Jenna Moran Games (Nobilis, Chuubo's, Glitch, WTF)

[magic mason]

Fair enough

[tall jolt]

But that seems off

[magic mason]

This could be a good time for the high aspect, high treasure low domain/persona noble

lean into a sort of "adventurer archeologist" vibe

[tall jolt]

Idk, I feel like you could do something funny like "Owns what doesn't belong to them." as a definition and have some fun with that by using Domain/Persona

[magic mason]

oh yeah definitly

[tall jolt]

"Oh thats cool - mine."

[vivid wraith]

"I can't stand metaplot and NPCs who overshadow player characters"
[five minutes later] "me and the bestie! (Iolithae Septimian)"

[frank light]

hahaha

honestly in nobilis it helps that youre on the same-ish power level as many of the metaplot ass chucklefucks in the setting

so iolethae appearing and the players murking her is like
it works

A shes immortal she can come back and be a problem for someone else
B youre also immortal gods it...this is normal

[candid compass]

just don't let her talk

[frank light]

easy

[vivid wraith]

It's also like, not a game where a "monster manual" makes sense, so you NEED to fill the book with freaks who can sustain their own YA novel series, so tables have something to work with

[candid compass]

Also Nobilis is very much character drama tbh, so you also want strong characters as antagonists

[frank light]

yeah

course having cool faceless monsters is imo important

but antagonists kinda have to be powerful freaks

or godlike in some way

[tall jolt]

my villain is in love me yeet

[fleet harbor]

Power of Silence who makes it their personal life mission to fight Iolithae wherever and whenever she appears

[patent tiger]

It is majorly personally gratifying to have someone whose entire life is dedicated to preventing you from doing things tbh

Like if I were Iolithae I'd coast on that

[hollow spruce]

lmao

[fleet harbor]

"Oh yeah I could fight the Valde Bellum but there's this cute Power who perfectly counters me :)"

The twist: that was one of the lies of Iolithae Septimian

She created the Power of Silence who is obsessed with her

[frank light]

at that point it might be hard to get rid of now

but i guess thats the fun with hubris

[fleet harbor]

(She did it because she was feeling lazy and Genseric was trying to get her to do stuff)

[candid compass]

if you say a lie, but no one can hear it
did that lie still happen?

[frank light]

accidentally making your perfect rival is pretty funny

[frank light]

are you implying iolethae would be crushing on the power of silence

[candid compass]

naturally

[frank light]

sure ok

[candid compass]

wouldn't be a good rivalry otherwise I think

[frank light]

excrucians who crush on powers are always hilarious
more so imo than powers who crush on excrucians

[fleet harbor]

I mean in Jenna's playtest game of Glitch that was available during the Kickstarter Iolithae actually shows up to talk to one of the PCs about having a crush on a power

[frank light]

my god

i will say
iolethae's second skin can copy the powers of any boy she kisses

so like it combos

[fleet harbor]

XD

[patent tiger]

Trying as hard as I can to persuade the HG that my powerset totally allows me to summon up a dedicated rival to crush on, only for them to invoke the hubris rule and I get an Actual

[magic mason]

Any boy she kisses or any girl who lets her brush their hair

this does mean nonbinary people are immune to iolethae

[patent tiger]

(Enbies are immune, as per usual)

Being nonbinary gives you Unfettering because of things like this

[frank light]

she presumably has to use greater sealed miracles to do this one yeah

[fleet harbor]

Nonbinary gender is optimal in Nobilis XD

[magic mason]

Unless someone decides to lean into a power that makes them weak to men or something

[patent tiger]

Geas: weak to women, in the way that a werewolf is weak to silver (3)

[frank light]

based lmao

oh speaking of excrucian crushes
uhhhh turns out the power mal is crushing on has been unfortunately tasked with recruiting me??
By their imperator?? in a very very weird complicated fashion that is not ideal

nobody is happy with this arrangement

[candid compass]

I think Aldmillia is

[frank light]

thats fair

she sucks and i hate her

[patent tiger]

Aldmillia is happy that you are unhappy

[frank light]

(i love her shes so fucking funny)

[candid compass]

yeah she's happy that everyone else finds it miserable

[frank light]

ill probably Eventually have a talk with her about deals
and may help remove her chancel from the void as part of the agreement

[obsidian dagger]

Side note: this could have interesting implications regarding Rinley in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (each character has masculine and feminine name variations, except that Rinley's is the same for both and that's led to people kind of agreeing that they're nonbinary. And they're canonically NB in the as-yet-unwritten Horizon campaign, too).

[frank light]

Chiba 
(Child of merriment)
Dying of candy

Ability - 0
Eide - 2 (Clown, technique: Whimsy[broad set of magical techniques])
Flore - 0
Lore - 5(sphere - circus)
Wyrd - 2(destruction - fires destructive beams from her finger)

Geasa - I can always make people smile(Eide)

Gifts - Immortal

Clown shard strategist

got separated from her main strategist as a casting minion after a welken-rite gone wrong, spent 500 years in the void becoming a clown
accidentally saw the wrongness of the world, oops!

silly clown

immortality means infinite potential for cartoon violence with little to no actual damage

[vivid wraith]

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[frank light]

Yes

Good

[vivid wraith]

the struggler

[tall jolt]

• Affects all but luck

[candid compass]

Icons
The world is often indifferent and apathetic. A strongly held belief alone will not prevent the will of Creation unfolding as it was determined. But sometimes, a person exhibits a conviction so strong and so unwavering, a committment to an ideal so powerful, that they will see the fate of the world shattered before they will accept things as they are. And in that shattering, they become something greater than they were, an embodiment of that ideal, a being of sheer willpower and determination.

These beings are known as Icons among the miraculous, and they will enact their designs upon Creation no matter the opposition.

Icons purchase Ability for 2 character points. They are awesome and imposing, but behind all their miraculous powers they are not so different to any other mortal. Even as they and others often forget that fact.

The Icons are Prophets of their Ideal. It is this power that sustains and drives them forward, that they use to impose their Ideal upon the world. They inspire others to follow in their path, and portent doom to those who would oppose their designs. The world itself cracks under their conviction, rearranging itself to suit their vision.

Allegorical are they, living legends, larger than life, more mythos than flesh and blood. It is their power to be more than human, to be metaphysically important. They arm themselves with tools and regalia befitting their nature. They shroud themselves in myth and narrative. The world comes alive in their wake, and they affect the lives of others in their passing.

They are Monstrous as well, in a certain sense. They are indomitable, unstoppable, tireless. It is their power to tear asunder any obstacle, to overcome any opposition. They are always as strong as they need to be, no matter the scale of their enemy. When in pursuit of their goal, nothing and no one will keep an Icon from achieving their vision.

Lastly, they are Wounded. The tolls their experiences have taken on them, the things they have denied themselves in oaths sworn. They have lost much in the pursuit of their Ideal, but it does not diminish them. They draw new power from each thing that they have lost, and will rise again stronger and more powerful each time they are struck down.
starting draft for an idea of a type of miraculous being I had
thought I'd put it here as well, since I think it's a decent start

[frank light]

WOOOOOOO

Love these guys

[magic mason]

Hype

[wheat cobalt]

hmmmm

question: what is the blasphemy-equivalent they have for Wounded?

my first thought is, like, the thing that they rejected that made them into an Icon, concentrated and balled up

[fleet harbor]

Perhaps their essential underlying humanity

They’ve become an ideal, yes

But at their core, balled up and broken, is the still-living person from which that ideal awoke

[wheat cobalt]

iirc the blasphemous core of Wounded is, like... a truth that imposes itself on the world when it gets let out

sometimes horrific but other times just strange

and given the inciting incident is "I refuse this, reality can bend around me about this", having it be the truth you literally contorted out of reality feels appropriate

[fleet harbor]

Although Fallen also have Wounded and for them it’s not a blasphemy

It’s the pain and wound of their fall I think?

[wheat cobalt]

hmm, true

[fleet harbor]

I like the idea that an Icon is almost like a … tree that grew out of a person?

Does that make sense?

A person has to compromise, has to accept failure, has to know their limits

[magic mason]

Blasphemy is just the term for the proper noun Wounded mfs have, besides being the mimic thing

I think that the "blasphemy" fallen has is the bit of them that hurts the people around them

[frank light]

wounded by default has some stuff at the core that youre keeping contained

i imagine for fallen it might be the wounds they sustained during the fall

it might be the power of hell itself even

[vivid wraith]

what kind is this

[frank light]

mimic i think

[undone flame]

TTT

[vivid wraith]

probably

[fleet harbor]

He’s actually just human but miracles fail or don’t work right on him

And there’s nothing of the Not in him so he can’t die

Excrucian miracles in particular fuck up in his presence but really no miraculous being wants him around

And the Prosaic Earth is … uncannily difficult to get through

Almost like it’s real

Like in his presence it believes the world is just regular

[vivid wraith]

oooooooh

[fleet harbor]

He does have a use though!

If he didn’t miraculous beings would just stay away

But they sometimes try to get him to help them with Actuals

Because Actuals just … can’t infect him

They’re based on an assumption about reality which is simply wrong in his presence

(At least two Warmains have gone insane trying to Test him as well)

Deceivers find he stinks of the Lie

[undone flame]

Guy who hates magic

[fleet harbor]

Excrucians in general get the heebie jeebies around him (which makes trying to use them against him a bad idea, because They Will Know what you’re up to)

[undone flame]

So hard it doesn't work on him

[fleet harbor]

Regular magic is fine!

He even knows some

Miracles though

Miracles he fucks with

[frank light]

magic's fine thats prosaic

[vivid wraith]

https://tenor.com/view/i-guess-memes-meme-gif-17950413

[fleet harbor]

Dude’s also just weirdly competent at being a human but feels sort of disattached from the whole thing

He’s met miraculous beings, he understands the gist of it

He’s not impressed

Ability 7 but he doesn’t really give a shit >_>

Just kind of shuffles through his eternal life

Moves around a lot

He knows very well he’s inconsequential in the broader scheme of things and probably cannot be otherwise

He lacks even the hope a normal human has

Rules and Game are both sort of disinterested in him

[vivid wraith]

just some guy

[fleet harbor]

Almost the just some guy

He could probably become someone great in human society but he just … doesn’t care to

Heaven and Hell are both interested but he doesn’t die so

The Wildlords typically think he’s fascinating but he gives them bad feelings just like the Excrucians. The True Gods want to claim him as their own but can’t (several have tried to Ennoble him)

The Snakes generally think miraculous beings should leave him alone

And it’s easy to oblige them in that because he’s right

He doesn’t matter very much

[candid compass]

I haven't entirely nailed that part down yet, but it would probably be something like this I think
the parts of themselves that are still fallible, that can 'corrupt' a pure Ideal with human failings and limitations
the potential for the Icon to break down, and betray their Ideal by lashing out or otherwise straying from their path

but yeah the dichotomy of the Icon as an awe inspiring force of personality and their underlying core as a person would probably be a big part of their whole deal I think
and also that sheer determination and power does not a moral code make
I never said Icons are good necessarily
you could easily have an Icon of some less savory principle, and even the ones with more positive Ideals can go to extremes all too easily

[obsidian dagger]

So, question, regarding a thought I had while I was reading through this more and more: did you mean to describe Seizhi Schwan, or did it just kind of happen?

