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Messages - Cynical Cat

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16
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoiler] The Ciphrang
« on: September 29, 2017, 07:30:31 pm »
That's not how it works.  The Gnosis, Anagogic Sorcery, and the Psukhe are different mechanisms of enacting sorcery.  The Metagnosis is an application of the Gnosis using two inutterals instead of one, thus having three reference points to buttress the meaning and precision of the Cants, meaning they are more powerful and a wider array of possible acts because of the existence of the third reference point.

The Daimos is the practice of applying that sorcery to the Outside and its inhabitants.  Just like the Cants of Compulsion or Wards are worked differently when they are Abstractions rather than Analogies, but both produce similar effects.  The Cants of Compulsion also work on a unique metaphysical principle and make a hash of free will but they are still parts of their respected branches. The Daimos is the same, a type of applied sorcery not separate type of sorcery itself.  Since it deals with the Outside and damnation, its a branch most Schools don't even try to develop but the Scarlet Spires didn't let that stop them.  That's why the Scarlet Spires could develop it, because it is possible to develop using Anagogic Sorcery, and Kellhus is able to adapt that knowledge to the Gnosis.

There's a post somewhere in Three Seas where Bakker discusses it.

17
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoiler] The Ciphrang
« on: September 29, 2017, 10:24:48 am »
It's important to keep clear that the Daimos isn't a kind of sorcery like Anagogic or Gnostic, it's an application of Sorcery, like the Cants of Compulsion or War-Cants.  It's rarity is in part due to the fact that to work the Daimos is to embrace your own damnation, which is something most sorcerers are loath to do and why the far reaching and daring Scarlet Spires are the ones to developed it.  Kellhus has then taken their work and pushed it ahead armed with his extraordinary intellect and the Metagnosis.

18
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoiler] The Ciphrang
« on: September 28, 2017, 07:07:52 am »
There's a mention of Iyokus's Daimotic confrers, which makes sense because of course there is more than one sorcerer controlling all those Ciphrang.  They do hit the walls before the defensive wards are wrecked by the Chorae barrage and the Erratics are killed, so while it seems pretty clear they inflict massive damage on the Sranc and Bashrag ranks, they're being subject to a lot of punishment as well.  The topos doesn't seem to matter until they get too close to the Ark itself because it's only at the High Cwol do we see a Ciphrang realize that there's a door home nearby.  As for the quality of the demons, this is an art that the Aspect Emperor has learned, applied his genius too, and probably promoted and this is the time to go all out. 

19
The Unholy Consult / Re: How tall are the Horns?
« on: September 26, 2017, 01:25:17 am »

I really enjoyed that, despite knowing about the Metagnosis, Aurang tries the same Lust-Glamour on Kellhus directly that he used in TTT via the Synthese...


Since he's there in person, Aurang has his phermones to back his play.

20
The Unholy Consult / Re: How tall are the Horns?
« on: September 23, 2017, 08:21:56 am »
Aurang's mission seemed to be to supervise the defense and then retreat inside, drawing Kellhus after him and exposing him to the Inverse Fire.  This went sideways, which happens in combat, and he ended up dead.

21
The Unholy Consult / Re: Speculiction's What Comes Next!
« on: September 20, 2017, 08:47:54 am »
No, we don't have numbers.  That's why I brought up the numbers of the Roman Empire, a comparably large polity for which we do have numbers.  Plenty won't be combat trained but basic proficiency with weapons doesn't take that long and they have incentive.  The Sranc hordes are far away and it's close to winter.  It's going to take a while for the No-God to arrive at the Three Seas.  As for unity, of course it won't be perfect but the No-God's presence which everyone can feel and the accompanying still births is going to be transformative.   

22
The Unholy Consult / Re: Speculiction's What Comes Next!
« on: September 20, 2017, 12:11:50 am »
Eh, that would seem kind of boring and against the tone as well. 'It wasn't the Heron Spear, the No-God just ran out of time. The world can never end because it's too big.' I think the idea of the time limit is just so that there isn't an excuse in the narrative for the No-God to just turtle in Golgotteroth forever, which would be a pretty unbeatable strategy at this point.

The reason I'm curious what the actual number is because the Great Ordeal seemed to constantly stress how it was the biggest gathering of martial men since even far antiquity or something. How the entire empire had formed the military mass of the Three Seas. It'd be a bit silly to me if there are still significant numbers of military hosts out there.

Now, don't get me wrong. Clearly there are some. The Fanim had enough to wage war still. Zeum has some amount of troops. The Empire still had some. But idk, seems like they'd be in a pretty bad position.


