Say, what's magical in Praetoria?
By
Android_5Point9,
Posted on: 2011-04-28 05:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Hey, I've got it! Where are all the magic users in Praetoria? They are what Praetorian Azuria keeps in her vault! The question is, are they in cryogenic suspension, or hung on meathooks?
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Magic enemy groups in Primal Earth...
Warriors
Outcasts
Mu Sorcerers
Tsoo
Circle of Thorns
Banished Pantheon
Carnival of Shadows
Midnighters Club
Legacy Chain
Wailers
Halloween Event Enemies (Zombies, Witches, Vampires, etc.)
The Cabal
Redcaps
Tuatha De Danaan
Fir Bolg
Croatoa Ghosts
Rularuu
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Quote:
Again; Outcasts are mutants.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
Magic enemy groups in Primal Earth...
Warriors Outcasts |
Quote:
| The Outcasts are a Paragon City street gang composed of Mutants possesing elemental powers |
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Quote:
Yet they trade in magical artefacts from the Warriors and are reputed to be hoarding them and using them. I maintain that the Outcasts are magical at least in part.|
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Outcasts are mutants with elemental themed powers.
|
---
Also, on the note of "Cole doesn't want magic." Serious question here: Why not? Magic can do all sorts of useful things, from creating barriers to controlling minds to gaining even more power. I can understand the Rikti not having any practical understanding of magic from their world, as they don't have magic on it. But wouldn't it make sense for Tyrant to employ a secret club of wizards and witches to make use of one more source of power, as well?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
I thought that about Praetorian Fusionette. Instead, we just got another idiot, only this one has a doodle.
|
Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
Well actually since most of Praetoria is a Mirrored image of Primal earth with each Primal Hero being a Praetorian Villain (?) at least to us on Earth Prime anyway. It stands to reason that the praetorian Azuria would be highly efficient and no one would ever be able to steal anything from her vault
|
Quote:
Has a what?
|
Originally Posted by Jophiel
only this one has a doodle.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
It also grants unconventional, uncontrolled sources of knowledge, and access to beings that aren't from Cole's controlled little world. That's probably one of the reason for the Seer Program for that matter; besides spying on thoughts, it also locks down a class of people who could see beyond the official truth with their powers.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Also, on the note of "Cole doesn't want magic." Serious question here: Why not? Magic can do all sorts of useful things, from creating barriers to controlling minds to gaining even more power. I can understand the Rikti not having any practical understanding of magic from their world, as they don't have magic on it. But wouldn't it make sense for Tyrant to employ a secret club of wizards and witches to make use of one more source of power, as well?
|
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Quote:
Slang for male bits, my non-native English speaking friend |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Has a what?
|
Quote:
Ah, OK, I'll write that down. I understood "doodle" to stand for a random swirly line drawn with a pen with no clear idea of what it represents. Thanks for teaching me a new word |
Originally Posted by Jophiel
Slang for male bits, my non-native English speaking friend
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Of course, we haven't seen everything yet. Remember that pretty much everything on the surface is Cole's facade, and everything underground is absconded and repurposed from that facade. What lies beyond the sonic barrier and within places only Cole's insiders know about remains to be seen.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Praetoria, on the other hand, feels like a Minority Report style alternate future that's focused on its theme to the exclusion of esoteric elements.
|
Also, there's poor Transmuter.
Quote:
| I keep wondering: What happened to the Praetorian Circle of Thorns? ... How could he have rooted out incorporeal ghosts out of their miles of claustrophobic catacombs? What about the Midnight Squad? |
Suppose, for instance, that Tielekku never begame the Goddess of Magic, and instead human beings were left to tinker with what magical power they could concieve of on their own...
Quote:
| What happened to the Tsoo's ancestral magic? |
Quote:
| Where did all the demon-worshipping street gangs go? What happened to factions like the Legacy Chain? What about the descendants of the Mu? |
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
Quote:
Don't forget any group associated with the Red Coral of Sharkhead:|
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
Magic enemy groups in Primal Earth...
Warriors Outcasts Mu Sorcerers Tsoo Circle of Thorns Banished Pantheon Carnival of Shadows Midnighters Club Legacy Chain Wailers Halloween Event Enemies (Zombies, Witches, Vampires, etc.) The Cabal Redcaps Tuatha De Danaan Fir Bolg Croatoa Ghosts Rularuu |
Coralax
Slag Heaps
Scrapyarders
Yes, the last is suspicion on my part, but given that they're supposed to be mining the stuff with little to no safety equipment or protocols, my thoughts tent to go to miner's black lung of the coal days. If this stuff can bring the Slags to life, you have to believe that having your lungs coated with the dust does *something*.
EDIT: Not to mention, anything with ghosts in this game has at least some ties to mystic power, and who's the Spiritual Leader of the Scrapyarders?
