1429 words of setting dump. I'm pretty happy with the responses so far.
The trouble isn't doing cool things, or even doing a lot of cool things. The trouble is that if the MC is sent on different (potentially unrelated) quests each day then there's not as much room for personal plans and goals. I think the Geas of Indenture feels toothless on account of 2500 years being too long for questers to comprehend (especially when 4 months IRL advances the plot barely 1 month in-universe). But the Geas of Labor overcompensates in the opposite direction: if there is a new task every single day and a severe punishment for failure then where is the room for our MC to do exciting things that we decide? This curse cedes too much narrative agency to the Accursed imo.
As it stands, the real curse is that we never get a break. Like how it was Always Winter but Never Christmas in Narnia: Always Monday, never the Weekend. I'd be fine if the tasks were weekly, with punishments leading into monthly tasks. But being buried day after under an unending pile of new work sounds much too close to my IRL conception of Office Space hell. (Plus, tbh, would you really want to be forced to generate a new quest hook each day if you were writing this quest for real?)
If I was writing this quest for real I would simply integrate the Labours into things you'd already be doing; it's essentially a difficulty modifier. It would also be an opportunity to introduce some things I want you to see in a diagetic way, which I think is useful. These Curse write-ups are long enough I kind of don't like putting all the details in one go, but it might be necessary given different interpretations. I know how I would both play and write the Geas, and that might be causing some miscommunication. But even still, what are the odds you keep getting day-long tasks for a week straight? Given infinite time I'm certain there will be a year where you will be given nothing but day-long tasks, but I'm also certain that year will not be the first one of the quest.
Time loops are indeed broken. I missed the divination / scrying defense for The Apostle, that is another major bonus. This option was why I asked about the MC's short-term combat capacity: I'd be happy to take Apostle with almost any given Curse loadout if I wasn't so focused on immediate combat power.
Pitching Embroidery as tinker tech makes me want it even more, but doesn't Parabellum boost Embroidery more than The Apostle? In a proper build vote I'd be clamoring for details about the magic system that the MC would already know. Is it important to have an errand-boy to collect reagents / input materials for our existing Embroidery talent? What kind of effects can alchemy accomplish in the hands of someone who hasn't been awakened? A small push of Devil's Advocacy would have me all-in for The Apostle, but you would have to provide that push.
I would say your most powerful resource is in fact your family in the hills, but that's not exactly a magic system; though Alchemy is relevant in such topics as the first update said. The Apostle choice will decide whether it boosts Embroidery or not, though nothing will beat TSH for long-term potential.
Embroidery is boosted by special materials; while theoretically any effect at this level of reality can be achieved through simple thread and cloth with enough effort; in practice super materials are necessary for the more special powers. Which is another thing your kinship with the hills aids you with, by the way. Not only just in terms of actually finding the materials; your very hair is actually a powerful Thread with affinities to Earth, Stone, Hills, Igneous Rock, etc. She has actually brainstormed whether she could essentially make an Embroidery with just her hairstyle before; and such on-hand materials have definitely come up in sticky situations. Normally she would already have tried to make a basic Embroidery using her hair and the common cloth of her clothes, but she's not only wounded but suffering something very similar to the Exhausted/Tired condition; she can't make the necessary exertion of the soul right now. That would change with a bit of rest, however.
Alchemy, much like Embroidery, can do anything; some Doctors even say Embroidery is just applied Alchemy. In fact, I thought I had already written something to that effect, but on reflection it likely stayed in a discarded draft.
The principle mechanism of Alchemy is the sympathy between Heaven and Earth; as above, so below as they say. It is the principle source of automation in the fabled realm and essentially incorporates what most would recognize as "scientific knowledge" into itself as they apply to this universe. This is more of an aesthetic similarity however.
Really, the totality of Alchemy is as broad to cover as the totality of science; but the most active and iconic of it's effects is the power of Transformation and Transmutation. Passive knowledge without Initiation means you cannot perform any active effects; though Doctor expertise can make machines and/or automated rituals of all stripes that accept non-Initiated operation and maintenance. No self replicating machines have been succefully created thus far; a soul is too integral to the process. This is one reason why the Homunculus is considered a holy grail of Alchemy.
Passive knowledge helps in fighting against Alchemy the most; it also helps when designing Embroideries, though not the actual work. If you are Initiated you can also make rituals to create special materials for Tassels as well. Most processes that involve some sort or transformation or transmutation are also helped by Passive knowledge in terms of increasing effectiveness or efficiency.
