Fan Art: The Leviathan Axe to ride the viking vibes from all the Kaldheim spoilers.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Ragnarok, everywhere you look.

Leviathan Axe: Kratos traveled into the far north to escape the shadow of the Olympian Gods. Not wanting to bring the corrupting influence of Olympus to his new home he gives up the Blades of Chaos and uses a hefty axe to defend his family from bandits, predators, and monsters.

Two notes. I. took artistic liberties with some aspects of the design and stuck very close to the original design in other places. This may be jarring for some die hard God of War 4 fans, but I still hope it follows the rule of cool. I have never actually finished any God of War game and I haven’t even played God of War 4. The PS4/Xbox One generation of consoles missed me. I’m still trying to find the time to finish the Witcher 2 on my Xbox 360. I did watch all of God of War 4 get played, and it was one of the first times I have ever enjoyed watching someone else play a video game.

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Magic the Gathering’s new setting is a viking inspired mini-multiverse called Kaldheim, which effectively just means the land of cold. Seeing a major fantasy property with that direct of a naming structure reminds me to spend less time being super precious about what I name things while world-building and GMing.

All the amazing art coming out of the Kaldheim set along with all the amazing screen shots from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla have really put me in a viking mood. Makes me want to read Beowulf or run a one shot of ICRPG in Alfheim. It also makes me want to rewatch the 13th Warrior, a film that I whole heartedly recommend to anyone.

It also makes me want to talk about the fact that white supremacists are eager to co-opt the norse/Scandinavian iconography and how hate groups shouldn’t be allowed to ruin more things. I like norse mythology and I loathe white supremacy. People who think they are better than others simply because of the color of their skin totally miss the nuance of the norse myths. The gods are interesting and also flawed. Their problems are often of their own making since they are too proud to deal fairly with the Jotun or  Vanir. Their arrogance is a fundamental flaw. Their us vs them mentality literally leads to the end of the world. Their world, the world of hard and fast divisions between groups, needs to be burned away to reveal a better world, a world where we all come together and lift each other up.

Don’t stand by and allow hate to thrive. Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph