I'm not entirely certain her Element is Will. Wordblood said elements that are too similar devour one another too. I think hers is just so similar that she couldn't exist alongside a Will Deva. I think the three biggest chances for what her element might actually be, assuming she doesn't have some muddled non-element element, are Humanity, Souls, or Will. Given what Wordblood said about Souls basically being bade of Titan's Will, and all of humanity basically being defined by their Souls, I'd say that Will might be close enough to the two others to devour each other or at least be threatened by Will.

>>79127
A perfectly valid idea, though personally I think Saulanna's element is will for several reasons.
1) See Wordblood/Saulanna's reaction to 'Will'. Obvious Chekov's gun is obvious.
2) When Wordblood discussed the problem with a 'soul' element, he described it as bits of titanic will fashioned to a purpose. We find out from Kairosa that whatever Peregrin did to us cleaned our metaphycial clock (no pun intended) and made us into an almost completely blank slate before attaching Wordblood. This, to me, implies Saulanna was broken down into nothing but the Titanic Will that formed her, meaning her soul was Will incarnate for a brief bit.
3) Her will is growing stronger, just like how Wordblood's form is growing bigger, stronger and brighter. As the quest has progressed, Saulanna's character has not only become more developed, but also more willfull. At first she responded pretty much 100% to what we said, sometimes directly quoting us. She froze up when we (i keep saying 'we' even though I wasn't here for chapter 1 >.>) got split in our decision. In chapter 2, she still occasionally quotes us, but she also starts speaking and acting on her own, albeit still with our guidance. In Internal Phase, she's got enough will and personality to tell us off for hypocrisy.
4) Wordblood said that creating a Will soul would have a recursive absurdity to it, but in the same paragraph says he thinks Oramus has one. Implying that Will devas are not made, but grown.
5) Saulanna's objection to Will is based partly on the idea that it's insulting because it implies she's deficient in Will herself. Wordblood had a similar reaction when we were discussing feeding souls that could also act as social devas (albeit in a different manner): he felt it implied he was deficient and useless in social scenarios. Granted, we never thought that, but it was the impression he got.

>>79138
>Wordblood said that creating a Will soul would have a recursive absurdity to it, but in the same paragraph says he thinks Oramus has one.
Oramus is all about recursive self-contradictory absurdity, though. Having it be something the Crazy Uncle did isn't exactly an endorsement.

>>79144
No but it DOES prove that it's possible for one to exist, which was sort of the point.

I made up some more prospective abilities, for fun:

Sense the Distant Self (Wordblood)
Wordblood gets the ability to detect and communicate with pieces of writing across a distance, even through walls. This is not comprehension, but rather dialogue - he asks questions and gets brief answers. 'Reading' a book this way is roughly five times slower than normal reading speed.
[To hidden Moon Hero Tattoos] "Dictate your content to me."
[To Library] "Which texts inside you contain detailed information about Queen Marela?"
[To Law Book] "What legal loopholes are relevant to [situation]?"
[To maker's signature on an assassin's blade] "Keep me posted on your location."
Upgrade: Increased range, Change text at a distance, track conversations.

Two Heads Eat Better Than One (Woordblood)
Wordblood Aids Kairosa in devouring a particularly big soul, giving an efficiency bonus.

*Gate to the Beyond (Hero Soul/Kairosa/Wordblood, building on Metasmosis)
Saulanna opens a temporary gate to her Inner World, letting her move large quantities of stuff in or out of it for a fixed Moon Power cost. The gate lasts a minute, but since we can affect time flow in our inner world, that's still enough for someone to make a month-long visit and exit again.

*Multi-user Headspace / Sharing the Inner Den (Peregrin +Will/Hero Soul?)
Saulanna endows Peregrin with the ability to access an area of our Inner World, effectively giving him the Inner Den ability, with the advantages that a) we can access any stuff he stores, b) he can bring out any of our stuff we let him access, and c) using Peregrin as a proxy, we can use our Inner-Den-based abilities, such as Gate to the Beyond, near Peregrin.

------------

Also, the following are the kinds of abilities I'm hoping for from a Stealth Deva; not so much stealth as obscurity and mystery:

Mild-Mannered Mortal Impersonation (Stealth Deva)
To a superficial scan, Saulanna's SF seems to be a mediocre "3", with Will to match. (Will loss in social combat is kept proportional.) May limit benefits from high SF.

Secret Identity Form (Stealth Deva)
By committing (an increasing number of) motes, Saulanna keeps her Titanic body human-scaled and -shaped.
Upgrades: Covers up any Titanic "signature" or aura, making any divination attempts harder.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry (Stealth Deva)
Spending a TP, Saulanna temporarily suspends her Mild-Mannered Mortal Impersonation and Secret Identity Form techniques, growing to her full size and strength. As this ability expires, MMMI and SIF naturally reassert themselves without any required TP expenditure.

Mysterious Timey-wimey Ball (Stealth Deva)
Kairosa's TW gathering (and Reconstitution ability) is made much more obscure and hard to detect/trace. This may decrease the gathering speed.

Look, No Devas Up My Sleeve (Stealth Deva)
By paying twice the usual TP cost when performing a Titanic ability, it gains the look and feel of a Moon Ability, throwing off titan-detecting abilities active in the vicinity.

*snrk* I just had this mental image of Kairosa's meal getting away from her (cuz it's a solar or something), and she gets ultra cranky like how some people do when they haven't eaten in a while.

>>79193
Some of my ideas, with varying validity (started out as 'come up with one idea for each deva, no matter how stupid or implausible and see what the others think')

Time Lord Victorious
For all current Moon and Titan Power, Kairosa is automatically successful on one action, regardless of possibility. This ability may only be used once per season, or once during Calibration.

Book Burning
("He who destroys a good book kills reason itself")
Wordblood causes the understanding of a target to burn to ashes, turning all of its knowledge into meaningless jibberish. (Think what he did to Saulanna in ch1) Any severe physical harm will end the power early.

Mask in the Mist
Saulanna gains the ability to freely move through Wordblood's mist, allowing her to pass through solid objects or even just change position. Saulanna cannot be harmed while under this effect. Leaving the mist will end the effect, as will any attempt to harm another.

My Stomach Rumbles
Kairosa can gain TW from the elements of her fellow devas at 1/2 her usual rate. (IE, she could eat a particularly great work of literature and get 1/2 of what she would get from eating it if she were a Word element... but that could still end up being higher than Wu-blu since she's a feeding soul)

Blood of the Heart
Less of an ability, more of an idea. We have a Time Deva, a Deva with strong ties to blood, and a Moon Hero soul. All of these things would react well to gaining lunar forms through heart's blood (Kairosa cuz it's eating, Wordblood because blood, Moon soul because Lunar thing, etc) So could we use this to gain TW if we spent a MP or TP to do it?

Peek into the Void
Kairosa allows others to gain a brief glimpse of the future, while Wordblood allows them to understand and process it.

I can't stand all this waiting!
Kairosa accelerates one's perception of time, fraying their patience to the breaking point.

Storytime
Wordblood tells a listener a story. While doing so, the listener's blood responds to Wordblood's voice, allowing them to heal more quickly. If the story is interrupted, it can't be continued.

Isn't making saulanna's element will a bit too chosen1?
None of the other titans have such an awesome element.

... the argument about human souls being made out of will and existing for the soul purpose of generating more of it for the titans to harvest does lend credence to the idea.
But didn't we get told already that human souls are not actually made of will in of itself (or rather, they are made of will the same way everything else is). And that when we eat a soul what we are actually doing is consuming it to generate titan will, not harvesting the titan will that it is made out of, because its not actually made out of raw titan will

>>79479
One of Oramus' Devas has a Will Element, or so Wordblood thinks, so it's not entirely unprecedented.

>Souls are not made of TW
I was under the impression that consuming a soul was much like taking a knit sweater and unraveling it to get a ball of yarn.
Let's see if I can find something to quote...
Hmmm, in this post:
>>/questarch/195616
Wordblood says:
"Souls - the essential core of all beings that think and dream and want, whether independent of a Titan or not - are fragments of Titanic Will;"

Though admittedly, in this post in the latest quest thread:
>>/questarch/480546
Kairosa says:
"... You know, a lot of the Titan's Will you get from a soul is from sucking the aether out of it."
...which sort of goes against the earlier statement.
Combining the statements, I guess a soul is partially composed of TW, and partially of Aether, which can then be converted into TW?

Does anyone else have relevant quotes?

>>79479
>Isn't making saulanna's element will a bit too chosen1?
She is a titan with a demigod symbiote, and the f%$#ing moon goddess named her. Yeah, she's a little chosen1~ xD

>None of the other titans have such an awesome element.
Except Oramus.

>But didn't we get told already that human souls are not actually made of will in of itself (or rather, they are made of will the same way everything else is).

No, we got told they were bits of pure titanic will. And it's evidently moreso than, say, earth because Earth is a valid element.

>And that when we eat a soul what we are actually doing is consuming it to generate titan will, not harvesting the titan will that it is made out of, because its not actually made out of raw titan will
Not really sure what you're saying here. We get will from the souls, therefore they can't have will?

>>79488
Wordblood:
>"My lady, souls are just fragments of Titanic Will that have been shaped into various forms for various purposes. Human souls collect excess energy from their surroundings, refine it into aether, and channel that in turn to the gods through prayer, or to the world of dreams when they sleep and when they die. That would just be Will.
Which is what the whole idea is based around: That having 'soul' as an element would just be 'will' and that souls are made out of will to begin with.

