Kobold King

Were they all from Dumpyourphoto? All the broken links I've found so far have been Dumpyourphoto hotlinks.

It's still super impressive that you found him on your own. I never find this sort of thing in my readings.

Aww, storms. Neither can I when I view the thread logged out. Do you think they got deleted off of Dumpyourphoto, where I've been uploading them? Maybe it's time to make a Photobucket account and spend a tiring hour editing old posts. EDIT: Dumpyourphoto.com seems to be down altogether right now. Can anyone else access it? EDIT THE SECOND: Just went through and updated all my Dalles posts with the photobucket links. Are the icons working now?

Vondra post up! A bit verbose, but I hope it meets everyone's approval. Edge, I wrote in Shiny Sparkle sitting down at Vondra's suggestion. It seemed a harmless enough thing to add, but if you want it changed, just say the word and I'll take it out.

With Autumn gone and Rhonda too sullen to chat, there was nothing for Vondra to do but wait and plan for the future. He immediately set to thickly bound maps of the city, poring over them with a hand on his brow and a tired hand rustling their pages. The Dalles was, so far as he knew, the last bastion of strength of what had once been the United States of America. In the early days, when Epics were new, the nation was still as strong and resilient as the eagle it chose as its symbol. It had weathered invasions and depressions, world wars and civil wars. When other countries fell or slipped into tyranny, only America had remained strong enough to thrive under the flag of freedom. Until Capitulation. Cities fell one by one, taken by monsters who had turned on their country. The land of the free was ripped asunder, and congress had the gall to order the armed forces to stand down on their country's hour of need. Vondra had come close to mutiny the day Capitulation was passed. But now, there wasn't even a congress to be disloyal too. America had fallen. The eagle was dead.... or at least, so the world thought. That brought him back to the map. Here in The Dalles, the tiny Oregon town that once had nothing but cherry trees to offer the nation, America still held on to its dying breath. Some would look at the maps of The Dalles and see nothing but dry notes on buildings and produce reports from the surrounding farms. When Vondra looked at the same map, though... he saw the last speck of liberty in the Fractured States. And that speck had to be preserved at any cost. It was then, as he traced a finger along the Columbia River looking for the best patrol routes, that an explosion filled the room. From the very beginning, it was clear an Epic had entered the room. The explosion was loud but did no damage to the room--the most prominent part of the whole affair were the sparkles that went everywhere. As colorful as a 4th of July fireworks display with none of the attached patriotism, the explosion cleared away to reveal a colorful woman with sunglasses on her face and a smile over her mouth. “Autumn, your lovely Shiny Sparkle has returned!” Lovely is relative, Vondra thought dryly, as the woman looked around the room for her infatuation. He supposed he would have found her pretty enough in his younger days, but now he had the clarity to see her as she was. Everything about her screamed of a monster. Her self-assured, lazy gait. The colorful clothes she wore, better than any vanilla could come by honestly these days. That turquoise jacket alone could feed a family for a week in one of the more desperate cities. Worst of all was her smile--the teeth she bared said many things, but their ultimate statement was 'I'm looking for what I want. Don't get in my way.' Rhonda looked to him in alarm, doubtless wondering if the intruder should be frozen, but Vondra gave a subtle shake of his head. Best to keep Ms. Sparkle happy until he was absolutely sure whether she should live or die. “Excuse me sir,” the Epic said with saccharine politeness. “Autumn asked me to deal with some Epic cultists trying to attack the town and I just killed half of them and got the other half to retreat. Could you please tell me where she is so I can… A pause. "...report to her?” That last part had enough innuendo in it to do Deathwish proud. Whatever Shiny Sparkle had planned for the night, it likely didn't involve the restful night's sleep Autumn deserved. Pursing his lips and clasping his hands together, Vondra leaned across the table and fixed the woman with a stare. "Please," he said, politely but firmly, "Sit down." Frowning, the Epic nonetheless did what he asked and pulled up a chair. Good. Maybe she could be reasoned with after all. For the next minute, Vondra did nothing but watch her. Sometimes silence spoke volumes that words could never touch. He kept his mouth closed, eyeing the sparkly Epic's every move. Every twitch. Every awkward eye movement. Every impatient tap of her foot against the carpet. He stared long enough to make her uncomfortable but not angry. Long enough to make her realize she was in trouble without hinting at how much he wanted to kill her right now. Then, abruptly, he stood up and spoke for the second time. "You know," he told her thoughtfully, "You remind me of a sweet cherry." The Epic blinked in surprise. Whatever she'd expected, this wasn't it. Vondra gave her a tight, insincere smile and went on. "Before I came to power here," he explained quietly, "The Dalles was very well known for its sweet cherries. There were thousands of acres all around the city. They were beautiful, beautiful trees that bore wonderful fruits. Farmers shipped them down the Columbia River to folks all across the nation." Vondra walked to a window, pulling up the blinds and staring at the dim lampposts shining over the dark city. "By the time I got here," he continued, his voice solemn. "Epics were wreaking havoc all over the nation. Food lines were cut. People were starving. Pretty much all The Dalles had was cherries, and you can't live on cherries alone." Shiny Sparkle continued to stare at him in confusion, and Vondra chuckled mirthlessly. "Can you believe a lot of cherry growers still wanted to take up land with their trees? They still thought the economy would go back to normal soon, and they'd need their livelihood when it did. They didn't realize what I'd already concluded. The USA was finished. The Dalles had to learn to take care of itself from then on." His bones creaking, he put himself back in his chair and leaned towards the sparkly Epic, clasping his hands and fixing the woman with a serious expression. "The hardest thing I've ever done in this office," he stated calmly, "was ordering those cherry trees destroyed. I had Dewhickey summon up bulldozers, and I had thousands of acres' worth of priceless cherry orchards pulled out of the ground and destroyed. If the growers resisted, I had the City Guard arrest them until we were finished." He let out a long, tired sigh as he remembered that day. Every cry as family livelihoods went up in flames, every outraged shout that went up among the crowd of farmers... well, it was all in the past. Time to focus on the future. "The reason I'm telling you this," Vondra finished quietly, "Is because I'm about to ask you the same question I asked those growers when I told them to plow over their orchards and grow the vegetables the city needed. Are you willing to serve the people of this city above yourself? Are you willing to do what I say, when I say it, putting aside your wants for the good of The Dalles? Are you willing to put aside all the things you love most just to keep this city going another day? If you are, then you're welcome to stay here and enjoy our security for as long as you like. But if you're not... if you intend to put your own selfishness first and let the city suffer for your own benefit or amusement... "Well if that happens, I'll send you the way of the cherry tree. Now Ms. Sparkle--what will it be? "

