Norscan Tribes

Norsca is a land of black fjords and iron mountains thrust into the freezing sea at the world's northern rim, close enough to the Chaos Wastes that the aurora burns in its winter skies and the gods feel near enough to touch. Its people are reavers born, carving a hard living from thin soil and thick water, and they hold that a man is measured by what he takes and what he survives. The soft folk of the south pray their gods stay distant; the Norscan prays his notice him.

When the ice loosens, the dragon-ships put to sea. Norscan longships haunt every coast from the Kislevite port of Erengrad to the sun-warmed capes of Estalia, sliding out of the sea-mist to burn a village and be gone before the levy can muster. What they cannot carry off they give to the torch as an offering, for the gods of the north love destruction as men love song.

A Norscan life is reckoned in its saga: the raids survived, the monsters slain in mountain and deep, the gifts the gods have seen fit to send back with the worthy. The mightiest jarls become champions of the Dark Gods and sail south at the head of whole fleets when the Everchosen calls the north to war. For all their savagery they keep oath and hospitality after their own harsh fashion, and they go to their deaths grinning.