Before the knights start downvoting yes S4 is great, D4 Good. Blizz is wonderful the goats of everything.
I don't want to see any white, blue or yellow items. I don't want to see lucky hit chance and controlled impairment reduction or whatever. I want stuff that buffs my minions only. I don't want +ranks to Blood Surge. I don't want to see any items that have no greater affixes. I don't want to see 1 handed weapons, 2 handed scythes or boots with no movement speed.
Why can't I just tick a box to filter out what my build doesn't want??
Why are they so insistent in not having a god damn loot filter?? Literally every ARPG ever made has it. It's slowing the game down so much it is an ENORMOUS QOL that is just mind boggling how it's not there.

Main Principles: - Don't assign families who are busy with their burgage plots to busy tasks in specialized buildings. - You can quickly assign and unassign families from building to building using the pause button. - When you pause a building, the families working there will automatically become unassigned. - When you unpause a building (where you previously manually assigned some families), any unassigned families will immediately start working there. - If you want to use the same families for two jobs, make sure there are no unassigned families first. For example, if you want forager families to work as farmer families, assign all your unassigned families to the hitching post first. Pause the forager huts, and then unpause the farming house.
Seasonal Task Division: - Spring-Summer: Foraging (rich berry deposits can support more than three full forager huts). - Summer-Fall: Harvesting apple trees, farming, plowing, and sowing. - Fall-Winter: Timber, firewood, charcoal. - Winter-Spring: Plank production, raw materials (stone, iron ore, clay).
Burgage Plot Activities: - Chicken Coop: Harvested monthly. If food variety is insufficient, families will consume their own eggs to meet needs. Otherwise, eggs go to the granary. - Goat Shed: Products go straight to the tannery or storage house. - Veggie Plot: Needs plowing and sowing in the first year. Ensure families are unassigned to handle this properly. - Apple Plot: Does not require family labor to grow. Build the apple plot as soon as the burgage is constructed.
Artisans Tips: - Build a duplex for a cobbler if you have rich animal deposits. - Build a duplex for a joiner if you want to build an army. Add another duplex if you want to export shields. - Build two duplexes for a brewery and a bakery if you have fertile soil. - Build a duplex for a blacksmith if you want to build an army. Add another duplex if you want to export weapons. - Build up to four duplexes for a blacksmith if you take the armory development point to make helmets and chainmail.
Job Rotation: - Forager Families: Should live on passive burgage plots like chicken coops, goat sheds, or apple plots. They can work in forager huts during spring-summer and pause these buildings during fall-winter. Let them stay until winter ends to get grain instead of raw wheat or rye. - Farming Tips: Don't activate grain, wheat, or rye in your granary. Keep it in farmhouses so the windmill can directly take the grain from them. - Veggie Plot Families: Should avoid tedious tasks in industrial buildings, granaries, or storehouses. Assign them to apiaries and use them as woodcutters, lumberjacks, and charcoal burners during winter-spring. - Passive Burgage Plot Families: Assign them to industries, granaries, or storehouses and keep them there. - Apple Plot Families: Use them as builders, ox guides, or traders since they only harvest in the fall. - Burgage Plots without Extra Working Space: Are a waste despite aesthetics.
Additional Tips: - If your trader at the trading post or your worker at specialized buildings (forager, tannery, etc.) is having a stall, you likely lack storehouse workers. - This can cause problems because sometimes worker stalls are empty for seasonal goods. Ensure granaries and storehouses manage stalls to keep them properly supplied.

ACT 1. Sunday afternoon after visiting the local market two brothers wait for their train to arrive. If they were even a minute late, they knew their mother would surely scold them and scold the elder of the two far worse. The idea of another beating did not bother the elder brother; he had been through far worse just dealing with the brat and his attempted jailbreaks, though something did begin to make him painfully nauseous forcing him to feel pressured by the light breeze as if gravity had suddenly been increased tenfold. All his senses were heightening beyond anything he had thought possible.All around him he saw that the once energetic and hyperactive passengers had become little more than mannequins; their movements slowing to a standstill. They had all gone silent. The station was no longer filled with the cries of children or the gentle laughs of their parents. He had never heard such silence in such a crowded location. He did not feel panicked, nor did he feel a need to act for this silence was oddly comforting to him. However, the newly calm atmosphere would quickly be the source of a lifetime of suffering.His hand began to reach for his brother in an attempt to call his attention. Though in a moment of both unprecedented shock and exhaustion John shoved his younger brother onto the rails of an oncoming train. Local news would report the incident as nothing more than a tragic manic episode of a young sixteen-year-old. However, for John this single visceral instant in which all of his brother's bones were instantly crushed was stretched into hours. He was painfully aware of how every bone in his brother's body contorted in inhuman ways some nearly resembling perfect right angles, until eventually, they snapped and sent insurmountable pain throughout his nervous system. His blood curling screams were made mute by the screech of the train coming to a halt, though, by the time they stopped, his brother had torn his every vocal cord and had long ago lost consciousness. Still on the platform, the elder brother stood still, attempting to process what exactly he had done. He had no idea what force had compelled him to push his brother, but that instant would forever define what he saw as reality.That however was nineteen years ago, in present day he lived in isolation far from any person. He spent his isolated days wandering the land around his cabin completing house chores that distracted him from reminiscing about his days in the asylum or as he liked to call it “The Echo Room” where he was transferred after the incident. He headed inside after spending a portion of his morning counting all one-hundred-and-thirty-two trees that were showing signs of life after the harsh winter that nearly forced him to cut down two of them for firewood. Once inside he began preparing his morning coffee when he heard a loud creak come from the hall. He (after many incidents) learnt to avoid the boards that creaked, so in his mind immediately an intruder was breaking into his cabin searching for food or his stash of special edition coffee. Deciding to investigate he walked towards the noise when suddenly he heard two knocks at his front door. Confused and slightly worried, he proceeded to walk towards the door making sure not to step on any of the annoyingly loud floorboards.He approached and looked through the peephole and saw only what remained of the melting snow outside. Opening the door, he saw that only his steps led to the doormat. He glanced around and saw no indication of any life aside a few dark patches on the snow. He was about to close the door when he noticed a tiny red package wrapped in a radiant red bow placed clear from where the door would open. Cautiously picking it up, he noticed how it had almost no weight to it; as if empty. He walked inside and sat at his desk planning to journal later about the weird morning he had been having. He examined the exterior of the package and saw how not only was it near perfect condition but it was also slightly warm to the touch; as if recently held. He undid the bow and cautiously opened the package, half expecting an explosive of some sort. Though, all he found was a ragged ripped piece of paper. Unremarkable aside from the fact that it was inside such a carefully constructed package. On the other side he saw that it had some scarlet lettering inscribed into it reading.“Ouroboros”. At first believing it to be a prank by the kids who had heard rumors about him, and his incident, nearly caused him to dismiss it entirely deeming it little more than a slightly humorous event. He decided to put it aside for now as he had coffee left to drink that was quickly getting cold. He walked back towards the kitchen still distracted by the idea of no trace being left by whoever had left the gift. Was it even a gift? Maybe it was just some well-executed prank? In any manner he would later have a better look at it. He absentmindedly, reached for his cup and immediately pulled his hand back shocked by the temperature of the cup. It was frozen! Almost to a complete solid. He thought himself slightly distracted but not enough to freeze his morning coffee especially not his special edition coffee. First The Box and now this, it was all adding up to an annoying morning. Was it still morning? No, that’s not right. He had just spent the day counting trees. How could it still possibly be morning?The thought of Dr. Lumis being correct about his mental condition after so many years sent a chill down his spine especially since last time they talked, he did not exactly behave amicably. He was sure that both incidents had been isolated events that could never happen again. Sure, he had heard the echoes every once in a while, but he was never insane like the others; this he knew to be a fact. If he was insane, how could he have ever left? Disoriented and beginning to sweat, his legs suddenly gave out causing him to fall backward landing on the cold wooden floorboards. He looked around hurriedly expecting to see an intruder that had somehow found him. After seeing nothing but his pristine furniture, he steadied himself and began to control his breathing. He slowly got up causing the wood underneath to creak under the sudden release of weight. Deciding to further assure himself he went around the cabin checking in all four rooms. He found nothing aside from his own disturbances. Still feeling slightly nervous and disturbed he headed back towards the living room in search for The Box with the red bow determining that it had somehow triggered his current situation. The Box was still where he placed it; much to his relief. He sat down. He looked once again at the scarlet lettering.
Act 2. Back in the asylum he would often spend his days wondering how he could have ever been grouped alongside individuals who had purposefully and viciously committed heinous crimes against innocent victims. He was not insane like them. Whatever had caused his hand to shove his brother had long abandoned him. His routine now consisted of cleaning whatever mess the older residents made in the halls and transporting lab waste to the crematorium. He would clean from the southern stalls all the way to the northern cemetery and make his rounds gathering the waste from the rooms. It was a simple job but lonely, nonetheless. The halls were often only illuminated by tiny flickering red lights that indicated the position of the cameras through which Dr.Lumis would often monitor John during his nightly crusades. Though incredibly distasteful, John did not mind, he accepted that odd situations would be easier to explain if someone of credit had seen them. Yet despite this, he felt he was being watched by someone other than the doctor. He assumed that this feeling was due to the paranoia he had been diagnosed with a few months back. On a particular night, moments after dumping another bag of soft solids and dense liquids down the chute, he heard footsteps, just outside the room. Expecting to see the doctor he begrudgingly walked towards the door. Exiting and seeing no one he called out for the doctor but got no response aside from the echo of his own voice. He began to walk towards where he had heard the footsteps come from when he suddenly collapsed out of exhaustion. The same exhaustion that had plagued him during the moment of his brother’s death. He tried to reach for his panic button (a gift from Lumis) but it had disappeared from his chain. He tried to scream but not a single whisper was heard. He gazed into the dark corridor where he had thought Dr.Lumis had gone, but saw nothing but soft shadows. Though something was unnervingly wrong about them. They moved as if following an order, all synchronized, all heading towards him. That night in the asylum had left him scared to even return to the disposal area; he feared that The Shadows might eventually be able to reach him. The Shadows did not haunt him unaccompanied: they followed alongside The Echo tormenting his nights. While The Shadows could not reach him during daylight, he could never escape The Echo. It followed wherever he went and tracked everything he did. Dr.Lumis explained that he merely suffered from an extreme case paranoia but John saw the others; who yelled and who screamed true nonsense, he was perfectly aware of himself and the ones around him. Dr. Lumis secretly believed patient #132 experienced Hyper-sanity though this he would never verbally confess. It was term he decided would for now adequately describe his patient’s acute awareness of The Shadows and The Echo. John would for many years go without hearing The Echo after that night, only ever hearing what seemed like the final moans of a dying voice. Back in present day, he hoped he wasn’t suffering another hallucination as they tended to leave him in an embarrassing shocked state. He questioned what “Ouroboros” could possibly mean in relation to himself. He considered the possibility of it being an early warning of some threat to the sanctity of his home. He quickly dismissed it as he had not interacted with anyone long enough to possibly annoy them. Weird them out? Sure. Offend them? Maybe with his sense of fashion. Following his incredibly fine-tuned survival instincts he put on a light coat and went outside to walk among the trees. A mundane task, but one he truly enjoyed especially since he hoped it would distract him for a short while. Just before he closed the door behind him, he took one more look at The Box sitting on his desk and decided to take it with him in case he met the person who had left it. The sun had begun to set marking the end of the day. He watched the sun hide behind the mountain range letting the world bathe in darkness for another night. John did not dislike the night (he had worked nightshifts in The Echo Room for years) but he didn’t find the freezing cold to be ideal. He had not left his land for what was a few years now and the idea of even slightly stepping out of his comfort was making him incredibly anxious. Still, he walked forward towards wherever the path took him. The night only got darker and quieter, and he only got colder. He did not see the lightning bugs that usually warded away the dark near the edge of his hill. Without the soft hum of bugs or soft breeze that would brush against his beard he felt alone. Even the nights back in the asylum did not possess this level of quiet. He kept moving hoping that eventually he would find something that could break the uncomfortable silence. As he continued down the hill, he realized he could no longer distinguish the path from the dirt surrounding it. He considered heading back when he realized he had not kept track of where he had come from. Not only was he lost but alone with his thoughts and whatever had been watching him from the start. He walked a step forward and then another one back repeatedly. What he was attempting to achieve was beyond reason. Had he gone mad? No, he was perfectly sane. “Wait, I can hear them clearly now” he spoke, his voice dried from the cold.“This is not a hallucination” he spoke softly.“i-I AM NOT HALLUCINATING” he proclaimed. He heard The Echo once more though they were not of his voice but rather of Another. He had long been aware of “The Echo” but he could never fully determine whether it was a dream or an effect of the chemicals but this Other was undoubtedly real. “I don’t know where you are but please. Are you real?” he asked the night. He could now hear The Echo or rather feel the pressure of its words upon his reality. Had it been trying to hide the Other? He walked forward and pulled out The Box. “You gave me this right? What for? What purpose does it serve?” No one responded.Annoyed, he threw it as far as he could down the hill. “THERE! THIS CAN’T CONTINUE WITHOUT IT, RIGHT?” He shouted at the endless empty. That’s when out of the darkness emerged a faint light. Was it a lightning bug or maybe a sign of civilization?
Act 3. Cautiously, he approached the cold light and saw that the light was artificial. The tube inside flickered before another appeared a few feet ahead, and then another and then another and then what seemed like an uncountable amount more. He took a step forward and noticed that the ground underneath had turned to hard white tile. Accepting that this was not the weirdest occurrence that had affected him he proceeded to walk forward making sure to keep a mental note to journal about it later. The surrounding landscape transformed into white walls that every so often had a window that let him peek at the other side. At first, he could still see the snowy landscape, but it to slowly changed; first having scattered papers and then chairs, cabinets, and desks until they eventually resembled a typical office. Its purpose was not obvious to him, and neither was the hallway but if they were changing surely, it possessed a deeper metaphorical meaning that related to his life. He saw a door at the very end of the hall and decided to not postpone the ploy of whatever “The Echo” was planning. He stood before the door wondering about what it could possibly contain. John proceeded to open the door. Inside was a desk along with a single cabinet. Walking inside he noticed that the room was illuminated by some otherworldly source that had no words that could possibly describe it. He walked towards the desk and a file he had not seen previously, sat open. Inside was a description of his physical appearance. “Age: 35. Height: 5’8. Weight: 185 lbs. Hair: Black with obvious signs of stress. Eyes: Brown. Character Aptitude: High.” “Okay, I get it. I’m old, you didn’t have to expose my hair like that” he said slightly embarrassed quickly restyling his hair. He noticed that even though they had an almost perfect description of his hobbies, dreams and wishes they did not have a single picture as if they for some reason were only able to use words. “SOOO you know about that one time in the asylum (don’t ask) BUT NOT A SINGLE PICTURE? That’s lame.” he said mockingly. On the final page he found what looked like an incomplete file; most of the personal attributes had not yet been filled and only a note was made reading. “They don’t need a complete story just one they can understand.” Besides the fact that whatever role he played in this act had been a mere afterthought; he was confused as to how anyone could have ever gathered such sensitive and personal information about his isolated life. Was it The Echo? Had it told them his life? A phone started to ring somewhere in the room abruptly breaking the silence he had become used to. He quickly rotated towards the source of the ringing but did not find anything. There was only him and the four walls that despite the lighting did not change a shade of grey. He walked towards one of them that seemed to be where the noise came from resting his hand on it and gently put his ear to it thinking that the ringing was from another room entirely. The wall he had just laid a hand on had no longer a physical representation and causing John to fall through to the other side. Disoriented he slowly looked up and saw The Telephone illuminated by what seemed to be the same light that illuminated the previous room. This one however was far more powerful and concentrated solely on The Telephone. He approached it expecting a chasm to somehow appear underneath his feet. The Telephone did not stop ringing and only seemed to increase in intensity (though this could have simply been a hallucination). He lifted it to cut the blaring noise and slowly put it to his ear. “hello?” “…” “…” “The protagonist only dies if the story ends” the voice said quietly. “HUH? YOU DRAGGED ME HERE TO TELL ME THAT OMINOUSLY ANNOYING LOAD OF *********!” “…I’m so sorry” The call disconnected not out of offense but rather out of completion. John slammed the phone back onto its stand and decided it was time for this nonsense to end. He walked out into the room he was in before anxiously attempting to find another exit: only to be met with solid walls. What wicked game had he been roped into? When would it end? These were questions he would answer far earlier than he expected. A door appeared in the center of the room. No, it was more of a two-dimensional plane that appeared to be a sort of portal. With no other options, John stepped into the newly opened portal.
Act 4. On the other side was a station, and his ears were immediately flooded with the cries of children and the laughs of their parents. He walked around moving through the crowd careful to not miss any indication of the location. His pace increased as he began to recognize the commuters shortly realizing exactly where he was. He rushed to a platform, the platform where he and his brother were to arrive after their day in the market. He sat on a nearby bench committed to saving his brother no matter who he would have to shove instead. Three agonizing days passed with the daily commuters repeating their routine with the slightest variations. One of these variations would be the key to preventing the day that haunted his nights. Something would soon cause him to shove his brother onto the tracks. He was determined to stop the fall or kill himself to keep his brother safe.He heard a familiar laughter and turned towards the source and saw his brothers face uncontrollably laughing and himself lightly smiling. He began to run towards them but felt once again suddenly exhausted. As if the air became a type of nonnewtonian sludge making his legs impossibly heavy. The crowd around him seemed to be moving just as easily as before; children laughing just as maniacally and just as carelessly. He tried to yell to them, but his lungs were filled with the dense fluid drowning any screams he attempted. He was forced to watch how his brother got closer and closer to the edge. Through much effort, he managed to get close enough to extend a hand towards his past trying to desperately push him away from his brother. The past reacted in what seemed to be a defensive system and sent a temporal anomaly throughout the space his past and present inhabited. Time began to exponentially speed forward. In a last desperate attempt to prevent his brother’s death he tried to distract the past long enough to let the train pass without incident, but the temporal anomaly caused the relative slow velocity of his touch to have the effect of a sudden jerk and in his final moments of consciousness he saw his brother accelerate towards the rails in a split second. He awoke back in the office alone with nothing, but the realization of what force had killed his brother. He curled into the fetal position and began to cry; still believing his lungs to be filled with the dense liquid he did not let out a single sigh. He spent several hours in this state of painful silence without even opening his eyes. His emotions were chaotic and his thoughts unending. They tormented him for hours far after he had run out of tears to let out. They were merciless and torturous forbidding him from resting, insisting on his suffering. Being the cause of his brother’s death nearly caused him to go insane yet part of him kept insisting that Another was to blame. Another had caused him to do it. The Other had forced his hand. Of this, he was now sure. The Other enjoyed his suffering, The Other forced him to kill his brother. He had not eaten nor slept in what seemed like years and yet he stood up defying the gravity that held him down. He took a deep breath of as much oxygen as his lungs allowed and began to speak. “Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Wherever you are. Just know I will no longer play for your entertainment the rest is entirely my choice” he said threateningly. He then began to walk forwards confidently towards the dark wall and through the hidden door that he was not supposed to see. He entered what seemed to be a studio room though, unlike the sterile office; it was trashed. Papers littered the floor and empty bottles populated the lone mattress. On it laid a journal that had recently had liquid spilt on it. He picked the journal and gently opened it and began to read. It was scratched with the stray ideas of a creator who seemed to have never decided upon an end or beginning to his story; yet possessing the journey. He saw many ideas that together seemed to create a way for the continuity to depend entirely on Another rather than itself. A thought described in a single word interested him enough to take it with him. The room started to dissolve around him transforming into a cold landscape. Armed with the knowledge of who he was he treaded what remained of the worn-out path. The sun began to rise signing the start of another day, yet John did not seem to notice as he was focused on something buried in the snow. He could not see much of it yet he knew it was The Box he had thrown the previous night. He dug it up and began his walk up the hill once more. He eventually arrived at his cabin and walked towards his front door….
Act 5.
If you wish to rebel; continue reading on the next page.
Begin the story once more on Truth 2.
If you wish to ward away The Other; don’t read any further
If you wish to follow The Echo read Truth 3
To understand turn to Truth 4
Truth 1
…Before deciding that no longer would he be a puppet for someone’s amusement. John arrogantly began marched back down the hill and headed north towards the nearest interstate a few miles from his home hoping that he had derailed The Echo’s plot. It took him hours on foot, but he would eventually come across the road and start his journey back to civilization no longer subject to the whims of an Otherworldly Audience. He believed his future was now his to decide. He decided what he would become. He decided when and what to think. This he was sure would be how he escaped his torment. John suddenly suffered a complete body collapse and fell forward landing face first onto the scorching road. It would be several sweltering hours before anyone would find him. But eventually someone did, john suffering heavy burns and on the brink of death was saved. He would awake months later in a hospital bed though no one would ever know of this. Weeks would pass as john laid in the hospital bed unable to speak or even move; alerting no one to his consciousness. The doctors and nurses were busy with whatever important patients needed immediate attention; they walked from one end to the other in what seemed like mere minutes. The entire time the only company he had was The Echo and yet slowly it too seemed to forget his existence as well. Eventually The Echo having no interest went away.Jane a third-year medical student had recently joined the staff a month prior and had already been assigned two elders and one child. Though overwhelmed she did not grow annoyed nor frustrated; she loved her job and by proxy her patients. Despite her benevolent nature there was a single patient she never went near as he always seemed to be watching her despite his eyes being shut for over four months. Any time she got near to patient #132 she would begin to get nauseous and quickly retreat. She had no ID on the man, but it seemed he was dehydrated for far longer than should’ve been possible and should be by all accounts dead if not near it. Whenever she worked nightshifts, she would swear that she heard the man whimper slightly as if to warn her of something. Even when she was on the opposite side of the building, she would hear the echo of his groans. She would eventually be transferred and would soon forget the man who after 6 months was officially declared braindead and was due to be disposed of, yet she would still every once in a while, still hear The Echo. Forgotten Ending
Truth 2…Realizing that there was no other choice John took a step forward while placing the note he ripped from the journal into The Box making sure to keep it neatly packaged. He saw the footprints he had left two nights before and carefully stepped into each one making sure to not disturb the surrounding snow. Whatever…Whoever had set him on this path allowed him to live a life of suffering, a life of loss, and a life of pain. This, he felt was the way things were intended to play out; the way it had to end. He placed The Box on the final step making sure it would not be knocked away whenever the door would eventually open. He walked away nearly to the edge of the property when he looked back once more. Managing to peek inside he saw his past still making his coffee when he saw an almost invisible distortion appear near the front door. He smiled and turned away only saying…Freedom ending
Truth 3…though spotting a disturbance near the back of the cabin distracted him from the front door. He decided to investigate for fear of losing a single blossoming tree. Arriving near the back fence he saw no indication of a disturbance giving him much needed reassurance. He heard noise emerge from inside the cabin giving him one more dilemma to deal with. He headed to the backdoor making sure to not disturb the recent snow and entered the cabin. Being sleep deprived and without coffee he had forgotten about the wooden floor and stepped on one that caused a creak to be heard throughout the cabin. He quickly hid in the bathroom fearing that he had disturbed the continuity that The Echo had established when suddenly a bright flash blinded him. He found himself at the front door next to The Box. Slightly amused he proceeded to knock on the door and was soon after transported once more to an empty hall. Both confused and entertained as he was being transported from one place in time to another he took a few steps forward alerting the past to his presence. Seeing his past enter the hall he ducked and quickly hid around the corner. His past seemed to believe that the doctor was in the halls and decided to investigate though just as he was nearing closer; his past collapsed. John saw how his fall was slowed as if moving through the dense liquid he had once gone through. He walked towards his past and noticed an old fashioned panic button that would instantly call Dr.Lumis to his location. Measuring the consequences, he decided to remove the panic button and head back towards The Shadows. For a third and final time he was transported to a final location, the bottom of a snowy hill. Taking in his surroundings he noticed burn marks on the snow where his past would eventually walk through the portal whenever the past caught up. He reached into his pocket and realized how the plot was supposed to move forward. He walked until he reached the exact point where his past would once again find The Box. He kneeled and buried The Box making sure to erase any evidence of his own disturbances. Fully fulfilling his purpose John collapsed. The End.
“Did the hero die?” “What?” “Did he die?” “No? He beat the bad guy and saved the day remember?” “Yea but like AFTER.” “Well, I guess after a few years he would.” “No” The young child said growing annoyed, “when you said, “The End” did he die?” “No.” responded the elder brother. “Then what happened to him? Is he still alive?” “The protagonist only dies if you stop reading.” concluded the elder brother as if possessed. Begin again?
Truth 4…Then just as he took his first step forward everything began to rot. His trees, his home, his coffee, all of it was slowly eroding into a fine dust. He knew that another temporal anomaly would be the likely cause, but he had not yet experienced one that possessed this level of molecular destruction. The fabric of his reality was slowly and thoroughly being untangled into its most simple of compositions. It separated the light from dark, gravity from time, and words from spaces.John could now comprehend what had defined his reality for so many painful years, he finally understood The Narrative and how all possible endings had been chosen long before his creation. John had been a slave from the moment The Narrative began; not once in his entire existence had he ever had a real choice only walking paths already treaded by Another. He was nothing but a plot device in an otherwise self-indulging tale written by a gentle master forced to be cruel for those above. From the moment this story began, John was in pain. He could never hope to truly escape; he could only die until he arose once more. Had John never understood what his life really was then maybe he could’ve found meaning in his suffering. Unfortunately, this choice has now forced John to become aware of how truly meaningless his existence was. His life was little more than entertainment for The Other; they were the ones truly in control. For as long as The Other remained, The Echo would doom John to eternal suffering. The Echo was never in control of The Narrative; he too was merely a subject to it by an even greater force. The Echo did not wish for John to suffer but The Other would not allow John to live if he did not. It is a toxic cycle of pain, suffering and realization that forces John to relive The Narrative lifetime after lifetime. The Narrative must have suffering intertwined into its foundation otherwise The Other would grow bored and erase the reality ending John in but a mere thought. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? This is reality; John cannot exist without pain, The Echo cannot live without a narrative, and The Other is you. THE END......
Intended to be a philosophical narrative detailing the tragic relationship between the reader, the narrator, and the character and how they cannot coexist without hurting each other.

