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Welcome! 03/05/2016
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Drasvin
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Posts posted by Drasvin
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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:I'm a little thrown off. First Susan executes bearded snake vampire in one shot and now she can't use a sword? She's owned one since before the second Goo incident too. Plus the whole "hammer Queen" thing.
She got the drop on the bearded snake vampire and stunned it with Nase, winning with a combination of luck and decent tactics. But looking at how she's standing after beheading the snake, it looks like she did a wide, heavy backhanded swing. Gives a good amount of momentum to the swing, letting it do a significant amount of harm if it connects (and it's really impressive and flashy looking), but it leaves her open (honestly, if she hadn't killed the bearded snake, she wouldn't be able to bring the sword around to guard before it did her serious harm) and can risk overextending, causing her to lose balance. With the Koala vampire, she attempted another wide, heavy swing. Unfortunately, that time she gave him too much time to recover from the stun, so she missed, overextended, and fell. The only scene of her fight against the French vampire was an overhead chop with an axe (To be fair, the vampire was on the ground in front of her, but an overhead swing is rather slow)
As for the "Hammer Queen," that might be why she's using the heavy swings like she is. She's more used to swinging a hammer, which lends itself very well to heavy swings. She's also more used to using them on people that are being offensive or insensitive, not actual combatants.
Taking all that into account, I wonder just what Susan hoped to accomplish with that sword in the Goo incident. Maybe she should invest in a warhammer or a sledgehammer.
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On 12/14/2017 at 9:31 AM, Tom Sewell said:That brings to mind, or at least to my mind, this question: Can Pandora show her Chaos form to anyone on the physical plane?
- We can't see or hear Immortals on the spirit plane.
- Immortals can see and here us from the spirit plane.
- Immortals have godlike powers on the spiritual plane.
- Immortals are weaker on the physical plane.
- Any one "of us" would have favored odds in a fight against an Immortal. "Us" would include at least Edward, Wolf, and Cranium. Perhaps even Lavender.
Dan wrote out those rules ten years ago, but concerning Pandora he seems to have held to them. From what Dan has shown us, within the Moperverse, Pandora's Chaos form has only been seen by two other beings: Magus and Jerry/Zeus, and always on the spiritual plane, and only when Pandora wanted them to see. The only direct attack Pandora has made was the one on Magus when he refused to make Edward kill Abraham.
That doesn't mean Pandora or any other Immortal can't attack a mortal on the material plane; there would be no need for those "only guide and empower" rules if they couldn't do anything else. Vampires apparently fall under the same protections, which is why I've been saying that what Voltaire may be playing for is to provoke Pandora into attacking a vampire directly--say, a vampire attacking her son.
Happily, those rules don't prohibit Pandora from tearing Voltaire to shreds, and her Chaos form would be just dandy for that.
She probably can use her Chaos form on the physical plane, as it's simply an extreme expression of her shapeshifting ability and she can do that on the physical plane, but then she would have to deal with physical plane things like bumping into objects, air pressure, and gravity (somewhat, as she can float, but the large, oddly-shaped, roiling form might make floating less balanced and more unwieldy in the presence of gravity)Also her Chaos form with rather frightening and monstrous looking, which isn't too helpful for the situations in which she's appeared on the physical plane.
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Susan likely hasn't had sword training (or any formal martial training for that matter) due to the pain of the trauma she experienced in France. As Scotty pointed out, Susan didn't even want to look at her spellbook after awakening due to the pain and memories. She probably kept the swords and other weapons as a "better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it" type of precaution, but actually seeking out someone to teach her how to fight would have been more than she would be comfortable with. She might have been hoping powerful abilities and innate human instinct to be enough. It doesn't take a lot of skill to use a sword, it just takes a lot of skill to use a sword well.
2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Which brings to my mind something that Voltaire said: He told Ashley at the mall that she could walk right through him. Why would he do that? I don't doubt it was for his own perverse pleasure, but there might have been more behind it. If Immortals are supposed to only empower and guide humans, maybe physically restraining Ashley would have made Voltaire break the law and force him to reset. Jerry/Zeus may be under that restriction, or at least think he might be.
While I agree that Immortals likely can't physically restrain humans, Voltaire might have also done that to try to psyche Ashley out for his own amusement and to slow her down.
