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Old 02-01-2019, 10:05 AM   #1
Coinage
 
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Default Create Ashlar.

I was reading Infinite Worlds - Collegio Januari, and I noted the text on Ashlar. Is there a way to create an Ashlar?
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Old 02-01-2019, 10:12 AM   #2
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

I don't think there is, no - almost all worlds will already have an Ashlar, and those that don't are in constant temporal flux. I suppose if you managed to stabilize one of the latter, a new Ashlar would probably manifest, but I don't think you'd be "creating" it in that case. At best, if you deliberately stabilized it in a certain way, you might be able to reliably predict what object would become an Ashlar for the new timeline.
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Old 02-24-2019, 01:18 PM   #3
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

OK. So, is there a way to stabilize a timeline? Would it be in GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, or in Infinite Worlds?
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Old 02-25-2019, 05:21 AM   #4
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

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Originally Posted by Coinage View Post
OK. So, is there a way to stabilize a timeline? Would it be in GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, or in Infinite Worlds?
Infinite worlds talks about tampering with echoes on page 86. Tampering with the aim of producing a quantum effect on an alternate is on page 104. Both methods hinge on Expert Skill (Cliodynamics), described on page 182.
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Old 03-06-2019, 04:04 PM   #5
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

I see. How would I apply a Cliodynamics skill to alter a Timeline so as to change the ashlar? Looking at Infinite Worlds: Collegio Januari, I see that the game goes into detail that "[a]t the GM’s discretion, a critical success on both Thaumatology and Cliodynamics (Infinite Worlds, p, 182) might allow the magus to pinpoint the Ashlar of a given world.)" (p. 4). This would allow one to find an ashlar. The work also notes how if an ashlar were destroyed, then "the world becomes unhinged from the cosmic rhythms of time and space, its very reality shifting and melting. (See Reality Quakes in Infinite Worlds, pp. 75-77, for some discussion of the effect.)" (p. 4). However, the game doesn't go into detail as to how to replace a destroyed ashlar with a new one.

Does that mean that, after a Reality Quake, a new ashlar spontaneously appears? If so, would a successful skill roll, perhaps a critical success on both Thaumatology and Cliodynamics, allow one to predict, and possibly even influence, the emergence of a new ashlar?

If it is NOT the case that a new ashlar would automatically appear, then would some ritual be necessary to do make it do so?

Last edited by Coinage; 03-06-2019 at 04:51 PM.
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Old 03-06-2019, 06:05 PM   #6
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

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Originally Posted by Coinage View Post
Does that mean that, after a Reality Quake, a new ashlar spontaneously appears? If so, would a successful skill roll, perhaps a critical success on both Thaumatology and Cliodynamics, allow one to predict, and possibly even influence, the emergence of a new ashlar?

If it is NOT the case that a new ashlar would automatically appear, then would some ritual be necessary to do make it do so?

My read on the situation is that anything to do with creating/activating one will be individual to each world, and either very quick work or some preparation before the old one goes away--and good rolls on both skills--will be needed to save the place.

This also leads to the idea of an appropriate ritual on the existing Ashlar could stave off or reduce a Quake--or cause one.
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Old 03-06-2019, 06:15 PM   #7
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Default Re: Create Ashlar

Looking at the list of possible ashlar on p. 5 of IW: Collegio Januari, they're all things of symbolic importance to the history of the world.

So what you need to do to "create" an ashlar is to change history so that your chosen object becomes the ashlar. This requires a very comprehensive understanding of the current history and insight into how to change it. Critical successes on Cliodynamics, History and Thaumatology, plus actually executing the change in history, should do it.

The same approach should work on an unstable world, if you can do the change fast enough. That's going to be harder than for a stable world.
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Old 03-06-2019, 07:32 PM   #8
Coinage
 
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Default Re: Create Ashlar

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Looking at the list of possible ashlar on p. 5 of IW: Collegio Januari, they're all things of symbolic importance to the history of the world.

So what you need to do to "create" an ashlar is to change history so that your chosen object becomes the ashlar. This requires a very comprehensive understanding of the current history and insight into how to change it. Critical successes on Cliodynamics, History and Thaumatology, plus actually executing the change in history, should do it.

The same approach should work on an unstable world, if you can do the change fast enough. That's going to be harder than for a stable world.
Here's what I got, based on your reading. First, you have to get critical successes on Cliodynamics, History and Thaumatology, in order to determine a specific way of destroying the current ashlar and replacing another to one's own liking (maybe by making an object that one owns, or perhaps even oneself). Then, one has to trigger a Reality Quake in the way determined by the critical success.
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Old 03-07-2019, 01:25 AM   #9
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Default Re: Create Ashlar

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coinage View Post
First, you have to get critical successes on Cliodynamics, History and Thaumatology, in order to determine a specific way of destroying the current ashlar and replacing another to one's own liking (maybe by making an object that one owns, or perhaps even oneself).
I doubt that destroying the object that is the current ashlar is a good idea. It can still exist after the change, it just isn't the ashlar any more.

Thinking some more after sleeping, I don't think you can arrange for an arbitrary object to become the ashlar. It needs to be something of symbolic importance to the world's history. The easiest way to arrange that is to pick something that is already historically important and then tweak history to make it more important, in whatever specific way is necessary.

Trying to make yourself the ashlar looks like a bad idea. None of the examples are living, and the effects on the world of the death of a living ashlar are unknown and probably severe.
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Old 03-07-2019, 05:42 AM   #10
ericthered
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Default Re: Create Ashlar.

I personally would use large penalties instead of requiring critical successes. Somewhere between -6 and -14 should do the trick, depending on your settings power level.
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