With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Darko · Sep 1, 2020

Zig said:
I am starting to have trouble keeping track of the factions in play here

Abednago is from the Columbians.

Anarawd is either a Sheeda or one of their warlock agents.

Peter may be from one of the warlock places that exist.

Handlewithcare · Sep 1, 2020

MWMD. Magical Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Delightful.

Now I like these puritans even less.

Zig · Sep 1, 2020

Darko said:
Abednago is from the Columbians.

Anarawd is either a Sheeda or one of their warlock agents.

Peter may be from one of the warlock places that exist.

Ok but Columbians vs warlocks vs was there a third type? Some are more sheeda than others?

Darko · Sep 1, 2020

Handlewithcare said:
MWMD. Magical Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Delightful.

Now I like these puritans even less.

You might as well hate people in the modern world, seeing as we have a shit ton of WMD.

Also I think that the Sheeda, or just Melmoth, were the ones to introduce them to the weapons, and not the Columbians who made them.

So by that logic the Columbians may have less fault for possessing WMD than we do.

Zig said:
Ok but Columbians vs warlocks vs was there a third type? Some are more sheeda than others?

I think that's about right.

The third side is most likely actual Sheeda.

Chojin Patriarch · Sep 1, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
4th May
18:51 GMT -5

"This.. way."

Anarawd leads us desertified land that was once farmed by the Columbians. Scraggly grass sprouts through the dried plates of soil on the ground, and dead trees act as the only windbreak. A few miles away I can see the sea for the first time since coming to this planet, surf eating away and a shore with nothing to anchor it in place.

A bleak and blighted place. Sounds like the perfect place for the tomb of a bastard like Melmoth...

It looks like some combination of the passage of hundreds of years, hostile spellcraft and the elements have destroyed whatever the first generation built here. I'm a little surprised that there isn't some sort of monument here, but I suppose that would be somewhat out of character for the practical Columbians to build something they didn't have a material need for.

"How did it get like this? I mean, this whole continent has been pretty heavily forested."

I suspect some ravaging form of magic. Like in Dark Sun - something that rips the life out of the land itself...

Our guide, a local man named Peter, shrugs.

"Which part? This land is not a joyful place."

"The soil. If this happened in Melmoth's era, it should have recovered by now."

Yeah, whatever went down here left its mark.

Abednego considers my question. "I think it started with rampaging Sheeda-beasts." He pats his spider on the head. "They be wont to run riot when unbound."

"And that damages the soil?"

Like Kaiju in Pacific Rim... Toxic bodily fluids, so that killing them causes just as much damage as letting them run rampant...

"Much of their bodies are poisonous, and their habits are destructive. They are made for our labour, not to be a free part of Creation. The soil needs creatures to maintain it, and they were not proof against such things."

"Al.. right."

Sounds like something killed the creatures native to the planet, and replaced them with controllable counterparts of Sheeda manufacture.

"We lack goodly records of the fight with Melmoth, but battle magics which drain vitality come natural to such as us."

Anarawd twitches, earning a curious narrowing of the eyes from Abednego.

Trying to hold back your irritation at the rubes trying to understand their 'betters' working, knife-ears?

"Some part of this could be from then, but I suspect that the greater part of it is more recent." Peter glares at the back of Abednego's head. "How long ago was it, witch-man?"

"Eighty years, or thereabouts."

"What was?"

Don't tell me. There was a battle between Witch-hunters and warlock-breed. And the former (or maybe the latter) dropped some serious shit?

Peter glowers. "An unwise warlock came here, searching for the means to undo the changes her body had gone through. Witch-hunters followed and found our town."

"Your town? Did they scout the area?"

No doubt seeking to hunt down 'all heretics in the name of the true faith' or some rot like that..

"Nay. We used to live here. 'Tis the obvious thing to do, when you are no longer welcome in Columbia. The Sheeda-beasts live here in larger numbers than anywhere else, and there is the lure of finding relics. We gave the warlock refuge… But we did not spot the witch-hunters."

"And they did this? Or… No. They went back and got friends."

