[FWM] OOC 4: Enchanted Manticore [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

TheAmishPirate

2013-02-28, 11:40 PM

A place to discuss OOC ideas about the MLP Friendship is was Magic RP.

FAQs
Q: How dark is this RP?
A: Somewhere below 'Happy Sunshine Fun Land' and above 'Hopeless'. Happy endings are the bulk of life, but the possibility always exists for a sad ending. Darkness also runs rampant across the world and is always lurking outside the safe walls of town.

Q: What is the tech level?
A: I think the general consensus is 'Steampunk' right now. There may be occasional alien technology influence as well.

Q: What is the general policy on weapons?
A: Equestria is an armed society right now. Every military member, including the common town guards, carries a potentially lethal weapon with them everywhere, even off duty. Even civilian ponies are commonly seen carrying weapons. However, it is standard practice to never draw your weapon unless you intend to use it. Drawing a weapon, for whatever reason, is considered a hostile act by most ponies.

Q: How dangerous is the town of Bridle Shores?
A: Interesting question. The town has seen much more than its fair share of action and odd occurrences over the years since its founding, and no one can say why this is. Skirmishes with monsters at one or more town entrances happen almost daily, and certain loud noises are common enough that they no longer enough by themselves to induce a panic in any town resident. That said, the Town Guard and Militia are good at what they do, and few things are a high enough threat level to greatly disrupt life in the town for long. In D&D terms, this is a town where your neighbor is likely to have one or more levels in a PC class.

Q: How are threats classified?
A: Threat Ranks (guidelines):

F-Rank - Helpless. No threat at all.
E-Rank - Mild threat. Only about as dangerous as an average civilian.
D-Rank - Competent combatant. Not something a pony could be expected to defeat without combat training.
C-Rank - Dangerous combatant. Not something your average soldier could defeat reliably.
B-Rank - Highly dangerous. Defeating something like this is what makes your average heroes. Super-Mook/Sub-Boss/Early Boss status.
A-Rank - Extremely dangerous. 'You and what army?' is no longer a joke at this point. Big Sub-Boss/Late Boss status.
A-Rank+ - Army Killers, unofficial ranking. No official is really willing to admit that such dangers even exist at all. End boss status.

Q: Where is the Roleplay thread?
A: There's a link to it right below.

Q: Where can I post my character and find info on existing characters and backstory?
A: There's a link to that below too.

The Roleplay Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200312)

The Roleplay Thread 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204691)

The Roleplay Thread 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207812)

The Roleplay Thread 4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209857)

The Roleplay Thread 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212519)

The Roleplay Thread 6 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218173)

The Roleplay Thread 7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222561)

The Roleplay Thread 8 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228358)

The Roleplay Thread 9 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235541)

The Roleplay Thread 10 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240645)

The Roleplay Thread 11 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246172)

The Roleplay Thread 12 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13598028#post13598028)

The Roleplay Thread 13 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=255343)

The Character and Recruitment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209474)

OOC Thread 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209475)

OOC Thread 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221353)

OOC Thread 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246833)

There really aren't any pony names that rhyme with 'four' and fit my punny convention. :smallfrown:

EDIT:

RP overhaul information here!
Background Information, Noble Houses, and other assorted tidbits. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOm-KXAccfjrZwSF0WM2MDlOq5C7ZLRqqZJIFEOoZbc/edit)

Character Profiles. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lsycucKst0gVJoGR7VkT5oTXqJjdE7dpbWCCRAfK4FM/edit)

Grif

2013-03-01, 12:15 AM

*cough* Links needs to be updated. :smalltongue:

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-01, 12:40 AM

Heeey, nice title! :smallwink:

Benson

2013-03-01, 12:50 AM

Obligatory post goes here.

But yes, sentient shot gun of snarkiness, it must return. *stare*

Grif

2013-03-01, 01:23 AM

Obligatory post goes here.

But yes, sentient shot gun of snarkiness, it must return. *stare*

When it does return, it will be considerably snarkier. :smallbiggrin:

(Think Andy the bomb from RvB.)

Orzel

2013-03-01, 06:28 AM

You know what FWM needs?

crying

*dumps misery on Sandy*

Grif

2013-03-01, 07:22 AM

Truly a deadly weapon. :smallamused:

Luka

2013-03-01, 02:21 PM

You know what FWM needs?

crying

*dumps misery on Sandy*

Again?
"Hey I didn't cry so much!"

MCerberus

2013-03-01, 07:32 PM

Wait, we have misery on Sandy and lots of very odd couples going around pretending to be normal?

Must be a day that ends in 'y'

Benson

2013-03-01, 07:46 PM

Now we just need a scene of Sandy having a moment platonic comfort from Miss M and Rainbow walking in under the guise of trying to talk to him about their relationship issues and then misinterpret the scene and then blow it out of proportion./run-on

Because this wouldn't be the soap opera it is without convoluted messes. :smalltongue:

Grif

2013-03-01, 08:38 PM

Orzel

2013-03-01, 08:51 PM

Benson

2013-03-02, 12:05 AM

I'mma be frank and honest here kelvin. You have put me in a bind I do not want to be in.

*I* don't want Gearstride to have such easy access to magical limb growing magic. I want her to go through that spiel of adjusting to her new injury and having reminder of that crappy night. Hell, I find a robo leg more better anyways because she'll also have a reminder of that night.

As opposed to having her hoof grown back rendering what she went through rather forgettable and blah and who cares and all that stuff.

But.

It doesn't make sense for *her*in game to not opt for that since it has been presented to her. There is no explainable reason for her to say no to something like that >_<

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-02, 12:14 AM

I think I can help get you out of that bind. A normal robo-hoof wouldn't have a lot to it, but Night Jewel could offer one with special features of some kind. She has a good reason to want Gearstride's hoof replaced with a prosthetic, since it'll be more interesting for her and keep her from getting into as much trouble.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-02, 12:19 AM

I do kinda have to agree with Benson here; having the ability to recover from any type of bodily damage does tend to remove what few dramatic consequences severe injury has left. I didn't say anything about this before because...well, to be honest, I have no idea why I put this off as long as I did. Likely a combination of finals, IRL stress, and other such things. You have my apologies there, I dropped the ball big time.

Now then, a way to resolve this: What sort of limitations might this regeneration magic have? Could something be done in such a way to render the process too long/too painful/risky? Not in every case, mind you, but having situations where Taylor can't automatically heal up the injury would be good. Combine that with coolness factor of robo-hoof, and the prosthetic may seem the wiser choice.

EDIT: Something I feel I should clarify: I don't think Taylor has to give up the limb-regrowing. For somepony whose entire skillset revolves around cleric-type healing, a spell/treatment like this seems a worthy testament to his years of experience and training. All I'm saying is that there needs to be necessary leeway, a bit of risk that could come with the spell so that players can have their ponies retain permanent injuries for dramatic/personal story reasons if need be. Something to keep him from turning into a "Fix all problems and remove all consequences given enough healing time" button.

Heck, Sandy gets beaten up horribly and recovers enough as it is. Need to keep some level of injury that has meaning. :smalltongue:

Kelvin360

2013-03-02, 02:50 AM

Oh, you guys don't have to worry about too much.

There are two factors I can list immediately that will mean that no, Gearstride and Silverpine won't get their limbs back just like that:

A) Taylor both has to ask for permission to do something that major (giving one a solid opportunity to say 'eeh, nah'), and most likely won't anyways, because he feels the need to conserve as much of his energy as possible until something apocalyptic happens.

B) Team Sollunus runs on rule of cool. Like hay they're gonna stand around and give you a lame old regular hoof when you can get a mechanical appendage!

Now to answer Amish's questions directly as I can, which include some additional pieces.

First off, there's the numero uno of the regenerative process knocking Taylor the buck out. Limbzoning honestly isn't remotely as casual as the 'hey, we're cool' duo make it sound. Even a section of an ear is taxing, nevermind, say, a leg.

As well, the regrown appendage that comes back, while it belongs to the same body, isn't the same appendage. Thusly, phantom limb and killer limb (feeling pains/sensations that aren't actually occurring and your body part doing things your brain isn't actually telling it to do, even though I've probably forgotten the correct terms) likely apply.

Also, while this isn't directly related to horrendous injuries, I will note that no matter how much healing energy you pool into something, bad wounds can and will scar. In fact the expediency makes it more likely.

More ideas to play with -

*You can only grow back things that have been lost semi-naturally. Swords are fine, dark magic is not.
*Sometimes the experience is so traumatizing for the unconscious center of the brain that the body will instinctively refuse the process.
*It hurts. A lot. For those familiar with Harry Potter's Skele-gro process, this kind of works on the same principle. Taylor's life energy is involved, but the patient's body has to supply nutrients and raw materials, plus some magic of their own. Thus: Dip in acid, lethargy, and malnutrition.

One more thing. Despite the brief exchange, it isn't unreasonable to assume that Gearstride simply forgot one random bit of information during a stressful situation. It also isn't unreasonable for Taylor simply to not pester her about it.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-02, 11:06 AM

^Another thing I thought of that might make the process...less than pleasant. The vamponies used their wound-closing saliva junk on Gear's hoof, effectively cauterizing the wound. If Taylor were to re-grow the limb, then he'd probably need to open all that up again. :smalleek:

Kelvin360

2013-03-02, 01:04 PM

Ah, I forgot about that. That'd make the process entirely impossible, then. Vampony saiva qualifies as a magical substance, so it'd interfere with the other magics involved.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-02, 06:47 PM

Benson, are you going to post for the Cirrus, or have you been waiting for me?

Benson

2013-03-02, 06:51 PM

I've been waiting on you since Night Jewel was asked a question directly.
========

@Kelvin & Amish

See, reading those posts sets me at ease. I had no previous knowledge of what the *rules* of his abilities entailed, so of course, I jumped to my uncomfortable place the way I did. But this is better.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-02, 06:53 PM

Oh, okay. Sorry. I was just trying to make sure you didn't get left behind.

Orzel

2013-03-02, 08:39 PM

Poll:

If I were to incorporate Sugar into this world, how should she exist?

As a puppy
As an adult dog
As a wolf cub
As an adult wolf
As a timberwolf
As a pony foal
As an adult pony
As a weapon
Sugar is dead, already
Sugar is a hallucination

Grif

2013-03-02, 09:30 PM

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-02, 09:39 PM

Maximum lulz and soap opera to be had is she was a ghost dog. :smallbiggrin:

http://images2.fanpop.com/image/quiz/442000/442190_1278927562808_110_82.jpg

Also, is Sandy and Miss M thing a go? If so, I'll delay my next post about Rainbow et al.

Delay for now, need to chat some things over with Benson, haven't had a chance to today.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-02, 09:55 PM

Sugar? Who's that?

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-02, 10:01 PM

Sugar? Who's that?

Grills' puppy from the lite RP.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-03, 12:25 AM

Maximum lulz and soap opera to be had is she was a ghost dog. :smallbiggrin:

http://images2.fanpop.com/image/quiz/442000/442190_1278927562808_110_82.jpg

Also, is Sandy and Miss M thing a go? If so, I'll delay my next post about Rainbow et al.

Yeah, I think we'll be doing it. Rainbow's latest post still makes sense, as she's basically walking into the room blind.

Grif

2013-03-03, 12:53 AM

Yeah, I think we'll be doing it. Rainbow's latest post still makes sense, as she's basically walking into the room blind.

Alright. Will be waiting for yours (and Benson's) post before continuing.

Luka

2013-03-03, 12:13 PM

Orzel

2013-03-03, 03:54 PM

Was that the signal?

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-03, 04:17 PM

Was that the signal?

Go ahead. We could've done more, but really, does Drunken Sailor Rainbow need anything more? :smallwink:

EDIT: Let me get a quick post with Sandy first

EDIT2: There we go

EDIT3: Added a little bit more misunderstanding

Orzel

2013-03-03, 05:26 PM

Go ahead. We could've done more, but really, does Drunken Sailor Rainbow need anything more? :smallwink:

EDIT: Let me get a quick post with Sandy first

EDIT2: There we go

EDIT3: Added a little bit more misunderstanding

She's a Spanish Drunken Sailor Rainbow now.

I can't remember if I made her speak random spanish before but she does now. Cleanest cusses I know of the top off my head when sleepy.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-03, 05:32 PM

And suddenly, Night Jewel feels excited and doesn't even know why.

That'd be my other incarnation. I haven't even met him in this universe.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-03, 05:33 PM

She's a Spanish Drunken Sailor Rainbow now.

I can't remember if I made her speak random spanish before but she does now. Cleanest cusses I know of the top off my head when sleepy.

*reads the translations*

Ooof. Doesn't stop them from biting. Good thing Sandy doesn't speak Spanish. :smalleek:

Gonna wait for Silverpine to get his reaction in as well.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-03, 06:41 PM

It's odd that the owner wouldn't be there, considering how soon they're supposed to crypt diving soon...

Uh... I'm the owner, right? 'N I'm right there. At least, I think I was last time I checked...

MCerberus

2013-03-03, 08:07 PM

okay kinda derped, edit inc

Grif

2013-03-04, 02:45 AM

Anyone still remembers the captured dark warrior who's still angry in the guardhouse's cell? Given what just happened in the alley, no guard's going to start questioning or doing stuff? :smallconfused:

We'll be getting to him soon. Yeah, he kinda got lost in the shuffle. That said, I'm trying to wrap up other things before we proceed.

Mindfreak

2013-03-04, 08:39 AM

Blah.
I'm sorry for being gone for so long ><
I'll start searching for posts after school.

Kelvin360

2013-03-04, 06:20 PM

Grif

2013-03-04, 07:38 PM

For Grif and Mindfreak -

Just to clear this up, I was under the impression that Lemongrass was going the opposite direction as Gak and Arvadraa to head the thing off while the latter two went to investigate the hows/whys of its appearance. Just making sure I've got it correctly.

I actually figure him to move ahead of the group (to split away later if necessary).

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-04, 10:03 PM

Expect a bit of a delay on my next Sandy post. This one...I need to do some real thinking. This may be the first time when I am legitimately baffled as to what a character would do.

Benson

2013-03-06, 06:56 PM

Actually skip me in the medical bay, I'm curious to read what Sandy has to say. :smalltongue:

Anyways, I'll post in the Misc Adventures thread when I get home later tonight.

Mindfreak

2013-03-06, 07:14 PM

For Grif and Mindfreak -

Just to clear this up, I was under the impression that Lemongrass was going the opposite direction as Gak and Arvadraa to head the thing off while the latter two went to investigate the hows/whys of its appearance. Just making sure I've got it correctly.

I thought the others were moving ahead to deal with the beast.
It's not a good idea to split up in a horror film :smalltongue:

Kelvin360

2013-03-06, 07:29 PM

Horne buffed him to give him a modicum success chance. Also, said Dokter doesn't...particularly care if a mook gets offed. Regardless of which one it is.

Grif

2013-03-06, 10:09 PM

Horne buffed him to give him a modicum success chance. Also, said Dokter doesn't...particularly care if a mook gets offed. Regardless of which one it is.

I'll have you know I'm more competent than I look.

That doesn't take a lot.

... Shut up, Tyrol.

Also, is there any other stalled scenes that we should be resolving? I'm thinking the alley thing isn't completely resolved yet.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-06, 10:32 PM

I'll have you know I'm more competent than I look.

That doesn't take a lot.

... Shut up, Tyrol.

Also, is there any other stalled scenes that we should be resolving? I'm thinking the alley thing isn't completely resolved yet.

I think we need a doctor to come in and fix up Miles, but that's about it. I've been busy, and have not been able to do that. >.<

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-07, 09:54 AM

I'll be waiting on Daniel before posting with Sandy.

Mindfreak

2013-03-07, 02:04 PM

I'll have you know I'm more competent than I look.

That doesn't take a lot.

... Shut up, Tyrol.

Also, is there any other stalled scenes that we should be resolving? I'm thinking the alley thing isn't completely resolved yet.
I vill alvays be here to patch you up vhen you're not competent enough, hun <3.<3

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-07, 02:05 PM

I vill alvays be here to patch you up vhen you're not competent enough, hun <3.<3

"...I think the fact that Lemongrass ain't run for th' hills yet just cements his status as a mook."

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-08, 02:43 PM

I'll be waiting for others to post in the medbay before continuing with Sandy.

Grif

2013-03-08, 08:53 PM

"...I think the fact that Lemongrass ain't run for th' hills yet just cements his status as a mook."

...

I'll start flying. Now.

Mindfreak

2013-03-08, 10:16 PM

So how is the Schoolhouse of Terror supposed to be going then?:smallconfused:

Kelvin360

2013-03-08, 10:21 PM

I guess it depends on what the creature wants. If it's trying to defend what we think is the origin point, then it'll most likely ignore Lemongrass and make a beeline for Arvadraa. If it's a chaos monster of some sort, or a predator, it's probably going to defend itself and focus exclusively on Lemongrass.

What Dr. Horne is mostly concerned with now is why they first noticed it in that classroom, and if that's where it came from. His postulate is that it needs to be banished rather than simply killed, and wants to find the mostly likely area for clues (he could be horribly wrong, obviously).

So, in essence, the most likely scenario is Lemongrass having an epic boss fight and Gak/Horne going to the classroom where Arvadraa first sensed its presence to see if there's a convenient dimensional portal or something. If not, back to the drawing board o' theories, character-side.

Grif

2013-03-09, 12:03 AM

Mindfreak

2013-03-09, 08:52 AM

I meant more of where all the ponies are going.
It's out to kill all of them.
And it will go for the smallest group first.

Grif

2013-03-09, 11:02 AM

I meant more of where all the ponies are going.
It's out to kill all of them.
And it will go for the smallest group first.

Lemongrass is running straight at it with a sharp object. Alone.

Kelvin360

2013-03-10, 12:50 AM

Waiting on Night Jewel's response while they leave.

Benson

2013-03-10, 07:10 AM

Oh right...and about the security stuff on the Cirrus, let's pretend its currently disabled as well right now xD

wouldn't want any incidents :smallbiggrin:

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-10, 02:23 PM

Grif? I notice you quoted my post, but didn't respond to it.

Grif

2013-03-10, 08:31 PM

Grif? I notice you quoted my post, but didn't respond to it.

I noticed that after waking up. Replying now.

Grif

2013-03-11, 12:06 AM

Amish. Did Sandy just... nuke Rainbow? :smallconfused:

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-11, 12:08 AM

Amish. Did Sandy just... nuke Rainbow? :smallconfused:

...oh gosh, it does look like that, doesn't it? :smalleek:

To answer the question, no. No he did not. In fact, he pretty much did the opposite of that. I'm going to go edit that darn post to make that more clear.

EDIT: Fixed. And thank you, thank you for pointing that out. When I get dramatic with my posts, I tend to sacrifice a bit of clarity here and there, and it can come back to bite me if I'm not careful. This time, I was way, wayyyyyyyyy not careful enough.

Grif

2013-03-11, 12:30 AM

...oh gosh, it does look like that, doesn't it? :smalleek:

To answer the question, no. No he did not. In fact, he pretty much did the opposite of that. I'm going to go edit that darn post to make that more clear.

EDIT: Fixed. And thank you, thank you for pointing that out. When I get dramatic with my posts, I tend to sacrifice a bit of clarity here and there, and it can come back to bite me if I'm not careful. This time, I was way, wayyyyyyyyy not careful enough.

Good. I was wondering whether we all should pile back to the medbay and uh... crank up the drama. :smallbiggrin:

Kelvin360

2013-03-11, 01:20 AM

I was wondering about that culinarily, Benson - if Ponies are a vegetarian species, are eggs good, bad, or a rare gray area?

Yeah, I wonder about the weirdest stuff.

Grif

2013-03-11, 01:21 AM

I was wondering about that culinarily, Benson - if Ponies are a vegetarian species, are eggs good, bad, or a rare gray area?

Yeah, I wonder about the weirdest stuff.

