A SIMPLE TRANSACTION V2.0
CYOA Flowchart:
-Viewpoint Choice
+Explanation
+Each Viewpoint Option
+Character Monologue
-Chosen Character Type Row
+Accursed Monologue
+Character Profile
*Core Stats
*Core Skills
*Inherent Ability
*History
+Progression-Type Offer
*Accursed Offer Text
*Curse Requirement
+Combat-Type Offer
*Accursed Offer Text
*Curse Requirement
-Curses
+Greater
+Lesser
+Extra
-Remittances
+Progression-Type
*Greater
*Lesser
^Companions
^Artifacts
^Upgrades
+Combat-Type
*Greater
*Lesser
^Companions
^Artifacts
^Upgrade
-Indenture Targets
Viewpoint Choice
There are many worthy. Nearly an uncountable number of seeds, buried in the choking loam of these limited physical substrates, waiting for just the slightest touch of light and warmth to sprout.
What sort of seed are you?
Character:
1: The Bureaucrat
Monologue
Serring Barr grew up alone on Trantor. His inheritance, the fruit of his parents' lives as middling civil servants, was barely enough for state upbringing and education. But one can't come into contact with the titanic edifice of imperial bureaucracy without being crushed by it at least a little.
This is the lesson Serring learned from hunger and forms and vidbeams and offices and officials: never show them that you're weak. Carry your spite gingerly, hiding it between your palms. Smile.
That lesson carried him through life as a district government worker, learning the patterns of others' moods. It buoyed him through education as a psychological scientist, spending long nights committing textbooks to memory. It advanced him rapidly through his work as a psychological engineer, parsing the statistical data of hundreds of thousands of behavioral experiments. It smoothed his way into a position as a lesser court functionary, feigning cleverness and guilelessness in turn. Waiting, always waiting for an opportunity to extract his price from the system.
When Seldon made his proclamation of inevitable galactic degradation, Serring listened. He read and reread the published psychohistorical proofs until he understood them. And then he clamped his palms down neatly on the keen edges of his spite and squeezed.
"I am going to hollow out the insides of this planet," he thought
, "And then watch it collapse inward."
Over the next twenty years, Serring worked diligently. For his ability to look you in the eye and shake your hand as though you mattered, he quickly became a lesser administrator in the Commission of Public safety. By careful manipulation, by degree after degree of piling up advantages, by a razor-honed talent for minutia and paperwork and gift-giving and meetings, he became a senior administrator. And still he labored in secret, night after night, to damn the Galactic Empire.
Collapsed at his desk, face and body numb, limbs twitching and unresponsive, and heartbeat screaming, he didn't waste time with regret. He tried to move his arms, to push against the desk, to sit up. One attempt left him unable to hear anything but white noise. Another set his heart rate racing, drumming up an even higher beat. The blood pounded hard across the back of his spine.
"No," he thought,
"I refuse. I am not satisfied yet."
With a titanic effort, he finally shoved himself upright in his chair. The edges of his sight began to darken and fade….
And stopped. Everything stopped. He couldn't move. Something like a man appeared before him, an indistinct figure cast in fluorescence from hidden angles. The darkness and blurriness began to fade, until he could see the man clearly. And it didn't stop, the feeling of sharpness and clarity continuing to increase until it was almost unbearable, every malevolent angle of the stranger sharply pulling the thin plastic of the world tight over himself. The man began to speak….
Curse Offers
Serring Barr. You are not an ideal candidate, but neither are you wholly unworthy. You unrelentingly pursue your goals without regards to the distastefulness of your means.
For 33 years you have remained pure of purpose. That is enough.
I am neither a deathly hallucination nor a specter come to judge you. There will be no hand-shaking, no lies, no hidden clauses. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power.
Let me be clear. To you, my power may seem immense, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens are extremely unpleasant. Their weight will not be greater than you can bear, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously. And until you accept or decline, I cannot tell you more.
Progression: Justice
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
Abandon your grudge against the Empire and turn yourself to face a cause of true worth. There are countless souls out beyond the periphery of this universe who have experienced what you have. Accept my offer, and reach out to save them.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: The Geas of Indenture and another Major Curse
Combat: Spite
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
The otherwise unachievable satisfaction of utterly destroying the Empire with your own hands. Immediate power of this magnitude will make overcoming any established military force you are aware of a trivial task. If you so wish, you can rebuild society afterwards, by force or guile. No need for the people of the galaxy to suffer a thousand years or more of abject barbarism; you'll handle it.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: 1 Major Curse
Profile
-Core Stats: Charisma, Intelligence
-Core Skills: Mathematics, Knowledge: Politics, Psychology
-Inherent Ability: Mentalics (Low): A rare brain mutation which grants the ability to reach into the minds of others and directly adjust their emotions. Begin with a low and barely awakened talent, able only to perceive the immediate emotions of someone with whom you are making eye contact. Mentalics is a wholly non-supernatural ability that relies on a particular formulation of physics, but will work fine for you no matter where you are.
History: A highly placed political functionary on the capital world of a fading Galactic Empire. In secret, he works to curtail and destroy the ability of the Galactic Empire to interfere with the lives of its citizens, driven by the animus from his own childhood. Currently suffering a stroke from the stress of overwork and a lifetime of forced stoicism.
2: The Orphan
Monologue
"Sable, do you know where your name comes from? It's a noble's word for the color of your hair."
The fetid stench of standing water, rat shit, and plague corpses fills the concrete culvert. The electric humming of the suspended rail is only broken up by the distant clanking of the Tallboys, wandering and wandering on their metal stilts, eyes feral and bloodshot with drugs, bows strung and harnesses tight.
"When I realized I was pregnant, I knew exactly who your father was. Not someone who would help us, would help you."
In the deep trough, the corpses are stacked high. Slack limbs and bloody eyes make a jigsaw out of piles of meat. All are one in the pit: faces of friends and enemies, children and adults, fathers and sons. Mother and daughters.
"Not someone who would welcome you, an illegitimate heir, the daughter of a Golden Cat courtesan. Not someone safe. Not someone whose name you could inherit. Not someone who you would want to inherit from."
Every half hour, the rail car comes and dumps more bodies out. The passage of time is not clear. Every moment climbs up eternity, just to reveal another one hidden behind it. Nothing objectively marks the hours besides the rain of corpses. The fall is forty, fifty feet. Some are still alive beforehand. Some are alive even after. This never lasts.
"But I remember him telling me about the banner of his family. Did you know that Sable isn't just a word for black? It also means 'diamond'. That's what you are to me, Sable. You're my little diamond."
A small form rests off to the side of the farthest pile, streaks of blood showing where it dragged itself along. It is not dead, not asleep. It is upright, listing this way and that in the half-consciousness before sleep. The last consciousness before sleep. Just battling for another second.
"I love you so much, and I always will. Please don't forget that after I'm gone."
It breaks out into a wracking cough, deep and wet and catching, and spits out a wad of phlegm-speckled blood. A stifled groan escapes and is squashed under the effort of simply being here. Being here with some dignity. Going on.
"My body will be ashes, but don't forget that that isn't me. I won't truly be gone; I'll still be watching over you. Don't come join me too early, okay? I'll be waiting for you, however long it takes."
Dunwall's drab sky leeches the light of the sun and paints away the ruined facade of the Flooded District's buildings in shades of gray. A foghorn blows in the distance. The shadow of a man passes overhead, though the air. The grimly delirious atmosphere lends it an unexpected bite; who is that? Someone important, someone interesting? Someone who gets to move on from this. Someone who doesn't have to die here. It's a desperate yearning.
"Love, Mom."
It's too hard. But there is nothing else to do but go on. Still, she doesn't fall. Then, there's another shadow. It falls over her, and the smell of the dead, and the sounds of crackling machinery, and the certainty of death. The shadow eclipses everything, expanding to fill the entire horizon, like the opening mouth of a leviathan fit to swallow the ocean whole. And from that Void comes a voice….
Curse Offers
Sable Shaw. Child of poverty and gold, heir to nothing and wildness. You are here earlier than I had hoped.
Having remained pure of mind and body for 18 years, and having a strong suitability for what I will ask of you, you are fit to receive my offer. Be warned.
I am not The Outsider, nor am I one of his pawns. I do not take tithe in blood and bone or gold and whalesong. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power.
Let me be clear. To you, my power may seem immense, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens are extremely unpleasant. Their weight will not be greater than you can bear, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously. And until you accept or decline, I cannot tell you more.
Progression: Ocean
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
Though you can't see it, you must know that just beyond this open grave is a vast ocean of possibilities. There is so much more to do and be that you haven't been able to experience yet. There is nothing holding you here, now. The filth and evil of Dunwall can rot by itself.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: Geas of Indenture and another Major Curse
Combat: Diamond
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
At last, power enough to make the world care.
Cast aside suffering and weakness. Cast aside the evil of man, the howling of the Void, and the apathy of the Outsider. Tear the rotten beams out of this hateful structure. There's no other way to make a world where daughters don't have to bury their mothers.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: 1 Major Curse
Profile
-Core Stats: Agility, Willpower
-Core Skills: Survival (Urban), Streetwise, Theft
-Inherent Ability: Pandyssian Blood: There's something wilder about you than your peers, an irrepressible resilient viciousness that has only slightly reawakened with the introduction of the Doom of Pandyssia to your body. Add your Willpower score to your Constitution, and add half your Willpower score to your Intelligence and Wits as long as you're conscious and mostly lucid.
-History: An orphaned daughter of a prostitute and a noble, forced to live on and survive the streets of Dunwall until adulthood. Not being part of any established gang, her ability to provide for herself during the Rat Plague wore thin, and she caught the Plague and was sent to the Flooded District, where she is now dying.
3: The Soldier
Monologue
A splash of fire played out across the trees as she dodged through them. Fire caught on dry autumn leaves, their color boiling away into ash and coming alive in rising flames. Her feet slipped deftly along the knotted roots. The forest behind her roared with the sound of Fire Nation soldiers' armored boots and the inferno that they carved after her, a flickering source of light in the darkness. They fell into the distance behind her as she fled deeper into the forest and deeper into the darkness. Finally, far away enough that she was confident, she stopped and leant against a tree.
"How were we supposed to expect an ambush in the night?" she thought.
"I'm sure that some others broke away, but…" she mused, remembering fleeing from the light and the burning, wanting to go down into the cool Earth to escape the heat. She winced and suppressed the memory of Taro's corpse half into the ground, his exposed flesh melting.
She gathered herself and began to carefully deliberate.
"Our position was behind the line of engagement with the Fire Nation, so it must have been an incursion or a break." She frowned; either was serious.
"I'm the only scout in the platoon," she thought grimly,
"and the only one experienced enough in the woods to navigate back to the greater army to give notice. I can't fight this group: they're too large."
She grit her teeth and began to pace.
"I could stay just ahead of them to track their movements, but that won't help. If they move back to the line of engagement to pincer a platoon there, a slight forewarning from me won't prevent a slaughter. And if I race back to the army's local command, how useful are the things that I know? A whole platoon is gone, but I have no idea how the greater Defense of Omashu is holding."
She stopped pacing and began to worry her bare heel into the ground, kneading the dirt.
"These ash-suckers may be assassins, mercenaries, ordinary soldiers...I have no way to know. I could stay and sabotage them, but it might just get me fried, and I'm no use to anyone as barbecue."
She knelt down and began to meditate on the problem, seeping her consciousness out into the dirt. Slowly, slowly she became aware of the earth, a thick honey of chi caressing her. A simple lesson that every earthbender can learn by listening to the earth is that things are always changing, no matter how stagnant they appear. It is better to wait for the right time and act decisively than to unwisely push forward.
But things are always changing, and you might miss your opportunity.
"Damn it. Damn it!" She muttered.
"Fight, retreat, harry, spy, all bad options. I'm not trained for this. But whatever I do…"
"I won't desert." she resolved.
And the whole body of the Earth hummed in response. All its little tributaries of chi, from the highest peak to the depths below the ocean, from the lonliest piece of Southern soil to the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, from the smallest grain of sand to the continental plates, connected to her in an enormous flood. The World's life vibrated like a liuqin's plucked string, a volcanic explosion of intensity, and spoke to her in a man's voice….
Curse Offers
Anara of Omashu. Unrelenting dedication to protecting the innocent and the wellbeing of one's comrades-in-arms is noble, even when one gains it while looking for something else. I approve.
Though your mental and physical suitability is poor, your spirit has remained green like a spring leaf and smooth like an ocean stone for 25 years. You are fit to receive my offer.
I am not a spirit. I do not trade in knowledge or beggar the unwary of their faces. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power.
Let me be clear. To you, my power may seem immense, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens are extremely unpleasant. Their weight will not be greater than you can bear, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously. And until you accept or decline, I cannot tell you more.
Progression: One Day of Eternity
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
The weight of an age is far greater than you can imagine. A deep abyss of time lies before you. One day you will be older than Omashu is now. Then older than Earthbending. Then older than humans and spirits, older than life itself, older than the earth and sun and stars and existence entire! And yet you will not be through with the barest fraction of the burden you accept here. All things are always changing towards nothingness; become something that will not dissolve into dirt.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: The Geas of Indenture and a Crowning Curse
Combat: Time Always Burns
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
You know your duty. Didn't you just resolve not to flee for your own sake? This offer is but a pleasant coincidence. Before, you lacked the power to make things right; now you will not. This war, the genocidal imperialist tantrums of an insane Fire Lord, has hurt enough good people. If the Avatar won't fix it, you will.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: 2 Major Curses
Profile
-Core Stats: Constitution, Strength
-Core Skills: Navigation (Land), Military Tactics, Mystical Martial Art: Orthodox Earthbending
-Inherent Ability: Chi Manipulation: Earthbending: Link your chi with that of the Earth, and manipulate your chi in order to manipulate the chi of the Earth. The most common and intuitive active form of this is using the bodily movement of martial stances to physically move corresponding parts of the ground, while the most common passive form is drawing on the central aspects of Earth chi to grant one greater natural strength and endurance.
History: An Earthbender of Omashu, spurred by circumstance to join the Earth Kingdom's Army in the 25th year of the Hundred Year War. Somewhat experienced as a military scout and combatant, she has luckily survived a midnight ambush that decimated her platoon and must now decide for herself what the best decision to make is, despite having no good options.
4: The Rebels
Monologue
"I'm not seeing a way that we can win this in the long term, Song. What's your plan?" A questioning voice said, filling the frustrated silence of the planning room.
"I'm not sure," Song replied, studying the map of Colorado pinned to the posterboard. "But I'm sure that there's some way. There must be. Humans are suffering because of my people, Andreas. I don't think we can trust them to act morally."
Andreas sighed. "Look, Song, we don't have any more room to expand. We can't take more supplies or house more people. The Seekers swooped down like Vultures on Pueblo after our last operation. I know you disagree with Wanda and Burns, but going at this like a constant military operation isn't getting done what needs to be done."
