NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
I'm not sure if it's a super significant difference or just a wording choice? We should ask @Imperial Fister and check, because you're right, it would be significant if it was, and actually says something about how the Enemy operates.

I mean, they can't speak Norse, so how would Blackhand even know which was the case? If you fight them, they don't have a lot of opportunity to talk and explain why. Blackhand told us what he knew, which is that they're used in schemes, whether that's willingly is just not something he would be in a good position to know.

Skippy said:
Although honestly, a lot of the servants of the Enemy might be being trapped or used as unwilling catspaws to some extent. The Enemy certainly does not seem like the type to want to help other species better themselves out of kindness; it seems like it would probably try and stop all sentient species using fire or even tools if it could. The Foe-Men and the Troll-Men might also be victims in a sense too, perhaps lacking the intellect to make better choices. (Not to take us too far down the "evil races in fantasy" rabbithole...)

The Foemen can speak Norse and are intelligent. From what they said at our last meeting they serve the Enemy willingly, for whatever reason. Exploring why that is seems possible and interesting if we could get one to talk to us in more depth. Notably, they use only stone and bone tools and little technology in general, so some ideological connection seems possible there.

Troll-Men, in contrast, are about as smart as a stupid dog, breed like locusts, and eat babies...they are not people they are literally dangerous pests in need of extermination, only called men because they vaguely resemble them in outline.

Skippy said:
There's a broader unexplored question here of whether this setting has the equivalent of "Demonic Cultivators" common to other settings; people who make Faustian bargains with the Enemy for power or knowledge? Horra seemed to be into some shady shit as we unravelled his schemes, but it's not really definitive. Blackhand might know, but it makes me wonder in light of some of his general disdain for the Steelfathers, not to mention the warband(s) who killed him and are implied to be looking for the fragments of the "weapon"...

...I suppose one aspect of this is that because so much is secret, a lot of guys like Horra or Blackhand's killers might be servants of the Enemy without necessarily knowing that they are.

I suspect the latter (them serving the Enemy without even knowing) is more likely, though some making active deals is possible, if unconfirmed.

Shard · Jun 12, 2023

I hope we'll get a Yule event again sometime.

Plus we never got to sacrifice that Superior Cow. :|

(I don't know what the extra rewards over a Good Cow would have been, it probably would have been just like extra Orthsirr though. Still.)

###

Incidentally, do we know how strong Fylgja are?

Specifically, are they equally as strong? In that their strength is just purely your Fylgja stat?

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

Alectai said:
Yeah, basically, the thing is, a Norse take on Plate is mostly going to be valuable because you can inscribe a whole fucking Saga onto that amount of surface area, I suspect it would be inferior to Knightly Armor in consistent performance, but would likely be able to spike extremely high as long as you can fill the runes with something proper.

Like, it might genuinely require an actual Odr per Turn upkeep to sustain it or at least a high Orthstirr cost if that counts as a filling, but likely have incredibly powerful effects.

Joking aside though, my fixation on this boils down to "Stormlight Archives is very cool and Shardplate is a good portion of that". Is that really so wrong?

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Yeah, we've been told it's one Runed item per Capacity, but with the surface area on a set of runed plate, that could result in something seriously impressive.

Learning to make it is probably a long-term goal, though. Like, probably multiple generations kinda long term.

I mean, we have a fair amount of silver, and we might reasonably hope to have even more silver in the future once we've repaired the farm. We also have a boat which we've been planning to use at some point in the future for raiding/trading expeditions.

So we could just sail somewhere far away, say Miklagard, and just buy some plate/partial plate/lamellar/scale. Then we could experiment with stuff like inscribing runes on it, trying to copy the design, etc.., until we arrive at a Norse equivalent. Which I agree with Alectai, is probably going to look a lot more like partial plate with a mini-saga inscribed on it, than something exactly what the Knights or anyone else are using.

