4
A
fter a bit of a gap in publication, we’re happy to unleash the coils of the fourth issue of
Serpent Scales: Fragments From The World After The Serpentfall. The Swedish gaming magazine
FENIX commissioned an article from Ken for their “post-holocaust” issue—this look at
Sweden in The Day After Ragnarok was the result. We’ve slightly tweaked and expanded it for
this version.. Put on your cold weather gear and prepare for life north of Jörmungandr’s rotting
carcass, as Kenneth Hite presents...
The Lion in Fimbulwinter:
Sweden After the Serpentfall
When the Midgard Serpent fell to the
Americans’ nuclear fire in July 1945, it “From the East there pours, through poisoned vales
was the Americans who took the brunt With swords and daggers, the river named Fear.”
of its posthumous revenge: a cloud of
— Völuspá, Stanza 36
deadly radioactive venom rained down
on North America, and a mile-high tidal
wave scoured the eastern seaboard clean. But Sweden did not escape. It would have been physically
impossible; trillions of tons of dead snake smashed the British Isles and slammed into the European
continent only 700 miles away. Earthquakes tore through Scandinavia, and the North Sea poured
its own tsunami onto the low, sandy coasts. Denmark was nearly completely destroyed; Norway saw
storm surges pour tens of miles up every fjord below Trondheim. Those nations sheltered Sweden
from the worst of it: the tsunami that scoured Jutland clear merely flooded lower Malmö, although
it smashed Göteborg with a glancing blow that still left hundreds of thousands dead or homeless.
Earthquakes wounded Stockholm and the other eastern cities, but compared to the near-total
demolition of Paris and Vienna, they remained inhabitable. Sweden’s survivors could shelter in their
damaged buildings as the volatilized oceans came pouring down out of the upper atmosphere in
torrential rain that became torrential hail and snow in August.
POLITICS
Among the approximately 500,000 Swedes killed in the Serpentfall was King Gustav V, found
dead in the ruins of a coach house on the palace grounds. Crowned in the miraculously intact
Masthugget church in Göteborg, his elderly son became King Gustav VI Adolf amidst a freezing
famine, desperate earthquake recovery, and the news that the Soviet Red Army was mopping
up Germany, “liberating” Norway, and threatening Finland. The Communist press in Sweden
was full of scandalous stories of the late King Gustav’s homosexuality, and the Communist
parties were baying for new elections. When Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson died of a
sudden heart attack, the national wartime emergency cabinet fell apart. The Soviets published
extensive correspondence gathered in Berlin between Swedish politicians and Nazi officials; the
Communist parties took over 40% of the vote in the dark winter of 1945. In partnership with
the Farmers’ Party (angry at the seizure of crops by the government), the Communists formed
the government with their Party Chairman Sven Linderot serving as Prime Minister. The new
1
SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Sweden
After the Serpentfall
2
SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
parliament repealed the Instrument of Government and forced Gustav VI Adolf to turn the
Stockholm Palace over to the “workers’ revolutionary vanguard.” On January 1, 1946, the
Palace became the headquarters of the Swedish Communist Party (SKP).
Royal Retreats
Unwilling to add civil war to Sweden’s troubles, the king has
secluded himself in the private royal residence Drottningholm
Palace with his books and his greenhouses. An avid botanist
himself, he sponsors agronomists trying to find grains and fruits
that can grow in Sweden’s now much-shorter summer. “Comrade
G” does not discuss politics. Neither does his cousin, Count Folke
Bernadotte, whose tireless work during and after Serpentfall as
president of the Swedish Red Cross has made him hugely popular.
Even the Communists hesitate to criticize the smooth-voiced
aristocrat. No such restraint on either side applies to the Crown
Prince Gustav Adolf, who proclaimed the repeal of the Instrument Crown Prince Gustav
unconstitutional, and with much of the military refused to Adolf’s Family Crest
swear allegiance to the “people’s government.” For their part, the
government accused him of Nazi sympathies, producing more German documents that rival
newspapers declared forged or authentic depending on their party line.
