Author Topic: General Discussion and Sugestions  (Read 75409 times)


Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #101 on: August 22, 2013, 01:52:39 PM »
Nope.

Bear in mind, a school consists of 9 levels (I do recall a few that might be more limited--but those're just ideas for now). Each level seems to have ~2-5 maneuvers. Let's say 3.5 average. 3.5 * 9 is ~31. So, 30ish cards. Extant schools manage it better because of the different card names on Easy through Lunatic, but Momiji's cards are from StB (or was it DS?), so they don't have the names.

There also isn't a theme or power running through them, so it's not really something that you can do much with.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #102 on: August 22, 2013, 02:47:17 PM »
You're grasping at straws.

The money they have exists entirely to pay Komachi. There is no other reason for the souls of the dead to have money. It corresponds to the assets of those that miss them--but that doesn't mean that it's other people's money.
Yuyuko organizes festivals, hires youkai, and is geting food from somewhere to feed Youmu. So the dead clearly have an use for money.

Komachi, similarly, has absolutely no need for it. What, exactly, is a functionally immortal ferryman of the dead going to spend money on?
Geez, I dunno, how about half of her attacks that consist of throwing money as a weapon? ;)

It looks symbolic: the more people that miss you in life, the more money you have, the shorter your journey is. You pay the ferryman for passage with the money you have that exists entirely to pay the ferryman passage.
And to be used as a weapon for Yugoloth society.

Eiki is annoyed with Komachi for slacking off, not for losing spirits in the river, so it's not something that's happening much, confusion or not.
Because throwing spirits in the river if they even hesitate to pay is part of Komachi's job. Eiki would never scold her for that.

Therefore, 'evil' is stretching it, and deciding that shinigami, part of the natural order of life--because seriously, that's exactly what they exist for--are therefore embodiments of evil is just plain ridiculous.
In D&D, the 99.9% of devil society exists because they managed to manipulate the order of life to make them a part of it. Evil corrupts systems or so I heard.

But whatever, this argument obviously isn't worth it.

You can count the likely evil things in Touhou on one hand--Mima and Yuuka probably are, then there's the Saigyou Ayakashi, which has no particular reason for killing people other than it can. Could possibly fit Rukia in if 'diet consists of people' equals 'inherently evil' when it's not human to start with. :/
More than half the Touhou cast already feeds on humans. :rolleyes

Then for those that don't like human meat on the menu, there's plain old betrayal of those that trusted you (Mokou and Eirin, and that's just the tip of the iceberg for the lunar medic) and pretty much every protagonist in Subterranean animism for one reason or the other (they're sealed because they're considered evil even by other youkai).

Then there's manipulatory bitch Yukari that likes to organize invasions to the moon in her spare time, even knowing that pissing off the lunarians is a serious risk Gensyoko gets glassed to oblivion. Just look at one of her winning quotes from SWR:

Every tree and blade of grass is as precious as the Buddha.
Unfortunately, this doesn't include humans.


No wonder she's perfectly fine with using trains full of innocent people as a weapon.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2013, 02:50:05 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #103 on: August 22, 2013, 03:05:47 PM »
Remind me to never talk with you about Touhou, because your opinions make me sick. It's taking the most absolutely negative view of everything and working based on that. Grimdark is idiotic. Making everything darker and darker just obscures it and saps away colour until there's absolutely nothing of interest left. 

Also, Shinigami in general are more like Inevitables--Komachi might be a ferryman, but there's others whose job is 'go collect souls'. Including Celestials, who only die if said shinigami kill them. Not Yugoloths.

Though you're obsessed with making her a daemon, go ahead. The class is going to be nonsensical, though. ._.

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #104 on: August 22, 2013, 03:10:43 PM »
Woah. I'm missing a big discussion on Shinigami/Yugoloths!

