*cackles* They said it couldn't be done... but I FUCKING DID IT. WITH A LASER WELDER!!! Take that you old fashion loonies! Pic of my masterpiece to follow... in the meantime.

---

Alignment. I've been thinking a bit about it.

The classic alignment axes are Good vs Evil and Law vs Chaos.

Around the start of this RP, it was commented by some (notably Vulamera) about the arbitrariness and limitations of that system.

Also around the start of this RP, we observed that a very clear line was drawn between Order and Chaos. Good and Evil were largely ignored, mainly because in such a fresh World there was no fixed moral code to properly define Good and Evil. But Order and Chaos were very distinct and also at odds since before the creation of the Universe. (In this scenario, Law is equivalent to Order)

As the RP progressed, Good and Evil started to become more apparent, but there was still plenty of grey area, and the main conflict still existed between Order and Chaos.

However, I have observed the emergence of a third, independent axis; how our characters relate to mortals (call it Divine vs Mortal for now, although I'm sure a better name can be devised). This axis is especially important in a god roleplay like Divinus. Someone on the Divine end of the spectrum is aloof or cavalier, caring little for the fate or concerns of the mortals beneath them. Someone on the Mortal end is deeply concerned with mortal affairs.

A notable clash of Mortal vs Divine I remember is the encounter between Logos and Teknall. Despite both being on the side of Order, they found their positions irreconcilable due to opposing opinions on mortals.

It was commented a while back in the OOC about what gods wore clothes and what gods didn't. Dawnscroll made the observation that clothes are very much a mortal thing, with those dealing solely in the divine not needing clothes. As such, we can observe a loose correlation between whether or not a god wears clothes and where they fit on the Mortal vs Divine axis. Of course, there are some exceptions (Toun is always described as wearing a porcelain robe (which is technically part of his body, but let's ignore that), but the symbology there better fits the covering of flaws than any relation to mortals), but it tends to be true.

And while I have asserted that the Divine vs Mortal axis is independent, there are correlations. Characters described as Good tend to fit in Mortal, while characters described as Evil tend to fit in Divine. This wouldn't be a huge coincidence, as Good in general means you help others while Evil means you are self-serving with no care for others. In this case, Mortal vs Divine would be best for separating out feelings towards mortals from feelings towards other gods. Toun's current alignment is described as Lawful Evil. But towards the other gods, he has deep (albeit hidden) feelings of compassion. One might tentatively reclassify Toun as Lawful Divine Good. His intentions are Good, but lesser beings (i.e. mortals) are beneath his compassion. (The classification is not perfect, of course, but you can't really hope to fully encapsulate the morality of a complex entity in two or three words.)

The Mortal vs Divine distinction is also quite useful for distinguishing the different shades of Neutral, and we have a lot of Neutral characters. These Neutral characters tend fall into that category either because they are indifferent (thus, fits in Divine) or because their interactions with mortals are on average neither good or bad (for those who fit in Mortal).

tl;dr, I have observed the existence of a third alignment axis: Mortal vs Divine.

I agree with the sentiment, especially as far as Logos and Teknall are concerned, but also disagree simply because that's too 'general' of a statement, especially in the "LN, CN, CG, etc." route. I believe its also not one's intention, but also to the degree of which they've intervened and made themselves known.

Let's use LOTR as an example. Sauruman, Gandalf, and Radagast are all maiar of the valar, and thus 'Good'. But they have varying levels of interaction with Middle Earth in their attempts to save it.

Sauruman invests himself with the big picture; it is the nations and joint efforts that matter and can, or fail to, defeat Sauron. It is colossal actions and 'the game of thrones' as it were that matter... the plans of the enemy, their movements, their strategem. His plans and schemes and outlook are grand in scale, for in his mind, severity can only match severity. He watches from the Tower of Orthanc and stares into the Palantir, separate and distant from the world. When Sauron builds an army that will wipe the world of men, Sauruman builds his own, enters a temporary peace agreement, but ultimately seeks to ursurp his new master. To him, "What is the fate of Rohan in comparison to the fate of all of middle earth?"

