Rihaku
The Internet
Do you?
Probably easiest to keep it simple, pick two systems you like and write how you think their practitioners would fare against each other!
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Do you?
Probably easiest to keep it simple, pick two systems you like and write how you think their practitioners would fare against each other!
- Location
- Pindorama
Good thing I have my last veto! I'm sorry to blow you off both times you asked for my vote so far, but after 2k words of effort and maybe more in the future, I'm not interested in changing.
- Location
- Earth
Aight my watch begins
get in the Geas, Cursebearers, we sculpting a Hungry Boiiiii in 5 minutes
get in the Geas, Cursebearers, we sculpting a Hungry Boiiiii in 5 minutes
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Very well. I tried.
This is actually not a joke.
We never visited the encampment, so no one knows what language we speak there. That archer we defeated, we told him ""You never saw the ones that defeated you." So he wouldn't be able to verify we speak the language. Everyone else we killed.
The only people who know we speak English are the merchants, and I don't think they're passing that info along to the Inner Temple.
big eaters
Rihaku
The Internet
But if you pretend not to speak the same language, why would you be trying to Infiltrate in the first place?!
But now he has NO vetoes! Your compulsion power is limitless, unbound by accountability or personal restraint!
Revel in it, my friend!!
- Location
- Pindorama
It seems there was a change of circumstances and I won't be able to finish my reaction. I guess I won't invoke that veto after all.
[X] Maximum Safety
Lol
Windlass
A Windy Lass
- Location
- Wherever the wind is blowing
Soooo... seems we're kinda fucked? Again? Shoulda just gone w/Selune, silly me votin' for character interactions. All I wanted was two old dudes talking about gardening 'n fishing and instead we're about to get rolled for our lunch money
[X] Fine
But speaking of characters y'all are not robbing me of Aeira. I've only just met her but if anything happened to her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.
[X] Maximum Safety
Maximum Safety is self explanatory 'n stuff. It's maximum safety, that should be all the argument needed. If we wanna buy stuff in the future we've gotta live to do it. This thread moves real fast but I think Flare has worse odds vs him AND a higher chance of getting in a fight?? So yeah, I gotta go with this despite voting for flare last time, sorry guys I'm a sord voter at heart
[X] Fine
But speaking of characters y'all are not robbing me of Aeira. I've only just met her but if anything happened to her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.
[X] Maximum Safety
Maximum Safety is self explanatory 'n stuff. It's maximum safety, that should be all the argument needed. If we wanna buy stuff in the future we've gotta live to do it. This thread moves real fast but I think Flare has worse odds vs him AND a higher chance of getting in a fight?? So yeah, I gotta go with this despite voting for flare last time, sorry guys I'm a sord voter at heart
- Location
- Italy
Yes the bluff has its issues, and kinda banks on the description selling Avecarn as an an old soldier that fights with caution, initially probing the foe to observe its responses rather than over-extending oneself with an immediate killing blow. If we are relying so much on Praxis for defense though, then the obvious solution is to just get swole and hope our stat superiority will allow us to last enough for us to spring our trap. I guess using our best Edeldross buffs will be a priority (but if we weren't using them now by default I wonder when we would have), and grappling could be another way to turn the contest into one of sheer physical strenght, but I'd rather not take that for certain as we have no idea what Avecarn's exact fighting style entails. Crimson Flare would hugely contribute to the plan in general, both by increasing our blood buff (regeneration included) and by reducing our Rank disadvantage to a still very bad but not as overwhelming 1.5 difference.
This is another thing that could be resolved much more easily if we get Crimson Flare. I mean, we the voters know that a fully realized Crimson Flare (that is, once we save the Azure Ring) grants us abilities that would be fully capable of improving the quality of life of the Inner Residents. It's only a question on whether Hunger would learn that knowledge as well once we upgrade the Ring. So hostile intentions is just a matter of perspective really, the benefits we could grant them could compensate for our saving of the ring and really, we are just looking forward towards an happy ending for everyone here!
...Hunger must of course not express that self-rationalizing out loud, and just say "No, I do not harbor hostile intention toward the Temple's own inhabitants" or something like that.
And wait, what is "Treasure"? Did I miss something, or is it just the way the Inner Temple refers to the Azure Ring? Are they actually worried we might harm the Ring itself?
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- Location
- Pindorama
How much Arete is a sculpting live stream anyway?
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Alright you're now at 2 markers 1 veto.
We show up with a dictionary we bought at the vacation nation that we read words off of. We say, in broke english, that the moon madness made us crazy. But after killing the First Sword dude we took a sigil that made us not-crazy, and left the Temple. While away, we purchased a translation guidebook and came back. We're sorry for killing their dude and would like to make amends. Or maybe we don't really care about the dude we killed and are just curious.
The language barrier is thick enough that we can fake confusion, stall for time, and otherwise obfuscate the whole process. For example if he asks us what our intentions here are, we say something like "I want to get answers," which is quite true but misses the point. Or if he says "do you mean harm to the Temple or its inhabitants" we say "no harm", which is ambiguous. 'No harm' could just mean we don't want to harm the ring, for instance.
Ideally we'd use French, or whatever language Gisena knows, for our pretend "real" language. She can teach him the basics while they're headed back to the Temple.
- Location
- Pindorama
Inserted tally
I said I was going to contribute to the Arete stockpile, and I so did, even if it took me more time than I thought it would. It is perhaps not much, but every bit counts.
I have to wonder about the exact connotations behind these words. What does Ver mean when he calls us that - and does the translation properly convey the meaning behind the word "Praehihr"? Nevertheless, personally I'd say that Hunger is more than simply an implement - but it is a pretty cool title.
I am immensely pleased that the memes in the voting option made it into an actual text. Apparently, the true form of the Forebear's Blade is a cheap katana. Who could guess?
Hilariously enough, while the "sword-based wizard" statement right here is not exactly right, sword-based wizardry is exactly what we got in this update. Could that guy be a prophet?
I wonder how often do they get visits from such wandering mercenaries. Voyaging Realm is pretty big and the colony doesn't seem like a particularly popular spot, but it is apparently often enough to develop procedures for dealing with them and the rate of payment. Perhaps with Rank high enough to traverse through the Voyaging Realm, you encounter such locales and the sidequests in them naturally? It might get annoying, but I bet that some progression and growth from battle is a feature you can often see in powerful people, and even without it such sidequests can offer valuable rewards.
Huh, the Rotbeast is actually much bigger than I imagined. I would think it's more of an actual beast, if a big one, but apparently it's large enough to look like a mountain range on a map? Then again, some mythical and fantasy beasts are mountain-ranged in size, and perhaps it has only the shape of one on a low-scale map.
It is convenient that elite monsters offer carryable proof of their deaths. I wonder what purpose do these cores serve in the alive Spawn and what are the properties of that crystal?
Yeah, that is a clear road to an eventual defeat, unless they manage to get enough powerful mages to contest the Elite spawns better than their Armor Prototypes or find some way to manufacture more/better Armor. They will simply run out of their high-grade gear due to attrition and then get murdered by the spawns. Or, I guess Hunger or someone like him could get to them and murder the Rotbeast with overwhelming power, if they are lucky. Perhaps if we will take the Shadowcord girl with us, she will grow powerful enough to return and save her compatriots on her own?
