#nornposting

[arlequinelunaire]

Inktober Day Twenty-Nine: Urd, Belldandy, and Skuld (counterclockwise) from Aa! Megami-sama/Oh My Goddess drawn in my shot at the Hilda art style

[i-mybrunettelady]

1 for a few characters you feel like, 12 for nyra and 13 for sanne and kos

ooh a selection of kids <3

12. Have they "completed" the map? What does that look like in your canon?

She has! Nyra's incredibly well traveled. She's been to almost every corner of Tyria, as realistically as possible. Not all during the base game, mind you - she traveled between LW seasons and expacs as well. She simply can't be still (maybe to try and outrun her issues, which is her MO a lot of the time?) and has enough money to pay for asura gates. A lot of it was spent with Forgal, too, as she went on missions with him when she was a Recruit/Crusader.

13. What is the worst/funniest/dumbest article that could be written about them in Tyria's trashiest gossip mag?

That Kosara asks the legends she channels for love and sex advice has to be the dumbest, but the actual worst is the near constant insinuation that her legends write her papers and research for her and she's just a scribe, essentially. This is demonstrably false once you actually read her work but like. Way to discredit an actual scholar

There's this funny little story that Sanne actually had to injure Kiaran to win the Great Hunt. And to be fair, she did, but no norn has ever faulted her for that at that point in time, and it's usually the non-norn who have a very... Strange idea of what the Great Hunt actually is. She refuses to say a word on it, if only for Kiaran's memory (and a little selfishly, to save her own good standing.) All she says is that the Great Hunt is more brutal than a lot of people realize.

// (1.) Your character is now the leader of their species, whatever that looks like for them (Arcane Councilmember, Imperator, Royalty, etc). How do they govern and what sorts of changes would they make if any?

To be fair, Nyra already kinda is. Not officially, but her voice does have sway and she is politically opinionated, so she does have something of a say in wider human politics. She advocates for peace and cooperation with the charr, for the abolition of the Separatist movement, but also celebrating cultural diversity amongst humans and actual historical research in Ascalon to help the Ascalonian culture move forward. Also noteworthy here is she is the one who has had a hand in finding the crown of Adelbern, Magdaer and who knows where Sohothin is. Like, she's not some fucking rando.

Sanne would expel the Sons of Svanir from Hoelbrak. All of them. Most of Hoelbrak norn aren't as extreme as this, as long as they don't cause trouble and prove themselves, but Sanne's hatred of that group is unconditional and near-blind.

Kosara would work hard to change the Legions' perceptions of magic and magic users, especially Blood's. She's suffered a lot for her inherent revenant powers, and she'd like to see that no other cub goes through the same thing as her just for something they had no choice in. She'd also work to empower less violent charr.

[an-eccentric-devil]

got a $150 magic card at the phyrexia prerelease tournament and i feel like this will adversely effect my spending habits in the coming months

[catastrofifi]

HELLO FROM THE NORNS!!! Cerebrum and Bornie, I just love them two much. It's nice to see Cerebrum (the green one) so happy about something that isn't UNETHICAL SCIENCE, though Bornie technically was born through science. But I'm not sure where her egg came from. Was it left over from the scariest norns of all before they DIED? Or did Cerebrum somehow asexually reproduce? I don't think so, I think kisspopping is kind of required in norn lore, but Cerebrum doesn't have time for that! AROACE KINGTHING!! SCIENCE CAN FIND A WAY!! Either way, there's a leftover defective egg, and when incubating it under a light doesn't work the warmth of being carried by Nick in a baby carrier for months seems to do the trick! What a special girl! Norns as a species ReBorn! Hence the name Bornie!

[bjoras]

anyways sorry my thought was this:

Gift-giving is a common thing among Norn, but especially Raven Norn, who have habits of giving away little trinkets and bits of knowledge and such regularly to the people they like and care for - like how corvids who’ve developed relationships with humans have been known to bring them little gifts (like scraps of paper, shiny objects, bottle caps, etc). Gifting can mean a lot of things, but if he’s telling you fun facts and giving you little trinkets and stuff he cares for you in some way.

The moulted flight feathers (wing or tail feathers) on Raven Norn are very special gifts, collected and fashioned into charms and such, and the gifting of these is a courtship thing. It revolves around the symbolic vulnerability, bc the loss or damage of the flight feathers in a bird means it cannot fly. The decoration on such gifts is pretty individual to the person making it in the first place, and if two Raven Norn are courting each other and the one who sent the feather charm gets one back, the relationship is reciprocated.

I’ll think abt this more in the morning but might it be cool if a) Raven Norn convention likes to give lots of gifts of little trinkets to loved ones and b) the gifting of your moulted flight feathers (alongside other trinkets) is a courtship thing

[pillow-priestess]

oh hey, I found your tumblr! neat! -Nornposting/Unlicensed Fighting Game Dev

I'm veevee... but hornier 😈

[cyberaxolotl]

nornposting in your askbox just to piss you off

GET YOUR FUCKING GOBLIN OFFA MY INBOX!1!1!1!1!1!!1!1

[moofahdrome]

greetings from V&I! -nornposting/dev

hello hi!! it's me veevee

[i-mybrunettelady]

I hope you don't mind an addition! Here's my two cents on the matter and how it could've been better handled - one Domain of the Lost, multiple judges, depending on your race and or beliefs, as you've pointed out. So norn get judged by the Raven (or one of Raven's servants), humans get judged by the Servant of Grenth. I like to think sylvari just choose to stay there or leave, if they end up in the Domain of the Lost at all, and if they leave they join the Dream again (I only have Dreamers so I'm biased heavily towards them.)

But Spirits of the Wild have always been kinda exclusionary to other races, or so is my reading of it, because in Icebrood, when you meet the Raven as a non-norn, he points out that though you're not norn you're worthy of their highest legends and praises so maybe some exceptional non-norn but otherwise they seem to favour norn more.

This is all very interesting I must say

Been poking about the gw2 wiki for some info and found this

Realms of the dead

Both the Spirits of the Wild such as Raven and Six Human Gods such as Grenth and their servants such as the avatars and Canthan envoys have access to the Underworld and can take spirits to and from there. Different races and beings of different faiths have different afterlives although it is unknown if non-human afterlives are simply separated regions of the Underworld or altogether different afterlife realms.

In the case of humans Grenth, the Judge or Desmina judge a human’s spirit once it enters the Underworld and appoint it to its designated afterlife: e.g. Balthazar’s followers enter the Eternal Battle in the Fissure of Woe while Kormir’s followers enter the great library of the Sanctum in the Realm of Torment.In some cases the spiritual Canthan envoys can also determine a human spirit’s fate. However, a non-human who converts to the faith of one of the Six appears to enter their new patron god’s afterlife rather than their racial afterlife; it is unknown if a human who converts to revering the Spirits of the Wild would be taken to the norn afterlife after passing. Spirits appointed to different afterlives do not generally seem to interact with other Mist realms’ spiritual denizens, which is why the ghosts of the human and norn lovers Nicholas and Yngvild did not want to be judged in the Domain of the Lost so they would never be separated from each other in death.

So if non-human races convert to the humans’ gods, they apparently go to those afterlives. But if a human converts say to the Spirits of the Wild, they may not get to go to the Norns’ afterlife. Hmm

On the topic of the realm of the dead, during ‘The Departing,’ it always bothered me that non-human Commanders/Player Characters all went into the same purgatory. Like it would’ve been cool to see an Asura’s beliefs of the Eternal Alchemy as a purgatory state, or the Sylvari’s Dream as a purgatory state. Norn with their Spirits, and Charr with.. Um.. What are Charr beliefs on the afterlife? I’m afraid I don’t know Charr well enough. Gonna have to do more research on the Charr..

Sorry, getting sidetracked.

I mean, I get it. There wasn’t enough time and/or resources to make different purgatories for each race, but it just didn’t sit well with me having my Sylvari go through that and being judged by a human’s god of death’s judge.

But that’s just me I suppose

[socksandpuppets]

Holy shit Konsi in the Wild

-Nornposting

[arlequinelunaire]

Skuld, Norn of the Future. Complete with digital guitar, hoverboard, her cat and seal plushies, and the biggest amplifier. The noisier the better. Late teens, hates never being allowed to grow up due to embodying the concept of the Future. Feels Urth babies her too much but likes getting stuff from her, think Verthandi's totally lame.

You can read Verthandi in the Middle on Tumblr and Sufficient Velocity

[i-mybrunettelady]

I should change my blog name to Captain of Icebrood Saga defense squad because I play so much of it it’s not even healthy. Yes it’s one of my IBS lore posts.

But Drizzlewood is old norn territory, right? I mean Leadfoot Village has abandoned norn homesteads there; nearby is the Olafson Farmstead. And with the place where the Spirits first revealed themselves to the norn also being in Drizzlewood, it makes perfect sense that old Spirit magics would linger there.

