We should hire earthside script writers. VEE them additional talents and ensure their loyalty via immortality. Court writers should consult and co-write, to make a truly unique experience, which is both relatable and explorative.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Languages of the Fivefold Courts of Fate
Languages of the Fivefold Courts of Fate
In this enlightened age the Scholars of the City of Scrolls recognize six true languages apart from the guild dialects, the corporate code and the ever evolving no-speak which lies atop other languages as Yirk butter atop a tower-cake: Scroll Speech, Law Tongue, Journey Cant Fountain Song and the Whispering, the tongues of the Five Cities which hold common roots in deepest blackest antiquity, but have since vastly diverged to fit the exigences of each culture, one would be hard pressed to find better legalise than the tongue which is named for it or write poetry that flows better than in Fountain Song. The Sixth tongue is Seeker Speech which is both the liturgical language of the Covenant and the primary programming language of SUTRAS throughout Sanctuary, this is because the Covenant and the High Guild [of Engineseers] share an origin in the mystery cults which spread out from the City of Journeys in the Seventh Century B.A. (Before Arrival). Seeker Speech has been described by its detractors as 'what a warrior speaks when they fail at poetry and instead takes up accounting'. In less whimsical terms is borrows from all five of the city tongues though more from Journey Cant and Law Tongue and least of all from the Whispering.
Apart from the main tongues Sanctuary also plays host to a vast number of tribal dialects among both Forest communities and the gurvel of the Wastes, with the latter showing by far the greatest raw linguistic diversity of any related group, giving more credence to the theory that they are the original or at least the oldest inhabitants of the world. All of these are grouped in some older tests as High Honorific Tongues for the way the naming conventions for day to day naming differ from the city tongues, though deeper study of selected jungle and gurvel dialects has shown that rather than the infusion of 'uncivilized tongues' into the jungle tribes most of them have expanded their lexicon to include terms required to their new environs even while the grammar and base vocabulary remained 'of the cities'. It is simply that the cities themselves have changed so dramatically in the last three thousand moon-turns and with them the languages they speak that the similarities were not noticed.
Last though certainly not least in the eye of the curious scholar are the Labyrinth tongues which as is often the case with that maddening place raise more questions than answers. No language, no dialect, not a whisper there is of any tongue ancestral to the City Languages. Opponents of the Labyrinth Cradle Theory are quick to use this as proof that the origin of human. Tocatl and Seta life was not within those damnable shifting halls but elsewhere, while proponents of it are quick to point at the fragmentary accounts of internecine warfare within the Labyrinth itself. Tribes are forced to migrate, absorbed by rivals or hegemons, splinter and are lost in the deep halls regularly. It would be absurd, these scholars claim to expect to find linguistic fingerprints after all this time... though that does not seem to stop them from looking for it as far as their courage and heir research funds will allow.
OOC: Who needs sleep when world-building just pops into my head? BTW B.A. refers to everything before now. One of the things the Triarchs are going to suggest is a change of calendar to denote Molly's arrival.
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- Location
- Australia
Sure, at first I could see culture gap remaining an issue for mass market appeal - however people can be exposed to and educated in new cultures - think the explosive popularity of anime in the West, and while there is probably less cultural difference between the West and Japan than between our realm and Earth (simply as a product of never being in contact with each other at all to share any cultural ideas, experiences, history or identity), products with multiple cultural concepts from Japan (relatively) novel to Western audiences have still managed to prove extremely successful. Although you could arguably make the caveat that such was the culmination and only possible after decades of more niche exposure and inoculation familiarising a sufficiently board audience, I think a concentrated effort spearhead by us with the entire entertainment industry of our realm (given they have much greater means, technologically and magically, to increase the quality and quantity of entertainment production and development) throwing their behind us (and capitalising on an enormous juicy new market) could accelerate this acclimatisation process to a matter of years - not to mention we have a foothold on Earth already thanks to our acquisition of a preestablished movie studio (thanks' to certain White Court members generous donations) with a proven history/track record, which we can use as a vehicle/veneer of creditability, legitimacy and trust to market our realm-born products to sceptical executives and/or unfamiliar audiences.
