Dante

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If this is WAI then it's seriously SNAFU'd WAI and doesn't bode well for the future. Really hope it's not WAI.

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Worse, I'd argue that it's entirely FUBARed.

And I'd been really looking forward to this event for weeks. If the infrequency of these events is an error, I wish they'd hurry up and tell us so. And then fix it.

I can't say I've seen anything of the mouldering wretches.

And I've been sharpening my axe all day as well.

I have Provoke on my Stone Tanker and find it works ok. It gives me something to hit when Taunt is recharging. Now I'm just trying to decide whether I want to experiment with taking Intimidate and Invoke Panic as well.

ALL OF THEM.

Ok, to be honest, probably my Kat/Dark Scrapper followed rapidly by the comedy WP/Shovel Zombie Tank I've rolled for the event. Wave to Braaaaiiinnns if you see him about.

"I think we can skip to the heart of the matter," said Erebus, snapping the book shut. "The walls between out worlds are thin at this time of year as any amateur mystic will tell you but I am aware of a peculiar weakness that has occurred. There seems to be an added instability, for what reason I do not know but the walls seem stretched thin and if pushed, may break."

He glanced at the back of his hand absently, noting how the skin had begun to flake away. "I have already witnessed one such event and I suspect that if we were to test these walls further, more such breakthroughs could occur. However, I am sure you are aware of what beings lie beyond these walls and what havoc they could wreak if allowed into our world. This book provides a means to power but in weilding such an artefact, do we attempt to rebuild the walls... or tear them down?"

Lord Erebus had been eating dinner. Or at least, he had been creating the illusion that he was eating dinner. Sitting with five of the Liberty Isle’s most prominent public figures, he’d done his best to be entertaining, as was the job of someone in such high regard as Father Blake. His mealtime though had been disturbed when the woman in the white dress stumbled in through the door to the dining room, looking somewhat annoyed. Not wanting their conversation to be heard by the visiting dignitaries, he followed her into the drawing room.

“My dear, you look quite perturbed,” he said in his whispering voice.

“I am,” replied the woman. “I was out picking roses when this thing came at me. Said that it needed to speak with you. The real you that is.”

“Thing?” asked Erebus patiently.

“Yes thing!” replied the woman, annoyed. “All black and ugly. It was most horrid. I would have melted its face off if it wasn’t already dead and stinky.” She stuck her bottom lip out like an unhappy child.

“Dead you say?” pondered Erebus. That narrowed it down somewhat. He made a decision. “My dear, why don’t you go and play with some of the prisoners in the Citadel, I know you enjoy that.” Her face lit up suddenly and she let out a small squeal of delight. “But first, tell Felix to make my apologies to the guests and make sure they are escorted out when they have finished dinner. Matters of state are at hand. Can I trust you with that?”

The girl lowered her head and smiled coyly, swinging her shoulders, her hands clasped in front of her. “Of course.”

Erebus smiled like a proud parent. And then he vanished.



Ten minutes later, Lord Erebus was walking through the chambers of Romanov’s inner sanctum, his scarlet robes of state rustling about him. It almost amused him that for a man stricken by a god, he played a priest rather well. A rotting servant showed him into the room where his host awaited.

“Your messengers smell more every day,” he stated, attempting a joke. “There are matters to discuss?”

An hour later, Dante Carver stood in the north end of Kings Row, a metre away from the co-ordinates given to him for Britanic’s return to the world. He had hastily created a circle in plain white sand in the middle of which he stood, much to the bemusement of passers by. He held a photocopy of Portal Corp’s report into the event which discovered no significant impact on dimensional barriers in the area. But Dante knew only too well how insidious the Netherworld was, how it shifted constantly as if it was less of a dimension itself and more the space in between worlds. He respected it but feared it also knowing how its darkness could utterly consume a man from the inside out.

Tucking the report back into his coat pocket, he hefted the heavy sceptre that lay in his other hand. The ancient magus had little time for artefacts, considering them nothing more than trinkets wielded by modern magic users. But time was of the essence and he had no time to focus his concentration manually. The Staff of Rigel would be sufficient for his purposes, the majority of his travelling time being consumed by getting it from MAGI’s vault. Focussing his magic into the bronze artefact, he began to extend his consciousness, allow it to reach out and expose the unseen within his radius.

The sand around him flared blue, a bright shield that kept his activities within the circle. As he poured his magic into the staff, it radiated the same blue light, illuminating the air. However there was one small spot about five feet from the ground that the light could not touch. Looking closer, he saw a dark crack suspended in mid air from which coiling tendrils of smoke emanated. Dante knew that energy like he knew his own face in the mirror. It was a breach, tiny for now but still present. It did not bode well.

