Seonid
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I was actually thinking of something like this in response to Adamir's suggestion about ascended spirits having been infused with enough of this magic source (wherever we decide it comes from). That gives a lot of room for Mek's animistic magic system, at least among some societies. I can imagine some races pushing for something like this to happen with their leaders, and other races avoiding super-concentrations of magic like the plague, based on differing ideologies. Also, to respond to the comment about lack of variety in the "magikrill/Lumules/whatever we call them," the most recent posted version is a lot more expansive than "just breath in the cloud." There are airborne, waterborne, and even soil-borne organisms that provide a wide variety of mechanisms and pathways to send the power through the lifeweb. If you're really interested in minerals, of course, there is always the question of how the organisms generate their power. In fact, this might be an interesting possibility - having the airborne organisms metabolize trace gasses to generate their "magic," and the waterborne and underground ones metabolize various important minerals. I could just see the cave-dwellers harvesting the organisms that feast on "magic rocks," and revering the rock formations instead of the organisms. In fact, it could be an area of magical research, to try and figure out how to generate the magical energy directly from the source instead of needing the intermediary. And it could even be culturally contentious, with one side trying to preserve the ancient balance between sapient and symbiote, and the other trying to make technological magic out of the primal source. Personally, I like the idea of symbiotic magic with microorganisms, and hope that it survives the whittling down process of this democratic effort. When I have time, I'll post a quick vignette that shows part of my vision, using the proposed raptor race as an example.
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Venture didn't really defend himself, it's more that we went back through a little voting analysis, and I found that my only reason for voting for Venture was because you thought he was suspicious. If there were no other targets, that wouldn't have made a difference, other than us calling you out to explain your suspicions. But Gamma's vote on Alvom last cycle was extremely suspicious...and we thought we had a better lead. I still can't understand how it is possible for him not to be an Eliminator. But he wasn't. I'm planning on lynching either Venture or Macen next round. They're the only suspicions I have left. But after this run of misses, I won't be surprised if they are both good, and you and Shallan and Orlok are all evil and have totally played me. If that's the case, good job guys, and good game. I don't think there's anything more I can do. But if not, then you know what I'm looking to do next round. I also still don't know why I'm still alive, unless it is because I've been such a good pawn for the Eliminators that they've kept me around. Not even the decency of a threat kill after I come back and bring back a few of the inactives. I'm ok with that. If this character lives through to the end of the game, I can keep using him in other games, and I'm rather attached to the Worldhopping King of Arelon now. He's also my character in the Long Game, so it would be weird if he died here and not there. And I'd like him to survive there for a long time... Ah well. I have contingency plans set up. You'll see what they are. My highest suspicion is Macen right now, and even if the assassin misses, I've set things in motion to be able to lynch or at least tie a lynch on him, even if there are 3 active eliminators at present. I doubt that, honestly, though. And I'm almost certain now that there aren't 4. If there were 4, and most of them active, then missing a kill last cycle makes no sense. That's why I suspect Macen. I think he was inactive that round. I wish I'd thought to check the moment I saw that the Eliminators had missed their kill, so that I could be sure, but he didn't post. It's a data point I should have thought through with Gamma. I'm even unsure about whether I expect to die or not this night. The Eliminators are probably searching for the Assassin, and it's fairly obviously not me. Compared to a threatening role like that, what's one vocal player? Unless the Assassin is, in fact, on their team. Which is a possibility I haven't ruled out, but I prefer to hope that we have a chance of winning.
