Book 2 – Text Updates 029

[Chris Goodwin]

I see a third: that Parson doesn't have a level as per Erf's usual rules. From the tale so far, nobody can see his stats. They were only able to estimate his level by the bonus units received from his (first term) presence as Chief Warlord.

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

[gaiaswill]

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

I really do love that line. Short, to the point, full of mystery. Tells you everything yet tells you nothing.

[JustDoug]

I see a third: that Parson doesn't have a level as per Erf's usual rules. From the tale so far, nobody can see his stats. They were only able to estimate his level by the bonus units received from his (first term) presence as Chief Warlord.

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

Stupid Meals aren't the final arbiter.

[gameboy1234]

I see a third: that Parson doesn't have a level as per Erf's usual rules. From the tale so far, nobody can see his stats. They were only able to estimate his level by the bonus units received from his (first term) presence as Chief Warlord.

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

Stupid Meals aren't the final arbiter.

Except the first is a direct statement of fact by Erfworld magic, and the second is Parson musing to himself in his klog. Chris's link is obviously the correct one, Parson is level 2. The second link is just Parson talking. You can believe what you like but the fact is stated by Rob almost as plainly as it could possibly be.

[Intruder]

Parson didn't even contradict what the Stupid Meal revealed, either. He just pointed that level aside, nobody knew anything about what he was capable of as a "unit." Level is hardly the only arbiter of unit quality, after all. I'd certainly expect a dwagon to curb stomp a marbit of equal level, for example, given that even known warlords like Ansom, Vinnie and Jillian have all been shown to consider dwagons to be serious threats.

[JustDoug]

Except the first is a direct statement of fact by Erfworld magic, and the second is Parson musing to himself in his klog. Chris's link is obviously the correct one, Parson is level 2. The second link is just Parson talking. You can believe what you like but the fact is stated by Rob almost as plainly as it could possibly be.

Against my better judgement... Allow me to better explain my thoughts.

I was not saying that Parson isn't, "...level 2, with Leadership Bonus of Chief Warlord of 2." The point is to suggest that Parson might not be subjected to the rules of levels as are any of the regular Erfworld units along with the other two possibilities previously suggested.

As for the quoted Stupid Meal in the klog; None of the information was new. It had already been inferred that he was level 2 due to his observed bonus to other units. The Stupid Meal also (rather vaguely) stated that he was a Special, which could mean anything from, "Secretly A Titan in Training" to "Only unit to have worked at Kinkos." The simple fact of his stats not being visible, even to himself with the aid of his Magic 3D Stat-Seeing Goggles, makes any final pronouncement upon the status of his stats pretty hard to make by us onlookers.

The telling point is that Parson is an incredibly special unit, if for no other reason that he's a being summoned from not-Erf and not a native pop-ee (with a lot of other reasons both revealed and yet to be, I'm sure). He might have the hallmarks of a regular Level two chief warlord and even bear the designation, but it might not necessarily be the same thing(s) as with a native unit. I also find Sylvia's, "...it does not matter" rather intriguing and suggestive that perhaps, "This new Chief Warlord, he is only Level 2," isn't as limiting as it might otherwise indicate.

Note all those "might be" in the previous. Bear in mind that this is idle speculation with some very limited supporting "facts" from the tale so far. It's not meant to be a flat statement of "this is what it is" or even my personal interpretation of what is/isn't. The sole authority upon such things is Ye Merry Author. It's meant for something to mull over as a possibility along with the other speculative musings here.

By the way: Parson's Klog musings was before the Stupid Meal being quoted in the Klog. You've reversed their chronological order.

[Lamech]

Soo... The princes can't attune and apparently don't feel anything, the noble Lady Lazarus feels holy power, and the commoners Stanley and Wanda attune? Anyone else see a pattern?

[splintermute]

Soo... The princes can't attune and apparently don't feel anything, the noble Lady Lazarus feels holy power, and the commoners Stanley and Wanda attune? Anyone else see a pattern?

Here's a shocking, completely tinfoil hat theory, but I can't recall anything in the comic that might contradict it:

Maybe Toolism is right, royalty is obsolete, and there really is a dichotomy between royalty and tool wielders - two separate power structures. But maybe it goes further than that - maybe there's no such thing as a "chosen" attuned. Maybe tools automatically attune to ANY NON-ROYAL who picks them up.

The only thing everyone seems to agree on about Charlie is that he's not a royal. From this update, you can see that the Jetstone attunement ceremonies were small private affairs attended only by royals - perhaps it never occurred to them to let a non-royal try, and Wanda was the first. Maybe Stanley was cleaning out the GK vaults and tripped accidentally and reached out to grab hold of something, a something that just happened to be the handle of the hammer.

It might explain Sylvia's semi-attunement - I don't think she's a royal, but she's definitely a noble warlord. Perhaps it kept her from fully attuning.

[ParsonIsOP]

Soo... The princes can't attune and apparently don't feel anything, the noble Lady Lazarus feels holy power, and the commoners Stanley and Wanda attune? Anyone else see a pattern?

False correlation. And not a very large sampling pool. You also didn't consider obvious alternative explanations. You fail at science.

