radio414

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Thirty-Eight -- The Necromancer I entertained a delegation of experts from overseas, eager to plumb the depths of their knowledge and share with them certain techniques and alchemical processes I had found to yield wondrous and terrifying results. Having learned all I could from my visiting guests, I murdered them as they slept. The changes made for the Veteran-level Necromancer fight aren’t worth talking about if only because they’re so expected. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any new developments on this run, though. Let’s just get right into all that. CowCow gets the damage trinkets because The Goliath is already pretty damage-focused and just needs some accuracy. The Goliath isn’t the best class given how most of the enemies resist the bleed status effect of his main attack, but he’s still rather strong, and his random stun won’t have any other targets if he does it fast enough. Jumping ahead a little bit, I wish I managed to get a screenshot of CowCow’s damage numbers because he was hitting for like 45 on a crit. Anyway, it’s a pretty standard party, I think. Audrey lunges forward to put Cow in the optimal position to use his own lunge on turn one, Euryale is the healer, and The Goliath is the tank at the front. Both Cowcow and Euryale can also manage the Thrall’s “stress on every little hit” mechanic as well, so we shouldn’t have any trouble at all. (they write, having already played through the mission knowing exactly what trouble there is to find) Oh, look at that, two more infections. This is getting to the point where I should probably take some blood with me just for peace of mind. This is a medium dungeon, at least, which means less time for these vampires to waste away, and being a boss dungeon makes it even shorter since we know exactly where we’re going and the shortest path to get there, but these infections are adding up. Dare I try and cure them for a bit or do I just keep pushing onwards a little further? There’s also the matter of a new enemy type flying around the dungeons, the gargoyle. They are mostly annoying thanks to their high prot, but their low health means a good pick to the face courtesy of Audrey the Graverobber takes care of them easily through that. They’re also unholy, which means CowCow has little trouble as well. That isn’t to say they aren’t annoying. They either rend the front two rows and can shuffle them back or they can tail swipe the back two rows to stun them. They’re not great to keep around, but they also could easily be worse. The biggest change to the Necromancer is the enemies it summons. Sure, it has appropriately buffed health and damage numbers, but the strategy of “hold the fort and pick off the summons to keep the fight manageable” is a lot harder when the first thing it summons is a skeleton with stealth, or a tanky skeleton that takes at least two rounds to kill. Of course, that’s where the stuns come in, making the Necromancer much easier to race by virtue of simply limiting its turns. And when the stun comes with a hefty 20 Crusader damage attached, it’s pretty easy to see where things are going. That being said, it’s technically Audrey that gets the kill by virtue of getting the last hit and having her blight being part of the DOT that ends this particular necromancer’s career. There are getting to be a few too many infected adventurers waiting around with little to do, and this is our one chance before champion-level dungeons to try and alleviate that. The actual breach of the courtyard grounds won’t be next week, but we do have to get our potential party ready. See you then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Weeks Thirty-Six and Thirty-Seven -- The Power Spike Just a preview of things to come, nothing to worry about. I mentioned last week that there were two goals for this particular run: level up Quinn and Alhazred to match everyone else at level three, and get back the money we’ve been spending on adventurers. The first goal takes one run that involves those two characters and the second one means as many runs as possible with Josephine before she levels up and out of veteran-level dungeons. So we’re going to be doing just that. There are consequences to doing this, of course. Josephine continues to be a liability in combat and two of the other adventurers will be stressed out and not as effective as they should be, but it’s not an impossible task. The only new addition to the provisioning here is the blood. Alhazred still has the Crimson Curse and we need a way to keep that in check. Both Quinn and Alhazred can also play support to Joan here as they can mark more targets for Joan to strike down quickly, and we’re going into the Ruins so Josephine’s blight attack can actually be helpful. This is the first time we’ve actually brought a vampire with us in the party instead of having the condition thrust upon us by bloodsuckers, so let’s actually go through the mechanics of the Crimson Curse. The last time I mentioned it, I mentioned the speed boost and its ability to beat out all the other diseases an adventurer might have, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are four states an adventurer with the Curse can be in. “Passive,” “Craving,” “Wasting,” and “Bloodlust.” “Passive” is the least threatening, only inflicting a handful of slight debuffs in exchange for that speed buff. “Craving” doubles both the buffs and the debuffs, but the game also starts treating it like an Affliction, so they can start causing trouble with the rest of the party. For example, they can refuse to eat even when hungry, which makes them take the penalties for missing that meal. “Wasting” amplifies the debuffs even further and turns the speed buff into a debuff as well. At this point, the character needs to receive a vial of blood in the next few turns, or they die from hunger. If they do receive one, their condition returns to “Passive” and the cycle starts all over again. The timer is a little random with this; each status will last at least 31 rounds but can go up to 75 before moving on to the next one. This leaves the special condition “Bloodlust”. If you give a Craving adventurer a vial of blood, they will go into this state, whereupon many of their debuffs are converted to buffs, they get an additional damage buff, and the speed buff doubles to +4. It’s still an affliction, though, and a more dangerous one than Craving’s. They’re liable to attack party members outright. This run goes well enough, though. This is the introduction of the Ruins’ big upgrade, both for the enemies that we’ve already seen and the enemy that’s going to keep us on our toes while we’re here. As you can see, the middle skeleton now starts each fight Stealthed, which makes up for its previously exploitable fragility. More obvious about this fight, though, is the new Bone Commander standing at the front. This is probably the least threatening of the additions that Veteran dungeons introduce, if only because it doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before. It’s basically just an undead version of the Bandit leader enemy, and we’ve already seen a more threatening version of that with the Falconer version Marvin Seo added. I mean, it’s still threatening. But we make do. There were a couple of mistakes with this run. I assumed that the combination of two small healers in Paracelsus and Josephine would keep people alive in place of one general healer, for example, especially when one of them can cure the intense bleeding I know is coming. I didn’t check the party’s camping skills, so I almost guaranteed there would be an ambush. Honestly, though, the biggest mistake I made was underestimating The Cove again, a place where every permutation of enemies is a threat. This isn’t even some Cove enemy, either! This is just some bandit that decided to show up! Josephine got Crimson Curse’d early in the run and though I didn’t have any blood I did feel I could keep going. I outlined this earlier, the cycle the Curse goes through is pretty long, and we have plenty of blood at home. But the hits just kept coming. The shaman in the back is stealthed, so that didn’t help, then the Thrall is in position three, which means Yui can’t hit it easily. The Grouper in Rank Two is a problem also since that’s the position where it can use its Seaward Slash attack, and the octopus in front can guard the more problematic creatures behind it without being one-shot by Yui. This all culminates in a quad-Grouper fight (as a reminder, one of the more deceptively annoying fights in the game), where everything goes wrong. Three people are put on Death’s Door, with Josephine even taking a Deathblow check before the fight ends, and she refuses to heal back up when I camp. 26.5k gold is still a decent amount, though, and technically, because you don’t gain experience from a failed run, Josephine can still be deployed one extra time before she hits level 5. It might take a bit to come back, because the stress of failure sure runs high, but we haven’t taken an irreparable loss yet. Next time, our adventure in the Ruins has unlocked the next boss, so we’re off to fight the Necromancer. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