It's not a perfect one-to-one match, but there's definitely a lot of similarities (including a Snake thinking that miraculous beings should, for the most part, leave him alon).

[fleet harbor]

I did not mean to

The angle I was going for was more, “this person is 2+ steps removed from the Not”

[obsidian dagger]

fair enough, but Seizhi Schwan is very much the kind of person who just kind of happens, so it still fits 😜

And it's definitely a reach to make that comparison in many places. I was just amused by it.

[fleet harbor]

I mean I can see it in places

But I was going more for someone who lacks any of the miraculous within themselves, and who is suitably disaffected about the whole thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0KCnN81Bxc Kind of this vibe comes to mind, I dunno how to explain

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, there’s significant differences for sure.

[fleet harbor]

From the Deceiver perspective, he's a creature of the lie-that-is-the-world so thoroughly that he contains not a seed of the truth within himself. That might even make the lie into truth from his perspective, but. It's nobody else's perspective.

And he's largely aware of that.

[obsidian dagger]

I feel like there's no way of representing this character that isn't awesome, honestly. ...unrelated note, because I don't remember: do Deceivers get Creature of Fable (I think Hunter)? I have an idea for a Deceiver pState which could be totally modeled with Reality Syndrome (which I know Deceivers get, since it's what powers Iolithae Septimian's power-copying, but I don't remember the name of) but would also probably appreciate some of the the Creature of Fable stuff.

[candid compass]

Deceivers have Persona (Star Quality), Theft (Creature of Delirium), Sealed (Reality Syndrome), and Deepness (Awakening)

[obsidian dagger]

Right, yes. Then this would probably have to be Sealed/Reality Syndrome... gimme a few minutes and I'll type up what I'm talking about.

I don't love the wording on some of these, but:

• Make things appear
• Were always part of <deceiverName>'s plan
• Cannot be explained, at least not mundanely
• Cannot be proven to be impossible```
Thoughts?

[fleet harbor]

I like it

[obsidian dagger]

I'm tempted to toss in Aren't what they looked like or Were set up while nobody was watching or something, but... really, this is great for magic tricks (or, sometimes, other elaborate schemes) as written by people who don't really understand how magic tricks work and just wave their hand and say "this was all science" in response to something seemingly totally impossible.

or maybe change Cannot be explained to Cannot be convincingly explained... like, you can come up with and give a totally mundane explanation, but it simply doesn't make particularly much sense.

...only just now saw this in general but I feel like it needs to be posted here, as something Orange (not sure what)

[vivid wraith]

chuubo's arcs for Roast Beef......

[obsidian dagger]

Unfortunately I have not read Achewood beyond a few scattered panels here and there, so I cannot help you 😭

[vivid wraith]

Lurid quest

[obsidian dagger]

I think I will add Achewood to my list of things I should really read sometime but will never read.

[vivid wraith]

symbolic

[obsidian dagger]

Abrupt Brain Blast: has anyone here read any of the Wayside School books? They seem like the kinds of things that could happen at School. Or, especially, many of the characters and especially the teachers could be ported over.

[vivid wraith]

huh
yeah alright that sounds correct

[obsidian dagger]

I just suddenly remembered them. Like... I think there was a teacher who had an ear on top of their head that let them hear people's thoughts, and another turned people into apples?

[vivid wraith]

yep
Gorf turned kids into apples, Drazil was.... something else, and Nogard was the mind reader

[obsidian dagger]

I just had very, very vague recollections.

[vivid wraith]

there is no nineteenth story

[obsidian dagger]

And also an idea for a teacher who was originally concieved of as solidly a School teacher, except they wanted to be an Actual but also inflict what I can only consider to be a Tribulation (specifically, the Curse of Babel), but then sort of drifted into more of a Creature of Delirium-esque take on the whole thing who maybe leans slightly more Wayside School than Chuubo's.

Specifically, they can reach into someone's mouth and pull out the tiny gleaming music box with their voice. If they hold it to stop it from turning, that person can't speak; if they turn it, they can force that person to say something. (Or possibly say something in their voice, but compelling speech from someone else seems more Creature of Delirium-esque. Presumably, they would use this to ensure that the students in detention (or possibly a class, but probably detention) were quiet.)

[vivid wraith]

thinking more
the ice cream bit does feel very Chuubo's

[obsidian dagger]

The original was the idea that, since School is... well, the concept of a school, it would have all the expected roles to fill that, and that would include a language teacher. Except of course there isn't one. So an Actual bleeds in to fill that role (or... maybe a Mimic?) who then inflicts the Curse of Babel on students in order to be able to teach them different languages.

I should actually reread Wayside School or at least look up more about it. I could only remember a few random snippets.

[wheat cobalt]

oh god, wayside school is 100% on point for Chuubo's

[obsidian dagger]

I just remembered the teachers especially being the exact right brand of evil, and then the ensuing situations being appropriately weird. I think I'll add that to the list of surprisingly Chuubo's-esque media alongside Kamichu. I feel like there were other examples posted here, but I don't remember what.

[reef perch]

oh i remember that series somewhat. fairly sure there was some kind of warmain in it

[vivid wraith]

Which one are you remembering as a warmain
You're probably correct i just gotta get on the same page

[reef perch]

i recall a thread with some businessmen who asked a couple students to choose between freedom and safety in incredibly vague terms. it's been a while since i read the books though so my recall may be off

[obsidian dagger]

I think I need to track down some of these and try to reread them, I think.

[reef perch]

i as well

[obsidian dagger]

Mamizou in the touhou manga specifically is peak Sickly Purple, which is, uh... Impressario? I don't know what the equivalent name for that is. I want to say Actuals get it, but I'm not sure.

She whistles, and a whole bunch of tanuki pop out of nowhere to help her with something. That's her main shtick, along with disguises which I'm 99% sure are just a regular intention. She also has tsukumogami helpers, sometimes.

Wait. I am remembering the existence of a whole book series which I never read as a kid that were all "My Piano Teacher Is An Alien" or "My Gym Teacher Is A Werewolf" or stuff like that. Does anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?

[patent tiger]

These have a similar format, might that be it?

[candid compass]

Architect

[vivid wraith]

My Weird School or Bailey School Kids?

[obsidian dagger]

Probably one of those? Like I said, I didn't actually read them ever, just saw their covers in the school library. Maybe Bailey School Kids? Maybe a mix of both?

[magic mason]

Architect ❤️
Me when I have goons

[obsidian dagger]

Who else does that? It's a clear archetype, where a character snaps their fingers or whistles and a bunch of goons pop out of the background and say "you got it, boss!" and then help but are drawn to be a weirdly indistinguishable mob, but I can't think of specific examples.

[magic mason]

Pengiun

[candid compass]

You can also have a few or only a single well defined goon

[obsidian dagger]

...true.

[candid compass]

Though funnily to me the goons are the part of Architect I'm least interested in

All the commanding and relationship manipulation are the more interesting part to me

[obsidian dagger]

True. The goons are just the things that stick in my head.

[candid compass]

I love Architect being able to just go "I'm actually your family member/best friend/bitter rival/etc"

[restive ridge]

My fav part of Architect power is still the Demesne

[frank light]

It’s a really cool bit

[fleet harbor]

Far Roofs news!

Owing to the kickstarter's success, and after some experimentation with weight margins, I'm also adding 12-14 two-page speads and one bonus full-page piece---a short opening visual section, plus pieces corresponding to each of the most important Mysteries or their haunts.

[frank light]

Woooo

[magic mason]

Yipeeeeee

[fleet harbor]

This is gonna be a good-looking book

[wheat cobalt]

ooooo!

pog

[tall jolt]

I'd love to play Far Roofs if anyone wants to run it when it comes out

idk what its about yet tho lol

[vivid wraith]

You're an isekai protagonist with rat buddies

[candid compass]

pretty much that, yeah

for some reason or other, you are drawn to the Far Roofs, a strange sort of sideways realm when you go far enough along the roofs
and there you have adventures and probably get into conflict with the Mysteries at some point, who are strange unique beings and phenomena influencing the Far Roofs

[fleet harbor]

Originally the plan was for you to play the rats, but Jenna felt that gave you too much of an insider perspective

[frank light]

I know fluffy was planning to use the system to simulate lower power gameplay in nobilisverse outside the roofs

Which to my knowledge it does work well for

[magic mason]

Exceptionally powerful Mortals with gifts is basically the power level

[tall jolt]

aaah fun

[hollow spruce]

Froofs is taking a more... I wanna say gamey and bit more laid back approach to whatever the hell Nobilis and Glitch get up to

Dice mechanics, a touch less metaphysics, simpler and cleaner abilities

[magic mason]

Adept/Chosen one is finished!!!!!

[frank light]

…what if I one day ran chuubos…

[vivid wraith]

👁️

[frank light]

There’s some really cool preset campaigns

And hell to test the system I could always do one of the shorter one shots

[reef perch]

i oughta get cmwge sometime

[obsidian dagger]

I have ran chuubo's once and played it never and would really like the chance to play.

[fleet harbor]

I need to read it more thoroughly but

Yeah I think it’s real cool

[rose crescent]

Could I ask for ideas for a Bane here?

[magic mason]

sure

[fleet harbor]

… I’m having Watership Down thoughts again folks, and that means Power of Rabbits

[rose crescent]

I'm not super happy with my character's current bane of Society, I just don't reallly vibe with it, or understand how it really manifests, stuff like that. But I do really like her Sphere of Laws, and so I wanna see if I can come up with a better Bane that could be tied to that, or at least figure out what Dying of Society really means

[magic mason]

my first thought for Sphere Of Laws with a connected bane is Dying Of Justice or Dying Of The Judiciary Process

[fleet harbor]

Dying of Judges

Judges go out of their way to bother and kill you

Not always lawfully

[vivid wraith]

Dying of Rules?
like, you walk on the grass when there's a Don't Walk On The Grass sign, and then you die

[fleet harbor]

Sometimes a judge just nails you with a shotgun

[fleet harbor]

That’d be funny with driving

Because everyone breaks driving rules

I had an ex-cop professor note that any cop who couldn’t find an excuse for a traffic stop wasn’t even trying

So maybe the Strategist refuses to drive because it invariably ends with them getting pulled over and killed

Rabbits …
… are frail and powerless
… are strong and swift
… have a thousand enemies
… are diggers, listeners, runners
… will never be destroyed

[rose crescent]

Not really vibing with those

[fleet harbor]

(The latter three are pretty much straight from Watership Down’s rabbit creation myth :D)

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/508703630862581760/1243300811094626324/IMG_6794.jpg?ex=6650f99c&is=664fa81c&hm=5db20b5fc63b767ec6cb56ad4ff24bfc49d09cdbb28b62d948fdf86c63dbe373&

Alternately: El-ahrairah is a strategist

And rabbits are not creatures of creation, they are part of his sphere

Beings of the Not

Dying of Hunters

… actually I like that way more

Maybe they were an Estate and El-ahrairah inexplicably survived its destruction

He is The Last Rabbit

All rabbits in Creation now are not-rabbits

[candid compass]

Just like bears
Sort of

[fleet harbor]

He’s got extremely high Lore and Eide, but no Flore or Wyrd

His technique is “the Prince With A Thousand Enemies”

His cliffhanger rites are devious

“Actually, I escaped 🐇 “

[frank light]

Lmao

[fleet harbor]

Is one of his anchors the ghost of the now-dead Power of Rabbits? I think they must be.