Welcome back! I can't remember anything specifically important to you. The RP hasn't moved much since you left, to be blunt.

Well in my defense... actually, I have no defense. I have no good reason for not watching Red Dwarf. My only concern is that he'd be overpowered by several orders of magnitude if he were given the same powers as other Shards. Considering Shards have the ability to create or destroy worlds with little to no effort, I'm afraid the Great Dahaka would have to be nerfed in some way for him to interact with other player characters. I like the idea of him being a Lord Ruler-like entity, even if that idea has already been done in Mistborn. It could be interesting to create an actually benevolent version of TLR. Drawings would be awesome. And don't sweat not following the meta-RP. It's mostly just humorous at this point, like what we do on the Question threads. (Though I may find a way to work references to the Cobalt King into the canon RP... )

I've never seen Red Dwarf, so I'm not entirely sure what you're referencing anyway. What are the upper limits to the Great Dahaka's powers? Could he destroy a planet if he needed to? If there was an invading armada coming to take over Dakhara, would he be capable of singlehandedly destroying the fleet?

Oh not. It's just a link to the member Curiosity's profile page. Honest.

WoR spoilers: Would you rather try to ride a whitespine or try to steal money from a koloss?

So what you're saying is... you have a dream? Sorry not sorry.

Breaking from our meta-RP, how exactly will the Great Dahaka manifest in the RP proper? Will he have a physical form? Will he be practically omnipotent like other Shards?

As some of you know, I write topics for a homeschooling curriculum. Today my boss (who is also my mother) asked me if I'd finished the topic I'm supposed to write on smallpox... MOTHER: Jared, have you finished smallpox yet? ME: No... that's the World Health Organization's job! * crickets chirping * ME: ...Did you hear me? I said-- MOTHER: I heard what you said. It just wasn't funny. ME: Sad face. MOTHER: Stop talking in emoticons.

"Wait, he stores his burgers in a chest? That doesn't sound very sanitary." "...Oh you poor naive soul."

There was also a man listed in the credits as "Phil Tippet -- Dinosaur Supervisor."

* gasp * Curiosity! Why would you do that?

I specifically mentioned smallpox as a warning for people not to visit the page without disabling images.

Today I learned to always disable images in my browser before reading disease articles on Wikipedia. Especially smallpox.

