Book 2 – Page 41

[Crisis21]

I've been wondering, am I like totally blind or was our jetstone prince's look changing during the charlie talk? He was just suddenly wearing glasses and it sure looked like his coloring on shirt and stuff wasn't the same.

In panel 5, the armor on his shoulder starts changing colors. Panels 8-10 have his armor start morphing into the tye-dye t-shirt that he's wearing in the last panel.

[the_tick_rules]

That's interesting. Charlie shiftin is his whole hiding thing but why is his stuff different?

[paint]

3. Cellular growth and reproduction. As nearly as we can tell, Hair doesn't grow, skin doesn't produce dandruff, fingernails don't get longer, and gametes transferred during sex never fertilize or create new life.

Except Parson losing weight and his muscles getting sore strongly imply that all of his biological systems are still functioning normally. The results of hair growth, sex and the like would get wiped each turn.

i'd like to contend that Parsons hair is longer by about 2 inches .
which would be about right for human hair growth over the course of roughly 2-3 months.

[Dr Pepper]

Without biological processes there'd be no crap golems.

[JustDoug]

Without biological processes there'd be no crap golems.

I dunno... One of the local laws back here in Reality Land is that 90% of everything is crap. I guess some laws are truly universal, even in other universes.

But as for the New Yankee Workshop of Gatling Guns and Nuclear-Powered Supercarriers...

Trying to force-fit our brand of physical laws into Erf's law books just isn't going to work. There's too many differences that have been made plain. The bit about hex-relative time alone would make Einstein weep and the fall-damage stats, hex borders and turn related move rules would drive poor old Newton to drink.

Forget gunpowder. We don't even know if electromagnetic phenomena exist, let alone if there's such things as electrons or magnetism in Erf's fundamental makeup.

Mass pops out of nowhere. It sometimes goes away at the end of a turn with no great fanfare. It can also be teleported: through a hat if you so choose. Time doesn't depend upon the observer in the local frame, but the order of actions performed over several. Momentum has edges- and those edges have traffic lights. Gravity is selective at times. SOP physics can be circumvented and overridden by some beings.

I'm not even going to touch biology except to say that making whoopee seems to be another one of those universal Universal laws, for which the inhabitants can no doubt be very thankful for.

Erf looks a lot like Back Home and that's all. It's not the same place nor does it operate under the same rules. Things work there because they work there and that's how they work. For all we know, the local Sun isn't a thermonuclear furnace but a big old ball of burning pitch, though I'll wager it's just there because the Creators needed it there and the rules say it should be there.

[Krennson]

There is another idea I've had for a LONG time that is kind of tenuous. Here it goes: Charlie is a barbarian caster who attuned to an arkentool. Charlescomm may not be an actual side. What we may be seeing is him occupying an empty city and producing the Arkendish special units from schmuckers in his purse. This would explain why he only ever produces one type of unit(and that units cloth golems - personally, I'm hoping for gaunt hooded scarecrow golems). This would explain why, though he seems to love money, he only holds one city (more cities mean more revenue and more rations - which would certainly pay for some of his average per-turn archon cost - if he can't officially control cities, he gets none of these benefits). Purse size could be a limiting factor, but could be overcome using a mathamancer to help with schmuckers-to-gems. He seems very canny, and could possibly have racked up millions in schmuckers (or gems) by this point, and so is fine unless he encounters a long period of no customers This info could be what he is terrified of becoming common knowledge. If this is true, Charlescomm becomes much easier to destroy; simply kill as many archons as you can. Charlie can only produce one or two archons every few turns. It wouldn't be hard for a smart or competent opponent to kill them faster than they can be produced. Oh, and one more - if people know both the above, and the fact that he can tap into thinkagrams/magical comms, they would have reason to both attack Charlescomm units on sight, and believe that Charlescomm couldn't afford to retaliate.

hmmm... charlie as a barbarian caster. that... might make sense. except, as i understand it, if charlie has a 'capital' city under his physical control, and enough schmuckers on hand, theres nothing to prevent him from promptly 'founding' his own side, and thus escaping barbarian status. Assuming he was not a 'royal' barbarian, he would then become 'overlord' not 'king'

although... maybe that's what actually HAPPENED. Charlie popped in the middle of nowhere as a random barbarian caster, loyal to no-one. He wandered in the wilds, doing mercenary work and grubbing for rations, until one day he stumbled on the arkendish.... Somehow, he had enough money to found a side, and the rest is history; he's not a royal, so he doesn't believe in honor or divine mandates, he's not from any specific side, so he doesn't have any specific loyalty or disloyalty to a given side.... as a barbarian born and trained, he really is loyal to money and nothing else.

