- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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So this is another Choice of Games title, however this one is probably my favorite with fairly good writing and only a minimum of creepiness which you can safely ignore to no detriment to the story.
The premise behind it is your essentially an undead lawyer/mage/all around badass. I believe the tagline they used on the site is necromatic legal thriller. It's written by Cambell Award-nominated author Max Gladstone.
So without further adieu let's begin.
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The sky over the demon world is broken. Lightning licks the strange geometries of cloud. Around you rises the demon-city Akargath, warped crystal and flame, thorns and razor wire. And this is the nice part of town.
Gods, you hurt. Your skin's a burned ruin. Bones in your ribs grind when you breathe. Your suit hangs in tatters from your body.
Your enemy stands before you: a towering figure of glass and knives. Cackling madly, he raises one hand. Dark power crackles along his talons.
The battle's taken almost all your strength. Your Craft, your own power, stands at ebb.
If you don't win this thing soon, you're done.
I wait for my enemy to attack, then redirect his power against him!
I strike while I can, and give no quarter.
I run and hide
Your Character
Charm: 1%
Craft: 1%
Cunning: 1%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 30%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
Lazaruise fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Aug 13, 2014
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Aug 13, 2014 03:43
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 27, 2024 10:28
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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We've got a tie next vote wins.
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Aug 13, 2014 12:13
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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We've got a tie next vote wins.
Or I'll jut cast a tie breaker vote to get the ball rolling for Redirecting the attack , hopefully this picks up some steam as the story develops.
As the blast scythes toward you, you bind it with your own Craft and cast it back against your foe. To catch such power in mid-flight is almost impossible, but you manage, a virtuoso display of finesse and improvisation.
If you survive this, you'll return to the Hidden Schools and rub this moment in the face of every professor who ever claimed you'd not amount to anything.
If.
The bolt shatters your enemy's chest to crystal shards. They fall like rain, and reflect your battered face a million times in miniature.
But before your very eyes the crystal melts again and flows back to heal the wound you made. He stands before you, mighty as before.
The effort's almost exhausted you. You can't turn another hit like that.
Strike him down while I still can.
Say something. Try to stall him.
Your Character
Charm: 1%
Craft: 1%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 30%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 13, 2014 16:19
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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You scream into the whirlwind. "Others will come after me. And after you."
He laughs. "Who? Who do you think cares enough about you to risk their life for vengeance?"
My friends.
Ashleigh Wakefield.
My firm.
Your Character
Charm: 11%
Craft: 1%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 30%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
Lazaruise fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Aug 13, 2014
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Aug 13, 2014 20:51
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Stall him. Are you planning on doing just the one playthrough?
I'm open to doing more than one playthrough if the intrest is there.
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Aug 13, 2014 21:10
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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fake edit: nevermind I think my internet is going crazy.
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Aug 13, 2014 21:47
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Smug rear end in a top hat posted:
"Ashleigh will."
"Perhaps. Perhaps Wakefield will only squirm less before dying."
Welp we're properly hosed posted:
He closes his clawed hand into a fist. You crouch, ready for the attack.
He's powerful, but arrogant. If you just hold out a few seconds more, you'll find some angle, some way to beat him. As long as you can keep it together.
Then claws of light and power strike you, and you shatter.
You have unlocked one out of thirty-two possible achievements, earning you a score of 15 out of a possible 900 points.
Die: You died! Let's see you get out of this one… (15 points)
Its not over yet though! posted:
Your mind comes to pieces and the pieces tumble, sharp, spinning. Seconds come unmoored from seconds. Shards catch and reflect images of a once-familiar life: your past, spinning out of reach.
You have to fight back. Have to stop him. Defend yourself. So hard to think. What does thinking mean, anyway, outside of time?
You scramble amid the shattered, jagged facets of your self. They cut your fingers, and blood flows into memory.
Let's start the game proper posted:
You must remember. You must fight. You are…
Hells. Who are you, anyway?
There must be an answer here, amid the slivers and glass confetti, among the kaleidoscope shapes. If only you could grasp it. You don't even have hands with which to grasp. Or a body, for that matter.
No. You have one. You remember.
You are…
A man.
A woman.
Stats posted:
Your Character
Charm: 11%
Craft: 1%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
Current Achievments 15/900 points posted:
Die: You died! Let's see you get out of this one… (15 points) Lazaruise fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Aug 13, 2014
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Aug 13, 2014 22:40
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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How come the stat block is spaced out so much all of a sudden?
