Voicechat Notes - 19 November

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Zombilicious
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Voicechat Notes - 19 November

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Q: Is there any myth or legend as to why Iarel favors serpents?
A: Yes, there is. There's one that'll be coming to light more as another immortal gets more into the spotlight here, within the next week or so. But for the time being, he's going to refrain from saying it as info's going up soon.

Q: What marriage traditions exist? I assume it varies by culture. Is it more secular or more religious? Are specific immortals associated with the process in cases where it's religious? Or is it overseen by all of them or the ones the couple favor? Are there rings or other symbols of marriage? Is there a traditional color?
A: Honestly, Rias hasn't thought about it! It's come up in the past; he's always seen it as more of a thing that varies by culture, and something that's largely civil or between two people. Some involve religion/have religious beliefs that tie into it, but it's not hugely religious. In some of the cultures where there's clan/family pride, they like to have records of it. The higher you are up in the social chain, it's more important and they make a big deal out of it. For the people who feel free to do whatever they want, they can just get together and come up with what they want.

Rias confirms that fasa tattoos are only the half-circle until you get married! It's official now apparently.

Same-sex marriage? It depends, but generally speaking, people don't really care about this, only comes up when it comes to the family line when people are more caught up on stuff like that. In the higher-ups, where people are paying attention to your line (Ivial, Tol Rhun), and depending on the Giganti clan.

Q: Is mini-rias going to be grounded?
A: Yes.

Q: What do Ythwyr brands look like?
A: He's not sure on that one yet; he's thought about it but doesn't like any ideas right now. Right up there with the republic flag.

Q: What are the plans for Shadgard's Citizenship Office? Is this already in-game and only used for specific events, like the party pavilion?
A: That's a holdover from the Other Game, and he's not sure what it will be used for in this one, though probably you will have to register before buying a home; dealing with stuff like that.

Q: What is the significance of year one/zero in the Aetgardian calendar? What happened, or supposedly happened, 1221 years ago? Is it widely known in character?
A: Rias is passing on this one for now. He hasn't been happy with it yet. It is a significant date, though. He has to decide how much to tell/ how much to keep secret.

Q: What was the design intent behind having multiple guilds with specialties? Will scholars eventually be focused on some kind of scholarly content and adventurers on adventuring content, or are they all intended to be different approaches to the same core system: combat?
A: The warrior class is primarily focused on combat, and then the adventurers are supposed to be adventuring and scholars are scholaring, but the ideas are that you're allowed to dabble in whatever you want without stepping on the toes of other people. They can all dabble in the things that their guilds don't typically do --- with scholars it's the hardest to make work well. How do you make scholarly pursuits super engaging? It's difficult. Anything you can do with your skills grants you experience; you don't have to be going out and combatting all the time. Do the thing that you think is fun.

Q: Are there any designs drawn up for how trading will work?
A: The hope is that it will have multiple facets; you'll be able to get into certain merchants and purchase opportunities from certain merchants based on your trading skill. People also really want to caravan between settlements, but Rias worries about massive money bins of riln. (New name for caravaning: frontier trucking.) Lots of ideas were tossed around: traders will need to hire goons/make arrangements to guard their caravan. Other things, can you bribe highwaymen, or pay acceptable tolls, etc. Lots of ways of going about it without combat, but very involved.

Rias has toyed with the idea of alternative currencies but has never really got into that; would appreciate suggestions/ideas around economy and currency. Would love it if people could just be a trader and make equivalent money to everyone else just by doing that. Don't want traders to just make loads more money than other characters just because they're traders.

Q: Which gods tie closely with Nether? That's a topic that I'm unsure about because sometimes it's talked about as immortals being eldritch and to me, eldritch is not Nether but I could be wrong.
A: When Rias uses the term (used loosely), eldritch means "otherworldly and difficult for humans to understand", which might be used for Aranas and the Primal Entities, but it wouldn't be used for things like Iarel and Vandin, etc. Those Immortals are a lot more human-understandable. As for gods who tie closely to Nether, Aranas and Malfant are associated specifically with nether, but that doesn't mean they aren't necessarily 100% tied to Nether. People just say that. There are more! They're coming out soon(TM). (There's one he didn't originally plan on that he's going to do, though.) Not all dark immortals are nether-related.

