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[Pancaek]

Anyway, the way I see this we aren't some kind of marxist commune that has to share everything they own, but rather it's up to the finder to decide what to do with the loot.

((The way I see it, we're a team. Should I get punished because I chose to heal Lyu instead of getting first dibs on searching? Should the others fall behind because they were busy enough with other stuff to let us do the loot-finding?))

((1. Really, I'm a magpie because I loot after the battle when there wasn't much of anything else I can do? Allright then.

((No, he never said that. If everyone had to find their own loot or trade with fellow party-members to get it, though, everyone else would be searching instead of other stuff, assuming they could, which would make everyone magpies.
And refusing to give up any loot is a bit...magpish.))

4. Still doesn't mean you would have gotten to keep it at any point.

((I don't think he's saying that...))

1. Again, in what way am I withholding stuff that would benefit you guys? Yes, I did go looting while you were healing. And the first thing I did was give away half the things I found to people who could use them better than I could. And I'm currently giving away three out of four books. I was simply having Felice state that he doesn't like it when people grab his things without asking.

2. Refuting to give up any loot is a bit magpie-ish, I agree. So why are you saying this when I've giving up over half of what I've found to people who needed it more at that time?  Finders should still recieve first dibs, in my opinion.

3.

For example, when I reforged Baldur's Greatsword I didn't try and keep it for myself, I handed it right off to him.

this implied that the alternative for him was to keep the sword. Though this might just be because English isn't my native language and I didn't understand it.

In conclusion, and let us drop this little debacle forever after this: I am sorry I didn't immediatly give you guys the books, either before or after we actually knew they were magic books.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1&2. We're not complaining so much about your actions as much as your stated intents about not splitting loot in the future.

3. He was giving an example of how the group helps each other out without demanding repayment. I think.

[Pancaek]

And with we, you mean you, because BFEL and myself resolved the misunderstanding some posts ago. Also, when did I state those intents, because I cannot remember saying anything of the sort.

[Niccolo]

If y'all could stop arguing about books that'd be great. I don't want this to be known as "the RtD where they argued about loot for several pages"

Thank you.

You have no idea how much oxygen mammals in general need, do you?...

I do. I said easier, not easy.
And you have some facts...off. Firstly, dolphins don't have terribly long breath-holding times, but sperm whales can go an hour or so, without extracting additional oxygen from the water. And all that complexity you cite isn't really the issue; that would be from high metabolic rate, which is almost entirely due to the constantly high body temperatures mammals keep. Brain activity is a pretty big sink, a solid quarter, but it's not entirely enormous. And, remember, these are with normal creatures; with sufficient biological knowledge, because body-modding wouldn't work without at least a subconscious understanding of it, I have no doubt one could find a way to exceed the record-holders of real-world biology, without even considering magic.

..............

The percentage of oxygen in water can be measured in parts per million...

((You're assuming baseline human metabolism. I can't find any sources, but I'm pretty sure you could reduce it significantly if you had to.))

I specifically used dolphins because they are of a comparable intelligence to humans and are closer in size to a person than a sperm whale is. And yes, I am assuming baseline human metabolism. All of those processes occur for a reason - to maintain our bodies and minds. If you start reducing energy flow, the entire system is thrown into haywire. Secondary processes such as immune systems, digestion and a couple others can be temporarily shut down (as during fight or flight response mode), but long-term that's a really bad idea. Body temperature can be decreased through manipulation of the thyroid gland, but that just sends the body's enzymes into utter chaos. And since those enzymes are heavily involved in the process of producing and using energy, altering them would be bad. Short term, the effects are minor, since we do have limited enzymatic function - it's why people with fevers or hypothermia don't immediately drop dead - but in the long term it's deadly.

So I'm assuming that if Thuun has gills, it's because he wants to be able to operate underwater for long periods of time without incredibly essential functions being disabled. That means maintaining a humanlike metabolic level and core temperature. Ultimately, with everything that he'd need (gills, much bigger heart, four times as many blood vessels, water intakes as well as everything normal humans have) he'd have to sacrifice something and it'd end up being muscle mass, since that's the only thing not dedicated to keeping him alive.

