Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
“It’s about time!”
Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the bright light, Lex turned towards the angry voice – or rather, the angry whisper – that had assaulted him as soon as he’d exited his tent. Stopping in place, he turned to look toward where Aria was glowering at him from a few feet away. “I have better things to do than wait around all morning for you to wake up, you know,” she snapped.
Lex’s brow furrowed, not understanding what she was complaining about, but Nosey spoke up before she had a chance to. “What’s your problem?” Despite shooting Aria an unhappy glare the words came out in a murmur, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say them more forcefully.
Aria’s eyes slid over to the blonde mare, narrowing at the sight of her pressed against Lex. “My problem is that I can’t watch over him when he's asleep the way I’m supposed to if he’s hiding in one of those dinky little tents,” she snorted, before her lip curled in a leer. “But I guess I didn’t need to, since you were in there guarding his body all by yourself, up close and personal, huh?”
Nosey instantly turned bright red. “No!” she blurted. “We didn’t-, I mean, it wasn’t like that!” She glanced over at Lex, but immediately looked away when he made eye contact, suddenly too embarrassed to look at him. “Tell her she’s got the wrong idea!”
“What are you two talking about?” frowned Lex, a look of complete and total mystification on his face as he glanced back and forth between the two.
The question was enough to dispel Nosey’s embarrassment, her head whipping around to look at him in disbelief. For her part, Aria wasn’t much better. You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought to herself, not sure whether to laugh or gawk. I knew he was dense about this sort of thing, but this is a whole new level of clueless! Unable to resist having some fun, especially after everything she’d had to put up with in the last few days, Aria plunged ahead. “I’m just congratulating blondie here on staying so quiet the whole time you two were together. I thought she’d be more of a screamer.”
For a moment Lex didn’t know what Aria meant, but out of his peripheral vision he could see Nosey turning even redder, folding her ears back and cringing as though the Siren’s words had physically hurt, and the obvious answer dawned on him: she was teasing Nosey about the fact that she’d woken up screaming just before the battle with the ghouls. Although Aria hadn’t been there for that, she’d quite obviously found out about it somehow, probably from one of the gossipy camp ponies, and now she was using that information for her own spiteful amusement. It was enough to make Lex grit his teeth; he’d been on the receiving end of that sort of petty cruelty too many times in his youth to have any tolerance for it now, especially directed toward one of the extremely small number of ponies he thought of as a friend. But he knew exactly how to put her in her place. “Where were you last night?”
“Huh?” Now it was Aria’s turn to be confused. “I just told you: I was right here, making sure no one else tried to bump you off in your sleep. Though honestly, after everything that happened I doubt-”
“I meant before that,” cut in Lex coldly. “Prior to when you cast that fireball at the ghouls, where were you?” He knew part of the answer already, of course. The Night Mare had let it slip that Aria had left, although she hadn’t provided any details about why – other than his “failing to nurture her interest” in him, whatever that meant – or where she’d gone. “Sonata looked for you while we were preparing for the fight, and she said you weren’t anywhere.”
“Oh please,” sneered Aria derisively, waving a hoof. “If you told Sonata to find her tail, she’d have to look around for it first. And then she’d make herself dizzy trying to catch it.”
Lex’s response was an ice-cold stare. Normally, he didn’t care about Aria and Sonata sniping at each other; he’d never had any brothers or sisters, and what little research he’d done on the interpersonal dynamics between siblings was even less comprehensible than for unrelated ponies. But between his anger at Aria’s cruelty towards Nosey still being roused, and the warm moment he and Sonata had shared last night making him far less charitable toward criticism of his girlfriend, he was decidedly lacking in tolerance for Aria’s attitude. A number of choice words came to mind, but he pushed them away. First she’d left the camp without his leave, and now she’d insulted two of the ponies he cared about most; a stronger response was called for.
Slowly, Lex raised his left foreleg, fighting to hide how difficult it was to remain standing on only three hooves, and pointed it at her. “Prostrate yourself.”
The Night Mare’s power lashed out, curling around Aria and forcing her to obey as she immediately flopped onto her belly, touching her chin to the ground. “What’re you doing?!” she hissed, unable to so much as thrash. “Let me go!”
Ignoring her demand, Lex lowered his hoof, slowly walking toward her. Alongside him, Nosey only barely managed to move with him, no longer blushing as her eyes darted between Lex and Aria. With her at his side, Lex moved forward until he was directly in front of the bound Siren, looking down on her both literally and figuratively. “Now, where were you last night?”
“What does it matter?! I came back!” Despite the harsh tenor of Aria’s whisper, there was an undercurrent of nervousness to it. “You said it yourself: I saved everyone!”
Lex’s lips curled back from his teeth, and he raised his wire-wrapped hoof again, this time only far enough to point directly at her face, less than a foot away. “I won’t ask you again.”
That was all Aria could take. “Alright! Fine! I left! Are you happy?!” The fight went out of her then, and she heaved a sigh as she looked away in defeat. “I heard Cozy and her boy-toy stirring up trouble before they made a dash for it, and I went to go round them up. But they talked me into going with them.”
“To the Crystal Empire?” interjected Nosey, unable to help but look incredulous at the thought. She’d been there when Cozy had said that she was going to walk back to her home, knowing that was completely ridiculous with how far away it was. “Why?”
“They said their princess could fix my voice,” answered Aria, now sulking like a child forced to confess that she’d stolen a pack of bubblegum.
Lex’s frown deepened. “I already promised you that. In another four days-”
“Oh please,” snorted Aria bitterly. “In four more days, you were going to find some excuse to tell me why I’d need to wait longer.”
Lex flared at the insinuation that his word was no good. “You’re wrong!”
But Aria was unfazed. “After we beat the sahuagin, and you told me that normal healing magic couldn’t fix me, you said that you didn’t have the magic to regenerate my vocal chords.”
“I also said that I had every intention of keeping my promise!”
“Well good for you! In the meantime, I haven’t seen you do anything to make that happen! All day every day it’s some other new crisis, all of which are apparently more important than me! It’s Fencer and Pillowcase one day, then it’s feeding everypony here the next! Then it’s a bunch of your friends kicking the bucket!” She regained a little of her indignation then, glaring up at him. “Have you made any progress on making it so I can talk again?”
Lex met her eyes without flinching, but didn’t answer.
“Didn’t think so,” she whispered with a humorless laugh. “So yeah, I better-deal’d you and split. Sue me.”
Silence reigned for a moment, until finally Nosey spoke up. “So why’d you come back?” Both of them looked at her then, and she kept talking. “I mean, you were already leaving, right? You’d decided that you’d have better luck with Princess Cadance. So why’d you come back when you did?”
Aria hesitated then, but was saved from answering when Lex found his voice. “It doesn’t matter.”
That earned him a surprised glance from Nosey. “Lex?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, giving her a level look. “The moral dimension of an action is found in the action itself, not the motivation. It doesn’t matter why she came back. What matters is that she did…and that she left without my giving her permission in the first place, despite the fact that my promise to fix her voice was contingent on her working for me.”
Aria tensed at that, though in her immobile state it was little more than a twitch. She could see where this was going; he was about to declare his entire promise null and void. Between that, and that treacherous tramp Cozy reneging on recommending her to Princess Cadance, she’d be left with nothing, no way to ever get her voice back. The thought hit her like a dull thud, and Aria found that she couldn’t even get mad about it, her tension bleeding away in favor of a sense of dejection that made her close her eyes. Everyone always betrays me. First Sonata, then Cozy, and now Le-
“Aria. Look at me.”
The words carried the weight of a command, and Aria had no choice but to open her eyes, raising her gaze to the stallion towering above her. “For disobeying me and leaving without my permission, you’re confined to the train station here. I’ll have Severance act as my guard in your place.” He glanced over at the western edge of the camp, where the scythe was still hovering. After it had completed its patrol with Aria the previous night, Lex had told the scythe to resume its lookout for any other undead ponies, not wanting to take even the slightest chance. “As soon as we procure some food, I’ll see to it that sufficient meals and water are brought to you, but you are not to leave the building under any circumstances that aren’t life-threatening. If you do, I’ll consider it to be an escape attempt on your part, and my response will be harsh. Is that understood?”
Aria hesitated, hearing what he hadn’t said. “Wait, so does that mean-”
“Is. That. Understood?”
“…yeah…”
Lex nodded, and withdrew the invisible power binding her in place. “Then go.”
