Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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What is the Heart? Assorted Theories, Summarized for the Beginning Student:


  • The graveyard of failed cities. Whenever a city of a certain size dies completely, it sinks into the Heart, crushing everything beneath it into even more of a confused mess as it splinters and breaks apart. Because cities are alive, they are all trying to put themselves back together, but each one foils the attempts of the others, like crabs in a bucket. Delvers are vultures and dung beetles, stripping them down to their stony bones.
  • It is a prison for dark gods, or the titans who made the gods, and delvers are either foolishly opening the door to let them free, one treasure at a time, or are stripping them of the tools they would use to break free, each stolen treasure sapping more of their power until they become weak and pitiful shadows. If it is not a prison, then it is all the dream of one of these gods, the true god, and woe betide those who awaken them and cause the Heart to fade away like a dream at dawn.
  • The Heart is a marvelous world-creating engine from which all creation emanates. If anyone understood how to manipulate it, they would hold in their hands the controls of the world. Because delvers work at cross purposes and act without understanding, the world is a baffling, capricious series of ridiculous nonsense. But if you figured out the pattern, or sat in the Last Throne, or dethroned the Pattern Guardians foolish people think are deep gods, you could make it better. You could make it all better.
  • The Heart is a nightmare labyrinth that, in hindsight, we never should have entered. But now that it’s open... good people have to go down there and stop the Angels and the gods and the blood-rats and the parasite words and the goddamn trains from escaping. And the clowns. God. The clowns.


Facts Concerning the Metaphysic of the Heart:

  • The Heart has “up” and “down.” Up is closer to the world, more stable, and down is... stranger. The further down you go, the more risk and reward. Nobody knows if there’s a bottom. Nobody who made it back, anyhow.
  • The Heart shifts and changes while you’re not looking. Navigation is a matter of intuition and communion, not cartography. You can’t cross the same hungry river twice, as they say; if you find your way back to a place once seen before, it is invariably changed somehow.
  • Motifs like the Library and the Forest are not so much places as they are conditions or tilts. The Heart is a jumbled mess of ruin. Machinery and infrastructural motifs are common, but usually corrupted by some other influence.




Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Thanqol
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Hello abouts, friends! My character came together extremely smoothly so I'm good to start whenever, in the interim I'll be thinking up random worldbuilding facts and details. Only need to do bonds once other characters start appearing :)
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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Thank you for having me. It's a genuine pleasure to be here.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheAmishPirate
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Nice to meet you, Count!

My sheet's going to take a little more time to get together; ran a Masks session yesterday and spent most of today recovering. I should have it up within the week though.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Balmas
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Pleasure to play with all y'all. I'll have my character sheet up tonight.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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I cannot stress enough how much of an impact the words "train egg" keep having on me
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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Since we're up to Bonds, I always find it hard to get a Feel for a character just from a sheet, without some interaction or story behind them.

So, I did a little bit of prosaic writing about Lucien to help get a better feel of him across.

THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT

Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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I’ve got a first post prepped for once we have a first draft of Bonds ready.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheAmishPirate
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Since we're up to Bonds, I always find it hard to get a Feel for a character just from a sheet, without some interaction or story behind them.

So, I did a little bit of prosaic writing about Lucien to help get a better feel of him across.

THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT


Absolutely incredible. I can't wait to see Lucien in action. XD

For my end, didn't quite have the energy to get a short story together this week, so here's a small dump of thoughts about Jackdaw, and the sorts of things she's up to:

-Jackdaw is a collector of Words. Not, like, in the dictionary sense, but somebody who's always looking for new words, novel combinations of words, events and experiences that can communicate a particular feeling, etc. Her collection is this amalgamation of language and phrases and perfectly crystalized moments which she is constantly setting to her personal use. Somebody who is, quite literally, always hunting for the right thing to say.
-No, for reals, she is always hunting for the right thing to say. All the time. In every situation. And usually winds up saying too much. And replaying conversations to try and find the actual best thing she could've said there.
-One day, she will have all the words, and thus, she will be good at words.
-Among the many books contained in the Heart, there are some on current events. As in you can open one up, and start reading a novel that perfectly describes the conversation you had over breakfast that morning. It can be hard to tell, sometimes, which books describe other worlds, and which describe ours. But if you can find the right sort of books, there are Buying Lists eager to snatch up any material about certain indviduals.
-I haven't fully decided yet, but Jackdaw was at The Celestial College in some capacity - possibly even just on the basic service/kitchen staff - and has known Ailee from there.
-Jackdaw is Delving in the Heart to find a most important word: Her name.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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I'd like to hesitantly nominate my four Bonds with Ailee and Jackdaw - The train-eggineer terrifies me, and I have very good reasons to not like anything telepathic, so I'm really not sure how to get a read on Coleman yet even though I adore their concept;

Squire Bonds:
I've bailed Ailee out of trouble more times than I can count.
"Never a dull moment."

