Unsounded

I refuse

I get the sense Roger cares a lot more for vamps than vamps cares for Roger. How could that little twink be of any interest to a dude literally centuries old and with a beard like that.

I sort of thought it was a euphemism to something related to the Coppers. Who are called coppers but are usually very red in nature. I guess most of the castes use less humble colors. I figured it was related to their lifespans and the way in which Coppers are expected to behave given their privileged place in Aldish society. Perhaps something like this

If not so much interest, it may just be how different they are as people. People have been quick to imagine Vampire is using Roger, but it may just be that Vampire is very old and experienced and seen a lot of death in life. So he's personality and way of showing affection is very different. Aside from developing in a culture centuries ago.

It isn't quite clear from the dialogue, but does it mean Vampire still hates the previous accursed? We can presume whoever it was is dead now, but the effect lingers. Does the curse then affect everyone but the target? I really hope we get an explanation of the mechanics

>red cost
MY BOY WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!

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I don't remember this panel

>>Double-time now, while the firewall burns.

What a rad line.

>Fully expecting the Khert to right itself at the worst possible time for them.

When Hugs Go Wrong: The Etalarche Story

Unfortunately, we know Roger lives, so we won't get the satisfaction of seeing him ripped limb from limb by the ravenous Alds around him.

I wonder, though: what are the odds Duane and Roger cross paths in the present-day storyline of the comic? And if they do, will Duane roast him when he sees him?

Roger's brain is already melting into his shoes from Ruckmearkha's venom. If Duane even felt inclined at that point, the best he'd manage is a mercy kill.

He might do it anyway because Duane can be a dick to people who fuck with him.

It’s right when Sette sneaks into Mulimar and is looking about. Slightly before meeting Matty I think

That red bastard is still holding onto Will while holding hands with his gay ass lover. Like what the fuck is this guy.

I think getting slowly raped to death by a gay snek is much worse than dying here.

Will is officially a giant strawberry man’s fashion accessory

I hope it doesn't caught on

Chapter 4, page 47. Honestly doubt he's exactly right, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's close to the truth.

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Now that would be pretty based.

Problem here is he mentions the Gold being affected, but their defining feature is that they aren't touched by the Dammakhert at all, which would be the way the longer lived castes would "leech" life from the shorter ones.

>with like... clarity
Dang, now I'm reading all his lines in a teenage girl voice

Yeah but as far as mechanics 'in universe' go there could be a "life expectancy" aspect. It's not out of the realm of possibility that there's a reciprocal relationship between all the castes. A little life from one, a little pymary potential from another and all of a sudden you've got a scale that looks alot like Alderode.

Ah, Roger is so naive thinking anyone could overpower the curse. It makes his present day situation all the more delicious

Was there any ever doubt? Dammakhert fuckery clearly steals life from some and gives it to others. It's why Souds are distrusted as they live partly outside this.

I've thought the same, but I don't see why it would be so unbalanced as to require blood sacrifice. Silver are super-human wrights, why can't the Jet's weakened pymaric ability account for that? Silver/Jet are tied for the most common caste (excluding Bronze), and there's more Plats than Coppers.

I'm more inclined to think the Dhammakert sets an Ald's "parameters" via a second layer of genetics (we know it supercedes normal genetics, and Ald-Stuff is hereditary). Perhaps at conception, or in the womb, the Khert draws and gives to pools of Longevity and Pymaric-Ability, and doles it out afterwards, but we've seen no indication that a shortage of Plats/Silvers would lead to Coppers/Jets not living as long.

Every Non-Soud Ald is affected. This will undoubtedly lead to Duane/Lem getting looked down upon by the rest of the group when they can't properly hate the UnPerson.

The problem is that there's no real reason to believe the dammakhert actually moves years around like that. Unsounded's universe is very grounded, and all forms of magic have a fairly clear origin to them: spells are temporary, exploiting the nature of the khert until the khert resets things unless the spells are burned into first materials where the khert can touch them. This is largely the extend of the magic seen so far.

When it comes to the dammakhert, things get screwy but I don't think this means that lifespan and pymaric ability are either linked no taken from one group and given to another. The dammakhert seems to change humans on a biological level when they're conceived within its bounds (aside from the Golds) and then this determines their caste. As related by our friend Vampire on this page. But there doesn't seem to be anything pointing to needing to maintain caste ratios to support the leeching of life or pymary one way or another. Coppers practice severe population control not because of a set amount of years to share, but because they're insanely long lived and embroiled in the usual nonsense of the privileged and entrenched. I think the Jets do as well, but this seems to be part of their weird natures, as does how the Silvers do it: ie. meticulous family planning and rearing for practical goals. We know very little about the Plats other than they practice communal raising but their population doesn't seem unusually large.

