NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
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- Original Fantasy Action
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- 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
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
We're still picking up little bits and bobs as we go along, and our schedule's already going to be full unto bursting for the forseeable future, especially with the hints we've got a War coming in the future which'll be the real Danger Zone for Halla.
At the end of the day, Halla's ultimately only our first PC, and remember anything she learns that's a matter of knowledge alone is something future protagonists pick up. We'll be fine in the end. I'd much rather make investments for the future than throw away our advantages for a speedrun of a single Quest.
Slow boil this, do it properly, and we'll get our chance. Hell, we might even manage to reverse engineer some interesting magic tricks from the Bible once we learn to read it. Studying our neighbors doesn't mean taking up all of their ways.
For now? We've got a big stretch where we're going to have to throw a shitton of dice at making our home into some place real cool. If we can actually buy a harbor plot too, that'll be fantastic if we want to set up our own Expeditions down the line, but that kind of real estate is probably higher valued than generic farm plots, and there might not be any contiguous with our own holding.
We have a shitton of Money now, our next priority is to turn that into Power. Then we can start looking at studying the other systems all over the place, roping in Gabriel means we can finish the Meteorite Arc (Hopefully), and maybe we can rope Aki into our household too, he's a good boi and there's not a lot of people who might accept him in otherwise, but we know him and trust him, and having a vaguely mystical raven boi as a household member seems like the kind of investment that'll pay dividends for us.
EDIT: Remember after all, a Raven Fylgja gives prophetic dreams, that's the kind of friend we want in our camp.
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Then you could just go to the Hading witch and bargain with her.
Would be faster.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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One thing you could do is, when/if you ever go on an Expedition, actually just get land through establishing colonies. The Danelaw is ripe for that right now as will Normandy and Iceland in the future and Greenland and the Americas in the far future.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yep, Long Term Plans, but having access to Steinarr is important in the meantime, so it's best to stick to our home region until Halla's a certified badass.
...
You know, a further note.
How long do Steelfathers usually live for?
It's interesting that you're saying that Halla reaching that level is basically not going to happen, even if she can reach Steinarr's level, which suggests to me that there's Something Else beyond just being Girthy Enough to become a Steelfather, and it's not something that's on the table for Halla. I'd say it's the Sexism thing, but at that level of badassery, I don't think that's a serious concern. It's mostly an issue getting your foot in the door, but at Halla's current level of Drengskapr and Orthstirr, you'd have to be real dumb to just treat her as someone who can't hand you your spine in a pinch.
I wonder if becoming a Steelfather then is making a contract with the Fates, to do their Work in exchange for a revision on your Time of Death.
Of course, that kind of runs face first into the earlier issue of "You can't really fight the Fates", which is weird because Cultivation stories are all about that shit, which suggests to me that the Fates aren't really something you can fight so much as some automated system that Does It's Thing and can't really be fought.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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That's a very good question.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I'm apparently asking a lot of those tonight! This is the glory of frustration, it sets off bombs in my mindspace.
Yeah, something Fucky is going on with the Norse System... Not the least being that a key component of its basic cultivation is just an instinctual black box that you just become aware of early on for no real reason.
I wonder if it's that Ragnarok has already come and gone, so there's not really any gods looking things over, and the Fates are kind of an automated system that are still Doing Their Thing even long after it's become counterproductive. The legends do have it that Midgard survives Ragnarok, but most of the Gods die, except I think Thor's sons and one other?
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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My man Vitharr. And also Vale, the other-other son of odin... actually, wait, I think I'm wrong on that one.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGkutszRFA
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
So, this made me think about a way to really kick down Horra.
We.. play to his strengths.
By which I mean:
1. Let Horra know, obliquely, that Halla is open for ambush on so-and-so route.
2. Horra being the ass he is proceeds to try to murder us with Draugr or some shit.
3. We beat said ambush of course.
4. We write poetry commemorating our victory over said Draugr or weird shit.
5. We make sure it is extremely insulting to Draugr/Weird Shit and the person that sent them after us. Like say the Draugr wasn't made right, they're a totally shit sorcerer, someone else could have made it 3x as good, etc.