Thanks for everyone's interest so far. I've added a discord invite link to the main post and a proper OOC thread is well on its way now live!.

apple pizza but the dessert kind

“Keep moving!” Chris said again, though his voice had become ragged since he’d said it last. He wasn’t sure that two of them could follow his order if they wanted to. Robin had nearly been left handless (or was that left right-handless?), and was still wrapping up dealing with her own attacker and Estellise… okay he wasn’t exactly sure what Estellise’s deal was right now but it wasn’t good. Okay, so better instructions. “Keep moving, uh, that way!” He pointed towards the advancing skeletons with his sword, because while he could hear more hounds approaching, at least this way was towards enemies they could see. They could figure things out from there. He turned back around to Estellise. He’d already endeavored to keep her alive once and he wasn’t about to let that go to waste by failing to do so a second time. “Come on, get up. At least get on my back or something.” That got situated rather quickly, but Chris could already sense something was about to go wrong. Every single fight he’d been in, either in the dungeon or without, he’d relied on his speed and nimbleness to stay out of trouble, and now that he was carrying what felt like almost a second him on his back, there was no way he’d be able to do that anymore. Even walking was a struggle; he was normally so light on his feet, now those feet were digging into the earth. But he had to struggle on, lead the charge at least for a little bit. Chris stared at the first of the incoming skeletons as they approached each other. “Fight defensively,” he mumbled himself. “You don’t have to create an opening, wait for them to make one and don’t let them in in the meantime. Just because that was one of the less fun fencing classes doesn’t mean you can’t do it now. This one doesn’t even have a sword anyway.” He managed to block the skeleton’s first wild attack, but he couldn’t even have countered if he tried. The next was already coming in.

