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    The Arx Secrets Thread

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Rough and Rowdy
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    • RinelR
      Rinel
      last edited by

      Ok wait actually I have two questions because I’m legitimately curious:

      1. what the HECK was the deal with Driskell Stillwater

      2. what was the nature of the Thirteenth? Was it a divinity of its own accord, or some sort of natural rule of the universe, a mirror through which the gods were reflected, or both?

      bird's still the word

      RozR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • RozR
        Roz @Rinel
        last edited by

        @Rinel said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

        Ok wait actually I have two questions because I’m legitimately curious:

        1. what the HECK was the deal with Driskell Stillwater

        He was a PC whose player made up a bunch of stuff.

        1. what was the nature of the Thirteenth? Was it a divinity of its own accord, or some sort of natural rule of the universe, a mirror through which the gods were reflected, or both?

        Tehom was Aion’s counterpoint.

        she/her | playlist

        saoS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • saoS
          sao @Roz
          last edited by

          Relevant on the question of Driskell Stillwater, from the AMA Apostate did (https://play.arxgame.org/dom/cal/detail/7532/)

          Apostate says, “Bless Driskell, but one should take everything they said, tie it up into a tastefully decorated package, and then yeet it into the sea. By happenstance they might have said something accurate somewhere in there but I have not yet seen it.”

          let it be a challenge to you

          RinelR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • SmileS
            Smile
            last edited by

            Tehom is basically the Abyss. Much like Aion is the Dream.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • T
              ThatGhosty @Snackness
              last edited by

              @Snackness One of THE MOST emotional scenes of my Arx career as Khanne, that gargantuan scene! ❤

              SnacknessS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
              • SnacknessS
                Snackness @ThatGhosty
                last edited by

                @ThatGhosty ❤ It was good stuff.

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                • D
                  dvoraen
                  last edited by

                  Kind of adjacent to an Arx secret, but did revelation 30 (“Fable Knows Your Name”) have a large impact on PCs? Or was it more aimed at people during the time it was first introduced?

                  Q saoS EvilgraysonE 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Q
                    Quibbler @dvoraen
                    last edited by

                    @dvoraen I just know I played Oswyn freaking the hell out when he got it. I thought he was in Big Trouble.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 7
                    • saoS
                      sao @dvoraen
                      last edited by

                      @dvoraen it scared the fuck out of me when I first got it, lol

                      let it be a challenge to you

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                      • kalakhK
                        kalakh
                        last edited by kalakh

                        I came on staff well after a bunch of people had got that one and it was fairly normal, but my impression was it was one of those things where it was useful to keep track of who had hit a certain milestone of knowledge, but was otherwise just a neat thing to freak PCs out.

                        The way revelations work is that clues are assigned to them, and they’re given a target number, at which point the revelation is triggered. The target number is based off a clue’s rating, so if your target number is 60, and you’ve got two clues with a rating of 30, the revelation pops. You can do more with it, like require certain clues to be known before a player gets the revelation even if they’ve passed the target number, etc, and there are a number of revelations that were never meant to be obtained by PCs that have a number impossible to reach with the clues assigned, that were used largely to organize GM notes/information.

                        So the Fable revelation has a massive number of various clues assigned to it, particularly ones about magic, and PCs could hit the target number with any combination of those. Staff can also look at a revelation and see who actually knows it, so if we wanted to send a vision out to everyone that had got a certain revelation, it was pretty easily done.

                        RE: Tehom, one thing I think might not have been entirely clear to players is that Aion and Tehom aren’t really entities in the same way the gods are, they’re more like the two basic forces of reality. Aion isn’t just the Dreamer, but the Dream (aka, the physical world) and Tehom is the Nightmare (aka, the abyss, the physical world’s dark reflection). This is why Aion didn’t have a seraph or Tehom a herald…they don’t need agents to enact their will or be their representatives, because they basically are everything, or at least contain everything.

