Book 2 – Text Updates 014

[Raza]

It's Charlie's Gentle Reminder, hehe.

[build6]

I think Charlie would have studied the dish and its applications fairly well before really getting going, he/she/it just strikes me as that kind of individual.

agreed. actually from what we've seen so far, other than Parson, it seems to me that Charlie is the smartest entity in erfworld, no? at least certainly the most cunning ("no I got PAID to be in a no-lose situation").

Stanley on the other hand doesn't seem to have been so studious in learning about what the hammer can do and is only just know learning some of the subtler abilities (well, turning nuts into pigeons seems subtle to me).

heh, actually, it's worse than that, isn't it? he didn't actively "learn", he only accidentally found that out because he's the kind of person who wouldn't revere an artefact of the Titans enough to not use it as a nutcracker

The pliers... are strange. Wanda seemed to know almost automatically about the decryption function, and they haven't been shown to do anything else yet (presumably they still are still a super effective weapon against uncroaked).

y'know, it would be really a spanner in the works w.r.t. "Fate magic" if the pliers were delivered to Wanda... and she didn't attune to them, no? And the fact that they did... hrm, maybe it's not so implausible for Wanda to genuinely believe that this is a War of the Tools, after all.

[haviel]

I think its pretty much impossible for Parson to be an Arkentool, and the reason is because he wasn't created in Erfworld. He was created biologically. If he is a Arkentool then the definition of Arkentool becomes so hazy that you could call Jillian or Vinnie an Arkentool because they seem to have Fates that involve the Arkentools somehow. They'd be more likely to be Arkentools than parson because they actually popped in Erfworld. What we know so far is that an Arkentool is an Magical Artifact. There isn't any indication that the pattern will change from Object to Person.

Secondly; I find myself reconsidering some of the slightly less hairbrained pet theories out there about What Happens Next. Usually the writer outsmarts the audience in the end, so I tend not to pay attention to that sorta thing. But...

Charlie using the Arkendish to Link with Vanna sounds fairly reasonable. Charie boosting her Casting abilities to Turn Wanda seems like a good Idea, though now it seems likely that they want to make Wanda back off instead of straight switching sides. Who knows 'sides the writer. Speaking of Hairbrained Ideas...

Earth's universe presumeably had a different creater(s) than Erfworld. So what if Parson actually Attunes to a Arkentool. Parson's nature could alert the Titans to an intruder in their realm. Woudn't that cause serious problems? Like Inter-universe Warfare between Dieties due to one side encroaching on the power of the other? Did Wanda think of that?

[asparagus]

So what if Parson actually Attunes to a Arkentool. Parson's nature could alert the Titans to an intruder in their realm. Woudn't that cause serious problems? Like Inter-universe Warfare between Dieties due to one side encroaching on the power of the other? Did Wanda think of that?

I don't think that makes sense. Presumably the Titans wrote the rules of magic. So they permitted Parson to come into their universe. Anyway Parson seems to keep wondering if all of erfworld is taking place inside his comatose head anyway, which would sort of throw all the cards up into the air.

[HandofShadows]

heh, actually, it's worse than that, isn't it? he didn't actively "learn", he only accidentally found that out because he's the kind of person who wouldn't revere an artefact of the Titans enough to not use it as a nutcracker

Oddley enough though in some ways Stanley may learn MORE about what the Arkenhammer can do because he does not try to figure it out. He uses it he uses it in situations that other people would not even dream of. This might give him a more intuitive grasp of what an Arkentool can do as opposed to the researched way Charlie would go about it. You can bet that Charlie would never have thought to use the Arkenhammer to crack nuts and discover they about can change the nuts in to bird (20% of the time). There might be other things the Arkentools can do but, the people they are attuned to don't know about because they never tried.

[theseus2x]

Oh - and remember! The Arkenhammer doesn't just turn walnuts into birds! No, no! It can turn birds into walnuts!

The scary thing is, Wanda may be the one who's experimented with her Arkentool the LEAST. And she's already completely unbalancing.

