NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[KittyEmpress]

tbh honest we aren't really just knocking on the door just to say hi, its more like 'Hi, Im selling some strategic goods here that are very useful in warfare, thought to offer you first pick". and given that thus far we traded whetstones, wood for shipbuilding and now healing clay for combat, I think most rulers will kinda appreciate that first pick at those sort of materials.

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Yeah, I mean, I get it. I also voted to go say hi to the Jarl in the Danish lands, where we got all the money for wood. Though my reasoning was more 'let's go ensure him that the 45 heavily armed men and woman who just landed in his territory are not there to cause problems' than the trade stuff.

I still just find it amusing out of context. We never go anywhere without going 'hey boss of town, I'm here to kick ass and trade goods, which do you want me to do'

 

[Shard]

Honestly I kind of want to keep the Resting Clay and use it in experiements and stuff, like make a Restful Clay Bed or something. We're so flush with money!

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Honestly I kind of want to keep the Resting Clay and use it in experiements and stuff, like make a Restful Clay Bed or something. We're so flush with money!

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I'm very dubious on the bed, but I too would like to keep at least most of the Restful Clay. We might sell a little to see the price and grab more when we're in Denmark anyway. But the Healing Clay is both theoretically more valuable and pretty much useless to Halla personally...that's the thing we really want to sell.

And, in terms of money, there's also purchasing Twists and Shapecrafting, which we do want to do and don't know how expensive it is. So I definitely want to keep making solid profits until we at least know that. Well, and afterwards because we have, like, 6-9 kids and want to give them all an inheritance.

 

[Blademaster]

I'm very dubious on the bed, but I too would like to keep at least most of the Restful Clay. We might sell a little to see the price and grab more when we're in Denmark anyway. But the Healing Clay is both theoretically more valuable and pretty much useless to Halla personally...that's the thing we really want to sell.

And, in terms of money, there's also purchasing Twists and Shapecrafting, which we do want to do and don't know how expensive it is. So I definitely want to keep making solid profits until we at least know that. Well, and afterwards because we have, like, 6-9 kids and want to give them all an inheritance.

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I mean, Halla has like, 3000 silver? and is not really anywhere near the end of her life. even if she has 9 kids, each is getting more than 300 silver not to mention several high level items and pieces of a rather large farm, and thats if we die now. its likely that even buying twists and shapecrafting we probably only grow our wealth in the long run. inheritance is quite secure I'd say.

that said, I agree that getting more money is always good. who knows what we will need it for, and obviously more for the kids is better

 

[KittyEmpress]

Spend all our money on shapecrafting and just have a permanent +6 speed or something.

We don't need money. We need power.

edit: is there actually a list of all the shapeshifting options somewhere? I haven't paid super close attention to that stuff besides the speed boosts because speed is the most important stat.

 

[Shard]

Hooknails had stupid amounts of Shapecrafting and he died to us. Just saying. Decisionmaking is more important than Shapeshifting by a big margin. More Shapeshifting is nice, but not critical.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

I mean, Halla has like, 3000 silver? and is not really anywhere near the end of her life. even if she has 9 kids, each is getting more than 300 silver not to mention several high level items and pieces of a rather large farm, and thats if we die now. its likely that even buying twists and shapecrafting we probably only grow our wealth in the long run. inheritance is quite secure I'd say.

that said, I agree that getting more money is always good. who knows what we will need it for, and obviously more for the kids is better

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Yeah, I'm not worried about them being poor, but more is more good, and I'd like to still have at least this much even after expenditures.

Spend all our money on shapecrafting and just have a permanent +6 speed or something.

We don't need money. We need power.

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I suspect there are very real limits on how much shapecrafting you can have done at all, and even more on how much you can have done at once. Plus we need money to reward our retainers and buy new trade goods to keep the money flowing. That said, I'm in no way arguing against shapecrafting, I'm all for it...exact degree depending on details of price and other logistics, I just think we need to keep enough money to have working capital to make more.

edit: is there actually a list of all the shapeshifting options somewhere? I haven't paid super close attention to that stuff besides the speed boosts because speed is the most important stat.

