Book 2 – Text Updates 037

[badninja]

Ok I think we all thought that the predictamanacer was the one from FAQ, but how many people has Wanda been with?! Janis is right about Wanda being a danger she is nothing but a loose cannon and the right words can sway her greatly. I feel that both of these casters may join GK to assist to further their own goals. Now well they bring Parson and/or Sizemore and the rest of the casters in on the whole plan or keep them in the dark? This was a nasty update from an information point of view as it shows that two powerful casters are setting up a dangerous game but for what reason, ending wars is noble and good, but there is an ulterior motive happening here what do they see?

[mhangman]

Why janis believed that caster? How can you thrust someone whos talking about the future? I'll happy when the king parson decide to kill all casters in MK.
And when he destroy the Erworld's itself. It will be good to see the predictmancer's face when that day comes.

[EthericSentinel]

Wow, intriguing. So the Summoning Spell was part of a conspiracy going all the way back to Faq, or further...

Just a thought -- normally Loyalty and Duty would prevent any caster from herself arranging the death of her Ruler. Wanda is a known, puzzling exception, having directly engineered the fall of Faq. We now discover that Marie, the Predictamancer of Faq, had seen the fall and also associated closely with Wanda. The Omega on her hat usually symbolizes, not future, but endings... Could she have been the mastermind?

Somehow I think that Janis is going to really regret trusting this woman.

[joosy]

Thanks for the early christmas present/update, Rob. I was happy to wait for another week (begrudgingly) but thanks for the extra effort. I would rather have quality rather than quantity. I also remembering waiting up to two to three weeks between updates during book 1 so this is nothing.

So Miss Cleo.. er, Marie, is indeed the Predictamancer from Faq. Our suspicions about a consipiracy in the Magic Kingdom bear fruit but the twist is that Janis is not in charge of it. The Summon Perfect Warlord was carefuly crafted with an underlying motive. Also some clues as to why Janis believes Parson to be a Hippiemancer; it is still not clear if he is able to enter the MK because of his otherworldly status, or if he truly is a hippiemancer, but we know that Janis has been sold a bill of goods that Parson is a hippiemancer warlord.

I wonder if all of the other Predictamancers in Erfworld are in on this or if those who are skilled enough to see what is coming are able to shirk their duty and not warn their sides.

My predictamancy: Jetstone falls or is crippled/goes barbarian (will have to lose a lot of archons for that). That will trigger a coup at Transylvito with Caesar siding with GK just so he can take out Jillian/Faq. Charlie's involvement will be discovered resulting in some serious retaliation by GK by either blackmail or a direct attack or a huge loss to his business.

Happy holly daze to everyone!

[gameboy1234]

And . . . got all cloudy? Hmmm . . . given the interesting circumstances of Stanley's victory (if he hadn't somehow managed to run into a major slew of Dwagons for him to tame on the way to FAQ, he would have lost and the Pliers gone to Wanda as she expected), I smell a higher level of manipulation. I can see Charlie as having to ability to mess with Marie's head and 'clouding' her, but I can't see his motivation. There's a deeper game going on somewhere.

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if Luckmancy will cloud a prediction? If you're bending the rules and manipulating luck, it seems like it should. Lucky rolls by Stanley getting all those dwagons may have clouded any possible prediction. I'm also thinking back to a comment by Sizemore early in Book One. Some sides run on Luckmancy and Mathemancy. Predict the odds with Mathemancy, and then change them with Luckmancy. It's "very powerful" iirc. And Charlie appears to have Luckmancy, and he also "bit hard" on Parson's Mathemancy artifact. I think the theme is Charlie has or is a Luckmancer, or at least has access to a large amount of Luckmancy, and he'd love to get his hands on some strong Mathemancy.

As for the deeper game, I think Charlie wants the keep Erfword, the game, going. And Janis and co. want to end it. They may not realize they are fighting each other, but there seems to be a "deeper game" of predictions and luck going on behind the scenes.

[Ansan Gotti]

Sweet! Predictamancer!

And my guess as to the real-world reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Castello

EDIT: Hmm, upon seeing another wiki entry with a picture of a woman with a turban-like thing on her head, I think I agree with the previous poster who said Marie Laveau:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau

[Decorus]

Lookmancer+Predictamancer+hippiemancer+Thinkamancer = Perfect Warlord spell. Janis doesn't think he is a Hippiemancer, Janice Knows he is one.
Parson was specificly picked to be the Souljah who will fight against war itself in Erfworld.
So it looks like this link had more then just 4 casters using multiples of each thats one massively powerful spell.

[emuhunter]

Sweet! Predictamancer!

And my guess as to the real-world reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Castello

EDIT: Hmm, upon seeing another wiki entry with a picture of a woman with a turban-like thing on her head, I think I agree with the previous poster who said Marie Laveau:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau

Well these are very likely the real-world references, I can't help but think that Rob had an... illicit motive in naming the predictomancer:

Green up ahead, and not trees. "Jonnis!" Around the trail's bend, Marie in her green and yellow silks, open armed, rushing to take Janis' hands, kiss her cheeks. She looked...totally jazzed.