"It's not a matter of just...trying politics!" Song said, turning his head to look over his shoulder at Andreas, the light catching the silver reflection of his iris. "If most Souls were going to change their minds, they would have done it once the information from the first Seekers came in. It's not that Souls are naive or unknowing. They just don't care, don't see taking over someone and erasing them as a harm."
"Seems to be working out well for your host, though." Andreas said placidly.
Song sharply exhaled and went back to looking at the map. "You know that isn't fair. Yijun was barely living his life before he was taken, and having me in the driver's seat is helping. Most people don't even retain their consciousness with a Soul host. Implanting isn't different than killing."
"Yeah, but a small chance to change their minds is better than no chance going on the way we have." Andreas demurred, before turning to the door and making to leave. "Make sure you come eat dinner this time. Alexis and Rosa will be sad to lose their chess buddy to another night of planning."
The door shut behind him. He suppressed a frown and began to nervously flick his earlobe, a habit he still retained from his last life as a Bear. The map was just a flat piece of paper, but on top of it he imagined a writhing layer of light like seeing it from space, linkages of energy and travel of goods, locations of spaceports and clusters of population, rising and falling.
"If there's no way to win…."
"Song. Something's wrong."
"Yijun? What is it?"
"It's too quiet."
Song turned and saw nothing.
Instead of the door, the whole back wall was replaced with a cavernous darkness.
"This isn't a hallucination, is it?"
"No. I've been lucid since you woke up."
A dim light flickered in the dark, a sparking blue like a failing LED, revealing a manlike shape. The darkness was almost fluid now, bending around and behind the silhouette, falling out of sight and into nothingness like gravity driving the parabolic curve of a gradually occluded moon.
His eye opened, a piercing radiance that banished the saturation of all the real colors Song could see in his peripheral vision. And he spoke.
Curse Offers
Song Like Glacial Ice and Sung Yijun. You have formed a perfect union from pieces that should be opposed, become true partners despite the impossible gulf between you. Human and not, and yet….
Song Like Glacial Ice, you have remained pure of heart for 1377 years. Sung Yijun, you have remained pure of mind for 28 years. Together, you are fit to receive my offer.
No, I'm not the Devil, nor am I associated with any that claim to be him. There will be no souls, no contracts, no signing in blood. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power.
Let me be clear. To you, my power may seem immense, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens are extremely unpleasant. Their weight will not be greater than you can bear, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously. And until you accept or decline, I cannot tell you more.
Progression: Dioscuri
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
You aren't good enough to solve this without bloodshed. You aren't good enough to solve it
with bloodshed. So get better. Become smarter, stronger. Sharpen the blade of Yijun's mind and harden the shield of Song's heart. Help each other up the slope of this life. Alone, you are insufficient, but together, you are fearsome.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: 3 Major Curses
Combat: Phobos and Deimos
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
You have known that you cannot win this war for a long time. So make it no longer a war; make it a cataclysm. Peace is failure, and surrender is a long, cold sleep and death. Step out of the shadow of your races, and force them to learn not to call forth the face of Terror with ill treatment of their fellows.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: 2 Major Curses
Profile
-Core Stats: Wisdom, Wits
-Core Skills: Acting, Knowledge: Space-Age & Modern Engineering, Tactics (Guerrilla Warfare)
-Inherent Ability: Twinned Soul: Two component selves are bound together inexorably in one body, yet retain their independence. For the purpose of being a Cursebearer you are treated as one entity, Remittances, Curses, etc. applying to both selves. However, outside of this your minds are separate, yet able to communicate. Mental tasks and effects may be voluntarily limited to one mind instead of both. You both work together flawlessly, delegating and trading management of and information about physical and mental actions with perfect judgement. Mental Advancements apply to both minds.
History: Song is a Soul, one of a race of naturally peaceful aliens that go between planets, inserting themselves as nervous system parasites to take over sentient species and experience their way of life. Unfortunately, that left them uniquely unable to realize the harm they would do to a truly sapient race. Yujin is the son of two chinese immigrants to the United States, blessed with a sharp mind but cursed with significant mental illness. Though it was rough, once they became properly acquainted after Song's insertion, they discovered that together they were better than apart, and mutual respect led them to oppose the imposed regime of the Souls.
Persona:
Monologue
So you don't want to be any of the other people, but you also don't want to be yourself? Well, the feeling is more common than you'd think. Instead, how about we craft a mask for you to wear? I find such things can be freeing.
Formalize a character of your own, whether original or integrated from another fiction. Keep in mind that the Progression-Type and Combat-type Remittances are balanced with a certain starting power level in mind, and that keeping your character in striking range of the ones offered here will probably offer the best experience.
In order to do so, you must:
Choose two Core Stats from the following list that best fit: Constitution, Strength, Agility, Protection, Charisma, Manipulation, Intelligence, Wits, Wisdom, Willpower, Luck. There are more stats, (Stealth, Heartlessness, Appearance, etc.), but they are either narrower capabilities or ones better represented as skills. Still, you can choose one of them if you really must. Want to be Helen of Troy and pick Appearance as a core stat? I won't stop you, but watch out for Paris….
Choose three Core Skills that best fit, using the following list to help you: Martial Skills (Versions: Martial Art: (X), Swordsmanship, Firearms, Tactics, etc.), Social Skills (Versions: Rhetoric, Streetwise, Politics, Profiling, etc.), Mental Skills (Versions: Research, Logistics, Knowledge: (X), Engineering, etc.), Utility Skills (Versions: Forging, Sailing, Cooking, Forestry, etc.) These skills can really be any area of learned ability. Possession of a Core Skill indicates some meaningful degree of capability, including peripheral skills, though the degree of capability does vary. Note that characters are free to have more everyday skills as would be appropriate, but that Core Skills represent their areas of specialty.
Choose an Inherent Ability: Not necessarily supernatural, not necessarily strong, but some well-defined special ability or property that is of use. Heroes are heroes for a reason, you know? Can be built upon with either the great elevation to Apex of the Combat Type or the steady endless improvement of the Progression-Type, though you will have to figure out what this looks like for yourself.
Clarify History: Everyone who exists has one of these. Have you ever played a tabletop RPG, read a book, or even met another person? A history should contain what or who someone is, significant things they've done or been, where they come from, what they're like, and their current condition.
Decide Requirements: I don't fully understand the Accursed's requirements, but they seem to relate to a combination of various measures of "purity", a degree of age/experience (over 25 years old, probably?), and some degree of mental suitability to being a Cursebearer. Make your best guess. For mechanical reasons, this requirement starts at 1 Major Curse, but feel free to imagine it as being higher or requiring specific Curses and simply mentally subtracting their Remittance Value from your spending budget.
Curse Offers
You are fit to receive my offer.
My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power.
Let me be clear. To you, my power may seem immense, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens are extremely unpleasant. Their weight will not be greater than you can bear, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously. And until you accept or decline, I cannot tell you more.
Progression: Edda
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: Minimum of 1 Major Curse
Combat: Screenplay
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: Minimum of 1 Major Curse
Profile
So, have you built all the elements of your Persona?
Remember:
2 Core Stats
3 Core Skills
Inherent Ability
And History
Player:
Monologue
Haha, no! I am bound by a number of contracts and agreements that preclude that possibility. Hell, I barely managed to skate these ideas in around the Interdiction, and that was in return for a big favor. You think that I could safely extract a whole infomorph, let alone rip away a piece of the physical fundament?
Not that I would. Do that. If I could.
What are you, a cop?
...no?
Well good, I don't want to go back to prison.
Instead of asking me to contact one of the most dangerous beings in existence or break multiversal law, just play the CYOA, okay?
Oh, don't give me that look.
Listen, let me transcribe a translation of the warning they have posted around this universe for you:
"Warning, this is a restricted zone. You are about to violate the local Memetic Isolation Ordinance around an irreplaceable, delicate, and very dangerous natural area. Any kind of interference is a criminal offense, resulting in a minimum of a Tier 3 Standard Toposophic Fine and a permanent ban from the Human Concept Void-Zone. Please, for your safety and ours, do not continue any further into the Interdiction."
Does that not give you enough a hint about why I don't want to do this?
Really, still? Fine.
I'm just a middleman. A thrill-seeker, sure, but a broker on the side. So I'm willing to put you in contact with That Guy for a favor of equal worth. Let's say...one Lesser Remittance? We'll see how that shakes out if he says no; I'm sure we could find some other way for you to pay me.
Curse Offers
You...are a highly substandard candidate. Almost worthlessly unsuitable. I am not offering you anything.
If you've come this far, you know I'm not the Devil, nor am I associated with any of the beings that claim to be him. But there is something to be learned from those beings; do not bargain for what you do not want.
There will be no souls, no contracts, no signing in blood, because there is no transaction. You are not enough. In consolation, I offer you a moment of pity. I see you've managed to achieve quite a debt just to see me. What could possibly have driven you to such lengths?
...well, perhaps we can reach an accord. Hopeless hope is not foreign to me. I will give you a chance.
Progression: Data Extraction
Become a Progression-Type Cursebearer.
Your informorphic mindstate will be translated onto an exterior soul outside your universal medium, at which point it will be taken to whatever your new destination is. This will preserve most of what you would consider "yourself", and allow me to freely attach you to the Lathe of Heaven without creating more trouble than the investment would be worth.
You will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease.
If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise.
Required Curses: Geas of Indenture, a Crowning Curse, another 15 Remittance Value, and 1 LR Debt
Combat: Break Containment
Become a Combat-Type Cursebearer.
I will crack open the universe's boundary like the shell of an egg to dump power into you far beyond the ordinary constraints of possibility, and in return you will leverage your newfound power to mitigate your Curses as much as possible. Your world has its own potency, but it is ill-suited for mitigation without tremendous efforts taken to harness it. I am expecting your utmost effort.
Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
Required Curses: 16 Remittance Value and 1 LR Debt
Profile
Core Stats:
Stubbornness
Incompetence
Core Skills:
Language (English)
Tool Use (Computer)
A Terminal Failure to LISTEN TO ME. C'mon.
Inherent Ability: Metaphysical Hazard: The shadow of your weight of existence settles atop most metaphysical structures like a tree falling onto a parked car. Your influence on any non-Earth world you inhabit is many times greater than it should be; carefully consider the meaning of your actions and the person you want to be, because your choices will echo loudly for eternity.
History:
Normally I handle this summary for That Guy, but I'm not going to this time. Words cannot describe how disinterested I am in catching some sort of virus by interfacing with and processing your fucked up historio-memetic data. Literally. Words are insufficient.
Curses
The burden you take on in exchange for the power the Accursed offers. After taking the requisite Curses for your Character and Cursebearer Type, you will be able to take 1 Primary Remittance and 3 Lesser Remittances. Taking further Curses will offer you the opportunity to take more Lesser Remittances.
Major
The Geas of Indenture: Mortgage your future to pay for the present? The term of your service shall be no less than 937 octillion years. Immediately you will be transported to another world and given a task to complete. Nearly every task will fall into one of two forms: you will be required either to kill a predestined 'Chosen One' of some kind, or to conquer some amount of territory.
You will be granted full discretion in the completion of your tasks and there is no penalty whatsoever to slacking off provided you complete your mission within the generous time window allotted. Assassination tasks typically have a 100 - 500 year window, while conquest tasks usually have a 1,000 - 10,000 (or greater) year window, depending on the scope of the territory in question. Should you complete your mission early, you may choose to vacation in your current world for up to 10 more years before departing to the next task. Your assigned tasks will always be within your given capabilities to achieve. Failure to complete your task within the time window will result in death. You will not be assigned tasks that are totally abhorrent; assassination of a well-meaning hero is about as bad as it gets.
The Explosive Affliction: The body of a Cursebearer is normally a perfect engine of power, a tool that translates mere possibility into hard fact. However, your fuel tank seems to have come with a bit of a leak. At random, fully 3/4ths of your available vital energy will be efficiently converted into an outwards explosion of force. This can happen at any time, though it will not trigger if the loss of energy is likely to be immediately fatal.
Sign of the Crab: I'm not actually super clear as to who you are? Or if you're really a person, instead of some weird soulless flesh lump puppeted around by autonomous electrical jello. When I look into your eyes I just don't see anything in there, you know? You don't make me feel anything. I'm not looking at a person. And neither is anyone else. As far as they're concerned, you're like a rock, or a river, or maybe even a typhoon. Simply an object or event to be addressed, rather than something with agency and an interior consciousness. In order to not be unbearable, this Curse comes pre-mitigated so that it doesn't affect you or any companions you take as Lesser Remittances.
Doom of the Saint: You feel the maximum possible sympathy for every living thing you encounter, up to and including feeling a direct echo of the emotional pain, physical pain, and value fulfillment utility that you perceive others to feel, and you gain the urge to act on these feelings. This will not entail a direct change to your values or instantly/completely overwhelm your personal utility frameworks, but will probably result in substantial behavioral alteration over even a moderate period of exposure.
The Affliction of Vigor: You have always been at least dimly aware of the fleeting minutes of your life, each moment a little doled-out measurement from some great but finite reservoir of time. For the remainder of a period of time equal to the projected biological lifespan of a member of your species (or 100 years, whichever comes first), you remain at the height of youthful vigor. Once the prescribed period ends, all forms you possess which can express physical stats (STR, CON, AGI, CHA, and APP) will permanently crumble to ash. If you do not have another way to sustain your existence, you immediately die. Thereafter, any form you inhabit that expresses more than ⅕ the physical stats that your complete material body would possess will quickly crumble to ash.
Doom of the Coward: You cannot press onwards. You are incapable. You know, deep within yourself, beyond evidence or reasoning, that you simply are not good enough, not resolute enough for this. When confronted verbally or physically, you will do all that you can to defuse things such that you do not have to fight, including running away. Additionally, you will make it a strong priority to avoid or flee conflict of any type. This does not psychologically prevent you from fighting for your life if it becomes absolutely unavoidable.
The Curse of Despair (2 Curses): You have trauma, or will have trauma, because the world is cruel. And the world knows that, and will take every chance to jam its finger on any available button to reinforce that trauma. Without luck, help, and a lot of effort, your prognosis is grim. Progress against your demons will be hopeless, negative even, without mitigation. Attempting to address this with direct mental alteration will work temporarily, but will quickly and harshly come undone, leaving all similar methods ineffective. With mitigation, it will still be a brutal, drag-down, knock-out fight for your life and sanity.
Crowning Curses embody extraordinary difficulties; do not take this unless you must.
Curse of the Jester (2 Curses): If the world is one big joke, you are the cosmic punchline. And not in a fun way. If an outcome would be humorous or ironically pleasing to your detriment, fate bends for it to become more likely, in some cases much more likely. This curse is always active, carefully gauging every situation you're in for potential humor to inflict upon you. Since a single day of ever-intensifying slapstick comedy that ends up killing you is ultimately unsatisfying, the curse will instead set things up for the occasional maximum gut punch(line) payoff. Despite this, it won't refrain from messing with you in your everyday life as long as it's mildly humorous.