Abednego sighs. "Aye. That was the last time the might of Columbia was roused in wrath."

A massed mobilisation of Witch-hunters, or did they involve a citizen levy too? Not covering yourself in glory here, Columbian.

I look around the blasted landscape.

"Alright. An indiscriminate bombardment… Because the Columbians didn't know exactly what you had or-."

"Or they did not care."

Still some hard feelings, I see.

"This is a pretty enthusiastic bombardment. I've only seen long arms with enchanted bullets."

Abednego raises his right arm and points to a.. shallow pond a short distance away.

I doubt they have the resources to craft cannons... So, magic then.

"Witch-hunters mostly hunt warlocks and Sheeda-beasts, or apprehend more common criminals. But some have knowledge of true battle magics. They are not much called for…"

"The first our grandparents knew of it, the mere touch of the land burned all who stood upon it."

Sounds nasty. I'm guessing an attempt at an alpha strike to take down as many as possible.

"Didn't they have defences?"

"Aye, wards to detect the beasts, or tell us when a new warlock was coming in case they were one of the truly mad. We remember Klarion even now."

I doubt the Witch Boy endeared himself to the warlock-breed. Much too capricious to make friends, when he can have playthings instead...

"Good news on that score."

"We know that he left these lands."

"No, I mean that he's dead. I was part of the team that finished him."

That'll probably earn him a few beers in the taverns when news spreads. Not that he partakes.

"That is good news. But what one madman did, another can do as well."

"There's a way around that, but… Yes."

Yes, they'd have to be skilled enough, and loony enough, to make a play for a Lordship...

He frowns. "What way?"

"There's a limit on the number of Lords of Chaos who can be active in a particular area. If someone who isn't a criminal lunatic does it and then sticks around, you don't have to worry about someone who is doing it." I frown. "Um, sorry. Off-topic. So they weren't prepared for a Columbian attack?"

Which also raises the question: Is there a local Lord in play here, or was Witchworld simply part of Klarion's parcel? Which would make it John Constantine's now. Poor bastards.

"No. They were not. Our protections are somewhat stronger, now. And we too study the magic of war."

"I've offered to just move all your people to somewhere else on the planet."

And been largely rebuffed. No doubt some youngsters might be plucky enough to go for it...

"Would that stop the Columbians coming for us?"

"It would make it far harder for them, and give you time to entrench yourselves."

Unless they could travel long distances, whether in the way Abednego does or other methods, there'd be little chance of them going looking.

"And our crops? And our beasts?"

"Crops I can move. Beasts… You'd have to make arrangements for them, but yes."

And now I'm picturing him picking up whole fields at a time, and plonking them down in a new location.

"And what would it cost us?"

"You wouldn't be here to pick up anyone who goes warlock in the future. You wouldn't have access to-" I look around again. "-this place, but if you weren't getting much out of it anyway-."

And there's always someone looking for power, or desperate enough to break the laws, to produce more Warlocks.

"If they were not getting much out of it then there were not looking correctly."

Anarawd raises his hands and gestures, a thin tower that looks like it was grown from coral shimmering into view. Peter and Abednego both blink, staring at it.

Oh, that was a gross oversight of safety. But I doubt they expected him to be able to use magic.

"Dark Melmoth may have hidden his tools from human eyes, but he made little effort to hide them from ours. Or perhaps he did, and time or his death has unmade them."

Mr Yao lays his right hand on the door, humming quietly for a moment.

"And what lays within?"

Yes, keep him monologuing. He's bound to let something slip he shouldn't.

"My salvation." I frown as Anarawd looks around the group. "You will not defeat the Harrowing. Your future is in our blood. But the Queen will have my body given to the digestion vats if I return as I am now. My only way to buy myself back into her good graces is to discover Dark Melmoth's plans, and convey that information to her. My colleagues and I did not do more than a brief survey of the outer parts. We felt that the risk did not outweigh the reward. But if what you want is in here then our interests coincide."

And if you should just happen to find something capable of killing the humans without risk to yourself, well, that's just a bonus. Bloody knife-ear.

