Crazyone47, post: 79645534, member: 422818 Wrote:

Smallquestion on Deviant normal relations how are they exactly at the current time. Is it like how sexuality used to be just don't ask done tell. or is it full on racism or phobia levels.

It's a lot better now than when they were first ousted with the Riots, but then again a lot of them were revealed when they picked fights with demons from other dimensions or participated in the looting because everyone thought it was the end of the world.

For the most part they're accepted in a 'kind of cool/scary but it doesn't directly affect me' kind of way, but like with a lot of things it depends on where you are with different regions having different views on Deviants and the specific Deviancies based on what heroes and villains have been through the areas. Those with more hostile opinions will actively attack the less popular Deviancies like Malcontent, Deadmen, and Psychics, while the more popular Deviancies of M.A.D.s and Arcane have reached a place of public acceptance largely due to the efforts of the Arcane Association's various educational and charity groups alongside said Deviancies aid in hospitals, law enforcement, and science.

To elaborate I'm going to bring an answer I posted somewhere else. The question was asking about opinions on Deadmen specifically, but I think it gets the point across.

Quote:

This is one of those things that varies place to place. Each city has its own history of heroes and villains in the last couple of decades that has shaped each of their opinions about the different Deviancies, and as such some are harsher on specific Deviancies than others.

For instance:

-Graceful Hills (Ep. 4 of Anthology) as a Deviant town has several resident Deadmen who are happily accepted as part of the community since there's a local rift that makes it easier for them to gather Ectoplasm peacefully. (I should admit that Sanctuary isn't all that popular here, so that might invalidate this in regards to your question.)

-Amityville (Mentioned in several episodes) is considered a capital of Deadman activity with several courts taking an interest in it due to multiple Rifts in the area. Unfortunately, this increased activity has resulted in a larger number of feral Deadmen in the region, as well as the most infamous Deadman attack in america when the Dead Doctor tried to invade. Meaning that good or bad Deadmen have a negative reputation throughout the city.

-New Haven (Ep. 1 and 5 of Anthology) is neutral to most Deviants due to a mix of a prominent Heroes' Guild headquarters as well as the fact that it was a mafia city until recent years and is a capital for the Market. All of which has resulted in the local Deviants doing a fairly even mix of good and bad. So while they won't immediately gun down a Deadman they will keep an eye on them just to be safe.

-Blackwell (The Huntsman's Quest) gives no f***s.

Now in all seriousness, they rarely get Deadmen due to the high Anima, Malice, and Madness factors in the region. Though everyone in the town has developed this passive desensitization to the existence of Deviants since as a small town in a hotspot they've kind of known about them since the Voodoo Wars and never forgot. Honestly so long as you don't get eaten by something in the woods or make a big deal about being a Deviant no one will judge you for that. (They will judge you for other things though. It's still a small town after all.)

rush99999, post: 79645945, member: 380992 Wrote:

Why would inventing a spell that gives cute fuzzy creatures hats make someone infamous?

He's not infamous for what he did so much as what he did to accomplish the task.

You see he hacked the Arcane Nexus, the most complex and powerful Spell Engine in existence that's existed for over a millennium across multiple worlds and realities, and then rigged it so that every Flufflepuff will gain clothing based on the feats they accomplish. (And also made it a habit to tweak and adjust things just to troll people.) Additionally, the fact that Flufflepuffs are one of the most common Contracts in the association, means that anyone who asks about their hats knows what he did as the proof is sitting on the head of what is essentially the Association's Mascot.

rush99999, post: 79645945, member: 380992 Wrote:

And when they finally noticed, he appeared before the council and sang to them the song of his people.

You're not entirely wrong, since he is the guy who discovered that if you release enough magic at the right rate you can create music based on your magical signature regardless of affinity and one of his favorite uses of it is to flex on people. (Mostly in fights and magic contests but still.)

rush99999, post: 79645945, member: 380992 Wrote:

Are any of these charity groups dedicated to raising awareness to the fact that hostile opinions of Deviants can cause the opinion holders to start exhibiting violent and self-destructive behaviours?