Swallowing nervously, Aria glanced at Nosey, and although the blonde mare caught the silent question in the Siren’s eyes, she shook her head, silently signaling that she didn’t know. Biting her lip, Aria slowly dragged herself past Lex, heading toward the train station. But she hadn’t made it more than a few dozen feet before the need to know overwhelmed her, and she glanced back at Lex, who hadn’t turned to look at her go. “Will you…I mean…” She couldn’t finish, anxiety reducing her whisper to a croak. “How long will…will I have to stay there?” It was all she could bring herself to ask, afraid of what he’d say if she made the question any more direct.
Lex’s head turned just slightly, enough to let her know that he heard her even though he wasn’t looking at her. In the five seconds that it took him to answer, Aria could almost feel her heart beating its way out of her chest. Then he spoke.
“Four days.”
Aria let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, almost doubling over in relief. “O-okay!” Unable to help the smile that spread across her face then, she turned and quickly started toward the train station, wanting to get there before he could change his mind. As she hurried, she just barely caught the sound of his voice from behind her.
“I always keep my promises.”
Lex confronts Aria, and renews his promise to her.
But will he actually be able to keep it?
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A rather light punishment for abandoning Lex and the camp ponies but like Lex said, regardless of the reason why, she came back and that's all that matters in the end though I think Lex might have a few choice words for Cozy in her part in Aria's actions.
Still, I find it amusing that after Sonata took some of the workload off Lex's plate, he just goes and adds more to it but since the ghouls are eradicated, or at the very least depopulated to the degree they can't mount another mass assault on the camp, Lex can use the downtime to figure out how to turn Aria into a pony and subsequently return her voice.
9038435
Breaking a contract before the other party has given you anything isn't a huge sin. Normally it wouldn't be punished at all unless the contract specified something.
And it's not clear that Aria even considered it a contract, so much as a conditional promise. "If you stay here and help, then I'll heal your voice." That wouldn't put any obligation on her to stay at all.
9038480
A contract huh? I never thought of it that way though it makes sense though as you stated, it's not a formal contract. Still, if it was an actual contract, Cozy's was questionable as it involved asking Cadence, a third party, to procure the reward which might not pan out. Regardless, Aria saw them as promises as stated in the chapter and given how desperate she was to get her voice back, a promise was more than enough to sway her judgement as seen when Cozy used it to bargain with her.
As for the punishment, given the way Lex is, it was more of a response to Aria's perceived cruelty to Nosey and insulting Sonata, The reason behind her abandoning him could be seen as an insult to his abilities as well as his capability to keep his promises so keeping her confined could also be seen as a way to ensure that she won't jump ship again before he restores her voice.
Hmm, I think I sidetracked myself somewhere along the way...
Lex only made a promise, not a Pinkie Promise.
Or in 4 days time, if yet another Eldritch Horror prevents him,
Diane the Huntress comes to play.
9038435 Thanks for catching that typo; I went back and fixed it.
Lex gave Aria a punishment that was little more than a slap on the wrist for several reasons. One of which, as you noted, was that she came back of her own accord; the fact that doing so probably saved all their lives wasn't lost on him either. Another is that Aria wasn't wrong when she pointed out that he's been basically ignoring his promise to her so far; he might still have time, but it wasn't lost on her that he's been putting all of his effort into other things rather than fixing her voice. When she pointed that out to him, it was no small thing that he couldn't answer her. That, and I'm honestly starting to wonder if Lex has turned a corner after everything that's happened; he seems perhaps just a little bit less harsh now than he was before.
Now he just has to figure out how to change Aria into a pony in four days...on top of everything else.
9038480
9038591 Strictly speaking, this isn't a contract per se. Rather, Lex dragooned Aria into his service under the auspice of "you're guilty of helping the sahuagin attack Vanhoover and its ponies, including and especially me and Sonata." He's letting her work for him because he can't bring himself to kill her (he won't kill ponies, and he has to see her as a pony, since she's Sonata's sister and Sonata is his lover), can't let her go (she's too powerful and too selfish to be left unsupervised), and can't completely dismiss her claim of having been forced to serve Tlerekithres. So this is his compromise: she works for him, and in return he treats her far better than the sahuagin ever did, with her being made into a pony, functional voice-box and all, being the cherry on the proverbial sundae.