Passive knowledge is pretty good for you as a Speaker specifically though, since you have direct communication with the "Earth" part of "Heaven and Earth". Many effects that would usually require Initiation can be realized with the friendly cooperation of the local hills, and with much greater scope; which can be both a positive and a negative. You also have access to the Books of Heaven written in the stars and its flow of sympathy in the Earth, meaning you actually have an insane advantage in ritual crafting most Doctors would kill for. It's basically impossible for people to design rituals without Initiation given they lack the insight brought on by accessing the Mind of God, but Speakers are exception to that; the knowledge of the Book of Heaven and the ability to check it in quasi-real-time, even in a second hand way, is enough to make some pretty killer stuff. You can't transmit the pure knowledge of the Book to non-kin but rituals designed using it are totally fine. This is not even the end of their utility for Alchemy, just the least esoteric, in a sense.
Essentially, there's a reason why the Government drags any Speakers they can to their centers of power by force, they are pretty OP.
I was thinking that the ritual would be a useful way for the discerning murder-hobo to decide whose Karma gets stolen. Like, I would not want Sangria to activate if we kill a drug addict. Maybe this is one of the ways that our knowledge of Alchemy would come in handy. Or we could let The Apostle take the finishing blow for those whose Karma is worth avoiding.
Sangria is helped by Alchemy in the way most things are helped by Alchemy. But Sangria is actually pretty weird from an Alchemical perspective and it's something that usurps the authority of Heaven in a sense. To have such a reliable way to make a sympathetic connection between two people to the point it can support actual absorption of their traits and even their Karma(!) available to even the non-Initiated is pretty puzzling, to say the least. They can't even come close to reproducing something like that. It's to the point most Doctors if asked about it would just say it has to be a sustained effect by the Devil instead of something arrived at; it simply breaks too many rules.
But yes, Alchemy knowledge does help avoid getting bad Karma. However, your version doesn't need to worry about that; you can always refuse to take Karma, if all the available ones are bad. It's quite the privilege.
To be honest, this has only pushed me more into ravenous Parabellum partisanship. Like, The Apostle would be a desperately needed character to talk to, would demonstrate three cool new magic systems, and comes with Groundhog Day timeloop option (which I absolutely love).
But your description here puts the MC in a covert struggle to steal Karma from government agents. It's very cyberpunk. We could plan a heist!
Heh, people have tried that before, some have even been successful. Most of the important targets of the Goverment are pretty protected, thanks to residing on their center of power and being shielded by Normative Alchemy. Either that or they are a Giant, which is all the protection they need. If Sangria even works on Giants, that is; nobody has been in a position to test that. (I can confirm the improved version in Parabellum would work though.)
Please do! I haven't been able to predict any of the worldbuilding elements that you have introduced and they are all very interesting and evocative. You've echoed the Rihaku style without copying his aesthetics, which basically makes me go feral about the possibility that you'll keep expanding different setting elements.
Wow, that's high praise.
Like pretty much all works, the only original part of it is in the combination and execution. All of the setting elements are taken from either: Brazilian folklore; Brazilian historical events and anecdotes; or Brazilian high literature based on those folklore and history elements (some even call such works "fantastical realism" lul). There might be legitimately nothing like it as "fantasy setting".
Of course, the biggest problem is that my reach currently exceeds my grasp in this topic. Since I've never seen anything like it, I'm basically making this stuff from scratch, and researching this stuff is pretty hard; you simply don't find good net resources. Influential works like
Macunaíma can have some pretty good resources if you know Portuguese, but second tier works like
Cobra-Norato or specific local folklore like Labutu, Dry-men, etc. Pretty much need actual local books to have any decent reference. And of course, if you don't know Portuguese you can forget about all of this. I was using my Uni library for some of this stuff, especially regarding some interesting academic papers, but that's not an option anymore due to recent circumstances.
The ideal situation would be to permanently make camp inside the Library of São Paulo, since it's the motherload for this stuff and has some pretty cool resources not available elsewhere, like actual recordings of native myth passed through oral tradition. But moving to São Paulo is a bit of pipe-dream, especially at the moment.
If I ever approach writing this seriously, I'd require a ton more research, simply because what I'm writing right now is basically based on stuff I half-remember plus whatever resources I find online. Even the brief material I could find more of when in the middle of writing this makes me want to change things significantly. This is almost like an Alpha version of the setting, and of course made to fit in the broader Rihaku-verse cosmology. I think the research for a more serious approach would result in a much more flavorful setting, so I think it's something fully worth it. Again, it's just a pipe-dream at the moment, but I really think something like this should exist, and I'm glad other people like it and I'm not actually insane. That's good.