And conversely, we can also, as many corporations do today, edit our products to be more culturally appropriate and/or recognisable and/or palatable to foreign audiences - albeit doing so can easily risk losing the greater meaning, or artistic integrity, or "soul" (perhaps literally in an openly magical world) that makes a work special, can be in of itself controversial depending on what you're changing, and date the work to the societal norms and values of a specific place and time should those norms and values shift (which given time they almost certainly will) which can limit its ultimate reach, impact and lasting significance to the cultural zeitgeist due to feeling "pandering" or even being offensive to later audiences.
I'm in no way saying these solutions are easy, but it seems definitely doable in the medium-long term with some semi-regular action investment from us (and maybe a side-quest or two getting our new studio up and running) and the resources of an entertainment industry of a 5 billion+ strong world that would almost certainly be hungry to break into a new market with a potential audience BIGGER than the sum total of their original world! This is an opportunity an order of magnitude greater than even that an western studio sees in (for example) appealing to the Chinese market!
Plus beyond the financial benefits to our realm and ourselves both, I think sharing our cultural exports with Earth, and importing Earth cultural and artistic products to our realm, would be worthwhile from an altruistic perspective alone, enriching and perhaps enlightening the experiences and understandings of both world's populations.
And it would admittedly be pretty funny if our most "megalomaniac" and stereotypically "evil overlord" actions and ambitions were to take over Hollywood.
However, if we are looking for a more shorter term, immediate means of income, could we potentially mine (or purchase from pre-existing mining operations/interests) and sell materials which are comparatively rarer or harder to extract on Earth than in our realm (both non-magical for mundane customers and magically exotic for supernatural customers) utilising Chicago Synthetics. Even if we only take a middleman cut for setting up the deal and transporting the goods between realms (and the bulk of the profits going back to the miners and mining industry realm-side) I think we could stand to make substantial profit - granted we'd also need to invest some time transporting the product ourselves (at least as of the moment) and thus would only be viable for the highest ratio of value-to-mass materials (plus selling to much, at least to mundane markets, would likely attract unwanted attention and suspicion).
Even if we did make something with the same impact as the HP series it'd still only be as influential as a popular fictional franchise. You're not really making a compelling argument for why people would take it as gospel instead of its peers, or what they're getting from it that isn't already present in existing media.
Also noteworthy that if 5 successes was enough almost every faction on the planet could do the same thing. Madrigal should have been a Hollywood god instead of a player.
This sounds like another case like your insistence that an exalt can brainwash the world via radio even when the QM shuts it down.
That's not the kind of belief we're talking about here.
Thinking crosses hurt vampires does nothing. Having religious faith in something does. It doesn't have to be true faith in the sense that you get powers from it, but you have to actually legitimately have faith in your religion of choice.
"Hey, it worked on TV" is not only in a different zip code than that sort of faith, it's on a different continent entirely.
And again, even if it did work that way you're centuries too late to introduce the idea. Everyone who's heard of vampires has heard of the idea of driving them off with holy symbols already.
Fair enough concern, but personally I'd take it over being dead or a vegetable at the very least.
It's a war form, but it's also basically our regalia. Coming in running empress mode on all cylinders seems like the best way to start an actual leadership meeting, instead of coming in set to teenage mortal mode.
DPE applies, but we wouldn't be voting on this if it didn't make a difference or one route was uniformly inferior to the other.
5 success is hard DC7 you need a dice pool of 15+ to reliably hit that, well beyond the best human in the world can do.
We have people that are that good. People that could analyze the last century of literature of the best selling stories, and write a mathematical proof of changing trends over time. And unlike anybody else we have an army of writers on that level, not just 1 or 2 people on that level. For ever counter development from an enemy faction, we could bury it under a 100 of ours.
Who and why?
There's only so far game abstraction should be taken. Being a good author shouldn't also automatically make you capable of perfectly analyzing an alien culture and writing enduring classics within in on a months long timeline. Getting all the nuances of the language alone should take longer than that.