One of these considerations is that Lady Lazarus is simply full of shit. Real people commonly confuse fervent conviction with special revelation. I think that's her affliction: faith. She's also got an awful streak for poetic license. You know, she's one of those "sensitive and artistic" children; as evidenced by her poem about burning rage violence.

Simply, she's crazy and unreliable. You can take anything she says with a grain of salt.

I take Parson's and Charlie's view on the whole thing:
It's just a bunch of deluded boops croaking each other. Writing their own narrative and all that. And there is more to things than who the Titans left in charge.

==========

As for Parson:
I think he's literally a level 2 warlord. He may be a bit more than that, but not that much more. It could just mean that his skills and knowledge cannot be accurately and precisely represented by abstract numbers on a pop-up window.

I've noticed that Erfworld plays with the dated notions people had of math and science back then. There is an attitude that there is something mystical and harmonious about numbers; a kind of Euclidean fascination. As such, most people in Erfworld lack the imagination to think of things that aren't neatly assigned to a few arbitrary symbols. It's quaint. It means that most Erfworlders aren't much better than childishly concrete thinkers. (Example: The theological debate regarding "Scorism.")

On another level: It's probably a satirical jab at the tabletop gamer's mentality. They too commonly have this Euclidean fascination with rules and elegant mathematical models.

A large part of what makes Parson such an effective leader is that his talents are not quantifiable by a clean integer that can be easily and objectively assessed by every warlord. But in spite of all that, the reasons for his effectiveness aren't that hard to understand.

For example, Parson inspires loyalty not Loyalty; in large part because people either respect his intellectual prowess (which is largely underrated in Erfworld) or because Parson has an inherently more humanitarian attitude towards his underlings. Vurp trusts Parson and regrets lying to him precisely because Parson treats Vurp with respect. The casters under his command are quite happy with him because he values their advice and doesn't view them as expendable game pieces. His conversation with Maggie quickly establishes that Parson is not comfortable with taking advantage of people under his command, even though most Erfworlders would say that it would be his right.

If you ask the average Erfworlder about how loyalty works, they might philosophically and ineffectually tell you that there is probably a single magical Factor that governs this unknown property. They may talk about Natural Magic. It's cute and poetic but pathetically useless as far as explanations go. Oh sure, there's this built-in mind control mechanic somewhere, but Erfworlders aren't much interested in seeing past that to the psychological bits.

[Smoker]

One of these considerations is that Lady Lazarus is simply full of shit.

Lol and thumbs up.

[motorfirebox]

Very crunchy discussion. I think Parson is a personification of one of the core ideas of Erfworld. Erfworld itself is comprised of set, arbitrary, and most of all non-comprehensive rules. There are rules for movement and for attacking, but no rules for love, friendship, or for thinking about the rules themselves. I think, for instance, that anyone could have come up with Parson's idea about resurrecting the mountain--that is, there wasn't anything in the rules that prevented, say, Wanda from coming up with the idea herself. The reason I think this is that she was capable of comprehending the idea. Only her perspective--the fact that she'd lived with the rules all her life, and didn't view them as rules so much as the basis for her reality--retarded her ability to think 'outside' the rules so much that the idea didn't occur to her.

In some ways, it's an examination of the mind/body problem--the question of whether the physical brain gives rise to the mental construct that we think of as 'the mind', or whether the mind exists metaphysically on its own and controls/interacts with the physical brain. If there can be loyalty and Loyalty, then the unavoidable conclusion would seem to be that a unit is more than its stats.

[splintermute]

Soo... The princes can't attune and apparently don't feel anything, the noble Lady Lazarus feels holy power, and the commoners Stanley and Wanda attune? Anyone else see a pattern?

False correlation. And not a very large sampling pool. You also didn't consider obvious alternative explanations. You fail at science.

Creating a hypothesis consistent with all observed data is not failing at science. You can add non-royal Charlie to the sample set, and the implication from the text update, that there was a "ceremony" attended only by royals, that "[e]ach Prince of Jetstone held them at least once, in hopes of attunement," suggests that there was a longstanding Jetstone tradition of only letting royals handle the pliers. The next step in the scientific method is coming up with experiments and collecting data that either confirm or disprove that hypothesis, such as a) letting various royal, noble and common characters handle the current crop of Arkentools (unlikely to be allowed), or, more likely, b) learning what Ansom and Tramennis felt when they wielded the pliers, c) studying the history of these Arkentools and their previous owners, and/or d) finding the fourth Arkentool and conducting attunement experiments (I'm assuming the fourth tool is currently unattuned - the attuned seem to have such a huge impact on the world that everyone seems to have heard of them).

You fail at science.

[Dr Pepper]

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

I really do love that line. Short, to the point, full of mystery. Tells you everything yet tells you nothing.

It means turn over his character sheet and find a complete set of GURPS stats.

[justamessenger]

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

I really do love that line. Short, to the point, full of mystery. Tells you everything yet tells you nothing.

It means turn over his character sheet and find a complete set of GURPS stats.

If it's GURPS-based, no wonder there are Mathamancers, they would be needed to figure out ranged combat, lol!

