- Location
- Florida
Somewhere a past out mad scientist smiles in his sleep whispering- worth it
Unnatural Forces; a Necromancy Quest
- Thread starter DocSpooky
- Start date
- Original
Solarstream
It's all in the cards
- Location
- Zombie World
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan : Cadavers 2.0 and magnitude growth
Is there a lose condition to this quest?
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, not achieve Stability before the system starts to burn out.
Stability for our route means getting at least 10 [Ancient Knowledge] and then building its attached Wonder.
We could spend 8 Magnitudes on Nigredo, 4 on and Damnable Weather next turn and finish Nigredo the one after that.
Turn 2
DocSpooky
Humblest in the World
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan: Cadavers 2.0 and magnitude growth
-[X] Cadavers gain [Lithesome]
-[X] St. Azrael's Fire [7/7]
-[X] Damnable Weather [1/5]
-[X] Crop Circles [2/2]
-[X] Observation
Seeing strange lights in the distance is hardly new in Ossuaria, especially since the storms changed and the dead began to rise. Crackling balls of light caught for a moment between the trees and vanishing into the woods or the mists are only barely remarked on. Like an unusual tree or another mysterious death among the nobility. The stories of towns appearing out of nowhere only to vanish in a flash of light, or the sightings of a mysterious rider thundering down wild roads and miraculously failing to harm those he charges straight through are likewise easily dismissed as folk tale and rumour.
As sightings creep closer to towns and hamlets, they become more difficult to dismiss. They appear in the wake of storms, as most strange things here do, and seem drawn to homes and buildings. Perhaps simply places taller than the planes around them. Parades of zombies follow them, drawn by their eerie glow. They take up residence in the roofs of belltowers and the attics of townhouses and even, briefly, the branches of church spires before the priests return them to their rest. The rooftops of townships are draped in soft purple light, one that flickers and twists and casts dreadful images.
In these circumstances, a residence might find itself playing host to an unwanted guest, as lost spirits caught in the lightning cast about their memories in haphazard, dream-like vignettes. Rooms seem to shape themselves into new places entirely, filled with strangers who play out scenes paying no heed to the living. Otherwise, they simply stare vacantly until they vanish in a flash of that same light, leaving behind those twisted, fractal burns familiar to those who employ the labour of cadavers.
Exorcists are summoned to the homes of the wealthy and righteous to evict their bothersome visitors, entering their trances and replacing lingering spirits with the lingering scent of incense. There are many calls, however, and soon they become overwhelmed by the work as household after household summons them with complaints of pantomime murders being conducted daily and nonsense screaming matches between spectres denying them rest. For those the Church does not prioritise, or for those whose phantoms prove too numerous or stubborn, their unwanted guests become permanent tenants, and the living, as they always do, adapt.
The same events repeat across the country, becoming more chaotic and violent as the domain of Ossuarian necromancy spreads across new towns, pouring out from the crop circles like miasma from a corpse. In these towns, residents have no time to come to terms with the sudden emptying of their graveyards before the lights begin descending onto rooftops. In the town of Schedelweg, which sat cowering in the little space left to it by the surrounding mountains that made the border with the Malebolge, the villagers first thought the Black Death had made its way north.
News does not reach there quickly; it is remote, and the topography is cruel, and the weather was dangerous even before the lightning changed. Most of the residents had heard only rumours of the dead rising in the north, and the appearance of the living dead so close to them was met with the panic that would be expected in response to the hungry, grasping zombies the Black Death produces. That they brought with them incorporeal undead, and that both the physical and non-physical dead seemed content to observe and follow the living without attacking only increased the panic and confusion.
Even as Schedelweg began to come to terms with its new situation, herding the dead into disused pastures and luring them back with lanterns as they found their way out of captivity, they began to receive visitors. Masked scholars from the Malebolge, who came curious about a strange presence that had rolled in from the north, disrupting their experiments and promising new expressions of their dying art. Some came with a retinue in tow, each member carrying the black, weeping sores that marked creatures spawned by interaction with the Black Death.