Pulling this off would take time and be a big undertaking, but already wanted to do a big voyage at some point, and doing challenging things actually grows our own fame and adds a chapter to our personal saga. It would also cost an obscene amount of money, I bet any foreigner selling us armour is going to try and rinse us, but... a suit of runic super-armour seems worth a lot more to us than having an arbitrarily larger pile of silver? It's also something we could pass onto our kids; both the armour itself, but also the secrets of its creation.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
So we could just sail somewhere far away, say Miklagard, and just buy some plate/partial plate/lamellar/scale? Then we could experiment with stuff like inscribing runes on it, trying to copy the design, etc.., until we arrive at a Norse equivalent. Which I agree with Alectai, is probably going to look a lot more like partial plate with a mini-saga inscribed on it, than exactly what the Knights are using.

So. Plate Armor as such does not exist in this era...the Knights get it anyway due to magic, but there's no 'mundane' equivalent. We could probably get some lamellar in Miklagard, yes, as it's expensive but available, but that's not quite the same thing.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
The Foemen can speak Norse and are intelligent. From what they said at our last meeting they serve the Enemy willingly, for whatever reason. Exploring why that is seems possible and interesting if we could get one to talk to us.

Troll-Men, in contrast, are about as smart as a stupid dog, breed like locusts, and eat babies...they are not people they are literally dangerous pests in need of extermination, only called men because they vaguely resemble them in outline.

The Foemen might just be incredibly nettled that they've been displaced by humanity, perhaps? And that humans are trying to essentially terraform the world into one of fields and towns, not boreal forests full of scary megafauna to hunt. So it might be a case of desperation and spite pushing them into the Enemy's arms.

Fair point on the Troll-Men, although it does seem like some degree of coercion/direction must be involved in getting them to attack settlements at strategic times and places, etc..? So I'm not sure the Enemy is completely off the hook there. Honestly forcing what are essentially animals into being soldiers feels kind of vaguely more messed-up.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Shard said:
Incidentally, do we know how strong Fylgja are?

Specifically, are they equally as strong? In that their strength is just purely your Fylgja stat?

We've been told how much it can store in one 'slot' is based on our own strength (it can store anything we can lift), and ours is strong enough to carry a person, but I don't think we've had a definitive answer to this.

Skippy said:
The Foemen might just be incredibly nettled that they've been displaced by humanity, perhaps? And that humans are trying to essentially terraform the world into one of fields and towns, not boreal forests full of scary megafauna to hunt. So it might be a case of desperation and spite pushing them into the Enemy's arms.

That's probably a large part of it, yeah. As I edited in above, they also lack any technology more advanced than stone tools so there may be ideological reasons as well as spite. One may have easily led to the other, in fact.

Skippy said:
Fair point on the Troll-Men, although it does seem like some degree of coercion/direction must be involved in getting them to attack settlements at strategic times and places, etc..? So I'm not sure the Enemy is completely off the hook there. Honestly forcing what are essentially animals into being soldiers feels kind of vaguely more messed-up.

Oh, someone definitely sicced the Troll-Men on us, 100% (whether it was Horra or the Enemy or even the Hading Witch is less clear, at least at the moment, though we know the Witch was involved somehow). I was just responding to the question of their intelligence.

Though Troll-Men are a man-eating species that breed so quickly they'd ruin the ecosystem if allowed to do so unchecked, so my sympathy for them is very limited.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
So. Plate Armor as such does not exist in this era...the Knights get it anyway due to magic, but there's no 'mundane' equivalent. We could probably get some lamellar in Miklagard, yes, as it's expensive but available, but that's not quite the same thing.

Ah good point, I'd forgotten. I think we did get the option to poke around Gabriel's armour at one point before we gave it to him, but we can be like 99% sure at this point that Knightly armour needs Zeal, so not much point in investigating.

Honestly it's anything which has enough of a metallic surface area that we could stick runes in it. Even scale armour might also work if we went for like, one rune per scale, although IDK how runic "grammar" applies if they're not inscribed on a single contiguous surface; which might stop us making longer "sentences" of runes which unlock a lot of the more powerful effects. Partial plate or a coat-of-plates might exist too, as they were historically precursors to full plate harness, we should investigate that as they might be relatively close to home in the Christian world if they do exist.