After seven months of escalating tension and street brawls, the Crown Prince decamped in
November 1946 to the once-German island of Heligoland in the North Sea with a third of the
Swedish Navy (see the Heligoland sidebar on p. 4). Here he raised the Swedish flag, appointing
himself Royal Governor of Heligoland. The resulting purge of the armed forces, along with a bill
collectivizing Sweden’s farms, led to the Linderot government’s fall and new elections in April 1947.
Misled by optimistic reports from SKP officials, Linderot refused Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov’s
suggestion that he cancel the election.
Triumvirate
The result was a hung parliament. The Social Democrats (SAP) barely fell short of a plurality of seats,
followed by the SKP and the Left Socialist Party (VSP). After two months of wrangling ended by
Folke Bernadotte’s mediation, the three left parties formed a coalition headed by Gustav Möller, the
new SAP chairman, with the Trotskyist Albin Ström of the VSP as Defense Minister and Linderot
as Foreign Minister. The Farmers’ Party went into opposition, along with the Liberals and the
National Organization of the Right (both of which suffered constant censorship and harassment
during the preceding Linderot ministry). Against all odds, the governing triumvirate has lasted
into 1948, mostly on a basis of postponing any votes that might fragment the coalition and lead to
open street fighting. Even now, protests and strikes ripple through Sweden’s recovering industrial
centers, and Stockholm’s Communist mayor (backed by the hundreds of new Communist police
he has hired) keeps the capital calm only with curfews and restrictions on public gatherings. Thus,
no new Instrument of Government has been drafted, the farms remain non-collective, and the
reorganization of the military remains half-complete even as Möller and Ström desperately rearm.
GEOPOLITICS
They rearm because Sweden must stand alone. Easily visible from Stockholm and points south,
the Serpent’s body lies humped and cloudy on the western horizon, a constant reminder that
Britain has been destroyed and the world is changed. The Americans have pulled back to the
Rockies; the center of the British Empire removed to Australia. Well-supplied with oil slant-drilled
from the Serpent’s carcass, the Royal Navy can keep station in the North Sea, but the Red Army
commands all of Europe east of the Serpent Curtain.
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Heligoland
Captured from Denmark by Britain in 1807, the island
of Heligoland (located 30 miles off the northwest
German coast) became a German naval base in 1890.
The Kriegsmarine expanded the island’s facilities under
two Reichs, building harbors and submarine pens,
and tunneling deep into the bedrock. On the surface,
civilians built resorts and planted tropical trees—
figs, bananas, palms—that flourished in the
island’s strangely warm and clement climate
despite seasonal battering from storms and
air raids in two world wars. In April 1945, the
Nazis evacuated all civilians from Heligoland,
ostensibly to protect them from increasing
British air attacks.
The Serpentfall only completed what millennia
of storms and erosion had begun. The
last remnants of the sandy marsh around
Heligoland drowned under the tsunami, along
with the neighboring island of Düne. What was left was a roughly quarter-
mile square block of hard red rock, towering 60 feet above the stormy waves Gustov Adolf
of the North Sea. Its fortifications, submarine pens, and tunnels mostly
survived the tsunami: like the similarly flooded and drained Shetland
Islands, the British Royal Navy turned it into a radar station and forward base for its North Sea Fleet.
The British formally protested the Crown Prince’s “annexation” of Heligoland, but left behind years’
worth of stored rations, a newly cleared airfield, and all the radar antennas, as well as a small ophiline-
cracking facility built on rockfill over the drowned western beach. The Swedish Navy has taken over and
extended the British “New Harbour” built on the southern side of the island; in addition to the four
capital ships and eight destroyers of the royalist “TF Bernadotte,” the harbor hosts (and refuels) visiting
British ships. (Royal Navy submarines pay less public port calls to the “Unterhafen” hollowed out by the
Kriegsmarine.) Most of the island’s population of 3,500 are Swedish sailors or aviators who defected
with the Crown Prince and the fleet—very few wives or girlfriends have made it onto the island since.
Female refugees from Communist Germany (three hours away by boat) are thus assured of a warm
reception despite the crowded conditions, and despite the security risks they pose.