Some elements of Subject One's behaviour became apparent very quickly. It, like all its kind, was attracted to light but seemed at a loss with what to do when it came into contact with a light source. It had a preference for the brief light of storms and arcs of lightning. It had a remarkable ability to maneuver on its multifarious limbs and could often be found in the highest places it could reach, folded in anatomically improbable ways into tight corners where its excessive eyes could see all approaches.
These features, in concert, made it an absolute devil to keep track of.
Thunderstorms were the worst. The thing would contrive any number of bizarre methods to get outside, onto the waterfalling eaves, in the middle of the furious wind, becoming the highest point in an electrical storm. It barely showed any sort of discomfort from its frequent intimacies with three-hundred million volts - it would twitch and spasm for a moment or two before returning to its task and the new burns were almost invisible against the mass of scars already covering its flesh. Each and every one of the increasingly common storms forced either Victor or Clerval to stay on Subject Watch for the entire duration and Victor, dear, dear Victor, was still barely on his feet.
It became part of Clerval's routine to walk into the lab (the new lab, paid for by the university, cavernous and new enough that the wainscoting was barely warped at all) to find Victor, slumped and unconscious against some table or pillar and Subject One nowhere to be found. The process was automatic. Insert Victor into chair. Brush his twisted, already greying hair off his face to give him a kiss. Fetch a lantern and fetch the creature from wherever it was perched. It had a favourite spot where it would latch to the building and look like a tumorous knot of limbs growing out of the wood, but it wasn't always there. Tempt it inside with the lantern light. Dry it down with a towel. Give it a candle to mesmerise it and seat it near a window that doesn't open. Find another seat to move next to Victor. Try not to fall asleep until Victor wakes up and inevitably apologises.
Between a body kept at the bare edge of functionality for months, the thesis committee, and the occasional manic episode of frantic research and experimentation that certainly did not help with his recovery, Clerval had been more of a guardian to the creature than Victor had. Not that he hadn't put in the effort, of course, but the man's habit of wringing every last drop of energy from himself had not abated in the slightest
Tonight, he is found at a desk alpine with papers, head nestled amidst the peaks and hair grease smudging the words. Frantic scribbling, indecipherable to someone less knowledgeable to Victor than Clerval was, indicating another mad carnival of invention. Notes for further improvement to Subject One's design, instructions for the care and maintenance of cadavers gleaned from observation, a particularly treacherous peak composed of suggestions for further research, and ideas for new experiments. Tonight, Victor at least had the good fortune to collapse from exhaustion into an already present chair.
Clerval carefully clears a space in the piles of paper, moves the blanket from Victor's back, and has already kissed him by the time he realises that someone has already put a blanket on his paramour. He stands. Victor was awake when the other researchers had gone home. Clerval sweeps his eyes across the room. No one else is present, barring the creature. The interlocking bars of its enclosure are undisturbed and the creature is sprawled out in an upper corner like a cobweb, its primary face pressed against the glass of a flickering gaslamp.
Its other face watches over Victor.
