- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Hallbjorn, inspired by the bloodlessness of your battle, will begin exploring other methods of bloodless fighting
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 open voting
Yeah, as I said in the post you quoted, it's relatively intuitive from the name.
So I get what you mean in broad sense, but this does not quite logically work given how the technique functions or how it was developed. Fundamentally Stutter Step is the same technique as Time Stands Still and still involves stopping time; it's simply using breathing control to allow much smaller "hops" within the stopped time. If we can't do the former then there is no way we can do the latter, not to mention the potential paradox in how how the idea would have ever occurred to Halla.
Something more like the original concept I had for TSS when we researched it, where our inverted Standstill simply slows down the outside universe from our own reference point rather than stopping it, might work? But then that would be a replacement for TSS, rather than Iron Embrace, which seems to effectively be a much stronger version of IAT.
The best way I can see to resolve it is that in the timeline we're now in, perhaps we developed a super IAT, which became Iron Embrace. Then at some latter point Halla worked on a concept similar to the research which produced TSS, which was simply less successful and produced something like Stutter-Step.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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- He/They
Parent style is the same, for the record
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Okay, character sheet updated.
Eh. We still definitely have Contested Movement, so having based Stutter Step on that rather than on TSS is a pretty reasonable thing that could have happened, IMO. It'd technically slow them down immensely rather than stop them in that construction, but that would make no practical difference (them slowed down to 1% of normal speed and 0% are functionally equivalent). Alternatively, it could still be based on Iron Embrace and just freeze our opponent (or even everyone) for a single breath...again, pretty much same effect.
Personally, I also think the method for creating Iron Embrace would probably still be identical to how we did it with TSS in the original timeline...inverting the Standstill shroud having the effects of weighing down and immobilizing people in the area is just as plausible a result as the time stop thing.
Eh. We still definitely have Contested Movement, so having based Stutter Step on that rather than on TSS is a pretty reasonable thing that could have happened, IMO. It'd technically slow them down immensely rather than stop them in that construction, but that would make no practical difference (them slowed down to 1% of normal speed and 0% are functionally equivalent). Alternatively, it could still be based on Iron Embrace and just freeze our opponent (or even everyone) for a single breath...again, pretty much same effect.
Personally, I also think the method for creating Iron Embrace would probably still be identical to how we did it with TSS in the original timeline...inverting the Standstill shroud having the effects of weighing down and immobilizing people in the area is just as plausible a result as the time stop thing.
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A parent style based around freezing people is just not super interesting on a thematic level, is the rub. Like I thought this was building towards Halla developing or independently reverse-engineering Norse Ki-Rata, which is lit, whereas Iron Embrace is more like, a weird power that a side character has in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or something.
There are a range of ways of plausible ways we might have developed something along the lines of a "makes you faster relative to your opponent in brief bursts" technique, sure. Although that should probably cosmetically change Stutter-Step, and also probably change the name. Stutter-Step is so named because it has Halla essentially flickering in and out of time from everyone else's perspective; that can't work without a timestop.
Iron Embrace having originated from an inverted Standstill makes no logical sense. Weighing people down and freezing them in place is what regular Standstill does; inverting it doing the exact same thing makes no sense. We know how inverting Hugareidas work, inverted Hugareidas don't function the same as their non-inverted versions.
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I don't think the parent Style was ever primarily time manipulation, just from what we knew about it already. It has elements of that, but that was never the specific thing it was focused on.
It does if we're still slowing everyone down so much we seem to stutter through time. Doesn't have to be an actual time stop, just look like it to observers.
The reason TSS got created at all was that we tried to invert Standstill on ourselves...the idea was to make us super fast, but it instead basically applied Standstill to everything except us and froze time. It instead freezing everything around us another way makes just as much sense as TSS did. Neither are a very normal result of inverting things, but then that's not quite what we wound up doing anyway given the Style being involved, is it?
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- He/Him
[X] Kare and Vesna's first child will receive a massive boon
[X] Ingolf, having seen his brother do courageous deeds and how you supported him, will be more open towards you helping him
[X] Ingolf, having seen his brother do courageous deeds and how you supported him, will be more open towards you helping him
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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- He/They
This is correct.
