Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Wessex would very much not be a 'brief stint', IMO.
NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- Original Fantasy Action
-
- Tags
- norse mythology (mythology) original xianxia cultivation western cultivation ask sirihand did your mother tell you anything? discussion pleases yggdrasil farming gloating gets people killed granary management hubris is a coward's word you will die norsemen do not die when they are killed the qm has a bad memory the qm is bad at math viking courtroom drama (legal drama) vikings
We already made one though? Not sure it's for Odin, but we do have a Nordic plate done, it just needs sacrifice for powering it up.
... Considering we use firebomb strike in the reverse version to accelerate our attacks, I don't see how this would help with the intended purpose....
Hm... Last bit didn't even hint about there being anything there, so... Why?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No, we have a mock-up in wood. This is the actual, final version.
The question is if we can do that as part of Sharpen, in which case we can probably get an increased damage bonus to Sharpen. Unlike FBS, Sharpened attacks are still Basic and thus benefit from our Tripling fylgja ability. It'd be really good if we can.
IF confirmed on Discord that Research, Work Dice, and XP can all be invested into it, so I'm adding everything.
I mean fair enough, but that was several months ago in quest, and before the holidays IRL. If it's still the case then fair enough, but I feel it's long enough to be worth checking.
In terms of social debt, I think the way we used this trip to highlight our relationship with Stigmar is a good example of how it's not mutually exclusive with adventuring. This might be my "doing stuff over not doing stuff" preference shining through, however.
Is this an inference from the Dorri/Drysalt conversation, or an explicit promise from IF?
Fair point, but is that necessarily a problem? I personally really enjoyed the last one, and it gets us more of things that we want, I think.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
It is a problem in my view. I would rather chill with the people we know and actually have a chill year.
Like. The amount of Main Plot that has happened this in-game year. Is extremely intense. Side Character Development has essentially been put on the backseat.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The statement was made on 12/30/2023 (I did a discord search). So...less than three weeks ago.
I mean...the current turn plan involves fighting a giant flaming owlbear. Not going on giant expeditions (the thing we need to chill about for a minute), is not the same as not having adventures. But the social actions we need to take are with people who are here in the Hading and, in many cases, will not be traveling with us. So we need to be here to take them. Adventures in the area are fine...going traveling long distances not so much.
Inference combined with repeated references to Vestfold being what kicks the endgame off. I think we're playing into the intended timeline if we don't travel this year and maybe next (especially if our 'event' next year is taking out Dorri, which it might be if that doesn't escalate the Drysalt thing), and then head for Vestfold on, like, the first turn of Year 14. Which seems like reasonable pacing to me.
Last edited:
That's nice, but that's a how, not a why.
Like, I understand the actual training part of it, but why the research and why look deeper?
Aside from we can put dice in it, what reason is there to scrutinize it?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To perhaps be clearer, IF indicated that all three would lead to progression (ie: spending all three would work). So...to get better at it.
Fair enough, this might be a matter of personal preference speaking. Personally I like chilling with our friends in the boat, and I think doing another job for Alfred would be more of an optional side quest.
...I wonder if he'd be willing to pay us in books/allowing us to have copies made, come to think.
Fair enough! I am very stoked to fight the Owl-Bear.
Although it is interesting that a mystical creature representing a blend of our and Abjorn's spirits has shown up, recently after he entered Odr cultivation. The gods helping us out? Coincidence? Something else?
If it turns out that this is some weird spirit-child of ours, or perhaps Shadeclaw and Sagaseeker...
Fair enough. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think it's possible that Drysalt's plan and Dorri's may be disconnected, or Dorri gets spooked by our growing support, or events/Corpsemaker may force everyone's hand. I also think there's a downside to allowing things to play out according to our enemy's timetable, for obvious reasons.
Like at a minimum if we're setting a date of two years time for things to go down, it's imperative that we speak to Corpsemaker, fill him in on what we want him to know RE: Drysalt, and get him to agree. Him suddenly deciding to invade the Hading would be catastrophic. Not this turn, necessarily, but soon.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
By 'intended' I was referring to IF, not our enemies. The suggested timeline still preempts Drysalt's stated timeline by, like, 6 months.
