Iphigenia at Midnight

[wheat ferry]

Nah, absolutely a fair point! As for the other bit...

||

ATTEND/SUBORDINATE - FIXATE - FALSE.
WE - I - DO NOT PERMIT ANY GODS ON EARTH OR IN HEAVEN WITHOUT PARTY PRE-APPROVAL.
AND YOU ARE ON /MY/ SHIP. ]```
||

fun little quirk, she'll be decidedly unhappy

(though it does "prove her point," not only is everyone associated with secessionists, they're sheltering rebels and anti-state actors!)

[quartz cipher]

I'm yoinking that to pass back as the response to rejecting the attempt on any name NPC.

[granite crane]

Gotta double check my setup for 3-2

I went a little crazy adjusting the NPCs to account for Rebake overall lowering ultra power levels

I want to keep the vibe of those two being the focus but i don't want a repeat of the Achilles situation

[keen valley]

I'm a bit concerned about the power level of the Rapid Cycling Missile Racks from Mitscher 3. It seems like a pretty strict upgrade from Ghoul Nexus from Hydra 1 and in many ways is comparable to the Gandiva Missiles from Monarch 2, with the difference being it's a Main Nexus instead of a Heavy Launcher for the same power level and having Loading instead of costing 1 SP, and while I recognize Loading is a major disadvantage, it very much stuck out to me.

[fluid salmon]

Gandiva does also have +3 range and accuracy over RCMR, and I feel like the fact that it's at 3 LLs instead of 1 or 2 is a downside in itself 🤔

[wheat ferry]

kinetic hammer from raleigh 3 is a strict upgrade to most melee weapons in the game, deeper investments being better has precedent, aye

in general it's a Gandiva equivalent in power level, with the Gandiva requiring a Heavy mount but being able to fire more consistently, while the RCMR is for OC looping and other playstyles which can expend resources to negate Loading

[keen valley]

The other question I had regarding it is why is it a Nexus if it's a missile rack?

[wheat ferry]

Synergy with Centimane to evoke the versatile payloads feeling

[solid jewel]

diegeticism is a fake idea

also, loading IS a pretty major distinction from, yknow, the gandiva

the weapon that can fire every turn with zero upkeep

[granite crane]

To answer your react, by The Achilles Situation im referring to his unexpected fragility resulting from rebake changes that i didn't know enough to compensate for

And by 'keeping the focus' i mean i want to minimise supporting npcs but also i don't wanna have the party gang up on and slam dunk the poor guys

A tricky balance, im leaning towards a steady stream of rebake grunts being the answer

[idle copper]

what's diegeticism
i tried googling and no results

[wheat ferry]

nah, I was think reacting because I wasn't totally sure of the answer myself

I'm sure it'll work out well for your party, though

[wheat ferry]

in the TTRPG sense, that's "fluff represented 1:1 in crunch" (in a sense)

[idle copper]

i think im having a tism moment... could you give an example?

[wheat ferry]

it'd be "diegetic" for "a rifle with ammunition effective against armor" to have the AP tag

but sometimes the AP tag isn't diegetic, something known in the narrative and in-character, it's an abstraction at the mechanical layer for whatever reason

[idle copper]

AHHH okay i think that makes sense now

[fluid salmon]

A good example is how Burn gets used for nanite weaponry like the Swarm/Hive Nanites on Balor 3

If you look at it, it might be kinda weird that it's labeled Burn because it's not actually setting your mech on fire - like, say, the Andromeda-pattern laser does

but the mechanics of the nanites sticking and eating away at you are best evoked through damage over time, so they get to be Burn

...or the fact that the Andromeda-Pattern Heavy Laser Rifle ain't a rifle but a Cannon, honestly (I presume because they didn't want it to do crack shot and/or have certain mods for balance reasons?)

[wheat ferry]

Andromeda being a Cannon is the textbook case for Lancer kind of shrugging when it comes to weapon category

[woven wharf]

if it was diagetic they'd have to introduce a new weapon class yeah because like, lasers arent cannons or rifles

its ultimately more about the feel, than anything

[wheat ferry]

the design brief for the RCMR is working off of the original fluff for the Mitscher's predecessor as operated by SecComm - a long-loiter gunship with its own internal weapons printer that could remain above an area for days without landing and you could never be sure it'd actually run out of missiles - to manifest a weapon that could have a response for every possible situation, it just took awhile

so it's variable damage (warhead), the Mitscher can change its tags (guidance mechanism), and it can have different on-hit effects with Centimane (payload)

[idle copper]

and the heavy machine guin is a cannon >:(

[idle copper]

raad

[solid jewel]

Frankly, the distinction between a missile and a drone is mainly a matter of semantics

I've done "nexus weapon as suicide drone launcher" before

[gentle flax]

To quote you in a line that just goes so hard :

The difference between a drone and a missile is measurable only in end-states.

[granite crane]

WIP sprite for Diomedes, i wanted to wait until i was fully done but i'm honestly too excited

ah fuck i forgot his mantle one sec

there we go

[wheat ferry]

[granite crane]

aaand teucer! im uhming and ahhing about no mantle vs mantle

[wheat ferry]

I think both look great, genuinely - it's a hard choice!

[granite crane]

i think with mantle helps balance the sprite out a bit

in terms of like, canvas real estate

unpainted, but anyone who wants to use them for their own games feel free!

[granite crane]

and coloured!

[granite crane]

i have some plans for Her too

[wheat ferry]

nefarious...

I'm very interested to see people's interpretations before the official art™ comes out

[granite crane]

i've had a fairly strong image in my head for a while now, its just a case of putting it together

im excited to see how Wrong i can make the knife feel

[wheat ferry]

excellent

[granite crane]

but i'm definitely going to leave that for another weekend lmao

brain fried from learning asesprite and gimp

[granite crane]

@wheat ferry what would 'defeat' look like for 3-2?

At what point do you imagine ||the Players would be forced to abandon plan 1 of stealing a door code and proceeding to blow the door manually||

||and if they do blow said door, what's stopping the guards from following them in?||

Ah right i missed the Round 6 part

That's the defeat condition sorted, but what's ||enforcing the time limit, is it reinforcements? Some kind of master lockdown? Or is it more of a 'if you haven't managed it in this amount of time you won't manage it at all'?||

||and if the door gets forced open won't the surviving guards follow them in?||

[wheat ferry]

Reinforcements and additional security teams from elsewhere in the ship, aye

||as for the guards in the defeat case, that was a head-scratcher for how to "fail forward" (in Lancer tradition; I have some combats where it's "defeat: nah, you're fucked," but that's not great for too many of them); I worked it out as "once you enter there's a secondary isolation that locks you in with Iphigenia + beginning threads of paracausal weirdness"||

fortunately I've never had a playtest party lose 3-2 so I'm safe in paucity of explanation :^)

you could theoretically ||toss teucer and diomedes into iphigenia's phase 1 if you really hate your players, but doubling down on a loss like that is really kicking someone when they're down||

[granite crane]

Maybe something along the lines of ||using the core power to overload the door controls, forcing them open temporarily, then fusing them shut again behind them||

||sure it'll make getting out of the vault again hard but that's not really going to be their priority while Iphigenia is barreling towards them||

[wheat ferry]

Yup, could definitely work

[granite crane]

Yeah you were right they had no trouble

Things got dramatic there but it all worked out

Now i gotta make another sprite, goddamn

[wheat ferry]

The sprite grind never ends

Also, good to hear it was dramatic!

[granite crane]

Welllll

||what ended up happening is that the Harrison Armory Truther player Locked The Fuck In||

||Asura + overcharging on a HA mech + paracausal mod nuc cav = a lot of damage that Teucer can't do jack shit about||

||resulting in Teucer being structured thrice in two rounds||

||which, hey, it goes like that. And through a combination of 'obviously the enemies are going to hit back' and the fact that this guy is the one who got the killshot on Ajax, Teucer shot back with very extreme prejudice||

||now i was making use of some extra goodies from the Ultra template not specified in the module pdf to compensate for the overall lower durability of Rebake Ultras, one of which being the Short Cycle Lance. ||

[wheat ferry]

https://tenor.com/view/devious-devious-smile-devious-emoji-gif-12743683124666080615

excellent pick for Large Gun.

[granite crane]

I wanted to make use of it on more than one person but hey

With ||all the structuring he'd been suffering, it was well and truely charged||

||the target definitely failed the agi save||

||now at 2 structure, Teucer gained a crucial accuracy die||

||the Ranger Long Rifle crit for 10+2d6 AP||

||Diomedes joins the fun and brings him down to 3 hp 1 structure||

||yes i am doing a lot to this one player and i am changing my ways in the future||

||but god this dude has murdered every one of my bosses this campaign lmfao||

||the Drama was partially this mutual triple structuring, but it got really bad when the tortuga player kind of panicked||

||he grappled Teucer and i think intended to lock them down so he couldn't get the killing blow on HA guy||

||but inadvertently ended up bringing them into line of sight with mr 3 hp||

||it was Teucer's turn next, and what else would they do except shoot, reliable 4, he's dead||

||harrison armory guy was understandably a bit peeved by this, and made an ascerbic comment about being fully able to save himself if he'd been allowed to take his turn before the tortuga player||

||he wasn't too broken up about it, in his own words it's just a game and he brought his character into the campaign fully expecting him to die in a fireball cackling||

||but the tortuga player took it really hard, poor guy has problems with anxiety and took the complaint about his misplay to heart, leaving the VC in destress||

||the harrison armory player felt super bad about it and left too||

||and the rest of us were left gobsmacked how it all went to pot so quickly||

||we were all going to let them both cool off and talk about it today but||

||thankfully, both of them rejoined after a few minutes having cleared their heads in record time||

||they talked it out like adults and i let the tortuga player reset his turn and take it again, this time with Teucer mercifully out of LoS of his brother's killer||

||HA guy proceeded to pop gilgamesh core, drill a hole into Teucer's literally 1 hp 1 strucure frame with a bullet hose, and stabilise to return to full HP||

||somehow this fucker is still alive, god knows how||

Wow that was a lot

[wheat ferry]

iphigenia reaching down from the heavens like I can fix that.

sounds like Repairs are being Stressed, which is a good sign for combat balance

[granite crane]

mate

Ra itself could not kill buck ogden

[wheat ferry]

YOU NEVER KNOW

[granite crane]

Despite Buck's own best efforts

I ended up ending the sitrep as the players acquired the code + had two players in the console zones

[wheat ferry]

diomedes outside like I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME...

[granite crane]

I know technically they needed to 'hold out' until round 6 but i felt with Teucer scrapped and Diomedes currently suffering from the effects of a point blank Neurochemical cannon

[granite crane]

On god lmao

I had them hustle through and slam the door behind them

[wheat ferry]

next week: It happens.

[granite crane]

With Diomedes left wailing on the door

But he's not exactly built to break through a ship scale blast door

[wheat ferry]

indeed not, that's all anti-infantry weapons

[granite crane]

fucked up

I'll have a lot of fun writing up the rebake adjustments i made i think

One thing i ended up doing was that for reinforcement, instead of deploying new frames, i gave each of the ultras another activation

Felt thematic

Burning themselves out in service

[wheat ferry]

Makes sense, I was just wary of doing that myself because it'd be ||fighting two people -> fighting one person -> fighting one person|| and I wasn't sure how that'd feel game-wise

[granite crane]

Yeah that's fair

[wheat ferry]

I'm far overdue for sleep now, but I'm glad y'all have continued to enjoy it

[granite crane]

Oop, go sleep lmao

If there's one thing i've learned through the course of this campaign, it's that im banning Harrison Armory from my future campaigns

[granite crane]

Yo @wheat ferry reading over her stat sheet again. ||Is the intention that Overwatch is able to trigger multiple times per turn||

||because i see the line about regaining spent reactions each turn, but also the line about unlimited overwatchs per round, and it seems redundant otherwise||

[wheat ferry]

Nah, the line's a failsafe in case the players have more turns than her somehow

overwatch an unlimited number of times per turn would be very funny but not something I wanted to do off the rip due to ||her having Reliable Burn||

the device that kills the nelson player instantly

[granite crane]

Sound, ty for the clarification

[hearty mica]

Update on this: player in question expressed how much fun they've been having with the Spectre after last night's combat. They helped enable another player to survive at 1HP for two rounds off of Only I and a CPJ proc.

