#MagicTech advanced

[jenniferdarlas]

[webcrawler3000]

It’s all messed up!!

But this came out and that’s really cool.

[treias-world]

Treias Lineages: Dwarves

Dwarves are almost completely magically inert. While there are few exceptions (esp wrt multiracial ppl), they largely evolved in a planetary magical dead zone. No full blooded dwarf is born with natural magic ability.

(Above example farthest right is half elemental and has power over fire.)

HOWEVER, this doesn't mean they can't use ANY magic.

Dwarves can use enchanted items and even harness natural energies of the world with their technology. A dwarven mage is very different from an elven mage, as they really a lot more on science, physics, and engineering for just about everything in their societies.

Through all history, dwarves were at the forefront of engineering and trade, learning to use the resources of their lands and strength of their hands to create large scale trade empires, exchanging their labor and expertise for enchantments and other foreign goods.

They aren't at all insular peoples and make up a very large portion of all big time world traders and business leaders.

Trade Common, the most universally used language in-world, relies heavily on Dwarvish Trade, with some human and elvish trade language mixed in.

Dwarvish technology is the most advanced non-magical tech known across the entire planet. While magictech is abundant on Treias, dwarven tech is regarded as very high end and impressive due to its LACK of magic use. Dwarves have made great strides in providing for those who are magically inert, and enjoy pushing the envelope as far as possible to match or exceed the possibilities of magictech.

They're very open to information and hardware trade, though some traditionalists get overly proud and stubborn if one tries to "improve" their work with magic.

They originate from mountainous and ore rich lands and are known as the people of the stone, or stone speakers. Gems, ores, metals, minerals of most any kind are ever present in their history, society, and iconography through all of recorded history. Dwarves are typically great at discovering resource heavy mining areas all over the world and are heavily relied on for gathering and shipping construction materials in just about every society.

They are typically short and extremely hardy, normally growing lots of facial and body hair no matter their gender. Treatment of said hair and what it says about a dwarf differs among different societies, but typically a great beard is well appreciated.

Common belief about dwarvish people is that they aren't very fashionable and stick much more to practical clothing over anything else, which is wildly untrue. Dwarven fashion is taken very seriously and typically tries to merge durability and practicality with a sort of art deco beauty. Maybe a hint of brutalism. And when access to pure unrefined minerals of all kind, there's no shortage of sparkly stones for expertly crafted jewelry. Like the people themselves, everything they produce is sturdy and long lasting.

Spiritually, not many dwarves pray to gods. Maternal ancestry is the strongest bond in most dwarven cultures. The mothers, grandmothers, eldest sisters, etc. of dwarven families are often seen as the matriarchs, strong and unyielding, kind and caring. Passing traits and lessons through one's maternal line is very important to dwarves. It's more lax in modern times with the understanding that not everyone has a mother or other matronly family in their life.

Dwarves, on average, live to around 500-600 years. They can have rather large families with siblings born MANY years apart, and most planned families do space their children some 10, 20, even 40 years or more apart. They're in no rush. They also have no legally established marriage system, and just one family can have several mothers that guide them.

Notes:

Initially inspired by the dwarves of Dragon Age, I wanted at least one society or lineage that could thrive without magic. I love highly magical worlds but having peoples that are non reliant on that magic is also extremely interesting to me! However, I also wanted my version of dwarves to also be much more sociable and important to the world at large instead of being confined to caves and mines and not knowing much about the world outside.

[kyogre-blue]

And here's the second half: lore, Shambhala, and Nemesis:

Blue Sea Moon, the 7th month...

The Agarthans were unable to drop nukes on Garreg Mach. They tried before, but their nuke got redirected onto Aillel, the lava valley. This is because the Holy Tomb is not just a grave but also a "sacred vessel for a power that repels evil." Sothis built it herself to protect her children from "the evil light."

The dragons gathered in Zanado because it's close to the Holy Tomb.

Additionally, using the nuke was what let Hubert figure out Shambhala's location. Since they presumably didn't want Edelgard to know that, they likely held off on this trump card until our advancement forced their hand.

It's only thanks to the Death Knight warning us that we escaped.

