#archetypal archivist

[mochinomnoms]

Question! What would it take for Floyd to rat his brother out to Yuu in regard to his twin's affections? A guaranteed date with Riddle? A hundred thaumarks? Jade begging for help?

Depends on who's asking. If it's Jade, Floyd might be inclined to help out if Jade begs. More so because it's a bit unsettling to see his brother beg, but also it's kinda funny. And also, maybe Jade should suffer cause why not? Money is nothing to him, but Jade offering to tell Floyd all of Riddle's study sessions with his potions group for him to 'mysteriously' pop up is a good motivator.

If it's Yuu asking Floyd to get his brother to confess to them, they can't do it themselves, he's laughing his ass off. They're both so stupid and wimps, why can't they just blab out their feelings and get it over with? Floyd's mood immediately sours if Yuu points out that he's doing the exact same with Riddle, but turns into curiosity as they mention that Riddle might be inclined to give him the time of day if Floyd is willing to help out in the Heartslabyul's kitchen for unbirthday parties. They haven't been the same since Trey left and he's good enough at cooking that baking should be a breeze.

He's much more willing to help Jade if Yuu is the one asking for help, their suggestion appeals to him more and he gets to feed his Goldfishie! And Riddle is weak to a really good tart. Weaker than he'd like to admit.

[wolfythewitch]

I desire your opinions: top 5 best fruits.

Mango, grape, coconut, pear, orange

[targaros]

Hello Pebbles! The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

I am aware.

[ask-suns-pup]

I come bearing questions! Sun, have you eaten enough stuff yet to have preferences on flavors or textures? And Spearmaster, do you... taste things? When you eat?

[silverskye13]

What about Tanguish (other than his bravery in the face of death and his kindness) is Helsknight (begrudgingly) fond of?

You asked me why I love you and I said "I don't know"

And I could tell that you were disappointed with that answer

So I carried on--

[onenicebugperday]

Cricket-thing found in Northern California, size was around an inch long.

It is an actual cricket :)

[merakiui]

Jade should be allowed a treat? What sort of treat would be best for the Jade~? And really, just one? How stingy! Darling Jade should be spoiled I say... So long as he's been a good eel, of course. Has he been good? And how about a little incentive to make it worth his while~ <3

HMMMM,,,, is he truly deserving of a treat? He did just murder someone in the recent DRU update. T_T I don't want to spoil such a bad behavior!!!! >:( he should be jailed for his crimes!!!!

But also,,,, I've been itching to finish another fwb Jade story. Maybe that version of Jade is owed a treat. <3

[identity-coining]

[The] Archivist Archetroper

A flag for archetropers who's archtrope is the Archivist from the Magnus Archives. Not necessarily fictionkin of Jon or Gertrude, simply "The Archivist."

Individuals who feel aligned with this identity may also feel that their archtropes may overlap with Avatar or the Beholding.

[1863-project]

I am pleased that you exist. If you like, please continue existing. :)

Ah, thank you! I'll do my best to!

[dailycharacteroption]

Retrograde Revision 3: Archivist

(art by suomar on DeviantArt)

Another case of bards in name only, today we’re looking at an archetype that is essentially a librarian.

Described as being “bards that eschew the dramatic aspects of their training”, that need not necessarily be the case, as archivists could easily have gained their arcane/occult magic by studying the body of work under their care rather than having gone to any bardic college.

Either way, they are still associated with academia, and may have a personal history as a scholar first.

The badass librarian has been a thing in recent decades, so whether they are archivists or scientists doing field work, these brilliant minds can prove how effective their stores of knowledge are both on and off the battlefield.

This archetype feels like a first pass at a non-loremaster knowledge-based character, the sort of thing that would evolve later into the overall vibe of the investigator class, so it’s interesting to see where it got it’s start.

Rather than inspire bravery in others, archivists instead focus on providing running commentary and guidance on how to fight the creatures they and their allies are currently facing. While they have to identify them first, doing so gives their allies an offensive and defensive buff against them as they point out vulnerabilities and limitations in the subject’s attack and defense.

Whether it be supernatural boredom or the sheer crushing weight of their focus on minutiae, these archivists can wax technical on a subject to daze or confuse those under the effects of one of their “fascinating” lectures (how fascinating they actually are may vary.” Later on, they can even affect whole crowds this way.

Predating the skald ability of the same name, these archivists know so much that they are true lore masters, able to recall incredible amounts of information on a topic a few times per day.

Additionally, their magical lore makes them better suited to identifying magic items, disabling magical traps, and recognizing magical runes in time to better brace themselves against their effects.

Furthermore, they also demonstrate proficiency with all skills, which only grows over time.

More powerful archivists are so knowledgeable that they can predict a possible outcome and occasionally take the most average result on any sort of activity, including when attacking and resisting, which can be useful in an emergency.

The archivist, with it’s eventual ability to treat every single skill as a class skill, as well as taking 10 often and 20 a few times per day at a low level, has the potential to be the arguably best skill monkey in the game. The base combat performance providing both an offensive and defensive buff against identified foes is also very nice, though the ability to daze or confuse foes that are already fascinated is of dubious unsability, since most situations in which you’d fascinate, you’re trying to avoid combat, and it’s not clear how confusion and daze work in regards to keeping people fascinated when they might start punching each other. Beyond that, however, I recommend spell and feat choices that help you have an at least partial answer to any situation you come across. Damage spells with a variety of types, utility spells, debuffs, buffs, you name it.

The nature of their ability to debuff foes they fascinate might give some the assumption that they are boring or dry lecturers, but that doesn’t have to be the case. It could be that their passionate diatribes are simply bewildering to others, and you can certainly portray them as being passionate about many a subject.

A mystic prank goes wrong when a bookish student cast a forbidden spell to get back at his classmates, and now they are all stuck inside a demiplane centered around the most popular tabletop board game in the school. Experienced adventurers are needed to enter the game’s world, master the rules, and rescue the students.

Palanz Whisperwind has never seen any of the monsters he’s spent his whole life studying. In need of a change of pace, he hires a party of adventurers to escort him on this field study. Putting up with his incessant droning and condescending attitude may drive the party up the wall, though.

The secret name of Falrax, the demon lord of night, is hidden in the secret archives of the Library of Thoumous Rang. Getting to the repository, however, will prove difficult, as the gynosphinx archivist Written Conundrum is loath to allow the ignorant and uninitiated to touch her tomes, even if the fate of the world is on the line.

[outerwilds-events]

Hello hello! Happy Halloween and I hope the future is bright in a non-supernova way for you and yours!

Trick or treat!

Happy Halloween! For you and your wishes for the future, you get...

A treat! A beautiful, supernova-less sky of bright stars!

[mochinomnoms]

Question! What are Jade, Floyd, and Azul's reactions to ugly holiday sweaters? What if they were gifted one? I have some truly heinous ones with puns in them for Turkey day.

Jade loves them, 10/10 he's wearing them as much as possible even if it's not the season for it cause he likes people's reactions. Unfortunately, he learns that they are very scratchy sometimes and has to take them off.

Floyd either loves them or hates them no in between. He likes the silliness of it, but he is into land fashion and the like, so nothing really goes with it. Also, the fabric is a bit overstimulating. He's more of a fan of those gaudy, cheesy t-shirts with big text.

Azul just hates them, hates how they look, how they feel, how unfashionable they are. He's a businessman, he needs to have a certain look! They are great for making money during the holiday season though, so he's selling a shit ton of them.

[izartn]

Hey, was Noé from Auvergne? Bc that's where Lestat is from. Mochizuki Jun, señora, I know you watched the IWTV film but did you read the books too? Are you watching the new TV series? Is Louis de Sade name an homage?!?! Just a min.

OK, so yes it's Auveroigne in Altus, which the vampire counterpart to the historical province. In the wiki, in Noé page says:

Averoigne is a fictional counterpart of a historical province in France, detailed in a series of short stories by the American writer Clark Ashton Smith.[1] The province is considered "the most witch-ridden in the entire country. The location is frequently used in Smith's stories as well as his close friends'.

