If ghostperv was my dad, things would be different.

Since I know some people playing along know about it, it seems fair to link the leadup I did on furaffinity a while ago:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7384112

A lot of the deets* aren't canon anymore, but the overall story is! If you want to know how big a buttjerk her fiance you can totally find out! (Spoiler: he's a buttjerk)

It's not necessary to read it, though! The whole quest is entirely self-contained for sure. I just think it's fair to put it out there as background so everyone can be on an equal footing if they want!

*translator's note: deets is short for details

>>/quest/451738
Well, we should consider that Sabhaxlia knows how this kind of thing goes down when someone runs from an arranged marriage to a more powerful family. She's been concerned about it and repeated the fact that she thinks that they'll kill her if they get their hands on her. So it's natural to assume that they'll kill her if she's not back by the wedding, which she won't. It's been about two days since we've started and when Sabbs went to town she said she had a few days left before it starts. So I'm guessing she has to be back in town by tomorrow or so to pretty much be able to attend her own wedding, which she would have to do of her own volition at this point since we've disguised her decently (or she'll have to fuck up pretty badly). So getting married in time is pretty much impossible, so she's got a death sentence by Geofahn on her hands.

This seems to be a medieval society that abhors bastards and their mothers, I wouldn't be surprised if they were really hardcore about this kind of thing since this is considered a big insult to a rising family, especially considered that this seems like a very generous offer from their perspective, despite their own goal of eating up a powerful old family to gain a bit more legitimacy. Turning down a generous deal in a mutual beneficiary contract is generally considered a grave insult enough that politics won't fucking matter anymore, they'll be out for blood if they can't get the girl back before the wedding. A lot of Geofahn's are coming to town for the wedding, and if there's no wedding, they've traveled all this way for nothing and those Geofahn relatives be super pissed at Sabbs. Then there's also the Geofahn wedding planners who just wasted a lot of effort and coin as well. If Sabby is not found within a day or two, she's wasted so much time and coin of the Geofahn's that they can't just give her a slap on the wrist if they their hands on her post-assigned-wedding day. She wouldn't be married to a Geofahn and kept on surveillance, they'd kill her.

And the Geofahn's can't threaten her mother if they have no idea about her running away in the first place. Either she must be convinced that Sabbs will be easy enough to find that having Geofahn's looking for her wouldn't be that big of a deal or Momma Tax didn't think at all about the possible long-term ramifications if Sabbs can't be found quickly and she's informed the Geofahns. And in her lack of thought, she's essentially condemned her daughter to death. She's a bad mother, even by medieval standards. And she's openly shamed whatever's left of her family's name now too, so she's also really bad at politics. That's the kind of shit you'd cover up from other houses. Say she died in a fire, commited suicide, whatever. That's a hell of a lot less worse than admitting than someone of your house thought the idea of marrying someone from a more powerful family was so bad that she ran away. THAT option insults the powerful family.

It's funny Sabhaxlia would probably have been fine with marrying whatever buttjerk it was. It's her mother that really got on her nerves. I bet there's nothing actually wrong with him at all.

I hope quest author realizes that having found out there are 3 other exotic lands we'll drive Sabhaxlia to all of them, just to sate our curiosity.

>>60367
He's a romantic buttjerk with a big nose.

He's, clearly, the worst ever.

>>60367
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7854302
Nah, he was ineptly doing things like trying to consider her feelings.

What a fag.

>>60388
Uh, did you read the whole thing there? Because there's actually a pretty big difference between considering someone's feelings because you care about them as a person, and considering someone's feeling because you're trying to manipulate them. And this was pretty clearly the latter.

Anonymous 2012/09/05(Wed)14:05 No. 60414 ID: 16ce15
File 134687914395.gif - (234.46KB , 750x946 , lesson015[1].gif )

i'm both surprised and disappointed no one made the link yet.

>>60408
To quote:


"Because we're about to be married! I don't want that to make you miserable. I just--didn't want you to be sad because of me."

That's. So. INCREDIBLY selfish I cannot even believe him. "Go piss on a grave! Last night you were staring at me naked and now today I'm supposed to fall into your arms because you save me you sick jerk you're imagining me naked right now aren't you!"

"What?"






Neither of them are very sensible. Buttjerk tried something out of a romance novel to try and make Sabby feel better, and Sabby overreacted for little reason. I fail to see why he's *that* big of a dick.

>>60415
Okay, no argument that her reaction was a bit disproportionate, and maybe a little nonsensical. But he didn't pull that cliche (there's probably a trope for it, isn't there?) to make her feel better, he pulled it so that she would like him better.

Weird as her reaction was, she was right about one thing - he was being selfish. By all appearances, he only cared about her feelings in so far as he didn't want to be married to someone who would be resentful and all not-liking-him all the time.

And, let's not forget, he was going about this by getting someone to harass, insult, intimidate, and eventually physically threaten her.

Yeah. Real romantic, this guy.

I just wanted to say that I've been enjoying following this quest. You've created a fascinating setting, and I appreciate the work you've put into keeping a steady update schedule. I could stand to learn a lesson from that. :)

>>60417
I have to agree with this guy, although he knew that she didn't have to like the thought marriage(she would have to marry him anyway), he tried to make her more comfortable with the idea. In the stupidest way possible. It seems like the friend was told to not hurt her though, so there was no real danger to her.(which was probably his justification for such a terrible plan)

I have no idea if the author will answer my question in here
But why do ghost dogs pant? They can't be getting rid of body heat! Is it just habit?

Oh goodness I didn't realize you guys were going all out in here too!

I'm not going to weigh in personally on if Sabby's fiance is actually a buttjerk or not, or if he's just done some buttjerkish things. He might not even show up in the quest or not at all!

It's possible Sabby's running away might have been a bit of an overreaction, at the very least, but it's way too late to take that back now.

>But why do ghost dogs pant? They can't be getting rid of body heat! Is it just habit?

It's habit! That's what their faces look like when they're real relaxed, too, so if a tombdog is happy they'll have their mouth open, even if they're a ghost!

Unless they're corpsebound. Then their jaw's probably just rotted open in a constant scream. That happens sometimes.

>I just wanted to say that I've been enjoying following this quest. You've created a fascinating setting, and I appreciate the work you've put into keeping a steady update schedule. I could stand to learn a lesson from that. :)

Oh goodness thank you. I am just kind of bumbling along trying to not fall over myself. I promised myself I'd do at least one update a day, every day, barring days when I'm just completely fuzzled. This is super-fun for me so it isn't a stress or pain to keep up with it tho.

Why don't corpsehounds wear facemasks?

Asking in here, 'cause it likely won't come up in the quest:
Do tombdogs in professions that have a significant risk of their corpse being irrecoverable if they die while working have a part of themselves removed and kept separate, as a place for their ghost to go in case of the worst happening? So, for example, a sailor, due to the risk of their remains being lost at sea, would have a toe, or half their tail, removed and preserved in their family, house, or home port town crypt.

>Why don't corpsehounds wear facemasks?

They sometimes tie/pin their jaws shut, but it's just generally really normal to see some corpsebound walking around with their mouth wide open! No one's really that disturbed by the faces corpses make when you're exposed to them since birth.

Some corpsebound take better care of themselves than others, too. Grandadcorpse probably intentionally took his flesh off after a while and put all iron pins in! So many iron pins. His ghost had enough control to make his mouth open and close although he didn't do that to talk much.

>Do tombdogs in professions that have a significant risk of their corpse being irrecoverable if they die while working have a part of themselves removed and kept separate

Unfortunately it only works after death. If you get your arm chopped off and die from it, the severed arm will hold your ghost; if you get your arm chopped off, survive, and die a few years later, your arm won't be able to manifest your ghost.

Dying at sea, or in a foreign land, is basically the most terrifying thing for a tombdog. Lots of other races don't really entirely know about tombdog death, and, like, they might want to cremate your corpse to honor you.

Since a well-cared for ghost or corpsebound can last hundreds of years after death, dying irrecoverably is considered like, way worse than a child dying. The child can be a ghost for another 50 years; an unrecoverable corpse only got the few years of life they lived.

Uhh, sorry about that tombdogs look the same comment, not a comment about the art at all, I was thinking of real dogs as an example. Give me two dogs with same few colors with only the way colors shape in pattens they differentiate (same breed, gender, etc.) and I have a tough time figuring out who's who, humans have a similar problem that was solved with technology as well, and that they can screw up passing the information of her description along.

I mean, say when have we one with Sabb's hook over her eye and then another where it also kind of hooks, maybe a few splotches on the other side, I don't fucking know which is which, it's easier to tell them apart when they're together but otherwise all dogs with hook patterns look exactly the fucking same to me. Geofahn's won't even HAVE that luxury, even if they had an excellent face artist that made a bunch of copies of a drawn wanted poster, there can be small errors in it that completely throw it off. Even with human beings you have this problem without a photo to compare with if there's no obvious markings such as a scar or birthmark which would obviously be unique to that individual with that set of facial features. The best way to determine humans apart is fingerprints and DNA, the tombdogs don't HAVE that technology.

I figure Sabbs can make that defensive argument and come out logical. These people are playing essentially a game of telephone with her facial details if they have no artist depiction they can copy over and over again. They'd have to take a piece of her Dad and send it to all search parties to get that confirmation, but I'm willing to bet that, if they even thought of that, they didn't do that for EVERY search party, there's not enough Dog Bill Cosby to go around and that's a lot of addresses to send his parts to in postal package.

>>60603

Well, I mean, but you aren't a dog; and people who raise dogs can tell, like, two-dozen dogs of the same breed apart. People who raise pure-breed huskies for sledding don't have a problem distinguishing their dogs by sight.

Like, I don't know if I'm giving too much away, but I think it's safe for players to assume the Geofahn dogs looking for her know her marking-type, fur-colors, age, body-type, height, etc. The disguise-clothes keeps you from being spotted in a crowd, but doesn't ensure no one will ever recognize her again.

Iaxio's grandad also knew the Tashikoxix face well enough he could figure out who Sabby was even in disguise, if you remember. It isn't a guarantee of safety.

I'm not going to dismiss your suggestion or anything! I just want to be sure you realize there is a huge risk to go face-to-face with a Geofahn dog that's looking for her. If it's a risk you want her to take, suggest it for sure; just know that like they can describe faces well enough they may be suspicious.

>>60604
Cool
That's why I brought up that I have trouble telling humans apart as well.
And there's still the telephone game issue!

>>60605

There is the telephone issue!

Your suggestion keeps Sabby from admitting to McTrinkets who she is so you have that in security as well. It would just be dishonest of me to let you suggest that without making sure you know that they do have ways of distinguishing one another without their colors on, because it seemed like you were going for that.

>>60605
If they have a general description and they're actively searching, they don't need to be sure it's us. That's just their grounds for questioning us, and if we get questioned, we will have a whole lot of trouble coming up with enough plausible details to get us off the hook, especially now that McTrinkets STRONGLY SUSPECTS that we're the runaway.

Even then, witness ID is the most commonly used method of identifying criminals. The fact that you cant tell dogs apart has to do with how the facial recognition part of your brain works, not with dogs looking the same. All races actually have trouble distinguishing the faces of difference races, much less animals, unless you train yourself otherwise.

