City of IF

[ethereal_fauna]

Time to strategize a little more, outside of the arena! :)

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Check the current rosters.

Size up the competition.

[ethereal_fauna]

Polling has begun to determine who faces Yahoo in round three. Any thoughts on Yahoo and his past strategies? Any identifiable weaknesses to exploit? Who from the Casting Call seems most likely to present the greatest challenge?

Let's discuss this and then go cast our votes for Yahoo's next opponent. :smile:

[Shady Stoat]

Well, I looked through the character bios, and I can see possibilities in voting for either Sleen or Milton the Mad Minister.

The pros I see of voting for Sleen is that Yahoo strategises. He plans, he uses little magic and lots of strategy. Strategy is aided by knowing what strength and weaknesses his opponent has.

Sleen is the sea-elf who has won both rounds so far by turning the arena black and using unknown methods of attack to subdue her opponent. Mysterious and deadly, Yahoo will have to get to the bottom of her methodology before he will have a clue how to handle her.

Milton the Mad Minister is also a good choice because he's completely insane and will often act in an irrational manner. How can you strategize against insanity? A good general knows that his opponent is wily and clever and will take the best rational option in a given situation. A madman will not always act in his own best interests and might therefore surprise Yahoo into a mistake.

That's just my initial thoughts, anyway.

[jnmrcs]

Nice ideas shady.

Also there is a copycat but I don't think it will be so much fun as the two you mention. But also I wanted to add Mical. As yahoo is a mage and Mical can transforms others magic.

Even with that I will prefer one of the shady have said before.

[ethereal_fauna]

Mical is likely to be eliminated this round (round 2)against Gorin, but if he should succeed in kicking Gorin's smug ass then he'd certainly be formidible against Yahoo. :D

[luvd]

For me it has to be Milton. Magic is about manipulating reality with your will alone, so the best magic is by those with imagintion. and you can't beat the insane for imagintion :grin: Surreal the old man, surreal him good....with dead things. YES! YES!! YES!!! I want to see what he will do against a a miss-mashed dead thing made from bit's of other dead things held together by black VOODOO :-o

[ethereal_fauna]

Looks like Sleen has been a favorite in both camps...although Milton was mentioned by Gorin's team too. Either one of those would be safe bets, and the more we pull together on this the more likely we'll be to make sure our opponents face the worst. Polling is open so go vote!

[ethereal_fauna]

Team Yahoo pulled together really well, and will face the opponent of their choice in round three. We need to make sure to follow their example, and get who we want. :smile:

Next decision will be for who fights Jakeen.
Charras
Aldran the Mystic
Sleen
Iscariot Ren
Milton the Mad Minister
Rilian
Vandaria
Venar

Keep an eye out on the other two teams. See who they think might defeat us. We can discuss via PM our favored choice if you like...or perhaps discuss right here on this thread. We don't want Yahoo and Gorin deciding who we should fight. :cool:

I'm open to suggestion, and will contact the team with my opinion on the character that I think (as author) Jakeen will have little trouble defeating.

[Shady Stoat]

Well, looking through the contestants, I think we stand a reasonable chance against a few of them.

So far, we've done better against emotional attacks than against elemental energy. Having said that, we can't afford to have someone who can hit us immediately, as our attacks seem to be less than immediate in nature.

I'd say Iscariot, with his water-based attacks, probably wouldn't be that fearsome for a Spellsinger.

Also Rillian. I think a Spellsinger will be well-able to deal with her preferred method of attack which is illusion. Music is image and sound based, and at least they'll be fighting with similar-ish styles.

To a greater extent, Vandaria. We've already faced and beaten a Mage capable of manipulating our fears. We have experience to draw from.

What does everyone else think?

[jnmrcs]

I don't know about the water mage.

But about Vandaria, as you said, we already fight against something that use the same.

I don't think that fight against someone who can manage illusion is a good idea.

[luvd]

jnmrcs wrote: I don't know about the water mage.

But about Vandaria, as you said, we already fight against something that use the same.

