pyre

[unborn copper]

Pyre Community Rite Nite start in less than 1 hour! Watch at https://www.twitch.tv/lidsvids and/or join the Rite Club (https://discord.gg/XHTtNGe) to get involved!

[unborn copper]

^Live now!

[lime mural]

in retrospect the 1st rematch with the withdrawn is one of the hardest

like 1st time you meet them its just jumping over their auras and scoring quick

then in the next match with the 2 imps its just extreme defense + umildhe scoring dunks with the full might of yslach

[sharp depot]

pyre

[wraith wave]

pyre

[rough junco]

pyre

[midnight hawk]

i avoid playing against the withdrawn whenever i can

they're so tough

[spiral zealot]

Pyre

[trail talon]

the withdrawn were all right for me, funnily enough. the esscence were my first loss

[midnight hawk]

the essence are also killer

[spiral zealot]

Sorry for the weird ping but i looked up debug for something and this came up, how did you enable debug mode?

would be absolutly amazing tool for modding

[potent mason]

in the folder where steam downloads Pyre, you should have Release and Debug folders

@spiral zealot ping so you notice

it's possible they removed the Debug build from steam in the meantime

but if you run pyre from the debug folder F keys do Things

[spiral zealot]

dang i dont have it, i got it off itch too

[elfin badger]

Does pyre not support dualsense? I just tried it and can't make it work. Bluetooth nor cable

[scenic kiln]

what platform are you on?

[elfin badger]

Pc

[scenic kiln]

Steam or Epic?

[elfin badger]

Steam

Hades works, but pyre only shows the cursor

[scenic kiln]

it's possible the game doesn't support it, but you could try setting the game's steam controller properties to "disabled" or "enabled", and you can also try setting the launch options /UseNativeGaInput=true /UseNativeGaInputNoControllers=false

[elfin badger]

Where do i do that exactly?

I'm not a pc player

[scenic kiln]

Right-click on Hades in your Steam Library and select 'Properties...'. From there, there'll be a field for Launch Options, and there'll be a tab for 'Controller'

[elfin badger]

What about the code thingy

[scenic kiln]

that's the launch options

[elfin badger]

Oh

Well i found the enable option and it's set on that

I don't see launch options

And it's pyre, in case you got lost

[elfin badger]

Oh it's in general

Thanks

didn't work

oh well

[steady orbit]

Pyre is so good, really enjoyed it a lot

Ending was amazing. One of the best endings I've ever seen.

[timid silo]

Same... were you satisfied with the ending you got or would you do something different?

[mild falcon]

So like, the scribes were wrong, right?

The message of pyre is that the scribes were wrong, i think

The scribes won, and they inflicted their ideology onto the world, and 100 years later there's an evil dictatorship

As a consequence of the scribes ideas

[trail talon]

that'a a little simplistic. there's many examples throughout history of a hopeful new order being established, only to be corrupted by those who looked to grab power

that the system of the scribes was corrupted is not the scribes' fault necessarily: they meant to create an order which promoted learning, discovery, self-reflection, but that order became corrupted

and consider that the scribes wanted to overthrow the order before the Commonwealth, which was also considered corrupted and flawed at the time

[timid silo]

Cycles. They created a society which was the best they could do in their time; 826 years later, it's up to new people to create a new society as best as they can in their present

[trail talon]

that's about the shape of it. also, i hate that you made me remeber animal farm

[mild falcon]

The idea was that only morally righteous people could escape the downside, because you have to imitate the scribes to escape... that's a hopelessly naive idea

[trail talon]

i think there are new governments who assumed the goodwill of people in general when forming their policies (though political history isn't my strongpoint). The US government, when it formed, did the opposite iicr: assumed that "men weren't angels" and created a system of checks and balances. of course, even that turned into a flawed democracy

i'm not sure an uncorruptible form of government exists, tbh

[timid silo]

I think that's a point the game is making - the union sounds better than the commonwealth which sounds better than the empire, but they all decayed until they were all replaced by better systems

And the people who led that change remain as stars to (literally) guide those who will follow. The Scribes' time has come and gone, their stars too have faded...

[vestal bluff]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/456894214840516611/602891160905711650/Reference_DatesSigns.png

Guys we forgot Ti'zo's birthday

[scenic kiln]

[prime dirge]

Feels like we're inching towards getting one of those Certain imp sayings resist being translated moments

[trail talon]

hey, his birthday was on eid this year

[prime dirge]

Is there anything special to say when this happens?

~~Other than sorry I forgot ~~

[unborn copper]

Pyre Community Rite Nite starts in half an hour! Watch at https://www.twitch.tv/lidsvids and/or join the Rite Club (https://discord.gg/XHTtNGe) to get involved!

[unborn copper]

^Live now!

[supple solar]

||Now at the end
As we bid farewell and return to the stars
We shall find our way home||

[spiral zealot]

Anytime I hear the word star in any SGG game music

https://tenor.com/view/pointing-leonardo-di-caprio-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-watching-tv-shows-rick-dalton-gif-16927078

[trail talon]

where else is star in an ssg game

OH WAIT ||mother, i’m here||

[mild falcon]

They put too much sky in pyre so they had to make a setting with no sky afterwards

[prime dirge]

Excuse me, Hades has ||the best sunrise scenes I remember||

Would Nyx's hair count?

[trail talon]

bastion: fly thru the skyways; transistor: cool sunset on the beach; pyre: seek your destination in the stars; hades: grueling journey for ||a beautiful sunrise||

[prime dirge]

That's a good trend. Much better than the wood+feet->fire+feet->? hypothesis

It's my hypothesis

[spiral zealot]

We sing of the last of the nightwings/ who having broken the cycle/ live on in song

we shall find our way home....

[prime dirge]

Why'd you want all of us to feel sad, @spiral zealot ?

[spiral zealot]

It brings me joy when I know that my tears join a river of many

[prime dirge]

That's the same thing SGG think when designing a credits roll

[supple solar]

is it just me or

can you, because of how pyre losses are handled

beat true nightwing by losing every single fight

😂

[native shard]

Yes, but then you have to deal with the Nightwings being sad.

[timid silo]

Volfred being disappointed in me automatically crashes my game

[native shard]

What a strange bug. Too bad we'll never know why that is.

[timid silo]

Certainly not me alt+tabbing out to avoid disappointing Volfred

[livid birch]

Of course not

[young folio]

i beat true nightwings by losing every single match 😎 and im proud of it

[wicked heron]

😎

[supple solar]

dude if i dissappointed Volfred I'd perish on the spot

[unborn copper]

Pyre Community Rite Nite starts in half an hour! Watch at https://www.twitch.tv/lidsvids and/or join the Rite Club (https://discord.gg/XHTtNGe) to get involved!

[unborn copper]

^Live now!

[kind plank]

Happy image of the day: a toddler bopping back and forth to “Through the Valley”. (He was quite annoyed when I wouldn’t let him play.)

[stiff pebble]

i have pyre and look and oh gosh the music ;7; and all the cool looking characters

[timid silo]

They're all so cool 🥺 did you unlock the music selection already?

[supple solar]

video idea: Pyre but you're being a meanie to everyone

includes a montage of you viciously crashing into everyone with the blackwagon like its an aerial derby

||and unfortunately also mind controlling Oralech||

[timid silo]

no!!!

(I mean. little a crashing into the Chastity, as a treat. And/or the Essence and the Accusers and the Withdrawn and I'm probably forgetting someone. BUT )

[prime dirge]

I'm pretty sure crashing into the Dissidents gives funny dialog

[timid silo]

I'm sure the Dissidents have their fun when that happens!

[stiff pebble]

i haven't gotten the game yet but i wanna in the future! c:

[timid silo]

Aw! Have fun, lots of good things in there, with the cool music and cool cast!

[prime dirge]

The gameplay may feel odd at the beginning. And you do get used to it. After a while
(For real, consider changing the controls if they feel awk)

[copper heath]

controller is always an option as well

[prime dirge]

Do try to take in the sights and try having the music and ambience loud enough to listen. Adds a lot to the experience

[supple solar]

I remmeber crashing into dissidents

i think Barker yelled that he'd jump into my wagon and mess me up

or something of that kind jrheztrh

[trail talon]

can’t remember all the people who’ve collided with me, except that it was mostly their fault

except for the fate, that was my fault entirely :(

manley collided with me once and i was so annoyed, like my god i don’t want to talk with you

sir deluge was filled with righteous indignation and so was i because he crashed into me

[midnight hawk]

i always made sure to run into everyone as much as i could

[trail talon]

what no

my problem is that i lurk at the edge of areas, planning my next route

prime place for collisions

[prime dirge]

Greg and everyone thought hard on the dialog. Would be a shame to miss that

[trail talon]

welll yes but also i would feel (and have felt) bad

[midnight hawk]

crash into everything and always slam on the horn

[prime dirge]

Getting worried about your driving habits, Babs

I didn't feel bad crashing onto people. I never thought the knock would be much other than a minor scare.
Aaand ||I didn't know that by then but I felt like I was playing as Reader. Had I felt "I am Reader" I'd have felt differently||

[trail talon]

yeah i definitely get almost too immersed in games which have good storylines. it’s why i never do “evil” playthroughs: i just can’t

[prime dirge]

That's all the more reason to crash into Udmildhe and Manley

[spare jay]

Is Pyre supposed to always run at 30 fps?

[supple solar]

i also thought im too nice to be mean in games but then i went and acted like a little gremlin in undertale

[trail talon]

nah i've never played genocide in undertale. i watched it once, and only once

[trail talon]

definitely not. i'm not a tech expert, but what are you running it on?

[supple solar]

oh no not genocide

pacifist run but im being mean to people in it sometimes

[spare jay]

The computer is decent, a game like that should have no problem.
It's not always 30, btw. Story sequences are fine, but the Rites are capped at 30 fps for some reason.

[trail talon]

that’s odd. pyre shouldn’t be that hard to run...i wish i could help more, but i’ve reached the end of my tech knowledge :/ ask @scenic kiln maybe?

[scenic kiln]

This only happens with Pyre, you haven't noticed anything similar with other games?

[midnight hawk]

hey just so everyone is aware

summer 2021 is summer of the bog crone

[timid silo]

Molten girl summer, as it were

[deep cedar]

Just started pyre! The basketball gameplay is strange...

[timid silo]

Hope you'll have fun with it!

[lime mural]

I hope you enjoy it!! it's such a good game

[untold quartz]

Thinking about Jodi today 🤔

Specifically how hecking lonely she must have been in the Downside.

She's not a gregarious or extroverted person, but we know from her backstory that she ||served in the army for many years, was a well respected captain, and had a substantial brood of foster children to look after||.

And then she was cast away from all of that company into this wasteland where she knew nobody, where her body was gradually warped into this even more imposing and scary shape, such that she inspires awe and respect but certainly not friendliness or affection.

[timid silo]

Jodi 😭

[untold quartz]

Her standoffishness is kind of legendary, yeah, but think of the place it comes from.

||Sixteen years|| in the Downside.

||Eleven of them|| before Hedwyn was exiled, too. And what a ||bittersweet reunion||.

