NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

The implication is if we spend both Orthstirr and Odr in a single Trick, that we'll get an improved effect -- is that the vibe Halla recieved when she was testing @Imperial Fister ?

Click to shrink...

He answered this earlier: You can use Odr to supercharge the effect of a Trick rather than to pay its Orthstirr cost (which you would then pay normally, or spend Odr to avoid, your choice, but they're separate expenditures so it's be 1 Odr to replace Orthstirr, then another for upgraded effects). You can spend a total amount of Odr up to the skill level of the governing skill on any specific Trick (or presumably Hugareida level for Hugareida Tricks).

 

[Alectai]

Hmm, fair enough.

I do wonder why we got 10 Odr this turn though, it could be that we effectively have a hidden "Cultivation Skill" that raises by 1 every turn? If that's the case, next turn should also be 10, but the one after that should be 11.

So like, your Tens digit + your Cultivation Skill is your total Odr intake for a turn maybe? And there's probably ways to increase that further--I recall that the place the Dwarves built their house at gave Halla some very good vibes. Maybe we can get their advice setting something similar up at our little grove?

 

[Shard]

It's not the first, because we only got 9 last turn and we had identical orthstirr totals then. Could well be the second, could have increased based on some other thing.

Click to shrink...

Thinking about it, the theoretical max Odr output would be, Odr condensing whenever your aspects are available. Aspects refresh at least once every nap/sleep, so at like 60 days per turn, that would be Yes amounts of Odr. If you can endure the cultivation process anyway, which is brutal and life-threatening.

Also, it occurs to me that, right after farming our soulscape into a beautiful plant ecosystem, the next logical step would be.. filling it with animals. Characters. After all.. once you have the background materials for a Saga, the context so to say, you need actors.

 

[Alectai]

Thinking about it, the theoretical max Odr output would be, Odr condensing whenever your aspects are available. Aspects refresh at least once every nap/sleep, so at like 60 days per turn, that would be Yes amounts of Odr. If you can endure the cultivation process anyway, which is brutal and life-threatening.

Also, it occurs to me that, right after farming our soulscape into a beautiful plant ecosystem, the next logical step would be.. filling it with animals. Characters. After all.. once you have the background materials for a Saga, the context so to say, you need actors.

Click to shrink...

It was implied that the final step of Saga Formation was "Planting a Seed", which seems to be putting a Title you have as the center of your Saga. Daughter of Ash being one that would be good for Halla for instance.

So like, I think you're right in that step one is filling it with plants, and step two is adding animals to the ecosystem, but the breakthrough is planting a symbol that defines you over your Well--the Yggdrasil of your own inner Realm if you will.

Hmm, we should definitely experiment with bringing our Fylgja in and out of our Inner Realm next turn. It seems important and it was one of Hallr's suggestions.

 

[I.F. Ister]

The implication is if we spend both Orthstirr and Odr in a single Trick, that we'll get an improved effect -- is that the vibe Halla recieved when she was testing @Imperial Fister ?

Click to shrink...

By 'improved effect' I more refer to damage increase. For every one extra odr you put into a trick, the damage goes up by one. You can also use odr in lieu of orthstirr to fuel the trick, but this does not increase the damage. If you use odr to fuel a trick, you can also then add extra odr to it to increase damage.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

I do wonder why we got 10 Odr this turn though, it could be that we effectively have a hidden "Cultivation Skill" that raises by 1 every turn? If that's the case, next turn should also be 10, but the one after that should be 11.

Click to shrink...

It also might have to do with the number of plants currently in our soul or several other things. Hard to tell.

Thinking about it, the theoretical max Odr output would be, Odr condensing whenever your aspects are available. Aspects refresh at least once every nap/sleep, so at like 60 days per turn, that would be Yes amounts of Odr. If you can endure the cultivation process anyway, which is brutal and life-threatening.

Click to shrink...

I presume we're doing as much Odr gaining as possible, though investing actions or Training Dice into doing more might be possible, I suppose.

Also, it occurs to me that, right after farming our soulscape into a beautiful plant ecosystem, the next logical step would be.. filling it with animals. Characters. After all.. once you have the background materials for a Saga, the context so to say, you need actors.

Click to shrink...

Maybe! I doubt we pull in real people permanently, but conjured 'extras' of some sort seem possible.

