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NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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Oshha said:
It is worth spending reward dice on any of them?

Rolling Joarr
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Well, the totals after everything are:

Abjorn: 26 (Nat 20)

Stigmar: 23

Tryggr: 11
Trausti: 11 (Nat 1)
Eysteinn: 16
Magni: 17

Kurt: 20
Ingolf: 15
Halfdan: 18
Eric: 20
Sten: 11
Jordan: 20
Joarr: 22 (Nat 20)
Alvis: 5
Steve: 7
Bob: 4
Phil: 9

So, Reward Dice could definitely get Halfdan to the 'Great Success' category, and maybe Magni, Eysteinn, or Ingolf, and could definitely save Phil and potentially save Alvis, Steve, and Bob.

Personally, I'd maybe spend one on Halfdan and otherwise focus on saving people.

EDIT: Results above are likely final.
 
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Halfdan is going to mitigate the failures of his men, as he's really good at playing defensive, so you can leave him where he's at
 
KittyEmpress said:
I also think people are doomsaying for no reason, because they're afraid of every risky option in anything ever. They think there's no winning in this. Butwhile it's not a clean perfect victory with no losses like some voters crave, it's still got more upsides than downs easily justified.
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To be clear, I broadly agree with you about the quest's general risk-aversion, and think anything which gets us out of it is good.

But I think this fight sort of landed on us when Jogrim arrived, so I'm not sure it counts as us breaking out of our risk-aversion per se? Then again dumping problems on us which force us to be proactive is broadly the only tool IF has to break the Eternal Inertia, so I guess this is not far from the norm in that respect, just more abrupt. But ultimately this was dictated by our loss-aversion to Kare being greater than our risk-aversion from a fight where IF assured us we'd have numerical superiority, not any real boldness on our part.

In terms of going for the bloodshed here, I'm torn, because one one level I really appreciate us getting closer to a character from one of the Sagas or heroic epics, with all that entails including the feuds and honour-killings. But we've broadly decided to play Halla as a slightly different, more contemplative Norsewoman, someone who can step outside of her own culture a bit and consider its flaws. Halla's decision not to vow an oath of vengeance on Steinarr's killers is highly atypical by the standards of the Sagas - they are often highly critical of feuding and honour culture, but the critique is usually implicit.

So, I guess my dissatisfaction is that when we play Halla as trying to find alternatives to needless killing, or being nice to slaves, and then the next we're starting a feud on behalf of our retainer's wife... it feels hard to grasp a consistent characterisation there? Like at the end of the day one fight isn't going to define Halla's character either way, it's just hard to find much meaning in this.

Imperial Fister said:
Voting is now closed
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This isn't the biggest deal, but I would have appreciated it if you'd weighed in on whether the write-in was workable or not.
 
Skippy said:
Halla's decision not to vow an oath of vengeance on Steinarr's killers is highly atypical by the standards of the Sagas - they are often highly critical of feuding and honour culture, but the critique is usually implicit.
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In fairness, Halla is still very much seeking vengeance, she's just not going all-in and getting obsessed.

Skippy said:
So, I guess my dissatisfaction is that when we play Halla as trying to find alternatives to needless killing, or being nice to slaves, and then the next we're starting a feud on behalf of our retainer's wife... it feels hard to grasp a consistent characterisation there? Like at the end of the day one fight isn't going to define Halla's character either way, it's just hard to find much meaning in this.
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I mean, I for one just didn't feel this was needless. Halla is all for avoiding needless killing, absolutely, but this wasn't that, at least not from her perspective. I don't feel like that goes against her established characterization at all.
 
Fair enough.

I guess it's the randomness of it, really. This guy's crime was having taken captives in a raid and enslaving them - like many Norsemen including our own father - and then simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's one thing to talk about the catharsis of killing slave traders, which I've done in the past, but somehow this does not feel very uplifting despite being functionally identical. Funny.

It's fitting, I suppose. And "random guy shows up, feud ensues" is 100% on brand for like, a minor episode which sparks off a chain of events in basally any Saga.
 
I think this very much fits Halla. She dislikes slaving and slavers - even when Gabriel was saying he had to kill Her Own Father over his enslavement her thoughts were 'fair, i wish you didnt feel that need, but I also have to fight for him'. She understood Gabriel's position and while she didn't like it, she also could not say it's invalid. Steinnar did wrong him. Massively.

She isnt chill about it, she doesn't think it's not bad - indeed, in the aftermath of the slave market our voting (well yours. I didn't care about it personally) made it clear she saw it as a repugnant thing to do, with thinly veiled hatred and explicit disgust.

It's not weird that she would decide to kill a slaver who harmed people she's now lived with for months. Whom she's trying to assist one in wedding her right left hand most trusted retainer, and a second whom another retainer loves.


It's a little weird that she moved this quickly, but that's because we normally spend 6 months of prep time getting ready for any fight, and this time we skipped those many months of getting ready in order to do a surprise attack instead. That's the only part of it that really feels off though.

Edit: when I say that last part I more mean that I think the feeling of it being random is closely related to the speed at which we are doing it. This feels like a very rushed and random 'let's go kill' because we didn't get like, scenes of Lata and the others asking us to do it, or describing how terrible he was. We got the basics and said "he dies today". That's not a bad move, bur it would definitely have felt less random if we did wait a bit.

I'm glad we didn't though!
 
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Eh, I'm just in a glum period in general right now due to my brain chemicals leaning towards the sads, so I'm being more prickly and negative than usual. I do like taking bold risks, but I also care a lot and don't want to waste lives, you know? So I remember the words of wiser figures and try to stack the deck before committing.