Placing the sceptre on the ground, its job done, he mentally recalled some of his most powerful protection spells, wrapping their magic around his mind as was his custom when venturing into unknown realms. Closing his eyes, he placed his hands forward, allowing his conscious mind to radiate from him, slip through the crack and into the world beyond…






Moments later, his consciousness took shape in the realm beyond, bounded by his strongest spells. It took him a moment for him to get his bearings, the Netherworld a disorientating place for even the most experienced of travellers. The realm was utter black, thin vapours of shadow barely enough to give shape to the buildings surrounding him. It looked like a copy of Kings Row but drawn by a nightmare child in black crayon. The realm, normally shapeless was beginning to take the appearance of the city beyond, a sure sign that the boundary was thin here. He took to the sky, floating over the buildings, searching for the gap. It was then that he saw it.

A block away, he caught a glimpse of the tear in between the worlds, its radiant light shining like a beacon. The tiny pinprick of light was everything the dark world was not, warmth, light, hope, all radiating into this realm of despair. And it was not alone.

Surrounding the tear were hundreds, no thousands of ghostly shapes, crowding around the gap in reality like vultures over a fresh corpse. Their twisted shapes fought to get close to the breach, struggling to feed on the abundant energy that poured through. As they battled, he saw that a number of them were scrabbling at the tear, attempting to enlarge it. They were desperate, but the sheer quantum of activity around the gap would only serve to thin the walls further. The breach was there, and it would not take them long before it became large enough for them to break through. Dante looked at the thousands of tortured twisted souls that were gathered there, their nightmare forms craving the living world beyond. It was only a matter of time.




Breaking contact with his mental anchors in the other realm, he allowed his consciousness to slide back through the breach undetected, returning him to where his physical form stood in Kings Row. In front of him the breach glimmered darkly, fading from view as he retracted his spell.

Very few things frightened Dante. In the two thousand years that he had walked the earth, little had the power to unnerve him. But the sight of the Netherworld spirits screaming to get through the gap between worlds, hungry to feed on the bright light of this realm sent shivers up his spine. Something had to be done and done fast. The spirits were indiscriminate, they would target civilian or warrior, hero or villain, friend or foe.

The darkness was coming for them. And it was coming soon.

I'll give you my experience of Stone from my Stone/SS Tanker then.

Firstly, Granite is not the be all and end all of Stone Armour. It's very good, yes, but it debuffs both your damage and your recharge which is why taking En as a secondary for high damage won't make much difference.

You will need to get to 32 in order to get Granite so at the very least, take Stone Armour. Crystal is a nice bonus but I've done ok without it and Brimstone is just rubbish despite the fact it looks nice. If you want to do more than just spam Taunt at everything, I suggest getting Mud Pots early. It needs a lot of endurance reduction but it's good once slotted.

Any IO sets that I've put into my Stone/SS have been for Run Speed, Movement Speed and Recharge. You'll need them. Rooted makes you slow. Granite makes you even slower. And if you get hit by slow debuffs... well, you get the picture.

Put three slots in Swift to relieve some of the burden and take Teleport so that you can just 'port into the next spawn without needing to take your mezz protection off.

No idea about En though, never played it to a high enough level.

Hope that helps.

Nice.

I find Willpower quite a flexible set to RP with.

A vampiric character of mine uses Rise to the Challenge as leeching regeneration from the foes around him.

So she's a hyper sensitive woman, impervious to pain but can be brought to her knees by chocolate?

Sounds like an ex of mine...

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If the entire community decided that this was cannon...

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You expect us to agree on something? All of us?

If the piece was written without player B's consent then that's clearly god-modding and should be explained and denied OOC.

If player B goes along with it and does the denial IC, then I would expect the two collaborators to have agreed the events, so yes, it would become player canon for both of them.

I think.

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Sorry, slightly OT here, but... Kheldians aren't superstrong? I assumed Peacebringers and Warshades were rather strong and tough, at least towards the upper limits of the human scale, if not more, due to being Kheldians. I've always played Luna like that... Is this not so?

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That was my impression too, though I suppose one might read the various PB melee attacks as being more about the energy discharge than strength. Still, if they can shapechange into Dwarf form, I think they can manage a little strength boost in human form.

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I suppose that given that Kheldians are described as 'masters of energy' there's a number of ways that they could exploit that talent.

Game Canon can only do so much. To be able to effectively RP within the game, we need a lot of detail and it’s up to us to fill in those gaps. Of course, we may all fill them differently and therein lies the problem. And of course, there are situations where game lore comes along and trumps player canon. Dante used to be one of the last members of the Midnight Squad but with i12 where anyone with a gaudy costume and a baseball bat can be part of the order, I had to retcon that out. In a recent plot, I had to speculate on how the Will of the Earth virus works. If we get an issue that focuses on the Devoured Earth, I can see myself having to do the same again. Hey ho. I think it would be more or less impossible to cover the millions of details required in some sort of game lore bible so of course, there will be some fudge required regardless of what we’re provided with.