I wonder if that underperformance is stable enough to measure? It could be interesting to learn how exactly high Rank reduces the power of mundane weapons. And how exactly does it reduce that power? Simply by making the blasts count for less, or by arranging some unlikely coincidences that allow Ranked enemies to survive a-la the protagonists of an action movie? Perhaps both? I guess one benefit of Letrizia getting Sharpbright is that she will study the science behind all of that.
The description is very necromorph-like.
Well, Hunger makes good on his promise to study the blade - he is doing so very literally. I wonder how much "I study my movements made in battle" counts for the advancements in battle? Seemingly not very much, since the actual advancement didn't come until a big fight.
An Elite Mook - it goes down in three strikes instead of one. Which is honestly not too shabby, considering the power of Hunger's offence, it's easy to see how those guys give the Sovereignty trouble.
Hunger really likes fighting powerful opponents, apparently. Which is pretty exciting to read about, even if it's bad for his life expectancy. I guess he'll get his enjoyment in full in the coming battle. Also, did I perhaps misunderstand previous passage, and "actual Rotbeast" means the territory claimed by it, instead of its body?
Environmental dangers like that would create quite a lot of problems for normal humans, probably even some for the ones in the Sovereignty Armors, but Hunger left that realm quite a few updates ago. He continues to be quite a battle junky, though.
Here is a little reminder about how Hunger's injures keep him down. We did fix the hand, mostly because it was very related to swording better, but what about other stuff? I guess increased healing with the Ring might allow us to learn what exactly are we missing, though we might then sacrifice an eye for a Rune King anyway.
A boss fight and the opponent looks appropriately powerfully and intimidating! Reminds me a bit about Bayonetta's angels.
Wow, that is a discouraging amount of damage caused, especially compared to the strength of the Elite Rotspawn. Wild differences between stages of enemies like that are really cramping our progression game. How exactly are we supposed to safely advance if the only enemies to fight are either cannon fodder or Major-condition causing Ass Tearers? The cons of choosing the ring as a Remittance, I guess.
Hunger is rapidly getting his ass handed to him. I remember being quite worried when I read this fight the first time around, because it seems like his offence is not enough to cause major damage, his stats are not high enough to properly evade and the Rank difference is really hampering him. What exactly is left? Retreating is not really an option, because he is slower and he is already using his best tactics. The answer to that was deceptively simple, though.
Yeah, like I mentioned higher, that really sucks when you advance through battle. No risk-free farming here, at least until we get the Pillars.
Good thing we actually did get the arm back, even if it was not as necessary after EFB. Helps not only with swording, but with Edelross as well!
The aforementioned answer. Simply cut through, but how exactly put this simplicity into life? A single attack with everything on the line is not a bad way, true, but the real answer is "Arete earned by thousands of words and a dozen pictures".
An important note that Hunger could exhaust himself with his bladewinds even against a relatively partly foe. His blade became much stronger since, of course, but so did his enemies. The timing here is not entirely clear, though - do the projections take some noticeable (for us) time to hit or does Hunger think at the very high combat speeds and thus the time it would take for Rotspawn to clear the slashes is actually minuscule?
Ah, another thread meme brought to Hunger's mind in-story. Now, Forebear is not the worst role model, but it would probably do Hunger some good to not entirely fall into his thought (and action) tracks. Perhaps even mostly doing so would be ill-advised.
With death on the line and no way out, it is time for flashbacks and power-ups. Perhaps Forebear drew on the power of shonen?
Now that is a quite dangerous sentiment to have. It can lead to very dark places, and yet there's a lot of truth in it nonetheless. How are you going to have a happy ending without victory? Only when your foes are defeated you can put down your blade. Except emphasizing that truth will only make the descent to the dark places easier. I guess Catherine was really Tyrant's daughter and of the Forebear's line, adopted or not.
Wow, the description in the prologue did not do this strike justice. It's barely even a strike, more like an artillery shell going off, with all the effects. Though I guess with the Rank and the supernatural stats of all involved, that final strike was far more powerful than any artillery shell on Earth.
Perhaps living well was the best revenge, but there is a reason Praxis is powered by self-sacrifice - there is great and terrible power in pursuit of vengeance even if - or perhaps especially if - it hurts you as much as people you seek vengeance on. Not the easiest path for happiness, of course, but it is not an impossible goal even if you put the pursuit of those that hurt you first.
It's interesting that the colour of the thing beyond the reality is blue, presumably of the same shade as was used for the title. I wonder if there is any exact meaning in it? I am not really familiar with colour theory or any mythical interpretations behind colours, but it is something that could have one.
The Cut was made a weapon, and the weapon's purpose is to murder. Perhaps you can do other things with the underlying technique - indeed, the equivalent of the Imperial Praxis should be capable of doing almost anything - but the Cut's path is set in stone. Well, there's certainly power in giving something such a clear and singular purpose.
Forebear certainly wasn't a very soft guy (even if some of his other skills showed that he cared for his comrades) and that property transferred in full to his Blade. Come on Hunger, what are you, pansy? Who cares about the lack of arms or the fact that the enemy is more powerful? What's the point of adding complexity with the stuff like "Oh, but that's impossible, you can't cut that" or worrying about how exactly are going to cut that? Just Cut (Murder), it's that simple.
Well, this is certainly not the first time Hunger decided to ditch his fleshy body and suffer grievous wounds just to bring someone down. You can argue whether this is a healthy mindset or not, of course, but Hunger doesn't care about what happens to him as long as he can still swing his sword. No one can deny the effectiveness of this resolve, at least, and in the end, it is effectiveness that saves lives, including Hunger's. Let's just be careful and try not to sacrifice the fleshy body in an inopportune moment, the ghost form really can't fight for shit right now. Maybe Blood domain will fix it?
The repeat of the last strike of his Long War, this time perhaps with greater skill, even if not with more power. Still more than enough for a target like a Prime - no need to break freshly repaired blade when we are not even fighting great enemies. The Ring's healing proves to be quite useful in keeping us in flesh and thus with all the power of the Blood domain.
Another mention of the blue beyond the reality, this time with the reminder about that moment Ver called us the Accursed Implement (nice Title Drop, those are great when used properly). I wonder how much is that "beyond" and Armaments are connected? Person or people who made them were certainly aware of the Accursed and his Curses to the point they stuck them into the Armaments, perhaps they knew about Praxis as well? Or perhaps there are other means of reaching that blue something.
Good thing that the Prime didn't have anything conceptually indestructible on him and that Hunger can get better from mortal wounds. Though I wouldn't want to start cutting at the Ring even with Royal Praxis - it probably would withstand it, but it might not do so forever. Techniques of the Imperial Praxis could probably cut through it like a hot knife through butter, at least until we upgrade it with our legend and Arete. Maybe not even then, since I am not sure how important the fact that it is indestructible would be, and thus how much that aspect of the Ring would be upgraded.
Wow, they do say that the best vacation is a different kind of work, but that's not even that, that's just the same work in another locale. Hunger really needs to learn how to relax. I guess he did not only learn how to cut through but also managed to restore his hand, so calling it a great vacation is not entirely insane. I am sure many cripples would be glad to get their limbs back even if it came at a risk.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
- Location
- Pindorama
I think Maximum Safety is winning right now due to split omake-power. If @Rihaku would tell us how close we are, it could make this vot go a lot differently. I think it might be safe to drop you approval votes at this point though; It would be a shame for this omake-storm to not go towards an EFB and for there to be a chance we'd need to do this all over again.
