Why not use more wishes to keep them safe, or rez them again as Rihaku said? Wish is so flexible it's hard to make justifications of unfeasibility.
Why wouldn't he put the effort though?
Wishes alone can't keep us safe forever and we're stronger by far. I mean they could create safety, but it's safety of a limited resource expenditure.
It's not that it's unfeasible to keep them safe for a time, it's unsustainable.
Powerleveling enough to recharge lesser wish again and again could be spent actually learning an in universe method of resurrection like we did last time, which is what I'm basing part of the assumptions on. 'Impress the Accursed to recharge fractions of the power needed' versus 'just seek out a specific rez ability'
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by ReaderOfFate on May 17, 2020 at 12:26 AM, finished with 200 posts and 46 votes.
 
Let's go for it, we're making this happen.


[x]Plan Let's be the Hulk
-[x]Freedom
-[x]Doom of Lunacy
-[x]Plenary Brand
-[x]Sword that Ends the World

@BlueFlamingWings You've currently got a partial plan with Doom of Lunacy and Plenary Brand, if you go for Praxis we've got a 3 person voting block established.
 
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Doom of the Tyrant is probably the next best option, although it definitely harms our ability to negotiate for power. Plenary is probably still fine if we take effort to mitigate it to some extent. And take care not to broadcast attention to us, although the curse makes that pretty problematic..

Plenary is still pretty inconvenient from a quality of life standpoint, just not as bad as something like Brand of the Wretched. But you'd still basically be like an A-list celebrity who has to walk around in their most recognizable getup all the time. Either develop a reputation as an asshole or have fun being swarmed!

Hey @Rihaku, I'm having a moment here, and like, If we took Freedom and Three Wishes, then took every single Curse and converted everything into Accursed Favor, would we have enough to ask him to just kill the hidden masters?

No, but the Accursed would talk the hero out of taking that many Curses in the first place. Having that many Curses would be detrimental to your duties as an active Cursebearer.
 
[X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World
-[X] Vengeance
-[X] The Geas of Indenture
-[X] The Apocryphal Curse
-[X] The Decimator's Affliction
-[X] Doom of the Tyrant
-[X] The Sword That Ends The World


The Sword because I need the Praxis.

Between Freedom and Vengeance, I don't have very strong feelings, but given that Rihaku noted Freedom would be closer to EFB's slice-of-life, I have an inclination towards Vengeance since the thing that really dragged down EFB for me was the lack of tension and good fight scenes. Yes, there was a great deal of planning and thread-power generation OOC in EFB but in-story, I couldn't feel the potency and flavor Rihaku's other quests offered.

Ultimately, I just think Vengeance gives a more powerful story-beat where there'll be more intense and interesting challenges. I could be swayed to Freedom, but I'm just not in the mood for that kind of story after the lack of true conflict in Even Further Beyond, I'm hoping more for the immersive fights of Bleach Quest, Unnamed Quest and A Simple Transaction. Also, Luseng was easily the single worst part of Most High (not that bad overall though), enough that I think it dragged down the arc. :V

While An Immodest Proposal is interesting, taking on an additional Curse for mere Lesser Remittances like companions rather than the supernova of extreme potential offered by Progression might seem a little poor in terms of cost-to-benefit to me.

Going with this for now, see how the votes turn out.
 
[X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World
-[X] Vengeance
-[X] The Geas of Indenture
-[X] The Apocryphal Curse
-[X] The Decimator's Affliction
-[X] Doom of the Tyrant
-[X] The Sword That Ends The World


Gotta go with the momentum here.

Regarding Wishes and IC reasoning, I don't think it gives us the power to resurrect our family immediately? As I understand it, we start with a Least Wish and a Lesser Wish. The Least Wish is not capable of either resurrecting people or transporting us to safety. As such, we'd need to either recharge a Lesser Wish or charge a True Wish anyway to get resurrection. As such, we might as well make the long-term choice.
Yes, if the hero is powerful enough. Freedom could use it for that immediately.
Yes we can resurrect our family immediately, and we are leaving this world anyway. And Least Wish can definitely whisk them away to safety if we are attacked.
Wishes alone can't keep us safe forever and we're stronger by far. I mean they could create safety, but it's safety of a limited resource expenditure.
It's not that it's unfeasible to keep them safe for a time, it's unsustainable.
Powerleveling enough to recharge lesser wish again and again could be spent actually learning an in universe method of resurrection like we did last time, which is what I'm basing part of the assumptions on. 'Impress the Accursed to recharge fractions of the power needed' versus 'just seek out a specific rez ability'
But like, why would we go out of our way to put them in danger? Fuck, if we have Wish, why don't we wish them back, go seek out the Rez ability, then wish to learn it instantly? Remember, Praxis sucks at restorative magic, and we wouldn't have the powers of a Progression-type to master it easily, so Three Wishes would legitimately be the best option to learn such an ability anyway. There's no justification to preferring the Praxis in this, unless you go with the PTSD explanation.
 