Of course, none of that is written down, which is something Lex leverages in his favor. If there are no written provisions to an agreement, then interpretation comes down to having the local authority resolve the disputes, and Lex considers himself to be the ultimate authority. So if he's also a party to a disputed agreement, then oh well. Hence, he can interpret the agreement in a manner that's most beneficial to him, and if the other party doesn't like it, then too bad, they should have insisted on writing things down. (Naturally, it helps that he has the force of arms necessary to back up such rulings as well.) It goes without saying that he's canny enough to realize when this approach won't serve him as well as writing something down, I should add. It's just that so far, not doing so has worked out better for him.
9038976 One can only hope that they'll be able to go a week without some new monster attack.
9039370
I dunno, my party used them when they first came out in the Mummy's Mask AP, there wasn't any direct time pressure, we had a blast. That said, as far as Mihir knows an evil scythe is rampaging across a defenseless mortal world, so as far as he knows he's under quite a lot of time pressure.
I don't think it's true anymore that Celestials and the forces of good are outnumbered and outgunned anymore. Certainly they were before 3rd edition, but the Golarion cosmos doesn't have the Blood War to explain why the fiends don't wipe out the celestials. I think given that there are a roughly even number of good and evil planes of infinite size, and the fact that celestials and fiends hate each other buy don't try to wipe each other out en masse suggests they are roughly evenly matched in power.
I also like to imagine Xiriel having gotten his own ioun stone through the tremendous feat of filling out all of Hell's item requisition paperwork and have it approved, which is probably an even more epic quest than figuring out how to destroy a major artifact.
That said, I think your argument about politics and conserving resources rather than taking on every dark god they run into makes a lot more sense. Mihir realizes the Night Mare (or someone similar, if he doesn't know her) would probably respond to Severance's destruction with retaliatory raids on heaven or something that would be even worse than whatever Severance gets up to.
Ah, I didn't realize multiverse had such a restrictive definition, I thought it was everything. So yeah, I agree Tabris never checked out the gods of the Everglow. But he's not the exhaustive source of their library, they have plenty of other sources. The disconnect for me here is that Xiriel, Severance and Mihir all seem to be merrily hopping between Heaven, Hell and Equestria, so it seems like other ancient angelic authors would have done the same thing when writing their divine thesis papers.
Unless the idea is that Equestria is easily accessible by the regular outer planes, but the Everglow is not... that would actually explain a lot of things here. And Equestria was just kind of overlooked because celestials don't have to worry much about evil ponies and fiends have preferred easier targets of corruption.
He actually wrote other books, covering the rest of the multiverse, the Chronicle of the Rightous and the Concordance of Rivals. Those are just 3 books from an entire library though, I suspect the main library of heaven has other content.
Of course its not perfect, but it's still the best baseline there is. Most cultures have had similarities in their traditions, and common elements in their economics, that are fairly common across most culture. And technology is probably easier than culture to predict. We look at a pyramid and we don't know the placement of every stone, but we can guess where most of the support pillars are from the outside.
So here's a thing about Celestia and Luna being fairly powerful: I will assume that Mihir is a pretty smart guy and shrewd judge of character, as well as general competence of the beings he meets. You don't become a Solar for chewing bubble gum, after all.
And he seems to think that even though Severance just cut through a bunch of celestials like a hot scythe through butter, he is confident that Celestia and Luna will be able to handle the scythe. Was Severance just cutting up Lantern Archons? Or was Mihir actually fooled the same way bronies are, seeing the giant castle and bling and assuming that means Celestia is an epic level caster of some kind?
Good question. It's usually "servants" of the gods, which is often though not exclusively outsiders. And witches draw their magic from "smaller and more practical fonts."
Honestly, the D&D ranger is a lot more like Legolas than Aragorn. And don't get me started on the 2E ranger! They take away his spells, and his animal companion, but in return they make favored enemy worse....
Basically a fighter who's good at camping.
I can't wait for Sonata to get back to camp to talk to Aria. I mean, I always look forward to Sonata and Aria dialogue, but never more than when one them is really going to needle the other.
And I feel like Lex is being a bit disingenuous here. Aria's right in that he had more pressing issues than her voice, and we know he was already planning excuses for if he couldn't fix her in time. I know he's big on punishment, but this seems impractical. Lex has three powerful minions who can defend the camp: Sonata, Aria and Severance. Sonata is missing, so Lex will leave the camp to find her, Aria is locked up in a train station and Severance is set to guard them. Knowing Severance, ghouls or something could attack the camp in Lex's absence, and as long as they don't try to breach the train station Severance will just float there ignoring them, while Aria will be unable to interfere herself.