They might be holding off on sending any more in order to avoid giving us any further chances to trace them. We're not on Hubbie's level, so they are correct to guess we couldn't track them from the one instance.

Rhea is coming with us... she wants to "learn the truth" about the Agarthans, which is... interesting.

Ignatz points out that Solon called us beasts and himself the Savior. Who was he saving?

Dedue left off screen :(

Edelgard was the last heir of her family. She said whoever takes the throne next should take it by virtue of merit and not blood, and totally meant it.

The military minister surrendered, but Cornelia ran off. Bye, we don't know who you are.

Yup, Shambhala is across the Airmid river, so it's in Imperial territory. For what it's worth, the nuke drop on it shows a forest, and it seems to not be that deep down, even.

It's also just... a giant tron city. There are mecha (Titanus) and also magictech turrets (Viskam?). The turrets are apparently "incomplete."

Thales is willing to let Shambhala be destroyed as long as they get their vengeance, presumably by killing Rhea?

This missions is actually really complicated, and I lost a bunch of units. Speaking of this, I wish there was a mode between casual and classic, something that puts a penalty on a unit you lost but doesn't outright remove them. Casual is a little... TOO casual.

Thales went down to an accidental crit from Leonie. I was just trying to soften him up from outside his little bunker, and yet... Oh well.

Claude finally makes the connection that the children of the goddess are dragons (shock) and that Rhea is the Immaculate One (we literally saw her transform five years ago).

Rhea tanked 3 nukes, but let 3 through. We're all fine tho. Interesting that the nukes seem to launch from elsewhere.

"With the destruction of Shambhala, the ambitions of the Agarthans are over." Cool. I guess Cornelia can't do much on her own or something.

btw, I like how Nemesis's coffin had chains around it.

Rhea says she's the last of the goddess's children.

She explains how Sothis came from far away long ago. She used her blood to create her children and they shared knowledge with humans to create an advanced civilization. But the humans turned away from her and began to wage wars. Eventually they began to consider themselves as gods and challenged Sothis herself. The world was scorched and most humans were wiped out. The Agarthans are the survivors of that time who retreated underground.

Sothis took a long time to restore the world, and then fell into slumber at the Holy Tomb. Her children settled nearby in Zanado. Until Nemesis murdered all of them.

Rhea called herself Seiros and wandered the land looking for revenge. She gathered the "remaining children" and they killed Nemesis at Tailtean Plains.

Suddenly, cities in the east report that they're being attacked by an unknown force. This is affecting the East Gronder Thoroughfare in the old Hrym territory. Then they cross the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Holst tried to fight them and got injured.

The children of the goddess can't match Sothis's power, or the power in her blood, which Nemesis possess. But this seems to imply that the Agarthans got hold of his body after he was killed?

Because it's hard to imagine they could recreate him from scratch otherwise.

We finally spell out that the Elites took the blood of dragons by force and made weapons out of their bodies.

Rhea explains that she placed Sothis's heart (crest stone) into Byleth, and that's why Byleth can use the "full power" of the Sword of the Creator.

Which is like.... did they make an artificial crest stone for the artificial Nemesis's artificial relic? These dudes got real good at counterfeiting, which makes me wonder why they kept needing to kill people and grave rob.

I forgot to check where this swamp even is. Also, disappointed that the "Agartha loyalists" aren't bone white like their leaders.

Claude literally gives a friendship speech. Tbh he also had the best damage against Nemesis and critted too. Lone combat might have been too much, but maybe if I used all those stat boosters I was sitting on... Oh well.

51:12 playtime

I also forgot to check what was the last month. I just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible lol

Oh, right. I proposed to Flayn. Byleth tells her the truth, and she asks if you're a dude or a female goddess. Why is that a concern, Flayn... This is disappointingly unromantic. I wish I could have banged your dad or your aunt, don't hold it against me.

Battle data wasn't very interesting. Most of the later chapters were finished in single digit turns. The black tower took the longest at 21 turns. I had to walk all that way...

Claude's endcard with Hilda mentions that he went home to be king, but tbh I don't even remember when, if ever, he explained that part of his background.

