Aonar

Nyali. If you're telling the truth, you're either the Unlicensed Thief, Dribbler, or the Clacks/Post Master (or the Monarch). Nothing there I'm particularly against killing, and a few that would be rather beneficial, I'm thinking, to both myself and most others.

Aurum Izenry sat in a dark room deep beneath the streets of Luthadel, waiting for the news of her father's death. Not in vain hope that he had survived. Rather, vain hope that he had accomplished something with his sacrifice. She didn't have to wait long. "Ignis purgationem." A quiet voice at the door spoke her father's agreed upon watchword. Despite herself, Aurum felt hope flickered to life in her chest. The sober expression on her fath- no, her- servingman's face as he entered informed her feelings of their folly. "We failed." Hope died. He slumped against the wall, not even bothering to close the door behind him. "The explosion went off as planned. It was..." He coughed, bloody spittle spattering against the floor. "...I did not realize how powerful our Lord's alchemists had made him. I was standing well clear of the building, and it was still a miracle I survived." "We felt the explosion from here." Bismuth, her uncle, was quiet. Equal parts in awe of what his brother had done, hating him for it; for the curse it would inflict on their family. "It wasn't enough. The Lord Ruler.... I saw him... he left. Unharmed. Antimony failed. We failed." Something wasn't right. Aurum saw as her father had trained her to see. There was more this man could say, but choose not to. He thought it unimportant, meaningless. The man probably didn't even realize it, but he was holding something back. "But?" If anyone heard her, they gave no sign. "We should run. Flee to one of the far Dominances. I have some contacts in Terris. We could find shelter there, those who would sympathize with traitors to God." Bismuth always was the conservative brother. "But?" Aurum spoke louder, yet still no one responded. "Do you think that will be far enough? Will anywhere be far enough? We tried to kill God! We might as well kill ourselves now." Bismuth's face turned in disgust. "I don't care where you go, but Aurum and I are leaving. Now." "No." Something kindled in that place where hope had been. Resolve like cold steel. Anger hotter than alchemist's fire. "Aurum, -" "No!" Although she was a head shorter than the next shortest person in the room, several flinched as she rose. "You," she said, pointing to the man who had brought news of their failure, "what is your name?" "Balt, miss. Cobalt. Your grandparents started something of a trend." "Balt, what exactly did you see when the Lord Ruler left?" "He walked free of the rubble. The explosion destroyed his clothes, but he seemed unharmed." "There's something more." "A childish fancy, my lady. Nothing more. My hopes betrayed my eyes." He twitched nervously, uncomfortable. "What?" "I... When I first saw him, I thought I saw him limp. It was as if he was favouring his right side. It was only for a moment. I didn't see it again." Aurum turned away from him, snapping her fingers. "I need paper! And pens and inks!" The few remaining servants scrambled to fulfill her command, raiding the supplies the alchemists had used to painstakingly reproduce their firearm designs. "Aurum, niece, what are you doing?" "Being my father's daughter." Snatching the materials from her servants, she began to write furiously. “Aurum, stop this. We have to leave, and every minute wasted makes it more likely we will be found by the Lord Ruler.” “No Uncle,” she said, pen scratching even as she spoke, filled with energy bordering on mania. “Don’t you understand? What Balt saw wasn’t an illusion. It was the realization of my father’s vision.” Subtly, she burned brass, Soothing the remainder of her House. Soothing away sadness, hopelessness, and fear. Leaving room for old anger to grow, and new conviction to flourish. “We may not have killed him, but we hurt him. We dealt our God a blow the likes of which he has not seen in centuries, if not millennia. He. Is. Mortal. Even if we do not have the strength to deliver the final blow, it can be done.” Blowing softly on her paper to dry the ink, she handed it back to her servants. “Have copies of this made. Give it to every Noble House that will accept an Izenry Courier. Give copies too to every Skaa crime lord; most should, if not respect us, at least be willing to hear what we say by now. And they will like what they hear.” Aurum hesitated. Something weighed on her, a decision she had not realized she had made until this moment. “Have copies made as well of our alchemist’s designs, and their formulae for explosives. Not our latest prototypes or most powerful compounds, but serviceable weapons nonetheless. Give them to everyone you give my missive to, Noble and Skaa alike.” A collective gasp came from her assembled family. “Aurum!” Bismuth half shouted to be heard above the muted conversations that had broken out. “I cannot allow this!” “You cannot deny it. I am the Head of House Izenry, even if I am yet little more than a child. If you try to stop me you will simply prove yourself a coward and a traitor to our name.” Even as she spoke, she flared her brass, focusing her Soothing into a scalpel, cutting the roots from her uncle’s anger; targeting his pride, his fear, his ambition. Bismuth’s voice cooled, although the hint of disdain suggested he was aware of what she had done. “There will be chaos. Mere Skaa given weapons the likes of which we developed? We will never keep them in line. The world will change.” “Ex Ordine, Chaos. Ex Chaos, in Ordinem. That is our motto, is it not? We break the old so the new may thrive. Our world has grown stagnant. It needs to change.” He turned away from her, considering the frantically writing servants, and the frantically conspiring Nobles. After a moment, it seemed he looked further, as if watching the chaos that was already brewing above. “Be careful you do not break our world so much it cannot be repaired.” Aurum Izenry's Missive: By now, all must know what my father has done. If somehow you have missed the news, however, I will summarize. House Izenry has been preparing for this moment for centuries. Preparing for the moment when we could strike a telling blow against our God, the Lord Ruler. He was a man once, and we sought to prove he is a man still. And we have. We created the greatest weapon seen in centuries, and it caused him fear. We unleashed the raw power of years of research, and caused him pain. We sacrificed our own House Lord, one of the Architects of our Grand Design, and we caused him to take an injury he cannot heal. The Inquisition is with us. The most powerful of the Great Houses are with us. The Skaa are with us. We are poised to make the final blow against God, so we may ascend and take his place. I make you an offer, and offer you a gift, given freely. Contained within are plans to the weapons which made our God know fear. The weapons through which we can break free of his control. They are given to you without cost, as they are the only way you may survive the coming conflict, and I do not consider myself to be a harsh woman, condemning others to death simply because they fear action. However. Stand with me, and I will offer you glory and power beyond your wildest reckonings. We will be Gods together, rulers in truth after we have struck down our great Oppressor. I leave the choice to you. Action 1:

Public Action: Action 3: Set a guard around Aurum and other key members of my House.

Well, I'm sorry for not reading the rules well enough. Regardless, the offer stands. I'm in a mood for chaos, and it'll be interesting to see who takes up my offer.

All values stated in the rules were multiplied by a factor of ten. Bard told us that a while ago. (Too lazy to find the post.) Posts cost ten pennies, and Post Officers make thirty.

@Wonko the Sane Ahem. thirty pence, not three. We Postmen are able to live off our jobs. The Post and the Clacks are not a part of the Faction struggle so far as I know. However, I have no tie to any given Faction.

Judging by what happened last couple times Death was out of the picture, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want to go shopping. Anyways. Where to start? This is an unusual game, in some ways. We have various factions, Eliminators without a stated kill, and a couple weird independents. The factions share mutually contradictory win cons, with the exception of the Factions Leaders, who simply need to survive. The Clacks and the Post have their struggle, which is utterly irrelevant to everyone else. Then there's the Monarchists, who are irrelevant to the Faction Leaders, Post, and Clacks, but not the regular players. (<-Sucks to be you. ) Now, you unlucky regulars, I've a proposition. I'll come straight out, I'm a Post Officer with no other Alignment. However, I do have something useful, and I figure, you help me, I'll help you. I'm going to hold an Auction each cycle. Whoever 'donates' the most money to the Post each night will be given the Alignment of one player of their choice the next night, or, possibly, another service, depending on what abilities are available to my fellows. (Donations, of course, taking the form of PMs sent to me or one of my coworkers at night.) It's up to you, of course, whether or not you take the deal. However, I'm sure that I, and my brothers in the Post, (who I would most appreciate correspondence from tonight) could be of great use to whichever side wishes to help us achieve our victory. ~Arik, the Mercenary Postman (<-officially my character, now. )

Okay. Spoilered below is an incoherent rant roughly 3.5 months in the making. It's long. Don't feel obligated to read it. I'm mostly writing it because writing these things out seems to help me deal with them. Please forgive the typos, it was written largely on mobile.

Dangit. I don't have time (or inclination, really) for a game, but there's no way I can skip out on a Discworld one. I'll try to play, but... yeah. Sign me up, I'll think of a character later.

Sarcastic essays are the best essays. (Once, when assigned to write an essay and told to choose my own topic, I wrote an essay dissecting the validity and rational of of essay-writing as a teaching tool and means of conveying a logical thought process, ultimately concluding that essays (specifically, essays as defined and taught by this teacher) were insipid, outdated and inefficient forms of writing. Despite the fact that this was in grade seven, and my writing abilities have improved substantially over the last 5 years, I am still ridiculously proud of that one. )

@ElenionThe fact that it's a random chance, and you have no way of proving your new alignment, if you got one. The Test is very much a double edged sword; whatever your reasons are for taking it, it has a good chance to backfire on you. Taking defection as an example, there's a 50% chance it just straight up fails, and even if it doesn't, no one is going to trust you anyways.

A couple months ago, I got an idea for a game. I don't know if it'd even work, and I don't know if it'd be considered a really fast paced LG, or a particularly intense MR. Has anyone heard of a webcomic by the name of Gunnerkrigg Court? If you have, (or haven't and don't care about minor spoilers) spoilered below are the rules.

