Archer

The Village of Vom. South Street. Mid-day. Tion’s song was playing. It emanated from his heart, spilling out into the air where all who heard it were enthralled. That’s how he interpreted the situation, anyway. He stood in the middle of a busy village street, eyes closed, arms outstretched, and toes tapping, oblivious to the cart traffic he was impeding. A small crowd of angry commuters was gathering to shout obscenities at him, worsening the congestion in the space between the storefronts that lined the road. “Get a move on!” one angry farmer bellowed, shaking his fist. The ring of working men that flanked him nodded in solidarity. “Sh sh shhhh,” Tion chided, putting a wagging finger to his lips. His eyes snapped open stare the man down. “Don’t you hear the music?” The farmer hesitated, tilting his head slightly. Now that he knew to listen for it, he could here a tinny melody playing in the midst of the crowd. It seemed to originate near Tion, but there were no musicians or instruments around that he could see. “How?” he started to ask, but Tion quickly cut him off again. “Hold up! This is the best part.” The music suddenly increased in intensity. The sounds of several stringed instruments could be heard, as well as the unmistakable vocals of Brills the Bard. Tion immediately began singing along, loudly. “Let me tell you ‘bout the man, the man whose music spans, it spans throughout the land, the land of ballad fans.” On a whim, he flexed his mental muscles, channeling his Power. Instantly, the road lit up to his eyes with the multicoloured light of villagers’ auras. Forgoing subtlety for strength, the god of Sensation willed the citizens’ anger straight out of existence, coaxing inclinations towards complacency and obedience to dominate their psyches instead. The gathering became very quiet. “Sing along if you know the words!” Tion invited grandly, jumping into the chorus of the still-playing song. “What’s it a doubter does?” He cupped his hand behind his ear. The crowd obliged him by robotically mumbling the appropriate response en masse. “They get the chills.” Tion smirked, pushing on their emotions a little more. That increased their volume, if not their enthusiasm, which was good enough for him. “At ev’ry bar there was?” “There’s free refills.” “His patron king’s laws?” “They foot the bills!” “BIG FINISH!” Tion cried, jumping onto the running boards of a carriage to stand above the crowd. “The nobl’st man ‘cause he lives for thrills! Let’s hear some applause for the bardic Brills! Hey!” Tion pumped his fist in the air as the music abruptly ended. He held the pose as, around him, every one of his impromptu backup singers immediately keeled over, clutching their stomachs and groaning as a sudden wave of nausea hit them all. He hopped down and began strolling down the street of moaning bodies. From his breast pocket he pulled out a black flip-phone. A flashing red icon on its front indicated that he had twenty-eight missed calls. “Eh, probably not important.” Behind him, the sounds of several people vomiting could be heard. Tion ignored them. They and their town were just a pit stop on his journey. They would pull themselves out of their stupors in a few hours and blame their food or water, convinced their sing-along had been just a hallucination, as so many villagers had done before. If he was right, he had a meeting to get to. Eventually.

