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Dare to Accomplish Wonders [Isekai Quest] <Birdsie Quest>

Reader mode
Vote tally in circa 2 hours, maybe a bit earlier + an update to follow after it.

Also, regarding some of the discussion in the thread:

DeepWaters said:
I doubt the QM would have made anything resembling that if left to their own devices. I certainly wouldn't have!
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A lot of the politics in The Beggar King From London plan do not fit into the world I've pre-written. Mostly, in the form of locations and details. There is a prewritten setting already in place, and sure, I'm willing to bend it slightly to the fit the players' own ideas, but I'm not going to change it. Adding minor locations, sprinkling up it a bit, sure - but creating whole movements on a national or international level, and in fact, creating whole nations, is right out. I will, however, match the description to the closest and most thematically appropriate situation and, like I said, bend the circumstances a little to let the puzzles come together.

As for Plan Shining Maiden, an appearance would be useful, yes. If someone doesn't add it to the plan, I'll be forced to improvise, and I'm not sure what I'll do. Probably pick out a picture I like from my personal folder? Use another picture in the thread? We'll see and find out.

tryrar said:
Well, the no cheat option has some pretty cool flavor text, but it also implies some sort of hidden bonus for doing things fair and square, which appeals to SV's Mystery Box fetish. :p
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I neither confirm nor deny that the cheat option has hidden bonuses for doing things fair and square, but I will say that choosing it has... not as much advantages, on their own, as it avoids making things difficult.

These "complications" and "heightened difficulty levels" next to the cheat options aren't there just for show, or to scare you. I have a semi-list of notes and consequences for taking cheats. They are cheats, after all - things to gain an unfair advantage, and the universe doesn't like unfairness. Power for power, something for something, equivalent exchange; quid pro quo, as they say in the ancient vernacular.

I won't reveal what the actual complications and difficulty levels relate to, but trust me the situation isn't really as crystal-cut as, "I'll take this cheat and the Quest will be automatically easier!"
 
It is time.

Victorious Vote:

Plan: Shining Maiden
Lazara, Female

Backstory: Lazara, then known as Lily, was apprentice and then caretaker of the Azurion Lighthouse.

Her hobby was studying the way light would reflect and bend when passing through glass, and she would eventually craft a system by which the Azurion Lighthouse could display different coloured lights, for various signals. She would never travel more then 100 miles away from the Lighthouse. Between living in the nearby town as a child and sticking to her duty as caretaker, she simply never wandered that far for her 43 years of life.

Death came due to losing her footing in a storm at the top of the Lighthouse and plummetting into the sea where she would drown.

Insertion Method - Reincarnation:

Born into a Noble Human Household, Lazara is the younger of two siblings, her older brother, Timory is being groomed to become the next Lord of Lightbrook, an agriculture-focused province blessed with more, and brighter sunlight said to carry healing properties. The current Lord Pholion Lightbrook busies himself with the task of managing his province, and teaching his young son the tricks of the trade, while his wife, Lady Deavina teaches her daughter the ways of Nobility.

