Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Elder Haman]

And if I reintroduce her there's this massive meta force effect from players wanting to go after her when IC Mami doesn't know her from Eve. I don't like when things get super meta like that really.

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Ehh... just say that IC Mami finds this girl strangely familiar, and that she (and Kyouko) is drawn to her despite not knowing her.

Also something I've not mentioned before but was my internal justification for the divergence between this and Rebellion: in canon Homura told the Incubators much of what had happened in the original timeline (which never made sense to me in canon anyways). Here she still hated Kyuubey and basically tells him nothing, at all, ever. The Incubators believe that she has time related powers, but only by observation. They know nothing of her true past.

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Thank goodness. That was one thing that never made any sense to me too.

I'm not really sure you'd have much opportunity to use a teleport to reduce your risk of injury to be honest. I mean a barrier is one thing, since you can preemptively use it. But if you use a teleport to avoid an attack that may or may not hit you, you have to go all the way back to the place you were fighting to re-engage.

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It seems obvious to me that it would reduce the chance of injury, since you could teleport out if you got cornered or something. Then when you return to combat you are no longer in a bad position. A tactical retreat ability is always a major risk reduction factor. You're pack hunting but get cut off from your pack by the demons - just teleport out.

Although I suppose It would be far, far more useful in a solo situation. Pair... well you'd probably have to have rules that if one girl bugs out then both bug out.

So I'd guess something like -3% risk factor for solo hunting, -1 for pack hunting. Not sure about effect for pairs... maybe also call that -1%, (yes if gets you out of trouble more often then pack hunting, but it leaves your partner in the lurch, so that cancels out some of the effect).

Healing call it -10% solo and -10% pair. Pack it's just assumed you have a real healer.

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Did you mean for those to be the same for pair and solo?

Not sure whether this is meant to be good or bad.

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Because there is no way to put a "hugs the GM" image, I thought that was as close as I could get to expressing sympathy.

Regarding the house, why don't we get an assessment on refurbishment costs BEFORE we buy it? We would need to spend an action on that anyway.

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Absolutely, after all, you naturally do this before an large real estate purchase anyway.

 

[inverted_helix]

Containment spells that break on certain specified conditions:
- on contact with demon miasma
- on a timer (ie containment spell can be modified to break at a specific time)

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The first is not going to be a short term research project. You'd need a lot of research to come up with something like that. You don't even really have a good understanding of the miasma itself.

The second you're kind of coming at from an odd angle. While a possible research project. Why wouldn't you just use a mundane timer to remove the insulation at a specific time? So long as you don't need it that specific second, it should work fine. It would just be more a simple engineering solution at that point instead of a lot of research and spellwork.

Class 3 Demon repulsion magic (something that makes them go away)
- probably need to bribe Kyubey to help us with this

Class 3 Demon lure magic
- probably need to bribe Kyubey to help us with this

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These are not going to be short term research projects.

Stealth/Illusion enchantments
-just like we can strengthen shields, what about a stealth girl casting an enchantment on a ring that makes the wearer less visible? That the wearing girl then just maintains?

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This would be a much more active effect than what you normally get out, you're essentially wanting a spell anchor that anyone can power, this is quite a distance in terms of research.

Ask Kyubey to give us more detailed information on Tokyo, contact information, locations where the class 3 demons are sparser, etc. Would Ayase be safe in Tokyo (potentially as a messenger, or to deliver charms to girls that need it).

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Ayase would be no more or less safe in Tokyo than the mundane citizens. So significantly safer than a magical girl, but still not perfect.

Ehh... just say that IC Mami finds this girl strangely familiar, and that she (and Kyouko) is drawn to her despite not knowing her.

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IC Mami would be. But there's still going to be absurd meta player pressure for a level of interaction beyond that.

Thank goodness. That was one thing that never made any sense to me too.

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I know right? And it's basically what made Rebellion happen. So here since that didn't happen, Rebellion didn't happen.

Did you mean for those to be the same for pair and solo?

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Yeah, the logic being that a partner can make it easier to have time to heal up, so more severe wounds can be healed without the demons taking advantage of your temporary weakness.

Because there is no way to put a "hugs the GM" image, I thought that was as close as I could get to expressing sympathy.

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Ah I see.

Absolutely, after all, you naturally do this before an large real estate purchase anyway.

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I don't know that there's even much agreement on what you want done.

