NorseQuest: Collective Edition (Group-Based Xianxia Settlement-Builder)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
IS it legal to hire a champion for a holmgang? And if so, for which party? My understanding is that a holmgang starts with one party "talking shit," saying something that can't really be taken back, about the other. It'd be pretty low if you could talk shit about someone to push them into challenging you to a deathmatch, then overmatch them with a hired gun. Though the hire would have to be pretty epic given that we're talking about what can easily be a divinely mandated 'Final Day' match.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
Well, you're the ones who make the laws now, so it can be legal!
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
It seems that way, but champions can save time and lives.
Compare two duels.
Yeti challenges Jester, who's cousin Thor is drinking at a nearby tavern.
1 Person dies: Thor is named as champion, and kills Yeti.
2 people die: Yeti kills Jester, Thor declares a claim of vengeance and kills Yeti.
The civilization is stronger after the first duel than after the second.
It would also be perfectly reasonable to make it illegal though, Harald would be undecided at present moment.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Challenger can't have a proxy, but the challenged can.
I'm pretty sure that isn't allowed in this quest. Deaths in Holmgang aren't allowed be grounds for vengeance.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Erik now has two laws he'd like to propose at the next Thing!
One proposing the creation of the Strategic Big-Ass Rock Reserve, to be managed by the jarl or his appointed trustee, to gather up stones suitable for making runestones so we don't have a repeat of the Zombie Viking Aquaman incident.
And a second proposing that it should be illegal for the one who speaks the insults that provoke a challenge to a Holmgang to then hire a champion to fight on their behalf. Talk shit, get hit.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Makes total sense, them being final is a good call.
I'm sure it's allowed though, IF will let us get Nid whenever we want.
Ooo, ooo, pick me, pick me!
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Is the challenger defined as the one who does the shit-talking?
Erik: That would be up to the jarl.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In similar news, the Western Expedition has discovered our informants info is outdated and the onigar are now in charge. We ran into and killed one of them, though Hrosvior did not make it. We are now at the actual trade negotiations stage of things.
It's illegal, but still likely to happen at some point if champions weren't allowed.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hm. I think we need some dueling laws that are harsh against the 'challenger,' if by 'challenger' we mean 'the one who talks shit about someone else and thus provokes a Holmgang."
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Legal grey-area. Sigmund would support this interperation however.
And I'm going to bed now because I should have been in bed already by now.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sadly, that is not the challenger, legally, I don't think. Talking shit gets you challenged, it is not a challenge in and of itself. Of course, the person your insulting doesn't have to be the one to challenge you...their cousin can do so for insulting their cousin.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
True. Well, that just reverses the roles. Basically, I'm planning to propose some dueling laws that make it highly unsafe and unwise to talk shit about someone.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mmm. That might run into the current law about challengers not being allowed to have champions, but we can probably make something work.
- Location
- Many Places
That's not what I expect to be the most common reason for a Holmgang, I'm expecting it to happen for most often for the same reason as the first one, over who should get what loot.
I'm not saying that the other kinds won't happen or that I am willing to fight those kinds, just saying that I expect those to be the most common.
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Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
True. It's just that I don't have people hitting me up for Carpentry-skill-crafted stuff either. Then again maybe it's just...
I think you've managed to self-promote your carpentry and wood-working skills rather better than I've done with Erik. People are impressed.
Thank you very much, THEIR WORDS BRING ME MUCH GLORY, A TYPE OF WORD GLORY IF YOU WILL (HINT HINT GM)
We need to work on something together next season, want to help me build a carpentry workshop in town? I'm thinking about taking teaching as a skill for the orphans and others who need to learn a trade.
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
Zedalbs proposed Dueling Rules IE: Champions.
Champions may not be used in any duel roughly considered to be between equals.
(EG: No one with 14 PT in combat skills bullying a brand new player, or a serious non-combatant.)
To avoid a fair fight is Cowardice and not befitting a Norseman.
Either Participant may allow the other a Champion OR request the right of a Champion from the Jarl.
A Champion can only be used if the fight would result in a fight between equals AND the champion has some form of claim to be involved in the dispute.
Champions may not be used in any duel roughly considered to be between equals.
(EG: No one with 14 PT in combat skills bullying a brand new player, or a serious non-combatant.)
To avoid a fair fight is Cowardice and not befitting a Norseman.
Either Participant may allow the other a Champion OR request the right of a Champion from the Jarl.
A Champion can only be used if the fight would result in a fight between equals AND the champion has some form of claim to be involved in the dispute.
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
Community consensus/ Jarl Approval.
Number of Skills isn't exactly fair, someone can be a healer/craftsman other non-combatant.