Let me put it like this: I don't want "this is too powerful" to be the thought that nixes a potential power, I'd rather it be "this is too boring." Obviously the thresholds can change based on a number of factors, but that's the general idea.

Something was bothering me about the lyrics and I couldn't put my finger on it until a few listens: it's abab rhyming except for the first and last lines of the chorus which throws in an extra "ead" and an extra "ied/ight" line respectively. The rest of it is cool, though 6/10 Not the best Saint Motel song but a good one 7/10OP Suggestion: been getting into dry cleaning's latest album again., the lyrics still barely make sense but they're nice to listen to 7.5/10

IC So much to do, and so little time... Rules The Story So Far Setting FAQ Application Accepted Apps changelog: (AM 11/18/2022): Discord invite link added (PM 11/18/2022): Full OOC is now live! (AM 11/30/2022): The RP has now started! IC link added, accepted characters tab updated, discord invite link removed (PM 01/13/2023): Updated cast list upon Yui's departure (AM 04/13/2023): Forgot to update the cast list again, oops (AM 09/10/2023): Formally adding Belladonna to the list of players, also I changed a name in the setting spoiler because I am *very good* at keeping track of established moments

Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God. -Leviticus 19:31 (NIV)Melissa needed a moment to process what happened. Thankfully, in the state she was in, there wasn’t much else to do but think. She could delegate the rest to Zadkiel. What struck her most about Rei’s retreat was the exact way she avoided it. Melissa had expected the attack to miss, or not connect in some way. There wasn’t a world where the fight would have been so easy after every other conflict so far had not been. Technically, this was still on the more positive side of things. Imagine if Zadkiel had struck true and Rei didn’t react at all, where would she be then? Probably getting thrown through several trees, Melissa reasoned, and while she technically had experience having her body thrown around a battlefield, it wasn’t an experience she was about to repeat without good reason. She could feel the computers scorn her for that particular thought, so she backed off and tried again. Rei didn’t leap back and away out of sight, she was pulled. There was more to Rei, literally, than met the eye. Between this and all the talk about being haunted, things were starting to make a bit more sense. At the very least, she could understand why she’d been assigned this particular fight. They weren’t the same, but they were similar enough. Still, what was she supposed to do, then, exorcise Rei’s ghosts? Was that really the plan? Like, she knew enough about exorcisms that she could probably do one, but there was a particular sticking point called “had to be sponsored by the church,” and if Mauvache was unwilling or unable to sponsor even the simplest of sacraments, Melissa was pretty sure that was off the table as well. Besides, maybe that wasn’t how ghosts worked in Rei’s world. One could probably argue Melissa was possessed as well, though she didn’t sense any other telltale signs of corruption about herself. She could still think the Lord’s Prayer if she wanted. Our Father, who art in Heaven- A pair of blows that even Zadkiel with its four faces couldn’t detect struck the cherub in the back (or the non-holding-Melissa side, anyway, it was hard to tell even while she was technically part of it), and Melissa dismissed the angel, stumbling forward. She still wasn’t completely sure what Rei was doing, and it wouldn’t do to give complete information on her end for free like that. A less-intended side effect of the blow was a flash of red in the corners of her eyes. That hadn’t happened the other times the angels had taken hits, had it? It was worrisome whichever the answer was. But it was also not something she could worry about now. Not with more fighting ahead of her. She was at a disadvantage, she realized. Rei still knew where she was, while she only had a vague idea of where Rei had gotten pulled off to. Going searching was likely suicide. Whatever was going on with Rei was invisible, while both of Melissa’s angels literally emitted light as a mere symptom of their existence. She needed something else. She needed a way to get Rei to come to her, somehow. The girl summons the cherub again and collapses into its arms. As she had thought, instead of giving chase further into the woods, the girl has the cherub fly upwards, up past the treetops where she can get a full view of the area. The cherub’s four faces play an important function here; they limit the amount of maneuvering it has to do in the air, and with the computers’ help, the girl can even process every direction she and it are looking. There is a house off in the distance. It shares the same demeanor as the forest that surrounds it: dark, ominous, and old. But already the girl is thinking of uses for the place. It is certainly better than where she was. A part of her wants to use the ophan to direct her opponent to the place as well, but that would again reveal more information about herself than she needs to. The cherub streaking across the sky does a good enough job of that on its own. “Catch me if you can,” she thinks, and the cherub is already on its way.