Stabs' Pit of Nightmares (and ideas)

Of Diamonds Freaking Tough

It's a little odd for me to hear that critters with diamond in their bodies don't just fall apart. Despite being pretty hard, diamond's got the characteristic property that it cannot ellastically deform one whit; it's brittle, rather than ductile, and you can't use any really significant amount of force without cracking it. Needless to say, diamond makes for a pretty silly material to use in weapons or armor.

On that spirit, I believe it would be appropriate to handwave this shiny stuff for diamond nagas and torkudas. So let's go ahead and point out it isn't really diamond; wouldn't be a bad idea, would it? Specially considering we've got diamond that rebounds magic, diamond that absorbs magic... I feel this might work as a color note as well.

What I'm suggesting is either an artifact or a mineralogy entry related to this.

Bioadamas
Rarity: Special

This unlikely material is harvested from living creatures whose bodies form diamond at points, like the Torkudas. Though it has the same hardness as diamond, this material presents a tensile strength and ductility beyond that of the even strongest of common steels. Its properties don't end there, however; its activity towards magic is even more interesting. When confronted with magic, this substance absorbs the energy, aligning itself in the direction of the source, and then "snaps" back, resulting in a perfect reflection towards the target, no matter the angle towards the surface.

For all its unnatural properties, bioadamas chemically behaves like regular diamond, decaying to anhydrid at high temperatures unless magically protected. Obviously, this material is only found in magical creatures from magical worlds; even where available it's impossibly quirky to work, due to its unique properties. The closest anyone has ever gotten to effectively using this substance was an engineer who used a special saw (or rather several, as the saws didn't last long) to cut interlocking pieces and use them to fortify the walls on a room: nothing is known as to what happens with magic inside that vault, if it exists. The location of this vault isn't mentioned in the rumor, but everyone believes it's somewhere under Negav. The only undeniably effective way to use this substance is to be born with a shell of it.

Diamond nagas are a special case. Their ability to absorb energy in certain amounts, as well as their ability to phase the diamond into and out of existence in their bodies, in violation of the observed properties for this material, have aroused extreme curiosity (and inspired numerous theories) in naturalists throughout the multiverse. It's understandable that many refuse to believe this until presented with proof (proof they'd pay dearly for); gathering the aforementioned proof is one of the tasks open right now to adventurers who feel up to the challenge.




This is because I was planning to use a diamond naga myself; I wanted it to survive anti-material rifle fire (and make the diamond ability do something else than screw with its camouflage). So I had thought, if it realized the danger, brought the shields up and curled arms round head and belly (Multiply the thickness of your arms by 18 to get a rough idea of how thick the guy's arms are), maybe it could survive a few rounds on the offensive without ending up a literal scatterbrain (though of course it'd go for the rifle first).

======

You know, I've always liked constructs. Something else I've always liked is working on other people's ideas, and make a few jokes while I'm at it. So while poring through old spellbooks- err, spell lists by class, I remembered Guy Geoirgier, and what he is trying to move away from. Then I remembered a few old discussions about constructs from ye olde dee and dee dayse.

Sparen ye the internel deskessions, here's what I had in mind. Here's how you can get a bullet sponge guard.

Harlequins

Referring more to the locomotive method than to the form of the construct, harlequins are creations whose motive power is provided by magically animated strings. In spite of their variations, being as diverse as true harlequins, they have several traits that are common to any of them: they are in general quite silent for their speed, and lightweight, so as to strain not the strings they rely upon. They are ill-suited for tasks requiring strength, and exposed strings are vulnerable to fire, not to mention that their intelligence and awareness is strictly a function of the skill of their creator. Most often they perform as a first line of guardians- most of their volume is dead weight, making them able to absorb an inordinately large amount of damage, unimpaired as long as their strings aren't cut or their joints broken.

Strong harlequins, also known as heart harlequins, transform the motive power their strings provide through clockwork, achieving greater strength through the use of multiple strings whose pull is then carried to the joints through chains or ropes. Most builders often place all the strings in the same place to make it easier to protect them, hence the "heart" denomination. However, the clockwork itself is often not very quiet, and destroying the heart or jamming its clockwork completely stops the construct.

It should be noted some crafty (and devious) builders go one step further and use multiple sets of strings for every joint, combined with several spare strings whose purpose is to sew the construct back together if it comes apart, or even provide mobility of its own to any limb that ends up torn off, providing a surprise to overconfident opponents. When faced with such a harlequin, the fastest way to deal with it is to kill it with fire. Quickly.

mhh the Eufractan idea is interesting, there is a LOT to do with people coming from the same world but within different timelines ^^
And nice job on the Bioadamas too ^_^ I never thought about that but I imagine it makes sense indeed as diamond on joints would simply not articulate

okay, so I was talking about the cookie thing with a friend of mine, and even though that is what - two pages ago? I had the urge to blurt out, that uncooked cookie dough is tastier than when cook(i)ed. I don't know if that's supposed to reinforce the idea or make it even more controversial, but there it is. X3

Setting nightmare fuel to ON...
Setting synergy to GREEN HELL...

Gugunu Gunoromo

In some dead tongue, the name Gugunu Gunoromo meant Moaning Deer. This abominable creature stands 50 feet tall at its shoulder, and resembles a pale mauve, slick-skinned, humped and barrel-chested bull with a coil-shaped tail and four horns, two broad ones over its head and two shorter, truncated straight horns under its jaws, looking out from sunken, beady eyes hiding behind atrocious, ever-bared gigantic dull and moist teeth.

Its greatest peculiarity for a large herbivore is that most its chest muscles don't connect to its legs, but to its jaws, putting dozens of tons of muscle behind every bite. Thus, the Gunoromo has probably the strongest bite of any herbivore, perfectly capable of tearing a chunk out of just about anything. No known material can withstand the bite of a Gunoromo; even those which are harder than its teeth eventually are brought down under the force of its bite. The Gunoromo takes advantage of this ability to harass (and eventually kill) anything it can't identify beyond a shadow of doubt as either harmless or toxic to bite.