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[X] An Immodest Proposal

I've been convinced. I'm in this for Praxis and if we can get (and progress in) that, then there's no need to become the evil we just got done killing.

Let's make this a simpler transaction.
 
Also, also, like it's 100% confirmed that the Accursed is Odyssial right?

I mean, "the sword by which all stories would end"? Kinda reminds you of the End of Stories? The Accursed carries a sword that is presumably some kind of omnipotent weapon like Ambition?

Even the Praxis is referred to as The Sword That Ends the World, the story that was the genesis of Ulyssian and thus Odyssial. I'd love to know what are all the collective hints to the Accursed's identity.
 
But like, why would we go out of our way to put them in danger? Fuck, if we have Wish, why don't we wish them back, go seek out the Rez ability, then wish to learn it instantly? Remember, Praxis sucks at restorative magic, and we wouldn't have the powers of a Progression-type to master it easily, so Three Wishes would legitimately be the best option to learn such an ability anyway. There's no justification yo preferring the Praxis in this, unless you go with the PTSD option.
They're going to be in danger because they are important to us, and my betting anything that any world we land in not giving us the luxury of leaving us along to train in peace for a normal human lifespan. We wouldn't have to go out of our way to put them in danger, we're the big new player on the block and they're a drastically easier target than we are.

Least Wish can only be used on things we could normally learn in a year. Somehow I doubt that we're going to stumble into a setting where people can learn how to raise the dead without issue in a year, and even if we did then that's great. Hire or coerce someone into doing it for us and that's the best of both worlds.
 
Okay, so we should just wish for the ability to resurrect the dead with Lesser Wish. Where the heck does the Praxis enter this?
 
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It appears Sword that Actually Ends the World and Immodest Proposal are neck and neck, with 12 and 11 votes respectively. Votes by block are annoyingly split by votes for a plan name versus votes for that plan in detail, though, and also non-plan format votes are scattered in this format. Maybe a different tally would prove more efficient.
E: Apparently Task does it nicely. However a couple people are actually voting for the same set of options that is Sword that Actually Ends the World which threw me off initially; not currently bothering to figure out every non-named vote, but I suspect other plans have similarly non-named votes. Also, plan name alone votes and plan name with all suboptions still split.
Adhoc vote count started by Genesys on May 17, 2020 at 12:55 AM, finished with 210 posts and 48 votes.
 
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Also, also, like it's 100% confirmed that the Accursed is Odyssial right?

I mean, "the sword by which all stories would end"? Kinda reminds you of the End of Stories? The Accursed carries a sword that is presumably some kind of omnipotent weapon like Ambition?

Even the Praxis is referred to as The Sword That Ends the World, the story that was the genesis of Ulyssian and thus Odyssial. I'd love to know what are all the collective hints to the Accursed's identity.
The evidence is pretty conclusive, I have a mountain of it sitting in a doc somewhere and at this point it resembles Qaf more than any earthly landmark. Even the facetious EFB AU where the fate of the world hinges on children's card games confirms it:
A cataclysmic rift engulfs the battlefield and a figure strides through, pervaded by horrifying golden light.]

THE NAMELESS ONE: Seriously, this is impossible. You shouldn't have remotely enough Favor to call him!

PRIMEVA: EX********, OBLITERATE!
Gee, I wonder what name has eight characters and sounds similar to Exodia, with that prefix?

While we're on the subject, I was wondering: is the Doom of Lunacy an intentional Moon reference? Or has reading Unsong Cursed me to see puns and patterns where none exist?
 
[X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World

The Hero never gave up. For all of his friends that the Tyrant killed, he never gave up. For all the sacrifices he made, he never gave up. Through that brutal, decade-long slog of a war, the Hero remained determined. To give up now, when he was just told that there was a power behind the Tyrant, orchestrating the ruination of this world? I refuse to make that choice. Through pain, through heartache, through war and strife, the Hero has fought to save everyone he could. The power offered by Progression+Praxis will allow him to save an infinite multitude more.

