NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
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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
She (we) can teach our kids though, already giving them a better start.
and slowly, the knowledge will be spread through the north.
She can teach her kids, yeah. Which probably gives her kids an advantage in stats.
But with how we played her so far, I don't think she is the kind of person to make a new path that could lead to change in culture. She is happy to follow the warrior path.
A kid of hers could embrace a different path, though.
The Lay of Hakon (Pempelune)
Pempelune
Fanfiction Deep State
The Lay of Hakon
In Halfdanby lay a giant of a man, a fierce hero of the Skirsvikingar. Great he was, and grim, and in all the land they sang of his deeds, but of his last no song is sung. And as his face split and his life blood fled him and he prepared to greet death, he saw nine Valkyries riding down to him, and the fairest of them knelt next to him, and spake.
Early thou be | Hakon Atlason
What fell forces | and grimer fate
Led thee to me | before thy time?
Hakon spake:
The great warrior | Halfdan the Dane,
And his nine sons | They brought me down.
The Valkyrie spake:
Great is he and | keen his atgeir,
Many sagas | they sing of him.
Yet of your blood | Sagaseeker
Never did drink.
Hakon spake:
Aye: Twas not he | but his eldest
Jordan the Dane | who took my life.
Many sagas | of him they'll sing
I have no doubt.
The Valkyrie spake:
Great will he be | Jordan the Dane,
But here he lay | almost ready
To meet Othin.
Hakon spake:
A bloody price | I made him pay
For his great deed, O Valkyrie,
But it is I | who now shall meet
The Allfather.
The Valkyrie spake:
Careful thy be | Hakon Atlason.
Thy tricks of tongue | Cannot trick me.
Of your orthstirr | Jordan has none.
Keen eyes shall now | unveil thy fate.
And the Valkyrie now looked at him, and she wondered at his hands. She spake:
What do they hide | these hands of yours
Hakon Atlason?
Hast thy prick | shriveled and dried
That ye now seek | to hide it so?
Unveil it now.
And sheepishly did Hakon obey. And merrily did the Valkyrie and her eight sisters laugh. And she spake:
Ballsless ye be | Hakon Atlason!
Craven ye be | and not worthy
Of my Lord's halls.
Hakon spake:
Mercy, mercy | O Valkyrie!
Ballsless I die | yet valorous.
The Valkyrie spake:
Unmanned were thou | by a young girl.
Fitting it is: more of a man
Than thee she be.
Hakon spake:
Mercy, Mercy | I beg of ye.
What of my friend | Reidar Swordfury?
Happy he'd be | To have me by
His side when he | reaches Othin.
The Valkyrie spake:
A boy of ten | did defeat him
Reidar Swordfury,
The hunter who | lost to a crow.
He too shall be | denied his place,
When his time comes,
In Valhalla | there be no place
For one who has
Eaten crow!
And thus did the Valkyrie and her sisters depart.
As to Hakon: to Hel with he.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Love it! Have a reward dice and extra 2 orthstirr
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Depends on context. I can see Halla killing Gods for all sorts of reasons, really, and can certainly also see her potentially making great strides in cultivation research. I don't actually think she's gonna reform the system, but it's not impossible.
Eh, if its about how we played her, there is plenty of reason for her to gather and teach others, when she is older, not just her kids.
After all, she has run into the lack of systematic knowledge of cultivation time and again, even disregarding the fact she is a woman.
Agreed.
I want a sneaky shapeshifter.... but damn cultivation system is biased! *shakes fists*
Well, guess he could be a merchant... but eh...
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Voting will be called in an hour-and-a-half
Yeah, i have no doubt about her teaching, it is about what she would teaches.
Her becoming something besides a warrior (a warrior that knows some seidr) is what i doubt.
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Oh, Halla's always gonna be a warrior. So is whoever reforms the Norse cultivation system, though (assuming someone does). Violence, and particularly physical courage, is such a part of their culture that only someone who is self evidently one of the very best at it could get them to cut back on it at all without being branded a coward.
Again, I don't think that'll be Halla, but her being a warrior isn't why (it's more that it's a huge generational conflict I suspect won't be solved for a very long time).
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I'd say here we need to distinguish between skills and philosophy.
She is a warrior in both skills and life philosophy.
Being a warrior in skills would be very helpful for the reasons you mentioned.
