- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Yeah. If we're gonna have a character activate her self-destruct, it'd be good to have that, OOC, for the closure. How does Ophelia feel about what she actually did with Agueda?
Trials of Sovereign and State
- Thread starter hYGP
- Start date
- Original
Behold, Ophelia
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
You are Ophelia.
You are a human woman. On the shorter side, with pleasant features for a country girl. You have your father's brown hair and your mother's brown eyes. You are intelligent, kind, and generous, beloved by those who you have saved and feared by those who you have damned. You are a striver, forever seeking a distant goal with an extraordinary dedication.
You are ever torn between your Lust for greatness, and your Faith in destiny.
You would gladly leap off a cliff if it gave you the chance to soar through the sky, and only your faith that a shining road might open up would keep you from taking that leap.
You were born to your peasant father and your peasant mother, like their father and their mother, as far back as time remembers. Their bones mark this land, and their ghosts hold down the land which hold your family to this land. To leave the land would be to leave your whole family for uncountable generations behind, which was your whole world when you were a girl.
In the village where you were born, you were on the shorter side of average. You wore your brown hair short because long hair risked getting sucked into the spinner, and you weren't deft enough with the spinner to avoid getting hurt yet. You wore understated colors because you understood that your parents and your brother would get less mad at you if you wore plainer clothes, if you cost less.
In those days, you woke before the dawn so that you could have the early morning hours in the silvery grey and the morning fog to dream of being more than what you were. You did your daily chores and your work assignments as expected of you – but your gaze was always turned skyward and outward.
You grew distant from the other villagers of your age, and your family because of it. For them, dreams were something to idly chat about, not something to seriously and intently strive for day after day. You couldn't have a conversation with the other boys or girls your age without looking past them in some way, and that rankled them. Made them want to tear your wings from the sky rather than watch you soar over their heads.
Even so, you held fast to the belief that everything would be righted the moment you became someone, anyone of importance. When your way out was becoming an adventurer, you sought to learn everything about the trade you could. When your route out became the clergy as years passed without a good opportunity to strike out, you pursued the path of the frock with a daily zeal.
Then lightning descended, your gemstone appeared, and a path upwards to your promised glory opened before your eyes.
You leapt, and became the first Vessel of Oskaria.
When you became one of the elite enforcers of the royal will, you dressed finer. You dressed in a cloak dyed in the off-white of the Merridge corals, so given to you because the Maiden of Light forced radiantly pure white clothes on you. You wore shoes cobbled in the Capital, and you carried books with paper milled from the northern reaches of the Smok river. You were the sum of a vast world, and you ventured to see a vaster world.
You spent those days wandering with true companions, technically homeless and yet never without a home. You slept under a thousand skies and you woke under a thousand roofs. You walked every path of life as an observer looking down, rather than the peasant girl looking up and desperately wishing to switch places.
When you woke in the morning you drank the eccentric Ser Tekla's favored Shi Anh tea, as the priest Cormag did his daily prayers and rituals and covered for stealthy Kerrie as she took her morning nap. Then you went to work during the day as terrifyingly intelligent and stealthy Agueda's understudy, with the clear understanding that perhaps you were the most qualified to succeed him. You were really becoming something, outside of the invocation of the red gem to become a vessel for the nation of Oskaria. Perhaps you would never match his gift for stealth – for one, he was smaller than you – but you saw clearly how you might catch up to him, if you had the thirty years of experience in the job that he had.
Everywhere you went, eyes were on you. You were tasked with upholding an entire nation, and yet among the five of you the weight was easy to bear. You saw all of Antigua, from the red brick backalley streets of the artisan districts to the farmlands that seemed like your own home, for all that the soil was unfamiliar. You saw the best in Oskaria, the kindness and the acceptance and the longing to be more. You saw it in how your friends encouraged each other, and in how they encouraged you.
Your path to greatness was clear – perhaps you would take Agueda's place, and allow the old spider to retire, or perhaps you would surpass even him and become a Minister of Finance outright. Let alone what power, and what respect you could command as the truest Vessel of the spirit of Oskaria.
You can't remember what it's like to be the Vessel, when the time calls for you to become her. A nation is too big to allow you room in your own body, if you bring even a fraction of its totality into you.
But that was a cheap price to pay for the fulfillment of your dreams.
Then things went wrong by degrees.
You began discovering the rot of this nation. More than the Oskaria which you had seen in your party and as you wandered, you saw the Oskaria that was red in tooth, and long in memory. You saw the Oskaria which sought profit by tearing others down, and you saw the Oskaria that was terrified of its own shadow.
You cut through that with the redness of fury, and with great gaps in your memory where you called on the better part which you fervently believed to be there, but every time you came back you found yourself in a worse and worse state. Your other self, the Maiden of Light as she's now called, became famous, and you were famous and worthy in her coattails –
No, you suppose that was another's power. Perhaps that's why you began to loathe not donning that power. Not being that someone, who must have been even greater than plain old you. You don't mind, though. So long as you achieve that greatness, you're not picky about it being you.
But things weren't improving.
You were blown from place to place, rocked by the waves of the wider world. Monumental events rocked you one by one, and when you found yourself in the ashes of your collection – (but with all of your friends safe!) you gave yourself fully over to the Maiden of Light. To her radiance, and to her glory.
To her apathy, and to her cruelty.
You weren't in control of her, no. She was in control of you, and you should at least be that honest.
Then... things continued to get worse. You remember a snatch of time when you saw a new distance open up in the party, after a disastrous second winter in the north, after Agueda changed in an intangible but meaningful way.
Then you were all in the capital –
and then Agueda was dead, and you fled your own body because she would enact such great anger and such great grief that a calamity to echo the Calamity would be visited upon his killers.
And then months passed, and you wake up in an unfamiliar roof, with none of your companions nearby. You don't recognize the herbal smell of this place, you don't recognize the hustle and bustle of this place, and you don't recognize the colors of this place, and it all blended in a riot that threatens to congest your overstimulated existence.
You don't recognize anyone. Outside, there are crowds of thousands of well-wishers, but all of them are here for the Maiden of Light, and not one of them is here for you, the farmgirl. There's an old lady who tries to take care of you and a tall and wispy orc who largely acts as the old lady's second – they're your main caretakers, but you recognize them as your jailors too. You see a huge woman occasionally come in to check in on you, and you see a smaller woman flit around her. Something about the smaller woman makes your hair stand up, but...it's a meaningless detail, in your now meaningless life.
Your world is once again a small world, confined to your room and then maybe the Capital at the most.
You're nobody again.
An invalid uselessly taking up space in a gown meant to prevent your own self-harm.
You wake up well after the sunrise. There's no point to waking up early. Something in you is broken. Something in you has been broken. There's no fixing it unless you can go back to being the Maiden of Light again.
...
Perhaps you mean that there's no fixing it at all. Agueda was the glue, and when he died Ser Tekla, Kerrie, and Cormag all drifted off in their own direction. Your distant boss, Minister Vivienne, needed to fight for her own job, let alone worry about yours. In their absence, you have no friends, only resources, sycophants, and obstacles. It may be harsh, but you are in no mood to be gentle.
So when the huge warrior woman Captain Aisha asked you how she could be of help, you told her what you needed to become the Maiden again.
It's taken her a while, but she's finally given you what you've needed to become someone again.
Even if this is the last light of your life, you'll soar one last time. You'll be someone important, someone powerful once again. If you can just retake that destiny, everything will be fixed.
In the end, you couldn't keep your faith in the world.
Behold, Ophelia.
You are a reflection of your world. I have seen your world in your shoes and in your skin and through your eyes and I see a fickle world, capricious and falling into darkness as the stars around you slowly wink out and distance themselves from you.
You are the sum of your past. I know of the farmgirl turning her gaze upwards and away from her unnamed sister, and the journeywoman riding the fortunes of her companions, and the last vestige trying to keep the flame alive in an unfamiliar world.
You are as you have always been. I name you "The Dreamer Ophelia", because you have held fast to your dream come what may.
You are all of these things, Ophelia, and you are more, and you are less.
Thank you, Ophelia, for allowing me to see you clearly for the first time.
I'm sorry.
You leapt too soon.
You are a human woman. On the shorter side, with pleasant features for a country girl. You have your father's brown hair and your mother's brown eyes. You are intelligent, kind, and generous, beloved by those who you have saved and feared by those who you have damned. You are a striver, forever seeking a distant goal with an extraordinary dedication.
You are ever torn between your Lust for greatness, and your Faith in destiny.
You would gladly leap off a cliff if it gave you the chance to soar through the sky, and only your faith that a shining road might open up would keep you from taking that leap.
You were born to your peasant father and your peasant mother, like their father and their mother, as far back as time remembers. Their bones mark this land, and their ghosts hold down the land which hold your family to this land. To leave the land would be to leave your whole family for uncountable generations behind, which was your whole world when you were a girl.
In the village where you were born, you were on the shorter side of average. You wore your brown hair short because long hair risked getting sucked into the spinner, and you weren't deft enough with the spinner to avoid getting hurt yet. You wore understated colors because you understood that your parents and your brother would get less mad at you if you wore plainer clothes, if you cost less.
In those days, you woke before the dawn so that you could have the early morning hours in the silvery grey and the morning fog to dream of being more than what you were. You did your daily chores and your work assignments as expected of you – but your gaze was always turned skyward and outward.
You grew distant from the other villagers of your age, and your family because of it. For them, dreams were something to idly chat about, not something to seriously and intently strive for day after day. You couldn't have a conversation with the other boys or girls your age without looking past them in some way, and that rankled them. Made them want to tear your wings from the sky rather than watch you soar over their heads.
Even so, you held fast to the belief that everything would be righted the moment you became someone, anyone of importance. When your way out was becoming an adventurer, you sought to learn everything about the trade you could. When your route out became the clergy as years passed without a good opportunity to strike out, you pursued the path of the frock with a daily zeal.
Then lightning descended, your gemstone appeared, and a path upwards to your promised glory opened before your eyes.
You leapt, and became the first Vessel of Oskaria.
When you became one of the elite enforcers of the royal will, you dressed finer. You dressed in a cloak dyed in the off-white of the Merridge corals, so given to you because the Maiden of Light forced radiantly pure white clothes on you. You wore shoes cobbled in the Capital, and you carried books with paper milled from the northern reaches of the Smok river. You were the sum of a vast world, and you ventured to see a vaster world.
You spent those days wandering with true companions, technically homeless and yet never without a home. You slept under a thousand skies and you woke under a thousand roofs. You walked every path of life as an observer looking down, rather than the peasant girl looking up and desperately wishing to switch places.
When you woke in the morning you drank the eccentric Ser Tekla's favored Shi Anh tea, as the priest Cormag did his daily prayers and rituals and covered for stealthy Kerrie as she took her morning nap. Then you went to work during the day as terrifyingly intelligent and stealthy Agueda's understudy, with the clear understanding that perhaps you were the most qualified to succeed him. You were really becoming something, outside of the invocation of the red gem to become a vessel for the nation of Oskaria. Perhaps you would never match his gift for stealth – for one, he was smaller than you – but you saw clearly how you might catch up to him, if you had the thirty years of experience in the job that he had.
Everywhere you went, eyes were on you. You were tasked with upholding an entire nation, and yet among the five of you the weight was easy to bear. You saw all of Antigua, from the red brick backalley streets of the artisan districts to the farmlands that seemed like your own home, for all that the soil was unfamiliar. You saw the best in Oskaria, the kindness and the acceptance and the longing to be more. You saw it in how your friends encouraged each other, and in how they encouraged you.
Your path to greatness was clear – perhaps you would take Agueda's place, and allow the old spider to retire, or perhaps you would surpass even him and become a Minister of Finance outright. Let alone what power, and what respect you could command as the truest Vessel of the spirit of Oskaria.