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Thirty-Five -- The Shrieker The Shrieker is one of those high-risk high-reward fights that populate the game, on par with a Shambler fight in difficulty. That being said, the only punishment for not fighting it here is, to put it bluntly, not getting to do it. The Shrieker would just fly away and move on. But I want to do it because of those high rewards. The trinket it’s offering has a pretty hefty Accuracy buff, and more and more of the team is becoming rabid, so accuracy is in short supply. While we’re here, I suppose I should talk about the other ways The Shrieker quest can spawn. This one is always a Champion-level fight -- the highest there is -- but there are two other ways with other difficulty curves. The first is a bit more associated with a crow, it filches eight of your trinkets and the game asks you to get them back, the difficulty of the fight there involving just how rare those trinkets were in the first place. It doesn’t have a set time limit for completion, though, thankfully. If you want to wait a few weeks to get all your ducks in a row first, it’s patient enough for that. The other opportunity for this fight actually comes as a catch-up mechanic. If you lose eight trinkets (you can lose them for a variety of reasons, but eight is the number because that’s how many you lose in when a fully-equipped party TPKs), the Shrieker collects them all and you can get them back by confronting it. Again, the difficulty of the fight is contingent on exactly what it has collected for you, but these trinkets aren’t going away any time soon. Without this fight, a lot of one-of-a-kind trinkets (Heads, music boxes, Crimson Court trinkets, Shieldbreaker trinkets… the list goes on) would be lost forever. But again, at this moment in time, we’re just fighting for greed. Unlike other boss fights, this quest is literally just this fight, without even a boss corridor leading up to it, so we’re thankfully super light. Even more importantly, the gimmick of The Shrieker is that it flies away after three turns, which will inflict a large amount of stress but still result in a victorious fight, so survivability is key here. Both ABC and Margaret have healing, Doggo can both heal himself and keep his stress down, and Damian is not only inherently hardier than most adventurers at Death’s Door, he also has a suite of heals once he gets too low. We’re also breaking out the Aegis Scales because this is the sort of fight to break out Aegis Scales for. They’re rare, but prevent one instance of damage (though not the effects associated with that damage -- an attack that inflicts bleed will still deal that bleed, for example), which could be all we need. If you want to kill this boss, you’re going to have to contend with a bird that has some obnoxiously high dodge, constantly shuffles around its nest so you can’t just focus the front or back lines, and has three attacks per round. Oh and almost every attack sucks to deal with. The marquee one, Peck, has an increased crit chance, and given we’re already under leveled, those crits are especially devastating. A crit also means an increased chance of the attack’s secondary effect, which in this case means a pretty hefty bleed gets added on top of all that. Two of its other attacks, Caw and Call the Murder (oh I get it) are stress attacks. I forgot that Doggo currently has a Fear of Hellbeasts, which means that the Shrieker with its dual Eldritch/Beast typing gets to do even worse things to our poor Abomination’s mind with these attacks. The last move to address is Regurgitate, and only now am I realizing how vomit-heavy this game is. If we were actually trying to kill the boss here, this move would simultaneously be the most annoying and least worrisome. It’s the most annoying because of the debuff the comes with being covered in bird goop -- a loss of accuracy making an already difficult-to-hit boss even more difficult and a chance for disease -- and it’s the least worrisome because, well, the disease chance is pretty low and the debuff can be cured with some medicinal herbs. Still, when an adventurer is on Death’s Door, any damage is bad. ABC actually received two deathblow checks on this fight, thankfully surviving both, but it was pretty close on the second one thanks to some bleed. This is the danger of dealing with a boss with multiple moves. Sometimes they just get to move twice in a row. The action economy swings both ways. Anyway, that was the big worrisome moment. The “keep everyone alive using heals and bandages and just tank the stress damage” plan worked fine enough otherwise. The only problem is that now we suddenly have to pay up to get everyone’s afflictions back under control. Damian the Flagellant was guaranteed to be rapturous, and everyone else was pretty likely to hit an affliction thanks to being two levels below the quest's expectation. But we're all still alive, that's the important thing. Now we’re back to the money grind, along with hopefully getting our two remaining stragglers over the Level 3 wall. Until then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