What kind of adventures happen on Heligoland? At least three kinds:
AIR ADVENTURE
The Crown Prince also brought about 300 aircraft with him on his flight to the “unsinkable aircraft
carrier Heligoland.” The pilots fly reconnaissance and CAP missions looking for monsters, escorting
defecting aircraft from Communist Europe, dodging and provoking Soviet squadrons, and keeping watch
for a sudden Red Navy attack. Missions for these rebel fighters range from flying a spy out of Norway to
mounting a dive-bombing run on a kraken.
SOCIAL PRESSURE
Not even all the officers on the Crown Prince’s fleet knew about the plan, and certainly not all the crew.
Some of the men might not enjoy being trapped on a womanless island, living in a cave, for a royal brat
who buddies up with fascists. While most of the known agitators got shipped back to Sweden, the Nilson
Tendency (and the NKVD) still has cells working away below decks. Add to the political stresses the
strains of overcrowding, siege, and male rivalry, and you have dramatic potential aplenty.
TUNNEL CRAWL
The British didn’t explore all the Nazi tunnels. Maybe the tsunami didn’t wash them all out, either.
Anything could be down there, built by the Third Reich, or crawled up from the underworld, or shaken
loose from its Atlantean beginnings. The men need more space, for hydroponic gardens and barracks and
water tanks—you need to clear out the spaces on the schematic first.
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Norway and Denmark are both People’s Republics garrisoned by Soviet troops and guarded by
barbed wire. Across the Baltic, Germany and Poland likewise host Soviet occupiers and proclaim
socialist unity with Moscow. Stalin swallowed up the Baltic States and East Prussia during
the war, and in the spring of 1946 the reinforced Red Army once more invaded Finland. Once
more, fanatical Finnish defenses killed hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops, but Konev had
millions more men to throw into the battle, total air superiority, and command of the sea. The
Finns had no more sources of weapons or ammunition: the Linderot government refused even
to condemn the Soviet invasion, much less aid its neighbor. Helsinki fell in May 1947 and the
Soviets incorporated Finland into the USSR directly as the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
After the Crown Prince’s defection, the Soviet Navy demanded and received basing rights
at Karlskrona; the Soviet Air Force routinely overflies Swedish air space out of Oslo and
Copenhagen. The Finnish Resistance ties down the Red Army for now, but even the Finns cannot
hold out forever. Some time soon, Stalin will have fifty undistracted divisions on Sweden’s eastern
border. When that time comes, Sweden must seem not worth invading: cooperative in peace,
deadly in war.
Ministries of Fog
Not everyone agrees. The SKP still officially calls for “the closest fraternal association with our
Soviet brothers.” Linderot’s eager placation of Moscow is bad enough, but the new General
Secretary of the SKP, Set Persson, is more Stalinist than Stalin. If Sweden ever becomes a
“People’s Republic,” Persson will be its Premier: he actively conspires with the NKVD to advance
Soviet interests and his own. The NKVD prioritizes the royalist underground as the ultimate
class enemy, especially targeting the Swedish military for infiltration and subversion. Although
the VSP controls the defense portfolio for now, plenty of Defense Ministry staff are willing
to bet on the SKP returning to power, and to help out the Soviets without the formality of
an election. The SKP’s deputy secretary, Hilding Hagberg, edits the Party paper Ny Dag and
runs a network of such SKP assets within city and provincial governments, parliamentary and
ministerial staffs, and the criminal police system. His already extensive files on everyone in
Anton Nilson
Tough, quick, and suspicious, Anton Nilson (b. 1887) looks
and moves like a man a decade younger. During the Russian
Revolution, he flew fighter planes and eventually commanded
the Red Air Force in the Baltic: age has slowed some but
not all of his pilot’s reflexes. He wears a leather jacket given
him by Trotsky himself, or the peacoat of a common dockside
longshoreman. He doesn’t suffer fools or posers; while he doesn’t demand
complete ideological fidelity, he clearly distrusts and despises characters who
seem too cozy with the royals, the Wallenbergs, or other reactionary interests.