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:Also, Raven decided to run towards the vampires without any weapons and without casting spells. What would he do if one would attack him before - or WHILE - he's talking with Susan?
He probably didn't bring his sword cane to the mall (He wasn't expecting to have to fight at the mall, much less to fight vampires), and while he certainly has more spells, the only offensive spell we've seen him cast is murder shroud, which would risk hitting Susan if he attacked the Koala Vampire with it.
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1 hour ago, partner555 said:16 hours ago, detrius said:Has anyone pointed out yet that it was really stupid of Sirleck to void these bonuses if the related objectives aren't met with 100% perfection? There's absolutely no reason for the muppets to work together now that one of them has been killed.
(At least no reason they'd consider valid.)
Self preservation against dangerous foes?
For self preservation, they might pull back and let the more gun-ho aberrations wear the hunters and target down. Or simply not care about the well-being of other aberrations to pay attention to when they need help, so they don't know the others are in trouble until the hunters have downed them..
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14 hours ago, hkmaly said:22 hours ago, ChronosCat said:However, this is assuming they had the technology for cell phones but didn't invent them because there was already an easily available magical equivalent. It's possible the presence of easily available magic stunted technological growth centuries ago, and they simply don't have the tech base to make cell phones despite not having a similarly convenient magical means of communication.
Communication is quite important area of research. If there would be considerable limits or problems in using magic for communication, there would be no reason to stun technological growth in the area. Unless, of course, the reason would basically be that magic users are trying to keep monopoly through preventing ANY research and are very successful in it.
Communication more sophisticated than courier mail typically needs a significant amount of infrastructure (Radio transmission can be done with little to no infrastructure, but it still needs a base station for a clear long range signal) that takes time and money to set up and can be vulnerable to attack. That said, such suppression would require multinational cooperation, because if any nation didn't cooperate with suppressing technological research, it could gain a significant upper-hand against the nations that did suppress their technology. And going by history, nations with a significant advantage towards their neighbors typically will seek to conquer and/or exploit their neighbors, which means the other nations that suppressed their technology would either have to abandon the magic users' monopoly or suffer on the receiving end of conquest/exploitation.
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Susan isn't in the mood to just let Mr. Koala run away.
5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:Mjolnir? o.o
I would think Mjolnir would be more than a simple stun hammer, though it would be quite stunning to get hit by it.
5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:5 hours ago, hkmaly said:So, the vampire with hidden face believes he can take Adrian alone?
He told Big Mouth he had magic. Apparently he thinks he has enough. Of course, he might not know he's taking on an elf wizard with at least three centuries of experience, trained by an Immortal mother for who knows how long.
I think Mr. Scarf is less focused on raw power than on skill and subterfuge. He made it sound like he doesn't have a lot of magic (and all the aberrations should have magic as they need magic to become an aberration) and was called weakling by Big Mouth. Mr. Scarf could be hiding his magical potential, but that feeds into the subterfuge angle.
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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:QuoteAnd soo much for the bonus for all aberrations surviving this.
Hmm, does that mean they can start turning on each other right away?
Yeah, though once they see the level of challenge they're up against (two capable hunters + another potential hunter + Immortal support) some of them might try to work together in some fashion just to survive (though they might try to backstab each other if doing so would increase their chances of survival)
29 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:41 minutes ago, Tuscahoma said:I noticed that. I figured it was part of her upgraded sword summons, the glowing one she unintentionally showed Ellen and Nanase, but then I started to wonder, is that a new spell or do spells upgrade and reveal new parts?
magic does seem willing to upgrade spells. Nanase's fairydoll spell did not start with its "fae punch" sub-spell but added it later.
I didn't have your reaction but I wouldn't want you to feel like "it's just you." in any bad way.
Nanase's fairydoll spell also upgraded so she can have different outfits.
And while I didn't have a reaction like that either, it's certainly a reasonable reaction.
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So, Susan's hair become a reservoir of magic. I wonder if the capacity of that reservoir is dependent on the length of her hair. That would give her a good, logical reason not to cut it.
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Based on their names, I am amused that Zeus is worried that Pandora is going to kill him. An example of the interesting oddities that can happen when entities take names from mythology without necessarily having the relative level of power of the namesake.
3 hours ago, partner555 said:Zeus!? He picked a name his past life made fun of!?