 

[Alectai]

By 'improved effect' I more refer to damage increase. For every one extra odr you put into a trick, the damage goes up by one. You can also use odr in lieu of orthstirr to fuel the trick, but this does not increase the damage. If you use odr to fuel a trick, you can also then add extra odr to it to increase damage.

Click to shrink...

Oh.

Okay, yeah, that's pretty good.

I guess in the case of Hugareida, your Odr limit is the same as the dice you get from your Grade?

It's inefficient, but if you positively have to kill someone dead right the fuck now, that's a solid option on the table.

 

[Solar Saiyan]

Say, we know that the Enemy knows of us now and is liable to send their agents against us regardless of if we are prepared or not not to mention that the Enemy has no reason to level scale their agents to our level. And soon we will be going against Horra, who has a lot of bullshit lined up. So should we really ping away at the combat skills at this rate of 1 dice per turn. Because then we will take a lot of turns to get anywhere. For example, it will take around 60 turns to get to Hamr 7, 30 to get to Hugr 7, some more to level up the other combat skills. Shouldnt we at least put 2 or 3 dice into these combat skills, well other then the Hugareida ones? I understand that 1d6 is a guaranteed investment, but its so slow.

 

[Shard]

It was implied that the final step of Saga Formation was "Planting a Seed", which seems to be putting a Title you have as the center of your Saga. Daughter of Ash being one that would be good for Halla for instance.

So like, I think you're right in that step one is filling it with plants, and step two is adding animals to the ecosystem, but the breakthrough is planting a symbol that defines you over your Well--the Yggdrasil of your own inner Realm if you will.

Hmm, we should definitely experiment with bringing our Fylgja in and out of our Inner Realm next turn. It seems important and it was one of Hallr's suggestions.

Click to shrink...

This is also why the demonseeds might be helpful for Norse cultivation incidentally. Like, a source of pure evil is, kind of a convenient enemy for heroes to fight.

You know, as long as you make sure that they never ever actually win.

Of course I might be barking up an entirely wrong tree here.

By 'improved effect' I more refer to damage increase. For every one extra odr you put into a trick, the damage goes up by one. You can also use odr in lieu of orthstirr to fuel the trick, but this does not increase the damage. If you use odr to fuel a trick, you can also then add extra odr to it to increase damage.

Click to shrink...

That's, um, wow. That's really good if we're really pushed. Although pretty Odr intensive.

Gives a whole new meaning to burning years months of cultivation to fuel a super power attack..

 

[Alectai]

Say, we know that the Enemy knows of us now and is liable to send their agents against us regardless of if we are prepared or not not to mention that the Enemy has no reason to level scale their agents to our level. And soon we will be going against Horra, who has a lot of bullshit lined up. So should we really ping away at the combat skills at this rate of 1 dice per turn. Because then we will take a lot of turns to get anywhere. For example, it will take around 60 turns to get to Hamr 7, 30 to get to Hugr 7, some more to level up the other combat skills. Shouldnt we at least put 2 or 3 dice into these combat skills, well other then the Hugareida ones? I understand that 1d6 is a guaranteed investment, but its so slow.

Click to shrink...

The Enemy presumably wants to keep their head down, since much of its shenanigans only work absent active scrutiny. (We saw what happened after all when we put attention down on one of its edits--reality broke and had to be re-woven, which was a dead-giveaway that it was fucking around.). Word tends to spread fast and giant holes in the ground are noticed, which suggests to me that this kind of "Overwhelming Force" response is not its first choice--presumably because it exposes itself to retaliation from other actors when it moves that forcefully, we know the Gods are around to some extent after all and are Not Its Friend--though it seems they have certain limitations that prevent them from fighting back, might be an Oath or something they ended up swearing, or that they're not actually on the same cultivation system and therefore can't win a final victory against it like a Norse Cultivator hypothetically could if they made it to the Peak.

...

