- Location
- The end of all things
No, because Kessler is not trading anything. He is simply seizing the blessings via force rather than giving up part of his soul.
It probably does provide some good examples of the kinds of things he might gain.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
It probably does provide some good examples of the kinds of things he might gain.
Elsa's Question:
[x] Tell her most of the truth.
This is neither the place nor the time to try to explain details, especially since we don't know how long Jamelia's actually going to keep any given persona. But lying is just... no. Not a good call. Even if it's not an explicit lie, we'd be trying to beat the party's master of deception at her own game, and Elsa's not exactly in the same league. We do not need Jamelia deciding that she needs to find her own way home.
[x] Tell her most of the truth.
This is neither the place nor the time to try to explain details, especially since we don't know how long Jamelia's actually going to keep any given persona. But lying is just... no. Not a good call. Even if it's not an explicit lie, we'd be trying to beat the party's master of deception at her own game, and Elsa's not exactly in the same league. We do not need Jamelia deciding that she needs to find her own way home.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
And the Iterators in the 90s were accepting gifts. It probably still comes at a cost to his humanity, advancing him on the path that Henrietta sprinted down.Trading? This is looting, which is something else entirely!
Kessler's Victory:
[X] Don't eat the heart. Keep it for something.
Elsa's Question:
How does Elsa explain things to Jazmin?
[X] Tell her she can't handle the truth.
Henriette's Challenge:
So now you've done it. You've made little sister madder. Concentrate on...
[X] Blaze of Glory. The core is in this room. The enemy's gate is down.
Not converting Kessler into a Dragonblooded then.
[X] Don't eat the heart. Keep it for something.
Elsa's Question:
How does Elsa explain things to Jazmin?
[X] Tell her she can't handle the truth.
Henriette's Challenge:
So now you've done it. You've made little sister madder. Concentrate on...
[X] Blaze of Glory. The core is in this room. The enemy's gate is down.
Not converting Kessler into a Dragonblooded then.
Oh my fucking god people when it's made clear that "you can't just kill something like this" and you are literally dealing with the dragon, taking its heart as a trophy, or - God forbid - actually eating it is a terrible idea. It's a trap. A deliciously MJish trap which feeds off the player character desire for loot after a victory...
... and holy shit sticking a dragon's heart into Apocalypse Canceller is a) a fucking terrible idea and b) exactly what the Progenitors would probably do. John is a guardian of the Union. Even from its own self.
Kessler's Victory:
[X] Don't eat it andthrow it away. RIP IT TO SHREDS
John stands at the site of his victory. The heart is before him. He doesn't need to use his augs to see the power. He can smell it. He can taste it. A creature like this, so old and so powerful and so mighty - it might as well have had rocket fuel for blood. Pure power, unadulterated by the weakness and the implants of the dragons of Xanadu. Power he could use. Power he needs. Power the Union could use, too. He could bring it back.
And isn't it his right? He slew it. All on his own. He killed the dragon which slew Beowulf. Men should sing about his legend. The Union will praise him. He'll get that damn promotion. Be a general for real. Something like this... if he brings it back, he wouldn't the weirdo. Well, he would, but he'd be the weirdo Ragnarok wants. He'd be a shoo-in for status. Power. General Kessler, Chair of Ragnarok Command. Has a pretty good ring to it.
"No," says John Kessler, wyrmslayer. "No," he says, with his new sense of self-awareness. Power isn't his path. It'll corrupt him. Corrupt anything they use it for. Sink into the workings of the Union and its machines. A Technocrat wouldn't think about this kind of thing, but he ain't just a Technocrat.
And here and now, he can damn well make the world a better place for everyone.
He stabs into the heart with his pitted blade again and again, slicing through muscle. Gouts of black, stinking blood well up, bubbling and burning and eating away at the ground. It corrodes his clothes and burns at his skin, revealing the primium underneath. And in the end, it's not the heart of a monster any more.
It's meat. Meat in the carcass of an oversized flying lizard, in a pool of stinking toxic burning blood.
