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

[candid compass]

would the highest rank be Pontifex then? 😛

[magic mason]

Yeah!
Or maybe just Pontiff

“The Pontiff Of Knives”

[fleet harbor]

Pope of Knives

[obsidian dagger]

Thinking about a Creature of Fable who is solidly convinced that anything with a face can talk and is sentient. Partially this is because of Calvin and Hobbes, with a very ideosyncratic view of Hobbes, but... idk it might be funny or cute.

[narrow tartan]

Badly written scifi in which it turns out that there is a miracle war going on behind the scenes changing up details of the universe

[frank light]

Lmao

[vivid wraith]

another

[frank light]

yeah thats
thats about right

[restive ridge]

Extreme cauterization

[restive ridge]

Cneph confirmed to have forged Creation for the sake of "hype moments and aura"

[vivid wraith]

so that's why there was so much monster fighting involved

[restive ridge]

No those were just his exes

[magic mason]

Using Far Roofs to run a Fantasy War between heroes and demons things, but the demons are horror movie demons instead of fantasy demons

I have had this idea buzzing around for a while and Far Roofs feels like a great system to run it in

Because Power is emotionally Resonant in it

[obsidian dagger]

It does seem like a good format for something with an entire faction of horror movie demons.

[magic mason]

Yeah!

Reality warping horrors
Monsters that are our worst selves made manifest, bubbeeled to the surface
Monsters that torture us, feed on our curses and our trauma

but you aren't just children and single mothers dealing with this shit
you are magical and miraclous heroes

What if you were demon hunters but instead of fighting a weird firey monster from another dimension you fought a weird omnipresent force repressenative of generational trauma

[magic mason]

made a mystery/a demon for that demon war game

[obsidian dagger]

Siiick. Is the grue being a woman you once knew at all a reference to Charlie from Don't Starve?

[magic mason]

No I was actually thinking of....
So I watched the trailer for the horror movie Lights Out as a kid and I never learned what it was actually about but the imagery of a vaugely feminine figure with glowing eyes teleporting closer to you every time the lights flickered off stuck with me

and also I feel like demons like this need to be symbolically resonant

they have to be trying to tell a story

[obsidian dagger]

Fair!

[magic mason]

another one I have on my list(for a main quest, hedge the fang level threat) is a Valgavoth event in progress

if you know mtg lore

that one demonfrom Duskmourne

[obsidian dagger]

I don't know new mtg lore unfortunately... fell off after War of the Spark.

[magic mason]

that is very fair

[magic mason]

basic idea:
Once upon a time, there was a haunted house, and inside that haunted house was a demon of ludicrous power. But it couldn't effect or do anything outside of the house

So, it realized it could just... make the house bigger

and you have to stop the house from becoming Infinitely Large before this fucker turns all of reality into haunted house 24/7

likely being sent to the bad wallpaper dimension multiple times in the proceess

[obsidian dagger]

That is fun, although anything infectious typically gives off Actual vibes to me (I like Actuals). It certainly doesn't have to, though.

[magic mason]

oh it was definitly using Actual stats

Awakening/Impersario/Become Somebody are all really good for it

and I am sure I can make Gatecrasher work

[obsidian dagger]

I mean, it kind of is a secret world? In an almost Green way, though, and most of the creatures in question would be Impresario minions rather than Gatecrasher Others. But not every member of a splat needs high rankings in all of its stats.

[magic mason]

maybe it uses Gatecrasher to represent like
Gatecrashing Being King Of All Demons

when its supposed to just be a haunted house

[obsidian dagger]

Maybe.

Gatecrashers break into a secret world. They're actually part of that world.

Which Gatekeepers, for all their authority over their Other, frequently aren't.

[magic mason]

oh thats strange, because glitch specifies that they usually aren't part of that world

Like the examples it gives are "Bear having enough money to pass as a Aristocrat, or an Ice elemental going to wizard school"

[obsidian dagger]

Iinteresting. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

But the fact is, they get the standard moves of their Other. I thought they were Frantic because their Other was kind of... existentially independent? Not entrenched in the world, nor trying to invade it and being held back.

[magic mason]

I do think that is the case

[obsidian dagger]

In a world that hides itself from others’ eyes, you’re a notable exception to the ordinary rules.
Per the Book of Golden Hours. So you aren't an example of the Hidden World or an ambassador of it.

[vivid wraith]

you were taught magic but you are not part of the order of mages
you can use magic but only in the way that's dangerous for everyone else, and also yourself

[obsidian dagger]

What is the Best Friend's default Hidden World, actually? I think it's either luchadors (if they take after their brother) or ghosts iirc?

...also yeah Basic Moves should be Chthonic, not least because they are, to my knowledge, the only thing besides Intentions that can theoretically eat Will???

[obsidian dagger]

Upon further thought on Gatecrasher, this feels wrong, because... Gatecrasher hidden worlds, are, generally speaking, things people can learn. Sometimes there's the implication that only certain people are capable of learning the tricks necessary to enter the world, and that just happens to include everyone you induct... but it's also possible that this is a thing anyone could theoretically learn, if they had the right knowledge. So having a Hidden World be a type of creature, like a demon, rather than a group of people who know something, feels kind of odd?

Then again, I kind of feel like a non-ghost entering the Hidden World of Ghosts probably is fine, and they just learn how to walk through walls and make small objects fly around and go invisible.

So, in that sense, a haunted house gatecrashing into being a demon makes total sense, because it's equally category-jumping, just... from one category of supernatural beings into another.

[frank light]

from gatecrasher in Glitch

[frank light]

in this example below, the gatecrasher stuff...isnt necessarily learnable

or at least, its weird?

It's difficult to learn to be an imperator

or learn to be a plague

[obsidian dagger]

Fair.

[frank light]

theres quite a bit of variety in how it expresses itself

[obsidian dagger]

...there is something to be said about an arc which is about explicitly intentionally learning something in order to fit into a group where most of its members didn't have to explicitly learn those things.

[frank light]

yup

hehe

[magic mason]

Mimics are very metaphor rich

[frank light]

they are

people love their mimics

[magic mason]

I really like the idea that deceivers use Theft/Creature Of Delirium to make mimics

Strategists use Gatekeeper/Lore to do it, according to glitch

[restive ridge]

That tracks to me

[obsidian dagger]

Oh, I have a question about Gatecrasher's Barrier Break. It allows you to tie a physical obstacle to a non-physical one, such that when the person achieves growth or catharsis or whatever it is it'll solve their existing problem, and also implicitly drives them to grow in that way. My question is: if you use it to tie some obstacle to personal growth, does doing so implicitly make it harder to fix that obstacle in some other way? I mean, it almost certainly makes it harder for you to clear up that obstacle otherwise, but what about other people?

[frank light]

hmmmm

i wouldnt think so?

i dont know...

[obsidian dagger]

Or, more to the point: can you haunt someone, and then use Barrier Break to make yourself harder to exorcise until the person you're haunting comes to terms with their grief?

[frank light]

lemme check the specifics of the wording

so

it is an imperial miracle

which means there is basically a TON of wiggle room from the world, players, and HG

buuuuuuut

i think it might inherently make it difficult to solve it in some other way yeah

cus the wish is "they'd struggle with this idea or emotion"

so they basically have to at least struggle with the idea and/or emotion

buuut again, as an imperial miracle, it has wiggle room from everyone involved on how it resolves

[obsidian dagger]

It's a weird kind of kludgy way to haunt someone and force them to experience catharsis; normally, that's the sort of thing you'd do with a Red arc, or possibly with Called Away by planting a seed of an emotion. But, at the same time, this is an arc for Mimics and Actuals, both splats which have to work in weird kludgy ways to approximate what other arcs can do more naturally.

[frank light]

tbf if your gatecrasher thing is "haunting" or "doing ghost stuff" it's probably valid

given that the top example is "to help them overcome their grief im building a nemesis that can only be defeated by them overcoming their grief"

[restive ridge]

It doesnt seem to make other options harder than they already were

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah. It's a bit... sideways... to say "I don't think this person will overcome their grief, and so I'll anchor my haunting them onto that", because from a player level you know that they will probably overcome their grief if you do that. But... ultimately it seems reasonable enough.

[restive ridge]

If you were idk using on "bypassing a wall" it wouldnt make the wall taller I'd just idk make it so the wall can now open magically if the target admits their true feelings or somethijg

[obsidian dagger]

or so that, in admitting their feelings, they happen to catch the attention of a passing window-cleaner who lends you their ladder, or something.

[frank light]

typically also its a medium for your plot devices

[obsidian dagger]

...Ageha from Psyren is a Gatecrasher to the world of Espers, because he struggles to learn basic psychic moves that everyone else is better at, and keeps remixing his signature psychic moves.

[frank light]

ooo

[obsidian dagger]

(I forget whether the people who use psychic powers are called psychics or espers or psykers or what. Probably not that last one but it randomly popped into my head for some reason.) But, yeah, he actually never figures out how to do regular telekinesis, and he doesn't ever properly learn regular telepathy but that one's because the manga's ending got rushed.

I'm trying to figure out if Razputin Aquato from Psychonauts is another psychic gatecrasher. He doesn't know psychic history or culture or stuff, and he does have a unique specialty as a circus acrobat, but I don't think he struggles with psychic powers? He actually picks them up pretty quickly.

[frank light]

yeah

if you were to give him an arc...

i dunno
hm

maybe troubled actually

he's got a curse and everything

and also a technique

[obsidian dagger]

Although he does levitate by just standing on top of a ball and rolling around on it rather than having a lev-ball under each foot lifting him elegantly or anything, which might be substituting circus acrobatics for psychic prowess.

I'm trying to think of any other good gatecrasher examples for characters who have to manually do something that other characters do automatically, because I think that's probably a common theme.

[frank light]

im thinkin bout izuku from MHA

as a strong example

[obsidian dagger]

Sort of, but... is superheroics a secret world? He almost feels more like Reality Syndrome, weirdly.

[frank light]

i mean

it doesnt have to be a Secret world necessarily in all cases

or at least

there is a hidden world in the whole "secret shadow war between all for one and one for all"

the point is

there is a deeper gatecrasher nature there

[obsidian dagger]

Fair enough.

[frank light]

he doesnt immediately belong

[obsidian dagger]

I just... hm. I would like him to be on Gatecrasher, but I'm not sure it's the right arc for this.

[frank light]

if you give any character a full on miraculous arc

it gets weird

it's a miraculous arc, while regular mundane arcs also exist

it comes with the territory

[obsidian dagger]

I'm not opposed to him being on one, but I don't think Gatecrasher is quite it. I can see the shadow war being a hidden world, but... I dunno. It just feels wrong.

...I was going to say "feels wrong because everyone has powers" but it's not intrinsically wrong for Actuals or Mimics to use it to fake their way into an otherwise-ubiquitous category? But, still, intrinsic in it being Frantic Blue is the idea that this is a Hidden World.

And it's everywhere, once you have the eyes to see, but most people can't see it... and that's definitely not the case for superheroics in MHA or for the shadow war (because the shadow war, uh, isn't everywhere).

