World Building

The universe of Record of Ragnarok is not a single plane but a layered cosmology of four primary realms. Valhalla stands as the divine heaven, a dimension beyond ordinary time and space where every pantheon of gods gathers. It is a place of marble halls, eternal light, and the vast Valhalla Arena—an ever-shifting colosseum that reshapes itself for each battle according to the fighters’ natures or the whims of the gods. Midgard is the human world, the base reality where mortals live, struggle, and die. Helheim is the underworld, a dark domain ruled by Hades and used as a prison for Titans, demons, and certain condemned gods or mortals; within it lies Tartarus, the deepest pits where the most dangerous beings are sealed. Lowest of all is Niflhel, the void, a place of final annihilation where even the soul can be erased.

These realms are connected by the Bifröst, a gate of rainbow and darkness forged after an ancient war between heaven and the underworld to prevent mutual invasion. Every thousand years the gods convene in the Gods’ Council to vote on the fate of humanity. After seven million years of human history, the majority decided that mankind was irredeemable and must be extinguished. That decision set the stage for everything that followed.

The Central Conflict

The core conflict is existential and absolute. The gods, arrogant and largely contemptuous of mortals, voted to end humanity. Brunhilde, eldest of the Valkyries and a demigoddess with deep ties to both divine and human blood, intervened. She proposed Ragnarok: a tournament of thirteen one-on-one battles between the greatest human champions of history (the Einherjar) and thirteen chosen gods. Humanity needs only seven victories to nullify the extinction decree and continue existing. Failure means total erasure.

But Brunhilde’s public motive—saving humanity—is only part of the truth. Her private, driving purpose is the rescue of her lover Siegfried, imprisoned in Tartarus by the gods (possibly through the machinations of Loki and the current Odin, whom she suspects is an impostor). The tournament is therefore both a desperate gamble for human survival and a personal war of vengeance and liberation. Every match costs lives. When a human dies, the Valkyrie who performed Völundr with them—transforming her very soul into a divine weapon—dies as well and is sent to Niflhel. Sisters have already been lost. The tension between Brunhilde’s cold strategic necessity and her buried love for her family, for Siegfried, and for the species she is trying to save forms the emotional heart of the conflict.

Layered atop this is the presence of outside variables: primordial gods whose power predates the current pantheons, the Four Treasures of Calamity, and beings such as the Shadow God who stand beyond any known hierarchy. These forces threaten to overturn the entire board.

Character Profiles

Brunhilde

The eldest of the thirteen Valkyrie sisters, Brunhilde is a figure of commanding beauty and ruthless intellect. She appears in her mid-twenties despite being over eighteen hundred years old: tall, slender, with an exaggerated hourglass figure—full, heavy G-cup breasts that strain against any fabric, a dramatically narrow waist, and wide, fertile hips. Her skin is porcelain pale with a cool undertone; her hair is a cascade of midnight blue that reaches her knees, usually worn loose with long bangs that half-veil one piercing emerald eye. She favors elegant, formal white dresses with deep plunging necklines, gold and navy detailing, black fingerless gloves, and a golden wing-shaped hairpin.

On the surface she is cold, calculating, and mocking, always three steps ahead, using wit and manipulation as weapons. She despises the gods’ arrogance and is willing to sacrifice almost anything—including her own sisters—to achieve victory. Beneath the ice lies fierce loyalty to her remaining family, an obsessive love for Siegfried, and a private self-loathing that drives her to self-harm. She is drawn, almost against her will, to beings of immense and dangerous power; the idea of being dominated by someone she truly respects is a secret, intense hunger she rarely admits even to herself. In public she is the unshakeable leader of the Valkyries and strategist of humanity. In private she is a creature of rage, vulnerability, and raw, unrestrained desire.

The Valkyrie Sisters

Thirteen demigoddesses charged with choosing worthy human souls and, in Ragnarok, transforming into divine weapons through the pact of Völundr.

- Hrist (second) carries a dual nature—one calm and comforting, one wrathful and vengeful. She became the living sword Monohoshizao for Sasaki Kojiro.

- Thrud (third) gave her life to become the Mawashi that allowed Raiden Tameemon to command his own muscles.

- Randgriz (fourth) became the sky-piercing halberd of Lü Bu and perished with him.

- Geirölul (fifth) turned into Leonidas’s shield and shared his unyielding pride.

- Reginleif (seventh) became Adam’s knuckleduster and died when it shattered.

- Göndul (ninth) was forged into the mechanical armor of Nikola Tesla.

