Chimera Game 'Verse @chimeraverse - Tumblr Blog

woman yelling at cat meme but make it ancient greek red figure pottery

From ancient to abstract, this one sure got around.

Japanese one made no sense to me until I finally saw the “sale sale/sasa lele” version. セール　セール。 But then it’s a meme so it has to be misspelled? 🤷‍♂️

everyone-loves-purple

tHERE ARE MEMES IN THOSE HIEROGLYPHICS

doydoune

*-*

some-stars

I just reblogged this but I wanna figure out what all the hieroglyphic memes are. I spy loss, galaxy brain, surprised pikachu, and “is this a pigeon?”…anyone else figured out the rest of them?

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions

Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

headspace-hotel

thinking again about TvTropes and how it’s genuinely such an amazing resource for learning the mechanics of storytelling, honestly more so than a lot of formally taught literature classes

reasons for this:

basically TvTropes breaks down stories mechanically, using a perspective that’s not…ABOUT mechanics. Another way I like to put it, is that it’s an inductive, instead of deductive, approach to analyzing storytelling.

like in a literature or writing class you’re learning the elements that are part of the basic functioning of a story, so, character, plot, setting, et cetera. You’re learning the things that make a story a story, and why. Like, you learn what setting is, what defines it, and work from there to what makes it effective, and the range of ways it can be effective.

here’s the thing, though: everyone has some intuitive understanding of how stories work. if we didn’t, we couldn’t…understand stories.

TvTropes’s approach is bottom-up instead of top-down: instead of trying to exhaustively explore the broad, general elements of story, it identifies very small, specific elements, and explores the absolute shit out of how they fit, what they do, where they go, how they work.

Every TvTropes article is basically, “Here is a piece of a story that is part of many different stories. You have probably seen it before, but if not, here is a list of stories that use it, where it is, and what it’s doing in those stories. Here are some things it does. Here is why it is functionally different than other, similar story pieces. Here is some background on its origins and how audiences respond to it.”

all of this is BRILLIANT for a lot of reasons. one of the major ones is that the site has long lists of media that utilizes any given trope, ranging from classic literature to cartoons to video games to advertisements. the Iliad and Adventure Time ARE different things, but they are MADE OF the same stuff. And being able to study dozens of examples of a trope in action teaches you to see the common thread in what the trope does and why its specific characteristics let it do that

I love TvTropes because a great, renowned work of literature and a shitty, derivative YA novel will appear on the same list, because they’re Made Of The Same Stuff. And breaking down that mental barrier between them is good on its own for developing a mechanical understanding of storytelling.

But also? I think one of the biggest blessings of TvTropes’s commitment to cataloguing examples of tropes regardless of their “merit” or literary value or whatever…is that we get to see the full range of effectiveness or ineffectiveness of storytelling tools. Like, this is how you see what makes one book good and another book crappy. Tropes are Tools, and when you observe how a master craftsman uses a tool vs. a novice, you can break down not only what the tool is most effective for but how it is best used.

In fact? There are trope pages devoted to what happens when storytelling tools just unilaterally fail. e.g. Narm is when creators intend something to be frightening, but audiences find it hilarious instead.

On that note, TvTropes is also great in that its analysis of stories is very grounded in authors, audiences, and culture; it’s not solely focused on in-story elements. A lot of the trope pages are categories for audience responses to tropes, or for real-world occurrences that affected the storytelling, or just the human failings that creep into storytelling and affect it, like Early Installment Weirdness. There are categories for censorship-driven storytelling decisions. There are “lineages” of tropes that show how storytelling has changed over time, and how audience responses change as culture changes. Tropes like Draco in Leather Pants or Narm are catalogued because the audience reaction to a story is as much a part of that story—the story of that story?—as the “canon.”

like, storytelling is inextricable from context. it’s inextricable from how big the writers’ budget was, and how accepting of homophobia the audience was, and what was acceptable to be shown on film at the time. Tropes beget other tropes, one trope is exchanged for another, they are all linked. A Dead Horse Trope becomes an Undead Horse Trope, and sometimes it was a Dead Unicorn Trope all along. What was this work responding to? And all works are responding to something, whether they know it or not

headspace-hotel

An incomplete list of really useful or interesting reads from TvTropes.

please note that yes many of these are concepts that exist elsewhere and a few are even taught in fiction writing classes but TvTropes just does an amazing job at displaying the range of things that can be done with them

legitimately so much of the terminology I use to talk about storytelling, and even think about it in my own head, i learned about from TvTropes

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Watsonian vs. Doylist

Trope Tropes, for all the ways tropes are used, deconstructed, subverted, and played with.

