A knife might be a knife, but daggers are for killing people.
Jamelia's going to need more than killing people if we want victory to mean anything, long term.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Jamelia's going to need more than killing people if we want victory to mean anything, long term.
It's not hubris. It's a rhetorical trick based on the fact that I want her to have a sweet Assassin's Creed bracer so I frame the argument to make things look like my choice is the only correct choice and everything else is obviously wrong.
Completely different.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Says you. If she kills all her enemies with the knife, then by default she wins because there will be no one against her. Also, she is an NWO Agents who is an reincarnation of an Assassin, a sweet knife just fits thematically for her as something that brings down Empires, kills Heroes and Emperors, end entire bloodlines and legacies. Cutting down what once was and letting something new grow in it's place.
NonSequtur
a body
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] An ornate bracer full of complex clockwork and engraved blessings, intended for an assassin.
Grimoire: Tale of the Ixoi
I will note that you already do have a grimoire from when Donald found that rare book about the Ixoi Jamelia wanted way back in Act I.
It's a Tale of the Ixoi, a book made out of four stories, each describing one assassin, whose name has been forgotten to history. These Four Famous Ixoi each taught a life lesson.
The Smiling Man killed those who would abuse their wealth and power with drugs and poisons, hidden in their drink or sprinkled on their clothes. These poisons killed via many ways, ravaging both body and mind. Those who understand the power of drugs and potions may raise their Life and Mind to 1 if they lack it by understanding how to sense the poisons he used, or from 3 to 4 if seek to learn by crafting these poisons. If one understands herbal medicines (Medicine [Folk] or Medicine [Alternative] at 4), they may finally master their understanding of herbs and poultices (raise to 5). The seeker of knowledge must make these poisons, then ingest them, showing that they are pure of body and mind.
The Prelate found those who took their gifts and cloistered them into ivory towers and tomes of hidden knowledge rather than share their understandings with the people. She killed in person, with red-hot blades and clockwork machines. Those who understand the joy of tool-making may raise their Forces and Matter to 1 when they are inspired by the tales of her infernal deathtraps. Those who have nearly mastered the art of engineering may raise both spheres from 3 to 4 if they read the descriptions of her tools carefully and seek to create models-the descriptions are purposely flawed and fail to work, but by finally understanding a working version, they learn both how to craft tools (Engineering [Mechanical] to 5) and when mundane skill becomes divine art. These tools must be used to draw blood from someone not the creator, showing that the reader is more than a mere intellectual but can take tools and put them into action.
The Hooded Judge targeted those who had slain many in their bloody battles, and he had them judged and torn apart by the victims of their sword and bow. Those who understand the power of the spirits inside everything may learn Entropy and Spirit 1 by understanding the rituals he used and how to disrupt them; or raise them from 3 to 4 by understanding the power of the rituals and the journeys he made to the Underworld. The Hooded Judge's writings also teach of the ways of spirits, allowing a reader to understand and identify the powers of spirits and wraiths (Lore: Spirits and Lore: Wraiths to 2). To fully understand these rituals, the Judge's disciple must find someone who has committed great crimes in wartime and bring them to justice.
The fourth and most dangerous of the Ixoi was the Mercykiller, she who targeted those whose soft hearts caused their nations and passions to fall to ruin. She drove her victims to suicide, showing them dreams and visions of everything they loved and held dear crushed. Those who understand the power of the spoken word may learn Correspondence and Time 1 by reading how her victims sought to protect themselves from her. Those who have killed with the spoken word may learn Correspondence and Time 4 if they have the sphere at 3, by understanding her methods of scrying great distances and how she twisted the predicted future as to most benefit her. The Mercykiller's deadliest weapon was her tongue, and those who understand how honeyed words can hide great poison can learn much from her speeches (Subterfuge from 4 to 5). The Mercykiller's student must, to become an Adept, turn someone's compassion into cold determination.
Should one understand all four stories, they can decode the last chapter, where the four legends finally meet, discuss the truths of the world, and become the unified leaders of the Ixoi. This chapter has the sacred initiation rituals, where one must kill four unjust magi in the ways of each of the Legends.
Should a mage succeed, they may be initiated to Arete 5, and if they have a knowledge of Prime, may understand the truth behind the world (Prime from 4 to 5).
...so Donald can get Life 1, Mind 1 and a really good page-turner. He could arguably learn Entropy 1-if he gets a proper write-in about understanding the animist traditions.
Last edited:
Donald hasn't taken the Mercykiller's lessons to heart and twisted someone's compassion into cold determination. If he wants to, there's always Serafina! Or Rose! What could go wrong?
Didn't he do that to himself already?
I could have sworn he did.
