NorsePlay.

NorsePlay recently reviewed the Vikingverse series , and I loved it so much, I've reached out to its author & creator  Ian Stuart Sharpe to bring you this Q&A interview filled with all the inquiries his brilliant what-if-the-Vikings-had-conquered-the-world masterwork compelled me to ask.  For background, Sharpe's  career as a published writer started with the first Vikingverse installment, The All Father Paradox (2018 CE), continued with sequel Loki's Wager (2020 CE), gained even more literal public support with his crowdfunded Vikingverse graphic novel,  The Jötunn War (2021 CE), and then an equally fan-supported  Vikingverse -adjacent phrasebook Old Norse For Modern Times (2021 CE).   Sharpe's from London, UK, did some growing up in East Anglia, and now lives in Oak Bay, British Columbia, Canada. His longer tech career includes working for the BBC, IMG, Atari, and Electronic Arts. [Note that this interview does contain spoilers. Now, ont...

The Vikingverse  series is a NorsePlay of stellar proportions, epic in scope & reframing, written in two books and one graphic novel by Ian Stuart Sharpe. [Marines at Iwo Jima? No,  Space Vikings  raising the Raven Banner!] The narrative involves alternative history , a few Stormpunk points-of-deviation, quantum physics, parallel timelines, entanglement, consciousness, intelligent design, imperial ambition, magic, and the endless Odinic search for knowledge. The only thing I can literarily compare this to is Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, where a certain event changes the landscape of history to the present day, except instead vampires becoming societally dominant, it's Vikings instead. [Empress Trumba is based on a certain president ... !] The in-use of the Norse Lore is deep, and feels like it's been written for the Norse Lore hound by a Norse Lore hound , and at times I marveled at how much was drawn & woven into the Vikingverse by this, and conve...

NorsePlay was proud to help crowdfund When The Wolf Comes , the tabletop role-playing game based on the Vikingverse novels , and was glad to see it surpass its needed monetary goals to get to publication in 2024 CE. Only now have I recently had time to sit down and give my shiny hardback copy the reading it deserves. [Because in the Vikingverse's Hulfviðr Torga , I'm the center square! Photo from a 2024 CE Shieldwall backer mosaic.] Forwarding context: I'm writing this review only after reading the core rulebook without having ran it, so I'm not addressing the mechanics (which use  Shadow of the Demon Lord ) or playability, just the contents. If you want the flavour of how it does play, author/creator Ian Stuart Sharpe did a 23-episode gaming podcast called Vikings & Valkyries that was superfun to listen to, and had great cybervikingsphere guests like Saga Thing podcast hosts John Sexton & Andy Pfrenger, and exceptionally talented Heathen Artist  Sam Flegal ...

As NorsePlay does a re-watch of Thundarr the Barbarian (1980 CE) with its Conan -meets-post-apocalyptic fantasy/sci-fi, I can't help but think of Ian Stuart Sharpe 's Vikingverse with its Ragnarok event that devastatingly changes the face of Midgard, something relatively similar to " a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man's civilization is cast in ruin. " And with the fact that Jack Kirby did character design on Thundarr also brings to mind the Kirby-inspired pencils of Vikingverse artist Ger Curti:  [p21 of the one-shot  Yggdrasil: In the Beginning comic!] The point of my drawing these two things together is that NorsePlay would like to apply its longstanding social media cred & skaldic might to request that there be a Vikingverse animated cartoon. I know the cybervikingsphere would devour that and ask for thirds, the awesome Vikingverse novels would get bought in astronomical stacks, there would be a...

After a deep hunt for the Arnold J. Toynbee appendice The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Scandinavian Civilization (mentioned as an inspirational piece for Vikingverse author Ian Stuart Sharpe in our interview ), NorsePlay has decided to present it in its entirety here. First published in A Study of History , Volume II, from Oxford University 1934 CE, this appendice gives one much food for thought about how historical outcomes sometimes turn on a tíuaurar , and quite possibly how the seemingly tenuous & malleable society of today could also be directed in the now. _____________________________ THE FORFEITED BIRTHRIGHT OF THE ABORTIVE SCANDINAVIAN CIVILIZATION Having observed the narrowness of the margin by which the abortive Scandinavian Civilization failed to achieve its manifest destiny, let us now imagine to ourselves that the historic encounter between the Vikings and the Civilizations of the South had ended, not as it actually did, but in the other of the two possible...