The current situation sit badly in my craw because it felt like the universe was bending over backwards to justify the propaganda against Halla I guess. You know?

But at the end of the day, it's just a difference in tastes. I certainly didn't push back against this even if I wish it didn't happen.
 
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Alectai said:
So I remember the words of wiser figures and try to stack the deck before committing.
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I mean we did stack the deck pretty well. He's with half or less of his men total, away from defensible positions, surrounded from the start, and outnumbered. We even researched him and his men's specialities as much as we could before hand, and he didn't know to research us indepth.

It's hard to stack the deck further than 'bad terrain, less men, surprised and unready, against an opponent who knows more about you than you do them.'

Unless we wanna start poisoning people so they're weakened before the battle, or stalking rhem until someone else weakens them, or terraforming/trapping routes to ensure they're like. Walking into bear traps.
 
Skippy said:
So, I guess my dissatisfaction is that when we play Halla as trying to find alternatives to needless killing, or being nice to slaves, and then the next we're starting a feud on behalf of our retainer's wife... it feels hard to grasp a consistent characterisation there? Like at the end of the day one fight isn't going to define Halla's character either way, it's just hard to find much meaning in this.
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Well, by imbibing the flame blood thing, you are more prone to acts of sudden impulse such as, for example, this. That's the direction I'm planning on taking this, as this, and the fallout, is the catalyst for Halla to realize that 'hey, this isn't like me, what's going on?' and then be able to do something about it
Skippy said:
This isn't the biggest deal, but I would have appreciated it if you'd weighed in on whether the write-in was workable or not.
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If you had gone through with the write in, Jogrim would have poked some holes in your foundation, while also laying nid upon your feet.

"You gather many men, you plot the route, you prepare for battle, you step out and announce that you're ambushing me... Only to then change your mind and challenge me to single combat? When a dreng decides on a course of action, they pursue it to conclusion. What does that make you, I wonder, if your choices are so easy to change?"
 
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Imperial Fister said:
Well, by imbibing the flame blood thing, you are more prone to acts of sudden impulse such as, for example, this. That's the direction I'm planning on taking this, as this, and the fallout, is the catalyst for Halla to realize that 'hey, this isn't like me, what's going on?' and then be able to do something about it
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IMO, if we were impulsive here, which is certainly arguable, it was purely in the timing. I think every version of Halla was gonna kill this guy, we just usually might've taken longer.
 
Imperial Fister said:
Well, by imbibing the flame blood thing, you are more prone to acts of sudden impulse such as, for example, this. That's the direction I'm planning on taking this, as this, and the fallout, is the catalyst for Halla to realize that 'hey, this isn't like me, what's going on?' and then be able to do something about it
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Halla then also wonders if this is why she has had so many cravings for honey, salmon and nuts recently.

Imperial Fister said:
If you had gone through with the write in, Jogrim would have poked some holes in your foundation, while also laying nid upon your feet.

"You gather many men, you plot the route, you prepare for battle, you step out and announce that you're ambushing me... Only to then change your mind and challenge me to single combat? When a dreng decides on a course of action, they pursue it to conclusion. What does that make you, I wonder, if your choices are so easy to change?"
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Shit, I hadn't planned on him playing the Uno Reverse Card! :o
 
Honestly, had we voted for it, going for a Holmgang against Joe might have been fine. They're a normal way to settle disputes in Norse Culture, they're widely acceptable, not appearing for one is a coward's move... It would have solved our issue with a lot less external bloodshed, and way less of a chance of us killing people we'd worked with in the past and liked, like Gorm.

The big issues are twofold; they're delayed by days, so that's a lot of warning for him to prepare - and for him to learn he can't beat us. But you're allowed to have someone stand in for you in one, and I do wonder if we wouldn't have had to fight like, Logi had we done it. They might know each other, Joe having been a Krysviking and all. And even if they weren't actually close, it'd be a great time for Dorri to fuck around with us.

So I'm not sure it would have been a better option overall than the ambush, but it might have been possible.
 
KittyEmpress said:
The big issues are twofold; they're delayed by days, so that's a lot of warning for him to prepare - and for him to learn he can't beat us. But you're allowed to have someone stand in for you in one, and I do wonder if we wouldn't have had to fight like, Logi had we done it. They might know each other, Joe having been a Krysviking and all. And even if they weren't actually close, it'd be a great time for Dorri to fuck around with us.
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I honestly think both of these, while real issues, are less severe than the biggest issue: We'd sort of be usurping Kare's revenge. He wouldn't be involved at all, and that's...really not good on several levels. Or Kare would have been the one to challenge, in which case he probably dies since Jogrim is a bit out of his league.
 
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Jogrim Foestep (Shard)
  • Apocrypha
    • Jogrim Foestep

    Horses to source at house,
    Hateful gaze o baleful.

    Foestepping foefinding,
    Found frightful hounding wolf.

    Array army against,
    Ally all alike.

    She cares fair so she'll slay,
    Sees shame be seer-sundered.

    ===

    @Imperial Fister

    Rhyme to thyme, hymn to thyne,
    Wordweave now then world heave,

    Write rites for the right sights,
    Pen tending to paper.

    Skaldry yet mastery,
    Playing still with wordings

    Law of words yet still awes,
    Lest less mess nay be made.

    ... I think Skalds only speaking in rhyme is tough enough, is it even feasible to speak skaldic verses constantly in native norse?
     
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