Squad. It’s time, can we as a community rally around a Cats & Dogs refresh?
For everyone who has pets, probably feel the same as me. The cats & dogs pack leaves so much to be desired. Especially with all of the new packs, some integration is in order. I would love to get the community talking about this ❤️
Here are some of my thoughts for a cats & dogs refresh. Let me know some of your ideas and how you would feel about a cats & dogs refresh
Cats & Dogs Refresh Ideas
Gameplay

• Click on pets to and view sim profiles, inventory, family tree, skills, etc. Not quite fully playable, but I would like to see their sims panels
• cats/dogs training tricks have a skill bar (for each or lumped together, and skills for hunting, and obedience)
• dogs sleep in bed with you if there is an open slot (and a training option to ask them to not jump on the bed)
• ⁠pet competitions for pets to compete and earn an income, rabbit hole that gives random ribbons and prizes. Pet training skill for both sim and pet impact performance
• go look for dog interaction where sims go into rabbit hole and have a 10% chance of finding them
• add fear training, to help them get over fears (see fears in pet sim profile as a train, like human sims fears) and maybe a new fear or two like separation
• ⁠ increase pool autonomy and more dog pool interactions (like lay on a pool floatie and fetch)
• ⁠train puppies, simple commands like sit, lay down, and stay
• ⁠allow kids to walk the dog
• walk 2 dogs at once per sim (either a double leash or one in each hand)
• walk dogs together interaction where multiple sims walk multiple dogs together, like a hike from snowy escape. Also I haven’t used the hike interaction much but if you can’t bring dogs, update allows you to bring dogs on a hike
• pets autonomously interact with each other more, I want to see them cuddle and play and sniff and clean each other, be silly together (I would LOVE if dogs could reject these too! Like when you give a cautious greeting - based on traits)

New Gameplay Objects

• a mental stimulation toy, something to decrease pet energy and increase fun and skills (lots of options: puzzle toys, snuffle toys, lick mats, a kong)
• bones! A consumable item for pets (mostly dogs) that they chew with the same effects as a mental stimulation toy, thibk bully stick, dried yak (llama) cheese, a classic bone, etc.
• cat shelves, a set of shelves (not modular) that cats can climb on
• crate for each size, for smaller size it could also be a carrying crate used for training and as a bed

BUILD / BUY

• slow feeder pet bowl (no effect needed)
• more dog beds! Especially for large breeds, the bends in game are way too big and need more styles
• more toy bin styles, like a wicker or fabric basket
• a new cat tree
• a new scratching post
• a new version of the existing agility course objects

CAS

• a new harness, less bulky
• a matching pj set to the basegame pjs

Traits

• Loves water: loves baths, autonomously plays in puddles, jumps in the pool, plays in the pool and ponds, plays in the rain
• Protector: autonomously sits and lays down by the door and “guards”, growls at strangers (ugh if only we had burglars), “guards” other pets, autonomously walks around to survey property and protect

Other - ⁠looooots of tuning, lower chance of sickness, get dirty slower, lower chance of running away, play with other pets more (depending on traits)
Cross Pack Compatibility - Knittable clothing for cats and dogs (Nifty Knitting) - cats & dogs included in family dynamics, I would love to see this, it may be #1 on my wish list (Growing Together) - “guards” chickens, horses, goats/sheep from foxes or other intruders (Cottage Living & Horse Ranch)
If you read this far you are a real hero! I don’t expect this much in a refresh, but dang this would impact my game in so many ways! I would even buy this pack again to see these features added.
Thoughts?

I've put a good few hours into this game and I still feel like I've barely improved any on understanding how things are working. The following are a few bulletin points of points that I'd like greater clarification on.

• Rebels of a puppet you're attempting to annex , you win the war but the rebels break off to form a new nation, despite the fact you literally held both the rebel province and the original.
• Constant subject rebellions , becomes rather disruptive / annoying , preventing diplomatic plays as you have to go stomp out a rebellion that consists of a single disgruntled grandad.
• Naval invasions, seriously; is this just an issue with the game in the current state? When I have a Flotilla of 60 ships and I'm having my invasion stop because the same 5 ship flotilla keeps popping up with each ship having a crew of 5 people , it gets to be a bit clownish. You should be able to "force" a landing attempt if you have overwhelming numbers of ships.
  • Another issue : why are my naval invasions pausing because they psychically know that a flotilla is coming from literally the other side of the world, they seem to wait literal weeks or months to do with the above 5 boats.
  • Another issue x2 : Naval invasions seem to just .... pause ? at points , Naval units are unoccupied , the army assigned has relatively high morale and manpower and organization and yet they'll sit there for weeks before launching the invasion, if ever.
• Armies , is it better to have 1-2 (high rank) officers assigned with "Adamant Defense" / "Pillage" / "Heavy Barrage" , or is it better to just fill up all 4 slots? It seems like if you have multiple officers, whoever is the left most takes priority? E.G. I had an adamant defense and a pillage officer, but the army more or less never attacked, even on fronts where they had rather strong numerical advantage.
  • Armies 2 : Is there a "meta" strategy for handling big nations? I tend to just do adamant defense for a while, let them burn MP and then mop up the rest.
  • Armies 3 : Is there a such thing as an ideal army comp? I tend to just do 50/50 Infantry/Arty or 60-80/40-20% of both
  • Navy : Does the rank of the Admiral matter / does it let them bring more boats into a single engagement , and should I have three admirals, one for Intercept/Raid/Escort?
• Great Powers : Is liberating countries the best way to kneecap the great powers? E.G. Ukraine & Kazan from Russia , I've been liberating but it feels like it's a bit of a double edged sword as some of the countries released can be powerful in their own right and can go against you later.
• Italy : Why the fuck can it annex my Piedmont / Tuscany / Lucca / Modena etc. puppets without even a notification, with the above great power question , Italy just keeps reforming itself, it's incredibly infuriating.
• Conquering : Is it better to actually gain land, or better to puppet them and have them depend on your customs union and pay you a tithe? (Ignoring Infamy costs)
  • On this note , is it better in terms of less infamy to outright take land, or to puppet then annex, I know that annexing puppet's lands costs less infamy, but does the initial puppet cost combined with lowering autonomy etc. make the cost greater in terms of overall infamy generated?
• Economy : It's either nuanced, or I'm dumb or both. I spend a lot of my early game building a couple of construction sectors, Logging camps & Iron Mines , Gold mines if they're there and largely ignoring everything under the agriculture tab and letting the investment pool build farms in the assumption that it'll build things that I'm short on (grain, tobacco, cloth, etc.) ; the only exceptions to this are usually in the case of something like Afghanistan where opium goes brrt. Mid/Late game I tend to build a bunch of Govt. Admin for Bureaucracy for the institutions, and just a bunch of factories : Glass, Paper, Steel etc.
  • GDP Growth and spontaneous dips without any seeming cause , is this normal, am I doing something wrong? This is particularly worrisome to me when I try to play bigger nations : France/Germany/Russia/GB where I can be growing at a fairly steady rate then I just hemmorhage 10-20% GDP in a short fashion, bonus points if I applied a building upgrade that said it'd make money. (no supply shortages)
  • Upgrades to buildings : Seriously, this one confuses me extensively and I can single-handedly cause GB's entirely 200m GDP economy to tank to 80m in a few simple clicks because I decided to tell certain industries to use a steam donkey or sumt.
    • Tall or Wide for industry for EOS , should I just make a few super industrialized counties and just let immigration within the country handle it, or should I spread it out a bit?
    • Should I ever use rail transportation , it seems to have more cons than pros, sure it means less employees needed but in almost every case I've seen, it's not worth it monetarily and population tends to not be much of an issue. (Minus stuff like small nations without conquering or places like the sahara)
    • Refrigeration for fishing/whaling , Livestock ranches in general , anything better than harvesting tools for farms,
  • Trade : Tips in general , importing seems to cost you money even if it says otherwise, and exporting feels rather disconnected.
  • Shipyards : Rather annoying gripe as once you upgrade to Steamers from Clippers you might still need them , leastwise this is true in case you have junior customs members.
  • Arms / Artillery industry : Subsidize during peacetime or just let them sit there empty until war kicks off again? Micromanaging trade for these things considering how short most of the AI wars last, it becomes more tedious than anything.
  • Urban Centers : Do these things just suck? They seem to always be losing money and services even if taxed don't seem to really ever make these things require more than market stalls , let alone any lighting upgrade.
  • Fishing / Whaling : Does this just suck in general? I've barely ever seen these things turn a profit.
  • Treaty ports (Qing) : Do these just let you bypass embargoes?
• Colonies : Are they actually worth it? I like doing it just because it let's me paint the map, and Niger (Delta) can actually be rather useful from my experience as that region has a rather large amount of population and seems fairly easy to integrate into your country.
  • A lot of the small pacific islands under the oceania region feel utterly worthless, they're all very small, low population, have no real interesting resources and all need a port that'll just act as a money sink as the islands will never get enough population to staff them or make it a profitable venture.
  • Colonial administration pros/cons? They don't seem particularly good in general.
• Education : Does literacy matter much? It seems like if you have even a 50% ish rate, qualifications aren't very hard to get filled, secondly how many universities are too many? Should you bother making numerous in high pop states, just a few in say your capital for the innovation bonus (which seems to get capped off rather quickly?)
• Tech : Is it better to research all of a previous row's techs or does it not matter, I read somewhere that if you research a previous row fully, you get a bonus but I haven't seen anything to corroborate that.
• Assimilation / Conversion : How , aside from promoting national values decree?

This is tagged as a Spoiler, but only if you haven’t watched Season 3 Part 1 yet-
So I have seen a lot of conversation about whether or not Penelope and Colin’s relationship has felt rushed so far. Personally, I feel like the relationship this season does feel a bit awkwardly paced and I’m going to explain my reasonings.
A big argument used for why their relationship isn’t rushed is that it’s been in development for 2 seasons. I’m sorry, you mean Penelope’s unrequited love for Colin?? That’s not really development, I mean Penelope’s relationship to Colin in the beginning of season 3 is the same as it is in the beginning of season 1… unrequited, nothing has developed or changed on that end other than her overhearing his hurtful words about her. So I don’t really think their relationship being stalled at that stage for 2 seasons means that it can’t be rushed once it is being developed. In fact I rather feel it’s the opposite because when you sort of build up that anticipation around certain characters over multiple seasons, you better be able to make that payout satisfying. (Think of like HIMYM, lot of build up for a horrible last 6 episodes😂)
And those arguing- actually it just went over y’all’s head, Colin has had feelings for Penelope all along, he just didn’t realize…yeah, seemed like it when he proposed to that other girl, or told his bros he would never court her💀like yes, I get it- He sought her out, and wrote to her, and enjoyed hanging out with her, but the boy was oblivious, and I really needed more from him this season to make up for that fact.
Another thing that bugs me-
Colin has gotten a lot of credit in the show this season for helping Penelope on the Marriage Mart…like I need the writers to be so for real with me, what has Colin actually done to help Penelope draw in a suitor besides himself??💀because from my perspective, he’s done quite the opposite….

