- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not in detail, no.
NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- Original Fantasy Action
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- 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
Not in detail, no.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Directly Help Kare
[X] "Those you have wronged are no warriors, mostly women and children, in truth. If your sister was wronged, would you want Griss to bring her along to seek vengeance against a man like you, a Third Grade Berserk who has shown no compunction about attacking and enthralling a woman? What of one of your retainers wives or daughters kidnapped away into thralldom and then freed, would you bring her into the din of battle to no purpose? Or children no more than seven winters old? Those are the sort of people in my service who you have wronged. It is the place of warriors in their household to avenge slights against those who are no warriors, as some are not."
[X] "Those you have wronged are no warriors, mostly women and children, in truth. If your sister was wronged, would you want Griss to bring her along to seek vengeance against a man like you, a Third Grade Berserk who has shown no compunction about attacking and enthralling a woman? What of one of your retainers wives or daughters kidnapped away into thralldom and then freed, would you bring her into the din of battle to no purpose? Or children no more than seven winters old? Those are the sort of people in my service who you have wronged. It is the place of warriors in their household to avenge slights against those who are no warriors, as some are not."
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The ones in our service who we are avenging are not warriors. We are very sure. He definitely also wronged warriors, but those are not in our service or the people we're avenging here.
Specifically, the ones in our service are Kazimir, a scholarly man afraid of horses with no violence in him at all near as we can tell, Lata, a very nervous young woman who jumps at shadows, Vesna, a mother of two with no signs of any combat skill at all, and her two children, ages 5 and 7.
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- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/His
I have to admit, I absolutely hate this situation, where we are adamant on killing Jogrim for something even our father, the ever-so-honourable Steinarr did, thralling people after killing their friends and family. Halla is already getting a bad reputation from rumours being spread about her, now we we are attacking a fellow who has done us no personal harm, and we will also be injuring, if not killing, some more people beside whom we have already fought in the raid, whose lives we have saved once upon a time, who have also never harmed us.
This is not right. Thia is not what I envisioned to be a part of Halla's saga. I thought we would be different from Blackhand, that we would not be committing thoughtless murder just because we can.
If we were really so irreconcilable, we could have openly called him out on a one-on-one death duel instead of pulling in our friends and family, even Halfdan who should not be involved in this.
Also, isnt Jogrim for Jurgdby? Is he one of Corpsemaker's men? Would we be making an enemy of Corpsemaker if we kill him? Woildnt Corpsemaker want a 3rd grade Berserker by his side when he fianlly makes a move against Dorri? And we are making an enemy of Jogrim's family, from both sides of the Hading, for no fucking reason. We have become the hypocrite, the aspect that we hated about Norse honour culture.
This is not right. Thia is not what I envisioned to be a part of Halla's saga. I thought we would be different from Blackhand, that we would not be committing thoughtless murder just because we can.
If we were really so irreconcilable, we could have openly called him out on a one-on-one death duel instead of pulling in our friends and family, even Halfdan who should not be involved in this.
Also, isnt Jogrim for Jurgdby? Is he one of Corpsemaker's men? Would we be making an enemy of Corpsemaker if we kill him? Woildnt Corpsemaker want a 3rd grade Berserker by his side when he fianlly makes a move against Dorri? And we are making an enemy of Jogrim's family, from both sides of the Hading, for no fucking reason. We have become the hypocrite, the aspect that we hated about Norse honour culture.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You are projecting modern Christian values on old Norse values. There isn't some overarching justice belief that you should hold yourself do, it is about honourable conduct regarding you and yours. It isn't hypocritical for Halla to go after someone for something they done to her household that her household has done to others. It is why there are circles of feudal violence because you are expected to avenge the insult done to you by people who are avenging the insult you did to them. As far as anyone is concerned, Jogrim has done us harm by shaming some of our retainers by making thralls of them and we are avenging that insult, which is an accepted and honourable thing to do. And in turn, it would be honourable and accepted for Jogrim to go after us in the future to avenge the insult we are going him here. Because that is how honour and justice works in Norse society.
Turning the other cheek and letting bygones be bygones are Christian things that aren't honourable or desirable conduct in Norse culture, it is considered cowardly and dishonourable to do so to the point that if someone did so, they would suffer Nid for not avenging the insult. Which is why Kare threatened to leave Halla's service if she didn't support his attempt to kill Jogrim because Kare needs to either give up his love or accept Nid if he doesn't go after Jogrim. Even without the cultivation system enforcing dishonourable conduct via Nid, people aren't going to look at Halla attempting to be the bigger person and see honourable conduct. They are going to look at her and see dishonourable conduct from us refusing to help one of our hirdsmen avenge an insult done to them.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Also, being a bit bloodthirsty isn't actually a problem here, it's just that "Halla occasionally participates in mass combat on the defense" was spun as an absolutely terrifying blood drinker because Dorri's propaganda engine is on full burn and Norse are notorious gossips.
Fundamentally the reason I think some players are feeling a bit blindsided here is that it had very little telegraphing. This guy arrived at our farm looking to buy a horse and Vesna recognised him. Then we were presented with the dilemma of not backing up Kare and having him both upset with us and possibly committing suicide-by-Jogrim at a later date, or starting a feud. We took the more proactive course here because in this instance it was also the loss-minimising one, at least in the short term, but this isn't really a case of the players choosing deliberately to be more aggressive.
Ultimately I can't be that annoyed with it on a narrative level because... as the Sagas repeatedly tell us, Sometimes It Do Be Like That.
This whole episode is quite an effective commentary on how living by the code of an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. A chance meeting, the wrong insult at a banquet, or hundreds of other little things, can trigger a chain of events which spirals into bloodshed and family feuding. The real kicker? This certainly won't end here.
Jogrim will have a family, and is clearly a man of some status and renown. They aren't going to take the murder of one of their own lying down - they can't, not in an honour based society like this, for the same reason that Kare couldn't choose not to seek vengeance for Vesna. We're all bound in the same cycle of revenge. One way or another, we're going to end up paying for today; either with a weregild (which will not be cheap given that Jogrim is a warrior wealthy enough to have his own retainers) or with blood.
Anyway, the plan here is fine, but I'd like to try one last time at derailing this oncoming train.
[X] Plan Burying the Hatchet For Good (Into Jogrim's Face)
-[X] We answer:
-[X] "As you know, the burden of a warrior is to risk death to protect others. Our kin, our children, our retainers. Vesna's children are five and seven, would you ask them to take up deadly iron and come seeking bloody vengeance against grown men? Kare seeks to avenge her, as is proper, and I support Kare, as is my duty."
[X] Pause, taking a moment to consider, and continue:
-[X] "There is a way that perhaps both of us could protect our kith and kin here. We have you at a disadvantage. I propose the following deal. Single combat, between myself and you, or your picked champion."
-[X] "If I win, then the matter is settled, Kare and Vesna will have their weregild in blood, and you and your kin forswear vengeance and allowing this cycle of bloodletting to continue. If you win, then my family, friends and retainers will also forswear vengeance, and my blood will pay for Vesna's honour. Either way, no babes in arms will have to face deadly iron as a result of what happens today. No families will begin preparing themselves for war."
-[X] Use our various social tricks whose names Skippy has forgotten and is too lazy to look up: If it looks like it would close the deal and/or shame him into accepting, offer to fight without our armour.
Argument for this plan:
If this does not work, we will just fight anyway, as we were planning to. We've answered his question, there's no difference from simply answering and beginning the fight. We lose nothing. But if it does work, it forestalls what could be a costly and tedious feud, not to mention people like Gorm or our retainers or friends dying, so I think that it's worth trying?
Ultimately I can't be that annoyed with it on a narrative level because... as the Sagas repeatedly tell us, Sometimes It Do Be Like That.
This whole episode is quite an effective commentary on how living by the code of an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. A chance meeting, the wrong insult at a banquet, or hundreds of other little things, can trigger a chain of events which spirals into bloodshed and family feuding. The real kicker? This certainly won't end here.
Jogrim will have a family, and is clearly a man of some status and renown. They aren't going to take the murder of one of their own lying down - they can't, not in an honour based society like this, for the same reason that Kare couldn't choose not to seek vengeance for Vesna. We're all bound in the same cycle of revenge. One way or another, we're going to end up paying for today; either with a weregild (which will not be cheap given that Jogrim is a warrior wealthy enough to have his own retainers) or with blood.
Anyway, the plan here is fine, but I'd like to try one last time at derailing this oncoming train.
[X] Plan Burying the Hatchet For Good (Into Jogrim's Face)
-[X] We answer:
-[X] "As you know, the burden of a warrior is to risk death to protect others. Our kin, our children, our retainers. Vesna's children are five and seven, would you ask them to take up deadly iron and come seeking bloody vengeance against grown men? Kare seeks to avenge her, as is proper, and I support Kare, as is my duty."
[X] Pause, taking a moment to consider, and continue:
-[X] "There is a way that perhaps both of us could protect our kith and kin here. We have you at a disadvantage. I propose the following deal. Single combat, between myself and you, or your picked champion."
