GrandPaBrowning
Active Member
- Mar 7, 2021
- 959
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Well, I did it, lads, lasses and everyone inbetween and to the side! Made Darja's dream come true, buddied with Malagar, gathered all the hordes, knighted Maelys and (with some help of good ol' mini-maxing) brought the Realm into levels of prosperity previously unseen.
Anyway, with the summary done, let's get to nitty-gritty. And longy-ranty. And just a veritable sheet of text. Because I am a prolific sheeter.
Most of the run was just that - a really good run. The downsides is that I minimaxed suboptimally and also left out Mina and M-Ann. I think I could have gotten the same stats and kept Mina and leaving M-Ann was absolutely a mistake. But other than that? Near-perfect run. At least Malagar does not create a local mini-Apocalypse each time I used his help during conquest. Something a certain High-Chamberlain of the Infernal Courts could learn from - well, if it wasn't so calamitously inclined.
Darja is sugary sweet and just someone you want to make happy when learning about her some more. I was taken aback a bit at just how sweet she turned out to be, honestly. Real sweel gal - and silly as a clown-painted brick.
I knew her rule would be... Challenging. I wasn't wrong. What I was wrong about is assuming Malagar would try to be a good influence on her. He wasn't. He fucked off to the Spire to cosplay Mengele. Darja is spending my treasury away and I can only hope devs would add an option to talk some sense into her. I don't want to sour her sweetness, but she is ought to become a financial Cataclysm and teach the Realm what Great Depression was all about.
Can't have that on my Benevolent Despot run. Embezzlement will wait until I try to run with Malice as a queen. Something tells me only a truly deranged dragon would marry his daughter and publicly piss on the law of the Realm.
But back to Darja to give her some more credit - she tries to learn the queenly ways. Honestly tries, puts a lot of efforts into that. I mean - that's her shtick. She puts efforts. If you tell her her painting needs work later on she will present you proper art. That's probably her best qualities - girls is a learner, despite her cloudy-headedness.
Honestly, her biggest downside is her taste in clothing. What is that hentai-mahoushoujo-ass-looking fabric horror that she's wearing?!
Maelys... Oh boy... I think you kinda need Darja for her to work things out. And also pass both checks when fighting her - something playthrough should've been more clear about.
Her scenes with Darja and her scenes in general were very nice and sweet with a tint of melancholic bitterness and hope. To make her bloom anew from a husk she was - that's an experience more rewarding that even making Darja's dream come true. Helping her overcome the tragedies of her life was an journey most satisfying. To see light shine anew in her eyes was divine.
Just don't pick the other options, please. Poor Huntress deserve more than becoming dead inside. Don't stick your dick into her and she'll be okay - especially do not do this if she asks for it.
Now, the only path I haven't tried was Malice-ing her up. I mean - I did that on a very old playthrough, but I think new content was added since so it does not count anymore.
Malagar was the real treasure of this run. After running for many times with other 'super-horde' options, I finally gave the Warlock a try. Don't ask me why I didn't pick one of the biggest options of this game earlier and kept playing through the ones I knew. Well, I prefer paths already treaded.
Anyway, this absolute badass went from simping for continent's biggest bitch to thanos-snapping castle walls like it was nothing. A mere mortal man rivaling creatures like Mother and Zizeryx in effective power on the field is someone to be treated with utmost respect. Besides - he is on absolute thirst-for-knowledge-type grindset, which also begets some affirmative nods.
Well, he's also local Mengele-Frankenstein with no regard to proles' life. When demons from Inferno or eldritch Proteans take people for their nefarious means, it's one thing - it is expected. Malagar does the slightly more civilized form of 'rounding up to the camps', taking, in his words, people whose disappearance will make the world a better place. Such as criminals down to pettiest of sorts and even random drunkards from the streats.
You thought Mengele reference was forced? It wasn't - Malagar literally parrots nazis. The undesirables shall be used as science fodder for the uber gutt, meine drako fuhrer.
Never a dull option in this game, am I rigth, fellas? Crazy evil scientist, eldritch abominations from beyond the beginning of times and literal demons who make most of 40k blush with how crazy they are. You can also spawn the cutest and most awe-inspiring world-ending menace to ever menace the world with its ending.
But at least Malagar has probably - just probably, I admit - the lowest chances and motivation to fuck you and the world up. Compared to Infernal Court that is anything but subtle in its intents and purposes and whatever the fuck Mother wants.
Also, he drops this banger when discussing how essences prevents hybridization:
Our Realm is officially surrounded by sheep-fuckers.
Oh, and of course - he seems to actually care a lot about Darja. Which is sweet, even if I can already see someone arguing against his sincerity and selflessness on this topic.