And another myth dies.
[John Kessler - Spirit 5 - He's destroying the heart of the dragon, metaphorically as well as literally. He's beaten it. He's rejected its temptations. Maybe new dragons will arise from the hearts of men and from stories and from human evils, but this wicked old wyrm is dead and gone. Perma-kill the spirit by destroying its heart. Enhanced by STRENGTH + MELEE, RULES OF NATURE]
... and holy shit sticking a dragon's heart into Apocalypse Canceller is a) a fucking terrible idea and b) exactly what the Progenitors would probably do. John is a guardian of the Union. Even from its own self.
Kessler's Victory:
[X] Don't eat it and
John stands at the site of his victory. The heart is before him. He doesn't need to use his augs to see the power. He can smell it. He can taste it. A creature like this, so old and so powerful and so mighty - it might as well have had rocket fuel for blood. Pure power, unadulterated by the weakness and the implants of the dragons of Xanadu. Power he could use. Power he needs. Power the Union could use, too. He could bring it back.
And isn't it his right? He slew it. All on his own. He killed the dragon which slew Beowulf. Men should sing about his legend. The Union will praise him. He'll get that damn promotion. Be a general for real. Something like this... if he brings it back, he wouldn't the weirdo. Well, he would, but he'd be the weirdo Ragnarok wants. He'd be a shoo-in for status. Power. General Kessler, Chair of Ragnarok Command. Has a pretty good ring to it.
"No," says John Kessler, wyrmslayer. "No," he says, with his new sense of self-awareness. Power isn't his path. It'll corrupt him. Corrupt anything they use it for. Sink into the workings of the Union and its machines. A Technocrat wouldn't think about this kind of thing, but he ain't just a Technocrat.
And here and now, he can damn well make the world a better place for everyone.
He stabs into the heart with his pitted blade again and again, slicing through muscle. Gouts of black, stinking blood well up, bubbling and burning and eating away at the ground. It corrodes his clothes and burns at his skin, revealing the primium underneath. And in the end, it's not the heart of a monster any more.
It's meat. Meat in the carcass of an oversized flying lizard, in a pool of stinking toxic burning blood.
And another myth dies.
[John Kessler - Spirit 5 - He's destroying the heart of the dragon, metaphorically as well as literally. He's beaten it. He's rejected its temptations. Maybe new dragons will arise from the hearts of men and from stories and from human evils, but this wicked old wyrm is dead and gone. Perma-kill the spirit by destroying its heart. Enhanced by STRENGTH + MELEE, RULES OF NATURE]
Hm.
Is there a way for Donald to use this as a focus for generating tass later? Something like "People who slay dragons are generally impressive effective people, and doing all this in some sort of collective unconsciousness is just begging for a good movie to be made. Hire Kessler as lead actor in dragonslaying movie -> get tass of heart in the form of supernaturally high revenue."
Basically, I'm always looking for ways to have our cake and eat it too. If the dragon heart has too much myth for Kessler to safely handle, fine, we can wreck it - does that mean we can never get it back in a safer form, though?
(The example I raised has a glaring flaw in that we'd be resurrecting the dragon on the silver screen, but it was just an example and I'm headed bedwards anyway. Is something like that possible?)
Is there a way for Donald to use this as a focus for generating tass later? Something like "People who slay dragons are generally impressive effective people, and doing all this in some sort of collective unconsciousness is just begging for a good movie to be made. Hire Kessler as lead actor in dragonslaying movie -> get tass of heart in the form of supernaturally high revenue."
Basically, I'm always looking for ways to have our cake and eat it too. If the dragon heart has too much myth for Kessler to safely handle, fine, we can wreck it - does that mean we can never get it back in a safer form, though?
(The example I raised has a glaring flaw in that we'd be resurrecting the dragon on the silver screen, but it was just an example and I'm headed bedwards anyway. Is something like that possible?)
