Barry and Larry

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Because really, on Beluaterra, there is something greater, and humans are nothing.

This is an experimental forum exercise that I will in fact see to the end (Meaning: Adventurers die, no other way to end this). The purpose is to have two adventurers go through the 5th Inv, and prove, once and for all, that really, in the end, we mortal humans are stupid and incapable of saving our own sorry insignificant asses.

Bon voyage mes amis.

[Anaris]

Is this going to be another attempt at a Let's Play?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

No. The way this works is I will do whatever the hell I want (Like usual), only y'all get to read every single letter I receive and/or send. Open character. Except for boring stuff like "Next monster location".

Since the two are adventurers, I figure there won't be any great secrets they will learn anyway so no harm done. Also, in case I somehow run into an invader and hear something, it's here to read, not as if it'll make much of a difference though.

[Lorgan]

So... Nothing to write about? ;)

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Nothing at all except for some Enweilan dude giving an item to an advy and that advy asking where there's a sage. And then there was something...maybe. Didn't care. Those, along with hunt locations and gathered items all count as part of "Don't care info". On the other hand, if I get a unique and/or use a special item (magic scroll, book of daimon/monster/undead asskicking, 8...portal stones which do nothing but hey y'all probably want to see it anyway)

Hm, Larry is in Tindle I think (Yeah I think because I don't really feel like checking while posting.) and can now read what that censored portion on the Daimon Worship temple says. It's...er...rather anticlimactic. I was expecting something more groundbreaking, but no...alas it just says what we always thought the daimons wanted to do to us. Well, what most...some...whatever, it just means we're gonna get messed up pretty soon.  I'm pretty sure y'all kinda figured that on your own already anyway.

[Chenier]

Nothing at all except for some Enweilan dude giving an item to an advy and that advy asking where there's a sage. And then there was something...maybe. Didn't care. Those, along with hunt locations and gathered items all count as part of "Don't care info". On the other hand, if I get a unique and/or use a special item (magic scroll, book of daimon/monster/undead asskicking, 8...portal stones which do nothing but hey y'all probably want to see it anyway)

Hm, Larry is in Tindle I think (Yeah I think because I don't really feel like checking while posting.) and can now read what that censored portion on the Daimon Worship temple says. It's...er...rather anticlimactic. I was expecting something more groundbreaking, but no...alas it just says what we always thought the daimons wanted to do to us. Well, what most...some...whatever, it just means we're gonna get messed up pretty soon.  I'm pretty sure y'all kinda figured that on your own already anyway.

Don't let these daimons give a bad rep to the previous ones.

I found Prudent to be kind of cute, personally. ;)

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Ha...haha...hahaha...I won't do 4 ha's in succession...

But the point is there. Since 4th is over I guess it's ok to say that it was all a big lie or something, even for the humans serving the daimons going around burning stuff up. They had to be "cute"...well, charming and stuff because that's how humans are often best manipulated. You know all those seductive but venomous female villains in those crime dramas? Yeah...

Oh, and some guy named Vincent said:

Larry,

A sage I need, have ye seen one of late?
Sir Vincent (Freeman)

To which I replied:

What's a sage? Haha...

[Chenier]

Ha...haha...hahaha...I won't do 4 ha's in succession...

But the point is there. Since 4th is over I guess it's ok to say that it was all a big lie or something, even for the humans serving the daimons going around burning stuff up. They had to be "cute"...well, charming and stuff because that's how humans are often best manipulated. You know all those seductive but venomous female villains in those crime dramas? Yeah...

Oh, and some guy named Vincent said:

Larry,

A sage I need, have ye seen one of late?
Sir Vincent (Freeman)

To which I replied:

What's a sage? Haha...

Do you think anyone in Enweil was fooled as per the daimon's intent?