[Lamech]

Except that he wouldn't have come up with that. He'd likely be too busy trying to debunk Erfworld magic in favor of the physics he was familiar with.

Assuming he did not conclude he was halucinating, I'm pretty sure he would conclude fairly quickly that magic does exist. He thought Merlin was non-magical because up until the very end Merlin didn't cast a single overt spell. I'm pretty sure he would do the fairly obvious move of combining your three casters into a supra-artifact weapon. Its kind of the obvious choice. Pretty much everyone on the fourms either thought a) Parson would pull out a win by superior tactics or b) make dirtamancy/croakamancy of doom.

Erfwold by Rob Balder. The universe is literally a giant wargame. All earthly rules of physics have been replaced by simplistic 'models' of those rules, which produces a great many areas where an earth native can SEE where the model breaks down, or has unintended consequences. Guns would be one of these areas. either they don't work, or they work in a very different manner from what you might expect.

Yeah except "the model" has gone all the way up to biological phenomona that don't exist on Erf, and calculator watchs. So either a) the physics of Earth still hold were the magic does not interfere, or b) the titans got really far on their modeling. Either way a gun will still do wonders.

TOBIAS is a virtual-reality simulation of World War I, based on exhaustive modeling of newtonian physics as they apply to the common infantryman and artillery unit. One of the main themes is that airplanes DON'T WORK in this world, because no one had gotten around to programing a model of complex airflows into the system yet. Even at the end of the story, if it's not programmed for, it doesn't work. Attempting to build a nuclear weapon within TOBIAS will fail completely, because TOBIAS wasn't programmed to model ANY of the laws of nuclear fission; it wasn't relevant to WWI. If you want nukes, you have to hire a programmer FIRST.

This is jsut a computer simulation. We have countless simulations of varying quality.

Trying to force-fit our brand of physical laws into Erf's law books just isn't going to work. There's too many differences that have been made plain. The bit about hex-relative time alone would make Einstein weep and the fall-damage stats, hex borders and turn related move rules would drive poor old Newton to drink.

Forget gunpowder. We don't even know if electromagnetic phenomena exist, let alone if there's such things as electrons or magnetism in Erf's fundamental makeup.

Mass pops out of nowhere. It sometimes goes away at the end of a turn with no great fanfare. It can also be teleported: through a hat if you so choose. Time doesn't depend upon the observer in the local frame, but the order of actions performed over several. Momentum has edges- and those edges have traffic lights. Gravity is selective at times. SOP physics can be circumvented and overridden by some beings.

Yes there are magical things. In Harry Potter magic can tamper with time, and the conservation laws. Standard DnD setting has time flow at totally different rates depending on which plane you are located, yet the basic assumption is physics still works. If a mage pulls a rabit out of his hat and casts fly on it we assume mages are magical, not the laws of physics don't work else where.

[zilfallon]

Lamech, i agree with you about magic, but there is a hint that most of Newton's laws fail in Erfworld. One is that in erfworld, your energy when you reach ground from a distance, is irrelevant to the distance you fall, 10000000000 kilometers, 100 meters, 1 meter and even 1 millimeter, all of those are able to do equal damage to you. And there's the relative time thing, which will surely make Einstein say "Wtf dude????????????", as mentioned above.

[Krennson]

Yes there are magical things. In Harry Potter magic can tamper with time, and the conservation laws. Standard DnD setting has time flow at totally different rates depending on which plane you are located, yet the basic assumption is physics still works. If a mage pulls a rabit out of his hat and casts fly on it we assume mages are magical, not the laws of physics don't work else where.

actually, in Harry potter it is specifically estabilished that high-technology gear, such as scuba tanks, do not work in areas of high magic, such as hogwarts.

In DnD, different planes DO have different laws of physics, as the game system handles such things; gravity works differently than pure formula would predict on the planes of air and earth, and even on a prime material plane, using the game engine to resolve simple physics experiments frequently gives DIFFERENT results that newtonian physics would predict; EG kinetic energy of falling objects. Most DnD GM's, if a character attempts to create gunpowder, will rule that it does not work for any of a variety of reasons. the most popular being either "your character doesn't know how to do that" and "gosh darn it, the rules only cover normal-pressure fires, so that's what you get"

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/in ... 2003-09-17

[iggybork]

Maybe it's been discussed already, but it seemed to me that the changing rainbows in this strip have more to do with influence over the conversation than Charlie magically suggesting something to Tramennis. At no point does Tramennis ever seem to give in to Charlie's ploys.

