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A game developer I follow wrote a Locked Tomb module for Monsterhearts 2 that looks pretty cool: https://twitter.com/DeathMeetAuthor/status/1574416539977138177?s=20&t=NfmbddxQ83sBylyvIpNsgg
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Sep 27, 2022 01:42
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StumblyWumbly posted:Just finished. I definitely feel like this was a great first half to a book. Ending of NtN spoilers: I interpreted it as Anatasia locking herself in the tomb once John left. Alecto seemed to recognize her skeleton, I think? That whole epilogue was nuts. Wild speculation related to NtN spoilers: Does anyone else think the trillionaires are actually still alive? Somehow? Either because of how FTL works, cryo, or something else out of left field (it's only been a few years since the Resurrection and John's just that good at loving with memories???). There was something Augustine (I think, might have been Gideon the First) said in Harrow like, "Give up trying to find the people who killed humanity" and in Nona John says he's still looking for them, full stop, not looking for their descendants or the original colony or anything else. I don't know it feels poignant to me. On the other hand, John seems like he would carry a grudge for 10k years and punish people who had nothing to do with it.
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Sep 27, 2022 01:42
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I am also wondering if they'll do anything about them or if they were just a big motivator for Jod. It feels like if they were just going to drop them as a plot point he would have killed them all. Alecto's already going to have so many plots, but Muir does love dropping catastrophies out of nowhere that fucks everyones plans, so maybe they'll show up. Watch us get Alecto the Ninth part 1 and 2
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Sep 27, 2022 01:55
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Humerus posted:Ending of NtN spoilers: They went on to populate most of the universe over the past 10k years, thats who the Empire is at war with. You're either a descendant of an FTL trillionaire or you're one of the descendants of the resurrected Sol system and swear fealty to a nightmare death cult.
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Sep 27, 2022 02:04
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Yeah I figured that's one of the main reasons for the eterna-war. But there is also other history in between the trillionaires escaping and the present situation--stuff relating to the "contracts" and probably to the "Eden" from whom BOE takes their name. Related to that--have we ever gotten a clear statement of John's reasons for wanting to conquer and murder every planet in the universe? When I was reading Harrow I thought it was basically a case of lebensraum--kick the thalergetic humans off the planets and convert them to thanergy worlds for the House people to live on. But after reading Nona it seems like the Houses only live in the Dominicus system. They might occupy a world to resettle the inhabitants but they don't permanently colonise it afterward. As people have speculated above, John probably wants to kill those planets so no-one can become a perfect Lyctor like him. But that certainly isn't the reason he gives publicly, so what else is driving it?
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Sep 27, 2022 02:18
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Sailor Viy posted:Yeah I figured that's one of the main reasons for the eterna-war. But there is also other history in between the trillionaires escaping and the present situation--stuff relating to the "contracts" and probably to the "Eden" from whom BOE takes their name. Maybe. One thing I've noted in re(and re and re) reading HtN is that John doesn't really seems to enjoy/like being God. On the Erebus he seemed mostly impatient with it and especially with Mercy, even trying to convince the guy manning the communicate to make fake static noises. And when the Seventh House Lt, is literally going to die (perhaps to further empower her ward?) he's more exasperated ("For gently caress's sake." than anything else as he heals her. Maybe one reason John doesn't want to have another planetary/him level Lyctor is that a conflict between would potentially be a galactic-level extinction event.
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Sep 27, 2022 03:21
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On the other hand, John didn't bother killing the numerous living planets around the Mithraeum until Number Seven showed up. Maybe he just prefers planets to be zoned for necromancy?
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Sep 27, 2022 03:29
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Rand Brittain posted:On the other hand, John didn't bother killing the numerous living planets around the Mithraeum until Number Seven showed up. Maybe he just prefers planets to be zoned for necromancy? Well, as the Undying Emperor of a Necromancy-based empire, that would make sense.
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Sep 27, 2022 03:33
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If i'm reading the subtext right any thanergetic planet outside Dominicus will eventually sour and the ecosystem will fall apart. Meaning anywhere the cohort necro's needs to assault is on a lit fuse and in need of population resettlement. So any normal planets that get too rebellious and attract ire end up killing the planet too.
