to shift from bloodthirsty Norseman (or woman) to a ravenous giant wolf and back again. Skin Wolves and their Ulfjarl characters are a more mutated variety, able to shift from human to monstrous humanoid wolf and back again.

Werebeasts, on the other hand, are a devolved form of the archetype, being former Norscans so touched by the blessings of the Dark Gods that they have lost their minds and devolved into twisted bestial creatures - not quite Chaos Spawn, but not far removed. They retain enough of their human minds to remain docile around their kin and loyal to their former clans, and so make powerful weapons of war.

Norsca is full of Chaos-touched wolves, and the Norscans eagerly incorporate them into their forces. War Wolves are huge, powerful beasts tamed by the Norscan beastmasters as houndmasters do with war dogs in the southern pars of the Old World, whilst War Wolf Chariots hitch these dangerous predators to Norscan chariots. Finally, the Chaos-touched Ice Wolves are giants amongst their kind with a deadly freezing Breath Weapon.

Snow Trolls are yet another mutant subspecies of Troll who have adapted to the frigid landscape of Norsca, even developing a freezing breath in place of the traditional hyper-corrosive gout of vomit.

Jotuns, or "Frost Giants", are the largest and most intelligent strain of giant left in the Warhammer world. Whilst they have lost much of the wisdom and knowledge their Sky-Titan ancestors had, they still retain a culture (admittedly all but identical to their Norse neighbors) and are organized, instead of wandering the world as dull-witted, mindless brutes.

Cursed Ettins are whispered in Norscan stories as being the descendants of a Norscan king who betrayed the Dark Gods by ignoring the call to ravage the southern lands to instead plunder the weakened lands of those tribes who had gone south. For this they were cursed into two-headed ogre-like beings, hideously deformed but horribly aware of what they had lost.

Ice Drakes are frost-empowered winged lizards, possibly a distant, mutant offshoot of dragonkind.

War Mammoths are great hairy pachyderms who roam the frozen lands of the North, eagerly captured and raised as beasts of war.

Of course, WAP had to give their Norsca army a set of special characters, even if this meant inventing them from scratch.

• Erik Redaxe, High King of the Norse
• Sturmjarl, Shaman Lord of Ejsgard
• Keorl Thunderhand, the Dragon Slayer
• Fenrir Wolfclaw, the Shackled King
• Drenok Johansen, Wielder of the Great Axe
• Floki Lostston, Descendant of Losteriksson
• Bragi Sturluson, the Ever-Skald
• Sigrun the Proud, She Who Stands Firm
• Njal Troelson, the Savage Hunter
• Jora and Bjorn, the Maiden and the Bear
• The Ravenswyrd, Chosen of the Gods
• Styrmir Rimefrost, King of the Frost Giants

Gallery

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  Your average Norscan man.

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  Your average Norscan woman.

Regions and Areas of the Warhammer World
Areas of The Old World:	The Empire of Man - Bretonnia - Albion - Estalia - Tilea - Kislev - Norsca - Border Princes - Worlds Edge Mountains - Karak Eight-Peaks
Areas of The New World:	Naggaroth - Lustria
Areas of The Eastern Lands:	Cathay - Nippon - Ogre Kingdoms - Dark Lands - Kingdoms of Ind - Khuresh - Eastern Steppes
Areas of The Southlands:	Nehekhara - Araby - Badlands - Marshes of Madness
Other Areas of the world:	Ulthuan - Athel Loren - Chaos Wastes - Skavenblight - Lost Isles of Elithis
Main bodies of Water:	The Great Ocean - The Far Sea - The Sea of Dread - Inner Sea of Ulthuan