I narrow my eyes-. Looks like he's telling the truth, and the witch-people went over him for arcane defences so I suspect that it's genuine. I nod to Mr Yao.

"As you say. Take us inside, and show us what you have found so far."

Okay, OL, time to play the Rogue. Just remember the golden rule... Never split the party!

Time for a dungeon crawl, it seems. Time to bust out the eleven-foot-poles, warm up the lockpicks and ready your anti-magic bubbles. Hopefully it won't go all Tomb of Horrors on them.

...surf eating away and a shore with nothing to anchor it in place.

Feels a little off: Maybe 'eating away at a shore'?

Temp0101 · Sep 1, 2020

Im confused about the diffrences between all these groups, sheeda, warlock, oathbreakers and columbians. Can some one give me a summary its kinda confusing.

Vaermina · Sep 1, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"How did it get like this? I mean, this whole continent has been pretty heavily forested."

Which is odd in and of itself given the whole "white dwarf" problem.

Darko · Sep 1, 2020

Temp0101 said:
Im confused about the diffrences between all these groups, sheeda, warlock, oathbreakers and columbians. Can some one give me a summary its kinda confusing.

The Sheeda are humans from the future who have become something like the Dark Eldar, a psychotic race of sadists and raiders.

The Columbians are a group descended from one Sheeda that kidnapped several humans and impregnated many of the women.

Oathbreakers, or warlocks, are Columbians that break their oath to not use the Sheeda part of their magic and are physically transformed for it.

Warlock breed are the children and descendants of oathbreakers. They get the transformation when they are born even if they didn't break any oaths.

Vaermina said:
Which is odd in and of itself given the whole "white dwarf" problem.

Either Melmoth did something to make the place the way it is, or it's naturally like that and we wouldn't know because most of our knowledge is theoretical and we haven't been to planets under a white dwarf.

Mr Zoat · Sep 1, 2020

Chojin Patriarch said:
Feels a little off: Maybe 'eating away at a shore'?

Thank you, corrected.

cereal_lurker · Sep 1, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"We lack goodly records of the fight with Melmoth, but battle magics which drain vitality come natural to such as us."

Could the Sheeda actually be from the future of Witchworld? The vampire sun created using some powerful battle magic used between these factions? There might be some magical legacy in the tower that could 'trigger' the Melmoth blood in the Columbians and transform them regardless of any oathbreaking... Seem like an interesting idea for all the pieces being laid on the board.

⸺⸺⸺ · Sep 1, 2020

Darko · Sep 1, 2020

⸺⸺⸺ said:
Perhaps the Sheeda actually destroy their own variable-past ancestors in an effort to prevent their own future. Perhaps they hate their miserable existence and hope that if they destroy enough, the timeline will take a different route and for the better. How would this work with the old and new temporal mechanics?

It doesn't make sense without causality breakage. If they do not defeat the harrowing, they will not descend into Sheeda. Or they are outside of time?

The Sheeda do not appear to care about witch lives either.

There is a very simple answer for this.

Time travel makes no fucking sense.

Well that, or the Sheeda are from an alternate future timeline, or something like that.

Lord Ernest · Sep 1, 2020

This speculation reminds me of the episode before Mandate, with the time travelling stuff that I still don't know if I understand.

Supposedly the destruction of the world and the experimentation and weaponization of Metahumans by the Reach is necessary for a Legion of Superheroes future? And the Earth has to fall under a fascist dictatorship after the destruction to recuperate or some crap like that? And the fascist needed to use time travel to save caches of weapons and resources in the past, so that in his time he could pull from them to unit the planet or whatever under his rule?

That and Mandate were good episodes, but time travel stuff is always screwy.

Gilhelmi · Sep 1, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
They went back because it's their home.

Now I am wondering if Talon changed his name to Robin (or even Batman) and becomes part of the Justice Underground. Taking inspiration from the other Batmans and Robins who are usually heroic. No one will trust Talon, but they will trust this new guy who wears a hooded mask.

