More to Alchemy than Killing

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Comments

  • The direction cities are going is to be much more factionalized, that's certainly true, and is, I think, a very good thing. Hopefully it continues and the "neutral" factions continue to get a bit more oppositionally oriented.

    That said, there's absolutely room in that for an organization of alchemists that is an explicit exception to those rules - a sort of academia that transcends national borders. That's not a problem for factional roleplay, that's a glorious opportunity to complicate it a little bit. Then, when there are inevitable conflicts of interest, things get fun. That sort of tension has almost always been good for maintaining people's interest in the game.

    And introducing a sort of Alchemical Society (not necessarily the semi-defunct clan, but that's a lovely name for it) into the factionalized world would be fun in and of itself. You'd probably have to get the city leaders in on it OOCly or get the admin in on it, but it would be really fun and interesting to see all of the alchemists basically stand up and demand a sort of "academic freedom" in return for their curatives and services now that cities are largely dependent on them.
  • VayneVayne Rhode Island
    Actually, now you cannot be a Serpentlord and a citizen of Hashan.
    image
  • edited November 2014

    Well shoot, @Antreus, it seems I completely missed everything you were saying here. In fact, I thought this thread was dead. I’ll answer the stuff Vayne didn’t get around to or didn’t catch, which isn’t really much. He’s done a great job explaining things.

    Stupid forum changes! Let me bookmark this so I don’t miss anything in the future…

    An overall alchemical society might be a bit of a stretch in game, but an OOC alchemist help clan would be a very interesting thing overall. Just due to the sheer factionalization of Achaea, such a clan would need to be something like the Illuminati (The real life secret society of scholars, not the conspiracy theory version).

    Alchemists need to be attuned to the Anchor of Iron to learn their skills. Not use them. Once you know them, most of them you can use. If you’re tritrans and leave the city, you can still use all of alchemy and a lot of physiology. However, you can’t cultivate new nuclei without a laboratory, you can’t make minerals without a laboratory, and you can’t use astronomy empowerment. So it’s a bit of a loss for the homunculus, but in theory you could stock up on enough homunculi to last you 5 days (nuclei decay in 5 days).

    But as for why they are tied to the cities, well, there are a lot of reasons I can think of. Laboratories need constant upkeep of expensive chemicals, cleaning supplies, need the temperature to remain stable, the orrery needs to be perfectly aligned, so on and so on. All in all, a time consuming endevour. That doesn’t mean that in theory an extremely rich person couldn’t do it, but the Cauda Pavonis has sent its envoys to each of the cities, and they alone handle the supplies (at least in Hashan, Antimone does), and they traditionally guard their secrets quite well. That can also be easily overcome, in theory. Just working there, you could probably compile a list of stuff to purchase. So in theory, it should be possible to buy one for a house or something.

    There is a second caveat, though, and that’s how each of the cities are actually attuned to each of the Anchors. Now the Cauda Pavonis didn’t explicitly need to do this, as I am aware. The Anchor has an effect on the forestals in the city, where it is stated to dampen their powers, that being why they can’t do certain things. I’ve speculated as to their reasoning and why they did this in game, Hellen’s thoughts often jumping between things like how they bound that energy to the city’s oversoul or that the oversoul of a city is bolstered by the excess energies the Anchor deals with and has nowhere else to channel,before going off on a tangent on the nature of telepathic communications and how to further facilitate or disrupt them with Alchemy’s disrupt or something. My point is, in game, the Anchors are an extremely, extremely complicated tools, and to mess with them is to mess with the state of the Ether itself.

    To go off on a tangent, there was a lot of talk from the Cauda Pavonis as they claimed that the Anchors would limit an alchemist’s development, but once again Hellen speculates that this is not true, going so far as to say that it might actually be a boon, since the alchemists of today are getting an immediate infusion of etheric energies that fundamentally change the physiology at a fundamental level. The alchemists of the Cauda Pavonis got this much later, after a lot of experimentation, and while they might be extremely knowledgeable and powerful (their leader has the Citrinitas Stone, and I’m pretty sure all their Masters have Albedo Stones), that does not necessarily mean that the alchemists of today are at an intrinsic disadvantage. After all, even they could be wrong, or have just lied. Why they would lie, I can’t know.

    Sorry for using the words “Hellen thinks” a lot, but like most In Game things, it’s pretty much entirely up to the admin to say what is and is not right.

    But to get back on track, it’s heavily implied that you DON’T want to make a new Anchor. We have five, one for every Metal but Lead. To make an Anchor of Lead or an Anchor of one of the Primes would be devastating to Achaea, and would get the offenders a swift and immediate beating. The Anchors are there to balance out Lead’s influence, since Nurazar brought the very core of Lead and Salt so close to Achaea. As far as we know in game, there is no celestial body that resonates with Lead. I’ve gotten confirmations on all the alchemical energies except for that.