You're appealing to scale on the basis we have enough people to claim arbitrary expertise, but this is a case where it's legitimately out of anyone's experience.
- Location
- Dallas Texas
That is definitely not going to cause any sort of uncomfortable comparisons with Molly and her dad, certainly not.
On another note, I always assumed the Seta evolved from one of the forests like the Gruvel do the wastes, it would make some sense, and they are the most biologically divergent of the flesh races of the court.
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Your talking about people centuries old that have studied every aspect of their chosen field. That includes the math behind its trends. The GM has even said Seeker Speech, and Latin is very similar. Which make since given it is the major root language for Molly. It would mostly be terms that one side never developed that the other did.
5 billion population or so, of which a full one of the cites around a full 1 billion are devoted to the arts in some way or another. By raw numbers the FCFF population of writers, actors, etc easily outnumber the entire earths population of the same.
- Location
- Dallas Texas
It didn't really occur to me until now that even though the population of our cities is roughly equivalent to earth, the amount of unskilled labor is near negligible, when every citizen has the time and ability to pursue skills and arts aplenty, even the lowest of our citizens will probably have 4 dots in some skill, making them exceptional by earth standards.
With that in mind, It would be in theme to have a altered version of Chirality Prohebetion Index as a custom charm Molly can learn, maybe flavored as training a group in the arts of one of the five cities, giving XP that can be put into any skills directly related to that city, and maybe less cult-creating but has some other cost like a minor obsession type flaw based on the city in question
"They can math it" isn't an answer. Who developed this math and why? How does it even work.
A mathematical proof isn't a model, so your basic terminology reads more like you're waving a fancy terms wand than suggesting something specific.
I'm not sure what you're getting at with the other bit. Serving similar roles isn't the same as what you're describing, and even if it was there isn't a lot of cultural overlap to give them a leg up.
So?
5 dots of expression from being a super poet for example doesn't make you an anthropologist.
You're basic claim here seems to be that because of all the time they've had the FCF have just learned how to parse centuries of cultural data, mathematically deconstruct complex sociological trends into reliable models, then translate that into generating arbitrary media of world shaking quality in a time span of months.
Which they've developed despite having be never needed the ability or having the opportunity to use it.
I'm not going to buy that without a significantly better argument than " there are 5 billion of them" .
Sigh they have all that because they have lived for centuries, being able to process, and handle huge amounts of data is a requirement to be able to get up in the morning for them.
Their entire history stretching back some several thousand years, of which their are people that have been alive all that time. Understand that they have both functional AI, and their will be 5 dot mortal in every attribute, ablity, with cybertech boost on top. It only take some 600+ years for a mortal to max out their sheet.
Their are going to be a lot of people in the FCFF that can throw 10 dice at anything and everything. And you can expect most people to have 4 or more ablities at 5 dots, within their personal fields, with 2-3 for everything else.
Their entire history stretching back some several thousand years, of which their are people that have been alive all that time. Understand that they have both functional AI, and their will be 5 dot mortal in every attribute, ablity, with cybertech boost on top. It only take some 600+ years for a mortal to max out their sheet.
Their are going to be a lot of people in the FCFF that can throw 10 dice at anything and everything. And you can expect most people to have 4 or more ablities at 5 dots, within their personal fields, with 2-3 for everything else.
This is a farcical argument. If you looking at the age thing for a reason them you also have to take into its bad effects. So culture would be much less changing than earth so the centuries of life could also just be cancled out by a stagnat culture.
And having 5 dots doesn't mean much when you are writing at difficulty 10.
Hell they don't even know english and thats going to take them legitimately years just to learn that without immersion.
- Location
- Dallas Texas
I am sure there are going to be some artists that can adapt fast, as well as some art that is good enough to trancent the culture barrier, but for something taylor made the 'relitive difficulty' for the roll of an unknown culture will be very high, and narratively we should expect it to take months, minimum, for people dedicated to immerse themselves in the culture enough to matter.
