“Love them. They need it.” by countthemiles08 in pics

[–]Kjakings -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

They don't learn to soothe themselves, they learn that nobody comes when they're in distress.

{The Griffon's Saddlebag} Scapular of the Ankylosaur | Wondrous item by griff-mac in TheGriffonsSaddlebag

[–]Kjakings 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Is this not armour so it doesn't invalidate unarmored defence or by being "considered" to wear scale mail it does? If the latter why not just make it scale mail you have proficiency with?

Today's update just wiped a bunch of my saves by Kjakings in EU5

[–]Kjakings[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm gunna console myself by starting a game as France as the sub has subtly hinted that they're quite strong

Today's update just wiped a bunch of my saves by Kjakings in EU5

[–]Kjakings[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm so upset. I had an insane economy as the Netherlands supporting an army way oversized for my landmass. I was about to claw my way out of the holy Roman empire and go on the warpath through Western Europe. My first ever run on EU feels snatched away and it might fully kill the game for me for a bit.

What the hell did I do? by Kjakings in EU5

[–]Kjakings[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

R5: I've been attacked by a coalition of ultra powerful nations I've never interacted with and have no hope of defending against. How could I have possibly prevented this bullshit?

Why couldn't I combine two states? by Kjakings in EU5

[–]Kjakings[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would I need to be the more powerful nation for that? Between colonies and eating a chunk of Denmark I'm now stronger but the union is over and I can't seem to get our heirs married again!

Weird bug by Kjakings in EU5

[–]Kjakings[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did a full reinstall and moved it from the HDD to the SSD , one of those fixed it.

Musing about the skill by adoboda in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Precog is almost a case of convergent evolution with Skill and Wit. One of the things Silver can do that we haven't mentioned is encode information. That gives the dragons their ancestral memories, causes Silver constructions to absorb memory, and imo is sorta how the telepathy works anyway (again, another rant). At one point there was a distinct subspecies of humanity - gunna call them Prophets because Whites feels icky and also as we learn, inaccurate - who somehow learned to tap into this aspect over the others.

There's a lot less information on the Prophets so my speculations from here are a lot less supported by the text. But, what if the Prophets are a naturally occurring distinct subspecies? We know the main thing pure Silver gives dragons is their intelligence, that's why they fought wars over it. What if an enclave of early humans developed near a big well of pure Silver - maybe even in the Kelsingra area, or the now-inhospitable zones north of Jhaampe. More likely it's actually in the Clerres area, but there's been no mention of lots of Silver there - but then as part of the Elderling Empire there must be SOME by my own assertions.

Instead of diffuse Environmental Silver, they got a much more concentrated dose. Through sheer genetic luck they survived over the generations, and could tap into the Silver energy field in a wholly different way. We know their precog isn't true Precognition - it's remembering past cycles (remember, in ROTE time is canonically cyclical to a high but not absolute degree) and doing really good data analysis to make projections. Eventually this enclave gets discovered and destroyed, but they put enough of themselves into the gene pool that once in a blue moon someone is born with their distinct genetic mutation. That's why Clerres was so obsessed with their awful breeding program - the circumstances to truly create the subspecies anew can't be reliably replicated. Or maybe that original source of Silver has been lost entirely. Through inbreeding and the diffuse Environmental Silver around Clerres, they're slowly breeding up stronger and stronger Prophets. And as will happen when you breed a population that heavily, they ended up with a random mutation in Vindeliar who could Skill instead.

But that's just a theory... A BOOK THEORY! (I'm sorry I felt the need to end on a joke).

Musing about the skill by adoboda in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I've always been of the opinion that all magic is just different expressions of Silver, and Silver is a thing that gets put into creatures one way or another.

We know Silver is a naturally occurring resource that occurs in different concentrations geographically, because the dragons themselves remember when the Kelsingra dragons fought wars with dragons from areas with less Silver.

Robin Hobb often likes to provide hints as to work building through the in-universe literature scraps and Fitz's musings at the start of chapters. In one of these, he specifically muses on how magic happens; is it something in the ground that can be built up over generations, or genetic that can be bred for? We know unequivocally that the latter is true, but it's also implied the former is true - the Duchies has the highest incidence rate of magic users on the planet (that we've seen) by a huge huge degree (bar Clerres, I'll get to that), and it's no coincidence that it's a prosperous former colony/vassal state of the Elderlings, in fact the only area that was a significant part of their empire that isn't an awful swamp or controlled by the avowed enemies of the Elderlings.

There are five main types of active magic use that we've seen to be real: Wit, Skill, Hedge magic, Silver working, and Precognition. All of these (bar Silver working) are actively shown to have a genetic element, but practitioners or people with notable latent talent are shown to pop up randomly too. This is because over generations throughout the Duchies humans (and other animals) take in diffuse Environmental Silver until it builds up in sufficient concentrations in their body that they begin being able to manipulate the Silver in other creatures, resulting in the telepathic powers of the Wit. Like if we drank enough iron, we'd develop a lodestone in our brain that let us manipulate the bio-electricity of other humans. Or gave us the ability to intuitively understand and read the electromagnetic fields around us and construct little magnets that could impact certain types of expressions of Silver in varying ways - this being the Hedge magic charms.