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
You know, I had just been kind of assuming that the poor magic on Praetoria was because of the Hamidon- he/it has some kind of ill-defined relation to magic, and somewhere at the back of my brain I had figured that the Devouring Earth had devoured the magic as well, thus severely reducing what was available to humans.
*shrug*
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
I agree with the consensus here, but I find it ties into our current Incarnate storyline. With the Well choosing Cole as its champion against the Coming Storm (or at least that is as I understood the situation to be), then Cole would undoubtedly be trying to soak up all the magic he can manage. And there have been groups that have been affected by that.
Early on in my explorations of Praetoria, one of the most telling was the discovery of Rikti artifacts in the Auction House in Imperial City. It's clear from that there'd been contact with the Rikti, and from that it's not hard to extrapolate there'd been contact with other signature groups, including magical ones. It's also one of the reasons I think that Neuron and Anti-Matter have almost exclusive access to pursue technological means in Praetoria and why they're so physically seperated as well, because the alternative has either been cut off or made exclusive to Cole.
Now the Devs have said the reasons the Praetorian AV's are so powerful is because Cole's imparted some of his power to them, and I can make sense of that. So to me it makes sense that the technological aspect of the invasion has been ramped up to distract the up-and-coming Incarnates and allow Cole to focus his magical power.
I think it makes total sense, combining that with the yet as untold story of the subdual of Praetorian Hamidon (which we've seen in previews hasn't gone as well as hoped) and whatever's coming next....
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
Quote:
The world still had the USA, France and all the other countries we have that almost weren't at quite a few points in history, so that's kind of just conjecture. That's what I mean when I say we need to be given an explanation, not left to guess.|
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
Suppose, for instance, that Tielekku never begame the Goddess of Magic, and instead human beings were left to tinker with what magical power they could concieve of on their own...
|
Quote:
| Remnants were absorbed into the Syndicate after the Hamidon Wars by Tub Ci. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by TeChameleon
You know, I had just been kind of assuming that the poor magic on Praetoria was because of the Hamidon- he/it has some kind of ill-defined relation to magic, and somewhere at the back of my brain I had figured that the Devouring Earth had devoured the magic as well, thus severely reducing what was available to humans.
|
There was exactly one instance of magic being attributed to the Hamidon - in a promotional press release that talked about how the Hamidon was the god of something or other or had great magic, I don't remember the exact wording. This was said by someone with a very loose memory of what the Hamidon actually was, and I do remember the exact wording of the writer on staff when he read that news report: "The Hamidon is a what what of what?" This said press release was soon fixed to be factually accurate.
The Hamidon and the Devouring Earth are pure science from everything we know both on Primal Earth and on Praetorian Earth.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
I agree with the consensus here, but I find it ties into our current Incarnate storyline. With the Well choosing Cole as its champion against the Coming Storm (or at least that is as I understood the situation to be), then Cole would undoubtedly be trying to soak up all the magic he can manage. And there have been groups that have been affected by that.
|
Yes, you can just write an in-story explanation that "Cole sucked up all magic" (even if such isn't actually in the game) but that would just be very unimaginative writing, and needless, to boot. But even if magic were somehow removed from Praetorian Earth, you'd think there would be mentions of it left in the world still. Just as an example, the world of Dragon Age II is a world where people are doing their best to contain magic and remove it from the world at large, and yet there's constant mention of it, constant run-ins with rogue mages running from the law, constant reminders of what the world was before, people bitter about it, people fearful of it and so forth.
Look at how the hoarding of psychic power is handled. Every time a psychic is born, that child is taken from its parents and stuck in a vat. This leaves parents who are always sad, often bitter and sometimes dead or imprisoned. It leaves psychics who are damage and often miss large chunks of their lives. People comment on the Seers, how immoral it is, how necessary it is, how creepy it is. You have Loyalists fighting to protect the Seer network and Resistance fighting to bring it down, or to break Seers off it and use them for their own ends.
Yes, there is no psychic power on the loose in the city as it is on Primal Earth, but psychic power exists nonetheless. The very fact that it is contained is its own plot point, and many plots revolve around it. Whether magic is hidden or loose in the world of Praetorian Earth, it still needs its own story. You can't just drop a bridge on magic off-panel just because it makes the narrative simpler to write.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
My theory is that tehcnology and science reign supreme in Preat. The reason being that the well of furies is the only source of magic, and while I was looking more on the technical in the beginning, all the technology in the world did not aid Cole.
It was lost sorcery which allowed him to gain access to his extreme powers.
Praet is so tech advanced compaired to Primal Earth..."Primal" being the key word here. Magical forces have always been seen as primal or archaic in the classical sense of it's approach. "Primal" Earth is the dark age of what would or could become Praetoria.