This I definitely agree with. We need to talk to Corpsemaker about a bunch of stuff, and pretty soon...he's one of the local social encounters we need to have, though we may need to use our Calling for Congress to pull it off in a timely fashion (since he's slightly less local). That's definitely on the agenda soon-ish based on what our divinations reveal.
Last edited:
Eh... Would rather research something else with the slot.
But that's a personal opinion.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I don't want to do more optional sidequests, doubly so for Alfred/Wessex honestly.
I would rather like, learn about say Finnish Cultivation. There's two groups of people who are friendly to us (Sten, the Slavs) with deep knowledge of Finnish/Slavic cultivation we could be learning about. And incorporating ideas from those cultivation systems into our stuff. There's a scholar who has made his calling the learning of knowledge! There's so much knowledge and loot we already have at home that we have not yet processed!
Oh, right, forgot to type the reply for this.
Even if they combine, I doubt Sharon's special bit of "still count as a basic attack" will stay in the resulting trick.
Same reason why we can't alloy sharpen and ignition.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's very possible that it won't work, but it seems worth a try given how good it would be if it did. We might also get a 'this won't work, but you feel like with a Rewrite it would' which would be useful information in and of itself.
Deadman, literally the same reason.
Because otherwise we will spam it and our enemies turn into chunky salsa zones.
Edit: ah, sent this earlier.
Anyways, while I was mixing up Puncture with Sharpen, probably same deal
Still, probably the same deal applies here.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Uh...it probably doesn't actually do that? If it just added the damage from FBS without the Ignition bonus (one of the more likely results) that's literally +1-3 damage. An average of +2 damage. +2 damage on every melee attack is great, but not game-breaking the way Puncture/Sharpen was.
Oh fair enough, apologies for the miscommunication. I had assumed that intended meant IF/us, not the enemy, but not considered that you'd already factored in pre-empting the timing in that way.
Worth noting that Drysalt knows we've heard his timeline, so he either has something planned if we try to preempt him, or he believes we wouldn't be able to. Not that this is any more of a reason not to preempt him by six months as opposed to a year, just worth pondering.
I think the three years either referred to something fated, or may not rely on Dorri being around, because I think Drysalt views Dorri as useless enough not to hinge plans on him.
Yeah, I think we should go in owl form next turn.
We also need to find out how to turn Experiences into something which can be displayed at the Thing... It would be a good idea to record this turn's scrying actually, could you add that to the plan?
Are we limited in the number of scrying questions we can ask? Repeating last year's divination and getting that recorded would also be good. But not if we can't, obviously.
Well, fair enough. Personally Alfred/Wessex was one of my favourite bits and I'd like to go back. Thus is partly because doing mercenary work for English kings is classic saga fare, but also I find him interesting. Finland is interesting too, but would be kind of a late addition if we choose to go there now - but I'm not opposed to it per se.
Agreed on learning knowledge, but I would note that books are also a source of knowledge and power, and one which would give Halla a leg-up over most other Norse. I'd like us to found a school and a library, I think that would be a great legacy for Halla and a thing for her still to be doing when we're starting the new quest. Also quite a subversive but effective way to spread ideas and attack the status quo.
Yeah, my bad, noticed the mix up and edited the post
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I very much agree it didn't rely on Dorri, the question is purely whether he'll accelerate after Dorri is gone. Hence the divination on that subject.
And Drysalt's whole bag is arrogance from what we heard...he's definitely not gonna change his timeline just because we know about it. If we make actual progress at messing up his plans that he knows about (like taking out Dorri) then maybe, but not just knowing.
Agreed on the visit and turning Experiences into images. Recording divinations however is, uh, I'm pretty sure not very useful. Divinations are both silent and, physically, just drawing sticks out of a container. They are not impressive and do not involve any visual proof of anything. We have an actual whole conversation between Dorri and Drysalt, which we want an image of 100%, but the Experience of a Divination is no better than saying you did one.
So, we get three questions for free at Yule, anything more is an action (and can be done at other times), and unnecessary IMO for reasons noted above.
Last edited:
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Books from Wessex:
1) The vast majority of books in Wessex in this era would be religious books, and the remainder would be love stories, poems, embellished travel stories.. Books with useful knowledge are going to be extremely sparse....
..a) And those with useful knowledge (ex: Herbology) are unlikely to be of relevance to most Norsemen.
2) All of said books will be in either English or Latin...
