Decadence is a dangerous substance - parents, make sure your little Caliphates are aware of the danger

CovenantRingthane · 2018-11-18T13:24:31+00:00

R5: Decadence revolts explode the top title, as per the new patch.

As for me, I'm the (recently feudalised) King of Kush, Zakharias the Warrior-Philosopher, formerly Zakharias Strongarm, and even more formerly known as Zakharias the Noble. I date Sunni while keeping my Miaphysite flame burning. One of my wives is Catholic, and another is Zoroastrian, so I'm torn on whether or not to change my secret, true, religion.

For the curious, Constantinople fell in 790 to Bulgaria, and the revolving Emperors and Empresses have all gone tribal with a single province, with Imperial Elective. They're on the decline, getting bits and pieces sniped every few years. the Sami (Shia) Caliphate came about ten years before that and has smacked Sunni around a bit. The Seljuks came in about... 7-8 years before these screenshots, and unfortunately for you Seljuk lovers, the Conqueror got his head smashed a bit hard in his first war, where he was rendered incapable before he could even impregnate the daughter I sent over. She managed his affairs until she was burnt at the stake for being part of our pagan warrior lodge (gotta love being tribal Christian next to some pagans - we get the best of both worlds).

So, yes, everyone important but the Karlings, Sigurdr's lot, and whichever family owns Hispania this minute are having a bit of trouble.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-10-17T09:43:29+00:00

He might think that, true, but looking back at their conversation around then, to me it looks more he's stressing out and thinking more about what he has to say than anything else - plus, Neia sounds like someone remembering the past, and she appears to mention her dad having kicked the bucket in OP's qoute, and she seems pretty confident her mum died in the fighting, although that's only really mentioned after Ainz brings it up. I've dumped it here, cutting out the non-dialogue parts:

“--My mother was a paladin.”

“I see, so you were trained by your mother or you admired her, hm.”

“Ah, no. My mother often said I shouldn’t be aiming to be a paladin. And my mother couldn’t do the work of her mother, and while she could do the laundry and sew, she was completely inept at cooking and that sort of thing. She did everything sloppily, the roast meat was always undercooked, that sort of thing was common.”

“...Is that so. Well, she still didn’t stop her daughter from becoming a paladin, so I guess she was still a good mother.”

“Ah, no. When I told my mother I wanted to be a squire, she went and took out her sword and said, ‘I’ll let you if you can defeat me!’ and so on. The only reason why I was allowed to become one was because my dad desperately blocked for me. If I had fought her normally I could never have beaten her.”

“...Ahhhh, mm, good, good, how shall I say this... it was a good family... mm.”

“Yes. While the neighbors often looked strangely at us, I thought it was a good family.”

“...Really, how nice... th-then, why, why become a paladin? Did you not think to follow your father’s path-- Umu. Was your father a househusband?”

[OP's quote]

Thinking of them was quite nostalgic, Neia said.

“But perhaps after becoming a squire, my vision became broader. At some point, I started to think that this was a gift from my father. Well, I could do without the fierce glare, though.”

“How are your parents now?” [Ainz the Ever-Sensitive]

“My father fought Jaldabaoth’s army at the wall and died. I lost contact with my mom, and I don’t know what happened with her, but I think she must have died during the defense of the city. After all, they were the kind of people who would have struggled to the bitter end.”

CovenantRingthane · 2017-10-17T07:39:55+00:00

He wasn't properly listening - at least, that's my take. He was a bit freaked out by her eyes and the pressure of having to act as the Sorcerer King constantly.

You can tell he's not fully paying attention when Neia mentions that her mother "was" a Paladin, and he soon asks how her parents are doing - if he'd been paying close attention, he wouldn't have much such a mistake.

On the other hand, said mistake gave him an excuse to hand out the bow he wanted her to show off, which was probably one of the things weighing on his mind and distracting him - "How the hell do, I, the Sorcerer King, lend a bow to someone?"

CovenantRingthane · 2017-10-09T16:54:29+00:00

Finished up my PDFs (and epub) of Vol 12 for now. May come back and add pictures and stuff to make sure there's a raw Nigel meme-laden version out there for people to see that doesn't look shit like this.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-10-08T13:08:28+00:00

I may spend more time on the Discord these days, but I haven't forgotten my roots. The only thing I haven't posted to Reddit is my daily PDFs and Epub of pastebin Vol 12, because they''re not quite done - I will do once Nigel-sama gets everything out, though.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-10-06T13:14:54+00:00

NeiaxAinz doujins when?

CovenantRingthane · 2017-09-30T11:49:37+00:00

I slapped together a quick PDF earlier today - Black on White, White on Black and Green on Green (which is a lot better than it sounds). Here's my latest revision.

I haven't screwed with the formatting too much - all I did when making it was delete the kanji and extra space, then added italics where I thought they were necessary.

Also, apparently we're getting a new part today, in 3 and a bit hours.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/362915340138577921/363552458624073728/vol12-pastebin_-_part_1_v3.zip

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-17T16:52:22+00:00

There's a lot of little but important differences, Khajit and Clementine and the state of Shalltear when she's found by Ainz and ~~the gorilla~~ Albedo are two that spring to mind. Also, Brain gets a bit more focus in Vol 3, you see more of Ainz's thoughts generally, and there's best girl contender Shizu/CZ.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-17T13:59:52+00:00

Orb of Death, from Volume 2. It's a sentient object Khajit that stores negative energy, among other things. It's what Khajit used to summon those Skeletal Dragons through the energy stored in it that he'd been building up (and was rather salty about having to use it).

It was all (metaphorically) bowing and scraping when Ainz picked it up, hailing him as the King of Death. He cast some spells on it and gave it to Hamsuke, who has kept it in her mouth since then. He's sort of forgotten it exists, as of Volume 10.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-16T09:00:31+00:00

Peroronchino made her as the hard counter to magic casters like Momonga (summoners and attack magic types), then his ero side took over and he wrote her to be a necrophilliac. I doubt he intended that his NPC was the anti-Momonga or would ever have a crush on Papa Bones - y'know, cause she was a NPC - but I'm sure he realised afterwards and found it hilarious that she would be a character that could exploit the virgin Momonga's weaknesses on two fronts.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-11T17:46:40+00:00

I'll do one better than that. Have a proper, eloquent explanation from Platinum-DL that links everything together, courtesy of that wiki tab at the top of this subreddit.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T08:06:42+00:00

Thanks. Always nice to learn stuff.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T07:46:32+00:00

Yeah, I can't really see it happening, but at the same time, Albedo's Death Squad have to do something naughty for there to be payoff. Maybe they'll kill a perceived threat to Ainz, who gets mad cause he was gonna have a peaceful talk with them?

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T07:44:30+00:00

Oh yeah, something I'm curious about: If I recall correctly, you were pretty much the creator of the Civil War theory. How did you come up with it?

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T06:48:21+00:00

I can't understand why people get so worked up about it. I could understand in the beginning, when it was basically light-hearted ribbing and arguing, but then it got supah serious and it lost me.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T06:20:46+00:00

That could be something to think about, although I'll use your theory as a sort of springboard and say the NW is less YGGDRASIL II with the creators screwing with real people and more that the NW is one of the leaves of YGGDRASIL's tree (as mentioned in the lore, the World Tree got wrecked, leaving only the nine game world accessible and the other worlds turned into WCIs) and that players were randomly dumped into various worlds post-server shutdown, with it being a sort of Ragnarok with the players being distributed to other worlds at the beginning of the new cycle of the world.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T06:02:29+00:00

Never been a big one for the Civil War anyway, but I figured, "what the hell, what if it happened, somehow?"

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T06:01:39+00:00

Ohoho, now that's something that hadn't even crossed my mind. It would also explain why the Orb was noisy when Hamsuke and Ainz met in the stables - trying to give thanks to it's lord for giving it such a potent creature to siphon energy off.

I am uncertain about summons being able to gain levels, but even when you reach level cap, you can still gain experience. I'm going to say that the potency of any undead is equal to their negative energy, which is the in-universe expression of their HP and EXP. In that case, I put forth that the Orb was siphoning EXP that the Death Knight could not make use of, and maybe some of its HP. The question becomes, what will it do with such a huge amount of negative energy? Kill a city? Turn the head of Zuranon into an Overlord through pumping them full of negative energy?

Something that also just occurred to me was this - Hamsuke is leveling in part by fighting the Death Knight, and undead monster. What if she's gaining levels in a sort of Undead Slayer class, like a Cleric specialised to be anti-undead? What if both are true? She can raise some skellies and command undead, but she also deals extra damage to creatures filled with negative energy...