[Kanki-chan]

It definitely sounds like Charlie had to have done some experimentation on his Arkendish, simply because it seems to do more than the pliers or the hammer. I mean, if I shut myself in an impenetrable fortress, was attuned to an arkentool and had a lot of time on my hands, I'd definitely try experimenting on what it can and can't do.

Back to the link discussion though, I just had a crazy idea. Excuse me...

::borrows BLANDCorporatio's tinfoil hat::

With the hand gesture Vanna was showing, it definitely seems Italian/Mafio-like, but we heard a male voice that said to not mess with Vanna. We are also unsure if Charlie can have extended reach, although it seems possible.

What if Charlie was in a trimancer link with Vanna and Don's thinkamancer Bunny? The Thinka-thinka-turnamancer link would probably be like going from dial-up (Thinkamancer-turnamancer link) to broadband in terms of reach. This would also explain why Don King had to use a bat to see what was going on instead of having Bunny send a thinkagram to Slately or Jillian (along with the hand gesture), and adding Charlie would explain the male voice. It's also entirely possible that Jillian was in on the link, which explains her directions to not bother Vanna, and maybe her reluctance to talk to Wanda about Charlie.

[splintermute]

This would also explain why Don King had to use a bat to see what was going on instead of having Bunny send a thinkagram to Slately or Jillian (along with the hand gesture), and adding Charlie would explain the male voice.

Don King is using Bunny to see through the bat:

"Doombats typically had a range of twenty hexes or so for scouting, but a Thinkamancer extended that range indefinitely. He kept thirty-six of his personal bats in various interesting locales, including four in and around the Jetstone fight. For the juice cost of a Thinkagram, Bunny could link him to one of their views, just like he was in the area himself."

I don't know if this precludes her from being part of a link-up.

[Kanki-chan]

I don't know if this precludes her from being part of a link-up.

Maybe, maybe not. I forgot that Don needed Bunny in order to get the doombat to work as a pair of binoculars, although linking up with Charlie might be able to let Bunny set up the doombat along with keep her link.

A similar example could've been the Eyebooks created by the tri-link of Misty, Jack, and Maggie (explained here and briefly here). Sure, it was a magical item created by the three of them, but it's a bonus along with the table, and "unmatched communications and intelligence." I'm sure Don King using the doombats (whether before or during the link-up) with Bunny--and the rest of the link so that it didn't break--isn't an impossible stretch.

[fjolnir]

unfortunatly the eyebooks aren't a good example of this since the eyebooks are like duncan's headset, they will work for anyone. the batsight requires concentration...

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Also, domination (the scroll on Jillian. This may be what you were calling hypnosis), messing with loyalty, spotting spells on others, breaking spells on others via a pep-talk, leading dance fights via a DDR, interfering with or disrupting others who are leading dance fights via a DDR, and spotting veils. It's late and I'm tired, I may have missed a good handful.

Most of that has little to do with the dish or thinkamancy. Spotting magic/veils, Dance-fighting are abilities Archons can have.

And when were the Archons guiding Ansom disrupting others who were leading a dance fight? Wanda was still doing her thing, just completely outnumbered by a now dancing enemy (I might be misreading you post, sorry if I am).

Parson and his forces were trying to interfere with the Archons leading Ansom leading the coalition force by killing them/effecting them with magic, but they didn't have the resources to take out all the Archons (since they didn't know which ones could do the DDR, as it turns out there were only four there, so in reality they probably could have got them all, but just didn't know). That isn't really thinkamancy power, that is just "an archon can't guide a dance-fight if it is dead or to magically affected to do it".

Also not sure about the messing with loyalty (well, Thinkamancy in general, Charlie and his Archons haven't been shown to do that yet, beyond Charlie working on natural allies) or breaking spells via a pep-talk. An Archon talked to Jillian and managed to push Jillian to break it herself, she didn't cast "dispel magic" on Jillian or anything.