                        Edit: for the curious, unless I’ve missed some, there were 60 clues attached to Fable Knows Your Name:

                        Primum in the blood
                        Blood magic frauds
                        The Castle of Count Corso
                        Curious Case of Countess Cosette
                        Copper’s notes on magical sleep
                        Inquisitor Dalere’s report
                        Unnatural coincidences
                        Red Warden Memo
                        Laughing at a Leer
                        Sanguis Primus, a fragment
                        Let the sleeper awaken
                        Aldwin’s Memories
                        Mad Murderer Of the Boroughs of 993 AR
                        The Ring of Duchess Vedette
                        I Must Forget
                        Writs, An old journal
                        Thus came the Despite
                        Breaking Mirrorborn
                        The First Conclave
                        Francesca on Galling Brass Censers
                        So, You’ve Joined the Forces of Evil
                        The Triarch Demanded It
                        A Fractal Forgiven
                        Haunted Mementos
                        The Thinnest Point
                        Obsidian, Onyx, and Jet
                        Hard To Read With No Light
                        The Unwritten Word
                        Lianne’s Analysis of Ravings
                        A shadowy, smiling monopoly
                        On Demon Binding
                        A Treatise on Prophecy
                        Navarre Strongoak Don’t Live Here No More
                        Teatime with Onyx
                        Interrogation Log of Prisoner #7835
                        The Madman of the Panopticon
                        Death and Oblivion: A Cautionary Tale
                        Demonic Tissue Sampling
                        Lord Barton’s Ravings
                        Weaving - the style of Pure Magic
                        Casting - Shav Nonsense
                        Demon Worship and Black Stone
                        Alrec’s Evil Twin
                        Dying Old Gods
                        Mostly Normal Bringer Head
                        House of Questions, the living taint
                        Petrichor’s Prayer of Stewardship
                        Palladium’s Recollections on the War
                        The Twin Sister of Lydia Nightgold
                        The Blighted Land Soil Conditions
                        Lovely Groves in the Oathlands
                        Missing Headstones
                        Percephon’s mirror at the blight
                        Perrach and the Bringer
                        Sugan’s Mirror
                        A Puzzling Genealogy
                        A Dream of Pyrite
                        Claw for Claw
                        Say My Name
                        Fractal of the Abyss

                        They’re all mostly from season one, I think.

                        W 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • R
                          Raaspra
                          last edited by

                          Some people already know some of this…

                          Enyo was a Cardian agent, loyal originally to Ostrumadin, spying on Malar and his goons. Started out low, eventually climbed her way up in the ranks. But…

                          Enyo was also Katya.

                          …and Dagny. Then Katya.

                          Then Enyo again.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • W
                            watno @kalakh
                            last edited by

                            @kalakh said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

                            Say My Name

                            How many people had this one?

                            kalakhK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • kalakhK
                              kalakh @watno
                              last edited by

                              @watno said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

                              @kalakh said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

                              Say My Name

                              How many people had this one?

                              Three.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • EvilgraysonE
                                Evilgrayson @dvoraen
                                last edited by

                                @dvoraen Ray - who got that revelation in the Murder of Crows while discussing Lowers secrets and specifically the things that had happened to people who said the wrong thing in the Murder of Crows - hid in his secret subterranean lair for a week.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                                • Duke WhiskyD
                                  Duke Whisky
                                  last edited by

                                  Martino’s initial secret was that he served Malvici, directly Calypso and Eirene, as the House Spymaster. Did a few actions around building up a base of this, and mostly drawing in more-and-more clues. This worked great for allowing some good RP with others about clues, information and trading that sort of thing - but always skirting around the edges of the metaplot. Was one of those secrets where you are fiercely loyal to people, but we went through a little revolving door of Calypso.

                                  Was later when he was sent a black diamond ring that previously belonged to someone that he became more hooked in with the metaplot. Wearing it and carrying the curse of inflicting acts of cruelty upon people. Wore it every day since November 2nd 2021 and had 3 people OOCly chat about it after seeing it. Only 1 ICly. Would emote about rings tapping glasses, wearing gloves indoors and removing them to reveal a set of rings.

                                  Eventually after performing one cruel act after another, started poking it somewhat more and freed his mirrorborn who killed some Archivists. Damn staff. Never giving him the journals and clues he was looking for. Met said mirrorborn again later and came to an agreement that in offer for the mirrorborn’s magic, his direct descendants would work to free Diamond.

                                  Sorry kids. Dad wanted power at any cost.

                                  Current Projects:

                                  Twitch -> https://www.twitch.tv/dukewhisky

                                  SmileS Q 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • SmileS
                                    Smile @Duke Whisky
                                    last edited by

                                    @Duke-Whisky That mirrorborn was actually 1/13 of Diamond. Each ring represented a facet (haha) of Diamond, so this one was Diamond’s Callous Indifference To All Other Life. Sorry Templars.

                                    Duke WhiskyD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • D
                                      dvoraen
                                      last edited by

                                      So what was the full story about Diamond? I understand he was split up, but I was never really clear how he became immortal (the trip to the Abyss?) and what his general angle was, alongside Primeria. That whole era was highly interesting to me as a player, but ICly I knew zero about it so I never got the opportunity to pursue the subject of the events leading to the Dance of Skulls.

