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NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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[X] Yes, you do!
-[X] Ask if she'd be cool with us bringing people over to let them in on the secret.
--[X] What's a greenwood btw? Is that a rank or are you just calling me a newbie? How can you tell?
---[X] Any tips you can give on odr cultivation or is that one of those things everyone has to figure out on their own?

Imperial Fister said:
Good point, adding in an option to talk to Modgudr more.

and added
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Sorry, I wasn't criticising the structure, just checking I understood!

...I was kind of wondering if we were meant to actually roll the dice ourselves. 😅
 
Skippy said:
Sorry, I wasn't criticising the structure, just checking I understood!

...I was kind of wondering if we were meant to actually roll the dice ourselves. 😅
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Don't worry about it, I wasn't thinking you were. Sometimes I just need a little push to think of things and that just so happened to be one of them.

I typically only have you folks roll dice when it comes to deciding the gender of your children/children of other family members.

0~0~0

Voting is now closed

I screwed up the button pressing, so whoops on my end.
edit2; or not, lmao
Scheduled vote count started by Imperial Fister on Jun 5, 2023 at 3:44 PM, finished with 43 posts and 6 votes.
  • [X] Yes, you do!
    -[X] Ask if she'd be cool with us bringing people over to let them in on the secret.
    --[X] What's a greenwood btw? Is that a rank or are you just calling me a newbie? How can you tell?
    ---[X] Any tips you can give on odr cultivation or is that one of those things everyone has to figure out on their own?
    [X] Yes, you do!
    -[X] Would you be cool with me bringing people over to let them in on the secret?
    --[X] What's a greenwood btw? Is that a rank or are you just calling me a newbie? How can you tell?
    ---[X] Any tips you can give on odr cultivation or is that one of those things everyone has to figure out on their own?
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Man, I've been sleeping a lot lately, missed that entire vote.

Oh well.

Anyway, it does seem that Odr is kind of the replacement to Orthstirr. Once you're dead or whatnot, you don't have access to Orthstirr anymore, but Odr can serve as Orthstirr in a pinch--this also explains the purpose of being able to use Odr as Orthstirr despite it being so much more valuable--it can let the dead or those who've otherwise been detached from the communal pool that is Orthstirr to continue to cultivate.

Anyway, it's good to have confirmation that we can do a Disclosure to Aki after we fish him out. The Enemy can still reach here (As we were told, we're not beyond his Grasp), but he can't hear or see what's going on in this place as long as we don't wave a giant flare like invoking his Name is, so stuff like Disclosure is safe. Having another mind working on this--especially given his Soulsight--is going to pay dividends.
 
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Honestly, it feels like if we were going to found our own Sect/Halla's Valkyrie Club/Scandinavian Motorcycle Gang, then we could design a whole induction ritual around bringing people here and teaching them the secret of Odr, maybe even getting their cultivation base set up whilst we're in the other world. It works great thematically for a mystery cult rite; a perilous journey to the Underworld where the traveller comes back changed, having gained a profound new spiritual awakening. And even when Halla dies, the tradition of the rite is one that we could transmit to many successors.

Presumably if a bunch of people in one place all suddenly get strong at Odr cultivation then it might draw the attention of the Enemy. But that is ultimately probably going to be true of any major success we achieve, at the end of the day.
 
Yeah, we're a mystery cult, not a warband, so you can't quite call us 'Vikings' even if we do sometimes go out and dunk on Problems.

That being said, I doubt it's that easy. She probably doesn't care as long as we have business being here, but actually making a habit of rolling in is probably another story.
 
Skippy said:
Honestly, it feels like if we were going to found our own Sect/Halla's Valkyrie Club/Scandinavian Motorcycle Gang, then we could design a whole induction ritual around bringing people here and teaching them the secret of Odr, maybe even getting their cultivation base set up whilst we're in the other world. It works great thematically for a mystery cult rite; a perilous journey to the Underworld where the traveller comes back changed, having gained a profound new spiritual awakening. And even when Halla dies, the tradition of the rite is one that we could transmit to many successors.

Presumably if a bunch of people in one place all suddenly get strong at Odr cultivation then it might draw the attention of the Enemy. But that is ultimately probably going to be true of any major success we achieve, at the end of the day.
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I don't think we can actually start Odr cultivation here. Or at least not in a safe way...a safe initiation to that probably involves being inside one's fence among other things. Telling people how things work here to set up for that is possible if she's cool with it, though.
 
