Trutharchivist

Look, I'm not into rejecting people, really. And I don't reject you, either. But... I don't think we need salesman. We could use a front, though, and salesmen seem to me as a great front. And money could help, I guess. It's only that... Oh, I probably could never explain it. So, our front, as a salesman?

"Well, supernatural incidents are a little out of my domain, though it is close. I don't really know much about it, though I know someone who specializes in this domain, and I could contact him next time we stop in a village." Gal seems to consider the discussion over, fiddling with his backpack a little.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but it probably won't help you learn how to use mod powers, since only mobs understand their powers. You could say that being adopted by ene is worth it anyway, so I won't judge. And @Ookla the Intimidating, she needn't intimidate you. All she have to do is intimidate us, the common folk, and... Tries to imagine Lunamor's pic with a mustache, speaking like batman nope, sorry. It's just seem funny to me, probably because I watched too much of HISHE's videos with batman.

Gal turns his head toward the kid with the prophecy. "How do I know so much about magic? Well, I'm a magic researcher. It's my job very definition to know a lot about magic. I wandered the world to learn as much as I could, questioning people like I did with Minuet. Actually, about Graces I don't know much, since they are rate to encounter. The nice thing about them is that they have visible evidences of magic-usage, which not all magics have." He says all that while watching carefully for Rosalie, his hand on his backpack.

Now, I am a bookworm like everyone here. And I'm not exactly socially awkward, nor am I socially adept. I'm somewhere in the middle. But the first question caught me, and so, I'll answer it in the name of me from different ages: Me at 14-15: takes out a pencil, starts pursuing the person daring call him "smart". He's definitely not smart, and everyone should know that. Me at 16-17: gets annoyed, maybe shouts that no, he's not smart, stop saying that! Me at 18-present day: probably like vapor, acknowledging something was said yet not truly referring it in any way. About the second question, I don't really know. There were this kids, and then one day I realize they are my friends. Oh well. I probably am not an asperger, but I am a little hypochondriac, and there was a time I thought I was an asperger. I also sometimes feel awkward about social interactions and overthink them, but I still don't think I can be counted as socially awkward.

Gal made himself stop being sorry for himself, and look around him. He saw the Shadow fellow speaking with Minuet - he probably should try talking to Shadow about the prophecy, but he really didn't want to. He saw the boy that gave him the prophecy talk to the elven girl - what were those mist ribbons behind her? He almost couldn't see it. Maybe it's magic? He almost made his mind to ask her, but then he saw Rosalie drawing near them and instantly walked back. It wasn't worth the risk of being robbed. He looked to the two remaining journey-goers: the boy that was late - he seemed a few years older than Gal - and a short girl, about this boy age, that... wait. What was it with her shadow? She talked to him before, he remembered He walked back towards them, then, since they were talking and he wasn't sure about the shadow, so he just stayed around, debating himself whether to speak.

Um... I assume it's fourteen elven years? Sorry if I was supposed to understand that somehow, you did write she was 88, which is young for an elf.

