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[Taricus]

The guns will require the forge workers, low roll or otherwise. The ravens will not be helpful in taking over the planes however. We need something more substantive to really affect that.

And if you're worried about bad rolls, get to work on god + domain fluff. The more and better fluff we put out, the better our chances of securing a reroll for a design this turn.

[Doomblade187]

You can make the guns without forge workers, but expense is still a factor.

[zomara0292]

Spoiler: Edited Ravens (click to show/hide)

Ravens:
By inverting the process of crystallising manifest darkness, we take the material kin of darkness, specifically ash*, and coax it into forming an immaterial aspect. By taking the examples of impish will and golem animus, we forge these into forms that resemble, in both form and function, birds of pure black. Their ashen nature allows them to be coated on another creature, to use them as transport, while their immaterial aspect spreads their animus across material separations, allowing them to almost instantly reform themselves from anything that doesn't either completely disperse their matter, too far for their immaterial aspect to spread, or attacks against their immaterial aspect, such as divine light. Further, they can spontaneously form beaks and talons of Dark Crystal, and constantly radiate an aura of darkness, invoking fear, doubt, and weakness in those they encounter, which can accumulate when they congregate in large numbers...

Something for the fire plane with a them of being scary and difficult to defeat with conventional means, but somewhat lacking in direct firepower, what with them just being birds made of ash with a few small spikes. They should make for an effective support unit while being largely immune to fire and falling, which should make them effective at conquering the fire plane. They ought to be able to function in the water plane, but would likely be greatly troubled by being soggy. Still, soggy is better than extinguished which is what you would get from the typical fire minions...

*Ash being to fire what shadow is to light, the remnant of its absence. Shadow is a form of darkness, and fire is a form of light...

RAM. I had an idea of improvement for a slight increase in difficulty, but a dramatic increase I. Effectiveness. But i want your approval, since this is your baby.

[Taricus]

On the discord an idea struck me. Rather than trying to use he ravens as offensive scouts (Which... to be honest they'd be shit at), why not revise the design to make them spies? Our eyes and ears which could well make themselves innocuous at a moment's notice.

[RAM]

Spoiler: Edited Ravens (click to show/hide)

Ravens:
By inverting the process of crystallising manifest darkness, we take the material kin of darkness, specifically ash*, and coax it into forming an immaterial aspect. By taking the examples of impish will and golem animus, we forge these into forms that resemble, in both form and function, birds of pure black. Their ashen nature allows them to be coated on another creature, to use them as transport, while their immaterial aspect spreads their animus across material separations, allowing them to almost instantly reform themselves from anything that doesn't either completely disperse their matter, too far for their immaterial aspect to spread, or attacks against their immaterial aspect, such as divine light. Further, they can spontaneously form beaks and talons of Dark Crystal, and constantly radiate an aura of darkness, invoking fear, doubt, and weakness in those they encounter, which can accumulate when they congregate in large numbers...

Something for the fire plane with a them of being scary and difficult to defeat with conventional means, but somewhat lacking in direct firepower, what with them just being birds made of ash with a few small spikes. They should make for an effective support unit while being largely immune to fire and falling, which should make them effective at conquering the fire plane. They ought to be able to function in the water plane, but would likely be greatly troubled by being soggy. Still, soggy is better than extinguished which is what you would get from the typical fire minions...

*Ash being to fire what shadow is to light, the remnant of its absence. Shadow is a form of darkness, and fire is a form of light...

RAM. I had an idea of improvement for a slight increase in difficulty, but a dramatic increase I. Effectiveness. But i want your approval, since this is your baby.

Well I did originally envision them flying people around, but it never seemed practical. I guess this works. I imagine that they swarm someone, spread across their body, then morph into giant wings while slowly raining their victim's pilot's sanity? Meh, whatever is fine, feel free to suggest any alternative! It is unfortunate that this voting system penalises similar simultaneous ideas, but it is what it is.

On the discord an idea struck me. Rather than trying to use he ravens as offensive scouts (Which... to be honest they'd be shit at), why not revise the design to make them spies? Our eyes and ears which could well make themselves innocuous at a moment's notice.

They are more harassment forces. They distract, inflict minor but wide-spread damage against soft targets, are highly tenacious, and directly impair morale. As scouts they are just difficult to spot and highly mobile. They don;t have any great communication or monitoring skills that you would want scouts or spies to possess. It may as well be a completely new design for spies, and beetles would probably be better in the role.

[Taricus]

I'm pretty sure a bird that flies and generally looks like... Well, a bird is going to be a lot less likely to be shooed off compared to a beetle. Besides, birds can fly higher and remain undetected at such heights.

Now, it's true we'd have a bit of difficulty actually communicating and relaying the information they receive, but that's likely the hardest part of a design.

