For two weeks, we here at IoM have been pimping the virtues of Atomic Overmind Press‘ latest offering, the new Savage Worlds setting book by Ken Hite, The Day After Ragnarok.  The book asks the question, what if Ragnarok happened during World War II?  Imagine a world where the Midgard Serpent was struck down by an American A-bomb.   What destruction would be wrought, who would be left to carry on, and what sort of world would be left them?

It’s a wonderful read and we can’t wait to play it!

In fact, we’ve been so turned onto the book that we helped Ken and the folks at Atomic Overmind give away both a PDF and print copy of this badass setting.

Contestants wrote characters for the setting based on the Foreshadowing Ragnarok articles over on Atomic Overmind’s site.  The contest deadline was this past Saturday.  Since then, Ken’s been reviewing the entries…

Brother Hite reviewed all submissions and identified four Honorable Mentions:

“Josef Kaplan, Dauntless Commie Kabbalist Nazi-Hunter” by Gustavo Iglesias…

Josef Kaplan is a man who lost everyone he ever loved to the Nazi death camps.

He is also one of the finest sorcerers ever to come out of the B’nei Baruch, the yeshiva-cum-boot-camp operated by the occult branch of the People’s Jewish Republic intelligence apparatus, where he was apprenticed to its chief Kabbalist, Yisrael “Baba Sali” Abuhatzeira himself.

He is also a loose cannon who’s gone AWOL, severing contact from his ertswhile PJR masters, hell-bent on a one-man crusade against the Nazi butchers, travelling the globe armed with the secrets of Kabbalistic sorcery, and the restless urge to bring G-d’s justice to the war-criminals who took his life away from him.

Josef Kaplan is equal parts Solomon Kane, Simon Wiesenthal (or is it Yakov Lieberman?) and Baal Shem Tov.

“Walter Callaway, Big Game Hunter Slightly Too Pleased With The State of Things” by Nick Liber

Son of a British governor and brought up in a world of luxury and comfort, he became a world-renown trophy hunter and traveled the world to kill every animal worthy of note. While most saw the Snakefall as a catastrophe, Walter felt only excitement from the new and terrible creatures that came with it. Creatures that nobody had hunted before. Already he has ventured into Ras al-Thuban and brought back horrific trophies, and he is currently planning a trip to the poisoned plains of America. His most challenging hunt, however, will earn him a frost giant-skin rug from the cold wastes of the Soviet Union.

“Bret ‘Wyrmtongue’ Smith, Voice of the Roc” by Bunj

It all started when his unit was tasked with taking out a dragon stomping around the Grand Canyon. They knew most of them wouldn’t survive, but somehow Bret was able to grab the bazooka after Pvt. Wills dropped it, and blow the thing’s head off. Then came the burning. Some of the dragon’s blood had splashed his face and mouth, causing unimaginable pain.

He woke to a soothing voice, warning him more Things were on their way. It was only after he opened his eyes that he realized it was a nearby wren. He could understand the language of birds.

A year later, Bret found himself as part of a diplomatic mission. The U.S. needs all the allies it can get, so when President Warren heard rumors of a giant mystical bird in Persia, he sent a group to check it out. Again, Bret was the only survivor, but when he came down from the mountain six months later, he brought a friend. He also brought back a promise of aid from the Simurgh.

Now he and his hoopoe “familiar” Suleiman are part of the group trying to bring eastern cities back into the United States. The horrific scars on his face are a bit off-putting, but normal enough for the Poison Lands, and Bret has found he can be surprisingly persuasive, when he needs to be. When that doesn’t work, and hope seems lost, he can call on Suleiman to gather 29 other birds together, and form the Simurgh, a gestalt entity of great power. Then even the monsters flee from the beating of immense wings.

“Agent Smith, Under Orders From Hoover’s Ghost” by Drew

He had been a G-Man, taking on the bank robbers and the Reds, but after Serpentfall and the end of America in his immediate neighborhood he had retreated to only looking after those near and dear to him.

Until Old Man Hoover came to him in a dream and told that if Hoover could be dead and still fight the enemies of the republic, Agent Smith had no excuses. It took some effort to get the Studebaker running and even more for some acceptable suits and ties, but the Tommy Gun works just fine.

Now when Atomic Overmind Press grand high muckety-muck Hal Mangold saw how awesome these submissions were, a single tear rand down his cheek.  Where it fell upon the ground, a flower bloomed.  Moved by this, he decided that he’d award all the Honorable Mentions PDFs of the setting book.

Who rocks the hardest?  Hal Mangold and Atomic Overmind Press rock the hardest.

Who then was the lucky winner of both a PDF and the print edition?

“Kanakuni Joe, The New Big Kahuna” by Josh Thomson

Kanakanui Joe performed weddings and held luaus for tourists on Maui, before Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. He weighed at least 400 pounds when he showed up at the US Navy recruitment office two weeks later, but the Navy took him anyway. The big man had a gift for navigation and an uncanny knack for guessing the locations of enemy ships. So lucky did he seem, that his fellow crew members would often rub his bald head before a battle in the hopes that some of his luck would rub off on them.

Upon completing his service in 1946, he returned to Maui, which now had more refugees than tourists. Still, even refugees need to get married and have a good time once in a while, so he resumed his business. Life returned to as normal as it was likely to get for Joe, until one late-October luau when he called out his traditional greetings and thanks to the god of the sea and the goddess of the volcano, and they answered back. The island rumbled and the sea threw large waves. He called again, louder, and again the ground rumbled more and the sea churned higher. Joe drew the breath into his huge lungs for a third call, and his guests and employees, who until now where standing stock-still and saucer-eyed, turned and ran from the beach screaming. Kanakanui Joe spent his third breath not on worship but on roaring laughter. On a now-empty beach he laughed until he could neither stand nor breathe.

The next morning, he visited the Navy recruitment office that had accepted him nearly five years ago. He knew from what he’d heard on the radio news-news that grew stranger and more unnatural by the day-that the Navy still needed him. And now Kanakanui Joe had something new to offer them.

Thanks to everybody who participated and congratulations to all the winners.  Special thanks to Ken Hite and Hal Mangold who are two of the finest guys in RPG.  Thanks also to Wōden.  He knows why.