NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

TheCount · May 7, 2023

oh my gods, big things happened since i went to sleep huh?

Imperial Fister said:
This one. All the Reprisals.

The Enemy... it's not even trying right now. You're getting the token response.

heh, Foeman and troll people were a probing attack indeed... even if they are fucking ripped together, huh?

Makes me relieved for that paranoia.

Imperial Fister said:
I'll say this; the Troll-men aren't in the service of The Enemy.

That's the last thing I'll say on this topic.

Ah, happy little coincidence, huh? Probably the Foeman managed to cause a cave in on the troll-man's planned route that just "so happened" to open a a way to the surface under Halla's house...

Fucking Enemy, i know it can manipulate fate, but damn. If a damn probing attack was this prepared, i do fear an actuall effort, instead of the token (and probably automated) "we got a ping, send some grunts out there" we got just now....

Alectai said:
I feel the secret might be in writing it down somehow, there's no way all that Bible Study was just a red herring, you know? And it's a lot easier to ward a book from hostile eyes then it is to keep people from overhearing your words.

Maybe start throwing some research that way?

The Enemy just can't be omniscient, or we lose.

Can i reoffer my idea of hiding it in poetry? Could be a lullaby or other children song, even a work song too. (drinking song, i fear, is above our current skill)

Alectai said:
Paper? No, but we're not trying to mass produce anything here, just get something good enough.

Imperial Fister , is Halla a good enough weaver that she could effectively 'Knit' a page of a book out of fabric? It's pretty labor intensive, but Halla is superhumanly skillful and dextrous, so...

Kind of like a bunch of baby tapestries that she has the words written into using different colors or dyes, you know?

I would like to point out textile books are/were a thing. most of them are in museums or archives nowadays, aside from the ones from people's grandparent's attics, but they did exist.

Works fine, keeps even longer than papper from the same era, if both are in good care.
Halla would only need to make ink or a paint thats not fading/flaking or thread metal wire into it for letters.

Imperial Fister said:
Investigate the Witch
Deal with Horra
Prepare a site for the Reveal
Figure out how to unlock someone's Gate without killing them.

These are the major goals you can work towards right now.

Revealing is a step, but it's something that's going to draw The Enemy's gaze and it's going to come at you with overwhelming power. When I say 'prepare correctly', I mean that in a broad scale. Runes, Dwarven Machinery, Seidr, Fortified Structures, and, yes, Power of your own.

*dances in joy*
Finally! More witch interaction!!!!!
and thank gods, it was so fucking annoying to remind people of the Horra situation!
and yeah, the initation was on the docket, but both the site prep and researching said initation got knocked out of our mind due to the emotions....

Toboe said:
Y'all are voting for "Plan Cultivation Class" which involves revealing cultivation, I just want to make sure you saw the QMs post on what he meant when he said that with proper preparation the enemy wouldn't overwhelm us instantly.

in my defence, it was fucking late but i did said its smells too much of bait before going to sleep.

Imperial Fister said:
Wanderlust broke, which would've dealt a hit to its luck if Stigr hadn't jammed the sword into his arm to keep on fighting.

Depends on the runes, but that could very well prove to be instrumental.

oh my.... Stigr is HARDCORE.
So, we can Reforge Wanderlust for him then, if he got all parts of it? a sword would be better than a sax imo, and reforging shouldn't cost that much iron.

[X] Plan Rest And Recovery

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Minor logistical stuff @Imperial Fister:

Sirrocco should have 1 Reward Die he doesn't. He got two for his final poem and we only spent one (by the time we knew he got two rather than one, everything was taken care of in terms of saving people even with only one of the final two).

Imperial Fister said:
Odr: (20)

I hate to say it, but I think this is wrong. I seem to remember it being at 20 before the fight with the Foemen, and I know we spent 5 during that fight. I'm not quite positive, but I'm pretty close.

Imperial Fister said:
(X) Mire Ward (Cost 12): Produce a slowing field around you, that hinders the movements of all caught in its grasp whether it be friend, foe, or object. You are immobile while this is happening and it needs to be continuously fueled to keep active. (Refined: 0/6)

This doesn't have a separate Odr cost listed and probably should.

Imperial Fister said:
(X) Sickness Sear (Cost 10 Orthstirr/4 Odr): By bringing a healthy flame near to where the sickness lies, the fire cleanses the area and restores the patient to good health. Only works on mundane sicknesses. (Mastery: 1/36). Upgrade to Refined to unlock the ability to deal with poisons as well.

