WengFook asked:
>That mark of failure on Akio's brow... is it really working as
>intended?

An Æsir curse is a curious thing and difficult to fathom. There is a certain element of rhetoric in the wording; in fact, when you get right down to it, what you say out loud when you invoke it is irrelevant, because you don't have to say anything at all. So what Corwin said ought not to be taken literally.

At the same time, such a curse does represent one of the most significant karmic burdens a soul can be compelled to carry. The undying hatred of a god is a very heavy thing to carry uphill, metaphorically speaking, and it's given all of Akio's endeavors since a kind of Sisyphean quality. It takes a very determined spirit, one willing to endure a great deal of punishment, to accomplish anything hauling such an anchor behind.

Still, it clearly hasn't crippled Akio entirely. Since receiving that curse, he's built an entire plane of existence - a fairly small one in terms of absolute square-mileage, but still, when was the last time you created even a small universe? Yeah, he's had a lot of shit go wrong in frustrating ways, and even Oriphos didn't quite come out the way he wanted (that red sky, for instance, isn't what he was going for at all), but still, he's getting some stuff done.

As Corwin and his friends have learned to their cost too many times to forget it again, only a fool ever counts Akio Ohtori out before the absolute end of the game.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Brrrr.........

>At the same time, such a curse does represent one of the most
>significant karmic burdens a soul can be compelled to carry. The
>undying hatred of a god is a very heavy thing to carry uphill,
>metaphorically speaking, and it's given all of Akio's endeavors since
>a kind of Sisyphean quality. It takes a very determined spirit, one
>willing to endure a great deal of punishment, to accomplish anything
>hauling such an anchor behind.

I can totally respect that amount of willpower to not give in under that kind of odds.

>Still, it clearly hasn't crippled Akio entirely. Since receiving that
>curse, he's built an entire plane of existence - a fairly small
>one in terms of absolute square-mileage, but still, when was the last
>time you created even a small universe? Yeah, he's had a lot
>of shit go wrong in frustrating ways, and even Oriphos didn't quite
>come out the way he wanted (that red sky, for instance, isn't what he
>was going for at all), but still, he's getting some stuff done.
>
>As Corwin and his friends have learned to their cost too many times to
>forget it again, only a fool ever counts Akio Ohtori out before
>the absolute end of the game.

Yeah I understand that Akio has accomplished quite a lot even laboring under the curse. He has enjoyed some small victories here and there. The thing is that they are, in the grand scale of everything, they feel like small victories.

So far, to me a least, he has come off like a great and powerful tiger, with all his fangs and claws pulled out. Yes the tiger can still maul and crush a person but a lot of the danger has been removed from the equation.

A lot of Akio's encounters with the heroes in the symphony have been martial encounters, A lot of maneuvering to get them where he wants them and then a duel of some sort occurs. Aside from the time when he first had Anthy in his control way back in the buildup to Knights of the Tenth World. Akio hasn't really had the heroes dancing in the palm of his hand and savoring victory before the rug gets pulled out from under him. I mean literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory here. :D

Yup. I'm definitely not going to count Akio out of the equation. He still has a lot of clout where it matters, He has a whole selection of tools and people at his disposal that can give a person a really bad day. But, he feels kind of like a clearly defined miniboss *cough*speedbump*cough* on the way to the bigger threats in the universe :s

_____________________________________________
"Walls are meant to be broken." - makes sense both figuratively and literally.

Those of you who are White Wolf fans might consider this something like an epic-level version of the nocker flaw in first-edition Changeling, if that helps any.

Ard Collier
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace