Pax Viking Review - Blood, Fire, Politics

Murder, maiming, fornication, ginger beards! Foaming horns of mead! Sweeping blonde shampoo commercial locks! Enormous girthy hammers!!

Our popular culture’s understanding of antique Scandinavian culture is nothing if not subtle.

This fervent embrace of the ‘Bathory album cover’ end of this spectrum is perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in the realm of tabletop gaming, where possibly the most prominent proponent of the theme labours under the moniker of …Blood Rage.

By Odin’s perineum that’s a daft name.

Whilst one can’t deny they were certainly up for a bit of cleaving, there’s infinitely more to the Viking age than Lindisfarne Massacres and tits. Leave it to the venerable ‘Pax’ series then to explore a more nuanced take on our Nordic cousins, but one that will still probably compel me to make a bunch of jokes about moose paste as we proceed.