Rural Route No. 3. Early morning. Tion awoke on the back of a trotting highhorse. His legs, which felt like they were bound with a thin rope, were dangling off of one side of the beast; his stomach, which he noted with pleasant surprise was covered by his favourite shirt and coat, was languishing across the middle where a saddle would normally go; and his chest and arms, which were also tightly bound, hung over the over side, giving his eyes a fantastic view of the dirt road below and not much else. An overweight soldier was sitting on top of him. “No weapon?” Tion shouted up at the man. He received no response. Tion craned his neck to get a better look at the rider. His pants were standard military issue, dull and utilitarian, but he was noticeably lacking any form of metal plate or chainmail. His shoulder obscured Tion’s view of his facial features. Tion quickly came to the obvious conclusion. “Hey, you’re a courier, aren’t you?” he yelled over the noise of the wind. The man squeezed his legs into the horse’s flank, sending them into a gallop. Tion began to bounce wildly with each step that their long-legged transport took. “Facet’s face!” he muttered, irritated. “Do you mind? I’ve got vials in these pockets.” In one swift motion, Tion brought his elbows together then rammed them into the highhorse’s side. The creature, interpreting the action as a command from its rider to turn, swiftly peeled to the left. That trajectory sent the three of them careening off the road, into the drainage ditch that ran parallel beside it. They fell forward wildly, knocking them all down with a tremendous thump. Tion was the quickest to react. When, in a disconnected way, he felt his body hit the dirt, he immediately rolled a dozen meters away from the other two and began gnawing on his bonds with his teeth. To make it go faster, he shut off all feelings of pain and adjusted his perception of pleasure to make his body think that the activity was an enjoyable one. Meanwhile, the man who had been sitting on him lay on the grass, clutching his arm and groaning. The highhorse, having easily gotten to its feet, skittered about by his side nervously, unsure what to do. “Thom’s ***!” Tion blurted out another curse word, this time a rather vulgar one about Reality’s posterior region. Having sufficiently loosened the ropes around his wrists, he wriggled his arms out of them, then untied his legs before running over to take a look at the courier’s injury. The man probably had a face, but Tion failed to notice it as he lasered in on the small gash along his forearm. “Lucky, lucky, lucky,” he mumbled to himself as he rolled up the patient’s sleeve so he could begin probing the limb with his fingers. “Lucky, lucky, lucky.” Tion pulled a small flask of colourless liquid from his coat’s pocket and poured it generously over the appendage. When it touched the bloodied areas, the two fluids reacted with each other, fizzing slightly. Once that was done, Tion ripped a small strip of cloth from the man’s undershirt and wrapped the wound snugly. “You need to see a doctor as quickly as you can,” he said when he was finally finished. “Take the horse and go right away. If you attempt to take me with you, I will fight you, and you will lose. Begone!” The man, visibly stunned, rushed to comply; he stumbled to his feet, awkwardly moving towards his mount. “Go!” Tion screamed at him, waving his arms. That seemed to overcome any reservations that he might have had. Moments later, he was back atop the highhorse, on the path, riding bareback at speed away from the god of Sensation. Cocking his head, Tion listened intently to the hoofbeats as they gradually faded away into the distance. When he was satisfied that he was alone, he grinned gleefully and wandered over to the spot twenty meters down the trail where the bag of mail that the courier had been transporting had been tossed, then forgotten after the chaotic events of the crash. “Hello,” he said to it as he leaned over to peek at its contents. “What secrets do you hold?”

Dacan's Inn & Pubbery. Room No. 12. Late Afternoon. “I’d rather die!” Tion declared. The smartly armoured city guard staring him down sighed, exasperated. He waved his sword half-heartedly in Tion’s direction. “Don’t make me use this,” he intoned tiredly. The two of them had been at it for over an hour. Tion ignored him and continued to strip. His trademark black trenchcoat and blood-red shirt already lay on the floor of the inn-room they were arguing in. Now, he began to wrestle one of his heavy traveller’s boots off of his feet, hopping erratically on one foot as he did so. The guard sidestepped one particularly haphazard bounce and used the opportunity to push him to the floorboards. “Oh, boo!” Tion grumbled loudly, grunting as he tried to pull his arm out from under the bed where it had become pinned when he fell. Had he been thinking straight, he might have been self-conscious of the pale, white scars that marred the tanned brown skin of his underarm, but at the moment, he was too busy pretending to be drunk. He felt the guard’s fist grab a fistful of his curly, brown hair and lift him into the air. Tion was not a short man by any means, maybe six feet tall if he did not slouch, but the grizzled military veteran had at least nine inches on him. It was just enough of a height differential that Tion’s feet were left dangling in the air as the two of them locked eyes. Fortunately for him, Tion was incredibly strong for a being with the body of a thirty-year-old man. “I don’t think so,” he countered, then swung his right fist up to bash his assailant in the nose. He hit only air. The guard quickly dropped him as he swung, then kneed him in the chin to send him crumpling to the ground again. Tion’s vision began to swim, but he muted the pain with his Power and continued to taunt the guard. He got as far as “I’ll bet you couldn’t-” before he received kick to the ribs. Yes, he thought happily, relishing in the amount of harm that the man was inflicting. Just a little more. He reached out mentally, searching the ether for the man’s soul. Given their proximity, it was easy to find: an irregularly pulsing, glowing aura that, once he focussed on it, began to seem tangible. It was as if the man suddenly started to radiate beams of coloured light in all directions. Small, multicoloured flashes danced around his head while larger, red-tinted beams flickered like lightning from his chest, directed at Tion. Of course, the man did not know that the lights were there. As far as Tion knew, he was the only one on Hopearaa who knew how to see them. Actually, maybe Truth does, he thought idly as he reached out with his mind to amplify the flashes of red, stabilizing them with practiced ease until they no longer flickered, just shone fiercely at him. Some sensations were difficult to manipulate, but the red, anger, had always been one of the easiest for Tion to work with. The guard let out an audible grunt as his rage intensified three-fold. His brow furrowed as his body began to shake. “I’ve had just about enough of you,” he growled, raising his sword to strike. Tion, having quickly closed his eyes so he would not see the blow coming, smiled at him from the floor. “I must ask you not-” The soldier smashed the hilt of his weapon into Tion’s skull before he could finish his sentence. In an instant, all of his thoughts dissipated as darkness consumed his psyche, leaving Tion with nothing but a sudden feeling of... disappointment as he rapidly lost consciousness.