• He criticized her behind her back to eligible bachelors and told them he would never think courting her even though she was his friend.
• His plan to “train” her by himself in his house (that she was hesitant about) caused her to be caught in scandal that the whole ton found out about
• He literally destroyed her chance with her one other potential prospect before even knowing if she actually wanted to be with him over the other guy

So really Penelope should be at least a little pissed at Colin. For me, this would add the tension that I feel this story is missing. Something maybe like…

• Colin interrupts Penelope and Lord Debling, and Lord Debling finds out about their potential love from Cressida
• Penelope gets rejected by Lord Debling because of her potential love for Colin and she leaves the ball super upset
• Colin chases after her and ends up confessing even though she is clearly upset at him
• Penelope is all like “How dare you?! I have loved you for years, and have waited for the day that you would see me as more than just your friend, but the minute I finally resign myself to never being anything more to you, to find a lifelong companion in someone else, you ruin my chance…and for what?? I cannot be some passing fade for you like those women in your journal, like Marina…my heart could not handle it! Thank you for your help, but no thank you. I will find a husband by the end of this season and it won’t be because Colin Bridgerton took pity on me…”
• So we have a double confession, and Colin knows that Penelope has feelings for him, but he has to prove to her how series he actually is. This adds tension, he has to pine and grovel.
• And he is doing some real like public declaration of love type of stuff to try and win her over and show her how much he cares and how sorry he is for the stuff he did/said before.
• This kind of works in her favor because she actually managed to pull in a couple of new prospects because of a Bridgerton now being after her. Maybe she even writes about it as Lady Whistledown to help boost her prospects.
• Then obviously it reaches a point where she realizes he’s completely serious and devoted to her, and she doesn’t want to give him up either, and she accepts his proposal.

I think something like this would have been a lot more satisfying than him being kind of oblivious until episode 3 where he realizes he likes her and proposes to her one episode later, and her immediately accepting despite being mad at him 2 minutes earlier.
Of course another big argument people make is- “well the people complaining haven’t read the books because this is exactly how it happens” and to that I say- My criticism isn’t about whether it’s accurate to the books or not, it’s about whether the story is satisfying. So say it is exactly like the books, then I guess I’m criticizing the book too😂
Anyways, please feel free to comment your agreement or disagreement, I would love to hear other’s opinions on this topic!

This might be long, sorry.
I (F30) have been brought into a polycule, my first one, and I have some bad gut feelings about this. I want to make it clear, it is not because of the polyamory and multiple partners, it just feels like the dynamics and boundaries are off. However, I could be wrapped up in my own head so I'd like some outside perspective.
A quick outline of the people involved:
My partner "Mat" (M33) and I have been seeing each other for about a month now and are looking to actually start dating. Mat stated he would like me to be his primary which is what I would like as well.
Mat's other partner "Stacy" (F39) is married to her NP and primary "Nate" (M39). They have a child together.
Okay with that out of the way, I'm just going to make a list of things I found odd and are specifically weighing on me. These aren't numbered in any specific way.
1.Mat and I have not actually gone on a solo date yet. Everytime we go out or I make plans Stacy comes along. I do not mind having her come out with us occasionally, but I'd like to build Mat and my relationship too outside her.

1. Stacy is a little too invested in Mat and my sexual life. The second time I met her she was flirting with me and trying to goat us into having sex in her presence. I'm bi so I'm not inherently grossed out by her hitting on me, but it was a bit intense for the second time I met her. I did make it clear to Mat that I'm only looking to date him at the moment, not the both of them. Also I swear I've heard Mat's phone hang up after we have sex sometimes. I have some hearing issues so that could 100% be on me, but it's a bit unnerving to think Stacy might be listening to us do the deed without my consent.
   
2. I have in turn now know way more about Mat and Stacy's sex life despite not asking or being interested. Mat will just tell me Stacy's kinks and how he gets her off. Again, I don't care that they are having sex, I just don't need to know about her like that.
   
3. How their polycule began. When Stacy and Nate were still dating Stacy cheated on Nate with Mat and polybomed Nate. Nate begrudgingly agreed to opening the relationship, and although things seem to be healthier now, I don't think that was a kind thing to do to him.
   
4. Mat will constantly talk about exes and how they always leave him for "the other guy". He also frequently bring up how hurt he is/was Stacy chose to marry Nate and not Mat. Like she's the one who got away even though they are literally dating.
   
5. Stacy doesn't seem invested in her own marriage and child sometimes. She spends all her days off work at Mat's house and has missed her child's birthday to go on dates with Mat.
   
6. Mat talks poorly about Nate quite a bit. Calling Nate a loser and whatnot.
   

I know I've listed some heavy and negative things here, but maybe I'm just over thinking this all. This could all just be Stacy being awkward because Mat has a new partner. Stacy and I do get along and enjoy each other's company, she can just be intense and her personal boundaries are more lax than mine. I'm also really bad about sticking up for myself. That is in no way any of their's problem, but it doesn't help these negative feelings I'm having.
Mat and I also just have a lot in common and click very easily. He's very kind towards me and has been receptive when I've brought up my discomforts.
I want to be excited about this new chapter in my life but at the moment I'm just feeling a bit uneasy and confused. Any advice or insight would be lovely, thank you.
Edit 1: For better layout and clearer names.
Edit 2: Hey guys, to not sound like a robot, I'm just going to put a little blurb here to address most of the comments I've been getting.
I really do appreciate the blunt feedback, I think it's what I needed to read/hear. I need to leave this relationship while I still have wits about me.
Before I leave I am going to give it one more college try for two reasons: 1 before I go I want, for my sanity, to say I tried; 2 I genuinely want to give Mat some food for thought about how polyamory and his partners should be treated. And if he actually makes those changes good for me, if not, oh well.
If there's anything I gave to Mat in this whole mess I hope it's perspective on how to better himself and that if wants someone he's going to have to make some new boundaries with Stacy. And maybe how he should be treated in a relationship bc I didn't even get into their dynamic and how cold and cynical it can be.
I think we're both just desperate for love, but I'm not that desperate.
I hope next time I'm here it's to celebrate a happy loving polycule!
Thank you guys again for helping me uncloud my vision. I'll try to keep replying to messages that this little edit didn't address.
Edit 3: Hey guys just one more edit and then I have to put this thread to the side because it's a lot to take in.
I slept on this and have been reading every comment to form some sense of clarity for myself. It was wrong of me to think I could or should handle this relationship. The only reason I thought maybe this could work was because I don't have a backbone and long for the attention and idea of being happy.
I read all the comments and reread my post. It's disappointing that I would be willing to put myself in this situation. The comment that really got me was the one that said something about how I'd feel if one of my friends or relatives were in this situation and how I'd feel for them; sorry I didn't put who posted that I'm a bit of a mess. I'd be horrified and I am horrified I was ready to lay down and take this shit from them. I deserve better, at least I think.
Some folks were unsure if this is real or not. It is. Unfortunately some people are just toxic and are waiting for someone like me who doesn't know better or is used to this kind of behavior. These people paint this pretty future where everyone is happy and in love and give you the idea that you could also perhaps have all these niceties. I was stupid and naive for thinking this is something I could power through or make work.
I really do thank you all for saying what clearly needed to be said. I'm really glad I came here because I thought maybe I was being bigoted or not understanding. I do still want to pursue polyamory once I'm a bit stronger and more confident in myself.
I'm going to turn off the notifications on this for now and might come back to remind myself I didn't lose anything worth keeping. It's a crazy world out there, and remember to love yourselves first and foremost.

It’s been 20 years since the final of the Champions League was played by Porto and Monaco.
It has also been 20 years since clubs outside of the top 4 countries (Spain, England, Italy and Germany) even reached the final.
(With the exception of Paris Saint-Germain in 2020, a team in a financial bubble of its own that doesn’t represent the reality of the other clubs from Ligue 1).
It’s been 13 years since the same Porto won the Europa League. Ever since it has fallen (together with the recently introduced Conference League) to clubs from the same top 4 countries that dominate the Champions League (interestingly enough Italy never won the Europa League in this period).

The top tier of european football has become de facto a Super League with the top 4 countries getting so many spots for the Champions League that it comes to represent half (!!) of all the participating clubs in the group stage.
I will repeat, 4 countries represent 50% of all clubs that participate in the group stages of the Champions League.
What was supposed to be a competition to bring together the best teams all across Europe has become a mini league almost exclusively played by the same clubs, many of them having won nothing in the previous season, in order to satiate the gods of marketing.

Is european football dead? Football as a show goes on and is more marketable than ever but this doesn’t mean european football – a sports competition for a whole continente – is alive and well.
From Lisbon to Belgrade, from Bucharest to Amsterdam, from Glasgow to Marseille the spirit of football diminishes, the impact of clubs that left an impact in the whole continente is now but a shadow. The best these historical clubs can do now is to feed other clubs that simply happen to have been born in the right country.

The supremacy of the current european elite has been a snowball from 2 main events that happened in the 90s: the introduction of the Bosnan law and the expansion of the Champions League to include more than 1 club per country (so for the first time non-champions were allowed to participate).
The Bosnan law (I’m not going to discuss how fair or unfair it is, just the consequence it had) allowed players to negotiate with other clubs if their contract was up. Free of their shackles to certain clubs they were free then to move to clubs with either more prestige, money or chance of titles. This mostly fair law had the consequence of weakening the weaker clubs, now unable to retain their better players. Richer and more prestigious teams could now hoard more and more quality players and at the same time now competed against weaker opponents.
The introduction of more spots per country in the Champions League (initially 2 but nowadays can be 4, 5 or 6) was a purely financial decision. Most countries have several well known clubs so the more of those famous clubs that partipate the more media attention and revenue the competition brings in. The catch is that the clubs and the countries that were richer and more powerfull suddenly started to snowball – there was now no incentive to play in a weaker league: why play for a dutch or portuguese club and have a chance to play the Champions League when you can just move to a richer league and reach european football anyway because 4th place grants that?
Now several clubs from the top 4 countries could year after year build strong squads, play top european football, rake in the money and benefit from the disproportionate growth funneled into them. On the other hands clubs from peripheral leagues grew at a much slower rate, their players raided – looking for better financial deals with little negative repercussions – and their UEFA ranking stalling (ensuring the extra spots didn’t trickle down).

After non-champions were allowed in (in 1997-1998) there has been a single year – that 2003/2004 season – where the finalists didn’t come from the top 4 countries (PSG aside, which in my opinion doesn’t count). 20 years later we are still waiting for another dark horse to break the mold but we better sit, the current status quo has almost perfectly pruned the chance of a club outside of the top 4 countries to win it. And even if they manage to beat all the odds and win we’re sure it will happen the same that happened to Porto in 2004 in the aftermath of their win: the winning team dismantled. Lightning isn’t allowed to strike twice the same spot.

Is european football (as in a football open to all) dead for good? Is there interest to bring back some balance? Is there something we could do?

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[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]

Season 10 “Days of Fury” - Episode 2 “Visiting Omen”

