Where do sparks ultimately come from in this world, and how is its physics/metaphysics different from reality?

Ultimately, where sparks come from is unknown to the world at large, and slightly plot relevant. The mages of the world, however, believe sparks are generated passively by gods constantly, and whenever a god has excess they shed it into the mortal worlds.

As for how they work physically and metaphysically, well, they don't have a physical presence of their own until worked by a mage into a spell, thus making it affect the world. Metaphysically, they are sparks. Energy. They are almost always contained within something, most often beings who can use them to do something.

The above observation(that sparks gravitate to those that can use them) has led a number of mages to believe that sparks are some form of ultimate energy of creation, deriving the idea from the idea that gods shed them and gods create things, so obviously that must be what they are.

Hope that explains it adequately. If not, just ask question about what you need clarified.

Is it possible to create some form of permanent defensive spell that would nullify or reduce the effect of magic cast at Hated?

Considering that he hunts mages, that might not be a bad choice as an investment.

Uh, I don't really think anything like that can exist. After magic has been used, it generally isn't magic anymore. Someone hurls a fireball, and it isn't magic anymore, its a ball of fire. At least, that's the way I always saw it.

Hmm, very well, but how about a deflective shield which would encase the users body, preventing harmful effects for a short duration, as opposed to making the body be capable of sustaining such hits.

I have to figure that there is some disadvantage to being able to take hits when compared not receiving them at all.

That's pretty simple to answer. The first, avoiding the hit altogether, is never having taken the hit.

The second, simply cushioning the blow, still has you take the hit. It might not do much damage, but it still hit you.

>>345767
The kind of anti-magic defensive spell that I would want wouldn't defend against fireballs so much as against mental attacks. Mind reading, control, crush, etc. There must be some kind of effective defense against those.

Oh, well that would probably fall under Mind magic. Which, by the way, reminds me that I've classified the groups based on... well, let me just explain.

Magically speaking, every individual has three parts to them:
Body
Mind
Soul

Each part governs one of the three groups of magic. Body for physical, Mind for mental, Soul for the screw reality spells.

That should make it easier to talk about. So when someone is asked and they say they are a Body expert, like Hated, he means he specializes in physical magic.

Anyway, yeah, defending your own mind is entirely possible, but falls under Mind magic.

>>345773
>Specifically to permanent spells so that ID f6360f doesn't go hog wild and have us become untouchable, which, while anyone would love to have, isn't so much fun to narrate. I don't want Hated to become superman.
Way to rain on my parade.

I mean, I see the logic in it. I just immediately went to "look out for number one" as a proper investment of our resources. Powerful enemies calls for powerful defenses, you know?

I live for the chance to destroy your hopes and dreams.

Just in case, I'll put the Tags you've crafted/discovered in this post, so I don't have to clog up the main thread with it.

Tags List:
Project: Allows spells to be hurled, like an arrow or a stone. Costs 2 sparks.
Chain: Allows multiple of the spell to be chained together. Costs 5 sparks.
Area: Increases diameter of effect, and turns some spells that have no diameter into area spells. 5 sparks per 1ft of increase.
Buddy: Allows other people to be included in a friendly spells affects. Costs 10 sparks per person.
Transfer: Allows spells that only affect the caster to be used on someone else. Costs 20 sparks.

Huh. What about for having a spell whose effects cover huge areas, like a set-city-on-fire spell? And what about range limitations? Anything like ritual magic that mitigates spark cost with additional trouble/setup?

>>345782
Good point- pumping more sparks into a spell can make it stronger in a variety of ways; can we make spells cost less by making them weaker or inconvenient in various ways? It seems logical enough to me.

Tell you what. You guys come up with a bunch of ways that one could weaken a spell to reduce the cost, and I'll start including them in the game.

Guess I can think of them as a separate set of tags. Call them demerits, or something along those lines.

>>345782
As for your question about setting entire cities on fire. Assuming when you say city you mean about 10,000-100,000, said spell would fall into a special category you do not have access to at this time. Start getting Hated to practice his magic, and you'll be there in no time, I'm sure.

>>345785
Reduce the following:
-Range (bolt of fire no longer reaches more than a few feet)
-Intensity (bolt of fire becomes less 'burn your face' and more 'light this candle')
-Duration (obvious)
-Activation speed (takes many seconds, minutes, or even hours of power buildup to activate)

Also, a spell could require constant focus from the caster to maintain it throughout its duration instead of merely lasting however long it lasts automatically.

I'm sure other people have ideas for other nerfing mods.

Perhaps Detonation might be an interesting tag. It would allow you to make certain spells, like fireballs, detonate mid flight.

Maybe even create magic items that can be detonated at will. An easy method to force control on prisoners.

Ritual circles and runes because we're saying goodbye to lots of cool art if we don't have a reason for this stuff. Voodoo-dolls of the target to do voodoo-doll things. Two doors shaped the same with corresponding materials (and runes?) to make teleportation work better/longer/cheaper than just casting a normal spell. Scrying pools and crystal balls.

These are some great ideas. I'm working on incorporating them into what I have already, and I'll put all the new rulings/tags/whatever else here when it's all done.

Until then, keep em comin.

Hated 2011/05/02(Mon)20:21 No. 36027 ID: c4753c
File 130439289998.jpg - (193.18KB , 637x876 , BadDepictionofHated.jpg )

I believe someone once asked for a drawing from me. I submit this, a rather bad depiction of Hated as I imagine him. It took me a few days to even get this, so there's no way I'm drawing anything for each post I put up, especially since this is a relatively simple pose to begin with, and I just don't have the time or the artistic skill to draw what I narrate, short of stick figure people. If you all want me to, I can make Demon's Rage full of stick figure drawing though, as that is relatively easy and quick for me to do.

If one can't tell, I drew this by hand, I don't even want to know how badly it would have gone trying to draw it on the computer. Would have been at it for months.

I've been enjoying this quest overall. Honestly, the Spark micromanagement doesn't interest me, but I've no problems with it being in there as I can just gloss over it and focus on the other bits which I enjoy (and others do seem to take a strong interest in it, which is great!).

Hated's overall attitudes toward the world makes him a fun quest protagonist. It's enjoyable watching his interactions with others particularly Sticks and Tongues, and watching him slowly learn to rein in his murderous urges (though those urges're part of what makes him a fun and unusual protagonist!)

>>345852
Well, I'm glad some people enjoying the quest. I've been trying to be more descriptive of what's going on, as it's occurred to me(rather forcibly shoved into my face) that you lot need more than the bare minimum to make decisions and react to situations. Don't be afraid to backhand me a little if you need me to be more descriptive. I wouldn't worry about micromanaging your sparks too much either. I plan for that to become largely irrelevant to everyone but myself soon enough. Hated is supposed to be powerful after all.

Now then, I've got a number of things I wish to propose to you all, in the interest of making the quest both easier on myself and all of you, and more entertaining for all of the aforementioned. I think this is likely going to get very long, so I'll split the posts up to make it easier on everyone.

My first question for debate/consideration is thus: How does everyone here feel about shifting character perspectives? I thought I get everyone's opinions before I attempt/force you to get shoved into other people's heads.

My own contribution(at least in the beginning) is that I'm fairly certain I could handle the shift on my end, although I might require small adjustment periods as I get into the feel of new characters.

Anyway, please give your thoughts, comments, concerns, or marked hatred for the idea so that I know where we as a group stand on the matter.

>>345859
>: How does everyone here feel about shifting character perspectives?

I bet you got the idea from Golem Quest.

Honestly ... I do not really like them. At first it was very novel and interesting experience but later there have been so many, so often of them that the main character feels like secondary.

So, I'm mildly against it.

>>345861
As long as the group sticks together, I say just stay with Hated.

I don't think Tongues is an interesting enough character to hold a perspective, anyhow.

The greatest difficulty is that then they become alt-PCs instead of variables in the world worthy of independent consideration and their loyalty becomes nigh-granted. If the proverbial doppelganger were to sneak in and hide as someone it should be a genuine surprise instead of something we can metagame to figure out.
I would suggest considering temporary perspective shifts to non-aligned or opposed individuals instead but don't overuse that device either.

>>345827
Thanks for that! Honestly, you are better than me. I can't even draw stick people correctly, let alone humanoids, no matter my effort. Being able to express your imagination visually to your readers is a fantastic thing. I agree with you, as it stands it wouldn't be worth the effort to draw things. If you were ever to become a fluent artist the quest would become a lot more interesting. Maybe you could get somebody else to draw for you?

>>345867
Drawquests are slower than their text counterparts, in my opinion.

I'd rather have more words.

Alright, well the question regarding perspective shift can stay open for awhile longer, at least till those who haven't expressed an opinion yet get the chance to do so.

On another note, it seems to be about a good time for our protagonist to change his image so to speak. Thusly, I open this topic up for debate: How should Hated present himself to the world, or rather, how should Vincent(for those of you that don't know, the name Hated is using as a cover) be presented to the world? Barbarian Chief? Wandering Mage-Knight? Something else?

I leave the debate in your capable hands. If you do decide to put forth an idea, describe how, physically, such a persona would look. Hated can, after all, shift his appearance(although it, as always, costs sparks).

>>345859
I am inclined to be against a shift of perspectives. Really though, almost every book does it nowadays and it gets irritating as I just want to know what is happening in the main characters head.

Also, I feel that we would lose our ability to mold Hated's personality or it would be severely reduced if the perspective would be switched.

>>345867
Drawquests are slower than their text counterparts, in my opinion.

I'd rather have more words.

>>345875
I agree

Detailed texts are much better in my opinion.


as what to call our hero?
well, I think that it is something we can determine during the quest and change it whebever we feel thw need to

>>345875
I agree

Detailed texts are much better in my opinion.


as what to call our hero?
well, I think that it is something we can determine during the quest and change it whebever we feel thw need to

>>345859
>How does everyone here feel about shifting character perspectives?
I am generally opposed, unless the main character is for some reason unavailable for an extended period of time in-game or you're starting an entirely separate quest in the same setting.

>How should Hated present himself to the world, or rather, how should Vincent(for those of you that don't know, the name Hated is using as a cover) be presented to the world? Barbarian Chief? Wandering Mage-Knight? Something else?
If I understand the current angle of events correctly, I will be arguing/aiming for Hated to manipulate the barbarian tribes into naming him their god-king and constantly feeding him a horrifyingly massive stream of sparks, which he in turn uses to enchant them with badassness so that they can overrun the world on his behalf and exterminate all the people that he wants exterminated.

So... "barbarian demigod".

I think I am also mildly against the multiple perspectives. It kind of creates immersion to be in the same character's head.

(Tangentially related to image:) Sadly, major body enhancements would make it blatant that we are not just some human mage. If subtlety weren't so useful, I would totally support getting some extra arms for extra punching (and enchantments). (The thought boost from out head enchant could more than make up for the division of attention that usually burdens multi-limb combat.)

>>345880
>If you do decide to put forth an idea, describe how, physically, such a persona would look. Hated can, after all, shift his appearance(although it, as always, costs sparks).
Oh, right. Missed this line. Grow gradually larger and more muscular, until he's about 30% taller and broader than the largest of the barbarian tribes. Fierce and rugged features, reminding one of some kind of noble but incredibly dangerous predatory animal; the face of someone who both takes being in charge as his due and will not hesitate to personally tear out the throat of those who resist him.

I want to say that shirts are not necessary for a man of this sort and we should just go with a bare chest and some kind of awesome fur cloak, but enchantable armor would probably be more practical.

Honestly, kinda starting to hate perspective shifts in Golem Quest, so I wouldn't recommend it here. As for how Hated should portray himself...barbarian god-king sounds good enough for now.

Well, from what I can tell, it seems pretty much decided that perspective shifts won't be happening. Just thought I'd throw it out there just to see how it was taken.

And since your almost to another quest checkpoint anyway(joy fun for everyone), I'll happily answer five more questions you all have, under the same rules as the previous set of questions. One question per person, I reserve the right to say no to a question, so on, so forth. First come, first served.

Also, I'm almost done figuring out a new and (hopefully)better magic system, but I'll be posting that in the quest thread when I'm done with it, as well as here, so absolutely no one can possibly miss it. Should be done tomorrow. I think.

>I can't catch any of it though, so I can only tell the rough reaction to each. ((Said crowd reactions are placed next the name of each candidate))
A point of clarification on this latest post- are those the crowd reactions to Hated's words, or their reactions to the replies of the women he's speaking to? To whom is their approval/anger/whatever directed?

>>345889
How do magic items other than rings work? We have seen that there are magic swords, magic armor, etc. how does that react with the 4 ring limit, and can we make magic items other than rings? Amulets, swords, armor, staves, magic carpets, cloaks?

If this doesn't count as one question I can try to cram it all into one question.

>>345899
I could be evil and count this as a question, but I won't. Those are the crowds reaction to the women. Generally these reactions are expressed when the woman is talking.

>>345901
Very similar to rings in that they generally hold a number of sparks depending on the material used in the construction of said item. Furthermore, magical items other than jewelry can begin developing into full blown artifacts given enough time and used consistently in a particular way. Since that sort of a general answer, ask any specifics you want.