[Oberon]

Two points I'd like to put on the table-

1) Sylvia's heightened awareness of the 'pliers (in comparison to the thickheaded Ossomer) [...]

But, did you not see? Unlike Ansom, who is pretty much a decrypted version of himself, the slab of beef Prince unbent enough and became self aware enough to utter the words '"Help me," he said. "Help me to do so."', even after being somewhat rudely rebuked by the single word reply "Adapt." This is very much worth noting!

Stanley is a short tempered little brute. The 'hammer, lacking any abilities (that we know of) that do not involve melee combat, [...]

You mean like flight, or turning pigeons into walnuts and vice versa? Potent combat only abilities, indeed! (I'm not sure we can view the transformation of the Orly into a walnut as a combat effect, as they probably die in a single hit from the 'Hammer anyway)

1) Ossomer is again established as someone without much poetry or subtlety. He's more the open, honest to a fault, direct type.

Did you also miss the introspective, vulnerable appeal: "Help me," he said. "Help me to do so"? I see much poetry and subtlety there.

And although Ossomer comes across as an unsubtle brute [...]

C'mon, not another one? Ossomer was not at all an unsubtle brute in this update. Am I the only one who sees this?

I still think that the 'hammer is the weakest of the known 'tools, but it would be much easier to attribute this to Stanley than to the 'hammer itself.

Dunno if I'd bet against the 'Hammer. Stop, hammertime! And also the battle at the pass. Vinny and Caesar had Stanley pegged for dead, due to the TV force multiplier method of fighting. And they did mount an assault directly targeting Stanley. And, they lost. Yeah, Stanley was running, and he lost the battle, but simply living against all odds was like winning the war.

Re: Parson being level 2. Ossomer pegs Parson at level 2, and we know that his Chief Warlord bonus is two. Since no one can see Parson's stats, it stands to reason that there is a direct correlation between Chief Warlord level and the bonus he provides all units on his Side: Chief Warlord level = bonus. Nothing else can explain statements phrased as factual about his level, which is not viewable.

[atalex]

I see a third: that Parson doesn't have a level as per Erf's usual rules. From the tale so far, nobody can see his stats. They were only able to estimate his level by the bonus units received from his (first term) presence as Chief Warlord.

1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special

I always (well, since Volcano Day, anyway) to mean the following:

"Chief Warlord, Level 2" means that if Parson does nothing else, he automatically confers the exact same bonuses as any other level 2 chief warlord.

"Special" means that Parson also has the innate ability to advise his side on tactics that break all the known laws of Erfworld physics, combat, magic and psychology.

I think Sylvia was perfect correct to note that Parson's "Special" dwarfs his "Chief Warlord, Level 2" to insignificance. To put this in D&D terms, Ossomer is baffled by everyone's combat reliance on Parson because he sees Parson as a first-level fighter and fails to see (and in his defense, has not had opportunity to see) the utility of Parson's epic-levels of magic-user.

[atalex]

But, did you not see? Unlike Ansom, who is pretty much a decrypted version of himself, the slab of beef Prince unbent enough and became self aware enough to utter the words '"Help me," he said. "Help me to do so."', even after being somewhat rudely rebuked by the single word reply "Adapt." This is very much worth noting!

Oh, yes, I definitely find Ossomer's post-Decryption reactions to be quite fascinating and I hope he makes it out alive. He's spent his whole life as adulated as the perfect prince, second only to Ansom the Golden-Haired Boy. And now that he's on the other side, he finds that no one has any respect for his former status at all, and his response is to suck it up and ask a subordinate for advice on how to adapt. So far, he's the only Decrypted we've seen who has actually undergone observable character growth as a result of Decryption, as opposed to simply becoming a more intense and Wanda-centric version of whatever they were before.

[Xorbon]

A really good update. I especially liked the exposition of Ossomer's and Sylvia's personalities.

As others have noted, the line "in the presence of three of his brothers" indicates that there was at least one more brother, probably more. If there had been only one more brother, the line would have read something like "in the presence of his three brothers".

Anyway, I wonder what happened to his other brothers: too far away to make it to this battle? croaked? disbanded? captured and turned?

I wonder if we'll ever find out.

[Dr Pepper]

"1 Chief Warlord, Level 2, Special"

I really do love that line. Short, to the point, full of mystery. Tells you everything yet tells you nothing.

It means turn over his character sheet and find a complete set of GURPS stats.

If it's GURPS-based, no wonder there are Mathamancers, they would be needed to figure out ranged combat, lol!

No-- i'm saying that Parson is like a GURPS character dropped into a game that is definitely NOT GURPS based.

Or like a Magic card thrown onto the deck in a Yu Gi Oh game.

Or a rodeo clown in a rugby match.

That's why they can't accurately gauge his stats.

[CelebrenIthil]

And although Ossomer comes across as an unsubtle brute [...]

C'mon, not another one? Ossomer was not at all an unsubtle brute in this update. Am I the only one who sees this?

I see him more as a Big Damn Hero kind of guy with maybe some Large Ham tendencies but I don't see him as a brute, no.
Maybe that's partly because he's some sort of cross between Superman and a higher-than-thou medieval warrior prince.