Savior Core: No Cheat
Adhoc vote count started by Birdsie on Jun 6, 2019 at 3:03 PM, finished with 52 posts and 23 votes.
  • [X]Plan: Shining Maiden
    -[X]Lazara
    [X] Plan Nerdpole Architect
    -[X] Character Name - Riley Baumann (Sofina Montacris)
    -[X] Gender - Female
    -[X] Backstory - A civil engineering student at MIT, Riley spent much of her studying hours getting distracted by sandbox building games and models of realistic fantasy castles. She could only be brought back on-track by her best friend and chronic overachiever, Elizabeth Sutherland. Riley grew up playing the rough-and-tumble knight to her best friend's prissy elegant princess, and the two tended to balance each others' worst traits. Unfortunately, neither of them were good at de-escalating, something that proved fatal when Riley drunkenly stormed out of Elizabeth's apartment after an argument and straight into oncoming traffic.
    -[X] Insertion Method - how do you start out?
    --[X] Reincarnation - You were born into the noble family of Montacris. While counts and countesses by lineage, a few generations of strategic marriages, good investments, and underhanded methods have lent your family wealth and influence far beyond that implied by their title (as well as a questionable reputation). By extension, they have sent all of their children thus far to the royal academy-- including you, their third child and first daughter. Your mother was loving before she passed, instilling in you a lifelong appreciation for art and geometry, but your father was always distant and demanding, only becoming moreso after he remarried. You must excel, for your father will show no mercy if you don't. (In your dreams, you remember a loving family in a world where you could build cities on a screen and a best friend who is the spitting image of a scion of a rival family, Amelira Capulisto.)
    -[X] Appearance - description or picture. If you're choosing "Reincarnation," including the post-reincarnation appearance is mandatory and the pre-reincarnation appearance is optional.
    -[X] Cheat: Game Break - "Clever one, to try it small. Foolish still, to try at all." - skill, weapon, status; powerful, but not unattainable by ordinary means, at the cost of complications later on.
    ---[X] Adventurer's Conjuration - You have been gifted with the natural ability to conjure objects. At your most basic, you can shunt objects into an abstract inventory and retrieve them at will, ignoring such mortal limitations as weight limits and carrying capacities. At first, your abilities are limited to inanimate objects that you can hold, and manipulating your inventory requires time and concentration (particularly as it grows larger); however, practice and experimentation may loosen or even remove these restrictions. You can also create simple objects using only the necessary raw materials, as well as copies of any object that has ever been in your inventory and any object you can create from memory or with your own skills. Eventually, you may learn to imbue objects in your inventory with certain properties, such as immense durability or unnatural physics.
    --[X] Game Break EX - "All the power for maximum gain. All the chances for maximum pain." - Take as many of them as you like, Savior. As many cheats and weapons and abilities as you desire. Why fuss about it? If your power is infinite, surely, nothing can defeat you, not even me?
    --[X] ALL. THE. CHEATS.
    ---[x] Heroic Might: Start with the body, mind, and soul of a demigod. All statistics: physical, mental, spiritual, are raised to above peak-human and will develop up from there, and develop much faster.
    ---[X] Supreme Warrior: Start with an instinctive knowledge of combat technique. You learn combat thrice as quick, and specific styles five times as fast, in addition to other perks.
    ---[X] Passioned: You will be unshakable when involving things that you are passionate about, benefiting your ability to do, learn and think within those fields.
    ---[X] Battle Lust: Start with an aptitude for battle and desire to get into fights.The more battle lust you have, the more dangerous in battle you become, the more you want to fight, creating a feedback loop that will increase your battle strength over and over during battle.
    --[X] Flashy Insertion
    ---[X] The stars misaligned on the day of the most watched and anticipated eclipse in centuries, as comets and shooting stars bode ill tidings. Magi and scholars seek out the Chosen One, whose coming was not foretold, but nevertheless must be here - they read it in the stars during the eclipse.
    ---[X] A shooting star lands in a field of blood, over which two armies of the same banners, fighting, stop to look.
    [X] Plan: Beggar King From London
    -[X] Character Name - Morris Hoddle
    -[X] Gender - Man
    -[X] Backstory - Morris was a jovial and affable fellow who thought of himself not as a Gang Leader, but as a community leader and in the rough and tumble streets of 19th Century London His community is the homeless, the sex workers, alley toughs and the street rats. The sort of folk that people more well to do look down on. Morris did what he could to organize them, bring them together and help them recognize their worth. From the lowest retch to the shiniest conman London, they knew and respected Morris. He took his share, and spread it about so his people could live well. As such, when folks tried to displace him, they had to be made an example of. For the good of The Community, of course. People liked to call him 'Beggar King of The East End' He lived 49 years. for the sort of folk he was, well and long, until the Spanish Flu took him and half the his east end with it. His final thought was the regret that he had no way to help all those trapped behind the quarantine with him.
    -[X] Appearance -
    -[X] Insertion Method - how do you start out?
    --[X] Summoning - When Amenafora the Drow, and Wizard of 127 years had begged the Great Spirits of Magic for a King to Save her down-trodden people, To bring together the bickering Clans of Monsterkind in the ever-gloomy citystate Of Shadowmoor, against the Imperialist Hegemony Of the so called 'Kingdoms of Light' and perhaps, one day, have a land where they were ruled by Monsterkind, For Monsterkind. She had hoped for an Old Drow King Reborn, or a Great Orc War Chief, or even the Mythical Goblin Lord. What She got was Morris Hoddle. A Human, who was a self proclaimed Community Leader. The Years of Sacrifice and Time that went into the Ritual couldn't be undone, she had checked five times, she had made no mistakes. This was their Hero. She hoped she was right.
    -[X] Cheat: Game Break II - "Twice the power, twice the trouble. One mistake, and you'll pay double." - start out with two cheats, at the cost of severe complications...
    ---[X] Scion of the Divine: The Sovereign of Chaos and Charm, The Shadow, And Lord of All Thieves. The Trickster is a god of the underdog and the rulebreaker. The Paton of Guile and Clever Solutions. They reward Heroes and Rogues in equal measure. A God of Transformation and Innovation. Liberation and Debauchery.
    ---[X] Supreme Rogue: Start with an instinctive knowledge of sneaking and deception. You learn how to steal, spy, sneak, and lie six as fast, in addition to other perks.
    [X] Plan Rebel Mode
    -[X] Character Name - Connor Weaver.
    -[X] Gender - Man
    -[X] Backstory - Connor was, during his 19 years of life, the black sheep of his family. Unlike his brothers who excelled in art, music, dance or studies, Connor only stood out as the only person to go 15 times to the director's office in less than a month. Although it is not as if he cared what his parents thought of him, he would live and die on his own terms, without worrying in the least about the approval of anyone. Even if that meant dying in an illegal motorcycle race.
    -[X] Appearance
    -[X] Insertion Method
    --[X] Summoning - A Linch, a necromancer sorcerer who was able to use his spells on himself to anchor his soul to his rotten corpse, is currently cornered and badly wounded due to a group of Heroes that came to stop his plans. In a last act of hatred and resentment against life itself, the Linch carries out a summon spell that will bring a powerful being of another dimension at the cost of his immortality. He has no control over the creature, but if the beast he invokes is as powerful as the forbidden books mention, then there are few things in this world that can chain his will.
    -[X] No Cheat - "Onward with majesty, honest effort. Fighting the Adversary with a sacred method." - start with no cheats; a clean game where you do not have any advantage over your fellow man, other than memories from your previous life and vague meta-knowledge about the Adversary's existence.
    [X] Plan GTA Sleeping Dogs
    -[X] Character Name - Li Shen
    -[X] Gender - Male
    -[X] Backstory - An undercover cop sent to infiltrate the triads on the brink of undergoing a civil war by starting from the bottom up in a small gang involved in petty crimes. Proved himself multiple times with a willingness to kill to maintain his cover and so gained the trust of the gang in absorbing rival triad territories as the civil war got worse. Turns out his superior was using the civil war as a scheme with a high ranking triad member to clean up the underworld while disposing of you in the process by exposing your undercover identity and so got tortured and buried alive.
    -[X] Appearance - Wei Shen from Sleeping Dogs
    --[X] Summoning - There was a war between mages with powerful magic fighting for control of mana nodes that when controlled will allow the mages to prepare a ritual to reach godhood. One such mage in a bid for new servants to recruit summoned you to be bound to a rune. An immortal warrior bound to die and rise again to learn from past mistakes.
    -[X] No Cheat - "Onward with majesty, honest effort. Fighting the Adversary with a sacred method." - start with no cheats; a clean game where you do not have any advantage over your fellow man, other than memories from your previous life and vague meta-knowledge about the Adversary's existence.
    [X] Plan: Gangsta's hell
    -[x] Character Name - Ericson Moore
    [X] Gender - Man
    -[x] Backstory - Ericson 'White Mamba' Moore, a high ranking and respected member of the Detroit bloods. Born to a hooker and drug dealer, Ericson was born into crime with a knife and gun in his hands. Brutal and Nefarious, the ambitious nineteen-year-old soon came up the gang's hierarchy. He had has his sets of becoming the king of the city's streets. But he was also a quite jolly and witty man and a lustful playboy. But one day his pride and lust soon became his undoing when he sleeps with the baby mama of a rival gangbanger. He died in a shoot out. Outraged, his loyal subordinates waged a war that painted the streets red.
    -[X] Insertion Method - how do you start out?
    --[X] Direct Insertion - a hope-filled Academy for young heroes and adventures, delivered by...a giant flying chicken.
    -[x] appearance:
    --[x] Game Break II - "Twice the power, twice the trouble. One mistake, and you'll pay double." - start out with two cheats,
    ---[x] Heroic Might: Start with the body, mind, and soul of a demigod. All statistics: physical, mental, spiritual, are raised to above peak-human and will develop up from there, and develop much faster.
    ---[x] Champion of the beaten: Goblins and their kindred, the vermin of the world who have been abused and used by everything with a mind, appeared to have a special affinity towards you. Who knows what secrets and boons these poor wretches hide from the greater world...
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[X] The Form Unchosen [Default]