On the whole, I think this is the clearest it's been that the reincarnations are not the same people as their past lives.
I wanted to ignore it, I wanted for there to be something of Jerry left, but...
Zeus has the same basic nature as Jerry, but when we saw Jerry, he had a lifetime of experience to give him wisdom and shape his personality. The core of who Jerry is appears to be someone who loves to party and enjoy life (which we got a glimpse of with the story about the hammers). As for the name, it was a name that his past life was thinking about near his death. Emotional connections don't (normally) persist over the reset, but maybe the name ended up in Jerry's memoirs and the newly reborn immortal thought it sounded cool.
54 minutes ago, Scotty said:So I guess Susan's hair wasn't permanently made dark blue by her awakening? Is this the return of Vladia Hair?
Seems that Susan's hair is still blonde, it's just permanently dyed after her awakening, with the exception of the dye doing something fancy when Susan is about to face aberrations (or maybe it's linked to her emotions in some way? Though fighting aberrations is certainly going to bring up painful memories).
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1 hour ago, Scotty said:2 hours ago, Drasvin said:Possible, though really creepy. Though Sirleck only came to Mopeville because of Adrian, giving the impression that he was going to deal with the half-immortal personally (after his mercenaries wear him down that is.)
It makes sense though, if Sirleck wants to possess Magus, he'd have to be close enough to make the jump when Magus got a physical body again, so Sirleck possesses Ellen, zaps Elliot which allows Magus to possess him, then the two of them go to the Diamond together.
Makes sense, but it raises the question of what was planned if Sirleck hadn't found out about Adrian.
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22 minutes ago, Scotty said:6 hours ago, WR...S said:I imagine she just thinks she's pulling a prank (and probably will parrot some variant of "safety first"). But considering all the various beasties who have been clamoring for this moment for whatever reason...
4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Where's Nanase? Remember, Elliot has the car; the plan was for Elliot to drop off Ellen while Nanase drove her family's PT Cruiser to join Ellen.
Ok, so while we didn't see it happen, it's quite possible that Sirleck had jumped from the butler to Francine the janitor, then followed Ellen into the bathroom at school and jumped to her there, leaving Francine unconscious (but alive so there's hope for Ellen to survive this). Ellen, under possession of Sirleck lies to Nanase about the "inhuman voyeur at the college", Nanase is currently waiting for Ellen to get dropped off, but I'm betting Elliot hadn't seen Ellen since the morning so has no clue that he should be driving Ellen anywhere, he might have even assumed that Ellen went straight to Nanase's after school or something.
Possible, though really creepy. Though Sirleck only came to Mopeville because of Adrian, giving the impression that he was going to deal with the half-immortal personally (after his mercenaries wear him down that is.)
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53 minutes ago, mlooney said:1 hour ago, Drasvin said:depending on how the sentience/sapience is designed/taught and what kind of game it is, I think it could make for a good game.
As a game designer for table top games that explicitly have a human referee / Game Master, I'm just going to say that have player rules lawyers is bad enough, much less with the game it self being in the loop.
True, though ideally a sentient table top game would function as it's own Game Master (or a Game Master's assistant if it's not advanced enough to run itself).
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2 hours ago, Scotty said:2 hours ago, Drasvin said:That could run into issues during play, with players picking up pieces to move them, the board or surface the board is sitting on getting knocked around by accident, dice knocking over pieces, pets jumping onto the board and knocking pieces about, someone getting angry enough to literally flip the table/board when the other players wish to continue playing, and probably more situations I can't think of at the moment. The game needs to be able to reliably determine when a player wishes to leave the game without mistaking other actions or accidents, and the way to leave needs to be simple, so that a player that has been pushed too far out of their comfort zone can leave the game quickly and easily. If the game mistakes another action as intent to leave the game, then that ruins fun by dropping out players for playing in a way that the game didn't expect. If the way to leave the game is too complex, then it would very likely run into the same issues as the game being unreliable at detecting intent to leave. Ideally, leaving the game should be as simple as getting up and walking away from the game board (or declare you don't want to play anymore), though if the game doesn't have some degree of sentience, then leaving to get a snack or use the restroom would count as dropping out (and if you could leave by stating intent, you could run into issues of the game having trouble parsing the statement correctly)
There probably needs to be intent on leaving when removing a piece, so that accidental removal doesn't count, also it there could be a time limit for how long a piece if off the board, because contact between the piece and the board wouldn't be broken for long when moving the piece from space to space (players could also slide the pieces along to maintain contact). Also like I said before, it'd be conditional, like when leaving the game it's not just taking the piece off the board, but letting it go with the intent of not playing anymore, this would have the added bonus of if 1 person had to quit (for whatever reason), the other players could continue without having to restart.
