Ari Thorgilsson, Íslendingabók — the Book of the Icelanders
Ari Thorgilsson the Learned
The concessions he attached: you may still expose an infant, still eat horseflesh, still sacrifice in private. All three were withdrawn a few winters later.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Moderate. A short book. It tells the conversion of a whole country in about two pages.
He does not argue. He tells you what was decided, by whom, and on what grounds, and the grounds do the work.
High. Ari names the men he heard the story from, which almost none of these writers do, so the other sources get checked against him.
Middling. The whole conversion takes about two pages.
At the Alþingi in the summer of 999 or 1000 the Christian and heathen parties each renounced the other’s law, and Iceland came within a day of splitting in two. Both sides agreed to let one man decide. Þorgeirr the Lawspeaker was a heathen. He ruled for baptism — and gave his reason as the peace, not the truth.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One Law and One Faith | Ecclesiology | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 34 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 38 | Then It Was Made Law | History | Argument | 72 | 100% | 15 |
| 43 | Against the Whole World | History | Argument | 74 | 95% | 15 |
| 50 | Speak Old Norse | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“let us all have one law and one faith”
Þorgeirr the Lawspeaker at the Alþingi (999/1000), in Ari Þorgilsson, Íslendingabók, trans. Vigfusson & Powell, Origines Islandicae I (1905), public domain.public domain
In the gameA pagan lawspeaker, facing a country about to split in two, ruled that everyone would be baptised. He argued from peace, not from truth, and that is how a whole nation came into the church.
“Then it was made law that all men should be Christians, and they should take baptism that were yet unbaptized here in the land; but that as to the exposure of children the old laws should stand, and also as to the eating of horse-flesh.”
Ari Þorgilsson, Íslendingabók 7, trans. Vigfusson & Powell, Origines Islandicae I (1905), public domain.public domain
In the gameWhat the ruling actually allowed, which nobody remembers: private sacrifice, horseflesh, and the exposure of infants, all left standing. Ari records the concessions in the same breath as the baptism. All three were withdrawn within a few winters.
“They pointed out that the whole world lived under Christian laws and that they could not by themselves withstand the whole world.”
The Polish envoys at Pyritz (1124), in Ebo/Herbord, Life of Otto, trans. Robinson (1920), public domain.public domain
In the gameThe argument from everyone else, made by envoys who had not come to debate. It is honest about the numbers, and it proves nothing about whether the thing is true.