NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
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- 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
- Pronouns
- He/Him
For the record, I'm honestly fine with it, though I obviously can't speak for anyone else. I was sort of presuming that the risk was lower the less damage we took, but even with small risks, wanting to avoid them entirely while pregnant seems appropriate to me.
Best pot ever. I really do enjoy using Halla's ridiculous smith skills for mundane stuff. It just strikes me as funny every time.
Yup, decimal style chance.
In percent it would be 46.87%.
Its probably fine. It makes for nicer paceing.
Also, not strictly accurate biology according to your highschool health class? When it comes to mortal wounds, whole norse society isn't accurate to biology.
Yeah, pot supposedly helps with the spirit contacting trance.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
Oh it is, I'm talking about the threshold for risk to start accumulating
If you die before you take your first breath, before the Nornir have decided the time of your death, then that's it.
Focussing more on normal life is fine, and I like hanging out with our children. I would actually love it if Halla did stuff with our children which was purely about her relationship with them, and not directly or indirectly related to cultivation.
What I dislike is Halla's gender essentially locking her into being a broodmare for large chunks of time with no voter say in the matter. Like, sure, Norse society is a patriarchal society, but in that case I'd expect more active tension with Halla struggling to avoid being suborned into a domestic role after marriage, causing potential stresses with men in her life. That is much more the case with actual shieldmaidens if they existed, and other examples of women coopting a male martial social role like the Sworn Virgins of Albania etc..
Instead we have this odd kind of dichotomy where... everyone basically accepts that Halla is a Gatekeep Gaslight Girlboss, it's startling how little she has actually encountered overt scorn or insult in the quest from other characters on account of her gender, even enemies! But simultaneously she's also barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen about half the time and this is literally mandatory, like the most lurid fantasy of a Republican Senator with a breeding fetish. The whole thing just feels rather confused, like I don't really know what it's trying to say? Don't get me started on the obligatory (also fairly ahistorical) teen marriages.
Like, don't get me wrong, this is fine for the most part, because this is not fundamentally a game about exploring the politics of gender or the female experience of familial or romantic love. It's a quest about hanging out with our stable of friends and relations in cosy little slice-of-life interludes, occasional cool anime fights, and Making Number Go Up with our ever-growing list of stats and abilities. This is demonstrably what most of the wordcount of every update is spent on, and it does a good job at those things.
But you responded, so, those are the reasons why the pregnancy mechanic and the stuff around it is my least favourite mechanic in the quest.
The risk of miscarriage thing actually feels about right, I'd maybe make it a bit more random? But basically it's fine. It's more the presentation of pregnancy as essentially mandatory, as I described above. Ultimately I think it's up to you, this is just my opinion and I wouldn't let it sway you too much if any change would mean you weren't writing what you wanted to write. Any critique is intended to be constructive, and I wouldn't have replied if I didn't like the quest.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Low Self Control is a sign of an Odreng, Asgeirr.
... We need to deal with this.
Wrathful/Bloodlust/Low Self Control is basically a Feud Machine.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's more like 1/3 of the time, and only until we hit a specific number of kids.
This is also clearly her choice, which removes a lot of the unfortunate implications, at least for me. Many Norsewomen may be trapped in a situation of having a lot of kids, but from everything we've seen of Halla she's actually super happy about the idea of more children on a personal level...nobody is making her do anything. She could do various things to not have kids...but from her perspective, why would she?
She does also keep working and doing stuff throughout the pregnancy (our actions are not actually penalized at all, and we still do all kinds of interesting things, from experimentation to crafting to intelligence work spying on Horra via our fylgja) and doesn't even suffer combat penalties (we actually fought the squire pregnant)...she's just inclined to avoid combat or other high risk situations if possible to avoid miscarriage. That's...not actually that onerous a restriction?
Like, she's pregnant, but not really barefoot and in the kitchen, not by the colloquial meaning of those, anyway.
And oddly, from the research I did, getting married that young appears to have actually been pretty normal in medieval Norse society. That's very unusual historically (which is why I immediately checked), but does appear to be the case in this specific society and era.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
So, I was thinking maybe we should try to slot in Friendly for our future children.
We also need to somehow teach Asgeirr to not have low self control.