(I think it was back when you was deciding what to do about his rogue council ex-girlfriend.)
Also,
Cemal's Gift:
[x] Write-In: Cemal's entropy paradigm.
I don't particularly care about the form it takes, but I'd like to learn it. Remember, once Jamelia gets enlightenment 6 back, she will be able to use it in addition to all the others she has. Further, it should give her a few unexpected abilities which are mild enough reality deviancy we will be able to make use of them.
WickedWitchOfTheWeb and her friends are lucky they came here now, instead of a few years earlier when the Threat Null invasion was still in full force. Concentration camps for working gingerbread men to death. Factories that dissolved denizens of Candyland and transformed them into tortured war machines. The horrors of Candyland are nothing compared to what she could have seen.
Many brave men of the King's Nutcrackers died containing the Transhuman-engineered Candy Kaiju in Gumdrop Forest.
The decision King Candy made to drop the Atomic Jawbreaker was not a easy one to make. In the end, it consumed him with guilt and now the mad king wanders the realm, seeking a death the realm itself cannot allow him.
That was actually the Euthanatos's doing. It might be harsh-but in the end, all dreams have to grow up. And maybe though Candyland is suffering from this ruined age, it might rebuild itself greater than what came before.
Or it might collapse into an eternal war between various types of candy, a failed state that represents the cut-throat competition of the big candy manufacturers. Either way.
In other news, sales of candy to children have plummeted. Dentists cheer as kids get 10% fewer cavities on average.
First of all that looks like it took a MASSIVE investment from an entire group of ixoi to make, or else was the magnum opus of a grandmaster of the order or something.
And I find it interesting how much Jamelia seems to align with Mercykiller. Perhaps she needs to raise her time to 3 before taking a read. She understands what Reality Deviance fundamentally is now after all.
Also, they got it in the beginning of Act 2
It was 4 adepts and a master, and the fact that its conditions are so absolutely harsh make it a lot cheaper than you'd think to make. More importantly, Donald is not a buffoon. He is very good at finding, buying, and selling things.
(The other fact is that for the vast majority of people this grimoire is useless because you have to be a certain type of Not Very Nice person to use it, and being a Hermetic rare books shop, they're not selling to Euthanatos.)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] An ornate bracer full of complex clockwork and engraved blessings, intended for an assassin.
Stabby Good.
Stabby Good.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
So what you are saying is that there is potential profit to be made from selling/trading this with moderate Euthanatoi?
CAPITALISM AWAY!!!
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Or, you know, just let Jamelia read it.
At the moment an action car chase is going through the streets of the dream realm of Hollywood with a stolen car containing a cyborg terminator All-American action hero, a lesbian cyborg ninja Russian space cadet, and a confused twenty-two year old Palestinian waitress. Until seven seconds ago, they were being chased by a helicopter. Then the lesbian cyborg ninja space cadet poked her torso out the sun roof, shot it repeatedly, and it blew up.
Illiyeen is, as previously mentioned, very confused. She's belted in tight, and flinches at every single explosion. This means she is in a perpetual state of flinch, considering her surroundings.
"What's your name?" the hulking man who's driving the car says in strongly-accented, but passable Arabic. It used to be a car which belonged to a group of soldiers, but then the man and the woman happened to them. "My name is John. John Kessler."
Illiyeen swallows. "I-Illiyeen. Illiyeen al-Hassaq," she says.
"Okay, okay. How old are you, Illiyeen? What year is it?"
That's... uh, quite a question. Maybe he's checking her for shock, she considers. That's what medics do. "I'm... I'm twenty-two," she manages. "And it's 1971."
John says something in English to the blonde. Illiyeen hears her own name repeated, along the numbers she's just said. She's almost certain that the blonde swears, although she also strongly suspects that wasn't English. It sounded different. She... uh, well, she's somewhat familiar with English profanity. Americans use it all the time.
"Seventy one? Wow. I was in fourth grade," John says cryptically. "Never mind that. Okay. Where are you from, Illiyeen?"
"Uh... well, I w-was born in Beirut, but..." she looks out the window. "I... I think I must have moved to the US recently. Because this is Hollywood, right?"
"Yeah, it is," John says. "Beirut, eh? So you're Lebanese?"
Illiyeen shifts in her seat. "Uh..." she says. This is sort of awkward. "My m-mother arrived in... uh, '47, so... uh, I don't. Um. Have any papers."
He looks away from the road and gives her a peculiarly penetrating gaze. She's suddenly struck with the conviction that he's quite a lot smarter than he looks. "Huh. Palestinian. I'd wondered about that."
"Eyes on the road! The big truck doesn't look right," she shouts at him because he's coming up awfully fast behind a lorry and now the back is coming down and there are men inside and...