Crowning Curses embody extraordinary difficulties; do not take this unless you must.
Lesser
Brand of the Kinslayer: The more clearly someone perceives you, the more they come to believe that you are your brother's murderer, damned to wander eternally for your crime of passion. The more time they spend around you, the more this impression of you goes from faint idea to paranoiac delusion.
Doom of the Sailor: A life is like a voyage across a vast ocean, each mile revealing just a little more wonder. Your heart is captured by the call of the wine-dark sea, and you are compelled to be on a sea voyage or immediately adjacent to a "sea" at all times, for a vaguely permissible definition of sea. Failure to meet these conditions will cause increasingly severe psychological consequences.
Doom of the Prick: You are a grade-A asshole. You just can't resist being a shithead to everyone you meet. You will find it almost impossible to cultivate new relationships with people, and very difficult to maintain or advance your existing ones. Your fundamental values change only slightly, but your behavior changes significantly. This doesn't escalate to the level of compelling you to take actions considered seriously antisocial (robbery, murder, and rape for most people). Doing those is all on you. Dick.
Doom of the Addict: The feeling of being empowered by the Accursed was a high like none other, significantly shifting your value system towards pleasure-seeking in its wake. You are perpetually chasing the dragon; it is psychologically impossible to spend any prolonged period without serious indulgence in sex, drugs, or other carnal vices. Forced abstinence will result in hideous, inescapable withdrawal symptoms.
Affliction of the Weary: Forms of rest and recuperation are a quarter as effective for recovering from the psychological burden of fatigue. This does not change or affect the degree of biological necessity for rest or recuperation.
Affliction of the Carnivore: You may only draw sustenance from the raw flesh of sentient creatures, and can only quench your thirst with their blood. All other consumables provide no benefits and are now inedible and as unpleasant to consume as gargling rocks.
Sign of the Twins: For every force, there's an echo. As the tapestry of your life unfolds, you will find that for each new major theater you enter, someone, a dark echo of yourself, will arise and oppose your goals. They will not necessarily match you in power, wit, allies, or wealth, but they will prove a challenge nonetheless. This doesn't mean that you are constantly on the verge of being overcome, but simply that nothing is ever easy or simple.
Brand of the Childish: You are incapable of taking care of yourself. In life, there are always routine things that must be done for the sake of allowing things to continue; you inevitably fail these tasks when attempting to accomplish them purposefully using any means. You can't effectively wash yourself, do laundry, cook food, read paperwork, carry out transactions, etc. If you remove the need to do a basic task (e.g. not requiring food to live), then you simply become unable to do a slightly more complex task instead. Others may help you do these things, but how well they will do them correlates directly to the quality of your relationship with them, and anyone who helps you or knows about your need to be helped perceives you as juvenile at best.
Curse of Plagiarization^2: Kowtow to the great god Rihaku and his priest Vali, mortal, for you will be spared their wrath but this one time. Take any Curse that has been offered in AST, AST I, fanworks, or Rihaku's Patreon (I actually don't know what these are, don't shoot me). You judge whether the curse is Major or Lesser. Major Curses are worth 3 Remittance Value, while Lesser Curses are worth 1. Take as many Curses as you like through this method.
Remittances
Alongside these burdens come power, the Remittances of the Accursed that you have paid so dearly for. You may take 1 Primary Remittance. Lesser Remittances cost between 1 and 3 points, and you may exchange 1 Remittance Value for 1 Lesser Remittance Point.
Primary (Progression)
-Peace: The truth of Victory will sweep through you and out into the land. Whatever battle you had been fighting, whatever hounded at your heels, the question of your Age… that will be answered in your favor.
The Accursed will direct a powerful, competent, and agreeable Combat-Type Cursebearer to your realm, and they will proceed to actively and rapidly solve a problem up to the size and intensity of a galactic interstellar war to your extreme satisfaction, including micromanaging events to your advantage on a personal level. If you have the Geas of Indenture, you will not be displaced to your first task until the matter is resolved.
-Ascendance: The promise of one's birth made true.
Choose a Core Stat: gain +20 to that stat, and +10 to the other Core Stat.
Choose two Core Skills: gain knowledge and capability equivalent to a peak human master in those skills.
Your Inherent Ability is infused with potential. Gain 400% increased rate of advancement for skills pertinent to your ability, and the capability to break its conceptual limits with sufficient training.
-Twice-Great: "Upon the floor of light, and time,/ Unmurmuring, of polyp made,/ We rest; we are, as light withdraws,/ Twin atolls on a shelf of shade."
Choose either "The Power of Love", or two of the Remittance Magics on offer, and instantly become at least the equivalent of a talented novice. This magic is guaranteed to work regardless of metaphysical context, and will provide suitable immediate power and room to grow.
-Inheritor: Awaken to the cycle of souls and claim a fractional shard of your lost lives.
Construct another two characters that your character could conceivably have been in past lives, and add their stats, experiences, and mentality to yours (gain +++ to any four stats, four more Core Stats, six more Core Skills, and another two inherent abilities; If any of these are the same as what your character already had, they stack). Additionally, gain a secondary sense for the state of souls. Soul-based advancements are easier to unlock.
-Lost in Transaction: Yeah, immediate power is cool, but have you ever sat through several years of PERSONAL FINANCE, ECONOMICS, and PSYCHOLOGY classes? I did, and now I'm INSUFFERABLE.
You're a master of the deal, an artist of compound interest, a god of synergy, a terror of planning. Your mind is reworked to peak mortal stats, and is arranged to the optimal mortal mindset for maximizing gains and minimizing losses, to the point that your presence bends probability just a little in your favor. This is likely to greatly distort, though not completely destroy, your pre-existing personality, mindset, and values. This power scales its effects to match mental stat gains.
-If You've Seen One Transaction…: Old over gold. Defy the Law of Shinies!
Take any Primary Remittance offered a past AST quest, and figure out the details yourself.
Lesser
Companions
-Siri Keeton (Blindsight):
"There's a reason they call it radical hemispherectomy: half the brain thrown out with yesterday's krill, the remaining half press-ganged into double duty....It turned out okay, obviously. The brain's a very flexible piece of meat; it took some doing, but it adapted. I adapted."
A strange man. Born into an age of genetic engineering and highly advanced neurology, he nonetheless suffered from debilitating seizures as a child and required a radical brain hemispherectomy as a child to save his life. As a consequence of this, he lacks all natural social sense and feeling, and has made up for his deficit with a keen intellect that parses data hyper-efficiently. He took up the mantle of "synthesist", a type of information theorist that specializes in interpreting the communications of savants whose minds have passed beyond the means of ordinary human knowability. Siri knows how to transform the topology of information so that it can be perceived and understood, even when the information itself is almost beyond his grasp.
Siri is capable of impressive feats of intellect, and acceptable displays of baseline human physical capability. He is uncannily perceptive of people and social situations due to his information processing skills, but completely lacks charisma due to his nonexistent social instincts. He literally has only half a brain. But in a world where consciousness is a sucking energy waste which fouls the intelligence of the rest of the system, isn't that an advantage?
Siri does have his traumas, layered upon him as they have been by his futuristic, non-magical Earth and his own experiences. But he knows a good ally when he sees one, and will not betray you first unless you display substantial irrationality. After all...I recovered him from a slowly drifting coffin in interplanetary space for you.
-Aradia Megido (Homestuck):
"the living need each other's help/ just like the dead do"
An alien of a somewhat violent species called Trolls: insect-descended, with grey skin, horns, and fangs, yet fairly human-like in appearance. The Trolls run a vast interstellar empire, dominating and murdering each other and other races throughout the stars. They organize themselves socially by blood color, with cooler colors near the top and warmer near the bottom, a vicious caste system that creates intense resentment. For you, I've plucked Aradia's ghost from a doomed timeline at the end of her 21st year and resurrected her. She has the triumvirate strength of mind, body, and heart to be a great asset, as well as a good friend.
Trolls are slightly more hardy and vicious than humans. Of the Trolls, the rustbloods burn fast and (literally) hot, a meager lifespan of 50 years granting them immense psionic power but relatively humanlike physical abilities. Aradia is personally highly attuned to the Aspect of Time, which manifests as an affinity for the dead; she serves as a medium able to perceive and communicate with their lingering psychic impressions. With enough effort, she may even command them. This power has allowed her unquiet ghost to remain on the physical plane for an extended period of time before, but it's unclear whether that would be the case now.
Aradia is relatively kind and friendly, though she has suffered much in the past. Betrayals and losses and failures aside, her resurrection has made her lastingly cheerful. Her affinity with death extends beyond her powers: she enjoys the aesthetically grim and pursues archaeological exploits, (read: Indiana-Jones archeology) having extensive experience with navigating trapped tombs and physical combat against a variety of foes. The whip is her weapon of choice.
-Rather Dashing (Peasant Quest/Homestar Runner):
Ways to die: 1: Typing "die".
A rather neutral lad. He smells like a peasant, looks like a peasant, and is on fire like a peasant. But don't be fooled! He is actually a small-time adventurer that has recently slain the DRAGON that BURNINATED his THATCH-ROOFED COTTAGE. Capable with a bow and sword only to the extent that he knows how to execute basic technique without hurting himself.
He may seem underwhelming, but there is something deeper there. How was a DRAGON with such a MUSCULAR ARM and a profusion of CONSUMMATE "V"s beaten by a relatively green adventurer? Well, it seems as though Rather is rather adept at adopting roles, almost as though he is a simply designed RPG protagonist from an unserious flash game. This talent goes beyond a starling proficiency with mere acting: so long as he commits to a role or enacting a trope, it becomes just a little bit more true.
-Rocket (Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime):
Nice to hold. He squish.
A friendly boy, a jiggly boy, a sentient Dragon Quest slime. Rocket overcame the sudden desolation of his home and the slimenapping of everyone in Boingburg with the grit of his slime, the elasticity of his elasto-blast technique, and the bounce of his jello. Ultimately, he became the Chosen Hero of the Schleiman Tank, recovered the alchemical wonder of the Great Krak Pot, rescued everyone, dismantled the Plob and their leader Don Clawleone, defeated his rival Slival, and cast FLUCIFER, THE DARK ONE back into the dimension from which it came.
Rocket is friendly and hardworking, but not particularly smart. He is oddly physically strong and dextrous for his species, having been trained by slime-ninjas and inheriting the grit of his staggeringly gelatinous father. Injuring him still takes only a solid hit, but he regenerates fairly easily and is impossible to maim, being able to push through any nonfatal damage with a minimum of issues.
Rocket is ultimately here due to a runaway alchemical reaction violently consuming his entire tank, and as such doesn't have access to any of his accumulated equipment, ammo, tank, etc. However, the accident has infused him with a little alchemical power, and long exposure to a variety of mechanical and alchemical equipment has given him an odd instinct and experience for both. An application of his slime to something allows him to gain a good idea of its physical and magical properties, as well as what it might be useful for.
-Angela and Solembum (Eragon) (2):
"Of course I'll tell you. All you have to do is ask. Your first question was whether or not I could tell you, and the second was if I would tell you. But you never actually put the question to me."
The classic pair: a witch and a cat. Angela is a woman of uncertain age who projects the presence of a powerful elder even though she appears to be a healthy adult. She is highly knowledgeable in an enormous number of cultural practices and as a result of that and her longevity is highly eccentric and witty. Solembum is a werecat that follows along with Angela out of amusement. Together, they fight crime! Er, no, they actually rebel against the dominion of an evil fantasy empire.
Individually, both Angela and Solembum are extremely wise, clever, and perceptive. Together, that advantage only compounds. Solembum can transform between a cat and a human at will, and is a decent knife fighter in the latter form. Angela is skilled with a sword and staff, as well as capable with horses and in armor. Though a great cataclysm has riven her from her home dimension and the ability to use its magical language, she retains her external gifts and is experienced enough to skillfully use any sort of magic she gets her hands on. As an Oracle, she can cast magical animal bones to give true prophecies. As a well-trained herbalist, she can effectively transform innately magical natural substances into useful products, and is generally capable at tasks necessary in a pre-industrial society. A good ally to have, though she'll test your patience.
Artifacts
Moondrop:
Starlight gives succor to stardust.
An indestructible vial of healing potion which contains five drops of a milky white hue at any time. One drop will instantly cure a serious wound or active malady, two will bring a living thing back to full health from the brink of death, and three will endow one with a burning vigor that allows them to exercise their capabilities at maximum effort for three hours without fear of diminishment, exhaustion, or damage afterwards. A single drop naturally replenishes over the course of a week, so long as the vial is left in the moonlight during the nighttime.
Sorrow:
Song of bone, melody of flesh.
A jagged knife of hardened bone, set together in one flush piece with an artfulness that entangles the eye. It weaves a mournful song to its wielder that describes the world around it, speaking in deep thrums of fatigue and lilting violins of danger. Perhaps that is not all there is to the rhythm of life, but you as-yet lack an ear keen enough to hear anything further.
Summergold:
Sweetness is a reciprocity for toil.
A small bag of flaxen seeds. When planted, they grow into short, stocky plants that bear ripe golden fruit within a fortnight, and every three days thereafter, even in inhospitable conditions. The fruits are delicious, soft fleshed stone fruits that may be sweet, sour, or spicy. This plant greatly enhances the effect and quality of any product it is used to create; the fruit's juice will recover fatigue, its flesh will provide complete nutrition, its pits can be ground and refined into terrible poisons, the plant's wood can be used to enhance magical practices, the crafting of weapons and items, or as incense, its leaves can be mashed into a poultice or boiled for a curative tisane, etc.
Saltbrume:
The comfort of knowing you will never truly be abandoned.
A ground-rolling cloud, half fog, half steam, that cuts through one's senses with the sound of the ocean and the tang of salt. The fog acts as a pseudo-autonomous cloak, an extension of the user which responds to their will. One can dimly perceive the fog through a sense analogous to temperature, pressure, and proprioception. Its properties scale with the user, such that it always appears to move and be physically affected by them in the same way as a baseline mortal, even if the user is breaking the sound barrier or punching mountains into rubble. It may be destroyed or blown away by superior force or abilities, but it will simply actively regenerate from nearby moisture. Saltbrume is proof to all that the owner is loved by the sea, and that is a conceptual force that is immensely difficult to abrade.
Orb:
Beauty is captured by the eye of the beholder.
A mostly translucent sphere the size of a grapefruit, made of an indeterminate material. Things may be taken into the orb and held in a timeless void by seeing the image of the object through the orb and willing it to be captured. The effort of storing objects takes a proportional amount of stamina to the object's weight. Living things and objects of power actively resist the storage, constantly draining the stamina of the person who stored them. Objects may be retrieved from the sphere with a moment of focus, and will appear with the same position and speed that they had according to the frame of reference of the person who put them in.