It's important to distinguish between whether or not the losses are devastating (which they are) and whether or not they deplete the manpower of an Empire. In normal circumstances, only a small portion of a state's population directly serves in the military.  The best estimate of the giant army that the Persian Empire sent to invade Greece is somewhere around 200,000 men.  300,000 is a credible number for the largest number in Earwa's history, but it's loss is only a small percentage of the Anasurimbor Empire's manpower.  It used to be a structure imposed on a population that was in no small part composed of Fanim and Orthodox convinced to submit at the point of a sword.  That's why it started to fall apart when its military and sorcerous elite departed.  The remaining forces weren't strong enough to repress the dissent.

While the loss of so many experienced soldiers, leaders, and Schoolmen is devastating to the state's ability to wage war, the situation has changed.  The No-God's presence can be felt by all and while unity is not guaranteed, Mog-Pheru is as much as a goad as the Inverse Fire.  The war that comes will be a total war of survival, where every able bodied person is helping whether by growing food, treating the wounded, building defenses, or bearing arms.  There are still are the soldiers who remain in the Anasurimbor Empire, Zeum's full might, and whatever else might come from outside.  The Orthodox faithful and the Fanim survivors who would never draw weapons for the Anasurimbor will take up arms against the No-God. The Schools have been reduced to old men and boys (or old women and girls), with the notable exception of Zeum's.  We don't know how many, if any, escape the slaughter of the Great Ordeal, but a disproportionate number of survivors are likely to be Schoolmen.  The Nonmen Quya, who are all survivors of multiple disasters at Golgotterath, might have mostly survived.  Of course, we also know that while men believe the Wracu have diminished in numbers we also know that they tend to avoid men and the battle of Sauglish revealed that young Wracu were there so they can breed.  There might be a dragon horde waiting in the far mountains.

As for the No-God being on the clock, it makes narrative sense (no turtling in the super fortress) as well as logical sense.  A crucial component is biological and nature and whatever the Sarcophagus does to those entombed it doesn't sound like it's good for the subject's long term health. 

23
RPG Discussion / Re: Earwan Rules Hack for D&D
« on: September 19, 2017, 08:42:34 am »
Skinspies:

Soulless Tool
Armor Class  13 without armor
Hitpoints 52 (8d8+16)
Speed 40ft
STR   DEX   CON   INT   WIS   CHA
16       16    14      8      10      14

+3 Proficiency bonus on all attempts at deception.  Can assume the form of any humanoid of similar size and skin colour.  Dunyain can penetrate this disguise as will appropriate physical examination.  Their mental limitations may also reveal their true nature as they are incapable of deep and complex thought and dominated by their instincts.


Actions
Multiattack: two attacks
Unarmed:  hand strike +6 to hit, 5 foot reach, 1d4+3

Profane Packmaster
Armor Class  14 without armor
Hitpoints 75 (10d8+30)
Speed 40ft
STR   DEX   CON   INT   WIS   CHA
18      18     16      8      12      14

+4 Proficiency bonus on all attempts at deception.  Can assume the form of any humanoid of similar size and skin colour.  Dunyain can penetrate this disguise as will appropriate physical examination.  Their mental limitations may also reveal their true nature as they are incapable of deep and complex thought and dominated by their instincts.

Actions
Multiattack: two attacks
Unarmed:  hand strike +8 to hit, 5 foot reach, 1d4+4

Ciphrang

Denizen of the Pit
Large Outsider
Armor Class  17 (armoured hide and dex)
Hitpoints 85 (10d10+30)
Speed 30ft, 50 ft flying
STR   DEX   CON   INT   WIS   CHA
20      12     16     14      14       12
Actions
Multi attack: 2 clawed fist attacks as a single attack
Clawed fist:  +8 to hit, 1d8+5 damage, piercing or bashing which is more favorable, hell yes it's magical

Powers:
Drawn from Hell:  As a creature of the Outside, it takes half damage from mundane weapons

Bound by Sorcery:  As the Ciphrang is tied to the mortal world by sorcery, it is as vulnerable to Chorae as sorcerers are (unless you are unfortunate enough to encounter one in the Outside or a topos).  Their hellish powers do not count as sorcery.

A Ciphrang will possess several (or all if it is fearsome enough) terrible powers.  Greater Ciphrang may possess more potent versions of these abilities.  The Ciphrang has a limited number of uses of these powers, but especially in the case of greater Ciphrang the number may be more than large enough to slaughter a larger number of heroes. A partial list is as follows.

Infernal Aura:  All beings within 10 feet take 2d6 points of fire damage every round.

Soul Rip:  Counts as a 4th level spell for ward purposes.  30 foot range. DC 14 Wisdom Save to negate.  Inflicts 8d8 psychic damage.

Ravening Wolves.  Affects two targets within 60 feet.  Counts as a 3rd level spell for ward purposes.  What appears to be streams of voracious wolves fly at the targets and savage them.  DC 13 Dex save for half damage.  6d6 Force damage.

