Orlog

ACV Promotional Screenshot 30 — Eivor playing a game of orlog

Orlog is a dice game popular among the Norse and Anglo-Saxons in which the contestants attempt to reduce their opponent's "health", as represented by a set of 15 stones, to zero through various dice rolls and bonus effects.

Gameplay[]

A game of orlog consists of a number of rounds between two players. Before the game begins, players flip a coin to determine who moves first. Each round has three phases: Roll, God Favor, and Resolution. In the Roll phase, the two players take turns rolling their individual sets of dice. After each roll, players chooses which dice to keep, if any, and which to reroll. A player may reroll some or all of the dice up to two times on this phase. In the God Favor phase, each player can choose to cast a blessing from a figure in Norse mythology, or may skip it entirely. Players can pick blessings from up to a total of three figures, and can increase the variety of blessings available to them by successfully beating select challengers across Norway and England.^[1]

The blessing costs vary in their amount of favor, which is represented by the symbol "⌘" and is accumulated across multiple rounds. The blessings take affect during the Resolution phase, with some blessings having priority in the sequence over others. In the Resolution phase, each players' set of dice faces are compared with damage blocked or dealt, and favor gained or stolen. The game is over when a player's health reaches zero.^[1]

Dice faces[]

	Deal 1 damage.		Block 1 .
	Deal 1 damage.		Block 1 .
	Steal 1 ⌘ from the opponent.		Earn 1 ⌘

Pieces[]

Name	Effect	Cost	Location
Thor's Strike	Deal damage to the opponent after the Resolution phase.	4⌘: Deal 2 damage 8⌘: Deal 5 damage 12⌘: Deal 8 damage	Starting piece
Iðunn's Rejuvenation	Heal Health after Resolution phase.	4⌘: Heal 2 Health 7⌘: Heal 4 Health 10⌘: Heal 6 Health	Rygjafylke
Víðarr's Might	Remove from the opponent.	2⌘: –2 4⌘: –4 6⌘: –6	Rygjafylke
Ullr's Aim	Your ignore the opponent's .	2⌘: 2 ignore 3⌘: 3 ignore 4⌘: 6 ignore	Ravensthorpe
Heimdall's Watch	Heal Health for each attack you block.	4⌘: +1 Health per block 7⌘: +2 Health per block 10⌘: +3 Health per block	Grantebridgescire
Baldr's Invulnerability	Add for each die that rolled . Add for each die that rolled .	3⌘: +1 per die 6⌘: +2 per die 9⌘: +3 per die	Ledecestreshire
Brunhild's Fury	Multiply , rounded up.	6⌘: x1.5 10⌘: x2 18⌘: x3	East Anglia
Freyr's Gift	Add to the total of whichever die face is in majority.	4⌘: +2 6⌘: +3 8⌘: +4	Lunden
Hel's Grip	Each damage dealt to the opponent heals you.	6⌘: +1 Health per damage 12⌘: +2 Health per damage 18⌘: +3 Health per damage	Oxenfordscire
Skaði's Hunt	Add to each die that rolled .	6⌘: +1 per die 10⌘: +2 per die 14⌘: +3 per die	Sciropescire
Skuld's Claim	Destroy opponent's ⌘ for each die that rolled .	4⌘: –2⌘ per die 6⌘: –3⌘ per die 8⌘: –4⌘ per die	Essexe
Frigg's Sight	Reroll any of your or your opponent's dice.	2⌘: Reroll 2 dice. 3⌘: Reroll 3 dice. 4⌘: Reroll 4 dice	Cent
Loki's Trick	Ban opponent's dice for the round.	3⌘: Ban 1 dice< 6⌘: Ban 2 dice 9⌘: Ban 3 dice	Jorvik
Freyja's Plenty	Roll additional dice this round.	2⌘: +1 die 4⌘: +2 dice 6⌘: +3 dice	Eurviscire
Mímir's Wisdom	Gain ⌘ for each damage dealt to you this round.	3⌘: +1⌘ per damage 5⌘: +2⌘ per damage 7⌘: +3⌘ per damage	Eurviscire
Bragi's Verve	Gain ⌘ for each die that rolled .	4⌘: Gain 2⌘ per die 8⌘: Gain 3⌘ per die 12⌘: Gain 4⌘ per die	Lincolnshire
Odin's Sacrifice	After the Resolution phase, sacrifice any number of your health tokens. Gain ⌘ per health token sacrificed.	6⌘: Gain 3⌘ per health token 8⌘: Gain 4⌘ per health token 10⌘: Gain 5⌘ per health token	Suthsexe
Vár's Bond	Each ⌘ spent by your opponent heals you.	10⌘: +1 Health per ⌘ 14⌘: +2 Health per ⌘ 18⌘: +3 Health per ⌘	Wincestre
Thrymr's Theft	Reduce the effect of a God Favor invoked by the opponent this round.	3⌘: –1 level 6⌘: –2 levels 9⌘: –3 levels	Glowecestrescire
Tyr's Pledge	Sacrifice any number of your Health tokens. Destroy opponent's ⌘ per Health sacrificed.	4⌘: –2 Health per token 6⌘: –3 Health per token 8⌘: –4 Health per token	Hamtunscire

