ERode

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

They both get pegged. ;3

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

Mmm, that tattoo definitely looks like one that someone going through their rebellious phase would slap on.

Anyways, most of it sounds good. Just got a couple of questions for ya to answer.

Considering her roots to her family, will she have basically exposed as much of her family's secrets/history/businesses to the Kaiser Institute as she could? Or does she still have reservations about being that blatant a traitor?

How long does it take for her to replace her teeth? Is she at the elephant-tossing levels of strength that your standard martial-inclined Egoist would be, or is her personal ideal something different (and thus she's not THAT much of a living weapon)? Which nation has she been an immigrant of since being taken in by the Kaiser Institute? I'm guessing Germany?

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

History generally diverged from the 1500s, yeah, though with the caveat that most mythologies have more than just a single grain of truth in them. Religion doesn't have as big of a traction right now, because while people've basically confirmed the existence of all almighty Creator, they're also aware that said Creator wasn't even kind enough to give them a whole ass universe to live in.

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

Won't be trademarked, but sure.

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

@RoboCatStalemating the Occident would only really be an issue if they were at the borders or at the coast, so just keep that in mind when figuring out the geographics of your place. As a point of historical inspiration, they could probably have come stories of ancient Egypt's Sun Disc Death Beam Pyramids and realized that maybe they weren't stories, and maybe they could do the same.

@SilverPawYes. Only Polymaths can use advanced protheses as a perfect/superior replacement for their normal limbs though (normal folks who buy those things can only use them for rudimentary activities, as they didn't figure out a way to link brain signals to objects n shit). The only thing they haven't figured out is how to get replacement eyes working. Egoists can just regrow body parts though.

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

@Liotrent Sounds good. Might wanna talk to Click so the two of you have a unified vision of the UK. Very James Bond-y, really, just coming across talented orphans. Now what came first, the talent or the orphan? ;3

@Izurich Looks good! Just to clarify though, while Lucretia may treat Schwarzritter as a friend, automatons aren't actually a thing, so it'll be more like playing with a doll rather than playing with a pet robot thing. What does this drone run on though? I'm presuming electricity, mainly because it seems to be a more complex construction than something that'd just run on gears and such (which would make a steam core more viable as a power source). You can mention that it incorporates Peizogravitas (a common Formulization of a copper alloy that makes it hella buoyant when electricity runs through it) in its construction too, to make it easily transportable.

Like I mentioned with Robo's crystal idea, Lucretia will be able to adjust the Schwarzritter's output on the fly with Formulization, but if she wants to change its functions, she'll have to spend time workshopping it. Also, Schwarzritter will be effectively disarmed at the start of the RP, with its weapons (and basically every other students' weapons) stored in the armory/testing grounds of the island. They'll allow militant-minded students to continue to perfect their weapons of destruction, but not bring it outside of specified grounds.

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

You're good to make up your own countries/organizations, so long as you run em through me first. Having a Queensman is totes fine and probably even as expected in such a RP.

Formulization can be executed through any part of the body so long as its bare skin physical contact. Technologists prefer their fingers because their work requires fine, nimble adjustments, Dynamicists prefer their palms because it gives the most tactile sensations. They can technically do it with whatever, but at reduced efficacy. Imagine it like being accustomed to using a set of tools, and then comparing that to having to use a totally different set of tools. You know what to do, but you don't know how to handle the new tools so well.

And hey, lots of Technologists makes sense: that's the STEM of Polymaths. If you're a Dynamicist you may as well be a Forestry Major. And if you're an Egoist? Better hope you make something out of your sports career. ;3

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

Alright, here’s some extra details about how Technologists do their thing.

While Technologists can create solid materials that are able to then indirectly alter intangibles (for example, the Steam Core is essentially an engine that lowers the vaporization point of water when the water's inside of it, allowing you to create steam without needing external fuel), they won’t be able to ‘gather’ those intangibles in the way that Dynamicists can. If the stone functions largely as a compression/storage device for light and sound (with sound and light released to activate certain effects), then it’ll probably take a while for them to charge up properly. But also due to this being storage, there’s no weakness to dark areas, so long as they’re sufficiently charged prior to this.