Gunoromo herds can easily be avoided: in the areas where they live most of the trees have been brought down to stumps, as the Gunoromos are mainly leaf-eaters- though they are omnivores with cannibalistic tendencies. Anything that actually manages to kill a Gunoromo will have to confront the rest of the herd- and if they are successfully driven away without meat, the Gunoromos leisurely devour their own dead.

No one in their right minds would drink Gunoromo milk, but it's said it tastes like sweat.

Great job on this one
It convey well your idea of dangerous herbivores for the green hell, and I like this idea of the chest muscles connected to the jaw ^^

Pit of Nightmares


Based on the Nemean Lion of old Greek Myth, that was immune to stone, wood, and metal, let's give a round of applause to the Lataran Tiger. The Thylacine's extinct? Well no problem! Here's your thylacine back, now 100% proofed against everything!

I know it's over the top with the indestructibility. I'm hoping it's hilarious, and capable of providing fun challenges too: I mean, you can use them in open/close door puzzles, in pranks against shotgun owners, and they're cute to boot.


Lataran Tiger

[b]Threat: Medium[b]

The Lataran tiger is a strange creature with short yellow-brown hair, a narrow muzzle, and a stiff, almost hairless tail, the whole monster reminiscent of an opossum the size of a wolf with striped hindquarters. This creature was allegedly created by Lataran when a poor (and absent-minded) hunter complained about how difficult it was to hunt one of those rare animals without harming its pelt: Lataran returned all of the beasts that had been hunted to life, so they wouldn't be so rare, and made them indestructible so that the hunter would catch them without destroying the pelt in the process. The legend also says the hunter quit hunting.

Lataran tigers have the strange ability to ignore damage from all weapons. They do transfer their impulse to the tiger, and it will be affected, but it will be unharmed. Even the most powerful antitank rockets only make a lataran tiger bounce pretty after hitting it point-blank in the eye.

Needless to say, those tigers are hard to kill in a fight, as even the most experienced warrior has to resort to doing it barehanded- though there is a way around their invulnerability. While killing them is hard, trapping them is no more difficult than their mundane counterpart. Once trapped, they can be easily strangled or drowned. Some people resort to poisoning them, but followers of Lataran take a dim view of this method.

Followers of Lataran consider this rare beast totally hilarious, very good for use in pranks. A common prank is to drop one or more of those in someone's house: indestructible to weapons, the first way most people devise to contain them is to run out and close the door to lock them inside the house. Alternatively, one may climb up a tree. Of course, they can be swallowed whole too by an appropriately sized predator.

The Temple of Lataran and the outskirts of Negav are the best places to find one, but they're kind of shy around people unless they're hungry and outnumber them, or magically compelled for some reason not to avoid humans and humanoids.

This... I can't really remember how I came to it. But for the first time ever, I get this bizarre feeling of wrongness that just radiates from the idea... and I wouldn't deprive you of the chance to feel it too. So there we go.

Wild GOD appeared!



The Fall of the Immortals

Somewhere in the timeless expanses of Lydus, countless aeons ago, lay a dimensional nexus. Though those objects-places are too bizarre and unique to merit any intuitive manner of comparison, this one was liable to be called massive, whether from the sheer magnitude of energies that were channeled through it, or from the sheer number of different sources it tapped from- or from the fact it was extensely inhabited, thus rendered nigh-endless in its complexity.

Getting to the point, the inhabitants of this nexus were immortal, as are those natural to the unnatural expanses of Lydus. We shall settle for telling what they did- why they did it, we can only speculate, being those beings as bizarre as they were. Maybe as is endemic of immortality, all changing things from their perspective seemed, in their fleetingness, inherently trivial, maybe they found the differences repugnant, maybe they just wanted to do it. In any case, the fact is that those beings attempted to, from their own extradimensional home, impose a certain, self-serving structure upon all they surveyed.

For all you and I know, reality as we know it is proof of their success. But once they had structured all they surveyed, predictably they came to tirelessly survey more. And so, they were faced with foes- something they didn't expect. They adapted to the best of their ability, and fought against those who would stop their unrequired task. Some foes they fought and crushed, rendering their worlds as merely more; some foes they were outmatched by, given the infinite permutations that reality, in its many possible structures, has to offer. But they knew only one foe that actually managed to retaliate effectively.

Now, while those creatures were imposing a structure upon the world, this is not to be mistaken with life. Life imposes a structure upon matter, in rough terms- but it breeds, grows, feeds upon itself, and endlessly renews. This structure that was being imposed was sterile in comparison: their numbers, if such a term is applicable to kinds of beings that have no individuality or real structure, maybe their magnitude would be a better term, was, for lack of a better term, fixed.

But then the hosts of Heaven struck them. Whether they had attempted to impose a structure upon Heaven, or it was retaliatory for damages incurred during their imposition on another world, is unknown. What is known, according to the tale, is that the Celestial Host was hard-pressed to damage this nexus and its endless inhabitants. Where they sliced, where they burned, where they crushed, no harm was done. Their structure would repair itself, by its own virtue. And it would seem the attack was going to prove a fruitless carnage, if not for one angel's discovery.

She realized that the Immortals' energy could be forced to remain unmade, that their power could be thus sealed, if it could be assimilated. How she figured this out is unknown. Maybe it happened by accident, maybe by desperation. But what follows is that she took it upon herself to seal as much of their power inside herself as she could, slowly at first- then she quickly escalated the consumption, to the point that she stopped bothering to unmake them before assimilating them. Every bit of essence taken nurtured her, gave her the strength to continue devouring, to keep up the fight. Soon enough, she realized she had nothing to do but repeat this process in order to win (eventually): certain that the fight would continue most likely forever, already pained beyond words by the losses they had been struck, she chose to forget everything else.

Her hunger escalated to cataclysmic levels as the fight, once one-sided against them, turned one-sided in their favor. Or, as they'd soon discover, in HER favor- forgetting her allies, and having grown far too much beyond their power to handle, they beat their retreat first, leaving their once-comrade to devour the Immortals. The Immortals escaped to a different nexus, leaving theirs for her to consume, leaving to never return.

While this would've been an acceptable outcome at first, she was too dangerous for the Celestial Host to simply leave there: The nexus exposed too many worlds to her ever-growing hunger. Thus the legion struck one last time at their once-comrade, and in a terribly cruel battle, they tore her from the remains of the nexus she consumed, ripped her to shreds, chained her in a sleep beyond time, and buried it all under a world's worth of soil before she could recover.

Chained to the world and bleeding from her whole body, her essence permeated the soil. Deprived of all her senses, only her feelings remained, infinitely intense to all which her blood touched, imprinting her own warped heart upon all that set foot on the land, desperately searching in another being, any other being, for the sensation she has been deprived of, drawing on the nexus in her desperation for anything she could feel through. Even in her timeless prison, the whole world feels her hunger, intense and unspeakable, commanding all things to consume and thrive, bolstering the living with her own force, empowering all with the magical power she has captured from the preternatural forces she once fought. Within her halo, all things that speak, just like she once did, can understand each other. Interestingly, nothing ages- for age is a thing of time, and time holds no sway in her prison. There is only hunger.


Little is known of the angel herself- just that her name was Felarya.




...



BOO!

hehehe great explanation here somehow I saw the end coming XD

I must admit I didn't really grasped what the original nature of the immortals are exactly, though.. somehow I got a bit lost in your sophisticated phrasing ^^;

I got shivers at the end of that.

This is absolutely phenomenal. I like how relevant you made the fact that people don't age and can all understand each other, because by that (would be) legend, we all LIVE INSIDE her in the first place. Just...wow.

This should definitely be one of the main legends of Felarya

Clever. This should definitely be propagated as a legend explaining Felarya.

The Fiery Harnessed

Acknowledgements to Jaette_Troll, who came up first with the idea of harnessing elementals during the development of vapyres.

The spirit of an elemental, while resilient enough to rebuild its body from the elements, has some difficulties with the mind. The more an elemental experiences and learns, the harder it is to keep all of it together after each passing incarnation; a slain elemental may only retain inklings of its earlier incarnation, fragmented memories and feelings- most of them quickly learn not to worry too much about it, but they're always happy to know something they once forgot. The period of time that passes before an elemental's final death doesn't actually depend on its age, but on how long it takes for the elemental to just decide to start an incarnation completely unconcerned with dramatic flashbacks.

The speed at which elemental spirits can reconstruct their body also varies by elemental type. Air elementals are the slowest to recover their form, as their element may dispel their budding forms in its fickleness a number of times. Earth elementals are the second slowest, as the legendary immovability of their element plays against their ability to quickly reform, tremors and quakes present for months and maybe years before their form erupts from the ground. Water elementals are the fastest, the combination of viscosity and fluidity water itself is characterized by being one of the best possibilities.

Fire elementals are a special case. While fire dances frantically, it's still confined to its position, providing for an incredibly quick rebirth. However, fire does not exist naturally; a fire elemental remains anchored to the spot where it died for what may very well be aeons, waiting for an element they may breathe new life into. They always act rashly, reincarnating as soon as presented with any open flame: ideally, the elemental would be expecting a drought, a strong wind, and a lightning bolt to cause a freak fire- but as befits humanoid intervention, a fire elemental may very well be presented with a completely different situation, where it attempts to reincarnate into a torch, campfire... or in some specially unpleasant cases, even a candle or lighter.

Smaller flames are a problem for the elemental: its first instinct upon rushing to be reborn and finding out the flame doesn't provide enough material to rebuild itself completely is to rush towards any combustible materials in sight, out to find a medium where it can grow until its own heat production can support it. In most cases, this leads to little more than a distraction for the would-be camper or smoker (unless the elemental is successful in starting a pyre, in whose case they're basically screwed), but there are some shamans who can put their rash decision to good use.

Some tribes out there may send (ill-favored) members to patrol the forest with a torch, until the torch's fire suddenly blossoms in size and heat- which indicates a fire elemental has bitten the hook. By selectively feeding the diminished elemental's fiery apettite, it's possible to put the hungry creature in a state where it'll have to make a deal and allow a thaumaturgist to harness its power. There are tales of fiery arrows that burned far hotter than they could, simply by virtue of an elemental's blessing, or even fiery pires that rose for hundreds of feet suddenly animating to fight a shaman's enemies.

It should be noted, however, that an elemental's conscience is quite diminished during its earlier stages of development, where it can hardly even remember what it's supposed to look like, only that it needs fuel to grow. All that the elemental can really think of is that it can either serve, or quickly burn its fuel out and wait for a freak fire in the (new) area if things are too annoying there. This is exploited by crafty shamans, who may, for instance, take trapped fire elementals to the bottom of a dark, damp cave (or even out into the sea), to truly push the limits of the deal. However, the elementals themselves don't like such a situation one bit, and may very well betray a master who makes too harsh a deal as soon as they can find someone willing to make a large fire.

Predator Sense- A Perspective by a Madman

Acknowledgements to rcs619, responsible for all the current developments on predator sense. I know this isn't what you had in mind- otherwise, you'd have written it.

Predator sense itself is a poorly understood ability- often cause for a quiet terror that may very well be more detrimental than the sense itself. The tendency to overblow its properties has led more than one to purchase tokens that offer no actual protection, and the lack of understanding for its proper counters has led several to implement simply reprehensible tactics, which have been met with very limited success.

The first thing there is to understand is the actual clarity that predator sense offers. And, distasteful as it is to admit, it varies. In some predators this sense is almost as good as hearing in some species. In other predators, it's like trying to find a flame by feeling its warmth on their lips. The first case, however, is uncommon even in those species that are innately equipped with this sense.

Part of the reason why predator sense is so poorly understood is not because it's magical, but because it's a racial trait in some species and in some others it's present in some specific individuals as an epigenetic development. It's known that nagas and fairies (and maybe deerataurs) are born with it, and quickly hone it into a useful survival tool. However, seemingly at random, members of other species display this trait, which is difficult to qualify- obviously, you can't just ask them how they find their prey. Even if you could, they couldn't always give you a straight answer, as no one perceives their senses exactly the same.

