Council of Valkyries: The Hidden Throne Circle of Midgard

The Council of Valkyries, called the Rǫcstóll aff Valkyrs in the old tongue, was a region of Midgard on the north side of the Lake of Nine, reached from the Shores of Nine near the entrance to the Mason's Channel. As its name recorded, it was a council chamber, a ring of thrones that served as the private meeting place of the Valkyries in the years when their trust in Odin had begun to rot. After the All Father's curse corrupted the sisterhood, the chamber was left abandoned and fell into ruin, and it stood empty until Kratos and Atreus climbed its paths to reunite the council and face Queen Sigrun.

A chamber hidden from the All Father#

For centuries the Valkyries served Odin as the shepherds of the dead, ensuring that every departed soul reached the resting place its birth and death had earned. Gods and mortals who fell in combat were carried to Valhalla or Folkvangr, those who died outside of battle went down to Helheim, and beings who were neither god nor human were brought to the Lake of Souls in Alfheim. Souls that refused death and raised arms against the Valkyries were warped into Draugr and condemned to wander the realms.

When Odin married Freya, she was made Valkyrie Queen as part of her dowry, and the sisterhood revered her for the freedom and respect she showed them. The marriage ended with Odin stripping Freya of her powers and banishing her to Midgard, and the Valkyries were deeply disturbed by it. The order split from within. Though the Valkyries still answered to the All Father, those who no longer trusted him, sickened by his treatment of Freya and his mounting crimes against the realms, sought a place where they could discuss their affairs away from his sight. That place was the Rǫcstóll aff Valkyrs. There Sigrun was raised as the new Valkyrie Queen, and the order resolved to keep serving Odin and meeting his demands even as they spoke freely among the thrones.

The curse and the empty thrones#

The Valkyries believed their council was completely concealed, but the old saying held true, for the All Father sees all. Banishing Freya had not satisfied Odin, and upon discovering the secret meetings he unleashed an archaic piece of magic on the sisterhood, binding the Valkyries into physical form and condemning them to slide gradually into madness. Knowing the danger her corrupted sisters now posed, Sigrun carried each of them to a place where she could hibernate undisturbed and do no harm, sealing them behind magically locked doors across the realms. Last of all, Sigrun locked herself away inside a tear in the world at the very center of the council's circle of thrones.

The cost of the empty chamber fell upon the whole cosmos. With no Valkyries left to escort the dead, souls meant for Valhalla or Folkvangr crowded into Helheim until the domain of the dead could hold no more, and it began ejecting them back into the living realms as Hel Walkers. The problem only worsened with the years, and the Rǫcstóll aff Valkyrs stood silent and ruined for a long age before the council was gathered again.

The reuniting of the council#

The chamber's long emptiness ended with the journey of Kratos and Atreus, who crossed Midgard to scatter the ashes of the boy's mother from the highest peak in Jotunheim. With Mimir as their guide, the pair sought a piece of the magic chisel of the giant Thamur to carve the rune that would reopen travel to the giants' domain, which Tyr had sealed long before to halt Odin's slaughter of the Jotnar. The shard of Thamur's chisel also let them open the sealed doors they had encountered throughout their travels, and behind some of those doors slept the hibernating Valkyries. Father and son fought and destroyed the corrupted sisters one by one, and at each door they learned a little more of how the order had come to be locked away and driven mad.

To learn the whole truth, they had to reunite the council. Having slain the Council of Eight in their corporeal forms and collected the helms of the fallen, Kratos and Atreus made for the throne circle beside the statues of the boatmen. They set the helm of each slain Valkyrie upon its throne, and the reunited council reached out together to their queen, revealing the tear in the world in which Sigrun had sealed herself at the center of the ring. When Kratos reached into the tear, Sigrun, who had heard the message of her sisters and clung to what little sanity remained to her, erupted from it and charged him. After a long and grueling battle, father and son caught the queen off balance and killed her by tearing the wings from her back.

Freed from her corrupted body, Sigrun thanked the pair, marveled to see Mimir restored, and told them at last the full story of the Valkyries and their corruption. With every sister released, she departed to help the order repair the damage their long absence had done to the flow of the dead, granting the travelers the eternal blessings of the Valkyries before she went.

Freya's camp in Fimbulwinter#

The council did not stay empty. After the death of Baldur, Freya swore vengeance on Kratos for killing her son. Through Fimbulwinter, the three year winter that came before Ragnarok, the deep cold ate away at magic itself, and many of the curses Odin had laid upon Freya weakened, all save the one that chained her to Midgard. One by one she broke every binding she could find, recovering her Valkyrie wings and her warrior's spirit. She then made her camp at the Council of Valkyries and spent the following years hunting Kratos and Atreus across the frozen land, leaving the tortoise Chaurli to endure the cold alone at her old home.

It was to this camp that Atreus came after tracking down Tyr, hoping to persuade Freya to join the fight against Odin. He climbed the ruined pathway toward the council while Sindri stayed behind to clean up an old workshop of his along the route, and the boy turned over how he might open his talk with Freya, realizing too late that he had not thought his plan all the way through. He found her at her campfire among the thrones, sharpening her sword. Tucking away the necklace he wore, made from the mistletoe arrowhead that had once rendered Baldur mortal, he called out to her, and was met first with a trap and threats before she stripped the necklace from him. The chamber where the Valkyries had once whispered against the All Father had become the seat of his most wounded enemy, and the place where the long road toward her reconciliation with Kratos and Atreus began.