Unfortunately, like in real life when you point out that hostility and prejudice are bad those people just get more hostile.

rush99999, post: 79646488, member: 380992 Wrote:

Sometimes the fact that there are seven billion of us surprises me greatly.

7.9 actually. And scientists are split on if we'll peak at 10 or double it, both before the end of the century.

Our odd mix of survivability and self-destructive tendency really do make us look like space orcs when you think about it.

LaughingMadAndBlue, post: 79651285, member: 462574 Wrote:

Not for a lack of trying, mind you. It's just that there's enough people with actual self-awareness and control that keep things as under check as they are able.

Yep, we're Sturgeon's law at it's finest.

LaughingMadAndBlue, post: 79651285, member: 462574 Wrote:

Question! A Incarnate can have an affinity like Dream, Song/Music, and Chaos? Or similar?

Don't see why not.

One of my characters from the Anthology has a Memory affinity and learned a music one. (He actually has a tendency to force the world into musical numbers.) Then one of my planned characters has a Chaos affinity. (He mostly uses it to make himself stylish in that Devil May Cry kind of way or jinx people.) As for the Dream affinity -in my head- that'd basically play like a Wonderlander who creates temporary Wonderlands, only using magic instead of Madness.

LaughingMadAndBlue, post: 79651285, member: 462574 Wrote:

Wow. The sheer lore is hilarious and kinda humbling.

It's a world of characters in a setting where the three main power sources are Life, Death, and Madness. It's fair to say that most of the people are going to get weird, crazy, over the top, and/or terrifying should they get strong enough.

Fortunately enough most setting important characters can be summed up by explaining that:

-the Arcane are all nerds who will shank each other for a book while the Practitioners steal said book and the Incarnates play outside.

-the M.A.D.s just want to build stuff, brag about how smart they are, and glare at the Arcane playing 'wizard' instead of 'scientist'.

-the Wonderlanders want to play pretend with their real friends, their imaginary ones, and all the friends they haven't made yet.

-the Deadmen just want to be left to their hobbies and the occasional weird food craving but everyone keeps bugging them.

-the Psychics are either sneaking alcohol from the locked cabinet or playing games of 'I know that you know that I know'

-the Slashers want to start a fight club in the basement and invite all their friends who totally don't think they're insane.

-the Malcontent just want to take a nap and cuddle but will turn into an angry cat on whoever wakes them up early.

-and all the while the non-Deviants are just trying to keep the house from catching on fire before saying 'f*** it' and grabbing a can of gasoline.

rush99999, post: 79654558, member: 380992 Wrote:

And what about the Travelers? What are they doing as all of this is going down?

Travelers are the foreign exchange students who either really click with the culture or have no idea what's going on and are just pretending to understand so they don't offend anyone, but still fall into their culture's equivalents of the above categories at the end of the day.

That said for some of the more common Traveler cultures you have:

-The Orkin are hanging with the Slashers in the basement waiting for their turn in the ring and bringing the beer.

-The Serpensians are making moonshine in the shed and setting up for the party they still have to talk everyone into.

-The New Anima Reptilians alternate between hanging with the spy Psychics, gambling in the fight club, or taking a nap in the sun.

-The Felisians are typically picking fights, races, and thrills or finding somewhere high up to mellow out after a day of fun and adrenaline.

-The Inferni depend on what region/world their from and will either be helping the Serpensians and Psychics feed the Slashers and Orkins booze while joining the fight club or hanging out somewhere quiet to study with the Arcane and nap with the Malcontent.

And while that's how our culture sees the other cultures, they see us as a culture with minimal survival instincts that wants to party, pick a fight with someone, one up someone, or see how many species/someones we can reproduce with. (They've seen our internet and we have a... reputation now.)

rush99999, post: 79655896, member: 380992 Wrote:

Do Social Slashers only benefit if their manipulated target dies in the violence or do they profit from any death in the violent situation regardless of whether or not they manipulated the people who died?

