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

1 messages · Page 31 of 1

obsidian dagger
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The Haunted Child is sometimes called upon to bring the Goldburgs a pineapple.

vivid wraith
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Rewatched The Boy and the Heron. i love the Far Roofs

obsidian dagger
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yeah, it really was. I am entirely convinced that movie is strongly inspired by a literal dream.

ancient lagoon
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kifri...

obsidian dagger
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Do they have coconuts in Fortitude? I ask because I know they have pineapple.

restive ridge
obsidian dagger
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we really out here inventing brand new heresies

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Also, I can't figure out which splat this is.

ancient lagoon
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hm
Serpent?

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or possibly Angel?

obsidian dagger
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...I could see a weird, slightly backward argument for Warmain.

frank light
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The demiurge as an incompetent but well meaning creator god wouldn’t be too weird in Gnosticism

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He is characterized by his ignorance after all

magic mason
frank light
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Yeah demiurges are very serpent

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They care not for enlightenment. They care about the world

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They’re the opposite of deceivers

magic mason
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They also tend to have really high kill counts but not really… know

grand knot
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The demiurge was female and was filled with joy when an entity from pleroma visited her to demonstrate Truth

frank light
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Cute

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I like that

grand knot
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It was some beautiful performance

ancient lagoon
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i love Techno
i'm pretty sure Danganronpa is like
a peak example of Techno

restive ridge
narrow tartan
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Beavers are immature tophats

obsidian dagger
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For reference, the character in question is ||a lion dance. Not one of the individual dancers, or both; the dancers are just performing it.|| It's very Awakening.

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I'm not sure why it's tagged as adult? It mentions the word "strumpet", I guess?

grand knot
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Hm what would the villain of mario and luigi brothership be?

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In the story ||he is some organism that isolates people of a planet in illusions, until they die. The blooming tree that traps people creates a seed so he can be reborn in another world||

obsidian dagger
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Hm. ||Vibes sound like maybe Warmain? But maybe the strange Warmain who wants Creature of Delirium; there was always a bit of confusion about what red arc Warmains had.||

ancient lagoon
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||i feel like that’s Awakening||
||having dreamed the world into being is an example given in the book, the seed is the second self, drawing people in could be Absorption?||
||Jenna also talks in Child of the Ash about how if you, were cast into the Outside, you could notionally reform your Realm around yourself, and it would be self-sufficient||
||(and it can live up to that with quest miracles starting at arc 3)||

||The Far Roofs has two characters who have similar powers; we don’t get full writeups, but the book suggests that one is a Light Magister and one is a True God||

grand knot
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Oh btw the villain's name is Reclusa

narrow tartan
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Does anyone have that meme. With. "You adore the abhorrent nature of creation dont you"

narrow tartan
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Camora follower of Divine Command theory

vivid wraith
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well the easy way to do that is make Entropy the one giving the divine commands but that feels a little too easy

narrow tartan
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Thats pretty much what i was thinking. Was thinking about evil religions of evil in fantasy

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And how I dont like them.

ancient lagoon
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i mean like
if Morality is an Estate then DCT is literally true

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right

obsidian dagger
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Somehow, I appear to be preparing to run a Chuubo's one-shot tomorrow for 7 people who have never heard of Chuubo's before. It's a mystery how we got to this point but I am just going with it and riding the wave. Wish me luck?

vivid wraith
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Good luck
Have fun
Never admit defeat

obsidian dagger
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It's going to be Star Trek themed! Also my first time using Chuubo's for a one-shot or Adventure Fantasy. We're all going to learn a lot.

obsidian dagger
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Session over! One person had to ditch, and I’m not sure I explained everything well enough, but everyone seemed to have a blast.

narrow tartan
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Sweet

vivid wraith
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Yay!

vestal mist
frank light
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Yea

narrow tartan
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Strategist dying of Secrets.

grand knot
obsidian dagger
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I have not watched Iron Giant but is the Iron Giant a Strategist (dying of, presumably, War)?

narrow tartan
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I see the vision

narrow tartan
vestal mist
narrow tartan
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Fallen angel of love

obsidian dagger
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Primordial who gets limbs from cutaways to distant scientists speculating about its capabilities

narrow tartan
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Randomly remembered. Strategist dying from censorship whose destruction effects events and time in various ways. And how it also edits video footage of him

vivid wraith
narrow tartan
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Excrucian eyes depicted as literal holes that reveal a backdrop

restive ridge
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Jenna Moran Cedes To The Mob Alienates Old Fans By Renaming Nobilis to Pronounibilis

vivid wraith
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the woke camorra

vestal mist
restive ridge
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she got us good

vivid wraith
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lol

fleet harbor
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wood components for her copy of Wingspan

frank light
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Holy shit

vestal mist
sleek socket
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do you think there would be a power of chuds

fleet harbor
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There could be

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Chuds are an estate

sleek socket
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i already own wood components for wingspan. i guess im trans now

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wait

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wrong adjective

fleet harbor
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I just crack up at any mention of Wingspan because Winged really dislikes it and people ping her about it a lot

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That is Wingspan to me

sleek socket
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i feel like evil winged

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i like wingspan and i also like birds

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i think it has birds in the game, adequately, theming

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that was really eloquent, let me rephrase

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mechanics are consistently applied across various bird types consistently with their irl habits

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but in an extremely nerdy way that really isn't apparent without knowing stuff like seasonal migration patterns of specific bird varieties and nesting patterns of niche obscure ducks

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also the cuck powers are very strong

vivid wraith
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very important

sleek socket
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it is

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all cuckoos in wingspan have similar variants on the same core power

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the cuckoo has no nest, and so cant have any eggs laid on its card
whenever other birds lay eggs, you can place one of your own eggs on one of your own bird, representing the cuckold laying parasitic eggs in another nest

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s good i like it

narrow tartan
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Corvids op

vivid wraith
tall jolt
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anyone running a nobilisgame?

fleet harbor
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Are you looking for one to join, tbc?

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Because I know a few that are ongoing if you have some other purpose in mind

tall jolt
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Kinda looking for one to join yeah, the first one kinda puttered out for me and now I have no games at all

tall jolt
fleet harbor
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Aye, I'm not aware of anyone recruiting right now.

tall jolt
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sad

obsidian dagger
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It is late and my brain is pingponging around and I am suddenly considering what it must be like to be a Strategist's Treasure. What does it feel like to have someone who does really, truly, genuinely care about you, but who also thinks that all the things you like and all of your other friends and all the rest of the world lack true value?

frank light
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hm

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well
strategists...dont tend to pick up treasures often, believe it or not, and when they do...rarely people.

But i imagine those that practice that forbidden art often pick up people they find...grounding. nice to talk to.

...and i imagine few strategists actually open up about their whole omnicide thing

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but it's a little interesting, i imagine

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lemme find the llama passage

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oh and this one

image.png
candid compass
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Thats how it is being a flore sometimes yeah

frank light
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point is, being a treasure of a strategist usually means you're somehow friends with someone who's a fucking mess

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a divine mess, but a mess

frank light
# frank light

like the strategist destroying the emptiness in the cup (so helpful)

candid compass
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But also yeah, the majority of Host Strategists probably don't have florem

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Or maybe some weapon or artifact

candid compass
frank light
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strategists are weirdos

candid compass
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Its hard to really connect with your Treasures when you have low Flore

frank light
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you can tell when theyre calling you

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or trying to

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...and if you have a bit of practice with it, you can visit them as a ghost

candid compass
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And most Strategists don't have any or at most a few points

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Because having Flore is dangerous

magic mason
obsidian dagger
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Part of this is because Ave Xia Rem Y has what seems very close to Strategist-flavored Sentimental stuff happening.

frank light
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mhm mhm

candid compass
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And the ones that do have Treasures, especially when they're people, are less likely to hate the world with the same fervor as others

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It's just difficult when you actually have people and things you care about

obsidian dagger
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Yeah. Thus is the nature of caring about things.

candid compass
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It's very fun
Flore is described like an almost corruptive influence on Strategists in the Glitch book

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It blunts your hatred, makes the idea to actually kill the world incoherent

vestal mist
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But more ontologically existential

obsidian dagger
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Strategist-coded characters are very fun when they show up in other media. I'm rotating the AXRY character I'm thinking of, and comparing them to Josef from The Ancient Magus' Bride, and they've very different but also both very Strategist-coded.

vestal mist
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GUhhhh, we should receive that Chuubos game

obsidian dagger
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are you talking about the one I should be running that kind of fell apart, or a different one?

vestal mist
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The one with you, yeah

obsidian dagger
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I am so sorry.

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...remind me tomorrow and I can try to get it started again.

vestal mist
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Oh, it's quite all right

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I was just reminded of Leo

obsidian dagger
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Yeah, he's on a different blue arc than the one Strategists are, but I did kind of accidentally put Reynard on Gatekeeper on the background since he's apparently going around collecting and working with the shards.

restive ridge
vestal mist
vestal mist
obsidian dagger
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I can't tell if you're talking about Leonardo or Reynard here.

vestal mist
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Both, really

obsidian dagger
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Yeah, Reynard Titov is suffering. But also substantially more willing to admit that he is traumatized, so.

vestal mist
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Yeah

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Leo's "traumadump" is more along the lines of "ranting about all the ways that the universe is imperfect in light of himself"

obsidian dagger
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Honestly, our only non-traumatized main character we've seen show up is Chuubo. Chuubo is just having a good time.

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I was going to say "Suzy's probably around somewhere" but while they aren't traumatized, they're not really better off. They just have different issues.

vestal mist
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Chuubos definitely has no PTSD whatsoever

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Normal boys don't have PTSD

obsidian dagger
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Clearly.

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Rinley, who is the epitome of "around somewhere", is probably also relatively non-traumatized. They're dealing with a big scary world! But they've got it handled (probably).

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...if I do restart the campaign, I'm tempted to have Suzy start showing up as a random background NPC sometimes, having wandered into a restaurant to get a meal and then accidentally found themself behind the counter or something.

vestal mist
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Heh

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Neat Easter Egg

obsidian dagger
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also, for lack of a better opportunity, it is important to state that Suzy wears a bowtie most of the time. This is because (according to Chuubo, who is their best friend) boys wear ties, and they're kind of a boy, and therefore they ought to wear something which is kind of a tie.

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(I realize this is technically putting words in Chuubo's mouth but I'm just too enamored by the idea, and it feels right.)

vestal mist
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Leo wears a cravat

obsidian dagger
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Yes, well.

vestal mist
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When going Out, at least

obsidian dagger
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important question: which college of the Bleak Academy has the theatre kids? I'm assuming Colloqium of Magi?

frank light
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Natural philosophy honestly

Or the college of war and nightmare or whatever it’s called

vivid wraith
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everyone at the bleak academy is a theatre kid it came with your acceptance letter

frank light
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Yeah

obsidian dagger
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I just remembered the acidic gnomes. What did she mean by this (I sort of understand what she meant by this).

vestal mist
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Acidic gnomes?

obsidian dagger
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#1161861116721385482 message

narrow tartan
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Hnm. Strategist strategies

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Schemey schemes.

