yeah being the baddies can be fun as long you aren't being cartoonishly evil, i mean in the long run we will have to curb this violence, but enjoy the fun part while we can.
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
- Location
- United States
When you get down to it, being a viking is really nothing more than acting as a waterborn bandit. While I'm sure the Christians will be depicted as arrogant or fundamentalist or whatever to make things more ethical "gray," the blunt matter of fact is we don't tend to picture sympathetic protagonists as happily murdering and looting people who were otherwise minding their own business for no higher calling than cultural acclaim and greed. At least in the quest the raping part of the classic profession has been left out, and the fantasy norse do stuff like attacking fortified manors for the sake of glory instead of defenseless monasteries for free loot, which makes this a bit easier to swallow.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I hate bringing this up but does anyone in the raiding party actually speak French or Frisian? Or are we just going to gamble on the knight speaking English or worse managing to figure out body language/charades?
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The part where the Christians are capable of fighting back doesn't really feel like it makes this any better, to be honest…
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
The Priest was able to talk to us, I imagine the Knight's no different. I don't think that IF would have talked about talking skills if it was useless here.
by this i dont mean in real life obviously, like when the horse died and he cried i just kind if went "damn if you didnt want to see companions you've grown to care for die brutally maybe you shouldn't have become a soldier" but then I remember they had not realized war was hell yet, and cut him some slack.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Sure... but that's not the vibe I'm getting here. Like, Halla thinks of herself as a Good Person. She's got three points of Drengskapr, after all. She murders thieves, she destroys monsters, she has a vendetta with a couple of families who are both obviously morally inferior, she befriends cripples... she's a little hot-headed sometimes, but she's generally good to the people around her. Raiding was going to be the Next Awesome Thing that she was going to do because she's a Warrior, and that's Totally What You Do.
...and then it turned out that it was actually kind of horrible and sucked. Like, the mortal soldiers weren't threats. They just died. Fabvir went down in a big way, Gautrekr died completely, and something's twisting in her gut and she can't find a way to make herself feel good about attacking this knight. Even taking out the squire's horse is starting to maybe feel a little bad, and that sucks, because taking out the horse was the only really good thing that they managed to do in that horrible little squire fight. This isn't how it was supposed to be at all.
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Saying that veteran soldiers lose the right to grieve their dead friends does, in fact, feel pretty harsh.
aight you got me i didnt say that. I just view squires and knights as more voluntary positions than soldiers i guess? probably just a diconnect between reality and what history teachers portray
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
The Gift of Tongues is a common trait of Christian Cultivation.
Gunnar Hamundarson was the strongest warrior in the sagas (debatable). He often tried the diplomatic approach. In fact, he did this so often that he wondered if there was something wrong with him when comparing himself to other men who so readily leapt to violence.
His example shows that it's possible for Norsemen to be different, yet still retain the core foundations of their culture.
Gunnar Hamundarson was the strongest warrior in the sagas (debatable). He often tried the diplomatic approach. In fact, he did this so often that he wondered if there was something wrong with him when comparing himself to other men who so readily leapt to violence.
His example shows that it's possible for Norsemen to be different, yet still retain the core foundations of their culture.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I don't think this is meant to be a completely historically accurate portrayal of anything? I'm not sure where that factors into the whole "if he didn't want his horse to die, maybe he shouldn't have had such a lovely village worth raiding" thing either.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think there's potential in an increased emphasis on mercenary work. But yeah, that likely won't be enough on its own without some other changes. Acting as traders or security for traders seems pretty viable if we work on it, though.
Not a bad idea. I'm definitely down with this as part of the 'buy, free, and employ him and Gabriel' plan.
We can just buy thralls if we really want them. We got plenty of money for that (we were told an adult male thrall, likely the most expensive variety, was 12 ounces of silver). We do get to buy stuff in Asvir on the way home.
Personally, I'm more interested in just hiring people if possible, since if we can secure their loyalty well enough they add to Jarlsoul progression, and thralls would only do that if we freed them and then secured their allegiance, which is less plausible for Halla to do regularly, and probably harder and more expensive.
In fairness, contemporary accounts seem to indicate that the Norse actually raped somewhat less than other contemporary soldiers and raiders. Which is the definition of damning them with faint praise, mind you, and most enslavement of young women (which was common) probably did end in rape eventually if no ransom was paid, from whoever they were sold to.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
We're talking to him first, so I imagine we'll find out and it will partially be based on how well we roll.
- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/His
Say, how do Norsemen even win in these raids, if 4 people got thrashed by a fucking squire, after we killed his horse and it was a 4-on-1? Like we did nothing to the squire other than scratch his armor, and wasted a lot of orthstirr just blocking his blows instead of doing something useful. Like it felt throughout the entire fight that everything was going on around us, while we were reacting as if we were on a lagging internet connection. The squire was just swinging his sword everywhere while we were reacting to perhaps 1 of his attacks for every 4 he makes.
@Imperial Fister , he dropped his sword when he fled, right? Did we at least get the sword?
@Imperial Fister , he dropped his sword when he fled, right? Did we at least get the sword?
no like not accurate but more of like i view knights through a inaccurate lense, im now realizing people back then probably were way less prepared for the horrors of war/conflict upon volunteering than they are now.
Presumably, just like how they did in real life.
Steal, burn, flee, and leave the enemy with nothing but the ruins to know them by.
i presume via the heat mechanic, and managing it to avoid ever having to fight a knight, which makes us fighting a knight guanreenteed really stupid
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Well, fighting knights is for Orthsirr pretty much. More danger = More glory.
Which honestly isn't really good for production of cadres of cultivators. Perhaps making.. some kind of.. Norse... Knightly Order..
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
He picked it back up.
And you win raids by taking more than one boat of the smallest size available. Folkmarr is ambitious, too ambitious some may say.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Ah, he has the Ambitious Boon except the upgraded form. More Orthsirr but you take Exciting decisions.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Firstly, as mentioned, mostly they don't actually fight the knights at all, they avoid the whole situation.
Secondly, as Imperial Fister notes, we are a tiny little raiding party, not an average sized one.
Thirdly, we are a young and relatively inexperienced raiding group. A veteran squad of men in their 30s would've gone through the squire like a hot knife through butter.
Fourthly, honestly, we were winning that fight, it was just taking a while and maybe gonna cost us something. Like, it wasn't a sure victory, but it was looking pretty likely if we lasted another round or so without casualties. It wasn't only the morale hit that made him flee, he was in a real bad spot. Sure, he was beating our dice rolls, but not comfortably, not all the time, and he was burning more Fervor than he was gaining to do it, to say nothing of the damage to his armor...he wasn't in a death spiral yet, but he wasn't looking fine or like he was gonna win either.
Also, that fight was never 4 to 1 until the final round, and very briefly even then. It was 4 to 2 right up until the falcon got taken out.
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- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/His
It doesnt feel like a win, if there are 4 of you and you are barely doing chip damage to 1 guy, who is around your age. Like even if we won, it would have been after someone there, other than Fabvir, also suffered severe injuries to stop the squire.
And I may be wrong, but it looked like he got a lot of actions per turn, while we could barely react to his. Like in the last round, he attacked us, pivoted to Stigmar, then attacked Abjorn, and then had a nervous breakdown. And it felt like not all of us took an action every turn, because I didnt see Audrikr doing anything in the last round.