This should be 2 Odr in the cost section, I think.

Shard · May 7, 2023

By the way, have we tested out what happens if we use Odr to 'amplify' Reinforce-Shield? Does it just count as 5 Orthsirr, or does it make it 'harder', for example not breaking upon being hit by a trick attack?

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Shard said:
By the way, have we tested out what happens if we use Odr to 'amplify' Reinforce-Shield? Does it just count as 5 Orthsirr, or does it make it 'harder', for example not breaking upon being hit by a trick attack?

We have been told using it to power Reinforce Shield it would only count as one Orthstirr (an Odr counts as enough to power one instance of a Trick, up to 5 Orthstirr, but the excess is not used). We haven't used it to instead enhance the effects of Reinforce Shield (like we've used it for damage on Kindle Spinner) as of yet, and have no idea what result that would have. Maybe we'll try it next time and see.

Simon_Jester · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
Okay then, what can we do that actually achieves our goals then?

We don't have so much time that we can afford to just sit around and waste aturn, Cultivation Class is apparently never going to be an option, and Horra's still looming with our due date getting very, very close.

What should we do?

Well, Halla's only eighteen, so "continue to neutralize relatively weak (i.e. not-whole-setting-scale) enemies, gather strength, and further reinforce our position, so that we can pass on more power and opportunity to our heirs" isn't necessarily a bad idea by default. It's a reasonable response to almost any given situation, because almost any problem that isn't explicitly getting in our way right now will probably be easier to deal with later.

Shard said:
We need to work on resolving the Horra plotline.

Also if you ask me, the Enemy will use the rule of Power Demands Sacrifice plus Memory is Forever to attack when we tell people. The power of Odr and it's potential for cultivation, like how the Witch likely named the real price as 'whatever the value and potential our Fylgja revealed was to us' as her real price.

Also, the Enemy probably just has a singular large but finite budget, which it apportions appropriately in its task of fucking over cultivation.

Still only patchily aware of this quest so I could be wrong, but unless the Enemy is some kind of weird robotic thing, that's the most likely answer. If the Enemy is powerful enough to shape whole civilizations towards its own ends, it probably actually has a lot of reserves and ways to get more minions on demand, before any outright reality-twisting shenanigans are considered.

I could be misunderstanding the situation, but my impression is that Halla is, well, by no means the smallest fish in her immediate pond, but not the biggest fish, either. And there are probably bigger ponds in the larger Norse world. Maybe even some giant fucking lakes and fjords.

If this Enemy is able to maintain control and keep things going the way it wants all over that world, it must have the means to deal with individual problems bigger than any danger Halla could possibly present right now. Which, in turn, loops back to "the Enemy has reserves, and forces serving it in other capacities that could be turned against us."

In principle, such a mighty foe might exhaust its local forces, whatever was immediately to hand, and then we'd have a grace period while it shuffled things around to compensate. But this grace period wouldn't be very long. Magical sendings might travel from place to place in moments. Warriors or monsters might move long distances in a matter of a few days. And then we'd be going right back to getting hit all over again. And we have no way of predicting what we might be hit by or from what direction.

So trying to feel out the edges of the Enemy's influence, the shape and nature of it, seems like an important goal to achieve (and to safely secure this knowledge, sealed away so the Enemy doesn't know who has it, but in a form that can be passed on). And probably something important to do before really tangling with that Enemy.

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Some more in-depth analysis of the Foemen based on our most recent battle because I wanted to reconfirm some stuff and examine them.

So, Foemen Analysis:

Foemen seem to take actions based on 'points', and probably have around 12-15 'Points' per turn (their Combat Pool equivalent), which they spend on actions. They seem unable to act when out of points (just like us when we're out of dice). They can spend multiple points on one action to improve their dice total or spend one for +2 damage on an attack (they may be able to spend more than one on this, but that's unconfirmed). Other expenditures are possible but also unconfirmed.

Their dice results depend on number points spent and, from what we saw allow results of 14-28 on 'normal' (ie: single Point) actions (the numbers we saw were 14, 18, 18, 19, and 28), results of 32-50 on Double-Point actions (the numbers we saw were 32, 33, 38, 39, 40, 40, 40, 43, 45, 48, and 50), results of 49 (the only number we saw was a 49, probably a low roll) on Triple-Point ones, unknown results on Quadruple-Point actions, and results of 95-100 on Quintuple-Point ones (95 and 100 were the only numbers we saw). I'm thinking, looking at that, that each point may equate to around 4d8 or 5d6 in dice, but those are not the only possibilities by any means.