Dogs would theoretically not have a ton of trouble telling each other apart.

Random people recognizing criminals that were described to them very commonly leads to arrests as well. Remember, it's good enough to call the cops in. It doesn't have to be good enough to know for certain that this is the person. We want to avoid having the cops called in (metaphorically)

>>60610
If this is the case then, to be honest, birddemon is actually now our best bet. Or not. A dog traveling with a birddemon might be even more suspicious and noticeable if we're stopped...

>>60622
How does that help us? If birddemon is unlikely to leave at night or be shady for us, he's way more dangerous.

Because McTrinkets already suspects us and hasn't sold us out, we might as well go with him and attempt to avoid being questioned at all, as per my suggestion. If he doesn't want to work with us to avoid being questioned, then we might as well use our inn room we've already paid for, and try again tomorrow.

Im curious about one thing that I guess isn't plot relevant but it might be and I just don't know?

Anyway, how long does a healthy ghost generally live? You mentioned that a dead child could be a ghost for 50 years and before that mentioned that ghosts could last hundreds of years. Does their living age have to do with it?

>Anyway, how long does a healthy ghost generally live? You mentioned that a dead child could be a ghost for 50 years and before that mentioned that ghosts could last hundreds of years. Does their living age have to do with it?

I don't think ghost longevity will come up in the plot, so let's just dump all the deets*.

It depends wholly on how the ghost is treated. Ghost-children honestly don't actually last terribly long. It's hard to mature and grow up if you died as a child, and ghost-children have trouble keeping focus on the world for more than a few decades at best; but, like, there is nothing really stopping a ghost-child from being a hundred years old either.

Ghost longevity depends on a whole bunch of things that Sabby would have known more about if she had cared at all about her ancestors. Also, caring for your ancestors is the biggest factor in ghost longevity! If the ghosts are spoken to regularly, kept involved with day-to-day life, and treated like living family members they have an easy time lasting. If they're only called upon now-and-then and you keep their relics in a closet otherwise, their ghosts are going to start getting frail. The biggest threat for ghosts is losing track of time. Once a ghost starts letting weeks pass without realizing it, they're starting down the road to oblivion.

Personal willpower/focus/whatever also matters. Someone who just coasted through life won't have as powerful or long-lasting a ghost as someone who was focused and driven.

On average, the ghosts in Maexiks' town probably go as far back 200 or 300 years, but with only a few reaching that far. Towns usually share a communal crypt so that once direction relations die or move away ghosts still have a chance of being looked after, even if no one in town is really related to them anymore.

Ghosts of a house last as long as the house does. House Geofahn's about 150 years old so they don't have many ghosts older than that. When a house dies, like Tashikoxix, they can try to have someone marry into another house so their crypt can be adopted and the ghosts can be maintained. If they can't, the crypt might end up abandoned or forgotten or be plundered, or, like in Sabby's case, all the ghosts might be already dead.

House Fauhredn set the standards on ghost care and have almost zero fatality rate for ghosts. The house itself is over 500 years old, and they have ghosts dating older than that. Since ghosts can directly translate into military power (equipping ghosts for extra power!) House Fauhredn is well past the point of ridiculous and is basically completely impossible to actually defeat in war anymore.

Okay but that said ghost-towers like the Geofahn guy did are super-excessive, super-dangerous, and basically breaking into mutually assured destruction territory. Sabhaxlia's over-panicked reaction was basically entirely appropriate there (although running out into the street with barely a destination wasn't the best); like she was gonna say before she was interrupted by the fight, you just never ever put that many ghosts on one dog. It is super bad manners and invites way too much destruction. Geofahn was posturing real-hard to impose their will on House Aifix and they're probably going to be dealing with the consequences of it for a long while.

And there we go! Literally more than anyone ever needs to know about something no one actually needs to know about!

*translator's note: deets is short for details

>>60659
>And there we go! Literally more than anyone ever needs to know about something no one actually needs to know about!

It's fascinating, though! How long have you had this world in your head? I love the setting and concept.

>And there we go! Literally more than anyone ever needs to know about something no one actually needs to know about!
But I still have questions!
- Do corpse-bound live much longer than normal ghosts, since they can actively seek out people to interact with?
- Does it count if ghosts or corpse-bound help keep each-other company?
- Do any houses have ghosts as official leaders rather than just advisers?
- Do ghosts sometimes hire (or have their families hire) servants to act as inexpensive bodies? (For that matter, can an individual ghost own property?)
- Are ghost towers still vulnerable to getting sniped by archers if they are not careful?
- Can corpse-bound channel ghosts like the living can?
- Can ghosts intentionally travel through solid objects if they are still close enough to a relic of theirs?

>>60659
ghost towers
So what the Geofan dog did was essentially like showing up to a sword fight and pulling out an RPG?

>It's fascinating, though! How long have you had this world in your head? I love the setting and concept.

This has been a thing I've played with for like a year or so, but having to prepare for the quest made me work out all the details way more than I had.

>But I still have questions!

Oh goodness ok. If people actually want I can answer more?

I'm sort of hoping the quest is playable without reading an encyclopedia, though. All you really need to play is the basics of that ghosts are people too, houses are political families, and Sabby shouldn't get caught.

Complicated stuff like how ghost-towers work or just why they're a big deal are aren't so important. People seem to have already picked up that what Geofahn did was a Big Deal, which is great, because that's all that you need to know!

People even started worrying if Geofahn was carrying parts of Sabby's dad around so he can ID her, which is like, way smarter than I had expected, so I'm guessing people are picking up on things without me needing to do a lot of explaining.

But anyway!

>Do corpse-bound live much longer than normal ghosts, since they can actively seek out people to interact with?

Basically so! Corpsebounds who just do the same repetitive tasks most of the day are still at risk for losing track of time and that's super-dangerous. The process and the ghost itself keeps the body safe from rotting and every-day wear, but over time the thing's going to need maintenance. If it can't get maintenance, it gets harder for the ghost to stay focused and it can start dying off too.

>Does it count if ghosts or corpse-bound help keep each-other company?

Crypts usually have a corpsebound or two in there to keep the place up 24/7 and keep the ghosts lively, but it isn't perfect. If you leave a crypt like that for to long the ghosts and corpsebound will just have the same conversation over and over with increasing months in-between. The daily-changing busy life of living dogs works way better.

>Do any houses have ghosts as official leaders rather than just advisers?

House Fauhredn is ruled by corpses and ghosts. One of the two leaders of House Geofahn is dead. The head of House Aifix is a corpsebound. It's rare for a house to be headed by someone living.

>Do ghosts sometimes hire (or have their families hire) servants to act as inexpensive bodies? (For that matter, can an individual ghost own property?)

If a ghost has business a family-member can just carry a reliquary around so the ghost can get their stuff done. Ghosts can totally own property. The owners of the stranger's inn Sabby's staying at right now are a pair of ghosts! They need their grandson to do the actual work for them, though.

>Are ghost towers still vulnerable to getting sniped by archers if they are not careful?

Ghost-stacking over 10 or so is pretty rare because it's hard to actually find and field that many ancestors for more than one or two dogs! But once you start breaking that limit, no, you have to have some ghosts of your own. I had a chart of ghost ratios that I lost but it's something like, you need at least half as many ghosts to be able to really have a chance.

Most actual tombdog warfare is a bunch of house-dogs with 3-5 ancestors each having it out.

>Can corpse-bound channel ghosts like the living can?

Yep, corpsebounds can equip ghosts just like living dogs.

>Can ghosts intentionally travel through solid objects if they are still close enough to a relic of theirs?

No, ghosts are stuck following the same physics as everyone else. If their relic is inside a reliquary or an urn or something the ghost can manifest outside it; if their relic is in a little closet their ghost can manifest outside the door, too, but those are the only sort of exceptions for that.

>So what the Geofan dog did was essentially like showing up to a sword fight and pulling out an RPG?

Well! It's unclear what really went down out there right now, so I'm going to leave it vague because Sabby isn't really sure what happened. She's confused and all she knows is some serious combat just went down and it's confusing! If she wants to find out more she'll need to risk listening in for gossip.

Congratulations on a solid and entertaining first thread. :D

Looking forward to part two.

I fear my question about the obsession over the word butt will go forever unanswered, an enigma floating in an abyss.

>I fear my question about the obsession over the word butt will go forever unanswered, an enigma floating in an abyss.

What was this question?

>Looking forward to part two.

i am tentatively considering starting it all up again on friday maybe? that is the plan unless it all falls to butts

>obsession over the word butt

oh

Would you like a thesaurus?
I'm sure there's more synonyms than the ones I mentioned in the quest thread.

>obsession over the word butt
I assumed this had something to do with the fact most the cast are dogs. They're usually kind of butt fixated.

sabby only ever really uses really light curses and insults. she sometimes goes for the piss-grave stuff which is normal but she only curses properly once.

you can draw your own speculative conclusions why sabby only ever uses immature vulgarity (spoiler: she's kind of immature)

>>60958
Right now Sab seems more bug fixated.

Are cross-species relationships taboo? What about same-sex relationships?

>>60959
It's not like you can't use "mature" curses immaturely.
In fact, she's being strangely maturely immature with her use of the word butts. It's practically a paradox of maturity up in this literal bitch.

>obsession over the word butt
I figure it is how some people are all like "like" when they are, like, talking.
(Now that word looks so weird...)

>It's practically a paradox of maturity up in this literal bitch.

Whoa, dang.

>Are cross-species relationships taboo? What about same-sex relationships?

Since tombdog afterlife depends on clear lines of succession, sex-scandals of any kind are usually pretty Big Deals, especially among housedogs. In towns, where crypts are largely communal, you can get away with something like that and be the "town eccentric" or something, though. If you're a wandering stranger everyone already assumes the worst.

Publicity and actual reaction of sex scandals differ in north and south. In the north it's more common to gossip and pry into people's sex lives and relationships. If you have a spanking fetish, or are having sex outside of marriage, or are kissing another girl who's a bug, everyone will be talking about it, everyone will know it, everyone might be laughing about it, but that's about it. The north loves sex gossip and sex scandals, but mostly just for the sake of gossip.

In the south, it's way more taboo to have any sort of relationship other than pre-arranged hetero-marriage, but the thing is, in the south, privacy is also super respected. If you find out the young gentleman next-door has a boyfriend, or that the married couple across the street are into bondage, all the weight of the scandal falls on you for having disrupted the privacy. Sexual deviancy is a matter for families to handle or not handle. It's a weird dichotomy between "Child-bearing marriages are the only acceptable relationship" and "Don't ever stick your nose into someone else's sex-life."

In north or south, public displays of affection of any kind are basically unwelcome, though. Even a married couple holding hands or hugging is way too saucy for the tombdog remnant. North or south, again, the pressure is to only have sex with the person you've married. Tombdogs have a lot of sexual hang-ups, and it really basically all goes back to how their whole ghost-becoming thing goes.

In general, prayermen culture is pretty easy-going, birddemon culture celebrates sexuality, and lifelizard culture is even more repressive than tombdogs.