Skippy said:
Honestly, it feels like if we were going to found our own Sect/Halla's Valkyrie Club/Scandinavian Motorcycle Gang, then we could design a whole induction ritual around bringing people here and teaching them the secret of Odr, maybe even getting their cultivation base set up whilst we're in the other world. It works great thematically for a mystery cult rite; a perilous journey to the Underworld where the traveller comes back changed, having gained a profound new spiritual awakening. And even when Halla dies, the tradition of the rite is one that we could transmit to many successors.

Presumably if a bunch of people in one place all suddenly get strong at Odr cultivation then it might draw the attention of the Enemy. But that is ultimately probably going to be true of any major success we achieve, at the end of the day.
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My only issue is how much does the ritual to go to the Gap cost? We know the Seeress did it for us but how much in material is it?

Even if it ends up just being a Family or small local thing an elite force like this would be massive.
Especially if we fight back any reprisals from Steelfathers or Foemen and other agents of Ymir.
 
Ultimately, this isn't a sustainable method, especially since The Enemy will get wise to it after we've pulled it more than once. He's not stupid, he's going to be able to cotton on that we're abusing this, and start treating any trip to Ginnigugap as Disclosure and react accordingly.

We can get away with it as something of Opportunity, like here. He might grumble but it's not establishing a Pattern for us to take advantage of an opportunity where his ears and eyes are bound to let someone know while we're recovering them from Fylgja Death in Ginnigugap. True Disclosure needs to be treated like a boss fight--presumably because actually winning it will break his power to similarly intervene in the future. We've been told after all that it costs him something to intervene aggressively, and that it is possible to win genuine Victories over him (He can't interfere with people becoming Berserks anymore because somehow, someone figured out a workaround through Shapecrafting)
 
The Enemy can still reach Ginnungagap, but it won't actually be able to hear us.

We know that the Enemy can detect odr somehow - don't believe it can see into our soul or mind, though - so if it suddenly detects a bunch of people disappearing, before reappearing as odr cultivators, he might actually bother to try, since it'd be pretty clear something happened... Thanks to Imperial, we know that the Enemy has actually barely tried to get rid of us, only acting when it has the opportunity to do so, and even then only with throwaway resources such as Foemen.

By the way, do we know if the Enemy can actually hear what we say? Or does it only know our location and what we're doing?
 
I'd like to remind everyone that we were told that when telling the secret of odr cultivation, the strength of the enemies attack is scaled to the strength of the one speaking.
So if we have someone relatively weak, who doesn't plan to pursue the the cultivation path for fighting power, we'd have someone who can tell it to new generations while the ones going for power (like Halla) can guard and deal with the attack.
 
Yeah. The Enemy prefers to act through proxies, presumably because doing that is cheap, but it will use its full power if provoked.

Presumably, the more people know about Odr, the more difficult it becomes for him to identify any one source of Disclousre, and we know his attention is not unlimited. Of course, a mass disclosure also leads to him breaking out the "Delete this county in particular" buttons, so there's a balance to be struck.

Toboe said:
I'd like to remind everyone that we were told that when telling the secret of odr cultivation, the strength of the enemies attack is scaled to the strength of the one speaking.
So if we have someone relatively weak, who doesn't plan to pursue the the cultivation path for fighting power, we'd have someone who can tell it to new generations while the ones going for power (like Halla) can guard and deal with the attack.
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Oh.

ohhhhhhhhhhh

Oh boy, then telling Aki might very well be our key to pulling Disclosure off. It's effectively a Difficulty Reset, which means we can combine that with setting up a perfect battlefield and nearby Reinforcements to actually overcome the consequences of it.
 
weeblypanda said:
Our Cousin said it would be fine. As long as we just talk about it we probably won't have to fear a reprisal
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I meant outside of Ginnungagap. In general.

Toboe said:
I'd like to remind everyone that we were told that when telling the secret of odr cultivation, the strength of the enemies attack is scaled to the strength of the one speaking.
So if we have someone relatively weak, who doesn't plan to pursue the the cultivation path for fighting power, we'd have someone who can tell it to new generations while the ones going for power (like Halla) can guard and deal with the attack.
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I mean, yeah, we can probably pivot off this if we tell Aki. Just telling Aki shouldn't draw the full ire of the Enemy, and let's be honest - no offense to Aki - but Aki isn't very strong. We could probably fend off a retaliatory force if he does the disclosure.
 