Seeing baked goods are commonplace in MLP, eggs are probably accepted as common fare.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-11, 02:10 AM

Seeing baked goods are commonplace in MLP, eggs are probably accepted as common fare.

It's actually quite possible to bake without eggs. My family uses applesauce as a substitute because of my mother's allergies. Still, much of an egg's content is just food for the embryo and not the embryo itself, so unfertilized eggs, at least, shouldn't be too objectionable to ponies.

Benson

2013-03-11, 07:35 AM

Seeing baked goods are commonplace in MLP, eggs are probably accepted as common fare.

There was also an incident in MLP with pinkie pie naming off the ingredients for muffins, where she mentioned eggs along with other normal ingredients as well.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-12, 09:55 AM

*reads latest post*

Yeah...Sandy's gonna have to leave the medbay soon to take care of that little unpleasant business. :smallfrown:

Kelvin360

2013-03-12, 05:17 PM

Hey, if it's not too much trouble, could I get a comprehensive list of the culinary supplies aboard the Cirrus?

Grif

2013-03-12, 09:00 PM

Hey, if it's not too much trouble, could I get a comprehensive list of the culinary supplies aboard the Cirrus?

We don't have one. Feel free to make up your own. (Just be sure it's appropriate for a ship with a crew of six.)

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-14, 04:23 PM

I'll be on a retreat this weekend, and I don't think I'll be having internet access. Neither would I really want to; rather defeats the whole point of a retreat, doesn't it?

Anyhow, this means I'll be gone from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Hence why I ended the scene with Sandy instead of starting a new one. He'll be slipping out of the medbay first chance he gets, and while I don't think he'll be that long, best not to start any more scenes with him until we know for sure.

Grif

2013-03-14, 08:47 PM

MCerberus

2013-03-14, 11:41 PM

Did we ever get medical things attended to in the clinic or are we just going to assume treatment from not those two doctors.

Kelvin360

2013-03-14, 11:53 PM

Well I'm pretty sure that Violet is now A-okay, but I don't think treatment on the others guards has even started yet. Taylor's gonna make his way over there eventually, when Night jewel wakes up. :smallbiggrin:

MCerberus

2013-03-15, 12:44 AM

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-15, 01:12 PM

Say, Kelvin360, out of curiosity and most definitely not related to any secret plans I absolutely don't have for my characters, what kind of magical creatures does that thing have "a nasty surprise" for?

Kelvin360

2013-03-15, 02:43 PM

Well, it's essentially magical sunlight. Anything adversely affected by being outside at high noon is going to be hurt. It was designed for combating vampires, but it might harm things like shades, too. Mind, the flash is nearly instantaneous, so if the creature in question has to be standing around in sunshine for a while, it'll just get burned, maybe weakened.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-15, 02:56 PM

I see. In that case, it's not applicable. Even though it wasn't going to be anyway because none of my characters are secretly non-pony creatures and definitely aren't creatures not on that list...

My word, are you ever incompetent with falsehoods, Mr. Icekiller.

Mindfreak

2013-03-17, 03:28 PM

Hey Grif, did you ever end up posting for Lemongrass in Schoolhouse of Terror?
Last I remember, I was waiting for a response to the monster trying to grab Lemongrass with a tentacle.

Grif

2013-03-17, 09:58 PM

Hey Grif, did you ever end up posting for Lemongrass in Schoolhouse of Terror?
Last I remember, I was waiting for a response to the monster trying to grab Lemongrass with a tentacle.

Must have missed it. Apologies.

I'll dig through and see where the post in question is.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-17, 10:46 PM

If there is anybody else who has a decent handle on the Captain's character and would be willing to play him, I'm open for somebody else to do it. I can do it if necessary, but I'm really loaded up on work right now.

MCerberus

2013-03-17, 11:22 PM

I can handle the captain since Mach is idle and a certain griffin is right now hospitalized.

Benson

2013-03-18, 01:58 AM

(Eh, head of police is the captain's brother?)

Yes, and we even discussed it in the OOC and you also included it in your write up of the revised timeline, basic knowledge/history about the guardhouse and poliece station some time ago.

Grif

2013-03-18, 02:06 AM

Yes, and we even discussed it in the OOC and you also included it in your write up of the revised timeline, basic knowledge/history about the guardhouse and poliece station some time ago.

Did I? Cripes, my memory is all over the place these days.

Luka

2013-03-19, 06:09 PM

Sorry for the delay, I got something to do and wouldn't be finished until weekend, also that I never knew if someone even responded to the guard/Mile in clinic stuff.

Grif

2013-03-20, 11:20 AM

Sorry for the delay, I got something to do and wouldn't be finished until weekend, also that I never knew if someone even responded to the guard/Mile in clinic stuff.

Which post is this again?

MCerberus

2013-03-20, 01:38 PM

As far as I know the clinic is just off-camera healing people

Luka

2013-03-20, 04:30 PM

Yeah, Hospital's mostly off screen (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14830061&postcount=874) atm, just that I haven't seen anyone if they were leaving the attackers' escape (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14820125&postcount=851) be or follow them. Also that I wasn't sure if there wasn't anything going to be about the colt or the prisoner guy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14820310&postcount=853), given that the guards wouldn't have known who's relative to the former and that they want to interrogate the later because of what happened.

Benson

2013-03-21, 07:05 PM

been on the in pain sick side yesterday and into this afternoon, apologies for holding folks back and all that.

I'll get to my posts tonight when I get home from work. :smallsmile:

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-22, 07:45 AM

Going to a convention this weekend, posting will be a mite spotty.

PurityIcekiller

2013-03-22, 05:17 PM

I may be delayed in posting for a while. I've been pretty sick. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Kelvin360

2013-03-22, 05:45 PM

Get well soon, darn you! *throws a Taylor at you*

In all seriousness though, take all the time you need to get better. Insert traditional spiel about chicken soup here. :smallsmile:

Grif

2013-03-23, 04:39 AM

Oh, HalfTangible, how are our dastardly duo going to meet Fox? :smallwink:

HalfTangible

2013-03-23, 01:10 PM

Oh, HalfTangible, how are our dastardly duo going to meet Fox? :smallwink:

Uh...Running from a lizard that's also a ninja?

...

I'M RUNNING OUT OF WEIRD!!

Grif

2013-03-23, 11:14 PM

Uh...Running from a lizard that's also a ninja?

...

I'M RUNNING OUT OF WEIRD!!

:smalltongue:

Sent by the cult themselves? Fox can even get in a "I told you so!" :smallbiggrin:

Benson

2013-03-28, 01:39 AM

Just so its known, I don't really want to see some sort of successful magical blood substitution come into existence so soon or any time so soon. It tends to feel like its trivializing the whole matter, and that would be lame, very lame.

Kelvin360

2013-03-28, 02:21 AM

Just wave it away as not working for this particular problem. *shrugs* It's not a difficult suggestion to ward off.

Kelvin360

2013-03-31, 12:23 PM

(We might be able to skip this scene forward to the actual meeting.)

If you're referring to the meeting with Starbeam, Daniel doesn't have any way to get into contact, so we'd need to wait for Taylor at the least.

TheAmishPirate

2013-03-31, 12:26 PM

If you're referring to the meeting with Starbeam, Daniel doesn't have any way to get into contact, so we'd need to wait for Taylor at the least.

Plus, there was that whole bit about meeting with the Town Guard regarding the vamponies. I bet by the time that's done, Taylor will be free.

Speaking of Taylor, he probably passed or has seen Mach's workshop in town... *hint hint*

Kelvin360

2013-03-31, 01:36 PM

True, but he's preoccupied and doesn't know what it looks like. Although obviously if there's a big sign out front sidequesting will ensue.

MCerberus

2013-03-31, 03:34 PM

True, but he's preoccupied and doesn't know what it looks like. Although obviously if there's a big sign out front sidequesting will ensue.

Will Tesla coils sticking out of the roof help?

Kelvin360

2013-03-31, 04:11 PM

Maybe, but that's usually a 'stay far away' signal rather than a hint. Especially since he assumes he's looking for Jan Jansen, not Dr. Doom.

MCerberus

2013-03-31, 05:11 PM

Hey, for a pegasus that means free electricity. Plus it feeds into the town when he's not doing SCIENCE.

Grif

2013-04-02, 07:29 AM

Sorry to any waiting on me.

Feeling pretty bluh on this RP of late. :smallsigh:

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-02, 07:42 AM

Sorry to any waiting on me.

Feeling pretty bluh on this RP of late. :smallsigh:

Sorry to hear that.

Things have been rather busy on my end, so I haven't been able to officiate/steer things along as much as I would like. I think we're just in a lull between arcs, so things should hopefully pick back up soon. I'll do what I can on my end to ensure that we get something lined up; FWM runs best when there's plots and conflict driving things.

If you do have cycles to spare, there is always the incredible, unforgettable, totally-not-lame bachelor party Silverpine and Sandy need to plan for Blaze. Because two squeaky clean stallions still coping with a traumatic mission are the best at parties. :smalltongue:

Luka

2013-04-04, 12:19 AM

Bluh, been having trouble keeping up, and events seem to just have blocked the whole thing I had made up and changed it to levels that I don't find even fun, plus the fact of LOTS of delays and disinterest, and that some stuff I had planned seems to go againts parts I didn't know about.
In general, I think the whole war thing I had made up got boring and it's just deadtiming characters and mutating into boring things, shall I retire the everything to free them of that?

MCerberus

2013-04-04, 12:21 AM

If you wanted to do that, you could simply have the evil general guy go 'well we're wasting resources being stupid evil trying to murder them, let's stop that and get to work'

Luka

2013-04-04, 12:38 AM

Well.... They're supposed to be doing both things, assasins for resource saving and mining so at least 70% of the army had the armor thing so the fight would be a lot easier, but there's Blades taking a week to fix armor, lots and lots of delays over here, and some other things in game that just make the thing unfun........

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-04, 01:00 AM

Right. It's super late here, and I have zero amounts of energy to deal with something new. I'll get something up in the morning, but for now, a few questions/suggestions:

-Are you thinking of completely pulling out of the RP?
-If need be, we can skip a few days. We've done it before, we can do it again.
-You can pass control of the army to somebody else, if anybody would be interested.

And my main question:

We were dealing with the vampony subplot for dang near a year. Now that that's wrapping up, I think we could all use some fresh plots and toys to play with. So, with that in mind, I had a few ideas that we could consider:

-Moving away from Bridle Shores-centric RP. We've pretty much had at least one non-town based adventure going on for a long time. I think it'd be good to get some different locales in, as well as some different challenges apart from "The town gets invaded again". This would probably lead to some timeline wonkiness, but if the Fallout RP is anything to go off of, a little time wonkiness ain't so bad.
-Plot advancement. This has been a bit slack on my part, but I think it's high time we also stepped things up in the world. Start making some of the major players move, let folks do things, etc. This would also give folks the chance to influence world events beyond "That crazy town is at it again."
-Keep things town-focused, but expand on what we have. There's the whole mess of catacombs beneath the town, with potential underground adventures waiting. There's the nearby forest, holding both Gwyn's tower and other mysteries deeper within. Then there's the town itself; perhaps there's room for some social intrigue and character advancement there.
-Keep things as they are, but have more low-key events. Some folks seem to like slice-of-life as well, and I agree it can make a nice breather. The lite RP will always have us beat there, but maybe more things can actually happen in the town to liven things up. Holidays, carnivals, new businesses opening up, etc.

These are just some ideas. What do folks want to see more of? What are folks happy with? What are folks less thrilled about?

Oh, and lest I forget:
-Character stories! Keep the world events at a low boil to provide backdrop and opportunity, while letting folks run plots related to their own characters, swapping out as we deal with major events in their life and such.

Benson

2013-04-04, 01:24 AM

Luka

2013-04-04, 01:41 AM

Orzel

2013-04-04, 06:17 AM

Well for Grills, the only reason he is allowed to stay in Bridle Shores and be a spoiled rich noble is because he isn't needed to lead his 3,000+ troops, deal with his enemies, nor bid for military contract for bits. If there is an actual threat of hostilities, he's have to go to Fetlock and man the Northern borders (or attack cities, he is a seige weapon after all).

The Cirrus is a ship and I pitched it as travelling the country, fightin' monsters and raidin' tombs for moneys. So...

And Lochbed will follow Ember on his quest to drive the Luna Purists from his home which Benson says is far.

We wll need a map of the world soon.

Grif

2013-04-04, 06:47 AM

Bleh, I apologise for letting the RP drift this far. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how do we proceed for here on.

A less Bridle Shores centric focus would be good, and would definitely allow more to participate with less need to wait on each other and what not. If there's anything the past few months tell me, is that large group scenes (five or more players) tends to drag. A lot. So, ideally, we should steer away from these if possible. Slice-of-life wackiness is good for light hearted RP between major arcs.

So, here are my suggestions:
First of all, before starting any wacky adventures outside Bridle Shores, we really need to get a group consensus on the setting. The entire reason we were able to get away with vague details on Equestria for the past year or so was because there was no real need to explore the world outside the walls of Bridle Shores. Which is really a double-edged sword, since it facilitates RP, but also limits us to a single setting. To this end, I'll start a Google Doc and start compiling all our background information into that. That'll definitely help to organise things for future reference, as well as allow players to have their input without having to post a message here. (Some of you may remember me writing snippets of history for this RP. I kinda lost interest after it seemed no one else was interested.)

I'll also start a separate doc for characters we have so far. This would render our old recruitment thread somewhat obsolete, but pulling information from that thread was a chore anyway. Hopefully, we can put links to both documents in our future OOC threads, and redirect potential players to it instead.

On Luka's army, I'm willing to take control of it, on the condition that I am also allowed to make changes as I see fit, in order to fit better into the setting. That may mean retcons to previously established storylines, but I'll try to keep that down to a minimum if possible. The main reason being that his army seems very incongruous and kinda floaty in terms of their plausibility and place in canon. On that note, I'll also like to see if we can mould Mindfreak's Dark Forces into something more coherent, as I think details on their composition, and forces are very fuzzy at the moment and the entire thing is currently in limbo with several players who were previously playing them having left the game.

Thirdly, if we were to proceed, I think we will need to elect a DM to arbitrate disputes. I think the DM by default currently is Amish, and he's doing an excellent job so far, but it would be good to make it official.

EDIT:
Here's what I gathered so far. Will need to pilfer more from the old threads.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOm-KXAccfjrZwSF0WM2MDlOq5C7ZLRqqZJIFEOoZbc/edit

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-04, 11:18 AM

I myself have been leaning towards shaking up Equestria, perhaps the treaties between Equestria, Zebrica, and the Griffon Kingdoms get 'stirred up'. Which could have an effect as the Bridle Shores Guardhouse becomes forced to be used as a proper military base bringing in a greater military presence in Bridle Shores which in itself can an effect on a whole to daily life.

I've been brewing up something that most folks have probably forgotten about. It would indeed shake the world situation up, and possibly lead to the start of a New Age somewhere down the line. And yes, adding a constant military prescence to the town would be a good way to spice things up in-town.

And no, I don't just mean the rapid influx of trim and fit stallions for Es to drool over. :smallwink:

Also on that note...

Well for Grills, the only reason he is allowed to stay in Bridle Shores and be a spoiled rich noble is because he isn't needed to lead his 3,000+ troops, deal with his enemies, nor bid for military contract for bits. If there is an actual threat of hostilities, he's have to go to Fetlock and man the Northern borders (or attack cities, he is a seige weapon after all).

If Bridle Shores did get a section of the Equestrian Army assigned to it, would it be conceivable that Grills would command it in some regard?

The Cirrus is a ship and I pitched it as travelling the country, fightin' monsters and raidin' tombs for moneys. So...

Indeed. I think the Cirrus would be well-suited to a less town-focused RP. Bridle Shores would still be their home base - after all, they'd married off two of their own there, it's where all their other relationships blossomed, they'd want to check up on the vamponies there, etc. - but they should totally go monster-hunting and such.

Bleh, I apologise for letting the RP drift this far. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how do we proceed for here on.

Don't worry about it. If anything, it's my fault for letting things stagnate a bit. The important thing is that we talk things over, get some good ideas a-brewin', and run with it.

A less Bridle Shores centric focus would be good, and would definitely allow more to participate with less need to wait on each other and what not. If there's anything the past few months tell me, is that large group scenes (five or more players) tends to drag. A lot. So, ideally, we should steer away from these if possible. Slice-of-life wackiness is good for light hearted RP between major arcs.

Good points, both.

So, here are my suggestions:
First of all, before starting any wacky adventures outside Bridle Shores, we really need to get a group consensus on the setting. The entire reason we were able to get away with vague details on Equestria for the past year or so was because there was no real need to explore the world outside the walls of Bridle Shores. Which is really a double-edged sword, since it facilitates RP, but also limits us to a single setting. To this end, I'll start a Google Doc and start compiling all our background information into that. That'll definitely help to organise things for future reference, as well as allow players to have their input without having to post a message here. (Some of you may remember me writing snippets of history for this RP. I kinda lost interest after it seemed no one else was interested.)

EDIT:
Here's what I gathered so far. Will need to pilfer more from the old threads.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOm-KXAccfjrZwSF0WM2MDlOq5C7ZLRqqZJIFEOoZbc/edit

I'll also start a separate doc for characters we have so far. This would render our old recruitment thread somewhat obsolete, but pulling information from that thread was a chore anyway. Hopefully, we can put links to both documents in our future OOC threads, and redirect potential players to it instead.

Many thanks. It does my heart good to see players stepping up like this. :smallsmile:

I address general worldbuilding below, so I'll just keep going on for now.

On Luka's army, I'm willing to take control of it, on the condition that I am also allowed to make changes as I see fit, in order to fit better into the setting. That may mean retcons to previously established storylines, but I'll try to keep that down to a minimum if possible. The main reason being that his army seems very incongruous and kinda floaty in terms of their plausibility and place in canon. On that note, I'll also like to see if we can mould Mindfreak's Dark Forces into something more coherent, as I think details on their composition, and forces are very fuzzy at the moment and the entire thing is currently in limbo with several players who were previously playing them having left the game.

Agreed. This goes hand-in-hand with a more solid definition of Equestria as a setting. I'm okay with the Dark Forces being slightly more nebulous, as that fits their whole motif of "powerful evil constantly lurking in the shadows", but that doesn't mean we can't nail a few things down.

Thirdly, if we were to proceed, I think we will need to elect a DM to arbitrate disputes. I think the DM by default currently is Amish, and he's doing an excellent job so far, but it would be good to make it official.

AUGH THEY KNOW MY SECRET

*ahem* Yes, it's true; I was never formally elected to this position. It was a case where the former DM stepped out, nopony stepped in, and I figured that we'd be well screwed if we didn't have a DM/arbiter. So I took up the job, and took the lack of complaints as a sign I was doing something right. But if we're going to be changing things up and expanding the scope, then I would feel more comfortable with my rulings have some amount of elected weight behind them.

That being said, I would like to point out that I am graduating college in about a month from now. To say that I am going to be busy is a bit of an understatement. To say that I'm starting to resemble Sandy's current state is not far from the truth. I'll try my best to be involved with planning and brainstorming, but understand that life kind of has to come first.

Also, shucks. :smallredface:

************************************

So, what I'm getting so far is that folks would like to keep Bridle Shores as a hub/slice-of-life sanctuary/home base while characters are free to adventure in other parts of Equestria. Stories still seem to be generally character-focused, using the world events as a backdrop, but there's certainly room for variety there. We also have a ton of pre-existing hooks we can exploit the heck out of, both for characters and for adventures. But before any of that starts, we need some solid brainstorming on what Equestria is right now.

