I really dig Scandinavian stuff (hell, even my wife is from Sweden! ;) ) so I started looking in to the names of the few Svalarheima units. Svalarheima (sva-LAR-high-ma or sva-LAR-hay-ma... I think): svalar (Swedish): swallows (the bird) heima (Icelandic): home, or at home So I figure Svalarheima is "home of the swallows". Nisse (NIH-SEH... stress both, but slightly more on the SEH): nisse (Danish, Norwegian) - Elves, but like Garden Gnome versions. Maybe even Santa's elves. ;) Jotum (YO-tum): So... this one it trickier. I looks like a bastardization of Jotunn. Which is a Frost Giant. So that fits. I know there are a lot of Swedish players out there, so chime in if I jacked it up. My wife said all this is right though... and she's always right. ;)
I'd rather go with svalur; Icelandic for "cold" One thing I'd really like to see is the inclusion on more Finnish folklore, as it has a bit different vibe than the usual Norse one. Especually Hiisi, local deities and trickster spirits, sometimes associated with western goblins. Meet one of their creations, The Moose of Hiisi (I also heartily recommend this comic, A Redtail's Dream) :)
Svarl is cool (not really cold) or chilly in Swedish too. But "chilly land" or "cold home" isn't as fun as "home of the swallows". ;P Also, Finns aren't Scandinavian! My wife constantly reminds me... She says they're "weird". :D
Hey Danish guy here. I started PanO with the hope of a Svarlaheima sectorial back in N2. Still waiting hehe the pronouciations of the Scandinavian languages can be a real trial for non scandinavians. A bit of help for the Americans and English. The letter æ/ä sounds a lot like the letter e in echo, try to draw it out a bit. The letter å in turn sounds o in oh! Jotum is derived from old norse Jötnar which is a descriptor of most of the evil supernatural creatures from norse mythologi. Today often associated with the frost giants in pop culture The Norse mythologi is full of different creatures and beings whose name and nature could translate into awesome infinity units.
Jormungandr, Fenrir, Einherier, Valkyre, or hopefully some more original less overburdened mythical names - The Sval army list practically writes itself. Which modern artist would have a hard time to come up with cool troops (no pun intended) with this much existing reference material? I'd bet my PanO collection that Sval is gonna be a Sectorial made with love for the product. If only there weren't these blasted YJ with their "White Banner" holding them back. (just kidding guys, you deserve your Immortal Army after the recent incident.) At this point I'm almost inclined to say CB is intentionally holding Sval back. Either for campaign plans (next year?) or to have a guaranteed highlight comparable to JSA on reserve. Lets face it, getting Varuna is nice and all, but they can't hold a candle compared to Sval in terms of hype and popularity. We're eventually gonna see it happen, still I wouldn't have picked up JSA now if Sval was on the horizon instead of Varuna.
The creatures from "Hiisi" are a cool part of the Finnish Heritage and Legends that I always found very interesting. . . Mainly because many years ago one of My D&D Gamemasters was in total "Finnish Fan-Mode" because had wrote a College Essay on the "Kalevala", the mythical poem that collect all of the various legends and lore of that part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. . . He tried to convey that passionate love of that Culture by statting clearly that "Ancient Finnish Heroes" were NOT "Just another Flavour of Vikings" and that there were many important differences. . . Tried to reward any D&D Spellcaster that tried to improvise the "Finnish Runic Magic-Lore" into some "Rune Stones" that He printed on hard paper (also tried to reward some "Improvised Poetic Stanzas" made in the Kalevala rhyme, but sadly NO ONE of Us was even moderately Poetic !!) and made quite clear that a Bard Player "Life Mission" was to recover the very FIRST "Kantele" (a sort of Harp made by stringing cords on the Horns of a Reindeer's Skull) created by the Spirits of Nature to commune with the Mortals and that was spirited away by the "Evil Sorceress Louhi" the Setting incarnation of dispassionate, impersonal "Neutral Evil" and that was sort of "Druidic Incarnation of Darkness". . . The Night-Sorceress was fond of sending even larger and nastier "Hisii Versions" of Normal Animals againts us, and while at first Songbirds, Rats and Little Fishes were just a nuisance, meeting a "Hisii Cave Bear" or a "Dark Faerie Knight atop a Hisii Stallion" where nothing short of "Main Boss Battles". . . Also He totally reversed our expectations for a "Christmas Night Game" where instead of Santa Claus we found a sort of immense "Giant Satyr Monster" (an hybrid between the Krampus of German Folklore and a Demon of the Abyssal Planes) that stole the misbehaving children of the neighbouring villages, to raise them as its "Cannibal Cultists". . . I think that this last was a sort of current "Boogeyman Legend" of Finland, because recently I saw an Horror Movie with a similar kind of Creature presented as the Main Bad. . . Unfortunately the Game finished in nothing because some of the more invested Players lost interest or drifted away for various life vagaries. . . But now that I'm starting to write an Infinity R.P.G. Campaign situated in Svarhalheima (where Combined Army stragglers after the Wotan Gate Debacle represent a take on every Northern People Legends about "Evil Monsters") perhaps I could find some good inspiration not only on easily referenced "Viking / Aesir / Vanir" Legends but also back to the Kalevala and other similar Epics of the Northern Europe (but also the Syberian Lore, Mongolian Legends and Chinese "Snow Demons" for the Yujing held territories). . .!!
So I may or may not have helped write a tabletop RPG called Steampunk Vikings, and that may or may not have been one of the driving forces behind my current paint scheme and snow basing of my PanO.
I think Svalarheima and White Banner are being held for a major story development, in which we'll get a vs box with their starters + inside. So, long story short, it'll be a while (I'd expect at least two and a half years). And, yeah, once we DO finally get there I think we WILL get a lot of really cool named and lored units. (I just wish I had the same confidence that the Pasifika heritage was going to be showcased in Varuna)
Svalarheim or something sounding very similar is a place from ancient Norse myths, it is some kind of dark world inhabited by some mythological entities (although I'm quite sure that the giants - Jotuns have their own world). I'd bet that CB draw the name from this.
You are propably thinking of Svartalfaheimr (home of the dark elves/dwarves), the relm of darkness is called Niflheimr, a land of darkness and cold. The Jotums are from Jötunheimr.
And Surtur and his "Happy Fire Giants" hails from Muspelheim (a place that make the "Lava Hell" of Dante's Inferno seem a cool mountaintop in comparison). . . We know yet that an Apex Predator of Svarhalheima is the Yeti-like "Troll". . . I wonder now if there are some nasty canine predators there that could be called Fenris, Garm, Hati or Skoll. . . And if there are none, some "Enterprising Security Concern" could also have the "Very Smart Idea" to import Ariadnan Antipode Packs from Dawn. . . Surely, if these somehow break free from the Pheromone Controllers NOTHING could go bad with them escaping in the frigid artical wastelands. . .!!