Oh, and anything can be made a magic item really. I'll inform you if for some reason you can't enchant an object.

Will you give bonuses for fanarts?

>>345910
I won't count that as one of the five(now four) questions either.

Sure, but I don't want people doing it just for the sake of some bonus. You should want to draw whatever it is your drawing.

>>345911
Cool.

Oh I might have a question.

If Hated somehow manages to get his junk working and spends a "proper" night with a wife and somehow impregnate her ... would his kid look like a human when born or will a demonic spawn burst out of her belly like a bad rip off Alien?

>>345912
Technically, his "junk" works fine. It's not so much that he can't impregnate a woman, it's that he is incompatible with the women he's tried it with. Like trying to cross a leopard with a zebra or something equally unpleasant. The species doesn't mix. That's also the reason he appears to have no sex drive. A leopard wouldn't see a zebra as attractive, after all. It's the same for Hated regarding mortals. There's a more to the response for this, but it's plot, so I say no more.

As to whether or not any children of his look human or not... depends on what he sleeps with. There's are currently at least one person he could have a kid with, possibly more, I haven't decided yet. I will say that if he were to have a child with said person, they would appear mostly human. Mostly being the operative word.

3 Questions left people!

>Furthermore, magical items other than jewelry can begin developing into full blown artifacts given enough time and used consistently in a particular way.
Other than jewelry? There are no artifact rings/amulets/what have you? It doesn't seem entirely logical to me that there would be anything special about jewelry which would prevent them from ascending to artifact status; what blocks them?

Another proposed magic item for us to make (when we have time for enchanting)

Ring of Shocks
A ring enchanted so it can shoot a long range arc of electricity that is strong enough to stun the target without actually killing them (like a taser).

The advantage this (over some other ranged attack) is that knocking someone unconscious can often be useful (for capturing assassins, for example), and if we want to kill someone we can just stun them than shadow step to them.

>>345926
You using a question for this?

>>345935
Whichever way you care to take it is fine. I'm sure there will be more available questions at some point in the future; they're not a precious resource to be hoarded. And while I might have more questions later, that was the only one I felt like asking at the time.

Alright then. Most magical items become artifacts after being used for long periods of time. All magic items can reach that requirement.

What jewelry lacks is the size to house the artifact's "spirit", so to speak. Artifacts tend to have wills of their own, always trying to drive their owners to do whatever the artifact was used for during its life before awakening. A blade used to slaughter countless innocents will try to drive its owner to slaughter the random people in murderous rampages, for example.

2 questions left.

Are artifacts single-minded in pursuit of their purpose (the sword example making you feel urges to slaughter), or can they develop intelligence (the sword from the example making eloquent arguments in your head on why you really should kill that group of villagers)? Do larger artifacts have more capacity for intelligence (a long sword vs a dagger)?

I'll count that as part of the previous question. Its almost exclusively the first. I say almost exclusively because there are a few artifacts that are granted true sentience, generally by some mage who decides to shove a demon or angel into the thing. Usually the artifact and the being used meld together. Size of an artifact does not affect capacity for intelligence, although it would also limit the demon/angel/spirit that can be shoved into it.

>>345944
>generally by some mage who decides to shove a demon or angel into the thing
So the best way to grant an item intelligence is to shove a thinking creature into it? Can anyone be consigned to life as an artifact, or just certain types of beings?

Technically as long as you possess mind and soul, you can be shoved into an artifact, the artifact substituting for your body. Mortals, however, tend to have issues shoving each other into objects, mostly due to either being to soft and sentimental to try it, or because they can't figure out how to get rid of the body without killing the mind and soul.

Demons and other beings from outside the mortal realm are therefor much easier to mess around with, without the "you've committed blasphemy" stick being brought down on a person's head. The reason for that will require a question be used. So yes, f6360f, your going to need someone who hasn't asked a question yet to ask for you.

>But try to get the debating over into the discussion thread, it would be nice to not have a long post full of nothing but arguments here.
Not everyone reads the disc. While long-term plans and anticipated decisions which haven't yet come up can be effectively hashed out here, anything which is expected to be resolved in the next post effectively has to be debated in the quest thread proper. No one wants to write up a compelling and persuasive argument only to be outvoted because no one saw the damn thing.

Makes sense I suppose. I must admit I'm relatively new to the site, so forgive me for any random facts I haven't quite picked up on.

Anyway, you might want to think about planning out your invasion of Everfrost. I will be taking good strategy into account, so you better have a plan before hurling yourselves into it. Although again, I suppose that is the barbarian way. And Hated's way, now that I think about it. Never mind, don't plan. Although I'll put up a (hand drawn)map for you so you can actually show me how you want this to go. Or at least where you want the army to go. Should come later though.

>>345960
We know virtually nothing about Everfrost at the moment, aside from the fact that it is a kingdom, is presumably made up of cities much like Rivercross. It also has a royal line that we need to exterminate, and apparently lets its mages become petty criminals. Planning an invasion would be... difficult.

At some point Hated will need to get significant amounts of intelligence on his target nation; its geography so that we can plan out a decent invasion route, its economics so that we know what areas are valuable, its military so that we know what areas are weak, its royal line so that we can use a genealogy to track down every last member. Reading a history book probably wouldn't hurt. That said, while every opportunity should be taken to learn about them... odds are we'll still end up going in mostly blind. These things happen. Our army of magi-barbarians and our own divine might will power through.


Also, it occurs to me that with his mental booster spell Hated can probably read books in only slightly more time than it takes to turn the pages. It must be a real bitch to translate that old tome if it'll really take a whole month.

>>345960
Eh

I dony want to attack the place before we unite the tribes, make shitload of enchantments for our warriors and their equipment, translate the book, get ton of sparks, etc

maybe it is better to not include the war in the timeskip

>>345987
Honestly, I'm not sure how necessary significant timeskips are at all. Isn't it generally better to play through whatever's going on? Skip too much and we'll end up hitting nothing but the highlights of Hated's life. I can understand it in some situations (anything monotonous), but when things are actually going on and Hated is actively reacting to things and making decisions... skipping that seems like it's a waste of a great deal of the story's potential. Something like having just taken over a tribe- that's an instant social morass that Hated isn't equipped to handle at all; skipping over the first days of his rulership seems crazy. His personality is still likely to get him into tons of trouble. Handwaving it all as 'oh, you rule for a while and then things are like this' is glossing over a lot of potentially interesting character development.

But apparently it's what we're doing, or at least heading towards. So... we'll see how it works out, I guess.

The time skip isn't including the war. It does include him running around beating people into the dirt, but there really isn't any tribe chieftains who can stand up to him anymore. Most of the reason I'm even doing a time skip is to dodge having to do the same thing over and over. There really isn't anything Hated has to react to. The barbarians are basically just going to keep doing what they did before, right up until you lead them into Everfrost.

Since everyone seems a little opposed to it though, I'll make the skip smaller. I just wanted to use the skip for something else as well.

>>345994
>There really isn't anything Hated has to react to.
Certainly that's true as far as big matters go- our path to conquest seems a fairly clear one, and there's little we know of that will be able to stand in our way. But large changes in the state of the world tend to be made of small, relatively insignificant details.

Hated could be seen by the tribes as an overpowered tyrant they can't escape or the destined divine leader who will bring them to glory, depending upon how he manages the details of how he goes about conquering and ruling them. He could end up surrounded by loyal advisers who give their all to see his will done and would die for him in an eyeblink, or essentially alone except when he demands someone's presence and stuck with everyone doing the minimum that they can get away with to not piss him off and be executed.

I, at least, think that trying to manage that would be an interesting thing to play through. But we certainly don't have to.

Hmmm... true enough... I'll think on that today, I might have a different way to do it, or at least reduce the amount of time you are not talking in his ear and giving advice.

>>345996
that's why OP said to give some directions and pointers before the timeskip .... so yeah, write all your worries in the thread proper as advice for Hated.

>>345997
It really depends on the situation. Sometimes long skips which can take even years are appropriate. Sometimes short skips which go only few days.

Alright, how about this. Instead of doing a large time skip, we jump from week to week, going more in depth for any major points/event that you guys would need to advise him on.

That sound good?

>>346003
Honestly, I'm finewith both.
As long as you don't forgoe details and character development.

My take is, do whatever feels rightfor you ... if the players feel like you should do things differently, I'm sure they will voice their opinions

>>346003
Sounds reasonable. For the most part I have a "it's about the journey, not the destination" attitude towards this kind of thing, which is why I generally prefer to avoid timeskips unless literally nothing which is not repetitive and boring is happening, but if you want the quest to be about major events happening over months and years obviously you can't show everything. In a case like this, conquering the tribes might be boring in terms of its actual mechanics- but that's only the backdrop to the interesting thing, which is our trying to shift Hated from a blunt, sociopathic, and sadistic loner into a capable and manipulative warlord- and at the same time, trying to get his new followers to overlook his myriad personal flaws and consider him someone worthy of their wholehearted support, which is almost certainly not going to be easy or simple. But character interaction and development like this is rarely boring.

Timeskips of a week at a time with detailed scenes for anything important are probably about as fast as you could move the game forward while maintaining significant character development rather than glossing over everything completely. Personally I suspect that the first few days of Hated being in charge will be baffling and difficult for him and potentially very dismaying to the tribe as they learn about their new chieftain's bizarre personality, and I would want to see much of it in order to handle damage control, but we'll see how it goes.

I guess that you as the person writing the quest are more interested in a fast-paced macro game at this point? That's mostly my guess based on something like >>/quest/301656 where you completely glossed over Hated being briefed in things like what exactly the chieftain's powers/responsibilities in the tribe are and who else has significant authority which would be rather essential to any attempt at careful management. If that's the case, it should probably be made clear- based upon what we'd done so far my expectation was that we would continue handling Hated's life on a micro basis, and on a micro scale 'how to take over the barbarian tribes effectively' is a huge and potentially fascinating storyline.


I think I'm rambling here so I'll stop now.

I'm actually fine either way, but I always second guessing myself when it comes to questions such as whether I'm going too fast or too slow. This method should help to keep things clear. I intentionally skipped the first three days of his effective rule, think of it as you guys getting dragged off to witness the foreshadowing, but you'll all have the next few days to "train" Hated in how he should be acting. It helps him, though, that he tends to be violent. The barbarians in this particular tribe thrive based solely off of strength, mostly because they are relatively small. I'll try to keep you preference for micro-scale in mind and slow myself accordingly.

>>345948
>The reason for that will require a question be used.

Since no one is asking any more questions, I'll go for second one.
Now tell the reason for that.

Alright then. You may have asked a question already, but it's been long enough that it shouldn't matter. Questions open to everyone again(although you only have two).

In this case, demons/angels/etc. are part of their own world. There lies a very powerful barrier between the worlds that prevents a being from one passing over to another. Demons have circumnavigated this barrier by leaving behind their bodies. Whoever made the thing(I'll save you the trouble asking and simply say it's unimportant who did it) didn't key the things to souls or minds, only the bodies. Thus, when demons leave behind their bodies, they still have their mind and soul intact on the other side. Not much use really, as they can't do anything without a body, which is where possession and demonic contracts come in. Angels and other beings perform similar bargains, although they generally don't cross over quite as much as demons do.

If you have time to draw one, could we have a map of the surrounding area of our new tribe (with things like the gold / iron deposits and the borders with neighboring countries)?

Also, are Angels / Demons affiliated with any particular god / pantheon?

Demons are unassociated with anything other than some unknown group calling itself the Lords of Chaos. Other then that they are almost purely out for themselves, and take every opportunity to screw with the mortal world.

Angels are almost exclusively affiliated with one god or another. They are not specifically good or evil, and therefore are not specifically against the demons. They effectively don't care about anything unless the god they follow tells them to care, or whatever it is threatens their god.

That's it for question time at the moment, although your free to ask questions all you want. I just don't have to answer them with how they actually work.

>>346067
I'm actually working on it as we speak(type). I'll be sure to add what you requested however. The map will be given to you when Sticks gets back.

If you have a telekinesis enchant on your hand and then wear a glove granting telekinesis, do the strengths of the enchantments add together, or can you lift two things at once, or do they not work together?

>>346230
I wonder if we could have some kind of "Spectral Hands" spell or enchantment, or a custom made spell using telekineses and some other spells.
Dozen or so hands coming out of Hated, each about 15ft long. Then use those hands to connect with the mages so that we can transfer Sparks from a whole bunch at once.

Well I was thinking more about using enemies to bludgeon other enemies from a distance in battle, but that would be useful too. Seem like getting sparks would be a different enchantment from telekinesis though.

>>346232
Technically this is still not physically touching someone. More like the way a ghost touches someone than an actual person. Thus, sparks could not be given through these hands. Nice idea though, might end up stealing it...

>>346230
The two enchantments wouldn't stack. Whichever is stronger takes the lead. If you said glove on your other hand though, then yes, you could manipulated two things at once.