I’m totally serious I think this idea is fantastic

[vivid wraith]

You're correct this rules

[fleet harbor]

He really hates Powers, they were among his hunters, but since Excrucians destroyed the estate of rabbits he’s not quite keen on them either

Very complicated feelings about the Valde Bellum as a whole

If he could just stop being a Strategist and become a Wildlord and bring rabbits back into Creation as a proper estate he would have to think for several whole seconds before saying no, fuck you, actually.

(Several seconds is a long time to think for El-ahrairah)

Imperators who know the whole story feel decidedly mixed about him as well -_-

[vivid wraith]

excellent

[fleet harbor]

Perhaps he technically glitched before the estate of rabbits was destroyed, and that’s why he survived

Okay yeah if I ever play Glitch I’m going to have to play the rabbit >_>

[frank light]

Cute

[fleet harbor]

I think the not-rabbits have been in Creation for long enough that they mostly don’t even know they’re creatures of the Not

Nor does most of Creation

[vivid wraith]

just kinda hang out

[rose crescent]

Or maybe just, figure out the infection levels of Society...

[frank light]

God I love nightcraft and formation magic

My two favorite magical arts

They’re so fucked up

[rose crescent]

Formation Magic?

I vaguely know it

[candid compass]

It's one of the magic types detailed in Glitch

Mostly about large scale stuff, big ritual circles and the like

[frank light]

Yeah

You can use ninuanni logic in creation

To create large scale magical symbols for shit

It is explicitly a magic linked to the void

And night craft is associated with excrucians commonly

[frank light]

Hmmm

A question

Who here, would be interested

In a chuubos halloween special game

[patent tiger]

I might be, I'd like to see how Chuubo's works out in play

[frank light]

Neat!

Planning on doing it through voice in case that’s relevant

[hollow spruce]

Please elaborate on 'chuubo's Halloween special'

especially since it's may

[candid compass]

there is a standalone module for Chuubo's
and it's a Halloween Special

[hollow spruce]

Huh! I mean, based I guess

[frank light]

Yeah

Jasmine’s in it

[candid compass]

She's causing the end of the world

[restive ridge]

As always

[magic mason]

Normal for riders

[fleet harbor]

Yes

[fleet harbor]

Salute! Apocynum!

[frank light]

lmao

if i do run gmd i do hope someone picks out miramie
she seems like something fun to run for\

[rose crescent]

I would!

[acoustic dagger]

me too

[frank light]

Ah shame, we filled up on players ;-;
Planning to invite others if I do ever run gmd tho

[fleet harbor]

... yeah it's true

[hollow spruce]

@frank light

[frank light]

We can’t escape

[fresh dust]

The realest of games

[frank light]

Welcome

[rose crescent]

@wheat cobalt

[undone flame]

That's really funny

[magic mason]

https://imgur.com/gallery/clark-saga-by-florkofcows-wsllWnK

Glitch

[frank light]

currently in the glitch game - one of us is travelling with a mortal to a wizard ritual site that may or may not be a welken rite

Meanwhile, my strategist is following another wizard boy in secret who is ALSO going there, but neither of us know about eachother. and uhhh thats gonna be a clusterfuck

[vivid wraith]

yes absolutely

[fleet harbor]

Dying of Connecticut

"I do not want to drink the Connecticut Water"

[magic mason]

All that still needs done is sentimental :3

[vivid wraith]

nobilis hidden world iceberg

[frank light]

Me when I’m a mage and I find out about the lands beyond creation “:0”

[fleet harbor]

In the Mage the Awakening tarot book, the representative for the Emperor tarot is a mage who did terrible things to achieve nearly omnipotent power, opened a portal to the Supernal and walked through, and rapidly learned that he was the frog in the well and he wasn't shit by Supernal standards.

I imagine it's something like that.

Mage: "I am like a god!"
A god: "No you ain't."

[vivid wraith]

get lesser destruction'd

[fleet harbor]

... was it emperor? Might've been Hierophant

I think it was Hierophant

ANYWAY

[candid compass]

most mages probably aren't that suited to resisting Bleak effects either 😛

that a heroic heart and true love can repel the Bleak is still extremely funny to me

[vivid wraith]

it's so good

[restive ridge]

How the nihilist solipist god looks at me when I hit them with that dollar-store love for others:

[tall jolt]

Are we talking mage the ascension mages?

[restive ridge]

Awakening AFAIK

[fleet harbor]

I believe Karen was talking about Nobilis mages

Because there are just wizards hanging out in Nobilis

[vivid wraith]

yeah they're just hanging out

Magic is part of the Prosaic, whoopsie

[fleet harbor]

The funny thing is that there's this wholeass World of Darkness setting in Nobilis

That just like ... mostly doesn't know or understand anything about the miraculous

[restive ridge]

Yeah its hilarious

I love the Border Mythic

[fleet harbor]

Every once in a while a medium-aspect power comes blazing through a pack of werewolves, kicks the shit out of all of them, and they barely remember what happened except for the one in the corner who has dementia animi now

[undone flame]

Like to imagine a medium-aspect Power kicking the shit out of a pack of werewolves to save a rare flower to serve as the centerpiece of a dinner party arrangement and only like the night after being like "wait Werewolves are real?"

[fleet harbor]

Later a sympathetic chancery Strategist tosses that one into the Locust Court and he comes back fine and nobody has any idea what happened there either

[undone flame]

Power: "Wait, Werewolves and Vampires are real?"

Their Familia:

[tall jolt]

This image gives me whiplash for some reason

[hollow spruce]

in our Glitch game there is actually a current situation where my PC is helping out a coworker, who also happens to be a WoD Hunter going up against some Mages

he is very far out of the scope of this

[undone flame]

This is also valid dialogue for a Nobilis game

[wheat cobalt]

this has happened to Nilind before

[hollow spruce]

but apparently now somebody is up to Welken Rite nonsense that is on his level to deal with

because otherwise he was just gonna superpower said coworker with his bullshit

[frank light]

I’m so hyped

It’s exciting!!!!

Also here’s some takes on chuubos I’ve been having as I read

[fleet harbor]

IMO part of it is that he's counterposing it to School

[frank light]

He probably is

I agree with that idea

[fleet harbor]

Especially with it being "higher" education

[frank light]

But like. If I were a strategist? I didn’t consent to this!!! Get me outta here

I don’t WANT to go back to college

[fleet harbor]

But it's explicitly a challenge to Entropy 2

Er, not explicitly, that's the wrong word

[frank light]

Warmain who says “I’m not participating in your weird pissing contest with entropy. I wanna get my magic cup from the wall of pain”

It’s a silly headcanon

And the headmaster is a genuinely scary villain

But man I would be so mad

[vivid wraith]

imagine having beef with entropy ii

[candid compass]

I feel like the deal with Bleak Academy was also a favor to Jade somehow

[vivid wraith]

"i'm the voidmaster i continue my crusade against creation beyond the ending of the world"
"My enemy is uhhhhhhh twenty years old"

[frank light]

Yeah that too

Turning it almost into something…less stressful. More comfortable with the current reality

Because in all honesty the Warhost is conceptually dissonant and terrifying in the context of Town

[fleet harbor]

It's also just not the current nature of the conflict

[frank light]

Now it’s just…an evil boarding school.
Still with an agenda to destroy the world, but not an army of gods who will tear down heaven and blow trumpets as worlds fall like rain from the tree of the universe

Just…an evil boarding school

[undone flame]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3KQTEEcxNg

[frank light]

Hahaha

[undone flame]

The Excrucians

[fleet harbor]

Town is ... a softer world, for the most part. It requires a softer touch.

[candid compass]

The thing is also that the Headmaster... isn't very good at his job
So I feel its not something he chose entirely of his own volition

And also that the House of the Sun is at Bleak Academy

[frank light]

The hypothetical one yeah

[candid compass]

It is of course very ambiguous what exactly was going on with Jade and Harumaph
But I do think that what happened was part of some plan they had together

[frank light]

Yeah I agree

[frank light]

Finished reading chuubos

Hefty book but a lot of it is just setting stuff and some example stuff. Mechanics are fairly straightforward and built on nobilis 3e

But I can also absolutely see the prototyping for the 4e ruleset in there, specifically the quest system.

[frank light]

Oh right yeah this does mean that we actually have to pay attention and really focus in because this does mean that should we fail a portion of the world gets deleted and that might be…bad

[hollow spruce]

Yeah because this is apparently an Important Magic Ritual too

[frank light]

Yeah this might destroy a couple chunks of reality should it succeed…

[hollow spruce]

That was Already getting fucked up

[frank light]

I’m really antsy to see more of the scene I’m super hyped.

Oh right yeah the ritual already fucked the world up a bit

Due to

Magic I guess

[hollow spruce]

If I recall there's something fucked up about it so it's going to chain reaction explode

Combined with the welken rite bit!

[frank light]

Yeah!

That’s gonna be bad

But honestly pretty impressive

Good job whoever did this welken rite

Clever

[hollow spruce]

it's Gotta be fuckin cadavi though right

[frank light]

It’s gotta be

I’m exciteddd

If it’s not cadavi I’ll be super surprised

And ru would pull something like that

But it’s probably him

[candid compass]

it was normally a way for the Mechancete to coordinate their different cells together
and the rituals all link together so they can communicate

but the next chain in this particular link would have been in the city

which is part of why this one is gonna be flawed

[hollow spruce]

yeah the city that doesn't exist anymore

so lol, lmao

[candid compass]

yeah

but the welken rite is apparently still hooking into that connection anyway
so that if it succeeded, it would not only tear down this ritual site but a bunch of the others as well

[frank light]

It’s actually higher stakes than anything we’ve actually faced

Besides that time Aldmillia held the entire concept of hope hostage

[hollow spruce]

y'know, beside that

[frank light]

Yeah besides that

[frank light]

malonas has made an absurdly dramatic entrance into the scene

[magic mason]

So I have a general question about Architect/Impresario

Where do the minions come from?
Are they created as an extension of the stat?
Are they preexisting beings that sorta get correlated to you?