Gandalf sees the value of an individual. Whereas Sauruman would dismiss the notion that one man (or hobbit) could make the difference, Gandalf feels they can change anything. He walks among the nations as a man. He eats with people, breaks bread with them, bleeds with them. He personally rallies and leads the defense of Gondor on the walls, instead of delegating. He gives himself against the fight of the Balrog so the rest of the party can escape. He believes that the individual can alter the course of the war. It is Aragon, heir of Isildur, who will sit upon the throne of Gondor. It is the courage of Frodo that will carry the ring up the slopes of Mount Doom. It is his faith that Theoden will answer the call for aid when the beacons of Gondor are lit. It puts an astonishing degree of faith into the individual. To him, "The smallest of us can make the greatest of changes."

Radagast has scoped himself down even smaller. He has wholly immersed himself into the world of Middle Earth, more than his brethren. Saruman sees the grand scale, Gandalf sees individuals, Radagast is the microscale. To him, very bird, leaf, mouse, and tree is as precious and irreplaceable as an elf, man or dwarf. He is the first to feel the rot affecting Mirkwood. "All matters, so any action must be for the benefit of all."

But he CAN'T see the 'Big' picture, so immersed as he is in the world, and Saruman can't see the details, so immersed as he is in the greater events. Gandalf, arguably, is even more screwed, being unable to see the greater machinations, or feel the underrunning pulse of the land. Rather, all he can do is run from place to place to place, doing damage control.

So yeah, there's definitely a Divinity vs Mortality thing. But how can more define this?

Is Logos the more mortal of the gods, for having created humans himself, and by acknowledging his LACK of mortality and his love for his creatures, stepped back to allow them to grow unhindered? Is he more Divine because he sees himself as above even all of the other gods, and made the argument "If I kill one village with Jvan corruption, I can save ten. Kill ten, save a hundred."

Is Teknall more divine because he keeps himself at a distance from his chosen, and acts through the Chippers as opposed to teaching them himself, so above them. Is he more mortal because he saw the 'Big Picture' and cared for the destruction on an individual level?

Is Vestec the most mortal for how much he utterly fucks with them on a daily basis, so intrigued by the nuances of their lives? Is Ullyang more divine because... well, he's a star. Is Jvan [redacted] because [redacted]?

This is why I hate alignment scales. Yeah, they give an idea of where they should be. But ultimately, everyone is all over this thing. And yes, Im sure theres flaws to my argument and what Im saying, and Im sure any of us can pick a dozen different instances where a god made such and such an action and ergo it fit this.

But if we're going with Mortality vs Divine, why not also Necktie vs Bacon? "Ye who walk with the Path of Bacon shall be with dinner blessed. Yet ye who follow the Way of Necktie shall be for dinner dressed."

Now... to do list:
-Finish killing Kyre
-Dinner with a demigod who wants to kill me
-Pull forces back to Arcon.

Lets do this...

-Finish killing Kyre

Hmm? You might want to discuss this with @Cyclone

@Kho In my defense, Ive been dick deep in a pocketwatch these past few weeks. On a side note...

I AM A WATCHMAKING GOD. Kho, sorry, but Time is my bitch!

@Dawnscroll



Pah, all these inconsistencies in alignment can just be explained through a myriad of mental health issues and personality disorders.

@Kho In my defense, Ive been dick deep in a pocketwatch these past few weeks. On a side note...

I AM A WATCHMAKING GOD. Kho, sorry, but Time is my bitch!

Time is no one's b**ch! Time is dead!

_{If anything, that makes Time Jvan's b**ch}

@Kho And having been the one to utterly SPANK Jvan (ty for that btw, Termite. It was fun to write, with you! You can get some free shots in later! <3 ) that makes Jvan Logos's bitch. Which, by proxy, makes Time his bitch as well!

...serious discussuion though, do we have the chance to revive you later?

...serious discussuion though, do we have the chance to revive you later?

Eh, who knows. My plans are changing all the time

*cackles* They said it couldn't be done... but I FUCKING DID IT. WITH A LASER WELDER!!! Take that you old fashion loonies! Pic of my masterpiece to follow... in the meantime.

That sounds exactly like something Teknall would do. Don't have the right tools to make something? Jump ahead a dozen technology levels so that you do.

