NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Awesome tip, if the title is properly worded i dont think the enemy is a non-norse entity massively lowering our scope of suspects.

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I mean, I think it's the quest to free the Norse from the Enemy's power and fix their cultivation and society. Which is why converting to Christianity is a Neutral end...it achieves the goal, just not in a way we actually want to.

What the Enemy is, is secondary to that.

 

[Shard]

Oil.

F...

It's fucking Ink and Threads, that's the difference between External Orthstirr and Internal Orthstirr, isn't it? One is used as pigment to write with, the other is what you're writing on, isn't it? It's literally the same thing as Runes, you need a Pigment and a Medium to write on--and what Medium is more durable than the Weave that is Fate itself?

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This just brings my mind to The Banner Saga. Menders touch the weave of the world to do their magic. Though it's mostly weaving armor together and stuff usually.

 

[Alectai]

This just brings my mind to The Banner Saga. Menders touch the weave of the world to do their magic. Though it's mostly weaving armor together and stuff usually.

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Seidr probably deals with external use of the Weave then. Tactical reality edits that let you tweak the Tapestry of Fate around you. Stabilizing Palm for instance prevents you from experiencing Bodily Death, but is powerless against your actual True Death--which is to say, there needs to be actual Tapestry left for you to be mended.

Explains why you need to go through some Real Shit to earn access to it, that shit is dangerous if abused, so the Nornir probably have put it down that achieving it requires some degree of sacrifice so you properly respect the privilege you have wielding it. Also explains too why it's considered a 'Womanly Art' if it involves weaving threads.

But yeah, Saga Weaving is probably the True Form of Norse Cultivation--the thing that you build on using your Orthstirr that gives you permanent benefits and lets you keep up with the other Cultivation paradigms, but seems to be either a very closely guarded Secret by those who've discovered it, or actively suppressed by The Enemy, given how they seem to have significant influence over the current culture. We'll need to be very careful with who we teach the procedure to once we figure out how to actually proceed along that line.

It's kind of funny, that apparently most of the scariest Norse guys are at the equivalent of Qi Condensation, and can only compete with their peers through sheer overwhelming numbers and raw attributes. But it's also sad that we're that far behind

 

[Shine]

It's kind of funny, that apparently most of the scariest Norse guys are at the equivalent of Qi Condensation, and can only compete with their peers through sheer overwhelming numbers and raw attributes. But it's also sad that we're that far behind

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I would point out that it's a trick that the Norse, going by everything they've done and everyone they've killed

Can do really, really well.

We're hardly that behind, from that perspective. Who guards the Emperor, after all?

 

[Bass11]

I feel like the varangian guard have a dual cultivation system going on with them.

 

[Solar Saiyan]

So, the ENEMY and Horra, most probably working in parallel if not together have managed to curse Stigr with nid which we thankfully resolved, managed to kill off our mother, inflict Steinarr with nid thus losing us the absolute unit that is Dad when we finally confront Horra, managed to use our mother's death to curse our household, where, might I remind you, 3 vulnerable children live currently and there is a high chance taht they will be killed in the same way that our youngest sibling was killed...and even if Horra was not explicitly named, I still believe he is involved, because everything is his fault. He is the Danzo of this setting. Was the outlaw in the beginning sent by him? Is the witch in the woods also a part of his conspiracy? Who knows.
Looks like everything is coming up Horra. His greatest threat is soon going to face his doom.

 

[mythfan12]

It's kind of funny, that apparently most of the scariest Norse guys are at the equivalent of Qi Condensation, and can only compete with their peers through sheer overwhelming numbers and raw attributes. But it's also sad that we're that far behind

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This just means when we do finally get our family the knowledge we will be absolute beasts with both xianxia bs and norse bs.

 

[Alectai]

I would point out that it's a trick that the Norse, going by everything they've done and everyone they've killed

Can do really, really well.

We're hardly that behind, from that perspective. Who guards the Emperor, after all?

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I think it's probably more that there's no hard cap for how strong you can get just based on auto-cultivation alone, so you can always progress in a linear fashion while most other styles would gracefully advance forward as they go along--but we already saw that the Norse system seems to struggle past a certain point, where exponential gains start kicking in for the other styles but the Norse system is still a linear advance. Boons and Twists can modify this to an extent, but in the end, your massive outliers don't tend to last long to make a significant impact on how things play out, and eventually the exponential growths of the other systems outpace the explosive--but linear--growth of the Norse style.