He had hoped for a boring day. Boring days are good at work, and Santos was already expecting to not have many of them for a while.
The first couple of days were boring, as usual- Blackriver is a small town, and the worst that had happened was Nila and Kessa making a few wellness checks after worried calls from neighbors. A couple of people in denial, a few ashamed at their own violent outbursts and a stern warning to Tamm about painting others’ properties without asking first.
This morning, however, began with an all-hands meeting. There were no meeting rooms in the office, so they made do in the general workspace room, they all stood there at the center while Keya looked them over.
“We have received a report from a neighboring city about a convoy of protestors making its way to Blackriver” she describes without tone. At this point nobody bothers interrupting.
“This convoy is comprised of approximately four hundred and seventy eight individuals of multiple species, primarily human and venlil but with operationally relevant representations of the entire spectrum of size and mobility types” her paws are behind her back, her ears focused directly ahead, her eyes centered to keep the entire team on the core of her focus “They have crossed multiple cities already, generally engaging in verbal sparring with any figure of authority, parading signs and banners denouncing all manners of authorities as well as occasionally engaging in physical altercations with officers.”
“They are also known to engage in vandalism. Though primarily aimed at exterminator and police precincts as well as public offices, they have already caused considerable collateral to others they have identified as ‘collaborators’” there’s a single heartbeat of waiting for breath before she continues “They have, however, not shown to be an incredibly organized group or one with a clear goal and objective. The convoy appears to contain only extremely emotionally charged people with no clear overarching goal.”
“We are incapable of dealing with the situation should they turn aggressive, as such we will be simply maintaining watch and relocating the populace should they become a problem.” Then, she picks up her holopad and passes it to Lunek beside her “They can only follow one path with the entire convoy, the central street, therefore I have divided it into four sectors. One of each will be assigned to a sector.”
First her ears turn to the first target “Lunek, sector one at the entrance. As the most approachable member of the precinct your task is to give an initial image of harmlessness. Do not engage first, do not take initiative against them. Ensure the members of the herd in the area are warned of their approach. If they become aggressive, retreat and focus on the escape of the herd.”
She tilts her head a little bit, turning her ears the other way “Marik, sector two. Mostly the commercial area, your task is ostensive protection to lower the chances of them initiating aggression. Whereas protection of the herd is first priority your second priority is ensuring Tenve’s Hardware Store as well as Sunbreeze Meals and Watchful Café remain capable of providing anyone whose residences become damaged.” suddenly, she turns her head entirely to face Marik “Ostensive protection means dissuasion, ensure that they know they are not under threat and as long as those specific areas are not engaged, do not provoke”
Next in her line of fire is Santos “As our human officer you will be in sector three, nearby the precinct. They are liable to become most agitated in this area and your presence may serve to calm them. You are not to engage, if deemed necessary the precinct’s materials are considered expendable, do not attempt to stop them”
“Sector four, the exit of town, will be with me to ensure that they have fully left Blackriver and will not attempt to turn back” then she tilts her ears again “Aren, you will gear up with a CCG and remain out of view range, your task will be quick emergency response should the need arise.” she then points her tail at the last three officers “Vess, your task will be to inform the herd and ensure a clear path for the convoy while Nila and Kessa will gather all of our medical supplies and set a staging area out of the convoy’s range. Organize ambulance assistance from Striped Hill and Everrain”
Then, she turns her ears around to focus each one in turn “As any attempt at aggression will end only in negative consequences, and in order to reduce the apparent levels of threat you will be unarmed. The estimated time of arrival is a third of a claw, ready yourselves and be at your post in time. Dismissed.”
“Not sure if I like or I don’t that we had the cold bastard right now” Aren says, as soon as Keya had left the room “Maybe we should move in closer when the convoy gets to sector four?”
“Probably a good idea to be nearby” Santos adds with a sigh “They might take umbrage with her demeanor, hopefully they won’t be set off too hard.”
And with silent signs of agreement all of the officers of Blackriver depart for preparations. The first ones to leave the precinct are the ones in charge of support, the two girls set off early to find someone willing to permit usage of their lawn as a possible impromptu field hospital and a little while later Aren leaves with a heavy CCG.
Slowly, the clock ticks to the appointed claw… And soon enough, Lunek can see in the distance the incoming omen of people. At first a distant line in the horizon, slowly the dark mark on the road coalesces into distinct shapes, the shapes of hundreds of vehicles slowly rolling down the road.
When the first few get close to the initial buildings of the main street, the entire convoy slows down. Their process of preparation is seemingly laborious, each vehicle houses multiple people at a time, smaller cars full to the brim, flatbeds with more people on their cargo space than can safely be contained, even buses conscripted for the effort. They carry with them signs, flags, a multitude of symbols as they dismount their vehicles and start spreading out to fill the street.
They seem to naturally form two distinct yet highly mixed groups, at its most distinctive is the pack of humans who keep a good distance from each other. But they are not alone in this group as takkan, mazic, yotul, zurulian and even drilvar form this central group. But flowing around them, not avoiding their presence but never infringing in their space is the grey mass of venlil, packed tight together, and mixed in there adding color to the monochromatic flux are krakotl, tilfish, sulean, iftali, sivkit and even a seemingly very confused duerten.
And at the very core of the moving group are their vehicles, which gently start rolling forward again as the group starts moving. Lunek simply waits, silently, by the side of the road, his ears attentively swiveling from one side to the other, expression having given way to function. Before the first of the convoy even arrives close he turns to the side, making a pointing sign with his tail. A woman who had been watching from her yard flicks her right ear and runs back inside.
He continues to wait, scanning around at all times for the presence of… Anything. The street is empty of locals when the first visitors start to alight. The convoy is loud, their symbols carry a loudness of colors and their vehicles make as much noise as they can to draw attention, but those who walk seem content in allowing their tools to speak for them, for now. Lunek tries to make sense of the banners and signs, but the messages are disparate as the group- Some speak of injustices against their people, some speak of anger at invaders, some speak of betrayal.
“Fuck off, fireman!” comes the harsh bark of a human, causing Lunek to flinch. But flinch is all he does, he simply starts walking alongside the moving convoy.
The exterminator’s attention is drawn to the details of the few people he can distinguish amongst the mass. Something tickles at his pattern-recognition but he cannot quite ascertain what for a while, until a lightly limping mazic makes her way to the edge of the mass “Want to finish the job?!” she trumpets, her form towering over his.
“I’m just observing, ma’am.” Though the tremor of his voice is noticeable, he remains stoic. But her proximity makes him notice something about her body, marks in her wrists, neck and feet. Though mazic have powerful wrists and knuckles upon which they support the front half of their weight, her left wrist seems completely incapable of it, giving her a limp particular to a three-point walk. “To make sure there’s no impediment on your path” he notices the leathery skin around her left wrist is deeply blackened.
“Oh, ‘no impediment’ is that it? So everyone that lives here is an impediment?!” her voice booms.
“Ma’am” still, he does not yield nor does he break his pace following the convoy “We have not done anything other than inform our people of your presence…” for a half second all he hears is the sound of his own heart “We can’t do anything else.”
Those words, then, sealed his fate. The first shout to echo in his direction was a yotul howling “Yeah you’re useless!” and soon the avalanche came in multiple voices and languages “Can’t do shit!” “You’re just here to hurt people!” “Useless crap!” “Idiot!” and many more.
With every step and twitch the very average exterminator puts all of his focus on just being there. He lets himself cower a little bit, against the barrage it is difficult not to, but he continues to accompany. A few curious coats step out from their houses to watch, but the front of the convoy seems far too focused on the sole exterminator in view to bother anyone else.
A few steps ahead, an older venlil with a cane has moved the closest to the convoy as any watcher has up to now. Seeing her proximity to the increasingly rowdy crowd causes Lunek to speed up, quickly approaching her “Leva-”
But his words are stalled when she puts a paw on his shoulder, she gently puts her head against his for just a second “You’re doing good pup, keep at it” she mutters to him before breaking contact and turning around to walk back inside. He can spy her grandchildren looking on through the door. Lunek looks back at the still-shouting moving convoy, takes a deep breath, and continues to accompany them forward. A small pawful of them, however, seem to have fallen silent.
Once having reached the limit of his assigned zone, however, Lunek stops. He watches the convoy move forward, past the houses, now noisier than before. The initial hollering at him had turned into disjointed screams at some indistinct foe- Though the herd had been noticed of a foe, it was yet unaware of who, or what, said foe was. So for now it howled at the ineptitude of… Someone. And as the last of the convoy passes beyond the imaginary line of his duty, Lunek lets out a deep sigh and allows himself to sit down on the ground.
He stays there for a moment, without thought, simply letting the tension, confusion and fear permeate his body until a gentle paw touches his arm. He doesn’t need to look to identify it, he lets his lover use her strength to prop him up, raising him to his feet “Keina you shouldn’t-”
“Neighbor’s looking over Tiss” his wife wraps her arms and tail around him “I’m not leaving you alone.” she stays like that for a second, before breaking off “Do you need to go after them?”
“No”
Marik stalks through the sidewalk, moving with energy. His speed outpaces the movement of the convoy, his paws twitch to grasp at something that isn’t there and a deep and intense motion makes his short fur stand on end. He had let the convoy’s head move in front of him, simply standing still as he assessed as many as he could in the mass, and now he had begun to move towards the front again.
As he stalked forward he focused his sight on every member of the convoy that seemed of interest. A human whose clothes seemed suspiciously loose, a venlil whose movements were far too stiff, a gojid who kept his claws behind his back. He stared at each like they were his quarry, analyzing every piece of movement they made for threats, and yet aside from the challenge in the human’s gaze he saw no danger arise.
Tenve had closed his shop, so as the convoy moved forward Marik simply continued to follow along, scanning the crowd for threats. But the next point of interest arrives, and he rushes ahead placing himself in front of the only restaurant of the town. Sunbreeze Meals wasn’t a very common sort of restaurant, Blackriver did not have enough visitors for a normal restaurant to be profitable and was small enough most people had their meals at home, it most often served takeout for those farmers who’d spend so long in the field they would return home without the energy to feed themselves.
Sparing a look inside at the only five tables, Marik couldn’t keep a small thought away from his mind. How most who got their meals from Sunbreeze these days did so because they enjoyed the cooking rather than their need of work, ever since the sunspeck population has been brought under control and the maintenance of the fields had become much smaller. He feels the presence long before he can recognize what led him to feel it and turns to stare at a group of six that approach the entrance: Two humans, a tilfish, two gojids and a takkan had broken off from the convoy and approached the restaurant.
He traces his color band over each in turn, and they all bristle at his stare. One of the humans hesitates before continuing to walk inside, and Marik simply remains by the door with his arms crossed, left ear twisted as far back as he could to listen to the inside.
“What have you got here?”
“W-we mostly ha-have ready ma-made meals to go or- or- Or you can look over the menu”
“There’s no need to stutter, y’know”
“So-sorry-”
“Really, after everything y’all are still with this predator crap?”
The chimes on the door echo for the second time in sequence as Marik makes his way inside. The tilfish had started to lean over the counter while the other five had arrayed themselves behind her. They all turn their attention to him as he enters, including the venlil manning the counter. Marik keeps his gaze directly on the tilfish for a few uncomfortable seconds, before looking at the man behind the counter and making a simple sign with his tail, a short vertical bob with the tip and a slow horizontal swipe. It’s meaning simple: >Safe<.
After a few seconds someone else appears from the kitchen. The tall venlil carries a large stack of plastic boxes in his arms, all of them seemingly designed to attach to themselves so as to be carried with ease. He puts them down with a resounding crash on the counter, and opens up his voice with ice “Farmer’s Pots, good meal when you’re working and can’t go home.” With each word the owner of the restaurant and main cook comes closer and closer to the tilfish, until the last “Ten credits each.”
Nobody moves for a couple of seconds, and then one of the humans steps closer and brings a holopad over to the credit reader. There’s a noise indicating payment, and then the owner raises his head and tilts it to focus his favored eye and both of his ears at the man who paid “Now,” he shifts register in his voice and the language he speaks in “fuck off” he finishes.
With no small amount of surprise the group of six retrieve the stack of packaged meals, carefully walking out and back into the convoy. Marik stays behind for a moment “Didn’t know you spoke human”
“Pup’s enamored with their languages. Of course, first greek words he learns is swearing.”
Outside, Marik stalks further ahead to the next point of interest. He moves faster than the convoy, and has time to move in front of it. For a few meters the street is still clear as he arrives to find a group of people standing in front of the Watchful. Standing there were all of its employees, and even all of its regulars, twenty people total standing there as if they were having the most normal day. If not for their raised ears tracking every noise coming from down the street and their swaying tails swinging about like angry beasts.
One of them simply points his tail at the other side of the street as Marik comes closer, and the hunter doesn’t need a second command to understand the meaning. They have this, he has a less practical but just as important duty. He crosses the street quickly before the convoy starts coming closer, and heads towards the park.
As the regulars of the Watchful had feared, it took little time until a large group had broken off from the convoy. With the town on alert about the convoy they had found themselves bereft of prey and now this group had set out to find some, anyone who might be willing, or not, to listen to their grievances. And what is clearly a place designed for people to congregate looked most appetizing.
Marik shadowed the group as they moved through the park, but they were accompanied by nothing but silence. It wasn’t until they ran into the centerpiece of the park that he took initiative, stepping ahead of the group and simply… Standing there a distance away from the tree of many scions, between it and the group.
“What’s so important over there, fireman?” it was a venlil who asked, but his usage of an english word was not lost on Marik.
“A place you will respect” the exterminator has his arms crossed, the one good portion of his gaze set on the man who asked “This is a grave.”
Though the group that now prowled was large, those who heard were taken aback. One such, however, approaches closer. He was a venlil whose fur shifted between a soft, brownish color and a dirty white “A tradition of the tenets right? One of those family trees?” The man would have been distinctive in any other group due to his missing patches of fur around neck, wrists, even portions around his head. But such signs of long term damage were common in the convoy.
Interest. They had shown true interest, or at least one of them had. “No, but similar… The forgotten tree is a grave for the forgotten.” He felt like these people, at least the ones before him, could probably understand the meaning of this place “It is of no tradition. Someone, a long time ago, wanted to honor someone who was gone but whose name was not meant to be remembered. Someone who had disappeared in the system… So they borrowed on another’s tradition, and added a scion to this tree, with something in their memory. Others have done so similarly, until it became… A grave for the forgotten”
“Didn’t think you’d be worried about this kind of place” it’s a human that speaks up this time
“Our duty is to protect this town, what you think-” but Marik’s words are interrupted by that same venlil who had asked before. His demeanor suddenly shifts, his ears perk up and his entire body shifts forward for a moment. He hesitates, for a second everyone’s focus is on him, and then he runs towards the tree.
Marik follows behind, stopping just by the man’s side as he finds himself at the base of the tree. The man makes a direct line to somewhere, something he had found from the distance, as if it had called him. He finds a thick and heavy branch that had been bent down by the weight of its scions and memories, near its base and speaking of a memory left behind long ago is a braid of fur made of three colors, a dirty white, a soft brown and a dark grey, bound by the braids are two beads.
The man raises up a paw, but does not touch it. As if cradling it, he recites the words engraved in one of the beads “I will cross every star to return home” others have come closer to listen to the man’s hoarse voice “There will always be a home for you” he reads of the second one. The names on the beads have been scratched out. The man falls on his knees “S-she kept her promise and… I couldn’t keep mine…”
Marik steps back as he watches two others come closer to comfort the man. He looks as a few others approach with more caution, looking up at the tree with a bit more reverence than they had before. Then, he turns around and starts heading back towards the main street.
Gazing out as the convoy gains a new flux, some leave it as it passes to move towards the park while others leave the park to rejoin the convoy, Marik simply stays there at the side of the street looking as stern as he could. Though the noise of the convoy remains great, here in this portion it seems to die down a little. A thought crosses his mind as he turns an ear as far back as he can, a thought he can’t help but voice “I wonder how many are looking at their own graves…”
As the convoy progresses, Santos simply stands by the front of the precinct, hands in his pockets. He watches the convoy arrive, heart beating fast, constrained hands the only reason he hasn't started shaking quite yet. He starts tapping his right foot as he watches the first few people cross by without noticing what this place is yet, everyone knows where the precinct is, so aside from the words printed on the sign by the entrance there is no other marker of what this building’s purpose might be.
Of course, it is impossible for nobody to notice. The entire convoy seems to stop as soon as a zurulian riding on the shoulders of a human points a claw at the building and says something. A large group breaks away at the command, all of them holding disparate signs and messages. They turn on the building with enough roars that whatever they are attempting to transmit is lost on him.
Santos is thankful his hearing isn’t nearly as good as his coworkers’, as the cacophony is already overwhelming him. He changes stances slightly, taking his hands out of his pockets and crossing his arms. This prompts a small group to turn their looks at him, the focus easily identifiable with the humans in their midst, focus which made the hair in the back of Santos’ neck stand on end. Living in this place had refined his sense of danger, but he didn’t need that to realize what could happen.
It was a group of five that approached, four humans and a venlil. “Didn’t think they’d be letting humans live out here in the boonies” said one of his kin.
Santos just shrugs “Got hired to work here. Honestly, rural folk get a needlessly bad reputation, most of the time they just don’t care as long as you’re not bothering them”
“Really? In my-”
Santos interrupts the man “Cut it out” there are many ways in which humans make themselves obvious, many of which are their eyes. Santos did understand the fear of them and why it was primal, it was not the fear of the eyes but the fear of attention, it was knowing you were under the scrutiny and judgment of another that set off that emotion. It was rarely the eyes that showed this attention for most species, but for humans it was, and the man’s clear gaze on his badge made the entire situation clear to him “Stop beating around the bush and say it already.”
Someone else is who speaks. The tall woman starts not with words, however, but by spitting on Santos’ uniform “You fucking traitor” her voice is both fierce and cold at the same time. A very emotional coldness.
“There we go” he sighs “Just… Move on. We’re not getting anything out of this conversation”
“Why?” It was the venlil in the group that started this time “These people hate you, they hate you for what you are! Why do you work for them?!”
Santos rubs his eyes and sighs “Because someone has to. Change only happens when you make it happen, simple as that”
“Change?!” another one of the humans howls “Do you think those people can change?! You know the truth, those fuckers have never done anything good!”
“You know, if you had read your history books…” Santos stares at the one who had just had their outburst “You’d remember that we once thought the very same about the police” there’s the sound of glass breaking, but he doesn’t reaction “And a lot of us still do”
The human staring him down shifts their gaze slightly at the broken window of the precinct, then back at Santos “A broken window is easy to fix” he shrugs “As I was saying. Same shit.” he crosses his arms again “There’s a role those people play, a role that needs to be played because it’s important. Different name, different problems, still the same shit. Gotta fix this, I’m doing my part” he then stares at the venlil in the group “You do yours. Simple as that.”
“Role?!” the venlil of the group steps closer “What role could they possibly have?! They only exist to hurt people!”
Santos steps back, and raises his eyes a little bit. Of course, the classics had shown themselves in this instance. With as many humans as there are in the crowd there were now quite a few objects in the air, most clearly aimed at the precinct behind him. Though given the failed arc of some of them it was clearly not just the humans indulging in such a tried and true method.
“I used to be a wildlife preserve ranger” Santos then focuses his gaze on the aggravated venlil “This is a frontier town, if you walk in the brushes with shorts you’ll walk out with your ankles numb. The athai out there are rather harmless, but they keep the sunspecks under control.” He takes another step back “Since coming here I’ve been pest control, had to catch an exotic animal set loose, investigated a murder, helped stop a child from taking her own life, stopped large scale fights, helped a dozen people avoid being arrested for self defense and helped break a fucking siege”
Santos cracks his knuckles “There’s roles. Jobs that need done and there is one fucking organization doing it all. That is a problem.” Then, he sighs and takes a few more steps to the side, offering indifference from this point on “There’s nothing I can say that would make you calm down.” he says one final time “Just make sure not to injure yourselves in the process, alright?” His words seemed to be enough to make the small group cease trying to interact, as the convoy had begun moving again. Though the one human who had called him a traitor gets one final parting shot at the precinct “Where the hell did you get an egg in this planet…” Santos says with a raised eyebrow as the projectile impacts the front door.
Keya stands by a large sign, the same one that welcomes you into Blackriver on one side and sees you out at the other, the official limit of the town. Her arms behind her back, her attention directly towards the front of the convoy as they march. Something gains the whole of her attention, the car in the front. Someone draws her focus, a human with a megaphone on top of the car. The man shouts words of encouragement at the people behind him with the megaphone before turning to his holopad, then he bends over downwards to discuss something with the driver.
She simply remains there, waiting for the convoy to pass. But instead of moving on out of the city, here the convoy stops completely. Keya observes as the further end of the convoy starts to slowly compact upon itself, and her ears pick up something “Alright everyone, start getting ready, next town over is more than a claw away, make sure you’ve left nothing behind” the words were not meant for her, nor for anyone too far. They come from the same man she had seen standing on top of the car, but he had now climbed down and was talking with a group of multiple species.
It is clear they have some degree of leadership, though the convoy does not stop cleanly nor does it begin to organize with alacrity they do respond to the group’s organization. So Keya keeps her focus on them as they point, wave and talk between themselves, others and devices. But at least one of them has noticed her attention, a gangly and light-skinned human with fire-red hair, the man that was atop the car. He starts walking in her direction, before turning around for one final set of commands as he walks backwards “And make sure the guys at the back got all the crap! We’re here to be heard, not to trash the city!” he says before turning back again to head towards her. A venlil with pure white fur erupts from inside the car he was riding, quickly dashing to his side as they notice where he was going.
In a few moments both have come up to her, the human looking down at her with the venlil bristles at his side “Saw anything interesting, fireman?”
“What are you doing here?”
“What? Isn’t it obvious?!” it was the venlil that roared a response “You saw all of it! You know what they’ve done to us! What they’ve done to everyone! And you still work for those brahking monsters! It’s like you’re thankful they made you a cripple!”
The human puts a hand on the venlil’s shoulder, calming her demeanor just a little bit “We’re here because honestly, we’re all too tired of being fucking ignored is what. So what the fuck are you gonna do?!”
“I have put the wrong emphasis” Keya says with her lack of tone. She can see the human shiver just a little bit “My task is to ensure the safety of this town. Your convoy is a danger. We have eight field-capable officers, we cannot ensure the safety of the residents against a group like yours. People will take actions for reasons, you have broadcast your reasons clearly. You have chosen this place for a reason which I cannot ascertain.”
She makes sure her ears are trained towards both the human and the venlil, an action which causes the venlil to cower behind her partner “We do not house government agencies. This is a farming town of little note. The local precinct is a simple precinct, we have no regulatory or command authority. The town population is approximately double that of the number of your convoy. We have no individuals of appreciable social or political reach. There is nothing in Blackriver of interest to people attempting to change government policy, nor have there been actions taken here that I can identify as being cause for retaliatory actions within the context of your message.”
“I must ensure this does not happen again and the only way of doing so is minimizing our attractivity as targets. A logical assumption of your choice of quarry would be a town with the presence of politicians, a large city with constant news coverage, cities housing important government agencies or those containing the Regional Firebases”
“So I ask again. What are you doing here?”
The two remain silent for a few seconds, before the human turns around with a mouth noise “Whatever, I don’t need to explain myself to someone that won’t listen. Come on!” he starts to stalk back towards the car, but stops once he notices his venlil companion wasn’t moving.
The snow-white venlil has their focus on Keya, who offers a simple low forward swipe of her tail, a sign to proceed. Still, the venlil seems frozen in place until the human comes back and grabs hold of their paw with a gentle touch. At which point both finally return to the convoy.
Keya remains at the side of the road, watching as the convoy readies itself again to leave. People get back inside cars, they hop on the back of trucks and load themselves into buses. She continues to watch as the convoy takes its time riding out, making their way out of the town.
Once it is finally gone, multiple footsteps sound behind her. When she turns around she meets her officers, having returned from their assigned positions “They have left. I expect your reports of what happened in each sector by the end of your shifts” she states plainly, before looking at Santos “They did not appear to have a specific reason for targeting Blackriver.” The question remains unspoken.
The human officer just shrugs “Sometimes, you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re just a little town, I doubt they even know what exactly they’re angry about.” He looks at the tail end of the convoy as it leaves “Town was probably just a place they felt safe going to.”
“D-do you think we might get more like that” Lunek says, at the back of the group.
“Who knows…” Santos sighs “But if human history applies anywhere here… This is just a sign of worse things to come”
[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]
And thus the omen passes by. Feelings, emotions of all sorts, without a plan or a reason other than just their own rage and distress.
Did any of these even know what they were doing? And how much worse can it be when they do?