Re: alignment. You raise some very good points. I agree. It becomes a bit of a big-picture vs individual-scale thing. And I acknowledge that alignment grids drastically oversimplify characters.

-Finish killing Kyre

O.O
I wasn't aware you had started killing Kyre.

@Kho And having been the one to utterly SPANK Jvan (ty for that btw, Termite. It was fun to write, with you! You can get some free shots in later! <3 ) that makes Jvan Logos's bitch.

I live to serve. And by serve I mean get the shit beaten out of me for fun. In a dungeon. In a gimp suit. Tied to the roof.

What I'm trying to say is that once Jvan gets enough might to claim Beauty (Performance) she's going to have a lot of fun with human culture.

ANYWAY more to the point, make sure to hit up @Malchivo and possibly Mutton for retiring Kyre, since they're our new wargod / has shown interest in the topic respectively.

The post being written regarding Mal's new demigod of war is currently running under the assumption that Kyre is dead or dying. The exact nature of his death will probably not be awfully relevant to us unless Toun and/or Ilunabar are informed of it.

So, I'm cool, but I won't speak for others. If Capy or Mal want to know, hit 'em up.

In other news, I spent the last few hours smashing out the rest of the follow-up Conata post, mostly while exhausted. This means that there is a lot of editing and proof-reading in my future. I leave a lot of trash in my writing when I'm tired.

Thank goodness you posted when you did because I just remembered something really important and would've double posted it otherwise.

SO URTELEM RIGHT. They spend a lot of time curled up sleeping and have a relatively slow metabolism, and their diet is relatively low in nutrition. That doesn't matter too much, because they have magical effects on stone and sand and such, which could help out a lot in moving their muscles and keeping them warm.

Having a body made of rock is kind of weird thermally speaking. It'd take quite a long while to heat up or cool, and because it's hard to liquefy, there's not exactly a 'blood flow' to equalize temperature (I assume they do have blood, though, either in highly mineralised water or a stone paste or both). They're also big boys that probably retain heat quite well due to sheer mass, much like whales and moose and such. So there's an argument that their body heat is relatively stable.

However, their activity can also vary tremendously, and I assume magic requires resources of its own. When resting in bouldermode, urts probably cool down, and then get warmer when they're doing high-energy stuff like punching whiny bitches. Depending on region, they also spend a lot of time taking in sunlight as an additional heat source. Because of the slow heating of rock, there's also most likely a considerable temperature gradient in their body in daytime. So they might also have a rather high temperature tolerance range. Anyway.

The point is that urtelem probably want to stay warm every now and again, without expending too much magic, and while sitting pretty still.

They're also rather artistic, and, increasingly, traders.

Guys. Urtelem wear clothes. They totally wear clothes.

Sometimes. Kind of. A little. Probably mostly decorative blankets. And mostly at night. But still. Clothes, guys. Clothes.

ed: dude. guys. you could totally meditate on a herd of urtelem at night. just pick one of those big friendly-looking boulders and. sit on it. on a blanket. they wouldn't mind. it would be awesome. wow.

ed ed: friendly reminder how urtelem also build howdahs on themselves to carry goods and passengers, but. like. it doesn't stop there. you could build anything. build a shrine. build a cannon. build a pigeon coop. build a fucking windmill. do it. just have urtelem walking around with these increasingly lofty constructions on them and not giving a single fuck because they have the structural integrity of literal bedrock. just use balsa wood or something. they are their own mobile settlements. this is canon. this is so canon.

I just achieved rock person nirvana, guys.

@Antarctic Termite Wow. That is kinda of neat. I imagine they must be like ponchos, though it would be hilarious if they developed more complex outfits from that... and hats.

Hell, I might know what Ill will do next.

O.O
I wasn't aware you had started killing Kyre.

Collab started a while ago, then RL dragged us both away.

<Urtgasm>

Welp, I've just figured out what Caress' art is going to be. Knitting fuckoff-huge teacosies.