One thing that strikes me as overly vague is both the regions of the world and the makeup of the noble houses. As Orzel put it, we need a map. We could borrow the "official" map of Equestria, or go with one of the expanded fan-made ones (like in "Off the Edge of the Map" or "It's a Dangerous Business"), and then doodle all over our chosen map with locations and regions as we see fit. The nobles play into this as well, as I imagine they all have regions of influence where they arguably hold more sway than the central Republic. Remember; the central government in Equestria is weak right now, and city-states like Bridle Shores are the norm.

So, thoughts? Who are the major players in Equestrian politics? And what sort of map should we use?

Luka

2013-04-04, 11:42 AM

On Luka's army, I'm willing to take control of it, on the condition that I am also allowed to make changes as I see fit, in order to fit better into the setting. That may mean retcons to previously established storylines, but I'll try to keep that down to a minimum if possible. The main reason being that his army seems very incongruous and kinda floaty in terms of their plausibility and place in canon. On that note, I'll also like to see if we can mould Mindfreak's Dark Forces into something more coherent, as I think details on their composition, and forces are very fuzzy at the moment and the entire thing is currently in limbo with several players who were previously playing them having left the game.

If you want it, then K, have it.

Agreed. This goes hand-in-hand with a more solid definition of Equestria as a setting. I'm okay with the Dark Forces being slightly more nebulous, as that fits their whole motif of "powerful evil constantly lurking in the shadows", but that doesn't mean we can't nail a few things down.

Wait, the Dark Forces are like that? maybe I made the army wrong then, since they're more like "big bad LOTS of guys who control the shadow AND ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!", dunno if that "nebulous" since I thought they would be solid but dark, but somehow fun because they're also against relying in others, which goes against the whole "friendship" thing but it's a cause I sympathise a LOT with.

So, what I'm getting so far is that folks would like to keep Bridle Shores as a hub/slice-of-life sanctuary/home base while characters are free to adventure in other parts of Equestria. Stories still seem to be generally character-focused, using the world events as a backdrop, but there's certainly room for variety there. We also have a ton of pre-existing hooks we can exploit the heck out of, both for characters and for adventures. But before any of that starts, we need some solid brainstorming on what Equestria is right now.

........
I have no idea about the stuff about the politics and such, but if the town focuses on that chances are none of my characters would ever be there or ever do anything there, they have excuse plots, they're just to produce trouble and stuff and get a reason to start a fight, so that would make my characters just stick outside, if I don't retire them

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-04, 01:35 PM

Wait, the Dark Forces are like that? maybe I made the army wrong then, since they're more like "big bad LOTS of guys who control the shadow AND ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!", dunno if that "nebulous" since I thought they would be solid but dark, but somehow fun because they're also against relying in others, which goes against the whole "friendship" thing but it's a cause I sympathise a LOT with.

Nebulous wasn't quite the right word for it.

I'm thinking something closer to Sauron or Sombra from S3; a powerful evil that lurks at the edges of the world's vision. Always plotting, always in motion, always a threat.

Orzel

2013-04-04, 02:55 PM

Well Grills could lead a military force left in Bridle Shores as he is a colonel and a major shareholder of a military supply company (screw conflicts of interest), but Grills would never want to actually do it. He only stays in his position out of fear of what would happen if he left.

Luka

2013-04-04, 03:24 PM

Nebulous wasn't quite the right word for it.

I'm thinking something closer to Sauron or Sombra from S3; a powerful evil that lurks at the edges of the world's vision. Always plotting, always in motion, always a threat.

That's where the difference is, the Dark army's not exactly "lurkers", they're lurking at the moment because they're concentrating strength and making armors, and because of that they've been using long-range aggression, but otherwise they would be moving out, dominating the town's surroundings in area-based warfare, taking out external forces and support and isolating the town, then concentrating a LOT of force into it, which, considering how they focus on individual power, it would be a LOT minus teamwork, that's another part, they don't have teamwork, they don't need teamwork, why? because a single one of them is a team, and the armor's supposed to help a lot at making that true. I'm not really sure what could they be compared with to give a better idea of how they would work like.

Kelvin360

2013-04-04, 05:08 PM

I'm gonna tentatively toss in a couple bits...

While I'm not opposed to either option, I'm slightly leaning towards Ze Army becoming more Ra'zac and less Persians-from-300 (essentially I'm agreeing with the 'moar lurkz' suggestions above). Mostly because it gives me solid reason to evict a vast majority of my unnecessarily-large character pool (most of them were backups for when I turned on my personal permadeath toggle in the end fighting anyway). Ideally, I'd like my Bridle Shores Prime list to compose of just Arvadraa, Feathergrin, and Dawnstrider at some point.

And as to Amish's idea about a military presence, well...Moonlight is still bringing that officially-sanctioned section of Luna's army, who's to say they won't stick around?

Meanwhile, I do think expanding our domain is an excellent idea, especially since the Lightwarders generally operate in the country anyway, plus I'd like to go even deeper into the Fae world as Rangolan; the politics caught my interest, I think. Heck, I've even still got plot hooks for a potential Thunderguard line and the nobles rolling about.

Also, I have a question for Mindfreak. Are those shadow ponies physical magically-created constructs, or actual shadow beings? Because I'd like to take a moment to reccommend the former, since Arvadraa has her whole 'controls shadow and darkness' schtick to worry about. :smallsmile:

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-04, 05:24 PM

If we're moving into fae business, I might want to put up a profile for Precious.

Anyway, I think moving the focus a little further away from Bridle Shores might be good, although Blades would need to make sure she had assistants to keep things going when out adventuring. It'll make for a nice change of pace, and maybe even give a chance to add some new character ideas of mine!

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-04, 05:54 PM

Meanwhile, I do think expanding our domain is an excellent idea, especially since the Lightwarders generally operate in the country anyway, plus I'd like to go even deeper into the Fae world as Rangolan; the politics caught my interest, I think. Heck, I've even still got plot hooks for a potential Thunderguard line and the nobles rolling about.

If we're moving into fae business, I might want to put up a profile for Precious.

Yes, yes, yes, and a bunch more of yes.

I personally like the fae and their otherworldliness, and I actually had a few deals in mind that Sandy might make in the future. There's a small concern of power abuse, but seeing how their help comes at a very high price, I think we can manage.

Luka

2013-04-04, 06:19 PM

I'm gonna tentatively toss in a couple bits...

While I'm not opposed to either option, I'm slightly leaning towards Ze Army becoming more Ra'zac and less Persians-from-300 (essentially I'm agreeing with the 'moar lurkz' suggestions above).

........ I have no idea what are Ra'zac, but I kind of wanted to make less like the persians, I mean, persians are just numbers and get wrecked, Dark army is persians.... With almost spartan skill, and they know it, exploit it, and search for ways to go from being spartans and then be and army of Master Chiefs, they wouldn't waste time lurking around when they could win already.

Grif

2013-04-04, 07:36 PM

Yes, yes, yes, and a bunch more of yes.

I personally like the fae and their otherworldliness, and I actually had a few deals in mind that Sandy might make in the future. There's a small concern of power abuse, but seeing how their help comes at a very high price, I think we can manage.

I am rather on the fence regarding the fae, as I'm not all too sure how to make of their otherworldliness. There's also the question of how important they are in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, the Google Docs are up and you guys are free to leave comments. Orzel, I believe you had a short blurb on the fireponies but I cannot for the life of me find where the post went. If you want to add something, either shoot me an email or PM, and I'll add you to the list of editors.

As for Luna's Republic, I am mostly taking a cue from modern political structures here. Mostly spitballin', but here's what I have:

Luna herself is reduced to a powerless figurehead (in terms of political power), but still commands considerable influence in the newly formed *Equestrian Parliament. The monarchy is officially abolished, as with the feudal system that had governed Equestria. However, the nobility had been steadily gaining in power since Iron Hoof and the civil war. When the switch to a republic (technically constitutional monarchy) came about, they simply just switched tacks and inserted themselves into the new power structure through money and already established political connections. In fact, fully 80% of the new members of parliament are in fact, nobles, with the rest either falling in line with the nobles or being a lone voice of dissent. Power plays happened often and viciously in the new Republic, to the detriment of Equestria in general.

EDIT: Again, my own personal theory for Dark Forces.

As for the Dark Forces, they're a shadowy organisation that lurks in the fringes of Equestria. Their origins are unknown. Ultimately however, their goal is the destruction of Equestria as a nation for their own goals. (They may or may not be aligned with whatever Amish is planning.) In fact, Dark Forces are a name coined by the Equestrian Intelligence Bureau and not officially used by any of the leaders of the organisation. Indeed, many groups ostensibly linked with the Dark Forces do not even know that they're working for them. Officially, they call themselves *Equestrian Independence Movement. Other groups associated with them are the *Celestial Resistance, *Lunar Movement and Cult of the Eclipse.

Orzel

2013-04-04, 08:09 PM

Fey: Well the way I have the fey set up is as if they see non-fey as sources of entertainment. They watch nonfae and copy their mannerisms and culture as fey lack any creativity of their own. They also see the actions, positions, and inspirations of ponies as currency and they haggle for the right to mingle with them. They have no wish to take over any nonfae land nor push any side too far ahead as oppressed ponies are boring. Possibly one of the Mane Six was a fey contact during the rebellion against Celestia.

Noble: I see the nobles as currently in the natural progression of wealthy land owners to wealthy businessponies. Every major noble family has a hoof in the Parliament and Military (or both like the Flamestrongs) which boosts the efficiency of their businesses.Luna is powerless mostly because the nobles have most of the bits in Equestria. It was the same with Celestia right before Iron Hoof but she was able to scare the nobles into following.

Searching for my written stuffs...

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-05, 07:31 AM

@Orzel: I think you forgot about Rainbow in the med-bay.

Orzel

2013-04-06, 06:50 AM

Grif

2013-04-06, 07:53 AM

Map Questions:

Should we use the "official" map of Equestria from the guidebook?

If we do then there are some things needed to be answered.

Are all the Asia and European Cites in the mainland of Equestria or across the ocean? That map has the North American cities close to their respective positions in real life.

If we place all the cities near their RL locations, all we must do is adjust distances and scale.

So Where's Bridle Shores?
We could probably take the map as a base, but any map of ours will be considerably different, since we have our own set of nations and races. Bridle Shores has been alluded to many times to be "west of Canterlot" and somewhere near a lake.

Orzel

2013-04-06, 08:14 AM

We could probably take the map as a base, but any map of ours will be considerably different, since we have our own set of nations and races. Bridle Shores has been alluded to many times to be "west of Canterlot" and somewhere near a lake.

Questions.

Do we have a Crystal Empire to the north?
If so, where would that place Valhalla?

Grif

2013-04-06, 09:09 AM

Questions.

Do we have a Crystal Empire to the north?
If so, where would that place Valhalla?

Good question. Since Valhalla was pretty much envisioned before The Crystal Empire episode, that kinda throws a wrench into things. I suppose we can say the CE is an the northernmost end of Equestria, with Valhalla and the rest of the Northlands to the south.

EDIT: Digging through the archives made me realise how many inactive/retired characters we have. Such a waste of potential.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-06, 10:42 AM

On maps:

Here's a version of the "offical" map of Equestria: http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/1/12/Map_of_Equestria_online_version_2012-08.jpg

And here's a fan version which includes a ton of other material: http://mashupforge.com/929/j6qC50FQVTWO6fFxG3s2gyKdbvvz4p/#x=-5.96575367&y=1.75781250&z=2

Peruse, and see which one you'd prefer. I think both have potential, personally, but I'm eager to see what other folks have to say.

On the Crystal Empire:

The lazy (but effective) route to take would be to say that the Crystal Empire sequestered itself ala what Sombra did, only this time it was intentional. Vanishing away until they could safely return. It's what we did in the FOE game, but that case is a bit more severe.

On retired characters:

Aye. Makes me sad, it does. But at the same time, the best we can do know is make what we have awesome. Maybe others will join, maybe they won't, but at least we'll have something cool ourselves.

Grif

2013-04-06, 12:06 PM

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-06, 12:16 PM

Re: Crystal Empire. That works.

Re: characters. If any of you want to update their description, relationships and all those good stuff, you can just leave a comment in the document and I'll transcribe it to the document proper. (Or I can open it up for editing. Which one is more preferable?)

Hmm. I'd open it up to editing, under the rule of "Don't be a jerk." We always have edit logs if something happens, and editing it ourselves just makes it a lot more convenient.

Grif

2013-04-07, 06:55 AM

Hmm. I'd open it up to editing, under the rule of "Don't be a jerk." We always have edit logs if something happens, and editing it ourselves just makes it a lot more convenient.

It's open now. For reference here's the link to the Character Profiles (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lsycucKst0gVJoGR7VkT5oTXqJjdE7dpbWCCRAfK4FM/edit) and Background Information (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DOm-KXAccfjrZwSF0WM2MDlOq5C7ZLRqqZJIFEOoZbc/edit?usp=drive_web) in general.

EDIT: Character profiles should be all transferred now. Phex is considered active for the moment, since Tychris has not mentioned whether or not he has withdrawn from the RP or not.

Kelvin360

2013-04-07, 01:09 PM

Ye gods, I forgot that my character profiles read like a 3rd grade thesis. :smallbiggrin: Would anyone mind if I wrote up altered ones that read better and included additional salient information?

Also, I'd like to add a brief description of the Thunderguard's leadership on their section, if that's all right.

Also (last one, I swear), do we have an in-depth page for the Noble houses yet? Because I've been mulling over house Lunatics and wondering if something like it already exists.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-07, 01:59 PM

I'd give my opinions on the new pages, but Google Docs just plain fries my browser whenever I try to use it.

Grif

2013-04-07, 07:10 PM

Ye gods, I forgot that my character profiles read like a 3rd grade thesis. :smallbiggrin: Would anyone mind if I wrote up altered ones that read better and included additional salient information?
No problem. That's what the document is for. :smalltongue:

Also, I'd like to add a brief description of the Thunderguard's leadership on their section, if that's all right.
Alright.

Also (last one, I swear), do we have an in-depth page for the Noble houses yet? Because I've been mulling over house Lunatics and wondering if something like it already exists.
So far, only Orzel written stuff on noble houses, primarily concerning his Fetlock ponies.

I'd give my opinions on the new pages, but Google Docs just plain fries my browser whenever I try to use it.
GDoc doesn't play nice with anything other than Chrome.

Kelvin360

2013-04-07, 07:45 PM

So far, only Orzel written stuff on noble houses, primarily concerning his Fetlock ponies.

Hmm. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the Fetlock houses lean towards being pretty militaristic in regards to what power they have. Makes sense, but I like the idea of having a few factions in the nobility who make their names more out of a diplomatic standpoint than Peace Through Superior Firepower. I'll see what I can come up with.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-07, 07:56 PM

Orzel

2013-04-07, 08:17 PM

Hmm. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the Fetlock houses lean towards being pretty militaristic in regards to what power they have. Makes sense, but I like the idea of having a few factions in the nobility who make their names more out of a diplomatic standpoint than Peace Through Superior Firepower. I'll see what I can come up with.

Well the Fetlock nobles were once a collections of nobles who controlled the bulk of the Equestrian military for the time before Iron Hoof and many stayed in the same power during the Endless Summer. Many lesser nobles linked themselves to the Fetlock nobles for logistical reasons, food mostly.

But there are many other aspects of government that the Flamestrong, Scald, Gumdrops and their allies have no hooves in. Construction, Science and Technology, Banking, Ecology, Law, Prisons, etc.

Kelvin360

2013-04-07, 08:24 PM

Grif

2013-04-07, 08:48 PM

Hmm. Law and Order works pretty well for one of my concepts, but the current system of government being a semi-republic over a theological monarchy puts a bit of a chink in the other. Maybe I can get some ideas, here; how do you represent a large portion of your contribution being faith when you're not ruled by a god-figure anymore?

It could be an outcast faction wanting to restore a monarchy. Kind like those monarchists in countries which had a monarchy that was overthrown.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-07, 08:51 PM

It could be an outcast faction wanting to restore a monarchy. Kind like those monarchists in countries which had a monarchy that was overthrown.

Aye. A faction that is pushing strongly for a larger central government, with Luna having full reign over everything.

The regions where they hold the most influence I can see going one of two ways; either they run a tight ship, adhering closely to every word Luna says, or they run them incredibly loosely in preparation for the day in which the alicorn will take her rightful place over all.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-08, 12:07 AM

"...Wait a minute. Isn't it daytime?"

I had the current time for them pegged at around late afternoon/evening. It isn't much of stretch to say that the sun's gone down for the Cirrus folks.

Kelvin360

2013-04-08, 12:10 AM

But...I thought Taylor and Jewel left only a little while ago and it was, like, early morning. WHAT IS THIS I DONT EVEN :eek:

EDIT: Also, just so no one freaks out, I went ahead and removed Stellar, Daniel, and Taylor's bios until I can repost the new ones. Won't take long.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-08, 01:51 AM

Say, whatever happened to the "Blueshield encounters the dark forces" story segment?

Benson

2013-04-08, 01:57 AM

Its okay Kelvin, I too thought it was still daytime and thus got all erked and didn't want to post at the time until I collected myself, still didn't post because work happened.

Grif

2013-04-08, 05:37 AM

Say, whatever happened to the "Blueshield encounters the dark forces" story segment?

I'm not sure. Luka is still in charge of the army/dark forces/whatever for now.

(Am thinking on how to integrate them and Luka's backstory into the general storyline.)

EDIT: On the daylight thing, my apologies. I made the assumption that we already moved on to dusk, since there is no reason we'll be going out this early otherwise. >.>

Luka

2013-04-08, 09:45 AM

I'm not controlling ALL the dark forces, just the dark army, and I think I already passed control of them over to you.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-08, 09:59 AM

EDIT: On the daylight thing, my apologies. I made the assumption that we already moved on to dusk, since there is no reason we'll be going out this early otherwise. >.>

I had figured that the whole bit with Sandy hadn't taken place until the late afternoon, seeing how he was going to be sleeping in for a long time. Reasonable assumptions on both sides, daylight and not daylight.

To make things easier, I'm all for hand-waving it to dusk for you guys. Seeing how most folks just collapsed into bed last night, it's not unreasonable to say that it took them a bit longer than fifteen minutes to make themselves presentable. Washing out the dust and grime and smell of vampony ichor ain't easy. :smallwink:

HalfTangible

2013-04-08, 11:20 AM

...I forgot Hay Bale wore a green hood. xD

Grif

2013-04-09, 06:45 AM

I had figured that the whole bit with Sandy hadn't taken place until the late afternoon, seeing how he was going to be sleeping in for a long time. Reasonable assumptions on both sides, daylight and not daylight.

To make things easier, I'm all for hand-waving it to dusk for you guys. Seeing how most folks just collapsed into bed last night, it's not unreasonable to say that it took them a bit longer than fifteen minutes to make themselves presentable. Washing out the dust and grime and smell of vampony ichor ain't easy. :smallwink:

What he said. I'm going to poke Tychris to see if he's still interested in running Phex or not.

@Purity
Since Luka has turned over the army to me, give me a few days to sort out details and then we can resume Blueshield's suicide chargeheroism. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Sorry if I've been holding up anyone in this RP. Been scrambling to cover things in RL.

Orzel

2013-04-11, 05:37 AM

Injured finger.
Typing limited

Grif

2013-04-11, 12:04 PM

So, been hashing out the Dark Army stuff, but here's what I got so far.

