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Last Light of a Dark Age (Warhammer 29K/Disco Elysium)

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[X] The Maiden's Vow.

We love Her, and She loves us. Her foresight leads us on a mission path of transcendence. Trust in the plan, and show gratitude for her gifts.
 
Ah so I wasn't thinking gonzo enough about Kora. They aren't Akumetsu. They are the Reboot of the "Prophet" Comic.

A branch of humanity that has officially gone so deep into cloning that it's unsettling. Much like how the Human Empire in Prophet is reduced to simply two lines endless produced via the Empire's cloning pods. The John Prophets, the male geneline, printed to serve as the Empire's muscle. Hand-crafted assassins were given tweaked gene mods to function in the former domains of mankind. The Survivors who are further modified to become the Warlords and Generals of Humanity's conquering horde of John Prophets. Mass-produced Johns gene spliced into Evangelion and Skaven-esque monstrosities.

When first decanted/awakened from their pods, the Assassin Prophets act exactly like Harry Dubois and Leonard Shelby. No memory about who they are, no understanding of what they are, and where they are. But their skills are so ingrained that they bumble and stumble into murdering key Alien leaders, destroy strategic positions, and awaken storages of Prophet Battleships fit to conquer whole systems.

All with indoctrination and slight manipulations by the Arch-Mothers. The real leader caste of the Empire. Female Psychic female clones that are Biological psychic computers shelled within an atrophied human body. Commanding and manipulating the Prophets through psychic projections of their ideal selves (Except the General and Warlord Prophets who have lived long enough to know better).

Yeah. Good shit.

In any case, the situation with the Nanomiasma, the Lasparian Lung, the Cube Tyrants, the beloved Exception made for AI that produces new Posthumans makes me think, were the Father and Mother AIs?

Assuming that after the Grey Goo was launched, the only humans still alive on the planet were the Blanks in their Arks, and then someone nuked them from orbit. Well, humanity would have gone extinct, only to be printed from the genebanks.

It could have been Posthumans that survived in Orbit. But I don't know, I feel like the Hylics would have evacuated or fought with their ally to claim the Orbit if so. Chances were the AIs won the Orbit, but then they split into factions. With one lead by the Father and the Mother finding the plan to wipe the surface clean of all life with Nanoplague to be a horror, and then they retaliated by destroying the other AI faction, and then nuking the Hylics in retribution. Then they must have spend centuries trying to clean up the Nanoplague, but they must have lacked the codes and in a last-ditch effort created a posthuman template that could survive on Illuminata.

Presumably, they would have populated the Orbital Habitats with their Children as well, who would have then turned on them after learning of their role in the Genocide. Hence their splintering, with only Fragment copies and programming left to direct the Gene Printers.
 
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[X] A Unique Vow (Be Kind To One Another and Remember The Chandlers) (+3 Interlace, +2 Reliquary, +2 Noosphere, +1 Incandescence, +1 Cogitation)
[X] A Unique Vow (Magnanimous Moral Monolith) (+3 Incandescence +2 Interlace +2 Cogitation +1 Noosphere +1 Reliquary)
[X] With thrashing violence and brute strength, wielding the abyssal nail like the hammer of a biomechanical headbutt (BIOMECHANICS Check: Easy - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).

Time to scratch that itch inside our forehead.
 
Cetashwayo said:
SERENADE OF THE CHANDLERS - The nerves, and the sheath surrounding them. There, in the back of the folding furrows of the brain, a synthetic symbiont, the producer of the antibody, and the antigen. Panacea's daughter, that has made the pathogen extinct.

INFOWAR: Symbiont reporting in. Thanks for never asking me to pay rent, boss. I hope keeping you forever without organic pestilence, and muffling every single pain you've ever experienced, covers it.

COGITATION: There remains one pestilence you can never cure.

SERENADE OF THE CHANDLERS - Yes. The nanocancer. In 50 or 60 years from this moment, it will claim you, by eating you from the outside-in. In this, we have failed. We sought, in making you, to surpass the cruelty of nature. Nature is surpassed, but cruelty remains.

BIOMECHANICS [Easy - Success]: It will begin with flakes of your skin, and then they will infiltrate inside and consume every part of you. They cannot be escaped. They are in the air, and in the water, and even in the cubes. No filtration can avoid them, and no replacements can forestall them forever. When they chew away the neural sheath and the symbiont begins to decay, the pain makes one beg they would be quicker.

INFOWAR: Like I said before, luck of the draw. Only the pneumatic can command they cease their devouring, but with every year the energy the delay demands will sap them, until they too, fall apart.
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Yeah I mean look at this template. On any other planet, in any other human civilization, even in the highest halls of the Imperium at it's height. Just the Panacea alone would likely extend someone's life by at least a century. Never mind all the other posthuman augments. And yet, this is the basic template for a printed Servant Caste. But still only 50-60 years. Maybe the High castes and the Pneumatic can live longer, but the vibe I get makes me feel that even the most depraved and cannibalistic Pneumatic Elite can barely push their luck into 100 as they turn senile and soil themselves every day.

For the return of investment, that's horrifically inefficient.

Like humans can be fucking crazy. But basic natural selection would have simply pushed human survivors to live in Orbit. And any surviving Posthuman in Orbit wouldn't waste the tremendous amount of resources necessary to make such overengineered templates for enough bodies to make competing warring planetary civilizations and nomadic tribes.

Or at least if they did do that, we'd be seeing or getting allusions to Space Elevators or Mass Drivers to send vast quantities of materials to feed the vast forges in Orbit.

Only AIs maddened by guilt, driven to despair by failure and going Rampant over a impossible challenge would make such over-engineered bodies.

HungryHamadryad said:
Yeah, it was stated pretty early on that they're a man of gold and iron respectively. I think it's implied they came here long after shit had already hit the fan in civilization at large though?
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I must have missed that in all the worldbuilding.
 
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There is a space elevator. However, orbit is no escape from nanocancer. The nanites are limited only by the planetary shield. They are in every layer of the atmosphere.
 
That is putting it lightly.

Types of nanites and their behavior will be explored more later. In general there is a difference between plankton, nanocancer nanites, and the apocalyptic plague. What the difference is unclear, but they behave differently.

When we explore a body of water more that will be more obvious.
 
Deadly Snark said:
Then they must have spend centuries trying to clean up the Nanoplague, but they must have lacked the codes and in a last-ditch effort created a posthuman template that could survive on Illuminata.
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Maybe. But the general vibe of the dark age of technology, the references to men of stone, and iron, and gold; I think that the distinction between man and machine has been blurry beyond meaning for a while. Whatever civilization mother and father fled from, I lean towards this kind of posthuman body being relatively normal if not considered 'quaint'. All the references to informorphs being forcibly embodied, I think that most people probably didn't even have corporeal forms unless they had a very particular reason to do so.
 
Cetashwayo said:
+EGOPLASTIC RIND: The perfect gift. A baked coroplastic layer of living terracotta and biomimetic synthetic xylem that overlays and improves the outermost functions of your body. You are harder, better, faster, and stronger than any equivalent print-caste elsewhere on Illuminata. Identical in appearance, if not features, to all other non-mutant bodies of Kora's Progeny. +1 to all Form Attributes
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Wow, the clone-women got hands

[X] The Sage's Vow.
[X] With inhuman precision and methodical force, using your fists to deliver a series of shattering one-mm punches (LIVING WEAPON Check: Easy, - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
Cetashwayo said:
There is a space elevator. However, orbit is no escape from nanocancer. The nanites are limited only by the planetary shield. They are in every layer of the atmosphere.
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That's actually pretty interesting in terms of implications, if the planet is infected with a nanoplague so deadly even a posthuman template is only able to ensure a normal human lifespan.

It also means we're dealing with an ultratech Deathworld. TBH I can see the Imperium already reaching for the Exterminatus trigger if they knew, but who knows if that would even work.
 
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[X] A Unique Vow (Be Kind To One Another and Remember The Chandlers) (+3 Interlace, +2 Reliquary, +2 Noosphere, +1 Incandescence, +1 Cogitation)
i would die for the chandlers. but they wouldnt like that, so instead we will live for them

[X] With inhuman precision and methodical force, using your fists to deliver a series of shattering one-mm punches (LIVING WEAPON Check: Easy, - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
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[X] The Sage's Vow. Wishing to discover her own self, she also discover the selves of others, and wishing to be virtuous herself, she also helps others to be virtuous (+3 to Sacred Geometry, +2 to Interlace, +1 to all other attributes).