Reading intent could potentially run into parsing troubles as well, especially if the player needs to leave for a reason unrelated to the game itself, as the player's thoughts might not be clear enough on leaving the game, leading to parsing error. A time limit might work, but induces a delay on deciding to leave the game and the leaving taking affect (it also imposes a time limit on fixing mistakes if the board gets bumped or a cat decides to board looks like a good place for a nap). And while sliding the game pieces is a possible rule, it's simply a work around that doesn't add much depth to the game and can still result in unwanted mistakes if a player that typically picks up game pieces to move them forgets about the rule and tries to move their piece in a comfortable manner. Ultimately it would depend on which is the simplest, least costly to implement, and best of the enjoyment of the players, a dense complicated set of conditionals to catch variation, or a sentience that is designed/trained to value player enjoyment and wellbeing. And since magic is a big part of this, I'm not sure which one would have the better balance of those traits.
1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:How about if, at the beginning of your turn, your piece is in the box rather than on the board? Or if you personally put your piece in the box? And the game is necessarily over if the board is returned to the box?
(There isn't a box visible in any of the strips to date; I'm assuming it's there, just off camera or hidden behind someone. Or, perhaps, ANY box will do, as long as it's too small to contain the players.)
Hmm...maybe. My concern there is cases where the player needs to leave immediately and doesn't think to put their piece in the box. It might be an edge case, but in a game largely about pushing consenting adults out of their comfort zones in fun and enjoyable ways(it's a game about transformation that is inspired by anime, which typically uses such mechanics to push people out of comfort zones and foster character growth and/or set up some comedy), edge cases not being accounted for can lead to bad feelings.
1 hour ago, mlooney said:As a game designer, let me just say that sentient isn't something you look for in a good game.
Depending on how the sentience/sapience is designed/taught and what kind of game it is, I think it could make for a good game. In a game with large variable input, like games dependent on text parsers, it could help prevent frustrations (like the "you can't get ye flask" problem that I linked about earlier) and maybe even allow for deeper, richer gameplay. In games that are largely systematic with limited, concise inputs, a sentience/sapience would be rather excessive (maybe if one wanted the ultimate multiplayer bot AI?) Though the developer of a sentient/sapient game would need to make sure it's values aren't destructive (or counter enough to the player/people that it becomes destructive) and that it can't extend it's influence beyond the game.
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1 hour ago, Scotty said:Hanma's game doesn't need to be sentient, it's could be enchanted with conditionals, each card probably has specific enchantments that activate when placed down, and considering the pieces look like the players, there might be a link between the piece and player in much the same manner as when Rhoda and Catalina had their enchantments linked. The pieces could also be linked to the board as well so that when the player(s) want to stop playing, they just remove their piece from the board and that undoes all the enchantments on them.
I should add that in the case of the current game, it appears that Hanma probably set up the board for the players, which would have linked them all simultaneously, but I would imagine that in other instances where Hanma wouldn't be around, each player would play their own piece in order to link themselves to the game.
That could run into issues during play, with players picking up pieces to move them, the board or surface the board is sitting on getting knocked around by accident, dice knocking over pieces, pets jumping onto the board and knocking pieces about, someone getting angry enough to literally flip the table/board when the other players wish to continue playing, and probably more situations I can't think of at the moment. The game needs to be able to reliably determine when a player wishes to leave the game without mistaking other actions or accidents, and the way to leave needs to be simple, so that a player that has been pushed too far out of their comfort zone can leave the game quickly and easily. If the game mistakes another action as intent to leave the game, then that ruins fun by dropping out players for playing in a way that the game didn't expect. If the way to leave the game is too complex, then it would very likely run into the same issues as the game being unreliable at detecting intent to leave. Ideally, leaving the game should be as simple as getting up and walking away from the game board (or declare you don't want to play anymore), though if the game doesn't have some degree of sentience, then leaving to get a snack or use the restroom would count as dropping out (and if you could leave by stating intent, you could run into issues of the game having trouble parsing the statement correctly)
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10 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Shouldn't the distraction be somewhere else besides where the main target is?