Truly a character darker than the inside of a nasty septic tank. (Though of course, if he rescued an alligator that had been flushed by a toilet and raised it as a loyal attack pet... ) Well... while it has been done to death, I don't think that excludes you from giving it your own best try. But if you want to explore a kind of Sinister Minister not often seen in fiction--how about making Whitelaw a legitimately decent fellow? Maybe Whitelaw could be a genuinely good person, who donates to the poor and earnestly tries to make his community a better place. He could be kind, grandfatherly even; what would make him an antagonist could be the ideology he preaches, which is taken by his congregation to dark extremes. For instance, he could support segregation and the subjugation of minorities while still treating them respectfully himself, while those who follow his teachings take them to extremes that make Spokane an awful place to live. Or he could support a church-driven hierarchy, which results in real Sinister Ministers like Stombaugh taking advantage of the people. Making the man who ruined Spokane a kindly, even somewhat sympathetic character could illustrate how not all Sinister Ministers are Creepy McCreepertons who do terrible things For the Evulz. Not all wicked societies are founded by wicked men; sometimes the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions. As for people being offended at this? While I can sympathize with people who feel erroneously that their faith is being attacked, the simple fact of the matter is that organized religion can and does have a corrupted side that surfaces every so often. Trying to cover that up or pretend that abuse doesn't happen only keeps the church firmly in the dark ages, and prevents us from cutting through the corruption to get at the things that make religion truly worth while. So if this is something you feel passionate about, don't let your fear of offending the easily offended get in the way. Tell the story you want to tell.

Ugh. My dad went to Nevada once, and he hated it. The stories he tells... apparently not only were there casinos everywhere a casino could fit, but he was visibly wealthy at the time and prostitutes tried to solicit from him constantly. Apparently a prostitute even came onto him at a Denny's, for Celestia's sake.

Don't answer this if you don't want to, but... are you Jewish? You wrote an exquisite and realistic story about a Jewish girl for that writing prompt thing, you've expressed a desire to see Israel, and you've expressed personal hurt over the anti-Semitism that abounds dark corners of the Internet. Are you, then, of Hebrew descent? What's your favorite thing about living in Australia? Have you ever come across any of the unique fauna or flora of your continent?

Now these are some tough questions. I'm not sure how my family's life would be different had I not been born. It's possible my parents would be slightly liberal in their politics then they are now, as my birth prompted them to read several libertarian books on homeschooling that dramatically swayed their thinking. However, I have four siblings, and one of their births may have prompted them to make the same changes to their ideology. The rest of the world would be impacted even less dramatically. I seldom leave the house, and I don't know a lot of people. The biggest change I guess is that the fanon wiki I admin'd on for a while might never have seen its brief resurgence of activity, and that TwiLyghtSansSparkles would have the most reputation of anyone on the 17th Shard. I hope the power doesn't go to her head in this alternate universe. If my mind were sent back to my four-year-old body, I would cry. I would cry long and hard, because I'd have been trapped in the wrong body away from everyone I know and love. My parents were very different people back then. None of my siblings would have been born. I'd have no means of contacting any of the few friends I have, and they'd all be fourteen years younger than I knew them anyway. I'd essentially have to rebuild my life from scratch, and I wouldn't even know enough about stock market trends to use my future knowledge to make myself rich. So yeah. It would really, really suck. Also, there'd be no way for me to prevent any catastrophes. I doubt the World Trade Center would evacuate no matter how well-articulated the four year-old giving them the warning was. And to continue this example, I'd fear that thwarting Al-Qaeda in this timeline would only prompt them to launch another terrorist attack--potentially one that could cause even more casualties than the ones they caused in the original timeline. It's too risky. If I were given the ability to time travel, I would take care not to alter my own timeline. I don't have any regrets or sorrows in my history woeful enough to risk destroying the space-time continuum, and even if that weren't a threat, I'd worry about inadvertently killing the person I am now by radically changing the life of the person I was as a child. So no. I wouldn't I would not become a Pokemon champion. For all its glorification, Pokemon-battling is no nobler than cockfighting or dogfighting on our world. It's animal abuse, and I like to think that I'd be able to resist the cultural pressure and refuse to take part in it. I hear Team Plasma's recruiting animal rights activists like myself--maybe I'll join them. As for my life in Equestria--there are no humans on that world, but if there were, I don't imagine humans would have been capable of hunting ponies to extinction. The rulers of the ponies telekinetically control planets; I don't really see how humans could stand up to that kind of raw power. I'd much rather just be a pony in Equestria, thanks. I'd be a brown earth pony with a golden crown as my cutie mark. I just think she's bland, that's all. It feels like her spunk and snark are less natural parts of her character and more elements thrown in to fulfill some sort of checklist of proper companion traits. She was mildly interesting as a side character in Asylum of the Daleks, and I liked her in The Snowmen, but 21st century Clara has very few traits that are unique to her. Now that the mystery around her is gone, there's no hook to her character. No reason for her story to be told. Like Edgedancer, I would have liked for her to be written out in Death in Heaven. Not killed--I'm not usually fond of seeing characters permanently killed off. But I would have liked to see her leave the TARDIS on her own terms, to live a peaceful and quiet life with Danny. TwiLyght has been a vocal fan of Obliteration's from the beginning, and has even spoken loosely in his defense. She's made it clear that she finds him one of the more fascinating Epics, and has expressed a strong desire to see him redeemed. She also sympathizes with the way he feels about his glasses, and has stated in her AMA that she finds trenchcoats attractive. But perhaps the most important reason, the reason we keep on insisting that they be a couple, the reason we'd love to see them smiling in each other's arms... is because they'd look darn cute together. And because as of this post's writing, Twi hasn't asked us to stop.