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It's in the mechanics post under Dice, Training, and Stats then under Hamr. And there are several other good options, though we're gonna want Speed for our Shapecrafting just because it's the one we want most universally...with Hamr 10 and the ability to shuffle slots around, the other uses become more situational.

 

[KittyEmpress]

See I think spending every penny we have is awesome. Sitting on wealth does nothing. If we need money in the future and don't have it? We can go raid somewhere and take loot, or go do mercenary work for the king of Britain since he likes us, or sell some of our absurdly high tier crafted goods.

Money spent makes more money. Money sat on... kind of does, if we need it for trade goods. But we spent like what, 30 silver total over all our purchases? Sure, let's save 50 or 100, I guess. But I don't think we need to save much more than that.

 

[Shard]

I think it would be kind of silly to spend all our money on Shapecrafting.

Shapeshifting does not persist past death, so it's money that isn't persisting past even Bodily Deaths, let alone Fated Days.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

See I think spending every penny we have is awesome. Sitting on wealth does nothing. If we need money in the future and don't have it? We can go raid somewhere and take loot, or go do mercenary work for the king of Britain since he likes us, or sell some of our absurdly high tier crafted goods.

Money spent makes more money. Money sat on... kind of does, if we need it for trade goods. But we spent like what, 30 silver total over all our purchases? Sure, let's save 50 or 100, I guess. But I don't think we need to save much more than that.

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Money spent on personal prowess does not generally make more money, honestly. It can save our lives and is not to be discounted, but it doesn't directly increase our revenue stream in any real way.

And valuable purchases including magic items are sometimes available...and a lot more than 50-100 oz of silver, to say nothing of the ability to get cool jewelry for our retainers (something we should be aiming for going forward). And heck, trade goods can be a lot more than that. The Healing Clay in our hold was 1000 silver all on its own, and the Wolf Pelts were in the hundreds. We got real lucky with the Hading Wood being cheap and selling high, but that can't be counted on.

We need to save at least 1000 silver as seed money, I think. Though that said, spending 2000 silver or more (after we sell that Healing Clay) on personal improvement stuff is not our of the question, but we need to stay wealthy enough to cover unforeseen expenses and have enough ready cash on hand to take advantage of opportunities.

I think it would be kind of silly to spend all our money on Shapecrafting.

Shapeshifting does not persist past death, so it's money that isn't persisting past even Bodily Deaths, let alone Fated Days.

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This is not quite true. Shapecrafting lasts through bodily death as long as they retrieve and bring back the original body, just not if you have to grow a new one.

But this is also a factor, yeah. And a reason to also look into Skalds to purchase Twists which persist a bit better. And are definitely another reason not to spend all our money on shapecrafting alone.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

We should also remember that Shapecrafter tend to be paranoid lunatics. Better make sure they don't put a kill switch into our head or something.

 

[KittyEmpress]

Money spent on personal prowess does not generally make more money, honestly. It can save our lives and is not to be discounted, but it doesn't directly increase our revenue stream in any real way.

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I mean, it does if we use any of the revenue streams that reward us for personal prowess? I get that we are a bit squeamish about raiding, but even mercenary work is 'turning prowess into cash'. Shapeshifting doesn't make us better at working our farm and making money off that, or make us a superior trader with a more glib tongue for negotiation, but it can make us better at ways of making money.

And with how our every trade mission gets attacked by Jotun, more personal prowess doesn't seem awry even if we intend to only make money via trading, never raiding.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

We should also remember that Shapecrafter tend to be paranoid lunatics. Better make sure they don't put a kill switch into our head or something.

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This is why we're going to Limpwrist who, for all his faults and I'm sure they are many, is relied upon by the Kyrsvikingar as a whole. He can't have held onto that position if his madness manifested that way.

I mean, it does if we use any of the revenue streams that reward us for personal prowess? I get that we are a bit squeamish about raiding, but even mercenary work is 'turning prowess into cash'. Shapeshifting doesn't make us better at working our farm and making money off that, or make us a superior trader with a more glib tongue for negotiation, but it can make us better at ways of making money.

And with how our every trade mission gets attacked by Jotun, more personal prowess doesn't seem awry even if we intend to only make money via trading, never raiding.

