“A terrible foe, too distant in memory for most to recall, returns to the ill-prepared world of Tyrgard to make violent amends for a long lost war.”
So begins the North Hammer Saga: an episodic, multimedia fantasy adventure, encompassing music, art, and playable content for the world’s most famous tabletop roleplaying game. From the minds of Andrew James (North Hammer), Chris Grenville (co-founder, The Monolith), and Alex Carter (co-founder, Kardavox Academy), the North Hammer Saga will take you on an immersive journey that will be different for each and every person!
Thus is the introduction to the upcoming DnD 5e module The North Hammer Saga. Currently, in the beta stages, we were reached out to by the co-founder to review some of their most recent content – the lore guide which explores the Norse world of the campaign setting, a playtest new class for a Rune Warrior, and the first module which introduces the adventure hook, taking the players to Level 2 during its course.
Initially launched on April 13th, via Youtube and Patreon (see links at the bottom of this article), the North Hammer Saga currently releases new content on a monthly basis with a unique twist – as well as releasing the playable tabletop content, the project also releases music specific to the campaign itself. For DMs such as myself who love to build the atmosphere of a game with background audio, this is a great selling point and the music itself (composed by Andy James), is beautifully composed. There’s no completion date mentioned as yet, but there’s a lot already on offer here for anyone interested. The creators are also keen on the idea of garnering feedback and interaction with their players, which is always a good sign, and have a discord community with the promise of the community there being able to shape future content.
As noted, the content reviewed here is still in the beta phases, and as such, there is a possibility that it will change with future updates but I’ll be basing my thoughts on what was given to me to playtest. I was looking at the content both as a player and as a DM myself, and so my opinions reflect this.
First, let’s look at the world of North Hammer Saga, the lore of which is collected into a short pdf entitled the ‘Tome of the Hammer’. There is a disclaimer that the content here will likely be added to in the future, but they’re certainly enough to get a good feel for the Norse-themed world the campaign is set in. It lays out the basic populations and key figures present within the land of Tyrgard, as well as society elements such as the deities worshipped by the people. It’s very detailed and there are lots of potential plot hooks which could be drawn from it for both characters and someone planning games set in the world.
A little note about the general layout, however – I found a lot of the content to be overly wordy at times, which doesn’t make it as reader-friendly as it could be. Whilst I appreciate the attempt here and can see where the writers were coming from, it ultimately just makes the document a bit too heavy and I could see many readers struggling with it. A bit more simplicity really would be useful, given this is supposed to be a primer that introduces the players to the world – there is already a lot of unusual language given the Norse naming context so adding in extra complex wording throughout is a little overkill. This was an issue I found throughout the rest of the module as well, which again just made it all a little less user-friendly than it could be.
The preface to the Tome of the Hammer also comes across as needlessly aggressive in nature – whilst I understand its intention of marketing the game for a diverse audience, the overall tone was rather negative. I feel like the same message could have been communicated in a more professional manner with the preface being more about the positive stance of the diversity within the game. There are also some interesting layout choices throughout the document – it’s presented in an old-fashioned distressed page style, with a font reminiscent of a typewriter. The overall effect is very distinctive, giving the impression of an old book one has found, although can be distracting at times. The front cover image is absolutely gorgeous, however, and the few art pieces presented within are detailed sketches that use black and white high contrast to great effect. It’s very reminiscent of old d&d art actually, which is very nostalgic.
Looking next at the module itself, which introduces a pretty good basic introduction plot to get a party involved in the world and narrative. This takes on the form of a rescue mission to find a missing person after a spate of attacks from terrifying alien insect-like monsters. Along the way, they get to explore some of the worlds (with the options for some random encounters which help develop things further), meet some interesting NPCs, and start to take on a more central role. The module itself is fairly short, taking the party from Level 1 to Level 2 by its end but packing in a lot of content during that time so the level up feels truly earned. The initial plot hook isn’t concluded in this first module however but there are definite hints of what is to come.
There was also the controversial choice to include an additional intro where the players take on the role of a group of guards to showcase the dangers of the invading aliens – a nice concept but given it ends with the unavoidable death of them all, I felt like this was rather a rough introduction to the world. TPKs are never a fun experience and starting off the module with one of them just feels… too harsh, taking away some of the joy and excitement of exploring a new world. I personally wouldn’t feel happy with experiencing something so drastic at the beginning of a new game even if it was made clear from the outset that these were just throwaway characters, rather than the main characters the players would eventually play as. If the main goal was to showcase the brutality of the alien invaders here, then I just think there were better ways to do it than by forcibly killing off the players in a way that essentially removes all their agency.
Other than the artwork, there don’t look to be any maps included in the module as of yet though this might be something on the cards for future releases. The appendices also include a bestiary of sorts for the various monsters and NPCs who appear (although strangely enough, doesn’t include a statblock for Ingvar who is presumably one of the most important NPCs to appear). It’s a nice touch but the bestiary itself honestly looks a little messily put together, blurry in places, and hard to read.
Finally, the last document provided for review purposes was the creation of a new character class – that of the Rune Warrior. Given the recent release of the Rune Knight in official d&d content, it’s hard not to compare the two to one another but there is a lot of differences between the two, thankfully. Compared to the Rune Knight, the Rune Warrior looks to be a mix of spellcaster and fighter together, centred around the idea of weapon runes and magical tattoos. It’s a cool concept for sure and fits nicely with the Norse themes, but I actually found the class itself to be rather overpowered in terms of actual playing potential. The weapon runes were pretty great, and the unique paths (essentially, subclasses) made a lot of sense within the world itself, but I felt that adding on magical tattoos as well was too much and just felt a bit like throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the mix. I would probably just keep to the spells and weapon runes personally as this felt like the true core of the class, whereas the tattoos as intriguing as they were really just felt like it elevated the class to a point where other character classes might struggle to keep up.
Overall, there’s a lot to offer so far in the North Hammer Saga – an interesting and vibrant world with engaging NPCs and fearsome enemies. Although I had a few issues with the layout and content of the modules thus far presented, if Norse mythology is something you’ve been wanting to create a campaign around, then this is a great setting to look into. Officially released dnd content has gone into Greek mythology-based settings with Theros in the past and recently delved more into Gothic Horror with the expansion in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft but as yet, an actual Norse setting hasn’t been explored fully. North Hammer Saga might not be for everyone but is clearly being managed by a clearly creative and passionate team who plan to add more content along the way which is always a great start for an engaging game.