Rikti Magus realized that magic was powerfull and although they were science driven felt the need to tap into this power, that before hand they would never have even thought to approach.
And since science is the defeater of magic and magic the nemisis of logic, it would only make sense in my mind that the contrast between the two themes would eventually collide.
And just as in ancient days magical practices were replaced with scientific less ritual concepts that bettered mankind as a whole, it's the mirror reverse in Praet. Magic suddenly becomes the Boon...or corruption of mankind, just like science has proven to do in the modern age of man.
((As for drops. Again technical here, all mobs drop them. Magic, Mutation etc....so it is random and has nothing to do with my above statement))
Quote:
Well, yeah, that idea about Tielekku is just conjecture. We will really just have to wait and see what the truth is, but regardless of whatever the truth may be, I still chalk the similarities and parallels between different universes up to spooky action at a distance.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The world still had the USA, France and all the other countries we have that almost weren't at quite a few points in history, so that's kind of just conjecture. That's what I mean when I say we need to be given an explanation, not left to guess.
|
Quote:
| So one would think, but if they were, then the Syndicate would show SOME magical ability, and they really don't. |
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
Quote:
Let's just say that most people are going to be more comfortable classifying Psionic Powers as being either Mutant or Natural in origin, rather than Magic or Tech. A case can be made for Psionics being the result of a Science origin too, but that's rarer (and usually involves Countess Crey for some reason).|
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
There's no way to manifest psychic abilities through inherent magical power?
|
For my INF, I'm thinking that the reason why there is Arcane Salvage at all being dropped in Praetoria can simply be chalked up to "this stuff is vendor bait/trash" to the mobs who are dropping it. By that I don't mean that it's useless to the PLAYERS ... just that it's useless to the mobs. "Un(der)powered" Luck Charms are just cheap plastic rings you get from gumball machines and forgot you had one in your pocket kinds of things. If you think in terms of "what has value?" to Praetorian Society, as opposed to what has value to your character(!), you'd quickly see that the Tech Salvage actually has worth ... while the Arcane Salvage is seen as either useless junk (that doesn't work) or as curiosities or "not so" modern art. I know that sounds backwards *to us* because we use the Arcane Salvage in-game for all kinds of stuff ... but then, most of Praetoria's population isn't Super ... and therefore would neither know, nor care to know, about Arcane Salvage (and what it might be used for).
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Quote:
I'm not sure you can argue that. Realism and real-world history really shouldn't be used as precedent for a fictional world, especially one as... Weird as Paragon City. However, if we go from a fictional background, D&D always seems to treat magic as much like a science as it does like "primal forces." The best sorcerers are those who are the most intelligent and magical knowledge is the key to great magical power. The strongest are those who are the most literate and in the possession of the most knowledge that they have the mental faculties to actually comprehend.|
Originally Posted by Nyx
Praet is so tech advanced compaired to Primal Earth..."Primal" being the key word here. Magical forces have always been seen as primal or archaic in the classical sense of it's approach. "Primal" Earth is the dark age of what would or could become Praetoria.
Rikti Magus realized that magic was powerfull and although they were science driven felt the need to tap into this power, that before hand they would never have even thought to approach. And since science is the defeater of magic and magic the nemisis of logic, it would only make sense in my mind that the contrast between the two themes would eventually collide. |
In fact, in many Fantasy settings, Magic tends to be the height of intellectual prosperity, the result of an intelligent, learned person bending the world to his will while the stupid riff-raff have to make due with ox carts and log cabins and fighting wolves for their basic survival. Common men build villages and caravans. Wizards build cathedrals, towers and castles in the sky.
That's really all I'm saying - Magic in general isn't a sign of social and intellectual decay, at least not how I've seen it in fiction. On the contrary, it's a sign of great prosperity and learning. To have that absent from Praetoria completely is just... Odd. This isn't something that you can just suppress any more so than you can suppress the laws of thermodynamics. Even when there aren't any people left who know how to cast spells and those born with the ability are slain at birth, you should still have all manner of magical critters trying to break into the world.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
There's no way to manifest psychic abilities through inherent magical power?
|
Of course, you could have mind-altering powers accessible via magic, but you don't stuff these people in a tank like Cole does. So if he has captured former Tsoo casters, what does he do with them? We see neither sight nor mention of such. And while it's true that the Tsoo would normally have magical mind control powers, they also have dark powers, storm powers, teleportation, spines, energy powers and I even forget what else. That, and their Ancestor Spirits. Neither hide nor hair of those exists in Praetoria.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Actually what I was arguing was more the mirrored effect of the dimensions as opposed to the obvious differences, and while I am not DNDing the game, I think it mirrors well.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm not sure you can argue that. Realism and real-world history really shouldn't be used as precedent for a fictional world, especially one as... Weird as Paragon City. However, if we go from a fictional background, D&D always seems to treat magic as much like a science as it does like "primal forces." The best sorcerers are those who are the most intelligent and magical knowledge is the key to great magical power. The strongest are those who are the most literate and in the possession of the most knowledge that they have the mental faculties to actually comprehend.
