PREQUEL suggestion box (thread 6)

[TheAndyMac]

Katia > Crying in the rain will do nothing except get you cold, wet, and most likely ill. First things first, get yourself up and get to the chapel. Once you get there, you can cry all you like, just don't stay out in the rain.

Second, this wasn't your fault. You were manipulated by a very powerful mage/alchemist, who has obviously done the same thing to others. You can make this right, but you have to get help. The chapel is a good place to start.

Third, once you've gotten this all sorted out, you have to start listening to the voices in your head when they warn you about things. Yes, that sounds odd, but think about it; they warned you about Sigrid, and they were right. She was evil. Next time they tell you to split, listen to them.

[somebeans]

The dreams intend, and have effectively made her scared of royalty; the more royal, the more fear.
Nobody is plagued with such specific dreams night in, night out, especially in TES without there being a reason behind it, and the Daedric lord of dreams and nightmares would be the first place any sane citizen of Tamriel would think to look first.

They want to keep her AWAY from the emperor, so much so, she's been programmed through fear to actively avoid him, and anyone who could introduce them, i.e. counts, jarls, and any other kind of royal men and women not just in Cyrodiil, but all over tamriel.

As the daughter to a servant of a (count, was it?) in Hammerfell, it's entirely possible that at some point in their servitude to that man, he may well have gone to meet, or had the emperor as a guest; and all it takes is her bringing him his soup to trigger the old "you, i recognize you from my dreams" line, and bam - adventure to thwart the daedra begins.
Thanks to her nightmares, that was made impossible at that junction, as her father was forced to leave his job.

Just a theory, mind you, but the pieces fit.

Let's call it a hypothesis.

And here is mine: She has royal-phobia for the simple reason that it is so ABSURD that you can't help but find it amusing.
Fish in a bowl killed by some freak cat drunk(running around a town doing something naughty involving a yoyo and a pineapple) who at some point decided filling the bowl with peas would make her life more satisfying.
Her oldest(?) companion is a lock pick that she in some way or another carries around without using her hands even when she has no pockets.
She slept with an orc that shoots coins out of his abs, leavs his victims/costumers with a receipt and has an affinity for the local flora.
She is a wizard(YAY!) who activates her magical abilities with cat burns(which happens to result in her setting a corpse on fire while talking to it's ghost).
A vampire with a pot of jelly and all that... and a spell curing diseases involving a binder clip and licking a dinosaurs foot.
I don't think there is very much of a planned Grand Plot Line, I think the writer's mad mind(compliment! the highest of!) takes the forum suggestions as inspiration for the next absurd turn of events and simply is clever enough weave a fairly consistent story on the more-or-less-fly. I imagine it is much a matter creating enough opportunities through adding enough seemingly insignificant details that can be exploited later to add something to the story and make it progress.

Either that or there really is a planned plot and purpose to things and his insane twisting around to make at least some of the suggestions fit without ruining the Grand Story is having some positive side-effects, producing laughs.

Anyways, much of the stuff in this tread is starting to get a bit tin foil hat.

[RedTheDraken]

Katia, you have always been a terrible perso--Whoah wait a minute...

Back up, you're an atronarch. You absorb magic to fuel your own. You're literally a vacuum of magicka. Now, we're stuck out in the rain because we couldn't break back into the Mage's Guild, right? Well, and I'm just spit-balling here, wasn't that because Sigrid had surrounded the building with a magical barrier? See what I'm getting at here?

C'mon girl, you've still got one last chance to prove to Quil-Weave and the world that you're no stray animal: you're THE Katia Managan. Now get your pussy ass back to the Mage's Guild. Sigrid's probably thinking you gave up, so she's probably gone to bed. Sap the magic barrier dry and sneak in and steal back your stuff and whatever else you can. Even if they catch you, sapping a spell that powerful will give you such a huge well of magicka to pull from that you'd probably be able to overpower them, or at least get away as you set the place ablaze from within.

You don't need to be a hero, but that doesn't mean you're going to let some spoiled wench of an enchantress and a useless priest of a Breton get the better of you.

Am I seriously the only person who figured this out? :I

[Unclever title]

Am I seriously the only person who figured this out? :I

It's an interesting idea, to say the least. But I still think the best idea is to find a dry place, wait for tomorrow, and come up with a fully thought out plan for getting her stuff back. I mean, even when Katia was flipping out in the Mage's guild Sigrid managed to keep herself completely unburnt.