Asgeiir is really on the opposite end of the spectrum from Hallbjorn..
"What is cooked becomes good to eat."
Low power but it will work just fine.
We also need to somehow teach Asgeirr to not have low self control.
Asgeiir is really on the opposite end of the spectrum from Hallbjorn..
We don't have to get complicated here:
"What is cooked becomes good to eat."
Low power but it will work just fine.
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eh... it's consensual, and Halla's fine with it. She definitely isn't a 'broodmare', which I feel is a very negative take on it. The patriarchal society doesn't even really apply here, since Halla is the one ordering Abjorn around - due to Terror-Bear's Loyalty and Content meaning he's happy to let Halla take the reins for most decisions bar occassions where she risks her life(don't know if that's the actual name) - and she also owns the land they live on lmao.
Like... she willingly does all the housework and whatnot because she wants to, not because she's forced to do so.
I'll admit that while I do want to play another female MC again, being forced to have children and go through pregnancy is a big turn off. It's not like we can even abstain against having children, either, because we need heirs to actually ensure we don't get a game over. Makes it more enticing to play a male MC imo, although I'll withhold my judgement until we actually play as one, since apparently women get more orthstirr or glory or something like that.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I mean. It's a flaw called 'A woman in a man's world.' I'm not sure what we should be expecting from that.
I do think calling Halla a broodmare is an excessively negative take on it, though.
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The flaw doesn't have anything to do with pregnancy, though. That's just an issue with the succession system. Even without the flaw, we'd still have to go through it. I'd rather play a male MC then be forced to go through pregnancy and be prevented from doing anything remotely risky.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If we have the spare Reward Dice I'm down. That'd be 6 each to ensure Snake's Tongue, Giant's Blood, and Friendly (plus our Muna and 1 Hamingja for Godly Luck and Seeing Eyes).
I'd love to. If anyone has any suggestions how I'm all ears. Also, relevantly, he's 2 years old...this may not be doable for a little bit.
Fair. I'll go with that in the absence of other ideas that seem really good.
Technically, she only owns half since he bought the other half off the Headman early on and double the size, but yeah, she is very clearly in charge for the most part. Both of them seem quite happy with that.
See, I don't feel like it's a real problem. For me, I'd want to take at least every third year off from Fights To The Death even as a male character. The slice of life in this Quest is good and there's lots of stuff to do other than fight. We certainly don't want to have zero fights, but the occasional year off seems fine.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Again, I kind of like it, because along with all the farming and shopping trips and so on, it keeps the character grounded. You can't do the stereotypical "father in a political drama" thing of concentrating so heavily on Big Man Stuff that you sort of passively assume that kids just happen in the background because someone else is handling the messy unfun part of that.
I am totally down for further female main characters in this game, and I don't think the pregnancy mechanics need a change.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It would not. This 'instance' of Hallr is now passed to precisely one kid of the previous bearer and only to such people. If we die without a kid, it's a Quest End.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
We should pick by characters with the most interesting traits more than anything else, I think. That's what takes priority.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Okay sure fine.
I'm not against picking whichever main character options feel like they make sense at whatever time we make the choice. I'm just saying I don't feel at all inhibited from choosing female characters because of how the pregnancy mechanics work. There is MORE than enough important stuff to be done that doesn't involve asskickings and physical danger literally 24/7.
Agreed. Part of it is that fights generally get a minimum of three updates, and some combat situations have multiple fights involved, whereas any given slice of life activity (apart from visiting Asvir) is usually resolved as a single part of a single update.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Halla's children on this chart, would this be correct?
Asgeirr - Rowdy, Temperamental, Loud
Sigurdr - Bold, Quick, Friendly
Eyvor - Quiet, Temperamental, Quick
Hallbjorn - Bossy, Friendly, Beardless
(With everyone at Unstoppable Potential?)
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
Honestly I just made it as hands-off as possible to avoid any sort of potential weirdness or toeing the line of getting in hot water with the mods. I can add more contraceptive stuff if you'd like, though I'm not overly aware of any Norse methods that I could draw inspiration from...
