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2011-11-09, 02:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
I think it is highly interesting, and I like it, but I am not seeing eye to eye with you in regards to TC.
Your own fluff states that the world existed before the spell, and then some wizard invented it which changed the world.
This creates a problem in that I see no reason that some other Wizard out there decides that he wants to end the threat of a teleport invasion and research/invent an anti-teleport spell that can be used to protect vast stretches of area.
If TC was invented, that means other counter-spells of similar power could be invented*(naturally that doesn't mean they have, but if a PC or a DM using this setting decided too, they could totally do it.)
*Isn't there some rules in the DMG or something about inventing new spells for a niche that doesn't have any?
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2011-11-09, 07:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
When EvilBad City realizes your network is protected by n standing armies, they can easily conclude that n+1 armies will defeat you. Cue arms race. I'm not sure there's really an upper bound to that... assuming your network has x possible entry points, having more than x armies available only makes sense if you're sending in multiple waves or in some sort of war of attrition. On the other hand, assuming x is the upper limit, EvilBad City can create a new entry point x+1 by just dropping a new TC within the target area.
I'm not sure this would work... given that invasions would be extremely rare, your residents would conclude that the area immediately around the station is safe enough, and they don't want to bother walking (or whatever non-TC transporation method) all the way back and forth between the station and the city, so they just set up shop outside the station. The city would essentially just relocate to the most convenient spot, most likely outside the Forbiddance area.
Tippy, would Mirror Mephit Abuse provide a cheaper shortcut to unlimited wishes? Lesser planar binding is available at ECL 7, which can give you a simulacrum-efreet with three wishes essentially for free. If the efreet isn't doing it for you, the mirror mephit can create a simulacrum-black ethergaunt (17th level wizard casting). Find some way to increase the mirror mephit's caster level by +3 (orange ioun stone + bard's inspire greatness, perhaps?), and you can create a simulacrum-solar.
Also, is there a way to use genesis or create some sort of demiplane to make a city immune to invasion? I'm fuzzy on how the security of genesis works. I suppose whatever method you use to get from the TC on the ethereal plane to get inside the demiplane could be seized/destroyed and an enemy force, but I don't see that a seige would work due to the create food traps inside the demiplane, or the high-level spellcasters inside creating a new TC/entry point.Handbooks:
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2011-11-09, 07:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
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2011-11-09, 07:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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2011-11-09, 08:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Each city can function perfectly well in isolation. And honestly, the biggest trade item is relatively minor magical items that have been developed by persons in one city or another.
As for knowledge, it would seem difficult to protect as magic allows anyone to have a photographic memory, firms would not only have to worry about documents and trade secrets being stolen, but their mere observation poses a security risk. This, in turn, would seem to continue to foster isolationist policies within each city, lest they give up their edge to foreign agents.
If you want a weirdstone gone you can always just Wish a disposable minion right next to one and have them break it.
I still don't think you could bring army-sized populations through in anything like a timely fashion - not because the spell can't theoretically transport that many, but because the logistics involved in doing so become prohibitive at anything past a few people a round. That said, a few highly-trained and magically-powered people could wreak much havoc in a short time, so it's not that huge of an issue.
Really, the difficulty I see is that even with concentrated forces like the Cities you describe, it's actually still too easy for enemies to do huge damage if they wanted. Your forces are concentrated, but so are your other resources, all the key strategic points an enemy might want to capture or destroy. I don't think any garrison could mobilize rapidly enough without additional teleportation and instant communications, and at that point it doesn't actually matter what sort of area they service. A garrison alerted by Sending and mobilizing through a TC or Mass Teleport can potentially service an entire plane with almost equal effectiveness as their home town. At that point, Cities become almost the worst sort of eggs-in-one-basket setup... unless Weirdstones work and you can effectively turtle up.
And weirdstones do exist and offer some protection. My point has been that they still don't offer the kind of protection that would keep out another cities military. Between infiltrators, wish, arriving outside the covered area, and a few other methods they can simply be brought down relatively easily.
Most of the classes do have a point and are used. Although the defenses would make a rogue doing what you describe insanely difficult.