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Fanwork#3945 Words
Wait, no, he's not actually in the palm of Verschlengorge's hand, reading this piecemeal gave me the wrong impression. It's still an awesome image, so there.
Arguing about picks is one thing, and the current vote is a stressful scramble, but at least we're not voting to sleep in because we're just that wiped after picking a fight with a fish. Silver linings.
Astral Exhaustion sounds a lot like depression feels, lets not inflict that on Hunger more than we have to... he says, having voted for the scariest enemy.
While the nickname of "Hun" has endured the test of time, I think "Zea" is in remission. "Duchess" seems to be more common. I wonder why that is? Gisena's been friendly with Letrizia recently, and never mean, but for a while she seemed to intermittently distance from her. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I think I said this at the time, but why on Earth did they keep trying to teleport in for an hour? The attempts must be cheap for them, they had no way of knowing that Gisena would get worn down, and after the fiftieth try I'd have next to no confidence that my endurance was superior. It probably has to do with Bearic's gamer powers, with absolute distance not meaning much to his scrying ability. Makes sense for a servant of an Astral Lord, they're not big on space either.
If Gisena could choose to let them through at any time, it feels like we missed an opportunity for a better ambush than we managed. Letrizlengorge could have crawled over the portal and prepared a Tactical Bellyflop. They don't have Rank, but they do have mass. I wonder why they didn't think of it, Gorge might be too damaged for even that. Hunger could've... done what he did, he doesn't have Thousand Cuts yet and he can't even bladewind spam, so his options are limited. Running away from portals of course sounds like a losing game, but if they didn't have a good lock on us it might've been possible.
Gisena's line is amazing, by the way, it's much too menacing to come from someone as cheerful as her; like with Verschlengorge, that just makes it better.
I approve of Gisena's Nullity wave even if there were no bellyflops. She was using Nullity to reject the portals earlier, but this time she fired through it without affecting the portal itself. Hm, if the magic is concentrated on the edges, and what's in between is just space, that makes perfect sense. The only thing that takes damage is her magical armor, which is surprisingly common. It's probably be more of a pain in the ass if we didn't have good counters for it, it's cool stuff.
Four enemies remain, and given how narrow the fight was the unlamented fifth would've spelled our death if the ambush was unsuccessful. Bearic is already saying some incredibly interesting things. First, that these five weren't responsible for the teleport, something that I had forgotten. Using a gaming metaphors, they were just waiting in the lobby while "They" were pinging the Voyaging server, it looks like. If it was just a portal program that was set up, it would explain the uncanny persistence. Second, that Verschlengorge is the target and we were unexpected. This raises the question of what would have been blocking the portal, because that doesn't seem to be one of Verschlengorge's abilities. That would also be explained by a portal program, but also, as Bearic says, that the higher-ups don't care about these guys at all.
It's not inaccurate to call Verschlengorge a monster, I guess, but I don't appreciate the dehumanization. All forms of intelligence are valid, even Hunger.
Also, we have finally closed the swordbeam gap, so nyeh to you.
I wonder if the mercenary's singleminded focus on Gisena is the result of experience with mage-geeking or programming. That might be racist, huh. Either way, it was the right call, so it's good that Hunger was in the way. (Ooh, I have to make a 'Hunger is the enemy' joke at some point. Combined with the Self-Defeating Stance one? Making jokes is too hard, so I like to just sketch the space around them sometimes.)
That Ruin was effective on the construct is definitely getting filed away from the future. We know that it has bonus damage against defenses, and maybe the criteria it uses for "defenses" include machine parts in general. This is particularly important with our Blood magic being obviously useless against them. The conclusion being that we should hit them with our sword instead, lol, which we would've done anyway, but at least we now know that it should be especially effective.
Is "Nice" a codeword? Seems strange to say it before the attack, but Hunger was a bit occupied so something else might have happened. Beth is dead, it wasn't a nice end.
If we're to be caught in the world's flow again, we have to determine where the flow is pointed. With Seralize, we did that with psychological manipulation, but that won't work on Avecarn, I'd bet. We'll have to enforce the order of stats. Edelboost and Rank 7 bloodboost and inexorably crush the life from him. I can only hope, and write on.
Her reaction to Elizabeth's death would mean more if her reaction to deadgirl wasn't absolutely nothing. And if she seemed to car about the construct's well-being. And if she didn't have that suspiciously specific denial about her greedy motives - and a lot of things, actually. But as it is I still feel bad for her.
I'm certain that Hunger is much better than the Tyrant, but considering we don't know much about him other than that he kicked Destiny in the shins and killed all your friends, i find it hard to quantify exactly how terrible the Tyrant was. I mean, the name is suspicious, but so is Hunger's. Catherine betrayed him because he was a jerk, but why did he pick someone who would do that as heir in the first place? Ah, Hunger's head isn't the best perspective to address these questions, so I doubt we'll know for a while. We'll probably sooner learn exactly what Hunger's revenging himself against, which is the more important issue.
All these philosophical ruminations are happening while Hunger is getting speedblitzed, because Hunger's fear response is another victim of the Tyrant. All the blows seem to be glancing, and I can't tell if that's because Hunger is sensibly spending more effort to guard his vitals or if there's some arcane narrative HP calculation going on, because Rank is weird.
Also, apparently the Evening Sky does protect even uncovered areas, that was my first thought but the bit in the Vanreir fight where Hunger moved it over his liver made me doubt it. Maybe it only mostly applies protection to uncovered areas, and the mantle itself has a bit more toughness.
Gisena can't quite reach him, but that's okay. Hunger's master will have to forgive him, because he's going to go all out... just this once. (Actually he does that every time, I'd suggest a vacation but that only made him worse.)
She stab in ab. Trust me, it hurts her more than it hurts Hunger, because then he stabs her in the spine. Reminds me of those scenes when a soldier's trapped under a dead body of an enemy or a comrade or a horse, but in this case the cliche is only selling the deception. And she absolutely could have avoided it, with her speed. She just wanted it to be more dramatic, I guess, and I'm not mad at her for that one. Just makes me think she shouldn't have been here in the first place, and that we should make damn sure that Aeira won't make a similar mistake if we choose to drag her with us. The Evening Sky's dexterity was incredibly handy here, I'm feeling sympathy with the Inksky voters because smothering people with a blanket of stars is creepycool and badass and uncomfortably intimate.
Seralize hates us, which, you know, fair. I'd be pissed at her, too, but since we picked Apocryphal we did in fact bring it on ourselves, so in that sense everything that happened here was Hunger's fault. Now that's a heavy weight to bear, that thought definitely haunts him at night.
I'm currently exhibiting my youthful vigor by typing this, let's hope it comes to more than Seralize's against Grumpy Grandpa.
I feel bad about Letrizia getting hurt, and worse about Verschlengorge. He's already so run down.
There's absolutely no way that Ber should have been able to fight Verschlengorge a hundred times, even in a simulation. The implication that he did is terrifying. Even if "they" had information on its capabilities, it should've been on it's fully-operational form. And Letrizia's supposed to be a darn good pilot, she shouldn't be so predictable in such a crazy situation that she has patterns and phases that can be picked out long before the battle starts, to say nothing of how her behavior would change from a simulation where she didn't have allies! Especially with Rank-instincts, but he might have more at the moment. And Verschlengorge doesn't really have anything that could be called phases at all, unlike Hunger. This is even more ludicrous the more I think about it. We've all made the joke, but I honestly and non-jokingly don't think he's living in the same world that we are. I suspect that he's got weird divination powers that he interprets through the form of video-game practice - well, that's obvious, but I mean that there was no "simulation" made by anyone other than his subjective perception. Maybe that's too much of a conspiracy theory.