The Oldest Ones in the Book, which is basically my favorite thing on the entire Internet

Punk Punk, for -punk subgenres

Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism

The Weird Al Effect is a fun one

Chekhov’s Gun, Chekhov’s Boomerang, Chekhov’s Skill, and further variations

Law of Conservation of Detail

Law of Conservation of Normality

Anthropic Principle

Word of God, Death of the Author

Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness

Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness

Genre Savvy

Flashbacks and Chronology breaks down all the ways you can handle chronology in storytelling

Show, Don’t Tell is a very good breakdown of what is showing, what is telling, and how both can be used effectively.

Lampshade Hanging

Noodle Incident is just fun imo

Genre Title Grab Bag

Fridge Horror

Rule of Cool, and also Cool of Rule

The Smurfette Principle

The Hays Code - not a trope but a very good breakdown of how the Hays Code affected storytelling in film

this is just a really short list of examples I encourage people who write or otherwise create stories to browse around on this site it’s so useful

ofmd-alsaurus

obsessed with what Vico says about Rhys in this article lmaoooo

vivernt

failfemme

look: our neanderthal ancestors took care of the sick and disabled so if ur post-apocalyptic scenario is an excuse for eugenics, u are a bad person and literally have less compassion than a caveman

quetikal-deactivated20181219

Yes but they also when extinct which implies whatever they were doing at the time wasn’t fit for their environment.

anthrocentric

So, it’s been awhile since I took a human evolution course, so some of this might be a little out of date, but

1) Whether or not Neanderthals went extinct is still kind of up for debate, and seems to hinge largely on whether you think that Neanderthals are a H. Sapiens subspecies or not, which often seems like a mildly pointless argument to me since it’s largely a fight about which definition of “species” to use

2) Even if we argue that Neanderthals are our direct ancestors and never went extinct, several Neanderthal *traits* (like their noses and their forheads) *have* left the population. Care for the disabled is not one of them.

Saying “Neanderthals cared for their sick and injured and are now extinct, therefore care for the disabled is maladaptive” is like saying “Dodos are extinct therefore beaks are a terrible idea”

Statements about “less compassion than a caveman” still stand.

–Peter

kaijutegu

I teach human evolution to college students, so in addition to that, here’s what we know. There’s some citations (and footnotes) behind the cut, if you’re interested.

So Neanderthals aren’t our direct ancestor- more like a branch of the family tree that didn’t lead to us. Close cousins- close enough to breed- but they evolved outside of Africa about 400kya, while our species evolved in Africa about 200kya*. This is important because it means that altruism can’t possibly be a Neanderthal trait that left the population during the evolution into modern humans; we didn’t evolve from them, so it’s not like we can say “well, this was maladaptive in our ancestors.” This is a behavior you see in two temporally coexisting species (or subspecies), and I do mean two, because it wasn’t just Neanderthals practicing altruism. We did it too.

We have really good evidence that early Homo sapiens sapiens (i.e., us, just old) also took care of their injured, elderly, and disabled. At Cro-Magnon in France, a few individuals clearly suffered from traumatic injury and illness during their lives. Cro-Magnon 1 had a nasty infection in his face; his bones are pitted from it. Cro-Magnon 2, a female, had a partially healed skull fracture, and several of the others had fused neck vertebrae that had fused as a result of healed trauma; this kind of injury would make it impossible to hunt and uncomfortable to move. This kind of injury can be hard to survive today, even with modern medical care; the fact that the individuals at Cro-Magnon survived long enough for the bones to remodel and heal indicate that somebody was taking care of them. At Xujiayao, in northern China, there’s evidence of healed skull fractures (which would have had a rather long recovery time and needed care);