I was trying to make it more readable but it looks like that didn't really work out did it?
I'll put it back to how it was before
Lazaruise fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Aug 13, 2014
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Aug 13, 2014 22:55
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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I just realized the name vote is coming up next, do you guys want me to post the generic names they have or do you want to come up with one on your own?
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Aug 14, 2014 00:27
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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First Names posted:
You are a man.
Your name, if you could just remember—names tie lives together, knit memories to memories. And your name is…
Jamie.
John.
Xueyou.
Mark.
Something else.
Last Names posted:
That's only part of it. first name here…
Kang.
Gaspard.
Cavendish.
Bly.
Shepard.
None of these.
And yes we could be John Shepard from Mass Effect.
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Aug 14, 2014 01:17
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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First stirrings of...? posted:
How did you get here, John? So many alternative pasts, so many options. Dreamshards, timepieces.
Childhood: the first stirrings of power. You caught a falling star in a dead field, and held it burning in your hands. Smelled the sweet iron of space and the world's heat, as fiery fingers crawled over your skin and into your flesh.
I closed my hands around the star.
I released the star into the sky.
I ate the star.
I watched the star as it died.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 11%
Craft: 1%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 14, 2014 02:46
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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I'm guessing thats a vote for eating it then?
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Aug 14, 2014 02:57
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Over the teeth, past the gums, look out stomach here it comes posted:
You pressed the star past your open lips, tasted lightning on your tongue, and swallowed; liquid metal seared your esophagus, and you fell back onto the dead grass, screaming. Galaxies wheeled above you, moonlight unbearably sharp. You closed your eyes but that only replaced the punishing stars with another vision.
This is the world beneath the world: a vast net of souls and exchange, a pulsing network of life and story and bargain and consequence. You see the terms of the Great Deal, the arguments and conditions upon which your world depends.
You could join that bargain. Shape it. But first you had to grow up. And growing up presented its own challenges. You were…
A beggar.
Poor.
Comfortable.
Rich.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 11%
Craft: 11%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2000
Debt: 200000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 14, 2014 03:31
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Last update before I go to bed tonight.
You were ... posted:
…a scion of a grand old family, with connections and powers stretching back thousands of years, to the old days when gods ruled the world and human beings did not control their own destiny.
The God Wars destroyed mountain ranges, shattered continents, smote the gates of many heavens—but wealth has a habit of surviving. Your family is not what it once was, but move by move your clan has reclaimed its ascendancy.
And you are a pawn in that generations-long struggle for privilege and position. Despite your (in Grandfather's eyes) foolish decision to attend the Hidden Schools rather than focusing your efforts on the family Concern.
aww, young love posted:
You developed, in those conditions, from child to man. Here's a cutting, tumbling shard of lips and skin—a first kiss…
A girl I knew.
A boy I knew.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 11%
Craft: 11%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 1%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 50% Socialite: 50%
Soul: 2500
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 14, 2014 05:57
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Law School Shenanigans posted:
A bright afternoon, a brief rest, a pressure of lips and hands and bodies. Neither one of you was very good at kissing, or at anything else you tried, but it was a start, and it was sweet. You wonder what became of her.
You'll never know. More flashes from your years at the Hidden Schools, where you studied the dark arts men call Craft. A century ago, you would have been burned at the stake for learning these skills—how to raise the dead from their graves, how to hold the power of the gods in your own hands. Then the God Wars happened, and humans won. The Hidden Schools rose in defiance of divine authority, and life became a lot better for people who chose to twist natural law in to their whims. People like you.
You see, you remember…
Hours and hours of studying, sweating, bent at my desk.
Keg stands and drunken revels, dancing, flesh, and joy.
The gym. The track. Books when I had to, but always the field.
Sneaking through and around the rules.
No changes to our stats yet though. Also that last choice didn't confirm out sexual preferences, it was a childhood kiss, i think it determines the gender of a certain character later. We still need to choose our preferred gender later
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Aug 14, 2014 15:26
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Partay!!!! posted:
Memories of flesh and music. The world spun as you hung suspended above it: a thousand feet in the air and still you walked the razor's edge.
Lovers' lips and hands and bodies flash and pass into darkness. The Hidden Schools were the world's greatest party, all the finest minds of your generation gathered into one place and compressed until they either collapsed, or decided to explode.
You exploded.
Every moment's zenith had its nadir. The one time after your Necro final you ended up wandering drunk through a bad part of southern Oxulhat, and got beaten black and blue by some people you shouldn't have bothered. Another morning you woke on the Sevenfold Tower without your pants—either kind of pants. But it was a good run.