[frank light]

the definition of hidden world is a bit flexible

though, in any case, it's not why i said "izuku is an example of a gatecrasher"

its because the way he interacts with his power is a strong and evocative example of gatecrasher speciality

its not a perfect lineup but then again it rarely is

because miraculous arcs apply to miraculous beings generally, or things that are interacting on that scale

it gets weird

[obsidian dagger]

Fair enough, and I could see it, but... hm. I just feel like he's more Orange or Gold, ultimately. Maybe I don't know enough about MHA, though.

[frank light]

characters tend to have multiple miraculous arcs!

storywise he absolutely feels like he's on gold or orange

just
i dunno
i feel like gatecrasher 1 is in there somewhere

kinda like how jasper is primarily a titular primordial character
she just also has child of the ash in there

[obsidian dagger]

Fair.

[frank light]

thinkin about other gatecrasher examples now...

uhhh
danny phantom stuff? i guess?
i dont have strong memories of it

[magic mason]

Morbius sometimes

[frank light]

kinda

[magic mason]

Not in the Morbius movie but like
When he shows up in Blade stuff

Morbius is a Science Vampire Gatecrashing The Hidden World Of Vampires

[frank light]

...im blanking on some good examples damn

[obsidian dagger]

I was considering Danny Phantom, but I'm too aware of the fandom and know very little about the actual show itself, so I'm not sure. Plus the fanon version frequently looks not entirely unlike Gatekeeper, in particular with Oblivious... although I don't know if that's a fanon invention.

[frank light]

there is some gatekeeper stuff going on

the primary plot beats of the episodes are some ghost causing trouble and having to seal it or whatever

but also the main character himself is
like

the main thing is he's only half a ghost and thus gets ghost powers or whatever

which feels a bit gatecrasher

he's in a hidden world with its own dynamics now and stuff

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, and he also has to learn how to use his ghost powers, which is another gatecrasher-y thing.

[frank light]

yeah

it is interesting

there are two listed "types" here

mapping on to the existing archetypes jenna lays out in her own metaphysics

things that tap into a deeper truer reality, profound and unusual and primordial even in their hidden world

and fakers

[obsidian dagger]

Iruma probably?

[frank light]

...which maps onto Actuals and Mimics respectively

i'm unfamiliar with iruma

[obsidian dagger]

From Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-Kun! He’s human.

[frank light]

ohhhh

i see

yeah that seems about right

FUCK

WAIT

BLEACH

BLEACH

how did i forget bleach

[magic mason]

First day at AI school I hope they don’t realize I’m aligned

[frank light]

thats titular gatecrasher

[frank light]

LMAO

[obsidian dagger]

Bleach, fuck, yeah, absolutely

[frank light]

yeah lmao

god

bleach feels almost like it was MEANT for this

its everywhere and people dont notice it
he inducts people into that hidden world later on
theres something deeply fundamental to tap into
...he turns into a half demon thing or whatever the fuck if forget what happens and that isnt really relevant but it is cool as fuck

gah

i never finished bleach

[obsidian dagger]

The half demon thing is a Blasphemy.

[frank light]

tRUE

bro has gotta be a mimic

he even makes peace with the damn thing
sorta
sorta?
i
dont remember what happens

it has been YEARS since I watched it

[obsidian dagger]

Probably. I. Actually don't know if it ever hurts his allies or disadvantages him, or if it's just a refuse-to-lose sort of situation.

I never finished it, but yeah, he does eventually become its ally.

[frank light]

yeah

[obsidian dagger]

I don't know what his Specialty is, though.

[frank light]

i'm trying to remember what he does in the show

besides swing a sword

it could just be sword fighting but that seems too simplistic

and my memory is very fuzzy

[obsidian dagger]

oh he picks up entirely too many power sets later on in the plot, but those are all towards the end.

It could be his inner demon as his specialty? Except there's an entire group of those.

[frank light]

true but he doesnt really interact with that for like

a while

[frank light]

"using my half demon powers" isnt invalid necessarily

especially if you establish the hollows as a part of the hidden world

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, but the timing isn't right, and it isn't exactly that. It's unleashing his inner hollow, which... isn't entirely a separate entity from him, but definitely feels like a Blasphemy at least at first blush.

He can use its power, but he doesn't like to.

[frank light]

yeah

plus "using your curse power" is more a troubled thing, what with Agony

and the fact that you basically keep your curse in a wound and get the relevant wound benefits

and getting abilities from it feel more like empowered wounds and stuff

an obvious speciality is missing for sure

beyond just
brute force i guess

[obsidian dagger]

I mean. It can totally be strength.

[frank light]

still
bleach feels like a really good mimic example
...beyond a lack of creature of delirium

yeah
it could be strength
i just dont wanna feel like im missing something

[obsidian dagger]

Syazel Apollo-Grantz does a thing where he extracts voodoo dolls from people and then uses them to harm the people, and has minions, but he's kind of a weird one-off guy.

[frank light]

yeah

and also is not the main character

whom i forgot the name of

[obsidian dagger]

Ichigo

[frank light]

yes thats the boy

[obsidian dagger]

There's an argument for Uryu being part of a Secret World, maybe, kind of?

I feel like a lot of the Kamen Rider series have secret worlds, too, but I couldn't tell you in any more detail.

But there's a lot where the main characters get their power from the same fundamental source as the primary villains, or from something very similar but modulated somehow (such as via their specific belt or something).

[frank light]

Mhm mhm

[obsidian dagger]

The titular Fed from A Girl And Her Fed probably? Honestly the Girl kind of too. I... think they're both gatecrashers, both to different secret worlds (government conspiracies and ghosts respectively), who each awaken the other one.

And then the two secret worlds kind of... overlap? But not entirely?

I have no idea where to even begin explaining that webcomic, but I ought to catch back up on it. (Even if it's a bit awkward that important parts of the plot have migrated into side novels, which started out as side stories in parts of the same universe but then got increasingly referenced in the main plot.)

[restive ridge]

Shirou Emiya is a professional Gatecrasher

[obsidian dagger]

It's weird that there's really clearly two hidden worlds, which are at least partially separate (feds with brain chips, and ghosts who look like fairies + the people who can see them), but then they also link up (the brain chips come with obnoxious AI helpers in the likeness of President Bush... and people who can see ghosts can see those AI helpers, and people with the brain chips can see ghosts, and the ghosts interact with the AI helpers).

Honestly I ought to reread A Girl And Her Fed probably, but especially through this lens, because I have no idea how to think about any of that.

[obsidian dagger]

...does it say anywhere what the Haunted Child's family does? Their dad is dead and their aunt owns a bookstore, but their mother seems curiously un-statted. They smell like fish, which implies certain things, and their single mother is "frazzled", but otherwise it's not clear. For some reason I like the idea of their family growing pineapples, though? It's known they're grown in Fortitude, and... actually. Hm. I have noticed a slight incongruity.

Spring break was, historically, scheduled as it was so that kids could help with the harvest. Why, then, is it aligned as it is, with kids coming off break right as they're also needed to help?

[restive ridge]

Mimics I think

[obsidian dagger]

thinking about weird scientist superheroes who invent some specific device or gimmick or something which has fixed rules but are somehow only used by them and their direct allies for superheroics and... okay long story short "Pym Particles" is a perfectly cromulent pState for a Deceiver.

[frank light]

Nah yeah that’s really fun

“Decievername particles”

[obsidian dagger]

Also works for alloys and strange scientific principles which are used for strange gimmicks.

[restive ridge]

Yessss

[frank light]

yea!

[vivid wraith]

lol good call

[obsidian dagger]

I don't know why exactly it fits, but it does

[vivid wraith]

Flower rite

[patent tiger]

Clothes...

- require a belt to make an outfit

[candid compass]

dresses without belts confirmed not an outfit

[patent tiger]

But they are buildings

[frank light]

A true god made this post

[gloomy oasis]

Look at this loser who doesn't wear a housebelt.

[obsidian dagger]

I currently have extremely specific brainworms (reading synopses of plotlines in fictional comic books (as in, the comic books don't actually exist, they were just made up to be referenced in a card game) and analyzing the events therein in terms of Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine). Anyway, this sounds like Indomitable versus Indomitable:

Being "not strong enough" for a challenge is seriously weird for him - and for the team, frankly. Argent Adept has the whole Void power mastery thing, Haka and Fanatic are both bruiser powerhouses, Tempest can control the weather and is a brilliant tactician, and Captain Cosmic who (while probably the weakest member) still harnesses cosmic energy to create things with his mind. This is not a "weak" team, but they can't stop Progeny - it's not necessarily the case that he defeats them either, they're just incapable of stopping it.

Haka is also called out as the kind of character who "wanders the earth", so Indomitable kind of fits for that, too.

[vivid wraith]

no source, unfortunately

[restive ridge]

This is my gender

[restive ridge]

Wanna put these ona Deceiver

[narrow tartan]

Imperators of local time

[vivid wraith]

lol owned

[magic mason]

Damn I just realized I forgot to put Operation Pyrite on my strategist playlist

[frank light]

Operation pyrite so fuckin good for excrucians

[magic mason]

“I’m completly fucked and beyond saving, and that means your fucked” is a very Excrucian sentiment

[magic mason]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVfyz1BOjbM
I think about this a lot as Phasael theme
For Chuubo's enjoyers, Phasael is the one who made The Gray Man Like That

[obsidian dagger]

random idea which seems like the sort of thing a Nobilis Angel (or Fallen Angel) or something would do: a character who lives in a house made out of fire. Not a house that's on fire; the walls and floor and roof are physically made out of flame itself.

[vivid wraith]

pretty sure that's at least one depiction of God's throne room in Book of Enoch apocalypses

so yeah very doable

[restive ridge]

https://youtu.be/y8O3LbP_r9A?si=5G9spQo7zjhFpH1y

[magic mason]

lol

[restive ridge]

Indomitable I think

[magic mason]

https://bsky.app/profile/b0tster.yeag.gay/post/3ln6dy6u5dc2g

PSX Bunlith 🪄 BLM ACAB 🇵🇸 (@b0tster.yeag.gay)

what a beautiful morning to have a curse 🪄☕️

Likes

304

Bluesky · Apr 19, 2025, 2:31 PM

[narrow tartan]

Thing I referred to once for reasons

[fleet harbor]

Yeah okay that makes sense

[restive ridge]

Girl is already a profession in the real world too

[narrow tartan]

Well specifically I mentioned that because. Spirits and identity.

[vestal mist]

Hmmm

Upon which arcs is Deadpool?

[narrow tartan]

Something red?

Or. I guess as of the second movie he starts on a Silver Arc and then moves to a Golden arc?

[obsidian dagger]

Hot take: warmain set. Creature of Fable gets to percieve the world in a highly stylized way, and there's something silver there, but he feels mostly Indomitable. I haven't seen his most recent movie, though, and am kind of going off of vibes.