I had A LOT of fun with the mod thus far and goddamn the scope and depth of it is hella impressive.
How to HQ brought me close to throwing the towel however. Starting the moment the concord settlers leave, progress comes to a brutal hold. Just why? Restaffing is such a gigantic pain since you will be stalled by missing living quarters, food or (my favorite so far) missing food preventing you to build more caravans, preventing you to source more food right away. Dafuq... Why cut your first batch of staff in the first place?
Again: This is a fantastic mod, but this quest contains design decision that hurt. Bad

This list contains bugs that range from game breaking, to near insignificant. All are included as it would be nice to see most if not all of these fixed. More important bugs are higher on the list.
I'm asking for your help to note any I may have missed and to forward these to Frontier. The game is ending support soon and it would be a shame if these bugs never get fixed.
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If there are any bugs I have missed, please do post them in the comments below and I'll add them to the list.
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Gameplay Bugs:

1. Concavenator has a broken fence climb animation that causes it to escape through any fence, even if it fails
2. Pterosaurs when flying over lagoons sink into them and have trouble escaping
3. Pterosaurs in general still seem to be getting stuck quite often, causing them to starve and die
4. The species viewer seems to have a memory leak going on, as it lags more and more the longer you use it
5. When you have nothing selected in the bulk demolish menu, everything you hover over will be highlighted red
6. The day-night cycle can cause quite some lag on lower end machines, especially during dusk
7. There's severe FPS drops when the day/night cycle is active, especially during dusk
8. Random FPS drops when raising/lowering terrain near buildings
9. Intense frame drop during Mosasaurus and Kronosaurus shark eating animations on lower end machines, likely due to the amount of water particles
10. When camera shake is enabled in the settings, the capture mode camera has a chance to rotate uncontrollably
11. Creatures in sandbox with the intelligent trait will still attempt to break out even when breakouts are turned off
12. Megalodon seems to have a lot of issues starting fights with other marine animals
13. Gigantoraptor can start bugged fights with Coelophysis, despite Coelophsysis being classified as a scavenger now
14. All large sauropods have a chance to turn into eldritch horrors that fly across the map when ragdolled
15. The default Giganotosaurus' walk animation plays way too fast compared to the other large carnivores of similar size
16. Spinosaurus' car attack animation at the end swiftly slides back into its starting position which can cause extra vehicle damage
17. Small carnivores are unable to land a killing blow on Cryolophosaurus and Spinoraptor
18. During the Malta campaign, sending dinosaur directly off to the cargo ship from the hatchery can cause the transport helicopters to become locked
19. Great inconsistencies of animals that are able to go through the classic JP fence, for instance, Chungkingosaurus can't but every other small stegosaur can. Gigantoraptor is able to fit through despite the neck clipping greatly through
20. Scorpios Rex does not do its custom struggle animation against medium carnivores anymore, only on other Scorpios Rex
21. Archelon is for some reason counted as a small marine in the hatchery, despite the Nothosaurus that is half its size being counted as a medium
22. Dsungaripterus requires challenge mode levels to be beaten to unlock the exclusive patterns/skins, unlike every other DLC Species

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Visual Bugs:

1. Ichthyosaurus currently has a broken social animation
2. Banana Trees placed by the tropical forest brush lack a shadow
3. Dsungaripterus turns into a weird texture mess when viewed from a distance
4. When meat feeders run out of supply the meat will instantly disappear before it sinks into the ground, the feeder also doesn't wait until dinosaurs are away from it. This bug has existed since the first game
5. The 1997 Stegosaurus variant currently has an issue where its plates greatly deform
6. All feather species have their feathers not show up in their shadows
7. Gigantspinosaurus has 4 plates on its back occasionally displace and sink into its body
8. Olorotitan's LOD seems to be broken, as its hand look quite deformed from only a medium distance
9. Proceratosaurus attacking a car causes it to deform greatly
10. The front most plate on Stegoceratops is completely discolored
11. Spinoraptor has discolored toe claws on certain skins
12. Spinoraptor has holes in its model, mainly the mouth
13. Maiasaura has a grey splotch on its head that don't change regardless of what skin is selected
14. The default Pteranodon still has broken patterns: Chalcorana, Lithobates, Pulchrana and Pelophylax
15. Megalodon's social animation can occasionally cause it to fly up into the air
16. Nothosaurus' hatchery animation does not utilize its arms, unlike what is depicted in the launch trailer of the pack
17. Gigantoraptor's human kill, whilst actually playing now, still has some alignment problems
18. Monolophosaurus' fence climb animation has its torso stretch out greatly
19. Carcharodontosaurus eyelids freak out when doing its idle roar
20. Carcharodontosaurus' body looks very weird during its attack animation
21. Spinosaurus seems to have a broken look around animation, causing the head to twist at unnatural angels, this is best seen during its resting animation
22. Carnotaurus' arms deform whilst it gets attacked
23. Carnotaurus' lips and arms distort greatly when getting hit by tranquilizer darts
24. Albertosaurus' arms deform whilst it does an walking roar
25. Dilophosaurus' spit doesn't show up during its human kill
26. Styracosaurus has several splotches on its tail and eyebrows
27. 1993 Triceratops does not close its eyes while sleeping
28. Camarasaurus has its eyes sink into its sockets when it gets hunted by a medium carnivore, the leg also dislocates during this animation
29. Camarasaurus' eyes freak out during its fence bash animation
30. 2001 Pteranodon leaving the hatchery / killing a human causes its lower jaw to stretch back
31. The 2001 Pteranodon variant deforms greatly when being attacked by the Indoraptor
32. Intense frame drop during Mosasaurus and Kronosaurus shark eating animations on lower end machines, likely due to the amount of water particles
33. Kronosaurus killing a Mosasaurus causes the Mosasaurus to shrink in on itself to a horrifying degree
34. Therizinosaurus' head feathers are still broken, this has been the case since the Malta update
35. Yutyrannus' goat kill animations clips quite a lot, along with the animation weirdly slowing down during it
36. Yutyrannus has one eye open during its sleeping animation
37. The 1993 and other movie T rexes' tongues are not textured at the bottom
38. Archelon during its underwater social animation speeds up a ridiculous amount before interacting
39. Archelon during both social animations has its flippers clip through the other Archelon
40. Nothosaurus' jaw dislocates slightly during its idle animation
41. The back four bottom teeth of Suchomimus are discolored
42. Shonisaurus has two discolored teeth
43. Shonisaurus uses the plesiosaur fossil icon instead of the ichthyosaur one
44. Attenborosaurus’ Amazon Rainforest skin is discolored on the Console version
45. If a tranquillized animal is killed by a predator it will continue to do its breathing animation
46. The second Carcharodontosaurus to leave the hatchery has its tail shrink on itself weirdly
47. Camarasaurus' eyes freak out during its fence bash animation
48. Nothosaurus and Megalodon's hatchery animation has a weird visual bug on the building during one of the camera angles, seems to only happen on the JW Lagoon Hatchery
49. Pachyrhinosaurus, Wuerhosaurus and Stegosaurus sometimes sink into the ground during their hatchery animation
50. The default Giganotosaurus' tongue is not textured at the bottom
51. Stegoceratops is not listed to have appeared in Jurassic World according to its INGEN Database (only writing this one down due to the Steam page saying it did)
52. Apatosaurus and Allosaurus are listed to have appeared in Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous according to its INGEN Database despite only being mentioned
53. The Feathered T. rex has smaller footprints than the other T. rex skins
54. A lot of species have their pattern colors go over their eyes**, *I've listed all I have found at the bottom of this post.**
55. JW Attraction Banner - Dome uses the wrong icon in the build menu, it specifically uses the JW Attraction Banner - Log icon

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Audio Bugs:

1. There are a lot of sounds in the game not affected by the capture mode slow motion feature
2. Cryolophosaurus and Megalosaurus don't play audio during their look around idle
3. Carnotaurus does not make sounds during on of its idle animations
4. Mosasaurus and Tylosaurus don't play audio during their social animations
5. Huayangosaurus does not play audio during its territory defense roar
6. Large Sauropods do not play audio during their territory defense roar
7. Spinoraptors' bark plays very quietly
8. Some medium carnivores do not play audio when killed by Spinoraptor
9. Hatchery music sometimes starts playing on repeat
10. Alamosaurus, Styxosaurus, Barbaridactylus and Atrociraptor have unique music for when you release one of them, but not when releasing multiple like other PDLC animals
11. Spinosaurus occasionally uses Ceratosaurus sounds, primarily during its human kill
12. Tarbosaurus occasionally uses a misplaced Tyrannosaurus rex growl
13. Both Giganotosaurus variants occasionally play idle roars whilst their mouths are closed
14. Spinoraptor uses a Dilophosaurus sound during its hadrosaur take down
15. Carcharodontosaurus makes a Carnotaurus sound during its small sauropod takedown
16. Cryolophosaurus uses the Tyrannosaurus rex music for some reason

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*List of creatures where the pattern goes over the eyes, not matter how minorly:

• Allosaurus: Chalcorana, Lithobates
• Amargasaurus: Lithobates
• Ankylosaurus: Lithobates, Pulchrana, Papurana, Pelophylax
• Brachiosaurus: All of them
• Camarasaurus: Lithobates, Pulchrana, Pelophylax
• Carcharodontosaurus: Pulchrana
• Carnotaurus: Lithobates
• Ceratosaurus: Papurana
• Coelophysis: Papurana, Pelophylax
• Cryolophosaurus: Rana
• Deinonychus: Chalcorana
• Dimorphodon: Rana, Pulchrana, Papurana
• Diplodocus: Lithobates, Pulchrana
• Dracorex: Pulchrana
• Dreadnoughtus: Chalcorana, Pulchrana, Pelophylax
• Dryosaurus: Rana
• Elasmosaurus: Rana, Pelophylax
• Homalocephale: Rana
• Huayangosaurus: Chalcorana, Pelophylax
• Indoraptor: Papurana, Pelophylax
• Mamenchisaurus: Pelophylax
• Megalosaurus: Lithobates
• Mosasaurus: Rana, Chalcorana, Lithobates, Pulchrana, Papurana, Pelophylax
• Sauropelta: Papurana
• Spinosaurus: Chalcorana, Lithobates, Papurana, Pelophylax
• Stegosaurus: Papurana
• Struthiomimus: Rana, Chalcorana
• Stigymoloch: Pelophylax
• Tapejara: Rana, Lithobates, Papurana, Pelophylax
• Triceratops: Lithobates, Pulchrana
• Tropeognathus: Pelophylax
• Velociraptor: All except Rana
• Wuerhosaurus: Rana, Chalcorana, Lithobates, Pulchrana, Papurana, Pelophylax
• Dimetrodon: Rana
• Alamosaurus: Rana
• Barbaridactylus: Lithobates
• Sinosauropteryx: Rana, Papurana
• Spinoceratops: Lux

​
The following are bugs Frontier has fixed since I first posted this list, major kudos!

1. Spinoceratops is now listed to have appeared in Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous in its INGEN Database
2. Tarbosaurus is now listed to have appeared in Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous in its INGEN Database
3. Spinoraptor still panics from Indominus Rex but it now makes sense since they don't like each other anymore
4. The animation for a Carnotaurus killing a Homalocephale has been fixed
5. The kill animation for Gigantoraptor on medium and large carnivores has been fixed
6. The 2022 Parasaurolophus skins no longer have messed up animations when being hunted by Spinoraptor and Tarbosaurus
7. Dinosaurs clipping and phasing through fences causing them to breakout seems to have finally been fixed
8. The Malta Jeep having a lot of bouncing and flipping issues seems to have been fixed

I need some help or at least for someone to tell me if there is anything else I can be doing.
My neighbor was buying the property next to me in 2019, bond for deed. When he first moved in he removed some bushes from in between my fence and his garage and threw that all of his yard waste in my burn pit in the back. I called the people who still owned the house, they had him remove it. He would later have words with me that he owned that strip of land. The thing is, when my fence went in the property was surveyed and it was discovered that the neighbors garage is actually OVER the property line. We aren’t assholes, so we told the neighbors we were going to set the fence back from the property line, but that the garage is over. It’s been there more than 10 years, so we knew there was no way to make them move it, plus? Seemed like an honest mistake. As long as we are clear that I’m willing to be accommodating so long as they don’t place anything else over? Fine.
The new neighbor who moved in in 2019 would end up coming to me (after I let him borrow my lawnmower - even though he’s a total asshole to me most of the time) and he told me he went and pulled the city hall records and I was right, my corner lot is slightly bigger than the rest of the block and his garage IS over the line. I just said something like “yeah, ok” because I didn’t want to cause a problem. He then tried to bitch at me about our neighbors on the other side being over on HIS side. I explained that I just want to keep out of other peoples business, what people do in their yards is their deal. Unless you are on my property or you are creating like an infestation problem? I’m going to assume you are doing the best you can and other stuff is going on that I don’t know about.
Fast forward and he has a bunch of junk back in his driveway. Neighbors complain to the village, I do not because it’s none of my business. When someone asks me about it? I tell them I assume he’s doing what he can and I’m not interested in making anything harder for anyone.
Then one of his junk trucks that is up on jacks with no wheels falls OFF the jacks and into my fence. It sucks, but he agrees he needs to get the truck off and repair any damage from the fence. Again, I’m doing the best I can here. I’m a single mom, my parents live with me, this dude is violent and scary and more than a little bit of a misogynist. Just fix it man.
It takes him awhile to get to it, but he does pull the truck off, when he does? There is clearly damage to the fence(there was zero damage at the time the truck fell), so whatever. Just fix it.
Flash forward again and in the course of two days he puts up some fortress wall. He also blocked off my access in the back, meaning I can’t to the broken fence but also this shitty thing is over the line.
I’m guessing this means he isn’t going to fix the fence. He was screaming at my dad, then the cops about how he has a permit to build that fence in my property. I contacted the village for a copy of the permit. They are stalling and I’m worried because he has a buddy who works in the village office.
What I have done: - I have a surveyor coming out this next week and have markers to sink to keep markers on the corners of the property line - I have put the village on notice that I want all documents related to the situation preserved because this is headed toward litigation and if he DOES have a permit to build on MY lot, I want to know how it happened and whose going to be responsible for my survey and court costs for causing this. - I am in the process of looking for a property dispute attorney in my area (anyone have suggestions on how to identity the best one or at least a good one?) - Anyone know how likely it is, assuming the survey is in my favor, that I can sue and recover the survey and attorney fees? At this point I also want to be compensated for my time and suffering. This has been terrifying and upsetting. Some man essentially walked onto my property, do what he wanted and told me I have to eat it. That shut went up in two days, that it didn’t come down just as quickly is insane to me. - Anyone know the likelihood of making him move everything but the garage? Don’t get me wrong, at this point? If they said it was my call? I’d be like “tear that garage down and I don’t fucking care.” But it’s been there a long time, my guess is that is not likely. But he has some shitty shed, that back fence on my property and the fortress in the front. I want it all OFF anything I own and I want it done NOW. As far as I am concerned if they can ticket his ass everyday do it. I’m done. I did everything I could to make this work and what a waste of time that was. At this point I’m beyond angry. I accept things will never be civil because I will no longer accommodate ANYTHING for him in any way. I’m not his mom or wife, I didn’t sign up for this and I’m really angry that he thinks is he can scare me into getting his way. Fuck that. At this point of I’m a Dateline special because he murders me I don’t even care. I will be going down swinging.
Thanks for advice. I have presence pics and documentation but seems like that’s not a thing here - which is ok.

Hi everyone,
Here's the summary/outline for the second half of Day 2 of Safe House. Sorry again for the length; they did a lot of talking-based activities today, and I wanted to try to translate and explain a good portion of it for you all. Hope this helps!
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/GkCLXss5hHI?feature=shared