>>61015
So sodomy, yay or nay?
If it's with the person you're married, at least.
I imagine it's insanely popular in the affair relationships though, at least among high-ranking members. If only great-grandpappy loved butts as much as Sabby did, he wouldn't have had that miserable Iaxio scandal in the first place. No offense to Iaxio, he's great, but well stuff would have been a lot less sadder for his ma and grandpa.
We are totally better off for great-grandpappies displeasure in butts of course, with a red ghost bro to help our lie.

I don't think wildly suggesting things is a good idea. It introduces a lot of clutter to the thread and Sabhaxlia will actually do some of those things. Remember when she panicked?

Yeah, let's avoid meta-chaos here.

Well, let's not turn the whole quest into fake-out suggestions, but some of the fake-out suggestions were super hilarious, ok.

What about mantis culture sexuality?
And the fact that there's so few of them? How do they reproduce and find each other? Do they find each other in their dreams, then fly out to each other for mating?

>>/quest/460265
Yeah, ghost people can be butts too. Especially Tashikox ghosts. We left nothing but butts to die. And it was all like they were plugged up on life support anyway, we just removed the plug by running away. It was euthanasia for a dying family. The Geofahn marriage was so that the family could keep those ghost plugged in longer.

Do dead dogs dream (of dreambugs)?

Iforgotaboutthisthreadwhoopsiedoodles

>Do they find each other in their dreams, then fly out to each other for mating?

I mean, there's nothing saying they can't mate in their dreams. Dreampregnation! It's possibly canon!

>The Geofahn marriage was so that the family could keep those ghost plugged in longer.

To be fair, I mean, if you wanna be brutal about it, all ghost preservation is just life support? The Tashikoxix ghosts would probably have found some "work" in Geofahn. They could have been part of that ghost-tower! Everyone gets to get in on these war-crimes! War-crimes for EVERYONE

>Do dead dogs dream (of dreambugs)?

Man :V Get Sabby killed and let's find out!

>>61917
Kinda, but this family was on the fast track to deadsville.
And if warcrimes ARE gonna be an issue, we want warcrimes from less people.
Also this specific kind of life support comes from whoring off your own daughter, sort of. It wouldn't be that was if Tashikox (these long and/or complex names are so hard to spell) wasn't in the air of desperation and basically hit up the first house who offered. This is kind of a disrespectful arranged marriage.
Which is why I pointed out if Sabbs is still concerned or still feels guilty about leaving the family to die, she can probably get a Deoxedn husband on her own terms at least while getting to be kinda badass about it.
That arranged marriage is respectful and organized at least, and feels more legit.

But, when I really get down to basics, I think I just don't like the Sabbs' entire family, the way they treat people with their traditions, and would like them to go all superdie in a fire. I mean, she didn't even mention a single ghost in her family at least understanding her feelings about the marriage while her Mother was all "Oh why are you being such a bitch about this, this is a happy occasion! Even if it's forced! Why aren't you excited?" and Bill Cosby dad is like "Daughter you do this, I'm putting my foot down. This family who isn't even mine to begin with's history is far more important to me than your well-being and feelings. No I'm not going to talk it through to you thoughtfully, I'm going to insult you for being the brat you are."

I mean, okay, so every other family in this time is like this. That doesn't make it right! This culture obviously has a sense of individuality but doesn't respect it! It seems to hates individuality but never defends or builds its "for the greater good" mentality as a good thing.

Can dream-dreambugs be killed at all? By nightmares, or by other dreambugs?

Are corpse-bound ghosts completely locked to their bound remains, or can they manifest as a ghost from parts that aren't attached? Can they control parts that aren't attached, such as the digits of a hand, or even the joints of a single finger?

>>61918

Well, I mean, it obviously sat unwell enough with Sabby that she did abandon them, so :V yeah

>Can dream-dreambugs be killed at all? By nightmares, or by other dreambugs?

Tombdogs basically know nothing about dreambugs, really. They are kind of not super big on cross-cultural appreciation and dreambugs don't usually share their secrets. Sabby's thing with Maexiks is pretty special. Who knows if there is any dreamdanger! It is a mystery.

>Are corpse-bound ghosts completely locked to their bound remains, or can they manifest as a ghost from parts that aren't attached?

Locked. Severed limbs broken from the main part are just bits of bone and flesh until they're rejoined--the process to make a corpsebound forces to to remain a singular ghost-manifestation-thing. That is for normal corpsebounds, anyway! There are probably lots of creepy super powerful corpsebounds around that break the normal rules.

I've missed your butt.

I remember digging up the thread a few days ago and being surprised that there hadn't been any updates. This has been one of my favorite quests.

Is everything alright, Sabhaxlia?

Doxedn is metal as fuck

>>62622
Sabhaxlia's Terrible Life
Starring Jack Black as Iaxio, Jennifer Hale as McTrinkets, and... I can't name anyone as Sabhaxlia.

>>62623
lady gaga

>I remember digging up the thread a few days ago and being surprised that there hadn't been any updates. This has been one of my favorite quests. Is everything alright, Sabhaxlia?

Real life has been butting me up, but I'm going to try to get back to updating with some kind of regularity! I'm going to try to not go more than a few days without updating from now on, as long as I can.

>>62651
Did you intentionally design the tombdog remnant to give off some serious metal vibes?
Are the other remnants based off other genres of music?

>>62652
I haven't felt any metal vibes, myself.
I just kind of see the remnant as a super swampy wetland sorta place. I feel like they originally lived in desserts and the like, though. Swamps are always all moist, no good for mummies.

>>62653
Your theory is helped by the fact they seem to be based on African Wild Dogs.

>Did you intentionally design the tombdog remnant to give off some serious metal vibes?

:V! I was not doing any sort of thing consciously, at least.

>I just kind of see the remnant as a super swampy wetland sorta place. I feel like they originally lived in desserts and the like, though. Swamps are always all moist, no good for mummies.

The part of the remnant this is set in is super swampy wetlands for sure. Far south, below Fauhredn country, where McTrinkets is from, there's a big mountain range, and below that, the other half of the remnant is mostly desert and dry plains! Tombdogs past the mountain range are a pretty different culture and have a really diverged language. They face away from the other remnants, and don't get up to inter-remnant trade as much so they're a lot more isolated and more like the original culture before the whole world-joining.

was this quest dropped? is the author dead?

author died.

>>63821
...I'm hoping that was a morbid way of saying "the author left tgchan."

>>63821
No she didn't, gosh. Coracleboat's been around IRC within the past week. Dunno why there haven't been updates.

Oh. Right.

I'm still here.

A lot of stuff happened for me IRL and keeping up with the quest became way too much stress. Things are still aren't settled with me, and I get worried about picking up the quest and having to stop, like, an update later because of stuff.

But, I mean, that's kind of a crappy excuse.

I'll update later today.

>>63831
IRL stuff is an excellent excuse, actually. We don't expect you to put the quest above your own life. Don't stress about it.

>>63831
Hey, I love the quest, but you have to come first, you know? :V

anyone else notice that sabbie has a butt fetish to the point that if she were an emperor all non-anal sex would be forbidden? seriously, 3 days after we find her a safe home she is going to invent the enema or the buttplug or something

>>64633
I think she's just overly polite and refuses to use any worse swear words, comrade.

Now YOU, on the other hand, appear to have put too much thought into this.

buttquest is great quest
And so is flintlock pimp fox quest

>>64661
He doesn't have a flintlock. He has Springguns.

Still, both are great.

And Sabhaxlia's life seems to be pretty well so far, though she's probably traumatized from all the destruction she's causing. Although if this quest is anything like that OTHER Terrible Life quest, things will probably go quite far down hill for our protagonist from here.

oh my god I love how hyperactive the animals are in this quest even in the dialog (especially in the dialog)! Just the idea of a few mice panicking the fuck out in a room going "A snake!" is motherfucking delightful. That's not even the subject of the thumbnail, the dialog is enough to carry it.

>anyone else notice that sabbie has a butt fetish to the point that if she were an emperor all non-anal sex would be forbidden? seriously, 3 days after we find her a safe home she is going to invent the enema or the buttplug or something

holy crap

>And Sabhaxlia's life seems to be pretty well so far

The secret of the title is that her life wasn't actually really all that terrible before she ran away. She was in a marriage she didn't really like, but that's normal for a lot of tombdogs. It was her own hyperbole about how terrible her life is that's the reason she's now worrying about how to destroy a hostile family with the help of bandits :v

And oh dear I didn't expect Best Bandit discussions going on in here too.

>>64916
Too late to stop now. She must destroy civilization or die trying. All because of a botched political marriage and serial escalation.

>>64929
2 houses down, all of them to go.

>>64935
this escape really isn't going as planned, is it

SCOM 2012/12/16(Sun)14:52 No. 65132 ID: cf49fc
File 135569835465.gif - (450.32KB , 480x360 , Dance Mutant.gif )

>>65124
Honestly, at this rate we'll be lucky to get off the REMNANT before the entire population is either dead, embroiled in an anarchic civil war, or having some kind of dance party.

Viva la revolucion.

er.. quest died again?

>>68221
Coracleboat's moving back to the U.S. I guess it's taking an annoyingly long time or there's been delays or something, but there won't be updates until that's done.

She said March. There's still plenty of March to go around.

>>68274
I just assumed she died.

>>68280
I thought she was transported to Mars, to battle for the affections of the Martian prince.

>>68301
I thought she was out skinning African Wild Dogs to make her own Sabby fur suit.

>>68389
Let's compromise: She's an African Wild Dog who went back to Mars to watch the princes battle for her heart.

As this thread has already been bumped, I'd like to take the opportunity to say that I really like the way coracleboat draws her tombdogs and I totally want to draw one someday and post it here to show my appreciation, but I'm already too tired today and anything I attempted to draw at this point would be just an ugly caricature, so instead I'm just posting this very long sentence that is going to take all your breath.

>>68392
This needs to be put to paper.

Hi, I'm moving back on March 14th. Things will pick back up once I settle in again, sorry

Whoops, that was me.

I'm getting home on the 14th and after I settle into some kind of schedule this quest will start again, yes. I've been too busy and stressed to keep an eye on tgchan at all recently

>>68933
holy shit I never knew your usename was coracleboat
that is one of the best names

>>68933
hey! that's international pi day!

don't worry about it, we're just happy to have you back

>>69013
>international pi day
>American date format
That'll be like the 'World' Series then?

Good luck on the move, Coracle. Those things capsize if you look a them askance.

>>69020
You kind of need to use the month/day format to get a pi day, at all, though. If you go day/month 3/14 doesn't work (no 14th month) and neither does 31/4 (April doesn't have 31 days).

The only time format that makes logical sense all the way from start to finish is year-month-day, followed by hours-minutes-seconds, and then decimal places if you require more precision. Preferring any other convention is just going with what you are used to. The fact that this convention supports pi day only further solidifies its superiority.

Given this format, every year on March 14th, at 1:59, you should be eating pie. The use of a 12 hour clock rather than a 24 hour clock is permitted in most regions, for convenience sake.

Welcome home coraclebutt!

>>69058
>1:59
A-hem.

>>69060
may I help you?

Quick, someone rub some corpse-dust on the quest thread.

http://hexadecimal.florencetime.net/Hexadecimal_metric_system.htm#Time

obviously!

