A soul cannot be damaged. This is simply a colloquial way of describing the pain one feels when their skills are shattered, or when they suffer the effects of Necromancy. The soul itself, after all, is more of a repository—a storage or archive for our own legends and history. It is these legends and histories, these feats of struggle and triumph and defeats, that shape our skills. And what are skills but expressions of who we are, who we strive to be, who we will become, should we conti...
2025-07-13 15:01:25 +0000 UTC
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I suspect that the system is an intelligent entity, extremely intelligent, capable of weaving and connecting patterns so fine and so great that most of us can't even see it coming. Indeed, divination might be just the art of interpreting these patterns, and so that is why even esteemed diviners get things wrong or find it hard to parse things.
After all, we are not designed to see the grand scope. Even the most powerful path bearer lives on this world, and despite how...
2025-07-12 18:28:51 +0000 UTC
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So, you manage to capture a gate, a city, hell, even a town. Now the question comes, can you keep it? This is a question most people don't really ask themselves. Most people also don't really siege towns, gates, or cities, so they have no experience with the matter. But let me tell you, the story doesn't end after you take a gate. In fact, the story probably only begins.
Now that the fun part of watching most of your friends die in a brutal assault is over, you get to deal ...
2025-07-12 14:23:10 +0000 UTC
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“You don’t need to come. These orders have
2025-07-11 19:34:41 +0000 UTC
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“That’s one big, ugly asshole. And a bigger, uglier hammer.”
“He’s not that big.”
“You always say that shit. I always have to pull your dumb ass out of the fire.”
“Harlon, which one of us saves the other more?”
“Me. Because every time you need to save me, it’s because I put myself in danger to pull your ass out of the fire.”
“So. We are at best even.”
“No. You’re a d...
2025-07-10 19:05:21 +0000 UTC
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The world is hard. The system is a bastard. Things can get real bad. They’ve gotten bad for me. And if you’re going to be a Pathbearer of any worth, they’ll get bad for you.
And eventually, it will be too much for you. Most Pathbearers end up dead one way or another before they are driven to the breaking point, but the ones who make it past Adept… You’ll do it at least once. It’s why there are so many one-skill Master-Tiers in the world. It’s why most choose t...
2025-07-10 08:31:18 +0000 UTC
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+Bad morning, consangs ! Welcome to a special edition of the Fateless Thoughtcast. If you're receiving this with the Nether down, with the Lovenet missing, and with all kinds of other shit, well, that's because I'm currently talking to you through a very, very special apparatus. Say hi to the warmind of Compulsion.
And that's why I call this the very special Fateless Thoughtcast. For you see, you're not hearing it live. You're hearing it from someone else who's talked to yo...
2025-07-09 16:56:01 +0000 UTC
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Alright, so here's a lesson on negotiating with the Circles of the Claimed Hells.
First off, figure out what they want. Now this is simple, stupid, and very complex at the same time, because as mentioned by a previous writer, the Circles sometimes don't know what they want either. They are composed of individuals with their own interests. That being said, they are very much aligned based on sin, and so you can rely on them to have the same ugly shitty habits and to show the...
2025-07-09 15:19:09 +0000 UTC
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There's going to be a time when you want to kneel. There's going to be a time when you're so badly beaten and shaken you want nothing more than just to give up. You'll be so tired that you'll do anything to take a final gasp of breath. You'll lift your visor and take an arrow to the eye just to get a lung full of air. There will be a time when every muscle fiber in your body is spent, when you have nothing left, when your magic is completely strained.
There will be a time, ...
2025-07-09 09:18:49 +0000 UTC
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The eldritch are not necessarily evil, but they are all fundamentally alien.
It is like a person stepping on an anthill; he is not necessarily evil. Yet that comparison is not entirely accurate. The eldritch understand us. They comprehend us. In this sense, they are never unaware of what they are doing. They are, however, simply beyond us—at least, most of us.
They have their own interests, their fascinations, and their desires, but they are not human desir...
2025-07-08 18:55:40 +0000 UTC
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The System moves in subtle and vulgar ways. But when it gets vulgar, it gets very, very vulgar.
