[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] Projects Discussion

[JayTee]

I'm going to need a citation for that, because I'm pretty sure that none of that is true at all.


Even if it is, meat puppets. 10,000 every few hours. No cost what so ever.


Wyld Shaping is a massive force multiplier for a Nation building game, I intend to make the most of it.

 

[xarvh]

Yes, and I would like you to pass things through me before assuming that they will be allowed.

 

[cyl]

@xarvh : the endurance of wyld shaped stuff is not something you can control past the fact that if you want them to remain solid you need to interact with them.


The stronger the solar who created them, the harder it will be for them to dissolve. You have to roll essence vs diff 1 or diff 2 for "reality endurance" checks. If you fail 3 times, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if not, keep on rolling.


So, unless you make adaptations to the charm to work pretty much like summoning (which is always a possibility), normally you don't get background dots for free.

 

[xarvh]

A single Brass Legionnaire is Art 3.


A scale of Brass Legionnaires is Art 5.


Wyld Shaping Technique cannot speed up crafting of an artifact more than x10, so Hand of the Great Maker does not help.


This still assuming that nothing from the Deep Wyld will want to disturb Siham as he shapes.


OTOH, BLs have very high stamina so marching is not a problem.


They can be hacked though, and need maintenance.


We can use them as template for the workers.

 

[cyl]

Brass Legionnaires aren't extras.


Perhaps not so combat ready but still good for construction work could be cheaper ?

 

[xarvh]

Why would they be any cheaper?


What makes you think that building is any easier than killing?

 

[cyl]

Because I have experienced the difference between construction work and martial training and simple street fighting.


Fighting is exceedingly more complex and demanding than the kind of things you do when building.


Now my experience with wars is limited to theory, but it seems to be even more complex, challenging and demanding than defending yourself from getting mugged for your walkman / cd player / cellphone.

 

[xarvh]

So you have experienced the difference between unskilled labor and skilled fighting? Can you use a lathe?

 

[cyl]

Lathe ? Me dunno dat fancy word you iz usin'

 

[JayTee]

I'm not Shaping Brass Legionnaires, I was using them as an example.


I'm Shaping Extras.


There is no difference between a robot extra and a meat puppet extra as far as mechanics or impact to the setting is concerned.


I don't have to shape extras to help with the Manse building, I simply felt it would be faster than summoning demons.

 

[xarvh]

Wyld Shaping stuff falls into 5 categories:


- Demesne


- Land


- Magical Things (Manse or Artifact)


- People


- Wealth


People have to be created as the Followers background, and Followers need to be cared for.


If you want soulless meat puppets immune to disease and to starvation, you need to create them as Magical Things, ie Artifacts, in which case I'm more than willing to use a different template than the Brass Legionnaire.


The point is: Wyld Shaping HAS LIMITS and you have been blatantly ignoring them all the fucking time, as if the thing wasn't already outrageously powerful.


So, stop asking for more shit: you have already MORE THAN PLENTY and you have NOT been using it.

 

[cyl]

@JayTee : you are right in that it would be faster, but xarvh does have a point, robots fall into the magical stuff category, even though mechanically they could be treated as extras, golems / robots won't be.


Robots are going to be faster, more efficient in the long run if we keep using them for other construction projects, but they are going to be more expensive than summoning demons.


Perhaps you could start with a smaller number of robots and have Fangs & Mirror add demons to their numbers to reach the proper amount of workers to get things done at the desired pace.


It all depends on the speed at which you guys want to build this thing, but again, I advise caution.


The Scavenger Lands are a mess right now, they lost Lookshy, somebody's killing people who could actually make a difference, and god knows what else. Your "absence" will probably have consequences, and the short term benefits of the Manse may not overcome them.

 

[CrazyIvan]

It's definitely an idea I'd consider. CrazyIvan seems to have disappeared from the interwebs, so I feel like it should pick up Sorcery sooner or later, although not without extensive houseruling.

I have not disappeared from the interwebs, you are safe from Sorcery.

 

[CrazyIvan]

MMMEEEGGGGAAAA PPPPPOOOOSSSTTTT....

It is isn't it ? >
And that is clearly something people with power, First Age knowledge, funds, or contacts could help you with, and it will surely take you and those who help to interesting places to seek secrets long forgotten.


Dunno if you have any leads or directions, but I guess starting at the place where it all began (death sites, tombs in Creation and rituals used to "bury" them) may be worth a shot.


Research on the infamous Black Nadir Concordat might help as well, 'cause those stupid fucks supposedly awoke them as the legend goes.