And he's also very insightful into how the supernatural of the world works. Of course, it had to be more Platonic and less Aristotelian. And Malagar's explanations were, if anything, anticipated and expected. From divine stems the essence, which commands the form - and magic is whatever is done to the essence that transfers to the form.
God, that reminds me of Tardigrade Inferno's Clockwork God: "First it was the God Almighty, from the God came Soul Eternal, then the Soul commanded Body, Body made a Cog. From the Cog I'll make a Body, from the Spring I'll make a Mind, when the Mind becomes Almighty than it'd make a Clockwork God".
Malagar is the male version of that clip's protagonist and he's somewhere on: "Body made a Cog" stage. You can't change my mind.
Anyway, elves and dragons are just prisms for divine energies of respective sorts. They refract those energies, turning them specific. The specifics, of course, is magic innate to the divine creatures. Makes perfect sense why Zizeryx didn't just point out at the biggest palace in Inferon when you ask it about Sun's whereabouts. Sun is the primal force stretched through the entire existence, congregating in unusual numbers in Inferno and its denizens. Same must go for the Moon, same must go for Mother - only she decided for some reason to get involved in much more direct way. I think I should re-play her route and read her dialogues more carefully - there most be a reason why she specifically made that decision and not her children. Who, by all margins of sense, must have the same capacity for direct action.
There's also non-zero chance that divine power is uni-natural and Mother, Moon and Sun being only specific areas of its manifestation. A peaks of sorts, extremums.
And even less non-zero chance that Naga is the fourth corner of that square. End of the cycle to Protean beginning and Moon/Sun active phase. Malice, after all, is so dreadfully powerful that Zizeryx and the whole Court decide to bunker-up instead of fighting your daughter. They are no doubt powerful - but not powerful enough to beat her, it seems. Malice is, for all intents and purposes, deific in her powers - if not in formal status, then in practice for sure.
But that leaves the question of selkie.
Malagar takes Adeline's motherhood to gift Darja with. Why does that turns an unusual human woman into metamorphic eldritch horror when, as mentioned by Malagar, it didn't have the same effect on previous test subjects?
I am not asking the question of why selkie is the way it is. Selkies are manifestations of Calaclysm. Cataclysm, it seems, is melting of essences which in turn distorts the form. Winged boy and Deerie-Ann were just the beginning - beings whose essence was warped, but still recognizable, if messy. Selkie must be the logical apex of the process - beings whose essences were turned into primordial soup. If normal being is an answer to the question of "What am I?", the selkie is that question taken shape - of the lack of the latter, to be frank. And, most likely, what your Realm would look like with Malice running around it. I am most certain that whatever place saw the rise of previous Naga is now wiped from every census. Your Realm would be at Ground Zero, count your chances.
Back to the aforementioned question.
First answer is very simple and probably true - royal bloodline were made out of selkies given static forms by someone else. The most obvious option of Infernal Court being behind it is also not the most certain. We know that the elves helped establish the Realm - wisps talk about that. It seems that back then them and royal bloodline were pals - or, rather, the latter was their tool of conquest. It is very clear from Malagar-ed Heloise that they are not beyond such means, namely that Valzira planned to let you terrorise the Realm, probably to make it even more pliably to the Convocation. So the elves were somehow invovled, probably.
The second and much more fringe answer depends on whether or not Malagar used human test subjects. He says this:
And I am not certain what he meant by: "earlier experiments". Is it: "I used animal test subjects before switching to humans"? Or is it: "I tested it only on animals beforehand"? If anything, this line suggest the latter:
If he tested the process on human women, how did he missed the motherhood part of all things? No, it seems to me that whatever tests he committed did not involve a comparable enough test subjects. Otherwise, why would he be so surprised?
And if I am right on this assumption, the whole scarier possibility arises.
If Infernal Court of all people decide to hide during Cataclysm, it means even Inferno isn't safe from its consequences - and Zizeryx, discussing the matter, recalls that they didn't recognize the world when the returned to it the last time. Which may mean there would be no actual Ground Zero where the worst effects would be localized - even if your Realm would be the first to witness the effects, Cataclysm will eventually affect the entire world.
No safe places from Naga. It is possible that literally everyone who lived were affected. And you know what that means - if mutations were just the first step and the selkie is the apex of that effect...
It is entirely possible that selkie isn't just:
But a template to lifeforms itself. Including humans.
Which would mean that a human is just a selkie with set essential parameters. And when you affect human's essence to much, rip from it too much of...
The human may degrade back to the template. To the selkie.
So, guys'n'gals and inbetween'n'aside, in Ravager you do not return to monke.
You return to selke.
And I would've absolutely made a proper Ravager-themed meme out of it, were we given at least one image of the creatures. I mean - they are certainly shoggoth-y, but common! We need proper illustrations of eldritch horrors beyond visual descriptions!