[restive ridge]

He has Reality Syndrome but he isnt a Deceiver nor a True God set

[obsidian dagger]

fair enough (although Reality Syndrome is Serpents, not True Gods).

this is making me think about a Serpent who has a very... televised... idea of violence. Who does violence, sure, but... like, it's all comic books. I feel like a serpent would be the most likely to act like that kind of divinely powerful child who doesn't even fully understand that what they're doing could hurt someone, because they're usually pretty immortal.

I feel like serpents are most likely to say they'd want to be a human, but without fully understanding what that would entail.

[obsidian dagger]

I think fallen angel blasphemies are the fires of hell, because what those fires represent is the idea that some people are so bad that they deserve to suffer, that their suffering is good, and that seems like the sort of thing fallen angels would use their health levels to refute.

[narrow tartan]

Nimblejack dentist

[vestal mist]

Oh, no

I saw what they did to Jasper

[obsidian dagger]

Batman is a Gatecrasher into the world of super heroes because he doesn’t actually have any powers.

[vestal mist]

Same with Iron Man, or is he just Wounded Angel?

[obsidian dagger]

I’m not sure. Don’t know enough about him, but he might be Chosen One. He… technically doesn’t have powers but he has tech-based “powers” from his suit. Batman doesn’t have anything equivalent.

[vestal mist]

Batman has techbased powers from his batarags etc.

[magic mason]

Well his suit is powered by a super powerful reactor stopping shrapnel from reaching his heart

hence wounded

[vivid wraith]

marvel has enough super-scientists in its big names that iron man has proper genre context

[vestal mist]

True

[vivid wraith]

if anything hawkeye fits "literally what are you doing here" better

[magic mason]

While this could def work I always saw Batman as more Creature Of Fable

[vestal mist]

Very true

[vestal mist]

Could be both?

[magic mason]

true!

[vestal mist]

Arcs can be combined

And yes, Batman is very Creature of Fable

[magic mason]

Gatecrasher works better in a Justice league context but usually I think of "him being a guy with no powers trying to get into the world of superheros" as secondary to what he is which is "Gothams protector, the worlds greatest detective, etc"

which is why I am hesitant around gatecrasher

[vestal mist]

Possibly also Creature of the Light

[magic mason]

honestly batman has been around for long enough you can make an argument for like... goddamn half the arcs

[vivid wraith]

too many batmans (that puts him on a Mystic arc right)

[vestal mist]

Could be Wounded Angel, too, empowering the "No Parents" wound

[magic mason]

Impersario Batman
Allegorical Batman
Gatecrasher Batman
Creature Of Fable Batman
Awakening Batman
Creature Of Light Batman
Star Quality Batman
Wounded Batman
Sentimental batman
Ace Batman
Reality Syndrome Batman
Indomitable Batman
Troubled Batman

all work

[vestal mist]

Now I'm wondering about a Primordial Batman

[magic mason]

Wounded Angel Batman would be great for stories where the focus is on villans testing his limits and the idea that if he breaks his Rules he will become a villan worse than them etc etc

like the "Blasphemy" is his own worse impulses or something

[vestal mist]

Yup

[magic mason]

Or maybe his evil super ai programming tulpa

[vestal mist]

..what is Alfred?

[magic mason]

Alfred feels like a treasure

[candid compass]

Yeah

The bat family in general feels like a florilegium

[vivid wraith]

lore (binding eligible orphans to your service)

[magic mason]

Who are, in order:

stories about Gotham
Stories about The Batman as sort of an extant figure, maybe with mythical echos and history
Stories about Batman living up to his superheroes peers
Stories about Batman as a detective and master of prep
Stories where the whole bat family is on one character sheet
Stories where Batman acts as a mentor to another character
Stories where Batman kinda just has his Batman aesthetic that wraps people up in it
No kill rule being tested Batman
Batman in stories where he cares about his family a lot
HFY Batman
Prep time memes Batman
Batman as the monster who haunts Gothams criminal underworld
Batman as a terminal schemer who has plans to take out all of his friends and that is weird and bothers them

I can go for all of these depending on my mood

Become somebody could also work but only for stories where Batman isn’t Bruce Wayne

And its like Azreal or something

[vestal mist]

That bit where Nightwing was Batman

[magic mason]

Yeah

[vestal mist]

Also, HFY?

[magic mason]

Humanity fuck yeah

“Batman is so fucking cool and he’s just a human, watch as he uses Science™️ to improvise a exorcism on a demon possessed justice league”

[vestal mist]

Ah, cool

[magic mason]

Ive seen stories where Batman can fucking astral project and possess people

And its not questioned because he learned it from monks????

[vestal mist]

Yup

[magic mason]

That sort of shit is aspect Batman

I think

[vestal mist]

Batman is a wizard, canonically, but he usually doesn't bother using it, lol

[magic mason]

He has like superior billionaire 2 and superior martial artist 3

Or some stupid shit like that

[candid compass]

Superior Billionaire is very funny

[magic mason]

Insert that one video about how he is 90% human and 10% money

[vestal mist]

Can be applied to any issue that throwing money at would fix

[candid compass]

It's mostly it being a Superior skill that's funny to me 😛

[magic mason]

Yeah

I do have an enjoyment of Indomitable Batman

You usually only see him when the pov is from a villain

[vestal mist]

Mhm

[candid compass]

Yeah

[vestal mist]

I do love the framing of the protagonist as a horror villain

[magic mason]

Like ummm
In this animatic

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b7C3lGgsx78&pp=ygUfYSBnb29kIHNvbmcgbmV2ZXIgZGllcyBhbmltYXRpYw%3D%3D

[narrow tartan]

Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity have irresolvable differences. Bad break up

[magic mason]

Star quality and gatecrasher arguably have an overlapping noun, but there isn’t a splat that has both persona and style

Wondering what that would look like

Like I could see (your hidden world and your mythos are the same)

The way moods and principles sometimes overlap

[narrow tartan]

I think weirdly. Or maybe not weirdly.
The Nobilis have weird Persona.

[candid compass]

It's a little weird for being tied to their estate yeah

[vivid wraith]

Kind of feels like an agent of judgement

You enter a world that isn't your own, but then you're put in charge of maintaining its boundaries

[restive ridge]

the troll hunter setup

[gloomy oasis]

Reimu?

[restive ridge]

also her

[obsidian dagger]

Reimu is textbook Gatekeeper though.

Like, I think what you're describing is Gatekeeper.

[vivid wraith]

Does Gatekeeper get a "you are forced into/you are forced out of the mythos" power?

[obsidian dagger]

Well, you have opportunities to create members of the Other whole cloth. One could argue that arc 5 Trap sort of can?

[vivid wraith]

yeah that's still different from what i'm imagining

[narrow tartan]

Hmm. How "Immortal" would you let a high level Flore gift themed around imbuing things with the power of an eternal flame get?

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah. Spell imbues the power of an Other into someone, which is also close. But... because it's Immortal you don't get the sorts of things you're describing.

[candid compass]

For a Greater Infusion or similar, yeah that's just full on immortality

[magic mason]

thinking about "Everyone in Town getting really worried when they see an american who isn't open carrying a firearm"
in Chuubo's
"Are you ok? Did you lose it? Want me to help find it?"

[restive ridge]

(this is from Reverend Insanity CW:Everything)

[obsidian dagger]

Clown Corps is about a Gatecrasher into the secret world of Clowns.

[restive ridge]

We also do this in Europe

[obsidian dagger]

I am considering a cameo appearance from Real American Hot Dogs.

(no guns... probably; it's hard to tell what exactly is in a hot dog, and that's probably for the best.)

[narrow tartan]

What specific cultural touchstones could make estates? Or. Would be interesting if they were estates.

D&D is one. Who would belong to a Game-Lord

[narrow tartan]

And. SCP foundation as something connected to a Brightlord is interesting.
Architect minions to represent task force members.
The big name Doctors as Nobles.
The mysterious upper levels are tied to Awakening.
D-class personnel are manifestations of rampant toxicity

[obsidian dagger]

I once considered the Foundation as a Warmain with the Test of Containment, trying to prove that things didn't matter because if they were isolated from and separated from the rest of reality, the world wouldn't appreciably miss them.

[vivid wraith]

there's a small new jennagame in here

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/516656/visibility-an-rpg-magazine-from-the-trans-community-issue-1

[vestal mist]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/281241712343515136/1364485777420976208/Moon_Teleportation_Planet.jpg?ex=6809d7e8&is=68088668&hm=00028788fea60c295d27c7226e05c5558f3890b252eeded1619c353832b60461&

[obsidian dagger]

I want to share this very Deciever-coded quote from a video game. Note: the awkward cut-off at the beginning and end is in the original.

...last summer I went camping under the big waterfall of Kent. I guess this was a great trip for me, however some people do not understand why. Well, I did lose my left arm, but what the hell, I found out that I had a third arm. The invisible one. Since then I started to learn how to use my karma arm, and soon my skills were those of a master. It wasn't a surprise to me when people started turning their backs on me, since I was considered to be a freak and mentally ill. Funny thing, I can't tell them the truth, it would be like explaining the possibility of space travel to a goldfish. So I'm just trying to...

[vivid wraith]

guess what i've been playing
https://candiedreptile.club/index.php?/search/psk-20250423-kRXTKufsNh#&ui-state=dialog

[obsidian dagger]

? This is just showing me all the iolithae stuff

[vivid wraith]

bleh

this one specifically

[obsidian dagger]

ah fair enough

I don't know everything about Slay the Princess but it does feel Awakening-coded.

Or... possibly not? There's an argument for Called Away.

[restive ridge]

Possibly both

[fleet harbor]

Can be both

The two fit well together

Especially as a “go into your inner world and meet your true self” sort of thing

[obsidian dagger]

...it would be fitting for a true god to have a love story about murdering someone. I'm not sure if they can keep all those actions separate in their head.

[frank light]

Yeah

[obsidian dagger]

There's also something vaguely Actual-esque about building yourself out of other people's perceptions of you. But Actuals are the least likely to have Awakening because they uniquely do not have any deeper structure. They are the deeper structure.

[frank light]

Honestly I think it’s wildlord vibes

She’s something alien, something many limbed and figuring herself out, basing herself on outside perception, caged within the world

That’s so much wildlord vibes

Allegory, primordial, and indomitable all love it

[obsidian dagger]

Fair! And like I said, I don't know everything about Slay the Princess. I watched an LP of part of it but never finished it.

[restive ridge]

Wildlord is def a good suggestion

I think Derpghost suggestrd Mimic too long ago

[vivid wraith]

mimic wildlord

[obsidian dagger]

I think that... maybe not for proper Mimics, but for a lot of Mimic-coded characters in other media, their Blasphemy translates to "I am not a person".

That's what they're trying to spend all their health levels holding back: the idea that they're not a real person, or, sometimes, not a good person.

Sometimes it can also be "the world is a cruel and wicked place and kindness is futile" but that seems more like a not-Fallen thing?

[narrow tartan]

Huh... what if the Blasphemy of the Fallen isn't something from Hell but something from Heaven?

[vivid wraith]

ohoho?

[narrow tartan]

Just a thought.

[candid compass]

@frank light

[frank light]

mm

ive had my thoughts

[magic mason]

sorta like ECLIPSE in GMD?

