Regarding Cult Runes

[canon35]

Okay, so about cult runes. Just a minor change. Make it so the description says "Some strange graffiti" or something like that instead of straight up saying "It's a glowing rune of blood".

[Guest Menown]

How about changing the name too. It's meta as hell when people go "There's a rune here."

[jackfractal]

Hehehehe.... what if the description in Examine changed every time you looked at it.

"A strange symbol, crudely drawn in blood."

"Graffiti, nothing special."

"A painting of three dogs, playing poker. The boxer is winning. The chiwawa is winking at you."

"A mathematical theorem daubed in blood. It's proving... something. You're not sure. You feel as though you almost understand. Perhaps if you looked closer..."

[Guest]

^^ Those are actually great. Please.

[K0NFL1QT]

No. Cult needs to be visibly doing bad stuff so that Sec have a reason to be bothered by their activities, instead of minimising their cultism so that the Cult has free reign to build up its army unhindered. Otherwise they'll just start cutting each other and painting the hallways with runes because 'lolno it's just ink'.

Make the runes visible to AI, because it's stupid that blood is invisible to cameras.

[Killerhurtz]

I approve of the changing examines. ESPECIALLY the one referring to the mathematical theorem.

But yeah no, Konfliqt - mass-graffiti is already a reason enough to investigate.

I'll make a list, later, of examines that could be found.

...IDEA.

Since AIs/lawbound synthetics are, in no way, involved with Cults, have THEM be the only ones who can see that they are, in fact, glowing blood runes. Lore-wise, everything with a proper sapience is affected by the magics emanating from them, resulting in the various results. Cue hilarity when AI and cyborgs start talking about bloody, glowing, menacing runes when other people just see insignificant things.

[Alberyk]

Since AIs/lawbound synthetics are, in no way, involved with Cults, have THEM be the only ones who can see that they are, in fact, glowing blood runes. Lore-wise, everything with a proper sapience is affected by the magics emanating from them, resulting in the various results. Cue hilarity when AI and cyborgs start talking about bloody, glowing, menacing runes when other people just see insignificant things.

 

Only if cult is also able to see the glowing runes, because, it is a way to find the words, since, working runes will glow, while non correct ones won't.

[Killerhurtz]

Yeah that I thought was implied. I meant it as 'only non-antags'

[Susan]

Hey.

Hey guys.

Hey.

Blood smells. It smells like blood. Ergo - slitting your wrists open to smear your life-giving vitae across the floor in a closed-circuit air system makes smells.

[Killerhurtz]

Except it's MAGIC blood smells. And since it's magics, maybe only those who can't be, or are already affected by magics would be able to smell the smells.

After all, it's only smells.

[Guest]

...sorry to say, but that sounds sort of stupid.

Blood is blood. If you walk into the workplace restroom to 'release the dragon', and you see a bunch of glowing blood on the wall, what are you going to do?

Nobody is going to think "aw shit we have a cult in our workplace", but more like "who is the loon that painted in BLOOD on the wall? whose is this?"

So unless you wanna change the entire dynamic of how the cult gets its power (i.e., NOT from blood incantations from the flesh), this isn't going to work. It forces non-cultists into a position where they have to roleplay as though they're completely naive and don't know what blood looks like. It puts off the crew knowing that there's something fishy going on.

And you all know how much stealth cult sucks absolute cock.

[LordFowl]

But our characters don't have a sense of smell. Why would smell then matter?