I liked it more than I thought I would, almost wish it was even more aggressive though. 8/10OP Suggestion: pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs 7.5/10

pineapple none pizza with left beef black olives green olives

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Weeks Thirty-Three and Thirty-Four -- There's Money To Be Made Hey just a heads-up one of the Marvin Seo additions to the game includes an encounter with a woman who has been kidnapped and tied up, and there’s a slight implication of sexual violence, so, uh, be aware of that. Okay. So. I know I either said or implied that the stagecoach would be useless as soon as the initial recruitment phase ended, and that’s technically still true, but I would be remiss to not talk about the one feature the building has that didn’t get modded out, and that’s the gem hunters. These recruits are basically free. They don’t count toward the maximum limit, they don’t count toward the highlander mod, and all their equipment and skills are fully upgraded so there’s not even any maintenance involved. We unlocked this feature by defeating The Miller. There are just two problems, though. The first is that they are Endless Harvest exclusive. To put it in the flavor of the game, unlike all the other adventurers who are here for glory, these are mercenaries, and they are after riches only the Farmstead can provide. That leads to the second problem: payment. The reason you would venture into the Farmstead beyond this point in the game is in search of crystal shards, which can be used to buy either special trinkets or an elixir that’s rather useful in the Endless Harvest mode (I suppose we’ll get to that when we get to that). Every time one of these mercenaries participates in a run, however, they siphon off a portion of the crystal shards earned. So it’s a nice option, but given that there’s no permadeath in that region anymore, it’s not something I personally am interested in when there are enough other things on my plate to worry about. One less thing to worry about, though, is this event, which I’m mostly noting for its convenience. I don’t think I was taking Skaia on a run this week anyway, so this is just an extra bonus. As I ended last week’s post with, we’re more concerned with our money situation, which means an Antiquarian run to get the numbers back up. As you can see in the corner, that number is looking pretty dire. I was worried about this team because it’s not great at healing back up to full, though it is good at keeping people not dead, and Cowcow has a stress heal that will also keep the light up in the Weald’s long corridors. At the same time, Audrey’s primed for a lunge or two, and her base attack, Pick to the Face, is going to be really helpful against many of the enemies here and especially the Thing From the Stars if we run into it. Yui as well. Some of these new enemies are things that just need killing. Oh, they actually show up in the first fight. Cool. Anyway, so that’s a Giant, and basically all of its abilities are annoying. The least annoying one will still inflict some serious blight on you, but it can also use the spores on its back to confuse the party, shuffling them around, and in the worst case, it also has a move called Treebranch Smackdown, which does exactly what it says it does and hurts even more than you think it hurts. There’s also the Crone, who is basically a worse version of the stress-inducing priests we’ve seen in other areas, the most problematic element of which being they start stealthed, so they’re unable to be targeted for two whole turns -- plenty of time to disrupt the party on their own. Really, though, despite these things showing up right next to each other, the dungeon goes rather well. I mean, the Crone enemies can also inflict a variety of diseases, to the point that Josephine the Antiquarian gets hit with three of them, but the Graverobber has a camping skill that apparently just heals… all of them in addition to any on herself, so that was a nice surprise hidden in a poor description of the ability. Saves me some gold, anyway. I also want to point out a fun bit of loot that popped up when fighting another Giant. forty-five hundred! that’s a lot of doubloons! We're hitting a new loot table. So that's neat. The second run of this post was into the Warrens, and Josephine was in the shop this week, so I took it upon myself to get some more adventurers up to the level three threshold. Both ABC and Euryale were behind schedule, and while I could have excused that in Euryale the Lamia since good healing is in short supply, ABC the Arbalest is almost required for some key fights, so she definitely needs to get up in levels. The party is pretty good, though. It has a stress heal to keep The Goliath from going out of control, and speaking of The Goliath, both he and Ren can work to keep the enemy formations bleeding and out of step. There are two big enemies to watch out for here. The Swine Centaur probably the weirdest (which is saying something given the other one). We’ve seen something like this already with the literal nightmares that inhabit the farmstead, and they operate similarly. When they use a turn to pull to the back of the formation, it means they’re about to lunge forward with a devastating charge. I mean, it would be devastating if it actually hit anything. But it’s not helpless at the front of the enemy formation either. It also has a devastating backhand, so it’s in your best interest to kill it as quickly as you can. The other enemy to think about is the Large Carrion Eater, which is a lot like those smaller worm-shaped Carrion Eaters we’ve been seeing, only, you know, bigger. But, I’ve honestly never found these things that scary? Just large. And I know saying that is just going to get someone killed, but also they’re another one of those “needs a mark to be scary” enemies, and while they can also mark an adventurer in advance, that also means they’re taking at least two turns to do anything threatening, and they’re not tough enough to be able to do that. Lastly, I’ll bring up that addition Marvin Seo put in as part of his Talon faction, and given the content warning I put at the start, I’m just going to spoiler it here. I don’t have a lot to say about it because the mod has a lot less easily-findable documentation (nor do I have the ability to properly discuss the tropes at play here), but my understanding of the enemy is that it stresses your party out to see a damsel in distress, as indicated by her getting moves inspired by the Madman enemy, you’re incentivised not to attack her because of the permanent riposte effect and buff she’s got, though she can also get guarded by her kidnappers making it hard to avoid attacking her. If you do manage it, though, she thanks you with a very healthy stress heal, negating any stress you might have gotten from her wailing, so I guess it all works out. More importantly, though, you’ll notice the Fuseliers are also stealthed now that we’ve reached veteran difficulty. That’s not going to be annoying at all in the future. Overall, I’d mark these two weeks as a success. There weren’t any moments where things went horribly wrong, anyway. Even the moments where things went a little wrong (Cowcow almost became a vampire and Euryale got put on Death’s Door on the final fight of the run) weren’t worth recording because, well, it wasn’t worth relaying that information (outside of right now). It’s already been fixed. Next week, there’s a new event that I want to show you, which may or may not just stop the run dead in its tracks, and I know I’ve said that every time something vaguely threatening has happened, but this time, I mean it. The game is giving us the opportunity to face The Shrieker a few levels early, and I’m not going to let the opportunity go to waste. Until then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