Two ruling thoughts:

1) Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer
2) The enemy of my enemy is my friend

We knew the daimons would betray us if they ever deemed it desirable. That didn't mean that we were gonna forego their help during that time where we had common interests.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Well, what I am wondering about, especially given all the times Enweil has tried justifying their alliance to the daimons was...Did you ever consider that no matter what nice little justification you try to invent to make yourself feel better, the end result was undeniably that you did, in fact, assist in your own destruction? It doesn't matter what you want to say about monsters. Yeah, you've said that a lot, I've read that many times, and I will come out and say right now, as probably have several others in the past: You screwed up the moment you decided to ally with the Netherworld. Then again, you are hardly alone to blame.

See, here's the thing: You are like the guy who turns his back to a mountain and walks forward. When he turns back and removes his blindfold, he believes he has moved the mountain when he has only moved himself.

[Chenier]

Well, what I am wondering about, especially given all the times Enweil has tried justifying their alliance to the daimons was...Did you ever consider that no matter what nice little justification you try to invent to make yourself feel better, the end result was undeniably that you did, in fact, assist in your own destruction? It doesn't matter what you want to say about monsters. Yeah, you've said that a lot, I've read that many times, and I will come out and say right now, as probably have several others in the past: You screwed up the moment you decided to ally with the Netherworld. Then again, you are hardly alone to blame.

See, here's the thing: You are like the guy who turns his back to a mountain and walks forward. When he turns back and removes his blindfold, he believes he has moved the mountain when he has only moved himself.

Bleh, I don't buy it. We didn't help the daimons gain anything at all. Had we not allied with them, they would have been *stronger* than what they ended up being, because they slacked off their expansion and made several strategic sacrifices to fight the monsters in order to keep us alive.

Had we not gotten their help, we would have been blighted, along with Rio and a chunk of BK and Fronen probably, and then the daimons would have enherited all of that between the two invasions. Daimons would have probably used that opportunity to blight a lot more of Sint too.

So instead of half a continent, we'd have been stuck with a quarter of a continent. I don't see how that would have been in our best interests.

When you and others say "allied with the daimons", you seem to implied we helped the daimons achieve stuff. The only thing we helped them achieve was find nasty Daishi temples, because common, Daishi just sucks.

When the monsters threatened us, we had 3 choices: become slaves of the monsters, roll over and die, or go seek the means to defend ourselves. I'd like to hear your arguments about *why* siding  with the monsters instead, or rolling over and dying, would have given the continent better chances than pitting the invaders against each other.

Otherwise, it's just hollow rhetoric. "Daimons are bad, therefore any form of cooperation with them whatsoever must also, by extension, be bad!" Doesn't work that way. That's like saying "Stalin is bad, therefore helping the USSR against nazi Germani is bad!"

Note: does this count for Godwin's law?

[Anaris]

Bleh, I don't buy it. We didn't help the daimons gain anything at all. Had we not allied with them, they would have been *stronger* than what they ended up being, because they slacked off their expansion and made several strategic sacrifices to fight the monsters in order to keep us alive.

I may be misinterpreting what Artemesia said, but I think his meaning was more along the lines of, "You can argue all you want, but you'll never persuade people on BT that Enweil allying with the Daimons isn't reason enough to destroy them."

(At least, people on BT who already hold that view.)

[songqu88@gmail.com]

What I said was essentially: You lost by trying to find a way to "win". That in itself was probably a wrong way to go about this. If you paid attention, the Blight could be dispersed, and in fact it was during 4th Inv around Riombara's south. The mere fact that you wanted to avoid the Blight was shallow and shortsighted. In addition, thinking foremost about your own survival, though natural, probably played into the Invaders' hands. Oh, and I have a sneaking suspicion that, though the 3 "evil" factions were fighting each other, essentially the source was the same. Wait, how does this matter? Oh yeah, you guys messed up Daishi. Kudos for that.

IC, yeah, yeah, I know. Apparently ICly, your characters are idiots. Don't worry, most of our characters were...and still are.