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Take over the potato people and claim one of them as treasure. Invade a chancel. Get stomped. Play dead. Repeatedly revive your potato treasure to dark souls the local imperator

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Magical girl team with colors assigned based on nobilis arc colors

vivid wraith
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Cooking

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Does red get to be the leader this time

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it's sentai tradition not precure tradition, but there's no pink arc

obsidian dagger
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I mean, the pinkest color available is Purple, and both it and Red would make for interesting leaders. That or Orange, but that's right out.

ancient lagoon
obsidian dagger
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It's weird, because on the one hand, any decent magical girl mascot worth their salt wants Awakening (not just the dark subversive ones) or, plausibly, Gatecrasher to pull people into the hidden world of being magical girls... but also, yeah, Chuubo as mascot fits.

frank light
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it depends

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kerberos from cardcaptor didnt feel like he had awakening

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but im given to understand he did have like
A super form

vivid wraith
frank light
# ancient lagoon i was thinking about that it was like, a magical girl campaign with them all bei...

i actually have a chuubos module project for "retired magical girls"

magical girls are angels, each of the main characters is retired or changed in some way, and interacts with some kind of 'past self' who is still a magical girl

the creature of the light pc is one who...'grew up' despite the fact that angels arent really supposed to need to do that. She has black wings, is a teacher, and her child is a magical girl.
the Reality Syndrome pc is one who did a big heroic sacrifice during their magical girl thing, and lost their magic in the process, and kinda had to keep living after their big grand sacrifice, and in an act of twisting the power of love tried to recreate their magic but instead just...uhm...well they literally created the past version of themselves. And those two are...awkward

the wounded angel pc is actually a mirror clone of the gatekeeper magical girl. She's from some fucked up mirror reality where she wasn't strong enough to resist corruption and fell to the dark side and she's got demonic aesthetics...and she's kinda fucked up about being the version of herself that 'isn't good enough'. its one thing to feel guilt about failing, even when theres nothing you could have done. its another thing to know theres something you could have done and living in the same world as the better version of yourself

and the last one, the allegory pc, is actually a boy, but an ominous wizardly guardian figure for the city. However, they're actually the dream of their old self, who is sleeping in amber.
and their arc is about maybe trying to break out their dreaming body from the giant amber stone but also realizing that maybe trying to claw back some past innocent version of yourself isn't actually going to help you and only wound you.

#

all thats left is creating the quests iirc ive got all the arcs planned out

ancient lagoon
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ooh

ancient lagoon
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thinking about it that has a high chance of going wrong if it's used on someone that doesn't want it
i should look into that maybe

obsidian dagger
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Hm. I was randomly thinking about Gatchaman CROWDS again, and, yeah, JJ Robinson is probably Red and he empowers people. Although there's a distinct chance his empowering is actually a Creature of Delirium transformation?? So I don't even know anymore.

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It sort of didn't immediately occur to me that Creature of Delirium can absolutely be used to transform other people into awesome sentai superheroes with cool reifying powers.

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Like, you are allowed to reach into someone's chest, pull out a book representing their unnecessary doubts, and turn them into an awesome and confident superhero. That is a thing which Creature of Delirium is allowed to do. (I don't think the NOTEs are doubts per se, but I don't know what exactly they are.)

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But, yeah, I was thinking Blessings are the most parsimonious way for mascots to hand out transformations, plus a lot of them are sort of emblematic of something bigger.

narrow tartan
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actually thinks about what it must mean for a strategist to claim a treasure

candid compass
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It means they see a potential in you
That they want to exalt and elevate you

narrow tartan
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I know. Its. Was trying to think about it emotionally?

ancient lagoon
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well
You have to use a Glorification, so a Strategist will usually take Immersion, unless they’re at 4 Flore, in which case they’re already pretty far gone
so i imagine that like
even if you love something, accepting and internalizing that love enough that it becomes a flore is usually a confusing process
which is compounded by the fact that you can presumably see its wrongness

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I think it could range from
“The world is wrong, but…you get a pass, I guess.”
to
“oh god. The knot that’s been in my λ-gut all this time is feelings.”

narrow tartan
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Im not very good at getting into characters heads

ancient lagoon
ancient lagoon
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i think that if i made Allegory as a Glitch ladder it might have a Stunt equivalent
like, you can do low-fantasy, or possibly phantasmagorical, actions to fulfill your Bonds, even if they're not specifically connected to a Technique?

ancient lagoon
fleet harbor
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And every part of Awakening other than Blessings misses a bit

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Just give 'em a blessings perk to be tbh

narrow tartan
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...i always focus on A Tangled History too much

candid compass
fleet harbor
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Yeah

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And a lot of mascots don’t really do anything after the magical girl has her powers

vivid wraith
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kind of a venn diagram between "mascot that triggers the transformation" and "mascot that manages the arc quest"

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and the third option of Kururun but Kururun is a special case

narrow tartan
#

https://retroactivebakeries.tumblr.com/post/631918014406803456/a-voice-of-the-world-further-excerpts-the

no single thing shall be a single thing
A Voice of the World, Further Excerpts: The Ratatoskar

Along Yggradril’s boughs clamber squirrels like unto gods.

The Ratatoskar leap from world to world, scurrying from Heaven to Hell and every realm betwixt. They are huge, huge as you could scarcely imagine, superlatively behemoth, and yet there is a smallness to their seeming. Their paws might be the size of city blocks, but to see a Ratatoskr running rampant through a city is more akin to an unusually large and charismatic rodent becoming a local celebrity for a while than it is to a kaiju attack. They are vast and pluripotent cosmic forces, but spiritually compacted to an essential teensiness, and every fiber of their existence thrums with the overabundance of energy packed into them.

Born of the World Ash, the Ratatoskar count themselves kin to Aaron’s Serpents, though most Serpents would demure if the topic were to be broached. The Ratatoskarine mindset is fundamentally too fast, too compressed and overpressurized in the smallness of them, to establish any rapport with the ponder...

Tumblr ·
obsidian dagger
narrow tartan
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Taken as a Strategist's treasure but they are the sort of person who writes fanfic where your blorbo suffers

narrow tartan
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Also. Magical girls with colors corresoonding to arc colors.

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Purple is probably the pink? Because its about caring about things which seems right

narrow tartan
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Strategist dying of melodrama

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Strategist dying of the fire code

tall jolt
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startegist dying of strategists

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Every time a strategist monologues about how existence is awful and fake the staretegist who dies of strategist cringes and dies a little inside

fleet harbor
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You know, I can see it

narrow tartan
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Hmm. I had a thought. What if the Estate of (human) swimming wasnt very old. In the old days humans tended to sink like devil fruit users.

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That doesnt quite work

potent dew
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If I know of Jenna Moran from getting into Exalted, are there any games of hers that kind of bridge the gap between her work on Exalted and her work on her own games?

patent tiger
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I'm of the mind that there's some interesting resonance between the metaphysics of Nobilis/Glitch and the metaphysics of Exalted, in particular the Wyld and the Ninuan have some fascinating comparison points

frank light
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And the animism of the setting

patent tiger
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(Nobilis also being a game about being a highly-empowered chosen one with the power to reshape the world has some similarities of gameplay expectation)

frank light
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And the excrucians mapping onto abyssals and Raksha in weird ways (at least, warmains are very raksha)

patent tiger
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(However, Nobles and Exalted are pretty different imo)

frank light
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Yea

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They’re executed vastly differently and Nobilis is one of my favorite game settings

patent tiger
#

In short- my recommendation is Nobilis

frank light
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You should read Nobilis yea

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4e is also soon!!! Ish!!

patent tiger
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Glitch might be a good read, as well, but in gameplay terms Nobilis will be much closer

vivid wraith
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oh and weapons of the gods i guess
but read Nobilis yeah

fleet harbor
vivid wraith
potent dew
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Interesting

fleet harbor
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Some of the stuff in the Wyld would go on to form the central thematic narrative question of Jenna’s work

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Specifically the conflict between perceiver and perceived and how there is a sort of irreconcilable violence to hierarchies, even hierarchies of thought.

tall jolt
frank light
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well

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hm

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i wanna argue that nobilis isnt quite a power fantasy in that you also get saddled with all the baggage that is noble society

tall jolt
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But if you want you can avoid every conflict in the game and just play with mortals as you wish as long as you don't get Entropy's attention

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Im the Noble of Conflict Avoidance. LETS GO

patent tiger
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Both social and metaphysical baggage

frank light
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as long as you never fall in love, never punish someone more than sevenfold what they deserve, and never lose to a mortal yeah

frank light
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i wanna note that some exalted get way more baggage than others

patent tiger
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(Except for the new ones which are boring and lame grumble grumble)

frank light
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keep grumbling girlie

tall jolt
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Solar getting mass hunted by Dragonblood

patent tiger
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(The good Exalted types are that)

frank light
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yeah thats fine

patent tiger
frank light
#

sdhfkjahsdfjhadskjfha

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wrong reply

tall jolt
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you will never stop what

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hunting Solars?

patent tiger
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Wrong reply yeah

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But also I'm committed now

frank light
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hehe

tall jolt
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criiinge, Solars are your true Lords

patent tiger
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I am dedicated to eradicating the scourge of Anathema from this world

tall jolt
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🙁

patent tiger
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(I'm a big Solar fan yeah)

frank light
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im an abyssal girlie because this is the first game of exalted ive played

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so alas

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gotta side with the end of everything here

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(i should make my sid oc)

tall jolt
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I too love Solars, but I love the idea of parrying a mountain so.

patent tiger
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Sidereals are probably the closest to what the Nobilis experience is like, at least the heaven politics part and the mission-assignment dynamic

narrow tartan
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I like Infernals but lack practical experience with exalted

fleet harbor
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Sidereals are much more civil servants

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But anyway I think Nobilis can be a power fantasy but it is also in a lot of ways a disempowerment fantasy?

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For as much as you can do incredible things, so can a lot of people you dislike, and there's often absolutely nothing you can do about it except maybe talk to them

tall jolt
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how do you mean? You don't fight your demigod buddies in a weird sado-sexual way?

frank light
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nothin demi about it

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you are gods

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just

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so are all your colleagues, superiors, and enemies

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and there are laws in place that make fighting Complicated

tall jolt
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I thought The Conquering Sun was the full god along with his gaming buddies

frank light
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oh i thought we were talking about nobilis

tall jolt
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naw we were talking exalted a lil bit

frank light
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yes but i presumed your reply was to the nobilis related message from gk

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due to there being no indication otherwise

frank light
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the nobilis one

tall jolt
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oh

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it was I that was confused

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go figure.

narrow tartan
#

Goregrinder Necromancy
Difficulty 0: Set yourself on fire.
Difficult 1: Weld flesh like metal.
Difficulty 1: Burn fuel in your heart as a pick me up.
Difficulty 2: Graft machinery into your living flesh.
Difficulty 2: Rev up your dead-heads.
Difficulty 3: Tear out someones heart and replace it with an engine that beats with yours.
Difficulty 3: Set yourself on fire.

narrow tartan
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Noble who was a magical girl but then got drafted by the big bad from their story who turned put to be an imperator

magic mason
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that is funny

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..... the fact I have only seen star twinkle Precure is an obstacle here because Darknest is very warmain

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but couldd be a WIld Magister ig

narrow tartan
#

Strategist dying of poetry

vivid wraith
magic mason
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Real

vivid wraith
gloomy oasis
narrow tartan
#

pfp kidnaps fortitude rat
Wears as hat

vivid wraith
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they make very good hats

narrow tartan
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I remember. I had a thought that she my have tried to corrupt the rats of fortitude at some point.

frank light
narrow tartan
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launches scheme to turn the rats of fortitude into the bats of fortitude

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Vampire bats that is

gloomy oasis
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You get why I went :( at that, right?

vivid wraith
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OH display name I get it now

narrow tartan
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Strategist develops magical girl transformation. Uses it to reach top shelf and lift heavy things

narrow tartan
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What if. Disco Elysium. Is dimentia anima

magic mason
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Sometimes you just gotta talk to objects

narrow tartan
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starts WBH other peoples cars it makes finding my car easier

grand knot
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Disco elysium strategist story

narrow tartan
#

It exists

grand knot
narrow tartan
grand knot
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Nice!

narrow tartan
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🙂

obsidian dagger
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Currently thinking about all the different kinds of interactions a repentant Strategist might have with a Mimic they made.

narrow tartan
obsidian dagger
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that's certainly one of them!