About the stone / metal spell, some questions:
* With metal being much tougher (and generally useful) than stone, does it take more sparks per mass to summon and manipulate?
* If we make an enchantment to summon metal (or stone I guess), does it eventually disappear after being summoned, or can this be used to produce resources? (If it is too easy to get persistent metal that makes mining a bit obsolete.)
* If metal magic can summon persistent metal, can that metal be enchanted like naturally occurring metal of the same type?

To answer your questions in order:
Yes, it disintegrates relatively quickly, and no.

In explanation, what the magic is actually doing is taking particles out of the air and slamming them together into the desired material. Somewhat like a temporary enchantment being placed on an object. Once the magic wears off, the objects falls back into the particles it was made up off. Since magic isn't very well understood, relatively speaking, and since the existence of tiny particles hasn't been even thought of yet, everyone just thinks the magic pulls things out of thin air. Although you can do that as well, for a much higher cost.

Can spells like the metal spell can also be used to control (non magically protected) preexisting materials? For example, shaping a hole in a stone wall or making a crude spear out of a metal bar. (Of course, knowledge and skill would still be needed for making things of a decent quality such as architecturally sound buildings or well made swords)

Yup. If its already there, you just don't have to rip it out of "nowhere".

With a 100 point stonebending enchantment, could we make a pillar of stone rise out of the ground to fling our self into the air? (And is Hated currently tough enough to do that without injuring or stunning himself with each jump?)

>>346382
This strikes me as a fairly ridiculous use of a stone shaping power. Telekinesis or simply a direct flight power would be much more suited for getting into the sky, if for some reason we needed to. And honestly I cannot think of that many reasons we would need to get into the sky at all- the list starts and ends with "flying enemies", who we could more than likely blast down with ranged attack spells anyway.

> This strikes me as a fairly ridiculous use of a stone shaping power.
Before committing to a power, it is a good idea to see how much utility you can wring out of it. We are likely to have only one of telekinesis or stonebending at a very strong level, so it is important to decide how much we can do with each.

> And honestly I cannot think of that many reasons we would need to get into the sky at all
It's not about getting into the air as much as it is about moving very quickly. To launch our self forward very quickly when there are no convenient shadows, and potentially launch our self into an enemy like a living cannonball.

On that note, do you keep your velocity when you shadowstep?

>>346382
This is perfectly feasible, although depending on how hard Hated launches himself, he could some out of it in bad shape. A few spells can easily soften his landing though, so your safe as far as this goes.

>On that note, do you keep your velocity when you shadowstep?
I've thought about this a lot, and yes, one can keep their velocity. You are technically stepping from one place to another. So similarly, you could potentially launch yourself from one place to another in a similar fashion.

With the shadowstep/velocity thing, there is very useful stuff you can do wither way. If you loose the velocity, you can use it to quickly and safely land, but if you keep the velocity you can launch yourself then teleport next to an enemy and crash into them with quite a bit of force.

>>346398
Now you're thinking with portals!

>>/quest/304013
>((I would simply like to point out that I am laughing right now, as you've all assumed that Sticks was the only spy... well, one must accept the consequences for their suggestions.))
I don't think that any of us assumed that she was the only spy. I, at least, assumed that she was one of many but a representative sample of the quality of elven spies, i.e. very poor.

>>346394
>It's not about getting into the air as much as it is about moving very quickly.
If we need to move very quickly, we already have a huge strength boost (and stronger muscles pushing the same amount of weight->faster movement), can certainly enchant ourselves for speed as well, and have nothing whatsoever stopping us from creating shadows and thereby making use of our shadow step. While we may well be able to create a substance and subsequently move it around quickly enough to give us substantial velocity, that's a ridiculously circuitous way of accomplishing something simple and taking the circuitous route usually means wasting most of your power.

> ridiculously circuitous way of accomplishing something simple and taking the circuitous route usually means wasting most of your power.
You do realize that if we decide to get an earthbending enchantment, we can cast it as much as we want without 'wasting' power. (And also, we can always add strength-jumping with rock propulsion to go even faster (provided we have spells for landing without splatting))

And another misc question:
Can rituals be run off of multiple people with spell-enchantments, or do they only apply for spark-spending spells?

>>346406
>You do realize that if we decide to get an earthbending enchantment, we can cast it as much as we want without 'wasting' power.
I used "waste" in the sense of "waste heat" here, that is, referencing emergent efficiency losses. Using a 100-spark power for something it is ill adapted to do will result in a result which we could probably achieve with only five or ten sparks if we just used an ability actually suited for our objective- for example, in the case of moving quickly, we can move at many hundreds of miles an hour with our 100-spark shadow step. I would be utterly shocked if this stone shaping work around could let us break thirty or forty for consistent motion on a 100-spark enchantment.

> for example, in the case of moving quickly, we can move at many hundreds of miles an hour with our 100-spark shadow step.
Shadow step can move us quickly between shadows, but it can't give us velocity, which is useful in combat. Besides, this isn't the main reason I am looking at earthbending as a candidate; it is just one of numerous uses. Kind of like comparing an axe and a sword and noting the axe is better at breaking down doors. Both telekinesis and earthbending are useful for fighting, so comparing minor uses is relevant.

>Can rituals be run off of multiple people with spell-enchantments, or do they only apply for spark-spending spells?
If one had the appropriate spells handy, yes. But enchantments are somewhat limited in the magnitudes they can pull off, given that only a hundred sparks could be shoved through an enchantment. Not that it matters for most mages, since they rarely get that strong anyway.

So mages are better at rituals and more versatile at them, but enchantments can operate rituals. That is useful to know, because (with our current tech level) we can mass produce Spellhands (the term I have decided on for enchantment users) but not mass produce mages.

Can you list the scrying type spells that Hated knows? Examples would include whatever we used to look for ore, and other spells to collect information (particularly visual) from a distance.

Also, is the production of Spellhands common practice in nations with mages?

>>346509
Is it absolutely necessary that you attempt to add randomly capitalized nouns to the game's lexicon?

Not to mention that "spellhands" is a ridiculous word to choose when we're not enchanting their hands, at least most of the time. To me the word "spellhand" sounds like it should refer to someone with specifically their hands enchanted, probably with some kind of offensive or manipulative effect. But either way, why not save coming up with new terms for after we either start using standardized enchantment loadouts or create specific ranks/organizations? In either case, there would be significantly more purpose in having a new term to use. Right now we don't need one, particularly since the game world has obviously gotten by for thousands of years without one in spite of having them be pretty damned common.

Well we want SOME term that is less clunky than "those guys who aren't mages but use enchantments". (And most of the spells I was thinking of are applied to the hands, for ease of magical projection or manipulation.) I think we are at least planning some standard setups, like the mobile artillery crews I proposed.

Alright, here we go.

Eagle Eye: Sharpens ones eyesight over long distances.

Feelers: The caster extends metaphysical "feelers" into the area around him, allowing him to feel through nearly any non-magical substance. Every substance has a distinct "feel" to it.

To tell the truth, Hated doesn't have that many. Most fall into Mind or Soul magic, and he can't do either nearly as well as he can Body. As it is, information gathering tends to be mostly Mind magic, with scrying and things like that dealing mostly with mental aspects than anything else.

As for the "Spellhands", as your calling them, depends on the group/nation. I will say that Everfrost doesn't use them extensively, although they do have a few areas in which they are used.

>>346517
The phrase "enchanted warrior" is not cumbersome enough that it needs replacement, particularly since the secondary noun can be replaced as necessary (i.e. "enchanted scout", "enchanted shaman").

If we have standard setups, then we can come up with specific terms for those setups. Saying "spellhand with artillery abilities" is just about as clunky as saying "shaman enchanted with artillery magic"; why bother with the intermediate word? Come up with a specific term to reference our artillery-people and use that. Ditto for any other significant classes that we enchant. When referencing everyone that we've enchanted as a whole, our current terminology is perfectly capable of handling the problem.

>>346519
>Feelers: The caster extends metaphysical "feelers" into the area around him, allowing him to feel through nearly any non-magical substance. Every substance has a distinct "feel" to it.
What kind of range can the caster get on this?

Ok, I think I like the term 'enchanted' (as a noun) better then my attempt. More descriptive, and still short. So a soldier who's main weapon is a hand enchant that throws lightning bolts would be a 'lightning enchanted'. (And also an example of why we want some kind of term, as that is somewhat harder to describe otherwise.)

So I suppose with the artillery enchanted, we will want to wait until we have a better vision spell. The feelers sounds rather limited over artillery-scale ranges, and for eagle vision to be useful for artillery the scout would need to fly, which would be expensive and visible. (The vague kind I am hoping for is the ability to look down on things from an aerial view point without actually needing to fly.) We should add sight spells to the list of things to try to get from the elves.

2011/05/15(Sun)13:18 No. 36732 ID: 120db2
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>>346523
>Lightning Enchanted
>FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Oh wow, that brings back memories... I remember how you would occasionally get a lightning enchanted boss with multi-shot, who would just fill the screen with bolts... fun times.

>What kind of range can the caster get on this?
Depends on the amount of power shoved into the spell. It's fairly basic and cheap though, so even when it covers large amounts of ground, it remains really cheap.

>>346532
Curse you! Now I have to go play that game for the rest of the day.

So am I getting the right general idea in thinking that a high point 'feelers' enchantment could give you a vague map of the the general area, including knowing where people are? Also, can you feel magic with it, and what can you tell about a person you sense by their 'feel'?

I'll save you the trouble of (re-)discovering this: You get more stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff, and you run out of room for stuff so you have to sell some of it, and then get more stuff, and then regret how you spent your skill and stat points.

That is kind of like describing it as "you beat up things and take their stuff". (Except for the regretting part, which most games don't have.)

>>346555
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

(For reference: I'm thinking that feelers+telekinesis->squishing people we can only see with crazy psychic vision. Like bugs.)

>>346555
It would give a vague map of what in the area, as well as the general location of the various substances. It's not a very good tracking spell, mostly used to roughly look at mineral contents of an area and figure out where to start digging. Magic is detectable through the feelers, but in the same generally vague sense in that you know someone in that area happens to have magic. You could determine the strength of the magical ability as well. As for what you can tell about a person, you can tell that they are standing in that area... that's really it. Like I said, very basic. AKA it sucks in every definition of the word.

>>346560
And I'm going to say no to this right now. One can not use metaphysical feelers to project spells across. Especially when those feelers are giving only vague feelings about things. You wouldn't be able to target a specific person anyway.

>>346562
Aw. That's no fun at all. Crushing people without ever really seeing them or knowing who they are is one of the best abuses of power, because it means that you genuinely don't care.

And as far as projecting spells- why would we need to move the spells across it? All we need is basic targeting data, and then the attack spell's own range can handle the rest. Just like we don't need to "project spells across" our eyes when targeting by sight.

Are there rituals to create a sustained beam rather than a single large blast? I ask because the following occurs to me:
Everfrost's large numbers are mostly melee infantry.
Melee infantry more or less have to attack with human wave tactics (aka zerg rush).
Effective automatic weapons make human wave tactics mostly obsolete.
Sustained beam weapons are a fairly good approximation of a automatic weapon.

Also, is it cheating to tell Hated about a fairly simple idea that is probably beyond the world's tech level but useful it he knows it?
By which I mean putting together iron, summoned iron and high voltages with a bit of physics to create a coilgun (similar to the better known railgun). (I am thinking of a nice, large two person one, with one person using aiming enchants and lighting to aim and create the circuit, and the second person using strength and metalbending enchantments to carry the weight of the gun and to load it with summoned bolts.)

>>346565
I'll put it this way then. I simply enjoy crushing your hopes and dreams. To be more realistic, I'd simply say Hated's telekinetic spells can't reach that far, and you have to target something more than a vague feeling to actually do something with them.

>>346581
Hated doesn't know any, thus you don't know any. It is hypothetically possible to make a ritual for sustained beams, although you'd need a way to understand how to make one before attempting it. A ritual I mean.

As for the jump in tech(sorta), I don't care what you try to get Hated to do, but he might not understand things, or simply take what you said and apply it the wrong way. Some concepts are beyond him after all, as science tends to build on things that came before it. But yes, if you could explain what you wanted Hated to do well enough, you could make a coilgun.

The nice thing about a coilgun is that it (a basic version at least) is fairly simple once you have a strong power source (which we do with lightning enchanted). It is just long insulated wire wrapped tightly around a tube. You just load it with an iron bolt and run a strong current through the wire while aiming it. When you can shoot lightning from your hands it is actually less trouble than fooling around with saltpeter and such. Maybe I will make a diagram and explanation and propose it in the main thread.

>>346581
We don't actually need rituals for sustained beams to replicate automatic weaponry. Virtually any weapon can be effectively imitated using the enchantments that we currently have available.

To create any kind of automatic weapon, we'd just have to use the "chain" upgrade which allows weapons to be used in quick succession. Yes, it would have limits... but automatic weapons have downtime for changing clips and such, too. Here's an example:

Fire enchant (2 base) with projection (2), chainx6 (30), areax10 (50), and either some kind of range boost, cooldown reduction, or intensity booster with the rest.