THE END

[therealbeachfox]

Adam and Eve were uplifted humans used as slaves by the aliens we know as gods who lived on Earth in the ancient past. There was a rebellion of these uplifted humans that drove the gods off-planet at which point the earliest recorded histories begin.

Now, these Uplifted Humans intermingled with baseline humanity, diluting their Uplifted stat bonuses, though certain lineages kept more than others.

The world was also just filled with Ancient Alien God artifacts and super-science structures so advanced that even in the 21st century they might as well be magic, let alone to some 350 BCE rando.

So some of those lineages of Uplift Human remnants, who are faster, stronger, stabbier, and can see Important Video Game Stuff better come across various "magic" alien artifacts and decide they're going to use these to start influencing human society world wide. This is around 500-1000 BCE.

Stuff happens, but most of the important plot points are behind DLC and they don't matter much in the long term.

Then, around 1000CE, one of these Secret Rulers of Humanity decides, nah, fuck that, and creates an entire faction of Uplift Human Remnants Armed with Ancient Technology to fight the first one in the name of Human Freedom and Self Determination. Not because he believes in those things, but because he just really hated his coworkers and wanted to fuck with them.

The original group starts getting called Templars because Illuminati is too trite, and the anti-group is called Assassins because that's the name of the series.

They fight. Fight fight fight. Fight fight fight. Basically because each side believes the other side are assholes, amoral, and a danger to humanity at large.

Both sides are completely right about this.

In the modern day the Templars have pretty much won, and are busy putting into place all the Future Prediction and Mind Control supertech that they haven't been able to use yet because human technology couldn't support it yet. But now we have the internet!

Then, just because, they figure out that the full memories of all of your ancestors are encoded in your DNA. Somehow. And these memories can be extracted for you to experience in a full-dive VR simulation of your ancestor's life!

Now, there are a couple of Ancient Alien Artifacts that the Templars need to finish their Control The World machine that they lost track of over the years, but they know a few guys in the past who would've known which sofa cushion those Ancient Alien Artifacts were stuffed under.

So they track down a descendant of those people, an Assassin who ran away from his family/cult because they were a weird fricking Assassin Cult, and is now working as a bartender in NYC.

A quick blow to the back of the head later and he's now working as EvilCorp Inc's new VR LiveStreamer for their DNA Memory Machine.

So they have him roll through a few past lives, find a couple of little glowey orbs that are important because the writers say they are. Then he escapes and there's this whole thing where he sacrifices himself to prevent a massive solar-flare from destroying all technology on the planet that he only knows about because the Precursor God Aliens foresaw it and seeded Alien Skype Calls for his ancestors to encounter that he'd then see as he relived their past memories, put all the pieces together, and know what to do to prevent the solar flare!

Then he dies. Because he was boring and no one cared about him.

But EvilCorp Inc still has that tech! And figured out a way for anyone to live through the memories of any one else's DNA. And they have a whoooole bunch of Assassin DNA because they kill those guys a -lot-.

Anyways, the reason why the one Precursor God Alien in particular wanted to preserve human technology from that solar flare 10,000 years in the future was because her boyfriend, who was getting reincarnated throughout history as the same fucking guy over and over, was going to use a random Alien MagicTech Artifact to implant her into the human internet. Which happens.

Then an archeologist uses the tech to do some open-world gaming/research in Egypt and Greece and I guess now also Arabia?

And that's the story of Assassins Creed.

TL;DR: The Illuminati is actually two guys who're always fighting over/with ancient alien magitech thingies.

Is Assassin's Creed the most hard to explain major franchise? There's always that "explain an x badly" joke, but giving AC a straight-forward, good-faith summary seems to be the one where you're going to have to backtrack and recontextualize things more often than most. "I'm not making this up" and such.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Dungeon 23 Week Three Recap!

Played a little bit with experimenting with room size and shape this week. To, I think mixed success? There's always future weeks for more experimentation though! Lots of setting up things that might get resolved using information discovered in future rooms this week. So let's get into it;

Accessed from 1/11. A large pyramidal structure in the center of the room. If activated (hard, arcane, dangerous) wit will reveal hidden treasure.