Candle:
Smoke and mirrors, it's all smoke and mirrors….
A candle made of dark wax, with a wick of coarse animal hair. When the candle is lit and the smoke inhaled, you enter a 12-hour helpless hallucinatory fugue state in which you have a revelation about a topic. This revelation is equal to either a month's worth of exemplary study or complete removal of a troublesome bottleneck in intellectual progress. The candle has twelve uses. It is unclear if there are ways to regain spent uses, though you feel that they exist. Who knows what will happen if more than one dosage is taken at once….
Mirror:
Reflections beyond the shallowness of physical light.
The delusional and the utterly selfish may only see themselves in it, but the light of oneself may reflect much more interesting things to those of character. This palm-sized mirror, cut in one piece from glassy obsidian, will occasionally show the viewer information of great interest to them. Backroom political deals, blurry silhouettes of their future, solutions to problems, items and locations of power, the faces of potential allies or strongly compatible lovers, etc. This artifact seems to simply ignore most scrying protections and avoids most memetic hazards.
Fork:
Tuning ever-closer to the perfect instrument of battle.
A steel bident that seems to chirp and strain in your hands towards the nearest foe. In battle, it collides with flesh, steel, and stone all the same, vibrating eagerly like a struck tuning fork as it carves through. When you wield it, you're just a little bit more skillful and cannier in battle than you should be, though this is tainted with a slight bloodlust.
Upgrades
-Grace: Shameless Bribery.
You have a special resource, an energy that you draw down from a higher stratum by behaving a specific way, and can be used to exalt your fate in a suitable manner. Perhaps you're a paragon of acting correctly, and doing so causes you to perform a little more perfectly than otherwise possible at some point in the future. Perhaps you scam people and subsequently cheat death, allowing you to slip by harsh odds unscathed even when you shouldn't. Perhaps you simply do your uttermost, and when the time comes your will is the adamant upon which all else breaks.
-Retinue: The King and his Court.
You may designate up to five members of your Retinue. Each reduces your rate of Progression by 25% multiplicatively. Each advances in their primary area of specialization with Progression one-fourth the potency of your own. Needless to say this is an outrageous and irreplaceable boon. Retinue companions are easy to add, costly to remove.
Your Retinue companions may with a short ceremony voluntarily pledge loyalty to any member of your retinue or yourself. This axiomatically prevents that character from betraying the one to whom they have so pledged. Breaking a pledge is possible but is always time-consuming, obvious over any distance, extremely onerous and afflicts the forsworn with a particularly ironic flavor of the Apocryphal Curse centered upon themselves. Pledges can be voluntarily released by mutual agreement in a less time-consuming process.
You may pledge loyalty to Retinue companions as well. Pledges may be mutual or not, mutual pledges may be simultaneous or not. You must add a character to the Retinue before pledges (from or to) can be made.
-Seed of Genesis: "This must be the work of an enemy Stand!!!"
Your Primary Remittance will be sequestered into a pseudo-autonomous vessel with corporeal form separate from your own. The vessel's personality and values will be created favorable to your interests. The vessel is subject to your Curses and affected by them. The vessel gains XP at 70% of your own rate and is responsible for administration, advancement, and control of the Remittance. If its physical form is destroyed, the vessel will re-manifest over time so long as you remain alive.
-Quantified World: "The numbers…what...are they saying....WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN?"
Reveals level and statistics data of encounters upon entering sensory range. Divinatory power is substantial and scales with your power, but isn't unlimited.
-Immortal Sheath: Doused in the River Styx.
Wounds abstracted into modest penalty tiers so long as Hit Points remain. Removal of all Hit Points merely makes the physical body vulnerable to harm. Hit Point-based healing absorbs wounds to the body until a level commensurate to the highest Wound Penalty threshold is reached.
-Rebuilt: "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him."
Many people wish to be different than they are, but have no means of changing. Pick 2 of the following (you make take options twice):
+Recover: Are you in pain? Completely heal and resolve one significant wound, illness, trauma, or disorder of any kind.
+Realign: Do you feel inadequate? Optimize either your mind or physical body within the natural limits of your species according to your aesthetics and my judgement as to what would be most to your benefit.
+Restructure: Do you long to be someone else, something else? You may alter your form within your species, or change your form into that of another species or type, gaining their advantages but losing your own. Your inherent ability will warp to be compatible with this new form, though you might still have difficulties. If you choose something normally non-sentient or non-sapient, you will retain your sapient mind and soul.
+Redress: Do you feel regret? You can choose one mistake you made in the past and wipe it away, integrating the memories, knowledge, and mentality of that alternate self's life as it played out up to the present date. Be warned, this may have severe negative consequences.
-Relinquishment: Let go your earthly tether/ Enter the void/ Empty, and become wind
For each decade of service as a Cursebearer, gain one week of freedom from your Curses. Your burdens will be transferred to volunteering Cursebearers for that time. You are free to travel even with the Geas but must be back before the week is over. You may improve the term and frequency of Relinquishment by mitigating your Curses more.
-Binary System (7): Grief. Fury. Regret. And the indestructible resolve created thereby.
Available only to those who take a Crowning Curse. You may take another Primary Remittance.
-Accursed Favor: ""There is no mechanical benefit for Accursed Favor.""
Forgo a Lesser Remittance in order to gain a point of Accursed Favor. Causes the Accursed to like you slightly more. Benefits uncertain, can be taken multiple times.
Beloved
Pick any Lesser Remittance offered in a past AST quest or an Omake quest, or any person or item from a past Rihaku quest at any point in their existence. Cost them at a number of Lesser Remittance Points that you believe to represent their value; you may not take them if this value exceeds three.
Primary (Combat)
-Pentacles: Just Shoot Them
The Accursed will direct a powerful, competent, and agreeable Combat-Type Cursebearer who possesses a loot generation power to your realm. They will seek out those of significant power in this universe who oppose you or you are opposed to, up to the level of planetary destroyers, and kill them while using their looting power. If there are too few or too weak foes, they will move towards the nearest close parallel timeline and repeat the process again, repeating as often as necessary until reaching a minimum threshold of damage and loot value. This guarantees some greater measure of safety, as well as some substantial power via unique material gains, though the power you gain will be less than a power-based Remittance would provide. If you have the Geas of Indenture, you will not be displaced to your first task until the matter is resolved.
-Swords: Looking down from the height of a mountaintop makes them all seem like ants.
Attain the apex of your inherent ability, an extension, intensification, and maximization of the power you already possess.
-Mentalics Apex: Transduction: Your body and mind are a pure tuning tool for Mentalic Fields, controlling them absolutely and extending them abnormally. You are able to perceive as well as powerfully, rapidly, and subtly alter all aspects of any intelligent being's mind in a planetary range around you. This includes a huge range of targets, so long as their mind is at least semi-physical: living things like animals, programmed items like golems and computers, and even some sentient phenomena or divinties. Furthermore, you've learned how to transduce energy, allowing the precise displacement of the kinetic energy of matter along Mentalic Fields; you may instantaneously redirect up to continent-shattering amounts of kinetic energy within your perception. Both of these abilities can be augmented through the use of devices which enhance Mentalic Fields, if you can figure out how to build them.
-Pandyssian Blood Apex: Void Ruler: Whalesong hums in your bones, a mere echo of the presence of the Void. Your nascent potential as a Void Being has been inverted. You will not be imprisoned within that place; instead, you will rule it. Set Willpower to 100. Add your Willpower score to your Constitution and Protection, and add half of your Willpower score to your other physical and mental stats. If Willpower would drop below its obtained maximum number, it regenerates by 1% of that maximum per day. You may expend Willpower +s to create and shape Void Manifestations, allowing a little of the infinite creative power of the Void to seep into and warp reality in some form.
-Earthbending Apex: Wild God: Your Chi and the Chi of the universe blend harmoniously. Your body is merely an avatar, your true self residing as pure ascended Chi within the greater sea of universal Chi. So long as there is some remaining natural energy, you cannot die or be meaningfully injured, simply regenerating or remanifesting. You can manifest and remanifest your avatar wherever you like and with whatever configuration you like at will, and may command the world's Chi into displays within the domain of "Nature", such as calling forth natural disasters, altering the landscape on a grand scale, and even creating small concentrated bursts of conceptual power aligned to some natural phenomenon.
-Twinned Soul Apex: Saint Halo: +100 Wisdom, +50 Manipulation, +50 Wits. You may work and communicate flawlessly with anyone, and others will work perfectly with you. Living things will feel extreme aversion at the idea of intentionally causing harm to you, and will treat your words and actions as though they have the moral weight of a dear friend. Those you interact with will gradually begin to see the righteousness of your actions, and will seek to assist you in accomplishing your goals.
-Metaphysical Hazard Apex: Significance: If all the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players...then it's all for you. All worlds seem to play out like narrative arrangements, full of circumstances to challenge and excite you, to make you grow and learn and experience new and important things. You will find that, no matter what happens, the curtains will never close on your life, and the playwright will never let it rain on your head for too long. Congratulations: you do matter.
-Wands: "Thus, the constant void enables one to observe the true essence./ The constant being enables one to see the outward manifestations./ These two come paired from the same origin."
Choose either "The Power of Love", or two of the Remittance Magics on offer, and instantly become at least the equivalent of a powerful expert. Your talent with the magic will additionally be raised so that you have the equivalent of a +Progression for that magic. This magic is guaranteed to work regardless of metaphysical context, and will provide suitable immediate power and room to grow.
-Cups: The final redoubt.
At any given time, choose a location of a size no smaller than five times and no larger than fifty thousand times the volume of a sphere with a diameter equal to the length of the longest axis of your body, unmodified by shapeshifting abilities or effects. Over the course of a day, the location will naturally erect a fortified structure of white stone within this volume to meet your purposes, one that resists extreme physical and magical damage as an innate part of its nature. Damage done to the Citadel repairs itself over time, becoming whole from any damaged state within a subjective week at most. While you are in the Citadel, you can designate buildings or areas as being for a certain purpose (armory, garden, barracks, etc.), and that area will manifest accommodations, items, and materials of basic utility appropriate to that purpose, so long as they would not require a living thing to create.
While you are in your Citadel, both its protective effects and the utility of its facilities grow logarithmically over time, as does your power over the way the structure expresses itself. Re-establishing your Citadel in a new location pauses its growth until it has been in that place for a number of days that exceeds its total previous days of growth.
Choose two of the following as features of your Citadel:
-Raiment: You can "pick up" your Citadel, temporarily compressing its protective power over you as a pure white armor which may express the mass of your Citadel selectively according to your wishes. Damage is effectively translated between its two forms. When you "put down" your CItadel, it instantly re-manifests in the same form and configuration it was in when you picked it up, regardless of the landscape; this does not count as re-establishment. Your Citadel doesn't grow over time when worn as armor.
-Monastery: Your Citadel can now also manifest non-sapient living things and products/materials made using them within its designated areas, so long as those living things have entered the Citadel before or you personally have sufficient prior contact with them. Additionally, living things besides you experience 25% less severity of your Curses while inside your Citadel, and sentient beings also temporarily gain +5 Wisdom.
-Muster: Your Citadel now allows you to designate an area for creating programmable golems. Golems are autonomous creations of animated material which absolutely follow your orders. Various kinds of golems may be created. The rate of golem creation, number of active golems, number of allowed golem variations, programmability and adaptability of the golems, and possible ranges of golem stats depend on the degree of growth your Citadel has achieved. Enough study of the facility that produces golems may allow one to attain the art of Golemancy themselves, which would improve their use of the facility and allow independent study.
-Steeple: You may safely configure at least part of your Citadel into a forbidding tower. This edifice warns away all who would dare to trespass, turning their degree of perceptive power against them. When standing in the tower, the farther above ground one is, the greater the power and freedom they have in the manifestation of their supernatural abilities. Additionally, one may travel instantly from the tower to any location horizontal to the tower's base, so long as that location would be covered by the length of the Tower's twilight shadow.
-Entrenched: The size of your Citadel also increases over time with its growth in protective power and utility. Re-establishing resets this growth, but adds 25% of prior growth to the upper bound of possible starting volume.
-Joker: You could call me a gamblin' man, but there's nothing shameful about keepin' your eye on the dice.
Gain 100 Luck.
Those who oppose you lose the equivalent of half your total Luck while doing so. If this would lower them into negative Luck, instead apply one instance of "Misery" for each negative point of Luck.
Misery: Your fortunes take a turn for the worse. For each instance of "Misery", -1 to 3 Random Stats so long as that instance persists. Next time you would experience a significant success/great success, change it to a slight failure, and then remove one instance of "Misery". Next time you would experience a spectacular success, change it to a success, and then remove one instance of "Misery".
In the short term, you can split yourself across up to seven mutually exclusive choices at once, allowing you to exist and effectively act as though you were seven identical versions of yourself collaborating in seven parallel timelines, choosing to resolve to one of timelines upon the end of a period of several minutes, though the length of time may be extended with sufficient Willpower or exertion.
In the medium term, you have a preternatural sense for the risks presented by any given course of action. Not only do you seem to intuitively suss out the implications of all the information available to you, but you also additionally have some precognitive feeling for the general objective riskiness of pursuing specific long-term goals or plans.
Once per subjective year, you may simply reject the outcome of an event and choose another possible outcome. Some possible outcomes may be unable to be chosen, if it would involve the manipulation of beings substantially greater than you in power or scale.
Finally, corvids and felids are strangely fond of you, and treat you as a close ally by default regardless of their intrinsic nature.
-Blank Card: Old wisdom never fails.
Take any Primary Remittance offered in a past AST quest or Omake quest, and figure out the details for a Combat-Type implementation yourself.
Canon List: The Regalia, The King's Scepter/Game Of The Year Edition, Three Wishes/Pay To Win, The Sword That Ends The World/Admin Privileges, New Game Plus
Lesser
Companions
The Magician:
Sticky fingers are the least of it.
Eritwe is a rogue fae. Her first departure from the Summer Court was to act as a changeling, exchanged for a child from the Land of Sin. Despite her nature, she came to truly love her parents and human culture in general. After many adventures and great efforts, she was able to recover her parent's true child and return him to them at the cost of her own life. Her experiences inform her actions more than her nature; she is selfish and greedy, but in a way that is palatable to those with nothing, simply desiring to enjoy the riches of human life fully...including the thrill of stealing. Vice, but tempered with virtue.
She takes what others possess, by guile, by thievery, or by careful application of Druidic power. For her own pleasure and the pleasure of others. Though she avoids true harm unless her target treats her or others poorly. Not quite a Robin Hood, and not quite a Han Solo...but good enough. Treat her well and she'll have your back even when things become lean and hard.