Essentially, any fight where every player OOC goes "Yeah X wins" shouldn't be a duel in the first place.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Yeah, it can only be by Thing or by Jarl, we can't make a system for it because there's no such thing as a combat skill.
Literacy is a combat skill.
With the right Martial Style, Farming might be a combat skill.
That's before you even consider that a system wouldn't be able to account for matchup favorability or synergistic abilities.
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
I think by the Thing or Jarl is fine.
There are clearly some differences in power and if we want to allow champions it shouldn't be to ABUSE power differences, it should be to Prevent them.
Take your shirt off, Pick up a sword and face a fair challenge head on. Win or lose show the honor of a fight not bullying someone far weaker.
Gefjosa Aslaugsdottir 2 (CoatRackRanger)
In some other story, Gefjosa Aslaugsdottir would have woken up in the days following the Thing with a spring in her step and a song on her lips. In this story, she woke up screaming. Drenched in a cold sweat. Sheets tangled around her thick limbs. Breathless. Hoarse. Shivering. Visions of cloven bellies, wrenched limbs, hollowed bodies, and worse worse worse skittering back to the corners of her eyes. The place that they lurked while she was awake. She lay in the too-small bed she'd made, gazing up at the waning starlight visible between gaps in the shoddy thatch of her roof.
One. The Weight on her chest felt like the whole of the sea. It was all she could do just to breath. Each shallow, stuttering gasp took the whole of her being just to draw and release.
Two. Overcoming fear, she blinked and, in that second of darkness, the nightmares IT'S NOT A NIGHTMARE IF IT HAPPENED ITS A MEMORY YOU CAN'T FORGET YOU'LL NEVER BE RID OF IT NEVER CAN NEVER SHOULD NEVER NEVER NEVER leapt upon her again. Then her eyes opened and blood, gristle, and grief was replaced by her old shoddy roof and the faintest of rosy glows beyond.
Three. Gefjosa heaved in a lungful of air. She grabbed the thin blanket covering her, an dragged it across her face, clearing the crusted sweat, snot, and tears from the long long night. Long long, yes, but not long than the one before and before. "I need to get a new blanket..." Gefjosa muttered to herself, "this one is getting pretty gross." The sound didn't echo off the loose, damp planks of her cottage but it struck her oddly just the same. "I think that's the first time I've spoken here alone," she whispered to no one.
Four. She stretched sore muscles but still wasn't quite ready to get up. it's a good ache. i'm getting stronger. She pursed her lips and begun to tuneless hum a few bars of a song she'd heard Akali (@Abensur ) singing as they passed a few days back. He'd had a gaggle of children following him, shouting, laughing, begging him for another song. her cottage, not this one a better one, full of pattering feet, children's laughter, j- YOU'LL NEVER HAVE IT YOU DON'T DESERVE IT YOU DON'T DESERVE obsidian skin, taught muscles Gefjosa snatched the blanket again and rubbed her face until it was a little raw. Definitely, definitely time to get up now.
Five. She did. It was the day she and her Uncles were to start clearing her land. No time to dawdle over... silly things. Still, by the time she stepped out of her cottage, the sun's lip had crested horizon's horizon's edge and the sky was washed indigo. Among the Blomtamja, that meant she was late for work. The Plow ground into reality across her shoulders and she set out downhill at a loping pace towards the place she'd agreed to meet her uncles (@mythfan12 ; @Sirrocco ).
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Slow, so slowly, the jungle that she had claimed as her own was cleared. A quarter season of work, a blink compared to the time she'd already spent in this new land but... it was harder than before. Before the Thing, it was so easy to slip into that dark world, following the whispers of the Red Voice. Afterward, the Red Voice wasn't alone and it wasn't only whispering anymore. For better or for worse, the dark place was cracked now, the Sorrow she'd no long fit neatly in the Sorrow she'd molded around herself. The parts now exposed to the light burned in a different, unfamiliar way.
But she was not alone.
Clan Blomtamja, the parts of it that remained at least, was not what others would call "chatty." Not with each other, at least, and not with words. Uncle Torgarr and Uncle Njal spoke to the plants and soil. Their words were heeded. Stones and trees pulled themselves from the ground and moved into orderly rows. No words were needed when will alone could command reality to be as was desired. They communicated through movements of the earth itself and the unspoken certainty that each knew what they were doing. Gefjosa... trundled along behind them and cleaned up. She would never tell a mountain to movemaybe i'll push one over, though! ... one day but that was no excuse not to work.