Man, the Enemy really better not be Loki. IF said we'd be kicking ourselves after the Big Reveal, but that almost feels too cheap, and also doesn't quite fit the narrative of the conflict with The Enemy largely predating the world as we know it.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Say, we know that the Enemy knows of us now and is liable to send their agents against us regardless of if we are prepared or not not to mention that the Enemy has no reason to level scale their agents to our level. And soon we will be going against Horra, who has a lot of bullshit lined up. So should we really ping away at the combat skills at this rate of 1 dice per turn. Because then we will take a lot of turns to get anywhere. For example, it will take around 60 turns to get to Hamr 7, 30 to get to Hugr 7, some more to level up the other combat skills. Shouldnt we at least put 2 or 3 dice into these combat skills, well other then the Hugareida ones? I understand that 1d6 is a guaranteed investment, but its so slow.

Click to shrink...

We are indeed going to put more than 1d6 into raising our stats in the pretty near future. Probably Hugr first...but 2d6 or 3d6 aren't enough faster to be worth it. I mean, having Hugr go up in 12 turns (roughly what we're talking about with 2d6 to 3d6 per turn) is better than in 26, sure, but not enough better to be a priority, IMO. In the next few turns as many of our ongoing things finish we can start throwing 6d6, 8d6, or even 10d6 into our high investment stat per turn, and that's a lot more likely to get us something good in a quick time frame (9d6 per turn will get us 4 or 5 turns...we probably aren't gonna quite manage that, but we can do better than 12).

That said, the actual best way to raise our combat Dice Pool is to make a Sax for ourselves to replace Thievesbane (which we can and will do next turn, since multiple dice were invested in Sax to achieve that, and probably ups our dice pool by 3d6 or so), and the second best is to put 1d6 each into Pierce, Cut, Throw, and Bash for 4 turns (upping our total dice pool by 4d6). Which we will also definitely be doing in the near-ish future.

 

[I.F. Ister]

Man, the Enemy really better not be Loki.

Click to shrink...

I can tell you that it's not Loki.

But there are some BS technicality shenanigans going on.

 

[Silverking]

It was implied that the final step of Saga Formation was "Planting a Seed", which seems to be putting a Title you have as the center of your Saga. Daughter of Ash being one that would be good for Halla for instance.

Click to shrink...

Gah, trying to rediscover the steps to Norse cultivation is going to be so frustrating, particularly when we have some of the steps to progress, but no idea regarding the order of operations or how to optimize it. Is it simply "more plants are better", or do we have to have some sticky Trick in mind if we want to incorporate the glue tree? Do we want to perform Odr Infusion up to our Rank in each stat before trying to reach the next step of cultivation, or can it wait until we take the next step so we can take advantage of increased Odr generation? Will we face the equivalent of "tribulation lightning" in our next step?

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

or do we have to have some sticky Trick in mind if we want to incorporate the glue tree?

Click to shrink...

For the record, with Standstill and particularly IAT, we do in fact have a powerful Trick thematically tied to the glue (we use that to glue people and things in place quite a lot). So this is definitely a worry long term, but incorporating the Glue Tree should work either way.

 

[I.F. Ister]

Maybe! I doubt we pull in real people permanently, but conjured 'extras' of some sort seem possible.

Click to shrink...

If you wanted to do such a thing as create 'extras', then you might want to look into the origins of humanity in Norse Mythology

 

[Shard]

Gah, trying to rediscover the steps to Norse cultivation is going to be so frustrating, particularly when we have some of the steps to progress, but no idea regarding the order of operations or how to optimize it. Is it simply "more plants are better", or do we have to have some sticky Trick in mind if we want to incorporate the glue tree? Do we want to perform Odr Infusion up to our Rank in each stat before trying to reach the next step of cultivation, or can it wait until we take the next step so we can take advantage of increased Odr generation? Will we face the equivalent of "tribulation lightning" in our next step?

Click to shrink...

Well, we did face a nearly lethal 'tribulation lightning' just from getting Odr, so yes. Absolutely confident we will get nuked hard when we try to break to Stage 2. If there's no nuking there's definitely some trap hidden somewhere. Or both, really.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

If you wanted to do such a thing as create 'extras', then you might want to look into the origins of humanity in Norse Mythology

Click to shrink...

Made from trees. Which tracks pretty well, really. That's probably a slightly later stage of things, though.

 

[Shard]

Had a thought.

The Hearthroot Frond Oil, well, it's oil, right? Can we use it as cooking oil, maybe even as an ingredient? I mean sometimes you really want to win that cooking competition, you know?