Public actions: 1: Send out invitations for the demonstration of a new technology. 2: Prepare Keep Izenry for important visitors.

Login successful. The words flashed across the display of Iosaph’s VR headset, followed by a searing bright light. It lasted just an instant too long, forcing him to screw his eyes shut. When they opened, he was… elsewhere. The town square was mostly empty –frigging timezones—but a few other players could be seen running around nearby, exploring the game. Iosaph stood still for a moment, taking it all in. The next-gen VR was masterful, sounds and images alike presented in exquisite detail. But something was wrong. It took him a moment to realize what it was. It wasn’t any flaw in the game, so far as he could tell. He felt good. Iosaph took a few cautious steps forward, before breaking out into a run. He felt strong. Every movement seemed more powerful, more graceful, than they’d ever been. Old hurts that should have flared up; a pulled muscle from last month, a torn ligament from the year before, they seemed not to exist. He had run the full length of the square before he noticed something far more worrying. He was running. In a game. No buttons, no analog control sticks. Iosaph wanted to move, and his body responded. …Well ****. I’m not playing a game, am I? Iosaph pulled up short, standing just past the NPC who gave out what looked like the beginner quests. What am I supposed to do now? “Welcome Aonar_Faileas, to Game of Guilds. Tutorial starting in 3…” The words flashed across his vision. I guess that’ll have to do. A lighted path appeared to guide him on. At the end, a small, humanoid reptilian sat, clearly waiting to be slaughtered in the due process of the tutorial. More words scrolled by. In the spirit of every gamer everywhere, Ao-Iosaph, promptly ignored them. Instinctively, he crouched low against a nearby wall, ashen skin and black clothes somehow blending seamlessly against the dark stone. The kobold’s stance changed, going from blank inactivity to wary alertness. Soundlessly, Iosaph readied his bow, nocking and drawing with a fluidity that should have spoken of years of practice. Sighting carefully, he let they arrow fly. It struck the kobold’s eye with a solid thunk, as if hitting a wood block. Sneak attack! Snipe dealt 30 damage. The mook collapsed, taken out with one hit. Solid. More words scrolled by. Again, Iosaph refused to pay attention, but he caught a word or two about magic. Right, that’s a thing. He thought a little more. …Right, I can use magic! A new kobold appeared. This one threw a rock at him as soon as it saw him. It connected, but there wasn’t much force behind it. Kobold dealt 5 damage. He didn’t wait for a second rock. “Fadaidh,” he intoned, acting without thinking, sketching a strange shape in the air. A symbol pulsed with violent scarlet light in the air in front of him, roughly matching the design he had traced. A cone of fire blossomed forth, engulfing the reptile. Fire Rune dealt 20 damage. Hells yes! This kobold collapsed as well; body that should have been burned to a crisp instead just fading away. I could get used to this. A wave of exhaustion suddenly hit Aona- Iosaph, like a brick. He saw, just as much as felt, the blue bar in the corner of his eye suddenly drop down near the halfway mark. Ouch. Maybe I’ll just sit here for a while. The light that had marked his arena faded with the last words of the unread tutorial. After several minutes, he slowly pushed himself to his feet, his mana bar largely refilled. Okay. So I can fight. How does that help me get the hell out of here? The answer was simple. It doesn’t. There were two options. Either he could wait around, hoping for something to change; maybe try talking to other players, see if anyone knew anything, or he could explore. Iosaph looked at the world around him. Well, I’ve never been much one for people. The tower in the distance looked interesting, so he decided to make that his first target. Let’s see what we can see.

Sorry for being boring. Action 1: Try for Heir. (Aurum, Argentum.)

@Voidus There's too many options! I guess I'll go with Dark Elf and drop Stealth (since I'll get it as a race perk) In favour of Farsight.

I've been listening to a lot of The Dear Hunter recently, and Wait has become Eternity's unofficial leitmotif in my head.

Is it still possible to join this? I'd like to get the stats on Dark Elves/City Elves and Spirits/Wraiths, if that's possible. Probably end up running: magic, stealth, archery, rune magic, spoken magic, regardless of race. Name will be Aonar_Faileas, like usual.

Simpler maybe, but I'm not sure better. One of the limiters I put on his powers was complexity. Something amorphous and chaotic (like a gas) should be a pain. A really large volume of air, or constantly placing columns of air in and out of time, should be either really wearing, or downright impossible with how I've laid out his powers. More like than not, I'm just over complicating things. He could achieve the same effects through other means, if you'd prefer I change it, so it doesn't make that much of a difference to me, beyond how I visualize his powers working. And no, you don't get notifications if the tag is included after the initial post.