In the first line, Charlie's rainbows are reflecting on Tramennis, which could show that in the beginning, Tram was at least somewhat willing to believe what Charlie had to say. At panel 4, Tram greys out (no reflections from Charlie), and the moment he starts controlling the conversation (panel 5) his character is more saturated and gains a couple rainbows. He gets more and more saturated until panel 8, when he refuses Charlie's help and decides to go his own way. Charlie's forms, in contrast, start losing shape - after the ? box, it's just meaningless combinations of colors, since Charlie's lost the upper hand.

I would say that when Charlie implies that Erf should fear Parson, he's at least partially serious, even if he is trying to color (ha) Tram's judgment with scare tactics.

[the_tick_rules]

Charlie is trying to protect his customer base. GK is trying to conquer the world and doesn't like Charlie so if they take a big piece he'll loose customers and not be able to pay the massively huge upkeep cost of his forces. Problem is his weaselness is slowly being exposed and if he gets too dirty he might loose clients cause his "neutrality" will be over. He's got problems. So I guess if he needs to make Hamster the boogey man he's up for that. But if it's exposed he's trying to amongst the aiding royal sides he's got some backfire potential.

[Oberon]

Zil, thanks for the correction on the SoR. It is interesting to me that no character remarked on the sudden increase, and then equally sudden decrease, in Parson's bonus. That's not to say that I debate it, as I believe the Stupid Meals to be a sound source of information (the irony!), simply that I'm surprised that no character, say, Bogroll, who assembled the sword and handed it to Parson, was ever impressed enough to note "The sword gave you +2 combat!" or whatever.

I want to quote from one of my previus posts in this topic, to give my opinion about why Charlie wanted Parson when he doesn't pop any warlords:

Charlie is rich, but he doesn't need warlords, and he doesn't WANT them even if he needs. Of course, he has shown interest in Parson after he saw what he's capable, but remember, Charlie is an erfworlder (well, there's an argument about it, but i'm saying that he is an erfworlder , for the sake of my sentence) and what he thinks of a perfect warlord is a max level, dashing, strong warlord. That is the erfworlders sense of perfect warlord. And that is why Charlie defined Parson as "more than perfect warlord"

Well, this isn't exactly explaining what I mean now, but let's start: (first, I'm assuming that Charlie is an Erfworlder. What I wrote will not be valid at all if we consider him an earthling, I'll come to that point too)

If Charlie knew about the summon spell, then what he thought of "perfect warlord" would be what I described above ( high stats and such ). But Parson is different. We don't know about his stats, but he is clearly able to think very different from the rest and because of this, he is able to do unimagined things. That might be a reason Parson was defined as "more than perfect"

If he didn't know about the summoning, then he might have noticed the change in GK's moves, and "hey, who the hell is this warlord" and developed interest, even more so after he learned about the bracer.

A reason he has no warlords might be his paronoia(did I spell it wrong? ) He might think that it is impossible for any warlord to provide him any advice, (since he's a genius, and a bit overconfident in that) and he might think that the little stat boost is just not worth the trouble. He is a mercanary, he hires Archons, and the user stacks those Archons with whatever warlord they want. He's a Rent-A-Unit shop, and other sides wouldn't want to hire a warlord mostly. But after he realized what Parson is capable, he believed that Parson is the only warlord who can truly aid him.

Ok. Most of this is quite fair. But...
If a Warlord or CWL managing your city saves shmuckers, and we know that Charlie is all about the schmuckers, then Charlie should be well able to run the ROI calculation and figure out that it is better to pop a Warlord and appoint him CWL (if necessary) for capitol city cost reductions. After all, Carlie only has one city, he only needs one Warlord/CWL to be in the city manager role. Even popping a sub-par personality Warlord should be able to grant the ROI necessary to make the decision a no-brainer. And if he gets a Duncan Scone? Bonus round! Turnamancers, hired often as has been mentioned, can be used as they can spare juice to heighten loyalty.

To address the argument that Warlords can be a contrary personality type, and why would Charlie fuss around with a random personality? Well, most Warlords seem to be rather along the lines of what a Side ruler would want. The king of FAQ might have wanted a philosopher Prince, but no other Side would want that. Any Side other than FAQ, including Charlie, would do well with any other Warlord we've seen. And that runs the gamut from Dora and Vinnie through Sammie and Ansom. If "being loyal" and "saving me schmuckers by managing my city" are the traits being looked for, I can't imagine how any of those four, or any other Warlords we've seen to date, would be a poor pop.