So far, I've come up with two possible explanations as to the presence or absence of this sense.

The first is that the predator sense is not actually a genetic trait, but some form of symbiotic development- maybe some sort of microorganism that develops somewhere in the digestive tract of great predators. While all species have an innate intestinal flora, most others don't, until through some sort of accident they develop this "gut feeling". The lack of an appropriate intestinal medium (again, this is purely conjecture) would prevent them from developing this flora on their own: nagas' extended intestines, and fairies' continuous dimensional tampering with the contents of their digestive tract, may have something to do with it.

The other is that predator sense is only somehow... encouraged by the engineering of the fairy or naga body, for some reason, and that this sense is actually a strange reaction to the "vore effect" as it has been dubbed. It can't be discarded that this influence may have farther-reaching effects than we believed: consistent surrender to this influence may actually alter the senses of the recipient, leaving them somehow sensitive to the magical field that reacts to all living beings in Felarya. Were this hypothesis true, predator sense outside of the consistently armed species would be prevalent in its older (and more mindlessly ravenous) members, while newer arrivals to Felarya, even from the species of nagas and fairies, would have an underdeveloped sense despite it being a consistent racial trait.

Operatively, it's clear that larger predators have broader ranges; otherwise, small creatures with predator sense would basically be impossible to catch by any larger predators. Within this range, however, predator sense doesn't specifically target anything: it limits itself to reacting to magic or to life. Short of wizards or magical beasts (which register as magical), predator sense is only capable of discerning type of creature by experience with the kind of signature picked up. The increased range is a double-edged sword: the farther the signal can come from, the more creatures pinpointed- however, the noise ratio increases as well.

Now, to foil predator sense, one should first stay away from the predator's zenith and nadir- straight up and down are the directions where animals are the exception rather than the rule, so getting under or above is a surefire way to get sensed, even if for a brief moment. Second, one should match speed with the predator, so even if it manages to discern the signature, one seems to be farther than they actually are. A third method is to find a position a few feet above the ground- being out of touch with the life-giving soil can reduce the intensity of the signal, and as a side effect, it increases the total intensity that the predator can actually discern from their direction (as there is less distance before reaching the soil), thus adding noise to the signal. Though there are disciplines that may obfuscate the predator sense, they don't work by extinguishing the signature as much as by dispersing it: an obfuscated individual effectively highlights everything around them, which may be detrimental for a large group of people. Obviously, one should remain sneaky all around as well- being conspicuous will cause most creatures to shun the offender, thus reducing the noise around the individual and making them easier to pinpoint.


The Cookie Folk

Acknowledgements to the self-reference. I know it's there, I know it's not a good habit. Don't judge me. -.-

In the present [s]year 2068 war was beginning[/s] the construction of artificial humans is a reality in Felarya. Through the use of ancient magical recipes, a special preparation can be forced to adopt the detailed form and composition of a real human. The end result is biologically the same as any human- with a few exceptions.

Those artificial humans, adults from the moment they're made, are barren, widely display a very dulled sense of self-preservation- and are, almost always, completely loyal to their makers: their blank, unnatural minds are most often lax, incurious and dulled, with zero experience with the range of feelings and sensations most humans acquaint themselves with somehow, and limited opportunities to experiment emotions or learn. This makes them capable of pushing themselves really hard even if their bodies are not specially resilient, but can often render them ineffective if their experiences manage to divert their focus from their one-minded obedience to their bakers.

Depending on their specific making, and whether their ingredients include spinach, ginger, honey, onions, meat jerky or dragon's teeth, they may display unnatural physical or mental traits. Cookies with greater strength and resilience, or speed than a man of their make should have are known to exist, and some cookies are created being magical, resistant to cold, or even capable of sufficient apparent emotional depth to pass for a (disturbingly one-minded) human.

While more common outside of Negav, where they may serve makers that run the variety of races (and sizes), the sole mention of cookies is good cause for paranoia in Negav. The thought of them makes most Negavians uncomfortable, and some of them are quite paranoid about the possibility cookies may be walking the streets as they speak, twisted mockeries of humanity that fearlessly serve shady masters while masquerading as one of them. Because of this, Negavians are quite uncomfortable around anyone who doesn't have much of a sense of self-preservation, and as a matter of fact many encourage fools to go out into the jungle. The "cookie" idiom in Negav, meaning 'stubborn and clueless', was coined after those constructs- many suspect a good fraction of foolhardy adventurers to be actually cookies.

It should be noted that there is word of a cookie witch hiding somewhere in the underground of Negav, where she keeps baking one minion after another from ingredients they raid from nearby caravans and bakeries. This "cookie monster" as they have dubbed her has eluded both the Cult of Oth and the Investigators for years, or so folklore says, but she can't leave Negav- because she's too delicious to live outside for long.

...cookie folk.

So here I was, wondering what was it that dimensional magic was good for, other than teleporting and creating portals. There's got to be other things it can do, right? Well, given it's not been terribly developed, I figured that I might as well throw in a couple cents. If nothing else, they might be good for inspiring the next.

Dimensional magic: A Mostly Preventive Practice

Given Felarya is richer in magic than many other realms, one would expect its magicians to be capable of solving anything, given that even immortality, a long-sought goal of many, becomes a given in this realm. Well, the fact is, magic being stronger makes it easier to grasp- but it also makes it much harder to use, and much easier to hurt yourself with it. As a rule, the more direct the magic, the more likely a reckless practitioner of the art might implode. Magic related to plants, for instance, is relatively safe to pursue.

Magic related to the gateways in dimensions, on the other hand, is like sweaty dynamite. Felarya itself is already dimensionally unstable, and the safest pursuits are related more to dealing with the effects of existing disturbances than to creating new ones. So it is that the first skills dimensional magi learn aren't portal-making and teleportation- the first skills they actually learn, while boring in comparison, are the tools necessary for the prediction of portals, vanishing lands, straggler arrivals, and other manifestations of dimensional unstability. Some creative magicians also use this sort of power, in relatively stable areas, to send and receive signals. It's good practice for when they'll have to employ the same for greater feats.

