Humans are the most numerous race in the Hammerlands. They live quick lives and breed relatively quickly in comparison to other races. The Norn follow Thor’s guidance in every part of their lives and seek a death that would make him proud.
In His Own Image
Thor is a proud God and this extends to his physical form. Believing himself to be of peak strength and attractiveness, he created the humans of the Hammerlands to share his tall muscular form, long dark hair, thick rugged beards, and hardy skin. An individual can stand from barely 5 feet to a well over 6 feet tall and weigh from 125 to 250 pounds. Human skin shades range from nearly black to very pale, and hair colours from black to blond (curly, kinky, or straight). Humans reach adulthood in their late teens and rarely live even a single century.
Viking In All But Name
The Norn try to live a peaceful life of farming and fishing but the threats facing the realm demand attention. Over 80% of men and 65% of women train in combat and face death with absolute resolve. Since the birth of the realms, there have been 3 events that reduced the Norn population by up to 70% but never have their will to fight for their home dulled.
With axe and shield, they clash repeatedly with dragon, beast, undead, and ‘other-realmers’. Longships carry them to distant coastlines and in recent years, raiding parties are sent through the Gateways to other realms in search of treasure and glory.
Human (Norn) Names
The Norn have historic Scandinavian names. You can choose from the list below or come up with your own option:
| Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|
| Arne | Astrid |
| Bjørn | Frida |
| Halfdan | Gunhild |
| Harald | Helga |
| Rune | Hilda |
| Svend | Sigrid |
| Torsten | Sif |
| Ulf | Tora |
Human (Norn) Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2 and one other stat of your choice increases by 1.
Age. Humans reach adulthood in their late teens and live less than a century.
Alignment. Humans tend toward no particular alignment but Thor has instilled a strong sense of lawfulness and tradition in them.
Size. Humans vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one additional language of your choice.
Viking Strength. When you land a successful melee attack, as a bonus action, you can roll one of your hit dice and add it to the damage dealt. Hit dice spent this way cannot be recovered during the next long rest.
Battle Rage. You get one use of the Barbarians Rage feature. This can only last for a number of rounds up to your proficiency bonus. You regain this ability after taking a long rest.
Raider. You ignore difficult terrain caused by environmental features such as water or rocks.
Dragon Slayer. When attacking dragon type creatures, natural ones on the dice count as natural twenties.
Designing the Norn Race
When designing the race options for Veneon Reforged I had 2 clear goals in mind. Firstly, I wanted your race to matter mechanically, and that meant making them slightly stronger than the official 5e content typically does. Secondly, I wanted to keep them uniform for balance reasons, and eventually settled on a 2 active features and 2 passive features system. I did this because I don’t want a player to choose a class simply because it has more stuff than another. Your character’s race should be a crucial component in your roleplaying and playstyle, and I wanted to allow these considerations to be first and foremost.
For the Norn, I began by taking the age, size, and speed from the official human race of 5e Dungeons and Dragons because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. While I know Wizards of the Coast has taken steps to remove alignment, I like it as a roleplaying guideline (and only a guideline) so I chose to keep the section. For the ability score increases, I knew I wanted the Norn to be a strong, physical people but I wanted to maintain the fantasy that humans are diverse and adaptable. Anyone can grow up to be anything. Due to this, I gave them a +2 to strength and then left the +1 open to choice, not wanting to lock out certain classes or playstyles for them.
Now, the juicy part. Their first ‘active feature’ is Viking Strength. This allows a Norn to expend one of their hit dice to augment the melee damage they do. It’s important to note that hit dice used in this manner are not recovered during your next long rest. This doesn’t mean they are permanently lost, just that you have to wait for the rest after that to recover them. The fantasy of this feature is that of a reckless melee brawler that is willing to burn through the candle of their life in order to defeat their deadliest foes. I’ve always felt that hit dice are a highly underused resource. It’s an aspect of your character that scales with your level, is personalised to your class, and yet is only used in one small mechanic of the game. As such, when deciding how to limit the uses of this feature, rather than picking an arbitrary number or tying it to proficiency, I chose hit dice so the player can be as conservative or as liberal as they like with the resource.
The second ‘active feature’ is Battle Rage, a personal favourite for this race! It gives the Norn a single use of the barbarians rage feature that has a short duration and resets on a long rest. I really wanted the Norn to feel like it had a hint of barbarian in all of them and after hours of trialing different variations of similar abilities I eventually realised, why not just take the ability as it is and instead play with the resources behind it? And that’s how I settled on this mini burst of viking rage! As a side note for those wondering, if a Norn was to play the Barbarian class they would have this mini Rage as a separate resource. It is not taken from their Rage pool and does not refresh with those charges.
For the first ‘passive feature’, Raider, I wanted to have something flavourful and situationally powerful. When designing this feature, the power fantasy had more of a priority than the moment-to-moment usefulness. I wanted to reinforce the feeling of a mighty warrior, charging up the beach and clashing with the defending troops during a raid. I know that this feature might not come up a whole lot but when it does I hope the mobility proves a deadly addition to your kit.
Lastly, the second ‘passive’ for the Norn is Dragon Slayer! I went back and forth quite a lot with this feature. I realise by adding it, the Norn doesn’t have any regular or constant passives. They’re both highly situational. And yet when it came to it, I couldn’t resist cementing their place as proficient dragon killers. I love when the lore directly influences a character’s strengths and so I doubled down and gave the Norn the ability to turn a dangerous failure into a glorious victory against Dragon kind. With these two passives, the Norn can become a powerful killing machine under the right circumstances.
And there we have it! Thank you so much for reading about this race and I hope you can find a place for it in your next D&D campaign! If you have any further questions about this race or want clarification on any of the features, please leave a comment below and I’ll try and get back to you as soon as I’m able. Have a great day, and may your next session be filled with glory!
And as always, much of this content is designed on my Twitch stream. You’re very welcome to stop by and join me in the creative process at www.twitch.tv/skoll_thenorsewolf.
Veneon Reforged 
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