He was dizzy, he was sore, and the parts that weren’t sore still kinda hurt. Even his fingers were starting to cramp up from holding his weapons too hard, though that could easily be fixed now that Lana had given him the time. “Thanks,” Chris said. It was a terse sort of thanks, but that was intentional. It was an undercurrent to match Lana’s, an agreement about the state of things that exceeded what mere words could describe. He pulled himself to his feet. Chris had decided to save Estellise first because if they lost her, all these aches and pains weren’t about to heal themselves. Well, maybe they would -- that was how bodies worked, after all -- but not on an efficient timescale, and while the dungeon seemed to be forgiving about that sort of thing, this was not the day, of all the days, to test that theory. There were only a few left to deal with, and three of them seemed content with marching around aimlessly until everyone was ready. Lana had passed by Ziun to help Chris out, which he supposed was also supposed to fit in that “Thanks,” he said earlier, though he said it again, just in case, and ran over to help the bard. Despite being without a weapon, Ziun was making a decent go at things. He’d blinded the hound with his coat and was wrestling it into submission. In Chris' approximation, he probably could have managed without the help, but this was faster. Chris made his way around the scene until he faced Ziun opposite the thrashing skeleton. His dagger was still in his hand. “Keep your head up, and watch your hands,” Chris said, and he brought the pommel of the dagger down on the dog’s head. He hit it once, twice, enough times for it to stop thrashing about and a few more for good measure, only pausing after each hit to make sure he didn’t accidentally hit Ziun’s chin on the upswing. In the aftermath, he looked at Ziun’s coat. “Oh,” Chris said. The thing was miraculously unpunctured after having been held so close to the thing’s teeth, but it was still no place for a coat to be. “Dirt washes out,” he said. “Bone dust washes out. Only thing you have to worry about is the smoke, but you accepted that going in, hopefully.”