An update! Because I promised to give examples and explain things. For now, we have four kinds of animals: wolves, owls, foxes and scavengers (probably hyenas specifically). We'll list each one four abilities first, then proceed to explain some of the worldbuilding. So, we'll start with wolves. Their Center, as stated above, is Longings. The more exact meaning of it is a deep need or desire for something, from being hungry (the need to eat) to being in love (the desire to be with someone). They can Harvest it from people, though if this desire is a deep part of the Harvested person it will be harder, and if he's willing to give it it will be easier. They can Harvest people against their will, though. They can also Plant their Harvest into people, making them want/need something. The shallow level of Planting - the only level you can get to without permission - is to make someone feel a general desire for an unspecified thing, and a weak desire at that. Using it wisely, though, might help open the patient to a deeper Planting. The deeper the level of the Planting is, the more specific and strong the desire/need will be, until the deepest level is supposedly love, or being very addicted to something. This can't happen unless you fully agree to it, and it could be arguable whether your unconscious agreement could be enough. And now, for an example for Cultivating. For wolves, Cultivating will be very much like the Surge of Gravitation. They can make objects attract each other, though I haven't decided yet on power limits. They could make something attract either everything around (a bad idea), specific kinds of objects (like arrows! Yep, maybe a little too much like the Surge of Gravitation), or a specific object. I'm not yet sure if they should be able using this power on themselves, though it won't allow them to fly; they could use items upward to pull themselves (a little like Lurchers), though they'd have to dismiss every pull before passing to a new one. And they might be unable to use it without touching the object that'll pull things. With this ability, a wolf pack could attract another dimension/reality/universe to their own, making the universes clash and open into each other in the area where said wolf pack is. The reason for the need in this power is because they live in a specific world in a multiverse - I'll explain more later. Now last, but not least - the ability to Fertilize. Fertilizing isn't exactly "the ability to...". It's more of a side effect, if you will, though there are who leave their powers mostly at Fertilizing - you'll see in later examples. Fertilization in wolves is, besides the fact they gain sapience, to be in constant need or desire to something they don't have. Wolf packs will usually go around the world(s) in search for something, and when they find it they go on to search for something else. They also believe that one's desire or need is above any kind of morality, which is also part of their Fertilization. Next, come the owls. Now, for anyone playing in the Let's Go Find a Dragon RP, this is the magic system Gal uses, though he'll probably be weaker than a normal Faunologos owl. The owls' Center is Thought, as stated above, and its exact meaning is actually a little bit weird. It's about knowledge and intelligence, mainly, and includes memories, since this is some sort of knowledge. I really want them to be able to access this knowledge, but because of the way the magic works I'm not sure if they should. Anyway, their Harvest basically is this: they make you forget things, and be less intelligent. It won't make you not sapient - that's an upper limit for it - but you could become annoyingly stupid. The thing is, as you'll see when we'll arrive to their Fertilization, they aren't very much interested in making people stupid. Their Planting was actually one of the hardest abilities to think of, though my real problem was their Cultivation - you'll see. I wasn't sure about them Planting knowledge, though I guess this is probably the best possibility, along with making people more intelligent. The scale for that would probably be between general knowledge about things (all things fall down) and specific, detailed knowledge (the gravity equation, along with exact knowledge about all of its applications). Again, the level of Planting possible depends on the goodwill of the receiver. The owls' Cultivation was one of the truly hard abilities to think of, because I can't see how a stone knowing something will be of any good. I guess I could make them sapience-granting creatures, but I don't like this idea, and besides, they wouldn't be able to open interdimentional portals this way, so I made it a little different. This ability will, instead, allow owls to apply knowledge on the reality surrounding them. They could, based on the direction of a moving item, its speed and its mass, change small things in its movement, making it have more friction, or making the air resist more, or making it have less mass and jump a little, or all the above, meaning affecting reality by understanding it and changing specific things. The reason they could open portals with it is because in this multiverse, universes clash naturally from time to time in specific places, called unimaginatively Clashing Sites. So, an owl... pack? How do you call a bunch of owls? Anyway, they could nudge universes to clash while they are in the Clashing Site. Of course, it limits them, because not just any place is good for a natural clashing, unlike magical clashings, which can basically happen everywhere. And since that's it for Cultivation, it's time for the Fertilization of the owls, which is a lot more used by the owls than the other abilities, because of... well, because of their Fertilization. You see, owls are Centered around knowledge, which makes them naturally curious and knowledge-searching. The owls are the scholars of the Faunologos world, and this is the real thing they pursue. Sure, they occasionally Harvest, but usually only with permission, because by nature they are less concerned with their own existence. They have immense amounts of Harvest gathered bit by bit in the years since the First Clashing, and they pass it among themselves from generation to generation, Harvesting only to keep it the same, since Fertilization does cost some Harvest. They also gather non-Harvest information - they have