[X] With inhuman precision and methodical force, using your fists to deliver a series of shattering one-mm punches (LIVING WEAPON Check: Easy, - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
[X] The Maiden's Vow. I will to Myself be true and faithful - to love all that She loved, and shun all that She shunned. Nor will I ever with will or action, word or deed, betray Her. (+2 to all Spirit Attributes, +1 to all Reason Attributes).

[X] With thrashing violence and brute strength, wielding the abyssal nail like the hammer of a biomechanical headbutt (BIOMECHANICS Check: Easy - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
[X] The Sage's Vow. Wishing to discover her own self, she also discover the selves of others, and wishing to be virtuous herself, she also helps others to be virtuous (+3 to Sacred Geometry, +2 to Interlace, +1 to all other attributes).

Our eyes will plot a future that only we can see and see through all of life's distortions.

[X] With thrashing violence and brute strength, wielding the abyssal nail like the hammer of a biomechanical headbutt (BIOMECHANICS Check: Easy - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).

Let our first cognisant act be to reach for the nail. The nail that is the answer to the imaterium shall also be the answer to our confinement. I also think esoteric geometry is the skill most closely related to the nail, hence when I voted for it.
 
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This quest while young, is tied with Disco Academia for me as the best Disco Elysium quest I have ever read. Also, I really love the idea of a sage who loves the world and is capable of seeing through everything, namely all forms of suffering, while simultaneously viewing life forms, including themselves, as walking skeletons. I think this vow would go great with the escape samsara task.
 
[X] The Witch's Vow. Heaven and Earth are ruthless. They treat the myriad selves as straw dogs. The self is ruthless - she treats the strangers as straw dogs. (+2 to all Reason Attributes, +1 to all Spirit Attributes).

[X] With thrashing violence and brute strength, wielding the abyssal nail like the hammer of a biomechanical headbutt (BIOMECHANICS Check: Easy - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).

We've got the nail, might as well use it. The Reason and Spirit stats both sound very good, but I'm leaning towards Reason. Plus being a Witch is a fun title. Sage is also cool. Begin looking at symbols for hidden meaning.
 
Cetashwayo said:
HER - Apotheosis. The God-Laboratory.

Chills run down your back. You have been chosen for a project to restore God.

COGITATION: A project that, has by all accounts, already failed.
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A massive, planet-sized failure. Or is it? We know of one human "god" in 40k: The Emperor. It's possible that this planet is where he was created. Or rather, will be.

(I know there's backstory that says the dude was hanging around for tens of thousands of years, but never did anything besides fight the Mars dragon. I say that explanation is just too convenient.)
 
Arcus said:
That's actually pretty interesting in terms of implications, if the planet is infected with a nanoplague so deadly even a posthuman template is only able to ensure a normal human lifespan.

It also means we're dealing with an ultratech Deathworld. TBH I can see the Imperium already reaching for the Exterminatus trigger if they knew, but who knows if that would even work.
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A dead world full of life. Every line in the opening post and the conversation and legacy flesh is important :)
 
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Derpmind said:
A massive, planet-sized failure. Or is it? We know of one human "god" in 40k: The Emperor. It's possible that this planet is where he was created. Or rather, will be.

(I know there's backstory that says the dude was hanging around for tens of thousands of years, but never did anything besides fight the Mars dragon. I say that explanation is just too convenient.)
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It's not necessary that they mean a god like the Emperor. It could be a god-like on Mallus. The Lasparian Lung does read a bit like Mor's Garden for example.

(Granted making a place to keep souls safe from the Warp is not exclusive, and anyone strong or knowledgeable enough would want to do it.)
(So really it could be something like an Exodite World Soul)
 
[X] A Unique Vow (Be Kind To One Another and Remember The Chandlers) (+3 Interlace, +2 Reliquary, +2 Noosphere, +1 Incandescence, +1 Cogitation)
[X] With inhuman precision and methodical force, using your fists to deliver a series of shattering one-mm punches (LIVING WEAPON Check: Easy, - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
[X] A Unique Vow (Be Kind To One Another and Remember The Chandlers) (+3 Interlace, +2 Reliquary, +2 Noosphere, +1 Incandescence, +1 Cogitation)
[X] With inhuman precision and methodical force, using your fists to deliver a series of shattering one-mm punches (LIVING WEAPON Check: Easy, - 9 or higher on 2d6+3 to succeed).
 
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