I'll say something right now, something that most Pathbearers don't like to admit out loud. Call it superstition, call it self-preservation; they just don't like mentioning it. But most of us? Well, we think the System's a piece of shit.
Sure, it gives us power, and that's great. There's nothing like being a Pathbearer, performing an action over and over, pushing y...
2025-07-08 12:57:43 +0000 UTC
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One thing you will learn about the Claimed Hells is that its great Kings, Princes, and more don't agree on anything. Even the circles don't agree on anything. They don't like each other; they're just associated. That's the best thing you can hope for in the Claimed Hells—to be associated with someone. It's at once their greatest weakness and their greatest strength.
Let's take Wrath for example. They're a bunch of kill-happy, break-everything bastards. You can't rely on t...
2025-07-07 19:01:51 +0000 UTC
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Elite does not mean invincible. Elite does not mean invincible. I will not repeat this a third time because you should understand it by now.
I don't care that you're already an Adept, Mr. Arrow. I don't care who your father is. I don't care how good you are with that bow. I don't care how fast you can fly with those wings. I don't care how tactically aware you are at all times. You lost this engagement because you flew into a nest of enemies. Enemies that you thought would ...
2025-07-07 17:41:14 +0000 UTC
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There are beings… dare I even call them gods beyond the purview of the system, existing only in the periphery of the Grand Integration. These beings have been touched by mana, but they have not fully been subsumed yet. For whatever reason, the system was never truly able to claim them. Perhaps their original nature was already too deviant. Or maybe our assumptions are incorrect, and this is a deliberate maneuver on the part of the system to create an entire separate category of rule twi...
2025-07-07 08:55:22 +0000 UTC
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Of all the worlds I have raided, broken, and subjugated, you humans, this Integrated Earth of yours, it is the most fascinating place I have been. For you see, I see so much of you that's alike to me, yet so much of you that runs counter. You are a little paradox, you funny little apes. You and the elves you adopted, and the goblins, and your precious machines that you consider kindred. So very confusing, but ultimately a delight, a delight to face in battle.
You are my des...
2025-07-06 17:57:20 +0000 UTC
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A lot of Pathbearers will tell you that trying to take a gate or a city or even a town while the Local Lord is still alive is probably the most miserable experience you can have in war. I beg to differ. I think the most miserable experience you can have is if you have is taking the gate, only to find the locals still hate you.
A quick crash course for all you new Pathbearers out there: taking a gate or city or town or anything that comes with a mana core usually resul...
2025-07-06 15:20:42 +0000 UTC
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It sees me. It sees me. It feels me. Across the length of time and history I feel it. It’s crawling.
It's crawling into the future. Its limbs are festering and biting and ruining the world.
From the past it's raging inward. From the past. From the past.
There's nowhere to run.
There's nowhere to run.
It's coming.
It's coming.
It's inevitable.
I hear it.
<...
2025-07-05 13:32:38 +0000 UTC
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"I must confess that I'm not too fond of your Great London overall, or even New Albion as a whole. Your people wear masks, hiding themselves, but then again it also allows them to be who they are. Yet here, before the rushing currents of the River Thames, the sight of Great London in autumn, it dispels some of my distaste. Come, sit by me, owl. What do you think of this composition?"
"It looks immaculate, but… Unnatural."
"Unnatural?"
"Yes, t...
2025-07-05 10:43:17 +0000 UTC
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…And should you encounter an adversary beyond your ability to escape, defeat, or persuade, then the final act you should perform is one of absolute service to New Albion. And to yourself.
There is nothing good that comes from being taken captive. It is a failure above all other failures, and to allow your mind or body to be turned against the Stolen Throne is treason.
We have trained you well. But sometimes not even that is enough to succeed. But still, you...
2025-07-04 19:09:27 +0000 UTC
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System favored…
Well, I really wouldn't call myself that. See, I actually met someone who was system favored, and that poor bastard was always suffering some kind of quest or trying to survive a desperate fight. He also grew faster than anyone I've ever met in my life. His skills shot up to Master within the span of months. And that usually takes other people decades…
But I wouldn't even call him lucky. Not even close. Being system-favored means you’re ...