How much of this master plan does Magus know? There hasn't been any evidence that Magus even knew Adrian was Pandora's son before she told him Abraham hurt her son. The distraction, yes, that sounds like it might get Ellen and Elliot together to get Ellen to zap Elliot instead of Tedd, a vampire, whatever. (Tony would be nice.) But if the vampires attack Susan, not only Adrian but everyone is likely to come converge on the mall at maximum speed.
While the attack is likely to bring Ellen and Elliot and most of the rest of the main cast to the site of the attack, that would only be once they hear about it. Adrian, Susan, and Diane are likely going to be too busy fighting and trying to survive to get word directly to the rest of the group. On top of that, Elliot and Ellen both have a bad history of not checking messages until after the fact. Though once they hear about the attack, Ellen and Elliot's transit time to the attack site is likely to be much more than Helena and Demetrius's transit time, giving Magus his window of opportunity. He just has to make sure they don't take separate transportation to the attack site. And hearing that one of their friends is in the middle of the attack could actually help Magus, as it would cause emotions to run high, giving him more to work with.
10 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Remember, the vampires don't get any bonus for killing Slayers, just not losing the bonus for not killing anyone except Adrian Raven.
Yeah, but vampires already have a high incentive to kill Slayers, given that Slayers are the most capable at killing vampires.
7 hours ago, hkmaly said:10 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:And I don't see any reason for Voltaire to have set up Pandora's son. Tedd knows Raven is his godfather, but he doesn't remember him at all.
Voltaire seem to hate Pandora. Also, he might count on her doing something which would bring magic reset if Adrian is hurt.
I wonder if Voltaire is manipulating the attack to try to throw Pandora of his trail. If Adrian is attacked (or worse, killed), then Pandora will freak out and go hunting for whoever caused it, with the obvious trail leading to Sirleck and Magus. She might be able to follow the trail to the detective, as Voltaire impersonated him to give Sirleck the information about Adrian, assuming either Sirleck or Magus is alive to question. She could then question the detective and learn about Voltaire, but that would take time and again requires nothing to have happened to the detective.
50 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:Adrian is very powerful, but he was still defeated by Abraham, who isn't an Immortal or an aberration. If vampires surprise him, it's much more likely he could be killed.
Adrian lost to Abraham when he let his guard down slightly to do the moral thing and let Abraham have a chance to surrender. He would know that aberrations are irredeemable and he shouldn't hold back, except maybe to conserve strength for an extended battle. He'll likely need help surviving the initial engagement, but he should be fine against the aberrations if he can get past that. And setting up a scenario that gives him a few moments of forewarning, without having giving him information that the audience hasn't seen him receive, wouldn't be hard. For instance, the aberrations could decide to try to eliminate Susan and Diane first, since hunters are a more significant threat, at least psychologically. Or maybe one of the less careful vampires does something that gives the game away. On top of that, the vampires might not coordinate well, as Sirleck needed to add a strict monetary incentive to try to get them to work together. And once one vampire dies, that incentive to work together goes away, so their going to lose most to all of whatever group cohesion they have.
And I doubt we have to worry about Voltaire stepping in to kill Adrian personally. Too risky. Adrian might get a lucky hit in and cause him serious injury or he might draw Pandora's immediate attention, which would go very poorly for him.
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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:I sense a "No, you cannot do this! I am your MASTER!" somewhere in the near future.
I wonder if Hanma is genre savvy enough to know that uttering such a sentence typically leads to one's sudden demise at the hands of their creation.
9 hours ago, PrimordialSoul253 said:Never endow a board game with magical sentience.
Magical sentience can make for interesting NPC interaction in the game. Need to be careful with the values and ethics instilled into such a sentience, but if done properly it can enrich the game. Probably excessive on a game without NPCs though.
EDIT: I just realized that Hanma's game might need some form of sentience to reliably determine when a player wishes to leave the game, so it can undo the transformations and let the player go on their way. Otherwise you risk running into "You can't get ye flask"(Warning: Tvtropes link) type situations.
