If you have them, what do you call the Norse “Viking” humans in your fantasy setting? Trying to decide on a name for my own setting.
If you have them, what do you call the Norse Viking humans in your fantasy setting?
If you have them, what do you call the Norse “Viking” humans in your fantasy setting? Trying to decide on a name for my own setting.
I call them the Sgnikiv
Viqueens
too gay
northmen. pretty simple.
OP here, was considering calling them “the vendel”. Does that suck?
taken from seventh sea?
Works for me. Sounds a bit like vandal who were a completely different group, but I don't think there's any issue with that. I doubt you're shooting for historical accuracy.
I actually took it from the Vendel period. A time period in Sweden that predated the viking age. Known for its sick helmets and artifacts.
Well, that should work then. Wasn't aware of that period. Perfectly appropriate.
pretty good idea, you could also go with tribes like the Geats (which Beowulf descended from) or Jutes, or even earlier with the Bothnians up in Sweden.
Its crazy how cooler and crazy some of the real world armors are compared to fantasy, than loves horns and skulls too much and little "culture" for they nords. I think Trudvang helped with that a lot tough, and in last years you can have cool vikings inspired art without the over reliance of biker vikings.
So true. It’s strangely beautiful.
It's all the little details than tell AN HISTORY.
You see chariots in the helmet, the big ass red eyed thing than could be a horse or a dragon, the clasp for the cape (a god, an ancestor?) than makes everything come alive, instead of some pre-historic biker with leather and skulls than only tell 80's evil dude.
Esorn
I suppose it's worth noting that the Vikings, such as they were, never called themselves Vikings. Vikings is more like historical shorthand for all the Norse raider boys. To themselves, they were Danes, or Norwegians or what have you.
At the time, many of the people they had interactions with had names for them. The Irish called them Dubgail or Finngail with means dark/fair stranger, the germans called them Ascomanni, which means Ashmen, and the Mediterranean came to know them as the Varangians, which means something close to Sworn Men.
My point is that you should think about what someone who experienced the fellas would logically call them. If they came from the north and pillaged before anything else, that would form the basis of the name, but if they were handsome traders, the name would be something else.
Or you can pick something that sounds vaguely Norse, I guess.
Weren’t they also called Ostmen?
Ostmen were the Scandis that settled in Ireland and mixed with Irish. It means Men from the East.
the duality of man
NERD
Nords
That’s pretty good…
I use Nords too. I know it's taken, but there's only so many cool words to go around, sometimes you just need to accept some overlap.
Hyperboreans.
We aren't replacing vikings with Finnic people
But if we are I suggest name Chude
>Chude
Why so?
I just name them after germanic tribes like cherusci and don't think about it too much
Just call them vikings, considering that's probably what your players are going to refer to them as anyway.
Neirsche Norse with an Irish accent
Sounds more French
Skraelings
In my setting? I just call them Vikings.
>AI image
>AI post
>Asking actual humans for solution to a non-problem
>If you have them, what do you call the Norse “Viking” humans in your fantasy setting?
Giants are Hyperboreans.
Normal sized are Polarians.
It actually isn't an AI image.
It's a real illustration done by Mark Fredrickson. It only looks AI because he was a prominent "generic stock image" illustrator- the kind that would be commissioned to make artwork for jigsaw puzzles, holiday cards, and those generic paintings you see being sold in malls. The AI 'aesthetic' as we commonly know it was supplied and founded off of those stock image illustrations.
Invaders. From Iron Maidens1982 release "Number of the Beast"
>They're coming in from the sea
>They've come the enemy
>Beneath the blazing sun
>The battle has to be won
>Invaders, pillaging
>Invaders, looting
You're welcome.
Just call them what they are. Or Vanir if you must be fancy. You don't need to invent crappy new terms for something that operates functionally similar.
The Southerners.
Hijacking this thread because I have the exact same problem but I can't come up with a name that doesn't suck. Lorewise they're (supposedly) Giant-kin who sailed to Not!Europe on the backs of islands that drifted south and hammered the mainland during a cataclysmic event that shaped the continent, and then set about exterminating Elves and pushing along the Northern coast into the endless steppe frontier.
Why not just call them giants
Their being giantkin is meant to be mythological. A lot of the mythology of the setting revolves around explaining how the current state of the world was formed; e.g. the Mediterranean coastal empire claim to have been born from eternal phoenix fires because the islands they ruled from were volcanic, the dark-skinned desert dwellers who have been historical opponents of the Mediterranean empire are supposedly the way that they are because those same fires supposedly ravaged their lands and burned them into deserts, etc.
This is supposed to be millenia-old mythology of the various peoples in the setting.
ok so why not call them giants? If people believe they were big fellas, then the name is apt, innit?
Because that would be like people today calling africans Orangutans because Herodotus thought Orangutans were the people of Africa several thousand years ago.
Also the setting does contain actual Giants.
Ehhhh. I guess you could start with the naming conventions of the people telling stories about the island-sailing not-actually-giants. Maybe you'll be fine just choosing any generic "old people who came before us" kinda name.
Call them the grendel.