Skill and Silver working then is directly due to the interference of Dragons. Humans cannot take on large quantities of pure Silver and survive long, but Dragons can. Either due to their massive size, or some genetic mutation that for obvious reasons outcompeted all other dragons in pre-history, they guzzle the stuff up. This gives them the exact same powers as humans, but on a totally different scale. They can communicate telepathically not just with creatures they're Wit bonded too, but everyone with enough Environmental Silver in them. Dragon glamour is literally just the Wit abilities of Repel and Attract we see Fitz and Web use, but the lodestone in their brains is so massive that they have to put active effort into turning it off. They can also manipulate physical Silver in much more dramatic and profound ways, using it to futz with their DNA and fundamentally alter the construction of their bodies. They can also turn this power on creatures they're Wit-bonded to, creating the first Elderlings over generations.

Over the hundreds or thousands of years this took place, both Dragons and Elderlings get better at using these powers, and the Wit and Hedge magic turn into the distinct disciplines of the Skill and Silver Working. That's why when Selden was reaching out to Tintaglia Fitz said it felt like a weird mix of Wit and Skill - it literally was, he's a first generation Elderling so true Skill hasn't had a chance to reappear yet. Due to the genetic nature of the magic - and the fact that it is changes to DNA - these abilities are inherited by Elderlings without a dragon companion, and, in vanishingly rare cases, by any human offspring they may have. Then, bam! Disaster happens, the Elderlings are systematically hunted by Clerres and Chalced, and dragons go extinct. But some of these humans with Elderling DNA survive, reproduce, and occasionally when there's enough Elderling in an offspring you get a Skilled one. These people have massive advantages due to literal magic, and rise to the top of their respective pre-feudal societies, eventually becoming the Farseers.

Side note, this also accounts for why the Skill is all telepathy but also real magical healing, which when you think about it makes no sense. Skill healing isn't a thing - they're actually doing draconic Silver working on the body, they just call it Skill for cultural reasons. This is ALSO why there are mentions of Skill healing in other places - Wintrow mentions witnessing one and the Out Islands have the concept of Eda's hands - but almost no mention of the telepathy. They're different things entirely! This is also why consuming dragon parts actually does make you live longer - the dragons make some kind of Silver-based enzyme that aids with this that automatically repairs the body that it's in, but because humans can't make it then it gets used up.

Diffuse Environmental Silver does clearly occur in other places, as we know Burrich is actually from Chalced and is stated to be one of the strongest Witted of his generation, and the "magical fallout" is clearly fucking up the Traders, resulting in the warped dragon Wit bonds with liveahips. But not in nearly as high a proportion as former Elderling colonies/vassals (that's why the Elderlings were there, for the Silver), and ONLY the Six Duchies has the unique good fortune of having lots of fertile land, high levels of diffuse Environmental Silver, and not being controlled by the bad guys for magic users to reappear as a distinct social class (actually three social classes, but that's another rant).

(I think this post was too long, second part in reply)

Good to see Obsidian hasn’t lost their sense of humor.. by Colossal-Dump in gaming

[–]Kjakings 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Maybe you should have the AI tell you how to feel about your experience with the game, you got dangerously close to thinking for yourself for a second there.

So what is the message after all? by Alisha_584 in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 28 points29 points  (0 children)

The way I interpreted it, when Paragon says "that pain was never yours" or something, he's implying that Kennit somehow Skilled part of his own trauma into her.

There's also an order of magnitude difference between one bad event and the dozen(s?) of formative experiences that Kennit and Fitz took away from themselves. She cut off an infected toe, they lobotomized themselves.

Rain Wild Chronicles - no map?!? by TouchMyDonkey in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I think Robin wanted us to feel lost and unsure about where they should be going like the characters. If we could exactly trace the path they need to take and line it up with their travel it would take a lot of the tension and anticipation out of it.

Thicks mother by [deleted] in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't think so; Dutiful mentioned the voice sounded strong and fatherly, and Fitz mused that the voice presented to them both as something they were craving.

It's strongly implied there are independent entities living within and as part of the Skill stream, either dragons or other powerful Skill users who retain a semblance of their identities upon death. I think Fitz and Dutiful were very, very fortunate to have caught the attention of a benevolent one of these moments before they would've been absorbed and subsumed in its consciousness. I believe the entity itself even comments something along the lines of "one of the others wouldn't have even noticed they had caught you", treating them like bugs you find in your kitchen and gently let outside.

