If it doesn't also eat a Research, Ignition + Sun something + Rewrite to bully our way into Sunfire like we've been thinking about?

New Alloys are definitely Research. It's been established. We 'just' have a free slot to assign one we've already created (or one where we know the result, technically).

We definitely want to do that...but it's Research and I think it's less urgent than the stuff we're doing this turn. I also like waiting until the last turn to burn per season resources just in case, though that's probably overly cautious in this specific case.
 
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Are there any Hugarindia that we know the combo for that are any good? The current unslotted ones in the Alloys tab all seem a bit awful. Probably one of the Stoker ones if we have to pick from them, the other 2 aren't good for our build, even if the 2 stoker ones aren't perticuarly good either. I don't think we've used either of those categories of Trick in a while.
 
Are there any Hugarindia that we know the combo for that are any good? The current unslotted ones in the Alloys tab all seem a bit awful. Probably one of the Stoker ones if we have to pick from them, the other 2 aren't good for our build, even if the 2 stoker ones aren't perticuarly good either. I don't think we've used either of those categories of Trick in a while.

No Hugareida are good unless you have Tricks for them. I think that, Sunfire attempts aside, we probably don't need any additional Hugareida to try and learn Tricks for. Our current selection seems very solid.
 
def think we should invest research into 1 or more alloys, and i think we should bring more animals into the soulscape now that we know they can survive there. we have cows, sheep, and goats. i think we should get a full flock/herd of each in there. my understanding is that our soulscape is like a realm. it's held in stasis (the goal/influence of the enemy) because it lacks things like day/night, wind/weather, living things (a full ecosystem with predator and prey) so our next moves should involve infusing abjorn's shadow hugrieda into our souldcape (we know they can be shared and the only downside manifests when/if someone uses your power to commit an act of nid, which we wont). we will have his shadows "chase" our sun to create a cycle of day and night, and then bring in many more animals (later including predators like foxes and wolves from the forest prob) to create a full biome. i believe the more our soulscape "moves" the less influence the enemy will have over us, personally.

i also think we should prep to raid/trade with christians again. we can get books on architecture and engineering for our soulscape projects and the fame we need to keep pushing our limits
 
def think we should invest research into 1 or more alloys, and i think we should bring more animals into the soulscape now that we know they can survive there. we have cows, sheep, and goats. i think we should get a full flock/herd of each in there.

Which of the existing Research actions would you not do in order to do these? I think both are good things to do but I'm not thinking either are more urgent than the existing stuff.

my understanding is that our soulscape is like a realm. it's held in stasis (the goal/influence of the enemy) because it lacks things like day/night, wind/weather, living things (a full ecosystem with predator and prey) so our next moves should involve infusing abjorn's shadow hugrieda into our souldcape (we know they can be shared and the only downside manifests when/if someone uses your power to commit an act of nid, which we wont). we will have his shadows "chase" our sun to create a cycle of day and night, and then bring in many more animals (later including predators like foxes and wolves from the forest prob) to create a full biome. i believe the more our soulscape "moves" the less influence the enemy will have over us, personally.

Uh...this is not how things work. People can use each other's Aspects, not each other's Hugareida. They are completely different things.

i also think we should prep to raid/trade with christians again. we can get books on architecture and engineering for our soulscape projects and the fame we need to keep pushing our limits

We're already traveling for the funeral this year...we can consider another expedition after that, maybe, depending on how it goes. No need to prep in any case.
 
we can get books on architecture and engineering
Ever so slight issue, people aren't gonna be writing this kind of information down for something like 9500-10000 QuestYears. To get it, we either need to get a good long look at an example of the architecture we want, and then we can make a similar structure, or if we want to get a general overview of proper castle construction techniques we would need to send a kid off to have an apprenticeship under a professional castle designer and then have them be the next person we play as, and get the data from him when we build stuff.
 
Also, we were told that a Gatehouse isn't going to work I think. The idea of getting protection when we're opening the gate was right, but that's not the way the Norse do it.

(I speculated then that "Well if that's the case, then the real thing we want to do is get a bunch of dudes to stand watch at the Gate when we're cultivating, so we want to actually hire and train some local Spirits to be sworn shields to protect us from attackers when we're cultivating", but that's something that'll need research)

Also, @Imperial Fister , do we risk getting in trouble if we don't make headway on making some more stuff for Dorri? Maybe not necessarily a full "All hands on deck" moment, but there seems to be an assumption that kicking the can down the road another turn will have no real consequences, and I want to get a confirmation if that's the case before I vote for anything.
 
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I definitely think the workshop should be upgraded. Grand quality for the commission would be nice, and extra work dice. That and I think the quality of the goods might net some extra orithistir over time. The quality of the goods saving people's lives or something similar.
 
Also, @Imperial Fister , do we risk getting in trouble if we don't make headway on making some more stuff for Dorri? Maybe not necessarily a full "All hands on deck" moment, but there seems to be an assumption that kicking the can down the road another turn will have no real consequences, and I want to get a confirmation if that's the case before I vote for anything.

I mean, it was explicitly an open ended offer 'when you have time, do X'. If it causes problems to wait I'll certainly adjust the plan, but having some sort of quota or schedule seems like very much not what we agreed to.
 
Also, @Imperial Fister , do we risk getting in trouble if we don't make headway on making some more stuff for Dorri?
If you were to go a full season without having made anything, then he'd start getting a bit upset with you. However, once you've made enough weapons to arm every fighter in the valley, he won't really care all that much.
 
If you were to go a full season without having made anything, then he'd start getting a bit upset with you. However, once you've made enough weapons to arm every fighter in the valley, he won't really care all that much.

So, still fine, but we'd best make a hefty push next turn to make good, if we're going to kick the can down the road again, right?
 