Well, I guess grayer shoggoth will suffice:
Maybe I should add smiling Malice to the corner next time...
Anyway, with the summary done, let's get to nitty-gritty. And longy-ranty. And just a veritable sheet of text. Because I am a prolific sheeter.
Most of the run was just that - a really good run. The downsides is that I minimaxed suboptimally and also left out Mina and M-Ann. I think I could have gotten the same stats and kept Mina and leaving M-Ann was absolutely a mistake. But other than that? Near-perfect run. At least Malagar does not create a local mini-Apocalypse each time I used his help during conquest. Something a certain High-Chamberlain of the Infernal Courts could learn from - well, if it wasn't so calamitously inclined.
Darja is sugary sweet and just someone you want to make happy when learning about her some more. I was taken aback a bit at just how sweet she turned out to be, honestly. Real sweel gal - and silly as a clown-painted brick.
I knew her rule would be... Challenging. I wasn't wrong. What I was wrong about is assuming Malagar would try to be a good influence on her. He wasn't. He fucked off to the Spire to cosplay Mengele. Darja is spending my treasury away and I can only hope devs would add an option to talk some sense into her. I don't want to sour her sweetness, but she is ought to become a financial Cataclysm and teach the Realm what Great Depression was all about.
Can't have that on my Benevolent Despot run. Embezzlement will wait until I try to run with Malice as a queen. Something tells me only a truly deranged dragon would marry his daughter and publicly piss on the law of the Realm.
But back to Darja to give her some more credit - she tries to learn the queenly ways. Honestly tries, puts a lot of efforts into that. I mean - that's her shtick. She puts efforts. If you tell her her painting needs work later on she will present you proper art. That's probably her best qualities - girls is a learner, despite her cloudy-headedness.
Honestly, her biggest downside is her taste in clothing. What is that hentai-mahoushoujo-ass-looking fabric horror that she's wearing?!
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Maelys... Oh boy... I think you kinda need Darja for her to work things out. And also pass both checks when fighting her - something playthrough should've been more clear about.
Her scenes with Darja and her scenes in general were very nice and sweet with a tint of melancholic bitterness and hope. To make her bloom anew from a husk she was - that's an experience more rewarding that even making Darja's dream come true. Helping her overcome the tragedies of her life was an journey most satisfying. To see light shine anew in her eyes was divine.
Just don't pick the other options, please. Poor Huntress deserve more than becoming dead inside. Don't stick your dick into her and she'll be okay - especially do not do this if she asks for it.
Now, the only path I haven't tried was Malice-ing her up. I mean - I did that on a very old playthrough, but I think new content was added since so it does not count anymore.
Malagar was the real treasure of this run. After running for many times with other 'super-horde' options, I finally gave the Warlock a try. Don't ask me why I didn't pick one of the biggest options of this game earlier and kept playing through the ones I knew. Well, I prefer paths already treaded.
Anyway, this absolute badass went from simping for continent's biggest bitch to thanos-snapping castle walls like it was nothing. A mere mortal man rivaling creatures like Mother and Zizeryx in effective power on the field is someone to be treated with utmost respect. Besides - he is on absolute thirst-for-knowledge-type grindset, which also begets some affirmative nods.
Well, he's also local Mengele-Frankenstein with no regard to proles' life. When demons from Inferno or eldritch Proteans take people for their nefarious means, it's one thing - it is expected. Malagar does the slightly more civilized form of 'rounding up to the camps', taking, in his words, people whose disappearance will make the world a better place. Such as criminals down to pettiest of sorts and even random drunkards from the streats.
You thought Mengele reference was forced? It wasn't - Malagar literally parrots nazis. The undesirables shall be used as science fodder for the uber gutt, meine drako fuhrer.
Never a dull option in this game, am I rigth, fellas? Crazy evil scientist, eldritch abominations from beyond the beginning of times and literal demons who make most of 40k blush with how crazy they are. You can also spawn the cutest and most awe-inspiring world-ending menace to ever menace the world with its ending.
But at least Malagar has probably - just probably, I admit - the lowest chances and motivation to fuck you and the world up. Compared to Infernal Court that is anything but subtle in its intents and purposes and whatever the fuck Mother wants.
Also, he drops this banger when discussing how essences prevents hybridization:
Our Realm is officially surrounded by sheep-fuckers.
Oh, and of course - he seems to actually care a lot about Darja. Which is sweet, even if I can already see someone arguing against his sincerity and selflessness on this topic.
And he's also very insightful into how the supernatural of the world works. Of course, it had to be more Platonic and less Aristotelian. And Malagar's explanations were, if anything, anticipated and expected. From divine stems the essence, which commands the form - and magic is whatever is done to the essence that transfers to the form.
