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00:02
(I have the same picture as my computer's startup screen.)
Thank you. Babbage and Lovelace is hilarious, and I identify with the character of Lovelace a lot, particularly when she's trying to solve some problem.
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Hey @BESW, @Holland
:)
@Cat What's new?
It's been my Gravatar default for a while.
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I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds fun ;)
00:03
@HollandWilson So, what brings you and your good taste to this tacky little section of rpg.se?
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Not much @BESW, just spent a great day with the bf and am now unwinding at home.
@Cat The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage, a comic about historical figures of MATH and SCIENCE in non-historical situations.
Er, Lovelace and Babbage. I guess my brain alphabetized the title behind my back...
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While also simultaneously hoping I'd pop in on a game or char creation session ;)
@BESW Sounds neat!
00:05
@Cat And well-cited.
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As all good works should be ;) @BESW
Hey @Trogdor
:)
@BESW I've been kind of obsessed with Fate of late. I've been into DFRPG for a bit and have several of the other derivative games, so the Fate Core rules have gotten me a bit excited. What brings me here is to poke my head in and see what people are talking about.
@HollandWilson Very cool.
I've known about Stack Overflow for a while, but I just discovered (yesterday) that there's an RPG stack.
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Agreed.
I am only starting out in FATE, hardly understand it, and yet find it fascinating for its cleverness
00:08
My IRL group (of which @trogdor is a member) is a recent FATE convert, and this chat was started up during the Kickstarter with very small ambitions of getting a couple people together to experiment with the system.
It's.... gotten a lot bigger than I originally anticipated.
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I'm hoping to get enough experience to eventually try DMing some FATE myself.
But I haven't even gotten a grasp of char creation (well, good char creation) yet. I guess it will come with time.
We've got a forum, which at the moment is mostly a repository of PC/NPC stats and the narratives of the sessions played thus far.
@Cat Sparkly aspects are a rough spot for all of us, I think.
It's a little more like writing a book with rules than running most other RPG systems.
A little. You're writing the book with two to six other people, for instance.
A couple of us with programming skills (not me!) are in the first stages of a web app for tracking/running Core games.
And we've got a script for rolling dF instead of d6 in this chat.
lol
hi cat
00:13
@HollandWilson I've always tried to run my games as collaborative improvisational narrative, but the D&D engines we'd been using before were... suboptimal... for that goal.
@HollandWilson If you'd like to join us, you're more than welcome. We're very low-pressure, just running a session when there's someone in the room who wants to GM and at least one person who wants to play.
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Ooo...go for it. I want to watch! lol
The goal is to make learning the new system a romp rather than a chore.
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(no pressure)
;)
I'm in the first stages of a character generator (that works for other things like vehicles and organizations) for MUSHes (specifically TinyMUX, but shouldn't be hard to port). They'll probably have a more fun time of it, since the code language I'm working with is a bit of an abomination that works in a command-line medium and can't do a lot of the things that decent languages take for granted.
Heh, ouch.
00:19
I'll be lurking, and if something comes up when I'm available, I might participate.
Would you like to make a character? That way you can jump in if/when you're interested.
I'm glancing over the setting stuff.
Such as it is.
Yeah... not very codified.
Basically, it's every fairy tale and folktale lumped together into the same Forest.
This means that setting and canon are fluid enough that players should feel like they can add their own ideas within the general ethos.
We've got wizards and shadowdancers, dragons and religious assassins, oracles and giants, self-actualized princesses and good-hearted knights.
Yeah, I see.
Sounds like a Changeling game I played briefly (it was set in Arcadia, and a bit more freeform than the standard rules).
It's directly inspired by the "Enchanted Forest Chronicles" YA novels, but that's more for my own inspiration as a GM. I explicitly don't want people to feel like they need to be familiar with the books, as that would ruin the reason why I chose the setting in the first place.
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00:38
Hey @Jonathan
:)
Hi @Cat. :D
[waves distractedly]
I'm fiddling around creating this, whilst studying a few technologies I've been meaning to study which are pivotal to creating it
Woo?
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Looks sleek
00:43
Yeah it's not very exciting at the moment, but I only started on it an hour or two ago. Actually being able to edit it is later, as is dragging it around, having a fate point pile you can click and drag from, stress tracks with clickable pips, adding/removing/tagging temporary aspects, etc.
Nice proof.
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If I knew anything about programming that sort of stuff I'd be keen to help. Alas.
Ross's proposed requirements are a lot less ambitious than what you and Problematic have in mind.
Oh right, I should take a look at those. [does this]
there is an anonymous hedgehog in that document and I thought the icon was for an anonymous upended pig
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:P
00:46
@Holland Thanks, by the way!
@Problematic How do I get the little "ms" tags off the upper left of Discourse? They're cramping my style.
Ross' proposed requirements are about what I'm doing for MUSH (though since each game is a separate instance of software, it wouldn't require being able to load/save data for the game as a whole).
I've added some policy notes. Anybody see something I should add or change?
01:02
It all looks good from where I'm sitting.
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Me too. I don't have an eye for detail at all times though
We're making it up as we go; most of us have no experience with chat-based RPG play.
4d6
@BESW What 'ms' tags?
It's been most of my gaming time for the past several years.
01:05
@JonathanHobbs Maybe it's an admin thing? I seem to have a downward-stacking log of milliseconds-to-complete-tasks on the upper left corner of my Discourse interface.
@BESW Probably an admin thing, yeah. Sounds more like a developer thing, even.
Given the level of dev Discourse is at, I wouldn't be surprised if admin and dev are a "same smell" scenario.
@Cat Given recent developments, I'd suggest that Mistrustful isn't a good fit for Sindaria anymore.
You're expecting her to be exceptionally trusting of both Henry and Stellata, no?
@BESW Policies look fine to me (and I realise I was guilty of not saying "my turn's over" during my first game; I was waiting a couple of times for someone/you to take the reins :p)
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Well, I don't know about recent developments, but I understand how mistrustful doesn't work well for the game.
Cautiously Trustful :)
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01:09
@Jonathan Better!
Maybe just "Cautious"
though I'd expect her careful score to be higher with that concept
Being cautious doesn't mean you're good at it.
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:)
Good point
I like music, but I can't tell if I'm singing on-key or not.
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gunshy? skittish?
Having Cautious as an aspect would mean you can give her bonuses at it, but that she's not inherently good.
Oooh, Skittish.
01:14
It's possible to do stuff with people all the time and not trust them. I was going to suggest, "People are Strange when You're a Stranger", but then remembered that the mistrust is an adjective in her High Concept.
@HollandWilson Yeah, the issue is that she's in the process of becoming very trusting of a couple of people she's only just met.
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But she's sort of being strongarmed into it
One of them has positioned himself as a mentor to help her control her powers, which is the goal of her Desperate Quest.
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Perhaps cautious is best
spooked?
It's the high concept thing that makes me wish for a better word
01:20
The other person, as a noble plant lady, represents everything that Sindaria wants to become which she fears her shadow powers keep her from achieving.
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leery
wily
(Sindaria sees nature and plant life as sun-seeking, honest, and admirable, where she regards her shadow powers as secretive and ignoble.)
Wary, maybe.
wary
adjective, war·i·er, war·i·est.
1. watchful; being on one's guard against danger.
2. arising from or characterized by caution: to give someone a wary look.
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I like wary, yes.
Wary street urchin works
@BESW uhmm... not sure. I could make you not an admin? :D
01:23
@Problematic I'll live.
@Cat I like Skittish because it implies caution and guard but can also be compelled for sudden overreaction and paranoia.
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I'd go with skittish.
A wary person would react very different from a skittish person, when confronted with a sudden dragon.
Sin acted skittishly.
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Fair enough
In the face of overwhelming odds, she freaks :)
(or at least seemingly overwhelming odds)
At least, for now, she freaks
"THE SCONES WERE BURNT!"
(Props to Brian for that line.)
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:D
01:29
(The incoming dragon, by the way, was the reason Trouble decided to book it.)
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Good for Trouble!
Cats can concede at very high speeds.
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;)
I'll change Sin's concept, shall I?
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Go ahead
01:30
High Concept: Skittish Urchin Shadowdancer
Done.
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I like the "lively and unpredictable" aspect of Skittish as well ;)
It's a good word for her.
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:)
Maybe Sin's Wants to Shine aspect could be phrased as a question.
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Hmm? I don't follow. You mean add a question mark to the statement?
01:34
No, a different phrasing.
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Oh, ok.
Very roughly, Can I get Glory in the Shadows?
The idea seems to be that she has a goal which she thinks is incompatible with a life in the Shadows.
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I'm not sure if glory is the right word
Right, it's very rough.
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Can I be Seen in the Shadows?
01:35
Ooh.
That's a good direction.
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It's sort of double-entendre
Skittish for her safety and craving attention
Actually, that's a good enough idea to move toward on its own... um.
