~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Metis]

Sync's parent skill says that "the Praetexta Court allows its study in strictly supervised environments". I don't think that merely keeping tabs on people would be considered enough.

Legate can definitely correct me, though. Every other way I look at that idea it just works.

[Rhialto]

@Metis: But what the Praetexta Court allows is not the guide to what people do. In-story and in-game, it is possible for people to study illegal or restricted magics without letting people - let alone the Praetexta court - know about this. Besides, the people at Gressel's are very secretive. An explanation that I was thinking of is that they, due to their in depth knowledge of synchronicity, could have developed a way to detect people using synchronicity - and that they would, due to their belief in its goodness, not panic and get a person arrested if the study were not being used to harm others. Rather, they would try to recruit such a person into their ranks.

[Metis]

It is a guide to how badly their actions could be interpreted legally, though, and I don't think the Gressel Crew would do anything that he could (choose to) interpret badly.

As for the Gressel Crew being secretive, could you remind me where that impression is from? I don't remember them being particularly secretive about anything, but than I haven't gone over that adventure in a while...

[Rhialto]

30 minutes ago, Metis said:

It is a guide to how badly their actions could be interpreted legally, though, and I don't think the Gressel Crew would do anything that he could (choose to) interpret badly.

As for the Gressel Crew being secretive, could you remind me where that impression is from? I don't remember them being particularly secretive about anything, but than I haven't gone over that adventure in a while...

Maybe secretive is not the precisely correct word. More like...discreet. Wary of outsiders. Not willing to draw too much attention to themselves. After all, they practise a very rare and useful form of magic that has strong associations with mastery, yet as far as most people are aware, they are merely apothecaries.

But further evidence of their secretiveness comes from the fact that when the PC asks to study synchronicity with them, they require the PC to say what the most important prerequisites of studying synchronicity are rather than telling the PC and urging him/her to study those prerequisites before studying synchronicity with them. They are not the most open about sharing how they work.

Other posters on this forum have compared them to a cult. I think that a less judgemental comparison might be with a mystery religion. They even, like the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Sakya Buddhists (who, as Vajrayana Buddhists, can be fitted within the mystery religions category), have a leadership that is strictly hereditary.

[Greywacke]

I would expect then, that the last thing they would want would be to associate themselves with someone who was already learning it without them.  Don't want to invite an Anakin into the Jedi Council if the Senate is worried about Sith.

[Rhialto]

3 hours ago, Greywacke said:

I would expect then, that the last thing they would want would be to associate themselves with someone who was already learning it without them.  Don't want to invite an Anakin into the Jedi Council if the Senate is worried about Sith.

But nor does any organization want to let a solitary practitioner create ruin by practising alone when he or she could be brought into the organization and properly trained. For a real life example of the catastrophe that a solitary practitioner can cause, consider the Christian missionary and Christian leader Hong Xiuquan, who, cutted off from wider Christian tradition, tried to create a Christian state on Earth that identified Manchu people as demons who should be slaughtered - leading to the third most destructive war in human history (the Taiping Uprising).

[Legate of Mineta]

I'll pass it along.

[Greywacke]

2 hours ago, Rhialto said:

But nor does any organization want to let a solitary practitioner create ruin by practising alone when he or she could be brought into the organization and properly trained. For a real life example of the catastrophe that a solitary practitioner can cause, consider the Christian missionary and Christian leader Hong Xiuquan, who, cutted off from wider Christian tradition, tried to create a Christian state on Earth that identified Manchu people as demons who should be slaughtered - leading to the third most destructive war in human history (the Taiping Uprising).

Good point.  That could be interesting too.  Depending on how things play out, they could see you as a threat to the legality of their practice, and become determined to make sure you're dealt with before you drag them down with you.  Although I'm not sure how that kind of story could end.

[Schwarzbart]

For a bit exotic touch:

A plant where the fruits grow inside the trunk either because the plants die regular trough fire or other similar disaster or because the plant is very fast growing that that fruit grow out of the trunk when it is nearly rip.

[Legate of Mineta]

Coooooool.

[Rhialto]

Maybe the people of Sae'on could be said to have their own script - patterned off the Bactrian alphabet.

[Legate of Mineta]

They have their own script, that at least is for certain...

[Schwarzbart]

thinking a bit more about my idea before:

A tree or other plant that grow nut like seed inside the trunk and shoot them out once the tree is burning could be an inspiration source for firearms and canons. 

If the shoot out of the nuts happen trough a gas pocked where the pressure increase when heat by a fire it would be pure non magical. Also the gas pressure could increase over years without fire so that the nuts shoot out after some years of growth even without a fire disaster but the range is usually shorter.

Although this is not as exotic as my suggestion before I think that it could be a suspected inspiration source for firearms could make it a nice thing to have in this world.

[Legate of Mineta]

This is super cool...and fun.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: There ought to be four categories in the character sheet page that lists character abilities. In Y1, there are separate lists for emotions and abilities, but in Y2, there should be lists for Emotions, abilities, passive bonuses, and temporary bonuses (induced by spells, etc.).

[Legate of Mineta]

[Rhialto]

19 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

What does that mean? and I am sorry for my typo-ridden first draft of the suggestion.

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

It means that something very like your suggestion is in Y2.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: The romance adventure with Serah Myles the auburn-haired thief has a major disconnection between story and gameplay in its final stage that other adventures in Y1 avoid. The final stage, called "The Golden Telescope" concludes with Serah's giving the PC the eponymous telescope. Yet the player gains no such item in the PC's inventory. Aside from that, it was a very good adventure.

[Legate of Mineta]

Will send this over, thanks!

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: Does Caspar's adventure create a separate memory if the PC helps Molly leave the painting world? because even if not, I think that she could have a role in Casper's Y2 adventure.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hmmmm. I don't recall off-hand, but it seems likely that it would, based on the outcome.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: Would it be all right for me to write an element in a Y2 adventure that obliquely has Miya Hikari talking about her bisexuality? Nothing explicit in any sense, just a brief mention in a conversation that a hypothetical advertising strategy targeting males with the idea that the product allows one to be with beautiful women might interest her also.

[Metis]

If her comment is in character for a thirteen year old Miya, which is how old she'll be during Y2's school year, it should be fine.

[Rhialto]

@Metis: Oh, certainly, I would be making sure of that. But thirteen-year-olds are aware of what sorts of people they find attractive, and what sex/gender (if any) they find more attractive. Furthermore, Miya is hardly the most conventional person (regardless of age or interests in other people).