Ezrah, Kitty of Wonder.

I was able to get through with a level 7 pc [on casual up to hard, haven't tried torment], singleton. Without using a single consumable... how I did it was amazingly cheap though x3 I killed the one on the first floor single file, snuck past the group with the scaled thrashers to the second floor... snuck round/killed the slime lizards [healing scarab + healing focus/shadow charm worked well when backed into a corner so only three at a time could hit me.] then... for the swarms of salamanders blocking the exit... I got within visual range of one... and went into combat mode... when it charged me I ran. It and its buddies chased me all the way back to the portcullis... at which point I quickly locked it, separated me from them for crowd control purposes... after that all I had to do is align myself behind it in such a way that it was a one on one exchange... and I killed them single file with missiles x3 it took a while, but netted me ALOT of xp, and the loot relatively early.

only -small- cats fear water :E

1. What is your name? Ezrah Karotan 2. How old are you? 28 3. Where do you live? California 4. What is your favorite color? Black/Red 5. How many phones do you own? 1 7. Wait, what happened to question six? Nothing, there never was a number six... -.- 8. Someone has just loaned you a time machine that can take you to any location on the planet during any time period. Where/when do you go? I like this time, maybe the future. 9. If you were forced to change your PDN to something completely unrelated to its current form and your original username, what would it be? Robert Oppenheimer, Destroyer of Worlds! 10. If you could transform at will into any living animal, what animal would it be? Panther >.> 11. It's ninja sliths versus pirate nephilim. Who should win? Nephilim, 110% -.-

The way I interpreted it is that magic in the geneforge theory is probably some sort of latent psionic ability that has to be honed, shaped and perfected through training... because it didn't seem like -everyone- was capable of even magic... within the geneforge world itself, everything seems to follow well defined laws of physics even if we don't know them, so I think that "magus" training is probably most concentration and technique to properly, and reliably, alter the forces acting upon, and properties of objects within the world around them. so far as shaping is concerned... it seemed to me that within the story shapers did what many here described... and then began experimenting on creations using various spells... so I have the feeling that whatever means magic functions through, its probably relatively similar to the electromagnetic force... and, in high enough dosages, would cause subtle or not so subtle alterations to its target if it didn't kill them outright... [it also mentions that the shapers have been around a -long- time, altering generation after generation of creatures, so it would make sense] Finally essence seems very much like primordial ooze, or at least a swirling maelstrom of charge amino acids and other "lifestuff" that they use to peice togeather their creatures... and has been shown to become unstable [very flammable, and quite explosive due to the magical charge in it] so far as essense cost in the game, thats a little more puzzling, but I like to think that everytime a shaper shapes something "on the fly" they leave a small part of themselves lodged inside of it... I doubt they can memorize the millions of codons necessary to form a creature... but they could encode the information into them selves for later extraction... perhaps there is a ritualistic portion to magi training that does the same with the complicated calculations required to achieve the desired spell effects... and the "burn up" a little bit of it [which the body would naturally replenish with time] each casting.

did it end in depravity and madness, I don't remember

everyone is out to get us, can't they just take "I don't know, yet?" for an answer?! ;.;

A real scientific agnostic knows there are very few real facts! Which makes me recall another conspiracy, the one by the militant atheist to make the empirically minded look like jackasses!

ohhh... you could eat still, but there would be no biological function... only pleasure, and you'd never get fat, because you're basically just a super-mind connected to an anchor! um... on second thoughts, I think my transcendent society would quickly degenerate into godlike depravity.

my own person pet conspiracy is the dischordian conspiracy... their goal is to sow confusion, and chaos, for it is the natural state of things... the way the world is, it looks like the corporate heads are all dischordians, passing down nonsensical edicts and orders... doing ineffectual, counterproductive, and counter intuitive things... however... this'd make far too much sense for any discordian, and would be far too expected... hence it becomes less likely... but is it...? the fact that I'm thinking this makes their plan to do nothing make as much sense as the plan to do something! And so the discordians sit, doing nothing, or something, obfuscating both their role, or whether they have a role at all... ah the inconclusiveness of it all, er, I mean the humanity.

Nope, I would turn everyone into some sort of horrifyingly advanced semiorganic entity that -barely- relied on its flesh at all. Ye Shall Be As Gods!

I would forcefully start the inevitable transcendance of man, PURIFY YOUR DNA UNTIL YOU SURPASS HUMANITY!

Last one I saw was one of the last NIN/JA shows... trent reznor ;.;

I'm liking a lot of the music that's being discussed, perhaps the instrumentalists could provide some sound recordings demonstrating their skills? I kind of envy those that can play... many of my friends and family members are musicians [my brother and one of my better friends, for example, are both guitarists.] my music taste often lead my friends to call me the "token emo" but, I'm post-punk/indie... there's a difference. ;3 Some other Bands I like: Gorillaz Damon Albarn did a GOOD job :3 The Arcade Fire Canadian indie band... I likes. MGMT - Poppy, upbeat, sometimes uplifting, and always eccentric, these kids are on drugs >.> Passion Pit - Poppy and upbeat again, most of it enjoyable, a few really good songs

I could put something more profound... or less random... but I though I'd just be annoyingly, sublimely, saccharine... x3 -Addendum- There are much more unpleasant ways to feel the love you know... :x

World building is an incredibly important part of story writing... But its a complex topic; in the end, everything is about immersion... a well written story should immerse you in the events, and the world of its creation... So fleshing out your world properly is tantamount... on the same token if the same care isn't taken with the character's personalities, motivations, and actions... the world that they live in tends to dissolve into a meaningless background of noise. Focus too much on one, and the other dissolves [unless your story is occurring in a very familiar setting to the reader, in which case its not that your world hasn't been flesh out, but that it already is, inside the communal unconscious of the readers.] I think the key is relevancy... its not good to heap tons of meaningless "Grand Historia" on your reader unnecessarily if its got nothing to do with the events that the plot focuses on... on the converse... an intricately woven plot often depends on the history of the world it occurs within. In my writing, I tend to have a philosophy of "The Protracted Revelation" the reader experiences the history of the world through the subject's consciousness... helps to keep it from becoming extraneous.