Aelis

I was thinking about the relation between Mur,the Lands of the East and its unique features as a land and I found this "art imitates life" coincidence (tried to get the right angle as best as I could): If you look at it from other perspectives, you can see that the details on the top of the columns and the triangular bit above the columns (I don't know how to name it) are very similar to the temple in our realm. One last observation: pay attention to the heart-shaped thingy on the lower part of the rightmost gate. It reminds me of Marind Bell's gates, which feature a somewhat similar detail. I wonder what else can one find given enough patience to (digitally) wander around these streets...

Wings I like the symmetry in this one. It's the best "circular frame" I got so far. To get this one, I pulled a continuous stream from the bottom and another from the top, with a slight difference in length on the latter. The trick is not to pull all the way to make the streams meet. I left some space between them to create the center shape.

Staring contest On another attempt I got the left one to get a really nice "eye". Unfortunately the other side looked terrible, so I cut it out:

Menacing eyes Reproduction instructions: don't remember exactly 😅. I think perpetual motion makes things harder. I remember starting from the top with a couple pulls towards the bottom, then two small upward pulls on the inner part of the "eyes". After that, I made a lot of little adjustments that I don't remember and let things flow from there.

Instructions (I'd say reproduction is quite hard): Position the mouse at the upper middle part of the screen (both outside and inside the particle region seem to work), then move it down quickly and then hold click (I think click -> release -> click again might also work) while moving faster enough so the screen "thinks" you hit two slightly separate regions (the lower one slightly stronger than the upper). Then you just have to let the particles flow. I tried to aim for horizontal symmetry, but I think the slightly asymmetry made the cool effect towards the bottom. I think I got really lucky with the "sting" on the first drawing (lowest part of the screen ). I tried reproducing it today and the best attempt I got was this (I ended up "activating"/clicking three regions). One thing that helped slowing things down for more control was having another tab with google meet open and my camera turned on.

This is awesome! Here is my submission (for now): The Heart-Seeking Wasp.

I miss the old background image. I think it makes things easier to read in general. I was wondering if there could be a setting to choose between the new dark background and the old one. Both images are in the same folder, it's only a matter of changing the css background property. Perhaps new ones could also be added for further customization. Maybe a setting for dark/light themes in general would be better, as a few other classes would also require adjustement, such as #statusBarPlayername. This would require more work, though. I'd be happy enough with the bg image setting. Reference:

Such an insightful response, lashtal, thanks! This is so cool! I was familiar with the question, but it's really nice to see it in context (it shows up in the AL but in a more "cryptic" way). At first I thought of a mirror, as it reflects the symbol from a certain perspective. Now that I read of the double OR reverse, I can kinda interpret the mirror as also "generating" an image (another symbol), which could be the doubling part. I think it would depend on the symbol being "reversed". Also, the mirror would be an instance of a "reverser". There would probably be others. Having said that, I think the 0 you mentioned also works as an answer! I wonder if the answer would be the same for (double AND reverse) and (double OR reverse). If it's double AND reverse, I think raising to the power of 2 would provide a good solution: A² = AA = -A-A = (-A)² Symbolically, I think this would equate to raising (doubling?) a degree of complexity (for instance: l is a line, l² is square, so on and so forth). This would also fit nicely with Mur's 8-fold balance: A -> AA (A²) -> A²A² (A⁴) -> A⁴A⁴ (A⁸) -> How to get the final 1 though? 😛 Maybe the above would also work for double OR reverse if we are able to pick parts of the operation, but I'm not so sure about that. Just a quick pointer, the quote from the Angiens is indeed from Mur, you can find it here: https://md-archives.com/217/winds-game-meeting-full-discussion/ Yeah I get the feeling that the Angiens inside are the symbol for what the one outside was the actually doing "in reality". I totally agree that the opening one can be seen as you described 😄 Regarding the research clues and timeless aspect of the orb, I'll have to digest my thoughts I little bit more before I make any remark. 😅