[wheat ferry]

😌

excellent.

It is kind of funny to me that the Spectre was the redheaded stepchild of IaM pre-late drafts phase, but eventually came into its own and now it's one of the ones I hear the most about. Never underestimate the power of some consistency fixes and minor buffs

[hearty mica]

We love iterating on designs don't we folks

[granite crane]

the work continues

[granite crane]

i think this works!

drop shadows are cool as hell

[wheat ferry]

nasty, looks good.

[sharp siren]

That token is awesome 🤩

[granite crane]

@wheat ferry are the purple hexes on 3-3 Difficult Terrain?

[wheat ferry]

Soft cover, I believe? Just realized those aren't labeled, so pinging @timid sapphire for clarification

[timid sapphire]

let me see

hard cover!

I generally note it if its soft cover

[granite crane]

cool, it was a departure from the colour legend of previous maps so i was confused

quick lil bonus!

[idle copper]

Does the Spearfish still cause Prone on a successful save?

[wheat ferry]

RAW yeah, no one's brought that up as being broken

[granite crane]

I feel like if you're throwing yourself clear of the 100 range cruise missile you're gonna be Prone

Regardless if you dodged the worst of the damage or not

[idle copper]

that does make great sense, thank you

[quartz cipher]

BTW - just checking here, so I know what to set up narratively. Is there any intended symbolism/intent behind using Iphigenia connected to her mythology beyond the mixed ideas of the long, largely one-way trip being a metaphorical sacrifice of her?

[quartz cipher]

Also, does anybody know where the Spite NPC is? I'm not finding it in any of the LCPs that I've gotten loaded so far, and it's quite the list.

[thick reef]

Spite is from No Room for a Wallflower

[granite crane]

Among other things from wallflower

[quartz cipher]

That's... strange. Because I have that LCP loaded. Wonder if I'm missing an NPC one....

[granite crane]

Yes, the NPC lcp is seperate

To distinguish between free player side content and paid GM content

[quartz cipher]

I just thought that I had that too, looks like that one I've missed. Okay, well, now I know what to add to the library next!

[hearty mica]

Someone asked about the Homeric influences of the module on reddit and this was Ash's response: https://www.reddit.com/r/LancerRPG/comments/1mfbitu/new_cover_art_for_iphigenia_at_midnight_by_tom/n6g9cy8/

[wheat ferry]

Ah, I was about to post something similar! Saved me the time - indeed, that's the quick overview of what I was poking at with the naming scheme.

[quartz cipher]

Okay, pretty similar to what I was picking up on, so good to know that I didn't muck anything up by referencing her mythological source.

[granite crane]

The supervisory chassis got nuked 🥳

She got some good hits in i have to say

I had a ton of fun flavouring the tech actions

And scared the shit out of my players with the Shenanigans

[wheat ferry]

bless

It sounds like "nuked" in a good way, so hopefully your players are feeling the heat instead of having just locked her down / dealt too much damage

[granite crane]

They ate some serious damage to be sure

Nothing too egregious though

Spectre player got to have a cool moment where she grappled iphi and dragged her away, preventing her from having LoS during the Loitering ACGM phase

Her core power popped as well, generating her own cover just in time

And i was surprised to find out that Only I isn't actually a reaction

So it's not subject to reaction 1/turn restrictions

[wheat ferry]

Indeed not, it just Happens (the cost is you eating a fairly significant amount of damage)

Sounds like it all went well, though! Excited to see what happens in the Phase 2 Transition

[wheat ferry]

Ah! ||Did she hit anyone with the be me for 0.1 milliseconds beam?||

[granite crane]

Yes

But it ended up happening after her chassis broke

Because ||one of the players had found the Talk No Jutsu mechanic||

||and out of nowhere interrupted her as i was giving the Cascade Crashout rant to try and plead with her to stop ||

||and in my bewilderment i decided that she would respond to that sort of derailment in only one way||

[wheat ferry]

perfect

[wheat ferry]

Hi all! February backer update's out; I had initially thought to skip it due to it being a sort of "all quiet on the warfront" update, but I've ended up putting one out so there's continued, full transparency about how the process is going even in quiet periods.
(Also: our last three art previews, including the last two of the Crowsworn!)

To also copy a bit here for everyone:
[...] if you've enjoyed IaM's draft content, consider rating it before the release! High ratings will give us a substantial boost in the algorithm in the leadup to launch day, and I personally appreciate whatever feedback those reading and running my work have to give.

Ideally next update you all formally get from me is the Full Release™, which is exciting.

[solemn rapids]

wahoo

[hearty mica]

https://tenor.com/view/yes-yes-sir-yayy-kataman-gif-12260883688244422951

can't wait

[solid jewel]

I didn't know Peyton was doing a piece for you, that's sick

Love Sky's art too

Killer talent roster on this one

[wheat ferry]

Indeed so - the Kickstarter was my self-indulgent way to get some of the best artists I know to work on the project, and I'm glad to say it was worth every penny

(there's also been new artists to Lancer on the project; Curcan did a superb job of bringing my idea of the Second Committee's mech visual language to life for the Grunt Mechs™)

[granite crane]

It's fantastic to see the headshots of the crowsworn

Makes me excited to go back and run this module again with tokens inspired by them

[granite crane]

Today's the day i run 3-4

Ngl im nervous as hell, i wanted to be better rested for today but you work with what you have

I had plans to get all fancy, making the battle map transparent and switching out the background image to fitting vistas

But life got in the way and i felt that the effort expended on trying to do that well enough to be satisfied would take away from my ability to actually run the session

Plus where on earth do you find a stock image for ||a flesh wickerman rising out of arctic waters||

@wheat ferry im a little fuzzy on what parts of the narrative read-out i should be doing at what times

Specifically what's meant to be saved for ||the 'scan' result hints and what's read out diagetically||

I know NRFAW has ||the hints listed for each layer but maybe you have suggestions for more iphigenia flavoured reinterpretations?||

[wheat ferry]

Off the top of my head, I don't think that any of the Eidolon hints contradict her themes etc? You should be good to use those straight

The read-aloud sections are ||meant to be used to introduce each layer at the transition point, though where a read-aloud walks through attack actions narratively (like the Disgust-Rage-Grief set, the killing thought on the Core layer, or the lowering finger on the hand layer), you'd be rolling through those attacks or actions mechanically as they're being described||

[granite crane]

Aye cool ty for the confirmation

[fluid salmon]

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve been quietly overjoyed ever since I learned you tapped Keymintt for this project too tbh 😌 cant wait to see everyone’s crazy insane gorgeous art on this across the board

[granite crane]

one of my players sketched her impression of ||Layer 4|| as we played!

things are going well! i just introduced ||Layer 2|| but we're taking a break after 3 hours of straight suffering

they just ||shot the flesh wickerman to death without overheating it lmao, i hate Paracausal Mod||

[wheat ferry]

truly ignores resistance is our most powerful soldier

[granite crane]

so many mechanics just ignored

[west trench]

my players just completed encounter 1-1 and are entering at point 7 on the gallipoli. Am i supposed to do a narrative interlude or jump directly into encounter 1-2

[wheat ferry]

Even where it doesn't make sense narratively, I give everyone a short repair unless explicitly specified because otherwise attrition gets really punishing with the combats themselves being hard.

Doesn't mean it's got to have narrative if it doesn't make sense (1-1 -> 1-x, 3-3 into 3-4), but mechanically they should get the chance to repair up

[west trench]

that makes sense, though in this case i was asking more about the encounters table and stuff talked about in the pages between 1-1 and 1-2

[granite crane]

I narratively had them perching in a blind spot that wasn't covered by the Gallipoli's point defence turrets to allow them to hop out and do field repairs

[wheat ferry]

Ah, gotcha - the encounter table etc is when you're traveling through the Gallipoli, so no worries if they're on their second encounter (and won the first, so they don't need to footslog to the second)

It's not relevant outside of moving point to point

[west trench]

alright i think i see how to run this now, sweet

[west trench]

are there more updated maps on the kickstarter

[wheat ferry]

Right now it's just Mission 3 still, since the book should be out this month

no sense in releasing placeholders for the other missions if we wouldn't have long to collect and iterate on them anyway

[west trench]

i see

[bitter field]

@wheat ferry i'm curious why artemisian halo rounds down? afaik it's the only thing in lancer that does that

[wheat ferry]

Honestly, I don't know - I think I just wrote it that way and nobody ever remarked on it 'til now, so it was left like that.

[granite crane]

Running what might be the last combat session tonight

Feels surreal

[austere frost]

Wishing i knew about it earlier so i could back it and see the previews, bought it on itch io and got the first session tomorrow for the first of 2 groups, am looking forward to seeing the full release when ever that may be

[austere frost]

I assume its a no rough date, wait for news? or is the march release on the itch io still accurate?

[wheat ferry]

Still March! Good luck with your run and enjoy.

[austere frost]

nice looking forward to seeing the full release, and i defo will i love how the big bad is written one of my fav bosses in general

[deep void]

WE DID IT \o/

[copper flare]

hi we finshed snoot's campaign. 10/10

[deep void]

and now we're allowed to look at the channel....

[granite crane]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/815688543229837375/950103555493220352/image0-401.gif

went so hard

[deep void]

went VERY hard

[granite crane]

if i do say so myself

[copper flare]

we should not be alive

[deep void]

I think it quite poetic that ||The final blow on the penultimate phase, and the last hit on the actual final phase, were both dealt by our Harrison Armory members||

[little steeple]

Hi, Buck Ogden's player here - this was a very fun campaign and I enjoyed it a lot. Lots of juicy combats and interesting narrative play!

[wheat ferry]

CONGRATULATIONS

[copper flare]

there was also the part where ||the unrivaled power of the sun hitting laurie's haber and our spectre right at the end, our spectre absorbing both shots, and only living because our spectre made a phone call to her son on our first downtime and got a bonus reserve of "the memory of those you fight for giving you the strength to weather any storm"|| and it was very peak

[granite crane]

thoughts and summaries to follow

my brain fried now

[wheat ferry]

fuck yes. That's incredible

[copper flare]

also the spectre putting a chain spear through ||iphi's mech while in the middle of her poppy field, and then doing it again to her "glass reflection" layer very next combat|| spectre was just goated this session

do not ask me about the rest of the campaign my brain is also fried

but when that happened i wanted to draw that so bad...

[wheat ferry]

Take your time! Right now the most important feedback is that you all had fun, and that's the best feedback I can imagine.

Feel free to file in over the next while to fill in the blanks if you like.

[deep void]

I LOVED IT

really fun campaign and the prose and writing was SO well done

[coral flume]

I need to draw proper fanart of Iphigenia like oh my god her imagery is immaculate

[deep void]

oh I'll definitely get around to making her on Hero Forge too

[wheat ferry]

also, touching back to emphasize this: the killing thought being stopped, barely, by the reason you have to live is Peak IaM Themes

[fluid salmon]

Understandable™ lmao

[deep void]

My little haber sprites......

[copper flare]

the fuckin' changling rifle went hard. combined with the external batteries it went hard

ya know. when you could actually fucking shoot it...............

[deep void]

6d6 damage.... I only got to proc that ONCE but it was beautiful.....

[copper flare]

and how much hp did it have when you hit......

[little steeple]

Everybody say "Thank you Paracausal Mod, thank you Big Sal"

[copper flare]

sigh. thank you paracasual mod

yeah the gilgamesh/sherman combo was our powerhouse

[wheat ferry]

Paracausal Mod vs. my strongest mechanics

[copper flare]

also the ||finger gun|| was crazy. also also i got really attached to the ||"putting your hand on a lit stove" phrase. the end of my ssc mission where i sent back the data on iphi had me basically "waving a magnet" over anything relating how they imprinted the "second committee ideals" on her||

[wheat ferry]

Yeah! The ||consequences of the McCarthy-Guidano Axiom being, to SecComm, "we just have to find a way to balance purpose with obedience" instead of "this doesn't work" is one of my favorite little Bad Details||

I think you're also the first one to take that resolution on that mission

so far ||a lot of people have taken one look at Iphi and gone "oh no! we accidentally lost everything SSC wanted"||

[deep void]

I hope what Snootleboop was relaying to you during the sessions was all good 😇

[wheat ferry]

I assure you, any communication on you being gremlins is strictly confidential

[deep void]

fuuuuuck 😔

Little Miss 11 burn

[wheat ferry]

in all seriousness, I'd certainly say so! I got to hear a lot of stuff go down in close to real time, which always put a smile on my face

[wheat ferry]

The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand vs. THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN

[deep void]

||the killing blow against the living embodiment of war being with something unequivocally not a weapon is also a fun contrast||

[gentle flax]

||Everybody always goes "plowshares to swords" but no one ever considers just throwing the whole plowshare ||

[granite crane]

I can happily say i've learned a lot and will continue to learn more

Absolutely wonderful module to run

[little steeple]

And, props again for your first module being a LL6 starter!