    So creating a rogue Anchor is out of the question, and the Cauda Pavonis tied them to the cities in the hopes that the cities would support them over their hated enemies, the forestals, to sum that segment up.

    I’m getting long winded here. I’ll wrap up with the Nigredo Stone. You missed the point of that, I think, but I could be wrong. The way I look at it, the Nigredo Stone was –supposed- to be easy to make. To take from Jung, Nigredo represents death, confusion, and a state of ignorance. Not necessarily a real death, but a spiritual one. Something changes within you as you make that stone. It’s too easy. Just Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury boiled together while focusing alchemical energies on it? Anyone can do just that, if they have the fortitude. Why would this be the biggest mystery alchemy has to offer? And then you realize that this is only the very first step on a very, very long journey, of which you have a weak base to stand on. You know nothing. Not really. Congratulations, you made the Nigredo Stone. You have realized the fact that you are an ignorant know-nothing that only knows what everyone else knows, and everyone else is a fool. So congratulations for finally, after thousands of lessons, realizing the fact that you are an idiot. You die a little on the inside and become lost, the Stone turning a deep obsidian black to represent your loss and confusion. Now the real enlightenment can begin.

    Of course, that’s just one way of looking at it, and Jung’s Philosopher’s Stone stuff is really applied on the nature of enlightenment itself.

    I probably missed a few things, but I have this bookmarked now, so I can actually answer what questions come up.




  • VayneVayne Rhode Island
    Yea, I left most of that stuff out because it's IC.
    image
  • Hellen said:

    Well shoot, @Antreus, it seems I completely missed everything you were saying here. In fact, I thought this thread was dead. I’ll answer the stuff Vayne didn’t get around to or didn’t catch, which isn’t really much. He’s done a great job explaining things.

    Stupid forum changes! Let me bookmark this so I don’t miss anything in the future…

    An overall alchemical society might be a bit of a stretch in game, but an OOC alchemist help clan would be a very interesting thing overall. Just due to the sheer factionalization of Achaea, such a clan would need to be something like the Illuminati (The real life secret society of scholars, not the conspiracy theory version).

    Alchemists need to be attuned to the Anchor of Iron to learn their skills. Not use them. Once you know them, most of them you can use. If you’re tritrans and leave the city, you can still use all of alchemy and a lot of physiology. However, you can’t cultivate new nuclei without a laboratory, you can’t make minerals without a laboratory, and you can’t use astronomy empowerment. So it’s a bit of a loss for the homunculus, but in theory you could stock up on enough homunculi to last you 5 days (nuclei decay in 5 days).

    But as for why they are tied to the cities, well, there are a lot of reasons I can think of. Laboratories need constant upkeep of expensive chemicals, cleaning supplies, need the temperature to remain stable, the orrery needs to be perfectly aligned, so on and so on. All in all, a time consuming endevour. That doesn’t mean that in theory an extremely rich person couldn’t do it, but the Cauda Pavonis has sent its envoys to each of the cities, and they alone handle the supplies (at least in Hashan, Antimone does), and they traditionally guard their secrets quite well. That can also be easily overcome, in theory. Just working there, you could probably compile a list of stuff to purchase. So in theory, it should be possible to buy one for a house or something.

    There is a second caveat, though, and that’s how each of the cities are actually attuned to each of the Anchors. Now the Cauda Pavonis didn’t explicitly need to do this, as I am aware. The Anchor has an effect on the forestals in the city, where it is stated to dampen their powers, that being why they can’t do certain things. I’ve speculated as to their reasoning and why they did this in game, Hellen’s thoughts often jumping between things like how they bound that energy to the city’s oversoul or that the oversoul of a city is bolstered by the excess energies the Anchor deals with and has nowhere else to channel,before going off on a tangent on the nature of telepathic communications and how to further facilitate or disrupt them with Alchemy’s disrupt or something. My point is, in game, the Anchors are an extremely, extremely complicated tools, and to mess with them is to mess with the state of the Ether itself.

    To go off on a tangent, there was a lot of talk from the Cauda Pavonis as they claimed that the Anchors would limit an alchemist’s development, but once again Hellen speculates that this is not true, going so far as to say that it might actually be a boon, since the alchemists of today are getting an immediate infusion of etheric energies that fundamentally change the physiology at a fundamental level. The alchemists of the Cauda Pavonis got this much later, after a lot of experimentation, and while they might be extremely knowledgeable and powerful (their leader has the Citrinitas Stone, and I’m pretty sure all their Masters have Albedo Stones), that does not necessarily mean that the alchemists of today are at an intrinsic disadvantage. After all, even they could be wrong, or have just lied. Why they would lie, I can’t know.