To have a physiology suitable for extended periods of either aquatic or terrestrial use through a wide range of biomes (and maintaining humanlike cognitive ability, probably the most important point) would require building a creature entirely from scratch, because if you're going to alter that much genetic code you may as well just tear it all into bits and play lego. I have no idea of how to even begin mapping out such a creature. You might be able to start with a human, but the result would be as closely related to a human as the common banana is, I suspect. We, with our several thousand years of scientific advance on Maska, are only just beginning to touch the possibilities of genetic engineering. This kind of thing might be possible for us in twenty or thirty years time.

Thuun could just give himself extra-strength neck and chest muscles and increased lung capacity along with webbed feet. Then he could make like a seal. But he'd still be limited by his human form; he'd never outpace a shark or outmanoeuvre a dolphin. The human body is simply not designed to operate underwater and a lot of the reasons are really small, fiddly reasons that are just part of being human.

(Okay, there are a few species of endothermic fish, but they're the exception.)

And this fishman wouldn't be?

The exceptions are pretty much exclusively sharks and a couple of fish which are large, oily and eat a shit-tonne. The sharks that pull it off dine on dolphins, seals, penguins; good red meat with plenty of energy. Fish flesh is not exactly energy dense, y'know? The oily fish that do... couple of kinds of tuna, mostly. But they also pretty much just constantly eat.

He'd still have to do it exactly right. One fuck-up and stuff would go terribly wrong, since he's futzing around with very delicate and rather important processes. And given Thuun's proclivity for disasters, I'm going to go ahead and say he'd die.

((Fair enough.))

We agree on something! Awesome!

That is indeed possible. If he knows that sperm whales exist and such a solution is viable. But really, what's the point in being able to breathe underwater if you can only go down a couple of feet?

Without any kind of diving gear, people commonly dive to a dozen feet or more, without even expelling air from their lungs. Some people manage to (briefly) achieve depths in the hundreds of feet without significant problems (and what problems there are have more to do with eardrums than sphincters.
And rereading...why would depths lead to air being forced from your lungs?

When you have a container at pressure X and the surroundings are at pressure 5X, what happens? As those divers sink, they expel the air from their lungs. It's not entirely voluntary; the water pressure compresses their chest and literally forces them to exhale. By actively exhaling they can at least control the rate to a degree.

((Ok so what I got out of that first part was pretty much "NO GILLS EVER" which is fine, I was actually just using gills as an example.
What I REALLY want to do is grow 2 extra arms and get claws on all my fingers, because QUAD-WIELDING. Then I can level Force magic and Telekinetically sword people while quad-clawing them as well. Ah MAGIC.

Fuck your goddamn munchkinry.

Also about the ferti-feet, go back and look at the wording of the action I posted. I was trying to grow dragon-reptilian legs. Because you said "Thuun could do things even MORE impressive then the rock-hand" so immediately I thought "oh hey, lets grow super-awesome dragon legs, because awesome" and you either dismissed it as impossible (More impossible then ferti-energy feet? SERIOUSLY?) or just ignored it completely. So in the long line of people not paying attention to shit in this RtD, the GM is also in on it, have no doubt

It's quarter past one as I'm reading this. Which turn am I looking at? I want to answer this properly but I'm kinda tired.

From the Kidzuku stuff does that mean Kidzuku is an angel as well? Did Felice just FIND A GOD-ANGEL LYING IN A BUSH? I mean yeah I got mine from a poison-induced hallucination but JEEZ. I mean, one angel is just hanging around in drugland, one is napping in a bush as a bracelet, and the chick one is A FUCKING STALKER

Oh for fuck's sake.

It's a way of displaying information: a central theme with radiating points around it. You learned about it in junior school, probably called a brain-cloud or mind-map or something. This is the bronze age, they're simplistic like that.

I am now upset that like 90% of Thuun's character is just out the window for the novelization

Not really. There are ways.

