3284 I Spy With My Little Ninja
I see that a discussion about YAFGC’s history has arisen due to recent events. So to clear a few little things up – or perhaps, to stir up confusion – I will now give you a small timeline of events as taken from my own complicated series of charts and histories I put together in my YAFGC Silmarillion.
In World, these would be facts taught to students of history at the best universities (Like in Tempul. Of our familiar characters, possibly only Eddy, Gaggia and Trevor the Little Librarian would really know this level of info. Estimates in parenthesis are not exact.)
The 5th Age – the Age of Legends
5/1650-1680 (More than 1000 years ago)
Ch’Thier entombs her own and Ranna’s flesh forms after a major war between their people.
The Quest I -The evil god Abynn tries to rise, but 13 heroes put him back down.
The 6th Age – The Age of Heroes.
6/mid 200’s (About 300+ years ago)
The area that becomes Elegrost is invaded by Nordsmen. Ata is teleported into Ruun.
6/560 (About 150 years ago)
Queen Glamor is banished from Elegrost (Torvid Mak is killed)
6/581 (About 130 years ago)
The Quest II – Eric I leads the Quest to prevent the 2nd attempted rise of Abynn. He falls into the portal and disappears.
6/683 (About 30 years ago)
Vanessa leads a war against the Rannites (Ranna hasn’t risen, but is trying to use her kids to rule the world)
6/701 (About 12 years ago)
Ch’Thier argues with Gruuumsh about where Glon should go after death.
Also, Slissy and her party remove the Hand from Ranna’s Tomb.
The 7th Age – The Age of Cooperation
7-0 (About 9 years ago)
Lewie finds Ata and Dewcup in Ruun.
7-6 (About 3 years ago)
Charlotte/Ranna ‘awakens’ in the Lost Valley.
The 8th Age – The Age of Darkness
8-0 (Present)
Ranna destroys the Black Mountain.
Torvid Mak rises again.
King Eric I returns.
These dates do have problems, however. Scholars are in disagreement about whether the 7th Age counts as an Age and shouldn’t just be grouped into the 6th and have both renamed. Similarly, it remains to be seen whether the 8th Age will last long enough to count as an Age at all. So… these may change.
Some scholars are accusing other scholars of being a bit too “Age” happy and other scholars are telling some scholars to “get stuffed”. So we’ll have to see how this plays out.
-Rich “Beholder King” Morris
"Hello Ayane, as stealthy as ever… Can we talk to Goldwolf please?"
such a stealthy party member, they’d forgotten Ayane lol
I just realized that Drow Dewcup is still around. Last seen preventing Arachne from defeating Ranma, by screwing everything up, back in #2913.
And I also rediscovered the comic where Phillip told the myth that Abynn was the head of a previous pantheon of evil gods, and was finally defeated for good by Eric I and the "New Thirteen Heroes". And that Ch’Thier and Ranna were Abynn’s children. So Eric I may know a *lot* more background than anyone we’ve met so far…
I wonder if his resurrection was deliberately prepped after they defeated Abynn, perhaps because they didn’t know what was going to happen with Ranna and Ch’Thier… I’m having more than a little trouble with the timelines, though. When was the first battle where Ranna was imprisoned, relative to the Original 13 Heroes and New 13 Heroes events? And where does Lewie and Ata’s story fit into that timeline? I want a timeline cribsheet!
As one of my former DM’s would say to us:
"Programs! Get your programs! You can’t keep the timeline straight without a program!"
Then she’d offer up one program, typed out**, 12 pages long, for purchase at
$5 a page. One of the best DM’s I ever had.
**Typed on a manual typewriter, not electric. I’m that old. Get off my lawn & your music is too loud and very weird.
Oh yeah, well back in my day, programs were written out long hand and had to be copied that way. *dry chuckle* Nice side business your DM had there.
