Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[Aquillion]

It's been working pretty well for Charlie.

Like I said, Charlie is perhaps the strongest Carnymancer in the entire world... and, much more importantly, he has the Arkendish. Most of his most impressive Carnymancer feats have been done by using the Arkendish to link up safely (often at range.)

Anyone who doesn't have the Arkendish can't link up remotely at all, and it seems like you need multiple master-class Thinkamancers to be able to be certain you can undo a link safely. And, of course, since you need all that, most people haven't experimented with links and don't know what they can accomplish - Wanda specifically noted that Stanley using a link was unusual and was one of the few smart decisions he made (of course, it's also possible / probable that it was actually her idea, but either way her grasp of other disciplines is unusual.) And the fact that Carnymancer is percieved as weak or dangerous or weird means that few overlords or casters will know what you can accomplish with it even in a link.

Predictmancers aren't any easier to use, not only you have to think of ways to work with whatever they predict, chances also are they'll automatically join the big predictmancer conspiracy and sacrifice you and your side in the name of fate.

Thinkmancers seem to spend half their time frying/exploding their own brains and they also have their own super conspiracy.

Fair enough on turnmancers and moneymancers, but you won't be pulling any game-changing moves with just those at low level. You got a bit more of production, that's it.


Hiring from the Mee Kay can't possibly result in lower loyalty than predictmancers/thinkmancers that technically popped in your side but will betray it for their greater conspiracy first chance they get.

Then there was good old Olive, loyal old chap she was.

Overlords don't know about the conspiracies (that's the point of them being secret!) I also don't think they cause as many problems for typical sides as they have for Stanley, whose Chief Warlord just so happened to be at the crux of fate.

And predictamancers can do amazing stuff while staying home, is what I mean. Marie was a major part of the reason Faq survived, since she was able to predict in coming attacks so Jack could veil the cities.

Natural allies are a lot harder to come by than casters, Stanley had to go all the way to the middle of nowhere to get his new elf knights and only found them thanks to the advice of Erfworld's oldest awakened tower.

And that's only one tribe they managed to ally with. Meanwhile there's hundreds of hobo casters in the Mee Kay desperate for work.

That's because of trickery by Charlie. They had lots of natural allies before that, and the Royal Crown Coalition had no trouble hiring a bunch of elves with varied abilities.

-You don't need to touch the enemy ruler, touching their warlords or one of their casters will be enough for plenty of mayhem. And diplomatic meetings are things that have happened multiple times.
-The best comboing with any other magic. Whatever rules are limiting your other casters, carnymancers can bend/ignore those. Charlescom is one if not the mightiest side in Erfworld for a reason, rules are for others, not for Charlie.
-As seen with Scarlet, their buffs can last a long time at long range so they can just stay in the capital buffing key warlords.
-We've seen Jojo get away with touching/casting on fellow casters at the Mee Kay at all the time, so if they can find your enemy/rival's casters there, a casual pat in the back will give you an huge edge.

Sure, it's not utterly useless. But those are pretty harsh constraints - and Carnymancy is distrusted, so if you hire a Carnymancer, people will be less likely to have diplomatic meetings with you.

Charlescom is one if not the mightiest side in Erfworld for a reason, rules are for others, not for Charlie.

Again, that's mostly because of the Arkendish, not Carnymancy. And even beyond that, he knows far more about the discipline than anyone else - most overlords wouldn't know that that stuff is possible. (And Charlie prefers to keep it that way.)