Character Development Thread--Discussion

I'll look into the Forest of Bone then. Is there anything in particular I should know about it?

Uh, well, as someone who's just peaked in for the last page..

That's a pretty prideful sounding claim.

Well, the first thing that stands out is the fact the bone trees look like humans reaching out to the heavens. There's also a giant corpse sitting somewhere, and the stitching/tendrils that The Midnight Stitcher left about doesn't fit the location's theme. Though admittedly, not too much has happened there, so it shouldn't take too long to read the relevant posts.

However, as listed under Seven Deadly Sins, Pride also includes not deserving it. Which, admittedly, is how he's seeing everyone there that's just giving him trouble- Beings boasting of godly power, and acting like his betters. Overall, writing the Golden Being has been a very interesting experience, as up to now all my "godly" characters have been comparatively down to earth.

Speaking of which... If it is cool, I'll keep playing Gravity Rush 2 until I complete the main story. I absolutely adored the first and have been loving this one as well. Though I've also been convinced to use a Not Quite Flight capable character of mine in a future thread, hopefully the Adventure-Friendly World idea that was brought up.

:How long is the game? Don't neglect us for too long!

But yes, you are allowed to enjoy yourself... just don't forget us, right?

On the Golden Being, maybe many of our characters assume he isn't so above it all, or have reasons to believe they are on a similar level to him in different ways. However transcendent he may be, it does not fully know the natures of the beings he is interacting with and maybe they know things that are as alien to him as he is to them. All in all, what he says may be true in your Verse but not in, lets say, mine.

edited 22nd Jan '17 5:38:18 PM by EternaMemoria

Oh I don't really mind that (though Gifts are suppose to be theoretically omniversal in reach tied to no one setting), I just think it a little weird none of these characters with super-insight seem to acknowledge he's truthful about predating existence. Also, to how many people did I explain the states of Patches & Armory Knight's souls?

Not really sure, I was feverishly hunting precious gems and doing all side content. In fact, I only recently acquired Lunar Style and don't yet have Jupiter Style.

In Gabriel's case, it's because he's touched onto an entity that has given him a really different perspective on the multiverse; to grossly oversimplify, he now sees all that is vast within the small, and all that is small within the vast. It's either enlightenment or complete insanity, depending on perspective.

So the greater the Golden Being is, the more Gabriel's ascendant form cannot help but see him as despicable. The fact that the Golden Being predates existence actually makes Gabriel respect him less, because that means he has not truly felt and cannot truly comprehend the beautiful struggle of being a part of existence.

That's what I was trying to hint in Gabriel's last post, vis-a-vis "all the stupid vastness of it swallow[ing] up anything interesting", though it seems I maybe didn't quite hit.

edited 22nd Jan '17 6:13:42 PM by KillerClowns

Well, Moreena is apparently rather mundane for a goddess, I already mentioned seeing beyond is not Sentinel's strongest point and Gabriel's skillset appears to be more oriented on the killing of stuff (and on cosmetics), or at least was before his ascension, so there wasn't that much supernatural insight before the last few posts.

Plus, Sentinel has had problems with beings as old as planets in the past, even if she has never fought them, and saw living Cosmic Keystones arise, live and die, so before having a cosmic revelation forced upon her she didn't think too long about the implications of a being that precedes the universe.

What Gabriel did, his ascension and even parts of the worldview remind me of the Saints in my verse. Now, that requires further study, preferably after all this fighting is done.

Honestly, I actually never expected Sentinel to end up in such a mess. I joined to have some quiet dialogue scenes and got a clash of cosmic forces .

edited 22nd Jan '17 6:17:48 PM by EternaMemoria

As much as I'm enjoying the Frontier, I'm really looking forward to the Star Liner and Adventure-Friendly World threads - already have a dozen ideas for each.

Well, Golden Being hasn't been more than functionally an Empathic Weapon for the majority of his "is-ness", and honestly the only reason he's so mentally functional despite being exalted less than a day ago is because of his & Armory Knight's forced fusion. So honestly, he has very little personal experiences, though he is intensely focused on fixing Armory Knight- And he genuinely considers Armory Knight's existence more important than the other characters. Frankly, saying "love" or "loyalty" is about the closest I can sensibly explain it.

Though now I'm curious Clowns, since Patches' soul uses three (nonsentient) Gifts, how would he see her? Sure her soul is incomplete (and also less than a day old), but Golden Being is himself ultimately a Gift given action of his own. Then there's Armory Knight, who's soul is breaking from the strain, and who's body is completely suffused with Golden Being's power. Thus would he be disgusted and condescending of them as well, or would he be able to acknowledge they're incomplete beings struggling to be whole?

Likewise. The current set has been going on for a while now.

Speaking of which, is anyone going to take over stewardship of the more adventure-oriented thread similar to ladytanuki did with the Star Liner? Someone should make a page to collect ideas if nothing else.

That depends, but probably the latter. If they know of pain, of struggle, of fear, of attempting to find meaning in the brief, absurd meaningless of the world, and of living despite it all... he'll respect that.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:06:58 PM by KillerClowns

Well given the fact Armory Knight is indeed a person who's two most important ladies are dead and that the scraps used to make Patches' soul are the Red/Blue/Gold text associated with her...