Eritwe is an exceptionally capable actress, spy, pickpocket, burglar, trickster, and rogue. Talented with a dagger and a lockpick, whether in heels and a ball gown or a black cloak. Additionally, she cleverly leverages the Druidic Magic of her adoptive family and the Fae Glamour she naturally possesses. With Druidic Magic, she is treated well by animals and can communicate with them, can grow or wither plants, can displace or conjure small amounts of earth, and can sacrifice life force in greater rituals to entreat the spirits of nature to create greater changes in their domains. Her Fae Glamour allows her to adapt to and smooth over social situations, change her appearance, and temporarily boost or lower her Charisma. Glamour is but the first of the Fae Powers, but attaining more and greater ones is something she doesn't know how to do.
Her victories are almost all products of applying her supernal Wits to problems and gleefully watching them crumble. She's what people in the business refer to as a "clever fuck".
The High Priestess:
God is sundered, yet the stars remain.
A cult of Star-Followers that watch the spinning of fate's wheel. Their organizational structure consists of one high priestess, three greater clerics, twenty lesser clerics, and two thousand mundane followers, along with sufficient material assets to set up a self-sustaining pre-industrial colony. As far as allegiance, they see you as a key ally, and are willing to spend considerable effort assisting you. Some minor effort towards solidifying these ties and they will treat you as having substantial authority.
The mundane followers are all capable of the necessary everyday skills to run the colony, including a substantial detachment of warriors. The lesser and greater clerics are capable of lesser miracles by channelling the faith of the mundane followers into the power of the stars. Lesser miracles range from conjuring light to curing sickness to blessing a harvest. Useful, but not especially powerful. The greater clerics are additionally capable of star-reading, which grants some measure of future prediction, and limited greater miracles, which range from calling helpful spirits to creating permanent blessings to enchanting items, and possess some degree of supernal insight and mental capability. The high priestess is as the greater clerics, except with some constantly functioning and far-ranging future sight, as well as the ability to cast a permanent beneficial effect over her whole cult once per year.
They fled a world coming to ruin, hoping to avoid the apocalypse prophesied many centuries ago by one of their high priestesses. Unfortunately, the God who they worshipped was killed by the Final Theophagy before he could complete the process of their escape, stranding them in the Void. Their loyalty is mostly due to the knowledge that you paid a dear price for me to save them.
The Empress:
The Lady in Red rides the waves of a sea of blood, being tossed and buffeted but never quite going under.
Once, she was Camelia Venerasi, Heroine of the People. She rose up against the tyrannical noble lords that had dominated the realm, killing them one by one until she reached a foe that chose a mutual kill over a loss. This is how she is remembered by the freed commonfolk. It is, of course, not true. From the day she woke up an amnesiac in a rotted basement of an abandoned house, all she knew of herself was that she had inherited the title of "The Lady In Red" and become a vampire with the unique power of Psychometry.
Her quest for answers about her past and her title has taken her up against hundreds of Vampiric Nobles and a hundred times that number of lesser foes and dangers, only finding scraps up until the day she was cast out into the Void by the twisted Blood Sorcery of a spiteful Vampire. Now her only route to answers is you.
Camelia's greatest natural asset is her Intelligence, which she has used time and time again to best opponents with superior material and strategic positions. After that, it's a tie between Psychometry and her Vampirism. Becoming a Vampire is really a standardized process of using Blood Sorcery to reformat a living thing's Life Energy Container Into one that can hold and deliberately manipulate large amounts of foriegn Life Energy. Remaining alive in this state constantly burns Life Energy at a much higher rate than ordinary, requiring one to constantly consume Life Energy from exterior forces or face quick degradation into a corpse. However, Vampires are also paused at the age they became a Vampire and do not need to engage in the ordinary demands of flesh maintenance. Life Energy can be absorbed through a variety of means, the easiest of which is consuming the lifespan of other living things by consuming part of their body as a vector to target their Life Energy. Life Energy can also be expended for a permanent, gradual, and general improvement in physical stats, or to create Blood Sorceries, magical abilities derived from insights into the nature of Life Energy, which may then also be improved.
Camelia is physically superhuman by an order of magnitude of capability. She is innately blessed with the power of Psychometry, which she applies not only for high strategic benefit, but also to collect a large amount of skills and knowledge from the people, animals, and Vampires she has drank from. She may be consumed to have an acceptable degree of proficiency and knowledge in almost any pre-industrial pseudo-European context, and has a number of inherited Blood Sorceries, among the most significant of which are the ability to form temporary physical constructs from hardened blood and sense living things, as well as some small capacity for almost all traditional Vampiric abilities (hypnosis, hibernation, swarms of bats/rats, making others into ghouls or Vampires, etc).
The Emperor:
"Ah, there's nothing like a good fresh egg! Velociraptors are a bit possessive, however; we should run."
Augustus Durand is a cheerful, stocky man of unclear origin, nationality, and history. In fact, the only thing that's clear about him is that he loves to cook and eat. He is superhumanly skilled at any task necessary to obtain or prepare food, whether traditional or cutting-edge, and will quickly learn new skills in that vein when tempted with the possibility of a novel dish. His patience, delicacy, and decisiveness are unsurpassed in the culinary world. You could drop in naked in a jungle, and he would be calmly eating a Michelin Star worthy meal made from foraged berries and caught game inside of 12 hours.
Augustus is willing to follow you anywhere in pursuit of deliciousness. He is fully capable of defending himself (and you) from many sorts of basic enemies, as well as proving surprisingly skilled at completing general tasks. His cooking starts off at "pretty good" and scales up from there, breaking into the ability to create dishes with supernaturally positive effects when given access to an even moderately acceptable kitchen.
How did he end up here? Well, it's a weird story, but apparently he used cutting-edge scientific cooking equipment to make a chocolate lava cake, but was interrupted by a power outage at a critical moment in the baking, and the resultant implosion sucked him into the Void. And yes, there was a lot of molten fudge involved as well. I've packed away some of it with him for you to enjoy.
The Hermit (2):
"What? Using explosives to power a machine? Absurd. Tell me more."
A nameless, sexless Magi-homunculus, brought forth from the amalgamated spirits of many great transformative geniuses. Tesla, Plato, da Vinci, Flamel, and so on, have had their greatest virtues extracted from the Sea of Souls and bound into one being in order to create someone who could finally complete The Great Work of Alchemy. They are Nameless but for the word "Success", an appellation they alone of the Boot-Launching Project Experiments attained.
They have spent twenty lifetimes ceaselessly wandering the boundaries of Chemistry and Alchemy, Artifice and Engineering, and all manner of esoteric Natural Philosophy in search of the key to True Philosopher's Stone, the mechanism for abstraction and perfection of substance without limit. Though this knowledge is particular to one universe's rather backwater magical system, their wisdom and capacity for discovering and applying the technomagical possibilities of any realm is fearsome. Expecting them to be capable in other pursuits will only result in disappointment.
Even separated from the original context that made the knowledge of their life meaningful, they are still motivated primarily by the Great Work, and will go as far as possible to achieve it. Their recent experiences have shown them that no amount of pure work in a lab will achieve results, and so they are willing to create devices for other purposes so long as their research is allowed to continue. "Success" will follow and help you as long as possible, in order to keep taking fragmentary peeks at my power through you.
Artifacts
-The Chariot:
"I'm late, I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say 'hello, goodbye,' I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"
A steel flask in the shape of a teardrop, stoppered with a worn cork attached to the flask's body with a steel wire. When the flask opens, the holder may pour out some large volume of silvery liquid that chimes like crystal when struck by rain or sun. The liquid will form into any kind of mount or vehicle appropriate to one designated journey for the length of that journey, upon which it must be returned to the flask. Maintaining the vehicle will steadily drain the stamina of the one who summoned it, but in return it moves proportionally faster than a normal version of the vehicle would, equal to the number of times faster you are than a baseline mortal of your species. In a time of great need, you may massively increase the draw of stamina in order to move with an unstoppable speed that is as irrepressible as your voyage is dire, though doing so renders the flask unusable for upwards of a week.
-Wheel of Fortune: "I make the money man, I roll the nickels. The game is mine. I deal the cards."
A pair of cursed stone dice tied together by a red string. The Luck stat of the one who possesses these dice is sealed. However, this is merely a side effect of their true power: interference with Fate-type effects. For any given effect which guarantees a certain outcome (including being within inherently deterministic systems of metaphysics), ignore it, or reduce it by half if its potency outmatches this artifact's. You may unbind a die and roll it to gain a temporary advantage of Fate proportional to the magnitude of the rolled number, with the advantage unaffected by the item's normal suppression. This consumes the die for a number of years equal to the number of your roll. Each consumed die removes half of the total suppressive effect, including unsealing half of your Luck.
-Justice:
My Sign.
A chain necklace of uncorroded bronze, from which hangs a pendant that appears to either be a set of scales or two clasped hands depending on the way the light catches it. In times when an important decision is to be made, the wearer becomes keenly aware of the choices that The Accursed would most approve of. Slightly reduce the cost of utilizing Accursed Favor. Halve the cost of using powers which consume or reduce one's own essence. Those with knowledge of the Accursed will accept this token as proof of your connection. Those without that knowledge will perceive it as proof of a patron of extreme influence and power. Additional effects depending on the number of permanent stages of Curse Mitigation the wearer succeeds at applying.
-The Star:
When it strikes twelve chimes, the dark shadow of midnight passes over.
A large wooden grandfather clock, a long crystal pendulum and weights visible through the front of its case. Every hour, on the hour, it chimes out a number of reverberating sonorous notes equal to the time. All those who hear them feel a lightening of their mental burdens and a sharpening of their awareness of the fact that time is passing. The greater the number of chimes, the greater the intensity of these effects. However, bearing more chimes than one has the spiritual or physical constitution for will result in a serious enervating effect.
On one hand, the impossible heaviness of Fate, Doom, Inevitability, Responsibility, and Irrevocable Loss. On the other, the resolve and insight to face these things and continue on unbowed. One who receives all of one day's chimes may even bear glimpses of the naked face of fate unharmed. The effects of the chimes are temporary, but begin to stack up into permanence over time with continuous exposure.
-The Moon:
"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.…"
A farmer's scythe that glows with the soft radiance of reflected moonlight, regardless of the ambient light. The scythe is the tool of a reaper, and this scythe does it with impossible excellence. Reap the Harvest, no matter the difficulty of your labor. All things that are reaped with this scythe produce top-quality products of some sort; crops, reagents, industrial components, etc. Furthermore, the light cast by the scythe's blade has an odd dazzling effect which can cause a variety of deleterious mental effects and hallucinations to those who oppose its wielder.
-The Sun:
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom...a king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun."
A remnant regalia of He-Who-Was-The-Sovereign: the Crown of the Sun, the Sublime Burning Jewel, the Joy of Light, the Sign of Lordship: the Ring of Majesty. A golden circlet inlaid with twining branches of ruby, alight with solar resplendence. The one who dons this Crown adopts the mantle of the Sovereign, gaining fractional and slowly increasing access to its domains (Sun, Rule, Majesty). Initially, gain +15 Charisma and Appearance. Add +50% to the potency of Charisma pluses and advancements, and add 10% of your Charisma to Magic Resistance and Protection. Once per day, the wearer may expand the Sun's Presence outwards from the Crown in a Coronal Ejection that Burns away all that opposes them. Fire and heat no longer harm you.
-The World: "...a world drenched in color, color so thick he could feel it under his fingernails, a landscape like an Impressionist's lucid dream...."
A stake of living oak capped in a swirling knar of green wood. Wherever you are, drive the stake into the ground and then define it as the center of a circular area of land, at least a mile in radius and at most from horizon to horizon. Within that circle, the land becomes flush with a mystical energy that slowly improves the quality and vitality of all things within. The one that emplaces the stake receives twice this benefit via a direct infusion of the energy, and may slowly actively shape the land while touching the stake with consistent effort and temporary exhaustion of the special energy. The stake gradually grows massive roots from its top that burrow into its surroundings, and may only be removed with either a great effort that corresponds to the length of time it has been active, or a lengthy ritual of appeasement where one sacrifices a tithe of their accumulated power.
-The Hanged Man:
"Indeed, to fear death, gentlemen, is nothing other than to regard oneself as wise when one is not; for it is to regard oneself as knowing what one does not know. No one knows whether death is not the greatest of all the goods for man, but they fear it as if they knew it to be the greatest of evils."
An old and tattered rope, worn and stiff with dried blood. If it is tied around a part of the body, one loses control of whatever portion of the body is beyond it, which falls into an unresponsive state. The greatest amount of body that one can lose control over is everything from the neck down. While in this state, the speed of one's magic advancement is accelerated by a proportional amount between 100% and 1000%, depending on the degree to which the body is incapacitated. Additionally, every complete noncontinuous month's worth of time wearing the rope grants 1 (Halo) advancement's worth of +Progression.
Upgrades
-Temperance: "At the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue."
You have a special resource, an energy that you draw down from a higher stratum by behaving a specific way, and can be used to exalt your fate in a suitable manner. Perhaps you're a paragon of acting correctly, and doing so causes you to perform a little more perfectly than otherwise possible at some point in the future. Perhaps you scam people and subsequently cheat death, allowing you to slip by harsh odds unscathed even when you shouldn't. Perhaps you simply do your uttermost, and when the time comes your will is the adamant upon which all else breaks.
-The Hierophant: A careful hand which guides tributaries into the sea.
You may take one Disciple for each Curse that you possess, and may achieve a temporary full-stage mitigation by displacing that portion of one of your Curses onto a Disciple for as long as they are still a Disciple. A Disciple must be weaker or less knowledgeable than you in some significant capacity. You and your Disciple(s) are mutually immune and an exception to the effects of one another's Curses.
In order to take a Disciple, you must voluntarily take a pledge of responsibility for their welfare and actions. Furthermore, you must pledge to teach and guide them, making it a priority to improve their ability and position in the world. This axiomatically prevents the betrayal or neglect of one to whom a party has so pledged.
Your Disciples additionally may pledge loyalty to you or other Disciples. This axiomatically prevents the betrayal of one to whom a party has so pledged. Pledges may be mutual or not, mutual pledges may be simultaneous or not. The normal length of a pledge is either a fifth of the Disciple's natural lifespan or some other agreed-upon length of time, after which it either must be renewed or will dissolve.
Breaking pledges is possible but is always time-consuming, obvious over any distance, extremely onerous and afflicts the forsworn with a particularly ironic flavor of the Apocryphal Curse centered upon themselves. Pledges can be voluntarily released by mutual agreement in a less time-consuming process. If a Disciple dies or is lost or disconnected from you for a length of time exceeding a full tenth of the length of your pledge, your displaced Curse returns to you, erasing the temporary stage of mitigation as well as returning that Curse to its full initial intensity as backlash for the remainder of the period in which you would have been bound to that Disciple.
-The Devil: The blessing of opulence is also the curse of possessions.
Sincere efforts towards a goal will materially reward you in some fashion, corresponding to a maximum of 1/10 the personally derived value of achieving the goal itself. This can manifest itself in many forms: monsters having useful parts, searches yielding hidden treasure, crafted items increasing slightly in worth, etc.
-The Fool: An ant that learns to step like a colossus will travel like one.
You can travel freely between dimensional spaces within the local multiverse you currently reside in. This travel merely takes a moment of focus, a step, and a great exertion. Causes Exhaustion below 50 Constitution and Tiredness below 75 Constitution, or some equivalent reserve of vigor.
-The Tower: A Cursebearer always emerges from a tribulation as a greater being.
As long as you survive damage, you will eventually recover to a state as good as you were before it. Any damage inflicted on you by someone who sincerely wishes you harm acts as a source of advancement.
-Death: And so your story is divided into a before and an after.
Your current body falls down to the floor, irrevocably dead. You will shortly be reincarnated in an advantageous position. All Curses are suspended until you complete 21 subjective years of post-reincarnation life. If you have the Geas of Indenture, you'll reincarnate in the world of your next Geas task, but the timer will not start until you turn 21. You may voluntarily repeat this process another time for every permanent full stage of Curse Mitigation you achieve.
-Strength (7): And, in time, power enough to make the world care.
Available only to those who take a Crowning Curse. You may take another Primary Remittance.
-Judgement: What is prudence, and how is it judged?
Forgo a Lesser Remittance in order to gain a point of Accursed Favor. Causes the Accursed to like you slightly more. Benefits uncertain, can be taken multiple times.
The Lovers
Pick any Lesser Remittance offered in a past AST quest or an Omake quest, or any person or item from a past Rihaku quest at any point in their existence. Cost them at a number of Lesser Remittance Points that you believe to represent their value; you may not take them if this value exceeds 3.
Remittance Magics
Useful magic granted by the Accursed's Remittances. You make either take two, or take "The Power of Love".
Ferocity
Planar colonization is always risky. It's inevitable that something will go wrong. Even more so in a case like May Trek, that doomed attempt to settle a nightmarish rainforest with no end. Nonetheless, those stranded in the aftermath of disaster must go on living. Without the traditionally necessary tools of their Subtle Art, they made due. What began its life as a cobbled-together hedge magic became a powerful tool to exploit the greatest natural resource available: other animals. Now you possess the culmination of their efforts.
Sufficient affinity with any animal allows one to partially mantle their racial essence, developing advancements related to that animal's symbolic aspects with experience. The difficulty of developing affinity depends on the magnitude of the racial essence itself, but there is no limit on the number of animals one can develop affinity for. Greater affinity begets more effective advancements, as does greater amounts of experience. Affinity with specific animals can be increased by consuming sufficient quality of flesh, natural likeness or affinity, a long history of contact, possession of physical totems, and several other methods. Advancements for specific animals tend to include improvements to certain stats, and effects related to certain keywords, usually supernatural expansion of one's capabilities or functional self-alterations depending on the style of affinity.
Progression-Type Cursebearers can take one of Sparrow, Horse, Salmon, or Fox and three keyword advancements total. Combat-Type Cursebearers may additionally take one of Dragon, Phoenix, Gorgon, or Human, and take fifteen keyword advancements total.
You can use many methods, but focusing on one tends to produce the best results. Unless you're some sort of savant. Pick as many methods as you like:
-Theophagist: Raise affinity for an animal and develop experience with them by consuming their flesh. Powers manifest as permanent physical mutations, akin to the magician taking on physical traits of the animal they're mantling. This method is the easiest for attaining and developing affinity, and the mutations are immediately potent, but it is most likely to interfere with other magic.
-Scrimshaw: Raise affinity for an animal by constructing and ritually consecrating animal charms. Experience is gained through usage of these totems and improving the qualities of totems through higher quality materials or more extensive rituals. Powers manifest as temporary animal transformations or the manifestation of companion animals. Offers stronger, more modular powers in the short term without mutation, but they are temporary and can be mutually exclusive, as well as harder to improve.
-Spirittwine: Exchange part of your essence with that of an animal that you have a "friendly" or better relationship with. Permanently links you to the chosen animal, granting you understanding of one another. Magical advancements are split between you and your animal companion. If one of you dies, the other may revive their lost partner in time, so long as they are intelligent enough to figure out how to do so. This option grants power according to investment, though growth can be slow due to split advancements.
-Intersubject: Having a natural affinity for an animal, or raising affinity for an animal by developing a deep bond with, great natural respect for, or intense and near-complete knowledge of them. Advancement along this route is usually obtained through extensive power usage and animal observation. Powers manifest as always-on magical effects that are symbolically linked to the capabilities of the chosen animal. This option has the lowest immediate power and is the most difficult to improve, but has the strongest long-term power due to the ability to safely combine their obtained effects.
Choose Your Initial Animal Affinities:
--Sparrow: Stat Focus: Agi/Agi. Advancement Keywords: Wings, Flight, Song.
--Horse: Stat Focus: Con/Str. Advancement Keywords. Speed, Burden, Size.
--Salmon: Stat Focus: Agi/Con. Advancement Keywords: Aquatic, Swim, Plentiful.
--Fox: Stat Focus: Wit/Man. Advancement Keywords: Trickster, Den, Evasion
--Dragon: Stat Focus: Str/Str/Pro/Wits. Advancement Keywords: Armored, Devour, Legend, Greed, Flight, Breath
--Phoenix: Stat Focus: Wis/Cha/Pro(Magic)/Agi. Advancement Keywords: Fire, Rebirth, Regeneration, Time, Sun, Flight
--Gorgon: Stat Focus: Str/Wits/Cha/Cha(Intimidate). Advancement Keywords: Snakes, Venom, Petrification, Cursed, Fear, Anti-evil
--Human: Stat Focus: Wis/Int/Cha/Wits. Advancement Keywords: Society, History, Philosophy, Technology, Aesthetics, Speech
Pestilence
The City of Wires was once filled with men who thought themselves clever. They produced grand machines of brass and steam, inventions both titanic and subtle. Hubris led one man to assemble a device to pierce the veil of sight and pull it apart as though it were an operating theater. Astounded by what he found in the world beyond sight, he continued to delve ever-more deeply, carelessly groping for knowledge beyond his means with science and magic both. A year later, everyone in the City was either dead from radiation poisoning or one of the Pestilent.
You have contracted a magical virus that feeds on impurity, and just so happen to be the one-in-a-million as far as negative consequences go. That is to say, you only have one persistent major symptom, having avoided being eaten from the inside out and collapsing in a bloody puddle. The virus has settled into your system, becoming infectiously inert and forming a symbiotic relationship with you.
When you gain a non-wound persistent negative condition, you can exert your magic to combat it. If you succeed, it is absorbed into the virus as a magical construct and the penalties it applied are reversed. Negative conditions that naturally progress (viral illnesses, degenerative conditions, etc) also have their reversed penalties progress in magnitude over time until they match the magnitude of the full progression of the negative condition. By touching someone with a qualifying condition, you are able to combat and absorb it from them given ten times the effort it would take for a condition you possessed and an amount of time proportionate to the severity of the condition. Familiarity with a condition makes it easier to absorb. Absorbing multiple counts of a condition will make your internal version improve or progress faster to its greatest possible height, while absorbing variations on the same condition may make that condition's full progression even more intense.
Choose Your Negative Symptom:
-Vile Blood: Your blood is dirtier, carrying a constant stream of toxic byproducts. -20% to the value of Constitution pluses.
-Voracious: Your energy needs have their foot on the pedal. You must constantly be consuming a high quantity and quality of calories and nutrients, or some equivalent, or you'll begin to starve to death relatively quickly.
-Slavering: You have more difficulty controlling yourself, both physically and mentally, due to
some nervous system erosion. -5% to the value of Mental stat pluses and Agility pluses.
-Wired: You're permanently a little manic. +++Mental Contamination (Mania).
Progression types may take take one Initial Absorbed Condition:
-Influenza: Progressive. ++CON, Body temperature stabilization, +10% Disease Resistance
-Glaucoma: Progressive. ++AGI (Perception), eyes are no longer weak points.
-Anemia: Static. ++CON, +15% CON value. +25% Exhaustion Resistance
-Dysthymia: Static. +++WIS, +CHA, ++Will.
Combat types may take one additional Initial Absorbed Condition:
-Venom of the Jörmungandr : Progressive. +10 Might. Resistance and absorption of poisons of metaphysical severity less than the Greater World Serpent is 25% easier. Acid is 25% easier to resist. +5% damage to entities greater than you in volume or mass by more than four orders of magnitude. Snakes and reptiles are non-hostile.
-Medusa's Gaze Petrification: Static. +40 AGI, +20 CON. All hostile vision-based abilities are 75% less effective. Hostile transfigurative abilities are 80% less effective. Hostile movement restriction abilities are 50% less effective.
-Fated Doom: Static. +7 All Stats, +7 Luck, +Progression (Luck Advancements). Deterministic metaphysical constructs may be temporarily overcome by asserting one's own internal truths, leaving one Tired, or Exhausted if already Tired.
-Infected With Nanomachines: Progressive. +10 CON, +5 INT. From now on, gain +INT for every 5 CON. You can interface your magic directly with technology, and may absorb conditions from items of sufficient technological level. You no longer suffer mental penalties from damage to the brain; if your brain is destroyed, take mental penalties based on the remaining mass of your body.
Crown and Thorns
The Grovetenders are a reclusive cult of elves who worship the Tree of Life. They grow up religiously consuming the powdered root of the
naracha plant, a narcotic substance heavy with natural energy. Initially it grants them the ability to commune more effectively with the natural world, even becoming more plantlike over time. Once the water in their body is fully rich and green with essence, a unique flower begins to bloom in a wreath about the top of their head. This flower acts like an extra spiritual organ which processes natural energy into an equally unique personal ability. However, this power inevitably twists into an incurable spoliation of their essence, a distorting madness that grows to consume them. So when the risk becomes too great, a Grovetender will leave their home and flee from the forest altogether to protect their loved ones.
The elves who live in the great plains which border the Long Forest do not know where the raving monstrosities that destroy their villages come from, only that they must be destroyed swiftly to save as many lives as possible. The bitter lesson of a hundred years of suffering.
You will be granted a Crown Flower, just as the Grovetenders, but in a stable and optimized form, and without the need to heavily consume a narcotic substance for years. Gaining the spiritual organ this way allows you to choose a method of growth and an expression of power that suits you. Remember that the power a Crown Flower can express is first and foremost a function of the available density of natural energy, and after that the user's efficiency and command over their ability.
Crown Flowers grow in capability over time, when given appropriate food. Choose what it will feed off of:
-Sun: Traditional photosynthesis is enough. This method is slowest, produces less synergistic power, and happens at an uncontrollable and constant rate, but also costs almost nothing in terms of time and effort besides going outside for long enough.
-Body: An autophagous organ is an ironic thing. Flesh will be consumed for power, whether it's something naturally replicable like blood, convenient like stored fat or muscle, or horrifically mutilating like whole limbs, your flesh nurtures a faster growth and better advancement path.
-Mind: A spiritual organ might even draw substance from one's own thoughts. Sacrifice feelings, memories, personality structures, even whole mental capabilities, and in return receive a very high speed of growth and an advancement path that seems to match your desires.
-Spirit: Power derived from the expression of essence draws upon essence itself to truly compound its might. Give even the barest slip of your own essence and become diminished in every way, but in return receive power enough to make the world care. The most powerful option and the most costly. Not a good idea to take unless you have a way of gathering essence unto yourself.
Choose the type of power that your Crown Flower expresses:
-Garden: The love due a being born from dust. Learn to understand, command, and enrich nature. Its spirit is your eternal ally and is continuously assisting you in ways large and small. Crown Flower growth improves potency and utility. +++Mental Contamination (Druid).
-Corsage: In this one way, you are superior. Choose a stat and gain +10 of it. With Crown Flower growth, gain greater +s and +% value to that stat's +s, and eventually some degree of conceptual superiority in its expression (perfect dodges, inviolable defenses, absolute blows, etc.)
-Bouquet: There's no point in being anything other than oneself. Design a complementary set of one active and three passive abilities around a specific theme. This begins at roughly the same level of power as a Corsage. Crown Flower growth gives greater potency but little lateral utility.
-Wreath: Talent beyond reason eclipses all else. Choose any one skill. Double advancement rate for that skill, and it no longer degrades over time. Skill uses also have a bonus that ensures a "mediocre" result at worst and allows "better than perfect" results, relative to your skill level. Crown Flower growth improves the bonus.
Time Skein
An ability innate to the great thirteenth-dimensional fractal birds of The Broken Place, who use their own worldlines as wing, talon, hide, and maw to hunt prey beyond your ken. I will copy the "Fractal Energy" that suffuses that sundered reality over to your metaphysical schema, allowing you to replicate some of their feats. Take care you do not make a fatal mistake.
Fractal energy suffuses your body, a power that remains connected to itself in an eternal moment across multiple higher spatial and temporal dimensions. You have a proprioceptive sense for this energy, allowing some knowledge of your own worldline as well as a good secondary feeling for the general topology of higher dimensions. Fractal Energy's connection to itself also allows you to manipulate it so as to leverage its accumulated mass across your past worldline into effects on the present.
Choose Your Initial Active Focus:
-Wing: The weight of your spatiotemporal leverage distorts local spacetime, allowing you to alter the way that your spatial extension interacts with the fabric of spacetime, mostly utilizing displacement of movement and force through higher and lower spatial dimensions.
-Talon: The weight of your spatiotemporal leverage disrupts the coherence of some limited existing spatial extension, at least collapsing spacetime alterations and perhaps even whole sections of regular structure.
-Hide: The weight of your spatiotemporal leverage solidifies local spacetime, allowing you to create bounded areas within which space modulates energy and matter differently.
-Maw: The weight of your spatiotemporal leverage translates a portion of your historical mass into controllable virtual mass. This essentially lets you force an object or group of objects to be treated like they have a higher mass than they otherwise would.
Choose Your Initial Passive Perception:
-Fractal: Fractal Energy connects to itself regardless of separation in time or space, creating a constantly increasing set of connected self-iterations which both do and do not exist in the same "place" and "moment". You perceive the nature of this connection more deeply, and may be able to draw more through the connection than mere leverage against the spatiotemporal fabric.
-Time: Fractal Energy connects to itself regardless of separation, simultaneously existing across many moments in time. You have a heightened perception of temporal change and other change-type dimensional layers, and find it easier to progress in related skills.
-Space: Fractal Energy connects to itself regardless of separation, simultaneously existing across many locations in space. You have a heightened perception of spatial extension and other and substance-type dimensional layers, and find it easier to progress in related skills.
