Book 2 – Page 67

[Kalak]

Everyone wants a piece of Parson.

He's big enough to go around.

[gazes_also]

Marie is running the show here and has been from the moment she came on the scene.
First Jo-jo now, this, she's keeping Parson off-balance. Even Janice has no idea what she's up to, but she doesn't want him to hear what the GMs have to say.

She seems awfully interested in his bracer; first surprise, like she's never seen anything like it, but then she knows exactly what he's doing with it, and asks him to do a calculation. That's pretty suspicious.

What would be the advantage of Marie and Janice going to Spacerock? That seems to be the objective of all this maneuvering. Does Marie have some control over Wanda having made predictions for her in the past? Does she need to be close to him when the next surprise is sprung?

I'm not saying she is, but a lot of this would make some sense if she was, in fact, working for Charlie.

[WaterMonkey314]

Marie is running the show here and has been from the moment she came on the scene.
First Jo-jo now, this, she's keeping Parson off-balance. Even Janice has no idea what she's up to, but she doesn't want him to hear what the GMs have to say.

She seems awfully interested in his bracer; first surprise, like she's never seen anything like it, but then she knows exactly what he's doing with it, and asks him to do a calculation. That's pretty suspicious.

What would be the advantage of Marie and Janice going to Spacerock? That seems to be the objective of all this maneuvering. Does Marie have some control over Wanda having made predictions for her in the past? Does she need to be close to him when the next surprise is sprung?

I'm not saying she is, but a lot of this would make some sense if she was, in fact, working for Charlie.

But... if Marie has been manipulating Janis, and Janis led the cabal that summoned Parson... does that mean that Charlie ultimately summoned Parson?

[MarbitChow]

I'm not saying she is, but a lot of this would make some sense if she was, in fact, working for Charlie.

Except for the fact that the point of summoning Parson was to end war on Erfworld, and Charlie's the biggest war profiteer we've seen so far. If Charlie wanted a Parson-like warlord, he would have just summoned him.

[Poko]

Has anyone read the Mistborn series? I wonder if a Predictamancer would grant stacked / allied units a function in combat like a mistborn burning Atium. For those that haven't read the series - you could basically see what the person you were fighting was about to do before they did it, so you could counter them perfectly.

[Feyrauth]

I totally didn't expect those guys in panel 3....

Nobody expects those guys in panel 3.

Quite an interesting thought. It's been noted several times that Parson's Warlord Bonus "isn't that great", which probably implies that he's relatively low level, or was at the time of the first big fight at GK. That in turn implies that he was essentially "popped" as a fresh unit, Erfworld terms. If he can just get through the portal in time to stack up with his group before the tower falls, he could level like crazy, which could in turn give BIG bonuses to GK's side as a whole. From a wargaming DM's perspective, it seems likely it would work that way. My only doubt is, it seems like Parson would have mentioned that idea before he went through the portal, if that was what he had in mind. Especially given how likely the Tool is to protest the risk. "It's ok Tool, I'm just going to stick my head through the portal long enough to rack up a ton of XP. You know, embiggen my warlord bonus. That's good, right? Right?"

But, meta-thinking more than is healthy, why did Rob start Parson at such a low level, despite him being the ultimate warlord? There's got to be a reason, which will be made clear in time. Until then, Parson can't "level like crazy".

You know, I never thought of it that way, but you may be right. Dirtmancy may control the "terrain type." Whether that terrain is a volano, lava lake, rice fields, city(may be a terrain type), mountians, lakes, ocean...

IIRC, Sizemore was astonished to have changed the terrain type by uncroaking the volcano. Which suggests it is
a) possible,
b) unusual, and
c) extremely difficult.

[drachefly]

New pool, how many dead thinkamancers are going to end up on the other side of the portal with parson?

I'm making it official. See you in Amateur Predictamancy

[multilis]

But... if Marie has been manipulating Janis, and Janis led the cabal that summoned Parson... does that mean that Charlie ultimately summoned Parson?

Except for the fact that the point of summoning Parson was to end war on Erfworld, and Charlie's the biggest war profiteer we've seen so far. If Charlie wanted a Parson-like warlord, he would have just summoned him.

Lots of stories including book 1984, movie Total Recall, Star Wars 3 and 6 (clones, plans to death star), have the Bad Guy secretly "help" the good guys in order to flush them out.

It is possible that Parson's intended purpose is to expose the foes of Charlie so that Charlie can eliminate them as a step to taking over entire erfworld. If Charlie wins everything then Janis gets end to war. Possible Charlie has secret hooks into Parson, just as Sauron of LOTR had secret hooks into all the magic rings, and just pretends ignorance. There is even a small chance that Marie *is* Charlie, carefully playing a double life with the help of the portals in the magic kingdom.

[pegleg pete]

Parson should also calculate the odds with Janis, Marie, Wanda and Jack stacked with him. A quick pop back through the Jetstone portal for those two, and his forces in the MK increase significantly.

[Housellama]

Marie is running the show here and has been from the moment she came on the scene.
First Jo-jo now, this, she's keeping Parson off-balance. Even Janice has no idea what she's up to, but she doesn't want him to hear what the GMs have to say.

She seems awfully interested in his bracer; first surprise, like she's never seen anything like it, but then she knows exactly what he's doing with it, and asks him to do a calculation. That's pretty suspicious.

