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DLC, with Lantry, Killsy, & Sirin. Tell Mark we're going to the Stone Sea. I guess chat with Kills-in-Shadow? Some thoughts, caution to all readers: I'd actually like to say something about the whole "magic is political power" thing, at least with regards to the tiers? Mainly, that there are/were a bunch of mage guilds throughout the tiers, and a lot of them didn't actually have much influence on leadership at all. (I think it's Eb or Lantry who talk about it) The Tidecasters and the Sages Guild both amassed influence not by magical tradition but by what they offered: Education in the arts (dancing, singing, poetry, etc.), and historical knowledge and logic/mathematics, respectively. What it kindof guns towards is that Kyros controls and steals all methods of self-improvement from society to benefit themselves and their war machines. Sirin's artistry is subjugated in the service of Kyros' own propoganda, and then tossed away when they prove rebellious being the most obvious, but there's also the Earthshakers and the Forge-Bound: the Earthshakers have power over earth, and not just to shape stone but to even help things grow in it (from the Conquest decisions). They're basically agricultural aids and architects, who are thrown into the meat-grinder of war under a commander who has no interest in their talents and regards them less than fondly. The Forge-Boud are basically the entire industry of craftsmen, and instead of producing things for their community, or exploring new ideas, they're basically chained up producing swords and armor for the war machine. And I think it leads to a point that magic, or being magically inclined is not power of itself. Knowledge is, though, and Kyros deals with it by consolidating them into mage guilds, which are much more centralized and controllable. By offering an official pathway to knowledge and expertise in the guilds, they funnel people who are motivated to improve themselves or learn this knowledge into these guilds, where you basically put new recruits and new ideas through long and probably dangerous training to be able to wield those skills. Which is a good enough amount of time to figure out who might be problematic and weed them out (which isn't even necessarily hard to do: there's a Forgebound recruit in Lethian's Crossing that you can literally blow up by distracting him, by just talking to/clicking on him enough times). It also makes an on the surface reasonable case for eliminating those who practice or utilize that knowledge outside of Kyros' domain of the guilds themselves.The Magician's Folly isn't some recognition of mages being superior over the common person, it's a bribe to the educated class that Kyros has smushed into being aligned 1:1 to magic, because it helps in controlling knowledge and self-advancement. Tl;dr: Kyros smushes learning and magic together because it's a nice easy way to control who gets access to that knowledge, and it helps with giving a enshrined protection under the law that encourages those educated under the system to uphold it. Or in other words TGEK is right(er?)?
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Dec 21, 2020 23:09
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If you look at the map, there is one Spire in the Blade Grave, but two in the Stone Sea, which is all the information I've needed whenever asked to make that particular call. Bring Lantry, Kills-in-Shadow and Sirin wherever you go, and let's get the scoop on Kills-in-Shadow while we're at it.
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Dec 22, 2020 00:19
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I have no opinion on where we go next, but as for the party members I vote for Lantry, Eb and Sirin--- an all-mage team treat after dealing with that Oldwalls segment with just two.
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Dec 22, 2020 00:52
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Do the dlc with Kills, Lantry and Eb.
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Dec 22, 2020 07:32
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devildragon777 posted:And I think it leads to a point that magic, or being magically inclined is not power of itself. Knowledge is, though, and Kyros deals with it by consolidating them into mage guilds, which are much more centralized and controllable. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as "the gift" in this setting. Anyone can do magic if they learn how. It's a very valuable form of knowledge that very few people will give you for free so there's a significant initial hurdle, and then you get to the part where it's at least as intellectually taxing as advanced mathematics, so anyone can be a mage in the same way that anyone can be a nuclear engineer. tl;dr I agree with devildragon, knowledge == magic == power.
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Dec 22, 2020 11:15
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Just an FYI for the DLC voters, we do need to tell Mark one of the two options. Stone Sea
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Dec 22, 2020 12:51
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Lantry can teach you the Life sigil in an afternoon. The PC is a fatebinder with a lot of experience in memorization, but this isn't something you need a PhD for.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:22
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i mean, most math phds could learn something basicish they hadnt gotten to yet in an afternoon imagine you got a phd in math and didnt learn about fourier series, but you knew complex numbers and integrals
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Dec 22, 2020 18:24
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wiegieman posted:Lantry can teach you the Life sigil in an afternoon. The PC is a fatebinder with a lot of experience in memorization, but this isn't something you need a PhD for. If you go back to the Bitter Quip vs Disfavored dispute the Fatebinder mentions a decade of magical training.
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Dec 22, 2020 21:32
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I never saw Stone Sea so lets go there. We just did little magic, let's go hard magic. Bring Lantry, Eb, and Kills Also, why not chat with Eb. I'll note though, when doing the DLC area, while a lot of characters have A Thing here or there to do, Kills has *way more* content (and it's probably the biggest content area for her), so I would strongly recommend her in your party. I do not think you can redo any of that content if you do it first without her. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Dec 23, 2020 |
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Dec 23, 2020 06:49
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:If you go back to the Bitter Quip vs Disfavored dispute the Fatebinder mentions a decade of magical training. Is it a decade to get up to reliable military personnel level, or just to learn a sigil? Verse can cast spells and she's barely literate.
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Dec 23, 2020 09:27
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All party members automatically know all sigils you know. If they know a sigil you don't (e.g. Gravelight with Eb), you can't actually upgrade their spells, and don't "have it" in engine... So, uh, let's chalk that up to some combination of mechanical convenience and engine limitations?  ------------ e: IIRC some core sigils even have a lore cost, so your companions "know" sigils they couldn't possibly ever cast. Xarn fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Dec 23, 2020 |
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Dec 23, 2020 10:13
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Maybe knowing is just being aware of them. And some engine limitations. Or if we're going the magic = political power, our followers, while with us (since we haven't split the party so far) share our political power. Eb's Gravelight sigil, as it predates us, is a manifestation of her previous political power. Though more likely an engine limitation.