As I've said before the Church is stone construction, so the primary structure is undamaged. But any furnishings, windows, or the like are broken. You can assume that there is some small basement, but not large enough for any sort of training. (I mean it's not like they have an underground parking structure or something.)


Also a lot of questions have regarding what Nagoya's doing could be fairly simply answered by asking them. (Well assuming you trust them at all.)

 

[boonerunner]

We are a drop in the ocean compared to Tokyo. Lots of our girls will die. Lots.
Maybe we should just let Tokyo die...

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"Oh no! A few of our friends might be at risk of dying if we help out! Rather than do that, let's just let 38 million people we don't know die..." is not the response that the Serene are going to have. We might delay our response until we have additional training/supplies/allies/information or whatever in order to make the job a bit safer, but at this point we are obliged to deal with the Tokyo situation.

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More like "Oh no, all 70 of our girls will die, killing everyone we love, and destroying the entire Serene organization, while failing to do more than slightly delay the destruction of Tokyo by a couple months, so 38 million people will die anyways."

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You were suggesting that we go ahead and let 38 million people die because we don't want to risk our lives. For a hope oriented organization like the Serene, that is unacceptable. We have to do something. Obviously we shouldn't just do something stupid like a full on assault of Tokyo but that was not what I was suggesting. But on the other hand we can't expect that our normal 0% risk hunting standards will apply in Tokyo. The lives of 38 million people are at stake here.

Your assessment of the threat of class 3 demons is absurdly low, and your assessment of our capabilities is absurdly high. The belief that such a vague plan will some how work is crazy.

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My plan for completely cleaning out Tokyo is vague because it's a long term goal and we need to gather a lot more information before the details can ironed out. My short term goal, however, is quite concrete (and nearly risk-free): we more gather information about Tokyo and Nagoya's Class 3 Demon hunting abilities by sending Kyoclone (to participate) and Saya (to give clairvoyant support) as well as some cubes and some tandem-cast barrier and healing anchors.

So... potential (sane) plan for trying to do something about Tokyo.

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I agree with a lot of the ideas here (especially the research about demon bait/repellent). But you had just suggested that we let Tokyo die because some of our girls might die if they fight Class 3 demons and then you came up with a plan for a full on assault of Tokyo which is much more aggressive and risky than any of my ideas about allying with Nagoya and continuing to use harassment tactics to whittle down the Class 3 demon numbers. I'm a bit confused.

For Solo hunting 50% of casualties will be deaths, for Pair hunting 40%, for Pack Hunting 20%.

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Healing call it -10% solo and -10% pair. Pack it's just assumed you have a real healer.

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Also, an Evac Team reduces the Solo Lethality modifier from 50% to 30%. @inverted_helix: does the evac team reduce lethality for Pair hunting by a similar proportion (i.e. to 24%)? Also, could we give First Aid training to our girls to further reduce the lethality for Pair hunting (i.e. the partner stabilizes the victim until she can be properly treated by a healer)?

 

[racnor]

How do you know this?

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It seems rather intuitive, since she isn't actually dead. That said, if this isn't true, then that's yet another reason to send her in, because it's much better to discover that before we are directly at risk.

I'm not really sure you'd have much opportunity to use a teleport to reduce your risk of injury to be honest. I mean a barrier is one thing, since you can preemptively use it. But if you use a teleport to avoid an attack that may or may not hit you, you have to go all the way back to the place you were fighting to re-engage.

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Perhaps a slightly greater decrease in risk than barrier charms, but with a decrease in hunting efficiency to go along with it?

 

[Elder Haman]

For Solo hunting 50% of casualties will be deaths, for Pair hunting 40%, for Pack Hunting 20%.

I have it on the cheat sheet.

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So with healing charms that becomes:

Solo hunting 40% of casualties will be deaths, for Pair hunting 30%, for Pack Hunting 20%.

With Evac Team as well:

Solo hunting 20% of casualties will be deaths, for Pair hunting ??%, for Pack Hunting 20%.

 

[Godwinson]

Actually, the best way to handle canned teleport is that on any roll that indicates a casualty, make a separate roll to see if it was an incident where the teleportation would've helped, and if it was, it negates the casualty.

 

[Elder Haman]

You were suggesting that we go ahead and let 38 million people die because we don't want to risk our lives. For a hope oriented organization like the Serene, that is unacceptable. We have to do something. Obviously we shouldn't just do something stupid like a full on assault of Tokyo but that was not what I was suggesting. But on the other hand we can't expect that our normal 0% risk hunting standards will apply in Tokyo. The lives of 38 million people are at stake here.

