NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[KittyEmpress]

I say we recruit the spy. Whether we feed him false info, recruit him to our side, or just keep him close and monitored, there's plenty of benefits. Unless we think he's willing to go full Nid and like, assassinate our children I don't think the risk is too big.

I assume we aren't telling each and every person in our employ that Dorri was involved in Steinnar's death, though I'm not certain on exactly who knows and who doesn't. As long as it's with a relatively few people, I think we are safe to recruit.

The worst he could really report on is how strong everyone is, but... we aren't exactly holding back on power, ever.

Edit: Decided to list some short term long term pros I see of recruiting.

Short Term Mechanical
More work dice for the farm - lets us make improvements to our workshop, create our tournament grounds, build our training yard, etc that much faster.
More xp - by incorporating him into our training regimen (as we do all our followers with time, and intend to do when we get home AFAIK), we gain more XP every season. More XP = stronger for the inevitable fight.

Long Term Story
Provides us a direct means to observe and find dirt on Dorri - if he's working for Dorri or Drysalt directly, we will have our enemy close, without him knowing we know. This helps us with building evidence potentially.
Potential to turn traitor - Halla is an excellent person to work under. She rewards well, builds insanely good weapons and armor, and we strike it rich every single time we set out to sea. There's good potential for her to win him over.

Long Term Mechanical
Jarlsoul - if we can get him into our hird properly, that's another step towards Jarlsoul, which still seems like the easiest way we can increase our personal power in the moment to me.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

I'm pretty strongly against recruiting Skavidr. I don't have any real faith in our ability to reliably turn him, and it tips our hand to try. I'm less worried about what info he might pass on (though it's a concern) and much more about what else he might do...letting enemy agents around our children is a bad idea and I'm against it. The up sides are not worth the down sides.

Realistically what we know already is that:
(1) Dorri was suspicious enough of us to place a spy in our midst, and may know we're suspicious of him.
(2) Dorri knows we've been to Skane, the logical place we would go to seek military aid from our kin.
(3) Dorri almost certainly knows we've had an additional meeting with Corpsemaker.
(4) Dorri has recently hired invisible spirits and placed them near our farm, and possesses unknown levels of spiritual aid.
(5) Dorri is not obliged to wait until we're ready to deal with him.

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I think #3 is pretty weak. We literally sold Corpsemaker a bunch of stuff and can say as much, and seeking military aid from our kin to deal with Steinarr's killers does not in any way even imply we know he was involved...the rest are, I think, just things he'd do with anyone strong enough. I don't think he has any reason to actually suspect us, and don't think he can afford to move against us directly unless he has a lot more reason to believe we're on to him (in fact, he has none).

Like, Dorri is clearly keeping an eye on things, or trying, but he'd need to be nearly shapecrafter level paranoid to suspect we're onto him from the information he has. And we're about to continue delivering on our deal with him...I think we have reason to believe that his suspicions are not quite that at the forefront.

Furthermore, for our free personal action, I think we should speak to Solrun and brief her, then ask for her help on magical means of surveillance. Her Seersight might well allow her to simply observe Dorri and Drysalt, simplifying things immediately - her witness testimony could probably sway the Thing by itself.

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We get free questions for Solrun, I suspect we can use one of them for this.

More generally, I do think we may have less time than the Horra situation, but not so much because of Dorri as because of Corpsemaker. We gave him information on Dorri...he's gonna be using it, one way or another. I personally think we still have a few years, but that's still a lot less time than we had on the Horra situation.

Short Term Mechanical
More work dice for the farm - lets us make improvements to our workshop, create our tournament grounds, build our training yard, etc that much faster.
More xp - by incorporating him into our training regimen (as we do all our followers with time, and intend to do when we get home AFAIK), we gain more XP every season. More XP = stronger for the inevitable fight.

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These are very weak mechanical incentives. We are about to have a shitload of Work Dice and 3 xp per turn (or thereabouts) is nice, but in no way worth letting an enemy agent into our home. Not at the level of xp we're gonna have even without it.

Long Term Mechanical
Jarlsoul - if we can get him into our hird properly, that's another step towards Jarlsoul, which still seems like the easiest way we can increase our personal power in the moment to me.

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This only happens if he swears an oath to serve us. As a spy, he won't and can't do that. It's technically possible if we turn him, but not soon and not very likely, I don't think.

 

[Skippy]

I think #3 is pretty weak. We literally sold Corpsemaker a bunch of stuff and can say as much, and seeking military aid from our kin to deal with Steinarr's killers does not in any way even imply we know he was involved...the rest are, I think, just things he'd do with anyone strong enough. I don't think he has any reason to actually suspect us, and don't think he can afford to move against us directly unless he has a lot more reason to believe we're on to him (in fact, he has none).