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Dec 23, 2020 10:20
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they wrote the sigil system just for this game and it only appears in this game, tho. you aint seein this poo poo in pillars of eternity
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Dec 23, 2020 10:24
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Most of the party are mages/archons already. Barik clearly has magical stuff going on with him (his armor grows back) and Verse does too, though less obviously; you can chalk up their preternatural magical talent to that. Kills-in-Shadow is the outlier, I don't remember if we're going to see anything that makes her markedly different beyond just her level of forward-thinking.
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Dec 23, 2020 12:21
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I know people had come to some very specific conclusions about Kills that were magical in nature, but I never knew the details. I’m betting that they’ll come up when relevant.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:50
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There was mention of a Beastman Archon so its possible Kills is ramping up to be that?
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Dec 23, 2020 16:48
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bob dobbs is dead posted:they wrote the sigil system just for this game and it only appears in this game, tho. you aint seein this poo poo in pillars of eternity Which is a drat shame, because going ham with magic is a high point of Tyranny.
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Dec 23, 2020 16:51
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bewilderment posted:Most of the party are mages/archons already. Barik's situation has nothing to do with that, as he's literally trapped both by his belief in Graven Ashe and the power of Kyros' edict. We're already trying to extricate him from that predicament, and while he becomes a more flexible combatant, he also loses any benefit of the Aegis.
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Dec 23, 2020 19:06
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bewilderment posted:Most of the party are mages/archons already. Kills has stuff in the DLC area, but only if you have her with you when you do it, and I don't remember if said anything actually *concrete* or just did a bunch of vague hinting.
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Dec 23, 2020 20:10
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Voting closed! We're wandering off to do the DLC, chatting up Eb, telling Mark about the Stone Sea, and the party is Lantry/Eb/Sirin. Taking hits? What's that?
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Dec 26, 2020 22:22
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It's what the silenced, prone, on-fire and also somehow frozen enemies are doing.
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Dec 27, 2020 13:57
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Cleopatra Jones and The Last Tidecaster Last time on Tyranny, we were chatting with Bleden Mark about a hat and he wanted us to go grab more artifacts so we could claim to be a totally legitimate power center and not some jerkass seizing power by force.   : Okay, sure. As ominous as Mark seems, he's been pretty helpful and trustworthy so far, and he hasn't really asked us to do anything morally abhorrent. Yet.  : I was thinking of heading to the Stone Sea. What should I look for when I'm there? : For a century, the Azure Shield went from one Regent's Knight to the next - it seems like such a little thing next to a Disfavored shield, but it's a powerful relic all the same. Finding it in the maze of the Stone Sea will be a challenge.: I have an agent that could point you to the Stonestalkers - a tribe of Beastmen that have filled the power vacuum left by the fall of Azure. Only they know the landscape of the Stone Sea. Jesus, Mark, that's just mean.  Oh no you don't. We need exposition. : Wait, I have questions.: The Archon lets out a short sigh as the color returns to his image.: Again with the questions? As much as this annoys him, Mark is probably the one character aside from Tunon who is privy to what all is going on at the highest levels of Kyros' empire. : I want to know more about the other Archons. : What are your thoughts on Graven Ashe? This is kind of weird to me. The authors put a lot into how Graven Ashe is an honorable old general beloved by his men because he cares about them so much - and that's the official line, so that's fine. It's weird to see Mark uncritically echoing that, because Mark's whole thing is that he's a cynical old bastard who doesn't buy any of the official idealistic bullshit because he knows its all a bunch of crap made up to control people. This isn't to say Mark believes in nothing - as EclecticTastes pointed out, Mark's cynicism is the cynicism of a man whose ideals have been trampled and he tried to actually stop Kyros - but he's certainly not going to tolerate professions of idealism from anyone under Kyros, because it's all self-serving lies. We haven't seen the event that really shows what Ashe really thinks of his men, but we've had some hints from Barik still being assigned to us eternally without orders to be recalled, and of course Barik's quest that shows us that Ashe is the one keeping him trapped in his own poo poo. Then again, I said the same thing about Ashe caring for his men earlier, so who knows? Certainly the Disfavored believe it. : What's Graven Ashe's story?: Ashe was some bannerman in the Northern Kingdom, and while his countrymen were butchered in the war, his band were a killing shadow in the mountains. We've seen Blood Echo before - Nerat mentioned him and praised him for being a violent lunatic who was easily manipulated.  This incident undoubtedly started the enmity between Ashe and Nerat that carried over when Ashe and his legion swore fealty - and fed Mark's cynicism. It's also noteworthy that despite being the target of "the Archons" Mark was never sent against Ashe. : What do you know about Kyros?: He shrugs. : Why do you think the Overlord is allowing the Archons to fight?: Huh. I was expecting a dumber question. Kyros sure can appear fickle. Cairn was treacherous and vocal about it and gets an Edict dropped on his head. The Voices and Ashe openly bicker and Kyros just watches... if you don't know the Overlord, it can all seem random and erratic. This ties right back into the recurring theme that divisions ultimately enable Kyros. The Tiers were weak not because they were naturally inferior or whatever Ashe would tell you, but because they were divided. The Archons are controllable because Kyros keeps them at each others' throats. The Scarlet Chorus is controllable because - as Verse tells us repeatedly - they're too busy fighting each other for scraps to unite into a real army that could threaten Kyros or Nerat. : How did the Overlord come into power?: Such things were before my time, but from what I understand, Kyros did not enjoin the Archons with charisma and cooperation. It was the power of the Edicts that terrified many into bowing. Once a trio of Archons answered to Kyros, it became a matter of time until all others bowed.This is where the tyrannical allegory becomes a little weird. What's missing from our wacky not-quite-twentieth-century authoritarianism is the charismatic leader who can rally enough true believers to keep the rest in line. Many tyrants are actually charismatic and rely on their personal charisma to gain support, so Kyros being this weirdly reserved person who can't actually use that to his benefit is kind of a flaw in the allegory.  