6. We read out said poetry in an audiance that *includes* Horra.
7. Barb-Tongue-Probe Trick + Poetry COMBINED ROLL GO.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 until Horra has a public villainous breakdown. "That Draugr should have killed you! That Nisse should have killed you! WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD?"
9. Make Horra an outlaw.
10. Stab Horra to death.
No way this can go wrong!
i no longer want to blow Horra up, let us expose his falsehoods and beat him up sounds fun.
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I think we need a dedicated Trick for this...either Wordplay or Barb-Tongue (or both). And more of both skills, obviously. I'm honestly down with this as a plan as long as it isn't the only plan. I still think some evidence gathering is a good call among other things, for instance. We definitely don't want to fight off any attacks while pregnant, for one thing, so we have time to pursue other avenues for the next bit.
On another subject entirely, @Imperial Fister there's a bit of a character sheet error with our Training Dice. Either we should have 25d6 or Stigmar sparring should give less than 3d6, one of the two.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Ah, I see what happened. I was thinking about adding three and wrote down 23 instead of 25, fixing
and fixed
Side-note, but what are everyones thoughts on the item that Wizard-Owl brought back?
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Makes sense.
Actually, looking it over more, we're also a die low on Management, Halla should be providing 5 now, not 4 (Farmwork 1, Labor 2, Management 2). Gonna have to readjust that one when we hire someone anyway, but still seems worth noting.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I feel like the Frami, Virthing, and the Saemd are the key somehow.
That it's your actual Cultivation, while your Orthstirr is just your share of the communal energy supply. But by default, they're arranged primarily as energy storage, we also know that Orthstirr recovers extremely quickly as long as you have a chance to catch your breath, given how Halla was able to quiet her Virthing without putting the Orthstirr back into it as long as she had a short interlude. It just doesn't recover in combat time.
I suspect the first step to actually advancing in true Cultivation is actively cultivating these three traits.
So, what do they actually mean in english? Roughly?
Frami:
Virthing:
No idea, because NorseQuest itself is on the front page of google results for this.
Saemd:
fame, glory, honor
So, by pattern, they're all separate words for Fame of some extent, but they have different focuses.
Frami is "Distinction" or "Advancement" Which is to say, it's what makes you stand out from anyone else. I guess we could qualify this as "Uniqueness?" This manifests as an outline of crimson flames--notably, those flames can ignite things, it's not merely cosmetic in nature!
Saemd though is Glory, and notably, it's the one that manifests as a crown of candles on Halla. Glory and Honor as a Crown. Your Deeds upon your Brow. I think I remember Imperial Fister saying that someone witnessing your three aspects can get a pretty good idea of what you're about if they have the right skills?
Still need to figure out what Virthing is supposed to be though before we can figure out a Unified Theory. Either way, Norse Cultivation appears to be intended as "Conversion of self from person to a Living Legend", effectively turning yourself into a living storybook character, a parable given life. And in doing so, achieve Immortality (Because you can't kill a Story after all). Presumably, the Three Aspects can be cultivated Intentionally to give you something similar to the passive benefits that the other forms of Cultivation can achieve, but because nobody thinks to do that or has the knowledge, it doesn't spread.
The problem is that by default, the overall Cultural Myth takes precedence, which is that the Norse are fearsome warriors who take what they please, seek out worthy battles, and die when their Time Is Up (Which is something decided from the outside). The Cultural Myth is Soldiers and Raiders, and working against this is virtually impossible for two reasons. First and foremost is because accumulating Orthstirr is massively harder unless you cleave to the commonly held cultural myth. The other half is that the story that "You'll die when the Fates decide you do and there's nothing you can do to stop that" means that people just don't have time to do any different. You're put on a timer from birth and inherently handicapped because you've got a strict time limit, which is weird because stories should last forever.