Deities in the Tippyverse are more Eberron than Faerun. And they still receive plenty of worship by those in the Cities, it just tends to favor different gods (Boccob, for example, makes out like a bandit).
Another one are the Wish Traps. To me Wish isn't an automatic effect since it could be granted based on the whims of some entity. Cheapening that may not go over so well said entity so another might anger.
In another area stemming from certain dieties having no more interaction with the Cities they would gravitate towards the ones in the Wilds. As such while quite a few would end up as stated how many more would be empowered by this? Would those towns with so few magic other than Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, and some others not have an influx of certain divine magic due to those dieties? As such to me the Wilds would start to have a Nature-y Divine feel while the Cities have a substantial Arcane feel to them.
Don't be, it's perfectly acceptable to IRS Forbiddance away.
But this does bring up a question: the OP says things are mostly by RAW, but how ridiculous does the ridiculous stuff have to be before it's been ignored by the setting? Is it just trying to account for the effects of extremely powerful spells on a campaign setting, or also for the effects of extremely poorly written rules with clearly non-RAI consequences (like IHS)? Some of these seem like they might have some serious impacts on the way a world functions.
Sure, and if he manages it (pure DM fiat) then the entire setting changes. It can be great fun to play a game like that. Points of Light had my group playing both extremes, it was my PC's who set up the initial teleport network, another set of characters who played a large role in the CoWC period, and eventually yet another group who oversaw the mass reordering of the world when the leylines powering the traps that the cities depend on were redirected into a great warding that stopped teleportation over the entire world. Great fun. But that's all setting specific and not the core Tippyverse.
If TC was invented, that means other counter-spells of similar power could be invented*(naturally that doesn't mean they have, but if a PC or a DM using this setting decided too, they could totally do it.)
*Isn't there some rules in the DMG or something about inventing new spells for a niche that doesn't have any?
There are plenty of ways to do stuff cheaper. It's not something I really worried about, because even using the costs to produce without any tricks to cheapen it, you would still get the TC network eventually and it would still lead to the rest (eventually).
Also, is there a way to use genesis or create some sort of demiplane to make a city immune to invasion? I'm fuzzy on how the security of genesis works. I suppose whatever method you use to get from the TC on the ethereal plane to get inside the demiplane could be seized/destroyed and an enemy force, but I don't see that a seige would work due to the create food traps inside the demiplane, or the high-level spellcasters inside creating a new TC/entry point.
It's not a setting based on abusing gate. The setting would already exist without or without gate, all gate changes is how cheaply and easily the infrastructure can be set up.
Exactly. And really, all you actually need are the Teleportation Circles. Sure, you end up with massive farming areas that enjoy the protection of a cities army but that can be just as fun (if not more fun) to play in and doesn't much change the basic themes of the setting. It opens up some additional weaknesses while closing others and tends to alter the cities population figures but it doesn't change the base setting.
The key point of the Tippyverse is the existence of rapid, industrial scale, teleportation magic at a reasonable price.
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2011-11-09, 08:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Thanx. I am actually thinkng of running this in my next campaign and I prolly will run it lite.
Teleport circles will have been created from high level wizards and the profit for casting two such circles and making them permanent is traditionally given to the wizard responsible until he is satisfied. Even assuming the creation of such a circle every 3 years they should have redifined the world in just a hundred years or so.
What changes if you remove item creation traps or if you allow only create food and water traps?Last edited by VladtheLad; 2011-11-09 at 08:47 AM.
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2011-11-09, 09:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Quite an interesting read, I do have 1 question though: When successfully attacking an enemy city why is the city generally destroyed and not conquered?
Sure its a second point to defend, but the widespread usage of Teleportation Circles makes it quiet easy to achieve. Not to mention that you now have a second cities worth of Golem Manufactoring devices, as well as other goodies from captured/killed opposition, to rapidly boost the newly captured cities defences.
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2011-11-09, 09:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Do diplomancers exist on Tippyverse?