Magnitude: 12/12
Nigredo: The first part of growth is destruction. The old must be dismantled and broken down to free its constituent parts of impurities. This is necessary for ascension. The power of necromancy is too dependent on the form its targets once took. Let them putrify so that they may later be cleansed of the worldly, and so truer forms may be revealed. 0/15, Grants [Ancient Knowledge] to all Manifestations (if multiple Manifestations have 1 level of Ancient Knowledge, the player still only has 1 level total), unlocks a broader variety of Manifestations
Damnable Weather: There is little of this world about the weather that carries you, so why be limited to mundane meteorology? Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, setting fire to dry ground, moving against the wind, and vanishing as quickly as they appear. Lightning glows odd colours and sears the eye more than it should. Perhaps, if the conditions are right, you might be summoned without a cloud in the sky. 1/5, Increases Magnitude, causes Unnatural Weather
Unerring Hunters: Revenants, as they are, are largely passive creatures. They wander aimlessly, largely heedless of their surroundings. Their terrible and vicious rage might never manifest if they never cross paths with the target of their ire. This changes that. Revenants now know at all times the location of their target and will hunt them until their bodies give out. 0/3, Gain 1 Fear, Revenants gain [Ominous]
Electric Lights: They are already beings of lightning, of course, but they lack the power of the original form of the phenomenon. Now, that power returns to them in a manner very dangerous to anything flammable near them. Electricity arcs from their ethereal forms, leaving scars and animating whatever dead things they pass too close to. 0/5 Phantoms gain [Fulminous], Increases Magnitude
Deeper Mysteries: Modern science suggests that thoughts are electric. Little buzzes and zaps of lightning within the thick grey cloud inside our heads. Phantoms can now inhabit this lightning too. Perceptions change, rather than simply lights. The living feel the agony and fear of the spirits as if it were their own, as well as their awe, their curiosity, and their drive to be whole. 0/8 Phantoms gain [Perfidious 2], reduce Fear by 1
Hideous Strength: Cadavers, as they currently stand, are as strong as one of the stronger among the living. A gravedigger or a doctor. As the art advances, subtle adjustments can be made to a cadaver's construction. A new wire here, a better stitch there, something to brace the unbound strength of their preserved muscles against. With a few simple changes, they will gain strength and endurance beyond what living flesh could accomplish. 0/3, Cadavers gain [Enduring] and can now be used more heavily in manual labour
Into the Light: The beauty of the light calls to them. The terrible majesty stirs something within their withered corpus and draws them in. They must touch it, they must enter it even as it destroys them. It is a force as inexorable as gravity, glorious and uncaring and impossibly beyond their ken or control. It inspires them. Perhaps it could teach them to make something with even a fraction of its brilliance. 0/8, Cadavers gain [Inspired 2]
Lightning in a Bottle: As ethereal as it seems, lightning has a physical presence. It touches things to prick them, it makes hair stand on end, it twitches the muscles of the living and the dead. Phantoms are lightning and thus, the theory goes, they must be similarly physical and containable. Aside from the applications of pest control, this promises great utility in herding and organising the dead, as a phantom's glow seems to mesmerise them. 0/8, Phantoms can be contained in vacuum tubes, properly equipped living can muster some control over the dead
Storm Cauldron: This phenomenon is almost natural. Tall mountains struggle against the clouds to a stalemate, trapping them in the air on one side and preventing their passage. Somehow, the clouds on the northern side of the border with the Malebolge and Tartaro seem to have called for reinforcements, choking this side of the mountains with impossibly thick and dark clouds, charging the air and leaving the foothills suffocated in the smell of ozone. Still, the mountains stand firm as they always do, and the countryside braces for ever more lightning storms. 0/7 Increases Magnitude, more undead rise or find their way to the southern mountains
Sparks of Life: Not enough lightning strikes in a storm to raise a proper horde. It pays dividends to learn exactly how much lightning is required to animate a body. As it started, a single strike of lightning in the right place could raise a handful of surrounding corpses. Now, as death suffuses the country, it can take so little to bring the dead to life. Just a spark, a tiny shock, is enough now for the animation of a Zombie. 0/5, Zombies gain [Horde 2]
Mr. and Mrs. Doe: The lightning gets lucky, sometimes. Not all the dead are buried in clearly marked graves, sometimes they are lost in bogs or deep in the wilderness. Sometimes they are disposed of quietly in rivers and garden plots. Sometimes the lightning finds just the right spot to strike so that they can find their way back, climbing their way back to the surface so desperately alone. 0/5, Gain a new Manifestation: Ghouls [Mysterious] [Vicious]
Whispers:
Victor Van Kerkhof:
[ ] Academic Collaboration: Victor has just revolutionised his field, but he is not the only scholar who has worked on this subject. Scholars from around Ossuaria and abroad have an interest in studying the art. Under Victor's pull, they can be gathered together to pool their knowledge and accelerate the advancement of Necromantic Science
[ ] Tenure: A thesis is not enough. The university may be willing, if pushed, to offer a teaching position. While most undergraduate necromancers will amount to little, it would allow some small amount of knowledge of the art to proliferate, allowing necromancy to become more deeply enmeshed in everyday life.