Honestly, I think we should just bring some people to assist with the more earth-experienced scriptwriters and directors, and maybe get some fivefold court actors who can adapt to new roles at extreme speed, as long as they have the magic/technology to maintain masquerade. They could assist and bring there own knowledge and let the earth-focused people keep things grounded in earth culture. Large scale involvement of the courts would require us to get an active portal or other connection first anyhow.
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I'm pretty sure he meant that Seeker Speech was like Latin in that it's a liturgical language, not that the languages themselves bear any resemblance.
- Location
- Who knows?
Even if we assume all of this is true, so what? Despite how crazy the fandoms can get, Harry Potter and BTS have not granted their creators mass mind control abilities. Shit, theres a ton of cases of people liking stuff in spite of the creators politics.
- Location
- Dallas Texas
So on the idea of a charm based on teaching a group in the manner of one of the five cities, I obviously needed to try and divide the skill list in such a way to demarcate what each City would teach using that charm its not perfect and I will take suggestions to move things around, but its the best I got in 20 minutes of fiddling
Said Charm would work like the charm Chirality Prohebetion Index giving a group of people the option to buy from the City molly is teaching with after 7? (or maybe 5 cuz molly loves 5vs) days of teaching, maybe drop the XP to 25 instead of 30 as well, and this charm only works on skills instead of allowing attributes. Not sure what other limits to add, but there would need to be something else to make it more hellish and have consequenses for use.
City of Journeys
-Survival
-Streetwise
-Finance
-Stealth
-Animal Ken
-Drive
City of Swords
-Melee
-Firearms
-Brawl
-Leadership
-Law
-Athletics
City of Scrolls
-Academics
-Computers
-Occult
-Science
-Technology
-Investigation
City of Fountains
-Expression
-Performance
-Crafts
-Larceny
-Etiquette
-Politics
City of Endings
-Medicine
-Empathy
-Stealth
-Subterfuge
-Awareness
-Intimidation
-Survival
-Streetwise
-Finance
-Stealth
-Animal Ken
-Drive
City of Swords
-Melee
-Firearms
-Brawl
-Leadership
-Law
-Athletics
City of Scrolls
-Academics
-Computers
-Occult
-Science
-Technology
-Investigation
City of Fountains
-Expression
-Performance
-Crafts
-Larceny
-Etiquette
-Politics
City of Endings
-Medicine
-Empathy
-Stealth
-Subterfuge
-Awareness
-Intimidation
There are a number of problems with this:
1) The basic premise of your explanation is nonsense that's nearly as magic as actual magic.
Mathematical modeling of the type you're talking about would require abstract sociology/anthropology to be perfectly solved problems. Modeling and statistics are possible and useful, but you need to understand a lot about the target culture to start analyzing that data in a meaningful way. Even if this is possible no one involved should have it available out of the box.
Even if they'd been modeling their own society, figuring out how your abstract rules about what civilizations are like and how they're out together applies to aliens with a completely different environment to you isn't s trivial problem.
To make this more explicit; how does the FCF anthropologist take their vast personal experience and translate that into knowledge of the nuances of death's impact on earthling culture? When they get their models out, which numbers do they change to represent that?
We as players aren't super sociologists, but we should be able to loosely conceptualize the general idea if it's supposed to be reasonable.
Actually magic is possible here so maybe this is too, but it shouldn't just be assumed as a matter of course that literally anything is possible by the power of large numbers.
2) You're making assumptions about what people are actually doing and how transferable it is.
A super poet who's spent the last thousand years studying how to better express things to people would have amazing insights into how to write things that touch people in their cultural context, and probably a number of things that are more universal, but that doesn't mean they automatically gain the ability to compress acquiring that thousand years of insight into communication into months when replicating it somewhere else.
They would certainly do it faster the second time, but what they were training was creating poems - not getting good at dissecting foreign cultures.
3) People are going to do what they're interested in, not what's mechanically optimal. They'll probably put in some variety, but not everyone is going to max every skill or max it in the same way.
You're calling for a very specific mix of high level skills that have few applications in concert in the FCF environment.