That leads to the second problem in this theory I'm putting together. The Steelfathers. They are the absolute pinnacle of Respect in Norse Society, and apparently unlike everyone else, they either don't have a Fated End, or have negotiated a significant extension on it with the Fates using some special measure. Presumably, they exist to protect Norse Society from externalities that would significantly impact its current direction--which presumably exists for a Reason (Though we have no idea what that Reason is). To that end, they're granted greater power and influence over everyone else--a level of power that apparently cannot be matched by someone who didn't make a similar deal, and exist to stop things like Knightly Crusades.
Or, as we learned with Hallr's story. Preventing someone from breaking the system. Steelfathers apparently either have extended Fated Ends, and power that nobody else could even dream of matching, to the point where we can't even call Steinarr--in all his mid-fourties insanity and 'Can manfight a Ninth or Tenth Decade Knight and win'--even a Half-Step Steelfather.
And yet Hallr fought Nine of these fuckers, which should be impossible... Unless he figured out how actual Norse Cultivation should work, and they were out to stop him from passing that along. He certainly had enough power and influence that he'd be Listened To, which is unacceptable. Now, we don't know why things are set up the way they are--whether it's a soldier mill for the Gods, a broken machine carrying out its function even beyond when it should have stopped, or some other unknowable reason. The Results look like they're clear.
More importantly, we got a Hint too, between Hallr's story and what we saw in the Manor. Namely, that the Fates don't have sway over those who don't believe in them, Hallr made his massive breakthrough adventuring in the wilderness and fighting a pagan God. Halla couldn't bind the Squire to a rematch, it straight up said there was 'Nothing there'. It means that any real Answers aren't going to be found in the Norse Lands,
Phew, that's it for my wild theorizing right now. It'll be nice if someone can find out what Virthing is supposed to actually be though so I can try to fit it into my Unified Norse Cultivation Theory.
That it's your actual Cultivation, while your Orthstirr is just your share of the communal energy supply. But by default, they're arranged primarily as energy storage, we also know that Orthstirr recovers extremely quickly as long as you have a chance to catch your breath, given how Halla was able to quiet her Virthing without putting the Orthstirr back into it as long as she had a short interlude. It just doesn't recover in combat time.
I suspect the first step to actually advancing in true Cultivation is actively cultivating these three traits.
So, what do they actually mean in english? Roughly?
Frami:
Virthing:
No idea, because NorseQuest itself is on the front page of google results for this.
Saemd:
fame, glory, honor
So, by pattern, they're all separate words for Fame of some extent, but they have different focuses.
Frami is "Distinction" or "Advancement" Which is to say, it's what makes you stand out from anyone else. I guess we could qualify this as "Uniqueness?" This manifests as an outline of crimson flames--notably, those flames can ignite things, it's not merely cosmetic in nature!
Saemd though is Glory, and notably, it's the one that manifests as a crown of candles on Halla. Glory and Honor as a Crown. Your Deeds upon your Brow. I think I remember Imperial Fister saying that someone witnessing your three aspects can get a pretty good idea of what you're about if they have the right skills?
Still need to figure out what Virthing is supposed to be though before we can figure out a Unified Theory. Either way, Norse Cultivation appears to be intended as "Conversion of self from person to a Living Legend", effectively turning yourself into a living storybook character, a parable given life. And in doing so, achieve Immortality (Because you can't kill a Story after all). Presumably, the Three Aspects can be cultivated Intentionally to give you something similar to the passive benefits that the other forms of Cultivation can achieve, but because nobody thinks to do that or has the knowledge, it doesn't spread.
The problem is that by default, the overall Cultural Myth takes precedence, which is that the Norse are fearsome warriors who take what they please, seek out worthy battles, and die when their Time Is Up (Which is something decided from the outside). The Cultural Myth is Soldiers and Raiders, and working against this is virtually impossible for two reasons. First and foremost is because accumulating Orthstirr is massively harder unless you cleave to the commonly held cultural myth. The other half is that the story that "You'll die when the Fates decide you do and there's nothing you can do to stop that" means that people just don't have time to do any different. You're put on a timer from birth and inherently handicapped because you've got a strict time limit, which is weird because stories should last forever.
