User:Shai Halud/Norn: The Book of Deeds

Finally, I've managed to come up with a system for the Norn and finish this project. This one took the longest because I got stuck trying to come up with something with those stupid totems. Anyway...

This idea is based off of experiences and lore from EotN as well as Prophecies and GW2 lore. I've also noticed that the Norn are sometimes referred to as half-giants and figured it would be interesting if they really were the descendants of the giants of ancient lore. There's no proof I'm right but my system could always be adjusted if I'm wrong.--Shai Halud 16:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I've also added in The Norn article from "Mounts as Companions and More..." as I intend for it to be compatible with this system. You may view history to see the original article.--Shai Halud 15:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

System Basics
In this system, Norn acquire buffs and skills by listening to the stories of the animal spirits the Norn worship. The stories are divided up into Heroic, Legendary, and Epic levels as well as the elite "Saga" level. A different number of each of these can be equipped at any time. They are also divided into the teachings of Raven, Bear, and Wolf which will be discussed in the next section.

Transformations will be accessible from the beginning of the game by praying at the shrine of the animal spirit you wish to take the form of. The strength of both the transformation and your buffs and race-specific skills will be controlled by the Norn race-specific attribute: Nornheart.

The Sacred Teachings
To acquire skills and buffs, Norn must visit the shrines of the various animal spirits and listen to tales told by the storytellers at each shrine. The Norn believe that these storytellers are fountains of virtue and that their stories strengthen the hearts of all who listen and understand. Every storyteller teaches four heroic stories, two legendary stories and one epic. The buffs and skills offered by the stories of each spirit are themed towards the spirits themselves as listed below.

1) Bear - The teachings of Bear offer benefits of value in physical combat. His buffs decrease damage from physical attacks, counteract armor penetration, decrease the duration of conditions on your character, lengthen the duration of stances, make one immune to certain environmental conditions, and offer increased max HP. His skills are mostly stances and shouts that increase endurance or allow one to block.

2) Wolf - Wolf offers benefits to your physical attack strength and is very helpful to brawlers. His teachings give one increased armor penetration, counteract blocking stances, increase the duration of the knock-down effect, increase the speed at which arrows fly, and increases one's endurance. His skills are mainly offensive in nature and make use of of the physical prowess of the Norn. They know down enemies, crack armor, and inflict heavy bleeding on enemies.

3) Raven - Raven offers magical benefits and special resistance to the elements. He offers increased elemental resistance, immunity to some environmental conditions, increased health for spirit and minion allies, 50% chance of immunity to knock down effect, increased energy storage, and shortened duration of hexes on your character. His skills are mostly ritualist or monk-like in nature. He offers spirit summons, weapon spells, healing buffs, smiting attacks, and lightning attacks.

A Norn can only remember up to six stories at a time. However, storytellers will not waste their time with the ignorant and the honorless, so each Norn must prove him or herself by performing great and honorable deeds and writing of them down in his Book of Deeds.

Applicable achievements are automatically written down in Your Book of Deeds. Each achievement is worth a certain number of honor points which can be used to unlock each story, and with each level the difficulty increases. Defeating enemies and completing quests is enough to get storytellers to speak of Heroic level stories. You may equip as many as six of these if you like. However, this will not be enough to  unlock legendary or epic stories.

To acquire legendary stories, a Norn must prove himself by defeating bosses and facing large groups of enemies. Only honor points obtained in this way will count towards legendary stories. Facing either without the aid of a party will multiply the number of honor points you gain. It also may not be necessary to succeed in killing the bosses and enemies. Simply surviving for an extended period of time against the boss or enemy group before being defeated can increase your honor points towards a legendary story. you can equip two of these.

Epic stories, however, require the completion of major missions. Attacks on Dredge armies and fortifications or repelling a Charr invasion would count towards an Epic. you may only equip one of these. Also, exploring the map and gaining titles add honor points that count towards all three levels.

Once you have achieved a single legendary or epic story, you may pay with either money or honor points for another of the same level to either accompany or replace it. There is also no penalty for using benefits from different animal spirits, making this system quite flexible. However, the benefits of each animal spirit also slightly increase the power of that beast form, so, a person with many raven stories would have a stronger raven form than his bear or wolf form.

Norn Physique
The Norn are too large to be carried aloft by any mountable beast, which suits them just fine as the idea of enslaving beasts of burden and, more than that, being dependent upon them fills Norn with disgust. The Norn are rumored to be the descendants of giants and can easily match the strength and endurance of any horse. This makes the Norn the only race in Tyria capable of running at increased speeds without the aid of a mount. This offers them a decisive advantage not only in travel but, also, in battle, where they can charge after their enemies and ram them into the ground.

Them Norn can dash quickly between enemies to further increase their already deadly efficiency in battle. The Norn, however, accelerate more slowly than most mounts, so their dashing ability is somewhat less useful when fighting in close quarters. The Norn also become exhausted when running at increased speeds. Luckily, their stamina is equal to that of most mounts, so they do not readily become exhausted. Another advantage this affords is how increased speeds affect attacks and skills. Dashing at full running speed causes Norn melee weapon attacks to knock enemies on their backs or off their mounts. It also tends to impart this ability to skills used during a dash, especially weapon skills. Ranged weapon combos change to strafing attacks when used at increased speed.