... there's an explosion inside the confined area and quite a lot of red. Illiyeen looks away and gags, as the blonde does something with the big gun she's carrying. Steam comes out the sides, and she says something to John. He holds the wheel, and the blonde leaps out of the sunroof onto the roof of the car and into the back of the truck she j-just killed all the people in. She returns a few moments later, carrying big weapons in both hands which she drops through the roof before coming back down.
John says something to the woman, grinning.
"Wh-who are you people?" she whispers.
"Okay, okay," John says, gunning the engine and overtaking the truck. He's steering with one hand while he fires a gun out the window with the other. "So... does the name 'Technocratic Union' mean anything to you?"
Illiyeen flinches. It's not from the sound of the man's gun. Well, not just from that. It is very loud. But there's a momentary stabbing pain in her head and she feels all... cold. Cold and funny and... and then it's gone. "N-n-n-no," she stammers.
"... well, that's who we are. Among our other roles, we protect the world from aliens. Like that thing in the sky," John says.
Illiyeen's heart is beating like a drum, and her palms are sweaty. She's so scared, she thinks clinically, that it's somehow swamped her and she's... she's in the eye of the hurricane. In about an hour or so she's going to start screaming and not stop until she has some answers. That'll be quite satisfying. Right now, her body is just doing whatever it takes to survive and her mind is coming along for the company. "... I can accept that," she says.
"So..." John says conversationally as he takes a short-cut into a shopping mall, smashing through the front door and the blonde swears at him, "you noticed that that truck was off. Do you know why?"
She has to admit, she doesn't. "No. But I... I've been g-getting these gut feelings," she whispers. "Ever... ever s-since I... I p-put the things t-together about the... the strange building with the p-pale bald drivers."
"What strange building?" he asks. "Why not tell me, eh? It'll take your mind off things."
So hesitantly, stammering, she does so, as he drives the car into a shop front and listens intensely for signs of pursuit. "Just waiting here for a while," he tells her, while she talks. Or at least she gives him the abridged version of how she worked out there was something odd about the building and about the NOM and the UT she'd heard mentioned.
John bursts out laughing. This doesn't make her feel any more comfortable. "I'm not laughing at you," he says, "but... ah ah ha. Wow." The worst thing is that yes, she's sure he's telling the truth and he isn't laughing at her.
The blonde snaps something at him, and he pulls some kind of weapon from his coat and tosses it to her. Illiyeen glares. She's not sure how it fit in there. This reminds her she still has the gun he gave her. She's keeping her fingers well away from the bit which makes it fire. It's quite heavy, really. The blonde and John talk, and then they're off moving again, smashing out of the other end of the mall, and re-merging into the traffic.
"So, let's listen to those gut feelings of yours," John tells her, as they head towards the highway. "What's yours telling you? What's the biggest danger around here?"
Illiyeen looks around wildly. "I d-don't really know," she begins, "but... uh." Her eyes settle on a policeman coming up behind them, riding a motorcycle and wearing mirrored shades. Something about him catches her eye, and she feels a sinking feeling. "I... the policeman. He looks dangerous."
John swears. Loudly. And in several different languages, including some she doesn't recognise at all.
Illiyeen is, as previously mentioned, very confused. She's belted in tight, and flinches at every single explosion. This means she is in a perpetual state of flinch, considering her surroundings.
"What's your name?" the hulking man who's driving the car says in strongly-accented, but passable Arabic. It used to be a car which belonged to a group of soldiers, but then the man and the woman happened to them. "My name is John. John Kessler."
Illiyeen swallows. "I-Illiyeen. Illiyeen al-Hassaq," she says.
"Okay, okay. How old are you, Illiyeen? What year is it?"
That's... uh, quite a question. Maybe he's checking her for shock, she considers. That's what medics do. "I'm... I'm twenty-two," she manages. "And it's 1971."
John says something in English to the blonde. Illiyeen hears her own name repeated, along the numbers she's just said. She's almost certain that the blonde swears, although she also strongly suspects that wasn't English. It sounded different. She... uh, well, she's somewhat familiar with English profanity. Americans use it all the time.
"Seventy one? Wow. I was in fourth grade," John says cryptically. "Never mind that. Okay. Where are you from, Illiyeen?"
"Uh... well, I w-was born in Beirut, but..." she looks out the window. "I... I think I must have moved to the US recently. Because this is Hollywood, right?"
"Yeah, it is," John says. "Beirut, eh? So you're Lebanese?"
Illiyeen shifts in her seat. "Uh..." she says. This is sort of awkward. "My m-mother arrived in... uh, '47, so... uh, I don't. Um. Have any papers."