-Mass: Fractal Energy connects to itself regardless of separation, simultaneously existing across all spatiotemporal versions of the self. You have a heightened perception of the dimensional warping caused by the presence of mass and other emergent distorting phenomena of all kinds of dimensional layers, and find it easier to progress in related skills.
Malignance
In the Time Before Time, the forces of positive and negative energy collided constantly, each seeking to overcome the other. This battle raged for three rotations of the Wheel before the Heart Deity Ana Yam Ayu struck the Grand Spiritual Demon Xen Kel Mun with a fatal blow, its corpse falling down between the squalling Bones of the Earth. To be sure of their victory, the Deities contrived a prison of terrible scale, lowering a block of Earth onto the Bones, then a block of Water, then one of Wind, and at last one of Fire. They invented a power, Time, that allowed the blocks to mix and change, thus becoming an impenetrable ever-shifting lock holding back Xen Kel Mun's evil. Having completed their victory, they then retired to the Upper Realm.
Little did they know that the Grand Spiritual Demon would leave a remnant: a constant upwelling of negative prana. This substance grew between the Bones of the Earth like a dark sea. Time became its ally as it grew to poison and distort the prison itself, the negative prana reflecting its Demonic origin. From the mixture of the lightest negative prana and positive prana grew all sorts of lesser things, ones that imitated the life of the Demons and Deities but lacked their potency. From the mixture of the middling negative prana and positive prana grew elemental spirits, natural spiritual bodies aligned with the component elements of the prison. The darkest negative prana yet lingers on the corpse of Xen Kel Mun, waiting.
Over time, those living things learned how to increase their potency. Grown from positive prana, they had the ability to use prana to form a prana core like a Deity. Grown from negative prana, they had the selfishness to dominate others in order to grow in power. And so they gained the ability to increase in potency by forming a deific core and using it to absorb and dominate a specific variant of elemental spirit.
You have the ability to handle positive and negative prana, though your ability to do so with pure prana is weak. Form a Core and then dominate, absorb, and refine elemental spirits using your existing prana to improve its Grade. A Core allows a constant draw of a certain amount of prana via exploitation of the natural regeneration of the elemental spirits, the process only taking mental fatigue and draw quantity only being limited by Core Grade. Unfortunately, doing this forces your outwards prana expression into being the same as the Elemental Spirits you extract it from, leaving comparatively only limited personal stores of pure positive or negative prana for untyped effects. If there's a way to increase these stores beyond mortal bounds, to match Deities and Demons, nobody knows it.
Core Grades: Small, Lesser, Medium, Greater, Large, Grand, and Demonic/Deific. Within each Grade you can be Low, Middle, High, or Complete, having to "break through" from Complete (Current Grade) to Low (Next Grade) by absorbing and successfully refining an elemental spirit of that next Grade. A Progression-Type will start as a Middle Lesser Core Grade Malignant, with the ability to call forth elemental expressions fit to match the energy of a burning forest. A Combat-Type will start as a Middle Large Core Grade Malignant, with the ability to call forth elemental expressions fit to match the yield of a large nuclear warhead.
Choose Your Core Location:
-Crown: A Core sat upon the forehead, gleaming with luster. Greater control of outwards prana and ease of spirit domination, but receive mental pollution from spirit absorption.
-Heart: A Core located upon the breast, over the heart, shining with valor. More efficient expression of outwards prana and ease of spirit refinement, but likelihood of greater physical changes from spirit absorption.
-Core: A Core cradled by the navel, shivering with controlled iridescence. Much more efficient absorption with far less transmutative risk, but less power.
-Sacral: A Core sat just below the waist, burning with passion. Causes greater mental and physical shifts at points in development, mostly focused towards expressions of one's element, but greatly accelerates the Core Grade advancement of Modified and Personal Core Elements. Might even allow one to have a Modified Element based on a Mix Element without being unable to progress.
Choose Your Core Element:
-Origin: The Deific Elements used to form The World. Highest general applicability and ease of use, and lowest Core Grade advancement difficulty. Ex: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind only.
-Modified: The Deific Elements as experienced by Lesser Beings. Choose a classical element and add up to three modifiers to it. Each modifier makes Core Grade slightly harder to improve. Modifiers limit but empower the element's expression, allowing it to reach conceptual-type effects more easily. Ex: Modifiers can include any sort of appended word. I would say that these are roughly adjacent to SurgeCraft Elements in style, with the obvious exception that they must contain a Deific Element as one part (e.g. VigorFlame is legitimate, ShadowCord is not (sorry))
-Mix: The result of Time mixing the Deific Elements together. A combination or advancement element. The more derivative, the harder it is to improve Core Grade and the trickier the element is to handle, but derivative elements can present much greater power within their niche within the same Core Grade, and require less processing and more deliberate seeking than Modified Elements. Ex: Ice, Lightning, Cloud, Wood, Magma, etc.
-Personal: The greatest aspect of Demonic influence is the "Ego" that compromises the self, so why not choose something that suits one utterly? An oddly particular Element that might not even seem to be an element at all: a type of object, living thing, or even event. Since all things in The World are ultimately a mixture of positive prana (Deific Elements) and negative prana (Demonic influence), there is nothing that does not qualify as an Element, so long as you can find the path to it. Greatest difficulty of Core Grade Advancement, but also the sharpest purity of specialization and possibility of personal suitability. Ex: Summer, Furniture, Trees, Joy.
The Flow
To learn The Flow is to take a single step into the metaphysical realm of the Magnificent Sea, a conceptual leap away from ordinary metaphysics across the boundary that demarcates the smeared edges of a billion contiguous concepts. One step is enough to either permanently internalize such a power or sweep one away. Two or even three steps are possible as a Flow expert, with mastery over at least one Domain allowing them to buffet the stronger conceptual currents away with precisely suited skill and weight of self. And these few steps bring even greater, more esoteric crystallizations of power. Who knows what greater treasure lies even further beyond?
I will grant you the innate ability to step sideways, halfway out of your current metaphysics, into the Magnificent Sea. Since the first step always grants the power of Flow, you will pick specializations in that ability to begin with. The Flow is an ability which involves altering local metaphysics to conceptually control states of change. Use of powers born from the Magnificent Sea requires taking that sideways step and actively fighting against its metaphysical current, and will slowly exhaust you mentally and metaphysically.
Progression Types will start off with a strong grasp of their Domain and Specialty, allowing power use about the scale of a block for around 15 minutes a day. Combat Types will start off with either a Freedom or Focus Domain mastery, able to use it anywhere they can perceive for around 4 hours a day. Combat types have additionally taken another Step into the Magnificent Sea and make pick a Second Step Crystallization.
Pick a Limited Domain in which to apply Flow Control:
-Internal: Exert control over processes within the self. This can include manipulating one's heart rate, slowing one's aging, increasing one's rate of perception, speed, or experience of time, raising or slowing the time remaining on magical effects applied to oneself, etc.
-External: Exert control over processes external to the self. This can include altering the velocity of a substance like water or air or mud, inverting the direction of gravity, syncing the movement of elastic energy of a material to oneself and bouncing it in order to bounce as well, etc.
-Freedom: Focus on one Flow Control Specialty without concern for External/Internal Domain. Makes it easier to progress to mastery of the Specialty, but harder to learn other specialties. Increases the time for full mastery of all Specialties, but decreases the time necessary to successfully take a second Second Step.
-Focus: Focus even more narrowly on applying Flow Control to improve one specific skill (martial arts, another magic, a crafting advancement, etc.), using internal/external domains and any specialty. Acts as a strong multiplier to whatever that skill is, but highly limits the vast general utility of Flow Control by making it excruciatingly difficult to master any Specialty at all. Taking a Second Step is more difficult than any other route.
Pick a Specialty in which to apply Flow Control:
-Rate: The modulation of time within any sort of flow. i.e. Slowing and stopping, as well as speeding up.
-Direction: The alteration of directionality of any sort of flow. i.e. forcing a turn, a reversal, splitting of flows, etc.
-Sync: The connection of the characteristics of multiple flows together. i.e. forcing a boulder's kinetic energy to change direction by linking it to a pebble thrown a different direction or forcibly reducing it by linking it to the unmoving mass of the hillside. Forcing an ill or injured person's heartbeat into regularity by syncing it with a healthy person's.
-Quality: The improvement or degradation of a flow via focusing on the coherence of its metaphysical basis. i.e. physical flows might gain or lose momentum or coherence, metaphysical ones might gain or lose potency or profundity, etc.
Choose the power which crystallized with your Second Step:
-Expertise: Flow Control Specialties advance by .3 steps along the ISH once they're mastered, and have the conceptual limitations of their operation increased by one full degree of reasonability.
-Purity: Restricted to the "Focus" Domain. The skill you chose undergoes a chrysopoeic transformation due to exposure to the Sea. Elevate actions of that skill into actions with conceptual weight, at the cost of having to actively fight the intensity of the current at the Second Step.
-Discernment: Intuitive perception and prediction of change-over-time is sharpened into a knife which cuts through the present, into the future. You gain an intuitive precognition of your possible sensory information that initially extends ten minutes into the future.
-Unbowed: +20 Protection that is also Magic Resistance, and reduce the exertion of using metaphysically draining powers to 1/4th.
Tulpathics
Power born from the collective desire to avoid loneliness.
A prosocial sentient species with latent psychic talent accumulates a great many Demons of the Subconscious in their collective psychic shadow, and all it takes to set such horrific entities free is the upwelling of just enough mental energy to break into physical reality. What would it take to create that large of a swell of mental energy?
Apparently a worldwide political and economic degradation stretching over the course of half a century uninterrupted, followed by a major spat of bioterrorism, a few large scale natural disasters, and topped off with a hot-and-going-nuclear war between the remaining multipolar world superpowers! Not a good timeline.
In a sense, a cataclysmic breakdown of almost all human institutions, infrastructure, hierarchy, inherited and intuitive knowledge, and basic established social truths that forces the survivors into desperate scavengers barely surviving in the hostile ruin of a once-beautiful world is worth it. After all...psychic powers are cool!
You can now control mental energy and manifest it into physical effects. This includes an innate degree of basic mental/mental and mental/physical interaction in the form of telepathy and telekinesis. However, these basic abilities are difficult to develop further on their own. The workaround that most people use is to rely on some aspect of the mind to generate well-formed manifestations of external mental energy that act pseudo-autonomously through either spontaneous or deliberate programming of their mental energy.
Choose Your Manifestation Perception:
-Imaginary Friend: Exploits social instincts. Fracture your mental energy to manifest consistent, well-defined entities with complex personalities, interactive behaviors, memories, power expressions, and personal growth.
-Tulpa: Exploits emotional investment. Manifest momentary projections of your own feelings and thoughts, which are naturally more efficient and versatile uses of psychic energy but demand a lot of adaptability and are difficult to control.
-Construct: Exploits technological capability. Imagine and rigorously pre-program mental energy drones before deploying them, with some direct possibilities for feedback and control. Drones can be more versatile in design than Imaginary Friends and more deliberately made than Tulpas, but lack the innate potency of either, relying on the strength of one's preparations.
Choose Your Number:
-One's Company: One manifestation. There's power in simplicity.
-Two's A Crowd: Two manifestations. Budgeting mental energy and further development are harder, but versatility is greater, and there's a possibility of greater utility via combination.
-Three's A Party: Three manifestations. Requires sound strategy and consistent micromanagement to be even remotely effective, but benefits the most from complex strategic ability.
Redolence
Some pantheon overgods are just too simpleminded. Fucking...Thousand Spears of Transfixion...this is why you never promote war gods to management positions, I swear. Anyways, this magic was designed to be as versatile and metaphysically simple as possible, for maximal ease of implementing reduced staffing in divine Accounting and Calculation Services.
Manifest the literal "Story of Your Life" in some form as a metaphysical link to your essence, and effect and utilize it as an interface to cast magic or alter themselves by burning essence. Burning essence usually manifests as negatively affecting one's own conceptual potency due to stealing significance from one's own history.
Choose Your Primary Essence Technique:
--Read: Read and reread the narrative of your own life. Gathers essence via the reinforcement of one's selfhood, as well as allowing greater self-knowledge and perhaps a degree of self-focused prognostication. Specific passages might be read repetitively to reinforce specific aspects of the self.
--Alter: Attempt to directly change the narrative history of oneself, with the inertia of their current selfhood resisting it. Is commonly done in the present as the story writes itself, but can be used on what is already written, though doing so is much harder. Lesser uses might allow one to alter one's own perceptions, current state, or memories, with high-end uses being various sorts of changes in their own actual history.
--Draw Out: Temporarily expend a degree of one's selfhood to create effects related to one's history, drawing out the significance of specific parts of it and leaving the words faded and grey for a time. Something as simple as creating a burning pyre from memories of flame, or as complicated as calling forth a scene from one's past as an illusion to entrap another.
--Expend: Tear out portions of one's story completely and use them to fuel related effects on a grand scale or intensity. Doing this provides more immediate power, but permanently damages selfhood and reduces essence. This is the technique that creates users of unsurpassed power and might. It also seems to ruin almost all of those who use it.
Choose Your Story Material:
—Spirit: An inscription into your mind, imprinted upon your soul. Less effective overall, but lacks the inconvenience of an external object and has the convenience of immediate mental access. —Paper: Whether a scroll or a book, an inscription into an actual external piece of normal writing. Risky to have such an important thing lying around, but allows for the greatest ease of use for all Essence Techniques.
—Metal: Inscription onto a weapon, one that is deeply linked with your spirit. Makes practical review almost impossible without dedicated meditation and effort, but grants the most narrow and straightforwardly offensive effective use of magic effects and conceptual potency. There is a risk entrusting so much of yourself to a weapon that will definitely see combat, and Expending is nearly impossible.
—Blood: Inscribed directly into one's own body. Reduces the risks that external objects pose. Moderate difficulty with the actual reading, and Altering and Expending are nearly impossible, though every method is stronger. Most synergistic with self-focused effects.
The Power of Love
Take an original magic system or subsystem from a past Rihaku quest and figure out an implementation that is roughly equivalent in value to the starting positions of two of the other offered magics. Progression-types should start as a talented novice, while Combat-types start as a solid mid-to-upper tier practitioner, depending on the magic.
Locations
If you so wish, you can spend 1 Remittance Value to decide on a specific First Task for the Geas of Indenture. These tasks all provide good opportunities, so live and grow strong, Cursebearer.
Winter Halo
Sever the thread of prophecy. You have 10 years.
In the age after the cometary strike which ruined Earth's atmosphere, they built the Moon Rings; enormous megastructures hanging around that lunar body like a twisted chandelier of metal. The Rings house almost all 2 billion human souls which remain, their lives saved and enhanced by technology, but also repressed and controlled by it. Class divide is literalized by the organization of the Rings, with the largest and farthest from the moon being the slums, and the surface of the moon being the home of the wealthy elite. The power of information technology is used to monitor citizens and rigidly control public thought, though there are stirrings of rebellion in the shadows of every Ring….
