Q&A From Spacebattles (Page 12)_Deviant's Masquerade: Setting Lore Compendium

> rush99999, post: 82238635, member: 380992 Wrote:

> Is it possible to fool a Slasher by playing dead or do they only get their Malice high when their target dies for real?

They can be fooled but not for long. It's one of those things where if they're emotional (I.E. Enraged) enough they might think they killed someone when they didn't, but after a moment they'll realize they didn't get that hit of Malice and will realize something is wrong.

Funnily enough, this is actually one of the few areas that a stronger Slasher is actually at a disadvantage to a weaker, because at a certain point the Malice from a single kill is just a drop in the well at their level, meaning unless they specialize in Malice Manipulation (I.E. Hex) and are actively using it people can slip under their radars with surprising frequency.

> rush99999, post: 82322303, member: 380992 Wrote:

> Do M.A.D.s take offence if they are ever referred to as Mads?

Some though most don't care due to differences in local slang, languages, and the fact that despite the term being around for twenty or so years, there are still a fair number of people who don't realize it's an acronym until someone points out.

> rush99999, post: 82360418, member: 380992 Wrote:

> Do any other Deviancies have some sort of telltale sign that can out them to anyone who knows what they're looking for?

I think I've mentioned it before but most Deviants have something going on with their eyes when they use their powers, with Arcane, Psychics, and Slashers glowing at a higher level, Deadmen permanently having green eyes and gaining a ghastly glow with their emotions, Malcontent changing into different eyes, and an M.A.D.s pupils changing size independent of each other.

As far as purely physical traits go Deadmen are the most obvious given how many of them look like zombies, but even the more human looking ones can usually be found out by the fact all Deadmen have green eyes and green blood. (Unless severely injured at which point it turns red for those with corpses and can sometimes revert their eyes to their living color.) Excluding them and the Malcontent most Deviants don't have physical signifiers outside of a handful of rare mutations that while marking someone as a Deviant don't necessarily tell you what kind of Deviant they are.

From there each Deviant also gives off a small amount of their given energy passively, while giving off notably more when using their powers, but you need either special skills or tech to be able to detect that more often than not. Though it should be noted that some of them are harder to detect by certain means than others, such as how Madness can't be detected by machinery but people who are used to it can feel it pretty easily.

> ReaperofInterest, post: 82669740, member: 309377 Wrote:

> So, we know that The Man in the Mask is connected to Madness, and is possibly the personification of the energy as a whole, and there's something similar for Necro and The Pale Lady. Do the other Deviant energies all have similar...personifications, I guess, running around?

The primary three, they're even seen together for a chapter in one of the anthology episodes.

> rush99999, post: 82717533, member: 380992 Wrote:

> How is DeSade pronounced?

De-s-aid.

(Technically, it's derived from the french De Sade (Pronounced: De Sod) but the pronunciation has shifted over the last hundred or so years due to living in america and the family's Sadistic reputation. Leading to people mispronouncing the name, and a few members of the family relishing in what was meant as a play on their name and reputation.)

> ReaperofInterest, post: 82700880, member: 309377 Wrote:

> So I had an interesting idea. Could a Wonderlander have some of their dreams learn how to do magic? Like, say a Wonderlander focused on stories decided they wanted their dream creatures to do actual magic for whatever reason. Would the Wonderlander in question need to learn how to do magic themselves, or would they need someone willing to help a would-be Practitioner, or could they just let their dreams handle it on their own? For that matter, would the dreams have Affinities of their own that are distinct from their Wonderlander's?

Okay, this one is a bit tricky because a lot of Madness rules are a matter of perspective, but for the most part yes, dreams can learn magic. Though how many of the Arcane rules of magic they're bound by depend on how, when, and why a Wonderlander's dream would want to know magic.

For instance a young Wonderlander wants a wizard for their fantasy wonderland, they get a robe wearing old man with a staff and beard who can make magical things happen while seeming wise. But this wizard dream knows nothing about how Arcane and Practitioners perform their magic.

Continuing from there, if an older Wonderlander learns more about Arcane magic then creates a magic wielding dream then that dream will be bound by the rules the Wonderlander knows but with Madness filling any blanks in their knowledge.

Both of which tie into the fact that if a Wonderlander were to attempt to try and learn Arcane magic as a practitioner, it would result in them using Madness instead of Anima, even if -externally- they're performing the same feats as every other magic user. (Which gets into an in-setting debate on if Anima is true magic or if all Deviant energies should count as magic, a subject frequently brought up in regards to Hex and Malice.)

Despite this there are some advantages to a Wonderlander bothering to learn magic, due to the fact that it can expand what they think magic is capable of in a more tangible way rather than just 'wave my hands and shoot fireballs', which could have the added benefit of requiring less Madness to fill in the blanks.

Lastly, the primary affinity of all Wonderlanders and Dreams will always be Madness, their Secondary affinities however can vary and differ from each other. Though dreams and Wonderlanders from the same Wonderland will probably share at least one secondary affinity based on the Wonderland itself. (I.E. Josh's dreams all have Madness as a primary affinity but not all of them will have both his Ink and Toon affinities.)

> rush99999, post: 82748844, member: 380992 Wrote:

> So what happened to this thing after Memento yote it back to wherever it came from? Did it find itself someone else to latch onto in the end or is it still out there waiting for someone else to wander into its deal making radius?

It is still out there in the void, though he sent it far enough away that it is not going to be a problem for this cluster of worlds. (Also technically it's still flying away.)

> ReaperofInterest, post: 82744713, member: 309377 Wrote:

> So, exactly how important is the Arcane Nexus? I get that it's very important, but how much of the day-to-day stuff among Arcane does it handle? As far as I recall, the only thing it's been explicitly mentioned to affect is summoning, but I'm sure that it does more stuff than that given how it's apparently old as dirt and spans multiple dimensions.

It was briefly discussed in an Anthology chapter too, but the basic idea of it is that the Arcane Nexus is basically a magical super computer/database that has stored everything every user of it has ever learned (not a widely known detail) and can be accessed by anyone in any connecting dimension so long as they have the very public access key. (Or one of the rarer Admin keys/backdoors.)

From there it also functions as a sort of bridge between worlds, making it easier to use dimensional magic to travel between the worlds connected by the Nexus, while also allowing the Nexus to slowly spread to new worlds as magic users accidentally land themselves in other worlds, or as Anima builds up in a world to a point where the Nexus can follow it.

There are a lot of other points to it but the widest known simplification of the Nexus is that is an Inter-dimensional Internet/Library/Public Transport. And it's probably as important to those who are aware of it as those things are in our society by those that use them.

(Fun Fact: One of the Nexus's creators rigged it so that it would occasionally spit out these keys/magic book/crystals in worlds that have reached a level of Anima capable of sustaining a Practitioner's magic. That way every world capable of using magic can eventually learn it should they desire, while also giving the cultures a bit of space to try and figure out their own thing. In fact these books are transported by his favorite magical creature.)

> rush99999, post: 82769463, member: 380992 Wrote:

> There's paperwork, actual official paperwork, for being a Dark Lord?

Yes, though the requirements aren't necessarily easy to fulfill.

> rush99999, post: 82769463, member: 380992 Wrote:

> ...Why?

The Arcane Association originally started it as a joke because one of the immortal/world conquering founders was capable of qualifying despite having retired years ago.

> rush99999, post: 82769463, member: 380992 Wrote:

> ...Why?

Eventually with the rise of Sanctuary and the Heroes' Guild it took on a secondary, and actually legal definition essentially marking someone as a magical crime lord of sorts. (Even if they haven't committed any crimes.) Who should they come up with a valid reason for their continued existence can create a deal that gets law enforcement to leave them alone in their given territory, (in DeSade's case that would be keeping a lid on all the things in Blackwell).

This isn't to say that they have free reign to do whatever they please, just that as long as they can prove their value every so often or help with the occasionally 'Dark Art Problem' then the local government can sweep a few 'lesser' crimes under the rug, but large scale things will still come back to bite them.

Additionally, since it has become a synonym for 'magical crime lord' not all dark lords are official Dark Lords, (who actually take their certifications and titles very seriously given how hard they are to acquire and will frequently deal with the posers themselves.)

> rush99999, post: 82769463, member: 380992 Wrote:

> Also how did DeSade end up showing his Dark Lord paperwork to Jon?

It was half-pride (DeSade earned those 3 A Rank Dark Art Masteries.) and half proof that he did in fact know what he was talking about and was in fact working for the betterment of Blackwell despite the occasional cult meeting and/or blood sacrifice.

> LaughingMadAndBlue, post: 82769679, member: 462574 Wrote:

> Because bureaucrasy does, indeed, have their claws on absolutely everything.

The Arcane Association likes to certify and rank everything if they can.

> LaughingMadAndBlue, post: 82769679, member: 462574 Wrote:

> On that note, anything that could take advantage of that? Paperwork and stuff, because it certainly sounds like it has a lot of potential for it.

Part of the reason the system works is by them taking advantage of the official -and occasionally helpful- Dark Lord's pride to eliminate the 'fake' -and frequently unhelpful- dark lords.

Fun Fact: The Sanctuary media engine actually makes the posers out to be a bigger deal than they are while minimizing the real Dark Lord's power solely to stoke this prideful hate, before soothing it once the poser is gone so as to keep from having to deal with that whole mess themselves.

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