If they stagger fire, that's enough continuous firepower to basically annihilate armies of conventional troops. We can obviously play with the numbers a bit more if we want- to vary the essential effect between what's effectively an automatic grenade launcher as we have here to something more like a machine gun (more chain, less area) or a mortar (less chain, more range, area, and intensity).

Hmm... I guess we need to compare the efficiency between a coilgun and a strong earth enchantment. About how hard can a 100 spark earth enchantment sling a metal bolt (and how often could it fling bolts at that strength?)

>>346635
>About how hard can a 100 spark earth enchantment sling a metal bolt (and how often could it fling bolts at that strength?)
That is, obviously, entirely dependent upon what modifiers you use those 100 sparks for. The spell system here is modular, remember? More chain modifiers-> fire faster. More area modifiers-> larger projectile. More intensity modifiers->fire faster/better projectile. The same 100 sparks using the same base enchantment could produce very different results depending upon how those sparks were allocated.

True... I am wondering whether a coilgun is worth the effort or if you can get more efficiency out of just slinging metal with your mind. If we were to put all 100 points in intensity, how hard/often would that be able to throw bolts. (I am thinking we want a very strong/long range projectile to snipe the enemy mages)

You would have a rock about the size of a pebble, which would rocket out at roughly the speed one could get out of a modern day rifle. More or less. Won't be anywhere near as accurate though, unless you have some sort of long distance sighting thing and a way to aim the rock better than just "in that direction". Rifles have straight barrels after all, while the rock would not.

Hmm, I think that suggests that a coilgun would indeed be a worthwhile invention. Apart from the item itself, the operator (for a single person version) would need a fairly minor earth enchant (to summon iron bolts for ammo) and a fairly large lightning enchant (to provide a power supply to the circuit. That should get us a comparable velocity with a metal bolt rather than a pebble and a highly increased ability to aim (due to having a barrel).

>>346654
If we want a sniper weapon, why not cut out the middleman of mucking about with objects, and just get an eagle eye enchantment coupled with a long-range, high-power telekinesis spell. See target, point, crush target. Reliable and easy.

How much points in telekinesis would it take to kill someone at the same range as the 100 point pebble previously mentioned?

Also, can you summon stone / metal / potentially other stuff on the other side of a grating from your hand?

>>346676
Hmmm.... well, I suppose we could use project for it, but that's just not fun at all. So I would say, the more intensity you put into the thing, the longer the range and the heavier the things you can manipulate with it. So basically, intensify the spell as much as you can. If you used all the points in intensity though, then if would only affect one person at a time.

As for summoning rocks, they would appear a few inches away from Hated's hand, give or take. Usually this would be followed by landing in Hated's hand, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

>Also, can you summon stone / metal / potentially other stuff on the other side of a grating from your hand?
>As for summoning rocks, they would appear a few inches away from Hated's hand, give or take. Usually this would be followed by landing in Hated's hand, but it doesn't necessarily have to.
Presumably this is also boostable. That is, if we build a spell to the purpose, we could summon a very large rock right above someone else's head a few hundred feet away. Likewise, we could build a fire spell so that the flame simply appears at the destination instead of requiring us to project it to its destination.

Summoning a large rock above someone sounds fairly inefficient. Even if it is heavy it would still take time to accelerate downwards. A smaller stone or metal spear with a high initial velocity might work though.

>>346690
You would presume correctly. Although of course, costs blah blah blah.

You guys get the picture by now, I'm sure.

With telekinetic spells, do they lift an object uniformly or do they project an area of force? If it is an area, can you change the size/shape of the area the force is distributed over? (ex, a large sheet of diluted force to pick up and throw a large amount of dust from the ground, or a small point of concentrated force to puncture things with)

They start as the first, affecting one object, but could be expanded to fit an area of objects. The power level would be spread evenly among any targeted object within the field, so while you'd normally be able to move, say, a single large boulder, if you use the area tag on it and target two objects within the field, each would have half the power the single boulder did.

Although there are probably numerous other ways one could think up that woul allow affecting of multiple targets at once. Maybe that's a call for a new tag. Have to think on that.

Is the point of reference for Telekinesis your hand, your head, or the ground?
Example: You are on a galloping horse and use telekinesis lift a nearby boulder. While just lifting the boulder without actively moving it, does the boulder travel alongside your or hover in place relative to the ground?
If the boulder moves along with you, does swinging your hand around swing the boulder (as if it were on an invisible stick attached to your hand), or does it stay in place relative to your center of mass?

>>346960
There can be no connection between the source of any telekinetic ability and its point of occurrence. If there is a connection, then the laws of physics begin to apply, which has bizarre effects for the telekinetic- if you've read Mistborn, that's the sort of thing that you have to deal with.

Telekinetic abilities have to essentially generate kinetic energy with no opposite reaction and no link to any other point in order to function as they're generally displayed in fiction.

>>346961
True, I got myself somewhat confused.
Things get really crazy (awesome, but still crazy) when you start having equal and opposite reactions. You would get do do things like fly by pushing air downwards, but start needing to anchor yourself to the ground (and get the magic equivalent of a powered exoskeleton) to throw heavy objects around. I am want to read that Mistborn book now.

>>346987
Said boulder would be manipulated independent of Hated's body. Essentially, he could walk around however much he wanted, and as long as he never told the boulder to move, said boulder would stay exactly where he left it.

No equal and opposite reactions either, so no need to worry about backlash from lifting objects.

Some more questions:
1. Considering that Force = Mass x Acceleration, how much do strength enchantments benefit speed or vise versa? How do they end up comparing to each other? (Ex; stronger legs can propel the same body faster, and a faster fist of the same mass has more momentum so it hits harder.)

2. For a telekinesis spell stored in the hand, do you need to be able to aim that hand at an object to affect it? (Ex; if someone is grabbing your enchanted hand, can you still lift someone on the other side of you?)

3. Can an item be enchanted to change its own shape? (Ex, an enchanted gauntlet that can redistribute its mass to make spikes and such)

1) They don't at all. They simply multiply the force being applied to whatever. You throw a punch, punch connects, the force is multiplied to add more "strength" to it. That's why there is the need for a speed spell to begin with. Although, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could have Hated research a way to combine the two. Anyway, the multiplier method is used because the amount of force applied caused massive backlash and tended to shatter people's arms.

2) The answer is no and yes respectively. The hand would be where the spell is channeled/activated, but aiming with telekinesis is still done through the mind. After all, that's what telekinesis is.

3) Essentially a morphic weapon. Yes, but it requires certain types of metals that are pliable enough to actually be manipulated in such a manner without breaking. Dwarves have most of said metals, although the humans have access to small amounts of it as well. The Everfrost and Seven Shadows humans, not the barbarians. Morphic metals, as they are generally referred, tend to be really cheap though, as there really isn't much use for them in day to day life, and weapons constructed of them tend to be flexible and thus dwarves don't use them much. They prefer solid weapons they can smash into things.

I don't think I answered that first one really well. Let's see...

So, at the moment, when Hated punches someone, he feels like he punched someone with the normal amount of force. The person being punched, however, feels a much larger amount of force, because the strength enchantment multiplies the amount of force the opponent is experiencing. Similarly, if Hated lifted an object, he would feel only a small amount of strain, compared to the massive amount of force the object experiences. This allows objects such as massive boulders and the like to be lifted, and men to be punched through walls, while preventing Hated's bones from shattering upon contact with the person or the lifting of the object.

Oh, so the 'strength' enchant actually multiplies the force exerted on objects the user tougher rather than actually increasing their strength (making the muscles more effective like I had thought).
How does the speed enchant work? (Just making the object move faster or selectively changing time flow would increase an object's momentum {and therefore impact force, if likely to a lesser extent than with pure force enchant}, though I suppose you could do something with temporarily lowering its mass).

With morphic weapons, is anything you shape out of them (like a blade) as soft as the metal would naturally be, or does the enchantment that changes its shape also hold the metal in the desired shape? (And if a morphic weapon is broken into two parts, can it re-form itself?)

I really like being able to talk (and scheme) about the mechanics of magical systems <3

>>307953
A fire needs some sort of fuel as well as heat and oxygen. To have a fireball be throw-able you need to either have a temporary enchantment that continuously generates flames or a summoned fuel source (mage-napalm or something).

Also, if you grip an entire region of air and spin it, wouldn't only the outer surface of that area experience friction? (The rest are next to particles being moved with the same force they are).

>>347072
Give me some time to think about the speed spell(not that I haven't been thinking about it already). I'm working on explaining this, but it's taking some time.

As for the morphic weapons, the enchantment used tends to be paired with one that can be toggled to hold the metal in the specific form you made it morph into. This means that one could coax the metal in the form of a sword, toggle the "hardening" enchantment to make it hold that form, kill with it, toggle the "hardening" enchantment again, form the metal into some other, visibly non-lethal form, and simply walk away from a crime scene.

As for if morphic metals automatically stick themselves back together, no, the don't. At least, not without a little magical nudge. Simply pouring a few sparks(about 10-20, depending on the size of the object) will cause the metal to reform itself into the last solid form it had, as long as all the pieces are within a few feet of each other.

Just to clarify for everyone, Hated could not grip a region of particles with telekinesis and spin it to produce fire. He doesn't know what a particle is, nor does he know about any other form of tiny building block of the universe. For all intents and purposes, they do not exist.

Some more questions about morphic weapons:
If we make a large gautnlet out of aluminum or something (flexible and very light, rare at lower tech levels but it still exists), could we reliably grab most magic swords in mid swing?

And can morphic weapons more with enough force to do damage in either of these two ways?
A) Stab a heavily armored target with a thin blade and then forcibly expand it to attack them from the inside
B) Shift the weapon forwards as you swing it to add the velocity of the shifting weapon to the velocity of your swing. (A similar concept to how flails work, except you have direct control over its movements as opposed to a flail's lack of control)

You could grab other weapons with the gauntlet, although I'm not quite sure what you mean by grab magic weapons midswing. If you mean what I think you mean, then it would also depend on the enchantment in said magic weapon. It could, for instance, be enchanted to cut through most metals, in which case, you'd be out of luck, assuming you didn't counter that in some way.

As to the two ways of adding force you've described, they both work. Takes some sparks to get them to do it, but they are both usable.

By 'needing sparks to do it' do you mean the enchantment costs more sparks, or each use uses up sparks like casting a spell?

Yes, by 'grabbing mid swing' I did mean grabbing a sword by the blade (if you have the strength/reflexes to do it {which with most enemies we would} it gives you an advantage over dodging or parrying).
Does resisting damage from cutting-enchanted blades need a specific enchantment, or does a general durability enchantment work for that? (And are such durability enchantments compatible with morphing?)

The first, it's basically toggling and messing with the items form, just doing it very quickly to add force. Although I'd like to point out that you would likely have to use telekinesis in order to actually manipulate the metal to begin with, or the stone/metal controlling spell. Resisting damage would be impossible for the morphic weapon to perform when it's in its malleable state, but when its toggled to harden, depending on the strength hardening enchantment, it would then be able to resist said cutting powers. Basically, the hardening spell acts as a durability spell as well.

Ah, I have an answer regarding the speed spell as well. After thinking about it awhile, it actually works almost exactly the same as the strengthening spell, only it focuses the multiplier on the force being placed on the arm, instead of on another person. While this does in fact lend more power to attacks against enemies, this has the side effect of placing a good deal of strain on the persons actual body. Most mortal bodies can't handle the sudden increase of force being placed on it, so the speed spell is used rarely, especially when there are other spells that can produce similar results without the potential to break the caster's bones.

>>347720
By similar effects, you mean strength enhancing effects or speed enhancing effects?

Strength enhancing effects through the simple strength spell, while the speed effects(more specifically the ability to move from one place to another quickly) through spells like shadow-stepping, teleportation or other such effects. Why almost break your own bones when you can simply step from place to place is the general idea held by most.

Does the fact that Hated seems to recognize everything after 4000 years of imprisonment mean that there has been
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis
going on? Or is Everfrost a relatively backwater kingdom?
(And if there has been stasis, what exactly have they been doing in those universities of magic for all those centuries? Developing Duke Nukem Forever 2?)

Hated spent most of his time in the Endless Plains. They don't have magical institutes there. The tribes hadn't seen a need to change, because they were living well enough. The changes that did happen were not of a major kind(not to Hated anyway). Mostly just changing of tribe names or other such cosmetic(to Hated) changes.

Most major changes happened elsewhere. Magically speaking, humans have been trying various things, some more successful than others. You'll find some of those when you attack, I'm sure. Rituals are the most recent focus of magical research, but I think I'll leave it at that.

Say does anyone have a list of enchantments and useful items on hated? I'd like to keep an up to date list but din't think to take notes while reading the thread.

>>348891
He's got mind speed, shadow step, building persuasiveness/mind control, physical durability, and physical strength enchantments on his person, plus an enchanted ring that lets him go ethereal briefly. He also has his artifact helm.