[narrow tartan]

...i need to actually read the stuff in the book

[vivid wraith]

I forget what Eclipse's thing is

[magic mason]

Eclipse is Arikel's Superpowered Evil Side who wants to murder Jasper

He has Wounded instead of Accursed, with his blasphemy being the fact that he is still Jade's son or something along those lines

[vivid wraith]

ooooooh

[frank light]

it's specifically

something beautiful and good

[obsidian dagger]

I think there is something about wounded angels that they have something which they absolutely despise, which they devote all their health levels and the very essence of their being into suppressing... but they don't just sit back and chill. Implicitly, they find themself in situations where they keep weakening those boundaries, taking Empowered Wounds. And this isn't just a "player characters go on adventures" thing; there's a whole power that causes them to appear to people who are suffering.

And... I think that it's something that many Wounded Angels might not like. Even the really heroic ones probably do not like their tendency of appearing in front of people at their lowest!

Interestingly the Book of Golden Hours also includes "showing up when they're doing something they shouldn't be" which is... probably at least in part a way for Mimic Angels to function by retaining Creature of the Light's arrival and taboo-enforcement powers?

But it is very funny that they just... physically show up in person each time. No long-range haunting or dreamlike projections for them; they just have to walk up.

On a related note, what splat is Goblin?

[vivid wraith]

Gamer

[candid compass]

Games yeah

[obsidian dagger]

Ah, alright.

[candid compass]

The only one in Chuubo with Gamelord arcs is Rinley IIRC

[obsidian dagger]

Currently, yes.

gamers truly are oppressed

[magic mason]

Gamer Mechanically
However I am going back and forth on rather or not they are a Gamer lorewise

[obsidian dagger]

they're a rinley.

[magic mason]

because The Goblin does come back to life in a very similar way to a gamelord

and its even quite human in apperance from what I can tell

less

and more

[restive ridge]

Strategist son or Deceiver daughter

[wheat cobalt]

nonbinary warmain spawn wielding the test of gendered familial roles

[patent tiger]

That could be me

[restive ridge]

If not for the woke mob

[fleet harbor]

Read woke mob as "smoke bomb" for a second

[restive ridge]

fascinating

[restive ridge]

Loading screen tip:
Most Nobles can be used to run Doom due to having Aspect.

[narrow tartan]

I have two self inserty strategists. One isnt more than a vague idea. I went with different strategist for my pfp

But. One of the two strategists, Anaxia Tuliender, is a dollmaker. This was an accident, she wasnt originally going to be a self insert or a doll maker

[narrow tartan]

Does the Juggernaut work as a Noble?

[vivid wraith]

The Marvel character?

[narrow tartan]

Yeah

[vivid wraith]

uhhhhh maybe

[narrow tartan]

Just. No idea what of but his whole unstoppable thing

[vivid wraith]

Could be an Affliction/Geas yeah

[narrow tartan]

Hmm. Overcome your weakness to fire with therapy

[obsidian dagger]

I mean, that feels pretty Indomitable to me.

which would, I suspect, position the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak as a Warmain possessing him possibly?

[narrow tartan]

nodnod

Also. Snowflame as a Gamer.

[vivid wraith]

Sure yeah i guess alright okay sure yeah

[narrow tartan]

I remember. I listened ro a video about him. And it had the line, "the problem is is that they made him cool"

[tall jolt]

What would all give to a Noble of the SKy

Something like
"Is always above you"
"Is infinite"

probably some other things

[magic mason]

Honestly gonna take the controversial stance here and say Noble works pretty well

Noble Of Strength,
Aspect 5 Persona 3

Cytorrak is probably a True God? Maybe a Deep Imperator?
Like a fucked up and evil one

but Vastness/Deepness is good for him

True God Cytorrak probably has Primordial for The Crimson Cosmos

[narrow tartan]

Playing. Something. Terraria wirh some mods with bananatron.

World is named Ninuan

Their are four seperate corruptions

[vivid wraith]

https://www.deviantart.com/crypticmanifestation/art/IOTS-Day-12-The-Living-Blasphemy-336173144

tinyolithae

[reef perch]

iolithae septinyan

[candid compass]

Smolithae

[narrow tartan]

The reason I thought of Juggernaut as a Noble is because his unstoppable nature and how he got his powers.

[narrow tartan]

Serpent game in which the narrative is framed in a distant point of view. Stjff that happened until a spotlight is used

[restive ridge]

Coriander Hasptuah
Iolithae Skibidimian
Euphrasia Sigmanot
Lexiarchos Kaidicinet

[vivid wraith]

no........

[fleet harbor]

I will destroy you Morgana

[narrow tartan]

Miraculous combat is a fight over the metaphysical truth of the world.

[narrow tartan]

becomes exhausted achieve enlightenment

[reef perch]

textrix the deez nuts

[narrow tartan]

still tired and loopy
Is Town Russia after the cold war?

[frank light]

I don’t think so

[narrow tartan]

Okay. Less tired and loopy

The origin of the thouht. Brain thinking about communism, deceivers, and false conciousness

[narrow tartan]

I imagine that an animated version of jenna stuff would have miracles be sort of visually distinct. Or at least at times distinct.

[obsidian dagger]

probably, yes. Red and Black would also feasibly have different visual styles.

[vivid wraith]

What if each miraculous being (or type of?) has their own style?

[vestal mist]

Yes

[obsidian dagger]

Question: would Actuals be weird 3d CGI, or paper style kind of like PMMM witches?

[vivid wraith]

I do like Witch aesthetics for Actuals....

[narrow tartan]

Actuals are a tear through the prosaic world.

Also suddenly thinking about how paper mario games play with the medium

[obsidian dagger]

Red and Black are interesting to compare because Black is the deepest depths of the fabric of the world and Red is the most facile surface of the world and they can frequently look pretty similar!

...has anyone here read Qualia of the Vast (aka Qualia of the Purple)?

[narrow tartan]

Yeah.

[obsidian dagger]

that's one of those works that I think will permanently make an imprint on how I understand media and the world, even if it isn't necessarily The Absolute Best.

And it seems very relevant to this discussion. And is an argument for why, even if true Decievers use Reality Syndrome for power copying, there could be other characters who use the Deceiver splat but do something different with Reality Syndrome.

[narrow tartan]

nodnod

[restive ridge]

https://youtu.be/4fbyV0tmsGQ?si=gHh-tP-GJw1v9DW8

[obsidian dagger]

creature of delirium moment?

Oh, wait, Actuals lost Creature of Delirium. They don't take, they infect.

[narrow tartan]

Hmm. Brightlords

[restive ridge]

Maybe, sorta yeah in this context

But yeah Actuals are the bones of the world, I think visually they should be like half-finished productionsband sketchboards and infecting looks like the video

[obsidian dagger]

yeah. I still think I sometimes use the MESS from Gatchaman CROWDS as an example of an Actual, but I'm not even sure if it really fits, exactly.

[restive ridge]

Nah Id win

[restive ridge]

You can really tell Jenna helped write Weapons of the Gods

[fleet harbor]

I remember when it was really big on rpg.net

There was a really popular PBP of it called Nihao Honey Blues

Which was explicitly done in a modernized school-life setting as a pastiche of harem anime

[restive ridge]

Amazing

[fleet harbor]

IIRC one of the characters used art of Haruko from FLCL

[narrow tartan]

Asura have become even more excrucian coded

the implication of foreign worlds on the tree away from what we know about is interesting.

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, Sol Badguy has Ace. (I'm watching the Guilty Gear anime.)

like... of course he knows how to cook exotic foods well. He's just the kind of character to be good at things.

[restive ridge]

Jovial Merryment is on a Golden Arc and Cyan is on an Sickness 5 Issue

[ruby ivy]

thinking about a Far Roofs Mystery that's about thalassophobia, but instead of the ocean it's the night sky
it's a giant moon-whale that swims just behind the stars, or behind the clouds, and its presence is felt by a marked lessening of gravity
you avoid it by not looking up

it's back looks like the night sky, dotted with too many stars

[restive ridge]

https://geostatonary.itch.io/tired

[vivid wraith]

yoooooo

[vivid wraith]

https://bsky.app/profile/atelierpenny.bsky.social/post/3lntri3omws2l

Penny (@atelierpenny.bsky.social)

it must feel so good to break free of the villains mind control after hearing the voices of your loved ones

Bluesky · Apr 28, 2025, 2:58 AM

[patent tiger]

Y’know yeah it probably does

[magic mason]

Yeah

[candid compass]

this is where I'd expect you to curse the power of love Ru

[magic mason]

@hollow spruce

[patent tiger]

Oh, for sure, if I’m the villain here I’m peeved

[restive ridge]

Very true

I think the generic Xianxia cultivator has Deepness, Wounded Angel, Reality Syndrome and Flore

[vivid wraith]

What's the Deepness bit?

[fleet harbor]

Indomitable

Outright mentions cultivators

My Edgy Webnovel Protag formula is Indomitable, Ace, Hunter, Wounded Angel

[candid compass]

Monstrous is a very protag coded arc

[magic mason]

I will hold that Warmain stays work great for paladins

[candid compass]

angsting about your cursed powers and how awesome and cool they make you

[candid compass]

it does, yeah

though I do also think in my ideal Paladin splat they'd have Wounded too

which is kinda what I was leaning into my Icons homebrew splat too

[narrow tartan]

👀

[candid compass]

oh I can grab my notes if you're curious

[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.

[restive ridge]

I couldnt find somewhere to place it in

I guess it can take the place of Wounded in stories where the Heavens are more passive

[hollow spruce]

Eh?

[magic mason]

Nexus amendment game

[candid compass]

yeah I think fluffy is referring to Shutter

[restive ridge]

Their understanding the Great Dao, their relationship to Heavens Will when its this mysterious overall force that they cant really interact with (makes up half of their relationship to Heaven alongside Wounded, same way Eide and Wyrd constitute the Strategist relationship to their Infection) and also posession and reincarnation are pretty genre-standard powers

[hollow spruce]

lmao yeah

[fleet harbor]

I'd argue that while this is important to Taoism, xianxia as a genre is completely disinterested in it

In xianxia, Taoist practices are a set of cheatcodes for achieving supreme ultimate power

Which reads way more Indomitable than Deepness to me

Time To Eat More 10,000 Year Ginseng

[obsidian dagger]

some of them apply, as a way of projecting one's own understanding of the deep fabric of the world and making it real. The ability to say "the true nature of the world is purity" and make things pure, or "the true nature of the world is violence" and make things violent. But I'm not sure if that's Deepness/Awakening, or if it's Prophet.

[restive ridge]

Maybe

Definitely been reading some works that are absolutely interested in it

[obsidian dagger]

currently trying to figure out if Johnny from Guilty Gear is more of a Creature of the Light or a Creature of Fable. And also whether his song is more evocative of one or the other of those. The song feels Creature of the Light, probably, even though the character... might actually be Allegory?

