NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[I.F. Ister]

Tell me, does surviving getting hit by a Lightning Hugareida Trick count as "Surviving getting struck by it?" Or is it exclusively a prize you get for getting hit by the Real Thing?

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Hugareida are pale copies of the real thing. They simply can't convey true understanding because they're tempered and altered by the experiences of the wielder.

Huh, the designs of silver thread.. like, bear-shaped ornaments? A bear-shaped weaving of silver thread?

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Bear as in it is bearing something. Poor choice of words on my part.

 

[Alectai]

Hugareida are pale copies of the real thing. They simply can't convey true understanding because they're tempered and altered by the experiences of the wielder.

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Hrm.

Maybe put it on Halla's bucket list then. Lightning is pretty cash money and now that she knows about Odr Infusion, she can probably crank her Endurance up to the point where she has a reasonable chance of surviving it.

 

[Shard]

Abjorn: Halla, why.
Halla: I need to get struck by lightning to get true understanding of lightning! Like how I burned away my hand to understand fire.
Abjorn: Halla, what.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Maybe put it on Halla's bucket list then. Lightning is pretty cash money and now that she knows about Odr Infusion, she can probably crank her Endurance up to the point where she has a reasonable chance of surviving it.

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I'm against Halla risking her life like this for things she can't pass on to her heir. We have too many cultivation risks to take where the results will be useful if passed on to risk her life on things she can't.

 

[Alectai]

I'm against Halla risking her life like this for things she can't pass on to her heir. We have too many cultivation risks to take where the results will be useful if passed on to risk her life on things she can't.

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I mean.

Are you Sure we can't pass down Muna?

After all, Memory is Forever, and Muna are literally Key Memories.

And unlike Hallr, Halla is going to be a fully operational spirit, because she didn't burn most of her memories as payment to create Charred Soul.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Are you Sure we can't pass down Muna?

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I'm certainly not sure that we can and I'd rather not take the risk unless we're positive it has at least a chance of paying off for Halla's heir.

 

[Silverking]

I'm forseeing a lot of Blackhand's descendants being told some variation of "You stuck your hand in WHAT? Why would you DO that!?" until the Enemy is defeated.

 

[I.F. Ister]

I mean.

Are you Sure we can't pass down Muna?

After all, Memory is Forever, and Muna are literally Key Memories.

And unlike Hallr, Halla is going to be a fully operational spirit, because she didn't burn most of her memories as payment to create Charred Soul.

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I like Standstill, I think it's a neat power set for Halla to have and I enjoy the things you're doing with it.

but I'm not planning on giving it out to future characters in order to encourage new characters to do new things rather than relying on the old and stagnating.

 

[Alectai]

I like Standstill, I think it's a neat power set for Halla to have and I enjoy the things you're doing with it.

but I'm not planning on giving it out to future characters in order to encourage new characters to do new things rather than relying on the old and stagnating.

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Yeah, that's fair, it doesn't help that Standstill is very 'All or Nothing', so it's either a giant pain in the ass to deal with or completely useless, with nothing in between, and the lack of flexibility makes it hard to work with.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

I like Standstill, I think it's a neat power set for Halla to have and I enjoy the things you're doing with it.

but I'm not planning on giving it out to future characters in order to encourage new characters to do new things rather than relying on the old and stagnating.

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I definitely think that's a good choice.

I don't necessarily even want Ignition on every character...Campfire is near certain due to being teachable and all should wind up with some sort of other Fire Hugareida, but probably not always the same one. I want to see a bunch of different options and build the characters in different directions to take advantage of them. Some stuff will probably wind up the same (I can't imagine Halla not passing along instruction in Sidestep and Reinforce Shield, as well as Power Chop if the kids are interested in chopping weapons, plus the aforementioned Campfire and likely a minimum of 2 in most skills), but a lot should also be different, and Hugareida are a good way to differentiate.

 

[Sirrocco]

On the other hand... shapecrafting (if she can manage it) is absolutely somethign she can pass along to her children.

That's one of the really cool things about Seidr, I think - the fact that it fundamentally can be taught. Even better, as long as you have a solid strain of it in the family, you can get a lot of its benefits without having to have the protag be the one to focus on it every time.