Because, if they do it means they go like this:
"Ow, hey there. How about you let me take this pretty stones that does not let people teleport into the city and do stuff?"
or
"Hey! You, master of all magic and owner of town. I know you have these wish and gate traps capable of doing stuff and you doesn't let other people mess with them, but if I promise to be a good boy (or girl) and not to break the stuff, would you let me use,like, forever?"
And I'm not even talking about the jumplomancer, pun-pun and hulking hurlers and the heavy broken stuff...
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2011-11-09, 09:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
You end up with enclaves of raw materials spread across the world (well unless you do things like you genesis to make a plane of silk or steel etc.) that are linked by TC's to their city and guarded by that cities army. The people in the cities produce goods like in any other D&D city or town.
What the Tippyverse really does is concentrate almost the entire population in a very small (relatively) area and removes virtually every reason for them to exit that area. Whether that area is but a single city (in the case of trap use) or a city and resource enclaves/colonies (in the case of no traps) doesn't really change that. Without the geographic constraints you can farm in, say, Iowa and yet have your city in Hawaii without any problem.
Because most of the fighting is going on inside the city and such fights usually have thousands of high level casters fighting each other. There is rarely anything left intact. Then there is the fact that unless you can convert the conquered cities military forces or have a military around twice the normal size then you won't have the forces to actually police the conquered city and it will rapidly fall apart. Now add in that all the other cities are unlikely to want you to conquer more territory so they have special operations going on in the area to destroy the city. In the end, conquest is much more difficult than destruction while offering relatively little gain.
Sure its a second point to defend, but the widespread usage of Teleportation Circles makes it quiet easy to achieve. Not to mention that you now have a second cities worth of Golem Manufactoring devices, as well as other goodies from captured/killed opposition, to rapidly boost the newly captured cities defences.
Sure, they exist. But they aren't effective thanks to all of the leadership having Mind Blank up. And in the trap based cities you can fairly easily have the entire population mind blanked (which is incidentally what makes divination's to know when the enemies are going to attack such a bitch).Last edited by Emperor Tippy; 2011-11-09 at 09:13 AM.
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2011-11-09, 09:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Mind Blank doesn't protect against a diplomancer. A Diplomancer merely provides an excellent point that others see as ingenious. If they way to do this through magic such as reading minds then yes that part is stopped by Mind Blank yet most of diplomancing is mundane. A simple skill check.
Thanks to my cancer looking at one to two months left to live. Prayers are always welcome and have fun.
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I do have access to my laptop so can be on more often until my time is up. I do plan on making the most of it without investing into any long-term pbp.
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2011-11-09, 09:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
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2011-11-09, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Player's Guide to Faerun has a CL20 magic item called a Weirdstone. 250 k gp? I think?
It blocks teleportation in a couple of miles radius IIRC. As well as any form of planar travel.
Doesn't block you leaving it, I think.
EDIT:
I see this has been brought up already.Last edited by jseah; 2011-11-09 at 09:54 AM.
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2011-11-09, 10:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Fair points. And now that I think about it, these sorta things probably did occur in the settings history, thus creating the neccessity of things like the Disjunction Self Destruct Wards.
Still though it doesnt feel quite right, from an Evil Expansionist Cities pov, that you dont get to lord your superiority over a conquered population and bend them to heel.
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2011-11-09, 10:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
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2011-11-09, 11:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Does this setting deal at all with the Weave?
It seems that all of this constant and heavy use of magic might threaten to drain the energy of the area, causing these cities to fall into becoming dead magic zones.If something doesn't work, hit it.
If it still doesn't work, hit it harder.
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2011-11-09, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
No Weave, but numerous campaigns have dealt with Bad Things happening that cause an area to become a dead magic zone. Like the city that was trying to cover it's self in an Enhanced Magic effect (see planar traits) and messed it up, getting Dead Magic instead.
Frankly, most of those kinds of things end up being plot points or campaign hooks. The city falls because of X (dead magic zone for example) at level 5 and the players are lost in the wilderness thousands of miles away from any other city and with no idea how to get to them (as a campaign hook for example).
One memorable quest for a party of mine was having to retrive an item from a city where one thousand years to the outside world was one round to the city. The players had to guard a Planar Shepard who was the center of a bubble of regular time from all of the cities inhabitants that ended up un time locked as they passed by.