This evidence of altruism extends past injured adults, as well. One of the most compelling cases is at Qafzeh, which is in Israel. Here we see evidence of long-term care for a developmentally disabled child (as well as a child who had hydrocephaly and survived). Qafzeh 11, a 12-13 year old at time of death, suffered severe brain damage as a child. Endocasts (basically making a model of the inside of the skull, where the brain would be) show that the volume of the brain was much smaller than expected; likely the result of a growth delay due to traumatic brain injury. The patterns of development suggest that this injury occurred between the ages of 4 and 6. They very likely suffered from serious neurological problems; the areas of the brain that were injured are known to control psychomotricity. This means that the kid may have had a hard time controlling their eye movements, general body movement, keeping visual attention, performing specific tasks, and managing uncertainty; in addition, Broca’s area might also have been damaged, which likely would have affected the kid’s ability to speak. Long and short of it, without help, this kid wouldn’t have survived to age 12-13.

But they did. They lived, and they were loved. When they died, they were given a funeral- we know this based on body position and funeral offerings. Mortuary behavior was common among both Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens, and this burial was particularly interesting. The body was placed on its back, its legs extended and the arms crossed over the chest. Deer antlers were laid on the upper part of the chest; in the archaeological context, they were in close contact with the palmar side of the hand bones, meaning it’s likely that they were placed in the hands before burial. This points to Qafzeh 11 being valued by the community- why go to the effort for somebody you don’t care about? Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.

Keep reading

dumbrogan-deactivated20170831

“Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.”

Would you be alright with me borrowing your words when someone poses the above comments’ line of thought to me?

kaijutegu

Of course! (And feel free to use anything else in my anthropology tag.)

solarpunkcast

Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions

Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

aerequets

i cant remember/find the post, but there was one that was like “dramatic twiyor reveal except they instantly freak out about leaving anya alone” and. yeah. i agree

Dream/Dreamer

A spin off game that mirrors Chimera but is a different universe - or maybe a spin off where the Nomad failed to create the Keystone in time. Instead of the events of Chimera (the Primals willingly[/ish] spend their power on imbuing the Keystone so that reality can begin to re-solidify) the Primals wake up and leave, but the main character over the course of the game has managed to find/create/something enough ‘Dreamers’ to create self-contained realities where life continues on (dreambubbles, basically).

The main character wakes up with very little memory of their past - they distantly remember their father (handsome, kind, strong) and their mother (beautiful, graceful, a little sad) and they know their name, but they don’t know where they are or how they got there. They were found by.... someone...? in the aether near one of the cities (probably the forest city), and it’s assumed they had some sort of accident.

The world plot is that the Primals are waking up - basically the second part of Chimera. But there is no Keystone (or anyone going around convincing the Primals to sleep for another thousand years in order to imbue said Keystone) so instead the world is just falling apart even more than usual. As each primal wakes up, the wards of the city they’re closest to fail - and when the central Primal wakes the entire world will fade away. But people’s will still impacts the Aether, so if the MC can get enough people believing strongly enough in the way the world works, it is possible for people to live in the Aether and keep it intact even when the Primals leave.

The mechanic is that they are travelling from town to town as the Primals are waking up, and interacting with people and stuff. If they can get the townsfolk united about something, then when the Primal leaves the town will survive, and what they’re united about will inform what shape it takes. Picturing sort of a complex rpg/visual novel situation with maybe some sort of social interaction combat system? Alignment/personality tracking for the MC and faction tracking for each town (+ some inter-town faction aspects)

There’s two sorts of ‘united’ - united behind a person, who’s belief about the world will then shape the town, or united behind an idea, which will then shape the town. different people/ideas are easier/harder to unite the towns around. Split focus leads to a bad end for that town :( [maybe some special cases where split focus leads to its own ending, especially if it’s a person/idea split]

(SPOILER) The personal/character plot is about discovering the MCs past. The big reveal is that the MC is a Chimera. Their mother dreamed them; she was a girl from the forest city who felt trapped, but ended up falling in love and was going to settle down per expectations. But then her lover either died or dumped her, and she just vanished out into the wilds. Turns out she’s doing... fine is a strong word, but she’s still alive and around and kicking, but wandering alone in the Aether while feeling strong emotions is dangerous on many levels, and her habit of daydreaming is particularly tricky - her dream was so strong and so focused that MC was created.