Q: I recall it being said at one point that "serious practitioners"/most scholars typically don't use the term magic to describe supernatural happenings, and instead generally refer to things as Arcane or Occult instead. This may have been a holdover in my brain from Somnium, but is this still generally the case?
A: Yes it is! When people talk about "magic", they either think of stage magic or non-serious whimsical fantasy fairy intentionally random stuff. If you're serious about it, you'd use the terms occult or arcane.

Q: If so, is this the case for anything else? Ex: Immortals are mostly called Immortals on the wiki, but there are a couple of references to Immortals as gods, so is it safe to assume that referring to Immortals as 'gods' is more of a layperson's thing?
A: Yeah, probably.

Q: Follow-up to that question: What about the term "spell"? I was calling them "occult operations" on my Arcanist, and my ranger usually refers to druidic abilities as "rites", but is there a more scholastic/academic appropriate term for supernatural abilities that most folks would consider "magic" or a "spell"?
A: He hadn't really thought about it as much. Maybe a "casting" or "occult ritual"? "Spell" would generally be considered hokey or something, though it obviously varies between characters, and the elitists can feel elite when people use "juvenile terminology".

Q: Have the plans for releasing Caer Ioan been pushed back since the pivot to the dominion as the secondary faction?
A: Yeah.

Q: What's the diet further north? Will there be different huntable animals to eat like deer/elk near Shadgard? I would love to have bever to turn into hats. Do the dominion have more of a seafood diet since gutcram is a popular "dish"?
A: They'll have different critters! In the town itself, there is a lot of seafood stuff, because they're on a platform over a lake and it's readily available food. So yes, there will be different creatures. There'll be some overlap too, some common creatures too.

Q: What is Vandin's relationship to things like Resen, Nether, Sorcery, Arcana etc? Would he be indifferent to them as yet something else to chronicle, document, and study or would he take active stances one way or the other with them?
A: Vandin doesn't really like the nether that much. The other stuff because these Immortals are more human-facing, sympathetic beings, they're not going to love the Resen because it's doing horrible things to humanity. But Vandin isn't leading a crusade against the Resen; he's more of a bookworm immortal than a soldier. Happy to support humanity. Wants to take information on all this; not necessarily just destroy it all, but perhaps some room for figuring out/observing threats and how to combat them better.

Q: In which case, is there a reason the Library accepts sorcery?
A: Libraries are all connected in some way to Vandin, but Vandin does not necessarily endorse every library, they're just peers. There are little hints here and there in lore studies alluding to the founder of the Library not wanting to say "We shouldn't cut off any one school of knowledge due to cultural taboo, we need to embrace knowledge and spread it and share it." The library does not necessarily love sorcery (it's dangerous and weird, after all), it's stuff to learn and know about and stuff.

Q: Is it intentional that some warlock combat abilities like binding tendril and essence leech don't appear to scale meaningfully in any way with extra channels?
A: He just hadn't considered it/thought of it yet.

Q: The Faewyr have a strong connection with the great animal spirits from what I have gathered. They also have a great reverence for Aphraen, since it is believed she created Draumfeldr. I’m curious how these two concepts connect. Is Aphraen related to the great animal spirits somehow? Are they a sort of adoption from the Viali religion after they settled in Aetgard? If they are in line with the great spirits, which animal spirit are they?
A: Aphraen is not considered an animal spirit or descended from one or anything. Aphraen is one of the Big Four (Vodr, Undm, Bogvaskr, and Aphraen), some of the last human-like spirits that survived amidst the feral animal spirits who literally were eating everything, which is terrifying. This links down to the birth of humanity in Tyr-Gwyrd. They're very human-like, though Aphraen is the closest to the others. There is one NPC you can chat to about this!

Q: Sorcerers have their rings, arcanists have their chalk, and druids have their tattoos. Are these different outside of the lost lands? Do sorcerers generally need a focus? Is there a difference in chalk? Are some chalks better than others? Finally, the one I’m very much interested in, do all druids undergo a similar ritual experienced by druids in the playable world? Would the druids in Tyr_Gwyrd have similar tattoos? If not, then what would characterize the differences?
A: It's all fairly uniform. All sorcerors need a focus, arcanists need chalk (not necessarily anomalum chalk, but some sort of writing chalk). The druids all have some similar kind of tattoo situation going on, though they may have different styles.