Luka’s dark army (aka Army of Shimmerite)
Proposed revised outline:
- Currently led by one Doth
- Estimated army strength: Five hundred soldier, perhaps upwards of thousands of unarmed followers
- Has taken over the village of Rusty Falls
- Has control of newly discovered magical ore called shimmerite.
- Known properties of metal infused with this new ore: Tougher than steel and provides substantial protection against elemental attacks and magic. Very difficult to mine as it requires focussed unicorn magic in order to split the ore in manageable chunks to be processed.
- Production of such metal is slow, owing to untried methods of production
- However, at least a hundred suits of armour have been manufactured successfully. At this point of time, they’re reserved to Doth’s trusted lieutenants and elite troops. Substantial amount of shimmerite weapons have also been manufactured.
- Current objectives of army: to seize control of the local region in order to search for more shimmerite.
- Current geopolitical situation: Bridle Shores technically is the largest remaining bastion of the NLR power within a hundred miles of the Rusty Falls village. With Moose raiding all over the Equestrian borders, the Republic does not have any forces to spare to deal with this rebellion at the moment. Taking Bridle Shores would cripple any ability for NLR to stage a counterstrike for weeks, allowing Doth critical time to equip more of his soldiers with super armour.
- Known characters:
“Ruby Stones”, member of the terror expedition to Bridle Shores
Unnamed unicorn with tentacles

Village of Rusty Falls
Located within a small valley, between the Frostback Mountains and Mount Trotia, a group of miners originally dug out a couple of mines here, in search of precious metals. The miners struck iron, along with a small quantity of copper. A village soon sprung up around the mines as business boomed. Named after the rust coloured spring nearby, Rusty Falls holds the honour of being one of the few mines that still operates even after centuries of use. The village managed to escape the ravages of first the tyranny of Iron Hoof, then the civil war through clever diplomacy and a solemn pledge to stay neutral to either side. The arrangement suited either side just fine, since iron was in much demand. When the Republic came to power, they simply continued to supply it as they did under Iron Hoof. It would seem Rusty Falls had caught a lucky break...

One fine day, the miners struck a vein of silvery ore. At first, this prompted a huge celebration, as the newly discovered silver vein would bring about a substantial windfall to the village. Their joy soon turned into bemusement, as they struggled to actually mine the ore out. Their finest steel axe would merely chip the ore and in some circumstances, broke off entirely. This peculiar conundrum soon came to the attention of one Doth and his minions. His lieutenants, disguised as kindly inventors, infiltrated the village and offered their help. The miners accepted readily. They soon devised a crude, but effective method of mining this ore, which they named Shimmerite for how it gleamed or “shimmered” in the dark. The process involved specialised unicorn miners, using their magic to “lash” out at the rock, weakening it enough so that normal pickaxes can be used. Although effective, the process is taxing on the unicorns, and most eventually would suffer from magical burn out. (similar to how Sandy used up all his magical reserves.)

This brought them to their next dilemma. What to do with this newly mined Shimmerite? At this point, Doth’s lieutenant suggested they fashioned armour out of the ore, since it has the potential to deflect even the strongest steel weapons. With great difficulty, they melted down the ore and fashioned a suit of armour. Their first test exceeded even their wildest expectations. The shimmerite armour was incredibly resistant to all conventional weaponry and even magical attacks. Moreover, it seemed to have an affinity for dark magics, absorbing negative energy and using it to augment itself. So impressed was Doth by this, that the villagers was greeted by his personal army the very next day. The small village were overwhelmed in a matter of minutes, aided by treachery by their “benefactors”. The villagers were enslaved and put to work in mining more shimmerite. Due to the village’s remote location and their non-affiliation with the Republic, nothing was done to contain Doth. He soon fortified the village into his personal fortress and has barred entry to any outsiders. Reports of armed guard towers and barricades guarding the entrances to the valley soon reached the nearby towns and cities. It is currently unknown what Doth has planned, though astute observers predicted the warlord wouldn't rest on his heels forever...

(Luka’s backstory needn’t change too dramatically, and can still be fitted in without substantial changes, since they appear to deal mostly with the latter half of this.)

Luka

2013-04-11, 12:41 PM

Mindfreak

2013-04-11, 07:13 PM

*Poke people to the Schoolhouse of Terror*

Kelvin360

2013-04-11, 10:39 PM

Also, I have a question for Mindfreak. Are those shadow ponies physical magically-created constructs, or actual shadow beings? Because I'd like to take a moment to reccommend the former, since Arvadraa has her whole 'controls shadow and darkness' schtick to worry about. :smallsmile:

:smallwink:

Grif

2013-04-12, 09:49 AM

Uh, most of it is K, but there's kind of a problem or two:

-Shimmerite doesn't have affinity to dark magic, that's gloomium, the "reversed" version of it, original shimmerite has affinity to light magic, otherwise it wouldn't make much sense for a family of good-aligned knights to use it for light-based powers.
I'm taking the liberty to change it here, since I don't really want to deal with two sort of "special" material that somehow managed not be found throughout history and suddenly is found now. It's... really awkward to explain all that.

-When did exactly start to be mined out? and when was the armor made? it couldn't have been attacked the next day, given that Luka's entire family has armor and weapons made of it and had to train on it's use.
Leaving it vague. Best guess is around six months. Note that I'm taking very large liberties with Luka's original backstory. If you feel this is not to your liking, I'll consider changing it.

-Also, the fortification thing, the village being unaffiliated would help solve some problems like why isn't there an entire expedition to take it back, though thing is that they were spotted, it would be a problem since their entire actions in the town were to precisely avoid any sign of the invasion from leaking out and they put wards around the place, that's why "John" sent them to kill those targets, pretty much their entire actions ingame were "We do NOT want others to know we're here".
Mmm, you can think of it this way. Ponies know that they taken over the village. They don't know how big an army he has, nor the fact that he's mining shimmerite at the moment. So the fortifications keep nosy outsiders out (like Blueshield) and they also warded the village to give the illusion that nothing much is happening. (Not invisible mind. Someone will get suspicious.) In other words, he's counting on the NLR to just disregard him as a small-time warlord until he built up enough force to directly challenge their rule.

Also, the unnamed unicorn is called Verdant....Iforgothislastname, he doesn't have tentacles on him, it's just a spell he has.
Ah, thanks, it's something I was wondering.

And the army's purpose being to find more shimmerite seems a bit odd.... I mean, if it wasn't established shimmerite was pretty odd and hard to find, how does conquering the town guarantee finding more? It kind of makes sense, since their main objective is power, and to reach one that goes above that of the alicorns, but I don't really know how conquering the town would help them find more.
Well, I'll explain it here. The nearest town that could challenge Doth's rule of Rusty Falls at the moment is Bridle Shores. Taking the town would definitely break the NLR rule over the area, since the next nearest town is <insert generic city>. With Bridle Shores down, he wouldn't need to creep around the country side to search for more shimmerite. He'd probably also gain new followers/recruits who might flock to him once Bridle Shores is taken.

Also, why to search for more shimmerite? Because there's only one source so far, and it can only produce so much of the material. It stands to logic that there might be more sources of shimmerite nearby. By finding more mines, he can easily double/triple his output, giving him the ability to equip his entire army with it. Once he equips his entire army, he can go for the throat and start challenging the Republic directly.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-12, 09:58 AM

I'm taking the liberty to change it here, since I don't really want to deal with two sort of "special" material that somehow managed not be found throughout history and suddenly is found now. It's... really awkward to explain all that.

Not to mention that, from an alignment stance, it makes more sense to give the armor the ability to absorb/grow more powerful when exposed to dark magics. After all, what better tool for a paladin to use than an armor that literally consumes evil and turns it against its wielder?

Of course, the downside to this is that, should the material and armor fall into the wrong hooves, it can be effectively self-powered. A mage can simply cast the appropriate spells at himself or his allies, the armor will absorb it, and grow more powerful. This would likely make casting such spells offensively problematic, seeing how the armor would be constantly leeching power from the spell, but perhaps that is an acceptable loss to Doth; strength of body and armaments over strength of horn.

EDIT: I'd like to apologize for my general inactivity here. I know we're smack in the middle of brainstorming up what to do next with this setting and direction is indeed needed there, but I'm also graduating in about three weeks and swamped with work. Believe me, I haven't forgotten about you all and I'll be giving this the proper work it needs, but that's going to have to wait until after I'm back home and getting actual sleep again. I'll have to ask your patience on that front, and I'm sorry for the delay. :smallfrown:

Luka

2013-04-12, 12:03 PM

Not to mention that, from an alignment stance, it makes more sense to give the armor the ability to absorb/grow more powerful when exposed to dark magics. After all, what better tool for a paladin to use than an armor that literally consumes evil and turns it against its wielder?

No it wouldn't, unless the paladin used dark magics, which obviously wouldn't be done by a paladin.
I mean, it would be ok if it was that it gained resistance against dark magic, but make it a dark material wouldn't not just not fit with it "shimmerite" name but also screw over with it's magic capabilities used by paladins/crusaders/knights/etc, who would be using rather light-based metals to empower their skills and gain resistance against dark-based attacks, making shimmerite have afinity to dark magic changes it's alignment too, it's basically naturaly-formed gloomium now, no paladin would ever use that now.

I'm taking the liberty to change it here, since I don't really want to deal with two sort of "special" material that somehow managed not be found throughout history and suddenly is found now. It's... really awkward to explain all that.

Gloomium is just a refined form of shimmerite, not really "suddenly" found, but honestly, shimmerite shouldn't be changed (and it's even technically not controlled by the army's plot but Luka's backstory) and changing shimmerite to be equal to gloomium is a bad idea, not only would it be completely resistant to light magic for pretty much being "naturaly dark" instead of breaking back to it's natural state before it was reverted, thereby making it a lot stronger for the army, but because it makes it a "naturaly dark" metal you're reversing it's entire role completely except by name, which makes it not make much sense.

Leaving it vague. Best guess is around six months. Note that I'm taking very large liberties with Luka's original backstory. If you feel this is not to your liking, I'll consider changing it.

The slavery thing is K (though it breaks an encounter I had made), though I had it proposed as being made several years ago along with town isolation to escape the whole war thing, maybe if it was made around 8 months-1 year, and if Doth waited to see how they developed it and attempted to make more effective methods for mining and training and finding a way to make the gloomium, then they would attack?

Mmm, you can think of it this way. Ponies know that they taken over the village. They don't know how big an army he has, nor the fact that he's mining shimmerite at the moment. So the fortifications keep nosy outsiders out (like Blueshield) and they also warded the village to give the illusion that nothing much is happening. (Not invisible mind. Someone will get suspicious.) In other words, he's counting on the NLR to just disregard him as a small-time warlord until he built up enough force to directly challenge their rule.

The prisoner that's still stuck in the guardhouse said they were thousands back when he got interrogated, in fact, the army wouldn't really have any problem sharing that, for intimidating their enemies and such, and the attacks already revealed he's mining that AND refining/corrupting it for dark power; the whole problem is that their enemies would know where they are, and that would be a problem, since that would make random onlookers start to appear around, and make the town send stuff that way too, not to mention that possibly an army would get there too if the NLR stops disregarding them.
The wards are mostly for illusion, to make it look like the town's still there, but not the whole fortifications around the place, because otherwise they would get in REAL trouble.

Well, I'll explain it here. The nearest town that could challenge Doth's rule of Rusty Falls at the moment is Bridle Shores. Taking the town would definitely break the NLR rule over the area, since the next nearest town is <insert generic city>. With Bridle Shores down, he wouldn't need to creep around the country side to search for more shimmerite. He'd probably also gain new followers/recruits who might flock to him once Bridle Shores is taken.

Also, why to search for more shimmerite? Because there's only one source so far, and it can only produce so much of the material. It stands to logic that there might be more sources of shimmerite nearby. By finding more mines, he can easily double/triple his output, giving him the ability to equip his entire army with it. Once he equips his entire army, he can go for the throat and start challenging the Republic directly.

Yeah, the first thing makes sense, thanks

Second is still confusing though, how would they know there's more sources nearby outside of the valley? as far it's known shimmerite is pretty rare, only known place is inside the valley. All he would do by getting the town is claim more territory for search, but that wouldn't exactly guarantee he would find more metal.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-12, 12:19 PM

No it wouldn't, unless the paladin used dark magics, which obviously wouldn't be done by a paladin.
I mean, it would be ok if it was that it gained resistance against dark magic, but make it a dark material wouldn't not just not fit with it "shimmerite" name but also screw over with it's magic capabilities used by paladins/crusaders/knights/etc, who would be using rather light-based metals to empower their skills and gain resistance against dark-based attacks, making shimmerite have afinity to dark magic changes it's alignment too, it's basically naturaly-formed gloomium now, no paladin would ever use that now.

What part of "absorbing" isn't resistance? :smallconfused:

not only would it be completely resistant to light magic for pretty much being "naturaly dark"

That right there is an assumption, and was never stated.

Second is still confusing though, how would they know there's more sources nearby outside of the valley? as far it's known shimmerite is pretty rare, only known place is inside the valley. All he would do by getting the town is claim more territory for search, but that wouldn't exactly guarantee he would find more metal.

Emphasis mine.

Where are you more likely to find more rich veins of the stuff? In the area surrounding a vast mine, or by picking a location at random and saying, "Let's mine here, guys!"

It isn't about guarantees, it's about the best possible guess.

You seem to be freely mixing between your explanations and what Grif has come up with. Make sure that you read what he has carefully before you object to something, as it's probable that he's included something that makes it a non-issue.

Luka

2013-04-12, 12:38 PM

What part of "absorbing" isn't resistance? :smallconfused:

The part where it's absorbing it, having an affinity to it and by logic being pretty much a dark material itself, that's not resisting it that's just throwing fire into fire.

That right there is an assumption, and was never stated.

It was widely stated in game in Kelvin's scenes, that gloomium's main weakness was shooting it with a lot of light magic so it turned back to normal, if the dark material was shimmerite it wouldn't have anything to revert back to since it's naturaly dark.

Emphasis mine.

Where are you more likely to find more rich veins of the stuff? In the area surrounding a vast mine, or by picking a location at random and saying, "Let's mine here, guys!"

It isn't about guarantees, it's about the best possible guess.

You seem to be freely mixing between your explanations and what Grif has come up with. Make sure that you read what he has carefully before you object to something, as it's probable that he's included something that makes it a non-issue.

I don't know how ores work geologically so I can't exactly know if that's even correct. But if you took it's scarcity then wouldn't it require country-sized territories to search for rather than town or county-sized?

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-12, 01:01 PM

The part where it's absorbing it, having an affinity to it and by logic being pretty much a dark material itself, that's not resisting it that's just throwing fire into fire.

Salt water has an affinity for electricity, and is decidedly not electricity itself. The logic doesn't really hold, and that's still an assumption you're making.

It was widely stated in game in Kelvin's scenes, that gloomium's main weakness was shooting it with a lot of light magic so it turned back to normal, if the dark material was shimmerite it wouldn't have anything to revert back to since it's naturaly dark.

See previous post regarding mixing up past information with Grif's.

As it stands, we have no information about how the material reacts to light-based magic, thus making this guesswork on our part, so I'ma just wait for Grif to clarify.

I don't know how ores work geologically so I can't exactly know if that's even correct. But if you took it's scarcity then wouldn't it require country-sized territories to search for rather than town or county-sized?

Yes, that is how it typically works geologically.

You also have forgotten that by capturing/enslaving Bridle Shores, Doth ensures his control over an area much larger than the town. Thus, he is able to mine the earth freely over a wide area, instead of just in Rusty Falls.

Luka

2013-04-12, 01:24 PM

Salt water has an affinity for electricity, and is decidedly not electricity itself. The logic doesn't really hold, and that's still an assumption you're making.

But saltwater doesn't make a good electric isolator, so chances are it's most likely to be electrically charged or conducting it around, so it's alignment is electrical and not isolator, same with the metals, you have a metal with affinity to dark magic and the ability to empower itself with it? then that metal is dark, why? because it coducts it and is empowered by whereas a "light" metal is know to harness a force that intrinsically repels it, it doesn't absorb it to power itself.

See previous post regarding mixing up past information with Grif's.

As it stands, we have no information about how the material reacts to light-based magic, thus making this guesswork on our part, so I'ma just wait for Grif to clarify.

Gonna wait on that too, thing is I'm heavily against the "affinity to dark magic" part.

Yes, that is how it typically works geologically.

You also have forgotten that by capturing/enslaving Bridle Shores, Doth ensures his control over an area much larger than the town. Thus, he is able to mine the earth freely over a wide area, instead of just in Rusty Falls.

Like I said, no idea about that geological part so I can't tell if you're right or not about it.

Read my last post, I said "country-sized rather than town or county-sized", but right about the capturing/enslaving part.

Kelvin360

2013-04-12, 02:00 PM

*dramatically slams open the thread door*

OBJECTION!!

Hamminess having been dealt with, I believe I can help from a technically co-author standpoint (Luka and I discussed Shimmerite before all this in PMs). While I don't have the benefit of Luka's headcanon, I do think I can add another brain on his side to assist in straightening a few things out.

First off, Shimmerite isn't confined to that one area as a metal deposit. It is, however, exceedingly rare. It works on rather the same concept of it's easier to find diamond in a diamond deposit than a random spot in Arizona. Except that in this case, Arizona is huge.

See previous post regarding mixing up past information with Grif's.

As it stands, we have no information about how the material reacts to light-based magic, thus making this guesswork on our part, so I'ma just wait for Grif to clarify.

I have a response to this, but I'm not sure whether you're talking about Gloomium or Shimmerite. Though it does bring me to my next point.

Glooooooomiuuuuum. *flash of lightning, ominous laughter* Honestly, I'm not sure what the big deal is with Gloomium. It's not like it's an entirely new deposit. Every scrap of Gloomium produced comes from a Shimmerite total. It's just Shimmerite with reversed tertiary properties. Heck, quite a bit of the Transmutation school of magic is all about changing something into another, and if you're good enough, turning light to dark isn't any more of a stretch than turning a fireball into an iceball.

That all having been said, I do have an issue I've been meaning to bring up.

The Dark Army should not have nearly even close to enough Shimmerite to be able to outfit all of their people with Gloomium armor and weapons. Not even all of their elite troops. It's rare for a reason. An alloy with just a splash of the stuff put in for a comparatively small enhancement boost is workable, but I think what we've been seeing is pure sets of Shimmerite or Gloomium. And that seems...I dunno, unrealistic? (In a world where we play as magical talking ponies, but still.)

To compare, it took Taylor 20+ years of near-constant digging, scraping, investigating, and draining to gather up enough Shimmerite for his shield, and it's still not even 100% pure.

So! Those having been addressed, I still probably missed a few issues, so let me know if that's the case and I'll see what I can do to help y'all brainstorm or un-muddle.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-12, 02:23 PM

Luka

2013-04-12, 02:23 PM

Alright, mostly for Grif's sake when he wakes up and sees all this, the two main points are:

1) Full sets of armor/weapons should be rare, but alloys can do the trick as well. (See also: Roy's starmetal sword from the comic)

2) This Gloomium stuff is essentially Shimmerite, but with the polarity reversed or some nonsense. This may end up being a moot point, as under the proposed canon we don't yet know how the stuff works with holy/light magic.

I still don't think that it's terribly far-fetched to assume that Doth might be able to uncover more deposits if he had access to the whole reigion. Besides, there's that whole bit of having the area in a virtual stranglehold if he takes Bridle Shores, such that he might only need the one deposit. More would help, but they aren't required for his plan.

Mostly point 2 is what I meant

Pretty much what Kelvin said, including it's transformation, the alloy thing is new though, thanks to him for coming up with it, could help for future stuff.

However, about it's scarcity, I haven't pictured it as being that hard to find or small in quantity, I mean, sure, harder to find than diamond, but not like to take 20+ years to find :smalleek:.
The valley's deposit was kind of planned to have kind of a large amount of it (there's currently a big pillar of it towering inside the valley, all thanks to Barb), mostly for the sake of making it practically infine so other players could have the chance to tinker with it and do stuff if they wished, but as solution I got some propositions to explain it.

-"concentrated exceedingly rare veins", that means, shimmerite would be hard, HARD to find, like Kelvin said, easier to find in a deposit than finding in a random spot, however is more a "random spot in USA" than "random spot in arizona", there would be some less rare to find veins too, of smaller size and less purity than the concentrated one, but more practical to find.