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Another is angry jealousy that the Strategist is able to stop hurting Creation.

narrow tartan
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Hmm. Mimics are probably better at masking their issues than strategists

obsidian dagger
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Yes. They have a Red arc that specifically makes them good at disguises... barring a specific Issue. But without their problems, what are they?

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Strategists have Purple arcs about anchoring themself to others, and finding kinship. They have an Immortal arc, which is their proper place, their kingdom of nowhere, and it is Right. Mimics have neither of those things.

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They can run from their suffering. They can make themself fit into a different place, where they do not belong. They can masque and disguise themself, play mediator between their way of seeing the world and everyone else's. They can take the horrid thing in their chest and negotiate with it, limiting its harmful capacities. None of those things help them make a home.

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
#

I feel like this is the wrong channel, but also very much the right channel. (There's also a rocket ship which could be described as being powered by Shintoism.)

obsidian dagger
#

The Touhou manga especially are very Chuubo's at points. I've posted the extremely Gatekeeper panel of Reimu before, and Mamizou in the manga is very Impresario.

#

I think Miquella is Primodial, because I'm thinking about the Light of Compassion, and that's very much an element in a way that Primordial gets and Prophet just... doesn't.

#

Maybe my mental descriptions are inaccurate, though. But he's absolutely on a Black arc.

grand knot
narrow tartan
#

Uhoh. Rinley has a gun.

Screenshot_20251221-090255.png
grand knot
#

I think transfem seizhi and miramie

obsidian dagger
#

like, that's just Gatekeeper in a nutshell! That's it.

#

I think she's very Angel-coded in some ways. She definitely spends some time being Purple and messing around with her shrine and failing to make money, and she definitely spends some time flying around shooting energy blasts to purify Bad Things, and she definitely spends time sealing stuff and trying to maintain the balance.

obsidian dagger
#

I think Reimu is on Red arcs in most of the games. It feels weird, but she shows up in a place, postures on people, and then leaves, and somehow at the end it all comes together into a plot. That's Red. She's on a Purple arc in Wild and Horned Hermit, and a lot of Blue arcs otherwise. Which fits her as an Angel.

grand knot
#

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/lets-read-glitch-a-story-of-the-not.859847/post-23455738

There's a bit in one of the Nobilis books about how Imperators might conceivably bring their pack of Nobles into the depths to help watch their backs during a tricky part of the battle, which seems kind of like Christopher Robin bringing Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore along with him to the Battle of the Somme. But you could do it.

RPGnet Forums
📖 Let's Read! - [Let's Read] Glitch: A Story of the Not | Tablet...

Yes. Another comparison that's been drawn are warmains are gamers. Specifically, the sort of gamer who plays open-world games and loves to see just what they can take up; they don't consider anything in Creation very important, individually, but if you're cool and interesting they're more than...

obsidian dagger
#

I am suddenly remembering a dream I had the other night about a character who I think was an Imperator of Quilts and... maybe Sawblades? They were collecting patches from people's souls and sewing them together in what I was convinced during the dream was a Creature of Delirium move, but in retrospect was absolutely an Awakening move (I distinctly remember them saying "I'm not going to die, because you are me, and it's just this body going away" or something to that effect). They might have also had Gamer vibes but those don't have either of those arcs so I have no idea.

#

Maybe also Needles?

obsidian dagger
#

Don't ask me why Quilts are a Game thing. They just are.

vivid wraith
#

Crimmus

frank light
#

CRIMMUS

obsidian dagger
#

I am once again remembering that Santa Claus is my pop-cultural touchstone to explain what a Noble is.

#

...which Red arc is J.J. Robinson from Gatchaman CROWDS on? There's a strong argument for Creature of the Light based on Vibes, and a strong argument for Creature of Delirium based on his reaching into people's chests to extract an item which then allows them to transform.

#

I could also see strong arguments for Awakening and/or Gatecrasher.

fleet harbor
grand knot
grand knot
#

Excrucian strategist dying of connections, with a sphere of electricity

obsidian dagger
#

...are you calling Rui a Strategist? I don't think that's quite right but I could certainly see it. But honestly I could more reasonably see Rui as on something Black, honestly (not sure between Prophet and Awakening).

grand knot
#

No

#

I just had a strategist idea

narrow tartan
obsidian dagger
#

Currently thinking about the concept of Seizhi in a restaurant. If they ever entered a professional kitchen, I assume they'd be waved onto the line before anyone (including them) realized they didn't actually work there. Basically just that one scene from The Emperor's New Groove.

grand knot
grand knot
obsidian dagger
#

You should! It's pretty good. Not perfect, but I enjoyed it. Although I never finished Season 2.

grand knot
restive ridge
#

The Wild

G9B4lk-WcAAfa2d.jpg
gloomy oasis
#

Being gay is a good thing, though, and shouldn't be associated with those wastes of plastic.

magic mason
#

Thinking about Warmains as Knights Errant on a Grail Quest

grand knot
#

What is a good bane/sphere combo for a strategist with some calm, horror themes
Like, when visiting ninuan, going to quaint, quiet yet scary places

#

Maybe places that feel filled with menories and history

fleet harbor
#

Dying of Ruin, Sphere of Emptiness?

#

Or Empty Places?

#

Liminal space type stuff

grand knot
#

Could work

grand knot
#

@narrow tartan finished that strategist quest
Too bad it died off

narrow tartan
#

Yeah it was. There should be more nobilis content in the world

obsidian dagger
#

I was going to ask what kind of arc fit characters who wandered the earth, blowing into town to save someone and then leave, and the answer is probably Silver honestly. Orange can do it, but it's probably Silver. Which feels weird since the classic cowboy "riding off into the sunset" feels like it ought to be Allegory, but it could totally also be Indomitable.

#

Cowboys can be pretty sad!

grand knot
#

Curious what arc fits dante alighieri

obsidian dagger
#

Called Away, probably.

#

Descent into the underworld can also be very Black if it's dreamlike or surreal, for sure. Those frequently involve a brush with death.

fleet harbor
#

... most of this is after-the-fact, but this is what I have drawn from plumbing the depths of my psyche

robin_inspirations.png
vivid wraith
#

double homestuck....

patent tiger
#

taking confused notes Homura and Gallant would not get along

fleet harbor
#

That is true

patent tiger
#

Yeah honestly it does feel believable

#

Expanding the painfully-small Goofus & Gallant fanfiction scene with a Madoka crossover fic centered on this take

frank light
restive ridge
fleet harbor
#

"Goofus accepts his helplessness to prevent the death of his crush. Homura struggles ceaselessly against the tides of fate for the sake of her affection, rewinding time over and over out of boundless dedication."

patent tiger
#

Goes kinda hard, honestly

#

…Actually, thinking on it, Harmony’s current Ru-mandated breakdown scheming plotline is kinda “time to struggle ceaselessly against the tides of fate”

#

So yeah maybe Homura and Gallant are in the same direction after all

grand knot
#

Who is gallant?

patent tiger
#

Goofus & Gallant is a morality play comic strip from the 1900s about Goofus, a young boy who makes wrong, disruptive, and selfish decisions; and Gallant, another boy who makes kind and positive decisions and knows to not bother the adults around him with the fact that he exists

#

It is, genuinely, an infuriating piece of artwork on an ideological level and reminds me of all the evils of how children are talked about and pressured into various forms

patent tiger
#

(Literally the character from a morality play comic pulled out and enNobled, now stuck being a real person)

#

Hence - viewing the dynamic between those two Nobles as mirroring the hypothetical dynamic that Homura and Gallant would have, if they ever met

vivid wraith
patent tiger
#

(Goofus & Gallant is criminally lacking in fanfic, something I am incensed about but not so incensed as to start writing my own fanfiction about it.

Until the campaign finishes, at least.)

grand knot
fleet harbor
#

Goofus in this image is actually a human

#

And yet this is portrayed as a bad thing

#

So yeah, to Ru's point, it's infuriating

patent tiger
#

Yeah - dropping all character-nationalism pride, it's genuinely extremely upsetting to see what ideals are dumped onto Gallant and what incredibly normal human behaviors are villified through Goofus

grand knot
patent tiger
#

It's pretty bad!

#

And this was the basis of the psychology of the character

#

They get so stressed out whenever anything they do can be read even slightly imperfectly

fleet harbor
#

To make it even worse, apparently the creator based Goofus and Gallant on two of his grandkids

#

Which like

#

What a fucked-up thing to do to either child!

#

Harmony is a lot of things, but among them is a brilliant take on not just this but on the toxic soil that this particular poisonous tree grows out of

obsidian dagger
#

...so, Become Somebody makes it really hard to miraculously interfere with your Truths. But, unless they're phrased as "I know...", they wouldn't interfere with an effect that made the person forget the Truth in question, right? Like, it'd still be true, but they might not know it.

#

I mean, there's no guarantee that the person even knows that Truth to begin with.

obsidian dagger
#

Thinking about Black arcs now. And how... like, usually, you can see powers that awaken a shard of something in a person's soul as kind of negative, or corruptive, or whatever. But you can also use it to look at a horrible person, and say "I am certain that buried deep in your heart is a long-neglected, long-forgotten core of fundamental human kindness, and I will awaken it in you". And, of course, even that can turn creepy if you're not careful; just look at Miquella.

#

You could even do that with Creature of Delirium, if you strip away people's masks of cruelty and savagery to expose their inner core of goodness.

vivid wraith
#

that's very often how Deceivers see themselves, i'd suggest

obsidian dagger
#

Probably! But it could also be right. ...I was thinking about my blorboified Creature of Delirium Ill-Made earlier, and she can also improve people by stealing from them (sometimes. She would say it's always an improvement but she's not always right. But sometimes she is.)

vivid wraith
#

ye

obsidian dagger
#

For reference, she reaches into you and pulls out a prism containing your self-image, without which you find it hard to say anything about yourself besides strictly objectively measurable facts. You know your name and your history, but you don't know what kind of person you are.

#

And sometimes being stripped of that can be good, if you've built up an elaborate identity which is only hurting you. And sometimes being stripped of that can leave you terrified and unmoored, especially if she also transforms you into a monstrous representation of the parts of yourself you try to look away from. And usually it's somewhere in between.

#

She can also make vessels of anyone who falls asleep and dreams without a clear idea of who they are to begin with. Which has some fun implications about the Haunted Child.

#

(note that this is only people who are almost completely devoid of her Experience, not just people who have a clear but inaccurate self-image.)

restive ridge
grand knot
magic mason
#

A androgynous boy/Saint that makes people kind and love each other and love him(mind control)

magic mason
#

Where all his vessels live in peace and harmony

#

As the plants consume environment

narrow tartan
#

What if excrucian deceiver stephen universe

#

Not certain if I actually like that

gloomy oasis
#

I know Steven's classpect, but I don't know how that maps to arcs.

obsidian dagger
#

I don't know if I like it either. I feel like what he actually does is mostly Purple, but with some Orange or Green mixed in? I could see arguments for Serpent even without it being a perfect fit.