Just because the war is over, the fight for Justice will carry on. With his cybernetically enhanced mind, he will deduce what crime the Syndicate might be up to and stop it. He has Ultra-Batman potential in every aspect of the character.

zerofarad · Sep 2, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
the resulting panic spooked a local judge into ordering him to cease his research and bars him from bringing giant animals into Gotham

barring?

Mr Zoat said:
Earth 12
10th February 2005
13:14 GMT

Peter Wynne makes a great Lex Luthor. Employing convicted supervillains; working with the law and by means of the law rather than against it; inconveniencing the Justice League and surviving to inconvenience them another day.

zerofarad · Sep 2, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
Mistress Butler is talking to one of the villages' two surviving 'shapers'.

village's, or are they associated to more than one village?

Mr Zoat · Sep 2, 2020

4th May
19:22 GMT -5

I look at the hibernating maggot-like creatures with the very visible insects inside their translucent abdomens. Giant normal maggots, not Sheeda-maggots.

"Why..? Beetles?"

"Dark Melmoth wished to farm here. They would consume the stones in the soil, and excrete substances to provide nutrition to the plants."

Peter looks interested for a moment, before setting his face back into neutral and pointing his hands at the closest. A.. complex witch-sign appears between his hands.

"I notice that your people use a lot of biotechnology. Is there a special reason for that?"

Anarawd appears to try and decipher the reason for my enquiry. The conclusion he reaches appears to be 'person asking is a fool'.

"The magic we use to control them would hardly work on a mechanical device."

"Perhaps, but machines can be operated with magic; I've seen magic-operated mechanical arms. Is there a reason why you don't use those?"

"If you want to talk about the rulership of our society, I suggest that you capture one of the High Born. I have never seen machines like that, but there are many things which I have not seen."

Peter dismisses his witch-sign and shakes his head. "How do we awaken them?"

"They may be commanded by any who know the proper signs."

"Show me."

"Alas, I know only the signs for their cousins in the Land of Summer's End. Perhaps your people can discover it."

Which is fair. I wouldn't expect an office worker to know how to fly an aircraft.

"Anarawd, what exactly is a 'vampire sun'?"

"It is the malevolent orb about which our world rotates, feeding on the life and animation of all who dwell there."

"Do you know why your sun is like that?"

"It is as it is. It has been that way for as long as I have been alive. Perhaps even for as long as we have been Sheeda, and not human."

Peter glares at the maggot and tries a different sign, causing its beetle-sack to ripple slightly.

Mr. Tao looks thoughtful. "I am impressed that they have remained alive for so long. I cannot see any way for them to absorb energy. They are not eating. They are not exposed to the sun."

Anarawd makes a dismissive gesture. "This is no great span of time for one of our living tools. If the spells are properly laid in, they could survive the passage of eons."

"Does Melmoth have that skill?"

"I would imagine so. He is old in blood and bone, and led Harrowings before the Queen removed him from power. He would not have survived so long were he foolish or ignorant."

"'Is'? Do you share your colleagues' opinion that he's unlikely to be dead?"

"I have no special knowledge of Melmoth's status. These…" I assume that he's looking at Peter, though his sheer black eyes make it difficult to tell. "Descendents of his, may have been able to kill him. Those who lived here fell to us too swiftly for me to assess them. And anyone can be taken unawares."

"Abednego, did your people ever try to summon his shade?"

"We did not. That form of necromancy is proscribed, on pain of broken-oath."

"Do Sheeda bodies reanimate in the way grundymen do?"

Anarawd shakes his head. "When we die and our remains are taken by our kin, we are placed in the reclamation vats, that the materials used in our creation are not lost."

"Lost..?"

"To the hunger of the vampire sun."

"And that doesn't happen while you're alive?"

"Perhaps if we were to fly close to it. I have never heard of anyone try."

"But on the ground or in the air, you are unaffected."

"Yes. Though I do not see how our sun will allow you to prevent the Harrowing."

"I don't hate you or your society. My preferred solution is to find a way for you to exist without the Harrowing. To do that I have to learn how things work in your era."