Possible counters: Archons can have Leadership. Which means that it is possible that the ability to manage a city isn't tied to being a Warlord/CWL, it's tied to having the Leadership special which all Warlords/CWL have. Thus, an Archon with Leadership can manage Charlie's city for him, and he has no need for a Warlord/CWL. This Archon can be rotated in and out to build her level, and there is no fiddly issue such as a lack of wings slowing down the rest of the troops the Warlord is traveling with.

If Charlie is from Earth, like Parson:

He might have guessed that Parson is from earth, from his informatives in MK. Him noticing Parson without knowing the summoning spell is not possible though. Since Parson didn't show much earth-like thinking before the TPK enough to make Charlie suspect "Another from Earth? Could it really be...?" If he knew the summoning spell and is from Earth, then that's a really good reason for him to try getting him.

A quite long post, and I think I got kinda off-topic, but anyway, what's done is done

There is some weight to the "Charlie is from Earth" argument. Charlie has recognized all sub-culture references Parson has made. This can indicate that he is also from Earth, or that the 'Dish grants him understanding (or that the story moves along better if Parson doesn't have to stop and explain all of his cultural references). I prefer the latter, even if only as a justification of the parenthetical. But I cannot argue against the former. Maggie "didn't get it" (all your base, etc), and she is a potent Thinkamancer. So it clearly isn't just the Thinkamancy discipline which grants the understanding of sub-culture references.

[ftl]

Zil, thanks for the correction on the SoR. It is interesting to me that no character remarked on the sudden increase, and then equally sudden decrease, in Parson's bonus. That's not to say that I debate it, as I believe the Stupid Meals to be a sound source of information (the irony!), simply that I'm surprised that no character, say, Bogroll, who assembled the sword and handed it to Parson, was ever impressed enough to note "The sword gave you +2 combat!" or whatever.

People can't see Parson's stats. They can tell his leadership score based on the bonus he gives to other units, but if he himself got a bonus that didn't apply to others, nobody would know.

Or, perhaps a unit equipping an item that gives combat bonuses isn't enough of a rarity to be specifically commented on. After all, many units use weapons of various sorts.

[Oberon]

We haven't seen much indication that the basic laws of Erf are anything more than earth+natural mancies.

They had fabricators. And a dirtamancer. He could make anything he wanted.

... this is a world where swear words automagically get turned into "boop", it's possible to uncroak/decrypt dead units, things move in turns and time is relative not to speed of light but to the turns, and rations pop. I think it's quite plausible that electricity etc. all don't work the same as here.

To be fair, the curse words being converted to "boop" was far more an artifact of the GitP host site than it was an artifact of Erfworld mechanics.

Notice that now, on their own site, Parson swears freely? This is not a carry-over of Parson's breaking of the curse rules. It is purely an "I own this space" effect, rather than a "weird mechanics" effect.

Meaning no disrespect at all, and claiming no insider knowledge, my guess is that the GitP rule of "no cursing on this site" was applied to the hosted Erfworld comic as well, with the sole exception of the epic "F YOU!" which concluded Book 1 and the GitP hosting of Erfworld. And Rich himself commented rather specifically on this subject. Now, on a site which they own, the creators have no limits other than those which they impose upon themselves.

More on mechanics: I dunno about any of the rest of what you mention being applicable. Would a telegraph (electricity with a cross hex function) be impossible, simply because the time flow in any given hex might be different than that in any other? Why would this make a telegraph line non-functional, when a Dwagon relay is still functional? I think that both should work, if properly conceived. And if this is plausible, then why not an electric trap? If the traps in the tunnels fight were plausible, then why not a salty wet ground with an electric line providing the same damage? I'm just not seeing any reason why these tactics should not function just because "different universe."

[Ansan Gotti]

To be fair, the curse words being converted to "boop" was far more an artifact of the GitP host site than it was an artifact of Erfworld mechanics.

Notice that now, on their own site, Parson swears freely? This is not a carry-over of Parson's breaking of the curse rules. It is purely an "I own this space" effect, rather than a "weird mechanics" effect.

I'm sorry, but how are you making such sweeping pronouncements with that level of certitude?

There is a very strong (significantly stronger, IMO) case to be made that the "boop" effect is very much a deliberate authorial choice to illustrate how war is hell, even with cutesy battle bears and dwagons and marbits and gwiffons and a profanity filter. Same point with respect to Parson' exerting his free will over Erfworld's filter.

