It's also still possible to tell the script to count from a post number instead of from the last threadmark.
Knight of Dandriss: Stone and Steel
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
I asked on IRC earlier, the cube mainly inflicts free association nightmares based on her worries, issues, memories and speculation.
There is a hidden willpower roll for how stressed this makes Ella, and sustained stress may produce negative traits or health. We don't get to see the stress level until symptoms appear.
So, don't read too much into the nightmares. Anything can spark one.
Additionally, we have gotten our first year of willpower training. Toggling the cube is a free action, and we PROBABLY want to take a turn off to relax before resuming. Every other turn isn't quite SAFE, but lets her unwind a bit.
- Location
- Canada
+ 0.5 will a turn, with a decent chance not to gain negative traits seems pretty good.
Unless/Especially if it may lead to the crazy Trait farming plans that proliferated near the end of the last AoS quest. (bugged the hell out of me, but many people really liked the idea/plan)
Unless/Especially if it may lead to the crazy Trait farming plans that proliferated near the end of the last AoS quest. (bugged the hell out of me, but many people really liked the idea/plan)
lordchaos99
(I have left SV)
Hey, I'm all for Trait-Eugenics
Education is a very important part of civilisation and needs to be Minmaxed and Optimised as much as possible
Education is a very important part of civilisation and needs to be Minmaxed and Optimised as much as possible
lordchaos99
(I have left SV)
In real life yes
In the previous game and hopefully this one traits can be trained (albeit with dice rolls)
In the previous game and hopefully this one traits can be trained (albeit with dice rolls)
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
I want to get one more turn out of it. A two turn combo with a one turn break means we go from .5 willpower to .66 per turn, and part of the reason we got the cube in the first place was to take advantage of it as quickly as we can, as safely as we can.
AN predicted exactly that.
He seemed inordinately gleeful at the prospect.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Well far be it from us to deny him his entertainment. Even we get to have table scraps as he laughs maniacally. That said, I suspect AN hoped more along the lines of a straight five-year block of cube use so we could push willpower to ~15. Safety is a very close second concern to speed, for me, so while I'm willing to do some minor experimenting with our limits, I do have the self-control not to do straight cube-years until we hit the age soft cap of the stat.
lordchaos99
(I have left SV)
Then simply not have us swap over to our Eugenics-Kid
Keep control of Dia and raise Mirande as a powerful adviser
Then incorporate it into the Education system and Timeskip a generation or two, where everyone is stronger so the bonuses are worth less comparatively
You actually have the rate reversed. Due to our low willpower, the Cube must be used sparingly at the start, then frequency increases as we get mentally resilient enough to shrug off consecutive years of nightmares to when we near the cap and don't need to stop.
The roll to see how fucked up you get is willpower.
That way lies assuming the system is an incompetent POS despite generations of people improving on it, yet is easily exceeded by a PC in a decade and everyone else suddenly transcend their issues alongside though
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Which is why I don't want to be more frequent than a two year binge. We're at 9 by year's end, I'd like to have 10 before shutting it down for a year, at least.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
With a hidden roll, the only things we can look at for a guess at how well Ella handled it is her waking reaction. It was actually rather restrained, and her first reaction was only that of a particularly revolting or creepy sight. Besides, she also did well enough on the check to distinctly know when the dreams are over, and normalcy returns.
If I had to guess I'd say it was around the low 80's, and that we're definitely safe to try another, given the security blanket of 'I know this is not a dream anymore.'
Hmm...we'll see. I'm open to adjusting based on a per turn assessment, but managing voting discipline is going to be hard, especially when Ella's Proud trait encourages her to downplay any show of weakness, and its explicitly fallible narration.
If we see symptoms we've already overshot
If we see symptoms we've already overshot
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Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
I consider the comparatively objective bonus reward; that is, being able to definitively not fall victim to the delusion that reality is a dream, to be a good determining factor of a high check result, despite the 'keep calm and enter fetal position' moment just after waking up (especially because that moment really was as quick as a moment before shrugging it off).