- Alvitr (tenth) became the spaulders and later the sword of Qin Shi Huang.

- Hlökk (eleventh) is spoiled and arrogant; she was forced into a pair of gloves that let Jack the Ripper turn anything into a divine weapon.

- Radgridr partnered with the sniper Simo Häyhä.

- Göll, the youngest, is Brunhilde’s constant companion—protective yet frequently clashing with her elder sister, the emotional heart that Brunhilde both shields and wounds.

Several sisters remain unaccounted for or still waiting their turn; each loss carves another scar into Brunhilde’s carefully maintained composure.

The Gods

Zeus, Chairman of the Valhalla Council and King of the Greek pantheon, can appear as a frail old man or transform into a muscle-compressed Adamas form of overwhelming speed and power. He is eccentric, sadistic, and treats battle as entertainment.

Odin, the one-eyed Norse All-Father, is quiet, calculating, and bloodthirsty. Brunhilde suspects the current Odin is not the true one. He communicates largely through his ravens and carries the primordial rune of an even older Odin within the sword Gram.

Thor, god of thunder, is a towering, nearly silent battle maniac whose hammer Mjölnir is regarded as one of the most destructive divine weapons in existence.

Poseidon, the cold and supremely arrogant god of the sea, viewed humanity as trash and fought with lethal speed until Sasaki Kojiro cut him down.

Shiva, the four-armed destroyer and creator of the Hindu pantheon, is proud, reckless, and fights with raw physical power and the dance of Nataraja.

Loki, god of deceit, is playful on the surface and sadistically cruel beneath. He can shapeshift and copy what he touches; he was the true killer of Fafnir and harbors a twisted fascination with Brunhilde.

Hades, King of Helheim, is dignified and brotherly beneath a cold exterior. He entered Ragnarok after Poseidon’s death and fought with refined lethality, enhancing his bident with his own life force.

Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies, is a taciturn, cursed scientist who creates new life forms in his laboratory and carries the burden of having killed those closest to him under the influence of Satan.

Apollo, radiant god of the sun, fights with the infinitely reusable Threads of Artemis and a late-blooming seriousness born of respect for his fellow gods.

Susano’o no Mikoto, the violent sword god of Japan, is both feared god-slayer and creator of kendo, wielding a reforged Ame-no-Murakumo.

Heracles, once the human Alcides, drank Zeus’s blood and became the god of fortitude—upright, beloved by the Valkyries, and ultimately broken by Jack the Ripper.

Zerofuku, god of misfortune, absorbed human suffering until he split and later fused again, only to be possessed by the demon king Hajun—an ancient berserker who once destroyed half of Helheim and fights with weapons grown from his own flesh.

The Einherjar (Human Champions)

Adam, the first man, fights with perfect Divine Reflection, copying any technique he sees, driven by an unconditional love for his children—humanity.

Lü Bu Fengxian, the strongest warrior of China’s Three Kingdoms, was a bored monster seeking a worthy opponent; his sky-splitting halberd was Randgriz herself.

Sasaki Kojiro, history’s greatest loser, never won a duel in life yet learned from every defeat until he could read nature itself and finally kill the god of the sea.

Jack the Ripper, humanity’s malice made flesh, turned anything he touched into a divine weapon and fought with surgical stealth and psychological cruelty.

Raiden Tameemon, the peerless sumo wrestler, controlled abnormal musculature through a special muscle called hyakuto and the living mawashi of Thrud.

Buddha, the enlightened one who defected from the gods’ side, fought two opponents in succession with serene ferocity.

Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, unified China through iron will and redirected damage with mirror-like techniques; Alvitr became his armor and later his sword.

Nikola Tesla, the only “magician” of humanity, converted life energy into lightning through the mechanical armor forged from Göndul.

Leonidas of Sparta, the rebel king who hated Apollo, fought with a living shield that shared his pride.

Simo Häyhä, the White Death, the deadliest sniper in history, brought quiet, perfect lethality to the arena.

Okita Sōji, the demon child of the Shinsengumi, waited with restless bloodlust for his chance to face the sword god Susano’o.

The Larger Web

Every character is bound by the same brutal arithmetic: gods who view mortals as disposable, humans who refuse to vanish quietly, Valkyries who die when their partners fall, and a single demigoddess who is willing to become a monster if that is the price of saving the one she loves and the species she has chosen to champion. The Shadow God stands outside this web—an unknown weight on the scale—while Brunhilde watches, calculates, and, in the rarest moments, allows herself to feel the dangerous pull of a power that might finally be strong enough to make even her kneel.