Civil War Aftermath OOC #4

[The Good Doctor]

1 minute ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Colonel just wants to use this edgy moveset 

Says the guy who envisioned Balgruuf dual wielding battle-axes.  

[BigBossBalrog]

8 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Says the guy who envisioned Balgruuf dual wielding battle-axes.  

Mistakes of youth  Colonel still watches edgy anime AMV's.

[BigBossBalrog]

Good post. Shit's starting to get real  Too much stressful family drama. 

It feels awful though, as soon as the two fathers find hope there SON IS ALIVE...he's in the custody of the Elven Gestapo. 

 Dramatic irony and all that. We knew that as the audience, but it's the first time people in the RP get to know. 

[ColonelKillaBee]

On 10/7/2020 at 2:01 PM, BigBossBalrog said:

Mistakes of youth  Colonel still watches edgy anime AMV's.

The fuck  

[The Good Doctor]

"Oh cool, someone posted in an OOC thread! Finally some RP talk!"

*posts are about weeabu slander*

"Well shit."

 

[BigBossBalrog]

1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said:

"Oh cool, someone posted in an OOC thread! Finally some RP talk!"

*posts are about weeabu slander*

"Well shit."

 

Weeb slander is my middle name 

[TheCzarsHussar]

I used to roll my eyes at the obviously thirst-posting with Dales, but while reading Balrog's last post (I'm catching up again, sorry I didn't get to it earlier) it dawned on me and suddenly I'm cool with it.

I pretty much look at Dales like a much more sane female Caligula , and suddenly a depraved (roman) Imperial ruler doesn't suspend my disbelief. But sometimes the writing style does make me cringe, gotta be honest Balrog

However, twas a fun post to read and I agree whole-heartedly that Dales is getting way too soft. If she's not (universally) loved and too soft to be feared, where does that leave her?

[BigBossBalrog]

27 minutes ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

I used to roll my eyes at the obviously thirst-posting with Dales, but while reading Balrog's last post (I'm catching up again, sorry I didn't get to it earlier) it dawned on me and suddenly I'm cool with it.

I pretty much look at Dales like a much more sane female Caligula , and suddenly a depraved (roman) Imperial ruler doesn't suspend my disbelief. But sometimes the writing style does make me cringe, gotta be honest Balrog

However, twas a fun post to read and I agree whole-heartedly that Dales is getting way too soft. If she's not (universally) loved and too soft to be feared, where does that leave her?

*After ten years of writing someone gets it* When I wrote Dales, I decided to make her a combination of Empress Theodora and a beneovlent Caligula  It's why I've always played her quirkyness and mental issues so heavily. 

[TheCzarsHussar]

2 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

*After ten years of writing someone gets it* When I wrote Dales, I decided to make her a combination of Empress Theodora and a beneovlent Caligula  It's why I've always played her quirkyness and mental issues so heavily. 

You see my problem was I chocked it up with you being too influenced by anime and shudders yuri.

I never once had it occur to me that I was seeing it wrong, I mean you did relapse a bit back into the yuri phase but it's forgivable  

[TheCzarsHussar]

Man leave it to Endar to steal the show, AGAIN. Dammit Doc, stop making that Dunmer so fun to read.

How am I supposed to be a true Nord when an elf is one of my favorite characters in the rp? Jokes aside that was a fun post to read, the egotistical attitude of Endar is always a blast to see. I'm sure Daric is enjoying some fine dining, and listening to Elven opera while Thalmor dispose of bodies; he's fine.

[The Good Doctor]

@TheCzarsHussar

I take it Clan Borr holds to Shor, considering their worship of death?

I said it in the PM but I’ll put it here too, I like Clan Borr. "Head-Taking Nords" and "Hearthgurds of Giants" are some pretty badass reputations, and their brand of crazy berserkery is kind of hilarious to me. Particularly the insistence that they not be taxed to avoid bloodshed but still be levied because they enjoy the latter.  

[TheCzarsHussar]

49 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

@TheCzarsHussar

I take it Clan Borr holds to Shor, considering their worship of death?

I said it in the PM but I’ll put it here too, I like Clan Borr. "Head-Taking Nords" and "Hearthgurds of Giants" are some pretty badass reputations, and their brand of crazy berserkery is kind of hilarious to me. Particularly the insistence that they not be taxed but still be levied because they enjoy the latter.  

Shor is definitely at the top of their worship, but so is Kyne and Tsun worshiped for their association with the afterlife. Be worthy enough for Kyne to bear you, be powerful enough to be judged worthy of the hall, and boastful enough to sing of your deeds for eternity. That is they have no temples or places of worship, their shield is the medium and their warcry is the prayer. Clan Borr is like a Nordic sparta cranked up to 1000.

[The Good Doctor]

@TheCzarsHussar I went back and read the previous post by Spindle-Foot.

