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NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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Elegy for Haleikr (Skippy)
  • Apocrypha
    • Skippy said:
    Ah, cool, I was thinking of maybe writing a lament for Haleikr, so that's good to know.
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    Imperial Fister said:
    Haleikr was a guy who had the worst luck when it came to circumstance. Literally would just kind of stumble and trip people on accident. That's how he got his horrifically ironic kenning. He was well regarded by his community, but not all that much out of the ordinary in terms of character.
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    So, now I'm back from living in a field for a week and have a night's sleep in me, I remember that I meant to do this... here we go!




     
  • Apocrypha
    • Skippy said:
    Snip'd
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    Very beautiful, have a Reward Dice

    0~0~0

    Also, so many things have gotten in the way of writing today. It's insane. As such, once I've got all the training and research and management done, I'll post that in its own thing so I'm not worried about having nothing posted today. It should be rather interesting, all things considered.
     
    Vikram said:
    Err... did we all forget about mom's amulet?
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    We did not. It involves traveling to Vestfold, though, which is a huge trip where we will likely have to fight extremely dangerous people. We would have had to do it immediately after the Horra stuff to do it this year (which we did not want), and we'll likely be pregnant next year (and thus not wanting to go fight duels to the death), so it's currently penciled in for the year after that. Slightly less than two years from now.
     
    Imperial Fister said:
    Very beautiful, have a Reward Dice
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    Cheers! I tried to make it so that it was affirming core Norse values about honourable death in battle, but also a bit subtly critical of a social system that produces Steelfathers. Since Halla has read the Bible, I feel like she might be more able than most poets to view her own culture critically, but she's still doing it from a fundamentally Norse perspective.

    Could I throw that Reward Dice into the training action where Halla is attempting to develop her own Limit Break from Spark Bomb + Flashfire Cleave? Or is that bit already written and/or not likely to benefit significantly from another Reward Dice thrown at it?
     
    Skippy said:
    Could I throw that into the training action where Halla is attempting to develop her own Limit Break from Spark Bomb + Flashfire Cleave? Or is that bit already written and/or not likely to benefit significantly from another Reward Dice thrown at it?
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    I'll just say that I'm introducing a certain something with that part, something that you may want to save Reward Dice for

    Hugr does have a lot of stuff in it, it's high time that Hamr's gotten its fair share ;P
     
    Toboe said:
    Aren't Trollmen famous for breeding quick as fluff, as long as they have the meat to sustain it?
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    They are indeed, yes. I suspect a bed frame would have the opposite of a contraceptive effect...among various potential bad things. If metal bed frames are even a thing among Norse farmers, which I'm pretty sure they aren't.

    Imperial Fister said:
    I'll just say that I'm introducing a certain something with that part, something that you may want to save Reward Dice for

    Hugr does have a lot of stuff in it, it's high time that Hamr's gotten its fair share ;P
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    Ooh. Interesting! I'm intrigued to see how that works, and how it interacts with the combined Trick being Hugareida based to boot.
     
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    Koguyra said:
    ...if we forge a metal bed frame with Trollmen ash will that count as a contraceptive effect?
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    Honestly it's an area to draw a bit of a veil over given some of the couples involved are still teenagers, but given the variety of things you can do with Orthstirr... I'd kind of assumed already that married couples could figure out a way to do contraception after they'd had the number of kids they wanted? Even for a Norse woman, pregnancy still limits what you can do around the farm, and given infant mortality is so much lower in this setting, you don't necessarily want to have twelve children who then all need dowries or inheritances. Four or six kids, sure, but Norse constitution and constant pregnancies could reasonably lead lead to families all having numbers of children in the double digits, and that's not what we observe in the quest.

    Imperial Fister said:
    I'll just say that I'm introducing a certain something with that part, something that you may want to save Reward Dice for
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    1687903434313.jpeg

    Cool, then I'll save it! :D
     
    Skippy said:
    Honestly it's an area to draw a bit of a veil over given some of the couples involved are still teenagers, but given the variety of things you can do with Orthstirr... I'd kind of assumed already that married couples could figure out a way to do contraception after they'd had the number of kids they wanted? Even for a Norse women, pregnancy still limits what you can do around the farm, and given infant mortality is so much lower in this setting, you don't necessarily want to have twelve children who then all need dowries or inheritances. Four or six kids, sure, but Norse constitution and constant pregnancies would logically lead to families all having numbers of children in the double digits, and that's not what we observe in the quest.
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    After marriage the wife has a prophetic dream telling her how many kids she can birth max from that marriage.
    Hallas max in the marriage with Abjorn is 9.
    Edit:
    The relevant part of the update, including what was rolled to get that 9:
    Imperial Fister said:
    (Hamingja Dream: 6, 1, 6, 4, 6, 2, 6)7+2(Reward Dice: 3, 4)=9 Successes
    Your dreams that night are of great prosperity. Nine cradles stalk your sleeping thoughts, nine children sleep softly as they wait their time in the light.
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    Hamingja + Reward dice.
     
