Baldur and the Mistletoe
Beloved Baldur dreamed of his own death. Frigg won oaths from every thing to spare him—except mistletoe. Loki learned the gap, fashioned a dart, and guided the blind Hodr’s throw. The light of Asgard fell.
Story beats
- 1) Baldur’s death-dreams unsettle the gods; seers confirm he is fated to die.
- 2) Frigg extracts promises from every creature and material; mistletoe, deemed harmless, is excluded.
- 3) The gods hurl weapons at Baldur in a cruel game of invulnerability; nothing harms him.
- 4) Loki fashions a mistletoe dart and guides Hodr to throw; Baldur dies to shocked silence.
- 5) Hel allows a resurrection if all things weep; one giantess refuses, sealing Baldur in the underworld until after Ragnarök.
Context & symbolism
Invulnerability games expose complacency; the overlooked plant becomes the fatal vector. Loki’s act is both mischief and sabotage of cosmic order. Frigg’s near-total protection highlights the impossibility of absolute control.
Baldur’s death marks the first crack in Asgard, a trigger for Ragnarök and a meditation on loss of innocence.
Motifs
- Prophecy loopholes
- Harmless thing made deadly
- Blind agent guided by trickster
- Communal weeping as test
Use it in play
- A king believes himself immune; only one “harmless” thing can pierce him.
- Players uncover a prophecy and must find the item not sworn to it.
- A trickster frames a companion as the killer by guiding their hand.
- Resurrection hinges on getting every being—even foes—to mourn.
Comparative threads
- Hidden weak points: Achilles’ heel, Fafnir’s scale.
- Fated deaths: Oedipus’s prophecies, Kintu’s trials.
Hooks and campaign seeds
- Find the one object not bound by a pact of peace before an assassin does.
- Run a festival game of immunity—until someone cheats with a forbidden tool.
- Convince a cold-hearted giantess to shed a tear or forge an illusion that counts.