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Sep 27, 2022 03:42
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M_Gargantua posted:If i'm reading the subtext right any thanergetic planet outside Dominicus will eventually sour and the ecosystem will fall apart. Meaning anywhere the cohort necro's needs to assault is on a lit fuse and in need of population resettlement. So any normal planets that get too rebellious and attract ire end up killing the planet too. Definitely seems right. They mention in one of the earlier books that the Cohort is there to kill a bunch of stuff to fuel the necromancers. It would make sense if necromancy had to be fueled by planets that are dying more than they are living, the net growth of everything living must be negative. This also goes along with the theme of necromancers just being weaker and less healthy than normal. They mention in earlier books that everything is on flimsy, because tree-based paper is super expensive in this galaxy spanning empire that can terraform Pluto.
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Sep 27, 2022 03:55
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What I want to know is, wtf is the deal with these horrific tongue devil things that suddenly showed up?
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Sep 27, 2022 04:16
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One of the things of Nona that hit me the day after I finished it, a very "wait, what the gently caress," thing as the back of my brain nudged a couple pieces together, was the question of, well... Remember when John promises to send people to restore the Ninth for Harrow, early in HtN? At the time I was just all, "Of course he somehow has people on ice for this, he's a weird necromancer god, who knows what he gets up to." Oh gee he just still has EVERYONE from the death of Earth and the Resurrection still hanging around, he can manipulate memories when he resurrects people, he's probably got billions in reserve still and just plays with them however he wants. You know, all those people he was so desperate to save. Jesus Christ, John.
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Sep 27, 2022 04:55
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disposablewords posted:Jesus Christ, John. Jod the father Gideon the spawn Alecto the holy spirit
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Sep 27, 2022 06:04
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M_Gargantua posted:Jod the father Oh, hmm
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Sep 27, 2022 06:28
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M_Gargantua posted:Jod the father I look forward to Gideon's version of turning the other cheek.
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Sep 27, 2022 06:37
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Keret posted:What I want to know is, wtf is the deal with these horrific tongue devil things that suddenly showed up? it's basically the same imagery as the stoma at the bottom of the River, and tends to happen when someone gets possessed by insane ghosts, it got done to that cavalier who emptied himself out in the Lyctor facility we don't know exactly what's up with the River (or what changed after Harrow's gambit) but we can probably assume whatever Jod hosed up is related to the tongues and eye-mouths and such
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Sep 27, 2022 07:49
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GreyjoyBastard posted:it's basically the same imagery as the stoma at the bottom of the River, and tends to happen when someone gets possessed by insane ghosts, it got done to that cavalier who emptied himself out in the Lyctor facility Well the promise for the next book is that Hell Will Break Loose so the obvious conclusion would be that they're literal demons from literal hell.
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Sep 27, 2022 08:34
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Thinking about The River: (Harrow and Nona spoilers) In Harrow's ghost world, Abigail Pent talked about finding the place beyond the river. Harrow treated it like a children's fable, and even Magnus seemed embarrassed his wife talked about it. With the stoma only opening for the Resurrection Beasts, I'm wondering if John (inadvertently or otherwise) created the River as a result of his fuckery with souls, and now souls can't move on to the real afterlife - the place Beyond the River which is just the afterlife that would have happened before the Resurrection. I think there was even a part in Nona where someone said the souls in the River are not pre-Resurrection, or something to that effect. I wonder if all the RBs are taken down the stoma (including John/Alecto) the River will disappear, perhaps Necromancy along with it.
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Sep 27, 2022 12:30
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I just want to note, unrelatedly, that this paragraph near the end of Nona lands really well for me We Suffer sighed. “Out of the frying pan,” she said, “into another frying pan—falling out of that frying pan—into the underworld, where there is a huge frying pan where the devils dance, and say, ‘gently caress to you.’”