 

[Ryumancer]

Had a thought.

The Hearthroot Frond Oil, well, it's oil, right? Can we use it as cooking oil, maybe even as an ingredient? I mean sometimes you really want to win that cooking competition, you know?

Click to shrink...

If it's heat-resistant, it would probably be rather hard to cook it, though using it as an ingredient is still a maybe.

 

[Alectai]

Had a thought.

The Hearthroot Frond Oil, well, it's oil, right? Can we use it as cooking oil, maybe even as an ingredient? I mean sometimes you really want to win that cooking competition, you know?

Click to shrink...

I think it might do for a good pigment for Runes, I wonder what would happen if we made a bomb with it as the filling?

 

[Shard]

The Enemy presumably wants to keep their head down, since much of its shenanigans only work absent active scrutiny. (We saw what happened after all when we put attention down on one of its edits--reality broke and had to be re-woven, which was a dead-giveaway that it was fucking around.). Word tends to spread fast and giant holes in the ground are noticed, which suggests to me that this kind of "Overwhelming Force" response is not its first choice--presumably because it exposes itself to retaliation from other actors when it moves that forcefully, we know the Gods are around to some extent after all and are Not Its Friend--though it seems they have certain limitations that prevent them from fighting back, might be an Oath or something they ended up swearing, or that they're not actually on the same cultivation system and therefore can't win a final victory against it like a Norse Cultivator hypothetically could if they made it to the Peak.

...

Man, the Enemy really better not be Loki. IF said we'd be kicking ourselves after the Big Reveal, but that almost feels too cheap, and also doesn't quite fit the narrative of the conflict with The Enemy largely predating the world as we know it.

Click to shrink...

Possibilities:

1) The Enemy is really good at hiding or sneaking around. However, it's weaker and will lose to the Gods in a straight up fight, so it needs to work around them with tactics like edits. Basically they're like Horra, God Edition.

2) The Enemy is very strong 'defensively', meaning that as long as it doesn't actually attack, it can't or is very unlikely to lose a fight (or it might lose but won't die, rendering attempts moot). It needs to keep it's offensive actions concealed, otherwise gods like Thor will notice and aggressively shut them down (like what happened at Yule).
a) The Norse Gods could kill The Enemy, but this would come at unacceptable costs (ex: maybe this would kill off all Norse humans because we're tied to The Enemy on a fundamental level, like maybe it's a culture-wide cancer).
b) Or destroy the Norse cultivation system - For example if 'The Enemy' is an unfortunate but logical extension of the Norse cultivation system. This would also put a whole new spin on how the Orthsirr cultivation system being 'paid for' ala Charred Soul.*

3) The Enemy has a lot of enemies. It would win in a straight up fight against the Norse Gods, but this would draw attention from literally every other pantheon, resulting in it dying horribly in the end.

4) The Enemy doesn't exist yet, hasn't been born yet or some shenanigans similar to such. It can't actually act with overwhelming power until it actually exists. Like maybe it's the embodiment of Ragnarok or something.

*It could be that all cultivation systems that have a 'Nid' or 'Sin' aspect must have an embodiment of such. Perhaps Christianity must have a Satan figure because it has 'Sin' as a thing that can happen. Ergo Norse has Nidhoggr as something that must exist because Nid exists.

This also makes the concept of a Nid/Sin-based cultivation method fascinating. It's obvious bad end territory, but... maybe that's how Horra is still deadly, if he can harness Nid somehow? A Satanic cult using 'Sin' to cultivate might be depraved and very dangerous. Just as it is 'possible' for The Enemy to win in the Norse Cultivation system (maybe Nid becomes the proper way of cultivating), it might also be 'possible' for Satan to win in the Christian cultivation system. This may well be the case for other systems as well.

---

Does Volsung have any association with Ash? The dwarf was able to immediately refer to us as Daughter of Ash when we said we were from Clan Volsung. My mastery of Norse Sagas isn't great.

Is the weapon to Break the Curse of Steel, Gram? The sword Odin gave?

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Does Volsung have any association with Ash? The dwarf was able to immediately refer to us as Daughter of Ash when we said we were from Clan Volsung. My mastery of Norse Sagas isn't great.

Click to shrink...