Malek & Flicker may help with that as they specialized in that kind of bad guys during the First Age (searching for clues might "jog their memories") and we still have an unknown enemy figure to be tracked down historically who eluded them for centuries, killed one and left the other mate-less.

Technically, starting where it all began would be Mirror killing a Primordial while Fangs and Siham take notes.


I am utterly alright with this plan.

Ok. Manse.
Did we decide whether the Manse is a 4 or a 5 dots?


Anyway, since you don't need too much materials, we can assume Resources 3 per month.


Time to complete: 8 to 10 years assuming 100 human workers. How many demons can you summon at the same time?


Also consider that whatever the demons do, Malfeas knows.


Also, what should be the features of the Manse?


How high should it fly? And how far from the Demesne?


Does it have a system to bring stuff from the ground to the Manse?


Looking at Oadenol's p64...


What we know for now:


- It's Air-aspected


- It must be fully habitable


- It should have a central control

The two defining traits for me are it should be fairly luxurious (it was after all First Age Mirror's private retreat) and have a fairly extensive infrastructure for sorcery, what with First Age Fangs and all.

Number of days in a year per summoner for the first circle demons.
1 second Circle demon per year per summoner.

This is incorrect.


"This spell can be cast only on the night of the new moon or during Calibration. The ritual is still a dramatic action that begins at sundown and ends at midnight."


Cunning Fangs can summon a 2nd Circle demon, which is basically a Celestial-level exalted crafter, every Lunar month.


Once per year would be summoning Liger. Which Fangs can't do. Yet.

It's in the corebook.
you're bound to have visits from a/ the death star, b/ siddies assassins, c/ GSPs, d/ bigger guns.

I weirdly have no problem with this either.

Willpower recovery is ill-defined at least in the Core, and if you use Virtues for recovery then it is limited to Conviction.
I personally prefer to use "recover 1 every morning", which is just barely enough for a summon a day assuming everything goes well.

Fangs also has tricksy "Helping my mate" WP recovery charms.

The whole point of PP is using a montage for something that would be otherwise boring to write IC.
And to give us an idea of how much effort it takes to complete something.


ie: the PCs ARE doing long and possibly tedious stuff, we just don't write about it.


If Fangs is limited to 1 demon per day, that limit still applies when considering the means to complete a Project.


So, if both Mirror and Fangs spend a season summoning demons (we may have the down time for that) we get 200 demons worth 1000 workers.


This would allow completion of a 5-dots Manse in 1 year.


Since we are just repairing the Manse and the demons will start working already in the first season, we can say that the repairs will be complete two seasons after the last demon has been summoned.


The demons will still require supervision from either Fangs or Siham.

Fangs has some demons in her TowerManse at the moment who could be easily transferred. And couldn't they be supervised (for some values of supervised...) by a 2nd Circle Demon. Beyond that, Fangs could stick around the manse for ~ a year planning her little foray into insanity.


[quote[so far:


* Air-aspected


+10 Manse 5


+4 Maintenance (can be covered with demons)


-5 Greater Mobilty (still tethered to the Demesne


-5 Indestructable


-2 Fortress (reduced because overlaps with Indestructable)


-2 = ?


Decide how to use those last 2 points.


An elevator would be 1 point.


The Manse can fly up to 2000m away from the ground, and 10Km away from the vertical of the Demesne.


With all this it would be a 3-points project.


Mirror could contribute to no more than 1 PP, the rest would be up to Fangs and Siham.


Archive?


Other sorcerous niceness costs too much.


And Fangs will contribute 1+ PPs.

That still feels kinda game-breaking.

Welcome to Solar crafting.

It's definitely an idea I'd consider. CrazyIvan seems to have disappeared from the interwebs, so I feel like it should pick up Sorcery sooner or later, although not without extensive houseruling.

As mentioned, I'm back.

So you have experienced the difference between unskilled labor and skilled fighting? Can you use a lathe?

Basically this.

 

[cyl]

Technically, starting where it all began would be Mirror killing a Primordial while Fangs and Siham take notes.
I am utterly alright with this plan.

IIRC she didn't die... she just got hurt.

This is incorrect.
"This spell can be cast only on the night of the new moon or during Calibration. The ritual is still a dramatic action that begins at sundown and ends at midnight."


Cunning Fangs can summon a 2nd Circle demon, which is basically a Celestial-level exalted crafter, every Lunar month.


Once per year would be summoning Liger. Which Fangs can't do. Yet.

Well, I've learned something today


So... +11 2nd circle demons per year per celestial sorcerer... assuming there are indeed 11 2nd circle demons well versed in the arts of building & repairing shit.