I think there's simply too great a gap in skill here to take Sigrid head on, let alone Sigrid and Stephane simultaneously. Plus there's always the chance that a charm spell or quick potion or two will quickly get Katia to fall back under Sigrid's control or at the very least allow her to get the upper hand.

Rushing back right now seems like a terrible idea.

[LaffinFox]

So... I was just playing Oblivion, and I ran into Sigrid. She sounded like she was looking for a conveniently unknown female who was still hiding somewhere in the city "probably in a basement"?
At the same time- Tavia, from the general goods store, said "We don't know how the fire started"
My first thought: "oh, Katia took off her amulet..."
"wait... she DID take off the amulet..."
"who was it that had her take it off? a fan, right?"
"Oh yeah, it was me!"
"Wait..."
...
...
...
'Ding!'
"OH DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!"

[Merth]

So... I was just playing Oblivion, and I ran into Sigrid. She sounded like she was looking for a conveniently unknown female who was still hiding somewhere in the city "probably in a basement"?
At the same time- Tavia, from the general goods store, said "We don't know how the fire started"
My first thought: "oh, Katia took off her amulet..."
"wait... she DID take off the amulet..."
"who was it that had her take it off? a fan, right?"
"Oh yeah, it was me!"
"Wait..."
...
...
...
'Ding!'
"OH DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!"

Quickly, pin it all on the mythic dawn, and we'll just roll with it from there!

[LaffinFox]

Quickly, pin it all on the mythic dawn, and we'll just roll with it from there!

YES... It was the mythic dawn who told katia to remove the amulet... >.> and clearly NOT LaffinFox...

[Ineverus]

"For 65 years I've rule as Tamriel's emperor. But for all these years, I've never been the ruler of my own dreams."

That statement right there makes any query as to "why would the emperor attack Katia in the nightmares" null and void. He has no control whatsoever. Now, the question "why is someone making him attack Katia" is still valid, but I'll get to that in a bit.

"You... I've seen you... Let me see your face... You are the one from my dreams."

It is possible that Uriel is entering Katia's dreams while he dreams. This could explain why Katia sees the Emperor (There is an amulet of Kings on him), as well as cover the "You are the one from my dreams" thing. And that monster? I have my own suspicion as to what it was... a daedric siege crawler of sorts, but more organic looking (since it was originally the emperor). Look at the blue spots with the circles on its outer layer. I'm pretty sure sigil stones were scattered throughout the siege crawler that the CoC encountered. I picked up multiple, IIRC. Those blue spots with the dots may be places where sigil stones are held. And look at the first picture on this page:

http://www.prequeladventure.com/2011/06/528/

I see a claw thingy in the center of the monster's "mouth". Looks like it would be a perfect recipient of the main sigil stone. That view even gives it a bit of a resemblance to the maw of the crawler as well.

And look specifically at the picture of Katia being impaled by those leg/arms/things by the emperor. They look like they could certainly pass as deadric siege engine "appendages." Even just look at his robes in the same picture. The points make it look ESPECIALLY daedric in fashion. Then you have other things like the spikes on the back that are characteristic of the deadric crawler.

It certainly isn't a dragon (no wings). It certainly isn't a perfect siege crawler. Methinks it is definitely drawing from deadric references though, and a large part of them from the siege engine, while it's certainly possible that they are drawn from other deadric creatures or structures. This would be consistent with Uriel's dreams as well, as his intro implies he saw the siege crawler in a dream.

Here is my take: Katia is the future CoC. Through fate/destiny/the Gods, Uriel and Katia have been "sharing" dreams for a while, as a way for the Gods to inform them of their roles to play in the future. Neither Katia nor Uriel can control the dreams, instead the Gods do. They are causing Uriel to sometimes appear hostile. They may being doing this to warn/prepare/test Katia, same with Uriel. So, they are not meant to be nightmares. They are meant to make Katia aware, to give her a glimpse of the future. It is the Gods speaking to both Uriel and her, warning them of the Oblivion crisis. Katia has not gotten it yet, and continues to cower. She has not yet passed this sort of trial. It may be that an encounter between her and Uriel (i.e. the beginning of Oblivion) is necessary to set her on her way to understanding her plight, or it may be necessary for the dreams to end.

[actua]

Kazerad, this is getting rediculous. I go back to an earlier page to look at one little detail, NEXT THING I KNOW it's 2 1/2 hours later and Im nearly to the current page. I call shenanigans! SHENANIGANS! SHE-NAH-NI-GAHNS!!! How do you drag me in like that?! HOW?!

[woopyfrood]

If you can't climb the social ladder, then you must destroy it.