My god, what a lonely ordeal for someone who ||was once so surrounded by affection||.

[unborn copper]

Pyre Community Rite Nite is live! Watch at https://www.twitch.tv/lidsvids and/or join the Rite Club (https://discord.gg/XHTtNGe) to get involved!

[supple solar]

i wonder what it is in the downside that causes the demonification

[timid silo]

and only for humans!

My Reader stays down and Bertrude is there too so I like to think they look into it...

[vestal bluff]

Jomuer says in the Book that “[his] fangs are long”. Maybe this is just a reference to him growing older, but in context, it’s definitely a side-effect of being in the Downside

Whether or not it’s the same as Demonification, I’m not sure

[trail talon]

i wondered about this too. bertrude has a pair of spectral looking horns...did she always have them or are they an effect of the downside?

[vestal bluff]

With Curs, we only meet the ones who have been in the Downside a relatively short time, while with Crones, it’s the exact opposite

Hard to compare the pre- and post-Downside states of the various races with these sample sizes 🤷‍♂️

[prime dirge]

Only thing I could come up with is
||Humans return to their true form in the Downside. Demons.||

No lore explanation behind this. But there's something in the Downside not present in the Commonwealth. Either some effect ||turns Humans into Demons, which could very well be the case. But for some reason it's easier for me to believe that it's instead some effect on the Commonwealth that is lost in the Downside||

[spiral zealot]

could be that the downside is considered a place for criminals and brutes (not counting the literate) and civilized people are in the commonwealth. The commonwealth is a place for civilized refined people, while the downside is for brutes an big hulking muscle headed people (generally the antithesis of the idea of civilized) and whats a bigger hulking muscle then someone that has muscles larger then your body and horns half as big

[prime dirge]

I can see that mindset being widespread, but we still need a...biological (?) explanation for the horns, intimidating face, and it only affecting humans (maybe other species though)

That reason could be magical still, but that's speculation too

[trail talon]

note that humans lose their demon features when they leave the downside

iirc

[spiral zealot]

magic then

[prime dirge]

Come to think of it, we still have the question of and his dad

If demons return to humans, then the ||'true form is demonic'|| remains possible. But a ||humans are turned into demons|| remains possible too

I had Jodi return to the CW, ||but the where-are-they-now screen at the end still had her demon sprite||

[trail talon]

yeah, i remember that too. i also seem to recall hearing of someone’s horns receding once they’re sent back up?

come to think of it, i’m not sure whether or not ron and his dad are native to the downside

[prime dirge]

WHY IS THERE NO PROPHET OF RON'S SPECIES

[midnight hawk]

yeah i think it's for jodi? they say her horns start going away

[prime dirge]

Do they say that on the ||end screen explaining their life after the game||?

[midnight hawk]

that or the messenger imp

it's been so long since ive played pyre

actually im fairly certain it's the messenger imp

[prime dirge]

Well. Found this, https://lparchive.org/Pyre/Update 19/ , (Ctrl+F 'await')

Imp's message doesn't say that, but Kae asks

Do you think she still has her horns, now that she’s back up there?

[trail talon]

oh you know what? ||it wasn't mentioned for Jodi but it was for Oralech, i think. The epilogue mentions that he's still called the Demon Doctor even after his demon features fade||

[midnight hawk]

i don't remember pyre i don't know why im talking

but thank you everyone for bringing up good info

[spiral zealot]

lol babs

[midnight hawk]

me, who hasn't played pyre in several years: yes let me talk like i know what happened

[prime dirge]

We were speculating, so nbd

[midnight hawk]

i dont remember if this is like... something that comes in canon? but i love the idea of the longer a demon is in the downside, the more demonic/animalistic they become, so after a long enough time, they're pure beast

[prime dirge]

i love the idea
after a long enough time, they're pure beast

[midnight hawk]

:3

[prime dirge]

I say that as I pretend to be a dog, but still. Spooky thoughts

[midnight hawk]

babs can have little a characters suffering, as a treat

but characters becoming beasts is something that really interests me, like where's the line between human an animal

what happens when they start changing? how long does it take? how much are they warped?

so jodi has this really strong sense of morals and she's strong and capable but doesn't react to things immediately with violence

what would happen once she starts becoming a beast? would she keep those morals? that calm?

[trail talon]

it seems like the personalities of humans in the downside don’t change

||if lendel remains, he becomes a bitter demon, but he was already bitter to start with||

[prime dirge]

I loosely remember ||he becomes something beyond a demon. Beast-like like Babs dreams of||

If that's true, I suppose it's a bit related to where one falls in the rational<->impulse scale. Jodi's on one end; ||Lendel||'s on the other

Maaybe that's what happens with the curs too? They may become more beastlike the more time they spend there, which is accelerated by their impulse-reason inclination

[trail talon]

||i don't remember that...he doesn't involve himself much with people, but i remember him being a demon on the same level as Jodi and the rest||

[timid silo]

Counterpoint, the Scribes had spent a LONG time down there by the time they wrote the Book and Jomuer sounded perfectly in control

[trail talon]

we haven't heard much about how curs tend to develop when in the downside, there have only been hints of curs living outside the rites in Jomuer Valley

and soliam mur grew less beast-like, not more, as his physical demonic features emerged

[midnight hawk]

well that's no fun

im on the phone w greg supergiant right now and he said wow babs your idea is so cool that's canon now

[trail talon]

pyre's all about Not losing hope or surrendering your values. Every character is "humanized" in some way. i don't think the humans-to-beasts archetype (?) fits here

[timid silo]

(and they were the first exiles, or the first recorded exiles anyway, maybe someone had slipped down that waterfall before but didn't live to tell that tale. They were the ones who created the current system, deciding that the Downside was for exiles specifically so that it'd enlighten the Commonwealth's criminals the way it had enlightened them)

[trail talon]

honestly, i'm rather tired of that cynical, "we all have beasts lurking within" idea (not that there isn't truth to it). give me a story of hope, family, and overcoming your supposed "dark side"

(in other words give me another pyre lol)

[prime dirge]

I wouldn't think it's a "we all have beasts lurking within" trope, it's more of a "people forcefully cast from the civilization grow bitter. Also horns"

Not quite the same

[trail talon]

that's just it, pyre it the opposite of the "beasts within" trope

[midnight hawk]

no yeah it doesn't fit w pyre's theme for sure

[trail talon]

that's why i love it so much! :)

[midnight hawk]

tho i don't mean it in a "the secret evil w/in all of us" sort of way bc that's boring i mean it in i like suffering and monsters

[timid silo]

I like to think there's a psychological aspect to demonification btw, like it happens sooner for some people and later for others - mostly as a headcanon to patch canon's inconsistencies GOL GOLATHANIAN THAT'D BE YOU, but also because it's fun for me

Kind of like giving in to despair? Oralech went from "horns barely showing" to all that in 5-6 years after all

[prime dirge]

I like the hope-despair contrast a lot 🐻

[trail talon]

that's plausible. remind me though, ||how long has hedwyn been in the downside? i know that if you don't send him up fast enough he starts to grow in his horns||

[timid silo]

Then we have Soliam who speedran demonification, since by the time the first person to follow after him finds him, he's already mutated, and I don't think it took more than a year?, and Gol who just. doesn't. at least according to official iconography.

Wasn't Hedwyn like 4-5 years Downside?

[trail talon]

i honestly can't remember, i have a terrible memory for dates

but that would support the phycological aspect of demonification

[midnight hawk]

it has.... something to do with hope, right? or is that fanon?

[prime dirge]

Wait. Does ||Hedwyn grow horns during the campaign, or is that if he stays?||

Demons do have low hope attributes. But other species (Bogs?) also have low hopes but don't seem to change that much

[untold quartz]

Greg has repeatedly implied that Hedwyn starts to grow horns during the game, if not slightly before.

[prime dirge]

Furry pal Ti'zo also takes his time even though is cheerful. But does have horns

[untold quartz]

Hedwyn also starts to ||give in to despair|| the longer you keep him down, so it stands to reason with the psychological theory.

(Ti'zo is native to the Downside, I think he's just born the way he is?)

[midnight hawk]

i think imps just have horns

[untold quartz]

Imps are Downside creatures

[trail talon]

i imagine that bogs just generally have low expectations

[midnight hawk]

i think this is also why oralech goes from kinda demon to SUPER demon during his whole thing

[untold quartz]

But yeah, if you read Hedwyn's ||prayers during the successive ascents for the lib rites||, he starts spiraling real badly after ||he finds out they can't all be liberated||

He just hides it well when he's talking to other people

[midnight hawk]

poor hedwyn

it;s so sad because he really does have such hope and love and this is just so hard on him....

[timid silo]

(and apropos nothing, if you read Volfred's he prays for Oralech)

(and with that I'm off to sleep, but, yknow. Fun fact)

[untold quartz]

CW/self-harm: ||By the last ascents it's stated that he isn't sure if he wants to keep living.||

He does rally at the end, but still. 😭

[midnight hawk]

thank you for spoiling that bc of the content but i think adding what kind of cw is would be helpful

but yeah he takes it HARD

like he loses everyone so he wants to fight SO hard to make it up for it but he can;t....

[trail talon]

i always liberated him pretty quickly, i just had to

[midnight hawk]

ty tobu

yeah me too i couldnt keep the poor boy down

[untold quartz]

I think almost everyone yeets him up in the end

[timid silo]

Yeah. Hedwyn goes up, no ifs and no buts :(

[trail talon]

like, i knew that he was self-sacrificing, so i made sure he never had to

[untold quartz]

It's just a question of whether you keep him around a while because you hate to say goodbye, or boost him up ASAP

[midnight hawk]

like some characters do pretty well in the downside, like ae, but oh hedwyn is not one of them

[timid silo]

Even though the "only the core four down" paired ending has its charm, but NO

[untold quartz]

Yeah, at least half of his psychological torment is fueled by him feeling twisted up between ||his instinct to self-sacrifice for the others and his desperation to be free himself||

I'm very glad that it's canon that ||if you leave him down, Fikani dives directly down the Falls as soon as she finds out where he is||

[midnight hawk]

right so he's not just. suffering completely

[prime dirge]

Yet another "What a horrible day to be literate". I say this as a Reader rather than as a player

[midnight hawk]

being cut off from most of the people he loves and cares about

[untold quartz]

||and survives, and finds him and they live happily together||

For both their sakes.