Also, yeah, it's pretty likely that the Varagnian Guard have some Bullshit going on with them too, they're insanely prestigious, and given how important Words and Stories are in Norse Cultivation, that probably is Important.

 

[Slickji]

Yeah we have to fill something with orthstirr and condense it to progresss, but what! can we even do it right now or is our cultivation too low?

 

[KreenWarrior]

Norse can grow incredibly, explosively strong, yeah. And we have conditional immortality. Vikings are self-reproducing murder-bombs aimed at the throat of the world, and quite effectively so. There will explicitly be costs to abandoning those (the conditional immortality presumably being one of them). That said, I imagine the culture as a whole would be glad to start living past 40 regularly.

 

[Grytorm]

The gate is described as separating the inside and the outside so I think opening it happens when we begin to pick up Seidr. If that's true then I think that learning Seidr might start to clue people in onto there being something more to cultivation so things like labeling it as womanly help to keep it from spreading too far.

Also investigating Muna and Hugareida inside our spiritual space seems like a good path of investigation. So Gabriel refers to storing motes of the Holy Spirit inside of his Tabernacle which I think might be Muna equivalents.

 

[Slickji]

Norse can grow incredibly, explosively strong, yeah. And we have conditional immortality. Vikings are self-reproducing murder-bombs aimed at the throat of the world, and quite effectively so. There will explicitly be costs to abandoning those (the conditional immortality presumably being one of them). That said, I imagine the culture as a whole would be glad to start living past 40 regularly.

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yeah its rare to live to see your grandkids, our mom did this with her eldest child only, and was clearly an old lady by our cultures standards (likely over 40) yet we hated her death alot! so yeah they will be grateful

 

[Alectai]

Yeah, honestly, I suspect the Sacrifice to getting your Fated End turned off is that there's no longer a distinction between Bodily and Truly Dead anymore, if you drop, you're gone. The Steelfathers get to cheat that by somehow integrating the Curse of Steel, making them Unending and Undying, but at the cost of... Well, doing whatever it is Steel does to everything around it.

And that matters, since this distinction is what allows Viking raiders to take such insane risks to advance themselves--since their death has nothing to do with themselves and everything to do with "Well, is it your time then?" You take up the responsibility of writing your own Fate, but it means you don't get the same protections everyone else does.

"Power Requires Sacrifice"

"The price for controlling your own Fate is that you are responsible for it now." That feels right, it's very easy to live under the default system of the Norse, because you're not actually responsible for anything. Things will happen or they won't based on what the Nornir eyeball at your birth, and your Doom will arrive precisely as they intended it, but until then, nothing can kill you. Presumably, the other part of it is that you need to continue to reinforce your own existence, which sort of suggests that such a Cultivator needs to constantly remain a figure that people Notice and Talk About.

 

[Slickji]

Okay revisiting my 4->7->10 theory
Hamr 4 got us blackhand (he speaks the first time on the turn we get hamr 4 same turn as witch ritual but he speaks before we enter the witch ritual)
Hamr 7 is shapeshifting
Fylgja 4 is boon+flaw choice
Fylgja 7 is probably evolved battle form
what about
Hugr 4 let's us put the orthstirr in our equivalent dantian/qi sea area
Hugr 7 let's us start condensing said orthstirr

I remember in most cultivations stories the qi condensation stage has mini walls every 3 stages since the 4th and 7th are larger jumps in quality
if the 10th stage exist it usually exist as a secret stage that can fight on par with low second realm cultivators and is needed along with the even harder to unlock stages (up to like 18) to have a truly perfect base for realm 2 and beyond.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

It's kind of funny, that apparently most of the scariest Norse guys are at the equivalent of Qi Condensation, and can only compete with their peers through sheer overwhelming numbers and raw attributes. But it's also sad that we're that far behind

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Depends on what one means by 'behind'. They do still keep accumulating 'Qi Pool' after all, and can burn it like water in a way more restrained cultivation styles generally lack the ability to do. It'll inevitably be more effective and efficient once we start doing it right but the raw power already there remains impressive.

Like, part of the reason why Qi Condensation cultivators are weak is that they all advance to the next stage when they can, not that you can't get hardcore while staying at it.

And I'm not at all sure the stages are directly equivalent...Christians have 15 and I bet the numbers are different for others as well. I'll bet the Norse system will have 9 when fixed, so even the first is the equivalent of the first several of the Christian one.