Cloud of Flies:  100 foot range.  10 foot by 10 foot cloud.  Counts as a 3rd level spell for ward purposes.  DC 12 Constitution save for half damage.  Inflicts 6d6 Necrotic damage.


24
The Unholy Consult / Speculiction's What Comes Next!
« on: September 19, 2017, 07:23:54 am »
[EDIT Madness: I'm splitting the thread because Speculiction's TUC review followup spawned so much conversation. Continue :)!]

It's interesting and terribly flawed.  He says the Three Seas' manpower is depleted and that's incorrect.  The Anasurimbor Regime's manpower is massively depleted.  There's plenty of manpower left behind in the Three Seas, especially in Zeum.  That's not to downplay the loss of most of the Anasurimbor's reliable troops and leaders, but that still leaves behind most of the male population of the Three Seas. The loss of so many Chorae and Schoolmen is more severe.  For comparison sake, a well regarded estimate of the population of the Roman Empire at 14 CE is 45,000,000.  It's the totality of losses among the most capable opponents of Mog-Pheru, not the numbers in of themselves, that is devastating.

25
General Q&A / Re: The Sohonc and the Mangaecca [Q&A]
« on: September 17, 2017, 08:04:12 am »
Remember that there is roughly a thousand years between those two time periods, a thousand years where the North is powerful and dominant region and all those members of the Few that would have been recruited by the now outlawed Mangaecca will be going to other schools.

26
General Q&A / Re: [TGO/TUC Spoilers]The Boy, Crab Hand
« on: September 17, 2017, 08:01:18 am »
Crabicus's mental abilities seem to be on the lower end of the Dunyain scale (he catches on pretty quick, but he's not good at deception) and that's why he was suspected of being defective.  Remember he hadn't been declared Defective yet, but he was probably developing slower than he should have (these are the Dunyain, of course they would track childhood development) and so they were suspecting he would turn out to be defective.  He's clearly a phenomenally talented boy by reasonable standards, but the Dunyain care about chasing the Absolute.

27
General Q&A / Re: The Iswazi
« on: September 17, 2017, 07:56:32 am »
It's a variant of Anagogic Sorcery, focused on the relation between ideas and physical objects.  As such it needs concrete fetishes to enact its Cants (i.e. a physical dome to form a Ward shell) and it tends to be stronger than conventional Anagogic Sorcery but less flexible.  As Smiler Loki said, details can be found in the appendix.

28
General Q&A / Re: Study of Aporos Among Nonmen
« on: September 17, 2017, 07:52:49 am »
The Aporos was banned to keep it out of the hands of the Inchoroi, who had been able to convince parts of Viri to ally with them and who also possessed hyper tech death rays and other pieces of sci-fi badassery.  Some Aporetics defected to the Inchoroi and made Chorae to protect their masters and arm their servants, but they only got so much mileage over the latter as Sranc and Bashrag are too stupid to be good at using Chorae.  This lead to the Inchoroi trying to subvert the human vassals of the Nonmen and the humans giving their Chorae to their Nonman masters in tribute out of fear of the Nonmen's wrath.  That in turn lead the Inchoroi to give the men beyond the gates the Tusk. 

29
The No-God / Re: The Mutilated: A Census
« on: September 17, 2017, 01:17:18 am »
The Cants of Compulsion aren't going to save the Consult from being subsumed by the Mutilated.  The Consult is completely and utterly vulnerable to being subsumed by the Dunyain by its very nature of existence.  Once the captured Dunyain are shown the Inverse Fire and convert their formidable gifts are added to the cause.  From that point on its inevitable that they'll learn sorcery and form the dominate core of the Consult.  The only way to really avoid this is to capture them, interrogate them, and then kill them which requires arrogant half mad immortals to have 20-20 foresight and throw away the shiny new weapon that has fallen into their hands.

Also I don't believe the Sranc numbers have anything to do with the Mutilated.  Their numbers are huge, but they are drawn from huge expanses of territory occupied by creatures that exist low down on the food chain.  The combined casualties is still probably in the single digit millions, which is scary and impressive, but not unreasonable given the vast swath of territory under consideration.

30
The Unholy Consult / Re: TUC Reviews
« on: September 16, 2017, 10:50:45 pm »
frigid isn't a doctor nor does he claim to be.  His editor, on the other hand, is a mutual friend and does have Phd.

Aw, nuts! I misread that - the editor is a phd ... oh, well, ego now deflated. Does Frigid have respects? Anything?

I'm not sure what you're asking.  He's a veteran of the US Marine Corps with an Anthropology degree who takes his Christianity seriously but who has no problems with being friends with godless atheists like yours truly.

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