Trivia[]

Although the second phase is called "God Favor", neither Brunhild or Thrymr are gods, as they are a Valkyrie and a jötunn, respectively.

Behind the scenes[]

Orlog is an Old Norse word relating to the concepts of fate, natural law, and primal essence.

Despite the name and the gameplay featuring figures from Norse mythology, orlog did not actually exist in history. In an interview with the tabletop news site Dicebreaker, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's co-development game director Benoit Richer revealed that the goal behind orlog was to create a game that would feel credible to the time period rather than being historically accurate, as their research could not find clear rules for contemporary Norse games. Furthermore, what few games that are known to have existed, such as tafl games, often used irregularly-shaped cylindrical pieces or uneven hand-carved dice, both of which proved too difficult for Valhalla's physics engine to manipulate. Seeking a compromise, developers went for the feel of historical games while embellishing as needed with modern elements like standardized pieces.^[2]

ACV Orlog Development — Orlog's development stage

The first draft of orlog played more like a deck-building game, where players had to collect special dice across the world. The idea to have the Norse gods influence the game was kept from the concept stage, and in this version, it was done by rolling a deity's face. However, playtesting teams from Ubisoft Singapore and Ubisoft Chengdu found it too cumbersome, and so simplified it into the dice-matching feature and replaced the god dice with favor tokens. The working concept dice and rules scribbled on sticky notes resolved with repeated playtests, but it was not until late 2020 that a mock orlog was digitized using the program Tabletop Simulator, allowing the teams to finish the final version to implement into Valhalla.^[2]

A mere week after Valhalla's mid-November 2020 release, Ubisoft's statistics showed that players had won over 3.5 million games of orlog.^[3] With its unexpected popularity, Ubisoft announced that they would enter into a partnership with gaming collectibles producer PureArts to create a physical set that would be available for sale sometime in 2021.^[2]

Four months later, on 1 April 2021, the official French Assassin's Creed Twitter account posted a short teaser video showing the finished product being used in trial sessions.^[4] There would be no further updates until April 27, when PureArts' Twitter account posted a promotional image and announced that the physical orlog set would be available for pre-order beginning May 13, adding that fans hoping to get one could enter a giveaway in the meantime.^[5] The giveaway website, which included an embedded widget from the marketing platform Gleam,^[6] prompted visitors to sign in with their email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to earn up to 5 entries for the upcoming draw that would be held on November 15.^[7]

On May 13, PureArts released a product trailer and announced that their online store was open for pre-ordering the orlog set,^[8]^[9] and in celebration, designer Antoine Henry from Ubisoft Singapore posted a picture from orlog's initial stages with the colored dice and sticky notes as described in Dicebreaker.^[10] In PureArts' store, the orlog sets were listed as containing 1 carved wooden case, 2 wooden dice bowls, 32 polished stones for health counters, 2 linen pouches, 50 metal Favor tokens, 2 sets of 20 wooden God tokens, 2 sets of 6 acrylic dice, 1 metal game coin, and 1 linen game mat measuring 18” x 26” (45 cm x 66 cm). The sets were limited to 500 units exclusive to North and South America, selling for $200 USD each, and were expected to be delivered to customers any time between October to December 2021.^[11] Within a day of opening the site, PureArts reported that nearly all of the pre-order units had sold;^[12] the final set was bought four days later on May 17, though PureArts assured fans that they could sign up to join a waitlist if a set became available in the future.^[13]