Scandinavia Unveiled

Scandinavia Unveiled: the Awakened History of the North: "I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror.  I see my face and feel loathing and horror.  My indifference to men has shut me out.  I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams." Antonius Block, the Seventh Seal

It is said among Scandinavian mages that Awakening happens at the fringes of human consciousness, in the "wilderness" of the mind. The Awakened have their own sagas, telling tales of warriors awakening in the wilderness under the midnight sun, or of the long, dark solitude of the northern winters forcing sleepers to look deep enough into their souls to find the gleam of the supernal there. Wilderness and dark isolation have given a unique character to Scandinavia's awakened community. Despite the entrance of Scandinavia into the information age, the mages of the North continue to be an isolated lot, fiercely proud of their history and accustomed to their own way of doing things. Scandinavia's standard of living has skyrocketed during the last few decades, but mages tend to be old fashioned sorts- the Old Ways of the Awakened Sagas still live on.

The Vikings:

"Ek veit einn, at aldri deyr: dómr um dauðan hvern." (I know one thing which never dies: the fate of the honored Dead.) Hávamál

The Arrival of Christianity:

"Herrens Ord Bliver Evindelig." (The word of the Lord endureth for ever.) 1 Peter 1:25

Few areas were more hard won for the Christian Faith than Scandinavia, where the quiet, peaceful teachings of Jesus Christ were met with near universal disdain by the warrior culture of the northern peoples. For centuries, the meek, scholarly monks sent forth by Germanic bishops could make little headway among a people that valued physical strength and courage over faith and humility. This was just as true among the Awakened, with mages of the Old and New Ways pitted in centuries of simmering suspicion and conflict.

The Viking mages strongly favored the Adamantine Arrows, who vigorously opposed the passive teachings of both the sleeper missionaries and the Mystagogues that accompanied them. Scandinavian mages strove to bar Christian Mystagogues from the North for generations, but the changing political situation among sleepers turned the tide against the Old Ways. The promise of military alliance and trade proved a more effective method of converting the people than prayers and preaching, and one by one chieftains and kings converted to Christianity, bringing their subjects with them. This eventually resulted in a schism of both the Silver Ladder and the Adamantine Arrows of Scandinavia between Norse and Christian parties, a division that defined the politics of Awakened Scandinavia for years.

Though both faiths existed side by side for generations, eventually, the Old Ways lost by mere attrition. Paganism had well and truly lost political and social influence by the 1150's, when the Eric "the Saint," King of Sweden, assembled the First Swedish Crusade to crush the last strongholds of pagan influence. The Old Ways continued to linger in the remotest part of Scandinavia, especially among the Lapps and Finns, but Scandinavia was effectively integrated into the rest of Christendom. The Norse manner of doing magic continued, however, to be practiced by a small, but vigorous minority of the Awakened, ironically perpetuated by the Mysterium, the first Order to speak for Christianity centuries before.

Empire:

The 20th Century: