How good is norse mythology for dark fantasy/grimdark?

Norse Mythology, as a whole, is pretty lame. The best parts were already filtered through Tolkien, leaving what he left behind the stuff we're all better off leaving behind.

>>52136034
Here's your (you)

>>52136195
It's good to see you can name one thing from Norse Mythology that Tolkien didn't adapt that isn't lame.

Oh. Wait.

>>52136017
just come up with your own shit, you uncreative faggot. mythologies suck

>>52136363
Did he do Einherjar? Or Skadi? Actually, what DID he do to adapt Norse myrhology?

>>52136363
A giant tricking Thor into drinking enough seawater to expose a new beach for shits and giggles.

>>52136017
It already feels grimdark when I think about Scandinavia's climate.

>>52136410
Took the word "elf"

File: 150%.png (142KB, 500x278px) Image search: [Google]

142KB, 500x278px

>>52136017
>fertility gods
>hierogamy
>sex-changing deities
>bestiality
>giantess/mini-amazons

It's pretty magical realm to be fair and square with you

>>52136363
Loki becoming the first horse fucker.

>>52137414
This. The only grimdark aspect is that the gods are fated to die.

>>52136363
The world is a carcass.

>>52136017
Is germanic mythology in general fine too? Or just the northern ones?
If the former:
Fucking Wieland the smith:
>Wieland has two brothers.
>One day they see three walkires bathing.
>those gals have magic clothes with which they can change to a bird form and fly away
>bros decide to steal the clothes
>Force gals to marry them
>success
>happy married life
>Walkires yearn for doin gtheir job again-collecting the worthy dead from the battlefield
>They plead to the bros
>one day the first brother gives in to the pleas of his waifu
>off she goes
>she does not return
>he goes looking for her one day, does not return
>same with the second waifu and the second brother
>one day wieland gives in to his waifu
>states that if she does not return he will find a way to fly up to the gods and get her back (without dying)
>off she goes
>Wieland goes searching
>is a damn fine smith works for some money for a king
>king is so impressed with his work that he does not want to let him go
>cuts his tendons
>wieland goes full Tzeentch
>he waits for a long while
>King has kids, two boys and a girl
>wieland drugs the girl and rapes her, bastard breeding time
>lures the buy with the promise of awesome works
>tell them the works are in some heavy chest
>they put their heads in
>down the lit goes
>off their heads go
>calls out king
>tells him he has something awesome for him
>King runs for it, greedy prick he is
>wielandbro climbs up the highest tower of the castle with his masterwork - a mantle that enables him to fly.
>King find what the awesome thing is: The Heads of his two sons.
>Wieland flies away
>Yells down
>"Btw I planted a bastard in your daugther. Fuck you."
>Goes looking for his waifu


Pretty much a story about waifus and outpricking pricks.

>>52137385
They aren't called elves in the Norse mythology.

>>52137414
You forgot
>Heavy mpreg.

>>52136017
Nobody fucking knows because we have jack shit for records of it.

>>52139381
Everyone dies anyway. That's not really dark. The only difference is that the norse gods know when they'll die.

>>52141187
Yeah, just alfar. Totally different.

I feel that British Celtic mythology probably trumps Norse mythology in how depressing and horrible it is. Scandinavia is a hard place to live, but the Britons have the double misfortune of living in the shittiest parts of the Isles and getting periodically fucked by invaders for most of their history.

I think it's best reflected in how Celtic myth handles death. In Welsh mythology, anyone you kill in battle will be your slave in the otherworld. In Breton mythology, the last person to die in a year gets the task of collecting the dead of the next year. There's a similar degree of fatalism in Celtic and Norse mythologies, but Celtic myth tends to treat it in a "shit happens and you can't do anything about it" angle, whereas Norse myth includes strong overtones of release and reward. Celtic personifications of death are also fucking terrifying.

Then there's shit like the Nuckelavee, which is a skinless man-horse amalgam with an oversized head and freakisly long arms. I mean, modern audiences are pretty jaded to this kind of stuff, but it's pretty demented compared to other contemporary folklore.

>>52142418
That's kinda what I meant. No matter what they do or how they struggle, their end is fated. It's definitely darker for deities, who are usually immortal (or mostly immortal).

>>52142492
Alfar doesn't translate to "elf" though. It's "elves".

>>52138500
Underrated post

>>52144123
Your end is fated too, you just don't know what that fate is yet. In most other religions, gods can still die, they just know less about it. Greco-Roman gods were immortal, in the sense that they could only be imprisoned in lower planes, but that's how death worked for everyone in Greco-Roman myth.

>>52136017
It's pretty fucking cool that the main themes don't seem to be good vs evil, but rather order vs chaos. Evil motherfuckers get by fine as long as they keep the status quo, and that can lead to some dark shit if you want.

Also, it's all metal as fuck.

>>52139381
There's some pretty grimdark shit in the specific stories though.

>>52136363
Dwarfs sewing Loki's mouth shut was gold.

>>52136017
Not so good for grimdark, unless you're going with something like a plague killing everyone. Warriors who don't die in battle don't go to valhalla and all that.

>>52144221
yeah in the same way jotnar is giants, you fucking mong.

>>52136017
Post-Ragnarok Midgard. Most of the world is barren and dead, with many not knowing if it will recover. Jotunn and Draugr roam fairly aimlessly, wielders of magic, while, have become extremely territorial and are considered almost demigods (Influence of Odin's death empowers magical mortals, though they have become physically lacking), with cults of slaves and beguiled worshippers.

Some Einherjar are still alive, having lost their purpose, and they can be friend or foe.

Aim of the campaign could likely tend towards slaying a particular sorcerer, uniting separate clans/villages/survivors, or maybe a quest of a group of Einherjars attempting to find a new purpose.