Like, Dorri is clearly keeping an eye on things, or trying, but he'd need to be nearly shapecrafter level paranoid to suspect we're onto him from the information he has. And we're about to continue delivering on our deal with him...I think we have reason to believe that his suspicions are not quite that at the forefront.

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Dorri suspected that Corpsemaker wanted to speak with us after Steinarr's funeral to recruit us as an ally, offering us the Jarldom as an incentive, because he told us so himself. Then we go and see Corpsemaker a couple of months later, despite our noted dislike of the man? The fact that there is a technically innocent explanation we could offer does not mean Dorri is obligated to believe that. It's a big red flag. Continuing delivering on our deal helps a little bit, but it's also what we'd do if we were his enemy and attempting to allay suspicion by keeping up our agreement - as is in fact the case.

We also do not know what the ant heard before it was squashed, I'm pretty sure? (Unless people checked that with IF) The very decision to put a spy in our midst represents a major escalation in how he's dealt with us, one not without costs to our relationship with Dorri given the chance of discovery. That implies something has recently changed in terms of how much he thinks he needs to keep tabs on us. Notably this decision must have been taken before Skane and our second meeting with Corpsemaker, and before we did another big round of trying to recruit more huskarls, so we've only given him more potential reasons for suspicion since then.

To be clear, I think it's certainly possible that Dorri does not suspect us. But I also think that the chance is high enough that we simply cannot afford to assume he does not.

We get free questions for Solrun, I suspect we can use one of them for this.

More generally, I do think we may have less time than the Horra situation, but not so much because of Dorri as because of Corpsemaker. We gave him information on Dorri...he's gonna be using it, one way or another. I personally think we still have a few years, but that's still a lot less time than we had on the Horra situation.

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This is also a good point. Corpsemaker is going to want to try and move before Dorri is ready. We probably want to try and expose Dorri before he and Corpsemaker are in open warfare, or the Hading will get drawn in, and a lot of people we like will become collateral damage.

For Solrun, I don't think it's a matter of just asking questions, we want her full and active participation in a round-the-clock surveillance effort. Dozens of spirits contracted and paid, scrying rituals, the works. This is not the kind of thing where we want a halfhearted effort, or asking some vaguely-worded questions, and a turn going by before we can act on the answers.

This is an existential threat to the Hading, and we need to swing into a war footing until it is resolved.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Dorri suspected that Corpsemaker wanted to speak with us after Steinarr's funeral to recruit us as an ally, offering us his position, because he told us so himself. Then we go and see Corpsemaker a couple of months later, despite our noted dislike of the man? The fact that there is a technically innocent explanation we could offer does not mean Dorri is obligated to believe that. It's a massive red flag. Continuing delivering on our deal helps a little bit, but it's also what we'd do if we were his enemy and attempting to allay suspicion by keeping up our agreement - as is in fact the case.

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Refusing Corpsemaker isn't easy and Dorri knows that. We could be trying to remain neutral (as was indeed the plan at one point), and that requires a counterbalance to our ongoing deal with Dorri. But more importantly, even the suspicion heavy version means he thinks we've taken Corpsemaker's deal, not that we know about Drysalt or his hand in Steinarr's death. The two are very different things and provoke entirely different responses.

I think him being suspicious we've taken Corpsemaker's deal is very possible...him being suspicious we know he was involved in Steinarr's death and is in bed with Drysalt? Much less so.

We also do not know what the ant heard before it was squashed, I'm pretty sure? (Unless people checked that with IF) The very decision to put a spy in our midst represents a major escalation in how he's dealt with us, one not without costs to our relationship with Dorri given the chance of discovery. That implies something has recently changed in terms of how much he thinks he needs to keep tabs on us. Notably this decision must have been taken before Skane and our second meeting with Corpsemaker, and before we did another big round of trying to recruit more huskarls, so we've only given him more potential reasons for suspicion since then.

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There was nothing to overhear. We didn't ask our question aloud, and the answers were written, not spoken. The odds the ant spotted the answers are very low (Framarr could not use his ants to get an accurate count of people in a room...their vision is not very precise) and without the context of the questions even if it did, that doesn't reveal much.

Realistically, I think he's just taking precautions because we're his biggest local political rival whether we want to be or not...putting a spy in the camp of the person Corpsemaker wants to replace him with is good sense even leaving aside everything else.

This is also a good point. Corpsemaker is going to want to try and move before Dorri is ready. We probably want to try and expose Dorri before he and Corpsemaker are in open warfare, or the Hading will get drawn in, and a lot of people we like will become collateral damage.

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Yeah, that's the biggest worry here in terms of timeline pressure, I think.

For Solrun, I don't think it's a matter of just asking questions, we want her full and active participation in a round-the-clock surveillance effort. Dozens of spirits contracted and paid, scrying rituals, the works. This is not the kind of thing where we want a halfhearted effort, or asking some vaguely-worded questions, and a turn going by before we can act on the answers.