You can't remember what it's like to be the Vessel, when the time calls for you to become her. A nation is too big to allow you room in your own body, if you bring even a fraction of its totality into you.
But that was a cheap price to pay for the fulfillment of your dreams.
Then things went wrong by degrees.
You began discovering the rot of this nation. More than the Oskaria which you had seen in your party and as you wandered, you saw the Oskaria that was red in tooth, and long in memory. You saw the Oskaria which sought profit by tearing others down, and you saw the Oskaria that was terrified of its own shadow.
You cut through that with the redness of fury, and with great gaps in your memory where you called on the better part which you fervently believed to be there, but every time you came back you found yourself in a worse and worse state. Your other self, the Maiden of Light as she's now called, became famous, and you were famous and worthy in her coattails –
No, you suppose that was another's power. Perhaps that's why you began to loathe not donning that power. Not being that someone, who must have been even greater than plain old you. You don't mind, though. So long as you achieve that greatness, you're not picky about it being you.
But things weren't improving.
You were blown from place to place, rocked by the waves of the wider world. Monumental events rocked you one by one, and when you found yourself in the ashes of your collection – (but with all of your friends safe!) you gave yourself fully over to the Maiden of Light. To her radiance, and to her glory.
To her apathy, and to her cruelty.
You weren't in control of her, no. She was in control of you, and you should at least be that honest.
Then... things continued to get worse. You remember a snatch of time when you saw a new distance open up in the party, after a disastrous second winter in the north, after Agueda changed in an intangible but meaningful way.
Then you were all in the capital –
and then Agueda was dead, and you fled your own body because she would enact such great anger and such great grief that a calamity to echo the Calamity would be visited upon his killers.
And then months passed, and you wake up in an unfamiliar roof, with none of your companions nearby. You don't recognize the herbal smell of this place, you don't recognize the hustle and bustle of this place, and you don't recognize the colors of this place, and it all blended in a riot that threatens to congest your overstimulated existence.
You don't recognize anyone. Outside, there are crowds of thousands of well-wishers, but all of them are here for the Maiden of Light, and not one of them is here for you, the farmgirl. There's an old lady who tries to take care of you and a tall and wispy orc who largely acts as the old lady's second – they're your main caretakers, but you recognize them as your jailors too. You see a huge woman occasionally come in to check in on you, and you see a smaller woman flit around her. Something about the smaller woman makes your hair stand up, but...it's a meaningless detail, in your now meaningless life.
Your world is once again a small world, confined to your room and then maybe the Capital at the most.
You're nobody again.
An invalid uselessly taking up space in a gown meant to prevent your own self-harm.
You wake up well after the sunrise. There's no point to waking up early. Something in you is broken. Something in you has been broken. There's no fixing it unless you can go back to being the Maiden of Light again.
...
Perhaps you mean that there's no fixing it at all. Agueda was the glue, and when he died Ser Tekla, Kerrie, and Cormag all drifted off in their own direction. Your distant boss, Minister Vivienne, needed to fight for her own job, let alone worry about yours. In their absence, you have no friends, only resources, sycophants, and obstacles. It may be harsh, but you are in no mood to be gentle.
So when the huge warrior woman Captain Aisha asked you how she could be of help, you told her what you needed to become the Maiden again.
It's taken her a while, but she's finally given you what you've needed to become someone again.
Even if this is the last light of your life, you'll soar one last time. You'll be someone important, someone powerful once again. If you can just retake that destiny, everything will be fixed.
In the end, you couldn't keep your faith in the world.
Behold, Ophelia.
You are a reflection of your world. I have seen your world in your shoes and in your skin and through your eyes and I see a fickle world, capricious and falling into darkness as the stars around you slowly wink out and distance themselves from you.
You are the sum of your past. I know of the farmgirl turning her gaze upwards and away from her unnamed sister, and the journeywoman riding the fortunes of her companions, and the last vestige trying to keep the flame alive in an unfamiliar world.
You are as you have always been. I name you "The Dreamer Ophelia", because you have held fast to your dream come what may.
You are all of these things, Ophelia, and you are more, and you are less.
Thank you, Ophelia, for allowing me to see you clearly for the first time.
I'm sorry.
You leapt too soon.
I'm going to give you this interlude to chew on, for OOC closure. This was written from the perspective of what an interlude from Ophelia's perspective would look like, if you had maxed out Empathy. I've been cobbling this together over the last two days, instead of the fight scene, mostly because I wanted to test if I still had this capability.
See if it's clear how maxed (6 in all categories) Empathy differs from your 3 points in it.
This is canon in the sense that you should be able to see Ophelia's viewpoint, and how she feels about everything that has occurred - but it is noncanon in the sense that nobody in universe has this picture of her. Not even Ophelia herself.
See if it's clear how maxed (6 in all categories) Empathy differs from your 3 points in it.
This is canon in the sense that you should be able to see Ophelia's viewpoint, and how she feels about everything that has occurred - but it is noncanon in the sense that nobody in universe has this picture of her. Not even Ophelia herself.
Last edited:
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
You did a really good job, Huh.
I just... I feel beaten.
[shakes head, sighs]
I just... I feel beaten.
[shakes head, sighs]
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah, it's just...
I think there have been so many losses, instances of "you won but it doesn't matter towards your actual goals," and instances of "entire project you're working on is cancelled by overarching events" that to me, this entire setting is associated with just... nothing but defeat and dejection and pointlessness.
If the worldbuilding weren't so damn interesting, and if I didn't just feel some personal liking for the author out of respect for his past projects, I'd have dropped it a long time ago. As it is, I'm still here, but just...
...I dunno.
[bleaks]
I think there have been so many losses, instances of "you won but it doesn't matter towards your actual goals," and instances of "entire project you're working on is cancelled by overarching events" that to me, this entire setting is associated with just... nothing but defeat and dejection and pointlessness.
If the worldbuilding weren't so damn interesting, and if I didn't just feel some personal liking for the author out of respect for his past projects, I'd have dropped it a long time ago. As it is, I'm still here, but just...
...I dunno.
[bleaks]
- Location
- Belgium
Thank you very much for giving us this update.
Ophelia was essentially a titan for so long, even in the previous quest she was an amazingly powerful character so to see her story end like this brings out the feels. It's a well-written but nonetheless tragic end.
It is admittably something I like seeing in an author's writing. Whilst I like seeing characters I like getting happy endings, it speaks of a writer's skill to be able (and willing) to write a more tragic or bittersweet ending for their characters. Whilst I dread the consequences of some of our choices as much as others following this quest I at the same time cannot help but enjoy the thought of not being able to foresee the direction the story will go in.
I said it before and I say it again. The unpreditability and your great ability to roll with it makes you amongst my favourite authors and hands down the best quest writer I have personally ever had.
Thank you once again.
Ophelia was essentially a titan for so long, even in the previous quest she was an amazingly powerful character so to see her story end like this brings out the feels. It's a well-written but nonetheless tragic end.
It is admittably something I like seeing in an author's writing. Whilst I like seeing characters I like getting happy endings, it speaks of a writer's skill to be able (and willing) to write a more tragic or bittersweet ending for their characters. Whilst I dread the consequences of some of our choices as much as others following this quest I at the same time cannot help but enjoy the thought of not being able to foresee the direction the story will go in.
I said it before and I say it again. The unpreditability and your great ability to roll with it makes you amongst my favourite authors and hands down the best quest writer I have personally ever had.
Thank you once again.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
"an"
Is Ophelia a character from a different iteration of the quest? What was she known for?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
This quest is in some ways a sequel to Huh's previous quest, HFTC, or I'm A High Fantasy Tax Collector, So What? The protagonist of HFTC is Agueda, a sharp-witted Intrigue-Stewardship specced character who it took us a few updates to realize was in fact a giant tax spider. 'Colonists,' y'know?
That quest ran for a few in-game years, and Ophelia joined Agueda's party relatively early on. Then the pace of events picked up and spiraled out of control and Agueda faked his own death and fucked off to points unknown, ending the quest and segueing into this one with a completely different protagonist.
That quest ran for a few in-game years, and Ophelia joined Agueda's party relatively early on. Then the pace of events picked up and spiraled out of control and Agueda faked his own death and fucked off to points unknown, ending the quest and segueing into this one with a completely different protagonist.
Questions about Calamity, errata
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
i'm gonna answer some questions now since it's clear that any update will take a while to make anyway
She's not thinking that far ahead. She just knows that the godlike power of the Spirit of Oskaria can do so much more than her - is so much more important than her - that her life might be a small price to pay to bring it out. Everything else, then, is what the Spirit of Oskaria decides.
For that matter, what does it do, in this day and age?
It'd be quicker to list what it doesn't do. Imagine a UN on the spiritual level - it's wildly imprecise, but it is relatively accurate. Technically the gathering is there to enforce a Compact of the Precursors, a catch-all compact that all the spirits of the material, the personified, and the divine agree to enforce the rough nonbinding resolution of "do whatever it takes to avoid another Calamity", and agree to regularly meet to strategize and discuss how to keep the Compact intact. It's kind of gestated from there - now they do things like weather coordination, Crusade alignment, backscratching and arbitration, everything that you might use a forum for spirits all over this local region to do.
But the primary job which its weightiest members are here to do is to avert Calamity. Its favored method, spearheaded by what you all roughly refer to as Order, is to destroy the tools of Calamity. If the world stays in a medieval stasis, riven by strife, and the people closest to figuring out the secret get hit by divine lightning when the subtle methods fail, then the situation will be okay, it has to be.
So what's so bad about Calamity?
What do we know about the Calamity?
Well, the name, the capitalized letter, and the fact that the Compact considers doing this repression for the last thousand or so years genuinely much more favorable than getting within five hundred years of Calamity-era stuff.
Beyond that, you've done quite a bit of reading, if maybe not enough to bust out citation numbers and names at the drop of a hat. You know the most fearsome things in the world are Calamity Armors, followed extremely shortly by Calamity Frames. The last time a Calamity Frame was activated in memory, even haltingly, a bird could fly for a day and night and still not see the edge of the desert, allegedly.
Every religious text on the matter says that the Calamity split the earth, dried the oceans, and shattered the skies, at a bare minimum. Some claim that billions of souls wandered the earth and swallowed everything in its unfathomable grudge.
You know that there are plenty of post-Calamity era ruins of slagged, twisted wrecks of an iridescent metallic substance that cannot be scratched or dented by any of the exploration teams that went in. You know that every member of the exploration teams in post-Calamity era ruins tends to die, either quickly by the Compact's hand, or slowly by an incurable poison. Maps of post-Calamity ruins tends to put them off the seashore, or in regions of dead space where nothing can survive, not even moss.
Some people suggest the Aurora may have been created by the Calamity. Some suggest the oceans have been created by the Calamity. Some say there are lost continents out there, sunk by the wrath of the Calamity. As to which of these stories are true...well.
But I'd totally understand if you decided after that next bit to just leave. We all only have so much time in our lives.
I'll talk about it more when we hit the report card.
(Her high character concept, a "Vessel for the spirit of Oskaria" was created for this quest, and I used a lucky roll in HFTC to introduce her well in advance.)
What kind of change is she planning, anyway? Knocking Order down a peg? Upsetting the Compact? What's going to replace it?
She's not thinking that far ahead. She just knows that the godlike power of the Spirit of Oskaria can do so much more than her - is so much more important than her - that her life might be a small price to pay to bring it out. Everything else, then, is what the Spirit of Oskaria decides.
For that matter, what does it do, in this day and age?
It'd be quicker to list what it doesn't do. Imagine a UN on the spiritual level - it's wildly imprecise, but it is relatively accurate. Technically the gathering is there to enforce a Compact of the Precursors, a catch-all compact that all the spirits of the material, the personified, and the divine agree to enforce the rough nonbinding resolution of "do whatever it takes to avoid another Calamity", and agree to regularly meet to strategize and discuss how to keep the Compact intact. It's kind of gestated from there - now they do things like weather coordination, Crusade alignment, backscratching and arbitration, everything that you might use a forum for spirits all over this local region to do.