 

[TehChron]

Halla would not, though she's likely heard stories that have included it.

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Makes sense - especially since it's a precursor to actual lightning. I wouldn't be surprised if those who know about it are able to pick up twofers for storm riding.

 

[Shard]

What I would want us to teach our children are:

Hamr/Hugr 7 (Ideally Fylgja 7, but that's personal) - About 64 Successes each as I understand, since they have the relevant traits.
Whatever Seidr we know, especially the healing and protective ones.
Wordplay 4~6 + Poetry Trick- It's an Orthsirr engine, especially before they start fighting. (16/32/64 Successes net)

Glima/Chop/Bash/Cut/Pierce/Throw + Defence/Dodge 4 (about 16 successes each as I understand)

Silver-Tongue/Barb-Tongue/Tactics/Strategy 4

Then as many other skills as possible.

We should have something like 12d6 Training Dice per child available through training if we and Abjorn both work on it, plus their native Hamingja. If we start at 7 (ideally earlier, 4 maybe?), then by 12 they should have like 5 x 6 x 12 x 0.66 =237 Successes to distribute, or a full 360 Successes if we go by the 1 dice rule (max 30 Successes to any one aspect however).

 

[Alectai]

What I would want us to teach our children are:

Hamr/Hugr 7 (Ideally Fylgja 7, but that's personal) - About 64 Successes each as I understand, since they have the relevant traits.
Whatever Seidr we know, especially the healing and protective ones.
Wordplay 4~6 + Poetry Trick- It's an Orthsirr engine, especially before they start fighting. (16/32/64 Successes net)

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Less actually, remember that they train as though their stat was 1 lower than it is, so it's 32 each for Full 7.

But yeah, Halla's soccer league is absolutely something we should spend significant effort investing in.

 

[Shard]

Uh, incidentally, are we getting some Reinforce-Shield Layers in the plan? Or are we going in with just our armor and defend/intercept dice?

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

On the other hand... shapecrafting (if she can manage it) is absolutely somethign she can pass along to her children.

That's one of the really cool things about Seidr, I think - the fact that it fundamentally can be taught. Even better, as long as you have a solid strain of it in the family, you can get a lot of its benefits without having to have the protag be the one to focus on it every time.

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I'm not sure how true this is. Imperial Fister implied that us having to kill Horra was not purely an arbitrary restriction on the Seeress's part, but due to the nature of power requiring sacrifice. If we can do this we should, but it might not be that easy.

What I would want us to teach our children are:

Hamr/Hugr 7 (Ideally Fylgja 7, but that's personal) - About 64 Successes each as I understand, since they have the relevant traits.
Whatever Seidr we know, especially the healing and protective ones.
Wordplay 4~6 + Poetry Trick- It's an Orthsirr engine, especially before they start fighting. (16/32/64 Successes net)

Glima/Chop/Bash/Cut/Pierce/Throw + Defence/Dodge 4 (about 16 successes each as I understand)

Silver-Tongue/Barb-Tongue/Tactics/Strategy 4

Then as many other skills as possible.

We should have something like 12d6 Training Dice per child available through training if we and Abjorn both work on it, plus their native Hamingja. If we start at 7 (ideally earlier, 4 maybe?), then by 12 they should have like 5 x 6 x 12 x 0.66 =237 Successes to distribute, or a full 360 Successes if we go by the 1 dice rule (max 30 Successes to any one aspect however).

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I'm very skeptical we can start teaching any earlier than 7, but yes, we can start them early and do a lot of training. I think we need to give them at least a 2 in as many skills as possible (it's cheap and easy, about 75 successes total if they skip a few less useful skills)

Which, if we train them for 10 years at 12d6 a year, makes for 720 successes if going 1 die at a time. 75 for almost all skills at 2, another 156 to raise all the ones you list to 4, around 90 for all three stats at 6, and then another 130 or so for all of them to 7 (because 10 years isn't long enough to get them there at 1 success per turn, though it can go a ways), 18 for Campfire 2 (due to halved costs), 171 for 15 Tricks (including any Seidr Spells) one of which is Mastered, 20 for four more Fire Hugareida Tricks (again, halved costs...could trade two Tricks to have Mastered one of these or downgrade their Mastered Trick to Master two of these...both only worth it if they have something other than Campfire), and 60 for 10 Skill-Tricks (can trade two of these for another skill at 4), and that pretty much uses up their Training time.