Abandoning the question concept.
The Shadows Hide My Light
I Can't Be Seen In The Dark
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Hmmm...
The Shadows Smother Me / Smothered By Darkness
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I'm not sure if she'll reject the shadows in the end, so I don't want to paint myself in a corner there.
01:38
Remember, aspects can change.
Don't feel like they dictate a direction; they reflect her current state.
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Ok
I'm leaning towards "I can't be seen in the dark"
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171951
I want to shine my shadows away
(i went afk 5 minutes ago and that came to me xP)
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I'm just trying to figure out where she is right now
01:43
The Darkness is Waiting to Attack
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Still circling the concept of being seen ...
I'm seeing The Darkness is Waiting to Attack as invocable with Sin being the Darkness.
If she's hidden in the shadows, or using shadows to attack, then the aspect is in her favor.
If she's trying to avoid/rebuff the Shadows, it becomes a hinderance.
Seen... seen...
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I guess I'm still thinking of describing the character as opposed to using the aspect in game.
Yeah, the aspect should do both.
It's a weird paradigm to get into.
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In light seen, in darkness hidden
(though that's everybody I guess)
01:46
Hidden and Unseen
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Darkness' ally, light's love
(riffing on "hide and seek.")
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(I have the strange feeling I've been here before, lol)
What do you want the aspect to be good for in-game?
What do you envision it being invoked for and compelled for?
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I'm thinking more socially right now, though to be a true shadow dancer, I suppose I should think mechanically
I don't picture her as an assassin though
01:49
Social is mechanics in FATE.
Is this an ambitious aspect of her personality?
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A pickpocket, she'd rather sneak beneath the dragon's nose to swipe the scones (or gold) than try to kill it
Unnoticed in the Shadows
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That's good!
It covers the physical and social aspect
It's very easy to invoke for stealth.
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True
01:51
I'm still really interested in adding a "light" element to Refuge in the Green.
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It's also her fear about being lonely/rejected as a shadowdancer
Yeah, I was trying to add light to the "wants to shine" aspect
Hmm. First character concept thing that comes to mind is a greedy monster hunter. The Desperate Quest could stem from having done something for the sake of greed that had negative repercussions, even if the character doesn't know it yet.
Unnoticed in the Shadows almost compacts her You win the fights you avoid aspect into it.
Refuge in the Sunlit Green, Refuge in the Greenlight (the trees' leaves make the forest light green, which I've mentioned in most of my establishing paragraphs).
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Sounds good @Holland
01:53
@HollandWilson Cool.
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What's green is by definition in the light.
(at least some of the time)
I'd suggest that you start the game with him knowing the conflict, just to start things off with a bang. Fate likes to start in medias res, motive-wise.
Success! The Fractal I showed off earlier now looks exactly the same, except that it's now written in CoffeeScript instead of JavaScript. This feels good.
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@Jonathan Congrats!
@JonathanHobbs Grats!
01:57
Hahaha thankyou
@Holland Making amends, the hunter is now the hunted, etc?
@Cat So, Unnoticed in the Shadows instead of Wants to Shine?
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Yup!
Maybe making amends, maybe not. Maybe somebody else got hurt, but the character is oblivious to being the cause.
@JonathanHobbs "a complication for the sake of greed" sounds like a classic "Don't use the jeweled dipper, use the tin one" type of mistake in his immediate past.
I'm going to flesh out the character before the quest gets detailed.
01:59
@BESW I don't understand the reference. :(
Indiana Jones.
@JonathanHobbs Start here.
Or that.
@HollandWilson Same smell, yeah.
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So, I could drop "You win the fights you avoid" if I found a good light aspect
something to conflict with her Plaything of Shadows trouble
02:02
@BESW Okay, now I getcha.
@Cat Spotlights come to mind, as do hearthfires.
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I think spotlights are sort of covered by the "Unnoticed in the shadows" aspect
Hearthfires is interesting
> The Enchanted Forest rewards the clever, the polite, and those who keep their promises. It is very rough on the impatient, the insincere, and the arrogant.
I'll have to remember that. Stellata already lines up with that well, it's probably innate knowledge for her (and... that actually tells me exactly why she can't not fulfil her calling)
@JonathanHobbs Classic "folktale morality" stuff.
With regard to complications from greed, I'm actually thinking more like Bilbo/Smaug. The thief sneaks in and steals the dragon's treasure, then the dragon goes and rains Hell on the village. Oops.
Something like that.