I think that's it, but I may have missed something.

>>348897
You did miss one, but by no real fault of your own as it was only briefly mentioned. The skull belt he took from Urthan is enchanted to spew fire on command, but it's never been used yet, as even I've tended to forget it existed.

Oops, forgot that questions on stuff we can do belong in this thread.

So, on the subject of questions, do we have an enchantment to put on projectile weapons that effects projectiles launched? If so, how would it effect a weapon that launches multiple projectiles at once? (I have an amusing idea involving a slightly modified ballista and summoned shards of metal.)

>>349916
Technically, a projectile itself has to be enchanted for any effect to happen. The weapon projecting the projectile won't add an effect to a projectile. Example: A bow enchanted with ice firing an arrow will not add an ice enchantment to the arrow. If you start bashing someone in the head with the bow for whatever reason, the ice enchantment will go off, but any arrow must be individually enchanted. Otherwise you'd somehow have to treat the bow as an instant enchantment device, which is possible, if you want to work at building an artifact that does that. Besides, with mages, it is so much easier just to throw a fireball at someone then try to make a bow for the same purpose.

>>350126
So you couldn't easily make a bow that lights its arrows on fire, but you could easily make a bow that shoots fireballs which just happen to have arrow-like trajectories. Correct?

Why yes, you could in fact make a bow that fires fireballs that happen to have arrow like trajectories. Or fireballs that do not, in fact, have arrow like trajectories. Why keep the trajectories, when you have magic that screws over the laws of physics and every other scientific law it can get it's hands on.

>>350131
Mostly because by providing a ballistic trajectory for the projectiles of an enchanted object in the shape of a bow you can make it highly intuitive for anyone familiar with bows to pick up and use. Also, the lowest-spark form of fireball seems to involve a motion-from-point-of-origin component based upon what we've seen so far, so obviously it's the most economical to have a trajectory of some kind. The item can only hold so many sparks, after all.

>>350126
Hmm...
Can you have a weapon with the force enchantment (or would the enchantment cancel out by making the weapon harder to move as much as it increases the force? (And how would that work if wielded by someone with a force enchant?)
If you can make a force enchanted weapon, can you apply it to a bowstring or such?

About fireballs, do those have explosive components, or is that just the explosion spell?
With explosions, it occurs to me (based on the amount of gunpowder used in one gunshot) that when you can force an explosion in a single direction (by containing it in a solid metal tube, for example), it takes a very small explosion to launch a very lethal projectile (compared to fireballs, which are [as usually portrayed] unshaped explosions and need to be fairly large to be deadly).

Now that I think about it a bit more, I think with the right magic we wouldn't need to use metal.

If there is a relatively inexpensive (is there?) spell to create temporary force fields, if we were to add on to the fireball spell to make a force field with one opening around the fireball as it explodes, we could multiply the impact force (at the cost of no splash effect).

First, fireball spells in and of themselves do not contain explosions. They don't hurl people back with any amount of force. Frequently, though, fireballs are given an explosive effect simply because it allows you to do more with them.

You could have a weapon with a force enchantment(by that I believe you mean the increased strength enchantment, which does work for weapons technically). However, I'd like to note that weapons wielded by someone with said strength/force enchantment tend to break unless reinforced using magic, as your applying the added force to the weapon first, then the person or object your hitting with said weapon. The bowstring idea isn't actually used that often, however, because most people can't shoot something that accurately when your arrow is going to land a few miles away. Most people just aren't used to shooting things at that distance.

>>350180
First off, one could create one even if there isn't one(there isn't at the moment, and Hated wouldn't know it if there was). But yes, the idea has merit, it could in fact be done.

>>350204
Enchanted bow strings aren't as much about shooting really far (though that is nice too) as they are about shooting straight through your enemies' armor (and maybe even their shield too if the enchantment is good enough).

With the force enchantment, I am thinking of having a guy with a force enchantment load a catapult in only a few seconds. (And taking the idea further by loading the catapult with shrapnel and enchanting its throwing arm with another force enchantment to result in showers of deadly metal shards.)

>>350216
Make the biggest shotgun ever. I like the idea. In fact I think it's downright awesome. Although I would think that making cannons from the iron available and using a magic enchantment in place of gunpowder would be better. A magic explosion would work but some other means of pushing stuff out that doesn't alert everyone within 5 miles to our presence would be better. In fact if we made small handheld versions of this we could have some of our troops armed with guns which by nature trump swords.

>>350253
A shrapnel launcher is generally better than a cannon for fighting armies (especially ones using melee weapons), as cannons don't hit that many people per shot.
If we can make an inexpensive shaped-charge fireball, that should do as well as or slightly better than a explosive based gun (as the 'fireball' explodes on hitting the target, it would be the same focused explosion happening at point blank range).

Okay, I'm not actually a regular reader of this quest but I just happened to see >>350216 and >>350274 in passing and I have to say that your idea is terrible and will not work at all. Similar weapons do exist in real life, but they are reserved entirely for direct-fire weapons. An indirect-fire version would be incredibly inefficient. You'd need very heavy shot because the enemy's troops are wearing armor designed to protect against large, sharp objects fired at a steep arc (longbow arrows). Your shots will have extremely poor accuracy compared to conventional canister shot, because if the shot misses the first guy it'll hit the ground rather than the guy behind him. Along the same lines, your shots also lose the ability to penetrate multiple targets. And to top it all off, what little damage you do inflict will be spread out across a large portion of the battlefield due to the longer and less stable paths your shot takes.

A cannon, meanwhile, is cheaper, more reliable, can do pretty much anything your weapon can do with far better accuracy, and can also blow through walls unlike your weapon.

>>350301
You seem to be assuming that we would need to fire a catapult upwards. If you maka a catapult right, you can choose the angle the projectiles are launched at (by determining at what angle the arm stops rotating), so the arc is not an issue.
Assuming that each shard can do significant damage due to the force-boost on the catapult arm (combined with it being a catapult), an attack that spreads out in a cone seems to be able to do more damage than an attack that travels in a single line.

Glad to see this quest up and running for another thread. Might take a while to get back into it, but I'm looking forward to playing again.

A bit of explanation of what happened during the timeskip would be appreciated, though. Getting information out of Hated is like pulling very apathetic and vaguely annoyed teeth who have difficulty prioritizing.

I suppose that's true. Of course, those teeth don't rip people's spleen out in response to being pulled on, but hey, that's irrelevant.

Alright, time skip update. It is currently the beginning of spring, slightly before that to be technically truthful, and Hated has decided now would be a good time to start the killing, mostly out of boredom and the fact that the barbarians aren't going to get much better at war anytime soon. He spent most of the winter months eating his fill of sparks and enchanting his warriors, while also trying to pick up some more Mind-based magic from Sticks as well. He's succeeded up to a point, although specifics was already asked for in the main thread, so Hated can give you that. Sparks obviously are becoming far less of an issue as Hated has consumed quite a bit, but that just means I'll have to ramp up the things Hated has to fight. Currently, Curmas is with Hated as his second-in-command, which essentially means Curmas deals with everything while Hated kills the enemy.

Kaldoth is leading another army up the coast, that one consisting of about 7,000 warriors, most of those being melee with the rest being Horsehoof, and Urthan is on defense, with the remaining 5,000 troops. Winter was quiet for the most part, and all that time was mostly spent training, preparing and waiting around.

The elves found just over 50-people who have any real blood connection to the Human Hero, and Hated decided he'd rather not hunt them all down himself, and basically told the elves to go have fun with the stabbing. While they didn't like his exact choice of words, they have proceeded to do so, and most of the targets have already been eliminated. 4 still survive, not including the royal family itself.

Nina has largely taken most of the administrative duties upon herself, especially when it became readily apparent Hated wanted nothing to do with them. Not that there is much paperwork in a barbarian culture. Her ability to manage other has yet to be truly tested, as so far, "go do this" is about all she's had to tell someone to get them to do it.

Tongues has improved, and could probably hold his own in a one-on-one duel with a minor human mage. His training has stalled somewhat over the winter, however, ever since he tried practicing indoors and burnt a couple dozen tents to the ground. Nina's dislike for Tongues has only increased since. Sticks remains uselessly drunk expect as a teacher of magic for Hated and a source of delicious sparks. She also remained behind, however, since Hated was certain she'd have been dead before they made it to the border.

Falshis was teleported in with his crew, and they went to town, plundering with reckless abandon. With the competent army busy, the Prince was ordered to deal with it, and has proven itself incompetent to the point of hilarity. The southlands are completely exposed to attack, which Hated is getting ready to do. Kaldoth is already advancing up the coast by this point, heading straight for the competent army currently engaged with the Island of Seven Shadows, so that they can lend their "support" in the conflict.

Furthermore, rumors have begun to circulate everywhere of more and more activity from both Immortals within Everfrost, as well as the Gods beginning to increase their meddling in the mortal realm. The general concencus among everyone in the world is that someone very, very evil has come back, or something very, very bad is going to happen. Those that believe someone evil is coming back mostly believe this to be demons of some kind, and Hated has yet to be suggested as a possible candidate for the evil being.

I think that covers all the major things. If I missed something, or you want more specific information on something, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Just one thing - do you think you could mark the actual quest posts more clearly? For example Give them a subject, maybe put down an E-mail address so the name tag is lit up in blue? It's currently hard to tell the quest posts from the suggestions.

I'll try to make things a bit more obvious that it's and update, not just someone else posting a suggestion.

Some of my musings into the working of the universe of Demon's Rage.

The universe in which Hated resides is generally divided into the realm of mortals(as of yet unnamed by anyone), the realm of gods(The Heavens, sometimes other names depending on the race), the realm of demons(also called the Great Chaos or the Pit), the realm of angels(knows as the Order or the Birthplace) as well as various other realms of existence, divided into the elemental realms(fire, water, wind, etc.) and a few others(such as the After and the Between).

The realm of Mortals is generally regarded as a playground among the weaker members of the other realms, a place to let loose a little and relieve stress. The realm of Mortals, however, is far more important to the continued survival of the other realms, although this is really only known to those who have large amounts of power. The simplest way the others rely on the mortals is concepts, particularly for gods. If, for example, all the mortals suddenly stopped hating each other, the god of Hate would simply die. Not likely to happen, but if all mortals are dead, they can't hate, or really do much of anything. A similar occurrence happens for demons, angels and the various other non-mortal entities that live within the other realms.

The realm itself is, at this point, extremely polarized. Human stay with human, orcs with orcs, so on and so forth. This is caused mostly by outside influence, or rather, the lack of demons and over-abundance of angelic influence in the world. Recently discovered by a group of human mages who'd traveled to the Heavens, the mortal realm is very heavily affected by what other-worldly entities are residing within it. In effect, the more demons are messing around inside the mortal realm, the more chaotic the realm becomes. The more angels, the more orderly and structured it becomes. Of course, with the lack of clashing caused by too much Order, there is very little innovation, as there isn't much need for it when you have no real conflicts with anybody. For the most part, since Hated's imprisonment, the world has stuck mostly to Order, and as such has stagnated, experiencing very little change. Since his return however, things have once again begun to move...

That's it for now, still working on the other realms. Enjoy this little random bit of info.

For future reference, it is usually helpful to include a link to previous threads in a new thread for an ongoing quest.

>>55270
Ooh, an actual reason for why the world has been mostly static for such a long time. That is better than a lot of fantasy stories do.

Some more musings, this time into the aspects of immortality. All this information is that gathered by Hated during his interactions with shamans and the elves.

Immortality is generally seen differently by the many races of the realms, even more so by the immortals themselves. Some see it as the ultimate gift, the ability to ignore the call of death and the whims of time. Other see it as a curse, having to watch as the world around you changes and every person you care about dies off from old age.

For the most part however, most will agree the immortals, whether blessed or cursed, tend to have a very large impact on the world around them. All immortals are always born from one of the five prime races(human, elf, orc, dwarf, goblin), and all immortals ignore the effects of time on the body, whether willing or not. If an immortal is born into a race that has the potential to wield magic, they almost always have the ability to do so, with few exceptions. This is essentially all that is known about immortals, other than the final fact that all immortals do tend to take on titles, rather than names. While this doesn't necessarily mean that an immortal does not have a name given to them by their parents, it's not one they generally use.

The most infamous immortal to date is the Hated One, as it was perhaps the most feared of the of the immortal beings milleniums ago. Stories are still told of it's destructive and murderous tendencies, even among those remote areas that never felt its direct presence, and many feel that it was the Hated One that brought the world quite nearly to the edge of ruin, as it was during its time that demons held almost complete sway over the mortal realm. The Hated One even hunted down and murdered nearly all of its own immortal brethren, reducing the number of immortals from the 57 there were before its sudden rise to power to the dismal number of 2, after its disappearance and presumed death. It took the five racial gods interfering to bring the Hated One to its knees, and even then, the Five Children refused to talk of what occurred during that final battle.