But the primary job which its weightiest members are here to do is to avert Calamity. Its favored method, spearheaded by what you all roughly refer to as Order, is to destroy the tools of Calamity. If the world stays in a medieval stasis, riven by strife, and the people closest to figuring out the secret get hit by divine lightning when the subtle methods fail, then the situation will be okay, it has to be.
So what's so bad about Calamity?
What do we know about the Calamity?
Well, the name, the capitalized letter, and the fact that the Compact considers doing this repression for the last thousand or so years genuinely much more favorable than getting within five hundred years of Calamity-era stuff.
Beyond that, you've done quite a bit of reading, if maybe not enough to bust out citation numbers and names at the drop of a hat. You know the most fearsome things in the world are Calamity Armors, followed extremely shortly by Calamity Frames. The last time a Calamity Frame was activated in memory, even haltingly, a bird could fly for a day and night and still not see the edge of the desert, allegedly.
Every religious text on the matter says that the Calamity split the earth, dried the oceans, and shattered the skies, at a bare minimum. Some claim that billions of souls wandered the earth and swallowed everything in its unfathomable grudge.
You know that there are plenty of post-Calamity era ruins of slagged, twisted wrecks of an iridescent metallic substance that cannot be scratched or dented by any of the exploration teams that went in. You know that every member of the exploration teams in post-Calamity era ruins tends to die, either quickly by the Compact's hand, or slowly by an incurable poison. Maps of post-Calamity ruins tends to put them off the seashore, or in regions of dead space where nothing can survive, not even moss.
Some people suggest the Aurora may have been created by the Calamity. Some suggest the oceans have been created by the Calamity. Some say there are lost continents out there, sunk by the wrath of the Calamity. As to which of these stories are true...well.
Thanks for sticking by me anyway. I think after the next two updates + report card, we should be able to go back to one of the more fun parts of HFTC and TSS - seeing the cool, underexplored parts of the world.
But I'd totally understand if you decided after that next bit to just leave. We all only have so much time in our lives.
I will reiterate here that this quest is significantly more deterministic than HFTC. HFTC was written to be highly dynamic and unpredictable to everyone - creating a world where everything was highly variable and liable to shift. TSS has been written with the state of the world given, and extrapolating from there. There are surprises on the player side, but not really on the QM side.
I'll talk about it more when we hit the report card.
Ophelia came from the previous High Fantasy Tax Collector, whose special condition was toggling between Ophelia, who was a respectable if perhaps low-level hero in her own right, and Ophelia-Oskaria, who was an absolute heavy hitter, intellectually, militarily, and spiritually. Through the weight of her deeds, Ophelia-Oskaria eventually became known as the Maiden of Light.
(Her high character concept, a "Vessel for the spirit of Oskaria" was created for this quest, and I used a lucky roll in HFTC to introduce her well in advance.)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
My main pain point is that it feels like we're effectively always losing in terms of things that actually matter, and in particular are always losing at anything interpersonal that involves interacting with a specific individual as opposed to a loose cloud of possibly-named NPCs.
And the system is just opaque enough, at least in the context of being a unique quest based in a ruleset that is never used anywhere else and has no sourcebooks, that these failures seem inevitable.
This perception is to some extent inaccurate, I suppose on reflection- for instance, we concretely did gain Tara a lot of freedom, as I understand it, which is good for her from the "our" perspective that actuates the quest's voting decisions.
But the general tone leaves me always more conscious of what could have been better or at least okay, but instead went badly, than of the consequences and lasting impact of nominal successes.
Ophelia dying in the process of being the Maiden of Light one more time feels like a defeat far more than "successfully gathering an army of thousands to assault the Star through some sort of creative use of rallymancy or whatever you call it" feels like a victory, even though the latter is actually pretty impactful in an abstract sense.
...
Compare and contrast to X-COM quest, where the rules were even more opaque, but where at a bare minimum, we knew that a big part of our goal was "blow up aliens" and by God we were blowing up at least some of the aliens, some of the time. We were encountering reverses and there were reasons to consider the long-term prospect quite bleak, but at least shit was getting done, and the shit that was getting done was of the general nature that we'd logically want to do.
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The Days of September IX
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
I turned away from her. I didn't want to see this part, even as the glow on the wall and the absolute command and awe struck me, even turned away from her. The sensation of being watched, being near the nexus of history suffused the room. I pushed through the heavy oaken doors and walked out into the great hall.
An unfamiliar man awaited us outside those doors. His eyes were narrowed, almost like he was squinting, and his yellowish complexion was foreign, but in a way where I couldn't place his origin. He wore a long white hooded cloak, embroidered with gold, with the hood down to show off his rebellious long green hair. He dressed like a high-ranking member of the clergy, carrying a pad of notes in his hand as he looked up and down from it to us. He smiled when he saw us, but there was something distinctly off about that smile.
"Pardon me," he said, finally looking up from his notepad after squinting at it one more time. "But I wasn't aware this church was open for visitors. I'm afraid we can't let just anyone in. Is there any chance I could have your names?"
Oh, so he was just a self-important busybody.
"Captain Aisha," I responded automatically, bulling forward because I didn't trust myself to look back. "Ophelia-Oskaria, the Maiden of Light," I heard soon, just a few steps behind me. "Please step aside. We are on our way out of this church anyways."
"Mhm," the green-haired man murmured, staying where he stood. Since he wasn't in our way, we kept walking forwards, on our way past him under these great marble halls. "And you?"
Theodosia shifted backwards, suspicious scowl stealing over his features.
"I wasn't aware that there was anyone in this church. In fact, there are guards outside to keep people from entering, guards that I stationed," he said warily. "You, of all people, shouldn't be here."
The man tsked. "I apologize. I have been tasked with the care of this church, and I came down because of all the commotion. I've been in this building," he said, airily waving his stylus, and for some reason my eyes caught onto how sharp the pen was. "You all just intruded. Now please, take your hands off of your weapon. This is a place of peace, and I still don't know your name."
Ophelia-Oskaria turned her weighty gaze at Theodosia lengthwise. "He speaks truth," she said, and it felt like a bell ringing in my chest.
"General Theodosia Du Cey," he warily said.
"And just out of curiosity, how are your names spelled? My boss will punish me if I write them down wrong," he said, smiling disarmingly.
"A x a x," I said. In hindsight, a mistake. I've read about people who gain power over you if they know your true name, and it should have been an issue I remembered, but I didn't.
"Huh. That is strange," he said, looking at his tablet perplexed. "I could have sworn that Aisha was not spelled that way."
You hear a deep breath. More than hear, you feel it, through a sixth sense. Someone is drawing power into themselves.
"It isn't," a coarse voice says. "And Axax," she says, hands loosely by her side, as a small wind begins to blow from her. "I know you didn't promise anything. Wouldn't be fair, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite."
It's Tara. I couldn't look her in her furious eyes right now, as she positively crackles with power. Her expression is maddeningly flat.
"Still, I…" she said, looking at me. Or rather, past me. "Forget it. I don't care anymore. I guess you all really are the same, no matter where, no matter who."
I wanted to object. I wanted to scream at her that we were different. We weren't like that. We didn't shove spirits into people unless we had to.
Oskaria stuffed the words down my throat with her terrifyingly resonant voice.
"It's you again," Oskaria said, and it cooled down my burning skin. "Move aside," she said, walking forward with footsteps loud enough to shake the earth.
The man in the white robe – and I hadn't gotten his name and that suddenly woke my mind up – simply raised his eyebrow and scribbled something in his wax tablet.
"This is too convenient," Theodosia abruptly said. "Maiden, Captain, this may be a trap."
"Trap or not, we'll break through it," Oskaria carelessly said. My eyes shifted off from Tara's furious vicinity to the white-robed man. "We have nothing to worry about from loose women and nameless errand boys."
The air, already stiflingly heavy from Oskaria's mere presence, shifted again. Tara's unnaturally loud breathing steadied, still at that volume which prickled my hindbrain.
The white-robed man bristled slightly, and his narrow eyes narrowed further. Too intentional to be a blink. An insult that struck too close to home.
My spear came off my shoulder.
He closed his wax tablet and pad of notes, shuffled them into a bag by his side, and then took off the small bag. His eyes opened slightly, and I saw glistening golden irises stare back.
"I am not a nameless errand boy. My name is Baron Ludovic Chartier, the Southern Pillar of the King. I suggest you avoid making such a mistake twice."
I grabbed my spear with both hands and entered my stance. The last King's Pillar I ran into wounded me for months with his bare hands.
"Well then, Baron Chartier," Theodosia said, just on edge as I was. "What business are you here for?"
"I told you. I am here to drive the interlopers off of church property, and I am here to resolve a kidnapping case. My boss is quite the slave driver, I'm afraid," he chuckled, golden irises shining, "but I am quite the subordinate. In fact, I believe I have both cases wrapped up, right here."
"Does any of this business pertain to us?" Oskaria asked impatiently.
"No, I have nothing more to say to you," he said, grinning slightly.
"Then let's be off," she said, gesturing to us with her great poleaxe.
Neither I nor Theodosia moved. The air was too different. Once someone cut the tension in the air, the snapback would hurt someone badly. Oskaria stopped and looked at us, displeasure clear on her brow.
[Speech: Persuasion: 3 + 4 | Required: 6]
It took everything I had in me to resist that pressure and rebuff her. "That man, Baron Ludovic means to fight us," I choked out.
"Perceptive, Aisha. But we can't skip steps here, or else all respect for the law would be lost," Ludovic said lightly. "Madam Valois has the first right of decision. Madam?"
Tara closed her eyes and sighed. "I told you. I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want. I'm leaving."
"Young mistress, will you be going home?" Ludovic asked. His golden irises disappeared.
She looked at him for a moment, before sighing again.
"Yes. It's all the same anyway, so what does it matter?"
"Your father will be pleased to hear that," he said. "Though he certainly won't appreciate the tone, young lady."
"Right, of course," she said wearily. "I'm a drain on his life, I know."
Theodosia and I exchanged looks, briefly, as Ludovic's attention was turned to Tara Valois departing form. Confusion and caution was writ over both of our faces, before we turned back to gesture at Oskaria to be ready.
Then Ludovic turned back.
"Well, you heard the woman. I'll do as I please," he said. "Good day, everyone. Don't let me stop you."
He turned, and walked to the side of the hall, behind a great pillar.
I relaxed and followed after Oskaria's glowing form as she gestured us to the main door.
Theodosia still walked stiffly, furiously calculating something.
"Wait!" he cried out. My head snapped to him at the suddenness of his cry. "Baron Chartier's specialty is ambushes!"
There was a crash to my right. Ludovic's long green hair grabbed my vision for a moment, before I saw that he had a sword contending against Oskaria's great poleaxe. I leapt into motion towards the two.
"You'd dare raise your hand against the nation on its own soil?" Oskaria's resonant voice said, pressing harder against Ludovic's sword. "Enemies of the nation deserve death," she snarled.
"A peasant girl like you, claiming the mantle of a nation?! Of Oskaria, no less?!" Ludovic asked. "We let them in, and they think they can show us the door!" He ducked suddenly, and the poleaxe cleaved the air in two. Blood sprayed out just as I reached, and my eyes tracked the red. Belatedly, I realized that was Ophelia's blood, pouring from her mangled hand.
"Ophelia!" I cried out.
"Focus on our enemies," she forcefully said, looking around – and then I realized Ludovic had disappeared on us. I couldn't find him.
I looked around furiously. "Coward!" I spat out, as Theodosia pulled out his own pistol. "You raise a hand against Oskaria, man from Huiz, and then you resort to subterfuge?! Stand and fight!" I demanded.