By default, they act twice as fast as Norsemen, meaning they're hard to run from, usually win initiative, and get two attacks for every one a Norseman does. They also have a base damage of 2 (though other than spending Points they don't seem to have ways to boost this), and reduce all damage dealt to them by 1. They are described as having poor endurance and getting tired quickly, but the mechanical effects of that are unclear (this means, if you can move faster than them, forcing them to relocate is good).

They seem to have 7 Endurance on the second round of combat, and maybe 5-6 on the third (that guy didn't dodge so it's not 100% clear). If they're spending 1 every round they may start out with 8 or 9. If they're spending it based on the actions they take then they may start with more than that.

In terms of weaponry, they use clubs, stone spears, and favor thrown weapons such as bone darts and flint blades. They wear no armor.

They do not seem to have Tricks or anything particularly complicated they do on a mechanical level, at least in combat. Just high speed, strength, and die results, along with a fanatic's lack of fear and ability to ignore pain, though they aren't stupid and can speak (in Danish accents) and do think tactically (forcing us to block one thing and then attacking us while we were left open, for example, or swapping out when they get tired). It is possible that one or more of their above bonuses is granted by their hunting-pack/formation tactics, but which bonus that might be is unclear.

In theory all this means that basic attack spam would be pretty effective against them if you're durable enough to weather their attacks (because they can only defend a max of 10-15 times per round...more like 5 or so in reality given they'll be attacking). In practice, they'll often do something to cause a round break before you run them out of Points making that a risky tactic unless you're very durable indeed (this is even worse for people without the advantage Sagaseeker was providing us letting us match their speed, since that means they'd get to unload up to, like, 10 attacks on you while your attack spam is still hitting their defenses).

Alectai · May 7, 2023

Yeah, they're tough. Points also seem to be communal within a formation as well. Might be why they do a Formation? It allows them to pool their Points together and the benefits of a given Point spend apply to the entire Formation. Which means they're more dangerous the more of them are present, probably with diminishing returns after a certain point that makes groups of three to five their 'Sweet Spot'.

Simon_Jester · May 7, 2023

Shard said:
I'm guessing Blackhand didn't share what he knew about Odr with others, given how he had living children?

...What's the Enemy's actual attention focused on, anyway?

Two possibilities occur to me:

1) The Enemy is contending with other (extremely powerful) forces, over long time scales. This is why the Enemy is likely to intervene disproportionately against someone who, say, starts teaching secrets systematically, because that's the kind of thing that spreads like a fungus whenever you turn your back for a few decades because you're busy. When you catch something like that, you have to snuff it out early or it starts making you micromanage your response, which is bad if you're already dealing with a bigger problem.

2) The Enemy's power is huge, but has been gathered slowly over a very long period of time. Hundreds, thousands of years. The Enemy is smart about knowing that sometimes it has to expend power to gain power, or to prevent a threat from arising, but it also doesn't want to waste anything, because a little waste would go a long way towards tipping it over into a downward spiral. So the Enemy is an old power-miser* and acts at all times as if the bulk of its resources are to be kept out of play unless there's a clear, immediate need, as if its attention were elsewhere.

Either is possible. There are probably other explanations too.
____________________

*(Hmm, is there a kenning there, maybe? Because it does fit the whole 'suppressing true cultivation' thing)

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
Yeah, they're tough. Points also seem to be communal within a formation as well.

They actually seem to not be communal (one of my first thoughts as well). In round 2 we had a Foewoman retreat because she was out of points and a Foeman come up and take over because he still had them (we then killed him and Abjorn butchered her because she was out of points and couldn't defend herself).

It's entirely possible there's a communal pool on top of the individual pools and she'd just burned through it (she was burning hard that round...she's the reason I peg their high number of points at 15, likely all spent on attack), but they definitely also have individual pools separate from the group.

Alectai said:
Might be why they do a Formation? It allows them to pool their Points together and the benefits of a given Point spend apply to the entire Formation. Which means they're more dangerous the more of them are present, probably with diminishing returns after a certain point that makes groups of three to five their 'Sweet Spot'.

This definitely seems untrue. We've had people in the same group do very different things featuring different numbers of Points. They mostly seemed to spend the same against AoE attacks, but that doesn't mean much.

