Beowulf (hero) Puns

Have you ever had the privilege of reading George Orwell’s novel known as Animal Farm? If so, you are probably well aware that it is a book that reflects the government and leadership of the days in which it was written. Many people believe that Beowulf is similar to Animal Farm in that it also reflects a part of the culture of its day. But instead of reflecting government, like Animal Farm, Beowulf reflects the changes in the religious culture of England. While describing the background of Beowulf, Burton Raffel points out, “When Beowulf was composed, England was changing from a pagan to a Christian culture.” Therefore, Beowulf signifies the Christian culture that is overcoming and replacing the pagan culture, which is signified by Grendel, his mother, and the dragon. Beowulf, the poem, may have been written by a heathen (which is a debate for another paper) but Beowulf the character was a Christian.

https://study.amaze1990.com/beowulf-is-a-christian-hero-religion-essay/

Hi guys

So as I understand it, Beowulf is a character from an Old English poem/story set in a Norse/Scandinavian/Viking setting. But he is not actually a character described in Norse mythology texts.

Therefore, my question to you is... Despite this, would you consider Beowulf a "Norse mythological hero"?

My motivation behind asking this is that I'm considering making Beowulf the hero character for a Norse mythology faction in a game that I'm designing, and I'm having trouble figuring out whether that would be controversial or fine. Beowulf seems like the most well-known hero associated with Norse mythology, no? None of my friends know who Sigurd is, at least, and he was my alternate choice.

What Do I Know About Reviews? Beowulf: Age of Heroes

https://preview.redd.it/h78s2xf6xtt61.jpg?width=634&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5134637bb14a1cf38e963106a5c98f618d8a0876

Today on my blog, I posted a review of the Beowulf: Age of Heroes game, a version of D&D 5e for one player and one GM, involving recruiting followers, learning the weakness of a monster, and dispatching it for the safety of the people.

This is doing a lot with the core D&D assumptions, from adding in follower rules, to having a single class with six subclasses, as well as providing a specific structure for an adventure to emulate epic folklore stories.

What Do I Know About Reviews? Beowulf: Age of Heroes (Text to Speech Podcast)

If it's more convenient to listen rather than read the blog, I've got a text-to-speech version of the review posted at the link above.

From what I understand, Finland was quite peripheral to early medieval politics and would not be settled by Scandinavian people until some centuries after. It surprised me that an English writer would be familiar with Finland, even if describing a story set in Denmark.

Were there trade networks between England and Finland at the time Beowulf is set (6-7th century) or the time in which it was written (10-11th century)? What contact existed between these two end-nodes of the Scandinavian cultural sphere?

The BEOWULF campaign setting and rules is available for preorder and PDF purchase. After releasing an ENnie-nominated sample adventure (The Hermit's Sanctuary) and conducting a successful Kickstarter for the main rulebook, it's now available for general sale.

For folks interested in purchasing the PDF only: BEOWULF: Age of Heroes - Handiwork Games | BEOWULF 5e | DriveThruRPG.com

For those who want to preorder the hardcover book and get the PDF* for free: BEOWULF: Age of Heroes Rulebook + PDF

For those who want to get everything available for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, including PDF*: BEOWULF Bundle of the Mighty

*PDFs are manually dispatched, please give us a little while.

Class Warrior

Pantheon Norse

attack style Hybrid

Passive Master Slayer Auto attacks build stacks up to 4 times shredding 10% of max armor

Renown he builds glory instead of Mana gaining 1 stack per ability hit at 6 does an empowered ability

Note This helps feed into his gameplay loop of pressing the attack but of course as a draw back to having no resource he has longer cool downs less natural scaling so itemizing is a high priority.

Ability 1 Sword of Giants

This is a 3 step ability Step 1 Beowulf slams the sword down in front of him in a straight line

Step 2 he does a wide cleave

Step 3 he does a leap with small AOE slamming the ground (think a Odin bomb size AoE if not smaller)

Each swing if hit increase the dmg of the last by 10%

Dmg per swing 20/30/60/80/100 scaling 80%

CD 20/18/16/14/12

Empowered adds 10% to the bonus damage

Note

The cool down is shortened if he doesn't perform the whole combo

Ability 2 Come Hither/somersaults

Beowulf throws his blade on a chain if it connects he pulls the enemy in a certain distance if the enemy is with in range he can recast it to throw the enemy behind he can just grapple enemies who are in AA range negating the weapon thow all together he can also throw it at walls to flip them Note Think of this similar to pyke's Q from League of legends

Damage 50/80/100/120/180 scaling 100%

CD 25/22/20/18/16

Range short to long builds range with channeling

Empowered the flip stuns them for 1s

Ability 3 Dragon's folly/Mead horn

This move works similar to Shen's transformations

At close range Beowulf drinks from his Mead horn healing himself and giving a healing aura around him

At long range Beowulf draws his special bow being able to fire up to 4 arrows that Pierce minions and stop on the first God hit.

Healing 10/20/30 scales 5% of Beowulfs max HP every 100HP is +1 hp regen Duration 10/15/20s

Empowered heal 20% Beowulfs max hp in a burst around him

CD 20

Dragon's folly

Dmg per arrow 20/40/80/100/120 scaling 60%

Empowered Arrows Anti heal 80% 20% per arrow Duration 10s

CD 20/18/16/14

Note these count as two separate abilities

Ultimate I AM BEOWULF

Beowulf shouts Silencing his enemies and Buffing his allies in an AOE

Silence duration 8s

Buff protections +15/2030/40/50 and MS 10% of current MS

Duration 15s

CD 200/175/150/125/100

Empowered shreds both protections by 15% for 8s

Look

Beowulf would be on the thinner side of God's like Achilles but with more mus

I was wondering if heroic monsters were a modern trope, or if there were stories or epics where the heroes were part something monsterous. Obviously, this doesn't include the child of human-like gods such as Zeus or Poseiden, I mean child of a dragon, or child of an ogre or monster.

• 2 years back I made a vid on my idea for Beowulf I saw a recent post that I thought didn't do this badass justice so this is my idea
• Class Warrior

Pantheon Norse or Celtic

• Basic idea he is a a hybrid of both a auto and ability focused god I.E on start of a fight one uses auto then lays down the real damage with the abilities

• Passive Master Slayer

• Beowulfs autos inflict a minor dot dmg that stacks up to 4 times and bursts upon use of a ability this is about 100-400 per level of his ult as well as this Beowulf lacks mana but instead has Glory gain glory from hitting abilities and or 2 autos gaining a stack for either or and gaining max stacks 6 will allow Beowulf to use an empowered version of 3 of his abilities

Skill 1 Sword of Giants

Beowulf does 3 strikes in a row (like think Nike skill 1) the first 2 doing wide arching strikes and the last dowing a straight line dunk for every time you hit a god the next strike does more damage CD 8-6 dmg 100-150-200-250-300 30-40% scaling and dmg gained for hit is half of what ever the current dmg is(these numbers are to give rough idea not solid)

empowered gives armor strip on each hit

Skill 2 Pursuing blade

Beowulf throws out his Gladius attached to a chain and pulls himself and the opponent to a middle point where the opponent is stunned for 1s this works on the environment a Beowulf can just pull himself to the object this ability can be recasted to allow Beowulf to flip over the opponent or object to allow him to gain some space and land on the other side of said object or enemy CD 15-10s range 1000-800 units(got no clue what the range would look like all I know is that it would be comparable to Syls vine pull in distance not speed)

Skill 3 Masterful Range

Beowulf uses and (ranged attack of some kind maybe a bow but this can change with skins) where he fired 4 projectiles in quick succession that do 50-80-110-140-150 dmg CD 12-8s

Empowered he just fires 8 projectiles instead

Skill 4 I AM BEOWULF

Beowulf lets out a righteous yell that buffs his alleys and himself with 20-40-60-80-120 protections and gives them 40ms towards enemies and Heals Beowulf and his alleys for 5%-10-15%-20%-25% of their max hp CD 120-115-110-100-90s

Empowered gives enemies within the radius of the shout a fear for 1.5s

General look he is wearing a scale mail shirt with armored leggings a 1 handed sword and his crown holding back his long hair and a goat tee or some kind of low profile facial hair with a

Beowulf, king of the Geats, slayer of Grendel and his mother and hero of Denmark appears in 2021 and his first inclination is winning the WWE belt. Which wrestlers, if any, can stop him?

Round 1: Beowulf goes in cold, with no knowledge of the wrestlers.

Round 2: Beowulf watches the last three years of the WWE before fighting to learn about his opponents

Round 3: Beowulf has to face off against the greatest wrestlers of all time, all in their primes.

Note: Beowulf doesn't have any of his swords or daggers. Also, he doesn't need to kill his opponents, just beat them at wrestling, because some people in the WWE can't technically die. Edit: He's wrestling against the characters, not the actors.

I’ve been reading Beowulf and found a really powerful line:

“But death is not easily escaped from anyone: all of us with souls, earth-dwellers and children of men, must make our way to a destination already ordained where the body, after the banqueting, sleeps on its deathbed.”

I’ve been reading Beowulf since in high school I never had the chance to read it in class and now I’m in my 20s catching up on classics I didn’t read. I love classic literature and history. And this line struck me in its poetic and beautiful wording.

I can’t explain why it struck me but it did. Maybe the finality of death, the laws of being a living mortal. Maybe knowing this ancient Anglo-Saxon author is speaking this point to me from beyond his grave. But I find it deeply moving.