The Hidden Schools were a realm of darkness and study, but no one ever accused the students there of monastic discipline. What pleasures did you indulge in? What loves? What faces, what bodies, reflect in the falling shards of what used to be yourself?
I discovered that I loved men.
I wanted women, and found women who wanted me.
I wanted both men and women.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 46%
Craft: 19%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2500
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity
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Aug 14, 2014 19:29
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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I be drowning in pussy posted:
They were strong, they were brittle, they were brilliant, they were shortsighted, they were beautiful, they were unformed. In short, they were young, and so were you.
But the process was fun for all involved.
And then you graduated, and went to work.
It's our first day at the job, lets make it count posted:
Krieg Tower rises like a black needle over the sprawling Shikaw skyline. To the east stretches the Greatwater, slate gray broken by white chalk-line waves. Below, and off to the west, broad gridded streets map the earth between buildings the size of city blocks, and beyond these lie older, red brick neighborhoods that never quite recovered from the God Wars.
Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone occupies the top twenty floors of Krieg Tower; your new office, your first office ever, is a cubby on floor thirty-five, toward the lower bound of VNS territory. It's empty but for you and the few personal possessions you're moving in—a single box, piled high with Craftwork books, and on top of them a few teetering personal effects, including a daguerrotype of your graduation. You look so proud.
You set the box down, and sag into your chair. You hear the subtle shift in the box and turn in time to see the picture fall.
I catch it with the Craft.
I catch it with my hands.
Why catch it? More interesting to fix it with the Craft once it's broken.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 51%
Craft: 19%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2500
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 14, 2014 21:38
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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3-way tie, next vote wins
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Aug 15, 2014 02:10
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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caught you stupid picutre thing you posted:
The picture's yours—it has your name on the back. Easy enough to grab hold of it, and stop its travel through space.
The picture stops in midair. As you pluck it from your own mental grip, though, you feel a stab of pain in your thumb. The sudden stop broke the glass, and you've cut your finger open on it.
meeting new people posted:
You wrap your thumb in tissue paper to stem the bleeding, which should help.
You hear a knock on the door, and a second later it opens to admit Cassowary Chen, another first-year associate at Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone. She started a week ago, same as you, and for both of you the last seven days have been a solid wall of training.
She's borne it well, better than you feel you have. Like you, Cass wears a dark gray skirt suit; she's intense, five-foot-five or so, dark hair, expressive features, given to sharp broad gestures with her hands while talking.
She glances down at your thumb with concern. "Are you okay, John?"
"Oh, it's nothing."
"I thought this place could use a little more color."
"HR sent a few more forms up for me to sign."
"No, actually, this hurts a lot."
"What are you doing here?"
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 51%
Craft: 27%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2497
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 30%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
remember using craft does cost us a little bit of our soul, which makes it take longer to pay off our student debt, but since we chose to be rich we have less debt and more soul to spare so it works out good for now.
Lazaruise fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Aug 15, 2014
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Aug 15, 2014 02:28
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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red is a beautiful color posted:
She laughs. "I know just what you mean. And it feels like blood's the only color they like seeing around here. Trust me, I looked through the employee handbook."
"Anyway," she says, "Pat and I thought we might meet for dinner before this casino night orientation thing. Pre-game a little. You want to come?"
"I'd love to!"
"You're going to that? I thought I might skip. It's just more social, play-nice stuff, right?"
"Pat? Why not just the two of us?"
"Eh. I'll eat by myself. Have fun."
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 58%
Craft: 27%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2497
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 44%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:44
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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There weren't any previous LPs but it is set in the same world as Max Gladstones other books, so you can read those if you want to get some background.
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Aug 15, 2014 08:20
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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lers shmooze posted:
"Great!" She shoots you a thumbs-up, and scribbles down the address of a bar not far from casino night. "We'll meet there at seven, okay?" Then she's gone, in a flare of jacket and skirt and clicking heels.
If you want to meet her by seven, you'd best get home. You have some work to do.
Where did we live? posted:
You're still living out of boxes, and it would be nice to stop that one of these days. You have barely enough time to get home, unpack a little, and return—lucky for you that it's still the first week of training. In a month, once the Work picks up, you doubt you'll ever again see a sunset that's not filtered through glass. Too many dead men to be raised, gods to be wrestled, laws of reality to be violated. You know. The usual life of a Craftsman.
