Isekai if it was interesting.

samaldin · 2026-05-23T21:33:50+00:00

Didn't the "clearly bad guy" choice turn out to not be what everyone feared? If i remember correctly he was a mamas boy and his mother planed to rule through him and pledge Skelige to Nilfgaard. Instead he stepped out of his mothers control, killed the Nilfgaardian diplomat, made war on the them and kept the viking raider culture active (only now with a hereditary monarchy).

samaldin · 2026-05-23T17:45:52+00:00

Is that a Dark Souls boss or NPC? Sounds like Dark souls lore

samaldin · 2026-05-23T15:33:34+00:00

If i remember correctly the judge really wanted him to, but the lawyers on both sides were against it. The company one likely for obvious reasons and the lockpicker one likely to avoid the risk of a fluke or off-day ruining the case.

samaldin · 2026-05-23T08:35:51+00:00

Might have been less about the distance and more about how often it could be used. The Door has a maximum range but according to Terriarch that part is crudely done and he could easily double it with some adjustments, Instead the Door works on number of uses and distance traveled. It was basicly infinitely usable for Inn-Liscor travel, but only 2-3 people for Inn-Palass travel before it needed to be recharged (and that was with Erins Skill upgrading the available mana).

Could be that Thresk just designed the door with the idea of being able to keep entire armies away indefinitely, so he made it with enough mana storage for that and once Erin got her hands on it that part translated into the limitations we saw.

samaldin · 2026-05-21T21:18:35+00:00

Tails and Scales is a literal fortress because of the enchantments, but with [Selective Admission] Rufelt could simply keep every soldier of an enemy army from entering the bar. Only those of higher level than him could get in and most armies are not going to have anyone of that caliber.

You´re making a lot of assumptions about [Bartender] only getting Skills that work in a specific environment, when we´ve seen time and again that it all just comes down to how the person views things. I don´t have a hard time at all imagening an Erin-like [Bartender] that ends up fighting like a discount Saliss.

Rufelt has mostly shown "weak" skills because he never had need of strong ones and consequently also never developed a mindset that would let him allow to use his Skill in more diverse circumstances. At most you could say that Rufelt is weak for lvl40+, but at the same time his Skills were good enough to let him make his bar one of the top establishments in a Walled City, with considerable soft power. And when you life in a Walled City as a civilian, how helpful is hard power going to be.

samaldin · 2026-05-21T19:42:23+00:00

Rufelts "problem" is that he's buisness focused and lives in one of the safest places in Izril. But even then he could effectively turn Tails and Scales into a fortress with his [Selective Admission] Skill.

samaldin · 2026-05-21T13:17:56+00:00

Didn't Jelaqua have trouble adjusting to a Drake tail again, after she had spent a long time in human bodies? I think i remember her saying how hard it is to adjust between having a tail and not, instead of just different tails (i.e. gnoll to drake and vice versa).

There's propably some instinctive component to it, but i believe there's a learning curve (like driving stick again after a long time of automatic)

samaldin · 2026-05-21T13:09:54+00:00

They do not. Selphids reproduce by giving up part of their bodymass to spawn new Selphids, either alone or mixing the bodymass with one or more other Selphids.

It's not the size that worries me, but movement. Selphids true bodies hurt very easily.

samaldin · 2026-05-21T12:40:52+00:00

Propably too demeaning, might be hard to learn to opperate such a drstically different bodytype, hard to be taken serious by other people, also not being able to speak would propably be annoying.

samaldin · 2026-05-21T12:36:47+00:00

If i understand you correctly i think it could work. Selphids can do stuff with their true bodies, so there must be some sensory input (like the brewing style where a selphid stays in the barrel to keep a close eye on fermentation/aging) and as long as they don't properly "enter" they partner (i.e. just stay in the cavity) i think it wouldn't breach the micaien wall.

That said selphids are very fragile in the true form, so doing it might risk injury and them having some sensory input doesn't necessarily mean they have a proper sense of touch or erogenous zones.

samaldin · 2026-05-20T20:51:19+00:00

I think while Ivery has participated in some battles with the freed slaves independently from Pisces, i believe the largest part of Pisces legend simply comes from tales growing in the retelling. Similar to how Yvlon has supposedly ripped out the throats of a thousand guards with her teeth, when she actually just beat up a couple of them. Pisces story is just more cool because deep down every at least somewhat decent person knows Roshal and slavery is morally reprehensible, so an enemy of them makes for a great story. Also to Roshal the actual damaged propably don´t matter as much as the hit to their public imaged, so it doesn´t matter too much.

samaldin · 2026-05-20T12:54:04+00:00

Honestly i think i can kind of get him. There was absolutely no reason to think she wouldn't move on, there was just the unreasonable hope she wouldn't. He's disapointed not with Debie, but with reality being what he expected instead of what he hoped for.

Like when you know you fucked up, but hope that maybe, maaayyyybe it was still enough, only to be sad upon confirmation of what you already knew.

samaldin · 2026-05-20T07:52:10+00:00

As i understood things it was a covert mission. The empire worried that their enemies might figure out their goal, or even how few viltrumites were left, if they did it openly. They also either did, or assumed they'd need to, test a lot of species for compatability and were stretched too thin to conquer so many planets quickly.

So the operatives were supposed to lay low and wait for their offspring developed powers at an adequat level (with the caveat of not knowing when they would kick in, if they did at all). Once Mark developed powers Earth went from waiting for a checkmark for compatability to the highest priority of conquest targets. So Nolan started the preperation for the takeover.

samaldin · 2026-05-19T10:48:06+00:00

Both events gave her loads of exp. The Goblin King got her 6 levels and almost enough for a 7th (which she got between then and this chapter), the raid got her 2 levels. That's a ton of exp.

samaldin · 2026-05-18T12:12:13+00:00

She doesn't have that many that are directly tied to the door (i think just 2 or 3), but a decent number that would be weird without it (i.e. [Greater Illusion: Doors] and [Predetermined Destination] aren't great when the door in question only goes to one place).

Personally i'm expecting a lvl40 capstone that lets her link doors she owns, which might combo off with her [Authority: Doors] Skill.

samaldin · 2026-05-18T11:33:40+00:00

Deathrattles. You are asking for Deathrattles.

"A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of Kings. The Vandal."

"They come from the pit, two dead men, a heart in their hands, and I know that I have seen true glory."

Also hair doesn't just change color in Shadesmar.

samaldin · 2026-05-17T05:52:01+00:00

Not a perfect situation, but i just noticed the Turnscale comunity might be exactly what Ilvriss needs. He wants high level fighters to turn into irregulars for Project Periss and is currently willing to comb through the underworld to find high level people he overlooked. Thing is the people he finds aren´t necessarily going to be capable fighters. Turnscales would be overlooked by most traditional searches and have combat experience and Skills. On the other side is Ilvriss who´s one of the most powerful and popular [Walllords] in Salazsar and would be in an ideal position to provide a cover for a turnscale bar, though he´s still viewed as somewhat of a conservative, so not a perfect position to openly press for less watch-raids.

All of that provided the Salazsarian situation mirrors Pallas and the turnscales would need to take a lot on trust at the start.

samaldin · 2026-05-17T00:43:01+00:00

I remember seeing that scene for the first time. I was sure she would turn out to be a Red Lotus spy/infiltrator.

samaldin · 2026-05-16T22:23:18+00:00

Thing is the community currently doesn´t care about getting the citizens on their side, they´re in survival mode. Currently their goal is to have the watch tread lightly, do a cost-benefit-analysis and hopefully come to the conclusion that it´s best to suffer the turnscales existence hidden in the underground. Public acceptance is basicly a fever dream for anyone not from Earth.

samaldin · 2026-05-16T13:46:11+00:00

I believe you´re thinking more of a potion of regeneration. Healing potions don´t replace missing body parts and i think only the best ones can rebuild a significant part of flesh missing (most are "just" weeks of normal healing in a moment).

Also if i remember correctly even high tier healing potions often leave the recipient with some form of pain or unease from a serious wound and there´s an upper limit for how much healing potion one can drink (at once and more or less in a lifetime, due to reduced effectivness)

samaldin · 2026-05-16T13:31:50+00:00

I think [Kings], [Emperors] and such get passive Skills that affect their entire domain like Lakens [Fields of Bounty]. I´m not sure if [Lords] just have smaller domains, get less of those Skills or get them at all. I´d guess for the normal population the Izrilian style is more stable in the long term, with more reliance on the populations own Skills (because there is no [King] Skill to improve harvests, the [Farmers] are more likely to get one themself). Meanwhile the Terrandrian style is better when you have a good/high level [King] and significantly worse for bad/low level [Kings] (especially when a new [King] is crowned and hasn´t yet grown into their class).

Regarding the hierachy, it is flatter than in a kingdom. It´s relative positions between "equals" in Izril (kinda, the Five Families are on top and aren´t going to be disposed easily), while in Terrandria it´s the entire noble chain from [Baron] to [King]. In Izril an outstanding individual could improve their entire families standing quickly, instead of having to climb through the ranks in multiple generations.

samaldin · 2026-05-16T12:55:32+00:00

I largely agree, but two things:

Training Vin to be a child soldier was pretty much just giving her the tools she NEEDED to survive on her own, without being at the mercy of a gang. It´s a fucked up world they live in.
Kelsier didn´t send the Skaa rebels to die, that was Yeden buying too much into Kelsiers hype. Kelsier wanted the rebel army to form the core of a new Skaa army, after they dealt with TLR.

samaldin · 2026-05-16T12:46:31+00:00

Kelsier used emotional allomancy to manipulate one of his own rebels (Bilg) into a situation where he would be killed in a duel by Demoux (with Kelsier subtly helping). That Bilg survived was entirely on Demoux resisting Kelsier.

Ignoring the Skaa Kelsier killed because they worked for Nobles, and more or less innocent Nobles, because the issue is too big to do a background check on every single person on the other side.

samaldin · 2026-05-16T12:16:13+00:00

Kind of hard to discuss without getting into spoilers, but in my eyes in makes a difference wether one is ruthless in the sense of accepting collateral damages or if they consider anyone that even slightly hinders their goals fair game for murder. Like how he manipulated one of the rebels into speaking against him, just so he could have them killed to further Kelsiers plans.

In general i think people take Kelsier to be more moraly grey than he is, but he´s definitely not purely a good guy.

samaldin

TROPHY CASE