>Aether

Unfortunately aether has only been discussed a couple of times in the whole story, so there's not much to go on. I had thought Wordblood and Kairosa went into more depth on it in the post you linked, but apparently not, they refer to it as a 'refined' resource and compare it to clay, but not much else. I think that aether is supposed to be the mortar to the TW's bricks.

Or possibly aether is refined TW, like how you get steel from iron or glass from sand. It's been said that aether is made/refined through prayer and sent to the gods.

>>79497
>She is a titan with a demigod symbiote, and the f%$#ing moon goddess named her. Yeah, she's a little chosen1~ xD
I meant compared to the OTHER titans, Gods, and Exalts

>Ormus had one
Ormus MAYBE had one, and if he did he was the only titan awesome enough to have one.
Tells you something about how awesome a thing it is.

I was wondering how long this conversation would take to break the discussion thread again.

Prev threads are at 1494 and 1625 posts.
This one's at 1180.

I'm going to guess that the danger limit's somewhere between 1500 and 2000, so it seems you have quite a bit longer to watch the grass grow.

>>79502
The previous two threads were originally one thread that got errored.

>>79501
I stand by what I said, we're already chosen1-ish, even for Heroes/Titans.

Another medium-term idea:
We know from Wordblood's statement in Inside the Quest IX, that at her current level, Saulanna could create a Common Deva. Also, that these can be brought to the outside world relatively easily. The minimum SF for a Commoner Deva is 3, so it'll likely take 3-5 TW to create one (meaning it's not something we'll be doing immediately). Making a physical creature would be cheaper, but requires knowledge/skill. (Maybe knowing how to transform into one might help?)

My suggestion for a Common Deva would be a Builder Deva - a laborer and architect, probably with a Stone Element (if Commoners even have Elements).
A spirit that can possess, levitate and reshape rocks would be good for things like digging out a cave dwelling, constructing a Manse, disassembling a wall, building a pit trap in one minute, or simply dropping a brick on someone's head from considerable height. If the Deva is intangible, it could do even perform work underground, redirecting geomantic power flows in a region.
Note that leaving this one with Peregrin to build Manses while we're gone from the shadowland would make the time distortion work in our favor, allowing it to do possibly months of construction while we're away...

Note: Before making independent Devas, maybe we should first get a soul with a Progenitor Purpose - meant to assist in forming new Devas (independent or not). This would make the process more efficient, saving on TW in the long run, and this Deva might provide the necessary skills for making physical creatures, too.

>>79661
making a noble deva would make much more sense than a common one

how would a common one be defined without any nobles above it?

>>79724

Common devas aren't "defined by" their Noble superiors, not the same way that Nobles are by Lords or Lords by their Titan. They are often made by Nobles, but can also be made by Lords, or by Nobles and Lords working together, or even directly by their Titan. Titans can even copy the "design" for a type of Common deva from other Titans. The Common deva will still be flavoured by their Titan, and still have a connection to said Titan, because their progenitor is the one who lends them their life force.

To put it another way, if Lords are part of their Titan in the sense that your arm is part of you, and Nobles are part of their Lords in the sense your hand is part of your arm, then Common devas are more like tools that your hands wield. Not part of you, but made by you, and they can only move because of your muscles and your will, without which they'd be "dead".

Any guess/news on when this will start updating again?

>>79944
Last word was after Polokoa wraps up and the second Will of Undermind thread happens.

I finally caught up with the story. Curious to know when we'll see more.

Well done on abusing the subject field and not reading the two posts directly before yours.

>>80165
Well, if nothing else, the info is now easier to find at a glance, scrolling through the discussion thread. (OK, not gonna help much with a thread that large...)

Anyway, I came up with some more Deva suggestions - a couple of Elements I like:

For a Crafting Soul, how about an Ideas Element?
An Idea Crafter would be good at normal crafting, but would specialize in inventing new things, new ways of doing things, and more abstract creations like rumors, books and forms of government. Sure, it might end up a bit impulsive and mad-scientist-like, but that's pretty much a bonus IMO - and Crafting is fairly passive as Purposes go. (Anyway, by the time we get to this one, we should be able to control a rambunctious Deva.)
The main argument against Ideas as an Element would be that it is fairly close to Words - either could conceivably have a Thought Noble, or plant a thought into someone's head. To resolve this, we might need to distinguish the concepts from each other, and firmly establish which Deva has which responsibilities.

I also thought of a cool Element for a Travelling Soul, should we want one: Paths.
Paths is well suited to travel, and we might be able to do stuff like detect where a given path is going, forge a path where there was none before, warp space so the path we follow gets shorter, etc.
Its Nobles might also turn out interesting: Tracks (paths left by just one person), Rivers (the paths that water travels), Samsara (well-worn paths in reality itself)...

Granted, both Crafting and Travelling are fairly low-priority Purposes at the moment. Still, I figure Ideas and Paths could make for pretty decent Titanic themes. Opinions?

>>80293
Those two elements might be too specific for Lords, especially Paths. (i feel like they sit right at the razor edge, ya know?) And if we're going to have a Samsara element, it'd be a Lord, not a noble (Samsara has been described as part of the very foundation of reality itself)

But I DO like Ideas as a Titanic element. We should ask about it when the game starts up again.

We now have THREE opinions to consult on deva elements instead of two. So we'll have a wider range of opinions and options, and there's a good chance the devas will talk amongst themselves about various ideas as well.

ideas are always a good idea.

I thought this came up before? Ideas, Thought or any similar element is too close to Wordblood. Such elements can be a Noble under him, nothing more.

>>80395
The big problem with throwing out any Titanic element for that reason is that we really don't have any source of info regarding what would or would not be too close to Communication, save what's already been said by our devas, and quite frankly that hasn't been much. It's possible, for instance, that Wordblood would complement an Ideas deva rather than compete with it.

Wordblood said something along the lines of him planning om making Nobles out of Truth, Knowledge, and Thought. Ideas is way too close to both Knowledge and Thought, and one or more would like eat each other.

>>80433
Ideas is more like two steps removed from Words, whereas Thoughts is one step removed. I'm guessing the main thing is that there's enough conceptual space for both to form Nobles.
I'm more concerned about possible rivalry, as with similar purposes - the two might have overlapping duties in some situations.

>>80433
This is a fair point, but iirc he only said this for Thought.

>>80436
Well, it's possible that the two would complement each other nicely, especially since Wordblood's purpose is Aide, but as mentioned above, he wanted a thought Deva, which would definitely come to close. What about an Invention element? It's more distant from Communication and the thought noble wordblood wanted.

>>80438
Hmm, I dunno, "Innovation" would be a less problematic element, but it also feels like it would be a less potent one. Ideas has more associations; it could branch out into Memes, Imagination, Ideals - even Lightning, if we get metaphorical. Much of the stuff that Innovation is close to - Inspiration, Creativity etc - is already close to Ideas.
Granted, it would probably be better at crafting physical objects (at the expense of abstraction crafting), and we might gain Creation and Machinery nobles. But it feels, y'know, more tame. Instead of a wild-haired over-the-top mad scientist Deva, we'd get a sensible inventor Deva with non-poofy ponytail and a pencil behind her ear.
...Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just personally prefer my science mad.

>>80440
'Invention' basically means 'the creation of a new thing'. That includes most of idea's purview, but would also be better at making them real.

Is this ever coming back, or should I just give up hope entirely and consign myself to big fluffy spacerabbits?

>>80456
Here, I'll link the posts so people won't have to go to the tremendous bother of, heaven forbid, reading the last 50 posts. For a few more posts, at least.

>>79944
>>79945

>>80463
So, "Yes, you should."

How about a Fantasy deva.

>>80470
...Personally? I'm gonna respectfully go with 'no'.

Fantasy is, by definition, false. Unreal. Non-existent. That seems... antithetical to what a Titan is. Even if it could work as an element, how much would we get out of a crafting deva who crafts fantasy? I mean I guess we would become particularly adept at illusions, but at actually making things?

>>80491
fan·ta·sy
ˈfantəsē/Submit
noun
1.
the faculty or activity of imagining things, esp. things that are impossible or improbable.
"his research had moved into the realm of fantasy"
synonyms:imagination, fancy, invention, make-believe; More
antonyms:realism, truth
the product of imagining impossible or improbable things.
"the scene is clearly fantasy"
a fanciful mental image, typically one on which a person dwells at length or repeatedly and which reflects their conscious or unconscious wishes.
plural noun: fantasies
"the notion of being independent is a child's ultimate fantasy"
synonyms:dream, daydream, pipe dream, fanciful notion, wish; More
an idea with no basis in reality.
"it is a misleading fantasy to suggest that the bill can be implemented"
a genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, esp. in a setting other than the real world.
2.
a musical composition, free in form, typically involving variation on an existing work or the imaginative representation of a situation or story; a fantasia.
verbliterary
verb: fantasy; 3rd person present: fantasies; past tense: fantasied; past participle: fantasied; gerund or present participle: fantasying
1.
imagine the occurrence of; fantasize about.




The first definition is perfectly real.

I think "Imagination" would be a better wording of such an Element than "Fantasy".
Imagination could work, I guess. It'd be more focused on illusion and Faerie Glamour than Ideas or Innovation, but it would still be workable and functional.
Still, I was considering an Element of Hope (maybe a social Deva?) to round out ourselves with an emotion-based Element, and Imagination seems uncomfortably close to that.

(The DS has Elements of Darkness, Deception, Freedom, Fear, Desire, Cunning, Change & Death. It makes for a coherent theme; Deception is conceptually close to both Darkness and Cunning, for example.
I hope we can get something similar, in time.
Elements like Rebirth, Love, Hope, Ideas, Paths & Heroism seem like they could gel in a similar way - and in a positive direction. Ideas can be said to be Paths for the mind, Heroism inspires Hope, etc.)