They probably have really good anthropologists studying their own history. They also probably have amazing writers/entertainers. You want vast numbers of people who went deep into both fields and used their abilities to do a lot of preparatory R&D for something they couldn't actually test.
4) New people are still born at some rate. People clearly get stuck in the buffer for long periods of time at some point. The number continuously active from the start of history is probably very small. This is reinforced by the lore snippets we've seen with fragmented records and evolving languages.
If an appreciable portion of the population was around for all of history none of that stuff would make sense.
JayTar
Idea briefcase
Perhaps we could tap some of those who specialize in analysis of the people who live in the central Prison? That sounds like the same expertise would be transferable to analysis of earth cultures.
Sure there would be differences, but it's not like our people have been totally lacking in opportunities to dissect foreign cultures.
Plus we shouldn't discount the weight of numbers. We don't just need single paragons of skill capable of rolling high enough to change the world. We can have entire departments devoted to things. Entire departments where every single member has a level of skill, experience and intelligence comparable to the best of the best on earth.
Trying to analyse an entire world is too big for a single person to do in a reasonable amount of time no matter how skilled yes. But if you have a team to split the burden, it becomes much more manageable.
Sure there would be differences, but it's not like our people have been totally lacking in opportunities to dissect foreign cultures.
Plus we shouldn't discount the weight of numbers. We don't just need single paragons of skill capable of rolling high enough to change the world. We can have entire departments devoted to things. Entire departments where every single member has a level of skill, experience and intelligence comparable to the best of the best on earth.
Trying to analyse an entire world is too big for a single person to do in a reasonable amount of time no matter how skilled yes. But if you have a team to split the burden, it becomes much more manageable.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I do like the idea our hell providing it's own version of Chirality Prohebetion Index.
While people who have been have for a long time exist no one knows of a person who has been alive for the span of their entire history, those have long since chosen isolation or death. Also you are forgetting skill rot, the higher ranks in something are not only hard to get they have to be used constantly to keep. Someone who goes to the City of Fountains to find a new calling will not find as much use for their old skills as they did in their old life so they will decay.
OK, looks pretty settled, we are going in full regalia, maybe dropping it once we are in there.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
You could probably represent the extreme amounts of expience and rusty skills using the past lives background.
Arc 8 Post 65: Of the Lords Temporal
Of the Lords Temporal
18th of November 2006 A.D.
Being late means having to cut across some of the more inhabited parts of the palace to get into the meeting: a food court featuring everything from puff-leaf salad to live skitter-bugs for the adventurous, a public entertainment lounge with a game of grav-ball still on even though the game itself has been put on hold for your arrival, a gym where someone had left the mag-weights set to positive floating mid-air like a fifty pound spinning top. You would not want to be the person who forgot those once Firm Instigator of Peace gets through with them. Three more elevator rides later you make it to the Spire of Righteous Judgement, the seat of the Exarchate.
Rising higher than all but the throne-room this has been the seat of government for the five courts since the Wars of Unity and in an odd sort of way also the linchpin of a hostage system. By law no Exarch can return to their city unless all of them do, by unanimous decision which means that if any of the five are seen as inclined towards secession even one recalcitrant vote can keep them here, isolated from their resources and militias. From what you have been able to skim on the way it seemed to have worked fine.
With a soft sigh of inrushing air the council chamber is revealed, seated in accordance to the orientation of their city the five most powerful beings on Sanctuary. From the City of Laws red robed Logistician of the Unstoppable Company, more brass than man in armour that has withstood balefire and sorcery, rail gun shot and electro-laser shot while also being one of the foremost jurists of the Fivefold Courts. His four arms sweep out as as he courtesies more than he bows under the weight of ancient hydronics and steam vents. Eyes of burning green meet yours with reverence yes, but also with quasi-mechanical calculation. Ancient Luc was one of the architects of Unity, the only one still on the council.