No worries, that's an easy mistake to make. However, the overlords prefer to resolve these issues through the reporting system, rather than through posts for help like these. It's more efficient. On desktop, at the top of your post, beside where it says 'Posted on [thisdate]' there's some faded text that says 'Report Post'. On mobile, it's just a symbol of a flag. Click that, and write 'accidental double topic post, please hide' when the textbox pops up. That will alert the mods and they will take it from there. If you want to edit your redundant thread to say something like 'Accidental Double Post Don't Post Here' to dissuade responses while you wait for the issue to be resolved, you are welcome to. This is what you have to do to hide a topic. Hiding ordinary posts is much easier, you just click the 'options' box at the bottom of your post, then click 'hide'. But you may not do that for threads, because they contain other people's posts in them as well. Hope that helps!

Alrighty. Say you were able to eat money. Coins, to be specific. Somehow, your body was able to extract all of the necessary energy and nutrients that you need for a day from only a fistful of your local currency, and chew and digest the discs without any problem. Conveniently, the dollar figure of the money you eat exactly equals the amount that you would normally spend on groceries on any given day. This newfound skill of yours has numerous benefits. You’d never have to do the dishes again, you could stockpile coins to avoid excessive trips to the food store, and you would never spill or burn your lunch again. Unfortunately, while each coin has a unique flavour, your taste experience is limited by your ability to combine in interesting ways the base five or so flavours you have to work with (plus any collector’s edition coins which you purchase to spice up you meal). In light of these facts, would you opt to adopt a coin-based diet, or would you stick to a predominantly food-based one? Bonus question: What do you think each coin would taste like? My parents won't let me eat currency.