My perception of the thing is that the marraenoloth, specifically, fits the whole ferryman of the river of the dead aspect. But that's about it. Problem with it is that most shinigamis aren't ferrymen and the rest of the yugoloths really don't fit the profile at all besides being creatures in some kind of hell. Death god's jobs. They also mention that a few of them are tasked with the actual collecting.
I haven't seen a single real 'shinigami' in DnD yet, which is quite surprising.

There is the Entropic Reaper, which is sort of a chaotic evil version of the shinigami (which seems more of a neutral/lawful neutral kind of grim reaper.)

All in all I think the Yugoloth is a poor substitute. Making them their own new race would be the way to go if getting a touhou shinigami with conceptual integrity is desired.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #105 on: August 22, 2013, 03:13:51 PM »
Better wiki. :|

The translations, at least, seem superior. Also has more horizontal width.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2013, 03:17:16 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #106 on: August 22, 2013, 03:33:58 PM »
Eugh... that came out harsher than I meant it.

I don't like taking the negative interpretation of everything. I really don't like it when it requires sifting through a lot of information to locate the evidence that everything is so terrible. It means going through a forest until you find the right flower and declaring that this is evidence it's actually a meadow.

It's especially bad when the person behind it all isn't the world's greatest writer, and the general tone is lighthearted.

Hell, Gensokyo's pretty idyllic, so long as nothing kills Reimu and humans have the sense to not stray far from the village. The human-eating youkai seem to get the food from the outside, which handily avoids depopulation. Can't really expect them to starve.

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #107 on: August 24, 2013, 01:21:15 PM »
Quote
On other news, I have like half a dozen new Tobhou school drafts but seem unable to actually focus on one to finish it.
If you're interested I could go over one or two of those. Maybe help you finish them.


Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #108 on: August 24, 2013, 07:31:43 PM »
The notes are mostly in a mess that I dare show to no one. Checking back on them, even I have trouble understanding what exactly many of them are suposed to do myself.

Anyway, Crystallized Silver got the Frostwind Virago, Divine Battlefield got the Gods, Doll Judgment gets generalist wizards and sorcerors, Ancient Temple gets Rangers, and Dream Battle was first for crusaders and swordsages before Anomander talking me into making a base class for it.

So main point is, if there's already some class/monster in D&D that relates to a school in some way,  I will use it for the chassis, instead of coming up with a full new race based on one-of character.

Eternal Royal and Scholar only got made because base D&D had nothing to support their character archetypes before (since every "smart/charismatic" character was mainly a spellcaster of some sorts, which Yuyuko and Keine aren't). But Youmu is a TWF specialist with deep ties to nature, Cirno is an arrogant Ice Fairy, Alice is a spellbook mage, Reimu is a supernatural martial artist, Kanako is a goddess, and Komachi is still the boatman of the underground River. Is there already a boatman of the underground river  monster/class in D&D? Yes there is. Thus I will use it, instead of making up a whole new class based on your personal views of a character that's an unique being of its own species. Can't you even imagine that perhaps Komachi has levels besides the pure Maerroloth ones since that'll only fill some 11 of her levels?

And for all I care, you can outright ignore the Maerroloth class and stat up your Komachi expies as Lesser Aasimars/any other martial class 6/Paragon X/Saint Y/Whatever Z if you keep insisting she's the fairest being in existence.

Even Raineh Daze herself stated up Utusho by using the freaking Nuclear Dragon. Nobody complained at all when there was no nuclear hellish raven class for Divine Flame (but if I had done it I guess you would've complained that Utusho isn't either a raven or hellish either, so I guess I should've just made Komachi a plant with the living construct subtype and then you would all be happy. That's what I get from people who can't tell a Yugoloth from a daemon).

Also I have to ask you, where you live you're only considered a criminal if you somehow manage to prove you spend over 99% of your lifetime commiting crimes (aka that your life is an evil meadow)? Or do they actually take people to jail for finding a "single flower in a forest", aka finding a dead corpse inside your  house with your bloody fingerprints all over it, despite the other 99% of your life looking normal until now?