But honestly I think lamellar seems like the obvious choice. It's fairly common and available elsewhere in the world, and the strips of metal are long enough to inscribe a whole line of runes into; you've got similar working surface area to a seax or a sword.

Shine · Jun 12, 2023

We should start drawing on our helmets

Just like real life…

I.F. Ister · Jun 12, 2023

TheCount said:
Does locking someone in the dark (underground) counts as a cruel and unusual punishment?

Yes, yes it does. Not that it stops the Norse, lmao

TheCount said:
.... Is dragon heart blood the panacea/snake oil thats good for everything and cures all ills?

Not really, it just has a broad variety of weird effects and power boosters

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I'm pretty sure she's not enthusiastic about doing that to other people. She would if she felt she needed to, but not happily.

Until the bloodlust kicks in, of course. Then she's all for it! If they didn't want to be raided, then they shouldn't have been so weak! and so on and so forth.

Skippy said:
I'm not sure if it's a super significant difference or just a wording choice? We should ask @Imperial Fister and check, because you're right, it would be significant if it was, and actually says something about how the Enemy operates.

It's a mixture

Shard · Jun 12, 2023

Fylgja:

1) Is Abjorn's Bear Fylgja 'inherently' stronger (and tougher?) than our Owl Fylgja (for the same Fylgja stats), or is his Fylgja just in a shape of a bear and it's strength and durability and agility are unrelated to it's shape?
a) Do Fylgja leave tracks?
2) Are our children's Fylgja simply automatically at 'full' size, or are their Fylgja, like, baby-sized or otherwise smaller than normal?
3) How does 'Fylgja need people to open a passage for them' work? Are there exceptions? For example, could our Owl enter our own house, or Steinarr's house, or Aki's house without someone opening a passage for them, because they're our/father/friend's home, respectively? Would the intrinsic fact of 'we would let Aki let his Swordraven to our house' be enough for it to enter our house or do we need to open the door for it to enter?
4) Do Fylgja normally have Shapeshift slots when you rank them to 7? Presumably Aki would tell us. (An Aki scene would also be great)

Also, do we know Halfdan's fighting style? His notable Hugareidas, etc. We've been training under him for quite a bit after all.

###

I wonder if people in-universe assume we're at Hamr 8/Hugr 8 because we have 3 Shapeshifts and Alloy slots.

###

I wonder what Vidar's been doing. Is his farm like, just forever alone?

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

Another idea which just occurred to me, would it be possible to "embroider" runes into mail?

As in, we use some rings of a special metal with a different colour, which stand out visually relative to the regular rings, placed such that they make visible runes. Would that count, or do runes need to be literally inscribed into a hard solid surface?

The thing I like about this idea is that it is sort of authentically Norse, and also it means Halla would kind of doing a tribute to the embroidery lessons from her mother.

Shard · Jun 12, 2023

1) How many 'acres' of land does our Soulscape have?
2) Do our plants grow 'unnaturally' fast in there, relative to the 'outside' world?

I imagine that embroidery or weaving would be more creating a permanent Seidr enchantment. We could probably create a Seidr-enhanced Gambeson or Mail or Cloak.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Shard said:
I wonder what Vidar's been doing. Is his farm like, just forever alone?

He likely has hired men and thralls about the place if he's doing well. I dunno if he's doing well.

Shard said:
I wonder if people in-universe assume we're at Hamr 8/Hugr 8 because we have 3 Shapeshifts and Alloy slots.

We've never used our third Alloy Slot for anything, and Alloy Slots are invisible from the outside anyway because someone could theoretically have any Hugareida in any number with zero slots.

But people who fight us likely think we're either higher Hamr than we are or cheating somehow, yes.

Skippy said:
As in, we use some rings of a special metal with a different colour, which stand out relative to the regular rings, such that they make visible runes. Would that count, or do runes need to be literally inscribed into a hard solid surface?

Runes need to be 'filled' with something to work, so this wouldn't work for magic from what we know.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Runes need to be 'filled' with something to work, so this wouldn't work for magic from what we know.

Bugger. Oh well!

Imperial Fister said:
Until the bloodlust kicks in, of course. Then she's all for it! If they didn't want to be raided, then they shouldn't have been so weak! and so on and so forth.

