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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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Just because we don't explain the Drow now doesn't mean we can't later. Doing it now has a small chance to cause additional issues I would rather avoid, considering everything else we've got going on right now.
 
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Arc 9 Interlude 4: A Wasp in the Way New
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    • A Wasp in the Way ​

    8th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    The boat ran on corpses. Not souls, corpses. Mina didn't know if she should be horrified or... no, it should definitely be horrifying, even if Sirim was rubbing off on her.

    The anima, the connective tissue of the soul, that when invested with negative energy can power one of the shambling dead for centuries, can also be invested with the stuff of the Positive Energy Plane. This is normally done during life and it produces the animation of regular existence, yet mortals still have to take in energy and obey the laws of Consumption and Excretion. Why?

    ...

    Experiment #76h: Attempting to bind the anima to a lattice of gold and brass that matches all the flexion points of the body.
    Result: The vessel became host to a minor haunt when negative energy tainted the parameters in spite of the wards utilized. Note to self: Get a refund from that charlatan in Almas.

    ...

    Experiment 99a: The use of elemental fire and earth to shield the anima-flaying mechanism from contamination is holding.
    Result: The use of cable weed tea to shield the crew working the boiler from 'fire nightmares' has lessened the number of complaints to manageable levels, especially as most of them enjoy putting their amusements on the captain's tab. One whore-son asked me if I was minded to pay for his liquors as well. At the captain's request, I did not feed him into the machine.

    The notebook went on like that in what Sirim described as 'stream of consciousness' and what Mina privately thought of as barking mad. Who looks at a zombie and wonders if they can use it to power a ship without sails? Apparently the kind of person they throw out of Highhelm, literally throw as dwarven justice seems to be shy on metaphor, only to join up with a band of pirates when they took him prisoner. "I'll grant that they weren't acting like pirates at the time, Pepper, but they did hire him after they learned he'd been robbing graveyards for his experiments..." The fact that she was arguing with her familiar was a sign for how much of two minds she was feeling about this. The dwarf the others had called Crazy Eyes, in his own writings Yorik Kazmukh, had been an arcane and alchemical luminary and something of a reluctant pirate, if only because he feared his beloved anima-engine would take damage.

    "But you worry that had you met him under lighter circumstances your own companions might have been inclined the same way," Pepper answered with the bluntness only a cat absently trimming his own claws could manage.

    "No, we're nothing like him. The only person who... did that too was Gavhaul and he was Aspis, they're evil."

    "As it turns out though, not inclined to betray you there at the last," he cut her off again.

    "Why are you saying that?" Mina didn't like the edge of anger in her words, it sounded a little too much like whining.

    "To point out that you are allowed to regret his death and appreciate his work even now. You have too soon learned, to my shame, that there are monsters in the world, but that does not mean all your enemies are cut of black cloth."

    "It uses the dead, defiling them!"

    "It uses bodies, if anything making it less likely that a necromancer will get up to some mischief with them... and you want to keep the engine, you want to see if you can put into practice his plans for the Wide Scale Anima Tap."

    She sighed and admitted the truth to herself. The Wide Scale Anima Tap, or W.A.S.P. in runic shorthand, was a proposed construct that would extract the anima from buried corpses in a wide area to power vast sorcerous engines. If such a thing could be used in Ustalav it might give peace to a troubled land, more than the order of Pharasma had managed in generations.

    Engine Power Source Discovered: The decaying Anima of Fresh Corpses

    OOC: Previous vote still up.
     
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    • Holy crap, Crazy Eyes! You came by the name honestly, dude.

    This is right up there with my old idea of the Quasit-powered Infernal Combustion Engine I had way back in the ASWAH days. I can see the utility, and the potential for Yorik's WASP idea, but the PR if discovered using something like this is only a couple steps above fueling the ship with baby blood and puppy tails.

    So, let's keep the notes and learn what we can from the Anima Engine, but definitely not install it in the Dancing Slurk.
     
    Goldfish said:
    Holy crap, Crazy Eyes! You came by the name honestly, dude.

    This is right up there with my old idea of the Quasit-powered Infernal Combustion Engine I had way back in the ASWAH days. I can see the utility, and the potential for Yorik's WASP idea, but the PR if discovered using something like this is only a couple steps above fueling the ship with baby blood and puppy tails.