[midnight hawk]

ah i wanna replay pyre so bad 😭

[untold quartz]

It's Good 👍

[lime mural]

Sameee

Pyre about to be 4 years old soon

[midnight hawk]

10 days and im done w this term..... then the summer of video games and fanfiction begins

molten crone summer

[untold quartz]

Fanfic~~

[midnight hawk]

honestly greg where is pyre 2: bog crone edition

[untold quartz]

In Nowhere Land with all the other potential SGG sequels 🤣

[prime dirge]

So that's why Hedwyn ||cooked. He wanted to be the one cutting onions||
Also this explains the ||headband, which is quite the tell now that I think about it||

[untold quartz]

Yeah, there are also indications that he might have a ||brand under there, too||

Given the nature of his crime

Why the world of Pyre has to be so freaking mean to the softest man in it 😰

(I know it's a joke but now I'm imagining Hedwyn ||quietly going off to cut up onions when he's feeling especially bad so he'll have an explanation that won't bring down his teammates, too,|| and I'm 😟 )

Jodi would see directly through it, at least 💕

And be discreet about it

[prime dirge]

Rukey: The soup is rather oniony, chum.
Hedwyn: ||Thanks, it's the depression||

[prime dirge]

Just saw that the wiki says Hedwyn is ||one of the adoptive children of Jodi. So she'd sense it. But I had no idea he was one of them||

[untold quartz]

Yeah!!

She apparently had a ||gaggle of them||

[lime mural]

Yeah ||I think when you liberate her it says almost all of her adopted children came to her||

[prime dirge]

I member she ||goes on to find them all in the Upside, but I didn't know they were named. Many-named.||

[untold quartz]

Back in the day, when Greg used to pop into the unofficial Discord sometimes, I kept meaning to ask ||how old he was when she got sentenced and exiled||

[midnight hawk]

probably pretty young, it's been 16 yrs

[untold quartz]

I never did manage it, I was too shy 😑

[prime dirge]

Come on, we can save those for the next #ask-supergiant

[untold quartz]

They keep being themed though and I keep missing them 😭

Someday, someday... 😅

Lordy, imagine 16 years of being exiled in doomland with no way to tell ||your adopted kids|| you're okay, while your body steadily mutates and everyone is either hostile or afraid of you

Why Jodi Doesn't Smile Much, 1/??

[prime dirge]

She stayed true through all of that

[untold quartz]

She did though 💕 💕

[prime dirge]

Do we know why the ||demonified humans have their names suffixed with -el?
Also I don't think we learn Jodi's real name||

Furthermore, why does ||Oralech's name remain unchanged?||

[mild falcon]

In lendel's team, we see nomads change their names to fit their new demonic form, seems to be just a tradition thing

Oralech breaks tradition in a lot of ways

[timid silo]

It's said that SOMETIMES people change their name when they demonify

The -el must be traditional? Maybe?

[mild falcon]

I like to think Jodariel's name was Judith?

So she went from Judy to Jodi

[prime dirge]

But, the only "real world" name we saw is ||Brighton. And Sandra and Fred and Manley. So it could be Judith||

[desert prism]

If you liberate her ||she goes on to care for even more little 'uns||

[timid silo]

Tariq and Celeste are very much real world names too! :)

[trail talon]

wait, people change their names when they become demons?? where is that said

[mild falcon]

It's implied by lendel's team composition

[trail talon]

lol yeah, i saw Tariq and it was almost immersion breaking to see a South Asian/Arabic(?) name

i should pay more attention to the profiles of my adversaries

[mild falcon]

Lendel's team:

Vispa - a female Nomad

Darben - a male Nomad

At a later point, Vispa and Darben are changed to the following:

Vispaleth - a female Demon

Darbenfor - a male Demon

[trail talon]

but Ignarius is still Ignarius

[prime dirge]

Also ||Oralech||, but those two seem to be the exception

[trail talon]

don't know when that trend would have started or how widespread it is, because Soliam was always Soliam as well

[mild falcon]

Well you never see Ignarius as a nomad

[prime dirge]

Maybe his name was...Ignar?

[mild falcon]

Maybe his name was bob and he wanted something cooler

[untold quartz]

Maybe his name was straight-up just Iggy 🤣

[trail talon]

sounds like a nickname, who would honestly name their kid iggy

[untold quartz]

Fair, but also: my mom delivered babies for twenty years and change, and you'd be amazed what people will name their kids 😅

(Her record holder is still the poor girl whose parents saddled her with Abcde, pronounced "Absidy")

(She's a teenager now and planning to change it legally to Abby when she turns eighteen)

[trail talon]

Abcde is a name that's more common than it should be. I've seen more than one stories on the web of moms naming their kids Abcde

[spiral zealot]

this is my child abb-cuh-dee

[prime dirge]

Yikes. These people were not exposed to games where you can name your char

[trail talon]

pronounced Ab city, that makes it worse almost

[mild falcon]

... abcidiel sounds pretty

[prime dirge]

Ooh. Elvish/demonic variant. Good save

[untold quartz]

pffffft 🤣

[lime mural]

https://soaringsparrows.tumblr.com/post/166337948690 happy pride month

[midnight hawk]

the only pyre post that matters

[desert prism]

Anybody have any recommendations for pyre fanfics that you feel are underrated? Any pairing is okay!

[supple solar]

back here

and i just read thw whole convo i started but was absent for Oops SORRY GUYS

but

i distinctly remember someone explaining demons sometimes change their names upon demonification, before the first lib rite against Iggy

laso another question

so are savages just odd nomads or their own race

that always confused me

cause the game says theyre people that were weird and shunned but they are v much treated like a race

it always felt to me like a metaphor for autism or such which im... not sure what to think about

[timid silo]

I think that it's an unfortunate consequence of the gameplay aspect differentiating so strongly between the two, so it ends up feeling like they're different races. They are neurodivergent nomads, I'm almost sure

[supple solar]

thats so wild imagine youre neurodivergent but your patron is the... the traitor, the rope caller

and youre shunned and called a savage

but at least you get a... charged jump

i just read up on the Tattered Mantle and all i can imagine is doctor strange's cape

[supple solar]

there was a lovely hedwyn and fikani one i read im p sure was written by someone here but i cant remember whom or what the name was ;;;

[timid silo]

https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobuIshi/pseuds/TobuIshi/works?fandom_id=11738311 last one here! 😄

[untold quartz]

waking up to other people reccing my fic like 😳

[supple solar]

uwu

[deft quail]

I enjoy playing gilman

do you?

[midnight hawk]

he's a fun one

zooooom

[lime mural]

I may have been an idiot my first playthrough and sent up Ti'zo.

I think I sent up all three speedy bois and I had to learn how to play with Jodi and Volfred.

I think Hedwyn went up, too.

[jagged pebble]

oof
did you send up bertrude

[lime mural]

I really gotta replay it.

I don't know, but I remember kinda learning how to play with her.

[jagged pebble]

she can be pretty speedy
and learning how to play with a harp is good too

[lime mural]

Yeah, I definitely learned Pam.

But she is a she and I couldn't think of a gender-neutral alternative to "boi".

Oh, I sent her up as soon as she talked to me, asking me to send Tamitha up.

Some real "Do not ask about the nam--" "You have a ship called the Qwib-Qwib?" energy.

But more benevolent, because Tam is a war criminal.

[deft quail]

I didnt like gilman when i first played

kept him in the downside

but after playing multiplayer, ive taken to him

Its funny cause the first person i sent up was Mr. Greentail, but now I hardly play curs in multiplayer

[lime mural]

Rukey was my first, too.

[ahem]

I kinda dug Gilman's vibe the first time I met him, and then had another ME2 "Oh, this changes EVERYTHING" moment when he said he exiled himself over the shame of "leaving the battlefield," AKA chasing after the actual coward Deluge when he fled.

Like, stack the Urdnot scout in Mordin's loyalty mission on top of the revelation of who struck first in the Morning War when talking to Legion, and that was the strength of my "I'm getting this guy back home as soon as possible" energy.

[deft quail]

ill be honest, i didnt understand anything before the word "and"

[lime mural]

So there's an Urdnot scout in the Weyrloc base where you find Maelon.

He's already seen Maelon, and he's noticeably frail (for a krogan). Shepard mentions getting him patched up and sent back, and he says "No. I have to stay. They're gonna cure the genophage."

And that really hit me, what the genophage had done to them. It was a slow genocide.

Yes, you've got terrible warmongers like Wreav, and Gatatog Uvenk, and Clan Weyrloc, but most krogan were resigned to their fate, and that's why they chose to be stereotypical.

[deft quail]

ok that clears things up

thanks

I understand everything perfectly, and agree whole heartedly

[lime mural]

Mass Effect 2 references, sorry.

I misread there.

[deft quail]

are you winning the dead cells video game, son?

[midnight hawk]

deluge is a terrible little man

[lime mural]

It really says something about the villains in Pyre that Deluge is on the softer side.

[deft quail]

does anyone know if there are male harps?

[lime mural]

There is supposedly a Harp prince.

[deft quail]

oh ok, that sounds familier

[midnight hawk]

yeah there's a legendary that there is a singular male harp so he's the prince

[mild falcon]

The harp prince is definitely ron

[trail talon]

i honestly felt sympathy for deluge. don't know if anyone's read Discworld, but deluge reminds me a lot of rincewind: doesn't really want any sort of adventure or danger, but gets shoved into it anyway (in deluge's case, by the society in which he was raised): he doesn't fit in to his society, but he's just so good as staying alive that he keeps getting placed into dangerous situations he doesn't want to be in

[trail talon]

................

[mild falcon]

Think about it!

[timid silo]

Y eah I also got my Deluge apologism on while reading Discworld 😂

[spiral zealot]

What a horrible day to have eyes

[timid silo]

he'd be a scholar if his people's culture weren't all about war. His topside ending was a revelation. Just get him out of the military!

[scenic kiln]

[trail talon]

even in the downside he settles down and lives a pretty peaceful life with another one of the pyrehearts

[mild falcon]

Deluge IS pathetic but he's definitely pitiable

[trail talon]

insert einstien’s (?) quote about a fish’s ability to climb a tree

deluge is fine and valid

[deft quail]

deluge needs a hug

cause most of the people he hangs around (wyrms) dont have arms

[midnight hawk]

see my issue is how terrible he is to gilman. like damn im a coward too. it's not the running away, it's how he treats gilman

who is just a very sweet but doesn't like. know he doesn't need to be treated like that

[trail talon]

he’s acting on the defensive all the time, trying to seem tough and agressive when he’s really in a constant state of anxiety at best and terror at worst

gilman’s courtesy to the opposing triumvirate weakens that already shaky image, i imagine

(at least from deluge’s point of view)

[prime dirge]

Acting on his own undermines Deluge I suppose

[trail talon]

gilman is also probably the ideal that deluge should be embodying, but isn’t, and he’s well too aware of that

[prime dirge]

It's a bit difficult to empathise with Deluge since he's the typical "got promoted above his paygrade" and now makes everyone around him miserable...but I hadn't considered Deluge got there against his will unlike the stereotype

[lime mural]

Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse.

Especially considering in the Downside, he's away from the superiors who put him in a place he didn't belong or want, so now is the perfect time to say "Okay, Gilman, you're in command."

[prime dirge]

Damn. Swiftly disarmed

[trail talon]

i believe the others just pushed him into the leader position because of rank? and he’s not assertive at all, so he tries to deal with it like he always has

maybe he thought he’d lose the respect of his team and get kicked out if he didn’t stick with it

[prime dirge]

I can see him thinking that tbh

And it's not too different from that moment where Volfred ||says "Kay I'm back, hand over the keys of the Blackwagon"||

[untold quartz]

I can pity Deluge and strongly dislike him at the same time.

