Seaside2

Now that I have established what the Sentiment system is, and hopefully some of you have begun your descent down the rabbithole watching one or more of the shows running it, I can introduce you to my own rabbithole. I stalled on making this thread because I wanted to have a name to call my setting but oops, brain no work good when prompted. If I ever find a name I'll update the name of this thread.
So. Sentiment. Rolls to Do and Dye and attributes and colors. All of this initially appealed to me because it was very rules-light and would allow for greater freedom to tell a story without getting bogged down in a numbers-game where everyone had to memorize 3 books or more to even get started. I wanted to run a game that would be friendly to beginners using a setting of my own design because I am unconscionably averse to using premade modules.
Quite literally all of this started because I wanted to play D&D, but with WotC being what it is and the state of the OGL being what it is, the idea of "maybe an alternative" stuck in my thinkmeat. Pathfinder is... an option. I was raised on D&D 3rd edition, and Pathfinder first edition is a natural evolution of that, but P2E is different. I don't know this system. It seems interesting, but I don't want to try running a game I don't know inside and out. I'm neurotic and have extreme ADHD, I have to know what's happening or I'll become stressed to an extreme. So the hunt began.
I stumbled onto Sentiment through a series of associated shows and it immediately clicked for me. I would revisit something old, something that defined my early days on the internet and much of my early adulthood. In the mid-to-late 2000s I was a moderator for the roleplaying section of an independent forum, and one that had a relatively large population, (I think we had 400 registered users, though the most active at any given time was a tenth of that) and I helped build the world where all of that took place. I wrote what might as well have been a doctoral thesis on the Laws of Magic, setting hard rules that prevented the "it's magic, i don't have to explain shit" excuse. Nobody likes a god-moder.
My part of this setting was built on a harmony of magic and technology, two forces that were otherwise anathema. Abundant magic overloads electrical systems and causes modern/advanced technology to fail, and the development of technological systems depletes natural magic and slowly kills the land. The goal of this nation was to develop a means to bridge the divide, to create technology that worked in tandem with natural magic. I named this nation Elmgarde. This would be my primary point of development on the continent, with other contributions including a prestigious academy of magical learning in the largest city.
That forum is years dead. That world exists only as memories in the minds of a handful of scattered people. I live with one of those people, the rest I haven't spoken to in about a decade. But this world and the many, many characters I created within it, have occupied space in my thoughts and my hard drive all this time. It may come as no surprise, after reading this, to learn that I've always wanted to author my own comic. There's obstacles to that, artistic and narrative skill that I feel I don't possess. It's still on the horizon. And this is my world.