Specifically in regards to Egoism, you’ll probably have a whole religious culture/rite focused around indoctrinating the next crystal-bearers into the sort of self-focused mindset necessary to see their own body as a mutable substance. So that works well with this being a more traditional thing, especially because your nation has presumably been doing this for more than just the last 50 or so years. Larger crystals are needed if you want to do actual laser beams or sound cannons, smaller crystals function just fine as megaphones or flashlights, and each crystal will need to be Formulized for a specific function at a specific output level. A Technologist Polymath could alter the output on the go, but would need a fair bit longer if they wanted to alter the function.

It’s 100% viable for this light/sound-amplifying crystal to be the main industry of your nation too. It’s hard for me to really picture what madness you can do with a hundred million hertz, so I would say, because this is accomplished by distorting the laws of nature rather than by obeying the laws of nature, you don’t get that insane light-sound synergy. Still works for the purposes that you’d want, just no hard science implications behind it.

Also, easiest way of dodging around the 'bloodline ended because no longer human' problem would just be to like, have more kids.

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

@Medili
It got banned because the Occident are PUSSIES.

More seriously, in Europe (and later on globally), they essentially had wireless electricity transfer towers, and their entire society is built around the idea that you don't really need batteries, because the transmitter-receptor system means that anywhere in civilization, your devices will have power.

When the Indigenous Coalition of the New World launched a counteroffensive during the Futile War, they brought a Lightning Dynamicists with them. Prior to this, Lightning Dynamicists were considered scary, but required an actual thunderstorm to be manifested in order to be so. Because of Europe's wireless electricity hijinks, though...yeah, everything turned into a hella of plasma, enough so that even the Indigenous peeps were like "yeah, this is very bad news". Subsequently, the Occident and the New World brokered a truce, being the first step towards ending the Futile War.

All Technologists would be trained in standard materials that are useful for making a living, and could also have either a specific material that they are exceptionally good at altering, or a specific alteration that they are exceptionally good at imposing. Generally, you can imagine every type of material as a different puzzle; you can broadly understand how each could work, but it takes time and practice to really get to understand the alogrithms governing them.

And yeah, pitch your character idea first or toss up a character sheet draft. I generally prefer to get all the CS creation done during the interest check phase.

@RoboCat Sounds interesting. I'll give you a more elaborate answer later, but for now, just gotta clarify a couple of things. I can understand light, but how does sound play into this? Egoism, at any stage, basically turns the Egoist into an Endling. They are no longer able to reproduce because their genetic data has been altered, so that's essentially the end of their bloodline there. Is there a particular reason, beyond just tradition, that has them slotting a crystal in their body rather than a crystal into a tool?

Qualia: Steampunk Spies, School Life Scandals, and Eldritch Spice

@RoboCat
The synthesis of different Majors is something that’s been happening more recently, though more as collaborative projects between multiple Polymaths than just one person being good at multiple Majors. It’s certainly possible for an individual to have studied two Majors, but either they’d be average at both, or they’ll be some sort of mega-monstrous genius. Which would make them famous, because the differing prerequisites makes excelling in multiple Majors pretty hard.

Different Majors have different methods of utilizing script to interface with Formula. Egoists passively benefit from the gradual edits they make to their own body,Technologists engrave upon solid objects to alter or enhance properties, Dynamicists manipulate the movement of intangibles, and Mesmerologists scam people. They functionally cover different things, so while you can use things in sequence (technologism to enhance a bullet and then dynamicism to cause wind to propel that bullet fast), you can’t really apply both to the same thing under ordinary circumstances. Just doing anything with Formula alone would cause Abstraction though; trying to prevent Abstraction through Formulization is like trying to save fuel by burning fuel.