But one would need to NOT be a warrior in life philosophy to come up with the reforms.
Because if your life philosophy agrees with the system fully, why change it?
Or a crafter.
Myth has crafters that are on eye level with the gods. (iirc usually dwarves)
What kind of bullshit could a smith that focuses mainly on developing his smithing and runecraft abilities create?
With a raven fylgja said smith might even have hints what he needs to make to supply (soon to be) legendary heroes with legendary weapons.
Or a seeress.
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Is she? Halla is a 15 year old girl who like fighting...near as I can tell her philosophy isn't very well thought out at this point (like most 15 year olds), and could still develop in a lot of different directions depending on who and what she runs into and what kinds of things she experiences.
And no reform of the Norse cultivation system can (or should) remove martial glory as a valid path of progression simply because that seems like a great way to get conquered. Any reforms made would be more fine tuning the process to put slightly more emphasis on other accomplishments and maybe getting rid of the whole 'fated death' thing, not actually changing what a warrior gains substantially. More establishing a better framework for alternate paths than messing with the current main one.
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
So yeah... but that's not all there is to it. Like, by my read, the Vikings as a whole wind up with way more cultivation than you'd otherwise expect from their population. Now, the story of the faithbreaker tells us that somehow the faith of non-cultivators can be a source of power for cultivator stuff, even if they have no cultivation of their own. Something that the Norse are doing is producing large amounts of total cultivationstuff, above and beyond how easy it is to acquire or lose the cultivationstuff that's out there. There's an external energy economy that the country as a whole runs on, and we know very little about how it works.
I look at it, and see "the vikings have kind of absurd levels of total cultivation across their culture" and "the vikings are bizarrely willing to charge into battles to the death again and again at the drop of a hat" standing next to each other. I figure that the "this culture pulls off stuff that no other culture seems to be able to pull off" and "this culture does things as a matter of course that everyone else would think was utterly nuts" might have something to do with one another.
Touche, would probably have been better to say "Halla looks to be on a path to fully internalize the predominant warrior philosophy".
Eh, there is quite some room to change how a warrior fits into the big picture without getting into "a great way to get conquered" territory.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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Voting is now closed. I'm very excited to see what you learn from this spar 
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I'm not actually positive this is true. More Norsemen are cultivators, sure, but most people, especially women, aren't very powerful ones, and the truly powerful are seemingly pretty rare. It's possible the 'energy' is more widely distributed rather than actually more common...I think that's probably wrong and it actually is more common, but assuming so for sure seems premature.
That's actually not clear. The monastery was the only thing protected and that was done by the Monks who clearly seem to be cultivators. The Monks might be using the faith of non-cultivators for that, but it might also just be a reflection of their own.
Is there an external energy economy? I'm not sure that the energy cultivation runs on is limited like this. It could be, but it could just as easily be effectively unlimited and the differences are in what the particular person can actually collect and channel (ie: energy is unlimited, it is the cultivator who changes to allow them to use a specific amount of it).
I agree that we know very little about how the metaphysics work, but I think you're making huge assumptions about some of the fundamental principles here (ie: energy is a limited resource that must be distributed between people) that aren't necessarily true.
Inasmuch as Norsemen have more cultivation than other peoples (and again, that's likely rather than proven), there are actually a lot of possibilities that leap immediately to my mind as more likely than 'violence somehow inherently enhances their cultivation method's power on a meta level' to explain that:
1. As mentioned above, if energy isn't limited then it's a matter of opening yourself up to energy. Norse cultivation being better at that on a societal level isn't crazy talk.
2. Regardless of whether energy is limited, who says some systems aren't just better in some ways? Maybe having everyone think about an external system all the time will always result in everyone being cultivators. Like, maybe any reputation-based cultivation would work like this even for complete pacifists.
3. Assuming the energy is limited, maybe that energy just comes from the earth and is entirely based on amount of territory controlled and then dispersed among the population based on their traditions. The explanation for the Norse all being cultivators is as simple as Norse lands being sparsely populated.
4. Maybe it's a self-reinforcing cycle, with cultivators actually producing energy so the more of them you have the more you get until everyone is a cultivator...as long as they spend rather than save. Norse cultivation has been mentioned as 'wasteful' at least from a Chinese perspective, so maybe it burns a lot more than other systems and puts it out into the environment. Maybe it is in fact the way orthstirr is spent so freely rather than being hoarded (ie: none of those permanent enhancements I mentioned as possible previously) creating a 'high energy' environment that encourages everyone to cultivate.