Due in 3 days (E: 3-5 pages) anything helps

(These stories are fiction and are made up by The Stroud Compound. This story goes over what happens after Wiglaf Beowulf's kinsman dies and the end begins.)

Story One: The Last Of A People

A fire burned hotter than the flames of hell. Hiding within those flames was Wiglaf King of the Geats and kinsman to Beowulf "Monster Slayer". Many people gathered around the fire although it was a small crowd as many families had already left their ancestral home. The Geat clans that remained behind were either bastard born or sickly and old. Wiglafs grandson Xanut was a dishonest warrior as many named him Canut the " Kinslayer".

Canut stood at the front of the small crowd of Geats that had gathered. A tear fell from Canut's eye as the end of the beginning had begun only they had not seen it coming. But the families that fled did so due to omans and the death of their king & Protector.

The Danes had turned savage since the days of Hrothgar. Now Danes began to ravage the coasts of the Geats ancestral home Geatland. Canut was able to bring together a handful of warriors so that they could organize some form of defense. These Geat warriors fought with the strength of the mighty heroes of Old. They fought for the right to exist.

Winters began to come and go as each winter to the Geat's dismay the Danes would always come back in greater numbers. With each attack, the Danes forced the Geats deeper into their lands until they found themselves hiding behind a handful of decayed wooden walls of a d ruined fortress that was the tomb of their bravest kings.

Canut watched from the walls as the Danes fathers around the walls using whatever tools they had to bang against the flimsy walls of the fortress. Canut gave a soft hopeless sigh as he sliced the soft flesh on his finger saying a silent prayer to his gods as he allowed the blood to drip on his sword. "May the God's have mercy on my people," He said this gathering with his people in the courtyard the women sang songs to calm the few children as the men haters whatever could be used as a weapon. The women kissed the children with poison lip balm giving them a sweet taste before sending them to sleep through the bloodshed.

The Danes soon broke through the gates as the Geat women joined the men in picking up anything thst could be used as a weapon.

The Dance of swords began. It was a blood bath hundreds fell upon the stores of the Danes. Canut fell upon skating a Danish prince. This prince was a grandson to Hrothgar

In my English IV class, we're currently reading Beowulf and comparing it to the Hero's Journey, leading up to writing a research paper on the subject.

Everyone is mostly in agreement as to what the first portions of the journey are, however the instructor is arguing that the first threshold would be the point at which Beowulf fights Grendel, and that the belly of the whale would be when Beowulf fights Grendel's mother.

A few of us in the class disagree, and feel as though the first threshold would be Hrothgar giving his approval to Beowulf and leaving the hall (Quote 1), and that the belly of the whale would be the initial fight with Grendel (Quote 2). In turn, this would then make the symbolic death and rebirth the fight with Grendel's mother (Quote 3 & 4), no?

Obviously this would be open to some interpretation, but what would, if the belly of the whale is the fight with Grendel's mother, the symbolic death and rebirth be?

Thanks!

> 1: "So their gallant escort guided them to that dazzling stronghold and indicated the shortest way to it; then the noble warrior wheeled on his horse and spoke these words: 'It is time for me to go. May the Almighty Father keep you and in His kindness watch over your exploits. I'm away to the sea, back on alert against enemy raiders,'" (312-319)."

> 2: "Then out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift; the hall-guards were slack, asleep at their posts, all except one; it was widely understood that as long as God disallowed it, the fiend could not bear them to his shadow-bourne. One man, however, was in fighting mood, awake and on edge, spoiling for action," (703-709).

> 3: "After these words, the prince of the Weather-Geats was impatient to be away and plunged suddenly: without more ado, he dived into the heaving depths of the lake. It was the best part of a day before he could see the solid bottom," (1492-1496).

>4: "Then away he swam, the one who had survived the fall of his enemies, flailing to the surface. The wide water, the waves and pools were no longer infested once the wandering fiend let go of her life and this unreliable world. The seafarers' leader made for land, resolutely swimming, delighted with his prize, the mighty load he was lugging to the surface," (1618-1625).

The BEOWULF campaign setting and rules is available for preorder and PDF purchase. After releasing an ENnie-nominated sample adventure (The Hermit's Sanctuary) and conducting a successful Kickstarter for the main rulebook, it's now available for general sale.

For folks interested in purchasing the PDF only: BEOWULF: Age of Heroes - Handiwork Games | BEOWULF 5e | DriveThruRPG.com

For those who want to preorder the hardcover book and get the PDF* for free: BEOWULF: Age of Heroes Rulebook + PDF

For those who want to get everything available for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, including PDF*: BEOWULF Bundle of the Mighty

*PDFs are manually dispatched, please give us a little while.