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[Kashyyk]

I don't mind the short update Arx, I'm just happy that you're able to push anything or. I would not be able to produce this much artwork so frequently, even at half the quality.

Anyway, were fighting Ears right? Finish Him!!

[Rockeater]

Stab ears! Stab ears!

[King Zultan]

FINISH HIM!

[AzyWng]

New voice here, and I'm agreeing on the "Stab/Kill/Finish off" Ears idea. Do keep an eye on Knuckles if he tries to bum rush you or something, though.

[Arx]

Finish Him!!

Ears is the stronger one. Drawing that knife would be an honest pain and we only have a second's opening, so go ham with the wrench.

Stab ears. No need to dual wield, but Let's end this.

Stab ears! Stab ears!

"Stab/Kill/Finish off" Ears idea.

FINISH HIM!

[Drawing the knife, or, specifically, stabbing wins.]

Time to dispense with Ears. I don't think I have it in me to beat in another skull with the wrench, though.

Athletics: 4 +1 = 5 [Success] [Target is incapacitated, no defense]



As the old West Antipangaean military doctrine goes, stick it in, twist it, rip it out. Eugh.

That leaves Knuckles.

Combat roll: 3 -1 = 2 vs. 4 +1 = 5 [Knuckles's attack failed (-3)]
Combat roll: 4 +1 = 5 vs. 3 -1 = 2 [Mel's attack successful (+3)]



Farewell, Knuckles.

It's a good thing supernatural creatures' blood fades when you kill or bind them. It'd be awkward if I had to explain why I look like I hugged someone with a gut wound.

All that's left is collecting the effigies and dropping them off.

1.	> Head home first, maybe take a shower and clean up.
2.	> Go straight to the drop-off. Get it all done in one trip.
3.	> It's already nearly five. Do it in the morning.
4.	> _

Spoiler: Meta (click to show/hide)

Sorry, second page is rushed because I didn't want to leave a whole update gap for what would amount to "shiv Knuckles, too". A surprise storm blew up and was messing my electricity around, which made things a bit weird. Fortunately I didn't actually lose any work.

I'll post a bit of an explanation around effigies and possibly a bit of geography tomorrow.

Also, any time the last thing relating to an enemy is a weapon in motion, especially towards the screen, it's fairly likely that that's the death blow.

New voice here

Ah damn, now my Chinese has to actually be coherent. If anything seems patently absurd, let me know?

[Rockeater]

2, the sooner we finishwith it the faster we can do other things

[Kashyyk]

Since we don't have to clean up any blood, I say we can safely head straight to the drop off. Don't forget the wrench though. Leaving that behind might be awkward to explain..

I'm actually quite liking the discretion shots regarding goblin shivving.

[Egan_BW]

where's my gore arx >:I

Victory Achieved! Go deposit the effigies next.

[King Zultan]

Since we don't have to clean up any blood, I say we can safely head straight to the drop off. Don't forget the wrench though. Leaving that behind might be awkward to explain..

I'm actually quite liking the discretion shots regarding goblin shivving.

+1

[Arx]

Mel's Musings:

	Effigies

For one reason or another, the life force of supernatural entities is usually associated with a small token that represents or symbolises them in some way. For the three goblins I just ran into, the effigies are quite close to being "literal" - that is, they look like their effigies. A fully literal effigy would be a tiny sculpture of the creature, but in this case they're just crude sculptures.



The symbolic component here is the way the effigies are made. Because these are weak urban goblins, they're made of mainly human-generated rubbish. If they were wild goblins, it'd be natural debris like bones, gravel, and twigs. If they were stronger, the effigies might become either more literal, as less crude sculptures, or they might become more symbolic - the effigies of powerful goblins often take the form of weapons. A powerful goblin gang leader might become a nail-studded baseball bat, or a wild goblin king a vicious serrated scimitar.

Here, obviously, the effigies are broken, because I killed the goblins. If I'd taken the effigies by binding them, the tennis ball wouldn't be broken, the twig wouldn't be snapped, and the cork wouldn't be cracked. A magician could retrieve the goblins from the effigies if they were so inclined, but I don't have any magical talent (or inclination to it), although I am pretty involved in the supernatural in other ways, I suppose.

There's no way to create an effigy and a supernatural being out of whole cloth. You can make an effigy easily, but without a source of spiritual energy it's just a collection of stuff. Apparently it's possible to transpose the soul of a human into an effigy, but that's... frowned upon. Either the body dies and you have a trapped soul, or the body doesn't die and you end up with a zombie and a trapped soul. Sometimes magicians snap and transpose their own souls into an effigy in pursuit of immortality. This process invariably kills the body, but the soul usually retains control, and that's how you end up with liches.

The Council takes a rather dim view of soul transposition.

Anyway, even a broken effigy has traces of the spirit on it. The Council has magicians that can match those up to the recorded incidents, which is how they verify my success and pay me. I feel kinda bad for the poor sucker whose job it is to sit behind a desk sorting through piles of actual garbage going "yep, that was Ears the goblin, alright".

Some spirits the Council will pay a small premium if I can deliver the effigy undamaged. In the case of the goblins, they'd pay me a sweet, sweet zero kodi bonus, but for the poltergeist or werewolf they might tip me 5-10%. It's supposed to discourage me from trying to sell them on the black market instead. Personally, my attachment to my kneecaps keeps me on the straight and narrow anyway, but it takes all kinds I suppose.