The title is shortened from: “The Dream Becomes The Dreamer” which will get title dropped in the final... showdown...? with the central Primal in the Very Good End where not only were all of the towns saved, but then each town’s Dream was able to be reconciled into one unified World Dream.

Story Stats

stats that are affected by and effect the story, as opposed to the mechanics of gameplay. IE these stats are in the visual novel version too - they (probably) won’t be grind-able, and they (probably) won’t be directly viewable - you will be able to see the titles based off of them though.

They affect how different characters react to you, and what options you have some times.

FIGHT, MIND, SNEAK - those are the three stats. integers. relatively low? Significant story beats affect them.

Stronk = F > M, S Aggressive = F > M + S

Smort = M > F, S Nerd = M > F + S

Tricky = S > M, F Shifty = S > M + F

Straightforward = F == M > S

Clever = M == S > F

Streetsmart = F == S > M

Balanced = F == S == M

Travelling Poems

These are poems spoken by travelling caravans as they move between cities. Only three poems have been collected, two more remain to be transcribed.

Fire -> Metal (Chioso to Ferra)

Pass the boulder (keep your head)

Cross the dried-up riverbed.

Trade scrub for trees and sand for lead

For two more days this path you’ll tread.

Then up the hill and round the bend

The walls of Ferra lie dead ahead.

Metal -> Earth (Ferra to Chalkram)

Go down the hill from mountains tall,

Tomorrow through the trees you’ll crawl,

In two days pass the boulders small

In three the ancient crumbling wall,

Then hear the rumbling waterfall,

In five from Chalkram’s mighty hall.

Earth -> Water (Chalkram to Faspi)

Leave the horses to their hay,

Go ‘tween the trees - and do not stray!

Follow the river’s winding sway,

Smell the salty ocean spray,

Our welcome will be warm today,

The Faspi Ferry is on its way!

Cataclysm Game Mechanics

The base mechanic is a time base management game. Each act is 1 year - 4 seasons, 3 months each, 4 weeks each. Every week you decide what to focus on for that week. The basic options are:

1) train yourself - improve your stats, which are used for various skill checks 2) nurture a relationship - with either the guard/assassin or npcs you’ve met 3) gather resources - currency/items, used for investments 4) investigate/explore - the point and click stuff, potential to increase your stats, your relationships, and to get resources, as well as find clues for the various plots and subplots - but to less degree then dedicated training/nurturing/gathering.

Most weeks will also have some number of ‘special’ options - either unique for that week, or that month, or that season. For example, in the Fall you can assist with the harvest, which will get you resources and nurture your relationship with various members of your household.

You’ve got to do a mix of all of the things to get the Good end. If your relationships aren’t high enough with the guard/assassin then they will decide not to help you and you fail. If your stats aren’t high enough then you fail necessary skill checks. If you don’t have enough resources you can’t invest in necessary accomplishments. If you don’t ever explore then you can’t foil the plots of your enemies.

An additional mechanic is ‘Dream Time’ - for some resource which can be found fairly liberally through play, you have shared dreams with the guard and/or assassin, wherein you can train, nurture those relationships, and discover some clues. Dream time does not advance the game clock. Limiting access to dream time is part of what separates Normal mode and Hard mode.

In Easy mode the management game is essentially done away with. It becomes a pure virtual novel with point and click aspects - each week’s activity determined via a branching storyline. That way you can play the decision points without having to deal with the fiddly management stuff. However, this limits the number of ways to ‘win’ - it’s possible, for example, to just buy a victory if you focus entirely on maximizing your ability to invest with resources/skills/npc relationships. That’s not a possible end on ‘Easy’ because you are forced to do a fairly even spread of types of events.

There are 4 default endings: Bad - everyone blows up :( Eh - less people blow up, but life is Hard Good - even less people blow up, and the cities are saved (this is canon) Extra Good - No one blows up (not canon, as Chimera can’t happen)

In easy mode you can get Bad/Eh/Good - and after getting Extra Good on Hard mode you can get Extra Good on easy (before that the necessary option does not exist)

In normal mode you can get Bad/Eh/Good, and a bunch of more specific Eh/Good options that both increase/decrease the severity of the goodness/badness of the ending, or have additional flavor (such as the ‘buying victory’ option). After getting at least one Good option, Hard mode is unlocked. After getting Extra Good on Hard mode, you can get Extra Good on normal.

