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Is Arbagoth in or out?
Poll ended at Tue May 13, 2014 1:59 am
Yea: 80%  80%  [ 4 ]
Nay: 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Not As Is: 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Abstain: 20%  20%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 5
Total voters : 5
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 Post subject: [Vote] [Plane] Arbagoth
PostPosted: Sun May 04, 2014 1:59 am 
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Here is the dossier on the long-anticipated plane of Arbagoth, mentioned in The Planes of the Dual-Walkers, The Fallen Pharaoh, The Cruel Finale, and, I don't know, maybe a few others.

Plane: Arbagoth
Creator: RavenoftheBlack
Status: Public [EDIT]: Private (for the time being)


Spoiler


Last edited by RavenoftheBlack on Tue May 13, 2014 8:02 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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PostPosted: Sun May 04, 2014 7:42 pm 
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I'll just say that this looks dandy to me.

EDIT: Having cast my "Yea," I cannot however resist noting that "Yea" and "Nay" are not really meaningful answers to the question "Is Arbagoth in or out?"

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PostPosted: Sun May 04, 2014 7:50 pm 
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I'll just say that this looks dandy to me.

EDIT: Having cast my "Yea," I cannot however resist noting that "Yea" and "Nay" are not really meaningful answers to the question "Is Arbagoth in or out?"

Actually, I would say that "Yea" still works, and thus you have uncovered my cunning plan. :plot:


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PostPosted: Sun May 04, 2014 7:52 pm 
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Quick, I need a cat, a box, and a vial of poison.

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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 12:34 am 
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Nice work, Raven. I think you've largely managed to take what could've been a very gimmicky concept and turn it into a strong, well defined plane with a variety of interesting locations. It feels like a Magic world without it becoming overpoweringly driven by color.

Of everything here, I think the strongest stuff is probably the Crystal Court, the whole myth of Skavlakur's creation and Skavlakur itself, and Xoraal, which has the kind of interesting political intrigue possibilities I like. You also do a good job of interrelating the various continents and nations so it feels like there's a shared history here.

I have a couple points of critique as well, all minor and probably not enough to warrant a NAI vote, but maybe enough that you'd want to revisit them on your own.

I'm not sure I'm quite understanding your use of "Tundras." Is it The Continent of Tundras as in a continent full of tundras or is it The Continent of Tundras as in a continent named Tundras? If it's the latter that seems... unnecessarily confusing to me, honestly.

I'm assuming there's a typo here: "but it is usually the honor won in battle on in the arts that dictate position." but the latter part is garbled enough that I wasn't 100% sure what you were trying to say.

While the Crystal Court and Dezdikaad both feel like you captured the four-color aesthetic well, I'm a little less certain of the Hoardlands and Agator. The Hoardlands, in particular, feel very RGB without much blue, outside of the mention of floating trees. And I'm having a hard time getting a read on Agator for some reason, but that might be a problem on my end.

Veretna feels weirdly truncated compared to almost all the other nations. I wonder if you might want to expand on them a little, since everything else has this really vibrant feel to it and somehow Veretna feels like it's missing some of the finer detail that make the rest of the world so interesting.

And to add one last general comment that might help you if you do feel like revising this a bit more... I think the guide is at its most interesting when you paint a vivid picture of the trees of Arbagoth and how they're shaped by the different combinations of mana. A part of me is almost more interested in the ecology of the plane than the sapient races, actually, and I may have to do some illustrations for the plane.

Incidentally, am I correct in thinking that the world is flat?


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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 1:47 am 
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Nice work, Raven. I think you've largely managed to take what could've been a very gimmicky concept and turn it into a strong, well defined _____

Funny how much of my stuff fits into this description, huh?

I'm not sure I'm quite understanding your use of "Tundras." Is it The Continent of Tundras as in a continent full of tundras or is it The Continent of Tundras as in a continent named Tundras? If it's the latter that seems... unnecessarily confusing to me, honestly.

This...is a pretty embarrassing mistake on my part. I intended it to be pronounces with a long "a" at the end, like Tundraas. I hate to admit it, but I never noticed it was spelled exactly the same as the plural. That's a problem. Now, I could just add another "a", as several locations on Arbagoth use the double "a" spelling, but while it's a solution, I'm not convinced it's the best one. Any suggestions, anyone?

