Curiosity: Incarnate!

Actually, I have a take on the well thing that's completely compatible with both the "well as source" and the "just our origins but deeper" thing.

The Well is a Destiny Engine.

How your powers and skills work, what you do, is determined by your origin, yes. You can be that gadgeteer genius or the deep mage. What happens when you encounter the Well, especially in our case of the longer, slower path, is it grants you a far stronger potential destiny. You can create better gadgets, tap deeper power levels, become a paragon of your species/mutant ability. The way in which the extra power the well's thrown into what I shall choose to call the Thread of Your Life expresses itself can be dependent on how your life already works (deeper insights into tech/magic/etc) or if you want it to, it can dump all of that into raw power (Statesman, etc.) Whichever way it works, the upshot is the same, your ability is improved. You have a greater potential for power and ability. The expression of that power is down to you. This is how I can reconcile the Well existing as a mystical power, and yet still have someone like Josie Ironside be improved by incarnatehood, as that extra push of Potential Destiny manifests itself in a stronger, deeper, more skillfull ability to crate machines, as well as cybernetic upgrades, et al. Damia deepens her connecttion to the place/idea she draws her powers from, etc.

As a matter of fact, this base concept was part of the background for Savage Angel from way back. An "unto every generation..." chosen one schtick, where the god that engineered it hadn't actually specified how the hero would get their power, leaving the universe to fill in the gaps (being a god means you're powerful. doesn't necessarily mean you're all that smart.) So the chosen one got her powers due to being a nano-aug which was to save her life after a building fell on her. Tech powers, mystical excuse.

The Well is Possibility. The Well is the Potential for Power. The Well is an ability to add "Roll twice, take your preferred result" to your characters skill roles (oh sorry, wrong game.)

What I do not believe the well is is a big fat "You're all magic now."


All that's left to say is Unmei kaihen!

Random question!

Is anyone planning on going the 'with great power comes great insanity' for any of their characters.

I mean it would start off fairly subtle with just the Alpha slot.

"yes, yes I was always better than normal humans but now I'm better than even other heroes...but still I must remain steadfast in my duties."

To the full blown Omega level Incarnate.

"You came here expecting to fight a madman, instead you find yourself fighting A GOD!"

Complete with hovering and maniacal laughter.

I mean I'm not going to do it but I'm sure someone must be, especially now we have side switching in place.

I think the thing I resent is the 'fact' being pushed that, without the Well, none of the stuff certain characters do would be possible. Like how Alpha would just be a normal robot, or some such junk like that. That is explicitly dictating my character and his actions, and I will continue to call bullshite on that, because its railroading, pure and simple. And I have no truck with that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Okay, I got halfway through a long post at work, got on my lunch break, and found that two more pages of text had appeared.

And I just realised on reading one of the posts here that everyone is actually arguing the same thing, and it's hilarious.

Allow me to explain: Incarnate, even in the context of canon material, is not a noun. It is an adjective.

Here's the thing:

Opening Pandora's Box is what allowed superpowers to become prevalent. If it had remained closed, you'd pretty much have our world. The few super-powered individuals would keep quiet and not get up to much and that would be that.

The five so-called Origins are labels. They are a part of humanity's attempts to codify and classify the source of powers. They're pretty broad, so we, as RPers, find it relatively easy to squeeze our homebrewed character concepts into one or another of them.

Now comes the hilarious part. There is actually no such thing as "An Incarnate". Anywhere. Not in canon, not in Mender Ramiel's arc, nowhere.

Statesman is not described as "An Incarnate". Sorry, folks, but he's not.

Recluse is not described as "An Incarnate", either.

Statesman is "Zeus Incarnate" (usually written as "Incarnate of Zeus" in a demonstration of truly abominable English - it should be "Incarnation of Zeus"), and it really does mean what it says on the tin. He is a real-world embodiment of the power of Zeus.

On its own "An Incarnate" is completely meaningless. It is impossible to create a character in CoH that is just "An Incarnate". They will always have an origin, too.
The effect is "unlocked Alpha (or whatever) slot and slotted a boost (or whatever) into it". The cause for that, in the context of the CoH universe, is that the character is an Incarnate of their origin - a hyper-powered example of that origin, if you will.

This does not have to have anything at all to do with The Well of The Furies.

Prior to issue 19, the Well was assumed to just be the "energy field" that allows super-empowerment to exist, and that opening Pandora's box allowed that "energy field" to encompass the world. With Issue 19 we have instead learned that The Well is some sort of semi-intelligent entity that is able to empower characters to levels that are currently only seen in the likes of Statesman and Lord Recluse.

I could be wrong, but I don't strictly recall if canon says that The Well is the only way to become an Incarnate of your origin, but for the purposes of this discussion, EVERYONE is saying that it shouldn't be.

If "Incarnatedom" is divorced from The Well, then it doesn't matter. Unlocking the Incarnate Slot theoretically means that your character is an "Incarnate of their Origin", even if they never use that label for themselves. Even if the player behind it says "Nope, she does not exemplify the levels of power that her Origin can achieve"... yes, they do. There's nothing mystical about it. Techbot Alpha can have those levels of power because he's just an awesome robot (he's Technology Incarnate). Shadowe can have those powers because he works out how to access more of the energy that surrounds the black hole in his head (he's Science Incarnate).

Saying, IC, that your character is or is not an Incarnate is ultimately meaningless, because at the end of the day simple access to the levels of power that the Incarnate slots have actually defines if the character is an incarnate. But it's a purely OOC label, in this context. IC, I expect most people to only say that they are "An Incarnate" if they have treated Ramiel's arc as an IC event.

I am not forcing anyone to accept my viewpoint. In fact, I couldn't care less if anyone thinks what I've written is a load of tosh. The only thing that actually "matters" is what the characters believe.

And if anyone says that they think I'm somehow trying to "force" their character into being an Incarnate powered by some weird mystical being, then you really didn't read what I wrote.

tl;dr: Incarnate is a label to describe extreme cases of a particular Origin. Nothing more.

I think, and sorry for getting this offtrack a bit, that some breathers need to be taken.

I like the discussion, but some things are getting a bit too...I dunno. But rather have things calm rather then this thread locked.

But back on topic:

...I love this thread because there are some good arguments. It may be me, but when I saw that the Well could possess you, I said no to following the storyline. Well, not possess us...yet.

Shadowe is indeed wise and that explanations puts me at ease a hell of a lot better than anyone elses.

Thanks Shadowe...Thandowe!

As I recall from the 'Web of Arachnos' novel, Marcus and Stefan drank from the Well of the Furies and gained their respective powers.

The rest of us were affected when Pandora's Box was reopened. That is when the physics of Primal Earth (and its permutations) was changed and potentiality was increased many-fold. It is what Statesman described in the lore as 'unlocking (one's) Inner Will'

This Event applies across all origins. Magic has returned. The bounds of Science have been pushed back. Mutations have become more prevalent and elevated some sentients to the next stage of evolution. 'Buck Rogers' technologies are now commonplace. Natural potential may be pushed beyond its previous norm.

Not all of the world's potential recessed into Pandora's Box, although the Dark Ages certainly marked its nadir.

Let us consider that -- between ancient and modern times -- the power of potential not returned to Pandora's Box was the cause of marked leaps in Human thinking and understanding, thus explaining how both Leonardo and Nemesis could realize their potential before the renewed power was magnified to the Nth degree.

I do not know what the Devs are going to do to shoehorn the Well of the Furies into the Incarnate lore, nor do I know what 'The Coming Storm' will mean for the game.

What I *do* know is that the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'Incarnate' thusly: