The Old Hack

This all reminds me of this particular Freefall strip.

@Cpt. Obvious: Very well explained. Thank you. I have long considered making some sort of document that might be helpful for newcomers or people trying to understand indentity issues on these forums. This might be a good piece to include, if I can just get off my lazy behind and plan how to go about it. If you do not mind and would be kind enough to give permission, I would like to make this part of it.

Oh Lord. My sincerest condolences.

It's a question of class. One of them has it. The other doesn't. As far as acting goes, Norris is a vacuum.

Esports maybe. Probably pioneered by Twilight Sparkle.

So far so good then. In mildly related news, I have rediscovered that 1) my medication works a good deal better when I actually take it and 2) when I forget to take it, it will occasionally trigger intense headaches. Owww.

For that matter, why not simply have certain competitions be without gender categories? Like Sports Ballet Hippopotamus Evasion or Tightwire Crocodile Baiting.

Also possible. But that wouldn't have been so funny as a potential panic-inducing scenario for our seers. That is probably a really smart move. Fortunately they face stiff competition from Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow.

Well, it was mostly just trying for humour, not positing a realistic scenario for EGS. There is also the tectonical problem of where this lost continent might be sited. Of course El Goonish Earth might differ from ours but on our earth at least I don't think there is room for any Atlantis on the tectonic map. I also made the rather large assumption that magic strong enough to keep a continent from sinking (even if massively powerful) would also be powerful enough to raise it again after it had sunk. That is by no means a given, particularly if its primary function was as a stopgap. For example, a boat is kept afloat by plugging a hole in its side. If the plug is then removed and the boat sinks, just returning the plug to its place won't really be enough to restore buoyancy. Certainly. Try to explain that to the eager would-be wizards, mind you. Every single one. There is always another optimist. True enough, but the timing is still there... and the mind boggles at the concept. Or mine does, anyway.

Me too! Here's hoping!

Actually the entire spell switching him back and forth from human to statue might fail, leaving him human and unable to return to hibernation. But as you said, the diamond would fail, too. ...I just had a thought. What if they are storing old devices in the storage unit that has the diamond? Devices that no longer worked... but just got returned to operation mere minutes before Magus and Sirleck will arrive?

*readies storm bolter* THE HIGHEST HONOUR IS TO DIE IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR!

She says as much. She just doesn't want to risk it.

Kind of like greyhounds. I've seen video of a running greyhound. They are amazing, beautiful creatures. An online friend of mine owns one and it can run much faster backwards than she can run facing forward. It loves being chased but has to give the silly slow two-legs a big advantage for it to be fun.

Entirely so, but I think it is equally possible that it was because the genetic manipulation done by the company was so bungled that it damaged Vlad's natural shapeshifting abilities. (This is my preferred headcanon but it is based on nothing else than my own story conceptions, so please feel free to ignore it.)

I am not precisely stunned, no.

Or loosens their clothes.

I understand Chuck Norris prefers snakes.

I thought it was the job of the regular Wiki posters to do that.

Very good point. Note to all forumgoers here: no matter what you do, do NOT buy Samsung Galaxy S7 transformation wands.

This one is already in TVTropes. It is called 'Cursed with Awesome.'

Magic's weak spot is understanding individuals. People in general would stop using magic. Individual ambitious would-be wizards would continue like no tomorrow. They would likely also die in droves but there would always follow more to replace them. Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East series and many of the following books are all excellent. I once ran a roleplaying game with this as a premise. The idea was that the players were supposed to stop and reverse the process before it became permanent. There was a neighbouring dimension with a world much like ours and due to an overlap the world barriers became porous. Close to the rifts forming as a result the two different sets of laws clashed. Magic stopped working in the magic world and science stopped working in ours. Worse, magical phenomenae got loose in our world. The good thing, from the POV of the players, was that the science stuff they brought along while exploring the magic world worked over there. The players won in the end though it was a tight race. I have always been a bit sorry that we never got a chance to play out the aftermath. So many people had died and so much damage had been done that much of Denmark had turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. (Thankfully for the rest of the world, the effects had not yet spread outside Denmark's borders by the time the players successfully fixed things.) It would have been really interesting to play a game where the players were part of a reconstruction effort and had to deal with lingering effects. For example, one idea I had was that magic still worked in certain areas. My best memory from the game was when the players were chased by a huge horde of zombies. This happened to be in the city of Aalborg which we lived in at the time. There was this plaza where you could always be sure to find hundreds of bicycles parked. Bicycles still worked so my players quickly stole some and left the zombies in the dust. They turned a corner and gave a sigh of relief. Moments later, they had a huge OH SHIT moment as they saw a massive mob of zombies all on bicycles turning the corner in rapid pursuit. (We made SO MANY bad jokes about that, by the way. This happened to be while Tour de France was going on and the pursuing mob instantly got named Tour du Mort. The leading zombie was of course wearing a yellow shirt and the players argued about whether being undead counted as a form of doping... it went on and on.)

I look at stuff the majority of voters want here in Denmark, then I look at our government, and then optimism crawls off to die.

I suspect they would quickly be outlawed. Because, you know, they would be harmful to the children. Sigh.

I admit that I can't get that bit about ancient magical devices and wands beginning to work again out of my mind. That one alone has endless story potential. "So, Will? Would there be any immediate effects of old magical devices beginning to work again we should be concerned about?" "Hmm. The Animated Chess Pieces of Shuma-Gorath would come alive again and follow instructions. That might upset the people in British Museum a little." "That doesn't sound so bad." "Oh, and the Pillars of Infinity that once kept Atlantis from sinking will regain their potency and make it emerge from the ocean anew." "Okay, that is a bit more concerning." "Of course, its re-emergence will cause tidal waves and the oceans to rise one and a half meters, and the Stygian Basin in the middle of the continent will somewhat lower your planetary albedo with a resulting world average temperature increase of approximately three fifths of a degree celsius." "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Gotta keep your priorities straight.