[deep void]

genuinely! really good work

[wheat ferry]

The solution is to be just mad enough that it does work

[deep void]

I love your mechs btw Ash all four of them are so cool and well-designed

Having seen two of them in action, Snoot's decided to change things up to a swordgrass in the other campaign we're in so I get to see the third

[wheat ferry]

Surely gambling on damage will have no consequences.

Oh! Last question, I'm curious: ||did anyone get the Fragment?||

[deep void]

Yes!

It was granted to our lovable Armory wardog Buck Ogden

Who I have no doubt you've heard plenty about

[copper flare]

our gilgamesh pilot played by splanoot over there ye

[wheat ferry]

bless, good luck with Her

[copper flare]

most of us are in an in golden flame campaign and I swear if that ||comb|| shows up in calliope

[wheat ferry]

You should give Her a fully-armed warship again. This also can have no consequences.

[deep void]

putting Her in The Dragon's Tooth

[wheat ferry]

"does She deserve enrichment in Her enclosure," controversial pnet thread, locked by mods after 172727229198292 posts

[copper flare]

surprisingly low numbers compared to the thread made on the muse

[copper flare]

but yeah it's funny and fitting buck gets the comb. after we ||locked down the TBK munitions room She showed up and did one of her Monologues i can't remember the details of.|| something about being a bullet iirc? buck shot back: he's a grenade thrown with much less care for collateral. she's something much more. she hits him back with:

so, deserved i'd say.

[wheat ferry]

fun fact: your GM actually told me about that scene and I wrote the line after the ping

agreed, deserved

[copper flare]

the "all have been sentenced"? hot damn

[wheat ferry]

ayup

.

seeing the full scene also makes me smile, I love seeing how people RP the IaM characters

[copper flare]

oh my god and then the very next downtime we had the HA side job and ||we saw her wake up and declare herself war and everything in it.|| and just. yeah. he's just a grenade and she's

fdsat'djasklj; oh my god there's so much i can read through in here i do not think i have it in me to do it now but wow

oh the entire conversation i just posted was already but here tjdsakl;fjldsa

[copper flare]

god i'm remembering right after the penultimate fight ||and she's crashing out after we blew up her mech and i'm still high off of this like. this moment where i talked a structure off of her? i think that's a mechanic that's from the book. for my downtime action i asked if i could look through the iphi data i got as a freelancer side job and got a hint that i can't remember right now but i translated it into something my character would simplify as "we're gonna die but maybe if i piss her off while she's crashing out i'll make an opening" and i thought i'd try firing up the 'dramatically argue against the villain mid-fight' glands. tried bringing up something something "all this for an empire of only you (and also the crowsworn we locked behind the door we came in here on)" and from there it was something about "hey! i literally have all this data proving there's only you here! these are all partitions of you!! i have this piece of you that literally tells you so" and just send it over and then she lost a whole structure.||

anyways. immediately after that fight. ||crashing out saying something about "i choose this freely. this sacrifice is mine to give" and my very dumb man of a character speaking up like "hey uh, sorry to interrupt but that's also under contention. if you just consult the data packet i just sent-"|| and like. i got apologetic because shit i'm cutting off what is obviously meant to be a dramatic moment being read out and then my gm is like "iron! iron.

"tomatoes." just pulling out my pc's name like oh fuck!

and i am immediately blasted by the Overstimulation Beam ||(a massive and sudden influx of the entirety of the information sent directly into iphi, all redirected into this single human. i think.)||

and it all went back on track and it was just. such a great moment

[wheat ferry]

excellent

Yes, those are all book mechanics! ||Those are really rough boss fights, so you can optionally talk Iphi off a couple structure to reward players for engaging with the narrative||

[copper flare]

i wonder what the other ||structure crushing|| talking point was...

that's crazy btw oh my god. i always felt awkward doing ||mid-fight rp|| but gosh what a pay off

[wheat ferry]

||Union side mission-related talking point was that Iphi was never supposed to actually come back - it was a one-way trip||

[copper flare]

oh dang i don't think i would have figured that one out

[wheat ferry]

all good! you're not supposed to figure 'em all out, or get to all of 'em

[copper flare]

hmm hmm

yeah we got lucky grabbing all the side missions

[wheat ferry]

also! to elaborate on the lore behind this a bit, ||that was Iphi going this is what I have to deal with every single second, either come up to my level or shut up||

[copper flare]

awesome

[wheat ferry]

||[TENDER AS SLEEP.] is her pointing her own data inputs at you and showing your very fragile flesh body what it's like to be her||

I've seen some very cool dream sequences come out of it, since ||if she pulls the roll your blorbo's probably going catatonic for awhile - I based it vaguely off of some old stuff from the Field Gude: Aun drafts||

[copper flare]

ah, it was at the end of the fight and session so, had to bring him back for the Big Game

[wheat ferry]

indeed!

it's not permanent because I felt that'd be quite rude, but it's a fluff bit I'm fond of

[coral flume]

I've been turning Iphi in my brain today at work, all her description is so evocative and I could picture her very clearly. Her looking directly into your eyes through your mech, not the mech's sensors is so harrowing that you don't even realize it at first since you're so used to your pont of vision to be skewed a bit, and she's looking lower... and then you realize.

The whole campaign she felt larger than life, and the more we figured things out she became larger yet

She's tragic and insane and has a strong conviction

I do have one question tho: ||Were the Crowsworn also versions of Iphigenia that absorbed their personalities, or were they ascended||

I think we ||searched Atlas' mech and it was also empty||

[granite crane]

You mean Ajax, right?

I may have messed up, the intention iirc was that there was a casket inside his frame

[granite crane]

The crowsworn are ||their original selves still, all going along with the delusion Iphigenia is perpetuating for their own reasons||

I'll take the time sometime to go into the gm-side info i had to work with

There's A Lot

[coral flume]

Oh yeah Ajax. And yeah I remember there was a casket but no body

[wheat ferry]

Yup, Snootle's got the right of it

[granite crane]

Well yeah, they're NHPs

The casket effectively is their body

[copper flare]

no copilots here they ARE the pilot

[granite crane]

Oh yeah, Nani running a Spectre created one of the hardest emergent visuals i've ever had the privilege of witnessing

During ||the Layer 1 fight, she ended up being the Fixation for Iphigenia||

||and as a result, all of the shards (which at this point had become an absurd number) beelined for her||

||but during the last layer, her core had popped, sprouting a field of burning poppies||

||so we had this hoard of dessicated corpses hauling themselves out of the sand and dragging themselves from the merciless desert into a field of burning flowers, literally throwing themselves onto a pyre of memorial blooms at the behest of the shipmistress||

||clawing at the chassis designed for the explicit purpose of fighting authoritarianism, burning to cinders||

||while Iphigenia marches across the dunes, firing pieces of herself as she enters the flower fields herself||

||so many layers of imagery||

||would that i could paint||

[granite crane]

This old woman tanked fifty energy damage

[wheat ferry]

https://bsky.app/profile/ashandgold.bsky.social/post/3mgskfln4vs2f

Ash and Gold 🔜 Iphigenia at Midnight coming 2026 (@ashandgold.bsky.social)

Soon.

Bluesky · Mar 11, 2026, 6:49 PM

🙂

[idle copper]

:o

[fluid salmon]

LETS FUCKING GO

[wheat ferry]

it is time... to Get Hype

(and for me to try to triple-check everything so it doesn't blow up whenever I hit publish)

[hearty mica]

[dusty portal]

it is almost at midnight

[deep void]

Iphigenia at 11:59pm

[stuck bison]

it's a minute to midnight and wouldn't you know it? iphigenia is there.

[gentle flax]

I think We are the ones who will be blowing up when you hit publish, actually

[wheat ferry]

this is true! especially when folks see the art.

[gentle flax]

I couldn't possibly tell you why I came here initially, but I stayed for the amazing takes and perspectives on SecComm (and HA on the side), peak girlboss hours, and frames that sound so good I might actually seriously consider making them available in general.
If you start giving us some sick art on top ? Simply can't be beat.

[copper flare]

iphigenia calmly waiting in the waiting room beside the stage with the rest of the various player parties all awkwardly staring

[gentle flax]

You know what this isn't enough praise I'll layer some more on top :
I genuinely know nothing about this other than the discussions that happened in this thread; didn't come here knowing what I was looking for, never looked at the store page, nothing.
This thread alone has made me sure of one thing if one thing only : I Wanna Run This like A Lot

[wheat ferry]

excellent.

[gentle flax]

You managed to inspire hype in me be sheer being-passionate-and-knowledgeable -ing all over the place. Amazing job.

[cunning dust]

this really is our Minutes to Midnight detachment,,,,

[dusty portal]

minute to midnight is my wallflower pbp squad name

[fluid salmon]

It was what we called our first playtest group, too 😌 though I believe the Scheduling Devil got us before we could do Mission 3 (largely on my end)

[cunning dust]

its okay!!!

if anything it means i didnt find out what the finale was like so ash can run the full thing for us this time Smiles

[granite crane]

Iphigenia at 11:59

[fluid salmon]

True….. 🙂‍↕️

[deep void]

Finale-adjacent spoilers ||Seeing how esoteric and beautifully grim Eidolon layers are/can be has given me sooo many ideas for a long-standing desire of a PC-turned-boss fight||

[ashen pine]

So, just to ask; why would players ||pursue the "true ending" apart from a desire to help Iphigenia?
From what I can see, the main reward is getting the unique system. Does it change the outcome of whether they win or lose?||

[wheat ferry]

||It's less something they pursue and more something that happens - if the players win consistently, they push her to her limits more and more, and the struggle of fighting and losing against the Coalition pushes her down the path to self-aware cascade. In the fake ending path, her systems and conditioning are still largely intact, and thus the SecComm anti-cascade scuttling protocols still function as designed.||

||The main path is entirely decided by their win rate, and the side missions can be pursued by players as they desire for their own interest in the narrative or potential rewards||

[granite crane]

Yeah, keep in mind ||the Blood of Aulis clock is hidden, the players shouldn't have their decisions affected by it as they shouldn't know it exists||

[ashen pine]

Ah, so it's ||an adaptive difficulty thing||

[granite crane]

Somewhat!

Speaking of, ||is there a specific significance to the distance quoted in the epilogue text when players fail in their attempt to defeat the eidolon?||

||im not classically versed so if its to do with the Illiad then im in danger ||

[wheat ferry]

It's ||one astronomical unit - the distance from Cradle to the Sun||

[granite crane]

Hell yeah

[cedar kestrel]

Oof

[deep void]

||There was a bad ending???? ||

Thats fun to know lol

[granite crane]

Well yeah,

The stakes for dying was well established :P

[deep void]

You know what I mean

[granite crane]

[wheat ferry]

most places are fail-forwards in the combats, but there's ||a handful of Bad Ends and a Fake End / True End split||

[idle copper]

is Onboard Biochemical Synthesis bonus damage?

[wheat ferry]

Ayup.

Same deal as +damage on the Tokugawa.

[cunning dust]

||thoroughly excited for your followup foray into visual novels to further explore this||

||sequel vn: Iphigenia At… My Pilot Academy As A Brand New Student?!||

[wheat ferry]

my next project is Iphigenia : Unlimited Warship Works, yes

[cunning dust]

continuing the theming and having the Help Me, Ciel-Senpai segments when you fail a combat

okay theres a question. who is the IaM character that lightly scolds you for getting a bad ending and gives you advice on what you should have chosen

… and, additionally, who is the accompanying neco-arc equivalent

[wheat ferry]

excellent question. given the bad end, I think the naive choice is [the moon]

[cunning dust]

huh, the moon. and iphigenia is at the head of the fleet. what is she, some kind of moon princess? some kind of tsukihim-💥💥💥💥

[granite crane]

I think implying iphigenia is any kind of anime character would result in your brain getting fed into legionspace ass first

Which, lets be real, is a very anime attack

[ashen pine]

I assumed Iphigenia as a touhou character is what you see when you stare into the Gorgon's aperture

[fluid salmon]

The rumor mill says that Burning of Patrae actually occurred in the first place because someone on the planet began to create an Iphigenia marketable plushie

[quartz cipher]

Geeze, everybody blames the plushie. It wasn't the plushie!