Home waits, though, for now.
And where is "home," anyway? Rent's higher close to the office, but the closer you are, the shorter the commute—and short commutes mean more sleep, which makes everything in life easier.
As close as I can get to the office. drat the expense.
I tried to compromise between price and convenience.
The cheapest digs I can find. I won't spend much time there anyway.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 58%
Craft: 27%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2497
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 50%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:16
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Middle.
College debts are apparently a problem for us.
Yes indeed they are, but because of our Rich background, not as much as the other backgrounds. I think choosing the other backgrounds give you some stat boosts whereas the rich one lowers your debt to a more managable level making the whole game a little bit easier.
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#
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Aug 16, 2014 00:59
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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living the lap of luxury posted:
Downtown Shikaw is a pricey place, but this job will take enough of your life without you having to sacrifice more of it to a daily commute. Even if you feel like your landlord is vampiric scum.
Not that you have anything against vampires, mind. Salt of the earth. Well. Not literally.
You walk home along downtown's steel canyons, and soon reach Castiel Towers, an Art Deco titan of steel and concrete, sides decorated with aluminum thunderbolts and brass suns. The lobby's all plush cushion and chrome. Not bad, not bad at all.
The elevator doesn't even whir as it drags you up to your fourteenth-floor apartment.
How much are we spending now? posted:
Speaking of rent, and commutes, and similar topics, what kind of life are you living exactly? By which I mean: when you left the Hidden Schools to embark on this path of high thaumaturgy, you were carrying about 100000 thaums in debt. Currently, your soul's only worth about 2497.
Your salary's 160,000 thaums—let's say 100,000 after all your various fees and obligations to the city of Shikaw are handled. Debt, obviously, is debt: the Hidden Schools lay claim to your soul and all its future products. As long as you carry this debt, you'll never be free. Mad necromancers can and will hunt you to the ends of the earth.
So, that said, how much of your salary—after you take care of rent and living expenses—goes toward debt? And how much of it is yours to spend?
I want that debt gone. I'll eat instant noodles for five years if I must.
There's no sense making myself miserable. I'll balance debt-repayment with my own wants and needs.
School was hard. I want to live a little. I'll have plenty of time to pay down debt.
No change in our stats this round.
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Aug 16, 2014 18:25
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Lets have malnutrition as we obliterate our debt! posted:
Your apartment is a mess of boxes. Piles by the door, in the hall, in the center of the room. You have a bed, and pillows, but that's the limit. Everything else is cardboard and packing tape.
You glance ruefully at your watch, set down your briefcase, and start unpacking. At this rate, you might have time to do something other than unpack and go to firm functions sometime around two months from now. Though that's an optimistic estimate.
You manifest a knife out of your own soulstuff and start tearing open boxes. You'd have used something more prosaic, but your knives and scissors are, of course, packed. Dammit.
You haven't looked at your watch in a while when you hear a knock on the door.
Hey its that person we said would help us! posted:
Answering it—chain in place, of course—you discover, to your surprise, Ashleigh Wakefield.
You haven't seen Wakefield since graduation. You sort of hoped never to see her again. Ash Wakefield of the Southern Wakefields, the scion of a high family, and everyone in the Hidden Schools knew it. Affluent, blonde, brilliant, and sculpted out of marble. Metaphorically. Though you never got close enough to check.
Kelethres Albrecht & Ao—one of the world's most prestigious Craft firms—hired Wakefield straight out of the Hidden Schools as an associate in their Shikaw office, and she made certain everyone knew. Perhaps she was just excited. That'd be a charitable way to look at it.
"Cavendish," she says. "It's been quite a while. Since we're both going to this party, I decided I might as well visit another lonely and bereft graduate in this dismal city."
Apparently shes a dick posted:
It doesn't seem right to keep Wakefield waiting outside, so you undo the lock on the door, step aside, and let her in. She glances around the piles of boxes without betraying the slightest hint of disdain. Wakefield conveys disdain quite well enough without having to betray it.
"How did you get this address?"
"See anything you like?"
"I'm a bit busy, if you don't mind."
"I knew I should have shut the door in your face."
Still no changes to stats yet though this next one should do something.
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Aug 17, 2014 07:30
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Bitchy bitchy posted:
"Unlikely. Though there's always a chance for surprise." Wakefield shrugs.
Wakefield turns on her heel to face you, and spreads her arms wide. "I came to invite you to dinner. I have been forced to attend this particular brand of inter-firm madness, and drinks and a vague excuse for intelligent conversation might provide an appropriate stimulant for the early evening."
