Even outer temple residents had enough sense to gang up on Hunger en-masse. Outrider is fairly likely to set up a proper ambush with a fair amount of their total manpower behind it after we murdered one of their strongest.
Will they even know we killed him? Remember he was being sent out against three targets and it seems like they were giving him a deliberately difficult task as the final challenge for him to prove himself. Him not coming back might not be too shocking.
 
Even outer temple residents had enough sense to gang up on Hunger en-masse. Outrider is fairly likely to set up a proper ambush with a fair amount of their total manpower behind it after we murdered one of their strongest.

Not insurmountable with proper build, but could be troublesome.
Note that the proper build in this case would almost certainly be Uttermost. Being able to keep up a steady stream of ranged Fell-Handed Strokes* without worrying about endurance would be the ideal way to Farm a rabble of moderately powerful opponents.


*Note: ranged Fell-Handed Strokes that cause both physical and spiritual bleeding, each one at x7 power, x7 speed, increased aiming & manipulation, increased Ruin damage, and a 10% chance of x3 power + x1.5 bleeding/ruin damage, all for 0 additional endurance penalty.
 
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Honestly my main concern with True Maiming is that in the near future Rihaku will provide us an option like

[] Choose One:

Dowanger:
Restore your liver. Gain +++ Con, Quadruple your constitution for purposes of resisting diseases, poison or other effects which delibate the body. Wound Penalties are 50% less severe.

Abstinence:
You may never restore your liver by any means. ++Wis, +++ Wits.
 
Honestly my main concern with True Maiming is that in the near future Rihaku will provide us an option like

[] Choose One:

Dowanger:
Restore your liver. Gain +++ Con, Quadruple your constitution for purposes of resisting diseases, poison or other effects which delibate the body. Wound Penalties are 50% less severe.

Abstinence:
You may never restore your liver by any means. ++Wis, +++ Wits.
That does not seem right. The bonus for maiming yourself seems to be uncharacteristically low. Typically Rihaku offers much bigger bribe an attempt to keep this whole asymmetrical aesthetic he presented us with.
 
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So, seems all defining advancements come with huge downsides. Hmm.

How much curse-free time do we have left, again?

preliminary vote:

[X] True Maiming



[X] Feat
: Kinslayer

Rank has shown just how useful it is, this is a huge powerboost and doesn't come with a downside. We just can't take Exhausted with it nad we'll be fine.
 
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Far as 1v1s are concerned, the Middle Temple should provide little to no resistance outside of the 2 other Outriders who are better suited to take on Hunger. Any additional esoteric bullshit built in them can reasonably be dealt with by Gisena if we go down that route.

The biggest issue about clearing the Middle Temple, or basically mass slaughtering all remaining worth while opponents, would probably be due to any potential support the Inners might provide. This is on top of the existence of Lord-Commanders and what other combination of forces that are capable of entrapping Hunger in a situation that would provide even more complications as well as Complications.

Edit:

Hence why one of the plans being discussed that involve healing ol'Georginator to have it act as bait for Astral Monsters outside the temple sounds so viable. We can increase the amount of power we have at a space that the Inners would reasonably have little to no surveillance. We'll be stacking up a lot of cards in our deck, all held closely to our chest, and might benefit from more experience in dealing with a more varied set of enemies.

Outside of Apocryphal bullshit, and with Fairbright dead and decaying, the Temple should have less worthwhile Challengers aiming to fuck around with the Ring that inhabits the place. It's a toss up whether that's a good or bad thing. Good because we generally have less competition. Bad because there are less factors/people that can independently and remotely aid us in thinning out the Outriders and whatever else machinations are inside the temple waiting to be sprung.

So really, we're also at a juncture where trying to fuck around inside the temple even more or fuck around outside the temple is an important notion to keep in mind moving forward.
 
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[] Punctured Soul
[] Hunger - Stranglethorn

Or

[] Punctured Soul
[] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[] The Unerring
[] Fierce Quickening

I am stuck between them. I like the guy and want to protect his sister but on the other hand Stranglethorn! It's also free with no arete cost!

Both themeticly appropriate too. Damn it.
 
I... disagree. We probably shouldn't be risking exertion or another calamitous encounter.
/shrug

If we actually manage to get a combat-type EFB in this time, we actually could try to brute-force the matter with a reasonable chance of success. Once and Future could probably grant enough raw power to just do it. Or Cut Through.
 
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Inheritor is the most powerful option (massive stat boosts, magic system, etc) we have which does not involve eliminating our ability to mitigate our Tyrant's Doom. So I quite like it, from a Hunger/Not Dying OTP perspective. Second, I think the scene when we meet with Erii will be rather heartwarming if we get there, so that's a big plus.

The other benefits are sort of window dressing, really.

It's interesting that Hunger's Soul contains multitudes, however. Inheritor is interestingly thematically appropriate to Hunger given his choice to burn away everything *except* his memories of his companions.
[] Punctured Soul
[] Hunger - Stranglethorn

Or

[] Punctured Soul
[] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[] The Unerring
[] Fierce Quickening

I am stuck between them. I like the guy and want to protect his sister but on the other hand Stranglethorn! It's also free with no arete cost!

Both themeticly appropriate too. Damn it.
Well.. if it helps decide, Rihaku did say that Inheritor/Unerring is stronger than Stranglesthorn against the vast majority of our enemies.
 
Inheritor is the most powerful option (massive stat boosts, magic system, etc) we have which does not involve eliminating our ability to mitigate our Tyrant's Doom. So I quite like it, from a Hunger/Not Dying OTP perspective. Second, I think the scene when we meet with Erii will be rather heartwarming if we get there, so that's a big plus.

