The Annotated Ragnarok

So awhile back I did a book for White Wolf/CCP, Inc. for their Scion game line about Ragnarok, the Norse Gods, etc... You can buy it in fine game stores, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and online. And please do, since it might mean more work for me. Plus, it's awesome.

And because it's me, I included a lot of weird references, in jokes, and other bits in the book that might only be funny to me, but they're there.

And since I am occasionally asked for insight into how my mind works when I'm writing, I'm going to detail these little bits and easter eggs. Note I'm only going to do this for the parts I wrote, but that's still about half of the book. I'm also not going to go into super-depth about why I wrote certain gods and characters in a particular way as much as I'm going to peel back the curtain a bit.

So here goes:

p. 32: The sidebar on this page details how to fly using the tried and true Marvel Comics Thor method of throwing something (in his case the hammer Mjolnir) and grabbing on to it immediately afterward to propel yourself. The sidebar's title is a take on the classic art book "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way."

p. 32 Speaking of Marvel, the title of the Guardian Boon "I Say Thee Nay!" is an example of one of the many badass things that version of Thor says when he's facing a monster, told to give up, etc...

p. 32 Fast as Thought is a reference to a story where a servant of Thor races a creature that ends up being Thought. He loses but "Nearly as Fast as Thought, but still not good enough" wasn't a very good title.

p. 34 Fight With Your Head was inspired directly by the duel scene in the 13th Warrior in which Hergar the Joyous uses misdirection, tactics, and trickery. I won't say more except for fear of spoilers other than to recommend the film highly.

p. 46 The Sword of Atli's tale about the god Mars and all that is really true. Attila did claim such things about his sword and he was included as a character in the Volsung Saga.

p. 57 Frigg actually has eleven attendants in Norse myth. The idea that many of them are actually her was done to give the goddess a bit more "screen time" and provide a twist to the character that's still in keeping with the spirit of the myths.

p. 64 the Sidebar here references the fact that in Marvel Comics, Sif is a major character compared to many other Aesir, but she's also raven-haired instead of blonde.

p. 67 I own a pair of boots that are very much like the one's described as belonging to Vidar. They are the inspiration for the god's modernized footwear.

p. 76 Magni and Modi in this book are designed to very much be the "odd couple" or "brothers who are really nothing alike." Thus Magni, the strongest, is a jock. Modi, full of anger and fury, is a badass punk.

P. 78 Skirnir is an actual character from myth, but his modern "big guy with lots of kids" is partially inspired by Marvel Comics character of Volstagg, who doesn't appear in the myths and thus is absent in all other ways outside this little nod.

p. 80 Thrud's baseball bat Underbarn, translates roughly into "Wonder Boy". Which is what the character of Roy Hobbs special bat is called in the book and novel the Natural. I can't recall if the name is carved into the bat in the book, but it is in the film and thus Thrud's Underbarn also shares this trait.

p. 87 Vali was transformed into a modern rich kid and female to take the character and make her a "Vali Girl" which I admit is a terrible pun.

p. 95-96 The inclusion of The Great Hall was mostly inspired by my own visits to see Ruatepupuke, which is presented in that section as well. The tradition and sense of importance of the meeting house, which you can actually enter if you visit the Field Museum, needs to be experienced to truly appreciate it.

p. 96 Likewise, the Great Mound is mostly included/inspired by my own trip to the Cahokia Mounds and my own long standing interest in the Great Serpent Mound.

p. 99 Though I can take credit for melding the Jersey Devil and the story of Beowulf together I have to give a nod to Neil Gaiman for sparking the idea with his wonderful American Gods novella The Monarch of the Glen, which modernizes the tale of Beowulf and locates it in northern UK. The name of the mayor of Leeds Point (not be confused with any actual modern Jersey towns or locales of the same name) is a play on Beowulf's Rothgar.

p 100 the locations for the Scion versions of Tiny Towns corresponds to actual places where settlements of little people have existed at one point or another in history.

p. 105 The title of the story seed is taken from an episode of MASH. In that episode the whole camp (MASH, not Eggther's) reads a mystery called "The Rooster Crowed at Midnight" only to find that the last few pages are missing- thus leaving the mystery open and unsolved.

p 115 The tragic and somewhat sympathetic nature of Fenris discussed in the sidebar is based on my personal fatigue at the "evil wolf" archetype in myth. Too often "wolf= bad" and from MMOs to modern day ranchers panicking we've driven these intelligent and sensible creatures all but out of our world. The options in the God adventure regarding Fenris are also inspired by this.

p. 123 I wrote the section on the Storrvurm immediately after watching an episode of Destination Truth that involved investigating rumors of a giant serpent in a Scandanavian lake. They didn't find it.

p. 128 The Erl King was a late addition because two pages of my copy of Demigod had been stuck together and I hadn't noticed. On those pages were the monster I originally statted and included. Thus I did the Erl King instead. He is a figure from myth but my chief reason for including him was his appearance in an excellent short story by author John Connolly also called The Erl King. The story appears in the book Nocturnes, which I recommend highly. The artist for that section managed to pluck my image of the creature right out of my head, btw. I kinda wonder if we read the same story.

p. 204+ The general make up of the "talk Fenris out of Ragnarok" part of this adventure, as it was pointed out to me after I did it, was inspired by an episode of MASH. In that episode (For Want of a Boot) Hawkeye and Trapper go through a complex series of increasingly strange favor trades and errands to try and get new boots during a bad winter. I probably should have called that section "For Want of a Wolf" in fact.

p. 204 Title of the section an obvious Little Red Riding Hood reference

p. 206 And this one is Shakespeare's play MacBeth

p. 207 And the old TV show Mission Impossible (not the movies because Jim Phelps is not a bad guy, dammit!), changed because nothing should be impossible in Scion (IMO, naturally)

p. 209 And the film Ice Station Zebra.

p 212 Sidebar title is a reference to the film the Fifth Element

p. 212 The title Now All We Have to Do is Survive Ragnarok was taken from what I could imagine a character I was playing would say if I was in the adventure I was writing. It just popped in my head and then had to be the title of that section.

p. 213 the Title of Act Two is taken from a phrase the character of Uncle in the cartoon Jackie Chan Adevntures uses repeatedly to add conditions and information to an already complex or tense situation. It was that or "And Then...?" which would have been a reference to Dude, Where's My Car?

p. 214 Though Loki's toast and mockery is from myth, the section about it is titled after the Simpson's Comic Book Guy "Worst. Episode. Ever" quote.

p. 225 Obvious Pirates of the Carribean reference. Not 100 percent sure that's mine as I reworked some earlier work from another writer from that section but if it's not it's only because it was already there when I got to it.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll do this for other books if there's interest.