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[monk12]

Spoiler: Author's Note (click to show/hide)

*twitch twitch*

"Of course, theory is all well and good, but some solid experimental data is needed..."

*twitch twitch*

ITS A HYPOTHESIS, DAMN IT! The #1 misconception regular people make. A THEORY is proven by experimental data. A hypothesis is what you have there, an unproven idea. God damn it. It drives me crazy when people make that stupid mistake. Everyone just completely bypasses hypothesis and gives theory the meaning of hypothesis, which is downright fucking stupid.

Now, to continue reading this awesome RP.

One might argue that there is a difference between the technical and idiomatic meaning of the word, but the explanation I'll roll with is that Elves (and You in particular) are not very good at science


Anywho, funeral related fun dovetailed nicely with holiday related fun and writer's block, and updates will likely remain sporadic through the season. That said, this first part of the game has had a lot of infodumping (intentionally, as I'd rather introduce setting information/mechanics organically than as a block in the first post) that we're getting caught up on now, so we should have some more interesting, meaningful choices coming up here.

On another note, how big WAS the tree? It was the dead remnants of a tree, right? Would it be possible to cover it with some sort of cloth or cover? Maybe we could, I dunno... paint it? The thing only has 5vp, so going at it with an axe is actually still very much a possibility if its larger. Maybe hack off some lives or something - the thing has less vitality than a healthy elf, it can't be that hard to re-kill, right? Even with the hardness, it should only take like 8 hits.

[The tree (or rather, the largest remaining chunk of tree) is about twice your size, which is to say something like ten feet long and quite broad. If I happened to be stealing DnD size categories, then you would be a Medium creature while this tree is Large.]

Key point to note: We don't have any mana right now. If Pevo asks us to use mana during the "how to use your mana to make potions" lesson (and, let's be honest, he will), we will not be able to do that. Pevo's sure to notice something's up, and we don't have a good explaination for what we did with all our mana. Let's not risk it. Let's beg off learning for today, saying that we had planned to talk to Omo (our ranger friend, remember him?) about your route and then pick up a few other things for the trip today, but promise to come by tomorrow and learn how, since it sounds extremely useful.

Beg mana potion > go back > THINK THE NEXT OPTION THROUGH CAREFULLY, we really can't use another critical overshoot right now > solve tree issue.

-What, do you have someplace else to be?
I... actually, I've been meaning to chat with my friend, Omo Thunderjaw. I haven't spoken with him in a while, and as a Ranger he'd have some good advice for my journey. If it's all the same to you, can I learn tomorrow?
Sure, sure, don't let me keep you.
Thanks! Ah, Pevo, I don't suppose I could persuade you to part with that potion, could I?
Oh this? You don't want this.
Sure I do! I've never messed with mana potions before, it'd be nice to know what I'm getting into, I think.
Heh- alrighty then, have it your way. Actually, while my mind's on the subject, take this bag, too.
...Pevo, there must be half a dozen silver in here! I can't take this!
Sure you can! You might have scraped together enough coin to get by outside the Vale, but I'd like you to do more than get by. Besides, the Caravan from Thrimesdur will be here soon, and you might spy something you need for your journey.
Wait, really? Don't you think it's a bit early in the Spring yet?
Early it may be, but the Caravan is coming, no mistake. You haven't heard? They crossed the river yesterday, and should be moving through Yicelafo tomorrow. Ahh, my mind is slipping- I won't be able to teach you tomorrow, I'll be spending the day at the Caravan Fair.
Oh come on, the Caravan should be here a solid week! Besides, the festivities won't really kick in for a few days, once all the other elves arrive.
Aye, there's the rub! I'm not about to let every other elf in the Vale pick over the good stuff before I get there, and I'm certainly not going to be last to hear news of foreign lands!
Alright, fair enough- you've really done more than enough already. Thank you, Pevo.
Not a problem, not a problem- will I see you at the Fair?
Maybe not tomorrow, but we'll see. Farewell!

You wave goodbye, weighed down with Pevo's gifts. You give the Mana Potion a quick examination- the bottle is a dark, translucent blue, and fits comfortably in your closed fist. Unstoppering the bottle, you peer inside, sloshing about a dark liquid. Red, maybe? You catch a faint fruity scent wafting from the bottle- it seems familiar, though you can't quite place it. Carefully, you stopper the bottle back up and tuck it into your coin pouch.

Although visiting Omo Thuderjaw had not been in your plans prior to your conversation with Pevo, it had been something you wanted to do before leaving anyway. Besides, you can hardly not see him after using him as an excuse, and it's not like this should take long.

Without wasting time, You head off to Omo's house. It isn't all that far from your own- elves have children seldom enough that when an elven couple bring a child into the world, they often move nearer parents with another child or those expecting, just so the kids can grow up together. Omo and Elana were your only childhood friends, and though you've largely gone your separate ways you still share that special bond.

You find Omo chopping wood in his backyard, shirtless and sweaty. He is tall, even by elven standards, easily a couple hands higher than yourself. Unlike most elves, he keeps his blond hair cut short rather than gathered in a braid. His face would be handsome were it not for the prominence of the famous Thunderjaw chin- his eyes twinkle merrily as he sees you walk down the lane, and he leans back on his axe.

Ho, Nym! I'd begun to think you've been avoiding me! I haven't seen you in what, a week?
Hey Omo- has it been that long? Well, I've been busy lately.
Oh? And what have you been busy doing? Teaching the fish to sing?
As a matter of fact, I happen to be in the midst of preparations to leave the Vale.
Really, leave Yicelafo? Why?
I've got it in my mind to travel. See the world, something beyond this forest and river.
Since when? You've always been content to faff about doing this and that before now.
Well, that was then and this is now- people can change, you know.
Yeah, I know. Good luck getting the Elders to let you go- I've asked to take trips out of the Vale myself, without much luck I might add!
Actually, Pevo said he'd speak to the Elders on my behalf.
Pevo Zephyrtempest? I didn't realize you two knew each other that well.
Well, we've been chatting for the last week or so. He's partly my inspiration to travel, and he seemed supportive of the idea- he even gave me a bit of spending money.
Oh did he? It figures, I suppose- I'm sure if I had perky breasts like yours I'd get all kinds of nice things.
You'd look pretty funny with big breasts under that big chin- one might be mistaken for thinking you had no neck!
Ha! I suppose I would, at that. Say, Nym, as long as you're pulling strings to get out of Yicelafo, how about you pull one more and take me with you?
What? I thought you were training to be a Ranger.
Half the reason I became a Ranger in the first place was so I could wander out along the borders of the Vale- every patrol, I see the horizons outside the forest and wonder what's on the other side. Besides, you'll certainly need my help! What do you say?
I...

On the one hand, Omo is right- a trained Ranger (well, half-trained, anyway) would be a valuable companion on the road, and the Elders will probably be more amendable to your journey if you have a partner. On the other hand, Omo doesn't know about your unique talents, and you don't know how he'd respond to the knowledge. Necromancy nearly caused the extinction of your race, and that's the kind of thing nobody can take lightly. Hiding your talents from a traveling companion would be extremely difficult. What should you do?

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Vitality- 8/10
Mana- 0/12
XP- 14/20
Inventory- 6.6 Silver Pieces, Elven Tunic, Elven Cloak, Belt Knife, Mana Potion
Abilities- Sense Necromancy(Passive)
Status- Conflicted (again)
Six days since Manifestation

Spoiler: Spells (click to show/hide)

General
Detect Magic- 1 MP - detects spells and magical items near you
Calm Animal- 1 MP - causes wild animals to become peaceful
Sense Vitality- 1 MP - you can detect the Vitality of living things, with a bit of effort

Necromancy
Raise Zombie- ? MP - You can take the formerly living body and turn it into a zombie, but you lack understanding or even much knowledge of the particulars. You need practice.
Command Undead- 2 MP - You can merge your awareness with an undead creature, gauging its general condition and issuing explicit orders it will obey to the best of its ability. You can also give orders that will persist beyond the end of the spell.
Steal Vitality- 3 MP - You can suck the Vitality out of living things. This spell removes up to 6 Vitality from the target and gives 1/3 of it to you.
Animate Object- 4 MP - You can force Vitality into inanimate objects, things that were never alive to begin with. It seems to be more complicated than Zombification though- your Rock doesn't do anything, which is hardly useful. you'll need to experiment with this more.
Alter Golem- 2 MP- You can make basic alterations to an existing construct or animated object.

