Remove ads

A Simple Transaction I

Reader mode
Talace said:
[ ] Talon

A long, raking talon of yellowed ivory, stained with blood on its lower side and warm to the touch. Upon slaying an enemy of notable strength, the body can be processed to yield an amount of wealth, resources, or relevant equipment commensurate to the power of the foe. If the bearer is in particular need of food, water, or shelter, slain foes become more likely to provide an appropriate resource. Can break, but can repair itself from a sliver by feeding on a notable foe's blood. Intimidating if worn.

for 7 Arete, would you take it?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In the hypothetical case we were offered it right now, yes. We need two high-end Panoply options, and Talon would save us precious in-character time in pursuing leads on how to obtain them. That it would also provide Gisena with goods to serve her Artificing, and possibly even consumables to reinforce our items and base stats is secondary, but still appealing.

At 25 Arete, probably not right now. But in place of something like Pillars, twenty or twenty-five updates from now? It's a more narrow margin, because it's got even greater potential and would build on our playstyle by itself, but enemies worthy of it might be hard to find and its bounty would be limited in practice by our ability to get a killing blow with it. If it retains what I expect is its synergy with the Ring of Blood's soul-eating quality, then perhaps it could be a worthy competitor to the Ruling Ring.

I'm not accounting for the possibility its process would include the real benefits by proxy of strengthening an ally to make an item relevant. This would greatly improve its worth, and make it an easy must-buy following the Tower arc. But still probably not right now, unless we could expect to bootstrap a truly legendary kill into an item that would overcome Hel.
 
Hunger really hasn't been doing too much Cutting Through of late. What would the Forebear say?!

You could change that now! You have the power!
 
Finally the electricity is back. So voting for the

[X] The Scenic Route

to get my goddamn magic. As for the other options I'm unsure. All-Defeating Stance is good for diplomacy what with even more Charisma and a not so minor infusion of Manipulation that is both boosted by Silver of Evening. Remember that we rank among the highest in Charisma in the entire Voyaging Realm and with ADS we are even further above them. I'm just going to theorize that they might have loyalty magics involved but that won't matter if we negotiate and trade with them. Also helps in finding instructors in magics and lowering cost of possible artifacts.

On the other hand, Once and Future bumps our base Rank to the upper 7s and our combat and blood rank to the high levels. These will help negate any possible Rank advantage they might have and makes me comfortable enough in whatever scenario we pursue. But really, Scenic Route for the win! Get me that valuable intel and most importantly magic!
 
Poor Direct Route, only one v- wait, that's not a real vote, just color preservation. I was gonna say that if you only have one vote, Zampano's is a good one to have, but the truth is nobody loves Direct Route.
Rihaku said:
Make for the Tower aggressively with your presence suppressed and the Evening Sky dimmed into an alternative form, then escape with a wholly different comportment after the deed is done. Your companions lack such powers of disguise and will not be able to directly assist you, but you can travel much faster alone anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Can't bring anyone with us on this mission, they don't have cool disguise powers like Hunger... has? Humongous charisma and the identifiability of the Evening Sky are only two of the issues. Gotta hide the sword, change up the general body area, deal with the massive Rank gravitation- Shadowcord is magic, but it's not a miracle. No wonder nobody loves this guy.
 
Entrench also gives us information by sending Aeira, Aobaru etc to gather it! It's an option with good synergy with S A V E. Instead of acting rashly, why not spend a few days to gather enough power to challenge this civilization, while getting information so that when we move, we will do so with confidence in our strenght! Show these arrogant scrubs the might of true magic! Just Cut Through later.

Greater strenght also means they will take us more seriously if we do attempt an diplomatic solution later!
 
Last edited:
I really don't think I should be voting for anything before a full night of sleep, but ADS+Scenic Route looks awfully good to me, right now.

Just finally getting ADS would please me immensely, tbh.
 
vali said:
Please don't tell me the walls are here to keep us escaping and it's another trap, after the Temple my heart just can't take it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Thanks for giving this post a heart rating Rihaku. I really appreciate it.

