Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
Never forgetti, angels in my spaghetti
Sworn to the State: A Magical Quest
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Never forgetti, angels in my spaghetti
- Location
- Austria
[X] Go to Godei. Despite everything, he is still your master, and the monastery is in a state of emergency. You can speak to Tala later, but if you miss Godei now, not only will you miss being able to say everything you desperately want to say to him, but you might miss out on important information. You have to swallowyour pride and speak to him, for the sake of everyone. It might be an emergency.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I'll leave it open for a while longer (at least another day or two) so feel free to spit on each other and yell about how the other guys' vote is totally wrong.
Actually please do that, because it's 20:20 right now. Might start a bandwagon for one of them if your arguments are good enough
Actually please do that, because it's 20:20 right now. Might start a bandwagon for one of them if your arguments are good enough
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Stay with Tala. She is your friend and is injured. Not only do you need to find out what this problem with her arm is and try and see if you can convince her to tell you what she's hiding, but she has nobody in the monastery. If you leave her now, she'll remember that as she lies by herself, her only company a disembodied golem that tried to kill her.
i don't think this is the better decision but we have been on a string of terrible decisions and i think the real evil here would be lack of commitment
i don't think this is the better decision but we have been on a string of terrible decisions and i think the real evil here would be lack of commitment
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Voting will close tomorrow.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
[X] Go to Godei. Despite everything, he is still your master, and the monastery is in a state of emergency. You can speak to Tala later, but if you miss Godei now, not only will you miss being able to say everything you desperately want to say to him, but you might miss out on important information. You have to swallowyour pride and speak to him, for the sake of everyone. It might be an emergency.
- Location
- in the trash
...Honestly this point we could probably replace the process of voting with a coin flip.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Fuck it, I decided to end voting early and flipped a coin. Came up Heads for Tala. I realize part of the issue with the consistent ties is probably people aren't really sure what each option does and where it leads, so people just vote based on relationships and guesswork.
So part of what I'm going to do is do a better job of filling out the boundaries of Vashti's ability so that people can make active decisions knowing about that. Most setting info will of course be kept locked away, because that part Vashti doesn't really know a lot about and without Mentsh I cannot justify too many lore dumps
What I'm going to do tonight is sit down and fully delineate Vashti's techniques under each school. Players need better boundaries of what she can and can't do. Also feel free to mention any other information you'd like put up that Vashti might know and I'll try my best to put it up on the stat sheet. The techniques Vashti has are not ones you'll be able to put XP in because they're pre-made techniques she's learned from the commentaries of other scholars. The way these techniques are framed should also give a better idea of how "magic" in the setting even works, which will then give a better idea for people who might eventually want to create their own techniques.
The other part of what I'm going to do is work better at providing options where players are more aware of the boundaries of each vote and what it might lead to. Hopefully that'll help contextualize things and improve confidence in where things are going, rather than every option ending in a potential bad end.
So part of what I'm going to do is do a better job of filling out the boundaries of Vashti's ability so that people can make active decisions knowing about that. Most setting info will of course be kept locked away, because that part Vashti doesn't really know a lot about and without Mentsh I cannot justify too many lore dumps
What I'm going to do tonight is sit down and fully delineate Vashti's techniques under each school. Players need better boundaries of what she can and can't do. Also feel free to mention any other information you'd like put up that Vashti might know and I'll try my best to put it up on the stat sheet. The techniques Vashti has are not ones you'll be able to put XP in because they're pre-made techniques she's learned from the commentaries of other scholars. The way these techniques are framed should also give a better idea of how "magic" in the setting even works, which will then give a better idea for people who might eventually want to create their own techniques.
The other part of what I'm going to do is work better at providing options where players are more aware of the boundaries of each vote and what it might lead to. Hopefully that'll help contextualize things and improve confidence in where things are going, rather than every option ending in a potential bad end.
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- Location
- in the trash
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- Location
- Austria
Fuck it, I decided to end voting early and flipped a coin. Came up Heads for Tala. I realize part of the issue with the consistent ties is probably people aren't really sure what each option does and where it leads, so people just vote based on relationships and guesswork.
