Oh, they gave us an entire farm for our wedding gift? Wow, I thought it was only the animals that we were given. A steel sword feels somewhat... inadequate. Although I think my perspective is somewhat skewed; someone that can make a sword is already rare enough, let alone someone that can make a sword out of steel.
Oh, they gave us an entire farm for our wedding gift? Wow, I thought it was only the animals that we were given. A steel sword feels somewhat... inadequate. Although I think my perspective is somewhat skewed; someone that can make a sword is already rare enough, let alone someone that can make a sword out of steel.
Oh, they gave us an entire farm for our wedding gift? Wow, I thought it was only the animals that we were given. A steel sword feels somewhat... inadequate. Although I think my perspective is somewhat skewed; someone that can make a sword is already rare enough, let alone someone that can make a sword out of steel.
Given the narrative weight behind the sword I'm not sure the sword isn't worth more than the farm and cows put together. And it certainly seems to be putting in work in combat.
But if so, why is that, and what's stopping you from having Christians with a slightly altered version of our own cultivation system who otherwise have a similar social structure to us?
The latter is almost certainly true, actually, given some stuff the QM has said about the Norse system being unrefined. How can we refine something without changing it, after all? Though I admit doing so might be quite difficult.
Switching systems is trickier and may indeed be impossible.
The latter is almost certainly true, actually, given some stuff the QM has said about the Norse system being unrefined. How can we refine something without changing it, after all? Though I admit doing so might be quite difficult.
Switching systems is trickier and may indeed be impossible.
oboth are possible, reminder there are variants of the christian system so the christian system has been modified. The christian system repalced a previously established system and more. If you cant swap systems individually you can swap it regionally over time, by having more and more children begin to use new versions than the established.
oboth are possible, reminder there are variants of the christian system so the christian system has been modified. The christian system repalced a previously established system and more. If you cant swap systems individually you can swap it regionally over time, by having more and more children begin to use new versions than the established.
That's certainly true, yes. Switching for an individual is the area where what's possible is unclear, though I suspect you can...I highly doubt it's simple or easy, though.
Scheduled vote count started by Imperial Fister on Mar 28, 2023 at 5:26 PM, finished with 111 posts and 7 votes.
[X] Plan Knee A Priest In The Groin
-[X] Stoke Virthing (+33 Orthstirr)
-[X] 25d6 Attack (all tricks)
-[X] 12d6 Defense
-[X] 0d6 Intercept
-[X] Use Ember-Wing-Cloak (-12 Orthstirr) to close with Father Gerrit near instantly and make a 9d6 Knee-Groin-Trick (-1 Orthstirr) against him, make two 4d6 (5d6 w/Hugareida) Firebomb-Strikes (-8 Orthstirr, hoping to hit additional enemies) against him while he's dealing with the results of that, then two 5d6 Honed Power Chop attacks (-4 Orthstirr) to try and finish him off
-[X] In response to any melee Trick Attack first use Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) and if that doesn't work use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr). In response to any ranged trick attack just use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr). If we are attacked with a non-Trick attack use Reinforced Honed Defenses using our Defense dice (-2 Orthstirr each, 3d6 each). If we are out of Defense dice and it's a melee attack, use Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) on normal attacks, and if we are also out of Reinforce Shield and Armor and that doesn't work for any reason (including it being a ranged attack) use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr) even on normal attacks to prevent Endurance loss.
-[X] Tactics – I mean, why mess with what works? Get into melee with the priest and go to town on him after a crotch shot.
[X] Plan Knee A Priest In The Groin
-[X] Stoke Virthing (+33 Orthstirr)
-[X] 25d6 Attack (all tricks)
-[X] 12d6 Defense
-[X] 0d6 Intercept
-[X] Use Ember-Wing-Cloak (-12 Orthstirr) to close with Father Gerrit near instantly and make a 9d6 Knee-Groin-Trick (-1 Orthstirr) against him, make two 4d6 (5d6 w/Hugareida) Firebomb-Strikes (-8 Orthstirr, hoping to hit additional enemies) against him while he's dealing with the results of that, then two 5d6 Honed Power Chop attacks (-4 Orthstirr) to try and finish him off
-[X] In response to any melee Trick Attack first use Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) and if that doesn't work use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr). In response to any ranged trick attack just use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr). If we are attacked with a non-Trick attack use Reinforced Honed Defenses using our Defense dice (-2 Orthstirr each, 3d6 each). If we are out of Defense dice and it's a melee attack, use Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) on normal attacks, and if we are also out of Reinforce Shield and Armor _and_ that doesn't work for any reason (including it being a ranged attack) use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr) even on normal attacks to prevent Endurance loss.