...

Just realized I didn't explain why I gave Acrodross its name. Well, Findross means "end" and "dross", and that's reflected in its powers, which is that it ends anything mundane about the wielder.

Acrodross doesn't do that, see the 'physical' power granted by
Rihaku said:
Shining Exemplar
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That vote offered three powers: a Findross sorceress power, a Elvish blood power, and a mystery power that seems very heroic and matches up exactly with what the golden-eyed orcs were doing. Or in other words this is what Acrodross magic actually does.

Acrodross is physical power taken to the furthermost extreme. A strength so great it can overpower magic, dexterity that can dodge magic, able to absorb magic like the orcs did to grant permanent stat boosts.

It's not ending the dross like Findross. Instead it's conceptually changing how dross relates to the rest of the universe in such a way that mere dross, mere physical prowess, can contest magic. Which is why I call it "peak dross" or Acrodross. "at the end, at the top, outermost; consummate, excellent". Conceptually the opposite of Findross, letting mere dross behave like something more.

Excellence, the sun, heroes, and mundane skill allowing for supernatural feats also makes me think of the Solar Exalted, who could do things like be so good at dodging they could dodge the impossible. Perhaps this magic is related to that?

Anyways that's where I got Acrodross from.

...

Given the sun themes, I wonder if the center of this realm has a proverbial sun made of Acrodross (or something else) as well. After all, something has to power this place.
 
[X] The Scenic Route
[X] Become All-Defeating

Stats would help tremendously with the Scenic Route, and Luck might help us get a better Artifact.
 
Why get ADS when we can get OAF in an update or two! Consider this: getting OaF brings our effective Rank in battle to 8.875 and our Bloodcasting goes to 9.875. Insane. Outrageous. Almost Armament-tier Bloodcasting, effective Battle-rank in the High tier where small differences in Rank make for overwhelming differences in power.
 
Because there's great deal of opportunity cost involved in getting ADS with Scenic! Better meetings so we can find more appropriate Artifacts, better social so we can destroy the Tower with minimal collateral, and Curse reduction to boot!
 
That was always true though. Of course being more powerful now will let us better exploit opportunities, that's nothing new. How were we supposed to save for OaF if that's enough argumentation to immediately take ADS?
 
But we have the opportunity to get an Praxis EFB here alongside Forebear lore! Wouldn't it be safer and better to act after we have gained such might? We will be far more free to act if we pull it off! Just loot everything from the Tyrant and get an top tier magic system from killing him!
 
Last edited:
Unelemental said:
That was always true though. Of course being more powerful now will let us better exploit opportunities, that's nothing new. How were we supposed to save for OaF if that's enough argumentation to immediately take ADS?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's great deal of difference between just taking value, and taking something to obtain opportunity related super value right now!

Indeed, our plan was always to take OaF and then ADS - however, that was mostly because of additional safety offered by WDS. However, we are at point where saving for OaF should be safe even if we get ADS first, and as such that option can be considered right now.

Simply put, what's the value of getting OaF first? We get stronger, yes, but can we translate that power into value? We are at limits of what we can do for Verse, for example. Getting OaF does free us to get other stuff, sure, but is there anything better than ADS? Especially since we can directly get so much value right now.

So, what's the argument? I don't think that anyone would argue against getting ADS as fast as we can. That we need OaF first? Why, though, with Ber weeks away and ADS being so valuable at this very moment?
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Unelemental on Aug 3, 2020 at 7:27 AM, finished with 114 posts and 22 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Ber is not weeks away! In fact, we don't have much control over how time passes, and it's unclear how many days have passed. Beyond that, the value of Rank and power now is we're safer if we ever come to a fight against one of those elusive trump cards, we get +2 Rank for military matters (which I assume applies to strategizing how to knock down the tower), and Rank lets us bend the world to our will, experiencing more fortituous encounters as we force a story by dint of our legend.
 