I think that's everything I know about effigies, really. Other than boring laundry lists of the types I've found, which one day I'll probably compile into a spreadsheet and try and find correlations or something. I wonder if the Council is into big data...

	The World According to Mel

Pangaea in stereographic projection. Note that due to the nature of a stereographic projection, this landmass is roughly the size of Eurasia and North America combined.
Compare to Earth.


Since this planet only has two continents, each near a pole, stereographic projections are pretty common. The discovery of Antipangaea in the 1600s was a bit embarrassing, seeing as Pangaea isn't really the only continent and all.

For long, complicated, historical reasons, the Central Pangaean conventions get used for most things. That's why North Pangaea is called that... even though it's south of the north pole. It's easier than calling it West-est Pangaea. Or East-est Pangaea? South Pangaea 2? Yeah, you get the idea. Scientific maps and such use different names, but politically the north pole is considered to be in Central Pangaea.

Also, this map might not be right! I study ancient literature and comparative theology. I think most things are roughly in the right place. I know SPPU is landlocked somewhere south-east of the South Pangaean Sea, and I know Chéngshì (my and my dad's hometown) is on the coast in the northern part of West Pangaea.

I don't generally worry about much other than general directions and areas, though. My interest is generally things like "North Peninsulan Mysticism" or whatever, anyway.

Don't ask about Antipangaea. I know it's oddly symmetrical to Pangaea, but that's about it.


There, data dump. The section on geography will probably only ever be tangentially relevant, feel free to ignore it, but the section on effigies is probably going to be fairly core mechanically.

[Arx]

2, the sooner we finishwith it the faster we can do other things

Victory Achieved! Go deposit the effigies next.

head straight to the drop off. Don't forget the wrench though. Leaving that behind might be awkward to explain..

+1

Let me check if I got the location.



Yup, that looks about right. Abdullah is my contact with the Council. I guess if this were a cheesy spy movie I'd say he's my handler? He kinda scares me, to be honest. I try to avoid him as much as I can.



Of course, even though the location is close, it's got to be across a river. I swear Abdullah does this on purpose to mess with me. It's not that I have anything against rivers, it's just that I feel like unlucky things happen way too often after I cross decent-size bodies of running water. It's the kind of thing you don't put much stock in until the first time you bump into a pixie, you know? Patterns are important. Unless it's just confirmation bias, I guess, but it doesn't feel like it. Although that's also part of confirmation bias.

Anyway! By the time I make it to the drop-off and back home and take a shower (I can still smell goblin on my clothes. Also, even though the blood is gone I could swear I can still smell it on my hand), it'll be pretty late and pretty dark. I won't be able to get anything more done today, that's for sure, but I should think about what else I can do.

Reminder:


Oh! And I'll probably have 900 kodi when I wake up. The Council doesn't really do "working hours". I need to spend 500 of that on rent, and I have a principle that at least 10% of everything goes towards clearing debts, plus I need groceries, but I should still have a tidy sum left over to pick up anything I might need for more jobs. I was thinking of a bow when I was prepping for the goblins, I think.

1.	> Look at the werewolf next, at least to see what it entails.
2.	> The poltergeist should be a quick, easy-ish job, right?
3.	> _

Spoiler: Meta (click to show/hide)

Mel's phone is a shapeshifter. Yup. It's not that I draw it inconsistently.

You have about 300 kodi available (reminder that the kodi is roughly equivalent to the dollar in purchasing power (and thus a little weaker than the euro), although there are regional price differences etc.). Feel free to suggest things that Mel might have forgotten she wanted. She may or may not be able to find them, depending on how crazy they are, and anything unusual will probably have to be shipped, since Mel lives in a university town.

I'm not sure how to handle downtime. Any thoughts? Chronologically, Mel is not a monster hunter 24/7. Should I just timeskip a whole bunch between jobs, or?

[KitRougard]

Hm, you mention that powerful creatures mean powerful weapon Effigies... Check up on that Werewolf thing, then tell me, do you have any experience with this "binding" you mention? Could we, perhaps, hunt down a powerful creature outside of our current missions, and capture it, make it our familiar/sentient magical weapon?

EDIT: Actually, a high-profile target, like a powerful creature, would be a bad idea. Too obvious. How comfortable would you be with taking in a minor creature and taking care of it, training it, that kinda stuff. Do effigies change as a creature gets stronger?

[Doomblade187]

What does binding entail, and could we summon beings from effigies?

[Egan_BW]

Wolfman's time-sensitive, and pays lots of juicy cash dollars kodi. Though maybe the more subtle way will be better than trying to wrench and/or shiv it to death.

Keeping a totem effigy weapon is a nice thought, but it means not getting paid.

[KitRougard]

That's why I'm saying it needs to be outside our current contracts. If it's a target that they're paying us to KO, they'll be watching it. If it disappears but there's no proof from us that we did the thing...

Kneecaps will disappear, just as fast as the target.

So we get someone we haven't been told of yet who's causing a bit of trouble around town, get them with us before they cause too much trouble. BOOM self-esteem up as we raise a goblin as a attack pet.