I've read many books and articles about vikings, but movies and games are far more accessible when simply mentioning them in a forum.

Recently, I've been reading the Northlanders series, Vol 1-4. Great stuff!

Fictional stuff I recommend Jan Guillou's trilogy about Arn Magnusson (although almost the entire 2nd book takes place in Jerusalem). There's also a decent movie made based on the trilogy called Arn: The Knight Templar.

Also, there's an old saga about the viking Red Wyrm (R?de Orm), but I'm not sure it was ever translated into English. It's epic, though, and one of the best fictional viking novels I've ever read.

A comic book? haha nice one

As I said taking inspiration from the real world is inevitable but you could do it a little more subtle and mix it up. I think a good example in the TES world is the dunmer and a bad example the nords.

With this i'm not saying though in any way that I hate the nords and think that skyrim will svck, so any nord fanatics feeling like they want to carve blood eagle on me viking style can put down the dagger.

I had no idea about the movei but I'm actually reading the first book right now, I love how it paints the nothern culture of that world, I kinda wish I could see Winterfall

That's as far as it should go. There is enough staid, repetitive media indulging the Viking fetish of nerds to sink a flotilla of those longboats.

Somehow, whenever you have races that are inspired by real-world cultures, the result is incredibly uninspired. Elder Scrolls cannot mirror the reality of Scandinavian culture in any way that is more meaningful or interesting than that culture itself. It can only offer dim parody unless 90% of the content is creative and new.

And we're already halfway there. The Vinlandsaga isn't full of references to the cyclical nature of time and multiple repetitious universes, is it?

Ha, how ignorant of you! Of all the literature I've read about vikings, Northlanders accomplishes depicting the multi-faceted culture of the vikings perfectly. From an Irish farmer on the run from ruthless invaders, to a widowed shield maiden in a plague-infested town, to an exiled warrior becoming a slave in Constantinople and returning to his homeland for revenge, to an English boy who seeks revenge on his father and brother by exposing their location to an invading horde and BECOMING a viking, to a group of three females escaping a massacre who, now widowed, shield themselves in an abandoned castle. It may have pictures, but they aren't pretty. It may come in issues, but each story arc introduces themes such as religion, sixism, devotion, and atonement.

Still laughing?

So word that just simply typing 'word' isn't enough.

I agree with you on that, "Pathfinder" is way far from being a good movie.. except for the special effects.. that was sort of good..



True, most "battles" during the time of the Vikings were more of frightening your enemy then actually engaging them in combat. Unlike what many thinks it was more psychology then bloodshed on a Viking battlefield.



"The Thirteenth Warrior" gives a pretty good picture of the Vikings in my opinion.

the people trying to invade their countries? Yeah I'm sure they'll be saying nice stuff about them, how about the roman empire, who had some of the most brutal executions of all time and were completely ruthless in terms of, you either had to join them or die, but they also united a large part of the world, as did the vikings. Also the vikings have only been portrayed that way since the late 19th/early 20th centuries. I would like to know where you get your "facts" from.

The saxons and vikings are from the same place.

Viking history and culture references only for Skyrim.

Obviously ES Nords do not directly correlate to medieval Scandinavians, but I think the viking fetish is still overcrowded by pirates, ninjas, zombies, and whatever pop culture memes are present. I could stomach a few more references to Viking culture, such as the blood eagle, as people have said, or ship burials like the one in MW.

Pirates are cool but overrated, like Ninjas.

Well, vikings are technically pirates. So +1.

Ninjas overrated?

:stare:

That's HERESY!!!

Ontopic: Imo, vikings are the most misunderstood people in history. They were more civilized than any other cultures in Europe by that time, technologically superior, and with an incredible ability to organize themselves when needed - in war, as well as internally whenever they needed something done. When the danes were threthened by saxson kings in the mid-900's they rapidly organized the construction of several large fortresses spread all over the country, just to prevent an invasion. All done within a decade. And when some king in England decided to throw out all the viking settlers in the eastern part of the country - and did so after a terrible genocide - the danes became angry and retaliated by conquering most of England shortly after (which led to 'Danelagen', a dane-controlled part of England). And that's just a small part of their deeds. In the east, swedish vikings founded Russia (I know many russians don't agree, but it's a debatable fact :yes: ), and vikings from Norway discovered Iceland, Greenland and Nothern America. So no, the vikings were not barbarians. They were just infidels, and as such they have been judged by christian historicans ever since.
BTW, the danes became christianized around 980. It's written on a stone somewhere in Jutland. Shortly after, the viking-age ended.