This is the closest Mark will come to outright condemning Kyros - he can pull stunts like this, but Kyros has him by the metaphorical nuts. : Let me ask about something else.: Maybe another time. You're too curious for your own good, kid.  Free sigil! Bleden Mark rules! Incidentally, this one is an accent that increases the accuracy of future spells against the target(s). It's pretty great. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 It's time to go back to the Spire to switch to our new all-mage party.  It really speaks to how poorly Sirin's been treated that she's looking forward to going on adventures with us where she has to fight for her life on a regular basis.  Unlike certain games, Lantry and Sirin gain XP outside the party, so we don't have to worry about people falling behind.  We also have a little pile of spell slots to fill! This is the reason why Quickness - the stat that reduces cooldowns - isn't nearly as good for mages, because you can seriously just rotate through all your attack spells and by the time the rotation ends your first spells will be off cooldown.  The next trial at Tunon's court has sadly not triggered. I do have a save with another character I can show off that has it, as I think it's kind of important and needs to be shown off. I'll keep trying on Cleopatra, worst case scenario, I load the practice run.  We're on our way to the DLC area to do...stuff.  The thread voted to talk to Eb, so before we get into Bastard's Wound we're going to chat up our foul-mouthed water mage.  : We should discuss matters at hand. Eb's not wrong, if only because the initial Havoc fight is done and the rest of the game is piss easy by throwing enough spells at it. : Let's talk of something else.We tell Eb we have some questions for her, and...  : Tell me about yourself. : Tell me about your name. : Hazen? Didn't realize you were nobility.The game has hinted at this by putting Eb in the leadership of the Vendrien Guard - which was led entirely by nobles with distinguished family names like Matani or Pelox.  : How'd you get the nickname? Moving to the next set of questions... : Did you always want to be a Tidecaster? : So when I was a little girl, what I REALLY wanted to be was a marine - the burly bitch at the prow of a trireme, first to crack some skulls when the ships rammed... you know, an honest living. Fortunately, the School sought me out before I got myself killed at sea.: The School of Tides was looking for new blood, and my father was an Admiral of Haven - so the School wanted me for the political connections. I got to spend my first couple years proving I actually belong[sic] with the Tidecasters...that was fun. : What did you do in the years before the war?: My husband was born in Apex, and he left his prosperous lands to be with me. So when the nest was empty, it seemed right we leave my homeland and see his side of the Tiers.: We had a year and a bit to ourselves before the war upturned things. We saw all of Apex. I took him along all my old sailing routes around Five Wives and Sunder... those were good times.  : Tell me about your family. : Tell me about your husband. We've seen the Pelox name before. Earlier in the game posted:Hell, this isn't the first time, we keep running into the Pelox brothers throughout our attempts to suppress the rebellion - the gentleman we convince to turn himself over to save his men, and his brother whose life we spared. Earlier in the game posted:Eb's not just asking this because she's a high-ranking member of the rebellion trying to get the nobles released, they're her family! Specifically, all those Pelox brothers are her brothers-in-law. : What became of him?: He perished at the Gates of Judgement. I saw him die - I do not wish to discuss it, just know I've made my peace with it and am glad I was with him on the field of battle when his time came. This is blatant rationalization bullshit. Eb clearly cared enough about him to join a doomed rebellion partially led by his brothers.  : Tell me about your children.: There were the twins - Drevenor and Lorma, then my youngest son Acamas. Aldenos wanted more, but I was nearing the ends of my trials at the School of Tides - and dueling with lethal magics is a terrible idea when with child. Whereas Lantry is constantly high to escape his Kyros-inflicted losses and Sirin is an angry teenager determined to smash the system, Eb is the last survivor after Kyros took literally everything from her. : What of the twins?: They died at the Gates of Judgement - or at least, Drevenor died - run through by a Disfavored spear. Lorma was at the battle but... I don't know what became of her. My fear has been she was recruited by the Scarlet Chorus... perhaps she has a new name... if she's still alive.She never shows up as far as I know.  : What became of your youngest?Do you think this is gonna have a happy ending?  : I should have put him on a trireme and shoved him out onto the high seas. He did not ask for birth, nor did I prepare him for the bitterness that life would offer. : I'm very sorry for your loss.: Spare me the sorrow. We've all lost family to Kyros... I just lost two in one battle - but even then, I'm hardly unique.We're also personally responsible for the deaths of some of the in-laws, so maybe we should shut up. : What of the rest of your family?: My family's Haven folk through-and-through. My mother prided herself on being descended from a Hazen Rabban, one of the founding magistrates of the city of Ardent.: She looks to the side, mouth twisting in thought.: Sad thing is, they died during the conquest, but that's not how I lost contact. I lost contact because magic and travel became my life. Had plenty of time to get to know them as an adult but... I simply missed it.Eb's recurring theme here is that she holds herself personally responsible for the loss of her family that is entirely Kyros' fault. It's all survivors guilt, leading her to do things like join a doomed rebellion with her in-laws to try to make Kyros and company pay for their deaths or blaming herself for her family's deaths at the Gates of Judgement.  Actually, you can! If it weren't for Kyros you'd have had more time to get to know your family, and it's entirely reasonable to go around traveling the Tiers with your husband and spending the time raising your kids and teaching them. We're not taking that skepticism option, it's a dick move for less perceptive players. Back up the tree! : How did you fall in with the Vendrien Guard? Notice she doesn't bring up her husband or in-laws. Back up the tree!  : I have questions about the people of the Tiers. : I'm curious about the people of the Tiers. Notice anything contradictory here? Kyros adores factionalism. Haven, Azure, and Apex could not stand alone against Kyros, and the divisions in the Tiers are exactly what the Kyrosians want. : When were the Tiers settled?: Human settlers arrived over four hundred years ago. Displaced from a war between whta are now Kyros' realms of Treyn and Fertile Sands, a flotilla of barely-seaworthy rigs headed west across the high seas.What else happened 400 years ago? The Very Beginning of the Game posted:Huh. : Tiersmen will sometimes speak of the Five Wives - we use it to refer both to the first five settlements where the colonists made landfall, as well as to the five matriarchs that went on to form the ruling dynasties of the Tiers. : Why don't men own land, or women ships?: For centuries, it has been our way that the men own the ships but the women own the harbors. Our customs don't truly prevent ownership, they limit inheritance - lands pass to daughters then sisters then mothers and aunts. Ships pass to sons then brothers then fathers and uncles.: It seems strange to outsiders but it makes sense to me. Men are blessed with wanderlust, women with a sense of the permanent. Likewise, the captain of a ship can't pause to carry a child, and the men grow restless if left in place.This is gender essentialist nonsense that's explicitly not supported by the rest of the game - Verse leaves her comfy inheritance of a big farm to go join the Scarlet Chorus voluntarily, Calio is a roving Fatebinder in the service of Tunon, Eldian sits around and runs Lethian's Crossing all day, and she's saying this to a lady Fatebinder who enjoys running around the Tiers.  Don't read too much into it, the challenge of Colonialism vs People With lovely Cultural Artifacts Like Caste Systems comes up more in Pillars of Eternity 2, and were mostly glossed over by people wondering if the second game was going to do anything with the big revelation from the first game that the gods were a lie made up by men to keep social order. As it happens, the game went with "that may be true, but there's nothing you can do about it" and pissed off a bunch of goons in the thread. Oh well! : Why didn't the Younger Realms stand united against Kyros? This is a really sore subject for Eb because it's not just political, her family died defending the entire Tiers and the rest of the fuckers didn't follow through. She mentioned the Gates of Judgement, we've heard that name before. Earlier in the game posted:An actual battle hardly warrants a mention. It's clear that Eb and her family joined some attempt at defending the Gates, but she doesn't even mention it in the intro she narrates and instead points out the garbage Tiers leadership hung her family out to dry. : Well then... what would Queen Eb have done? To recap: 400 years ago, the Tiers were founded by people fleeing from Kyros. In the present day people thought Kyros would never get them.   : Tiersmen live with greater numbers of Beastmen - what's that like?Oh boy, here comes the minefield.  This is not remotely true - at least not the harmony part.  This is the equivalent of asking some dude in antebellum South what it's like to live with all the black people. The Stonestalker tribe isn't so much a historical clan structure as it is a bunch of Beastmen who escaped actual slavery in Azure forming a new country where they can have a life that doesn't suck. Just wait till we get to the Stone Sea and see what complete assholes they are. Remember, Eb is a Tiersman noble.  Yea we're just gonna slowly back away from the patronizing crap. Pity I didn't have this conversation when Killsy was in the party. It's clear Eb means well but also doesn't really know any Beastmen. Back up the tree! : What of the major resistors to Kyros' rule?  : Tell me about the Stonestalker tribe. Remember, this was the more humane and modern treatment Eb spoke of. : The Stonestalkers are a tribe born from these newly-freed beasts. I imagine they would never bow to Kyros or the Archons - too many generations have been enslaved. I'd wager anything they'll die before they ever bow.She's not kidding, but we are fortunately on the wrong route to test this.  This, to be blunt, is bullshit. Kills-in-Shadow had never met us, but was willing to acknowledge Cleopatra as Prima just from hearing stories about the lady who spoke words that called down fire from the sky. We know literally nothing about the Beastwoman Archon Mark killed. However, this is the kind of logic that justifies White Man's Burden garbage where the British troops aren't coming to steal all your poo poo, they're actually here to stop widow burning and the very bad caste system while calling you the n-word and mandating only white people can be in charge. No it doesn't make sense and don't think about it too hard. : Tell me about the Bronze Brotherhood.: The Bronze Brotherhood is one of the most feared and famous of the Free Cities mercenary companies. They serve the highest bidder, and during the war, that was Kyros.: Most of the Brotherhood perished in the war, but a handful, the crew hired to work at Lethian's Crossing - they got to babysit the Forge-Bound and survive the last few years with minor losses.I will bet actual money Kyros went out of her way to ensure that the most capable troops and competent leaders got killed off.  Actually, I'm pretty sure we broke the last of them. : Tell me about the Unbroken. : A decade ago, Stalwart was the rear end-end of jokes Tiersmen tell each other. The people of Stalwart are obnoxiously proud of a long history of being invaded but never losing. The Disfavored put an end to their vaunted record of victory. : Are there other remnants of the Younger Realms that could still rise against Kyros?: Several Sages came to our aid during the second battle of Vendrien's Well - I at first thought they meant to kill me, but instead they put their lives on the line for us.: They spoke of others in their guild braving the Edict of Fire to salvage lore from the Burning Library... though I may find them untrustworthy, it must be said that the Sages have a certain... fearlessness toward the Overlord - perhaps that could be kindled further. Unfortunately Eb hasn't completely internalized the lesson that division just rewards Kyros, so... : Would you rather they be our enemies? Exact same line of thinking that got your family killed for nothing, Eb! Back up the tree. : What can you tell me about the different nations of the Tiers? : Tell me about the Younger Realms.: Haven, Azure, Apex, and Stalwar have been the four major forces of the Tiers for the last four centuries. A few other dynasties have tried their hand, but all eventually were defeated or absorbed into the four we know today.: Not sure when the term "younger" came into fashion, but it's always been a term of humble contrast - just look at the Oldwalls - someone was here before us and built them - don't know really anything about them, but it stands to reason there used to be an Older Realms that did all the construction. : Tell me about the Bastard Tier.: It's the northernmost of the Tiers, and the choke point to the Northern Empire. It's been a hub of trade for centuries, and a long line of merchant families and private armies have kept the realm largely lawless.: Though many of used[sic] to joke about the Bastard City being sacked by rabid dogs, Tunon's capture of the city was a terrible blow to the morale of the Tiersmen - we knew that day Kyros was more than just a fun story to scare your kids. : What can you tell me about the Free Cities? This is what Kyros loves to hear!  