Well, that's disappointing. I was really hoping to see an isekai with that power used somewhere, since I'm certainly never going to get around to bringing it to life. I also find the plan we picked rather lacking in spice; there's very little suggesting built-in themes (aside from the strong association with light), conflicts, or story threads-- though it is kind of an amusing underdog story that a plan which was abandoned by its creator ultimately ended up winning. I guess that's what the rest of character creation is for, anyway. I'm glad people seem to like the picture I picked well enough, at least.
 
[X] The Form Unchosen [Default]

Ah, abandoned the plan only to see it win in the end. And now the Shining Maiden takes the image of another. I kind of find it sad DeepWaters' creation didn't win out- it offered to me a more fascinating varient of the sort of plot I figured Shining Maiden to have, and the only reason I didn't vote for it was because it took a cheat, versus not having any.
 
How about this?
[X] A Proposition: The Shining Lady


(It's a picture of Caelar Argent the Shining Lady from Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragon Spear if anyone is wondering.)

Edit: The opportunity to propose "The Shining Lady" for the winning vote of the "The Shining Maiden" is too tempting to pass up. :drevil:
 
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Thedudeman400 said:
How about this?
[X] A Proposition [Write-in]


(It's picture of Caelar Argent the Shining Lady from Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragon Spear if anyone is wondering.)
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Might be better to name the vote that. It's easier and neater for people to vote for it, and doesn't risk things getting mixed up if other people decide to do write-ins the same way.
 