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d10, Strength d8, Vigor d10
Skills: Boating d10, Climbing d8, Driving d6, Fighting d8, Guts d10,
Intimidation d10, Knowledge (Explosives) d8, Knowledge (Left politics) d10, Knowledge (Tradecraft)
d6, Lockpicking d6, Notice d8, Persuasion d8, Piloting d8, Repair d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d8, Streetwise
d10, Swimming d8, Taunt d6, Throwing d6
Charisma: +2 Pace: 6 Parry: 7 Toughness: 8
Edges: Ace, Alertness, Block, Brave, Brawler, Charismatic, Command, Fervor, Hard to Kill, Tough as Nails
Hindrances: Loyal, Wanted (by the NKVD and the Swedish government)
Notes: Anywhere in urban Sweden, Nilson can round up 2d4 Trotskyist brawlers (use Thugs on DAR
p. 83) armed with lead pipes and knives if need be. He can use his Knowledge (Left politics) to escape
custody of any Swedish official group including the military—his agents are everywhere.
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Sweden (known ironically as “the Morgue”) ballooned when the SKP ran the Justice Ministry
under Linderot’s government.
Salmon Run
Meanwhile Tage Erlander, the SAP Education Minister, cooperates in secret with the British
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6). In exchange for access to British ophi-
tech research, he turns a blind eye to the “salmon run” the SIS keeps in Sweden: a network of
safe houses for getting defectors out of the Soviet Union—or spies into the Red sphere. The
local handler of the salmon run, Dr. Josef Zimmertür, is a Jewish psychiatrist and amateur
criminologist in Stockholm; his police connections and highly placed patients make him an ideal
coordinator. Soviet citizens can get visas for Sweden relatively easily, and running a small boat
across the Baltic to or from the Finnish coast or Latvia is simple, if not quite safe. Running a
larger boat past the Soviet patrols to the Shetland Islands is less simple, but flights on Swedish
Intercontinental Airlines (SILA) and AB Aerotransport (ABA) leave Stockholm for Reykjavik
weekly, weather permitting. ABA and Aeroflot fly to Moscow, Leningrad, Berlin, and Warsaw:
forged passports and visas fill a seat or two on seemingly every flight.
Red Harvest
Even more secret agendas stir the pot. Anton Nilson, a Communist labor organizer and convicted
murderer, joined the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 but returned to Sweden disgusted by Stalin’s
dictatorial ways. He heads a covert “direct action wing” of the VSP, dedicated to erasing SKP
(and thus Stalin’s) influence over Swedish labor unions. His “Nilson Tendency” silences Stalinist
organizers, dogs the heels of the NKVD in Sweden, and (with members in every dockworkers’ and
sailors’ union) monitors Soviet Navy activity all across the Baltic. Nilson personally despises the
reactionary British (his murder conviction was for bombing British strikebreakers in Malmö) and
only works with SIS when he has no other choice.
Shadow Cabinets
Not all the Crown Prince’s supporters in the military have been purged. An officers’ network
called “Friends of Björn” (after the Great Bear on the arms of the House of Bernadotte)
monitors developments in Sweden and does what it can to lay the groundwork for a royalist
coup d’etat when “Comrade G” abdicates or dies. Whether or not the Crown Prince ever
cooperated with the Nazis, the Friends of Björn are not so finicky: they harbor Wehrmacht
and SS officers and Ahnenerbe occult specialists in the ranks under false identities, and use
members of the banned Socialist Party (which advocated for the Axis during the war) as cut-
outs for dangerous missions.
The Björners also work with the SIS, and with the “T-Office,” a covert network of anti-
Communists within the government and academia. The head of “T-Kontoret” (or just “T”),
Thede Palm, is a specialist in ancient religion and the occult, teaching at Lund University. He
is also the former head of Swedish foreign intelligence. “T” reaches into the Swedish military
and bureaucracy, including the Security Police (Säpo), acting as a kind of secret police inside
the secret police. Palm’s occult training gives him and his “T” agents something of an edge on
the officially materialist Communists, though their frost-giant allies are another matter.