02:06
Ahah.
...well, we've met the King of Dragon's grandkid, and someone wants to get an audience with the King herself.
Sounds like it! It reminds me of Dragonborn (at least, I think it's them): they value people honoring their promises above all else. You can be incredibly evil, but if you keep all your promises, uphold your oaths and vows, and always keep your word, you will be held in the highest esteem. You can also be incredibly good, but if you consistently fail to keep your word, you are seen as scum.
Without a certain human archer, Bilbo might have wound up the villain of The Hobbit for unleashing a dragon on a village, using the Ring to escape, and becoming like Gollum with a lot of money and a pet dragon. ;)
Diamonds and Toads or Toads and Diamonds is a French fairy tale by Charles Perrault, and titled by him "Les Fées" or "The Fairies." Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book. In his source, as in Mother Hulda, the kind girl was the stepdaughter, not the other daughter. The change was apparently to decrease the similarity to Cinderella. It is Aarne-Thompson tale 480, the kind and the unkind girls. Others of this type include Shita-kiri Suzume, Mother Hulda, The Three Heads in the Well, Father Frost, The Three Little Men in the Wood, The Enchanted Wreath, The Old Witch, and The Two Ca...
@HollandWilson One small thing to work through: the entire campaign stays within the Forest and its immediate environs (the Mountains of Morning, the Smokey Swamp, etc).
So any complications from the outside have to be able to "catch up" to the character, or they don't have much narrative weight.
Are The Shadows the central antagonist or one of the antagonists?
Yeah, that's something to think about.
02:12
@JonathanHobbs That depends on how the story moves. At the moment, I'm envisioning them as a major threat, which Zemenar is trying to manipulate to his advantage as more proactive antagonist.
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I'm back at "A moth to a flame"
But since I'm not the only GM, that's not necessarily the way things will play out.
Basically I envision Zemenar as the visible, active antagonist, with the Shadows as a stronger and more implacable but less visible menace.
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...a creature of the night inexplicably drawn to the light and danger
@BESW a... phantom menace?
@Problematic No. [citation needed]
02:15
@Problematic ಠ_ಠ
... that was good
hahaha
Sun, light, truth, burn, flame, purification, good, harsh, exposing, stark, warm, brilliant...
4d6
02:22
bwah bwahh
Hi, folks
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Hey @Bradd
Hey.
I keep returning to Diana's Poem, which is very silly of me.
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Something about dawn perhaps
....and now I'm on Dawn's Lament.
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02:29
darkest just before dawn...
from dawn to dusk
> ‘May God curse the night / That’s grown uneasy near the dawn
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Still figuring out how to call upon an aspect with dawn in it
> the glare o dawn
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slowly dawns upon her
Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door;
Or has it feathers like a bird,
Or billows like a shore?
...patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
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02:33
like Diana
Can I just allude to a mythical character like Diana
@Cat You say "inexplicably drawn," but that's not right, is it? You know why she's drawn to the light.
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True
I just mean the light could mean death, but she goes for it anyway
@Cat You'd need to narrow it down a bit; just "Diana" covers a lot of ground.
I mean... Diana's the goddess of the moon. How are you relating this to a light-focused aspect?
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I'm just wondering if moonlight is a better choice
Sorry, I realize I'm all over the board here.
Wandering at morn, / Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts
Contrast of sun to shadow might be stronger than moonlight.
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02:38
The idea of waxing and waning, reflecting sun light
Everything I think of sort of covers ground we've already covered in "hidden in shadows"
Mmm.
That's why I think "ambition" might be a good direction.
Unnoticed in the Shadows is about what she doesn't want.
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(most of the time)
Let's return to hearthfire.
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Ambitious as the dawn
You've said that Sin wants trust, attention, a sense of family?
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02:41
Yup
Hearth-seeking
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
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All I wants is a room somewhere far away from the cold night air...
homefires
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:)
Hearthfire scatters shadows...
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02:47
Hmmm...
Warm welcomes...
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Hearthlight is perhaps more apt
I like the last verse too
While I am a glow worm, I will shine and stay
I'm having a hard time seeing hearths coming up a lot in the Forest...
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Me too
Aside from, yanno, witches' houses.
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02:52
:P
Which might not be the right context.
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I think I need to pick a different angle to use light in
There are glowy things. Stellata glows.
(or can, when she wants to, or involuntarily when she e.g. sneezes)
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Light dispels fear
Maybe she's skittish in the dark, brave in the light
photosynthetic bravery ;)
Light creates a space in which all is known, and dispels fear of the unknown
Hahahaha. Turns light into bravery?