Currently, there are three immortals that have become known, at least to the shamans, plus a few rumored ones. There is the Murderer, the title given to the elf immortal the elves are looking for. The elves despise the use of the title around them though, continually asking to refer to the "poor thing" by her name, Kiliana Moontouched. Hated generally ignores them.

There is also the Blessed, whom no one really knows about. Apparently, this one allies itself with the angels, and keeps mostly to the Heavens, occasionally returning to the mortal realm to deal with some transgression or other.

The last is Beloved, although her whereabouts are currently. Hated doesn't need any to ask anymore questions about this one, she's one of those that escaped his wrath 4000 years ago. She basically made it her personal mission to oppose Hated in whatever he did, and was strong enough and influential enough to succeed. Hated had a "thing" for her back then, if it could be called that, mostly because he found her extremely amusing to play with. She earned the title Beloved as a counter to Hated, but with Hated gone she apparently disappeared as well.

Is it possible to modify a spell to have a delayed activation (for example, to mod a fireball to act like a land mine or sticky bomb)?

>>55731
Easily. Hated usually doesn't do to his preferences, but he's completely capable of it.

Summoning 101 Hated 2012/06/09(Sat)11:57 No. 55930 ID: a407a5
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Summoning usually takes a great deal of time and preparation. This is mostly because non-mortals don't like to be dragged away from whatever they were doing in their own realm to basically deal with someone else's problem, especially when that that someone is usually much, much weaker than them.

The basic necessities for summoning are a nice quiet place to do it(don't want to get interrupted), sigils to increase the strength of your call(usually keyed to a specific plane of existence, such as the Heavens or the Pits) and a circle as the arrival point, usually doubling as the protection ring against getting murdered by whatever you summon.

Another thing generally used is a description of what your trying to summon. While not required, it does help limit the things that will come to you. If you just connect your summoning to hell, your liable to either get something quite a bit weaker than what you expected, or something much, much stronger, in which case your dead. By adding a description( a demon of fire raised in the least of the pits, for example) your chances of getting what you want are much higher. Even better if you can name the kind of creature you want (an imp, for example), as that guarantees that at the least you'll get that kind of creature. The most surefire way to get someone specific to come out is to name the creature by name(such as calling a particular god, if one is strong enough to do so).

Generally speaking, certain creatures will also desire gift of some kind. The elementals are particularly known for this, and generally won't want to have anything to do with someone that doesn't provide the proper gift, usually something appropriate to the type of elemental they are. Angel's and demon's don't particularly want gifts, persay, instead being willing to wait till after they are summoned to make a deal with the summoner, usually power or accomplishing some request for something in return. Gods, demi-gods and godlings are generally much less prone to actually answering a call, regardless of what gift is offered, unless the summoner is strong enough to attract their attention. Most demi-god being will then exact some payment of some kind before even bothering to show up, while gods themselves have been known to appear only when they find themselves interested in the summoner enough to give a damn.

There is also two other forms of summoning, generally considered much weaker than the first, and something that Hated has little knowledge of. The first is invoking, which is focused more on spirits residing in the mortal realm than outside influences. These can included weaker elemental spirits capable of residing on the mortal plane without disrupting natural balance, as well as spiritual guardians of places, such as tree spirits found in some areas of the elven woods.

The last form is known as direct summoning, allowing a spirit or entity to temporarily reside in a portion of ones body, generally changing the shape and function of that body part. This is most common among the orcs, as most other races don't have the physical endurance required to survive having body parts violently warped into something else.

That's all for now, and if you have any questions, ask away. If Hated knows it, it'll be answered here.

Ask your questions! Any questions! All Questions! TELL ME YOUR QUESTIONS!

... Ahem.

Is asking about voices like breaking the fourth wall, or is there plot?

Mostly comments here.

Dammit, I wanted to ask the truth demigod about the things that the elven spies weren't able to find out, so that we'd be able to take over the country more effectively. Didn't finish writing my suggestion until half an hour after the update went up, without seeing it. Blast.

Ah, well. These things happen. And Hated knows enough to make a new summoning circle pretty much whenever he wants, right? And we've still got the reference texts.

It is clear from what we saw in this city that the mages in this country know useful things. We need to be sure to disable or capture some rather than killing them all so that we can extract their tricks. Every mage we kill is also one that we won't be able to force to feed us sparks after we take over the country, so while rampant slaughter of the magically inclined is fun we should probably restrain ourselves in the future.

We'll need to spend some more time on talking with Isrenow and working through how her personality sits at the moment. Like our interactions with a few others, mostly Nina, in the first thread, learning how she thinks and then influencing that in the hope of changing it is likely to be interesting- and in Isrenow's case, could be critical to the difference between keeping her as a reliable and powerful asset and having her turn against us.

Speaking of Isrenow, how do her powers work as compared to Hated? Is she more of a normal mage type- and if so, how powerful of a mage are we talking? With a thousand years behind her she must have amassed a staggering amount of skill in her specialties.

>>56007
Not breaking the fourth wall at all, you are considered to represent something within the universe of Demon's Rage. It is also, however, not important at all to the plot. If you want to pursue that line of questions, it's up to you to convince Hated it's in his interest to do so, but... eh.

>And Hated knows enough to make a new summoning circle pretty much whenever he wants, right?

Hated can make a new summoning circle, but making one from scratch, Hated's will be inferior in quality. Hated isn't big into creating things normally, and it's probably one of his biggest failings. More to be discussed below.

>Speaking of Isrenow, how do her powers work as compared to Hated? Is she more of a normal mage type- and if so, how powerful of a mage are we talking? With a thousand years behind her she must have amassed a staggering amount of skill in her specialties.

Alright. Now down to something I can type at length about.

To start us off, Hated is, shall we say, an oddity when it comes to magic. Thanks to being immortal, capable of staggering amounts of sparks and being highly intelligent(even if most of the time that intelligence takes a back seat to his kill everything philosophy), Hated can, over time, master almost any form of magic imaginable, excepting some few outliers that don't follow some of the standard rules, such as invoking and those very few forms of "magic" that don't use sparks at all.

His greatest limitation, at least for the moment, is Hated's somewhat massive lack of patience, and his lack of desire to spend time learning. Hated is very much a "do-er", and doesn't enjoy sitting around practicing the same task over and over till he gets it right. That's why Hated's main focus has always been Body magic, as it's the simplest form of magic to master and often has immediate, tangible, results. Furthermore, Hated has taken to the more openly destructive path, preferring to leave the broken, shredded bodies of his enemies, allies and whoever else pisses him off lying around behind him. Essentially, if it's flashy and destroys things, Hated will most likely take interest in learning how to do it.

Now, to Isrenow. Isrenow is on the opposite end of that spectrum. She is very much a methodical person, assuming she hasn't latched on to Hated, and she very proficient in Mind magic, as it's what was taught to her growing up. Mind magic, as opposed to Body magic, is very complex, as it generally deals with things people can't see and are rarely tangible. As such, most of Isrenow's more powerful magic is just that, completely different spells, as opposed to Hated's, which are more like him increasing a basic spell(like more speed) and simply ratcheting it up to insane levels till he gets the result he wants. Isrenow's magic also takes a lot more time to perform correctly, as she is has to generally break down the mental defenses of those she's trying to affect. To put that in perspective, it takes Isrenow about 3 minutes to break a crowd of normal non-magical human's mental defenses. This time increases the more and more magical someone is(assuming their smart enough to erect defenses of some kind) and how mentally stubborn they are.

Isrenow's Mind magic has few outward applications, most devised for breaking people's minds, but one of those few she does have is a sort of mental cloud, and ability not unlike Hated's mind haze. In her case, however, it provides some measure of physical protection, in that people within the cloud's area are struck with slight disorientation. Not enough to be noticeable, but just enough to make it seem like she's just barely dodging attacks. This bypasses Hated's mental defenses only because it wasn't targeting his mind, but rather the information his sense gave his mind.

The final difference is the "ability" Isrenow has. Isrenow dabbled a little in Soul magic, granting her the ability to "cut" things. Anything. If she can perceive it in some way, the object can be cut. This ability is what allowed her to "cut" through Hated's telekinetics, as Isrenow felt something grab her and simply cut that grasp from her own body. This "cutting" occurs from Isrenow essentially creating sharp, mental "blades" which don't actually exist in the real world. These blades cut only because the small amount of Soul magic Isrenow learned allows her to tell the laws of reality to go screw themselves just enough to allow these mental blades to function. Her only limitation with her cutting ability is the requirement of physical contact, as Isrenow has to use her own body as a focal point for her magic.

In terms of power Isrenow could be compared to a minor demi-god. Hated, currently, is at the levels of angels and demons, and could probably take on a few of each at the same time simply due to his experience in combat with magic.

And looking back, all that is very much a jumbled mess... eh. If you have any questions, for clarification or simply have something else you want to ask about, feel free.

Are all immortals incapable of generating their own sparks, or is it something unique to Hated? I mostly want to know if Isrenow will be generating us a goodly sized number of sparks, or if she's another mouth to feed.

Also, I am mildly concerned that with Hated's newly gained sexual feelings/desires and his... fondness for violence and bloodshed there is potential for some rather unfortunate impulses that we'll have to rein in. Ideally he'd pause and go "What do!?" when feeling the effects of his feelings for the first time but he's also an impulsive dude. So yeah.

Been thinking a bit on the implications of our identity coming out. The whole thing about Hated being Hated doesn't matter that much, in my estimation, except as a propaganda point against him. Isrenow doesn't care for obvious reasons; the barbarians won't give a damn because he's certainly not slaughtering them- he's leading them in conquest, and their god said so! The gods he's championing won't care; he's certainly not attacking them, and that's a powerful tool they could potentially use against their enemies. Mostly the danger will come from old enemies coming out of the woodwork to oppose us, and propaganda.

However, the Truth guy was right in that we'll need more allies and backup. This begs the question: Who are Hated's most significant enemies amongst the gods/demons/whatever, that are likely to still be around and care about him? Was there anyone that he worked with back in the old days? If we need allies and powerful servants, is there anyone that would be a good bet to turn to?

>>56028
>Isrenow and spark generation
This is an incredibly key question, because if she can feed us demigod-level sparks on a regular basis then she is our new favorite minion.

She might be our new favorite minion anyway, depending upon her personality- at the moment she's kind of in a tizzy over Hated's love spell, but lovers aren't just about being physical; it's likely that she would be more than willing to spend time talking with him and hashing out serious objectives that they would pursue together, all the more so because of her (apparently) methodical rather than impulsive personality. He can actually tell her "hey, I want to slaughter the ones who imprisoned me and all their descendants" and have her apply all the intellect and power of a thousand-year-old psychotic mage to the problem. Also, they both love killing things and have little or no respect for others. It's not a bad match at all.

>Also, I am mildly concerned that with Hated's newly gained sexual feelings/desires and his... fondness for violence and bloodshed there is potential for some rather unfortunate impulses that we'll have to rein in.
Yeah, I'm thinking that we should throw a heavy regeneration enhancement on anyone we think we might end up sleeping with well in advance. Just in case.

>>56028
Isrenow generates her own sparks, Hated's unique need to consume the sparks of others is caused by the way he was born, not being immortal. Hated himself is currently the only KNOWN mage who can't generate his own supply, but at the same time, he really the only one that doesn't have a cap on his spark limits, at least, none discovered so far.

>Who are Hated's most significant enemies amongst the gods/demons/whatever, that are likely to still be around and care about him? Was there anyone that he worked with back in the old days? If we need allies and powerful servants, is there anyone that would be a good bet to turn to?

Obviously the descendants of the Children have reason to be concerned with Hated running around. Similarly, or perhaps as result of the Children asking them for help back then, the Racial Gods have reason to fear him, although not because he'll kill them. He won't kill the five main racial gods, Hated doesn't want the major races dying out. He needs them for sparks. Angels and Demons were enemies in the past, but no one in particular from the past, since anyone specifically gunning for Hated usually ended up dead. Among Immortals there are two that escaped Hated's genocide of the poor bastards. Beloved is considered Hated's direct opposite, generally aiming to help the mortal races instead of killing all of them(at least, back then), her current whereabouts are unknown. The other was Shammy, an orc immortal who opposed Hated only when Hated went to the Orcish island. Neither is going to like the idea of Hated being loose again, assuming they are still alive. Which Beloved both are, just not in Everfrost.

Hated... never really worked with anyone. Occasionally he would deal with a god or two when he needed something he himself couldn't do, but other than that, he worked alone. The few gods he did work with generally didn't care much about him either, a mutual desire to use the other one fueling all interactions. Most conceptual gods, however, would be willing to ally themselves with Hated, assuming they didn't know who he was. Which, currently, they don't.

Allies would have to come in the form of other powerful beings, passive allies being gods probably, while more direct allies would have to come from other sources.

Servants, on the other hand, are readily available. There are mortals everywhere, start controlling them. If your looking for servants that won't backstab you on the other hand... well, angels, demons and elementals all have methods which can be used to keep them loyal, and there's always using a geas on people you really don't want leaving your side.

>>56044
>more direct allies would have to come from other sources.
Could you offer suggestions as to what these other sources might be?