Seemingly empty room. Pitch black. Warm, soft surfaces. No obvious entries. (This was my first "empty room". Its just a big mystery for later!)

Large stone-metal roots have breached the walls of the Spire. Tapping them produces up to 1d6 doses of No-Dream (adrenal, addictive). 2 small swarms of spire-gnats (venomous, parasitic).

A long hallway turns into a walkway out into an impossible void. A series of floating platforms bob and hum in the sea of darkness. If properly activated, they can carry you elsewhere.

One exit blocked off. Room has been converted to a makeshift living space by Old Qren. A grizzled old delver who knows a lot about the deeper levels of the Spire, but keeps his senses dulled with Nods and other drugs.

If the entrance is unsealed, an ancient bound construct will unleashed. It will force its way through the Spire, heading upwards unless disabled. It will wreak havoc in Spire's Walk if freed.

Large room. Rubble from semi-collapsed ceiling. Four minor + 1 major spirebeasts wait in repose. Their eyes glow a strange color compared to all others encountered so far. They will defend the locked chamber (advanced magictech lock, very difficult) until destroyed.

[enigmaincrimson]

Tinkering with some stuff...

Monster Prom modules...

Background: Royalty verse

Part-time job: Traveling store verse

Quirk ideas: Monster Musume verse.

Essentially...

A runaway princess working part-time for an eccentric wizard. Unknown race, but definitely not Pallandian... 

Pallandians are basically the descendants of humans that were genetically and magically modified during a war of an age long past, It’s been long enough since then that it’s easier to address them as a different race entirely. 

Unless living near magical fallout zones which cause more dramatic changes, they look pretty similar to humans, but with different bents depending on their ancestry and place of origin. Mistaking them for other races is pretty commonplace.

For example, Pallandians living near the coastline might have more of a merperson bent while the ones living in the mountains might have something a bit like a satyric or harpie bent. However, they’re not exactly what they resemble since they’re technically still humans underneath the hood... just heavily altered.

In any case, Pallandians don’t really see much of a difference between other races and themselves, but humans... they sort of see humans as inferior primatives as much as humans see monkeys.

At it’s peak, Pallandia is highly advanced in the field of magictech... although what they have now pales in comparison to the age of Queen Athene who mysteriously went missing one night and took their golden age along with her.

However, it should be noted that they depended so much on the queen’s guidance that the entire civilization literally slipped all the way back a few thousand years and stuck that way because nobody knew how to do anything themselves not wanted to.

If we wanted to joke about Merperson royalty at this point... you’d probably say that things are sort of inverted here. The royal family is pretty much expected to give everything they have to the betterment of their people... while the council pretty much does all the dirty work behind the scenes.

Despite what the religious people in the country might tell you, the “age of the gods” that happened immediately after the Queen’s disappearance was caused by the meddling of the council of the day and not actually a divine event, but from an attempt to sieze power resulting in a parasitic theocracy... or that all of their “gods” were slain by a wandering traveler that just happened to be passing through.

However, it should also be noted that the “grave of the forgotten hero” is actually very empty despite all the priests milling about in an attempt to maintain the seal placed there. Okay, so actually... the traveler had discarded all the artifacts they had collected after stripping them of their powers and tricked them into guarding what is basically a glorified trash heap, but that’s not something they’d talk about either.

It might also be noted that the Queen disappeared about the same time the traveler showed up as well as the “divine pantheon”... There’s a connection there, but that might be going way too far off track.

In any case, The queen did leave these vaults behind and they’re a bit tough to explain. They’re not so much meant to store things the queen wanted to save for a worthy descendant, but also to test her descendants for their worth. Make it through alive and intact and it’s all theirs.

Which rolls a little closer to the present... The princess is kidnapped by overly eager treasure hunters, hauled her over to one of the vaults, and have a run-in with someone who looks surprisingly like the princess herself who plain wipes the floor of them, rescues the princess, and then... the royal guard finally catches up... resulting in quite a bit of confusion.

Of course, the royal family decides to pretend that there isn’t someone that looks like the princess running around, so they make up this elaborate story involving twins and one being stolen away when she was born... then took the girl in and treated her much like their own daughter.