hi how are you When I started working on Götterdämmerung, I promised myself two things, that it would definitely be my first RP, and that I wouldn't make more until the IC got locked, for better or for worse. It turned out for the better, carried on the backs of two people who were willing to put up with my nonsense for two and a half years, but I've gained more and more ideas for a follow-up. I'd simply go with whichever one interests me the most, but that's the thing, they'd all be interesting follow-ups to me in their own way, I think. I remembered Skaia did a poll once, though, so I guess I'll do one also. I make no promises; this is all subject to change, from the titles to parts of the premises. I'm not even going to bind myself to the winner of the poll if something else keeps my attention. But here they are:Curiosity, OH - A Slice-of-Life RP where the life was yours, but it isn't anymore. You left Curiosity years ago, and you know what they say, once you leave the place you grew up, it's no longer yours anymore. Why did you leave? More importantly, why are you coming back? And then there’s the matter of the murder… Inspirations: Night in the Woods, Twin Peaks, Welcome to Nightvale/QWRPline, SINNER GET READY by Lingua Ignota The Last Days of Scarlet City - Superheroes and villains exist, have existed, and will exist in Scarlet City as long as it stays standing, and there are a number of official truces and unspoken agreements in place keeping it that way. But one fateful night is going to change everything. A plot that involves, among other things, a prophecy, a lighthouse, some string, and a small hand-crank radio. Inspirations: Worm by Wildbow, Twilight of the Superheroes, a whole bunch of superhero stories, actually. Dream Heist - It's not Paprika and it's not Inception, though to say they're not inherently inspirations would be lying. This is a world where people can inhabit each other’s dreams, which, of course, leads to the existence of dream crime. It’s a difficult game, though, since if the host is made aware of the intrusion, they might just decide not to wake up, trapping everyone inside. If and when that happens, how do you get out? Inspirations: Oh I said those already, okay. Ubik by Phillip K. Dick, also. Eclipse Phase: Gatecrash - "Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it." The only one of these with someone else's IP attached to it, and therefore has the longest pitch. A mere decade ago, strong AI called TITANs nearly wiped out all life before going silent, inactive for unknown reasons. Earth is uninhabitable, but transhumanity – including uplifted animals and infomorphs who live mostly on the ‘net – lives on, changed and spread out amongst the stars. Gatecrashing involves the warp gates found at the far end of the solar system. Nobody can tell where a given one leads without actually passing through it, and it really could be anything. Despite those uncertainties, there are some really powerful hypercorps paying mercenaries and other contractors good money to find out for them. Might have some horror elements that don't involve the horrors of capitalism too; I'm not sure yet. Inspirations: Eclipse Phase borrows from basically anything that can be considered science fiction and a few other things besides.okay thanks for reading the poll should let you select multiple options if you so desire. i hope you're not too disappointed if something else wins, it's just for fun. -r

that's not mother markos that's madame blanc. i mean, it's understandable since tilda swinton plays both but yeah wrong character.

A little overwhelming but cute 7/10OP Suggestion: new fucked up new fucked up and i can't link the music video because it's age restricted but it's gaaaaaaay 7.5/10 One Day by Fucked Up

