Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

[SoaringHawk218]

speaking of flying units how common are wyverns and griffins in the land?

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Griffons don't exist on this continent. IIRC they were only ever in Awakening, and their role as creatures connected to Green magic are taken by Pegasi.

Wyverns, creatures connected to Red magic, are pretty rare, especially tamed ones. They're fiercely territorial, can breath fire, and extremely difficult to train unless hatched by humans. They're individually much stronger than pegasi, but one of the reasons the Whitewings have kept their independence is because for every wyvern knight, there's an estimated twenty pegasus knights.

There are creatures connected to White, Yellow and Black magic as well, but none of them are flying mounts. Unicorns, creatures of White magic, are most commonly found in the Northern Kingdoms and the Divine Realm, and can be used as mounts by Valkyries. However, they're not the kind of unicorn that will only let virgins or women approach: they'll let anyone they like and trust come close.

Thunderbirds, creatures of Yellow magic, are too small to be mounted, being the size of a large eagle. They are generally considered the smartest of the magical creatures, though they can't speak.

Not much is known about the Shades, the creatures of Black magic. Taking the form of living shadow, many mistake them for monsters. However, they're not the same thing. They tend to avoid contact with humans the same as they avoided contact with manakete.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

Additionally, @SoaringHawk218, is it possible to ask Sir Robin what he intends on packing, and what we should pack? I feel like his expert opinion may be useful. Hell, Artimis' opinion is likely similarly useful.

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A fair question. He already gave his two big pieces of advice: pack light and don't skimp on food just because you can get it other ways. He'll probably be following his own advice (extra food, packing light, etc.)

Artemis would agree with that, and she would be a little leery of relying too much on the locals by bringing money since you're going to be functionally in enemy territory. While most villagers probably will be willing to sell information / supplies, you can't guarantee it. You also can't guarantee that there won't hostile informants in place, especially as you probably go into the Empire. She would, however, admit that she's still in an extremely paranoid mood, so that's coloring her ideas.

Another thing to mention: even if you don't choose Medicine or Food or Money doesn't mean you're going to bring nothing. It just means you won't be going above and beyond. For example, Ryza's always going to have her vulnerary that she got from her parents' stash, but she won't be setting aside space and padding for an elixir.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

So the difference between staves and tomes is a human construct, manakete didn't see any difference in the magic. For humans, it's more of a cultural thing, though there are some technical differences that Artemis wouldn't be able to explain (translation, I haven't made them up yet.)

As for which staves attach to which schools, here's a rough rundown.

Red/Fire: Beserk, Hammerne, Torch, Strength, Defense (both the extremes of emotion and the concept of fire-as-tool-of-creation)

Yellow/Thunder: Magic Up, Barrier, Silence, Anew/Dance (Affecting magic for good and ill, as well as energizing allies)

Green/Wind: Warp, Rescue, Rewarp, Speed (Basically, if it involves moving something, that's green magic's purview)

White/Light: All healing, Restore, (Self-explanatory)

Black/Dark: Sleep, Fear, Slow, Watch (A combination of debuffs that don't fit neatly into one or more of the other schools as well as perceiving hidden things)

There are others not on this list, but these are the big ones that I'd already divided up.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

More seriously, @SoaringHawk218 is the name meant to imply something? Or are you gonna keep that hidden?

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No, it doesn't mean anything in particular. Just a mercenary giving their best weapon and the defining feature of their group an intimidating name. Talon companies are usually nicknamed after the wyvern their leader rides.

As for the discussion on immediately retreating, I will say that it is possible. Will it be easy? Probably not. Might it bring costs? Yes. Are you forced to fight here in this moment and will you instantly lose if you try to pull out? No.

There was a good plan that got you 99% of the way to the exit without any meaningful resistance and failed because you happened to wander into another distraction designed to draw off the Talons while Sypha escaped a different way, you can lean into your successes if you want.

EDIT: And to be clear, this distraction was part of the plan that Mantrae's people set up through the note you and Robin delivered. They knew that, not only would scattering the horses take a lot of time and energy away from the Talons, it would be something they'd be forced to respond to, especially the Wyvern.

I'll roll combat as normal, but rather than results like "kill x Talons," it'll be more like "hold them back until x people escape." It'll leave an enemy behind you, but unless you're crazy enough to hang around until the entire chapter arrives (which I will stress they are not here yet, no matter what Rachel says. They're probably still scrambling around trying to figure out what the void's going on) that's going to happen anyways.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

So I was thinking while I was out doing a chore, and I realized that there was a piece of information about Stone Oaths that you might like to know: it will include pulling out your dragonstone as part of the promise.

However, since you were going to need to get your stone out anyways to half-shift and fly Sypha away to avoid the wyvern, I didn't think to include it at first. However, since I believe in giving you as much information as Ryza would know, I figured I'd mention it in case it made anyone change their minds.

EDIT: More information:

How the Oath works:

The reason Stone Oaths are powerful is because it is felt by a manakete's dragon as well. Whereas most promises a heart-form makes are only bind to the dragon-self as much as they consent to be bound, a Stone Oath is instinctively felt by the dragon. Barring extremely unusual circumstances, a dragon will instantly move to fulfill any Stone Oath they feel compelled by. Whereas Dragon-Ryza would instinctively move to protect Artemis because Artemis is her BFF, she'd instinctively move to protect Sypha because she promised to.