-"deep veins", it could be that the ore's so hard to find because it's main veins are usually reeeeeeeeeeally deep, like kilometers deep (earth deepest mine is 3.9 KM deep into the crust), however there would be some smaller veins above, it's possible that the village struck with a lucky peak of one of them.

Grif

2013-04-12, 08:25 PM

Alright, mostly for Grif's sake when he wakes up and sees all this, the two main points are:

1) Full sets of armor/weapons should be rare, but alloys can do the trick as well. (See also: Roy's starmetal sword from the comic)

2) This Gloomium stuff is essentially Shimmerite, but with the polarity reversed or some nonsense. This may end up being a moot point, as under the proposed canon we don't yet know how the stuff works with holy/light magic.

I still don't think that it's terribly far-fetched to assume that Doth might be able to uncover more deposits if he had access to the whole reigion. Besides, there's that whole bit of having the area in a virtual stranglehold if he takes Bridle Shores, such that he might only need the one deposit. More would help, but they aren't required for his plan.

***********************

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Grif for giving him a bit of misinformation. I had forgotten that Taylor's shield/knowledge of Shimmeritte was a thing, and I think he subsequently based his new stuff off the assumption that this was an entirely brand-new metal. That's on me, and I'm sorry for making this far more complicated as a result of my derp. >.<

Woah, so many new posts. (for the thread.) :smalleek:

@Amish
No problem. This is what the OOC thread is for: to hash out these ideas and correct any bit of misinformation in advance. In the grand scheme of things, whether or not shimmerite is a new metal is relatively unimportant. The miners can easily be unaware of shimmerite, given how rare it is supposed to be. (I'm just going to miss my little blurb on how shimmerite is named. :smalltongue:)

On shimmerite and gloomium:
I propose we nix gloomium altogether, since if it is just shimmerite with some properties reversed, then we may as well drop it. Two metals/alloys that does the same thing is redundant. Instead, what I propose is this:

Shimmerite absorbs dark energy and grows stronger in their presence. (By stronger mean could mean a) magical resistance, magical feedback when touched, and just being able to deflect even the strongest conventional weaponry, like Arvradaa shadowskin.) However, any energy collected in this process can easily be reversed with holy/light magic, rendering the metal/alloy inert and making it just an expensive version of normal steel instead.

On the rarity of shimmerite:
As Amish noted, it's just a best guess estimate (on Doth's calculations) that Doth would even find any more shimmerite deposits. If he does, then great. If not, then his plans would go on, albeit slower.

(Would post more, but time limited.)

Luka

2013-04-12, 08:41 PM

On shimmerite and gloomium:
I propose we nix gloomium altogether, since if it is just shimmerite with some properties reversed, then we may as well drop it. Two metals/alloys that does the same thing is redundant. Instead, what I propose is this:

Shimmerite absorbs dark energy and grows stronger in their presence. (By stronger mean could mean a) magical resistance, magical feedback when touched, and just being able to deflect even the strongest conventional weaponry, like Arvradaa shadowskin.) However, any energy collected in this process can easily be reversed with holy/light magic, rendering the metal/alloy inert and making it just an expensive version of normal steel instead.

Eh.... Both don't do the same thing, in fact they do the inverse
Gloomium is a dark metal, it's capable of empowering itself with dark energy and such, shimmerite is a light metal, does the same, but only with light magic.
Their difference is the same as the one between a paladin and a blackguard, a white mage and a necromancer, fire and ice, lasers and boolets. What you're saying it does is pretty much what gloomium does, except ignoring that training on it's use enables the user to use dark skills instead of light skills, so I don't see how a paladin would still use it since a paladin would just plain render it useless. So I don't think eliminating gloomium for that would help, in fact, it may even just complicate stuff.
That's like giving a paladin a "light shiny sword"........ Which empowers itself by being attacked with dark spells and throws them back (with chances of empowering the enemy), but whenever the paladin casts something it's a normal sword, I doubt there would be any "light shiny" in that sword.

Now, dunno if you're putting the ideas asuming my characters are already retired, but even so, shimmerite would conflict with Taylor's shield too.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-12, 09:00 PM

Eh.... Both don't do the same thing, in fact they do the inverse

What Grif is saying is that the two types of metals would mechanically work the same, just with different empowering and disempowering elements.

And as I write that, a rebuttal comes to mind for the existence of both types of metal; if the dark version of Shimmerite can be purified/negated/de-powered by light magic, then why can't the light version of Shimmerite be corrupted/negated/de-powered by dark magic? If they really are the same metal with flipped elemental properties, then they should work the same, right?

So, if your grand magical paladin power armor - your ace in the hole, the thing that will give you the edge over the villain - can be rendered moot by a school of spells that are almost exclusively used by said villains?

Seems like a bit of a major design flaw to me.

The changes Grif is proposing fix this problem. Dramatically, IMO. The armor grows stronger and harder the more it is exposed to dark magics - things that paladins will run into quite a lot - and can be cleansed with a good dose of light magics - things that paladins will most likely have. When in the right hooves, the armor turns into a dual-edged sword; evil's strength is turned against it, while the paladin must constantly keep his armor in check, lest the darkness within it grow too great. The very model of self-sacrifice that many paladins seek to embody.

When in the wrong hooves, it turns into a selfish mockery of its intended purpose; a self-sustaining engine of destruction that corrupts the already black heart within it. But as the user trades long-term morality, wellness, and possible sanity for short-term power, there is a great cost. One Good mage, one mighty holder of the Light, and what was their source of strength becomes their prison and soon-to-be tomb.

That, to me, is far more interesting than a metal that essentially plays Rock-Paper-Scissors with alignments.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-12, 09:18 PM

That raises another question: What about good ponies who are more "dark", evil ponies who are more "light", and ponies who simply don't have magical powers at all?

Luka

2013-04-12, 09:45 PM

What Grif is saying is that the two types of metals would mechanically work the same, just with different empowering and disempowering elements.

And as I write that, a rebuttal comes to mind for the existence of both types of metal; if the dark version of Shimmerite can be purified/negated/de-powered by light magic, then why can't the light version of Shimmerite be corrupted/negated/de-powered by dark magic? If they really are the same metal with flipped elemental properties, then they should work the same, right?

Because gloomium transformation is not perfect.
As it was left before, shimmerite had only resistance to dark magic given by how much it radiates light energy, doesn't mean it's "magic shield" can't get overwhelmed and shut down in a way similar to the plate Night Jewel tinkered with. Gloomium? it's a refined version of shimmerite which has undergone a process to reverse it's polarity to the dark side, however, it's is essentialy still shimmerite, just mostly reversed, but when overwhelmed by a lot of light magic it turns back to normal, think a battery............Wrapped in a lot of plastic, the battery's still in the middle but the plastic insulates it.
Doth, however, has one that would have undergone a more complex process which would have been kind of reconstructing shimmerite into a form which would be entirely gloomium

So, if your grand magical paladin power armor - your ace in the hole, the thing that will give you the edge over the villain - can be rendered moot by a school of spells that are almost exclusively used by said villains?

Seems like a bit of a major design flaw to me.

The changes Grif is proposing fix this problem. Dramatically, IMO. The armor grows stronger and harder the more it is exposed to dark magics - things that paladins will run into quite a lot - and can be cleansed with a good dose of light magics - things that paladins will most likely have. When in the right hooves, the armor turns into a dual-edged sword; evil's strength is turned against it, while the paladin must constantly keep his armor in check, lest the darkness within it grow too great. The very model of self-sacrifice that many paladins seek to embody.

When in the wrong hooves, it turns into a selfish mockery of its intended purpose; a self-sustaining engine of destruction that corrupts the already black heart within it. But as the user trades long-term morality, wellness, and possible sanity for short-term power, there is a great cost. One Good mage, one mighty holder of the Light, and what was their source of strength becomes their prison and soon-to-be tomb.

That, to me, is far more interesting than a metal that essentially plays Rock-Paper-Scissors with alignments.

Yes, it's rendered moot, why? because paladins don't go around casting "Death wave" or "Dark slice", which is the kind of skills gloomium empowers. Thing is the armor would grow stronger and everything.... Then lose it all when the paladin uses a single power of his'/her's, at most, it's just a bigger form of resistance against dark attacks, but otherwise? useless, it's just going to lose it's power whenever the paladin uses a skill and possibly consume that skill to eliminate the dark energy, that's not "self-sacrifice", that's just a paladin wearing gloomium, that's essensialy turning shimmerite into gloomium.
What you're pretty much proposing is that a water mage should wear fire robes because it could fetch fire magic which would be casted by fire mages even if it weakens his water magic, instead of the water robes which would not only have resistance to fire, but would empower his water magic, supporting him most of the time instead of hindering his magic and make a lot more tactical and nominal sense.

And if shimmerite worked like that, that would be even less reason for the army to use it, why use a magical armor supposed to be stronger when it's whole purpose is going to be physical strength completely lost whenever a light-based enemy appears? which could possibly be very often? that's not the "same" thing you know, that's even more reason for them to develop glomium....

Thing is, the armor is not "rock paper scissors", it's a dualistic alignment, light vs dark, shimmerite originally has resistance against dark and could empower light-based powers in a manner akin to a horn when trained with, shuts down when overwhelmed; gloomium has resistance against light and could empower dark-based powers in a manner akin to a horn when trained with, shuts down when overwhelmed (common reversed versions turn back to shimmerite when overwhelmed by light-based powers)

@PIK the Light is not good and dark is not evil is averted in their cases, since for shimmerite, positive energy's source are positive stuff, such as selflessness, compassion and such, while for gloomium the negative energy's powered by hatred, greed, etc. Those are stated in Doth's and Luka's character sheets.
So, in the case of Batman, it wouldn't be recommendable for him to use shimmerite, he would need to find a dark but good version, Darkcite?

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 12:20 AM

I'm baa-aaaaack....

Okay, a few more points to raise from moi.

While I really really do like the idea of Amish's, I think it should be placed somewhere else. The entire purpose of creating Shimmerite in the first place was that it was the mineral embodiment of light and its accompaniments, plain and simple. If you want to go through with that idea of yours (which, I want to point out again, I think is REALLY cool), the most obvious course is to just create another type of substance with those properties and call it something else, and dispose of Shimmerite entirely.

Also, Luka raises an interesting question for me. Do Shimmerite and Gloomium respond to alterations in energy signatures (by which I mean 'I CAST EMPOWERED SUNBURST') or changes/consistencies in brain functions (by which I mean 'the color of the night sky mirrors the darkness in my soul :smallfurious:')? Or both?

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 12:55 AM

On the plus side, it seems that we've generally ironed out the plot details, and are just hashing out the mechanics of this stuff.

I'd post more in response to Kelvin and folks, but I'd rather let Grif have the chance to catch up and put in his own two bits. Y'know, since he's kindly offered to take on the whole army plot and all that. :smalltongue:

Grif

2013-04-13, 10:51 AM

@Luka and Kelvin
Okay, so let's get this straight. Shimmerite and Gloomium is just the physical embodiment of... positive and dark energies?

Okay... hmm... I'll be frank. That sounds just dull. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rejecting the concept, but if there was all there is to the two, then... hmm... there isn't really much to say about it, isn't there? Also, I'm not even sure how a rock can radiate positive/negative energies when it's just... a rock/metal? Does the rock just emanate positive/negative energy innately? Was it blessed/cursed from before? How does it form?

Also, Luka, when I wrote this bit, I was just dredging my own story without taking into account the details of your backstory. Which is why I brought it here for review, to see if we can hammer something out of it to a compromise acceptable to all parties.

That raises another question: What about good ponies who are more "dark", evil ponies who are more "light", and ponies who simply don't have magical powers at all?

I'm not sure I understand the question here. Are you asking how the shimmerite (my version at least) affects those are morally grey?

Because gloomium transformation is not perfect.
As it was left before, shimmerite had only resistance to dark magic given by how much it radiates light energy, doesn't mean it's "magic shield" can't get overwhelmed and shut down in a way similar to the plate Night Jewel tinkered with. Gloomium? it's a refined version of shimmerite which has undergone a process to reverse it's polarity to the dark side, however, it's is essentialy still shimmerite, just mostly reversed, but when overwhelmed by a lot of light magic it turns back to normal, think a battery............Wrapped in a lot of plastic, the battery's still in the middle but the plastic insulates it.
Doth, however, has one that would have undergone a more complex process which would have been kind of reconstructing shimmerite into a form which would be entirely gloomium

Yes, it's rendered moot, why? because paladins don't go around casting "Death wave" or "Dark slice", which is the kind of skills gloomium empowers. Thing is the armor would grow stronger and everything.... Then lose it all when the paladin uses a single power of his'/her's, at most, it's just a bigger form of resistance against dark attacks, but otherwise? useless, it's just going to lose it's power whenever the paladin uses a skill and possibly consume that skill to eliminate the dark energy, that's not "self-sacrifice", that's just a paladin wearing gloomium, that's essensialy turning shimmerite into gloomium.
What you're pretty much proposing is that a water mage should wear fire robes because it could fetch fire magic which would be casted by fire mages even if it weakens his water magic, instead of the water robes which would not only have resistance to fire, but would empower his water magic, supporting him most of the time instead of hindering his magic and make a lot more tactical and nominal sense.

And if shimmerite worked like that, that would be even less reason for the army to use it, why use a magical armor supposed to be stronger when it's whole purpose is going to be physical strength completely lost whenever a light-based enemy appears? which could possibly be very often? that's not the "same" thing you know, that's even more reason for them to develop glomium....

Thing is, the armor is not "rock paper scissors", it's a dualistic alignment, light vs dark, shimmerite originally has resistance against dark and could empower light-based powers in a manner akin to a horn when trained with, shuts down when overwhelmed; gloomium has resistance against light and could empower dark-based powers in a manner akin to a horn when trained with, shuts down when overwhelmed (common reversed versions turn back to shimmerite when overwhelmed by light-based powers)

Hmm... lemme get this straight. Shimmerite and gloomium are the same metal, but the polarity reversed? They also have resistance against their opposite alignment, correct? Tell me then. If they both have resistance against their opposite alignment, wouldn't it be impossible to even reverse the polarity as you described? If they get overwhelmed, then they should be destroyed no? Or rendered inert. Hmmm, I don't know, I just have trouble grasping this concept.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 11:52 AM

I think another problem here is that the current definition of Shimmerite/Gloomium is very, very vague and full of wibbly-wobbly terms. I've lost count of the number of times we've tossed about the words/phrases "grow stronger", "dark", "light", "empower", "embodiment", etc. with very little explanation as to what those terms mechanically mean. Like Grif is saying, if all the metal boils down to is the "embodiment of light", then...so what? What's so special about it? How is it formed? How does it work? How does it even exist? Isn't something that continually radiates magical energy forever kind of breaking a fundamental law of the universe?

And then from a story standpoint, so what? To the best of my understanding, you've got a metal that essentially acts as a spell-focus mithril, or some other fancy better-than-steel metal. Only, its special "empowering" functions are useless to 2/3 of the pony population that can't actually cast spells.* On top of that, the remaining third is cut even further by the fact that it relies on two rather focused schools of spells. And the payoff? The select few who can use the armor get some sort of boost to their fighting prowess and defensive abilities, at little to no drawback, personal cost, or even training beyond armor proficiency.

Now mind you, this is all off my understanding of the metal, which could be flawed (see the above questions) but it still makes me think; original concept or no, can't we at least do a little better than that?

*This is also a problem with my idea, but a bit more easily handled by giving the armor some sort of exhaust/release system that anypony can use. Command word, mental action, etc.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-13, 12:43 PM

I'm not sure I understand the question here. Are you asking how the shimmerite (my version at least) affects those are morally grey?

To some extent, but not entirely.

For one thing, Dark Is Not Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkIsNotEvil) and Light Is Not Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsNotGood). For instance, Night Jewel, for all her weird moral standards, is most likely Good-aligned, and definitely more suited to darkness. (Not that she's at all interested in using armour of any kind, but it's the principle of the thing.) What do you intend to do about that?

The other thing I was trying to say is that, like Amish said, not every character has awesome magical powers. Blades is a straight-out Badass Normal (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal), for one, and Blueshield would be one were it not for her wings. Even those who do have magic don't necessarily have the right kind - Flare's magic is pretty much based around earth and fire, but not light or darkness at all. Those ponies get the short end of the stick.

Oh, by the way, I'm very sorry (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife).

Benson

2013-04-13, 01:55 PM

On a random note, we do have the space metals that Balboa was scouring the planet to acquire. The same metal that the Cirrus uses on its balloon portion to protect it but yet at the same time does not weigh it down due to its special properties.

The space metal has also been used by Balboa as the only material that has been able to contain the volatile energies that are the magical nukes he's been researching and creating.

I just figured I'd mentioned this so its not forgotten about and doesn't look like some sort of butt pull when its mentioned again in game.

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 03:51 PM

'Embodiment of light' was maybe the wrong turn of phrase. I should have used 'intended to resemble'. The metals themselves don't produce magic aside from their natural strength (which I'll get to later), they're magnifying glasses, in simplest terms.

Also, Amish, you answered your own question in the same paragraph.

And then from a story standpoint, so what? To the best of my understanding, you've got a metal that essentially acts as a spell-focus mithril, or some other fancy better-than-steel metal. Only, its special "empowering" functions are useless to 2/3 of the pony population that can't actually cast spells.* On top of that, the remaining third is cut even further by the fact that it relies on two rather focused schools of spells. And the payoff? The select few who can use the armor get some sort of boost to their fighting prowess and defensive abilities, at little to no drawback, personal cost, or even training beyond armor proficiency.

Emphasis mine. Even if you can't use either type of magic, it's worth mining to have access to something you can use in manufacturing that's hard, lightweight, and magic-resistant.

Which brings me to another thing; Think of Shimmerite as a very selective Noble Gas. In this case, it's reactive on a magical scale rather than an elemental one. With light, it becomes the aforementioned magnifying glass for power, but with other types of magic, it tends not to react at all, or react very little (thus the magic resistance), and with dark-ey-ness, it's like tossing sodium into water, just with less explosions and more deterioration.

It's not at all useless to the other 94% of the population. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that it's just even better for that 6%.

Hmm... lemme get this straight. Shimmerite and gloomium are the same metal, but the polarity reversed? They also have resistance against their opposite alignment, correct? Tell me then. If they both have resistance against their opposite alignment, wouldn't it be impossible to even reverse the polarity as you described? If they get overwhelmed, then they should be destroyed no? Or rendered inert. Hmmm, I don't know, I just have trouble grasping this concept.

Not only would it be very very difficult (possibly bordering on nigh impossible), but also very volatile until stabilized. But hey, if 136,000 experience points let you stop time, then an archmagus that focuses almost exclusively on metal (hello, Barb) should have fewer problems than normal.

She should still be passing out every few shovelfuls, though.

To answer Purity's question, the metal doesn't care what alignment you are. It's a metal. It doesn't have moral standards. It doesn't even necessarily care if you can use magic unless it's that specific magic. Again, picture it as special at first and then special some more in a rare case, not a hunk of junk unless something very specific happens.

And now....slew of questions time! *dance mix*

* What's so special about it?

The word 'special' implies some kind of uniqueness, and, while I heavily doubt Shimmerite in itself is entirely unique (really, planet Earth has had 6000+ years to run the gamut, can anything be legitimately unique anymore?), I've only seen certain types of Starfall Ore go after the concept of a light conductor. Another note here is that when I say 'light', I mean unnaturally-produced light. There is a vast difference between castoffs from a nuclear reaction in space and the magical production of heat and light, and it's an important distinction that Shimmerite ignores the former when determining its properties.

So, 'unique'? Unlikely. 'Different'? Most probably.

* How is it formed?

This one we have a bit of room with. My headcanon was that it used to be just iron deposits that got hit with wayward sunblasts from Celestia during her and Luna's fight with Discord way back when, and in the interval it absorbed some of that power, but I'll admit that does sound kind of lame. Like I said, we've got room to maneuver with this one.