-[X] "If I win, then the matter is settled, Kare and Vesna will have their weregild in blood, and you and your kin forswear vengeance and allowing this cycle of bloodletting to continue. If you win, then my family, friends and retainers will also forswear vengeance, and my blood will pay for Vesna's honour. Either way, no babes in arms will have to face deadly iron as a result of what happens today. No families will begin preparing themselves for war."
-[X] Use our various social tricks whose names Skippy has forgotten and is too lazy to look up: If it looks like it would close the deal and/or shame him into accepting, offer to fight without our armour.
Argument for this plan:
If this does not work, we will just fight anyway, as we were planning to. We've answered his question, there's no difference from simply answering and beginning the fight. We lose nothing. But if it does work, it forestalls what could be a costly and tedious feud, not to mention people like Gorm or our retainers or friends dying, so I think that it's worth trying?
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think that specific 'single combat' plan does not actually work for several reasons. For one thing, us paying in blood in no way does anything to restore Vesna's honor. Kare would still 100% come for Jogrim's head after that fight's resolution if we lost (though likely not immediately), also, there's no way in hell Jogrim will give up on vengeance and/or weregild, and even if he did I don't think it would be binding on his family.
We could probably get him to fight us in single combat, because as you note that's us giving up an advantage, but I don't think the extra conditions work at all or would be paid attention to. Our old comrades from Griss's also might not be able to allow that, since their Oath was to see him safe to Asvir, so that might complicate things.
I'm also super against even considering going in without our armor. This is a serious opponent, we cannot afford to sandbag like that.
@Imperial Fister would an agreement like that to do single combat but his kin will agree to not seek vengeance or weregild if we win even work? Because that doesn't sound like it'd work in the cultural context.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I was thinking about it, and it actually sort of made sense that something like this happened.
1. The Thralls had to have been captured by someone from Jurgdby if they were sold in Jurgdby.
2. That someone has to have been high tier if they enthralled multiple peoples.
3. Halla freed those Thralls...........
4. And this was known to everyone. (The Frisian merchant called us out on this)
5. This news had to have spread fairly fair...
6. ....Including, of course, Jurgdby!
In fact, having thought about it, it's actually slightly surprising Jorgrim isn't more prepared for us suddenly jumping.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I mean, despite apparently hating his brother and not wanting to spend time with him, he still got an escort from him at the last minute, which just so happened to be people we've had good terms with who are now honorbound to protect him.
I think he very much was trying to provoke us.
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I mean, he has in fact harmed our people. That's exactly the point. Steinarr did not enthrall someone who was under our protection and at no point did we, like, blame Gabriel for wanting to kill him, we just had to oppose him because Steinarr was our dad.
It's not no reason, and we aren't a hypocrite. Like, taking vengeance when someone has harmed one of our people we would not take for a stranger or anyone else we're not responsible for (or related to) is not hypocrisy, it's treating those we are responsible for and those we are not differently, which is both logically and morally defensible. We have a responsibility to Vesna we do not have to a stranger...avenging her being a part of that is pretty reasonable and morally consistent.
He probably paid less than zero attention to what happened after they were sold or who they were sold to. Not his best plan, but an understandable one since he cared about them not at all.
Griss is his brother-in-law and he said his sister invited him. This is possible, but it could also just be a pile of coincidences. We'll need to wait and see, I suppose.
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I think that you might be overthinking things.
The important thing to restoring Vesna's honour is that weregild is paid; whilst Halla could not ordinarily pay it herself, the custom of the duel and the agreement of both warriors sanctifies our blood as a payment for the injury. It's a bit of a stretch, but if two honourable warriors agree that is so, then the consensus-reality basis of Norse honour culture should allow it to be so. In any case, we aren't going to lose.
Oaths must be able to be passed down to descendants, or feuds wouldn't be able to be passed down. Steinarr was able to compel us not not seek vengeance; I think it is reasonable to expect that Halla or Jorgrim could do the same. To act otherwise would be to go against the express wishes of the deceased, and make them an oathbreaker, which no one is going to want to do, especially when feuds are a lose-lose anyway. Also, unless it's Jorgrim's True Death, he will be around personally to make sure his family comply with his oath, and vice-versa.
As far as the armour goes; it all depends if Jorgrim knows that we are stronger than he is. If he does, then I think we may need some extra leverage here, and we can still absolutely win the fight without armour. We still have Time Stands Still, not to mention Slowing Slog. Fighting an honour duel whilst unarmoured will also do no harm for our reputation.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
He didn't. Halla is seeking vengeance for his death and what Steinarr did do is get Halla to not get consumed by vegenance to the point it takes over her entire life like vengeance did for Steinarr in his youth.
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It's possible, there's a reason I asked IF for the clarification.