He reminds me of a teacher I worked with in Japan, who was - as far as I could tell - a lonely and unhappy man who was bad with children and deeply insecure about the English language skills that were his bread and butter.

But he was also a grown-@$$ man who chose to act on all of that by being a mean, petty little mofo who humiliated and lectured his students and viciously mistreated the American assistant teachers he was assigned.

I felt bad for him, but I felt worse for the kids and JET assistants who were at his mercy.

That's about where I am with Deluge. 😅

[spiral zealot]

"I get why your angry and I pity you for it, but please be better"

[untold quartz]

"I'm sorry you were railroaded into the military but you need to stop screaming at Gilman immediately if not years ago."

[spiral zealot]

^^^^^^^^

[trail talon]

i'd feel more strongly the same way if deluge was angry, but he's scared which i can more heavily relate to

[lament lily]

Just finished the game for the first time and, damn, I don't even know what to say. At the very least, the game was incredible!

[potent dove]

Hi, is this game very good and does it bring great Joy?

[spiral zealot]

Yes

[midnight hawk]

it's a lot of fun. there's a lot of variation in play style and replayability

[timid silo]

Yes

[lament lily]

Yes

[spiral zealot]

Yes

[trail talon]

Absolutely

[prime dirge]

It has very pretty sights, great music, the interactions between characters are fun and interesting, and the plot is rather good too

Make sure to read the book of rites every now and then

[untold quartz]

100% yes

[trail talon]

Anyone: Hey guys, would you recommend Pyre?
Pyre fans: YESSSSSSS

[stiff tangle]

It's so silly when people come to a SGG game's channel and ask if we would rec them

[lament lily]

Just to find that one troll that says "no" (ofc people are allowed to hold their own opinions and believe a game to be good or bad, but here they would be wrong)

[prime dirge]

I get the reluctance. It's the least popular game, the channel is seldom active, and when it does it's full of spoilers

[stiff tangle]

yeah in this case it's pretty logical

[prime dirge]

It's a reader's club

[stiff tangle]

Today's meeting topic: how to survive in exile

[prime dirge]

We'd discuss what roots and flowers to pick when gathering resources

[trail talon]

best food in the downside

[prime dirge]

Best fishies in the Downside

Best people to ||crash into||

[trail talon]

tizo's number one fishing spots in the downside! live at 8

[prime dirge]

I miss that "see 's background emote->figure out what he means->read the translation->have a laugh" process

So yes, I'd like seeing that very much

[trail talon]

||A FISH KILLED MY FAMILY! now i hunt their kind||

[prime dirge]

That's one of the top 3 moments. ||Shame it's missable||

[untold quartz]

Hedwyn being ||miserably seasick all day|| is, sadly, required

But I still find Tariq trolling Jodi about it endlessly hilarious 🤣

[deep cedar]

https://i.imgur.com/bb9hxdV.png

(Im a noob and avoiding actual strategy will probably come back to bite me later)

[trail talon]

oh, it will

[deep cedar]

watch me do an all rukey playthrough

awww yeaaahh

[mild falcon]

all rukey? when tizo is right there?

✅ big aura
✅ high speed
✅ can fly
❎ cares about leaving

[trail talon]

with his talisman leveled, can stay in thr air indefinitely!

[deep cedar]

:O I don't have tizo yet!

He sounds cool though

[supple solar]

HEAVY CALL OUT

[midnight hawk]

ti'zo is such a cutie

[prime dirge]

The only bright soul in the Downside
I mean. There's others. But he's the purest

[supple solar]

blatant hedwyn and *ae erasure

[midnight hawk]

ae has done nothing wrong, ever

[supple solar]

i know this and i love her

[midnight hawk]

uhhhh i wanna replay pyre so bad but i have a huge final i should be working on 😩

[prime dirge]

Ti'zo can wait

[prime dirge]

There's no moment for them like

[prime dirge]

this one for those two IIRC. Kae is hopeful but not in the same "pet-like" way as

[trail talon]

ohh boy i’m about to head out right now, but i’ll state my thesis here at least: tizo is Not pet like, but an extremely layered character

[midnight hawk]

👀

[prime dirge]

There's the ||yeeting himself straight to Volf (was it Tariq?) once Volf/Tariq appears|| for , but the other two have ||meeting Fikani in the epilogue|| and ||going to say hi to Almer right before a lib rite||, which are

But there's something in I can't find in the other two

Ti'zo does have the "I'm happy as long as you're beside me" thing that pets do. He's more than that but the swiftly-achieved happiness feels pet-like

For , being in good company is enough. Will not feel bored, very much like a pet would. Whereas a "human-like" trait is, for example, that of Gilman and Rukey who drift towards doing something with friends, such as ||the sneak training they did at some point||

Gilman has similar moments of being intense, but that's due to honor, duty, or things of the sort. Whereas tends to be happy rather than the multidimensional approach of

I have finished speaking you can bring the bulldozer now

[supple solar]

vroom vroom

[unborn copper]

Pyre Community Rite Nite is live! Watch at https://www.twitch.tv/lidsvids and/or join the Rite Club (https://discord.gg/XHTtNGe) to get involved!

[trail talon]

Ok, i'm back, i've eaten, and i'm writing this essay right Now

When you first see Tizo in game, he does come across as a sort of "cute critter" (which he is, of course), but he quickly shows himself to be so much more than that. Spoilers ahead, I'll try to tag the serious ones, but beware.

• First off, he can communicate with the Reader in plain language, which already makes his bond with the Reader a different one than the sort you might have with a pet.
• He's not only capable of talking, he's also capable of having complex feelings, including fear and anxiety
• ||He's a member of the Original Nightwings, which means he knows more about the Rites and the Scribes than others on the team: we see him on a couple of occasions reminiscing with other members of the Old Guard, and it's obvious that the imp is on equal terms with the rest of the groups||
• he genuinely wants to take care of the new Nightwings ||we can see this on one or two occasions when you're climbing the Fall of Soliam and you can take a moment with Tizo and gain a sense of what he's thinking: he is anxious for his new friends to succeed||
• he's self-conscious: he wants to be useful to the group, yet he's not sure that he is ||leading to the best hug in a game!||
• Big Spoiler: ||you face the True Nightwings twice over the course of the game, and I highly recommend putting Tizo up in both of them: I did this by accident the first time i played and the two conversations which ensue from this are Heartbreajking. You can really see Tizo struggle to reconcile the fact that a former friend of his now stands against him, but his loyalty to the New Nightwings never wavers||
  Conclusion: Tizo is not mrerely a happy-go-lucky animal companion: he is an old hand at the rites and carries the weight of taking care of the team on his shoulders, genuinely worrying about their success and wishing to contribute to it in any way possible despite his size.

Another Big Spoiler: ||The end credits song calls him "Tizo the Wise," and so he is.||

end of essay/rant

[prime dirge]

he's self-conscious
gib deets. I don't remember this

Regarding ||the TNs, do you mean picking him as first pick or is any pick enough to trigger this?||

I did get ||one where Oralech asks about his horn and it hit me right in the feels. Typical SGG, a minor sprite detail was a gut punch in disguise ||

[trail talon]

||just having him in the team is enough i think||

||yeah, that's the first convo: there's also a second one which i don't remember terribly well, but it's another attack on the feels for sure||

[prime dirge]

These are good pointers for a replay

Have we discussed whether the UI translating 's dialog is something the Reader does, or is it a design choice?

Next Pyre-themed #ask-supergiant when

[trail talon]

it's the Reader, i think: when you first meet him, it takes a few tries to reach a point where you can understand him

[prime dirge]

Ah that's true

[trail talon]

though it seems like volfred and tariq, at least, can understand him as well (which makes sense, i think, considering that they can both (?) read)

[prime dirge]

Hehehe. It felt quite a lot like callibrating one of those old resistive touchscreens

|| can read. Huh. Makes a lot of sense but I don't think he or were explicit about that||

Those two have known for some time, so they'd understand him better even if they weren't that

[trail talon]

that would also be true. the game never says explicitly, i just kind of thought it was likely? ||they also sing in "English"/"the Literate Language"||

[prime dirge]

||Speaking a language doesn't mean you're literate. Any social network is example of this 😦 But it's likely they are, being...some kind of...Scribe-level entity||

[midnight hawk]

you did a really good job with this and i like this view of tizo

[kind plank]

Me: reaches Liberation Rite
Partner: Uh oh, Darren is singing. It’s gonna go down!

[prime dirge]

Annointed goes 👆 not 👇

[timid silo]

Comes up in his convos with Tariq!

[kind plank]

So, show of hands. Anyone else choose “Rhae” as the stowaway name just because you like how Logan says /r/s in this game?

[trail talon]

definitely

[deft quail]

No, i chose Fae, definitely seems like the best name that fits

“Fae the fair”

[scenic kiln]

She's practically a faerie, with her otherworldliness, so that's why I picked it

[kind plank]

I think I did Fae in my first run, but that was years ago. I didn’t finish that one because my PC died. I’m trying to finish this one before it explodes again.

Of course, then I have to go clear “Hades” because some people don’t let the couples have happy ending…

[timid silo]

Tae because the age of Tay in Riven is my fave place ever in a video game

[spiral zealot]

Mae because Mae

[midnight hawk]

man i am listening to the pyre soundtrack and i forgot how amazing it is

[trail talon]

pyre’s ost is my favourite of the four: so much different styles in one game and not a bad song among them

[midnight hawk]

yeah same

although i don't like thrash pack or uh the withdrawn's. but that's bc i just don't like that kind of music

[prime dirge]

Time Passes
Will of the Scribes

[trail talon]

thrash pack is intense

i loved the withdrawn’s theme! what a beat, what a groove

the herald is one of my underrated faves

[prime dirge]

It's a good one. Hadn't paid attention to it

Reminds me of 0 = 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbqzJYml520
(I hope this isn't much of a derailment)

[lime mural]

They know about Omar.

[kind plank]

Watching my toddler attempt to dance to “Through the Valley” has to be one of my favorite gamer parent experiences.

[midnight hawk]

u know one character i really love is manely. he is SO fun to hate. every time he comes on screen i want to call him a nerd and throw him in a trash cane

he's so delightfully infuriating

[lime mural]

Well-written villains are just the best.

Well-written heroic characters who you are supposed to hate are quite possibly even better.

There are no heroic characters who you are supposed to like that I ended up hating in Pyre, so let's move on.

[midnight hawk]

he's just this dude... who thinks he's big stuff because he has money but he's actually completely ineffectual

[lime mural]

I only feel a little bad at the very end when he bankrupts his family trying to escape.

Unless they were willfully trying to help him out, in which case, nyeh, buncha jerks.

[midnight hawk]

yeah i did feel a bit bad for his family too

tho tbh theyre probably all like him

[kind plank]

I would try to get the Fate for the Liberation Rites because if I lost I would be okay with Dalbert going home.

