Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thinking on it, I could just do an entire book on just the fallout and political issues; ignoring what’s happening with the Doomalogues.
There is a lot of meat to chew on being generated here.
By cleanup, I basically mean the last big bad is dead, and the other baddies are getting the hell out of dodge, how far does this go?
We then have wrap ups in the Lacunas
I’ll release Beta 1 after the last of the big baddies are defeated and then we can talk about the other baddies.
But the reason I question how much clean up is because the big baddies are not the Storm Lords themselves, it’s what they’ve brought to the table.
Yeah,
Well, not sure book 4 would start as downbeat, after all the Citadel survived with fewer casualties than they were expecting even before the interdiction. Although they will have quite a bit of rebuilding of the Citadel to do.
The SL army will probably be fleeing and teams will be going out from the Citadel to hunt them down to make sure they are gone.
The big aftermath though will be coming to new understandings between Nysegard and the 5S, in particular Tiernon and Torean who’ve been the most MIA, Doom and Tierhallon and 5S, Team Hilda dealing with new truths about what is going on, Talarius deciding what he’s going to do….
The Talarius arc will bring us back to the Inferno arc, then there the Doomalogue story to continue, the Rede story, Vaselle/Tamarin story and Tom’s overall continuing story which will involve dealing with the 5S, Nyjyr Ennead, then we have Sentir Fallon, Aodh, Lilith, Exador and his quest for the Book and vengeance on Freehold
Basically all the other arcs resume after being paused.
[SPOILER]And then there are the things that pop up at the end to drive the rest of the story, including Doom’s newest allies/guests[/SPOILER]
[quote=EyeDeKay;5456]Also Gastope is technically able to be tizzy’s AM because there’s already a binding link on him.
There are spells that use the link but not the true name. That’s how tizzy was summoned for the lich and ice dragon fight in HH. [/quote]
Once a link is in place, you don’t need to know the true name to summon the person.
The trouble with this link is “how did it get there?” Gastrope’ couldn’t have done it, he doesn’t know Tizzy’s name, and Tizzy (hopefully) doesn’t know Gastrope’s Now of course, you only need to know the bindee’s true name, not the binders…but even so, it is not something that Gastrope’ or I wager any wizard has ever seen done before.
Good point.
You don’t need all 5 elements, however, that is optimal, and you wouldn’t get as much without it, but the Abyss is mana rich…
So therefore, there must be water, or liquid, somewhere in the Abyss. We do know there is mercury, alkalai, acids and other things like this.
Interestingly enough, molten lava has elements of Water and Earth, as does mud. (not from a physics point of view, but from a metaphysical point of view: fluidity.
[quote=Iume;5440]We have Apostles and Prophets of
upon . A prophet is a canonized apostle. We have (what is Orc Apostle?) and Oracles of Orcus upon Nysegard. Does that mean that someone like Tal Gor is the equivalent of an apostle and if D’Orced he would become an Oracle of Orcus upon Astlan?
Interesting how both are Oracle and Prophet, which mean roughly the same thing. Each foretells a future, presumably of what will happen as a result of the their god coming to fulfill the needs of people.
[/quote]This is all religion specific in terms of the rules, so it varies a lot.
Tal Gor is an apostle, he and the others are the obvious “apostle reference” in the title.
However, For Mount Doom, Oracle is the title of the person (typically a D’Orc) in chage of a Doomalogue. Recall that the Dooms of each world were used for interplanar coordination, communication with Doom, D’Orcing etc. Tom tried to call it an embassy (which is really sort of is) and everyone went batshit in shock. So the Dooms were setup more as semi-religious temples, much to Orcus’ chagrin.
And so the head of the Doom was the Oracle, because he spoke for Orcus upon the plane.
[quote=Iume;5440]
Are Outer Planes infinite in size or is the size limited by the will of its owner? Some of the descriptions the outer planes make me wonder whether the Abyss was once an outer plane but was temporally locked during the Time Wars. Or whatever the fighting was called prior to the Concord of Conciliation being formed.