    So, let's keep the notes and learn what we can from the Anima Engine, but definitely not install it in the Dancing Slurk.
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    To be fair, Quasits are a lot more problematic, morally and practically, than corpses.

    I like it.
    Get a use out of rotting meat without even having to use Necromancy.
     
    That's at least the second time we got a Mina chapter because the vote was tied.

    So I'm wondering: Is that a quest mechanic we can use reliably? Are there hidden conditions to get PoV chapters from the others?
     
    Meh, just say it that you are fueling it with raw beef from cows and then feed it whatever you want. PR, guys, PR. Also we are good at blufding so I do not care.
     
    There is the use case of helping Ustalav - but such an endeavor would need to be implemented carefully - the energies must only be able to be used to disrupt the undead/preventing corpse from being raised.
    So as to remove incentives to use it later to power other things.

    There must be a failsafe threshold where the machine is designed to stop/fully break (but easily repaired) when a certain amount of energy has been processed, so it can't cause too much of an impact if left unattended - to prevent any sort of runaway reactions or the like.

    Probably other stuff like range limits (because what if not all the energy that is released fromma corpse by the device is absorbed by it?
    ----
    I don't think we can get gold for the ships engine, but we might still be able to sell the targeting array - and we should argue that the engine should not count as having value (in terms of splitting the ship 50/50) as its only wholesome use case is maybe helping Ustalav some time from now, and there's not likely to be many with our skillset and outlook on 'creepy, but still ethical' magics who are interested in helping Ustalav to select it to.
    ----
    Edit:

    I didn't consider anima from animal corpses. I just assumed people corpses. This engine is great!

    Can we use tree corpses lol?
     
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    So, in addition to them being pirates, we just defeated the crew of the Murder Boat.
     
    If we look back to our journey, we could power up a small fleet of those. Perfect for adventuring.

    But seriously, since we won't find a buyer easily, and tend to produce corpses on an industrial scale, we might just take the engine for our own boat if we choose to make one. Just don't make it the only power source.

    Heads for Gorok, bodies for the Corpse Engine. Waste not, want not! :whistle:
     
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    Goldfish said:
    This is right up there with my old idea of the Quasit-powered Infernal Combustion Engine I had way back in the ASWAH days. I can see the utility, and the potential for Yorik's WASP idea, but the PR if discovered using something like this is only a couple steps above fueling the ship with baby blood and puppy tails.
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    I mean, its only bad depending on the fresh bodies used, cause besides that its pretty environmentally friendly!

    Could set up a fungusmen farm and harvest them for example, and sure no one would complain, lol.
    DragonParadox said:
    Killed that week.
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    Hey, in a major settlement, where people die every day, that's pretty sustainable! Especially if you can pay for corpses of loved ones that passed.
     
    Massgamer said:
    I mean, its only bad depending on the fresh bodies used, cause besides that its pretty environmentally friendly!

    Could set up a fungusmen farm and harvest them for example, and sure no one would complain, lol.

    Hey, in a major settlement, where people die every day, that's pretty sustainable! Especially if you can pay for corpses of loved ones that passed.
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    Those only spawn from the corpses of humanoids alas so you've just added another step t o the corpse collection and use.
     
    Just frame it as using Undead as fuel. It's easier to sell Undead Slaying than Corpse Desecration.

    Of course this also means being visited by the Undead Nobility of Ustalav.

    Can it be upgraded to use Necromantic Anima?
     
    Negation said:
    Just frame it as using Undead as fuel. It's easier to sell Undead Slaying than Corpse Desecration.

    Of course this also means being visited by the Undead Nobility of Ustalav.

    Can it be upgraded to use Necromantic Anima?
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    No as far as Mina can tell, the problem is that once the anima is invested with Negative Energy it becomes 'sticky', inflicting a haunt on the engine.
     
    Nevill said:
    Tell him a little bit?

    :whistle:

    What about using our Intimidate skill to swing the story a certain way? I am curious if it will have an effect.
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    Even if we scare him, that doesn't mean it will stick. This dude is hungry for money and renown, and not smart enough to think too deeply before he goes after either. Let's not give him a reason to go off on a side-quest before we're done with him and back on our way to Andoran.
     
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