I'll hazard a guess that Marie's middle name is Jane. Why else specify 'not trees' when just 'green up ahead' would do? And she's '...totally jazzed'.

Nice triple reference, Rob.

[Wyvern]

It's nice to have Faq's last remaining caster finally formally introduced into the story. She doesn't have the fancy eyes that all the other known Faq commanders have, though. I wonder if that means she wasn't popped there?

[atalex]

And there goes my idea that Janis is the true mastermind. It now appears that she was just brought along by Marie whose talk of peace in Erfworld so appealed to the Hippiemancer that it overcame her good sense. I imagine she will be horrified when she realizes that Parson is going to use the MK as a staging ground for his assault on JS. And before anyone starts, I don't give a hoot if he destroys MK's "neutrality" in the process. It's clear now that a highly placed conspiracy within the MK set all this in motion, and if it bites them on the ass, it's there on fault.

Also, I don't think it's so much that Wanda is in control of this conspiracy as it is that she's a pawn of it. She obviously believes in Fate with religious conviction, and Marie apparently believes that Wanda is an important agent of Fate, as well. I am curious as to exactly what predictions Marie gave Wanda. Wanda seems to think that she is destined to bring the Arkentools together for some grand purpose but has said nothing to indicate it's to bring peace to Erfworld per se. The rest of the conspiracy apparently wants peace for Erfworld and sees letting Wanda run amok as a means to that end.

Finally, my own bit of predictomancy -- it will be revealed that King Banhammer was in on it, and the philosopher-king of Faq sacrificed his own kingdom in order to set the plan in motion. He sent Jillian away so that she would not be on hand to see that Stanley, the man she blamed for Faq's demise, was merely the pawn of her lover, Wanda.

[HandofShadows]

Well, well well. I said a long time ago it seemed that Wanda's goals seemed a little to close to the conspiracies. Now we know that she is in on it. I don't think she is leading the conspiracy though. It really does seem like a number of people working towords (mostly) the same goals. But I think it's possiable that there may have been someone who either set it up and still controls things to some extent at the very least got the ball rolling. Speculation on who it is:

Spoiler: show

This person isn't a caster or a warlord, but a royal and has only been see in flashbacks. It is the only (human) person who physically much larger than most Erfworlders, say about Parsons's size. http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F082.jpg I know he is supposed to be dead, but who did we get the info from? Wanda. Now I might well be wrong, but it's an interesting theory I think.

[atalex]

Sweet! Predictamancer!

And my guess as to the real-world reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Castello

EDIT: Hmm, upon seeing another wiki entry with a picture of a woman with a turban-like thing on her head, I think I agree with the previous poster who said Marie Laveau:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau

Well these are very likely the real-world references, I can't help but think that Rob had an... illicit motive in naming the predictomancer:

Green up ahead, and not trees. "Jonnis!" Around the trail's bend, Marie in her green and yellow silks, open armed, rushing to take Janis' hands, kiss her cheeks. She looked...totally jazzed.

I'll hazard a guess that Marie's middle name is Jane. Why else specify 'not trees' when just 'green up ahead' would do? And she's '...totally jazzed'.

Nice triple reference, Rob.

Oh that is hilarious. "Jonnis" has unleashed an eldritch horror on Erfworld, backed up by a rampaging army of the undead, and in the process, she is about to sacrifice the neutrality of the Magic Kingdom, and all in support of a utopian plan concocted by a pothead.

[zilfallon]

Interesting. So Wanda knew about the SPWL spell because Janice had had it made and intended it for her. I wonder what would have happened if Stanley had refused the high price?

Wanda "You won't pay the 350k shmuckers? Well, they are offering it for 300k. Still no? Next week it's Black Friday, and they have 3 for sale for a mere 150k, but I'll have to stand in line all night to get one of them."

I think Stanley would have known something was up if it was cheap. He might not be the smartest cookie on Erf, but he is shrewd like that. They must have known he would balk at the "support plan" too.

Oberon, they made the spell for Wanda, but:

So she insisted on placing the spell with Wanda

I don't think "placing the spell with Wanda" means "let's have Wanda cast it". I think it means "let's cast the spell and put the tactical genius under the control of the faction Wanda belongs to"

And, I agree Stanley would have suspected if the spell was too cheap. But I think forcing Wanda to cast it was against their plans. Remember how surprised Wanda was and how she tried to convince Stanley to pay 500k and have the MK cast it. Wanda knew about it, and she wasn't really sure she could find the perfect warlord

Just a thought -- normally Loyalty and Duty would prevent any caster from herself arranging the death of her Ruler. Wanda is a known, puzzling exception, having directly engineered the fall of Faq.

Wanda didn't do that. She believed that Stanley would fall and she'd attune to the hammer. But fate demanded otherwise.