Thank goodness Hunger appears to be immune, and that we're leveling up so quickly, because this guy could be a pain to deal with.
With how wounded he is, if Hunger wasn't exhausted we could have pushed this fight to the end, and there was an option to pursue that even so, so the only thing for it is to try not to get exhausted again. We've learned that lesson, at least a little. Bearic's patron is an Astral Lord, which is probably below a Sovereign (the strongest that can manifest), but interestingly Letrizia didn't seem to treat them as intelligent, let alone scheming. Astral beasts of all kinds always harass Verschlengorge, so it's nice that there's basically only one faction hunting us. Ignore the Empire, and the Temple, actually nevermind.
I vividly recall how everyone, especially Orm Embar, tore the shit out of Bearic for that "allowed to die" comment, so I won't retread that.
When reading the increasingly cool descriptions of Seralize's sword for this reaction, I had started to wonder why we didn't grab it, but if the magic left it then that explains it. It's as dead as she is, now. Nice line about the strength flowing out of Hunger into Hunger and out of Hunger, but the worst part about cool fights is how hard it is to do cool fights afterwards, and this was a cool fight indeed.
Blue sword that does bladewind, who let this guy grab the Sky-Splitting Blade? Does Suizhen know some neurotic gamer jacked her Dao?
Looking at the size of the collateral damage, I actually think his swordbeam is still stronger than ours, even if we can spam ours more. Our crater vs. Vanreir was a few yards long, not really "land-devouring." How embarrassing.
He zoops away, which is just fine by me, if he pressed the attack and wasn't scared by our bossness he probably would have won. As it is, we're exhausted again, injured more, and Gisena and Letrizia and Verschlengorge are wiped too. Nothing can solve this... except picks, yay! And resting, but we decided not to do that because we were lunatics even before we grabbed Uttermost.
It also gives Exhausted resistance, so it's no surprise that we picked up with the trauma so fresh in our minds. This later became an implicit part of our Form of Rage strategy, at least for me. Exertion is less risky if you still have the energy to run away afterwards.
Actually, even after talking up Bearic's divination nonsense I just realized that that's probably where this came from. I didn't questio the convenience.
I can't say whether it would've been better to grab this or not, it's so finicky that we'd have had to build our style around it. More form nonsense, less healing. Mm, I think I like the current Hunger better.
We just have to keep him alive with Arete!
I always reference this, so it's high time I wrote a reaction for the update itself. The Tyrant stole Hunger's youth, but replaced it with something more terrible still; with enough blood upgrades, we can have Age and Youth and Enthusiasm and Treachery! Cursebearers are obnoxious template-stacking cheaters, after all.
Hunger, exhausted after a completely unnecessary fishing expedition, wakes in the palm of a giant robot. I hadn't taken the time to appreciate how he had the most badass possible bed in this update, Verschlengorge is such a bro. The image is more powerful 'cause he could've just made a fist and squished us at any time, so Hunger's giving off some serious trust vibes, too.
Wait, no, he's not actually in the palm of Verschlengorge's hand, reading this piecemeal gave me the wrong impression. It's still an awesome image, so there.
Arguing about picks is one thing, and the current vote is a stressful scramble, but at least we're not voting to sleep in because we're just that wiped after picking a fight with a fish. Silver linings.
I don't think he's supposed to shoot steam all over the place, that's not the first feature I would install in a giant war machine dude is wrecked. Fortunately, the reason I'm writing this is to scramble towards an upgrade that'll let us heal him quite a bit, so he shouldn't be out of steam much longer! Interesting that he's covered in runes. We might be able to grab another magic system by studying him. Add one to the "Reasons to reverse-engineer the ancient Rank 10 guy" counter, despite the fact that I passed up the only option to do so that's come up so far.
Speaking of how much better our current situation is than this one, remember when we took actual, non-complication HP damage that lasted between fights? Let's all point and laugh at this scrub who knows not the might of blood. Or even of killing yourself for HP, how cute. He's just nabbed his first Echo. Exhaustion is still a bear, though, and we're now dragging around a devastating and a major complication in compensation for our sword and our arm, so not everything's rosy.
Astral Exhaustion sounds a lot like depression feels, lets not inflict that on Hunger more than we have to... he says, having voted for the scariest enemy.
Gisena recently received an Edeldross massage, and she negotiated away the princess carry, but she deserves it anyway for letting Hunger sleep in, here. While rejecting incoming calls for an hour, she's only energetic in comparison to Hunger's corpse. We'd probably have died otherwise.
While the nickname of "Hun" has endured the test of time, I think "Zea" is in remission. "Duchess" seems to be more common. I wonder why that is? Gisena's been friendly with Letrizia recently, and never mean, but for a while she seemed to intermittently distance from her. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I think I said this at the time, but why on Earth did they keep trying to teleport in for an hour? The attempts must be cheap for them, they had no way of knowing that Gisena would get worn down, and after the fiftieth try I'd have next to no confidence that my endurance was superior. It probably has to do with Bearic's gamer powers, with absolute distance not meaning much to his scrying ability. Makes sense for a servant of an Astral Lord, they're not big on space either.
Earlier, it was Verschlengorge flexing his fingers, and now it's Letrizia. And she says "I" then "We", so I know I'm not just imagining things, even the pilot herself acknowledges the ambiguity. The narration seems to switch between who it attributes movements to, I think it's "Letrizia" when the synchronization is higher. It's a bit surreal to read "Letrizia does X" when in Verschlengorge's body. Cutesy mannerisms are scary from the giant robot, and when she joins in on the casual banter I'm pretty sure she does it at like 120 decibels.
If Gisena could choose to let them through at any time, it feels like we missed an opportunity for a better ambush than we managed. Letrizlengorge could have crawled over the portal and prepared a Tactical Bellyflop. They don't have Rank, but they do have mass. I wonder why they didn't think of it, Gorge might be too damaged for even that. Hunger could've... done what he did, he doesn't have Thousand Cuts yet and he can't even bladewind spam, so his options are limited. Running away from portals of course sounds like a losing game, but if they didn't have a good lock on us it might've been possible.
Gisena's line is amazing, by the way, it's much too menacing to come from someone as cheerful as her; like with Verschlengorge, that just makes it better.
The first time I read this, back in the ancient times, I acknowledged that Hunger was doing fighty things at a woman, but not that he already killed one of the party, and in a particularly crunchy and visceral way.. It was the same the second time. Bearic and company just completely don't react to her death at all, they aren't even disappointed that they're weaker by a head. It's creepy.
I approve of Gisena's Nullity wave even if there were no bellyflops. She was using Nullity to reject the portals earlier, but this time she fired through it without affecting the portal itself. Hm, if the magic is concentrated on the edges, and what's in between is just space, that makes perfect sense. The only thing that takes damage is her magical armor, which is surprisingly common. It's probably be more of a pain in the ass if we didn't have good counters for it, it's cool stuff.