However, the girl turns out to be a massive handful... being much more inquisative than her sibling by law, prone to sneaking out of the castle in the middle of the night, and tinkering with strange and arcane devices in a workshop she put together in the dungeons. Then there’s the fact that she’s a spitting image of Queen Athene... right down to her legendary magical prowess and cunning.

Unfortunately for her, she ended up being very popular to the point of obsession. After all, it was like the second coming of the lost queen and... while she could bring back a second golden age, everyone wanted a piece of that pie. Stalkers, overly eager suitors trying to sneak into the castle to meet her, kidnapping attempts, marriage schemes, and more started happening at an increasing frequency as she came closer to being of age.

Now normally, it is a (Not publically known) tradition that as soon as the princess comes to a certain age that they would hire someone to take the princess away and lock her away to be rescued by a potential suitor and she would have to marry whoever rescued her. However... she wasn’t having it... and after sabotaging multiple attempts, she took off with her eccentric and highly dangerous grandfather for destinations unknown.

So here in the present... new store opens up in the mall, and a mysterious transfer student starts coming to class. While it says she’s a Pallandian in her records, anyone that knows her well enough probably would figure out that she’s not. As a result, it’s a bit of a running game guessing what she might actually be.

In most cases, she’s got a bit of a Royal Pallandian bent which sort of has this classy elvish feel with long pointy ears and curly blood red hair. However, sometimes the other things come out and she gets this sort of weird dragony-angely-demonic weird feel that is hard to explain or process... which at the greatest of extremes ends up with her looking more like an angry pitch black blotch with glowing ruby red eyes.

Of course, considering her heritage is that of Queen Athene and the mysterious traveler... inheriting traits of both is not too surprising.

She’s usually pretty calm and collected most of the time with a tone that might shift from elegant and classy to mischevious and playful on a dime. Hard to predict, inquisative, always prodding and testing for various reasons. She’s used to doing things on her own and has trust issues despite how presentation might imply...

Publically, she can usually be found reading while listening to music, muching away on a slice of very rich chocolate cake, tinkering with something she just made, or handling that pet “dragon?” Of hers.

Otherwise, she might be found at her part-time job in that weird department store that pretty much sells anything you can think of dressed in a uniform that seems more fit for a waitress in an RPG than something you’d normally wear trying her best to be patient with everyone that asks her a question or suggests something stupid.

I’d still have lots more, but I thought it best to cough up something.

[celticnuance]

Modern Technology in WoW KILLS THE VIBE!

Woah, woah, woah! Okay, yeah. That title is SUUUUUPER blunt. And highly controversial in the RP community, but hear me out! Please! 

I’m not gonna be that asshole who’s elitist and thinks his way is the only way :P , this is just me voicing an opinion. You don’t have to agree with it! And I will understand and continue to respect you like a decent human being if you don’t. It’s no secret that I’m iffy about people RPing that they have things like pacemakers, artificial organs, and cybernetic enhancements in their character’s systems. It is also no secret that I hate how wars are roleplayed in game; and that I hate the fact that people use Gnomish Areal bombardments SO FUCKING LIBERALLY, as the end all be all. That’s just my opinion. 

