Knight of Wessex (A Written World Quest)
- Thread starter Alectai
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We need an empty head fighting style, at this rate gaining one would make us able to one v one a steelfather within the year.
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Character sheet updated.
I have also slightly changed Hordebreaker's bonus. I re-did the math on it and it was too good at higher levels. Its boost to Rebuke has been halved (though it retains the excellent bonus of defending against two foes simultaneously and the Rebuke increase is still very good). Sorry if that's a feel-bad moment, this one is on me for not doing the higher level math when working out the bonus.
I have also slightly changed Hordebreaker's bonus. I re-did the math on it and it was too good at higher levels. Its boost to Rebuke has been halved (though it retains the excellent bonus of defending against two foes simultaneously and the Rebuke increase is still very good). Sorry if that's a feel-bad moment, this one is on me for not doing the higher level math when working out the bonus.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
And this is why Deadman is part of the team, he can solve problems before they get noticed and abused!
Can knights use their cultivator abilities to help ordinary people in their daily lives? How does society feel about this?
If, for example, Reinald allocates part of his time and, with the help of his salt revelation, creates salt and distributes it to peasants or help them preserve food, how will this be perceived?
If, for example, Reinald allocates part of his time and, with the help of his salt revelation, creates salt and distributes it to peasants or help them preserve food, how will this be perceived?
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For the question in general, it sort of depends on the kind of thing you mean by 'help'. Knights are expected to help people with dealing with dangerous things...that's their whole job. Things like manual labor, not so much...that's both beneath their dignity and takes time away from training to fight.
That's perhaps the most important thing to remember about Knights, really: Knights are a weapon. They are an extremely expensive and valuable military asset and they are supposed to be spending as much time as is practical training, to stay in top form and increase their power and ability, so that when danger comes they can smite it. Training and fighting is what they do, and anything that significantly distracts from that is probably not gonna be looked on super positively on a cultural level. Now, anything the Knight can do casually in, like, a few minutes or less than an hour a day or something, then yes, that's maybe not expected but looked on positively as them being kind and charitable if they do it...but anything that distracts from their training would be seen as a bad thing.
This is true even on the mainland, but it's probably extra true culturally in Wessex, where the nature of maegen makes this pattern even more true and culturally enforced for Thanes than it is of Knights, as them helping out costs maegen they could be using for training instead. The basic bargain of Anglo-Saxon culture based on their cultivation is that the common people use their maegen for labor and grow food and perform other necessary tasks, and their Thane uses his and trains to fight for them, and handles any threats that need to be fought. Knights aren't quite as limited in that regard, but they're a new thing, and the basic cultural bargain remains very similar.
For the specific listed example, Revelation-created items are not permanent, as a rule, so it's not really viable generally speaking. If it were viable, then that's the sort of low-effort charitable act that would probably be approved of, but it just doesn't generally work like that.
That is, the best way to help ordinary people is to exterminate evil creatures around their place of residence. Thus gaining experience and fulfilling your social role?
Is Maegen a method of cultivation indigenous to the islands? Didn't everyone switch to the mixed method?
Are there really strong cultivators in modern times who use maegen?
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
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Maegen is the Anglo-Saxon method's daily resource, and you have a finite amount that fills up each day from another resource that is also finite, and if you run out of either you fall over dead, as you need to spend a minsicule amount of Maegan to do LITTERALLY ANYTHING, including minor stuff like BREATHING and MOVING AROUND.
Edit: The second resource kills you if it runs out as it is straight up your general lifeforce iirc, so it makes sense that running out of it kills you.
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1: Not everyone switched to Zeal/Fervor, I expect everyone will have at least a bit of Fervor because of Communion but there are plenty of people who use Maegen.
2: Yes. The King's Thanes for example are absolutely fucking horrifying, they're better at going Nova than the Norse are.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, King's Thanes are the answer to Steelfathers, because they've trained so hard and have so much Maegen to spend because they spend the bare minimum needed to stay alive (And less than even most Thanes do because they get shit like having other people feed them grapes because it costs energy to move your arm to do it yourself, or have people fan you so you use up less energy cooling yourself). That they can just roll a billion dice with a colossal bonus and shotput you to Russia or something.