Do you like tabletops? Awesome! Do you like tombdogs? Ne too! If you're interested in playing in a tabletop game with tombdogs, then have I got news for you! I am running a coracleboat-approved tombdog campaign in a system I wrote! If you're interested in learning more, check out #tombdogs on irc.rizon.net!

w_ 2013/03/26(Tue)21:52 No. 69435 ID: f2d3e0
File 136435992342.gif - (114.56KB , 1000x1000 , tabletop-games.gif )

I'm extremely sorry -- I have no idea what I'm doing.

Anonymous 2013/03/28(Thu)22:15 No. 69524 ID: 65449b
File 136453414524.png - (136.03KB , 800x600 , gooddoctor.png )

I guess this could go here. Tombdogs. Tombdog campaign! Join it! Needs players!

Anonymous 2013/03/31(Sun)21:33 No. 69597 ID: 65449b
File 136479080665.png - (99.63KB , 800x600 , chapter1card-2.png )

The first tombdog campaign game was today. Logs are here:
http://pastebin.com/vsuyu4aw

Second tombdog campaign session is here:
http://pastebin.com/Ld8Gggeg

Just so its said, I like the campaign thus far :D

Third tombdog campaign session is here:
http://pastebin.com/eB8vzVzH

Fourth tombdog campaign session is here:

http://pastebin.com/SsSQdHTE

Fifth tombdog campaign session is here:
http://pastebin.com/iLLkMXd6

Sixth tombdog campaign session is here:
http://pastebin.com/Q4KpSybz

Hey all:
Tombdogs campaign needs 2-3 replacement players, ideally, before we go on our next plot thread. If you like what you've read here, consider joining #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net and expressing your interest. Thanks!

Barring anything super major, I'm going to be starting this back up, this week. I'll do a short re-cap in the revived thread and a longer re-cap here so no one has to re-read everything if they want to play along.

I just re-read the whole quest myself, and am getting my notes back together for this.

When I settle into things I might finish off Best Bandits and maybe go for another installment of that too! We'll see!

Huzzah! Best news I've heard all week!

>>71152
holy motherfucker buried waist deep in a butt, batman! that's great news!

buttjerks all across the land will fear the name

coracleboat

Sabhaxlia's Excellent Refresher Course 1/3 Sabhaxlia 2013/06/05(Wed)08:52 No. 71204 ID: 8fb35b
File 137044752117.png - (74.73KB , 500x500 , 00sabby recaps.png )

Hey there! The update is coming today! It is being drawn right now!

But so much has happened, and it’s been so long, even I can’t remember what’s happened to me so far!

I noticed someone just did a wonderful job with the wiki page here: http://tgchan.org/wiki/Sabhaxlia%27s_Terrible_Life Wow!

I also whipped up some short-hand notes for you all!

Let’s remember everyone and thing that’s important! We’re not going to go over everything in much detail, this is just Sabhaxlia’s Excellent Refresher Course! People who've read the quest already shouldn't need to if you just skim these notes!

After reading this, you’ll be ready to play again!

--Let’s summarize what’s important to remember right now!

-I ran away from home.
-I took the Beggar’s ghost with me.
-Maexiks the dreambug got me supplies.
-We found out Beggar is actually Iaxio, my grand-father’s bastard son!
-Maexiks can talk to me in dreams and tell the future.
-We met a dog I called McTrinkets who helped me escape further south.
-Maexiks told me House Geofahn has a dreambug trying to find me!
-To pay back McTrinkets for helping me escape (and not turning me in), I agreed to help her pay a debt.
-She had me deliver a box of money to Family Hefehxn, in the House Doxedn city.
-I was robbed along the way by bandits. I kept them from getting McTrinket’s money.
-Maexiks warned me Family Hefexn was dangerous, so I dropped the money off with them and left as fast as I could.
-Family Hefehxn sent someone to follow me.
-Maexiks told me that because I just dropped the money off and left, Family Hefehxn would take their anger out all on McTrinkets. She would die if I didn’t help.
-McTrinkets and I decided to destroy Family Hefehxn.
-We met up with Kehfn Doxedn and a lady named Meandraxix, to plot about taking Family Hefehxn down.
-Meandraxix sold me out to Family Hefehxn.
-I killed the dog Family Hefehxn sent to get me.
-I stole Meandraxix’s clothes.
-I met up with Kehfn’s sister, Akilfhren Doxedn.
-Our new plan is:

To expose Family Hefehxn, we need to make their allies think we have enough evidence to hurt them. We need McTrinkets’ testimony as a merchant who’s worked for them. We need the Bandits to say Family Hefehxn bought corpses from them. We need the evidence Meandraxix collected, too.

Family Hefehxn is in their legal right to kill me on sight. House Doxedn can’t publically support me, but can do it secretly.

Sabhaxlia's Excellent Refresher Course 2/3 Sabhaxlia 2013/06/05(Wed)08:53 No. 71205 ID: 8fb35b
File 137044761678.png - (97.00KB , 500x500 , 00everybody.png )

Sabhaxlia Tashikoxix: That’s me! I’m escaping my arranged marriage by fleeing south. Sometimes I use the fake name Taliaxix. I have a spear, a sword, a knife, and Meandraxix’s clothes, along with my camping gear. I haven’t slept much in a while.

Iaxio/Beggar: The cross-road ghost who’s traveling with me. It turns out he’s my great-grandfather’s bastard son. He gives advice and looks at me naked. We just powered him up with corpse-paste.

Maexiks: A dreambug merchant who helped me escape. We can talk in my dreams and she can see the future. She’s getting really worried about her future-visions steering me wrong. I might be attracted to her.

Southdog McTrinkets: A merchant who helped me escape. She’s good at disguising herself. She owes a lot of money to Family Hefehxn and they want her dead. Right now everything’s about helping save her. I might be attracted to her.

Kekahkik: McTrinket’s ghost friend. I can contact McTrinkets through him.

Kehfn Doxedn: The living heir of House Doxedn. He’s helping us save McTrinkets from Family Hefehxn.

Akilfhren Doxedn: Kefhn’s sister.

The Bandits: A bunch of bandits who are robbing the road around the Doxedn city. They robbed me but weren’t that mean. We’re trying to recruit them in a plot to take down Family Hefexhn.

Meandraxix Taifrax: A woman who was working with Kehfn against Family Hefehxn. Family Hefehxn stole some of her family ghosts to force her to turn on him. She tried to sell me out. I stole her clothes and tied her up.

Sabhaxlia's Excellent Refresher Course 3/3 Sabhaxlia 2013/06/05(Wed)08:54 No. 71206 ID: 8fb35b
File 137044766112.png - (25.52KB , 500x500 , 00factions.png )

-House Tashikoxix: My family. They’re almost all dead and I’m the living heir. I’m running away.

-House Geofahn: A powerful, young coastal faction. I’m engaged to one of their dogs. They are hunting me because I’m fleeing the arranged marriage.

-House Fauhredn: The oldest faction on the remnant. I’m fleeing to their lands in the south because they’re House Geofahn’s enemies.

-House Aifix: They own a shipping town. House Geofahn killed their living heir while looking for me. It’s probably caused a big scandal by now.

-House Doxedn: They own the city and lands we’re in right now. We’re getting their unofficial help to protect McTrinkets and take down the people she owes money to.

-Family Hefehxn: The bad guys McTrinkets is in debt to. They make taboo corpse-paste. I killed one of them when they came for me. We’re trying to scare their allies into exposing them for us.

One 2013/06/05(Wed)10:46 No. 71207 ID: cf49fc
File 137045438048.jpg - (110.52KB , 1058x705 , LET\'S KEEP GOING!.jpg )

>>71206
>More Sabhaxlia

Time to bring about the destruction of ALL LIFE ON THE CONTINENT!

Yaaaaaay

Hey, I have a question about the phrase I used in my post, it's not really related that much to the quest I guess but I'm not sure where to discuss it so this is related enough.

"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth", where did this phrase come from? If it has something to do with the Trojan horse, than everone ever has a reason to look down the throat of a gift horse. So, how did it start like that?

>>71221
The condition of a horse's mouth is often a good indicator of its health and how it's been treated. If you receive a horse as a gift, you shouldn't inspect its mouth (in front of the person who gave it to you) because it indicates that you don't trust that the person would give you a horse in good condition.

>>71221
Inspecting a horse's mouth (teeth, gums, etc) was one of the things you did when assessing the health and value when horse shopping.

So, if you're looking a gift horse in the mouth, you're not trusting a gift. You're stopping to examine if it's actually any good. Which is sort of insulting to the gift giver.

So glad this is back!

The wiki entry's missing a fanarts, someone should probs add it in http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/56436.html#61758

Casual reminder that the ~official Tombdog tabletop campaign~ still needs players. Be there or be butts. The channel is #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net

>>71229
What timezone is it usually run in?

>>71925
It runs 11/12AM to 4/5AM GMT, or 4-8PM PST.

Sabhaxlia's Excellent Culture Class Sabhaxlia 2013/06/06(Thu)15:26 No. 71929 ID: 8fb35b
File 137055758354.png - (94.11KB , 600x600 , mantle types.png )

Hey! For fun, let's go over the different patterns of mantles and what they could mean!

--1: Single dominant, single submissive, colors solid.

Standard pattern.
Available to dogs born into a town/family/house.
Available to dogs married/adopted through absorptive arrangements—the dog relinquishes all ties to their previous town/family/house.
Access to one crypt.


--2: Double dominant, double submissive, colors solid.

Common double-pattern. Original colors on the left; new colors on the right.
Available to dogs married/adopted through adjoinment arrangements—the dog retains some connection to their previous town/family/house.
Access to two crypts.

--3: Single dominant, single submissive, colors striped.

Rare adoptive pattern.
Available to dogs adopted through outsider-under-license or other arrangements. Offered to strangers with no town/family/house crypt of their own. The wearer is never a full member of the town/family/house. Most often used for adopting races other than tombdogs into a town/family/house.
Very limited access to one crypt.

--4: Double dominant, double submissive, right striped.

Common employment pattern. Employer’s colors striped on the right; personal colors on the rest of the outfit.
Available to dogs acting as representatives/employees of a town/family/house but belong to a separate town/family/house.
Access to their own crypt; no access to employer’s crypt except under certain circumstances.

--5: Double dominant, double submissive, left striped.

Uncommon double-crypt pattern.
Available to dogs born under a parent with access to two crypts. The dog retains connections to both parents’ towns/families/houses.
Can happen when one parent wears pattern (1) and the other wears pattern (2). The child retains the right to wear (2)’s left-side colors, despite being born entirely outside of their origin.
Access to two crypts.

--6: No pattern

Stranger.
Unassociated strangers with no mantels at all are assumed to be thieves or beggars on sight. No proper dog goes without a mantel.

--Notes:

Two (5) patterned dogs cannot marry one another and produce a dog with access to four crypts, wearing eight colors. For purposes of marriage, dogs with the pattern in (5) use their right-mantle colors as their family colors. The marriage would require one dog to relinquish claims to their left-side colors to fit their new family’s colors in. The colors that were previously on their right could move to their left, unstripped, but they would lose access to the parental crypt that was striped on the left before!