..a) Meaning that anyone not Halla wanting to read those books will need to learn written Latin and/or English...
..b) On top of most Norsemen already not really being literate in Norse Runes to begin with.
3) Books are literally worth their weight in gold in this era. Unless you consider a book collection of like 3+ as a library, it's not realistic (and I guess a 3+ book collection library is something we technically have..)
Basically what I'm saying is that if we want books useful to a Norse school or library, we're going to have to DIY them.
I also differentiate between getting knowledge (which we can do readily with people right here who already like us a lot) and going through a full sidequest for that knowledge. Like we already did that for learning Latin. But right now, going on a sidequest while the Main Quest Plotline of Drysalt, Dorri, Hading and Vestfold are all hanging in the air would just feel jarring.
e: I also don't actually support going to Finland in this lifetime. I feel all the non-Hading sidequests can be.. not followed.
If Drysalt isn't arrogant as all hell we would have already lost. On account of him being an invincible troll we have no way of dealing with.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If time weren't a factor, a book run would be very tempting (well, as part of a trade run). Sure, the books would mostly be in English, but learning English is useful and Abjorn likes books. I suspect that's gonna have to be an anecdote about something Halla and Abjorn did after her 'retirement'...assuming she gets to retire, of course.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
See, when you say 'Book', I imagine it is meant to be 'Book of knowledge'. But then I go look up Early medieval literature - Wikipedia and Ancient literature - Wikipedia (yes, I know, wikipedia), and most books will be like. Religion. Histories. Like maybe a handful of philosphies. Go really far back to Greek and then you can find stuff like 'Biology' buried beneath mounds of theatre plays, tragedies and comedies.
...Which is why my opinion is 'get the oral knowledge that is already here.. and write it down'.
...Which is why my opinion is 'get the oral knowledge that is already here.. and write it down'.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Histories definitely qualify as books of knowledge, as does philosophy, at least potentially. Religion is a lot more variable, granted, but dismissing history as not really important knowledge strikes me as a really inaccurate thing to do.
And of course, we've seen already that books on cultivation definitely exist in this world, and those definitely qualify as books of knowledge as well.
Are the sticks marked with names, or numbers? Either way, if an Experience can record our thoughts, or even subvocalisations and it should given that Halla has... experienced them, it should be workable in terms of indicating our questions and the answers for the record.
Invoking the testimony of the Gods seems like pretty good corroboration if we can get it.
Why would stories, travelogues and other such literature not be "useful"? That seems like a very narrow-minded view to me - the value of experiencing other cultures and literature is immeasurable. We're in the Carolingian period, when a mass effort by monks is underway to preserve classical learning thanks to Charlemagne. There may be a lot of fairly dull moralising by monks - often still valuable in its own right, given that this sort of writing is often our only written source for figures like King Arthur - but preserved alongside it will be pearls of wisdom from Antiquity.
Even if one insists in looking at things through the narrow lens of "power" it seems very odd to say that stories and folklore are not useful. We're right now about to build a suit of superpowered armour from learning we got via Latin, literally powered by our Saga. We've hidden great secrets of cultivation in poetry. Do you think it never occurred to the boards and mystics of the past to do the same? I would very much like to get a look at the NQ equivalent of Beowulf, for one!
And to answer your other questions in brief, yes, books are expensive. We're rich and have many avenues to make more money. Moreover, this is why I said we could ask permission to copy books - I would like to see some monk's face when we use a Rewrite to instantly learn and train our Fast-Copying Trick or whatever. However many books we can get our mitts on, whether three or thirty three, it's obviously more than we've got now.
To read Latin and English texts, obviously our students would need to be literate in English and Latin. Ideally should learn Greek and French too, if we can find tutors. It wouldn't be much of a school if they didn't learn three or four languages! That's really about the minimum to be considered well read - or even just well travelled - in an early medieval scholastic mieleu.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The sticks are marked however you choose to mark them. In the case of things looking for names, with names.
And I'm not at all sure it does record thoughts, but even if it does, nothing would be able to distinguish between us doing a legit divination or just being delusional. At heart, if we testify about our divinations, people will either believe us honest and a competent seer, think we're delusional and the Experience proves nothing, or think we're a fake...in which case we could fake the whole Experience thing as well. It's just not worth it.