The character bio system is essential for the maintenance of order in the RP. Requiring bios to be fully developed is preferable as it discourages deus ex machina solutions and encourages consistency of characterizations. However, it can be limiting for discovery writers’ development of their characters' skillsets. This is an unintended consequence of an oversight in the initial design of the system: it was oriented towards immortals and martyrs, not survivors. The expectation was that submitted character bios would be for either extremely powerful beings who were already at the top of their game, or for lesser-powered characters who would not live long enough to significantly develop because they would be promptly killed by the aforementioned immortals. The higher turnover of characters a year ago due to the frequency of assassinations and battles meant that few people survived for enough in-game time to warrant tangible development. The timeskips and general decrease in murders of late messed up that system, and the inherent philosophy of its later versions. A possible solution would be for characters to become less long-lived, but I recognize that that would be an unpopular proposal. People have become attached to their characters and want to see them grow more. Unfortunately, that is hard to fairly accommodate. As Voidus said, having an RP of exclusively weak characters has numerous benefits. The even power levels create an inclusive environment for new players and a level playing field for less aggressive characters, the inability to tank forces people to cooperate and interact with others in order to achieve their goals, and the danger of dying encourages restraint. (Regarding that last point, that applies to thread hijacking, but also to character’s responses to other’s actions. Serious attempts to kill OP legacy characters can result in them pulling out all the stops and steamrolling their opponent unfairly.) If the RP is to maintain characters’ power levels at below a certain amount, an oversight process is necessary. The best available forms of that involve a character bio approval process, then subsequent mod intervention if necessary. The first is what the Alleyverse subforum began with: mod approval based on no publicized criteria, just the evaluator’s discretion. With a small pool (one or two) of knowledgeable evaluators, this can be efficient and flexible. However, it can also be inconsistent and frustratingly vague and opaque to those making submissions. The second is the current system the RP has in place: a points-based checklist format. This setup is extremely transparent and reasonably consistent. It is also less reliant on the commitment and quality of the mod team. They have preestablished ratings to fall back on if they have not read every Sanderson book, the workload can be shared without significant decreases in consistency, it takes less time to evaluate a bio, and less workshopping has to be done to alter power-levels because more submissions are in-line with their expectations. However, the Index is ultimately just an imperfect quantification of the mod’s opinions about the value of every magic system and skill. It can actually be limiting if too strictly adhered to, as each character is able to use their skillset in unique ways which may not be reflected by their character score. Additionally, to build of Meta's point, people can instinctively focus on the points instead of simply trying to make good characters. The Index is flawed. It is not designed to accommodate characters who are more than slightly stronger than the targeted maximum level. If it was, scores like the one for Fullborns of Body Stealers would be much higher. But that does not make it meritless; it merely needs to be updated. The third option is a combination of the previous two: mods work mostly based on their own discretion while using preestablished ratings of magic types as a guideline. This generally allows for more flexibility to approve characters of varying levels based on merit instead of just power level, but makes it harder for players to know what is acceptable. Specific benefits and drawbacks vary depending how similar to the others this system is made to be in practice. Those are the three main available options. It should be noted that they all suffer from the flaw that Mac noted, how powerful a character is ultimately depends on how they are RPed, regardless of what the bio says. The decision about which to use is pretty much up to mods, as they are the ones that need to balance the time commitment with what makes for a good player experience. Whichever one is used, ones of their goals should be to ensure that people to enjoy RPing with their characters. If that involves allowing some character upgrades, so be it. But an environment must be created where everyone has fun and feels that they have an impact on the thread’s developments. While OP characters that have been approved for the purposes of plot development have the potential to make interesting storylines materialize, their success rate has been spotty, in my opinion. It is not a reflection of how well they are played, as most of the time they are responsibly used, it is a reflection of how this RP community operates. Planned plots rarely work out as designed because people have a tendency to conceal their intentions, making their efforts solo-ventures. Picking up on what Ax said about IC planning, more communication needs to happen if people want grand schemes to happen the way they envision them. Otherwise, they need to accept the reality that chaos or the dominance of the strongest personality is likely become the focus of a thread. (Those are not necessarily bad things, just potentially unexpected outcomes.) Even guilds that attempt coordinated thread manipulation, like the BoV, will be thwarted by this unless transparency and communication is improved. The idea of characters being fully planned in advance, in terms of their development and their contributions to a plotline, is probably an overly-optimistic one. An OP character does not a specific plot make, nor does giving a character skill points in bread making mean that they will not end up quitting the bakery on their first day when something interrupts their training. It is still worthwhile to make bios and try to predict the general direction a character will develop in, but I feel that the RP should allow for adjustments to characters if and when a situation warrants them. For example, if a character ends up being the villain of a thread, then they can petition for permission to raise an army of minions to throw against the heroes. And if one of those heroes learns an important life lesson during that battle, and they have been around for a while, then they can ask to swear another KR ideal. Instead of planning special OP-bios or playing to the points system from the start, everyone should just play normal characters, then have the option to make their case to either the community or a mod that, based on their current situation and past experiences, they should be allowed to have an upgrade. That’s the approach that I think would work the best. There are other options though. Something like Voidus mentioned about getting points for reaching certain milestones could work, but will likely not get the results that the community desires. If a metric based on how long a character has been around for is introduced, people could conceivably cheat the system by bringing back old characters just so they can upgrade them. A score of how much training a character has done would be ineffective as well. Let’s face it, roleplay training is generally boring to do and boring to read. Although it can be done in an interesting manner (shoutout to the Canton of Combat!), if a system is established that encourages players to focus on pumping out lengthy posts about their characters doing exercises and weapon drills that contribute nothing to any overall plot, the RP is headed in the wrong direction. The development of a character’s skillset should be integrated into a storyline, not done just to gain points. Another possibility is balancing characters’ power-ups with additional restrictions on their activity that negates the unfairness of their increased power level. This could even be extended to the location they are allowed to go to; certain threads could be labelled OP-zones for the upgraded characters to frolic in. However, these seem unduly limiting. Depending how the community decides to go forward, it may be worthwhile to test the system out in a trial thread before it is implemented. There should be enough time before E4 to do so and reflect upon how it went.

Welcome, Ecramox! Prospective authors are always welcome around here. If you're interested in talking shop, I recommend checking out the Reading Excuses subforum. The Creators corner can be be a fun place to kill some time as well. However, before you do, I suggest checking out the Shard's Master-list of Offences That Will Get You Smote, also known as the infamous Rules Post. Double posting, like you've done above, is discouraged. But fear not! You can edit your original message to include all of the information which you wished to convey, then hide the superfluous post, all using the buttons at the bottom of your post. If you have any questions about how to do that, since this is your intro thread, if you scream into the void, someone's bound to come by pretty quickly to give you a hand. This post is sure accumulating a lot of links, isn't it? For aesthetic reasons, I'm going to plop one last one in right here. Now that the formalities are over, let's talk about you! I assume you're a Sanderfan. Which of Brandon's books have you read? Which one is your favourite? Least favourite? (I'm just kidding about that last one. It's impossible to have a least favourite Sanderson book, since they're all so good. Pleaseagreewithmeaboutthat.) I look forward to seeing you around that Shard. Cheers!