* Darn Shimmerites, how do they work? (Not paraphrased AT ALL)

I'd like to think I did a pretty good job explaining its properties above, but I'll make a handy-dandy list of its properties.

-More resilient
-Lighter
-Nonreactive on a magical level, the exceptions being:
-Light magic, which is empowered when in close contact with it
-Dark magic, which is the only type of magic that can easily penetrate the resistance and also weakens its normal properties slightly while in contact

If it helps, picture +x Sacred Spell Resistant Mithral armor and/or weapons if you shook up the 'Sacred' property to apply more to light/dark than good/evil (like I said, it doesn't care if you're evil, it's a shiny rock)

* How does it even exist?

Well, if we go with my theory above, that explains it. It also explains why its so rare, because I don't picture A) Celly being way too trigger happy and B) that particular side-effect 'taking' in every case.

* Isn't something that continually radiates magical energy forever kind of breaking a fundamental law of the universe?

Yes, but it doesn't radiate anything. It's a reactant, not a catalyst.

Luka

2013-04-13, 05:02 PM

Well, to respond or expand Kelvin's explanation....

Think of the metals as being the Paladin equivalent of metals, it's not an "embodiment" but rather an enchanted metal.

Though to expand on Kelvin's response to Amish, the metal itself is a lesser horn, the sleeping stab done by the attackers near the town? Luka's shinning sword and spell reflection? the attacker's slice on the gate's side? metal-powered, it doesn't give them telekinesis, house-wrecking fireballs or such, but part of the training I mentioned on using those things is for their user to be capable of making those powers, when used by a unicorn it becomes a bigger mana bar with a bonus on spell effect, when used by non-unicorns, it makes them able to do MMORPG-ish skills and such kind of stuff, most of them require direct contact though. Doing so requires training though, not just on armor but on manipulating the metals themselves.

On the metals:
how would it have formed?
Different ways, Kelvin's Celly vs Luna, but generally, residual aligned magic that was left on the landscape and condensed into the underground, combined with metallic elements and such (iron, silver, actual mithril, etc, the same effect in each of them anyways) generating an enchanted metal, if not outright enchanting an existing ore vein, though I kind of differ on Kelvin on one thing, since I've mostly pictured that the metals ARE good and evil aligned, given that shimmerite magnifies "positive energy" usually emanated by positive desires (such as protecting the innocent) while gloomium does so but with negative energy (hatred, greed, cruelty, etc), and that those energies would also affect the formation of the metal, an example would be how Luka's magical aura became almost unexistant when he went BSOD after the attack on the southern gate.
However, that doesn't mean there could be Light is not good and Dark is not evil versions (Brillium and Darkcite?) or the case where a Well-intentioned extremist could use shimmerite or an anti-hero could use gloomium

What makes it special?
It's toughness, amplifying ability, versatility and light-weightness.

How does it work?
Toughness? It's stiff and hard, yet light, why? magic density, which would be what makes it kind of hard to craft and why the armors the army carry have so many weak points, such as breaking plates and uncovered joints, while Luka's family armor has an "armadillo" design which overlaps over the joints.
It's magic field? when a trained user uses it, the armor receives either positive or negative energy, which it transforms into it's magic, like Spiral power, just that a bit more linear, when not used it just keeps absorbing residues in the surroundings.
It's magical resistance? pretty much what Kelvin said, it's nonreactive to magic, kind of blocking it, but also it's own magical field generating a sort of "aligned magical shield", which would work as a force field against attacks, however, when it is overwhelmed the shield explodes and the armor's useless for a while until it's magic reserves can condensate into another shield, however, it gains a special resistance against the opposite alignment, just that gloomium reverts back to shimmerite when overwhelmed by light-attacks (whichever light) when it isn't completely gloomium.

How does it even exist?
Condensation, pressure, erosion, many things, but residual magic would need to be in quite a quantity for it's very essence to influence the metals so much, in the valley's case.... It's a valley, most erosion could possibly reach down there easier than usual.

On the breaking the laws of thermodynamic, it transforms positive energy into magic, plus that it's more of a reactive than a catalyst like Kelvin said, it requires activation.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-13, 05:26 PM

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 06:28 PM

So, there's still something I don't really understand. Namely this:

-Dark magic, which is the only type of magic that can easily penetrate the resistance and also weakens its normal properties slightly while in contact

So, in designing this material that is supposed to be representative of the elements of light and all that, something that is supposed to be primarily for a small subset of paladins and the like, we're making its main weakness be evil-aligned spells? To the point where it completely bypasses its resistance and negates its spell-focus properties? :smallconfused:

Also, "turning positive energy into magic": If this means that this armor effectively allows a non-unicorn to use unicorn magic, then that is getting a flat 'No' from me. Fancy armor or not, that takes a fundamental part of the setting and breaks it over its knee.

More will come when I'm more coherant, but just be aware that both sides are probably going to have to compromise here. This is a collective work - especially since Grif now has control of the army plot - and things might have to be changed. I don't say this to be mean or to ruin anypony's fun, I say it because that's just the truth of the matter. Grif kindly took over this plot (hurr hurr hurr) and it's not terribly fair to give him a massive laundry list of constraints. On the other hoof, it's also not fair to ask everypony to completely re-write their backstories to fit new information. Gotta keep a balance between the two, y'know?

For now, continue discussing, and let's see what we can come up with here.

Luka

2013-04-13, 06:52 PM

OBJECTION! Dark! Not evil! Light! Not good-

Mr. Icekiller, calm yourself. This is a petty thing to get angry about.

...Right. Well, I still object to the whole "dark is evil and light is good" thing. It could be negative and positive emotions, but that still doesn't equal "good" or "evil". Take, for instance...

Blueshield: Full of negative emotions, cynical, and constantly irritated with the world around her. Nonetheless, clearly Lawful Good and definitely better than most of my other characters.

Blades: Cheery, lively, and quite full of positive emotions. Also a murderous psycho from time to time. By no means a good pony.

Night Jewel: Aligned with darkness, but still full of positive emotions. Definitely Chaotic, and probably Good; her moral standards are strange, but they exist and are consistent.

Meanwhile I've got an idea for how Night Jewel could overcome its defences, but I have a question. How resistant is it to natural (not magical) extreme temperatures, lightning, or other such things? If I knew this, I could concoct something for Blueshield.

Not exactly emotions, desire, I think I said "positive desires" somewhere in my post, that means, goal instead of emotions, also, like I said, a well-intentioned extremist could use shimmerite and an anti-hero could use gloomium.

It's as resistant as iron or steel I would think, but possibly would get a bit more sluggish than usual, dunno how travel relates to density though.

@Amish it's not unicorn magic, it requires direct contact with the armor and with what is going to be casted at, it's mostly warrior/archer magic, like in MMORPGs where one can use showy skills that make attacks hit stronger than usual, like a power strike, a powered shot, a stun, etc.

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 07:31 PM

Hmm. I think the troublesome part here is in fact that the focus on light aspects was intended to be the point. I'd feel more comfortable if any magically reactive properties were a fringe benefit rather than the whole point. Meantime, I'll see how this turns out.

Luka

2013-04-13, 07:55 PM

Eh.... I think I actually said Shimmerite had resistance against dark-based attacks, didn't I?

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 08:29 PM

Eh.... I think I actually said Shimmerite had resistance against dark-based attacks, didn't I?

Alright. This helps. Not in the traditional sense, but from a more meta-perspective; namely, this shows that you and Kelvin both have different ideas on what this metal should do/should be, and that there really isn't a single unified definition of what the hay this stuff is/does. Thus, dragging out further discussion solely on that matter is just going to have us running about in circles.

With that in mind, let's just step back and get back to the basics: What do people want this stuff to be/do? I think we have two things that we can generally agree on:
-Shimmerite is supposed to resemble the properties of light.
-The metal itself is lightweight, hard, and naturally resistant to magic.

Beyond that, there is room for debate. Yes, I realize that Gloomium ain't on the list, but if we can make up something that just has a single metal used in two different ways, as opposed to two versions of the metal that work mostly the same but with a few restrictions here and there and maybe one isn't fully perfect and etc., then I think that means a lot less headache all around.

Now then, where to go from here: Kelvin, you said that no matter what, you'd like the final product to primarily focus on the light aspects, with benefits of the material flowing from this central concept. Understandable, as you've made Taylor go through a great deal of effort for his shield. And already, I can see a bit of it there; lightweight material, Grif's idea of it shimmering in the dark, etc. So, my question to you is this: What are the aspects of Light? What sort of ideals would you like to see represented in this material?

I ask because once I know what it is you're looking for, what ideals and concepts you wish for this armor to embody, I reckon I can better whip something up that'll be a lot less complicated and leave everypony happy.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-13, 08:34 PM

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 08:39 PM

Right. Well, I'm still kind of ticked about the alignment thing (A more "law and chaos" setup might fit better), but I can work with this. It means Blueshield actually stands a good chance with the right sort of arrows.

Don't be so quick to...be ticked? Hmm. That rhymed much better in my head...

*ahem* Anyway, we're still discussing and piecing together what all this stuff is/does, so things very well may change. I'm not so certain a whole element should be based off of alignments, especially when - as you bring up - Light does not equal Good. That which chases away shadows can blind, that which brings warmth can burn, and so on.

Luka

2013-04-13, 08:49 PM

I don't really know where did that "weakness to dark" appear from, since I thought I've stated several times that it was resistant to it

Right. Well, I'm still kind of ticked about the alignment thing (A more "law and chaos" setup might fit better), but I can work with this. It means Blueshield actually stands a good chance with the right sort of arrows.

I don't see in any way how law and chaos would make it fit better, if it was for either of two, Luka would be incredibly underpowered and it would be either Aisis or Mile who would be able to use it, not both. Though if the problem was alignment, I think I already proposed two more metals for that, didn't I?

It's the idea that shimmerite had afinity to dark that completely pissed me off, since it would dramatically change not just the army, but my character's skills, which are almost completely based on it. I don't see where the headache is, it's just "light metal, resistant to dark and bonus to light-based powers. Dark metal resistant to light and bonus to dark-based powers" as easy as that, just like in any RPG

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 09:01 PM

...Wait, what? Hang on. I said that 'I'd feel more comfortable if any magically reactive properties were a fringe benefit rather than the whole point'. That's...kind of the opposite. Ideally, I want to see any material made from this stuff be above average in normal qualities. THEN add a couple of neat little side effects from an elemental sub-scale.

It's like having a screwdriver that instantly repairs any mechanical appliance and also acts as a Taser. Your average person is going to use that first (and most prominent) function waaaaaaay more than the other. But by the same token, the secondary attribute is pretty neat even if it doesn't see a lot of activity. (Unless you're some assault-happy type of guy, which, hello stereotypical blackguard!)

In this case, the reparation function is our 'mithril' attributes, and the Taser is the ability to....vomit high-intensity rainbows or whatever.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 09:06 PM

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 09:15 PM

Well golly gee willacres Amish, when ya say it like that it sounds so silly, dont'cha know.

That's not what I want so much as my moldable first impression. I'm not really in the best position to make a judgment on 'what I want this to be' since, well...I'm only an advisor here. But if I had to put an outline on paper for review...that would probably be it, yeah.

Though, admittedly, 'with one or two side goodies thrown in that only a small, small subset of the population can actually use' makes it sound like I'm advocating school-of-magicism or something. :smallbiggrin:

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 09:26 PM

That's not what I want so much as my moldable first impression. I'm not really in the best position to make a judgment on 'what I want this to be' since, well...I'm only an advisor here. But if I had to put an outline on paper for review...that would probably be it, yeah.

As it's a part of one of your characters, and as a member of this RP, then you're certainly entitled to an opinion on what it should be. And as the fellow who is trying to make a judgement call on it, I'd certainly like to hear it.

Though, admittedly, 'with one or two side goodies thrown in that only a small, small subset of the population can actually use' makes it sound like I'm advocating school-of-magicism or something. :smallbiggrin:

To be fair, that's kind of the effect this armor would have. The screwdriver-taser example isn't exactly perfect, as everybody can use a taser. Whereas with this armor, not everybody can use its extra goodies.

I need to think a bit more on how to best express where I'm coming from on this, but I think I understand where you and Luka stand now.

Grif

2013-04-13, 09:52 PM

I don't see in any way how law and chaos would make it fit better, if it was for either of two, Luka would be incredibly underpowered and it would be either Aisis or Mile who would be able to use it, not both. Though if the problem was alignment, I think I already proposed two more metals for that, didn't I?

It's the idea that shimmerite had afinity to dark that completely pissed me off, since it would dramatically change not just the army, but my character's skills, which are almost completely based on it. I don't see where the headache is, it's just "light metal, resistant to dark and bonus to light-based powers. Dark metal resistant to light and bonus to dark-based powers" as easy as that, just like in any RPG

Riddle me this then: Why in seven bucks is the army going all the trouble to capture a village that mines the "good" metal? To turn it into "evil" metal in a process which is reversible and therefore represents a fatal flaw in their plan should they run into a good-aligned character?

...

You know what? We really should work out the magic system in Equestria before even considering such powers. I would personally favour either the elemental system used in some RPG, where only fire, water, earth etc exists, or even the colour system used in Magic. (where the five colours have their extremes, and there is no true good side.)

Alignment was already silly in D&D and I see no reason why we should handicap the entire (freeform!) RP based on an outdated mechanic in another RPG. Good and evil is entirely subjective and basing any powers based on this fiddly background would just lead to endless arguments.

Luka

2013-04-13, 10:05 PM

Riddle me this then: Why in seven bucks is the army going all the trouble to capture a village that mines the "good" metal? To turn it into "evil" metal in a process which is reversible and therefore represents a fatal flaw in their plan should they run into a good-aligned character?

Because here are chances they could be able to experiment with it enough to find a way to make the Doth's armor-like "evil" metal easier to create in mass cuantities, plus that reverting it would require a pretty strong magic to overwhelm it and then bypass the whole armor's resistance.

Plus what trouble would the village have been? it wouldn't have had a guard they wouldn't be able to curbstomp, except by Luka's family, but that's precisely another reason why Doth attacked: to get rid of them at once. Plus they would also be blocking that metal's supply, should any other be interested in it.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-13, 10:12 PM

I agree that purely alignment-based magic is bad, as it relies on a straightforward conflict between good and evil rather than the complicated morality that comes up fairly often. Sometimes it's good versus evil, but it's also likely to be good versus good, evil versus evil, neutral versus evil and so on. There's no such thing as pure good or pure evil; everyone has their good and bad traits.

I don't know about elemental magic, though, since some characters' spells don't really fit in any given element. I'll try to think of a workable other system.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-13, 10:24 PM

I've always thought that Equestria didn't really have a traditional magic system. Magic seems to be doled out based on special talent, and that was that. Everybody gets some TK, and other spells are based on their talent. In the case of unicorns with something like "Magic" as a talent, they get a bit more leeway.

I think that whatever system we go with should ultimately keep this in consideration. This is still Equestria, after all.

Kelvin360

2013-04-13, 11:41 PM

Stellar gave Blades a lecture on some of my headcanon a while back:

"Hold up a sec there, boss. There's not exactly a universal solvent for magic. Dr. Horne could probably give you the full lowdown when Brains wakes up, but being good at it doesn't necessarily mean I know all about it.

That being said, I can give you a rough explanation of terms here. There's three ways to stop magic from happening. Countering, blocking, and nullifying. Basic examples from each would be using a spell of the same type at the same time, a magical shield, and anti-magic respectively.

I'm not entirely sure if any of those can apply to weapons, but I have noticed that when I enchant one, it's a lot harder to break by normal means. Armor, on the other hand, could probably have any of those on it. For countering you'd need a spell trigger, which means limited choices...

But I'm going on. It's kind of a complex subject to give the full information on in one conversation if I'm left to ramble. So questions'll probably help you get the points you want faster. So I'm all horns.

"Metaphor time. There's a pretty big difference between offense and defense. If you're up against a brick wall, sure, you can bring it down if you hit it enough times, whether or not you have a battering ram. But if somepony's throwing the wall at you, you're gonna need another wall, or a stronger wall. Armor and such CAN be used for this, but on the whole, enchantments are more reliable as a defensive measure."

"There are a lot of spells and even schools-slash-types-slash-subtypes-slash-subschools that each have advantages, disadvantages, avoidances...and so on. For most offensive magics, your best bet is dodging, or if you can't do that, real sturdy body composition. You're an Earth Pony, so you've already got a fair advantage there.

I'm not really an expert on natural stuff, but I'm willing to bet a hoof or two - not literally - that there's a bunch of naturally-magical elements lying around just waiting to be crafted. Usually, your best bets for more common materials are things that'll take normal damage just as well. The most common offensive magics are going to be energy, concussion, and elemental.

A heavy steel shield will probably take as much punishment from your average concussive blast or beam as from a hammer. Whether it's a fop or barbarian wielding it is what'll make the damage difference.

Energy is gonna be the worst problem to deal with. Pure energy in itself is sort of like concussion and all the elements blended together, fire foremost. So it'll hit like a hammer and a few minutes in a hot forge at the same time. That's what I use. Because, hay, what works and stick with it.

Most elementalists focus on just one of the four 'classic' elements. Power over variety is always more alluring. Also, what works and stick with it. If you're using armor, the sliding scale of least to most dangerous is probably water, air, earth, fire.
Water isn't much of a problem if you've got a tight helmet or facial covering so they can't drown you, and rusting isn't exactly instantaneous.

Air is most dangerous to you if it's something like a tornado, where you get lifted up and tossed back down. So, cushioning impacts is big. Or, if they're weak enough at it, just pile on the weight, maybe the air currents won't have the strength to lift you. I wouldn't bank on that, though. The heavier you are, the bigger the crater.

Obviously, the second-biggest threat from a Geomancer is gonna be rocks. Again, this is all about experience and power. If you've got good gear, fast pebbles won't do much. But keeping it light enough to dodge will save your flank if they start throwing around boulders. The first most dangerous earth-thrower threat is actually pretty rare. If they've got the specific focus on that aspect and enough power, some geomancers can control metal deposits and even shaped metal. Which means good-bye shield and hello being crushed to death by your own armor. So, you might try muddling the armor composition. Throw in enough filler to make your armor not 'metallic' enough for them to manipulate, but still strong against aforementioned pebbles. Or, if you can find ironwood or something, bonus.

Fire is, again, pretty obvious. To have gotten armor in the first place, it needs to be meltable. And ever tried to wear melting armor? Not fun. So lightweight stuff is the hidesaver. Dodge and weave. Most if not all fire magic needs to be aimed, so if you're light and quick, just jump out of the way. Or better, close in and see if you can make them hit themselves with their own fireballs. That'll be fun."

"What, you mean like poison? Not always. I mean, no matter how many times you stick a hoof in it, fire still hurts. It might apply to contagions and maybe a few domination subschools, but anything else would be an interesting case.

For example, I know about some Underpony families who've bred specifically for magic affinity and a semipermenant racial warding effect, but normally you'd need certain Arcanist-Abjuration spells for resistance. Your buddy probably figured out a fire ward if they were a pyromancer. Or rock-skin. That could work, too.

But yeah. If I blasted away at you every day for a few years, your bones would probably get stronger after breaking so often, but the blasts wouldn't just stop working. Unless you want to get your nerves surgically removed...heeeey, you wanna get your nerves surgically removed?"

It's pretty restricted to defensive enchantments, but I've got some other stuff swirling around. Stellar or Arvadraa might have also explained more magic and its types, but I didn't look very hard for it, so I'll paraphrase.

All unicorn magic starts with a focus. In almost every case, that focus either is or ends up being the unicorn's special talent. Fire-butts use fire, mind-butts use enchantment, and so on.

Now, I really like the way D&D's magic system is divided into schools. Sue me. Abjuration is defense, anti-magic, and extraplanar warding. Transmutation turns something into something else. And so on. Elementalism falls within its own category, dividing into Air, Earth, Water, Fire. Pure energy, which Stellar touched on above, is in Evocation.