- Location
- The end of all things
Permanently slaying the Dragon and denying its treasures and blessings would certainly prove that Kessler is a better man than the heroes of legend. It also proves that, unlike Sigurd, Kessler now intends to live forever.
One possible issue: Kessler doesn't have the required Spirit 5, though this provides an excellent justification for raising it. This could also be considered a particularly righteous kind of loot.
[X] Don't eat it andthrow it away. RIP IT TO SHREDS
One possible issue: Kessler doesn't have the required Spirit 5, though this provides an excellent justification for raising it. This could also be considered a particularly righteous kind of loot.
[X] Don't eat it and
Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
[X] Don't eat it and throw it away. RIP IT TO SHREDS
Guys, guys guys biting into the heart of an umbral Wyrm/dragon/whatever who has been shown to have survived millennia is maybe a bad idea. I mean, this thing runs on 1) greed, 2) legends telling of its strength and 3) desire for power. We are downright playing into that if we take a bite outa it. Just...Rip the thing to shreds and link up with Elsa and the notJamelia.
Guys, guys guys biting into the heart of an umbral Wyrm/dragon/whatever who has been shown to have survived millennia is maybe a bad idea. I mean, this thing runs on 1) greed, 2) legends telling of its strength and 3) desire for power. We are downright playing into that if we take a bite outa it. Just...Rip the thing to shreds and link up with Elsa and the notJamelia.
- Location
- in the trash
In eating the wyrm heart, it is Kessler who will be devoured in turn, as the wyrm spirit corrupts and overwhelms his being.
Or something like that. Anyone have any other ideas on what horrible things might happen to Kessler if he eats the heart?
Or something like that. Anyone have any other ideas on what horrible things might happen to Kessler if he eats the heart?
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Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Just weighing in here, but remember to not get greedy. The heart isn't the loot for the victory, the victory is the loot for the accomplishment. Spirit 4, becoming the Dragonslayer- that's the accomplishment, and the victory is gravy. But take care not to become what we fight.
I don't think that every option is secretly a trap- if you vote for eating the heart you're probably going to get immense power or knowledge or whatever- it won't just be an immediate bad end, because that's not how this Quest works.
It'll be subtle. Infectious. It'll change things behind the scenes, skew the voting statistics, make certain actions easier. It'll lurk in the darkness, and skitter in the shadows at the edge of sight. But go ahead. Take it. You'll be so very powerful... and what harm can it do?
Only the world. Do you know why there are no more dragons? Why the traditions call them Bygones? The technocracy has forced them out. Them and what they represented, and those who did not die to the fires of light and order fled to the deep umbra, where some still lurk. Like this one- but Wyrms have long memories, going back to the dawn of Creation, and they hold grudges for just as long. Dead and dying, defeated and splayed open, the Dragon still hungers for what it once lost...
And it would be wise of us to remember not to invite evil into our house, not to give it a path back to Earth.
How long as Threat Null been trying to make it through the Dimensional Anomaly, to establish a permanent presence on Earth? Not a few scattered sleeper agents or other operatives doing their bidding, but a large scale presence?
John's defeated the dragon in form, but a dragon's life is its heart. Its power, its very nature is in its heart. So long as it beats, so long as it lives, then the dragon has not truly died.
Eating the heart? Sure. It's power. It's a blessing that might just be the greatest blessing we can ever achieve. It might be all the power we'll ever need.
But everything is a trade. A sacrifice- and in gaining power what do we stand to lose? Ignorance? No, we've already shed that. Hope. Taking that power, that nature into ourselves, giving it a path back to Earth, back to what really matters where it can shape and change and be born again?
No. That's not who we are, and for all his past actions, this isn't survival.
John's sacrificed his ignorance.
Now it's time for you guys to sacrifice yours.
I don't think that every option is secretly a trap- if you vote for eating the heart you're probably going to get immense power or knowledge or whatever- it won't just be an immediate bad end, because that's not how this Quest works.
It'll be subtle. Infectious. It'll change things behind the scenes, skew the voting statistics, make certain actions easier. It'll lurk in the darkness, and skitter in the shadows at the edge of sight. But go ahead. Take it. You'll be so very powerful... and what harm can it do?