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02:56
Why not
Excellent
These are imperishable gains,
Sure as the sun, medicinal as light,
...that clear-ethered height / Whither the brave deed climbs for light
Oh, speaking of which... @BESW, Stellata has photosynthesis. She needs light and water like a plant, but needs to eat, too, because she's using a lot more energy than a plant. This means, for a start, shadows are a very real threat to her kind. That and if she's stuck in a cave for long enough without a healthy source of light, she'll be as well off as any other plant, which is to say, she won't be well off.
Interesting.
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It could counter my skittishness and explain the draw toward Stellata, aside from refuge in the green
02:59
We really should stick you two in the Caves of Fire and Night.
Let's wash you down into them next session.
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Oh great! :P
Girded by Light?
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A Halo?
(I don't think girded is the right word)
to gird oneself, or gird up one's loins, means to prepare and strengthen.
Agreed, not quite right.
Armored, Ennobled, Emboldened...
03:02
Girded by light sounds more like a paladin
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emboldened?
To be given courage/confidence.
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Maybe encouraged would be better?
Maybe not strong enough though
> To encourage is to give active help or to raise confidence to the point where one dares to do what is difficult; embolden also entails giving confidence or boldness, but it implies overcoming reluctance or shyness.
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OK, emboldened then
03:05
Replacing You Win the Fights You Avoid with Emboldened by Light.
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Emboldened by light
Yup
High Concept: Skittish Urchin Shadowdancer
Trouble: Plaything of Shadows
Aspect: Emboldened by Light
Aspect: Refuge in the green
Aspect: Unnoticed in the Shadows
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Compelled to stupidity at times, but braver in the light
And can counter Skittish.
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Yup
We'll see how it plays out
Thanks!
03:07
Glad we finally got this worked out. Hopefully.
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Time will tell ...
Also I feel like geeking out because it may be sorta relevant: moths are not actually drawn to flames. They use the moon for navigation, keeping it in a constant direction from their frame of reference. If the moon is in the east, and the moth wants to fly north, it makes sure the moon is always to its right. If the moth wants to fly northeast, it makes sure the moon is always to its forward-right... which causes a problem when it gets confused and mistakes a candle for the moon.
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I'm happy with the char though
Poor moths
@JonathanHobbs neeeeerd.
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(thanks for the insight @Jonathan)
03:09
Last year, Sydney had a giant moth swarm fly through it. There's a yearly migration of moths between the north and south. Last year, the entire moth population got confused and mistook the bright lights of Sydney for the moon.
@Cat You're welcome. @BESW Yes :D
We have a similar issue with our land crabs: they come out of the forest to the beach to lay eggs every full moon, and the bright lights can give them serious confusion.
@BESW Oh dear. XD
Every full moon you'll see people with flashlights and buckets on the side of the road, collecting them to cook as a fiesta delicacy.
Same thing happens with hipsters around here.
[blink]
You have werehipsters?
03:15
Exactly.
Really good with horseradish and fennel.
Moths are cool.
@BESW so that is what that is
@trogdor [blink] ....you've lived here how long, again?
@Cat Also, reason I mentioned that was since it occurs to me Sindaria is a bit like a moth. :) Not drawn dangerously by a flame, but she tries to navigate herself by the light.
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@Jonathan Good point.
03:22
... in a metaphorical sense. She tries to do what is right - i.e. what is fitting of the light she idolises - and she wants and needs light in her life.
@BESW I don't think anyone actually had crab at the parties I have been to
Pång'lao is a high-class fiesta food.
besides which
(Guampedia seems to not be comfortable with using ' for the glotta. Huh.)
I can't be expected to know every little critter people eat as a delicacy here
and I know quite a few already
some of which are technically off-limmits
03:25
Heh. Collecting land crabs is a pretty major part of the pattern of Southern life.
seeing as how they are endangered
I am sure I had the opportunity to learn
but I did not
not that particular thing anyway
I may have had a bit more immersion in Chamorro life patterns, especially Southern ones. Living in Malojloj and going to Notre Dame, and whatnot.
heck, there was a lot I probably could have learned if I just asked a particular neighbor
at least before he passed away
If we had land crabs here, I'd be out there all the time.
I love crab.
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Well, I guess it's bedtime for me.
03:32
ttfn
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Thanks for the help folks
Ttyl
03:59
docs.google.com/document/d/… I would appreciate comments and assistance expanding ideas.

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