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    Skippy said:
    Honestly it's an area to draw a bit of a veil over given some of the couples involved are still teenagers, but given the variety of things you can do with Orthstirr... I'd kind of assumed already that married couples could figure out a way to do contraception after they'd had the number of kids they wanted? Even for a Norse women, pregnancy still limits what you can do around the farm, and given infant mortality is so much lower in this setting, you don't necessarily want to have twelve children who then all need dowries or inheritances. Four or six kids, sure, but Norse constitution and constant pregnancies would logically lead to families all having numbers of children in the double digits, and that's not what we observe in the quest.
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    It's been strongly implied that infant mortality is still about as high as it was in real life, barring specific magic anyway, since babies haven't had the opportunity to develop their Hamr yet and are thus just as vulnerable as real children. The number of children also appears to be fated (or at least capped) when the marriage is made (though magic can increase that number)...we are fated to have 9 kids, and I honestly think that's enough. Also, even with disease out of the picture, Troll-Men and other monstrous threats abound and lead to a pretty sizable infant and child mortality rate right there.

    Our kids specifically are much less likely to have to deal with infant mortality due to a combination of good luck, us having actual anti-disease magic, and having Hamr 2 from birth and thus being super-babies...but none of those things are true of most Norse children.

    Now, the Norse also weaned their kids at 2 years old, and breast feeding is decent-ish birth control, which spreads the kids out a bit, but the strong implication has been that doing that is the only birth control we've been engaging in, or that most Norse couples generally engage in.
     
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    DeadmanwalkingXI said:
    They are indeed, yes. I suspect a bed frame would have the opposite of a contraceptive effect...among various potential bad things. If metal bed frames are even a thing among Norse farmers, which I'm pretty sure they aren't.
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    Almost certainly not, though given how absurdly strong Abjorn and Halla are, I imagine that they do a lot of repair carpentry if they even bother with something recognizable as a bed frame. :p
     
    On the one hand, Odr boosted Carpentry and Odr infused bed.

    On the other, we run the risk of the bed awaking an object spirit, and that just all kind of awkward.
     
    Toboe said:
    After marriage the wife has a prophetic dream telling her how many kids she can birth max from that marriage.
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    This is the kind of thing which must be so confusing to outsiders (or to me, arriving late in the quest and not having picked up on details like this).

    Foreigner: "So how do you mark birthdays if you don't have a written calendar?"

    Norseman: "Well that's easy, you just wait for the Birthday Squirrel to climb down the World-Tree and tell you."

    Foreigner: "The what."

    Norseman: "Wait, you don't get a squirrel?! How do you get your birthday nuts?"

    DeadmanwalkingXI said:
    It's been strongly implied that infant mortality is still about as high as it was in real life, barring specific magic anyway, since babies haven't had the opportunity to develop their Hamr yet and are thus just as vulnerable as real children. The number of children also appears to be fated (or at least capped) when the marriage is made (though magic can increase that number)...we are fated to have 9 kids, and I honestly think that's enough. Also, even with disease out of the picture, Troll-Men and other monstrous threats abound and lead to a pretty sizable infant and child mortality rate right there.

    Our kids specifically are much less likely to have to deal with infant mortality due to a combination of good luck, us having actual anti-disease magic, and having Hamr 2 from birth and thus being super-babies...but none of those things are true of most Norse children.

    Now, the Norse also weaned their kids at 2 years old, and breast feeding is decent-ish birth control, which spreads the kids out a bit, but the strong implication has been that doing that is the only birth control we've been engaging in, or that most Norse couples generally engage in.
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    Hmmm, good points.

    Although even given that, I would not necessarily place child mortality quite as high as in the Early Medieval. Food insecurity, a big contributor, seems to be much less severe than historically due to how crazily productive a single Norse farmer can be. Also even if every family cannot do healing Seidr, going by our limited sample size it seems like most communities have a healer within a few days' travel, who could be called on in an emergency in the case of a fever or something. But maybe roughly as high as, say, Victorian child mortality?

    The contraception thing is a rabbithole probably best not to get too far down given it's not super relevant, but honestly you may well be right, it was just my unfounded assumption.
     
    Simon_Jester said:
    Almost certainly not, though given how absurdly strong Abjorn and Halla are, I imagine that they do a lot of repair carpentry if they even bother with something recognizable as a bed frame. :p
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    I mean, Halla does all the carpentry and would routinely roll something on the order of 18 successes, so the bed's pretty durable, I'd say. The first couple may have been a bit less so before she learned the needed tolerances, of course.

    Skippy said:
    Hmmm, good points.