One of the main themes tackled in the stories of Averoigne is vampires. The forests of Averoigne are said to be infested with vampires as well as werewolves.

Which means that Mochijun, who has done her research very well for Case Study of Vanitas, would likely have come across this (which seems to be the kind of stories that also got Anne Rice to choose Auvergne for Lestat???) but given that Mochijun has also said (the translation of that interview is somewhere in my vnc tag) that she watched IWTV and all the multiple references to other vampires and Gothic stories and fairy tales scattered in Vanitas I wouldn't put it pass her to put Auveroigne as a wink.

Also here you have the Wikipedia for Averoigne.

I am obssesed by this btw. The stories and worldbuilding couldn't be more different but Vanitas does occur in France, mainly Paris and has vampires so the association was a bit unavoidable in my mind.

If you have read/watched both case study of vanitas and interview with the vampire I want some crazy talk here.

[targaros]

Pebbles, I request to bestow upon you a gift! *Offers Pebbles an empty wrapping paper tube, perfect for bonking people*

Hm. Thank you creature. Perhaps I can use this.

[ask-suns-pup]

So what's the general status of all the iterators in the local group? You're a slugcat, NSH is pissed off, what of the rest? Anyone else have words for you?

Or, perhaps, something hard to offer your face?

[silverskye13]

Are saints allowed to serve their paladins, or is it mostly a one-way street? Are saints allowed to exist and act when unasked for?

Hmm. This turned a little rambling I apologise. Also I end up saying the word "domain" a lot, so in lieu of finding a good place to explain what I mean by domain, I'll just say it before the cut.

A Saint's "domain" is the thing about the universe they've learned to manipulate, using the faith of the people that believe in them. For large gods who maybe always started as concepts [Order of Remembrance for example], the domain is a broad concept like memory. If memory is involved, it will pull apart the universe to affect it. However, if it wanted to do some kind of miracle [calling a paladin to capture someone maybe, or healing a terrible wound], if doing so would have no effect on its domain, it could not affect change. Smaller saints might have more niche concepts attached to them. [Ie, I have a headcanon VintageBeef's hels is a Saint of Slaughter/Butchery, and is best followed by people who do hoglin hunts in hels. His following is small, and he channels his power for only This Specific Thing, and can affect nothing else.]

I think it depends a bit on the deity in question, and how much deification they get, whether their power is a physical two-way link. Something they use with the same proficiency they put into others.

Small Saints who have basically no followers, and have little to no idea what they stand for, or why, are basically Just Guys. They are Guys powered by someone else's faith, who have interesting powers that manifest on occasion, and they have a habit of collecting very dedicated friend groups. But they are still, at the end of the day, Just Guys. They can act when unasked for, they can help their priests and paladins literally, physically, or do the miracle they want to do themselves, because at that point, everything about them is small and personal, and human. If your neighborhood pastor could work a miracle under a set of memorized rules, and sometimes shook your hand and let you do it too, they would be a Small Saint.

[That's not to say a Small Saint isn't still powerful. They are people who can mess with the weave of the world. Anyone not prepared for that is going to get the shock of their life. Anyone who isn't a Saint who is channeling that, is going to suffer consequences. It's just that, a Small Saint could maybe channel through one person at a time, and they might not even know how they did it. *Coughing noises, glances at plot*]

Medium? Saints? Saints that have a following, that have too many people to have an individual relationship with, get a little more unfathomable and constrained. At some point, messing with the universe has repercussions for everyone. If the Hermits had a whole city of followers, they would default to this. The world looks different to them. They can see the edges, where infinity and coding lies. In hels, a Saint who reaches that point stops seeing people as people, and they themselves stop looking and feeling like people. They can affect several people at once. They can justify things like punishment, and creating a moral code for people to follow. Being able to balance between the universe and hels is more important. They could still intervene on someone's behalf, but it's no longer a personal decision, and now something measured in loyalty, faith, prayer. You are one person, and your Saint is changing the world for a dozen of you, but power has limits.