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We have asked for serious stuff as part of our 'free' questions with her before. My point is that we can do so again, asking for her full efforts, without spending an action. We already have an 'action' dedicated to her seidr instruction, so using it to get her help with seidr is pretty straightforward.

That said, Solrun can't actually do what you're suggesting. Using her Scrysight for more than brief periods is riskier and riskier for her, we've seen that, and 'round the clock surveillance'? She'd be burned out and permanently crippled within the day. We can get her help, and should, but not like that.

This is an existential threat to the Hading, and we need to swing into a war footing until it is resolved.

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This, I definitely agree with. This is a serious situation.

 

[KittyEmpress]

I wonder what Dorri would do if we did just show up with the entire family-warband from Skane and didn't bother trying to go through legal process to prove he's working with Drysalt? With Corpsemaker already after his head and everything, it's not like Corpsemaker would intervene. And it's not like he could call on Drysalt actively to deal with the invasion - not without turning his own men against him and giving us our justification in the aftermath.

Obviously it'd end up with us fighting and possibly killing people of Hading we semi know, but it's a funny thought that we could probably just... roll over the town by force if we had to. The only thing stopping that is... that we want a perfect victory, where less people die, and we get a good reputation instead of a violent one.

 

[Skippy]

Refusing Corpsemaker isn't easy and Dorri knows that. We could be trying to remain neutral (as was indeed the plan at one point), and that requires a counterbalance to our ongoing deal with Dorri. But more importantly, even the suspicion heavy version means he thinks we've taken Corpsemaker's deal, not that we know about Drysalt or his hand in Steinarr's death. The two are very different things and provoke entirely different responses.

I think him being suspicious we've taken Corpsemaker's deal is very possible...him being suspicious we know he was involved in Steinarr's death and is in bed with Drysalt? Much less so.

There was nothing to overhear. We didn't ask our question aloud, and the answers were written, not spoken. The odds the ant spotted the answers are very low (Framarr coulkd not use his ants to get an accurate count of people in a room...their vision is not very precise) and without the context of the questions even if it did, that doesn't reveal much.

Realistically, I think he's just taking precautions because we're his biggest local political rival whether we want to be or not...putting a spy in the camp of the person Corpsemaker wants to replace him with is good sense even leaving aside everything else.

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It's certainly possible that he is spying on us simply because we're a local political rival. The ant actually shows he's been trying to spy on us since before he sent Skavidr, which realistically means there could be another method of spying we don't know about, I'd add. But a natural thought after you pull off an assassination attempt is "Are they going to know I was behind this?". It's not a question which will be far from his mind.

And there has been a noted uptick in concerning stuff we've been doing, all dating to recently Steinarr's death. Going to Skane, gathering more huskarls, not to mention our having communicated with two other Steelfathers - Ironjaw and Careful-Stepper - who were friendly with Blackhand or Steinarr. Given what an abrupt shift it is in Halla's normal behaviour thus far, and how much it looks like we are gathering allies for a confrontation we expect soon, it should raise our threat profile in his estimation.

The ant does not need to have seen our questions, all it needs to have seen is that we were doing a scrying. A six year old child could guess what we were scrying about.

To be clear, this is not definitive. But it is definitely realistic prospect that he suspects us, and I think it is wishful thinking to view it otherwise.

We have asked for serious stuff as part of our 'free' questions with her before. My point is that we can do so again, asking for her full efforts, without spending an action. We already have an 'action' dedicated to her seidr instruction, so using it to get her help with seidr is pretty straightforward.

That said, Solrun can't actually do what you're suggesting. Using her Scrysight for more than brief periods is riskier and riskier for her, we've seen that, and 'round the clock surveillance'? She'd be burned out and permanently crippled within the day. We can get her help, and should, but not like that.

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To be clear, I'm not suggesting that she uses her Scrysight all the time - that should be used in a focused way, and deferring to her judgement. What I'm suggesting is that we hire invisible spiritual spies and run a network of them, with her working 24/7 on coordinating dozens or hundreds of spirits, and multiple scrying spells. Think of all the ways a more powerful and knowledgeable Seidr user than ourselves could try and do magical surveillance. We want twelve of everything.

Using our personal/social action necessarily involves a much more active commitment of time than just our free questions, and this is a vast undertaking which we will want to spend hundreds of hours on. Therefore, I think we obviously we want to go for the option representing the larger investment of time. We should use our free questions on this too, of course.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Obviously it'd end up with us fighting and possibly killing people of Hading we semi know, but it's a funny thought that we could probably just... roll over the town by force if we had to. The only thing stopping that is... that we want a perfect victory, where less people die, and we get a good reputation instead of a violent one.