The real life Norse had a weird birthrate in that few couples actually successfully had children (which isn't represented in this quest because it wouldn't mesh well with the succession mechanics), so, for example, they had like seven different spells and rituals and blessing of fertility to bless the bride and groom during their wedding, not to mention all the others that they're gifted by family in order to encourage children. Now, I bet there's some herbal stuff for contraceptives because that's super common amongst most cultures across the world and in-setting there's totally seidr for it.
Halla has come to the conclusion that she's a warrior-wife. I will admit that that aspect did resolve a bit quickly so I can bring it up again if you folks would like. I don't particularly like writing super angsty stuff, so I kinda glossed over it a little bit. I probably should include more misogyny, but unlike with thralls I don't have 'This character has 7 Misogyny' written down anywhere so I don't think about it.
At the same time, though, the same traits that are valued in men are also valued in women. The sagas are full of strong women, like in Gisla saga where Gisli's wife, Audur, takes to the battlefield with club in hand alongside Gisli. And after his death, when his killer shows up in the home of his sister, Thordis, and her husband greets Gisli's killer like a friend, Thordis bends down, picks up Gisli's sword, and thrusts upward at her brother's killer, which gave him a 'major wound'. After that, she divorced her traitorous husband on the spot.
And then there's the time where Audur got offered money to divulge Gisli's location. She takes the money, puts it in a sack, and then smacks her husband's hunter across the face with it while essentially going 'You just had your blood drawn by a woman, bitch!'
I'm almost always down for concrit and didn't think you were doing anything wrong or being negative or what have you.
Yep!
These quotes hold information I find relevant to using Sagaseeker's orthstirr with Halla's pockets. The relevant parts are;
- Somehow, you know that it is your right as master to wield its orthstirr as your own.
- However, once the orthstirr is inside the Pocket, you find that it can be *directed* towards different results.
- Those are just the two possibilities that immediately spring to mind, though there are many on the outskirts.
I don't want to relitigate this argument, but I would note that making a diegetic argument like "the character is happy with it" is not necessarily that relevant to a non-diegetic critique. Characters aren't real, and can be written to feel whatever the author wants about whatever situation they're in. Non-diegetic critique raises questions like "Do this character's feelings feel believable?" and "What is this saying?", and that's the frame of reference I'm coming from when I say the pregnancy stuff did not work for me.
Like, my great-grandmother had seven kids. This was not her choice. Constant pregnancies left her trapped for the better part of her adult life, not to mention pretty viscerally unpleasant complications with the last few. This is fairly typical of the experience of women before widely available family planning; it's what this kind of thing actually looks like in real life. So the idea of Halla having nine children, and still having time for the vast array of cultivator bullshit we do every turn, and this being treated as entirely stress-free, breaks my suspension of disbelief. If it doesn't for you, then fair enough.
Honestly I don't mind Halla's conclusion that she can Have It All, and I think anything different would cause a lot of issues we probably don't want. It's more that... there's a disconnect between how straight the quest portrays the sort of treadmill that is being constantly pregnant for women without access to family planning, and the portrayal of this as sort of pastel-coloured and entirely unconflicted? Raising a family is constantly full of conflict and sacrifice, even when love makes it worthwhile. Also, the fact that we're locked in is a large part of my difficulty - taking away player agency can be a really effective technique sometimes if you want to make them feel boxed in. So when it happens with the pregnancy stuff, it hits kind of harder, if that makes any sense?
And you're absolutely right, the Sagas are full of strong women and there's a lot of evidence to buttress the idea of Norse women bearing weapons in defence of the home or kin. But we have fewer mentions of women venturing outside the home to do violence without taking on elements of a male identity to do so, which accordingly makes pregnancy a direct threat to their warrior identity. I remember @Gargulec actually had an interesting paper or two on this topic as I recall, and various Thoughts on shieldmaidens, and takes this trans-masc reading much further than I do. None of this is necessarily relevant in the setting of the quest of course, it's just interesting.
The variability in which Norse couples could successfully have children thing is not something I'm aware of, is there any further reading you could recommend? But anyway it sounds interesting and I think it would be cool to work that in. It would make the mechanics on dice pools for fertility/fertility magics feel like they actually have a purpose within the setting, rather than kind of gilding the lily as they do currently.
Should we bring the sister as well?
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Veny has left for Vestfold.
We might want more people because we don't want another Enemy Interrupt event.