Proving Yslach was dead to Udmildhe was one of the most satisfying side quests I’ve done in a long time. Bertrude can lay down a burn when she’s motivated.

[lime mural]

"She's trying to bring back who?"

[lime mural]

Idea: Drop every billionaire in the Downside, see how far they get.

My money's on them all turning Demon within a few weeks.

[kind plank]

Falcon Ron would be so happy.

[lime mural]

Well, that's the thing, they don't get to bring any money with them into the Downside.

And if they do, I'm sure they'd try to buy their way out and Falcon Ron would end up being happy.

Do it for

[midnight hawk]

see that's how we deal with capitalism

[lime mural]

[midnight hawk]

just throw everyone into the downside and it'll sort itself out

[kind plank]

He would totally sell “tickets” back up river.

[kind plank]

||That’s not far off from what the scribes actually tried…||

Falcon Ron is native to The Downside, right? There is some life down there other than the howlers.

[trail talon]

it's never confirmed, though it's a solid theory. imps, of course, are native to the downside, but there must be other races as well

[kind plank]

Falcon Dad looks like he feels like he crawled out of the ooze 800+ years ago.

[scenic kiln]

[prime dirge]

It's great for vibing. It's a great match with the colorful ambience

Pyre is rather colorful but at the same time full-on black-blue too

[trail talon]

it's full of colour

but the night sky is a huge theme

but the stars are pinpricks of colour amid the black/blue

[prime dirge]

The star map

[trail talon]

i love looking at the stars in pyre.
the way the music shifts to another variation
the chime when you hover over a star
the art
it

is so calming

[prime dirge]

Must be a great experience to look at the stars in a big screen and a dark room.
Uh. It can even be argued that the small chimes are not sound effects but evidence of synesthesia

Readers are synaesthetic (sp?), new headcanon?

[trail talon]

i've heard of seeing sounds as colours but not of seeing colours as sounds

[kind plank]

It would make sense with a manifestation of the emotional states as colors.

Readers seem to have extra perception.

[prime dirge]

I hadn't heard about ||mind reading or mind-hijacking or understanding a furball's squeaks with ease, but we're past that point in the Downside||

[trail talon]

true, i was just sort of curious as to whether people in real life see colours as sounds

i don't know much about synesthesia, but it's fascinating

[kind plank]

Yes, that is a real thing. My partner experiences sounds that way.

He harmonizes music by matching the colors, which is some hardcore cheating if you ask me.

[trail talon]

my sister has something similar, i think. every key of music in her mind is associated with a specific colour

she also, i suspect, has perfect pitch

[kind plank]

Visuals make it easier.

[trail talon]

whereas i have to squint at the music for awhile to determine what key it's in

[kind plank]

I think the Reader skills get more powerful over time. Volfred and Bertrude ||are to be able to do thing you can’t that seem to be extensions of the general Reading ability.||

[trail talon]

the reader's skills definitley become more powerful overtime ||though i always played with a strict "no snooping/mind manipulating policy whenever i could||

[prime dirge]

The prayers near the lib rites

[trail talon]

||pamitha: you've probably looked into my head and seen everything already||
||me: i haven't seen anything, tell me what's up||

[prime dirge]

Baseless speculation, but I feel that one of Pyre's main topics is how much of an achievement literacy is. Reading symbols and understanding meaning from them.

One has to assume then, reading the Book of Rites (||made of Yslach's skin?||) expands that ability

A bit Cthulhu-ish, but def possible

[kind plank]

Also what is lost when literacy is suppressed.

[trail talon]

you definitely draw something from the Book of Rites whenever you study it

it could be the value of education and the power it can give you

[kind plank]

Greg Kasavin’s family came to America from the USSR. I suspect some of that history is reflected in Pyre’s story.

[trail talon]

oh wow really?

[kind plank]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kasavin

Yup, (provided wiki is correct).

[trail talon]

it's true in history: off the top of my head i can give the examples of Martin Luther (who i believe advocated for the Bible to be printed in common languages so the populace could read it and understand it) and Frederick Douglass, the African American slave whose education enabled him to rise to a higher position and speak against African American slavery
literacy and education are amazing tools

the wiki looks pretty bare bones

[prime dirge]

He did say he was born in the USSR in an interview

~~I definitely didn't wait outside of his house to ask about the next Pyre- #ask-supergiant ~~

[kind plank]

Pyre revolves around a group of exiles ||plotting to change a government system that was itself founded by revolution and became corrupted.|| It feels very USSR to me.

[trail talon]

wouldn't hold my breath: the last ones seem to have been about Hades' early access and full release details

[trail talon]

it makes sense for sure

[kind plank]

Hades is literally the new hotness 🥁

Also adding to the USSR parallel are the details that the Commonwealth is a both a conglomeration of disparate cultures & peoples, and its forever war against the Harps.

[trail talon]

who would the real life equivalent of the harps be?

[kind plank]

I don’t know if they are anyone specific. There are hints about the Commonwealth trying to wipe them out, so maybe one of the groups that were targeted by the USSR?

[trail talon]

i like hades, but it's also kind of my fourth favourite of the sgg games

[prime dirge]

Read about some letters being found years after they were "lost". They hinted at a village that nobody knew it existed. Since it was wiped off the face of the Earth

EDIT: I exaggerated a bit, see link below. Or don't

[trail talon]

where was this village

[prime dirge]

Found it (interesting but it'll make you feel things) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaibakh_massacre#Rediscovery

[trail talon]

"list of massacres in the soviet union"

My God

[prime dirge]

Well. The known ones anyway

[kind plank]

Yeah…

[prime dirge]

I do like Pyre but I don't quite get when Greg says it's a story of hope, not of despair

Locally you can make it one, but the plot overall is mostly a downer 😐

[trail talon]

it's not a story of despair

||change happens no matter how well you do at the Rites||

empathy and determination remain at the forefront

a group of misfits with various motives proves that they can rely on each other

[prime dirge]

They do during the game. Within the blackwagon there's hope and determination. It's the universe it's set in that gives you grief wherever you look

Uh. This makes Pyre a...nobledark, is it called?

[trail talon]

man, i'm losing track of all these subgenres

[kind plank]

It does very much push the idea of being hopeful in a seemingly hopeless situation.

[trail talon]

please do not forget about people like dalbert thank you

[prime dirge]

Did anyone say Danganronpa

[trail talon]

everyone in the game is caught in a rough situation, but they all find their own happiness

and strength

in each other

i found it amazing how real and vivid every character in pyre is

[prime dirge]

There's people of worth outside the Blackwagon. Fair point.
Also all the agents and such.
But my point is that the universe is, well, dark. A grimdark universe with heroes that might actually do something. I think that's the definition of a nobledark

Found a chart http://abload.de/img/hlb44pdmckf3.png

[trail talon]

interestingly enough, the downside soon stopped feeling grimdark: it's full of colour and life despite being used as a sort of penal colony.
the Nightwings aren't heroes, though. they're just ordinary folks, making the best of things. ||even when the Plan becomes a thing|| they have doubts and conflicting motivations. they go on walks, play tunes, study etc. during their downtime

[kind plank]

Looking at that chart, I would put it in the grimbright box.

[prime dirge]

I'm still not certain if the Downside is colorful like that or it's some kind of synesthesia

[kind plank]

That’s a fair point. It may not look like that to everyone else.

[prime dirge]

Is there dialog about that? Maybe something about Pam talking about the sky?

[trail talon]

i don't remember any

[kind plank]

We know that the characters see the rainment colors as you do.

[trail talon]

but the downside is not merely a wilderness. you can live there, and there's food to be found: there is even a native ecosystem which includes species of higher intelligence

[kind plank]

Right, the imps and the sluglings.

The witches seem to be doing pretty okay.

[prime dirge]

I've had a hard time distinguishing between those two. I think dark/bright depends on whether change can be achieved; noble/grim depends on...gah, I forgot

[kind plank]

Bertrude’s dialogue before she went back made me quite sad. ||She didn’t want to go ☹️||

[lime mural]

Nah, I think based on these definitions Pyre is Nobledark.

[kind plank]

I think dark/bright is how the world actually is and noble/grim is the characters’ response to the world.

[lime mural]

Yeah.

Pyre's world is not great.

[kind plank]

But that in and of itself makes Pyre tricky because there is such a range of responses by the characters.

[trail talon]

i'd say the Commonwealth is the truly "dark" part of the world

[kind plank]

The Commonwealth seems to be a country founded on good ideals that has gotten very corrupted because the justice system has gone totally off the rails…

… which feels very close to home sitting here in 2021.

[lime mural]

Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Well, the 1619 Project also kinda throws a wrench in that interpretation, but that's neither here nor there.

[kind plank]

loses 1 Hope for the future

[trail talon]

let me guess: the US?

[kind plank]

That’s where I am. We had a Pyre level corruption happen in my town and it’s not even national news.

Sadder still, posting that doesn’t dox my location.

[prime dirge]

Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?

[kind plank]

Yes.

[lime mural]

Man, wish we could get more Batman Beyond.

[prime dirge]

(It was a Batman reference, Rhae)

[kind plank]

👍

In other news, have found a yarn that is similar to Volfred’s texture so I’m working on knitting him.

[trail talon]

Y A R N

[kind plank]

It’s not quite grey enough but it has nice variations that remind me of a birch tree.

((And yes I am very bothered that Volfred’s surname is “Sandalwood” when he is clearly modeled off a birch tree.))

[prime dirge]

Last names are inherited you know

[kind plank]

Meh.

[trail talon]

best of luck!

[prime dirge]

Also that could have been his nom de plum. He even ||signs a piece of bark as SW||

[kind plank]

That’s probably it.

His clothes are going to be the more challenging bit.

[prime dirge]

We don't do these things because they are easy, but because Pyre is worthy.
JFK, probably

[untold quartz]

Poking through today's discussions and it's totally canon that studying the Book does weird things to your brain

There are moments during the one-on-one training you can do with the other Nightwings where they comment on it

(also I agree that it's Nobledark by that chart)

[lime mural]

Nobledark?

[untold quartz]

Whoops yes

Fixed, good catch

[kind plank]

Just confirmed through the Book of Rites: the slugs are native to the Downside.

Into the last Liberation Rite I go!

[trail talon]

vibing with In the Flame!

[kind plank]

Okay… that was not the last one… I have Pamitha, Volfred, and Ti’zo left.

I am really glad you don’t have to win to finish the game 😬

[trail talon]

who were you up against

[kind plank]

In this last Lib rite? Entitlement tree.

[prime dirge]

Didn't get him on a lib. Would have been glorious

[kind plank]

I had Rhae still, so I was able to out maneuver them pretty easily.

My favorite was Ti’zo’s… comments to Lendel in the lib rite before that one. Ti’zo knows how to throw an insult, apparently.

[trail talon]

would have liked to know what exactly he said!

[kind plank]

I believe it was something along a the lines of “Ti’zo doesn’t think much of Lendel, or Lendel’s mother.”