>angels, demons and elementals all have methods which can be used to keep them loyal, and there's always using a geas on people you really don't want leaving your side.
These "methods" intrigue me and I wish to know more.

So does this "geas" concept. How hard are they to use, and what are their limits? Is there any reason not to start geasing everyone left and right into our eternal slaves?

Alright, I caught up.

Now, I don't really understand why the Fertility goddess was summoned, especially for something so minor like creating a kid (I know we promised Nina but iirc we did let her know that it could take us years to get there) but since we did that and fundamentally altered Hated forever, I have something to be cleared out.
Hated didn't have any interest in women simply because they were of different race, he couldn't breed with them and thus there was no biological reason to feel sexually/emotionally attracted. It made sense too, since it would be the same as for a (normal) human to want to fuck a pig (yeah, there are fucked up people out there who would do it but I'm talking about sane humans here). I doubt pet owners feel comfortable when their cat in heat starts rubbing on them, Hated must have had similar feeling. I suppose it is also one of the reasons why he feels little to no empathy towards anything at all.

But now that Hated can apparently breed with any sentient races, does that mean he will start seeing females in different light and stop being utterly disgusted by them? Maybe even be open to suggestions of intimacy. Heck, perhaps he will stop being such a murderous sociopath too (at least to an extent).
Would be nice if it was like that. Not because I wasn't to suggest fucking everything but because his reactions towards women showing affection to him were getting annoying.

Also, how often do you update? What's the schedule?

>>56059
>Now, I don't really understand why the Fertility goddess was summoned, especially for something so minor like creating a kid
Because one post suggested it and no one else said not to or had a mutually exclusive suggestion before the next update. Hated doesn't really prioritize between suggestions, he's not big on forethought, and he rarely says no. It's a bit inconvenient at times, but it also means that you can get him to do things fairly easily.

>But now that Hated can apparently breed with any sentient races, does that mean he will start seeing females in different light and stop being utterly disgusted by them?

Only when the ability to breed is activated, and then his reactions will get... interesting. And flowery.

>>56060
Usually once a day, sometime after 8, Pacific Standard.

>Could you offer suggestions as to what these other sources might be?

The fey if you want to get weird. Other immortals aren't a bad idea either, although most tend to focus on one thing(like Murderer liking to murder everyone). Um... if you had an invoker loyal to Hated, you could probably start getting spirits and the aspects to form contracts with him... That abouts sums that up. There aren't too many major powers in the world that aren't gods or something else not of the mortal realm. I suppose if you really felt like it you could try hunting a dragon down to, but that wouldn't be advisable, since, well... Hated popped the dragon god like a balloon.

>These "methods" intrigue me and I wish to know more.

Binding would be the most effective method for angels and demons, it's what gods use to bind angels as their servants. The process must be undertaken willingly by the one to serve though, so most demons won't submit to this. It does, however, bind the servant to you for eternity, and generally the personality of the angel or demon will shift slightly to reflect that of master. Elementals are bound to places or objects, and can they be released from these objects to cause havoc, or they'll guard a place till they are released from service. Some other methods that work on all three types include normal purchasing of services(favor for favor, money, souls, delicious coal, etc.) or swearing fealty in the other direction.

Angels can also generally be convinced to support a cause as long as they can see how it will serve Order, or whatever god they serve, demons will support causes that spread chaos, and elementals don't give shit and will generally only support something that catches their interest.

Geas is... well, to start with, it binds someone body, mind and soul. There isn't escaping a properly placed geas. While it allows for absolute loyalty, it's also one of the most singularly ORDER actions someone can perform, and will generally cause any ingenuity and creativity in a person to vanish. This is, of course, only if it's placed correctly. Hated despises geas as a concept, it goes against his nature to Order things, but he can perform the curse/spell on people. The Chaos doesn't have a counterpart spell-wise. So, if you want literally everybody to need there hand held when you want to use new concepts, I wouldn't suggest geas.

>>56062
>Only when the ability to breed is activated, and then his reactions will get... interesting. And flowery.

It is off by default? Wouldn't it be better to build up some mental defenses and then turn it on and keep it on all the time? So that Hated can get gradually used to it and after a while be able to keep his shit under control like a normal human?
Though, I guess it would be a good idea to first isolate Hated when he turns it on and only have Nina or other people who we want to be intimate with and have their consent with him for couple of weeks or so.

>Usually once a day, sometime after 8, Pacific Standard.
Is it because of few suggestions or would you pick up the pace if adequate amount of them were posted quickly enough?

>>56061
>Because one post suggested it and no one else said not to or had a mutually exclusive suggestion before the next update.
Right, I went back and read the suggestions. Yeah, no one suggested anything else so it makes sense.
Since I had to read the whole thread in one go I didn't really read the player suggestions.

How are we going to tell the elves that the person they want dead is now our lover?

>>56062
>Binding
Sounds tricky. Does Hated know how to do this, and what are the limitations on the kinds of beings that it works on?

>>56073
They haven't really said they want her dead. They said that they wanted her captured, but we could kill her if that wasn't feasible. Depending upon what they actually want with her we might be able to just keep her around us and they'd be cool with it.

>>56063
Is is off by default, because the Fertility goddess was kind enough not to make Hated go through something he hadn't ever gone through before, and right after his very being was restructured.

As for my posting speed, that's actually because of work. I have things to do until right around 8, get anything else I have to do done at home, then read any posts there have been, then write up the response. That can take awhile.

>Sounds tricky. Does Hated know how to do this, and what are the limitations on the kinds of beings that it works on?
Hated knows the knowledge required to do it. He himself has never actually performed the magic involved. As for limitations, well... let's see. If you mean, shall we call it, the bond of servitude angels and the like can undertake, then obviously it's limited to angels and the like.

Geas, on the other hand, works on any and all beings it has been tried on, which means pretty much everything but gods and immortals. There is also the possibility of someone "resisting" a geas curse placed on them, although it only works if the geas cursed is both resisted at the time it was placed, and your own power level(measured in sparks) is high enough to defeat the amount of sparks placed into the geas. As it happens, Hated will never have to worry about a geas.

I forgot what assets we already had before the war.

How many barbarian population centers do we have? Or did we have everyone move to one big city?
We had established a mining outpost somewhere, it was gold, I think.
Do we have smiths? I seem to remember that there was one tribe which specialized in smithing.
Speaking of tribes, which ones were there and what were their specialties? There was one which specialized in horseback riding (Horsehoof iirc), another in archery which I don't remember name of, another which delved in more sneaky and subtle stuff.
How many armies did we make and how big were they? Who were the generals we appointed to them?
How many shamans do we have and how are they distributed among the armies/cities?
What kind of enchantments do our armies have?

Also, a map would be nice. Even a low quality MsPaint picture is enough.
It would be very useful for us to make decisions and generally have an idea where what is.

Update Hated 2012/06/18(Mon)18:05 No. 56207 ID: a407a5
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>How many barbarian population centers do we have? Or did we have everyone move to one big city?
One. Most of the barbarian tribes still stick to their nomadic heritage, with the city acting more like a central hub for trade and competition among the tribes. We did establish a mining outpost and it was gold. It's not considered a major place of residency though. Only the Bisonhorn reside there, which are the smith tribe. Sorta. As much a barbarians can be smiths.

>Speaking of tribes, which ones were there and what were their specialties? There was one which specialized in horseback riding (Horsehoof iirc), another in archery which I don't remember name of, another which delved in more sneaky and subtle stuff.
There were five six main tribes. The Bearclaw, which are the shock troopers and all around physical specialists. The Horsehoof are the horsemen. The Hawkeye are the archers. The Bisonhorn are the smiths. The Wolffang are the swarm it till it dies. The Snaketongue are the ambushers.

>How many armies did we make and how big were they? Who were the generals we appointed to them?
There are three total. Hated's contains 4,000 warriors. 3,000 of them are close-quarters fighter, all of them I personally enhanced, and the remaining 1,000 are archers. I have 100 of the shamans with me to, to provide sparks and usage of rituals. 7000 warriors are in the army heading up the coast to deal with the main military force of Everfrost, and the remaining 5000 are guarding the barbarian lands from incursions.

>How many shamans do we have and how are they distributed among the armies/cities?
There are a total of 350 shamans spread across the armies. 100 are with Hated, to act as magical artillery cannons and as a "food" source for Hated. Another 100 are with the other army, generally performing the same functions. The last 150 are aiding those back at the base camp.

>What kind of enchantments do our armies have?
Allmost exclusively armor and strength enhancements. In place of strength, the archers have magic which allows them to shoot faster.

The Pits Hated 2012/06/22(Fri)12:54 No. 56314 ID: a407a5
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Sorry for the occasional misspelling in the posts. I've been a little stressed do to work, but I figure a post with a few problems is better than no post at all... anyway, here some more random info.

The Pits are the birthplace of demons, or more appropriately, beings of chaos. While demons in and of themselves are often considered, they are, in fact, not. Instead, they represent chaos, adversity, and everything that causes mortals to create solutions, new ideas and even hope. To a demon, the ultimate wrong isn't being good, but rather being to set following laws. For them, the concept of freedom comes from the idea that they themselves should never have to follow laws, and believe that neither should others. They are, however, also extremely prone to murdering people, as conflict, bloodshed and war is one of the greatest mothers of invention and creativity.

The Pit itself is generally chaotic and ever changing. The landscape rarely stays the same for very long, and people have been known to lose track of where they are mere seconds after entering the place. The only stable area in the entire place is known as the palace of chaos, a giant fortress located in roughly the center of the realm(if it even has a center) and is the place where the the lords of chaos rule of the demon realm. Originally numbering 13, the lords of chaos currently have 9 of their members, the others going missing for unknown reason, although many suspect treachery and backstabbing among the arch-demons.

Out of curiosity, how many, on average, shamans is Isrenow worth in terms of spark generation?

Assuming you mean the average shaman, than anywhere between 90-100 shamans, give or take. I don't feel like calculating out how many exactly, but you get the idea.

Death, Undeath and The After Hated 2012/06/28(Thu)22:26 No. 56544 ID: a407a5
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Death is inevitable for nearly all living things. Even the gods themselves fear it, for while they are effectively immortal, their lives depend solely on the belief and strength of that which they represent. However, death isn't the end. At least, not in the sense that you cease existing. For most, death is simply the end of their vessel. The body is the only thing that truly dies. The mind and soul pass on, each heading, as a single unit, to the After.

The After is the place of rest, where ones soul and mind are freed from mortal whims and mortal worries. At least, that's what most people believe. In actuality, no one knows what the After is like. No one has ever gone to the After, living or dead, and returned to talk about it. The After is the ONLY realm of existence which literally nothing is known about, except it is the place you go after your death. Assuming you are most people.

For some few, usually those named champions of particular gods, they are allowed instead to travel to the domain of their god and live there, watching over those on the mortal plane and occasionally lending aid to those who support the interests of their god. This is uncommon however, especially because many gods detest naming champions for fear that their champion won't be able to rise to the tasks set before them.

Now onto the subject of Undeath. In the end, undeath is unheard of. Zombies, walking skeletons, undead masses of flesh, vampires, liches. None of these exist in the world. Why? Zombies and skeletons are more easily made as golems, so why bother using a piece of somethings soul? Vampire, a waste of time for something very limited in use. Liches? When mages die, it's usually not via magical suicide, and resurrection as a lich is impossible, as the soul is barely understood at all. Undeath is therefore unheard of, for the most part. People do have an idea of ghosts, but these are rarely seen, and almost considered mere legends. Undeath, therefore, would need something drastic to happen to introduce it to the world. Like say, an Invoker desperately invoking The Death in Reverse, in a foolish attempt to cheat death and save his twin...

So it occurs to me that we could simply... make an immortal to sacrifice to The Death. Too evil? Practical though, as unless there are requirements for the sacrifice that we aren't aware of, it'd take less than a year! Yeah... probably too evil.

And a question: can the one who places a geas remove it?

>>56679
Yeah, my first thought at "they need an immortal to sacrifice" was also "we can make immortals by having sex now!" Breed our own spell components for delicious profit in the form of divine favor. I'm not that concerned about being evil; all that really matters is that we maintain our power base effectively.

>>56679
Oooo... the kid thing. Yeah, that could be an issue, depending on who's kid(meaning the other parent) you decide to take and sacrifice. It won't end pleasantly. Either way, Hated probably won't ditch his first kid, it's something of a novelty to him and he would rather mess with it and see what happens then kill it for someone else's benefit(even if it indirectly benefits him). But yeah, second or third or however many after the first Hated won't find as interesting, so he'll probably not care what happens to them. Probably...

As for the geas thing, yes, a person can remove their own geas, although it can be very difficult and painful for both parties involved. Your effectively tearing away something that has been bound to ones soul, it isn't a pleasant process.

>>56687
>But yeah, second or third or however many after the first Hated won't find as interesting, so he'll probably not care what happens to them. Probably...
I find myself envisioning Hated ending up as the Godking from the Night Angel series, having hundreds of kids and then raising them to plot against and murder one another, basically for shits and giggles.