[Evil Argonian]

The last dude has a bound dagger, everyone else has maces.

It must be different between games, a randomly picked weapon type, because I distinctly remember watching the Emperor's skull get smashed with a mace.

[Xeivous]

Am I seriously the only person who figured this out? :I

WARD SPELLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!
/morbo

[Froggy22651]

[edit] Correction...

[JustPlainJim]

Kazerad,
I've been reading for a while, and I love the story you're laying out for us and/or making along with us. I finally made an account here because the latest update spoke to me and dug up some very bad parts of my mind...

I've been there. Well, not the naked catgirl sitting in the rain part as much, but I know what it's like to have self-loathing, and just how powerful it can be, and what happens when you've simply run out of power on your own. It makes me wonder if you've been through that yourself, or if it was a part of you too. You did it so well.

Those that complain that this update was purely railroading, that may be true... But it's not just the whims of a comic artist. Imagine if your own life could be railroaded like that. When you have that demon of self-loathing whispering in your ear, it doesn't matter how many people you have telling you how awesome you are, inside your head or outside. You could have the whole world telling you how wonderful you are, but so long as that self-doubt and loathing is there, it will always come back to that last line. The world may treat you like a hero, every rational part of your mind may be cheering you on, but so long as that self-doubt lingers... once it regains control, you are shit. That's all you can see. Friends are all false or friends out of pity or just in it for themselves. The rational voices in your head are just delusional. You're just shit, after all.
At the risk of sounding like a damned emo kid, it's like a black tar, reaching out with slimy tendrils and burrowing into your brain, wrapping around your throat and chest. You feel nothing but hate and you feel it all for yourself. You. Are. Nothing.
For a long time, this was my life. It started as once or twice a month. Then every other week. Then every week. Then the number of days where I felt 'not bad' were fewer than the days where I lay in bed wondering why I had to feel this way. Wondering when it would stop. You don't want to feel good any more, you just want to stop feeling bad. Stop the pain. I'd convinced myself that it was just my personality. This was how I was. Get used to it. More of the loathing's lies that I bought. You'd think that going out and buying rope so I could hang myself in my garage would have been the turning point in my life, when I'd finally hit rock bottom and turned my life around. No. I just got a morbid laugh out of realizing that I broke the rope's weight limit and I'd probably just end up hurting myself without ending it all. I never did try to take my life, but I kept the rope.
Seems my mind had some self-preservation nonsense or something. Any time I got that bad, my body would go on a sort of auto-pilot. I'd take care of what needed to be done (sleep, food, shower, etc), but I felt numb. I spent a lot of time crying as my body kept me alive.
And no one really knew. I mean, we get the pleasure of seeing exactly what Katia thinks all the time. But really, would anyone really know just how she's feeling as she's pulling a random piece of paper out of a garbage bin? She's in agony and all anyone would see is some odd Khajiit crying in the street.
Me? My friends and family saw a guy who was kinda sad sometimes. I got good at hiding it. I had a great job, good friends, house all to myself. Good life. What reason did I have to hate myself? The self-loathing doesn't need a reason. It just is.

And now that I've portrayed myself the most emo kid ever ("kid" at 30?) and firmly put myself into the running for the "Ray-of-Friggin-Sunshine Award"...
For me, it all changed. Cheesy as it may sound, a wonderful woman entered my life. No, not Sigrid. My girlfriend-now-fiance. All that hate and rage and loathing and doubt just... melted. Gone. For the first couple weeks, I had to ask my friends "Is this normal?!" She'd changed me from day one, miraculous and insane as it sounds. The self-loathing is still there, but it's... quiet. I can finally snuff it out the moment it starts acting up.

It wasn't until reading this update that all that... darkness... came flooding back to me. But now, it's just lessons learned and bad memories and a few dozen feet of rope (that I still have for some reason. I need to make a hammock or something...) It can get better. It will get better. So long as there's hope.

TL;DR version: "Dude. Totally been there. Feel for ya."

Now, the real test... has she truly hit rock bottom, or is the powerful mage Katia Managan still in there and still in a smidge of control. Let's find out.

Katia> Open the bottle and if there's booze, drink up. It'll take away the pain.

[TheTurnipKing]

The person that killed Septim sounded like a male high/dark elf, not a female Kajhit.

Face enclosing masks are notorious for their sound-changing properties.

WARD SPELLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!
/morbo

Quite. The possibilty has been raised at least three times, including your good self, and each time it has been generally rebuffed: The Atronach talent apparently* can only absorb magicka from spells targetted against yourself.