#

I was going to ask if any splats had those three colors together and then remembered Nobles do.

fleet harbor
#

Child of the Ash does fit him, though

obsidian dagger
#

It does. As does Allegory as his particular flavor of Orange.

#

and he has a very Serpent-like disposition... and you could certainly argue for him being Called Away, especially as a justifiication for some of the weird gem gadgets he occasionally has.

#

But there's also moments where he dreamwalks into people which... I guess is a Called Away thing also, but could totally also be Sentimental.

narrow tartan
#

nodnod it. I never properly finished the show. And i agree it doesnt fit super well.

obsidian dagger
#

I could even see an argument for something Silver, but it's a weak argument.

narrow tartan
#

Yeah. I think i was more thinking weird reversals I guess.

gloomy oasis
#

Meanwhile, he fits almost perfectly as a Page of Heart. :V You have to look at things through different lenses.

obsidian dagger
#

He does fit fine as a Page of Heart.

narrow tartan
#

My initial thought was. Basically. Character falls from world and becomes deceiver. And later comes back to their family. Dunno. Its a half baked idea... Which im gonna associate with Aliss Lexigast my OC deceiver.

narrow tartan
#

Dying of Carcinization

fleet harbor
#

Gregor Samsa :D

grand knot
#

Or a body unfit for society

narrow tartan
grand knot
#

Creepypasta image

narrow tartan
#

Falling stars hard to draw

vivid wraith
frank light
#

TRUE

obsidian dagger
#

Thinking about a Primordial character whose limbs are derived from asking people what they think a sword is. And then either growing arms to hold those swords, or just having a bunch of floating swords.

magic mason
#

Oooooo

magic mason
#

Assuming Attaris also had something similar to what A2 has

fleet harbor
obsidian dagger
#

A2 has Awakening, not Primordial, but otherwise it’d fit.

magic mason
#

so

Primordial/Star Quality/Indomitable/Allegory

grand knot
#

What is the differrence between wilds and rules?

vivid wraith
#

The Rules hold human survival as their highest priority

#

the Wild is weirder

#

Wildlords tend to believe that everyone else is an extension of themselves

magic mason
# grand knot What is the differrence between wilds and rules?

Magisters Of Rules(Along Witth Magisters Of Games) are Humanity's stolen divinity walking among us. Rulers are Superego, Gamers are our Id

Wild Magisters have been connected to the Ego, but the big thing with them is that they are Solipistic Imperators that wandered in from The Void(the same one Excrucians come from) and then wrapped themselves up in creation onn accident

#

Rules Magisters are stern paternalistic hands that value human life over everything, but cannot find it within themselves to sacrifice themselves to give us their divinity, and it would be a bit rude to ask someone to kill themselves so you can steal their powers

Games Magisters are mad priests of human free will, prophets of sex, drugs and suicide. They think you should live your life to the fullest, and that in an ideal world the only way humans would die is by their own choice(and thaat they would do it often)

grand knot
#

So get high score then quit the game

obsidian dagger
#

Also, it was revealed to me in a dream that Quilts are a Game estate.

grand knot
#

What are the otehr magister categories
I know there's heaven and hell (let's rock)

magic mason
#

Snakes and True Gods Of The Earth

#

Aarons Seerpents are the Hylic Bastards Of Yggdrasil. Which is the meanest descripttion you will ever hear of them honestly I am not sure why I did that

#

They are colossal, earnest kaiju that explore the mulitverse but have toruble grasping their own scale

grand knot
#

Oh these guys. THe peaceful unhelpful snakes

obsidian dagger
#

They could be incredibly destructive and reshape the world but they don’t want to.

vivid wraith
magic mason
#

True Gods are amoeboid incarnates of earths natural processes tthat know only sex and violence and have trouble drawing a line between the two because they exist in such abstract shapes

obsidian dagger
#

They just want to rest, and appreciate the world as it is, mostly.

vivid wraith
#

Ruleslords, Gamelords, and Wildlords sometimes use the Magisters of X naming scheme, the others don't

obsidian dagger
#

I think because Serpents and True Gods especially don’t really administrate? They just… are.

magic mason
#

True gods in a very literal way are their estate

#

the true god of the ocean is just The Ocean

vivid wraith
magic mason
#

its a really really big animist spirit

#

though they are sometimes a bit more Nylarthotep-esque
where their sibling is like "every shadow ever" and they technically exist on the same scale but normally appear as a fuckass twink

grand knot
vivid wraith
#

Actually yes

#

one of the possible results of getting entangled with the world as a Strategist is becoming a Wild Magister

magic mason
#

^

#

Wild Magisters are "I am a super powerful void being but whoospie"

vivid wraith
#

i would be surprised if this has already happened

magic mason
#

"I slipped and fell and now my name is the symbol is the word"

vivid wraith
#

but, Glitch does mention the possibility

#

did we decide if Angels are the True Gods of Heaven or are they a different thing

magic mason
#

diffrent thing

#

heaven had 1 true god equivlent, xe just killed xerself

Angels are made out of the corpse of that one void being Cneph killed

grand knot
#

It all comes back to the void

vivid wraith
#

Chaoskampf is a strong traditional creation myth

magic mason
# grand knot It all comes back to the void

A lot of the most modern stuff(and so the stuff I am working with) is glitch lore

and "Everything only exists due to the exploitation of Nothingness" is a pretty big part of the excrucian posittion

#

or at least the strateegist one

vivid wraith
#

i am rewatching Sing a Bit of Harmony and it is reminding me that Domain is solid for the fuzzier sci-fi AI shenanigans
talk to other machines, machine-miracle of "hack that thing" and it does whatever

magic mason
#

I love Spirittual stuff that isn't just-nobles-again

restive ridge
#

ℍ𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕤 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕤𝕖

narrow tartan
#

Thinking about. Setting guidelines for myself on how to think about Rulers and Gamers.

#

And. Decided that most Gamers should be in the "Seinfield to Normal" range where the Rulers get the "Normal to Good" range

obsidian dagger
#

I don't think that's the case, necessarily. Gamers are fundamentally about human death, but they're also about human drive — the urge to change the world, or make something of yourself, or thrive. And if you give in to the Game entirely that ends in your death, sure.

ancient lagoon
#

i feel that imperators are very rarely normal

obsidian dagger
#

But the Rule is opposed to all of that. They love human flourishing, but they love it in the sort of way that's just... what we have already, but more, and better. They want you to be better at what you're already doing. They want you to be safe. And, with A Keeper of Gardens giving them Toxic, it's very easy for them to accidentally stifle you, or make you better at doing what they think you should be doing instead of what you want to do.

grand knot
obsidian dagger
#

The Rule knows what you should be doing, and views that as infinitely more important than what you want to do. And they have the Divine Warrant to make them justified in meddling in your life.

grand knot
# grand knot Moralinterns in disco elysium

Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is control. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

obsidian dagger
#

I think some rulers are like that. And some are like... they say they like change and progress, and they do, but they like the kind of technological progress that leads to faster cars and bigger televisions.

narrow tartan
#

But. Like.
Evil-Just the worst-okayish-good

#

Scale of morality

#

I think. I decided for myself
1/2/4/3 for the rule. 2/4/3/1 for the game.

grand knot
narrow tartan
#

Basically. It was more. I tend to be biased against the Rule so its like. How i want to balance depictions

fleet harbor
obsidian dagger
#

Absolutely. But they don't just want humans to die... or, they kind of do, but it's because they want humans to reach their fullest potential and die gloriously.

fleet harbor
#

Aye, it feels like it's all kinda of a piece: the death, the freedom, the warmain vibes

fleet harbor
#

Vertigo's Lucifer is one of my favorite comics, and at the end of it, having tried and failed to achieve true freedom in a wide variety of ways, Lucifer ventures off into the void and becomes one with it, with kind of suicidal implications and almost recontextualizing his many amazing deeds as steps in the most drawn-out, impressive act of self-annihilation imaginable. I always think of that as the platonic ideal of death that the Game wants humans to achieve.

obsidian dagger
#

I think the biggest difference between the Dark and Warmains is that Warmains come into things with a specific idea of what "virtue" they're looking for, while the Dark just sort of echoes back your own thoughts to some extent.

#

Or... if not echoing directly, it's because they arise from human thought, ultimately. Their words are plucked from your lips. Warmains have their own ideals.

fleet harbor
#

Agreed

frank light
#

For some they want humanity itself to fucking self destruct, pollution and industrialism and greed style

#

Some want you to explode in the sky like fireworks crawling their way to heaven

#

Human death is part of their whole free will thing

#

They’re the complicated parts of being human

#

The wriggling knot of our flaws

#

The things we do to eachother

#

Things we do even to ourselves

#

And they’re also freedom

grand knot
#

All the beauty and ugliness, all the contradictions?

magic mason
grand knot
obsidian dagger
#

Is Yharim from Terraria's Calamity mod a Deceiver?

#

...actually he could be a Strategist, I suppose.

magic mason
candid compass
#

Spiders...
...can have any elemental typing

grand knot
#

Dream of electric spiders

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
#

A good song which I could see being either Rule or Game in equal measure? I need to figure out its vibes better.

#

Or Hell! It could also be Hell.

#

...or Deceiver! It definitely might be Reality Syndrome-y.

narrow tartan
#

(i was inspired by mods for AoW 3)

vivid wraith
#

Great minds

vestal mist
#

What arcs is Tom Cardy on?

gloomy oasis
fleet harbor
narrow tartan
#

Story about an Arcana who gets grabbed by a Strategist and abandoned in the Is

grand knot
#

A lambda creature having to adapt

narrow tartan
obsidian dagger
#

Thinking about how both Immortal and Sickly Black let you say "this person I'm playing as most of the time isn't really who I am; I'm really something else, deeper and more profound", but Frantic Black... doesn't. You don't have that same kind of external anchor. You have to bring all the meaning by yourself.

narrow tartan
#

Imperator who is like really leaning into the "world moves too fast for me" and tje "passage of eons" but they are actually like twelve

#

Years old

ruby ivy
narrow tartan
#

...peak

magic mason
#

like mf is an imperator but is totally willing to die to win a 1v1 witth a strategist

#

andd you have to be like "CAN YOU NOT"

narrow tartan
#

You know. Plato was essentially correct about the nature of reality. Except the platonic forms are actually all really big dorks.

gloomy oasis
#

And also they don't fuck.

grand knot
#

The forms according to Plato do that?
Thought it was too carnal?

magic mason
#

And true gods are always doing this

grand knot
#

Wonder what the Prescripts from project moon would be in nobilis
The index is akin to a religion without mythology. Its only creed is to follow the Prescripts, messages with strange orders given to each of them, generated by machines feed by the "beat" of the City
The orders are often cruel to followers or other people, but tend to benefit the Index as a whole. The organization was founded to grant direction to people's lives

magic mason
#

Like a low visage actual with a lot of Architect and Style

candid compass
#

I could see the Index as a very large scale Welken Rite too

magic mason
#

Ooo yeah that is a good point

The Perscipts themselves being a powerful arcana or similar void entity

#

An Excrucian introduced

narrow tartan
#

Wildlord grows a Shrimp Limb which turns out surprisingly effective against the Strategist dying of Carcinization.