-[X] Tactics – I mean, why mess with what works? Get into melee with the priest and go to town on him after a crotch shot.
0~0~0
"I doubt you know the meaning behind this, uneducated Heathen that you are," Father Gerrit says as he faces off against you and the battle turns into a chaotic melee around you, "but I am a Priest on the Sixth Bead of the Fifth Decade."
Sixth Bead of the Fifth Decade? Gabriel called himself a 'Squire on the Eighth Bead of the Second Decade', which obviously means something. But what it does, exactly, escapes you.
'It means that he is far stronger than Gabriel. Proceed with caution.'
For a moment, you consider discarding Blackhand's advice out of hand. After all, no Christian has managed to put up even a smidgen of a good fight since you got here! But, the memory of your fight with Gabriel shines strong in your mind.
He was on the Eighth Bead of the Second Decade and he fought you near equally while shackled. If he was unshackled... then your victory might not have played out the same way — or happened at all, for that matter.
How did you beat Gabriel? Is there anything from that spar that you can use here? When you pressured him, he struggled to keep up. Maybe priests are the same way?
You point Sagaseeker at your foe. "I'm Halla Longstride, a vikingr here to take your things."
"I'll remember that for your grave." The priest nods and battle commences.
Crimson orthstirr blazes into being as you rocket forward on jets of flame. In a blink of an eye you're across the battlefield and in the priest's unchanging face. His eyes don't even twitch as you stomp against the earth. Can he even see you moving? (Trick Attack: 33 vs Defense: Declined, Attacker Wins! 3 Shield Damage Dealt!
Using the ground as a spring board, you throw yourself knee-first into the air. It's a beautiful kick, the sort of thing you could write poems about.
Shame that it was stopped by the sudden appearance of a golden, shimmering shield.
Your knee strikes the light with enough force to break bone. Yet all that it achieves is a small patch of hairline cracks in the shield.
The priest scoffs. "The light of God protects me, Heathen. Can you say the same for your false idols?"
The moment your foot touches back down, his palm presses against your face as noiseless words leave the priest's mouth. The scent of growing power sends your heart into overdrive.
Time slows to a creep as power flickers into being mere inches away. You can't attack back, not in this small of a window, but you can dodge it. (Halla's Hamr: 30 vs Father Gerrit's Soma: 12. Halla Wins!)
In an instant, you drop to the ground as light blasts from his palm. It isn't fire, yet it boils the air all the same. You survived, good, time to capitalize.
Bouncing off the floor, you immediately throw yourself into a Firebomb-Strike. Fire streaks off Sagaseeker's edge as you swing with all your might. (Trick Attack: 19 vs Defense: 20, Defender Wins!)
You impact the glowing shield and two explosions snap out, leaving you blinded and staggering as the screams of dying men surround you.
Blinking away the spots in your eyes, you find yourself standing in a small ring of fire-blackened earth. You caught a couple soldiers in that blast, yet their comrades, their brothers in arms, pay neither them nor you any heed as they throw themselves at the felag.
You watch, horrified, as a man calmly sacrifices his stomach and his life to carve a shallow cut into Stigmar. There isn't an ounce of fear in him, just the calm courage of the insane. Wisps of the priest's power dance in his fading eyes, the only clue as to why he did what he did.
'That... is insidious.'
"I seem to have underestimated you, Halla Longstride," Father Gerrit's voice pulls your gaze to where he stands atop a nearby house — how he got there a mystery. A dozen balls of white fire orbit around him as he snaps the odd, wood-bound box shut. "Believe me, that won't happen again."
He points his staff at you and your eyes widen as one of the orbs breaks off towards you at blistering speeds.
You barely have enough time to flick out a Halting Vortex, but it stops the ball of blazing white fire dead in its tracks.
And then the second hits, then the third and fourth. Each hit drains power and there are still more to go.
Balls of blazing white fire rain down on you from the rooftop. Each and every one you dodge, yet they follow you still — forcing you to spend orthstirr like a mad woman. In the blink of an eye, most of your orthstirr is gone.
Father Gerrit isn't idle as he stands on the thatch roofing. The moment he directs his attacks forward, he leaves his items floating in the air and clasps his hands together. Eyes closed, he starts to pray.
Golden light surrounds him in a corona of power. Energy trickles towards him as he slowly regains his power.
By the time the last bolt of power strikes Halting Vortex, he's already back to full strength.
Things aren't good, that much is clear. How bad, though, remains to be seen.
What is clear is that as long as Father Gerrit lives, the battle will go on. The Christians fight with a fervor beyond them, throwing themselves into death's maw just to wound your felagi. Maybe your felagi will win it, but it won't come easy. People will die if it goes on for too long, that much is obvious.
