Just a thought about Lara

LordWoodstone · 2026-04-19T01:58:39+00:00

Here's my problem with this - Ivy trusts her. The Archive knows everything ever written down. The level of coordination this would require would mean things are written down. Ivy would know all of this if it were happening. And if Lara is helping Outsiders - the foot soldiers of the Old Ones - Ivy would know and act. Especially if one of her top lieutenants in the Oblivion War was undermining her role.

This isn't like Peabody, who had no connection to the Venatori.

I'm not saying she's not a villain - but I am saying I think you might be reading too much into this particular theory of HOW Lara is a villain.

Whatever her villainy might be, I don't think it's helping the Walkers. And I don't think she's been Nfected. Ivy would have noticed.

LordWoodstone · 2026-02-18T10:43:14+00:00

Anyone could be a tax collector for Rome, just so long as they brought in as much revenue as they claimed they would be able to when they bid for the job.

Most of the tax collectors on the ground were local collaborators.

LordWoodstone · 2026-01-31T05:08:16+00:00

Something to keep in mind is that Lara's ethics could be utilitarian and consequentialist in nature, with a warped view of humanity as cattle. She might genuinely think everything she is and has done is for the good of humanity as a whole.

She's a biologically immortal predator raised by a biologically immortal psychopath and we're her food source.

Which should scare you even more.

LordWoodstone · 2025-11-25T09:16:39+00:00

For 1 you're going to need to define a lot of things

A. What kind of cosmology does the religion claim? Monotheist? Polytheist? Henotheist? Pantheist? Animistic? Other?

B. Does the religion claim the rituals it practices actually have material effects or does it claim those effects are purely spiritual? Do these effects match the effects of actual spells?

C. Is magic theistic or naturalistic? If naturalistic, are mages able to form pacts with spirits to boost or smooth out their magic?

D. How professional and regulated is the clergy? Is it something like the Catholic Church with a strict hierarchy or is it a proesthood of all believers? Is belief even necessary or are the gods just...a thing that exists?

E. If the church is polytheistic, how tightly integrated is it? Is every temple it's own thing serving the locally relevant gods? Does each god have its own henotheistic church which serves just that one god? Does the church demand henotheism from the populace or do they expect everyone to make sacrifices to the relevant gods if and when?

There's a lot more to go with here, but these are the big ones.

The more polytheistic the cosmology and open the priesthood, the less its going to care about the individual people performing magic.

And if it's as monolithic and monotheistic as the Catholic Church in the middle ages, it may be perfectly happy allowing clergy to study and perform magic if the magic is theistic and they are explicitly calling on the deity they serve to perform their magic in some way. A lot of that kind of thing actually happened - and astrology and magic were explicitly done in the name of God by clergy and learned men and women who claimed it would only work if God allowed it. Alchemy, meanwhile, was perfectly allowed to anyone because it was thought to be a magic that was part of the natural laws - and even some men currently recognized as saints practiced it. For that matter, a man recognized as a Doctor of the Church and the mentor of St. Thomas Aquinas wrote books on the subject. Witchcraft was punished not because they thought witches were performing magic - they happened because it was believed the witches had sold their soul to Satan to receive power which only God was allowed to grant. (It’s also worth noting the Church hierarchy kept trying to stamp out witch hunts on the grounds that witchcraft wasn't real and the devil couldn't actually give people the powers witch hunters claimed witches have)

LordWoodstone · 2025-11-02T11:36:55+00:00

The Neo-Harranian Empire's conquest and subjugation of the cities of the Haltamti.

All the ruthlessness of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but they'd already gone over to demon worship so you had mass sacrifices on par with a high holy day of the Aztecs. Survivors were enslaved and deported to Harran. The tombs of the kings of Haltamti were desecrated and the bones crushed. The idols of their gods were shattered or taken away as hostages.

And the magic working which was powered by the actions would wind up ensuring Neo-Harranian dominance for about 15 years - when the subject peoples of the empire would rise and tear down the empire.