I am just generally curious

[candid compass]

It can vary I think, but probably a mix of the two

[frank light]

https://youtu.be/XdWlWUUYejc?si=tAx6xCNzLYpUl-d3

I did this during the wizard fight

My strategist is infamous in mage circles for being kinda an evil villain

Like she’s notorious both in miraculous and non miraculous circles

So I apparently killed someone’s brother but like…I did not know nor care

[vivid wraith]

can't help being a scorpio

[frank light]

“You killed him”
“That doesn’t narrow it down”

Being an evil villain is so fucking funny. And now that I’m on my redemption arc it’s still funny

[vivid wraith]

full support for women's wrongs

[frank light]

Also made an Ava’s demon reference im proud of

Gaulmara also fucking carried that encounter since he was helping out and forcing the interference

And helped 1-2 combo the boss

I was mostly a tagalong weirdo

[undone flame]

I'm rooting for the Mage given information so far

[buoyant berry]

Brought a Knife to a tactical nuke fight.

[hollow spruce]

I did my own in-universe soundtrack

https://youtu.be/YCEv7F1z4AU?si=25c1ODiMS20NdQ_g

[fleet harbor]

Are you singing

[hollow spruce]

He is in fact singing this, yes

[fleet harbor]

Good XD

[hollow spruce]

His Arcana is all music; this, for instance, is a Melody of Yearning

[fleet harbor]

Ah good

[hollow spruce]

The spirit of lullabies also got used
https://youtu.be/o34Lgq98H3k?si=SFeFZJeoqd1JJTVF

[fleet harbor]

You should find an excuse to use Float On, I feel like that's practically a Strategist anthem :D

[frank light]

Y’know that’s fair

[vivid wraith]

Regret, which is named Amalthea, is a flail of silver with a frozen star for its head. To feel its lash is to be forever marked, no matter the body your soul finds for itself.

(me, immediately after finishing The Last Unicorn: I should write Abhorrent Weapons)

Captivity is itself named Celaeno, but bears a thousand thousand names further upon its shaft and upon its blades. Some are the names of its wielders, some are the names of its victims, but for many of the names the significance is unclear, and theories continue to be proposed to this day

[frank light]

i love this

[fleet harbor]

Book or film? (Both are great but are somewhat different)

[vivid wraith]

Film, but I might track down the book soon

[frank light]

Tomorrow is a Halloween special start :3

[vivid wraith]

woo!!

[magic mason]

Holy shit this is the last one yalll

[restive ridge]

o7o7o7

[magic mason]

that is every single not currently there arc added to far roofs

[magic mason]

Next up I will be posting the blorbos that go with these

The Fledgling
A blood mage YA novel protagonist infiltrating the world of these spooky vampires and saving them before applying their own political vision

The Lamb
Who is chased and chastised by the dead mystery Seraphim who is named Sacrifice. Who they were born to die for it to return.

The Librarian
A geniunely threatening older person who only really cares about doing their job, which at the moment is killing the mystery rataoskr

The Hollow
an amnesiac ghost who is trying to put together what remains of their memories of life after being buried in the woods somewhere

[frank light]

Woooo

[vivid wraith]

nice nice nice

[vivid wraith]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1185821951927779409/1237925511376797707/image.png?ex=66591af9&is=6657c979&hm=5b3fb24d87f82b0503507b94fc1b8da041466f6a28620c9d3d18e6a06183652e&

[frank light]

yeah

[patent tiger]

That's true

[rose crescent]

Oh

I found today, that there are no names for stuff relating to darkness/shadow in the book

[vivid wraith]

huh

[restive ridge]

Doing splat assigment to characters from others work is fun

Currently got one I am spinning around that could qualify for Noble Deceiver Mimic and maybe Warmain

[vivid wraith]

👀

[patent tiger]

This is the other way Nobilis manages to hit the Exalted spot

[restive ridge]

Spamton, Who Wields the Test of [KROMER]

Ability 0
Hunter 4      (Technique: Annoying Salesman)
Monstrous 1    (Curse: You Have Gone Mad)
Allegorical 3  (Failing: Falling into Disarray  Role: Business-failure Tale)
Architect 1 (Demesne: Garbage Container)

Gift: Durant, Limited Shapeshifting

[fleet harbor]

Y u do dis /j

[vivid wraith]

powerful

[restive ridge]

Ability 2, Casual at Fighting and School
Hunter 5 Technique: Nail and Hammer
Monstrous 2 Curse: You Are Full of Rage
Allegorical Role: Dreamer of Human Wholeness Failing: Fanaticism
Architect Demesne: a Memory-Harvesting Org  Minions: The extremist branch of that Org```

A bonus because I got reminded of the word kromer

[candid compass]

the gripper

[frank light]

i wonder what hell looks like beyond all the fire and shit
like is it a dante's inferno situation where there's cities down there n shit or is it something more abstract

[magic mason]

I like to think its a whole little universe of agonies

[frank light]

Yeah but like

How’s that organized

Is it little islands of suffering, or a grand plane covered in structures in the fire

[restive ridge]

Personally I expected it to be full of little in-groups of themed things organised by the Fallen around them

with quite often idk Influenza running rampaging even in the "horrible warmachines and teacups" side of Hell even if it doesnt technically belong

Hell feels like it should have both Toxic Ingroups AND Perversion of Boundaries as themes ya know

[tall jolt]

Everything should be a corrupted version of an original thing

[fleet harbor]

There are many hells, in the sense that you can find many different agonies in hell. Cities, carnivals, small towns, torture dungeons, it's all there. There's no sky. It's all caverns and tunnels, some modest and some of unimaginable scale, carved not out of earth or stone, but something ... else. Something alive. Something that, if you know how to listen and do, screams.

[restive ridge]

Yeah thats the Overall Spirit of Hell, name is Henry

He's actually a Noble too, of a Serpent, we talk about italian cuisine on saturdays

[fleet harbor]

Hell was carved into his flesh, apparently

[fleet harbor]

... you know it's kind of funny that "carved into something" and "carved out of something" are both linguistically identical in many cases

[frank light]

I see I see.
Makes sense

I remember one art of hell being someone farming rotten flowers

[fleet harbor]

(To be clear I just made that up)

(As I am wont to do)

[frank light]

Oh

I have been deceived

Bamboozled

[frank light]

that raises another interesting question

i wonder what the Hell excrucians are up to
i mean its gotta be fairly similar to earth excrucians youre just...in hell

[magic mason]

Probably a lot louder than it is on earth

[frank light]

i mean theres probably Hell Nobles

so you probably still have to be a bit quiet if youre not in the deeps

[vivid wraith]

dying of fire but you need to differentiate which parts are the glitch and which parts are just from being in hell

[frank light]

lmao

at that point it might just be all the fires of hell

though then again
agony might be real powerful in that situation

[magic mason]

Its more that there isn’t a lord entropy in hell

So nobles might go out explicitly looking for fights

[candid compass]

if you were Dying of Fire, and you went to Hell
your infection would probably just start spiking really bad

[frank light]

thats true

[candid compass]

I thought the rules still apply outside of Earth too?

[magic mason]

I think that’s just some shit entropy made up

[frank light]

its something thats been sorta unclear but ive assumed they were an earth specific thing

since its just entropy's rules

and entropy's authority is like ONLY earth

[vivid wraith]

I keep forgetting how Earth-specific a lot of Nobilis is

[magic mason]

But also there isn’t a prosaic in hell

So you probably see shit like “this deciever has formed a city state of liberated souls and is now leading them as an army to fight a familia in their chancel”

[frank light]

thats true as well

thats probably a thing that would happen

mucking about in hell seems like a good time as an excrucian

its like right up against the void

so to be honest you may not even need waylets for safety

you might be able to find pockets into the void
or blast some yourself

and getting in there is easy enough
its the edge of the ash itself on the bottom end

[candid compass]

it's mostly because a lot of the other worlds are really weird

there are worlds out on the Ash that are kinda incomprehensible for a human

[magic mason]

By “louder” I meant like

We can be less immersive fantasy and get more into warhammer looking bullshit

[frank light]

would be fun for a sidequest

[magic mason]

Your Fallen imperator goes up to you like

We are under FUCKING attack

I imagine Hell besides fallen also has some serpents hanging out

[frank light]

Oh what about some hell unique imperators

[magic mason]

I was about to suggest native hell beings might be miraclous scale

[frank light]

Angels and rules and game and true gods won’t be showing up

But maybe a true god that’s native to hell

Cus I’ve always imagined true gods as sorta being a common type of law being. But generally as the bones of their world

[magic mason]

I imagine Hell’s true god equivalent might be a little different though

Perhaps even stats wise

[frank light]

Probably

[restive ridge]

To copypaste fron Ninuan RE True Gods

It's not that True Gods are of Earth
It's that 'True Gods' refers to the native imperators that emerge from a world, and we use the term generically for the True Gods of Earth because, e.g. the True Gods of Abaton don't come up in most games (and don't have a definite official stat set)

Like the weird tentacle divinities are the native gods of Earth

The native gods of other worlds might behave completely different

Who knows what stats Ofeili’s mercantile gods got

[magic mason]

What if hell true gods are sorta the Keepers Of Agony

Big body horror abominations who symbolize and play into the personality of hell itself

[magic mason]

I think about them

I have a headcanon

Architect
Flore
Style
Wanderer

[restive ridge]

But also personally

Hell isnt really like a "world, with Fallen in it" and more "the homebase of the Fallen, the second side of the big moral and philosophical conflict at the heart of Creation and arguably Nobilis itself" that I wouldnt ever feel the need to add other Imperators,

[frank light]

hmmm

thats fair
though i feel like expanding on hell couldnt hurt

because hell existed far before the fallen did

and its burning fire and concepts existed before the fallen too

so i could see some hell unique law beings

[magic mason]

I can elaborate on this too if anyone is curious

[restive ridge]

They have Allegory, we cant be sure it all wasnt just retroactive bullshit

[frank light]

thats not to say the fallen arent entwined with it considering theyve been there for a long ass time

but i think theres a lot of unique potential

i guess? though i would still say that means theres still potential for a lot of unique things you can expand to it

[restive ridge]

"Of course my decision to betray Heaven was justified, uuuuuh there is a big pit that is the material realisation of my ideology opposite to Heaven yeah sure!"

[frank light]

if youre setting something up in hell

[vivid wraith]

this is always happening to me

[frank light]

i feel like allegory, while it can do retroactive shit, might not actually be able to make hell on its own

you can say you were always a part of hell or something
but the pit i think had to exist

[restive ridge]

Hell is probaly like

an Epic Greater something and a quest to grow realistically but it was a joke

[magic mason]

Plot twist hell true gods use Malabruno stats

[frank light]

its difficult to tell sometimes when it comes to nobilis lore because it is fucking absurd

lmao

whats malabruno use again?

[magic mason]

Vastness
Deepness
Wanderer
Theft

[frank light]

lmao

[magic mason]

It works though

Especially with what theft instead of symbolic implies about how they work and act

Hell Beings would rip your heart out and turn you into their puppet

Or use ability that makes the next thing I do traumatic

[frank light]

having some links to the void with theft or something works too considering how close hell is to the lands beyond

so the local divinity having some linkage

[restive ridge]

Actually fuck let me think what a True God "individualised piece of the Overall Spirit of Hell" would look like

[frank light]

works

[restive ridge]

hmmm

[magic mason]

All 4 of these stats(though vastness is the worst at doing anything permanent) can twist and break people

[frank light]

vastness could do something permanent
...to your bones

vastness is also just a good tool to have something to interact with an estate

[magic mason]

Yeah they are like

The searing fires of hell/the freezing rivers of hell and they have several hundred mouths

[restive ridge]

Ability at 3, Common Geasa, lesser common Bonds and Gifts
Allegorical- aspect-like
Prophet- persona-like
Symbolic -domain-like
Flore- treasure-like

[magic mason]

Interesting

[restive ridge]

It was incredibly hard NOT to just make Fallen again lmao

[frank light]

lmao

[restive ridge]

That exile into the fires of hell did truly make them as wicked as Hell itself damn'

[magic mason]

Im pretty satisfied with my Malbruno take because it also work backwards in a way that makes me feel very smug

Followup hell headcanon

Hell looks like one of those indie horror game with ps1 graphics and weird meat everywhere

Hell seems like it would enjoy meat polygons

[frank light]

Lmao

[restive ridge]

Lucifer, to the Fallen Angel of Indie Games, Horror and Gambling: "Hey so uuuh can you explain why this entire centuries budget went on and I quote "PS1 meat gibblets-themed decorations?" "

[frank light]

“Halloween”
“It’s June”

[restive ridge]

"Bro we are Imperators, we think in decades by default"
"It's still Halloween"

[vivid wraith]

halloween decade

[restive ridge]

Average Empowered Wound Miracle

[vivid wraith]

so why did Coriander Hasp shoot Ronald Reagan

[frank light]

good question

[candid compass]

he felt like it I guess
wanted to show Reagan his fundamental misconception about the nature of reality

[restive ridge]

Forbidden Love

[vivid wraith]

📝

[patent tiger]

All love is forbidden love as far as I'm concerned (I am politically aligned with lord entropy)

[frank light]

one second

[frank light]

i spent 10 minutes on this

[vivid wraith]

so true

[candid compass]

fortunately everything Jasmine does is logical, sensible, sane

[frank light]

@patent tiger useful for jasmine i think

[patent tiger]

Yup

Extremely normal and plausible behavior that someone coherent would do

[frank light]

mecha jasmine

[vivid wraith]

this is so funny

[candid compass]

Coriander and Genseric being their little blorbos is very funny

[frank light]

get the sidebar

its so good

[frank light]

the comorra does have some fingers in various federal agencies

So an excrucian could get swatted in theory.

terrible idea in all honesty but who knows

[vivid wraith]

incredible

ohhhh they have iconic deceiver pstate charts in the back
so cool.......

[frank light]

YEA

[vivid wraith]

HUH

so her lies becoming the truth is a sacrifice.....

[frank light]

YEAH!!!

its why she cant actually very easily use it
its only a level 5 miracle

it cant really do things like end the valde bellum or anything

and sometimes her sacrifices go awry and make something into " a funny joke told by iolethae" or "the fable told by iolethae" instead of a Truth

[candid compass]

I wonder how much trouble the Camorra would really be for most Excrucians

[frank light]

probably not all that much
but they probably have "evil empty gods of destruction from outside reality" on the books as a problem

[vivid wraith]

"make someone doubt the world less" is a very funny power for a Deceiver though

[candid compass]

it also mentions it in another place that Sacrifice can be kinda tricky, especially with a pState like hers

because much like Destruction, exiling something from your estate won't always create the opposite

[frank light]

its still super funky just how weird deceivers are
i love em theyre great

[candid compass]

so Iolithae still needs to be a little more careful than it seems to actually turn her lies true

[candid compass]

also gives the possibility of the other interesting scenario of Camorra trying to pull off a job and stumbling on an annoyed Strategist 😛

[frank light]

yeah hahaha

strategist scheme getting interrupted by a camorra scheme

[magic mason]

Magical Metals....

• Are extremely rare
• Have supernatural abilities
• Can be used to forge weapons of legend
• are nearly indestructible
• Are ignored by modern man

[obsidian dagger]

...I want to chuubo's-stat various characters from other media and am sad I missed the earlier periods of that sort of thing happening.

[vivid wraith]

can you do Count Dracula

[obsidian dagger]

I would be thrilled to but, embarrassingly, have never read Dracula. That said, he seems like a formative example of Indomitable/Immortal Silver/I forget what it's called, so that narrows stuff down a lot.

A lot of classic vampire DNA is in Creature of the Light, too, but that might have been a later invention.

[vivid wraith]

either Dracula, as written by Bram Stoker, or Dracula, the pop culture egregore, whichever you prefer

[obsidian dagger]

The egregore definitely has a bit of Creature of the Light to his DNA.

I want to say something purple in there, maybe, but that might not be necessary? I think that both of those arcs in combination have enough to handle enthralling people. And Indomitable is like 90% Dracula anyway.

[vivid wraith]

excellent

[obsidian dagger]

Side note! While looking for dracula-related reference material, I re-encountered this wonderfully ridiculous post and felt the need to share it:

basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body. that’s basically fine.

if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out.

unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.

[vivid wraith]

Very true

warmain post imo

[candid compass]

oh yeah I remember that post

[obsidian dagger]

...I was going to say "what if there was a Dracula who was only the parts of Dracula that weren't commonly known/only showed up in one adaptation and later left the zeitgeist, and not the core conceptual stuff?" and then remembered The Vampire Dies In No Time does... basically that, in many ways (he even has a pet armadillo).

[magic mason]

Ok so as someone who read the Bram Stoker Dracula

He is very indomitable

Plus Impersario

[obsidian dagger]

Impressario! That's the Purple I was missing. ...unless I'm confusing Sickly Purple and Sickly Orange?

[magic mason]

Its purple

Its also called architect in glitch

rules magisters and warmains have it

[obsidian dagger]

I got it confused with Star Quality, I think.

[vivid wraith]

...hey what kind of freaky deceiver+warmain combo could you create with Whose Test Is Itself

[obsidian dagger]

?

That's a fractal of interesting questions.

[vivid wraith]

the safest way to do it would be a Deceiver who's trying to fulfill Warmain roles I think

[magic mason]

Dracula would use warmain stats but he wouldn’t be a warmain

Is my take

[vivid wraith]

sensible

[fleet harbor]

He's an immortal wizard-lord who drinks blood, and if someone expires from his nightly visits they arise as a lesser vampire not long after. He can transform into beasts, control the weather, seemingly hypnotize people to some degree, etc -- although a lot of that seems more strongly related to his being a wizard than his being a vampire.

[obsidian dagger]

I had underestimated the wizard-ness of Dracula, and also wasn't sure about how much of the vampire-spreading originally happened, but... yeah, that's part of the DNA of Immortal Silver.

[hollow spruce]

thing I like about Glitch: you get not one, but two powers that let you turn into a thematically resonant kaiju and go on a rampage

[vivid wraith]

nobody gets left out

[hollow spruce]

I have spent this morning figuring out what each of these kaijus would be for my sadsack man PC, with accompanying soundtracks

[undone flame]

Dracula didn't even get hurt by the sun

[fleet harbor]

He was stated to be less powerful in the light but that's it

[vivid wraith]

Remind me what the thematic distinction is for each version?

[restive ridge]

Talent is based on your dream of self and Shattering on your Wyrd

(Incomprehensible sentence)

[frank light]

talent is when you double down on your identity and shattering is when you just cant be yourself right now

[vivid wraith]

oooooh

[frank light]

mechanically the same but one is thematically more determinted than the other

[restive ridge]

They are shaped by ghosts instead of mechanics as Ru would put it

[frank light]

yeah for sure

[fleet harbor]

I think it primarily gives you license to describe it differently, because that is actually relevant for Glitch

[magic mason]

I came up with a very funny System
for a hypothetical far roofs charecter
System: I edit a relatively unknown event in the past, these edits will have butterfly effects but never ones that meaningfully impact the cultural zeitgeist at large. Characters who would have their backstory notably effected by this can take damage to resist it as normal, the edit still occurs, but somehow finds a way to exclude them. Attempts to edit larger things attract the wrath of the Mystery who I derive my powers from.

[magic mason]

so I was thinking about the Horsemen of the apocalypse and what they would look like in Nobilis
and then I remembered there are literally Excrucian's, and they are horsemen and that is likely a reference to the ones of the apocalypse
so here is my thoughts on which Horsemen various splats would be

Strategists: Death
Warmains: War
Mimics: Famine
Deceivers: Conquest

I have reasons for these I can elaborate on if asked

[undone flame]

Right now two of the 4 horsemen are hanging out in our Nobilis game lmao

[frank light]

lmaol

[obsidian dagger]

Trying to figure out how to stat up Seth (the protagonist of Radiant) in Chuubo's, and I'm having a surprising amount of trouble figuring out exactly what to do for a character who is (at least notionally) a Hot-Blooded Shonen Protagonist except for all the ways in which he quickly becomes Not That, and I want to discuss but also don't want to spoil Radiant.

||Almost certainly something Green, since he even gets something approximately resembling a Chancel. Possibly Spiritual? Probably Spiritual? ...maybe Sentimental? He also gets to explore another world and develop close ties to it in a potentially Blue way, and there's a strong argument for Wounded Angel... actually, he does a number of things which could totally be either empowered wounds from Wounded Angel or extra limbs from Primordial.||

I kind of want to say Green/Blue/Black/...Gold?

Anyone here know enough about Radiant to help?

...yeah, alright, actually, a reasonable amount of things he does could probably be framed as Wounded Angel stuff, either briefly picking up a wound, playing with it for a while, and then getting rid of it, or (for a few permanent power ups) taking a wound and simply sitting on it indefinitely, which is also a valid thing to do with Wounded Angel.

A lot of his "||storing stuff in his skin||" powers are fairly Wounded Angel-y. Called Away also makes a lot of sense, as ||he has a location to be called away to, and a nemesis who he encounters within that location who he also repeatedly gets mistaken for, and seems fairly Green in general||. I'm not always the best at unpicking thematically Green and thematically Black stuff, admittedly. He'd like Chosen One but certainly doesn't need it. He'd also like Sentimental for his ||Sidh "telepathy"|| stuff, and some similarly related stuff; Ochaco might be the one with some of that going on, though?

I'm trying to figure out what his Estate is. Possibility? Growth? Life? Hope? Something like that?

A lot of effects could go multiple different ways. Aaron's Serpents get Called Away and Allegory (which he could definitely do some stuff with!), and... he definitely means something. I think, whether Prophet or Called Away, Seth represents Potential — the raw, unvarnished, unbreakable knowledge that things don't have to be like this, and can be better instead. The fact that, in a world determined by conflict, peace is possible.