3.6
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The hunt for the dragon(s)
[X] Attempt negotiations (Success, 0 Economy cost; failure, -1 Economy cost and unhappy populations)
[X] General soothing (Broad approach to all upset parties)
Hunt Luck (55)
Forest Patrol (97)
Rail Patrol (65)
Returning to Razorleaf Meadows with her rapidly repaired mech in tow and alongside veteran hunters, Ella immediately joined in on the dedicated hunt for the dragon in the woods. She would deal with the political problems once she had finished dealing with the immediate consequences of Messer's visit. Considering the flying nature of the beast, she had an unpleasant theory that this could take a while.
It took three weeks, at which point her men stumbled upon the nest during part of what was sort of an extended version of one of their regular patrols. They immediately called for backup even as they set up their heavy weapons to take care of what they found. Being in her mech, Ella was one of the first to arrive at the scene, although she obviously had to stop well before arrival to minimize her sound signature. The report from the company on site was that they had not conclusively determined if the wyvern was around, but this was definitely the nest. There were ruptured cocoon sacs and there were bones and scraps carrion about. Only humans, reavers, and dragons were killy enough to drive away scavengers and other predators, and dragons were usually the only ones that actually left that sort of mess behind. Judging from the number and size of sacs and the detritus that had been left about, the dragon(s) had made more of their number via conversion of local wildlife. Since those ones were smaller, it was hard to tell how many had survived and thus remained a threat, but there was likely somewhere in the ballpark of half a dozen lesser or degenerate sized specimens running about. Hazardous, but the sort of thing that the infantry on their own could deal with fairly well.
The big trick would be in bagging the wyvern and any larger ones that might be present so that the little ones would just be clean up duty.
Ambush (Mil+Intr) 81 + 31 = 112
In that, it was a simple matter of waiting. Staying in low power mode and thus perfectly still, Ella allowed her passive sensors to scan the forest around her. From a distance the nest was a fire damaged stump of an elderly tree, its interior partially hollowed out by the forest attempting to reclaim the occupied territory. The too delicate looking remnants of red, membranous sacs and the detritus of dead animals gave away that a very specific type of predator lurked within much of the time.
Soon enough the wyvern returned bearing a roachrhino pup in its talons. A part of Ella boggled as her combat computer ran some calculations and the degree to which the beast did not have the wing-to-weight ratio to do that defied physics even worse than normal. Casually the beast let go of the already dead creature and let it drop to the forest floor, where its own weight and heavy external carapace caused it to rupture and splatter almost comically. Almost immediately a number of roughly human-sized linnorms and dracoserpents slithered out of the nest and began to tear apart the carcass. As the wyvern circled, a second large dragon emerged, one that had to be the results of Messer's capture.
The first impression was of dangerous size, the second of it just being straight up ugly. The thing was definitely related to the wyvern, but it was following a somewhat different body plan. The wings were entirely without membranes and thus were more like arms with overly long, thin, bony fingers. While it could partially walk bipedally, it also partially walked on its knuckles at times. It's face was unusually flat and pugnacious, trapped somewhere between simian and avian in appearance, the eyes set in an almost human way while the teeth and jaw had mostly fused into a sort of psuedo-beak. After a moment of examination it could also be seen that the atrophy of the arms on the wyvern had partially reversed, with a pair of short but functional limbs sticking out of its chest. It's tail was long and thick and mostly dragged upon the ground, possibly a move towards a more serpentine body form, and possibly the influence of the sort of gene swapping that had been theorized but never observed among the dragons. It's scales were mostly small things, with a patchwork of larger plates scattered randomly about its body. All in all, it was just ugly. After a second of analysis though it was determined that it was probably only a lesser or common dragon, most of its apparent size coming from its bipedal stature.
With the two worst subjects definitely identified, there was only one order to give.
"Fire."
Infantry 51 + 30 = 81
Mech 95 + 35 = 130
Being on the opposite side of the ambush this time was infinitely more satisfying than the last engagement. One moment all was relatively quiet, the next every heavy gun available to them rained hypersonic rounds and missiles on the targets, saturating the killing fields with tungsten, lead, steel, high explosives, and fire. The dragons literally had no chance to even notice that they were being attacked, the first rounds arriving before the sounds of their firing could reach their ears.