You had LONG HAND programs? You posh bastard. Back in my day, we had to carve programs on the inside of our eyelids with a rusty nail, and Gary Gygax would charge us a thousand dollars per nail and TPK our characters TWICE!!
And dammit, we LIKED it that way!
This is where I fail to resist the urge to luridly whisper "Percentile tables…pages and pages of percentile tables…" and smile creepily, comma, nostalgically.
This is why I love you guys so much! XD
I still have a manual typewriter. Have even been known to use it. Mostly for art, but still.
It’s in a wood case.
That’s a curved blade, a ninjato should be straight, either way the chisel point indcated the blunt side is against Philip the Paladins’ throat.
She likely didn’t recognize him due to the beard! 😀
I’m guessing she recognizes him just fine. This is just how Ayane says hello.
All the while Ayane is thinking, "Shave and a haircut…"
"… Two bits!"
OK, so Ata says to Lewie that the time of the Twin Goddesses living on Earth was "before our time", and also "the middle of Age of Legends" (#2722). This ends when Ch’Thier puts both goddesses to sleep.
After that, Ranna makes several attempts to create a worthy child, and almost succeeds with Saidrah. Then the Black Alliance removes Ranna’s spith from her body and places it in Charlotte.
This is around the time that Lewie & Ata’s kingdom is collapsing under the barbarian invasion, diseases, etc. Ata gets express-mailed to the Tomb.
Oh. And Lewie & Ata’s kingdom appears to have had a long period of peace and prosperity before everything went sour. And there seems to be a nice long time gap while Lewie becomes a lich and Ata’s aides in the Black Alliance disappear due to infighting, and everyone forgets about their kingdom.
So we have a pretty long timeline here — gotta be at least 200 years from Ranna & Ch’Thier going to sleep until the present day, right? We have to have multiple attempts by Ranna to create a child.
But then there’s the legend Phillip tells about Abynn in #2701. Also in the "Age of Legends", the 13 Heroes trap Abynn, King of the Evil Gods; then he is awoken by his demons, then vanquished forever by the "New 13 Heroes" led by Eric I. This god-slaying was "only about 100 or so years ago", but we can place it more closely now that we know how long ago Eric I was — Eric I has been asleep for "over 132 years" (#3275), but clearly not much more than that. So we have a pretty SHORT timeline here.
Also, Abynn is supposed to be the father of Ranna and Ch’Thier.
I guess Abynn could have been put to sleep by the "original 13 heroes" arbitrarily early, but it’s looking like Eric I’s permanent defeat of Abynn probably happened well after Ranna and Ch’Thier went to sleep?
The thing is that the city of Ruun appears to be associated with Abynn as well as with Ranna. I’m trying to figure out when Abynn’s evil empire was displaced by Ranna’s evil empire. Was there a period when Abynn was asleep while Ranna and Ch’Thier were present on earth? Was there a period when Abynn, Ranna, and Ch’Thier were all asleep at once, before Eric I killed Abynn? (Because the timeline sure makes it look likely.) Was Abynn trying to wake up at the same time as Ranna was, with competing groups of followers?
I would love to reconcile the timing on these two stories. Of course, maybe Phillip had his story wrong, it wasn’t as if he knew it firsthand. We’d better ask Eric I what the state of things was regarding Ranna, Ch’Thier, and Lewie & Ata’s kingdom when he defeated Abynn.
Oh yes, another three month recapping backstory from Eric the Clean-Shaven explaining what happened to him and how he prophesised to not-death (not a criticism by the way, really enjoyed the backstory as told by Torvid Mak)
I don’t remember ever saying that Abynn was their father though I could be wrong. If I did, please point out where I said it. Otherwise that seems largely correct.
https://www.yafgc.net/comic/2708-where-are-we/ It doesn’t say it it’s TRUE, but "some legends say that the twins were the daughters of the evil god Abynn"
HOLY CRAP! HAHAAHAH! This comic’s gotten so huge I’m leaving traps for myself! That’s hilarious and only /really/ funny to me. So, yes, there IS at least one legend that says the twins are the daughters of Abynn. Heh
Just remember: not all legends are true, it’s why they are legends and not historical records 🙂
Umm, was it just me who also had forgotten our favourite silent assassin?