The control over those phenomenae is a skill, but one that is learned gradually. Most dimensional mages can't simply raise a portal or summon a meadow from another dimension: at best, they can "hurry along" a tear in dimensions, or with some effort, earn themselves a minute of grace. In an extreme case, an average dimensional mage could actually take an existing rip that's short of just a little power to happen, and "push it over the edge", but even then, they'd be working with existing rips, rather than creating new ones.

There is an exercise some experienced practitioners perform when they feel confident enough to start practicing with portals. Looking for small rips, some wizards can actually turn them into "shortcuts" that shave off small distances- on the scale of half miles. However, the frequency of those tears in the fabric is not within the wizard's control; sometimes, these shortcuts can reduce a week's trip to half a day, and sometimes they can be absolutely improductive. Wild mages are the best at this particular practice- though obviously, consistent results are not to be expected.

Actually creating a portal would require one to craft a rip single-handedly, and then harness it into a gateway towards another. Unfortunately, manmade rips don't last as long as natural ones: the force of magic in Felarya is strongest where it is raw. Therefore, most portals aren't meant to last for longer than a few seconds, and don't go too far either. Creating a permanent portal would require a fair threshold of permanent dimensional unstability to work with, and similarly, long-range teleportation requires the same of its objective location. No one's to say it would be impossible to engineer a transitory arrival point, but that'd require some help on the other side.

Strangely enough, the creation of a portal isn't the ultimate limit of what dimensional magic can accomplish. There are feats beyond stationary portals: the construction of extradimensional spaces, which is a mystery even its practitioners haven't been able to fully explain- and the engineering of a vanishing land incident: some texts recovered from Ur-Sagol hint at the possibility Sagolians may have in fact summoned lands to Felarya. While this has not been confirmed in practice anytime recently, the possibility of such a thing cannot be discounted- such power may very well have been what brought ruin to the Sagolians.





On the same subject, I was wondering what the spirits were good for, other than seeing the future. I mean, what with the elementals and other stuff, the spirits themselves got to be good for something, right?

Spirit magic, or bats in the Belfry

In the face of all the marvels that magic can accomplish, many wonder what the spirits are good for. In a world where a few flicks of the wrist can set a tree alight, where is the wonder in a man talking to his dead ancestors? In his head? While chanting in a chicken suit and inhaling the happy grass?

While there is something of a point to spirits being relatively inoperant, they have a certain upside- they're literally EVERYWHERE. Without going in detail about what spirits are (all we'll say is that they're a very diverse bunch), the one thing that's certain is that they're almost everywhere, and the ability to summon and communicate with them can be quite the boon for the canny shaman. Knowing the right spirits can grant them insights into the most unpredictable subjects, from the coming and going of local wildlife (and not so wild life), through the knowledge of the recently deceased, to the coming weather, and in some strange cases, into the future. Some spirits can even perform services for the shaman: the most basic of them may work at sending messages, while the most advanced of them may have the power to, amongst other things, kill insects, grow tougher plants- or inflict mind-freezing terror upon a victim.

The nearly infinite variety of spirits that exist, and the utter improbability of some of them lead some to believe that spirits are not always present, but have actually been crafted by the shamans throughout history. For all anyone knows, it may be the case: some shamans have confessed to "awakening" some spirits that didn't know they existed themselves. Whatever the case, spirits exist, they can be contacted, and it may be useful to talk to them.

Obviously, spirits don't always want to spill the beans. In those cases, some level of bargaining may be required: this isn't as extreme as the case in thaumaturgy, where the contacted party is the source of power, but it may very well be troublesome to get a spirit to do something. Even the most intelligent spirit has a pretty damn limited understanding of anything beyond its scope, and reasoning with them is impossible: they just won't get it. The art of appealing to them -for it is an art- requires a lot of work, and having to adapt to this kind of thinking tends to weigh on a shaman's sanity.

Some shamans might screw up their rituals, and wind up contacting the wrong agency- like the Dryad Network, or an elemental, or a devil. Some people think that's how thaumaturgy was first devised. For obvious reasons, that's not a good idea. Don't try this at home.






Then I just HAD to think about Lydus, which got me thinking about heaven, and a couple ideas I'd forgotten to type down earlier. They'll be posted in the relevant thread. For now, I just wanted to submit this entity for Lydus.

It's based off Yog-Sothoth, so it's gotta be awesome. /retard

Pressure Watchers

Upon sight of a place like Lydus, one would wonder if any sort of creature lives there. And as a matter of fact, yes- the Pressure Watchers, as they're called, do in fact inhabit this realm.

The Pressure Watchers are massive bubble aglomerations, ranging from twenty inches to fifty feet in diameter, with a womanly torso emerging at some point from the mass. The entire creature is tinted a grayish blue, its surfaces glinting as it bobs calmly (or zips hastily) throughout the realm of Lydus, looking for something interesting to look at.

Interestingly, unlike many other creatures of similar bodily configuration, Pressure Watchers are not voracious. As a matter of fact they're quite friendly and talkative, though they're so indiscriminately talkative and retentive that they have a pretty hard time keeping secrets. They've got some difficulties telling creatures that talk from creatures that don't talk, though, so one must first engage them in conversation before anything can happen.

Not violent by nature, they have as their main mode of defense the ability to send their would-be attackers to another plane of existence, preferably one they have easy access to. They have two other bizarre powers: the first is their ability to "mark" an individual while they are on Lydus, much like nemesis do, except that Pressure Watchers do not do anything to the mark- they merely scry into their surroundings, giving themselves something to look at. Their last bizarre power is the ability to wipe out anyone's memories of having ever been in Lydus: this is convenient for individuals they mark, though the Pressure Watchers often use it on anyone they get to look at. This explains why no one gets to remember much about Lydus.

I rather like the Dimensional Magic entry. I'm not sure where it'd go on the wiki, but its a nice bit of information. Maybe as an excerpt from a book?