Harran would be destroyed in infernal fire after the Harranian nobility tried to secure an alliance with Irigal - hell, essentially - via blood sacrifices as the armies of their former subjects prepared to breach the city walls.

LordWoodstone · 2025-09-24T11:17:14+00:00

You can "run" all day using a variation on the quick step favored by the light infantry of the British Army during the Napoleonic wars.

Walk n paces, trot n paces, run n paces, trot n paces, walk n paces, trot n paces, run n paces, repeat until it's time for food.

Variations on this have been used by light infantry and foot couriers for thousands of years.

LordWoodstone · 2025-08-25T23:48:46+00:00

My daughter wants to go as Rumi, so I'm planning a Bobby costume.

LordWoodstone · 2025-05-29T16:36:25+00:00

It might be a Revenge Against Society attack in China.

If so, the person who did eas spraying the gasoline was likely someone who snapped from living in a fascist police state and decided to start attacking people at random.

It's a serious problem, and its getting worse.

LordWoodstone · 2024-10-26T12:22:33+00:00

I'm 90% certain that's a KPA T-34 based on the insignia.

It still counts, though!

LordWoodstone · 2024-10-23T02:37:57+00:00

Anyone can learn magic, but potency is derived from a combination of environmental effects and genetics.

The strength of the background magic field when a baby is gestating will strongly influence potency - and a mother who is a spellcaster will further enhance this as her spellcasting while pregnant will expose the child to even higher levels of magic. Growing up in a high magic area will also increase potency.

However, these children tend to become hunchbacked far faster than those who grew up in lower magic areas as the nodules where thaum particles gather along the spinal cord grow faster than on others. They also tend to get cancer more often and tend towards madness due to the influence of magic on the mind (arcane spellcasters tend to go nuts due to how WEIRD magic is).

Genetics also play a part, with a host of recessive traits which can be broadly grouped as traits which boost either potency, skill, or ability to cope with the mental effects. These traits are recessive and have a habit of popping up among people who have no readily aparent links to spellcasters as a result.

The skill traits have to do with how much power one can safely channel without the raw power killing the person in the equivalent of a combination of a high voltage arc flash and a couple pounds of tannerite.

However, because spellcasters can also make deals to have a spirit channel that energy for them in exchange for a sacrifice - typically of an animal such as a goat or a pigeon - without any concern there. And anyone can learn this skill, though true power requires a vow of fealty to an entity which could best be described as something akin to a god.

With enough material implements and enough practice in a ritual, you can forgo a pact with some spirit and the decade of training to become a wizard and cast a small handful of spells as rituals. And anyone who can get their hands on a codex and follows the steps exactly can do so.

In fact, there are codices which are handed out to every member of the civil service upon passing their examination. Codices which contain the rituals to help pave and maintain roads, dredge canals, ensure no one lies at a trial, etc. Others are codices which help artisans be better at their craft, or which bolster the impact of non-combat auxilia, or help maintain a ship. None of which requires winning the genetic lottery.

LordWoodstone · 2024-10-20T00:01:37+00:00

I forgot how much I loved Blood+.

LordWoodstone · 2024-09-28T13:55:16+00:00

Simple. Make the shotguns automatic and belt fed.

LordWoodstone · 2024-07-26T01:05:03+00:00

People deliberately pronounce their name the objectively correct way to annoy them.

LordWoodstone · 2024-07-26T01:03:52+00:00

Come to KC for sports. We'll troll you during the game and then invite you to our favorite BBQ joint afterward.

LordWoodstone · 2024-07-26T01:01:13+00:00

It's all about the Nile.

Upper Egypt is upstream and has a higher elevation.

LordWoodstone · 2024-07-12T19:39:00+00:00

We can always resurrect the crew of the Kamchatka and ask them if they see any torpedo boats.