MYTHS AND MONSTERS
The frost giants known as Narts in the Caucasus Mountains, called bogatyrs in Russia, and
remembered as jötunn in Norse myth do not restrict themselves to advising Stalin on primordial
weather magic and arcane lore. They want their ancient kingdom back, to rebuild Utgard on the
crest of Galdhøpiggen, to rule the North as they once did before the coming of the Aesir. But
those gods—and then the newcomer God—sealed the land against their rule, with runestones
6
SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Swedish Shortlist: Top Five Places To Find Adventure
BOHUSLÄN
This coastal province was badly hit by the tsunami, and much of it has yet to be repopulated. Rumors
of wights and wraiths abound, possibly describing gangs or clans of starving, cannibal survivors.
In the middle of the wrack, a barbed-wire fence cuts off the Lysekil peninsula, enclosing the oldest
runic symbols in Europe. Ahnenerbe scholars studied these petroglyphs in 1935 and somehow
learned enough to eventually summon the Midgard Serpent; now a T-Kontoret team of Lund
University scholars tries to recreate that research. Their failures and experiments do much to keep
the surrounding devastation safe from prying eyes, but what population remains has longstanding
Communist sympathies.
CAFÉ STRINDBERG
Although this smoky, bohemian nightclub appeals to writers as well as artists, musicians, smugglers,
fixers, spies, and gourmands, it is named not for the playwright but for its owner Erika Strindberg.
Beautiful and enigmatic, Mlle. Strindberg spent the 1930s in New York working for the Comintern
and hobnobbing with literati and jazzmen. In 1940, she returned to Sweden and opened her club on
Österlånggatan in Stockholm’s Old Town, which rapidly attracted foreigners with money and those
interested in such folk. Now it is a crossroads, rendezvous, and hiring hall for every dubious character in
Scandinavia, and every avant-garde artist or performer in the hemisphere.
GRASÖ
This remote island off the shore of Uppland province has a population of about 300 after the Serpentfall.
Insular and standoffish, they make their living as fishermen and smugglers—and as Nazi assets in
Sweden. Twenty miles offshore is Seepunkt Manta, an underwater Nazi base built into the bottom of the
Gulf of Bothnia. During the war, the Germans stationed there used experimental equipment to interdict
and monitor Soviet naval traffic. The Serpent’s rise stirred up some Beings nearby ... and now the sea-
changed Nazis don’t have to use diving gear to swim underwater to Grasö.
HAPARANDA
Not all Swedes are happy to see their Finnish neighbors and relatives slaughtered by the Red Army.
Haparanda, just across the river from the town of Tornio in the Karelo-Finnish SSR, is where they send
arms, volunteers, and supplies for that struggle; any combat vet can get a job here if he’s not picky about
retirement benefits. Tornio, of course, holds a regiment of NKVD troops with all the most advanced
detection gear and plenty of Bratukhin B-11 helicopters.
STORA SJÖFALLET
These spectacular waterfalls in Sweden’s far north have mostly been tamed by the Porjus Hydroelectric
Station downstream. Porjus is the headquarters of Sweden’s top secret ophi-tech research and development
program, overseen by Deputy Minister of Fuel Tore Waller. Waller is preternaturally gifted at detecting
spies and other nosy strangers, perhaps a legacy of his time in the 1930s spent solving crimes. This
brilliant (if prone to excesses of Nietzschean vainglory) engineer drives his staff, picked from Sweden’s
top industrial and scientific establishments, to constant inspiration and flights of genius: the prototypes
developed here might be able to keep Sweden independent. One possible reason for this amazing progress:
the falls are also Mimir’s Well, where Odin sank his eye and hung suspended in exchange for wisdom.
and church steeples. Although Communist Norway gladly tears down churches in the high
mountains at their command, the jötunn can for now only wander in Sweden, not rule it. For now.
For now, their servants the trolls spread across Sweden’s bogs and forests, mountain scarps and
quake-heaped rubble. They pull down runestones and smash isolated churches; they deface idols
of Thor, Odin, and Christ alike. They kidnap humans for food and slavery and less wholesome
purposes still. The sagas sometimes describe trolls as having human appearance; perhaps the
trolls, too, infiltrate Sweden for their horrific masters.