[trail talon]

||he doesn’t hold his mother in high esteem||

[prime dirge]

Certain imp sayings resist translation

[kind plank]

Easiest choice in the game came up just now: “The Minstrel wants to know if you want him to sing.”

UM, YEAH! Why do you think I play these games?!?!

[prime dirge]

Would have liked a Telltale-like count on how many players said yes

Can't be less than 95%

So like 4 people

[kind plank]

Four people who’s speakers are broken.

[prime dirge]

I meant that Pyre's playerbase is so small, 95% of it is 4 people

I did play it without sound at times tho. Big regret

[kind plank]

I’ve got a big monitor this go round. I can hear the spacing split between the characters when they are on one side or another. It’s pretty cool.

[prime dirge]

Right. and 's songs do that too

(Or so I've been told)

[kind plank]

Yup.

Okay, time to wrap this up for real.

[prime dirge]

Oof. Do you want to end the game?

[trail talon]

they do with my headphones! it’s how i realized that i was wearing my old ones backwards

[kind plank]

No, but I want to know the ending.

Or an ending…

[prime dirge]

I think I took like 5 mins to decide who to anoint the last time

Who did you pick for liberation?

[kind plank]

||Orlech.|| It felt like the only right choice.

[midnight hawk]

the first time i played the last lib ||i had volfred and tizo versus oralech so it was super emotional... i won, and then i picked Volfred because i knew the plan was the most important (at this time i did not know volfred going up was not strictly necessary for the plan) and then there was oralech's bad end and it was rough :(||

[trail talon]

congratulations, i totally agree

||i lost the first time, and went up myself. oralech got a peaceful ending, probably because he consciously gave up his liberation, but the choice didn’t feel right to me, so i played again (lost again) and liberated him||

[kind plank]

||I won (by the skin of my teeth) with Pamitha anointed, Ti’zo and Volfred supporting. I knew Ti’zo would be okay in the Downside, Volfred drove me crazy in the Rites, so Pamitha was up by process of elimination. I would have liked to have gotten her out, but Orlech deserved it more.||
Still not an easy choice to make.

[untold quartz]

||I won the first time, went up myself, was horrified by Oralech's uhhh reaction, then poked around online and found out that you can swipe the Beyonder Crystal and stay with Sandra and was even more horrified (she'd gone silent on me and I couldn't figure out how to get her to talk to me), immediately reloaded my last save from the top of Mt. Alodiel and blasted through the proper ending for Sandra then sent Oralech up instead||

||i had to set right what once went wrong 😭||

I could have rolled with ||Oralech's fate on its own||, but finding out that I'd ||left Sandra stranded unnecessarily|| put me over the edge on a redo 🤣

[kind plank]

||My epilogue text implied that she was released once the cycle ended, so I’m hopeful. 800+ years is enough.||

[untold quartz]

I mean, I literally wrote the fic for that. I needed that closure. 😅

[kind plank]

It’s a square the on “SGG Bingo” card.

Along with “gut-punch ending”…

[untold quartz]

What, ||Sandreader Fix-It Fic||?

or ||needing closure||? 😁

[kind plank]

Both!

Not to get off topic, but when I finished “Transistor” I sat there on the floor with the controller for 10 minutes just letting the ending sink in.

At least this time I don’t feel totally gutted.

A bit salty not everyone gets out though.

[untold quartz]

ahh, SGG bingo

hellish/apocalyptic imagery, themes of ||coming to terms with loss/death||, Darren wailing like an impossibly beautiful grief banshee at some point, cute smol monster friends...

I guess Ashley does the wailing in Transistor mostly 🤔

[kind plank]

Darren’s new job title better be “impossibly beautiful grief banshee”.

Plus he makes up for all kinds of lost time in Hades!

[untold quartz]

I mean he voices Orpheus, yes? who is pretty much the OG impossibly beautiful grief banshee 😂

so that's a VA/character match made in hellheaven

[kind plank]

I can see the crack fic now:
“Should we put Orpheus in the game? That’s a tall order.”
Darren bursts through the wall like the Kool Aid man with fifty different stringed instruments
“TIS THE ROLE I WAS BORN TO PLAY!!!”

[untold quartz]

i mean

where is the lie

(I'm still so sad that his instruments got burgled, that's freaking unacceptable on so many levels)

[kind plank]

??? When did that happen?

[midnight hawk]

psst

keep it pyre

so i've been listening to the soundtrack a bunch today and i love the aj songs

that harpsichord please

[untold quartz]

it's been weeks since it hit me while doing yardwork and listening to the Pyre soundtrack, but I'm still cackling over the realization that Iggy's theme is effectively a mashup of a cathedral choir and a trashy bump-and-grind 😁

[midnight hawk]

i googled what iggy's theme was and i got one of my own posts where i call him a disaster bi

speaking of uggy does anyone have the slides of when iggyv and jodi first meet?

[untold quartz]

it's Rage of Demons and it's a jam

I don't have screenshots, but I can toss you the full text in a PM if you want

the first thing he says to her is HEY, YOU! LOSE THE MASK. 😅

then he tries to hit on her and she tells him she'd rather ||cut out her own tongue||

ah, ✨ romance ✨ 🙄

[midnight hawk]

naw i need the images for funney poast but ty anyway

but u know ive only seen like two or three people who were into jodiggy and everyone else was like what the heck

[untold quartz]

I remain quietly amazed that the same man who wrote Red and Boxer also managed to produce Iggy's pursuit of Jodi

truly a human talent can contain multitudes 🤣

[sharp depot]

pyre

[deft quail]

pyre

[untold quartz]

🌟 pyre 🌟

[timid silo]

Pyre

[lime mural]

Pyre❤️

[kind plank]

🔥🔥🔥

[kind plank]

Hypothetical I’ve been thinking about (spoilers for the end of the game): ||If you could send back as many of the other triumvirate captains as you wanted, who would you send?||

[timid silo]

Dalbert with Almer in tow... Deluge... and Ignarius with a restraining order to stay away from Jodi 🤔 ||AND ORALECH|| I think that's everyone for me! Maybe Tamitha too but depending on where Pam is and tbqh I don't remember her topside ending

[midnight hawk]

dalbert with almer definitely. it'd be so sad to separate them :(

[untold quartz]

Leave Tam down, all she does is ||warmonger and maim Pam if you send them both up||

[midnight hawk]

yeah tamitha is nasty wherever she is

[prime dirge]

Hurt people hurt people

[trail talon]

||if they both get sent up, they both do reconcile, i think|| do it for pam

[prime dirge]

||Tam stops hating Pam but they don't become besties for life. They only greet each other in big events and such IIRC. Not even talk||

[trail talon]

||it’s enough to satisfy pam, and she feels pretty strongly about reconciling with her sister. pam did cause tam’s exile, after all||

[prime dirge]

Yeah, I have a somewhat stronger memory of something along the lines of ||Pam felt her heart finally at ease even though|| ||she could never fly again. But the price was worth it many times over.||

[lime mural]

Tam maims Pam every time if they're on the same side.

Tam stays down, Pam flies free.

Sometimes people don't know what's best for them.

I don't always know what's best for me.

Tamitha is one of Pyre's few clear-cut villains.

[trail talon]

i’m not arguing that you’re wrong, i’m just saying that the emotions involved are more complicated than it seems. We don’t know much of Tam and Pam’s past together beyond the point that led to their exiles. it’s obvious that Pam deeply cares for her sister, and Tam’s feelings of betrayal towards Pam suggest that Tam once trusted Pam as well. At the very least they’re siblings on different paths, but must have been close enough once that the breaking of their relationship was not a clean one, much to Pam’s sorrow. That their relationship can never be what it once was is beyond dispute, but Pam seems happy to at least find some closure

[prime dirge]

I can understand how Tam would end up being bitterness personified. Whereas Manley and Lendel are much more mundane villains. Those two could have been exemplary citizens

Even ||Oralech is easier to empathise with than those two||

[prime dirge]

What do you mean here?
I tried reading it as "this happens after the first comment", and it doesn't work. Also as "in my playthrough I sent Pamitha upside but Tam remained", but then there's no connection to the first comment

[lime mural]

I mean I beat the Essence in the Liberation Rite and sent Pam up in that Rite.

If there were a "golden" route for Pyre I think that would be one of the prereqs/endings.

I get the emotional torque, really.

But now, in today's society, we don't let people who are a danger to others and potentially themselves just run free.

It's seen as societal abandonment if we let someone run back to the arms of an abuser, or even just someone who is threatening them.

Maybe I was RPing a little hard, but I saw it moral to separate Pam and Tam for Pamitha's own good.

And talk like "Well, Pam really wants to reconnect with her sister," is dangerously naive, and it's gotten real people killed.

Again, I may have been RPing a little strong there, but that was the feeling I got when playing, and I trust my gut.

[prime dirge]

I'm assuming more than I'd like, but I think most civilized humans would do this. (Of course, what a danger to others and themselves is has changed as society does)

[lime mural]

Tam's threatens Pam with physical harm at least once in-game.

That is where I personally draw the line.

[prime dirge]

It's speculation, but Pam is ||not really stable during her time as Nightwing. She's being tortured by being in the Downside yet being unable to reconnect with her. Something even worse could happen at some point if you separate them since she's quite the powder keg.||
||I think she's holding back urges to kill every Nightwing? Every day? She'd clearly prefer bodily harm if that's the price for her own peace||
||But considering your large-scale point, it seems preferrable to separate them. Trolley problem yet again :(||

[lime mural]

That's an incredibly extreme interpretation that never came across to me, I'm sorry.

[prime dirge]

We're supposed to speculate, so no worries

[lime mural]

I'll speculate off information the game gives me, to fill in the gaps, but that's something else.

[prime dirge]

On the other hand we could see a "Philosophy applied to Pyre" course at some uni in a few years from now

My point was that this question is close to "Would you rather torture one of your friends for the rest of their life, or save <number> innocent civilians?"
I don't know where on the other comment I went overboard, so it helps me if you explain

[lime mural]

Pam clearly desperately wants to avoid war and violence, based on how she turned in her sister to whom she is incredibly devoted.

So ||maybe Pam is actually holding back an incredibly violent streak|| just isn't in the text.

It's counter to her textual characterization, and, I'm sorry if this sounds really aggressive, feels like it's come up with in post to fit the narrative that it's better to reunite Pam and Tam.