On the heart's side, the oath is half magically binding, half culturally binding. While Ryza's mother taught her all promises are important, Stone Oaths are on another level. It's like walking into Mordor: breaking one is just Not Done. The magical compulsion is similar to the compulsion on the dragon, but lessened by the fact that heart-forms are meant for slower, more thoughtful actions. While Dragon-Ryza would instantly and unquestioningly move to protect Sypha, Heart-Ryza would feel a need and want to, but she'd have time to think about how best to do it.


All this being said, it's not an Unbreakable Vow: you don't instantly die if you break it. It's just psychologically difficult to go against it. It's also not a fey promise/devil's bargain, where exact wording is everything. So long as Ryza honestly feels like she is fulfilling the promise, she won't feel any guilt if someone else tries to use exact wording against her.

This goes both ways, of course: she can't hide behind technical truths and say she fulfilled it. If she promises to protect Sypha and get her home as soon as things are good between Legerius and Agrithe, she has to follow the spirit of that. If the Archduke makes patently unreasonable demands and then uses Mantrae's hesitation as an excuse to hold Sypha longer (not saying he would, just if he did.), Ryza would recognize that was unfair and feel compelled to break her out and take her home, just as she did for Artemis. She wouldn't be able to say "Oh, Archduke Letoro says it's okay so it must be okay!"

Mechanically, if you take the Stone Oath option, it is possible that you would run into situations where I wouldn't give options on whether or not you would do something, just how you would do it.


Making the Oath:

Ryza would need to get her stone out and say some special words in a sort of mini-ritual, tying the promise into her dragon's mind. This would be somewhat flashy: wings would be out, ears lengthened, lightning flickering. However, it would not be stabbing beams of lighting into the air saying "We are here! We are here!" to the Talons and anyone else looking.

Also, Ryza would be careful to phrase it in a way she honestly believes she can keep.


Why Ryza would make it in this case:

Ryza gets the feeling that what Mantrae's people want is a firm promise that they can trust and rely on. She unfortunately still has an incomplete understanding of human promises, and so she might figure "hey, let's go all out and hope my sincerity shines through!" or she might think "They specifically mentioned divinity, so let's give them what they want." Both are potentially reasonable lines of thought, you as voters are deciding which train of thought wins out.

Also, part of the Stone Oath does mention the Mother in a more formal sense.


Nothing really to say on the dragonstone, save that Ryza thinks it decently likely that Mantrae's people would want to watch the transformation anyways, and since she has to sit quietly for an hour, she's not sure she could really stop them. She might be able to convince them to give her privacy, though.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

Ryza probably won't have kids for several decades, so unless this Quest becomes a massively multi-generational affair, it's not gonna come up.

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Ryza won't even consider looking for a life-partner until she's at least 200, and unless her sensibilities have radically changed by then she'll probably take about a century to "court" any possible life-partner she finds. Manakete's in Ryza's understanding are expected to be monogamous, and so the buildup to an eventual wedding is taken very seriously. Her parents courted for about 150 years before they eventually married

I don't plan for this quest to take that long: I have a relatively contained story planned out (though that could change, I suppose), and it's more along the lines of typical Fire Emblem stories (in the order of months, maybe a year or two, not decades and centuries.)

 

[SoaringHawk218]

So on the topic of the quasi-Black magic Ryza saw, she's read that some powerful monsters can use a form of magic that has superficial similarities to manakete Black magic, but Black manakete have always insisted that they are very different once you look past that.

She's guessing that this "revenant" has something similar going on, but she's never read about the dead rising before so she's not certain. She's already making plans to check Beast, Bird and Monster when she has a chance.

OOC: I'm using the Sacred Stones monsters as a basis for the monsters of this continent (along with a few others of my making.) Ryza has never read anything about Revenants, Entombed, Bonewalkers and Wights, but things like Mauthe Doogs, Gargoyles, Baels, Mogalls, etc, she's heard about. In game, the spell-casting monsters use Dark magic, but I wanted to draw a distinction between "good" Black magic and "bad" Monster magic.

That's not to say other type of magic can't affect/be affected by monsters, but by basic nature they use their own variant exclusively.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

So it might be a little while before the next chapter, in part because I finally got around to actually making a map for the continent. It's not the greatest thing ever, but here's the ancient manakete version (The story so far has taken place in the south-east corner.)

Spoiler: Manakete-era Continent Map

 

[SoaringHawk218]

@Cubbyhb1 @Barondoctor @UARTman @Solark

So I love that you're all invested enough in the story to debate the events within, and I don't think we've crossed any lines yet, but let's make sure to keep it that way.

Perhaps it would be best if we were to drop this conversation before it gets too heated.

 

[SoaringHawk218]

So the update's chugging along slowly, but I did finish my rough map of the Marble Hall. It's not really to scale, but it's meant to give an idea of where everything is.

Spoiler: Map

Let me know if there's anything that seems missing or doesn't make sense, and remember all this is on a big hill (I was too lazy to draw all the elevation lines.)

The little, unmarked rectangles are a combination of dorms and other auxiliary buildings. The larger unmarked rectangles are learning halls.