But a chorus singing about him and chanting "he'll come! he'll come!" seems like... not likely to literally happen when a Creature of the Light uses Appear, but, thematically, correct.

and in the anime, there is one moment where he seems to use the "arbitrarily fast" version of Appear.

[restive ridge]

Light

[frank light]

Me getting addicted to breaking free of the villainous corruption from the voices of my loved ones

[narrow tartan]

Hmm. Oh. Thinking once more of trying to write fic of some sort based on PFP. From point of view of the vampire she dated for a while. Who is an idiot.

I think one idea. Was him meeting her eyes and being about to describe them then a sort of narrative skip forward a few seconds.

[narrow tartan]

realizes that one exceucian oc might have ainhands

[vivid wraith]

The Seeker

[magic mason]

YEAH

[obsidian dagger]

I realized something really obvious which somehow never consciously occurred to me until recently: if a Creature of the Light makes an Intention to fight someone, and that person has some sort of miraculous or chthonic defense, the Auctoritas Magister would block that.

[frank light]

Yup

For example, an Angel’s shield is chthonic (chosen one’s defensive miracle)

The auctoritas magister forces things to play on your terms

[obsidian dagger]

Although it'd only block a chthonic effect if it was used in that exact moment. If it was used prior to the intention being formed to create some sort of Obstacle against being hurt or something, then it wouldn't be chthonic anymore (chthonic effects are only chthonic instantaneously), and it'd just be an obstacle. You'd need Cut the Soul to deal with that.

I thought Impressario had a power that created an Obstacle against people being mad at you but I can't find it. But the Auctoritas Magister wouldn't stop that, probably, because it's just a lingering obstacle.

[frank light]

That would be reality syndrome

And I think that yeah auctoritas magister can’t nullify it

[obsidian dagger]

I think the question is: does the power flicker once when you get it and then the obstacle linger, or does it automatically fire to create an Obstacle only at the moment it's relevant?

Or... no, this is when it fires:

If lowered or removed by events, and you prefer it to remain, this Obstacle will restore itself by a point at the start of every story and the closure of every relevant Issue.

oh, that's interesting. The obstacles seem to imply that it's per-person, and furthermore, restores based on their story completion and (presumably) issue closure. Is there anything else that cares about someone else's Issues, excepting as a proxy for your own Issues in the case of an NPC?

I think Johnny from Guilty Gear has Impresario and Creature of the Light, and maybe Allegory? Sky pirates generally like being allegorical. But, expecially in the anime, he's very Creature of the Light, even going so far as to use the arbitrarily fast version of Appear at one point.

[obsidian dagger]

strange question which I have found myself pondering: what would a Creature of the Light look like in an opera? Yes, they're well-lit, but I always understood that at least in part as stage lighting, and it's just because they're Immortal that the world agrees and goes "yes, you are well lit". So how would red arcs, and especially Creature of the Light, present in the context of opera? And unfortunately I don't know enough about music to answer but I think it's a worthwhile train of thought.

[fleet harbor]

Don Juan

[fleet harbor]

Hey everybody I've figured out what the Wrongness in Creation is

Strategists in the chat are gonna flip

It's Waffle House

[frank light]

Lmao

[restive ridge]

https://tenor.com/view/truth-impact-third-impact-3rd-impact-truth-nuke-anime-meme-gif-9672669363915948084

[fleet harbor]

Mind you, if you burned down all the establishments and broke up the company, that wouldn't be enough

The mere logical possibility of Waffle House makes Creation irredeemable

[gloomy oasis]

So a perfect world would have no need to eat waffles at 3 AM?

[obsidian dagger]

just discovered what happens when you try to ask the Game for relationship advice

[frank light]

Yeah lmao

[patent tiger]

Amazing

[obsidian dagger]

I've always thought of the Game as being, fundamentally, about motion. It doesn't matter if you're rushing forwards or climbing a mountain or plummeting from the peak; you're still moving.

[fleet harbor]

I do think it's important that the Game doesn't see death as incidental

It's not "push yourself until you die", it's "push yourself until you die"

Every good story's gotta have a dramatic third act!

[obsidian dagger]

fair enough!

Arguably because death is the greatest final change that can happen to a person. And the Rules is about stillness and constancy. It wants everything to stay just like it is, forever, and is stymied by the fact that change is an intrinsic part of how things currently are.

[frank light]

Tbf the rules does like innovation

I think some rules magisters are even born from human innovations?

They just want humans to be immortal and eternal. But don’t really know…how to achieve it

[obsidian dagger]

I appear to have misinterpreted the Rules/Game dichotomy somewhat.

[vivid wraith]

lol

[candid compass]

Rules is not necessarily about stasis, although they do like it

they just want humanity to be safe and live forever

[frank light]

the rules and the game are born from the divine essence of humanity
which means theyre surprisingly human centric compared to other imperators

they focus on human concepts at least

[obsidian dagger]

I sort of wonder if the Game even understands that death is permanent, and after someone dies they can't go on to do more things, or if it just... doesn't think ahead that far.

[fleet harbor]

They do, yeah

[candid compass]

they just don't care

the Game says dying is good actually

neither the Rules or the Game actually understand humanity really
they like us, they think we're great
but they don't really understand what it means to be human

[fleet harbor]

To some degree they relate to the competing essential desires for freedom and safety

The Game values freedom in an absolute sense, up to and including freedom from being alive

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” quoth the Grateful Dead

Throw off all restrictions, become truly cool

One can see why they have so much in common with Warmains

The Rules, as Glitch says, only doesn’t stick us in cryogenic tubes because they do understand that that isn’t life

[obsidian dagger]

Fun Gatecrasher devices:

• Memories of individual past reincarnations
• Mostly-amicable exes
• Hired servants (who may not necessarily like or trust you)
• Amusingly ideosyncratic gizmos (this is kind of the default, but I mostly want to point out Doofenshmirtz's -inators)

• Trick arrows, or other kinds of trick ammunition

[magic mason]

did a funny little drawing of Colker and Coldin(My Deciever and his Shard)

[vivid wraith]

woooooooo

[patent tiger]

Yeah

[restive ridge]

Fallen Angels must have some of the sickest cursed swords to hand 9ut

[gloomy oasis]

I love Hell.

No one quote that out of context.

[patent tiger]

Good news, it's mutual

[gloomy oasis]

That segment starting with "The work of Hell is holy in this life." is amazing.

[fleet harbor]

The whole Heaven/Hell dichotomy is amazing

My Power of Vacuum is currently reckoning with how it's a false dichotomy

[restive ridge]

Is it?

[patent tiger]

It is possible to neither love someone nor believe in them, yeah

That's my secret, third, worse ideology

[restive ridge]

TRVTH NVKE

[patent tiger]

(The Dark from Nobilis 2e actually)

[frank light]

Insane

[fleet harbor]

Look Arthur Schopenhauer thought music was the only worthwhile thing in our world, and he fuckin sucked, therefore by the transitive property music is objectively bad

[patent tiger]

SO true

There is no music in heaven

You try to hum and a thousand seraphs beat the shit out of you

[fleet harbor]

All at once, or in sequence?

[patent tiger]

However it works when they dance on the head of a pin

[vestal mist]

That's only 6 of them, though

[patent tiger]

Clearly you've never met a superior pin

[obsidian dagger]

weird thoughts: a creature of fable who is convinced that there is a total karmic balance of good and bad luck in the world, who then takes it upon themself to make lots of people's days very slightly worse with the rationale that if small bad things don't happen, a big awful thing will. ...this is very nearly the hollistic assassin (I think her name was Bart?) from Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency.

It'd be an interesting motivation for an antagonist, particularly one who's theoretically an ally in times of sufficient emergency. Like a teacher at School or something.

[vestal mist]

Sounds like a type of karmic insurance agency

[gloomy oasis]

It makes me think of this card quote.

[austere obsidian]

Hey has anyone here played The Far Roofs yet?

[candid compass]

@vivid wraith

[vivid wraith]

Meeeeee

I ran a three-shot and a short campaign

[austere obsidian]

How is it? I'm trying to understand it's gameplay and it's like trying to read the king in yellow

It's both confusing yet artistic with potentially horrifying themes

[vivid wraith]

I wrote an article in here to describe how it plays
https://free-radicals-press.itch.io/odyssey-zine

I really really like it

(i think it's the last one in the zine you can just skip to it)

[vivid wraith]

A lot of your campaign will spool out from the quests and storylines of the character archetypes you chose

That will probably give you a small selection of Mysteries you can call on

The way I run it, the Mysteries are flashier, scarier bits that break up more conventional portal fantasy adventures

[austere obsidian]

Hey question how would you play this online?

Is there like any tools I can use?

[vivid wraith]

I link one at the end of my article!

If you've used custom card sites before it's not that hard, but I hadn't done that so I had to start from scratch. I think my thing works pretty well though

[austere obsidian]

Oh uh the link is broken

[vivid wraith]

hm

https://screentop.gg/@Stepnix/far-roofs

[austere obsidian]

Thank you!

[restive ridge]

The Will of Heaven as a Deceiver PState

[obsidian dagger]

what arc is Mako Mankanshoku from Kill La Kill? I feel like occasionally she does weird stuff just to express her role as Mako Mankanshoku (in a Become Somebody way) but also she causes weird breaks from reality that sometimes feel closer to Creature of Fable? But are probably still Become Somebody.

like, earlier on, there's a scene where she casually steps out of a rope tying her up in order to be able to give a weird little speech... and then, later, there is... whatever this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bfqfuHcK2s

I think that's still Become Somebody, honestly. A very strange interpretation of Become Somebody, and the kind that wounds the world into making it probably Unreal, but still.

[obsidian dagger]

...I am also suddenly wondering if this is the principle involved in the creation of Chancels. Like, in order to create a place which is good (for whichever arbitrary definition of "good" would motivate you to create a chancel), you need to inflict suffering equivalent to that to balance the scales. This might imply that the victims for the chancel-making have to be arbitrary, and you couldn't pick people you already wanted to visit judgment upon and double-dip.

[vivid wraith]

The chancel victims do have to be murders pretty specifically

[obsidian dagger]

elaborate?

[vivid wraith]

hm okay the word "murder" isn't used in 3e

but 4e's "rite of place" associated with chancel creation (detailed on a blog) is "we may claim a place of safety with a crime"

[fleet harbor]

Which is also the fundamental property of Creation

[obsidian dagger]

which, you know... talk to any Deceiver.

...I wonder if Strategists somehow power creation. Like, in order for Creation to keep working, it occasionally has to pick a random person to dump a load of awfulness onto.

[obsidian dagger]

just found a fun new Wounded Angel blasphemy in a webcomic I'm reading: "your awful husband who lives in your shadow".

(I am being entirely literal with the "living in your shadow" thing, but it could also apply metaphorically.)

[frank light]

ooooo

[obsidian dagger]

https://www.hemlockcomic.com/comic/introduction for context

[frank light]

interesting!

perhaps i ought to check it out

[obsidian dagger]

thus far it's interesting!

the comic appears to have ended prematurely

[frank light]

dam

[narrow tartan]

Hmmm. I need to get better at posting in nobilis game. I know what i want to write next but effort. And have new videogame

[narrow tartan]

Unhinged headcanons. Go!