    Sorry for using the words “Hellen thinks” a lot, but like most In Game things, it’s pretty much entirely up to the admin to say what is and is not right.

    But to get back on track, it’s heavily implied that you DON’T want to make a new Anchor. We have five, one for every Metal but Lead. To make an Anchor of Lead or an Anchor of one of the Primes would be devastating to Achaea, and would get the offenders a swift and immediate beating. The Anchors are there to balance out Lead’s influence, since Nurazar brought the very core of Lead and Salt so close to Achaea. As far as we know in game, there is no celestial body that resonates with Lead. I’ve gotten confirmations on all the alchemical energies except for that.

    So creating a rogue Anchor is out of the question, and the Cauda Pavonis tied them to the cities in the hopes that the cities would support them over their hated enemies, the forestals, to sum that segment up.

    I’m getting long winded here. I’ll wrap up with the Nigredo Stone. You missed the point of that, I think, but I could be wrong. The way I look at it, the Nigredo Stone was –supposed- to be easy to make. To take from Jung, Nigredo represents death, confusion, and a state of ignorance. Not necessarily a real death, but a spiritual one. Something changes within you as you make that stone. It’s too easy. Just Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury boiled together while focusing alchemical energies on it? Anyone can do just that, if they have the fortitude. Why would this be the biggest mystery alchemy has to offer? And then you realize that this is only the very first step on a very, very long journey, of which you have a weak base to stand on. You know nothing. Not really. Congratulations, you made the Nigredo Stone. You have realized the fact that you are an ignorant know-nothing that only knows what everyone else knows, and everyone else is a fool. So congratulations for finally, after thousands of lessons, realizing the fact that you are an idiot. You die a little on the inside and become lost, the Stone turning a deep obsidian black to represent your loss and confusion. Now the real enlightenment can begin.

    Of course, that’s just one way of looking at it, and Jung’s Philosopher’s Stone stuff is really applied on the nature of enlightenment itself.

    I probably missed a few things, but I have this bookmarked now, so I can actually answer what questions come up.




    Thank You for realizing how confused I was in all my blathering; trying to make sense of the mechanics that inform the roleplay presently. Thank you for following up to enlighten me on the subject. I had no clue how the roleplay had advanced in terms of its philosophical underpinnings via OOC means, or even the fact that there had been any envoys from the Cauda Pavonis. I honestly didn't know in what capacity I should act as an Alchemist.

    I think that was a lot of IC information like Vayne said, but on the other hand it is already knowledge I am aware of OOC in terms of the inspirations in our world from which it draws upon (adoring fan of Jung's work). I had no clue  if it was apropos to the plot afoot or something that was already being roleplayed. I understood the logic of why alchemist and forestals be at odds now a bit better, but I didn't fully comprehend how it played out as I've been dormant.

     I do not wish to impinge upon other's work in the game environment. While I have practiced due diligence to contact members of other Alchemical societies in game, none have yet replied to my letters of inquiry. It seems what you've shared about IC plot isn't readily accessible or known information to Alchemists outside closed circles.

    ---

    Regarding losing access to laboratories, a solution came to mind: why not just grant a city's Alchemists the ability to sever a rogue Alchemist's link to their aligned Anchor. The person whose link is severed from the corresponding city could in this way incur some sort of penalty. Perhaps having to pay an etheric debt to the anchor before they can meld with another?

    Quick thinking regarding the nuclei, but don't you need a lab to cultivate the nucleus? I thought you couldn't use laboratories without connection to the corresponding city. Could definitely extend their duration with a bag of stasis - let's not forget that :wink: 

    A male voice is heard through the membrane, "Hey, girl."

    A male voice is heard through the membrane, "Are you an Apostate? ..because you just tore my heart out."

  • edited November 2014
    This information is definitely known in-game. And not just to alchemists and certainly not just to closed circles - to pretty much anyone who was present at the time. A fair amount of it could probably be gleaned from Events posts too.

    Generally speaking, you will find that most people take a very dim view of sharing this sort of thing at length on the forums too.

    And a fair amount of that post was personal RP or speculation (and was admitted as such).

    As for alchemy not being viable without belonging to a city (losing access to laboratories), that isn't a problem, that's a feature. That's very much intentional. You aren't supposed to be able to play Alchemist outside of a city in any meaningful way for both narrative and mechanical reasons.
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