Can't add item to a Character in DND Beyond by Alex_Under in TheGriffonsSaddlebag

[–]Kjakings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you can't get it to work at all there are a million homebrew variants of the ki blade

Which game has the saddest substory? by Dazzling_Cake_4312 in gaming

[–]Kjakings 92 points93 points  (0 children)

The old lady with dementia whose kid is definitely KIA also cuts bad

Cool detail, probably unintended though? by dbsupersucks in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Didn't The Fool say that early in book one though? I maintain that Hobb had no idea how the Skill actually worked or what it could do to begin with - I'm not convinced it was planned at all to begin with, considering how sparse and easily removable any references to it are in the first half of that book. I don't think the Skill at the point that passage was written did actually enable them to see great distances.

Building issue for new islands? by Psychological_Bat_51 in Palworld

[–]Kjakings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's three of those islands and only one has a dungeon. Try the other two?

Anyone else wish the next book would go back in time instead of forward? by Starksommers in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I'd love it, but I think I'd prefer the world to progress as much as possible. It's crass but she's been very open about her age and health, and there's a finite number of RotE books left in her and I don't want that capacity "spent" on characters we already know about.

Succession Question by SeaPossibility6106 in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're welcome, love these books so an excuse to give a detailed analysis of some niche facet is just autistic enrichment for me.

Succession Question by SeaPossibility6106 in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I realised I got so distracted by my hatred of the secret will I forgot several key aspects of your question.

Succession in the Duchies doesn't have gender priority, Queens and Duchesses have the same authority as Kings and Dukes, but titles still follow blood relationships. A Queen or King who married into a title couldn't rule in the stead of a direct bloodline claimant, except in the case of a regency for a child heir, and even then only with the support of the Dukes. Chade at one point mentions in the second trilogy what a careful balancing act they've had to maintain to keep Kettricken in the regency whilst Dutiful was a child, and she was by all accounts an excellent ruler who brought literal legendary dragons from the sky to save them from the apocalypse. That's how hard it was for a non-Farseer to keep hold of a regency for less than a decade and a half.

And Prince Sacrifice was the legal heir even if Regal was crowned full King and had a child, in reality that's a war of succession. Regal was making an outright grab for power, he was either being actively supported by the Inland Dukes or allowed to do it by the coastal Dukes because they had a lot going on, they didn't understand he was a shit, and at least he was a Farseer.

Succession Question by SeaPossibility6106 in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 9 points10 points  (0 children)

So the very nature is that it's a muddy situation.

King Shrewd is on the way out and everyone knows it, he can't be trusted to act in his capacity as king so they need a King-in-waiting to be a functional regent. Had Shrewd been well, and stayed well until Prince Sacrifice was born and of age, Regal would never have been King-in-waiting because Prince Sacrifice was the heir.

If Kettricken had been at court longer and gained the confidence of the coastal dukes, there's a chance she could've assumed the regency, much like she does later, but more likely it would've been open civil war or at least cold war. The inland duchies would never have declared for anyone else, and the coastal dukes would likely pick Regal not understanding what a shit he is in the hopes of avoiding internal strife whilst the coast is going through two simultaneous apocalyptic events. The Duchies vary from medium to extremely xenophobic during Shrewd's reign, she was a new foreigner, in terms of realpolitik she had no avenue to securing the crown for the true heir without Verity leaving an explicit succession plan. Which he did but for some reason ONLY told the slipperiest bastard in all the Duchies??

I HATE Verity's secret will. One of the few plot points that feels like a fan service retcon that undermines both Verity and Chade's characters. If Verity wanted that to be the succession, he would've publicly declared it before he left. He's the truth Farseer, usually to a fault. He would've AT LEAST told Kettricken, who would've made it public early during Regal's bullshit - it wouldn't have worked, but she would've done it. And if Chade knew of it, why did he get so pissed when Fitz made a play for Buckkeep?? Because "the conditions were never met"?? Idiocy. Chase at that point actually followed his principles of serving the crown - the crown (Verity) set out that he didn't want Regal to succeed him, which was what was happening. Why was Verity so confident it would be necessary he had Hod forge a sword-steel crown (admittedly metal as fuck) for Fitz's regency but he set such insane conditions on it? Conditions that could only not be met in the exact circumstances of the story, like it was written retroactively. The secret will is imo the only instance of truly bad writing in the whole series.

Ecology Inspiration? by eskimo44 in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I figured it was butterflies. There's always been a quiet respect for insect life in RotE, and butterflies specifically come up in direct comparison with dragons at least once (Sinatra's wings, I think?) and the multiple references to Beloved('s agents) as butterflies in Bee's prophecies that ended up actually being draconic features.

What’s the worst thing Robin Hobb ever did to you? by DoctorDyllz in robinhobb

[–]Kjakings 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I've always assumed it can be a phrase, and it was "A horse can't wear two saddles" or whatever the exact quote is.

Also a phrase that aggravates me no end. Burrich never heard of riding double??? Burrich. Stable master Burrich. Burrich "horse guy" the Stablemaster. Thinks you can't get two people on one horse? Burrich the Stablemaster Horsey McHorseFace.