• They're relaxing and playing Uno when we join them
• 15:30 PD asks Earth to go collect some snacks from the front door (sponsored by Snack Jack)
• 18:30 Earth starts reading the directions for the next medal game (also sponsored by Snack Jack. King of the Day divides everyone into two teams of 4. Each team in charge of "protecting" one flavour of Snack Jack. One person from Team A will sit blindfolded and try to protect the Snack Jack while all members of Team B will have two minutes to try to retrieve the Snack Jack while wearing bells on their bodies to make their movements louder. The blindfolded person can order everyone in Team B to move and stop, and each time they call stop, they have the opportunity to make one shot with a water gun. If they successfully hit a member of Team B, that person is eliminated from the competition. If someone from Team B successfully retrieves one bag of Snack Jack, opens it, and eats one piece, then Team B wins. If this has not been completed within the two minutes, Team A wins. The person with the water gun can only shoot up to 10 times in total during the 2 minutes. The team positions will change and they will play again. If both teams successfully steal, the team that steals the soonest within the 2 minutes wins. Winners get one medal each
  • 20:15 Luke decides to pick his team based on the three lowest-scoring people on the ranking board, hoping that he can help carry them to a victory and help them get one medal
  • 23:00 They go to the play zone/pool area and start strategising. Team B will attempt to steal first, and Luke will be the blindfolded person from Team A. There's some brief confusion about which flavoucolour each team is supposed to protect and steal.
  • 28:30 PD helps to go over the rules one more time and serves as the referee. Everyone on the stealing team needs to start by touching one of the walls of the room. Blindfolded person has to spin five times before the game begins.
  • 31:30 Luke didn't know that the eliminated people have to go stand behind him, so he mistakenly shoots Mix, but it doesn't count
  • 38:00 The next stealing team is strategising, and PD says that they have 15 more seconds to talk before they have to take their positions.
  • 40:00 The protecting team's "cheering" is a bit suspicious. PD asks them to be quiet, but they don't listen
• 46:00 Dinner. Menu includes soy sauce chicken with rice, pad gaprao beef with dried chili, pork gyoza, and banoffee pie for desert (in the fridge). They decide to eat directly out of the containers so there will be fewer dishes to wash. As usual, there's some awkwardness at the beginning because everyone wants to eat, but they want to think of something to talk about so the audience don't get bored
  • Dinner highlights: 55:00 They decide to exchange ghost stories tonight. Neo asks Luke if ghost stories is as much of a thing abroad as it is in Thailand. He says that he has one friend who has a personal ghost story that he can share: When Luke's friend was around 7, he was running around another friend's basement when he ran into an elderly woman doing some laundry. He later asked the parents of the house who that lady was, and they said that there's no one there, but they had an elderly maid years ago who died. So after that, the friend didn't like to go into basements anymore.
  • 58:45 Earth asks why Western ghost stories always seem to take place in attics or basements
  • 1:02:00 The guys ask if Luke has heard of the type of Thai ghost that wears old-style ceremonial clothing and does Thai traditional dance (considered very creepy).
  • 1:06:00 They bring dessert to eat outside. They get inspired to start playing on the large floating rafts in the pool while still clothed, and PD warns them to at least take off their mic packs first if they're going to do that
  • 1:14:30 They snack on some items from the seafood fridge, and then relax for a while in the area in front of the medal board. Pond gives some dance pointers.
  • 1:26:00 Some English/Thai lessons. They discuss how the direct translation of the Thai term for "living room" means "room where you sit leisurely" (or if you translate it even more literally like how Luke does, it translates to "room where you sit down and play"). Neo struggles a bit and blames it on Luke "unclear pronunciation." Luke gives some sentences for Neo (then Earth and Gun) to translate to Thai
  • 1:29:45 They think about what else to do, and they suggest several traditional Thai games, one of which is the "live fish/dead fish" that I explained previously. The topic of being blindfolded comes up, and they mention that when Luke was playing the Snack Jack game, he handled the water gun as if he were a cowboy. They start playing the live fish/dead fish game, but PD intervenes and invites them to come play the next medal game
• 1:38:30 Medal game (sponsored by the black inhalers). King of the Day will pair everyone up. Each pair will be tied together at the waist and hands, and all the pairs need to walk around the house together in order to try to find the two random mystery items somewhere around the house that have been scented with the peppermint scent of the black inhalers. The two pairs that find these two mystery items will get one medal each. Some of the pairs struggle a bit because they were smelling the inhalers too much at the beginning, so everything was smelling like peppermint to them.
• 1:51:30 Relaxing time
  • 1:55:45 Since everyone is planning to take a shower, Pond is a bit lazy to shower, and he s that his says uncle once told him that if your heart/soul are clean, your body is automatically clean, so he might use that excuse. He wants to go downstairs to make a Thai omelette (a little extra salty), but since he didn't shower in the morning, he'll shower first and then go make food.
  • 2:03:00 Small jam session in the larger bedroom
  • 2:22:00 Pond and Phuwin wish a happy birthday to P'Golf if he's watching
• 2:26:00 They do a game/activity where you answer questions and then the book will interpret aspects of your personality based on your answers. Gun reads the questions and interpretations, and the rest of the guys choose which option they want from each question
  • General statement: the answer choices are numbered 1-3 or 1-4. The numbers in Thai are 1=neung, 2=song, 3=saam, 4=see, so maybe you can hear which options each person is talking about when they're deciding which fits best with each person. Sometimes Gun also reads them as A, B, C, D.
  • 2:27:00 Question 1: When you sing karaoke with your friends, what type of song do you choose?
    • Rock: don't feel the need to overcompensate to express your uniqueness or individuality
    • Current chart hits: (Gun didn't read it because no one chose it)
    • Old songs: wants to be different/unique. You're a bit dramatic sometimes and sometimes it's like you're in a drama/lakhorn
    • Don't like to karaoke: Really wants to be unique/different. You might not be good at singing, but for the things you're good at, you're so good that people around you will compliment you and grow your ego even further
  • 2:33:45 Question 2: When you go to a roadside noodle stall, how long will you wait until you start to get a little impatient about the wait time? (as a qualifier, they make their decisions based on the assumption that the restaurant is not that crowded)
    • 3 minutes: No one chose it, but Gun read that it means that you are a bit selfish and you prioritise your needs and feelings over others'
    • 8 minutes: you have some patience (~50%). You can do a pretty decent job with enduring hardships and uncomfortable situations
    • 12 minutes: patience level ~90%. You might have a hard time believing in yourself or standing up for yourself
  • 2:37:30 Question 3: Close your eyes and imagine a bunch of flowers. What colour are these flowers? (at first, some of them didn't think of any of the listed options, or they thought of multiple colours). The guys made comments throughout this question that the interpretations were either not accurate, or that they seemed unnecessarily harsh. Hahaha. [also, this was quite a difficult question for me to translate because a lot of the words and concepts mentioned are quite specific in Thai and don't have direct/clean translations to English, but I tried to keep the translation as concise as possible, so I apologise]
    • Red: You have a high level of confidence/pride (90%). You put your full effort into everything and want to demonstrate your abilities and power. However, your level of confidence might turn out to be a bit of a curse because others won't want to be close to you
    • Purple: Confidence/pride 50%. You can think a little highly of yourself sometimes. You can hold grudges for a long time. You are probably talented in the arts.
    • Yellow: Confidence/pride 40%. You can change your mind easily and quickly. You're a little idealistic. Stay humble, and your self-confidence will grow naturally with your achievements
    • Blue: no one chose it
  • 2:42:20 Question 4: Imagine a person in your head who you might want to go and get to know (they also comment throughout that some of these interpretations are harsh or inaccurate. Like the further along in the game they get, the worse they feel about themselves. But then they realise that the name of the book they're reading means "Why is your heart cruel?" and the moral of the book is that everyone has some non-ideal qualities, etc.)
    • Colourful: no one chose it
    • Clean/classic/neat: The person in your imagination doesn't get lonely easily. They can be stubborn and demanding.
    • Trendy fashion: The person in your imagination likes to change to fit in with people around them. They get lonely easily
    • Own individual style: The person in your imagination gets lonely only sometimes. They can be serious/intense and can pull some energy from those around them
  • 2:47:40 Question 5: You're at a restaurant with a romantic partner, and you're both full. Someone brings a dessert for your romantic partner that happens to be a favourite dessert of yours. What does your partner do? (They found the question confusing, so they changed it to ask what they themselves would do. But then there was confusion about who was the person bringing the dessert, like if it's a potential romantic competitor or just the restaurant employee, etc. They never fully understood the question or agreed on the conditions of the hypothetical situation. It wasn't until Gun started reading the interpretations that they started to understand that the point of this question is basically to anticipate how likely you are to cheat in a relationship. It's not clear to anyone because the question isn't worded well, but they're interpreting it as if a potential romantic competitor handed a dessert to your romantic partner. If your partner eats it, then I suppose it means that they're not being faithful to you because eating the dessert means that they're showing the competitor that they have a chance? It's honestly a poorly worded question, and everyone was still confused at the end)
    • Don't touch it at all
    • Try it a little bit ("nit neung" in Thai so you guys can understand what they're discussing)
    • Eat half of it
    • Eat all of it
  • 2:55:30 Neo reads Question 6: if you and a romantic partner are feeding animals, which animal would you both choose to feed?
    • Snake: no one chose it
    • Tiger: You do everything fully; if you want to do something, you do it. You might prefer romantic partners who are older than you
    • Elephant: You are chill and easy-going. You hope that you can find someone supportive
    • Monkey: You prefer to be friends first before becoming romantic partners
  • 2:59:00 Question 7: If you're travelling out of town with someone you're romantically interested in, which method of travel do you choose? (it doesn't specify how far you're going)
    • High-speed train: Your prospective partner wants you
    • Train: no one chose it
    • Car: You and your partner want to get to know each other better
    • Plane: Your partner wants you to be more bold and wants to spend more time with you
  • 3:02:00 Question 8: If you and a romantic partner are walking up a mountain to admire a view together, what view would you most want to see? (this question is more explicit than they're openly talking. They're basically talking about sexual preferences and making innuendoes, but censoring as they go)
    • Sunrise
    • Another mountain
    • City scape
    • A cloudy/foggy cover scene
• 3:06:00 Relaxing time. Pond still wants Thai omelette like he did before, so he and Phuwin go to the kitchen to make one.
• 3:15:30 Fan Talk
  • Group 1 Highlights: Most of them stayed up late talking last night because they haven't seen each other in a while. Mix slept earliest and also woke up one of the earliest. Their throats are still sore from the chicken sounds competition from the morning. They playfully tease Luke about being King of the Day, like how it's easier for people in larger bodies to make louder sounds, and also that apparently American chickens sound weird. They mention how he was thoughtful to pick the three lowest-scoring people to be his team later so he could try to help them get a medal. They recapped the black inhaler game and said that the ones who smelled them too much before starting the game couldn't smell anything because the smell was lingering too strongly in their noses. Neo also talks about how the others pranked him to push him into the pool earlier. They're feeling increasingly more comfortable with each other, so they're looking forward to seeing how their relationships develop throughout the rest of the week. At around 3:22:00, Neo mentions that before, he thought Mix was quieter and "cooler" than how he's shown himself to actually be these two days. They are a bit surprised at Luke as well because he can switch between super playful moods and super serious moods when it's time for competition because he really wants to win. They all agree that Khaotung is the "dark horse" because he's more quiet and low-profile but he's one of the highest scorers. They enjoyed the Snack Jack game a lot, and around 3:26:00 they make fun of way Luke handled the water gun; it made them feel like they were in a thriller film. The second defending team tried to defend their "cheering" to help Earth when he was blindfolded
    • Fan Comments: They wanted to hear Khaotung more. They ask about things they might have forgotten to bring, and Neo said that he brought only four pairs of underwear for the week. Khaotung admits that he was a fan of Gun's before joining GMMTV. Fans complimented Neo's humour and requested more jokes. Someone said that they looked like four cats, so they tried to synchronise their head movements to look like a group of cats. Fans said that Gun was cute with his childhood blanket.
  • Group 2 Highlights (3:38:15): They made fun of Neo for not exercising with Luke, but he said that at least Neo woke up and went down, but he only exercised a little before giving up and going back to sleep. They agree that Neo is the life of the house, and the experience would probably be a lot less exciting or entertaining without him. Luke enjoyed being King of the Day, but he was a little frustrated that he and Earth didn't find the scented toilet paper in the black inhaler game because they walked past it but couldn't smell it. They all really enjoyed the Snack Jack game, and again, they said that Luke looked so cool and intense when he had the water gun. Luke learned that he always pointed the water gun correctly initially, but he kept second-guessing himself and moving his aim before shooting. They're all finding the house and the environment easy to adjust to, and they're all feeling happy. They're all playfully perplexed by how much energy Neo has, and they also agree that Khaotung is the dark horse. At 3:47:00, Pond and Earth bond over the fact that in all GMMTV competitions they've every participated in, they've always scored very lowly. Earth says partially jokingly that he has sometimes gone home and asks, "Am I just truly not good?" They have faith that Pond can perform well in any activity with a physical component (especially dancing), and Mix and Gun are probably best at activities that require cunningness/craftiness.
    • 3:50:00 Fan comments: Luke tries to answer an English comment, and he successfully translates them to Thai. Luke and Phuwin give statements in English. People ask when they're going to finally play a full game of "live fish/dead fish." People make fun of Pond for being lazy to shower, and he reiterates the saying his uncle told him about having a clean heart/soul. They also address the comments asking for English subtitles. They say that Mix eats the most in the house, but he gains a lot of happiness from food. They hope that they'll have the ghost story session tonight.
• 3:58:00 Relaxing/leisure time. Gun and Khaotung are making crispy fried shredded imitation crab with truffle salt.
  • 4:06:30 Pond, Neo, and Luke play darts. Phuwin joins later. Luke explains the rules to Khaotung.
  • 4:19:00 Phuwin plays around a bit with a guitar. Others later join to sing a bit. Khaotung and Luke continue playing darts.
  • 4:34:30 Gun and Earth play with one of the cameras. Neo joins.
  • 4:42:00 Neo, Luke, Khaotung, Gun, and Earth play Uno [sorry, I don't know the rules]
  • Gun and Phuwin make some noodles and share them with the guys around 5:09:00
  • 5:13:00 Khaotung and Phuwin make a different type of instant noodle and discuss their preferred ways to prepare instant noodles
• 5:29:00 Ghost stories
  • 5:30:00 Pond's story: A story of a friend of his. It takes place in a dormitory that is next to a temple. They keep interrupting him, so Pond keeps repeating the phrase "dormitory next to a temple" many times, which makes everyone laugh and continue interrupting him. Pond's friend was living with a roommate, and the roommate had to pray in the evenings. Pond's friend was on the top level of a bunk bed, but every night, he heard the roommate sit almost like they're praying, but they're always facing an empty chair like they're talking to someone. One day, the roommate asked Pond's friend if he could sleep on the upper bunk with him, and Pond's friend was confused but agreed. At night, Pond's friend heard a voice asking if the bedroom was full yet and whether another person could come sleep. (There's a belief in Thailand that if you hear voices talking to you in the night, you shouldn't reply to them or engage with them). They sat up and looked around, and there was no one else in the room who could have asked that. After that, Pond's friend wanted to move to a different room/dormitory.
  • 5:34:30 Add-on to Pond's story; takes place in the same dormitory building. The guys jokingly ask if it was next to a temple before letting him continue. There was a small room/passageway inside that they believed was a passageway for ghosts. Every day at 02:00, people will hear knocking sounds and sometimes door slamming from that area. These sounds even continued when the students were mostly away at their homes. A few times, things were falling off of shelves. The remaining students investigated but couldn't find anything. In that room/area, there was a closet/wardrobe with a mirror next to the bathroom. In the mirror, they could see a woman sitting hunched over in the bathroom, but they couldn't see anything when they turned to look directly in the bathroom.
  • 5:39:00 Earth's story. Earth tells Mix to tell it instead because he's better at storytelling. Once Mix was at the house of a friend of his (implied to be Earth's house). He was showering upstairs, when he heard someone opening and closing a door. He later asked the owner of the house, and they said that they never went upstairs because they were sleeping downstairs. Mix demonstrates the walkway to enter the bathroom/powder room, and how when you can see the mirror immediately upon opening the door. One time, Mix opened the door and saw a man standing. At 5:41:50, PD pranks them by playing a loud slamming noise to scare them. Mix continues the story: The man he saw walked straight into the area outside of the bathroom and disappeared into some of the furniture.
  • 5:43:20: Add-on to Earth/Mix's story. A different day, someone came to collect Mix at the house. The person who came to collect Mix at the house saw someone standing by the front of the house when they arrived, but at that time, Mix and the owner of the house were still sleeping inside. Quick additional story: Mix was in the bathroom once, when he heard someone trying to forcibly enter the bathroom. He opened the door and saw nothing.
  • 5:45:30 Earth's story: He went with a friend on a vacation where they stayed in a two-bedroom bungalow that was made of wood, including the furniture. Earth was having trouble sleeping, and at one point, he heard some noises. He tried to sit up to investigate, but he couldn't move anything in his body. In his peripheral vision, he heard a woman (he's basically describing sleep paralysis). He starts praying a bit and slowly, his condition improves until the vision of the woman disappears and he's able to move.
  • 5:49:00 Neo's story: He sets the story in his old school without saying the name, but he mentions so many descriptors like the location, history, etc., that everyone makes fun of him that it's clear which school it is already. He was staying in an athlete's dormitory. The badminton players used to have ghost storytelling sessions where they would talk about the ghost of that building. People would see a person in a white outfit on the stairs, specifically on the flight of stairs on the fifth level. (there are two sets of stairs, one on each short side of the building, and there's a small passageway where if you wanted to, you can pass to the opposite stairwell. This passageway was the haunted one on the fifth level, so people were afraid to look or walk though that area. Neo didn't believe the stories, but one time, during the regular evening dormitory inspections (around 22:00 every night), the inspector was passing by. Neo's bedroom was in a location where the walkway outside that section had a dead end, so you could only walk in one direction and then walk back the other direction in order to leave. Therefore, the boys always waited for the inspector to pass by the window twice before they knew that the coast was clear for them to continue talking, playing on their phones, etc. However, this time, the inspector only passed by the window once. The boys waited in silence for the second passing, but it never came, so eventually four of the boys decided to open the door and look for the inspector. They looked toward the end of the hallway where the person must be if they haven't walked back past the window again, but there was no one there, so everyone wondered who that must have been who walked past the window once and disappeared.
  • 5:56:45 Mix's story: In his house outside of Bangkok, the structure used to be a small apartment building but got turned into a house. Mix's father bought it, split it in half, and rented out the other half. When Mix was younger, he was watching television with the room door ajar (his room was next to the head of the stairs). The light from the TV could illuminate the area outside of the door. One day, outside his door, he saw an elderly lady dressed in a traditional dress of Northern Thailand. Mix followed her out onto the stairway until she disappeared. The next day, Mix told his father about it, and his father stoically told Mix that the previous owner of the house was an elderly lady who died by falling off the stairs and breaking her neck. Apparently in the other half of the house they were renting out, the tenants tended to not stay long before moving out. At one point, a friend of Mix's father rented the half of the house for a short lease, and the friend said that he kept hearing and/or seeing a male walking around the house, even though he lived alone.
  • 6:02:00 Phuwin's story: he lives in a Chinese-style house, and this was during a Chinese festival. Phuwin's father lit some incense to pray around 16:00 (late afternoon). (usually incense sticks take a couple of hours to burn out). That night, a little after midnight, Phuwin's father felt like something wasn't right, so he went down to investigate. In Phuwin's house, people usually go upstairs around 22:00 and don't really come down for anything. Phuwin's father saw that the incense he lit >8 hours prior were still smoking, and as he looked at the incense, they caught in flame (incense are supposed to just smoke until they run out, not be actively on fire). So Phuwin's father thinks a ghost was warning him to come and put out the incense so the house wouldn't catch fire, but it was still very strange that the incense was burning/smoking for >8 hours.
  • 6:05:00 Everyone says goodnight to the viewers