 

I’ll say this much, your prose has really improved a lot from back when you first joined up. An area of writing that I think I personally lack in is creating vivid descriptions of the setting, but you don’t have this problem. I even found myself a little jealous as I read some of the descriptions of Roscrea’s landscape and the capital city. These two in particular:

"We traveled through frigid mountain valleys and volcanic deserts, braved steep gnarled cliffs and steered clear of lava flows. The scenery is nearly indescribable, if one ascended a mountain; knowing then it is not a volcano, it is not unlike frigid High Hrothgar yet there are sturdy mountain terraces and frost-laden wild Nords (and Giants) that dwell in caves and frozen glacial castles. Descend the mountains and find fertile ashen-soil with more civilized giantry villages...that or stumble into a volcanic desert valley that only a Dark Elf could love!"

"There was no accumulation of snow or ice around the volcano, it's dark visage was like a warrior dressed in iron all alone in the snow, for the adjacent mountains were dressed all in white. Ecoriobriga was the smallest of the range, cradled and wind-shielded. It's valleys below were one of the few places on all of Roscrea where the land itself was free of permafrost, massive swaths of farmland were nestled in the range's valley."

These painted such vivid pictures.  

As for what was going on, there’s a lot of little things I enjoyed. The Ale-Bringer being treated almost like a noble of some sort just based on his status as the best guy around to get tons of mead from was cool, and I liked that he tied in with the EEC and how that Tamrielic connection gave Spindle-Foot something of an "in" to the rest of Roscrea. Good stuff.

Very small, but I liked the detail about the mammoth livery. It would’ve been all to easy to say "he waited outside" but it makes much more sense that a society that relies on mammoths so commonly would have systems in place for taking care of them. The oath-skald struck a similar note for me, and was just a really neat and seamless way to show off the strictly honest nature of their culture.

Ecoriobriga is a name that I doubt I’ll ever be able to spell without looking up,  but the city itself was every bit as cool as one would expect a hollowed out volcano city inhabited by wealthy dragon-worshipping giants to be. Stuff like the brimstone smell, the labyrinthian layout and hewn-stone draconic architecture, and the the volcanic gasses being used for heat all really come together to give the city a great deal of character. And the feast at the end was epic. I loved and all the details of its rules and organization with the three 'circles' representing the hierarchy of power and prestige (I also loved the little blue goblins ). Bright-Hewer really knows how to throw a party!

The detail of how they consider their shared kinship with the Nords as fellow Atmorans to run deeper than any modern Imperial conquest was really nice and wholesome. And is honestly a message I like even in the real world. However, knowing what we know about the 4th era, that detail alongside this final note:

"Having read this my friends, I implore any who are able, make a journey, or even better; Settle. For all that Roscrea is frozen and cold, you will find a splendor here that is lost to time anywhere else."

-is quite sad. Ominous, even. Poor Rolff doesn’t know it, but many will die one day as a result of his efforts.

[TheCzarsHussar]

@The Good Doctor

I'm going to go waaay out of order here, but I want to talk about things as they came in my head.

17 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

The detail of how they consider their shared kinship with the Nords as fellow Atmorans to run deeper than any modern Imperial conquest was really nice and wholesome. And is honestly a message I like even in the real world. However, knowing what we know about the 4th era, that detail alongside this final note:

"Having read this my friends, I implore any who are able, make a journey, or even better; Settle. For all that Roscrea is frozen and cold, you will find a splendor here that is lost to time anywhere else."

-is quite sad. Ominous, even. Poor Rolff doesn’t know it, but many will die one day as a result of his efforts.

It's a subtle nod that even just in the era before things were greater than the current time. Cassivelogenos was still a powerful warrior-king before the Oblivion Crisis, Solitude had yet to exploit the island to further it's renaissance, the perceived division between Roscrean and Nord was near non existent.

Now in the 4th era; Cassivelogenos is weak and beyond battle, court intrigue runs rampant, kinship is all but destroyed between Roscrean and Nord. While the Nords are beginning to reclimb the mythic, the Roscreans are at their lowest point.

17 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I’ll say this much, your prose has really improved a lot from back when you first joined up. An area of writing that I think I personally lack in is creating vivid descriptions of the setting, but you don’t have this problem. I even found myself a little jealous as I read some of the descriptions of Roscrea’s landscape and the capital city. These two in particular:

"We traveled through frigid mountain valleys and volcanic deserts, braved steep gnarled cliffs and steered clear of lava flows. The scenery is nearly indescribable, if one ascended a mountain; knowing then it is not a volcano, it is not unlike frigid High Hrothgar yet there are sturdy mountain terraces and frost-laden wild Nords (and Giants) that dwell in caves and frozen glacial castles. Descend the mountains and find fertile ashen-soil with more civilized giantry villages...that or stumble into a volcanic desert valley that only a Dark Elf could love!"