Chapter 1: Diffraction
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    • Chapter 1: Diffraction

    ###​


    Light.

    She is light.

    -- Smothered, strangling, please help --

    -- the ray of light came through the prism, and came out as a rainbow. She couldn't help but smile --

    -- the rain was strong: she felt as if sheets of leather whipped at her bare arms and drenched her clothing --

    Memories.

    -- she rotated the cylinder, and the rainbow diffracted, all colors but one being stopped. Lily grinned at the contraption --

    -- she hurried on upward, trying to get inside as quickly as possible. She didn't think that --

    -- the ship changed course, bound eastwards, avoiding jagged rocks in response to the purple code. Lily proceeded to twist the revolving mechanism and --

    Loss.

    -- she slipped, she fell. Lily lost her breath, covered in water, plummeting downward. Her organs sagged to the top of her body in a disgusting, lurching way --

    -- the captain smiled at her from the port, then waved. They were familiar; he'd come here every two or three months to sell wares, then leave. He was kind of nice --

    -- Lily hit the water like a plank, her entire back radiating pain. A tidal wave swept over her, driving her underwater and crashing her against the rocks --

    Exit?

    ###​

    Something clicked, and Lily suddenly found herself in the present.

    There was no space where she was. Not in the strict sense of the word. And though there was time, the time felt... detached, from what normal time should be. She didn't understand it.

    She hung there, emptily, for several seconds.

    "You're not as stupid as I imagined," some not-voice transmitted, in a space without air. It felt different from the one before. Not malevolent, just... hollow?

    Lily realized, she had memories now; could think in abstracts. She was aware, but without a body, and the feeling of it was... not as uncomfortable as she'd thought. She was almost sure something was done to her in the interim, to prevent her from panicking. She wasn't even sure if she could feel fear, beyond some mild anxiety and curiosity mixed together.

    She tried to speak back, somehow, but it came out as a garbled mess. Not an intelligent message like the two voices she met, but just a swirl of emotions and vague abstract ideas: "curiositydeathlossdeathdied-mydeath-curiosityrequest--"

    "Silence," the not-voice said, hollow again. It felt empty.

    The voice's source then radiated something. It felt strange, like wind blowing in your direction when you're hidden behind a window. You can see the wind, since the flags outside are moving, but it doesn't even ruffle your hair. Lily not-blinked in confusion.

    The not-voice fell absent, then emitted anger. Hollow anger. Hollow hate. No not-words, though.

    Finally, as if reaching the conclusion to some deliberation, it transmitted, "I... see." It came out like a growl. "Do you know who I am?"

    Lily transmitted understanding, but the message was still garbled, messy, like a line of junk rather than proper code.

    "No point hiding my identity, then. I am your Adversary, child. I thought mortals were... eager, to obtain power, but apparently not you. Perhaps this attitude will serve you well in your next life. We shall see."

    The prospect of being called a child at her age annoyed her a little. Lily responded by transmitting the concept of puffing up her cheeks in defiance.

    She felt a tugging at the edge of her consciousness, like a cord pulling her somewhere.

    She knew, somehow, what it meant - her soul had found an appropriate body for her. She could wait for a moment longer, but she would have to go soon or risk finding another host as the current one developed a fresh soul of their own.

    There was a moment of dreadful silence before Adversary transmitted again. "Your soul appears to be done configuring, to this world's laws. That begins our game, once you are reborn. He who brought you here set the rules for said bout, but I came here of my own volition if you are curious. And, do not mistake my courteous behavior for honor - I will destroy you without hesitation - but for now? I just want to make it interesting."

    He radiated smugness, self-satisfaction, but it was drowned out by the hollowness.

    "Why so excited?"

    "Because, if you resist and beg, especially when you are strong, then crushing you will be all the more satisfying. I thought you would be a weak-willed hen, weathered by her age, but no: you appear to have been evenly hardened by your experiences. I couldn't ask for a more amusing foe, but it changes nothing. You are strong, child, but I am beyond strength - I have performed this destructive process untold amounts of times, and I will repeat it thousands more."

    "Thousands?"

    "Of course. Before this world, there was nothing, and before there was nothing, there was me," he said.

    Lights flickered, a phantom cosmos appearing around them - like stars in the sky. Adversary transmitted a bestial grin, and said, "These are not stars, child, but worlds. Worlds of potential, of possibilities. My goal is one and true: Strike them down. Until every bit of information, every vibration, and radiation is vanished and wiped out." The image of the stars began to blot out, one extinguished after the other, until only the one in front of her remained.

    There was a sickly, perverted expression of joy in his existence, almost supplanting the hollowness. Satisfaction, delight.