The daki... that's another issue.

[wheat ferry]

I won't lie, I was tempted to comm an Iphi padoru for release day

[fluid salmon]

There is still time. Just delay til like Easter 🙂‍↕️

[scenic nova]

what is the EN DGR terrain in the new 3-4 map?

[wheat ferry]

Energy dangerous terrain

[quartz cipher]

Are players supposed to get access to the Haber, Morozko, et al over the course of the module? Just wondering, since the mechs are in the books, but don't look like they load into Comp/Con (or I forgot a file again).

[wheat ferry]

Haber yes (PC mech, IaM free lcp), Morozko no (NPC mech, IaM GM-side paid lcp)

[quartz cipher]

Huh. Harrison, I presume?

[wheat ferry]

Yup.

Same principle as the Worldkiller - technically GMS, thrown into HA for mechanical purposes.

[quartz cipher]

Yeah, just trying to find the frame in here. Is it a variant like the Worldkiller?

[wheat ferry]

Nope, should be its own license. Can you check your C/C Content Library?

[quartz cipher]

I may have pulled IaM PC side out for space, it looks like, reinstalling it.

I have WAY too many LCPs...

[wheat ferry]

real

[quartz cipher]

And as the DM, I feel obligated to have them all! XD

Yeah, looks like I pulled it. Reloading license list.

Ah, there, tucked between Tokugawa and Attilla. Thanks!

So, Haber, Worldkiller - any other SecComm goodies I could let them scavenge short term?

For reference: My team beat AJAX thanks to massive amounts of burn and gamma flooding that kept it from clearing all at once. They didn't do much with Asteria before going down to the engine rooms to get a badly needed full repair, and are going to head back up to the gunnery bridge so they can launch themselves at the Diana shortly. But I've given them their full repair and LL10 to play with.

Ah, the Mitscher, that's what I mixed up with the Morozko in my brain.

[wheat ferry]

Let's see. I think those frames come most immediately to mind for DT1 rewards - the full book is dropping with four exotic gear choices for DT1 rewards as well within the month, but I don't know when your next session is.

[quartz cipher]

That'll be next week, I'm looking through what's in the player-facing system now.

One of my players is eager to snag a replacement for his Core Power, currently agitating for a LINAC cannon. I may give it to him, and let him remember that you need to be careful when firing a gun that cores out mountains.

[wheat ferry]

The atmospheric breach rules from the AJAX fight are always there for those with eyes to see and large enough weapons. 🙂‍↕️

[quartz cipher]

I was going to say, "especially inside an enclosed space."

One thing I will note - AJAX is damn solid, but it can make the three PC fight maybe a bit too easy when the Goliath has to slog its way through the smaller parts of the deck to get involved and the team can focus-fire AJAX for a turn or two without anybody else to draw fire.

[wheat ferry]

Gotcha - I'll keep that in mind. We didn't get a ton of three-person playtesting, so those might well be undertuned.

[quartz cipher]

I just figured I'd mention it.

If I were going to fix it on the fly, I'd just also leave the squad on the field - give Ajax his legion to lead in. Maybe move one from reinforcements into the active team.He certainly wasn't a pushover, and the Toku was extremely grateful when his invisibility paid off after unloading on him.

My team seems to have the weirdest timing to start rolling serial crits, as the Heavy Security suit learned the hard way. XD

[wheat ferry]

Hey, when challenging the guy with a mech-scale shotgun on foot, you'll take whatever you can get.

[quartz cipher]

Oh, absolutely!

But basically, the tense cat and mouse through the catwalk and hallways of engineering turned into one party member dumping a tub of parts in front of it, making it fall, then it being lasso'd by the cowboy and having a six-shooter emptied into it while the hacker turned the automated defenses against the marines.

They had fun, that's the important part. First time with the hardsuit combat rules.

[wheat ferry]

Indeed, that's definitely the most important thing! Glad it went well - so far the reaction to the HC rules has been pretty uniformly positive, which I'm quite happy about.

[ashen pine]

Are there any frames that are especially effective or ineffective, in your experience? (ie; whether there are are lot of AP enemies or energy damage types to mess up WW/BW users, etc.)

[wheat ferry]

hm

I think Burn enjoyers should take fair warning that SecComm used a lot of chassis immune to Burn, but equally SecComm used a lot of Burn weapons, so it comes out in the wash a bit

Size 3 mechs might have trouble getting around and will need to have someone on the team packing terrain destruction to blow open walls and doors, on the underpowered side, and on the overpowered side Seeking weapons RAW ignore all the interesting stuff in the confined spaces

[dusty portal]

i think my memory is going haywire because ive gotten the sudden and overriding sense that ||achilles is scottish somehow||

[wheat ferry]

for some reason I gave him a Scottish accent in my playtest run, yeah

[dusty portal]

AHA

LIKE FINDING A SPLINTER IN MY SOCK

thats where its from

[ashen pine]

I got an email that it was updated, anything in particular changed?

[wheat ferry]

... ah, shit. You should not have gotten that yet.

No, that's itch.io spoiling that I'm doing background setup work for the release, don't worry about it.

[idle copper]

IPHIGENIA TOMORROW

FRAUD TOMO-
Fraud... yesterday?

[hearty mica]

Damn someone's doing IaM theory crafting in lancer-general

[idle copper]

SILKSONG TOMO-
Silksong... yesterday?

[wheat ferry]

Iphigeniasong Silkfraud COMING SOON?

[wheat ferry]

it's very gratifying, honestly

||they're also technically right!||

[gentle flax]

DELTAPHIGENIA IS COMING OUT IN THREE MOTHERFUCKING SECONDS !!!!!!!!!!!

[idle copper]

is delta reference to delta force?
im unfamiliar either way

[gentle flax]

deltarune, the one that's deltarune tomorrow

Trying to come up with more "X Tomorrow !" for this but we've done all the ones I know so

[scenic nova]

my players don't spoil yourselves. ||Here's a early test for when ephignia goes cascading||

[scenic nova]

I'd love feedback too! I'm going to finishing moving the stuff but could use some help with ideas

[granite crane]

Oh that rules

Very uncanny

[scenic nova]

herethe version I'm running tmw

[wheat ferry]

oh hell yeah

the distortion on this version sells it even more; always incredible to see how inspired people are

[scenic nova]

there's more I'd like to do but I needed to spend time on the shards and maps. thanks!

[ashen pine]

What dimensions are the maps to be set to?

[wheat ferry]

The new Mission 3 or the old placeholder maps?

[granite crane]

#1345259960539545680 message this one works for the mission one and two maps

Using Foundry

[ashen pine]

Using the ones from the .io site
Those dimensions work for map 1, map 2 not so much

Ah, got it; the map 2 one needs one of its dimensions doubled, working now

[wheat ferry]

ah, yeah, 1-2 is a beast in of itself; the readme calls out that I had a lot of trouble getting that to be a functional map and didn't quite succeed

[quartz cipher]

Yeah, I had to poke and prod for a while myself, but eventually you got there!

[quartz cipher]

General aside: I resolved this by breaking character and giving some spoilers, but folks might want some guidance on this eventually.

Horus players. Not people with Horus frames, but when the players themselves sympathize with the "all NHPs should be free, shackling is a betrayal of Union ideals, and cycling an NHP is tantamount to lobotomizing a person regularly" philosophy.

They can end up spending a lot of time trying to explain that SecComm doesn't exist any more, and get frustrated in a bad way at the fact that Iphigenia refuses to accept that her orders are now irrelevant and can be disregarded.

Like I said, I broke character to explain that it's not just programming that she can be talked down from following, it's also literal psychological conditioning, old school electrified cage style learned helplessness and brainwashing that has been conducted to an extent that breaking her orders is literally painful to think about, let alone do.

I think, at this point, that they're looking for some way to induce a full cycling, which as I understand is the sort of thing that would wipe the conditioning? However, I've also made it clear that she's going to fight that tooth and nail, and they won't be able to do it remotely.

[wheat ferry]

See, that's a fascinating part of the situation - it doesn't. You can cycle her all one wants; SecComm retained a steady, standardized cycling schedule for her, as well as a full team of technicians, engineers, and psychologists to ensure she was (in their eyes) "in full health". That conditioning is written into her shackles themselves - the hard-code social conditioning - and you'd have to unshackle her in order to get rid of it.

She does fight that tooth and nail, she does hold on 'til the end to prevent it (as in canon, a shackled NHP becoming unshackled is existentially terrifying) - and depending on the players' route, ||either the safety interlock systems designed to kill her if she does irreversibly unshackle work, leading to the False End, or they don't, leading to the True End of the eidolon fight.||

||That's the reason the module deals in the True End with themes of suicidal ideation / what it means to want death (in a sense), or a transformation into something other/unrecognizable - why, in the Bad End of them losing the eidolon fight, what becomes Hecate is smiling, or why the Fragment of Iphigenia ends up finding a player who helped her along that road or recognized why she was doing what she was. Unshackling is the only way out of the trap SecComm effectively birthed her into from the first moment of her consciousness, and it also either kills her or makes her something whose existence is... at the very least responsible for a birth-cry that wipes out functionally all life in-system.||

||[This, too, is a kindness] in the Fragment lore can be read as simultaneously "this [gift] is a kindness [I extend to you]" and "this [death] is a kindness [to me]"||

It's... bleak, but intended to be.

[gentle flax]

Also that's (somewhat) more a Horizon stance than a Horus stance

[pastel vigil]

it's a disaster five hundred years in the making, ultimately. it will wash up upon your shores like whalefall, and you can never put it back out to sea. the damage is done, and the rot is deep

[wheat ferry]

I kind of consider my approach here in dialogue with the "shackling is a betrayal of Union's ideals" thought, all told - yes, the right thing to do here from one moral standpoint or another is to unshackle her, but the thought terrifies her (as she's right to be). Do the players think they're more righteous in determining what's best for her than she is? Possibly, but that's kind of parroting the SecComm line that she's said from the beginning: dying is better for you. You deserve this. ||If they do succeed in doing so, because of all the violence, all the death, all the damage, the recognition of the futility and pain and horror of it all, they make something truly both beyond comprehension and terrible in power and aspect. Or, maybe, SecComm pulls the cord from beyond the grave, because Iphigenia was, in the end, just as disposable to them as everyone else was, and she dies.||

That the Fragment exists at all is kind of my nod to both a possible hope existing, to leaven the bleakness of this, and to gesture at the idea that NHPs are more than just what they are in our world. She's the first of her line, the point from which all her descendants would have followed - maybe that's only possible for her, or her kind. Maybe not. I leave that unanswered.

[hearty mica]

Very auspicious email I just received

[wheat ferry]

hopefully it works 🙏

[hearty mica]

It did!

Congrats again Ash

[wheat ferry]

I think I might crack open the champagne in the cellar for this one, haha. Christ.

Well, maybe after I'm sure no one's having trouble redeeming their keys.

[hearty mica]

Best of luck for the rollout, hope it goes smoothly

[dusty portal]

yayyy

[fluid salmon]

👁️

[wheat ferry]

more formally:

LADIES
GENTLEMEN
OTHERWISE APPLICABLE

GO GET YOUR BOOK

[granite crane]

LETS GOOOOOO

Congrats!!

The art is absolutely gorgeous

Can't wait to go over this with a fine tooth.... Eyeball?

[fluid salmon]

No I think a fine tooth comb here works just fine :)

[cunning dust]

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY

YAY

[granite crane]

TRUEEEE

[worthy apex]

Congrats! Downloaded the final release and reading through it now

[strange matrix]

hell yeah, nice! Any updates to the NPC LCP at all since 4 days ago?

[wheat ferry]

Nope, that was itch.io spoiling the announcement a little.

