EarthScorpion: What time of month will Keris attack in? How long does she wait while building up her forces and what's their composition?
Aleph: She has twenty-odd farisyya - possibly twenty five if she was able to summon some on her way back across the Desert after picking up her lab. She's attacking at the start of Crowning Water, after a month of building up forces, and does not intend to wait any longer because it's fucking cold here and she's getting sick of the place and missing Sasi.
EarthScorpion: And are there any other special preparations she makes?
Aleph: Checking over her Ligerian grenades and Wyldeater, donning her armour.
EarthScorpion: Cog + Occult
Aleph: 2+4=6. Fail. : (.
EarthScorpion: Keris therefore does not think to have her farisyya tip their lances with iron.
Aleph: Awww.
Aleph: Yeah, that was dumb of me.
...
Aleph: Hmm. Will the Kimbery-lake eventually expand to cover the whole fog-waypoint on its own?
EarthScorpion: Hmm. What did we say about how Infernal geomacy effects interacted with waypoints?
Aleph: I believe we said that the waypoint is a single point from reality's PoV, so it gets swallowed.
EarthScorpion: Ah, yes, but the thing is that the fog wall is made up of multiple waypoints - it's too large where it interfaces with reality to be just one. So it's a ring of waypoints, so it will just eat this one.
...
<Ice clouds on the glacier>
Aleph: Do her bound demons count as 'owned objects'? Can FRoA protect them?
EarthScorpion: No - they're not objects. It's a fae-made environmental effect that's a supernatural ice storm.
Aleph: I was hoping you would say that.
Aleph: It is Shaping, though?
EarthScorpion: It's Shaped into existence by twisting the Waypoint, yes.
Aleph: So yeah, Keris is just going to run ahead of the farisyya to get there first, and then activate FRoA once per action, every action, until whatever's behind it gets the message and stops.
Aleph: Given that she's doing 3L rolled damage each time, I figure this probably won't take long if there's a raksha behind it.
Aleph: One way or another.
EarthScorpion: So roll it
Aleph: Oh right. 3L; bah, none the first time.
Aleph: Hmm. She went ahead, so she has a short grace period before it reaches them.
EarthScorpion: ... are you just turning it off and on again to constantly hit, since this is 2L/minute?
Aleph: Pretty much, yeah.
Aleph: She's losing 2m/a, so she can keep this up for at least a couple of minutes.
EarthScorpion: Roll again then.
Aleph: Action 2, 3L; Botch. Wtf?
Action 3, 3L: Oh come on,
another botch? Dice fairies; come on. Work with me here.
Action 4, 3L:
Finally; 1 level of lethal damage after twenty seconds. Urgh.
<Farisyya hit by the storm>
EarthScorpion: Roll me 6d10 for their stamina thing to resist. Diff 2
Aleph: Fuck. 1 sux. : (.
EarthScorpion: Well, you have one minute before it hits again.
Aleph: Hmm. So yeah, she's got 12 hits in until the next damage interval, which she's going to use to hit it as many times as possible while she gathers her farisyya around her. Should I roll individually or just as a lump?
EarthScorpion: Just roll, one at a time, until I tell you to stop. You're going to have to hurt it enough that it won't just keep doing it
Aleph: Right. 3L; 2lhl.
Aleph: Action 2: another 2lhl. Much more like it.
Aleph: Action 3: 1lhl.
EarthScorpion: Okay, you've done the 6hl, but not fast enough to stop them getting hit that time.
Aleph: So they're all 2hl down?
EarthScorpion: Yes. And those 6 levels were the raksha filling his -0 levels. Ie, he kept doing doing it until it started hurting.
...
Aleph: ... I'm rather liking how her anima-flowers are different depending on the situation. Presumably Haneyl has a garden of them somewhere. "These are the flowers that grew when mama was pretending to be a Solar, and these are the ones when she was in the hungry mountains, and these are the ones from..."
Aleph: Also hmm. She knows the Malfean Excellency now.