Back up the tree! ...you know what? We've got a LOT of Eb chat to go about her magic and her take on the Archons, and this update is getting extremely long already. I can't blame people for seeing the wall of screenshots and going "gently caress, that's a LOT of words!" so let's talk about what we did get. Eb is a noblewoman of Haven who married into Apex nobility. The rebels she was helping at the beginning weren't just an unrelated band of freedom fighters, they were her in-laws. Her husband and children got killed at the Gates of Judgment, in a battle so inconsequential that her opening narration didn't even bother to mention it. She feels guilty at being the last survivor of her family when Kyros killed all the rest and holds herself personally responsible for the suicide of her youngest son. She blames the Tiers' craptastical political leadership - all trying to betray each other for momentary gain when the massive armies of Kyros are at the door - for ensuring her family died for nothing, and this probably motivated her to join the doomed rebellion - hell, she swears allegiance to us because she sees somebody she could use to maybe destroy Kyros. In other ways, Eb represents the leadership of the Tiers. She's very vocal about their customs of gender essentialism despite the game vomiting out counterexamples everywhere, she is patronizingly racist toward the Beastmen and doesn't understand them at all, and despite her ability to recognize that the political divisions in the Tiers got her entire family killed, bears a grudge against the Sages despite the two awesome Sages that held off Kyros' entire army until Cleopatra stepped in. Eb is very much a progressive noble. She fought for the Tiers and not just Haven or Apex, she married outside her country, she's able to recognize that the Azure treatment of the Beastmen was slavery - but she's still an apologist for her native culture to a degree with the gender essentialism and her claim that the Northern Empire treats Beastmen even worse. It ties back into the idea that Kyros wins when the status quo is bad because Kyros can come in and profit off the division. Earlier in the game posted:I spent Act 1 pointing out that the Tiers nobility sucks because they're Bronze Age nobility ruling over peasants mad that they have to bow to a dictator instead of being the head honchos. Eb's story reinforces this - there's very little view of what the Kyrosian conquest is like for your average farmer from her perspective, but the very sad tale of how the Tiers nobility was no longer "free" to dick around while the Beastmen and peasants grew all the food. Her husband is a military aristocrat she thinks of as a woodworker because he hosed around with carpentry as a hobby while she made dick jokes, and it's telling her idea of "real work" isn't farming or spinning clothes but fighting. Even teaching her children to read is explicitly called out by the game as a privilege of Tiers nobility. This should not be taken as a detraction from the very real tragedy of Kyros slaughtering her family and her survivor's guilt driving her to avenge them...but it should be placed in perspective. Eb's family aren't the regular people being starved to death in Ukraine to make reality follow some untested theory, they're the Romanov kids being executed. Eb's also explaining why the Tiersmen rebellions aren't getting anywhere, they're still not unified! Even Eb, the lady who lost everything to Tiersman infighting, can't put aside her hatred of the Sages. Tarkis Arri signs her final hate-filled letter to us "Apex Patriot", not "defender of the Tiers" or some such. Why is this important? It ties back into what Bleden Mark's plan for Cleopatra is. By having us gather artifacts from all the Tiers nations, Cleopatra - and Cleopatra alone - can lay claim to being the heir of a new, unified Tiers. It's kind of like how Wagner wrote a bunch of operas about German mythology despite how Germany hadn't been a unified country until recently. By going around and breaking all these Edicts and claiming these Artifacts, Cleopatra can claim to be the heir of the unified Tiers, something which the existing nobility can't do because they're all too focused on their own little slice of the pie. We already have the Staff of Hours, the Hammer of Sunder, and the Banner of Ardent to legitimize our newfound heritage from those places, and our goal is to go to the Stone Sea and get the Azure Shield so we can weave the people of Azure into our new myth as well. It really helps us a lot that the locals aren't up to the task.
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Dec 29, 2020 23:43
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Please disable hats in portraits (I will finish reading the update tomorrow, I just got to the start of chat with Eb and had to do a double take at the portrait.)
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Dec 30, 2020 00:14
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Okay, I've got some things to say on the subject of Eb, but talking to her about the Tidecasters is what gives me some of my more important points, so all I'll say for now is that I'm pretty sure you're seriously misinterpreting her here. Eb is the reality of what Verse pretends to be
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Dec 30, 2020 00:34
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Stroth posted:Okay, I've got some things to say on the subject of Eb, but talking to her about the Tidecasters is what gives me some of my more important points, so all I'll say for now is that I'm pretty sure you're seriously misinterpreting her here. Eb is the reality of what Verse pretends to be Looking forward to your take!
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Dec 30, 2020 02:05
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Xarn posted:Please disable hats in portraits I second this!
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Dec 30, 2020 04:29
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Kind of interesting how when the PC asks Eb what she would have done if she were queen Eb's response is basically 'Well, I would have united everyone and fought harder and better.' Seems like she came out of the war with kind of the wrong takeaway? So far the game has given me the impression that The Tiers were pretty boned from the start, no matter how effectual or ineffectual the leadership might have been... Is it really wise to fight a war your country is bound to lose?
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Dec 30, 2020 18:11
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My take-away is definitely that 'hindsight is 20/20' really. She can see all the mistakes that everyone else made, that cost her everything. And she can say that 'yes I would totally have unified everyone and crushed the Kyros invasion' But we still see her personal blindspots that basically sync up to the other nobles. The Sages being the big one, but it doesn't mean she didn't have other grudges. It's just that the other grudges wouldn't come up because there's no one for her to grudge on.