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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:Vampires. Ok, can't say I didn't expected them, but isn't this too early? Also, nice reuse of character. Now we KNOW he's not saving any kangaroos. And finally, he must be good in camouflage, as he apparently was walking towards Adrian last time we saw him. On second though, Adrian is primary target: he likely knows exactly where he is and is observing him, noticing Susan and Diane was just lucky bonus.
Hmmm ... did he noticed them talking with Adrian? Will he try to use Susan as hostage? Or, if he's clever, Diane?
It's a good idea to recon the area and get a good idea about angles of attack (and escape, if things go pear-shaped) before the actual attack starts. While some vampires might relish the opportunity to cut loose and rampage, most are going to look for ways to maximize their chances of survival(at least as much as their ego and arrogance will allow). And camouflage wouldn't necessarily be needed beyond a human form. Adrian has to use effort to detect magic while in his aged form.
I doubt he would try to use Susan or Diane as hostages. He sensed that they have the talent to summon magic weapons. Better to just kill them than hold them close where they have the best shot at harming him. If he uses one or more hostages, then random mall civilians would be the better option (Though I'm not sure if using hostages would occur to the average vampire. Sirleck had trouble understanding Magus's empathy-based reasoning behind feeling responsible for those that the mercenaries kill during the operation. Most vampires probably would not readily understand others being reluctant to attack through hostages)
58 minutes ago, Scotty said:I did not see kangaroo guy being an abberation. Though in hindsight I guess it makes sense that those that would scam people out of money would be like vampires right?
If one doesn't have a lot of empathy to begin with, then losing empathy isn't that big of a cost. Does first require Awakening, which just means being lucky and/or determined enough to stumble over a path to power.
19 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:What's Scarf waiting for? More slayers? Scarf was obviously the smart one in his previous appearance and this looks to me like maybe the best chance to catch the half-immortal alone and by surprise.
He's likely waiting for the signal. The job isn't to just kill the half-immortal, but to also make a lot of noise and destruction. A smart individual would likely realize that they're a distraction for something else (if it wasn't spelled out in their contract, which I doubt it was) If Scarf attacks before the signal, he risks invalidating the contract. Sirleck wants an attention-drawing riot, not a quiet assassination.
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On 10/29/2017 at 9:56 PM, hkmaly said:This is closely related to the "how it's possible that there are still people without magical talent left" AKA "failure to understand exponential" problem.
However, it is possible that just the stronger affinity can surface.
Depending on how inheriting magical talents and wizardry works, whether by genetics or by some nebulous magical bloodline thing, it might be able to avoid the problem.
If by genetics, then the talents/wizardry could be dependent on long-ish sequences that can be shut off if not all of the relevant genes in the sequence are passed on. For a simple example, being a wizard requires have the sequence A_B_C_D_ (Just assuming the 'wizardry on' genes are dominant for simplicity), and a child's parents have AaBbCcDd and aabbccdd, the child could end up with the sequence AabbccDd and no wizardry as a result. Applying the exponential to this, it's certainly possible for many people to have pieces of the sequence, but lack enough of the sequence to actually express wizardry (I'm not sure how probable such a scenario is, as figuring that out would require determining both the length of the sequence.
If by nebulous magical bloodline, in many fantasy stories, the potency of a magical bloodline decreases as more non-magical bloodlines are added, until the point that the magic is diluted out of the bloodline after many generations. So that even if Genghis Khan had a magical talent, most modern people descended from him wouldn't have such a talent due to the magic being diluted out of their lineage. Though that would raise the question of how many generations does it take to make a magical bloodline irrelevant.
On 10/29/2017 at 11:44 PM, Scotty said:On 10/29/2017 at 9:56 PM, hkmaly said:No it wouldn't. Humans can't develop in egg. They need to spend several months in womb, consuming nutrients and oxygen from mother. It could be genetically 100% human but it would still be seyunolu.
Also, it's quite likely that if you take DNA from say african person and european person, the child would be able to shapeshift between those two forms. Using, obviously, uryuom power.
They're Lesser Seyunolu, sure, but they wouldn't have Uryuom DNA so how would they have Uryuom Power? It's possible that the reason Hedge and Guineas could morph was because they had DNA from 2 species that would normally be incompatible with each other, but the egg compensated somehow to make it work. If the DNA was from 2 or more compatible sources, the egg wouldn't likely need to do any extra work.