#

Alternatively. Wildlord who keeps turning into a crab

magic mason
#

Thinking about Hi My Name Is David But My Friends Just Call Me Dave again

My Actual OC <3

restive ridge
magic mason
#

..... this fits into my experience of masculinity

frank light
magic mason
#

Yes actually

#

That is indeed The Emporor andd Emperess Of The Hunter/Wtcher drones

gloomy oasis
#

I love that I have the perfect friend group to share this with.

obsidian dagger
#

...can quest miracles create chthonic effects? I forget. But I am suddenly vividly imagining the mental image of some great liberator or Prophet of Freedom or somesuch creating a temporary ultra-local regional property of "nothing can be locked", and was thinking about the ways that could be mechanically accomplished.

frank light
#

not typically

#

theyre just major miracles

#

which means they can do pretty much anything but only chthonic actions can create chthonic effects

#

but regional properties are manipulable by miracles so

#

quest miracles can do that

#

(and imperial miracles too)

obsidian dagger
#

And "unlocking every lock in a building" is pretty miraculous... but I thought you'd need a chthonic effect if you wanted something temporarily lingering that excludes the idea of locking things at least temporarily.

frank light
#

chthonic effects can create afflictions

#

but i mean

#

a miracle creating a lingering effect that excludes the idea of locking things is...

#

fairly in line with what a quest miracle could do

#

region properties are within the boundary of what a quest miracle might do

#

theyre just bonds after all

obsidian dagger
#

It might or might not be permanent. It definitely feels like it doesn't need to be permanent, but might be permanent as a lingering legend, or in some sort of weaker form where in the one great miraculous moment nothing could be locked, and then forever after sometimes locked things left unattended in that area might unlock themselves.

frank light
#

yeah that seems fine for a quest miracle

obsidian dagger
#

The lock's teeth cease their jealous hold; they unclasp, they release, they part freely. The manacles unclasp; they swing freely open; they unbind. The deadbolt slides away, unwilling to stop the movement of the door. The tumblers spin; they seek their most natural, freest position. The doorjam slides smoothly; it brings no obstruction or friction. The barricade looks upon itself with shame; it shudders, it falls, it collapses,

Nothing is locked. Nothing is barred.

#

(it seems very Chuubilis to say "the desk is ashamed to be used to barricade a door" somehow.)

#

And a region property wouldn't outright prevent someone from building a barricade... but for that scene, it would have an inherent obstacle, since the barricade wants to collapse, wants to allow the door to open freely.

#

...thinking about this is also making me sort of realize that I was underestimating the significance of an Obstacle 2 to something. Because, due to the way will tiers work, if you want to do something with an Obstacle 2 attached and you don't have a relevant skill (and I suspect many people would not have relevant skills for something like "locking a door"), you would need to spend 4 will to actually accomplish anything. That's substantial.

#

yeah an arc 4 Prophet of Freedom could also manifest a possibility. Honestly a lower arc Prophet could probably still make all the locks spring open.

obsidian dagger
#

...I can't figure out if "repeated semi-metaphorical parables in which a characters talks to a lock and explains the concept of Freedom to it" is more Red, Green, or Black. Black is usually more "dreamlike interludes" than "conversations with inanimate objects, presented in an unusual style".

vestal mist
#

Red

#

Possibly Blue, for the lock

obsidian dagger
#

...Red makes the most sense if the quest miracle is opening one particular lock. It feels like a very Rinley way to open a locked treasure.

obsidian dagger
#

I'm also thinking of Colress from Pokemon B2/W2 as a very unusual, but absolutely not incorrect, take on Sentimental.

#

He's a scientist who wants to draw out the ultimate power of pokemon. So he studies the bonds between humans and pokemon, but specifically because it makes the pokemon stronger, not because of any actual desire for genuine friendship. He's weird and amoral.

#

He cares about friendship exclusively because of the power of friendship.

ember plover
#

I have a question, because I’m struggling to find a ttrpg that corresponds to the urban fantasy vibes I’m looking for.
My question is: how grounded is Nobilis ? Not in the realistic sense, i’m looking for something where m1gic is weird. No, more in the sense of humans with their human problem, not to the point of cyberpunk struggle, though.

vivid wraith
#

you're gods with human problems inflated to godly scale

#

"i gotta walk my boss's dog"->"i gotta walk my boss's hellhounds"

#

you may end up having a whole storyline about whether fire is ultimately an agent of life or agent of destruction, which if you think about it is a little like "is a hotdog a sandwich" so that one is normal too actually

fleet harbor
#

It's a game about a bunch of people in a tree arguing about nothing (this is literally true)

#

IME it tends to be grounded in the sense Stepnix is saying where it's largely about people talking to each other, rather than trying to stab each other in the face

#

However it gets very gonzo very fast at times

#

And the cosmology is very much aspects of the human experience divided up and blown up to the size of the moon.

#

Also there are 30-trillion ton snakes.

ember plover
#

Hmmmm

obsidian dagger
#

Most of the fundamental issues of the Nobilis world come from the fact that, even at the highest echelons of reality, they're all still fundamentally just people. Sometimes they're warped distortions of part of a person, and other times (like with the PCs) they're ordinary people with all their quirks and flaws and foibles.

ember plover
#

I see

obsidian dagger
#

Like, the very tippy top of reality is Imperators, who range from "embodiments of the human desire for a glorious death" to "basically a giant amoeba of biological processes" to "a giant snake which just wants to lie around and chill". And then one step below that is the Nobles, who are the PCs, who are supposed to be these perfect impartial columns holding up reality, but who are still fundamentally normal people. Just... normal people who are also in charge of the concept of escalators.

ember plover
#

I’d say I’m looking for a WoD Mage-like vibe, so I don’t know’if it would match

obsidian dagger
#

Chuubo's or Far Roofs could do it, since those are at a lower power level, but you'd need to tweak the setting a bit.

#

And both of them, especially Chuubo's, have most Miraculous powers act on a narrative level, and may or may not be things the characters are actually consciously doing.

ember plover
#

Hmmm

obsidian dagger
#

Like, Creature of Fable gives you the ability to do impossible things, but only "off-camera".

#

Wounded Angel gives you permission to show up in scenes where people are at their lowest, to communicate with them, because... that's what you mean, narratively.

#

Maybe you're a smug corruptive devil preying on the weak-hearted, and maybe you're burned by your past mistakes and can reach others in the heart of despair and guide them to a healthier path than yours, but when someone is at their lowest, you're there for them.

fleet harbor
obsidian dagger
#

Yeah, and if you want WoD Middle School Edition, Horizon provides that quite well.

ember plover
#

Horizon ?

fleet harbor
#

It's an area in Chuubo's

obsidian dagger
#

Yeah. It's gothic horror themed with lots of vampires and ghosts and assorted ghoulies and monsters. It's also where the School is!

ember plover
#

hmmmm
I think it's not quite what I'm looking for
Although, I think I'm interested to play Nobilis or another game at some point.
it's just that until I've seen it played, I have difficulties getting what I've read so far (which is a part of WTF and until always through chargen in Nobilis)

restive ridge
magic mason
#

:)

obsidian dagger
#

I want help figuring out how to word a quest... probably Major Action, but it could be an XP goal... that encompasses all of these different events occurring:

  • You're a psychic, training in a secret psychic enclave. You lose control and create a telekinetic crater and fling stuff around and break stuff. Afterwards, you're worried that they'll kick you out, but instead they empathize with you because they've had power meltdowns before and they know how much it sucks and that it isn't your fault.
  • You're a werewolf, training with a werewolf pack to get used to being a werewolf. While playfighting, you accidentally horribly slash someone with your claws. You profusely apologize, but they laugh it off, since they're also a werewolf and they just need a few minutes to catch their breath and you didn't do anything unusual.
  • You're a novice alchemist, and you've found an alchemy college with shared labs. On the first day there, your experiment goes wrong and blows up the lab you're sharing. When you try to apologize, you're asked why you're making such a big deal of it, since the labs get blown up every week or two and it's easy to replace everything.
  • You've joined the Flying Fantasy Wizard Cards club, and someone asks you for help with their Uther Pendragon deck. You tear into them, saying Uther is fragile and win-more and just not a good card to run at all. When you try to walk it back, they instead genuinely thank you for the wake-up call and agree with everything you told them without feeling at all insulted.
#

Also, is the throughline connecting all of those reasonably clear?

vivid wraith
vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
#

Hm. Maybe? But... I think that the point is that this isn't a mistake. It would be a mistake to tell your casual friends "hey the core card your deck is built around is terrible", but these are fellow pro players and they appreciate being told that.

#

It's something you feel guilty about, but they assure you that you shouldn't feel like you did anything wrong. My first draft was "you hurt someone, or think you hurt someone, but they don't mind".

#

...I had it listed as an idea for my Aspect 2 quest, but the scenes I'm describing seem to fit the Aspect 3 quest a bit better? But the vibe fits Aspect 2 better? I need to reexamine these old ideas.

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
#

That's good, but maybe too wordy.

#

The emotional crux of it is... you spent your life up to this point worried about hurting people or causing damaging or hurting feelings or whatever, and you're shocked to realize that's no longer the case.

#

of course, in future quests you'll realize you can't stay in this place as long as you'd like, but right now, you are Accepted.

#

(or maybe not your whole life up to this point. Maybe you've only just become a werewolf or unlocked your powers or whatever.)

obsidian dagger
#

I have suddenly abruptly remembered Borgel (and, subsequently, the many other Daniel Pinkwater books) and they seem vaguely Chuubo's.

obsidian dagger
vivid wraith
#

oh yeah that works

obsidian dagger
#

With that wording it can cover all kinds of things, or even be a minor goal rather than specifically needing some kind of big explosion... but I don't think that's necessarily wrong, and I do think it should still be a major goal.

vivid wraith
#

https://utopians.tumblr.com/post/805250043341864960

clown first, lover second

took acid on new years as per tradition and me and my sister got really into the concept of an origami crane folded out of a pizza so precisely and beautifully that it "shames our hatred". like all acts of human cruelty are shamed by the perspective that its beauty provides. we called it pizza crane

-# #we told Lainie about it and she started crying

Tumblr ·
narrow tartan
#

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0SmgoSMg4&pp=0gcJCTIBo7VqN5tD

YouTube
Seals are Good
Anakin has a doctorate in Darth Plageius the Wise Studies

Palpatine discovers Anakin has not only heard the Tragedy of Darth Plageius the Wise, but is a well-renowned expert on the topic.

If you like the work I do, then why not strike me with dollars folded into throwing stars?: https://www.patreon.com/sealsaregood/membership

The voices are AI generated (with significant editing by me to make them s...

▶ Play video
#

So. Anakin is a Darklord?

obsidian dagger
#

Does Phoenix Wright have Actual arcs?

#

Perceiving lies as locks certainly feels Red, and he’s very A Lawyer irrespective of physical location, local laws, or context.

#

And he’s arguably a Gatecrasher into the world of spirit channelers? Maybe?

#

Or into the world of lawyers, given his distinct lack of actually citing specific laws… 🤔

frank light
#

That lock lie thing is a plot device

#

His plot devices are spirit channeling techniques

#

Given their presence

narrow tartan
#

There is a balance to be struck between being too random with an imperators estates and being too on the nose

obsidian dagger
#

Green and Black often look very similar but I think they might actually be almost opposites of each other

#

green is about being increasingly enmeshed in the physical world, and black is about being increasingly unmoored from it.

obsidian dagger
#

If a Creature of the Light has a non-miraculous invisibility Skill, could they use that to cheat Appear’s visual foreshadowing by saying “actually I was here for a while and just invisible”? I ask because I think Marceline from Adventure Time does exactly that.

narrow tartan
#

Do you thihk. Strategist arcana like being in creation?

grand knot
narrow tartan
#

nodnod

narrow tartan
#

Turns out stick insects arent real. Just. Humans have an easier time realizing sticks are alive

narrow tartan
#

S=5
A=4
B=3
C=2
D=1
E=0
F=-1

grand knot
#

Huh?

vivid wraith
narrow tartan
#

Saw a thing that made me think of glitch

narrow tartan
#

Trans egg seizhi with Boy -1 as a skill

obsidian dagger
#

The thing about making a gender be a skill is that it has strange implications for Gold arcs.

