From what I know of the region, killing Fafnheir would be an impressive feat... But even still, having help is against tradition. The last time the Ulfen went against tradition in naming a High King, they were overrun by Baba Yaga (Although, to be fair, even the wisest and most powerful High King couldn't have prevented that.) In this case, Sveinn Blood-Eagle, the closest thing to a High King the region has, would likely come to congratulate the PCs, or even challenge the ones who killed Fafnheir in honorable combat to make sure does something impressive before he goes to Valenhall.
There's nothing saying a single player can't become High King and name his fellow PCs as thanes or advisers under him. Also, because of the skill it takes to kill even a regular linnorm, usually only barbarians become Linnorm Kings; except maybe White Estrid, who despite being statted as a barbarian strikes me more as a bloodrager before that class came out.
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It's quite possible that your players don't mind one PC becoming high king.
What grates on most people is if one PC bosses the others around. But a high king PC could also just be the first among equals that actually treats the others as equals, because he knows very well he couldn't have beaten Fafnheir alone.
Everyone wants to be the star player now and then. When it goes wrong with one PC with a higher title is if that results in the other PCs not getting to be star player anymore.
If the other PCs get credit for their own unique contributions, your players may be quite happy.
I have a similar campaign in the works - I'm planning on using the kingdom building rules for the PCs to carve out their fiefdom, gain legitimacy through killing an "ordinary" Linnorm, and then attempt to unify the nation. The kingdom building rules are a good way to keep everyone involved, IMO. Sure one player will be the king, but the others will have an equally important (from a gameplay perspective) Kingdom role to play also.
My gaming group that I play both Pathfinder and Shadowrun with ran a one-shot in which we fought and killed Fafnheir. We were all allowed to make 20 level characters (( non mythic )) and had about 500,000 gold to spend on items. This was over St Patrick's day weekend and we were allowed Hero Points. Hero Points you can never have more than three of them and you gain 1 point a level or by very awesome roleplay, or in this case by drinking shots. Hero Points can be used to give you a +8 to a d20 roll such as a save or skill action before you roll or a +4 after or to use for a reroll. I'm not sure about the rules for it but apparently a Hero Point can even be used to recharge a spell to use.
We all started out with 0 Hero Points because the point was to drink for them. While doing Fafnheir we also had to kill some lesser linnorms. They were white and had a breath attack that if you failed your save you were reduced a negative level, and same thing happened if they bit you. Said White Linnorms also regenerate. We fought a total of three of those white ones and all who killed the linnorms made their saves against the death curse.
As for Fafnheir he ran out of most of his spells including his invisible wall. He ended up wishing us to the center of the Linnorm King city in front of everyone. Our Barbarian scored two critical hits and killed Fafnheir right there in the center of town, something the Father of Linnorms was not expecting. Each round took like an hour because Math. It was awesome! Also awesome is how our GM who ran this made the paper miniature for it! He cut out a custom 30 by 30 inch square and then printed Fafnheir four times and glued the pages together on the base so no matter what angle you could see him.
We played this right after Shadowrun too!
How many people took shots to replenish their stock of points, though? And how often?
Lets see here:
We had a Ranger
A something Ranged Shooter (Can't remember based class)
A Paladin with Ranged Weapons
A Barbarian
And Myself A Saurian Shaman Druid/Mammoth Rider with Tricertops
The shots were about 70-80 Proof or were measured to be the same so for example 2 shots of Port Wine= 1 shot of Wiskey or 1 4 0z glass of Almond Roca Alchohol = 1 shot of Whiskey and we also had Jello Shots in the Irish flag colors courtesy of the Ranger.
So let's see
The Ranger because she kept rolling low to hit took about 6-7 shots
The Something Ranger had about 8-10 mostly for saves some to hit
The Paladin had about 3-4
The Barbarian had about 4-6
I had about 4-6
And the GM had like 12+ I think it was for replenish spell like ability or to save even though that damned linnorm had like +30 for saves -.-;. He however didn't need to drive, like both myself and the Ranger did.
As for how often, well the GM was drinking them the fastest while the rest of us spread our shots over 4-6 hours.
Now for the rules for the "Drink for Hero Points" If you choose not to drink for the points then everyone at the table needs to drink for you for your point. However I didn't want to drink more than I had because I wanted to make sure I was safe to drive and I was especially after waiting an hour after my last and making sure to eat some food.
However next one shot is going to be: Travel to Paizo Pathfinder's equivalent of Australia and go kill Kaijus! We get to go kill Godzillas and none of them are shorter than 50 feet, so almost twice the size of Fafhneir!
Also make sure if you do this you bring specialized gear. My Triceratops, if not for a certain enchantment that casts heal once per day on the wearer the moment one goes below 0 HP then he would of died courtesy of the White Linnorm.
Another way to play this is with test of might between the PC's as well as key NPC candidates.
Single combat seems like the typical Ulfen way of doing things. Of course, that does tend to skew things for martials, since flooding the battlefield with summons might not be considered 'honorable'.
Not to say that only martials can take this route. Various caster classes also hold their own in melee.
I have kind of liked the idea of a goliath druid for this kind of thing. That is the archetype that gets giant shape for its wild shape- eventually gains regeneration. It could end up as a tough challenger for the throne if the PC's don't have ready access to flaming weapons (putting flaming torches and the like in the area could end up rewarding creative players). Even without regeneration, you still face a character with spell casting, huge strength, and a very wide threatened area (and remember- druids have scimitar proficiency, and spells like giant shape allows your equipment to scale up with you).