Then they'll probably fall over and die after using all their energy that way, but it'll be awesome
Then they'll probably fall over and die after using all their energy that way, but it'll be awesome
Probably such cultivation gives a very interesting and utilitarian view of the world. When a person who literally feels that he spends his life on any activity.
What is the advantage of this method if it could compete with Christian cultivation?
So far, I'm only referring to the possible infinite lifespan and the ability to expend a huge amount of energy at a time.
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Yes. Doing that is very much expected, verging on the absolutely mandatory.
Maegen is the core of Anglo-Saxon Cultivation, described earlier in the Quest and summarized pretty well by Uri above. Most people in Wessex still use it including most of the high nobility. King Alfred dabbles with Fervour but is primarily a Maegen cultivator, to list the most prominent example, but really it's the vast majority who are maegen cultivators and generally solely so. Audrey's parents are Maegen cultivators. Her cousins. The peasants she meets on the road. Everyone but Knights and Priests, basically (well, and Squires).
As for powerful maegen cultivators, yes, as others note, the King's Thanes are basically walking weapons of mass destruction who are hand fed grapes and similar things to keep their Maegen all for training and battle. They are utterly devastating...but only a limited number of times. They nova with the best of them, even harder than the Norse, but they can't keep doing it more than a couple of times at full power. They have a specific and limited number of uses.
Taking Communion is not quite enough to give meaningful Fervour on its own, usually. Not except in unusual situations. Most peasants in the mainland are not proper Fervour cultivators despite receiving regular Communion, and the same is true of those in Wessex. Most of the folk of Wessex are, in practice, running purely on Maegen.
There is no Christian cultivation per se. Knights and Priests are part of Carolingian Cultivation. And Anglo-Saxons don't have unlimited lifespan by any means...breathing still takes maegen.
That aside, as mentioned, most random peasants in the Carolingian system are not proper cultivators. Most peasants in the Anglo-Saxon system are a lot closer. Additionally, being able to nova hard is a pretty big advantage. But if you're talking about outcompeting...that's not exactly how this works? Cultivation is culture. As the culture changes so does the cultivation and, to some extent vice versa, by importing Knights and Priests the system is already starting to shift...it might change in all sorts of interesting ways going forward.
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…Well this is embarrassing, not sure how i forget about that. Sorry for wasting your time.
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We don't have Meagen, if we did it would say so on our sheet.
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Audrey probably very technically has maegen and uses it for the very basics like breathing. She has no real ability to access it for anything beyond that, however. This would presumably mean she has a very high default lifespan (as thanes use more maegen than that and still live for centuries), but Decade might or might not effect it and to a greater or lesser degree than expected of a non-Insular Knight.
But Insular Knights are such a new phenomenon that all that is actually pretty speculative...people in-setting are not sure at all how it works. No Insular Knight is more than a few hundred years old and none have died of old age as of yet.
No worries, just clarifying. Probably a useful thing to note about Carolingian Cultivation as a whole anyway.
To be clear, Audrey doesn't have maegen on her sheet because she can't use it for anything but life support...it'd be like putting 'Breathing' as a listed skill. She has it in some sort of technical sense, but not the practical one where it would be relevant.
So we will always be outsiders for the local thanes?
Okay then the question turns the other way how can Carolingian cultivators compare to Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian?
That's where an artificial respiration system would be a force modifier. It's a pity that by the time of her invention, this cultivation system would have changed a lot.
I was referring to the direct conflict between cultivators. You yourself mentioned that if the cultivation systems are too weak, then such a culture simply does not survive.
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
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Anglo-Saxon and Norse people stop throwing real attacks and start throwing basically nothing at us around turns 3-5 generally, and those attacks go poof against out Rebuke, whereas we just keep on going as our Fervour comes back every turn whereas their equivinent is very much finite on fight timescales. Also, Carolingians in their Knightly Armour are extremely hard to actually kill, so the fight is typically decided by if the Anglo-Saxon or Norse person can deal a massive amount of damage in the 3ish turns they have the fuel for, and therefore kill the Knight, or they run out of fuel and the Knight stabs them to death. And if they fail to kill the Knight, it is very likely that he is basically perfectly fine when their buddy jumps into the fight next turn.