Semi-incorporeality wasn't my explanation, it was Blackhoof's summary of it. Basically, it's just a means of handwaving Eternity being able to move outside time without bringing everything with him. He's not incorporeal, he just can't interact with things that aren't outside time. However, things don't like sharing the same physical location with other things, (even though it could be debated that they aren't, but let's not get into that. :P) so they put up a certain amount of resistance to being moved through, dependant on their density. (Creating a famisile of the normal force, letting Eternity move basically normally.) He can overcome that resistance, but he needs a certain amount of leverage to do so, both physical and mental, if that makes sense. Air is easy enough, but you won't see him walking through walls often, because it's hard to pull off, and draining if he does manage it. (So I say as the very next scene involves him doing this, but trust me, it's not a trick I'll be pulling out all the time. :P)

Does anyone else in here have RISP? (Recurrent Isolated Sleep Paralysis?) If you do, then I shouldn't have to explain why I can't sleep even though it's 2 AM, and I have to work in the morning. For those that don't, RISP is a wonderful condition, where, every once in a while, for no particular reason, you wake up in the middle of the night. Paralyzed. Having difficulty breathing. And hallucinating things that generally belong in horror novels. It's fun. Or rather, storming terrifying. Really, it's not that uncommon of a thing. Most people experience sleep paralysis once or twice in their lives. Results in a lot of claimed alien abductions, but most people put it down to a nightmare and forget about it within a couple days. I am not one of those people. For some reason, my genes happen to be just broken enough that, whenever I'm stressed, or sad, or have drank too much caffeine, or sometimes for no reason at all, I'll experience sleep paralysis multiple times. Often in the same night. It was worse when I was young, (I've had it almost as long as i can remember) although I had no clue what was going on then. Incidents were frequent enough that I ended up teaching myself most of the tricks psychologists give to people to help manage it; learning to meditate through it, distancing myself from my emotions and focusing on moving my fingers and toes to break the paralysis. As I've gotten older, they've gotten less frequent, but I still usually get one or two every few months, usually when I'm feeling particularly down or stressed. Which, really, isn't any better, because now every once in a while when I get a particularly bad one, it catches me completely off guard. Like tonight. So here I am, over half an hour later, dead tired but unable to sleep, still half convinced there's a demon lurking in the shadows of my room, and only just starting to calm down. Sleep-deprived work tomorrow is going to be great.

So these weapons/armours are supposed to be physical manifestations of the bearer's power, yes? How much work goes into creating one of these? How closely is it related to it's bearer's magic? I'd run a patch roughly along these lines: Weapons/armour are not stored physically; they are part of the mage's magic, and while not in use, have no physical form. However, summoning/dismissing is a somewhat involved process; takes several second's concentration, and direct physical contact. (Obviously, really only important to dismissing.) [As such, they can be lost or stolen while physical.] As these weapons are a physical manifestation of their maker's power, their destruction has ramifications. The raw power backlashes against it's wielder, temporarily weakening their magic and preventing them from recreating the weapon for weeks, months or even longer, depending on the mage's ability and how much of their power was bound up in it. [Breaking has consequences.] If another mage steals of one of these weapons, they can do very nasty things with it. [Not something you brought up, but it's an idea for you to play with. What happens if one is stolen by an enemy mage? Can they use it to cripple it's bearer? Consume it to enhance their own magic? Up to you, obviously, but I kind of like it.]

1: But am I wrong about you being on the Korathi roster? 3: Explain. 4: Are you trying to claim that you're a priest of Old Jesker? (The only other I can think of is the quasi-religious worship of the Elantrians.) In which case, the Korathi have no reason to lynch you, which they seem quite interested in.

1: That doesn't jive with the info Eol would have revealed to Aman. While he lied about plenty (like the fact Eol was a Jeskeri) I don't see why he would lie about you being on the Korathi roster. 2: The Jeskeri are the Cultists. 3: Again, the Jeskeri are the Cultists. Even if for some strange reason you're expanding this to include Korathi and Derethi, that doesn't work either, as that would give you a village-equivalent win con, which is contradicted by the rules. 4: No, I'm not. You're Derethi, Korathi, Kesegan or Jeskeri. Those are the only four known religions on Sel, and as such the only religions liable to be in this game. 5: That's irrelevant, and not what I meant, regardless.

But you have been Converted by the Korathi. So why vote on your Patriarch? You've claimed a non-village role with immunity to the Jeskeri. Which, I will admit, means your win con (which is what, by the way?) would be unchanged by conversion, if you are truthful. However, you know what else it means? It means that thematically, you must be a follower of either Derethi or Korathi. (I am excluding Keseg, simply because we know almost nothing about the Kesegan religion, and I feel like it would have been hard for Joe to work into the flavour. Plus, it's largely extinct in the time period this game is set in.) Funnily enough, that means one of two things. Either you are the Patriarch, or you are the head of the probably-fake second conversion faction, and either way, we should lynch you.