[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] OOC Thread

[Kacie]

Yup Sins of Life do not apply to aby/lunar interactions.
Sins of Death do however.


If Mirror protects Fangs or Malek from the forces of the dead, she'll take Resonance.


She probably should have taken radioactive amounts during the battle with the ghosts.


A good thing she's temporarily freed from this burden

She's not freed of Resonance. The only thing that's changed is that the Neverborn can't directly take control and puppet her body.


The Sins of Death are more lenient than that. If a random unaligned ghost mouths off to Mirror, and she beheads it - no one cares. If she beheads a Deathlord's envoy, an undead behemoth's envoy, or some important powerful Undead's servant, then she gains resonance. If she ignores or goes against the orders of a greater Undead, she gains resonance.


But random mad ghosts in the labyrinth? Nah. Totally unimportant, and technically they were in the wrong by attacking her, as she's a greater servant than they are.


And - second time, Cyl - let me worry about my character's resonance. I got it.

 

[cyl]

Cyl, you keep thinking that the Mask doesn't hate the Cross and everyone there already.
This is after the Mask personally told you that the Cross is next.


We're long past worrying about pissing him off/worrying him - we did that already.

That could also just have been a "Bwahaha I'm in ur base killing ur doodz !" tactic to make him despair.


The Mask doesn't need to crush the Cross right away.


Strategically it doesn't make sense.


He has the Ring of Non, a master assassin, the Juggernaut, deathknights with power armors protecting them from the Bloom (which isn't even in Cross anyway), Big K taken down, Lookshy and its arsenal and last but not least, one of the key factors in the development of the settlement...he can pretty much crush us any time he wants within the next 10 years.


On our side we have... not much.


The Bloom isn't weaponized yet, we have but one celestial level sorceress, 1200 soldiers and a handful of exalts who aren't exactly combat focused.


I don't think he has much to fear from The Cross besides the Bloom which could be used against his ghostly armies and lands, but not against him, his mortal troops or his most powerful servants.


The only thing he needs to do now (thanks to Malek spilling his guts) is send the Void Heart after Kalak and Siham and voila, he's got that Bloom threat managed.


Plus I doubt he'd risk war with The Walker anyway.

 

[Kacie]

Taking the Cross gets the Mask Agatha's Library and the Primordial of Essence.


Very large, tempting prizes.

 

[JayTee]

Note to self: build a self destruct device for cross.

 

[cyl]

She's not freed of Resonance. The only thing that's changed is that the Neverborn can't directly take control and puppet her body.
The Sins of Death are more lenient than that. If a random unaligned ghost mouths off to Mirror, and she beheads it - no one cares. If she beheads a Deathlord's envoy, an undead behemoth's envoy, or some important powerful Undead's servant, then she gains resonance. If she ignores or goes against the orders of a greater Undead, she gains resonance.


But random mad ghosts in the labyrinth? Nah. Totally unimportant, and technically they were in the wrong by attacking her, as she's a greater servant than they are.


And - second time, Cyl - let me worry about my character's resonance. I got it.

Oh I'm not worried, I'm still forgetting how it works in 2e and 2.5 sometimes.


I've been STiing since 1e came out, and when I was STing an abyssal campaign, abies really had it harder.


When I read 2.5 again earlier it said:

Thus, an Abyssal with no positive Intimacy could safely protect her mate from demons, but not a horde of specters (since the sin of death for opposing creatures of death still applies even though defending the specific life is permitted).

That got me confused with stuff I knew from 1e back when if you could not fight the dead for the wrong causes or defend the living without eating up something like 4 Resonance points per transgression.


I must admit I don't understand the philosophy behind this softened version of Resonance, or the fact that abies are freed from the Great Curse.

 

[cyl]

Taking the Cross gets the Mask Agatha's Library and the Primordial of Essence.
Very large, tempting prizes.

Well he's the ghost of Quen, he was there at the time of the First Age and he was one of the brightest minds of his time.


And now he's a Deathlord...


Why would he need the Library ?


Also... he tried to get the Primordial of Essence killed with a N/A artifact before the NB could use Mirror as a proxy, and now she's dying, so I don't think he has much use for her anymore.


He already got what he wanted from her, a power outage to take Lookshy.


Now he has enough toys to conquer the Scavenger Lands undisputed (not that Juggernaut wasn't already enough before anyway...)

