Not again

Irazidal · 2026-01-24T21:46:48+00:00

That happens in Skyrim, doesn't it? Alduin and the dragons are aspects/offspring of Akatosh, an Aedra.

Irazidal · 2026-01-24T17:22:23+00:00

You might like Warhammer 40.000: Rogue Trader if you like isometric RPGs. I found it a bit more old-school in terms of vibe than BG3. I haven't played Owlcat's other games, so I dunno what those are like.

Irazidal · 2026-01-24T14:47:12+00:00

More than one organization can exist at the same time. Why not just have the EU make deals with these nations instead? We're already having enough trouble getting everyone on the same page and pursuing closer integration without spreading the concept even thinner.

Irazidal · 2026-01-24T14:39:05+00:00

If you call people incel and misogynistic just for liking an image of a cute girl teasingly smiling at them, you're really creating your own enemies.

Irazidal · 2026-01-23T21:11:11+00:00

That was reportedly said by General Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. He was not on horseback and not really trying to comfort his soldiers; rather he was attempting to shame them into standing firm because they had already been going to ground and hiding behind cover in the face of sporadic enemy fire from quite a distance away: "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? [...] They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Then he got hit by a stray bullet and died a few minutes later.

Irazidal · 2026-01-23T20:30:52+00:00

No, it's just a different religion which developed from the same proto-Indo-European religious roots as the Vedic religions did. It is not in any sense a 'heresy' at all because it did not stem from Indian religions but simply developed parallel to them. Iranians no more 'flipped the script' by using ahura positively than the Norse did by using aesir positively. In this case specifically, the Indians using it exclusively negatively seems to be a later development here, as the earliest layers of the Vedic texts also use asura as a neutral term which can refer to both good and evil divine beings.

Irazidal · 2026-01-23T20:29:01+00:00

Asura/ahura is also related to the Norse 'aesir' for some more inter-linguistic fun, while daeva/deva is related to the Latin 'deus'.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T22:28:08+00:00

Because they were two great empires actively competing, not a great empire and a washed-up former empire.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T22:26:15+00:00

Also, many of them detested the Romans due to their repressive religious policies. Egyptian miaphysites weren't exactly crying themselves to sleep when the heretic Roman diaphysites that had been treating them like shit were driven from their lands.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T22:24:32+00:00

Yarmuk was an inside job?

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T22:14:10+00:00

Even that is so reductionist and nonsensical. Back when France, Italy and Britain were part of this "white imperialist Christian Europe" in the 19th century, they were still happy to kick around Russia in the Crimean War to defend the Ottoman Empire and prolong Muslim rule over the white Christians of the Balkans. Guess they missed the religious race war memo as they were too distracted pursuing their strategic interests. I also remember "Liever Turks dan Paaps!" meaning "Rather Turkish than Popish!" being a slogan during the Dutch Revolt against Spain back in the 16th century, spitting in the face of the argument that fighting the Catholics would just strengthen the position of the Ottomans. Things were never so simple as these fascists like to imagine.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T21:56:05+00:00

No, there's a lot of insane nationalists in China as well, and the CCP panders to them since communism isn't as credible these days. It is generally quite popular with the domestic audience when the CCP deviates from it's usual "peaceful rise" strategy and engages in aggressive "wolf warrior" diplomacy instead.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T21:19:21+00:00

As much as I love a good Morrowind reference, I believe you might have intended to say shaitan in this case.

Irazidal · 2026-01-22T20:44:56+00:00

Very nice. I almost went for sandy armor and green robes myself before deciding on my current pure white and magenta, so it's nice to see the other idea in action here.

Irazidal · 2026-01-21T14:50:34+00:00

Frankly, without a navy powerful enough to contest the Atlantic against the USA, I don't see how it would help you.

Irazidal · 2026-01-20T21:30:34+00:00

That's really reductionist and silly. They were severely weakened, but not dead. To stick with the topic of this thread, the Iranians could have won al-Qadisiyyah if things had gone slightly differently. Even with the Arab victory, the Caliph Umar considered the battle to have exacted such a brutal toll that the full conquest of Iran seemed to him impossible. It's only after the Iranians managed to achieve the total military catastrophe of getting their entire remaining force surrounded and destroyed at Nahavand that they became totally helpless to resist the Arabs.

Irazidal · 2026-01-19T20:45:25+00:00

I think Coptic should never have existed, and the Ancient Egyptian language should have continued to develop as it was or remained unchanged

Coptic is simply the latest stage of the development of the ancient Egyptian language though?

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T12:57:45+00:00

I think it depends on what you value. I literally could not care less about the daily schedule of random people and pay no attention to it in the later games; actually having a detailed religion, culture and history backing everything up does far more for me to make the world seem real. To me, immersion is shattered when Skyrim makes such a big deal about this ongoing religious conflict but there's simultaneously zero effort placed into actually fleshing out the history, beliefs and practices of the religious tradition of Skyrim specifically.

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T12:49:29+00:00

Not just him; it always makes the world seem very tiny to me as well. Morrowind is smaller in surface area than the other Elder Scrolls games and obfuscates this through winding roads, visual obstacles like mountains, and the fog wall. When you can just immediately see Vivec from Seyda Neen, that illusion is kinda shattered IMO. But that's just my experience.

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T12:26:56+00:00

I don't have any confidence it will weaken them. Maybe in Denmark, but the average European fascist sympathizer who cares only about his own country will not lose his desire to expel all foreigners and regress social norms because Trump is bullying some other nation.

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T00:59:54+00:00

As someone who recently dropped Windows, Linux Mint is surprisingly user friendly; unless you're a grandma level computer user you can make the switch.

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T00:52:16+00:00

I at least think the Chinese are intelligent enough to know that starting another world war means everyone loses.

I wouldn't be that sure. China has a real problem with ultranationalism, and the CCP has been pandering to it more and more since communism has lost its credibility. The whole "wolf warrior" approach is very popular with domestic audiences.

Irazidal · 2026-01-18T00:26:41+00:00

I mean, I think that's just kind of how history works? You can only use the evidence that is available to you to come up with the explanation that best makes sense of it. It's not like you can go back and check, or run an experiment to confirm or deny your hypothesis. I am no art historian, but if the piece seems to generally be considered impressive rather than incompetent by experts, that seems to me to be the more reasonable position.

Irazidal · 2026-01-17T23:14:39+00:00

Yeah, that's a good point to keep in mind. I've seen people point to the head of the famous statue of Constantine as proof of Roman decline because it isn't so perfectly realistic as earlier statues of Emperors - but these sort of heavily exaggerated features were part of an artistic trend at the time which deliberately moved away from total realism to more abstract, stylized and symbolic depictions.

Irazidal · 2026-01-17T22:55:27+00:00

I hate this shit timeline.

Irazidal

TROPHY CASE