>mythological giants vaguely based on the Norse
Jotun
Vikings if they are pirates
Tronskalians if by region since they come from Tronskal
Northmen if by broad cultural grouping.
vikings
why bother trying to call them anything else
they're not norse, they're ulfen humans, and orks/half orcs, but otherwise, they're vikings
sometimes get reavers, raiders etc, but they're vikings, they don't need another name
Pirates.
Half-men.
Northmen. It's simple enough.
Varangians from the kingdom of Varangia
>Viagrians from the Kingdom of Viagra
cheeky
midgardians. sea-raiders if they’re vikings.
They are known as "Sea Raiders" by other peoples when they are on longship raids. They would know themselves by the names of their Kingdoms/States/Tribe etc.
Normans.
in my setting all humans are basically medieval englishmen. dwarves are the norse.
Northmen
In general I call everything by a name that instantly creates the image I want of them in the players' minds
Northlanders or just Northmen.
Not not!Norse, but adjacent. Lapmi are a grouping of Tamite tribes that often raid Southwards. While not raiding, they're know for growing jackshit because they live in the tundra, but they ride caribou, hunt seals, and fish.
Tamites are like a frost folk, they're cold-adapted humans.
I called them the Varangar in my old AD&D game.
My current game is semi-historical, so Norsemen, Viking, Danes, etc.
If it's semi-historical, "viking" shouldn't be a group of people but an activity undertaken by various northerners.
No shit. But in response to OP I gave terma for both the people themselves and the people-as-raiders.
pale face
Moon Skins
homosexual Rangers
Snow Monkeys
Stat me some snow monkeys
Vikunts.
Norfers
Northeners is always a good choise for me
But the hardest thing for me is naming stuff so idk
How about Northmen, Wickingers or Gardanes for an Anglo-Saxon feel.
Northmen. Not to be confused with Southmen, Eastmen or Westmen.
The Orcse
"Hairy Stealing Killing Raping Gold-Digging homosexuals" sounds like a good alternative
Germans
I have the same problem, but with Tibetans.
Nords. It's such a meme because so many settings use it, but it works fine and everybody gets it immediately. It sounds nice and suits them. The raiders and mercenaries, that are the only ones that really leave their lands, are specifically referred to as Varangians. And to lean into the meme, just like in real life the terms are basically interchangeable. Nords are just called Varangians by most people.
Norscans
Thorwaler
I call them Thorwaler because I'm a based Dark Eye chad.
Hithlondr.
I have two ideas for 'viking humans' settings.
Both are ones where Elves represent the height of civilization with massive decadent empires full of different flavors of elves but they are in the middle of the downfall of their civilization. The former is when the Elves are fighting hordes of Orcs, and human settlers are brought in to help fight the Orcs in exchange for land-grants. The second is where the Elves are just fricking buttholes and using a bunch of dark magic to frick things up and the humans show up to push the rotten system over and grab some land as it collapses.
Stealing this, thanks sucker
Oh no, now you are guilty of copyright infringement!
Anyway you wanna flesh out the idea with me?
Sure. These humans, would they be helped by magic, or would it be more of a “rough and tumble swordsmen vs the evil magocracy” thing?
I'm thinking Elves have practically cornered the market on the whole 'being a wizard thing' but the Humans might have 'runic magic' they use to enchant their weapons. So elves would throw fireballs or summon demons, and become evil liches and such, but a human can make a hammer that hits REALLY hard.
Neat
Maybe the orcs and humans from a common alliance to beat the elves?
Maybe, but I feel like it sort of undermines the sort of feel I'd want to go for.
Maybe Orcs could be an oppressed underclass of the Elves, but I feel that conflict with the whole tribal feel that Orcs have. But Orcs having a tribal feel I think sort of feels redundant if humans are tribal vikings.
Norscans, their homeland being called Scandia.
I actually recently figured it out myself: Northmen/Boreals. They are called both interchangeably.
Vardrunars
Vargs
I wonder why the anglo-saxons don't get as much love as the vikings.
I call them vikings, the norse, nords, northmen, or men of the north. No need to change what works.
I call them northerners, because they come from the north and sleep with their sisters.
Gothics
Vanirs and Aesirs, and Bers (from berserk), basically I stole a lot of hiboria.
varangians
The Vanir
The Vargr. Those that worship the great Fenrir wolf, hoping to one day be accepted into his endless hunting ground. Sworn enemies of The Draugr, a race of brutal undead warriors who worship the death god Helja.
Vikangz.
My setting doesn't have apes
Snowmanes for the General term
Athorns for the General but more Formal term
There are also 3 subgroups called the Aldirns, Vargks, and Nyrds
Varangians
Harrison Fjord
The Bi Kings
Sweyn Frickbeard
Hornhelms
Ross
They're literally just 'the north humans.' I justified having different races of humans in my world by having them all be different races made by the elemental lords.
The north humans were the race made by the Nameless Lady, a water elemental that could fill an entire plane of elemental water and given so much power it may as well be a god. The portal to the elemental plane of water lies far under the ice caps and the north humans live on the tundras just south of that. Her priests are a bunch of baba yagas that live in the frozen woods and do miraculous/horrible shit in the name of their nameless god. One of two dragons left in the world is the high priestess and can cast divine magic in addition to all the other dragon shit she can do. She fricks with the north humans constantly in ways that are contradictory.
tldr: North humans, as opposed to the south humans, the Hizeans and the dark humans (also called the amazons).