You don't need to kill every single person you find with a sadistic smile to be considered a cold blooded murderer. One or a dozen will do.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2013, 08:27:40 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #109 on: August 24, 2013, 08:27:20 PM »
Oh, so it's another class that's linked to the idea but is not actually meant to represent Komachi, it's just to give them more... interesting abilities, I guess? More understandable.

-Looks at the closest thing I've got to Utsuho.-

Anthromorphic Animal, Titanic Creature, Monster of Legend, and Warblade?

If I was JUST going to do Utsuho, it'd probably be AA, MoL, Warblade//God. Use Divine Salient Abilities to turn into bird.

Though I can't understand why anyone would complain that Utsuho's not a raven or hellish. She's a hell raven. And what else would the birds that attack you throughout Stage 6 be? @_@

Also, I have concluded that the Lunarians make elves look bad at being elves.

Also I have to ask you, where you live you're only considered a criminal if you somehow manage to prove you spend over 99% of your lifetime commiting crimes (aka that your life is an evil meadow)? Or do they actually take people to jail for finding a "single flower in a forest", aka finding a dead corpse inside your  house with your bloody fingerprints all over it, despite the other 99% of your life looking normal until now?

You don't need to kill every single person you find with a sadistic smile to be considered a cold blooded murderer. One or a dozen will do.

So series are automatically grimdark if there's the slightest, flimsiest piece of evidence they could possibly be? Not buying it. Especially not for Touhou. If ANY series is, it's probably not the one containing Hisoutensoku and Fairy Wars. :eh
« Last Edit: August 24, 2013, 08:31:30 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #110 on: August 24, 2013, 09:22:54 PM »
I'm usually pretty good at sorting out things. If it is just a shame issue though then I'll just respect that.

You using the monster that has nothing to do with a shinigami and any sort of grim reaper to be a monster class that features that martial discipline is quite alright, sure. As long as it isn't meant to represent Komachi in any way. Else you'd just end up with a worse representation than my ex-jiang shi.

Not sure about all the arguments on the good/evil alignment. Komachi in the Wild and Horned Hermit seemed like a pretty nice person. Even in presence of one of her kind's number one enemies she just stalks/watches over her to make sure that she ain't causing trouble among the humans and whatnot instead of reporting her to have one of hell's scary things sent at her. She knows where she lives but just lets her be as long as she keeps having a good influence. (While the wicked Seiga is actually being hunted down)
« Last Edit: August 24, 2013, 10:15:59 PM by Anomander »

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #111 on: August 27, 2013, 10:42:43 PM »
If that helps, I found something very close to the shinigamis of Touhou in pathfinder.

Psychopomp.
In particularly the Vanth kind, as far as Komachi is concerned since one of their main functions is to protect souls along the River of Souls. They even fit the whole Enma-Shinigami relationship and administration thing.

A more aggressive/evil kind of psychopomp-like creature are the grim reapers.

They are thematically more pertinent than Yugoloths, for sure. Plus, it would make it possible for Good and sorta good Neutral characters to use that discipline fully without being concerned about themselves funding and supporting the projects of evil outsiders. >_>
« Last Edit: August 27, 2013, 10:46:10 PM by Anomander »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #112 on: August 28, 2013, 07:25:50 AM »
The Vanth also have the other function of the non-Komachi Shinigami: dealing with things that won't die properly, such as immortals. :lmao

Though that's also specifically the job of the Morrigna.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2013, 07:28:34 AM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #113 on: August 28, 2013, 11:05:48 AM »
Yeah, but I got the impression that they were dealing with those only when the problem was on a large scale.
When instead of sending up to a squad of Morrigna they need more of a little army. That's when the guides, ferrymen and protector of the souls on their journey to their judgement gets to be called as footsoldiers.

But yeah. It's nice that the shinigami roles seem all there between the different psychopomps.
Then they have their badass soul-judges, the Yamarajes.  :bigeyes

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #114 on: August 28, 2013, 12:31:16 PM »
If that helps, I found something very close to the shinigamis of Touhou in pathfinder.

Psychopomp.
In particularly the Vanth kind, as far as Komachi is concerned since one of their main functions is to protect souls along the River of Souls. They even fit the whole Enma-Shinigami relationship and administration thing.

No money? No boat? No lazyness? No kicking souls into the river when they don't pay you up? Just no. Besides Yugoloths already have their own organizations and hierarchies.


The Vanth also have the other function of the non-Komachi Shinigami: dealing with things that won't die properly, such as immortals. :lmao

Though that's also specifically the job of the Morrigna.
Maruts already have that job in standard D&D. :eh


Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #115 on: August 28, 2013, 02:09:22 PM »
They DO have boats. They are ferrymen of the River of Souls.

So... Okay, you prefer to use the monster that has nothing to do with death-gods instead of the actual high-fidelity death gods just because of the money thing? The greek psychopomps got the mythos of giving coins on the eyes to pay the ferrymen and everything so it is also actually part of their gig (Charon is a psychopomp - after a quick wiki, it seems that the shinigami themselves ARE psychopomps. You don't get any closer than this)...
The compatibility of everything else is overwhelming compared to that one detail. I don't see the laziness in the Yugoloth, nor do I see it as particularly important anyway considering only Komachi is lazy (and then again, laziness in Touhou is a very popular trait), not the shinigamis as a whole.

Quote
Besides Yugoloths already have their own organizations and hierarchies.
Yes, and they don't fit at all.

You got a shinigami-like scythe-carrying ferrymen of the river of soul creature ripe to use that fits the shinigami organization in Touhou, and you'd rather use a ferryman fiend that is part of a fiendgroup that has NOTHING to do with death, guiding souls and sending them to their judgement. They don't even commonly carry scythes. Something feels very wrong.

As if you had already done some work on the Yugoloth creature and just don't want to hassle yourself with replacing the maneuver gains they'd get with something else, totally adamant in pairing them together even though they are a terrible fit.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2013, 10:05:35 PM by Anomander »

Offline ketaro

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #116 on: August 28, 2013, 03:13:42 PM »
I'm okay with os' choice instead of using those Psychopomps.
Because on principle, I hate Pathfinder  :cool

But that doesn't mean anything for this. >>

But then I don't see why it HAS to be Yugoloths if the only thing related to them is the fluff for the martial school. Unless you had some mechanics already in the works related to them? Otherwise all I see is the Outsider requirement for it...

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #117 on: August 28, 2013, 03:19:47 PM »
But then I don't see why it HAS to be Yugoloths if the only thing related to them is the fluff for the martial school. Unless you had some mechanics already in the works related to them? Otherwise all I see is the Outsider requirement for it...

The only thing the yugoloths seem to have that's relevant is that one type boats across the Styx.

The Maruts above do the shinigami's other duty of making the immortals die already.

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #118 on: August 28, 2013, 04:33:59 PM »
The Styx isn't the Sanzu river. It is similar but not the same.
The one trait that particularly seems to interest him is that they sometimes drive people into fiend ambushes along the way if they don't pay enough. Which is perhaps sorta like kicking them off the boat if they hesitate to pay everything.
Though I still don't see how that makes up for everything else that just doesn't work.
If they were the only option for a soul-boater available, maybe, and even then. Not the case.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2013, 07:12:30 PM by Anomander »

Offline TechyKat

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #119 on: August 29, 2013, 12:23:11 AM »
Hey, wanted to say that I really like the stuff on here. I am currently playing an Ancient Temple Warblade and it is really fun (even if my DM thinks I am a mite too strong  :P) and thanks for making it.

Would a Meiling School be appropriate do you think? There is a lot of stuff you can pilfer from EoSD, IaMP and Hisoutensoku for names and effects.

Also if I wanted to make a Meiling School would I just make a thread here or do I need posting rights and permissions?