Thought and Memory; A Conspiracy, A Murder and an Unkindness.
This is a role playing and story telling game, In this game you play Ravens, Crows, or Rooks at dead bodies, talking as they might, and investigating the bodies for baubles to take home. In this story and role playing game you go around the circle of players describing the dead bodies you find, and what you can take from them. At the end of the Prose, there is a period of Gift Giving and Ragnarok.
You will need dice, lots and lots of dice for this game (or alternatively playing cards).
First everyone who is playing must be able to face each other in a comfortable manner with a shared space between them. Everyone rolls a dice and the highest and lowest dice take the role of Hugin and Munin receptively. The prose then starts.
Hugin and Munin are Odin’s Ravens and represent Thought and Memory. The Prose starts by Hugin, Thought, grabbing however many dice (or cards) Hugin thinks is appropriate and putting them at the centre of the table. These are the baubles that are available in the area.
Then Munin, Memory, describes a bit about the place where the bodies are found. This doesn’t have to be elaborate, Battlefield, Wheat field, Desert, Forest, Gallows, Town , Country home, French Country Kitchen, etc are all more than enough to begin play.
The Raven to Munin’s Left starts play by describing the body he or she finds, and what baubles are found upon the body. If the Raven describes taking a trinket or bauble from the body (what it is doesn’t matter, a bit of ribbon, a coloured cloth, a coin etc) they may take as many dice (or cards) from the centre pile as they feel they can get away with (at least one), but never more than what can be held in one hand.
The Prose continues to the left, the next Raven can either investigate the same body, continuing to describing it and any baubles they might find or they can find a new body. If they do use the same body as another player, they cannot contradict anything already said about the body (see example 1).
No one can contradict anything said by Munin about the location of the bodies (see example 2).
Example 1, if the player to Munin’s Left describes a poor child with no gold and only a piece of coloured string, the next player CANNOT describe the boy as a rich child with lots of gold. You don’t like it, go find another body.
Example 2, you can’t find a space marine in an 18th century battlefield.
The prose continues to the left, with ravens finding new bodies, rummaging over old bodies, and continues likewise until one of three things happen. The dice (or cards) are exhausted, the players are exhausted, or Fenrir is called. Regardless of why the prose stops, play goes to Gift Giving.
Fenrir
Sometimes in a game, we have different expectations. Sometimes people will attempt to take too many from dice from the pile, sometimes they will just be ass hats. If a raven is being (Too) greedy, anybody can say Geri is here, Geri is Odin’s Wolf whose name means greed. If someone is not being polite, not respecting other’s contributions,etc anyone can say Freki is here, who is Odin’s Wolf whose name means Ravenous.
If Either Geri or Freki are present, Anyone may say Fenrir is here, and the game will immediately go to Gift Giving, which will conclude with Fenrir’s Will being given out.
The Gift Giving
After the dice or the players are exhausted or Fenrir has been called, the Ravens retreat to their rookery and then give elaborate gifts to each other before Ragnarok or the end of the game.
During the gift giving instead of taking treasure you have to give it to another player. Being ravens, you naturally brag and lie about the nature of your gift while giving as little as you can. Ravens use Kennings or Poetic expressions (Conveniently Baldared on this page) to describe the trinkets you are giving. Each player must give at least one gift, and must follow these rules.
While gift giving you can only give dice at most equal to the to last gift +1 (see example 3)
Example 3, the first gift giver can only give 1 dice, but the next gift giver can give 1 or 2 dice. If they give 2 dice the next gift giver can give 1, 2 or 3 dice. If they give only 1 dice the next gift giver can only give 1 or 2 dice.
As well the last gift, Fenrir’s Will cannot be given until everyone has given a gift at least once.
Gift giving continues until everyone has given at least one gift and no one wants to give any more gifts, or everyone has given at least one gift and Fenrir’s Will has been given.
The Raven given Fenrir’s Will (a fancy way of saying the end or death ) is removed from the game.
Feel free to improvise but here are some other gifts to give.
Baldr’s Mistletoe (A Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal), Sif’s Golden Hair (Stolen Property), Freyr’s Ship Skidhbaldnir ( Flight and Good Winds), Loki’s Sleiphir (A deserved comeuppance) Thor’s Mjonnir (Lightning and Thunder), Odin’s Gungnir (The Hanged man)
After the gift giving, play may continue with Hugin and Munin laying out more bauble dice (or cards) and describing a new area with dead bodies. Alternatively if the players are not up for another round or if Fenrir has been called the game goes to Ragnarok.
Ragnarok
If after the Gifting, no one wants to play another story round or if Fenrir has been called, all of the players roll all their dice and total them. If cards were used total them by number with face cards being worth 10 and Aces 1. The Highest Total becomes Hugin, and the lowest dice total becomes Munin. Hugin and Munin are the winners.
For further information on Norse Mythology See the Wikipedia pages I used
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugin_and_Munin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geri_and_Freki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnarok
Link to Offsite, PDF Here