As a freebie and olive branch, I'll go ahead and tell you the overall theming of the parent style.
'Imprisonment'
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Per IF in a PM, the Stutter-Step version is now based on 'loosening the restraints on perception', and we came up with (in the new timeline) because we clocked the imprisonment theming of the Style...and used that from the perspective of the prisoner. The Trick's wording has been changed accordingly.
So the Style can manage things thematically within the scope of imprisonment, or freeing oneself from same. We can probably come up with some cool stuff using that.
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Time Stands Still in its original incarnation is coherent; an inverted Standstill cloaked around ourself should have the effect of freezing or slowing the universe from one's own vantage point, since what a non-inverted Standstill does is freeze or slow whatever it is put around. At the time I proposed it, I wasn't expecting it to be as powerful as it turned out, more of a momentary effect or time dilation, but the underlying principle is simple. An inverted Standstill freezing the person that it is placed around falls down for the simple reason that this is what placing a normal Standstill around the person should do, meaning the "inverted" here has no meaning.
No amount of explaining away will fix this, it's just obviously nonsensical. Developing a Finale out of of Inertia-Arresting Throw, which we already use to freeze people in place, has none of the same issues problems and makes roughly a million times more sense. Thermic Reckoning and the Flame-Tending Blade are both similar in terms of being "existing technique we have, but bigger and stronger", so it makes complete sense that Halla would have tried this.
Presumably @Shard in this timeline was more successful in their lobbying for us to devote more time and training dice to IAT. 😅
Honestly I had slightly checked out of the parent style thing after a while because it felt like everything we did hit a dead end. I think that was partly a result of there being way too many plates you had to spin though; the current system where important research requires an action slot makes more sense. Visiting Bornholm got vetoed for similar reasons I recall, that was during the trip to cast our dad's ashes where we kept getting sidetracked.
More broadly, I kind of liked TSS the most as being our own creation/discovery, and the idea of Halla being a genius who could create her own Martial Style. Everything we create actually simply being a rediscovery of some inheritance we've gotten from someone else has the effect of diminishing the protagonist a bit. Anyway, sorry for being a grumpy gus, I'll shut up now.
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We can create our own martial styles though. We've been told this many times, in thread and in discord. That was never what TSS was though. It was always advertised as us touching on a martial style we didn't yet have by its ultimate principle.
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But that's not what Iron Embrace does? It freezes everyone except the person the 'inverted Standstill' is around. That's as sensical as freezing time, IMO. Both are "we use Inverted Standstill on Halla and freeze everything but Halla" just for different definitions of 'everything'.
And, of course, while we were trying to invert Standstill, that's not quite what we actually did given that it became a Finale for a Style.
That said, we do actually have Mastered IAT at this point, so this route is also possible.
It was a bit of an issue finding out more yeah. Getting this particular info from the timeline shift is cool, though, and might let us pursue the Style a bit more now.
I think TSS (and now maybe even Iron Embrace) actually was a unique invention. The fact that they're part of a Style that is not unique does not mean that the specific Trick has been established previously. Like, TSS was part of an 'imprisonment' Style...imprisoning people in time momentarily is a valid finale, but I doubt it's the orthodox one. Even the Iron Embrace version is a tad off from what you'd expect and may still be unique in all the world.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
It weirdly makes sense, Halla's foundation was as a Prisoner of expectations that went against what she actually wanted, but she gained the strength to struggle against those fetters. A lot of the people who normally would learn Iron Hill are probably gigachads who were strong at some point and only really got imprisoned by even more gigachads to learn it from--not that position of fundamental cultural weakness that Halla started with.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
...Part of me is morbidly curious: Is Mr. Red-Blue intended to be someone from Norse mythology specifically, or is he some kind of "universal janitor" who keeps the floors clean and the generators running and doesn't really care if anyone knows his name or not? Would Christian or Chinese cultivators see the same guy if one of them ended up blue-screening reality?