"Leave, alien foreigner," Oskaria intoned.
"Oi. I'm a proud Oskarian patriot," his voice said, directly above me. "This is just self-defense, from the rabble."
[Melee: 4 + 3 | Required: 5 + 1 + 3 = 9 | Failed!]
His descending green blade bit deeply into the shaft of my spear. The sword must have sunk halfway through before he ripped it out, and my eyes widened as I realized it must have been enchanted - but when he pulled his sword out, he made an opening, and I refused to leave that opening unanswered.
"Rabble?" I spat.
[Melee: 4 + 1 + 3 | Required: 5 + 3 = 8 | Success!]
His closed eyes opened a crack.
I smashed my spear into his guard. My spear snapped clear in half, and in exchange, I broke his guard with the sheer force of my blow.
"How's that for 'rabble'?" I growled, raising the broken half of my spear at him like a club.
"Hoh? Not bad," he remarked, leaping backward before I could swing at him with my club. Oskaria's ponderously descending poleaxe forced him to leap back again. Even one handed, her blow cratered the tiled floor, shook the windows on the cathedral, and somehow created a dust cloud.
Wait, somehow? That was Ludovic's doing!
In the confusion, a gunshot burst in our ears, and glanced off plate armor.
"Surround him!" Theodosia shouted. "Don't let him escape!"
From the smoke, Ludovic emerged, smiling and unhurt.
"The barking of dogs does not disturb the clouds," he said casually. Theodosia flinched, as Oskaria slowly hefted her great poleaxe again. "I see that got a reaction out of you, General Theodosia. Do you happen to know this Huiz saying too?"
"That's not important!" Theodosia cried, pulling out another pistol.
But Oskaria's baleful red eyes turned to transfix Theodosia. When their eyes left Ludovic, he turned and threw a cloud of sand in my eyes. I closed my eyes and turned away, but in that instant, I lost sight of him.
"I've lost track of him!" I shouted, rubbing the sand out of my eyes.
"Funny how often that happens," his mocking voice said, ringing off the walls.
[Deductions: 1 | Required: ?? | Failed!]
I saw a stone skitter across my vision in the corner of my eye and turned towards it.
Behind me, I heard a soft gasp.
My head whipped around, fast enough to capture the moment I saw Ludovic's sword thrust through Oskaria. Light glowed, a hand gripped a blade, and a scream tore itself from my throat.
[Melee: (4 + 1 + 3 + 2) x 1.5 = 15 | Required: 5 + 3 + 1 | Success!]
My maddened strike, glowing with a power from the great spirit, smashed through his sword arm and caved in his chest. It snapped and armor crumpled, and he let go of his blade. But that green sword was still planted all the way through Ophelia's body. Even through the glow of light, I could tell that she was losing too much blood.
My eyes tore itself back to Ludovic's retreating form, drawing a second blade. I made to follow him.
"One person living," Oskaria heaved, "or dying doesn't matter for the nation. Listen to me."
I turned back, and saw Ophelia's bloody face. I kneeled to her because it was easier than looking her in the eye. So too did Theodosia, for his own reasons.
"Right now, this Vessel can't last much longer. We must take the Star, or all is lost," the deep underlying voice said. I couldn't hear Ophelia's own voice much longer. "General Theodosia, I need you with me."
"I understand," he said. "What about the Captain?"
"Time is wasting. Do as you will," she said.
I wasn't needed. Which meant I was free to do what I wanted.
[Wrath IV]
And what I wanted to do was kill that rat bastard.
"Then go," I spat.
[Deductions: I Spy | Passed!]
I saw a trail of blood leading away.
I followed.
He fled to a corridor of the cathedral, out of the main hall. His puffy robe must have absorbed most of his blood, because I only saw a few droplets here and there. To our left, a stained glass mural stylized a history of Oskaria.
But in this sunlit corridor, there was almost nowhere to hide. He held onto his limp arm, as blood ran down from his mouth.
"So this is how it ends, huh?" he said, pulling himself over to a low table. A decorated porcelain vase stood on it.
"It is, assassin," I spat, striding over to him.
His eyes were wide open, staring at me with golden irises. He stood up slowly, his one good hand on the porcelain vase. "You know, I used to be a street rat in Huiz," he laughed. "I've obtained more from this life than I ever thought possible," he said, lilting almost joyously through his injuries.
"And all you had to do was betray your own country, is that right, you dog of Order?" I said, half-spear at the ready in my hand.
"I have never once betrayed my oaths," he said, a fire in his eyes. "I swore one to my lord Perrier who saved me and who made me, and I have held it faithfully ever since. If that makes me the enemy of your upstart mongrel nation, I would happily fight this fight to preserve our Traditions another thousand times."
I finally closed into a pace and a half from his hunched form.
Anger coiled in me so tightly I felt like I would burst.
"Any more last words, then?" I spat.
He heaved and gulped.
"No," he said. "This Pillar will let his actions speak for himself."
Then his stood up with terrifying speed and threw the vase at my face. I smashed the vase apart with my half-spear, but I lost track of him in an empty hallway.
[Melee: 4 + 1 + 3 + 2 | Required: (5 + 3 + 1 – 4) x 2 = 10 | Passed!]
A knife plunged into the back of my knee. It should have been debilitating and forced me to my knees. But a Caxax warrior – a Captain of the National Guard – would never falter just because of a debilitating wound. If he could stab me, I could hit him.
Supporting my weight on my stabbed knee through incredible pain, I rammed a foot into his crotch, and then promptly collapsed on top of him. My knee couldn't take it either. His one good hand found another knife, as I raised my own half spear. His knife stabbed me in the chest, but my arms were in motion. He smiled defiantly, eyes open, as my heavy wooden spear descended on his face.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Ludovic Chartier, Southern Pillar of the King, defeated.
An unfamiliar man awaited us outside those doors. His eyes were narrowed, almost like he was squinting, and his yellowish complexion was foreign, but in a way where I couldn't place his origin. He wore a long white hooded cloak, embroidered with gold, with the hood down to show off his rebellious long green hair. He dressed like a high-ranking member of the clergy, carrying a pad of notes in his hand as he looked up and down from it to us. He smiled when he saw us, but there was something distinctly off about that smile.
"Pardon me," he said, finally looking up from his notepad after squinting at it one more time. "But I wasn't aware this church was open for visitors. I'm afraid we can't let just anyone in. Is there any chance I could have your names?"
Oh, so he was just a self-important busybody.
"Captain Aisha," I responded automatically, bulling forward because I didn't trust myself to look back. "Ophelia-Oskaria, the Maiden of Light," I heard soon, just a few steps behind me. "Please step aside. We are on our way out of this church anyways."
"Mhm," the green-haired man murmured, staying where he stood. Since he wasn't in our way, we kept walking forwards, on our way past him under these great marble halls. "And you?"
Theodosia shifted backwards, suspicious scowl stealing over his features.
"I wasn't aware that there was anyone in this church. In fact, there are guards outside to keep people from entering, guards that I stationed," he said warily. "You, of all people, shouldn't be here."
The man tsked. "I apologize. I have been tasked with the care of this church, and I came down because of all the commotion. I've been in this building," he said, airily waving his stylus, and for some reason my eyes caught onto how sharp the pen was. "You all just intruded. Now please, take your hands off of your weapon. This is a place of peace, and I still don't know your name."
Ophelia-Oskaria turned her weighty gaze at Theodosia lengthwise. "He speaks truth," she said, and it felt like a bell ringing in my chest.
"General Theodosia Du Cey," he warily said.
"And just out of curiosity, how are your names spelled? My boss will punish me if I write them down wrong," he said, smiling disarmingly.
"A x a x," I said. In hindsight, a mistake. I've read about people who gain power over you if they know your true name, and it should have been an issue I remembered, but I didn't.
"Huh. That is strange," he said, looking at his tablet perplexed. "I could have sworn that Aisha was not spelled that way."
You hear a deep breath. More than hear, you feel it, through a sixth sense. Someone is drawing power into themselves.
"It isn't," a coarse voice says. "And Axax," she says, hands loosely by her side, as a small wind begins to blow from her. "I know you didn't promise anything. Wouldn't be fair, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite."
It's Tara. I couldn't look her in her furious eyes right now, as she positively crackles with power. Her expression is maddeningly flat.
"Still, I…" she said, looking at me. Or rather, past me. "Forget it. I don't care anymore. I guess you all really are the same, no matter where, no matter who."
I wanted to object. I wanted to scream at her that we were different. We weren't like that. We didn't shove spirits into people unless we had to.
Oskaria stuffed the words down my throat with her terrifyingly resonant voice.
"It's you again," Oskaria said, and it cooled down my burning skin. "Move aside," she said, walking forward with footsteps loud enough to shake the earth.
The man in the white robe – and I hadn't gotten his name and that suddenly woke my mind up – simply raised his eyebrow and scribbled something in his wax tablet.
"This is too convenient," Theodosia abruptly said. "Maiden, Captain, this may be a trap."
"Trap or not, we'll break through it," Oskaria carelessly said. My eyes shifted off from Tara's furious vicinity to the white-robed man. "We have nothing to worry about from loose women and nameless errand boys."
The air, already stiflingly heavy from Oskaria's mere presence, shifted again. Tara's unnaturally loud breathing steadied, still at that volume which prickled my hindbrain.
The white-robed man bristled slightly, and his narrow eyes narrowed further. Too intentional to be a blink. An insult that struck too close to home.
My spear came off my shoulder.
He closed his wax tablet and pad of notes, shuffled them into a bag by his side, and then took off the small bag. His eyes opened slightly, and I saw glistening golden irises stare back.
"I am not a nameless errand boy. My name is Baron Ludovic Chartier, the Southern Pillar of the King. I suggest you avoid making such a mistake twice."
I grabbed my spear with both hands and entered my stance. The last King's Pillar I ran into wounded me for months with his bare hands.
"Well then, Baron Chartier," Theodosia said, just on edge as I was. "What business are you here for?"
"I told you. I am here to drive the interlopers off of church property, and I am here to resolve a kidnapping case. My boss is quite the slave driver, I'm afraid," he chuckled, golden irises shining, "but I am quite the subordinate. In fact, I believe I have both cases wrapped up, right here."
"Does any of this business pertain to us?" Oskaria asked impatiently.
"No, I have nothing more to say to you," he said, grinning slightly.
"Then let's be off," she said, gesturing to us with her great poleaxe.
Neither I nor Theodosia moved. The air was too different. Once someone cut the tension in the air, the snapback would hurt someone badly. Oskaria stopped and looked at us, displeasure clear on her brow.
[Speech: Persuasion: 3 + 4 | Required: 6]
It took everything I had in me to resist that pressure and rebuff her. "That man, Baron Ludovic means to fight us," I choked out.
"Perceptive, Aisha. But we can't skip steps here, or else all respect for the law would be lost," Ludovic said lightly. "Madam Valois has the first right of decision. Madam?"
Tara closed her eyes and sighed. "I told you. I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want. I'm leaving."
"Young mistress, will you be going home?" Ludovic asked. His golden irises disappeared.
She looked at him for a moment, before sighing again.
"Yes. It's all the same anyway, so what does it matter?"
"Your father will be pleased to hear that," he said. "Though he certainly won't appreciate the tone, young lady."
"Right, of course," she said wearily. "I'm a drain on his life, I know."
Theodosia and I exchanged looks, briefly, as Ludovic's attention was turned to Tara Valois departing form. Confusion and caution was writ over both of our faces, before we turned back to gesture at Oskaria to be ready.
Then Ludovic turned back.
"Well, you heard the woman. I'll do as I please," he said. "Good day, everyone. Don't let me stop you."
He turned, and walked to the side of the hall, behind a great pillar.
I relaxed and followed after Oskaria's glowing form as she gestured us to the main door.
Theodosia still walked stiffly, furiously calculating something.
