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Ramie posted:Incidentally, Necroepilogos is also in orbit atm. Crashing from orbit in a welter of blood and bone.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:20
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Infinity Gaia posted:Okay. I know this is annoying. I know. But I have to mention it because loving hell. The last part of Vol 9 of TWI was just uploaded. It is 120k words long, divided into 3 parts and an epilogue. This is an ENTIRE NOVEL. Good, gives me something to read over the next week because most authors are on break.
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Dec 24, 2023 00:27
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Man this chapter is even more incoherent than the usual aba. ||Didn't eldavin get murked by a literal hobbit last chapter? Why are like half these groups fighting one another? Why is the world so big if people can just teleport 10000 miles for narrative contrivances? I mostly am still reading TWI because the character "exhibition" chapters can be really, really good, but then whatever character is being explored just goes back to being a cardboard cutout after their story is expanded. Kind of a frustrating story at times augh ||
shirunei fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 24, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 01:04
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I seldom have big criticisms to make of TWI but this whole denouement was extremely unneeded, how the gently caress do you make that apocalyptic night, NOT the finale? I don't give a gently caress about alteslian and terandrian nobles having their destiny stolen. [edited in spoiler tags out of caution--mod] Somebody fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 11:05
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sometimes when you read a story 12 million words long it spends time on parts that other people find more interesting than you do i thought it ruled for the most part
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Dec 24, 2023 12:12
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SupSup 117 Finally some good loving
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Dec 24, 2023 20:25
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Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup 117 (SupSup 117) Huh, practically since forever people have speculated that Alden might eventually learn to treat people's attacks as things being entrusted to him, but I honestly didn't expect it to happen. That's going to be pretty hax with some more practice and the upgrade that lets him preserve spell effects. I'm starting to suspect BoaB is even more broken then we've been thinking.
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Dec 24, 2023 22:10
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Bremen posted:(SupSup 117) Huh, practically since forever people have speculated that Alden might eventually learn to treat people's attacks as things being entrusted to him, but I honestly didn't expect it to happen. That's going to be pretty hax with some more practice and the upgrade that lets him preserve spell effects. This is wild, wild speculation, but the Primary might have it. Asking for someone's life and then taking is exactly the sort of conceptual hax I'd expect with a really strong BoAB. It explains how Alden could reveal things under magical contract, as Joe thinks he will some day to the Primary. We know Alden can yoink enchantments, so couldn't a BoAB user take a tattoo contract?
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Dec 24, 2023 22:37
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twi: drat, yvlon doing some t-1000 poo poo to those slavers 👉
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Dec 24, 2023 22:52
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Brain Candy posted:
SupSup 117 I have to imagine that the Primary (and other Artonan knights) are not limited to the original 300 avowed skills. There's certainly possible similarities between what the Primary did with the assisted suicide of the knights and what Alden is doing with BoAB, but Mother did explicitly say that cutting a moon in half (like the Primary did) is overly ambitious for his BoAB skill.
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Dec 24, 2023 23:02
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Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup 117 Yeah, but he wouldn’t have to do it with the skill, remember most of the Knights are wizards. They have insane limits on Authority, imagine the cutting spell scaled way up.
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Dec 25, 2023 00:08
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Brain Candy posted:Yeah, but he wouldn’t have to do it with the skill, remember most of the Knights are wizards. They have insane limits on Authority, imagine the cutting spell scaled way up. SupSup 117: I think that the Primary actually has very limited free authority at the moment. Or maybe it's just not very responsive? Stuart found it amusing and vaguely embarrassing that he had to hold Alden's hands to scan him. Either way, I think it speaks to a weakness in normal wizard attributes. My guess is that the Primary has an original 300 skill that is dedicated to severing. Almost the opposite of Alden. Alden can preserve and protect potentially anything. The primary can rend anything. Just a guess, of course. But it would be neat.