                                      If it’s answered in clues, does anyone want to spill the beans to me with clue shares? >.>

                                      SmileS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • SmileS
                                        Smile @dvoraen
                                        last edited by Smile

                                        @dvoraen He did some mad Oblivion magic so he can’t die. Technically a bunch of the fractals can’t die. So as a rule, don’t waste time mourning them!

                                        As far as angle. Primeria turned to the Abyss for help against the war with the dragons because the gods didn’t want to act and empower their reflections. Their reflections didn’t care so much otoh. She got corrupted and died (got murdered). Diamond was mostly just an abyssal mage ruler until an assassination attempt drove him mad and he decided to start chumming up with Obsidian (who was just insane) and went all rar rar Abyss. Did intense Oblivion magic so he could never die.

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                                        • Q
                                          Quibbler @Duke Whisky
                                          last edited by

                                          @Duke-Whisky Did Martino mention researching/interest in Fable and working with others on it to Gianna once? I remember thinking, oh, Oswyn would be better for that, I wonder why Martino hasn’t mentioned it to him. And then I thought on it some, like why someone might not want to contact Captain Good Boy Book Nerd about it. And then I was not wholly surprised when the thing with the Mirrorborn and the Archives happened.

                                          Then I was torn between NO ONE GO INTO THE ARCHIVES being IC but not wanting to stomp on plot OOC.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • kalakhK
                                            kalakh
                                            last edited by

                                            RE: events leading to the Dance of Skulls, Primeria walking into the Abyss, followed by the other original Fractals, gave the elves enough power to fight off the dragons, at the expense of occasionally unleashing demons and the experience slowly (or, in the case of Obsidian, not so slowly) driving a number of them mad. Not all of the elves were particularly thrilled with this, such as Calithex, Platinum, Silver, Symonesse, etc. but for a while being an abyssal mage was just kind of a thing, and there were more fractals created. Best of intentions, etc.

                                            Eventually Primeria decided it would be extremely cool if elves could be immortal like the First Children; you can extend your lifespan with magic, but dragons, etc, will just live forever unless they’re killed, and she also thought it would be pretty cool if Death just got cut out of the affair completely. Death’s priests did not, in fact, think this was cool, and extra didn’t think it was cool to sacrifice an insane amount of human souls to Oblivion to manage it. Calithex was/is Death’s Herald, so he was at the forefront of what turned into a rebellion/civil war against his older siblings. Primeria decided to put the rebellion down by sacrificing an absolutely unfathomable number of human souls to Oblivion in order to poof them all out of existence, but Diamond convinced her to lower that to a slightly less unfathomable number of human souls to permanently curse the sun against them instead. The rebels became the Nox’alfar, unable to survive in sunlight, and Death lost her absolute shit at so many souls getting Oblivion’d, kicking off the Dance of Skulls, aka Good Job, Primeria, Enjoy Your Zombie Apocalypse.

                                            Lots of stuff happens, such as a bunch of First Children taking one look at that shit and deciding to fuck off to found the primasens of Nefer’khat with various mortals they cared about, elves splitting off to become the Sylv’alfar, etc. Eventually Calithex and the first human king, Harren Harrow, found Death’s City, aka Arx, in an attempt to appease her, which…kinda works, except Primeria won’t back down, which means Death won’t calm down, which leads to Sapphire doing the needful and sticking a knife in Primeria, becoming the First Assassin. Dance of Skulls over, Diamond becomes King of Caer’alfar.

                                            Diamond was fine enough for a long, long while. At some point Obsidian got kicked out of Caer’alfar because he was an insufferable psycho fanatic, but he slipped back in and started whispering in Diamond’s ear. Like Smile said, there was an assassination attempt that was a very near miss, it sent Diamond into a spiral, Obsidian was like “hey, did you know Tyranny is really cool? Also what if we kicked off another apocalypse and maybe Primeria had a point about that whole undying thing after all” etc etc the Reckoning Baalphrigor is a kaiju and wrecked Caer’alfar with demons, and Diamond managed to completely sever himself from the Wheel, so it’s literally impossible to kill him.

                                            The solution was Amber smashing him to bits with a special hammer, so the lesson here is that 1. messing about with Death leads to various apocalypses, and 2. the royal house of Caer’alfar needed some serious therapy, because King Calithex Ael’noctis somehow ended up being the most level headed sibling.

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