"I have plans."
"I'm meeting some friends for dinner. You're welcome to come."
"Against my better judgment, let's."
"So I can be a warmup bout over drinks? No thanks."
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 62%
Craft: 27%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2497
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 55%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 17, 2014 22:24
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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More bitchiness ensues posted:
"Flattering," Wakefield says. "Much as I would relish being immersed in your social pool," and from her tone of voice you can tell she means the shallow kind with cattails around the edge, a vague green scum on top, and an unpleasant stench hanging about, "I shall keep my own company. Another time, perhaps."
"Another time," you say, and escort her to the door.
Drink till your drunk, smoke like a broke stove posted:
You arrive at the Horseshoe a few minutes after seven, and shoulder your way through the barside crowd past the hostess's stand into the dining area. Fortunately, you see Cass before the hostess catches up with you. She half-stands, waves, and smiles.
Pat turns too, and smiles even broader, but he doesn't stand, doesn't wave. He's a big guy, a slow-mover, but smart. Older than you and Cass, too, old for an associate. Dignified: short curly hair, dark skin, Iskari cuffs on his pressed shirts. He has a family, even, from what you've heard. A wife at home, and a kid on the way.
The waitress swings by. "What'll you have?"
Beer.
Wine.
Whiskey, straight up.
The manliest cocktail your bartender can man up to make.
An appletini.
Tea.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 62%
Craft: 27%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2497
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 30%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:35
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Mhmm Mhmm posted:
"I'll get right on that."
You drink, and eat, and talk, and before long the conversation turns, as it always does, to work. This time, the subject is goals, and specifically Cass Chen's lack of them.
"I don't know," she says. "Working for the firm develops skills, and connections, and all that. But in the end, so much of what we do is abstract thaumaturgics. It doesn't connect to people. To human lives. What does it matter if a Concern recognizes an extra percent of profit?"
"To the many who work for that Concern," Pat Ngabe replies, "an extra percent of profit, or a fraction of it, might matter a great deal. And regardless, we must think of our own lives and careers before we ponder abstract injustice. It is enough, I think, to care for our families, and for those close to us."
"When the world's suffering?" Chen shakes her head. "What do you think, John? What do you want out of your work with the firm?"
"I want to make partner."
"I'd like to give something back to the world. If I can."
"As long as they keep giving me interesting work, I'll do it."
"I don't know about you, but I always wanted to amass infinite power and laugh over the corpses of my enemies."
No changes to our stats this time
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Aug 19, 2014 23:42
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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But we really aren't joking... posted:
"A traditionalist," says Pat, with a wide smile.
"I'm not joking," Chen says.
"Neither am I." You try to keep a straight face, but can't manage for long.
She wads a napkin up and throws it at you.
polite conversation posted:
"I," Pat says, "will make partner. Once I have established a place for myself and my family in this city, then my children can concern themselves with personal gratification, not to mention this nebulous 'giving something back' with which Cassowary seems so concerned."
"Now you're just being mean," Cass says. "And it's not like I don't want to succeed. I just think there's more we're supposed to do here than try to get as big as we can until we explode."
Pat raises his beer in a salute. "Bigger is better."
"You know what I mean," Cass says.
"Not really."
The conversation spins on for a while, but time's wasting and you're all more than fashionably late already. You get the check, and head out to Casino Night!
keep establishing that setting baby oh yeah posted:
Varkath Nebuchadnezzar, Kelethres Albrecht & Ao, and a few other firms have rented out a swanky waterfront restaurant. A chandelier dangles from thin gold chains over a room swarming with Craftsmen and Craftswomen clad in pinstripes and slick silk. Cocktail glasses clink. Dice thud and roll over green felt tables. Everywhere you hear the flushed-bird sound of shuffled cards.
Outside and overhead, a few stars have survived the onslaught of the city lights. They glitter over the black waters of the lake.
So how are we going to spend the rest of our evening? posted:
You wander the floor for a moment to take everything in, and score a drink from the bar. When you turn back, you take inventory of the room. The ever-practical Pat Ngabe is playing blackjack—the best odds on the floor given perfect play. Cass Chen flits from conversation to conversation; she's on her second cocktail of the night, not counting her dinner's drinks. This may not end well for her.
Ashleigh Wakefield should be milling with the rest of the KAA crowd, standoffish and superior as always, but she's not. You find her at one of the poker tables, seated next to… Oh. Gods.