The real problem is, this has happened over and over again. It is my single greatest criticism of the comic. Charlie and/or the Archons have always had the power needed at the time. And we don't even need to conceive of never-thought-possible five caster links to notice this happening.

Most characters, in most fiction, have what is needed at the time to advance the plot, otherwise it wouldn't advance. How well it is written makes it noticeable or not. I have no problem with how Charlie has been portrayed. The mystery of the teleporting (or not) archons is still intriguing, but otherwise nothing has turned out to be story breakingly impossible, especially considering the abilities of Charlie and his Archons were never fully revealed in book one.

Now we know exactly what Archons can have in their bags of tricks. We still have a lot to learn about Charlie.

All we had been told previously was that Charlie could extend some of his abilities to his personal Archons in his tower.

The archons parson questioned said they didn't know all the dish was capable of, true. Of course the implication is that the dish would still has further abilities yet to be revealed beyond just thinkagrams and sharing things with archons.

This is a nice enough ability, and may be the source of the "operator" who Maggie put Parson in touch with.

Nice enough, although we don't actually know what abilities Charlie actually has access to (beyond what we have been shown).

In all honesty, extending abilities onto the Archons is a completely new power and is more out-of-sync than a long-range link.

I imagine we'll see many a new power, mainly since we had little idea about what the dish could do before this book. Now we are learning. Considering the pliers have been shown to decrypt and that is it I imagine eventually we'll learn of a completely new power for them as well.

Books 2 and 3 will tell a different story though, so we'll probably-hopefully not see extensions of Charlie's powers. I think we haven't such in this book yet, so there's no need to cry foul on the story; just on the occasional speculation that invests Charlescomm with too much ability.

I guess it will depend on how it is portrayed. Really we had little information on the full extent of Charlie and his dish's abilities. Or Archons for that matter. Or Casters (though we know more about them). In this book the abilities of Archons have been locked down (and gell with what they were shown to do in book one), and the curtain on Charlie and casters has been pulled back some.

But I agree, I don't think we've gotten anything like an unreasonable extension of Charlie's powers.

Yes, I said we haven't seen extensions of Charlie's powers in Book 2. I may have missed a few, but I mean specifically the long distance link. Oberon and Lord Kasavin would disagree, but in my opinion the links so far relied on a lot of stuff (messages? info?) being passed between caster minds, like computers in a network. Make 'em close enough, it's almost like they're the same computer. Even at a longer distance, if you make the medium fast and reliable enough, it's almost as if they're in the same room. So it's not that out of the blue that some sort of long-distance linking is possible. Maybe it has some limitations too, we haven't actually seen it in action.

Agreed.

These are things that are not possible.

Or were possible, but no one had the initiative/resources to try (which, indeed, from an Erf perspective could seem like GK had done something impossible, although Charlie worked out what was behind Parson's WMD fairly quickly). Trem made his own flyer relay, even though Oss, still thinking with a pre-Parson mindset, said it was a waste of resources.

The scary thing is, Wanda may be the one who's experimented with her Arkentool the LEAST. And she's already completely unbalancing.

Although she is lucky (or fated) to be in such an unbalancing position. She got the pliers and there happened to be a massive awesome army just waiting for decryption. Without that initial force the pliers would probably be far harder to get to that position then a canny hammer user (as Stanley has become, thanks to Parson dwagon wise) or a canny dish user.

Although I guess to be fair Stanley also benefits from being located close to dwagon popping territory and Charlie for having a city that pops Archons (unless his dish just lets him pop them anywhere).

But true, she is just spamming her decryption ability, who knows what other wonderful things those pliers could do? Maybe if she hit a melon with them it would turn into a bat or something.

[BLANDCorporatio]

What if Charlie was in a trimancer link with Vanna and Don's thinkamancer Bunny? The Thinka-thinka-turnamancer link would probably be like going from dial-up (Thinkamancer-turnamancer link) to broadband in terms of reach.

You're welcome.

Bonus points for wanting to see beyond the apparent, as apparently Transylvito is committed to not trusting Charlie.