He looks away from the road and gives her a peculiarly penetrating gaze. She's suddenly struck with the conviction that he's quite a lot smarter than he looks. "Huh. Palestinian. I'd wondered about that."
"Eyes on the road! The big truck doesn't look right," she shouts at him because he's coming up awfully fast behind a lorry and now the back is coming down and there are men inside and...
... there's an explosion inside the confined area and quite a lot of red. Illiyeen looks away and gags, as the blonde does something with the big gun she's carrying. Steam comes out the sides, and she says something to John. He holds the wheel, and the blonde leaps out of the sunroof onto the roof of the car and into the back of the truck she j-just killed all the people in. She returns a few moments later, carrying big weapons in both hands which she drops through the roof before coming back down.
John says something to the woman, grinning.
"Wh-who are you people?" she whispers.
"Okay, okay," John says, gunning the engine and overtaking the truck. He's steering with one hand while he fires a gun out the window with the other. "So... does the name 'Technocratic Union' mean anything to you?"
Illiyeen flinches. It's not from the sound of the man's gun. Well, not just from that. It is very loud. But there's a momentary stabbing pain in her head and she feels all... cold. Cold and funny and... and then it's gone. "N-n-n-no," she stammers.
"... well, that's who we are. Among our other roles, we protect the world from aliens. Like that thing in the sky," John says.
Illiyeen's heart is beating like a drum, and her palms are sweaty. She's so scared, she thinks clinically, that it's somehow swamped her and she's... she's in the eye of the hurricane. In about an hour or so she's going to start screaming and not stop until she has some answers. That'll be quite satisfying. Right now, her body is just doing whatever it takes to survive and her mind is coming along for the company. "... I can accept that," she says.
"So..." John says conversationally as he takes a short-cut into a shopping mall, smashing through the front door and the blonde swears at him, "you noticed that that truck was off. Do you know why?"
She has to admit, she doesn't. "No. But I... I've been g-getting these gut feelings," she whispers. "Ever... ever s-since I... I p-put the things t-together about the... the strange building with the p-pale bald drivers."
"What strange building?" he asks. "Why not tell me, eh? It'll take your mind off things."
So hesitantly, stammering, she does so, as he drives the car into a shop front and listens intensely for signs of pursuit. "Just waiting here for a while," he tells her, while she talks. Or at least she gives him the abridged version of how she worked out there was something odd about the building and about the NOM and the UT she'd heard mentioned.
John bursts out laughing. This doesn't make her feel any more comfortable. "I'm not laughing at you," he says, "but... ah ah ha. Wow." The worst thing is that yes, she's sure he's telling the truth and he isn't laughing at her.
The blonde snaps something at him, and he pulls some kind of weapon from his coat and tosses it to her. Illiyeen glares. She's not sure how it fit in there. This reminds her she still has the gun he gave her. She's keeping her fingers well away from the bit which makes it fire. It's quite heavy, really. The blonde and John talk, and then they're off moving again, smashing out of the other end of the mall, and re-merging into the traffic.
"So, let's listen to those gut feelings of yours," John tells her, as they head towards the highway. "What's yours telling you? What's the biggest danger around here?"
Illiyeen looks around wildly. "I d-don't really know," she begins, "but... uh." Her eyes settle on a policeman coming up behind them, riding a motorcycle and wearing mirrored shades. Something about him catches her eye, and she feels a sinking feeling. "I... the policeman. He looks dangerous."
John swears. Loudly. And in several different languages, including some she doesn't recognise at all.
Last edited:
- Location
- in the trash
Now would probably be a good time for Kessler to cast plasma cannon.
Last edited:
But I want to skip ahead to the Punching Things Until They Explode part.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
It's just not as good if you skip past the bit where you blow giant holes in them, though.But I want to skip ahead to the Punching Things Until They Explode part.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
But I want to skip ahead to the Punching Things Until They Explode part.
It's just not as good if you skip past the bit where you blow giant holes in them, though.
How about we compromise? Kessler can make himself like plasma cannon fists that he can punch and shotgun people in the face with at the same time.
- Location
- in the trash
But I want to skip ahead to the Punching Things Until They Explode part.
It's probably the T-1000. Which means it can just regenerate when you punch it.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
So, basically, Technocratic version of Falcon Punch?
I dig it.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
The T-1000 can't actually regenerate. Punching is bad because it just moves the nanites that make its body up around, and it can just move them into place, but there's some stuff that can damage them, and it still has a single processor and if you can hit that it'll crap out. It's not a case of 'every nanite is a processor', as we saw when the hook arms got thrown off the back of the car- they stayed in their set form until nearby the whole.
But yes, casting plasma cannon might be good.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Illiyeen vs Rose, the moe battle everyone needed but nobody deserved.