That skeleton in green, with the hands of cold iron and the glyphs burning on the pate of his bared skull, and the mask of cured leather—that's Golan Varkath. As in, the named partner Golan Varkath. You've seen his portrait, but you've never seen him in person before.
So, what do you do next?
Mill around for a while. Talk to people.
Try to network with senior partners.
I want to win all the souls I can.
Find a true test of my mental fortitude.
I head straight for the poker table.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 62%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 20, 2014 22:31
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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pah pah pah pokerface posted:
You join Varkath, Wakefield, and a few other monsters at the table. The goddess of the game hovers above the felt, shifting and glorious, calling each player in turn to his or her destruction.
No sense waiting. You sit down.
Wakefield looks up from the cards. "Decided to button up your trousers and play in the big leagues?"
"Shame you can't play as good a game as you talk."
"I wanted to give you a head start. And a chance."
To the rest of the table: "Has she been this bad all night?"
I say nothing and let the dealer deal me in.
No stat changes yet.
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Aug 21, 2014 14:30
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Lets get this game started posted:
Varkath says nothing; neither does anyone else. The big blind this deal is a Craftswoman who's replaced her skin with scales, and the little blind's Varkath. You glance at your cards when the bet comes around to you, and raise.
What's your plan for the evening?
I want to win. Why else would I be here?
I'm here to talk, more than to play.
I want to get Wakefield. I don't care about the rest of the game.
I want to beat Varkath.
I want to taste as many souls as I can, and see what I can learn.
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Aug 21, 2014 23:27
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Your Soul is Mine Liu Kang posted:
Here's the thing about playing poker: every time you bet, a portion of your soul flows into the goddess in the center. It doesn't leave until you fold, or until you lose. Which means that, if you're careful, and you go in a lot, you might be able to feel the contours of the other players' souls. Who knows what you might be able to learn?
So you throw yourself into the game, not because you want to win, but because you want to know.
Well that didn't go well posted:
But what is there to know? The pot's an angry roil of soulstuff and ambition, conflicting dreams and deadly will. You try to mix yourself with their minds, but how, and why? You're torn and tossed on the tempest of your fellow players' minds, and in the end you're drawn too deep. You bite on a bad play, and then, the world goes gray.
That's the night's big play, for you. You're not dead, nor are you so far reduced as to qualify for zombie-hood, but you feel low and bruised. When the game breaks up and the goddess dissolves back into the players from whose souls she was formed, you're only too happy to push yourself away from the game and stagger off toward the bar.
Before you travel far, though, you hear a voice behind you, harsh and melodic in weird directions, like a house key scraped over a violin string.
"Mr. Cavendish. A pleasure to play with you."
You turn, and see Varkath.
I'm pretty sure if our craft was a little bit higher that would of went better.
Some advice from our boss posted:
"Sir."
His mask is painted to resemble a young man's face. Perhaps his, from a long-vanished youth. You think the mask's made of cowhide. You fervently hope it's made of cowhide.
"Next time, try to achieve what you set out to do."
"I'll remember that, sir."
"Better to experiment in a casino than in a courtroom, sir."
"Some people are never happy."
"What were you hoping to see?"
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 62%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2047
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 20%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
So basically we just lost some souls and gained nothing there becuase our abilities weren't high enough, but lets see if we can curry some favor from the higher ups, maybe the night won't be a complete wash.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:39
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Shall we continue the debauchery? posted:
"Perhaps." He shrugs, and turns away.
You feel exhausted. Long day, long night, and more long days to come. Many more of them, if this life works out the way you've planned.
Chen and Pat are talking at the edge of the dance floor. They look like they're ready to go. Meanwhile, the dance itself is heating up, and you see some people there you wouldn't mind heating up as well. And there is always the bar. Not to mention your bed, though it seems so far away now.
I catch up with Chen and Ngabe, and walk them to the trolley.
The night is young! I try to drag Chen and Ngabe out for drinks.
Let's see what we can do on that dance floor, shall we?
I need to get some rest.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 62%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 99%
Gunner: 40% Socialite: 60%
Soul: 2047
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 23, 2014 11:28
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Dance Dance, we're falling apart to half time posted:
You grab a drink first, then hit the dance floor, spinning and shouting and twisting along with the music. You find some good partners. You find some bad partners. But you do find partners, and the rest of the night scintillates and tumbles like broken glass down a dark well.
Interlude posted:
Interlude: Broken
The image slips and fades but the blood remains. You are more than you were. Or at least, you remember more than you once remembered.