Aleph: That means an environmental effect when she's at totemic. Possibly, hmm... either things turning to brass and basalt under her gaze, or surface scratches and scars shifting into city-like maps.
Aleph: ... and I think I'm inclined to go for the latter as the more original.
Aleph: Since this is a Kerisian anima banner, none of the maps are at all useful.
EarthScorpion: goddamnit Keris
Aleph: : D
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: "When Keris's soul is at its brightest, the world warps around it. Noise falls to perfect silence and walls are worn down by soundless wind. Puddles form behind her as moisture condenses on nearby surfaces, and any water her anima-light touches becomes bitter and chill. The heavy scent of blood and pollen wafts from her soul and the flowers that grow in her footsteps. Where her gaze falls upon imperfections in flesh, metal or stone, they shift and squirm to form crazed maps of cities that never were and will never be."
Aleph: You are not hard to track when you are flaring totemic.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: sigh.
Aleph: "Imperfections" may include things like "freckles". For a mortal, just being
looked at by Keris at full flare can stamp a mark of her presence across their face for the rest of their life.
...
<Keris "knocks" on the "door">
EarthScorpion: Okay, the mouth didn't expect to be stabbed like that, so... um, roll damage against it.
Aleph: What are Wyldeater's stats?
EarthScorpion: It's an artefact tetsubo, so it's mechanically a grand goremaul.
Aleph: Jesus. Okay, uh. She's still flaring totemic, so 5+5+2+2 stunt+10 Malfeas ExD {FULL FORCE SADISTIC BRUTALITY}=24, enhanced by GSNF and WWI. 10 sux.
Aleph: Remind me how damage works against objects?
EarthScorpion: Who said this was an object?
Aleph: Ahhhh. Heh.
Aleph: ... that's going to hurt like hell, then. Was that unexpected? : D
EarthScorpion: Yes. Quite unexpected.
...
Aleph: Does Wyldeater devour dead raksha if she smashes them with it? I don't think I asked. Obviously not as good as live ones, but is there enough left for it to chow down on them anyway?
EarthScorpion: No, once they're dead, they're useless to it since it tries to trap their Virtues, etc. The bits might be usable - by Keris, too, if she doesn't tell Ligier - but not the raw essence.
...
EarthScorpion: What does Keris have active going into this combat?
Aleph: She still hasn't turned off DDJ and she'll have renewed Opened Eye of the Hurricane if it ever deactivated in the first place. She's using Echo, obviously, and she's got MOE (I hate you) on just in case they have Virtues.
Aleph: She also has the magical power of grenades and a giant hammer.
Aleph: MALFEAS DOES NOT THROW MERE SLINGSTONES, HE THROWS EXPLODING MURDER GRENADES.
Aleph: When he does not have such things, he throws slingstones that
become exploding murder grenades. Sadly Keris cannot do this yet, and is limited to her supply of Things Wot Go Bang.
Aleph: Oh, the humanity. However will she cope?
...
EarthScorpion: What do you want to have Rathan look and act like at this "age"? It's up to you.
Aleph: Hmm. Well, Haneyl is 7 and Echo is roughly 10. So I'm thinking he's just gone through - hah. About five years of development; one for each waypoint. So yes, sigh. He's about Haneyl's age, but slightly taller because she's not put on her full Sasi-height yet. And, hmm. Yes, sigh. He's learned patience in his grudges - somewhat - and is of a naturally calmer temper than his sisters, so the dominating side of his personality right now is his desire for attention.
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, Eko. Today you found the joys of carrying weapons larger than you are
EarthScorpion: They're the perfect weapon, in her opinion, because when you get spinning
no one knows where the tetsubo is going to go, not even you
EarthScorpion: which means they are a tool of spinny fun and chaos
EarthScorpion: (It's Keris' fault for learning Self as Cyclone Stance.)
EarthScorpion: (Echo knows it too.)
EarthScorpion: (So she's trying to become a tornado.)