I'm assuming there's a typo here: "but it is usually the honor won in battle on in the arts that dictate position." but the latter part is garbled enough that I wasn't 100% sure what you were trying to say.

Yep, simple typo there. The "on" should be "or". I'll fix it.

While the Crystal Court and Dezdikaad both feel like you captured the four-color aesthetic well, I'm a little less certain of the Hoardlands and Agator. The Hoardlands, in particular, feel very RGB without much blue, outside of the mention of floating trees. And I'm having a hard time getting a read on Agator for some reason, but that might be a problem on my end.

Hmm. That bears some thought. I know originally I had some blue stuff in there beyond the Raftwood, but you're right, the guide itself seems to lack it. It had something to do with the Potentate, I remember, but it must have slipped through the cracks. I'll have to think about that.

Veretna feels weirdly truncated compared to almost all the other nations. I wonder if you might want to expand on them a little, since everything else has this really vibrant feel to it and somehow Veretna feels like it's missing some of the finer detail that make the rest of the world so interesting.

I had noticed that, too, but honestly, I don't have a whole lot more to say about Veretna, despite the irony that it was the first place on Arbagoth to be seen in a story. I think this might be an area where others can help grow the plane down the line, although...that raises other issues. Hmm. This raises some serious problems, beyond what people may think. I may have to hold off on things with this for a while. Hmm.

Incidentally, am I correct in thinking that the world is flat?

Sadly, no. This plane is a sphere. Tundraas (just trying it on for size) sits at the southern pole. Do you think any of the description needs to be rewritten to clear that up? It's more than likely that when I was describing the relative directions of the plane, I made it seem flat.

Anyway, Keeper, thanks for the feedback. You've given me a great deal to think about!


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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 11:37 am 
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Yeah, it's the directions that make it seem flat, since you talk about east and west, mostly, in absolute terms. I'm... not honestly sure how you would go about describing a fully realized spherical world actually :|

I forgot that Veretna is the first thing we see. I recognized the Poacher Mages but forgot about Veretna.

Ah, I didn't think to just switch out the "on" for an "or." I was trying to mentally make it read something like "battle of the arts" and I was like picturing people throwing paintbrushes at each other.

I'd give it a name other than Tundraas, honestly. It pushes the punny name convention just a liiiittle far out of the realm of plausibility for me, particularly when it's paired with another almost-real-word name like "Crystalys." I don't know what makes that one name cross the line for me but it does. I'd almost suggest just rolling with the idea of calling it the Continent of Tundras.

And yeah, you do have an incredible knack for taking jokes and turning them into actually really compelling material. :P


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PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 4:01 pm 
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Okay, so I've been thinking about something, and I need people's thoughts, but it's going to be a little tricky. See, I've run into a sort of ethical quandary with this plane. You see, I know something about Arbagoth that you guys don't know, but because of a complex set of non-Euclidian reasons, I can't tell you what that thing is. Anyway, this piece of information might damage other people's ability to use this plane. Now, none of the information provided here is invalidated or untrue in light of, let's call it, Fact X, and technically, this plane is Public rather than Open, but still, it's potentially a problem.

So I'm wondering, is it unfair to post this now, before Fact X can become public knowledge? I'm wondering if it would be better to table this for now and put it up later, but that causes problems for the completeness of the archives. Conversely, I could change this to Private instead of Public (although that is not really fair to the two who have voted for it, but they can always change their votes if need be). Or, if people don't think that Fact X hanging out there is a problem, I can just leave it. What do people think?

Again, I apologize that I didn't think about all of this before I posted it. I sort of feel like I'm screwing up a lot lately, and that I'm being unfair to the community. For the record, I'm really sorry about that.

Anyway, thoughts?


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PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 9:09 pm 
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I apologize that I didn't think about all of this before I posted it. I sort of feel like I'm screwing up a lot lately, and that I'm being unfair to the community. For the record, I'm really sorry about that.


No.

No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no.

Raven: (A) you're a prince among men, (B) you have not been unfair to anyone, and (C) you contribute so much to the community. We are all of us human, and we will all of us have our human moments. They're not something you need to worry about.

Thoughts?


At times like this, I fall back on a time-tested heuristic:

If you have to think, drink!