And that leads me to a headcanon I think is kinda neat - the role of shamans, or shaman-adjacent norn individuals there. Specifically Sanne. Because she does have a pretty strong connection to the Mists and is a Shaman in all but name, many of the norn volunteers and soldiers there flock to her and people like her for guidance.

And not just that; they can tap into those energies lingering there. I think Sanne’s abilities as a Mist-attuned person did come in handy and earned her quite a bit of recognition, as well as attention to her hunting. I like to think she hunted with the guidance of the Spirits and although before Forward Camp she and Nyra did sabotage together, Sanne called the shots here. It’s her land. It’s her forte.

Those same shamanic abilities would come in handy later, because she did work with Braham on trying to open the ancient norn citadel door (and that’s where they fell in love ;)) ) which lead to her being one of the two norn who saw Jormag’s last awakening (alongside Braham ofc.)

TL;DR Drizzlewood gave Sanne’s legend quite a boost and cemented her as one of the heroes of the norn. Just not in the way she envisioned when she was a kid. Is it time to ponder new nicknames for her..?

[i-mybrunettelady]

Lovely stuff 😍 Whenever you post lore I'm like 👀 because it's so good and I wasn't disappointed now!!

I like the symbolic motifs; I personally interpret this as runes used only in ritual tattoos/practice so Sanne, my own ranger, has the same rune all over her neck, a rune meaning successful hunt but as you said, stylised, but in like pictogram level script?

Also, Herja and Mirka have a chance of meeting at a tattoo parlor so to speak because she's also heavily tattooed (though her reasons are aesthetics and hiding battle scars) so if they ever do, Mirka will say hi :D

Hello! If you'd indulge my curiosity, I have a question about Herja - do her tattoos have any meaning or are they simply there for aesthetic reasons? I'm a sucker for norn tattoos as of 2021 and i have to ask

Hey! I haven’t fully fleshed out what Herja’s tattoos are about- partly because there aren’t in-game options that reflect what I imagine hers would look like. 🤔

I do know that Herja is actually less heavily tattooed than she was pre-Path of Fire. Her body was severely burned in her fatal conflict with Balthazar, and when she returned from the realm of the lost, she woke up in a body perfectly restored: no burns, no wounds, no scars, and no tattoos. It felt utterly alien, and she was deeply disturbed to have lost so much evidence of her personal history. She started getting inked again as soon as physically possible after Balthazar’s defeat, but it is still very much a work-in-progress.

In general, I headcanon that traditional norn tattoos tend toward the intricate, elaborate, and highly stylized, with traditional motifs constituting a symbolic language. Shapes flow into each other with knots, spirals, and dense patterns that are sometimes hard for non-norn to distinguish, but that are rich with meaning for those familiar with them.

One knot represents a bond with a mate, a set of symbols represent a historical figure (Jora or Asgeir, for example); a single bear might represent devotion to Bear while a bear, raven, snow leopard, and wolf intertwined represents the balance of nature and all the Spirits.

(I’m picturing something like medieval Scandinavian art, especially the Borre, Jellinge, and Mammen periods.)

A norn might get a new tattoo to represent an important event in their personal history, like a great battle, having a child, an eventful hunt, or an achievement in craftsmanship; they might also simply wish to honor their family heritage or a concept that is important to their identity.

I HC that traditionally, images of dragons are taboo, as they’re associated with the Sons of Svanir and glorification of the Dragon Spirit. Once the Commander comes into the picture and elder dragons start falling, this begins to change, as some Norn involved with the Pact choose to commemorate their victories in ink. (My Commander, Herja, is notable for having multiple, prominent dragon tattoos.)

Cultural exchange also influences contemporary norn tattoo, with the art styles, aesthetic preferences, and even history and folklore of Tyria’s other races making their way into body art. These days, it wouldn’t be shocking to see a bold, well-traveled norn woman with a tattoo honoring Kalla Scorchrazor, or a norn engineer whose tattoos incorporate the geometric and crystalline shapes of asuran architecture.

[an-eccentric-devil]

quick opinion poll, what do you think of this lovely lady

[arlequinelunaire]

The Norns of Verthandi in the Middle in what's pretty obviously my attempt at doing something like The Far Side.

You can read VitM on Tumblr and Sufficient Velocity

[arlequinelunaire]

Colourised version of my shot at drawing the Norns of Verthandi in the Middle in Hilda’s art style. Original pen drawing here