Imagine getting raided rather than being the raider, smh, skill issue

Also, if it's not too much trouble, could you give me a brief precis on Haleikr Underfoot? Nothing in depth, just what would be publicly known about him? I CRTL+Fed every post mentioning him in the Quest, but there wasn't a lot. His brother was Haklangr the Large, I believe?

...Also please tell me that the kenning "Underfoot" is not because that's how he died, LMAO, god.

TheCount · Jun 12, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Snip

Ah, my bad then, I thought you brought up knight armor because you thought i was talking about that.

As for frenzy... its a nice safety net, yes, but it can be broken, even if its the last line of our defense... But yeah, i totally forgot about it.
The helmet is a good catch though.

And yeah, that discusion must have been what i was recalling. but i only searched his posts so i didn't found it. (Nor in the crafting info posts the defence values....)

Alectai said:
Joking aside though, my fixation on this boils down to "Stormlight Archives is very cool and Shardplate is a good portion of that". Is that really so wrong?

Honestly, if we can get graves and bracers/gauntlets going to the elbow out of it i will be happy already.
The full plate armor would be great though, even unruned.

Shard said:
2) Are our children's Fylgja simply automatically at 'full' size, or are their Fylgja, like, baby-sized or otherwise smaller than normal?

I mean, the Albatros was full sized, or it wouldn't have been such a shock...

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Runes need to be 'filled' with something to work, so this wouldn't work for magic from what we know.

i mean, there wasn't an answer if it would or wouldn't work when i asked, so its still in the "fuck around and find out" bracket.

TheCount said:
ah, so the Runes are charged.... hm, makes sense.
what happens when we fill out the runes with something more... permament, than paint, blood or Orthstirr/Odr? Like, say, metals. or glue and stuff like that?
Also... i know runes need to be carved... but what if we crave the runes out of something, like gems in the shape of the rune?

On another note, i just remembered something!
"Hey, Blackhand, do you know how is the relationship between the svartalfar and modern dwarves, in general? As in, Are they frendly, competitive due to trade or rush each others with every weapon they can?"

Constenanto · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
There's a broader unexplored question here of whether this setting has the equivalent of "Demonic Cultivators" common to other settings; people who make Faustian bargains with the Enemy for power or knowledge? Horra seemed to be into some shady shit as we unravelled his schemes, but it's not really definitive. Blackhand might know, but it makes me wonder in light of some of his general disdain for the Steelfathers, not to mention the warband(s) who killed him and are implied to be looking for the fragments of the "weapon"...

I'm pretty sure the Demonic Cultivator equivalent for the Norse are Steelfathers.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

Constenanto said:
I'm pretty sure the Demonic Cultivtor equivalent for the Norse are Steelfathers.

I think that's sorta been vaguely implied, but not actually stated outright? If you can point me to an info post I've missed then I'd be grateful, but I just searched "Steelfather" and didn't find anything definitive.

Like, we know there's Something Going On with how steel is apparently "cursed", and there's definitely big Suss energies from the Steelfathers given that Blackhand didn't like them, other stuff we've pieced together etc.. But Steelfathers also seem to stand at the apex of traditional Norse cultivation, so it'd also be quite a big revelation if they were all like, knowingly in league with the Enemy? One of them, Ironjaw, was apparently even respected by Hallr?

Maybe part of the traditional method for learning the Riddle of Steel involves implicitly taking on a debt from the Enemy, or something like that? Something where you sort of end up making a bargain without necessarily realising you have done, if you aren't also inducted into the secrets of true cultivation.

There's a lot about Steel which we still don't know, and it would probably be useful to know more if we're going to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I.F. Ister · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
Also, if it's not too much trouble, could you give me a brief precis on Haleikr Underfoot? Nothing in depth, just what would be publicly known about him? I CRTL+Fed every post mentioning him in the Quest, but there wasn't a lot. His brother was that jolly burly guy who threw the wrestling match to us, I can't remember his name...