Four enemies remain, and given how narrow the fight was the unlamented fifth would've spelled our death if the ambush was unsuccessful. Bearic is already saying some incredibly interesting things. First, that these five weren't responsible for the teleport, something that I had forgotten. Using a gaming metaphors, they were just waiting in the lobby while "They" were pinging the Voyaging server, it looks like. If it was just a portal program that was set up, it would explain the uncanny persistence. Second, that Verschlengorge is the target and we were unexpected. This raises the question of what would have been blocking the portal, because that doesn't seem to be one of Verschlengorge's abilities. That would also be explained by a portal program, but also, as Bearic says, that the higher-ups don't care about these guys at all.
It's not inaccurate to call Verschlengorge a monster, I guess, but I don't appreciate the dehumanization. All forms of intelligence are valid, even Hunger.
Smoldergouge in Verschlengorge, not off to a great start. Bearic doesn't give off the feel of being incredibly strong in this scene, if you get me, but by comparing him to Verschlengorge he clearly is. Luckily he was focused on the boss rather than the adds.
Also, we have finally closed the swordbeam gap, so nyeh to you.
I'd have poked at the swordswoman's unnecessary assertion of authority, but Hunger was about the same when he accepted Gisena's tactics when they first met so that would be a bit hypocritical. The relationship dynamics are already clear. Nobody gives a shit about robo or deadgirl, Bearic is in charge, Beth and sword are friends. Is it Hunger's age that makes him see this so clearly, or is it just that obvious?
I wonder if the mercenary's singleminded focus on Gisena is the result of experience with mage-geeking or programming. That might be racist, huh. Either way, it was the right call, so it's good that Hunger was in the way. (Ooh, I have to make a 'Hunger is the enemy' joke at some point. Combined with the Self-Defeating Stance one? Making jokes is too hard, so I like to just sketch the space around them sometimes.)
That Ruin was effective on the construct is definitely getting filed away from the future. We know that it has bonus damage against defenses, and maybe the criteria it uses for "defenses" include machine parts in general. This is particularly important with our Blood magic being obviously useless against them. The conclusion being that we should hit them with our sword instead, lol, which we would've done anyway, but at least we now know that it should be especially effective.
Gisena is the only one in this fight allowed to have bolts, for the sake of straightforwardness Beth must die. Also she hurt Gisena, but that's secondary. We haven't used the Blade backstab summoning recently, which is a shame because it's absolutely tricksy and cool. But it involves the sword not being in our hand, and after we grabbed Cut Through that's much more of a sacrifice than it was before. Hm, speaking of that, the Primary Rotspawn's halberd-bouncing trick could be replicated with the Blade's returning power, but, again, we only have the one. No real call for it.
Is "Nice" a codeword? Seems strange to say it before the attack, but Hunger was a bit occupied so something else might have happened. Beth is dead, it wasn't a nice end.
This passage is incredibly relevant to the upcoming fight, because fighting against a guy that super outranks us is going to be worse than fighting Seralize while exhausted. It also applies to trying to write reactions while feeling the pressure of time and death, I'd say, so I empathize with Hunger here.
If we're to be caught in the world's flow again, we have to determine where the flow is pointed. With Seralize, we did that with psychological manipulation, but that won't work on Avecarn, I'd bet. We'll have to enforce the order of stats. Edelboost and Rank 7 bloodboost and inexorably crush the life from him. I can only hope, and write on.
Ah, the Amaranth Star came from the color of her supermode eyes. Seralize's powers look a bit more intricate than the "is fast" that we got from her. She's gaining speed as the fight goes on, which is actually a really cool power, and the intricacy of her sword is revealed to be a Celtic knot. Which *googles* represents eternity and loyalty and stuff. Incredibly appropriate for her declaration of eternal vengeance for her friend, I like it. Given the mournful hum from the sword, is she actually drawing power from her emotions, like a Surgecrafter? She might have more depth than she's showing in this farce. She's probably a noble, too, given the name, but nobles are all over the place so I can't care much about that.
Her reaction to Elizabeth's death would mean more if her reaction to deadgirl wasn't absolutely nothing. And if she seemed to car about the construct's well-being. And if she didn't have that suspiciously specific denial about her greedy motives - and a lot of things, actually. But as it is I still feel bad for her.
Don't worry about how ridiculous the Tyrant thought you sounded, Hunger, his opinion doesn't matter. If you gotta scream your vengeance to the heavens, people should be understanding of that, you're doing it for you. Even if it matters, there's no way you were half as ridiculous as Seralize is, she's acting like a caricature.
I'm certain that Hunger is much better than the Tyrant, but considering we don't know much about him other than that he kicked Destiny in the shins and killed all your friends, i find it hard to quantify exactly how terrible the Tyrant was. I mean, the name is suspicious, but so is Hunger's. Catherine betrayed him because he was a jerk, but why did he pick someone who would do that as heir in the first place? Ah, Hunger's head isn't the best perspective to address these questions, so I doubt we'll know for a while. We'll probably sooner learn exactly what Hunger's revenging himself against, which is the more important issue.
All these philosophical ruminations are happening while Hunger is getting speedblitzed, because Hunger's fear response is another victim of the Tyrant. All the blows seem to be glancing, and I can't tell if that's because Hunger is sensibly spending more effort to guard his vitals or if there's some arcane narrative HP calculation going on, because Rank is weird.
Also, apparently the Evening Sky does protect even uncovered areas, that was my first thought but the bit in the Vanreir fight where Hunger moved it over his liver made me doubt it. Maybe it only mostly applies protection to uncovered areas, and the mantle itself has a bit more toughness.
Gisena can't quite reach him, but that's okay. Hunger's master will have to forgive him, because he's going to go all out... just this once. (Actually he does that every time, I'd suggest a vacation but that only made him worse.)
Seralize should have realized that Hunger was way too calm for someone who was losing as terribly as he was, but the experience to do so would have come with age, in the future she will never see. She reveals her self-centeredness more, here. It's one thing for her to care more about Elizabeth more than Nameless, even though I've bullied her for that, but by accepting that Hunger is remorseful for the former's death and not the latter's, it's like she believes that her friend is objectively more important. Or she's had a shit day and isn't thinking straight, if you want to be more charitable.
She stab in ab. Trust me, it hurts her more than it hurts Hunger, because then he stabs her in the spine. Reminds me of those scenes when a soldier's trapped under a dead body of an enemy or a comrade or a horse, but in this case the cliche is only selling the deception. And she absolutely could have avoided it, with her speed. She just wanted it to be more dramatic, I guess, and I'm not mad at her for that one. Just makes me think she shouldn't have been here in the first place, and that we should make damn sure that Aeira won't make a similar mistake if we choose to drag her with us. The Evening Sky's dexterity was incredibly handy here, I'm feeling sympathy with the Inksky voters because smothering people with a blanket of stars is creepycool and badass and uncomfortably intimate.
Seralize hates us, which, you know, fair. I'd be pissed at her, too, but since we picked Apocryphal we did in fact bring it on ourselves, so in that sense everything that happened here was Hunger's fault. Now that's a heavy weight to bear, that thought definitely haunts him at night.
Not only did he kill her, he managed to minimize the HP loss to himself while doing so. Hunger's powers were much lamer, and the hype was less, but I think this fight is only barely less awesome than the Vanreir one, there's a reason why I keep crowing about Age and Treachery. Awkward that that line came from the Tyrant, I had forgotten that, but I'll try to forget it again so I can keep using it with a clear conscience!
I'm currently exhibiting my youthful vigor by typing this, let's hope it comes to more than Seralize's against Grumpy Grandpa.