Spoiler: Notable Figures (click to show/hide)

Your Parents- Your mother is a prominent Mage serving in Yicelafo itself, and your father is a Ranger Lieutenant, currently patrolling the borders.

Omo Thunderjaw- Your best friend, brave and true. He is currently an aspiring Ranger, and is currently home on leave.

Elana Foundwasps- An old flame of yours, she is currently studying with the Mage the next town over.

Pevo Zephyrtempest- The village Sage- you can ask him for knowledge of what history the elves possess. He is somewhat absent minded and easily distracted.

Ari Wetdawn- The village Mage, here to cure ills and bless crops. He knows much of Life magic as well as magic in general, but is also most likely to discern your true nature.

Spoiler: Creations (click to show/hide)

Rope Doll
2 VP
Can see, can't move

Undead Oak
5 VP
Hardness 8- When physical damage is dealt, subtract 8 from the total.
Can't see or move

Spoiler: Planned Experiments (click to show/hide)

-This one's a bit morbid, but bear with me. Take two crayfish. Shell one, leaving the meat inside as intact as possible. Remove the flesh from the second while leaving the shell as intact as possible. Attempt to revive both and compare the results. Is vitality in flesh or in bone? In both? Neither? Regardless of what we find, it should prove instructive.
-If you ever have enough spare mana, see if you can control multiple dead crayfish at once, and if there's an upper limit on how many perspectives you can hold at once. Stop if you get a headache, feel dizzy or anything else seems strange.
-See what the maximum range is for controling one of your zombies, and if it expands with practice. May take more than a day of effort, but it'll be good exercise.
-Try to find out if zombies have a memory, if they can be made to recognize specific objects. I recomend starting with a ball or something, and instructing a zombie to follow that specific ball wherever it goes. After testing it to make sure it works how we expect, substitute in another ball that has a different colour or a different size, and see if the zombie knows it isn't the right ball to follow. We can move to more abstract things from there, like having if understand things like "any ball" "any non-red ball" "the biggest ball" and stuff like that, or even to sort a pile of pebbles into stacks by colour.
-Attempt to raise a pile of ashes from a cremated corpse.
-Raise an earthworm and then, once it is raised, cut it in half at the border between two segments. Which ends, if any, are still animate? Continue cutting into halves at segment lines until all parts are dead or it has been divided into a prostomium, peristomium, pygidium and a pile of ordinary segments.
-Make a zombie insect that will stand still, then see if we can take its vitality when it is behind a rock (out of our line of sight).
-See how much damage a dead body can sustain before it is unraisable

Spoiler: Maps (click to show/hide)

World Map


Yicelafo

[GlyphGryph]

We'd be honoured to have him come. If we're ever going to find anyone we can trust, this would be him. Especially once we are free from the vale, we will have opportunities to broach the subject - at the least he might avoid killing us outright to return to the vale.

If he discovers us, or we decide the time has come to tell him...

Convince him we mean well, and this trip is, in many ways, a voluntary exile so that we do not hurt anyone. Tell him we brought him because we trust him to keep us on the straight and narrow and help us maintain control over any darker impulses. Tell him of our plans to use our power to cleanse the dark taint from our ancestral homelands or die trying. We may have magic that caused problems long ago, but we are not going to let it go to waste if there is good to be done with it.

If he remains unconvinced, we start lying. We can say the elders discovered our ability and that this exile was their idea. That, if they okayed him accompanying us, they trusted in him to serve the purpose of being the needed reliable influence. Ask him at least to return the elders before killing us, and to hear their support for our plan.

