Sandbox Discussions

[Shoal]

oh, she's a kid! that makes sense then.

[anthusiasm]

Yeah, she's in high school!

[DanielH]

This might not be the right place to ask, but there’s no general glowfic thread like the general sandbox thread, so…

Is there any chance of existing threads incandescing/effulging like what (I gather) happened when Incandescence became a thing? Either way, could we see a Promise in either of those? I’m guessing a “yes” answer to the first implies a “yes” to the second because of the promise/twins thread, but I care about the answers individually.

[Alicorn]

Usually, when we do something as a sandbox, there's a reason. Worm's plot backdrop is too intimidating to handle without sinking a ton of templating and work into it, Promise's world is wrong for the Incandescence power balance, etc. This is not impossible-as-a-class-of-thing (Spring Incandesced this way) but it's usually not going to happen. Promise is slated for Effulgence eventually (see Effulgence status report; she's "Names").

[DanielH]

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by the power balance being wrong for Incandescence to meet Promise (neither seems to powerful to me, at least not in a way they’d likely use). Although I guess that explains why Milliways was in Incandescence; it seemed out of place.

The current sandbox with Lightning and Earth makes me think of everybody on the Effulgence status report marked as ready to peal when peal time unpauses. I’m trying to think of a way to join them in to their own peal which merges into the main one, but don’t think that’s possible without doing even crazier things with Milliways time than usual.

EDIT: To clarify, I get that Promise is insanely powerful. She just wouldn’t use that power most of the time; if she were going to, it takes her just a couple weeks to make a portal to the mortal world. Even if she doesn’t know about phonebooks, she does know that mortals give their names freely.

[Alicorn]

Promise's world contains a specter of possible "game over" that Incandescence doesn't otherwise deal with.

It's not impossible - Etty and Aether met before joining the peal - but it's not viable with the peal-ready Bells we currently have (it's mostly just T'Mir we can do right away no waiting).

[DanielH]

Ah, that… mostly makes sense. I think mage scrying might be powerful enough to counteract that (and in an emergency, so would the thimble), but it still makes sense to not want that possibility to exist in the story.

[DanielH]

Wait, “Bar” is a name, not just a description, isn’t it? “Earth” amd “Lightning” aren’t names, at least.

[Rayketh]

In Barring Emergencies there's lots of reference to having to hear instructions for Promise's name thing to work. How does that interact with deafness? Can vassals get signed or written instructions? If someone totally blocks their hearing are they safe from instructions?

[Alicorn]

Sign works. Writing works if the source is sufficiently unambiguous (in practice, this means that the instruction is written down right in front of the vassal). Someone who is vassaled and immediately screams at the top of their lungs and runs away and punctures their eardrums is in some ways safe.