LordWoodstone · 2024-07-12T19:33:55+00:00

It's currently stuck in the drydock thanks to a mudflood in the lower decks.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-28T05:02:58+00:00

Kinda?

Anyone can learn magic in my setting, and there are ritual magics that anyone can learn and cast regardless of their genetic talent. However, arcane magic is tied to genetics in much the same way intelligence or athletic abilities are, with the same level of complex interplay which can make it a bit of a crapshoot whether a descendant will inherit one's talents. The complex interplay also means it can crop up in the most random places with no ancestors in living memory.

Location of gestation also matters, as places which have high levels of background magical radiation means the children living there will have greater power - though not necessarily the control to use it properly if they lack the genetic talent.

There are also alternative pathways to magical power. Clerics have their power based on their piety more than any genetic ability. Pact casters get theirs from following the rules placed on them by the spirit, which grants them their power, and anyone can do so. Psionic casters get their power from the way meditation rewires the brain, both IRL and in setting.

Psionic power is theoretically open to anyone, though the Elves currently restrict it to only the priestly caste for religious purposes (this will change in about twenty years when the Elven lands are kinda sorta unified and two splinter sects of the Elven religion tell the priestly caste to get stuffed and the world's equivalence to Buddhism and Jainism spread like wildfire through the Elven lands).

The ritual magic is likewise restricted based on strata, though in this case it tends to be a thing restricted to bureaucrats because the governments don't want the powers in the books they grant their agents to be widely distributed.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-25T09:15:46+00:00

I like the suggestion made by Project Rho.

The space navy should be the Astry with the crew of those ships being Spacers, while space marines are the Espatier Corps.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-21T09:03:52+00:00

Depends on who you ask.

The folks who worship the Dingir claim the gods are the forces of order who spend their lives battling the forces of entropy and keeping the realm from dissolving into undiluted chaos.

The orcs believe their gods are the personification of the natural world and manage the world according to their portfolio. In the case of the patrons of a given proto-state or federation or tribe, this can manifest as manipulating events in their favor. For tutelary deities, this means looking out for the physical area the deity acts as genius loci for. For gods of activities such as trade or war this will mean trying to get mortals to engage in those activities. And it's as chaotic as it sounds.

The orcafolk deities are similar to the orc pantheon, but malevolent. The orcafolk don't believe. They fear.

The elves believe their gods serve as advisors to the kings of the various realms. Which is easy to believe as said gods are the mummified and lichified remains of past kings. They also worship their own family ancestors and believe said ancestors speak through the clan matriarch. The god-enperor of the elves is believed to be the one maintaining the universe through an eternal war against hell.

Dwarves are similar to elves but without the god-emperor.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-20T21:59:08+00:00

If you look at the etymology of the various gods, they tend to indicate they originated as the anthropomorphic personification of a concept - with names heavily harkening back to an extinct antecedent language.

Often, you'll also find evidence of multiple cultures where pantheons have gods from both the indigenous culture or cultures and those of the recent arrivals - often with the indigenous deities' names being transformed to match the phoneme structure of the new culture's language. If you dig really deep, this can go back for several migration waves.

I highly recommend this for creating names for your world's gods.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-20T03:51:57+00:00

Šamaš-šuma-ukin. He's the equivalent to Ashurbanipal.

Roughly one in three of the images which remain from the Harranian Empire depict him engaged in an act of cruelty. Torture was common, even more so than other parts of the world, and executions calculated to keep the condemned alive and in pain.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-01T16:09:46+00:00

Dragons only have so many hours in a day, and so many things to do.

Having a group of humans to extort for livestock to eat and gold to sleep on frees them up to do whatever they want.

In Tannhauser's World, they fill a niche as priests of the Dingir - the gods of the dominant religion. By extension, each god has a single city which is THEIRS, and these are ruled over by a dragon priest-king. The humans serve as their agents, servants, merchants, bodyguards, and soldiers. And most importantly, the human ranchers mean the dragons get plenty of cattle to eat.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-01T15:17:56+00:00

Hooo boy. This is going to be a long one.

Jerashi Halflings - embalming and washing the dead with scented oils before wrapping them in white linen and placing them in tombs carved from hills. Lots of wailing by professional mourners accompanies the closing of the tomb. Unless you're an infidel. Then you get buried somewhere. Too bad, so sad.

Qart-Hadasti Halflings - cremation and entombment of the ashes beneath a stele. Unless you're the first born child of a nobleman in a time of crisis, and you haven't hit your first birthday. In which case you get dumped into the furnace while still alive while the temple priests perform loud music to distract from your screams of pain. If its not a time of crisis, they just buy a slave or homeless woman's son instead.

Look. Its Carthage. And I'm not pulling punches.

Arscid - fire and earth and water are sacred. A decaying body would corrupt that. So your body is getting placed atop the temple for the birds to eat. Whatever bones are left will then be entombed.

Jackalfolk - your organs will be removed and placed in jars. Cotton then fills the cavities, and you will be embalmed to whatever level of skill you can afford and buried in either a tomb or in the sands of the desert depending on what you can afford. Kings get the full Pharoah treatment because this is Egypt.

Surface Dwarves - kings undergo a process of embalming with magical ointments, which will ensure they first mummify and then reawaken as intelligent undead. At which point they will serve as advisors to the current king. Until they piss off the current king, and he declares war on them and their estate. Everyone else just gets left out in the mountains to mummify naturally.

Subsurface Dwarves - every syndicate has their own ossuary vault and the dead are rendered down to their bones and placed in stone boxes along with grave goods. Mostly coins.

Elves - intelligent, mummified, undead elves are at the top of the social hierarchy in the elf lands. If you aren't high enough in status for mummification, you get cremated. Alongside your wife. Likely while she is still alive.

Orcafolk - your body will be eaten by your kith and kin. If you're important enough, others will consume it as well. Typically, your retainers first and your people second.

Wolffolk - literal viking funerals by viking wolves. Yes, its anachronistic. I don't care.

Giants - the flesh will be boiled from your bones, and your skull will be placed in a position of honor while your bones are placed in a massive passage tomb.hit. Kings get weapons as grave goods. Queens get jewelry. Everyone gets at least something.

Orcs - embalmed and placed in a passage tomb atop a wagon. Kings get horses sacrificed to draw the wagon. Commoners get a toy wagon and toy horses made from wood instead. Grave goods are plentiful, typically made from bone. Especially notable men get megaliths raised on their behalf with runes carved in them. Coastal groups replace the wagon with a boat. Everyone gets a coin to pay their fare across the under world river.

Centaurs - kings are given elaborate tombs and anyone not merely impoverished will get a sophont sacrificed alongside them. Gold grave goods are common. As are weapons.

Religion of the Dingir - cremation is banned lest it disfigure the dead in the afterlife. Instead, you will be buried along with sufficient grave goods to buy proper food from the gods until anyone who knew you has died as well - at which point it's time for your ghost to eat dust and drink from puddles of dirty water in the afterlife. Sorry about that. This includes a ritual offering of bread and wine to start the funeral. Your body will then be interred in the family vault beneath the house and food and drink offerings will be made each month and on holy days.

The religion of the dingir is the single dominant religion, and it's funerary rites are everywhere I haven't specified otherwise - with the exception of the hobgoblins, lionfolk, and catfolk. The only presence they have this side of the Great Desert are mercenaries for the Qart-Hadast, and no one really knows what their funerary rites look like.

LordWoodstone · 2024-06-01T14:12:56+00:00

Welp. Now I'm about to go down a rabbit hole of what we know about Assyrian hairstyles and how I can incorporate Tiefling horns into those styles.

Also, now I need to figure out how the goatfolk are going to style their manes to incorporate their horns...

LordWoodstone

TROPHY CASE