I imagine the Hero would not enjoy the effects of Decimation, but could reasonably decide to pick it. After all, he has seen a world in which evil nearly won, where the best and brightest were cut down in their prime, where the noblest of souls were snuffed out in an instant. Compared to the Hero lacking the ability to defeat a Tyrant, what is the worth of a few years of life? Practically nothing. After all, how many people died in that gruesome war against the Tyrant? How many countries were ripped apart at the seams? Is preventing something like that from happening again worth lowering the average life expectancy a few years while the Hero saves the world? It is most certainly a Curse that taints any victory with the sting of everyone dying a little earlier, a Devil's Bargain that exchanges life for power, a "kill one person to save ten others" decision... but that's exactly what the Hero would choose. Because the Hero has born witness to what happens when you do not grasp at every ounce of power available to you: Kingdoms fall, loved ones die, and evil reigns supreme. To that end, a Curse that does not inhibit his capabilities and only exacts a small toll from those he's defending... isn't it the best option he's got to smite whatever evil threatens those he would protect?

And the Doom of the Tyrant... well, what has authority done for him, exactly? The Tyrant slaughtered all the Hero's loved ones, leaving him a broken husk. And when the day was saved and evil was no more, when the Hero turned towards the Kings and Rulers for assistance in making the world a better place, what did they do? They turned their backs on the Hero, spurned his ideals, content to live as petty tyrants over kingdoms of stagnation. No, there is no love found in the Hero for rulers or leaders. If he wants something done right, he'll have to do it himself.

And as for the Praxis, could there truly be any other choice? A style that utterly rejects any individual's talent, relying solely on effort and self-sacrifice? For a Hero who found he could not rely on his talents when it mattered most, who found the only real gift he had was the will to sacrifice what was needed on the alter of power? A dream of fairness, defiant against the uncaring universe? Just as the Hero had dreamed of real, true democracy for his world, only to be spurned by uncaring monarchs? No. There can be no other choice than this.



Also, for those arguing that Freedom should be chosen, that the Hero could simply live free of any higher destiny or ambition, that is false. This is the Rihakuverse, and any ideas of "Freedom" or "Safety" are mere illusions to be discarded in the search for ever more accumulating power. There will always be a bigger fish, a man behind the man, a secret hidden boss that is capable of wiping out your comfy domestic life in an instant. Whether it be a cultivator consuming your universe for power, or a clash between Gods that scatter multiverses like grains of sand, or even an alien Tyrant deciding that they would like to have what is yours, there is no safety here. The only security possible is outscaling all those who oppose you, rendering every being that would threaten you harmless, accumulating more and more and more and more and more in a mad dash to keep that which is most precious safe.

Peace is a lie, there is only sheer, unrelenting power, enough to wipe out all evil that opposes you.
 
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I don't really like Lunacy.
Right there with you, it's why I was angling first for Plenary Brand instead. Freedom/Slumber/Plenary/Regalia was a kitbashed Isekai package fit for a broken ex-hero throwing the reset button.

But the Praxis beckons, and I can't fight that tide. It's not really a current option, but an option from two quests ago - and longing is as mighty and alluring a force as escalation, if measured in reverse.
 
[X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World

I'm sorry, as much as I love the ideas contained in Happily Ever After and An Immodest Proposal... There is nothing but vengeance in the end, and vengeance is the shape of our blade as we cut down our enemies in righteous wrath. There will be no forgiveness or freedom for as long as we carry that pellet of hatred in our hearts - and Freedom from the circumstances that spawned us is not Freedom from regret and hatred.

The best option is therefore to crush that regret, swallow the hatred; to bring total annihilation to those who unrightfully defied us, and to show them the plain face of fear etched upon a colossus that refuses to bend to their tyranny. Destruction at a terrible price, but alas, it is a hero's duty to sacrifice himself for the greater good. And what is vengeance here, if not a mere motivator for achieving the ultimate good in the end, for the ultimate price?

Like the person above me said, there will be no giving up or surrendering to circumstance. Even if vengeance won't bring our loved ones back, even if it brings no remit to the silent dead, it brings succor to the world in front of us.

Let the world that betrayed us end forever, and let it be replaced by a new one, shaped through the hammer of Vengeance, cut apart through the sword of the Cursebearer, and kept upright by the Justice and Balance we are a dark, malingering wraith of.
 
Right there with you, it's why I was angling first for Plenary Brand instead. Freedom/Slumber/Plenary/Regalia was a kitbashed Isekai package fit for a broken ex-hero throwing the reset button.

But the Praxis beckons, and I can't fight that tide. It's not really a current option, but an option from two quests ago - and longing is as mighty and alluring a force as escalation, if measured in reverse.
I mean it's what I would pick given the option to be a Cursebearer. 'Reduce the amount of power I get in exchange for not suffering the other curses' is a pretty good deal when starting from zero. Doom of Lunacy, though, that's a big NOPE for me.
 