Haklangr won his match against you, Torsten was the one who threw the match

Haleikr was a guy who had the worst luck when it came to circumstance. Literally would just kind of stumble and trip people on accident. That's how he got his horrifically ironic kenning. He was well regarded by his community, but not all that much out of the ordinary in terms of character.

TheCount said:
"Hey, Blackhand, do you know how is the relationship between the svartalfar and modern dwarves, in general? As in, Are they frendly, competitive due to trade or rush each others with every weapon they can?"

'Depends on where they encounter each other. Myrkheim? To the knife, resources are scarce at best and cannot be shared. That is how dwarves treat other clans, too, so it's not exclusively inter-species conflict. Midgard? Tense, but not kill on sight.'

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
I think that's sorta been vaguely implied, but not actually stated outright? If you can point me to an info post I've missed then I'd be grateful, but I just searched "Steelfather" and didn't find anything.

They're said to have made a 'bargain with Steel' which, given that we know Steel is very bad news, is evidence in that direction. But aside from that, no, there have been no outright statements about it being evil.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

Imperial Fister said:
Haklangr won his match against you, Torsten was the one who threw the match

Haleikr was a guy who had the worst luck when it came to circumstance. Literally would just kind of stumble and trip people on accident. That's how he got his horrifically ironic kenning. He was well regarded by his community, but not all that much out of the ordinary in terms of character.

Thanks!

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
They're said to have made a 'bargain with Steel' which, given that we know Steel is very bad news, is evidence in that direction. But aside from that, no, there have been no outright statements about it being evil.

As far as I know, we also don't really know why Steel is cursed, correct?

Like possibly it is actually inherently evil, or it might be more of a "curse" because it's kind of the apex of metal weapons, and so thematically is linked to the idea that violence always rebounds? I.E. a sort of Anglachel/Gurthang situation; a sword which is more dangerous than any other, but also hungers for bloodshed and may turn upon its wielder. On the other hand, I think somewhere else it was stated that Steel is like, all to do with permeance/unchangingness, which is why Steelfathers are so hard to kill. So IDK lol

Constenanto · Jun 12, 2023

Skippy said:
But Steelfathers also seem to stand at the apex of traditional Norse cultivation, so it'd also be quite a big revelation if they were all like, knowingly in league with the Enemy?

They don't have to be allied with Enemy for them to be doing the wrong kind of cultivation. It doesn't change the fact that Steel is still fucked conceptually, yet they still take it into their bodies. Seems like the closest thing to a 'Demonic' path to me.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 12, 2023

Constenanto said:
They don't have to be allied with Enemy for them to be doing the wrong kind of cultivation. It doesn't change the fact that Steel is still fucked conceptually, yet they still take it into their bodies. Seems like the closest thing to a 'Demonic' path to me.

Yeah, this. They are Doing It Wrong in way that is likely toxic and damaging. That may well have nothing directly to do with the Enemy, but it's still bad.

Skippy · Jun 12, 2023

Constenanto said:
They don't have to be allied with Enemy for them to be doing the wrong kind of cultivation. It doesn't change the fact that Steel is still fucked conceptually, yet they still take it into their bodies. Seems like the closest thing to a 'Demonic' path to me.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Yeah, this. They are Doing It Wrong in way that is likely toxic and damaging. That may well have nothing directly to do with the Enemy, but it's still bad.

Oh yeah, no question. There's lots of ways you can fuck up or bottleneck cultivation.

What it actually reminds me of the most is what you see in cultivator stories where like, the penultimate stage of cultivation is actually a trap which prevents you from reaching the ultimate stage. Like some dude spends sixteen thousand years meditating and inhaling mercury fumes and embalming themselves with rare herbs and pills until they have their Immortal Jade Form, then it turns out that haha, joke's on you, to ascend to the heavens you need to still have a heartbeat...

Omeganian · Jun 12, 2023

[X] Talk to them first, let's see if they can understand Norse.
-[X] Tell them we're just here to kill Troll-Men, thank them for doing some of that for us, offer them food and company if they want. Or to work together if they're also here to kill Troll-Men?

I.F. Ister · Jun 12, 2023

I'm gonna give it another hour before calling it

NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

One and Many

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One and Many

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