In fact, in many Fantasy settings, Magic tends to be the height of intellectual prosperity, the result of an intelligent, learned person bending the world to his will while the stupid riff-raff have to make due with ox carts and log cabins and fighting wolves for their basic survival. Common men build villages and caravans. Wizards build cathedrals, towers and castles in the sky. . |
Magic is special yes, but I don't believe that magic in the world of superheroes works like DnD at all. Lets look at two folks who gained their power through magic. Doc Strange...a sorcerer who uses his head to gain mystic forces, however Juggernaught gained his powers through finding a mystic gem...but he is not overly bright.
Such with the well of furies. A stupid man/woman gaining powers from the well can be either concept..stupid or smart.
What I was reffering to was the lack of mystical forces in Praet mirroring the very magical Paragon.
But I believe that realism is not needed in this game, but real life infects any game through lore, location and plot. In any comic book which deals with the world as we know it (Marvel comics generally) if dimensions occure it can be post appocalyptic, scientific, or set technically far in the future, and I believe this is the case here.
Quote:
Just wanted to say, the reason they keep getting mentioned is they are involved in the mystic artifact trade. Their powers are not magic based but they are a middle man in the illegal trade.|
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Again; Outcasts are mutants.
|
Anyway, I do hope that we get a reason for the lack of magic in Preatoria. I'm not good at making guesses on where stories are headed but I'd say Cole is probably at the center of it. Other than that, who knows?
It's kinda odd, 'cause when I ran the Sutter TF last week, I ended up with like 8/10 Magic SOs in my tray by the end.
I suppose they were dropping them 'cause they can't slot 'em?
"I-It's not mine, Praetor, I was just holding it for a friend, I swear"
Quote:
We do know of some differences that occurred before 19-whatever. Praetorian Nemesis has been stated to have died "a simple clock-maker". That would have happened sometime in the mid-late 1800s. I know, I know, this is Nemesis. But still. | Cole's act of killing Richter on Praxidae isn't necessarily time zero for where the history of the two worlds diverge. We really don't know if Praetorian prehistory is the same as that of Primal prehistory. |
I suspect someone or something has gone to some pains to eliminate Magic from Praetorian Earth. We know the Rikti managed to do so in their own dimension, so it's not that improbable. The suspicious lack of magical forces amongst the IDF makes me think this, mostly. If Cole thought he'd be able to control mystics sufficiently well, he most certainly would have tried*. The other major suspect would be the Hamidon, I suppose. At least, I think I remember him being semi-magical in origin. Maybe it or Cole didn't want the competition?
*And Arachnos seems to have a pretty decent monopoly on the Mu mystics... It's all a pretty weird affair, to be honest
Hrm. I personally invested a lot more into Circle of Thorns power in my explanation.
The circle of thorns have been, more or less, the sole collectors of all the primal magical artifacts and magical powers. As long as they have been active in Primal, the CoT always seemed to be 'around' when a magical artifact is involved in all but a handful of circumstances. Heck, without Arachnos, the only reason anyone could know about the Island of Mu would be if they found it through it's relation to the Circle.
On Praetoria, they didn't have an earth-shattering Rikti invasion. They're given the credit with bringing the Circle to light through their underground shenanigans. Although Praetoria has Hamidon's attack, its probably entirely possible that the nukes destroyed the overground, or he simply didn't find the Oranbegans or Oranbega itself and they're still effectively moping around and hording all the power in Praetoria. And that could never change, since they didn't get the chance to find new hosts and increase their number in the early twentieth century onward like they did in the less devastated Primal.
That's my take on it. I discounted anything changing in the past because, don't ask me to find -where-, but I remember seeing/hearing that Praetoria was exactly similar to Primal before all the nukes and Cole started going off. It makes me wonder where the Coralax went, though- they seem to support Hamidon's message.
Hamidon Pasalima used dark magic as well as science to transform himself, and as the Praetorian Hamidon is more powerful than the Primal Earth one, it's possible he might have had access to more magic - and that might also make all the sides in Praetoria be rather anti-magic.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
To counter them perhaps we could intro more of Infernals race in Praetoria since they are Demon binders and deal with the black magic that surrounds them.. Hey we never see him but we do know from Maria's Arc that there is a Praetoirian version of Infernal so adding a group of villains comprised of Demons and Spectral Ghosts (shudders) isn't out of the question. They wouldn't be Cole's favorite allies by any means but what better way to fight the magic of the COL than with your own dark magic allies?
Both Infernals come from a medieval like alternative Earth, but each comes from their own version of that world.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.