Not the Destination Discussion and World-building

• I figured that the Siren arts are actually very integral in merfolk's culture, it's just that it's reputation is kinda tainted by the 3 assholes who seduces sailors in and kill them. It's only the last two centuries that the rest of the world accepted it as a legitimate art form instead of a criminal act. To help subside the misunderstanding, the merfolks began a yearly music carnival and invite everyone in to join the fun, the catch is that certain mood are banned from playing in that carnival to avoid damages like seduction and anger.

This year, after an intense debate and later logistical task of securities and medical personnel, the merfolk musical council lifted the ban on anger and paranoid mood and (this world's equivalent of) Death Grips is going to perform there. I'm not entirely sure on this one since it might be restrictive but eh, worth a shot.

• Maddie: Oh, I think it'd be interesting if, after the music festival thing, they find out that there's some cool astronomical thing going on
• Maddie: Like, if you go to X SPOT then you can see a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower/eclipse/alignment of the planets
• Maddie: Oh also! What if
• Maddie: Short beach had those biolum plankton things? Those are cool.
• sgtpendulum: **googled biolum plankton**
• sgtpendulum: Holy shit, that looks cool
• sgtpendulum: Oh yeah, also, to build on that astronomical thing
• sgtpendulum: if Thrym's 2 moons and the sun are aligned
• sgtpendulum: it would create an almost zero gravity environment
• sgtpendulum: at an area the 'Keigar Alignment', as the scientists called it, is aimed at
• Maddie: Cooool
• Maddie: And yes biolum plankton are AWESOME

• Sentient items: different from possessed ones due to being created with intelligence as part of their forging. Most of them are on the higher end of intelligence, having been originally created by nerds that wanted the ultimate cosplay prop, or wizards who want an on-board intelligence to handle their swordsmanship. Both of these camps were also of course not satisfied with just having swords; in addition to branching the forms of a Sentient Item into basically anything that one could fit an intelligence into, many Sentient Items also gained supernatural powers. These intelligences can either be formed via an actual magical ritual, or simply through incredibly skilled craftsmanship. These two forms of sentience are typically divided into "ritual" and "mundane," fittingly enough. Sentient Items are too wide-spread to have any singular culture, and as a result of this division have few rights, as they can't exactly unionize if they barely know the other ones exist. The only thing that keeps many Sentient Items from being mistreated is that many can willingly shut off their extra abilities, rendering themselves mundane if their master doesn't suit them. Thus, many Sentient Item labor contracts (if any are ever made at all) are often formed around a simple power dynamic: The Sentient Item can become useless at a critical moment, and the user can throw you away if you don't do what they say. Not perfect, but it's the best they have.

• V_Phantom:

I think Robots will be relatively simple on this setting: They're mostly of the tin can robot variety, (though, humanlike robots aren't that rare, either) firmly Three Laws Compliant and overall nice folks that would never dare to uprise against the organics...Hell! They see all those movies about killer-robots as malicious slander, and even kinda racist.

• sgtpendulum:

So it's like a UN(or Thyrm's equivalent) law that every robot has to under regulations and if passed, be given a license to show that they're under the three laws compliant and therefore safe?

• V_Phantom:

Most of them (or ALL of them, why not?) would be powered by Magitek, of course, to add to the fantasy flavor.

• Karrin(On three laws Compliant and UN laws): I guess so... Though, depending on how severe they are with the application of the protocol, that could compromise Alice's "safety"... Because, as a sentient machine, (one with a "soul") she's not entirely bound by the three laws.
• sgtpendulum:

Wait, is Alice waterproof?

• V_Phantom:

Yep... Though, her "recharge" outlets can make short-circuit if she forgets to shield them before entering into water.

My idea for draconic species is that they've had rocky relations with other species in the past. All those bedtime stories of centuries-past dragons kidnapping girls and hoarding treasures aren't completely without merit (if somewhat exaggerated). The dragons cleaned up their act, but relations were still uneasy for a long while. Since the lesser known draco-types were mostly neutral during the whole kerfuffle, but kinda rude about wanting to be left alone, they got tarred with the same brush.