We can't really judge the question, since we are not in possession of Fact X. Trust your gut. If you think that Fact X might result in someone having to chuck work that they've done with the plane, then my suggestion would be to make it closed for now. You can always open it back up once Fact X hits store shelves. If you don't think that's likely, then I think Fact X is irrelevant.

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PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 11:33 pm 
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Thanks, Orcish, for the kind words. And you make a good point. I'm just annoyed with myself, mostly because I hate the thought that pulling this now essentially means I've wasted the time of everyone who has read this. I know well how difficult it is to find time to do M:EM stuff with all the real life stuff people have going on, and I feel badly about pulling the rug out from under you guys, unintentionally as it was.

However, I do think that perhaps the rug-pulling would be worse after the Fact X reveal if this dossier goes through. So, I'm thinking I might have to hold off on this for a couple of months.

Anyway, thanks again!


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 10:40 am 
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Would you be able to tell us what regions it encompasses, and place those regions off limits? Or is Fact X bigger than that?

I wouldn't have a problem with you voting this in and making it private for the moment, then changing its status later. That's effectively what Szat's done with Illarion Vale, after all. And I don't think you've wasted anyone's time. I mean, we'd have to read it eventually either way so it just changes the timeline of when we're reading it a little.

Basically, you haven't done anything wrong. Like wow your plane doesn't perfectly fit into the arbitrary rigid structures that run this project which've changed like six times during the course of the M:EM's existence what a disaster shame on you. :P


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 10:55 am 
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Basically, you haven't done anything wrong. Like wow your plane doesn't perfectly fit into the arbitrary rigid structures that run this project which've changed like six times during the course of the M:EM's existence what a disaster shame on you. :P

It's not so much that as it is that I want to avoid a Bait and Switch. I mean, I don't know if anyone was clamoring to write about Arbagoth anyway, but I don't want to feel like I've given someone a shiny new toy and then took it away immediately. But thank you.

I wouldn't have a problem with you voting this in and making it private for the moment, then changing its status later. That's effectively what Szat's done with Illarion Vale, after all. And I don't think you've wasted anyone's time. I mean, we'd have to read it eventually either way so it just changes the timeline of when we're reading it a little.


Well, if people are okay with this, then I'll do that. I'll change this to Private (for now) or something. As I said, Fact X is a game changer, however, it does not invalidate anything I've written in the guide, so I think the temporary Private is probably for the best.

Thanks, Keeper and Orcish!


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:23 am 
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Well, if people are okay with this, then I'll do that. I'll change this to Private (for now) or something. As I said, Fact X is a game changer, however, it does not invalidate anything I've written in the guide, so I think the temporary Private is probably for the best.


I agree with everything Keeper said, and I think this makes the most sense.

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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:26 am 
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It also means we can have a nice entry in the Wiki with all the Arbogoth stories so far, which'll be good.

Incidentally, do you think we should have a wiki page for War of the Wheel, for visibility purposes?


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:30 am 
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Incidentally, do you think we should have a wiki page for War of the Wheel, for visibility purposes?


Seems like it couldn't hurt. And, if Raven wanted it to, it could include a sort of "previously on..." summary for people who want to jump in but haven't read the previous stories. Just something to quickly set up the bare exposition that you might want to have going in.

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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:34 am 
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It also means we can have a nice entry in the Wiki with all the Arbogoth stories so far, which'll be good.

Incidentally, do you think we should have a wiki page for War of the Wheel, for visibility purposes?

Yes, but we should probably have a group discussion about what that means. I'm reluctant to call it part of the M:EM project as a wiki tag, just because it hasn't, and realistically CAN'T, be voted in for quite some time. On the other hand, it clearly uses a number of M:EM characters and locations, which suggests that it should be given an M:EM tag. I suppose it would qualify as an ongoing M:EM project.

Seems like it couldn't hurt. And, if Raven wanted it to, it could include a sort of "previously on..." summary for people who want to jump in but haven't read the previous stories. Just something to quickly set up the bare exposition that you might want to have going in.

And I can do a next week's teaser, like at the end of each episode of Soap. "What are Syl and Chardis up to? What will become of Antine? Will Denner ever realize he's a dope? These questions and many others will be answered on the next episode!"