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Consider that Coppers can live four centuries and Plats merely 3 decades. Just calculating from these, with taking 70 as "normal," you're looking at needing to account for about 330 years for a single Copper, which means about you'd need about 8-9 Plats per Copper if you're taking about 40 years from each. Then you need to factor in the Silvers and Jets. And if you factor in the idea that Plats are meant to be taking pymary from the Coppers, this is even more troublesome since every Plat has super reach, but if there's only so many Coppers being supplied by Plat years, where is all that Pymary coming from?

Again on the biological point, Unsounded doesn't really have "lifespan" as some sort of resource, nor of course is this how it works in real life. The ability of our bodies to maintain their processes degrades overtime and this seems to be how all the castes work, just on different scales. Pymary is even more complicated, because the differences are not as measurable. Jets need to touch things to affect them, and Coppers can't at all I think. I can't recall how special Silvers may be, but Plats are ridiculously far casting and also have a special attunement to the khert, getting away with shit most casters can't. Which brings us back to where all that is coming from is we're considering a small amount of Coppers using a large amount of Plats.

It seems more likely to me that, given how incredibly consistent lifespans in Alderode are in the affected castes, every Caste is designed to be how they are for specific reasons. Not necessarily because they have to be because they share a "lifespan" and "pymary" resource that is unequally divided up between them.

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I forgot to mention:
>What leads me to doubt the "Dhammakert actively gives longevity and pymaric-ability" theory is that Alds couldn't leave the Dhammakert without being made normal. Quigs and Matty like how the Dhammakert "feels" better, but they're still pale mayflies who can spell the dick off a mayfly 40 miles away when outside of it.

>I have sneaking suspicion it has to do with the Kussen
This was my first impression.

It does seem more complicated than moving years around. For one, the most common people, the Bronze can live from 50 to 150, but their aging schedule depends a lot on their actual family lines it seems. And Alds don't all age the same way: Plats, which are the second most common caste, age on the inside rather than the inside and so stay beautiful until the very end like Quigs, while Coppers just keep growing like crocs and becomming bigger their whole lives.

I forgot to mention there's other oddities too, like Jets apparently going insane and how Coppers just get bigger, and redder, like some kind of Char mech. There's already a lot of specific oddities to how the castes end up because of the dammakhert, not to mention the apparent telepathy because their minds are all jacked into the dammakhert.

There is something to be said for how the dammakhert operates in a way that is almost completely unique for pymary in Unsounded. Nothing else effects permanent change on non-first material matter in the same way. Still, it is not indistinct from how khert mutations, which seem universal in some ways aside from super rare bloodline traits like tacit casting, seem to permanently affect people. Same with partial obliteration of aspects like Rham's legs being invisible. The dammakhert probably does something fucky through the interface all humans have with the khert through their ports.

The short of it is the castes seem to exist as biological entities, not magical ones. However the dammakhert functions seems to just mess with their genetics and then they run around largely unaffected otherwise when it comes to their biology. Lifespan and pymary as some kind of resource that can exist independent of the biological, or metaphysical, rules and processes that ultimate lead to their expression seems beyond the way we've seen the world work in Unsounded so far and I be surprised if that turned out to be how it worked.

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>Coppers just keep growing like crocs and becomming bigger their whole lives
Does this mean copper women are amazons?

>In the eyes of the law, all castes are equal (technically, ideally).

>In terms of economic success, the Copper are at the top, then the Jet, then the Silver. And while these three are often in competition and don’t like each other well, socially they get along all right. Jet and Silver respect each other as hard workers, they both respect Copper because Copper are terrifying, and Copper don’t actually interact with anyone but their own enough for it to even matter what they think.

>Then there are the Plats. There’s no reason to hate the Plats, but it’s very easy to dismiss them as irrelevant children, and this is often what happens. Everyone is most comfortable when Plats keep in their place and keep to themselves.

>This leaves our Soud and Bronze, saddled with the stereotype that they’re shifty traitors or lazy criminals, respectively. The Bronze are both the most populous caste and the most economically disadvantaged, with the vast majority of them being efhghersit, which means they don’t live in ghers, but in slumtowns.