libraries across the world. Their Fertilization also makes them more intelligent - they could get to Sherlock Holmes or even Einstein level of intelligence by burning through the Harvest more quickly. Because this wastes Harvest, they use it only occasionally. The next creatures we'll speak of are the foxes. The magic system actually started from them, though now they are probably the worst example for it. Their Center is Change, and so, the first problem we encounter is obscurity. What is Change, exactly? They Harvest... what? Well, the best answer I can give is they Harvest people's ability to change. As you well know, one's personality usually stabilizes during one's growing to adulthood. So, foxes could get someone to stop, or at least slow, the changing process, stabilizing them where they are. This could potentially be problematic, since the process of change is better when nothing interferes with it. Their Planting is... well, by now you see I could actually just say the Planting's effects are opposite to the Harvest. Well, you can understand, then, that Planting here is making people change, which can happen to anyone, though people during puberty are more prone to it. The scale here is harder to define, but I believe you can understand that there are bigger and smaller changes. The foxes' Cultivation, now, is a really great ability. They can change the shape and substance of materials around them. Of course, changing substance takes generally more Harvest, and in changing shape they can't just eliminate matter, and the different the goal shape is from the original, the more Harvest the Cultivation takes. It might be still a little OP, but I'm not sure how to limit it more. They can open portals by changing the world around them to be more like a nearby universe - of course, there'll have to be more than one or two foxes for that - and by doing that, the universes will overlap. It might be easier to do in Clashing Sites. Their Fertilization makes the foxes capricious and prone to change their minds easily. It's a little stretch, but it also makes them naturally cunning. You can never really trust a fox. And now for the last kind of animal, the scavengers! I wasn't sure if it's referring to a specific kind of animal or generally to scavenging animals when gears offered it, and actually I'm still not completely sure. Anyway, in my mind the archetype for a scavenger is a hyena (surprisingly, not a vulture), so those would be hyenas. Their Center is Fear, which means survival sense ("this will hurt me, I won't do it"), and possibly the reverse of the wolves' Center, repulsion (the opposite of attraction: the desire to be as far from something as possible, which is how people usually react towards an animal's dead body. Does this even makes sense?). Their Harvest will be of these feelings, the fear and repulsion from things. After a Harvest, the patient will be more indifferent towards things he once feared of. Like the wolves, it's harder with fear instilled deeply into the patient, and easier with permission ("Odium, take my fear!" Sorry. Had to do it). The Planting is, again, the exact opposite of the Harvest, which means instilling fear. The scale is between general, weak repulsion to a very strong fobia from something. Cultivation, for hyenas, is the exact opposite of the wolves' powers: where the wolves pull, the hyenas push. Where the wolves attract, the hyenas repulse. Power is, again, yet to be decided upon, and specifications, again, take more Harvest. They can, theoretically, break things apart, but doing it costs enormous amounts of Harvest, since it's a very specific repulsion that also requires a lot of power. They can make interdimentional portals by tearing apart the wall between universes. Their Fertilization makes them jumpy and paranoid (a little like Vin). They will be very suspicious and wary, and some of them might be just generally scared of everything. If the rule of thumb says you can't trust a fox, it also says a hyena can't trust you. That's it about the magic system in general. Now, an explanation about the worldbuilding! The world in which the Faunologos reside in has never naturally developed sapient life form. It held only the creatures of the Faunologos, and they weren't thinking creatures yet, though the potential was always there. Then, one day, the First Clashing happened. Some creature of the Faunologos were present, and passed through. They then Harvested people for the first time - mind you, "people" here includes every kind of sapient creature imaginable, at least theoretically. It includes elves and dwarves, for example, even though I might want to distance it more from classic fantasy. Anyway, after the first Harvest, which was done unconsciously, they gains sapience and started Harvesting on purpose. Slowly, they begin realizing their abilities, and used them to return to their home world. Once there, they taught their relatives to do the same (more nudged them in the direction to sapient creatures), and so they became numerous. Some sapient creatures stumbled into the Faunologos' world, but they learned by trial and error how to resist being Harvested. There was later a war between the sapient creatures and the Faunologos, which is relevant because it resulted in the first serious appearance of the Wanderers, on which I'll expand below. They are related to Gal's kind of Wanderers, but aren't the same. The Wanderers are people who where either Harvested or Planted too many times. The thing is, when you are Harvested your mind lacks something, and it'll grow back, only in a different direction. For example, after being Harvested by a wolf, one would not wish anymore for some things he wished before, but to new things. If all the normal directions were Harvested, the mind will grow in weird directions, and might become impossible to Harvest anymore. People who are like that are counted as not exactly sane, and usually are sent out, to wander the world. The other possible direction is being Planted too many times. This, too, makes people become not exactly sane, impossible to Harvest (or Plant), and sometimes, lets them use Faunologos' powers. This is supposedly what happens when one is repeatedly affected by one kind of animal, I haven't consider yet the possibility of one affected by many. Thank you very much for reading this far. Hope you enjoyed it!