2025-07-04 10:36:06 +0000 UTC
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Before a skill can form, before magic can exist, at the foundation of a Pathbearer, there needs to be a soul. And this is where Animancy becomes truly treacherous. Where once I thought Necromancy the greatest magical lore one could master, now I see just how blind and childish I was.
Necromancy deals merely in the echoes of lost. Of twisting and corroding concepts and matter. A wandering scholar I traded notes with once theorized that Necromancy was simply the system’s wa...
2025-07-03 18:08:37 +0000 UTC
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There are few powers more vaunted across integrated Earth, and indeed all integrated dimensions, than Chronomancy. Chronomancy allows someone to manipulate the flow of time, to twist and bend the very fabric of history, or so it would seem.
Rather, most times Chronomancers simply do lighter adjustments to time, mostly affecting themselves, allowing them to transpose themselves back to a certain point in time that relates to space, or perhaps accelerating their movemen...
2025-07-03 08:59:46 +0000 UTC
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Ambient Mana Stability Threshold
Noun
The maximum amount of mana that a dimension or designated mana zone can stabilize and process before its localized environment collapses into a state of volatility and chaos.
Localized imbalances in Ambient Mana Stability usually result in mana storms or the creation of gates. The Ambient Mana Stability Threshold also determines t...
2025-07-02 18:59:26 +0000 UTC
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"Why, hello, my lost and desperate god of creation. You look positively dreadful. You look like you need a friend."
"And what kind of friend will I find in you? Lord of Deceit, Shaper of Sin, Cultivator of Atrocity."
"So many words describe me. I simply like to think of myself as someone who encourages impulses. I make people more of who they are. And right now, I think I'm going to give you an offer, so that you can ...
2025-07-02 16:01:43 +0000 UTC
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Once there were twenty, but then the story changed, and the faith changed, and history changed, and so there were seventeen.
But then two more of our members disagreed about something major, something the others refused to abandon, and then there was fifteen. And finally, as the years dragged on, two more were weary. One settled their own affairs, and another simply disappeared. And finally there were thirteen.
Except not.
Except I have a...
2025-07-02 08:39:49 +0000 UTC
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This is the Burning Dreamer, speaking to all Guilds, to all Citizens, to all subjects.
These are the final days. These are the days of the great strife, of the great war. These will be your finest moments, or your last moments.
But understand, this could have been avoided. Understand that you could have been better. Guilds, citizens, Godclads, we are here because of hubris, because the most noble among you failed. Fai...
2025-07-01 18:28:20 +0000 UTC
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To the Educator: (Exposition: Most of them don’t know my actual name and none of them know who I actually am. Nor do they care. They think they are the ones who decide. What fools)
The High Office of the Inquisition has dispatched new orders. You are to finish with matters in Lone Star immediately. Deal with what heretics are remaining and keep their cells suppressed for now.
(Exposition: The Auroral Council is rippin...
2025-07-01 16:41:07 +0000 UTC
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Everyone fights for something. This is a very simple statement, but you're going to discover how true and how important it is if you ever join up with an army for hire.
The Sell-Skilled... A lot of people think little of them, being mercenaries and all that. Personally, I don't dislike them, I find them to be remarkably honest as Pathbearers. In fact, I find them to be some of the most honest Pathbearers you can come across.
Most people who walk a path,...
2025-07-01 09:28:34 +0000 UTC
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There are few weapons more potent than fear, but fear is also to be wielded with care, precision, and careful consideration.
Many terrorists use fear as a cudgel. They break things. They blow things up. They destroy things that they will need later.
Consider the Southern Column’s incompetent invasion of Lone Star while they were briefly weakened from the 143rd orcish wave two centuries prior. They managed to breach the outer layer of border forts held by th...
2025-06-30 18:11:52 +0000 UTC
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To the esteemed, illustrious, and most magnanimous, Inquisitor Sijik:
I, Master-Advisor Oldsmith, must apologize. I apologize in each way and every way. I apologize in all the ways you know and do not. I have been temporarily indisposed, however, due to injury sustained to my person.
The situation within the gate is worse than we feared, I’m afraid. There are attacks daily, and the gate lord is quickly losing control of the situation. Why, just recently, an...
2025-06-30 10:18:23 +0000 UTC
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