The Chat Thread

[MacThorstenson he/him]

1 minute ago, ZincAboutIt said:

But be careful what you wish foooorrrr 

Thats how the DA would find out about the new magic. People would make stupid bargains and eldritch abominations would roam the streets.

 

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

1 minute ago, MacThorstenson said:

Thats how the DA would find out about the new magic. People would make stupid bargains and eldritch abominations would roam the streets.

 

I think this plus a tense and fraught “Cold War” within the DA (because you’re all right, a hot DA civil war would be no fun to play in) would be an awesome plot idea for another Era. Internal unrest plus external threat = the sort of story I like 

[MacThorstenson he/him]

1 minute ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I think this plus a tense and fraught “Cold War” within the DA (because you’re all right, a hot DA civil war would be no fun to play in) would be an awesome plot idea for another Era. Internal unrest plus external threat = the sort of story I like 

Suddenly the DA legal department emerges as a player in the Civil War. Because every one of them made a compact with a demon.

Edited March 20, 2022 by MacThorstenson

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

Would this bonding to Alleys be closer to an active choice on the character's part, or them just being born/waking up Alley-touched, or either? 

This would allow for a lot of creativity, both in the positives and the negatives, assuming they aren't standardized. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

I like this idea. I also like there being more than just two "sides", at least to start - it'll probably end up with two alliances because that's how things tend to go, but starting out with more sounds good.

Sales, R&D, Acquisitions, and Alleymatics would be the main three I can think of that would be interested, plus Aylitha, but it might be nice to involve more factions that just Voidus vs Stranger. Or maybe Department of Alleymatics would end up dissolved early on as the "initializer" to a full-blown cold war. Non-DA guilds would probably have a stake in learning about / controlling the new abilities too (especially Scholars Guild and Ghostbloods, to separate extremes).

[Fatebreaker he/him]

12 minutes ago, AonEne said:

Would this bonding to Alleys be closer to an active choice on the character's part, or them just being born/waking up Alley-touched, or either? 

This would allow for a lot of creativity, both in the positives and the negatives, assuming they aren't standardized. 

I was thinking either. Just as the Alleys are highly varied, the ways of gaining power from them would also be varied. People stumbling into them, people seeking them out, denizens running experiments (both on themselves and on test subjects), cultists sending in people as sacrifices. Deals, possession, gifts, contracts, the possibilities are expansive.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

8 minutes ago, Fatebreaker said:

I was thinking either. Just as the Alleys are highly varied, the ways of gaining power from them would also be varied. People stumbling into them, people seeking them out, denizens running experiments (both on themselves and on test subjects), cultists sending in people as sacrifices. Deals, possession, gifts, contracts, the possibilities are expansive.

Yeah! I like that there should be different ways to do it!

1 hour ago, MacThorstenson said:

I like it. 

In terms of admin work, there would could be three groups of powers, positives, negatives, and neutrals.  

I'm personally not the most fond of having the alleys as something you could bond just by being present in the AV, and I'm not sure that works too well with the idea that this is similar to allomantic snapping where the people affected by the forgery have this happen to them.

I've toyed with having an Alleyspirit, and there was an Alleyspren early on in the 7 day war, but the alley's want to actively kill you. They don't want people in them, and so they don't really fit with the profile of something that would even be open to bonding.

@Thaidakar the Ghostblood This is a really good idea, there are theoretically an infinite amount of alleys that serve as a prison for dangerous beings, you could totally form either a bond or a contract with one of them as your characters alley.

yeah! that would work nicely! 

I really love this idea. To make it clear, to get these powers you would have to make a contract or a bond with an alley being. I think there should be a downside to this contract or bond.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

32 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Sales, R&D, Acquisitions, and Alleymatics

Counter Intelligence would also be involved I should think 

[MacThorstenson he/him]

Just now, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

I really love this idea. To make it clear, to get these powers you would have to make a contract or a bond with an alley being. I think there should be a downside to this contract or bond.

I think there would constantly be a downside to using the alley's power. But I don't think it necessarily comes with a bond. The option should be there for people who want to strike a deal with an ancient being, but I don't think the alley's would want to strike a deal with anyone. Everyone would get access to an alley via a mechanism similar to allomancy, where its a part of you, and those alley's could conceivably contain an ancient being that you could bargain with to get some power or knowledge, but you wouldn't be bonding the alley itself. Bonding an alley being would logically give you alleymatic power which really breaks the theme of the alleys. 

For characters that don't start out as a member of the DA, we like to RP them being taught how to alleytravel. Navigating the alley's isn't something that would just happen, if it did the DA would crack down and kill you. 

Also I want to point out that your chosen alley would have to be run through character creation to avoid making things too OP.

[I think I am here. he/him]

I think this is the first time this thread has been ‘hot’ in like, six months? Exciting stuff! New Alley-magic, a DA Cold War (maybe the department heads realise that going all-out is just going to be way more unpredictable with no clue who’d win - mutually assured destruction?), and some really cool interactions between Forgery and spirit-webs.  

[Ashbringer he/him]

Brainstorms are always fun 

[MacThorstenson he/him]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

I like this idea. I also like there being more than just two "sides", at least to start - it'll probably end up with two alliances because that's how things tend to go, but starting out with more sounds good.

Sales, R&D, Acquisitions, and Alleymatics would be the main three I can think of that would be interested, plus Aylitha, but it might be nice to involve more factions that just Voidus vs Stranger. Or maybe Department of Alleymatics would end up dissolved early on as the "initializer" to a full-blown cold war. Non-DA guilds would probably have a stake in learning about / controlling the new abilities too (especially Scholars Guild and Ghostbloods, to separate extremes).

I would be curious about what kind of conflicts we could engineer.

Fundamentally the DA Dept heads are logical and power hunger, but running the DA isn't an enviable task. The whole era 4 arc was about how the stranger was forging things to give voidus a break from it. So not many people are gonna be putting their foot forward. They would need something more compelling to force them to get their hands dirty.

Edited March 20, 2022 by MacThorstenson

[I think I am here. he/him]

8 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

I would be curious about what kind of conflicts we could engineer.

I’ll try to think of some, but initially my mind jumps to the Worldspike. Is it possible it’s properties are altered in some way in interacting with the Forgery? Perhaps becoming like some sort of Macguffin each Dep wants to use?

[Ashbringer he/him]

Maybe something in the Alleys - the Worldspike or not - is the source of the new powers, and the different departments want to control it? Like some ReForged being that acts like the Stormfather accepting oaths or contracts or something?

[MacThorstenson he/him]

The issue is, why wouldn't they just share it? Like its not a smart move to fight each other when cooperation is available. 

I think the Stranger vs Voidus is a very solid base ground for the conflict.

There could, perhaps, be a faction that insists on remaining neutral, but is drawn into attacking one or the other. One idea I had would be that Cam is working to de-escalate the whole situation. So perhaps them could be the battle lines? Voidus vs stranger vs a neutral faction vs a de-escalation faction. The Difference between the latter two is the neutral faction wants to stay out of it, but de-escalation is willing to fight to keep either side from getting too upitty? Of course the idea that the stranger and voidus would fight is up to fatebreaker and voidus themselves, but I think that could be a reasonable conflict.

[18th Shard he/him]

I'm getting kind of a Malazan vibe from the above ideas. 

You could have some parts of the Alleys and DA remain affected by the Forgery - when the Forgery breaks, the world is released but parts of the Alleys remain affected. Then the Denizens remaining in those portions would want to reestablish dominance and not bow down to heads they don't know. 

[I think I am here. he/him]

26 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Maybe something in the Alleys - the Worldspike or not - is the source of the new powers, and the different departments want to control it? Like some ReForged being that acts like the Stormfather accepting oaths or contracts or something?

I like the idea of a being (it could be a sentient version of the Alleystorm) but to be honest if it’s the catalyst I think it would be more interesting for it to be its own wildcard, rather than just handing out powers to people.

46 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

I’ll try to think of some, but initially my mind jumps to the Worldspike. Is it possible it’s properties are altered in some way in interacting with the Forgery? Perhaps becoming like some sort of Macguffin each Dep wants to use?

Just thought of an alternative to this. Let me know if this is insane.