Other monsters have revived in the wake of Serpentfall. A cult in Östersund on the shores of
the Storsjön in Jämtland worships Storsjöodjuret, a 20-foot long, humped lake serpent with
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
a wolfish head. Children in the Stockholm parish of Bromma tell of a short, dark-complected
“friend” who invites their playmates to parties no one returns from; are these “friends”
dwergar, vampires, or children gone feral and ghoulish in the quake ruins? Krakens roil the
North Sea and stir at the bottom of the Baltic. The giant snakes known as lindorms have
returned to Småland, even as the volcanic flutes across the hills and forests belch forth new
steam. Could dragons be next?
Trolls
Trolls are ugly, cruel beings created by the jötunn long ago as servants. They plagued the ancient
Norse, who eventually drove them back into their dens and crevasses with the sound of iron church
bells and the kiss of iron blades. After the Serpentfall, the jötunn called them back to service; once
more, no peat-covered bog or dark cave is safe to approach after dusk. So far, trolls have not taken
up their habit of nesting under bridges, not least because most bridges in Sweden are iron.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4,
Spirit d6, Strength d12+2, Vigor d10
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d10,
Notice d6, Stealth d8, Swimming
d8, Throwing d6
Pace: 8 Parry: 6
Toughness: 9 (1)
Gear: Club (Str+d6), stone spear
(Str+d6; Parry +1; Reach 1 or
throwing Range 6/12/24), stone
knife (Str+d4)
Special Abilities
• Armor +1: Rubbery hide.
• Bite: Str+d4
• Fast Regeneration: Trolls make
a Vigor roll every round to heal any
damage they have sustained, even
after “death.” Success heals one
wound (or removes Incapacitated
status) and a raise heals an
additional wound. This does not
apply to wounds made by iron,
lightning, or sunlight.
• Immunity: Immune to poison and
disease.
• Improved Sweep: May attack all
adjacent foes at no penalty.
• Infravision: Trolls halve bad
lighting penalties against warm-
blooded targets.
• Size +1: When unfolded to their
full length, trolls are lanky creatures
over 7’ tall. However, they can
crouch down to under 5’ with no
penalties for movement or action.
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
• Weakness (Iron): The touch of iron burns trolls; they cannot use it and must make a
Spirit roll to shove it away or even to pick up a steel tool by the handle.
• Weakness (Lightning): Trolls suffer double damage from lightning or electricity-
based attacks. Trolls fear lightning and must make a Spirit roll to go outside during a
thunderstorm.
• Weakness (Sunlight): Direct sunlight turns trolls to stone; they take 2d10 damage per
round until safe or fully petrified. Armor does not protect.
Troll-Wife
Some trolls are married, to wives far more formidable than they. Troll-wives have
Agility d8, Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Strength d10; and Knowledge (Arcana) d8, Knowledge
(Poisons) d8, Persuasion d10, and Spellcasting d10. They can shapeshift from troll form
to human form, and usually have other spells such as blind, disguise, or invisibility. A troll-
wife is a Wild Card.
Sea-Troll
Some trolls haunt the costs of Sweden. Increase Swimming to d10 and add aquatic.
SWEDISH SCENARIO SPARKS
These adventure seeds assume investigators generally able to work within Swedish society,
generally interested in poking Stalin in the eye but not averse to the main chance. Feel free to
alter them for your own campaign.
Light Fingers
Former gentleman thief Filip Collin has returned to Sweden and to his old identity as Professor
Pelotard, a scholar at Lund University. He works for T-Kontoret, and has been tasked to steal a
fabulous occult item the heroes are also interested in: a Hand of Glory looted by Swedish troops
from the sorcerous emperor Rudolf II’s castle in Prague. The Hand is under close guard in the
Ministry of Culture, an SKP stronghold. Even if he bests the characters, if they impress him he
may offer them a job with “T”—maybe one where they get to use the Hand.
