NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

Skippy · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Sorry, my mistake, it just seemed like you were suggesting we actually go quicker than 9 turns which sort of requires doing it in three or less.

All evidence is that we can get building and stuff done pretty fast if we invest in it. Exact details are unclear but we're two turns into building the fence and from description that's gonna be maybe another two? Definitely not more than three. Getting the Tricks done is four more turns for Utility and five more turns for Residence, and we can start building the same turn we complete them. With the nine turn clock, we would then have a minimum of 5 turns to build Residence stuff and 6 for Utility. That seems entirely sufficient to me, especially since we should be able to spend multiple Research dice to build multiple things simultaneously.

So, we're not pregnant, but we wean Hallbjorn at the end of the year, at which point, based on how things have gone previously, we probably start rolling for pregnancy again starting in the new year. Those rolls require 10 successes on a combined Hamr roll between Halla and Abjorn...we have 15 dice or more on that combined roll. We're, uh, very likely to get pregnant there very quickly. It's not technically a sure thing, but it's the way to bet by a lot that it'll happen within the first couple of turns. And, for rules simplicity (and possibly magic!) all babies are born at the end of the year, so once we're pregnant, we're pregnant for the rest of the year.

We could try and just not get pregnant, but honestly, I'm skeptical that we the Questers can stop Halla from doing so...those rolls continued even while we were out raiding last time and a lot of references have been made to her being very invested in both the process and the result. We also need to have additional kids some time and now seems as good a time as any.

From what you've said, it seems like if three turns is too much, we could probably get to the next Realm in four or five turns? Personally I don't really think there's a big issue with breaking through to the next realm if we're like, a month pregnant at the time. Honestly that would be kind of metal.

I'm also a bit worried, based on the figures you've presented, that if we try and build everything at the last minute we'll discover it takes longer than we hoped, or there will be other reasons to delay the Tricks, and we'll overshoot the nine turn target you've outlined here.

How long is a turn, anyway?

I.F. Ister · Jun 28, 2023

Skippy said:
How long is a turn, anyway?

Roughly 2-ish months

Simon_Jester · Jun 28, 2023

DAMMIT ASGEIRR HITTING A GUEST IS ODRENG! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

CedeTheBees said:
So after a quick google, I found Ràn, goddess of the sea who uses a net to drag sailors into the depths. I'm thinking we should fix up those runes and finish it with something like:

'Net-Holder, See Us Safely Away From Your Reach'

I tend to agree, yeah. It'd be disrespectful to remove them, but not to finish them. Still, no rush until we're actually planning on heading out.

Skippy said:
From what you've said, it seems like if three turns is too much, we could probably get to the next Realm in four or five turns? Personally I don't really think there's a big issue with breaking through to the next realm if we're like, a month pregnant at the time. Honestly that would be kind of metal.

Based on previous events if we take any Endurance damage while pregnant it can cause a miscarriage. And that was said on the very turn we got pregnant, so it's true even early in the pregnancy. So I'm very against this. I think the odds of advancing a realm causing some amount of damage are very high indeed. This does make sense, since even 1 Endurance is enough to kill a mortal, and the fetus is definitely mortal.

We also flatly may not be able to. Some risky actions have previously been forbidden while pregnant because Halla wouldn't take that sort of risk.

4-5 turns is also probably not enough time. Like, if you're right that the buildings take longer than 5-6 turns, then it wouldn't be enough even if we finished the tricks this very turn...heck, even if it's only 4, we can't actually assure we'll complete the tricks this turn and the timeline gets dicey. It's certainly not enough time to get all the prep I'd like to get squared away squared away.

Skippy said:
I'm also a bit worried, based on the figures you've presented, that if we try and build everything at the last minute we'll discover it takes longer than we hoped, or there will be other reasons to delay the Tricks, and we'll overshoot the nine turn target you've outlined here.

I mean, if it takes a little longer I'm not too worried, to be honest. We do want to do this, but we do not need to 100% do it the first turn after we give birth...if it takes a few turns that's fine. Sometime that year definitely, we don't want to put it off intentionally or anything, but if it takes an extra turn it takes an extra turn.

ThatGazzer · Jun 28, 2023

Imperial Fister said:
'Net-Holder, See Us Safely-' The rest of the rune phrase was never completed, likely one of if not the last act of the now deceased helmsman. The helmsman probably colored it with his blood, like as not, when he realized he wasn't going to be able to finish carving.

The runes, even half-finished, still work. Which means that you'll have to be careful if you want to ever activate them.

You briefly consider removing them, but instantly discard the grimy thought. It just wouldn't be right to desecrate the helmsman's final act like that.

Well now we gotta finish them!