I'm very dubious of this. The logic is pretty tortured that somehow the same guy who beat her and thus deprived her of honor also beating us somehow restores it? That's...not how that works. Vesna needs a win (by proxy) here. I also think assuming our victory is always dicey...we probably win single combat, I'd be willing to attempt it under the right circumstances, but we are not certain to do so.
Uh...Steinarr's last wishes were completely non-binding. We chose to honor them, but we were not compelled to. He also, for the record, as Oshha notes, did not ask we not seek vengeance, he just didn't want us to get obsessed.
Jogrim is also, per IF, likely more skilled than we are, if anything. I don't want to rely on this kind of thing vs. someone who may actually be better than us in terms of technique, even if we do have more raw power to throw around.
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I think that the ritual of the duel can help transfer the cost (the blood of the defeated) to pay for the injury. It's shakey logic, but it's also the kind of logic which will work if everyone agree it works, because of how the Norse "It's true if everyone says it is" honour system works.
I know the natural Quester impulse is to continue the argument for fifteen more tedious replies, but in this case, I think it's better if we just roll with it. I can take it out of the write-in if it really bothers you and you're voting for it, but I think it's good to have some contingency in there, although I am not seriously envisaging our defeat.
Are Jogrim's kin going to want to make him an oathbreaker? Either he does not suffer True Death, in which case he is actively incentivised to stop them, or he is dead, in which case they would be both dishonouring him in death, and taking a losing fight against a more powerful adversary when his dying act bought them out of the compulsion to continue the feud. Like, the dying binding oaths of your relatives don't have to be magically binding to still hold weight.
It's possible that is family might choose to be vengeful and do so anyway, against Jogrim's own oath - but we will have incentivised them as much as it is reasonably possible not to do so.
Fister said that he is not stronger than us, and we would win a one-on-one duel. (The certainty with which this is stated seems to indicate there's a far gap in raw strength here.) Forgoing our armour might make it a fair fight, but it's unlikely we'd become the underdog, and jumping to that conclusion is not really backed evidence.
If I have to choose between Halla getting in a fair fight, or the risk of someone we care about getting hurt, or starting a feud which is going to sap attention away from everything important and further risk harm to our loved ones - then I would choose a fair fight every time. We're a hero, that's our job, and we have like two aces in the hole in the form of Rewrites and TSS.
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That's not how Norse honor works, though, not exclusively anyway. There are actual rules and beliefs that can't just be ignored, and 'you lose you get nid rather than erasing it' seems pretty baked in.
It might work, there's a reason that I actually asked IF whether it would. I remain deeply dubious, though.
I mean, this was also stated:
Note that I agreed we had more power but said he might have better skill and technique. I don't think foregoing armor against someone with that description is a good plan. If it reduces us to a 50/50 situation that's actually awful...the odds of us surviving more than a couple of those get real low real quick. If we're fighting at 50/50 odds in any situation where that's avoidable, we have made a bad mistake.
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- She/Her
Trying to talk our way into a duel seems... wishy washy and like going back on the winning vote. We voted to Ambush him for a reason; if we wanted to do a duel we could have challenged him ahead of time. The Norse do have a tradition for that; but it requires days of prep time to ensure that both fighters are Ready. Duels off the cuff randomly aren't a big thing for recovering honor - our Hooknails duel was more pushed because a one on one with personal stakes is the better story than our social maneuvering.
We might have been able to push the narrative of one on one if we were Kare, with personal skin in this game, someone we love who was directly wronged by him. But we don't. This isn't personal vengeance. This is us doing this for another - and not letting Kare take part would be criminal and bad mouthfeel
We might have been able to push the narrative of one on one if we were Kare, with personal skin in this game, someone we love who was directly wronged by him. But we don't. This isn't personal vengeance. This is us doing this for another - and not letting Kare take part would be criminal and bad mouthfeel
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
If it was going to be a duel then Kare would have just Holmgang'ed Jorgrim. Doing a duel now is just bad story.
Buying thralls only to free them is highly unusual as well.
Buying thralls only to free them is highly unusual as well.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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- He/They
I kind of feel bad about how this has been received, so I'm thinking on pulling back on this a little bit and giving you a more obvious option of a less bloody ending, if that makes any sense?
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I'd be perfectly fine with that. He could do some math and offer weregild in response to our verbal riposte. We'd maybe take that if Kare was willing to accept it, and definitely if Vesna and the other Slavs were (we could send a Fylgja to check).
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would be willing to accept a duel or Jogrim paying wergild though only so long as Kare is happy with it. Personally, I consider us to only have skin in the game on our hirdmen's behalf so any outcome that satisifies Kare's honour is an acceptable one to me.