"Would it not be better to solve that problem for your own era first? If nothing else it would give us more to take."

"I'm perfectly capable of creating a matter transmuter which runs on a Bleed torsion generator. No external input required; you can make whatever you want. I don't because I think it would destroy our civilisation. But if it's that or suffer through a planetary invasion I'm happy to toss you one or two."

Anarawd looks at me incredulously.

"What would stop the vampire sun from consuming it?"

"I-." I blink. "No wonder Sivana couldn't get decent data. He hardly ever used biotechnology. He had to outsource his own children's augmentation."

"Sivana? The small human with-. He devastated entire colony sectors."

"To be fair, if those colony sectors were generating the Huntsman your people sent after him, that may have been me." Hm. "Abednego, do your people have any record of the sort of creatures their forebears used while they worked for Melmoth?"

"Not that they put to pen." He looks thoughtful. "Though if there are unhallowed dead as date from that time still at rest in these lands, it would be no heresy to call them up and question them."

"Can grundymen talk?"

"Aye, well. There are spells to aid such things. But I must ask: to what end would I be raising it?"

"I don't know what's important. We don't know what Melmoth's ultimate goal was. Any firsthand account might be helpful, it might be informative or it might be useless. I have no way to know in advance."

"I will ponder the wisdom of it." He looks around. "I believe that we have seen all we may of this chamber. Anarawd, where else did you explore?"

"Further down. Though I warn you, if Dark Melmoth put any defences anywhere, they will be there."

"Did you discover some in your first foray?"

"Yes, but they were designed to keep out beasts. Sheeda-beasts and humans alike. They did not trouble us. But you are not Sheeda."

"'Tis a true statement. But I be somewhat more hardy than my forebears. Lead the way."

Handlewithcare · Sep 2, 2020

I still don't get the basic logic of the Sheeda. Ransacking your own ooast should make your present even worse.

How do they avoid getting wiped out by a paradox or two?

And the Vampire Sun that doesn't do anything sounds like fear i nducing propaganda.

Darko · Sep 2, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
tried a different

'tries'

Mr Zoat said:
is sheer black

'his sheer'

Mr Zoat said:
Sheeda bodies reanimated

'reanimate'

Mr Zoat said:
you prevent

'to prevent'

Mr Zoat said:
torsion generator

'generators' or 'a Bleed torsion'

Darko · Sep 2, 2020

Handlewithcare said:
I still don't get the basic logic of the Sheeda. Ransacking your own ooast should make your present even worse.

How do they avoid getting wiped out by a paradox or two?

And the Vampire Sun that doesn't do anything sounds like fear i nducing propaganda.

The Sheeda may be utterly insane and think raiding the past is the only way for them to survive, and their insanity is what's making them think these things. Crazy people don't tend to make decisions which make sense.

Time travel makes no sense, so that's how they don't get wiped out by a paradox, or they come from the future in a parallel universe and they're attacking the past of another universe.

Did you not read the parts where it was mentioned the sun drains their life from them?

When Sivana got back in the Family Day episode he told them that he felt the sun drain his life when he was exposed to it.

Mr Zoat · Sep 2, 2020

zerofarad said:
barring?

zerofarad said:
village's, or are they associated to more than one village?

Darko said:
'tries'
'his sheer'
'reanimate'
'to prevent'
'generators' or 'a Bleed torsion'

Thank you, corrected.

Chojin Patriarch · Sep 2, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
4th May
19:22 GMT -5

I look at the hibernating maggot-like creatures with the very visible insects inside their translucent abdomens. Giant normal maggots, not Sheeda-maggots.

...Ew. Sheeda biotechnology, folks. Still, I suppose it's one way of having artificial wombs?

"Why..? Beetles?"

"Dark Melmoth wished to farm here. They would consume the stones in the soil, and excrete substances to provide nutrition to the plants."

Like living ploughs. That also fertilise the fields as they go. Clever.

Peter looks interested for a moment, before setting his face back into neutral and pointing his hands at the closest. A.. complex witch-sign appears between his hands.