Ella could only grin and say, "I love it when things go right for a change."
Discovery (82)
Marching forward into the kill zone, wary of further incursions by dragons in the area, they ensured that the creatures were in fact dead and then secured the bodies. With everyone else on overwatch, a squad of volunteers then slipped into the interior of the tree stump to check for further enemies. Ella could probably just squeeze in, but she would have no room to fight in there. Instead there was just tense waiting before the all-clear signal was given. They had located more empty sacs inside but one full one, a gestating dragon within, and it was a big one, if still incomplete. They had set a breaching charge upon the sac and would puncture it, which should be more than enough to kill it, but they obviously wanted to be away from the explosion in the confined space and the possibility it might survive the attack. Their demolition expert pressed the button and there was a loud concussion, turned into a weird bass note by the confines of the stump.
The haul of dragon bones was rather considerable. The fact that it had been your people to find them was probably going to go quite a ways towards making up lost ground over this year's trouble.
Nomads and Foresters (Cha + Mang) 93 + 29 = 122
Nomads and Local Business (Cha + Mang) 3 + 29 = 32
Returning to Razorleaf Meadows, Ella discovered that her problems for the season were still not over. While some simple temporary land management swapping had been enough to soothe the people working in the woods, trying to sort things out with the nomads and the locals on more personal matters had gone completely sideways. Thumping her head against her desk in frustration, she reflected on how it all went wrong. She had tried to convince the nomads that they needed to respect the decisions of their young adults and keep a better eye on their children; she had ended up coming off as irresponsible and implying that they were bad parents. For the locals and businesses that had been interacting with the nomads, she had tried to convince them to be more careful and sensitive and to avoid exploitative actions; to them she had come off as being heavy handed and patronizing and arrogant.
She had tried to please everyone and ended up with everyone mad at her.
*thump**thump**thump*
Intrigue Sweep (Int + Intr) 19 + 24 = 43
About the only good news was that everything seemed mostly calm after the intrigues of last year. Oh, there was gossip and slander against her, and her political enemies and rivals were certainly helping on that front, but it was both self-inflicted and not directly useful. Her problems were primarily diplomatic in nature, and they would have to remove her completely from the position to actually get anything, which was probably not in their best interests since Anna would probably assign someone different to be the military governor rather than transfer powers back to the old owners. Still, it was the sort of thing to keep on a low burner to at least be able to use as ammunition for a later push.
Ugh.
On the bright side, the new President of Xychro Enterprises had contacted her to offer apologies for the actions of his predecessor. He also was willing to make a journey out to Razorleaf Meadows to help show that there was no ill will going on here, but since it was such a long trip, he would require certain assurances. Looking it over, it basically amounted to Ella bribing the South Woods Company into giving certain trade concessions in certain regions of overlap - but not in actually contested zones. It would hurt financially, but it could go a long way towards shoring up relations, and the new president had certainly got the job for business acumen rather than as a legacy of such things. Ella would basically be bearing the cost of improving the lot of Xychro and South Woods in a small way, so she could make powerful friends by taking this sort of hit.
Still, the cost was a considerable part of the budget.
For the nomad disputes...
[] Have another go at it (-1 Culture, gives another check to undo damage done)
[] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[] Try to physically isolate them to prevent further trouble (-1 Military, a unit of infantry is occupied to keep the two groups isolated, bad feelings increase)
[] Try to let things cool off first before you take another crack at it (Nothing else this turn)
For the offer...
[] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
[] No thank you (nothing else)
[X] Attempt negotiations (Success, 0 Economy cost; failure, -1 Economy cost and unhappy populations)
[X] General soothing (Broad approach to all upset parties)
Hunt Luck (55)
Forest Patrol (97)
Rail Patrol (65)
Returning to Razorleaf Meadows with her rapidly repaired mech in tow and alongside veteran hunters, Ella immediately joined in on the dedicated hunt for the dragon in the woods. She would deal with the political problems once she had finished dealing with the immediate consequences of Messer's visit. Considering the flying nature of the beast, she had an unpleasant theory that this could take a while.
