- Norns? What are Norns? -

Norns are the "stars" of the Creatures series of games from Mindscape, "virtual pets" that inhabit a world inside your computer.

They have to be cared for, fed, and played with--at least while the game is running on your computer. They reproduce, making more norns--and you can even "breed" them, selecting for the traits you'd like to see in your new generations of norns. They grow and learn, at first from you, and as you get more norns living in the virtual world on your computer, from each other as well.

In Norse mythology, the Norns (also known collectively as "nornir" and "the wyrd sisters") are the goddesses of destiny, roughly corresponding to the Fates in Greek mythology. They control the destinies of both gods and men, as well as the unchanging laws of the cosmos. They are represented as three sisters: Urd ("fate"), Verdandi ("necessity") and Skuld ("being").

They live at the base of the World Tree Yggdrasil in the realm of Asgard.

The "mythology" and terminology used in the Creatures series of games draws heavily on traditional Norse mythology; for a quick thumbnail intro on Norse myth and legend, check out Bulfinch's Mythology On-Line, The Age of Fable, Chapter 38