[prime dirge]

I don't quite remember, but at some point you get a chance to ||read Pam's mind. She asks you not to, for both of your sakes, but if you do you see how she's holding back those urges. I think that's how it goes||

[trail talon]

||i don’t see Pam as violent myself. i see her as someone who will not be able to forgive herself for betraying her sister until she’s done everything she could to rectify things||

[trail talon]

||oh wow i never read her mind before||

[prime dirge]

I think I read that on TVtropes, but I'm looking for it right now and can't find it

Found it! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Pyre > Pamitha > No-Sell

(It's not as bad as I originally remembered)

I think this disables my ||powder keg|| argument. Also there's the My Species Doth Protest Too Much entry on that page, indicating she ||remains either fully or partially functional in the Upside. She can live with being separated. Also...she could go to the Downside again if she really wanted to re-try her luck||

[untold quartz]

Yeah, Pam's thoughts are specifically:
||< What is it going to take, I wonder, Tamitha? >
< Shall I just go ahead and kill them all? That would be proof enough, perhaps, about my loyalties to you and to our sisters. >
< Perhaps I ought to start with this one right in front of me. >||

And she calls them "loathsome" and says she has them "well under control"

[timid silo]

Paaaaaam 😭

[untold quartz]

So I think it's more like the imp of the perverse, where she'll get distressed thinking about what it would take to get Tam to reconcile

and starts going down bad avenues she'd never act on.

Personally, I have sympathy for Tamitha - her people have been badly mistreated and propagandized against by the same corrupt government that ||Volfred and his plan are fighting|| - but I also think it's worth remembering that Pam and Fikani have suffered much the same

and she was like this long before her exile.

Her knight templar behavior was a big part of why Pam did what she did in the first place.

[lime mural]

I don't remember this happening, sorry to accuse you of making stuff up.

That being said, I'm also with Tobu in thinking it's more Pamitha starting to feel desparate to reconnect with her sister and jumping to extremes.

[prime dirge]

No harm done. I was just lucky I played Pyre more recently.
I did like the Pyre discussion, as I learned a few things. It's why I joined here after all

Tobu's

it's worth remembering that Pam and Fikani have suffered much the same
is unarguable. I think the Upside reunion camp is done

[lime mural]

I think once I finally break myself away from Dead Cells and Gunfire (there's an update coming soon, that's not good) Nier, DMC5, and Pyre are gonna be first on my list.

[prime dirge]

TN playthrough 👀

[lime mural]

😧

No, I'm a coward.

[prime dirge]

Also there's the "lose every lib rite" approach. It sounds bad but it ||makes the "Nightwings assemble" drawing at the end of the credits actually happen instead of being an abstract gutpunch||

[lime mural]

I won every Rite until the Titan Stars were enabled, turned on Yslach, and then still won every Rite until the first encounter with Oralech, and then truly embraced my cowardice by disabling Yslach for the very final Rite.

||Sent up Oralech, though.||

Might have to try controller this time, though.

I've never played a Supergiant game on a controller (I've tried Hades a few times but I really prefer MKB for a few reasons), but Pyre really seems like it might be the one.

still never gonna forgive Amir for making me click on enemy feet

[prime dirge]

Passing the orb may become viable on controller. I...barely passed throughout my playthrough

[lime mural]

Oh yeah, I rocked the speedy bois (also Pam and Bertrude) and then basically played 1v3 until Oralech and then losing too many characters to NOT use Volfred.

[prime dirge]

Bertrude also. Speedy gal 🏃‍♀️

Her and Pamitha felt OP in my near-passless run. Maybe the other chars get on par with them once you learn to pass?

[lime mural]

I've heard Fae and Savages in general are just terrifying once you get past the Magikarp stage, but whoo boy, getting there.

[prime dirge]

Hah. Magikarp stage.
Looking at the Rite Nite vods would be helpful I imagine

They're probs reading this and facepalming, so us watching them would only be fair

[trail talon]

Pamitha and Tizo are top-tier. Rhae is amazing once she levels up a few times and you barely have to charge her jump

i've found Volfred to be great in point position: you can get him to throw a sapling on top of the orb and wait there while another player grabs it

[lime mural]

still waiting on the full 3v3 Pyre mod so me and two friends can run Ti'zo, Rukey, and Gilman

[trail talon]

would be interesting to see, say, jodi, volfred and bertrude pitted against....rukey, gilman and maybe rhae

the fast vs the strong

[prime dirge]

Defensive Fred is great, but I can't even reliably switch to him if he's not on the center

[trail talon]

yeah, it won't work well unless he's at the centre, but you can really get some breathing room if the strat works

esp. if you move him a bit closer so as to combine his aura with the saplings and enlarge both

[prime dirge]

That felt unfair. I could trick the AI to come close, then banish them by suddenly enlarging the sap's aura 🧀

[trail talon]

sometimes they just banish themselves

honestly i'm not above cheesing battles, encounters, rites, whatever: i'm often not good enough to defeat adversaries the hard way but i still want a challenge so easy mode is out

[kind plank]

I’d bet on the fast. My strategy was to clear as much of the field as I could and then run to the flame. Worked pretty well.

The drawback was having to send Jodi back first.

[spiral zealot]

Sorry to say it's literally impossible, the only way to get it is to have SGG make it

[lime mural]

Damn.

[spiral zealot]

Yeah, cant add new controls meaning no new people either. And cant change the functionality of those controls really

[prime dirge]

It'd still be a titanic task, but I do wonder how much gameplay would change if you could give basic instructions to the other Nightwings

Push forward, block the Pyre, move in the other flank, ...

Lore-wise I think it doesn't work but as a thought experiment is neato

[scenic kiln]

I mean, lore-wise, || the harps kinda do that during the Rite where they cheat ||, but that's not quite the same thing

[prime dirge]

Maybe what I really want is to play Super Mario Strikers again?

What I had in mind is that passage saying something like "And the three shall move like one, surrendering their impulses and commiting their trust fully into their reader"

Thus explaining why only two of the 6 players move at any given time

[spiral zealot]

Yeah it would be awesome, but again next to impossible

I dont think I can even tell units where to move, much less dynamically map to map

[prime dirge]

I think this is our rightful sentence for expecting strong gameplay modding capabilities in a game that is story first, pvp second 😦

||grows horns||

[trail talon]

it's definitely odd that only one person can move at a time, especially considering that the readers in other triumvirates supposedly can participate actively in the rites themselves. i wonder if it truly is meant to be a rule of the rites: you're supposed to trust your teammates competely, and therefore can stand where you are and trust that the one with the orb knows what they're doing

like some sort of trust fall, but it's a trust stand-still-so-your-teammate-can-push-you-all-to-victory

[spiral zealot]

I can do a fair bit, but anything that is pressing a hutton or most direction actions resulting from that button I just cant do

[prime dirge]

The game wasn't envisioned with a 3v3 mode in mind. Maybe not even with simpler mods in mind 😦
I'm not calling you out or anything. Just wondering what could have been

What could have been Pyre had it

• been envisioned with mods and more players-per-triumvirate in mind
• sold well
• taken pages from other basketball games

[prime dirge]

Considering there's strong countermeasures in case of even minor bloodshed IIRC, I wouldn't be surprised those readers lose their sense of self during the rites and gain the ability of looking at the entire field in the same way we do

I mean, top-down-ish instead of first person.
Although first-person Pyre would be pretty and interesting in a 3v3 mode. Agh. The torture

||horns get stuck on the doorframe||

[trail talon]

i feel like that is true, but only for the readers who are not on the field. the reader of the nightwings doesn't participate firsthand in the rites because they physically can't, while other healthier readers can step onto the field. not sure if a reader on the field would have the same abilities as a reader watching from the sidelines

lol i don't think i could manage first person pyre nearly as well

though it would be an interesting perspective

[prime dirge]

It would be funny, but not nearly as functional. But the visuals would be very pretty.
I'm having a blast comparing Jodi's perspective to that of Ti'zo and Gilman

[prime dirge]

Maybe Tobu has an answer for this?
We could even speculate whether the spectator imps watch from the same angle. Why do we readers get that angle? Is there a small vantage point in every "court"? Is that mandated in the Book?

[trail talon]

when you do the tutorial, the reader can feel their prescence leaving their body, iirc, so it might be an ability that a reader can draw from the book

[prime dirge]

Oh that's true. Then it's not too much of a stretch that the other readers would do the same

[trail talon]

well sure, but it would still depend on where they are. there's an implication that most readers are healthy enough to take a spot in the triumvirate. i can't help wondering whether these readers gain different special abilities than our own reader: after all, you can't bring the Book of Rites onto the field with you

[kind plank]

Maybe there is a reader outpost like the towers you see near baseball fields?

[spiral zealot]

Yeah no offense taken. The most complex mod to date is introducing a new class in versus mode, but that's the farthest I think were gonna get

[kind plank]

They’ve taken the lessons for sure.

I described Hades to my partner as “Transistor and Pyre’s glorious child”. There’s a lot of good stuff that came forward.

[spiral zealot]

Bleachers perhaps?

Yeah 100% everything SGG does grows on what it used to do

[kind plank]

We know the Island of Khaymer has stands for the imps.

Do we know how Khaymer got the “Ropecaller” epithet?

[prime dirge]

Were the stands built by the imps? It wouldn't surprise me given how much they're into watching the rites

[kind plank]

Maybe they bribed someone with hands to do it? They have sol to throw around.

[spiral zealot]

I think you underestimate an imps ability to do the unimaginable

[trail talon]

i faced the chasitiy on the isle of khaylmer. seeing manely get progressively more annoyed at the imps lessened my own annoyance at the imps

they have money and will, so i think whether they paid someone to travel to the isle or built the stand themselves, it was an ambitious venture

[kind plank]

Maybe they sent Ron to spread the word about work?

I liked the Khaylmer matches. They were a nice break in the tone for me.

[prime dirge]

This is a good argument. It's interesting to speculate what their perspective/angle is, and also what advantages they may have.
This includes Tam's trick. Maybe this is what allows every triumvirate to have a ||trick up their sleeve in lib rites?||

Does the Essence's ||gimmick change from the first rite to their lib rite?||

[trail talon]

you know, i don't remember

||one of their gimmicks was adopting an agressive military formation, but that might have been for their first encounter||

[prime dirge]

That's from the first, yes.
||Sisters! Disregard what the blasted book says! We start from midfield!||

[kind plank]

I may have yelled some unkind things at the screen at that point… 👉👈

[trail talon]

the esscence: the first rite i ever lost

[kind plank]

They already have a team full of flyers. Then they start cheating.

I purposely avoided the Dissidents because there was no way I was going against three curs. The Essence is bad enough.

[trail talon]

the dissidents aren't too difficult, or at least they weren't to me. they're flashy and fast-paced, though, which is why i was always nervous to face them

[prime dirge]

They can be difficult. In one of the latter rites agains them (lib rites?), Barker had "if banishes one enemy, make them explode" and wiped my triumvirate thrice in a row and scored x3

[kind plank]

Nope.

We are not going to the commonwealth today…

Plus, ||Barker’s life in the Downside is pretty good if he stays. ||

[prime dirge]

I had some respect for him because of how much he ||cares about the rites even though he doesn't even seek liberation. But then I got his remain-outcome, and it was pleasantly surprising. Maybe a bit like seeing a bully years after and seeing he's now a good person, but even more satisfactory||

[kind plank]

Barker needed a purpose and didn’t have one in the Commonwealth, so he became destructive. If you can give folks like that a positive outlet, they do some neat things.

