Verification Concerning Rite-tone Resonances

Duškomira, Xilai, and Tasna—this folio page, Plane Travelers & Rite Stories is my best attempt at divining which of the Rite-tones are specifically part of your story, and which are not. I’d appreciate verification on my guesses (and apologies if I’m offensively wrong at any point). I’ve tried to guess at the order of arrival, though not successfully—my impression is that Xilai and Khejvard were on their own for some time?

Also, this can wait until we’re all together in a group, but I am curious how you wrote your stories into the Rite and if you remember what stories might have been there before.

You’re on par with everything that I can see here, to my recollection. It’s been a while, and as I mentioned to you when we spoke (and I’m sure Tasna can elaborate on this further at some point) the process and our memories of it was a little more ambiguous and unclear than one might expect. Sorrowful Memory was definitely me, though.

Condemnation, that’d be Xilai.

Somewhere, we’ve got some notes about which of the tones stubbornly refused to change even when we tried to overlay on top of them; I’ll get Tasna to go digging for it later.

Thank you! I’ve updated the document accordingly and will continue to do so. I am curious about the overall process, and the reasoning behind doing so, though I thought that might be something we’d all want to discuss as a group.

Am I missing any that you recall?

I am curious which tones did stubbornly refuse to change. I’m also curious if you remember what the tones you altered originally might’ve said, though I understand if that isn’t information you have available.

To my immediate recollection: All of the Fiend tones, Eating Victory, Bash, Swipe, Quick Hit, Adrenaline Surge, Reassessment,

Wild and Pure and Forever Free, Inferno, Smother, Real Ultimate Power (all the tones that are rather clearly the Queen’s work…),

Fateshunt (an inspiration to us all, to be sure), Invisible Chains, Mirror Image,

all of the flourishing tones with the exception, somehow, of The Final Seal Is Broken, and we do not know the mechanism behind that card’s modification, only that it happened at the same time as our work completed,

As for the Radiant rite-tones, Ivory Blood, Elixir, and Condemnation are ours; the rest are as we found them. We’ve always been curious about the nature of the unattributed quotations, there.

In the Tenebrous - Strangling Darkness and Sorrowful Memory are mine (and favourites of mine, in the Rite). The lyrics on Defiance - and everything about it - are remarkably familiar to me in a way I cannot explain, but none of the rest of that set of cards were touched by us. Most notably Forbidden Pact, which - we all felt strange about, and tried to change, and it resisted change… rather vigorously. This only made us feel stranger about it, of course.

Thank you. I’ve updated accordingly. Some of the patterns are strange—the Fiend-tones are especially intriguing because they’re written in someone’s voice. I wonder whose? Otherwise, it seems you weren’t able to alter some of the ones that were intended to be funny (shocking, the universe seems to have a sense of humor) or ones that had perhaps already been altered.

If you’ve got time for gab, you’ve got time for crab.

Clearly a critical Rite-tone carved into the very fabric of our world, yes. (Someone really did have a sense of humor).

Actually Aury, do you know … how far back the tradition of fiendcraft stretches? I wonder if we might be looking at instructions from the very beginning of our planes.

I’ve mentioned before that record keeping on the Beast is Complete Shit, right? Outside of specific clan ledgers and long lasting labs, but even then… Probably a better question for SQ? I’d assume it’s been around the whole time (Samudra in particular) tho, since… The Rite of the Dragon is very deliberate and designed right? It’s really hard to imagine whatever force brought it into being going “Yeah, 19 sidereal rites per gnosis is fine, that’s a nice round number to match the 5s and 10s” and then added one more of each later.

I was wondering if maybe some sort of oral history might’ve survived, or if you remembered how much the instructions on the Rite-tones might mirror (or not mirror) what you learned since you know fiendcraft beyond a combat function. You’re almost certainly right about the fiend-tones existing since the beginning of the Rite though.

I mean I can dive in the Mask to ascertain fiendcraft’s existence of that’s something I needed to know. Guess it was a poorly worded question really.

As per oral history: much older than Lucja, but couldn’t be more precise than that if I wanted to without putting in a lot of work back at Queenstown. Instructions are pretty base level first step generalities, though it’d be weird if they were anything else honestly.

Guess that begs the question, did you all change Mana Burst and forget about it, or has that one already happened or not happened yet?