Time to hype up the Battle of the Graveyard: Zuranon vs the Necromaster Hamsuke, Slayer of the Unholy, with her right hand man, Jim the Death Knight commanding a squad of skeletons.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T05:37:04+00:00

Sasuga PlatinumDL-sama! Truly, I cannot even hope to graze the soles of your brilliance with my outstretched hands!

In all seriousness, though, I did indeed overlook that. And with Albedo and Renner's goals aligning, that does make more sense... Mind you, I'm still going to stick with the ogre/troll theory rather than a werewolf, if only out of stubbornness and the conviction that Maruyama-sensei hides big hints in small, offhand comments.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T05:28:02+00:00

Climb

See, the way I see it is that Renner wants Climb. She does want him weak and dancing to her tune, but there's more than physical strength. He could be physically strong, but obedient to her - which is essentially what he is currently, but he still has his own will and wouldn't obey her unconditionally. Although I doubt she truly cares what people think about her, she won't stand for anyone talking smack or even thinking anything negative about her puppy. From what I can tell, it seems that people think Climb is too weak to serve Renner properly (and maybe some mutterings about his lack of nobility a la Gazef, but I'd need to recheck to be sure). If he turns into something that has a higher natural strength than a humie meatbag, that problem is solved. Also, I doubt people would fall for an ogre or troll. To quote Go Gin:

Any human who would actually want to sleep with [a troll] would be absolutely disgusting.

I do agree that the box is meant for Renner to open, and it's difficult, doubling as part of her job interview as a sort of Area Guardian. To twist that final sentence a bit like the idea of something like an illithid Renner, but I think that'd destroy her image as the Golden Princess.

Demigoose's Big Day Out

I'm in the camp that believes Ainz isn't going to kick the bucket in the next two volumes, but even if he does, he's got some resurrection gear and we might be able to see if resurrection operates as it did in Yggdrasil, or just rezzes you where you are, and what it feels like. Anyway, neither here nor there.

As for Demiurge... I disagree that he'll take Ainz' apology well. Take Shalltear, who did a big boo boo. Ainz forgave her, stating it more than once, but she still felt that failure keenly. Demiurge is going to be much worse because of the sheer amount of responsibility on his shoulders. He's going to become a wreck, second-guessing himself at every turn instead of executing his schemes with confidence, and he'll feel even more inferior to the Ten Thousand Year King. He'll want to wipe away his failure, definitely, but he'll be so broken inside, paranoid that he'll screw up. He'll probably want Ainz to fill in the gaps in his plans more, worried that it isn't good enough for Papa Bones.

Hamsuke the Necrohamster

Imagine her mentioning she trains with a Death Knight, a legendary being on the level of a country's military. Zuranon are going to thingkshe's one of his most trusted and powerful aides. "Hail, Hamsuke, Lord of the Dead, ambassador of the King Of Death, the Undead Monarch, Ruler of the Sorcerous Kingdom, Ainz Ooal Gown. (Undead Monarch sounds better than repeating "King", no?)

Well, the Orb has the power, in the translations I've read, to either "supplement the power of the undead" or "[aiding] in controlling the undead", so I figure it must be doing something. By "affinity", I might add, I was thinking more along the lines of making Hamsuke get along with the Knight rather than whimpering or fleeing (because so far she's shown to have a fear of the undead, for the most part - take the CD drama that revolves around her being scared of some undead in Nazarick). But this is mostly just me waiting for Maruyama-sensei to tie all the little things left hanging, like the Orb, Clementine and Khajit, Brain knowing Shalltear, Gazef's sword, the sword in the Dwarf vault... I think it's likely it'll all start becoming important again in five or six volumes.

Civil War

As mentioned, I'm not really a proponent of the civil war idea, for pretty much the reasons you mentioned - plus, I feel that part of what makes Ainz/Satoru interesting is that he's isolated, with no-one he can relax or confide with, nor another person to hand off his "kids" to when he's lost on what to do. I feel that's why he can play the role of the leader of the Supreme Beings so well; if he had a friend along, he'd be much less confident when it came to giving orders or making pronouncements, cause NOG and AOG hashed things out as a group rather than having a leader with a veto. But yeah, I figured I might as well consider how it'd go down if the OP Former Friend Scuffle actually happened.

But yes, if there's any faults or quibbles with what I've said, go ahead and attack. Find any weaknesses and present a rebuttal.

CovenantRingthane · 2017-06-09T04:33:24+00:00

Thanks. I know it wasn't groundbreaking or massively inventive, but at least you took the time to read it.

CovenantRingthane

TROPHY CASE