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I mean we more than semi-know Audrikr, as just one example, but this is potentially possible. I'm a lot less confident in our ability to pull it off, though...specifically, I think Dorri probably would call in Drysalt before he died. It'd be a last resort for the reasons you mention, but people who are losing use their last resorts. Drysalt showing up when our side is already weakened heavily by battle (Dorri's people are no slouches) is probably a Very Bad Thing.

And, even if we win and Drysalt doesn't get called immediately, weakening the Hading's fighting forces any more than is needed right before a war is very problematic. To say nothing of Drysalt taking advantage of that wekaness even if he chooses to leave Dorri out to dry.

We could do this, but I think the consequences are a lot worse than just a few more people dying and a worse reputation.

 

[Skippy]

Yeah, the difficulty with threading the needle here is not just beating Dorri. We have enough allies assembled to do that with either Corpsemaker or Skane, let alone both of them. It's beating Dorri in a way that avoids killing most of our neighbours and leaving the Hading a ruin, and sets our family up in a good position in the aftermath, and defangs or mitigates him using Drysalt as his nuclear option as much as possible.

We want to isolate Dorri from his base of support in the Hading, which means we need to expose his crimes. Then we either need to get Dorri to climb down, or if he calls on Drysalt as a desperation play, we want to try and minimise collateral by having that confrontation happen when we have a bunch of allies assembled ,and at a time and place of our choosing.

It's also worth considering that Drysalt may simply decide to abandon Dorri if it looks like Dorri no longer has enough support to be a useful ally or catspaw. I don't think we know enough yet to know whether that would be a good or bad thing, necessarily, but it's definitely something to ponder.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

It's certainly possible that he is spying on us simply because we're a local political rival. The ant actually shows he's been trying to spy on us since before he sent Skavidr, which realistically means there could be another method of spying we don't know about, I'd add. But a natural thought after you pull off an assassination attempt is "Are they going to know I was behind this?". It's not a question which will be far from his mind.

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The thing is, we've talked to him, in a fairly friendly way, since Steinarr's death. That was before we knew, of course, but it's very relevant to his impression of us. I think he'd be concerned about us finding out, absolutely, what I don't think is that he'll assume we already have. One good reason to put a spy in our camp is to keep us from doing so.

And there has been a noted uptick in concerning stuff we've been doing, all dating to recently Steinarr's death. Going to Skane, gathering more huskarls, not to mention our having communicated with two other Steelfathers - Ironjaw and Careful-Stepper - who were friendly with Blackhand or Steinarr. Given what an abrupt shift it is in Halla's normal behaviour thus far, and how much it looks like we are gathering allies for a confrontation we expect soon, it should raise our threat profile in his estimation.

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We've been recruiting huskarls every trip since we were 16 years old, it is not new behavior. Folkmarr complained about it at the time. And the rest is telling family and friends about Steinarr's death. It's not actually new and suspicious.

The ant does not need to have seen our questions, all it needs to have seen is that we were doing a scrying. A six year old child could guess what we were scrying about.

To be clear, this is not definitive. But it is definitely realistic prospect that he suspects us, and I think it is wishful thinking to view it otherwise.

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Dorri doesn't know we know that Steinarr's death was a hired hit. As far as he knows we have literally zero reason to believe anything of the kind. So why would we be asking about that specific thing? A 6 year old could know that if they knew the right background info, sure, but they'd need to have info Dorri doesn't to get that conclusion.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that she uses her Scrysight all the time - that should be used in a focused way, and deferring to her judgement. What I'm suggesting is that we hire invisible spiritual spies and run a network of them, with her working 24/7 on coordinating dozens or hundreds of spirits, and multiple scrying spells. Think of all the ways a more powerful and knowledgeable Seidr user than ourselves could try and do magical surveillance. We want twelve of everything.

Using our personal/social action necessarily involves a much more active commitment of time than just our free questions, and this is a vast undertaking which we will want to spend hundreds of hours on. Therefore, I think we obviously we want to go for the option representing the larger investment of time. We should use our free questions on this too, of course.

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We also have a lot of other needs for our actions. Like, a lot. Getting our entire retinue's Fylgjas unveiled is both needed and time sensitive, for instance. I see no reason not to talk to Solrun while doing our instruction...we can spend an action on top of that if we need to in order to get her help.

Honestly, I was sort of assuming she'd be invited to the family meeting where we tell people what happened to Steinarr (already in the action queue), but we might need to make that more explicit...

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

I am against recruiting the spy. I don't think we can trust him as a double agent. And i don't want an enemy so close to the children.

Also, something i just thinked abaout:

1 Weird teeth necklace thing. Six large, pointy teeth sit on a woven cord. Each tooth hums with power. Clearly a necklace of trophies, perhaps allowing one to summon past kills to assist them?