"I notice that your people use a lot of biotechnology. Is there a special reason for that?"

Anarawd appears to try and decipher the reason for my enquiry. The conclusion he reaches appears to be 'person asking is a fool'.

I suspect he has that reaction to a lot of their questions...

"The magic we use to control them would hardly work on a mechanical device."

"Perhaps, but machines can be operated with magic; I've seen magic-operated mechanical arms. Is there a reason why you don't use those?"

Perhaps they lost the knowledge of such technology. It has been a long, long time.

"If you want to talk about the rulership of our society, I suggest that you capture one of the High Born. I have never seen machines like that, but there are many things which I have not seen."

Peter dismisses his witch-sign and shakes his head. "How do we awaken them?"

Presumably the beetle things are a lot more efficient than anything the warlock-breed have right now.

"They may be commanded by any who know the proper signs."

"Show me."

"Alas, I know only the signs for their cousins in the Land of Summer's End. Perhaps your people can discover it."

Like trying to install a program from one operating system on a completely different one, eh?

Which is fair. I wouldn't expect an office worker to know how to fly an aircraft.

"Anarawd, what exactly is a 'vampire sun'?"

"It is the malevolent orb about which our world rotates, feeding on the life and animation of all who dwell there."

That... Does not sound entirely natural...

"Do you know why your sun is like that?"

"It is as it is. It has been that way for as long as I have been alive. Perhaps even for as long as we have been Sheeda, and not human."

So, their mutations may well have been adaptions to this Vampire Sun. Logical enough.

Peter glares at the maggot and tried a different sign, causing its beetle-sack to ripple slightly.

Mr. Tao looks thoughtful. "I am impressed that they have remained alive for so long. I cannot see any way for them to absorb energy. They are not eating. They are not exposed to the sun."

Some manner of biological quantum energy tap? Enormous internal reserves filled upon creation? Magic?

Anarawd makes a dismissive gesture. "This is no great span of time for one of our living tools. If the spells are properly laid in, they could survive the passage of eons."

"Does Melmoth have that skill?"

Magic, then. In this case, a wizard literally did it...

"I would imagine so. He is old in blood and bone, and led Harrowings before the Queen removed him from power. He would not have survived so long were he foolish or ignorant."

"'Is'? Do you share your colleagues' opinion that he's unlikely to be dead?"

If he's still alive, where is he then? Hiding, waiting for the right time to emerge? Hidden away to lick his wounds in peace?

"I have no special knowledge of Melmoth's status. These…" I assume that he's looking at Peter, though is sheer black eyes make it difficult to tell. "Descendents of his, may have been able to kill him. Those who lived here fell to us too swiftly for me to assess them. And anyone can be taken unawares."

True enough. So many unpopular rulers end up getting knifed in their sleep by concubines and the like. Or poison. Hell, even illness can bring down powerful leaders.

"Abednego, did your people ever try to summon his shade?"

"We did not. That form of necromancy is proscribed, on pain of broken-oath."

Damn. Presumably to minimise the risk of body-jacking or similar, I suppose.

"Do Sheeda bodies reanimated in the way grundymen do?"

Anarawd shakes his head. "When we die and our remains are taken by our kin, we are placed in the reclamation vats, that the materials used in our creation are not lost."

Now that's a familiar concept. Recycling the dead down to the last cell.

"Lost..?"

"To the hunger of the vampire sun."

Seriously, this Vampire Sun is sounding less and less like a natural star, and more like some form of entropic thing.

"And that doesn't happen while you're alive?"

"Perhaps if we were to fly close to it. I have never heard of anyone try."

"But on the ground or in the air, you are unaffected."

So the drain increases via proximity. I assume the Vampire Sun isn't as far away as Earth is from Sol. Hell, it may orbit close by...

"Yes. Though I do not see how our sun will allow you prevent the Harrowing."

"I don't hate you or your society. My preferred solution is to find a way for you to exist without the Harrowing. To do that I have to learn how things work in your era."