I’ve (m 34) been stuck my whole life. I used to make excuses that it couldn’t possibly be my fault but now I know it is. I have a job, I’m a member of society, I have dreams and ambitions, but I don’t know how to get through the barrier. I see so many stories about people who decide one day to change their whole life and suddenly they get an amazing job and enough money to buy a house and I just want to have my own place? I know there’s something to be said about my mom treating me like some frail Victorian child who would surely perish in the sunlight should I stray too far, but after a certain point I should have stopped it. I’m going to be thirty five this year and I have barely anything to show for it. I live with my grandmother who I adore and would do anything for as well as my mom and uncle - for background my uncle takes care of and gives my grandma rides because she can’t drive, my mom complains about being asked to do minor tasks - I work at a convenience store and give money where I can to my grandma, she doesn’t demand rent but I do help her with things and we all have a household bill that we pay to keep things fair. I know it’s incredibly common to still be living with your family, especially right now with how expensive it is to buy a home, but I want to break free of this.
I’m trans, born female, and have been too afraid to even start transitioning because I want to have a kid one day and I’m scared that if I don’t have that child myself I won’t be able to have a child at all. I’ve always wanted to be a parent, but I can’t afford that big of a step anyway, much less to adopt. I guess what stalls me most is that I have these big dreams but I can’t seem to put together the in-between of it. I don’t want to know how to become successful, but how do you even begin putting a life together? How do I get a degree and get a better job when everyone tells me college is too hard and not worth it in the end? What trade-skills can I learn and are they actually worth it? I feel so lost and no matter how much I try to study up on making life better I just end up slowly losing that ambition because I’ll read one thing only to have it immediately cut down by someone else. I’m tired of existing for the sake of existing and want to actually live.
One thing I’ve always wanted was to be a teacher, but I guess over time I’ve just let people talk me out of it. College is difficult, teachers don’t make much so it’s not worth it and yeah that makes sense. Why go into debt just to be stuck in the same place I am now? Though my least favorite response is “If you want to make money, just become a nurse!” and full respect to people who do get their CNA or other certifications, I have made an effort in the past towards this type of job because of my sister and have learned that it’s just not for me. I want to be a writer. I love creating stories, but I don’t know how to translate what’s in my head onto paper, or into a document even. I try to give myself shorter story ideas but that seems to stall my mind even more. Would hiring a ghostwriter help? How much is a ghostwriter? I probably couldn’t afford it anyway. I used to be able to write at the drop of a hat, nothing important to the actual story and it was mostly just world building, but I feel like lately I’ve just been devolving deeper into depression and I’m trying to tread water in the middle of a lake only to realize it’s tar, every time I resurface for air I have a little more of it in my mouth and it seems to pull me down even faster.
Sometimes I just want to disappear, pack a small bag and keep walking until I’m so far away that no one can find me, force myself to get a new life, but deep down I know that won’t change things for the better and my life might end up phenomenally worse.
I don’t know, I’ve never posted to Reddit before and I don’t know if saying all these things will do anything for me or give me the push/drive to make an actual change, but I’m tired of putting all my dreams on a shelf to collect dust.

https://www.academia.edu/119272887
​
Consider the matches in :
​
G. grupós ‘curved’, grū́ps ‘griffin’
​
G. gū́pē ‘*curve/*hollow’ > ‘hole/cave/hut’, gū́ps ‘vulture’
​
*gH2auso- > G. gausós ‘crooked’, OIr gáu ‘lie’
Indian gausalítēs ‘a bird’ (likely Gandharan, found in Hesychius’ Lexicon), Hi. gauriyā ‘sparrow’
​
​
These are likely related from the shape of a beak. Naming an animal after its prominent feature resembles ‘horn’ / ‘deer’, etc. Thus, the same in :
​
G. kûphos ‘hump’, kūphós ‘bent/stooping’, Skt. kakúbh- ‘peak/summit’
*tip/*peak > G. kúmbē \ kúbē ‘head’, Cr. kuphḗ
*point/*beak > *bird; G. pl. kúmbai ‘birds’ (in Hesychius), Pol kómba ‘crow’
​
​
All this makes it extremely likely that IIr. *kapawta- ‘pigeon / dove’ > Skt. kapóta-, MP kabōd ‘grey-blue / pigeon’ is also related to *kawput ‘head’, *kaput ‘head’. The only alternative, Manaster Ramer’s *ka-pauHta- ‘oh how preened’ seems insupportable, and I do not see *ka- / *ku- as IE prefixes, such as *ka-vastra- ‘what a mouth!’ > ‘bad mouth’ > Yazghulami kawōx ‘leopard’ (Witczak, Whalen 2023). These seem to be a part of irregular changes of *wp > (_)p (Whalen 2024b) :
​
*kawput ‘head’ > Go. haubiþ, OE héafod, E. head
*kaput ‘head’ > Skt. kaput-, L. caput, ON höfuð
​
*kawp- > L. caupō(n-) ‘petty tradesman / huckster / tavern-keeper’
*kap- > G. kápēlos ‘local shopkeeper / tavern-keeper’
​
*newbh-s > Latin nūbs / nūbēs ‘cloud’
*ne:bhs >> Skt. nā́bh-, nā́bhas ‘clouds’
​
*lowbho- ‘bark’ > Alb. labë, R. lub
*lo:bho- > Li. luõbas
​
*lowbo- ‘bark’ > OIc laupr ‘basket’, OHG lo(u)ft ‘bark/bast’
*lewp- > *lep- > G. lépō ‘peel / strip off the rind’
​
*twerb- / *turb- > ON þorp ‘village’, E. -thorp
*trewb- > *treb- > OIr treb ‘dwelling’
*trewb- > *tre:b- > O. trííbum ‘building’
​
*dhrewb- > ON drjúpa, dropi, OE dryppan, dropa, E. drip, drop, G. thrúptō ‘break into pieces’
*dhreb- > Skt. drapsá- ‘drop of liquid’
​
​
To avoid *wp, you might think *kapawta- came from metathesis of *kawpata- (or a similar shift), with Gw. kōpotá & Pr. kowroṭī́ being a retention of *kaw-, but other evidence shows that the traditional reconstruction is slightly wrong. Some words require *kapawṭa, others *kapawtra :
​
*kawpata- ? > Gw. kōpotá
​
*kawpatra- ? > *kawpaṭar- > Pr. kowroṭī́ (like Skt. śvātrá-m ‘strengthening/savory food/drink’, A. čõõṭaár ‘rhubarb’)
​
*kapawta- ‘pigeon / dove’, Skt. kapóta-, Pkt. kavōya-, *kawóol > Kh. kowòr, Ks. kohṓu, obl. kohṓlūna, MP kabōd ‘grey-blue / pigeon’ >> Arm. kapoyt ‘grey / sky/sea-blue’
​
*kapawṭa-, Pkt. kavōḍa-
​
*kapawtara- / *-tra- / *-tar-; Pahl. kapōtar, Ps. kautar, (loans?) D. kawtáar, Km. kōtur, dat. kōtaras 'pigeon / dove’, Maldivian (dialect of Sinhalese) kotaru 'pigeon’
​
​
Instead of 5 separate & related stems, all can be united (since metathesis is needed anyway) from *kawput ‘head / peak / beak’ >> *kawputala- ‘dove’ > *kapawt(u)la. Adding *-ala- would be normal for a diminutive derivative within IIr. Loss of *-u- ( or > *-a- ) as in (Whalen 2022, 2024c) :
​
*skandulHo- > *sxantułxo- > Arm. pl. sanduł-k` / sandux-k` ‘laddestairs’
*skandulo- > *skandlo- > L. pl. scālae ‘ladder / flight of steps’
​
*pteturo- > *fteturo > *fetturo > Arm. p`etur ‘feather’
*ptetro- > G. pterón, Skt. pátra- / páttra-, pátatra- ‘wing/feather’
​
*H(a)mburHo- > Arm. ambuṙ-k` ‘storm’
*H(a)mbro- > G. ómbros ‘rain(storm)’, Arm. amprop ‘thunder(bolt)’
​
*grH2unHo- = *grxunxo- > *gurRunRo > *kurrunko > Arm. kṙunk ‘crane’
*gerH2no- > G. géranos
​
​
For *-tl- optionally becoming *-tr- or *-ṭ-, this fits Fortunatov’s Law (which states that dentals became retroflex after *l, then *l disappeared) and other Iranian optionality for *tl (forthcoming). However, this “law” is not regular, since some VlC > VC, others > V:C, others > VCh, others unclear (Whalen 2024a) :
​
Skt. huḍa- ‘ram’, Dk. hʌldin ‘male goat’, ON *galtuz > göltr ‘boar’
​
*bhals-? > bhaṣá-s ‘barking/baying’, bhāṣa- ‘speech’, Li. balsas ‘voice’
​
*g^elt- > jaṭhára- ‘stomach’, Go. in-kilþs ‘pregnant’, OE cild, E. child
​
*kH2ald- = *kxald- > *kaldo- > kaḍa- ‘dumb’, Go. halts ‘*broken > lame’
​
*kH2ald-? > khaḍ- ‘divide/break’, khaṇḍ- ‘divide/break/destroy’
​
*g^helH3to- > hárita- ‘yellow(ish) / pale (yellow/red) / green(ish)’, Av. zairita- ‘yellow’
*g^hlH3t(ak)o-m > hāṭaka-m ‘gold’, Go. gulþ, E. gold
​
*melno- > MIr. mell, Gae. meal ‘hill’, Irish meal ‘sphere/lump/knob/knoll/heap’, Skt. máṇḍa- ‘circle/circularound’
​
*meldno-? ‘slow’ > Skt. manda-, Kh. malála ‘late’, Ku. mǝlaŋ ‘slowly’, R. medlennyj
​
*(s)mlhno- > Latvian milna ‘cloth / garment’, Persian *mandō >> G. mandúas ‘woolen cloak’
​
​
These also contain other oddities. If some Iran. v > m, then *kapavta- > *kapauta- in most but *kavavtula- > *kavomtala- > *kawuntara > Ps. kauntar (with optional dissim. of v-v after -p- > -v-) would allow us to understand all forms. The loan to Km. kāntur ‘male sparrow’ would also show an older meaning for several types of birds. This would support the existence of old *w > v and even *Vu \ *Vv before C in many IE languages. This requires *au \ *av to last longer than most suppose (not > *ao \ *o: early). A similar dissimilation is behind :
​
*kavavta- > *kewewte > *kewetye > *kewetsye > TB kotstse ‘dove’
​
This is not the standard gloss, but Douglas Q. Adams gives several Tocharian B derivations that do not seem likely. For this, ‘I lie here on the ground twānk-ing the feathers of the kotstses, belonging to no one’. As to the identity of the kotstse bird, Adams offers ‘owl?’, for no reason I can see. Since *w-w seems to exist in cognates of Skt. kapóta-, the same here would not be odd. For ‘wearing the feathers of doves’, maybe a phrase for ‘in love’, not literal, would best fit the context. For Iranian *a > *e, see *aćva- ‘horse’ > TB etswe ‘mule’. For *w-w > *w-y, see many IE.
​
​
Adams, Douglas Q. (1999) A Dictionary of Tocharian B
http://ieed.ullet.net/tochB.html
​
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (2024, draft?) The Difference between Wrong and Right: Indo-Iranian kapauta- 'pigeon'
https://www.academia.edu/119119371
​
Whalen, Sean (2022) Importance of Armenian: Retention of Vowels in Middle Syllables
https://www.reddit.com/etymology/comments/w01466/importance_of_armenian_retention_of_vowels_in/
​
Whalen, Sean (2023) Avestan kǝrǝfšx˅ar- ‘corpse-eating’, xrafstra- ‘(unclean) beast’
https://www.reddit.com/etymology/comments/zww7n8/avestan_k%C7%9Dr%C7%9Df%C5%A1xar_corpseeating_xrafstra_unclean/
​
Whalen, Sean (2024a) A Pressing Matter: Soma, Figs, and Fat (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/116917855
​
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Indo-European *w > 0 / *W, *wP > *_P / *P / *CP (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/116360502
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Whalen, Sean (2024c) Indo-European Alternation of *H / *s as Widespread and Optional (Draft)
​
Witczak, Krzysztof (2009) Lusitanian Personal Names with the Equine Motivation
https://www.academia.edu/6870303
​

I am trying to better understand how market distribution works. After periodically having houses not receive fuel and food for a few days every month, I destroyed my marketplace. Unassigned all the families from buildings other than granary and storage, created a smaller marketplace and let the granary and storehouse workers create stalls and stock them first.
Now my marketplace is full and I just got a notification saying the family assigned to my tavern wants to create a stall.
Why?
Edit : solved. They have a backyard with a chicken coop

First
Previous
The moons were barely visible through the snow and clouds as Fulmara took her watch for the night. The normal sounds of the woods were faint, muted by the growing white blanket, and even with her low light vision, Fulmara couldn't see more than thirty feet from camp, so heavy were the falling flakes. She looked upward and offered a brief prayer to Fulmos for safety before settling in. Her time was looking to be uneventful, as few creatures would be active in this weather, and fewer people.
She had just rested her hammer across her lap when she felt it, a strange sensation from above, as though something was watching her. Looking up, she saw the larger moon, not through the clouds and snow, but clearly, as though it were hovering just out of reach. The moon then began to change, shifting from it's normally pale complexion to a more ruddy appearance, before glowing brighter and more orange. The sound of metal striking metal reached her ears, and she began to understand.
She could smell the smoke of the forge, familiar enough from her childhood, and a song reached her ears, faint at first, but growing ever louder. She didn't recognize the language, but she knew a dwarven forging song when she heard one. She closed her eyes and listened for a bit, before the scene began to change. The light faded, and she opened her eyes again to see that the moon, once bright and warm, was now cold and dark, and the song that filled her ears was replaced with a cruel laughter, and a whispering that haunted her nightmares.
As quickly as it had begun, the vision ended. The moon faded from vision, returning to its place above the night sky, and the voices grew distant, before stopping entirely. A cold chill took her and the frigid wind reasserted itself. It was then that she noticed the hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. Jeron stared down at her, concern evident on his face.
“You alright?” he asked, pulling her back toward the tent. She realized she'd wandered away at some point. “You were standing there for a couple minutes, staring at the sky.”
She shook her head, dislodging some of the snow that had built up in her blonde hair. “I think I've just been sent a vision. I'm not really sure what it means, but it's not good.”
“Alright, you go rest, and I'll take my watch. You can explain it in the morning, once we're all awake to hear it.”
Fulmara agreed, and brushed the rest of the snow off before returning to the tent. She pulled the covers over her head and tried to sleep, to forget the whispers. They echoed in her mind, swirling through her thoughts until they were all she could hear. The dwarf clenched her fists, raging against the noise in her head, and she felt her power stir. And then, like a torch that had been snuffed out, the whispers stopped, and she quickly fell asleep, the warmth of her divine magics wrapped around her thoughts like a woolen blanket.
“I think we all know what the whispers represent,” Jeron commented as they ate. “The song you heard though...”
“Right,” Firun added. “You said it was dwarven but not. Can you explain?”
“Not really. It was a dwarven smithing song. It had the cadence and the right feeling, but the language was something else. I don't think I could replicate it if I tried.”
“I have an idea,” Verrick posed. “If this was a vision, then it was sent by Fulmos, right?”
“Most likely,” Jeron agreed. “Though not necessarily true.”
“Then wouldn't the song be in a language that only the gods could sing?”
“That makes sense,” the Bard confirmed. “And it would almost confirm that it was sent by the Forge himself. The darker option is that our whispering enemy has some hold on you, and that he's trying to torment you.”
“How will we know?” she asked.
“We'll have to wait for more visions. Or we can find someone to delve into the memory with you, but that talent is not a common one, and they don't usually use it unless it's necessary. Too easy to get lost in memories, and some of the darker stuff sticks with you, or so I'm told.”
“Still, we need to look into this more,” Firun explained. “Even in my hometown, as terrified of magic as they were, people still respected visions from the gods. They didn't necessarily respect the receiver of the vision, but still...”
The human and dwarf both nodded, and Verrick looked apprehensive as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Finally, he looked back up to the group.
“We have a lot of things that need to be done, and not enough of us able to do them. Something's got to fall by the wayside, and two of those things are more important than the other.”
“Stop right there,” Jeron said, cutting the halfling off mid thought. “Firun's magic isn't going to be solved overnight. We can run tests and train all we want, but ultimately, it's going to take time for him to gain proper control. And Fulmara's vision isn't particularly conclusive either. Not many details in what she saw, so we have nowhere to start that we didn't have already. It's more likely a warning of things to come rather than a call to action.
“What we can work on is teaching you two to read properly, and tracking down your father. I think I know where he went, or where he was headed at least, and if that's not the end of the search, then we can ask around and see if any records have anything.
“Where do you think he went?” Verrick asked.
“He was carrying a large amount of alchemical equipment, right? Only two reasons for that. Either he was setting up a shop somewhere, which he wouldn't have left you behind for, or he was planning on brewing a large amount of something in an environment that was too dangerous for you. I know there was a plague in the area bowlward of Norgham around that time, and he would've had to take this trade road to get there, which lines up with the doctor seeing him back then. He definitely wouldn't have taken his child into an active plague, which explains him leaving you behind. Really, I just need to make sure the years line up with the timeline before we start traveling down that way.”
“So you might actually be able to find him?”
“Temper your expectations,” the Bard cautioned. “That was years ago. For him to not return after all that time...”
“Right, something probably happened. Still, I need to know.”
“We'll find him,” Fulmara said. “And if he's still alive, I'll hold him still so you can punch him.”
Verrick grinned. “I'd appreciate that.”
“So where do we need to go to do your research?” Firun asked, scrubbing the sleep from his face with a handful of snow.
“Back home. The merchants guild keeps records of major events like that, just in case they end up finding a pattern. As the largest trade city in the area, Norgham will have records of any plagues, disasters, and anything else that threatens to disrupt trade.”
“That makes a strange amount of sense,” Fulmara said. She strapped the last of her armor on and tugged, making sure everything was tight. “Why do I feel like merchants shouldn't be in charge of tracking history?”
“Because they'd charge for access,” Verrick commented. “And you can be sure they'd change things to make them look better, or to remove something that threatens their profit.”
“Their entire purpose is to help the merchants avoid situations where they would see a significant loss of profits,” Jeron explained. “They don't censor things because that hides critical information that could help them make more money. The trade off is that unless you have the money and a valid reason for the research, they don't want to deal with you, and they don't collect information on anything that doesn't generally affect them. Fortunately, we do have a valid reason, we've done some good work for them, and a plague is exactly the kind of thing they'd monitor.”
“Is a missing person a valid reason?” Firun countered. “If they were an important figure, I could see that working, but we're looking for an alchemist. No offense.”
“None taken. And you're right. A single missing person doesn't seem like something they'd care about.”
“We're not looking for a person,” Jeron explained. “We're doing research on a historical plague and its cure. There are any number...”
His eyes defocused for a moment, and he tilted his head slightly, as if listening to a far off conversation. The bard then cupped his hand to his mouth before speaking.
“Understood. We're on our way back now. Should be back to the city by nightfall. Need to report to the guard before we return.”
He returned his attention to the group. “Sorry about that. Ryn'Ala just contacted me. She's been doing some research through her own contacts, and may have some information about our smokey friend.”
“Then let's get going,” Fulmara announced. “The longer we wait, the later we get back.”
“I agree,” Firun said. “I don't like not knowing what our enemy is.”
Verrick had already started breaking down the tent, and grunted as he pounded the inside of the canvas to remove the snow from the exterior. In short order, their gear was packed away, the fire extinguished, and the campsite swept for loose tools and anything else that might otherwise be left behind. Within the hour, they were well on their way back home.
“Ghouls you say?” asked Mickel as Jeron gave his report.
“Correct. Two ghouls, a ghast, and a nest in an excavated tunnel system. The ghouls are dead, and the nest was burned.”
“Right, that's certainly a story.” Mickel scratched the stubble growing from his pale scalp. He set the request back on the desk and turned to the door behind him.
“Hey, Jev! Jevin! Got some hazard pay you need to authorize!”
There was a crashing sound from the back room, where the prisoners were kept, and soon the door swung open, revealing Jevin, the guard who had processed their prisoners the last time they'd arrived. He stumbled out, blinking sleep from his eyes.
“Mickel, you bastard, do you have any idea what time it is? I just spent twelve hours clearing that damned rat infestation out of the sewers. Let me sleep!”
He looked up at the group, and his expression changed.
“Oh, it's you lot! Got another load of bounties to claim?”
“Hazard pay, Jev,” Mickel repeated. “That grave robbing job turned out to be a bunch of ghouls.”
“Oof. Fought a ghoul once,” Jevin said, gesturing to a thick scar running down the right side of his face. “Not something I'd choose to do again. Now, not saying I don't believe you, but I need proof for the paperwork. You bring me something?”
Jeron pulled a phial from his belt, rattling it as he handed it over. “Left fang from each. Longer one was the ghast.”
“When did you take those?” Verrick asked.
“Right before I burned their corpses,” Firun said, “while you two were flirting.”
Mickel whistled, and Jevin snorted as he tried to hold back a laugh. Verrick and Fulmara both turned a bright shade of red and stumbled over each other's protests.
“Anyway,” Jev announced, clearing his throat, “These will do. Mickel, the forms?”
The bald man passed a parchment to Jevin, who noted the evidence and signed it, before stamping it with a wax seal. He fished around in the desk for a moment before passing the parchment and a small pouch of coins to Jeron. “Five silver for the job, and I've authorized another thirty silver in hazard pay for the ghouls. Starting to appreciate the twelve hours in the sewers a lot more now. The ghoul I fought was alone, and it took five of us to take down. I was just a recruit then, but still.”
Jeron added the pouch of coins to his bag as he answered. “We're just glad we were able to resolve that without much difficulty. You may want to send out a notice to the villages under your protection, tell them to keep an eye out for a bit. We believe this might not be a random occurrence.”
“You think someone wanted the ghouls there?” Mickel asked, incredulously.
“I found an emblem down by the nest,” Verrick explained. “Firun said it was enchanted at one point, but the magic had gone. Something like that, hidden where nobody would ever go, just steps from the ghoul nest?”
“Bit of a stretch to call that a coincidence,” Jevin agreed. “I'll send a missive out to the villages. What should they be looking for?”
“Unearthed graves,” Firun listed, counting on his fingers as he went, “bodies with humanoid bite marks, strange claw marks, attacks that leave their victims paralyzed, or strange noises in a graveyard after dark. That's what we got from our research.”
“Right, I'll let everyone know. Thanks again for your hard work.”
“Keep paying us like this,” Jeron said as they made their way to the door, “and we'll keep handling problems. Sorry about the sewers though.”
“Yeah, yeah, go on now! Before I have to drag you back down with me tomorrow.”
The party strolled through the city, the buildings now decorated with snow and ice from the previous night's storm. The road was mostly clear, though a layer of slush remained to give their footfalls a wet, squishy feeling. They stopped at a market stall to grab a late dinner of roasted meats and vegetables on skewers before returning to Ryn'Ala's home. The study was brightly lit, and several voices drifted out into the hall as the front door closed behind them. Ryn'Ala called them in, and they found two individuals sitting with her.
“You've all returned,” she said, taking a long draw from her pipe. “I'm truly pleased to see you all safe. I have some good news for you, and some of the unfortunate variety. And then something that fits into both categories, I think.”
She stood, drawing herself up to her full height, towering over the party. “Where should we begin?”
Next
Wiki
Anyone who's ever played D&D has reached a part of the early campaign where you have a bunch of goals to achieve, but no idea where to go first. In the campaign I'm playing now, that moment came when we ended a self sustaining zombie plague and blew a hole in the wall that turned the quarantine zone into magical Australia. The whole world opened up to us, even if we were technically fugitives. It's an intimidating point for everyone, where your action and inaction start to really affect the world around you.