If you were to go a full season without having made anything, then he'd start getting a bit upset with you. However, once you've made enough weapons to arm every fighter in the valley, he won't really care all that much.

Hmmm. Fair enough. We'll want to do a couple of items this turn or next at Superior to make that work out, but that's viable and next turn works. We can definitely start producing more once we get the Workshop upgraded.
 
"Spirits, lacking sensation, will always be excited to experience taste for the first time—no matter if whatever they have tastes good or bad. Feeding them a mixture of rotten eggs, spoiled milk, and cat whiskers will produce the same reaction as if you gave them the tastiest drink in your pantry. As such, you can use that mixture to test someone whose soul you suspect is sleeping."
I suspect we can substitute Stored Experiences for this. This could be exceptionally helpful if we wanted to test this out on someone without offending them, or if we wanted to try it out on a Spirit who has already gone through this method before.
 
Good update! So, thoughts:

- We don't want to simply give on a defensive structure in our soul simply because it didn't work the first time. If Halla does not know how to make a gatehouse, she's certainly seen strong walls, and towers, and assaulted a fortifications before. We can throw something together.

- Corpsemaker signalling that he is planning to replace Dorri soon is a major worry and demands preparation. Our next long-term goal needs to be finding a way to kill Steelfathers. It's not something we're going to manage in a day, but that's why we need to start chipping away at it now. Make it a goal in the same way we did finding the secret of how to move out of the first realm of Odr cultivation, and working towards. In that vein, I think our first order of business should be to talk to Sten.

- The book seems to be missing a trick. Poetic allusion and metaphor, something well-known to the Norse, should allow us to hide the secret of Odr cultivation and how to avoid its traps in plain sight.

- We've apparently forgotten that we had already gotten most of the way along in unlocking the parent style for Time Stands Still. It would be good to finish that off.
 
Killing Steelfathers SNIP
AFAIK, there is a shot at a piece of the Weapon in Vestifold, we may be able to nab it during that clusterfuck. There is also the option of mindblender, any way of permenantly fucking up their mind should effectively mission-kill them. Then there is the options of conceptual Destruction, which iirc is how Blackhand's Infinite Murder Fire works. A theoretical Death Hugariendia could do the trick, although I wouldn't trust it to work as they aren't killed by a lack of anything a normal human needs to live, and it may extend to them counting as dead for an attack that goes "If the target is alive, they are now dead". Etir would work, and I think the Nid hit from poisoning them would always be worth it. Odr poisoning to shatter their soul should also work, although getting the time for that would be hard. Maybe a Sedir to Needlebind open their Gate, and hope that we can keep them distracted long enough to have it kill them. Maybe Soulscape to Soulscape warfare, try and invade their soul with the spirits in our soul and if we win we can probably break their soul from inside? Maybe a teleport Burl that we throw at them, it shatters on them, and teleports them into the Gjoll (I think that one has lethal water?)
 
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Nah, Steelfather Souls are as inviolate as their bodies are, they won't die from Odr Poisoning.
 
Fuck, there goes like half my ideas. Admittedly the more spitballed ones, but still.
 
if we are going to try to store an experience, why not the experience of something our soulscape is missing, like the moon, for instance. or the memory of one of the castles we raided. we could try plopping a memory keep in soulscape and see how much that helps our defenses. there is the chance that if we use it on a muna we could mess with that memory (maybe share it?) but we shouldnt lead with that, i think
 
or the memory of one of the castles we raided.
The way the stored Experience thing works is we focus all of our senses on the thing, to the exclusion of everything else, then spread the feeling of the missing sense over all the senses, and then we have the stored Experience. This mean we would need to go find another castle to do that to, as it only works with current stuff, not memories. Muna might work differently, but that would require testing.
 
It has been made abundantly clear that there is not just one, but multiple ways to kill Steelfathers. Blackhand did it. Ironjaw has done it. King Alfred has either done it or is plausibly suspected of being able to do it. The strongest paladins of the Carolingian Empire can do it. Atilla could do it. King Halfdan the Black's anonymous assassin did it. We also know or have had it strongly implied that each of these actors used a different method to do it.

The most important thing, I think, is that if we want to become able to do unmake Steel, then we need to start making concrete steps towards doing it. We need to put consistent effort towards our research programme, be trying things all the time, and be ready to learn from our missteps and failures. Approach it the same way we did setting up our soulscape and learning the booby-traps of Realm One cultivation. We've done big projects and uncovered secrets before.

Luckily, to learn how to destroy Steel we don't actually need a Steelfather standing around for target practice. We just need a chunk of it.
 
That logic will mean that we never start, and we have just now had a Steelfather walk into our home and threaten us to our face. If it's a very lengthy and difficult project, then that means that we need to start earlier, or by the time we are forced into conflict with a Steelfather - and we inevitably will be - it will be too late. Avoiding thinking about problems does not mean they will go away.

Ultimately, if we can't kill Steelfathers, we're putting a ceiling on how powerful or important we can be - because they are the true movers and shakers of Norse society. We are also choosing not to be able to protect our family if one of them comes knocking. And sooner or later, one of them will, because they have been set up like Chekov's gun throughout the entirety of the Quest as the ultimate antagonists.
 
learning to unmake steel seems like a natural consequence of learning to make it. we should ask our brother if he knows any ways of countering or destroying steel. he probably doesnt but it could point us in the right direction. even something as simple as "heat it until it melts" would be more than we have. my suspicion is that killing a steelfather requires access to a different cultivation paradigm. the christian system for example, or Odr, which might as well be it's own playbook. the steelfathers might be those who have turned away from or rejected Odr (masters of the corrupted, lesser system practiced by the masses and supported by the enemy) or those who have learned Odr "wrong" by the urgings of the enemy.
 
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