Hunger's strikes seemed particularly effective against the construct, so it's a shame that Gisena ended up against it. She might have been speedblitzed against Seralize as well, but if Nullity cancelled it then the fight would have been easier if the enemies were swapped. A useless thought, it wasn't us who had the luxury of deciding who engaged who. We both won, anyway.
I feel bad about Letrizia getting hurt, and worse about Verschlengorge. He's already so run down.
There's absolutely no way that Ber should have been able to fight Verschlengorge a hundred times, even in a simulation. The implication that he did is terrifying. Even if "they" had information on its capabilities, it should've been on it's fully-operational form. And Letrizia's supposed to be a darn good pilot, she shouldn't be so predictable in such a crazy situation that she has patterns and phases that can be picked out long before the battle starts, to say nothing of how her behavior would change from a simulation where she didn't have allies! Especially with Rank-instincts, but he might have more at the moment. And Verschlengorge doesn't really have anything that could be called phases at all, unlike Hunger. This is even more ludicrous the more I think about it. We've all made the joke, but I honestly and non-jokingly don't think he's living in the same world that we are. I suspect that he's got weird divination powers that he interprets through the form of video-game practice - well, that's obvious, but I mean that there was no "simulation" made by anyone other than his subjective perception. Maybe that's too much of a conspiracy theory.
Thank goodness Hunger appears to be immune, and that we're leveling up so quickly, because this guy could be a pain to deal with.
Given Bearic's uncanny awareness of Letreizschlengorge's attack patterns, his garbage awareness of the rest of the battlefield is notable. This makes sense as a tradeoff for hyperfocus, but it might have to do with Hunger's immunity. Either way, for the rematch, the rest of the battlefield should do it's best to interfere with his primary target, see if he's so prescient then.
With how wounded he is, if Hunger wasn't exhausted we could have pushed this fight to the end, and there was an option to pursue that even so, so the only thing for it is to try not to get exhausted again. We've learned that lesson, at least a little. Bearic's patron is an Astral Lord, which is probably below a Sovereign (the strongest that can manifest), but interestingly Letrizia didn't seem to treat them as intelligent, let alone scheming. Astral beasts of all kinds always harass Verschlengorge, so it's nice that there's basically only one faction hunting us. Ignore the Empire, and the Temple, actually nevermind.
I vividly recall how everyone, especially Orm Embar, tore the shit out of Bearic for that "allowed to die" comment, so I won't retread that.
When reading the increasingly cool descriptions of Seralize's sword for this reaction, I had started to wonder why we didn't grab it, but if the magic left it then that explains it. It's as dead as she is, now. Nice line about the strength flowing out of Hunger into Hunger and out of Hunger, but the worst part about cool fights is how hard it is to do cool fights afterwards, and this was a cool fight indeed.
For the next in the line of things I'd like to criticize people for that Hunger also did, I first interpreted the "...friends" as insincerity, but it was clearly grief when Hunger did the same thing, so who knows. His death threat gets more points than Seralize's for not being hypocritcally dramatic, but loses a few for that goodbye. Who does he think he is, Gary Oak? Also, grinding to come back for revenge is a great tactic, but unortunately for Ber almost nobody is better at doing that than a progression Cursebearer. Especially if he's an idiot of a hidden boss who keeps getting into stupid, over-his-head fights. *sigh*
Blue sword that does bladewind, who let this guy grab the Sky-Splitting Blade? Does Suizhen know some neurotic gamer jacked her Dao?
Ah, it's a cheap knockoff, the Sky-furrowing Blade.
Looking at the size of the collateral damage, I actually think his swordbeam is still stronger than ours, even if we can spam ours more. Our crater vs. Vanreir was a few yards long, not really "land-devouring." How embarrassing.
He zoops away, which is just fine by me, if he pressed the attack and wasn't scared by our bossness he probably would have won. As it is, we're exhausted again, injured more, and Gisena and Letrizia and Verschlengorge are wiped too. Nothing can solve this... except picks, yay! And resting, but we decided not to do that because we were lunatics even before we grabbed Uttermost.
With the blood upgrades, Echospam is now a thing of the past. But it served us so well that we should've done it sooner, at this point we hadn't yet taken it. We're currently behind on Rank, but 2xEchoes might've been a good pick instead of Age and Treachery here.
This upgrade, however, is neither past nor present, there is no opalescent light in the Evening Sky, only the reverberation of salty screams. Dammit, if we ever get free from this temple and have all the picks we can hold, I'm grabbing this no matter how inefficient it is. It taunts us, it does.
Oh, hey, I don't think this one ever came up again. Not that it matters, we have the successor in Chief Dominion and it's the same but better, but it's cool to see old possibilities.
This pick was defining in our build for a while, and even if our Agi is currently lagging behind our Might it still appears to be the most important stat we have. The blurb is incredibly appropriate for Vengeance-driven hunger, and it definitely sounds like the kind of thing that'd give a +Willpower as well. I wonder if it unlocked the Second Stage upgrade that gave both that and Agi, but without Bloodwraith that would've been an awkward and ugly snarl, so maybe it's for the best that we passed that one up.
It also gives Exhausted resistance, so it's no surprise that we picked up with the trauma so fresh in our minds. This later became an implicit part of our Form of Rage strategy, at least for me. Exertion is less risky if you still have the energy to run away afterwards.
This is an amazing upgrade that I'm glad that we never picked, because we've been so pressed for time by going to the temple that we needed more picks rather than better ones. It'll be a must have once we're searching for Huntress' Moon targets, although of course without Scent of Prey we can't easily find opponents who drop Scent of Prey. Beat up dogs until it happens, I guess.
Actually, even after talking up Bearic's divination nonsense I just realized that that's probably where this came from. I didn't questio the convenience.
RANK memes speak for themselves, and this did help us find prey even if it wasn't as suited for it as the last option. I'm glad we went with this, especially since we're going to fight someone who outranks us horribly as it is in a few hours.
I totally forgot about this one! I was terrified about how this would incentivize cruising with heavy wounds and tip us over the edge of death, but of course we didn't know about even Second Stage at this point in time. The transferal of wound would be useful immediately for Letrizia, but even without Chief Dominion better healing options would certainly come up so that ability would soon be more useful for the buff.
I can't say whether it would've been better to grab this or not, it's so finicky that we'd have had to build our style around it. More form nonsense, less healing. Mm, I think I like the current Hunger better.
We just have to keep him alive with Arete!
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Word count wise we're... 3 decently long omakes short of where we were when we got 8.2 arete.
So yeah, we should be okay to collapse down into greed and probably even Fine if people are willing to discard the extra pick.
And while I type this projectile puts us a mere 2k words short of what we did the time we got 8.2.
Everyone! Barring Rihaku contradicting me we should collapse into Crimson, if that is what you desire! We (should) have the arete!
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- Location
- Italy
...I'm conflicted whether to give this an "insightful" or "funny" rating.
So here is some more writing, I tried to sort of make one of those sub-quests though focused around starting from gaining Experience as a power rather than becoming a curse-bearer, maybe I should make one where a curse-bearer gains Experience or a Traveler becomes a curse-bearer instead so it is more directly relevant, or at least set the current one in the voyaging realm or something. Honestly I am not sure this came our very well so please give me some feed back if possible. I may have more writing later, in the options I put another power system I made a while back so I think Ill do a write up for it.