Technically anyone who dies, though there is a diminishing returns factor the higher the body count gets without them recently manipulating additional players in the situation. So it'll usually be limited to four or five per manipulated person, with how long their kills add to the Social Slasher based on how long they were manipulating the person in question.

rush99999, post: 79656424, member: 380992 Wrote:

So if a Social Slasher spends a week manipulating a target before turning them loose, any deaths that occur because of the manipulation over the following week, up to a limit of either four or five, benefit the Social Slasher?

More or less, though again there's a diminishing return thing, where a month will be like 2-3 weeks, 2.5 months would be 1 month and so on. But at the same time there's something to be gained -figuratively- by having a minion for extended periods of time, in that they better understand how to operate under the Slasher's command.

Oh, I should also point out that if the manipulated goes long enough without killing someone the Slasher can reset the kill limit with enough time, though it does take more and more each time they do this, hence why most Social Slashers will usually get bored of a target with those long term minions being a rare exception to the rule.

rush99999, post: 79657429, member: 380992 Wrote:

Does the Social Slasher need to do anything to maintain the manipulation or do they only need to just set it, wait a month or so, turn their target loose, and then just sit back and let the kills come in?

Mechanically speaking -and thus this isn't something most people realize in setting- over the course of their persuasions a Social Slasher is slowly infusing their Malice in a target -hence why some targets get stat boosts- and then when that target kills someone their old Malice collects the new Malice and brings it back to them, and the maintenance of this connection is why it will eventually collapse due to time if left unattended even if the actual manipulations remain. From there a skilled Slasher can even feel when these little bursts of Malice return to them and where from letting them know when and where their target is active, and letting them plan around that information.

rush99999, post: 79657975, member: 380992 Wrote:

How long can it be left unattended before it collapses?

That's what the whole time limit thing we were talking about was, where after a week of maintaining itself it'll last a week while a month will work just over two weeks. Though admittedly there is a bit of variance here depending on the power of the Slasher with low levels taking longer and high levels going faster, but most mid-tier Slashers will function roughly on this time frame.

rush99999, post: 79661191, member: 380992 Wrote:

If a Social Slasher spends a month manipulating someone, how much of that month would the Slasher need to spend doing actual manipulating? Would they need to devote every second of every day to it? Would they only need to spend one action per turn on the task?

Okay, I get you. And it definitely doesn't have to be an every second or even an every day thing, since the manipulation is usually standard persuasion with a bit of Malice reinforcement the manipulations will usually stick for a while and can be extended just by talking over a phone or sending an email. That said, the Malice connection is a little more tenuous and will usually need to be reinforced once every few days to keep the connection from beginning to deteriorate. (Honestly there are a lot of factors influencing everything so I probably shouldn't be giving hard numbers here.)

Now from a gameplay perspective, if I was running a quest where we specifically play as just the Social Slasher I'd say once every three turns (in the system seen in my three current quests) they'd have to reapply the effect regardless of week/weekend factors just to keep things balanced without becoming annoying. But if the quest is like the team quest I have planned where each turn you get a single AP for each character on the team, I'd have applying the effect use a turn but then have the character reapply it on their own time outside of the turn actions, unless they're making a big change or activating the programming.

Crazyone47, post: 79664179, member: 422818 Wrote:

Okay genuine question how have Deviants not taken over the world? And been caught up in an arms race that makes nuclear seem weak?

Several reasons, the ones off the top of my head are:

-Deviant occurrence in the population is relatively low and the higher the rank of a Deviancy the lower it gets. (I.E. There are maybe a dozen S Rank Deviants on the planet at any given time. While by contrast there are millions of E and F Rank Deviants.)

-From there they've only been active on the public stage for about thirty years the first decade of which they had all rights rescinded and were pretty much gunned down in the streets in what could be considered a genocidal event.

-Deviants are technically involved in the arms race in so far as they're part of the military, but most generals and politicians are scared of the idea of turning someone into a nuke, just in case that guy turns on them so they aim to keep most of their Deviants around C Rank in power and go for quantity beyond that point.

