Real World Inspirations: Giant Swords!
More peaks behind the curtain in fantasy world building
Hi everyone, and welcome to the latest issue of Lazy Wolves, the newsletter for Lazy Wolf Studios and the Thrones & Bones games for Tales of the Valiant and Dungeons & Dragons.
I have maintained for a while that the best fantasy world is Earth. I’m always struck by how many “fantastical” locations there are on our own planet, and in fact, I keep a folder of reference folder of cool castles, waterfalls, sinkholes, mountain ranges, step wells, and everything else that is good fodder for imagination.
Recently, I’ve been talking about the real-world inspiration for some of the locations in my own Scandinavian-inspired land of Norrøngard. We’ve focused on cities thus far, but today I want to talk something else.
In the Norrøngard Campaign Setting, there’s a section titled “Other Places of Power” and one of the places detailed is the Jǫtunnsverð. That’s a compound word that translates as “giant sword.”
The Jǫtunnsverð isn’t in a city, or even near one. It’s about 75 miles north of one of the northernmost cities, Wendholm, in a spot where the tundra gives way to year-round glacial ice. The Jǫtunnsverð is a colossal weapon sunk half the length of its blade into the ground, the aboveground portion of which is still “higher than the height of any ten Norrønir standing one atop the other.”
I like a bit of mystery in my history, so I don’t explain what it is, but the descriptive text speculates, “Some say it is a monument from the days of the giants’ lost empire, as the Jǫtunnsverð is far larger than any frost giant living or in legend could hope to wield. Others believe it is the blade of dead Ymir himself, pointing out that if the body of the father of frost giants indeed became the Ymirian Mountain Range, then the Jǫtunnsverð stands near to his right arm.”
The Jǫtunnsverð has a red-gold sheen, which is a clue that it is made, at least in part, from orichalcum. Orichalcum in my world is a magic metal mixed in varying degrees into all major magical items. The metal is soft as an ore, but when it is enchanted it becomes unbreakable. There’s also an enormous purple jewel set into the pommel. What it is and what it might do isn’t specified.
The sword is smooth and “gives off a deadly chill that freezes any foolish enough to touch it” so no one has climbed up to the jewel to see what it does. But maybe your character will be the first?
So, what’s this giant sword stuck in the ice inspired by, you ask?
This:
The Sverd i fjell (“ Swords in Rock”) is a monument in Madla, a borough of the city of Stavanger in Norway. I’ve seen the three swords in person once, as a ship I was on sailed by it. You can actually walk around below the monument if you approach it by land, which I would love to do one day, but alas, there was no dock and the ship I was on wasn’t stopping!
It would be fun to think the monument was ancient, but it was created in 1983 by sculptor Fritz Røed (and unveiled by King Olav V of Norway). The three swords are made of bronze and stand 33 ft tall. They commemorate the Battle of Hafrsfjord which took place there in the year 872, when King Harald Fairhair gathered all of Norway under one rule. The largest sword represents Harald, and the two smaller swords represent the kings he defeated (sorry guys). The monument also represents peace, as the swords have been stuck in the rock, never to be removed.
And there you have it! History and fantasy!
You can learn more about Norrøngard in the Norrøngard Campaign Setting. And click the image below to follow along on our next upcoming Kickstarter.
As always, thanks for being here! And as the Norrønir say, “Be healthy!”
