Winners and Losers

[reallymean]

[It's a day or two after the return to Liminal Space that Allura's voice sounds across the Network - long enough for people to regain their bearings, and hopefully long enough for most to realize the effects of the sunflower-floor.]

It seems clear enough which of the Arcana won this round, but is anyone certain who lost? Or, more importantly, which of them is left to play? There can't be more than one or two Jaunts left in this bracket.

[Depending, she's fairly certain, on whether or not the re-admittance of one of the Arcana to their game after Yensid meant an extension of this portion of the competition.]

Comments

[awitchdidit]

I'm fairly positive my patroness hasn't played yet in this round, for what that's worth. Magician playing near the end is an irony of some sort, but then, the Arcana don't view time or perhaps even causality in the same way we do.

[reallymean]

They don't seem to be playing in any order at all, unless the books in the library are completely misleading.

[thornsofmalkav]

My theory is they RNG'd it.

[reallymean]

They do what to it?

[She's not familiar with the acronym. At least, she thinks it's an acronym; it could just as easily be an Earth word that's slipped through translation somehow.]

[awitchdidit]

Random Number Generator. Determining order by chance, which would fit with Fortuna's influence on the game and the enormous roulette wheel that appears to have been her contribution to its organization.

I've done the same thing with many magical rituals in the past: adding an extra facet of chance and risk can increase the potential benefits of almost anything magical.

[thornsofmalkav]

I wouldn't be surprised if they went to her old place to draw the brackets up. It looks like that's where they hold group meetings.

[awitchdidit]

I can actually show you myself nodding seriously at that now. See?

[Image Projection, woo.]

It's one of those things I like about the Arcana. They're as morbidly appropriate as I am.

[reallymean]

Ah. I'm familiar with the concept, then, just not that particular term.

[Interplanetary adventures in communication.]

It's interesting - even if the order has been determined through chance, the matches themselves seem as though they must have been designed with the resolution of particular thematic conflicts in mind.

[awitchdidit]

Any given Arcanum can find opposition with any other if you try hard enough, and I assume the multiverse provides an infinite number of conflicts, large and small. It's a matter of any given pair of Arcana finding the right one to have a duel over.

[reallymean]

And yet they've had secrecy versus blatancy twice. And isolation versus integration twice as well, if I'm not misreading the accounts of that haunted island. Possibly three times, depending on how you look at the events in Questing Country - I wasn't involved enough in the situation with the Harbingers to say either way.

[awitchdidit]

Questing Country was complicated a great deal by the Arcana as a group engaging in a side project of sorts. I wasn't a big fan of them playing multiple games, but given how very Liminal Questing Country is, I'm not surprised.

I suppose you can think of every Arcanum encompassing a variety of archetypes, some of which they hold in common with each other. Moon and Priestess, for example, both deal with "secrecy" and "obfuscation" in their respective archetypes. Some of these common points are easier to frame a conflict or contest around than others, hence the repetitions.

[reallymean]

I suppose it might be that simple. We're unlikely to get a straight answer from our patrons either way, more's the pity.

[awitchdidit]

Personally, I enjoy being handed a puzzle every time I ask a question, but I understand I have strange tastes.