So part of what I'm going to do is do a better job of filling out the boundaries of Vashti's ability so that people can make active decisions knowing about that. Most setting info will of course be kept locked away, because that part Vashti doesn't really know a lot about and without Mentsh I cannot justify too many lore dumps
What I'm going to do tonight is sit down and fully delineate Vashti's techniques under each school. Players need better boundaries of what she can and can't do. Also feel free to mention any other information you'd like put up that Vashti might know and I'll try my best to put it up on the stat sheet. The techniques Vashti has are not ones you'll be able to put XP in because they're pre-made techniques she's learned from the commentaries of other scholars. The way these techniques are framed should also give a better idea of how "magic" in the setting even works, which will then give a better idea for people who might eventually want to create their own techniques.
The other part of what I'm going to do is work better at providing options where players are more aware of the boundaries of each vote and what it might lead to. Hopefully that'll help contextualize things and improve confidence in where things are going, rather than every option ending in a potential bad end.
I mean.
The current tie was mostly because people had different priorities? The only thing unclear is the degree of emergency and how tight is the time limit, and this is a thing which we clearly shouldn't know anyway.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I mean more in general. Can't speak to people's feeling about this tie, but Omicron gave me a pretty clear criticism of some of the issues with past votes I agreed with.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
Are we aware of how specialization in certain areas over others affects people outside of us? To the point where we'd be able to recognize that oh, Godei seems to lean towards X, Y, Z, I'd tentatively guess specialization in A, B, C?
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I believe this was asked before, and you'd know that Godei's speciality is Yatoni, followed closely by Zurahna. I'll put that in as well on an "ally" sheet along with some more detailed info about his skills.
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
That's helpful, but I meant more in a general sense.
Could she tell (or at least wager a guess), without knowing, purely going off of idiosyncrasies of the individual and how they match up to each school?
- Location
- Canada
I was kind of annoyed at this at first because a coin flip robs the vote of a lot of its weight, but I think I'm okay with it now, because I started thinking about it in a narrative sense. Sometimes decisions in life are irreconcilably divided, torn between two options that both desperately important and mutually exclusive. In this case, I can totally imagine Vashti being completely stalemated between going to her master of so many years or staying with her only friend who is being shunned by everyone else, to the point where she'd have to flip a coin to finally make a choice. It does happen. There isn't always a "best" way to do things.
Or, to paraphrase my mother when I take too far too long to make a decision, "Just pick one; you can apologize for not taking the other one later."
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Yes, I'll be incorporating that indecision into the update. It just became very frustrating for me, because a good deal of the planning for the rest of the arc leaned on picking one of the options and it was very difficult to make a plan whilst both were suspended in a continuous tie, so I just wanted to get it over with earlier.
- Location
- Canada
"No pressure you guys, it's just literally everything riding on this coin toss."
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
A lot of Jewish folk tales rest off the idea of concealed righteous men who come up as beggars/random people and then have dinner with a poor family, then only reveal themselves once the family shows its kindness and generosity, to repay the family for hospitality.
So what I'm saying is that if anything, the higher up you go the less likely you'll be able to tell. Some people of course reflect the mannerisms of their school, but it never so simplistic, and hiding it is not that hard. As secret police, Vicars were often expected to conceal themselves, infiltrate organizations and groups deemed a threat to the state, and observe the peasantry and townspeople undetected. This would be impossible if, like in Bleach, they gave off some constant aura they had to hide in order not to be detected.
That said, this is something Vashti can get better at picking out. Becoming better at Chesed, but also proficiency in a school, could help her recognize others of similar or higher skill in that school. Unlike spirits, though, Vicars don't have some kind of "spiritual signature" which can be easily picked up. Spirits can see souls, but are unable to discern power, and so they also will not reflexively jump to eating you, especially if you have a Vicar's outfit. At the same time, wearing that outfit in any kind of capacity outside the safe space of the monastery is painting a dozen targets on your back.
One of the ways in which I think about the "magic" of Sworn to the State, and this is something I'll try to make clearer, is that it is very much just an advanced form of religious scholarship. Although it reflects itself on the user and learner in various ways and mannerisms (such as Vashti getting lost in dreams, or her past mood swings), it is not an aura that emits from their body or in many cases even a passive buff that you see at all times. Vashti didn't know anything about Bluff's power until he punched her into the printing press. Bluff similarly knew nothing about Vashti's power. They had to test each other, because the entire structure of the Spiritual Schools was constructed around the idea of practitioners trusting each other. It was not built for antagonistic equals.
That kind of guessing game is what makes things far more dangerous. Knowledge is power, in the sense that you want to be able to gather information from normal social, verbal, and non-verbal cues before you get into conflict. The problem comes that in the setting, a lot of Vicars are on deeply uneasy ground. Vicars are not used to confronting people of their own, or higher skill level and power in any way, shape or form. It was never needed, because their primary antagonists for most of their history were spirits, beings that they could easily train to detect and catch without much issue. Vicar deserters, a consistent problem throughout their history, could usually be handled by the fact that defectors were almost always lower-level and could be hunted down. After all, unlike in a lot of shounen where the big magic users are this nebulous group with no oversight, Vicars are just one arm of a massive state that could utilize its vast resources to hunt vicars down. Long-range curses and techniques to detect a specific person (not their power, just to find them specifically) did the rest.
So now the Vicars are in a situation where the central state has collapsed, many vicars have either deserted or fled from the central organization, many of the most knowledgeable and wise scholars have become immortal monks sitting in giant shrines for some purpose or another, and there are all kinds of strange and mysterious people (like, but not limited to Bluff) who can kill Vicars without using Vicar techniques and commentaries...
It's not good.
"No pressure you guys, it's just literally everything riding on this coin toss."
People should not worry about this in particular- I am trying to stray away from "bad ends". I will make an active effort in the next update to emphasize the benefits and rewards of staying with Tala (and there are rewards) rather than just punishing people for not going to Godei, or vice versa.
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Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
These answers are delicious and I love it.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
welcome to vaspukaran
IN VASPUKARAN, SONG OF BIRD LISTEN TO YOU
The Chomer, the Zurah, Spirits, and Heavenly Beings
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
In the Beginning...
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God split the light from the darkness. From the light emerged the chomer: the mundane world. From the darkness emerged the Zurah, the scaffolding of creation that holds up the chomer. Only heaven stands freely, watching from above and sheltering those who have passed to the world to come.
The Source of Wisdom
Everything in the chomer has its shadow in the Zurah. Whether they are using their powers in the mundane world, or manipulating these shadows directly, all the spiritual schools use the Zurah. Without it, their feats and techniques would be utterly impossible.
The Ravs were the first to discover how to channel the Zurah's secrets into normal reality. Through the holy books, the shadows of the Zurah could not only be manipulated but transformed, thus changing the chomer in turn. This was not sorcery, but the outcome of scholarship and discipline.
Indeed, as the Ravs learned, simply by thinking, or drawing breath, all living things change the Zurah. The trick was to do so with intent. With the forthright power of righteousness, and man's covenant with God, any man or woman could learn to grasp the Zurah with their will, to mould it into specific forms, to channel it into the chomer. The possibilities were endless.
No longer would the realm of the soul be the province of witches and demons. No longer would the living cower in fear of the dead. The Vicars were born.
The Zurah
Most practitioners interact with the Zurah realm only indirectly. Even those who enter it rarely exit their personal domains, called "Zurah Realms". These are islands of safety in a sea of danger, gates to the mundane world created by trained practitioners of the spiritual art "Zurahna".
Zurah Realms are unbreachable from the outside except by the most powerful or dangerous beings. Within this bubble the user is in total control, able to manipulate any aspect, create any object, and replicate any passage of time. The only limitation is mental fortitude, as to hold these spiritual bastions against the weight of the Zurah is a struggle of will. A practitioner can leave or enter their Zurah realm as they wish, but if their bubble is disrupted or disappears, escaping the Zurah is no easy task. For outside these bubbles, the Zurah stretches, a wasteland of the soul. The landscape of the Zurah mirrors that of the chomer, but unmoored to time, so past, present and future intermingle, ruins of buildings yet unbuilt amidst the littered bones of long-dead giants. Lighting this darkling plain are tiny candle flames of light, the Zurah realms of all life, but especially humans, as seen from the outside. Gossamer connections of moonlight stretch between these flames.
As the Zurah is a mirror of the mundane world, it is possible to travel or communicate through it. However, it is not safe. There are things within the Zurah, scuttling, flying, floating things, that are outside the boundaries of creation. Even if one survives or avoids these entities, the featureless expanse is almost impossible to navigate. Only the bravest, or the most foolish, willingly breach the edge of their Zurah realm and travel through the abyss. Even if they escape, they may not emerge where they hoped, or when they hoped. Time passes differently in the Zurah, and it is possible for scholars centuries old to emerge and turn to dust instantly as they enter the chomer.
When a practitioner enters their realm, the area around them is covered in blackness, indicating the opening of a gate to their realm and engulfing all nearby. Some skilled practitioners, however, especially assassins, can camouflage this blackness, disappearing and reappearing in place without a trace.
Spirits
All living things make impressions upon the Zurah. Sometimes these impressions can take on a kind of life of their own. There are two kinds of spirits, those formed directly from the souls of the dead; and those formed by potent thoughts and feelings of large groups of living beings.
When any living being dies it leaves behind its neshama, or soul, floating in the zurah. Most souls ascend directly to heaven, but for others, something stops them. Whether it is a curse, trauma, unfulfilled hopes and dreams, or a base despair that causes them to lose faith in God, these lost souls stay and wander in the Zurah Realm. Some, lucky enough not to be eaten or dissipate into nothingness, are able to project new mundane forms by mastering the Zurah.
When they return, these souls have become spirits. All spirits are forced to consume the souls of the living in some sense to sustain themselves, or face re-absorption into the Zurah and the end of their existence. As they have no anchor in the chomer, the walls of their Zurah realms must be reinforced or they will be worn down.
This feeding can be symbiotic, by taking small packets of spirit-stuff in the form of emotion, thoughts, or intentions of groups of humans, often in exchange for some service. In times gone by, many spirits eked out a living in local communities in this manner. It can also be predatory, by glutting oneself on the whole life force and spiritual substance of a living human. In the current age, there is a pronounced bias for most spirits encountered in the world to be predatory.
The only way to end this cycle of hunger is for the spirit to starve and dissipate, or for a practitioner to free it from its suffering and send it to heaven. For this purpose, the great founder of Vaspukaran, the Patriarch Amalgast, created a prayer of purification that can be learned by all. Since most spirits will resist this purification violently, it is the duty of Vicars to break down their defenses and force them to move on, for their sake and the sake of the living.
However, there is another option. It is possible for a spirit to be hosted within the Zurah realm of a Vicar: without the need to sustain their physical form, the spirit would be free from hunger. However, this process is extremely dangerous. The host must gain the trust of the spirit, and trust in turn that it will not attempt to possess them and consume their soul. If such a thing were to occur, the spirit would emerge far more ravenous than before, and cause untold destruction and suffering.
Heavenly Beings
Not much is known about those who dwell in the World to Come. It is known that there are angels, and that they are the servants of God. It is known that there is the Accuser, and his purpose is to question the sins and good deeds of all those who pass on. It is known that there is a God, and he is good. It is also known that angels are beings created with a single purpose, finding difficulty in all else but what they are created with. They are locked in a state of constant ecstasy to God, barring the accuser, who is provided more free will in the pursuit of his duties. Occasionally, angels have descended from heaven and given tasks or powers to humans, although these occurrences are rare, and have always been noteworthy.
There were those who devoted their study to the hierarchy of the angels, but their work has been lost, and the last to speak directly to the angels was the Rav Tologda.
***
Feel free to ask any questions you'd like. The next piece of supplementary info will clear up and cover the schools.
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God split the light from the darkness. From the light emerged the chomer: the mundane world. From the darkness emerged the Zurah, the scaffolding of creation that holds up the chomer. Only heaven stands freely, watching from above and sheltering those who have passed to the world to come.
The Source of Wisdom
Everything in the chomer has its shadow in the Zurah. Whether they are using their powers in the mundane world, or manipulating these shadows directly, all the spiritual schools use the Zurah. Without it, their feats and techniques would be utterly impossible.
The Ravs were the first to discover how to channel the Zurah's secrets into normal reality. Through the holy books, the shadows of the Zurah could not only be manipulated but transformed, thus changing the chomer in turn. This was not sorcery, but the outcome of scholarship and discipline.
Indeed, as the Ravs learned, simply by thinking, or drawing breath, all living things change the Zurah. The trick was to do so with intent. With the forthright power of righteousness, and man's covenant with God, any man or woman could learn to grasp the Zurah with their will, to mould it into specific forms, to channel it into the chomer. The possibilities were endless.
No longer would the realm of the soul be the province of witches and demons. No longer would the living cower in fear of the dead. The Vicars were born.
The Zurah
Most practitioners interact with the Zurah realm only indirectly. Even those who enter it rarely exit their personal domains, called "Zurah Realms". These are islands of safety in a sea of danger, gates to the mundane world created by trained practitioners of the spiritual art "Zurahna".