5. Maybe it's that so many die young, their deaths fueling the cultivation of the rest? This is the closest to the violence explanation, but most deaths aren't actually through violence, so there's some relevant differences.
And all of those are off the top of my head. Given all the possibilities, I feel like leaping to the violence as an explanation is wildly premature. There are a lot of other things it could easily be, and several strike me as much more likely. Honestly, #4 seems the most likely explanation to me personally, but we need more information to really know.
I'm pretty sure that's almost everyone raised in Norse culture at the age of 15.
Absolutely. But if they reduce the power of warriors they definitely risk it, and if they don't, I'm not sure warriors would object to the reforms.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Voting is now closed. I'm very excited to see what you learn from this spar
Ah, we're going to learn why you don't just burn all of your stuff in one go, aren't we?
Well, I did advocate against it I suppose!
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I mean, we didn't actually? We used our three orthstirr gains, but we didn't burn all the stuff we gained from them. We honestly probably still have more than one of them left after this round of combat (we probably have around 20 orthstirr for next round...it could be lower, but only if this round gets real rough). If something happens where we need more next round, there's probably no real difference whether we burned them all or not (since, if it's urgent, we would've burned the remaining one).
Which isn't to say we'll win, just that I don't think not burning for orthstirr would've changed this round at all.
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Summer 4/Gabriel Spar 1.2
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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[X] Plan Measured Offense
-[X] Tap frami, virthing, and saemd (+36 Orthstirr)
-[X] Invest 18 Orthstirr into combat pool (-18 Orthstirr)
-[X] 22d6 Attack (all in Tricks)
-[X] 7d6 Defense
-[X] 0d6 Intercept
-[X] Use Halting Vortex pre-fight so we have something resembling a shield (-8 orthstirr)
-[X] Attack with three 4d Power Chops (-3 Orthstirr), use up to two 5d Hefty-Halter-Chop usages to defend against big attacks (-6 Orthstirr), use Hone on parries as necessary after that (-1 Orthstirr per non-Hefty-Halter-Chop defense)
-[X] If he looks to be launching a really huge attack be ready to respond with Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) but only if it looks too big for Hefty-Halter-Chop to work on
-[X] Tactics - Basically the plan here is to close immediately into weapon range and just methodically attack and wear him down, using Hefty-Halter-Chop or, if that seems insufficient, Contested Movement on any big attacks.
-[X] Tap frami, virthing, and saemd (+36 Orthstirr)
-[X] Invest 18 Orthstirr into combat pool (-18 Orthstirr)
-[X] 22d6 Attack (all in Tricks)
-[X] 7d6 Defense
-[X] 0d6 Intercept
-[X] Use Halting Vortex pre-fight so we have something resembling a shield (-8 orthstirr)
-[X] Attack with three 4d Power Chops (-3 Orthstirr), use up to two 5d Hefty-Halter-Chop usages to defend against big attacks (-6 Orthstirr), use Hone on parries as necessary after that (-1 Orthstirr per non-Hefty-Halter-Chop defense)
-[X] If he looks to be launching a really huge attack be ready to respond with Contested Movement (-3 Orthstirr) but only if it looks too big for Hefty-Halter-Chop to work on
-[X] Tactics - Basically the plan here is to close immediately into weapon range and just methodically attack and wear him down, using Hefty-Halter-Chop or, if that seems insufficient, Contested Movement on any big attacks.
Gabriel's eyes stay steady as crimson orthstirr unfurls. Frami, virthing, and saemd all are stoked into a fighting frenzy.
Spinning Sagaseeker around, you point the sharp head and grin. His face remains resolute as he subtly shifts his stance and adjusts his sword grip.
Everything about how he stands is foreign to your senses. From the way he has his guard beside his chest while pointing the tip at you to how he holds his sword at all! His grip is decidedly not glima; how does he expect to control the blade without a finger on the guard?
Your eyes sharpen as he takes a single, slow step forward. Well, there's only one way to find out!
Planting your foot in the ground, you fling into the air with Sagaseeker held at your side. Orthstirr coats the cutting edge as you fuel the creation of a trick.