She turned her head around to flash Janis a grin, and stage-whispered, "He's coming back!"

The Hamstard strikes back!

Also, i LOVE the picture of Janis. I'm not usually the one to admire art since story itself is more important to me, but i had to say that the picture is damn good

Finally, my own bit of predictomancy -- it will be revealed that King Banhammer was in on it, and the philosopher-king of Faq sacrificed his own kingdom in order to set the plan in motion. He sent Jillian away so that she would not be on hand to see that Stanley, the man she blamed for Faq's demise, was merely the pawn of her lover, Wanda.

Meh, you're being paranoid I don't think this plan was that old. Read the text: It says that the predictamancer started bugging Jannis about perfect warlord at least 50 turns before the spell was ready. I think we can say that GK experienced more than 50 turns after Stanley took the hammer. (yeah no evidence, but come on...70 turns passed since TBfGK. it HAS TO be more than 50)

And again, I think that Stanley actually defeating Faq and Stanley deciding to have Wanda cast the spell, was a surprise to the "plotters"

Also, book 1 said that a findamancer joined the link. Incoming retcon?

[kunsttyv]

Lookmancer+Predictamancer+hippiemancer+Thinkamancer = Perfect Warlord spell. Janis doesn't think he is a Hippiemancer, Janice Knows he is one.
Parson was specificly picked to be the Souljah who will fight against war itself in Erfworld.
So it looks like this link had more then just 4 casters using multiples of each thats one massively powerful spell.

The linkup was with Marie, Hubble and an unnamed thinkamancer. Janis wasn't part of the link, but had participated in the planning of it.

A possible goof is that http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F005.jpg claims the spell was made by findamancer/predictamancers, while the text update names a lookamancer in addition to the predictamancer.

[splintermute]

@Atalex
I don't think Janis or Marie will be horrified by the use of the MK as a staging ground - Marie's already predicted Sizemore's return, which means she has some understanding of Parson's plan, and yet she remains jazzed.

Official Predictions (capital "P") seem cryptic initially, but in retrospect they're quite clear. For example, this battle being "a point of turning of all turns" probably isn't a reference to whatever Fate (capital "F") has in store, but was a straightforward prediction that Charlie/Vanna would cast the Kingworld spell to start things off (she "turned" all turns).

Also, is Hubble supposed to be a Lookamancer? In Book 1 the SPW spell was the product of Predictomancers and Findamancers.

[SteveMB]

Also, is Hubble supposed to be a Lookamancer? In Book 1 the SPW spell was the product of Predictomancers and Findamancers.

Wanda gave two different descriptions:

"The Findamancers and Predictamancers have forged a spell together"
"This monstrous, combination Findamancy/Lookamancy... thing."

The significance (if there is any beyond a simple misspeaking on one of those occasions) remains to be seen.

[Ansan Gotti]

Some random speculation:

1) Maybe the SPW scroll is the product of more than one tri-link, one with think/predict/look, one with think/find/???.

2) Predictamancy is fate-axis life. Croakamancy is fate-axis motion and matter. So in a way, Predictamancy and Croakamancy "complete" each other. Analog to Wanda and Marie, perhaps?

3) Of the eight fate-axis casters, Jetstone has two (Ace the dollamancer, and the healomancer). Capturing them to land on the GK side looks more and more interesting.

4) We have seen six of eight fate-axis caster-types in the comic so far, missing only carnymancy and changemancy.

[Glenn]

The whole idea of a "war to end all wars" is likely to seem like a sick joke to Parson, who after all knows that said phrase was used as propaganda during World War 1. I think the only way that a war could put a permanent end to all future wars is if absolutely everyone died in the war. Could Marie be manipulating both Janis and Wanda in a plan to entirely destroy Erfworld? If so, her claim to Janis that she couldn't anticipate or prevent the precise manner in which Faq would fall because "things got cloudy" would be a lie intended to hide from Janis the full extent of her manipulations of Wanda. The reason why Wanda's plan to gain the Hammer didn't work was because Stanley acquired all of those Dwagons during his trip to Faq. The question is, did Marie anticipate that Stanley wold gain those Dwagons, or didn't she? And if she didn't, did some other force, possibly Charlie or the Titans, prevent her from doing so as part of an even deeper plan?

[jah77]

I think that this update establishes that the purpose of bringing Parson to Erfworld was to end all wars.

I think this also more firmly establishes what we've suspected all along: Charlie will end up being the archvillain. After all, while Parson is trying to end all war, Charlie has made it his business (literally) to keep war going.

[Snowtitan]

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
It certainly looks like this has been going back a long way, did Marie have an inkling about all this when she predicted that Wanda would attune to a Tool?
if she did, then telling Wanda went directly against the sides good.
In this I see parallels with Asimov's foundation series, where R Daneel, and R Giskard (is that right?, been a while), formulated the 0th law of robotics where a robot must work towards the betterment of mankind, even overriding the famous 1st, 2nd and 3rd laws.

Also Merry Christmas everybody