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Sep 27, 2022 12:56
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Everyone posted:Maybe. One thing I've noted in re(and re and re) reading HtN is that John doesn't really seems to enjoy/like being God. On the Erebus he seemed mostly impatient with it and especially with Mercy, even trying to convince the guy manning the communicate to make fake static noises. And when the Seventh House Lt, is literally going to die (perhaps to further empower her ward?) he's more exasperated ("For gently caress's sake." than anything else as he heals her. Maybe one reason John doesn't want to have another planetary/him level Lyctor is that a conflict between would potentially be a galactic-level extinction event. Strongly disagree with your read on John. imo, John loving loves being God - specifically, being the low-key “cool dad” of gods. He is constantly telling Harrow to not call him “Lord,” and is probably is annoyed by the suicidally zealous Cohort mage, but remember — John is the ultimate architect of House society. He placed himself atop a society that allowed him to act however he wishes, tell whatever lies make him comfortable, utterly beyond reproach, and steered it on a path of bloody universal conquest. For John, playing the “I’m just a regular friendly guy (teehee btw I’m God)” bit is one of the perks. The reason he doesn’t want any peers — the reason he tricked his disciples to murder their closed companies, sabotaged the one who wouldn’t, and then sacrificed them to horrible deaths fighting foes that were not even a danger to him — is because he wants his power to be total and absolute.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:30
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Smiling Knight posted:Strongly disagree with your read on John. imo, John loving loves being God - specifically, being the low-key “cool dad” of gods. He is constantly telling Harrow to not call him “Lord,” and is probably is annoyed by the suicidally zealous Cohort mage, but remember — John is the ultimate architect of House society. He placed himself atop a society that allowed him to act however he wishes, tell whatever lies make him comfortable, utterly beyond reproach, and steered it on a path of bloody universal conquest. For John, playing the “I’m just a regular friendly guy (teehee btw I’m God)” bit is one of the perks. The reason he doesn’t want any peers — the reason he tricked his disciples to murder their closed companies, sabotaged the one who wouldn’t, and then sacrificed them to horrible deaths fighting foes that were not even a danger to him — is because he wants his power to be total and absolute. That's a fair viewpoint but I don't think it's necessarily the completely true viewpoint. For one thing even if the Resurrection Beasts aren't a personal danger to him, they're a danger to everything else in the universe except themselves (maybe). And maybe it's a pose but I think John's situation was more accident than intent and that he really didn't understand how to do "perfect" Lyctorhood. Besides, a "perfect" Lyctor still wouldn't be a match for John unless that Lyctor... lyctored? with a planetary-scale soul.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:58
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Oh yeah, Jod loves being God. Dude is full of false humility about it, wants people to be his friends because he doesn't want to be surrounded by completely obvious yes-men... but are still basically yes-men that he can boss around when it comes down to it. He wants both. He's the kind of person who likes humans but only in the abstract, because he doesn't actually like people. People are messy and annoying, but fun when he can move them about as he feels like. When they're listening to the Obvious Smartest Man In The Room: him. And, like with the end of the world, why might people ever not listen to him? Clearly because they're too stupid, not because he lacks credibility or suggests something dumb himself! I say this as someone who also thinks of himself as humanist yet dislikes actually dealing with people. I empathized strongly with Jod during his (self-serving) narration in Nona. But I also don't have any illusions that everything would be solved forever if everyone would just listen to me.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:01
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I'm happy with my reading of John from after Harrow: The dude wants to have it both ways. He wants to be God when it suits him and to be humble when it suits him. He wants to be Harrow's kindly father figure while also repeatedly sending the Saint of Duty to murder her just in case that makes her more useful. 99% of him is the nice guy he pretends to be, but the other 1% is a bag of demon-weasels in a skin suit, and the fact that he's mostly the nice guy makes that even worse because the 1% is absolutely and completely in control whenever it sees something relevant to its interests.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:13
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disposablewords posted:Oh yeah, Jod loves being God. Dude is full of false humility about it, wants people to be his friends because he doesn't want to be surrounded by completely obvious yes-men... but are still basically yes-men that he can boss around when it comes down to it. He wants both. Yeah, okay. Even if I don't completely buy all of that, I'm at least willing to "rent-to-own." I mean that kind of explains Gideon/Kiriona's attitude. On one level it's really cool/fun to be God's kid and to be able to go back to the Ninth House and rub that in the faces of all those people who mistreated her for so long. But on another level she knows (or at least senses) that she's kind of just another prop for John's ego.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:16
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Everyone posted:Yeah, okay. Even if I don't completely buy all of that, I'm at least willing to "rent-to-own." I mean that kind of explains Gideon/Kiriona's attitude. On one level it's really cool/fun to be God's kid and to be able to go back to the Ninth House and rub that in the faces of all those people who mistreated her for so long. But on another level she knows (or at least senses) that she's kind of just another prop for John's ego. Yeah, this.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:26
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Everyone posted:Yeah, okay. Even if I don't completely buy all of that, I'm at least willing to "rent-to-own." I mean that kind of explains Gideon/Kiriona's attitude. On one level it's really cool/fun to be God's kid and to be able to go back to the Ninth House and rub that in the faces of all those people who mistreated her for so long. But on another level she knows (or at least senses) that she's kind of just another prop for John's ego. I’m thinking (NtN) realizing it didn’t feel good to kill Crux is going to be a wedge between Kiriona and the others on Jod’s side (imagine Ianthe’s reaction to her self-loathing) or some indication that she’s not entirely off the deep end.