Honestly, it might be worth it to not push for all stats at 7 any faster than 1 per turn (which would free up something like 30 dice/successes and still have them hitting 7s before they turn 18) and just let them not quite be there on a couple of them...they're good but really expensive and with the same successes they could pick up a lot more Tricks or Master a couple or round out their skills.

Of course, we can do a bit better than this if we get them more dice as they go on, too.

Less actually, remember that they train as though their stat was 1 lower than it is, so it's 32 each for Full 7.

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It's a net total of 62, actually (2+4+8+16+32), if we're talking total cost.

But yeah, Halla's soccer league is absolutely something we should spend significant effort investing in.

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Training our kids is definitely a highly important project, though how much time we need to invest in it and how much is just assumed I'm unclear. We'll definitely invest the time if needed.

Uh, incidentally, are we getting some Reinforce-Shield Layers in the plan? Or are we going in with just our armor and defend/intercept dice?

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We currently have 16 layers of Reinforce Shield. It was in the last plan as something to do between finishing that fight and moving on to this one.

 

[Toboe]

[X] Heal the brother (-12 Orthstirr) (???)

Man, we really need more Tricks. Steinarr though is a gorilla who doesn't really know any that don't fit into his favored strategy of "Get in and hit the other guy until they die"

He's a badass, but the more we learn about the setting the more I wonder how the fuck he lasted this long.

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And maybe a range of tricks to choose from depending on the situation.

[X] Heal the brother (-12 Orthstirr) (???)

12 orthstirr for 1-2 progress on Jarlsoul sounds like a good trade to me.

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A chance for 1 progress on Jarlsouls, they are related to eachother (brothers), so Jarlsouls will only count 1 If they both swore.

Still enough upsides to be easily worth it unless we fear the lack of 12 Orthstirr would kill us in the fight against the captain.

Like, I can't imagine that saving the brother isn't being Drengskapr. 12 Orthstirr for 1 Drengskapr would already be pretty neat. And then there are the other chances (making friend(s), getting witness(es), getting hird) as cherry on top.

-Jarl-in-the-Making (1/9): Have 9 different people (not related to you nor to each other) swear themselves into your service to unlock Incomplete Boon: Jarlssoul.

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[TheCount]

[X] Heal the brother (-12 Orthstirr) (???)

Orthstirr surges and, if you were anyone else, you would be as blind as a bat as the searing light explodes out in a blinding blast.

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He .. he flashed us.
How dare he!
Only we can flash people! That's, like, one of the bests parts of explosions!

"Incredible." The Brute happily whispers as you bear down on him with Sagaseeker raised and crimson sparks springing from its cutting edge.

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Oh my..... Halla giving out Valkyrie MUNA again....

omnitactical battle hydra

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... This is now in my favorite description list.

I'll give you a small hint for the boss fight; don't hold back if you can help it.

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Hm....
What could that mean?
Joke aside though, guess it's time to stop holding back...
Not like we ever had a problem with going all out

"I give up," he wheezes through collapsed lungs. He turns his head to look at his brother, who lays face-up with a knife through the eye — dead, but not gone. "Just... please heal my brother, if you can."

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New frens?

Soot... I'd say Forgefire, but we'd recognize that. So it's probably a different Fire Hugareida.

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Could be embers as well?

(God, if we could get a Lightning Hugareida from this fight we will be cash money, that is probably one of the absolute best options for long range)

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Just imagine the options....
"Lightning can do everything" trope would be fun.
But more practical stuff:
-nerve wracker on the enemy to make them spasm
-nerve booster on us to make us quicker (just gotta avoid nerve damage )

I think it's more that the Hugareida would work by creating a chain of Orthstirr first and then the lightning fires off along that chain. Halting Vortex would stop that chain from touching anything behind it.

That aside, if we're dealing with Unblockable, Undodgable Lightning, then there's probably a major trade-off involved. Either it'll require a significant windup and thus be prone to disruption, or it'll have a Massive Orthstirr cost relative to its damage output, and thus not something he can reasonable expect to fire consecutively.