You're still falling, in pieces, in this darkness from which you cannot return. More sparks and slivers of falling memory tumble around you.
You grope still for memories, for changes. You passed your first year at the firm. Little decisions altered your world, day by day.
What changes do you grab out of the cascading broken mirrors?
I moved to a new apartment.
I changed how much I saved.
I paid off my student loans. (Current debt: 100000 thaums. Current funds: 2047 thaums)
I didn't change anything.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 69%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 69%
Gunner: 32% Socialite: 68%
Soul: 2047
Debt: 100000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
These interludes come up periodically so can change how much soul your spending and how far you live away from work. If you guys are happy with what we are doing I can skip them in the future, just let me know.
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Aug 24, 2014 13:13
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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We're already saving the max precentage so I'm just going to say we didn't change anything.
Boom Boom bitch posted:
You stand in a dark room, inside a glowing pentacle, and hold a knife of lightning to your wrist.
Somewhere a clock strikes midnight. You hold back a yawn. Too much work recently. Always too much work. Anyway.
It's time to work. As always.
You press the knife point into your skin. A drop of blood wells up. You pull the blade away, and the blood drop falls, round and reflective, to the floor. And when it splashes there, you fall, too.
You fall into the world of gods.
The material realm breaks around you, and for a moment you feel yourself a gnat passing through a beam of light, revealed to enormous beings who normally would not notice something so small. But in this instant of exposure they might well reach out and destroy you, for their own amusement or only to pass the time.
You leave the light and find your destination. You hover before a wall woven by spiders out of silver webs. Most of the patterns are abstract, but a few resemble faces, the faces of people you know, screaming.
This has been the last three months of your life. Transdimensional Thaumaturgics, your client, contracted with the demonic consortium of Akargath to build an enormous hydro project in the Southern Kathic jungle. The demons then claimed the project was as much their property as TT's, which would give them a foothold in your world, a territory through which they could pass at will from their reality to yours, unlimited by the bonds of a summoning contract. They would stride across the earth like gods.
Obviously, this is a bad outcome.
You've been tasked with document review, and minor ward maintenance. How have you been handling these responsibilities?
I've worked late every day, on my own.
I've searched for patterns in the demons' strategy, trying to work smarter.
I've created an elaborate piece of Craft to do most of the work for me.
I'm working in a team with my colleagues.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 72%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 72%
Gunner: 32% Socialite: 68%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 82000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 25, 2014 03:46
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Well thats just great posted:
Many hands make light work, and one advantage of working with a big firm like Varkath Nebuchadnezzar is that you have many hands available.
Of course, working so closely with others reduces your chance of looking like a hero, but there are more important things than heroism. Success, for example. You spend hours combing through the contract-wall, comparing it point by point to the written descriptions of the deal Transdimensional Thaumaturgics offered you.
This is a bigger version of the classic summoning contract, in the same way a container ship is a bigger fishing boat. The principle's the same, at least. Demons hail from a realm parallel to your own; local laws of physics don't bind them. When offering demons a path into your own reality, a good summoner can define their powers to exceed those of most humans. But if demons could pass into your world without a clear contract, they would lack limits—singularities of possibility striding unrestrained across continents. And singularities are bad. A few demons were unleashed back during the God Wars, and the world still shudders from the consequences.
So you review the deal again. And again.
And, at three o'clock in the morning, you say the words no one connected with the Craft ever wants to say, or hear.
"Huh. That's funny."
You barely trust your own eyes. Fortunately you have another pair to hand. Cass Chen is also working late. "Hey, Cass. Can you take a look at this?"
She flies over from her portion of the wall. These last few months haven't worn well on Cass. She has dark circles under her eyes, and her face looks strained. "What's the problem?"
You show her.
There's a hole in the wall. A tiny hole, but demons don't need much room to wriggle through.
"We need to tell someone about this," she says.
You nod, and rise into the real world.
You stumble back into your own skin. Flesh fits tight after freedom, and your wrist hurts like hell. Mouth dry, world whirling, you turn for the door. Have to grope twice in the dark to find the handle.
You wander down the ghost-lit hallway outside, looking for someone, anyone. Soon, you find Vega: Halcyon Vega y Alatriste, elegant, tall, slim, dark-eyed and vicious, lately of counsel and a rapid climber in the firm. He's in charge of the warding project, among other things.
He seems shaken, perhaps by the look on your face. "What's happened?"