In general, the colors you wear on your right is the group you are currently representing. The ones on the left are entirely OK to ignore if you don’t really care to know the ancestral history of the dog you’re talking to.

If a living dog amputates a pinky finger or other body part, and gives it to another... how will that function? When the dog is in an alive state and when their dead?

>If a living dog amputates a pinky finger or other body part, and gives it to another... how will that function? When the dog is in an alive state and when their dead?

Only parts that are connected to the body at the moment of death can be used by the ghost to manifest on. There are exceptions if the loss of a limb (head, arm, torso bisection) results in death really fast.

If there's any time to heal or so between the removal of a part and the dog's death, that lost part becomes useless for ghosting.

>>71932
What if the tombdog dies by drowning in molten metal, fusing his body into it? Am I overthinking this? I feel it could come in handy

>>71936
uhh, what? why would the metal become part of them? would simply be whatever parts weren't burnt up that were useful.

I'm going to assume it'll work like fire does and they'll die.

Like, there's not really a chance a tombdog would actually fall into a giant vat of molten metal like in Terminator.

So long as the bones are in one largely undamaged piece, though, they can manifest a ghost. I have no idea what being submerged in molten metal does to bones, so, like.

If you want to plate metal onto a bone protectively, though, I guess there's no reason that would go wrong. It's still a lot easier to just store them in sturdy reliquaries.

>>71941
what would happen if you dropped an ancient corpsebound with a ghost stack tower on him into a vat of corpse-paste? would he explode?

>what would happen if you dropped an ancient corpsebound with a ghost stack tower on him into a vat of corpse-paste? would he explode?

He'd probably be really gross and I wouldn't want to touch him at all.

You'd also need a lot of corpses to make enough corpse-paste to submerge a dude in. It'd make the ghosts a lot stronger, but not so much that it'd cause a big explosion. If you so many ghosts together that it would cause an explosion, you'd already have weird stuff happening before you got them near the stuff!

Still need more players for tombdog gaems. #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net

What other races exist besides tombdog and dreambug?
What is a "remnant" as opposed to a "not-remnant"?
Is there any non-ghost magic?

>>71975
In order: Life Lizards, Demon Birds, God Men, Dream Bugs, and Tomb Dogs

Every continent is a "remnant" of a world from a different universe, five of which collapsed into one. The exception is the Dream Bug Remnant, which exists in as a Dream.

Presumably, since Demons, Gods, Reincarnation, and Dreamwalkers exist for the other races.

I are a good loremaster.

>>71978
You forgot walk plants which have no remnant, physical or otherwise.

Yes, there is non-ghost magic. Each race has it's own boons. Boiled down, Dogs have an afterlife haunting their corpse and can ghost stack. Dreambugs can predict the future and affect minds. Humans must pray to gods but get magic from them and an afterlife. Lizards reincarnate and can call on the memories and skills of past lives, they can also become dragons eventually. Birds make pacts with spirits and get access to magic and other benefits but no afterlife. Plants are doppelgangers which assume the lives of those they replace with non-detection magic.

Whoa! You guys are on top of this!

There are a bunch of remnantless races who couldn't bring their worlds with them when they escaped. Some of them are still around in big numbers, like dreambugs, who you can still count on seeing around no matter where you are. Some are basically endangered. Walkplants are pretty rare, and even if you can get past their magic to spot them, you can go your whole life looking for and never finding one.

There aren't many more races beyond what's been mentioned, though. The four remnant peoples make up an overwhelming majority of the world's races, with only a very small number of other races filling in the rest.

For remnantless races, it's hard to find a place to fit in. Over generations they either work their way into a little pocket of acceptance in this remnant or that, or resign themselves to a nomadic lifestyle. A lot of the ones in the tombdog remnant stick to the coast, too, because it's really hard for strangers to be accepted deep in the traditionalist tombdog lands. If Sabby had gone north to hide in Geofahn lands she would have ran into a few new races. (In general a lot of remnantless people like the coasts of all the remnants, because the cultures there are usually more cosmopolitan and accepting anyway.)

The further you get away from big centers of civilization the more likely you're going to find a remnantless people huddled up, hiding from the majority culture, too, though.

Soooo something that just came to mind
Say a dog gets a 10 ghost tower going, and then another dog with 20 or so ghosts explodes the 10 ghost dog.
Do the ghosts explode with him?
*note to self* as awesome as 'OVER 9000!!!!' Tower would be, it'd probably take out a Remenant long before such a tower could form, am I right?

You know what I realize with the revelation that the plant people exist? They would have been a real boon as a party member, either as a doppelganger to have left behind at the beginning of our escape or even to have right now.

>>72029

I mean, exploding isn't like, they aren't going to make them blow up like an fireball with flames and smoke and stuff. They might cut him into chunks and smear him across the landscape? It's up to the reliquaries if they protect the relics well enough or not if the ghosts are ok from that.

Getting over 20 ghosts starts making things around you get really weird.

>You know what I realize with the revelation that the plant people exist? They would have been a real boon as a party member, either as a doppelganger to have left behind at the beginning of our escape or even to have right now.

If Sabby was lucky enough to find a walkplant and convince it to take her place her life deffo would be a lot easier.

I wouldn't be surprised if we met one already if they can blend in so well.

>>72035
>Getting over 20 ghosts starts making things around you get really weird.
The laws of physics start breaking down?

Why do ghost towers explode? Are they actually imploding?

>“I did not enjoy allowing you to kiss even a figment of my dream. You are betrothed to my house. I do not feel proud.”

I do wonder how our betrothal relates to him.

I initially misread it this way: "I did not enjoy allowing you to kiss even a figment of my dream. You are now betrothed to me. I do not feel proud."

>>72103
Hahaha! Can you IMAGINE all the shit this guy's seen? He's a dreamstalking mercenary, whose job is to hunt people down by spying and infiltrating their deepest and most secret thoughts. And we made him feel shame. HAH!

>>72103
I think he basically was upset that he allowed Sabby to make out with someone who wasn't her arranged husband.

>>72109
>>72117
You are both right.

In all the centuries that this dreambug has been around, he has never seen a tombdog kiss a mantis, or with such passion, repeatedly!

>>72117
And that someone was HIM.

Also, tombdog game tomorrow. #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net if you're interested in peeking in.

Seventh tombdog campaign session is here:
http://pastebin.com/6G2YC5Ra

It has pirates.

Wow that butler looks badass and ridiculous.

Good job Coracleboat

What is this 'tombdog game'?

>>72272
I am running an IRC-based pen & paper RPG set on the tombdog remnant, northeast of where Sabhaxlia is right now. It is using my own personal system that is geared to be somewhat unforgiving and realistic. The relevant IRC channel is #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net.

>>72288
So players won't really be able to suplex all enemies to death in this system?

correct

>>72310
Well, you might receive a khopesh in the gut for your troubles, but you're welcome to try.

>>72338
Khopesh are for fighting shield users. Ironically, it should be EASIER countering them without a shield, since their broad curves will be less effective versus parries than larger shields such as those used by infantry circa The Old Kingdom.

I feel like sabhaxlia's gonna die. Bird demons are fucking scary.

>>72344

You know, I think this is like, the one quest where this could legitimately happen.

Most quests would just have to end or 'reload' at protagonist death, so it never really happens.

But here, Sab would be a ghost after dying, and at this point in the quest we could probably convince McTrinkets to carry her around for zany ghost-merchant adventures. Like, even if we go down in this fight, as long as our guys win we could still help with the whole overthrowing the house thing.

>>72349
I wouldn't be so sure. Crypts are important for long-term ghost stability, and we don't even have any sort of spare reliquary for Sabhaxlia, let alone anyone versed in the rites and rituals required to preserve a ghost (other than maybe Sab herself, who would be otherwise preoccupied with suddenly being dead).

>>72354
Why would that be the case? She would materialize as a ghost and would then have plenty of time, probably days if not weeks, to get McTrinkets or someone else to preserve her before she rots.

Coaracleboat how do you handle writing these big weird long names? I mean seriously, there's weird x's and f's and l's everywhere along with the i's and it's hard for me just as a suggestor so christ how do you handle it in addition to all the drawing and plotting and reading and writing the other stuff that isn't the names?

Do you make up the names, put 'em in a big word .doc jar and copypaste for every single time to have to writ the whole name? Iaxio and McTrinckets are the only easy names to remember! Sabhaxlia's easy too because of how the syllables are but every other name is a mucky mess of consonants and weird syllables.

>>72406

One of the things I tried to do was give each faction and main character a differently shaped name, with different starting characters. Even if you get the spelling wrong you won't confuse Doxedn for Geofahn. The only similarity that's obnoxiously close is Laikadehn and Lairehfsis, I think.

You don't need to know the names of any cities, either. I had Sabby basically outright say to never worry about those.

You're free to give characters nicknames, too. The people who actually matter--Sabby, Iaxio, McTrinkets, Maexiks--I kept their names short and simple or gave them nicknames.

Tombdog names are also easier to remember if you know the atoms they're made up of. The names have rules I try to stick to when making them, so they're not really random. I'm not a linguist, I mean, so a lot of this isn't super-excellent, but it's the rules I do try to stick to.

There's a lot of vowel+h or h+r+vowels, for starters. There are only a few endings, too.

Laikadehn and Lairehfsis are pretty good example names. Both start with the syllable "Lai." The "Ka" is just hard consonant+vowel combo which is a usual filler sound. The "vowel+hn" is a common ending in tombdog names, along with "vowel+dn." House Fauhredn and House Geofahn both use them, although Fauhredn stands out a bit by making the "dn" a seperate sylabyl from the vowel--but that's because the e belongs to the "hre" sound which is also common.

Kehfn is basically everything going, with an "vowel+h" and a double consonant ending with "fn."

"hre" is a reoccuring sound too. Fau+hre+dn

His sister Akilfhren is made of "A," and then the same "kil" in Madohkikil's name, and then the "hre" in Fauhredn with an f on top for "fhren."

Madohkikil has a vowel+h going, too, with the "oh" for Ma+doh+ki+kil.

Maexiks is actually a not-totally-by-the-rules name because she's not really integrated into tombdog culture. Her name sounds weird to tombdogs. It mixes the southern k with a northern x--it should either be Maexix or Maeksiks.

Tashikoxix has an uncommon "shi" in the middle, but the Ta, ko, and xix are common things that reoccur through names.

You sometimes get "consonant+i+vowel" like in IaXIO or TaLIAxix or SabhaxLIA.

I think those are all the parts I use for names?

It's still obnoxious sure I mean. It takes me a minute or two to remember the names, but it helps to say them outloud/type them out a few times while remembering what parts they're made of.

I still consider myself morally superior to people who name things like K'Na-Dur'l'Fa okay.

I'll cut up some names so you can see where they share parts, and that they're more predictable than just mashing the keyboard. I am seriously so not a linguist but I try to only draw from a limited number of pieces to assemble a name. You could probably pick pieces apart from this and make up your own authentic-sounding tombdog names no problem.

Names that don't follow the rules you can assume probably do stick out as less-common names for tombdogs too. By example, Geofahn's "Geo" is really rare and meant to stick out, because they're an upstart coastal house and lots of dogs worry they're too tainted by foreigners.