>>80494
Er, not really.
>the faculty or activity of imagining things, esp. things that are impossible or improbable. "his research had moved into the realm of fantasy"
This definition deals with imagination, which is also unreal.

Now granted, a Titan can probably make anything it can imagine. But when something is made real, it's no longer fantasy, see? Because you don't have to imagine it anymore, since it's real and... I have no idea if I'm getting this across correctly.

Unrelated: Does anyone else think our next Deva will either be blue or some mix of the three major soul colors (red, orchid/purple and light blue) we have right now?

>>80502
Wrong. Imagination exists. The products of imagination are unreal, but imagination itself- the ability to imagine- is real.

>>80504
I was referring to the products, actually, which is rather important when you're talking about a creature whose entire job is to make things :P

>>80513
Are you really that dense? It would be making fantastical things. They would still exist.

>>80514
First, I fail to see how calling me dense was necessary. Normally wouldn't care enough to mention, but it's been an awful day.

Second, that doesn't solve the problem. Devas perform their duties through the element they are composed of. An Imagination deva would create things through imagination. Those things would not exist because they would be composed of one's imagi

I just had a mental image of Saulanna mowing down mortals with an imaginary tommygun. Never mind, sold!

I figure any Lordly Deva can perform their Purpose at a basic level; Kairosa isn't exclusively about Time-based feeding - she can do basic soulnomming and TP-wrangling too. Likewise, I believe any crafting Deva would be able to forge mundane weapons, though their Element would inform how they go about performing the task, or what bonuses they might get towards it.

>>76440
>Asteroidverse
where can I find that?

>>80533
It's called Polokoa Quest - you might have to dig a bit to find it, and some of its jokes might slip by you if you're not familiar with Asteroid Quest (and/or Polo Quest), but it's still fun.

Anonymous 2014/04/05(Sat)06:48 No. 80556 ID: 5d121c
File 139670569244.jpg - (186.92KB , 477x705 , m1.jpg )

>>80491
>Fantasy is, by definition, false. Unreal. Non-existent.

Not in exalted it isn't.

>>80556
Well in that case a deva of one charm/ability is too specific for a Lord :P

>>80558
now youre just being silly

>>80581

I already said I'm sold on the idea ( >>80521 )

So yes, I AM just being silly. But you started it. :P

half considered thought for a soul that i just want to have down somewhere related for when this EVENTUALLY starts up again:
i was thinking about anything that might get us dominion over shadowlands because shadowlands are conceptually unclaimed and thus not something that would lead to us stepping on anyone's toes, but without EXPLICITLY tying us to shadowlands because then we'd be strengthened by the growth of shadowlands which would make us the enemy of basically... literally everyone. What I've come up with, though it would kind of screw up the original "don't step on anyone's toes" intent, is boundaries/in between places. It would almost definitely set us against luna because it'd involve border/middlemarches, which are kind of part of luna's thing, as well as shorelines/beaches, which i'm 90% sure are also somewhere under luna's authority because tides, and of course the original intent, shadowlands, but also probably the ordinal directions (SW, SE, NE, NW.) Could lead to some really intersting powers though, like a watcher soul that could tell us about anyone or anything who was crossing over from one place to another place.

>>87682
As a counter-idea that would definitely step on toes but also might be super sneaky about it: a soul with the purpose of Theft and the element of Aether. Admittedly we'd probably need to be more powerful to try and steal from under the UCS' nose, but he is unlikely to expect something literally titanically designed to steal Aether. Also he's probably very very distracted by the Games. I think it's an idea good enough to at least bring up to Wordblood and Kairosa at some point, although probably not as our next deva. Side bonus is that we'd get to have power theft abilities, although given how little we know about Aether I couldn't really speculate what they would do.

Also, if Jukashi feels Masks are not appropriately primordial enough to be an element, a Stealth soul of Deception might be what that would actually fall under? Basing this on Jukashi's description of Deception, let me link it.
>>62748
"Deception, similarly, is whenever something is made to look other than it is: a stick insect, the reflection of the moon in the water, et cetera. At least, that's how I was using them."

That covers Masks, I think, although it is a broader area. I suppose some of us may be opposed to it though, either because we are sharing an element with another Titan, or because they don't want Deception as an element at all. I feel like it would still be appropriate, though, since it would sort of shore up some of Wordblood's weaknesses, I think. Deception isn't automatically dishonest, as described so much. A reflection of the moon in the water isn't a LIE, it's just an appearance that is taken to be other than the reality. That's kind of what we need: to be viewed as something other than a baby Titan. We want to appear to be the stick, not the stick insect.

Admittedly, the Deva themselves might be rather dishonest, but not so much to US, since in a very real sense we would BE them. In a Titan broken like the Yozi are, it might be a liability, but the Yozi were broken VERY deliberately.

Other ideas I still like are a soul of Seeing, and I still feel a soul of Seeing sharing an element with either Gaia or Autochthon could be really beneficial to us, because although both of them are sort of out of reach of most Heroes, we could learn a great deal about what's going on with them just by CREATING a soul like that, as we learned about Gaia's Time dragon from Kairosa's Time element, even though her purpose had nothing to do with gaining knowledge about that.

>Gaia: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Wood, Time and Aether
>Autochthon: Steam, Metal, Lightning, Oil, Crystal, Smoke

A Seeing soul of any of these elements(except Time) could work for us really well. I know some of you might not like the idea of a Seeing soul of Fire, for example, because it seems too limited, but the thing is Fire is civilization: pretty much anywhere you find human life, you find Fire. Campfires, hearth fires, cooking fires, communal fires, ritual fires, all of these would fall under our view. It's actually a really powerful element for Seeing! And Jukashi himself said that essentially, the more limited the scope of a soul, the more power it will have in its sphere of influence, although that may be a game balance thing as much as anything. Now obviously we could probably come up with an Element for a Seeing soul that actually WOULD suck, and I'm not terribly interested in all of Gaia's elements for it, but none of them would be BAD at the job of gathering information for us. They would just be more specialized. Earth would let us find deposits of many valuable magical materials like Jade or Moonsilver, and information about stuff going on underground(this is Exalted, there is a BUTTLOAD of stuff going on underground,) Air would obviously be very broad and able to tell us a lot about weather systems that might be useful, as well as flying Manses(also a lot of these, although rarer than the underground kind), Fire I've already described somewhat but if we go far South we'd be a lot more protected if we had a soul made of it, Water would be phenomenally valuable in the West, and strong everywhere else because even in the South people still need to drink water, and build their settlements around sources, Wood actually has a lot of significance as far as relating to Life, and covers more than just trees, also we are farther East than anything else if I remember correctly? Again, people still need to eat, and most cultures don't survive on meat alone.

I have NO IDEA what Aether is exactly, but it's obviously really important to Titans and Gods both, since the UCS is guarding the Aetherworld?
And Wordblood described it as the 'clay for their greatest works' and the final refined form of chaos. Not enough information to know what this would do, really. Time we already have as an element, so that's not a choice anymore.

On to Autochthon's elements which are weirder but also mostly pretty interesting for this purpose, we have Steam, which actually might be among the weaker of them? Do clouds count as steam? It looks like if I base it on the dictionary definition, yes, they do. So not so weak after all. Some vulnerability to clear weather, but hey, we can always spy on saunas or something. Metal, which would be both limited in scope and probably extremely powerful where it came up. Want to find treasure? That's a good treasure hunting soul. Find starmetal, moonsilver, orichalcum, soulsteel, and alloys. Want to break a bunch of valuable artifacts, Metal will show us a lot of those artifacts weaknesses. Metal would probably show value REALLY fast, given the amount of treasure hiding in Creation. Lightning: well, pretty limited in general perception, but a lot of Magitech would fall under this, I think. There are a lot of airships, warstriders, etc. that would have been fitted with lightning cannons, because let's be honest, who doesn't love a lightning cannon? It also would cover things like the web of weather control systems that used to be in place, but it's hard to say whether someone might have destroyed those or whatever, given what little we know of current events. Still, it would let us shoot lightning! Maybe not as well as a more fighting oriented soul, but come on, shooting lightning.

Oil is weird. I don't know if we would want it unless we actually wanted to visit Autochthon. Crystal is powerful for a lot of the same reasons as Metal regarding treasure hunting, and has the side benefit that there are entire libraries held on crystals, including probably everything that is likely to be left regarding the Dragon Kings. Also basically all Dragon King artifacts were either crystal or plant based, which makes me realize Wood actually would have found a lot of stuff from them too, since they were sort of like plant genetic engineers, except magic. Anyways, Wordblood can eat libraries for TW. Crystal would be very very strong as a Seeing soul. Smoke is straightforward: where there's Smoke, there's Fire. It would be a more appropriate element for us thematically than Fire, I think, though. Probably sneakier sorts of powers.

Like you said with Fire, Metal is pretty much synonymous with civilization. Numerous common household items are made of metal, and people who pose a threat to us are likely to be carrying even more significant quantities of metal on their person (weapons and armor). Lightning would be a lot more useful if mainstream Creation had gotten around to inventing electronics.

If the element of Earth is taken to grant influence over what's immediately above the earth (Gaia likes her fertile topsoil, after all), then it would apply to basically anything that's happening outdoors, which would have the interesting effect of letting us see almost everything except what people are deliberately trying to keep private.

>>87976
Mainsteam Creation DID get around to inventing electronics, though. It's just then there was the whole thing with the Usurpation and now it's really hard to say what might have happened to all of it, and how much might be functional, how much might might be destroyed, and how much is just out in the Wyld somewhere, and whether there would be anything relevant in close proximity to us currently. Too much time has passed for us to have current information on that. If we had a Lightning soul we could probably figure out this stuff but currently all we have to go on is what we've got from a bunch of random ghosts, basically none of whom were treasure hunters or magitech experts.