#

Not necessarily wrong implications. But if you're trying to learn to better embody a gender role, that would probably be Orange, and if it's Gold it would be a very unusual and odd story.

frank light
#

Tbf seizhi is on orange

#

And also

#

“Boy -1” works

#

Making a role a skill works

obsidian dagger
#

True.

vestal mist
grand knot
narrow tartan
#

With boy -1. Seizhi is bad at being a boy but he keeps trying. So. In the process of breaking out of her egg she would presumably eventually lose the boy skill all together.

restive ridge
obsidian dagger
#

...further evidence Phoenix Wright has Become Someone: if he was placed into a setting without a firmly established legal system, and was mostly amnesiac as a result of the transfer, it feels to me like he would still push to establish a legal system specifically so that he can be a defense attorney.

frank light
#

I imagine this would manifest as “the game mechanics still apply”, even if it doesn’t exactly make sense.
The narrative will contrive itself to allow you to present, cross examine, and press someone to gain the truth, because that’s what he does

#

Even with a lack of laws, he would do those things

obsidian dagger
#

But my point is... he is so much A Lawyer that even in a wildly different setting, he can't not be a lawyer.

frank light
#

well yes exactly

#

thats how it manifests

#

even in a setting where thats not a thing

#

he will still present, shout objections, and somehow engage in cross examination

obsidian dagger
#

I mean, arguably even in the games... uh, it sometimes strains credibility how the exact same legal system can still be made to exist in a foreign country. Or just look at Professor Layton x Ace Attorney.

obsidian dagger
narrow tartan
# 
...buries the past.
...cannot be trusted.
...(Placeholder)
...is coarse and rough and irritating.
...gets everywhere.```
narrow tartan
#

Waluigi as an Excrucian

magic mason
gloomy oasis
#

I feel like, for Waluigi, (Placeholder) is an actual thing.

narrow tartan
#

Ah. Those are some estate properties for Sand. Or. Could be tweaked and made into deserts

gloomy oasis
#

I got confused.

narrow tartan
obsidian dagger
#

Realizing once again that much of my conception of Black XP actions comes from Madeleine L’Engle.

#

Stuff like “convincing mitochondria to stop dancing and anchor themselves because by doing so they can be part of a greater cosmic dance with the stars (and also not kill the person they’re in)” is very Black.

#

…are the villains from A Wind In The Door whose name I forgot Excrucians? I don’t remember all the details but I think they had the World-Breaker’s Hand.

#

…they’re called Echthroi and they are in fact Excrucians.

grand knot
obsidian dagger
#

Also I misremembered a detail: it is in fact fictional things (mmmaybe enzymes?) called farandolae which live inside of mitochondria.

obsidian dagger
#

A Keeper of Gardens

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
vivid wraith
#

True Gods

obsidian dagger
#

something about the phrase "mollusks have not converted to Buddhism" amuses me.

obsidian dagger
#

there are entirely too many xkcd comics which are Reality Syndrome but this is one of them https://xkcd.com/1086/

xkcd: Eyelash Wish Log
Ooh, another one. Uh ... the ability to alter any coefficients of friction at will during sporting events.
#

I wonder if Chuubo used his Wishing Engine to wish that his Wishing Engine worked?

vestal mist
obsidian dagger
#

He’s very Deceiver-coded in general. (Beret is more Serpent.)

narrow tartan
#

Coyote, dying of Roadrunner

obsidian dagger
#

A few different interpretations of Immortality:

  • Someone stabs you in the chest. The blade clangs off your skin.
  • Someone stabs you in the chest. You pull the blade out and smirk at them as your flesh knits closed.
  • Someone stabs you in the chest, but what you're doing is just too important for you to give up just because of a seemingly-lethal wound.
  • Someone stabs you in the chest. Red spurts everywhere. "Oh no!" you cry out. "My ketchup bottle!"
  • Someone stabs you in the chest. You fall over dead. Shortly later, you walk back into the scene, having just respawned at a nearby save point.
  • Someone stabs you in the chest. You fall over. Then the speaker hidden under your clothes crackles and your voice comes from it, revealing that what that person actually stabbed was a mannequin or a body double who you had wired, because you predicted that you were going to get stabbed.
  • Someone thinks they stabbed you in the chest, but you're just too nimble; at the last moment, you angled yourself so the blade just narrowly missed.
  • Someone tries to stab you in the chest, but the blade just can't touch you; it phases through your flesh without hurting you.
patent tiger
#

I've done Immortality by way of being a fictional character literally peeled out from the pages of a comic. Made of paper, literally, but essentially always "resets" to their baseline state of what they are, and it's not like getting stabbed in one comic meaningfully changes who the character is as a whole

obsidian dagger
#

That's very meta, but also probably the most literally accurate interpretation of Immortality; it is, fundamentally, the fact that the narrative resists the idea of you being permanently changed.

patent tiger
#

Yeah

obsidian dagger
#

On the subject of Immortality, I'm pretty sure that if you tried to cut off Chuubo's head, he'd run around seemingly headless for a few minutes, bonk into a wall, and then his head would pop out of his shirt collar.

#

the classic scooby doo thing.

gloomy oasis
#
  • Someone thinks about stabbing you in the chest, but one baleful glance has them sheathe their blade.
obsidian dagger
#

that's also a possibility. Honestly that works with any emotion, not just fear.

#

Maybe you're just so cool they can't bring themself to permanently hurt you.

patent tiger
#

Immortality by being so pathetic that nobody really feels good about hurting you all that seriously

obsidian dagger
#

...I feel like that's how you get Allegory (Henchman). Which I was going to say seemed weird, since henchmen seem more likely to be Reality Syndrome "unquestioning servants to their master (which changes in different stories)" but I could also see it for a sniveling servant to multiple evil overlords. Or, I suppose, Nodwick.

#

Although I feel like there's also a decent chance an Allegory (Henchman) gets beat up a lot, actually, and just improbably is never permanently harmed by it.

#

...or, alternatively, gets killed a lot, and your "character" is actually just a series of interchangable clones.

obsidian dagger
#

do you think Town has clam beds in Fortitude?

#

I feel like it would have been mentioned but I can't remember if it was.

tall jolt
obsidian dagger
#

just remembered that time when I was so upset Town doesn't snow that I made a tumblr post about it, and then later made basically the same post because I had forgotten about the first one, just because most of my conception of the Pastoral actions had to do with snow.

#

Like, when I look through my own life for something that looks like Shared Action, I come up with "shoveling snow together".

#

or... what do you mean the Fortitude book has an entire chapter on taking care of a house which doesn't include "running water through the pipes so they don't freeze"?

vestal mist
#

What do you mean

#

Pipes freezing?

obsidian dagger
#

yeah. In the middle of winter, you have to run water through the pipes occasionally or else the pipes might freeze and burst, especially if they aren't insulated.

vestal mist
#

Well

#

That is by no means a common experience, lol

obsidian dagger
#

it is if you grow up in the frigid north

#

Like... the absolute most Pastoral book series I can think of is Little House on the Prairie and that also involves snow. Although they were too early for running water.

vestal mist
#

Clearly, Fortitude is not in the Frigid North, then

#

That feels more The Academy's vibe

obsidian dagger
#

No, but just... a pastoral existence with no snow? How does that even make sense?

vestal mist
#

Easily

narrow tartan
#

imagines this as an argument between Leonardo de Montreal and Chuubo

obsidian dagger
#

Arguably it should be Natalia and Chuubo.

#

reminds me of this post I made:

Chuubo, looking out the window: it’s so much snow, and so dense! there’s snow everywhere! have you ever seen so much snow?

Natalia, looking at the second inch of light powder:

#

side note but I just saw this and... this is the entire crux of Azazel, who is named Abomination.

vivid wraith
restive ridge
#

TRUKE

narrow tartan
#

Hmm. Domain.

obsidian dagger
#

Thinking about my OC NPCs again, the Goldbergs.

#

Shelley and Ivana Goldberg have each lived for over 80 years and been married for most of it. Shelley is plump and warm and welcoming; Ivana would look stern, with her drawn features and her thick horn-rimmed glasses, if not for her frequent and genuine smiles and the warmth of her voice. One of them draws, the other embroiders, and both of them bake and work on jigsaw puzzles together. They have no actual children, but you may forget this upon seeing them due to the sheer grandmotherly aura they exude.

#

I don't know much of their past, and I privately wonder if some of what I do know is either exaggerated or outright fabricated, but they used to be wild. They're currently very tame and settled down, but the upshot of this is that they seem almost impossible to shock or scandalize. Which is usually good, but if you've just settled into your goth phase and started acting edgy, it can somewhat take the wind out of your sails to have a pair of octogenerian Jewish lesbians cooing over you and talking about how you remind them of one of themselves at that age.

#

They are, however, good if you need someone to listen to your problems and give you life advice, and they are also quite effective at teaching you how to dye your hair or take care of your piercings. However, they will probably pinch your cheeks and remark on how much you've grown, and if you're especially unlucky you run the risk of them flirting with each other in front of you.

narrow tartan
#

Dark Lord whose chancel is inhabited by Bobombs. The kind that die when they explode. They are very philosophical about it.

#

Brightlord who is obsessed with shoes.

obsidian dagger
#

very funny bit from the Fortitude book, which I've found myself randomly looking through again. It has a lot of funny moments.

image.png
frank light
#

God yeah I remember that

obsidian dagger
#

also, the pip.

vivid wraith
#

lol

vivid wraith
#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9co15bXMhY

YouTube
Zynthesiren
Zynthesiren - Killing Angel (feat. HXVOC & GALENAIA) [SynthV Origin...

Do not kill my angels today! Taking a step back with the synths to give you a symphonic metal song straight from the 2010's! Would you prefer a handsome devil on your shoulder, or a caring operatic goddess to hold you gently?

STREAM THE SONG HERE:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/zynthesiren/killing-angels-feat-hxvoc--galenaia

BUY THE SONG H...

▶ Play video
patent tiger
#

There's no way this is 2 months ago

#

What era are we in right now

vivid wraith
#

The Third Age, the age of war against the void

fleet harbor
#

The common one

magic mason
narrow tartan
#

School's Marching Band mostly consists of Excrucians

obsidian dagger
#

I think when you take an XP action, you're sort of declaring "this moment is something I'll remember". And sometimes that's because it's Really Important or because it's deep foreshadowing or because it's an emotional climax, but other times you have a completely pointless rambling conversation about increasingly ridiculous guesses as to what the pip is for and that just sticks with you.

#

In a pastoral campaign, XP actions are the two moments you remember most in a week. Like, sometimes you logically remember something more important happened! But those are flashbulb memories.

narrow tartan
#

nodnod

obsidian dagger
#

If you assume that XP actions are memories, that implies that it's hard for an Accursed character to clearly remember things in their Sanctuary. All that time in there, missing XP actions, recovering, just sort of... blurs together. It might be pleasant but it's probably... numbingly anhedonic.

#

Which fits. It's a place you go to survive, but it lacks a proper emotional spark.

narrow tartan
#

Hmm.