Father Gerrit stands atop a thatch roof, his weapons in hand once more. He is physically weaker than you but his sheer experience more than makes up the difference. He outclasses you magically, potentially massively so. He has untold tricks up his sleeve, that is certain.
Whatever his shield is, its not Focus. Maybe some kind of internal prayer or meditation? You remember Gabriel mentioning something like that.
He's planning to keep his distance and keep blasting at you with his magic. If push comes to shove, he'll have a counter in store, likely something that involves the ground.
You have 5/5 Endurance | 8/8 Armor | N/A Shield | 9/10 Temporary Health
You have 29/98 orthstirr in reserve. Your Frami (33) and Virthing (33) are tapped while Saemd (32) is untapped.
Sagaseeker has 8 orthstirr in its reservoir
You can put 0 more points of orthstirr into your Combat Pool.
You have 37d6 in your Combat Pool
What do you do?
[ ] (Plan Name)
-[ ] (Dice) Attack
-[ ] (Dice) Defense
-[ ] (Dice) Intercept
-[ ] (Dice) (Trick) (Orthstirr)
-[ ] Tactics Write in
0~0~0
AN: Welcome to the deep end. Hope you know how to swim.
... What the hell was a top tier Cultivator doing at a random town like this?
EDIT: We're going to need to pin him in place. He's leery about staying in close quarters with Halla, and for good reason given how shitty his physical stats apparently are. If we can pin him with Standstill, we can open him up to a Leaping Cleave to strip his defenses, and then follow that up with some weaponspam. We already saw that he's arrogant, and looks down on us, we can likely leverage that if we're clever.
Eh, the christian cultivation system is so different and we have so few comparisons that I don't know that we have enough info to conclude their top-tier. I certainly don't think he's impossible for Halla to beat, and she's not quite up there herself despite being rlly good for her age.
Eh, the christian cultivation system is so different and we have so few comparisons that I don't know that we have enough info to conclude their top-tier. I certainly don't think he's impossible for Halla to beat, and she's not quite up there herself despite being rlly good for her age.
I mean, he evidently just casually spat a "Defense is impossible just die" barrage of attacks that could apparently only be countered with Halting Vortex given how our defense dice didn't even come into play with that, and it's cheap enough to be spammable.
He might not be Steinarr level Robust, but he's doing this at the same time that he's buffing the local garrison to the point where they can fight back against a gang of strong Norse Cultivators when they were originally just a joke. He's probably either peak Ironbrother or low Steelfather level, which begs the question of what the fuck was he doing at a random town like this in the first place.
His movement trait was apparently also good enough that he could completely ignore our second Firebomb Strike while still making us pay the cost for it, given how we only got to roll to hurt him once but the narrative says we still attacked him twice.
And despite buffing his dudes, despite apparently shitting an assload of magic, he's still at full resource at the end of his turn, which means he's not even especially pressed right now.
So yeah, top Ironbrother or low Steelfather level. What was he doing here
Yeah, the beads and decades definitely refer to their Fervor Pool. Which means his is 46 and replenishes...we're definitely in trouble here.
And I don't think he is 'top tier' in a meaningful sense. Steinarr, for example, could swat him like a fly. He's, I think, a tier or so above us, but that's all.
EDIT: We're going to need to pin him in place. He's leery about staying in close quarters with Halla, and for good reason given how shitty his physical stats apparently are. If we can pin him with Standstill, we can open him up to a Leaping Cleave to strip his defenses, and then follow that up with some weaponspam. We already saw that he's arrogant, and looks down on us, we can likely leverage that if we're clever.
Yeah, this seems right, we pin him and go to town with the cheapest attacks we have that matter (probably Honed Power Chops) and hope that's sufficient. I'm not seeing another option for his defeat, honestly, though I'm open to possibilities.
I mean, he evidently just casually spat a "Defense is impossible just die" barrage of attacks that could apparently only be countered with Halting Vortex given how our defense dice didn't even come into play with that, and it's cheap enough to be spammable.
We did actually specify we'd use Halting Vortex on all Trick Attacks, so that may be as much our fault as his. We may need to relax that in the coming turn, depending.
He might not be Steinarr level Robust, but he's doing this at the same time that he's buffing the local garrison to the point where they can fight back against a gang of strong Norse Cultivators when they were originally just a joke. He's probably either peak Ironbrother or low Steelfather level, which begs the question of what the fuck was he doing at a random town like this in the first place
His movement trait was apparently also good enough that he could completely ignore our second Firebomb Strike while still making us pay the cost for it, given how we only got to roll to hurt him once but the narrative says we still attacked him twice.
And despite buffing his dudes, despite apparently shitting an assload of magic, he's still at full resource at the end of his turn, which means he's not even especially pressed right now.