    "The suffering I cause is just a cherry on top. I will command a vast and terrible army wherever I go, and I will sail until every light in every cosmos has been extinguished. I may never end my quest, as the worlds are infinite, but the fact I can do it forever only makes it better, I believe. In the end, there will be a perfect cosmos, with no light, and only silence."

    The cord tugged at her again, firmer this time, almost going taut.

    "I believe it's time for the game to begin. I'd love to cut you some kind of deal, such as allowing you to age and live out a calm existence in exchange for not attempting to destroy me, but I assume you'd just refuse that offer?"

    "You bet," she stated, fully confident. Something else thrummed in her, and it felt fitting.

    "So be it."

    She mentally reached out and grabbed the cord and let it reel her in, as Adversary 'watched' it happen from the not-space.

    In the last moment, she saw as a cord wrapped around him, too, and pulled him somewhere in the opposite direction.

    For some reason, she knew that he formed that cord himself, and she wasn't entirely sure if he was incarnating like herself or pulling himself somewhere else without obtaining a body. He had a target in his action, a goal, even if a minor one: not too indifferent from making the first move on the chessboard, with one's pawn.

    What it indicated was simple: this was a game.

    A game with two players, billions of pieces to choose from, and a board larger than any mortal conception.

    She gulped, as a tunnel of light formed in her vision.

    ###​

    Light peeked into the room through a curtained window. White light; beautiful light, to the point where Lily couldn't help but stare even through her newborn eyes.
    A mass of shadow formed, in the crack between the bottom of the door of a closet on the far end of the room, and the floor. It watched from that little slit in the darkness.
    "It's a girl," the healer assessed. The nursery maid stepped closer and wrapped her in a cerulean cloth.

    A young boy ran into the room with fearsome velocity - no older than ten. He hopped up on his feet, behind the nursery maid and the healer. "Is that my sister? Can I see, can I see?!"

    "Behave yourself, Timory!" the maid cried, wincing as he pulled on her dress. She relented and brought the child down low, for him to see.
    The mass hesitated. Attack now, or later? It decided to wait, until the target was more vulnerable.
    Timory's mouth formed into a slack-jawed circle, his eyes becoming glazed and taking in the baby's form. "She looks so... weak."

    The maid rolled her eyes, emitting a strained sigh. "Oh, Timory... she's just a baby, of course she looks weak. We have to take care of her!"

    A throat cleared itself, and Lady Deavina, breathing from her bed as if she'd just ran a marathon, her skin red, and sweating profusely, asked, "Can I see my daughter, please?"

    The maid brought the baby close, and Lady Deavina took her in her arms, cradling her. After some resistance, a heartfelt smile appeared on Daevina's face. "Hello, sweetie," she said, sing-song, and Lily couldn't help but grin at the sound, even though she felt so sleepy and wanted to rest her eyes.
    The mass chose this moment. It extended, a two-dimensional hand of shadow slithering across the floor and--
    "Have you decided on a name?" Lord Lightbrook, the father, entered into the room.
    It sproinged back into the crack underneath the closet door, cursing.
    Lily couldn't see him well from this angle, and even beyond that, she didn't have enough cognitive awareness to take into the fact of who he was, but even as a baby, she felt a... regal presence, coming off from him. Even Timory seemed to calm down at his appearance.

    "Lazara," Daevina replied. "Just like the starlight foretold."

    "You trust one of Sylvester's prophecies?"

    "You do not?" she asked back, with a bite to it. "You're the one who hired him."
    The hand extended, moving in for the kill. Extinguish!
    Lord Lightbrook frowned, but his expression lacked anger or, somehow, even disappointment. "Only because he is observant and well-taught. That does not excuse his insanities."

    "Please, don't say that," a soft voice came from the doorway. A chubby man stood there, wearing brown robes with rope as a belt. A monk? "Astrological divinations are a fully legitimate field of magical studies."
    Only feet away from the bed, the hand stopped, then came back to hide in the closet. The mass waited for five seconds, then receded into nothingness, leaving.
    Lightbrook shook his head with closed eyes and sighed. "That's not how divination works."

    The priest - Sylvester? - smiled brilliantly. "I have offered to show you my method. Skepticism is no cause for ignorance, Lord Lightbrook."

    Lightbrook frowned again. "You overstep your bounds, Spiritsorrow."

    "I apologize, I got carried away, there," Sylvester replied with an earnest smile.

    Lightbrook looked at his wife with a clouded expression. Worry flashed in his eyes, before he banished it with a blink. "Do you have the time to teach her the methods of nobility? I'd rather not rely on maids or tutors for the most important aspects of her life, not in these times. Sylvester will teach her science, but I'd like her to learn how to carry herself from her mother. From you, directly, dear."

    Daevina smiled. "Of course! I'd never think to do anything else."