I hurt Raoden, and heal nobody. David - 10 Mizzy - 10 Elend - 10 Susebron - 7 Dalinar - 10 Elhokar - 10 Raoden - 8

*2 hurt points, 1 healing. Hurt Susebron, Heal Elhokar David- 10 Mizzy- 10 Elend- 10 Susebron- 6 Dalinar- 10 Elhokar- 10 Sebarial- 2 Raoden- 10

I wish that @Kidpen had asked for a boon. (Pretty pleeeeease?)

Coincidentally, Breadmunk was also Haggar's cousin. He and Grammar had met on the sidelines of a family reunion. Stick was nowhere near them at the time, but still happened to what had transpired via some *mumble mumble* with the *mumble handwavium* and a small trampoline. Stick relayed this information to Xinoehp, thus advancing the plot. Because the author was lazy, Haggar and Grammar tagged along so Xino could interrogate them promptly if he so desired. If not, they had vague plans to picnic and *mumble mumble* in an unobtrusive manner.

Hurt Susey, Heal Sebarial David- 10 Mizzy- 10 Elend- 10 Susebron- 8 Dalinar- 10 Elhokar- 8 Sebarial- 4 Raoden- 10

Technically, it was mostly the afromentioned goat's fault, but let's not split hairs here. They were successful in drawing the attention of local law enforcement, but that was a short lived predicament because, through the use of some Rapunzel-style lassoing, they were able to narrowly escape arrest. (It was a rather close shave.)

The mudkip was happy about this arrangement. Hurray! it thought to itself. I have attracted a Truthless to raise as my very own. I wonder what these things eat?

Salut, Antoine! Welcome to the Shard. Your favourite books and characters have been covered already, so all I have left to ask you is if, while they were sleeping, Vin and Sarene were magically transported to an abandoned town in Arelon and had their powers swapped, making Sarene a mistborn and Vin an Elantrian, who would be the first to figure out what had happened and what would they do about it?

After Harmony’s revitalization of Scadrial, it took the planet’s inhabitants a while to adjust to their new environment. For example, the local weathermen, used to reporting exclusively on the activity of the ashmounts, were faced with the daunting prospect of having to talk about other forms of precipitation. Pictured below is one of the many verbal slip-ups made by the host of Scadrial Weather Watch that resulted:

The inspiration for this action was a 1987 studio recording of a band of the same name, which they'd heard being played at the bowling alley once. As an experiment, this contribution was composed before I read the previous post. The sad thing is, if I hadn't mentioned it, you probably wouldn't have noticed. I love this thread.

Welcome to the Shard, Duglis! (I love your username, by the way.) Depending on who you're looking for, there may or may not be an 'official' portrait for them. Brandon has commissioned concept art for some characters, and some of the anniversary editions have new illustrations added to them, so there's some author approved stuff floating around. Barring one of those existing, our wiki team usually searches out and includes the best art they can find for entries on The Coppermind. If you search for a character there, you'll probably find a decent fanart picture on their page. The wiki also includes a few illustrations by Brandon's official artists, like McSweeney (Although I don't remember if he or Isaac Stewart worked on Elantris): https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ben_McSweeney If that fails, Brandon occasionally posts fanart pictures he thinks are cool on his Instagram page, so you could try searching there. Reddit might also yeild some results. Edit: Foreign book covers might be useful too. Or cosplays if you get really desperate. Hope you find what you're looking for.

Personally, I think Matt Damon should play Kelsier. You know, that guy who starred in The Martian and played Jason in that amnesia struck spy series? I figure if we're lucky we can get a spinoff crossover movie out of it too. We'll call it Jason's Mist-bourne Identity.

I awaited Urteaurian Rhapsody with baited breath. I warmed up my voice, preparing to belt out the Thunderclasts and lightning very very frightening. Me! Gemmel no, Gemmel no, Gemmel no be magnificooooo line I thought was coming. Then I got rickrolled. Despite that, fabulous writing, you two! ^ This line was perfect, Itiah. ^ And this made me laugh out loud, PK. Both of you did amazing jobs altering songs seamlessly and hilariously. You deserve some internet applause!: