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Love the start. I had to read it twice. Great stuff!
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Loved this story
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A good story poorly written. I hate the first two sentences (farts and freaking out Halfings, um, ok), and I don't know what "copulas" are, but I suspect they are similar to cupolas.
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I don't know what "copulas" are, but I suspect they are similar to cupolas.
According to Webster's, a "copula" is a connecting word, in particular a form of the verb be connecting a subject and complement.
That's why spellcheck didn't catch it, but it's an easy enough fix. Thanks for helping out!
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A good story poorly written. I hate the first two sentences (farts and freaking out Halfings, um, ok),
Yeah, the "church fart" and "freaked [him] out" stood out as modernisms to me and felt obtrusive, though I suppose it establishes the irreverent tone of both the story and Twilp immediately. Plus, I at one point asked aloud reading it, "Oh, does he like gold?" Still, I thought it recovered nicely and ended well.
and I don't know what "copulas" are, but I suspect they are similar to cupolas.
Eh, a minor typo already fixed by the time I got to read the story.
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Pretty sure it was Chaucer who first used the word fart, so it's hardly modern.
I liked this story a lot! Although I could only imagine Twilp using the voice of Goldmember from Austin Powers. "I like gooooold!"
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I liked this story a lot! Although I could only imagine Twilp using the voice of Goldmember from Austin Powers. "I like gooooold!"
I had This Guy in mind, personally.
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I enjoyed it. The character reminded me mildly of Lift from Sanderson's Stormlight series, only an obsession with gold instead of food.
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Smartest move he could make. The odds of him surviving the handoff to Nikiri were probably not high.
Unfortunately, she's probably going to assume he kept it for himself. So that will be fun for him.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I liked this story a lot! Although I could only imagine Twilp using the voice of Goldmember from Austin Powers. "I like gooooold!"I had This Guy in mind, personally.
<-- quickly calls on the sounds of Bear and Serj Tankian to banish that image.
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Smartest move he could make. The odds of him surviving the handoff to Nikiri were probably not high.
I dunno, he's a thief for hire. Generally speaking, if what you want isn't money, you pay those people and let them go on their way unless you're an idiot. Of course, Nikiri could easily be an idiot.
Unfortunately, she's probably going to assume he kept it for himself. So that will be fun for him.
If he's smart, she doesn't know either his name or what he looks like. Man has a Ring of Invisibility, he could've met with her invisibly to take the job.
I know if I could be invisible at will I'd never meet dangerous people without being unseen. I'd probably do something to disguise my voice, too.
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I read Twilp Farfan and I knew I recognize that name somewhere. I scrolled to the end and saw Chris Jackson's name--now I can place the name!
I am happy to see Twilp's adventures continue beyond his presence in the Pathfinder novels.
<-- quickly calls on the sounds of Bear and Serj Tankian to banish that image.I liked this story a lot! Although I could only imagine Twilp using the voice of Goldmember from Austin Powers. "I like gooooold!"I had This Guy in mind, personally.
Well, the stuff being poured in that video might explain the gassiness part of Twilip's description . . . that looks positively toxic.
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Love the story esp. that after all the talk that only gold matters, he has limits how to achieve it.
Regarding the wording "church fart" does not seem modernism to me. People in the middle ages talked a lot like that or worse^^
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I like some modernisms with my fantasy, makes it clear it's not a History Channel documentary about the middle ages - it's a wholly different world. I don't see why a land with invisibility rings, fallen sky pyramids, halflings, magic talking daggers, ginormous beetle shells used as royal palaces... should otherwise perfectly cleave to some real authentic historical period - who cares honestly? It's frickin' fantasy, rule of cool and rule of fun for the win.
I also love how Twilp disposes of the dagger. The only problem I foresee is an otyugh eating it, a party slaying the otyugh and recovering it, and another, more bloodthirsty Razmir rising... ugh.
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^Hmmm . . . you suppose something like this had something to do with the original Razmir . . . ?
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I also love how Twilp disposes of the dagger. The only problem I foresee is an otyugh eating it, a party slaying the otyugh and recovering it, and another, more bloodthirsty Razmir rising... ugh.
Or the poor otyugh gets corrupted itself. :( As Oblivion Oath showed, they are intelligent and have names and families and desires.
Then there'd be a would be otyugh-god with a life-sucking dagger in its tentacles running around in the sewers.
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Thanks for the comments everyone. Wow, never thought there would be such a lot of comments about the word "fart." HA! Provoked a little etymology exercise, I guess.
Twilp showed up in all three of my novels, and I kind of had a soft spot in my heart for him. Not the first time he's been cornered into an difficult situation by agreeing to steal something for someone powerful...
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Finally! A Scoundrel that actually listens to their conscience!