Humans are a type of bear

[vivid wraith]

Ananda's "Not A Horse" Geas

Nobles are subject to a process called Bishonenization

[narrow tartan]

Heh

[vivid wraith]

Hugh Rosewood runs a moderately popular vlog

[narrow tartan]

Hmm.

[restive ridge]

Deceivers arent actually from Ninnuan and are actually a secret third thing

[narrow tartan]

Heh

[fleet harbor]

Lord Entropy is every type of Imperator

[obsidian dagger]

• Seizhi Schwan has been convinced by Chuubo to wear a bowtie, because they're kind of a boy, and thus should wear something that's kind of a tie.
• Iolithae Septimian can copy someone's powers by kissing a boy or brushing a girl's hair. This is part of why the Titov family specifically sought out (or, possibly, created) Rinley, as a person who's familiar with shrine stuff but cannot be copied.
• Ill-Made is a bunch of snakes woven together into a humanoid form. You would think that this would be easy to detect, but I've given her Creature of Delirium instead of Creature of the Light and so it's surprisingly difficult to notice or point out her serpentine nature unless she has the appropriate Issue (or a nearby PC does, really).

Also I just remembered a thing I was going to use in my Far Roofs game but it never came up so I might as well share it now, for when a seed of "becoming monstrous" sprouts:

Somewhere, a thousand cicadas sing:
"When a cold fire quickens behind your brow,
and your old flesh is snug against your new,
O! how wonderful it is to rip free from yourself!"

on the supposition that humans used to be able to shed their skins and take new shapes and this was a glorious and natural thing but it was lost when Gorgon was sold.

I'm not sure if this is a headcanon I hold or just a possibility I'm considering, but all Breaks from Reality are Surface Wounds on reality (because it's explicitly noted that non-Chthonic sources can hand out surface wounds).

or, on the region, at least.

[obsidian dagger]

terrible random joke thought which popped into my head: Chuubo thinks genealogy has to do with Aladdin.

[vivid wraith]

lol

[narrow tartan]

Hah

Some hinged headcanon idea things I would consider using

-Rinley has met Chuubo's parents (off screen)

-Ananda is an Angel whose position was part of an agreement between the Rule and Heaven to help get everyone working together. His presence on earth in part allows for human cities to exist.

-The Game as a whole likes the Rule. This is not reciprocated. (Specifically they find the difficulties the rule faces in keeping humans alive is hilarious)

[fleet harbor]

• The first gamelords were literally just warmains who wanted to do a Test of Mortality and got really, really into it

[narrow tartan]

lol

[fleet harbor]

That even seems plausible

They decided that what was worthy in Creation was human death

[narrow tartan]

It also fits with the next headcanon.

-the game is surprisingly chill with the idea of humanity rising up en masse and overthrowing the gods of humanity. Its amazing what people will die for.

Probably their ideal outcome is that humanity wins but there is only one survivor who kills themselves

-Warmains don't temper (as opposed to just killing and eating or whateve) those who absolutely ace the test. Its those who have an interesting relationship to what the warmain is looking for

[restive ridge]

Oomfie anger

Banger

[obsidian dagger]

what arcset would Fern from Adventure Time have? Probably Mimic, right? Just by virtue of "I am a fake thing, and know I'm a fake thing, and have to constantly actively work to approximate being 'real' and it sucks"... but it makes it a little odd that Mimics don't get any Orange. They have double Blue instead.

It kind of makes sense? They want to define themself, but they lack the arc which is most about the story of the self, and are predominantly the arc which is about the other.

[obsidian dagger]

actually though that fits. Actuals have to define themselves mechanically, but at least they can. There's no objective truth a Mimic can fall back on as to their nature... and the closest thing there is to an objective truth of their nature is probably their Blasphemy.

[fleet harbor]

Fern is a strategist imo

[obsidian dagger]

Really? He doesn't seem at all like one to me, at least from what I remember (which might be wrong). Why do you think he's a strategist?

[fleet harbor]

The very short explanation is "you took a perfectly nice plant, and gave it anxiety"

It's more that Fern's personal arc is about alienation, loss of identity, and ultimately death

Which is strategist central to be tbh

[obsidian dagger]

I didn't think Strategists were about loss of identity. I thought they were about other things. But having not read Glitch, I'm willing to trust your relative expertise.

[fleet harbor]

The strategist ending books are basically all about the breakdown of self in some way

Fern wasn't exactly created in abject misery, there was no great secret behind his being

But the world just couldn't leave him alone, after a fashion

So to me, Strategist

I can certainly see mimic but

[obsidian dagger]

from the moment of his creation he knew he was fake. Or very quickly, at least.

[fleet harbor]

I dunno the kid seems too angry

I suppose there's also an argument for deceiver in there but

It's not some sort of secret knowledge or revelation, really

It's just that he cannot coexist with the world

The whole Green Knight persona feels like the strategist's customary rampage, if that makes sense?

[obsidian dagger]

isn't that also the nature of mimics? They cannot coexist with the world as they truly are. Unlike strategists, they can hide it and fit in that way (rather than having a sanctuary to retreat to), but they're still part of the Warhost.

Actually, why do Mimics war against the world? Like, what's their motivation for doing so specifically? Obviously it'll vary individual to individual but I'm curious.

[fleet harbor]

It’s one part that their inner blasphemy is full of hatred for Creation

And four parts “everyone wants to kill them”

[vivid wraith]

you wake up and a lord of the void holding a world-killing weapon says "i made you and own you" and following their instructions sounds like a really good idea

[obsidian dagger]

...I want a mimic game.

[fleet harbor]

Robin’s current plan for their mimic imperator is to replace her blasphemy with something that gives her a choice

[candid compass]

They don't always

But Mimic estates also are never as they should be

They are corrosive, incoherent

[obsidian dagger]

Ah. So even if they aren't hostile to the world on purpose, they're still bad for the world just by existing.

[candid compass]

Yes

[fleet harbor]

And the default response of the world is “we gotta kill you” in the best case

[obsidian dagger]

...the issue with a mimic game is that it posits a character type where it is arguably unethical for you to exist.

[vivid wraith]

Jenna has mentioned "what if mimic game" before

[vivid wraith]

Gltich managed to make it work

[obsidian dagger]

For mimics? Because Strategists are not harmful to others by virtue of their existance.

[frank light]

to be fair

that is actually an interesting premise

because Glitch posits that it is unethical for the world to exist

and asks you to allow the world to exist anyway

so

"your existence is fundamentally unethical" is pretty par for the course of jenna premises

[obsidian dagger]

"your existence is fundamentally unethical and harmful to others, it is difficult to minimize that harm and comparatively easy to maximize it, and your best hope at survival is in persistently pretending to be something which you're acutely aware you can never be" is definitely interesting, yeah.

...I wonder if mimics ever feel jealous of strategists? Because, yes, their existences are awful and the world hates them for no reason... but their pain is real, and they have a place they can retreat to in times of emergency and danger and it's safe for them. If you're a mimic, you don't even have that.

the most objectively real and true thing about you is your blasphemy, and it's implicit in the concept that you do not want to accept that. You have to reject the idea that your blasphemy represents, which for mimics is probably "you are a weapon". But without that... what do you have, really?

You don't have anything Black or Green that you can use to anchor yourself to something larger and more meaningful. You don't have any Orange with which to define yourself. You don't have any Purple you can count on for support or sanctuary. You have nothing Immortal, no arcs which are good for you and reifying and right and proper.

...I wonder if a Mimic game would have the players playing as each other's Blasphemies kind of like Wraith did in OWoD/CoD? (Note that I know almost nothing about Wraith.)

[vivid wraith]

I'd be very surprised if they're like, conscious at all

[obsidian dagger]

At Wounded Angel 4, your Blasphemy will take action to protect you. That typically implies some level of agency for it. (Sometimes your Blasphemy is, to some extent, you, even if you don't want it to be... which admittedly muddies the waters.)

[narrow tartan]

Mimic game.

[obsidian dagger]

...probably. There's probably something better tonally but... actually, is there? I bounced off of Spy x Family early on so I don't actually know.

but at least two of the people are much better at violence than at living an earnest life, which seems fitting.

what does high Creature of Delirium mean for a Mimic? High Wounded Angel implies that they're defining themself... not necessarily in terms of their Blasphemy (they still reject it, because that's what Wounded Angel means) but more in conversation with that, trying to figure out if some part of that is acceptable. High Gatecrasher implies falling deeper into your role, becoming more and more like the role you're pretending to, and defining yourself in terms of that. High Troubled... I think is about living life one day at a time, accepting the suffering and making peace with it instead of trying to find a solution to it. So what's high Creature of Delirium?

If you assume all the arcs are different answers to "how do you cope with everything being a Mimic entails", which I basically am.

[narrow tartan]

Basically spy family is kind of my joke suggestion for a mimic game. Evergone thinks they are the only mimic

[obsidian dagger]

...this is a weird shout, but Rondo of Swords has a main character as the prince's body double, who is pretending to be the prince permanently now, and I'm trying to figure out if he's relevant.

Ultimately, no, I don't think so. I think the plot is a bit Orange for that, about either becoming the prince, or becoming a decidedly different person.

[restive ridge]

DOUBT

[obsidian dagger]

No, I'm serious. Unless I'm missing something, none of their arcs make them passively harmful to either those around them or reality as a whole. They're capable of inflicting great harm, sure! But they're not Toxic like an angel or ruler, for instance. Am I missing something somewhere?

If anything, they seem more likely to be punished for other people's sins, not vice versa.

[patent tiger]

It depends in part on the nature of their Bane

Since several of them will mess with the world around them as collateral as they get worse

[obsidian dagger]

Fair enough. ...and, yeah, Accursed has a wail that gives you MP and makes everything worse for those around you.

[magic mason]

One of the classic accursed curses is “slowly become more and more fucked up and evil/consumed by an evil side”

Like one of the iconic strategists in 3e has that

Its definitely not universal but it was a bigger thing in 3e

[obsidian dagger]

Fair enough.

Yeah, Strategists are inherently dangerous to those around them. Even though they can also be very good for those people in other ways, via Sentimental.

[magic mason]

Malakai Mesmer who is dying of… I forget but it makes him pin people to the wall like butterflies so he can have someone to talk to

(Also if you noticed the last name, relation is unclear to Miramie)

[narrow tartan]

What if you took Excrucians. And you made them the evil demon lords of a fantasy campaign setting

[restive ridge]

Thats a hook in the Glitch book

[narrow tartan]

Mhmm. Yeah.

[narrow tartan]

I think that was partly about issekai? But I meed sleep

[candid compass]

IIRC it's Lost Sympathy or something

[candid compass]

They are very suited to that

[fleet harbor]

This seems like the opposite of a problem to me imo

People love playing vampires for a reason

[narrow tartan]

But. The joke thig is. Putting Excrucian Cults in D&D

[narrow tartan]

The film encanto but partway through Mirabel realizes the world is false

But Excrucian cults in fantasy games are probably not too weird until they summon their patron who turns out to be weird

[obsidian dagger]

https://xkcd.com/2904/ posted this elsewhere and then realized I should post here too

xkcd: Physics vs. Magic

'At the stroke of midnight, your brother will be hurtling sideways at an altitude of 150 meters' is a regular physics prediction about your nonmagical trebuchet, whereas 'you are cursed to build a brother-launching trebuchet' falls out of the Lagrangian.

[narrow tartan]

I understand jenna games incorrectly.

[obsidian dagger]

I think everybody does.

[narrow tartan]

I disagree. I am uniquely bad.

[obsidian dagger]

I don't think so, personally.

[vestal mist]

If one thinks Jennagames make sense, they cannot have possibly read them correctly

(Apologies to Feynmann)

[obsidian dagger]

Just remembered my idea for a Called Away character who was Called Away to a place of, fundamentally, Shelter.

It's a bunch of tunnels through soft soil, each just barely big enough to crawl through without feeling claustrophobic (which of course means that different people might have varying ideas of the tunnel's precise sizes). It's hard to see, but there's a faint sourceless light, and the air is full of the smells of rain and turned earth. And it seems like it maybe should be creepy or worrying, but it's definitionally not. You look at those tunnels, and the idea of there being something dangerous in there simply does not make sense. It's fundamentally incongruous.

It's like hiding under your blankets and being completely utterly certain that you are safe inside, no matter what horrors might be lurking outside the fabric walls. It's like sitting by the window and hearing the storm rage against the glass, but knowing it cannot touch you. It's security and safety and home. "Though danger may lurk scant inches away," it states, "beyond this threshold you are safe."

I'm envisioning this character digging holes filled with this primordial earth (even when not on ground level or in a boat or something) to sleep in, because it's a good place to sleep. The earth is soft and loamy, and also, you are self-evidently secure while sleeping in one of those holes, and even if you're not totally invulnerable to outside harm you feel like it and that helps with rest.

[obsidian dagger]

I wonder if high-Creature of Delirium Mimics look like they're suffering the least? They aren't suffering any less than anyone else, of course. But they seem like they are.

[fleet harbor]

Style is generally the one most strongly related to pretending to be functional

Or Eide

IIRC they're Style, Eide, Theft, Wounded?

Hell of a lineup to be tbh

[obsidian dagger]

yeah. Style/Gatecrasher seems like coping by pretending to be whatever your assigned role is, Wounded Angel is coping by learning to come to terms with your Blasphemy and your horrible nature, and Eide/Troubled is living one day at a time and simply existing and being... and I'm trying to figure out what Theft/Creature of Delirium means in that context.

[frank light]

yup

its a surprisingly strong lineup for mimicking literally any power from other imperators

Theft gives them a lot of general storyteller arc abilities and weird shit like shapeshifting or destiny manipulating miracles that probably lets them easily pretend to be angels or fallen or true gods

Style gives them just...a whole lot of bullshit that lets them be what theyre supposed to be through some raw power and cheats

wounded angel lets you do...literally anything if you have the Health for it. They can get a number of miracles and chthonic abilities to represent whatever they need, including faking Limbs or traits from other imperators

Eide is just also useful for being a tricky little bastard? Strategies let you spin schemes, misdirections let you disguise holes in your lies, intensity lets you use authority, and good LORD is greater Costumery handy for generating all kinds of phantasmagorical effects

[fleet harbor]

And if your technique is "angel" Eide helps you pretend to be that

[frank light]

yeah

hell it can probably let you use some variant of stunt and costumery and greater intensity to pretend to have Toxic

[fleet harbor]

Between Eide, Wounded, and Style, there's a lot of tools to play hidden role games.

[obsidian dagger]

I was just positing that each of a mimic's arcs represent answers to the question of how they deal with the burden of their existance. Gatecrasher has them sinking deeper into their emulated role, Wounded Angel has them coming to better terms with their Blasphemy, and Troubled has them living within their suffering... but I don't understand what Creature of Delirium does in that model.

[fleet harbor]

Well, one thing is that a central use of Theft is on oneself

Yes you can use it to hurt and transform others

You can also use it to hurt and transform you!

[frank light]

yea

[fleet harbor]

Hell, in Karen's Chuubo's game I think our Creature of Delirium user has only used it on herself

[patent tiger]

Not the NPC one though qq

[frank light]

hah

[obsidian dagger]

I... somehow totally missed that. I always thought that it was taking part of someone and claiming sovereignty over them. It didn't even occur to me that you could extract your own weymark to use to fuel magic.

[vivid wraith]

it's a little cheaty but

it's a cheaty power anyway

[obsidian dagger]

no, that's Sickly Gold, not Red

But does that imply that going down high Creature of Delirium means that the Mimic is coping with their own trauma by hurting people (possibly including themself)? I kind of don't want that to be the case...

It might be, though.

[frank light]

something that i believe Jasmine Apocynum is noted to do sometimes

[frank light]

it might not even be that

keep in mind that doing weird shit like shaping people with weymarks can be a genuinely cathartic experience

perhaps this is helpful for conceptualizing it?

[fleet harbor]

And the way this comes up in Fable of the Swan shows how it need not be toxic

But also that it is a very painful thing to do to oneself

[frank light]

yeah

[obsidian dagger]

so what does that mean about the kind of Mimic who, in response to their traumas, picks up a bunch of Creature of Delirium?

or I guess I could equivalently ask: when a Mimic specifically is actively on a red arc and increasing their Creature of Delirium, what does that look like? What sorts of things are they particularly... well, "doing", but also experiencing since Red arcs are pretty experiential?

[frank light]

i think the thing theyre representing, the place of chaos they call home, is within that blasphemy, within that awful thing placed at the center of their laws

and i guess to be a full creature of delirium is to acknowledge the service of it

i think in the end, its also a storyteller arc, so its also maybe a little bit aware that its about a role, that its about being a character
it might lean into that

[obsidian dagger]

True. I thought that was more Wounded Angel, but... maybe Wounded Angel is about conversation with the Blasphemy, trying to constrain it or learn what aspects of it aren't intrinsically vile? Wounded Angel is fundamentally about compromise, after all.

[frank light]

both of them can probably be a bit in conversation with it

i think wounded angel is more directly in tune with the blasphemy itself

while delirium is in tune with the imperfect necromancy of your estates

delirium is about what your laws mean in the world i think

i think the Experience that a mimic is in service to/denies is probably linked to one or multiple of their estates

[obsidian dagger]

Isn't that Gatecrasher, though? Since that's the arc for pretending to be what you're supposed to imitate.

[frank light]

true!
but to be fair many beings have more than one stat for interacting with their estates

true gods do it with 3 entire stats

serpents probably do it with all 4

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, but I'm not asking about what they do so much as what they mean. Like, yes, multiple stats do the work of interacting with their Estates.

[frank light]

yeah

i figure Delirium is gonna mess around with the fact that your estates arent...real
or that they arent right
theyre unnatural

its your unnaturalness

your not quite rightness

[obsidian dagger]

But if you ask the question of "how do you cope with being inherently Wrong", I think each of the arcs are a different answer. So that would be:

• Wounded Angel: by investigating the blasphemy half of you, and being in conversation with that (which is, arguably, what your creator says you primarily are — a weapon of the Host)
• Gatecrasher: by investigating what the people around you say you are — your estates, and the like
• Troubled: by just... living through the existential pain, and the horribleness, and staying one step ahead one day at a time
• Creature of Delirium: by??? Maybe by embracing your dissonance with other things? I don't think it's "self-determination" because they're all self-determination, but maybe it's rejection of the other three. It's saying "I am something complex and different, not just a weapon, not just a thing-in-pain, not just empty skin".

I wonder if Creature of Delirium is, to them, similar to what Gatecrasher is to Strategists. Not at all the same; it's Sickly, not Immortal, so pursuing it doesn't intrinsically preserve you. There is no rightness to be had.

...but maybe it's some of the beauty of the Not. It is a sickly thing, yea, and it eats away at you and rips out parts of people... but still, it has a beauty. Still it captivates.

I mean, "seeing the beauty of the Not" is arguably what Wounded Angel is supposed to be, if the Not is primarily symbolized by your Blasphemy. That's the issue I run into.

[vivid wraith]

I would not assume the Not is what's symbolized by your blasphemy

The blasphemy is described as something more... directly deadly

[obsidian dagger]

You're right. It's not about the Not; it's about the Warhost who created you.

[obsidian dagger]

Where do the blasphemies come from, anyway? Like, do Excrucians prebuild Blasphemies and then create mimics as blasphemy delivery mechanisms? Is the blasphemy a side effect of the process of mimic creation? Are the Blasphemies primarily used as a power source for the Mimics, not a weapon in their own right?

Leonardo was allegedly alive and then had a blasphemy inserted into him, but everything to do with Leonardo is entirely alleged.

[vivid wraith]

I thiiiink it's more like a side effect but I am not the Mimic Knower

[obsidian dagger]

I assumed that... if we're assuming (per that one quote from Jenna) that Blasphemies represent something you're vehemently denying, a Mimic's Blasphemy mostly means "you are a monster" or, possibly, "you are a weapon of the Not against the Is".

[frank light]

they seem to be built in the process, but its also possibly something you have to find/gather

for strategists, building a mimic is a Greater Invocation, so the actual specifications are pretty broad

but if you're asking what the blasphemy is

it's this

"a horrible twisting secret blasphemy of the void. At the heart of each mimic is something as abhorrent to them, as unacceptable to them, as the world itself. It shackles them into service and it ensures that when they are done, ending themselves is a release; is a freedom"

"The horror that is inside them is not a glitch. It's awful, but it's much cleaner than that. It's just a part of the rage of Ninuan that the world exists; that the Glitch exists; that everything that is awful is awful and that everything that is good in the world is not actually good."

[obsidian dagger]

So it's the rage of Ninuan against the world. I think... hm.

[frank light]

it's what makes them truly excrucians i suppose

excrucians embody in some way the desire of the void to kill the world

[fleet harbor]

Hm persuading Eudonia might be easier than Robin thinks (no it won't)

[frank light]

hahahaahaha

[obsidian dagger]

I think Ninuan thinks that the cosmic laws — all of them, everything that Is — are corrosive. They erode the Not. And so that rage is what makes a Mimic's laws scathing and painful and wrong to the Is.

[fleet harbor]

Not Ninuan so muich as the warhost

[frank light]

well it does say ninuan

but i suppose ninuan is multifaceted

[fleet harbor]

The warhost would not draw that distinction, in general

[frank light]

the warhost also i suppose embodies the rage of ninuan that the world exists

[fleet harbor]

Or, well, let me rephrase

[frank light]

the violence of perception indeed

the world should not be, so they say

[obsidian dagger]

Arguably, both of a Mimic's blue arcs are what other people say they are.

[fleet harbor]

It's the rage of Ninuan, but Ninuan has other things going on than just rage against Creation

[frank light]

oh yeah for sure

ninuan has a lot of things in it
it's a whole infinity of nothingness

[obsidian dagger]

Gatecrasher is what everybody who doesn't know they're a mimic says they are, and Wounded Angel is what Ninuan and/or the Warhost says they are.