Plus, long range involuntary links would be story breaking*; imagine Charlie getting hold of a findamancer, then force-long-link with all of GK's casters. If it sounds dirty, imagine what it could do to the story. The caster characters would be gone under Charlie's backlash just like that.

*: and game-breaking too, but let's not emphasize that.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

You're welcome.

Bonus points for wanting to see beyond the apparent, as apparently Transylvito is committed to not trusting Charlie.

Plus, long range involuntary links would be story breaking*; imagine Charlie getting hold of a findamancer, then force-long-link with all of GK's casters. If it sounds dirty, imagine what it could do to the story. The caster characters would be gone under Charlie's backlash just like that.

*: and game-breaking too, but let's not emphasize that.

Indeed, I don't think Charlie (or anyone for that matter but the Titans) would have the means to force a caster into a link up from another side against their will/without that side's ruler saying so. And indeed, that scenario does sound dirty.

I imagine a willing long range link up would be the extent of it, if that is what is going on. Thinkamancers make link ups possible, Charlie's dish is closely related to thinkamancy, plus the imagery of long range communication/connection, so theoretically the thinkamancer component could be back back in Charlescomm but still linked to Vanna (or whatever caster from a side willing to let Charlie do this).

[Sieggy]

I have to wonder what Slately is going to do now . . . does he recognize Charlie's voice, put two and two together (Archons on the attacking force and Charlie's voice coming out of a caster would give one a bit of a pause), and decide to do something dramatic? According to his inner narrative, he recognizes that the longer the warrior-bitches talk, the more screwed he is. If he concludes that Charlie and that barbarian queen are setting him up, he may do something drastic, like attack the caster or summon his guards (who I assume are close at hand). It would be amusing if the whole scenario goes down the tubes because Slately, not Stanley, loses it bigtime. Or perhaps a combination thereof . . .

[BLANDCorporatio]

I have to wonder what Slately is going to do now . . . does he recognize Charlie's voice{?, then snip}

Probably not. Charlie so far seemed to communicate only through PR Archons.

The rest however, of him flipping out and killing people, seems plausible. The Caster is the Barbarian Queen's caster anyway, and she seems to be dividing the pie that is his kingdom, so yeah, it makes sense. Go down fighting, sell your hide dearly, that sort of thing.

[Godsire]

Anyone know why the update is delayed ?

Hope nothing happened...

[BLANDCorporatio]

Anyone know why the update is delayed ?

Hope nothing happened...

Oh dear Titans not again

Are you trying some kind of sympathy magic? 'Cause the last time I answered a very similar question the update happened to arrive a few minutes afterwards. Coincidence? Yes.

Anyway, to repeat the answer, updates here are regularly irregular, chiefly because Erfworld is not that financially lucrative to allow its creators to fully focus on it.

[Godsire]

Anyone know why the update is delayed ?

Hope nothing happened...

Oh dear Titans not again

Are you trying some kind of sympathy magic? 'Cause the last time I answered a very similar question the update happened to arrive a few minutes afterwards. Coincidence? Yes.

Anyway, to repeat the answer, updates here are regularly irregular, chiefly because Erfworld is not that financially lucrative to allow its creators to fully focus on it.

Bland, I know all that haha. I'm a long term follower. But some people are on IRC sometimes and might have heard news that had not been posted.

[Kanki-chan]

Yeah, after changing from the gitp.com website, I figured that unless Erfworld rises in CTRL+ALT+DEL status or Penny Arcade status, it isn't going to update on a regular M-W-F or T-Th-Sat schedule.

Instead, I decided to just bookmark this site in my "Randomly updating webcomics" folder. Do I still check each website in the folder at least once or twice a day? Of course, but at least I'm not extremely disappointed if they haven't updated yet

[BLANDCorporatio]

Bland, I know all that haha. I'm a long term follower. But some people are on IRC sometimes and might have heard news that had not been posted.

Ah yes, the IRC channel. I keep forgetting it exists for some reason.