    ###​

    Voting Options [Education between ages of 1 to 10]: [choose up to 6: locked-in options don't count; leaving unused slots will simply allow you to focus on the rest of the studies]

    [X] (Locked) Learning how to behave as a noble lady with mother: Daevina Lightbrook.
    [X] (Locked) Learning the basics of language, mathematics, culture, history, geography, and other sciences with tutor: Sylvester Spiritsorrow.

    [] Learn how to use martial and ranged weapons to fight with: (enter hypothetical tutor)
    [] Learn the basics of magic and sorcery with: (enter hypothetical tutor)
    [] Learn how to gather information and plot intrigues with: (enter hypothetical tutor)
    [] Write-in.

    [Vote by Plan]

    Guide    :
    - The general format for hypothetical tutors is: "with (title/job/profession/experience/role): (name)." You can enter any details or additional information about the person afterward, but don't add too much: no more than 150 words of description.
    - You can tutor yourself, but being self-taught will lead to results that are similarly jury-rigged. You can also learn from books, once you learn how to read, which will occur this update, so feel free to add such books as sources of knowledge, but again, nothing beats a tutor, and you belong to a noble family so you can afford a lot of those.
    - Learning how to fight with weapons isn't too strange for a female where you are currently at, but learning below the age of ten is uncommon, at least for girls. For women, it's usually more of a hobby than actual preparation for war, except for militant nobility (in the cases where a woman is the head of the family,) but it's usually not practiced rigorously from such an early age.
    - If you don't put in a tutor, or have no ideas, I'll either (a) come up with something by myself, or (b) have her be self-taught in that area, or (c) have her read a book about it, if plausible.

    ###​

    Wow, so, I think it's time for some revelations.

    For those who haven't noticed, the Adversary already tried to kill/obliterate you twice this update but was stopped by circumstances outside of both his and your control.

    In the first case, back in the upper crust of the Astral Plane, he tried to smother you with his essence but failed due to a barrier around your soul. Lily doesn't know there was a barrier, and neither does she know he tried to literally crush her soul like an eggshell.

    The Adversary noticed the barrier when his attempt at spiritual murder failed, and he speculates he simply lacked the strength to overcome your soul's natural defenses: he feels miffed about his failure, especially since your soul was still configuring. As you had a conversation with him, he drew it out on purpose to keep you from leaving so as to find ways to subvert your defenses. He didn't find anything yet, but he thought if he could find your soul again, he would have a way to attack it.

    Unfortunately, a soul is harder to harm directly when it has a body and is in the Material Plane, especially when the magic lacks a spatial vector, so he decided to cut out the middleman and go for the kill, then crush your soul in the Ethereal Plane.

    That brings us to the second attempt at obliteration.

    If you back-track to that birth scene, there is invisitext where the Adversary manifests with an incredibly weak form and moves in to strangle you. At first, he gets alarmed when Lightbrook enters, but once he reveals he's not too into magic, especially of the esoteric kind, the Adversary moves back in for the kill. Then the monk/priest enters, and Adversary realizes if he tries anything, he'll be exorcised.

    His form was too weak and intermittent to draw attention from Sylvester, unfortunately, and Adversary knew that if he were to try to manifest something bigger, a priest who apparently specs out into the divination tree will surely detect him.

    Adversary decided to cut his losses in energy, not risk a pointless exorcism which would lose him a good part of it, and moved out to take his plotting elsewhere.

    Adversary started low on energy and has diminished a lot of it by acting as he did. He regenerates it on his own, very slowly, but has other methods of speeding up his income, via (a) gaining followers, (b) performing energy investments of various kinds, (c) eating souls raw, (d) draining it from others or other options.

    Oh, also, cheats were actually offers/temptations from him. He'd offer you powers, get you to grow with them, acclimate yourself to them, rely on them, and then when the "big, final confrontation," came knocking, he'd just flip a switch and disable all that progress to render you helpless and defenseless.

    Either way, you dodged three bullets - one of them through your own choices - and two by circumstance and QM fiat.

    Let's see what happens next, shall we?
     
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    • Ah, that reminds me, if you want to go with the "mage route," you will get high bonuses to all spells and magic conceptually related to: "light," "photons," "brightness," "rainbows," and smaller bonuses to all related concepts and fields. Especially if it is supposed to (a) aid another, or (b) be used for divination/clairvoyance. This is because of how she used light to guide ships to safety in her previous life, with great skill might I add.
     