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Sep 27, 2022 21:25
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Book one and book three spoilers The last Gideon ever saw of Captain Judith Deuteros was her propped up on the armchair, sitting straight as she could possibly manage, bleeding out through the terrible wound at her gut. They left her head held high, and her face had no expression at all. So what does that mean in regards to Gideon seeing her in book 3? Does that mean it isn't Gideon?
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Sep 27, 2022 21:44
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Everyone posted:That's a fair viewpoint but I don't think it's necessarily the completely true viewpoint. For one thing even if the Resurrection Beasts aren't a personal danger to him, they're a danger to everything else in the universe except themselves (maybe). And maybe it's a pose but I think John's situation was more accident than intent and that he really didn't understand how to do "perfect" Lyctorhood. Besides, a "perfect" Lyctor still wouldn't be a match for John unless that Lyctor... lyctored? with a planetary-scale soul. I mean, it's possible that he didn't know how to achieve perfect Lyctorhood but there's simply no way he wasn't lying about the Lyctor that almost did it right in Harrow. At some point he knew it was possible, and he didn't want it.
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Sep 27, 2022 22:24
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Wasn’t the upshot that if Anastasia achieved perfect lyctorhood, the others would know they murdered their best friends for nothing?
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Sep 27, 2022 23:41
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Benson Cunningham posted:Book one and book three spoilers kiriona specifically answers no to are you really Gideon so y'know, kinda
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Sep 27, 2022 23:43
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Well and also presumably some amount of Gideon must still be present in Harrow's body because she still has her lyctor hyper-regeneration powers; I think that is still independent of Alecto's presence in NtN.
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Sep 28, 2022 00:13
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silvergoose posted:
Well, yeah, but, it's also pretty clear that Gideon/Kiriona said that to introduce herself as "Kiriona Gaia, Emperor's kid and super-high muckity-muck, suck it, bitches. I got super-princessed into an actual Prince, Boo-ya!" Meanwhile per "As Yet Unsent" Deuteros was around Gideon/Kiriona's corpse quite a bit. Assuming that Jod has pretty much every Necromantic power at the highest level that would include Psychometry of the Sixth House. Maybe he traced what happened Gideon/Kiriona's body and told her about it. That might explain was she was little irritated at Camilla given that Camilla was around when Blood of Eden was trying to rot her corpse or get it eaten by animals. Luigi Thirty posted:Wasn’t the upshot that if Anastasia achieved perfect lyctorhood, the others would know they murdered their best friends for nothing? Yes, but playing "Jod's Advocate" Apparently a lot of the Necrolord Empire at the beginning involved people who were very powerful but didn't really know what the gently caress they were doing. Per John's discussion with Harrow after she told him about her parents' genocide of the Ninth House's children, paraphrasing: "A lot of this was different before it became so scientific." Is it possible that John set things up so Anastasia's attempt would fail and she'd have to fall back on Imperfect Lyctorhood? Sure. But it's also possible that John was telling the truth and that while Anastasia "knew" a better version of Lyctorhood was possible, it was still more difficult and she messed something up. Revisiting something from above, I don't think John likes being God. He likes playing God. He likes playing the role. But when he's pushed to really be an all-knowing, infallible God, he can't be because in the end he's just a really powerful but hosed up like the rest of us, human being.