But really, if we are to stay good, we must not let ourselves become to isolated.

[fergus]

Agree to let him come and try to get him on our side latter.

[joemoben]

If he remains unconvinced, we start lying. We can say the elders discovered our ability and that this exile was their idea. That, if they okayed him accompanying us, they trusted in him to serve the purpose of being the needed reliable influence. Ask him at least to return the elders before killing us, and to hear their support for our plan.

But really, if we are to stay good, we must not let ourselves become to isolated.

The whole lying about the elders would have to be a last resort kinda thing though. We can't exactly have him speaking to the elders about us, because if they know they can and will get every ranger and elf that can fight after us. Also on the topic of the here and now, we should say we need to think about it for a while.

[GlyphGryph]

But IF that happens, it will be AFTER we leave the area - something the elves are not keen to do. We can dissapear.

It's a last resort, for sure, meant only to buy us time to escape rather than because we believe the lies will hold up.

Again
Be relived at his offer, and happy, not hesitant, and tell him you'd be immensely grateful to have him along

[Ehndras]

Spoiler: Retort (click to show/hide)

"One might argue that there is a difference between the technical and idiomatic meaning of the word, but the explanation I'll roll with is that Elves (and You in particular) are not very good at science "

*Sigh* /facepalm

I was raised with a mechatronic engineer(not sure if that's the proper word in English, its Engenheiro Mecatronico, my cousin Frankie who designs engines for Volkswagen in Brasil), a chemist, and a surgeon, and have been obsessed with the Sciences since the age of 6; especially Chemistry, Genetics and Psychology. I think I know the obvious difference between an untested hypothesis and a an actual theory based on intelligent observations and evidence, thank you very much. But, as usually occurs when people are too god damn stubborn to understand a very simple idea simple because the majority of people (read: fucking idiots) are accustomed to an incorrect assumption, I must break out the definitions to prove my point.

hy·poth·e·sis
   /haɪˈpɒθəsɪs, hɪ-/ [hahy-poth-uh-sis, hi-]
noun, plural -ses  /-ˌsiz/ [-seez]

1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis)  or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
2. a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument.
3. the antecedent of a conditional proposition.
4. a mere assumption or guess.

the·o·ry
   /ˈθiəri, ˈθɪəri/ [thee-uh-ree, theer-ee]
noun, plural the·o·ries.
1.
a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.


The fact that non-scientifically inclined citizens interchangeably utilize the similar terms theory and hypothesis for non-technical discussions doesn't change the reality that they are not in fact synonyms. They may be similar in the fact that both draw from established truths to express an idea, but only in the eyes of someone with little to no technical knowledge or an inclination to use scientific terms in a non-scientific manner are they actually and viably interchangeable.

My apologies if I've been disrespectful but the theory v. hypothesis has been my greatest fucking pet peeve since childhood. I always wanted to bloody shoot myself when my science teacher in high school would discuss Scientific Method and some fucking retard would raise his hand to ask why he mentioned Hypothesis as a precursor to Theory if they're the same exact thing. /facepalm.

Besides all that, this is one of my favorite RPs on B12. I am definitely looking forward to watching this RP's details and storyline fleshed out and expanded. Great job, mate, keep it up!

[Grek]

We're definitely bringing him along, there's no doubts there. We're planning to follow the path that our people took through Thirmesdur from the ancient elven homeland, and it'll be dangerous. Having a trained ranger along really would help out, especially one that's a good friend as well. Explain that we hope to find out as much we can about our people's history and heritage and how they lived and the ancient magics that were lost after the war.

There's no reason to explain to him about our powers now, but there's also no reason to lie about them once we're gone. The truth here is our best weapon: We want to discover ancient magics long lost to our people and break the necromantic curse on our ancient homeland.

[GlyphGryph]

Spoiler: Ehndras (click to show/hide)

You may be a scientist, but you are clearly not a linguist. I too am often frustrated when I see people use the term in referring to scientific endeavors, but the difference is not as great as you would think. Rather, theories INCLUDE hypotheses. And even then, since we aren't using the word "scientific" in front of them and this is not a scientific paper, by default we revert to the looser non-jargon versions of these words.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation, prediction, or assumption.
A theory is a collection of hypotheses that form an explanation of some part of reality, supported by evidence.

We were, in fact, theorizing - trying to link together our various hypotheses by examining the data we had experienced. Eventually we decided that thinking (theorizing, connecting the dots between our various data points and hypotheses) was not enough, and we needed to gather more data by action. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[Hitty40]

We can bring Omo along, but why not buy a weapon or so? If he can't discover that you practice necromancy, then getting a weapon and learning to use it as an alternative can help conceal your magic, and with that spending money Pevo gave us, I think we can get one.

[GlyphGryph]

Learning from him during the trip is DEFINITELY a good idea.

[Cellmonk]

Take him along, and be glad. You have a secret, but It shouldn't be all too hard to hide. If the time comes, one can always slip into the night, or fake death. but for the time being, we can learn from him some needed skills, ask him questions about magic (I think I remember correctly that even the knowledge of a human mage pales in comparison to a lay-elf's).

Eventually, we'll discover how prudish and law-oriented he is, and from that decide whether to open up to him and have him as an ally, or become "accidentally" separated, in a crowd or out on the road. We may have to pause our experimenting for a bit, but there will be chances to test a few things (when you are "exploring the town" or "going on a stroll down the creek") Preferably, we should come out to him or leave him before he discovers us.

Don't forget to hide the evidence, now that you got the potion.

He may be able to tell us if the purple flame is visible or not, with some carefully planned experimentation

[GlyphGryph]

We may have to pause our experimenting for a bit

This is something we can't afford to do. Evidence seems to point towards going without using our magic make it manifest itself on its own, which isn't something we want to happen.

[Cellmonk]

We may have to pause our experimenting for a bit

This is something we can't afford to do. Evidence seems to point towards going without using our magic make it manifest itself on its own, which isn't something we want to happen.

When I say pause our experimenting, I don't mean stop necromancy all together. I mean keeping it hidden, and therefore small scale (keep your necro-buildup down by doing brief and unfortunately petty experiments with beheaded ants etc while he's sleeping or away). Pause experimenting means not moving on to graveyards and giant trees right away. One can still practice it without making huge leaps and bounds, and while still remaining hidden. And most likely, when we hear the call of the grave, we can split from our friend in the night.

[Elvisdogs]

Or we could just carry something inanimate. Then when he get a few minutes by ourselves we could just steal some vitality from a random plant (3 mp), put it into said inanimate object (4 mp), and this would allow us to have a sort of vitality dump for healing purposes. And if the purple glow is a problem we could just steal it back and it would dissapate or heal us depending on if we are injured.

This would allow us to expend our mana while still practicing our abilities/trying experiments.

[Cellmonk]

Or we could just carry something inanimate. Then when he get a few minutes by ourselves we could just steal some vitality from a random plant (3 mp), put it into said inanimate object (4 mp), and this would allow us to have a sort of vitality dump for healing purposes. And if the purple glow is a problem we could just steal it back and it would dissipate or heal us depending on if we are injured.

This would allow us to expend our mana while still practicing our abilities/trying experiments.

Also, we could use the rock's glow as a way to test whether our friend can see it. We'd just need a reason for there being a purple light which wouldn't cause our friend to investigate. Like if we can get the spell faint enough that the rock doesn't visibly glow, but has a slight purple hue, then he wouldn't likely assume its magical (even less likely that he tests its vitality), but it might stand out to him, and he might remark on it. So if you found some quartz, and gave it minute vitality, he might mistake it for another mineral. You could palm it and steal its vitality the next time you have a chance.

Notice that no one has yet remarked on purple being associated with necromancy.

Also, he might know how to make mana potions. just might. Do all elves learn magic?