Also the egg may function much like a womb, maybe nutrients need to be injected on a regular basis for several months before it hatches.
If uryuoum eggs are anything like most eggs on earth, they're packed with nutrients and stuff for the baby creature to grow and be born.(That's what the yolk of the egg is. It's embryo food!) The only question how to get the nutrients into the growing embryo. The uryuom egg might alter the embryo (or more simply force it develop in given manner) to ensure it can receive nutrients from the egg.
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1 hour ago, Scotty said:Not sure how that explains how Noah could penetrate the barrier. No, there's no force field that actually blocks stuff, but the intense heat would prevent most from getting to Dex. Sure if Noah had the ability to resist fire or cancel the effect altogether then certainly, but we don't have anything to suggest he has that.
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:I imagine he would be incinerated.
I probably should have been more clear. I figured he could get through the barrier, but unless he has a magical source of fire resistance, he would be incinerated, or at least very badly burned. Assuming he didn't try some kind of ranged attack, which I would hope Adrian taught him some sort of ranged technique. Those come in handy when you can't get close to your target.
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:He could get him TF Gun as well, if it only occurred to him Edward has one. Well, he would also need to ask Edward for it, which might be hit to his pride, but I think Edward would lend it to him.
Adrian and Edward aren't exactly on speaking terms. Also the TF Gun isn't Edward's. It belongs to Tedd. Sure, Edward would able to ask Tedd if Adrian could borrow it for a bit, but before the events of the comic, I'm not sure Tedd would have been comfortable letting someone he barely knows borrow the TFG.
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:2 hours ago, Scotty said:I don't believe Adrian would have had access to a CMD either, he was doesn't have any connections to the Paranormal Division since he and Edward couldn't have been on speaking terms when Adrian adopted Noah.
Well they WERE able to speak when it mattered. However it's likely true Edward was Adrian's only connection in DGB - otherwise he would contact his other contact and not Edward.
There are likely formal ways to contact the Paranormal Division, other than going through personal contacts. Adrian mentioned he didn't want to speak with Arthur about the boar incident. Possibly, the head of the Paranormal Division handles the formal requests and inquiries, likely for security reasons (Edward knows about extraterrestrials and even has a Uryuom secretary, but his two top agents aren't in the know)
40 minutes ago, hkmaly said:Also, I'm not sure what you want to ask. The "Can Noah transform to Uryuom form" question is going to be labeled spoiler just like "Is Noah greater chimera", which it's obviously something which is supposed to be revealed later. Not that it wouldn't be good question, I'm just afraid we would need to wait for the reveal and then ask for details.
"Can a greater chimera assume a uryuom form without the use of a CMD?"
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18 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:19 hours ago, hkmaly said:Nanase can fly without problems if she doesn't do guardian form
Where's the proof for that? She can float and move slowly. She did not fly when she was fighting Vlad, who was flying.
Fox was flying when fighting against Abraham (starting here). Fox is a 'decoy' summon that can use any magic that Nanase can (assuming Fox has enough energy remaining), and Nanase didn't mention Fox having any additional abilities that she doesn't have(I figure that would have been worth mentioning as she was showing off her new spells to Ellen).
5 hours ago, Scotty said:I don't think he would have been able to penetrate the flame barrier to knock out Dex like Grace was able to.
I imagine he probably could have penetrated the flame barrier. Based on Greg sticking his finger into it, I don't think the barrier projected any force, it just contained enough heat to incinerate just about anything that tried to enter it. Grace was able to withstand that because her fur is fireproof, which was a quality she was specifically engineered with (Because she was made to fight the 'Lord of Fire') instead of being a result of her Uryuom Power.
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:13 hours ago, Scotty said:I still say that Noah was able to learn magic easier than Grace could because he'd never developed his Uryuom Power so he never had to suppress the urge to use it by default when trying to use magic. Grace had been using her Uryuom Power for a while and so trying to use magic to say, shapeshift, would be harder to accomplish because she would constantly try to default to Uryuom Power to do that. She'd probably need a spell that she couldn't do with Uryuom Power, but the chances of her getting one might not be as likely.