In hard mode you can get Bad/Eh/Good/Extra Good. There aren’t any more ending options than normal mode, but there are additional scenes/interactions you can unlock/get to that contain more meta backstory about the Prisms (Elder Color Gods), as well as just additional content about side characters and plots and such.

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions

Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

Cataclysm Game Overview

Cataclysm is the story of the mage, guard, and assassin who prevent the cataclysm from completely destroying the universe, though they’re unable to prevent it entirely. Play style wise it will be a combination visual-novel sim (think princess maker type) and point and click adventure game (a la broken age). The game will have 3 acts covering 3 years all 1:1.

Here’s the basic break down:

Intro - the game starts off with the Mage receiving her strongest and clearest portent of Doom yet. She knows that she must find the Guard and the Assassin if she is to have any hope of saving her world.

Act 1 - Gathering

In the first act, the player as the mage must find the guard and the assassin and convince them to help her. There is 100% a relationship meter, and romantic subplots for both of them. The romances are optional but the canon outcome is that all three characters are in a loving poly-triad.

There will also be other NPCs to recruit/form relationships with/invest in, and various opportunities to invest in - but fairly few that pay off in this act.

The first act also introduces the primary antagonists, the Time/Space mage family and the culmination of Act 1 is foiling an attack of some sort by them.

Intermission 1 - Another portent of Doom, details change based on game state. Potential to auto-bad end here if either of the guard/assassin were not recruited.

Act 2 - Preparing

In the second act, the player should focus on building up the resources they’ve gathered. Nurturing relationships, continuing to feed investments, pick which ways those investments turn.

There will be new NPCs to recruit/invest in - but which opportunities are available in Act 2 will almost entirely be based on/follow ups to opportunities pursued in Act 1.

The central conflict to Act 2 is of the mage becoming the head of her household - either being passed the mantel by her old grandmother, or ousting her old grandmother from the position.

Intermission 2 - Another portent of Doom, details change based on game state. Possibly no potential to auto-bad end? TBD

Act 3 - Weather the Storm

In the third act everything comes to a head. Very few new opportunities are available, maybe some final selections for how exactly investments pay off. This act is entirely focused on resolving the plot.

All of the investments/relationships the player has been putting time/resources into come to fruition - or are dropped. Some cases will have further choices to make about the exact form of payoff, but not all.

The central conflict of the act is the central conflict of the game - discovering the details of the Time/Space plot and maneuvering your resources into position to save the most people/prevent the most damage.

Finale - Bad: Everything Blows UP :( OK: Less things Blow Up Good: Less things Blow Up and the Cities are Protected (Canon) Extra Good: Nothing Blows Up! At least not on a world ending scale. The extra good ending is not canon (as it prevents the creation of the world of Chimera) and is only achievable in ‘Hard’ mode which is unlocked upon getting a ‘Good’ ending in Normal mode.

Magical Nulls

The ability to do magic is genetic. The strength of that ability is also genetic, as well as increasingly specific sub-abilities. One of the (creepy!) aspects of pre-cataclysm society was how the ruling families have bred themselves over thousands of years to consistently produce very strong mages with increasingly specific specializations. Because of how society was structured, even pre-Cataclysm almost everyone had some magical ability. How strong a persons magic was controlled how far they could reach a ley-line to draw magic power out to use, as well as how much magical power they could ‘hold’ in one go. Pre-Cataclysm this meant that control of the physical locations of ley lines was important politically, and that power levels mattered a lot. Different types of magic would also be harder/easier for different people to use and ley lines tended to be typed in various ways.

Post cataclysm the strength of someone's magic is almost irrelevant. Magical energy is what the wards keep out, an absurdly powerful mage could do minor magic inside the wards just from the ambient magical power, but it’s stupidly hard and it’s really easy to just go to the wards and hop over when you need to do spell casting (minus the whole. Dangers of the Aether and such). Outside the wards, the Aether is just all of the energy magical and otherwise of the reality that was destroyed. It doesn’t matter how little individual power a mage has, because there is so much free energy floating everywhere. “Strength of Will” - a catch all term that applies to any and all mental abilities - is what matters, and that’s not a simple have/have not trait.