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Dec 25, 2023 02:46
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Bremen posted:(SupSup 117) Huh, practically since forever people have speculated that Alden might eventually learn to treat people's attacks as things being entrusted to him, but I honestly didn't expect it to happen. That's going to be pretty hax with some more practice and the upgrade that lets him preserve spell effects. I think it's less "broken" than "will let him even compete," since it sounds like most higher-level heroic Avowed are pretty monstrous. I also imagine it's going to be limited to projectiles, at least until Alden "buys" more expansions to the Skill. He probably won't ever be able to directly stop/catch a punch with it, since that's actually part of the other Avowed's body and I doubt Alden will ever be able to "bear" a person against their will, since it fundamentally conflicts with the nature of the Skill. Same for stuff like "a Shaper hitting him with something," since they maintain "contact" with it via their own authority. But it does partially solve the big "dealing with guns" problem that I imagine most Avowed who want to become heroes need to deal with at some point. Reinhart will also probably be useless against Alden once he masters this ability, unless he develops an ability to manually control his arrows (which I guess is pretty possible). The biggest thing that will be "broken" will be Alden's sheer power after he has a few years of growth under his belt. But in the meanwhile stuff like this just lets him keep up with his various powerful classmates. He's probably not going to be beating Finlay in spars anytime soon, for example.
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Dec 25, 2023 03:24
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Ytlaya posted:I think it's less "broken" than "will let him even compete," since it sounds like most higher-level heroic Avowed are pretty monstrous. (SupSup 117) Nah, if Bearer of Burdens can take control of a spell, then Alden can do so against basically any peer Shaper. Remember the talk in Gym class about how Shaper powers all grow weaker and harder to control the further away you are from the thing you're Shaping? Bearer is shown to work the same way, but since he can only use Bearer with his hands right now, he's always carrying out the initial step of Bearing Burdens in his optimal range. He effectively has more and more leverage relative to how far they are away from him, which would allow Alden to punch pretty far above his own weight against anyone using typical Shaper strategies. Given what we know about Avowed and affixations, that Shaper information probably generalizes out to spells in general, where any spell is going to be weaker when it's further away from the wizard, or at least more expensive to cast. I don't imagine he'll have much reason to fight real Wizards, though, so that'd probably mostly relevant to fighting Adjusters.
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Dec 25, 2023 06:47
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TWI... A confusing ride to an underwhelming end. Still, looking forward to volume 10 being less focused on Izril. While I guess the gods have been sidelined for now a bit, it seems like a poo poo storm is erupting in pretty much every other place.
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Dec 25, 2023 09:57
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Just finished part 1; most of it was just okay and I see what tithin was saying about not caring about a bunch of random nobles getting their destinies stolen, but I'm always game for whatever's happening with the Ivory Five, and everything that happened when Erin finally arrives on the scene was great. Can't believe the Bloodtear Pirates turned themselves into Light Novel protagonists I Was Once A Disgraced Noble From Terandria Before I Became A Pirate Then Suddenly I Was Reborn As Royalty
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Dec 25, 2023 10:44
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Ss117 yeah ok after complaining it got boring the Lute stuff sucked me back in. anyway, am I the only one imagining Alden becoming a giant katamari style ball rolls around preserving everything?
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Dec 25, 2023 13:53
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One of the things I really like about Super Supportive is (117): How you can describe Alden's power ups in incredibly mundane terms and you will know exactly what I'm talking about. For anyone else they would sound so run-of-the-mill as to be unworthy of commentary. Alden gets some string. Alden has a chat with Mother. Alden holds a NesiCard. Alden lifts some luggage. Alden stands still. Alden breaks a cat toy. Alden crushes a soda can. Alden catches a tennis ball.
