Wardian

The Chronicles of Irenaea [Always Open] [Historiograhy-Based] [Low-Commital]

Condemnation of the Dishonorable Peace with Windbeach
Elder Chief Werdyun Aseltir Baldug of Baldugtagee (134 - 253)

Goldendew Heithwerd, your brother in the path of virtue, sends greetings to those truly earnest among the hunters of the realm. I ask you, upon which do the cardinal spirits bestow their favor: those that abandon the hunt, or those that pursue the dragons even unto death? Our late elder chief Aseltir Quericon Baldug was a true hunter. He sacrificed his children, his bountiful harvests, and even his own health in his pursuit. He witnessed his loyal servants being taken for their flesh meat, drowned in wine, and made into delicacies by the depravities of those who claimed to be righteous liberators. Blessed was Aseltir Quericon! The valorous four have awarded his sacrifices with a righteous furor among our warriors, yet our new elder chief Werdyun Aseltir Baldug has abandoned his prey. He says we have sacrificed so much that victory is impossible, when those with righteous thoughts all agree that we have sacrificed so much that victory is assured. Instead of slitting the dragon's throat when it is wounded, he has called off the hunt and left our rightful lands to the savage hunger of the wyrm.

Virtuous hunters, do not call off the pursuit! Do not disregard the sacrifices of your brothers. Do not reject the blessings of the dragon slayers. The church's duty is to see the hunt carried to its conclusion, and with our example we will grant the new elder chief the courage to cut off Galimbor's horn.

Brothers, our limited time requires us to strike only at the most sensitive target. The dragons among us who beguile our elder chief with their false counsel must be brought to justice. If their words are not discredited, and the treaty is confirmed, then we may forever lose the opportunity to free our shoreward lands from the terror of the neighboring dragon. Know that if the great beast is given pause to lick its wounds, it will bring its brood mates from Aedria and the steppes with it. If so, then blessed will our children be, for the sacrifices they will make shall put our generation to shame.

I bless all virtuous hunters of the faith the courage to bring their valorous thoughts to action, and await the day when I may yet again call forth the power of the dragonslayers to bless our warriors in the field.

High Priest Goldendew Heithwerd, 224

Music Appreciation Thread

@TheMadAsshatter 6/10. The beat was kickin' good, but I prefer music with catchy melodies which this didn't have. I also wasn't big on the extended drumrolls (or whatever they were). The lyrics did a good job making me think of some crazy town in the desert full of bloodthirsty cultist, like a more ruthless version of Hot Fuzz. But I had to look up the lyrics to understand them, which isn't really a bad thing because the gritty way they were song was part of the tone for the song. If I had played Tony Hawk Pro Skater I would probably have given it a better rating.

I fell in love with this following song the first time I heard it despite not knowing enough Chinese to understand much of it. Just know that "Wo hai shi ai zhe ni" means "I still love you love".

The Chronicles of Irenaea [Always Open] [Historiograhy-Based] [Low-Commital]

If it helps spark everyone's interest again, let it be known that I am thinking about making a contribution to the historical record. My excuse is that there is an awful lot of reading to catch up on first. I'd pop into your discord server to say hello, but me and discord have our disagreements.

[Low-Fantasy Adventure] Gothic Lands: Arcana [Working Title]

This is exactly the kind of setting I like best, I am definitely interested. However, I am always hesitant about joining group RPs because of their tendency to enter a death spiral the first time someone drops out or takes too long to post. How do you plan on dealing with that problem?

Improv Roleplaying

Hi, I'm looking for roleplayers who want to dive right in to the IC without discussing plots or creating characters beforehand. My writing partners should be comfortable doing worldbuilding on the fly and taking actions to advance the plot, and open to the possibility of having limited control over each other's characters. Such control would typically be most prominent in the first few posts where we are encouraged to make things up about eachother's backgrounds in order to show how our characters are connected, assuming they are not total strangers. I prefer we each have one main character, with joint ownership over all other characters that get introduced. Original characters and settings only, no fandoms. "Mature" content is perfectly fine but not required. Romance attempts are allowed, but just like in real life you will probably get rejected. Any genre is fine as long as it is mostly realistic and the main characters are humans. I typically post 2-5 paragraphs. Currently I can probably post almost daily, but that is subject to change in the near future. However, I am fine with playing with people who can only post once a week.

If you want to go first, just send your initial post to me via PM. First posts should broadly introduce the setting and your character but be vague and open ended enough for me to put my own spin on things. They should not shoehorn me into playing a specific character. Or let me know if you would prefer me to write the first IC post instead.

Mature / 18+ Tag - What do you think when you see it?

I really hate how gore and sex get classified as mature/18+. To me, gore is something that we'd all be better off never having to deal with regardless of age, and the latter is people shoving their narrow moral views down my throat. If you want smut or gore, say so. Don't be condescending and use words like 18+ or mature, unless there is some legal reason to do so.

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Added a new article, The Three Rivers Telo Trials and added it to timeline but not article list as it is not canon yet. Also feel like it was quite a bit longer than it needed to be, sorry! :(

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

The Three Rivers Telo Trials

When Prince Vakhul XII died, the question of who should inherit his third floor factory kingdom captivated all the principalities of the Three Rivers. According to long standing custom, it belonged to his closest living relative until the next conclave of judges redistricted the region. As the late prince had no descendants and no living ancestors, his only sibling, Princess Peraula, took possession of his domain. Normally this would not be the least bit controversial, but in this case, a complaint against this transfer of sovereignty was filed in the High Court by none other than the deceased Prince Vakhul himself.