    [X] Plan An Interesting Cast of Characters
    -[X] Learn the basics of magic and sorcery with: Magistrix-Lenscrafter Beldonna Whitebrow.     A fair and patient tutor, always willing to indulge curiosity but exacting in her expectations. Though hired for her skills in alchemy and vitremancy, she seems well-versed in a wide spread of magical arts. If you are disciplined and listen well, she allows you to observe her crafting alchemically-treated lenses in her lab, and speaks often of academic theories and ideas that cannot be found in your books. Though distant at first, she warms up to a bright and earnest student, and might teach a diligent pupil more than she is meant to teach. As you grow older, you may learn from overhearing gossip that she was accused of murdering her professor and older sister in the pursuit of forbidden magic, a stain on her reputation that never quite faded.
    -[X] Learn how to gather information and plot intrigues with: Information Broker Snake-in-the-Reeds. A quiet, ever-smiling person who looks different every time you see them-- sometimes a woman, sometimes a man, always with a white snake coiled motionless about their neck and shoulder. Though clearly foreign to the people around you, he has no discernible accent, and you are sure he could blend in with ease if he wished. She speaks of a thousand irreconcilable pasts and makes each sound as plausible as the last-- an urchin boy taken in by a conniving priest, a handmaiden to an exiled and hunted princess, an honorable pirate king's shadowy enforcer, and more. If asked for the truth, they tell you that if you ever figure it out, they will know that they have nothing left to teach you. You aren't sure why she was hired to be your tutor, but you wonder if it might not have been a choice.

    Hope this can be made to fit into the setting? Considered a fighting tutor, but decided I'd rather save that for the more likely age of 10+ (unless someone puts up a particularly interesting-looking character for that and wouldn't mind me incorporating them, anyway). Also can't really think of anything else that would make sense and isn't already covered by the default tutors. Vitremancy is a fancy way of saying glass-manipulating magic, for the record. :V
     
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    [X] Plan An Interesting Cast of Characters

    Hmm, good enough for me. Would it make sense to add a tutor for leadership and management?
     
    veekie said:
    [X] Plan An Interesting Cast of Characters

    Hmm, good enough for me. Would it make sense to add a tutor for leadership and management?
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    I figured that would be covered under learning about her duties as a noble lady from her mother, but looking back at it, it's phrased as "how to behave as a noble lady", so maybe not. Might whip something up if we could get QM confirmation on that, @Birdsie?
     
    As a note on the cheats revelation: how would simply "flipping it off" have interacted with powers that involve broad and indirect benefits rather than stuff that goes directly into a "big, final confrontation", like the way Blessed Existence might have been able to draw us toward unique teachers or powerful patrons or amassing a vast fortune, or the way my suggestion could have eventually allowed us to quickly build up cities and armies?

    As another note, that seems really cheap, though probably should have expected that from someone who's literally called "the Adversary". Guess I should be glad SV both prefers not to take obvious bait and can never resist a potential mystery box option.
     
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    DeepWaters said:
    As a note on the cheats revelation: how would simply "flipping it off" have interacted with powers that involve broad and indirect benefits rather than stuff that goes directly into a "big, final confrontation", like Blessed Existence might have been able to draw us toward unique teachers or powerful patrons or amassing a vast fortune, or the way my suggestion could have eventually allowed us to quickly build up cities and armies?

    As another note, that seems really cheap, though probably should have expected that from someone who's literally called "the Adversary". Guess I should be glad SV both prefers not to take obvious bait and can never resist a potential mystery box option.
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    Way I see it? We'd probably be used to lucky dodges and crits in a fight, and then when it'd get taken away well...We'd probably have a pile of bad habits and silly motions in our fighting style due to those typically working out for us.
    Imagine someone using movie-style kung-fu and it working out until it suddenly doesn't.
    The Important thing to note is that any build that was meant to specifically work with a specific cheat would lose most of it's power...But if we had a build that say, took Supreme Warrior, and then learned some neat low-key blood-magics on the side, and then the Adversary came upon us-we'd lose the no doubt awesome swordsmanship we got off the cheat but we'd keep the Blood Magics.
     
    so basically, it wasn't that there was a hidden bonus to the no cheat option, but the cheat options were secret trap votes. Good to know! :D

    Edit: Holy shit, the "cheats were temptations from the Adversary" was foreshadowed in the first post! Everyone go take a look at the text colors for the flavor blurbs on the cheat options, all the ones that give cheats are in RED, which is the Adversary's color.
     
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    Zaealix said:
    Way I see it? We'd probably be used to lucky dodges and crits in a fight, and then when it'd get taken away well...We'd probably have a pile of bad habits and silly motions in our fighting style due to those typically working out for us.
    Imagine someone using movie-style kung-fu and it working out until it suddenly doesn't.
    The Important thing to note is that any build that was meant to specifically work with a specific cheat would lose most of it's power...But if we had a build that say, took Supreme Warrior, and then learned some neat low-key blood-magics on the side, and then the Adversary came upon us-we'd lose the no doubt awesome swordsmanship we got off the cheat but we'd keep the Blood Magics.
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    Hm, that's an interesting take on it. A very good teacher might have tried to iron that out of us, especially since it explicitly doesn't guarantee victory, but if we're used to coasting along on lucky breaks with that kind of thing, we might not have taken them seriously enough to fix the problem in time.