Only the world. Do you know why there are no more dragons? Why the traditions call them Bygones? The technocracy has forced them out. Them and what they represented, and those who did not die to the fires of light and order fled to the deep umbra, where some still lurk. Like this one- but Wyrms have long memories, going back to the dawn of Creation, and they hold grudges for just as long. Dead and dying, defeated and splayed open, the Dragon still hungers for what it once lost...
And it would be wise of us to remember not to invite evil into our house, not to give it a path back to Earth.
How long as Threat Null been trying to make it through the Dimensional Anomaly, to establish a permanent presence on Earth? Not a few scattered sleeper agents or other operatives doing their bidding, but a large scale presence?
John's defeated the dragon in form, but a dragon's life is its heart. Its power, its very nature is in its heart. So long as it beats, so long as it lives, then the dragon has not truly died.
Eating the heart? Sure. It's power. It's a blessing that might just be the greatest blessing we can ever achieve. It might be all the power we'll ever need.
But everything is a trade. A sacrifice- and in gaining power what do we stand to lose? Ignorance? No, we've already shed that. Hope. Taking that power, that nature into ourselves, giving it a path back to Earth, back to what really matters where it can shape and change and be born again?
No. That's not who we are, and for all his past actions, this isn't survival.
John's sacrificed his ignorance.
Now it's time for you guys to sacrifice yours.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Hey, it worked for Siegfried.
Elsa's Question:
[X] Tell her most of the truth.
Elsa glances around, keeping low. Urgh. This situation may literally have just got worse. At least with Illiyeen around, she was just a random civilian. This Jamelia - Jazmin, as she calls herself - is a bright-eyed fresh faced Operative who still responds to her old name. Not skilled enough to really make too much of a difference against a real opponent, and now with added Conditioning.
"I'm Lt Elsa Naryshkin, Void Engineers. We're in the middle of a Cat-RED clusterfuck. There's a Dimensional Anomaly - we're in a hostile noetic subdimension," she says, scanning the sightlines for hostiles. "We're outnumbered and looking for extraction. The rest of my away team is... gone. I'm waiting for our ship to contact us, but it's engaging a hostile alien presence."
"Oh." Jazmin has a bulky handgun out - Elsa vaguely recognises it as an X-8 Defender. You'd occasionally see them in use in Moscow, mostly in vampire hands because they'd found an old supply depot. The gun looks very big in the other woman's small hands. "I've never been offworld outside of Union facilities before," she says, looking around with a mix of wariness, alertness and interest. "What's the nature of the threat? Will standard rounds hurt them?"
"Some of them," Elsa says. She pauses. It might help. "One problem: VOIDCOM have positive proof that these aliens - designated Threat Null - have subverted at minimum one individual with at least Director-level authority. They've been using Control overrides." She hears Jazmin gulp. "Do you have any implants they could control?"
Jazmin shakes her head. "No," she says, eyes wide. "I'm baseline, but... but...how is that possible? I thought..."
"There's no such thing as an unbreakable code. Didn't the Noo-Woo teach you that?" Elsa the former Virtual Adept says intensely. "You must be very new. Listen... agent, listen to me. If anyone tries to contact you using Control orders... they're not human. Try your best to ignore them - and tell me what they're trying to get you to do. I have a cyborg body and I'm hardened against their attempts to control me, but you might be vulnerable. Once we're back to my ship, I can try to contact VOIDCOM and they can confirm what I'm saying, but you need to trust me and only listen to me. Got it?"
[X] Tell her most of the truth.
Elsa glances around, keeping low. Urgh. This situation may literally have just got worse. At least with Illiyeen around, she was just a random civilian. This Jamelia - Jazmin, as she calls herself - is a bright-eyed fresh faced Operative who still responds to her old name. Not skilled enough to really make too much of a difference against a real opponent, and now with added Conditioning.