Then, there's Universal magic, which is essentially the easiest to learn and most innate. Telekinesis, which all unicorns have, is Universal. So is force magic, including concussion (which Stellar also touched on).

Afterwarning: This is all my headcanon, not necessarily OUR canon. Even the stuff ICly from Stellar above is just her theorizing (not that she'd ever admit she was wrong). So, yeah. Just some stuff I came up with, if it helps with the envisioning process.

Another theory I had in regards to the armor was, instead of specifics, meshing (or some other really neat word). It doesn't modify or resist specific types of magic - it alters them according to the bearer. Slight boosts you your spells, slight resistance to magic harmful to you directly, and a little more resistance to magic in general. If you don't use magic, no big, it's just really good armor.

Okay, I think I'm done brainvomiting!

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-14, 01:43 AM

Taylor did contradict part of the stuff on magic resistance, saying that it can actually be developed, so Stellar might not exactly be the most reliable narrator.

So, who's up for explaining my ideas of a possible magic system, ponies of mine?

Don't look at me. I don't do magic.

I neither know nor care about the technical parts. I have my power. That is what matters.

Hmm... Will I be paid for this?

No.

Then not me.

I'd do it, but Lady Ciona doesn't want me to for some reason.

*sigh* Fine, fine. Since you're all obviously not capable of reciting a simple set of hypothetical guidelines, I'll handle it.

Magic is often divided into fields in any of a variety of ways. However, there are inevitably magical anomalies that don't fit into existing subdivisions and end up classified as "neutral", "universal", or other non-fields. There is, however, one way of dividing magic into two types with nothing left out: Passive and active.

Passive magic is continuous effects not deliberately created by a spellcaster. It is in all ponies, usually related to their marks and special talents, along with other living creatures and even inanimate objects. Passive magic tends to be strongest and most variable in earth ponies, with their widely-varying talents. In pegasus ponies, passive magic almost always includes manipulating weather, with some additional advantages. Unicorn passive magic is the least often noticed, but still existent.

Active magic, on the other hoof, has transient effects deliberately created and controlled by something or someone. It is the first thing most ponies think of when they think of magic. Active magic is possessed by all unicorns, channelled through their horns. In other kinds of ponies, it is rare, or at least used to be - anomalies including ponies infused with others' spellcasting abilities, ponies with certain talents, or ponies who simply got lucky somehow can have these abilities as well.

The magic of a pony depends heavily on the pony's skills and personality. A magical effect tends to be stronger if the pony's mind is attuned to it - a stubborn pony might do better with earth spells, and a hot-headed pony would have trouble with ice spells. Attunement, however, is a complicated process, as multiple mindsets can correspond to one kind of power or vice versa. For instance, a spirited pony might attune to fire magic, but could just as easily attune to plant magic. In most cases, a pony's special talent may be the best way of determining what they attune to.

Magic resistance comes in the form of using passive magic to counteract active magic affecting oneself. This is a delicate process; outright contradicting it can either stop it or cause a nastier reaction, and attuning to it can either allow one to control it or give it more to feed off of.

In any form of magic, exercising it makes it stronger. It is highly difficult to learn entirely new abilities, but using existing abilities in new ways is quite possible. This applies to both kinds of magic; you will grow stronger using active magical abilities more, but will also become better at using your passive-magic-enhanced skills and resisting spells the more you do it.

Examples of magical principles and strength:

Blades: Possesses no active magic. Reasonable level of passive magic, allowing her to make exceptional weapons or throw objects faster than ought to be physically possible. Has little practice resisting magic, and is thus quite vulnerable to it.

Night Jewel: Attuned to manipulation of mechanisms due to her complicated personality. Her active magic is the weakest known, but she uses it creatively. Possesses some passive magic improving her agility and finesse, and possibly other unusual characteristics.

Me: In possession of purely passive magic. In addition to normal pegasus abilities, I can parry, evade and withstand blows more easily. My heavy reliance on tactics and special weaponry rather than force, however, have rendered my abilities weaker than those of the above metalworker.

Obsidian Flare: Attuned to earth magic due to her direct mindset. Possesses exceptionally strong active magic developed over many years. Her passive magic is far less noticeable.

Precious: Possesses passive magic improving her fortune and helping her work with precious metals. Cannot use active magic directly, but has greater skill in activating the magic in objects. Somewhat modified by the dark fairy Ciona.

Please note that these are not strictly defined rules, and that they are, at this stage, still just hypotheses. Icekiller may well be wrong, and he definitely put less effort into these than he could have. It's up to you to figure out whether they have any actual worth. That is all. I had best return to awaiting my long-delayed confrontation with the Stygian battalion's scouts now.

Kelvin360

2013-04-14, 02:24 AM

For the record, I support the explanations ^. I never would have thought about including bits on Passive/Active magic. Props.

Though, I do have a small nitpick regarding Taylor and Stellar's non-face-to-face knowledge battle. While Stellar is hesitant to provide information on natural magic resistance (she uses words like 'normally' or 'not always', but she does point out the Underpony precedent and that this principle applies for certain types of magic most definitely), she never outright states that 'yeah, no, built SR is not a thing'.

This part

If I blasted away at you every day for a few years, your bones would probably get stronger after breaking so often, but the blasts wouldn't just stop working.

Does look like that, but that's more her pointing out the difference between 'game' Spell Resistance and 'real' Spell Resistance. Realistically, you can built up a tolerance to magic, but that makes you more resistant, not more likely to shrug it off with no effect. Also, Stellar Spark would sooner bite off her own tongue than bluntly state a strong possibility that a 'normal' like Blades could get access to a way to stand up to her in a fight. So ego plays a part there.

Taylor, on the other hand, knows from personal experience more in-depth details about things like that. And he's way more open about this than Stellar would be. He's seen things, maaaan!

So, you're correct in a way that Stellar isn't an entirely reliable narrator, but Taylor and Stellar's differing explanations of the same phenomenon aren't so much contradictions as two people playing the same tune in different ways.

Geez, what is it today with me and scads of words? Heh. Anyways, good work with the Passive/Active magic explanation, it's inspired, hope I cleared up a little bit of the Magic Resistance talk, and good night/afternoon/evening/noontide/apocalypse to everyone.

Grif

2013-04-14, 04:48 AM

Hmmm, this might not be the final consensus my mind is telling me, but I do like the school of magic idea that Taylor proposes we adopt from D&D. Not being familiar with D&D myself, (only the most rudimentary knowledge of the workings of D&D, mainly obtained from webcomics and a session of D&D 3.5e I once joined) I think I'll refrain from actually trying to classify the schools of magic of FWM Equestria. The interesting thing to note about this schools of magic that I read up is that it seems they are generally separate from alignment, though I do believe D&D features a lot of alignment based spells like Smite Evil and similar.

The active and passive magic thing Purity proposed has merit, but it's quite vague and undefined on its own. It can be used to supplement whatever magic system we would eventually adopt, however.

Because here are chances they could be able to experiment with it enough to find a way to make the Doth's armor-like "evil" metal easier to create in mass cuantities, plus that reverting it would require a pretty strong magic to overwhelm it and then bypass the whole armor's resistance.

Plus what trouble would the village have been? it wouldn't have had a guard they wouldn't be able to curbstomp, except by Luka's family, but that's precisely another reason why Doth attacked: to get rid of them at once. Plus they would also be blocking that metal's supply, should any other be interested in it.
I'm actually thinking more of the cost-benefit for the army in this case. Since you're already mining the "good" stuff, then you will need to expend a substantial amount of energy just to corrupt and bend it to your will. (and it's not even permanent) It's not a matter of what trouble the village might be. It's a matter of the bigger fish that will inevitably flatten Doth if he attracted too much attention. Be it the Republic, some griffin clan or even the Fetlocks. Better if Doth just laid low and kept a lookout to see if anyone else discovered the "evil" stuff instead and seize that one.

You do have a good point on trying to kill off the supply of shimmerite, but in that case, he may as well just destroyed the mine and quickly melt away into the countryside before anyone raised the alarm.

Benson

2013-04-14, 04:53 AM

It's not a matter of what trouble the village might be. It's a matter of the bigger fish that will inevitably flatten Doth if he attracted too much attention. Be it the Republic, some griffin clan or even the Fetlocks.

Or Gwynfillion alone if Soft Serve ever gave the word. :smallbiggrin::smallwink:

Grif

2013-04-14, 04:57 AM

Or Gwynfillion alone if Soft Serve ever gave the word. :smallbiggrin::smallwink:

Can't forget our planacidal marebeast. :smallwink:

Mindfreak

2013-04-14, 09:07 AM

So um, Grif and Kevin, did you ever end up posting in Schoolhouse of Terror?

Grif

2013-04-14, 09:11 AM

So um, Grif and Kevin, did you ever end up posting in Schoolhouse of Terror?

I'm waiting for you to answer Kelvin's question before posting, actually. :smallredface:

Mindfreak

2013-04-14, 10:37 AM

:smallwink:

Born of shadow, made of magic.
Mostly magic, but there's still some shadow

Luka

2013-04-14, 11:50 AM

I have no idea about the magic thing, just that my characters actually work on aligment and the rest is MMORPG/RPG-like skills with mana cuz they're pretty much the only thing I know and can understand to use.

I'm actually thinking more of the cost-benefit for the army in this case. Since you're already mining the "good" stuff, then you will need to expend a substantial amount of energy just to corrupt and bend it to your will. (and it's not even permanent) It's not a matter of what trouble the village might be. It's a matter of the bigger fish that will inevitably flatten Doth if he attracted too much attention. Be it the Republic, some griffin clan or even the Fetlocks. Better if Doth just laid low and kept a lookout to see if anyone else discovered the "evil" stuff instead and seize that one.

You do have a good point on trying to kill off the supply of shimmerite, but in that case, he may as well just destroyed the mine and quickly melt away into the countryside before anyone raised the alarm.

Is not permanent yet, they're still developping ways to make the permanent ones. The only big fish I can think of is the Republic, no idea how big a griffin clan is, nor the Fetlocks, but chances are the army could beat them.

Benson

2013-04-14, 12:03 PM

Can't forget our planacidal marebeast. :smallwink:

Of course not! Not Miss Curbstomp Everything. And from what I remember....Soft relinquished control of the collar control and raised up her spell levels to its maximum. Mwahahah.

"Be quiet Benson....I'm gonna go watch a movie instead."

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-14, 12:05 PM

Of course not! Not Miss Curbstomp Everything. And from what I remember....Soft relinquished control of the collar control and raised up her spell levels to its maximum. Mwahahah.

"Be quiet Benson....I'm gonna go watch a movie instead."

Wait, did this actually happen? I don't seem to remember that happening. Benson, are you looking for an excuse for Miss Gwyn to go rampage some things? Do I need to bust out the Big Guns?

LiteGarion: *big, watery foal eyes with sniffle and quivering lip*

Benson

2013-04-14, 12:08 PM

Wait, did this actually happen? I don't seem to remember that happening. Benson, are you looking for an excuse for Miss Gwyn to go rampage some things? Do I need to bust out the Big Guns?

LiteGarion: *big, watery foal eyes with sniffle and quivering lip*

I believe so...I'll have to ask Mystic Muse but I believe it happened.

Anyways, she wouldn't need the turned up to 11 powers anyway to go rampage some things.......so as long as Soft don't find out. xD

Soft: Bad gwyn! We're you off rampaging again?

Gwyn:....Nooooo....I was...ramp....diving...!

Grif

2013-04-14, 12:28 PM

(Can't remember the colors for these guys. Oh well!)

Left them vague on purpose. :smallbiggrin: (I think I only worked out Snowflake's and Flameshield's colour, but their information has mysteriously disappeared.)

Kelvin360

2013-04-14, 01:00 PM

Wait, did this actually happen? I don't seem to remember that happening. Benson, are you looking for an excuse for Miss Gwyn to go rampage some things? Do I need to bust out the Big Guns?

You don't need to. Send Daniel alone. Within five minutes we'll have a walking MacGuffin all up in the Dark Forces' business quicker than you can say 'Enemy Mine'.

Wait, actually, can we actually do that? That'd be so cool.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-14, 01:08 PM

On magic:

I do agree, Purity's classification of active and passive magics is indeed a good one. It explains the latent magic of Earth Ponies, as well as provides a nice spectrum across all the races; Earth Ponies are primarily Passive, Unicorns are primarily Active, and Pegasi occupy the middle ground with their mix of weather magics and related traits. However, like Grif said, I think it'd work best as a supplement to the main magic system, rather than the system itself.

Now, onto magical schools. D&D does have a rather nice classification system going, but I'm yet to be convinced it's the one we should go with. Kelvin hit the nail on the head when he said that every magic has to start with a focus, and in nearly all of the cases here it's going to be the cutie mark of the individual. So, to a pony, their magic is classified by subject, based on the subject of their Mark. Sandy and Obsidian Flare could learn from each other in some respects, as both have Earth-related Cutie Marks. Likewise, Icy could trade spell ideas with a Water-based mage, and so on. D&D spell schools, on the other hoof, generally classify spells by effect. Abjuration deals with protective spells, Conjuration focuses on transporting and creation, Divination focuses on acquiring information, etc. To me, this seems like a rather backwards way for ponies to classify their spells. It would make more sense to me if they classified by subject, as that would be more helpful for them to find more spells/passive tricks that they could learn.

In fact, as I type this, I think I can see a sorting method that could work. At the risk of sounding over-complicated, I think there could be three tiers of classifications:

[Subject] [School/Effect] [Passive/Active]

The subject would relate to the Mark needed to perform the spell, or "Universal" if anypony can learn it. The School would be your typical D&D classification; a school of magic that determines its effect. While spells from incompatible Subjects would be unlearnable, there could be parallels that a mage could apply to their own spells (Ex: Uncle Iroh developing his Lightning Redirection technique by studying the practices of the Waterbenders). Finally, Passive/Active would determine whether the spell was...well, an honest-to-goodness magical spell, or a more passive, learned technique that made use of the latent magic in the pony.

Kelvin360

2013-04-14, 01:32 PM

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-14, 01:45 PM

So...Taylor's offensive standby would look like this?

[Light] [Evocation/Offensive, Direct] [Active]

Hmm. Short, straight, and to the point. And then he could learn other spells with [Light] as a component, right?

Precisely correct on all counts! Although, the '/' was more meant as an either-or, rather than formatting. That said, I do like the additional descriptor, so feel free to leave it in as a bonus. :smalltongue:

In other words, what you have and:

[Light] [Evocation] [Active]

would both be acceptable under this system.

Kelvin360

2013-04-14, 02:48 PM

Cool!

And now I have something to pull out of my hat that we probably need to discuss.

What Subject and School would teleport-

"Hastened departure via crossing astral boundaries. Or, if you feel like it, folding space on itself on two points. Teleportation implies an instantaneous entrance/exit reaction, which is impossible."

...

What Subject and School would teleportation belong to?

"Bah!"

Orzel

2013-04-14, 02:55 PM

Hmm...

That would make Grills: [Fire] [Conjuration] [Active/Passive]

As he summons fire or banishes fire through his mouth and coat through spells and latent magic. it also explains his infrared vision, high fire resistance, and skill with teleports (he teleports through the Plane of Fire).

Active and Passive was always the way i saw magic in the MLP verse. Icy and Hover would both be water based but in different ways. Icy actively summons water but water moves passively according to Hover's emotions.

Also. Depending on the amount of noble houses called, the Nobles of Fetlock can field

"Almost a hundred thousand ponies, dragons, beasts, and goats armed and ready to defend Equestria from the enemies of the North and East. Though it'll take a lot to get all those old rich ponies to take up arms on the same cause on the same side."

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-14, 03:15 PM

Good questions/comments all around.

For Teleportation, the school is absolutely Conjuration. Teleportation rarely works without some form of extraplanar travel, even for a split-second. Pop to one plane, pop out where you need to be, easy as that. As for the Subject...I honestly don't know. Twilight in the show certainly can teleport, but we've yet to see anything to indicate that other unicorns can. Orzel makes a good argument for planar teleportation, though one would have to be considerably skilled to pull that off safely.

What do we think; Teleportation is Universal (but difficult)? Does it belong to some specific Subject? Both?

@Orzel: Two things:

1) Remember that the descriptors are for spells, not ponies. I'm pretty sure you know that, I just wanted to make that clear. :smallsmile:

2) I would actually put some of Hover's magic with water in the [Weather] Subject. I think all pegasi could get access to this Subject (regardless of talent) with varying degrees of competency, simply based on their ability to manipulate clouds and weather. I can't quite recall what her talent is, so she might very well have [Water] as well.

****************************

The main point/draw of this system, as I see it, is that it provides a neat, tidy framework to classify magic, without letting a ton of details limit the possibilities. Does your pony have a relevant [Subject] as a part of their Special Talent? Then they can probably use this magic with some effort. Do they know something in the same [School]? Then they can probably develop their own magic with a little creativity. What race are they? Then that decides how Active or Passive their magic is. Beyond that, folks are free to develop spells of all shapes and kinds without having to worry about standardized casting times, component costs, spell levels, etc. The only real concern is power balance, and that's what we've got an OOC thread for.

Orzel

2013-04-14, 05:41 PM

Good questions/comments all around.

For Teleportation, the school is absolutely Conjuration. Teleportation rarely works without some form of extraplanar travel, even for a split-second. Pop to one plane, pop out where you need to be, easy as that. As for the Subject...I honestly don't know. Twilight in the show certainly can teleport, but we've yet to see anything to indicate that other unicorns can. Orzel makes a good argument for planar teleportation, though one would have to be considerably skilled to pull that off safely.

What do we think; Teleportation is Universal (but difficult)? Does it belong to some specific Subject? Both?

There could just be many type of teleports. Anything from transmutations into energy which rapidly moves or just various conjurations.

@Orzel: Two things:

1) Remember that the descriptors are for spells, not ponies. I'm pretty sure you know that, I just wanted to make that clear. :smallsmile:

2) I would actually put some of Hover's magic with water in the [Weather] Subject. I think all pegasi could get access to this Subject (regardless of talent) with varying degrees of competency, simply based on their ability to manipulate clouds and weather. I can't quite recall what her talent is, so she might very well have [Water] as well.

Yeah. Grills knows a few ice, electric, and light magic as back-ups vs heat resistant obstacles. Plus a spell that converts Alcohol into Magic.

[Booze][Alchemy][Active]

Hover's magical talent would be the weather responding to her emotions. Which is usually sad and gloomy so she can pilot through storms with ease. The Backer are testing her to see if she can control the pressure within the Cirrus' air tanks or something. Everypony on the Cirrus is a magic test dummy.

Grif

2013-04-15, 12:37 AM

The main point/draw of this system, as I see it, is that it provides a neat, tidy framework to classify magic, without letting a ton of details limit the possibilities. Does your pony have a relevant [Subject] as a part of their Special Talent? Then they can probably use this magic with some effort. Do they know something in the same [School]? Then they can probably develop their own magic with a little creativity. What race are they? Then that decides how Active or Passive their magic is. Beyond that, folks are free to develop spells of all shapes and kinds without having to worry about standardized casting times, component costs, spell levels, etc. The only real concern is power balance, and that's what we've got an OOC thread for.

I can get behind this. And yes, the way I see it, teleportation is universal but difficult to master.

Anyway, Amish, I'm gonna leave it to you to rule on shimmerite/gloomium.

As I stand now, I'm not opposed to Luka's intrepetation, since it has already been incorporated in the backstory in some form or manner. However, I would propose a change in the mechanics to resemble my original shimmerite idea: that it is a sort of capacitor for positive energies and serves to amplify any abilities associated with said energy, instead of being innately good. Evil!shimmerite/Gloomium is just as easily made by filling the metal with associated negative energies. So basically, the same metal, with the ability to flip to either orientation.