As a long-term East citizen and ever aspiring researcher I've tried to understand the relation between the Traveler, the East and the rest of the realm for a long time now. These unanswered questions make me come back to the realm year after year I've had some of these ideas written down for a while, but they always felt incomplete. This topic is an attempt to organize some of my thoughts/research™ on these subjects and share them with the world. I don't quite know where to put it. Feel free to move it elsewhere if needed. The gate to the East is located at the chasm that connects two opposites of a 2-fold balance: Necrovion and Marind Bell, which points to the special relationship of the East with these two core lands in particular (one might even think it's not a coincidence that we currently have lashtal and Chewett, two strong references of these lands, as East citizens 😬). We also see other hints of this relationship in the AL, with both the Traveler (who came from the East even before it was open) and the Shade Sentinel playing an essential role in the Angiens development and in the events that led to the Seeds of the East. Their collision had a lasting impact on the Angiens. Additionally, we can see hints of a connection between Angiens and Shades earlier in the AL. In the AL we see the Traveler split into two shapes in two occasions. This hints to duality (a feature associated with Angiens) within the Traveler as well. We also know it has no face, no name, and some can't even understand its shape, and that it "entered" the MD realm (apparently from outside). This reminds me of Mur's show of force : I wonder if the Traveler is the (Tainted?) Angien that opened the box. The announcement I linked above tells us "The one tile unspoken of untill now is the clearly visible one at the East, the one most close to the Angien in the picture.". Maybe close can be interpreted both physically in space but also in terms of affection. That would make sense seeing that the Traveler came from the East. It's also interesting that we can see the dark face of the Angien that opened the box, which is also mentioned in Mur's post. Another hint that points to this is that the Sentinel cannot see the Traveler and says it has no time, which indicates the Traveler exists outside of (MD's) time. Finally, when they clash, the Sentinel says they cannot remember, which I think shows that the Sentinel got "cut off" from being observer of time (recall that they remember "throughout" time ). These two beings already carry a lot of symbolic power by themselves, but when they collide we get the orb that is "all the cubes at the same time", a mirror of every possibility. Another important point is that apparently only half of the Traveler entered Necrovion, while the other half walked the land (maybe this other half is related to what happened with the Angiens in MB?). Still, one question in particular eludes me: if the Traveler is apparently so related to Angiens, why are Angiens mainly associated with MB? It may be the case that the Traveler/East "is" Angiens + Shades, the "bigger picture", which might indicate why the collision between Traveler and Sentinel needed to happen before the East opening. Finally, this has been said about the Tainted variant of the Angiens: With this piece of information, together with the other clues, it makes me think that the Tainted Angien could be a creature associated with the Lands of the East, between Necrovion and Marind Bell. Sort of as the missing piece of a puzzle. Thank you for reading this. It's really hard to connect all the dots and fill in the gaps, all while choosing the right words. I tried my best here, yet I'm sure a lot is missing (unfortunately I wasn't around when this stuff happened). I'd love to hear your opinions. Please help me strengthen or dismiss these claims

Aw, that's great news! Congratulations, Chewett!

Item 3 - 12th Anni - 40 plushies

Item 3 - 20 plushies

I vote for 100 simulations.

Yes. I'll just try to work on a final version before making entries public. However, if the authors are okay with it, I could forward them to you in advance.

We have our final scores! To make things short, I'll report a the total score per judge here and send a detailed report with the judges scores and comments on each marking rubric to each player. If anyone else is interested in the detailed scoring, feel free to contact me and I'll gladly send them your way. Before making the entries public, I'll contact the authors to see if they would like to refine their entries. As soon as that is worked out and I get an okay from them, I'll post the final versions. So, without further ado: Entry #1 - Else on "Important Events in Necrovion" Scores Judge 1: 18/25 Judge 2: 20/25 Judge 3: 12/25 Total: 50/75 Entry #2 - Granos on "The Brotherhood (of Void Destinies)" Scores Judge 1: 16/25 Judge 2: 16/25 Judge 3: 14/25 Total: 46/75 Since Else also won in terms of "binary" judge victories (2 out of 3), I won't make any adjustments in terms of scoring bias. Therefore, that makes @Else our big winner, with @Granos as a close second! Congratulations to both and thank you again for participating! Unfortunately, we didn't have enough submissions to fulfill the WP requirement, but I hope you enjoy the other fine rewards. In the following days, I shall contact the winners with the codes.