While I have no doubt the information is out there, it's unlikely to be collected in a single, user-friendly form. To even begin to contribute someone would need to be a Hunter, and then they would need the extra skills that tie into something like this. Then the fact that most of the Grimm that might be able to be added to this list already would be the kinds that Hunters are already well equipped to handle.
The biggest part I'd say though is that any currently existing database would be useless in an actual combat situation, especially since most of the time it would be useful to access the database a Hunter would be far away from the Kingdoms.
I think the idea is that this takes all available information and moves it from being scattered across the internet on wikis and behind university paywalls and in text that got scanned that one time and turns it into a pokedex.
Yeah, this is basically why the Library is so important.
Nobody has time to skim Grimm Wikipedia while their teammate's being used as an Alpha Beowolf's chew toy, looking for the bit that says 'AIM AT JOINT IN PLATING BETWEEN SHOULDER AND NECK' between notes on pack habits and weird authorial tangents into this one time he blew three Grimm heads apart with a single blunderbuss shot.
Moreso, once Jaune realised exactly how
ubiquitous the Process has the potential to be, the idea of just throwing specialised units at Huntsmen and Huntresses for the specific purpose of providing battlefield information isn't that out there. Which would be really,
really useful, because, well...
There are a
lot of Grimm. And a lot of Grimm variations. Like... more than you could teach one person to kill in a single lifetime. It's like becoming a medical specialist, in some ways- Valish Hunters know how to deal with Nevermore and Boarbatusks, Mistrali know how to deal with Geists and Griffins, Atlesians, the Yeti, and Vacuoni, Myrmekes and the Phoenix. Huntsmen learn how to deal with the Grimm they grow up with.
Sure, figuring it out yourself isn't
difficult, once you've killed a couple dozen different Grimm you just get a feel for points of weakness, but they're
trained with the Grimm around them- those will always be the Grimm they can kill the easiest. An Atlesian Huntsman will struggle in Vacuo, and not just from the heat- they don't know where the Myrmekes' armour fractures best, how the Phoenix is weaker at high noon. Some Grimm are
nasty little buggers that
need prior knowledge in order to be dealt with effectively, otherwise, you risk doing nothing, or risk making the situation
worse.
That's why the Library is useful. Easy, relevant information, that can save lives, in a cute little robot that happens to be armed with a plasma cannon in a pinch.
@Prok I'm tempted to try my hand at writing one of those reports, but I'd need to know a bit about how varients are treated (like the Alpha Beowulf) compared to the normal versions, and what category the Grimm from the show would fit in (like a normal Ursa).
Maybe also how detailed you want them to go since the one I'm most tempted to do is the Ursa, and they're basically armored bears that replace survival instinct with wanting to kill people.
Grimm like the Ursa Major, Deathstalker, Alpha Beowolf- those are all treated, mechanically, as a tier higher than their normal counterparts, but would be put in the same category as them, due to being, well, the
same Grimm, just larger and angrier. Ursa would be considered common Grimm, not quite as omnipresent as Beowolves, but still pretty easy to find.
To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of on the fence about giving this a write-in option. At first, I was all for it, because less work for me, but then I started coming up with my own Grimm, and I realised that I really...
really enjoy making Grimm. And that I am
very good at it. Still, if your heart's set on it, go ahead, write it if you want, just don't give me something the size of an actual thesis. The Beowolf entry is 173 words long, and it's already starting to approach wall of text.
How do we gather information on Storied Grimm since the standard method of fighting them or reading reports of people fighting them are unavailable? Trawling through near-mythological stories, visiting the ruins left behind in their wake, or somehow finding an immortal who remembers them?
Storied Grimm are Grimm that, as you would expect, have been around long enough to shape the world in a manner that could be compared to...
Well, start with Typhon and Echidna, and go from there.
But yes, most of their information will come from their myths, and the Process observing them from very, very,
very far away. Personal experience is not recommended, unless you want to end the quest early.
They are some of the first to come into being.
I guarantee you that they're going to be the last to die.
Also, was I right about Night's Wings being Grimm Dragons?
Eh...
Close.
@Prok, how are you handling the rest of the shops? Are we visiting those later or did you change your mind how that option would work?
I figured that Transistor upgrades were important enough to deserve their own shop scene, as well as being the only shop that's slated to have any kind of fleshing out, so I just separated it out. Bookshop, I genuinely forgot about then realised that it would be pretty much useless to Jaune anyway, weapons store, I
started to cobble together a whole system of base weapons and part modifiers, then asked myself,
honestly, 'would
anybody be interested in these compared to the giant blue future sword?'
The answer was no, add in the fact that it would have made the weapons shop five times the size of any other shop, and that system has now been shelved to be used elsewhere.
In short, they're gone, but you're not losing out on much.
Also, is there a reason you've kept the long since closed interlude poll instead of asking a mod to delete it?
... Sentimentality?
...
Crippling social anxiety.