[frank light]

wounded angel is, inevitably, their core
the center of them
what theyre built around

Leonardo de Montreal is like

THE titular mimic with Wounded Angel

[obsidian dagger]

and if you're trying to define yourself, it makes sense to look to what other people say. But there is some Extremely Unsubtle metaphorical potential at hand when you look at Wounded Angel, and realize that what a mimic's parents creator says they are is something which they absolutely refuse and reject.

[fleet harbor]

A far and sunless land

[frank light]

yeah

[obsidian dagger]

I find it interesting that if you take Wounded Angel 5, if you really lean into it, you can find a home. You can find a location which you're connected to.

...but those locations are also tied to a Green issue. So they're bad for you, or, you don't fit perfectly into them until you've been a little corroded first.

I mean, it's a Sickly arc. So... I don't think that any arcs are intrinsically bad for you. They help you grow. But Sickly arcs definitely make you suffer, at minimum.

[frank light]

sickly arcs tend to have a bad time associated yeah

[fleet harbor]

Wounded Angel 4 is the one that interests me most

[obsidian dagger]

That's when your Blasphemy acts to protect you, right?

I'm still not sure if a Mimic's Blasphemy is sentient. If it's a person, and, if so, if that's a different person than the mimic themself. The Mimic will certainly exclaim that isn't them, and because they're on a Blue arc rather than a Green one they're probably at least mostly right about that... but maybe not entirely?

[patent tiger]

I don't think the blasphemy would be sentient?

[obsidian dagger]

probably not. It's intentionally vague whether the Wounded Angel 4 rescue is something the blasphemy does, or something you do. The HG can invoke it either way, which is interesting (and, in some cases, would make it one of the very few instances where the HG gets to directly say that the PC does something, I'm realizing — although of course the PC can resist it. But it's still atypical).

[obsidian dagger]

I'm assuming that this is a "do what you need" power, and chthonic on those grounds, but I need to check because I suspect it may be chthonic on "arguably screw with who's playing who" grounds as well.

OH. Another important thing I forgot about at Wounded Angel 4: the ability to delay your blasphemy's release. That really implies that, by the time you get that far, you have some contol over your blasphemy.

[restive ridge]

Creature of Delirium is also what replaces a Mimics powers to interact with people in a healthy way and some sort of walking storm of hollowing out people into vessels and at best cathartic trauma

If that helps for conceptualising how leaning into it can help a Mimic cope

[obsidian dagger]

Ooh.

Iiiiinteresting.

[magic mason]

Blasphemies don'thave to be but there is a couple abilities in wounded where the blasphemy can go out and do some stuff for you
which presumes its at least kinda an entity

[vivid wraith]

sure but that's easily like
Thematically Resonant Coincidence or animist pseudoconsciousness rather than the blasphemy making independent decisions

[magic mason]

Very true

[obsidian dagger]

Also, it’s worth noting that the range of things a Blasphemy can be is wider than the range of things a Mimic’s Blasphemy can be.

[restive ridge]

Are Blasphemied Turing Complete

[vivid wraith]

more research required. who wants to make some mimics to check

[fleet harbor]

Robin (pre act 2): Me! Me!

[narrow tartan]

What does Creature of Delirium say about the camera? And the sort of narrative role of characters?

I know Hunter is partially about asserting your story is the one that matters

[obsidian dagger]

I don’t fully understand the answer well enough to articulate it myself, but it’s… parasitic, kind of? Or like… you’re a separate, invading story.

[narrow tartan]

Also. This thing.
. but the “colors” of the Deceiver Arcs themselves are relatively peppy: they’ve got “dramatic suffering while having a good time,” “dramatic suffering while being over-the-top,” and “dramatic suffering that’s spiritually enriching” (plus “dramatic suffering to live up to their role in the world,” which isn’t really peppy, but isn’t *not* peppy.)

The last two are Awakening and Star Quality.

But is Red Having a good time and Gold being over the top or the other way around?

[obsidian dagger]

Yeah, the Gold sign is Over The Top.

[restive ridge]

Metal Gear Solid 5 is a Mimic game

(most of MGS is a Mimic game but especially Phantom Pain)

[restive ridge]

We've all got that one homie who is a shell of his former self

[obsidian dagger]

thinking about Fear and Hunger (the game series) but also the fact that a True God of Fear and Hunger would make total sense, actually. Fear, Hunger, Pain, and... I'm not sure what else.

They feel like true god concepts because they're just so... low-level.

I'm just remembering this old property set for Hunger and thinking about what playing it would look like. Possibly involving making inanimate objects hungry in order to quicken them to life?

[candid compass]

tricky properties to make work

but you can always just lean less into Persona

[obsidian dagger]

I think it'd work best as a property to like... embody with Prophet, rather than interact with as a Noble would.

that said, a noble of Hunger could definitely do interesting things. But, yeah, they're kind of wonky principles. I do think that they probably get to animate inanimate objects by making them hungry, though! Which is a very strange sentence to say, and not even the kind of thing Nobles generally like to do with their default power set necessarily, but it sort of hangs together.

[candid compass]

Domain can definitely do stuff with this

and worst case, you can always just rely on Aspect and Flore to do stuff

and not interact much with your estate

[obsidian dagger]

I'm suddenly remembering my random idea for a high-Aspect Noble of Prairies, who took advantage of the fact that prairies regrow after being burnt down to the roots (I don't know how to word that but that's definitely a property of prairies) to be extremely durable.

like, burning to the ground and growing back from the roots are both, in my mind, intrinsic to the aboutness of a prairie.

also I know that usually you shouldn't munge multiple things into a single property but there's one example I can think of where two things really are the same property in my mind: makes some spots very hot while leaving other spots frozen, for Microwave Ovens.

[fleet harbor]

You do need decent persona to take personal advantage of your estate properties

[candid compass]

Embodiment is... Persona 3 IIRC?

[restive ridge]

Horse Carriages
-Require horses to provide energy to them
-Contain secrets
-Are suitable places for asassinations
-Let people know you are rich
-Can march on forever
-Need a driver to be piloted by

[candid compass]

Hitting people with the "require horses for energy" beam

Or needing a driver

[vivid wraith]

"needs a driver" also a wild beam option yeah

[fleet harbor]

Tragically, if you take an embodiment gift with Persona 0, the resulting afflictions are level 0

Since the afflictions are equal to your persona

[patent tiger]

Good luck assassinating me when every room I enter is unsuitable

This is a fun list

[candid compass]

Destroying the capability for something to contain secrets

[patent tiger]

Or destroying the secrets it contains implicitly (since it doesn't have them anymore)

[obsidian dagger]

or does destroying the capacity to contain secrets merely destroy their secrecy?

[patent tiger]

Sacrifice always makes the results less predictable

So it could be any of those, context-dependent

[obsidian dagger]

one very fun property I came up with once was are very far away, although that whole estate is a little wonky (it was for exoplanets).

and I'm not even sure if those exist.

I just had a horrible thought, which was "if exoplanets exist solely in the prosaic, any attempt to call forth their Power would result in an Actual instead" which in turn evoked ideas of an astronomical Actual which is, I think, more or less the plot of a Junji Ito manga? (Like, a specific one.)

[obsidian dagger]

which Red arc is "Ring-ring. Mary-san here. I'm right behind you." — it has to be Creature of the Light, right? completely with the gradual foreshadowing.

...upon finding an original version, she calls someone who's unplugged their phone, which seems like a Become Somebody move to pull.

Yeah this feels arguably more like Become Somebody.

https://www.kowabana.net/2018/06/09/mary-san/ for reference if people didn't know

[magic mason]

huh yeah

[fleet harbor]

Foxen...
...are devious tricksters.
...are fluffier than you expect. have a reputation for strange and mysterious powers.
...are unfairly maligned.
...are very ears. have been universally acknowledged as handsome.
...are cats on dog hardware. bear the moral of the story. (credit derpghost)
...are keen of nose and soft of step.
...are survivors.

[restive ridge]

LMAO

[obsidian dagger]

...I think Koishi Komeiji from Touhou is a Wounded Angel. Althought that might suggest that if she was defeated, her third eye would reopen?

Of note, her Mary-San urban legend powers might not actually be a thing she can do, but rather a thing she purchased from Sumireko's MP shop.

I think her wounds are like... emotions? Or thoughts?

but... the biggest thing that happens to her is that she picks up another character's Mask of Hope (a mask that they use to evoke hope, and also to properly feel hope). This isn't a Creature of Delirium thing because she couldn't do it to anyone else, but that one character just carries around all her emotions as masks. But, with the Mask of Hope, Koishi becomes more... visible? She previously made everybody forget about her, but with the mask of hope she subconsciously drew people's attention and started to enjoy playing around.

Is that an Empowered Wound? Is it the healing of an Empowered Wound? Something else?

[narrow tartan]

I had a dream about stratests. Or sometjing tjat felt sort of loke them? Hard to remember

[obsidian dagger]

CW: flashing lights

I've been watching this Koishi song on loop lately and... is it just me, or does it feel very Wounded Angel? Or at least some lines do, and those feel Wounded Angel in a way which feels almost more Fallen Angel-y... but then other parts almost seem like arguably Creature of Delirium? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD_BpPvkLq0

CW: flashing lights

Could a Creature of Delirium become invisible by extracting other people's perceptions of them? I mean, if their experience is something like "memories" they could do the "partial extraction" thing probably.

[restive ridge]

It's definitely Fallen-coded

Maybe Actual

[obsidian dagger]

the implication that reading other people's minds is maybe her blasphemy is interesting, and vaguely evocative of the idea that fallen angels may have to constantly struggle to avoid ascending again?

The only other Touhou characters i can think of... Reimu probably has Angel arcs but is specifically high Gatekeeper, and Marisa might have Gatecrasher?

Like, see this panel, which is just Gatekeeper in a nutshell:

Mamizou in the manga reads as kind of strongly Impressario?

Yukari is probably a Keeper of Gardens but I could honestly see arguments for Sentimental instead. It's complicated somewhat by her strong ties to Gensokyo, which is notionally a Chancel she created (and I don't think she sacrificed 100 innocent lives to create it, but it would not be out-of-character for her if she did).

[undone flame]

https://i.imgur.com/FM4ep2V.png

this bug is never not funny

[vivid wraith]

hehehehhehe

[frank light]

one time i got Ashely from andy and leyley when i looked up Serpents

[fleet harbor]

Can't believe the angels are all saberfaces

[vivid wraith]

i can

[restive ridge]

No that completely tracks tbh

[obsidian dagger]

I feel obliged to post this here. https://xkcd.com/1486/

xkcd: Vacuum

Do you think you could actually clean the living room at some point, though?

[vivid wraith]

@fleet harbor

[patent tiger]

Honestly I think the funniest part of this comic is the guy's first reaction was to still insist that's not how it works

That makes me feel seen so much

[frank light]

yea

[fleet harbor]

I should have Robin do more electricity bullshit

It's on the Domain ladder I wrote