Sab hax lia

Ia xio

Mae xix

Lai ka dehn

Lai rehf sis

Ma doh ki kil

Keh fn

A kil fhren

Ta lia xix

Ke kah kik

O freh kik

Me an dra xix

San bak sis

-

Ta shi ko xix

Geo fahn

Fau hredn

Do xedn

He fehx n

Ai fix

Anonymous 2013/06/17(Mon)13:41 No. 72416 ID: 01531c
File 137150169233.png - (24.39KB , 120x120 , delete.png )

>>72413
>You could probably pick pieces apart from this and make up your own authentic-sounding tombdog names no problem.

Kekilkahxix

>>72411
Cool
Just wanted to know how you handled it, maybe even get a little of the why.
I like the naming style, just hard to say, read and remember is all. Fauhredn I've always pronounced Fauh-dren for some godawful reason.

Yes, you're morally superior to them. God knows I'm guilty of the apostrophe name sin. Shit, I did that with regular names like Benjamen into Ban'zah'min or some shit like that. God forgive my young mind. Then again, he was a shadowrun richboy elf, he was supposed to have a terrible personality. A terrible name goes with it.

Fuck elves.

>>/quest/517589
>When I open my eyes, the demon is eating Chelcahxix’s ghost. Just. Swallowing him whole. Like a fish. Chelcahxix still looks bored. I don’t. I mean. I don’t know.
>Then the bird catches on uh. Fire. And burn away. Sure.

I suppose that this segues into HOW each of the Five Main Remnants managed to save their bit of reality.

Tombdogs must've constructed a massive Ghost CERN to power their escape.
Humanity must've cult'ed it up with a few specific gods, so they could power up the Holy Lands for the trip.

Could you fill me in on the rest?

I'm also not clear on if how each races old world ended had to do with 'the world ended' or 'heat death' or 'the great magical fuckup'

>>When I open my eyes, the demon is eating Chelcahxix’s ghost. Just. Swallowing him whole. Like a fish. Chelcahxix still looks bored. I don’t. I mean. I don’t know.
For some reason I found that part hilarious.

>>72426
Yeah. And I'm still wondering just what happened to his ghost there. Was he digested, destroyed, made into something, or what?

>>72427
The price of a demon is your soul + payment for use of it's abilities.
Chel was paying for the former part, that is why birddemons have no afterlife.

>>72426
I think he paid for the service of the demon by selling his emotions AND his ghost.

>remnants

Most people today don't actually know much about why the remnants' original worlds were destroyed, how the remnants themselves escaped, or what this place they escaped to is. Something "bad" happened and they managed to slip one of their continents out of the destruction into the place it is now.

There's a single island with an artificial tower in the sea between the 4 remnants that was here before any of them, but it's the only thing that was there before the other remnants came on in. Remnants get to keep their own native skies, too, so it's not like they're all just, like, plopping their landmasses down in another "planet's" ocean. They kept all their stars and moons too.

I seriously never remember how long ago it happened and I'm just gonna say no one else remembers for sure either. It was at least 3,000 years ago, which is long even by tamdag standards.

The only things around who remember first-hand or second-hand what happened would be a few really old tombdog ghosts, the human gods that survived to make it over, the lifelizard dragons who completed before the whole shebang happened, and maybe all the bird's demons?? Who knows what's up with the demons. The birddemons don't even know what's up with their demons.

There might be chances to find out more about it in the quest somewhere along the road.

>demon munchies

The demon eats the bird-soul when a birddemon dies--that's how the birddemon "afterlife" works. Somehow Chelcahxix manage to finagle a demon onto him, so he got both afterlives. He got the tombdog be-a-ghost, and the birdemon have-your-soul-eaten.

Souls demons eat are effectively destroyed, just like if a ghost lost all its memories and went dead. He's completely gone.

>>/quest/517699
It's actually closer to two days.

>>72434
I do like how someone found an excuse to slip a "show everybody your tits" suggestion in there. Stay classy.

Also, she did literally just wake up from a nap.

I like how I suggested Mado at first because it sounded tactically viable and help Sabbs be alive (which she is, so maybe I was right! Sure, we lost one but Sabbs could have died in Lair's place!), but changed my mind to be with Lair so we could girl talk and how dating a ghost is like and how they met and gushy stuff while we wait.

still ended up with Mado. But girl talk would have been neat.

>>72436
I bet Sabhaxlia writes the best girl talk.

>>72436
I said then and say now that picking a partner based on dating game logic or cuteness is a terrible idea. How many times does shit have to go down in the quest before people realize that?

Like I said, Lairehfsis was the weakest flank. If we hadn't been there, Madohkikil might have had a little trouble with the speardog, but I can't imagine him not being fine in the long term. Whereas Lairehfsis had only her javelins and, what, a knife? It was basically a suicide gambit for her to distract the butler long enough for us to take care of him. Whereas, if both we and McTrinkets had been there, it was already shown that he had difficulty dealing with three people at once. The sword user was down, and got shot in the head without anyone else's intervention, really, so Madohkikil would probably easily have been able to take out the spear user, and then join the fight against the butler, turning it into a 4v1 that we could easily have won the same way we won it in reality.

I'm just saying, it feels like a senseless waste of life that resulted from us not really thinking out our actions in the long term. If you want to hang out with Lairehfsis and do girl talk, fine, but there's a time and a place, and voting because you want to do it before a battle starts is inappropriate, at least in my opinion.

>>72444
But dating game logic dictated that we actually hang out with Lairehfsis. Because Sabby's totally lesbo.

>>72444
So I made the right vote for the wrong reasons is that so bad?

Also, again, we're completely unsure of how that would play out. Because I think Mado saved our life just by being bitchin' in battle. Remember it was the butler demon that killed Lair, not any of the normal people. Butler was going to focus on us because we both were the weakest melee attackers and our attack hadn't come into real focus until AFTER Lair was hurt and the normies were dead. Lair's good and she's got a good ghost, but she failed simply for being the weakest side. That could have been our guts spilled on the ground, the butler would have powerhoused the completely living side, probably killing us both because he was able to focus on one living side at once. Mado is a tank, and the Butler knew that, he wouldn't go after him first, he'd reduce numbers as quick as he could. Logically, that means his attack would go Sabby -> Lair -> Mado or try and go for McTrinckets and Laika to reduce range advantage.

With Doxedn's help we can make Lair a corpsebound if she wishes, or she can probably choose to live in the city crypt while she has ghost adventures by having one of her bandit compadre's or us take a relic. The city will gladly take the hero who sacrificed her life for the good of ghosts everywhere afraid of being made into paste. Probably, or we could ship her to wherever she wants to go.

There's not much she can't do as a corpsebound if not better besides have children, but she was dating a ghost anyway. Unless tombdogs can have ghost babby's, she can be fine and live a normal life.

>>72455
>she was dating a ghost anyway. Unless tombdogs can have ghost babby's, she can be fine and live a normal life.

Ghosts seem to interact with ghosts pretty physically.

Sabhaxlia, do ghosts just pass through each other, or is it only the weaker ones that do that?

To cut the argument short, the battle was decided by how much info the Geofahn bug gave (against how much Sabby gave up for it), who she

>Sabhaxlia, do ghosts just pass through each other, or is it only the weaker ones that do that?

For ghost-on-ghost action? They could stand on one-another's head. Two ghosts can bang all the time no problem. Ghosts can force parts of them to "clip" through one another but it's really unpleasant and they instinctively pull away from that if even slightly possible. Ghosts also can't go through walls or nothing. They generally respect all surfaces, from doors to people to other ghosts.

The only exceptions are in ghost binding or ghost towering, where the ghosts overlap one another.

If you hit a ghost with something it'll flinch, and if you stab something through a ghost it might feel some pain. If you try to impale a ghost to a wall with a spear they might act like they're "pinned" before just walking off the spear. They might also just act like the spear shoved them off to the side, too, though.

Ghost-on-person sensation is more of a person-side thing. The ghost touches the person and it isn't the ghost really exerting pressure on it, so much as the dog feeling the pressure. It's like a pressure without a weight to it?

In a more direct way of putting it, think of a ghost touching a living person as a psychosomatic thing more than the ghost actually having an effect on a living thing. A ghost can slap you and you might feel it, but it'd only be because you were expecting to feel it. It works better with powerful ghosts and ghosts you personally know well, and especially ghosts you're related to.

If a ghost pushes at your lips and tries to pull them up, it's not the ghost pulling your lips so much as your lips peeling up in response.

And that is how you can have sex with a ghost.

...did McTrinkets ever give us her real name?

>To cut the argument short, the battle was decided by how much info the Geofahn bug gave (against how much Sabby gave up for it), who she

Haha i forgot to finish typing that sentence. Whoooooops.

Lairehfsis survives better if Sabby goes along with her but Sabby is in a bit more danger. The fight also goes better the more you give up to the Geofahn bug. Sabby trying to be a hero or not also counted for stuff.

Secret Double Vote Time! Sabhaxlia 2013/06/21(Fri)16:04 No. 72587 ID: 8fb35b
File 137185587313.jpg - (32.91KB , 392x338 , sabbysmaller.jpg )

Okay, everyone kind of freaked out at the mention of a brothel, and some people think Lairehfsis' House has connections to Geofahn.

The choice was really meant to give me time to plan out which branching path of adventures she'd take; voting was mostly meant to be about which set of adventures sounded more fun/more interesting to go for.

Some people are seeming like they wanted to hold off really saying for sure until they have more information, and I don't really want to start thread 3 and clog up the opening with grilling McTrinkets and Lairehfsis about deets, so I'll lay down more info, and if anyone wants to change their vote, they can go ahead, before I start up the thread and finish plotting out the course we take.

These are basic things you can assume Sabby and McTrinkets and Lairehfsis' ghost chatted out on the carriage ride, so!

--

Lifelizards--They're a pair of lifelizard merchants who run an import/export/exotic goods business in the middle of a city. McTrinkets sold honestly-not-stolen-or-shady trinkets for them and while they probably get up to some shenanigans, it's probably not super illegal like corpse-paste is.

Brothel--It's run by a skeleton corpsebound and all of the prostitutes are ghosts. It's in a hidden crypt nestled a bit away from everything else. It IS shady because sex outside of marriage is super-taboo in the tombdog remnant but Sabby shouldn't be in any danger of sex slavery.

This route requires Sabby to travel without any allies except Iaxio. It goes along the same main river-road Sabby has been traveling on, but she'll move more quickly. Half-way down the road she has to acquire her own means of travel.

--

Lairehfsis--Her house is a small house that was born from a larger one splintering. The two successor houses have been feuding over legitimacy. Lairefhsis' boyfriend belongs to the other house. They're too far away to be under Geofahn's thumb.

Prayermen--A group of prayermen immigrants whose grandfathers came to the tombdog remnant. They live mostly outside of any tombdog authority. They will not sacrifice Sabby to their gods.

This route has Sabby tavel with Lairehfsis' ghost and her boyfriend's ghost too. It's not the path Sabby was directly following earlier, but it's a longer side-track south and you have to deal with Lairehfsis' issues along the way. She either needs Lairehfsis' house to supply transport further south, or find her own means of travel.