Probably. If I recall, a female Copper is the leader of the larger rebellion in Alderode and is also Vampire's sister? Or Roger's. Someone's sister. Apparently she and Bastion have a thing, and we'll probably see her when the story moves to modern Alderode next book.

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>The castes do treat their kids differently. I think the Soud and Bronze are the most familiar to us. We saw the Adelier family. Pretty typical, though stuck in a very classic patriarchy.

>Plats are the weirdest. They’re not expected to raise their own children. A few days after a baby’s born they’re moved into a communal childrens’ house and spend all their time there. Parents visit with them, work shifts in the house, but they and the kids are encouraged not to grow too close to each other. Plat kids may be sent away to school or vocational training at a very young age, and they marry young and have kids themselves young by our standards. When Quigley’s parents died he was away at school and felt almost nothing at the news.

>Silver families are at the opposite end. They’re severely disadvantaged longevity-wise and have translated this into a demand for a strict work ethic in their children so they can compete. They’re helicopter parents, micromanaging their families. Imagine a Tiger Mom turned up to eleven. Silver kids are worked hard, expected to excel, and have precious little childhood.

>Jets tend to treat their kids like little adutls too - often because they’re encouraged to have them at a much older age. A Jet’s usually lived an entire mortal lifespan before he or she has a child. But as we’ve seen, Jets tend to be curt, demanding, truculent sorts, and their children have a hard time pleasing such demanding parents. This makes for families full of resentment and disappointment and no one wants to come home for the holidays.

It's illegal for castes to fuck another caste but what happens when it does, what caste is the child?

Intercaste BREEDING is illegal. Inter-caste prostitution is apparently state sanctioned, and if Lem relaying Duane's experience with the Sexy-Silver is any indication purely sexual dalliances are taboo but not unthinkably so.

If a kid is produced, they come out Bronze with their "Ald-Traits" being influenced by their parents. Whether these kids go straight to bronze or if there can be weird hybrids is unsure, but Aldish wisdom is apparently that this is why Bronze lifespan and pymaric ability can vary.

>Bronze keep pretty close tabs on family lineages, and the longevity of a person’s family is a huge consideration when finer families are arranging marriages. However most Bronze are impoverished and marry out of love or convenience, so their lifespans have evened out into essential normalcy. Your typical Bronze labourer lives as long as a Sharte, Crescian, or Soud. Most “civilised” Alds find this disgusting.

>Well, Plats don’t look “old” in the way we are used to. They don’t wrinkle, they crack. Their skin becomes brittle and translucent. It cracks and bleeds, and you can see their insides through it. There isn’t, alas, a lot of beauty in older Plats, but there’s a definite thematic reason for this.

>The Dammakhert seems to be the sole cause of the castes. Once the Dammakhert’s removed from the equation and genetics kick in, Aldishmen look very much like slightly fairer Ulestrians, with some ethnic variations on the coasts.

>The largest caste is the Bronze, and they’re the least esteemed. Then the Plats, who are quite esteemed. There are lots of Plats. Then a roughly equal number of Jet and Silver, then the Copper, then the Gold. The Gold are the least numerous.
Sout like Duane are even rarer than konn like Roger.

Rather than the Dhammakert moving life and magical potebtial between individuals, I'll bring up the idea that it shifts it around within a person. A Copper's magic ability is shifted to their lifespan purely internally, and is controlled by the "Dhammakert-Genes" that were mentioned earlier. This would explain why the affects of being an Ald persist even outside of the Dhammakert (no outsiders are required).

For lack of information, my guess is it has something to do with how the state limits the number of children Coppers can have. They're allowed no more than two due to the strain their long life allegedly places on the country's resources.

But Roger's gay and doesn't want to marry a woman anyway, so maybe he surprised his family but not really caring about that? This is the story about how he met Vamps, anyway.

Ashley actually came by and asked advice on what they should look like. She said the burly Amazon look seemed too obvious, so I guess their looks are still pending

>Coppers just get bigger, and redder
Redder, yes, but I don't think there's been anything about them getting bigger?

I assumed that Wendy, sorry, Mallory, was just on the local version of roids like Toby, Knock, General Bell and others. Pretty sure God has talked about it before (although not specifically in regard to Wendy).