Transformations
All Norn are capable of transforming into bestial states. While transformed the Norn become berzerkers wildly dashing between enemies and tearing apart any lightly armored foes who can't take them down fast enough. Their acceleration maxes out in beast form allowing them to be just as deadly in close quarters as they are on the open plains. Their racial skills, in this state, are replaced by the skills of their transformation. Also, while in this form, if a Norn hits a stationary enemy at running speed it automatically knocks that enemy down. Their weapon attacks are changed as well, often made capable of hitting more than one enemy at a time. Their health points (and, depending on the transformation, their energy points)and their armor ratings are dramatically increased, almost doubling their fighting potential as this is meant to allow one Norn to do the job of two players.

The only limitation these transformed states have is that they quickly drain stamina. Simply being in a transformed state causes a Norn's stamina to slowly drop. Running at increased speeds taxes their stamina the same as it did in their regular form. Also, weapon attacks and the transformation's skills drain stamina. If their stamina reaches zero, they will naturally return to their original state and be incapable of transforming until their stamina regenerates to a certain percentage of its maximum. The best way of dealing with a Norn transformation, therefore, is to dodge or block his attacks forcing him to waste stamina and speeding his return to normal form. The transformation also disables several of a Norn's skills (depending on which transformation it is). This prevents them from being too overpowered and also forces them to be more dependent on stamina-draining weapon attacks and transformation skills. Still, if not combated properly, a transformed Norn might be able to overpower two or three characters at a time.

Well, that about sums it up. The only other thing is that, as the benefits of higher levels decrease, they do so more gradually for the Norn, so the Norn receive slightly more benefits from higher levels than other races do. This is, again, to compensate for their lack of a companion. While in their normal state, they can only combat one player at a time and do not really do that much damage compared to say an Asuran elementalist. They have to be able to interrupt enemies and have easy access to their transformations to be able to survive in the thick of battle. They're better tanks than they are brawlers. Sheer offensive capability is a Charr specialty. Also, the raven form will need be powerful enough to encourage some Norn to be sorcerers. There should be more healers and summoners than elementalists among the Norn, but that doesn't mean their elementalists should be weak. Perhaps some of their summons and enchantments could benefit elemental attacks.

Teachings of the Ancestor and the Ancient Enemy
As a bonus for high level players, there are two elite Sagas that can only be acquired through braving hordes of dragonspawn into the Far Shiverpeaks or down into the deepest caverns of Tyria's Depths. Once you have achieved Epic status, the story tellers will share with you rumors of these two great Skalds and how to reach them and acquire their teachings.

The first was the greatest storyteller and warrior among the Norn at the time of the Dragons' awakening. He had traveled the world and slayed terrible beasts of great size and prowess on every continent of the known world. He had even journeyed into the underworld, met with the human God of War and visited the hall of heroes before finally returning home. There, he lived for some time telling tales of his great deeds until the dragons awoke.

One by one the Dragons awoke and rocked the world with their awesome might. And, when the dragon under Drakkar Lake awoke he led a band of Norn warriors in resistance to the dragon's rein of terror. He fought against the dragon and its spawn for several years outliving all of his men who were slain in battle. Eventually, he was left behind by the Norn migration south. Being the last Norn in their homeland, he continued to fight the dragonspawn, hiding in caves for refuge and hunting monsters in the night, until he stumbled upon an ancient secret. He had found the last ruins of the civilization of giants that had once ruled Tyria. He studied the ruins and learned of their ancient knowledge and was imbued with their powers. He became convinced that these were the ancestors of the Norn, and he dedicated himself to the task of preserving their knowledge. He then built a shrine to the spirit of the ancestor and ever since has defended it against the armies of dragonspawn that plague the Norn homelands to this day. He will smite any Norn impudent enough to enter his shrine, but those who enter bearing a trophy from a slain dragon will earn his respect. Still, he will not speak with them unless hey should happen to bring with them a keg of fine Norn Ale. Then, he will gladly sit with them and share the Saga of the Ancestor.

The other was also a great warrior from long ago. He was once considered among the bravest and strongest of his race. He lived in an underground grotto in the south which he defended against all invaders. No creature, Norn or otherwise, could best him in combat. So proud was he of his achievements, one day, he decided he would brave the depths of Tyria. He would be the first to explore those perilous caverns and would bring back a trophy of some terrible thing from the very heart of the earth itself. In his quest, he became the first Norn to encounter the Asura and their grand civilization, yet he journeyed deeper, deeper than even the Asura had ever gone. There, in the black depths, he finally found a quarry worthy of his hammerstroke. But he was all too soon overcome as black flames spewed forth from the creature's mouth which sucked the light out of the air and seared bone and flesh alike. Rather than killing him, though, the beast had a crueler fate intended for the foolish Norn who had dared enter his lair. With black flame, he forged wicked chains and used them to chain the hunter to the cavern floor. He then used his power to make the hunter immortal and filled the cavern with his fiery breath, retreating even further into the depths and leaving the hunter in hellish torment. Those who brave the fiery caverns in the deepest parts of Tyria may find him still screaming in agony, but he will lash out and slaughter any who dare approach him. Only those who bear the trophy of a dragon will he spare, but, unless they should ease his torment by dousing him with waters blessed by the goddess Dwayna, he will be too filled with agony to speak. With those who ease his suffering, however, he will share the words which his tormentor once spoke to him of an ancient war with a race of giants. He speaks the Saga of the Ancient Enemy.

Both stories provide tremendous benefits and require you to have slayed an ancient dragon and acquired its trophy. The saga story will either take the place of your epic or two legendary stories. As to whether there should be elite giant and dragon corrupted transformations, I'm really not sure. It would no doubt be cool but it might be over powered. Anyway, that last part was a bit wordy and yes, the great hunter is the Norn who once lived in Boreal Station and you can guess what the Ancient Enemy is. Thx for reading.