[/quote]Their functional size is limited by the will of its owner (or its owners) and can change as needed. I think of it as a spreadsheet (or database) with the capacity for infinite rows, columns, sheets. It can be infinite, but is finite until someone accesses (edits) a column/row/sheet further out and then you have to store the information for all the emptiness until you get to the used part. However, if you clear the far out data, and the intervening stuff has nothing in it, it will shrink back in size (or can be shrunk back in size)
[quote=Iume;5440]
If outer planes are a reflection of material planes what happens to a reflection based on a material plane that is destroyed?
[/quote]
Get the hell out, fast!No, they are not necessarily a reflection of a single material plane; they could be, I suppose, but typically they are reflections of all the planes a god works in/on. Another good reason to spread your worshipers out, outer plane stability.
[quote=Iume;5440]Tiernon did not detect Lilith sneaking into Tierhallon. Tizzy did not (presumably) detect Sentir Fallon sneaking into the Abyss when he visited Lilith.
It would seem that whether its ownership, age, experience, or some odd ability (I still say Tizzy was once the ruler of the Abyss) the ability to know if someone enters their domain is not infallible.
Therefore, what IS an outer plane and how does it work? Is Tierhallon the way it is simply because Tiernon is most powerful being in it or did he do something to stake a claim on control it?
Based on bk2 it is implied that an outer plane can “collapse” so it seems to be maintained by the will of its gods. Aetherus’s realm still exists though even without its god because (it is implied) the 5S are paying the upkeep.
[/quote]Yes, you are correct. A god (or gods) builds a plane and connects a source of mana to it. As long as the mana is available, the plane is active. Also there are avatars and souls in the Outer Plane (typically). If the place starts to collapse, they need to get the heck out. This is no problem for avatars, but can be a problem for mortal souls.
I think of it as sort of an extradimensional house/world. Burglers can break in.
Also, Tizzy detects “new arrivals” of whatever type. He does not detect everyone going in or out, he’d be even more distracted then he is now. Further he may not even pay attention to every new arrival, altough it rather sounds like he is. But we do know he doesn’t respond to every new arrival (e.g. Inferno)
[quote=Iume;5440]
If a god is a god because of their god pool then could any demon collect worshipers, build a god pool, and become a god?
Maybe start by pretending to be a small shrine deity, collect mana from pilgrims, use demon abilities to fulfill prayers, and eventually have enough mana to create an outer plane or somehow stake a claim on an outer plane?
[/quote]
In principle, yes, if they know how.That’s the big trick, you have to know how to do this, and it’s a very jealously guarded secret. It is not even clear to me, that all gods know how to do it. I suspect the parents may set it up for their children, like a savings account. Or perhaps someone in the pantheon does it. The reason I say this is because it’s very high level magineering, and there are a number of gods I can think of that would not be into doing that sort of thing, or capable of understanding it.
[quote=Iume;5440]
If a demon goes an outer plane does it break the binding that ties them to the Abyss? Are they no longer tied to any plane or does the binding that automatically returns them to the Abyss re-establish itself upon re-entering a material plane?
[/quote]
That’s an interesting question.Demons have the advantage of being self contained, they take their mana with them. So they can do it with no loss in power.
My guess is that if you kill one on the outer plane, they are dead and done for. However, if they return to Midgard, the link will automatically reestablish because the Abyss is literally such a big place that it can’t be missed.
This is also basically what is happening in Nysegard at the moment and Etterdam previously.
[quote=Iume;5440]
Does the Concord of Conciliation apply to gods who are not signatories? What about demons entering outer planes of non-signatories? Presumably the tribunal would simply says “tough luck”, but it does offer an opportunity for demons to enter an outer plane.
[/quote]Correct. The end stuff is going into a lot more detail on that. Orcus was not a signatory, therefore they were able to ignore his death by Sentir Fallon. Only if Zeus had pushed it, insisting Orcus belonged to the Olympians, would they have intervened. As it was, it was very close, if he had known about Eris things could have gone to the Tribunal. He’d have argued that the 5S had subverted/tricked Orcus, locked Eris up and then killed Orcus to cover their crimes.