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Begin able to summon past enemies was a really good ability before.

But now we have killed a JOTUN!

We ABSOLUTELY need to experiment with the necklace and discover what it can do.

If the creatures it summons are equal to the original, then we have an anti-Steelfather weapon.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Begin able to summon past enemies was a really good ability before.

But now we have killed a JOTUN!

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I'm pretty positive it summons the creatures whose teeth are on it. We might or might not be able to add new teeth, but I doubt we can do Jotun summoning without Jotun-teeth.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't check, necessarily, just that we should keep our expectations under control.

 

[alexthealright]

Hey Blackhand do you recall any details about how Drysalt killed most of the valley? Did he have a weapon? Did he use his bare hands? Did he use some kind of spell?

 

[Skippy]

The thing is, we've talked to him, in a fairly friendly way, since Steinarr's death. That was before we knew, of course, but it's very relevant to his impression of us. I think he'd be concerned about us finding out, absolutely, what I don't think is that he'll assume we already have. One good reason to put a spy in our camp is to keep us from doing so.


We've been recruiting huskarls every trip since we were 16 years old, it is not new behavior. Folkmarr complained about it at the time. And the rest is telling family and friends about Steinarr's death. It's not actually new and suspicious.

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To be clear, as I have repeatedly said, I am not saying it is 100% for definite that he suspects us. I am saying there is a significant probability he does. He does not even need to be completely sure to suspect us - just worried about it, on the balance of probabilities.

Dorri doesn't know we know that Steinarr's death was a hired hit. As far as he knows we have literally zero reason to believe anything of the kind. So why would we be asking about that specific thing? A 6 year old could know that if they knew the right background info, sure, but they'd need to have info Dorri doesn't to get that conclusion.

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But... Dorri still knows that Halla would want to know why a band of the forty strongest men in the raid came to her farm specifically to kill Steinarr? They made a beeline for our secret bunker in the Underhouse, a location they should not have known existed! It's an at the very least a pretty wild and calamitous coincidence that they simply happened upon that location, specifically, and not elsewhere. Without having stopped to loot a single neighbouring farm, no less, unless I'm misremembering.

If Halla is doing a scrying, then finding out more about that is obviously her Question #1. Even if it weren't, the risk is so high that Dorri has to take the prospect seriously.

We also have a lot of other needs for our actions. Like, a lot. Getting our entire retinue's Fylgjas unveiled is both needed and time sensitive, for instance. I see no reason not to talk to Solrun while doing our instruction...we can spend an action on top of that if we need to in order to get her help.

Honestly, I was sort of assuming she'd be invited to the family meeting where we tell people what happened to Steinarr (already in the action queue), but we might need to make that more explicit...

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I see spending a Personal Action on talking to Solrun as basically equating to significant fraction of Halla's energy and focus on spending time with her, which I think we'll need to do if we want to set up and run a massive supernatural surveillance operation. We need a massive supernatural surveillance operation to find out what the hell Dorri is planning with Drysalt, and gather incriminating evidence on him.

Unveiling our retainer's Flygias is nice, but it's not "existential risk of everyone we love being eaten by a mad Troll-King" kind of urgent. It could wait a turn.

Now, if we have explicit confirmation from IF that we can still coordinate with Solrun to establish the NSA (Norse Spirit Agency) to watch Dorri and his family every second of the day, without spending our free Personal action on Solrun? The fine, there's no issue. But I would want to be sure of that beforehand.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

I'm pretty positive it summons the creatures whose teeth are on it. We might or might not be able to add new teeth, but I doubt we can do Jotun summoning without Jotun-teeth.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't check, necessarily, just that we should keep our expectations under control.

Click to shrink...

If it needs teeths in the necklace, then we could give it to one of Halla children. So they can start collecting thropies since they are young.

 

[KittyEmpress]

Honestly I'm not sure unveiling Fylgjas is actually even a great idea in the short term. They don't do much to start, and can be killed to kill their owner, and distract from raising other things.

Taking people who have Hamr 10 or nearly and giving them Fylgja 1 is not gonna make immediate big gains for them.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

But... Dorri still knows that Halla would want to know why a band of the forty strongest men in the raid came to our farm specifically to kill Steinarr? They made a beeline for our secret bunker in the Underhouse, a location they should not have known existed! It's an at the very least a pretty wild and calamitous coincidence that they simply happened upon that location, and not elsewhere.

If Halla is doing a scrying, then finding out more about that is obviously Question #1. Even if it weren't, the risk is so high that Dorri has to take the prospect seriously.

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Uh...they tortured Eric to find out the info on the Underhouse's general location. We know exactly how they know that. Which does indeed mean we know they were after Steinarr...but they are literally people from an enemy nation on the eve of war, targeting Steinarr is actually a super logical strategic move for them to make on Heljarskinn's orders. The part he has every reason to believe we don't know is that someone in the Hading hired them.