And why COULDN'T I just spawn life? You specifically stated just now that I GREW legs. Granted apparently that's because genetics, but whateves, I could just grab a wasp and run some "detect" style Life magic through it and discover, if not what genes are, at least the general idea of how to grow one. Then its just "change piece of lung into wasp-cancer"....oh god, wasp-cancer is like the worst thing possible in all worlds.

But yeah, failing that, the summoning thing works too. But couldn't I summon them INSIDE someone? It just kinda loses that sadistic edge if they aren't eating them from the inside out.))

I didn't mention it before, but Thuun is looking kinda wasted away right now. Plus a lot of the mass came from the lovely, fertile soil you were so dutifully rolling around in.

Summoning is a possibility. You could, if you were really good at summoning and thus able to do it where you couldn't actually see.

But you couldn't twist their lungs into wasps. Each magical element takes a state of mind - have you watched Avatar? You need stubbornness to master earth, drive to master fire, and so on. Life magic comes from your desire to heal. It is literally sourced from that. So the very act of trying to fuck nature in the ass and give someone lungwasps is impossible with Life magic. And no amount of rationalising will save you. This power is sourced directly from a Goddess and it is by Her will that the constraints are set on the elements. If you test your will against the Goddess you lose.

[GreatWyrmGold]

And with we, you mean you, because BFEL and myself resolved the misunderstanding some posts ago. Also, when did I state those intents, because I cannot remember saying anything of the sort.

How about the part where you compared loot-sharing to Marxism?

Spoiler: Stuff (click to show/hide)

I specifically used dolphins because they are of a comparable intelligence to humans and are closer in size to a person than a sperm whale is.

I kinda doubt the claims that dolphins have intelligence similar to humans almost as much as I do the claims that they're significantly more intelligent than sperm whales. Besides, those factors aren't exactly enough to explain how the sperm whales can stay underwater for several times as long as the dolphins do.

And yes, I am assuming baseline human metabolism...Short term, the effects are minor, since we do have limited enzymatic function - it's why people with fevers or hypothermia don't immediately drop dead - but in the long term it's deadly.

And every one of those functions is one that is absent or less energy-consuming in some animal or another. There's no reason for this hypothetical Thuun trying to be a fishman to stick to baseline human stuff.

So I'm assuming that if Thuun has gills, it's because he wants to be able to operate underwater for long periods of time without incredibly essential functions being disabled. That means maintaining a humanlike metabolic level and core temperature.

Because there aren't creatures which operate perfectly well at lower levels and temperatures?

To have a physiology suitable for extended periods of either aquatic or terrestrial use through a wide range of biomes (and maintaining humanlike cognitive ability, probably the most important point) would require building a creature entirely from scratch, because if you're going to alter that much genetic code you may as well just tear it all into bits and play lego. I have no idea of how to even begin mapping out such a creature.

Bit by bit. Add one thing, figure out what needs to change to let that work, etc. Repeat.

You might be able to start with a human, but the result would be as closely related to a human as the common banana is, I suspect.

So?

The exceptions are pretty much exclusively sharks and a couple of fish which are large, oily and eat a shit-tonne. The sharks that pull it off dine on dolphins, seals, penguins; good red meat with plenty of energy. Fish flesh is not exactly energy dense, y'know? The oily fish that do... couple of kinds of tuna, mostly. But they also pretty much just constantly eat.

Humans also consume pretty good amounts of food for their size. And they are also large.

We agree on something! Awesome!

It's a lot easier to agree when we cast aside theory and focus on practice.

When you have a container at pressure X and the surroundings are at pressure 5X, what happens? As those divers sink, they expel the air from their lungs. It's not entirely voluntary; the water pressure compresses their chest and literally forces them to exhale. By actively exhaling they can at least control the rate to a degree.

Um, actually, it compresses the air inside their chest. Sure, there's less room inside, but there's also less air (by volume) inside. Unless the pressure gets to the point it ruptures a sphincter or something, it won't happen--and by that point you've got other problems. Bigger ones.