"I found something."
"We found something."
I lie. "Nothing's wrong."
"What's wrong with you? You look tense."
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 72%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 72%
Gunner: 29% Socialite: 71%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 82000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
A brief guide to the Choice of the Deathless statblock:
Charm: Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.
Craft: Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.
Cunning: Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.
Determination: Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."
Socialite / Gunner: Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?
Sleep: The less you sleep, the harder everything is.
Soul: The Craft can accomplish miracles—or great blasphemies—so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.
Debt: Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.
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Aug 26, 2014 10:07
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Hur Hurr Hurr Hurrrrr posted:
"There's a hole in the web," you say. "Looks like the contract isn't as complete as we thought."
You didn't think his brow could furrow much deeper. "Does it look like the demons know?"
"No."
"We'll bring it up at the morning meeting," he says. "And. John. Good job. Get some rest, okay?"
"You could use some, too."
"Thanks."
"I'm not leaving yet. There's still work to do."
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 72%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 72%
Gunner: 27% Socialite: 73%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 82000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
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Aug 26, 2014 22:38
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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Sleep is for the weak posted:
"Fair enough," he says. "Well. Looks like I need to prepare for the meeting tomorrow. I'll see you then."
He walks off down the hallway, leaving you alone, with your work.
The next morning you meet the client in a nightmare.
It's a straightforward nightmare as these things go: an immense scaly thousand-footed beast lies belly-up, and a table rests on a stretch of its stomach. You and the others sit on the beast's upturned feet.
Everyone's here: Damien Stone, the name partner in charge of the case, a heavy, dark Craftsman in his late sixties; Vega, in pressed suit jacket; Cass Chen; you. Not to mention the client himself, an executive of Transdimensional Thaumaturgics, a thin pale man in a black suit. You know him only as John Smith.
The world warps around him, and the stuff of nightmares bends
The meeting wheels through old business to new. Smith watches with cold black eyes, and seems almost bored, not at all as if your work is the only barrier between his firm and demonic invasion.
At last, Stone clears his throat, leans forward in his chair, cracks his knuckles, and asks if anyone has new business.
"In fact," Vega says. "Last night, I discovered a weakness in the contract. A minor hole, related somehow to definitions of ownership. I'll send you the details. We will need any documents you can provide connected with this manner."
"Of course," Smith says. Smith's voice is so ordinary you don't so much hear his words so much as assume them. "I'll have the documents sent."
And that's all. No mention of your discovery. No mention of Cass. Across the table, you see Chen swell with rage. Vega's taken your thunder, and hers as well.
She opens her mouth.
I stay silent. Let Cass hang.
I correct Vega's claim myself.
I try to distract her.
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 72%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 65%
Gunner: 34% Socialite: 66%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 82000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 52%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 35%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 20%
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Aug 27, 2014 06:04
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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It was a tie between Correct and Stay quiet so I tossed a coin and we corrected.
How dare he try and take credit, mother fucker posted:
You start talking before Cass can speak. "Thank you," you say, though nobody addressed you. Just keep moving your mouth, and you should be fine. "We were surprised to discover this yesterday. The more information we have, the better."
"I would have preferred," Smith says, "to learn this earlier." But he doesn't press the issue.
Stone smiles. You don't know why, and that worries you. Vega, for his part, goes pale.
The boss wants to talk... posted:
The nightmare ends, and you, Vega, Stone, and Cass wake in a fortieth-floor conference room. Vega stands, brushes off his jacket, and excuses himself quickly. Cass rises, flushed, obviously struggling to keep herself under control. She rounds the table, but before she can reach you, someone speaks.
"Mr. Cavendish. I find myself desiring coffee. Would you care to accompany me?"
It's Stone. And from what you know of partners, this doesn't sound like a request.
"Of course, sir."
"Actually, I have a meeting with Ms. Chen. Maybe in half an hour?"
Stats posted:
John Cavendish
Charm: 72%
Craft: 37%
Cunning: 11%
Determination: 20%
Sleep: 65%
Gunner: 34% Socialite: 66%
Soul: 2447
Debt: 82000
Ngabe: 37%
Chen: 56%
Wakefield: 64%
Vega: 28%
Varkath: 40%
Nebuchadnezzar: 20%
Stone: 44%
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Aug 27, 2014 10:36
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 27, 2024 10:28
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- Lazaruise
- Jan 25, 2009
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His opinion actually went up so he seems happy.
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Aug 27, 2014 11:37
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Aug 13, 2014 03:43