As for overpowered characters, I really don’t see the need. I find them, and no offence intended to anyone who plays one, dull. I like my RP to work within the game world and having someone who is almost god-like in their abilities spoils that as nothing is really a threat to them. Rikti invasion? Sent them home in the wink of an eye. Nemesis plot? Bah, saw right through it. Lord Recluse? Smacked him around with one arm tied behind my back. There would be no danger to me, no thrill of triumphing over incredible odds. It would all just be in a day’s work. Where’s the danger? The risk? The only threats to them would have to RP threats rather than in-game and that would make it difficult to actually play the game with them. It’s why I find Superman consistently boring and why most of my characters are reasonably normal folk who have acquired power some way.

The one exception is Dante but even then, just because he’s old, doesn’t mean he’s invulnerable. He can do some fairly powerful conjuration if given the time and concentration but the powers he has in-game tend to be the things he can do immediately and without preparation. I also find that having a character too powerful can be immersion breaking. If I’m in a team where we’re all kissing the floor regularly, why doesn’t the uber-character just hit their ‘I Win’ button?

Of course, there’ll always be things that can’t be described in game terms. I’ve struggled forever to find an acceptable AT for my villain, mainly because they won’t let us create Necro/Mind Control MMs (Boo Hiss!!! ). But at least having something that can be threatened by in-game events would be challenging. I guess it all depends on individual styles of RP. For those who do a lot of forum and IIRC RP, in-game restrictions apply less and there will be appropriately levelled threats to them within their stories.

But of course, we’re all here together, in one game and the styles will rub against each other occasionally, causing friction. And when that happens, the best we can do it respect each other and work out a compromise.

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I just want Rain of Arrows with a chance to Scourge! Is that so wrong?

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I want this too. But paired with Kinetics so I can spam it on spawns every 10 seconds or so.

Dante glanced at the young lady, his expression darkening.

“If that is the case then I am even more concerned,” he stated glancing from Sebille to Britanic. “For the scientists at Portal Corp, the crossing of dimensions is literal, the transfer of a body from one realm to another. But the power of the Netherworld is available to many people, including yourself, without the need for dimensional shifts. However, if the walls between our world and the Nether are thinning then it may be the case that more than just energy will cross between them. Having spent more than nine months in the realm, I do not need to describe to you the terrors that could be inflicted upon our world if its inhabitants broke through as you have.

He stood suddenly, gathering his things together, his lined face furrowed in concentration.

“I must examine the site of your return in Kings Row immediately,” he continued. “Your forced entry into our world from the nether may indicate that we are on the brink of a cross dimensional catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. If I can confirm that there is such dimensional instability then we will need to escalate this further. For all of our sakes, I hope that your return does not herald such events.”

Somewhere on the Liberty Isles, a tall, thin man walked through possibly the most exquisite rose gardens in Europe. Even in the October sun, the roses bloomed, filling the gardens with a sweet, almost heady smell. All this was lost on the man though, who in his long crimson robes, barely even registered the scent. Visitors to the monastery’s garden may well have believed that his lack of appreciation was due to being exposed to the smell daily however they weren’t to know that he neither registered the heat of the sun or the feel of his fine robes as he walked. In fact, most physical sensations were lost on Lord Erebus. Such is the curse of those of forcibly extended lifespans.

Despite his supposed immortality, Erebus looked in good health, a slender man somewhere in his mid to late thirties. But then, this was to be expected as he had consumed the soul of one of his acolytes only yesterday morning. It would be another day before his body began to fall into the rotting, decripid state that it did without his regular diet of human souls.

The monastery was located on the slopes of the volcano that dominated the skyline of the Liberty Isles, built only recently under Erebus’ instruction. Six months since his arrival on the Isles, his cult of the volcano spirits was thriving. Once a place of moderate agnosticism, Erebus had been able to placate the spirits of the volcano by initiating a new movement that brought the population back into ancestor worship and animism. Assuming the guise of enigmatic preacher Victor Blake, he had built up a successful hold on the hearts and minds of the populace while maintaining a steady flow of sacrifices to the flames of the volcano. Only a few knew of the spilt blood that ensured that the fire spirits did not rain fire upon the isles. Even less knew of where people ‘disappeared’ to when they were called to a private conference in Father Blake’s offices. One such person, one of Erebus’ more trusted acolytes, now approached.

“Father Blake?” asked the man, holding out a document in front of him. “The Enclave believed that you should see this.”

Erebus took the document and briefly scanned its contents. The Enclave was his inner circle, a group of twelve mystics whose job was to do watch the world, magical or otherwise.