Some cursory research has Sigurd using fire a fair bit in some versions of the story, and notably being able to go through a ring of fire unharmed, but that's about it. Though the latter seems to be more of a general 'invulnerable hero' thing in some versions than fire immunity specifically. Of course, I'm looking at summaries...I do not have time to read the whole thing right at the moment.

All humans are children of Ash in the sense of the tree, though, with Ask and Embla being the first two humans and Ask literally meaning 'ash tree' with the two being made from trees...so it could just be a poetic way to call her human.

 

[7734]

A thought to research later: can we build a weapon that can develop an Odr pool like how Sagaseeker has a Orthstridr pool? Because given how slow to charge our Odr is and how strong it is, I want to see what ways we can keep it on tap.

 

[TheCount]

With a flick of the wrist you bring the frond to reality. Forming a shallow bowl from your crimson orthstirr, you pour in the oil. There's not a lot of it, but there's enough to cover a single person.

Click to shrink...

Alright, first, it's great orthstirr is so versatile. It's like an Omni tool or something in my mind now, for mundane utility.

Second, it looks like we can use it as short term storage/transport unit for stuff like said oil and other chemicals..... If they are magically inert, at least.

(Hamr's Odr Infusion is now Rank 1! This means that the base dice for hamr is now 2d6 rather than 1d6. You also no longer have to put 6 orthstirr into your hamr to reach your dice max. Your Endurance has also increased by 1)

Click to shrink...

Oh hey, multi dice! Finally!!!!!
...
Hey, IF, can we infuse Odr into stats before reaching the first realm?
Also, is it a permanent infusion, lovering our income or one time spending?

Blinking as you step back, the door is gone and you're left staring at nothing.

A voice clears its throat and you look down to meet a pair of black-voids behind squinting eyes.

Click to shrink...

Heh, classic.

Hearthroot Oil isn't great for us, specifically, but it'd be really handy for party members if we're going to fight a fire user, or going to have to go danger close for some reason.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't write it down, we could slather it on ourselves to raise our resistance.
Just imagine, Halla walking in the middle of a self created inferno......

...

Oooooh

I think I figured out a use for the Oil!

If we had enough of it, we might be able to infuse a good suit of mail with it while we're crafting it! Innate Fire Resistance would be a heck of a trick to put into a hauberk.

Click to shrink...

Does sound cheaper than molten iron armor...
Kinda curious now, what happens if you stack multiple resistances to the same element.
Molten iron is outright immunity, after all.

I do wonder why we got 10 Odr this turn though, it could be that we effectively have a hidden "Cultivation Skill" that raises by 1 every turn? If that's the case, next turn should also be 10, but the one after that should be 11.

Click to shrink...

My guess is the yearly orthstirr income pushing us over.

By 'improved effect' I more refer to damage increase. For every one extra odr you put into a trick, the damage goes up by one. You can also use odr in lieu of orthstirr to fuel the trick, but this does not increase the damage. If you use odr to fuel a trick, you can also then add extra odr to it to increase damage.

Click to shrink...

Ah, so there is no need to experiment on Orthstirr and Odr interaction....

For the raid.... I'm kinda suspicious about that necklace.... What if it's the same vikingars that tried to kill Halfdan? Or, at least, a similar band.

I am not worried it's a radio-esque charm, at least. But.... I do not think we can take the guard in one shot. Muting him though? Stig is a good shot, try going for the neck and hope for the best while the others get there.... Perhaps we can go there and toss the body to Abjorn to at least body kill him, silently.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Oh hey, multi dice! Finally!!!!!
...
Hey, IF, can we infuse Odr into stats before reaching the first realm?
Also, is it a permanent infusion, lovering our income or one time spending?

Click to shrink...

Per the character sheet it's not multi-dice per se (or not in the sense of giving us more dice than we'd have otherwise), but it is permanent. It permanently increases our Hamr pool by 1d6 even without any Orthstirr invested, but it also reduces by one the amount of Orthstirr we can invest into it, effectively permanently filling the 'slot'.

Like, we now have 2d6 in Hamr no matter what, but we also can't spend more than 5 Orthstirr to boost it to a total max of 7d6 (we had 1d6 before but could spend up to 6 Orthstirr to boost it to the same total of 7d6). Now, it also permanently boosted our Endurance, which is sweet, but no multi-dice.