The first challenge I faced when adapting the Sentiment system for my purposes was that I wanted magic to be a core mechanic. I struggled for weeks trying to assign elements to colors and determine how they interact in a way that wasn't heavily weighted to make any one feel overpowered. When I found my solution, it not only shaped the system I would use, but the very foundation of the world.
All things in this world are made of magic. The rocks, the trees, the waters, the people. Everything is made up of coalesced Mana. The world itself is formed from the overlap of pure elemental Circles within the Astral Sphere. All living things are made up of a significant concentration of at least 3 elements bound around a core of Light Mana with threads of Dark Mana.
The foundational elements of Lightning, Fire, Earth, Ice, Water, and Wind form the world and its natural forces. Most of these are self-explanatory, but for the sake of clarification: Lightning represents energy, most notably electricity and magnetism; Fire represents heat and flame; Earth represents firmament, stone, soil, as well as the flora that springs from it; Ice represents cold, capturing other elements in solid form; Water represents fluidity; Wind represents gasses, air, and vibration, including sound. The higher elements of Light, Dark, and Astral are somewhat more abstract. Light and Dark should not be confused with the concepts of good and evil. Light represents vision and the soul; the foundational elements may make up your body, but the soul is the very core of your being, the breath of life that flowed through you from the Astral Sphere. It's also literal light. Dark represents obscuration and the body. It is literal darkness and shadow, but it is also flesh and blood and bone, bile and sinew, the tissue that binds the foundational elements to the soul. Astral represents the universe, the immutable, the laws that govern all things. Astral is gravity, it is space, it is time. Light, Dark, and Astral are the cosmic trinity of Man, Earth, and Heaven: the Self, the Body, and the Universe.
Magic is typically performed by expending a portion of the Mana within your body, creating a physical toll on the caster proportional to the desired effect. There is a reserve of Mana within the body that can be expended before damage is done to the body, and it is restored through rest, eating a meal, etc. (in this way you can think of MP as being equivalent to stamina) Absolutely everyone has the capacity to use magic, as absolutely everyone is made of magic, but reckless use can be hazardous to one's health. It is all too possible to spend every last ounce of Mana within yourself and die. The Central Ackademy of Magick, located at roughly the geographical center of the continent, stands to teach anyone and everyone how to properly and responsibly harness this power, and graciously funds research conducted by faculty and alumni. One of the most important lessons at the Ackademy is the practice of imbuing Mana into objects for later use. Not quite enchanting, this practice allows one to functionally turn any object into a secondary MP pool. Alumni who have successfully learned this technique are officially called Mages.
Nobody knows who built the Ackademy. It's stood for as long as anyone can remember. Over time, students and faculty from the Ackademy began to build their homes around its base, and a singular structure became a small settlement, and eventually that settlement grew into a sprawling city. This city, known as either Central City or Guild Town, is home to numerous guilds of prospective heroes, hunters, and mercenaries.
You cannot view this attachment.
This map is still very much a work in progress, but these are the places I have fleshed out so far. I'll go over each of them in the future but this post is already getting stupidly long and I've barely started to scratch the surface.

Quote from: sdomult on Jun 27, 2025, 03:48 AM"adjusting" to the fora is right. it's kind of a lot for me. lol

If you didn't grow up with using them a lot I think it's a hard format to get used to, for sure! Especially since it's older tech. But that's part of why I like it, to be honest. :3

"adjusting" to the fora is right. it's kind of a lot for me. lol

Jazz covers, ya say? How about Monster Hunter?
If you prefer the songs individually, here's a playlist instead.

Then there's the Consouls, who do fantastic jazz covers of (mostly) video game music, but recently did a bunch of Studio Ghibli jazz covers

I love it when people cover songs in a different music style. The songs change so dramatically! Have you heard the jazz version of Anarchy Rainbow (from Splatoon) for example? it's amazing how the vibe changes!

A reading group you say? i can't say i wouldn't be interested 

Quote from: Tinc on Jun 25, 2025, 02:49 AMI binged it a bunch and finished it today.

I *need* to get part 2. And for those who are worried about reading an "unfinished" trilogy, there was an afterword from NK Jemisin and an interview excerpt that implied book 2 still had a satisfying ending to it (Book 1 did not as much x3).

The afterword also almost made me cry--seeing my favorite author talk about the impact of this book on her life.

It was also really cute, the book had a "Reading Group Guide" at the end with a bunch of discussion starting questions :D:D I've never seen this kinda thing before! Young Tinc would have found it really corny. Present Tinc now wants to start a reading group >;3c

That's so lovely!! I love the idea of encouraging people to engage with a work together. Hmm. Maybe as I develop my paintings more and make more complicated pieces I can provide some of these questions myself to get people thinking about art and how it's made and thought about!

I binged it a bunch and finished it today.

I *need* to get part 2. And for those who are worried about reading an "unfinished" trilogy, there was an afterword from NK Jemisin and an interview excerpt that implied book 2 still had a satisfying ending to it (Book 1 did not as much x3).

The afterword also almost made me cry--seeing my favorite author talk about the impact of this book on her life.

It was also really cute, the book had a "Reading Group Guide" at the end with a bunch of discussion starting questions :D:D I've never seen this kinda thing before! Young Tinc would have found it really corny. Present Tinc now wants to start a reading group >;3c

Oh hell yeah, I'm playing a bunch of these at work tomorrow!!

so i was scrolling around youtube for mario kart world arrangements since i heard that a lot of the classic songs have been made into jazzy versions, and WOW, we need more jazzy stuff in mario kart and in video games in general because i think there is an untapped market there

dire dire docks:
maple treeway: