# Day 21: Songs and Sagas - Valthjor na-stuldur, the Corpse-Thief tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2026 #game/rpg/songs-and-sagas > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2026]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice If you've come with us this far, thank you. I appreciate your continued presence. I'm glad that you are finding things that you're interested in here, and I hope you continue to do so. Today's pull from the pile is going to seem somewhat familiar, in part because it is mechanically the [[20 - Wastewalkers|same system as yesterday's]]. However, there are a couple of changes here and there, and the flavor is entirely different. I think it's time to get stuck in. ![[Songs and Sagas (cover).jpg|400]] Rather than the Mad Max/Fallout future, let's roll back time to a low magic, strongly Northern European/Viking-themed setup. You could pretty easily run any sort of low fantasy with this you wanted. Of course, it doesn't just have to be Viking. You could go straight into sword and sandal territory, and I don't think you'd have to change the setting or the mechanics at all. Let's see what we can do here. ## Acts of Creation Just as in *[[Wastewalkers]]*, character creation takes up the last page of the four-page spread and is extremely straightforward. ### Attributes This time, our four attributes are made up of the more classical **strength**, **dexterity**, **willpower**, and **heart**, and pretty much do exactly what they say on the tin. Again, we draw from a poker deck to randomly generate what our stat values are.[^1] | Attribute | Value | | --------- | ----: | | strength | +2 | | dexterity | 0 | | willpower | 0 | | heart | +1 | Now, we could try to improve both dexterity and willpower. Odds are good that we would see an increase. Do I feel ballsy enough to give the gods of chance an opportunity to screw me a little harder? Sure, why not? | Attribute | Value | | --------- | ----: | | strength | +2 | | dexterity | +2 | | willpower | +2 | | heart | +1 | Well, I'll be damned. 25% chance on each of getting the max stat, and we lucked out again. Obviously, I need to play more games that use cards for their randomization, because they like me a lot more than dice. I'm pretty happy with that attribute spread, even though it's not particularly flavorful. The one set of things that our character isn't great with is persuading, commanding, charming, and issues of honor. Great at everything else. ### Guardian Spirit While in *Wastewalkers*, we needed to figure out what our character's origin was. Here, we need to figure out what our Venori, our guardian spirit, is. There are six to choose from, or we can just roll randomly. It being the kind of day it is, we've had luck with the cards. We might as well give the dice an equal opportunity to bone us. - **Vanori:** Owl Increase your **willpower** by **2** and your **heart** by **1**. Your **max resilience** is **d6+3**. Once per session, you may burn a card to **mark XP twice**. Well, that's interesting. At least we get a little bit of a bonus to heart by having Owl as our guardian spirit. We also have to work out our max resilience, but that's straightforward. | Attribute | Value | | -------------- | ----: | | strength | +2 | | dexterity | +2 | | willpower | +2 | | heart | +1 | | max resilience | 6 | We could reroll our max resilience, but since it's literally the center of the pack and it's 50-50 whether or not we'll do any better, you know, I think I'm going to let it ride. ### Armor and Weapon We start with D4 armor and a D6 weapon of our choice in our inventory. | Gear | Description | Value | | ------ | ----------------------- | :---- | | Armor | Well-worn leather armor | d4 | | Weapon | Iron-shod spear | d6 | ## Exunt There we go. That's it. That's all there is to it. We have a character put together, ready to rock and roll, get out there, throw down some action. No problem at all. ![[21 - Songs and Sagas - Valthjor na-stuldur, the Corpse-Thief.webp]] If I had to guess, I suspect that *Wastewalkers* came before *Songs and Sagas* in order of publication because it just feels like a neater, tighter presentation. The layout is slightly cleaner. Despite there being no significant change in the mechanics, they just feel slightly better put before us. As before, you can play this game solo with the exact same setup. You make a hex map using the exact same sort of role, except in this case there is an actual hex map you can use and a couple of tables to help inspire whatever is there. Yesterday I suggested that the game was a solid fit if you're looking for a super lightweight *Mad Max* or *Fallout* game. Today I'm going to suggest that this is awesome for gritty, low-magic fantasy or, again, sword-and-sandals action. There are entirely too few games which focus on the last, and to see something that's really quite compatible with it in an interesting, comprehensible way is just nice. I like it a lot. I wouldn't see any problem with running *John Carter On Mars* in this. But that's enough for today. Tomorrow we're going to go to a very dark place once again. No telling what might happen. [^1]: Again, we're using the one at https://deck.of.cards for the sheer convenience.