"Wait!" he cried out. My head snapped to him at the suddenness of his cry. "Baron Chartier's specialty is ambushes!"
There was a crash to my right. Ludovic's long green hair grabbed my vision for a moment, before I saw that he had a sword contending against Oskaria's great poleaxe. I leapt into motion towards the two.
"You'd dare raise your hand against the nation on its own soil?" Oskaria's resonant voice said, pressing harder against Ludovic's sword. "Enemies of the nation deserve death," she snarled.
"A peasant girl like you, claiming the mantle of a nation?! Of Oskaria, no less?!" Ludovic asked. "We let them in, and they think they can show us the door!" He ducked suddenly, and the poleaxe cleaved the air in two. Blood sprayed out just as I reached, and my eyes tracked the red. Belatedly, I realized that was Ophelia's blood, pouring from her mangled hand.
"Ophelia!" I cried out.
"Focus on our enemies," she forcefully said, looking around – and then I realized Ludovic had disappeared on us. I couldn't find him.
I looked around furiously. "Coward!" I spat out, as Theodosia pulled out his own pistol. "You raise a hand against Oskaria, man from Huiz, and then you resort to subterfuge?! Stand and fight!" I demanded.
"Leave, alien foreigner," Oskaria intoned.
"Oi. I'm a proud Oskarian patriot," his voice said, directly above me. "This is just self-defense, from the rabble."
[Melee: 4 + 3 | Required: 5 + 1 + 3 = 9 | Failed!]
His descending green blade bit deeply into the shaft of my spear. The sword must have sunk halfway through before he ripped it out, and my eyes widened as I realized it must have been enchanted - but when he pulled his sword out, he made an opening, and I refused to leave that opening unanswered.
"Rabble?" I spat.
[Melee: 4 + 1 + 3 | Required: 5 + 3 = 8 | Success!]
His closed eyes opened a crack.
I smashed my spear into his guard. My spear snapped clear in half, and in exchange, I broke his guard with the sheer force of my blow.
"How's that for 'rabble'?" I growled, raising the broken half of my spear at him like a club.
"Hoh? Not bad," he remarked, leaping backward before I could swing at him with my club. Oskaria's ponderously descending poleaxe forced him to leap back again. Even one handed, her blow cratered the tiled floor, shook the windows on the cathedral, and somehow created a dust cloud.
Wait, somehow? That was Ludovic's doing!
In the confusion, a gunshot burst in our ears, and glanced off plate armor.
"Surround him!" Theodosia shouted. "Don't let him escape!"
From the smoke, Ludovic emerged, smiling and unhurt.
"The barking of dogs does not disturb the clouds," he said casually. Theodosia flinched, as Oskaria slowly hefted her great poleaxe again. "I see that got a reaction out of you, General Theodosia. Do you happen to know this Huiz saying too?"
"That's not important!" Theodosia cried, pulling out another pistol.
But Oskaria's baleful red eyes turned to transfix Theodosia. When their eyes left Ludovic, he turned and threw a cloud of sand in my eyes. I closed my eyes and turned away, but in that instant, I lost sight of him.
"I've lost track of him!" I shouted, rubbing the sand out of my eyes.
"Funny how often that happens," his mocking voice said, ringing off the walls.
[Deductions: 1 | Required: ?? | Failed!]
I saw a stone skitter across my vision in the corner of my eye and turned towards it.
Behind me, I heard a soft gasp.
My head whipped around, fast enough to capture the moment I saw Ludovic's sword thrust through Oskaria. Light glowed, a hand gripped a blade, and a scream tore itself from my throat.
[Melee: (4 + 1 + 3 + 2) x 1.5 = 15 | Required: 5 + 3 + 1 | Success!]
My maddened strike, glowing with a power from the great spirit, smashed through his sword arm and caved in his chest. It snapped and armor crumpled, and he let go of his blade. But that green sword was still planted all the way through Ophelia's body. Even through the glow of light, I could tell that she was losing too much blood.
My eyes tore itself back to Ludovic's retreating form, drawing a second blade. I made to follow him.
"One person living," Oskaria heaved, "or dying doesn't matter for the nation. Listen to me."
I turned back, and saw Ophelia's bloody face. I kneeled to her because it was easier than looking her in the eye. So too did Theodosia, for his own reasons.
"Right now, this Vessel can't last much longer. We must take the Star, or all is lost," the deep underlying voice said. I couldn't hear Ophelia's own voice much longer. "General Theodosia, I need you with me."
"I understand," he said. "What about the Captain?"
"Time is wasting. Do as you will," she said.
I wasn't needed. Which meant I was free to do what I wanted.
[Wrath IV]
And what I wanted to do was kill that rat bastard.
"Then go," I spat.
[Deductions: I Spy | Passed!]
I saw a trail of blood leading away.
I followed.
He fled to a corridor of the cathedral, out of the main hall. His puffy robe must have absorbed most of his blood, because I only saw a few droplets here and there. To our left, a stained glass mural stylized a history of Oskaria.
But in this sunlit corridor, there was almost nowhere to hide. He held onto his limp arm, as blood ran down from his mouth.
"So this is how it ends, huh?" he said, pulling himself over to a low table. A decorated porcelain vase stood on it.
"It is, assassin," I spat, striding over to him.
His eyes were wide open, staring at me with golden irises. He stood up slowly, his one good hand on the porcelain vase. "You know, I used to be a street rat in Huiz," he laughed. "I've obtained more from this life than I ever thought possible," he said, lilting almost joyously through his injuries.
"And all you had to do was betray your own country, is that right, you dog of Order?" I said, half-spear at the ready in my hand.
"I have never once betrayed my oaths," he said, a fire in his eyes. "I swore one to my lord Perrier who saved me and who made me, and I have held it faithfully ever since. If that makes me the enemy of your upstart mongrel nation, I would happily fight this fight to preserve our Traditions another thousand times."
I finally closed into a pace and a half from his hunched form.
Anger coiled in me so tightly I felt like I would burst.
"Any more last words, then?" I spat.
He heaved and gulped.
"No," he said. "This Pillar will let his actions speak for himself."
Then his stood up with terrifying speed and threw the vase at my face. I smashed the vase apart with my half-spear, but I lost track of him in an empty hallway.
[Melee: 4 + 1 + 3 + 2 | Required: (5 + 3 + 1 – 4) x 2 = 10 | Passed!]
A knife plunged into the back of my knee. It should have been debilitating and forced me to my knees. But a Caxax warrior – a Captain of the National Guard – would never falter just because of a debilitating wound. If he could stab me, I could hit him.
Supporting my weight on my stabbed knee through incredible pain, I rammed a foot into his crotch, and then promptly collapsed on top of him. My knee couldn't take it either. His one good hand found another knife, as I raised my own half spear. His knife stabbed me in the chest, but my arms were in motion. He smiled defiantly, eyes open, as my heavy wooden spear descended on his face.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Ludovic Chartier, Southern Pillar of the King, defeated.
The Days of September X
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
I heaved hard breaths, binding the wrap tighter. I was still bleeding through my stab wiybds…but I think it wasn't going to kill me, not if I still had the will to fight on.
I was too badly hurt to press on. I couldn't keep up with the commotion outside.
I don't know why that, of all things, started bringing me to tears.
There was a place I should go. If I couldn't follow her to the end, at least I could witness her last moments.
I stiffly hauled myself to the back of the great cathedral.
The shattered stone dust and the shards of glass seem to mock me, as I dragged my boots over the ruined tile.
Everything hurt. Numbness shot through my limbs. I held onto my bleeding wounds and pressed down on the gash on my stomach. Something weighed on my chest, something hot and heavy and leaden. I knew what it was, and I didn't want to know.
I confronted the stairs that we had just come down, from the belltower. I'd let myself be convinced that Ophelia should be allowed to destroy herself. I'd earned the hate I saw in Tara's eyes, but she earned it too! It was just – I was only following orders, I shouted to myself, and yet I kept on crying.
"I…I haven't done anything wrong!" I cried, and the pain in my body told me I was wrong.
But okay. So what, if I did something wrong, I hysterically cried. I killed three people today, destroyed one of the few relationships I still had, but so long as it was all justified in the end, so long as I could tell myself it was all for something that was worth it that would be fine!
I looked again at the staircase through blurry eyes. I grit my teeth, and screamed at myself to stop crying. I couldn't cry, I needed to be strong. Strong enough to see this damned thing to the end!
I climbed those long steps with a ferocity I didn't know I still had. My knee screamed with pain, but I forced myself to limp upwards with force. I felt my throbbing calluses on my hand, as I grabbed the wall to throw myself bodily up these stairs. I could still see the damn footsteps from where we went up and down. The shouting outside pounded in my head. I wanted them to shut up. There was so much noise, even up here.
My breath came shorter, came up choked. I forced myself to breathe as I climbed the stairs anyway, trying to not to see what my mind brought to my forefront. Ludovic's mocking smile as I smashed his face in. Ophelia's determined smile as she embraced her own destiny. Borde's quiet sigh, as I destroyed her body.
I didn't have a choice! I wanted to scream. Borde made the choice to fight me! Ophelia chose her own path! Ludovic attacked me! My throat choked itself before I could stay anything that stupid, and I finally climbed the last of the stairs to the top of the belltower.
I could see how the city was faring. Shouts and cries from the street battle down below. Fire and smoke as far as the eye could see. Hateful light and coiling darkness as far as the eye could see. Hatred and ghosts rising. I saw a great wheel turn in the sky, inlaid with golden filament, and I saw the hands of the clock attempt to turn back, and I felt a hatred boil in me as the tears forced their way through my eyes.
A red light erupted and broke the clock and broke the fortress and broke the spell over us. Tradition's city-wide ritual was disrupted. The Star of the City was conquered. We did it. We saved the city. We saved that revolution we were fighting for, we saved the forward progress of time.
And I wept, because we had knowingly sacrificed Ophelia to do it, because I had killed three people today, because my father was dead and because so many people were still dying. I wept, because all of that and it wasn't like things had gotten better for me. I wept, selfishly and alone, putting aside my duty for a moment because I couldn't wear that badge, just for a moment on this tower.
The sky was falling, like the Aurora was falling to earth, and even though it was a barrier so many people had died and bled to break I couldn't muster the joy at watching it crumble.
[Wrath: IV]
A guttural, choked roar tore itself from my throat – if only I had been better than all of this was avoidable! If only I had been more attentive! If only I had been stronger! If only I had been not fucking me, maybe – maybe!
I screamed. I roared. I choked on my own righteous indignation.
Damn Borde for fighting! Damn Borde for not being right. Damn Nezhin for being a blind old fool! Damn Deacon for being a useless prick! Damn Theodosia for sacrificing a girl's life without hesitation! Damn Tara for being a self-indulgent sellout! Damn Ophelia, for being so willing to die without ever seeing the world she was creating!
I whirled in a haze of my own fury. Damn the world. Damn the people. Damn the country. Damn everything. But my gaze caught on my own twisted expression in the bell of the tower, I saw my own twisted reflection, sobbing and angry at the world and everyone I cared about because in the reflection I saw the face I hated most, that I blamed the most for ruining everything she touched.
I saw my mother, and I saw me.
My fist slammed into the bell, and sound rang throughout the city, but my face was still there.
I slammed my other fist into the bell, and still that hideous face didn't change. The bell rang again, low and mourning, and my tears came down stronger as I inchoately yelled in grief. I kept beating on that bell, trying to smash my own image flat.
But I ran out of breath, I tired, and my wounds forced me to back off. Including the new scrapes on my knuckles. The swinging of the bell knocked the wind out of me, and I fell on my ass. The bell kept ringing, heedless of the damage it'd done to me. The swinging motion I started.
[] This…this nightmare couldn't be the future that we were promised, could it?
[End this run. Pick a save point to restart the game from.]
[] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
[Continue this run.]