I don't think that fight against someone who can manage illusion is a good idea.

I don't know. I feel it's time to move onto the next level. Think about it. We deal with sound, not sight. Music is about feeling not seeing. Jakeen must stop using the music as a tool and realize it's more then that. Think back to the last gig you went to. Did they look like they where just playing? Or where they lost in a whole world. I say he has to wake up to the real power he has. It's not magic in the sense the other know it's. it's more creative, more subjective, more powerfull. Sight might be our primary sense but it's sound that makes us feel it.

[jnmrcs]

So you are saying???

[luvd]

I say blow away the cobwebs of the mind and show how febble illusions of reality really are. I vote take Rillian apart and make the arena feel like they've just seen the real world for the very first time......and who can really control it.

Does anyone else think I've been eating too much cheese?

[ethereal_fauna]

Dangerously cheesy. :)

[ethereal_fauna]

Polling is underway for our round three opponent. Check your PMs, and you can either reply via PM or directly on this thread if you have any comments or thoughts to add.

[ethereal_fauna]

One more vote to decide who Gorin faces in round three.

Aldran the Mystic
Sleen
Iscariot Ren
Milton the Mad Minister
Rilian
Vandaria
Venar

Who's going to present a challenge to the Master of Illusion and Light?

[Shady Stoat]

Well, so far Gorin seems to have faced normal elemental-type mages and illusionists like himself (combined with beast-mastery).

I think we should give him something new to face, which, for me rules out:

Iscariot the water mage
Rilian the illusionist
and, to some extent
Vandaria, the death-magic child (because visions of your own death could be much more powerful against someone who didn't understand the powers of illusion).

Aldran, with his hypnotic magic might be good. It's something new and untested.

Milton and Venar could both pose major problems for the Master of Illusion and Light.

But my vote would tend to go for Sleen. Gorin has yet to have a chance to research his opponents properly. Events seem to sidetrack him and time flies away, leaving him unprepared for the battles to come.

Now Sleen is going to take some research if she's to be overcome. She's a mystery that he's going to have to work hard to unravel - and who knows if he'll have the time? :D

[ethereal_fauna]

Actually, I think Vandaria would prove formidible enough. Not exactly an illusionist- she sees images of a person's death, and can use that to manipulate her opponent's fears. She also has a spirit bodyguard, which might be mistaken as an illusion until proven otherwise by a winning blow.

Although Milton is an illusionist, he has other talents that make him favorable as well. And if all else fails he can distract Gorin with that chicken sandwich from under his hat. ;)

[ethereal_fauna]

Did we ever reach any conclusion?

Sleen and Vandaria are both great options, in my opinion. The characters will prove challeging for Gorin, I believe, and the author will have to struggle at writing in a tough girly mage, which might work to our advantage as well. :D

[Shady Stoat]

I voted for Sleen, as it seemed to be more of a consensus opinion with all three teams. I think she'll probably challenge anyone :)

[ethereal_fauna]

Sounds good to me. I voted that way as well.

[ethereal_fauna]

This next chapter we'll be starting Round Three and appearing in the arena against Charras.

Appearance: Almost skeletally thin and tall, black skin, dark hair and startling blue eyes. He wears dark billowing robes with red and silver trim.
Abilities: A warrior mage, capable both of physical prowess in combat (a desert-trained form of martial arts) and manipulating electricity with his magic. He can strike with lightning bolts, hold electricity in his hands without doing damage to himself or send a current running through surfaces. More is not known.

Ideas or suggestions? Anything worth mentioning before we go into the arena, or a tactic to begin?

Any thoughts on this comment made by Chainfire? Do you think that there is a possibility of this happening, and that super-heated air might affect our ability to render spells? How do we combat this?

Discuss and plot :D

[Shady Stoat]

Chainfire's right. An out-of-tune instrument is difficult to play - but not impossible.

Jakeen's spells work by using power-chords. 3 or more notes, played in a specific order, or in a specific way, to produce the best results. However, we've also seen that, even if the notes are played one at a time, the results can still work to our satisfaction.