Q: Is Arcana related to Nether?
A: Most people would say no, though there are some theories that would say it taps into questionable Nethery power. General consensus, no.

Q: On the topic of sorcery foci: are they always rings, or can they be 'held' objects like staves as well? are they always bone in construction?
A: They don't have to be rings, they can be all sorts of things. One of the Octum shops that he failed to get ready in time sold all sorts of different foci for people to use; necklaces, bracers, staffs, etc. The vast majority incorporate bone, it's considered the best focusing conduit, but it's possible there are other materials that could be used in other cases.

Q: Given that the Other Game is gone now, would you still prefer us keeping "hidden lore things" from the Other Game obscured/hidden, or are things on Cogg potentially different enough that that doesn't matter?
A: He thinks if you have to wonder if you should keep it more obscured, keep it more obscured because a lot of stuff is very similar.

Q: Is nether touching going to be something always gained through some sort of consent, but could someone who doesn't want it wind up with it through Rp, interactions events, ect. and having to learn to deal with it or find a means to cure it?
A: It's the latter. It's planned to have things that affect people even if they don't necessarily want it; if you put yourself out there, you may get infected. There will be means to avoid it becoming a significant thing. Note: Nether-touched stuff -is- an affliction, it has some cool side-effects but yeah it's not really a good thing.

Q: When will Guardians have as many defensive options as Dreadnoughts? As it stands now, their Blade Catch does negligible damage to their hands and has a chance to disarm whatever they do catch (even Guardian shields when they automatically counterattack in Guardian stance). They have practical access to polearms that routinely deny attacks on them and they also potentially inflict having to pick your weapon (or shield) up, which seems to be less likely to work than bypassing extreme reach weapons.
A: It's not intentional; Guardians do need some love as an earlier class who needs a bit more attention.

Q: There are various stories and lore-bits about Immortals doing things for mortals: people seeking knowledge from Malfant, Iarel granting knowledge in exchange for favors and tasks, etc. Are these myths and legends, or are these things common or well-known enough to be considered something someone could reasonably expect to happen to them? Are they myth and legend or are they well-acknowledged facts? Would a follower of Iarel reasonably expect to meet with her and be allowed to perform a task for her for knowledge? Would an 'atheist' in-setting be mocked as denying something as evident as the sun in the sky? Are there some immortals known to meddle more and some known to never interact with people?
A: It leans more towards myths and legends. Obviously, you don't just get in line at the Temple and have Iarel recognize you and stuff. There are no specifics, but there are tons of myths and legends about it having Big Stuff in world events. The vast majority of people in this world accept that there are Immortals, though they don't necessarily agree on how to interpret them. It would be odd for someone to say Immortals aren't real, also, though there may be people who deny it; atheism, in the sense of denying Immortals, is pretty rare though obviously lots of Nuum aren't religious. The point where Vodr disappeared/died is where people generally agree that something happened to reduce Immortals in the lives of mortals.

Q: I think of afflictions as being an open-influence for the GMs where they might suggest activities and stuff that align to goals appropriate to that affliction. Is that an intended line of RP for characters with afflictions, or is that a bad way to think about those afflictions on people?
A: Yeah, kind of the thought when people are getting into the unmanageable stages of an affliction. where the decision is, am I going to roll with this or get out of it. Rias doesn't like situations where he has to pull the character aside sending OOC comms, saying hey you should do this. Rias would rather nudge characters towards something with IC messaging. Not as direct.

Q: Will we be able to do the Kontiki splash/log flume thing at Blackwater sometime?
A: Yes. Rias has wanted to do that forever, so yes.

Q: Would it be unusual for an Arcanist to lean towards Vandin?
A: No, that'd be very believable. Vandin is the Chronicler and has access to a lot of information, or connections to it.

Q: How difficult would it be to code something like 'listen to <character>' or 'focus on <character>' to tune out background noise in a room?
A: It would be a little fiddly to make, but it would be possible. It could tune out conversation and eat messages unless something is directed at your character or your name is used. More was discussed about this and ideas were bounced around.

We also discussed various QOL options for VI players (and everyone overall), as well as potential synergy across classes. We discussed canned emotes, QTRs for canned emotes like hug, etc.
:verungnr_tentacles: :vodr_trident:
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