 

[Kacie]

Note to self: build a self destruct device for cross.

Remember, destroy the Library, save the Primordial!

 

[JayTee]

I have an idea.


@xarvh: I want to build a drone and use it to record everything in the Library. What artifact rating would this be? I'm thinking something in the two-three range myself.

 

[cyl]

Wouldn't it be more effective to develop charms to read at the speed of light and memorize everything you read ?

 

[JayTee]

I was under the impression that the library was currently inaccessible to me. The drone would be used to bypass that, and then burn it all to the ground so that only I had the information of the library.

 

[Kacie]

@JayTee - the library shouldn't be inaccessible, just inconvenient.

 

[JayTee]

Oh, well I still might build it for the secondary reason. Having the library in my pocket is better than having it where anyone can access it.

 

[xarvh]

@JayTee: Uhm, depends by what you mean by "Drone" and "record".


What kind of access do you envision for the recording?


But yes, Siham can easily access the Library.


You have to pass through the Library to get to the Labs anyway.

 

[JayTee]

Wait. Hold everything.


If I have access to my library, didn't we say that I could get it's 5 dot hearth stone?

 

[xarvh]

The Library is part of the Manse.


Most of the structure of the Manse, and thus its geomantic properties, have been crushed or altered by the disease of the behemoth.


This is why it is going to be so difficult to restore the Genesis Lab, for example.


The Manse contained a whole university that Agatha used to teach mortals (she distrusted others Exalts and wanted to empower humanity).


Now the university is ruined, the labs crushed under the weight of vast muscle and bone tumors, and only the Library (which encircled everything) and Agatha's personal studio survived.

 

[JayTee]

Okay. New plan.


Get rid of the behemoth. I don't care how, or what has to happen. It needs to be gone as soon as possible.


I need that hearthstone. Immediately.

 

[xarvh]

You will have to remove and dispose the behemoth, and then build the manse.


Also, given that you have Ess 5, Solar Circle magic could cure the behemoth.

 

[JayTee]

I'd like to avoid spending XP on sorcery if I can avoid it. I think I'll use the genesis labs to engineer a virus that forces the behemoth to metamorph (like a butterfly) in a smaller and more manageable form.

 

[cyl]

Oh, well I still might build it for the secondary reason. Having the library in my pocket is better than having it where anyone can access it.

A custom lore / linguistics charm would allow you to do that and avoid the stress from the paranoia that comes with a PDA; an artifact can be stolen... but a solar's mind is probably a safest place.


Also it will take quite some time for the device to read through and memorize everything... a lot can happen between now and then.

I'd like to avoid spending XP on sorcery if I can avoid it.

Ach... this would give us such an edge over our enemies if you didn't.


Almost every solar spell could be put to good use in the context of a dominion. The practical applications are extremely interesting and if we had one solar sorcerer... I think enemies would think twice before invading... if they could invade in the first place... because Sorcery also takes care of that...


It's a black hole for xp, no doubt about it , but no more than any aspect of the dominion we had to handle (war, diplomacy, training, crafting) and every spell bought will give us a considerable amount of tranquility.


EDIT: all things considered it's probably more productive to learn Solar Circle Sorcery than to craft artifacts.


Crafting requires time (a rare and precious resource we can't idly waste), and materials (even though that can be bypassed), but in the end, for every 5 dot artifact you craft... you spend almost 3 solar circle spell worth of xp (27 / 30)... so I'd say it's pretty unbalanced.

I think I'll use the genesis labs to engineer a virus that forces the behemoth to metamorph (like a butterfly) in a smaller and more manageable form.

So you would repeat your predecessor's mistakes... interesting...


Note in case you forgot: the behemoth is like this because of Agatha's experiments on him to create the Bloom, techincally it's her fault that he made a mess with the Library and has cancer.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Well he's the ghost of Quen, he was there at the time of the First Age and he was one of the brightest minds of his time.
And now he's a Deathlord...


Why would he need the Library ?

Even the brightest minds of their time like libraries.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Ach... this would give us such an edge over our enemies if you didn't.


Almost every solar spell could be put to good use in the context of a dominion. The practical applications are extremely interesting and if we had one solar sorcerer... I think enemies would think twice before invading... if they could invade in the first place... because Sorcery also takes care of that...

Someone else is working on it.

 

[cyl]

Someone else is working on it.

