#kolya twiceforged

[fractal-quadrilioquy]

It's very fun making warbands, because the sheer variation in the intrawarband dynamics that I create can range from:

Star Warband: Found Family: Strike Team edition (with bonus revolution!)

Silver Warband: Found Family: Engineer edition (with bonus alternate universe versions!)

Sky Warband: Found Family: Air Specialists edition (except everyone is desperately trying to get Rin and Tai to like each other come on guys can you not have a single conversation without sniping at each other-)

Forge Warband: Found Family: Tired Dads edition (with bonus... secret human?)

Night Warband: Most of the warband tends to group into their pairs which would be fine except there are seven of them, but they do still all care for one another, except it got worse when five years ago their legionnaire made a really bad call leading to a serious injury on the already somewhat-alone seventh member of the warband leading to her all but taking any excuse to scout and explore on her own so none of them technically had to deal with the complicated mixing pot of guilt and stress and frustration and awkwardness except each 'scouting trip' only exacerbates it until it almost feels like the only things they can agree on is the concept of keeping each other safe, except sometimes it doesn't even feel like they can agree on how to do that.

Forged Warband: Found Family: Himbo edition (with bonus traumatised commander!)

[fractal-quadrilioquy]

3, 13, 32!

3. How big is the Pact in respect to other Military forces? Who supports them monetarily (they’ve had enough resources to build Fort Trinity long before it was certain they could even take Zhaitan)

The economy in Tyria is wild and I have no idea how any of it works!

I think it’s implied that Fort Trinity itself used to be a charr fortress, back in the days before Orr sank. It has charr-like architecture and constructed of similar materials, and was strategically placed pointing towards Orr. I think it was revamped by the pact but not necessarily built? With the amount of asura gates and asuran magitech running the place I wouldn’t be surprised if the Arcane Council actually had some modicum of sense and thought that a place fortified against the Risen would allow them to study or forewarn of Risen attacks.

I also have no idea what the actual population distribution is like in Tyria. If we were to go based solely on NPCs I’m almost certain that the Pact outnumbers every other individual civilization.

If I was to guess based on the various camps in the core 5 cities, the Orders are rather small? Each only has one room or one small section in each city, if that, whereas the local military forces far outnumber them. The Vigil could fit easily in old Lion’s Arch, but the Durmand Priory and Order of Whispers are actually a bit larger than that. With the formation of the Pact, I’d be willing to guess that recruitment numbers in general went up, especially with the morale boost from killing Zhaitan? (which makes HoT an even bigger tragedy. Whoops.) but I don’t think they’re quite near the level of any particular military force, except maybethe Wardens, but only because Sylvari are a Very Young and Small Race.

They are supported monetarily almost solely on Canach gambling.

(in all seriousness I have no idea but it would be funny.)

13. Please. PLEASE explain how you think Mesmers work. (I have already heard so many unique takes and I want to hear more)

Oh boy, I have had thoughts about this!

So, I headcanon that there is both a physical and a mental aspect to all Mesmer magic – Some physical aspects include Chaos Magic, Glamours, Manipulations, and Chronomancy, while mental aspects can include Mantras, the Inspiration traitline, and a few weapon skills (e.g. pistol 5, scepter 3). Clones, Phantasms Blades, and Shatters fall somewhere in-between, with their strength depending on the willpower of the mesmer. Like all skills, you can have some innate talent/tendency towards either of them, or both, and can train them to make them stronger.

It might be more accurate to say that mesmer magic is based on imposing your will on the world? Mesmers aren’t alone in that, because like the other two light armour classes (Elementalist, Necromancer), they also summon various effects out of seemingly nothing. However, mesmers focus a lot more on the mental warfare side of things – To the brain, it may not matter whether you’ve actually been cut or if you just perceived being cut, because after a certain pain threshold your brain just shuts down. It gets worse when you do mix in physical attacks with mental attacks, because it forces your enemy to have to treat all wounds as equally harmful, or risk dismissing something that they shouldn’t have.

As for how that manifests itself, it generally involves the manipulation of chaos magic. This is most obvious with staff and trident weapon skills, where their attacks tend to be wilder than other weapons and cause random effects, but chaos magic also includes general displacement and distortion of reality – e.g. sword 2 & 3, greatsword 3, axe 3 (and/or all axes skills with Illusionary Axes), focus 4, anything that causes invisibility, and the physical appearance of glamours such as Feedback or Null Field. Deceptions and Mirage cloaks also fall under this, distorting space around you. While chaos magic can be somewhat controlled (such as when it’s confined in clones), its effects are still volatile, and dispersed violently when released (i.e. through shatters or bladesongs). It’s like holding a rubber band back and then letting it snap – The potential energy is always there, but needs to be manipulated in order to hurt, if that makes sense.