#

needs to rerrad glitch

obsidian dagger
#

Interesting non-traditional Sanctuaries:

  • A recurring good dream you have whenever you sleep, which other people can join if they sleep in the right place
  • The depths of a bookstore, whose books are the last remains of the sacred grove you were once bound to
  • The depths of your own mind (I think this only works if whoever controls your body while you're in your headspace is not controlled by the same human person)
  • A boring room with dull concrete, because it's the only place without reminders of the impossible beauty you once saw
  • An abandoned classroom where you're allowed to let loose and draw on everything and organize everything, since nobody's there to care
#
  • Chess, in the park. As long as you're playing chess against random passerbys you can finally relax. It's the only time you don't feel trapped in yourself.
obsidian dagger
#

...I wonder how many fictional characters are on Accursed and can only recover MP while they're getting in stupid fights in a bar or a gym?

#

no, that's a bit too sad. I don't think your Sanctuary can be unhealthy or bad for you.

magic mason
obsidian dagger
#

I mean, yes. But I also feel like... I don't know. Like, maybe your sanctuary can be harmful to you, but it shouldn't necessarily be harmful to you, just because the idea of having to do something that deeply harms you, repeatedly, just in order to function, when there's nothing you can do about it, is a bit too bleak.

#

Like, even if your sanctuary is a bar... that doesn't mean you can't function as a person without getting blackout drunk and the laws of reality prevent you from ever fixing that, you know?

#

I was just trying to think of behaviors that could work as Sanctuaries rather than just locations, but the only one I can think of is "sleeping" and that's arguably just visiting a location in a more esoteric manner.

#

I think people can have lots of different emotional relationships with their Sanctuaries, and they can change those relationships over time.

frank light
#

usually i think a lot of the actions taken in a sanctuary are some method of cleaning, resting, self care, or unwinding

#

reading
sleeping
drinking
Cleaning
brushing your teeth
etc

#

they're places of rest

obsidian dagger
#

For some reason the archetypal sanctuary I imagine is a room with a giant bed and a ton of stuffed animals. It's safe, but it's lonely. It's a place to rest and recover and not much else.

grand knot
#

Hug your dog/cat

obsidian dagger
#

Actual question: are there clam bed around Big Lake? I mean, even if there aren't, you could sail to somewhere that did have clam beds, so getting access to shellfish wouldn't be hard... but mostly I'm just curious.

fleet harbor
#

I could see there being oyster reefs

obsidian dagger
#

is big lake freshwater or saltwater (or "yes")?

#

I mean, I guess it doesn't matter that much since fishing boats can varyingly sail onto any waters.

fleet harbor
#

I imagine it is Brackish On Average

magic mason
#

Starting my Rules Magister Arc

I think people dying is bad

obsidian dagger
#

...I'm thinking about how hard it is to tell apart Red and Silver XP actions. Because... Red XP actions only make sense if you understand that the significance of these random moments is objective, because it's foreshadowing something important. If the foreshadowing never resolves, and it only matters because you think it matters, it's silver.

#

but, like... I'm looking at these little snippets from a fic and I can't tell if they're more Red or Silver:

Someone has drawn stars in multicolored chalk all over an empty basketball court. They stand out brighter on the cement than the painted lines. Anthony finds a piece of chalk and puts it in his pocket, turns it over and over until the tips of his fingers are as purple as the sky.

The edges of brown blades of grass are lined with frost that reflects tiny beads of light and makes a sharp, bright sound as he walks across it.

On the flat surface of a pond, a group of ducks, all pale tans, bits of olive green, and brown marbled feathers drift slowly. He washes his hands and fills a waterbottle, knowing in a way tinted palest orange the melody that will make it safe to drink.

A man jogging with a fluffy black and white dog nods to him as they go past and Anthony nods back. He keeps walking.

#

Probably Silver?

#

but it'd be Red if that water purification spell/melody came up again later. But it doesn't, so it's Silver.

#

I just think this fic had really good examples of the particular Silver and Red XP actions that are just... a sensory experience, for a moment.

obsidian dagger
#

thinking about a mimicgame again. And... I might be getting a bit too personal, but the idea of a game where you play as a character who by virtue of existing is inherently harmful to others and your very being is inherently harmful to the world and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it (because even if you die, that'll just make things even worse) would be, uh. Very emotional.

#

Because that's what a Mimic is. By virtue of existing, you corrode the world, and this is a miserable thing and you've turned all your health levels into a buttress of insistence that you're more than just that and you refuse to accept that all you do is corrode the world and make things worse for everyone, but at the same time, you do inherently corrode the world by existing.

#

And you can't explain it to anyone else, not really. If you try to explain your pain, all that will happen is that someone else experiences the same pain. The closest you can get is sympathy from other Mimics, because even if they don't understand what your Blasphemy is like, they understand what having a Blasphemy is like.

#

The Strategists claim they understand, but they don't, not really. They're in more pain, sure, but... at least, at the end of the day, they can look at their Bane, and say "this is not me. This is the crime of creation against the Not." And you have to look at your Blasphemy, and know, on some level: that is you. Alll that pain and awfulness isn't the crime of Creation against Ninuan, but the crime of Ninuan against Creation. You are not just a victim but a weapon and the awfulness comes from you.

#

I think it's an absolute rule that your Blasphemy will any situation worse for anyone other than you. It will usually make a situation worse for you, too, but occasionally it can help you out of truly dire straits. But it will always make things worse for everyone else in the scene.

narrow tartan
#

Hmm

fleet harbor
#

Ninuan

gloomy oasis
#

By telling us to write it down, they're attacking us. And any of us who write it down are attacking whoever reads it next.

obsidian dagger
#

From Ave Xia Rem Y:

“Violence is not the means. Violence is not the end. Violence is. At every moment. At every second. Everything else is a denial of our nature. The clothes we wear. The words we speak. Our so-called laws. They are illusions. Lies.”

#

(Some part of me wants to call that character a Deceiver who found the True Thing as Violence, but honestly a Warmain probably fits better.)

fleet harbor
#

At least going by the quote, that's very Deceiver in vibes

obsidian dagger
#

I agree! But the character otherwise kind of acts more like a Warmain? Or, at least, is a Warmain-like threat. He's insurmountably threatening, and if you try to fight him, you fall into his metaphorical territory.

#

...you should read Ave Xia Rem Y so you can tell me what you think he is (you should actually do this but not for that reason because it is a long read and still being written).

#

on an unrelated note I'm tempted to make a playlist of "pop songs with music videos that depict an Actual infection". Currently I have two songs: Rather Be (Clean Bandit) and Pompeii (Bastille).

obsidian dagger
#

...I'm back to thinking about my "arcs as songs" thing, and there are a lot of possibilities for Wounded Angel. Like, there are so many songs that could be Wounded Angel. The trick will be finding one that includes "being there when you're at your lowest" and "locking away something you can't accept" and "growing stronger from injuries" because a ton of songs are about one of those things but I couldn't find a great musical example of all of them.

obsidian dagger
#

...if I post a song here, can I get a check on what arc people think it is, so I can tell if the vibes from it are coming through well enough?

vestal mist
#

Fire away

obsidian dagger
#

want to know if it gives off arc vibes clearly enough that you can pick up on them without me telling you first.

obsidian dagger
#

What arc do you think it is? Or is it not clear?

vestal mist
#

Sorry, not.listened yet, need to get home

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
vivid wraith
#

oh that might fit yeah

obsidian dagger
#

Also there are a lot of songs competing for red slots. (Also Silver slots and Wounded Angel. I kind of have too many options for those.)

obsidian dagger
#

I still have an imperfect understanding of Reality Syndrome. I still kind of think of it as... piecewise? Like, it does the Wish thing, and I understand why that's Sickly Gold, but I don't understand how the Experience-sharing ties into all that, and I'm not sure if that's because I don't fully comprehend Reality Syndrome or because I don't fully comprehend Gold or both.

#

I think Natalia has tricked me into thinking Gold is a Stoic, Serious Color with Serious Stories, and I need to understand it as more... exuberant. The Gold way for you to grow as a person is to throw yourself entirely into something and go over the top.

#

Natalia is very serious, but... I think going Over The Top works best when it isn't a mistake. It isn't a result of losing perspective, or being foolish and taking something too seriously, or at least it isn't just that. And sometimes it's reacting to a world that's doing Too Much, and overwhelming you... but I think it works best when it's an expression of really, deeply, Caring. And sometimes that's because you can't bear to do anything less than perfectly, sure, but that's still caring.

#

Chuubo is kind of weird, because originally he was not conceived of as a character who would take Gold arcs, but he fundamentally is. So what does that imply about gold arcs, and about him?

frank light
#

gold is very anime

#

and in reality syndrome's case, a sort of cheat power

#

or narrative breaking power

#

reality syndrome bends the narrative
both with experience sharing and also its cheat power

#

chosen one is very mahou shoujo and ace is very shonen

#

and reality syndrome is outside the dichotomy

fleet harbor
#

I do love using Ace for less anime stuff

#

I am extremely proud of Ace wing massage >_>

frank light
#

it was very good

frank light
#

and genre wise gold arcs are drawn and animated

#

characters will squash and stretch in ways that, irl, don't make sense

but it works

#

they're on a drawn medium

obsidian dagger
#

I think I need to understand the experience sharing as a reflection of Chosen One’s Enemy, probably?

#

Like, it would make sense for them to reflect each other in that way. But I worry I have an overly shallow understanding of Gold.

obsidian dagger
#

...I mean, if i ever actually make those videos I was going to make, I would have to do a deep comparison for each color's XP actions and issues and genres of play and arcsets and maybe that would help me understand Gold better.

obsidian dagger
#

I think there may be a parallel between experience-sharing and the ability of Skills to narrate things happening.

narrow tartan
#

🙂

magic mason
#

I hate fighting Rules Magisters because you take a swing at them and they say some shit like “You never know how invisible you feel until someone finally sees you”

And then you start laying into them and exploding them with your weapons and they are like “I’m not mad at you, I’m just sad the universe made us meet like this”

And then your like “mf why won’t you die” and they reply “I died a long time ago when I realized I couldn’t save her, this is nothing compared to that”

restive ridge
#

Many such cases

obsidian dagger
#

just had a brain blast moment: Typhon, in her human incarnation as a teacher, having a pet Set animal (it is sometimes called the Typhonic beast...)

obsidian dagger
#

I'm thinking about my arcs as songs project. There are a lot of silver options, a lot of Wounded Angel options, a good number of vaguely red options, a good number of orange options, and a decent amount of Called Away (also, I found a song for True God Awakening and a song for Deceiver Awakening and that's a sticky wicket to figure out), and meanwhile I'm struggling to find anything Gold...

#

Seriously, True God Awakening and Deceiver Awakening and either one could be an example since they're about equally good at representing one particular interpretation.

YouTube
Talking Heads
Talking Heads - And She Was (Official Video) [HD]

Watch the HD remastered official music video for Talking Heads - "And She Was" from the album 'Little Creatures' (1985)
Director: Jim Blashfield

🔔 Subscribe to the Talking Heads channel and ring the bell to stay updated with Talking Heads https://th.lnk.to/SubscribeToTHID

💿 Shop official Talking Heads releases and merchandise https://th....

▶ Play video
YouTube
They Might Be Giants - Topic
Whistling in the Dark

Provided to YouTube by Rhino

Whistling in the Dark · They Might Be Giants

Flood

℗ 1990 Elektra Entertainment, A Division of Warner Communications Inc.

Programmer: Alex Noyes
Mastering Engineer: Bob Ludwig
Trumpet: Frank London
Performance: John Flansburgh
Performance: John Linnell
Engineer: Katherine Miller
Engineer: Patrick Dillett
Engin...