But after all of this...I had to stand up. I was still alive.
[The Truth of Power]
People are different from the beasts because people can choose. A person can change. People have that power inside of them, something that only they possess.
[Hope: II]
I could change. I was still human. I hadn't become a monster yet. I was my father's daughter and my teacher's student. I still had a spark of good in me.
My bloody hands curled into fists, and slammed against the floor. Smoke stung my eyes. Nobody else was here. My wounds bled all over.
I decided to change.
I had to change.
Until I could stand the person I saw in the mirror.
[] Officer Aisha
Tagged: Officer's Sense, Combat, Speech
"A Captain only executes orders. An officer gives them."
[] Nezhin's Student
Tagged: Education, Mystical, Empathy
"This whole mess…even if I'm an adult now, I'm still immature."
[] Seeker Axax
Tagged: Mystical, Deductions, Education
"I need to find an answer for myself, by myself."
I was too badly hurt to press on. I couldn't keep up with the commotion outside.
I don't know why that, of all things, started bringing me to tears.
There was a place I should go. If I couldn't follow her to the end, at least I could witness her last moments.
I stiffly hauled myself to the back of the great cathedral.
The shattered stone dust and the shards of glass seem to mock me, as I dragged my boots over the ruined tile.
Everything hurt. Numbness shot through my limbs. I held onto my bleeding wounds and pressed down on the gash on my stomach. Something weighed on my chest, something hot and heavy and leaden. I knew what it was, and I didn't want to know.
I confronted the stairs that we had just come down, from the belltower. I'd let myself be convinced that Ophelia should be allowed to destroy herself. I'd earned the hate I saw in Tara's eyes, but she earned it too! It was just – I was only following orders, I shouted to myself, and yet I kept on crying.
"I…I haven't done anything wrong!" I cried, and the pain in my body told me I was wrong.
But okay. So what, if I did something wrong, I hysterically cried. I killed three people today, destroyed one of the few relationships I still had, but so long as it was all justified in the end, so long as I could tell myself it was all for something that was worth it that would be fine!
I looked again at the staircase through blurry eyes. I grit my teeth, and screamed at myself to stop crying. I couldn't cry, I needed to be strong. Strong enough to see this damned thing to the end!
I climbed those long steps with a ferocity I didn't know I still had. My knee screamed with pain, but I forced myself to limp upwards with force. I felt my throbbing calluses on my hand, as I grabbed the wall to throw myself bodily up these stairs. I could still see the damn footsteps from where we went up and down. The shouting outside pounded in my head. I wanted them to shut up. There was so much noise, even up here.
My breath came shorter, came up choked. I forced myself to breathe as I climbed the stairs anyway, trying to not to see what my mind brought to my forefront. Ludovic's mocking smile as I smashed his face in. Ophelia's determined smile as she embraced her own destiny. Borde's quiet sigh, as I destroyed her body.
I didn't have a choice! I wanted to scream. Borde made the choice to fight me! Ophelia chose her own path! Ludovic attacked me! My throat choked itself before I could stay anything that stupid, and I finally climbed the last of the stairs to the top of the belltower.
I could see how the city was faring. Shouts and cries from the street battle down below. Fire and smoke as far as the eye could see. Hateful light and coiling darkness as far as the eye could see. Hatred and ghosts rising. I saw a great wheel turn in the sky, inlaid with golden filament, and I saw the hands of the clock attempt to turn back, and I felt a hatred boil in me as the tears forced their way through my eyes.
A red light erupted and broke the clock and broke the fortress and broke the spell over us. Tradition's city-wide ritual was disrupted. The Star of the City was conquered. We did it. We saved the city. We saved that revolution we were fighting for, we saved the forward progress of time.
And I wept, because we had knowingly sacrificed Ophelia to do it, because I had killed three people today, because my father was dead and because so many people were still dying. I wept, because all of that and it wasn't like things had gotten better for me. I wept, selfishly and alone, putting aside my duty for a moment because I couldn't wear that badge, just for a moment on this tower.
The sky was falling, like the Aurora was falling to earth, and even though it was a barrier so many people had died and bled to break I couldn't muster the joy at watching it crumble.
[Wrath: IV]
A guttural, choked roar tore itself from my throat – if only I had been better than all of this was avoidable! If only I had been more attentive! If only I had been stronger! If only I had been not fucking me, maybe – maybe!
I screamed. I roared. I choked on my own righteous indignation.
Damn Borde for fighting! Damn Borde for not being right. Damn Nezhin for being a blind old fool! Damn Deacon for being a useless prick! Damn Theodosia for sacrificing a girl's life without hesitation! Damn Tara for being a self-indulgent sellout! Damn Ophelia, for being so willing to die without ever seeing the world she was creating!
I whirled in a haze of my own fury. Damn the world. Damn the people. Damn the country. Damn everything. But my gaze caught on my own twisted expression in the bell of the tower, I saw my own twisted reflection, sobbing and angry at the world and everyone I cared about because in the reflection I saw the face I hated most, that I blamed the most for ruining everything she touched.
I saw my mother, and I saw me.
My fist slammed into the bell, and sound rang throughout the city, but my face was still there.
I slammed my other fist into the bell, and still that hideous face didn't change. The bell rang again, low and mourning, and my tears came down stronger as I inchoately yelled in grief. I kept beating on that bell, trying to smash my own image flat.
But I ran out of breath, I tired, and my wounds forced me to back off. Including the new scrapes on my knuckles. The swinging of the bell knocked the wind out of me, and I fell on my ass. The bell kept ringing, heedless of the damage it'd done to me. The swinging motion I started.
[] This…this nightmare couldn't be the future that we were promised, could it?
[End this run. Pick a save point to restart the game from.]
[] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
[Continue this run.]
But after all of this...I had to stand up. I was still alive.
[The Truth of Power]
People are different from the beasts because people can choose. A person can change. People have that power inside of them, something that only they possess.
[Hope: II]
I could change. I was still human. I hadn't become a monster yet. I was my father's daughter and my teacher's student. I still had a spark of good in me.
My bloody hands curled into fists, and slammed against the floor. Smoke stung my eyes. Nobody else was here. My wounds bled all over.
I decided to change.
I had to change.
Until I could stand the person I saw in the mirror.
[] Officer Aisha
Tagged: Officer's Sense, Combat, Speech
"A Captain only executes orders. An officer gives them."
[] Nezhin's Student
Tagged: Education, Mystical, Empathy
"This whole mess…even if I'm an adult now, I'm still immature."
[] Seeker Axax
Tagged: Mystical, Deductions, Education
"I need to find an answer for myself, by myself."
Last edited:
Mechanics Post
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
So in the process of writing the report card and checking over this thread multiple times, I realized I made a fairly huge mistake. It looks like I came up with this system whole-cloth, and never consolidated everything you know about this system together in one place.
Thus, this is that post. The report card will reflect "oh shit you guys never got a mechanics post detailing how they fit together." Similarly, because this game is built to reward tight and accurate play, I'm going to give you all the option of just picking a place to restart this run from, if you want. I always planned for multiple runs here, and the colorless Calamity text was meant to facilitate it, but this is just moving up the schedule.
So, the mechanics.
Broad Overview:
This quest system is unique to TSS. However, it is largely built upon the A Geek's Guide System, except heavily simplified – indeed, it more closely resembles AGG's own inspiration, the VN Long Live the Queen.
In this game, your advancement is determined by skill checks. You check your skill in any given field against the difficulty of the challenge to you in that field. If your skill is greater than or equal to the skill check, you pass the check, and reap the rewards; otherwise, you fail the check, and reap the consequences.
In contrast to LLTQ or AGG, however, I have largely stripped the numbers and Perks out, and unified it into unique stages of advancement in each fundamental skill.
Fundamental Skills
Fundamental skills are the skills which ultimately get checked against various difficulty skill checks to determine the results. I have rendered them both as numbers and as unique stages of advancement in understanding and skill.
For example, if you consider the Combat: Melee skill, you know of four stages so far, each of which denotes having some new capability that a lower level would not possess. Each additional stage therefore also represents someone with greater capabilities.
In total, for each fundamental skill, I have set up 6 stages, ranging from a basic understanding of the field to a level of mastery where the skill can be summarized in a title. The peak of the Combat: Melee tree, for example, is "The Armsmaster".
Roughly speaking, the first and second stages represent a basic grasp of the skill. Third and fourth stages represent an advanced level, and require a deeper understanding of the skill, or long practice with the skill. The fifth and the sixth stages represent mastery of the fundamental skill.
The fundamental gating to these skills is also why most of the time you will encounter people who casually dabble in the basic level, professionals in the middle level, and the real experts in the high level of a skill. That gating is explained down in the Interaction section.
Composite Skills
These fundamental skills are grouped together with other skills that represent different aspects of a greater composite skill. For example, Melee, Ranged, and Armor are the fundamental skills that go into the skillset of a Warrior.
These composite skills will not be directly checked, but will rather grant significant bonuses to fundamental skills, or change important aspects of how this game is played.
These composite skills have a few wrinkles. The first is to discover that it is a composite skill, and not a fundamental skill at all – this is possible once enough basic stages collect together that it is not plausible for the skill to be one skill, something which reflections and refinements can reveal.
This is the process by which you refined Speech, incidentally.
The second is that there are only three stages of advancement for each composite skill, obtained at reaching stage 2, 4 and 6 in all component fundamental skills, respectively.
These composite skill stages are Truths in and of themselves.
Skill Senses
There are also skills labeled Senses. These are amalgamations of skills that do not quite belong together but have been lumped together for convenience until a higher level of understanding of its component parts is achieved.
Once that happens, these skills will naturally split apart into composite skills, and then those composite skills can be broken down further into fundamental skills.
Interaction Between Senses, Truths, and Skills
Where TSS' advanced mechanics start is the interaction between the Senses, Truths, and Skills.
Namely, that every advancement past the two basic stages of the skill requires either internalizing it as a part of your being (Epithet Tagging) or discovering the fundamental Truth which underlies a higher level of skill.
So if you want to hit a high level of skill, you either need to have teachers who can teach you those fundamental Truths, internalize it as part of your existence, or simply learn those Truths yourself. This is why the attempt to train Education: Academic beyond 2 failed – you lack the understanding that makes additional broad academic education worthwhile.
Epithets
Epithets are a defining phrase for you. Check this out.
Equipment
This hasn't come up yet mostly because Axax hasn't really dedicated specific effort to look out for it, but it'll come up. Generally, equipment will fall beneath the level of abstraction; as your skill advances in stages, you may have better or worse baseline equipment, but I'm not bothering to track that.
What I will track is equipment which gives you meaningful advantages. Those will be things like magical weapons, specialty reference guides (and you need more Education: Academic to really get that going), or items with significant history behind them.
There is such equipment in this game, but as of The Boiling Second Year you mostly haven't encountered it.
How Are Checks Determined?
Here's a question, and the reason why I ended up moving to stages rather than AGG's love of large numbers: how do I determine checks?
Well, segmenting these skills into stages provides me an extremely handy guide to Axax – and other character's – capabilities at any given point in time. Compare the scope of the problem to the capabilities at hand, and I can come up with a check difficulty and consequences of success.
However, where this really matters is when you run into other built characters. Up until The Days of September IX, you've largely been either fighting characters so enormously out of your weight class that checks feel meaningless (Emir) or characters who were intentionally throwing (Tara). That ended at the Days of September IX, where you ran up against Ludovic Chartier, who had a build and a strategy for using that build. In the future, you will continue to run into characters who have a defined build strategy, and a way to use that build to their own advantage.
Thus, this is that post. The report card will reflect "oh shit you guys never got a mechanics post detailing how they fit together." Similarly, because this game is built to reward tight and accurate play, I'm going to give you all the option of just picking a place to restart this run from, if you want. I always planned for multiple runs here, and the colorless Calamity text was meant to facilitate it, but this is just moving up the schedule.