Now, if someone wants to suggest a means by which we can get a warding spell to specifically target Katia with an effect, we might be in business. (one of the fun things about a game like this is you can suggest wild and unorthodox possibilities that wouldn't be possible in a game engine ) Until then...

*By which I mean the in-Oblivion rules, to which Prequel generally seems to adhere.

[Ertt]

>Katia: Stop thinking like that, just get to the chapel. Get dry, get warm.

[MysteryJack]

>Get away from this place.

Get some rest.

Try to forget this day even happened, as futile as that is.

[destinysWalrus]

Katia, I know sort of how you feel. I know the feeling of wanting to do things, and trying, but then backsliding into failure. (though I can't say my situation has nearly as dramatic reversals as yours)
I hear my own voice of self-loathing when I make tiny mistakes, and it drowns out any praises others may have.
I'm losing motivation and starting to want to give up, but if I do give up, then I disappoint everyone, including myself, which helps nothing.


Katia. Fucking. Managan.: Please be stronger than me. Don't give up now. Your head voices are here for you and want to see you succeed. (well, admittedly, not all of them, but quite a few). Remember you can throw FIRE now, which is in my book, infinitely more awesome and encouraging than not being able to throw fire.
My earlier suggestions still stand - go find somewhere dry indoors and get some rest. When you wake up tomorrow, it will be a new day, with no mistakes, and you can make plans to try again. You're never going to be able to make good plans if you haven't gotten rest.

[Nai]

What now, Katia? Will you just sit there, staring at that soggy piece of paper? Will you hope that Quill-Weave can save you again? Or that the nice guard from earlier can help?

Quill-Wave has saved you twice. She has done all she can. She's waiting to see what you can do. She opened her home and her arms to you. Now it's your turn.

That guard? He wants nothing but justice. He'd be disappointed to see that you're not getting that justice. You know what he'd do. He'd tell you to go get it for yourself. You want to be in the Imperial Legion? Bring the criminal to justice.

> Rise up, Katia Managan. This time, it's on you.

[Argonian]

Heads up: I wanted to update this weekend but, due to an important paper I have to write for a class I'm going to go ahead and delay that until early next week. In fact, if you see me updating tomorrow, tell me to get the hell off the internet and go work on my paper instead. After that's done I'll try to do a couple updates in rapid succession if I can (because a lot of the good commands here will take at least one update of setup to become viable).

Speaking of that, you guys are doing an awesome job at staying on-topic! Commands, speculation and long-term plans are always cool. If we can keep it up for two more days then you will have collectively won at on-topic posting. You will all be winners.

And Woundedkneecap, you totally have my go-ahead on the Club Pineapple thing. I'd say more, but I want to delay any more in-depth fanart comments until the next update is out, since that is when thread traffic will be the highest and I like to make sure all the fanart is seen by all the people.

So the updates will happen at normal speed now?

[catchTwentythree]

Am I seriously the only person who figured this out? :I

Other people worked it out earlier.

Then other people went, "That's Not How Absorb Spells works."

Because it's not. Otherwise Atronachs couldn't wield enchanted weapons.

[Merth]

So the updates will happen at normal speed now?

Well you see Kaz bought a used clock from Valve...............




I'm just kidding though, I'm sure he'll update as he can

[TheTurnipKing]

Well you see Kaz bought a used clock from Valve...............

Nonsense. If that was the case he'd never have made it past part 2.

[Wish]

Katia: Wait for it.... things are very context sensitive....
3...
2...
1...


alternately:
Katia: So that's it huh? It ends here.......?

I think NOT! Katia fucking Managan, do you know the one thing you have that no one else has? The Iron persistence to keep going even when
it all goes to shit. You my be broken clawed, naked, depressed and a single item to your name but, you know what thing you still have?
the chance things can still work out. have things ever worked out? No. which means this chance hasn't been spent!
It's time to cash in, if you know what I mean.

[ProphetLord]

That guy wields a bound mace, so not a stabby knife or something Katia could have, seeing as she can't summon bound weapons (yet, at least). But I personally want to see her as a background orchestrator, doing everything necessary to prepare and imprison the CoC. Her final act would be controlling Valen Dreth from the back of his cell into taunting the prisoner.

The person that killed Septim sounded like a male high/dark elf, not a female Kajhit.

Hey, I can dream can't I?
I personally think it makes more sense for her to join the Mythic Dawn than to become the CoC

Also,
Katia: Even dumb stray animals know to find shelter when it starts to rain.