Heh. In regards of the other parent of the Immortal baby...

Can the batlady still breed? Because that's a pretty tidy solution if she'd agree to it.

No. She's undead at the moment, basically a soul and mind inside a dead(if preserved) body. Convenient in some ways, inconvenient in others. I would like to mention that she also doesn't produce sexual hormones, so Hated wouldn't react as strongly to her presence when his sex drive is turned on.

Pretty damn sure that fertility goddess will not be happy if we sacrifice any children we produce. You people should slap yourself for even thinking about such stupid suggestion

>>56731
She's a fertility goddess, not a family goddess. She should logically care about whether we have a lot of kids, not whether we kill a few of them off. Think of rabbits or mice or other creatures that are extremely fertile but abandon their young relatively soon and/or have them die in droves to predators- a goddess of pure fertility would think more in terms of that paradigm than in terms of raising limited numbers of children with love and affection. All that matters is baseline growth and net growth, not how you achieve it or if some of your kids die along the way.

Admittedly, if she's not a pure fertility goddess but has rather had other paradigms leak into her nature somehow, which seems likely given that she's fully personified, then there's no telling how she'd react.

How does the fact that Maria has two minds affect the Geas? Are both minds under it, or should we be worried that if the other mind assumes control it would be free of our influence? If so, can we bind it without it's consent, or find out information about it by summoning a servant of a truth god or something so that we'd at least figure out what we're dealing with?

>>56814
Given that the geas is placed on the soul, I wouldn't think so, unless minds are linked to souls.

So, another question: Are minds the same thing as souls, are they connected in some way, or are they distinct entities?

>>56814
This would depend on whether or not the mind is simply a fragment of Maria's already present mind, or something else altogether. To explain this better, if she was possessed by an angel or demon, then no, the geas would have no hold on said angel or demon. If she simply had multiple personalities, then the geas would still function as normal.

As for forcibly geasing(don't think that's a word, but fuck it) the other mind, well... that depends on WHAT the other mind is. If, somehow, Maria simply has another mortal mind/soul combo in there, than Hated could easily geas those to his will as well. If it's something else though... well, again, depending on what that other thing is, the circumstances and conditions change. I'll leave it at that for now.

>>56829
Souls are separate from minds, yet connected in that they influence one another. Magically, I think I've explained it. The mind shapes a spell, while the soul acts as the container and "shaping" chamber. An easy way to show this is demonic possession. A demon doesn't just merge with a human. He completely subdues the hosts mind and soul while keeping the body intact and ready for use. In this case, the mind and soul are simply pushed into an inactive state.

Would Hated be able to bind Tabi into a new body? He can bind angels, and he's got a summoning circle, so he should be able to, right?

He would, but... well, Hated isn't fond of TB, nor does TB want to meet Hated. Why that is you'll have to drag out of them yourself.

Classifications of Angels/Demons Hated 2012/08/01(Wed)16:44 No. 57950 ID: a407a5
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Both angels and demons, while being polar opposites on the scale of Order and Chaos, share certain similarities. They both exhibit proficiency in all three basic forms of magic, they both require the body of someone else to inhabit in order to sustain their existence on the mortal plain, and both generally try to use mortals to further their own ends.

Similarities in their system of classification also exist. Both use a three-tiered system, classifying the members of each race into either the lower house, the upper house, or a an arch-demon/angel. Naturally, Arch-demons and Arch-angels are leaders of their respective species, and usually there are a fairly limited number of them. For the other two classifications, however, there are a vast number of them.

The lower house, sometimes called the beast house, is where the weakest and more inhuman examples of each being is placed. Hellhounds, imps, sphinx, cherubim. All are considered to have... limited... intelligence, when compared to that of their upper house brethren. Most aren't even given names, although quite a few do end up elevating themselves to the upper house through their actions and the gaining of more intelligence. Usually this is accompanied by a change in their form.

The upper house is reserved for human looking angels and demons, and usually have intelligence far beyond that of an animal. They all each have individual names, and all generally have a goal they strive for, although overall they all aim for the same end goal. The upper house is what most think of when talking of demons and angels, and generally the upper house prefers to keep it that way, the lower house being seen as little more useful than dogs, suitable for hunting and guard duty at best.

Second Chapter Complete Hated 2012/08/19(Sun)19:47 No. 58985 ID: a407a5
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And that means...

Questions?

Comments?

Concerns?

Idle threats?

Not-so-idle threats?

You're not goin to take forever for the next chapter, are you?

Will you continue both this and Breaking Reality? If you intent to put this on hold, please say so.

Why are people sending vincent on a wild goose chase for the artifacts he hasn't researched, doesn't know how to use, and are currently in the hands of his mother? (also making befuddled comments as if some things are mysterious and misunderstood when in fact we know them?)

>>/questarch/434695
>>/questarch/438413

-We know his mother, TB is the unaffiliated angel who is researching creating artificial order; why did we waste our time asking an angel of records that (and he didn't know). Why did we tell vincent she is trying to become like him (she isn't)?
-TB probably has got all the artifacts except the one in the deadlands (as its the one she said she will only need for last phase of plan and that will be difficult to acquire)
-She warned us (and it was confirmed via summons) that going chaos will make him a nut.
-She wants to alter vincent to make him more ordered (either full order or balanced).
-(not a fact but most likely) She probably does care about him, just practices "harsh love" because of WHAT he is.
-Beloved, the first immortal, has a special mutual attraction with vincent and it gives her power over him.
-TB used her orb to hide the tower artifact where she is conducting her experiments from vincent.
-VML is first and only prince in line for the throne of the BSD - BIG DEAL, vincent does NOT know his father... Phrasing makes it sound like the lord of all -demons or something... We need to find out MORE about BSD. We can ask vincent and our angel and maybe summon some things.
-Could Vincent actually cooperate with his mother? If she is truly trying to balance his chaos seed...
-TB caims to be magically bound not to reveal a bunch of things.
-Angel bound to VML calls him "my god", claims to understand VML's nature now... somehow (and unexpectedly) bond to VML supercedes bond to tirfuldin!

Our Goals:
1. Fixing vincent internals is the top goal. Presumably by balancing his chaos and order (removing them entirely might make him mortal). The more sparks he eats the bigger the rift in his soul grows. BAD! (perhaps a link between BSD's demonic realm and mortal realm?) And also the more powerful his chaos seed grows (if it breaks the order shell he will become a full demon and go totally insane).
2. Find out way more info about vincent's nature and that of his father, and of his father's goals. So we can make an informed decision about #1. We should have done more summoning for that! (still can). Also ask angel bound to vincent to analyze him and present information.
3. We shouldn't push Isa too much by being overly cold to her, its an artificial persona draped on top of the MURDERER.
4. Eat more spirits (not souls, spirits... like the horse spirit and the tarot spirits... might gain more special unique abilities)
last: Do Vincent own goals

Vincent own goals:
1. Revenge - trivially easy; can be done on the side while achieving conquest.
2. Conquest - this means finding a way to defeat the angels.

Oh yea, TB warns that too many concurrent gates being open at once can do really bad things TM. Probably break reality or something... Lets pass this along to Vincent.

>>64876
better idea:open as many concurrent gates as possible

>>64880
TB's warning sounded like it will be reality breaking (since gates are tears in space-time) and she was NOT aware her son is the one opening them... only that SOMEONE was.

We lack too much info about hatred to seriously discuss the details of fixing him beyond "add order shard to make him balanced"...

So lets focus for a moment on Isrenow.
Moonsomething the insane elf immortal, took up the name and goal of MURDERER whose goal is genocide. Mindfucked by Melfosa over quite some time or whatever his name is, re-mindfucked by vincent.

So, what can we DO with her?
1. Turn her over to elves - Seems a huge waste.
2. Kill her - seems a huge waste
3. Summon an angel/demon into her - suggested by Vincent... why would that be better then summoning said angel/demon into a mortal?
4. Sacrifice her to death god for the life of your vampire servant - waste. better use an enemy. (mental note: Ask method, need to know if it can be done via combat).
5. Mind-alteration - Sensible thing to to do. However, it is a delicate and dangerous task so we probably don't want to risk too big a change.
6. Keep status quo - it works for now; But risky. Could be dispelled by someone... or over many years her mental state could stabilize in your favor strengthening current persona and slowly making it the "real" persona while dissolving the old "murder" persona. or vice versa (which is very bad for you). Also she might stabalize as Isrenow but have her love diminish over time due to Vincent being cold which is also bad.

I think the idea is a combination of 5 and 6.
But to what ends? Making her a servant is too big a change (too risky it will fall apart and reveal MURDERER), too questionable (requires major memory alteration), and her marriage to you is now too well known. So don't try that, keep her as a wife.
The goal should thus be: Make her into a wife that is stable, at least somewhat obedient, is still fun (enjoys going on murder dates), and who is not liable to revert into murderer persona.

Basically the plan as I see it is:
A. Learn mind magic (ironically its mainly from her). as much as you can... practice.

B. Gain access to her mind.
Method alpha: Convince her to willingly allow you access to her mind. Perhaps with "many of her memories were suppressed by the mage-lord and you were not powerful enough to reveal them before, but now that you are more skilled you would like her to trust you with the intimate task of recovering those." - not sure this is a good phrasing since she might get suspicious at us not revealing new memories...
Also risky as telling her her mind was modified might cause her to turn her abilities in on herself and MURDERER to break through; or she becomes suspicious and find out the truth from others.
Mitigating factor would be to have her use the truth sensing spell on us. We would thus need a good spiel of nothing but misleading truths and test it on someone with truth sense spell.
Method beta: drug her and then combine forces with your angel to brute force it together.

C. Concurrently work on her via both magic and psychological fronts.
Non magical: Work at keeping her affection. Do small nice things for her, lucky you small nice things is as easy as "hey sweety, lets go on a date to murder a bunch of people". Its really just tone, rather then ordering her to do stuff all the time, being cold, and focusing on things she doesn't like. Take her out to do fun stuff together; lucky you, you both enjoy murder.

Magical: Work on this together with the angel, hopefully you can even delegate most of the work here to the angel.
The first task once inside her mind is merely observing the status of the new persona vs the old and determining which one is growing in power. How drastic our changes need to be (if any are even required) depend on what we see there. Safely accelerating the transition from MURDERER to Isrenow is ideal as well as molding Isrenow to be more stable and less insane.
But bottom line is you plus your angel (only one trusted for this and should have the power to help) need to help stabilize her mind and make Isrenow grow into the new dominant personality while the old murderer dies out. Preferably slowly and slightly modifying Isrenow too to make her more sane and stable while keeping her skills.

I imagine that a major part of this process would be going through memories day by day from latest to older, removing the latest memories from murderer, modifying them as needed, and merging them into Isrenow. Until at the end nothing remains but Isrenow. Its a long term project, but the longer it goes on the better and a lot of the work. Ideally it can be delegated to angel to work on every night while Isrenow sleeps.

Ah, found it. Her original name was Kiliana Moontouched aka MURDERER.
>>/questarch/304320
>A very young(relatively) immortal calling itself Murderer has been going on a killing spree across Everfrost, apparently for the simple pleasure of killing everyone said immortal desires. The elves believe the immortal is one of their own, one Kiliana Moontouched. Her birth as an immortal being was foretold, and she was born, but she was off somehow. As she grew older, she became convinced humans were inferior to elves in every way, and that they should be wiped from the earth. When the elves tried to stop her, she killed them as well, coming to the conclusion that elves were too weak willed to do what must be done. Her killing spree started there, and has been going on close to 1000 years now. The elves ask that if I can, they would like her captured and returned to them. If not, I'm allowed to put her down.

So, eventually we might be asked to justify to them what is going on between us and her... (only explain if they ask!)
We could try to disguise her, problem is that she was seen by too many in her original form already, sticks included. (we might still try though... should we?)

Anyways, if the elves demand an explanation I suggest a mix of truth and half truth.

"Kiliana Moontouched is dead... Let me explain.

The mage-lords have taken to using a spark-stone which can store massive amounts of sparks. Raising the spark count of a mortal human master mage to the spark count of a demi-god.

Kiliana Moontouched aka MURDERER was captured by such a mage-lord who also specialized in mind-magic, who then along with a circle of his 20 subordinates pumping him with even more power has spent months and ridiculous amounts of magic and expertise replacing Kiliana persona with an artificially constructed one to serve him.

The rest of this long story is not important to inform you about like the nature of the spark-stones and I am busy so lets cut to the chase. He is dead, the Kiliana persona is dead. The body now belongs to Isrenow who is now a different person, and she is with me.

I strongly advise not discussing the previous owner of her body to her though... While she is far more stable now I am certain doing so will result in your death. (because if she doesn't kill them you will for messing it up)"

Anyone has critique on the details?

You probably wont even check this any more but i thought i should at least ask the author once. Do you have any plans to revive this quest? This was like my favorite quest on TG

You probably wont even check this any more but i thought i should at least ask the author once. Do you have any plans to revive this quest? This was like my favorite quest on TG