Mmm.
I think it's notable that all three components of orthstirr are external, formed by the expectations of others. That may be why there's no internal component to Norse cultivation - we're not cultivators in a traditional sense, we're Jedi - manipulating an energy field that's around us and a part of us but not internal to us. That's also true of kennings. And Tricks are just means to manipulate orthstirr.
Muna, on the other hand, are internal to an extent - they rely on a transcendent understanding, but that transcendent understanding changes us and lets us do things we otherwise couldn't. On the other hand, it's still all orthstirr.
There's also stuff with how advancing our core stats offers internal improvements - changing our soul self, letting us shapeshift and so on. But other than just pushing our stats, I'm not sure how we can leverage those into cultivation insights. I suppose unlocking them would be the first step.
In a way, this is all 'Dumbo's magic feather's based. Norse cultivation may work the way it does because people believe it works the way it does.
Honestly, I halfway feel like
that's the problem, again, the Norse system in its current state is doomed to die, because it's engineered from the ground up to require you to take actions that get you killed young, and encourages you to not bother keeping a legacy that lasts longer than maybe--if you're lucky--the birth of your children. (Remember,
most Norse don't reach 30, by that logic, Halla will be dead before any of her children are of age). Switching over to the Christian Setup isn't an outright fail state, because it doesn't lead to the certain annihilation of your line in the long run, but it's still effectively a compromise to an external force at the end of the day.
And again,
your family doesn't get all of your Orthstirr when you die. The system would still be sustainable if badasses could pass a legacy on to their kin, but that doesn't happen--the
overwhelming majority of the Orthstirr that someone holds just... Disappears somewhere.
Something is profiting off of the Entire Existence of Norse Culture, though whether anything's actually being done with that or if it's effectively being tucked away somewhere and not being used because the people who'd be profiting aren't there to collect. Either way, the fact that Christianity is outcompeting the Entire Norse System despite being the relative New Kid On the Block suggests that the halls of Asgard are empty, and yet there's no reasonable successor on the table to pick up from where that left off.
I think Frami, Virthing, and Saemd are the key. That's the Orthstirr that's
actually yours, with the 'Accessible' Orthstirr being what would be the normal resource pool. But nobody in the Norse system (That we know of) actually knows how to Cultivate, so it just sits there unused except as a reserve to tap for a bit of extra juice.
Notably,
Nobody actually seems to understand what they are, except in the most poorly grasped fashion (Steinarr is
not an authority on Deep Lore, he doesn't even know
Reinforce, a Basic Dice Adder for god's sake!).
And even putting
that aside, from a mechanical and
meta standpoint,
It doesn't make sense for literally half of your Orthstirr being tied up in three separate pools that all do nothing but store extra Orthstirr. It's added bookkeeping for no real profit aside from Flavor, and that's honestly anathema to a decent game.
No, I suspect the key to actual Norse Cultivation lies in
cultivating those three into something Genuine, and someone dropping "Saga" being the equivalent of the Christian Rosary
feels right. At the end of the day, the three facets of Orthstirr as grasped by a Norse Cultivator are
about stories. "How Others See You", "How You See Yourself", and "How Important Were Your Acts"
Remember the Poetry thing?
The Orthstirr wasn't gained until Halla could figure out how to describe it and settled on a final result. But you can't really get Orthstirr for just Making Shit Up, a story has to have
actual meaning for it to generate power. If she made up that
exact same poem but never fought the Draugr,
It wouldn't have been worth shit I suspect.
Orthstirr is generated when you Do Something Cool, People Acknowledge you for it, and it was based on a True Story, Virthing, Frami, and Saemd, in that order, the three Aspects that it's composed of.