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I was suggesting that maybe Tokyo is too big for us to do anything about. We have to know our own limits.

 

[Elder Haman]

Actually, the best way to handle canned teleport is that on any roll that indicates a casualty, make a separate roll to see if it was an incident where the teleportation would've helped, and if it was, it negates the casualty.

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Actually, that's another point. Do teleport charms reduce death rates as well as casualty rates?

I'd expect so...

Maybe the initial roll is evaluated both with and without teleport effects - if teleport becomes involved, then we lost some cubes due to reduced hunter efficiency?

 

[racnor]

Actually, that's another point. Do teleport charms reduce death rates as well as casualty rates?

I'd expect so...

Maybe the initial roll is evaluated both with and without teleport effects - if teleport becomes involved, then we lost some cubes due to reduced hunter efficiency?

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The issue is that the effect isn't retroactive like that, since you can't be certain if such an attack will hit. At the very least, you have to choose between teleport charms and barrier charms, because teleports render barriers redundant.

 

[Aranfan]

Sita I'm definitely sure is right out.

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That's fair. The idea was that you had to get her to spiral outside of combat, but I might have went overboard.


With Sabrina, no harm in asking Firn for permission?

I'm only really invested in Hortence being a thing, so I'm happy to hear she's made it in.

 

[Skelm]

So I had an idea for a Legendary power and ended up writing an Omake about them.

==

Shanthi of Mangalore

Living in one of the smaller cities of southern India, Shanthi is one of the few magical girls who became aware of magic before meeting Kyubey. A few weeks before she contracted, she was kidnapped by a group of magical girls looking for potential magical girls to use as test subjects. Shortly after this, the group that had her captured got into a conflict with a much larger organisation and were no longer able to pay the rather exorbitant bribes Kyubey demanded in return for not contracting her.

When Kyubey came to her, knowing the insurmountable gap between magical girls and normal people, her wish was obvious: "I wish they couldn't use magic anymore". From there, she was easily able to escape her now-unpowered captors and was found by the police. Without any reason for Kyubey to cover things up for them, evidence was swiftly collected and the girls arrested.

From her wish, Shanthi gained the power to construct an anti-magic field. Simply put, any magic within a kilometer that she wouldn't want to happen, doesn't. This happens automatically without her having to pay attention to it, rendering it impossible to bypass this by surprise or confusion, even when she's asleep. For magical girls, even moving requires magic, so her enemies typically loose the connection with their bodies the moment they attack. Demons suffer similar problems, typically dissolving instantly into grief cubes as soon as she gets to them. She could destroy them from further away, but it makes collecting grief cubes a pain.

Traumatised by the events leading up to her contract, Shanthi has used her powers to drive off any magical girl who crosses her path, seeing them as too similar to her captors to risk interacting with.

While her unwillingness to risk being harmed by another magical girl has thus far prevented her from being recruited or forming her own organisation, her experience with her powers is slowly making her confident in her ability to escape an attack unscathed. It is likely that, given enough time, she will become willing to tolerate new contractees in her territory. From there, an organisation could well form that she would be willing to be a part of.

Defeating Shanthi would require a completely mundane force using only mundane weapons, but this sort of mercenary force is rare among magical girls and would still have to contend with any allies she had. Such an experience, if she were to survive it, would certainly be enough to push her to join a group, even if she otherwise disliked them.

 

[Sereg]

Incidentally, with the whole Sabrina thing, if someone wants to create expies of any of my creations, here or elsewhere, I'd be honoured. I'd only want to be informed so that I can see the result.

 

[Skelm]

Sabrina specifically, I don't think works, she's much to proactive. Even without meta-knowledge I would have expected her to control most of the world by this point.

 

[boonerunner]

Proposed Legendary Meguca - Monica of Reykjavik.
Monica stumbled upon a magical girl who was in the middle of spiraling into despair and being claimed by the Law of Cycles. Monica was horrified, but Kyuubey told her that the demons in the city would cause many people to die without someone to protect them, so Monica grudgingly decided to contract with the wish "Just so long as that never happens to me!"

