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Abrogation (Steampunk)

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-[x] Avoid civilization until you've likely left the territory of the warring Inspired. Any area needing to deal with them probably won't be too happy to see yet another Inspired.
 
[X] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So, lets get to conquering us a city. That way we have minions.
 
We should remember to come back here and pick up the horse after we're done. If nothing else, it not being obviously a construct despite having survived three days of hard riding means it's something to study.
 
[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[X] Avoid civilization until you've likely left the territory of the warring Inspired. Any area needing to deal with them probably won't be too happy to see yet another Inspired.

Certainly not going to waste this on a few small inventions, but a battlebot doesn't feel very... inspired.

fictionfan said:
At this point of the quest is when we take risks. Ignition would have never gotten Agneyastra if we had played it safe at the beginning.
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The Royal setting on the Device was quote sucker-bait unquote that we rolled a Nat 100 on. Remember?
 
[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[X] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade,right? You should have enough money to buyenough parts for a few small inventions.
 
[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[x] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade, right? You should have enough money to buy enough parts for a few small inventions.
 
[X] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[x] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade, right? You should have enough money to buy enough parts for a few small inventions.

I want a First Work based around something other than the much and far too often solved problem of killing lots of people very fast.
 
[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[x] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade, right? You should have enough money to buy enough parts for a few small inventions.
 
[x] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
Vebyast said:
A neighilist, obviously.
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*groan*
Vebyast said:
Ahah, I knew something felt weird, thank you for catching that. Why haven't our parents taken this place over? There must be some reason that they've left it this way. Is it not worth it for some reason? If they're preserving it in a state that makes it easy to take over, who are they providing that opening for?
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Could be the warring Inspired here have some sort of backer, or are otherwise subordinated to another person or faction. Hell, it could be warring factions, and not individuals. Or, perhaps, the rulers of this stretch of territory aren't Inspired, but instead merely employ weak Inspired to make them weapons and machines. And maybe more stuff I can't think of, at the moment.
 
Hmm. Actually... The mention of the machines on both sides being exactly the same make me think this is some kind of war game. Like, both parties were issued the same resources and then told to fight it out. Or... Like they were mass produced.

This isn't two different extremely weak Inspired fighting it out. This is... It's as if this is a land with no Inspired, but the mundanes managed to get their hands on some kind of Inspired tech and reverse engineer a shoddy imitation of it, and as soon as they manage that, they mass produce it for war.

The question being then, what is it about this land that keeps actual Inspired from dominating it? Something must be keeping Inspired out of here.

... I'm thinking we need more answers. Time for a write in.

[X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
-[x] Search for a town or city. Do not buy materials or indicate you are Inspired in any way. Try to figure out the local situation and why the conflicts are so odd and wasteful.
 
Kai Merah said:
Hmm. Actually... The mention of the machines on both sides being exactly the same make me think this is some kind of war game. Like, both parties were issued the same resources and then told to fight it out. Or... Like they were mass produced.
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Each side has a set of identical bots, but the two sides are very distinctly different:
Alivaril said:
you can see slumped bronze clockwork marching against four-legged iron beasts. The strange parts arrive when you notice the distressing similarities between each model. As far as you can tell, each and every clockwork on a particular side is exactly the same.
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@Alivaril Can we observe stylistic differences between the two sides, or would craftsmanship differences at this distance be obscured by materials and basic body layout? Can we see any stylistic similarities/differences between the weapons that are being wielded by the peasants?

Kai Merah said:
This isn't two different extremely weak Inspired fighting it out. This is... It's as if this is a land with no Inspired, but the mundanes managed to get their hands on some kind of Inspired tech and reverse engineer a shoddy imitation of it, and as soon as they manage that, they mass produce it for war.
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Given that even Inspired have trouble reproducing each others' works - note that one of the options we had at the beginning was literally "better at copying" - I doubt that unInspired could pull that off. They certainly couldn't achieve mass production given a set of examples; mass production is really stupidly difficult. No, there are Inspired involved here. I could see this being accomplished by a team of weak Inspired being ordered to copy off a "master" for consistency, however.
 
[X] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
Vebyast said:
@Alivaril Can we observe stylistic differences between the two sides, or would craftsmanship differences at this distance be obscured by materials and basic body layout? Can we see any stylistic similarities/differences between the weapons that are being wielded by the peasants?
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For the clockwork war machines, you can't really determine any differences or similarities in basic craftsmanship. The weapons wielded by humans are another story; they may be differently colored, but you think all of them might be wielding the same weapons. At the very least, they have remarkably similar functionality.
 
Vebyast said:
Given that even Inspired have trouble reproducing each others' works - note that one of the options we had at the beginning was literally "better at copying" - I doubt that unInspired could pull that off. They certainly couldn't achieve mass production given a set of examples; mass production is really stupidly difficult. No, there are Inspired involved here. I could see this being accomplished by a team of weak Inspired being ordered to copy off a "master" for consistency, however
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I don't think these clanks are actually Inspired work though. More like... Mundane creations loosely based on actual Inspired tech. Like someone saw a tank, and then mass produced metal boxes with wheels on and maybe a hole for a guy with a bazooka to shoot out of. The reason I don't think it's weak Inspired is because I expect weak Inspired would produce a variety of creations. Maybe attempt some basic, weak enhancement on the peasants. And if there was a master Inspired around that they're being ordered to copy, why haven't they also been ordered to copy his work in constructs or general physical enhancement for the peasants? I feel like the reason that the peasants are unenhanced can only be because there are no Inspired around, and it's easier for mundanes to copy box-on-wheels = tank than to do anything at all involving bioengineering.

EDIT: Like really, if you're careless enough to waste this many peasant lives, you might as well waste them on human experimentation to get better soldiers rather than just throwing them into the meat grinder. The fact they have no enhanced soldiers suggests they literally can't create better soldiers no matter how much human experimentation happens. Hence, no Inspired around.
 
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Okay, the weapons all being the same is suspicious.

[x] Don't let the Surge start, but keep it ready if it becomes necessary - you're going to go down there and find some answers.
-[x] Grab and interrogate a peasant. They can't all be fighting to the death out in the open.
-[x] Look for a machine black-box or brainbox to extract logs from.
-[x] Stay relatively stealthy. If this turns out to be a game or something, you want to be able to get away with no one the wiser.
 
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