[I imagine Evil X is somewhere around here. He has creative mode. He knows he can break the world to his will. But he also still has a physical body, and can just walk across the room and move something. He's still a person, he's just a person who's taken on the Uncanny, and knows there are no true repercussions to his actions. He's not a kind Saint, if he can rightly be called one. I imagine he was very destructive when he discovered his power, and had to mellow out over time. His domain has to do with chaos, and breaking things for the sake of breaking them. He had to learn it's a power he can use, not a power he has to use.]

Big Saints [and gods], get eldritch. They don't really exist as people anymore. Maybe they went on pilgrimage one day and never returned, but an echo of them has manifested as something people can tap into now. Maybe they stayed a person as long as possible, but at some point so much faith elevated them into something Different, a change a simpler more human them would have feared, but they no longer remember that simpler person anymore. Instead they are the impulses and principles they ruled themselves and others by, and their only memories have narrowed into parables and legends that only show hints of the person they used to be. They can give their power to a select few people willingly, but they no longer go out of their way to intercede in their daily life. They have gifted a piece of themselves to someone, because that person can be trusted to use it well, but they won't mourn that person if they leave. One person is small in the eye of the universal.

To me, Helsknight's Saint of Blood and Steel is a large, old Saint, with a congregation that deals best with the impersonal. They are people looking to be swords in the hands of the divine, so their Saint treats them as such. If the Saint had no congregation, as a deity always looking for a sword, they would act on their own until they found someone willing, but they would always be looking for a sword.

I also feel like some of how personal and two-way the connection is, is dependent on the nature of the domain.

Tanguish, if he ever becomes a true Saint with a following, doesn't know what his domain is. All he knows is, Helsknight promised to protect him, and so when he needed help, he Called, and Helsknight Answered. It was terrifying. He pulled a thread of the universe and used it to change what should have happened. If Helsknight were suffering, as someone who is human, who can't even see the threads they're pulling, Tanguish would do everything he could to help, and if he stumbled into his domain along the way, he would use it for that purpose. The power he has, whatever it is, can be genuinely harmful when used, because helsmets were not made to feel the full force of the universe -- something that already seeks to devour them on principle. He is someone who just found out that sometimes, seemingly randomly, he touches a person and they're struck by lightning. Whether they willingly touched him, and whether he would willingly take the lightning strike in their place, isn't exactly the current issue.

The God of Memory, whatever gives the Blue Lady her paladin powers, probably feels small and personal despite coming from a large idea and probably never being human. Its domain is Remembrance, and that implies something that tries to be personal despite how Eldritch it is. When its power is channeled, it always harms the channeler grandly and dramatically [the Blue Lady saying a small prophesy and being blinded by ink is a very light repercussion. It doesn't know what humanity is. It doesn't know what a body is. Or eating or drinking, or that someone who needs crutches to walk can't just drop them and not hurt muscle and bone. It just knows its will is needed so it acts. It is learning. It doesn't want to lose its followers, because it wants to form long, lasting memories of them. But it will break a lot of people before it learns limits.]

Meanwhile, the Saint of Blood and Steel definitely started as a person. They have an origin point [the plot will get there someday], they even have a Known Ascension. But they are a Saint to things like Vengeance and Justice, distant concepts that are best when they're not personal, a swinging sword that Exacts A Price. Channeling them will damage because the nature of the power is damaging, but they temper that by only calling people for a cause worthy of dying for. If there is a chance jumping off a cliff will break your legs, they will first guarantee there's a reason to get to the bottom. The Saint of Blood and Steel knows who they are, and knows that every knight or paladin or priest to pass through their halls is, almost certainly, doomed. They might have tried to save a few, long ago when they were something closer to human, but now they know a universal truth: whether they succeed or fail in saving anyone, whoever served them will have done it willingly, and there will always be someone along to replace them. When a sword is broken, you do not mourn the sword. You pick up another. Though you may grow melancholy for something cared for, now lost.

No matter how large, or loved, or powerful a Saint is, the Universe will always be more so. It has to be. If every helsmet had to become a Saint to hold a fraction of the potential a Hermit has, and every Hermit has faith in the universe, in the fact that it exists, that it speaks to them when they fight the monsters in the world, that it loves them, the Universe will always be bigger than even the largest hels-born Saint could fathom.