"I'm Lt Elsa Naryshkin, Void Engineers. We're in the middle of a Cat-RED clusterfuck. There's a Dimensional Anomaly - we're in a hostile noetic subdimension," she says, scanning the sightlines for hostiles. "We're outnumbered and looking for extraction. The rest of my away team is... gone. I'm waiting for our ship to contact us, but it's engaging a hostile alien presence."
"Oh." Jazmin has a bulky handgun out - Elsa vaguely recognises it as an X-8 Defender. You'd occasionally see them in use in Moscow, mostly in vampire hands because they'd found an old supply depot. The gun looks very big in the other woman's small hands. "I've never been offworld outside of Union facilities before," she says, looking around with a mix of wariness, alertness and interest. "What's the nature of the threat? Will standard rounds hurt them?"
"Some of them," Elsa says. She pauses. It might help. "One problem: VOIDCOM have positive proof that these aliens - designated Threat Null - have subverted at minimum one individual with at least Director-level authority. They've been using Control overrides." She hears Jazmin gulp. "Do you have any implants they could control?"
Jazmin shakes her head. "No," she says, eyes wide. "I'm baseline, but... but...how is that possible? I thought..."
"There's no such thing as an unbreakable code. Didn't the Noo-Woo teach you that?" Elsa the former Virtual Adept says intensely. "You must be very new. Listen... agent, listen to me. If anyone tries to contact you using Control orders... they're not human. Try your best to ignore them - and tell me what they're trying to get you to do. I have a cyborg body and I'm hardened against their attempts to control me, but you might be vulnerable. Once we're back to my ship, I can try to contact VOIDCOM and they can confirm what I'm saying, but you need to trust me and only listen to me. Got it?"
Hmmm... I wonder if it'd be safer to handle by filtering it through the vampire mythos via having Rose drain it. Then again, even the vampires have had issues with diablarized meals fucking them over after the fact.
Especially since there's probably a Resident hiding inside of it, since they did get advanced warning.
I bet having the resident archmage flay it apart in the Dimensional Anomaly would be even more effective than manually ripping it apart. It could be a completely non-vulgar anti-resurrection Procedure against the Resident hiding inside the heart. Especially since the DA is more damaging the more powerful you are.
edit: rereading Nichols's Foci ... Kessler stabbing the thing probably would count as a gambit in the long term plan that involved sending Jamelia into the past in the first place. So Kessler beating the dragon and ripping its heart apart with spirit magic maybe actually be her overall Effect to attack that particular Resident.
Especially since there's probably a Resident hiding inside of it, since they did get advanced warning.
I bet having the resident archmage flay it apart in the Dimensional Anomaly would be even more effective than manually ripping it apart. It could be a completely non-vulgar anti-resurrection Procedure against the Resident hiding inside the heart. Especially since the DA is more damaging the more powerful you are.
edit: rereading Nichols's Foci ... Kessler stabbing the thing probably would count as a gambit in the long term plan that involved sending Jamelia into the past in the first place. So Kessler beating the dragon and ripping its heart apart with spirit magic maybe actually be her overall Effect to attack that particular Resident.
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Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Eh, not really. If anything by doing it in Hollywood there'll be a shadow of the act in the real world. I suspect there'll be a rash of triumphant guardian of mankind style movies releasing over the next few years, for all the harm it'd do to them the residents can't turn down money.
[X] Don't eat it and throw it away. RIP IT TO SHREDS
[X] Tell her most of the truth.
.... At this point I wonder just how many Enlightenment 6+ Mages there are in the TU.
Not to mention how Henriette, if she survives this, will have two mentors with Enlightenment 6 who are capable of priming the pump so to speak. Given she's being seduced into Mind 2 and up via NWO Psychic powers heh.......
[X] Tell her most of the truth.
.... At this point I wonder just how many Enlightenment 6+ Mages there are in the TU.
Not to mention how Henriette, if she survives this, will have two mentors with Enlightenment 6 who are capable of priming the pump so to speak. Given she's being seduced into Mind 2 and up via NWO Psychic powers heh.......
