Topic: [Suggestion game]Choice of Magics (Read 33372 times)

Enemy post · « **Reply #721 on:** November 22, 2021, 11:46:21 am »

Take control.

Quote

It will be a monumental feat to take control of the giant vessel, but you've got to try. You raise one hand to the sky and point the other at the great airship. "Aeronavis spiritum, mea ligare accipize!"

Lightning strikes your raised hand and arcs up to the airship. A black whirling shield of negative energy appears in front of the airship just before the lightning strikes. But your crackling magic penetrates the shield and envelops the whole ship, which lights up gloriously. You see the crew gyrate wildly and fall; apparently your spell also electrocuted the whole ship briefly.

You spread your consciousness through the whole ship, feeling every little system come alive as your spirit touches it. The sense of power and control is exhilarating.

You will the ship to make a gentle landing in the middle of the road, where it wobbles slightly in the absence of a real airdock. Nobody emerges from the vessel; presumably all died by electrocution. You now have an airship, it seems.

"That's my son!" your mother says proudly.

"I'm glad you could do something about that thing," Tal says to you, her gratitude mingling with mild annoyance.

Having taken care of the airship, you realize you need to contact the queen immediately. You head to the mirror in the center of town that is used for broadcasting concerts from the capital. You cast a divination to reverse the flow of communication.

You establish communication with the palace garden, and after some negotiation and sharp words for a random gardener who happened to be near the great mirror there, you get the queen.

You try to rotate the mirror to minimize the glare from the sun overhead.

"Yes, Royal Sorcerer Foo?" the queen says.

"Is that the queen?" your mother says in awe, having followed you. Similar murmurs float throughout the crowd that has gathered behind you. But you pay them little heed.

"Akriton has been attacked," you tell the queen. "I think they came for me." You relate the story of how a letter from your mother was actually a trap set by Fruitseller Fran, a spy working for the Magisterians.

"The beginning of a war, then, if they get their way," the queen says. "But they may be willing to parley. Tell me—would you be willing to act as an emissary to the Magisterians? I wonder if we'd avoid a war if you could convince them that we are as advanced as they are. If I send an ordinary diplomat, they'll be unimpressed, but if I send you…then maybe there is a chance. What do you think? Could you convince them that we are their equals, not to be trifled with?"

1."They won't listen to me, and if I'm captured, all is lost. Let us prepare for war."
2."I'll do my best to get the Magisterians to desist, Your Majesty."
3.Cast a divination to determine whether to strike first or negotiate.

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Yellow Pixel · « **Reply #722 on:** November 22, 2021, 12:15:32 pm »

brewer bob · « **Reply #723 on:** November 22, 2021, 01:15:17 pm »

Glass · « **Reply #724 on:** November 22, 2021, 01:15:28 pm »

3

We’re good at Divination now, and while we have 7 Charisma, I’m worried that any attempt to talk to them would force us to deal with Glamor, also known as the worst magic.

On the bright side we have an airship!

Enemy post · « **Reply #725 on:** November 22, 2021, 09:59:28 pm »

Divination.

Quote

You briefly cast a divination to learn which option would be better, war or peace.

The stunning complexity of the paths the future could take in just the next few months overwhelms you; in all your experimentation with divination magic, you have never seen such a complicated delta of rivulets and streams of time. You try to make sense of the vision.

Two major streams of time diverge from where you are now, one high and the other low. You gather the "high road" must be peace. But as it is on high ground, many rivulets fall into the other stream—war—while others slip into a stream that eventually cascades into oblivion, presumably meaning your death. A final jumping-off point before this great waterfall leads to a tiny whirlpool swirling around what looks like a crystal ball.

The other stream is more turbulent, but is more likely to carry you to the finish. You see that one key choice leads to three colors of water: pure, muddy, and black. The black waters carry you further, but the far future there looks grim. The pure water grows wan, its power diminished over time. And the muddy water will just keep going along—turbulently. All three seem likely to travel to one of three final destinations: a green valley, a whirling hurricane, or a black-and-purple death cloud.

Most of the water is currently headed toward the green valley, but you sense you still have some sway over this outcome.

Examining the water itself, you see some trace of yellow-and-green muck that must signify rot, but it doesn't look bad. You feel confident you'll make it to one of the other futures, unless you invoke some truly powerful glamor.

Your vision ends.

1."They won't listen to me, and if I'm captured, all is lost. Let us prepare for war."
2."I'll do my best to get the Magisterians to desist, Your Majesty."
~~3.Cast a divination to determine whether to strike first or negotiate.~~

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Glass · « **Reply #726 on:** November 22, 2021, 10:14:48 pm »

War seems to indicate options revolving around Vivomancy, Automation, and Negation, in decreasing order of the apparent desirability of their outcomes - though Automation seems to strike the closest balance between reliability and a decent result.

Peace... doesn't seem to hold much promise. Stuff seems to lead either to war, us dying, or... whatever the hell the whirlpool is. It's probably Divination-related, but honestly? I don't feel like risking that.

Let's go to war, and show the Magisterians what for. 1

brewer bob · « **Reply #727 on:** November 23, 2021, 02:24:54 am »

King Zultan · « **Reply #728 on:** November 23, 2021, 02:38:31 am »

Maximum Spin · « **Reply #729 on:** November 23, 2021, 03:38:47 am »

Quote from: Glass on November 22, 2021, 10:14:48 pm

Peace... doesn't seem to hold much promise. Stuff seems to lead either to war, us dying, or... whatever the hell the whirlpool is. It's probably Divination-related, but honestly? I don't feel like risking that.

The way it swirls around the crystal ball makes me think of that artifact that was supposed to be used to unite all people into a Divination hivemind.

I do not see this as a positive outcome.

1

Enemy post · « **Reply #730 on:** November 23, 2021, 11:33:21 am »

To war.

Quote

"Do you really think we can win?" the queen says. She seems nervous.

"They cannot be allowed to attack the kingdom with impunity," you say. "It is as simple as that."

Chapter 7: Escalation

Your mind is racing through the Negative Sea, your divination's scrying eye moving ever eastward through the morass of black-and-violet effluvia. Somehow it burns you even from afar, seeping into your spirit.

But then you burst forth from the black cloud to see the lands beyond the Negative Sea. Verdant green fields and vineyards are tended by automation-powered machines, their human masters nowhere in sight. To the north, the Crown Mountains continue farther east; far to the south, you see the Bear Trap Mountains. But to the east, the rolling green land continues as far as the eye can see. Nearby, to the southeast, you see the golden onion-domed towers of a Magisterian town.

Your progress is suddenly impeded by some kind of spiritual wall—a defense the Neighbors have set up to impede your scrying. Their shield is no match for your power, however, and you proceed with little difficulty to the Magisterian town.

You note, as you proceed, that the sky is the same thunderhead-filled sky you left. Though this is a foreign land you visit, you still share the same world.

The town, which you can't help but think of as Akriton's dark reflection on the Magisterian side, is striking in how sinuous and curved all the architecture is. The buildings look not constructed, but grown. It reminds you of the buildings of the sunken academy where you discovered magic for the first time; these, too, must be shaped by vivomancy. The buildings are elaborately ornamented with needless arches and onion domes and flaring spires that serve no purpose. It's ostentatious for such a small town.

Though you see a few small airship skiffs zoom from place to place, the majority of the Magisterians appear to travel on foot. They wear robes that cover them nearly from head to foot, usually decorated with rainbow bursts of color.

Strangely, many of the people in the street seem to have identical faces. At first you're surprised, since you thought the Magisterian Empire contained many shapeshifters, who could presumably choose any appearance. But then it strikes you that these are the shapeshifters, and that like any culture, theirs has fads in appearance that seem to wash over the whole populace. Perhaps a third of the Magisterians have unique faces. They are in the minority.

You scry around the town until you find their airdock, then take stock of their resources: ten light one-person skiffs, three medium-sized ships of the kind that assaulted you in Akriton, and one heavy dreadnought under construction. The dreadnought is easily as large as the Cathedral in the Eirinian capital.

When the workers on the dreadnought turn to look at you, you realize you've been lingering too long, your scrying sensor growing too obvious. You cancel the divination and return your mind to Queen Thecla's throne room.

"But how much can one town tell us about the Magisterian forces?" Queen Thecla asks you, fingering her pearl necklace pensively. You are once again in the throne room, with Blessed Advisor Sam to the queen's other side.

"It's not much," you admit to the queen. "I wish my divinations could penetrate their wards better. But the town didn't seem much more built up than it was during the time of the ancients. I don't think the Magisterian population is growing. And if that's true, we can estimate their forces using the old maps and some guesses about the populations of each town."

"That's a lot of speculation," Queen Thecla says disapprovingly. She shifts on her throne, and tries to get her voluminous skirt to sit right. "But let's have it."

You give the queen your estimates: skiffs in the hundreds, perhaps a hundred midrange airships, tens of dreadnoughts. And the Magisterians clearly have magic users working for their government, though you can't guess how many.

"And each airship seems equipped with negative-energy cannons of some kind," you say. "But the light airships don't do heavy blasting. Maybe they want to avoid leaving negative residue if they can help it, so they don't give their light fighters such destructive power."

"We need to decide our own stance on negation magic," the queen says. "I don't think a decision to employ negation will be at all popular. Our citizens still think of it as dark, tainted magic. But it may be necessary to keep pace with the Magisterians. And if we're willing to go further than they are in the destructive power we wield, that may prove our one advantage in this very imbalanced conflict." She sighs. "I hate delegating this decision, but I need your advice, Foo. Do the benefits of using negation magic in this war outweigh the drawbacks?"

"They most certainly do not!" Blessed Advisor Sam says with exasperation. "This magic is considered unholy for a reason!"

But the queen ignores him and looks to you.

1."No negation magic. We must find another way."
2."We should adopt the tactics of the Magisterians, who have more experience with this." (Requires negation.)
~~3."Using negation magic with no limits could end the war before it claims too many lives." (Requires high negation.)~~

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Glass · « **Reply #731 on:** November 23, 2021, 11:55:36 am »

...frankly? I think we're good enough at Automation and Vivomancy that we can make alternatives. We've seen the product of using Negation - there's an entire sea of the stuff - and Divination didn't really mark it as any more promising than the two other schools - which, I will note, we're noticeably better at wielding.

1
We're tossing people into a war, better to not do even more stuff that will piss them off.

(EDIT: Also, seeing that this stuff says "requires", and the "high negation" option is outright unavailable, I suspect we could have successfully "Sow the seeds of discord among the old guard. (Requires calculation.)" option from earlier. Oh well. We hadn't encountered that sort of stuff previously, we couldn't have known.)

Atomic Chicken · « **Reply #732 on:** November 23, 2021, 04:02:14 pm »

King Zultan · « **Reply #733 on:** November 24, 2021, 03:50:27 am »

brewer bob · « **Reply #734 on:** November 24, 2021, 03:52:46 am »

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Author Topic: [Suggestion game]Choice of Magics (Read 33372 times)

brewer bob

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Enemy post

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Yellow Pixel

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brewer bob

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Glass

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Enemy post

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Glass

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brewer bob

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King Zultan

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Maximum Spin

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Enemy post

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Glass

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Atomic Chicken

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King Zultan

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brewer bob

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