EDIT: to further expand on the idea, deposits of shimmerite are already mildly aligned to one of the either two sides, depending on the latent type of energy in the area. (An atrocity like a genocide taking place nearby for example, would render any nearby shimmerite deposit evil, while peaceful regions tend to produce good!shimmerite.) But the base metal/ore is naturally neutral.

EDIT EDIT: To expand on the properties of the metal further, I propose these few characteristics:
- Shimmerite armour has comparable strength to common steel. (or made by alloying them with it. Pure shimmerite is probably brittle.)
- Depending on its alignment, shimmerite amplifies existing abilities associated with the element, but do not allow new ones.
- Shimmerite of either alignment have a passive immunity against the opposite alignment. Any attacks will be absorbed by the armour, at the cost of its stored energy. When the energy is depleted, then it's reverts to its neutral state. Further attacks may actually push the shimmerite to the opposite alignment, potentially hampering the user. Note that for this to happen, massive amount of energy must be expended.
- Empowered shimmerite will also have passive magical resistance for magical attacks that has no particular alignment. (Elemental attacks would fall under this.)

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-15, 12:46 AM

Hmm. And I imagine that, once set, reversing the polarity on said metal is exceptionally difficult? To the point where an unskilled mage might destroy the material altogether?

Grif

2013-04-15, 12:51 AM

Hmm. And I imagine that, once set, reversing the polarity on said metal is exceptionally difficult? To the point where an unskilled mage might destroy the material altogether?

Possibly. But I'm not decided on the matter. (Also made an edit while you posted. :P )

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-15, 12:56 AM

That's workable, I guess. Does it react to magic aligned with it at all, though?

Grif

2013-04-15, 04:44 AM

Some more food for thought while I'm waiting for consensus on my latest proposal.

I believe I recall a map being released by Hasbro for Equestria. While that map does not adequately reflect our alternate Equestria, I'm thinking we can base our initial map off it, yes? I might try to sketch a map and see what I can come up with. (Don't mind my horribad MSPaint skills.)

Now, from what I can recall, we currently have these nations in the RP: (tentatively named)
Equestria (aka New Lunar Republic), further subdivided into:
- The Fire Lands (Fetlock)
- The Northern Wastes (Valhalla, Stalliongrad)
- Equestria Proper/Central Equestria (Canterlot, Ponyville, Everfree)
- *Westlands (Appleloosa)
- Desert/Saddle Arabia (Agrabuck)

Griffon Empire
Moose Country
Crystal Empire
Zebrica
Feyland (technically not part of this world, I believe)

Plausible nations, but not mentioned or introduced as of yet:
Dragon Nation
Deer Land
Saddle Arabia (Might be a province or vassal state of Equestria proper)
Wild Lands
Atlantis/Seapony lands

A lot of names, yes? Honestly, even after this long, I'm still fuzzy about the general locations of these towns and nations.

Also, what is our stance on alien technology? Do we still keep those bits about spaceponies? (and other pony races for that matter) They don't seem to be mentioned in the RP of late. (And frankly, they seem to be more and more out of place.)

Benson

2013-04-15, 08:15 AM

Also, what is our stance on alien technology? Do we still keep those bits about spaceponies? They don't seem to be mentioned in

Well this canon'd stuff can't exist without the pesky aliens haven't had crashed landed, until we can figure out an alternative reason for the existence of these space metals.

On a random note, we do have the space metals that Balboa was scouring the planet to acquire. The same metal that the Cirrus uses on its balloon portion to protect it but yet at the same time does not weigh it down due to its special properties.

The space metal has also been used by Balboa as the only material that has been able to contain the volatile energies that are the magical nukes he's been researching and creating.

I just figured I'd mentioned this so its not forgotten about and doesn't look like some sort of butt pull when its mentioned again in game.
-------

also...who is up with the cirrus going to the guardhouse stuff? did that scene get stuck? and who is really going to play the guard captain?

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-15, 08:25 AM

On the new shimmerite: Initial impressions with me are good. I shall wait and see what folks have to say about it, as well as mull over it myself.

Some more food for thought while I'm waiting for consensus on my latest proposal.

I believe I recall a map being released by Hasbro for Equestria. While that map does not adequately reflect our alternate Equestria, I'm thinking we can base our initial map off it, yes? I might try to sketch a map and see what I can come up with. (Don't mind my horribad MSPaint skills.)

I believe I posted both the Hasbro map and a fan-made one for consideration a few pages back. Hold on a second...

On maps:

Here's a version of the "offical" map of Equestria: http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/1/12/Map_of_Equestria_online_version_2012-08.jpg

And here's a fan version which includes a ton of other material: http://mashupforge.com/929/j6qC50FQVTWO6fFxG3s2gyKdbvvz4p/#x=-5.96575367&y=1.75781250&z=2

There you go! I'm all for doodling like crazy over one of these. Additionally, I feel as though Equestria the nation should be divided based on the control of the nobles (since they seem to be the ones with all the actual power/actual authority in the land) as well as where the independent areas lie.

Also, what is our stance on alien technology? Do we still keep those bits about spaceponies? (and other pony races for that matter) They don't seem to be mentioned in the RP of late. (And frankly, they seem to be more and more out of place.)

I say we keep the alien tech, as it's the main explanation for the frankly meteoric tech boom in our setting.

As for the other pony races, I'd like to hear what folks have to say. On the one hoof, they have always been a part of this setting and added a bit of flavor to it, but on the other, nopony ever uses them and they are seeming a bit out-of-place.

also...who is up with the cirrus going to the guardhouse stuff? did that scene get stuck? and who is really going to play the guard captain?

I'm still very busy, so if somepony else (MCerberus, are you up for this again?) could take the Captain, I'd appreciate it.

Grif

2013-04-15, 09:58 AM

Forgot about this.

That's workable, I guess. Does it react to magic aligned with it at all, though?

Good question. I suspect same alignment attacks would further empower to armour. But only to a limit. Also it doesn't render you totally immune. If there's a physical component or non-aligned magic that accompanies said attack, you will still get splattered. For (a ridiculous) example. one won't be immune to a holy meteor, since big chunk of rock will still splatter you flat, regardless of how holy it was.

Well this canon'd stuff can't exist without the pesky aliens haven't had crashed landed, until we can figure out an alternative reason for the existence of these space metals.

Fair enough. Forgot how upjumped in tech our Equestria seems to be. Hmmm.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-15, 10:32 AM

Good question. I suspect same alignment attacks would further empower to armour. But only to a limit. Also it doesn't render you totally immune. If there's a physical component or non-aligned magic that accompanies said attack, you will still get splattered. For (a ridiculous) example. one won't be immune to a holy meteor, since big chunk of rock will still splatter you flat, regardless of how holy it was.

I see. I guess that means that casters like Flare would do better, since rocks and such tend to be physical. Now, one more question: How does one alter the metal with magic?

As for aliens, I have no objections.

Kelvin360

2013-04-15, 02:26 PM

In brief: Leery of aliens, fine with the Shimmerite changes.

EDIT: Oh! I was just reminded. Would the new Gloomium's weapons still leave wounds corrupted?

Benson

2013-04-15, 02:52 PM

I say we keep the alien tech, as it's the main explanation for the frankly meteoric tech boom in our setting.

As for the other pony races, I'd like to hear what folks have to say. On the one hoof, they have always been a part of this setting and added a bit of flavor to it, but on the other, nopony ever uses them and they are seeming a bit out-of-place.

Forgot about this.
Fair enough. Forgot how upjumped in tech our Equestria seems to be. Hmmm.

We can forego the alien ponies themselves and offer up a different explanation for the existence of some of the alien tech, though really the only alien tech that has been introduced as far as I remember is the space metal.

As for the upjump tech in our Equestria, that can be easily explained away because of the war. During wartime, technology has a way of advancing itself due to the need to do so....

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-15, 03:52 PM

In brief: Leery of aliens, fine with the Shimmerite changes.

EDIT: Oh! I was just reminded. Would the new Gloomium's weapons still leave wounds corrupted?

Seeing how it's been a plot point before, it's fair to say that something corrupts the wounds. It may not be an inherent property of Gloomium, it may just end up being a spell effect that somepony slapped on their weapons.

That said, I do kinda like the idea of Gloomium leaving long-lasting, painful, or (in severe cases) necrotic damage behind, while Shimmerite generally goes for the quick mercy kill. And that would go with the idea of the metal being a tad brittle in its purest form, so if you made weapons that were lined with the stuff...

Luka

2013-04-15, 04:42 PM

Grif

2013-04-15, 05:30 PM

I kinda like the idea actually, empowered shimmerite would mean that while used it would be able to evade "linear warriors quadratic wizards" and give magic armor and still allow for channeling magic for Warrior/archer skills........Wait, wasn't it said that shimmerite could be somewhat stronger than steel? :smallconfused:

Egh.... That would need to make Colt!Luka's armor even thicker, weight doesn't matter he has a Conditioned-like perk, unless Rusty Falls could have Mithril too but that's doubtful.

Well, one can't have everything. In a way, I'm trying to force trade-offs in using this armour. Sure, you might have protection against magical abilities, but alloyed shimmerite is still breakable and indeed, still possible for non-magical foes to overcome. Just that steel armour is steel, so it isn't easy to begin with.

Luka

2013-04-15, 05:58 PM

Well, one can't have everything. In a way, I'm trying to force trade-offs in using this armour. Sure, you might have protection against magical abilities, but alloyed shimmerite is still breakable and indeed, still possible for non-magical foes to overcome. Just that steel armour is steel, so it isn't easy to begin with.

I was asking because I thought that was kinda odd since it's toughness was used a LOT of times and was one of Luka's main traits: His armor's really tough and he's tough against magical foes, but he does almost no damage.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-15, 07:24 PM

Since I'm not particularly fond of being ignored...

Now, one more question: How does one alter the metal with magic?

Grif

2013-04-15, 08:26 PM

Since I'm not particularly fond of being ignored...

Sorry, still thinking about how to answer that part. I'm leaning towards any direct application of magic towards it would alter it, but I have a feeling that might be not what you mean.

Kelvin360

2013-04-15, 09:03 PM

Would it be reasonable to assume that Daniel's exposure to politics via Taylor and Moonshine would allow him to recognize that symbol and some relevant facts about it's house?

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-15, 11:56 PM

Sorry, still thinking about how to answer that part. I'm leaning towards any direct application of magic towards it would alter it, but I have a feeling that might be not what you mean.

Sort of. I'm mostly trying to figure out a way to make Night Jewel be something other than completely useless against someone in such armour, really.

Grif

2013-04-16, 12:08 AM

Sort of. I'm mostly trying to figure out a way to make Night Jewel be something other than completely useless against someone in such armour, really.

Mind, they're not superpowered villains in an untouchable suit of armour. They're still ponies, like any other. Well-trained and armed, maybe, but certainly not nigh invincible. And as with anyone clad in heavy armour would attest, they're slow, bulky and most certainly not agile.

Kelvin360

2013-04-16, 12:20 AM

Hey Luka, can I get a more comprehensive list of organ damage put here? Sorry, but 'several of them' doesn't help a whole lot.

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-16, 12:32 AM

Mind, they're not superpowered villains in an untouchable suit of armour. They're still ponies, like any other. Well-trained and armed, maybe, but certainly not nigh invincible. And as with anyone clad in heavy armour would attest, they're slow, bulky and most certainly not agile.

So no wall-jumping tricks to get out of an almost-instantly closing pit like they performed before. Good.

Night Jewel still can't do a lot against them, but I guess that's because she can't do a lot directly against most ponies. The most dangerous thing she could do in a fight is to sabotage equipment; otherwise, she pretty much dodges, disarms, or other defensive things. It would still be nice if she could work with the metal she's got, but otherwise, I think I can manage. My other characters are at least somewhat less helpless (except Blades, since she's currently incapacitated).

Luka

2013-04-16, 01:25 AM

Hey Luka, can I get a more comprehensive list of organ damage put here? Sorry, but 'several of them' doesn't help a whole lot.

Just read it as "all of the ones he can see are hurt like beaten up and with spots around the place" and you got it right, didn't really see the need in listing each one of them, sorry

Mind, they're not superpowered villains in an untouchable suit of armour. They're still ponies, like any other. Well-trained and armed, maybe, but certainly not nigh invincible. And as with anyone clad in heavy armour would attest, they're slow, bulky and most certainly not agile.

........That won't affect Luka's role as "tough and fast but harmless" right? I mean, it seems like the metal normal properties are being mentioned several times, and with the metal losing it's "lighter than normal" and "tougher than usual" properties it seems like that :smalleek:

Grif

2013-04-16, 07:10 AM

........That won't affect Luka's role as "tough and fast but harmless" right? I mean, it seems like the metal normal properties are being mentioned several times, and with the metal losing it's "lighter than normal" and "tougher than usual" properties it seems like that :smalleek:

A heavily armoured pony is still a heavily armoured pony. (Although his speed might have to take a nerfbat. Not freakishly fast, but fast enough.) Luka's description need not change, since I plan to bring down the power levels of the army in accordance with what I'm more comfortable with. :smallwink: So functionally, there should be no difference.

Luka

2013-04-16, 12:42 PM

A heavily armoured pony is still a heavily armoured pony. (Although his speed might have to take a nerfbat. Not freakishly fast, but fast enough.) Luka's description need not change, since I plan to bring down the power levels of the army in accordance with what I'm more comfortable with. :smallwink: So functionally, there should be no difference.

I'm talking about his gameplay, not his description, I mean, he's supposed to have high P.defense, magic defense, agility and evasion but low attack, plus that he pretty much has a trait of not letting armor slow him down, so I don't think he would need to take a nerf on that anyways, or on anything.

Also, dunno about lowering their power levels, their 5 strongest ones (below Doth of course) were really weak a while ago and had a hippogriff almost own the 5 of them (the guards got owned, but they were supposed to anyways, you wouldn't expect Master Chief to not mop the floor with grunts), if they're barely a threat with that, why make them weaker if that would just make them suck worse?

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-16, 11:14 PM

I don't think being pretty much able to block everything you throw at them is "weak". By that logic, Night Jewel and Blades have negative amounts of strength. Let's have a look, shall we?

Blades: Has some strength, resilience and agility, but not too focused in any one. Has few special weapons and only light armour. No defences against magic. An annoyingly large number of ponies can block her projectiles with ease.

Night Jewel: Fragile Speedster with pacifistic tendencies. Has pretty much no attack power, and defences consist of simple dodging. Not good at absorbing damage. Can sabotage, but only against foes without magic immunity.

Dark Army Soldier (Previously): Highly resistant to magic, to the point where even the admittedly overpowered Flare has trouble. Can pull off physically impossible dodges when dealing with the few things they can't simply block. Possesses magical attacks that cannot be countered easily (Homing mana blasts, for instance).

See an imbalance here?

Kelvin360

2013-04-16, 11:26 PM

Also, that 'one hippogriff' was only able to dismantle them for two reasons: Thunderbolt comes from a monastery where the original singular intent was to turn even the lowest of the low into one-pony armies...and I talked myself out of the usual corner by pointing out that the lightning she was using wasn't magical.

That's not Darkseid punching out Batman, that's Lex Luthor pulling out kryptonite. Superman's still Superman, it's just that using his one weakness makes him much less comparatively powerful. Attentive posters will note that even with her supposed outclassing of the Dark Forces Hit Squad, Thunderbolt managed to kill exactly none of them, which was absolutely her original intent.

I'm personally in favor of the change because it means I won't have to unleash powerhouses to even the odds of a fight anymore.

Luka

2013-04-16, 11:32 PM

I assumed Blades was a lot stronger given her insane tendencies, but overall she should be able to be on par with one when fighting in melee, plus the homing mana missile could be countered by having something in front of you or taking cover.

And like I said before, the only obstacle there was between Night Jewel and completely inutilizing the entire dark army is that magic shield, she can move "mechanisms" that aren't supposed to, if that magic shield wasn't there, she would just sabotage everything

Plus, that part with Flare was because she made a hole in the ground leading to lava, one-hit kill, precisely on a character protected by plot armor who also was a mage.

@Kelvin she didn't because of the hostage situation, if it didn't exist she was going to take Verdant down, plus also don't forget the 5 themselves were supposed to be the biggest one-pony armies themselves coming from an army where everyone's trained to be one, yet the hippogrif was about to single handely beat them all by herself, the fight wasn't supposed to be even, but I expected 40 grunts not a dragon.

TheAmishPirate

2013-04-16, 11:39 PM

What I've seen so far has seemed very in-line with the power level we should be seeing in this setting. Additionally, I think that I trust Grif's ability to balance things appropriately.

That's part of the point of a FFRP; you trust your fellow player (and occasional DM) to do things properly, and they in turn trust you with the same.

EDIT: And talking about the alley fight is...not a good way to find good examples of balance. Lots of overpowered character getting thrown around, other overpowered characters getting chucked in response, it was a mess.

Luka

2013-04-16, 11:57 PM

EDIT: And talking about the alley fight is...not a good way to find good examples of balance. Lots of overpowered character getting thrown around, other overpowered characters getting chucked in response, it was a mess.

Not just the alley, also the gate thing, they seemed to be mostly on par with the guards, then the others arrived (I actually didn't know they were coming back from releasing Flare) and things went downhill, which is even worse considering 2 dumb grunts could stand above the guards and win, considering they're not even reaching Corporal rank in the army, it makes no sense, it's like 5 overpowered Master Chiefs failing at what 2 militiamen could :smallconfused:

PurityIcekiller

2013-04-16, 11:59 PM

Blades was getting her disks magicked-away, and the few projectiles of hers that actually hit were completely useless. Add to the fact that they can telekinetically deflect melee weapons, and she's pretty much helpless; the only hits she got in were with a captured sword and a reflected attack. I admit I didn't see the possibility of blocking the energy blast, but Blades doesn't really have a lot of good equipment for that which she can get ready with a moment's notice.

Also, I think you've forgotten that Night Jewel's actual spellcasting is the weakest of any active magic user around. Her powers require time and careful concentration. I've mentioned this several times. The only way she could even hope to overpower one of those dark soldiers even without the armour being immune to her spells is via an ambush, and she'd have to stay hidden the whole time.

As it was, only two of my characters (possibly three, if you count Lady Ciona) actually had a way to deal damage to those guys, and only one of said characters (Blueshield) has a reasonable power level.

Grif

2013-04-17, 12:13 AM

Not just the alley, also the gate thing, they seemed to be mostly on par with the guards, then the others arrived (I actually didn't know they were coming back from releasing Flare) and things went downhill, which is even worse considering 2 dumb grunts could stand above the guards and win, considering they're not even reaching Corporal rank in the army, it makes no sense, it's like 5 overpowered Master Chiefs failing at what 2 militiamen could :smallconfused:

They beat the gate guards to a bloody pulp and put two into the infirmary. (unless I misremembered Violet, Idle Chat and Tyrol) I'm not sure how does that constitute as being "on par". :smallconfused: The arrival of the PCs are another issue altogether.

Being stronger doesn't necessarily mean killing ponies outright. I thought it was pretty evident the guards were outclassed.

I'm talking about his gameplay, not his description, I mean, he's supposed to have high P.defense, magic defense, agility and evasion but low attack, plus that he pretty much has a trait of not letting armor slow him down, so I don't think he would need to take a nerf on that anyways, or on anything.
I think you're taking "gameplay" stats way too seriously here. This is not a "video game" or even a proper tabletop PPRPG with properly defined stats and classes. We only use descriptions to describe a player ability, and leaving the rest for the player to roleplay. Nothing more, nothing less. To me, Luka is a heavily armoured pony with magical armour. That's it. Everything else should follow from that, not from some imaginary stats or some seriously screwed min-maxing you might find in D&D games. Plausibility is more important to me.

Also, to clarify, I meant to say Luka shouldn't be able to sprint like a world-class Equestrian Game runner. He might be able to move without armour slowing him down a lot, but he won't be winning prizes for that.