Nobody gets Called Away and Wounded Angel, which makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if the guidelines are getting in my way rather than helping me.

Okay, now that I'm reading Called Away's Estrange, that is. Definitely a way to explain some of the stuff he does.

Honestly he wouldn't mind Called Away 4 for some of the stuff he pulls off! ...I could totally also see him using the Wild power set; like I mentioned, a decent amount of his more dramatic Wounded Angel things could also be Primordial, with him seizing onto what other people think is an emblem of freedom or potential, and ||writing it upon his skin||... complete with one dramatic moment where he uses his own, and one moment where he makes a specific limb permanent.

Is it reasonable for Primordial characters to pick up powers based on the opinions of someone they're notionally fighting against?

Yeah, there's an argument for Primordial with his element being magic.

Ok, yeah, Primordial very explicitly does list something about being able to get a limb from an enemy.

Big spoilers but the moment where Seth ||teleports out of the prison|| could totally be:

• An Evocative Transformation due to the circumstance he's in;
• Treating ||imprisonment|| as a Wound (a valid thing to do), and then turning it into a Wounded Angel power to "heal" that wound;
• Using Break the Boundaries in a creative way; or
• Using Into the Mittlemarches to apply his Estate's properties, which include ease of travel, and then taking advantage of that.

[grand knot]

What's Attaris' deal

[magic mason]

Wild Lord imperator of the third age

Who replaced the previous Fallen imperator of the third age

She is also the mother(?) of entropy 2

has some cool design elements with blindfolds and swords

At least going off Attaris 2

I hope this helped

[frank light]

She’s great

She’s one of the biggest honcho imperators

Same circle as firstborn or Time

[magic mason]

I wanna shoutout Silver real quick

For being a world native imperator on every single word

clever creature

[magic mason]

I forgot to mention
By silver I mean the silver age/the second age

[frank light]

Love that guy

Shame that he exploded

Or was Jan Ben a different guy

Okay wait

Alright

A different unrelated Fallen dissolved when Attaris was born

I don’t think he held the second age

[magic mason]

nah he held the third age I think

Second Age is several hundred seperate gods

I think, going by names, the earth one is a true god

[frank light]

It does not say what Ebrot appeka held

The only thing he held were two portions of Attaris’ name

[magic mason]

makes sense I suppose

[frank light]

He may have held other things But he’s fucking dead/dissolved so who knows

Maybe Attaris is simply transgender

[magic mason]

I heeadcanon something Tempering esque occured

[frank light]

Transgender fallen is my own headcanon because it’s really funny

And also imagining that they didn’t have the third age pre transition

That transition allowed them to be the motive force behind the third age

This is the power of pride month

[fleet harbor]

Do we have a complete list of Attaris’s estates

One of them could be pride month

[frank light]

so true

we only know she bears the third age

it might even be ONLY The third age

[fleet harbor]

Maybe the Third Age is pride month

Don’t ask me how that works

Motherfuckin’ miracles

[vivid wraith]

"it's the third age, you know what that means"

[frank light]

"what? do you want us to like, do gay flower rites? what?"

"Its pride month lexiarchos! You know what that means!"
"...iolithae its september"
"You know what that means!"
"...do you want us to do like gay flower rites? What?"

[patent tiger]

As far as I'm concerned, all flower rites are-

[frank light]

i dont think thats true

[frank light]

i reallly wanna draw this now

[vivid wraith]

do it

[frank light]

one sec lemme crack open a notebook

[frank light]

lexiarchos

[restive ridge]

https://geostatonary.itch.io/arknights-in-cmwge this is relevant to exactly 2 people here one being me

[restive ridge]

This is actually high quality holy shit

Ok so read through

Its like

Way too good for the concept

[restive ridge]

... Skadi would be on a Wounded Angel Arc and then switch to Primordial when her Blasphemy is unleashed

Or maybe Awakening for the Seaborns hivemind?

[fleet harbor]

Yeah this slaps

[restive ridge]

Idea

World that does not have any native divinities but is actually very close to the trunk of the Ash Tree

So there's like, 50 chancels there and they are all Serpent-made

It actually gets invaded regularly by Excrucians trying to sneak into Heaven through the inside of the Tree so no Noble actually had a chance and time to visit other worlds

There's some vague awareness of "Angels" existing because of some stuff some Serpents said but otherwise nothing

One time a Strategist tried to rant to a Noble about how the world is wrong using Lord Entropy as an example and he got laughed off for such a blatant lie

[fleet harbor]

I like it

Both "where the war is" and oddly disconnected from the realities of the war

[fleet harbor]

And when Lord Entropy asks about it, the snakes say "don't worry about it" and smile

Smile?

Snile

[tall jolt]

Can a snake smile bloom on the battlefield

[frank light]

probably

[tall jolt]

the optimal answer

[candid compass]

Snakes probably smile a lot

[magic mason]

High deepness deceivers feel like very strong villains for glitch games

they have a lot of potential for weird, metaphysical mysteries

not to mention the horror of "They have conversioned a bunch of people already"

[restive ridge]

How it feels to use Greater Shattering based on your Wyrd

[patent tiger]

(That's probably too much for this server, tbh)

[obsidian dagger]

#av-club message only just now saw this but it really feels like it belongs here for reasons which I cannot clearly articulate but which should be evident.

[magic mason]

Strateegists

[vivid wraith]

even the background color looks like it's from chuubo's

[obsidian dagger]

...a Strategist who's dying of Responsibility, or possibly Authority, maybe?

[frank light]

workable!

[vivid wraith]

"please take care of my baby"
"please become council chairman"
"please judge my bake-off"

[obsidian dagger]

I just remembered another character I made who sort of just... falls into positions of authority, though to a less extreme extent. And who is also built out of a one-line description of a single-arc antagonist that Jenna Moran mentioned for the Horizon Campaign.

Ada McNae

Academics Skill: Erratic
Sports Skill: Below Average
Favorite Foods: Daifuku, Strawberries, Strawberry Daifuku, Bananas, fresh fruit in general
Blood Type: O
Animal: Bird (oropendola)
Age: Campaign Default

In an ordinary town, you'd probably be described as "the weird one". You don't seem to know or remember even basic facts (including, alas, whatever's on the week's test!), but sometimes know obscure trivia basically at random. You're a young teenager, but people have mistaken you for an 8-year-old... more often than you'd like to admit; this usually annoys you, but sometimes they give you free stuff and you're not going to complain about that. You have what could be politely described as an optimistic view of your athletic ability, which is to say you tend to run into and trip over stuff a lot. You have dark grey eyes which don't look quite like anybody else's you've ever seen. (This includes your parents, who look pretty different from you in general. You're still waiting for them to tell you you're adopted, but whenever you hint at it they act like they don't know what you're talking about. You're not sure whether they somehow think you haven't realized, they're messing with you, or you have a very interesting family history.) You like to sew. As a hobby. Sometimes when you're stressed, you make lace.

But this is Town, and you're human, and you get excited about all the appropriate festivals and eat the same foods and complain about the same classes, so this makes you pretty normal by all rights. The sheer number of clubs and other organizations you've found yourself in certainly doesn't hurt with getting people to accept you; honestly you're not entirely sure how it happened but you keep accidentally joining clubs and then somehow ending up in influential positions? Anyway, between being the treasurer of the School Chess Club, the president of the Needlepoint Club (admittedly as a result of nobody else remaining in the club, as they all graduated or left the club around the time you joined, and it only exists as a club at all due to a number of students who have technically failed to leave the club before getting lost in the Outside or transformed into something wildly different. But: fingers crossed, you have a hot lead on a second member!), the secretary of the Horizon Mountaineering Club (stymied slightly by Horizon's lack of mountains), a typist for the Horizon Terminological Institute, and the girl who helped calm the war between the natural-fiber and synthetic-blend factions of the local crochet group, you have a lot on your plate! So, when you have a moment to simply hang out with friends your own age, you... well, you still tend to throw yourself into it at full speed, but contrary to appearances you are relaxed. And, more to the point, tired, and prone to silly things. Hence, that time when you climbed up one of School's outside walls to try to figure out what kind of bird had made a nest in the windowsill, slipped, felt a odd tugging sensation as you fell, and ||abruptly realized that nearly everything described above is false||.

Let me know if I should post the second half of the character description.

...I'm looking through this writeup I made, and it's much more thorough than I remembered.

Hint: she has Awakening. And now I'm coming up with ideas for what kinds of items she might make. And what kinds of items the alternate version of her (Ron McNae) might make.

...I don't know why I randomly thought of this, or why I felt the need to dump a huge wall of text in here. I'm curious what people think, though.

I am going ham on determining these possible options.

ok honestly the parts I was most proud of were the tangential similarities as "person who falls into positions of influence", and the fact that I listed the character's age as "Campaign default + 10i".

[frank light]

mood

had a thought that i dont know if it makes sense but here goes

in the immortal frantic sickly dichotomy of chuubos
i dont think it can be said that immortal and sickly are opposites

i dont even know if thats a common conception, but its one i find myself accidentally falling into.

but remembering the descriptions, immortal and frantic are the ones that are in most immediate opposition or contrast. frantic is described as clinging to mortality while immortal arcs literally grant immortality.
frantic is about getting into trouble while immortal is about being in tune with the world.
frantic is about doing your own thing with immortal having responsibility.

Sickly arcs are the "nice dichotomy idiot what lies outside it" of this dynamic, with them having a lot of out there abilities and the book opening them up as "beyond questions of mortality"

[vivid wraith]

oooooooooh

i think this is gonna help me figure them out better

[frank light]

im glad

[obsidian dagger]

...explain. I had thought of that particular trichotomy as a scale of "how much is this 'in tune with' the world" with Sickly being negative, Frantic being 0 (or close to 0), and Immortal being positive.

But I'm very open to other interpretations.

[frank light]

My reasoning is that frantic and immortal are contrasting mortality and connection.
Immortality makes you something so much larger than yourself but disconnected from the small parts of the world, slow and methodical but…slow

Frantic is about mortality, it’s about the little things.

Sickly is simply not in the dichotomy between mortality and immortality. It’s beyond that dichotomy, it is disconnected.

You can measure it in a trichotomy but I still don’t think sickly is the opposite of immortal. Frantic is.

In measure of disconnection from the world I guess it’s fair to put immortal and sickly on opposite ends I will concede that.

But I think it becomes a dichotomy with sickly as something else entirely when you look in a different angle. And I find that one to be interesting.

[magic mason]

I would argue that Frantic also tends to be the most... grounded

Which I guess is diffrent from being in-tune-with the world

But both Immortal and Sickly tend to have a pretty big disconnect from like... people

[frank light]

frantic can have some pretty wild shit
i wont exactly argue that its grounded

[magic mason]

I don't mean grounded power wise
I mean like

Both immortal and sickly have weird dynamics with normal people a lot of the time

I am having a hard time wording it properly

[obsidian dagger]

The way I think of it is basically by looking at the Science, Faith, & Sorcery XP action. They're three ways of knowing what's in a sealed box.

