also would it make more sense for forengard to still use the scary-looking carved turnips that the original irish version did(the tradition was originally to scare off evil spirits) or if they did the switch to pumpkins(done out of convenience to carve, once it found its way to america)

anyways would a thread for only people living in the clocktower go in private or public

and also figure out how ash is worshipped. so i can do that heir thing.

not gonna clutter ishmael's thread with something that's probably just for the devout, but i imagine that she would have a very specific ideology that would probably be at least slightly controversal with the rest of ishmael's following

specifically, i think that she believes that the flame is almost as important as the forest. sometimes you need to burn sections of the forest, for the rest of it to remain safe. sometimes you need to burn down ancient trees, because they are rotting from the inside and endanger their surroundings.

not to say that she basically only does that metaphorical, and sometimes literal, controlled burning, because there still needs to be a forest you're trying to protect. hence why they're a healer, since it would not do for young trees to fall before they get to grow old and large. she'd also still heal old people, since that's not quite what the ancient rotting tree metaphor is about.

removing the metaphor, the devout basically believes that sometimes you have to violate the hippocratic oath to get shit done. sometimes the easiest way to end suffering is to kill the one inflicting it. which yes means that she hates the current anatina politicians but mother says that it needs them for now. the devout has probably at least threatened to burn a noble with her hand though.
 

AshTheAvaricious wrote:

anyways would a thread for only people living in the clocktower go in private or public

This is so freaking late

But I'd say while normally it's private, I feel nearly everybody now has a character that is welcomed into the clocktower so it can be public as long as people with negative relations don't keep showing up out of the blue and trying to trash the place.

Oh, but if you want CLOCKTOWER EXCLUSIVE characters, yeah that'd be private

Last edited by Time (November 12, 2023 13:43:18)

AshTheAvaricious wrote:

not gonna clutter ishmael's thread with something that's probably just for the devout, but i imagine that she would have a very specific ideology that would probably be at least slightly controversal with the rest of ishmael's following...

So when I first made Ishmael I had a very simplistic view of his (and I guess by extension my own) ideals when it came to conflict resolution. I think he'd have a more nuanced take about things at this point. Shortly before he died he was coming to the realization that sometimes the path to peace is laid with violence-- honestly that's like half the reason he got killed lmao-- but Anatina experienced a much younger Ish where he basically wrestled the region into a ceasefire by divine will without actually addressing the root of the conflict in the first place, so I imagine his followers in that region would be particularly averse to conflict. 

Yeha

Honestly yeah, there's probably seeds of it happening already


On the topic of the Devout, were you planning on making a thread or was that on me

okay so actually i have a really simple and obvious thread idea. what if like. the devout didn't care about the schedule prosperio set for her visiting the broken ishmael devotion grove. and then like gevar or the general guy showed up to stop the guards from getting themselves killed by not respecting the devout's space

been thinking about the frenzied flame from elden ring.

specifically, about shabriri, and hyetta, and the three fingers. we know from the face of his woe, that shabriri has lived before, at least once, as he was the most reviled man in history; and had his eyes gouged for his festered resent, before the yellow flame of chaos returned something of sight to him, and the demon lived forever. and hyetta, a spirit who possesses the bodies of slain innocent women, who has never had great sight; blinded to the truth of her distant light, and to the truth of her goal.

and the three fingers, the tired god, sealed far below the seat of order's thrones. a charred and starved thing, that ancient curse.

and i think, have they all done this before? have they done the same two acts of this play, over and over and over again? did they guide vyke, until he remembered the lines, and forsook the yellow flame? how long have they acted through this play? waiting for us, one who does not know the script, to finally start the final act; to seal the fate of the world, to bring all things into no things, into one thing?

with how tired this play must have become, it is no wonder that the sole spell marked with shabriri's name is his howl, maddening himself and others in the same song that he's played at for centuries, drawing nothing but ire by those of sound mind.

has hyetta ever found the crypt containing the three fingers before the player intervened? has she ever learned the truth of the "grapes" she consumes to gleam the distant light, before we tell her? do the three fingers tremble with age, or with regret? tired of this forlorn charade, continued almost solely by the one who first brought their chaos to the world?

of those we find consumed by the frenzied, we find tragedies, those consumed by the disease, and those who brings its yellow flame into their eyes from sheer hopelessness. we find the leyndell soldiers, stranded at the enemy's burning doorstep, scrounging their brothers' corpses to feed their starving mouths. we find plague rats, who have consumed the acursed thoughts of tainted minds. we find villages consumed by its disease and its claim. we find hopeless, bestial trolls, who turned traitor against their larger kin and had the traces of their god physically cut out of them, and turned into slaves by the golden order.

but we also find vyke, who resisted the draw of the flame of frenzy, because he never lost hope; instead the frenzied flame was his last hope, to save his maiden. but she died anyways, and chaos did nothing to help him save her. it is clear by simply knowing how the fingers spread their word, by searing it into flesh; but he did not fall to their grasp, not wholly, for it was his armour, not his flesh, that had been claimed by the glowing words of chaos. and that is why he never became the frenzied lord, because he was never of the hopeless.
 

yeah this is all speculation on my part though, it's not even confirmed in canon if hyetta has done this before. or if shabriri has lived through several lives, besides the first. there's no dialogue with the three fingers, and they're real for only one cutscene anyway.

the only truly canon things are that hyetta probably possessed irena's corpse after her death, hyetta has bad eyesight, didn't know that shabriri grapes were eyes until we tell her, and then died after interpreting the words of the three fingers. and shabriri was once the most reviled man in history, had his eyes gouged for slander, had the frenzied flame refill them, and then possessed yura's dead body to sell chaos to you.  and that the three fingers are an ancient god, which tremble and struggle to mark you with the flame of frenzy.
 

This sounds like something from a mythos

therefore while I do not understand fully, I heavily approve of this thought.

i just realized that most of the magic masks will start to eat their wearer's soul if unsated right. and dust's blood is its power right. which is the closest one will get to a dust soul. which means that by achieving godhood dust screwed itself over because now its mask is biting into it, and causing its blood to pour

i was gonna say something about adding a character. and read on my way scrolling down that i had made plans for a retirement arc for ash. i should really figure out how i want to do that and also make the follower. probably gonna name her moria. but i should probably establish her as a character before i set the arc into fullswing. actually having a lot thoughts i might make the form tonight

a few loose notes on moria: on formal occasions she'll do up her hair into a bun with a blue-silver chain. her hair is actually white, but she keeps it dyed blue. she owns a dark blue cloak for when she wants to be mysterious/warm. her magic aesthetically manifests as a mist, the same shade of blue as her hair.

also, a few things on the gravediggers and keepers. notably that both can become graven, and often will after a couple of decades of service to ash. there is a difference between the graven states of each caste, with gravediggers having a shortened natural life(usually by like. 20-30 years) in return for greater magical power and physical strength. gravekeepers on the other hand are tasked rememberers of the dead, and will live unnaturally long lives(increased by like 50 years), at the cost of degrading bodies(think like how the body will consume itself when starved).

gravediggers are something of a warrior caste in the religion, but more often than not their increased strength and magical abilities are used to. dig graves. and also keep those desperate enough to rob the dead from doing so. gravekeepers mummify, cremate, and otherwise prepare the dead for their rest. gravekeepers also maintain crypts, graveyards, and other burial sites

in other words, diggers prepare sites for burial and keep intruders out, and keepers prepare bodies for burial and keep the buried well-tended to.