Monica's wish prevents her from being claimed by the Law of Cycles, so she can use as much magic as she wants without despairing and without requiring any cleansing from grief cubes. Monica uses her magic freely, but as a result her soul gem is darker than the blackest night and generates its own demonic miasma (which continues to get stronger over time as Monica uses magic). Monica claims that she is not affected by any negative emotions and that the miasma does not cause her any problems, but the same cannot be said of others in the vicinity. At its current level, the miasma corrupts soul gems and causes fear and revulsion as far away as 20 yards; at close range, the effect is unbearable to all but the strongest Elites. Demons generally don't react to Monica's presence, treating her as one of their own, which allows her to walk up to them and kill them with impunity.

Extensive training and unlimited use of magic has allowed Monica to build up a specialty in every discipline of magic (mechanically, she counts as a Veteran Healer/Barrier/Teleporter/Clairvoyant/Illusionist/Telepath). Her magical skill and extensive experience allow her to detect and avoid conflict with anyone who doesn't know her and might be hostile.

Monica's miasma prevents her from being part of a group (or having anything more than passing contact with anyone), but she takes her job seriously, keeping a district of Reykjavik of size 10 hunted to DS+10 at all times in order to maximize the protection of the people without spawning Class 3s. As she has no use for grief cubes, Monica hands them out to anyone who needs them and is perfectly willing to hunt down Class 3s in other areas, but her miasma prevents her from traveling in close proximity to other people, so she mostly limits herself to Iceland, where most of the resident magical girls have heard of her and don't attack on sight.

The only person that Monica has regular contact with is Kyuubey.

 

[Sereg]

Sabrina specifically, I don't think works, she's much to proactive. Even without meta-knowledge I would have expected her to control most of the world by this point.

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This is a good point on Sabrina. I've been wanting to have a Sabrina expy in my own quest, but it helps that she's massively nerfed in potential, versatility and the fact that grief is much more scarce as a resource there, which limits her influence.

Also, are spinoff meguca, locations, etc. available?

 

[Skelm]

This is a good point on Sabrina. I've been wanting to have a Sabrina expy in my own quest, but it helps that she's massively nerfed in potential, versatility and the fact that grief is much more scarce as a resource there, which limits her influence.

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My first though was that Hikari is already a Sabrina expy, but I suppose you mean powers rather then psychological makeup.

 

[Elder Haman]

The issue is that the effect isn't retroactive like that, since you can't be certain if such an attack will hit. At the very least, you have to choose between teleport charms and barrier charms, because teleports render barriers redundant.

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I think you have completely confused the use case of teleport charms.

The use case is not "Oh no, I'm about to get hit - teleport!" which makes them functionally an inferior shield charm.

The use case is "Ah! I got cut off from my hunting partner/pack and surrounded by demons, I can't escape!" or "I was hunting solo and got cornered by the demons without a partner to help me out."

Barrier charms are about blocking attacks. Teleport charms are about escaping a tactically inferior position through a temporary retreat.

 

[Sereg]

My first though was that Hikari is already a Sabrina expy, but I suppose you mean powers rather then psychological makeup.

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Well, yes.

 

[racnor]

Huh, so it's "think up legendaries" time. I think I might join in, I've had a few ideas.

Sabrina specifically, I don't think works, she's much to proactive. Even without meta-knowledge I would have expected her to control most of the world by this point.

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Plus, the meta-issue about us focusing everthing on Homura would be, if anything, worse for Sabrina.

I think you have completely confused the use case of teleport charms.

The use case is not "Oh no, I'm about to get hit - teleport!" which makes them functionally an inferior shield charm.

The use case is "Ah! I got cut off from the hunting partners and surrounded by demons, I can't escape!" or "I was hunting solo and got cornered by the demons without a partner to help me out."

Barrier charms are about blocking attacks. Teleport charms are about escaping a tactically inferior position through a temporary retreat.

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Ah, that makes more sense.

 

[Powerofmind]

I think you have completely confused the use case of teleport charms.

The use case is not "Oh no, I'm about to get hit - teleport!" which makes them functionally an inferior shield charm.

The use case is "Ah! I got cut off from the hunting partners and surrounded by demons, I can't escape!" or "I was hunting solo and got cornered by the demons without a partner to help me out."

Barrier charms are about blocking attacks. Teleport charms are about escaping a tactically inferior position through a temporary retreat.