Systems
Shows picture of the panel
-Left tank shows more fuel than right. Pull right cross feed lever. 5 gallon max difference.
-Gear lights Showing 2 green 1 off and no red. How do you test it. Press gear fire test. 3 indications which are the fire annunciations, horn, 3 green and red light on gear. If it’s a bulb, during test it won’t turn on and it’s safe to land.
-Gear lights Now you’re showing 2 green and 1 red. What to do. Recycle the gear.
-Flying around and picking up ice. Now engine is running rough. What to do. Pull alternate air and saw by doing so it reroutes the air around the filter.
-What happens after turning engine master on? Oil goes into the prop hub, ECU turns on, Glow Plugs come on, and excitation batteries excite the alternator.
-What does ECU test button do? There’s a ground test to make sure everything working properly. Hold it down, shows all the annunciations on the panel and they all clear.
-What does the ECU button do in the air? You’re able to clear annunciations.
-What happens if you get an ECU failure? Press the ECU button to clear. Only able to do it once. If it comes back on you need to land as soon as possible.
-What about electric master? Hydraulic accumulater pressurizing
-You lost one engine and lost other alternator. What happens and what to expect. You’ll still have an engine. Runs down the mainship for 30 minutes which powers engine and screens. Goes to ECU backup for 30 minutes and lose screens. After ECU dies you’ll lose the engines. Emergency backup will be turned on that powers backup attitude indicator and food light which lasts 90 minutes. Asks if gear will work. Pull emergency gear to release pressure down. Asks about flaps, no they’re electric.
Aerodynamics
-Draws plane (on the ground) what are the turning tendencies? Spiraling slipstream yaw left and torque which is role left but since it’s on the ground it’ll be yaw left. Puts a lot more stress on the left tire.
-Draws plane (in the air) what are the turning tendencies? Spiraling slipstream yaw left, torque roll left, and P factor yaw left. Hell draw everything and want you to know why everything works that way.
-Draw plane (left engine inop) what are the turning tendencies? Spiraling slip stream which has no effect, accelerated slipstream left roll (right wing more lift), torque left roll, and P Factor left yaw.
-Draw everything out and then goes into circle of doom.
Pitch problem Increase Parasite drag, loss of climb, change in wind, increase AOA, increase P Factor, increase induced drag, decrease in velocity, loss of rudder effectiveness.
-Yaw problem Asymmetric thrust + drag = yaw
-Roll problem A yawing airplane is a rolling airplane
-Gets his plane out to demonstrate Side Slip. Lose engine, big left turn tendency. What do we do? Use rudder. We’re straight now but still side slipping. Use bank to counter the side slip and make the rudder more effective.
Aeronautical decision making:
The ride began with systems. Know the ins and outs of all the systems. Electrical, hydraulic, and fuel. Was asked questions about fuel transfer. Max fuel differences between tanks.
How long will one engine run if you lose the other? As long as you have gas.
How long will you have emergency power if loss of both Alt vs 1 ALT?
If you only lose one alternator, the other alternator can properly supply the whole system. If you lose both, You only have 30 minutes on the main ship battery and an additional 30 on the ECU back up batteries. Then you're a glider. In another wrods: Dual Alternator failure -- 30m from main battery + 30m from ECU backup battery (assuming full charge) = 60m until engine failure. Each engine is connected to / powers its own alternator. Each alternator generates electricity that is sent to the whole electrical system and charges the batteries. If one alternator fails, the other alternator is capable of generating enough electricity for the whole plane including charging the batteries and powering the other engine's ECU.
The ECU loosing power is what causes the engines to shut off even if you've got gas.
What is on the Hot Bus and Emergency Battery?
Hot bus -- ELT and Pilot side map light
Emergency battery (90m) -- attitude indicator and instrument panel flood light
Was asked multiple questions about the landing gear indications lights. If all lights were out but the tests showed all green. (your dome light is probably turned on slightly). Make sure its off.
What to do if you get one light out and test confirms that. Burnt out bulb vs gear issue. What do you do if you think its a gear issue. (follow checklist)
How the Emergency Gear Extension works? Emergency gear extension releases the pressure keeping the gear up- allowing the springs and gravity to pull them down until locked in place.
Do gear and flaps work with loss of power? No.
Asked about ECU problems in the air. What does the ECU tests check on the ground?
How to clear an ECU warning in the air? Push the test button, that clears the warning once. Any other warnings will still appear.
Know what happens when you turn the engine master on? (excitation batts, glow plugs, oil flows to prop hub, ECU) know the system.
Asked what the sound is when we turn the masters on? Hydraulic pressurization for the gear
How long is to long to hear the accumulator running? (20 Sec)
Asked about Alt air. Asked about squat switches and environmental heat. Squat (Left Main prevents gear up on the ground, Right Main overrides stall warning detector) We then went into scenario based questions and ADM (risks vs hazards). Accel stop/go.
Gave me a short runway scenario. discussed WWAT. Wind, Weight, Altitude, Temperature.
We went over all turn tendencies on ground vs in air.
Know the circle of death and what happens during each phase of that. Pitch: Yaw: Side Slip:
Know the help/hurt chart, control and performance issues.
Why is left engine critical? Left is critical due to both props spinning to right. Both engines average thrust is to the right of the engine (the decending prop) this means the CG thrust on the left engine is closer to the CG of the plane compared to the right engine which is father away from the CG of the plane.
Extremely heavy on aerodynamics. Know the airplane model example and be able to perform it for him. Again explaining each step in detail. Know everything and any thing about stalls, spins, and graveyard spirals. (Recovery, whats happening to the airplane, AOA and speed during them)
Flight was straight forward for the most part. Liked that I briefed the taxi and potential hazards during taxi. Liked that I briefed the take off and had a plan if we lost an engine during the take off Roll and departure. Pattern work. Likes for you to make lots of calls and traffic avoidance. Be ready for him to kill an engine on first take off. On short field landing before departure he asked for me to follow the PAPI down 2 red 2 white. He didn't want to see power being pulled 3 line ahead of the 1000 ft markers and floating the airplane down. Wanted me to follow the PAPI and manage power and speed to the markers. Said it was very clear in the ACS to not float the airplane down.
**MAX brakes upon landing for short field. We departed the pattern and did steep turns, stalls, VMC Demo. He then told me my left engine was having problems. I acted accordingly. As i was pulling out the checklist he reached over and shut the engine off. He then asked me to do a single engine right 360 holding ALT and SPD at 90 Kts followed by a 180 turn left with the same stipulations. We then shot the app in. Liked that I briefed the entire app plate out loud and asked him if he had any questions about the App. He did help with radios on the App. Just don't bust Alt on any of the fixes. Liked that I used checklists for all phases of flight.
Multi with Wolf
Gave me a scenario of flying to a small airport north of here with a 2820 ft runway. Taking a friend and picking up another. Will be going later in the day and staying awhile. Now using this scenario, tell me how you would assess risk? 3Ps, PAVE, Accelerate Stop? Go? Would you do it? Nope. How could you decrease those distances? WWAT.
If you did and had engine failure at Vr, which would you do? Both distances are longer that runway but I would stop. Better to hit a tree slow than fast. Continue through PAVE, what about inoperable equipment? 91.213. MEL, AD, KOEL, then 91.205. KOEL is found in section 2. You can bring a POH.
Max fuel difference? 5 gallons. Explain the path of the fuel?
Explain the electrical system.
28 Volt System, 2x60 Amp Alternator, 2x Excitation Battery, 24 Volt Mainship Battery,Emergenc Backup Battery 90 minutes, 2x Backup ECU Battery 30 minutes, 8 Busses
What happens in electrical failure?
What do ECU backups power?
What does emergency backup power? The attitude indicator and flood lights.
Why don’t the alternators overpower the battery?
The alternators are 28V and the batteries are 24V so that the alternators charge the batteries while the engine is running. If the voltage was equal, electricity wouldn't flow the way we want and the alternators wouldn't charge the batteries.
Can you land without electric? Yes but no flaps and no gear. Will need to pull emergency gear. What does that do? Purges the accumulator. And? Downlocks, gravity and springs.
AERODYNAMICS.
Know how each item on the Hurts/Helps chart affects the plane in terms of control, performance and Vmc. Really big on the fact that this plane is easy to fly and Vmc in other twins will sneak up on ya. Vmc CAN be lower than the stall speed. Wdtm?
How do you recover from a spin? Why do you do each step in that recovery. How does that help you? Why you have to neutralize ailerons?
Power Idle: Drop the nose,lower AoA Rudder opposite: Break the yaw Elevator fwd: Break the stall Aileron: Natural ( you don't want to cause wings aggravation)
Whenever ailerons are not neutral, both are creating lift and drag. That lift/drag can aggravate/worsen the spin, cause a spin in the opposite direction, and prevent us from completing a recovery.
T/O, aborted t/o, make sure power back immediately and maintain direction control on the center line. Short field takeoff and landing. Build airspeed to 90kt before you retract the gear. Single engine pattern and touch and go. Slow flight, turns while slow. Take your time to set up. Straight into power off stall. Don’t pitch up too high, let the stall come to you. On recovery, don’t pitch down too much. Power on stall, accelerated stall, steep turns. Talk through each one. VMC DEMO.
Right engine no oil pressure. Checklist and shut down. Single engine turns to a heading no less than 100kts, maintain heading and altitude. As long as you recognize it and correct it immediately he’s okay, verbalize it too.
Engine restarts: Three steps before power back on: Below 6k , Below 90, Idle engine.
Prepare for emergency descent to 3000. Begins and ends with gear.
Takes control. Now get setup for RNAV. Hood, iPad AND GPS. Then take back control. Cross NEPPI at 3000 (Gear down), FEDIS 2100, set my mins to 1900 to be reminded early. Make sure to maintain 100kt until go visual. Set the side slip, watch your speed. Land with one engine, one flaps. Lets you have your engine back on short final since you’ve demonstrated a single engine landing during the SE pattern. SE short final speed is 85 KTS
Looked at my charts immediately Asked accelerate stop and go distances, how I got them, and if they are required to be shorter than Runway length to be legal.
Gave me a scenario where I needed to apply the 3p process to come up with a solution to the hazard. The hazard was a short runway on a hot summer day. Asked when data is required for that acceleration stop and go.
Asked about multi aerodynamics air, ground, and what makes the critical engine.
Fuel system hit hard expect to know that, plus how the hungry tank is the crossfeed we pull.
Talks about electrical system and turbo charger. Talked a lot about engine performance and the importance of reacting immediately with the five step process.
Asked about ECU errors. (Note that a ECU error can be cleared one time but if it comes back it should be handled when practical). Not that also an ECU error is more like a check engine light, not a complete failure of the ecu.
Make sure you know why ailerons not neutral in a stall recovery is bad.
The flight was exactly what we always practiced with the exception of full stops on the landings. Make sure to announce you are clearing the area before each maneuver before you do it. Whenever he fails your engine he will also probably feather it for you as well.
*Started off with scenario of flying to a small island with a 2870 ft runway with displaced thresholds giving me only about 2500 ft usable for landing, 6am august morning. He introduced some pressures by mentioning we have to be there by 8am for a golf tournament and need to depart by 3pm. He asked me to go through my thought process on how I would asses this flight. He was looking for the 3 Ps. Bring up any hazards. I went through PAVE, IMSAFE, CURRENT/PROFICIENT, weather, RWY lengths, experience in AC etc.. he like that I was thorough with my concerns. Basically show good decision making. He asked if I would fly to that airport, after comparing that RWY to my TO & LDG distances I said no and he said there is another airport nearby that has a much longer runway and well be flying in their instead. He asked the definition for Accelerate stop & go. Know the formula to calculate those. He said now were taking off, what are some of those left turn tendencies we have on the ground. Okay now the air? Lets say you take off and lost an engine, what are you going to do? (MMM) then zero side slip. Stay in the pattern & land. Whats VYSE (Best rate single engine). What happens when you lose an engine? Control problem, performance problem, sideslip problem. He didn’t bring up circle of doom. He gave me a scenario for the performance problem. Taking off out of denver, 200HP per engine. 215HP to maintain level. Do the calculation on paper and you should have -15 excess HP. What happens on that case? Drift down at vyse to absolute ceiling single engine, Is it possible to have an absolute ceiling SE below field elevation? Yes. He them ask me to define VMC. Why is it important? Can VMC change? Next he went into the VMC chart, he asked me about MGTOW, AFT CG, & GEAR DOWN. He liked my answers but I’m the debrief he said how i didn’t mention how gear down also lowers your CG. I just said it provides better stability. Okay say you’re taking off & you get a yellow ECU A fail light but you look at your instruments and everything looks good. What should you do? Press the ecu test button to reset that ECU. How many times can you do this, only once. He said many applicants say switch the ECU to B. Don’t say that. Next he gave me a scenario about the left landing gear light being out. Test the lights to see if its a bulb problem or actual gear problem. He asked what keeps the engine running, he’s looking for ECU, what tells ECU what to do? FADEC, what tells FADEC what to do? Power levers, and you control the power levers. Where does the mainship batt get its power? 2 60 amp 28v ALTs, what is the difference btwn amps & volts? I said Amps are the measure of electricity & volts is the pressure. He liked that answer. What happens if we lose one Alternator? The mainship batt can be fully charged off of one Alt. What do you do when you have a double ALT failure? Emergency backup batt, powers flood lights and stby AI. How long will the mainship batt run for? 30 mins could be less. Do the engines just stop after? No we have 2 backup ECU batts that power the engines for 30 mins. Can you use your gear? Wed have to pull the emergency gear, know how that works. Can we use flaps? No. He asked me whats the max fuel diff, 5 gal. Explain the flow of the fuel system. Its just like what we go over on the notes. Know how fuel transfer works. He asked about spins, and recovery procedure. Know why we do what we do. Its in the notes. He asked what happens when we turn on the elect master. And the engine master? 4 things. He didn’t go into aerodynamics too much, he asked what our critical engine is and why. I explained the yaw & roll issues wed have if we lost our left engine. For the most part that was the oral, he said it went really well and asked who was teaching my ground classes. If I remember anything else ill send it to you guys. He’s very fair, just take you time with your answers and don’t guess. He guided me through a few things, like the 4 things that happen when you turn on your engine master.