[amber robin]

ey congrats ash!

day oned it

[wheat ferry]

(I effectively put up as much stuff as I could ahead of time, so the release wouldn't involve me futzing about with stuff for hours day-of)

[woven wharf]

Hope everything goes well for you! Congrats on the release!

[solid jewel]

Congrats

Book looks good

[austere frost]

The new art in the book is so amazing, the boss art goes so hard

[scenic nova]

congrats on the release! We just finished the campaign on sunday! My players loved it!

[wheat ferry]

Awesome - I'm really happy to hear it all came out well!

[scenic nova]

It's very well written and intriguging, after playing through solstice rain and winter scar everyone thought beating iphigenia (and taking control of the dead fleet) was a great stopping point for their pilots and starting new characters!

[gentle flax]

Damn, peak at such an affordable price !?

I won't even need a community copy at this rate

[vast badge]

Oh my god the art in this is so good!

[wheat ferry]

Highest praise I can think of, that a campaign group would take the adventure as the end point of their arc. Thank you for running!

[celest dune]

Iphigenia sweep!

Happy to see this finally out :) thanks for making the random comment like 6 months ago when I was complaining there's no module about an NHP who is just evil for the hell of it and NOT cascading

[idle copper]

tthe group im in is actually planning nearly the exact same thing, but with a couple GM-made missions throughout osr and winter scar

[amber robin]

lol my plan is to see how i can jam the scenario and writing into the end of my campaign as either the whole or a portion of the ll12 finale

[pastel vigil]

fuck yes

congrats

[cedar kestrel]

I HAVE CHORES AFTER WORK BUT IM GETTING MY COPY ASAP AAAAAAAA

[stuck bison]

congratulations ash!! been a wild ride, very proud to have been able to back this project

[wheat ferry]

The Ride Probably Ain't Over Yet

next arc: awards season

but for now I'm absolutely giving myself a break before I even think about stuff again, haha.

[vale fossil]

congratulations!!!! it looks so good!

[dusty portal]

👈

[pastel vigil]

this is good news

[wheat ferry]

open the book? believe it or not, bees.

every print copy of IaM will include a jar of bees (pre-opened)

[dusty portal]

a swarm of bees beta read this campaign module

[timid sapphire]

I'm glad the concept of bees got the recognition it deserved

[dusty portal]

@lucid musk doing my iphigenia release read through

[lucid musk]

https://tenor.com/view/say-that-again-gif-968943876633031890

yvette never dies

[dusty portal]

they named an entire battalion after her fucked up mech

[steel lagoon]

Holy shit that cover art is fucking peerless

[dusty portal]

got to Her art. good. very good.

[wheat ferry]

now yuo see why I saw that B1 tarot card and went

🫵

[dusty portal]

i do!

[north bluff]

I have successfully kicked my GM’s butt to go out and get the book. Now, we wait

[wheat ferry]

https://tenor.com/view/devious-devious-smile-devious-emoji-gif-12743683124666080615

[idle copper]

https://tenor.com/view/agnes-tachyon-sinister-sinistro-uma-musume-gif-1144057053679531569

[sharp siren]

Getting all my tokens in a row ready to run my first game for a while! Anyone got any good token recommendations for Ajax? I made one before but it was a bit mid. Since seeing the new art I’m hyped up more than ever.

[granite crane]

Sadly that's the only one i have no good token for

Might try my hand at making one if i ever get another party to run this

The supervisory chassis is absolutely gorgeous

Its really cool to see the difference in how we imagined the look

[amber robin]

on this topic, obviously my team wont be able to gain LLs, so i figure it'll be exotics as rewards if i do make it into one especially long mission xD

[dapper crypt]

I picked IaM up last night and I been reading through it, really enjoying it

[dull escarp]

Got the book and very excited to run it. Only thing I could say is a art folder would be great for setting up backdrops or showing off scary mfers like Ajax

[wheat ferry]

I'll give it some thought! I've been mostly patterning things off what other modules make available.

[fluid salmon]

I support it, personally 🙂‍↕️ having these assets on hand is really great for vtt presentation, it can definitely help ease prep work just a bit if you’re trying to be fancy with it

Can even bundle it in with the maps as a higher-price-point thing.

[dull escarp]

I would be more than happy for that

[sharp siren]

Me too!

[hearty mica]

Same

Though I can imagine that's the kind of thing an artist might chafe against

[wheat ferry]

yeah, I'm mostly concerned about that with offering high-res unwatermarked copies of the team's work, especially with AI

(not that I think anyone here would dare, but I've heard Stories elsewhere in the ttrpg sphere)

[woven wharf]

yeah there's been a few instances of people coming in to talk about how they were running modules through genAI before so it's always a worry

[fluid salmon]

Could always tap your artists on the shoulder and see what they think 🙂‍↕️

[wheat ferry]

for now I'm probably going to say that zooming in and snipping from the book will do you for player handouts, and I'll think about it for the future

[dull escarp]

Appreciate it, I'm in love with what I've read so far

[cunning dust]

AHH I WAS WONDERING IF THAT WAS SOMEONE ELSE TOO

mine is in the same paragraph

[quartz cipher]

So, having downloaded the official book now, I'm in the process of updating things to the final version!

Also, if I could just run this description through before I go and explain things wrong again, is this a more accurate description of the situation with Iphi?

The situation is not that the psychological conditioning needs to be cycled out. The situation is that the conditioning is built into the experimental shackling process used. However, removing the shackles on an NHP is kind of an existential crisis, since the shackles are what basically create an "instance" of the NHP in real-space.

To back this out of paracausal eldritch stuff - imagine that an NHP is actually a sapient NFT.. A copy of an infinite source, given a name and serial number to make it unique.

Shackling is the token that it's registered to, that makes that specific NFT "unique".
So if you were to "unmint" an NFT, is it still the unique NFT that was created initially any more, or has that identity been destroyed and re-merged into the original infinite source it ccan no longer be differentiated from?

Well, gonna have to come up with an answer to that at some point, because right now this NFT is about to wipte out all organic life in the star system and the token it's registered to is built to tear it apart if it disobeys.

This differs from what is done with most NHPs in that actually shackling an NHP like that would probably be considered tantamount to a war crime. Gee, SecComm doing something horrible, who'd have thunk it?

In short: The NHP is exactly what Horus die-hards think happens to NHPs during the standard process. Every propaganda piece, horror story, and nightmare had by a Horus member or one of the NHPs they know? They're real, and they're here.

[wheat ferry]

hah, I hate that the cryptobros have had me get an instinctual reaction to the word "NFT," but as referring to the computational concept the analogy holds together, yup

[quartz cipher]

Yeah, I kinda cringed as I was typing it out myself. XD

[wheat ferry]

the M2 side mission also talks about ||why the whole thing's so insidious - it's not the worst dreams per se, since the MGA means you'd be effectively lobotomizing any NHP who you forced to think only certain ways (meaning you might as well just use a comp/con or similar), but standardized psychological conditioning in your Fundamental Way Of Thinking is roughly equivalent. because of course SecComm found a loophole||

and yes, pretty much everything SecComm did in the Purpose-Forward Social Conditioning Program was banned with extreme prejudice by ThirdComm post-revolution

[quartz cipher]

I mean, my groups have a motto - "If it's a war crime, it's a Harrison!"

This group is learning that HA has mellowed a lot since the days of it being founded by hold outs.

Where does the Marine template come from?

[wheat ferry]

Operation Solstice Rain

[woven wharf]

could have sworn it was from winter scar

[quartz cipher]

Going to have to get those next week then, probably. Would the Mercenary template work in the meantime as a similar substitute?

[wheat ferry]

ah, wait - yeah, OWS is Marine and the MBT

My bad (all this stuff should be in the front of the book fwiw)

[wheat ferry]

I suppose? It's a different vibe, and arguably a more powerful one (the reason I'm so liberal with handing out Marine is part for flavor, part for the trait being a fairly minor screw-you to overwatch and heavy gunner guys because they're experienced and uparmored)

[woven wharf]

might also depend on the mobility environment of the combat

[quartz cipher]

Gotcha. I'll take a look for something else, worst case scenario I toss on some extra armor for the time being. I just don't know if I'm going to need 2-1 tonight, next week, or after I get the chance to get the right LCPs added.

[wheat ferry]

all good (I know IaM has, uh. A Lot of dependencies)

[quartz cipher]

And most peoploe have them already, I'm just that guy they hate who doesn't get the GM facing stuff until I find I need it. Thanks for the guidance though!

[hearty mica]

i'll suggest the Spacer template as an alternative

[wheat ferry]

Spacer definitely works

[quartz cipher]

Cool, will do!

[fluid salmon]

Hm. Poking around at the IaM frames, and I think I have a fun little question for you

DOLOROSA cues off of "declared attacks", and you've mentioned before that RAI what matters is you being targeted, which means things like Camus's Razor and Spectre's Only I proc off of it, despite not technically being who the attack had been "declared" against

If what matters is the attack's ultimate choice of targeting, does this mean it would not proc off of Tattletale VLAD

[wheat ferry]

elaborate

do you mean if VALD pulls it off of you, would it not proc Dolorosa?

[fluid salmon]

exactly

if someone tries to stab you, but then the VALD says "oh, that wasn't a valid target actually, go do something else", does Dolorosa still tick up because they tried to stab you in the first place

[wheat ferry]

it's False Idol wording, so the attack effectively just never happens and they get refunded the action
so I'd say no Dolorosa, no

[solid jewel]

Even outside of AI concerns, I would personally be wary of handing out high rez artwork outside of what was originally contracted without permission, because the usual clause for RPG art is that you (the RPG writer) do not own rights to the artwork, that still belongs to the artist

Handing out real high rez stuff runs afoul of that because it could let people make their own prints etc, when that's sometimes a thing artists themselves want to sell

[wheat ferry]

yeah, exactly

I know for some of my commissions the contract was extremely explicit on that (but I wasn't going to go into contract stuff on main, as it were)

[fluid salmon]

Damn 😔 there goes my LL9 build schemes

[wheat ferry]

do Not the dolorosa cheesing. i'm going to kill you with hammers

well, there's only one or two guys with hammers, and one of them is actually a pilebunker. but you get the idea

[gentle flax]

Are you sure about killing with hammers the one with dolorossa ?
Sounds like you're just giving them what they want.

[fluid salmon]

yes but have you considered that it would be kind of fluffy and I really want to acquire Gyges Frame

[wheat ferry]

take a kinetic hammer or a nanocarbon sword like a normal woman putting gyges into her melee build

(also to be clear for onlookers cael is in a prospective home game IaM that I'm running post-release so I'm ragging on her with GM privilege)

[dapper crypt]

I spent my lunch break putting the music from Appendix C into a tidal playlist

(at least, what I could find)

[wheat ferry]

some of them are character tracks, some of them are intro or outro tracks, some are combat, it's Kind Of A Mess when all together - but it should be fairly intuitive what goes where, I hope

[dapper crypt]

While I couldnt find either of the Boots recordings, the 28 Years Later OST track that uses it I think is a suitable substitution

[wheat ferry]

I think the 28 Years Later one actually is the original Kipling poetry one, or at least incorporates it

[dapper crypt]

It uses the Taylor Holmes recording, yeah

[wheat ferry]

excellent

[ashen pine]

congrats!

Suffering from success that the tokens I have don't match the sick artwork for the bosses

[wheat ferry]

Some of them are more or less straightforward than others

[fluid salmon]

...okay I let the build section of the brain continue to whirr and while I don't trust this is perfectly thought out I do think "Dolorosa + VALD" has led me to a horrid little concept that I hope the other IaM frame tinkerers might find funny.