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I more mean that a few shapeshifting slots are a drop in the bucket as compared to a whole military force and thus barely relevant to what mercenary work we'd take. They give us an edge, but given the imprecise nature of enemy strengths we get when job hunting, not enough of one to matter in what mercenary jobs we select. Which generally have more to do with our whole crew's strength in combat than our own personally anyway.

Like, if we had 3 more Shapeshift Slots, we still would have taken the Thane job from Alfred, and it would have been exactly as profitable. I doubt having more slots would result in us taking any jobs we wouldn't take without them, y'know?

They're 100% worth getting and can be extremely useful to our personal survival, but we're almost never gonna make more money because of them.

 

[Shard]

Shapecrafting doesn't feel anywhere near as relevant when we already have like.. 6..? Pseudoshapecrafts from our runes. It's not nothing but it's not, like, a game changer. Using our money to buy loyalty seems more generally valuable.

Speaking of which, when are we doing the Fylgjur unveiling?

 

[KittyEmpress]

I more mean that a few shapeshifting slots are a drop in the bucket as compared to a whole military force and thus barely relevant to what mercenary work we'd take. They give us an edge, but given the imprecise nature of enemy strengths we get when job hunting, not enough of one to matter in what mercenary jobs we select. Which generally have more to do with our whole crew's strength in combat than our own personally anyway.

Like, if we had 3 more Shapeshift Slots, we still would have taken the Thane job from Alfred, and it would have been exactly as profitable. I doubt having more slots would result in us taking any jobs we wouldn't take without them, y'know

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I mean fair, but having more personal prowess is almost always going to be useful in any sort of fight. We just recently showed how Halla alone can change the course of a battle with a move, and before that we showed how close we could get to 1v3ing people considered Very Good. Could three shapeshifting slots have made a difference against our cousin? Could five? Ten?

Obviously how many shapecrafts we can get for all our money changes the value, and we cant know the price til we go. But if we can get 5, I feel that would be worthwhile. If they turn out to be like, 1k each? Okay, maybe not.

Edit: and personal prowess is important for loyalty too, don't forget. Presents earn loyalty, but a lot of our loyal followers have also been gained through thoroughly kicking ass.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Shapecrafting doesn't feel anywhere near as relevant when we already have like.. 6..? Pseudoshapecrafts from our runes. It's not nothing but it's not, like, a game changer. Using our money to buy loyalty seems more generally valuable.

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Depends how expensive they are, really. By this metric every two we buy saves us an action (and the mental effort for runes, and the material costs). And they're harder to take away and always on.

Speaking of which, when are we doing the Fylgjur unveiling?

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Next turn probably. IF confirmed for me that it's an action, but one action for everyone, so we can do that next turn.

I mean fair, but having more personal prowess is almost always going to be useful in any sort of fight. We just recently showed how Halla alone can change the course of a battle with a move, and before that we showed how close we could get to 1v3ing people considered Very Good. Could three shapeshifting slots have made a difference against our cousin? Could five? Ten?

Obviously how many shapecrafts we can get for all our money changes the value, and we cant know the price til we go. But if we can get 5, I feel that would be worthwhile. If they turn out to be like, 1k each? Okay, maybe not.

Edit: and personal prowess is important for loyalty too, don't forget. Presents earn loyalty, but a lot of our loyal followers have also been gained through thoroughly kicking ass.

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I mean, as Shard notes, we can get the same effect via Runes by spending actions. There's definitely a price point where they just aren't worth it. How much is an action worth? It's definitely worth a fair bit, but its value is not unlimited. If an action is 500 silver to us, then anything over about 300 each is too much for Shapecrafts. That's an example, mind you, not necessarily what I'd value actions at.

Personally, I suspect they are both cheaper than that, and capped in some way, but we'll have to see.

 

[Shard]

Fights are honestly more often decided by individual decisions than weight of shapeshifting.

Also, of our Huscarls gained..

Stigmar we got by being a decent person and saving our close friend Stigandr from Nidheart. Honestly that bar was really low.
Tryggr and Trausti, we saved Trausti's life with a Stabilizing Palm (worth noting: They were raiding us and we were like gonna kill them. Mercy pays.)
Kurt we got by doing normal Seer things so he could have a baby.
Kare and Ingulf are, well, they have their reasons stated.