Maybe:
Net-Holder, See Us Safely As We Wander The Whale-Roads
Wave-Calmer, Make Kind The Waters Beneath Our Prow
Wealth-Giver, Fill This Dragon's Wings with Bountiful Air

Or something like that, if I'm correct in interpreting the name Net-Holder as a reference/prayer to Njǫrd. Which makes sense to me-- this is a ship, after all.

EDIT: yea no Rán makes more sense.

dang I thought I had something there

Toboe · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
-[X] (Drifa) Teach Drifa some of your tricks
--[X] Continue our basic combat curriculum 1d6

Hm, that looks so... naked, just doing "continue our basic combat curriculum".
Maybe play catch with her, with the modification that she catches us by throwing knives (we obviosly use a defensive shapecrafting loadout so she can't hurt us), also teach her the Recall trick.
That would train:
Overland, throwing, recall, maybe fast recall.
And be a ton of fun for the little murdergoblin.

Also, this is last summer turn, so we should still be able to ask Solrun questions, right?
How about:

Spirits basics
- what Halla should have learned from her mom, if the realtionship wasn't so strained
Basics on how/why the work with spirits functions. Like the tracking spell is described as high Seidr, lets get the theory behind it.
- Really interesting and really useful for when we want to do more then use the prepared spells she gives us.
Reanimating the bodily dead
- or at least the parts she is willing to teach if it involves her bloodphobia
- a must have if we plan to go on long travels like raids, or Varangian guard
- seriously, can you imagine how practical it would be to have a Seeress for the reanimation as part of the felag (that still is pulling her weight and then some in fighting)

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Toboe said:
Hm, that looks so... naked, just doing "continue our basic combat curriculum".
Maybe play catch with her, with the modification that she catches us by throwing knives (we obviosly use a defensive shapecrafting loadout so she can't hurt us), also teach her the Recall trick.
That would train:
Overland, throwing, recall, maybe fast recall.
And be a ton of fun for the little murdergoblin.

I'm not against specifying how we teach her stuff and making it fun, but the current curriculum is 6 tricks and we have only been teaching it for 3-4 turns. We aren't really done with it yet, I don't think.

Toboe said:
Also, this is last summer turn, so we should still be able to ask Solrun questions, right?

No, this is the first Winter turn. No Solrun for us.

I'm down with talking to her about spirits when we get the opportunity, though, and picking up something to raise the bodily dead is definitely on the agenda at some point.

MrRageQuit · Jun 28, 2023

[X] Plan Sparring With Steinarr

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Imperial Fister said:
-1 Wondrous Toolset (Forged Iron+Salamander Bone Ash) (+9 Successes to Crafting Rolls, Doubles Armor Repair)

Just want to pause and note that this worked out very well. the salamander bone ash did something really neat. Doubled armor repair is a very good result and +9 successes is very much what we were looking for in terms of quality. Interesting that the tools don't have an Orthstirr pool. I wonder if that's weapon and armor only, then?

AeonIlluminate · Jun 28, 2023

[X] Plan Sparring With Steinarr

Skippy · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Based on previous events if we take any Endurance damage while pregnant it can cause a miscarriage. And that was said on the very turn we got pregnant, so it's true even early in the pregnancy. So I'm very against this. I think the odds of advancing a realm causing some amount of damage are very high indeed. This does make sense, since even 1 Endurance is enough to kill a mortal, and the fetus is definitely mortal.

We also flatly may not be able to. Some risky actions have previously been forbidden while pregnant because Halla wouldn't take that sort of risk.

4-5 turns is also probably not enough time. Like, if you're right that the buildings take longer than 5-6 turns, then it wouldn't be enough even if we finished the tricks this very turn...heck, even if it's only 4, we can't actually assure we'll complete the tricks this turn and the timeline gets dicey. It's certainly not enough time to get all the prep I'd like to get squared away squared away.

Fair enough then. Adding to the list of reasons why this is by a country mile my least favourite mechanic in the quest.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I mean, if it takes a little longer I'm not too worried, to be honest. We do want to do this, but we do not need to 100% do it the first turn after we give birth...if it takes a few turns that's fine. Sometime that year definitely, we don't want to put it off intentionally or anything, but if it takes an extra turn it takes an extra turn.

I don't think it's great that it takes an extra turn. I think we should have been much more urgently working towards doing this sooner, and if we've boxed ourselves in to the point where it will now take at least a year and a half, that's kind of regrettable. It is honestly kind of frustrating that it feels like an uphill battle to make the case that maybe prioritising our cultivation is important, in a cultivation quest.

Toboe · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Just want to pause and note that this worked out very well. the salamander bone ash did something really neat. Doubled armor repair is a very good result and +9 successes is very much what we were looking for in terms of quality. Interesting that the tools don't have an Orthstirr pool. I wonder if that's weapon and armor only, then?

Yeah, armor repair is ok.
Also: We forgot adding a poem. >.>

Skippy said:
I don't think it's great that it takes an extra turn. I think we should have been much more urgently working towards doing this sooner, and if we've boxed ourselves in to the point where it will now take at least a year and a half, that's kind of regrettable. It is honestly kind of frustrating that it feels like an uphill battle to make the case that maybe prioritising our cultivation is important, in a cultivation quest.

There may be some connection to the previous, very busy times. That now we are enjoying actually having some time.
And Realm advancing isn't the only cultivation. All our Soulspace experiments are cultivation, too. As are our other experiments dealing with cultivation, like that finisher attack. (Anything not public knowledge is probably a part of true norse cultivation hidden by the enemy) Or Seid. (collecting more knowledge spread among the culture, giving us more hints to puzzle together powers the enemy tries to deny us)

Speaking of which:
@DeadmanwalkingXI
could we fit the "feeding frenzy into a trick" research in? Or would that be better in next turn?

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Skippy said:
I don't think it's great that it takes an extra turn. I think we should have been much more urgently working towards doing this sooner, and if we've boxed ourselves in to the point where it will now take at least a year and a half, that's kind of regrettable. It is honestly kind of frustrating that it feels like an uphill battle to make the case that maybe prioritising our cultivation is important, in a cultivation quest.

We only discovered that this was the right path, during Turn 1 of Summer 8. Two turns ago. We've...actually been progressing pretty fast in this since then, but getting it done in a total of maybe 5 turns before the likely pregnancy was never realistic, I don't think.

Additionally, this isn't exactly a normal cultivation quest. It's a cultivation quest where we've been repeatedly warned by the QM that our actual internal cultivation path is filled with booby traps designed to kill us and we need to figure out how to do all the stuff in it from first principles to boot. We're very much cultivating by the seat of our pants in a deeply unsafe way. So any cultivation activities that fall under that need to be done a lot more carefully than in most cultivation settings.

It's also worth noting that, from my perspective anyway, a lot of what we do with Training Dice, while not technically cultivation in this universe in the strictest sense would definitely fall under that banner in many other cultivation settings, and we're not slowing down on improving a wide variety of stuff there at all, or researching new and interesting things either. We'll definitely continue experimenting and figuring out what's up with Flame-Tending Blade in the next few turns, for example.

Toboe said:
Speaking of which:
@DeadmanwalkingXI
could we fit the "feeding frenzy into a trick" research in? Or would that be better in next turn?

I have it penciled in for next turn, yeah. Along with a lot of other stuff. We could swap stuff around, but I feel like there's definitely a point of research overload if we do too many different things in one turn.

Toboe · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Just want to pause and note that this worked out very well. the salamander bone ash did something really neat. Doubled armor repair is a very good result and +9 successes is very much what we were looking for in terms of quality. Interesting that the tools don't have an Orthstirr pool. I wonder if that's weapon and armor only, then?

Also, that is +4 successes more than our previous +5 tools.
One quality tier is 5 successes, so we get almost one tier better, for free just from using our new tools.

edit: before i forget it, my plan vote
[X] Plan Sparring With Steinarr

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Toboe said:
Also, that is +4 successes more than our previous +5 tools.
One quality tier is 5 successes, so we get almost one tier better, for free just from using our new tools.

Yup. The Tools + Workshop are +15 successes total. They mean we average 27 successes, which is Mastercraft and Tier 7 items...a +8 item when made of Forged Iron. Very nice. We'd need to burn a lot of Odr and/or roll well to hit Tier 9, but it sets us up nicely.

Constenanto · Jun 28, 2023

Skippy said:
I don't think it's great that it takes an extra turn. I think we should have been much more urgently working towards doing this sooner, and if we've boxed ourselves in to the point where it will now take at least a year and a half, that's kind of regrettable. It is honestly kind of frustrating that it feels like an uphill battle to make the case that maybe prioritising our cultivation is important, in a cultivation quest.

I know the feeling, having been here since we just became a 'true cultivator'. My biggest fear is Halla dying before we can even advance to realm two/actually explore its uses. Can't really do anything about our cultivation progress being slow, since I'm the minority, but at least the rest of the quest is plenty fun.

Simon_Jester · Jun 28, 2023

Skippy said:
Fair enough then. Adding to the list of reasons why this is by a country mile my least favourite mechanic in the quest.

I think it's very reasonable.

One of the big recurring themes of typical xianxia seems (my impression) to be that cultivators are basically 100% cut off from normal life. All that matters is the pursuit of raw power, especially once you get above the very lowest power levels. Powerful cultivators are enormously removed from their own descendants, if only because they tend to outlive them and spend vast amounts of time meditating or behind closed doors, long enough for children to grow to adulthood barely realizing they are alive).

So for Halla to be putting cultivation milestones on hold for maternity leave, and even maybe turning that into an advantage by making sure she's well prepared, sounds great to me as a change of pace. And I suspect, given that the nature of True Norse Cultivation involves building a homestead in your soul, that being a well-connected individual with a life and a family may actually pay off in ways we can't easily see right now.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Constenanto said:
I know the feeling, having been here since we just became a 'true cultivator'. My biggest fear is Halla dying before we can even advance to realm two/actually explore its uses.

I actually do also really worry about this, I just personally feel like dying as part of hitting the Second Realm is the most likely way for this particular nightmare to happen at this point. Like, we know the steps and we're likely doing it before we head to Vestfold...I feel like the process of advancing in and of itself is the most dangerous thing we're likely to have to deal with on the path to hitting the Second Realm and actually getting to do stuff there.

And maybe I'm wrong, but that's where my head is at when I say I want to take the time to prep first.

Toboe · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Yup. The Tools + Workshop are +15 successes total. They mean we average 27 successes, which is Mastercraft and Tier 7 items...a +8 item when made of Forged Iron. Very nice. We'd need to burn a lot of Odr and/or roll well to hit Tier 9, but it sets us up nicely.

Iirc IF stated that tier 9 needs more than just successes, it also needs to be bling-ed out (lots of gold used in crafting).
But with a static boost of +15, that means we only need to get 21 to get to T8, Wondrous.
With "Born with hammer in hand", the tier below is enough, so 16 successes to get to T8.
If we burn the 3 aspects normally (i.e. only for the crafting action, not the whole turn) that gets us another 3. 13 successes left needed to get to T8.
Another 3 successes from our Forgefire Alloy. 10 successes left to T8.
10 successes from 12d6 (armorcraft smithing) or 13d6(weaponcraft & housecraft smithing).
using AnyDice that gets me a chance of 0.4344 (13d6) or 0.3724 (12d6) to hit, before we consider Odr.
Keeping it mind that the tier is called "Wondrous", that sounds like pretty good odds to me. (Since we still can use Odr to bias stuff in our favor).
Also make me wonder what we'd need to do to get Orth for the quality of our crafts. Maybe actually show them off?

Imperial Fister said:
1-5 Successes: Basic
6-10: Decent
11-15: Good
16-20: Fine
21-25: Superior
26-30: Grand
31-35: Mastercraft
36-40: Wondrous
41+: ???

how to simulate our dice with AnyDice

Code:

output 12d{2,1,-1}

then select "at least" and check the chance of the result you want (like here we want at least 10).

Bass11 · Jun 28, 2023

Should we show sten our new tools?

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jun 28, 2023

Toboe said:
Another 3 successes from our Forgefire Alloy. 10 successes left to T8.
10 successes from 12d6 (armorcraft smithing) or 13d6(weaponcraft & housecraft smithing).

This is not quite correct in a couple of ways. Forgefire adds dice (+4d to be specific), not successes, and our dice pool is actually one higher than that (remember, both stats and skills add one more die than their rating). So you should be checking the odds of rolling 13 successes on 18 dice, not 10 successes on 13 dice.

Bass11 said:
Should we show sten our new tools?

If we want to brag, sure, though his are better.

Bass11 · Jun 28, 2023

Probably need more forging traits for consistency.

Toboe · Jun 28, 2023

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
This is not quite correct in a couple of ways. Forgefire adds dice (+4d to be specific), not successes, and our dice pool is actually one higher than that (remember, both stats and skills add one more die than their rating). so You should be checking the odds of rolling 13 successes on 18 dice, not 10 successes on 13 dice.

For the record, if we use the corrected value from this post, that gives us 0.4687 chance for wondrous (before we use Odr to bias it even more in our favor).

I.F. Ister · Jun 28, 2023

Skippy said:
Fair enough then. Adding to the list of reasons why this is by a country mile my least favourite mechanic in the quest.

I can tune it down a little bit, make it only more of a risk later on in the pregnancy of you folks would like — though that's not strictly accurate biology, at least according to my highschool health class, so what do I know? I can also increase the damage threshold.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
If we want to brag, sure, though his are better.

He helped you catch the salamanders

Toboe said:
For the record, if we use the corrected value from this post, that gives us 0.4687 chance for wondrous (before we use Odr to bias it even more in our favor).

Oh this is treating 1.0 as 100%, that makes more sense then what I was thinking lmao

weeblypanda · Jun 28, 2023

[X] Plan Sparring With Steinarr

NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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