Asgrim
From a windless crater on Helgrind, a hammer not of this world is found. It answers only to truth—and every strike costs a memory.
Asgrim, a fjord-born protector, refuses the easy road to godhood. While the White Jarl spreads the Great Quiet—a lattice of hush that eats wind, warning, and song—Asgrim learns to spend smaller: recalls on invisible rails, storm tethers, and shields that orbit like moons. With shipwright Ash, spear-brother Fen, and sea-witch Ylva, he turns work and chorus into counter-magic.
When the Grand Bell is hauled to the capital to smother an entire city, Asgrim stakes everything on a single oath: he will break the Quiet—and pay the price up front. With a one-use rift-hook and a craftsman’s patience, he cuts the bell’s silence-skin and hammers the wound open. Breath returns. Ovens bark. Laughter carries.
Victory isn’t free. His own name won’t stick in his mouth; the community holds it for him, carving it into wood and speaking it at dawn. What remains is wrong thunder—low, humble, and his—kept for harbors, not crowns.
A Norse-flavored, low-magic epic about voice versus control, power as debt (not a crown), and a found family who choose craft over spectacle. City-saving stakes, tactical combat, oath-driven magic, and an ending that trades glory for usefulness.