[ ] A Meeting of the Minds: The necromancy of the Black Death does not operate on the same rules that Ossuarian necromancy does. Nevertheless, there are similarities, and as the Black Death shrivels and fades practitioners of its art are eager to begin their experiments anew. Having a Necromancer go to meet with these foreign scholars might yield useful insights, as well as prevent an amount of collateral damage from the less-than-safe methods of the Necrobiologists.
[ ] It Can Think: Well, to some extent, anyway. Subject One has, through the course of observation, shown traits more animal than automaton. It mimics its rearers, makes novel use of tools, and has its own desires. It learns. If it learns, it can be trained. This will require a novel approach - it does not eat and thus cannot be trained with offerings of food and its capacity to escape rules out negative reinforcement. Perhaps it can be rewarded with tea candles.
Clerval Igorovitch:
[ ] A Meeting of the Minds: The necromancy of the Black Death does not operate on the same rules that Ossuarian necromancy does. Nevertheless, there are similarities, and as the Black Death shrivels and fades practitioners of its art are eager to begin their experiments anew. Having a Necromancer go to meet with these foreign scholars might yield useful insights, as well as prevent an amount of collateral damage from the less-than-safe methods of the Necrobiologists.
[ ] Assuage Fears: The dead rising is unnerving. Spirits haunting houses and flooding them with haunting visions is frightening. The presence of Malebolgian necromancers, infamous spreaders of plague and performers of cruel experiments on imprisoned subjects, is terrifying. There are murmurs and concerns among the populace, and Clerval will have to expend some effort to put them to rest.
[ ] It Can Think: Well, to some extent, anyway. Subject One has, through the course of observation, shown traits more animal than automaton. It mimics its rearers, makes novel use of tools, and has its own desires. It learns. If it learns, it can be trained. This will require a novel approach - it does not eat and thus cannot be trained with offerings of food and its capacity to escape rules out negative reinforcement. Perhaps it can be rewarded with tea candles.
-[X] Cadavers gain [Lithesome]
-[X] St. Azrael's Fire [7/7]
-[X] Damnable Weather [1/5]
-[X] Crop Circles [2/2]
-[X] Observation
Seeing strange lights in the distance is hardly new in Ossuaria, especially since the storms changed and the dead began to rise. Crackling balls of light caught for a moment between the trees and vanishing into the woods or the mists are only barely remarked on. Like an unusual tree or another mysterious death among the nobility. The stories of towns appearing out of nowhere only to vanish in a flash of light, or the sightings of a mysterious rider thundering down wild roads and miraculously failing to harm those he charges straight through are likewise easily dismissed as folk tale and rumour.
As sightings creep closer to towns and hamlets, they become more difficult to dismiss. They appear in the wake of storms, as most strange things here do, and seem drawn to homes and buildings. Perhaps simply places taller than the planes around them. Parades of zombies follow them, drawn by their eerie glow. They take up residence in the roofs of belltowers and the attics of townhouses and even, briefly, the branches of church spires before the priests return them to their rest. The rooftops of townships are draped in soft purple light, one that flickers and twists and casts dreadful images.
In these circumstances, a residence might find itself playing host to an unwanted guest, as lost spirits caught in the lightning cast about their memories in haphazard, dream-like vignettes. Rooms seem to shape themselves into new places entirely, filled with strangers who play out scenes paying no heed to the living. Otherwise, they simply stare vacantly until they vanish in a flash of that same light, leaving behind those twisted, fractal burns familiar to those who employ the labour of cadavers.
The Church rolls with no modifiers to exorcise Phantoms.
Result = 12
Result = 12
Exorcists are summoned to the homes of the wealthy and righteous to evict their bothersome visitors, entering their trances and replacing lingering spirits with the lingering scent of incense. There are many calls, however, and soon they become overwhelmed by the work as household after household summons them with complaints of pantomime murders being conducted daily and nonsense screaming matches between spectres denying them rest. For those the Church does not prioritise, or for those whose phantoms prove too numerous or stubborn, their unwanted guests become permanent tenants, and the living, as they always do, adapt.