>>87975
>Aether
I don't think we need to make a whole Deva for that - Aether is close to Will, right? We might be able to get Aether or Dream Nobles (assuming Saulanna's a Will Deva).

>Seeing soul
I'm partial to Resonance, myself. That might let us obtain information on things we already have a sample of - such as Titans.

>Stealth Deva
I'm not sure about Masks; I think it's perfectly valid and useful, and I expect Kairosa and our Hero Soul will both like it - but I figure having Masks, Deception etc as an Element will make us inherently inscrutable, meaning others will have a harder time trusting us later on.

BTW, here's another option for Stealth Deva I thought of: Humans/Mortality. Such a Stealth Soul would hide us by making us seem and act more human-like. Taken up a notch, it would likely even hide our Heroic features, letting us pass as a dirt-common human.
As a bonus, this Deva would be good for keeping our mortal perspective, making it a particularly good Deva to get early on, before we lose that perspective.
Pro:
*Better relations with mortals. Counter-weight to other more abstract Elements. (Also one of few Elements which could have Common Sense as a Noble, making us truly unique among Titans.)
*Element synergy could make it easier to affect Mortals with our various abilities. Also, we could get dedicated abilities to manipulate or investigate mortals.
*Easier to hide among myriads of mortals than among ~10,000 heroes; mortals are beneath notice to many VIPs. May be able to disguise our Tell, fake a fate etc.
*Would likely provide the knowledge we need to create mortal beings from scratch in our Inner World.
*Later on, it might be able to do stuff like imposing Mortality on immortals, giving us an edge against powerful beings.
Con:
*Sort-of maybe Death-aspected?
*Mortals are limited; hiding as one of them would decrease what we can plausibly do without blowing our cover.

Suggestions for example abilities:
I Just Want to be Normal (Stealth + Mortality/Humanity Deva)
Sometimes, Saulanna leaves the wilderness and walks the streets of a town like an ordinary woman... With this Charm, Saulanna takes the guise of a mortal. For the duration, all physical stats are capped at 3, SF is capped at 2, and even her Tells and Soul Fire are supressed. (Ability use limited)

Fade into the Crowd Technique (Stealth + Mortality/Humanity Deva)
Saulanna just looks too damn ordinary! While she is disguised with IJWtbN, any watcher adds their own SF as penalty towards attempts to tag her as a possible threat or target. Failure means she's beneath their notice.

Mortal Condition Understanding (Mortality/Humanity Deva)
Saulanna understands mortals thoroughly; their strengths, weaknesses, hopes and fears. This ability gives Saulanna a permanent bonus when interacting with common non-Hero mortals - persuading them, healing them, hitting them, empathizing with them...

>>87983
Aether doesn't seem to be very close to Will based on what we know about it. Gaea's Queen soul is of Aether, so it must be pretty important, but we don't know a whole lot about the subject, other than that we could theoretically get a lot of power out of it.

I'm really really not sure we want a Lordly soul of Mortality, though, given the implications regarding our lifespan. And Humanity sort of seems to be Saulanna's thing, right now, what with the hut and clothing in her internal world keying off of themes of humanity's first inventions.

As far as disguising ourselves as a mortal, that's going to be probably impossible unless we want to give up all our stuff. Mortals don't get to have holdings as big as this, generally, because someone will beat them up and take it. Disguising ourselves temporarily as a mortal we actually already have very good powers for, what with Kairosa being able to suppress our Soul Fire and being a Lunar. Taking the form of another person requires us to at minimum taste their blood, though, and we probably haven't learned the shapeshifting tricks necessary.

>>87985
>Aether
Granted, Aether is some kind of purified chaos-stuff, but I figure if human souls contains the stuff, and soul is synonymous with Will, then the two are at least tangentially connected.

>Saulanna's Element
Remains to be seen, I guess. If it is Humanity though, then almost by definition we wouldn't be at risk of losing our human perspective.

>Mortality conflicting with being immortal
A Rebirth Element might help there.

>Mortals owning nice things.
Just because we own something, doesn't mean we have to OVERTLY own it. "No no, PEREGRIN rules this shadowland. I'm just a friend of his, is all..."

>>87987
Well the thing is Saulanna theoretically would be splitting off subsouls at some point, so even if her primary element isn't humanity, maybe one of her subsouls would be? It's going to be extremely difficult to maintain a human perspective at all, but we almost inevitably will have more of one than any other Titan. And for a dragon made of words, Wordblood is very 'human' as we would generally use the word.

>>87975
>>87976
Metal and fire both have appeal, and if we select them specifically for the civilization purposes mentioned here, they would help to ground us in our mortality.

Personally I'm a bigger fan of a Truth seeing Deva (sooner or later someone's gonna lie to us and it probably won't be for our benefit) but whatever, these are cool too.

Between the two... Pros:

Fire seems to echo a more nomadic/barbaric form of civilization. Tribes, campers, those who never settle down, that sort of thing. As a seeing soul, it would probably deal with heat (thermal vision!) and the metaphorical aspects of fire more often than literal flames. It would resonate pretty well with our Hero's soul and has the added benefits of what literal fire can do.

Metal, on the other hand, is stronger, sturdier and harkens more to permanent settlements and cities. As a seeing soul, it would help us find magical materials fairly easily and even serve as a nifty weapon detector. It would resonate with Wordblood's growing connections to civilization.

Cons: Fire doesn't last long and metal rusts. I doubt Kairosa will care for either of them. Of the two, she's more likely to lean toward fire since it's a more passionate, wild element than metals. Kairosa might like metal for the whole enduring aspect, but that's a wild guess.

There's also the problem that a Seeing Deva may not be the best choice right this second. At the moment, we need to affirm our independence in both the short term and the long term. A seeing Deva of either Fire OR Metal isn't going to help us much in that regard. Metal might give us a boost to our mental defenses ("My will is as iron!") but that would be a secondary effect at best since we're talking about a seeing Deva.

>>87983
>meaning others will have a harder time trusting us later on.
Well, yeah. We're a titan. One part of us eats literally everything, another sees no value in human life, and the last is an amnesiac. They'd be stupid to trust us when we have even more power.

On the other hand, Masks could make us look trustworthy, especially if we kept it secret.

>>87991
Yeah, if I was going for 'right now' Seeing probably wouldn't be my first choice, I just am trying to come up with potentially useful souls, and given that what little we know about our past suggests we were a treasure hunter, it seems appropriate. A stealth soul would probably be much more appropriate at the current time.

So I went and looked for anything else on Aether, and Wordblood said this when we were discussing elements.

- Souls

>"My lady, souls are just fragments of Titanic Will that have been shaped into various forms for various purposes. Human souls collect excess energy from their surroundings, refine it into aether, and channel that in turn to the gods through prayer, or to the world of dreams when they sleep and when they die. That would just be Will. Or perhaps you mean something like Self, or Identity? Those have both been done before, and they could work. They could try to assert themselves over you, however, and I think they could be used better for protective Purposes."

So actually an Aether Thief is sounding like it would have REALLY good synergy with Wordblood. Steal prayers out of the air, have Wordblood read them, eat them for power. Steal from dreams, maybe have Wordblood and Kairosa help with interpreting whatever we might get from that? Maybe we could eat dreams for power, too. A lot of potential for getting Titan's Will in maybe less objectionable ways. Also...we're still human, at least in the sense that we sleep and dream, and we might be able to piggyback on that to steal from the dreamworld somehow? Also probably it would help with nightmares. I am only liking this idea more and more.

Speaking of potentially useful souls, here's an idea I had the other month: Instead of getting a Healer + Rebirth Deva somewhere down the line, we could get a Cultivator + Rebirth Deva - I speculate we'd get several of the advantages of a Healing Purpose, many of the advantages of a Growth Purpose - and even some unique advantages. Cultivation to make things grow stronger over time, Rebirth to make things change for the better. (For straight-up instant healing, we might develop a Power Word. )
Main drawback is that it might be too close to an Aiding Purpose for Wordblood's tastes.

Some ability suggestions I thought up:
Godly Growth (Cultivator Deva +Will/Rebirth Element)
Targeting an ordinary item with this ability - and dedicating TP - confers a significant boost to the Least God of that item. In the short term, the item will self-repair and maintain itself, getting closer to its ideal state. In the long term, the Least God will permanently raise its SF, incidentally upgrading the item's quality and its abilities.
Upgrade: Works on better-quality items, even magical ones.

Fish From Fruit Trees (Cultivator + Rebirth Deva)
Saulanna cultivates an island of fruit trees in her Inner World, able to feed X mortals per dedicated TP. The "fruits" are recreations of things Saulanna has previously eaten (Reborn food!) ...which currently limits us to fried and raw fish.

Fertile Soil Accomodation (Cultivator,Rebirth/Will Deva)
Saulanna promotes growth - and by extension, her Inner World does, as well.
Anyone living in our Inner World - including Devas - has an easier time raising their SF and Talents. Crops as well will mature earlier and get healthier. Not compatible with direct buying.
Note: Greenie is likely to make use of this...

Human Resource Pools (Healing/Progenitor/Cultivator + Rebirth/Flesh Deva)
Saulanna creates and stores extra bodily resources in her Inner world in advance - tons of fresh oxygenated blood, muscle fibers, skin, bones, teeth, organs - so that when a bodypart is damaged, an immediate replacement can be swapped in. This requires MP to be dedicated for maintaining life in the organs, but the upshot is an extra +2 HP regenerated per turn (in human form), and a huge increase in stamina and poison resistance.
Note: Healing this way is not strictly a shaping effect, so it might not be resisted by Lunar Tattoos, should Saulanna get some.