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Thanks for the comments everyone. Wow, never thought there would be such a lot of comments about the word "fart." HA! Provoked a little etymology exercise, I guess.
Twilp showed up in all three of my novels, and I kind of had a soft spot in my heart for him. Not the first time he's been cornered into an difficult situation by agreeing to steal something for someone powerful...
I think it’s specifically ‘church fart’ which evokes a certain modern cultural view (of farts and of church) which does not align neatly with a broad pantheistic faith.
Are people being shamed for their farts in the midst of a noisy Desnan revel? Or a Lamashtan torture-sacrifice? It’s not the modernity, it’s the ‘our reality not theirs’ feel.‘Freaking out’ has a similar effect: it is very much a slang product of a cultural evolution of the word ‘freak’ which arrived here via Victorian circuses and post-war hippies. It feels not just very ‘now’ but very ‘here and now’.
Belabouring the point about liking gold was also a bit overbearing.
However, having loved your other writing, I kept reading and loved the tale. You are very good at kinetic scenes which still retain a sense of character: a wonderful chase, delightfully-crafted temptation and excellent ending.
And I am so very glad to see the return of Golarion web-fiction.
Huzzar!
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Pharasma is one of the most prominent gods in Osirion, and I can imagine that a fart in most cases would be looked down on in those temples. Also most people aren’t “pantheistic” in Golarion. They tend to focus on one deity over others.
I really don’t see the issue with some of the phrasing. It’s not medieval times, it’s a fantastical city in fictional reborn Egypt after a bunch of flying pyramids fell out of the sky, it honestly just feels like nit picking.
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Pharasma is one of the most prominent gods in Osirion, and I can imagine that a fart in most cases would be looked down on in those temples.
I'd think this sort of thing would be thought of as disrespectful in most temples. I mean, maybe not Cayden Cailean's, but him aside...
Also most people aren’t “pantheistic” in Golarion. They tend to focus on one deity over others.
This is not entirely true. Clerics and other Divine characters tend to focus on one deity, but there's a fair degree of evidence that most common people worship a variety of Gods. Now, most temples are to one specifically, but that just means you go to different ones for different things at different times.
I really don’t see the issue with some of the phrasing. It’s not medieval times, it’s a fantastical city in fictional reborn Egypt after a bunch of flying pyramids fell out of the sky, it honestly just feels like nit picking.
Here I agree. It seems nitpicky in an odd way.
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[...]
Also most people aren’t “pantheistic” in Golarion. They tend to focus on one deity over others.This is not entirely true. Clerics and other Divine characters tend to focus on one deity, but there's a fair degree of evidence that most common people worship a variety of Gods. Now, most temples are to one specifically, but that just means you go to different ones for different things at different times.
[...]
I see it as similar to Japan. Just before exam? You go to a shrine/temple related to studies. On the end of pregnancy? You go to a shrine/temple for easy childbirth (Pharasma). Going to open your first store? You go to Abadar... There's quite a lot of hints about that in the books.
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Most of Golarion is polytheistic, with many people being effectively henotheistic in practice. Clerics, paladins, and other priests take their henotheism to the level of monolatry. Nobody, not even the Rahadoumi, actually denies the existence of the gods, and monotheism doesn't ever really seem to have become fashionable anywhere.
It seems to me that in large part, people from a predominately monotheistic society (ours, for example) have trouble role-playing people from a predominately polytheistic society. Henotheism may be as far as they can go.
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It seems to me that in large part, people from a predominately monotheistic society (ours, for example) have trouble role-playing people from a predominately polytheistic society. Henotheism may be as far as they can go.I'm not sure how much it's players having trouble with it and how much that's the way the game has been structured since the AD&D days - religion focused around clerics (and later other divine casters) tied to single gods.
That's how the mechanics were set up and thus how most of the world building has been done.
I never took Cleric choosing one god to be an example of the rest of the society, and rather saw much more of an henotheistic world building... but I'm "polytheist" myself, so that might be my own bias...
{. . .} monotheism doesn't ever really seem to have become fashionable anywhere.
Razmir is trying REAL HARD. Arguably, Asmodeus is also trying, but in a more subtle way, that would be more likely to succeed in the long run, if only it hadn't been set back by whatever caused him to lose status by Starfinder time.
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Razmir is trying REAL HARD. Arguably, Asmodeus is also trying, but in a more subtle way, that would be more likely to succeed in the long run, if only it hadn't been set back by whatever caused him to lose status by Starfinder time.
Based on his status in other regions of Golarion, it's more his status in the core 20 of the Inner Sea Region that's anomalous. He's in that august company pretty much solely due to the Thrune family having made a deal. Any place and time where a governing body hasn't made such a deal, his followers are reduced to the status of a cult, and one nobody much likes.