Is there a way (or probably can a way be found/invented) to utilize favor for it? like a meditation of breathing? Admittedly that doesn't really matter because we aren't using that Meagan for anything and the lifespan issue is probably moot as were most likely going to die in battle rather than old age.
But it feeds my world building thirst.
Is that a problem stemming form a lack of training? Or from something cultivation related? Her entire family use it so I would expect she would know at least a little both from before she started training to become a squire and from osmosis.
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
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Question for any of the QMs, are we able to do friendly spars where we control Audrey against the other squires like we could in NQ1, presumably as a Focus Action, as I think getting in a player-controlled fight against another Knight would be really good to learn what works against that kind of foe. Assuming the answer to that is yes, are any of the other squires gonna both have their Knightly armour and be somewhere in the 3rd Decade next turn for us to get a roughly representative fight of what the Tournament fights will be like.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
The lifespan issue is academic, you probably won't live as long as a proper Continental Knight, but you're still more likely to die from violence than old age.
In exchange, you get Hama, which is an all-purpose utility knife stat as opposed to the currently-unnamed-because-we-don't-have-enough-good-data-on-Frankish-Paganism thing that mainlanders have.
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Yes. Somewhat inevitably.
Ah! If you just mean in fights then, well, there are a few things about how what advantages Carolingian Cultivators possess.
1. Higher base stats. Knights roll more dice with better bonuses than most other cultivators. They can't increase it with resources as easily, but the base stats are better.
2. Endurance. Knights can casually fight basically forever without running out of juice. That's nearly unheard of. We talk about novaing Norse of Anglo-Saxon cultivators, but that's actually not always how they fight each other, necessarily. Nova potential is important to keep in mind because it's the only way they have a chance against a peer-level Knight. Their stats are lower, so they need to nova to compensate, and then when they run out of power the Knight kills them and moves on to the next.
3. Knightly Armour. This stuff is an absurd technological/magical innovation designed specifically to work with Carolingian Cultivation. It's wildly powerful and makes Knights extraordinarily durable.
4. Related to Knightly Armour, perhaps a subset, due to weapon choice and a few other things, Knights hit like trucks. Audrey takes this further than average but it's true in general.
5. Animal Bonding, as Audrey just did, is a huge force multiplier. A Knight with a bonded Mount and Bird is basically three cultivators for combat purposes. Certainly at least two. Bonding in this way is not some universal cultivator thing, it's Carolingian specific.
6. Horde-breaking. Knights are the very best at taking a horde of weak enemies and minion sweeping. This is due to the endurance factor above, Knightly Armour and Rebuke, and a few other things, but very handy and worth keeping in mind.
Probably not? Maegen is fundamental life force...it's possible that raising Decades actually does this and that's how it would enhance lifespan. There's not an easy way to check, though, and Insular Knights are very new...
It's related to having been raised to be an Insular Knight. If you raise her focused on maegen she'll just wind up a Thane like most other people of her class, rather than becoming an Insular Knight.
Can that be overcome? Nobody really knows, to be honest. It's early days for Insular Knights. It's maybe a bad idea to even try, honestly...burning lifespan for power is a high-risk strategy when the main reason the King wants Knights is that they're more sustainable than Thanes.
That's possible in general. You might want to hold off for a little right now given the upcoming tournament, unless you want combat literally every turn.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Technically, you do have maegen and ealdor. However, you have never trained to be able to use it and your familiarity with fervor means that you'd only ever be able to feel your own maegen/ealdor if you run out of fervor or zeal. Which, of course, would be very bad.
Something to note is that while you are correct in calling them Norwegian, we tend to use the word 'Norse' to refer to Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, and all the other small cultures that spoke the dansk tonga.
That is, we serve as a shield and infantry for the Thanes, closing their weak points and letting them show their strengths to the fullest?
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That's one possibility, but it's also the fact that Thanes reduce their lifespan every fight they are in directly, even the minor ones, and Knights don't. So having Knights stamp out trouble like bandits is vastly more cost efficient. The ideal is that Knights handle every single problem that isn't so big you need to call out a full army (they participate in the army too, mind you, there are just Thanes there as well).
In practice, that's an ideal not a reality, but every fight a Knight handles is one less drain on the Thanes. It's about sustainability.
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