Science is Immortal — it's interrogating the world for its truth, and being in touch with that.

Faith is Frantic — it's about knowing a truth totally internal to yourself, and it doesn't matter what the world has to say about it.

Sorcery is Sickly — it's knowing what's in the box by casting a spell on the contents of the box to turn them into a frog. It's taking your truth and imposing it upon the world.

[frank light]

Yeah I’ve heard that one

And while that’s probably a valid way of looking at it, it’s not the one I prefer.
I guess they’re not necessarily in contradiction.
I like pitting frantic and immortal as opposites though

[restive ridge]

Interesting ideaaa

I think it might work narratively

Althought mechanically I still see Immortal-Sickly as a slider with Frantic in between

[fleet harbor]

Proposal: a deceiver whose deepness is metaphorically represented with an ocean of ramen broth

Also literally, should it come to that

[frank light]

Yessssssssssss

[magic mason]

they don't actually have much persona, but their experience for sealed and theft is Flavor

[fleet harbor]

Yes

This is good

MSG is the one truth in the lie of this world

[magic mason]

I really like the prospect of low persona decievers

mostly because it isn't explored very much

[vivid wraith]

this deceiver told the sea that it was broth and it was thus

[magic mason]

Thinking about Iolithae's Sealed System again

[frank light]

The ocean is a soup…

[vivid wraith]

i'm at soup

[fleet harbor]

Use theft to steal the soup

[obsidian dagger]

I just had an interesting thought for a deceiver's pState which I suspect has terrifying implications as though there are deceivers that don't:

• ...are passionate
• ...are dedicated
• ...won't forget about <deceivername>
• ...don't hate <deceivername> as a person```

[hollow spruce]

I think this one exists somewhere in the book! Or I'd be surprised if it doesn't

Tis a solid p-state

[obsidian dagger]

especially once I realized/remembered the whole Sacrifice thing. An adjacent thing which I had come up with in the past, slightly tweaked (and which probably still needs some more editing):

• ...are dramatic
• ...are flashy, well-lit, dramatically framed, and generally cinematic
• ...don't lead to permanent harm
• ...somehow end up with all parties becoming friends and/or allies```
(think like in shonen fights against The Big Rival™️, or what happens in Touhou where after each incident the antagonists of that game start inviting themselves to parties at Reimu's shrine and no long being outright *enemies*, or stuff like that, if you're wondering what I mean by that last point)

sometimes fights against a major recurring rival or nemesis have the two parties still being enemies notionally, but all of a sudden they're much more likely to be willing to team up against some other, bigger threat. I don't know how to articulate it, but you know what I mean, right?

[frank light]

getting the chance to try out chiba

my clownly strategist

[obsidian dagger]

So, question: how reasonable does Those who hold what <deceivername> wants sound as a pState? Too coerced and power-game-y? Too specific?

[frank light]

it works completely

because the actual amount of control you have over things that are within a persona pstate is...weird

[obsidian dagger]

Since my ADHD meds have worn off, and I was just thinking about Mako Mankanshoku from Kill la Kill, how do you stat up that Thing she does with an unreal spotlight while she gets to talk about... something... which may or may not be related to the conversation everyone else is having? It's not quite Creature of the Light, since this is almost certainly Unreal.

It usually also has some sort of catchphrase. I could imagine The Incomparable Leonardo de Montreal! pulling off something similar with the line "How foolish!"

actually? A lot of tutorial NPCs get to do something similar in video games, where they put the action on hold to say their piece. I... did not connect those particular dots until now.

[frank light]

Perhaps a wounded thing then

Or maybe still holy/creature of light

With particular flavor

Or maybe some sort of greater misdirection gift

Considering the low utility I could see an argument for One-trick

[obsidian dagger]

It felt really wrong for to make Mako Mankanshoku anything other than Frantic, but if I look at tutorial NPCs, it looks a lot more like Creature of the Light. It's not just the action individually but the vibes to it.

It's fundamentally the ability to make the world stop and make you pay attention to whatever you're saying. It's just that sometimes that looks like explaining the world, and sometimes that looks like being a little rambunctious ball of nonsense who steals the spotlight.

Maybe it's even Sickly Orange/Star Quality/Knave of Hearts/Persona maybe?

nah, probably not, judging by the official influences:

Jasmine Apocynum, the Ideologue, and Excrucian Deceivers in general
Princess Kraehe (from Princess Tutu) and other dark magical girls
the Ice King from Adventure Time or other characters who are consumed by their roles
Scott Pilgrim and similar characters with a highly stylized form of perceiving the world
Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson (from the Discworld) or Gregory House (from House, M.D.) and other characters who can make the world play by their own rules.
Costumed supervillains, phantom thieves, and anybody else who has a masked alternate identity

I think the core thing that skews me away from Creature of the Light is that it can make a bright light shine on you, but it won't dim down everywhere else.

another random thought, since I've been reading a lot of xianxia stuff lately: as tempting as it would be to just stick them in something Gold and be done with it (and honestly there's a decent argument for Ace or Chosen One), Creature of the Light fits in no small part because of the Divine Warrent. A lot of higher-level cultivation stuff is about having your own personal truth with its own set of morals, and arguably its own little world (uhhhh... is that... Spiritual? Something Sickly?) and basically just throwing your worldview at other people's and that's what the fights turn into.

You're not fistfighting, you're enacting an argument between the Storm which means Tribulation and Change and Judgment, and the Wind which is free and unbound and untouchable and goes where it will.

There is still probably a “Zu” label with Chosen One, the Ace, Star Quality, and Creature of the Light, but it’s still also kind of tempting to make Natalia an angel and reconcile the two lists.
ah, yup. Star Quality feels maybe a little weird for that, but I forgot that cultivators are already a question which has been contemplated.

[wheat cobalt]

I'm not the most familiar with cultivation fiction, but "has your own personal little world" sounds like Wanderer or Gardener depending on the flavor of it

[obsidian dagger]

I don't know what Wanderer is but it's not Gardener. It's not really a physical space, most of the time. It's moreso the representation of your soul, which can be treated like a physical location when you impose it upon the world.

There's a royalroad fic called Modern Patriarch which might have been removed but I know the first few chapters had something that seemed vaguely tonally appropriate in general actually... hm.

[restive ridge]

Yeah that sounds like True God Called Away/Wanderer

Tho I say Gardener fits for the more conventional pocket worlds you use cultivators use sometimes

[obsidian dagger]

This was his domain— his will imposing order over the natural law, reshaping the world in his image. This was a law that could not be defied, only broken.

but, yeah, Called Away.

there's one spot in particular which I'm trying to find which invokes the whole "at the very center, the HG doesn't get to narrate at all, you do.

[restive ridge]

Oh fuck

Actually

Prophet (Frantic Mystic) may be the play here

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah maybe. I forget who got exactly which ability but I know there's something about making a space more like yours. Green does it better in some ways, but black does it better in others.

I'm digging through this moderate-quality work to try to find the specific bits I'm digging for.

“Oh, mighty heavenly Dao! Whether I live or die, bear witness to the synthesis of a lifetime of cultivation!” Yao Shen roared, and the landscape around him began to change. The dried patch of land was replaced by a dazzling golden wheat field, rays of sunlight tearing past the tribulation clouds and landing upon the fields. Transparent silhouettes of faceless farmers dressed in grey clothing manifested around Yao Shen, manually harvesting the wheat by hand— they were not cultivators, but mere mortals. At the center of the wheat field, a small, dainty wooden house rested, adding to the scenic, natural beauty of the rustic landscape.

“Human Dao Domain: A Slice of Heaven,” Yao Shen smiled, and the landscape around him began to change— A dazzling golden wheat field now stood in place of the ruthless wind sphere, rays of sunlight tearing past the clouds that had not been there a few seconds ago and landing upon the fields. Transparent silhouettes of faceless farmers dressed in grey clothing manifested around Yao Shen, manually harvesting the wheat by hand— they were not cultivators, but mere mortals. At the edge of the wheat field, a small, dainty wooden house rested, adding to the scenic, natural beauty of the rustic landscape.
From two different chapters. Just the idea that the description is the exact same, verbatim, because that's his world and he gets to narrate it. This was neater in my head.

I think I misremembered.

I swear that somewhere there's an example where upon using their powers it switches to the same poetic description each time. But, yeah, Prophet or Called Away depending on the work probably.

[magic mason]

Thinking about the Red Dragon/Anti-Christ Symbolism associated with King Ghidorah in the more recent Godzilla movies as a vastness/Kaiju/child of the ash thing

Vastness is when the Kaiju is also the anti christ

[obsidian dagger]

Here are two thoughts I had randomly while walking earlier (along with a separate thought, which is more of a question):

Red...
• ...means blood and violence
• ...means hearts and love
• ...means health and vitality
• ...tells you of danger
• ...demands that you stop
• ...inflames emotions and appetites```

Roads...
• ...are the means by which people travel
• ...connect distants locations
• ...connect parts of a location
• ...spread across the land```
||The latter is a Mimic.||

The unrelated question is this: what, exactly, is Albaz (from yugioh lore)? The obvious answer is Child of the Ash, given his repeated turning into a dragon... but he turns into a different dragon each time, typically based on outside forces in various ways. And, if we're using the card mechanics as a guide, occasionally he gets to get into some form of dragon-esque vehicle, and doing so is mechanically similar to just turning into a dragon himself. The ways in which he turns into a dragon seem not totally unlike the way in which Primordials develop limbs to hold things (with him holding... Power or Strength, presumably), but then in one case his transformation actually takes something away from someone else in a way which noticably affects them (for the better, since the thing he took away was basically a curse), and in two others he actually fuses with another person; the first of those is fusing with his narrative mirror (who also separately can turn into a dragon), but the second is fusing with an ally who lacks any dragon-related powers.

Actually, I think that as part of this fusion he rescues said ally? I need to double-check the lore, but I think he either pulled her out of a monster, or pulled her out of a possessed body, or something like that? And then later, after the fight, they split apart and they're both just fine (but she has dragon horns now).

[undone flame]

https://youtu.be/jZ4uSpoQ7LE?si=H6VYL4YluCCWXHh7

[obsidian dagger]

Albaz seems like a Primordial except for how he only has one transformation at a time and also sometimes when he takes something from someone he does it to rescue that person through the act of taking and also also he has a rival in a very Green-seeming way (but if he's tied to a location, and he very well might be, we don't fully know what location is and it's probably connected to the interdimensional Holes which seem very very Sickly). I would punt and say Reality Syndrome, but it seems like using other people is easier than using himself, not harder.

I was looking at Orange arcs in case Allegory looked right, and in Become Somebody I noticed this example:

a cop marches into the headquarters of Cannibal Criminal Corporation fervently emoting policitude and arrests Mr. Boss—nobody dares get in their way!
and I just remembered how, in Discworld, Carrot Ironfoundersson does almost exactly this. (Also, in the "facilitating communication" version of that same power, at the end of... one of the later books, I forget which... Vimes ||refuses to become lost in the dark, and finds his way back home, because he has to read a good night story to his son.||)

Although that could also be Auctoritas Magister... but Vimes feels very Orange, honestly.