It is traditional for something to go wrong during the trials, for the course of things to run askew. After all, The Traveler is looking for nothing and no one usual to receive his gifts, even with a ritual and compact so dearly bought with struggle. That aside it has been said by some that the true path to power and significance is not merely persistent effort, but to take some kind of wrong turn in life, that to get horribly lost is some way for reasons beyond one's control and to have to respond to it, or at least to be put out of one's depths for whatever reason. If one can triumph surely, they shall grow.
Thus, while it was to no ones surprise that the trials that year were and utter catastrophe to the point where it seemed unlikely that any of youth would live through it, it was to everyone's surprise that the challenges both intended and not were swiftly and competently completed by Ephemera, named as the most flighty and untalented of the youths. For years the travelers of the caravan had seen as she had tried her hand at one skill or hobby after another and dropped them soon after. Many thought she was discouraged from her paltry gains in proficiency at the tasks she was set and set herself to. They told her it was normal over such brief periods of time, for those yet to have their Experience, to fail and show few real gains. They approached her with the offer to teach her, to aid her studies. They were repeatedly confounded by her consistent refusal of their assistance, and of the wisdom they had earned through long years, diligent practice, and the grace of Experience. The travelers of the caravan were unable to get her to accept help or even to learn why she was so steadfast in her refusal. This is not even mentioning the confounding way she flew from the practice of one trade to the next seemingly at random giving none the time to actually show progress. Despite all this Ephemera, as they had come to call her for her flighty, inscrutable ways, was alone truly prepared for the trials.
The elders of the caravan, settled in their ways and their impressions of Ephemera, were stunned to silence with the ease by which she resolved the absolute mess of a trial. Every challenge she met she had an answer for. She had tools and supplies of her own make and made use not only of skills they had known her to have given up on, but others as well that they had never even thought to teach her. Against the mechanical puppets of the trial, she was swift, observant, and precise. Where the trial was left broken, she fixed it. Where dangerous foes not of the trial had been let it, she led her fellows around. The stunning display of untaught competence had all of her observers stunned.
She had brought not only herself, but her fellows through the trial with few injuries and not a trace of panic on her face. This time she alone would pass, this time she would be the one to meet The Traveler. She would judge for herself whether his Experience was worth following after.
How did Ephemera triumph in the trial
(U) Diligence Unknown – Ephemera had always liked figuring things out for herself. She could barely bring herself to sit through all the lessons the elders pushed one her. Sure, a lot of what they had to teach was interesting, but the way they taught it was so boring. She did not want to hear about the world through the stories and lessons of her elders, she wanted to see it for herself. Ephemera found it much more interesting to pursue her studies on her own, out of sight of the rest of the caravan. Starting from nothing more than the seeds of the various skills taught by her elders, Ephemera attempts to recreate higher levels of skill and other skills through effort and experimentation, with few models of the skills even acknowledged let alone used.
*Ephemera has a broad set of mostly self-taught and self-trained skills. Her knowledge may be somewhat lopsided and incomplete in places but that is nothing Experience and travel cannot fix. Ephemera has put a particular focus on skills required for travel, as she intends to leave as soon as she can.
*Ephemera's curious and exploratory nature makes her perfectly suited for Experience. She will immediately gain Experience in learning, developing, and creating skills and methodologies from scratch with few if any examples. This is inestimably valuable long term for various reasons. Ephemera's development as a user of Experience will trend more towards the broad way of development, though not exclusively so (particularly if there is a skill or route of development that gets a lot of emphasis
* Will have a good degree in the skill necessary to travel with the emphasis to be determined. Will have a good overall balance of skills with perhaps one or two more developed than the others. Will have one exotic avenue for advancement open from the beginning though there will be a training malus on it.
*The caravan will be more on the traditional side of the spectrum and will be larger, perhaps even very large. Maybe you can draw someone with you when you leave.
*Will have access to three to five background incidents to be decided on later that will come with training in associated skills as required. The more significant the skill or skills gained from the incident the less of them there may be.
-Good initial balance of skills
-Perfect suitability to the development of Experience (starting with something like + progression)
-Very adaptable
-Potential access to an exotic skill (this may cost skill in other areas)
-May be lacking certain knowledge that those who listened to their elders would know
-Recklessly Curious
-Might be more skilled overall, but will be shallower in individual areas of proficiency
-Unconventional path for a traveler
(F) Focused effort – Ephemera learnt early what it is she wanted to do with her life. So strong was this desire that she could focus on little else ditching the lessons of her elders to focus on learning all she could about her area of interest. She may have even discovered some related anomaly near the sites where her caravan stopped. Since her heart was set on her goal she learnt everything she could to pursue it.
*Ephemera is suitable for a more depth focused progression path of Experience, but not as completely suitable as Diligence Unknown to the use and development of experience. She will have a more tightly focused skill set designed primarily for pursuing a specific interest such as archaeology or some form of craftsmanship. Less skills with more development. Character themes locked in earlier.
*Ephemera is very driven and has specific goals to accomplish when setting out her journey. She will start with a lead in her area of interest and supplies to follow up on it. She may forget details tangentially related to her goals but surely that can be worked out when they come up.
*Probably from a mid-sized more progressive caravan. Certainly, from a younger one that has not quite had enough time to find its feet. May even be a semi-permanent caravan with member coming and going at need and preference.
*Will have one to two yet to be determined background scenes that can be used as needed to provide useful benefits or training related to Ephemera's area of interest.
-Focused, coherent skill set with greater skill proficiencies.
-Specific focus setting out from her caravan
-Good Suitability to Experience (no penalties)
-Will lack development in skills not directly related to her area of interest
-Will have a couple very close contacts, may even have a mentor.
-Will likely need some kind of guide on her first journey to better pick up survival skills
-A pretty usual path for a traveler
(S)Shape of things to come – Ephemera somehow or other came into contact with shaping at a young age and has since focused her efforts at learning the usage of this absurd technique (though as she has no access to teachers or even people who would recognize shaping she does not exactly know what it is). What are the lessons of her elders next to the awesome power to subvert the very structure of reality even if you know not precisely what it is you are doing?
*Discover the awesome power of Shaping, the technique by which one works to learn, replicate, and modify the shape by which the laws and phenomenon of reality function. Warning although the power and progression of this can eventually become absurd in the beginning it is very, very slow to learn without a mentor and you likely will not be able to find one.
*Probably only have a few skills inconsistently learned in relation to Ephemera's explorations of Shaping. However, Ephemera will possess knowledge of one initial shape or portion of a shape and will have some proficiency in its use (though it likely wont be convenient to use in any manner beyond perceptions and knowledge related to the shape).
*Ephemera will be traveling to learn more about shaping where she can and to find a mentor if possible. Depending on choices Ephemera may be more eccentric or practical in how she goes about this, though shapers do tend to be pretty eccentric.
*Ephemera will have access to one truly practical usage of her Shaping abilities that will be dramatically useful and valuable, however her other skills will be far less developed.
*Likely from a smaller caravan.
-Shaping is stupid powerful and useful if properly trained, but it is extremely difficult to train and very slow to progress.
-Despite how slow shaping is to develop it will take a lot of narrative space from experience
-Shaping and Experience are not particularly compatible resulting in a malus to the progression of Experience and Experience flat out not applying to training shaping
-Very unconventional, much weirdness abounds.