 

[CrazyIvan]

IIRC she didn't die... she just got hurt.

Not talking about K. I'm talking about a controlled experiment. For science.

So... +11 2nd circle demons per year per celestial sorcerer... assuming there are indeed 11 2nd circle demons well versed in the arts of building & repairing shit.

Since summoning a 2nd Circle demon (or indeed, a 1st Circle demon) doesn't actually pull them out of Malfeas as much as create an instance of themselves in Creation, you could theoretically have 11 of the same demon.


Note, this is *insanely risky*.

 

[cyl]

Not talking about K. I'm talking about a controlled experiment. For science.

Mask of Winters thanks you in advance for this bold move.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Mask of Winters thanks you in advance for this bold move.

Mask of Winters should be shitting his pants if this happened. Fully Functional Primordial > Yozi = Neverborn > Deathlord. The little cockroach can cackle with glee all he wants, because if he's still alive, it's because Fangs/Mirror/Siham can't be bothered to crush him.


The issue is getting the Primordial. Big K is too fucking...Big K-ish to kill. There's neither fun in it, and it's been shown to be setting breaking.


The Yozi are broken, tainted little things, and the observed effects might not transfer.


The Neverborn are already dead, and killing them defeats the whole purpose of this.


I was going to have Siham build me a sharp stick and a fancy boat for going to find Gaia anyway, but perhaps it's time to go whale hunting in the deep, deep Wyld. >

 

[cyl]

Mask of Winters should be shitting his pants if this happened. Fully Functional Primordial > Yozi = Neverborn > Deathlord.

The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation


Yozis & NBs though technically infinitely superior to whatever is below them are extreeeemely limited in that they need proxies to do anything.


If they don't have someone to control or to influence, they can't do shit by themselves.


We don't know what kind of game the old solar is playing, yet, but I am sure he wouldn't have accepted chains if he didn't think he could in time break them when the time is right.


In that regard finishing the NBs off might unleash a much more destructive force: an unbound Mask of Winters.


Brrrr... spooky.

The little cockroach can cackle with glee all he wants, because if he's still alive, it's because Fangs/Mirror/Siham can't be bothered to crush him.

He - and I'm sure pretty much all of Creation - would very much like to see them try.

 

[CrazyIvan]

In that regard finishing the NBs off might unleash a much more destructive force: an unbound Mask of Winters.

Everything might help the Mask of Winters.


My cheese sandwich may all be part of his cunning, nefarious, 7-dimensional chess game for which we are all pawns.


In the mean time, I'm going to go have fun.

 

[cyl]

Are you saying that beating an evil mastermind who just conquered two of the largest cities known to man, just got his hands on a Shogunate-era Arsenal, and just controls a friggin giant undead mobile fortress at his own game isn't fun for you / Fangs ?

 

[CrazyIvan]

Are you saying that beating an evil mastermind who just conquered two of the largest cities known to man, just got his hands on a Shogunate-era Arsenal, and just controls a friggin giant undead mobile fortress at his own game isn't fun for you / Fangs ?

No, I'm saying sitting on my hands worrying that my every action will somehow Butterfly Effect into strengthening him, and assigning him a floating power level that means, regardless of what we do, surely he must be more dangerous, isn't fun.


And results in stale cheese sandwiches.


I am, after all, playing the questionably-good mastermind who just engineered the take over of an entire city, the complete overturning of two species' social order and the capture of a First Age fortress manse at the cost of a single life.

 

[cyl]

No, I'm saying sitting on my hands worrying that my every action will somehow Butterfly Effect into strengthening him, and assigning him a floating power level that means, regardless of what we do, surely he must be more dangerous, isn't fun.

That's not what I'm doing.
I'm simply following a train of thought.


NB bound the DLs, so the DLs aren't entirely free to come and go as they please (not exploiting their full potential), which may mean that pushing the NBs over the cliff before offing the DLS result in setting the DLs free.


Conclusion: be 100% safe, destroy the DLs first.

 

[JayTee]

I have not disappeared from the interwebs, you are safe from Sorcery.

I will say that I am seriously considering blasting through to Solar Sorcery just so we have quicker access to those spells. I'll still try avoid stepping on your toes as the resident Sorcerer, though.


I am more or less okay with everything CrazyIvan has proposed

 

[xarvh]

Siham accessing Solar Sorcery would not prevent Fangs from seeking power on her own ways. In fact, it could prompt her harder to do so.


A group of six active players can definitely afford another sorcerer, and I don't see Siham becoming a dedicated one (JayTee correct me if I'm wrong).