And remember, we needed to provide the answers ourselves and the divination picked between them. Without knowing it was someone in the Hading who was involved, we would not have been able to narrow it down like we did.

To be clear, as I have repeatedly said, I am not saying it is 100% for definite that he suspects us. I am saying there is a significant probability he does. He does not even need to be completely sure to suspect us - just worried about it, on the balance of probabilities.



But... Dorri still knows that Halla would want to know why a band of the forty strongest men in the raid came to her farm specifically to kill Steinarr? They made a beeline for our secret bunker in the Underhouse, a location they should not have known existed! It's an at the very least a pretty wild and calamitous coincidence that they simply happened upon that location, specifically, and not elsewhere. Without having stopped to loot a single neighbouring farm, no less, unless I'm misremembering.

If Halla is doing a scrying, then finding out more about that is obviously her Question #1. Even if it weren't, the risk is so high that Dorri has to take the prospect seriously.



I see spending a Personal Action on talking to Solrun as basically equating to significant fraction of Halla's energy and focus on spending time with her, which I think we'll need to do if we want to set up and run a massive supernatural surveillance operation. We need a massive supernatural surveillance operation to find out what the hell Dorri is planning with Drysalt, and gather incriminating evidence on him.

Unveiling our retainer's Flygias is nice, but it's not "existential risk of everyone we love being eaten by a mad Troll-King" kind of urgent. It could wait a turn.

Now, if we have explicit confirmation from IF that we can still coordinate with Solrun to establish the NSA (Norse Spirit Agency) to watch Dorri and his family every second of the day, without spending our free Personal action on Solrun? The fine, there's no issue. But I would want to be sure of that beforehand.

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I feel like Solrun will already do almost all of that on her own to the best of her ability as soon as we inform her of the situation in any way. Solrun is big on paranoid surveillance. I also suspect it won't be nearly as helpful as you're hoping. Solrun's methods couldn't find anything out on Horra, and Dorri has much better resources and backing for anti-seer stuff, as well as a good excuse to use it (enemy seeresses are certainly a thing and he's a military as well as political leader).

Like, I give this a better than 95% chance of just failing outright to provide meaningful intel on Dorri because he takes serious precautions. Asking her about those precautions remains valid, but magical surveillance just has to be something he expects and is prepared for.

If it needs teeths in the necklace, then we could give it to one of Halla children. So they can start collecting thropies since they are young.

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I'm actually pretty sure it's a consumable we don't know how to make more of. I doubt adding teeth to the necklace is actually possible, though it's worth checking.

Honestly I'm not sure unveiling Fylgjas is actually even a great idea in the short term. They don't do much to start, and can be killed to kill their owner, and distract from raising other things.

Taking people who have Hamr 10 or nearly and giving them Fylgja 1 is not gonna make immediate big gains for them.

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Yes it does. If it's a wolf it doubles all their damage, if it's a bear it doubles their Endurance, and so on. The passives for having your Fylgja unveiled at all are enormous.

 

[Skippy]

Honestly I'm not sure unveiling Fylgjas is actually even a great idea in the short term. They don't do much to start, and can be killed to kill their owner, and distract from raising other things.

Taking people who have Hamr 10 or nearly and giving them Fylgja 1 is not gonna make immediate big gains for them.

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Getting killed by having your Flygia killed seems to require the Flygia to be around in combat. The only time we've seen that happen was to Aki, who was using his Flygia to fight as a way of dealing with his disability. If someone isn't doing that, then during combat I think their Flygia can just disappear and chill out in their soul or wherever.

The boost from having a Flygia revealed isn't primarily a stats based one - as far as I know our Flygia stat isn't used for many things to begin with - it's that Flygia have abilities, some of them really strong. Like, a Bear Flygia is a major boost to Endurance, and a Wolf Flygia doubles damage, and so on. These notably scale, and are just as useful for someone at Hamr 10 as they would be for someone at Hamr 3.

So there's a definite utility to it, but if we had to prioritise magically spying on Dorri, or revealing Flygia, I'd be willing to delay revealing Flygia by a turn.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Getting killed by having your Flygia killed seems to require the Flygia to be around in combat. The only time we've seen that happen was to Aki, who was using his Flygia to fight as a way of dealing with his disability. If someone isn't doing that, then during combat I think their Flygia can just disappear and chill out in their soul or wherever.

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This is correct.

The boost from having a Flygia revealed isn't primarily a stats based one - as far as I know our Flygia stat isn't used for many things to begin with - it's that Flygia have abilities, some of them really strong. Like, a Bear Flygia is a major boost to Endurance, and a Wolf Flygia doubles damage, and so on. These notably scale, and are just as useful for someone at Hamr 10 as they would be for someone at Hamr 3.