I think we're planning this RP with a smaller RP. Let's just roll with it.

Drills and pickaxes struck the earth, filling the morning with a cacophony of clanging. The engines of huge mining machines roared and the cries of the workers rung out, as they worked to coordinate the massive drills to the rich veins beneath the planet's surface. The freshly risen sun illuminated the camp in all its majesty. Stocky Querlings pulled carts laden with dense ores. Blubbery Nalthas took inventory of all the metal extracted on the previous day. A few many-eyed Yauvex repainted the bright green arrow of the Upboat Corporation on each of the machines. Standing atop a hill, slender and reptilian, was the wealthiest cobalt magnate in the galaxy. Owning every cobalt mine from here to the Morelth Nebula, he was rich and powerful in his own way, and he acted the part. His wealth had turned his mind and with it his pride. When he watched his miners, he did so with all the dignity and ego of a medieval royal watching his armies march. They didn't call him the Cobalt King for nothing. On this morning, a winged Desmod servant fluttered up to its lord, master, and boss, bowing low to the ground as it did so. "Your wealthiness," it rasped through its thick muzzle. ""There is news of the Azi Dahaka." The Cobalt King turned languidly to his employee, unclasping his claws from behind his back and scratching his chin with a yawn. "Oh? What news this time? Another retcon?" He laughed bitterly. Biting its lip, the Desmod said "...Yes, your wealthiness." The laughter stopped, the Cobalt King's scaly face turning deadly serious. "What has been changed this time?" he growled softly. "I-Investiture, sire. At your displeasure, the magic was stripped of their species and they have aliens once more. They are no longed in any way connected to the Cosmere." There was a still silence, before the Cobalt King smiled, a wicked smile that showed off each of his finely-honed teeth. He reached a slender arm around the Desmod's furry back, pulling it closer into an embrace. Swiftly, he flourished a glimmering blade from his sleeve, pressing it against his employee's jugular vein. "Do you know what this is?" he asked quietly. "Y-yes sire," the bat-like alien squeaked. "It's a knife." "A vibron-knife," the magnate corrected lazily. "It vibrates on a molecular level if I flip the switch on its hilt. It can slice through bone and titanium as easily as it can butter." "Y-you are wealthy enough to afford the very best, sire." "You know what? I am," the Cobalt King proclaimed, as if in mock surprise. He released his hold on the bat, tossing it to the ground. "I'm richer than the old gods, the new gods, and all the lesser gods in between. I can afford the very best." His eyes took a dangerous sheen once more. "And when I'm presented with anything that's not the very best, there's always the vibron-knife." Towering over the short little bat, the magnate stalked over towards it and stooped to its level. "What, then," he asked in a deadly whisper. "Is the implication of my threatening you with my vibron-knife?" "T-that I am not the very best, sire." "Absolutely," the magnate hissed. "And you seem to have mangled the message I sent to the very best race I've seen in this galaxy yet. Somehow the Great Dahaka got the impression that I was displeased at their magic. On the contrary, I love their magic. I find it a fascinating and unique element to their worldbuilding. All I ever suggested was retconning their magic to have arrived from the Cosmere, rather than retconning all of us to have been there all along. Do you understand?" Weakly, the Desmod managed to nod its head and squeal out a "yes." "Then go forth," the Cobalt King growled, "Catch the soonest shuttle to Dakhara and tell the Great Dahaka this in person. And if you mangle this message anywhere nearly as badly as you mangled the first, I will mangle you and send your neatly carved remains to your family in a nicely wrapped package. Understand?" "Yes, sire. Of course, sire!" The wings of the Desmod started beating again, and the bat flew off in the direction of the shuttle yards. The Cobalt King sighed, then smiled and put his knife away. Maybe now Dakhara could have the best of both worlds--magic from the Cosmere and a connection to a rich galaxy the Cosmereites could never dream of. As long as the imbeciles in his employ didn't keep mucking things up, they would have a rich and fantastic setting indeed by the time this was done. He clasped his claws behind his back and stared out over the ridge again, watching the drills bore into the earth. It was good to be king. Um... in all seriousness, I guess what I"m saying is that I love the Azi Dahaka's magic, and I don't think you need to take it out altogether. I was merely suggesting we leave the rest of the setting mostly non-magical and definitely non-Cosmere. By leaving magic on Dakhara but leaving it absent elsewhere, it allows us to tread new ground; exploring how an interstellar civilization founded upon science would react to finding a magical species like the AD. Hope I made that clear. I'd hate to have to kill another Desmod....