I think it's probably more that there's no hard cap for how strong you can get just based on auto-cultivation alone, so you can always progress in a linear fashion while most other styles would gracefully advance forward as they go along--but we already saw that the Norse system seems to struggle past a certain point, where exponential gains start kicking in for the other styles but the Norse system is still a linear advance. Boons and Twists can modify this to an extent, but in the end, your massive outliers don't tend to last long to make a significant impact on how things play out, and eventually the exponential growths of the other systems outpace the explosive--but linear--growth of the Norse style.

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The Norse grow a lot more quickly than Christians, including exponentially, I think, their issue is that they don't internalize the power properly which has issues with lifespan and the endurance of their power pool.

Also, yeah, it's pretty likely that the Varagnian Guard have some Bullshit going on with them too, they're insanely prestigious, and given how important Words and Stories are in Norse Cultivation, that probably is Important.

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It's a super interesting question. They probably have some sort of advantage, but I wonder what? Maybe just specially made armor or other equipment? Knight Armor is kind of brokenly awesome and something similar made to work with Norse Cultivation would be a hell of an advantage, and the Byzantines did provide armor for the Varangian Guard historically.

 

[KreenWarrior]

The more I think on it, the more likely I think it is that Norse are basically a supersoldier race, and probably in service to the Enemy.

Conditional immortality means that there's much less risk to engaging in fights. As long as you have a healer around, you can fight all you want. Fighting is also far and away the easiest way to gain power. Orthstirr gains are massive when engaging in dramatic fights compared to all other sources. Sure, orthstirr isn't everything, but it's a massive, exponential growth-increase compared to tending a farm or other means. Tricks are relatively easy to learn compared to xianxia techs, most of them are just stuff we've come up with. We get training dice from others, but we don't need them to develop. Our needs are taken care of by a modestly impressive farm, no rare herbs or pills or spirit stones, no civilization-wide prayer batteries needed. Every Norseperson is a potentially deadly opponent. And they have a short lifespan, making them easy to control and self-disposing.

Like, this definitely sounds like someone monkeying around with developing a race of super-soldiers.

 

[mythfan12]

I was thinking of Hallr and the Charred Soul trait, and with the current theorizing of how to interact to cultivation, makes me think the trait is literally just a Hallr (and now likely Halla) shaped burn on the weave that will never be painted over.

 

[Slickji]

Like, this definitely sounds like someone monkeying around with developing a race of super-soldiers.

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Nail on the head, you aren't supposed to go beyond stage 9 in qi condensation yet the strongest Norse likely have 12 maybe 15 stages, I remember i read a popular xianxia novel by one author who previously made one where the MC takes shortcuts all the time and instead made on where the MC takes no short cuts, he find out like 9 isn't he cap but 18 is the actual cap but getting to 10 is super hard cause it a huge jump in quality, MC ends up tapping out 13-15 since each stage after is even harder to achieve than the last. Realm 2 is defined by the pillars an the "best" pillar state is flawless with only 1 crack per pillar, MC having gone so deep into qi condensation has 0 cracks, which makes doing realm 3's core formation better and perfect-er than everybody else easier and it keeps snow balling.

this might be proto super soldiers, they are using our race to brute force finding the best way to qi condensation stage 18 for actual super soldiers they mak later.

 

[Alectai]

Okay revisiting my 4->7->10 theory
Hamr 4 got us blackhand (he speaks the first time on the turn we get hamr 4 same turn as witch ritual but he speaks before we enter the witch ritual)
Hamr 7 is shapeshifting
Fylgja 4 is boon+flaw choice
Fylgja 7 is probably evolved battle form
what about
Hugr 4 let's us put the orthstirr in our equivalent dantian/qi sea area
Hugr 7 let's us start condensing said orthstirr

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I don't believe that Hugr 7 would unlock 'Orthstirr Condensation'. We already know what it unlocks--Alloying. (Which is apparently a way to combine multiple Hugareida to gain access to new ones without needing to necessarily get a Muna related to it.) Hamr 7 unlocks Shapeshifting (Which in this case, appears to be redefining how your Body interacts with the rest of reality rather than straight up turning into a wereperson, Abjorn's Hamr is dummy high and yet he still looks like a human--just a big one, and he has Giant's Blood doing that), and Fylgja 7 apparently evolves your Fylgja into some kind of magical beast instead of an otherwise mundane animal with a gimmick.

The Attributes don't seem to be directly responsible for Cultivation skills, as we saw that one Fifth Decade Priest who had a Soma (Their Body Stat equivalent) of what, 2? It's not hard to raise your Attributes until they start getting to 4 or so, so the fact he didn't do so suggests that it's not actually something that comes super easily to them, but he was still a fighter that qualified as being 'Twice as powerful as Halla was', and he definitely had the advantage if we didn't have just the right tools to counter him and then bring him down before he could recover.