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Female Villains in Epic Fantasy (General Spoilers)
Seonid replied to Mistdork's topic in General Discussion
On that topic, recent research has revealed that women were heavily involved in bookmaking throughout medieval Europe. The nuns in the convents were just as likely to copy and illuminate their own manuscripts as the monks were, and after the start of the book trade, women worked as scribes, binders, and so on. On a related tangent, in Jewish culture in medieval Eastern Europe, the idealized family was one where the man didn't do any work, but spent the whole day in the study of the scriptures, while his wife ran the family business and managed the household. -
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Shallan. I'm not an eliminator, but I feel like I've been helping them more than the village. If I hadn't just come jumping back in, we wouldn't have lynched Haelbarde. We still would have lynched Alvom, and maybe have hit gamma instead of hael, giving us potentially more useful information. Even this lynch is practically unopposed. Maybe my suspicions are all as valuable as leaves on the wind. Anyways, you want analysis, orlok? On my trusted folks: Shallan and paranoid king. Both come from their interactions with hero. Shallan attacked hero enough that hero called her out and tried to get her lynched because she was targeting him without evidence, as he put it. Paranoid King put in a vote on hero that would have killed him a cycle earlier of it hasn't been two minutes late. I don't think an eliminator would risk that - no way to know whether or not ren would be merciful and count it. I think it even came in before ren posted the end of cycle notice. My suspects: Gamma started the most recent lynchtrain on Alvom, on the pretext that he could have been saved by the eliminators because of the tied lynch earlier. However, he was the only living player that voted for the tired person, and all of the dead voters were good. I wanted to try and get some lynch discussion, and have the assassin finish gamma off tonight. Macen wanted me to try and lynch gamma because he thought gamma was the assassin. And he didn't think we could afford the extra kill if the assassin picks wrong. I find that incredibly suspicious. Finally, my vote on Venture is due to paranoid kings earlier suspicions, which may or may not be valid. I really bored for him to try and get discussion, See who agreed and who tried to stop the lynch. Not much of that happened. So I'm going to vote for the one who I am most certain is evil: Gamma
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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Diaemian ley lines!
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I love how we've ask just kind of adopted those three races already. I've actually already been thinking through the problem of tool using among the saurians and the arachnids. For the saurians, let's take the three-clawed standard hand shape of the average raptor. It's already an excellent shape for falling with pretty and grasping in general, but fine federal work is out. Now, take one of the digits and make it opposable. Reduce the size if the other two digits, maybe add a fourth, tiny digit for stability, maybe not. Either way, you've got a hand that is making progress towards grasping. More, make the claws retractable, and that's the final obstacle overcome. Hands capable of manipulating tools -check. There's even potential cultural tidbits here. Maybe in one culture, filling or clipping the smaller hand-claws is a sign of politeness or refinement, much like proper nail care is for some American cultures today. Maybe some leave the opposable digit's claw long, in imitation of the great toe-claw. That might be a militaristic society. Maybe there are elaborate claw sheathes that mark social status. Who knows? With the arachnids, we'd want then balanced such that they can rear up their forelegs (preferably the front 2 sets) comfortably. The front set of legs is sensory in nature, like real spiders, in addition to normal use for walking. The second set is altered. We'll get there in a moment. The back two sets are much thicker, and bear the weight. We'll need to look into exoskeleton materials to see if conventional spiders that size are plausible, or if we need an internal skeleton or some other mechanism to make it work. The second legs, though, are the key. Add a few small digits, including an opposable one, and you're on your way. Or, you could try to decide Adobe way on which using ask for front limbs compensates for the lack of opposable digits.
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Although, as they keep score in SE, they probably fail on that count. I'm still looking forward to getting one so that I can put it in my about me page
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It's nobody going to say anything? Paranoid King? Gamma? Macen? Anybody want to admit to being an eliminator? We'll lynch you last!
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Fair enough. The current iteration of my headcanon on this it's that it's not just krill, but a whole phylum of microorganisms in the air, the soil, and the water. (Possibly genetically engineered for this purpose). Non-sapient creatures normally ingest them (either directly or by eating something that's eaten them - herbivores might get them just by taking a bite of plants, carnivores could get some from their prey) or inhale them (there would have to be places where they would congregate for that to work). Sapient races could, of course, cultivate them. There could be sentient cultivated colonies that work symbiotically with them (as I've brainstormed for the raptors), or a race could cultivate and make potions or magic food out of them, or whatever. The frantically shoveling food in its one option among many.
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The more I think of it, the more I like the underground arachnids. I also withdraw my request for a second mammalian civilization. Instead, the fourth above-ground major race could be avian. They could compete with Lindel's intelligent dragonflies. Lindel, were you the one who originally asked for a semi-aquatic lizard race?