--

Okay! I mean, both routes are also entirely valid and excellent, but I don't want anyone making their choice based on the idea that the brothel means immediate sex slavery. I really did not expect so many people to make their fear of it the central issue of their vote, so!

If anyone has any changes they wanna make to their vote or talk about the vote there's still time before I actually plan the path we take out. Otherwise we are doing Lairehfsis--Prayermen which is still perfectly OK.

Both paths are equally full of danger and excitement, don't worry. It's just what flavor of excitement you want.

>>72587
voting Lairehfsis-->Prayermen route.

Lizards and 'choots.

I vote Lairehfsis route.

I vote lizards.

>>72587

I think that sticking around the town and getting to know people for like, 2 days before leaving with Lairehfsis and taking the housedog-prayermen route. She's nice, and cute, and she helped you in the battle. So you should help her.

Besides housedogs are more likely to be better friends, and you can go see the brothel later if you really want.

>>72587
>Brothel--It's run by a skeleton corpsebound and all of the prostitutes are ghosts.

ERROR:DOES_NOT_COMPUTE

How does ghost sex work!? Does it have to do with Ghost Stacking? Does the word 'brothel' or 'prostitute' mean something else in Tombdoggia?

THIS IS VITAL INFORMATION.

>>72593
You can have sex with ghosts the same way Iaxio and Sabby can touch each other. It is quite kinky like that.

>>72587
If we let things progress without interfering it sounds like the two ghosts will be separated. I have a great idea.

Let's steal one of Lair's relics and also keep ahold of one of her boyfriend's relics. They can be together with Sabby after we leave!

>Sabby shouldn't be in any danger of sex slavery
...if it's a brothel of ghosts doesn't that mean the risk is getting murdered and entering an unlifetime of sex slavery? :V

I have to admit seeing Iaxo's reaction to this would be pretty awesome. And I'm kind of interested to see what the character design of a skeletal madam would look like.

Still think Liar's route seems safer though, and it might be nice to help her with whatever her issue is after getting her killed.

Shoot, did I forget to post the eighth session? I guess I did. It's here:

http://pastebin.com/cgpcy7dV

Anonymous 2013/06/27(Thu)13:48 No. 72931 ID: a01b62
File 137236613111.png - (200.75KB , 708x651 , tombdogcities.png )

Here's a frame of reference for the campaign relative to the area the quest covers. The cities listed are all ones that the campaigndogs have or will have been to or heard mentioned. Lakehxixehdnehohsis-em-a is probably the closest the campaign will ever get to the area the quest takes place in.

Which city does that campaign take place in?

>>72932
The city that House Kaliaxix, the House the campaign is centered around, controls is Tadnohxehdnihrsis-em.

>>72935
are the quest and campaign taking place at the same time or no and also if either side does something big enough will the other side hear about it? (example- Sabhazlia set half of the forest on fire trying to escape some people hired by house what's it's name and players in the campaign heard someone bitching about it once they hit some town)

I'm mentally wondering how'd that go down if there were a cross-over.
I mean, on the one hand, they could go 'hey, let's totes turn Sabby in for major Moolah!'
Or, they might decide to help her. And then there's the chance that Sabby's players might distrust them when they're being nice/ trust them when being evil and what not.
It would be an EPIC feat of DMing from both Samuel&Coracleboat if you guys could pull it off...

>>72937
They are taking place. Whether the quest mentions anything the players do is entirely at the discretion of coracleboat, but Sabhaxlia's deeds may come up in the campaign. No character from the quest will feature in the campaign. I don't think coracle has any plans to do a crossover.

But since it's come up, the game is on #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net.

>>72945
taking place at the same time*

>>72944
It seems unlikely they'd turn anyone in to Geofahn. They're a rival merchant house. Screw those guys!

I'm not keeping up with the deets of the campaign that's going on supermuch, so anything that happens in it isn't going to show up in the quest or anything.

But he's done a good job keeping the setting mostly on-target, though, and he does a lot of checks with me to make sure his own ideas fit, so like

it's basically approved EU

Ninth session is up here:

http://pastebin.com/GQj3bg4c

Could still use another player for tombdog campaign, by the way.

Tenth session is here:

http://pastebin.com/dyCZ153E

http://tgchan.org/kusaba/quest/res/529070.html

Third thread started!

Yaaaaaaay.

Eleventh session is here:

http://pastebin.com/GU6C7T68

Progress is made!

Progress!

Also, I'd still like to get a fourth player in here, so you know, if you like tombdogs, and like the sessions so far, the IRC channel is #tombdogs @ irc.rizon.net.

@Samuel
2 questions:1 when can I expect a Tombdog session to be had?
2-how to work IRC chat to get there?

Game is on Tuesdays.
Use any IRC client. Here's one: www.Mibbit.com

...Zaealix almost half-sounds like a tombdog name as is.
Zaehralixia sound workable?

We can discuss names if you start building a character. The campaign info is here: http://rubyrpg.x10.mx/downloads/tombdogs.htm I'll give you the system PDF in IRC.

Ok, there's two seperate remnants potentially clashing, and we don't know how that will work out.
Like, Tombdog ghosts gets eaten by Birddemon Demons if the two collide, suggesting that a Tombdog literally leaves behind his soul when he dies, but once that soul is detached from the world, he's gone for good.
Birddemons, we don't know enough about, but the gist is, you sell your soul for power. But you kinda need more power to sell to a better demon to get more power from the demon, so I imagine that Birddemon society is probably kinda meritocratic-if you prove yourself versatile and useful, better Birddemons will approach and try to make a deal with you. But what happens to Birddemons who don't make a deal? Do they turn into the 'demons' that Birddemons deal with? And if so, why NOT just forgo making a deal with a Birddemon if you're not gonna fight?
And Dreambugs, well, that's weird too, but in a different manner...
Hrm. So basically, the thing is, Tombdogs and Birddemon afterlives flow into each other, and in my opinion, probably are better together than apart. A Tombdog has a choice-he can become a normal ghost, and trust in his town/house/ whatever, to basically keep him around, and make use of him.
Honor your ancestors, and they will aid you. I think sums the normal course up. But throwing Birddemons into the mix makes thing interesting! Now the Tombdog can trade his ghost afterlife, for a birddemon, and thus gain more power while alive, as well as powers that aren't even normal for Tombdogs, like the wingshield thing. BUT when you consider how much the ghost thing plays into Tombdog society...It makes it rather like being a satanist or something in our world- just letting people KNOW you did something like this could seriously tarnish your reputation maybe, like making Corpse-paste could.
This is a REALLY engaging setting, I gotta say.

>>74500

Admittedly dooming your own soul to a momentary torment and then oblivion is a lot less upsetting than dooming a thousand souls to unimaginable pain and suffering as their dead bodies are ground into a fine powder.

>so I imagine that Birddemon society is probably kinda meritocratic-if you prove yourself versatile and useful, better Birddemons will approach and try to make a deal with you.

It isn't the most egalitarian place, but it works a lot like that, yeah. The more you have to offer, and the more you're capable of, the more more powerful demons want you. Demons have their own agendas, and the more powerful you are, the most useful you are to them. And of course, the more powerful your demon is, the more powerful you are, so it feeds back into itself like that.

Birds have to meet certain requirements to keep their demons happy. Tiny demons the size of your palm who can only pass the salt for you only want simple things like the occasional treat. Demons who can do a neat thing or two might have more restrictive demands.

If you have a powerful demon who can let you fly and reads minds for you, though, it's going to demand you play your part in its own politics with other demons. This could mean, like, having to ruin another bird's life just because your demon told you to.

Upper-birddemon society is a mix of bird agendas and demon agendas cooperating and clashing. At that level what friends you have have to be vetted by your demon and all their demons too. Demons who are friends will want to make pacts with birds that are already friends, or will try and steer their birds into becoming friends. Demons who are enemies do the opposite.

If you have a powerful enough demon and it demands you ruin another bird's life or business, the demon is within its right to eat your soul then and there for not cooperating.

>But what happens to Birddemons who don't make a deal? Do they turn into the 'demons' that Birddemons deal with? And if so, why NOT just forgo making a deal with a Birddemon if you're not gonna fight?

There are almost no birds who don't make a pact with demons. Demons can do a lot more than just make you fight better. Parents make contracts on behalf of their unborn children for a demon who will look after the baby, so most birds don't even have a choice in the thing. As you grow up, and as your interests and life changes, you change your previous demon for one more suited to you. Since all demons want to be the one to devour your soul, but also want to be the one you want to let eat your soul, they try to be friendly and helpful, and you'll always find one that will fill the role you want them to.

For lesser demons it isn't that hard to end a pact and start up a new one, so if you're like, a carpenter, and your demon has a hammer for a beak, but then you become a baker and you want a demon who can heat biscuits in his mouth--your original demon can only ask a little payment from you to discourage switching to the new demon.

For more powerful demons, the requirements to end a pact with them can get pretty much impossible to fulfill, ensuring that they get to be the ones to eat your soul.

There's a big cultural urge to always have a demon, and birds without demons have demons swarming around just out of the corner of their eyes bugging them to sign with them. It is super beyond rare for a birddemon to die without an actual demon bound to them waiting to eat their soul. Rare in the sense of like, "I'm sure it happened at some point but I haven't heard any rumors of it even" rare.

>Now the Tombdog can trade his ghost afterlife, for a birddemon, and thus gain more power while alive, as well as powers that aren't even normal for Tombdogs, like the wingshield thing. BUT when you consider how much the ghost thing plays into Tombdog society...It makes it rather like being a satanist or something in our world- just letting people KNOW you did something like this could seriously tarnish your reputation maybe, like making Corpse-paste could.

Tombdogs usually can't, though. The different powers of the different remnants usually don't cooperate with each other like that. Demons have no real interest in making pacts with non-birds; prayerman gods don't care about other peoples and they can only get things from the gods if a priest is paid to pass their own blessings on to them temporarily; tombdog ghosts are really uncomfortable binding to a non-dog; lifelizard reincarnation is totally inaccessible by any non-lifelizard. The dog having a demon is totally weird and he probably pulled some weird stuff in his life to even have the opportunity to do that.

Tombdog ghosts can do some neat things that haven't shown up in the quest yet, too. Having a certain amount of ghosts bound to you at once defends you against unaided attacks anyway--the sheer wall of ghosts can just make a blow slide right off you sometimes.

The tradeoff is that tombdog ghosts can learn a bunch of little powers, and give other dogs bonuses to their strength and skills, while birddemon demons can have one or two solid powers but can't do anything else outside of that.

For the record, lifelizards can recall past memories to get skills/abilities their past lives had; prayermen can call on their gods for blessings and favors. The 4 remnants are balanced along two scales: one is how easily the average person can access their remnant's magic, the other being what the upper limit of the remnant's power is.

Tombdogs have the second widest access to magic powers (everyone can access ghosts) but the second weakest maximum potential for power (you need to stack crazy-ghosts to get super-powerful, and even then you aren't the biggest power in the world).

Birddemons have the most universal access to special powers (every single bird has a demon), but also have the weakest upper limit on those powers (the most powerful demons still aren't much on their own).