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Dec 25, 2023 17:17
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Aware posted:TWI... A confusing ride to an underwhelming end. Still, looking forward to volume 10 being less focused on Izril. While I guess the gods have been sidelined for now a bit, it seems like a poo poo storm is erupting in pretty much every other place. TWI Vol 9 Finale: I'm... really torn on this volume finale. I had near no investment on the vast majority of players in the Pirates vs Nobles fight compared to Kaligma vs Izril, which was made even more apparent as they came right after the other. There was also the inclusion of several other characters that I felt had no real place there - they showed up and did basically a cameo. Why was Ryoka there? Nerry? The Horns I fully understand, but the rest felt incredibly shoehorned in and muddied what already felt like a too big cast of characters in the finale. The Earthers are here - acid to the face - and they're gone. Tetriarch is here - Surprise Eldavin (Didn't he get sniped by a Halfing from the moon?) - and they're gone. Maybe I'm just fatigued by the stakes being so high for a prolonged period of time that I just couldn't get into it. I should feel more "gently caress yeah!" at Fetohep deploying tactical nukes via spells on Rhir/Roshal to help Erin, but I just read it, went "Ok sure" and kept reading without any real emotion about it. At least it seems to somewhat de-escalate now with Erin heading towards Baleros as a Fraerling and the Horns towards Chandrar. A'ctelios, the Selphids, Nerrhavia and the decline/reinvention of Khelt are all plotlines I'd like to see more off. Throwing Erin in there while Izril cools down is a great time for it. The part about "Oh no, the freed Reinhearts are so nasty they smashed a bakers store after not instantly getting their way!" after the stakes going on in the previous chapters was cute. Overall, a good volume, but I hope TWI calms down a bit in the coming one.
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Dec 25, 2023 17:42
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Einander posted:(SupSup 117) Nah, if Bearer of Burdens can take control of a spell, then Alden can do so against basically any peer Shaper. Remember the talk in Gym class about how Shaper powers all grow weaker and harder to control the further away you are from the thing you're Shaping? Bearer is shown to work the same way, but since he can only use Bearer with his hands right now, he's always carrying out the initial step of Bearing Burdens in his optimal range. He effectively has more and more leverage relative to how far they are away from him, which would allow Alden to punch pretty far above his own weight against anyone using typical Shaper strategies. It's the "against someone's will" part that's the problem. If something is actively being controlled by someone (which Shapers presumably are), I really doubt Alden will ever be able to take it from them. Maybe he'll just be able to flat-out seize it with his greater authority, but not with BoaB. edit: You're correct about the "needs to physically be touching stuff" part probably being temporary, though. It's just that I doubt Alden will ever be able to bear things that other people are directly controlling unless they want him to do so. A projectile is a different situation since, after the projectile is in flight, the thrower/shooter/whatever no longer has control over it. If a Shaper tossed a bag of dirt at Alden, he could probably use his power on it, but if they telekinetically controlled it to hit him I doubt he could, since him seizing control would be directly against the wishes of the controller, which violates BoaB in a fundamental conceptual way. It's similar to the way BoaB is difficult to use offensively, since something like "hitting something with a preserved object" is, from the Skill's perspective, fundamentally different from "something hitting the preserved object." There's some leeway for Alden to to alter his perception here, like in the most recent chapter where he manages to do it for "pulling a preserved object out of some rubble," but I doubt any perception tricks would allow "bearing someone who doesn't want it" (or something under the direct control of someone who doesn't want you to bear it). edit2: There might be a bit of a "grey area" where Alden is able to bear a lump of telekinetically controlled dirt (or whatever) if the Shaper is just thinking "I want to hit Alden with this" (and as soon as Alden uses his power on it, they'd be cut off from it), but if the Shaper is aware of Alden's power and directly thinking "I don't want him to preserve this" it's probably not possible." The "perception tricks" might actually go both ways, given how "accepting things from others" is integral to Alden's ability. I wouldn't be surprised if it's possible for someone to throw something at Alden and prevent him from using his power on it as long as they throw it with an intent that directly conflicts with Alden bearing it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 25, 2023 20:52
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SS 103, latest RR chapter. I feel like this has been the best chapter in a while. It is super long too. Lasted me my whole half-hour on the treadmill. What a wonderful Christmas gift.
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Dec 25, 2023 22:33
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It was really good. I ended up reading through it twice.
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Dec 25, 2023 22:58
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103 rules, but 101 was also a real banger. I don't know if one obviously outshines the other.
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Dec 25, 2023 23:25
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SS 103, but foreshadowing for the patreon somewhat "Lute made such a high pitched yelp of alarm it would have done an Artonan proud. Several people turned to look at them. Stuart paused his rant. “Oh dear. Is he very upset? Does he need comforting?” “I’m fine!” Lute said to their classmates. “I…uh…pulled a muscle.” “Sitting down?” a girl said. “I’m loving talented, okay?” said Lute." Ahaha
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Dec 25, 2023 23:28
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Wittgen posted:103 rules, but 101 was also a real banger. I don't know if one obviously outshines the other. Several bits of 103 made me laugh hard enough that my poor surgery-abused abs made me cry from the pain, so that's my verdict.