Alectai · May 7, 2023

Hrm.

We happen to know for a fact that it's actually impossible, even with Perfect Play, to win within a single character. Presumably, the trick is making small adjustments that the Enemy doesn't notice or doesn't bother to go into deficit spending to check, and then forcing it to have to do Big Investments in relatively short succession by effectively 'Burning' characters on big-ass death-or-glory plays that it has to pay a tremendous price in order to stop.

It can afford that price once in a while, but can it do so every living generation from here on out? We know that victory is possible, so the Enemy's power is not infinite, nor is it All Knowing despite how it seems to be able to read our fucking character sheet at all times, presumably, it's not up to having to dig deep into its Reserve Funds once every twenty, thirty years in order to stop a Critical Problem from arising.

Which means every subsequent Generation the game goes on with, the Enemy has less and less material to stop us with, while we're slowly getting stronger and determining more of its abilities and strengths, and eventually we hit an inflection point where it can't actually afford to stop us when the chips are down, and then we start hitting it in the kidneys as it starts having to give ground or fight us head on, instead of this bullshit where it just waves a magic wand when it's threatened and reality alters itself to put the Enemy back into an overwhelming place of advantage.

For all that Hallr died, the way the Enemy arranged it could not have been cheap, what we need to do is continue empowering our legacy, continuing to identify its tools and limitations, and chip away at its influence bit by bit.

Still, like all guerilla wars, this kind of thing is Fucking Exhausting, especially since we can't actually tell anyone about it without it going "Lol, no" and just magicking reality into a killbox for us. Which means we can't even reliably gather allies for this shit yet until we can find a way to pass information around that it can't immediately detect and react to.

Actually, how is it doing that anyway? It's not Omniscient, yet it seems damn well close to it at every turn. How is it able to basically read our fucking character sheet but still need to probe us to get actionable data?

Nothing about its apparent combination of overwhelming information ability and yet apparent inability to leverage that into an uncontested Win at all times makes sense.

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
We know that victory is possible, so the Enemy's power is not infinite, nor is it All Knowing despite how it seems to be able to read our fucking character sheet at all times, presumably, it's not up to having to dig deep into its Reserve Funds once every twenty, thirty years in order to stop a Critical Problem from arising.

While I agree with your post in general, I'm actually not sure it does know much about our capabilities beyond 'Real Cultivation' stuff...like, it knows how much Odr we bring in and that we're doing so, and knew when we messed up and bound up 2/3 of our Orthstirr in our soulscape, but the Foemen did not know about Sagaseeker's upgrade or, frankly, any of our combat tactics. I think it can only observe our Real Cultivation stuff, not anything that is standard for Norsemen in general.

All its information outside Real Cultivation stuff is things it could've picked up from having people watch us from the woods or an agent wander into Asvir. Nothing high impact or supernatural.

Alectai · May 7, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
While I agree with your post in general, I'm actually not sure it does know much about our capabilities beyond 'Real Cultivation' stuff...like, it knows how much Odr we bring in and that we're doing so, and knew when we messed up and bound up 2/3 of our Orthstirr in our soulscape, but the Foemen did not know about Sagaseeker's upgrade or, frankly, any of our combat tactics. I think it can only observe our Real Cultivation stuff, not anything that is standard for Norsemen in general.

All its information outside Real Cultivation stuff is things it could've picked up from having people watch us from the woods or an agent wander into Asvir. Nothing high impact or supernatural.

It's just irritating, you know? Who the fuck was dumbass enough to pay a price so great that it gave the Enemy near perfect knowledge of Cultivation and anyone who dips their toes into it?

Because if it was the Enemy itself, how is it still a threat given how terrifying a Price that would have to be? Hallr--apparently the closest thing to a Chosen One we know of in recent times--burned virtually all of his memories and initiative and that gave him what amounted to being a single, breakable line of information passage on death to his bloodline. So who the fuck paid something astronomically greater to give the Enemy near total control of the keys to the Norse becoming anything other than a plague on the world, as well as the ability to act on that information to suit its own, personal agenda?

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
It's just irritating, you know? Who the fuck was dumbass enough to pay a price so great that it gave the Enemy near perfect knowledge of Cultivation and anyone who dips their toes into it?

Because if it was the Enemy itself, how is it still a threat given how terrifying a Price that would have to be?