    EDIT:

    tryrar said:
    so basically, it wasn't that there was a hidden bonus to the no cheat option, but the cheat options were secret trap votes. Good to know! :D

    Edit: Holy shit, the "cheats were temptations from the Adversary" was foreshadowed in the first post! Everyone go take a look at the text colors for the flavor blurbs on the cheat options, all the ones that give cheats are in RED, which is the Adversary's color.
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    Huh, was that not obvious? The rhyming taunts were so in-your-face that I started wondering if it was an attempt at reverse psychology. No one who wants you to take their offer openly says things that basically come out to "Haha you're totally an idiot for taking this power boost I'm going to completely screw you over for it". That they would have come with built-in off switches that were entirely under his control, though? That was an unpleasant surprise.
     
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    I'm on my computer, right now, so I have some more time to address discussion in the thread!

    DeepWaters said:
    As another note, that seems really cheap, though probably should have expected that from someone who's literally called "the Adversary". Guess I should be glad SV both prefers not to take obvious bait and can never resist a potential mystery box option.
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    Zaealix said:
    Way I see it? We'd probably be used to lucky dodges and crits in a fight, and then when it'd get taken away well...We'd probably have a pile of bad habits and silly motions in our fighting style due to those typically working out for us.
    Imagine someone using movie-style kung-fu and it working out until it suddenly doesn't.
    The Important thing to note is that any build that was meant to specifically work with a specific cheat would lose most of it's power...But if we had a build that say, took Supreme Warrior, and then learned some neat low-key blood-magics on the side, and then the Adversary came upon us-we'd lose the no doubt awesome swordsmanship we got off the cheat but we'd keep the Blood Magics.
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    Most of that's correct.

    The benefits of the Cheats wouldn't disappear retroactively. You'd still have your fortunes, your obtained knowledge, and everything else you carved out with them, but maintaining those things would be harder.

    For example, it'd be easy to maintain a perfect combat skill when you have Supreme Warrior because Supreme Warrior comes pre-packaged with a "combat instinct," not only just training boosters. Although the effects of your training apply, once that combat instinct is gone, you'd slip at times, making rookie mistakes. That'd spiral into a placebo effect that would hinder your ability to fight, even if only for that, one, fight in particular. If you escaped and extensively retrained, you'd probably be able to reach a relatively similar level.

    The whole Cheats thing was supposed to be exactly what you theorized they were: spicy shinies for you to take and construct your entire build around. And then the Adversary would remove ("yoink!") the keystone of that build like someone sliding the critical Jenga block out of the tower, and it'd mostly fall apart - sure, the outside walls of said build would be there, but without the heart, they'd be acting without a core.

    Also, yes, you should expect scummy tactics from the Adversary: he's the kind of ham who thrives in cheating and unfairness. But I think that goes without saying, as he did try to kill you twice when you were defenseless.

    Speaking of which: If you reincarnated into a place without a priest, he would almost succeed at murdering you, only for your soul to blast his with a bit of accidental magic, which you could later learn to passively weaponize to pretty much create a 24/7 aura that keeps minor Adversarial influences at bay; basically kind of like Turn Undead, but applies only to wherever his specific frequency of rot is encountered. You still have that - mind you - just not to quite the same extent. And don't worry; it will grow by itself, given time.

    That's the closest thing to a reward I can think of for taking the "No Cheats" route. It's nowhere as strong as a Cheat, and more situational, but the only person that has access to it is a pure and unsullied Savior. So I guess that's something?

    DeepWaters said:
    That they would have come with built-in off switches that were entirely under his control, though? That was an unpleasant surprise.
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    If it's any consolation, there would be ways to counter-act that, even before it happens.

    One of them would be if you entered a magical academy and took a mandatory soul screening test. They'd discover something not too dissimilar to a warlock or cleric's connection with his patron, except oozing with hollow malice, and advise you to cut it off before anything bad happens. They'd also probably suspect you of making deals with the devil, but that's to be expected since it's technically true.

    DeepWaters said:
    Huh, was that not obvious? The rhyming taunts were so in-your-face that I started wondering if it was an attempt at reverse psychology.
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    I admit to making them purposefully obvious.

    Originally, I was going to have them all blue or white (and maybe a bit less aggressively worded,) but I thought that blue should be "a sacred color that never lies to the players," so to speak. The kind of color that when you see it, you automatically know it's inviolable, hallowed and can be trusted. As for making them white, I was afraid the players might see it as too innocuous and go full paranoia mode on me.

    It's hard to strike a balance with these things.

    tryrar said:
    Edit: Holy shit, the "cheats were temptations from the Adversary" was foreshadowed in the first post! Everyone go take a look at the text colors for the flavor blurbs on the cheat options, all the ones that give cheats are in RED, which is the Adversary's color.
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    The Voice also warns you so, in the opening of that section:

    Birdsie said:
    "[...] Every step of the way, from the beginning until the end, he will try to trick and tempt you - don't let him. [...]"
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    The very beginning.
     
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