Her mother's doll of her broke and she hung herself in the doorway. Tabitha was the first to find her.
The Steep Path Ahead [Familiar of Zero AU]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Your thinking of Queen Victoria not Maria Theresia.
The Haspburgs were famously known to suffer from Mandibular prognathism aka the Hapsburg jaw or lisp to a point that some of them couldn't even chew food though and a number of members were suspected to suffer from combined pituitary hormone defciency and distal renal tubular acidosis. They also suffered from insanity and retardation in a number of family members. I believe one member Charles the second the last of the Spanish line was so imbred he was geneticly closer than a child born to a brother and sister.
"Was no" works just as well.
I really think that sticking close to a few people they know they can trust (mostly the Valliere family) and cutting off contact with the Cardinal & queen of Gallia as much as they can is the best they can do. They can't hurt them, but that doesn't mean they have to be around them. And if Karin could get away with it, so can they.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
The Cardinals Valliére obsession at least is somewhat understandable. They are perhaps the most powerful noble family in Tristain even before you count the Manticore knights basically defecting from the royal banner to the Valliére banner and the fact Karin the heavy wind is the most powerful mage alive excluding Void mages and first born magic users. They also have blood connections to the throne which likely doesn't help his obession.
- Pronouns
- she/her
Charlotte agreeing to use Saito and Louise instead of the original plan that took years to set up is still pretty contrived imo. If they had so little faith in Saito and Louise succeeding that they were completely unconcerned at the chance of them dying, why go forward with it at all? They threw a bunch of wild cards into their plot for no real reason. Furthermore, why did Mazarin insist on sending them himself instead of letting Charlotte give them the mission, if all the support for completing it was going to come from her anyway?
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Charlotte deferred to the superior plot-weaver in her eyes, which was Mazarin.
The fact that wild cards or not they kept doing as the cardinal pretty much intended them to do made Charlotte's resistances wane.
And the Cardinal *could* send them both, Charlotte could not.
Louis is definitely a 'knight' of Charlotte, but Louise is not. The Heavy Wind wouldn't easily agree to let her daughter go under the orders of a foreign monarch, especially not if 1) Charlotte were just the heir, or 2) if Charlotte had just become the Queen.
Louise is the daughter of a Duchess, her rank being considerable higher in Tristain and the fact that the 'knight' Louis is a male means that she can just as easily discard that persona if it suits her. Saito's not that lucky, he's a baron, the lowest grade of peerage, and is strictly connected to being a knight, with all the oaths that it entails -that Charlotte 'waved them away' is one thing, that she wrote it down that she did so is another.
Basically, one should ask what the hell did the Cardinal smoke, or what were his reasons to press the two into service.
Or perhaps, we'll know further ahead.
The solution is to make him a knight of the Valliere family and/or make him a Count without the land to go with it.
- Pronouns
- she/her
Yeah forgive me for not being too impressed by the Cardinal's ability to direct the actions of people under the influence of literal mind control. By wild cards, I was referring to the relative competence of Saito and Louise. Instead of sending assets who he knew could get the job done, he insisted on sending two noobs with almost no concrete feats of note. (They survived one spell cast by the Heavy Wind, barely...) They could have been strong enough to survive, or they could have died at the first obstacle. Then the Cardinal threw another wild card into the mix by not giving them clear instructions- are Saito and Louise competent enough to figure out what to do next or not? (To which the answer was clearly not, as the only reasons they got closer to the objective were handholding from the Gallians, being dragged while unconscious, and water spirit puppeting).
That makes slightly more sense, but Louise was planning to run off and continue adventuring anyway so wouldn't she have ignored Karin's objections. Especially if Louise is so easily able to discard her noble persona, how would Karin be able to stop her?
Been asking that question since his first appearance, but you said you'd reveal his motivations in the next chapter so I figured I should lay off the guy for now.
Something just occurred to me. So, the one who killed Joseph was Saito because of the contract spell, yes? How does that work? The assassin was insanely fast; like, haste spell level fast apparently. Why isn't Saito anywhere near that speed normally (when holding a weapon)? Obviously Charlotte gave Saito Derf for the assassination, but the difference in speed is confusing.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
He was in some way deluded into thinking that he was defending Louise, perhaps? I think that's how Gandalfr's get power boosts.