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So long as we have bases organized in all of our hunting zones such that teleport charms won't fizzle, we can actually dedicate healers to these FOB's, allowing them to heal meguca without having to be present in a pair, or without being the solo hunter. @inverted_helix Instant-reaction charms are too advanced for us to make right now, but we can create extreme-decay charms that would pop within a few seconds of a meguca no longer feeding the enchantment, right? If we were to apply them to solo hunters, there would be a seconds-long window between going unconscious and being teleported out of combat. We do have the means to make such charms, right?

 

[TheEyes]

So long as we have bases organized in all of our hunting zones such that teleport charms won't fizzle, we can actually dedicate healers to these FOB's, allowing them to heal meguca without having to be present in a pair, or without being the solo hunter. @inverted_helix Instant-reaction charms are too advanced for us to make right now, but we can create extreme-decay charms that would pop within a few seconds of a meguca no longer feeding the enchantment, right? If we were to apply them to solo hunters, there would be a seconds-long window between going unconscious and being teleported out of combat. We do have the means to make such charms, right?

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Not according to how the tech is described. Right now decay-activation has a high probability of causing the charm to fizzle, since the containment enchantment decay rate is uneven over the surface of the material. Developing a solution to that is, at best, going to be another project, and at worst might be impossible.

 

[racnor]

So long as we have bases organized in all of our hunting zones such that teleport charms won't fizzle, we can actually dedicate healers to these FOB's, allowing them to heal meguca without having to be present in a pair, or without being the solo hunter. @inverted_helix Instant-reaction charms are too advanced for us to make right now, but we can create extreme-decay charms that would pop within a few seconds of a meguca no longer feeding the enchantment, right? If we were to apply them to solo hunters, there would be a seconds-long window between going unconscious and being teleported out of combat. We do have the means to make such charms, right?

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I'm not sure if going unconscious would stop the enchantment effect, since basic enchantment is not itself a conscious thing (though much like breathing, you can choose to stop). And once a Meguca is back in the base, there's no hurry to get a healer to them, since you can't really die of damage to your body. It might save a cube carton or two from not having to heal blood loss, but it's probably not going to save enough to make standby healers cost effective.

 

[Sereg]

My first though was that Hikari is already a Sabrina expy, but I suppose you mean powers rather then psychological makeup.

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More specifically, a girl named Sabrina who wished to control grief in an attempt to make the world a better place. She can't do "witchy" grief though. Just basic manipulation. Also, as there's no grief in Soul Gems in the quest, she's forced to gather it from mundanes. And as they are mundanes, their grief isn't permanent.

 

[Powerofmind]

Not according to how the tech is described. Right now decay-activation has a high probability of causing the charm to fizzle, since the containment enchantment decay rate is uneven over the surface of the material. Developing a solution to that is, at best, going to be another project, and at worst might be impossible.

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It's hard to follow the deeper discussions. Is this description the 'packet' from the update or something more specific, without a threadmark?

I'm not sure if going unconscious would stop the enchantment effect, since basic enchantment is not itself a conscious thing (though much like breathing, you can choose to stop). And once a Meguca is back in the base, there's no hurry to get a healer to them, since you can't really die of damage to your body. It might save a cube carton or two from not having to heal blood loss, but it's probably not going to save enough to make standby healers cost effective.

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Does enchantment function passively? It consumes magic, causing grief, so wouldn't it be ideal in the 'designing' of a meguca that enchantment isn't passively maintained without effort to increase 'shelf life'? Either way, getting a healer to a solo hunter that gets recalled quickly is ideal, since it lets the girl consciously deal with the close shave sooner. You could use any meguca to be the emergency near-death crying shoulder, but a healer plays two roles that way.

 

[racnor]

It's hard to follow the deeper discussions. Is this description the 'packet' from the update or something more specific, without a threadmark?

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It's from our turn 30 research. Still, it's not a problem with un-insulated charms.

Does enchantment function passively? It consumes magic, causing grief, so wouldn't it be ideal in the 'designing' of a meguca that enchantment isn't passively maintained without effort to increase 'shelf life'? Either way, getting a healer to a solo hunter that gets recalled quickly is ideal, since it lets the girl consciously deal with the close shave sooner. You could use any meguca to be the emergency near-death crying shoulder, but a healer plays two roles that way.

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Basic enchantment consumes pretty much no grief. Enchanting shields for all our hunters doesn't cost a single cube. And while a healer would indeed be ideal, it would also cost several megucamonths to have them on standby like that, and they would rarely be put to use.