But understand that I do not hate the Idea of gnomish tech reaching modern standards… if used sparingly. Gnomes are brilliant little buggers who are WELL ahead of their time. BUT! … overall… I don’t feel that it should be commonplace for gnomish advancements to have gone very far beyond a sort of steampunk setting; for WoW’s advancements in medicine to have moved past the 1800s; and for their long distance communications tech to be anything more than magical. For me: that just kills the high fantasy vibe WoW is SUPPOSED to administer. And it bugs me! It really, truly, does. Like? SENSE FUCKING WHEN DID THE BURNING LEGION USE MISSILES TO FEL GROUNDED TROOPS!? They have spaceships, yes. But you see… they are magical in nature. And powered by the agonized SOULS of the civilizations they’ve destroyed! They launch chaotic balls of fucking demonic energy at grounded troops! Not explosive missiles! How the HELL did we get an entire fleet of Gnomish Aeroplanes onto a draenic magictech spaceship powered by the light, and the arcane? Forms of MAGIC! A tiny ship mind you! No bigger than half of an aircraft carrier? THAT IS ALSO HOUSING HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE! … And more importantly… how the hell did we get them out? The Vindicaar doesn’t have a fucking hanger. Do we just have an NPC group of unnamed archmages opening up massive portals? If so than that is a highly unintelligent tactic! As it has been established in game that opening up a portal on Argus DRAWS HOARDS OF DEMONS TO YOUR LOCATION! And even more importantly. Why don’t we utilize defenses like walls and magical barriers to stage defensive resistance from? Why do we jus- dig trenches and give everyone rifles? … This isn’t Wildstar. Or call of Duty. THIS IS FUCKING WORLD OF WARCRAFT! We should be fighting wars like the medieval and renaissance people did back in the day! Not like how we fight wars now… Why are we? … Actually. I know why. Because it’s the only thing us privileged 1st world people know. Very few of us study history extensively… and hence don’t know how to do something unfamiliar to us. That I understand… but at the same time: this also irks me. Cause like… if you want to RP realistically in a setting like WoW… why aren’t you doing, at least, A TINY BIT, of research into how society was back in the day? I know I did. And also: to RP in a World as deep as WoWs… why aren’t you reading up on the lore? I know I did. There are tons of videos on youtube about this kind of thing. I shouldn’t take you much longer than a few hours to figure all this out. And I promise: Once you do, people will look at your RP and go “Wow… that dude’s legit!” , if they haven’t already. I jus- I don’t know. When I see things RPed like this it breaks my immersion ever so slightly. More and more as the RP progresses. Now! I understand, I have been using things like a radio communicator extensively, along with the rest of my guild. That I’ve played along with the whims of event coordinators and RPed my character as if they were in that semi-modern scenario… So I may appear like a hypocrite at first. But also understand that it hasn’t exactly been a willing choice. I tend keep my mouth shut and refuse to stand up for my beliefs because I don’t want to be ousted from my guild, and my RP community. Why? Because overall… I still love each and every one of you! And enjoy your company! And I will -not- tell anybody how to RP their own plot-lines.. Just don’t expect me to follow you and RP the same way because of this.

This is a good RP community that I’m proud to be a part of. Just because I point out flaws doesn’t mean its bad c:

TLDR: The RP community treats WoW like “Call of Duty; With Swords!” and it breaks my immersion. Though this is all JUST my opinion. And nothing more :P

[jenniferdarlas]

[jenniferdarlas]

[webcrawler3000]

Eminem - Scars (2023)

[webcrawler3000]

[webcrawler3000]

"The Enchanted Journey": A magical device transports a grieving individual to a whimsical land filled with technology powered by magic, where they embark on a quest to heal their heartache.

"Tech of the Heart": A grieving protagonist stumbles upon a magical tech device that can capture and replay memories, allowing them to relive precious moments with their lost loved one.

"Magical Connections": A young inventor creates a magical technology that allows people to communicate with their deceased loved ones, leading to unexpected and heartwarming encounters.

"The Healing App": A grieving individual downloads an app that offers virtual therapy sessions with a magical twist, using advanced technology combined with mystical elements to aid in their grief healing process.

"Wands and Gadgets": A grief-stricken tech whiz discovers a hidden magical world hidden within their devices, where every technology comes to life to assist them in finding solace and closure.

"The Magical Memento": Through a series of coincidences, a bereaved person discovers a magical piece of tech that can resurrect objects associated with their loved one, allowing them to reconnect with their memories.

"The Hologram Healer": A grieving inventor develops a groundbreaking holographic device that brings lost loved ones back to life temporarily, providing solace and closure to grieving individuals.

"The MagicTech Time Machine": An grieving individual creates a magical time-traveling device, enabling them to revisit moments they shared with their loved one and find peace through reconciling unfinished emotions.

"The Quantum Spellbook": A bereaved person stumbles across a mystical spellbook that allows them to combine magic and technology, empowering them to confront their grief and ultimately heal.

"Digital Bonds": In a future world, grief-stricken individuals can upload their consciousness to a magical virtual reality space, where they can interact with other grieving souls and guide each other towards healing and acceptance.