Anyway, I remembered dimensional pocket storms, the possibility of using dimensional magic as signals from mage to mage somehow, and also the fact that teleportation isn't exact, it would depend on the current stability of the land around you. If it's very unstable, it could whisk you away somewhere way different than where you intended. I've actually sort of employed that in my imagination as for some other forms of teleportation. Some tecniques would be more exact, require more time to pinpoint the arrival destination, while others would be meant for a quick getaway, but could send you almost anywhere based on the the stability of the area.

really interesting ideas here, and really original too with those pressure watchers
Reading that built some strange pictures in my head XD

And nice take on the dimensional magic ^^ I think it makes sense that the practitioner would use existing circumstances to perform dimensional magic indeed. And this also make me think if crafting portal should really be considered as something of a base skill as mentioned in the wiki. In the way you put it, it would be something really very advanced. mhh

Squire Angels

Squire Angels, also known as protoangels, are lesser heavenly spirits that manifest as young humans in robes, often carrying a large shield. They're in general a youthful and naïve bunch, rash and enthusiastic, full of childlike energy- which they must learn to harness in order to become regular angels. To this end, they do other angels' bidding in heaven, learning all they can about both themselves and the physical world souls come from. They often take a particular interest to the physical world, as they are more likely to do their masters' bidding there, or accompany them into that place.

This is also why they are the most likely source for thaumaturgic heavenly magic: a pact with a squire yields powers that protect, heal, illuminate and fortify. While not very powerful, squires are easily reachable and generally open to deals, making them a relatively safe source for magic. They are loath to squander however- unless one can prove that they're embarking in a holy crusade, the squire will politely (and firmly) decline at the first opportunity they get.

As part of their pact, squires expect advice and help if they ever need it: they're more interested in knowledgeable, wise, learned individuals, and such definitely catch the squire's interest while making a deal. They usually contact the pact maker every dawn (or every dusk, as agreed), to keep up with the news of the day and be assured that their powers are not wasted nor used in vain. Some squires can get pretty damn chatty, though, and pester the pact maker for hours every day.


Drollstem

This strange fern is native to the Green Hell. It has irregular, spiral-like stems with varying numbers of long, stiff, jagged leaves that curve in spirals; it grows in patches, often reaching heights of 30 feet. This plant isn't dangerous by itself, unless eaten- it contains a nervous depressor capable of causing paranoia and hallucinations. Most animals know to leave it alone.

However, when the drollstem is set on fire, it releases this drug into the air, allowing it to be inhaled, which makes its application a lot more effective. A fire in an area with drollstem is ten times as dangerous: even before the air becomes unbreathable, it becomes a hallucinogen, making it so much more difficult to get out alive.


Pyrolypso

This odd, tall, broad, blue-green grass in the Green Herb is easily identifiable not only by its color, but also its tendency to sweat an oily, blue-green residue. Wherever the Pyrolypso grows, the ground quickly fills up with this vegetable oil, creating a slippery quicksand that burns VERY well. Thankfully, its smell allows for a trained nose to identify these deathtraps quickly- otherwise, any creature heavier than a cat will find itself quickly caught in the quicksand and too greased to cling on to anything.

There is great interest in the Pyrolypso grass- its oil, properly refined, would make a respectable rocket fuel. However, all the explorers who returned with live samples brought back different strains of grass, none of which produced an oil of the same composition as the one that first sparked interest. As of right now, this grass remains but a hazard of the Green Hell.


Suchwer

Threat: [s]Legendary[/s] Minimal.

This invertebrate is native to the Great Rocky Fields. Basically a slimy green caterpillarlike creature the size of a housecat, the Suchwer's bulbous eyes and twitching, ash-black antennae make it ugly as sin. The creature doesn't undergo any metamorphosis during its life, merely growing from a fraction of an inch (its original size) to about one foot in length as it merrily devours grass. Suchwers are herbivorous and almost completely harmless, at the bottom of the food chain, surviving by sheer force of numbers.

During storms, however, this changes. Suchwers absorb electricity from the environment to accellerate their metabolisms from their usual sluggish pace to a heinous, frightful speed- the sight of a foot-long caterpillar dashing along the ground is not for the faint of heart. Even those who see a single one of those sluggy caterpillars may soon realize there's a bunch more caterpillars of all sizes all around the grass. Suchwers are attracted to things that quiver, as they identify them with grass in the wind, and thus they crawl on people who tremble, looking for somewhere they taste like grass. This tendency to crawl on people who are afraid of bugs, specially during storms, has been the subject of some controversy, as some still insist that it's proof that Suchwers are actually sadistic and evil.

Oh I really like the squire angel idea The fact they form pacts that are a two way road somehow. Lot of interesting things to do with that.

Great idea also with the drollstem. Terrifying and unpredictable and somehow it mix well with the Green hell region. nice job on these

Karbo wrote:

Oh I really like the squire angel idea The fact they form pacts that are a two way road somehow. Lot of interesting things to do with that.

Glad you liked it. People were saying heaven was underused, tried to see if I could do something with it, this came out. Wondering if I can think of anything else to make of Heaven, give it more screentime. No way we're making XXX angels for that.

Karbo wrote:

Great idea also with the drollstem. Terrifying and unpredictable and somehow it mix well with the Green hell region. nice job on these

...okay?
Well, I was just thinking of how to make fires worse, so I thought maybe psychoactive smoke could totally throw a wrench into anyone's chances of doing anything clever. Thought about making it poisonous smoke instead- two different challenges: psychoactive smoke will hurt your chances of getting away, poisonous smoke, if it doesn't kill you right away, may repeat on you later (or something, depends on what does the poison do...). Likewise, the Pyrolypso can make fires worse by giving you a reason to be there- namely, to get your hands on some fuel.

Still thinking if poisonous smoke or psychoactive smoke fits best the region. Psychoactive smoke totally kills your chances if you rely on... well, your brain. Poisonous smoke, it depends on what the poison does, but we have more counters in Felarya for poisons than for drugs.