[quote=Iume;5440]
If one is a god is it possible to setup a home in an outer plane without having worshipers? Or are worshipers a requirement?
[/quote]Worshpers are not required, but mana is. It takes a lot of mana, although you could probably get a studio apartment sized Outer Plane without one.
[quote=Iume;5440]
Does an outer plane actually even exist without a god to inhabit it?
[/quote]
If it has been constructed and has a mana supply, yes.[quote=Iume;5440]
Can anyone control an outer plane so long as they have enough mana? Is that the primary reason for worshipers? To gather enough mana to claim it, shape it, and maintain it?
[/quote]Not so much claim it as “create it” and yes, the mana is why they need worshipers.
The Doom experiment was a way to get mana without requiring worshipers.
[quote=Iume;5440]
Entropy. The material planes (and by extension the outer planes) are limited in their lifecycle, but are the elemental “planes” infinite in life?
[/quote]
The elemental planes are time invariant, i.e. there is no time on the elemental planes, which is why no life can exist there, and why there are no “true” elementals.
Time is purely a function of the Material Planes (and the Abyss), it exists in the Outer Planes as a reflection of the material planes.
[quote=Iume;5440]
How are localverses created? Is an infinite amount being born ever moment?[/quote]
[/quote]
No room in the database to store the answer to this question.
Some recycle, some do not, but I would argue that very few people have a good answer to this. If you beleive the stories, some gods are capable of creating material planes.
And its possible that some have created planes, but then other mortals and their deities start invading. I would imagine that if you create a material plane, it takes a lot of time to get it up and running, and once running, very difficult to stop, so if interlopers invade, you don’t have a lot of options, short of destroying it, which given expansion etc, may not be possible since it’s been generating order, harnessing chaos, the cost to destroy a universe is probably much greater than the cost of creating one.[quote=Iume;5447]Then here is a twist. If a demon who is bound to an accursed master goes to an Outer Plane will their enslavement binding be broken for good?
Just pop over to an outer plane, lose the binding, pop back to the Abyss. If so, I’d imagine setting up a small waystation in the outer planes for demons wanting their freedom from an accursed master. Don’t know what it would do to his D’Orcs though given it was a consensual binding. Same I suppose.[/quote]
No such luck, those bindings are done using true names, and can find you (again) anywhere in the multiverse.
If the demon goes to the Outer Planes, the link to a wizard in Midgard is fine. Now, if the wizard somehow goes to the outer planes, say via astral projection, and the demon is in the Abyss, the link is broken until the wizard returns to the material plane.
If the demon locks the wizard in the Abyss, and then goes to the Outer Planes, he’s free in the Outer Planes, until he returns to either Midgard or the Abyss.
[quote=Mikey;5448]So when Tom, Völund and Phaestus get to discussing things with Farsooth Goretusk, they come up with a significantly more economical way to set up an outer plane, as an informational / computational construct with significant abstraction, instead of faithfully emulating every physical process.[/quote]
Sort of like a VHS, Virtual Heaven Server? An afterlife cloud to rest on in the “Cloud” so to speak?
I mean new arrivals as in have never been there before, or not been there in the current cycle.
He’s admitted to detecting Talarius, of course he was with Talarius.
Hi,
So I’m revisiting the TOC question. I think we sort of left the “level” of the TOC to be:
Paperback: Chapters Only
Kindle: Chapters+SceneHowever, looking at the last chapters, leaving the scenes in tells the reader in advance a lot about what is coming.
Is it too much? I had thought it would be helpful in sorting how who said/what when for people that wanted to recheck something earlier, but as it gets particularly in the 140’s it becomes very clear there is going to be a big battle in Nysegard.
Is this too much information for someone just starting the book? Pre-Nysegard scenes?
One alternative would be to have chapter only Kindle ToC, but perhaps a scene index appendix at the end? I think I can make that work. Does it add value? I.e. worth the time?
Yeah, there is some complex stuff to work out.