Yeah but that someone has a natural handicap being a lunar and all.


Plus I don't see how that is incompatible with a solar going after Solar Sorcery.


Even if another has access to more powerful stuff than Fangs does, it doesn't change Fangs' focus, or her drive or even the prestige to be the first lunar ever to gain access to Solar Circle.


Raksi's been at it for hundreds of years and she's still nowhere near getting there.


For the good of the dominion and the Scavenger Lands, we might not want to wait until Fangs does.


Obviously I get that having someone dump xp and go "lol, me better" could be rather frustrating, but I doubt having a Solar Circle Sorcerer around wound make Fangs useless.


I think it's actually the opposite that would ensue; a Solar Sorcerer could protect Cross quite easily leaving more space and time for Fangs to work on her own agenda, do stuff for Cross, help build the Empire (demons are still an effective way to protect fragile settlements) or protect the Scavenger Lands. Having her chase Necromancy could be a fine idea too, if she reaches the second circle, then she'll kick ass in both worlds and will be able to defend against the dead more efficiently.


I also think it's better and safer to have 2 sorcerers (or even 3 if Argis gets on it too) instead of just the one anyway... it can give us a diversity of spells (regardless of the circle) and unlock a significant number of very attractive opportunities for the dominion.

 

[Kacie]

Cyl, you are really getting on my nerves.


You never have anything good to say about any plan you didn't come up with, and now you're telling people that the way they've designed and play their characters is wrong.


I'm used to you always bagging on CrazyIvan/Fangs and myself. Now you're telling JayTee he's going the wrong places with Siham - and JayTee knows what he's doing. He's got a rock-solid grasp on his character and the mechanics he needs to do what he wants. This game has a giant genesis lab and magi-tech center, and it's his character's manse - he's supposed to make use of it. If he wants to create a change on the behemoth using genesis tech, that's great! It's in character! It's in theme for the game! Siham isn't interested in Sorcery at the moment, and that's fine. He has other ways to do things.


Meanwhile, once again, you've totally dismissed Fangs.


Would you please start being more supportive of other people, and open to their ideas?

 

[cyl]

I'm not telling telling anyone what they should do with their characters, I'm simply presenting the options and risk I can percieve, in this example, I'm making a case for having a solar sorcerer in our Circle because Solar Sorcery is efficient, and it can help the dominion and the Scavenger Lands big time.


Not that I assume that they haven't thought about it first and made their minds, but sometimes one can overlook things and make mistakes (I do, all the time ).


I don' t want to and I can't twist arms and force people to change their minds, but I can and try to present constructive criticism.


In this specific case, the xp and the time factor.


I even got the math wrong because I forgot that we don't pay double for the 4th and 5th dot of artifact. (see, mistakes )


So it's rather a 5 dot artifacts = 1.5 solar spell. Which is kind of more interesting. But still, time and materials remain an issue.


One could argue that artifacts allow for more flexibility and longer term effects, and they'd be right.


There's no right and wrong here, just choices.


I am also not dismissing Fangs, but you can't reasonably expect her to reach the Solar Circle soon or faster than a solar any more than you can expect Argis to learn SMA within the year.


Finally my comment about repeating Agatha's mistakes was just irony, nothing more.


Agatha did something bad the first time, I thought it was funny to think that Siham could go down the same road trying to fix it and obtain similar results.

Would you please start being more supportive of other people, and open to their ideas?

Making a counter argument is not not being supportive.


It's not because I say "hey I think it would be best to" that I want to deprive someone of his freedom or that I'll hate him for not agreeing with me.


I'm just challenging the reasoning, I'm the "yeaaah... but" guy.


But I do like having mine challenged in return... because one can always overlook things and make mistakes... me especially.


EDIT: your input on the plan to free the captives was a good example of that.


It was valuable advice which pushed us to reconsider our approach.

 

[Kacie]

Cyl. When people are getting frustrated with you and seeing you as more of an obstacle than the in-game situation, then you are no longer giving constructive criticism, you are just criticizing.


Feantari hit that point recently over the issue of where to put troops. I've hit that point.


Please, stop giving only negative feedback on plans and characters.


When I gave input on the captive plan, I tried to help you guys brainstorm more options, not tell you all the ways your plan would fail. Then I stayed out of the debate because I wasn't in that scene, when you were finalizing plans.