Highest Royal Denominator (Builds on "Human Resource Pools")
As befits her exalted position, Saulanna's organs are simply the best, and any mortal would count themselves lucky to have one. Saulanna becomes a perfect donor for all manner of mortal creatures.

On the more immediate subject. IE: our next Deva. I think we're pretty well settled on a Stealth deva next?

To avoid talking in circles (i think we've said all that can be said about elements at this point, at least until we get feedback from our devas) I'd suggest we follow Elaborate's lead and come up with charms and abilities related to stealth and different elements.

See no Evil
Saulanna selects one fact about her immediate vicinity. This fact becomes impossible for anyone other than Saulanna to perceive.
EX: Saulanna uses 'See no Evil' on 'That fire is hot'. The fire no longer warms anything.

Vanishing Cabinet Method
Saulanna can spend essence to move instantly between any two points that nothing mortal is currently observing. (Such as between two closed closets)

Shadow of the Moon
Even the worst lie be believed if the speaker is skilled enough. This charm allows Saulanna to speak something that the target perceives as absolute truth, no matter how unbelievable. They will rationalize everything else as far as they need to in order to justify whatever Saulanna says.

(Ex: "Intruder!" "No I'm not." "False alarm!")

... I'm half asleep right now, I have no idea if these are any good.

>>88027
If Gaia would be over-possessive of ANY of her elements, it would probably be the highly addictive, ultrapowerful one that even Titans are supposed to limit their access to.

Also, I'd be willing to bet that if we created any kind of Aether deva, it eventually would become Queen/King.

>>88033
>...which currently limits us to fried and raw fish.
Unless we could potentially tap into everything Saulanna ate BEFORE she got her soul cleaned?

>>88044
You left out the elements.

>>88056
This is why I said I was half-asleep. *facepalm* sorry.

I think they'd actually work pretty well with any stealth soul, but:

See no Evil - Perception
Vanishing Cabinet Method - Not sure, but best guess would be Perception or possibly Travel (For what I hope are obvious reasons)
Shadow of the Moon - Masks (Make yourself appear absolutely trustworthy)

>>88044
A travel soul could likely accomplish the cabinet thing fairly easily, assuming an appropriate element.

See No Evil I'm not so sure about, a stealth soul could probably do something like that, but is this something people are CURRENTLY aware of? Or something that noone is currently paying attention to? And do you mean literally stopping the heat, or just the perception of the heat? The first is much more difficult than the second, although still theoretically in the range of things a soul could do. It could potentially cover all of the stuff I just said but at different ranks/soul force levels, but if it's a stealth soul the 'literally erase the heat of the fire while someone is watching' thing is well beyond what we are likely to do right now. Especially since as described this is very broad.

Shadow of the Moon doesn't seem Masks aligned so much as Deception, but Masks are probably a narrower subset of Deception. Masks powers would probably be stuff more like hiding our Tell, or enhancements to us taking other shapes, or enhancements to gaining new shapes, or small bits of shapeshifting or illusion or even just mundane disguise skills. We might find it easier to gain the shapeshifting powers that let a Lunar learn the shapes of spirits or elementals, for example, also. Probably moreso as our devas further develop their connection to our physical form, although given the events of the last thread apparently SOMETHING has affected our physical form pretty radically.

On that note, I'd probably suggest as our first course of action next time we have the ability to suggest that we take our war form. It regenerates, so we can suppress soul fire safely, and also it would be a lot more suspicious to have a war form which is taller and has horns. Those are basically things that are already in the scope of Lunar war form enhancements. Hell, strong enough Lunars can turn into GIANT war forms, so it's a lot less suspicious that way. Admittedly the horns might cause some suspicion among the Lunars who came here to stop us from turning into a Wyld-tainted mutant, but the process they are worried about doesn't happen that fast, and they probably don't even know what our form is supposed to look like in the first place.

Also we probably need to eat Peregrin's Sorcery library. Kairosa said the way Saulanna would develop the ability to use Will herself was through learning Sorcery, and the more Wordblood knows about the subject the better he can help us on that path.

>>88112
LESS suspicious, not more suspicious. War form being taller and having horns is LESS suspicious than normal form being taller and having horns. Sorry, typo.

Anonymous 2014/12/21(Sun)15:52 No. 88117 ID: 024b25
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I know it's rude, but I've given up entirely and am actually a little upset at being lead on with ITQ answers and similar when it's growing increasingly evident that Jukes is only happy to make continual excuses.

Just announce it one way or another and give us an actual date or something.

I'm so tired of waiting for a quest that's slowly being eclipsed by its own discussion threads and ITQ asks.

>>87682
Borderlands! That's the best term for what I was thinking about, but that'd probably be more a lesser soul under a borders/boundaries soul.

Riotmode 2014/12/21(Sun)16:13 No. 88120 ID: a19cd5
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>>88117

>>88117

Excuses? After the first chapter of Lunar Quest, I did other Quests at my leisure and only went on to chapter two when I was finished with them. I've never said nor intentionally implied that I would do anything other than the same thing this time. I will come back to Lunar Quest when I'm done with whatever other Quests I want to do in the mean time. If you like Lunar Quest, and don't like my other Quests, well I still enjoy making them, so sorry.

I don't see how doing ITQ is 'leading you on'. Do you want me to not make ITQ posts for Lunar Quest?

Crazy idea: do you guys think it might be possible to grab the ability to pull stuff out of Saulanna's internal world, then pull her soul out and eat her own heart's blood to grab the ability to transform into herself?

Anonymous 2014/12/21(Sun)16:38 No. 88125 ID: 024b25
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>>88122
Like I said, I apologize if I was rude. It often feels as if your quests are really one of a few of substance, and it's been...

Well, about three years since Undermind. Almost four.

And more than a year and a half since Lunar - heck, in a couple of months it'll be two.

Part of me is worried that, as someone who wanted to stick to the threads and enjoy them alone, it will be deeply difficult to participate in the next thread if/when it happens.

I only worry about this because there's so much discussed in here and so much that's confirmed here and in ITQ that I can't keep track of it all. That I'll suggest and get shot down by people telling me to look up some random-ass obscure post you made half a year ago, because that can happen now. That's the time frame we're dealing with.

I understand you do what you enjoy. I wouldn't ask for anything else. Mostly I'm just venting frustration.

All I'm saying is that I wish I had some form of ETA, some kind of date to to look forward to, anything other than leaping on each individual ITQ and feeling in the back of my mind "well, this is all we'll get from now on".

Because I know you're better than that in terms of /if/, but when all I get is radio silence or vagueness on /when/, it's just...

ugh.

Sorry. Just understand that you have many eager fans, who miss things they like, okay? I don't intend to be hurtful. just impatient.

You're also literally the only quest master I know of who takes this long between threads of a quest - except maybe Diarca - not that it's a bad thing, but relatively speaking, your stuff is super /duper/ dead.

I doubt you're a nasu fan but it's like waiting for the goddamned tsukihime remake

(If you're going to beg for updates you don't have to be an asshole about it.)

>>88125
just use the wiki. everything is in there.
http://tgchan.org/wiki/Lunar_Quest
near the bottom, right about the gallery, is every ITQ post. all in one spot. aka, sound like you got upset because it was hard to find the ITQ posts, but that isn't true at all.

>>88125
Jukashi is running a quest right now though? polokoa is Jukashi's.

>>88128
I'm a fan of Jukashi, not Lagotrope.

You might as well tell a Brandon Sanderson fan who's waiting for his next book to read Wheel of Time, or whatever series he finished for the posthumous author.

>>88127

Mostly just impatient and wishing I had some date to look forward to, that's all.

>>88117
>>88125
>>88129
just wow

>>88117
The discussion thread agrees on nothing ever. So there is no reason to worry about the discussion thread, since we will never agree on anything.

>>88125
I second this.

As for "when", I know giving dates is hard, but could you perhaps give a percentage-based completion rating? Like, do you think you're about 50% of the way through the current chapter of whatever story you're working on right now, or 1/3rd, or 2/3rd, or whatever?

>>88127
"Everything" is on the wiki? It doesn't even have a character bio for Kairosa yet.

>>88131
I agree with this. I think everyone else will, too ;)

A lot of the speculation here is going to be rendered completely irrelevant the moment we can ask our souls about stuff again, and be told how we're completely wrong, or should be focussing on other concerns.

>"Everything" is on the wiki? It doesn't even have a character bio for Kairosa yet.
It links to all the core content. All the threads, the itq posts, and wordblood's stuff in the dis thread. It fulfills it's primary purpose- making it so readers don't have to keep track of that stuff on their own, and it's not hard to find.

Providing reader / fan created summaries and writeups are a distant second to that. They happen if and when someone gets to it. (And personally, I tend to prioritize adding content that helps readers. Like, adding character bios is a priority if it's actually hard to keep track of characters. If I were to work on the Lunar wiki page, I'd start by cleaning up / reorganizing the confusing mess of stats / capabilities / competencies / abilities / talents / deva powers so maybe it would be more useful as a reference).

I'll add the obvious comment that if you're unhappy with the state of the wiki, there's an easy way to fix that.