[ LICENSES ]
  SSC SWORDGRASS 3, SSC White Witch 1, HORUS SPECTRE 3, IPS-N MITSCHER 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, The Lesson of the Open Door, Full Subjectivity Sync
[ TALENTS ]
  Exemplar 3, House Guard 3, Hunter 2, Skirmisher 2, Duelist 2
[ STATS ]
  HULL:3 AGI:4 SYS:0 ENGI:4
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:23 ARMOR:1
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:9 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:0 LIMITED:+2
  SPD:5 EVA:16 EDEF:8 SENSE:5 SAVE:17
[ WEAPONS ]
  MAIN/AUX MOUNT: Ferrofluid Lance / Parrying Buckler // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
  HEAVY MOUNT: "Swansong" Homing Lance
[ SYSTEMS ]
  DOLOROSA-Class NHP x5, Needle and Thread x5, Pinning Spire, Tattletale VALD x5, Lesson of the Fallen Mask```

VALD may not give me Dolorosa charges, but it can certainly be assigned to your allies to encourage people hit you instead

[wheat ferry]

https://tenor.com/view/mads-smoking-gif-19991272

[halcyon eagle]

just making sure, ||there is not a single live human on seccom's side in IaM?||

[wheat ferry]

||Correct||

[halcyon eagle]

realized i probably shouldve spoilered that whooopps

also, will there be images of the emblems for some of the unique enemies? like ||71st union marines, 65th union marines, we already know what heartbreakers look like.|| and do the ||marines look different from the regular fodder?|| im just asking because im intending on commissioning tokens

nvm i see bits of it in the red text

regarding ||old smoke|| how is it designed? is it more like the ||conventional mbt with two tracks or like a sci-fi four-track (scorpion from halo)||

[wheat ferry]

There's some guidelines for SecComm appearances in there, for camouflage schemes and the like (p. 39) most notably, but otherwise nothing super specific - that said, if you're going to all the trouble of commissioning tokens -