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Dec 30, 2020 23:33
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Cleopatra Jones and the Magicial Birds and Bees Last time on Tyranny, we...chatted with Eb. Today on Tyranny, we're still chatting with Eb.  Back up the tree...one more time...  Unfortunately all this footage was taken at once, so I cannot comply with the thread's requested Hat Ban. : What can you tell me of the Archons in the Tiers? : What of the Voices of Nerat?: The most vile thing to walk Terratus! The Voices claimed the masters of the School of Tides - he pulled from them their memories, then gave our secrets to the contemptable Blood Chanters! If I can burn that thing off the face of Terratus, my life will not have been wasted.As far as I know our decision to turn over the Tidecasters does not arm the Blood Chanters with the Terratus,. Frost, or Lightning Sigils.  We will have to ask Mark for the lowdown on Nerat next time we see him. : What do you know of Graven Ashe?: Before the conquest, I assumed Graven Ashe a harmless old man - an Archon-in-name-only past his prime. I could not have been more wrong.There have been some debates in the thread as to whether Ashe is supposed to come off as the big fuckup I interpret him as or whether the authors intended to make him actually an effective military commander.  This would seem to confirm the Ashe is competent interpretation - but once again, we must consider who is speaking. Eb - and the Tiers system of nobility she represents - lost the war against Graven Ashe. It's a lot easier of a salve to say that you were defeated by the very best instead of realizing that you were up against a lot of incompetent racist idiots and lost.  The Disfavored believing heavily in Ashe could go either way. : Know anything of Cairn? : [Conquest] The Tidecasters fought well, you can be proud of that. These are the guys we helped Nerat eat. Naturally we didn't start with any stolen Tidecaster lore because Nerat is an rear end in a top hat. : There's clearly a story here - I'd like to hear it.: A few years back, the remaining Elder Tidecasters met Cairn in battle. Tall as ten men, all but invincible... and I thought nothing could stop us if we stood together. : I'm glad you lived through it all. That's a trauma reaction if I ever heard one. : What do you know of Sirin? Back up the tree! : What do you know of arcane society? : Tell me of the Earthshakers.: The Earthshakers are the disciplines[sic] of Cairn, Archon of stone, and they share their master's command of tremors and soil... and they also share Cairn's aloof, brooding temperament. : Tell me about Blood Chanters.: The Blood Chanters are the Voice's of Nerat's cabal of mages. Their magic is taken from the sigil of Sirin, and from techniques stolen from the School of Wild Wrath, namely their magic of fire as learned from Thousand Embers, Archon of Fire.: They barely qualify as a proper school or guild... most of them barely literate and, I bet, most of them didn't learn a drat thing, just had their knowledge... shoved into their heads by Nerat. Even after these kinds of prejudices destroyed the Tiers Eb can't give them up. : What can you tell me of the Forge-Bound?: The Forge-Bound have an unusual sort of magic - they specialise in slow, painstaking rituals that do not produce the dazzling blasts of energy and shards of flying ice like my own magic. Instead, their spells render them immune to the fires of the forge and at one with their tools of the trade. : Tell me about the School of Ink and Quill.: Behind the Tidecasters, the Sages of the School of Ink and Quill are the second oldest arcane institution in the Tiers... we go way back a ways... there's a lot of bad blood.: If I'm being objective, the Sages claim to be scholars interested in collecting, archiving, and preserving lore from and for all humanity. They're quite keen to gather lore, but in no sense do they seek to share their knowledge with their[sic] Tiersmen. : Tell me about your own guild, the School of Tides. : Why didn't your Archon fight in the war?: About a year or so before the troops arrived in the Bastard Tier, Occulted Jade proclaimed the age of the Tiers was over, and said she'd depart southwest, into unknown, unending ocean rather than face Kyros. From what Eb told us earlier, the Tiers were settled by people fleeing Kyrosian expansion, and Occulted Jade was one of those people or born shortly afterwards. I can easily see Jade seeing that the people they fled got stronger over the last 400 years and now number in the hundreds of Archons and concluding that fighting will not get them anywhere. I actually had to go back and reopen the game to get the rest of these. Apologies for the lack of images here, I'm transcribing directly from the game. : What was your school like before the war?: There was a time when the Tidecasters were the most powerful guild of the Tiers... the kingdom of Haven accepted them as guardians of sea trade and the noble houses gave us peace and quiet in return for teaching their sons and daughters music, writing, and navigation.: Though the other schools coveted our knowledge, they feared our wrath. Between our destructive magic and our Archon patron, others knew that attacking us meant suicide.: How did the School fall?: The Archon Cairn issued a challenge, and Masters Folvax, Hagrivar, and Camberil leapt at the challenge - I told them it was a hopeless clash... I think they were ready to die.: The rest of the story you should already know - some Fatebinders made sure the Fatebinders Elder were taken in chains to the Voices of Nerat. Not that I'm still bitter.: Eb eyes you with a scowl.This would normally get us Fear with Eb, but as I'm not saving the transcribing session it's all good. : As the youngest Tidecaster still in the Tiers, I...I exercised the better part of valor and went into hiding. But then my sense of shame kicked in and... well, that's about when I fell in with the Vendrien Guard.: Old as the Five Wives?: By all accounts, Occulted Jade was among the initial settlers that made landfall in the Tiers before Kyros first cast an Edict. Though she's a bit old and stooped, she looked amazing for nearly five hundred.Wait, hang on! You told us in the previous update that human settlers arrived "over four hundred years ago", which is the same verbiage you used to describe the rise of Kyros. Now I'm confused! Normal LP dialogue resumes here! : What of other magical schools and guilds of the Tiers?: There have been several to crop up and wither across the centuries. The Cutters Guild took their healing magic north centuries ago, the School of Flowering Winter always limped along as an inconsequential group of gardeners. Back up the dialog tree!  : Let's talk of something else. : Do you know anything of the magic of the Archons?: Enough to know I'm out of my element. That is to say, I've studied the many Archons a great deal and I have a great number of hypotheses and conjectures but... well, I'm no expert yet.: And like most who have invoked the Archons of times past to work magic, I do wonder what difference of birth or experience gives one the magical potential to be an Archon. : Know anything about the Oldwalls and the Spires? I am honestly not sure what to make of this. As we've established that the Oldwalls are metaphorically new unexplored avenues of thought, Eb expressing a wish to die there is rather odd. Maybe we'll come back to this. : What can you tell me of the Bane?: What I know is largely taken from Master Camberil's work and some near-fatal experience venturing close to the Oldwalls.: As best I understand it, the Banes are bits of magical will that have an extended life of their own. I'm of the belief that they nest or reproduce in the Oldwalls - the only place you regularly find them. This is entirely consistent with our interpretation of the Bane as cognitive dissonance/exposure to foreign ideas and magic as political power. There's been some debate in the thread about whether the Tiers' magic guilds really had that much power compared to the rulers, and from what both Eb and Lantry have told us two of the big three mage guilds were responsible for educating, training, and advising the nobility. That's a ton of power! It's not the obvious power and privilege accorded to them by the Kyrosian regime, but they're hardly weak either, and Occulted Jade gives the Tidecasters legitimacy dating back to the original landing. Eb's description of the Bane as "magical will" fits in perfectly with the psychological nature of the Bane (driving Raetommon insane) and they're attracted to magic because the higher up you get, the more cracks you see in the system. It's most obvious in Kyros' kleptocracy, but Eb herself identified a few cracks in the Tiers governance. This ends the conversation. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
So this is a massive Eb chat I broke into two updates, and I think we can put together a picture of Eb. Eb is a survivor of horrible trauma that she blames herself for, mostly her family and friends' death at the hands of Kyros. She's a noble of the Tiers and shares their general outlook on things, believing that the system of nobility in the Tiers generally worked well and was good for the Tiers despite the riots in the Bastard City indicating that maybe all was not quiet here. What we didn't get to last update is that when offered a way out with the school of Tides, Eb chose to fight against impossible odds that deterred a five hundred year old Archon with command over gravity and life drain attacks. This got her family killed, her fellow Tidecasters killed, and then on the second try it got her Vendrien Guard in-laws killed. If you talk to Eb, she talks quite a bit about her survivor's guilt - it was her fault her family died at the Gates of Judgement, she's not happy to have survived, she tried to warn the Tidecaster masters. It all sounds like she's a traumatized woman who is looking for death, but Eb doesn't actually try to die. Quite the opposite. Remember way back in Act 1 when we kicked Erenyos off the tower, and or even when we fought Tarkis Arri and Eb surrendered rather than die with the rest of her rebel brethren? Earlier in the game, on top of the Mountain Spire posted:Rather than acting as the traumatized survivor guilty about living, Eb immediately swears loyalty to the very enemy that slaughtered all her family and friends. For all her talk of how she's not glad she survived the battle against Cairn or the horrors of the Gates of Judgement, when push comes to shove she immediately puts her own life above her supposed convictions and signs the hell on to be Kyros' bikini-clad cheerleader. Hell, despite being one of the few people the Vendrien Guard have who have a chance at stopping Cleopatra's Crazy Magic Rampage Eb is never actually sent out to fight Cleopatra until the rebels are cornered in the Spire. There's a recurring pattern here, where Eb seems to find a bunch of people willing to fight Kyros, said people get butchered to a man despite Eb's best efforts, and Eb comes out as the only survivor. Earlier in the game posted:Stroth posted:Eb is the reality of what Verse pretends to be. Hope this is OK Stroth, otherwise I'll take it out. The more I look at what Eb is saying here the more credence I put into this. We've established that despite her antislavery talk and her claims she doesn't kill prisoners, Eb is actually kind of a bad person. Eb Tortures A Dude To Resolve A Momentary Inconvenience posted:I'm honestly not clear as to how much of a monster we're supposed to see Eb as. She is our narrator for the opening sequence, and is clearly not intended as an impartial third-person narrator. It's a curious choice, as she's not the chronicler in the party - Lantry is. Eb is the rebel and will reliably point whomever she allies with against Kyros as long as it doesn't involve any risk to herself. Eb has no aversion to violence - as we can see, she often initiates it when it's to her advantage - but she won't tolerate any risk to herself and will take the coward's way out when offered the opportunity. Off the top of my head I can't think of an outright deception Eb has pulled on us - but she definitely dragged the rebels down with her! It's hard for me to believe Tarkis Arri is the brains of that operation when Cleopatra stuns her by asking why, if the Tiers are independent, they speak the language and use the currency. Arri's Galaxy Brain Hour posted:Hell, look at the visual language of that scene! Eb is in the center of all those rebels where she's best protected from all of the Cleopatra gang's attacks! It doesn't work, because we have 2 mages and Verse's archery skills, but the idea is very clear. We can't even say they're protecting their mages, the Sage on the right is placed on the melee line to take hits so Eb doesn't have to. It's a clear pattern - Eb goes to the Gates of Judgement with her family, they all die. Eb fights with the Tidecasters against Cairn, the Tidecaster masters die. Eb's in-laws start a rebellion, they all die and Eb lives. Eb is clearly looking for someone to destroy Kyros for her, but why? Stuff Eb Just Told Us posted:
That's right! Before mean ol' Kyros came and ruined everything with her armies and her Archons, the Tidecasters were basically king shits of the Tiers. Eb doesn't characterize them as seekers of knowledge, she constantly refers to the destructive power of Tidecaster magic from the beginning. Stuff Eb Just Told Us posted:
That's from the very first update she joins our party, after we ask her to teach us the sweet Gravelight rune - which notably isn't entirely destructive, as you can use it to conjure shields against magic. Yet destruction is the part that matters to Eb and so destruction we get. Why does Eb hate the Sages? Because they managed to penetrate the Tidecaster mystique and topple them as number one. Thus we confirm Eb as kind of the archetypal rebel of this game. The Vendrien Guard rebellion was never about freedom from Kyros, as much as they wouldn't shut up about it - it was always about putting the old nobility back on top and in charge of their ancestral lands. Much like Arri and the rebels will roll over and swear allegiance to you even if you tell them your intent to turn them into your private army, they will still accede if you made the right motions about putting them on top instead of the Disfavored or the Scarlet Chorus. Eb is just more overt over the rolling over and swearing allegiance part. She's not a hero, she wants the old status quo where she was on top back and is willing to use violence to get it. Just like the rest of the rebels. Shout out to Stroth for encouraging me to take another look at the character. Next time: We start the DLC, really!
