Then why aren't we learning tricks besides 1d in mundane defense?
There a mass of dice could at least get us a better defense trick.
Or ask for rune lessons as @TheCount suggested.
NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- 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
There a mass of dice could at least get us a better defense trick.
Or ask for rune lessons as @TheCount suggested.
How does being a warrior lady intersect with unmanly magic anyway?
The shield or dodge training is for getting a defense trick, but yeah, just 1 dice feels lacking there.
Muna is the important memory though, that give us magical concepts like standstill. And we can't train those concepts like standstill directly...
Edit: changed magical tricks for magical concepts, because Hugareida is a a damn tounge and memory twister.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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You're in a bit of a gray area. Men who know seidr tend to overcompensate for their perceived lack of 'manliness'. That, or they simply were so badass that no one dared to insult them in such a way.
Halla, as a woman, isn't going to be shamed for learning magic. Halla as a warrior, however, very well could be. This causes most Norsemen's brains to short circuit so they just shrug and carry on.
Of course, eventually a choice will have to be made.
Fylgjur stay in 'spirit mode' unless called up. They return to it afterwards.
Aki uses his raven to see, because he's blind, so he kind of has to have it out all the time
100% yes
Works with tricks, doesn't work with more ranged stuff (other than arrows and the like, of course)
DangerKitty
shoddy writter
- Location
- lala land
Like mechanically, or what we identify as socially? If we choose to be a magic girl of some sort then its cool, but if we identify as a warrior then people will give us shit for it until we hit that so badass people won't disrespect us?
I'd kinda like to do both warrior stuff and magic stuff. Not just hard focus on one or the other.
- Location
- India
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Same here. Battlemage for the win. Just dont get lost in looting so much that you dont hear the Ancient Draugr Lord come up behind you and Fus Roh Dah you to Oblivion. Speaking from personal experience.
- Location
- Norway
Consider dropping the word "magic" for a minute, it's a very vague category that may or may not include various kinds of supernatural martial art and trick, depending on the context and who's talking.
Seidr or seid carries with it a connotation of unmanliness. At one point in the sagas Loki and Odin get into an argument over this, and Loki says "you learned your seid by sucking off jotuns" and Odin retorts "look who's talking, it's the guy who disguised himself by turning into a milkmaid and stayed that way long enough to birth a child". (Crudely summarized.)
Conveniently for a game,
seid is condemned for several interlocking reasons, one of which is the unfairness and cheese of tactics that should be banned from a good game, like No-Save-You-Lose effects, or safely sitting at home weaving curses on people far away who don't even realize what happened to them, let alone how to retaliate
The complaint "Fight like a man" has two senses here: fight like a male, and fight like a drengr (show drengskapr). Part of drengskapr is showing up to fight alongside your allies.
I'm not the QM, so take this as speculative, but I would guess "battlemagic" in the sense of fireballs on the battlefield is fine because you have to show up to the battlefield where someone could shoot you over it, whereas "magic" seid in the sense of SV Optimizers Would Like Zero-Risk Victories gets disrespected because fighting with that is no longer about skill in any way, it's merely about being the first one to break out the seidr.
Seidr or seid carries with it a connotation of unmanliness. At one point in the sagas Loki and Odin get into an argument over this, and Loki says "you learned your seid by sucking off jotuns" and Odin retorts "look who's talking, it's the guy who disguised himself by turning into a milkmaid and stayed that way long enough to birth a child". (Crudely summarized.)
Conveniently for a game,
seid is condemned for several interlocking reasons, one of which is the unfairness and cheese of tactics that should be banned from a good game, like No-Save-You-Lose effects, or safely sitting at home weaving curses on people far away who don't even realize what happened to them, let alone how to retaliateThe complaint "Fight like a man" has two senses here: fight like a male, and fight like a drengr (show drengskapr). Part of drengskapr is showing up to fight alongside your allies.
I'm not the QM, so take this as speculative, but I would guess "battlemagic" in the sense of fireballs on the battlefield is fine because you have to show up to the battlefield where someone could shoot you over it, whereas "magic" seid in the sense of SV Optimizers Would Like Zero-Risk Victories gets disrespected because fighting with that is no longer about skill in any way, it's merely about being the first one to break out the seidr.
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is there a way to make our temporary hamingja permanent?
So, so far as the "magic" we use is only what every warrior uses in duels (hamr and tricks), we are probably safe.
Muna and their Hugareida is, perhaps, on the fence, but... That's a case by case basis, from previous info nuggets.
Basically, as long as it's melee range/usable, it should be fine?
As for seidr.... Probably the same, but better not to use it before it during. Afterwards should be fair play, if we don't attack our previous opponent like a sore loser.
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Definitely on the agenda, but there basically just weren't enough dice. I think raising Hugr within the next two turns is a really good idea and we still need to round out our actual skills a bit (having Composure is a priority, for example). Once Hugr's hit 5 (hopefully the next turn after the coming one) expect more of that.
Basically, we have enough dice for one or two 'big purchase' die investments (5d+), plus a smattering of 'raise lower ranked stuff' in one die increments, and I think Hugr is the best bang for our buck right now in terms of the available big purchases (Tricks are great, but it's cheaper than any trick and +1d on a wide range of stuff we actually use). We can likely put a die into one or two additional tricks next turn, but the big trick investment probably starts the turn afterward when we're not investing so many dice in Hugr any more (all this happens next turn instead if Hugr rises precipitously in the coming turn...but at 5 dice I don't expect that).