“This is an interesting turn of events,” muttered Erebus. He turned briefly to look at the end of the garden, where a slender woman dressed in white seemed to be trying to catch one of the butterflies that frequented the garden. “I was aware of one such event recently, but this is most surprising. Tell the Enclave to keep an eye on these matters and update me regularly. I will be curious to see what this portends.”

“Yes Father,” replied the man, before turning and walking back towards the monastery building. Erebus’ gaze went back to the woman. Having stopped jumping around, one of the butterflies hand landed on her pale hand, much to her excitement. Peering at it briefly, she then grabbed it and tore its wings off, giggling slightly as she did so.

“Yes,” repeated Erebus, “very curious indeed.”

Could I request that on the new boards we get a new icon to denote Doom Threads so I can avoid them? Maybe something that looks like GhostRaptor with his head in his hands.

People are so negative these days...

Oh and to answer your question: perhaps it's simply because they know something that you don't.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it. Roleplaying in missions is difficult but not impossible. Typically conversations occur between spawns of foes or before and after mission entrances and exits. Sometimes we’ll add our own descriptions to things so that we can use them for plot. For example, a standard Council mission can easily be described as being a building full of private security guards. (Ok, sometimes very freaky security guards who turn into freaking werewolves but that’s a risk you have to accept sometimes. )

Also, RP in missions can also allow characters to act more as the character would rather than what makes good gameplay. So for example, if your character is a Plant/Empath Controller, you can RP them as being a control freak who doesn’t really care about others and therefore only ever bothers to heal themselves. Or if your Scrapper is a bit of a coward, they may not suffer from the usual Scrapperlock that often befalls us when the red mist comes down.

It’s fun, often difficult, but achievable with the correct amount of planning. I suspect that once the mission architect goes live, you’ll see more missions designed by and for roleplayers that typically have more glowies, more dialogue and longer gaps in between spawns.

Probably a bit short notice for some but I have a free evening and fancy trying my hand at this one with my Dom. Details below, if you fancy coming along sign up with character name and AT. If it'a all a bit short notice, I'll try again at another time.

Contact - Virgil Tarikoss
Zone - Cap Au Diable
Minimum Size - 4 players
Coordinates - (-2800, 238, -528)
Level Range - 15-20
Badge - Binder of Beasts
Enemy Groups

- Bat'Zul
- Circle of Thorns
- Legacy Chain
- Longbow

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Have fun, everyone - and I will be hearing all about the flamewars and doom threads from FG - so for god's sake, make them interesting!

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And just how will we cope without your 'calming influence' eh?

Happy trails you, may life not litter your path with too many dog poos hidden in wet grass.

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Well at least I won't have to face the security guard that walked in on me while I was changing again. So I suppose that's a positive.

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Secretly you enjoyed it, you old tart!

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I merely regret not striking a pose with my hands on hips and saying, "Can I help you with something officer?"

Now I may have to go and look up all the old pictures from Flickr that were uploaded.

Well at least I won't have to face the security guard that walked in on me while I was changing again. So I suppose that's a positive.

But I really need something to look forward to next year now. It makes that event look even better in retrospect. And the floors were comfy too!

“I would be curious to know the exact co-ordinates in Kings Row where you reappeared,” stated Dante. “The site could bear some further investigation. Although the bomb clearly was targeted at yourself, it would be supposition to believe that it was the same force that attempted to trap you in the Netherworld. However it remains a possibility.”

He pressed on in his cold manner. “What we need to establish now is what it was within that dimension that prevented your return and why. There are many other more susceptible people traversing the realms of the nether, why it would pick you remains a mystery. I suspect a deliberate manipulation of the realm to that end although I have nothing to prove this so far. From what you describe it seems as if you became disorientated and unable to maintain your trajectory. That would require some tampering I fear. I am also concerned over the effects that such a lengthy encarceration will have had on both yourself and the dimension itself. Although I’m sure that G.I.F.T. will have performed a full medical on you, have you experienced any other side effects since you returned? Have you attempted to connect with the Netherworld since your return?”

The words "Aw Crud" come to mind. Again.

I agree. It's high time we were told something about community plans for next year.

Dante nodded, his hands steepled in front of him.

“The realm has always been troublesome, especially to casual travellers,” he said. “but although its denizens are no doubt malevolent, it would be unusual indeed for them to target you individually and not the numerous amateurs who access the dimension daily. Had you done anything recently to anger them? If your exile was indeed deliberate and accidental, we should consider what or even who conspired to keep you there. Did you notice anything that withheld you? A barrier perhaps? Or maybe it was that all the portals were closed to you or even that you somehow lost the ability to penetrate the walls between dimensions?”