"As I said taking inspiration from the real world is inevitable but you could do it a little more subtle and mix it up. I think a good example in the TES world is the dunmer and a bad example the nords."



Dark elves were used probably 100 times before if not more in other fantasy settings.Its the story and lore behind them in tes that makes them unique. Same for the other races. As a gamer, and rpg fan, I like content not to be too alien and have some sort of connection, especially with 'men'. If jrr tolkien made men in his story completely uninspired from real life and more alien, I don't think his books would have as big as an impact as they did. In tes I liked how elves, and non human races had vastly different culture and more fantastical and I hope its kept that way

They didnt became vikings, they were born vikings but some of them just went looking (Beserks)

You are joking right? Vikings never ruled Scotland, Wales or Ireland. They ruled Northern England for a short time before they were pushed out by the Saxons. The Vikings invaded Northern England years later ( and were defeated to a man at Stamford Bridge), at the same time that William the Conquer invaded from the south. It was the only way that they could defeat the Saxon Housecarls' shield wall. For the record, the Scots, or Picts, terrified the Vikings, and it is well known that the Vikings gave Scotland a wide berth.

Also, Saxon England was the most sophisticated country in Europe at the time, with its weaving, metal work, systems of common law, and taxes. This was the reason that William the Conquer and the Danes coveted the English throne so much.

An interesting factoid if no one mentioned it yet:
Vikings didn't actually use horned helmets. Somehow that myth caught on within the last couple hundred years.

If I am not mistaking,the word "Housecarl" is nordic and means "Man of the House"..
I believe it was the ROMANS that where afraid of the Picts, thats why they built both Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall.

The vikings ar misunderstood in the sense that they're "simply" barbarians. In war they were ruthless as they used tactics that ignored any real honor code, they used the sea to their advantage and
liked to attack people unaware(which is smart), one of their main trades was slaves and they did follow a very violent religion. And this was the verison everyone else saw of them, those who were attacked. And
the letters turks wrote about them, their weird customs bad manners and disrespectful ways. However amongst themselves, in their society we learn that they have a deep culture, their rights are suprisingly equal between
man and woman for that time and so on.

During my school education I was told different versions depending on teachers, some portrayed them as peaceful traders that pretty much never touched a weapon while some went with the more bloodthirsty barbarian approach.
It wasn't really until senior high school(I think that's what it's called in english when you're about 16 years old right?) that I got a teacher that actually presented some kind of proof and didn't stick completely to one side of the story.
From there on I did some research on my own and have come to the conclusion that vikings are pretty much a mix of both versions. But it also varies between countries. Swedish vikings were generally more into trading than the norwegian for example.



Well I have pretty much never read fantasy or played fantasy games where there are dark elves except for tes so I guess i'm lucky :celebrate:

And as I said, it's difficult not to draw inspiration, but that dosen't mean you have to copy half a culture and paste it into your own world... Like they did with the nords.

One thing you left out about the Vikings, they were also explorers. They where in North America long before Columbus and they colonized Iceland and Greenland long before any other power in Europe started "long-distance-colonisation". I have even heard tales about that there were a "white" native American tribe when the "first" colonist/pioneers arrived from Europe to America.

Huskarl. It does mean, directly translated, "houseman". A huskarl is a man that works under someone, usually on big farms etc. a servant sort of, under cheiftains, rich farmers etc., and preform various duties, most of all they functioned as troops.

Well, they never ruled all of Ireland, but they certainly ruled parts of it - perhaps most noticably Dublin. Which is basically the same that can be said of the english until Cromwell showed up.