Of the unsworn..

Vagn we rezzed and kicked ass on.
Eyesteinn just wants to be on our ride ig.

And the rejects..

We think Gorm is lazu
Skavidr's a spy.

 

[KittyEmpress]

Personally, I suspect they are both cheaper than that, and capped in some way, but we'll have to see.

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Yeah, I expect there must be some kind of cap or everyone would just get as many as they can afford, which doesnt quite seem the case. Hooknails had a lot of shapecrafting but not like, 'permanently speed 20' level. I'd like to reach that cap asap though. It seems just... logical to me, to cap our prowess wherever possible.

If we wanna survive until Halla's old age, at least.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Yeah, I expect there must be some kind of cap or everyone would just get as many as they can afford, which doesnt quite seem the case. Hooknails had a lot of shapecrafting but not like, 'permanently speed 20' level. I'd like to reach that cap asap though. It seems just... logical to me, to cap our prowess wherever possible.

If we wanna survive until Halla's old age, at least.

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I'm not against aiming for the cap, I'm just noting there are prices we could pay for that which would be higher than the value of being there. Realistically, I think we'll wind up buying as much shapecrafting as is available...one likely cap is 'double your slots' and I suspect we have enough silver to pay for 5-8 slots of shapecrafting and still have plenty of money.

Another plausible limitation (maybe combined with the above) is no more than a certain number of slots per session, and we'd probably max that out as well, depending.

 

[KittyEmpress]

And yeah I get that most of our fights have been decided by planning and doing things that aren't just big stats. But a lot of our plans also rely on some of our big stats. Pushing for big stats doesn't decrease our ability to have good plans, it just makes those plans more basically good.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

And yeah I get that most of our fights have been decided by planning and doing things that aren't just big stats. But a lot of our plans also rely on some of our big stats. Pushing for big stats doesn't decrease our ability to have good plans, it just makes those plans more basically good.

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Sure. I don't think anyone is arguing that increased stats are bad. We all like those, it's a matter of how good they are and how much we'd be willing to give up for them. Like, Shard voted to head to the shapecrafter, and while I think Jarl first, the shapecrafter is very much on the list...we're all on board, just not 'burn literally all of our money' kinda on board.

 

[Shard]

I would note that from the Tryggr example among our Huskarls, one of the ways we can get Huskarls is, basically, being way more nice even to our enemies than is needed. He was literally raiding us. Being a Drengskapr involves being magnanimous in victory, after all.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

I am still interested in trying to recruit Roar Shiningspear and Alvar the Half-Elf.

Roar because we lack in ranged specialists in our Hird at the moment. And also because Fleinns are really useful.

Alvar because i am really curious abaout his backstory and his powers. At least we can interact with him once to fix the first awkward interaction him and Halla had.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

I am still interested in trying to recruit Roar Shiningspear and Alvar the Half-Elf.

Roar because we lack in ranged specialists in our Hird at the moment. And also because Fleinns are really useful.

Alvar because i am really curious abaout his backstory and his powers. At least we can interact with him once to fix the first awkward interaction him and Halla had.

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We'll see who signs up for the second trip. I suspect people who aren't in for that also aren't up for recruitment. I'm cool with talking to both these folks if they return for the second trip, though.

 

[Skippy]

If we're talking about prospective huskarls, then I would like to get another female warrior for our hird personally.

Unlike many people who might be hesitant to employ them, we'd give them a fair shake. Also it would be hilarious if we had to officiate a marriage between two huskarls.

Well, she is an independent land owner with sworn warriors and a ship of her own. That's about as close as you can get to being a Jarl without actually being a Jarl.

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Also given the relation to Blackhand, she's effectively kinda dispossessed royalty, since he was ruler of Gotland? She's not actually heir to the sleeping throne of Gotland, that would presumably go to Brimir and then his eldest child or however they work out succession over in Skane? But we'd be part of the royal house nonetheless.

That's got to add some standing to our name for those who are aware of the context.