Meaning no disrespect at all, and claiming no insider knowledge, my guess is that the GitP rule of "no cursing on this site" was applied to the hosted Erfworld comic as well, with the sole exception of the epic "F YOU!" which concluded Book 1 and the GitP hosting of Erfworld. And Rich himself commented rather specifically on this subject. Now, on a site which they own, the creators have no limits other than those which they impose upon themselves.

That is true, but again, story value seems to trump process, here. And I think you will see that the rest of Erfworld will still be bound to boop, it is only Parson who has been set free for now.

[Squishalot]

If a Warlord or CWL managing your city saves shmuckers, and we know that Charlie is all about the schmuckers, then Charlie should be well able to run the ROI calculation and figure out that it is better to pop a Warlord and appoint him CWL (if necessary) for capitol city cost reductions. After all, Carlie only has one city, he only needs one Warlord/CWL to be in the city manager role. Even popping a sub-par personality Warlord should be able to grant the ROI necessary to make the decision a no-brainer. And if he gets a Duncan Scone? Bonus round! Turnamancers, hired often as has been mentioned, can be used as they can spare juice to heighten loyalty.

Yes and no. Charlie may already have run the ROI calculation and determined it not to be worth it, considering his Warlord(s) would have no other purpose.

Consider the case of GK. Warlords exist for combat and strategy. But if you've got these Warlords sitting around and not doing anything when you're not in battle, you can help to offset their cost by 'saving money' when they're managing a city.

The question is - how much really gets saved? Is it worthwhile popping a Warlord purely for the sake of city management? If a Warlord costs 1000 schmuckers a turn in upkeep, it's not worth it if you're only getting 1000 schmuckers a turn in savings, since you'll need to pay for the popping cost too.

Savings - increases the amount of Schmuckers the city produces, reduces upkeep for units in the city. But we don't know how much it increases/reduces by, and most of Charlie's high-upkeep forces (i.e. the Archons) are out of the city - he's only got his inner-sanctum of Archons and the golems.

[multilis]

"Forget gunpowder..."

I disagree. Erfworld is like a game that copies some aspects of real life.

In many of these games, gunpowder *does* exist, as something dwarves and humans may get as part of their tech tree... muskets and cannons as higher level crossbows and seige weapons.

As well, seen goblins with a suicidal version of gunpowder in a game.

If you look at sizemore's tunnel traps in book 1, there are hints that some of our chemistry is a form of "magic" in Erfworld.

So in my opinion, we really don't know and it would be worth Parson to try with sizemore and trolls to find out if cannon, etc can be built.

[Lamech]

Possible counters: Archons can have Leadership. Which means that it is possible that the ability to manage a city isn't tied to being a Warlord/CWL, it's tied to having the Leadership special which all Warlords/CWL have. Thus, an Archon with Leadership can manage Charlie's city for him, and he has no need for a Warlord/CWL. This Archon can be rotated in and out to build her level, and there is no fiddly issue such as a lack of wings slowing down the rest of the troops the Warlord is traveling with

From one of the translovito texts we know that courtiers can also manage cities. Its possible that Charlie somehow managed to get his hands on one of those, made an archon/golem one of those or archons have a similar power. Or perhaps Charlie is just doing it. Maybe he stuck all the structures for rounds inside the tower.

here is some weight to the "Charlie is from Earth" argument. Charlie has recognized all sub-culture references Parson has made. This can indicate that he is also from Earth, or that the 'Dish grants him understanding (or that the story moves along better if Parson doesn't have to stop and explain all of his cultural references). I prefer the latter, even if only as a justification of the parenthetical. But I cannot argue against the former. Maggie "didn't get it" (all your base, etc), and she is a potent Thinkamancer. So it clearly isn't just the Thinkamancy discipline which grants the understanding of sub-culture references.

Or he is just recognizing that Parson is referencing something. I can't recall (which doesn't mean there isn't) any real demonstration that he knows anything more than Parson is making some humorous reference.

[teratorn]

The question is - how much really gets saved? Is it worthwhile popping a Warlord purely for the sake of city management? If a Warlord costs 1000 schmuckers a turn in upkeep, it's not worth it if you're only getting 1000 schmuckers a turn in savings, since you'll need to pay for the popping cost too.

Is there a popping cost?

[Decorus]

If Parson hadn't destroyed Ruthlessness his warlord bonus and combat stats would be higher.