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.” -Matthew 12:43 (NIV)Melissa dutifully followed along with Rei’s instructions, not really comprehending them until she reached the point where she was already locked in. The code that flashed right in front of her face almost made her ask Zadkiel and Sandalphon if they understood it, if they could interface with everything in some way that could be beneficial to her, but alas, by the time the thought fully formed in her head, it was already gone. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, she reasoned. They weren’t about to suddenly understand complex machinery after absorbing the equivalent of a “For Dummies” book. Maybe she could ask if they’d interface with her watch or something, though. She was thinking too much. In fairness, the dark and claustrophobic interior of the pod made it difficult to do anything but. Even as she started sinking into whatever state of consciousness the pod needed her to be in to work, she was still thinking, still worrying. It felt different here than when she’d been summoning her angels, for example, but indescribably so. Just, like, if someone asked her, she’d say, “It’s different.” That was a weird sentence by itself, of course. Again, she tried to recall everything that had happened to her in the last few months, everything that might have led her to this point, because she’d just been an ordinary girl then and now… all of this. She didn’t get very far, though, before the machine took ahold of her. It had to be a dream. It was similar to dreams she’d had, anyway, and perhaps she had even constructed something similar in her last few dream-filled nights. Maybe that was why the machine had chosen such a location, though she had to be careful not to associate this with dreaming. Despite the surrealities, she was supposed to act like this was still real life. Rei was just ahead of her, having apparently just remembered a sordid history involving the training pods if they were haunted so hard. Melissa wasn’t particularly afraid of ghosts -- at least, she wasn’t more afraid of ghosts than she was, say, needing to buy something for a church youth group activity, navigating a long line of people also buying that thing, and then disappointing dozens of people buy buying the last one -- but it wasn’t ideal. “I probably should have asked this sooner, then, like, before we got in the pods at all, but how do we get out?” Melissa said. “Like, if this pod is haunted, shouldn’t we get another one?” The intended reaction was- okay, Melissa, in all her overthinking, wasn’t actually sure what reaction Rei would have to that sort of question, but ambivalence was not it. Rei simply shrugged. “Oh, I'm sure it'll work out. I mean it was here for use right? Of course, these things aren't actually used that much but still.” Like, you’re the one that brought it up! Why bring up an occurrence that Melissa easily would have just chalked up to the already spooky atmosphere of the place if it wasn’t such a big deal? It only led to more questions. “Okay, but is there, like, a safeword or some way to tap out or is that all covered by the pod reading our brainwaves or something?” That was the wrong question to ask, but at least “if I keep asking questions they’ll get annoyed at my pestering” was an expected reaction, one Melissa worried about all too often. “What the heck are you on about?” Rei said. “Is this really something you should be asking now that we’re already here?” The environment was similarly annoyed. Melissa could hear the rustling of branches overhead already even if she didn’t look to visually check for ghosts. She wondered if the trees were stable enough to handle all that poltergeist activity. If this were her dream, where she’d been given total control over everything, they probably wouldn’t be. It wasn’t, of course, just a simulation, but maybe? She took a step forward all the same. “I’m just saying, um, and don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you seemed annoyed about the prospect of fighting out there in the real world but now that we’re here it seems like the opposite, so…” “I just want to get this over with. I’m entirely over these kinds of training missions. What’s with these places and deciding that the best way to practice was to beat each other up anyway?” The rustling continued and Melissa moved another step or two. “How long have you-” No, she didn’t actually want to know the answer to that question. “What would you rather do?” Rei threw up her hands. “I dunno, anything else? Unlike those other weirdos, I’m not really itching to fight people. It’s just what I’m told to do. So we should just get to it or whatever. Don’t you have some kind of superpower or something to be busting out about now? Or do you think we’re gonna be a couple of pals chatting it up in here?” Maybe that did answer the first question. It certainly helped, anyway. She kept moving, both avoiding any anxious poltergeists and getting closer to try and, as Rei put it, “chat it up.” She did also ready herself to “bust out her superpower,” but that was more because she was pretty sure talking was about to go nowhere. Past experiences on Prana had demonstrated that talking it out when someone had made up their mind would end with a rock to the face, and while that didn’t mean she was going to stop trying, she was trying to heed the voices’ concerns. “We’re not fighting for the sake of fighting, are we?” Melissa said. “If we’re useful to Mauvache, then eventually we can go home and, uh, not fight for the rest of our lives.” “Well aren’t you little miss optimist,” Rei said. “Alright then, you can talk a lot, that’s something.” “I don’t know about all that,” Melissa said. “I guess I’m just more okay doing things I don’t want to do but feel I have to.” She hears a branch crack and the response she’d readied just moments ago fires off before she even has a chance to complete a thought. The cherub erupts from her body behind her and it is already moving towards her opponent, smoothly scooping up the girl’s collapsing body with two arms and two wings as it continues its charge forward, flaming sword extended out in front of it with one of its two remaining arms.