That means that, even if one string remains working, we can still carry out our magic. There isn't a note in the musical scale that can't be played from a base of any string you care to name.

The only drawback I can see to this, is whether Jakeen has perfect pitch or not.

If he does, his ear will be able to hear the pitch of the note he needs, and slide the finger up the string to compensate. His magic may only be at 98% effectiveness, but it will still be completely effective, as long as he's allowed to play one note at a time, rather than chordally. (If the spells have to be chordal to work, then he'd be reduced to about 80% effeciency, I'd say. The chords will be difficult to produce and compensate for, but it should still be doable).

If he doesn't, then he won't be aware of how far the string is out of tune, and I would say his magic will be much reduced in effectiveness. 20-30% effective at most.

However, if he can create a shield around himself, to block the superheated air, then he can effectively cancel out the lightning mage's main weapon against him. I think he should concentrate on doing that anyway. AFter all, if the air is superheated, and if the Mage has lightning to throw around, I don't think an out-of-tune instrument is going to be the only worry that Jakeen has.

Sorry about the technical talk. I don't know how to simplify it any more than that :?

[ethereal_fauna]

Thanks for the techy stuff Stoat :cool: I agree, some kind of defensive shielding seems appropriate.

What should we take to the offense? Any other ideas/suggestions team?

[Mother Goose]

So far we have been using the music magic mainly to affect our opponent's mind - kind of an enhancement of music's effect on us in RL. Maybe it's time to get more physical, if that's possible. I seem to recall that one of Jakeen's early manifestations was lighting a candle; he must have some ability with fire then. Now that he's more adept, maybe he could produce a fireball or some such.

How much do most people know about the abilities of music mages; would this sort of thing take them by surprise?

[luvd]

ethereal_fauna wrote: This next chapter we'll be starting Round Three and appearing in the arena against Charras.

Appearance: Almost skeletally thin and tall, black skin, dark hair and startling blue eyes. He wears dark billowing robes with red and silver trim.
Abilities: A warrior mage, capable both of physical prowess in combat (a desert-trained form of martial arts) and manipulating electricity with his magic. He can strike with lightning bolts, hold electricity in his hands without doing damage to himself or send a current running through surfaces. More is not known.

Ideas or suggestions? Anything worth mentioning before we go into the arena, or a tactic to begin?



Charras :shock: How did J end up facing him? Ok...ok.......This is not like any fight he's faced before. How to deal with this form of aggression, both lighting and a boot in the face..... To beat any martial artist you have to keep them off balance. Get them on the back foot. A thought's just come to me. If we change the ground to something less firm like mud Charras is less likely to go all fist of fury. As for the lighting, we have to ground it some how or effect his ability to aim. or the ability to make a shield. All we need to do is change the polarity of the air around us to that of the bolts and no toasted Jakeen, infact wouldn't that send the boil back ;)

[jnmrcs]

The best thing to do is to think how to attrack the lightings. Like the things up on the buildings on United States (sorry don't know how to write it in English). Made some ground or something like that. With that we could manage better the magic of our enemy. Also should be a good idea to try to control lighting, so his magic couldn't affect so much to us.

[DeadManWalking]

use a haste spell.

this will probably neutralize his warrior skills and give you time to think about the lightining.

[Mother Goose]

I finally noticed the helpful thread describing Jakeen's magic. So he has some power over lightning himself! Fire and wind as well.

Is there any way he could construct, as jnmrcs suggests, a shield, like a Faraday cage, (which is a kind of network of lightning rods) to ward off the attack? If the lightning is magical, maybe the Faraday cage wouldn't have to be real, only magical, to work.

Then possibly a Rage spell - working on what his opponent is already prone to - until he's so beside himself he can't even utter his spells or think what to do next.

[DeadManWalking]

hey Ethreal fauna

i just read the newest chapter and its really good. i think he should try quicksand.

[Eragon\'s Ego]

u could get him angry, and use a lightning rod to channel a GIANT lightning ball back at him, thus charring Charras (hu hu hu, i made a funny :lol: )