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
Rose can use vitae, but she can't produce it.
[X] RIP IT TO SHREDS
[X] Tell Jazmin most of the truth
True.
And rereading Nichols's Foci ... Kessler stabbing the thing probably would count as part of the long term plan that involved Jamelia dragging her team to this side of the dimensional anomaly via space travel after being attacked by a very strange effect that could almost be described as a dimensional anomaly in and of itself. Especially since another part of her long term plan involved a gambit of sending Jamelia into the past to weaken the Residents and Threat Null as a whole. And that coincidentally brought the man who coincidentally was forced by the dimensional anomaly to spend years learning how to kill dragons ... to a fight against the Resident wearing the form of The Dragon. It's almost like Kessler's time on Xanadu was a gambit in her long term plan to kill this particular Resident.
In summary, fuck Time 5 Entropy 5 mages. With a rake. Particularly their ability to chain Effects into being the Foci for other Effects to the point where you don't know what is an Effect and what isn't.
... dammit. Urgh. Don't know how I misread the spell bit for Kessler.
... maybe "symbolically destroying the core of a spirit after defeating it" is a valid Spirit 4 Prime 2 rote for him to spontaneously learn-invent to get perma-kill effects? John Kessler is, after all, choosing to reject the avarice of the Dragon and acting in the traditions of the best dragonslayers of the Order of Reason.
Reina: "Rose, give me control of your body. I need it to offer the bump of the fist of the bro to John Kessler."
Rose: "What's the enlightened science word?"
Reina: "... please?"
Rose: "... well, since you asked nicely..."
- Location
- in the trash
Eh, we can always cart it back to Nichols for her to destroy it. If Dimensional Science 6 can't permakill the wyrm, I don't know what can.
Wouldn't be nearly as awesome a scene though.
Edit:
[x] Don't eat the heart. Destroy it.
Wouldn't be nearly as awesome a scene though.
Edit:
[x] Don't eat the heart. Destroy it.
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Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Don't eat it and throw it away. RIP IT TO SHREDS
"Tempting..." Brevet-General John Kessler says, looking at the steaming, still-beating heart of The Dragon.
He digs his fingers into the meat, steaming blood running down his arms... and as the realm around him reacts to the moment, a dramatic wind picking up, John Kessler sees his own reflection in the glistening draconic heartblood, the power, glory and unconquerable might he could gain for himself here. He blinks, and sees the arrayed forces of the United States Armed Forces behind him in a street that stretches on forever, all these men and women waiting with bated breath for what he will do.
And in that moment, John Kessler *knows* what he will do.
"But I reject you, Avarice. I refuse your temptation. I deny you a place in me." His hands squeeze, and decaliters of blood, far more than any organ should hold and energy-dense like the finest rocket fuel, fountain into the air. "Join my ignorance and all those who stand against Humanity." He rips and tears and gouges, chunks of meat and sinew raining down in a circle around him as he armours himself in contempt against avarice.
And then, as suddenly as it started, the wind dies down, the moment gone.
"Tempting..." Brevet-General John Kessler says, looking at the steaming, still-beating heart of The Dragon.
He digs his fingers into the meat, steaming blood running down his arms... and as the realm around him reacts to the moment, a dramatic wind picking up, John Kessler sees his own reflection in the glistening draconic heartblood, the power, glory and unconquerable might he could gain for himself here. He blinks, and sees the arrayed forces of the United States Armed Forces behind him in a street that stretches on forever, all these men and women waiting with bated breath for what he will do.
And in that moment, John Kessler *knows* what he will do.
"But I reject you, Avarice. I refuse your temptation. I deny you a place in me." His hands squeeze, and decaliters of blood, far more than any organ should hold and energy-dense like the finest rocket fuel, fountain into the air. "Join my ignorance and all those who stand against Humanity." He rips and tears and gouges, chunks of meat and sinew raining down in a circle around him as he armours himself in contempt against avarice.
And then, as suddenly as it started, the wind dies down, the moment gone.