It took three weeks, at which point her men stumbled upon the nest during part of what was sort of an extended version of one of their regular patrols. They immediately called for backup even as they set up their heavy weapons to take care of what they found. Being in her mech, Ella was one of the first to arrive at the scene, although she obviously had to stop well before arrival to minimize her sound signature. The report from the company on site was that they had not conclusively determined if the wyvern was around, but this was definitely the nest. There were ruptured cocoon sacs and there were bones and scraps carrion about. Only humans, reavers, and dragons were killy enough to drive away scavengers and other predators, and dragons were usually the only ones that actually left that sort of mess behind. Judging from the number and size of sacs and the detritus that had been left about, the dragon(s) had made more of their number via conversion of local wildlife. Since those ones were smaller, it was hard to tell how many had survived and thus remained a threat, but there was likely somewhere in the ballpark of half a dozen lesser or degenerate sized specimens running about. Hazardous, but the sort of thing that the infantry on their own could deal with fairly well.
The big trick would be in bagging the wyvern and any larger ones that might be present so that the little ones would just be clean up duty.
Ambush (Mil+Intr) 81 + 31 = 112
In that, it was a simple matter of waiting. Staying in low power mode and thus perfectly still, Ella allowed her passive sensors to scan the forest around her. From a distance the nest was a fire damaged stump of an elderly tree, its interior partially hollowed out by the forest attempting to reclaim the occupied territory. The too delicate looking remnants of red, membranous sacs and the detritus of dead animals gave away that a very specific type of predator lurked within much of the time.
Soon enough the wyvern returned bearing a roachrhino pup in its talons. A part of Ella boggled as her combat computer ran some calculations and the degree to which the beast did not have the wing-to-weight ratio to do that defied physics even worse than normal. Casually the beast let go of the already dead creature and let it drop to the forest floor, where its own weight and heavy external carapace caused it to rupture and splatter almost comically. Almost immediately a number of roughly human-sized linnorms and dracoserpents slithered out of the nest and began to tear apart the carcass. As the wyvern circled, a second large dragon emerged, one that had to be the results of Messer's capture.
The first impression was of dangerous size, the second of it just being straight up ugly. The thing was definitely related to the wyvern, but it was following a somewhat different body plan. The wings were entirely without membranes and thus were more like arms with overly long, thin, bony fingers. While it could partially walk bipedally, it also partially walked on its knuckles at times. It's face was unusually flat and pugnacious, trapped somewhere between simian and avian in appearance, the eyes set in an almost human way while the teeth and jaw had mostly fused into a sort of psuedo-beak. After a moment of examination it could also be seen that the atrophy of the arms on the wyvern had partially reversed, with a pair of short but functional limbs sticking out of its chest. It's tail was long and thick and mostly dragged upon the ground, possibly a move towards a more serpentine body form, and possibly the influence of the sort of gene swapping that had been theorized but never observed among the dragons. It's scales were mostly small things, with a patchwork of larger plates scattered randomly about its body. All in all, it was just ugly. After a second of analysis though it was determined that it was probably only a lesser or common dragon, most of its apparent size coming from its bipedal stature.
With the two worst subjects definitely identified, there was only one order to give.
"Fire."
Infantry 51 + 30 = 81
Mech 95 + 35 = 130
Being on the opposite side of the ambush this time was infinitely more satisfying than the last engagement. One moment all was relatively quiet, the next every heavy gun available to them rained hypersonic rounds and missiles on the targets, saturating the killing fields with tungsten, lead, steel, high explosives, and fire. The dragons literally had no chance to even notice that they were being attacked, the first rounds arriving before the sounds of their firing could reach their ears.
Ella could only grin and say, "I love it when things go right for a change."
Discovery (82)
Marching forward into the kill zone, wary of further incursions by dragons in the area, they ensured that the creatures were in fact dead and then secured the bodies. With everyone else on overwatch, a squad of volunteers then slipped into the interior of the tree stump to check for further enemies. Ella could probably just squeeze in, but she would have no room to fight in there. Instead there was just tense waiting before the all-clear signal was given. They had located more empty sacs inside but one full one, a gestating dragon within, and it was a big one, if still incomplete. They had set a breaching charge upon the sac and would puncture it, which should be more than enough to kill it, but they obviously wanted to be away from the explosion in the confined space and the possibility it might survive the attack. Their demolition expert pressed the button and there was a loud concussion, turned into a weird bass note by the confines of the stump.