[Jens Namtrah]

so far, my advy in the north has had zero response from any other advy about trading items, finding sages, hunting, et al...in an advy guild, share reports every day...nada.

i hope if this invasion's RP success depends in part on the participation of adventurers that this area is an exception...even before the invasion started, it was always very quiet, but there are plenty of other advies about

[songqu88@gmail.com]

What would be ironic is if the whole way to "win" (like, win for reals as in fulfilling whatever nebulous requirements were set in place by the Mr. Tom guy and/or whatever GM powers exist) is if the fate of the world (or BT at least) depended on the actions of adventurers. Like...most fantasy media tends to portray. No, really, how often do you see nobles in their fancy silks going out searching for the Lost Legendary MacGuffin of Ultimate Deus ex Machina Ass Saving Humanity in the Eleventh Hour miscellany? Yeah, sure, sometimes it turns out the filthy commoner is a royal in disguise/unknown heir to the throne/a god incarnate/some important dude with amnesia/etc. But the point is he starts off and for the majority of the story, is considered a commoner, or some equivalent.

For reference, let's look at the following stuff:

1. The Pyridian Chronicles (Or whatever they're called. You know, the one with the pig that tells oracles, and there were five books. The hero was a pig farmer kid who defeated Arawn or something, and became the high king at the end. Anyway, for the most part, our hero was a pig farmer.

2. The Black Company. Well, technically they were mercenaries, but eh...

3. Lord of the Rings. Yeah, there's Aragorn, the king and all, but he gets introduced as a normal ranger dude. And in any case, even with the powerful wizard guy, the elf dude, the dwarf, etc, the guys who actually defeat Sauron and save the world are a bunch of hobbits from some little hobbit village, who are essentially little commoners, pun intended.

4. Legend of Zelda. For a game example, in all incarnations of our green-clad southpaw, he is a commoner, in whatever equivalent exists in Hyrule. I assume there is nobility, since there's this princess called Zelda (lol) and Link is definitely not part of that class at the beginning, though it seems as though lines aren't as clear since you can talk to her and she gives you quests and stuff. Well, actually, I'm not sure what Link is in Skyward Sword. But I do know in Twilight Princess he started off as a village boy.

5. Fable. Because, you know, it's a lolworthy game. Yeah, I know what happens in 3. But in 1 and 2, you start off as a commoner kid. Then you can grow to own the world, but still, that's a different matter.

My conclusion is that BT is meant to be saved by adventurers. The Invasion will be thwarted, if at all, by the efforts of commoners. If nobles are to play any role at all beyond that of stupid and ineffective, but infinitely arrogant and ignorant annoyances, it would be as human shields to slow down the tide of the daimons, thus buying time for the adventurers to use their Deus ex machina.

Disclaimer: However, it is not guaranteed that the DeM is in any way easy to use. It is far more likely that the game will conspire to have the advies fail because they are also played by human players who are generally pretty bad at working together for anything in this game. Well, especially true in situations like these. It is my belief that a bunch of dudes will find out how to win, but fail to tell anyone, and in that way, fail utterly because they are too dumb to realize that they cannot do it alone. That is also a point about humans: We place too much importance on ourselves. Alone we are nothing. Alone we are weak. A naked human is the most vulnerable animal that walks the earth. Too many people used to living in comfort forget that. Then again...Arrogance. Hubris. The venom that the gods detest and for which they punish humans who think to possess such qualities. So too is it the drug that demons use to seduce men unto their own destruction. Fun stuff yo.

[Geronus]

What I said was essentially: You lost by trying to find a way to "win". That in itself was probably a wrong way to go about this. If you paid attention, the Blight could be dispersed, and in fact it was during 4th Inv around Riombara's south. The mere fact that you wanted to avoid the Blight was shallow and shortsighted. In addition, thinking foremost about your own survival, though natural, probably played into the Invaders' hands. Oh, and I have a sneaking suspicion that, though the 3 "evil" factions were fighting each other, essentially the source was the same. Wait, how does this matter? Oh yeah, you guys messed up Daishi. Kudos for that.

IC, yeah, yeah, I know. Apparently ICly, your characters are idiots. Don't worry, most of our characters were...and still are.

I play in Riombara. I do not recall 'dispersing' the Blight once it was in place, not ever, so I fail to see how trying to keep regions from being blighted was 'short-sighted'. The Blight was and remains permanent, although we had a very interesting tidbit that dropped from a scouting of a blighted region recently...