-Will likely need a companion setting out to cover the lack of non-shaping knowledge
Trials Askew
It is traditional for something to go wrong during the trials, for the course of things to run askew. After all, The Traveler is looking for nothing and no one usual to receive his gifts, even with a ritual and compact so dearly bought with struggle. That aside it has been said by some that the true path to power and significance is not merely persistent effort, but to take some kind of wrong turn in life, that to get horribly lost is some way for reasons beyond one's control and to have to respond to it, or at least to be put out of one's depths for whatever reason. If one can triumph surely, they shall grow.
Thus, while it was to no ones surprise that the trials that year were and utter catastrophe to the point where it seemed unlikely that any of youth would live through it, it was to everyone's surprise that the challenges both intended and not were swiftly and competently completed by Ephemera, named as the most flighty and untalented of the youths. For years the travelers of the caravan had seen as she had tried her hand at one skill or hobby after another and dropped them soon after. Many thought she was discouraged from her paltry gains in proficiency at the tasks she was set and set herself to. They told her it was normal over such brief periods of time, for those yet to have their Experience, to fail and show few real gains. They approached her with the offer to teach her, to aid her studies. They were repeatedly confounded by her consistent refusal of their assistance, and of the wisdom they had earned through long years, diligent practice, and the grace of Experience. The travelers of the caravan were unable to get her to accept help or even to learn why she was so steadfast in her refusal. This is not even mentioning the confounding way she flew from the practice of one trade to the next seemingly at random giving none the time to actually show progress. Despite all this Ephemera, as they had come to call her for her flighty, inscrutable ways, was alone truly prepared for the trials.
The elders of the caravan, settled in their ways and their impressions of Ephemera, were stunned to silence with the ease by which she resolved the absolute mess of a trial. Every challenge she met she had an answer for. She had tools and supplies of her own make and made use not only of skills they had known her to have given up on, but others as well that they had never even thought to teach her. Against the mechanical puppets of the trial, she was swift, observant, and precise. Where the trial was left broken, she fixed it. Where dangerous foes not of the trial had been let it, she led her fellows around. The stunning display of untaught competence had all of her observers stunned.
She had brought not only herself, but her fellows through the trial with few injuries and not a trace of panic on her face. This time she alone would pass, this time she would be the one to meet The Traveler. She would judge for herself whether his Experience was worth following after.
How did Ephemera triumph in the trial
(U) Diligence Unknown – Ephemera had always liked figuring things out for herself. She could barely bring herself to sit through all the lessons the elders pushed one her. Sure, a lot of what they had to teach was interesting, but the way they taught it was so boring. She did not want to hear about the world through the stories and lessons of her elders, she wanted to see it for herself. Ephemera found it much more interesting to pursue her studies on her own, out of sight of the rest of the caravan. Starting from nothing more than the seeds of the various skills taught by her elders, Ephemera attempts to recreate higher levels of skill and other skills through effort and experimentation, with few models of the skills even acknowledged let alone used.
*Ephemera has a broad set of mostly self-taught and self-trained skills. Her knowledge may be somewhat lopsided and incomplete in places but that is nothing Experience and travel cannot fix. Ephemera has put a particular focus on skills required for travel, as she intends to leave as soon as she can.
*Ephemera's curious and exploratory nature makes her perfectly suited for Experience. She will immediately gain Experience in learning, developing, and creating skills and methodologies from scratch with few if any examples. This is inestimably valuable long term for various reasons. Ephemera's development as a user of Experience will trend more towards the broad way of development, though not exclusively so (particularly if there is a skill or route of development that gets a lot of emphasis
* Will have a good degree in the skill necessary to travel with the emphasis to be determined. Will have a good overall balance of skills with perhaps one or two more developed than the others. Will have one exotic avenue for advancement open from the beginning though there will be a training malus on it.
*The caravan will be more on the traditional side of the spectrum and will be larger, perhaps even very large. Maybe you can draw someone with you when you leave.
*Will have access to three to five background incidents to be decided on later that will come with training in associated skills as required. The more significant the skill or skills gained from the incident the less of them there may be.
-Good initial balance of skills
-Perfect suitability to the development of Experience (starting with something like + progression)
-Very adaptable
-Potential access to an exotic skill (this may cost skill in other areas)
-May be lacking certain knowledge that those who listened to their elders would know
-Recklessly Curious
-Might be more skilled overall, but will be shallower in individual areas of proficiency
-Unconventional path for a traveler
(F) Focused effort – Ephemera learnt early what it is she wanted to do with her life. So strong was this desire that she could focus on little else ditching the lessons of her elders to focus on learning all she could about her area of interest. She may have even discovered some related anomaly near the sites where her caravan stopped. Since her heart was set on her goal she learnt everything she could to pursue it.
*Ephemera is suitable for a more depth focused progression path of Experience, but not as completely suitable as Diligence Unknown to the use and development of experience. She will have a more tightly focused skill set designed primarily for pursuing a specific interest such as archaeology or some form of craftsmanship. Less skills with more development. Character themes locked in earlier.
*Ephemera is very driven and has specific goals to accomplish when setting out her journey. She will start with a lead in her area of interest and supplies to follow up on it. She may forget details tangentially related to her goals but surely that can be worked out when they come up.
*Probably from a mid-sized more progressive caravan. Certainly, from a younger one that has not quite had enough time to find its feet. May even be a semi-permanent caravan with member coming and going at need and preference.
*Will have one to two yet to be determined background scenes that can be used as needed to provide useful benefits or training related to Ephemera's area of interest.
-Focused, coherent skill set with greater skill proficiencies.
-Specific focus setting out from her caravan
-Good Suitability to Experience (no penalties)
-Will lack development in skills not directly related to her area of interest
-Will have a couple very close contacts, may even have a mentor.
-Will likely need some kind of guide on her first journey to better pick up survival skills
-A pretty usual path for a traveler
(S)Shape of things to come – Ephemera somehow or other came into contact with shaping at a young age and has since focused her efforts at learning the usage of this absurd technique (though as she has no access to teachers or even people who would recognize shaping she does not exactly know what it is). What are the lessons of her elders next to the awesome power to subvert the very structure of reality even if you know not precisely what it is you are doing?
*Discover the awesome power of Shaping, the technique by which one works to learn, replicate, and modify the shape by which the laws and phenomenon of reality function. Warning although the power and progression of this can eventually become absurd in the beginning it is very, very slow to learn without a mentor and you likely will not be able to find one.
*Probably only have a few skills inconsistently learned in relation to Ephemera's explorations of Shaping. However, Ephemera will possess knowledge of one initial shape or portion of a shape and will have some proficiency in its use (though it likely wont be convenient to use in any manner beyond perceptions and knowledge related to the shape).
*Ephemera will be traveling to learn more about shaping where she can and to find a mentor if possible. Depending on choices Ephemera may be more eccentric or practical in how she goes about this, though shapers do tend to be pretty eccentric.
*Ephemera will have access to one truly practical usage of her Shaping abilities that will be dramatically useful and valuable, however her other skills will be far less developed.
*Likely from a smaller caravan.
-Shaping is stupid powerful and useful if properly trained, but it is extremely difficult to train and very slow to progress.
-Despite how slow shaping is to develop it will take a lot of narrative space from experience
-Shaping and Experience are not particularly compatible resulting in a malus to the progression of Experience and Experience flat out not applying to training shaping
-Very unconventional, much weirdness abounds.
-Will likely need a companion setting out to cover the lack of non-shaping knowledge
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Aurora, CO
- Pronouns
- Any/All
This is a good idea. But which systems to use...