In life, the prince had a sliver of brightstone implanted in his brain. After his original body died, the shard was transplanted into an artificial humanoid construct, called a telo. The shard imparted the late prince's personality and memories into the telo, which it argued made it Prince Vakhul. Princess Peraula disagreed, arguing the telo did not meet the legal definition of being the same person as Prince Vakhul and so the late prince's domains still rightfully belonged to her.

The case sharply divided the Three Rivers. Old codgers pining for immortality expressed outrage that there was a question about whether a telo was the same person as the one its shard had been implanted in, while young yipper snappers worried about yet more cuts to their already dismally small inheritances argued voraciously against granting telos inheritance rights. There were also a few crazy people who argued something about fundamental rights of personhood for artificial constructs and whatnot, but most people were wise enough to only care about the decision's impact on their immediate future.

The hit reality show The High Court immediately picked up the case for its prime time slot. In the law obsessed land of the Three Rivers, there was no higher honour. After lengthy preambles intermixed with touching flashbacks of childhood memories of the main participants, the actual case began as the judges entered the arena amidst a fantastic pyrotechnical display as the show's guitar-heavy theme song roared in the background. The announcers play-by-play commentary flooded the soundscapes of every home, with cheers erupting as each cunning legal maneuver came into play. During the bonus round, the defense shocked the court by bringing in a necromancer who summoned the prince's spirit, proving that the telo was not the same person as the late prince. At least, it would have proved it if respectable people still believed in such foolishness as necromancy. At the end of the first day, the judges remained undecided, although the defense's lawyers lead the style scoreboard by 7 points.

The next morning, as the defense's expert witness Eliana Reyes was on her way to the Timitubo Legal Arena, the prince of the intersection of 12th and Rosewood Street detained her for violating Article CXCVII, Section 17. This was, of course, a dirty move because everyone knew that the third paragraph of Section 2 provided exemption for noncitizens from violations of sections which conflicted with Article XLII's basic rights of pedestrian access, provided proper etiquette was followed. And the only reason she could be detained was because of that section's ambiguous language which allowed for one to argue for either one of two mutually exclusive definitions of proper etiquette. Three Rivers residents were fans of crafty legal arguments, but only when they did not rest on ambiguity.

Rioters overwhelmed the one-man army of the intersection, and barged into the despicable prince's adhoc bathroom prison. But, due to a prolonged dispute over the sharing of maintenance costs between the princes of the third and fourth floors of the apartment complex, the floorboards could not support the extra weight of the rioters. Eliana cracked her head on the bathtub below and died. Back at the arena, both sides agreed to expedite the case in the interest of public safety. In practice, this meant no new witnesses could be called upon to testify. However, later during that day's bonus round the defense unleashed their next surprise: a telo containing the personality and memories of Eliana Reyes. Despite her vociferous opposition to the technology, she had secretly undergone the operation. As the telo maintained Miss Reyes' personality and memories, it was still vehemently against the technology and was fully prepared to demonstrate the ways in which she was most certainly not the same as the real Miss Reyes. This left Prince Vakhul's lawyers in an unpleasant situation: They could either bar Miss Reyes' telo from testifying on the ground that the telo should count as a new witness, and thereby undermine their case by admitting that telos were not the same as the person their brightstone came from, or they could allow Miss Reyes' telo to unleash her crafty arguments against her own kind without being able to call upon a new witness of their own to balance the score.

A mix of boos and applause filled the arena as the judges chimed in: Should telos be legally recognized as the same person whose memories and personalities they hold? Judge Sarkov, no. Judge Nanuri, no. Judge Pulo, no. Judge Khaminda, no. And of course, Judge Simon went against the crowd and voted yes. "The defense's tactics were complete rubbish", he explained.

However, this victory for anti-thought activists was short lived. In the Second Telo Trial it was decided that telos, while not meeting the legal definition of a person, were still legally eligible to be the closest living adult relatives of their previous bodies. And thus a new class of princes, lacking the rights of personhood but also not burdened with its obligations, came into being.

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

So, after reading the manual for Microscope I believe it is not a good fit for what we have here. Microscope is designed to be played in real time among the same 2-4 people, each taking short, bite-sized turns at being creative. That does not translate well at all into a forum world building project where we people regularly drop out completely after a single post, and even those who stick around may take weeks before replying.

Microscope is also focused around chronology. It encourages you to delve into the details about why and how an empire fell, but it does not seem to me that it would help create zany new ideas like the gutterfolk or vendors.

There were a few things about I liked that I suggest we incorporate though:

• The timeline - essential for keeping things organized. Relative positions only. (I don't think we should use the period/event/scene structure. And the light/dark thing is pointless, even when playing proper Microscope.)
• Focus - After every so many posts, we pick a theme that all posts must relate to until the next round. This will help make sure we are building off of eachother's ideas instead of each making up our own parallel worlds. Perhaps we can have a free round every now and then.
• No ownership - as long as what you write does not contradict what has already been canonized, it is allowed. Nobody owns any idea and everyone is allowed to expound upon them or use them in their own posts. In fact, we should remove the author of the articles in the index to reinforce this idea.

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Cool beans. Are we just starting out with the timeline and then adding more mechanics to it later? I know microscope has this whole 80 page rulebook, I guess I will go read it so I know what I am talking about first though.