[BFEL]

(( you know you love my goddamn munchkinry. It's what gives you the initiative to get up in the morning, going "so HOW can I counterbalance this crazy bastard today?"

As for turn, here's the quote:

Thuun continues thinking about his latest vision...Life is obvious, but why Fire and Light? Fire...and...Light....His thoughts turn to his previous experience, wherein he was granted the aspect of a dragon, which included the domains he needs to see the spell come to fruition!

"Clearly they must be linked" he mumbles to himself, before he focuses his mind on the needed elements, letting them flow into his blade for amplification, then passing the sword slowly along the length of where his legs should be, intent on drawing outward the aspect of that mighty creature inside him and binding it seamlessly to the rest of his flesh, inch by inch if need be.

((I'm SOOO hoping this is what I was supposed to get out of those hints. Because if not I'm probably screwed ))

Notice the "intent on drawing outward the aspect of the dragon" part? Yeah, wanted dragon legs

Well I know that they were trying to communicate something, but since you referenced the book where the thing they were referencing was my Dragon-God-Angel it seemed logical to assume they would be referencing that in this book as well. Sorry for being wrong bro, get some sleep and we can talk about it when you aren't so cranky

So is he gonna use the weird demon-attracting heal magic? Or is that not going into the book either?

Ah, that makes sense.

Good to know about the state of mind thing.
But isn't the Goddess who I would theoretically be clashing wills with THE MOON? And thus y'know, DEAD?))

[Niccolo]

(( you know you love my goddamn munchkinry. It's what gives you the initiative to get up in the morning, going "so HOW can I counterbalance this crazy bastard today?"

Provided you keep it within limits. Don't make me play the tired old "The GM says no because no" card.

As for turn, here's the quote:

Thuun continues thinking about his latest vision...Life is obvious, but why Fire and Light? Fire...and...Light....His thoughts turn to his previous experience, wherein he was granted the aspect of a dragon, which included the domains he needs to see the spell come to fruition!

"Clearly they must be linked" he mumbles to himself, before he focuses his mind on the needed elements, letting them flow into his blade for amplification, then passing the sword slowly along the length of where his legs should be, intent on drawing outward the aspect of that mighty creature inside him and binding it seamlessly to the rest of his flesh, inch by inch if need be.

((I'm SOOO hoping this is what I was supposed to get out of those hints. Because if not I'm probably screwed ))

Notice the "intent on drawing outward the aspect of the dragon" part? Yeah, wanted dragon legs

Ah. I read it as binding the strength and power of the dragon into your legs as they grew, to try and counter me saying "but they're new and from after you got the dragon aspect so +1 strength doesn't apply to your kicks!" I wasn't going to do that anyway, but I read it like that for some weirdass reason.

Well I know that they were trying to communicate something, but since you referenced the book where the thing they were referencing was my Dragon-God-Angel it seemed logical to assume they would be referencing that in this book as well. Sorry for being wrong bro, get some sleep and we can talk about it when you aren't so cranky

I was cranky more because it read an awful lot like somebody complaining and I was just thinking "Oh dear God he's got completely the opposite idea. I think I'll just nip that in the bud right here before somebody starts worshipping the bracelet."

So is he gonna use the weird demon-attracting heal magic? Or is that not going into the book either?

It is, but it doesn't exist yet. If all goes according to plan, you guys will actually bring that into existence. Magic in the books isn't really divided into elements in the same way that it is in the game; that's pretty much exclusively for gaming purposes.

Good to know about the state of mind thing.
But isn't the Goddess who I would theoretically be clashing wills with THE MOON? And thus y'know, DEAD?))

Is she? Huh. Go ahead and try it then.

- SNIP -

Look, enough. Neither of us is going to agree with the other. I didn't really want to do this, but as thread owner and GM of this game I'm going to say let's move the hell on. We're getting waaaaay off track here.



In the future, if any of you guys ask me for an in-universe explanation please just accept my vague semi-scientific bullshit at face value, okay? Let's try and stay relatively on the rails here.