Zurah Realms are unbreachable from the outside except by the most powerful or dangerous beings. Within this bubble the user is in total control, able to manipulate any aspect, create any object, and replicate any passage of time. The only limitation is mental fortitude, as to hold these spiritual bastions against the weight of the Zurah is a struggle of will. A practitioner can leave or enter their Zurah realm as they wish, but if their bubble is disrupted or disappears, escaping the Zurah is no easy task. For outside these bubbles, the Zurah stretches, a wasteland of the soul. The landscape of the Zurah mirrors that of the chomer, but unmoored to time, so past, present and future intermingle, ruins of buildings yet unbuilt amidst the littered bones of long-dead giants. Lighting this darkling plain are tiny candle flames of light, the Zurah realms of all life, but especially humans, as seen from the outside. Gossamer connections of moonlight stretch between these flames.
As the Zurah is a mirror of the mundane world, it is possible to travel or communicate through it. However, it is not safe. There are things within the Zurah, scuttling, flying, floating things, that are outside the boundaries of creation. Even if one survives or avoids these entities, the featureless expanse is almost impossible to navigate. Only the bravest, or the most foolish, willingly breach the edge of their Zurah realm and travel through the abyss. Even if they escape, they may not emerge where they hoped, or when they hoped. Time passes differently in the Zurah, and it is possible for scholars centuries old to emerge and turn to dust instantly as they enter the chomer.
When a practitioner enters their realm, the area around them is covered in blackness, indicating the opening of a gate to their realm and engulfing all nearby. Some skilled practitioners, however, especially assassins, can camouflage this blackness, disappearing and reappearing in place without a trace.
Spirits
All living things make impressions upon the Zurah. Sometimes these impressions can take on a kind of life of their own. There are two kinds of spirits, those formed directly from the souls of the dead; and those formed by potent thoughts and feelings of large groups of living beings.
When any living being dies it leaves behind its neshama, or soul, floating in the zurah. Most souls ascend directly to heaven, but for others, something stops them. Whether it is a curse, trauma, unfulfilled hopes and dreams, or a base despair that causes them to lose faith in God, these lost souls stay and wander in the Zurah Realm. Some, lucky enough not to be eaten or dissipate into nothingness, are able to project new mundane forms by mastering the Zurah.
When they return, these souls have become spirits. All spirits are forced to consume the souls of the living in some sense to sustain themselves, or face re-absorption into the Zurah and the end of their existence. As they have no anchor in the chomer, the walls of their Zurah realms must be reinforced or they will be worn down.
This feeding can be symbiotic, by taking small packets of spirit-stuff in the form of emotion, thoughts, or intentions of groups of humans, often in exchange for some service. In times gone by, many spirits eked out a living in local communities in this manner. It can also be predatory, by glutting oneself on the whole life force and spiritual substance of a living human. In the current age, there is a pronounced bias for most spirits encountered in the world to be predatory.
The only way to end this cycle of hunger is for the spirit to starve and dissipate, or for a practitioner to free it from its suffering and send it to heaven. For this purpose, the great founder of Vaspukaran, the Patriarch Amalgast, created a prayer of purification that can be learned by all. Since most spirits will resist this purification violently, it is the duty of Vicars to break down their defenses and force them to move on, for their sake and the sake of the living.
However, there is another option. It is possible for a spirit to be hosted within the Zurah realm of a Vicar: without the need to sustain their physical form, the spirit would be free from hunger. However, this process is extremely dangerous. The host must gain the trust of the spirit, and trust in turn that it will not attempt to possess them and consume their soul. If such a thing were to occur, the spirit would emerge far more ravenous than before, and cause untold destruction and suffering.
Heavenly Beings
Not much is known about those who dwell in the World to Come. It is known that there are angels, and that they are the servants of God. It is known that there is the Accuser, and his purpose is to question the sins and good deeds of all those who pass on. It is known that there is a God, and he is good. It is also known that angels are beings created with a single purpose, finding difficulty in all else but what they are created with. They are locked in a state of constant ecstasy to God, barring the accuser, who is provided more free will in the pursuit of his duties. Occasionally, angels have descended from heaven and given tasks or powers to humans, although these occurrences are rare, and have always been noteworthy.
There were those who devoted their study to the hierarchy of the angels, but their work has been lost, and the last to speak directly to the angels was the Rav Tologda.
***
Feel free to ask any questions you'd like. The next piece of supplementary info will clear up and cover the schools.
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