The other benefits are sort of window dressing, really.

It's interesting that Hunger's Soul contains multitudes, however. Inheritor is interestingly thematically appropriate to Hunger given his choice to burn away everything *except* his memories of his companions.

Well.. if it helps decide, Rihaku did say that Inheritor/Unerring is stronger than Stranglesthorn against the vast majority of our enemies.
A bit yeah but the things that urges me to vote for it is the feels. I would have gone straight for Stranglethorn if this guy didn't have a sister.
 
Stranglehorn is supposed to be stronger in the long-term, but...

After our Sleep-To-Gain-Strength amount to pretty much nothing, I am kind of skeptical about the usefulness of "passive" strength-gain abilities.
 
Stranglehorn is supposed to be stronger in the long-term, but...

After our Sleep-To-Gain-Strength amount to pretty much nothing, I am kind of skeptical about the usefulness of "passive" strength-gain abilities.
Would we be able to muter up the ability to vote to actually use Stranglethorn's Ability? Now that's a thought.

I recall one of the reasons Gardener was shot down was due to that actually.
 
Stranglehorn is supposed to be stronger in the long-term, but...

After our Sleep-To-Gain-Strength amount to pretty much nothing, I am kind of skeptical about the usefulness of "passive" strength-gain abilities.
We only been here for a week and really didn't do much sleeping. Wait for the timeskips and conquest of the Human Sphere in decades if not centuries. Then we will see all the gains.
 
I don't know why you guys are so afraid of Middle Temple right now. Rihaku said there are two Outriders left who would have been a worse matchup for us than Van. Having gotten more power from killing Van and with the aid of LimeGisena, I'm guessing the matchup tilts back heavily in our favor.

With something like 10% Con debuff there's little stopping us from continuing to extract value from the Middle Temple right now at least. Maybe depending on what we learn we should reassess and figure out where we stand before trying to enter the Inner Temple, though.
Sure, we killed Van. That happened after he maimed himself killing Fairbright, had another R-type suicide into him and with us rolling 92 with a hefty tactics bonus - and we still only won at the cost of a pretty damaging devastating condition, even if one of the lightest. It's not a Pyrrhic victory, but that's mainly because others paid the price for Hunger. So going into the Middle Temple is not suicide, but we are far from being able to safely farm it.
 
Second, I think the scene when we meet with Erii will be rather heartwarming if we get there, so that's a big plus.
"Hey, I killed your brother in brutal combat and am now imprisoning his soul forever. Probably like a gazillion years or something. You want to talk to him?

Well, I guess I could relay stuff between you two, but you have no way of verifying that I'm telling the truth. Mostly I'm just a very terrifying person, that you don't have any reason to know or trust, invading your home directly to tell you I killed the last person in existence that cared about you.

Also, I'm planning on ruining the basis of the society you live in. And I can't follow rules at all. And I introduce extreme danger to any situation I enter.

Is this making you feel better?"
 
"Hey, I killed your brother in brutal combat and am now imprisoning his soul forever. Probably like a gazillion years or something. You want to talk to him?

Well, I guess I could relay stuff between you two, but you have no way of verifying that I'm telling the truth. Mostly I'm just a very terrifying person, that you don't have any reason to know or trust, invading your home directly to tell you I killed the last person in existence that cared about you.

Also, I'm planning on ruining the basis of the society you live in. And I can't follow rules at all. And I introduce extreme danger to any situation I enter.

Is this making you feel better?"
No need to paint the option you dislike in the worst possible light. What if it wins? Won't that affect your enjoyment massively?

Plus, that framing isn't great for convincing people to actually swap votes.
 
We only been here for a week and really didn't do much sleeping. Wait for the timeskips and conquest of the Human Sphere in decades if not centuries. Then we will see all the gains.
Yeah, with our gameplay style so far I am not convinced we'll be actually getting all that much of that, ever. It'll always be an escalating-progression fest, where minimal passive gainz amount to nothing in comparison to Hunger-procs.
 
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I'm going by what Rihaku said here w.r.t to the Erii reunion:
You fundamentally misapprehend the nature of the option. You can directly convey the thoughts of the real him, who is still around, to his sister by acting as a go-between. Again, Vanreir is still there. His soul is still present, though as Hunger's prisoner. Certainly it is preferable to being dead.

But even if the option were as you understood it, I think one should deeply consider the perspective of the bereaved and deceased before labeling something "creepy" and insisting that they instead accept the loss on the basis of your judgement thereof. To be frank, IRL even if that something is "creepy" it would be an extremely small price to pay for even a fraction of what was offered here.
Which matches closely to my IRL experiences, so what am I to say?
 
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Uttermost is obvious good. It also comes with insane downsides. No mitigating Tyrant?

Also the Stats are deceptively low considering the ones it debuffs and leaves out are rare ones. Luck and Wisdom have been pretty much unavailable outside All Stat options. For all the power it adds, and it is a lot, it ultimately might hinder Hunger's progression too much in the long term. I don't think we are in that dire straights yet.
Willpower is a pretty rare stat and it gives us 7 of it. Manipulation is so rare it's only been offered in all stats bundles or with the Mondo bait not to mention the extra Int. Luck and Wisdom are nice but the only people who've voted for them have been poor Mage gang and that's pretty much dead for the moment. With the tyrant unable to be mitigated Cha matters less and protec matters less when you can just blow up everything approaching you with sword beams.

The real downsides are losing Rage and the possibility of tyrant mitigation. Rage is basically dead in the water anyway after Quickening won and basically made it superflous and when we were offered Tyrant mitigation it was so underwhelming people didn't want it. We can probably just use manipulation to trick people into not triggering it accidentally anyway.
 
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