[Niccolo]

New post, new life!

The last two pages are an absolute clusterfuck of arguments about fish, books and God knows what else. I'd like you all to repost your actions, 'cause I'd like to know that I actually got them and didn't lose them in amongst the horde of quote boxes.

And please, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't anybody mention the magical books and ownership thereof. Felice currently owns them and can do with them as he will; standard finders-keepers rules. I'm going to assume that he shared them with you on the long-ass cart ride to Shas Ria because hogging all of the reading material is just evil, but he now has them all back in his possession unless Pancaek specifically says otherwise.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

"Ah, Shas Ria! What a town! Definitely the least pestilent excuse for a hole in the ground I've been to this week, that much is certain!"

Follow Ekoka around and help negotiation of proper living quarters if I can. Also, read his book over his shoulder stealthily.

Swear like the sailor I am and get my light magic book back. Help the guys looking for a place to stay, read the page with the kidzuku symbol again if I get the time, using kidzuku:comprehension.

At some point, have attempted to bring life back into the old nag with magic.

Continue study at various convenient points. Say...the Mysterious Brown Book.

Locate a place for us to stay. Inn, tavern, barn, whatever.

Go to the University with the magic books (borrow books from Felice and Ekoka) then READ ALL DA BOOKS BRO. ALL DEM. MOSTLY THE FORCE ONE.
After that is done look around and talk to the scholars there, discuss magic and also the monsters from Cnoc Adh that I encountered and how the others described "The Hundred Deaths"

Dammit, that's four, hold on.

Give Warrior's Sword to Felice before leaving for the UNIVERSITY.

Second action for BFEL.

Baldur rolls his eyes as his companions squabble over the books. He helps Ekoka find lodgings (+1 to barter!). Afterwards he finds a convenient tavern to sit in, quaff booze and listen to rumours.

FOUND IT!

[Niccolo]

Oooookay. Uh. Thank you. That's actually really helpful!

Now, did anybody want to alter their actions (eg. Felice?) Courtesy of new information?

[Pancaek]

((edit; actually, could I'd like to read the entire book, not just the one page. using comprehension. if possible. sorry.))

[Niccolo]

Sure you don't want to read the Force book too? And don't apologise, this is actually exactly why I asked; a lot has happened and plenty of new information is on the table, so people need a chance to adapt.

[BFEL]

Sure you don't want to read the Force book too? And don't apologise, this is actually exactly why I asked; a lot has happened and plenty of new information is on the table, so people need a chance to adapt.

((Mine's good. I'll just borrow whatever books aren't being used and take them to the UNIVERSITY, and then do the rest of the action))

[Pancaek]

(( right, yeah, the force book too. I'm gonna go now though, cause it's nearing 3:30 am here. if I still missed anything obvious I'll just do it next turn))

[GreatWyrmGold]

GWG, I'm going to have to stop our argument there. I hope you understand that I'm not trying to insult you now, but I'm going to speak absolutely bluntly.
Please, please, please stop arguing with every thing I say - It's tremendously irritating to have you go after each little point in my argument like you're a goddamn terrier after a bone. There's no prize for pissing me off and all you're doing is making me want to just throw my hands in the air and refuse to justify anything with any more than a cursory "I'm the GM, so suck it".
I don't want to be a GM whose world revolves around "You can't because the GM says so." I'm happy to answer questions, but please show a little courtesy and don't immediately savage my justifications into tiny pieces and then sift through them with a fine-tooth comb for logical inconsistencies like I'm on trial for fucking war crimes.
Look, I want you to keep playing and keep having fun. You're not a bad guy, just hell out argumentative. And probably considering being a lawyer. Just... tone the arguing down while you're playing, okay? 'Cause I'd like to have fun too.

I'm sorry. I was just enjoying a chance to stretch my imagination, figure out how we would go about such a thing. I hadn't realized you weren't enjoying it or even participating in it so much as trying to defend your position.

I wonder how many painful arguments could be avoided if I had realized this kind of thing earlier than I did.