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I think we could probably bring one boat load of people here and do disclosure once if there are no objections from the local deities...but yeah, the Enemy would figure it out quick if we tried to repeat it as a pattern.

Toboe said:
I'd like to remind everyone that we were told that when telling the secret of odr cultivation, the strength of the enemies attack is scaled to the strength of the one speaking.
So if we have someone relatively weak, who doesn't plan to pursue the the cultivation path for fighting power, we'd have someone who can tell it to new generations while the ones going for power (like Halla) can guard and deal with the attack.
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This, however, is also very much a possibility. If he tells everyone, the response will be tuned to him, not us, which is a lot more survivable for us and people better than us.
 
Alectai said:
Oh.

ohhhhhhhhhhh

Oh boy, then telling Aki might very well be our key to pulling Disclosure off. It's effectively a Difficulty Reset, which means we can combine that with setting up a perfect battlefield and nearby Reinforcements to actually overcome the consequences of it.
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Originally i wanted to push the idea when we incarnate as our next heir, to tell the secret to a trusted Seeress (who are respected non-combatants) with Hallas old friends guarding.
But looks like we may get an opportunity much sooner.
 
Yeah.

Ultimately, while it's nice to have in our pocket, we shouldn't rely on it except as an opportunity.

But yes, we're effectively able to do Disclosure to Aki for free, who was already watching us and trying to figure this shit out (So it's plausible that he might have figured it out eventually), which means it scales to him, which combined with stacking the deck hard enough, should let us pull it off.
 
Constenanto said:
I meant outside of Ginnungagap. In general.
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Ah. Misunderstood. Apologies.

Then yes Ymir can hear us talking about Odr.'

A thought occurs. How strong would his reprisals be outside Midgard? As in outside Nordic lands. Perhaps distance scales as well?
Like could Ymir stop us from Disclosure in the midst of the Holy Land or Far South.
 
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We know that the Enemy can hear, he just can't act outside of Norse lands.

but that just gives him lots of time to prepare a response when you get back.

Specifically though, he can't make out what's going on here if we don't throw up a flare because it's too metaphysically noisy and misty for him to make most topics out. But he can still reach if he's given cause to think shenanigans are going on, he just won't do it without reason to believe he has to, because that invites reprisal that would be painful even to him.

Odr--much as he might claim otherwise--is not enough of a bombshell for him to make out through Niflheim's mists and the roar of Gjoll. Naming him likely would be enough though, and even if he can't see us directly, if he sees us dive in here with people after we've established a pattern, he can take a blind swipe.

And a blind swipe from a Precursor Titan would be a catastrophe for us, especially given how dangerous the rivers are.
 
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I will also say that telling anyone puts them on the Enemy's hit list. So we don't want to be telling people without their full informed consent (or as close as we can get). We can actually do that here (and Aki won't even get on the list until he tells people or starts using Odr), and set up to do it elsewhere, but telling like, small children is deeply morally dubious at best.
 
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DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I will also say that telling anyone puts them on the Enemy's hit list. So we don't want to be telling people without their full informed consent (or as close as we can get). We can actually do that here, and set up to do it elsewhere, but telling like, small children is deeply morally dubious at best.
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I do suspect he can only take a swipe like this as long as it succeeds. If he takes a swipe and loses, I think he gives up his claim to do so again in the future (Recall that we were told regaining the power to make Berserks was a Victory against the Enemy).

If his targeting mechanism works through debts and the like, as we suspected when the Troll-Men thing happened, then chances are that he has to expend that to launch an attack like this. If he fails, then I suspect he can't actually repeat the feat, and has to act through proxies going forward instead of just magicking a threat into place retroactively. He loses his claim over that chain of inheritance if you will, and if they can subsequently spread that far and wide enough, he loses his power to interfere with that topic.

The fact that the threat is scaled to the strength of Disclosure's speaker as opposed to 'Whatever your combat strength is here, I match it and then raise to the point you have no chance of victory' seems telling.
 
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You could do like the meteor. Carve a cultivation guide on a big rock, add layers of protective runes, throw it good and hard. Anyone who manages to unwrap the protections and read it is ready for the knowledge.
 
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