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ashley's a faggot then

give me snu-snu or give me death

>Ash refuses to draw women-on-women
>Will gladly do man-on-man

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>If a kid is produced, they come out Bronze with their "Ald-Traits" being influenced by their parents
It's a bit more complicate than that, as I recall. On gradient of:
>Plat-Silver-Bronze-Jet-Copper
intercaste children average closer to Bronze. Plat and Silver would be Silver, Jet and Copper would be Jet. And then Plat and Copper would be Bronze and so would Silver and Jet. A Bronze with anyone would be a Bronze. I would imagine something like Silver and Copper would be Jet, and a Plat and Jet would be Silver, which is where things get weird. Essentially everything moves one step closer to Bronze as bounded by the castes of the parents until it reaches it and then that's it. You can't be anywhere else from Bronze, though perhaps immigrants might randomly pop out other castes? Anyway, this is why Alds are so paranoid about miscegenation, and Bronze are considered so lowly: they're all considered mutts and lacking in the "special" traits that make Alds what they are.

This is just what I recall, anyway, and none of it is in comic yet so it's subject to change. I imagine setting stuff like this, though, is more concrete, especially stuff like the Dammakhert related caste fuckery because of how central the weirdness of it is going to be to the mysteries of the story. It probably needed to be clearly hashed out in Cope's plan more so than exactly how old Duane was and the like.

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I guess it depends on what you mean by Amazon. I think height should still be a thing, but perhaps she doesn't have to be as simply massive as Vampire is. As uniforms as castes are supposed to be, it might help if Coppers had a bit of a gradient between Bara and Alien.

That's hot, have you try writing erotica.

Lesbians are boring. This is truth.

According to the tumblr some coppers never stop growing, with predictable horrific results eventually, but even regular ones are big guys for you.

Sad, but I can't begrudge an artist their tastes. It's probably tough enough work sometimes just drawing the stuff you WANT to draw.

this fucking image is... I dont knwo what, What the hell is her mouth doing

I wonder if vampire deliberately sacrificed the cart in order to initiate a spell stop?

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Makes sense.

Might be that there is something toxic about "too much khert". She said that for Bronze, which vary a lot, longevity still correlates with pymaric ability.

I don't think they're two aspects that can be fucked around with but just two qualities that are inversely related. We know pymary has much to do with the soul, two-toes can't do it until one of them was given the missing part of a human "soul".

The Castes could be varying degrees of soul openess or "brightness". The Plats soul is very openly connected to the world or burns brighter and so their life span could burn out quicker but they would stabilize khert lines better and have more space to store aspects. On the other end the Coppers souls would be very cut off, in Roger's case he couldn't even become a spellwright, and so their soul would burn out a lot slower.

It was a pretty long time between then and now when roger arrives. I don’t think so, as there would have been significant danger of the Khert resolving before they did what was supposed to be done

I feel like I should know this but why do Alds have those metal implants on their brow?

Just jewellery.

Decoration. Alderode is for ponces, after all.

Alderode is for closeted ponces.

Also, cannonically, Ssaelit trim their pubes.

GOOD Ssaelit trim their pubes. Leysa was probably a forest.

Cope is remarkably constrained in her "proper" work. People joke all the time about her being into Murkoph and the like, but on the whole Unsounded manages to avoid magical realms. She even draws stuff she's not as into for commissions and just amusing requests, though she does have lines. Ultimately I'd rather have what we have and Cope just not drawing somethings, than her being more open but the comic proper being fetish central.

I doubt someone unawares would figure out just how fucked up she really is just from the comic, though if you learned about it you would probably go "well, that does make some sense."

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Yeah, she's a professional. Meets her deadlines, treats all readers with respect, accepts criticism gracefully, keeps her personal perversions off the page. This shouldn't be rare in webcomics much less comics but somehow it is.

You can scale up a human and make them look slightly uncanny with smaller head proportion, but you don't have to make everyone muscle ould, you could have fat people still, lean gangly ones, varied proportions, etc.

would you bone the artist?

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can you not

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Yeah, in the pooper.

I'd at the very least cope a feel.

not the guy to ask I'd bone most women

i'm mostly gay but i would definitely perform sexual favors in return for juicy exclusive unsounded lore

Ah yes, this is a textbook example of Florida mulier luminare.

Hoho

Lost. I'm not happy about it but here's your (you)

oh my god I forgot about sette. Get on with this war drama shit already I want sette and lizard people

Shut up, I love the war drama shit.