Perhaps Lex will modify it from the train station to just the camp as a whole. It reminds me of this weird tiny island in the south pacific that was colonized and basically ignored for 50 years, then the Australian or New Zealand government (whoever it was) found out all the men on the island had committed terrible crimes, so it forced them to work together to build themselves a jail, that they had to sleep in at night, while still doing their jobs during the day, since otherwise the entire island would collapse.
9039416 You make it sound like they live in Sunnydale!
a grate chapter.
and yes Lex always keeps a promise.
9039749 I was thinking of Smallville when I wrote that, but close enough.
9039726
The problem here is that the perception time pressure has to exist for more than the characters in order to create dramatic tension; it has to exist for the players - or in this case, the readers - as well. I'm familiar with that particular part of the Mummy's Mask, and I recall it as being fun only because it was something new for the players to engage with. That is, it was the enjoyment that comes from tinkering with a new sub-system. In terms of creating a sense of narrative pressure, it didn't really do very much. I suspect that would be especially true here, since the readers know that Severance isn't killing anypony.
Of course, all of that overlooks the issue of whether or not Mihr knows enough to begin researching anyway, let alone that the Great Library of Harmonious Scripture wouldn't really be the right library for this.
I'll be perfectly honest; I'm not wild about the Golarion cosmology, at least compared to the planar presentation from classic (A)D&D. The fact that I had Xiriel be from Stygia was because there's a layer of Hell named that in both Pathfinder and D&D's respective planar structures, and it was quite disappointing to me that the same wasn't true for Heaven also (I came so close to having Mihr come from another plane so that I could try to dance around issues of nomenclature, but it didn't work out with regards to planar layers). I went with Pathfinder's version only because that was the system that Ponyfinder was (originally) published under, but even then I don't consider that to be overly binding. I'll be picking up Planar Adventures in a month or so, but I doubt it'll have as much content as the D&D cosmology had, so if I need to look further afield for planar material, don't be surprised if I don't look there.
It's in that sense that I'd honestly prefer to keep the Blood War, and the presumption that the celestials are outnumbered. It just makes more sense, from an world-building point of view, and is more interesting anyway. The alternative, which is a semi-static state of detente where everything's evenly matched simply isn't as evocative for me.
The underlying presumption of this story (and the stories that preceded it) was that Equestria was sequestered from the rest of the multiverse(s). It simply wasn't accessible; it was its own world (and, I suppose, its own small set of "nearby" (demi)planes, a la the Equestria Girls world) set apart from everything else. That ended with Twilight tried to come back after the accident that led her to Everglow, inadvertently causing the Elemental Bleeds that formed the backdrop for this story. As for Everglow itself, we know that it's some sort of odd planar anomaly due as described in Beyond Everglow, but there's nothing to suggest that it's particularly isolated from everywhere else in terms of planar travel. It's just that I think you're really giving Heaven way too much credit in terms of what they know.
Which, according to its description, cover cultural norms and attitudes and related areas, with nothing else mentioned. The idea that they necessarily possess virtually all other knowledge is something that I don't think holds up under scrutiny.
Presumptions of "humanocentricism" don't work (very well) when the human condition being invoked doesn't have an element of universality. While you might be able to make a case regarding technology, I'm highly skeptical of that because it plays into determinism, suggesting that technological utility and innovation are interrelated across broad disciplines and follow a regular progression, regardless of most salient factors. Now, there's an argument to be made that some of that is true regarding the broadest outlines of "making tools" and "altering your local environment," such as with the creation of cities, ships, basic weapons and armor, etc. But try to apply that with any greater specificity will rapidly run into problems, typically focused around a single major success story (i.e. the telephone) that ignores the numerous failures that preceded it and the local circumstances that allowed it to flourish when it did. There's a reason why Equestria has skyscrapers but no telephones (and I say that deliberately discounting that one background shot in season four's Rarity Takes Manehattan, as it's a Mad Men throwaway reference, as well as Discord's holding a smartphone in season seven's Discordant Harmony, because Discord).
Economics and culture have even less commonality across times and societies, unless you're talking about things so broad that they're practically useless as notable factors, such as "parents raise children," or "goods are bargained for."
I don't see why it can't be some of both. There's no real mechanic that lets you measure someone else's Hit Dice or levels, by the way, and it's not like a solar angel has arcane sight active. Likewise, the implication was always that Severance was going through hordes of lesser angels; those are what populate Heaven's Threshold more than anything else (plus the truism that weaker creatures will be more prevalent than stronger ones to begin with).
That said, Mihr isn't "confident that Celestia and Luna will be able to handle the scythe." That phrase suggests that he's looking to assure their victory, which (as I've tried to point out before) isn't what celestials are supposed to do. His mission there was to bring it to their attention that there was an evil artifact loose in their world, since they were the most powerful and most benign native entities that he could find. That's it. Guaranteeing that they have the ability to win was never his mission. He was just giving them a courtesy call; the role of celestials is to inspire mortals, not do everything for them.
I'm not sure "disingenuous" is the right word for what you mean here. It might be impractical to put Aria under "house arrest," but Lex flat-out said it didn't apply when lives were being threatened; he didn't say that was only true for her life. I'm also not sure what you mean by "Knowing Severance, ghouls or something could attack the camp in Lex's absence, and as long as they don't try to breach the train station Severance will just float there ignoring them." Lex has given no indication that he's going to go after Sonata, after all; the last chapter even outlined why he couldn't do that. Likewise, he'd doubtlessly give Severance orders to protect the place if he did, and there's every reason to believe it would carry them out.
9041000 Thanks!
9041479
Ah. The equivalent of when some CSI researcher is analyzing the case and visibly starts when he realizes the killer, while we quick-cut to the killer getting another victim alone...
Well, I certainly agree with that, the Great Wheel was the greatest tabletop cosmology of all time, and the Blood War was the coolest part of it.
I thought D&D abandoned the Great Wheel after 4th edition and was still stuck on a giant tree or something?
We'll have to agree to disagree on that, but I think the Elemental Bleed opening up Equestria to the wider cosmos makes a lot of sense now.
The Book of the Damned is supposedly sought for all the incredibly valuable and dangerous secrets it possesses, so I suspect it and its companion volumes have a bit more than the local customs and eateries of the abyss. And again, Tabris just wrote those 3 books, they're far from the whole of the library of heaven.
Sure, but its not a one-off thing where a dominant technology is picked and stays. New technologies don't have to be permanently established. Just like Equestria we had airships, even as we had airplanes. It was only later on as airplane technology made airplanes more broadly useful that we shifted away from blimbs, the Hindenberg on its own didn't make a dramatic difference. Technology isn't just a one time path that is picked, later technologies "fill in the gaps."
There's also a vintage telephone in the antique store in S7.
Economics and culture are biproducts of biology, technology, and location for the most part. Non-human species will have 1 of the three different, but they'll have a pickable point for 2, and a typical location for 3 similar to a real-world space.
As of Ultimate Intrigue, you can actually figure out what class features and feats someone has with Knowledge (Local), though I think you usually have to see them use it.
Hehe, I know its dark but I'm just imagining Severance like a buzz-saw through those fancy helmets most lantern archons manifest as. I would probably be more sympathetic if I hadn't gone through Hell's Vengeance.
Sure, I didn't mean he would have guaranteed their victory. But now I'm totally imagining him teleporting home and thinking "well, hopefully those little horsies get really lucky."
Makes you wonder if that gave Faust the idea for Celestia's name. I think the Regal Sisters are lucky Mihir even gave them a straight warning instead of just appearing, telling them they should organize a celebration in Vanhoover, and asking them to make some friends along the way.
Perhaps, it does seem like part of why he's upset is that Aria's predictions about his actions and finding new problems are not that far off the mark. If Aria had just stayed quiet and not left, I'm not that confident Lex would really have hit the deadline.
Oh come on, its Lex! And its Sonata! He's not going to let his girlfriend wander around the monster-haunted countryside! He's going off to rescue her, whether or not she needs to be rescued. Yes there are very good reasons he should stay in camp and delegate this task, I just don't think he'll do it.
Ah. I thought he was just about to head out for Sonata, and wouldn't have thought to give Severance contingency orders to defend the camp if attacked, or let Aria out to help defend the camp if attacked. If he remembers to give the orders then I'm sure they will be followed.
9041807
Fifth Edition brought it back. I've heard something about this being referenced in some of the last few Forgotten Realms novels, but insofar as game books go, it's pretty much back to being the default. The Blood War gets some fairly major coverage in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, for example. I think they're still keeping a few 4E elements, such as "Primordials," but for the most part what we had from previous editions is back.
You keep bringing those up, and for the life of me I don't understand why. The Book of the Damned isn't in Heaven; there's no indication that its knowledge wasn't disseminated nor transcribed before it vanished. Quite the opposite, really, since reading it is supposedly a surefire way to cause corruption in the reader. That's why Tabris was immediately exiled upon his return; he certainly didn't provide any informative testimonials on the book's contents, and there's no indication that any other angels were dispatched with a mission similar to his. So invoking him and his book as an example of Heaven having expansive knowledge about the secrets (and weaknesses) of evil strikes me as highly backward.
This sounds like all the more reason not to use "humanocentricism" with regard to technological progression: because it's not so much "humanocentric" as it is "Earth-centric," which necessarily relies on circumstances in a given setting being the same as they are on Earth, and that's quite often not going to be the case. It's why the introduction of magic will often change social and technological processes if you follow the impact of its existence to its logical end-point, presuming that it's sufficiently safe, easy to use, and widespread (such as d20 magic is).
If the ponies did have telephones, they'd probably be party lines, much to Pinkie's delight.
I don't agree with the premise, here. Even looking at real-world history, there have been too many instances of societies with near-identical locations (in terms of the local climate, ecology, and geography) and similar levels of technology that have developed wildly different cultures and economies due to some other salient circumstance. Often, that circumstance is something that doesn't seem like it should be a major factor, but ends up having an outsized impact on the development of a culture. The Trobriand Islands aren't that different from the rest of Oceania, in terms of location, but the presence of a local yam that acted as a contraceptive was enough to give the indigenous people a very distinct culture, since it threw a monkey wrench into the recognition of the cause-and-effect relationship between sex and pregnancy.
But really, I think we're having a miscommunication; the idea of whether or not human technology, economics, and culture are reliable baselines for "filling in the blanks" for fantasy races seems to come down - insofar as our discussion goes - to the level of granularity that we're assigning to said "baselines." If you're saying that they're no deeper than things like hierarchical social organization, supply and demand, and being sad when people you care about die, then I agree with that; I just think those things are so universal that you can't really call them "humanocentric" to begin with, since humans don't strike me as owning those concepts in the first place. Even in the real world, we can observe them in animals, after all. Rather, when using that term for something outside of biology, I take it to mean something much more specific, and that's where the problem lies, since the more specific you become the less universalities there are among human societies.
Can you site where in the book it says this, because the closest I can find is the Measure Foe feat, which isn't nearly as expansive as what you're talking about .
There's a large middle ground between "doing it for them" and "doing nothing at all." That said, the celestials are pretty well established as trying to nurture mortals rather then protecting them directly.
Possibly, but if that had happened it wouldn't have been by design; Lex never anticipated that things would be this bad, and while he wouldn't use that as an excuse, that would doubtlessly be the reason for why he wouldn't have been able to change Aria back. But that's pure speculation; we haven't seen him really start to apply himself to that particular problem yet. He is a genius, after all, and might surprise you.
The problem is that he doesn't know where she's gone, and she has several hours' head-start on him, and there's no evidence to suggest that the countryside is monster-haunted. Not to mention that there are numerous other things that he needs to see to there in the camp itself. All of which is to say, a dispassionate analysis would showcase that the best thing to do would be for him to stay put. It's just a question as to whether or not he can remain that level-headed.
Maybe it's time for him to trust that Sonata isn't completely incompetent.
Lex is bad at controlling his emotions, but it's rare for that to sweep him away to the point that he abandons critical thought entirely. He can make mistakes, to be sure, but completely losing his head isn't something that he does unless there are extreme circumstances.
Well, I mean, she's not wrong... That is also an adorable image.
So, magic is capable of regenerating destroyed body parts. The question is whether Lex can make something powerful enough, and that works, to heal her. He does have some simple Divine healing spells, so he could look at that, and try to scale it up.
9221466 Aria does indeed know Sonata well.
Lex has mentioned previously how difficult he finds healing magic to understand, and how incredibly weak the one healing spell he has is. So far, his plan to restore Aria's voice is to bypass regenerating her vocal chords and instead transmute her into a pony, under the idea that a newly-formed pony body won't translate any existing damage over. Hopefully, he can make it work.