It seems more that Attributes are the equivalent of specifically cultivating aspects of yourself, and the Norse don't have actually that much else to do with their Training Dice without the ability to intentionally Cultivate, so they tend to put their excess dice into their Core Attributes as their most 'Efficient' return on investment, which leads to them having much higher ones on average than their peers. Like most settings too, sufficiently high Cultivation in specific aspects (Like Body Cultivation for instance) unlocks special perks that give you a significant edge on those who didn't go through all that extra credit work, but you can get strong even without it--and most people find a way to cheat the system to get the benefits without putting in the time and effort, either through innate bloodlines or special gear or something.

Which seems to be how our own Attributes work.

 

[Slickji]

I don't believe that Hugr 7 would unlock 'Orthstirr Condensation'. We already know what it unlocks--Alloying. Hamr 7 unlocks Shapeshifting (Which in this case, appears to be redefining how your Body interacts with the rest of reality rather than straight up turning into a wereperson), and Fylgja 7 apparently evolves your Fylgja into some kind of magical beast instead of an otherwise mundane animal with a gimmick.

Which is apparently a way to combine multiple Hugareida to gain access to new ones without needing to necessarily get a Muna related to it.

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Aight back to my Idea Hugr 4 unlocks Rune usage, it cannot be Seidr since we got the healing palm at Hugr 3

 

[Alectai]

Aight back to my Idea Hugr 4 unlocks Rune usage, it cannot be Seidr since we got the healing palm at Hugr 3

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Honestly? I don't think 4 is a major breakpoint in the system. Or at least, if it does have benefits, those benefits are insignificant on their own. They might be things that interact with Actual Cultivation though, and since our Cultivation Base is "Fucking Zero outside of the Orthstirr allotted to us", it doesn't do anything. (Remember, raising your Attributes up to 4 is not very hard, it's going much higher than that which starts requiring increasingly grueling investment)

 

[KreenWarrior]

As an aside, Steelfathers appear to be Really Big Bois (the one we saw at the wedding was bigger than Abjorn), which is both funny and interesting. A connection to giants? They also have a detectable aura of "I can make the laws of physics shut up and sit down".

 

[Shard]

Explains why you need to go through some Real Shit to earn access to it, that shit is dangerous if abused, so the Nornir probably have put it down that achieving it requires some degree of sacrifice so you properly respect the privilege you have wielding it. Also explains too why it's considered a 'Womanly Art' if it involves weaving threads.

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Well, Horra's rather aptly demonstrating what happens when Seidr is abused. Bad Shit.

 

[Slickji]

Honestly? I don't think 4 is a major breakpoint in the system. Or at least, if it does have benefits, those benefits are insignificant on their own. They might be things that interact with Actual Cultivation though, and since our Cultivation Base is "Fucking Zero outside of the Orthstirr allotted to us", it doesn't do anything. (Remember, raising your Attributes up to 4 is not very hard, it's going much higher than that which starts requiring increasingly grueling investment)

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Yeah but the 4th stage in qi condensation is minor barrier with slightly more quality in the stage than 2->3 and 4->5 give. 7 and 10 are larger barrier with even more benefits for achieving

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

It seems more that Attributes are the equivalent of specifically cultivating aspects of yourself, and the Norse don't have actually that much else to do with their Training Dice without the ability to intentionally Cultivate, so they tend to put their excess dice into their Core Attributes as their most 'Efficient' return on investment, which leads to them having much higher ones on average than their peers. Like most settings too, sufficiently high Cultivation in specific aspects (Like Body Cultivation for instance) unlocks special perks that give you a significant edge on those who didn't go through all that extra credit work, but you can get strong even without it--and most people find a way to cheat the system to get the benefits without putting in the time and effort, either through innate bloodlines or special gear or something.

Which seems to be how our own Attributes work.

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I don't think this is quite right. I think that for non-Norse, their stats are tied somewhat to their cultivation, but in a way where you have to choose between them. The priest was very Hugr-equivalent focused so he just focused all his efforts on that rather than Soma, but Gabriel, for instance, has Soma 5+ since he has more Soma than we had Hamr when we sparred.

Well, Horra's rather aptly demonstrating what happens when Seidr is abused. Bad Shit.

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Evidence suggests that what Horra is using is not Seidr, but some sort of foreign magic. That's what the story mentioned says and the stuff he does doesn't fit anything else we know of how Seidr works either.