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Dec 25, 2023 23:50
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The fact that Artonans apparently have a word for "Righteous Scholarly Exit" is pretty awesome. Their schools must be a lot of fun.
Bremen fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 26, 2023 01:39
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I really enjoyed Alden and Stuart bonding over their Auriads (Stuart unknowingly so) and the moment Alden had at the end in the rain. 103 is up there with the Man On the Moon (and after) chapters with some of my favorite in the whole series.
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Dec 26, 2023 05:02
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Lamquin posted:TWI Vol 9 Finale: Finally finished; I think this is closest to my own thoughts on it. There WAS a lot of good stuff in there, but it definitely bit off more than it could chew with how chaotic the sea battle got. It wasn't so much a matter of being confusing as it was the insistence on cramming everyone in there even though they'd already done enough during the Kasigna stuff. It was going for a sort of Avengers portal scenario but it kinda ended up being more like the chase scene at the start of the first Ranma movie, and although this was a strong volume overall, it also suffered from having multiple "the gang's all here" events, with the diminishing returns being really evident in the finale. Good stuff: anything involving the primary players--the Horns, the Five (now Four, RIP), and Erin--especially when she talks to the Grand Design.. The initial Solstice battle and and the first two parts of the sea battle (that is, the previous update, and part one of this update). The epilogue. I'm not sure how you can top the literal laws of physics going "this loving innkeeper I tell you" but I'm looking forward to seeing how pirate does it. All that said, I'm excited for v10 as this feels like even more of a "no turning back" scenario than all the stuff that went down in v8. Argue fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 26, 2023 14:59
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Player Manager 4-17: I always love chapters where we get other people’s unvarnished opinions of Max. It’s refreshing to see that being a manic rear end in a top hat is, in fact, rubbing people the wrong way, but also that there’s good reasons people still put up with him, and these POV bits are always done so creatively. What a great story.
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Dec 27, 2023 01:08
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Carousel apparently stubs in a few weeks. It's worth giving a look! It's horror, but it never overdoes it in the gore and violence department like a lot of serials do.
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Dec 27, 2023 21:49
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Nettle Soup posted:Carousel apparently stubs in a few weeks. It's worth giving a look! It's horror, but it never overdoes it in the gore and violence department like a lot of serials do. drat, it's stubbing fast. It only just got to book 2 like, what, two months ago or so?
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Dec 27, 2023 22:35
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Supsup 118 This chapter proves once again that this is a cultivation story in disguise.
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Dec 27, 2023 22:48
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SupSup 118 - I like that there's probably a limitation to using this "new" facet of his Skill as a "lost item finder." It makes sense that there's a vital link between the "thing* to be beared" and "the entity entrusting it," and that he is only able to sense the thing in question through the entruster. It kinda ties into the point I was making before that the entruster is vitally important conceptually, and the Skill's use revolves around that. This chapter did confirm that Alden can track down anyone he targets, though with limited accuracy (since it only tells him the direction, but that's still very useful). The biggest grey area is probably related to "the sort of entities that can do the entrusting." Does it have to be a sentient being? Or can Alden decide he's been entrusted with an apple if it falls on him from a tree? So far the series has been very good about avoiding "bullshit conceptual justifications," so I doubt we'll see Alden suddenly being able to bear anything because it was entrusted to him by "the universe" or "the Earth" or something. But something like "the Earth System entrusting him with any human Avowed" probably is possible, since human Avowed are technically property of the Artonans (I imagine something like this will be relevant at some point in the very distant future). * where "thing" can be pretty much anything, not just objects
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Dec 27, 2023 23:30