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Arguably, many are better. Someone with Hamr 10 and a Wolf Fylgja can easily wind up doing north of 30 or 40 damage per attack with their Big Damage options, which is a lot more impressive than doubling 2 damage to 4 damage.

So there's a definite utility to it, but if we had to prioritise magically spying on Dorri, or revealing Flygia, I'd be willing to delay revealing Flygia by a turn.

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Again, based on Horra, I'm pretty sure this will flatly fail. I'm certainly happy to ask Solrun about it anyway, but Dorri is gonna have defenses at least as good as Horra's and likely better. Horra successfully concealed multiple elephants from Solrun. Literally. And she was as motivated to screw him over as was humanly possible.

 

[KittyEmpress]

I actually forgot that most Fyljga options are just absurd to start with, that's fair. For some reason I was thinking those passive bonuses scaled with the stat, instead of being frontloaded with certain evolutions adding even more passives later.

 

[Skippy]

Uh...they tortured Eric to find out the info on the Underhouse's general location. We know exactly how they know that. Which does indeed mean we know they were after Steinarr...but they are literally people from an enemy nation on the eve of war, targeting Steinarr is actually a super logical strategic move for them to make on Heljarskinn's orders. The part he has every reason to believe we don't know is that someone in the Hading hired them.

And remember, we needed to provide the answers ourselves and the divination picked between them. Without knowing it was someone in the Hading who was involved, we would not have been able to narrow it down like we did.

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Oh, that was how they found out about it? Fair enough.

Still, I think that knowing they were after Steinarr specifically is enough of a red flag. (It actually does not make sense as a purely military objective, IMO, given they basically abandoned their whole force just to send forty guys to kill him - he's a valuable target, but not that valuable.) Like, Halla would still want to know why they were after Steinarr, and who was behind it. If we're doing a scrying specifically, it's obviously going to be about that.

Also, going back and reading the update, we didn't learn from Alarik that Steinarr was killed by someone in the Hading. We learned that they were contracted by "a man with no face and name". Was there some later factor which caused us to learn someone in the Hading specifically was responsible?

I don't recall what inspired us to put Dorri in the suspect list - whether we'd gotten other info somehow, or it was just an inspired guess - but we had a "Somebody Else" stick. Three questions could plausibly still have been enough for us to get to Dorri if we'd started casting the net wider, or via having Drysalt on our list and asking about allies. The risk is high enough that Dorri couldn't exactly discount it if he knew we'd done a scrying.

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I feel like Solrun will already do almost all of that on her own to the best of her ability as soon as we inform her of the situation in any way. Solrun is big on paranoid surveillance. I also suspect it won't be nearly as helpful as you're hoping. Solrun's methods couldn't find anything out on Horra, and Dorri has much better resources and backing for anti-seer stuff, as well as a good excuse to use it (enemy seeresses are certainly a thing and he's a military as well as political leader).

Like, I give this a better than 95% chance of just failing outright to provide meaningful intel on Dorri because he takes serious precautions. Asking her about those precautions remains valid, but magical surveillance just has to be something he expects and is prepared for.

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Again, based on Horra, I'm pretty sure this will flatly fail. I'm certainly happy to ask Solrun about it anyway, but Dorri is gonna have defenses at least as good as Horra's and likely better. Horra successfully concealed multiple elephants from Solrun. Literally. And she was as motivated to screw him over as was humanly possible.

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That's... a fair point. Like, on one level, I think that if we're involved there's a higher chance of something working, because we have greater narrative agency. However, that being said, it's still a very good point.

My original proposal was always having us doing surveillance as well, backed up by extensive spiritual and magical assistance. Given the point you've raised, I think perhaps we might want to weight our efforts slightly more towards ensuring we don't get spotted, as well as general magical SIGINT stuff.

 

[alexthealright]

given they basically abandoned their whole force just to send forty guys to kill him - he's a valuable target, but not that valuable.

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I mean.. he did kill all forty of their best guys singlehandedly.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

Like, I give this a better than 95% chance of just failing outright to provide meaningful intel on Dorri because he takes serious precautions. Asking her about those precautions remains valid, but magical surveillance just has to be something he expects and is prepared for.

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We coild ask her to watch Dorri family, retainers or other members of his Household. He can protect himself, but he should't be able to protect everyone araound him.

 

[KittyEmpress]

Please remember that spying on people and invading property and stuff is in fact very illegal, and Horra almost got away with a defense based entirely on 'how do YOU know that?' mixed with 'I have witnesses corroborating how you invaded my property and spied on me'. We were slightly in the lead despite that, but it was very much up in the air despite him basically not defending himself at all, just pointing out how we could only know X if we did Y, and how illegal all that is.