(Trick Attack: 18 vs Defense: 7, Attacker Wins. Focus Damage Dealt)
To his credit, Gabriel's defense instantly snaps up to receive your atgeir. Unfortunately, he wasn't ready for Power-Chop to plow straight through his guard.
The blow forces him to a knee, but does little more than that. With Sagaseeker's blunt edge biting into his chest he should be feeling some measure of pain, but as he shoves you back and retakes his stance, the only thing different about him is the level of concentration behind his eyes. His Focus is starting to flag, one or two more strikes should do the trick!
Gabriel takes two half-steps forward before throwing his arms in a lunge. A strange, white glow rises out from within the sword, from within Gabriel. This power, it feels almost like orthstirr, but not at the same time.
(Attack: 5 vs Defense: 5, Defender Wins)
You jerk away as the sword passes inches over your head, giving you a good look at the strange power shining from within.
Orthstirr covers a weapon in might-enhancing power, that is how it works. This, though? Whatever energy this is comes from inside the weapon, not on it. It smells almost like a blot, like when you attend a sacrifice to the gods.
But his power isn't the only thing you're watching here. He is the same age as you, yet he moves with the certainty of a man like your eldest brother. Blackhand said that their training was continuous, but how early does it start? And what does that mean, anyways?
"How old were you when you started learning the sword?" You ask candidly as you hop away from his blade.
"I was seven when I entered Pagehood." Gabriel's answer is as clear a non-answer as any you've ever heard.
"Interesting," you say, though you lack the presence of mind to fully contemplate his words in the middle of a fight.
"How old were you?" The blonde boy asks as you start circling each other once more.
It's only fair, so you answer honestly. "Twelve, though I've never used a sword."
His brows shoot to the top of his head as a scowl flashes over his face. He seems angry, though not with you.
You shrug as you step forward, orthstirr coating your atgeir once more. You can ask about that later. For now, back to the fight!
(Trick Attack: 10 vs Defense: 11, Defender Wins)
Sagaseeker flies through the air as it purrs its pleasure. Gabriel's defense once more swings up, but this time something's different.
As the Power-Chop Trick bears down, Gabriel's hand slips from the guard and travels up the blade. He shifts as he moves, putting his weight on his back leg as he catches Sagaseeker on the haft. With his hand on the blade supporting the sword, he's able to skillfully deflect the atgeir from its path.
He steps forward, taking advantage of your unbalance to launch another stab. This one, though, is guided by the hand on the blade. Could this be a Christian trick?
(Attack: 12 vs Defense: 4, Attacker Wins. Halting Vortex Triggered.
Freeing your hand from Sagaseeker, you stoke your orthstirr into a swirling spiral of protective crimson energy. The glowing white sword bounces off the Standstill shield, but doing so drains you of orthstirr.
It does, however, leave him open for attack!
Stoking your orthstirr once more, you launch into yet another Power-Chop Trick.
(Trick Attack: 15 vs Defense: 6, Attacker Wins, Focus is Disrupted)
A white light snaps into being before your atgeir, but you smash it asunder with orthstirr-enhanced strength. Sagaseeker slams into his side, drawing a surprised grunt from Gabriel as he stumbles to the side.
You lock your eyes with your opponent and find them to be unfocused and unsteady. He's fully present, his mind is still in the fight, but he lacks the ironclad concentration he possessed at the start.
(Premature Round End: Focus Disruption Interrupt)
(Unused Tricks Refunded)
0~0~0
(Hugr (Tactics): 2, 3, 6, 6, 1, 4, 5) 6 Successes
Gabriel's body is pristine, though his focus is broken. He's going to focus entirely on defense next round.
He seems to have been surprised by you, like he wasn't expecting you to be an able warrior. He's re-evaluating his estimations considerably. Expect him to take you as seriously as he can reasonably be expected to, given his constraints.
It seems as though his shackles are stopping him from doing certain actions. While it doesn't stop him from using his power, it stops him from doing anything more than the most basic of moves.
Regardless of his handicaps, it's clear that between you and him, he's the better fighter when it comes to skill. His movements are precise and controlled while every attack is delivered to perfection.
You have 4/4 Endurance.
You have no shields.
You have 22 orthstirr held in reserve and you have tapped frami, virthing, or saemd.
