Oluf Nautson: chief of the Kol Raiders

Oluf Nautson was a mortal chieftain of Midgard who commanded the Kol Raiders, one of the marauding bands that survived the long winter of Fimbulwinter by plunder. Where other raiders robbed travelers and stripped abandoned homesteads, Oluf and his followers earned a darker name as hunters and eaters of wolves, and it was this trade that set him against Kratos and Atreus. The old god of war killed him at his own keep, and years later, on the shores of Valhalla, found the chieftain's likeness waiting for him among the shades of his past.

The chief of the Kol Raiders#

Oluf Nautson was born somewhere in Midgard to a father named Naut, whose name he carried all his life. Nothing else of his beginnings was recorded, and he was one of the few raiders of his age whose name was remembered at all; the rest of his kind lived and died as masked strangers. By the time of Fimbulwinter he had risen to lead the Kol Raiders, a branch of the Raiders of Midgard, bands of mortals who endured the endless winter by looting and raiding whatever the storms had not already taken.

He cut an unmistakable figure among them. Oluf was a very tall man who dressed in the same worn clothing as his followers, and he hid his face behind a gray mask through which his bright purple eyes burned. White hair marked him out further, and his size alone told most of what needed telling about how he had come to command men who respected little besides strength.

In temper he matched the worst of his kind. Oluf was ruthless, corrupt, and murderous, a chieftain who killed people and animals alike and held loyalty to no one but himself. Whatever gods the mortals of Midgard still prayed to in those years, Oluf served only his own appetite.

A hunter of wolves#

The Kol Raiders under Oluf's leadership practiced a trade that set them apart even among marauders: they hunted the wolves of Midgard, killing and eating them through the starving years of the long winter. Kratos would later name the band wolf eaters, and their chieftain earned the whole weight of that reputation.

At some point during Fimbulwinter the band's hunts crossed the path of Kratos and Atreus. The father and son freed two wolves, Speki and Svanna, from Oluf's grasp, and some accounts held that the old wolf Fenrir had also been among the animals threatened by his raiders. Speki and Svanna went home with their rescuers and never left. Atreus grew close to the pair in the seasons after their rescue, and in time Kratos himself came to rely on them, judging them loyal and well mannered, for the most part. The rescue made Oluf a standing enemy of the household, and the chieftain's hunts went on regardless.

Death at the Raider Keep#

Kratos did not leave the matter there. So that the wolves of Midgard would be left in peace, he took it upon himself to destroy the Kol Raiders, and the hunt led him to their keep, a camp whose entrance was marked by a trail of blood. He cut down every raider who held the place, and when the last of them fell, their chieftain himself came out to meet him.

Oluf proved a harder kill than any of his followers. He possessed strength far beyond an ordinary mortal, and he swung a giant mace built of bones and wreathed in fire, a weapon so heavy that its blows set the very ground burning where it struck. When wounds slowed him, he drew out potions and sprayed them against his masked face, and his flesh knit itself closed. He carried other treasures besides, among them a Token of Elemental Evasion. None of it saved him. After a hard fight, Kratos killed the chieftain of the Kol Raiders in his own keep.

Even after his death, Speki and Svanna remained distressed until Kratos comforted them, resting a hand on their heads. In his own record of the deed, the Spartan wrote that the leader of the Kol Raiders would threaten the wolves of Midgard no longer, and that he hoped the two animals' troubled minds could now be put at ease, since Oluf would never lay hands on them again. One strangeness followed. In the cleared keep there was later seen a chieftain of the Hel walkers wearing a mask identical to Oluf's, but whether the dead man had truly risen among the walking dead was never established.

The echo in Valhalla#

Oluf Nautson's story did not quite end with his death. After Ragnarok, Kratos traveled to Valhalla, where the shore conjured memories and illusions of old adversaries drawn from across the Nine Realms. Among the shapes that came against him, alongside monsters and warriors of every kind, was the chief of the Kol Raiders.

Kratos met the reunion without regret. He admitted in his reflections that fighting the leader of the wolf eaters again was a battle he did not mind revisiting, and that the man deserved every death that could be given him. In the same writings he recorded that he remained pleased to have rescued Speki and Svanna from the chieftain so long ago, and that the wolves missed the absent Atreus nearly as much as he did. It was a fitting last word on Oluf Nautson: a man remembered not for anything he built or held, but for the animals taken away from him and the peace his death bought for the wolves of Midgard.