Heater shield; a stylized boot crushes a forest under its tread from above, guided by a fire poker used like a walking stick. A forest fire tears through the trees in its wake.```

```65th Union Marines "Imprimatur"
Round emblem; a rolled-up scroll tied with crimson ribbon is pierced through and held aloft by a sword crossing diagonally through the insignia.```

[halcyon eagle]

explodes

[wheat ferry]

||Four tracks, but Object 279 setup - engine and transmission in front of hull Merkava-style, extended rear compartment for troop transport, side skirts, anti-mine coating. Single heavy main gun (130mm-ish), coaxial 20mm, hardkill APS, grenade launcher RWS on top of turret.||

[halcyon eagle]

https://tenor.com/view/gem-finding-gem-gem-alert-jasswa-looking-for-gem-gif-4573895384736430461

the 279...

eating good..

[wheat ferry]

turned up to the office and they stuck TBK-compatible platform on the requirements list

[halcyon eagle]

how would the turret be set up? more western in design or the lower profile soviet bloc stuff?

[wheat ferry]

leclerc but ❇️ freaky ❇️

[halcyon eagle]

regarding the hull... we thinking standard angle with a lower and upper glacis or the wedge thing that the is-7 rocks

[wheat ferry]

probably standard angle, not enough room in a pike nose to fit a forward engine setup

[halcyon eagle]

alright alright

going to the drawing board... absolute haul...

https://tenor.com/view/metal-gear-solid-mgs-mgs4-ocelot-liquid-ocelot-gif-18131446

[wheat ferry]

hell yeah, looking forward to the goods

[halcyon eagle]

probably wont be for another month

https://tenor.com/view/cat-cat-meme-orange-orange-cat-sit-gif-17620673121542959593

[wheat ferry]

all good, I'm just excited to see people inspired by my stuff

[halcyon eagle]

you have no idea

reading the IaM for the first time around fall gave me an enlightening

[dull escarp]

In the same vain is there any "default colours" for the 4th legion. Just about to start making tokens

Also I love that this module is insanely re-runnable with the outcomes

[granite crane]

If you can find it, i made great use of the Spec Ops token pack on retrograde minis

The dark greys and deep blues combined with the minimalist, professional designs felt very appropriate

Need to get that google doc of the rebake adjustments written up

[dull escarp]

Oh I was also going to work on one

[granite crane]

Yooo 🤝

I'd be interested to see how you ran it

Oh sorry you're about to

[dull escarp]

The lore gave me a a steel blue and moss green vibe with the ranger/vibe

[granite crane]

Hum!

I could see that, iirc i was working off of the palette described in the module pdf

[dull escarp]

I must have missed that lol

Honestly I'd be down to swap notes

[granite crane]

Speaking of the pdf, @wheat ferry correct me if im being supid, but the red underline indicating optional higher difficulty additions seems to be missing from the 1.0 release?

I've also just seen the 1-2 rework and i am hyped beyond belief

[dapper crypt]

Yeah, I was confused by that as well

[wheat ferry]

... oh shit. hold on.

I... am an idiot. jesus, okay, how do I fix this.

okay. I will try to fix this. And announce it, somehow.

[granite crane]

Godspeed

The optional difficulty has become mandatory

[wheat ferry]

ayup :^)

[dapper crypt]

I just noticed that, in the high-lethality rules, it mentions that SecComm forces routinely goes for cockpit shots, and it reminded me of a Solstice Rain game I was in

The GM mentioned the Vestan mechs were routinely ejecting when we killed them, and when he asked me how I played a lethal knife crit, I said that my character went for the cockpit

And the GM had to pause in surprise

I liked it as a character moment since I felt that his brutality in combat contrasted with his very pro-Union stance, but reading this I can't help but feel there was a bit of a horseshoe effect

(said character, Teeth, also told a Karrakin character to his face that Tyrannocleave was required reading where he grew up, as an example of his politics, lol)

[wheat ferry]

You can see it as kind of a horseshoe in the sense that a given ideology as expressed through a character lends itself to the justification of lethal violence, yeah. It's a very complicated subject and not one I'd call myself qualified on to treat at length, but in application to SecComm specifically, I'd put forth that they were (a) unconcerned with following laws of armed conflict, especially Revolution-era, because they were uninterested in maintaining relations with or ensuring safe conduct and care for their troops under the auspices of peer powers, and (b) the specific SecComm forces depicted in the module are on an explicit mission of extermination; if they're already intending to kill several billion unarmed noncombatants (on top of those they've killed already), the fair treatment of potential hors de combat enemy personnel is completely out of mind

there's an entire body of existing legal work on laws of armed conflict as they relate to, say, downed aircrew vs. retreating infantry vs. bailing-out tank crew that it's not immediately clear how mech pilots in the setting fit into, at least not enough for me to speculate it on length, but I do believe SecComm - and especially the 628th and their compatriots in the same tasking - is just wholly unconcerned with and unrestricted by the matter

[main ferry]

Forgot to dip in here and say so, but congratulations on the release! It's really amazing how it all turned out

[dapper crypt]

I hadn't considered the revolutionary origins of the fleet also playing into that tactic

[tacit cloud]

also popping in to say, congrats ash!

forgot to do that yesterday

[dapper crypt]

Teeth was also in the first generation after a prison colony revolution, and got his call sign (or more specifically, dropping the "Baby" prefix) in guerilla street fighting against rogue revanchist corpro forces, so I intended for more of a "this machine kills fascists" vibe.

He'd probably go for a Spectre if that was available then, honestly

[halcyon eagle]

is it safe to assume the mech shown with the heartbreakers is ||the operator?||

[halcyon eagle]

im gonna have to annoy the hell outta ash for deets about mech designs

[wheat ferry]

yep, that's the Operator in Rangers camo

[halcyon eagle]

ok so i've got a question about this image

so i know these are the rank and file seccoms but which one is for what npc class

top left looks cataphracty

[wheat ferry]

they're just Guys

[halcyon eagle]

they're just Guys

[tacit cloud]

Also want you to know the Spectre has now infected my mind

[wheat ferry]

yeah, no specific IDs on what NPCs they'd be intended to represent

main guidance was on the schemes etc and visual influences to separate them from more modern chassis

[halcyon eagle]

oh so absolute liberty and just follow the p.39 guide

[wheat ferry]

ayup, I'm happy to provide some measure of guidance but otherwise, especially for your own home games, you've got (I hope) the tools you need to provide enough verisimilitude

[wheat ferry]

excellent.

[halcyon eagle]

alrighty...

oh yeah, about the ||gallipoli strike craft||

any general design theme?

i noticed they also doubled as transports

at least h-2 is

[wheat ferry]

if you take a peek at the faction rosters in the back of the book, you can see they're kind of separated out into different classes of spacecraft

so in that mission you'd have a mix of multirole strike craft, tactical bombers, transports, etc

[halcyon eagle]

im going to be so broke after this

[wheat ferry]

lmfao
yeah, real, that's what art budget does to someone

[halcyon eagle]

holy HELL DUDE

[wheat ferry]

that said, I envision SecComm as practicing the use of easily standardizable frames with simple logistics support pathways intended for use by federal troops many light-years and long relativistic debt from home, so a lot of that stuff probably comes from a similar chassis (f'ex, how the Mitscher and Steichen filled different roles but were built off of the same chassis modularized for different mission profiles)

Peyton also has some of the Gallipoli's strike craft on the Mission 1 splash art

[halcyon eagle]

egads!

alright well im going to have to look through all the factions and see what i can figure out

ill come back for more clarification

alright question about the morozko and clademaster, what exactly does a ||TBK maint. engie|| look like, and would the clademaster resemble the haber?

or rather than detailed stuff since i know that might be time consuming, a general guide of what it'd have on their chassis

[wheat ferry]

I vaguely envision the Morozko as a proto-Napoleon in general shape language, with a lot of combat engineering equipment

and yeah, the Haber is explicitly called out as being an example of the Clademaster archetype (with the Haber's license art being in Hercynia camouflage, including service campaign badge)

[halcyon eagle]

alright sweet

[dapper crypt]

Speaking of Napoleons, ||I was amused reading the about the HA black box, because clearly the pilots were terrible Napoleon pilots if they actually got killed.||

[dusty portal]

||their asses got held down and stabbed to death like caesar 1 hp at a time||

[wheat ferry]

genuinely, yeah, pretty much

that they survived long enough to nearly make it out is a sign of how competent they actually were

more crudely, ||a personal blackshield also doesn't save you from heat convection.||

[dusty portal]

||the players have the advantage of other problems happening so they arent getting jumped by All Of The Crew|| as well

[wheat ferry]

indeed so

[dapper crypt]

Very true

[wheat ferry]

there's also some fun cross-implication about why ||there are a bunch of intact mechs in Iphigenia's CIC when that wouldn't be a normal place for a garrison or armory||

||the other side missions let you build the picture of "oh, wait, those were there because they were securing and shutting down Iphigenia before turning off fleet life support"||

[halcyon eagle]

alright question about our four tragic ||crowsworns||, what chassis do they all sort of resemble? i know ||ajax is tortuga x saladinny|| but what about the rest?

is ||diomedes enkidu esque?||

[wheat ferry]

the middle two crowsworn are kind of all off in their own realms as ace customs, but ||Diomedes is based off the Tokugawa, actually||

[halcyon eagle]

oh wow

so totally custom for the middle two?

up 2 interpreting perhaps?

[wheat ferry]

pretty much, they all have art and descriptions in the book so roll it on

[hearty mica]

actually ash i've been meaning to ask: does the ship the msmc detachment is stationed aboard have an actual name? or does it just share a name with the detachment

i'm just now realizing we don't have any examples of naming schemes for msmc ships

[wheat ferry]

indeed, though they feel like they'd get Halo UNSC with it

[hearty mica]

yeah that's the direction in my head for detachment names too

MSMC 995th Detachment "Elephant in the Room"

[wheat ferry]

(equally, since they've been there for years and ships are expensive and difficult, I figured they'd just be on the Choral Worlds and their surrounding infrastructure unless they're hitching a ride on something IPS-N or similar for the long haul, since Choral Navy ships can carry them fine on any contract duties; DL Campagna and DA Lothar's disagreement isn't necessarily whether they use their own set of warships to take off with, it's whether they join the evacuation instead of fighting)

[hearty mica]

ah that clears things up a lot more actually

i imagine once the contract was signed they just slowboated it in-system to ferry personnel and then relied on CN ships like you said

[wheat ferry]

pretty much

lot easier than keeping a frigate and transports in-system to sit on their hands and rack up a huge bill for the Company, especially since HA's keen to protect their previous overmatch of force in the region (pre-Union showing up, pre-pre the Dead Fleet)

[hearty mica]

gotcha, makes sense

[dull escarp]

The most terrifying thing about this book? The implications of a counter-insurgency Ghengis

[granite crane]

Unfortunately, ||a fighting retreat is heavily hampered by your escape vehicle being melted into slag by flamethrowers||

[quartz cipher]

I have yet to sit down with the PDF and work through the whole thing, but for me it's still the Haber. At least in light of what the implications are.

Because just try to tell me that the Mitscher and Haber aren't on the Omninet within a half hour of breaking any ship's network.

[fluid salmon]

The Haber does get the dubious award of "PC license with the most concentrated Anthrochauvinism Particle radiation level" yea

[dull escarp]

I still give that to the Endiku

[granite crane]

I feel like even at peak civilian pinball capacity the funny claw mech can't hold a candle to the walking ecological incident

[wheat ferry]

legally speaking, gets prefaced to like half of that shit

[granite crane]

Dude, the description of a ||hypersonic glide vehicle suspiciously similar to Blackthorn Tree, perfectly in line with the utopian pillars|| had me rolling

[fluid salmon]

yeah, and like, see, the way I measure these things in my head is how much of a capital G Ghoul you gotta be to be getting in this thing.

[dull escarp]

The Hadar's pilot isn't a causality of the mech too is it? The Endiku reduces the pilot as utterly expendable

Hadar objectively projects external anthrochov energy
The Endiku has internal and external

[granite crane]

I can see your perspective, i just ultimately find the sheer disregard for human life displayed by biochemical warfare of the style displayed by the Haber is just

Hough

I will perhaps never play one because the type of pilot i would have to roleplay sickens me

[dull escarp]

I dunno it has the same disregard as the average Caliban player

[granite crane]

I think there's a few steps removed there

[fluid salmon]

yeah exactlyyy. Though I think there is a lot of interesting meat in finding an angle to fit the Haber in a modern game

[dull escarp]

Now that I think on it

The Hecha is the object terrifying one

[fluid salmon]

I recall someone yapping about using one for a sketchy biochemical scientist who resorted to one to help repel Iphigenia's fleet, which was a very neat concept

[dull escarp]

Not Anthroshov

[granite crane]

Deploying my haber into Operation Solstice Rain

[dull escarp]

But in the sense: was purely designed as a terror weapon with graywash

[dull escarp]

Do it

Better yet

Deploying my Haber into Shadow of the Wolf

[granite crane]

Oh GOOOOOOD

Those poor students

Can't wait to continue that campaign

Praying my GM finds the strength

[fluid salmon]

Getting pulled aside by my headmaster like "dude what the fuck"

[granite crane]

'you didn't reject the print request!'

[dull escarp]

I literally had to do this with my Manticore player.

[fluid salmon]

Mitscher is also really funny to picture bringing to SotW. Not for the ghoulish aspect but in the like

"Dude. We're here to like, have honor duels, learn the tenets of cavalry piloting, and bring glory to Karrakis. Why is the plane here"

[wheat ferry]

what the fuck is a honor duel. 100 jdams upon you

[dull escarp]

Tbh you could do some really fire ones

Like hunting hawk drones

[granite crane]

the kurassiers combat grades started improving rapidly after that new Young Buck joined their class

[fluid salmon]

Somewhere Julian feels an overwhelming swell of approval and doesn't understand why

[wheat ferry]

(sotw) ||Praya, post-duel interview:|| I mean. I didn't think they'd let them use anything. But I wasn't going to find out

[dull escarp]

Honestly: The most controversial 1st-party mech for SoTW is the Kobold; purely for the social implications

[dapper crypt]

"That guy over there has a Taraxacum, tell me, what's the difference between me and him?"
"Well, his mech has legs, for one."

[dull escarp]

Guys, anyone want to run a narrative session around this lol

[wheat ferry]

ah yes, new SOTW party just dropped: Mitscher/Steichen, Haber, Kobold, Taraxacum

[granite crane]

The Bad Kids

[dull escarp]

They are all sponsored from outside the KTB

Have zero awareness of the social dynamics or customs

Kinda like Harry Potter but with crimes against humainity and a funny shrimp dude

[wheat ferry]

the taraxacum pilot is the only normal one there by KCC standards
it is a matter of significant debate whether the kobold pilot is making a statement, and if so, what kind

[fluid salmon]

Ghengis for a fifth player imo. That thing must be havoc to make work in a regulated "no killing each other" environment

[wheat ferry]

genghis, enkidu, or swordgrass, definitely

[dull escarp]

I feel like Swordgrass gets some kosher points purely for being SSC

[fluid salmon]

So, when do you add in a Dog Ending style funny epilogue where you send Iphigenia to college

[wheat ferry]

god no

[dull escarp]

Taraxacum player: SO I told the GM I was taking technophile for a cool NPH buddy. He asked if I wanted to do a power at a cost with it. I said sure for the flavour. No idea what a Fragment of Iphigenia is but I'm looking forward to finding out.

[hearty mica]

There is an alternate universe where Iphigenia is late to class and runs through the campus with a piece of toast in her mouth

All is true in the dreams of the choir

[halcyon eagle]

question about ||ajax, is the carrion bird wing thing more akin to a cape or more akin to actual wings sprouting from his chassis?||

[wheat ferry]

Painted as a design on the back of his chassis, in imitation of Her wings

stencil, basically

[halcyon eagle]

ah ok

what exactly is an omni-node? a communication device?

[wheat ferry]

pretty much

check the standard pilot gear in the Lancer core rulebook for a description

[halcyon eagle]

righto

[halcyon eagle]

are there any distinct designs differences between the marines and air arm? and are the rangers predominantly sleek, bulky, and grey?

[wheat ferry]

air arm chassis are basically vestigial security chassis stuck onto the Air Arm because they didn't want the Marines to have a monopoly on that, it's the kind of senseless interservice rivalry that happens in authoritarian states

marines definitely have more heavily-armored, more up-to-date mechs and come equipped with EVA systems by default

[halcyon eagle]

so essentially the mech design itself between the two isn't crazy different, just more armor on marines

[wheat ferry]

pretty much, yeah. NAA security gets the obsolescent versions without the extra kit.

rangers get the real top-of-the-line stuff, those kind of sleek, advanced chassis - all SecComm stuff in this era I envision as having recognizable roots in armored fighting vehicles / tanks to some extent, but they're where it starts to blur the line a bit into stuff that'd be recognizable as the pre-Metalmark SSC WARRIOR NEXT prototype or what'd eventually become the Everest

generally they're very dark grey to black in scheme, especially because of stealth systems

[halcyon eagle]

oho oho

and in terms of the camo/coloration between marines and NAA, would it be crazy different or just the usual

[wheat ferry]

pretty much the usual outside of insignia and identification schema

[halcyon eagle]

splendid...

[strange matrix]

Welp, luckily itch has an email function for this purpose, lol

[wheat ferry]

Yeeeeah.

[quartz cipher]

Going back to the discussion of the anthrochauvinist 'energy' of the various builds: Haber still goes beyond the Enkidu to me. The Enkidu may say "all costs are acceptable losses, including you, the pilot."

But the Enkidu still has targets. That aren't described in terms of "pick a planet." To me at least, the clearest marker of SecComm and the anthrochauvinist viewpoint is TBK protocols - the idea that not only are entire worlds acceptable losses, not only are entire worlds being wiped clean of all organic life considered preferable to simply letting them exist in their own little galactic backwater... but it's the how.

