NJORD, God of Sea
GOD OF THE SEA, AQUATIC CREATURES AND THE UNKOWN DEPTHS
Njord is the Vanir god of the seas and the wind in Norse mythology and continued to hold that title after The Falling. He also holds sway over less tangible concepts such as fertility, long voyages, and gradual change.
Impassive and slow to anger, Njord is secure in the knowledge that there are no mortals and few gods who can threaten his status. Once his ire is aroused, however, it is as unstoppable as a cresting wave. He often speaks in the future tense, referring to what tomorrow will bring. He seldom laughs since The Falling, and when he does, it is usually out of smugness rather than genuine mirth.
Njord usually appears to mortals in the form of a giant male triton-like being with green seagrass hair and a crown of crab legs. He seldom adopts the same size as his followers, preferring to be seen from a distance as he towers over the ocean. When he moves closer to the view of mortals, he takes many other forms, often shifting from one to another: a giant squid, an ocean storm, a school of sharks, a fog bank, or a crab, his favored animal. He sometimes speaks out of the ocean itself, in droplets hissing across the surface of the waves.
NJORD'S INFLUENCE
To most mortals, Njord is the sea, and the sea is Njord. The wind and waves, the tides, and the ocean's bounty, ranging from small fish to the enormous krakens-all these are Njord's dominion. The sea has many metaphorical aspects that Njord oversees as well: fertility, long-term change, introspection, voyaging, and repetitive patterns such as the tides.
Njord governs the slow changes wrought by the passage of time, such as the weathering of rocks and the erosion of beaches. Where Nylea controls the eternal cycle of the seasons and Sylkri monitors the flow of time, Njord holds sway over the slow-acting but irresistible forces that alter the world over hundreds or thousands of years.
Krakens and other behemoths of the deepest oceans move at Njord's command. He is protective of what he calls the greatest of his children, and he usually keeps them out of harm's way in the darkest depths. A mighty kraken sighted close to shore is a sure sign of Njord's displeasure.
NJORD'S GOALS
Njord is never satisfied with the status quo, and he also never advocates hasty, uncontrolled change. He constantly resculpts the physical world, altering coastlines and upending familiar trade routes. There is no ultimate goal to this ongoing transformation; the purpose is change itself. Njord believes that change is essential to existence, and he opposes anyone who tries to establish or maintain a permanent order to the universe. He aids and inspires forces of change, the rivers that wear down mountains and the tides that claim whole continents. He sometimes seems disinterested in the intrigues of the present, even in his own current schemes, as his thoughts drift toward what the future holds.
DIVINE RELATIONSHIPS
Njord disdains the shortsightedness of his fellow gods, most of whom have convinced themselves that they can impose lasting order on the cosmos. At the same time, his realm is unassailable, and he believes that the changes he advocates are inevitable in the long term. So although Njord frequently disagrees with the other gods, he doesn't fear them.
Heliod considers Njord his favorite sibling, despite Njord's unwillingness to agree with his plan for a permanent order. Njord, who rules depths that have never seen the sun, considers most of Heliod's schemes pointless and opposes them if they seem to threaten harm.
Njord took pity on Purphoros and aided him when Sylkri hobbled his mind, and Purphoros has not forgotten it. The two of them agree that old things must make way for new things, but Purphoros's bursts of destructive energy stand in sharp opposition to Njord's gradual alterations. Purphoros regularly makes gifts for Njord, most recently gifting him a new spear to replace his lost weapon.
Njord has little use for the gods who oversee work he believes best left to mortals: Ephara with her cities, Karametra with her fields, Pharika with her tinctures, Mogis and Tyr with their armies. To Njord's mind, his peers are building castles in the sand, unaware or unmindful that the tide will sweep them away.
WORSHIPING NJORD
Most of Njord's dedicated worshipers are tritons, and the vast majority of tritons are wholly devoted to Njord. Tritons spend much of their lives in Njord's realm, with their god omnipresent. They weave prayers to Njord into nearly everything they do.
Among humans, Njord is worshiped by those who rely on bountiful seas for sustenance or calm waters for safety. Sailors, fishers, and residents of Idavoll's coasts and islands all pay him at least nominal respect and sacrifice. His center of worship on land is in the coastal city of Hepinocen, where sailors and philosophers pray to him for guidance.
Njord's most fervent human worshipers offer prayers at high and low tide. If possible, they do so at the water's edge. At low tide they walk barefoot out onto the tidal flats, relishing the touch of Njord's seabed.
In much the same way that the sea and its secrets simply exist, Njord trusts that the lives and actions of his champions will serve his long-term goals because of their connection to him. What made the god of the sea turn his attention to you or how did he show his interest?
MYTHS OF NJORD
Tales about Njord typically demonstrate that he is oftenpatient, but never kind.
Dreams in the Deep
While Purphoros is renowned for his endless creations and desires to bring new ideas into being, Njord secretly shares similar creative desires. Endlessly bored with the predictable denizens of the land and sky, in the deepest ocean trenches, Njord wills immortal dreams and nightmares into being. Delicate beauty, undulating grace, and tentacular terrors are birthed in the absolute dark, iterate for generations, and suffer swift extinctions at the god's whim, never knowing the sun's touch. Sapient mortals aren't welcome in these maddening ateliers; Njord remains bitterly unwilling to reveal his work until his creations-and the time-are absolutely perfect.
Love Filled Storms
Skadi's father Thjazi caught Loki, and forced him to lure out the goddess Idunn, keeper of the apples which granted the Aesir their phenomenal youth and longevity. As the gods began to age, they sought out the one responsible for taking Idunn; discovering it was Thjazi, they killed him and freed Idunn. Angered at the offense, Skadi came to fight the gods, but they did not want to fight her. The Aesir instead offered Skadi compensation, allowing her to choose a husband among the gods, but only by looking at their feet. Skadi wished to marry Baldr, the most handsome of the gods, but the feet she picked belonged to Njörd's, whose feet were shining and clean. (Odin later took Thjazi's eyes and placed them as stars in the night sky). When Skadi moved to her new husband's home near the sea, she missed her mountain home. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she only spends half her time with her husband. When Skadi is away, Njörd is sad, causing storms at the sea.
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