I just saw that Carrot is one of the inspirations for Sickly Orange, apparently?

Wait. Oh no. I think I figured out what that weird "call the spotlight to yourself and make everyone pay attention to you before fading into the background" thing is: it's an XP action. It is... just an XP action.

[acoustic dagger]

you mean a grimoire waiting to be found?

[obsidian dagger]

I don't know what a grimoire is (at least in this context)

[frank light]

doodled a new strategistttt

https://x.com/pixelcoffea/status/1800012038556840065

Karen (@pixelcoffea) on X

Chiba, whom sugar kills. my fucked up clown strategist for Glitch.

Twitter · Jun 10, 2024, 3:48 AM

[undone flame]

character from the cover of a kid's horror book circa 2008

[vivid wraith]

clown hours!!!!!!

[frank light]

holy shit yes im so glad i nailed it

[undone flame]

I was gonna add "looking ass" to the end but cut it for tone's sake because I didn't want it to read hostile

[frank light]

<333 np

lemme post her character sheet

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KDEQOl22ZyYcMpqbtoFwJIXPv0G9EK6y8Nlqcu5PRbI/edit?usp=sharing

[obsidian dagger]

...okay re:Mako Mankanshoku this is much... just... more than I remembered. I remembered the effects being completely Unreal, but then in this one, they appear to not be that. They seem to vary from "I'm able to escape from being tied up specifically so that I'm able to perform my emotion (or possibly role)" to "reality casually warps in ways that seem to actually happen to some extent, rather than just existing for the sake of animation or something".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dckwOMmtq3I mostly just aesthetics, although there's still that whole "becomes free just to be able to emote" and "suddenly summons a spotlight". And it's mostly just interesting editing of what could be mundane actions, but there's still a few moments of what looks like Unreal reality warping, or something almost like Reality Syndrome's ability to pull people into your Experience?

and then on the other extreme there's this, where she wants something to eat and so, uh... manifests a guy who shoots money at people with a gun, so she can collect that money and use it to buy food? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bfqfuHcK2s

[vivid wraith]

I should try that

[frank light]

I should watch kill la kill

[obsidian dagger]

In both cases, there's a clear "make a signature gesture/phrase -> create an Unreal scene focuses on primarily you, or maybe one other person -> warp reality in ways according to your idiom, most of which don't really happen but then sometimes they do?"

The first one could be argued as any of a million things, since there's a number of things which push past any obstacle in the way of you emoting, or acting out your Role, or transmitting your Experience, or whatnot. The second one... baffles me.

I'm trying to figure out if this is the same thing tutorial NPCs do, where they get to do stuff like freeze time exclusively to point out when to press a certain button, or cause random enemies to conveniently appear from nowhere so that a core battle mechanic can be demonstrated, or stuff like that. I want to say that it is, but that might just be me reaching for parallels.

There's definitely a lot of Creature of the Light DNA in there with the spotlight, but that feels profoundly incorrect. ...I also think that, 90% of the time, this will be triggered by the character saying some signature phrase, or making a signature gesture, because I know there's examples in other media and I just can't call it to mind.

[vivid wraith]

"henshin?"

[obsidian dagger]

It. Had not occurred to me that what I'm describing totally encompasses transformation sequences, but it absolutely encompasses transformation sequences, right down to the "you are now in a little Unreal cutscene world with just you where you get to emote, and all kinds of dramatic stuff happens which doesn't really matter, but you get to come out the other side of it with some real changes (being transformed)".

[vivid wraith]

yep that sounds right

[obsidian dagger]

magical girl transformations are equally applicable, of course. I'm not quite sure how much tutorial NPCs qualify now? What they're doing is basically layered over the real world with minor changes, rather than popping into their own little world.

...I think that in order to describe this, I have to understand it as communication. And not just in Mako's case, where she uses it to deliver a whole speech; you can communicate "I am a magical girl" or "I am a superhero" too. Then you get to make dramatic changes to reality, all of them Unreal, and it's unclear how many of them other people could even see, as opposed to just being in your imagination or serving as a little bit of non-diegetic flourish for hypothetical viewers. Occasionally, you get to manifest some limited effects afterwards, like being able to free yourself from something that would prevent you from communicating the message, and then being able to actually have things from that is extremely rare.

Basically, you can do all kinds of stuff, and then when it ends, the only parts that are real are the absolute minimum which needs to have happened.

I'm not sure if the dude shooting money exists after the power ends, or just the money he shot, though. I think he seemed to actually exist maybe? Mako's already so incredibly weird that it's hard to parse some of this out.

it really feels like Reality Syndrome's Experience sharing... maybe. Unless that's only because our canonical experience of that is sharing specifically daydreams, when that doesn't have to be the only kind of thing it shares at all.

no, still part of it probably; her head turns into an octopus a few times. Although it's a bit blurry since she is in "regular space" by that point. Maybe it's an arc power where the higher-arc version lets you make the end of it "blurry" and sort of drag things out into "reality", to do stuff like have the thing you're imagining actually improbably show up, or use the dramatic explosion that appears behind you after transforming to blow something up.

probably still going also because the music persists.

I think I have to make sure that I am not just describing "every single cinematic Unreal effect" and trying to pretend it's all the same thing.

anyway I wonder how many fighting game instakills belong here. Some explicitly transport the opponent away, and those don't count, of course. But between instakills, and other supers which replace the scene background in some way during their animation, I feel like maybe there's something here?

[obsidian dagger]

I am currently thinking about a character who is really incredibly giga immortal (as in, there's a part where she points out that she is going to outlive the sun), and obviously Immortal does a lot of hard work for that already. But I'm still thinking a bit about how hard it would go to have "Affliction: I am alive. (5)" on a character. "I cannot die" is also a good affliction and roughly equivalent, but it somehow doesn't feel as pithy, you know?

(and, yes, I am fully aware of how significant a level 5 affliction is.)

[reef perch]

oooo

[obsidian dagger]

this is about Moukou from Touhou, for what it's worth. Who's probably something Green, and maybe actually not Immortal in the mechanical sense, but she is eternal. You could reduce her body to subatomic particles and scatter them across the universe and shred her soul until it could pass through the finest sieve, and she wouldn't (permanently) die.

[frank light]

one of my strategist pcs now has a funny treasure

which is a child theyre pretending to be the imaginary friend to

[hollow spruce]

Oh that's gold

[frank light]

theyre a weird freaky jester so it really does work out

i have flore 2 so if the wards allow it administration or projection are free

honestly this child might be what made her stop the war

she was a cruel strategist for sure

but she loved seeing children smile

[restive ridge]

Average Strategist hobby

[fleet harbor]

Actual horror movie antagonist behavior :P

[frank light]

That’s true

Which is what makes it even more funny

And it’s what made her stop being evil too.

[fleet harbor]

https://us.v-cdn.net/5018289/uploads/editor/gu/p7gxqxlfhy36.jpeg

[frank light]

Lmaoooooo

[tall jolt]

I have two new ideas for this chat to consider today

Power of Inscrutability and the Power of Innocence.

Now one may say "Why is Innocence an idea to consider its so basic" but consider this: The Bonds and such you have basically make you immune to bonds that say you can't do something

"I am innocent of all my actions"

So if you have a ability thats like "I cant be attacked." The Power is like "I've never attacked anyone in my life." as they stab you.

and your bond considers the power innocent of the attack

Now Power of Inscrutability, since it cannot be explained means it cannot be defined. "You cannot comprehend the nature of this attack." but attack is turned into !^#%^# because you can't define it.

Thank you for your considerations, you may comment

[hollow spruce]

Innocence is a good estate yeah

[tall jolt]

it do be

[nocturne epoch]

There's a sidebar about a holy man

Who does whatever he wants and ends up beating the king to death while people bless him as holy

Because even his worst deeds are Blessed

[candid compass]

Holy moment

[tall jolt]

I believe I remember that one

and then they do bad shit to him or something lol

because his power backfires hard

[nocturne epoch]

I think that's another one

About the guy who burns his people's fields and salts the earth

And eventually they tie him to a wheel and something

And say 'We thought he liked that kind of thing'

[tall jolt]

Ahh that might be

Because that sounds familiar

[fleet harbor]

Power of Syllogisms

Alternately: Dying of Syllogisms

[reef perch]

Deceivername's Syllogisms

[fleet harbor]

This also works

[nocturne epoch]

Same faux author

@tall jolt

[tall jolt]

interesting!

surely that has no meaning lol

[candid compass]

that second guy is just Holy

[obsidian dagger]

...this reminds me of my thesis that every Immortal arc gets an "affordance" (there's a better word but it isn't springing to mind — something which, if anyone else did it, would be wrong (either morally wrong, or factually wrong, or just a terrible idea), but when they do it it's okay. Typically they get this at arc 2.

This is arguably why Primordial gets Digest; if anyone else said "I'm going to eat that guy's shadow" or "I'm going to eat this ever-burning flame", the only appropriate response would be a concerned stare, because... what? You can't and/or should do that. That's wrong... unless you have Arc 2 Immortal Black, in which case it's okay for you to do.

[patent tiger]

In Glitch, they explicitly mention that power - as a particular quirk of Angels, specifically through the Holy stat

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, Holy/Creature of the Light is an archetypical example by way of the Divine Mandate.

[frank light]

Yea

[tall jolt]

Do you think the Power of Lies and Excrucians would have a weird energy between them

Because if Lies as a concept did not exist how would Excrucians tell everyone that things are wrong

[fleet harbor]

So, only Deceivers really care about the lie thing

Strategists don't give a shit, it's besides the point

That said there are for sure estates that Deceivers would especially resent

[vivid wraith]

"they can't even get lies right"

[patent tiger]

I feel like most Excrucian types have Estates that would get a rise out of them, one way or another

[tall jolt]

Probably not Warmains

Unless Warmains had a specific test they liked doing and a certain power bothers them/gets in the way

[fleet harbor]

Power of Unworthiness

[tall jolt]

HA!

Thats great

[patent tiger]

Strategists don't care about truth and lies, but they do care immensely about... correctness? Rightness? Morality, kind of. My interpretation of the Excrucian hangup on Angels is that Strategists are the central part of that, since an Angel's whole thing is being righteous and beautiful and claiming to have a right to all things

And the whole Strategist thing is how nothing in Creation has that, it's all wrong, Angels are as awful as the rest

[patent tiger]

Well, see, this is why I made my wording [get a rise out of them]

Rather than specifically hatred

[tall jolt]

Fair enough

[patent tiger]

Warmains would have strong reactions to Estates related to what they're testing for, and related to the manner in which they test

Plausibly more generally-positive than the others' Estate takes, but, still pretty volatile tbh

[tall jolt]

I bet the Power of Disparity could fuck up a Warmain.