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... We could use sage seeker for lightning rod?
Or ask Sten to make obstacles/cover...
(Gods, do I want an earth Hugreida, just imagine all the instant battlefield remakes we could do.... Would they be usable on our fields, btw?)

Right, you mentioned something about Shapecrafting too--is that a higher level application of Hamr or is it something entirely different?

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No, it's probably biomancy, what with it being used mostly on creating/modifying living beings.
IF said it's mostly used on livestock and berserker making after Steinar mentioned it.

It's actually a type of seid

Shapecrafting is a proud, manly occupation done by big, manly men with lots of hair and big, bulging biceps!

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Makes sense, I would make myself swole as well
But yeah, it can create monsters for challenges for the mighty warriors, ofc it would be manly

Pretty much. In order to get Lightning, you gotta get struck by it.

Needless to say, the survival rate for this one isn't especially high.

Lightning does play nicely with certain hugareida, though.

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Oh, hey, can we-

Hugareida are pale copies of the real thing. They simply can't convey true understanding because they're tempered and altered by the experiences of the wielder.

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...
There goes my plan for knitting socks and sliding on the wood floor for static shock

Ohhh, that's pretty close to Stabilizing Palm and Healing Seidr in general.

We should ask Hallr for more Seidr tricks. Shapecrafting ones if possible.

Although we really need to get Hallr's techniques for closing the gate if we want to teach others how to gather Odr.

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Perhaps on one of the descendants, but I am happy more people like the idea!

I'm certainly not sure that we can and I'd rather not take the risk unless we're positive it has at least a chance of paying off for Halla's heir.

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hm.... We could make a lightning caller using storm iron with runes as a last "Fuck you, in particular" spite attack? If Halla survives, great.
If not... We tried.

So, I see we went from lightning and fire to plasma?

Hm.... Guess we need a fire armor trick in the future?

Tactic sounds good to me. Perhaps we could bury him in the cave if it really turns sour?

 

[Bass11]

I wonder what happens if we apply odr to stabilizing palm?

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

Why dosen't Gabriel count as progress for Jarl-in-the-Making? He sweared himself to Halla afterall and is listed as an Huskarl.

Do the people who swear themselves to Halla need to be Norse to count as progress? Or is Gabriel an exception becasue of other reasons?

 

[Shard]

Why dosen't Gabriel count as progress for Jarl-in-the-Making? He sweared himself to Halla afterall and is listed as an Huskarl.

Do the people who swear themselves to Halla need to be Norse to count as progress? Or is Gabriel an exception becasue of other reasons?

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Leading ideas are that

1) He didn't swear himself to us, only until the evil haunting Steinarr's home was destroyed.
2) He's not Norse.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

hm.... We could make a lightning caller using storm iron with runes as a last "Fuck you, in particular" spite attack? If Halla survives, great.
If not... We tried.

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In theory, but I think Halla has access to better last minute 'fuck you' options (specifically, explosions).

Hm.... Guess we need a fire armor trick in the future?

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In the sense of something to defend from fire? Maybe. Campfire can likely do that...it's bit niche given our other defenses against fire, though. In the sense of being wreathed in flames? Absolutely but none of our existing Hugareida really lend themselves to it...maybe Forgefire when we get it.

Why dosen't Gabriel count as progress for Jarl-in-the-Making? He sweared himself to Halla afterall and is listed as an Huskarl.

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Gabriel did not swear himself to our service, he swore to help us defeat a specific foe. Very different.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

Gabriel did not swear himself to our service, he swore to help us defeat a specific foe. Very different.

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It makes sense i suppose.

 

[Constenanto]

[X] Heal the brother (-12 Orthstirr) (???)

Getting him as a huskarl would be cool, but that seems a little too optimistic.

On a completely unrelated note, a lightning hugareida would be fucking awesome. I wonder what an alloy between lightning and fire would make. Maybe a storm hugareida, or stronger lightning. Man, it'd be cool if we ever managed to get it on one of our PCs.

@Imperial Fister, does Hallr/Halla know how to get a lightning hugareida?

 

[I.F. Ister]

@Imperial Fister, does Hallr/Halla know how to get a lightning hugareida?

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Get struck by lightning — real lightning — and survive.