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Kare and Vesna's first child will receive a massive boon
[X] Hallbjorn, inspired by the bloodlessness of your battle, will begin exploring other methods of bloodless fighting
[X] Hallbjorn, inspired by the bloodlessness of your battle, will begin exploring other methods of bloodless fighting
Just want to go on the record as saying that I dislike this - alongside losing TSS, it's overwrought, gimmicky, and introducing yet another Powerful and Mysterious side character who basically just overwrites player agency. Careful-Stepper was bad enough.
Inverting a Standstill and wrapping it around ourselves is indeed the same the same logic as our original Time Stands Still - but this means it should freeze the universe from the perspective of the user, not just people. Regular Standstill functions perfectly well on inanimate objects; that was its original purpose after all. The categories being acted on should not randomly change. There is no advantage to this explanation, and you have to add epicycles to make it work.
It would not have required an especially high degree of mastery of IAT to develop Iron Embrace. Thermic Reckoning and the Flame-Tending Blade both emerged as outgrowths of techniques which were not Perfected or even at Mastered at the times we first discovered them. Also it's irrelevant, we're talking about how Halla discovered Iron Embrace in this new false timeline, not some other line of research she has no reason to start doing now.
Please avoid spaghetti-quoting.
Inverting a Standstill and wrapping it around ourselves is indeed the same the same logic as our original Time Stands Still - but this means it should freeze the universe from the perspective of the user, not just people. Regular Standstill functions perfectly well on inanimate objects; that was its original purpose after all. The categories being acted on should not randomly change. There is no advantage to this explanation, and you have to add epicycles to make it work.
It would not have required an especially high degree of mastery of IAT to develop Iron Embrace. Thermic Reckoning and the Flame-Tending Blade both emerged as outgrowths of techniques which were not Perfected or even at Mastered at the times we first discovered them. Also it's irrelevant, we're talking about how Halla discovered Iron Embrace in this new false timeline, not some other line of research she has no reason to start doing now.
Please avoid spaghetti-quoting.
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You've done nothing but go on record saying you dislike this since the post got posted. Get over it.
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I'd just like to go on record as disagreeing with this. This particular event was certainly odd, but seems fine to me in context. It has interesting implications about the world in general that I'm intrigued by.
I mean...I'm not clear it doesn't also freeze objects? I honestly think it might, that's just not usually super relevant. It just does it with weight, not time-manipulation.
And my point about IAT was that we have actually Mastered it, which lets us go that route of explaining it more easily if we want to.
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I do think it's funny that the reason we struggled so hard with the Bornholm style is that we literally were just on the completely wrong track with it. We spent dozens of research options into time control, time pausing, time manipulation, time time time. And it turns out that no, it was just a very specific and overpowered implementation of the actual theming.
That said, I have complaints myself, that I'll only state once; I think having everything just end up going optimally and Halla got a Perfect Victory was kind of boring resolution here. I don't like that it was an Easy Victory, and would have preferred to actually see/play out the fight rather than Just Win with absolutely 0 collateral damage. People getting injured, people losing lives, us having things to do beyond just pay for one person's Weregild and all that would have simply been more fun. It feels like this outcome means we have glossed over a lot of the really cool moments that could have come from this, Kurt with his arm severing, Joarr's arrow of all saving, and all the cool things we could have gotten in round two.
It also sort of means all the reward dice spent were wasted, though I don't particularly care thar much about that aspect.
The revelations contained within don't really change my opinions at all though. Halla is still Halla, whether she stops time or imprisons with gravity. She just got another look at a godlike being.
That said, I have complaints myself, that I'll only state once; I think having everything just end up going optimally and Halla got a Perfect Victory was kind of boring resolution here. I don't like that it was an Easy Victory, and would have preferred to actually see/play out the fight rather than Just Win with absolutely 0 collateral damage. People getting injured, people losing lives, us having things to do beyond just pay for one person's Weregild and all that would have simply been more fun. It feels like this outcome means we have glossed over a lot of the really cool moments that could have come from this, Kurt with his arm severing, Joarr's arrow of all saving, and all the cool things we could have gotten in round two.