"There was no accumulation of snow or ice around the volcano, it's dark visage was like a warrior dressed in iron all alone in the snow, for the adjacent mountains were dressed all in white. Ecoriobriga was the smallest of the range, cradled and wind-shielded. It's valleys below were one of the few places on all of Roscrea where the land itself was free of permafrost, massive swaths of farmland were nestled in the range's valley."

These painted such vivid pictures.  

Thanks man! The part you highlighted just happened to flow in my head so well I immediately put it into writing. I wrote the post a bit more jumbled than normal too, to convey a 'unique' writing style, I wanted to drive home it was being written by a Rolff Spindle-Foot so I gave it that quirk.

22 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

As for what was going on, there’s a lot of little things I enjoyed. The Ale-Bringer being treated almost like a noble of some sort just based on his status as the best guy around to get tons of mead from was cool, and I liked that he tied in with the EEC and how that Tamrielic connection gave Spindle-Foot something of an "in" to the rest of Roscrea. Good stuff.

I actually did my research prior to writing and lined the dates with the period just before The Warp in the West, the King Thain of Solitude is in the lore even though we know very little about him. So is the information about the annexation was at this point in time. I almost wrote in the members of the First Circle too, one of them was going to be a Daedra Summoner (Or Devil-Tonguespeaker as I'd have called the Roscrean/Nord take) but decided against it solely for the sake of it not flowing well.

25 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

The oath-skald struck a similar note for me, and was just a really neat and seamless way to show off the strictly honest nature of their culture.

It's that because of how highly valued the power of one's voice is, even without literally having the Thu'um, to have one vocally swear and be respected enough to have it count; that's it. Any covenant or pact sworn in voice is upheld in high honor, and is so much more heart wrenchingly evil when broken to the natives.

I'm real happy the post was taken well, there's so much history and legend-saga stuff I want to write surrounding Cassivelogenos and his contemporaries throughout the ages. The biggest story-related one is how exactly someone described as 'a terrifying figure with a powerful voice and wrathful visage' could end up so weakly, frail and near-mute as in the 4th era.

[TheCzarsHussar]

Good post @BigBossBalrog, but that post was also so edgy I nearly cut myself on it

[BigBossBalrog]

9 hours ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

Good post @BigBossBalrog, but that post was also so edgy I nearly cut myself on it

It was a Christmas inspired post dealing with themes of redemption and forgiveness  Aspects of it are certainly very edgy, but I think it was antithetical to most of Dales post. 

[BigBossBalrog]

@The Good Doctor I'll post my full impressions in a bit; but man, that was like offering a Vegan meat 

[The Good Doctor]

1 hour ago, BigBossBalrog said:

@The Good Doctor I'll post my full impressions in a bit; but man, that was like offering a Vegan meat 

I have no idea what you’re referring to with this analogy.  

[BigBossBalrog]

1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said:

I have no idea what you’re referring to with this analogy.  

The briarthorns! Giving a water spirit briarthorns seems counter-productive 

[The Good Doctor]

2 hours ago, BigBossBalrog said:

 

  Hide contents

The briarthorns! Giving a water spirit briarthorns seems counter-productive 

 

*seeds.  

The twins lived deep in the Druadach Mountains, so their understanding of Karth River spirits is basically nonexistent. What little Faida knew came from clan storytellers, not personal experience.

What experience they do have (typically with daedra and the dark magic of hagravens) generally supports that Briarseeds are quite useful and valuable, and ritualistic offerings of them tend to yield results.

Turns out Faida still wasn’t entirely wrong. Burning the seeds did please the spirit. Destroying something that has no power wouldn’t have had that effect.

[BigBossBalrog]

@The Good Doctor

 

I really liked it 

I always thought the Reachmen had a distinct culture, and in Skyrim itself, the landmass had it's theme compared to the Nord dominated parts of town. Unlike Morthal, which was supposed to be a place of dark magic and horror (which you only got to see in one quest ), it actually felt it largely lived up to it's potential, with all the nightmarish rituals, corruption of nature, and all that jazz  The post really painted the land itself as being a nightmarish shithole, with the mountains and passes designed to fuck people over. And you got the little bits of culture building for the Reachmen (and rather then them being unified, I like the spin about all the little sub groups, some who don't preach the Forsworn's way of life.

I think TES magic lacks (or at the least, rarely shows it in gameplay terms) the ritualistic, creepy "witchcraft", spin of things, so i'm glad to see it whenever our RP uses. Hagravens used to creep me out alot; the hag-matriarch's presence unsettled me,  felt like she was one of Satan's whore from the Witch. 