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re: Sup Sup that does seem to be the biggest outstanding question regarding his powers, and that sort of conceptual justification leading to a massive expansion in Alden's power applicability isn't one that needs to rely on "bullshit" like fooling himself into thinking everything he does is acting on behalf of a universal will or w/e, because even outside the system contract situation, the whole earth-legal-contract-based nature of "super-heroing" would seem to sort of lend itself to legal authorities granting Alden broad and long term entrustment to preserve people and property in their jurisdiction maybe there are specificity/immediacy concerns or something about the nature of authority/Authority/ownership that ultimately prevent that sort of thing, but as skills scale up towards the "gently caress with a moon" level of things it doesn't seem at all unlikely that something like a general agreement to "protect [whatever city], its inhabitants, visitors, and their property" would give Alden more or less free reign to do exactly that (I also think if it goes slowly enough it's not going to feel too "cheaty" or w/e and I think there's potentially some fun stuff in regards to jurisdictional conflicts and the like in a way that'll feel better than "Alden can just preserve whatever, whenever he wants now") LGD fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 00:26
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LGD posted:re: Sup Sup that does seem to be the biggest outstanding question regarding his powers, and that sort of conceptual justification leading to a massive expansion in Alden's power applicability isn't one that needs to rely on "bullshit" like fooling himself into thinking everything he does is acting on behalf of a universal will or w/e, because even outside the system contract situation, the whole earth-legal-contract-based nature of "super-heroing" would seem to sort of lend itself to legal authorities granting Alden broad and long term entrustment to preserve people and property in their jurisdiction I think the main thing regarding Alden being entrusted other Avowed by the System (or some other Artonan authority) is just that there's no reason for it to happen under the vast majority of circumstances. It requires a *very* high authority do the entrusting, which wouldn't happen outside of some very unique circumstances. But I don't think that's so much a question of Alden's personal power. If the Earth System (or whatever) entrusted Alden with some random human Avowed, he could probably already act on that. The main limitation is simply that it (and all uses of Alden's abilities) rely on a cooperative "entruster." And of course, at the end of the day, there's still the simple fact that everything that makes Alden exceptional is also true of Artonan Knights. Alden's future abilities will be "overpowered" in the context of human Avowed, but not in the context of the universe as a whole. I imagine any truly unique advantage Alden achieves will end up being due to Gorgon's thing, since that's the major thing setting him apart from Artonan Knights.
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Dec 28, 2023 05:11
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Supsup 118 You have to remember that Alden, the entruster, and the object have to be relatively near each other at the time the bond is formed. I have to imagine that sort of vague composite entities like corporations or states don't really have the physical proximity (if they even have authority) to form that bond. The Earth Contract, if it has a physical location, is probably in the Amazon Rainforest. It was marked off limits by the Artonans when Earth joined their empire. Plus it has the obvious similarities to the forest on Artona I
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Dec 28, 2023 05:20
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Nitrousoxide posted:Supsup 118 The proximity restriction seems like the sort of thing that might not be a permanent limitation, since it doesn't really make sense as a core "conceptual" limitation - there's nothing about the core concept of "bearing the burden of another entity" that conflicts with "the burden being far away from the entity entrusting it." Sorta like how Alden could only bear a single item at once to begin with. I could see the distance limitation being something that can similarly be "defeated" through training, a change in perspective, or an expansion to his Skill.
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Dec 28, 2023 06:20
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I randomly opened a story and I've spent the past few days reading The adventures of Rania Mortal the Perfectly Normal elf. It's a ridiculous and fun fantasy story with a cool world which diverges from the standard DnD-template and interesting main characters. Also probably some of the nerdiest stuff I've seen in a while. I feel like I need to write a bit about it now. And will probably do a short overview of it later today. I hope someone is interested in that. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 07:43
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I would be. I'll give the first few chapters a look.
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Dec 28, 2023 08:50
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quote:Duna was an odd goddess. Even though her portfolio looked abhorrent at first glance, she gave access to healing magic. According to her priesthood, all things were going to die eventually, and Duna was eternal and not in a hurry. So in order to maximize death, one did not need to kill, but to heal. The total number of deaths depended on the birth rate, not on bloodshed, and so the goddess of entropy somehow ended up acting more like a fertility goddess than anything else. The government declared her legal to pray to, though they also officially warned against trying to rise in her priesthood, as her followers tended to have rather strange ways of looking at the world that were not considered mentally healthy.
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Dec 28, 2023 09:21
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