Eff Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 On 3/5/2024 at 7:51 PM, John Biles said: Bat-whispering is a pretty good description for what the Bat-handlers do and I can totally see that basically being how it works. Going back to the original topic of this - Illumination is a cheat code that lets you abuse divine power. Nothing could be more in the spirit of illumination than being illuminated, initiating to Storm Bull, then using chaos detection to have sexy hookups with Chaos creatures. Sure, this means you're occulted and doing wrong, but doing wrong seems much more common than doing it right. Why is this "doing [it] wrong"? Consensual hookups with consenting Chaotic critters seem like close to the least harmful thing you could be doing with said beings. 3 1 1 Quote "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007 "I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010 Eight Arms and the Mask Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 3 hours ago, Eff said: Liquid water and ice are the same thing, dihydrogen monoxide. But I can sense ice without confusing it with liquid water. Can you under all circumstances? If you drop your hand into supra-cooled distilled water (say at -4°C, no idea whether that is around 20°F or somewhere) and the water almost instantly freezes, when will you know the difference? if you give a cold water surface a very flat tangential slap, are you sure you know the difference? Our sensory impression of water ice usually is that of the water film on the surface, of the not quite crystalline border region. It is what makes ice slippery. Your haptic impression of an icicle actually is that of liquid (or at least semi-liquid) water on the surface of a solid. (You can of course cool water ice down to the temperature which makes your tongue stuck on it for a bit, that's when you will know the exact difference.) For all of this pedantry, the comparison to your haptic impression of ice might an excellent comparison to identifying Chaos against some other form of unease or even fear. There are situations where your impression can be misleading or not as binary as your cognition might suggest to you. 1 Quote Telling how it is excessive verbis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eff Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 25 minutes ago, Joerg said: Can you under all circumstances? If you drop your hand into supra-cooled distilled water (say at -4°C, no idea whether that is around 20°F or somewhere) and the water almost instantly freezes, when will you know the difference? if you give a cold water surface a very flat tangential slap, are you sure you know the difference? Our sensory impression of water ice usually is that of the water film on the surface, of the not quite crystalline border region. It is what makes ice slippery. Your haptic impression of an icicle actually is that of liquid (or at least semi-liquid) water on the surface of a solid. (You can of course cool water ice down to the temperature which makes your tongue stuck on it for a bit, that's when you will know the exact difference.) For all of this pedantry, the comparison to your haptic impression of ice might an excellent comparison to identifying Chaos against some other form of unease or even fear. There are situations where your impression can be misleading or not as binary as your cognition might suggest to you. Yes. A roll of 96-00, in RQ2, means failure. There is always liminality even if by meditating upon the White Princess for 252 weeks straight I have accumulated 100% in my Sense Ice skill. Quote "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007 "I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010 Eight Arms and the Mask Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted March 9 Author Share Posted March 9 (edited) 13 hours ago, JonL said: Range is still limited to your immediate area, but if the local bureaucracy's been subverted by Karshti or something, things are going to get rough. I wonder how sensitive they are to less Chaos-rune-active social anathema stuff like secret murder, sexual assault, or kin slaying? Black Fang's runes are Death & Spirit, but secret murder is kind of their thing. Serial rapists can eventually turn into Broo. Can a sufficiently corrupt official eventually pick up Karshtid features? How far down such a road can someone go before they ping Uroxi-sense? I think enormous chaos would normally ping the sense chaos from a distance because it affects a large area? Like the magical presence of the bat affects a large area around the bat? As for chaotic behaviour I suspect you need to have begun to transform into a chaos being, have an actual chaos taint to ping the bull sense, like developed a chaos feature. Otherwise Krjalki who cast conversion would ping the bull sense, even though the book of magic says they do not. Edited March 9 by EricW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soltakss Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 On 3/5/2024 at 4:44 AM, EricW said: If illumination teaches that law and chaos are interchangeable, yet Storm Bull's sense chaos implies that chaos is something separate and different which can be sensed, how can an illuminated Storm Bull believe law and chaos are the same thing, yet still be able to sense chaos? We have played that they can, as Storm Bull is uneasy about Chaos. However, in the narrative in Cults/Lords of Terror, Oddi the Keen becomes Illuminated and cannot sense the Crimson Bat. Now, you could argue that he was more then 10 metres away so he wouldn't have been able to sense it anyway, but the implication is that Illuminates might not be able to sense chaos. My view is to keep it simple and allow Illuminates to Sense Chaos. 1 1 Quote Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. www.soltakss.com/index.html Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiningbrow Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 1 hour ago, soltakss said: Oddi the Keen becomes Illuminated and cannot sense the Crimson Bat From what I read, that's not actually the case (as mentioned previously). I don't think we should confuse "did not" with "can not". As for my 2bolgs worth... according to the RQG, the SBully gets "a sense of unease, or even pain,". I would say that this no longer holds true - the Illuminate no longer feels uneasy by the sense of Chaos, and definitely not pained by it. However, that doesn't mean it can't be sensed. So, as mentioned previously, the nature of the sensing would change. There's a problem with trying to associate sensory organs' information with our emotional responses to those sensations. One can "acquire" a taste to something - Usually, the actual sensation hasn't changed, just our reaction to it. We are no longer disgusted by broccoli or brussel sprouts. - but (for the most part*), our actual taste buds haven't changed, nor have the chemicals in the veggies. "Unease" and "pain" sound more like emotional responses than actual physical sensations (especially the former). (*yes, there is some adaptation as one grows older). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erol of Backford Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said: One can "acquire" a taste to something - Usually, the actual sensation hasn't changed, just our reaction to it. We are no longer disgusted by broccoli or brussel sprouts. I could see the sensation where SB's sense chaos, eliminate it and gain satisfaction, like Pavlov'v experiment. Sense chaos is like the bell. Killing is like eating? Speaking of eating, if you bake halved sprouts tossed in olive oil and chopped bacon they can be really tasty, maybe walktopus tentacles could be grilled or roasted to rid the taint, it that cut is no longer regenerating? If you eat that would you then be tainted and sense yourself? Headaches or just indigestion? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfbrandi Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 40 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said: like Pavlov’s experiment. Sense chaos is like the bell. Yes, perfect! The bowl of food is the presence of slime, tentacles, broo, or gorp, which certainly could make the SB drool. After conditioning, the “bell” makes the SB drool. Conditioned reflex — the bell can ring any time, Chaos/food or no Chaos/food. We know that the bell has nothing to do with food/Chaos, but the more benighted of the Gloranthans say that if the bell is ringing although there are no monsters about, there must be secret Chaos — something Chaos tainted but showing no tentacle or reflective skin. Spurious categories are invented to cover the embarrassment of having been “Pavloved”.° “It cannot be that we were detecting the slime and stuff, because the bell rings when there is none, so in all cases we were really detecting something intangible no one can ever see. We’re magic, we are.” I mean, would I ever steer you wrong? 😇 All we have to worry about now is who has control of the bell. Whose experiment was this? Who has been ringing the SBs’ bells? ———————————————————————————————— ° John Finnemore — text here and probably audio here . Quote NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erol of Backford Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 13 minutes ago, mfbrandi said: Who has been ringing the SBs’ bells? https://www.google.com/search?q=more+cowbell&gs_ivs=1#fpstate=ive&tts=0&vld=cid:7e73c7b1,vid:cVsQLlk-T0s,st:0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynneadwraith Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 (edited) On 3/7/2024 at 11:12 PM, Erol of Backford said: Or smoke the grass without the hangover, curious are there taverns in Pavis where smoking narcotics is the norm?.. As an aside, evidence of the 'herbal' variety stretched back at least to the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe. Generally little communal hot-box wigwam things if memory serves me right. On 3/7/2024 at 11:12 PM, Erol of Backford said: If they feel pain from the ability I'd tend to start calling it a disability as it hinders due process of thought or so I am guessing. Interesting how our current conceptualisation of ability/disability defaults to a binary one. Having worked in the care of neurodiverse people (and been captured by the buzz around the UK paralympics in 2012) I'm certain the reality is far more complex. I'm definitely with you that a Storm Bull's sense is somewhere in the middle of that complex ability-disability spectrum, with clear benefits but also clear disbenefits. I also love the idea of roleplaying it that way. Make it so Sense Chaos makes a Storm Bull not be able to think straight. That would play beautifully into the whole 'detective story' plot of a Storm Bull who's dead certain he's sensed chaos but struggles to convince others around him of the truth. You could even gamify it if you like, and make the Storm Bull roll each time they want to communicate something when in the presence of Chaos, and if they fail it comes out all jumbled. No wonder they get frustrated and just start hacking things. Not sure what to roll against though. Truth rune? A skill of some variety? On 3/9/2024 at 7:29 PM, mfbrandi said: Who has been ringing the SBs’ bells? ...that most sinister of hidden forces, the White Moon... Edited March 11 by Ynneadwraith 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfbrandi Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 29 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said: [G]amify it if you like, and make the Storm Bull roll each time they want to communicate something when in the presence of Chaos, and if they fail it comes out all jumbled … Not sure what to roll against though. Hmm … if they succeeded in talking sense, we shouldn’t believe them — it is their babbling that enables us to use them as “Geiger counters” (and maybe that is what they sound like). So given that the SB gains nothing (in the way of credibility) by being intelligible in the presence of Chaos, make them roll against their Chaos rune — only a Chaotic SB can talk sense in the presence of Chaos. (Like that old Marvel strip where the shape-changed amnesiac alien spy catches himself by being the only person able to read his own notebook/invasion plan.) 1 Quote NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonL Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 On 3/9/2024 at 1:29 PM, mfbrandi said: Yes, perfect! The bowl of food is the presence of slime, tentacles, broo, or gorp, which certainly could make the SB drool. After conditioning, the “bell” makes the SB drool. Conditioned reflex — the bell can ring any time, Chaos/food or no Chaos/food. We know that the bell has nothing to do with food/Chaos, but the more benighted of the Gloranthans say that if the bell is ringing although there are no monsters about, there must be secret Chaos — something Chaos tainted but showing no tentacle or reflective skin. Spurious categories are invented to cover the embarrassment of having been “Pavloved”.° “It cannot be that we were detecting the slime and stuff, because the bell rings when there is none, so in all cases we were really detecting something intangible no one can ever see. We’re magic, we are.” I mean, would I ever steer you wrong? 😇 All we have to worry about now is who has control of the bell. Whose experiment was this? Who has been ringing the SBs’ bells? ———————————————————————————————— ° John Finnemore — text here and probably audio here . Secret Chaos is totally a thing, though. Ogres look like anybody else most of the time, for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erol of Backford Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 13 hours ago, mfbrandi said: Geiger counters Defiantly chaos, maybe Muriah's cousin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davecake Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 On 3/5/2024 at 12:44 PM, EricW said: If illumination teaches that law and chaos are interchangeable But it does not teach that. It teaches that Chaos is not always to be feared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynneadwraith Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 3 hours ago, davecake said: But it does not teach that. It teaches that Chaos is not always to be feared. I'm sure Illumination teaches many things in many different ways by many different tutors. Many of those things will not necessarily be true, but serve to open one's mind to different possibilities. Can you tell I like preserving mystery wherever possible? 😄 It's a wonderful tool for building the illusion of depth and complexity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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