The Water Nymph (or whatever it was) was of course the highlight for me; you told me the post was going to be Celtic-Mythology inspired. Reminded me alot of the Sídhe; otherworldly, ethereal, and seemingly benevolent towards nature, but an undertone of serious creepiness. They were really lucky they caught it in a good move, cause if it wasn't, it could have just ripped them limb from limb when they offered her the seeds

[The Good Doctor]

23 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Reminded me alot of the Sídhe;

Ding ding Ding.  

That was the main thing I was reading about in reference for this "spirit". In-universe, it was supposed to be a powerful nereid that certain Karth clans have taken to worshipping. But nereids have a lot of variety in ESO, so I took some liberties with its appearance and powers to make the encounter feel more mystical. And yeah, she could’ve messed up the twins for sure.  

I actually had several other creatures in mind to do that sequence with instead. My first idea was icy Skyrim-themed merpeople, but it felt too cliche and out of nowhere.

Second idea was dreughs. Which would’ve been a lot gorier.  But I couldn’t find any evidence of them existing in cold waters.

Then I found out about nereids (should’ve already known considering I’ve killed a couple in-game), which felt perfect after a few tweaks.

[BigBossBalrog]

4 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Ding ding Ding.  

 

  Hide contents

 

That was the main thing I was reading about in reference for this "spirit". In-universe, it was supposed to be a powerful nereid that certain Karth clans have taken to worshipping. But nereids have a lot of variety in ESO, so I took some liberties with its appearance and powers to make the encounter feel more mystical. And yeah, she could’ve messed up the twins for sure.  

I actually had several other creatures in mind to do that sequence with instead. My first idea was icy Skyrim-themed merpeople, but it felt too cliche and out of nowhere.

Second idea was dreughs. Which would’ve been a lot gorier.  But I couldn’t find any evidence of them existing in cold waters.

Then I found out about nereids (should’ve already known considering I’ve killed a couple in-game), which felt perfect after a few tweaks.

Merpeople are really creepy when done in a horror setting 

 But yeah I don't there's any evidence to suggest there's a race of aquatic humanoids dwelling in Skyrim's rivers 

[BigBossBalrog]

That Peter Pan movie had really creepy Mermaids as an example. 

[The Good Doctor]

@BigBossBalrog Just finished your post. Enjoyed it.  

To get my obligatory nitpicks out of the way, I found it a little odd that Arkay’s life and death cycle was presented using a dragon -immortal and eternal beings whose souls don’t pass on when they die, and who are heavily associated with Akatosh and Talos in Imperial culture, not Arkay. 

Runil caught me by surprise, but it feels a little strange to give them history now considering he was a prominent character in chapter 2 and didn’t seem to know her. They were even in Falkreath at the same time, iirc. 

Like I said, nitpicks. On to the good stuff.
 

Dales: "My husband is worse than a Tharn."

Hundreds of Tharns who didn’t betray the Emperor:   

I can’t say I agree with Dales on that front (yet at least). Yornar hasn’t plunged the Empire into any civil wars and actually did some good in Nibenay. Jagar Tharn was way worse.
 

I also think I might have improved your namedrop paragraph:

"Be a person my people could look to as a pillar of strength. The charm and wit of Baldur. The strength and nobleness of Lorgar. The wisdom and kindness of Gracchus. The beauty and grace of Magdela. The sharp tongue of Rebec. The world class physique of Boldir. The comedic timing of Endar. The unflinching gayness of Maric. The capacity for casual genocide of Krojun. The ability to reach top shelves of Corvus..."
 

And I think I spotted the New Vegas reference. Maybe. The soldier in the flashback’s line about not having to deal with another winter reminded me of the "Patrolling the Mojave" memes.  
 

As for the rest of the flashback, I quite liked it. These have definitely helped flesh out Dales’s past and how it shaped her. And I suspect that Nord who defended her might’ve been the cause of her liking towards them later in her life, especially since she thought he was scary before. It also showed Amaund’s early connections with the Thalmor and makes their increased presence after Mede died feel less random. All good stuff.

Gotta say, Amaund may be a prick but his wife laying into him like that while surrounded by potential attackers and in front of the Thalmor was a really, really bad move. His very presence with the Thalmor removes any doubt that he is a traitor and a villain, but even then, when the one person who is supposed to be seen as your closest ally berates and challenges you in the streets in front of everyone like that, there is no winning. She put him in a really bad position and probably got off easy for it considering how far we know he’s willing to go.

Not sure what to make of murder priest yet. Don’t know his motives or enough about the Duke’s family to say if he’s at all justified in what he did. The fact that they’re flayed makes me think he was interrogating them. Still kind of excessive though.

Overall there was less intrigue in this one, which suits me fine as the flashbacks and introspection have been my favorite parts of these posts. Though between murder priest, the cultists, the Duke’s family, Oreyn’s mystery contract, and the Duke himself, I am eager to see how the pieces come together.