Though speaking of clones, because in-game their stats are based on yours, you could say that they’re a reflection of the caster? In lore, this can reflect in what ways a mesmer can specialize – Those that focus more on physical attacks tend to create clones that have more physical substance to them, whereas those that focus more on mental attacks tend to create clones that have less physical substance and exist more as suggestions in people’s heads. In practice, the two have roughly the same effect, creating various clones around the mesmer to all those around them, but physical clones can probably interact more with the world than mental ones (e.g. you wouldn’t want to ask mental clones to pick up an object because they’re barely even there, no matter how solid you perceive them to be, whereas physical clones would be fine). Because this is chaos magic, I don’t think any two mesmers use its effect in quite the same way, but it often leads to similar results.

As a result of this, I think different mesmers have different relationships with their clones! As an example, all of my iron legion mesmers, Tai, Cadira, and Kolya, use it in vastly different ways.

- Tai uses her clones as extensions of herself and her magic, like flexing an extra arm or six, which helps when she needs multiple pairs of hands to construct something. However because these clones don’t really have agency, they’re very bad at pretending to be the actual Tai – The only thing that they would share is their appearance, not their personality, and sometimes not even then, depending on how distracted she is. In combat, she doesn’t rely on them at all, instead chucking bolts of unrefined magic and firing illusory daggers, which take much less concentration to maintain than a Whole-Ass Person.

- Meanwhile, Cadira actively uses his clones as illusions and facsimiles of himself, even going as far as to borrow his bandmate’s style of magic to infuse his life force into some of them, in order to deceive and mislead other people – these have less of a physical presence than Tai’s, but still have the ability to affect the world, and their weapons hurt all the same, inflicting wounds that you’re never quite sure are actually there or not.

- Then for Kolya, her clones are almost entirely mental – She relies solely on non-physical combat, instead directing assaults directly against people’s minds. The form that this takes are mental images and illusions, which also means that if Kolya wants someone to be exempt from seeing the illusions she makes, she can do that, whereas the other two can’t just make their clones selectively visible. This comes with the downside of said clones not being able to actually interact with the world (e.g. she wouldn’t be able to open a door from a room away).

Also, because of the nature of chaos magic being, well, chaotic, I also headcanon that the applications we see in-game are the only relatively safe ones – If only because anyone who tries to manipulate it in more dangerous or bigger ways generally struggle to survive or control the consequences, if they can even generate it in the first place! The ability to do so is usually only possible with the help of an enormous store of magic, such as being a god (Lyssa) or a bloodstone (Xera).

32. We’ve seen the unchained Risen in Siren’s Landing, and how some appear to have a limited intelligence and gather other Risen around them. How do you think Mordremoth’s and Kralkattorik’s minions fare after their masters’ demise?

Now, we know from both personal story and HoT that Zhaitan (and later Modremoth’s, when he absorbed Zhaitan’s magic) kinda, traps and manipulates the souls/spirits/personhood of the person when they get turned into minions, and reconfigures them to be loyal to the Elder Dragon. It’s why all high-ranking Risen and Mordrem have agency and personality, even though they’re being controlled. In contrast, Kralkatorrik’s don’t – It’s a much more direct form of control, and tends to erase individuality from the Branded – A branded human and a branded charr act much the same way, with reckless/mindless abandon. Even the Shatterer doesn’t have much of a character, despite it being one of Kralkatorrik’s highest-ranked minions.

So I would guess that mordrem, Aren’t Doing Great? Without a way to go in and mentally undo the mental corruption, I think a lot of mordrem don’t realise (or, can’t realise) that the eternally oppressive presence is gone, let alone how to reject it anymore. As a comparison, the sheer difference between the Eye of Zhaitan, and King Reza’s spirit once he was freed, implies that they’re trapped inside without a way to get out. Which, sucks! But I think there’d be a lot of sylvari who commit themselves to trying to help free those who are still corrupted, not dissimilarly to Orr, except with a more personal stake. The connection to the Dream and/or Nightmare could probably help too!

But for Kralkatorrik’s Branded, because there isn’t anything there left to restore, I think they continue to remain feral. And as of Icebrood, with Aurene canonically cleaning up/restoring/re-Branding the Brand, I think the majority are dead, or potentially re-Branded except serving Aurene – Except I don’t think Aurene’s the type of person to do that to them? Caithe was the exception because she was willing, and nothing really changed for her, but I don’t think Aurene would want to do that. Another possibility is that they’re preserved in a sort of stasis until it can be proven, either way, that the Branded can or cannot be saved.