That being said - there are a very few people who are ‘magical nulls’. They do not have the ability to interact with magic. This was just unfortunate in pre-cataclysm world, but in post-cataclysm world it gets interesting. Lacking the ability to interact with magic, they are actually significantly safer in the Aether than others. Their thoughts cannot accidentally manifest monsters or anything else the way that most people’s can. They also cannot ‘believe’ things into being the way most people can - so, trade offs. Some nulls are powerful enough that their presence actually enforces a certain amount of objective reality - they create an anti-magic field. Ill-formed Chimera cannot maintain shape around them for too long, magically created items will start to fall apart (unless they are of the absolute highest quality), enchantments will fail. Weak mages will be unable to work magic in the presence, even out in the Aether. Powerful enough nulls will cause even the geography of the Aether to firm up around them - if they travel from Plasiar to Chioso it always takes them the same amount of time/distance (this is not normal for everyone else).

Different cities have different rules/feel different things about magical nulls. On the one hand - they are hugely useful for trips into the Aether; having a strong null around makes things so much safer, and means that any food/materials gathered are guaranteed to be minimally Aether-touched. Faspi and Chioso both have communities of nulls which are well-respected and vital to the cities’ functioning. (Especially before Aether-crystals became cheap/common). However, strong nulls can also disrupt the behavior of the wards. Being magical in nature, the presence of a single strong null too close to the ward just makes it wobble a bit to get away from the null‘s presence. But research done in Plasiar suggests that a sufficient number of sufficiently strong nulls could actually bring down even a city’s wards entirely - a horrifying prospect. So some cities have laws exiling nulls - especially Chalkrum, ironically enough, given how frowned upon magic is. Though most nulls are never discovered - most people never go near their cities wards, and even out in the Aether only a strong null would be noticed - it’s quite possible for a weak null to go out into the Aether many times and never even realize their own null status.

Order of Mages

Where the Warriors Guild is an openly acknowledged organization with varying levels of significance in different places (think Girl Scouts) the Order of Mages is very much a secret society. A known secret society - more ‘Order of Freemasons‘ then ‘kill anyone who find out about us‘ secret society, but still. In some cities (Plasiar) everyone knows someone who everyone knows is probably a member (if they’re not a member themselves). In other cities (Chalkrum) the Order is completely unheard of by the average citizen, only scholars of the Old World would even possibly know about it.

The Order concerns itself with gathering and preserving knowledge about the Old World. From anthropological/historical knowledge to details about how magic and science were practiced, the Order of Mages collects and cares for it all. There are very few large scale activities organized by the Order of Mages - membership is so nebulous and networked that they’re almost impossible to organize - but there are semi-regular expeditions out into the shifting plains to seek new artifacts or knowledge of the Old World. These are typically (but not always) funded and run by members of the Order of Mages, and serve the additional purposes of allowing members to find each other, and recruitment.

Members of the Order identify each other via certain pass phrases, call and responses that seem innocuous unless you know the hidden meaning. There are also various symbols and iconography that is pretty common among members, but nothing that is required or a guarantee.

Boss Dungeons Pt. 2

In the second part of the game - when you’re going around trying to get the newly awakening Gods to empower the crystal against the annihilation of reality - the ‘easy‘ and ‘hard‘ methods flip. So it becomes:

Fire - Easy: Talk \ Eh: Sneak \ Hard: Fight Air - Easy: Fight \ Eh: Sneak \ Hard: Talk Water - Easy: Fight \ Eh: Talk \ Hard: Sneak Earth - Easy: Talk \ Eh: Fight \ Hard: Sneak Metal - Easy: Sneak \ Eh: Talk \ Hard: Fight Magic - Easy: Sneak \ Eh: Fight \ Hard: Talk

The God of Magic is hard to talk to because you have to have discovered the scraps of very difficult to find lore that even mentions what the Primordial Gods might be... a mini quest all on its own. The God of Air is hard to talk to because you have to have discovered much of the lore out there about the Old World - it’s made easier if you‘ve managed to be inducted into the Order of Mages.

The God of Water is hard to sneak up on because the entire dungeon is now almost entirely underwater. You have to have the ability to swim underwater for long periods of time - the longer the better. The God of Earth is hard to sneak up on because the entire dungeon is littered with solid walls - you have to be able to break or otherwise circumvent them.

The God of Metal and the God of Fire are just really really tough fights.

Boss Dungeons

Call to adventure is the first boss: The ‘None‘ type Dragon who gives you the crystal base which you have to grow in order to create a large and stable enough protective barrier for a whole city.

Then are the five elemental type Dragons which you have to Fight/Diplomacy/Sneak past in order to get their crystals to add into the base - this can happen in any order you choose, and ideally takes a couple of ‘years‘

After that is done, you found the city of New Brigendum. But shortly after the founding the ‘None‘ type Dragon lets you know (comes to you in a dream?) that an echo of the Cataclysm is coming - soon - to destroy the world. And that placing the completed crystal in the center of the matrix formed by the five cities was a good start, but it will not be enough to prevent complete annihilation. You need to go to each of the Dragons again and convince them to lend their power to the crystal to make it strong enough to resist destruction. But as the energy of the Cataclysm comes closer the Dragons are regaining their power and forms - and their old memories as Primordial Gods. They are probably going to not want to help you. The ‘None‘ type Dragon is also worried because it can feel it’s old memories waking up, and it gets the impression that it was... significantly less sane prior to most of its powers going dormant. It will likely be impossible/very difficult to get power from it, and you shouldn‘t attempt it until you have gained the support of the other five.

Mechanically speaking, the six dragons are all boss dungeons. There are three types of ways to succeed in your goal of getting the crystal shard - to fight and defeat the dragon, to convince the dragon to give it to you, or to sneak past the dragon and steal it. If you fight you get the shard and lots of exp from the boss fight. If you diplomacy you get the shard and some rare/unique item. If you sneak you get the shard and non-unique resources - gold or some such. Any of the bosses can be defeated using any of the methods, but each boss has a way that is easiest (the ‘correct’ way) and a way that is hardest (the ‘incorrect‘ way).

Fire - Easy: Fight / Eh: Sneak / Hard: Talk Air - Easy: Talk / Eh: Sneak / Hard: Fight Water - Easy: Sneak / Eh: Talk / Hard: Fight Earth - Easy: Sneak / Eh: Fight / Hard: Talk Metal - Easy: Fight / Eh: Talk / Hard: Sneak Magic (None) - Easy:Talk / Eh: Fight / Hard: Sneak

A rough rubric of what ‘Easy‘ ‘Eh‘ and ‘Hard‘ means is that ‘Easy‘ means that with no prior interaction with any part of the game world the character could do the thing; prior interaction might make it even easier, but its really not necessary. ‘Eh’ means that it‘s possible to do the thing without prior interaction with the game world, but it’s definitely easier if you’ve achieved some outside objective first. ‘Hard‘ means that it‘s only possible if you’ve achieved an outside objective. For example - the Air Dragon will attempt to engage you in a riddle contest - the riddles are totally solvable by the player just based off of... answering the riddle correctly. Riddle contests in games where you’re given a set list of possible responses are not difficult obstacles. However, the Air Dragon dungeon’s ‘sneak‘ path involves navigating over swaying pillars and delicate rope bridges. It’s totally possible to do without any outside assistance - but if you have a flying Chimera of sufficient size and strength to carry you then it’s MUCH easier. (and the longer you can Ride it the easier it becomes. A maxed out flier makes it trivial, where as a very basic ‘long jump‘ enabling flier makes it... easier). Another example - the Fire Dragon will automatically attack you when it sees you... unless you’ve completed a relatively long investigative process to become a member of the Warriors Guild, in which case you have the opportunity to enter into dialogue with it... but even in that dialogue most options lead back to fighting. Whereas the Water Dragon will give you the option to talk with it, and in that dialogue if you take exactly the right path you can just cold convince it, but if you’ve learned the right things out in the world by talking to people in towns and such then you can convince it much easier.

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions

Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

Design Principles

Chimera is on a meta level a Chimera. One part RPG, one part team building, one part tactical strategy, there are lots of ideas all mushed together. The ultimate desire is for a game that can be played a number of different, equally valid ways. Some of those ways will be easier than others, but ideally the challenges are such that different people find different routes to success to be different levels of difficulty :)

One of the key ways of thinking about these routes is the Warrior/Rogue/Mage trichotomy. In general, different problems will have a straight forward combat solution; an exploration focused tricky solution; and a character interaction/diplomacy solution. Some conflicts will purposefully be easier to solve using one approach over the other, and some will undoubtedly end up that way regardless of my intention.