Well, I have refreshed my memory on their group at the start of this storyline…
Well, I was going to suggest a spot of pubcrawling to find Goldwolf (or at least his ship), but having a ninja find you first is clearly faster. 😀
"Oh hey, Ayane. Why didn’t you say something?"
"And that’s when he fell on my katana, your honor. He fell o nmy katana ten times."
Good thing katana are single-edged swords. The fact the dull side is the one at your neck hopefully indicates she isn’t going to kill you out of hand.
Also wondering if she even recognizes Phil with the beard…but on the other hand, what worthwhile assassin wouldn’t be familliar with all potential targets? 😀
If she didn’t recognize Phil right from the start, I think William would have been a huge clue to who the shorter dark haired man is (Pun intended)
Ayane: "You mean William and Philip aren’t identical twins? Dammit, all these gaijin look alike to me. Next you’ll be saying you can tell Slissybus apart from that wood-elf spy we met."
(Of course, Ayane wouldn’t say any of that out loud, but once you get to know her, she has very expressive eyebrows.)
Last time she saw William, he didn’t look like a heavy metal Santa 😛
What a way to say "hello" to old friends 😀
Yeah, the classics never die! 🙂
Don’t look for trouble – it’ll find you.
Okay, yes, thank you, that brief time-line concerning these events does clears things up (and enjoyed that little scholar-spat at the end, it’s the little things like that that makes it 😀 )
So arachne was between 200-300 years old……
Depends on how they age, but yes, something like that
Loved the scholarly disagreement at the end of the timeline there. *chuckle* Declaring when what age began or ended is probably best done in retrospect at the distance of at least a few decades. Watch, in the further future, they go with counting time in BBM (Before Black Mountain) and ABM (After Black Mountain).
Can’t be before Black Mountain, but it could be BBC (Before Black Crater) and ABC (After Black Crater
Well https://www.yafgc.net/comic/2915-a-glimpse-into-the-future/ seems to imply that the future settled on using all 8 ages.
Is that an Anthropocene reference at the end there? 🙂
Right?
There’s a good reason ‘academic’ is synonymous with ‘trivial.’
t!
Er… Hi, I’m Dr. CelticDragon38 and I work in academia. *waves awkwardly*
So you’ve witnessed what I’m talking about!
t!
I’m having a hard time telling if this is a joke I don’t get/appreciate or an anti-intellectual sentiment.
Rest easy; we are not in conflict.
t!
Philip’s thoughts: "Okay, I can see both of Ayane’s hands, so why do I feel something poking me in the lower back?"
So the scholars are all having trouble with "ageism."
I’m here all week fol…WAIT, PUT DOWN THOSE AXES!
If we put down the axes, can we keep the poles?
t!
Ayane seems to have reasoned that, whatever is going wrong, it has something (she knows not what) to do with the old gang…
t!
Or she’s concluded that Philip has concluded it does, and wants some assurance that he’s not here to "smite ’em all and let the gods sort ’em out".
The forums still won’t let me send a PM, so the unborking needs to continue.
I am grateful to the armchair armorers for beneficently sharing with us their weapons expertise. Their comments will be of great help to my friends with bulimia.
Umm, what? o_O
matthew seven six
Are you casting yourself, or the "armchair armorers" as the dispenser of pearls? Either way, you’re making a lousy impression. If you were trying to say something civil, maybe start over and state it more clearly?
Not sure what ‘armchair armorers’, ‘weapons expertise’ and an eating disorder have to do with each other, and throwing in a random bible passage (without posting the actual passage) sounds like more random nonsense
Can remember back in the day when the nonsense was actually hiding links to shonky websites