[prime dirge]

Ooh. Neat explanation. I did picture him at the end as ||"top dog" (hah) of a ritesv2 club, teaching younger curs. Pillar of the community and all that||

||From loanshark (?) to selfless professional ||

[kind plank]

I worked for a school system for a while. I met a LOT of Barkers, especially during summer school. They are good people, they just need to be in the right situation.

I would definitely buy the ||Ashpaw League of Rites DLC|| from the universe next door if I got the chance.

[trail talon]

||would be much wilder than the original rites, that's for sure||

[spiral zealot]

I would 100000000% buy that

[kind plank]

Less NBA, more Mario Basketball.

And a mode were you can train a litter of cur puppies up to win the tournament.

[prime dirge]

Smells like Sonic Adventure 2's chao's
(I've no clue what the plural of a Chao is)

[kind plank]

((I am a true sucker for raising/breeding/training animal games that aren’t free to play cash grabs.))

[prime dirge]

Is it even an SGG game if you're not broken at the end though?

[kind plank]

It can be a happy broken.

||Hades broke the streak… kinda… if you work for it…||

[prime dirge]

I mean. Without the yeet chance, you'd need something else for conflict. But they'd be able to think of something

[kind plank]

Well… ||there is the possibility of the yeet-able rites starting again in the future.||

Or maybe Barker is retiring and the winner gets to run the show when he steps down?

[trail talon]

||after generations of downside residents having fun watching or playing in the Rites, the people of the downside look up one night to see that the stars have returned. once again, the prize for victory is an opportunity to leave. who will want to?||

[kind plank]

Ti’zo, probably.

And the Downside doesn’t seem super great even if you were born there.

[trail talon]

who knows how long it's been though

some might want to leave, while others hold no connection to the other world

[kind plank]

Some of the races seem really long lived.

Judging by Ti’zo, imp generations are around 200 years.

[trail talon]

i'd imagine saps live for quite a while as well, possibly due to their tree nature

[kind plank]

Right.

They feel rather Ent-like.

And a witch like Bertrude probably could stretch things out.

On the other hand, I don’t imagine that the wyrms stick around that long.

We also don’t know if curs age like dogs or more like humans.

[untold quartz]

I parked Volfred on my Pyre while facing Deluge and his crew once and it was hi-larious

Like watching a bug zapper on a summer night 🤣

[midnight hawk]

i love putting the sapling on the pyre

the ai gets SO mad

[untold quartz]

They just kept flinging and flinging themselves against that giant aura and fizzling out, blip blop bloop

A ploy as frantic as it was fruitless 😂

As far as Reader skills go, it's never made clear in-game whether all the other triumvirates' Readers are capable of ||guiding them mentally|| the way you're implied to do; the confirmed skills of Readers are ||reading the instructions in the Book and reading the stars to know where the next match will be.||

There are a lot of fan theories and headcanons on it, though!

[supple solar]

||The other Readers we know, Volfred and AJ also have those abilities though||

||AJ's could be from, well, being AJ though||

||id let volfred mentally guide me in a rite he calms my anxiety||

[prime dirge]

So. Considering the recent chats I made a thing

I went for something with a clear structure, a clear connection between topics and so on. But I rambled a bit more than I'd like and this is what it turned out to be

List of unconfirmed Reader abilities

These may be an ability all readers have. Or maybe they're exclusive to the player's reader. Or maybe they're an unavoidable artifact of Pyre's nature as a game with no meaning at all lore-wise

== Colorful skies and pretty sights
There's a chance the Downside isn't as pretty as it looks on our screen. Also in <name of Hope-reducing tile>, there's some dark green fumes appearing on the sides of the screen every now and then.

These are the only things of the sort that appear throughout all tiles I think. Maybe

== Looking at the biomes from afar
This is linked to the previous point: we look at every biome from afar, duh. This either means the Reader refuses to come close to the Blackwagon, or this one in particular is a consequence of the art style and design. I lean towards the latter.

Also there's the cutscene where the Reader is in the Downside on the brink of death. It doesn't happen in first, second, nor third person. Happens on what I'd call stalker-perspective. As if we were looking at all this from kilometers afar. This, while probably being unavoidable, also supports the hypothesis that the Reader is not the player.

== Unrelated: Is the Reader the same person as the player?

There's the ||I too can read moment. It's in English||. Again, there's there "It has to be this way since Pyre is a game" argument. But if this is deeper than that, then this supports the split hypothesis.

Then there's the ||Ti'zo doesn't hold Lendel's mother in high regard|| episode, which seems to have the same status as the previous point (whichever makes more sense to you should apply here too IMO)

== Falcon Ron hacking?
Uh. How, how do we get a small description on every single item Falcon Ron sells, on top of its price and name? Mind you, this happens even if is muted.

If it was him giving us all this information, we'd see it on his speech bubble and we'd hear him speak.

And yet, we get very complete information on every single item he has, even as he starts introducing newer things.

Heck, the description on the piece of bark that Volfred uses to leave a message to the Nightwings may serve as a hint. I think that's in italics? That seems to be the font for textbox descriptions and for the Reader's own thoughts and observations.

If the item descriptions are in italics too, then this could mean...

Picture this for a moment. You sell wares. People come from all over, ask about the items, try to haggle with you. But there's this guy, comes in, doesn't say a word, and pays the exact amount you're thinking of. You never said what the items are for. Nor what their price is. Yet this robed person knows about them as much as you do.

== Communicating with certain imps

This only happens with Ti'zo. The Messenger seems to be much less talkative. We do have to go through a certain 'callibration' period, but we get to the point of being able to understand even nuance when hearing this one imp's squeaks. Is this telepathy?

== Reading the star map
This is a natural reader ability of course. But. What about the chimes and sounds while navigating it? Those are felt by the player yet their origin isn't clear.

Are there synesthetic readers? Is this increased by contact with the Book?

== Seeing people's emotions
Pyre's rich "see their feelings in the background" gimmick doesn't return in Hades. Is it an ability that only the Reader has?

The colorful strokes happen as the emotion is being felt. This is noticeable in the character's tone too.

Is this because the Book has increased the Reader's perception?

This can be a strong argument for a telepathy+color-emotion synesthesia ability by the Reader.

== Their unique perspective when taking part in the rites
I mean the camera angle. This may be an out-of-body experience or merely the result of looking from a vantage point.

== ||Telepathy||
||This appears to be a Volfred-only ability. I think he only uses it to talk to the Reader in crucial moments? We don't know much about this other than Volfred does it without having to hold the book.||

||Also there's the thing that happens with Oralech. Not quite telepathy but it's another big question mark. It seems to only happen this one time. Huh. Maybe this is an extension of the Reader's guiding ability. In his climactic hour, Oralech, former Nightwing, might have let his guard down or something.||

Agh. So many questions. So few answers.

There's more things to be considered, such as the Reader's ability to see the opposite triumvirate's lineup, names, perks and items.

Also we can speculate on what it means to have and sing in English. Would they know the meaning of their songs? If they do, this also suggests Pyre takes place in our world, or a version of it. Maybe it took place already.

Also I learned that messages have a character limit

[trail talon]

wow

i will say that i never thought of those colourful, brushstroke type emotes to be the reader’s synesthesia, but it seems like a sound theory! hades does have these emotes as well in a different form (stars, flowers? and the occasional screen shake) but those emotes are in a different art style

||regarding telepathy: brighton can also do something like it - arguably he does throughout the game. this could be and probably is his ability as a Voice, but also recall that he was the reader before he was liberated||

tizo is thought to be brighter than other imps, though other imps do join the rites later on. maybe the drivers are less intelligent, or maybe they simply aren’t interested in communicating with other races like tizo is

the item descriptions could be reader telepathy, or they could just be a game convention. it’s annoying to have to test out what an item does in game: it could be the difference between winning and losing. one might play a dnd based game and wonder why the merchants proclaim a sword to have 1d8 damage. it’s for the benefit of the player and probably doesn’t happen in the game verse

perspective: i’m inclined to think it’s an out of body because that’s what the reader appears to experience in the tutorial, though that was under slightly different circumstances to be sure

that’s about all of my input for the moment

[prime dirge]

I forgot about this one . ||Messing with someone's dreams is a step beyond regular telepathy (as if telepathy was regular). Given his exalted status I can imagine there'd be some device or technique to increase his range and capabilities||

Regarding the items, I do think it's a stretch to call that telepathy. But we would see that on Ron's speech bubble were he the one telling us that. Maybe that's a minor omission by SGG, but I must point it out in the off chance it's deliberate

[trail talon]

i mean, item descriptions are probably that way in pyre for the same reason that they are like that in other rpgs. you don’t typically have to click through dialogue whenever you examine an item in a shop: that would get tedious very quickly. generally the description is simply connected to the item for you to read

[prime dirge]

Hovering over the item would be enough for to tell us about it, in the same way a real shopkeeper does.
That kind of UI would for make it very clear that it's him talking to us, but given how they did the UI, it's yet another loose end

It allows speculation which is rather fun, at least

[trail talon]

it would be an interesting feature, but from my experience of other rpgs i’ve played, writing item descriptions like a merchant’s dialogue is pretty uncommon

at least, it’s not something i can remember experiencing

[midnight hawk]

rip i wanna play pyre on my baby computer and pyre is 7.76gb and my comp only has 10.36gb.....

[mild falcon]

7.76 < 10.36

:)

[midnight hawk]

i did it lets see if this thing is strong enough for it

it is not :(

my computer was making some very unhappy noises

[native shard]

rip

[midnight hawk]

https://64.media.tumblr.com/72bd5c2255d780d614353bb11870d864/tumblr_p3chh4bO711vfvmvbo1_500.png

i think this was posted here already but i dont feel like looking so

for those not in the know

so everyone is schrodinger's gay

[trail talon]

i'd describe myself as straight/cisgender, but i do appreciate the normalacy with which pyre handled different sexualities and gender identities: being able to identify as they/them seemed like a nice touch that i haven't seen before in a game

it would be interesting to hear other's thoughts, however: i'm not sure how much i can speak on such topics

[scenic kiln]

omg

I love that

so much

[midnight hawk]

it is cool! and i'm so glad it's there because it's very easy for people to be like "well this character HAS to be straight." a lot of creators wouldn't do something like this.

but also i feel like pyre tried but dropped the ball on lgbtq characters and content

altho yeah the nb reader is SUPER cool and im thrilled that they did that

[kind plank]

There wasn’t a ton of romance anyway. I could easily see any of the characters being part of the royal rainbow.

I do enjoy the “non-issue” style of handling non-cishet characters. It particularly makes sense in Pyre where folks have way more important things to worry about.

[midnight hawk]

i felt like there was a fair bit of romance, actually. jody/iggy, almer/ae, deluge/lady seagrass, hedwyn/fikani, rukey has a crush on pam, one-sided bertrude/volfred, possible sandra/reader, and then implied volfred/oralech

i think "non-issue" style of handling lgbtq characters can be done well but i feel like it falls flat here with such an overwhelming amount of explicit m/w romances

[faint hare]

ok so as it turns out my brother has pyre and we have steam family share on and i only now noticed it lol

so imma play pyre soon >:3