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:58 am 
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I guess it fits into the same category as these planes and Jakkard in that having a wiki page with SOME information is valuable, since we know something's going on, but it should include something to indicate that the page isn't a full dossier or guide, or in this case a fully finished product. EDIT: And Jackie DeCoeur. I made a page for her since she has so many stories, but it's not really a full dossier and there's no information in it that isn't in the stories themselves.

The major problem I could see with that is that it could end up privileging some projects over others with visibility, but given how few people actually are actively writing stuff of this magnitude that would benefit from ongoing attention, I'm not sure it's a real issue at the moment.


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 8:59 pm 
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I guess it fits into the same category as these planes and Jakkard in that having a wiki page with SOME information is valuable, since we know something's going on, but it should include something to indicate that the page isn't a full dossier or guide, or in this case a fully finished product.


I think that sounds reasonable. It could be a kind of work-in-progress tag, similar to the spoiler tag or the M:EM header.

The major problem I could see with that is that it could end up privileging some projects over others with visibility, but given how few people actually are actively writing stuff of this magnitude that would benefit from ongoing attention, I'm not sure it's a real issue at the moment.


I agree that's something we ought to keep an eye on. But, to some extent, if people are posting their WIP to the wiki in search of more eyeballs, I'm kind of okay with it, since it grows the wiki and potentially attracts more attention to WIPs. If managed well, it's potentially a win-win.

EDIT: And Jackie DeCoeur. I made a page for her since she has so many stories, but it's not really a full dossier and there's no information in it that isn't in the stories themselves.


You know, that actually seems very thematically appropriate.

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PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2014 10:46 am 
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Typo (plurality issue):
Quote:
Throughout its massive expanse are hundreds of tribes of goblin and numerous roving bands of Minotaurs

Goblins needs an "s".

While I'm fine with the name Lakrymos and even commend you for a pun-based name that I would not have caught without Keeper having pointed it out, the names Nasaal and Canaal are a tad distracting, and I think it's more because they're sitting next to each other. I would suggest varying the distortion you are applying to the two so that they don't look so similar. Also, I don't hear too much difference between "canal" and "Canaal" when I pronounce them (the former has the second "a" sound like the one in "cat" while the latter has the second "a" sound like the one in "calm").

Typo:
Quote:
These rumors are vehemently, even violently, denied by the current rumor, Pharaoh Aap-ret-Syris.

Should be "current ruler".

Typo:
Quote:
it is usually the honor won in battle on in the arts that dictate position

You already addressed this.

As has already been raised, Tundras doesn't work for a name much less a name for an already frozen continent, since it is a word which you could probably use to describe the continent in the first place.


I'm well on board aside from those two name changes I would like to see. I likely would have gone with different aesthetics for all the four-color combinations, but once you get up to four it becomes hard to define the influence of each color. Besides that, I take a planar guide to often describe more of "these are the colors of land you may find in the area," rather than "these are the colors of mana that define the area."

Considering precisely where I stand, I'm going to cast my vote as NAI for those two points, which you may address directly or convince me otherwise.

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PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2014 11:27 am 
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While I'm fine with the name Lakrymos and even commend you for a pun-based name that I would not have caught without Keeper having pointed it out, the names Nasaal and Canaal are a tad distracting, and I think it's more because they're sitting next to each other. I would suggest varying the distortion you are applying to the two so that they don't look so similar. Also, I don't hear too much difference between "canal" and "Canaal" when I pronounce them (the former has the second "a" sound like the one in "cat" while the latter has the second "a" sound like the one in "calm").
...
I'm well on board aside from those two name changes I would like to see. I likely would have gone with different aesthetics for all the four-color combinations, but once you get up to four it becomes hard to define the influence of each color. Besides that, I take a planar guide to often describe more of "these are the colors of land you may find in the area," rather than "these are the colors of mana that define the area."

Considering precisely where I stand, I'm going to cast my vote as NAI for those two points, which you may address directly or convince me otherwise.

I need to take more diligent notes on my naming conventions. It took me a while to remember what I was basing these names off of in the first place. Anyway, what would you (and others) think of the names Naraal and Cacaal replacing Nasaal and Canaal respectively? They are minor changes, admittedly, but I think address your concern, hopefully. As for the typos, I will go through and fix those after the vote closes.

Thanks!


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