But base stats are really good and we want more of them. I talked about the efficiency of raising things in one die increments, and it's true, but raising a stat is not only cheaper (at least right now) but flatly better than raising every single skill governed by that stat since each skill needs an orthstirr investment to be good but the stat needs only one such investment.
Like, for example, going from Hugr 4 to Hugr 5, we can invest 1 more Orthstirr and get +1 die on Silver-Tongue, Tactics, Poetry, Composure, Barb-Tongue, and even Needle-binding, while raising each skill individually would need 6 Orthstirr to do the same thing (5 if we don't care about Needle-binding). Base stats are so deeply efficient to use that getting them is a priority and worth some inefficiency in advancement.
This is a lot less true in combat, since you can actually stack dice from all sources there, and you're seldom engaging in multiple types of combat using different skills in the same turn, but even there Hamr also determines Endurance and is very worth it to at least a point (it also has obvious non-combat uses where my above point applies).
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Absolutely love this breakdown, great work. One thing I'd add is that it's not just about the skill being used that makes something respected, it's also the danger of the situation that does it.
Anyone can sit in a cave and mind-blast their enemies from half a world away, but that's cowardly as hell and would not only fail to earn you orthstirr, but also actively take away from your current supply.
Stepping out onto the battlefield and doing the exact same mind-blast where anyone could run up and shank you or take your head off with a crazy move, however, is respectable. It's by facing danger head on and showing courage in the face of fear that something becomes drengskapr.
That's also part of why you guys don't really have any real 'feats' yet. What danger did you face when you ran up and ganked a half-dead thief? What danger was faced when you used power-not-your-own to kill Lori?
If Hallr hadn't woken and you'd defeated Lori with your own power, then you'd have a feat from that.
Considering the thief managed to somewhat keep up with our brother and father (well he got mulled but considering the odes were 2v1 and he still almost managed to escape goes to his credit) and we were an 11 years old girl I would say there was some risk.
Admittedly very low risk with our father not so far behind but I wouldn't say no risk.
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Well, I mean, we did get orthstirr for it...just not 'qualifies as a Feat' levels of orthstirr. That's probably fair.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Voting will be called in an hour-and-a-half, so vote if you haven't yet!
This also applies to unlucky things. So, you know, be on the look-out for that.
Yes. By spending time around lucky objects/people, you slowly gain in hamingja. If, by the time the specified time is up, you spend a lot of time with them, then the hamingja gain is permanent.
This also applies to unlucky things. So, you know, be on the look-out for that.
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We could try teaching our friends (Abjorn, Stigr, Aki) the hone trick.
@Imperial Fister
How would teaching our friends stuff work? What kind of Action would we need to take?
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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[ ] Spend time with (insert friends here)
-[ ] Try to teach them (insert tricks here)
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Definitely not a bad call. The temporary point we got most recently was also from story time from Randi, so more of those in our future seem likely as well.
Presumably in the Personal category, right?
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Stole DeadmanwalkingXIs plan and made some changes to it:
We do fishing and try to teach our now extended group the hone trick.
Both involves spending time with our lucky friend.
Also swapped around the dice amount for training Hugr itself and initial attempt at learning a defense trick.
[X] Plan Learning and Teaching
-[X] (Personal) Stigr came by, asking if you wanted to go ice fishing with him. (Hamr+Fishing)
-[X] Abjorn, Stigr, and Aki
--[X] Try to teach them the Hone trick
-[X] (Steinarr's Training) Ask Steinarr to teach you a trick/some tricks (Write in)
--[X] A more mundane defensive trick with Shield or Dodge 5d6
-[X] (Training) Hamr (15 successes to rank up)
--[X] Axes 1d6
--[X] Shield 1d6
--[X] Dodge 1d6
-[X] (Training) Hugr (7 successes to rank up)
--[X] Hugr Itself 1d6
--[X] Tactics 1d6
--[X] Composure 1d6
-[X] (Training) Fylgja (2 successes to rank up)
--[X] Fylgja Itself 1d6
-[X] (Orthstirr Usage)
--[X] 4 Hamr
--[X] 4 Hugr
--[X] 2 Fylgur
--[X] 3 Axes
--[X] 4 free for tricks
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Trying to switch plan to something completely new with only 40 minutes left to vote doesn't seem likely to work. Even if I switched, most people don't have time to.
I also don't agree with either prioritizing a trick over getting our Hugr up, or going fishing with Stigr over getting a story from Randi given that she's the one who actually gave us a point of hamingja. I'm definitely up for focusing a tad on our luckier associates going forward, but changing the plan at this stage doesn't seem workable and this specific one doesn't seem like the best way to do that.
I also don't agree with either prioritizing a trick over getting our Hugr up, or going fishing with Stigr over getting a story from Randi given that she's the one who actually gave us a point of hamingja. I'm definitely up for focusing a tad on our luckier associates going forward, but changing the plan at this stage doesn't seem workable and this specific one doesn't seem like the best way to do that.