>>88147
I could probably work on getting some of the Titan power stuff we have bought/have the option to buy on the wiki if anyone thinks it'll be useful. Like most people probably don't remember that Wordblood once said we could buy the True Speech ability or the first level of the Depth of Comprehension ability since that was well before the first Internal Phase and those both sound pretty useful, although I'm not entirely clear on how Depth of Comprehension works. Like it increases Wordblood's potential Power and Titan's Will gains from eating books, I get that part, but does it affect the knowledge he gets from it? Do higher levels mean, for example, that he might get Master Magelearning from eating a book that he otherwise would have gotten Expert Magelearning from? Or is it exclusively the Power and Titan's Will gains? Regardless, being able to use books as Power batteries is REALLY valuable. We just have to be careful about how we use it. So many of our best powers can very easily get us revealed as what we are.

I kinda feel like we're doing too much power-thinking and not enough direct- strategizing as to how to handle the next part of things...
So, first off, before we start making powers to compensate for our new appearance, we should just check if it's merely a new shapeshift-form for us to use instead of 'oh noes we iz stuck!'. On top of that, we should check how MUCH has changed-is it just a single-form change, or a brand new template across the board? Or does it even change what the tell we have is? (no mask-markings &tail, but now we have horns always?) It might even allow a 'toggle' in tells, maybe, with different tells saying different things...Hrrm.
But anyhow, beyond shapeshifting, I think maybe we should have Peregrin act as something of a go-between, and perhaps hint at our domination of him by us to the Lunars- they're concerned about us being able to hold our own, and I think that round of Social Combat didn't exactly inspire confidence. But if we can tip them off that Peregrin is working for us instead of being yet another Dragon's Shadow Servant, they might be more comfortable with leaving us here.
As for Akatrina, I'd like to think that we could simply hear the rest of her pitch out, say no, and then if she tries to plays dirty that's when things get ugly for her...The problem is, that's kinda how we ended up getting much more than what we bargined for.
Another thought, albieit a risky one, is that we out ourselves to the moon and see how she responds. I know, bad idea for independance and all but frankly I figure if we can't remaind independant we can at least choose who wins us over, and I don't much like the profile of the Dragon's Shadow...

>>88149
We have things to offer Akatrina, like trade concessions, or access to Manses!

The Moon Heroes want us to get tattoos that we absolutely cannot get.

There's really only one way to play this if we want to stay independent.

We also really desperately need to eat either a book or a ghost with Leadership abilities because currently we are TERRIBLE leaders. If there was one skill we really need to engage in future social conflict, it's the ability to choose our own topics. We don't even have a single point in Leadership. We have four points in Deception and Intimidation, though, so we should probably remember that if we engage in any more social-fu.

>>88117
>Excuses
I have yet to see him actually attempt to excuse himself for the long wait, though I suspect that is in large part because no excuse is necessary.

Lunar Quest isn't a commission project. Jukashi owes you nothing. He owes us nothing, 'kay?

He'd given us a basic schedule for his quests (albeit a long, LONG time ago and it's probably out of date by now - iirc, 'secret project' [probably Polokoa Quest, Battle Quest (now defunct) Undermind, then Lunar Quest), occasional ITQ posts and even the rare discussion thread post... and frankly that's more than he "needs" to do. -_-

>>88125
>Part of me is worried that, as someone who wanted to stick to the threads and enjoy them alone, it will be deeply difficult to participate in the next thread if/when it happens.
Oh, no need to worry there. 98% of the stuff we've said and discussed since the ending of the thread have been based on massive leaps in logic and speculation on what does what. I guarantee most of it will become garbage when Saulanna, Wordblood, Kairosa and Peregrin see our ideas and tell us why they're dumb.

Heck, Saulanna's already said it's too soon for a new one right now, so unless chapter 3 takes weeks/months in-universe (possible, but i doubt it) the deva discussions probably won't matter until chapter 4 or 5.

And if it's supposedly Word of Celestial, demand citation.

>Not a fan of Lagotrope
...... But... Lagotrope isn't writing it. :P

>>88149
>I kinda feel like we're doing too much power-thinking and not enough direct- strategizing as to how to handle the next part of things...
The problem is that Jukashi deliberately ended on an unclear cliffhanger.

Kairosa specifically said "Ok, so, er. No problem. You can fix this!", implying that she has a particular solution in mind, or at least a choice of options that's more helpful than our wild speculation. But we won't hear it until the story starts up again.

>>88155
>We have four points in Deception and Intimidation, though, so we should probably remember that if we engage in any more social-fu.
That's the problem with getting our skills from eating bad people. Most of our skills are bad people stuff.

>>88165
>Heck, Saulanna's already said it's too soon for a new one right now,
My thought is that it's a good idea to "space out" our soul creations to give each one time to "settle in" and get used to each other. I worry that if we create too many new souls too quickly, they'll overwrite our existing personality by overwhelming it with new thoughts.

>>88179
I don't know that I would specifically call either of those skills 'bad people stuff' so much. Intimidation is a very appropriate skill for a Moon Hero, given their whole 'this is my stuff get away from my stuff' thing, and Deception is something that literally everyone uses all the time, even if not everyone is very good at it. People CLAIM honesty is some sort of ideal but in practice the world mostly functions on people lying to eachother in small ways and sometimes big ways constantly.

Torture is a bad person skill, though. Agreed.

I'd say there are times when intimidation and deception can be justified, but it's not a good idea for those to be our only recourse.

It's like violence. There are scumbags who deserve to be dealt with violently, but it's quite different to take everything you want by force because violence is the only thing you're good at.

>>88200
We really need to either eat more ghosts or eat Peregrin's library, then. I don't really mind WHICH, but we don't have the skills that a normal person would have developed for dealing with people because of our amnesiac state. Like right now about all we can do socially without using powers is craft nice things as gifts, deceive people, or intimidate them. If we don't want to handle things that way, we need more skills to have a shot. Oh, we also know economics and how to sell things to people. So if we were trying to buy or sell things we know quite a bit about that. Otherwise our skills are focused a lot more on other tasks. I think none of the ghosts we ate were particularly social types, honestly. The ghost mentioned with a 'spiritual retinue' or the merchant ghost could potentially fill out our skillset quite a lot. I don't think it's so much that we've been eating bad people as not enough types of bad people??

So I went and dug up our stuff from the various times we had the option to buy new powers for our devas and here's what I've got

Wordblood has
Soul Force 3

- World Reading 2
Level 1: Detect Will Points/Health Points (1tw)
Level 2: Detect enemy attack/defense stats (2tw)
Level 3: Detect Heart's Desire and possibly Malaffections (3tw)
- Ease of Consumption 2
Makes eating souls easier in most ways.
- Efficiency of Consumption 2
Makes eating souls more efficient for gain of Titan's Will, as well as in other ways.
- Breath of Life
He can generate a mysterious mist that supports mortal creatures.(This is primarily an inner world thing, I think)
- Seeing the Tongue Slip
Wordblood detects nuances of a target's speech and body language that reveals the thoughts behind their words.
- Blessing
Wordblood bestows the benefits of his Boost onto another creature.

Can Learn:
- True Speech
Not entirely sure how this works, but lets us speak in the True Speech, 'the language of absolute truth'? It would cost 1 Titan's Will to unlock. Possibly would be very useful with Wordblood's social combat trick he showed us, but not sure if it would be super obviously Titanic for use otherwise.
- Depth of Comprehension level 1
A multi level ability that increases Wordblood's gains from consuming books/knowledge, first in Power and later in Titan's Will. 1 Titan's Will to increase to level 1, scaling costs with level.
- Divine Listener
Requires World Reading (level 3). Allows Saulanna to hear any prayer directed at her. (1tw)
- Bond of Understanding
Wordblood devotes 2 points of his Titan Power to a target, allowing him to carry telepathic messages to and from them. (1tw)
- Comprehension
Wordblood ensures Saulanna is understood as she intends to be understood, granting a bonus to honest social attacks or attempts to teach. Overcomes bars to understanding, such as excessive local noise. Cannot assist deliberate deception.(1tw)
- Secret Subtext
Wordblood weaves a hidden meaning into a statement, detectable only by a specific target of his choosing. This consumes his action per turn and so cannot be done at the same time as another action without taking the multiple action penalty.(1tw)
- Enhancement: Taste of Time
Requires World Reading (Level 1). Allows Kairosa to use her ability to taste history without physical contact.(1tw)


Kairosa has
Soul Force 3

- Will Generation 3
Level 3: One measure of Titan's Will once per month. Improved to once per week with Will Compression. Improved to once per day if dedicated to a target.
- Efficiency of Consumption 2
Same as Wordblood, but Kairosa is better at this due to her being a Feeding soul.
- Ease of Consumption 2
Again, same as Wordblood, but Kairosa has a superior grasp of this innately.
- Forked Path Oracle
Presented with a selection of options, Kairosa attempts to get a feel for which option is more "favourable". What is favourable must be described. Total accuracy not guaranteed.
- Taste of Time
Kairosa tastes the history of something or someone, learning more about it. Requires physical contact. Living/sentient beings may notice being 'tasted'.
- Power Compression
She can devote 3 dots of Power to the task of regaining Power, making normal magical energy return at an improved rate.

Can Learn:
- The Perspective of History
Kairosa lends Saulanna the perspective of a being that is outside time, eliminating all penalties or bonuses from temporary emotions.
- Borrowing from the Future
Kairosa sacrifices future Power regeneration to gain Power now. Immediate Power gains are only half what would have been regained naturally later; excessive use interferes with Will Generation. May be detected.
- Save the Moment
Kairosa stores one turn's worth of time, which may be released later to double Saulanna's speed for one turn, giving her another action.

Saulanna herself as a deva doesn't really have obvious Titan powers yet, but is Soul Force 3. Saulanna the TITAN has an effective Soul Force of 9, although this mostly only impacts our reserve of Power or Will points(social combat will points, not Titan's Will) so far.