It's possible it was a debt. Like, if it really is strongly associated with Neanderthals (or just convinced them to pass on the debt) and humans basically exterminated them, then humanity as a whole owes them an enormous blood debt. Knowledge of when humans strive to become something more would be the sort of price that would go a long way towards balancing that scale without actually overpaying, and that it might be able to achieve even without any human's permission.

That's my current theory. It has a very specific information ability (ie: knows about Cultivation itself and only that...not Hugareida, not Tricks, not even Orthstirr, only real Cultivation and possibly Soulscape stuff), and then needs to make use of minions and very occasional reality editing to actually acquire any other information or make use of said info.

Alectai · May 7, 2023

Hrm.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any primordial beings that are all about fucking around with debts and obligations, do we?

Wiggy · May 7, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
It's possible it was a debt. Like, if it really is strongly associated with Neanderthals (or just convinced them to pass on the debt) and humans basically exterminated them, then humanity as a whole owes them an enormous blood debt. Knowledge of when humans strive to become something more would be the sort of price that would go a long way towards balancing that scale without actually overpaying, and that it might be able to achieve even without any human's permission.

That's my current theory. It has a very specific information ability (ie: knows about Cultivation itself and only that...not Hugareida, not Tricks, not even Orthstirr, only real Cultivation and possibly Soulscape stuff), and then needs to make use of minions and very occasional reality editing to actually acquire any other information or make use of said info.

Eh. While the neanderthal bit is interesting it really doesn't explain why it has it out for the norse specifically, since we know converting to christianity would apparently be enough to not have to worry about it anymore.

Shard · May 7, 2023

It's weird that it wouldn't know about Hugareida, Tricks or Orthsirr when it's so incredibly ancient.

CedeTheBees · May 7, 2023

Wiggy said:
it really doesn't explain why it has it out for the norse specifically

I think the main theory for that so far is that the Norse's whole "Death Is Inevitable" thing is one of the few real threats to it. Magic is belief, and believing any foe is killable can make it so.

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
Hrm.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any primordial beings that are all about fucking around with debts and obligations, do we?

I mean...almost all of them to some degree? Gods and supernatural creatures and most magic systems as a whole tend to do a lot of stuff with debt and obligation.

Wiggy said:
Eh. While the neanderthal bit is interesting it really doesn't explain why it has it out for the norse specifically, since we know converting to christianity would apparently be enough to not have to worry about it anymore.

My impression is that it hates Christians, too, it just has less sway over them and their Cultivation. Like, not a smaller grudge just less ability to act on it. There's also the aforementioned 'All Men Die' thing making the Norse a threat to it, potentially.

Shard said:
It's weird that it wouldn't know about Hugareida, Tricks or Orthsirr when it's so incredibly ancient.

That wasn't what I was saying. I suspect it knows more about the theory behind those than we do by orders of magnitude. I'm saying it doesn't know our Orthstirr, Tricks, or Hugareida, at least no more than anyone else who watches us fight. That its power to know things does not apply to those.

Like, I'm suggesting that the only parts of our character sheet it gets to read are our Soulscape section and maybe Odr pool, not the rest. It can guess and infer, but its power to know perfectly is limited to Real Cultivation stuff.

Shard · May 7, 2023

CedeTheBees said:
I think the main theory for that so far is that the Norse's whole "Death Is Inevitable" thing is one of the few real threats to it. Magic is belief, and believing any foe is killable can make it so.

The Norse cultivation system has extreme ramping potential. Halla's EIGHTEEN, she's basically a baby by any Xianxia standards. Yet she's a terrifying monster in combat ability. Halla (or Blackhand for that matter) are not even necessarily unique. In theory any Norseman can access Odr. In theory in a decade or two this baby Norseman can be challenging you on your throne. That's really scary to an immortal being.

Consider the Christians, their cultivation is functional and gives them immortality, yet it's implied to take basically forever to actually get to the upper levels of cultivation. They also should be more risk adverse when they've got eternity ahead - Norsemen don't. Chinese and Indian cultivation are likely similar, too.

The Enemy could calmly plan to handle cultivators who take [forever] to get to the upper heights of their cultivation system, but a system where you can just, go zoom zoom zoom, is unironically a bitch to keep track of.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Like, I'm suggesting that the only parts of our character sheet it gets to read are our Soulscape section and maybe Odr pool, not the rest. It can guess and infer, but its power to know perfectly is limited to Real Cultivation stuff.