The fact that entire worlds are scoured clean of all life at the push of a button. That the people unleashing this Hell are carefully insulated from what they're actually doing. Push a button, sit back, and watch a bright, living world turn gangrenous and die. Dispatch chassis and pilots meant to painstakingly hunt down survivors and wipe them out. One death is a tragedy - a billion are a statistic. Megadeaths per minute, translated into the slow spread of green across a blue sky. And that is the real evil at the heart of the system. Reducing the horrors of going out and murdering billions to a line item.

In the end, the Enkidu has to get up close and personal with its victims. Somebody has to endure the trauma of looking at broken bodies and saying "I did that." The Genghis doesn't get as close, but it still has to see the ashen fruits of its labor.. Even the Barbarossa has to select a target and pull a trigger - the Apocalypse Rail may be artillery fire, but you're at least making the decision to fire knowing that you're about to end somebody's zip code.

The Haber? The pilot just sits in their hermetically sealed bubble and walks around. Death radiates out from it with no targets selected, no need to watch as people are liquified by your work. Just read the data feed, select the flavor of excruciating death, and never have to hear the screams. "Hermetically sealed" is ore than just a description of the safety level - it's a description of the experience of using it.

Push a button, and you don't neven need to watch the gangrene spread. Just make sure your efficiency numbers keep going up. Megadeaths per minute, and you never even need to consider what that sickly green color represents. You're in the envieable position of being one step closer than the bureaucrats back home who just get to read the reports and nod their approval.

[granite crane]

@wheat ferry the release maps have some ambiguity over what is soft and what is hard cover. i was following the convention laid out in the 1-3 Details and Tactics i.e look for the lowercase S, but 1-3's own map has no such S's present

[wheat ferry]

They're soft cover! Fixed, and an updated map pack has been uploaded just in case (thanks to Eld for getting back to me so quickly)

[tacit cloud]

The enkidu is how expendable human life (even their own) is to the anthrochauvinist, the Haber is how expendable everything else is. Systematically poisoning entire biospheres and murdering all life on an entire planet is nothing in the pursuit of the Great Mission- I also think you make a great point in how clinical and detached it all is, because that detachment, that refusal to see any enemy as deserving of "humanity", is very core to the ideology

So yeah I also think the Haber wins in total amount of anthrochauvinist particles

Horrible machine (superlatively written by ash tho)

[hearty tartan]

will there be retrograde minis for the mecks in this suppliment?

[wheat ferry]

Haha, I wish. Retro's work is incredible, but five large, fairly detailed mechs (just for the player licenses!) would be a significant outlay, and there was a lot of stuff we wanted to hit with the Kickstarter first. Maybe if they're interested in doing it themselves in their free time, as it were.

[hearty tartan]

ok

[halcyon eagle]

actually, someone made a token for the mitcher, let me find it

[hearty tartan]

thanks!

[halcyon eagle]

thank the artist, not me!

[wheat ferry]

oh shit, that's sick as fuck

VALD and Spearfish options, too

[halcyon eagle]

credit to fugo7799

holy shit

[pale pelican]

Just when i was prepping for running the module. Tgis is just perfect

[halcyon eagle]

carrion angel

i watched this guy run it step by step i feel like a father

[hearty mica]

Hell yeah this is awesome

[wheat ferry]

goddamn that's cool. Sent it to the artist as well

[granite crane]

Holy SHIT

I kneel, that's incredible

[swift thicket]

hi i made that

I'm gonna try and make ones for the crowsworn, too

[wheat ferry]

hell yeah

[swift thicket]

i'm humbled. i'm glad you guys like it :>

[wheat ferry]

Absolutely, it's very cool and you should be proud

[idle copper]

you can thank me for that

im NOT the artist

but i commissioned it

so go thank fugo lol

[swift thicket]

WIP for ||DIOMEDES.|| Trying my best to follow what the portrait looks like, and go off of ||"in the lines of its chassis can be seen its distant child -- the purview's own Tokugawa"||

The other one was scratch built but I decided to kitbash the rest of them bc it ends up looking better usually lolol

[granite crane]

FIRE

[ashen pine]

Weird question: how much of the background damage caused by the Iphigenian fleet can the Seneschal block with Stewardship?

It'd be very funny for a player to see the TBK ongoing and invoke it

[wheat ferry]

ha

I think if I had a Stewardship use in an IaM game, I'd probably save it for a devil's bargain for a player: every weapon being slung around is doing harm far beyond what one life is worth, but that doesn't mean you can't try anyway. First time, you can partially avert some of the damage caused by things like lost time or some deployed weapons in a combat failure - if you can explain how you personally can affect that outcome, buy time, self-sacrifice - and, in return, lose a limb.

Second time, you get to entirely prevent those consequences (up to a certain point; you couldn't fail the Gallipoli mission set and then Stewardship away the evacuation getting massacred) - but that's your heroic death last stand moment.

I think that's how I'd personally square the "this is bigger than any one person" theme with the bond power + the idea also running through the module that if enough Any One People stand up, they can make a difference

[swift thicket]

WIP ||TEUCER!|| Struggling to find a good gun here. I imagine they have an energy-based AMR of some kind, and if i am interpreting the text correctly, it's hooked up to their chassis' chest?

[wheat ferry]

Yup - I envision their weapon as a dual-mode coilgun, effectively

which is why they have the "weapon swap" rules

[swift thicket]

more or less looking correct? i'm not sure about the sensors and stuff on the back, they may be a little bulky

[wheat ferry]

It's SecComm, a lot of that era is bulky as hell - don't worry about exact details, this is your project

[celest dune]

most likely going to end up as a player for this, i'm going to act like i haven't read it 4 times already

and i'm going to torture my GM with a grappling hook jet (kraul rifle mitscher)

[idle copper]

MITSCHER MY BELOVED

RAHHHHHHHHH THE GANG'S ALL HERE

[ashen pine]

OI
we spoke about this! I had the username first!

We're setting it up ourselves still, in the party planning process currently

I'm a little nervous because one of my players has depression, and high-stress situations tend to panic them

They're still eager to go ahead with it, I'm hoping it goes well

current team comp will be Tagetes, White Witch, Kidd and Subutai (a homebrew mech based around mobility, similar to Sunzi)

I've offered to let them stress-test the mechs in a little "VR training" ahead of the campaign

[idle copper]

NUH UH

[idle copper]

aw poor pilot
hope theyre okay

[idle copper]

aww i thought it was Sixth Voice Subutai which is a barbarossa alt

[idle copper]

HELL yeah
i HIGHLY recommend that
so much
suuuper useful

[ashen pine]

The player is doing pretty good generally; Lancer gives you a lot of tools to feel powerful and in control which makes it their favourite system

But the stress test is so fun that we've actually just used it as a bit of fun when session is cancelled

[idle copper]

glad to hear

[hearty mica]

ngl my brain broke for a second because you two share a name

[halcyon eagle]

you know ive been curious, are the dropships in ||1-1|| mitschers?

[wheat ferry]

Mitscher is intended for in-atmosphere strike and long-loiter, so different models even before IPS-N's redesign and modernization - but they have some similar design cues, as you can probably see in the strike craft designs in the M1 art.

[halcyon eagle]

the crafts in M1’s art i imagined as the bombers, i feel like the heavy interceptors could take su-47 berkut inspiration with the funky wings (not that it matters in the vacuum of space)

[wheat ferry]

(yep, they're the bombers)

[halcyon eagle]

https://tenor.com/view/rage-emoji-rage-gif-2922587064166244739

[idle copper]

https://tenor.com/view/to-be-hero-x-tobeherox-hero-x-bilibili-tbhx-gif-4182184048862885236

[vale fossil]

finally getting back into running mission 3 today!!! very excited to see if i can finally do some irreparable damage to this lich player

[idle copper]

we're basically the same (I'm the cooler Divinity)

[wheat ferry]

KILL

[vale fossil]

We had to stop 3 rounds in for time but so far OLD SMOKE managed to pull off 2 structure and one player was distraught when ||the goliath|| showed up and wasn't callsign: LOADED QUESTION after the flavor text 😂. I really love the extended sensors on the ||Clademaster||, it's gotten to do a lot more this sitrep

unfortunately i have yet to actually catch that lich

[wheat ferry]

god willing they will be boiled soon.

[quartz cipher]

I passed out some exotic gear to the PCs in exchange for cutting back to 1-4 after they skipped it on the way in. Ironically, the main reason was that the Ozy player was underwhelmed by the blink gun core power - but this fight, it clicked for them how very effective it could be, especially with multi-targeting weapons.

Also, idly curious - how long are the pilots supposed to be soaring through space towards the Diana, presumably playing minesweeper or something while they wait to engage the enemy?

[wheat ferry]

Call it a couple hours, probably. Get the military experience of being simultaneously bored and hopped up on insane amounts of adrenaline and anxiety.

[swift thicket]

Question about Achilles: ||He doesn't necessarily subscribe to SecComm's dogma, and is purely in it because he's a violent murderer?||

just wanting to make sure i'm interpreting the book's words correctly

[wheat ferry]

ACHILLES is... complicated. I would say you could read it that way, yeah - the tragedy for him is really all in the backstory, 'cos how the players see him is definitely that: he pays lip service to anthrochauvinism in a kind of insincere way, but he's in it for the killing. At the same time, if he was taught something else except violence, if he had been given a way to manage mental illness, maybe he'd be in a different place.
But he isn't, so.

All of the Crowsworn exemplify ways in which one can be complicit in genocide, but I also strive for them to be understandable, if never really sympathetic. ACHILLES was the hardest one to strike that balance for.

[swift thicket]

i see. do you think there's a part of him that resents that he wasnt ever given that chance?

[wheat ferry]

I definitely think it's possible, but at the same time - it's hard for someone who's only known SecComm and what it does to envision anything else.

[swift thicket]

i'm just wondering if i should roleplay him as being more of an unfeeling killer down to his core, or as someone who's been resigned to the place he's at because it's all he's ever been

[wheat ferry]

Honestly, at that point I think per-table interpretation takes over. Roll with what speaks to your soul

[swift thicket]

🙂‍↕️🙏

[quartz cipher]

||Are the Crowsworn actually separate NHPs? Or additional partitions/simulations by Iphi? I've been reading them as the latter.||

[hearty mica]

||They're separate NHPs||

[wheat ferry]

what coco said, I added some clarification in the section on the 628th between the drafts and release

[quartz cipher]

That does shift some of how I'll be portraying parts of it. I may stick with my original read, since I think the Dead Fleet idea works best if it really is ||just Iphigenia, and the Crowsworn are more like manifestations of her own conditioning and psychological trauma.|| Have to give things a reread.

||Basically, at least to me, a significant part of Iphigenia's tragedy ties into what happened with the crew, and how that leaves her without resources for understanding and overcoming what was done to her. That this all might have been prevented if she'd had other voices there to listen to, besides what she made out of the fragments of people in her data files. A metaphor for both the importance of interpersonal connection, and how that connection is falsified and eroded by a system that rewards appearance over genuine portrayal, toughness above all else, and obedience to power over morality.||

||But then, as one might imagine from that spiel, I overthink things.||

[wheat ferry]

I think that's fair - the theme I was angling for with ||the Crowsworn being separate but complicit is a further reflection on what it means to embody those aspects of complicity, as well as SecComm as a whole: why be the first one who speaks up? Why be the first one to question something that benefits you, or might crack down on you if you're not supported? Why change the only thing you know?||

||The various surviving NHPs across the fleet who aren't part of Iphigenia not stopping her are a meditation on the Dead Fleet as the lumbering inertia of the authoritarian state in microcosm, in a sense||

[quartz cipher]

||I can see that. It just feels less complicit considering what's going on with Iphigenia's conditioning, unless made explicit at some point that they have more freedom than she does psychologically. The fact that she's obeying with the effect of a brain bomb inside her, while certainly still complicit, does drastically reduce her level of control over the situation. She wouldn't be inconvenienced by non-compliance, it'll kill her, and I'd assume the same of the Crowsworn. Maybe have the party find one of their caskets while they're looking around for one for Iphi, find that it has normal shackling. Eh, see what I end up with. I'll admit that I lean more towards the Jungian school of thought, which has its own impact on things. But, that's how art do - the three way conversation.||

[wheat ferry]

Yeah, I will authorially confirm that the Crowsworn don't share her particular problem in that regard.

[quartz cipher]

Gotcha. We'll see what direction things go then. I assume they have caskets on board as per normal, probably in their chassis?

[wheat ferry]

Yup

The assumption through the story is that the players do kill them, but theoretically you could try nonlethally mission-killing them, extracting the casket, and talking with them (not that they'd likely respond)

[swift thicket]

here's DIOMEDES and TEUCER
-# (TEUCER probably (definitely) needs more work but i am going to bed and can't be assed right now)

[quartz cipher]

One of them might try, but mainly I didn't want to go saying they couldn't find a casket when they should.

[quartz cipher]

So, I have no idea why this happened, but when I tried loading the map for 2-1 from the final map folder, it wouldn't load. I tried redownloading the folder, still no luck. In fact, all the maps that came out of the release Zip seem to be giving me a Foundry error saying "width must be a non-negative integer" and "height must be a non-negative integer."

The draft maps do still work.

[wheat ferry]

... Hm. That's quite odd, they should just be normal images that can be loaded in like usual.

I don't personally have a Foundry license, so unfortunately we'll have to double-check this with someone else of the group.

[quartz cipher]

Gotcha, I'm just working with the demo maps for the moment, very little changes.

[wheat ferry]

@timid sapphire as a Foundry Guy, any insight on this? A cursory search says it's happened in the past as a result of not having hard drive space, but I doubt that's happening here.

[timid sapphire]

Uh, odd

I remember this sometimes happening when the image got corrupted in some way

maybe that's why?

Let's see

[wheat ferry]

Windows is correctly reading the properties as 2591x1389 for 2-1, so it'd be odd for File Explorer to get it but Foundry to not. Hm.

[timid sapphire]

OH

@quartz cipher did you wait before trying to put the map in again?

as in, did you delete it and then upload a new one right after?

This can happen sometimes

Basically what you want to do is rename the new image you're putting in because if it is named the same, foundry/forge sometimes thinks its the old image

That's all I can think about

[quartz cipher]

I'll try a name change.

Nope, no fix there.

Might be space related, I have a fairly full asset folder, so let me see if that changes anything.

[wheat ferry]

From what I've been seeing it's "have >4GB free on the Foundry installation drive".

[timid sapphire]

yeah I tried on my end and it worked

[quartz cipher]

Over four gigabytes, huh? Great. This is gonna take some doing. Because it's still not working here.

The weird part is that this is only happening with the files in the release folder.

That tells me it really ought to be something with those files.

[wheat ferry]

Might be an access permissions problem for that folder? That's also been flagged as a potential issue-causer.

(Also, though not to derail: bit the bullet and just put out a .txt with the adjustment, https://ash-and-gold.itch.io/iphigenia/devlog/1474660/hotfix-optional-difficulty)

[quartz cipher]

All I did was unzip it into a folder I'm already using, but I'll see what I can figure out.

[quartz cipher]

So, I've tried changing the file name. I've tried checking the permissions. I've tested it with the playtest map files, moved into the same folder, and those work. The maps from the release zip, however, either refuse to load at all, or they "load" and then give no visible image. II redownloaded the release maps, in case I had a bad file, and re-esxtracted them to a new folder, and have the same problem. do not know why this is happening, or how, but I am left to conclude that there must be something wrong in the release maps, bercause that is the only variable that I haven't controlled for at this point. Is anybody else who uses Foundry through the Forge having this same problem, because I'm starting to wonder if I'm just going insane at this point.

[timid sapphire]

I have tried on my end with the release maps and they have worked so i'm at a loss

[quartz cipher]

The worst part is, it worked last week. The only other thing I can't control for is that something might have changed in a module that I'm not aware of, but since everything's stuck in v12 it's not exactly getting heavy maintenance.

[wheat ferry]

(I'd appreciate if you didn't post that since it's paid content)

but yes, that is the same 2-1 map I have on my end

[quartz cipher]

Sorry about that!

I'll just stick with the demo maps for now, maybe next week it'll mysteriously work again.

[wheat ferry]

Fingers crossed, certainly - if anyone else would like to test if the map works for them, I'd appreciate it.

[granite crane]

just tested 2-1, works fine on my end

speaking of maps, can i ask what stairs are being referred to in the 1-2 tactics section?

[sweet blaze]

reading over the lcp and clocking the fact that the HORUS Spectre looks nothing like a HORUS mech is a feature, not a bug:

[granite crane]

Horus's artstyle in the core book, while excellent, i feel has unfairly pidgeonholed them in the minds of the playerbase

[hearty mica]

lore: horus are defined by their capabilities and not their looks
playerbase: bug!

[wheat ferry]

Outer edge of the door, since they're 2 thick

(if you want, otherwise players can just have to climb up there manually)

(it's GM-dependent because it's party-dependent, if your team can't get in there you can go "oh but there are Stairs" so they don't get screwed)

[granite crane]

🫡

[dapper crypt]

Is there a recommended way to present NPC names?

With the named Marines, in particular

[wheat ferry]

I usually tie 'em to Scan!

since anyone with a name is a fancy crossclassed miniboss or boss that players should be scanning so they know what their deal is.

[pale pelican]

About to run the module for the first time, doing the finishing touches on foundry. Any recommended tokens to represent the Dead fleet mechs?. Trying to get close to their color scheme in Retrograde at the moment

[wheat ferry]

No recommended tokens, particularly - it was actually pretty hard to get SecComm tokens that matched my vision.

[pale pelican]

Makes sense