Silence. Once Gefjosa feared it only fractions less than she'd feared noise. Only the sounds of hard labor and powerful magic, which, extraordinary as it was, faded into the background after days. In silence, welled up the pain. Those black memories. That red voice. YOU'LL NEVER BE FREE The Knife slipped into her chest. The Weight settled on her shoulders. The darkness closed around her... but... there! There, out in the black, other pinpoints of light! remember the Thing! remember you aren't alone! Other souls, each with their own regrets and troubles and woes and Sorrow, just like her, family! Kin! In blood, in plight, in shared tragedy, in every way that mattered. Gefjosa gritted her teeth and whispered "I am not alone."
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Each day, she watched them weave great magic as she trudged behind. Each day, the Knife slipped in, the Weight settled, the darkness closed. NOTHING HAS CHANGED YOURE STILL THE SAME BROKEN THING YOURE STILL ALL ALONE That's right. It was true. She couldn't deny it any longer... she was alone... there were others around her but inside she was alone... all alone... there was no hand holding the Knife but hers, no force pushing the Weight but her own. maybe... maybe i can use them for something else... for just a little while... SORROW. She scraped its edge across the blade of her Plow. SORROW. She braced its heft against its beams. She braced her feet against the loose soil and pushed carving new rows faster than she ever had before! It felt like she had when Father had brought home that new plow with the shiny, runed blade and he'd let her push even though her arms were barely long enough to reach the handles.
If, at that moment, Uncle Torgarr or Uncle Njall had looked back, they would have seen Gefjosa Aslaugsdottir's smile for the first time since Gotland sunk below the waves.
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Clan Blomtamja, the parts of it that remained at least, was not what others would call "chatty." But her Uncles were discussing something. In those quiet moments, when they thought Gefjosa wasn't listening, they spoke of something that caused the Sorrow in their hearts to writhe and spark. She caught only snatches. Dead men. Sea wall. Defenders. Everyone needed. Keep Gefjosa safe.
One day, after the sun had set and a Blumtamja could rest too, Uncle Njal came to her. Her told her what they'd been whispering about. The dead were coming for Driftwood. When they arrived, he was going to take her to town and she'd stay there. She'd be safe there. Fear seized Gefjosa's heart. MEN OF IRON MEN OF BONE DRIFTWOOD GOTLAND ITS ALL HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN It was all she could do to mutely nod her head.
When she could finally meet her uncles' gazes again she looked up... and saw the golden chains snaking around Uncle Torgarr's chest. HE'S GOING TO DIE. HE'S GOING TO DIE FOR YOU. Everything went black.
One. The Weight on her chest felt like the whole of the sea. It was all she could do just to breath. Each shallow, stuttering gasp took the whole of her being just to draw and release.
Two. Overcoming fear, she blinked and, in that second of darkness, the nightmares IT'S NOT A NIGHTMARE IF IT HAPPENED ITS A MEMORY YOU CAN'T FORGET YOU'LL NEVER BE RID OF IT NEVER CAN NEVER SHOULD NEVER NEVER NEVER leapt upon her again. Then her eyes opened and blood, gristle, and grief was replaced by her old shoddy roof and the faintest of rosy glows beyond.
Three. Gefjosa heaved in a lungful of air. She grabbed the thin blanket covering her, an dragged it across her face, clearing the crusted sweat, snot, and tears from the long long night. Long long, yes, but not long than the one before and before. "I need to get a new blanket..." Gefjosa muttered to herself, "this one is getting pretty gross." The sound didn't echo off the loose, damp planks of her cottage but it struck her oddly just the same. "I think that's the first time I've spoken here alone," she whispered to no one.
Four. She stretched sore muscles but still wasn't quite ready to get up. it's a good ache. i'm getting stronger. She pursed her lips and begun to tuneless hum a few bars of a song she'd heard Akali (@Abensur ) singing as they passed a few days back. He'd had a gaggle of children following him, shouting, laughing, begging him for another song. her cottage, not this one a better one, full of pattering feet, children's laughter, j- YOU'LL NEVER HAVE IT YOU DON'T DESERVE IT YOU DON'T DESERVE obsidian skin, taught muscles Gefjosa snatched the blanket again and rubbed her face until it was a little raw. Definitely, definitely time to get up now.
Five. She did. It was the day she and her Uncles were to start clearing her land. No time to dawdle over... silly things. Still, by the time she stepped out of her cottage, the sun's lip had crested horizon's horizon's edge and the sky was washed indigo. Among the Blomtamja, that meant she was late for work. The Plow ground into reality across her shoulders and she set out downhill at a loping pace towards the place she'd agreed to meet her uncles (@mythfan12 ; @Sirrocco ).