So are we gonna call it CDT Adventure then? I suppose that makes the most sense, given the emphasis on exploring and discovery.

Ah, so some of the terminology here is a bit hard to follow.

What's a Defiance type?

You have some characters with some nicely fucked up backstories. So do I. We have/will be meeting them. Of note, Cynthia lost her left eye and arm in a Curbstomp Battle. She got better. Mari ended up loosing her entire adoptive family a long time ago. I'll be including Hatti the Sea Witch, who is on the receiving end of LEGO Genetics in Space Liner (Sounds like a mundane house supply. I prefer Star Liner, but that's me.), and Lorelai the Finalium Angel, who got shafted by the Balamar Empire's science department in Adventure.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:42:09 PM by WillDeRegio

I'm also looking forward to getting a new thread going - one reason I've been slow to write for Frontier is that my characters there are just about done with their plot, although I've thought of a potential new wrinkle I might do first.

Hell, I'll do some managing for the planet exploration adventure if we're doing that.

Wait... When did we start talking about an "adventure-style" CDT?

It's getting late, but I'll try to get a bed and breakfast post in before I crash.

The night we all got together, had a few drinks, and enjoyed some of Nemaforte's herbs. I think. Can't quite remember, that night was kind of a blur.

In other news, I can now count to 42 in base 9 on my toes. In 4D!

In all seriousness, I think Kkutwar suggested it or something and that idea seed took root here. So now Dream II's successor will be Adventure(name pending).

@Eterna and Kkutwar: When you said the vision Sentinel brought affected the souls in the Deathly Glade as well, would that make them still usable for the Golden Being? I am a bit confused because you said Sentinel may be able to help Sinistrina with the soul matter, but from what I read of the post, it's going to make things more difficult for her. Also...

I just had to LOL at that, because Sinistrina is technically already dead (y'know, being a lich and all). If you mean "destroyed", that can only be achieved by destroying Misery Manor, since that's where her soul is. (No wonder she was opposed to Gabe doing that earlier.) So the worst she'll end up with is a heavily damaged body and a heavy dose of angst.

@Corvidae: My first thought upon seeing Moreena approach Sinistrina's black dome was "since she also has dark powers, she'll taint the ether again if she enters the cloud of it". Does this seem accurate to you?

Either way, let's just say Sinistrina will not be happy about any of this. Though despite her being my current favorite of all my characters (Nemaforte comes in a close second), I enjoy her suffering as much as that of any of my characters (and given how I killed off Zuri in Frontier, that says something). I also think she won't react much to the vision of death, since she's kind of preoccupied with purifying the ether - but she might experience it after the process is, um, dealt with.

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:21:57 PM by ladytanuki

Bugger ya*, Will! Laughed so hard I bloody-near choked and my head started to spin.

• "Bugger you" is somewhere between "Damn you" and "Fuck you" on the Sliding Scale of New Zealand Slang and Obscenity - all of which can be used in a friendly jocular manner.

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:16:27 PM by Wolf1066

OMG, I just now saw that. Which reminds me, I need to come up with an herb that speeds up the creative process - though the Mushroom of Time combined with a very low dose of the herb the Four Bardic Sisters used to enter Dream II (let's just say Orenyans are much more liberal with drugs than modern Earthlings are in general) would probably do it, since the former speeds up thought in general by slowing down time, and the latter induces vivid dreams and would likely encourage abstract thought if one doesn't sleep.

Yeah, leave it up to me to elaborate on things that are clearly jokes. Now I'm looking forward to having Nemaforte in Space Liner even more... I think she'll love Club Bizarre especially.

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:18:34 PM by ladytanuki

Oh, I thought the consensus was the adventure planet would be after dream. Doesn't have to be, I just thought the concept had a lot of potential and I had a fairly good image of it in my head.

I would like to do it eventually, we had some people with fantastic terrain descriptions in the past.

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:17:58 PM by Slysheen

Pardon any bad Spanish.

Somos rosas cigarras. Somos rosas cigarras. Somos rosas cigarras

I can understand what they're saying... make it stop.

I am going to have to include that as someone's lines, due to quasi-legal space drugs. Just have someone go nuts hallucinating things.

Or maybe you can only see and hear the Spanish-chanting pink cicadas if you are under the influence of one of Nemaforte's drugs.

Is it bad that I now have a story line revolving around a fifteen year old girl getting high and finding out things nobody in their right mind would believe?

EDIT: added a bit more to Mari's speech to Amanda.

edited 23rd Jan '17 1:44:22 AM by WillDeRegio

Mayday mayday

Little over half a post done I'd say. The rest will be finished once I'm lucid agaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

@ladytanuki: Actually, it was the Spirit's power (the sensation of life sent to oppose the sensation of death caused by sentinel's vision) that affected the souls, making them more... alive, so to say, and wilder. They could still be used, but they now impose an active resistence of sorts, even if a mindless one, and that could backfire terribly. And on Sinistrina dying, the Spirit has a more fluid view of life and death.

On Sentinel's help, that is something for after she awakens, and has to do with overwriting Armory Knight's soul to impose a complete state on it, no "soul matter" required, although there would be other prices to pay.

ps: just a reminder, but Sentinel's vision is unlikely to spread to those not extremely metaphysically aware, and instead they will have a deathly sensation that mirrors tge broken state the vision left Sentinel in.