The same events repeat across the country, becoming more chaotic and violent as the domain of Ossuarian necromancy spreads across new towns, pouring out from the crop circles like miasma from a corpse. In these towns, residents have no time to come to terms with the sudden emptying of their graveyards before the lights begin descending onto rooftops. In the town of Schedelweg, which sat cowering in the little space left to it by the surrounding mountains that made the border with the Malebolge, the villagers first thought the Black Death had made its way north.
News does not reach there quickly; it is remote, and the topography is cruel, and the weather was dangerous even before the lightning changed. Most of the residents had heard only rumours of the dead rising in the north, and the appearance of the living dead so close to them was met with the panic that would be expected in response to the hungry, grasping zombies the Black Death produces. That they brought with them incorporeal undead, and that both the physical and non-physical dead seemed content to observe and follow the living without attacking only increased the panic and confusion.
Even as Schedelweg began to come to terms with its new situation, herding the dead into disused pastures and luring them back with lanterns as they found their way out of captivity, they began to receive visitors. Masked scholars from the Malebolge, who came curious about a strange presence that had rolled in from the north, disrupting their experiments and promising new expressions of their dying art. Some came with a retinue in tow, each member carrying the black, weeping sores that marked creatures spawned by interaction with the Black Death.
Some elements of Subject One's behaviour became apparent very quickly. It, like all its kind, was attracted to light but seemed at a loss with what to do when it came into contact with a light source. It had a preference for the brief light of storms and arcs of lightning. It had a remarkable ability to maneuver on its multifarious limbs and could often be found in the highest places it could reach, folded in anatomically improbable ways into tight corners where its excessive eyes could see all approaches.
These features, in concert, made it an absolute devil to keep track of.
Thunderstorms were the worst. The thing would contrive any number of bizarre methods to get outside, onto the waterfalling eaves, in the middle of the furious wind, becoming the highest point in an electrical storm. It barely showed any sort of discomfort from its frequent intimacies with three-hundred million volts - it would twitch and spasm for a moment or two before returning to its task and the new burns were almost invisible against the mass of scars already covering its flesh. Each and every one of the increasingly common storms forced either Victor or Clerval to stay on Subject Watch for the entire duration and Victor, dear, dear Victor, was still barely on his feet.
It became part of Clerval's routine to walk into the lab (the new lab, paid for by the university, cavernous and new enough that the wainscoting was barely warped at all) to find Victor, slumped and unconscious against some table or pillar and Subject One nowhere to be found. The process was automatic. Insert Victor into chair. Brush his twisted, already greying hair off his face to give him a kiss. Fetch a lantern and fetch the creature from wherever it was perched. It had a favourite spot where it would latch to the building and look like a tumorous knot of limbs growing out of the wood, but it wasn't always there. Tempt it inside with the lantern light. Dry it down with a towel. Give it a candle to mesmerise it and seat it near a window that doesn't open. Find another seat to move next to Victor. Try not to fall asleep until Victor wakes up and inevitably apologises.
Between a body kept at the bare edge of functionality for months, the thesis committee, and the occasional manic episode of frantic research and experimentation that certainly did not help with his recovery, Clerval had been more of a guardian to the creature than Victor had. Not that he hadn't put in the effort, of course, but the man's habit of wringing every last drop of energy from himself had not abated in the slightest
Tonight, he is found at a desk alpine with papers, head nestled amidst the peaks and hair grease smudging the words. Frantic scribbling, indecipherable to someone less knowledgeable to Victor than Clerval was, indicating another mad carnival of invention. Notes for further improvement to Subject One's design, instructions for the care and maintenance of cadavers gleaned from observation, a particularly treacherous peak composed of suggestions for further research, and ideas for new experiments. Tonight, Victor at least had the good fortune to collapse from exhaustion into an already present chair.