So, the mechanics.
Broad Overview:
This quest system is unique to TSS. However, it is largely built upon the A Geek's Guide System, except heavily simplified – indeed, it more closely resembles AGG's own inspiration, the VN Long Live the Queen.
In this game, your advancement is determined by skill checks. You check your skill in any given field against the difficulty of the challenge to you in that field. If your skill is greater than or equal to the skill check, you pass the check, and reap the rewards; otherwise, you fail the check, and reap the consequences.
In contrast to LLTQ or AGG, however, I have largely stripped the numbers and Perks out, and unified it into unique stages of advancement in each fundamental skill.
Fundamental Skills
Fundamental skills are the skills which ultimately get checked against various difficulty skill checks to determine the results. I have rendered them both as numbers and as unique stages of advancement in understanding and skill.
For example, if you consider the Combat: Melee skill, you know of four stages so far, each of which denotes having some new capability that a lower level would not possess. Each additional stage therefore also represents someone with greater capabilities.
In total, for each fundamental skill, I have set up 6 stages, ranging from a basic understanding of the field to a level of mastery where the skill can be summarized in a title. The peak of the Combat: Melee tree, for example, is "The Armsmaster".
Roughly speaking, the first and second stages represent a basic grasp of the skill. Third and fourth stages represent an advanced level, and require a deeper understanding of the skill, or long practice with the skill. The fifth and the sixth stages represent mastery of the fundamental skill.
The fundamental gating to these skills is also why most of the time you will encounter people who casually dabble in the basic level, professionals in the middle level, and the real experts in the high level of a skill. That gating is explained down in the Interaction section.
Composite Skills
These fundamental skills are grouped together with other skills that represent different aspects of a greater composite skill. For example, Melee, Ranged, and Armor are the fundamental skills that go into the skillset of a Warrior.
These composite skills will not be directly checked, but will rather grant significant bonuses to fundamental skills, or change important aspects of how this game is played.
These composite skills have a few wrinkles. The first is to discover that it is a composite skill, and not a fundamental skill at all – this is possible once enough basic stages collect together that it is not plausible for the skill to be one skill, something which reflections and refinements can reveal.
This is the process by which you refined Speech, incidentally.
The second is that there are only three stages of advancement for each composite skill, obtained at reaching stage 2, 4 and 6 in all component fundamental skills, respectively.
These composite skill stages are Truths in and of themselves.
Skill Senses
There are also skills labeled Senses. These are amalgamations of skills that do not quite belong together but have been lumped together for convenience until a higher level of understanding of its component parts is achieved.
Once that happens, these skills will naturally split apart into composite skills, and then those composite skills can be broken down further into fundamental skills.
Interaction Between Senses, Truths, and Skills
Where TSS' advanced mechanics start is the interaction between the Senses, Truths, and Skills.
Namely, that every advancement past the two basic stages of the skill requires either internalizing it as a part of your being (Epithet Tagging) or discovering the fundamental Truth which underlies a higher level of skill.
So if you want to hit a high level of skill, you either need to have teachers who can teach you those fundamental Truths, internalize it as part of your existence, or simply learn those Truths yourself. This is why the attempt to train Education: Academic beyond 2 failed – you lack the understanding that makes additional broad academic education worthwhile.
Epithets
Epithets are a defining phrase for you. Check this out.
Equipment
This hasn't come up yet mostly because Axax hasn't really dedicated specific effort to look out for it, but it'll come up. Generally, equipment will fall beneath the level of abstraction; as your skill advances in stages, you may have better or worse baseline equipment, but I'm not bothering to track that.
What I will track is equipment which gives you meaningful advantages. Those will be things like magical weapons, specialty reference guides (and you need more Education: Academic to really get that going), or items with significant history behind them.
There is such equipment in this game, but as of The Boiling Second Year you mostly haven't encountered it.
How Are Checks Determined?
Here's a question, and the reason why I ended up moving to stages rather than AGG's love of large numbers: how do I determine checks?
Well, segmenting these skills into stages provides me an extremely handy guide to Axax – and other character's – capabilities at any given point in time. Compare the scope of the problem to the capabilities at hand, and I can come up with a check difficulty and consequences of success.
However, where this really matters is when you run into other built characters. Up until The Days of September IX, you've largely been either fighting characters so enormously out of your weight class that checks feel meaningless (Emir) or characters who were intentionally throwing (Tara). That ended at the Days of September IX, where you ran up against Ludovic Chartier, who had a build and a strategy for using that build. In the future, you will continue to run into characters who have a defined build strategy, and a way to use that build to their own advantage.
Last edited:
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
This is great actually, I totally approve of the narrative. Revolutions are messy.
This is great actually, I totally approve of the narrative. Revolutions are messy.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
[] This…this nightmare couldn't be the future that we were promised, could it?
I'd vote this if I felt better about the game.
[] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
I'd vote this if I felt a lot better about the game.
I'd vote this if I felt better about the game.
[] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
I'd vote this if I felt a lot better about the game.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
- Location
- USA
[x] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
[X] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
cokerpilot
Here comes the rain.
[x] This…this nightmare couldn't be the future that we were promised, could it?
- Location
- Belgium
[X] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
Solarstream
It's all in the cards
- Location
- Zombie World
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Even so…we have to stand up. We're alive, and we have to create this future.
Report Card [Run 1] [Days of September END]
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Okay, so you didn't have a mechanics post, so the original draft of the Report Card was a probably a little unfairly harsh for selecting correct choices.
That said, even the curved grade should probably remain around a C.
Let's talk about why, breaking it down into categories.
Virtue/Sin
Thus far, you have voted on Virtues and Sins 4 times.
You have voted for Wrath 3 times and Hope once.
I have not once mentioned a mechanical benefit for Wrath.
I have mentioned mechanical benefits for Hope, as a foundation for building Truths off of.
In fact, Wrath has pretty much, since the second vote for it, come with mechanical demerits. But no attention was paid to that, so Wrath was voted in again, and, well, here we are.
This isn't a complicated interaction of rules involving arcane secrets that only I was privy to – you can go back and read how many times your Wrath outright helped you, versus your Hope. So I'm grading it accordingly.
Grade: D
Lesson Votes
I love the Lesson Vote idea personally – it's a nice little system to check whether we're communicating our ideas to each other. It's the idea that made me want to make this a quest rather than a CYOA for me personally.
Which is why I'm proud to say it's mostly worked out alright, aside from a few close shaves. The winning choices were typically very well tied to the update they dropped in, as well as the overall tenor of Axax. Maybe these Lessons could stand be a little simpler, but I'm very happy with how this has turned out.
Grade: A
Social Links
Despite what I thought, you guys actually did alright, on the ones you went to. Maybe not extremely well and it was nearly always a close shave on getting it right given what you had to work with from Seasonal turns, but objectively most of them went right.
For the record, Jacquemin I, Thevenet I, Theodosia I, Nezhin I, Tara I and II went right, Ophelia I and Deacon I went wrong.
So in the end I have to give credit where credit is due – you did manage to get the right answer eventually. That said, I'd strongly advise you to think about SLs as defining your relationship rather than character defining decisions. Or in other words, don't be self-centered when you vote in Social Links. That will help you start making the right decisions for the right reasons.
Grade: B -
Politics
There were basically two political plan votes, and a few political alignment votes. You chose alright on the alignment votes and chose poorly on the plan votes. Your alignment votes helped ensure you had power in the right places at this time, so that's fine, one exception aside. Your plan votes, though…
On the one hand, with incredibly low skills in information gathering, analysis, and lacking a political Faction you control or significantly influence, significant success would have been attributable more to dumb luck than anything else.
On the other hand: Just because passing the test is difficult doesn't give you a pass if you didn't score enough points. Your political choices were poor and will come back to haunt you, and in many of those actions you would have been better off choosing to invest your time in something else.
Grade: D +
Miscellaneous
There were a bunch of smaller votes, like on what blessings to adopt or what strategy to start down. Most of those were just whatever choices, but even then I don't recall being particularly disappointed by any of them; you generally chose well on these smaller votes.
On the other hand, I can't remember being particularly enthused by any of the choices either, so…
Grade: B+
Epithets
You have had two Epithet votes thus far, and each one has been enormously consequential. It is simultaneously some of the most skill advancement you will receive, and literally character defining in a way few other votes are.
So what have you picked?
Axax the Independent, and Captain Aisha.
Axax the Independent was almost certainly mechanically the worst proposal of the three. Captain Aisha was numerically competitive and pushed you down the route of the military. Perhaps that is where you want to go.
So strictly speaking, I can't really grade off of two samples, especially since you still have enough freedom to choose what you want…mostly.
But once we hit this third vote, you'll have few chances to change. Choose with the knowledge that you are picking a route, long term.
Grade: N/A
Seasonal Turns
This one is a doozy, and I'm saving it for last because, well, it's practically tied for Epithet votes in sheer consequences for Axax's character. More, probably. Once I posted up the Truths of Power 1-6, that reminded me that Seasonal Turns were a core part of the game design, and that my haste to remove Seasonal Turns to keep the quest going badly damaged one of the core ideas of the game.
So, without further ado, let's look at what these plans were.
Remember when right out of the Days of March, you voted in that you should remember humility?
Remember that lesson. Because that's how I'm grading these plans.
Overall Seasonal Turn Grade: D+
The overall thrust is that even your good plans were ramming you facefirst into a difficulty cliff because you thought you were playing a much stronger and more developed character than Axax actually was. I think it's really highly implausible that you thought you were even near the midpoint of skill when my narration repeatedly told you "no, you aren't". Successive plans in this vein slowly exhausted most of your margin of error until the last plan nearly put you in a situation where you might have outright died, just because your build was so underdeveloped.
Now, strictly speaking, you guys didn't know the mechanics system. Strictly speaking, you wouldn't have known the most optimal path. So if you had a streak of reasonably good plans, I probably would have given you an A.
But they weren't reasonably good. They were, taken altogether, pretty bad, and did not consider Axax's abilities as a character.
To paraphrase Simon_Jester's comment – "we're torn between participating in the revolutionary stuff versus just growing your garden" – well, the very blunt and simple my answer through this story so far is that if your skills and allies are inadequate for a task, then they're inadequate, and you will fail that task, and fail to accomplish something you value.
So I encourage you to keep that thought in mind, because I'm putting the Seasonal turn actions back in, once this Epithet finishes up, and we start heading out into the broader world of Oskaria, and Vinimrond.
But after all of this...I had to stand up. I was still alive.
[The Truth of Power]
People are different from the beasts because people can choose. A person can change. People have that power inside of them, something that only they possess.
[Hope: II]
I could change. I was still human. I hadn't become a monster yet. I was my father's daughter and my teacher's student. I still had a spark of good in me.
My bloody hands curled into fists, and slammed against the floor. Smoke stung my eyes. Nobody else was here. My wounds bled all over.
I decided to change.
I had to change.
Until I could stand the person I saw in the mirror.
[] Officer Aisha
Tagged: Officer's Sense, Combat, Speech
"A Captain only executes orders. An officer gives them."
[] Nezhin's Student
Tagged: Education, Mystical, Empathy
"This whole mess…even if I'm an adult now, I'm still immature."
[] Seeker Axax
Tagged: Mystical, Deductions, Education
"I need to find an answer for myself, by myself."
That said, even the curved grade should probably remain around a C.
Let's talk about why, breaking it down into categories.
Virtue/Sin
Thus far, you have voted on Virtues and Sins 4 times.
You have voted for Wrath 3 times and Hope once.
I have not once mentioned a mechanical benefit for Wrath.
I have mentioned mechanical benefits for Hope, as a foundation for building Truths off of.
In fact, Wrath has pretty much, since the second vote for it, come with mechanical demerits. But no attention was paid to that, so Wrath was voted in again, and, well, here we are.