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Sep 28, 2022 02:48
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AcidCat posted:So was Nona actually in some kind of communication with the resurrection beast above the planet - and was that beast speaking to her through the captain when they were on the trucks at the end? Or did I misinterpret that. DreamingofRoses posted:It specifically stopped dropping Heralds when she told it to stop being weird so I’m going with ‘yes’ NtN Ch23 posted:The fist tightened. No would not do; Yes was worse; Cam had told her to pretend to be the Captain.
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Sep 28, 2022 10:17
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Quinton posted:I think more than that, I'm pretty sure it *started* dropping Heralds after she imitated the Captain... oh wow, that's a good catch
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Sep 28, 2022 11:27
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Reading Harrow the Ninth, and I'm about half way through. Is it ever explained why there are so few Lyctors? Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seemed in the first book like it was rare, but not 9 in ten thousand years rare.
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Sep 28, 2022 12:36
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Reading Harrow the Ninth, and I'm about half way through. Is it ever explained why there are so few Lyctors? Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seemed in the first book like it was rare, but not 9 in ten thousand years rare. It's not explained but think about what becoming a Lyctor means. They're Necromancers who (usually, not Ianthe) form a "ride or die" partnership with their cavalier. Then they have to murder that person and eat their soul. It's a horrific thing to ask of someone so John and the others didn't want to ask it of anyone until they'd gotten down to four Lyctors (Augustine, Cytherea, Gideon I and Mercymorn) facing three remaining Resurrection Beasts.
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Sep 28, 2022 13:03
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https://twitter.com/sunflowerpau_/status/1574859404867997698?s=20&t=2TsZtC2nkBBXhByZaLVOZA
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Sep 28, 2022 13:10
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Everyone posted:It's not explained but think about what becoming a Lyctor means. They're Necromancers who (usually, not Ianthe) form a "ride or die" partnership with their cavalier. Then they have to murder that person and eat their soul. It's a horrific thing to ask of someone so John and the others didn't want to ask it of anyone until they'd gotten down to four Lyctors (Augustine, Cytherea, Gideon I and Mercymorn) facing three remaining Resurrection Beasts. That's fair, I guess I was just misremembering things from the first book, because there, it seemed like Lyctorhood was a once a century/millennia opportunity with a known event (but unknown process). I'm sure I was just misremembering, though. Also, are the "Enemies of the Nine Houses" ever expanded outside of the Resurrection Beasts (and Heralds) and BOE? Because the former seems to be something that you wouldn't be able to have a formal military fight with, and the latter sounded like a terrorist group rather than an army, which makes me wonder who the 2nd and 4th houses are fighting.
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Sep 28, 2022 13:14
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Hiro Protagonist posted:That's fair, I guess I was just misremembering things from the first book, because there, it seemed like Lyctorhood was a once a century/millennia opportunity with a known event (but unknown process). I'm sure I was just misremembering, though. Yes. In fact, Nona is full of Blood of Eden stuff.
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Sep 28, 2022 13:29
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Hiro Protagonist posted:That's fair, I guess I was just misremembering things from the first book, because there, it seemed like Lyctorhood was a once a century/millennia opportunity with a known event (but unknown process). I'm sure I was just misremembering, though. One thing is that our three viewpoint characters have thus far been: GtN: A young swords-woman from a backward, isolated House who is very soon stuck in another isolated and incommunicado location; HtN: A young Necromancer from that same isolated Ninth house who after the events of GtN is pulled to yet another isolated location with sporadic at best information given to her (and thus us) and Nona: A childlike person with very little knowledge of anything, including herself. Basically Tamsyn Muir hasn't seen fit to give us a really clear/in-depth view of the Necroverse.
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Sep 28, 2022 13:35
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