From what little I know of Norse law, it seems the best way to do legal stuff is instead to gather witnesses and people to proclaim for your side (or just buy out people but that's probably hard)? Which is very different from spying and going onto property and stuff. We need to find Dorri's weaknesses, people in his employ who we could turn against him, imo.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Oh, that was how they found out about it? Fair enough.

Still, I think that knowing they were after Steinarr specifically is enough of a red flag. (It actually does not make sense as a purely military objective, IMO, given they basically abandoned their whole force just to send forty guys to kill him - he's a valuable target, but not that valuable.) Like, Halla would still want to know why they were after Steinarr, and who was behind it. If we're doing a scrying specifically, it's obviously going to be about that.

Also, going back and reading the update, we didn't learn from Alarik that Steinarr was killed by someone in the Hading. We learned that they were contracted by "a man with no face and name". Was there some later factor which caused us to learn someone in the Hading specifically was responsible?

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IF noted the full list of what he said in commentary after the post itself, it included the Hading thing. The post ended on a 'Wham!' line, but more details were then provided.

I don't recall what inspired us to put Dorri in the suspect list - whether we'd gotten other info somehow, or it was just an inspired guess - but we had a "Somebody Else" stick. Three questions could plausibly still have been enough for us to get to Dorri if we'd started casting the net wider, or via having Drysalt on our list and asking about allies. The risk is high enough that Dorri couldn't exactly discount it if he knew we'd done a scrying

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Dorri wasn't actually very high on the list. We just listed literally all the important people we could think of in the Hading. So...he was on the list sort of by default. We were very intentionally casting a wide net.

And I don't think Dorri is dismissing the possibility we know completely, but he also has no reason to actually think it's true. He's probably watching us carefully for evidence of that being true, but that's very different from already knowing. He's watching because it's a worry he has, not because he actually thinks it's happened.

That's... a fair point. Like, on one level, I think that if we're involved there's a higher chance of something working, because we have greater narrative agency. However, that being said, it's still a very good point.

My original proposal was always having us doing surveillance as well, backed up by extensive spiritual and magical assistance. Given the point you've raised, I think perhaps we might want to weight our efforts slightly more towards ensuring we don't get spotted, as well as general magical SIGINT stuff.

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I'm on board with spying once we have actions to do that and a direction to aim it in, I'm just dubious that solrun's magic alone will be sufficient.

Please remember that spying on people and invading property and stuff is in fact very illegal, and Horra almost got away with a defense based entirely on 'how do YOU know that?' mixed with 'I have witnesses corroborating how you invaded my property and spied on me'. We were slightly in the lead despite that, but it was very much up in the air despite him basically not defending himself at all, just pointing out how we could only know X if we did Y, and how illegal all that is.

From what little I know of Norse law, it seems the best way to do legal stuff is instead to gather witnesses and people to proclaim for your side (or just buy out people but that's probably hard)? Which is very different from spying and going onto property and stuff. We need to find Dorri's weaknesses, people in his employ who we could turn against him, imo.

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Ehhhh...it depends on how damning what you find is. This is what Horra was trying, but if we'd had the chance to bring up his Cave of Draugr or the Weapon Deal with bandits it would not have mattered. We just didn't get that chance. Spying on people is of dubious legality on their own property, but the Norse don't see it as inherently dishonorable so it gets a pass if what we find is bad enough, and spying on people away from their own property is just straight-up legal (the only crime involved is trespassing).

Really, watching Dorri at home is worthless, IMO, because he lives with a bunch of people and they can't all be in on it. We need to watch where he goes when he leaves his home, especially alone or with only a very small number of people. That would be legal.

 

[Skippy]

I mean.. he did kill all forty of their best guys singlehandedly.

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Sure, but he died doing it, and that's despite being stronger than they expected.

To me, "Kill Steinarr specifically, leaving the rest of your force cut off to go do so" does not make sense as a military objective given that (A) it was a pyrrhic victory on their part (B) there were much greater and more urgent priorities, like defeating the force we had in the field, or extricating their other forces, or simply raiding. The monofocus on Steinarr essentially cost them nearly their entire force. That really only makes sense as a targeted killing, not a deliberate military decision.

At the end of the day, if Steinarr's personal prowess was so valuable to Agder in the war that it would be worth losing an entire raiding party to kill him, then an entire raiding party wouldn't be enough to kill him.

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And I don't think Dorri is dismissing the possibility we know completely, but he also has no reason to actually think it's true. He's probably watching us carefully for evidence of that being true, but that's very different from already knowing. He's watching because it's a worry he has, not because he actually thinks it's happened.

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Then I think we sort of agree that there's a significant probability?

My argument is that if there's some chance higher than say, 10-20% that Dorri suspects we know, then the consequences are so bad that we need to plan against that contingency. Which I think we are also broadly agreed on.