I think it can definitely read the part of our sheet where it says we get X Odr, then use that to infer everything else.

Wiggy · May 7, 2023

Alectai said:
Hrm.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any primordial beings that are all about fucking around with debts and obligations, do we?

I could see Fae being able to fuck around with manipulating debts and bargains but otherwise this doesn't really feel like them. Most oath gods are fairly mid tier and are pretty firmly associated with law and civilization, rather than the sort of primordial anarchy the Enemy seems to want. Hm.

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Shard said:
I think it can definitely read the part of our sheet where it says we get X Odr, then use that to infer everything else.

That doesn't actually let it infer anything but a rough guess at our Orthstirr Pool, is the thing, certainly not any of our other stats. And that's sort of my point. If the Foemen knew about our Tricks or Hugareida, they would've acted quite differently, so I don't think they did. And don't think the enemy really does either (well, it may now know about those we used in that fight with the Foemen...maybe).

Simon_Jester · May 7, 2023

I don't have the best grip on the game mechanics, so this is all kind of strategic meta-level stuff:

Alectai said:
Hrm.

We happen to know for a fact that it's actually impossible, even with Perfect Play, to win within a single character. Presumably, the trick is making small adjustments that the Enemy doesn't notice or doesn't bother to go into deficit spending to check, and then forcing it to have to do Big Investments in relatively short succession by effectively 'Burning' characters on big-ass death-or-glory plays that it has to pay a tremendous price in order to stop.

It can afford that price once in a while, but can it do so every living generation from here on out?

Slight adjustment to that: This may be about cousin-power.

If the Enemy only really faces a serious challenge every twenty or thirty years, well, you can do a fair amount to rebuild a powerbase in two or three decades. That would give Old Power-Miser at least a reasonable chance to avoid being worn down by attrition and prices paid for quite a long time. Centuries, even... potentially, then, it would be trying to spin the game out for so many centuries that random happenstance and cultural drift breaks up the chain of mortals trying to oppose it.

But that's if it faces a single lineage. An entire extended clan, all descended from a single founding ancestor, pulling shenanigans at once, across a shorter span of time, might inflict a lot more harm. Strength in numbers and bonds of kinship.

This isn't me refuting you or anything, just something to consider for long term strategy. This is Norse Quest; my gut feeling is that primogeniture is not the way to go, either in inheritance or in hoarding power and bequeathing it to a single individual rather than several.

Actually, how is it doing that anyway? It's not Omniscient, yet it seems damn well close to it at every turn. How is it able to basically read our fucking character sheet but still need to probe us to get actionable data?

Nothing about its apparent combination of overwhelming information ability and yet apparent inability to leverage that into an uncontested Win at all times makes sense.

Hm. What do we think it's reading our character sheet for? Information about powers, or belongings, or personal ties?

Because Old Power-Miser might be able to sense what powers and abilities a person has, and yet still not know much else about them except by communicating with mortal agents.

Shard · May 7, 2023

The Enemy might not necessarily operate on the Norse paradigm, except perhaps when it interfaces with it.

For all I know, The Enemy is Ginnungagap itself, and it's power comes from cost of existence itself. Ymir is also a good candidate still. Since the Earth is indeed made from his dead flesh, then it would explain why he can 'see' through the Earth (and thus figure out where we are) and also why his warriors are made of Earth. His victory condition could simply be coming back to life. If so, that would associate him with necromancy, like the Draugr with it's BRING BACK DEATH runes.

With Ymir being associated with the Jotun, that might make The Enemy, basically, the Jotun in their entirety. A 'high end boss' for us later in the game might be named Jotun deities.

Wiggy · May 7, 2023

Simon_Jester said:
This isn't me refuting you or anything, just something to consider for long term strategy. This is Norse Quest; my gut feeling is that primogeniture is not the way to go, either in inheritance or in hoarding power and bequeathing it to a single individual rather than several.

The issue is that only one of our kids gets the soul inheritance that lets them get advice from their ancestors 'safely' without drawing down the Enemy for talking about cultivation openly.

DeadmanwalkingXI · May 7, 2023

Shard said:
With Ymir being associated with the Jotun, that might make The Enemy, basically, the Jotun in their entirety.

This is possible. Imperial Fister did note that technically the enemy wasn't Loki but that there were technicalities at play in that statement and Loki is a Jotun, after all.

NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

One and Many

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

One and Many

Probably high right now

One and Many

One and Many