I want to make it clear that OaF probably doesn't take as much advantage of our short-term circumstances as ADS does. But it's considerably safer, we've already got a plan, and it'll go much farther towards solving the two problems before us: dunking on the tower, and dunking on Ber. If unexpected Arete costs come up, we won't have to worry about scrambling for 23 Arete within x updates, since we've banked some resources already.
 
Talace said:
Ber is not weeks away!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He needs a week to finish his main class, and then time to grind his prestige class too. We've got time.
Beyond that, the value of Rank and power now is we're safer if we ever come to a fight against one of those elusive trump cards, we get +2 Rank for military matters (which I assume applies to strategizing how to knock down the tower), and Rank lets us bend the world to our will, experiencing more fortituous encounters as we force a story by dint of our legend.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Is it though? Rank lets us defeat opponents, sure, but there's going beyond even that. Diplomatic combination of Scenic and ADS allows us to use diplomacy too our ends - to make sure that we ally with those we can instead of fighting them, to destroy the Tower with minimal damage to people around it, to find the best Artifacts we can and so on.

It's impossible to deny value of opportunity presented to us. One might argue that value is not necessary at this point, and I'd agree, but there's limited amount of times we can pass up on taking value before our lead evaporates, and I am not convinced that the time is now.

So, again, we come back to letting pretty serious amount of value go for promise of safety. But, are we in danger? From Temple, from Ber? I don't quite feel that's the case, so I don't think that there is need to be conservative instead of just being efficient.
 
[X] The Scenic Route
[X] Save

I'd prefer the guarantee of safety with Once and Future than just getting A-DS now, though I wouldn't mind it if it won. More information is often a crucial advantage in any conflict, and just cutting through is something that might have dangerous consequences. Let's minimize any unknown unknowns before going hard on any strategy, yes?

Mostly I just want to counsel everyone to take advantage of that Arete modifier as much as possible, which means more discussion and more fanworks.
 
Wolfy said:
He needs a week to finish his main class, and then time to grind his prestige class too. We've got time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Again, we don't know how much time that is or how many timeskips we'll have. Why risk it? If we've got time, surely we have time to benefit from all of ADS' benefits later rather than sooner.

Wolfy said:
Is it though? Rank lets us defeat opponents, sure, but there's going beyond even that. Diplomatic combination of Scenic and ADS allows us to use diplomacy too our ends - to make sure that we ally with those we can instead of fighting them, to destroy the Tower with minimal damage to people around it, to find the best Artifacts we can and so on.

It's impossible to deny value of opportunity presented to us. One might argue that value is not necessary at this point, and I'd agree, but there's limited amount of times we can pass up on taking value before our lead evaporates, and I am not convinced that the time is now.

So, again, we come back to letting pretty serious amount of value go for promise of safety. But, are we in danger? From Temple, from Ber? I don't quite feel that's the case, so I don't think that there is need to be conservative instead of just being efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Rank probably isn't as good at diplomacy, but it still does something to help, suppressing the acuity and wit of our opponents (and protecting us from enemy Rank). Having a bigger stick makes us a more valuable ally, and leeway to break their social norms. Military rank helps in figuring out how best to de_stroy the Tower, and Hunger even notes that excess power lets us take suboptimal but more moral decisions.

Let me try and convince you that the time to pass up immediate value is now! By sacrificing a short-term burst in power at an opportune time, we can get Rank and fearsome might at an even more opportune time. Consider the battles we'll be able to take, the reduction of death% due to our power. Additionally, raising our Defensive Rank lets us resist whatever esoteric magics these people may have. When we get in the thick of things, we'll be able to comfortably rely on a glut of power to ride us through.

Lastly, I also wanna put forward that OaF is only available when we have a pick available to us. ADS is amazing because we can snap buy it without any picks at all, making its use as a trump card versatile and flexible. OaF on the other hand needs a specific amount of Arete at a specific time. So, it makes more sense to get OaF since we can't reasonably Aretestorm it from nothing and because if a time comes when we desperately need it, we will have needed to pick it at an earlier time. ADS doesn't face the same constraints, and can be reasonably Aretestormed given full hard work and effort from everyone (especially with our modifiers).
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top