For one thing, neither the 5S, nor Orcus ever told the Olympians where Eris went. So at the time, neither wanted to bring it up.
Tiernon was not sure they could beat the Olympians in war.
Next, both Eris and the Nyjyr Ennead thing technically violate the Concord of Conciliation
Now, of course, if Orcus had been a signatory, that would also have been a violation; however, he was not, so they let that slide.
I do seem to use that word a lot.
I do think I blogged a discussion about a character in a HH cut storyline called the Mobius Magi (who has also been referred to).
He’s an example of self contained time travel loop. He not only fathered himself, he apprenticed himself to himself, by accident of course, he didn’t know (neither older or younger) that he was taking himself as an apprentice, nor that he was his own father, but time loops are funny that way. Of course part of this was because he took himself as an apprentice before he fathered himself.
It’s for this sort of thing that I am keeping time travel out of the series. It’s way too complicated to keep straight when you add in dimensions as well as timelines.
Well, the argument that Mikey was making before this was something akin to he is his own father. Or something a bit more complex.
But the key is, as Phaestus said. You can’t really trust these stories.
In some accounts it is Ares. But again, hard to know.
[quote=EyeDeKay;5414]Isn’t Tom considered an immortal anchor? [/quote]
Yes, the point being, as an immortal, he will outlive Tamarin, plus she’d never get out of journeyman status and move on with her life.
My suspicion is that with immortals they go through multiple djinn, whether a given djinni stays for its entire life or for only a hundred or two years is probably a case by case thing. Same for elves and other races longer lived than djinn.
2 things ive been thinking about
1.
I think we need to punch up hilda response to the revelations during the nysegard meeting. at the most the largest reaction from her seems to be the saintly equivalent of a raised vulcan eyebrow.
[/quote]Completely agree, however, it’s tricky because she’s very very busy. First she’s preoccupied during the meeting, then she’s busy handing over links, then she’s out on the battlefield with her squad.
I would love to do a ground squad meeting of Hilda, Stevos, Timbly, Rasmeth, Teragdor, but I am not sure I see it as something that can plausibly happen since they are all so busy.
But yes, more needs to be done.
[quote=Winter;5399]
2.what is tammarins role in the book?
she doesnt seems to have a role in the book, she acts , mostly as some sort of secretary, and shes only peripherally involved in the story to the degree that i cant really see her purpose to the story, what does she advance in the plot, what is her role? why is she necessary? at the moment she is the equivalent of a sorta pet, a pretty pink vanity item that sits occasionally on toms shoulder. i love her character but i just want to see her more involved even if it is just sitting on his shoulder during important events and meetings and having people/saints react to her presence.3 where is vaselle? i was kinda hoping he’d show up in nysegard, see teragdor again, meet hilda. that seems like it would be a lot of fun for him, and he’d get to demonstrate some warlocky badassery to those ppl who turned him down and on top o that save them and be all arrogantly magnanimous. yeah, that sounds awesome.[/quote]
In this book, Tamarin and Vaselle are basically “Tom’s R&D Team” They are critical to putting together how to D’Orc, and she is also helping Vaselle set up a skunkworks in the Smithy. This is a setup for them to do much more in the future.
Phaestus and Volund are the really heavy lifters, but they are busy, have their stuff and operate at a level way beyond anything Tom can understand at the moment. Tamarin and Vaselle on the other hand are much more at Tom’s level. Thus a skunkworks team for Tom’s personal projects, things that don’t require the attention of immortals.
I see exactly what you are suggesting happening in Nysegard, but in Book 4. Right now there is a war going on and for a variety of reasons, I am not sure Tom is up to having Vaselle there during battle, both from Vaselle’s safety, and from the point of view that Vaselle might be a distraction. Given their link, if Vaselle is killed or seriously injured, it will affect Tom, heavily. So I think he needs more practice with warlocks and shamans before both he and them go into combat at the same time.
Tamarin is a different case. See the points raised by GameGraphix on the djinn.
Let’s revisit the djinn and Tamarin after Beta 1 is out.