Clerval carefully clears a space in the piles of paper, moves the blanket from Victor's back, and has already kissed him by the time he realises that someone has already put a blanket on his paramour. He stands. Victor was awake when the other researchers had gone home. Clerval sweeps his eyes across the room. No one else is present, barring the creature. The interlocking bars of its enclosure are undisturbed and the creature is sprawled out in an upper corner like a cobweb, its primary face pressed against the glass of a flickering gaslamp.
Its other face watches over Victor.
Magnitude: 12/12
Nigredo: The first part of growth is destruction. The old must be dismantled and broken down to free its constituent parts of impurities. This is necessary for ascension. The power of necromancy is too dependent on the form its targets once took. Let them putrify so that they may later be cleansed of the worldly, and so truer forms may be revealed. 0/15, Grants [Ancient Knowledge] to all Manifestations (if multiple Manifestations have 1 level of Ancient Knowledge, the player still only has 1 level total), unlocks a broader variety of Manifestations
Damnable Weather: There is little of this world about the weather that carries you, so why be limited to mundane meteorology? Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, setting fire to dry ground, moving against the wind, and vanishing as quickly as they appear. Lightning glows odd colours and sears the eye more than it should. Perhaps, if the conditions are right, you might be summoned without a cloud in the sky. 1/5, Increases Magnitude, causes Unnatural Weather
Unerring Hunters: Revenants, as they are, are largely passive creatures. They wander aimlessly, largely heedless of their surroundings. Their terrible and vicious rage might never manifest if they never cross paths with the target of their ire. This changes that. Revenants now know at all times the location of their target and will hunt them until their bodies give out. 0/3, Gain 1 Fear, Revenants gain [Ominous]
Electric Lights: They are already beings of lightning, of course, but they lack the power of the original form of the phenomenon. Now, that power returns to them in a manner very dangerous to anything flammable near them. Electricity arcs from their ethereal forms, leaving scars and animating whatever dead things they pass too close to. 0/5 Phantoms gain [Fulminous], Increases Magnitude
Deeper Mysteries: Modern science suggests that thoughts are electric. Little buzzes and zaps of lightning within the thick grey cloud inside our heads. Phantoms can now inhabit this lightning too. Perceptions change, rather than simply lights. The living feel the agony and fear of the spirits as if it were their own, as well as their awe, their curiosity, and their drive to be whole. 0/8 Phantoms gain [Perfidious 2], reduce Fear by 1
Hideous Strength: Cadavers, as they currently stand, are as strong as one of the stronger among the living. A gravedigger or a doctor. As the art advances, subtle adjustments can be made to a cadaver's construction. A new wire here, a better stitch there, something to brace the unbound strength of their preserved muscles against. With a few simple changes, they will gain strength and endurance beyond what living flesh could accomplish. 0/3, Cadavers gain [Enduring] and can now be used more heavily in manual labour
Into the Light: The beauty of the light calls to them. The terrible majesty stirs something within their withered corpus and draws them in. They must touch it, they must enter it even as it destroys them. It is a force as inexorable as gravity, glorious and uncaring and impossibly beyond their ken or control. It inspires them. Perhaps it could teach them to make something with even a fraction of its brilliance. 0/8, Cadavers gain [Inspired 2]
Lightning in a Bottle: As ethereal as it seems, lightning has a physical presence. It touches things to prick them, it makes hair stand on end, it twitches the muscles of the living and the dead. Phantoms are lightning and thus, the theory goes, they must be similarly physical and containable. Aside from the applications of pest control, this promises great utility in herding and organising the dead, as a phantom's glow seems to mesmerise them. 0/8, Phantoms can be contained in vacuum tubes, properly equipped living can muster some control over the dead
Storm Cauldron: This phenomenon is almost natural. Tall mountains struggle against the clouds to a stalemate, trapping them in the air on one side and preventing their passage. Somehow, the clouds on the northern side of the border with the Malebolge and Tartaro seem to have called for reinforcements, choking this side of the mountains with impossibly thick and dark clouds, charging the air and leaving the foothills suffocated in the smell of ozone. Still, the mountains stand firm as they always do, and the countryside braces for ever more lightning storms. 0/7 Increases Magnitude, more undead rise or find their way to the southern mountains