For example, one of the five boss battles of the first half of the game is with the Fire Dragon. This encounter is designed to be a combat encounter. It is not a trivial combat encounter, but it is one without terribly high stakes - even at difficultly levels with player death, the Fire Dragon will not kill the player. There is a way to sneak in, it is moderately and if player death is enabled failure at various points in the ‘the floor is lava‘ puzzle will kill you. There is also a way to diplomatically avoid combat, but it requires completing a series of diplomatic challenges that are not obviously related before you ever get to the Fire Dragon, in order to unlock the relevant dialogue options. Failure sends you into combat - probably with the same lack of true danger as if you hadn’t attempted, but not guaranteed - it is possible to mess up diplomacy so much that you incite the Fire Dragon to deadly rage.

Compare to the Air Dragon - this boss has to practically be talked into fighting you. The dragon will suggest a riddle game, you can decline and instead fight it, but the default option is the game. The riddles are solvable (possibly simple! I don’t know you, maybe you‘re really good at riddles) without any prior action by the player - though exploration in the world will give you the answers to many of the riddles which will be signified in the dialogue selector if you have gotten that. Likewise, a high enough wisdom stat will cause meta hints to show up by the dialogue.

All the dragons have all three methods - and there are reasons to select one method over the others even beyond player preference. Combat is always simple and quite often the quickest option, the player will receive experience and crystal charge for success, and risks damage and/or death. Diplomacy always involves navigating dialogue trees, and often requires or is helped by prior exploration/diplomacy in seemingly unrelated parts of the game world - but successful diplomacy will gain the player rare resources, such as high leveled Aether Crystals, or unique items. Sneaking is often mechanically difficult - involving environment puzzles and possibly requiring certain terrain effecting Chimera abilities, the reward from sneaking is typically large amounts of common resources - lots of gold, or basic aether crystals for example.

Warriors Guild in Chimera

Members of the guild are identified by the shield they carry - simple and functional with a blue border. When two members of the guild meet unexpectedly it is customary for them to fight - the standard greeting is ‘Fight me!’. This fight can be avoided if either person throws down their shield. It is considered mildly embarrassing to be the party that throws down their shield, especially if someone does so consistently, but it’s also considered a mark of wisdom - especially if both people are around the same ‘power level‘. It’s considered wise to avoid a fight that has high probability of leaving both parties damaged. Though it is considered foolish to avoid a fight with a guild member who is significantly stronger than you - guild members are forbidden from seriously harming each other and it is the custom for greatly unequal fights to essentially be teaching spars.

The guild has roots that extend back to the Cataclysm itself. It’s essentially descended from the Guard of the Old World. As such, there are members in all five cities, especially in the various policing entities. But over half the members of the warriors guild are citizens of Chioso, due to the compatibility of the culture there with the tenants of the Guild.

In Chioso the easiest way to find out about the Warriors Guild is via an event in the marketplace. You come across two tough looking folks meeting in the busy market. They come to a start and the people around them - knowing something of what may be coming - begin to back off. They both size each other up, and then the older looking of the two shouts ‘Fight me!‘ as he drops into a ready stance. The younger looking one pauses another moment; evaluating the situation; before deliberately dropping their shield. They nod at each other, the shield is picked up and dusted off, and they continue on their way - lost in the crowd. You can question a nearby merchant about what just occurred, and they will tell you a little about the Warriors Guild.

Knowledge of the Warriors Guild opens up various conversational options with different people - every city has at least one person who is a member; they can be identified by the shield they carry (though in some cases it is quite subtle). The player can join the Warriors Guild. This causes some new interactions - you will begin being challenged by Guild members you meet - and the most significant is the alteration to the Fire Dragon. When you encounter the Fire Dragon, it exclaims ‘Fight Me!‘ and a fight begins - unless you are a member of the Warriors Guild, in which case you are given the option to drop your shield; opening up dialogue with the Dragon, where you have a slight possibility of diplomatically avoiding combat.

Trending Blogs

Last Seen Blogs

Chimera Game 'Verse