It also sort of means all the reward dice spent were wasted, though I don't particularly care thar much about that aspect.
The revelations contained within don't really change my opinions at all though. Halla is still Halla, whether she stops time or imprisons with gravity. She just got another look at a godlike being.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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- He/They
I actually refunded them in the AN
0~0~0
Regardless, you folks have given me a lot to think about. I may re-do this update
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I do feel a certain amount of agreement with this point. Not so much about the fight auto-winning during Round 2...this basically deleting Jogrim actually makes some good sense to me (and that would end the fight at the end of the round). But the rest of the fight getting erased does leave me feeling a little unsatisfied as well, now that you mention it. Like, Abjorn was doing super well, Kurt and Joarr had some great moments, Sten was about to take out a guy in Berserkergang, probably with weird Finnish magic...them not getting the gains they would've gotten for their actions is a bit disappointing even if Halla herself gets some Orthstirr out of it.
It also deprives us of the opportunity to be visibly magnanimous in victory, doing things like healing our fallen foes and even bringing back any (other than Jogrim) who are only Bodily Dead (presumably, anyone but Jogrim if they weren't gonna die in the revised timeline).
I guess, but then we're sort of reinventing TSS again, which seems rather inelegant. But I don't want to belabour this point too much. (Hey says, six replies in.)
Apologies for the miscommunication, I see what you mean about IAT being Mastered providing a rationale for that route; in the timeline we're now in that could have happened much earlier.
Actually if you read it, the vast majority of that wordcount was arguing with Deadman about Stutter-Step and then how we would have researched Iron Embrace in this timeline.
I mentioned my feelings a bit in my first post, but not in a very direct way. I wanted to be more honest and direct. Please don't be rude.
EDIT: Honestly, reading back I think my feedback came across in kind of a heated and snippy way, which I regret; it would have been better in a separate post and more thoughtfully phrased. Apologies Fister.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
To be honest I don't really mind TSS getting.. ..edited.. as IMO it's Timestop I Win abilities was kind of.. not very desirable. Yeah sure it was incredibly powerful and the new version is worse since it's capabilities are lesser, but, like, it was also kind of overpowered and was starting to have a tendency of us going 'Now we go Homura and win the battle'. From a gameplay perspective, patching it to improve the ability of people to counter it is substantially better. Basically Greater Time Stop too OP, it needed to be nerfed either in this manner OR it needed more and more enemies with a counter to TSS. The former is preferable.
I would have preferred the fight to have been messier and not-retconned, though. Even though it would have been less-than-optimal.
I would have preferred the fight to have been messier and not-retconned, though. Even though it would have been less-than-optimal.
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Honestly, I'm not even sure it's less optimal if they don't suffer True Death...even if they do, undoing our own people's accomplishments may be worse than that, depending.
But yeah, regardless of how optimal that bit is, it feels unsatisfying. Thanks to KittyEmpress for articulating the issue. I knew I was fine with the glitch and stuff with TSS but something felt off and I wasn't putting my finger on it.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
[ ] Kare and Vesna's first child will receive a massive boon
While this is cool, will we see that boon? Like.. if their first child just... doesn't wind up with the PC of NQ2, it's basically a nothing.
[ ] Hallbjorn, inspired by the bloodlessness of your battle, will begin exploring other methods of bloodless fighting
If we select this, we better pick Hallbjorn as the PC of NQ2!
[ ] Ingolf, having seen his brother do courageous deeds and how you supported him, will be more open towards you helping him
While cool, do we actually have any ideas on how to help Ingulf?
While this is cool, will we see that boon? Like.. if their first child just... doesn't wind up with the PC of NQ2, it's basically a nothing.
[ ] Hallbjorn, inspired by the bloodlessness of your battle, will begin exploring other methods of bloodless fighting
If we select this, we better pick Hallbjorn as the PC of NQ2!
[ ] Ingolf, having seen his brother do courageous deeds and how you supported him, will be more open towards you helping him
While cool, do we actually have any ideas on how to help Ingulf?