Spoiler

Alternative idea: the Forgery can only handle a certain amount of Investiture before breaking apart (and not ‘breaking apart’ as in simply failing and returning the world to normal, but ‘breaking apart’ as in completely annihilating the laws of physics / universe). 

This in effect ‘caps’ the amount of Investiture that can exist, but the cap is massive (eg. the amount of Investiture that ten Shards have is the cap, so it’s huge).

Naturally, this doesn’t effect your day-to-day joe but affects the DA since they use so much Investiture (let’s say they currently use 16 Shards’ worth of investiture, idk quantifying magic is hard).

Suddenly it’s a scarce resource (as scarce as a ‘Ten Shards of Investiture’ limit can be) and now the DA has to do what every company loves doing: budget cuts!

In effect, the DA now has 6 Shards worth of Investiture it needs to cut down on unless they want the entire universe to explode. They have differing opinions on how to do this:

1. The main departments want to cut the funding of the smaller, non-useful / obscure departments. The smaller departments (still incredibly powerful) want to survive

2. Some departments want every department to cut down on investiture usage equally. This is unpopular as everyone is selfish

3. Some departments want to remove the investiture from every non-DA thing in the universe to make more room for the DA’s usage (eg. remove it from normal people, equipment etc.). For some reason this is opposed by other departments.

4. The issue of limited Investiture is made even more apparent by the rise of ordinary people gaining slight abilities (sprit-web interacting with Forgery) and the (possible) introduction of a new entity.

5. The DA can’t do an all-out war because 1. too unpredictable/dangerous and 2. The Investiture required would be too great.

Tl;Dr, the DA has to cut down on Investiture usage in x amount of time or everyone’s gonna die. This exposes tensions and causes a Cold War.

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by I think I am here.

[18th Shard he/him]

Idea: I think having Departments themselves splitting under pre-Forgery and during Forgery leaders and groups might be interesting, with each Department Head trying to get consensus that they are in charge.  

[Ashbringer he/him]

10 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

The issue is, why wouldn't they just share it? Like its not a smart move to fight each other when cooperation is available. 

I think the Stranger vs Voidus is a very solid base ground for the conflict.

I'm not entirely sure what Voidus' reaction to being released from the Forgery(?) will be, but I think there's a good enough argument there that cooperation could be tenuous at best.

2 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

Just thought of an alternative to this. Let me know if this is insane.

  Reveal hidden contents

Alternative idea: the Forgery can only handle a certain amount of Investiture before breaking apart (and not ‘breaking apart’ as in simply failing and returning the world to normal, but ‘breaking apart’ as in completely annihilating the laws of physics / universe). 

This in effect ‘caps’ the amount of Investiture that can exist, but the cap is massive (eg. the amount of Investiture that ten Shards have is the cap, so it’s huge).

Naturally, this doesn’t effect your day-to-day joe but affects the DA since they use so much Investiture (let’s say they currently use 16 Shards’ worth of investiture, idk quantifying magic is hard).

Suddenly it’s a scarce resource (as scarce as a ‘Ten Shards of Investiture’ limit can be) and now the DA has to do what every company loves doing: budget cuts!

In effect, the DA now has 6 Shards worth of Investiture it needs to cut down on unless they want the entire universe to explode. They have differing opinions on how to do this:

1. The main departments want to cut the funding of the smaller, non-useful / obscure departments. The smaller departments (still incredibly powerful) want to survive

2. Some departments want every department to cut down on investiture usage equally. This is unpopular as everyone is selfish

3. Some departments want to remove the investiture from every non-DA thing in the universe to make more room for the DA’s usage (eg. remove it from normal people, equipment etc.). For some reason this is opposed by other departments.

4. The issue of limited Investiture is made even more apparent by the rise of ordinary people gaining slight abilities (sprit-web interacting with Forgery) and the (possible) introduction of a new entity.

5. The DA can’t do an all-out war because 1. too unpredictable/dangerous and 2. The Investiture required would be too great.

Tl;Dr, the DA has to cut down on Investiture usage in x amount of time or everyone’s gonna die. This exposes tensions and causes a Cold War.