That leads to the second problem in this theory I'm putting together. The Steelfathers. They are the absolute pinnacle of Respect in Norse Society, and apparently unlike everyone else, they either don't have a Fated End, or have negotiated a significant extension on it with the Fates using some special measure. Presumably, they exist to protect Norse Society from externalities that would significantly impact its current direction--which presumably exists for a Reason (Though we have no idea what that Reason is). To that end, they're granted greater power and influence over everyone else--a level of power that apparently cannot be matched by someone who didn't make a similar deal, and exist to stop things like Knightly Crusades.
Or, as we learned with Hallr's story. Preventing someone from breaking the system. Steelfathers apparently either have extended Fated Ends, and power that nobody else could even dream of matching, to the point where we can't even call Steinarr--in all his mid-fourties insanity and 'Can manfight a Ninth or Tenth Decade Knight and win'--even a Half-Step Steelfather.
And yet Hallr fought Nine of these fuckers, which should be impossible... Unless he figured out how actual Norse Cultivation should work, and they were out to stop him from passing that along. He certainly had enough power and influence that he'd be Listened To, which is unacceptable. Now, we don't know why things are set up the way they are--whether it's a soldier mill for the Gods, a broken machine carrying out its function even beyond when it should have stopped, or some other unknowable reason. The Results look like they're clear.
More importantly, we got a Hint too, between Hallr's story and what we saw in the Manor. Namely, that the Fates don't have sway over those who don't believe in them, Hallr made his massive breakthrough adventuring in the wilderness and fighting a pagan God. Halla couldn't bind the Squire to a rematch, it straight up said there was 'Nothing there'. It means that any real Answers aren't going to be found in the Norse Lands,
Phew, that's it for my wild theorizing right now. It'll be nice if someone can find out what Virthing is supposed to actually be though so I can try to fit it into my Unified Norse Cultivation Theory.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Also from a mechanical standpoint I think Horra would eat Nid each time step 7 happens, since we're shaming Horra if indirectly. Particularly so if our insult-poetry is so good we have the audience cheering for us.
Halla may get the dubious honor of starting the tradition of Flytings if she is successful.
Halla may get the dubious honor of starting the tradition of Flytings if she is successful.
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- Pittsburgh PA
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- He/Him
Flytings are generally thought to date back to the 5th century in our timeline so here they should be firmly established.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
Have another Reward Dice because I find things like this utterly hilarious
To answer your English meanings question:
Frami - Fame
Virthing - Worth
Saemd - Prestige
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Thanks mate.
I think I'm tuckered out for tonight, but I think it was a good bit of blarghing out words that meant things.
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I'm pretty sure if we activate it, it will come to life and try and murder somebody. Maybe us. Of course, we'd need to activate it first. I suggest we keep it in a locked trunk just in case I'm wrong about it needing to be activated. Like, I'm thinking disposable assassin-construct that probably only accepts commands in Chinese.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Ah, there we are.
Yeah, I don't think that josses my theory that the Ideal Endpoint of Norse Cultivation is becoming a Living Legend, but it gets hampered by the fact that the knowledge needed to properly Cultivate is heavily restricted and the current system is enforced by unknowable mechanisms and monstrously powerful cultivators that just cannot be matched by those who don't buy into the system.
Yeah, I don't think that josses my theory that the Ideal Endpoint of Norse Cultivation is becoming a Living Legend, but it gets hampered by the fact that the knowledge needed to properly Cultivate is heavily restricted and the current system is enforced by unknowable mechanisms and monstrously powerful cultivators that just cannot be matched by those who don't buy into the system.
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I'm pretty sure you're right about the basic goal, or potential goal anyway, of Norse Cultivation. I'm less convinced about that information being actively kept from people, at least not knowingly by human beings, and am not sure if you're right about what a Steelfather is (or why they killed Hallr...all the ones who did were from a single organization, it didn't have to be general Steelfather policy or anything). But the basic idea? I think you're spot on.
Which means the equivalent 'thing we're building' like Christians use the Rosary should obviously be a Saga.