Annotated 37-1
Right away, we learn that Syr’Nj has definitely not bounced back from the events of Chapter 36. She’s still enough in command of herself that she’s coordinated the aforementioned “retrieval of the dead” in an orderly fashion. But the signs are all over her.
Syr’Nj is usually chatterbox enough that being untalkative is significant on its own. But Gravedust and his comrades have been back an hour and she still hasn’t made time to listen to any details about their battle? She hasn’t even confirmed until now that Gravedust’s report isn’t “I’m sorry, but we lost, and all of Arkerran civilization is about to be devoured.” That’s an astonishing level of apathy from anyone, much less her.
And it’s also the little things, like the way she power-walks into the chapel, completely failing to consider Gravedust’s shorter legs and slower gait, and the fact that she’s clearly told him nothing about why they’re there. And Gravedust, as we’ll be reminded, was a close friend of Byron’s, making this a particularly insensitive unboxing video.
Flo nearly didn’t tag Byron in this sequence, since he’s not exactly there anymore, but we’ve been over that one.
Why is he wrapped in bandages when none of the others are?
I actually covered this in a later annotation that’s already written! Basically because Syr’Nj has not given up hope on resurrecting his body and wants to preserve it from decay in the meantime.
I thought the bandages didn’t do the preserving so much as suck up any stray fluids.
Bandaging him up due to the EXTREME punishment inflicted upon his body would have made a lot of sense too.
After all, if you stab a body enough times, it stops being a body in places and stars being, well, mincemeat.
Everyone has a weak point. Everyone has something that will make them forget their manners and everything that’s good and right. I half expected Syr’Nj to start sliding into evil from this point on.
She’s lucky she has some very non-evil people around her, as well as plenty of negative role models which she takes great care not to emulate. Otherwise, there’d she’d have a very wide and well-paved road to a very dark place. Oh, and of course the fact that Byron doesn’t stay dead for long what with him being a much more significant part of this world than a mere PC. Plot armor, except it’s actually in-universe(*) :o)
(*) except not really in-universe, since Syr’Nj’s status derives from things that happened *outside* of the Arkerran universe, in Sepia World.
Oh dangit, I just (only just now!) realize that whatever grants the Five the ability to come back from anything is the same thing that makes HR an Arkerran god… they’re on the same level as him, they’re just not aware of it. That’s why he is having such a hard time getting them out of Arkerra and making it his own plaything. They’re already sitting on the throne he built for himself.
Which makes me wonder: If the “immersive gaming experience” had become a thing, and most/all players were joining that way — the whole thing might become weird because the universe would be bending to all the players’ (often contrary!) wills, whether they knew it or not. Might lead to very funny NPC behaviour at some stage, and eventually you’d have PCs with god-like powers dueling it out in the most super-epic way—oh wait …
Too bad none of the real-world mythos had pantheons in internal conflict, or even seperate pantheons in mutual conflict.
Oh, wait :D
… the members of those pantheons were usually aware of their god-hood, though, and did not run about earth acting like regular people but finding it completely normal to slaughter 15 goblins/pirates/bandits on their way to the bakery to get breakfast, and not wondering at all why the universe would bend over backwards to provide them with 15 fresh goblins whenever the available ones run out, and some poor farmer who needs them dealt with.
Most pantheons also did not outnumber the part of the non-god population capable of speaking in complete sentences.
Depends on where in the creation myth sequence we are.
Some of the pantheons were around before anyone knew what a god was, because literally all the gods were just these other dudes… no mortals in existence yet.