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2011-11-09, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Originally Posted by Tippy
Does the other end of the TC just look like an enormous pile of bodies as hundreds of people all teleport to the same spot?
That's actually kind of hilarious.
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2011-11-09, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
What about a "random city table" with weaknesses, some of them being vulnerable to dispel magic - like effects? :D
The people are fed by traps, what does the lowliest folks do, garderners and maids? :)
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2011-11-09, 02:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
If you read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, those would be the Dolists. When food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare are all free people only work if they are bored and/or feel like it.
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2011-11-09, 02:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Dex
SpoilerRegarding my Necrotic Apprentice trick:
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2011-11-09, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Right, but that's no different than any other tactical situation. The solution to an army is to bring a bigger army. The point here is that they can't simply drop your entire force right into the middle of your defenses.
Also, the opponent would need to have information on x, which is by no means a given. There's plenty of means of bypassing scrying and divination, and x is dependent on the number of mutual defense treaties and how well they are being used. If a city has more treaties than the OPFOR realizes, they're going to get pwned.
I'm not sure this would work... given that invasions would be extremely rare, your residents would conclude that the area immediately around the station is safe enough, and they don't want to bother walking (or whatever non-TC transporation method) all the way back and forth between the station and the city, so they just set up shop outside the station. The city would essentially just relocate to the most convenient spot, most likely outside the Forbiddance area.
Keep all major economic facilities and infrastructure within the forbiddance area. If the peons wish to get themselves killed over convenience, that's their problem. The city will be nice and safe.Last edited by ShneekeyTheLost; 2011-11-09 at 02:47 PM.
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2011-11-09, 02:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
TC doesn't end the move action?
I guess even if it does, they can still just use their standard action to move again and not collide (assuming that the 4 people entering simultaneously from each side aren't colliding as well).
I can see the process for going through a circle being a bit like an airport, where its a bit of a hassle to organize it and you have to go through customs, maybe have guards check what you are transporting in/out of the city, but you put up with it because its still incredibly quick compared to hoofing it cross-country.
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2011-11-09, 02:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
No. Why would it? You move onto it, as an instant automatic effect you get teleported, and your action continues from your new location as if nothing happened. However much of your movement was left unused in getting to the TC, you have that much still available on the other end.
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2011-11-09, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
Good point. For some strange reason, I was thinking you'd have to stop on the circle (ending your action), get teleported, and then start moving again. In either case, you can still keep moving, because you either have remaining movement or you have your standard left to convert to a move.
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2011-11-09, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
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Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2011-11-09, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
In a world where everything needed for living is supplied for free, imagine the percentage of the population that you could enlist into the army...
-Dyllan
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2011-11-09, 04:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
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2011-11-09, 04:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
I can't help but picture the city from Aeon Flux. Well groomed on the inside of a nice big wall with no (or very few) exits and spell turrets around the top. While outside is an overgrown hostile and dangerous wilderness.
I wonder if sewage and disease would be a problem? Probably not sewage. Purify food/drink is a cantrip, but what about disease? Could medical traps keep up with an epidemic as it jumped from city to city?
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2011-11-09, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy
In a world where food/shelter/health care/goods was provided for with no real cost to those who made it, what would that do to trade/currency?
Supply and demand would destroy these Cities economies.
Precious metals would become non-precious (magic traps making currency/ anything) and thus worthless. (Gold is weaker than iron/steel/mithral/admantine etc). magic items would abound (once again with the traps), so they would be just as worthless. What would be considered precious then?, If any item could be manufactured with relatively little cost (once you can wish in anything the initial cost doesn't matter because it pays for itself).
I imagine people would just hand out ubermagic enchanted whatevers like candy on Halloween. except everyday would be halloween.
I also see knowledge being the only thing precious. Knowing how many entrances/exits/TC spots into a City would be worth far more than a couple billion +1 swords to a City that wanted to invade. But how could you transfer that into currency?"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed."
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2011-11-09, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Definitive Guide to the Tippyverse, By Emperor Tippy