Ah, OL. Hating to see anything wasted. Honestly, I don't see much profit in reforming the Sheeda...

"Would it not be better to solve that problem for your own era first? If nothing else it would give us more to take."

"I'm perfectly capable of creating a matter transmuter which runs on Bleed torsion generator. No external input required; you can make whatever you want. I don't because I think it would destroy our civilisation. But if it's that or suffer through a planetary invasion I'm happy to toss you one or two."

Somehow, I doubt it would be so easy. There's got to be something...

Anarawd looks at me incredulously.

"What would stop the vampire sun from consuming it?"

...It eats technology? Machines break down in its' light? It really is some kind of living Entropic aura.

"I-." I blink. "No wonder Sivana couldn't get decent data. He hardly ever used biotechnology. He had to outsource his own children's augmentation."

"Sivana? The small human with-. He devastated entire colony sectors."

Good to see he's left an impression on them.

"To be fair, if those colony sectors were generating the Huntsman your people sent after him, that may have been me." Hm. "Abednego, do your people have any record of the sort of creatures their forebears used while they worked for Melmoth?"

"Not that they put to pen." He looks thoughtful. "Though if there are unhallowed dead as date from that time still at rest in these lands, it would be no heresy to call them up and question them."

Because they'd have become Grundymen, wouldn't they?

"Can grundymen talk?"

"Aye, well. There are spells to aid such things. But I must ask: to what end would I be raising it?"

I have to wonder how much of the grundyman's memories remain when they rise again. Surely parts of their brain would have decayed...

"I don't know what's important. We don't know what Melmoth's ultimate goal was. Any firsthand account might be helpful, it might be informative or it might be useless. I have no way to know in advance."

"I will ponder the wisdom of it." He looks around. "I believe that we have seen all we may of this chamber. Anarawd, where else did you explore?"

Boy, this gets twistier and twistier... I knew Witchworld was unpleasant, but some of this stuff...

"Further down. Though I warn you, if Dark Melmoth put any defences anywhere, they will be there."

"Did you discover some in your first foray?"

I doubt they lost anyone in their original foray, he would probably have lamented it...

"Yes, but they were designed to keep out beasts. Sheeda-beasts and humans alike. They did not trouble us. But you are not Sheeda."

"'Tis a true statement. But I be somewhat more hardy than my forebears. Lead the way."

And with a Lantern, purely physical defences are worthless...

The crawl continues, eh? But this Vampire Sun... It sounds like it destroys mechanical devices. Some sort of system to prevent Humanity (or its successors) from building up the tech base to leave the Solar System, perhaps? I wonder, are there any entities capable of such things in the greater DC universe? Like Solaris, of 'DC One Million' fame...

Valint · Sep 2, 2020

Handlewithcare said:
I still don't get the basic logic of the Sheeda. Ransacking your own ooast should make your present even worse.

Could be that there's an intervening calamity that makes everything before that point irrelevant to what comes next. If, for example, out-of-control nanotech causes a Gray Goo scenario, whether or not there's a Harrowing a few centuries before that point isn't really going to matter.

Alternatively, could be a closed time loop, where the ransacking is a necessary step to weaken the races that come before the Sheeda.

Sockmonkey · Sep 2, 2020

Maybe the sun is past it's natural lifespan and is set up to drain thaums from the planet to maintain itself?

Ancalador · Sep 2, 2020

Handlewithcare said:
I still don't get the basic logic of the Sheeda. Ransacking your own ooast should make your present even worse.

Technically it isn't "their" past. They went back eons and wiped out a civilization through the Harrowing, then when the remnants created another civilization from it's ashes, the Sheeda traveled to when it was at it's peak and did it again, and again, and again.

The reason you don't get the logic is because there is no logic. Eventually they will catch up to themselves and they will die out, never having achieved anything except destroy societies that probably would have outlived them if they hadn't destroyed them first. Which is kind of a head fuck when you think about it too hard.

Darko · Sep 2, 2020

Chojin Patriarch said:
...Ew. Sheeda biotechnology, folks. Still, I suppose it's one way of having artificial wombs?

Like living ploughs. That also fertilise the fields as they go. Clever.

I suspect he has that reaction a lot of their questions...

Perhaps they lost the knowledge of such technology. It has been a long, long time.

Presumably the beetle things are a lot more efficient than anything the warlock-breed have right now.

Like trying to install a program from one operating system on a completely different one, eh?

That... Does not sound entirely natural...

So, their mutations may well have been adaptions to this Vampire Sun. Logical enough.

Some manner of biological quantum energy tap? Enormous internal reserves filled upon creation? Magic?

Magic, then. In this case, a wizard literally did it...

If he's still alive, where is he then? Hiding, waiting for the right time to emerge? Hidden away to lick his wounds in peace?

True enough. So many unpopular rulers end up getting knifed in their sleep by concubines and the like. Or poison. Hell, even illness can bring down powerful leaders.

Damn. Presumably to minimise the risk of body-jacking or similar, I suppose.

Now that's a familiar concept. Recycling the dead down to the last cell.

Seriously, this Vampire Sun is sounding less and less like a natural star, and more like some form of entropic thing.

So the drain increases via proximity. I assume the Vampire Sun isn't as far away as Earth is from Sol. Hell, it may orbit close by...

Ah, OL. Hating to see anything wasted. Honestly, I don't see much profit in reforming the Sheeda...

Somehow, I doubt it would be so easy. There's got to be something...

...It eats technology? Machines break down in its' light? It really is some kind of living Entropic aura.

Good to see he's left an impression on them.

Because they'd have become Grundymen, wouldn't they?

I have to wonder how much of the grundyman's memories remain when they rise again. Surely parts of their brain would have decayed...

Boy, this gets twistier and twistier... I knew Witchworld was unpleasant, but some of this stuff...

I doubt they lost anyone in their original foray, he would probably have lamented it...

And with a Lantern, purely physical defences are worthless...

The crawl continues, eh? But this Vampire Sun... It sounds like it destroys mechanical devices. Some sort of system to prevent Humanity (or its successors) from building up the tech base to leave the Solar System, perhaps? I wonder, are there any entities capable of such things in the greater DC universe? Like Solaris, of 'DC One Million' fame...

There was this Sandman comic where the suns were shown to be sapient beings, including Sol's sun, who was a waiter for a party.

It's possible that it either went crazy, or was replaced, and started feeding on the life force of anything around him.

Queshire · Sep 2, 2020

Well we know that before Time Trapper!Paul did his thing any timeline that deviated too far from the "right" one only had a limited amount of juice before it collapsed. In that case either they've always bern in a timeline where Harrowings happened at those points and performing them simply closed the loop, or if it works by a "close enough" system then there could have been some other cataclysm due then and the Harrowing just upsurped the role.

Since Time Trapper!Paul's changes paradox doesn't mean as much. It'd just split off another timeline.

Honestly, my biggest problem is that each Harrowing happens after the first. You could get more resources if you work backwards. Basically have Harrowing #1 be modern day times, Harrowing #2 WWII, Harrowing #3 in steam punk times, Harrowing #4 ye olde medieval times and so on. That way you can loot the same place multiple times.

Stsword · Sep 2, 2020

Queshire said:
Honestly, my biggest problem is that each Harrowing happens after the first. You could get more resources if you work backwards. Basically have Harrowing #1 be modern day times, Harrowing #2 WWII, Harrowing #3 in steam punk times, Harrowing #4 ye olde medieval times and so on. That way you can loot the same place multiple times.

Zoat limited them a bit from the comics.

Nebulah Man had the brain of a 31st century telepath as a souvenir, which implies that the Sheeda have already harvested the future in the comics.

Vaermina · Sep 2, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"What would stop the vampire sun from consuming it?"

Welp, there goes any chance of a counter invasion by Paragon.

Darko · Sep 2, 2020

Vaermina said:
Welp, there goes any chance of a counter invasion by Paragon.

Unless they can figure out a way to not let the sun absorb their energy.

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