Personally, I'm really partial to Brand of the Champion. Partly because it seems the most easily mitigated of the curses. It obligates its bearer to do something for others if they want their assistance. That's actually a fairly conditional malus. If the bearer wants their assistance and if the bearer thinks it's worth whatever task is set before them. It can definitely be dangerous in the wrong situation, particularly if the bearer needs a lot of help fast, but all the Curses are dangerous, and some of them are very dangerous all the time.

The other reason I'm partial to it is that I think it'll be entertaining.
 
[X] An Immodest Proposal

I prefer the simplicity of a freedom build, and this is the one I prefer of those.
 
Tried to consolidate the votes a bit, see if there's any problems.
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by BrainInAJar on May 17, 2020 at 1:12 AM, finished with 219 posts and 51 votes.

  • [X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World
    -[X] Vengeance
    -[X] The Geas of Indenture
    -[X] The Apocryphal Curse
    -[X] The Decimator's Affliction
    -[X] Doom of the Tyrant
    -[X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] An Immodest Proposal
    [x]Plan Let's be the Hulk
    -[X] Freedom
    -[X] Doom of Lunacy
    -[X] Plenary Brand
    -[x]Sword that Ends the World
    [X]Plan True Vengeance is a Life Well Lived
    [X] Freedom
    [X] Affliction of Slumber
    [X] Plenary Brand
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] Plan Progressive Tyrant
    -[X] Vengeance
    -[X] The Decimator's Affliction
    -[X] Doom of the Tyrant
    -[X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] Plan Happiness
    [X] Plan You'll Rue the day
    -[X] Vengeance
    -[X] Doom of the Tyrant
    -[X] Plenary Brand
    -[X] The Regalia
    [X] Vengeance - "...If that is what you wish."
    [X] Happily Ever After - The Hero has fought. He has sacrificed. He has suffered. After all that, does he not deserve some measure of peace? And in that, he understands that power is only a means to an end. Far wiser, to live a life in peace, away from an eon of tribulation. The Accursed has given him this choice of a happily ever after, of a sort, and it would be unwise not to grasp for it. It might be an imperfect ending, but such is a nature of life.
    [X] Vengeance
    [X] The Geas of Indenture
    [X] The Decimator's Affliction
    [X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] The Apocryphal Curse
    [X] Three Wishes
    [X] Freedom
    [X] Three Wishes
    [X] Affliction of Slumber
    [X] Doom of Lunacy
    [X] Freedom
    [X] Affliction of Slumber
    [X] Plenary Brand
    [X] Doom of Lunacy
    [X] Three Wishes
    [X] Freedom
    [X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] Plenary Brand
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] Vengeance
    [X] The Geas of Indenture
    [X] Affliction of Slumber
    [X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] The Apocryphal Curse
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [X] Freedom
    [X] Affliction of Slumber
    [X] Plenary Brand
    [X] Three Wishes
    [X] Freedom
    -[X] Doom of Lunacy
    -[X] Affliction of Slumber
    -[X] The Regalia
    [X] Your Time Is Up, You're Going Down
    -[X] Vengeance
    -[X] The King's Scepter
    -[X] The Apocryphal Curse
    -[X] The Geas of Indenture
    -[X] Plenary Brand
    -[X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] Freedom
    [X] The Geas of Indenture
    [X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World - Accursed blade.
    [X] Vengeance
    [X] The Geas of Indenture
    [X] Doom of Lunacy
    [X] Doom of the Tyrant
    [X] The Apocryphal Curse
    [X] The Sword That Ends The World
    [x]Plan Happily Ever After
 
Vengeance just seems like a better story than freedom. This guys life was super terrible and apparently all of that was the fault of someone. If he kept going despite losing half his body just to kill the guy they were using as a catspaw I can't see him giving up on vengeance now. Otherwise what was the point of sacrificing everything? If they can just do it all again to some other poor schmuck?
 
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[x]Plan Let's be the Hulk
-[X] Freedom
-[X] Doom of Lunacy

-[X] Plenary Brand
-[x]Sword that Ends the World
 
Tried to consolidate the votes a bit, see if there's any problems.
Technically, Sickul should be counted as voting for The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World, given that they're voting for a plan that's functionally the same but under a different name. I just don't know whether they should be counted as voting for one plan despite voting for another, even though the two are effectively identical.

Actually, let me just try tagging them. @Sickul , there's a plan under a different name that contains all the same choices yours does. Could I trouble you to change your vote to [X] The Sword That (Actually) Ends The World so that the vote tally is a bit more streamlined?
 
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