    Although even given that, I would not necessarily place child mortality quite as high as historically in the Early Medieval. Food insecurity, a big contributor, seems to be much less sever than historically due to how crazily productive a single Norse farmer can be. Also even if every family cannot do healing Seidr, going by our limited sample size it seems like most communities have a healer within a few days' travel, who could be called on in an emergency in the case of a fever or something. But maybe roughly as high as, say, Victorian child mortality?
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    Exact mechanics aside, it seems from stuff that's been said that food insecurity remains an issue, though probably not as major an issue as in some places in the real life middle ages. Not for people with plenty of money and a good farm, obviously, well not unless there's a really bad winter and they don't have enough food stored, but that's not all the people there are by any means. A crappy farm and not enough people to work it and food becomes An Issue.

    What reading I did also seemed to indicate that, again barring really bad winters, the medieval Norse actually had a much better diet than most people in the Middle Ages and likely somewhat better food security.

    Skippy said:
    The contraception thing is a rabbithole probably best not to get too far down given it's not super relevant, but honestly you may well be right, it was just my unfounded assumption.
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    There is also the cultural factor. Every single reference we've seen IC to having children has been as an unmitigated blessing and that's true in real farming societies to a large degree (more kids equals more help around the place and more people to take care of you when you get old and so on...kids are an economic blessing), and none of the cultivation stuff really changes that, IMO. Even if they have excellent birth control methods, the Norse are unlikely to make much use of them (at least in terms of married couples), as they do in fact want more babies.
     
    DeadmanwalkingXI said:
    What reading I did also seemed to indicate that, again barring really bad winters, the medieval Norse actually had a much better diet than most people in the Middle Ages and likely somewhat better food security.
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    That's not necessarily completely outlandish for a society with a lower population density with a diet shifted a few notches towards pastoralism rather than cereals, especially if we're comparing to something like the 13th century. Although I think it would come with a ton of caveats as these things tend to.

    DeadmanwalkingXI said:
    There is also the cultural factor. Every single reference we've seen IC to having children has been as an unmitigated blessing and that's true in real farming societies to a large degree (more kids equals more help around the place and more people to take care of you when you get old and so on...kids are an economic blessing), and none of the cultivation stuff really changes that, IMO. Even if they have excellent birth control methods, the Norse are unlikely to make much use of them (at least in terms of married couples), as they do in fact want more babies.
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    I think that's undoubtedly true, although I think if you have twelve kids and a small farm, it's going to cause some issues with dowries/inheritance. But the set number of children kinda obviates that concern, especially if Abjorn and Halla having nine is implied to be on the upper end. There can be good reasons to want family planning even if you strongly value children and want a large family; IRL access to family planning is pretty strongly linked with the status of women. But one of the bigger ones is being able to space out/postpone the burden of pregnancy, which is less of a concern in this setting as all the adults are at least mildly superhuman. (Assuming you're not a thrall...)
     
    Skippy said:
    That's not necessarily completely outlandish for a society with a lower population density with a diet shifted a few notches towards pastoralism rather than cereals, especially if we're comparing to something like the 13th century. Although I think it would come with a ton of caveats.
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    Oh definitely. Just saying it might be a tad less of an issue.

    Skippy said:
    I think that's undoubtedly true, although I think if you have twelve kids and a small farm, it's going to cause some issues with dowries/inheritance. But the set number of children kinda obviates that concern, especially if Abjorn and Halla having nine is implied to be on the upper end. There can be good reasons to want family planning even if you strongly value children and want a large family; IRL access to family planning is pretty strongly linked with the status of women. But one of the bigger ones is being able to space out/postpone the burden of pregnancy, which is less of a concern in this setting as all the adults are at least mildly superhuman (assuming you're not a thrall).
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    Yeah, fair. The set number of children definitely has a lot to do with the way things seem to work as well. And the average would likely be around 4-ish, barring magic, given it's based on Hamingja and the average Hamingja is 5-7. Which explains why fertility magic to increase that is in demand, as I suspect most Norse families want more kids than that.

    I will note, though it's sort of a side issue, that even the thralls are actually pretty superhuman. Most thralls are every bit as much cultivators as free Norsemen, they're just restricted from gaining Orthstirr except by being loyal and helpful to their masters or by osmosis from their master being awesome. And it takes very little Orthstirr to max out stats alone. They're much weaker than free Norsemen due to the lower Orthstirr, but that doesn't mean they aren't superhuman by more reasonable standards.

    There's probably a fun campaign or story idea about a Norse thrall getting freed and released into Christian lands and discovering just how superhuman they really are comparatively...
     
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    Don't forget that we're rich. Well not rich rich, but solidly upper-middle-class and likely to climb. Food insecurity etc are less of an issue for our children than the median norse child.
     
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