Now, as a harrassment force, they don't strike me as particularly effective there. Only takes a large gust of wind or shockwave for them to be blown apart. Moreover we're going to need something a lot more solid than a harassment unit (which we already have in the form of imps, by the by) to really impact combat.

[RAM]

I would hope that it would take a weaponised gust of wind that could knock confectional forces off of their feet(which would be an expoiltable vulnerability, but they should largely ignore being cut with a sword, so it is trade-offs...), but bad rolls are bad rolls... Even if they can be gusted-and-dusted-to-custard, they are still extremely irritating until such a gust appears, so relevant, could typically take shelter so as to not be completely exterminated, and could be revised to be less vulnerable to such things.

I would argue that the imps are ineffective at penetrating enemy lines, reduce the effectiveness of blackscale formations they integrate with, and aren't fast enough to intimidate through positioning. In heavy armour they are heavy infanry. Not GOOD heavy infantry, but they are a starting unit. Likewise they are somewhat bad light infantry in light armour and somewhat bad archers with ranged weaponry. They are a generalist starting race with high potential(from the currently-useless? fire affinity and magical equipment). They are sort-of-bad at everything but functional. The balckscales are far more intimidating as heavy infantry, and could take the role in a pinch, but I suspect that their biological systems are lacking the endurance required to hold a line for literal days as one might expect of a truly epic battle of the champions of the gods...

If the Ravens match the description, they should be very tenacious, inherently disheartening, able to persist anywhere the enemy doesn't have largely explicit countermeasures, and able to pick apart weak-points of any units that possess such. My only real worries are specific countermeasures, such as radiant light-fields which would trouble us regardless if we are being thematic, and the high difficulty from having a somewhat new construction and a somewhat new fear effect, but I just couldn't resist the thematic elements...

 We do, however, have many fine proposals left over from the previous round of voting. Grues are, well, I worry they are ill suited to Fire, but I like them otherwise... They would likely allow forces to be diverted from Earth to Fire... Seekers are capable, though very ambitious... Forging darkness could sole our problems with Fire's limited mobility if it works well, and also provide barriers against ambushes in Earth. Daemons can't fly, but could probably be thrown well enough to get work done in Fire, and I suspect that some of the fliers in Fire can only fly there, so maybe the Daemons could too? The Ballistae offers a ranged attack with a range and heft that the flame caster is lacking, being distinctly artillery, and offers research into mechanisms. It is a solution to the lack of reliable ranged weapons in Fire that would collaborate with the flame caster rather than replacing it. Any of these would be decent choices.

So yes, on a bad roll the Ravens would be very troubled. More so than a simpler design, but they really don't seem to me to be in any way redundant with imps.

[Taricus]

It's unlikely we'll face any battles that'll last days on end. Even if the enemy tries to force it we should endeavour to ensure that any battles they try to fight ends swiftly and decisively in our favour.

And again, we DO have another design after this, which I do intend to have the forgebound work well in conjunction with. And as the forgebound are built off our existing imps and made more fireproof/heat resistant. In the end we still have to occupy territory; and the ravens just don't allow us to hold territory well. Can't really conquer someplace if everyone keeps running off.

As for the blackscalces, I'd say the biological nature is more of a strength than a weakness; they're self multiplying, self repairing and easily maintained. Not to mention a rather suitable base for teaching and learning. Imps... they aren't infantry at all. Frail to begin with, with something tougher like the blackscales means they should never be on the frontline in melee or such. Keep them as support for our blackscales, or else work on their magic potential to make them serviceable casters.

I've said this before, but I do intend to put a design up for firearms once the forgebound are in. This will give us access  to far more potent range weaponry than what we'd have access to with just ballistae or crossbows. While this might slow down initial forays into the other planes, we aren't in a rush for counters or the like, and won't be until we start facing off against the forces of light. Hell, just sending bolter into the plane of fire would ease up our ranged problems if the fact about it's ballista being able to just level towns is correct.

[RAM]

For my own assessment of The Bolter: An imp seems similar to a human in effectiveness. Possibly a bit less, and likely less optimised for ranged combat, but it seems like a fairly standard generic soldier. The Flame-caster seems, well, a 1-power weapon seems functional, Flame-casters are twice that. They seem like an elite starting weapon. Not really good by early-game designed-weapon standards, but functional. We could get 750 for the price of one Bolter, and the bolter has an additional limit of only one at a time, and seems to be expected to be relevant up to the mid-game as-is. Seven-hundred-and-fifty archers is quiet an impressive force, so I wouldn't underestimate the bolter. It seems reasonable to assume that it can, indeed, destroy towns by itself. Then again, towns are composed of building-sized objects that don't move and are not famous for shooting back. It is possible that it could conquer Fire by itself, but it would almost certainly be slow...

[Taricus]

Slow is something we can accept. As long as it's moving forward and we're not taking significant losses.

And imps are not human analogues. A human analogue could operate the forge, whilst the imps cannot. So presumably that while overall an imp is sorta akin to a human in effectiveness, it's mostly their magic affinity that carries it, given their short and relatively frail build.

[Doomblade187]

*Rustles thread for a better vote ratio*

[dgr11897]

Might be slightly too powerful...

the Kran-CLak-thun microlith is part of my personal army. the golem things that I use as enforcers, and the police of my domain. they are known as Cogs, and take the form of hedrons, with cogs and gears turning in their core.
The microlith is the most basic, and smallest of my forces, taking the form of two pyramids, apposed to each other, with a glowing crystal in the middle. With four small hedrons acting as legs. It is equipped with a few different abilities.
First is its quantum instability beam, a spell that destabilizes whatever it hits, causing it to degrade into energy and fall apart. the spell itself feeds on the energy that gets released and uses some of it to replicate/spread, and contains the rest. Eventually the energy bursts out of containment in a large explosion that disperses the spell. Unfortunately the microlith's quantum beam is quite weak, creating blasts that release about 3 times the energy of a fireball at maximum, where the bigger units can destroy small islands in a single shot. The other use of the quantum instability beam is harvesting energy, this process is short ranged and takes time, but it allows the microlith to "mine" matter and turn it into energy for use either by itself or its masters.
Its second ability is the quantum shield, the quantum shield uses a spell to alter the quantum state of projectiles (this includes melee weapons) aimed at it, causing them to miss. It has more difficulty with large numbers of projectiles, or explosions. Both of which will rapidly exhaust its power source.
Its final trick is quantum duplication, with enough energy it can make a copy of itself, for a bit less than it would take to make one completely from scratch.

[zomara0292]

Alright. My idea for a creature to invest in.

Spoiler: Gupta Hakki (click to show/hide)

These birds are large, worm-like, multi-winged beasts with expanding stomachs. They have very weak digestive tracts, and, in order to fully digest the large creatures they have to hunt down, as they swallow their prey while, they tend to swallow many large stones, which crush and mash the beast as it moves in an erratic, weaving flying pattern. In some situations . It sometimes swallows loads that are too much for its stomach to bare. In those situations it can violently regurgitate it’s good, or even use that ability to hurl already digested foods and gallstones at its next target, though, if it’s airway gets jammed like this, they will quickly suffocate. They do not land often, especially if they have full bellies, since the length of their body, and shortness of their legs do not allow them to properly walk without scrapping their underside against the ground. The hooves at the end of their fetlock are very dense, in order to support their weight, and their leg muscles are extremely powerful, to allow them to push off cliffs, to get the air they need to dive, and then fly.
They walk across the ground almost in a comparable way of an inch worn, it’s four mid wings acting as a bit of support for its frame, when it is full.
They were made by mixing a native small bird from Fire realm, and a worm from the earth realm.
In battle they are made to be more of a mid range Artillery unit,  cavalry after the fighting has ended, or a small transport vehicle before battle begains. They are difficult to train, due to the solo hunting nature of the bird base and the lack of intelligence of the worm, but doing so pays off, as they tend to live long lives, and have rather tough hide, due to the mixed nature of their being. Their unnatural presence does not mean that they can not reproduce, however, as they do do so, laying egg clutches that are watched over, extremely aggressively, by the larger females. Males, when they get a chance, try to destroy the competing males eggs by swallowing the nest whole and spitting them as far away as they can.

[Doomblade187]

Oi. I have time to update today/tomorrow most likely, so vote quickly.

[zomara0292]

Alright. My god:

Ferojared
A god literally as old a life itself, as it was born from the thing that gave birth to life, whether as the cause, or as a consequence. Though thought to rule over life itself, It does not. It merely oversees it. No. It is responsible for the change of life. It delights in diversity, and, at times, finds itself forcing it on creatures to make them, different.  If one were to really think about it, its spheres of rule is over defects. Of Variations. A god of the green butterfly born among the blue. If you were born with more than another, or less, pray to Ferojared. If you wish to play the odds, sacrifice a creature born odd, and maybe he will give a good blessing on your offspring.

Those who choose to sacrifice to it make their own alters, generally. But, the grand alter isn’t an alter at all. It is a strange circular area, with 3-18 different biomes, the number randomly changing each time the last of a generation has passed. When a creature finds itself wandering into it, they change. It’s not always noticeable,  but, it always happens. Sometimes they just seemingly have a third eye, or none at all, or their hoof shape changes into a protohand. While it seems ideal for making new sacrifices, there is always the chance that the creature going in may die from the change, and, even if it doesn’t, the change reverses as soon as it leaves the area.