What would be the advantage of Marie and Janice going to Spacerock? That seems to be the objective of all this maneuvering. Does Marie have some control over Wanda having made predictions for her in the past? Does she need to be close to him when the next surprise is sprung?

I'm not saying she is, but a lot of this would make some sense if she was, in fact, working for Charlie.

I agree that Marie is running the show. Disagree about the bracer. She was surprised, but when he told her it was a Mathamancy item, she asked a reasonable question based on her knowledge of the discipline. ("Odds of rushing the portal?") When he said yes, she asked him for a permutation of that calculation. Nothing of that is unreasonable.

Re: Marie & Janice @ SR ...I hadn't thought of that. I thought that the point was to get Parson there and that Marie was improvising (read as lying through her teeth) to get the job done. But IF she is telling the truth about the bit of Predictamancy about Janis, then maybe the object is to get all of them to SR. But then the question is why all of them NOW? If Marie wanted to go to SR, she could have just gone to SR. If the object was to get Janis to go to SR, she could have talked Janis into going to SR at any time. It's more than just Marie and Janis, the point would have to be to have ALL of them at SR at THIS time. Marie, Janis, Parson and Sizemore. We can't necessarily include Wanda and Jack, because we don't know if Marie planned that or not. Assuming that she did is going too far into tin-foil territory for me.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that Marie has a reason for wanting all of them to be in SR for the end of the battle, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. It'd have to be a pretty compelling one to convince me, though. The most plausible explanation I can see right now is that Marie is doing whatever she has to to get Parson through that portal. She's manipulating Janis to get over the hurdle that, ironically enough, she didn't see coming. She said she predicted it, but frankly I don't believe her. It's too convenient.

[Rakullu1]

Anybody else notice that if Marie goes through the portal, it would put all of FAQ's casters in the same location again? Anybody else think that it is more than just chance?

[Kreistor]

Parson should also calculate the odds with Janis, Marie, Wanda and Jack stacked with him. A quick pop back through the Jetstone portal for those two, and his forces in the MK increase significantly.

Wanda and Jack could come through, but returning would violate the conventions, since GK does not yet possess Spacerock.

[gameboy1234]

Anybody else notice that if Marie goes through the portal, it would put all of FAQ's casters in the same location again? Anybody else think that it is more than just chance?

Edit: oops, I can't count. But still might not be all, just the ones we know about. Are we really sure that FAQ only had three casters? Could Banhammer have had more?

[gameboy1234]

Has anyone read the Mistborn series? I wonder if a Predictamancer would grant stacked / allied units a function in combat like a mistborn burning Atium. For those that haven't read the series - you could basically see what the person you were fighting was about to do before they did it, so you could counter them perfectly.

I'm sure something like that. Not "perfectly" but granting both a defensive and an offensive bonus would probably be a reasonable combat bonus for any predictamancer.

Then if Maggie boosts them by coordinating with Thinkmancy... Hmm, I wonder if Maggie will be ordered into the MK to stack with Parson for an even better bonus? It might be needed; the GMtTA might still be a bit too tough for just a stack of four. A Thinkmancer might give a bonus defending against Thinkmancy.

That'll put all of GK's casters in one city. Time to break away from Stanley?

[Oberon]

But, meta-thinking more than is healthy, why did Rob start Parson at such a low level, despite him being the ultimate warlord? There's got to be a reason, which will be made clear in time. Until then, Parson can't "level like crazy".

Because levels (a pure mechanical advantage, such as Ansom and Ossomer have/had) isn't the equivalent of canny, a pure non-mechanical advantage which Parson has been expressing all along?

Sizemore has shown some affinity with Fire as well.

When, exactly?

FITH

[Dr Pepper]

Sizemore has shown some affinity with Fire as well.

When, exactly?

When he napalmed Webinar's troops.

[Kreistor]

Sizemore has shown some affinity with Fire as well.

When, exactly?

FITH

First, that's an affinity for producing oil, not Fire. The Fire is a secondary effect of the oil being lit.

You'll notice in panel 4 a golem breaking a barrel to release something like gunpowder. We know Twolls have Fabrication and probably produced that barrel. It is not unreasonable to think they produced oil for wall defense (standard boiling oil tactic), and all Sizemore would have needed to do was produce a channel for the oil to flow through.

[GaryThunder]

Having combed the Internet for this sort of thing, I now know exactly what kind of value a Predictamancer could bring to a stack.

This video demonstrates. You can't watch that and tell me there are no combat applications to that.

[GaryThunder]

First, that's an affinity for producing oil, not Fire. The Fire is a secondary effect of the oil being lit.

You'll notice in panel 4 a golem breaking a barrel to release something like gunpowder. We know Twolls have Fabrication and probably produced that barrel. It is not unreasonable to think they produced oil for wall defense (standard boiling oil tactic), and all Sizemore would have needed to do was produce a channel for the oil to flow through.

That liquid is not gunpowder, nor is it simply burning oil. Did you check that sound effect? The redox reaction of whatever two substances Sizemore's golem poured together (a fuel and an oxidant of some description, most likely) led to this other thing. Which proves that Sizemore can wield fire, but not through magic - through chemistry. The man knows his physical sciences as well as his geology, and so does Rob.

[ShieldOfAthena]

Sizemore has shown some affinity with Fire as well.

When, exactly?

Fire trap is the only thing I can think of... he is probably referring to that. It was some sort of fast burning liquid combined with an igniter and it was billed as a Dirtamancy trap set up by Sizemore and his Golems so...