Seeker of Paradise

Size: 13-16 inches
Threat: Minimal

This bird can be recognized by its characteristic, yellow-gold eyes, its black-trimmed beak, and its flamboyant appearance, with many long, curling feathers on its head and tail. Its color depends on its gender, with males being dark purple, and females being red with white chests. It spends most of its life eating small insects and fruits in the banks of the northernmost stretches of the Jewel River, almost past the Jungle of Perils. Seekers are silent most of the time, but sometimes, they flock together in groups of 50-75 and fly tirelessly towards a vanishing land somewhere in Felarya, where they nest and lay eggs.

The Seekers stay in the vanishing land as it returns to its original world, where they raise their young. Outside Felarya, the flock seems to migrate at random, until it finally returns to Felarya. Somehow, they are capable of perceiving dimensional disturbances on a borderline global scale, and flawlessly find their way to portals and vanishing lands alike. How this bizarre animal does this is unknown; not only are they extremely elusive, and rare on a multiuniversal scale, but the only place where they may be reliably found is widely known to be the most dangerous part of Felarya. Outside of it, many cultures have occassional records of a flock of bizarre birds nesting on lands that suddenly lost all their inhabitants overnight.


Gusto Vole

Size: 4-6 inches
Threat: Minimal

This beige little rodent, hailing from the Fairy Kingdom, has a short, fuzzy tail, tiny ears and a round muzzle. Some specimens have reddish brown spots on their hair too. Strict herbivores, Gusto voles nibble any kind of vegetable they can catch around ground level with their thick teeth. Though not specially strong or fast, their prodigious breeding rates allow them to stay at the base of the food chain and yet survive as a species.

Its defense mechanisms include hiding, digging holes, and sprinting away. They are nothing to write home about. However, the most particular trait of the Gusto voles is that their DNA is wildly variable, but despite it, they do not show any noticeable physical aberrations other than wildly varying flavors. Gusto voles cover the whole spectrum of tastes with their bizarre flavor, much to the delight of fairies and other curious wildlife. One would expect the least tasty to have been the only ones to survive so far, thus giving birth to generations of progressively blander flavors, but apparently, they have yet to mutate a flavor that's repulsive to all their predators at the same time.


Celestial Iron
Rarity: Legendary

This particular mineral comes from the heavenly realms. While not exactly iron, it behaves close enough to mild steel that the differences don't really matter. The differences between celestial iron and real one, however, are, first, that celestial iron is quite resistant to magic, specially to that which involves the forces of darkness; spells of darkness, of evil, or those born from the forces of hell are absolutely incapable of even inconveniencing this metal. It is completely insensitive to silver succubus' metalokinesis (though not to metalokinesis of any other type), it blocks the negative component in coldfyre, and it stops many more of hell's supernatural armory.

The second ability that Celestial Iron has is that, when wielded by an angel, it magnifies tremendously the wielder's dimensional magic: thus, celestial iron armor allows the angel to stay longer in the physical realm. The rapiers of purifier and defiler angels are also instances of celestial iron, and are key in their ability to shrink even giant predators, which not even fairies can. Needless to say, celestial iron is a tremendously powerful material, and angels guard it jealously. One would best not be wielding it in front of an angel- and demons, including succubi, consider wearing such armor equivalent to being looking for a fight.

I'm all for heavenly materials, but why call it iron? Iron's one of the weakest metals used to forge anything, why not use the name of another metallic ore? It's a great idea no matter what I say about the name though. Though the ability to shrink predators I think is bad, ironically because we're talking about angels. Angels should be more powerful innately, not need to rely on a metal like that, its part of what makes them more mysterious I think. I mean you could say "easier" instead of being the "key" in their ability to shrink giant predators, or just scrap it altogether. Celestial Iron definitely has plenty of qualities no matter what.

In my thoughts, legendary weaponry is either very very good/strong at one particular thing, or it can do crap loads of everything. Though since you didn't say Celestial Iron was superdense, it seems that this legendary metal is of the latter. Really its all up to you in the end though, either way I still think it's a good idea.

edit: wait a sec. smelters and forges are made out of iron. celestial iron amplifies dimensional magic. maybe when refined a certain way using celestial iron, other materials can be given bizarre or new qualities?

First of all you can really come up with a lot of stuff. I'm almost envious. Anyway on to the ideas.

The seekers of paradise are a really interesting idea, their bizarre and outrageous appearance certainly fitting for felarya (though the defining differences between females and males seems somewhat arbitrary.) What I like best about them though is that it adds so many better opportunities to introduce off world characters to Felarya without it having to be a freak accident portal every time. It's extremely easy to picture a scenario such as a bird watcher wanting to get a picture of the never before seen creature only to be whisked away.

The Gusto Voles on the other hand seem fairly one dimensional compared to the seekers (pun unintended) but that isn't a problem. They're hardly anything important but that's what makes them so great in my opinion, they may hardly be anything other than a silly distraction but that fits the nature of fairies perfectly. Any stories set in the fairy kingdom is naturally going to involve fairies, which will probably gave lots of dialogue and minute details because of how social they are. The gusto voles lend themselves to that sort of background activity and side action in a perfect way it seems. Plus if that doesn't work you could try writing a story about a quest to find the perfect tasting vole.

The celestial iron... I think is taking the concept in a counter intuitive direction. Angels should already be both powerful and hardy against evil because they're holy divine beings. Celestial iron seems more like a surrogate angel suit, it makes sense that angelic ore would be reflective of angels abilities but they wouldn't have much use for it. Maybe if you turned it around and made it sought by demons protected by angels it would make more sense. Demons can use it to protect against the holy power of heaven and mount an attack. It's very easy to imagine a demon trying to corrupt a heaven bound soul to sneak them a bit of the angelic metal. The concept as is though gives you a way to strip angels of their angely-ness so there are plenty of opportunities whichever way you go.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

I'm all for heavenly materials, but why call it iron? Iron's one of the weakest metals used to forge anything, why not use the name of another metallic ore?