Sagaseeker has 8 more points of orthstirr held in its reservoir.
You can put 0 more points of orthstirr into your combat pool.
You have a combat pool of 29d6 (23 from stats, 6 from equipment)
What do you do?
[ ] (Plan Name)
-[ ] (Dice) Attack
-[ ] (Dice) Defense
-[ ] (Dice) Intercept
-[ ] (Dice) (Trick) (Orthstirr)
-[ ] Tactics Write in
0~0~0
AN: Oh man, writing this round was so much fun. I absolutely blasted through it.
When Focus is broken, the Knight is put on the backfoot, which forces them to change their plan. Obviously, a Knight isn't going to proceed as planned if their Focus is broken, so it prematurely ends the Round to allow the Knight to re-plan and for you to capitalize properly.
Focus is only reestablished at the end of the next Round.
25-minute moratorium.
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Okay, cool, so Focus is a defensive buff that can be broken by attacking through it (probably among other things). Interesting.
I feel like the thing to do here is go pretty heavy on offense in terms of dice, with three or four high-die Power Chops, and be prepared to use various defenses as necessary. If we can actually land three or four Power Chops we almost certainly win, after all, and doing so is cheap in orthstirr.
In a more long-term sense, Halting Vortex is likely gonna be amazing once we actually have it down to a more reasonable 4 Orthstirr. Very nice.
I feel like the thing to do here is go pretty heavy on offense in terms of dice, with three or four high-die Power Chops, and be prepared to use various defenses as necessary. If we can actually land three or four Power Chops we almost certainly win, after all, and doing so is cheap in orthstirr.
In a more long-term sense, Halting Vortex is likely gonna be amazing once we actually have it down to a more reasonable 4 Orthstirr. Very nice.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Okay, looks like it went pretty well, I see what you mean by learning something, it's a very different fighting style. Probably has much better sustain, and they make up for the reduced spike power with just higher base skills--an extra five years of training is huge. And they can afford to do so because not everyone needs to spend time farming.
I see why he's upset though, Halla's keeping pace--and even pushing him back--and she's only been training for three years now. That's got to hurt the ego quite a bit.
I see why he's upset though, Halla's keeping pace--and even pushing him back--and she's only been training for three years now. That's got to hurt the ego quite a bit.
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
That could be a pattern for a cultivation society, but it's not this one. We also know that old Vikings are utter raging badasses that basically terrify the rest of the world... so the Norse have depth as well as breadth. Further, we had Steinarr (who is impressive but not overwhelmingly so) taking down a knight in full plate armor, and we know that the Christians consider "knight in full plate" to basically be walking juggernauts that few can stand against.
So it's not just an assumption.
Let's look at what I actually said.
"If... (which seems reasonably likely) then it's possible" I'm not leaping to conclusions here. I'm presenting one that occurred to me as both plausible and worthy of at least a bit of consideration. Also, there's a factor that you're not necessarily keeping in mind.
People do what works.
People want to live. They want to thrive. They want to win. Ur-societies try stuff, and they grab the ones that work better. If this one simple trick just worked better, then you'd see strong incentives to adopt it, and you'd get more cultures who were doing that thing. Norse cultivation is so bare-bones that it's almost instinctive. Arts get explained in mere sentences, and they're not particularly complicated sentences. It takes a while to practice them, but getting far enough to say "Ah, yes. This is a thing that works, and I should study it more." isn't hard. Basically, the barrier to entry for any given culture to discover something very much like Viking cultivation is pretty darned low... and yet the Vikings are notable for it. They keep wandering the world and terrifying the natives and eating their gods sometimes (Hi, Hallr!) and the Byzantine Empire hires them as mercs. So to my mind there has to be something that they're doing that makes it all go that other cultures have a strong incentive to not do. The Nornir, then, stand out as a really obvious thing that might be driving that difference.
Now, is it certain? No. It's possible to spin any number of explanations as to why it might not work like that, but I think that "reasonably likely" is not too far-fetched a claim.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Also? Halting Vortex is amazing for our build, as we're seeing here. It's just amazing in general I'm thinking. The ability to make a scary attack just Go Away for only a single charge of Orthstirr goes to show just how impressive Standstill is conceptually.
It's expensive now, but if we can master it, it'll be fantastic.
It's expensive now, but if we can master it, it'll be fantastic.