But that's what he has been doing ever since he got to Halkagenia. Defending Louise from bandits, huge rats, rogue mages, gryphons, dragons, etc.
Once again, in canon he gets boosts from defending Louise because he has strong emotions attached to her. His love for her, in canon.
The actual 'defending Louise' part is superfluous. It's the 'strong emotions' which count. Fear, anger, love, despair, joy, etc.
The stronger the emotion and the more strong emotions he's feeling at a time, the more power he gets.
The actual 'defending Louise' part is superfluous. It's the 'strong emotions' which count. Fear, anger, love, despair, joy, etc.
The stronger the emotion and the more strong emotions he's feeling at a time, the more power he gets.
I'd love to know just what the contract spell was making him feel then (considering he can't remember anything about it anyways) because that kind of difference is insane.
- Location
- Wishing I was somewhere much colder, I asssume.
So getting past all the anger towards Queen Charlotte, how is she manipulating them this time?
If she isn't, they have to at least suspect she is, right? Every interaction she's had with them before this was staged to make her trust them, and she could have just not told them and spared them the knowledge of what she made them do. But she didn't, she specifically told them. Aren't they going to wonder what she's trying to make them do this time?
If she isn't, they have to at least suspect she is, right? Every interaction she's had with them before this was staged to make her trust them, and she could have just not told them and spared them the knowledge of what she made them do. But she didn't, she specifically told them. Aren't they going to wonder what she's trying to make them do this time?
Maybe. Personally I feel that it's more likely that she wanted to get it off her chest; after all, she had good leverage over them (Saito killing Joseph) and now has even better (Louise hitting her); she can sort of blackmail them into doing stuff. Of course, with how furious Louise is, it wouldn't go well.
Doctor Blood
Immoralist
- Location
- Known Space
Properly made plate armor for a Japanese teenager would be closer to 15-20 kg rather than 20-30 kg. Furthermore, the weight is distributed on the entirety of the body, something that makes an enormous difference in how well you can move and how it affects your endurance. You can even swim or perform cartwheels while wearing it.
Wikipedia said:
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Indeed Chainmail on the other hand could weight just much or even as much as 80 pounds with all the weight resting on the shoulders instead of spreed across the whole body. It also could actually bite into the body of the person wearing it when dealt with a strong blow.
Another extremely common type of armor which was light was the Gambseson armor which was made layers of cloth and leather(up to 18 or even 30 layers) which could resist sword slashes and even heavy arrows but was extremely hot to wear. It was the armor of solders who could not afford metal armor and was quite common lasting along side plate armor until both largely went out of use at the beginning of the 18th century.
Another extremely common type of armor which was light was the Gambseson armor which was made layers of cloth and leather(up to 18 or even 30 layers) which could resist sword slashes and even heavy arrows but was extremely hot to wear. It was the armor of solders who could not afford metal armor and was quite common lasting along side plate armor until both largely went out of use at the beginning of the 18th century.
- Pronouns
- she/her
One thing I found sketchy as all hell was that she never specified that Saito was free of the Contract spell. Which "can be cast and activated upon the use of a command sentence".
I didn't know anything about the contract spell... yeah, that's nasty. Charlotte's potential danger level just rose from "very dangerous and influential" to "Saito is essentially her mind-slave whenever she wills."
Honestly, the part that infuriates me the most is just how little Charlotte cared if Louise and Saito lived or died. She justification isn't just feeble, it's monstrous.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Thing is, apparently the locals have apparently methods for checking for things like charm,command and other such spells and potions in order to prevent things like assassinations or officials being controlled created so how did she do it? I mean said detection spells apparently only work on human magic so was it part of her deal with the water spirit? Or does she have a elf hidden away somewhere helping her?
- Pronouns
- she/her
TBH the gleeful smiles + giggling during her big reveal make me suspect she's going to be as mad as Joseph was.
Lol, it worked out great for him when Mazarin did the same. Maybe he cast Contract on her when she was still a baby to stifle potential disobedience down the line.
??? Sorry, I don't get this line.
He being Mazarin and she being Charlotte?