To his left is not a person but a small brass drone equipped with some of the finest sensor suites the world has to offer. The Exarch of the City of Scrolls, Archivist of Resplendent Tomes Enduring makes their home in the palace as per the law, but being a sessile they have to drone-call to every meeting. It is difficult to read the mood of a fist sized brass drone, or at least it would be normally, from the way its main camera eye keeps clicking and readjusting. you are going to guess its controller is vibrating with excitement... and perhaps a little fear. Unlike many other scholars Arte is concerned with cataloguing the past, not making novel discoveries and yet here is the most novel of all discoveries walking through the front door to meet them. At least you had left Dad in the lobby so you do not have to make that introduction just yet...
Following the moon path again one spies the Weaver of Ascending Tones Imperishable perched atop precarious looking number of gold silk pillows before she jumps to her feet to greet you. Unlike the others Wati is is not a carrier politician or bureaucrat. Rather she is taking a break from her world famous solo singing carrier to dabble in politics. Even skimming the news on the way here you get a sense that the other exarchs are not thrilled with the habit of the City of Fountains to elect dilettantes as leaders. They tend to barely last seventy five moon-turns on average, three Great Turns which you guess would be the closest things to years in Sanctuary. You wonder what the fate-sight of those eight glistening black eyes see as they look upon you. A reason to stay a while longer perhaps just to to see what changes you will make?
Beyond her is another woman, seemingly of an age with you by the fresh turn of the wheel, but that is where the similarities end. Where Wati seems content with discrete implants that enhance the beauty of her tocatl heritage Soul of the Eightfold Steel Lotus, whose no-speak name sounds something like 'Sesil' when spoken is heavily enhanced with the newest augments money and power can buy. From the custom Rangefinding Eyesight Augment Device or READ meant to function without the feedback of a biological eye allowing for double enhancement to the stitch marks at the base of her skull where the SPICE, Slowed Perception Implanted Combat Enhancer, had gone in, not hidden by cosmetic work as in most cases but lined in gleaming brass it is clear Sesil very much wants others to know she is more machine than mortal woman. Given her history with the Amethyst Hand, the dreaded intelligence service of the City of Endings one can only imagine at least part of the purpose of her implants is intimidation.
Closing the circle to the right of Ancient Luc is Enlightened Keeper of the Equal Ledger, the sixth or seventh most wealthy man in the City of Journeys and also among the most well respected, certainly the most pious trading company magnate. He had sworn a blood oath upon his last turn of the Wheel that when this one ends he would donate all his personal wealth to charity and start again as as an caravan master captain in to the Jungle Towns and the Waste-Edge Outposts. Politically he tends to be a moderating influence between the pillar of tradition that is Ancient Luc and the mercurial moods of whoever the Exarch of Fountains happens to be this moon-turn.
Everyone seems quite impressed by your imperial bearing and maybe a bit intimidated to speak, until Ancient Luc greets you by a reather intimidating proclamation of his own: "We are yours to command Sublime Majesty, by all the leavers of law and statecraft though the sight of many eyes, known to all and shadow-hidden. The sinews of industry move, the priests sing of the glorious day of your coming, the spirits listen one and all."
Sesil clears her throat. "Most, spirits can be quite recalcitrant lot, particularly those most aged and used to sweet coaxing. That is what was on the order of our council until the news of your Arrival reached us. Certain Underwyrm sprits pledged to guard the trains between the City of Endings and the City of Journeys have taken to demanding unreasonable toles of life-essence to sustain themselves. This council has been slow to do what must be done to remove this unseemly blackmail."
"By which she means we do not wish to banish some of the most ancient and wise underwyrms howling into the wastes and replace them with robotic sentinels," Arte buzzes. "I offer profuse apologies for my college for imposing such mundane matters..."
"If She wished a chorus of praise she would have gone to a temple," the Exarch of Endings cuts them off flatly. "Such 'mundane matters' is what we are tasked to deal with and behold She is here."
How do you deal with the Exarchate?
[] Explain that you do not really know much about ruling and will instead reign with a light hand
[] Reveal the world beyond the Courts, they have far more important things to advise you with, a new age is upon you all
[] Write in
OOC: Time to explain Life the Universe and Everything... also the fact that the Maker is a teenager.
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- Location
- washington
So you guys convinced harry yet this isn't a nevernever realm?