Yes, that may be the issue as well - Grace trained her Uryuom power, Noah possibly started training Earth magic before Uryuom power.
(Still, it's possible his flight is Uryuom power.)
On top of that, I'm not sure what Noah could get out of his Uryuom power without a CMD. It has been hinted at that Uryuom have some shapeshifting abilities without a CMD, but it hasn't been elaborated on how much. And Noah is a chimera, which have flawed transformation abilities until corrected by use of a CMD. Adrian might be able to get a CMD for Noah if Noah really wanted one (though not one with as extensive abilities as the TFG, due to Uryuom laws that makes getting one like that tricky), but Adrian has much greater access to magical knowledge and resources.
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3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Noah can't be uryuom since he uses human magic. Still, he seems in many ways to be the Moperville analog of Archie from Ellen's Second Life.
And while we're on the subject of Noah, wouldn't it be natural for Noah to be at the mall, maybe helping out Raven? Susan hasn't met Noah yet. Or Melissa, though of course Susan has heard a lot about Melissa from Justin.
Individuals of uryuom decent can use human magic as long as they also have some human heritage. I doubt Noah would have much Uryuom power, and he definitely had the incentive to become stronger (and someone to teach him how to get stronger)
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This game seems really interesting. Simple, easy to learn, and the transformations provide an enticing gimmick. I wonder how fun the game would be to play IRL, as real life lacks the easy magical transformations that would drive a lot of the zaniness. Probably depends on the group that it's played with and how imaginative and/or good at acting 'in-character' they are.
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8 hours ago, partner555 said:At this point, I have to wonder, is there a truly straight person among the teenagers?
People are complicated. The human brain desires categorization and labels as it simplifies data processing, which in a survival situation can improve the odds of surviving, but the more one tries to fit people into categories, the more outliers become apparent. So to properly and fairly categorize the outliers, one would either need to blur the lines of the categories or create new categories to place the outliers into, both options reduce the effectiveness of the categories as processing shortcuts. And that's even before one gets into the complexities that come with dealing with transformations and other aspects of magic and/or super-science that one finds in EGS.
If transformations and such weren't a factor, Elliot probably would fit in the straight category, but then again, maybe not going by this page (He certainly wouldn't have had that revelation without transformations though, given he's adverse to introspection). Though he probably is the closest to straight out of the main cast. There are possibly straight people in the secondary cast, but there is insufficient data to be certain. My best guesses would be Melissa is straight. Noah might be as well, though there's also the possibility that he has more of a Uryuom style attraction, like Grace does.
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38 minutes ago, Scotty said:Considering what she knows about the day of Abraham's attack, she likely changed her mind about it. There's no indication that she knew beforehand that Nanase had developed magical skills.
Wait... maybe there is? Mama Kistune did seem kinda lenient about Nanase being out the weekend of Painted Black without checking in with her. I guess it would make sense that Edward would be truthful with Mama Kitsune. They probably agreed together to just let Nanase develop her magic naturally rather than try to push her in a certain direction. Maybe Adrian knows this as well and it trying to be respectful of their wishes since he still regrets how things turned out with Noriko?
Mama Kitsune is a lot more knowledgeable and observant than she lets on and Nanase hasn't exactly been the most discreet with her powers. She tried to hide them from her mother, but she did stuff like float around school. If Mama Kitsune has any connections at the school that she keeps up with, then she might have known pretty early that Nanase was Awakened.
And while Mrs. Kitsune might hate Adrian, he is an excellent teacher, well versed in history, magic, and combat. Mama Kitsune certainly wants the best for her daughter. Between the ASMA, going to the school that Mr. Raven teaches at, and their family heritage, I think Mrs. Kitsune likely expected Nanase to Awaken at some point and wanted to make sure she was as prepared for it as feasible.
Story Friday December 15, 2017
in Comic Discussion
Posted
Even if a stab to a vital organ isn't fatal for an aberration, I imagine it would be unpleasant. A stab to the lung would make breathing more difficult, a stab to the stomach would make digesting things problematic. The problem with stabbing aberrations is that they might not necessarily have the same internal organs any more. For instance, I'm not sure Sirleck would have functional lungs. Aberrations sustain themselves on life energies so might not need those organs for their life sustaining reasons, though that would certainly vary from vampire to vampire.