Also this thing Kairosa said strikes me as probably something to keep in mind

"That thing Wordblood thought of there might work. It's probably conditional or something, though, like you'd only be able to use it against arguments that threaten something you're protecting, or the like. You gotta zone in on those themes, mistress! Samsara's gotta be your friend!"

We have to take advantage of Samsara when we can, and all the previous holders of our Hero Soul were 'sneaky types'. There are precedents for sneaky types being forces for good, but one of the most obvious ones I think is basically the story of Robin Hood? Steal from the rich, give to the poor? Or in this case maybe steal from the Gods, give to the mortals? Knowledge wants to be free! Power wants to be shared! This seems like a fairly benevolent sort of direction we could go, because being a mortal in Creation SUCKS. About the only way to get around that is to be lucky enough to become a Hero, and that isn't always a good thing. Lunars might end up as Chimeras, Solars can descend into insanity, Deathknights and Infernals have some pretty glaringly obvious downsides, even if apparently the Dragon's Shadow freed the Infernals somewhat during his escape, Sidereals inherit basically the biggest workload ever, and Dragon-blooded are still pretty much small fries.

>>88148
I've got a bunch of questions stored for when the next quest thread starts, and two of them concern whether book nomming can be done in our Inner World (where it would presumably be undetectable), and how costly it would be to get a pile of books inside.

(I don't ask in ITQ because I feel it would be too quest-relevant; I try to keep my ITQ questions to stuff that can fuel our long-term speculation and/or be interesting in itself.)

>>88155
Deception and Intimidation will probably not be that efficient against Heroes, the first because deception resistance would be high on the wish list for social characters (note how our deception attempt made zero damage to Akatrina), the second because they think they're much bigger and badder than us (and by and large they're right - we're not very combat-oriented).
Now, IF Akatrina knows what we are, then Intimidation might actually be rather effective...

Mind you, we have FOUR good options for learning rhetoric: Booknomming, Ghost-nomming, normal book-reading, and tutoring.
If there's a tutor available (Peregrin for one has 5 in smoothtalking, in my estimation), we can take them into our inner world and have them tutor us there while time is stopped. Especially easy with ghost tutors, should Peregrin know any, since we have Metasmosis.
BTW, the advantage to reading books in our Inner World - rather than absorbing them - is that then we have a pile of books there ready for nomming, in case we need a small power-up.
(I think until we get Depth of Comprehension it will be a rather small power-up, though.)

>>88153
Eh, Tattoos would be iffy and inconvenient, but they do have their advantages - and we could still manage despite them.
*If we figure out how to craft them ourselves, we don't need to tell our secrets to anyone.
*And if we make them ourselves, there's nothing saying they HAVE to be in a particular language, right? We can make a custom-built language no-one knows to encrypt the sensitive parts, or maybe get an ability to encrypt them.
*The blocks on Titanic Shaping can be circumvented; for example, our physical talents could be raised to 5 *before* we get the tattoos done. (Anyway, the Hero Soul can propably raise our talents despite the tattoos.)
Similarly, if an ability would count as titanic shaping of our body, in most cases we could shape the environment to get the same effect - creating portals instead of teleporting, for example.

That said, I don't know that we have the experiences necessary to make the tattoos, what with the amnesia and all, so we should give it a pass for now in any case.

>>88207
I think we'll be pretty stealthy, because that's just sensible, but I'd suggest we develop our Lunar abilities towards combat purposes, mostly. This because using overtly Titanic abilities openly would cause alarm, and therefore our one non-titanic source of powers ought to be the most overt one. Our future Devas, IMO, should be mostly stealth and utility ones.

>>88233
Ghost tutors would work, but the thing is we'd pretty much have to imprison them indefinitely? Which is not the nicest thing to do to someone, even a ghost. If we let them leave they would know too much. Gevin was one thing, and he really didn't know what the deal was with us at all, but now that we've created an actual inner world we can't let random ghosts leave with that information.

The problem with the tattoos is there are at least three really bad things that they could do to us and any one of the three would be pretty awful on its own. And two of them would potentially immediately reveal us. I would honestly rather go meet with the Dragon's Shadow right now than get those tattoos. I feel like that would legitimately be less dangerous to us. And the Moon Heroes are not going to take 'no, not right now' for an answer, let alone 'no, I don't want any tattoos.' It would be much much easier to attempt to use Akatrina against the Moon Heroes and then make some sort of deal that's favorable to her but not dangerous to us. We potentially could be a very valuable trade partner.

As far as deception goes, Akatrina might be more resistant to it, but she literally serves the world's biggest liar. This is not a surprising thing! We were still throwing numbers that were less than half of what hers were, so her being able to resist a not particularly good lie is not very unusual.

ALSO I MISSED A POWER OF WORDBLOOD'S I'M SORRY

VOICE IN THE DARK ability! Level 1. He can deliver messages into people's thoughts, provided Saulanna can see them. Upgrading this ability will increase its range.

>>88239
>Ghost tutors
I don't think we'd have to imprison them indefinitely - just until the visiting Heroes are gone. They might not even realize that we're a Titan - Heroes in this world have strange and wonderful abilities, and I'd say we are at the moment on par with a mid-to-early Hero, ability-wise. If Askalaff is really about 500 years old, he should be able to do way weirder stuff than we can at present.

>Tattoos
I think the Moon Heroes will in fact take no for an answer - they have already admitted some people do without the tattoos - it's just a matter of besting them in Social Combat and then not mutating too visibly.

>Deception
Not saying lies won't work at all (though Garmir at least probably has a "smell lies" power), I'm just saying it'll be horribly inefficient if their social defenses are specced specifically to resist deception. Much better to honestly say "I don't want to leave this place" and convince them with sincerity.

Just leaving this here for future reference or commentary.

After spending more time with classic mage recently, and given our success with Time as an element, considering the other spheres as elements seems worthwhile. For reference, a list follows with canonical spheres as headings over which alternate spheres appear. As a note, many of these alternate spheres aren't using their canonical names, so bonus points if you can spot the reference.

Correspondence
*Space
*Distance
*Data
Entropy
*Fate
*Math
Forces
Life
Matter
*Artifice
Mind
Prime
*Value
*Faith
Spirit
*Imperialism

Well, Death would also slot in above, but I'm pretty sure we don't want to death to be a fundamental part of our nature.

I think we should use some darker element types along with the ones being chosen. I don't know if any of these would work or not, but I think some are worth considering.

-Corruption
-Blood
-Monsters
-Dominance
-Disaster
-Wealth
-Community

>>89103
Blood is potentially a subsoul of Wordblood's, so we might prefer to leave that open for him. But he actually said essentially that something like Blood would keep us closer to our humanity than, for example, Time. Physical and emotional concepts that are part of the normal human experience both are less alien than great big concepts like Time, Space, etc.
So we might not want to use Blood specifically, but it's not entirely on the wrong track, maybe something like Bone?
As far as 'darker' elements I'm not sure we need to deliberately choose anything dark, given we already have a deva which is resonating with the Curse, it seems like.
>>88560
The problem we had with that before was that in hiding our reasons we kind of seemed to struggle with finding a sincere argument against leaving. Not that our deception is dramatically better than our other options right now, maybe 3 points better in a best case scenario. Intimidation though actually might be pretty good, because it would potentially use our Inspiration attribute, which is higher than our Dickery, and being a big scary monster is kind of a Lunar thing plus we are actually something they should be terrified of, even if they don't know it. Regardless, that would give ME a confidence boost in the 'trying to scare them off' conversational tack, so I would think it would work okay for us too. Basically an intimidation based attack could be throwing an 8 when our only inspiration based attack before that did damage was a 5. Given that attack did 1 damage, that's a 300% increase. Deception had the problem of hitting a different defense of Akatrina's which seemed to be stronger.

The problem with intimidation is that it's likely to convince them to leave for only as long as it takes for them to come back with more firepower.

Plus, even with our Titan powers, both of them still are considerably older and more powerful than us. They know we're new to this Hero thing, because that's why they came here in the first place. That'll probably give them a significant bonus to resist any intimidation attempts.

If we can give them some convincing reason why we want to be left alone but they still feel like arguing, then intimidation might serve to convince them it's not worth it and to just let the matter drop. But I don't think intimidation is going to work well on its own.

The problem is that we don't have a convincing reason (or rather, we're really dead-set against giving the only one we have).

Anyway, Wordblood did have valid suggestions (interrogate Akatrina's attendants and Garmir, with their presumably-weaker defenses, to learn more about what we're up against), and which of our skills are going to get a boost soon depends mostly on what books Peregrin has in his library. We'll hopefully be able to come up with a better plan once we have that information.

is lunar quest dead? :(

>>120793
Jukashi has been pretty busy with school stuff for a while.

Anyone got Lunar-Quest-like media to recommend, while we're waiting?
Here's mine:

Inside Out
The Pixar movie has some obvious parallels.
(I would say Fear=Wordblood, Sadness=Hero soul and Joy=Kairosa, which unfortunately leaves Saulanna and Greenie to fight over Rage and Disgust.)

Righteous Steel
( http://www.thefreedomstone.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=1764 )
Exalted mileu, with a protagonist that has an, er, strong connection to certain demonic forces.
There's a few preceding books, but sadly the sequel seems to be canceled. Still, what's there is good.

Moon-led Journey Across Another World
( https://isekailunatic.wordpress.com/tsuki-ga-michibiku-isekai-douchuu/ )
Japanese light novel, college student gets summoned to other world, infused with extreme powers, then promptly discarded by the Goddess he's supposed to help. (She's the Goddess of Beauty, Appearance is his dump stat, you do the math.) Abandoned in a hostile wasteland, He secures the service of a weaboo dragon, a gluttonous spider-demon, an Orc tribe, a Dwarf clan - and a pocket dimension where he starts a thriving monster colony.
With this power... he decides to become a small business owner.