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Slow, so slowly, the jungle that she had claimed as her own was cleared. A quarter season of work, a blink compared to the time she'd already spent in this new land but... it was harder than before. Before the Thing, it was so easy to slip into that dark world, following the whispers of the Red Voice. Afterward, the Red Voice wasn't alone and it wasn't only whispering anymore. For better or for worse, the dark place was cracked now, the Sorrow she'd no long fit neatly in the Sorrow she'd molded around herself. The parts now exposed to the light burned in a different, unfamiliar way.
But she was not alone.
Clan Blomtamja, the parts of it that remained at least, was not what others would call "chatty." Not with each other, at least, and not with words. Uncle Torgarr and Uncle Njal spoke to the plants and soil. Their words were heeded. Stones and trees pulled themselves from the ground and moved into orderly rows. No words were needed when will alone could command reality to be as was desired. They communicated through movements of the earth itself and the unspoken certainty that each knew what they were doing. Gefjosa... trundled along behind them and cleaned up. She would never tell a mountain to movemaybe i'll push one over, though! ... one day but that was no excuse not to work.
Silence. Once Gefjosa feared it only fractions less than she'd feared noise. Only the sounds of hard labor and powerful magic, which, extraordinary as it was, faded into the background after days. In silence, welled up the pain. Those black memories. That red voice. YOU'LL NEVER BE FREE The Knife slipped into her chest. The Weight settled on her shoulders. The darkness closed around her... but... there! There, out in the black, other pinpoints of light! remember the Thing! remember you aren't alone! Other souls, each with their own regrets and troubles and woes and Sorrow, just like her, family! Kin! In blood, in plight, in shared tragedy, in every way that mattered. Gefjosa gritted her teeth and whispered "I am not alone."
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Each day, she watched them weave great magic as she trudged behind. Each day, the Knife slipped in, the Weight settled, the darkness closed. NOTHING HAS CHANGED YOURE STILL THE SAME BROKEN THING YOURE STILL ALL ALONE That's right. It was true. She couldn't deny it any longer... she was alone... there were others around her but inside she was alone... all alone... there was no hand holding the Knife but hers, no force pushing the Weight but her own. maybe... maybe i can use them for something else... for just a little while... SORROW. She scraped its edge across the blade of her Plow. SORROW. She braced its heft against its beams. She braced her feet against the loose soil and pushed carving new rows faster than she ever had before! It felt like she had when Father had brought home that new plow with the shiny, runed blade and he'd let her push even though her arms were barely long enough to reach the handles.
If, at that moment, Uncle Torgarr or Uncle Njall had looked back, they would have seen Gefjosa Aslaugsdottir's smile for the first time since Gotland sunk below the waves.
Days passed.
Each day, fought her way out of bed, down the hill, and to her uncles. Clan Blomtamja, the parts of it that remained at least, was not what others would call "chatty." But her Uncles were discussing something. In those quiet moments, when they thought Gefjosa wasn't listening, they spoke of something that caused the Sorrow in their hearts to writhe and spark. She caught only snatches. Dead men. Sea wall. Defenders. Everyone needed. Keep Gefjosa safe.
One day, after the sun had set and a Blumtamja could rest too, Uncle Njal came to her. Her told her what they'd been whispering about. The dead were coming for Driftwood. When they arrived, he was going to take her to town and she'd stay there. She'd be safe there. Fear seized Gefjosa's heart. MEN OF IRON MEN OF BONE DRIFTWOOD GOTLAND ITS ALL HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN It was all she could do to mutely nod her head.
When she could finally meet her uncles' gazes again she looked up... and saw the golden chains snaking around Uncle Torgarr's chest. HE'S GOING TO DIE. HE'S GOING TO DIE FOR YOU. Everything went black.
The Quarry team has finished their task! Half of us died to an Oni with one foot long horns, though Bjorn Bjornsson got better, somehow, but we killed it, and we can loot the magical treasures it had on it!
One Ring that, while charged, can heal a wound as severe as a lost limb! One use before it needs to recharge.
A pair of bracers that allow the wielder to create a shield of lightning around themselves, stunning any unfortunate enough tone too close at the time!
A talisman that grants the power to hurl bolts of lightning from your hands!
And, of course, the remnants of an iron Tetsubo, split in half, and the brass armour of the Oni!
One Ring that, while charged, can heal a wound as severe as a lost limb! One use before it needs to recharge.
A pair of bracers that allow the wielder to create a shield of lightning around themselves, stunning any unfortunate enough tone too close at the time!
A talisman that grants the power to hurl bolts of lightning from your hands!
And, of course, the remnants of an iron Tetsubo, split in half, and the brass armour of the Oni!