Sparks of Life: Not enough lightning strikes in a storm to raise a proper horde. It pays dividends to learn exactly how much lightning is required to animate a body. As it started, a single strike of lightning in the right place could raise a handful of surrounding corpses. Now, as death suffuses the country, it can take so little to bring the dead to life. Just a spark, a tiny shock, is enough now for the animation of a Zombie. 0/5, Zombies gain [Horde 2]
Mr. and Mrs. Doe: The lightning gets lucky, sometimes. Not all the dead are buried in clearly marked graves, sometimes they are lost in bogs or deep in the wilderness. Sometimes they are disposed of quietly in rivers and garden plots. Sometimes the lightning finds just the right spot to strike so that they can find their way back, climbing their way back to the surface so desperately alone. 0/5, Gain a new Manifestation: Ghouls [Mysterious] [Vicious]
Whispers:
Victor Van Kerkhof:
[ ] Academic Collaboration: Victor has just revolutionised his field, but he is not the only scholar who has worked on this subject. Scholars from around Ossuaria and abroad have an interest in studying the art. Under Victor's pull, they can be gathered together to pool their knowledge and accelerate the advancement of Necromantic Science
[ ] Tenure: A thesis is not enough. The university may be willing, if pushed, to offer a teaching position. While most undergraduate necromancers will amount to little, it would allow some small amount of knowledge of the art to proliferate, allowing necromancy to become more deeply enmeshed in everyday life.
[ ] A Meeting of the Minds: The necromancy of the Black Death does not operate on the same rules that Ossuarian necromancy does. Nevertheless, there are similarities, and as the Black Death shrivels and fades practitioners of its art are eager to begin their experiments anew. Having a Necromancer go to meet with these foreign scholars might yield useful insights, as well as prevent an amount of collateral damage from the less-than-safe methods of the Necrobiologists.
[ ] It Can Think: Well, to some extent, anyway. Subject One has, through the course of observation, shown traits more animal than automaton. It mimics its rearers, makes novel use of tools, and has its own desires. It learns. If it learns, it can be trained. This will require a novel approach - it does not eat and thus cannot be trained with offerings of food and its capacity to escape rules out negative reinforcement. Perhaps it can be rewarded with tea candles.
Clerval Igorovitch:
[ ] A Meeting of the Minds: The necromancy of the Black Death does not operate on the same rules that Ossuarian necromancy does. Nevertheless, there are similarities, and as the Black Death shrivels and fades practitioners of its art are eager to begin their experiments anew. Having a Necromancer go to meet with these foreign scholars might yield useful insights, as well as prevent an amount of collateral damage from the less-than-safe methods of the Necrobiologists.
[ ] Assuage Fears: The dead rising is unnerving. Spirits haunting houses and flooding them with haunting visions is frightening. The presence of Malebolgian necromancers, infamous spreaders of plague and performers of cruel experiments on imprisoned subjects, is terrifying. There are murmurs and concerns among the populace, and Clerval will have to expend some effort to put them to rest.
[ ] It Can Think: Well, to some extent, anyway. Subject One has, through the course of observation, shown traits more animal than automaton. It mimics its rearers, makes novel use of tools, and has its own desires. It learns. If it learns, it can be trained. This will require a novel approach - it does not eat and thus cannot be trained with offerings of food and its capacity to escape rules out negative reinforcement. Perhaps it can be rewarded with tea candles.
Your Author said:
Last edited:
Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
[]Plan: Inspired Weather:
-[]Damnable Weather: There is little of this world about the weather that carries you, so why be limited to mundane meteorology? Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, setting fire to dry ground, moving against the wind, and vanishing as quickly as they appear. Lightning glows odd colours and sears the eye more than it should. Perhaps, if the conditions are right, you might be summoned without a cloud in the sky. 1->5/5, Increases Magnitude, causes Unnatural Weather
-[]Into the Light: The beauty of the light calls to them. The terrible majesty stirs something within their withered corpus and draws them in. They must touch it, they must enter it even as it destroys them. It is a force as inexorable as gravity, glorious and uncaring and impossibly beyond their ken or control. It inspires them. Perhaps it could teach them to make something with even a fraction of its brilliance. 0->8/8, Cadavers gain [Inspired 2]
First part of the plan. Options seem to synergise a little.