God, that reminds me of Tardigrade Inferno's Clockwork God: "First it was the God Almighty, from the God came Soul Eternal, then the Soul commanded Body, Body made a Cog. From the Cog I'll make a Body, from the Spring I'll make a Mind, when the Mind becomes Almighty than it'd make a Clockwork God".
Malagar is the male version of that clip's protagonist and he's somewhere on: "Body made a Cog" stage. You can't change my mind.
Anyway, elves and dragons are just prisms for divine energies of respective sorts. They refract those energies, turning them specific. The specifics, of course, is magic innate to the divine creatures. Makes perfect sense why Zizeryx didn't just point out at the biggest palace in Inferon when you ask it about Sun's whereabouts. Sun is the primal force stretched through the entire existence, congregating in unusual numbers in Inferno and its denizens. Same must go for the Moon, same must go for Mother - only she decided for some reason to get involved in much more direct way. I think I should re-play her route and read her dialogues more carefully - there most be a reason why she specifically made that decision and not her children. Who, by all margins of sense, must have the same capacity for direct action.
There's also non-zero chance that divine power is uni-natural and Mother, Moon and Sun being only specific areas of its manifestation. A peaks of sorts, extremums.
And even less non-zero chance that Naga is the fourth corner of that square. End of the cycle to Protean beginning and Moon/Sun active phase. Malice, after all, is so dreadfully powerful that Zizeryx and the whole Court decide to bunker-up instead of fighting your daughter. They are no doubt powerful - but not powerful enough to beat her, it seems. Malice is, for all intents and purposes, deific in her powers - if not in formal status, then in practice for sure.
But that leaves the question of selkie.
Malagar takes Adeline's motherhood to gift Darja with. Why does that turns an unusual human woman into metamorphic eldritch horror when, as mentioned by Malagar, it didn't have the same effect on previous test subjects?
I am not asking the question of why selkie is the way it is. Selkies are manifestations of Calaclysm. Cataclysm, it seems, is melting of essences which in turn distorts the form. Winged boy and Deerie-Ann were just the beginning - beings whose essence was warped, but still recognizable, if messy. Selkie must be the logical apex of the process - beings whose essences were turned into primordial soup. If normal being is an answer to the question of "What am I?", the selkie is that question taken shape - of the lack of the latter, to be frank. And, most likely, what your Realm would look like with Malice running around it. I am most certain that whatever place saw the rise of previous Naga is now wiped from every census. Your Realm would be at Ground Zero, count your chances.
Back to the aforementioned question.
First answer is very simple and probably true - royal bloodline were made out of selkies given static forms by someone else. The most obvious option of Infernal Court being behind it is also not the most certain. We know that the elves helped establish the Realm - wisps talk about that. It seems that back then them and royal bloodline were pals - or, rather, the latter was their tool of conquest. It is very clear from Malagar-ed Heloise that they are not beyond such means, namely that Valzira planned to let you terrorise the Realm, probably to make it even more pliably to the Convocation. So the elves were somehow invovled, probably.
The second and much more fringe answer depends on whether or not Malagar used human test subjects. He says this:
And I am not certain what he meant by: "earlier experiments". Is it: "I used animal test subjects before switching to humans"? Or is it: "I tested it only on animals beforehand"? If anything, this line suggest the latter:
If he tested the process on human women, how did he missed the motherhood part of all things? No, it seems to me that whatever tests he committed did not involve a comparable enough test subjects. Otherwise, why would he be so surprised?
And if I am right on this assumption, the whole scarier possibility arises.
If Infernal Court of all people decide to hide during Cataclysm, it means even Inferno isn't safe from its consequences - and Zizeryx, discussing the matter, recalls that they didn't recognize the world when the returned to it the last time. Which may mean there would be no actual Ground Zero where the worst effects would be localized - even if your Realm would be the first to witness the effects, Cataclysm will eventually affect the entire world.
No safe places from Naga. It is possible that literally everyone who lived were affected. And you know what that means - if mutations were just the first step and the selkie is the apex of that effect...
It is entirely possible that selkie isn't just:
But a template to lifeforms itself. Including humans.
Which would mean that a human is just a selkie with set essential parameters. And when you affect human's essence to much, rip from it too much of...
The human may degrade back to the template. To the selkie.
So, guys'n'gals and inbetween'n'aside, in Ravager you do not return to monke.
You return to selke.
And I would've absolutely made a proper Ravager-themed meme out of it, were we given at least one image of the creatures. I mean - they are certainly shoggoth-y, but common! We need proper illustrations of eldritch horrors beyond visual descriptions!
Well, I guess grayer shoggoth will suffice:
Maybe I should add smiling Malice to the corner next time...
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