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Excellent. I'm in on the humans. Proposal: natural magical ability is completely absent among most of the humans, due to their being imported from off-world. Humans make magic devices instead, harnessing the microorganisms. Raptors - Totally amazing! What of they had sentient colonies of magical organism that provide this magical potential? I could see them as pack hunters using their magical colonies. Spiders - definitely a bug race of some sort. Maybe ants, though? With sapient sports as more lone predators than civilization builders? The aquatic is excellent, and I think there should be one. I'd like a second reptilian race, though, semi-aquatic (freshwater). And another, non-human mammalian race. That would give us 4 above ground races, one underground race, and at least one aquatic race
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Ninja'ed. I edited my post above with a more detailed model of sapient races. Comments on the updated model would be appreciated. But basically, I agree with the collaboration on the major races pay. Minor sapient races should be left to the creativity of each of us
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Probably would. Alright, to heck with this. Venture Mistborn, you're up for the lynch right now. What do you have top say?
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I'm in. Magic - Abundant in the ecology, but rare in terms of professional magic workers in the traditional fantasy sense. In other words - plenty of magical creatures but only few wizards. In order to provide maximum creative freedom while maintaining consistency, I'm thinking we should have a common source of magic that the ecology can draw on (although difficult to tap into without the biological adaptations that the creatures have), which should let us go wild with regard to magical creatures. As a proposal for the source, maybe an atmospheric microorganism similar to krill, but much lighter (or even a whole class or order, or even a full phylum of them, inhabiting air and sea and even underground) that, when ingested our harvested or inhaled or whatever, can have effects based on the biological adaptation of the creature consuming thehaving a universal source will help maintain consistency without limiting freedom to create. Whatever we end up choosing, we should have a magic system that scores high on the Mohs scale of hardness. Plausible physics and biology, with fully thought-through implications of the effects. (It's good we have Edgedancer here, for that very purpose.) Ecology - let's start with something vaguely earth-like, with a mix of exotic and recognizable fauna. I like mek's idea of pulling ordinary creatures and putting them into non-standard habitats, like floating jellyfish. I love that I've, actually. Twi beat me to suggesting dinosaurs, actually. The Jurassic or Cretaceous periods would provide quite an exotic setting to adapt, while leaving room for the familiar. If in one region, large mammals evolved alongside dinosaurs (or out-competed them), but in another, dinosaurs were dominant, that doesn't strain credulity too far. I'm not sure how I feel about gobs and gobs of sapient races. It feels that at some point you cross a threshold of plausibility, where you start asking the questions "how did ask of these races end up so evenly divided and balanced long enough to develop sapience?" And "why and how did the balance last so long?" That said, I think a world with 2 or 3 major sapient races (land-based, that is) with tons of other sapient creatures filling in the cracks could be done well. To clarify - 2-3 continent spanning races with civilizations and cities and so on, with dozens of species that are significantly restricted in area alongside them. EDIT: To avoid double-posting, I've been thinking further on the number of sapient races thing. I all think that it would be best to have only 2-3, possibly up to 5 races with a multi-continent reach. These would have many different civilizations, and could really have large variations from place to place. Alongside them, if we had 4-6 medium range races per continent, with enough range to have multiple civilizations and so on, but are only found on one, maybe two continents. Alongside those, there might be a dozen or more sapient races per continent that inhabit a relatively small range, like just the forests of Nin, or only the desert of sand, or what have you. These would likely be either tribal or a single, united civilization (exceptions could easily exist). I'll leave the seas Adobe for now, but on such a world, there will almost certainly be sapient sea folk. My point is, that I think that if this model meets with approval, we should decide on the major races jointly, because they will span over most of the regions we are developing. Medium ranges ought to be a joint project to, between the folks whose regions will include them.
