#puzzles! neat!

[loquaciousquark]

Cazador's Ritual Runes, Translated

Inner: AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR [sic] Middle: WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE Outer: WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD [sic]

Mephistopheles can't spell for beans.

(Detailed analysis & conjecture regarding this text, the Rite of Profane Ascension, & Astarion's translated scars under the cut.)

The second ring was the easiest, as the characters are very similar to Latin letters and clearly read out "WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE." Characters were now known for C, E, F, H, I, L, O, R, T, and W. It wasn't clear yet if there were cases.

I was struggling with the first ring, though after decoding the second, I could get a likely "_M_LIF_ + _IM + _LOW + EM_OWR". Guessing the character for P, Y, and A based on context gave me "AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR", but I had doubts over the first characters for words two and three. I suspected they would be HIM and FLOW, but the H and F characters didn't match the H from the second ring's "THE" or the F from "AMPLIFY". Also, "empower" was misspelled, which made me pause.

Abandoning those for a moment, the third ring mapped well onto "WE _ATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE _OWER OF _LO_". Ruling out known letters which were not present, I could guess "WE GATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE POWER OF _LO_", but again the P from "POWER" was not the same as the P from "AMPLIFY" in the inner ring. However, it was very, very similar, and nothing else fit, so I committed, now suspecting there were capital versions of some letters included in the text.

At this point I went digging for resources. I found a copy of an Infernal alphabet on the Forgotten Realms wiki, and while it looks like the typeface Larian used is a bespoke creation for the game rather than a 1:1 copy of this alphabet, the letters for lowercase G, N, K, B, and D were nearly identical. Y (from AMPLIFY) also matched perfectly, confirming that earlier guess. This gave a clear "WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD."

This resulted in: AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

Looking at the wiki for capital letters, the only ones I could find which might reasonably fit the _IM missing character (assuming the Larian alphabet was based off this wiki typography) were A, B, H, O, T, V, and Y. Of those choices, only AIM, HIM, TIM, and VIM were words, and as cheesy as Cazador is, I couldn't imagine him saying AMPLIFY TIM FLOW EMPOWR. Given the alternatives, HIM was the only choice which made sense.

I went through the same process for _LOW, but this character seems unmatchable to me. By far it looks the most like the E from the Infernal alphabet, with maybe a capital Y being a distant second. However, ELOW and YLOW are certainly not words, and absent all other comparatives, the character in question does resemble a fancy F. Barring other languages, FLOW with a capital or unique F fits best.

AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

I did double-check the texts available in Cazador's mansion just to make sure this hadn't been translated elsewhere (after I'd done all the work, of course), and the only written text of relevance is from the Black Mass scroll you find near Vellioth's skull. It reads:

The Rite of Profane Ascension Oh, piteous dead! Oh, ravenous dead! Immortality is your gift, but darkness is your prison and hunger its gaoler. The Rite of Profane Ascension will release you. Walk in the sun. Suffer not from hunger. Grow your power beyond anything you imagined. A pact has been made with the Lord of Hellfire. Deliver unto him seven thousand souls, each bearing an Infernal mark, and you shall be free of your chains. You shall know true power. Deliver the souls. Speak the words. Ecce dominus, Has animas offero in sacrificio, Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.

The Latin translates (as best I can tell with my incredibly weak Latin) to:

Behold [the] Lord, I offer these souls in sacrifice, I want the power thou hast promised me.

Which is interesting, but not clearly mapped to the Infernal above. Then I started wondering what relationship Astarion's scars have with all this, but thankfully, someone else has done the work here!

Astarion's scars have been transcribed and translated in a wonderfully detailed Reddit post by northpaw_s in 2020, but the salient points are that they appear to be in a mishmash of mangled Latin and Romance languages ("Infernal") and read:

Hoyc inferiu non iurare per igneu Naec virba loquor Eoai mundo muoat

Which appears to roughly translate to:

This soul swears no oath by fire Nor words does he speak In the realm of death

This makes sense if it's a fragment of a contract. I suspect the other spawn's scars are all identical to Astarion's for game mechanics/development reasons, but it'd be wild if they did have minor differences to complete the rest of the phrases! I know the scars don't show on their backs they way they do on Astarion's outside of the moment of the ritual, but it really does make me wonder if there's a complete text of the poem in some writer's documentation somewhere.

