Njörd: Vanir god of the sea and king of Vanaheim

Njörd was the Vanir god of the sea, a patriarch of Vanaheim reckoned among the greatest leaders of his people. He was father to Freyr and Freya and grandfather to Baldur, and the long war against the Aesir cost him both his wife and his daughter. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

God and king of the Vanir#

Njörd was the Vanir god of the sea, one of the great leaders of Vanaheim, and he was genuinely loved by those who worshipped him, enough to make Atreus wonder whether every god was as bad as his father said. He was the husband of Nerthus, the father of Freyr and Freya, and the grandfather of Baldur. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

His children Freyr and Freya became leaders of the Vanir in their own right. Freyr called his father a lousy old man, but Freya said Freyr got his wanderlust from Njörd, and Hildisvini pointed out that whatever kind of father Njörd was, he was the reason they were a family. (God of War Ragnarök)

In Norse myth Njörd rules the course of the wind and calms sea and fire, and people call on him for seafaring, fishing and wealth. Snorri also tells of his short, unhappy marriage to the giantess Skadi. (Prose Edda)

The Aesir-Vanir War#

As a Vanir patriarch, Njörd took up arms alongside his kin in the long war against the Aesir. During the fighting his wife Nerthus was struck down by Magni and Modi, the sons of Thor. In his grief and fury Njörd, together with his Vanir council, summoned fierce hurricane winds that sank the fleet of the Asgardian warriors. (God of War (2018))

After many centuries the war at last came to an end, but the cost to Njörd was great. He had lost Nerthus to the sons of Thor, and his daughter Freya to a marriage with Odin, the hated chief of the Aesir. Though peace was brokered and relations between the two peoples grew more amicable, the Vanir never forgave Freya for what they took to be a betrayal of her own kind, and refused to receive her back. With Freya bound to Midgard by Odin's curses, Njörd in all likelihood had not seen his daughter for many long years. (God of War (2018))

A shrine lost to the ice#

At some time after the war, during Odin's harrying of the giants, a village to the north of the Lake of Nine that housed a shrine to Njörd was destroyed. When the colossal Thamur was struck down by Thor, the Frost Giant's body fell upon his own chisel, and the cold of his dying flesh spread out to bury everything around it, the shrine included, in ice. (God of War (2018))