This isn't a complicated interaction of rules involving arcane secrets that only I was privy to – you can go back and read how many times your Wrath outright helped you, versus your Hope. So I'm grading it accordingly.
Grade: D
Lesson Votes
I love the Lesson Vote idea personally – it's a nice little system to check whether we're communicating our ideas to each other. It's the idea that made me want to make this a quest rather than a CYOA for me personally.
Which is why I'm proud to say it's mostly worked out alright, aside from a few close shaves. The winning choices were typically very well tied to the update they dropped in, as well as the overall tenor of Axax. Maybe these Lessons could stand be a little simpler, but I'm very happy with how this has turned out.
Grade: A
Social Links
Despite what I thought, you guys actually did alright, on the ones you went to. Maybe not extremely well and it was nearly always a close shave on getting it right given what you had to work with from Seasonal turns, but objectively most of them went right.
For the record, Jacquemin I, Thevenet I, Theodosia I, Nezhin I, Tara I and II went right, Ophelia I and Deacon I went wrong.
So in the end I have to give credit where credit is due – you did manage to get the right answer eventually. That said, I'd strongly advise you to think about SLs as defining your relationship rather than character defining decisions. Or in other words, don't be self-centered when you vote in Social Links. That will help you start making the right decisions for the right reasons.
Grade: B -
Politics
There were basically two political plan votes, and a few political alignment votes. You chose alright on the alignment votes and chose poorly on the plan votes. Your alignment votes helped ensure you had power in the right places at this time, so that's fine, one exception aside. Your plan votes, though…
On the one hand, with incredibly low skills in information gathering, analysis, and lacking a political Faction you control or significantly influence, significant success would have been attributable more to dumb luck than anything else.
On the other hand: Just because passing the test is difficult doesn't give you a pass if you didn't score enough points. Your political choices were poor and will come back to haunt you, and in many of those actions you would have been better off choosing to invest your time in something else.
Grade: D +
Miscellaneous
There were a bunch of smaller votes, like on what blessings to adopt or what strategy to start down. Most of those were just whatever choices, but even then I don't recall being particularly disappointed by any of them; you generally chose well on these smaller votes.
On the other hand, I can't remember being particularly enthused by any of the choices either, so…
Grade: B+
Epithets
You have had two Epithet votes thus far, and each one has been enormously consequential. It is simultaneously some of the most skill advancement you will receive, and literally character defining in a way few other votes are.
So what have you picked?
Axax the Independent, and Captain Aisha.
Axax the Independent was almost certainly mechanically the worst proposal of the three. Captain Aisha was numerically competitive and pushed you down the route of the military. Perhaps that is where you want to go.
So strictly speaking, I can't really grade off of two samples, especially since you still have enough freedom to choose what you want…mostly.
But once we hit this third vote, you'll have few chances to change. Choose with the knowledge that you are picking a route, long term.
Grade: N/A
Seasonal Turns
This one is a doozy, and I'm saving it for last because, well, it's practically tied for Epithet votes in sheer consequences for Axax's character. More, probably. Once I posted up the Truths of Power 1-6, that reminded me that Seasonal Turns were a core part of the game design, and that my haste to remove Seasonal Turns to keep the quest going badly damaged one of the core ideas of the game.
So, without further ado, let's look at what these plans were.
Summer I
[X] Plan Participation and Study:
-[X] Attend the Greater Assembly
-[X] Attend Jacquemin's Club
-[X] Attend the Club circuit
-[X] Attend the Demonstrations
-[X] Study More Academic Texts
-[X] Writing Notes
Autumn I
[X] Plan: Calming Hearts while Training The Mind
-[X] Something Off About Deacon
-[X] The Dragon Emblem and the Maiden
-[X] Training Blessings
-[X] Officer Recruitment
-[X] Attend Jacquemin's Club
Winter I
[X] Plan: Building a Foundation
-[X] Thevenet
-[X] Training Speech at Jacquemin's Club
-[X] Recruiting More National Guard
-[X] The Dragon Emblem and the Maiden Again
Spring I
[X] Plan: Using Our Prensence
-[X] Tara
-[X] Ophelia
-[X] Jacquemin's Club
-[X] The Bourgeoisie Club Circuit
Summer II
[X] Plan: All Learned Up
-[X] Learning Alchemy from Nezhin
-[X] Learning Disguises from Tara
-[X] Learning Deceit from Thevenet
[X] Plan Participation and Study:
-[X] Attend the Greater Assembly
-[X] Attend Jacquemin's Club
-[X] Attend the Club circuit
-[X] Attend the Demonstrations
-[X] Study More Academic Texts
-[X] Writing Notes
Autumn I
[X] Plan: Calming Hearts while Training The Mind
-[X] Something Off About Deacon
-[X] The Dragon Emblem and the Maiden
-[X] Training Blessings
-[X] Officer Recruitment
-[X] Attend Jacquemin's Club
Winter I
[X] Plan: Building a Foundation
-[X] Thevenet
-[X] Training Speech at Jacquemin's Club
-[X] Recruiting More National Guard
-[X] The Dragon Emblem and the Maiden Again
Spring I
[X] Plan: Using Our Prensence
-[X] Tara
-[X] Ophelia
-[X] Jacquemin's Club
-[X] The Bourgeoisie Club Circuit
Summer II
[X] Plan: All Learned Up
-[X] Learning Alchemy from Nezhin
-[X] Learning Disguises from Tara
-[X] Learning Deceit from Thevenet
Remember when right out of the Days of March, you voted in that you should remember humility?
Remember that lesson. Because that's how I'm grading these plans.
Summer I has two actions to train Education, and four trying to participate in politics. Remember, by this point, you have less than three points in Charisma (and you don't even know it's the Speech tree yet), you don't even know about the Trade Tree, the Organization Tree, or anything else. You don't even have The Student I to help you learn in any situation.
So it's hard to see this, when you had the most action flexibility, as anything other than an extremely poor start.
Grade: D
Autumn I has 1 Social Link, 1 Event, 1 Training, 1 Politics, and 1 Faction establishment. This is significantly better than the first plan; Social Links are at least a plausibly good investment (even though you had few Empathy skills), 1 Event (even if you were still majorly crippled and in a cast), 1 Politics Action (your skill still hasn't improved very much) and 1 Faction (which is actually a good move outright.)
Better, but you're not quite making up lost ground just yet.
But also, ooh, ouch, fucking up that Deacon SL majorly crimped your future Seasonal turns in a way you never really fixed.
Grade: B
Winter I has 1 Social Link, 1 Event, 1 Training, and 1 Factional action. This is pretty respectable as plans go – even if the Social Link was chosen for a poor reason, you did choose reasonably well given the circumstances.
The major issue is that by this point, you knew what Early to Rise did - give you +1 AP – and then just didn't take it.
Grade: B
Spring I has 2 Social Links and 2 politics votes. By this point, your Speech is actually halfway respectable, so you can do things politically.
The problem is that your data collection and analysis is still terrible. Any idea of Trade or Organization is something you're imputing in from your own experiences outside of the world of Oskaria. So you lose a bunch of points there.
The Social Links are good calls, given how tight the situation is – but also, your truths and Empathy score are low, which makes taking those options chancy at best.
And you still did not take Early to Rise.
Grade: C-
Summer II
Summer II has three Training Actions. If it had come earlier, I would praise it with severe reservations. But by now, in Summer II, this is a disaster. These Training Actions are to create new supplementary skills, when you need to be advancing either Factional actions to prepare to deal with Captain Borde and the threat of Order's paladins, or taking Training Actions core to your build. Alchemy, Disguises, and Deceit are very much not core elements of your build right now.
No Early to Rise. No Combat. No Social Links. No Empathy. No Officer's Sense. No Factional support.
If you picked this plan, you probably would not have survived the Days of September.
Grade: F
So it's hard to see this, when you had the most action flexibility, as anything other than an extremely poor start.
Grade: D
Autumn I has 1 Social Link, 1 Event, 1 Training, 1 Politics, and 1 Faction establishment. This is significantly better than the first plan; Social Links are at least a plausibly good investment (even though you had few Empathy skills), 1 Event (even if you were still majorly crippled and in a cast), 1 Politics Action (your skill still hasn't improved very much) and 1 Faction (which is actually a good move outright.)
Better, but you're not quite making up lost ground just yet.
But also, ooh, ouch, fucking up that Deacon SL majorly crimped your future Seasonal turns in a way you never really fixed.
Grade: B
Winter I has 1 Social Link, 1 Event, 1 Training, and 1 Factional action. This is pretty respectable as plans go – even if the Social Link was chosen for a poor reason, you did choose reasonably well given the circumstances.
The major issue is that by this point, you knew what Early to Rise did - give you +1 AP – and then just didn't take it.
Grade: B
Spring I has 2 Social Links and 2 politics votes. By this point, your Speech is actually halfway respectable, so you can do things politically.
The problem is that your data collection and analysis is still terrible. Any idea of Trade or Organization is something you're imputing in from your own experiences outside of the world of Oskaria. So you lose a bunch of points there.
The Social Links are good calls, given how tight the situation is – but also, your truths and Empathy score are low, which makes taking those options chancy at best.
And you still did not take Early to Rise.
Grade: C-
Summer II
Summer II has three Training Actions. If it had come earlier, I would praise it with severe reservations. But by now, in Summer II, this is a disaster. These Training Actions are to create new supplementary skills, when you need to be advancing either Factional actions to prepare to deal with Captain Borde and the threat of Order's paladins, or taking Training Actions core to your build. Alchemy, Disguises, and Deceit are very much not core elements of your build right now.
No Early to Rise. No Combat. No Social Links. No Empathy. No Officer's Sense. No Factional support.
If you picked this plan, you probably would not have survived the Days of September.
Grade: F
Overall Seasonal Turn Grade: D+
The overall thrust is that even your good plans were ramming you facefirst into a difficulty cliff because you thought you were playing a much stronger and more developed character than Axax actually was. I think it's really highly implausible that you thought you were even near the midpoint of skill when my narration repeatedly told you "no, you aren't". Successive plans in this vein slowly exhausted most of your margin of error until the last plan nearly put you in a situation where you might have outright died, just because your build was so underdeveloped.
Now, strictly speaking, you guys didn't know the mechanics system. Strictly speaking, you wouldn't have known the most optimal path. So if you had a streak of reasonably good plans, I probably would have given you an A.
But they weren't reasonably good. They were, taken altogether, pretty bad, and did not consider Axax's abilities as a character.
To paraphrase Simon_Jester's comment – "we're torn between participating in the revolutionary stuff versus just growing your garden" – well, the very blunt and simple my answer through this story so far is that if your skills and allies are inadequate for a task, then they're inadequate, and you will fail that task, and fail to accomplish something you value.
So I encourage you to keep that thought in mind, because I'm putting the Seasonal turn actions back in, once this Epithet finishes up, and we start heading out into the broader world of Oskaria, and Vinimrond.
But after all of this...I had to stand up. I was still alive.
[The Truth of Power]
People are different from the beasts because people can choose. A person can change. People have that power inside of them, something that only they possess.
[Hope: II]
I could change. I was still human. I hadn't become a monster yet. I was my father's daughter and my teacher's student. I still had a spark of good in me.
My bloody hands curled into fists, and slammed against the floor. Smoke stung my eyes. Nobody else was here. My wounds bled all over.
I decided to change.
I had to change.
Until I could stand the person I saw in the mirror.
[] Officer Aisha
Tagged: Officer's Sense, Combat, Speech
"A Captain only executes orders. An officer gives them."
[] Nezhin's Student
Tagged: Education, Mystical, Empathy
"This whole mess…even if I'm an adult now, I'm still immature."
[] Seeker Axax
Tagged: Mystical, Deductions, Education
"I need to find an answer for myself, by myself."
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] Seeker Axax