Jackdaw is always willing to listen to me, even when no one else has time - I have a very strong idea of Lucien holding one sided conversations at Jackdaw using the pauses where they try to think of what to say to answer their own questions.
"Surely they can't mean-?"
"-"
"No. You're right, of course. They would. But the real question is, is it to their advantage, or to ours?"
"-"
"Mm. Of course, never assume you have the advantage - Try to be certain, and never be certain of your certainty...
"-"
"Jackdaw, I have no idea what I'd do without you. This could have been a disaster."


And, in the true fashion of a human diplomat in a fantasy setting, I'd like to take one bond from the Elf and one from the Dwarf playbooks;

Jackdaw defeated me in a game of Scrabble and I still cannot believe it.
It wasn't even close, honestly.

Ailee is my drinking buddy.
"I'd like to let you in on a little secret to these formal events. Always ask for your glass to be topped up every three sips, make sure you always have something to nibble on with it, and nobody can tell how much you're really having. Well. For a while, anyway."
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Thanqol
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Looks extremely cool and good to me, Count! Also I adored your short fiction piece. More thoughts in a later cartoon.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheAmishPirate
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Jackdaw is always willing to listen to me, even when no one else has time - I have a very strong idea of Lucien holding one sided conversations at Jackdaw using the pauses where they try to think of what to say to answer their own questions.
"Surely they can't mean-?"
"-"
"No. You're right, of course. They would. But the real question is, is it to their advantage, or to ours?"
"-"
"Mm. Of course, never assume you have the advantage - Try to be certain, and never be certain of your certainty...
"-"
"Jackdaw, I have no idea what I'd do without you. This could have been a disaster."


And, in the true fashion of a human diplomat in a fantasy setting, I'd like to take one bond from the Elf and one from the Dwarf playbooks;

Jackdaw defeated me in a game of Scrabble and I still cannot believe it.
It wasn't even close, honestly.


I wouldn't have called the first one, but I can see that playing out exactly like that if Lucien never gives Jackdaw a chance to chime in. :P

On my end, I have four Bonds to give out, and I think I'll be doubling up on Ailee. She and Jackdaw have a bit of history already, and I think that's the best way to represent it.

I stood watch for Ailee on the worst best most night of our lives.
Why didn't I say anything? I could've said something. I should've said something. But I didn't, then it was too late, and. Um. We don't have those lives anymore.

Lucien tells the best campfire stories, I don't know how I'd settle down without them.
He never messes them up! Ever! How does he do it?!

When things go south, I'm hiding behind Coleman.
And his train baby! Um, well, it's not his train baby, but it sort of is, in that it was given to him, but it's not his-his, and anyway that's where I'm standing.

I wouldn't have my crown jewel without Ailee's help.
Someday, I'm gonna have the right words to thank her.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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I’ve been incubating this post since Wednesday
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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Asking out of character so as not to break the flow: Any chance I could get a bit more information about what just happened, or is happening? I think I'm more confused than I'm supposed to be - I'm not even sure if I've also been put in the broom closet as well, right now.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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The patrons of the bar shoved the two of you into a broom closet just to be safe while they went to get the town’s magician. Mostly so that I could put Lucien under more pressure to see what he does, and to arouse Ailee’s ire.
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Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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My current headcanon is that animal people are common topside, and that the Chimerae of the Heart are notable because a) they mutate and mix attributes from lots of different creatures and things and b) they have a distinct tendency to grow horns.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Thanqol
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My current headcanon is that animal people are common topside, and that the Chimerae of the Heart are notable because a) they mutate and mix attributes from lots of different creatures and things and b) they have a distinct tendency to grow horns.


I will endorse this being promoted to Actual Canon.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Count Numbers
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I'm fucking howling, I can't breathe from laughing so hard
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Thanqol
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I'm fucking howling, I can't breathe from laughing so hard


:D :D :D
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Tatterdemalion
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So a note on mechanics! =D

This specific mode of Fellowship has what is called a Response Level, intended to keep you from squatting in one place. The response level rises when you piss off The Boss of the area, when you break the rules of the local community, or the first time you do any of the following:
  • cause collateral damage
  • deface a place of power
  • harm the local wildlife
  • insult someone in charge
  • or upset the natural order

And, incredibly, you’ve gone from zero to three in one posting cycle, which means I make three moves in response immediately.

I’m marking Famine, Show of Force and Wild Animal immediately, with an eye to Guardian and Bad Weather moving forward.

And if you hit 6, that’s when things really get bad.
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