That sounds logical to me, assuming I truly understood that. I myself always wandered what would have happened to the horse if he died before Shai removed the stamp from him.

So, this is my 144th post here! I chose to make something interesting for this number because this is a much cooler number then one hundred. I mean, it's 12 squared! Far better than 10 squared. Also, I wasted my 100th post RPing, so... This magic system was already posted here, it's in my signature, but this post/topic will be far more detailed and exact, as for the aforementioned RP I gave it more thought. It's still not perfect, but it's more well built. All right, now without further ado (what exactly this word means? checking on translate oh well, I guess it works), let's speak of the magic system! So, the idea is about animals connected to human attributes, or, if you wish to look at it like that, spiritual human ideas embodied as animals. Or something like that. Said animals have a specific attribute - Center - for each kind. Examples for now are: Wolves with the Center Longings, Foxes with the Center Change, Owls with the Center Thought, and (thanks @Gears for the idea) Scavengers with the Center Fear (or survival sense). I'm open to more suggestions on this part. I want for some reasons to find a Center for cats, so I will gladly accept help. I thought of names o those animals, and came up with Biopsyche at first, later I produced the name Faunospiritum, but I now prefer Faunologos instead. Now, for the powers. Each creature of the Faunologos can Harvest, Plant, Cultivate and Fertilize, abilities that will be explained soon. All of them are related to the creature's Center. Harvest is the creature's ability to... well, "harvest" the portions of a sapient creature's cognition related to said creature's Center. This Harvest is actually the fuel for the rest of the magical powers. Each of the other abilities takes different amount of Harvest. Planting is the hardest ability, that takes the most amount of Harvest. To Plant is to influence a sapient creature's cognition in a wanted direction, based on the Center. To do it in deep levels is impossible without the patient conscious or unconscious permission, though on shallow levels it could be done, so long as there's no active resistance. Cultivating is the second-hardest ability, and takes an average amount of Harvest. This is the ability to apply the Center on the surrounding world. In a way, it's like honorsren giving radiants adhesion - the power to bind things together, being spren that "bind things" (Syl). So, with this ability, a creature will be able to "Plant" his Center into materials around him - I'll give examples later. This ability also is supposed to make them able to open interdimentional portals, because of how their world works. I'll explain it later too. Fertilizing is the most obscure ability, and might not be considered a magical ability at all by some people. It also takes almost no Harvest at all. It makes the creature have a tendency toward its Center, and also gives them sapience. I also wish to thank @Yezrien for helping on the original topic. That's it for now, thank you for reading this far.

Well, I still think the meme topics bring more amounts of rep. As I said, I'm not on the shard for a long time, and I wasn't all that active until recently. I very well might be wrong.

Gal blushed, embarrassed and frustrated at his mistake, went back to walking behind the Shadow-person and wandered what he should do. His people will probably want a thorough record and research about the prophecy and its source, but he didn't feel like talking to this Shadow again. He didn't know what other questions he could ask the Graced, Minuet. He could try interacting socially with his fellow travellers, but he didn't want to. He much preferred researching - only reading or writing while walking was hard. In the end, he decided to just walk silently, keeping as far as he could from Rosalie and the Shadow.

Gal runs after him, saying: "Wait! Are we going all this distance by foot? I am a usual traveller, and I always take a caravan, or at least some sort of convoy with riding beasts or something. We have a long way, so please tell me you don't intend us to go all this way on foot."

Alas, my rep title has changed. Doesn't really matter, I'll stay a crew leader, but I am sorry about that. On the bright side, maybe I could help with infiltration now that I am Noble, so it's quiet fine. I blame myself on that, I should have known that I shouldn't post mildly funny things on any meme topic. Edit: um... people, we haven't done anything yet about the appearance of the SEFBM in tFE! @Ookla the Counselor, we are waiting for your report. Plus, we need to do something about the upvotes I keep getting! They are starting to arrive critical levels! (Which is to say, above two in a day.)

All is lost. I am Noble now. I will do my best to stay a crew leader anyway. My mistake was posting here, apparently. So to make the Shard rules for popularity: If it's reputation you're after - go to memes. You can write even something that's hardly funny at all and people will give you rep - not much, but something. If you're after a lot of rep, be sure to post a lot of really funny things. and post memes. I do not know how to make memes - it's not about the technique, it's about the abstract knowledge, so I won't give an example. If it's knowing people you're after - go to RPs. I mean, by posting memes (and ships, apparently?) you can also get to know people (@More Cynical Than Funny is an example, I think), but if you don't want the rep RPs might be best. Or just generally post nonstop, that'll probably work too. If you really want to do something interesting, I personally think theorizing is better. Though I'm not a real theorizer, so I can't really tell. And that for a sharder with barely five months in the shard. Don't take it with more authority then it should have. If you read the full post, don't give it rep.

"Or it's this newcomer there. Are you a part of this journey?" Asked Gal, turning to him.

"By my account, there's still the fellow Minuet bought supplies for. Or is that Rosalie over here?" Gal shifts uneasily, shooting a look at Rosalie. "I mean, it's understandable that she wouldn't want to be seen..."

Just checked, it is. You may join the conversation.

Well, funnily enough, I'm here more time than you are, and I'm barely at forty reputation total. Maybe I achieved irony? And since this is my first post here, I shall request a meme.

It's safe to assume you are, I think. Your last post was after going to the market, wasn't it?

@Ookla the Ethereal?

So, tFE it is! @Ookla the Counselor, what do we have about the SEFBM in that book? As I wrote in the OP, you should probably work with Ookla the Rōnin, since you both are about spying.