I call it iron because of the similarity with cold iron and as a shout out to meteoric iron. I really don't feel like invoking the polymorphism of steel, the hardness of nickel-cobalt, or the advanced charm of dispersion-strengthened alluminium alloys. Titanium and magnesium don't have anything to do here either.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

It's a great idea no matter what I say about the name though. Though the ability to shrink predators I think is bad, ironically because we're talking about angels. Angels should be more powerful innately, not need to rely on a metal like that, its part of what makes them more mysterious I think. I mean you could say "easier" instead of being the "key" in their ability to shrink giant predators, or just scrap it altogether. Celestial Iron definitely has plenty of qualities no matter what.

I didn't make this part up, actually. I just extended it to that the celestial iron does its thing to just about any manifestation of darkness, and works specially well with other dimensional magic that the wiki adjudicates to heavenly dwellers. Most of the examples I put up are just that, examples of its two key abilities: it one-ups darkness, and it enhances dimensional magic. Put 'em two together, and you get what a purifier can do to you.

the wiki; original text by either The Quantum Mechanic or gwadahunter22222 wrote:

A Purifier angel will relentlessly track and devour creatures with darkness in them, either by swallowing them whole if they are small enough, or by using her blade, imbued with her excessive positive energy, to shrink the target to a more manageable size.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

edit: wait a sec. smelters and forges are made out of iron. celestial iron amplifies dimensional magic. maybe when refined a certain way using celestial iron, other materials can be given bizarre or new qualities?

Nah. Best leave that to individual writers, I think; I envisioned this to be solely the province of ceiciels, not piledriver sheet metal fer heavy industry.

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Emerald Electronic wrote:

First of all you can really come up with a lot of stuff. I'm almost envious. Anyway on to the ideas.

No need to be envious. Coming up with stuff is just about all I do.

Emerald Electronic wrote:

The seekers of paradise are a really interesting idea, their bizarre and outrageous appearance certainly fitting for felarya (though the defining differences between females and males seems somewhat arbitrary.)

Not really arbitrary, actually- it's kinda toned down from the real bird of paradise. The boys are fabulous, the girls are modest.

Emerald Electronic wrote:

What I like best about them though is that it adds so many better opportunities to introduce off world characters to Felarya without it having to be a freak accident portal every time. It's extremely easy to picture a scenario such as a bird watcher wanting to get a picture of the never before seen creature only to be whisked away.

Kinda was aimin' for that. It creates opportunities, mebbe inspiration too.

Emerald Electronic wrote:

The Gusto Voles on the other hand seem fairly one dimensional compared to the seekers (pun unintended) but that isn't a problem. They're hardly anything important but that's what makes them so great in my opinion, they may hardly be anything other than a silly distraction but that fits the nature of fairies perfectly. Any stories set in the fairy kingdom is naturally going to involve fairies, which will probably gave lots of dialogue and minute details because of how social they are. The gusto voles lend themselves to that sort of background activity and side action in a perfect way it seems. Plus if that doesn't work you could try writing a story about a quest to find the perfect tasting vole.

Thanks.

Emerald Electronic wrote:

The celestial iron... I think is taking the concept in a counter intuitive direction. Angels should already be both powerful and hardy against evil because they're holy divine beings. Celestial iron seems more like a surrogate angel suit, it makes sense that angelic ore would be reflective of angels abilities but they wouldn't have much use for it. Maybe if you turned it around and made it sought by demons protected by angels it would make more sense. Demons can use it to protect against the holy power of heaven and mount an attack. It's very easy to imagine a demon trying to corrupt a heaven bound soul to sneak them a bit of the angelic metal. The concept as is though gives you a way to strip angels of their angely-ness so there are plenty of opportunities whichever way you go.

Actually, I devised celestial iron because we have silver succubi but we don't have any metal capable of fending that off. An angel in metal garb would be worse than naked against a silver succubus... which is kinda hot, in hindsight, but wanted to throw my hat into the ring anyway. Besides, we had the purifier angels too, I thought maybe their blades were special, and I thought maybe angels needed a little advantage of their own where it came to staying in Felarya. I mean, they ain't gonna go round eatin' people fer energy to stick around... are they?

I see what you mean now by the seekers of paradise. I think I said that in regards to a storytelling perspective, there doesn't seem to be anything to warrant a distinction because both genders look different but are the same. Realizing that they're birds of paradise shout outs it seems more sensible. However if the boys and girls are going to remain different maybe something could be done to differentiate them behaviour wise too so there's a reason to have them visually separable in the first place?

A defense against silver succubus makes a lot of sense as well, but I'm not sure why the rest of the effects would be there. Angels I would think have little need for magical protection being divine beings. Perhaps it bestows the user with the qualities of an angel? Then they would have both a defense against the silver succubi's and a more imperative reason to guard from the hands of mortals and demons. Whichever way you decide to take it though I don't see much use of it besides a get out of ferromancy free card, save for maybe a few uneducated wielders being unwittingly attacked by seemingly innocent beings.

Nice job on those ^_^

I really like the seeker of paradise . It's an original idea that fits well and take advantage of the nature of the world
I just wonder, according to you, what make the bird come back to Felarya anyway ? and also what zone are you meaning by the most dangerous one ? the green hell ?

The Gusto vole is a funny idea, I thought at first it was convenient but on second thoughts, on a crazy place like the fairy kingdom it's existence wouldn't be that surprising XD

I'm less convinced by the celestial iron though, I see it as a little too powerful ^^;

Hm, alright. I thought that they could do it innately, guess I was wrong. Apparently they need tools to do any kind of shrinking or growing magic, even doing it to themselves they cant really grow or shrink. Only a few can. I thought maybe that blade thing was a special case (because I thought it was a little unclear), but I was wrong. Honestly it kind of makes me feel like that that makes their dimensional abilities kind of a sham. Ah well, I guess Angels cant do everything XD

As for the smelter thing, well it'd just be a smelter I'd wager. Heavy industry already exists in heaven. It has to, they went to war with hell in Lydus for like 5,000 years! That's an insanely long time, considering we go bankrupt after a few years of war.