-Which leads into the whole Kill Squad thing where a mix of soldiers Deviant and non work together to eliminate notable threats to human life. (Such as the Deviants plotting to take over the world.) For example a fair number of Deviants can still be taken out if they let their guard down long enough for someone to get a sniper shot off, at which point if they have a healing factor the attackers just need to destroy the body before they can get back up. (Which if you're planning a full assassination on a high ranking Deviant you'll plan for even if they don't have healing factors.)

-Tying into that last one you have people with heroic tendencies who will work to stop people before they can really get their steam rolling, as well as criminal rivals who will take them down before they become a threat to their own operations.

-Those 'visionaries' who want to change the world in their image can sometimes just ditch this world for one that's more suited to their tastes. (Though it's fifty-fifty on if they get eaten by some eldritch horror before that happens.)

-Most of the people who have developed the power to actually conquer the world for one reason or another don't actually want to. For instance The Spell Scholar (tied for second strongest magic user on the planet) only wants to study things and has no actual interest in running anything because it would just get in the way of his research. (Though his brother did conquer a world and proceeded to ditch it once he realized he'd have to actually run it. (Their teacher tried to warn him about that point.))

-The previous points also goes for the ones who have the power to destroy it, just because they can nuke the world doesn't mean they have to. After all their stuff is here and they've probably got things they enjoy about this world enough to let it live.

(Fun Fact: There's a family owned pizza place out there that is literally responsible for saving the world because it's a World Ender's favorite food, and he wants to keep it and its supply chain safe and alive. (Yes, he did in fact plan on nuking the world -was in the middle of it actually- but he stopped for lunch and decided to push it back on his schedule. (The family and restaurant are now considered priority protection targets by every government that knows. (The family has no idea about any of this.))))

rush99999, post: 79670530, member: 380992 Wrote:

Who is this pizza loving World Ender? And where could one find this pizza place that saved the world?

His name is Thomas William Graham, he's technically not from our world and underwent this culture shock thing when he showed up towards the end of the Rift Riots, one that led him to believing a culture that could openly kill people in the streets and be praised didn't deserve to exist and so he intended to set off an Anima bomb that would drop the population and infuse enough life energy into the world to start things over.

Half way through -after setting the bomb up but before setting it off- he got hungry, and smelled something in the city that wasn't literal blood, sh**, and garbage. Following the scent he came to a small pizzeria where the owner offered him his first slice free, since Graham was very obviously a Deviant of some kind given how he was dressed, and the man was sympathetic.

Upon accepting this kindness and that first slice Graham decided that he'd let the world live since it could produce both a good man and good food, while also deciding that if those things disappeared he'd go back to his original plan. And after several visits Graham extended both his protection and his doomsday difference to the entirety of the family.

As for the location of this humble little pizza place you can find it at the corner of [Location Classified], open from eleven to nine every day.

(Fun Fact: The Doomsday bomb was big enough that every agency on the planet could detect it even with non-magical means, and proceeded to have an even bigger panic attack than the first one when it just disappeared as if it was nothing. It took them about a year of weekly magic spikes to find Graham at the pizzeria where he mentioned trying to destroy the world. (The family thought he was joking, the agency knew he was not.) The agency then while tracking him watched him vaporize -literally- a group of hooligans who'd been threatening the pizzeria family using a signature very similar to the Doomsday bomb, at which point protection and redaction orders started going out left and right.)

rush99999, post: 79697719, member: 380992 Wrote:

Where does the technically bit come from?

Honestly, that's more of a writing mishap, saying 'he's not actually from' might have been better, though it could be argued that the world he is from is an alternate version of ours where magic beat science in the great power race.

Oh, and the government eventually gave him citizenship when they created a public file to flag him anytime the police or someone else tries to give him a hassle. (He was surprised he didn't even have to leave the pizzeria.) It ties into this whole thing where Travelers stranded here can get citizenship as an attempt to try and encourage them to become non-criminals rather than forcing them to live a lifestyle where crime and under the counter work are their only options. (Surprisingly once we got immigrants from other worlds the nature of the issue completely changed, with the introduction of actual aliens.)