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This is true... Certainly a risky proposition. Also, to reply to Stink's implied accusation of Wilson, let's ask ourselves the question: What if she is evil? What has she done? She outed Alvron as the OC Shard of Dominion, and led the lynch on him. She led the lynch on Eol, another OC. She identified Haelbarde as Odium, even though it it's likely that he has passed on the Shard by now. If she is on Team Evil, she certainly gets the Threw My Own Team Members Under The Bus award for this game. That's either half of her team, or more than half, depending on whether there are 5 or 6 champions. If she's evil, she's been playing for our side and betraying her team. And Wilson's not a person who betrays her team. She has never, to my knowledge, broken an alliance that someone else didn't break first. So maybe she has a strategy with this. Maybe there is some sort of tactic that involves getting half of your own team deliberately killed. Maybe it's to get herself so deeply in our trust that we could never lynch her. Let me tell you this - Wilson doesn't survive a game. She plays these games expecting to die, and to die early. The evidence is so hugely against Wilson being evil that honestly, your accusation is suspicious in and of itself.
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Well, that was a game-changer. I invite the new holder of Endowment to invest in me tonight with Dominion. Send me a message with your identity, and Cultivation and I can get PM's set up to coordinate. I hope there won't be any more coordinating necessary, but with how many shards have been dying, that hope seems to be very faint. For now, though, I will vote for Hael I highly, very highly doubt that he's Odium still, but he is a known Odium's Champion, and we probably should whittle down the evil Shards' ability to invest in allied players.
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I'm still alive? Well, one more cycle for me to try and work out this conundrum. I was not expecting Alvom to be good. That's thrown my thinking for a loop, made me start wondering if some of the files who I thought I could trust are really all that trustworthy. But gamma is still on my watch list. For a sport time last cycle, I started believing he might be good, and then I did the math and found that he was among the who could be evil. My confidence in that math is a little lower now. I need to go back and work more out. It might still be worth lynching him. Whoever we lynch, we need to watch the vote carefully, though.
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I don't have the time for this, but to heck with it. Count me in. Those of you who are aware of my projects (and if you're not, at least a few people have reported that they are fun looking at, so it might be worthwhile) know that I'm good for whatever you need me for. Culture and religion, though? Those are my specialties. I can do mapping or climate/physical worldbuilding well enough if you want my input on that. Oh, and cosmology. I like cosmology.
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Hmm...setting-wise it could be difficult, but I could see it working out. Balance-wise, on the other hand, now that's another thing. It wouldn't last long. But if there were enough protection roles, and if the Eliminators could coordinate the protection well enough, I could conceptually see them possibly winning. And that's the key, right? For it to be balanced, each side has to have a reasonable chance of winning.
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I'm tempted. I'm really tempted...
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I'd be in.
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Storm it! Ok, retooling time. I don't expect to survive the night, so I'm going to post all of my suspicions and analysis. Two people are completely inactive. I hope that one of them is an eliminator, but I will proceed under the assumption that they are not, because that is the worst-case scenario. Feligon and SilverDragon won't show up at all. Bort has been active on the shard, but I believe he has quit the game. In any case, I believe he is/was good, based on the Shardplate incident. That leaves 7 people. I know my alignment, and after the eliminators lol me, you'll know it too. That leaves 6, with either 3 or 4 conspirators among them. Of them, I believe that I can trust Shallan implicitly. Paranoid King is likely good, in my estimation. Orlok doesn't make sense as an eliminator. He was inactive, but they didn't need him to come back. They are winning well enough, a better tactic would have been to fly under the radar. That leaves its with venture, gamma, and macen. There's only 3 of them, and maybe 4 eliminators, so either I've been deceived, an eliminator is inactive, or there are only 3. (The best scenario would be: there's only 3 more eliminators and one or more is inactive, but that's pushing credulity) My heaviest suspicion tonight falls on gamma. I formally suggest him as a target for the assassin. He's hit the sweet spot of seeming to be active without really being helpful. In addition, he's the mist experienced player left, and it grows increasingly improbable that he hasn't been singled out as a threat by the eliminators. Unless he was one of them. That's my swan song. Hope it helps. If I live through this, I'll analyze more.
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Thank you, Paranoid King and Shallan. Hopefully this discussion isn't too little too late. I can get behind Shallan's request for a surviving artifabrian or guardsmen/assassin to contact either myself or her. I should already have a PM with you (I'm pretty sure I have one with everyone now). EDIT: Nobody's posted since me, so I'll edit in a vote. Alvom. Here's my gamble.
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You brought featured forum members to the Shard. That deserves an upvote, and a compliment.
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Just to make Odium happy - Hael
