The Gods of Asgard are a race of superhumanly powerful humanoid beings who were once worshipped by the ancient Norse and German tribes of Western and Northern Europe between 1100 BC to 1200 AD. The Asgardians dwell in Asgard, a cosmology of interconnected worlds adjacent to Earth; an interdimensional pathway between both realms known as Bifrost links Asgard to Earth, or Midgard as it is known among the Asgardians, with a possible interdimensional access point somewhere in Norway. The Asgardians' human worshippers in Germany called their gods by different names than those by which the gods were known in Scandinavia (Ancient Norway, Sweden and Denmark): for example, the Norse called the king of the gods Odin, whereas the Germans called him Wode or Woden. The Vikings and Saxons also carried worship of their gods to their outposts in Iceland, Britain and North America. The Asgardian gods no longer have or actively seek worshippers on Earth. However, certain Asgardian gods, notably Thor and Odin, still take active interest in the welfare of humanity. 

The precise origin of the Asgardian gods, like that of all of Earth's pantheons of gods, is shrouded in legend. It is believed they might have been born on Earth and relocated there at some point in the Earth's past. According to one account, a primeval god known as Buri emerged from the frozen ice of Niffleheim. He sired a son, Bor, who took Bestla, the daughter of the Rime Giant, Bolthorn, as his wife and they had three sons, Vili, Ve and Odin, known to the Germans as Lodur, Hoenir and Wotan, who became members of the Aesir. Njord, possibly another son of Buri, sired the Vanir. Buri was later eventually replaced as ruler of the Aesir by Bor who was succeeded by his three sons. The Aesir and the Vanir lived in relative peace for several generations before they finally departed Earth for another dimension which they called Asgard. Upon departing Earth, they became known collectively as Asgardians. Odin eventually became sole ruler of the Asgardian gods. He took the goddess, Frigga, the daughter of giants, as his wife, and she sired him a number of children, among whom, Balder became the most beloved of the gods. Odin also traveled to Earth to mate with its patron goddess, Gaea, who appeared to him in her persona of Jord in order to sire a son whose power would combine that of Asgard and that of Earth. Their son was the god, Thor, who became champion of the gods against their enemies, the Jotuns or Giants of Jotunheim. While in battle with Utgard-Loki and the Jotuns, Odin slew one their leaders, Laufey, and adopted his son, Loki, whose size was that of a god, not that of a giant. Odin raised Loki as his son alongside Thor and Balder, but Loki would grow jealous of their popularity among the other gods. Eventually, he learned of a prophecy that tied Balder's death to Ragnarok or "The Twilight of the Gods" and forced those prophecies to come to pass. However, Odin's magicks soon restored the Asgardians to life. Just how many incarnations of Asgard has existed is unrevealed.

Odin eventually learned of the coming of the Third Host of the Celestials, alien beings of inconceivable power who had influenced the evolution of humanity on Earth and who intended to judge humanity's worthiness to survive when the Fourth Host came. Odin then contact Zeus, Ruler of the Olympian gods and all the other rulers of Earth's gods once worshipped on Earth to discuss the threat of the Third Host of the Celestials. The Celestials had threatened to seal off the portals of each of their godly realms unless they promised to stop interfering in mortal affairs. Odin soon began to make plans to thwart the Fourth Host, which would arrive roughly a millennium later. He constructed a suit of armor with nearly invincible powers called the Destroyer. When the time came, he withdrew all the life-forces of the Asgardians except for Thor into himself. Odin then entered the Destroyer, animating it, thus did battle with the Fourth Host. The Celestials annihilated the Destroyer, but Gaea, backed by the mother-goddesses of each pantheon presented the Young Gods to the Celestials as evidence of the potential of humanity. Thor petitioned the other rulers of the Earth's gods as per their pact to donate the required life energies need to restore the Odin and the rest of the Asgardians. (It is possible that that the Asgardians' "deaths" when the Destroyer was annihilated constituted another form of Ragnarok, and thus, the Asgardians have survived it once more.) 

In later years, the Asgardians would be threatened by a number of menaces and threats from both within and beyond their own dimension. Seth, the Egyptian god of death and misfortune, invaded Asgard and subjugated the Asgardians out of his animosity toward Odin and Thor, but he has been defeated twice. For one of Seth's manipulations, Odin stripped the Asgardians of their godhood and hid them as normal human beings upon Earth. This ordeal left them ill-equipped to battle the Dark Gods, alien entities from another dimension, who laid siege to Asgard and were finally routed by Thor, who had been trapped briefly in another alternate Earth. Odin eventually lost his life in battle with Surtur, and Thor succeeded him as ruler of the Asgardians. Still bound by his vow to protect Earth, Thor briefly merged Asgard and Earth to better protect them both. A future incarnation of himself warned him of the future if this continued and he separated the two worlds. Loki meanwhile grew dissatisfied with Thor's rule and masterminded a revised Ragnarok to conquer Asgard. Thor was unable to defeat Loki's armies and instead realized the powers controlling Asgard's numerous incarnation of rebirth and destruction. He consulted with the shadowy beings known as Those Who Live Above In Shadow and learned they had been behind Asgard's cycles of rebirth. To break the cycle, Thor traveled to the roots of Yggdrasil and severed the thread keeping Asgard in its cycles, effectively destroying Asgard to save it. 

Eventually, Thor returned to Earth during the aftermath of the Superhuman Registration Act which mandated that all costumed superhumans ("superheroes") reveal their secret identities to the United States Government. He recreated Asgard as a separate republic in Oklahoma. Under unknown means, the rest of the Asgardian gods subsequently reappeared as citizens of the Balkan kingdom of Latveria, ruled by Doctor Doom, but they later rejoined Thor in the recreated Asgard. This Asgard was subsequently attacked and destroyed by corrupt businessman Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers. The Asgardians fled Earth afterward, returning to their native dimension.

Relations to other Pantheons: At some point in the past, the Asgardian gods beheld some enmity with the Greek and Roman gods after the Germanic tribes of the Franks lead invasions into Italy and Northern Greece in the Fourth Century AD, but their respective gods now seem at peace and among the most active pantheons on Earth today. Relations with the gods of the West, the Tuatha de Danaan, remained strained until recent due to the Saxon and Viking invasions to Britain and Hybernia (modern Scotland). The Asgardian connections to the Dievans, or Slavic gods in modern Russia, are rather undefined; they may be some overlap in their pantheons. (The Ancient Slavs were known to adopt gods from Iran and Germany into their pantheon). The Asgardian gods had some contact with the Anasazi gods of North America during the Viking exploration of Greenland and Northern Canada which nearly lead to strife, but this was abated with the creation of the Council Elite.

==Characteristics== 

Body Type: Humanoid
Avg. Height: 6' 0"
Eyes: Two
Hair: Normal
Skin: Normal
Limbs: Two
Fingers: Five with opposable thumb
Toes: Five
Special Adaptations: The Asgardian gods are exceptionally long-lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods; they age very slowly upon reaching adulthood, but they are not invulnerable to death. They are physically more durable than human beings; their skin, bone and tissue being around three times more durable and dense than similar tissue in human beings.

==Powers==