 

I like this idea, but it does come with the large problem of Cold Wars, in that most departments have a WMD in the form of giant Investiture sinks. That might be less of an issue if the Department Heads have gone deep enough into research to fear their own annihilation more than subservience, but idk if that's true of enough of them.

4 minutes ago, 18th Shard said:

Idea: I think having Departments themselves splitting under pre-Forgery and during Forgery leaders and groups might be interesting, with each Department Head trying to get consensus that they are in charge.  

Could be a good catalyst for initial tensions, but depends on a lot of the DA changing over, which could be hard

[18th Shard he/him]

I mean, based off Mac's report:

Dept of Sales: Voidus

R&D: The Stranger

Dept of Advertising: ??

Dept of Recruitment (Acquisitions?):

DoCI: Lita (formerly Mac)

Dept of Spying (Intelligence?):

Dept of Shipping: ??

Dept of Inter-Guild commerce: ??

Dept of Public Relations:??

Dept of Biochemistry: Aylitha (?)

Dept of Alleymatics:?? 

Department of Testing & Analysis: Xanas (though I plan on replacing him at the end of the era).

 

So about 5/12 heads filled, with 2 having been heavily involved in the Forgery and 3 massively affected by it. That power vacuum could Kickstart something. 

[MacThorstenson he/him]

12 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I'm not entirely sure what Voidus' reaction to being released from the Forgery(?) will be, but I think there's a good enough argument there that cooperation could be tenuous at best.

Honestly its possible that he understands what the Stranger was trying to do and appreciates him for it. He was exhibiting signs of wanting to leave earlier then when the stranger moved in. That said, what Voidus' reaction to getting out of the forgery is should be determined by Voidus, not by the group needs of the plot. 

Quote

I like this idea, but it does come with the large problem of Cold Wars, in that most departments have a WMD in the form of giant Investiture sinks. That might be less of an issue if the Department Heads have gone deep enough into research to fear their own annihilation more than subservience, but idk if that's true of enough of them.

Ash could you elaborate on this?

I am personally leaning toward the budget cut scenario, as I think it lends itself most toward creating some conflict while still being relatively chill. The only issue I have is how we would get normal people involved?

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

6 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

The only issue I have is how we would get normal people involved?

If there is a limited amount of world investiture now, then people contracting with eldritch creatures and developing large powers or releasing said creatures out of the Alleys could easily cause the amount of investiture to rapidly decrease. Theoretically these creatures are as or more powerful than Voidus or the Stranger. These new power users and their “contracted partners” (read: overlords) could pull the average person into the conflict by starting guilds or cults of personality. Then the average public is also in conflict with the DA.

[Ashbringer he/him]

3 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

Honestly its possible that he understands what the Stranger was trying to do and appreciates him for it. He was exhibiting signs of wanting to leave earlier then when the stranger moved in. That said, what Voidus' reaction to getting out of the forgery is should be determined by Voidus, not by the group needs of the plot. 

Ash could you elaborate on this?

I am personally leaning toward the budget cut scenario, as I think it lends itself most toward creating some conflict while still being relatively chill. The only issue I have is how we would get normal people involved?

Yeah, Voidus is up to Voidus

To elaborate - if the DA decides to cut the Department of R&D, for some reason, then R&D likely has enough resources to break the limit of Investiture and take everyone else down and end the universe. I don't know how accurate that case would be for a Department actually in danger of being completely cut is (or if being cut means violent experimentation or just a reassignment to another department (or a reassignment to another department via HR )). But I could see some departments refusing to cut down and ordering smaller ones to, and then smaller ones forming together to create a large enough coalition.

... maybe that's just the plot right there.

Normal people could come from the DA attempting to cause mass genocide in order to stop all the Alleyverse citizens from blowing off excess Investiture with their newfound Alley Talents, but there's probably a better way... ie DA Departments recruiting external forces to act in their interest so they're not directly opposing each other.

[Fatebreaker he/him]

Also just want to put it out there that there's no guarantee the Stranger will still be around after this arc 

[18th Shard he/him]

Maybe go with the Alleys getting attached to people, preventing the DA from getting in them, and Departments are in a Cold War standoff to "acquire" important Alleys through different means. The normal people are all the ones who get attached to Alleys.