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^Then that would indicate that he didn't actually take a fall except locally. Making deals to entrap everyone, one nation at a time, is a valid (although very evil) way to take over the universe. So despite the setback on Golarion, he might be on schedule for the universe or at least the galaxy as a whole. Let's see where things stand in a few million years (GalaxyClusterFinder?) . . . .
Excellent piece of flash fiction. I really enjoyed seeing the limits and expectations of invisibility explored in a story format. It is a very difficult mechanic to have consensus around in play and it is very cool to see that reflected in fiction.
PS: I would love to read a piece of flash fiction that did a similar take on illusion magic. Specifically from the perspective of an illusionist who feels like their illusions should be more convincing and distracting but is missing some element of how people perceive the world around them.
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{. . .} monotheism doesn't ever really seem to have become fashionable anywhere.Razmir is trying REAL HARD. Arguably, Asmodeus is also trying, but in a more subtle way, that would be more likely to succeed in the long run, if only it hadn't been set back by whatever caused him to lose status by Starfinder time.
Asmodeus, more than any other god we're aware of, has the least need to try to push his religion, because he's the only god who gets all unattached souls of a particular alignment - if you're LE but not promised to a particular god you're headed to hell, and Asmodeus or his minions scoops up all those souls.
No other god has such a default role for unattached souls.
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There's also that detail regarding Asmodeus being one of the 2 primeval deities in the Great Beyond (the other one having had a fatal case of the stabbings), plus being one of the main deities involved in the imprisonment of Rovagug (Sarenrae was fighting it mainly to distract it from Asmodeus' trap).
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Also, I'm pretty sure it was stated somewhere that gods in the Lost Omen setting don't really "need" followers. Their power is not relative to them like in Forgotten Realm.
Gods don't need them for personal power (for things like punching another god in the nose or erasing a few stars). They do need souls for creating more outsiders or growing the plane they inhabit. Asmodeus is interested in both of those outcomes.
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There's also that detail regarding Asmodeus being one of the 2 primeval deities in the Great Beyond (the other one having had a fatal case of the stabbings),
This is Asmodeus's story. It's presented in purely in-character text as the story he tells.
It is a lie. Asmodeus was an angel who rebelled and led others in rebellion and went off to conquer and rule Hell. This is stated several places in the out-of-character sections Archdevil deity articles, and is thus canonically supported.
In-universe you can easily believe either, but the latter is correct.
plus being one of the main deities involved in the imprisonment of Rovagug (Sarenrae was fighting it mainly to distract it from Asmodeus' trap).
It wasn't solely Asmodeus's trap, but yes, this is substantially correct.
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What does "angel who rebelled" even mean in the context of Golarion and a non monotheistic universe?
The LG Angels are pretty hierarchal. He was one of those. He rebelled against their whole social system rather than a specific deity (and rebelled successfully), but he still rebelled.
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There's also that detail regarding Asmodeus being one of the 2 primeval deities in the Great Beyond (the other one having had a fatal case of the stabbings),This is Asmodeus's story. It's presented in purely in-character text as the story he tells.
It is a lie. Asmodeus was an angel who rebelled and led others in rebellion and went off to conquer and rule Hell. This is stated several places in the out-of-character sections Archdevil deity articles, and is thus canonically supported.
In-universe you can easily believe either, but the latter is correct.
Tabris wrote BotD, not Asmodeus. And either way, those are not mutually exclusive viewpoints.
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Tabris wrote BotD, not Asmodeus.
Sure, but he explicitly got that one in Hell from Devils. It's the official story.
And either way, those are not mutually exclusive viewpoints.
They really are. Tabris's story is that Asmodeus was one of the first two beings in existence and that he murdered the other while they were still the rulers of all and just after they created everything, while the 'rebel angel' story clearly indicates that as pretty blatantly untrue timing-wise (since his rebellion happened much later than that), and power-wise (since he was not the highest ranking angel around).
Now, he might very plausibly have murdered his brother in both versions, but they are substantively different.
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Tabris wrote BotD, not Asmodeus.Sure, but he explicitly got that one in Hell from Devils. It's the official story.
And either way, those are not mutually exclusive viewpoints.They really are. Tabris's story is that Asmodeus was one of the first two beings in existence and that he murdered the other while they were still the rulers of all and just after they created everything, while the 'rebel angel' story clearly indicates that as pretty blatantly untrue timing-wise (since his rebellion happened much later than that), and power-wise (since he was not the highest ranking angel around).
Now, he might very plausibly have murdered his brother in both versions, but they are substantively different.
The same story is in CoR, which was written before BotD and also doesn’t involve devils.
I don’t understand your reasoning for the timing incompatibility, and I don’t recall enough of the rebellion to comment (I will refresh myself tomorrow).