So yeah, top Ironbrother or low Steelfather level. What was he doing here
Him being replenished is just how Christian cultivation works. They recover Fervor every round. Probably not their full pool, but probably a percentage, and his is high...he might've spent something like 20 last round and still be fine.
He might not be Steinarr level Robust, but he's doing this at the same time that he's buffing the local garrison to the point where they can fight back against a gang of strong Norse Cultivators when they were originally just a joke. He's probably either peak Ironbrother or low Steelfather level, which begs the question of what the fuck was he doing at a random town like this in the first place
I don't think that's completely right. i don't think he's 'buffing' them exactly (terminology aside), instead he's reallocating any defense dice they may have had to be more attack dice.
And honestly, a priest being able to whip soldiers into a religious crusade sounds... honestly kinda low level or available early.
Yeah I'm not sure this is a fight we can win. Certainly not on our own.
@Imperial Fister can we try to offer a bargain? If we fight, he might kill us, but it's certain many more of his people will die. Let us leave with an acceptable amount of loot and he can prove he cares more about his people than his own wealth. Maybe we can even drive a wedge in between himself and his followers.
I note the 'thatched roof' combined with 'Ignition is fine as long as you don't use it on a thatched roof' thing from before. Bait, but tempting bait
Yeah I'm not sure this is a fight we can win. Certainly not on our own.
@Imperial Fister can we try to offer a bargain? If we fight, he might kill us, but it's certain many more of his people will die. Let us leave with an acceptable amount of loot and he can prove he cares more about his people than his own wealth. Maybe we can even drive a wedge in between himself and his followers.
I note the 'thatched roof' combined with 'Ignition is fine as long as you don't use it on a thatched roof' thing from before. Bait, but tempting bait
I mean, he doesn't care what happens to the peasants, we already saw he's bolstering them to suicidal heights--including to protect him--while he's just casually taking his time chewing on us and playing ninja.
And they're dying in droves just to inflict scratch damage to our group. He'll probably put back "They'll just go to Heaven by trying to stop you anyway".
His movement trait was apparently also good enough that he could completely ignore our second Firebomb Strike while still making us pay the cost for it, given how we only got to roll to hurt him once but the narrative says we still attacked him twice.
Bargaining is wrong. We outnumber this guy significantly and he's not unbeatable. If we trap him in one spot and then, say, Halla and Abjorn go to town on him, I think we can take him. We're done with single combat, though. We need to call in backup.
@Imperial Fister how close is Abjorn and could he realistically join us in wrecking this guy? And if not him, is anyone close enough?
I mean, he doesn't care what happens to the peasants, we already saw he's bolstering them to suicidal heights--including to protect him--while he's just casually taking his time chewing on us and playing ninja.
And they're dying in droves just to inflict scratch damage to our group. He'll probably put back "They'll just go to Heaven by trying to stop you anyway".
Well, two things. First, he can easily justify that *if* he believes they'll die anyways. Secondly, I think there's some sort of symbiotic relationship between priest and worshippers, as evidenced by the monastery attack where damaging the peasant's faith caused the shield to fail. If we can make it obvious to the peasants their priest doesn't care about them, well, maybe we can attack that link.
Or not, but damn, this is a rough fight. If we *aren't* going to try talking, we need to hit this guy as a group, we can't solo him.
Yeah, the beads and decades definitely refer to their Fervor Pool. Which means his is 46 and replenishes...we're definitely in trouble here.
And I don't think he is 'top tier' in a meaningful sense. Steinarr, for example, could swat him like a fly. He's, I think, a tier or so above us, but that's all.
I got the impression that it was comparable to a Chinese cultivator's realm, rather than their Fervor pool. A Christian equivalent of 'Middle Nascent Soul Realm' or something like that. Which would put him at a level much higher than Gabriel if it is.
I agree with the general gist of the plan, but wouldn't his shield negate IAT?
Also, he seems to replenish his Fervor via praying. If we can break his faith somehow, I'm guessing that he'll no longer be able to regenerate his shield. It'd also serve as a general debuff, probably. Not sure how we'd go about doing that, though.
I got the impression that it was comparable to a Chinese cultivator's realm, rather than their Fervor pool. A Christian equivalent of 'Middle Nascent Realm' or something like that. Which would put him at a level much higher than Gabriel if it is.
I think it's both. Having almost triple his Fervor Pool does indeed make him a lot more impressive, after all...especially when you recover a significant percentage of it every turn.
I don't think so. It reduced damage rather than canceling the attack. IAT doesn't do damage, so I think it should work. We'd still be open to getting hit while doing a Leaping Cleave, though...I'm concerned about that, not due to getting hurt, but due to getting knocked out of the attack. We may need to gamble, though.