Anyway, what did you do with your Thursday night?

[dustwatcher]

finally got to making some fanart for @circus-clangen!

i love her i'm so glad nothing bad ever happens

[toy-pigeon]

hello laygang this took me thirteen FUCKING hours and now im in a wrist brace. please zoom in and look at the detail because every single bit of color in there was put on in tiny individual lines

the fact that bronev is not in here is because fuck him

sketches below the cut for reference for anyone who would like it

[action-not-despair]

finally unlocked the secret puzzle in my brain and completed the spell to let me watch junior year. riz gukgak you will always be my number one. my most special guy. my lil angel.

[svtskneecaps]

i should be sleeping but i do want to reiterate how much i love that our collective fan community and also the streamers are constantly like, so new members when? new language when? a teaser drops and we're all like germans???? german time????? asiatic language time??????? new faces??? new friends?? new communities????

i've said this before but it just constantly makes me feel all warm n fuzzy to see it. i'm really happy we're all so excited and united in this.

[deiaiko]

#11 - Encounter

Masterlist

Previous

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Let me know your thoughts in the reblogs <3

[mothcpu]

Hand of God

[jadeazora]

As an aside to Pokemon Altair, I do think Wallace and Steven have aspects to their characters that makes them fit into the villain role pretty well (even tho they're still good people and wouldn't be evil of their own volition.)

With Wallace, it's mostly the bombastic personality and stage presence, really always makes a villain more fun to watch and interesting when they've got that charismatic side to them.

Steven is genuinely a pretty nice guy, but does have a bit more of a merciless side to him that even Wallace notes. He'll do what he has to do in order to protect his interests. There's also that time in the anime where he showed up when Team Flare's plan was kicking off, presumably having headed to Lysandre Labs to put a stop to Lysandre himself, and had his Mega Metagross attack Mable and her Weavile directly (they barely avoided it and were sent flying in its wake), with its Meteor Mash blowing up the building behind her.

It's a shame that's where being an older hack comes in (it dates back to 2010), since while they were pretty creative with the changes they made and how they handled the storyline basically having the same plot progression as Emerald's in spite of it being a sequel, I feel they could've done a little more with them and Nemea, the evil Legendary that's responsible for their turn (it would be cool to see a more modernized remake with an enhanced story, but I don't think anyone would bother enough):

[jorvikzelda]

started playing hollow knight yesterday and my first impressions so far as someone who isnt necessarily super good at games are that there is a lot of dying, a lot of figuring out enemies’ movesets, and a lot of dying while trying to figure out enemies’ movesets

[aughhh-imcringy]

GUYS ITS REALLY HAPPENING

ITS HAPPENING LOOK AT IT.

Idk about this one though, but if it’s true I’m SUPER EXCITED

[dumbbullet]

had a nearly 2 hour long interview yesterday and when they asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years" i felt like crying

[mothmanwarble]

The look of pure contentment on Nelson’s face as he looks at his little crossword puzzle brings me an immense amount of joy. Dude’s so happy.

[moonsidesong]

well i got funny popoi hold picture so i've already gotten what i want out of puzzle pop Thaaanks

[moregraceful]

Me out here like, oh boy I am chewing on the bars of my enclosure threatening to go crazy. Maybe I will typeset some fic and do some bookbinding tonight because creating things with my hands always makes me feel like I'm doing a total body reset on my mood. Microsoft word: Ah, I see you are frustrated with many things in your life right now. Would you like to be furious for an entirely new and different reason? Me: No. Microsoft Word: Great! I did not save all your pre-made styles from the last time you typeset a mixed media fic. Have fun recreating every single one. Me: 🥲

[basilpaste]

Just reached act 4 and WAHHHH poor Sif is having more and more of a rough time as things continue on! Can’t even imagine how things are gonna continue to get worse for him lol! I almost wanna go back and spend more time in my act 3 save to let him go a lil while longer w at least a bit of shine left in him LMAO

HAH oh no i missed this last night!! yeah. act four is pretty hard for sif. i mean... it makes sense! considering what happened at the very start of the act!!!

(oh hey also! if youre still on act four when you see this, heres a gentle nudge about some content. when youre in dormont, why not check that coin of yours a few times? and dont forget you can show loop souvenirs!)