-[]Damnable Weather: There is little of this world about the weather that carries you, so why be limited to mundane meteorology? Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, setting fire to dry ground, moving against the wind, and vanishing as quickly as they appear. Lightning glows odd colours and sears the eye more than it should. Perhaps, if the conditions are right, you might be summoned without a cloud in the sky. 1->5/5, Increases Magnitude, causes Unnatural Weather
-[]Into the Light: The beauty of the light calls to them. The terrible majesty stirs something within their withered corpus and draws them in. They must touch it, they must enter it even as it destroys them. It is a force as inexorable as gravity, glorious and uncaring and impossibly beyond their ken or control. It inspires them. Perhaps it could teach them to make something with even a fraction of its brilliance. 0->8/8, Cadavers gain [Inspired 2]
First part of the plan. Options seem to synergise a little.
DocSpooky
Humblest in the World
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Some of the routes in phenomena creation would have encouraged it in various ways - Cries Carried On The Wind, for instance, requires vengeance be laid upon those who harmed the dead in life. In this route, you do not currently have any particular reason to other than that the options that cause harm generally also provide bonuses that are helpful to the undead.
You do not currently have access to Ghouls, but they come with the Vicious trait for free if you unlock them. Vicious is also the generalised fightin' trait, so it's useful in any situation where the undead are brought into direct combat. If Ossuaria declares war, for instance, or if Victor tries to overthrow the king with an army of zombies.
Don't worry take your time
I think Assuage Fears is very important, to curb panic and misunderstandings off early, but for Victor…
(Victor should really not be the one doing diplomacy, I suspect).
What about It Can Think?
I feel establishing the identity and maybe even a sort of kin ship with the Cadaver before focusing on our career may be important to avoid terrible tragedy in the future, as Victor's namesake failed to do. Otherwise, to focus on the science of necromancy at the expense of, effectively our creation (child (?)), thus introducing more and more people into the project who do not see the Cadaver as benignly as our current pair may end…
Well, it may end.
(Victor should really not be the one doing diplomacy, I suspect).
What about It Can Think?
I feel establishing the identity and maybe even a sort of kin ship with the Cadaver before focusing on our career may be important to avoid terrible tragedy in the future, as Victor's namesake failed to do. Otherwise, to focus on the science of necromancy at the expense of, effectively our creation (child (?)), thus introducing more and more people into the project who do not see the Cadaver as benignly as our current pair may end…
Well, it may end.
Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
Ok.
[] Plan: Enduring weather:
-[] Nigredo 0->5/15
-[] Weather 1->5/5
-[] Strength 0->3/3
-[] Victor: A Meeting of the Minds
-[] Clerval: Assuage Fears.
We will be able to finish Nigredo next turn.
Edit: edited the plan a little.
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- Location
- Mataram Free Territory
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[] Plan : Even more magnitude
-[]Electric Lights 5/5
-[]Storm Cauldron 7/7
-[] A Meeting of the Minds:
-[] It Can Think:
Gives us 2 more magnitude and it want to make sure the technology is safe. the earlier we get more magnitudes the more we can accomplish in the long term, after this at least 14 magnitude/turn.
-[]Electric Lights 5/5
-[]Storm Cauldron 7/7
-[] A Meeting of the Minds:
-[] It Can Think:
Gives us 2 more magnitude and it want to make sure the technology is safe. the earlier we get more magnitudes the more we can accomplish in the long term, after this at least 14 magnitude/turn.
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Hard AP isn't everything, though. There's also things like our reputation, the state of Ossuria, the well-being of our fellow man and our creations, the reputation and vigour of necromantic science, and probably more we need to think about.