The haul of dragon bones was rather considerable. The fact that it had been your people to find them was probably going to go quite a ways towards making up lost ground over this year's trouble.
Nomads and Foresters (Cha + Mang) 93 + 29 = 122
Nomads and Local Business (Cha + Mang) 3 + 29 = 32
Returning to Razorleaf Meadows, Ella discovered that her problems for the season were still not over. While some simple temporary land management swapping had been enough to soothe the people working in the woods, trying to sort things out with the nomads and the locals on more personal matters had gone completely sideways. Thumping her head against her desk in frustration, she reflected on how it all went wrong. She had tried to convince the nomads that they needed to respect the decisions of their young adults and keep a better eye on their children; she had ended up coming off as irresponsible and implying that they were bad parents. For the locals and businesses that had been interacting with the nomads, she had tried to convince them to be more careful and sensitive and to avoid exploitative actions; to them she had come off as being heavy handed and patronizing and arrogant.
She had tried to please everyone and ended up with everyone mad at her.
*thump**thump**thump*
Intrigue Sweep (Int + Intr) 19 + 24 = 43
About the only good news was that everything seemed mostly calm after the intrigues of last year. Oh, there was gossip and slander against her, and her political enemies and rivals were certainly helping on that front, but it was both self-inflicted and not directly useful. Her problems were primarily diplomatic in nature, and they would have to remove her completely from the position to actually get anything, which was probably not in their best interests since Anna would probably assign someone different to be the military governor rather than transfer powers back to the old owners. Still, it was the sort of thing to keep on a low burner to at least be able to use as ammunition for a later push.
Ugh.
On the bright side, the new President of Xychro Enterprises had contacted her to offer apologies for the actions of his predecessor. He also was willing to make a journey out to Razorleaf Meadows to help show that there was no ill will going on here, but since it was such a long trip, he would require certain assurances. Looking it over, it basically amounted to Ella bribing the South Woods Company into giving certain trade concessions in certain regions of overlap - but not in actually contested zones. It would hurt financially, but it could go a long way towards shoring up relations, and the new president had certainly got the job for business acumen rather than as a legacy of such things. Ella would basically be bearing the cost of improving the lot of Xychro and South Woods in a small way, so she could make powerful friends by taking this sort of hit.
Still, the cost was a considerable part of the budget.
For the nomad disputes...
[] Have another go at it (-1 Culture, gives another check to undo damage done)
[] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[] Try to physically isolate them to prevent further trouble (-1 Military, a unit of infantry is occupied to keep the two groups isolated, bad feelings increase)
[] Try to let things cool off first before you take another crack at it (Nothing else this turn)
For the offer...
[] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
[] No thank you (nothing else)
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't have much hope, but I think I'm going going to start voting on a caution-heavy paradigm. Hope for two year breaks until 12 willpower and add some cube-free willpower training if we can manage it.
E: Oh hey an update! @redzonejoe which of these costs can we afford without a schedule change or with only a little shuffling?
E: Oh hey an update! @redzonejoe which of these costs can we afford without a schedule change or with only a little shuffling?
Last edited:
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
[X] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[X] No thank you (nothing else)
[X] No thank you (nothing else)
[X] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
Urgh, the problem will only get worse if we let it be. Have another go.
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
;_;
The moneys.
But for the long run...favorable relations means trade ties means money...if we had a Trading Post
Urgh, the problem will only get worse if we let it be. Have another go.
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
;_;
The moneys.
But for the long run...favorable relations means trade ties means money...if we had a Trading Post
- Location
- Canada
[X] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
[X] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
Not much else for it. At least we should make some of the cost back with those dragon bones if we handle them the right way.
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
Not much else for it. At least we should make some of the cost back with those dragon bones if we handle them the right way.
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Bring the media alongside in this (-2 Culture, -1 Economy, gives another check to attempt to fix the problem)
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)
[X] Yes (-5 Economy, additional event next turn, improved relations with Indigo Hammer and the South Woods Company)