_{I hope no one tries to work out the thermal clusterfuck that are ceramic hain exoskeletons. I don't think it's as easily hand-waved.}

_{I hope no one tries to work out the thermal clusterfuck that are ceramic hain exoskeletons. I don't think it's as easily hand-waved.}

Fun fact: All hain actually carry a giant snorkel and a tub of ice with them at all times to cool off in their highly insulating outer layers. It was just never mentioned because it's not really relevant to their daily life or society. Tauga was actually chilling in a freezing cold bath with floaties for most of her arc.

I know very little about thermodynamics in practice, but would it make sense for hain to have capillaries in the outer layers of their exoskeleton to help cool off? It would mean they would bleed a lot more if you cracked their shells, but it wasn't as if that didn't hurt anyway.

Or, perhaps panting like dogs, would that help?

Cold-blooded?

Bah, I'm clutching at straws. I shouldn't have said anything.

@Antarctic Termite To be fair I'm the new War Demigod, just a clarification. I won't be taking Kyre's actual place for a very, very long time.

Okay I know you know that, I just wanted a reason to post in the OOC again. As for working anything out given the connection between Kyre and Thacel I don't think it would be necessary. Mutton and Capy are doing most of the legwork, I'm just along for the ride right now.

I know very little about thermodynamics in practice, but would it make sense for hain to have capillaries in the outer layers of their exoskeleton to help cool off? It would mean they would bleed a lot more if you cracked their shells, but it wasn't as if that didn't hurt anyway.

Or, perhaps panting like dogs, would that help?

Cold-blooded?

Bah, I'm clutching at straws. I shouldn't have said anything.

All of those things would actually work quite well! Except maybe ectothermy. That's a metabolic can of worms we probably shouldn't open.

The first thing I thought of would just be really warm, humid breath, but it's possible that their metabolism slows waaaaaaaay down during deep sleep and they lose a lot of heat then. Would make it hard to wake up, though, and their tolerance range would have to be really broad. They might also have some kind of tracheoles hidden in the chinks in their shells and connected to their lungs, allowing them to vent hot air through the rest of their body.

Or, y'know, they just operate at a really high normal body temperature relative to mammals.

Or they sometimes just belch fire when no-one's looking.

Hard to tell.

@Antarctic Termite To be fair I'm the new War Demigod, just a clarification. I won't be taking Kyre's actual place for a very, very long time.

Okay I know you know that, I just wanted a reason to post in the OOC again. As for working anything out given the connection between Kyre and Thacel I don't think it would be necessary. Mutton and Capy are doing most of the legwork, I'm just along for the ride right now.

All good! Would be interesting to see what Thacel thinks as he finds out about that legacy, though.

You don't need excuses to post in the OOC, remember. We have pages full of memes and smug anime girls from ages back.

And there was that one time when Sir Kholbert did his thing with the Nile and Nepal. That was awesome. I wonder about the thermodynamics of that too sometimes.

<Snipped quote by Muttonhawk>

All of those things would actually work quite well! Except maybe ectothermy. That's a metabolic can of worms we probably shouldn't open.

The first thing I thought of would just be really warm, humid breath, but it's possible that their metabolism slows waaaaaaaay down during deep sleep and they lose a lot of heat then. Would make it hard to wake up, though, and their tolerance range would have to be really broad. They might also have some kind of tracheoles hidden in the chinks in their shells and connected to their lungs, allowing them to vent hot air through the rest of their body.

Or, y'know, they just operate at a really high normal body temperature relative to mammals.

Or they sometimes just belch fire when no-one's looking.

Hard to tell.

Well, I had kept the specifics of hain biology purposely fuzzy so I wouldn't have to get into this kind of stuff, but it makes me feel better that there isn't a glaringly obvious impossibility written right into their description.

I'll keep whatever is declared first in canon as canon. However, the simpler stuff is preferred. Some kind of panting thing is probably easiest. The tracheoles are a neat idea, but that sounds like insect stuff and it would make it much easier to die from choking on their own blood should one of them be ruptured. I'd prefer the heat to be transferred around via mostly just blood and plain breath.

<Snipped quote by Malchivo>

All good! Would be interesting to see what Thacel thinks as he finds out about that legacy, though.

Sneaky disclosure; Thacel's birth is getting based on some meta as hell shit.