Time Braid
( https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/Time-Braid )
Naruto fanfic, in which Sakura gets stuck in a time loop, eventually getting godlike powers.

Nighthunter
( https://royalroadl.com/fiction/14850/nighthunter )
Alexa gets summoned into a game-like world, stumbles upon a moon pool and gets infused with enough Lunar Essence to change her species into Dusk Elf. She further encounters a Bonfire - the seed to a magical city - and a demon girl in search for a contractor. With the help of the RPG-like system, Alexa has the potential to gain super-human powers - but can she navigate the mind-affecting influences of the intoxicating Goddess Elune, the demanding Genius Loci Vesta, and the amoral succubus Isabela?

The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound
( https://royalroadl.com/fiction/11209/the-legend-of-randidly-ghosthound )
The improbably named Randidly suffers an unusual event; when Earth is annexed by The "System", a reality-warping incursion, and monsters and Dungeons spawn all over - a Dungeon spawns *around* him, trapping him. To fight effectively against the monsters of the Dungeon, he will need a Class. To unlock a Class, he needs to go to a newbie village. And to access the Dungeon exit to find a Village, he needs to either get a Class - or defeat the Dungeon. Thus starts a tale of Training From Hell, unreasonable OP-ness and Inner World construction.

There's been a bit of focus on Commoners lately in ITQ, so I thought I'd share some of my fan-made ones. I made these roughly according to how demons are presented in the sourcebooks, while keeping in mind that 1-st circle DEVAS are likely nowhere near as screwed up as demons, likely more powerful, and in our case, designed by people that actually kind of like humans.
These particular ones fit vaguely into the categories envisioned by our fave Devas, though Wordblood seems to be communicating that our Devas would tend towards flesh and blood, so that sort of disqualifies two of them. Nevertheless:

Lumnati, The Riddling Masons
>Purpose: Create interesting architecture - especially building manses for us
>Secondary purpose: Golem-type defensive combatant
>Tertiary purpose: Geomancy manipulation
These powerful spirit-form creatures are made for the construction of buildings and manses. Intangible in their natural state, they are able to dive into rock and animate it, shaping and levitating it as they wish, then leaving the remolded stone behind and leaping into the earth once more. Naturally talented in shape-shifting, they can create a statue in mere moments, and can shapeshift into a small house in not much longer time. (If the building is bigger than the volume a Riddling Mason can comfortably hold, they add one structural element at a time.)
Lumnati prefer organic shapes in the architecture they make, describing corners and straight lines as 'itchy'.
A Lumnatus' body always bears writing describing its thoughts, though this is hard to see other than when it is animating stone. Anything a Lumnatus makes by shifting is thus by necessity inscribed in some manner, though this need not be overtly visible.
If left to their own devices, Lumnati delight in riddling their creations with hidden passageways adorned with puzzles in obscure languages, revealing still more obscure knowledge. The creatures are always interested in obtaining more books - the more obscure, the better - to facilitate the making of these byzantine riddles, and when dealing with mortals, they usually bargain for written works in exchange for their services.

Lumnati are prized by geomancers; by diving into the earth and manipulating its structure in place, they can alter geomantic flows with uncommon subtlety and precision. This makes them particularly well-suited for constructing manses.
A Lumnatus is also able to enhance mining, by removing most of the stone from an ore vein, leaving the metal-rich parts to be collected.
Furthermore, they may be used as animating spirits for a house: maintaining it, resetting traps, moving rooms about and keeping the architecture up-to-date.
Finally, Lumnati can be made to stay indefinitely in statue-form, as servants or as hulking ever-regenerating warriors, though they are mediocre at both tasks, having little facility in actually moving their stone-shaped forms around beyond the striking of poses.

When someone who solved the mysteries of a Lumnati building sighs in admiration of the architect, the Lumnatus responsible may slip through dimensions to bask in the praise.

--------------------------

Munin, the Mist Librarians
>Purpose: Acquire, sort and store memories/skills
>Secondary purpose: Scouting
>Tertiary purpose: redact memories
Winged beings of mist and breath roam the myriad corridors in the Great Wordblood Library Complex, maintaining, sorting and curating thought records. Each has a specialty it obsessively researches. Occasionally, when a Muni accumulates data to the limit of its capacity, it splits into two, each taking a sub-specialization of the field.
Few of the Munin make practical, physical use of their specialty, preferring to sort information relevant to it, but occasionally a Mist Librarian has been known to take proactive steps to generate more data to work with.

Munin have the unique ability to copy and review memories from living beings. This requires going into the target's airways, but is painless - a sleeping victim would be unlikely to notice anything except an unusually fresh morning breath. Munin can transmit copied memories for others to experience; breathing the unreal scent of a bottled memory makes you vividly recall events you never experienced in the first place.
It's possible for a Muni to entirely remove someone's memory of an event, if directed to do so - but they are vehemently opposed to destroying knowledge and will always squirrel away a copy to be filed in the Library. (Also, the victim is rather more likely to notice a memory-removal in progress than a memory reading.)

Assuming one can talk them into it, inhaling a Muni gives four advantages, for as long as it is kept in one's lungs:
*an intuitive understanding of its particular specialty,
*access to any memories it holds and chooses to make available,
*understanding of any spoken language in Creation, and finally:
*the sating of any need for air and water.
These powers naturally come at the price of not being able to speak or eat for the duration, which lasts until one next opens one's mouth - at which point the Muni will burst out, relieved to be free from its fleshy cage, and often loudly complaining about its host's breath. (Naturally, the Muni is sure to have made copies of any of your memories relevant to its specialty during its stay.)

Munin make excellent tutors, good messengers and librarians, and decent spies, but unless they are truly developed specimens, they don't have enough substance to move anything heavier than 100 grams. They also have no physical attack, and if a victim is aware of their presence, resisting their mental probes can be done even by a talented mortal.
More developed Munin have been known to be able to extract information from books by mere touch, and to use some manner of psychometry to extract memories from items, presumably by interrogating their least gods. This makes them valuable in a crime scene, whether by investigating one or by cleaning up one's traces.

When a dying scholar takes their last breath, despairing that their knowledge will be lost with them, what they draw into their lungs is often a Munin. Sometimes, this is even enough to save them.

-----------------------------

Yuugin, the Dreamcatchers
>Purpose: Gossamer production
>Secondary Purpose: ambusher with sedative bite
>Tertiary Purpose: transportation between "anchored" locations
Also known as Time Spiders, the bite of this cat-sized, purple-eyed spider will put a victim into deep yet dream-filled sleep. And while the poison itself fades rapidly, a mortal coccooned in their web experiences unaging stasis - though their mind is free to dream. The persistent dreams of up to a hundred coccooned people - anchored by their physical bodies - are stitched together to form labyrinthine dream nests, which the Yuugin use as their base from which to ply the trade of dream-fishing.
Cheerful and friendly as dreamcatchers are, they have little compunction about ambushing and abducting random people to add to their dream nests. After all, they rationalize, it's not like a street beggar will be HURT by spending a hundred years in enchanted sleep...
Still, dreamers are not ill-treated by Dreamcatchers, and some mortals have even been known to volunteer for a decade in a Yuugi's web, thereby gaining mental distance to a traumatic event, time to train a skill, or the opportunity to let an investment mature without having their body age in the meanwhile.

Timespider silk is a kind of Gossamer, spun from dreams, and this material is deeply cherished by Yuugin; they will chew it up and reuse it endlessly. It is hard to bargain for; rather, you can easily bribe Dreamcatchers with fairy-made gossamer cloth, which they'll happily digest and reconstitute into their own gossamer variant.
Time Spiders, if properly supervised, can use their webs to strengthen Creation - stitching tears in the Loom of Fate - though Pattern Spiders seem to view the fix as crude at best, replacing the strands at their earliest convenience. Still, Sidereals employ their services as emergency reinforcements for their mechanical brethren; Time Spiders have an easier time moving through chaos and paradoxes than Pattern Spiders do.

While their primary use in mortal eyes is the low-yield production of Gossamer - a service that Yuugin charge highly for - they can also weave webs to ward off nightmares, heal broken dreams, stabilize the mortally wounded until help arrives, crudely manipulate Fate, and - in extremis - darn socks. Sorcerers also value their ability to temporally isolate a volume of space, permitting some time-related tricks. Elder timespiders may assist with travel, moving a supplicant from one dream anchor to another physically.
Using them for abducting or imprisoning people is fraught with annoyance, though; the Yuugin loathe dogs, refusing to go near houses guarded by them - and will likewise kick a dreamer out, should they dream about dogs once too often. Being physically present in the dreamspace, Time Spiders are also vulnerable should the dreamer find and battle them there.

As the dream breaks, so does the cocoon, falling into gossamer strands and releasing the dreamer. Slashing open the cocoon from the outside has the same result - though the coccoons are usually very well hidden. (If the strands are left alone, the Yuugi will invariably be back to harvest and reuse them.)

When a starving child's dream strays near a Yuugi, that Yuugi may anchor their dream to their nest, descending to Creation on a gossamer strand to cocoon the body - and, often, to go finding more.

------

I've got a couple of others:
Tanuukhim, the Raccoon-girl Guides
Caliburn, the Stone-sheathed Tools,
Ourobori, the Gardener Snakes,
Mephistopholi, the Masked Merchants,
and of course Lemins, the Helpful Horde.
They're mostly written up, buuuut you can pretty much imagine them just from their names.

So, is this quest dead?