▶ Play video
#

I was thinking maybe Natural from Imagine Dragons as the Ace?

magic mason
#

I definitly think Golden songs should lean into a rock direction

obsidian dagger
#

If anyone can find a song that sounds like Chosen One in particular I will be very grateful.

obsidian dagger
#

there are so many good options for Wounded Angel...

vivid wraith
#

Greater Fail

Screenshot_20260205-183750.png
magic mason
obsidian dagger
#

lemme find the theme

magic mason
#

geniunely jusst kinda baffeled it was on a magical girl playlist

obsidian dagger
#

I was considering Natural from Imagine Dragons for the Ace but upon another listen it might also be Wounded Angel videogames

magic mason
#

Want my slightly cursed pick for Ace?

obsidian dagger
#

Infinite's theme could be Indomitable. But I already have a song tentatively picked out for that, and it's Thriller.

obsidian dagger
#

it could be the example of the Ace but I kind of don't want it to be?

magic mason
#

That is fair

obsidian dagger
#

I mean, it wouldn't be the first shitpost of a song to be on there (as mentioned, I have Thriller as a tentative Indomitable and Just Lean as Creature of the Light).

#

it might end up as the Ace though.

magic mason
obsidian dagger
#

I really struggled to find good Gold ones. Purple should be easy but I'm not great at picking apart the different Purple arcs sometimes.

magic mason
obsidian dagger
#

Thriller might be partially cheating, since it's a song about horror movie monsters which are themselves usually Indomitable, but I'm not sure if the song is a good example without that cultural context.

#

And it could be Creature of the Light, but probably shouldn't be?

magic mason
#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsoA3HzRNaI

Shotout to 14 year old fluffy's edgy music choices that still show up in my feed

YouTube
JennyMusic
EPIC ROCK | ''I Am The Enemy'' by All Good Things (Extreme Music)

XSeries Music / Extreme Music
Name: I Am The Enemy
Album: Battle Rock 2
Composer: Murphy/Bojanic/Emanuel/Hooper/Cooke/Armstrong
Band: All Good Things
Instruments: Electric Guitar, Male Vocal
Publisher: The Extreme Music Library Ltd (PRS)
https://www.extrememusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/allgoodthingsrock/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/b...

▶ Play video
obsidian dagger
#

...okay this might also be good. I can't figure out if it's a better option than Thriller but it's definitely also a good fit. And it fits Indomitable better than Renegade, certainly.

vivid wraith
obsidian dagger
#

I'm not sure what this means but... yeah

still blaze
#

Any word on what's coming in Nobilis 4E?

patent tiger
#

Plan was initially to have a kickstarter may of last year. Work has been continuing slowly, no further dates are known at this time

frank light
#

Yeah pretty much

still blaze
#

I was thinking more in terms of content

#

Really liked 2E, but only got to run a short adventure that had to be cancelled half-way through because of a scheduling conflict

#

Never did run 3E

patent tiger
#

In content, uhh, something like Glitch is what we know aiui

#

So, miracle ladders like 3e had, but with Glitch's Quest framework

still blaze
#

What are miracle ladders?

#

I assume the quest framework in Glitch is something like the system used in Chuubo's?

frank light
#

the abilities

#

glitch is actually pretty different from chuubos

#

miracle ladder generally refers to "the list of miracles"

#

which each have an escalating cost

still blaze
#

Oh that's cool, because while I like the system in Chuubo's I'm not sure how well it would translate to something like Nobilis... So it's a relief to know it's not the same xD

frank light
#

its linear so, its a ladder, cus your stat defines which miracles you can do for free

patent tiger
# still blaze What are miracle ladders?

Every stat has powers rated from 0 to 12, each one is their own bespoke power. Having a stat of X or greater lets you do power X for free, the larger ones are more costly

patent tiger
#

Which are, in fact, as they were in Chuubo's

still blaze
#

Awww

patent tiger
magic mason
#

There are powers 0-8, and then, “greater” miracles which are 4-12

patent tiger
#

If Quests can actually work well in an instrumental context

frank light
#

yeah

#

we've got some chuubos esque quests

#

quests are odd cus theyre weird for progression

#

but i REALLY LIKE them for storytelling

#

at least if engaged with as intended

still blaze
#

I haven't managed to run Chuubo's yet. It's not really compatible with my group, I think

#

Nobilis was a bit of a hard sell

patent tiger
still blaze
#

The Chuubo's main rulebook is a behemoth

patent tiger
#

Quests are an excellent narrative structuring tool, and they make my eye twitch as a progression system

frank light
#

ive been tempted to make modifications to progressions in a quest context

#

but

#

we shall wait to see how nobilis does it

grand knot
#

I like the pfp karen

frank light
#

Thank you!

#

❤️

magic mason
obsidian dagger
#

Hm. I can hear it, but I could honestly hear an argument for any of the Purple arcs, arguably.

#

Like, all of the Purple arcs are about loving a person or a place so much you change it... and none of those arcs require those changes to be something the other person wants. Keeper of Gardens kind of does by letting people opt out of physical reshaping, but, also, you're constantly Toxic.

#

But even Sentimental can make someone you Treasure much better at meeting their true potential at performing some task they don't actually want to do.

#

It's a good song, but I can't figure out which purple arc it is, which makes me leery to pull the trigger on it being any of them? But it would work for Keeper of Gardens...

obsidian dagger
#

it has suddenly occurred to me the synergy between Keeper of Gardens and Creature of the Light: while in your garden, you get to create/summon backup singers for all your big flamboyant spotlight-hogging songs.

#

unrelatedly, how reasonable would it be for a Creature of Delirium to be able to transform into anyone whose weystone they have? It wouldn't be a perfect transformation, but it'd be good enough to fool people (who don't have the relevant issue to identify them).

#

I'm thinking about Ill-Made again. Who, uh... technically she would transform into the person who the weymark's owner thinks they are, which may or may not be an accurate disguise.

#

Extremely strange question but does anyone know where the "masks are effective disguises" thing is explicitly stated?

#

page 121 of the core rulebook, found it

narrow tartan
#

How might a Ruleslord give rise to a Gamer?

patent tiger
#

Presumably not on purpose

restive ridge
obsidian dagger
#

thinking a random song I found which is about Hell but in a way which seems... possibly close to Nobilis Hell? Which in turn led to me thinking about the human desire to be punished, to suffer justly, to have someone to blame for your problems so you can say you're suffering nobly... which currently has me thinking I need to watch Paranoia Agent.

#

this is the song BTW. CW: Flashing lights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYNEnKOrkA

YouTube
暁Records
【東方ヴォーカルPV】DON♥ZOKO【暁Records公式】

サークル：暁Records
曲名：DON♥ZOKO
原曲：見た事も無い悪夢の世界/パンデモニックプラネット

Vocal：Stack
Lyric：Stack
Arrange：Stack Bros.
Illust：原之 様 (@harano_c)
Movie：出前 様 (@demae)
Mastering：Takeo Kira(TEMAS)

日本語＆中文字幕：LATEa* 様（@LATEaWolf）
韓国語字幕：Sharuse...

▶ Play video
#

CW: flashing lights

#

Is the human desire to be punished more Game, Hell, Rule, or Bleak?

#

...also what faction was Entropy I? Because I could see a strong parallel between the desire to be punished and the desire for all bad things to be because the immortal King of Evil exists and his evil world sheds little flakes of evil onto a pure world and everything is his fault and life is simple.

#

I think... not Yaldabaoth as a concept, but specifically the final boss of Persona 5, who is named Yaldabaoth... is plausibly a Ruler. Although in terms of what it does it might prefer the True God arcs, because it definitely has Awakening, probably has Primordial and Called Away, and is big enough to be a Child of the Ash.

#

I think it's Rule, for the reason that the Game probably hates it if anything bad that happens to you is because of someone else rather than just the consequence of your own actions.

#

Also, I'm thinking of an enemy of Hope who is not Despair, but Acceptance, proposing the idea that to imagine a better world is selfish. Why should you hope for something better, instead of being satisfied with the world exactly as it currently is?

#

Honestly, if you're a Prophet and have to defend Hope as a concept, that seems more interesting than just having the Frowning Friends show up and cast a wave of despair over everything. Instead, Hope is dying because everyone is practicing radical acceptance and becoming satisfied with the world as it is rather than setting themselves up for disappointment by wanting more.

#

it is also just now occuring to me that you are entirely able to use the Wound system in response to Skills using intentions to attempt to persuade you of something. Maybe you agree with part of it. Maybe you call it stupid, but you can't stop thinking about it later. Maybe you're so violently opposed to it that you refuse to accept it, or anything close to it, and overcompensate too far in the other direction.

#

...between this and Azazel (who is named Abomination) I have kind of kept circling around the desire for a villain, huh. I think I really need to watch Paranoia Agent.

magic mason
#

Big theories are Game Lord or True God

Some funnier fan theories have him as “the Angel that cast down the fallen by defining what wickedness and and being the law that declares it unworthy” or even a serpent who is compulsively obsessed with wickedness and pain

He needs either gardener or wanderer

fleet harbor
#

That Angel one was mine and Karen’s iirc :D

#

I had a more elaborate, jokey version which managed to make him every class of Imperator, starting with that

narrow tartan
#

Thinking about the joke about how everything but humans have darkvision.

#

What if darkness only exists on earth

obsidian dagger
#

that would be fascinating and now has me thinking about a deciever whose pState is their shadow.

frank light
#

this is in fact a deceiver!

obsidian dagger
#

oh, fair enough

frank light
obsidian dagger
#

There's something about how shadows don't exist, and are a name for a lack of something?

narrow tartan
#

...her shadow ate itself. That is a good p state

fleet harbor
obsidian dagger
vivid wraith
#

angra mainyu, all the evil in the world...

narrow tartan
#

...hmm. what if Lord Entropy was also Imperator of Peacocks.

fleet harbor
#

Destruction, Desecration, Scorn, and Peacocks

narrow tartan
#

...goombas

obsidian dagger
#

I am also now thinking about an evil Serpent who provides people with the gift of an enemy they can forever struggle against in virtuous battle

#

imagine how much happier Sisyphus would be if the boulder was named "evil" and by pushing it to the top of a hill it could be defeated

#

It grants wishes like "I wish all of this was someone else's fault" and "I wish there was a reason for my misery" and "I wish there was a monster I could valiantly quest against".

#

Actually, that might be a Hell thing? You don't have to introspect and figure out why you're unhappy if you can just blame a demon!

obsidian dagger
#

Found a Touhou character with a power that's pretty textbook Awakening:

Hecatia's ability allows her to exist on Earth, the Moon, and the Otherworlds all at once with different bodies, while her core soul resides in Hell. [5] As places like Gensokyo and the Dream World are Otherworlds, Hecatia can access these as well. She can switch between them by wearing the respective astronomical objects on the top of her head. She can also summon them to essentially give herself clones. [6]

#

she's a Goddess of Hell but mechanically seems much more like a True God. Also she's not that evil.

#

also she looks like she shops at Hot Topic but that's probably unrelated.

narrow tartan
#

Oh in the Wouldn't Fit Right game Harmony encountered and annoyed Nidhogr

obsidian dagger
#

oh?

narrow tartan
#

He was the Serpent of Hellfire and was wrapped around the roots of yhe World Ash.

obsidian dagger
#

Ah, interesting.

narrow tartan
#

Harmony through a bomb down his throat and one of his eyes turned into an Actual which was married at the neck.

narrow tartan
#

What if miramie mesmer cosplay