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Jan 7, 2021 06:44
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Hope this is OK Stroth, otherwise I'll take it out. Yeah that's cool. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to put together a post on my views there, but today has been a long fuckin day.
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Jan 7, 2021 07:22
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very long but extremely ontopic day
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Jan 7, 2021 07:23
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The thing about Occulted Jade's age seems normal to me? She could've been easily 100 or so years old at the first exodus from Kyros. Archons easily live longer than that, so that important stage of her life could've happened at any point really. I do think the interpretation of Eb being ultimately cowardly kind of interesting. I actually still believe that she feels bad about her family dying and such, but she's ultimately pretty self-concerned overall, which fits in as a noble of privilege who got recruited into a mage school of privilege as well. She doesn't like it when her privilege is challenged, which also feels consistent to me.
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Jan 7, 2021 07:25
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Keldulas posted:The thing about Occulted Jade's age seems normal to me? She could've been easily 100 or so years old at the first exodus from Kyros. Archons easily live longer than that, so that important stage of her life could've happened at any point really. Yeah, this is your brain on coup attempts. I misread it as saying she arrived 500 years ago, will have to edit that!
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Jan 7, 2021 07:38
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I have many questions! 1) Can you remove Sirin from the party and ask Eb about her? 2) At risk of spoilers, are there massive monster party members in Tyranny? In a lot of games there are allies that go "You ate that baby alive... I approve asserting dominance over infants." And then you gain points for it. In Tyranny everyone has their own major malfunction but none of them (besides nerat, a non party member) are really unreasonable. They all have a rationale for likes and dislikes. None of them demand you burn down an orphanage for loyalty. 3) Are these party members conversations time locked? You can gain a lot of loyalty/fear with each member, so is there anything stopping you from rapid fire click through each of these conversation trees? Besides LP audience satisfaction? Finally, a comment on Ashe and Tactics. While he is incompetent it may be that everyone else is incompetent/can't overcome ashe's magic. Ashe may just be lvl 99 while everyone else is 25 at best. The love and mystique could just be comp-stomping the known world. Not sure if the game gives credence to that down the line, but maybe worth inspecting if it comes up?
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Jan 7, 2021 08:00
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we're finished wrt party members, we got em all
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Jan 7, 2021 08:05
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Donkringel posted:I have many questions! Remind me to do #1 at a later date. There's a separate dialog for "what do you think of party member X" that we could do if you wanted in a few updates. As bob dobbs is dead stated, we have all the party members, and you can totally mash the buttons to grind loyalty/fear ASAP. A few things are locked behind loyalty (like Sirin's magic instruction or Eb's sigil that I didn't show off) but on a min/max playthrough you absolutely want to do that to get sigils and poo poo. I can't think of any party members off the top of my head who approve of purposeless cruelty - Verse and Killsy will like it if you use it to get your way, but randomly torturing people like Nerat is generally not cool. Ashe is kind of weird because he's incompetent by our standards, but because everyone and everything in Tyranny is incompetent he gets to be king of the morons. The Disfavored are actually well equipped and loyal troops, and they won't run from a fight (the Scarlet Chorus conscripts never make a break when fighting you either, but let's ignore that for now) who are trained to fight in formation but never do due to the limitations of the game engine. His big accomplishments are killing the previous Archon of War, which is fairly impressive but also aided by the fact that Blood Echo was a bloodthirsty and easy manipulated idiot, and making Nerat look like an incompetent clown when Nerat tried to stop his rebellion. As we know, Nerat IS an incompetent clown, but Ashe quickly folded when Kyros got serious and responded with overwhelming force. We actually do see what happens when the Disfavored run into an enemy with a high morale - the Disfavored end up getting hosed up so badly by Stalwart's Unbroken that Kyros calls down an Edict to punish the Disfavored as much as defeat the Unbroken. We'll be seeing more of this in the Stone Sea, but it's pretty clear the Disfavored didn't actually win and Kyros had to once again sigh loudly and support the failsons with the nuke button. All this said, Ashe goes out of his way to cultivate a reputation as a brilliant general who cares for his men and commands only the pride of the North, and that's useful to everyone involved. It's useful because enemies are more likely to surrender without a fight, it's useful to Kyros for the prestige having such a legion brings, and it's a convenient fiction for the defeated enemies to buy into. They didn't lose to the Scarlet Chorus trash mob, they fought valiantly but couldn't beat the Disfavored, the best soldiers Kyros has! It allows them to save face and pretend to be worthy opponents to the best of Kyros' armies instead of the reality that they were probably weren't as good as they think they are.
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Jan 7, 2021 08:26
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I just can't buy Ashe being competent in this setting when its shown, and stated, that he uses the same tactics over and over and over again. He's as rigid as the iron he girds his legion in. There's no room for improvement in his mind. Thats why I think Kyros wants to get rid of him. Also you can Eb to death with a rock at the top of the first tower if you just dont want to deal with her. My take on her joining up with the Fatebinder is that the final fight actually broke her. Now she punishes herself for her failure by traveling with what she most despises, an agent of the Overlord.
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Jan 7, 2021 10:12
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Is it that weird for a person to have both survivor's guilt and a honed survival instinct? Eb isn't thrilled to be alive and voices that she's down with the abstract idea of being released from her burdens through death, but when faced with the concrete prospect of dying, she's still got an instinct to fight or negotiate her way out. I'm not a trauma counselor, but I don't really see a contradiction here.
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Jan 7, 2021 14:35
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I think it's an interesting point that Occulted Jade, founder and original master of the Tidecasters, is described as an Archon - and one of the sigils near the beginning of the game also refers to Occulted Jade, Archon of Tides. Even though Occulted Jade seems to be from the Tiers, and was never a part of Kyros' empire. I think Jade is the first serious mention we've encountered of an Archon who is/was in no way affiliated with Kyros.
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Jan 7, 2021 14:42
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