Lifelizards as a race have the second weakest access to powers (they can all recall skills of their past lives, but for most of them it isn't really anything special) but the second highest ceiling (lifelizard completed dragons are entirely immortal).

Prayermen have the worst access to their powers (they pray to their gods and sometimes they might even listen a little) but the highest limit to their powers overall (prayermen demigods are basically gods that can act at will in the world).

Hunh...
Yanno, maybe it's just me, but I feel like the four remmnant reflect different belief systems.
Tombdogs are Ancestor worship.
Birddemons have the 'devil's deal.' thing going.
Prayermen have the 'pray to god' thing.
And Lifelizards do reincarnation.
Sound about right?

That's pretty neat. Good worldbuilding.

I really want to see what happens when a bird dies without a demon really bad now, thanks coracleboat. I'll never get to see it.

Have you planned other potential quests for the other races before you made your choice on what to stick with and you just went with the tombdog one? Or are the tombdogs your favorite race and so you never considered having a quest in the other remnants at the start?

I also want to see a demigod and dragon in this world eventually but I probably never will.

Have you also seriously considered pre-remanant catastrophe stories as well? Or is exploring the concept actually possible in Sabb's journey in a form? (Archology Ho! After Capitalism Ho!)

>Yanno, maybe it's just me, but I feel like the four remmnant reflect different belief systems.

The idea was for each of the main peoples to have different afterlives.

Tombdogs have ghosts; lifelizards have reincarnation; prayermen have a heaven; birddemons have oblivion.

When I first started coming up with the setting meeting the requirement of "different afterlives for each people" was my starting point for each of them all.

>I really want to see what happens when a bird dies without a demon really bad now, thanks coracleboat. I'll never get to see it.

It is one of those rare mysteries that probably has a really boring answer. Maybe nearby demons just fight over who gets to eat it. Borrrrriiiiiiing.

>Have you planned other potential quests for the other races before you made your choice on what to stick with and you just went with the tombdog one?

Tombdogs were the most developed race first off. When I started the quest I had very little work done on the lifelizards at all. The quest forced me to do a lot more worldbuilding and get everything settled in quick and solid.

>I also want to see a demigod and dragon in this world eventually but I probably never will.

Sabby probably won't, but I do want to draw those guys. I have sketches and doodles of a few of the gods/demigods and the dragons but I am not really happy with the dragons at all yet.

>Have you also seriously considered pre-remanant catastrophe stories as well? Or is exploring the concept actually possible in Sabb's journey in a form?

There is a possibility of something something spoiler spoiler :y

Oh my god you guys I just realized something. I was thinking about the middle ages and how marriage was important and shit for alliances (because I was thinkin' bout game of thrones of course and crusader kings 2), then I made the realization that middle age tradition of marriage is basically animal husbandry with nobles.

Then you add in this quest with it dog marriage alliances and it's basically word for word animal husbandry because it's dog people. Only instead of making puppies for genetics it's making puppies for house alliances.

Goddamn son it's fucking puppy quest up in this literal bitch for these families.

 

Also yayifications if we can get Zoidberg as a party member. We got crazy optimistic ghost lady and pervert uncle ghost, now we need a fourth! A physical being!

Whoop Whoop Whoop Whoop Whoop Whoop

>>74819
Technically we're getting grumpy Kehkakik as a member/telephone.

Twelfth session is here:

http://pastebin.com/CJS220v0

Hrm.
So on the one hand, Maexiks did get Sabby to run off. But on the other hand, she was doing it with the knowledge that Sabby was unhappy with it anyhow! All Maexiks did was instill the plan, it seems. And for that matter, she overestimated Geofahn's power, and the hits the House took because of Sabhaxlia's escape cost them big time, and now the town won't let them get her.

>>75187
>"She was going to jump anyway! I just pushed them over!"

What Maexiks says also kinda conflicts both at the start of the quest and in the prequel Sabby awakes from 'bad' dreams she doesn't remember. Pleasant endings indeed.

Thirteenth session from last week is here:

http://pastebin.com/mzCDFLB4

Lehkurehn plays some miniatures with Haeliksis, a couple bandits get slaughtered, there is a lot of dice rolling. Probably not much of interest.

Fourteenth session is here:

http://pastebin.com/t1GwKyvz

Trouble in Trader Town

i'm on a short break here for now while i take care of some stuff!

we'll be back at it in a little bit

The fifteenth session was sort of short. Mostly negotiations. Here it is:

http://pastebin.com/YQFw3yGs

As a bonus, here's the sixteenth session too:

http://pastebin.com/j3RCa29p

So what's Sabby been up to since the quest stalled ou-- Anonymous 2019/04/21(Sun)13:52 No. 129191 ID: 688dd6
File 155587997652.png - (576.64KB , 975x916 , 1525135365_coracleboat_shes_a_great_girlfriend.png )

In case anyone was unaware (I certainly was!), this quest is actually technically completed. Here's the ending, from the author's page:



Oh.

Sabby helped Lairehfsis get her body corpsebound by her family. Helped patch up things between their Romeo and Juliet-butt families mostly by accident and got on both their good sides. Carried on a bit further down south. Helped Doctor Mantis become accepted for the medical GENIUS he clearly was. Finally convinced the Geofahn bug to get off her butt through speechifying and appealing to his own insecurities.

Eventually arranged for a dream conversation with Tabaxian. Sabby was always being pushed by suggestions towards seizing control of her own life and living on her own terms and answering to no one. Being her own dog. She was done running.

Explained she was taking her own route in life. He accused her of being selfish. She said having to give up her life for everyone else was basically the same. They argued. They finally stopped arguing. And he let her go. House Geofahn backed off. House Geofahn absorbed House Tashikoxix by artifact of their expansion anyway, so most of the ghosts were saved, although Sabby's mother didn't end up with any kind of real political clout and is still pretty miserable.

And with that sorted out, she and Maexiks sorted out their own problems. Most of Sabby's suggestions were understanding if a little creeped out. She eventually forgave Maexiks and encouraged her to ditch that fart-butt town if she hated it so much and stop being a depresso and come hang out.

She did.

McTrinkets, Sabhaxlia, and Maexiks, traveling merchant team, getting into hijinks and problems. Occasionally teaming up with Lairehfsis and her gang. Eventually kicking Madohkikil out because he was a huge stinky rotting butt. Eventually Lairehfsis and her team went from strangers to part of the wandering merchant team. Fairly big upgrade in terms of reputability, even if Sabby and McTrinkets were still constantly wandering strangers.

But they did well. For years, they did well. And better. And better.

Until Sabhaxlia decided to follow some of the earliest suggestions in the game and just out and out start her own house. She's now Sabhaxlia Sabhaxliaxix. With no House seat, they decided to take after McTrinket's Southdog traditions and make their crypt a wagon they carted around with them. (In the south they have massive crypt sleds, same thing really!) Somewhat more legitimized, they got somewhat more legitimized business, and soon their noses were out of trouble and into money instead.

Not crazy money, but decent money.

Sabby remains mostly loyal to bugwife, but she and McTrinkets have a few flings. It's not really possible to marry a bug honestly, but Sabhaxlia was able to tweak the rules and get Maexiks a mantle without bars. A solid mantle. Full member of House Sabhaxliaxix, a place finally, finally made real in the waking world for the sad mantis.

Eventually Iaxio gets back up north and adds a chunk of his mother's corpse to their crypt-cart. Grandfather skullface is super delighted to see Iaxio has made something serious of himself. Iaxio still bothers Sabby constantly. His corpse is taken off the crossroads and divided up. No longer just bound to Sabhaxlia, he takes serious advantage of his now increased locationality and bothers everyone he knows, constantly, all at once, no matter how far away they are. He is the happiest he's ever been.

Lairehfsis has a Romeo in Ahrufek but, well. Sabby was routinely suggested to hit on basically every girl, so it's not surprising they ended up as Good Friends.

A decade passes. Sabby turns 27, a comfortable-if-not-rich merchant.

Her discomfort of traveling to other worlds is gone after a lifetime of adventure, and she travels to the other remnants, getting up in trade and shenanigans. Always, she is where she chooses to be.

Another decade passes. Sabby turns 37. This is starting to hit middle age for a living creature, but as a tombdog, there are ghosts and corpsebound walking around twice, thrice that age. She doesn't feel old at all. She's set aside enough funds to become a corpsebound herself when it's time. McTrinkets' is older than Sabby, but she's OK with being a ghost someday. Looking forward to it, actually.

House Sabhaxliaxix is still kind of a joke-House. It isn't any real political thing, but by now she has more members than just the original friends from her first poorly-planned adventure. She's traveled all the remnants, even visited the great Tower-City at the center of the 4 remnants. Even traded there! She's... still an unorthodox dog who doesn't care that much about traditions, but as a remnant wandering merchant, that's expected. And she's respected. And it's disorienting as falling into a fartbutt mudpond, but she likes it.

Following stupid dumb ideas that enter her mind constantly, Sabby decides to take their merchant enterprise somewhere new. The Tower in the Middle, the thing that all four remnants were drawn to as their original worlds were destroyed, everyone knows it's full of monsters and maybe connects to other worlds. Well, they know that for sure. High level busters are kept on retainer to beat up anything bad that comes through the Tower.

Remnants residents rarely leave their home, but it's not NEVER been done before. It isn't like Sabhaxlia was the first to try to cross through one of the starry portals and into another, unknown world.

Sabhaxlia's entire story has always been about deciding things for herself, on her own terms. No matter what life threw at her, she took every option she had, looked at them, and sometimes came up with her own anyway. No matter what options she had, she only ever picked the ones that kept her free and in charge of her own life.

When she left the world she was born in and her authorial line was cut off from the Remnants setting, instead of letting it attach to the City in the Middle's world consciousness, she looked up. Realized how vulnerable she was to the influence of something greater than her. Realized how much of her life had been influenced and controlled by something beyond her, even in her escape from such things.

She decided to not be like that anymore.

Your authorial line is supposed to connect to the world you're in, so that world can better fit you into it. So you can be a part of its own Story. So you can create Story for it, and it can feed excess back to you. So it can better direct you to be what it needs you to be to make you work as an organelle for the world.

Sabhaxlia's authorial line loops back around into herself now. According to the City in the Middle, her legal species is "World."

Becoming a corpsebound is expensive and it takes a long time. Sabby was really happy to realize she could recycle those funds now that she accidentally blundered her way, as is fitting for her, right into immortality. Good job, Sabhaxlia. You are literally an unkillable concept with the power to veto any outside influences on you. Mission. Finally. Accomplished.

Being metafictionally active and independent hasn't really changed Sabby's outlook or anything, though. She doesn't have an infinite well of Story to draw on, she isn't Tabrix--as far as metafictional entities go she's real far down the list of anything impressive. But! She doesn't really need it.

She has friends, family, bugwife, occasional-girlfriends, a successful career, and the freedom to go wherever, and be whoever, she wants.

And that's the canon ending to Sabhaxlia's Terrible Life.

Her Pretty Okay Life continues at the paces she sets for it.

>>129191
Hah, it's like the Fool's Journey. I'm no good at literary analysis, I wonder if there are other Major Arcana in the story?