Below Zero Point
The skies of Sweden occasionally light up with arrow-shaped anomalies flying overhead at
amazing speed. These “ghost rockets” seem to come from the south and fly to the north, but
nobody knows just what they are. The Ministry of Fuel hires the heroes (especially if they have
any mad scientists among them) to investigate Lake Kölmjärv, where a ghost rocket crashed on
July 19, 1946. Nazi UFO? Experimental British or Soviet super-plane? Valkyrie? Who knows?
Up Against the Wallenbergs
The Wallenberg family of bankers, industrialists, diplomats, and politicians are the
greatest defenders of capitalism left in Sweden. The Wallenbergs build railways, finance
reconstruction projects, research ophi-tech in their corporate labs, and own the airline SILA.
They jealously conspire against each other and against the patriarch Jacob Wallenberg for
preferment in the family empire. A Wallenberg might hire the heroes to find a grandniece
gone missing from a family retreat, or to get blackmail on a grasping uncle. Most of the
Wallenbergs are anti-Soviet, so they might recruit the heroes into T or the “salmon run”
or the Friends of Björn—the Wallenbergs are an old naval family. Perhaps this was why
the NKVD arrested Raoul Wallenberg (then working for the War Refugee Board to rescue
Hungarian Jews) for espionage in Budapest in January 1945. For some groups, rescuing
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SERPENT SCALES: The Lion in Fimbulwinter
Raoul from the Lubyanka prisons in Moscow might be realistic; for most, their ties to the
Wallenbergs will be less superhuman.
Orsen’s Will
Neils Orsen is a frail little man, almost a dwarf, with a big domed head and enormous pale-blue
eyes like those of a Siamese cat. He spent much of the 1930s and early 1940s as a ghost-breaker
for hire and a “psychic Sensitive.” He left London for Stockholm on June 19, 1945, which would
seem to confirm his psionic gifts. He is the executive officer of the T-Kontoret, but most of his
jobs for the heroes concern monster-hunting, ghost-breaking, and similar tasks. He would like to
recruit a PC who has access to Hilding’s “Morgue” (or who is running an asset with such access)
if only to reassure himself that the Communists continue to neglect the occult front. He pays in
psionic readings and predictions, which are never wrong.
Does Your Father Know?
Here’s one final possibility, which admittedly may appeal only to just the right game group. The
heroes are approached somewhere outside Sweden (ideally in the South Pacific) by a sea captain
named Efraim who is concerned about his daughter Pippi, alone in her home on Gotland. She’s
a good girl who can take care of herself—why, she gets her strength from dear old dad!—but a
father worries. He has responsibilities here, but if they could go to Gotland and see if she’s all
right he’d be very grateful. (He might punctuate this by absent-mindedly squeezing coal into a
diamond.) She’ll be easy to find; she’s friendly, adventurous, keeps a horse and a monkey, and has
bright red hair in two pigtails. Characters trying to recruit the strongest girl in the world for their
own schemes will get frustrated; heroes trying to help people out get the strongest girl in the
world on their side.
Published by Hal Mangold for Atomic Overmind Press
Written by Kenneth Hite Layout and Graphic Design by Hal Mangold
Art by Michael Vilardi Cartography by Hal Mangold
For Tove and Anders Gillbring, Sweden’s finest cow-punchers.
This product references the Savage Worlds game system, available from Pinnacle Entertainment
Group at www.peginc.com. Savage Worlds and all associated logos and trademarks are copyrights
of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Used with permission. Pinnacle makes no representation or
warranty as to the quality, viability, or suitability for purpose of this product.
Permission is granted to print 1 (one) copy of the electronic version of this publication, for
personal use only.
Serpent Scales #4: The Lion in Fimbulwinter: Sweden is copyright © 2013 by Kenneth Hite. All
rights reserved. Please do not pirate this book. Or if you do, have the common decency to hang
yourself for nine days first in exchange for its knowledge.
Published by Hal Mangold for Atomic Overmind Press
Atomic Overmind Press
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PRESS
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Visit us online at www.atomicovermind.com.
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