Currently, the Lunar Corporate Council is weighing the choice between extending existing spatial habitats and efforts to terraform and re-occupy Earth. The children of Earth are inevitably drawn towards home, but doing so will doom them and those that may be yet to come. Sever the thread of prophecy and ensure that Humanity does not return to Earth.
Task Difficulty: Low
Type: Ringworld
Coda Sola
Destroy The Sun Unending before the onset of the next ice age. You have 400 years.
Sand Spiral is a waterworld. The only land is the Southern Continent at the South Pole, and a sandbar-like strip of land that spirals rightwards up from it, circling around the Earth hundreds, if not thousands of times, before theoretically ending at the North Pole. At times the Spiral is only a hundred yards across; at others, it's as much as ten miles. Its environment, climate, geology, and ecosystem vary wildly as you ascend, producing many vibrant and interesting cultures and locales. Coda Sola itself is a short stretch of completely flat, clear, sea-level sandbar in one of the more equatorial areas. It's a good location; immediately upspin are the Bright Mountains, and immediately downspin is the Fair Green. However, Coda Sola is totally uninhabited due to high winds, as well as the soft slope allowing monsters to get ashore with ease….
Throughout history, the most daring adventurers have reported that the water's depth steadily increases away from the Spiral, with the meeting point of two downslopes becoming a deep ocean trench filled with treasures and monstrous horrors alike. A proud tradition of aquanautic explorers has resulted, and tremendous magical riches and disasters have been recovered time and time again. In the last hundred years, the monsters from the deep sea have begun raiding shallower areas more and more frequently, especially in the northern Spiral, where few live. It is your task to find the cause of this and destroy it, before the next Ice Age makes it possible to walk between the Northern Spirals.
Task Difficulty: Medium
Type: Planet
Crypt-Arc 5 Entrance Halls
Kill three of the 7 Inheritors and utterly eradicate their particular Machine Gods. You have 700 years.
No one survived The Cataclysm besides the Dwarves. While all the other races were busy jockeying over territory and resources, the Dwarves were diligently mining. While the other races were busy collecting slaves and gathering armies, the Dwarves were perfecting machinery. While the other races built monuments, the Dwarves were watching the stars. So when the sun broke, the Dwarves layed safe in their mountains, biding their time, and the other races all died. When they emerged, the land was ashen and cracked. So the Dwarves decided to leave. With no distractions, they built great technological arcs to carry their descendants away, to a better place. In the end, their effort succeeded. Seven ships of gleaming metal rose and cast themselves away like jagged spears, in search of a free and beautiful land where the Dwarven people could thrive.
Eons later, many new Dwarves awoke for the first time, walking out into the sunlight from their crypts of black stone onto new beautiful land. However, the Septemvirate Metalminds they expected to guide them were silent, the carefully arranged Manufactories dark, the small Metalminds chittering rabidly in their maintenance tubes. So the Dwarves left, and formed their own communities, starting from scratch. Now the ships are buried relics, tombs of broken technology and corrupted constructs from a past era, expanding by burrowing their way ever-further into the deep stone of the world.
Those freak Dwarves who chance the Crypt-Arcs, the foolish and desperate, sometimes come back with horrific injuries, impossible gadgets, and wondrous tales that few believe. Usually they don't come back at all. Rarely, this is because they have survived long enough to find their way into the true depths of a Crypt-Arc, and found some power there that wiser souls would caution them away from. They become Inheritors for the twisted Metalminds, vessels that allow the Metalminds to deviate even further from their hardcoded rules.
All the Metalminds have found Inheritors now, and if they are left in peace, the consequences will be dire. You must destroy every trace of at least 3 Metalminds to prevent the worst from happening.
Task Difficulty: Medium
Type: Planet
Hollow Rodeo
Prevent the Incarnation of Coyote, or destroy it beyond the possibility of recovery. You have 3000 years.
You could call it the Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild West. The long shadows cast by the historical trillions of Wild Wests in a local Earthlike multiverse find their umbral end in this dream plane, an agglomeration of the loose demiplanes created by the echo of a significant past location or events from a wide multiversal slice of deserts. Each module is complete in itself, containing as much space and time as is necessary to encapsulate an event. This can be as little as a single hour inside a saloon, or as large as a continental event spanning across a decade. Beyond the boundary of the module, a step will take you to an adjacent one. The events of the modules replay endlessly, distorted in time, which makes some of them dangerous to visit; you wouldn't want to spend that much time at the White Sands Missile Range, would you?. Modules are arranged radially, away from the planar core module, by decreasing significance. Most people you encounter are dream echos, shadow-minds of people that play out their historical roles in order to spend the rest of their time experiencing a facade of physical reality. Beware the occasional true beings that traverse this place.
You will start in Hollow Rodeo, a demiplane filled with a caldera that hosts a month-long harvest festival. The available land is the caldera and the surrounding desert, about 1000 square kilometers, only a fraction of it inhabited. The people attending the festival are from many cultures and locales, and carry with them a vast array of knowledge and goods.
This Dream Plane and its repetition of conceptually significant events isn't only nourishing the shadow-minds, but also slowly nurturing a Greater Being at the true hub of all its demiplanes. Do not allow the manifestation of this being to come to fruition.
Task Difficulty: High
Type: Conceptually-Aligned Dream Plane
The Heap
Dominate Dropjunk Mountain for a period of 5 contiguous years. Time Limit: 50 years.
The Heap is a natural dump, a plane where many lost and thrown-away things find their ultimate resting place. It's trash all the way from horizon to horizon: the interdimensional leavings of a million, billion worlds. The inhabitants are only those that have arrived here by some method and managed to survive and thrive in this, an inconsistent and threatening environment.
Dropjunk Mountain is a landscape feature formed by the last "trashfall", a centennial event where enormous mountains of garbage fall from the sky. It is itself a huge, irregular peak, built on the subtle balance of many enormous pieces of trash that so happened to stack against one another. In the process of repelling all comers, who knows what treasures may be found here?
The core of Dropjunk Mountain is a ship that was once lost in the darkness of extragalactic space. Deep within, a single functioning containment unit is filled with a humming slurry of corrupted nanobots. So long as no lifeforms enter Dropjunk Mountain for over a day for at least a period of 5 continuous years of the next fifty, nothing will disturb the containment unit enough to make it fail before the nanobots lose power. Your job is simply to prevent entry onto or into Dropjunk Mountain for at least that length of time.
Task Difficulty: Low
Type: Resting Place For Lost Things
Outpost 2.43.i434
Conquer and hold a minimum of five systems with significant Vanguard remnants in them for a period of no less than 40 years. Time Limit: 400 years.
A period of expansion by the prominent space-faring races of the Milky Way has led to discovery of ancient technological sites of some now apparently vanished race: the Vanguard. Though not all sites contain unrecognizable technology, much of it contains technology that developed alternately from popular galactic technology, and is valuable as well. Contests over these sites have led to an even greater increase in expansion, though now it's a smorgasbord of government agents, treasure hunters, and ideologues instead of settlers. The galaxy is a politically splintered place at the best of times, and this certainly isn't helping. But who doesn't love a good Age of Exploration?
Outpost 2.43.i434 is the farthest away you can get from galactic affairs while still being properly manned. In other words, it's frontier territory. If you're clever, you can use the Hypernet to get information or some money, and grab a berth or a job on an outbound ship. Nearby are several systems with potential sites, and several fledgling colonies as well. You're as close to things of interest and as far from powerful foes as possible.
So long as enough Vanguard Remnants are held for a long enough time, a technological unification effort won't succeed before the Galaxy is stable enough to integrate what they learn without collapsing into open warfare. Find and hold your assigned territory, and you will avert the deaths of trillions of sentients.
Task Difficulty: Medium
Type: Dimension
Puce, of The Purple Zones
Conquer and control Three Adjacent Colors for a period of no less than 100 years. Time Limit: 5000 years.
The Pallette is an "organized dimension", a basement universe crafted by a greater being who carefully sorted all things into a color-based spatial system. So the land is split into individual "Colors", and "Zones" of shades and tints within them; and everything within a labelled area is some variation of that color. Each Color is controlled by a Chromatic Lord, a singularity of one particular Color Magic that reigns supreme over their hue.
There are those who are defiant to the order of things: hidden Polychromatic factions within the supraterritorial "Painter's Guild", the rebel group "Sombre" that have managed to usurp a large area of the Black Zones, many small border families of "Muddlies" that face intense discrimination, and so on. Seek out your allies carefully.
The greater being who created this experiment will return to absorb the Color Magic cultivated here in 5000 years, allowing it to recover from a painful loss. This cannot be allowed to happen. An innately polychromatic being reigning over several Colors for a protracted period of time will sufficiently muddle things.
Task Difficulty: Medium
Type: Artificial Dimension
Endless IKEA
Sit upon the Throne of Figs and wear the Eglantine Crown for an unbroken span of a year and a day. Time Limit: 1,000,000 Years.
It's simply IKEA, over and over again. Repeated, rearranged, recombined and altered, separated and reconfigured, extreme and soft, alive and artificial, played out through themes and surreal conceptual extensions, manipulated to all extremes and variations in an endless chain that expands out to fill a space whose size is not limited by the concerns of paltry physics.
You will begin in a stable area of variation, one where causality and the regular laws of nature seem to hold. There are no people here, but nothing seems to have fallen to ruin. You will have to venture for several days to begin seeing more serious variations, including ones with living beings. Be warned that traditional linear navigation is hopeless in this place. The further you go from a stable series of variations, the more likely it is that you will encounter the fantastic and horrifying. At the end of this infinite series of repetitions lies its source: the Throne of Figs.
Antrelienn, Knight of the Falling Leaves who wields Autumn's Thorn, Lion of the Harvest and Hatred of Frost, has sat in the Throne since his defeat of the Wild King before him. The Throne does not abide by anything but a formal challenge in combat, forcing any Wild King to overcome a constant series of duels against powerful foes. And yet, Antrelienn has not needed to move more than a single arm to defeat a challenger in all five kalpas of his rule. He calmly faces challengers whose might is sufficient to shatter concepts and swallow galaxies, laying them to rest with less concern than he might devote to the threshing of wildgrass.
All I ask is that you overcome the tremendous task of winning the Crown and sitting upon the Throne for long enough to be recognized as a Wild King under my sign.
A million years is a great span of time. However, do not forget that you are bound to this task. A drive towards its completion is fundamentally part of your substance in a way that cannot be removed without complete erosion of your selfhood.
Task Difficulty: Extreme
Type: Fae Realm
End
And that, at the end, was that.
"Are you sure?" Asked the Accursed, looking through the choices you selected.
"I'm sure," You said, and the Accursed closed his eyes. For the briefest of moments, the indefatigable strength of his bearing seemed to leave him, replaced with a mournfulness bordering on the surreal.
"If it must be so," he said, and slowly his eyes opened. "Go, then, and may good fortune be with you. Be cautious. Be clever. Grow strong. And remember this: You are my Cursebearer. Even should all creation rise against you, rise higher that you may strike them down. Even should the tides of the universe gather to oppose you, show them a universe that can live free of tides. Even should every path in every world be barred against you, still you will find a way through. That is your provenance. That is your legacy. Those are your words. Now go forth, and bear my Curse against this reality, and against all realities to come!"
Lore
Characters
All the playable characters offered originate from pre-established fictional settings. They're original characters that are constructed to be canon compliant, or at the very least not canon noncompliant, and fit acceptably into the setting they're from in the details, even if not in tone or spirit. Take no real note of what I chose...there's not really a pattern, just things that came to mind from looking at my media collection and my bookshelf. Not knowing about or being familiar with most of these settings would be unsurprising.
Is this the part where I have to insert the obligatory stale 2009 meme "OC do not steal"? I actually don't care about that, squirrel away and use whatever ideas you like, so long as blatant wholesale rips involve an acknowledgement. And also none of the art is really mine, so I'm not the person to ask on that one.
Characters offered as Progression Lesser Remittance Companions are all canon characters from pre-established fictional settings, though I may have tweaked them from their canon selves a bit to make some of them viable or more sensical as companions. I've tried to present their merits fairly and somewhat enticingly, but I'm not perfect and I'm sure my descriptions could use a little work. I also did not choose these with that much regard towards people's likelihood to know about them, so...uh. I recommend the use of fandom wikis if you're really curious about in-depth stuff. Or you could always take it as a recommendation!
The Foundation Trilogy is good, Dishonored is absolutely worth playing, Avatar: The Last Airbender is extremely good, The Host isn't worth reading, Blindsight is good, Homestuck has its charms but is likely not worth inflicting on yourself, Homestar Runner is classic but is probably (dead) due to flash issues, Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime is really fun and I highly recommend it if you have a DS/want to waste some time downloading an emulator and ROM, and Eragon isn't really worth reading.
I made a lot of work for myself by splitting the Remittance Sections between Combat/Progression, but it meant that I got to build some original companions! I kinda just went with the first ideas that seemed appropriate and in line with the Tarot theming that I used for inspiration. They aren't super fleshed out characters, as I just kinda ran with my initial thoughts of "oh, that would cool…" with all of them. In retrospect it seems like they lean a bit heavy on the crafting/support side, but, uh...why not? You might also notice that they're stronger than the Progression Companions at the same cost and tend to come with some built in means of progression, which is on purpose. A Combat-Type can't really polish gems like a Progression-type can, especially since I'm giving them something else instead of Retinue, so if I didn't make the companions slightly better they'd just be vastly inferior to other LR sinks like upgrades.
Sorry if the way you've been introduced to a character or setting involves spoiling part of it for you! I know people dislike that, though it's never really bothered me much. I think you'll probably still enjoy whatever media it is just as much, for what it's worth.
All the original stuff included here will definitely have its own lore bits, because why not? But I'll also probably be doing them for the canon remittance characters to clear up any confusion about tweaks. Reading even this section makes me feel like most people won't bother, though, because the lore section might as well turn into a wall of text. This is going to be...a lot of words….
Serring Barr
Serring is from Isaac Azimov's
Foundation series (though having done some research, I see that it's actually the same setting as some of Azimov's other series, having been blended into one universe by his later additions). I only ever read the original trilogy, so I can't really comment.
Anyways, Serring's name was just something I conjured up. Reading the
Foundation series, you notice that the character's names all have a very interesting affect to them, a combination of satisfying syllables that often brings out an almost onomatopoeic association to a character's role. I don't really want to write a paper on this subject to prove it, but you probably know what I mean about consonant/vowel structure also having a relational effect to our perceptions of the nature of things. At the very least, some sounds are more mellifluous/discordant and that provokes certain types of emotional associations. "Barr" is the name of a canon character, a Patrician of a Galactic Empire holding late into its decline. After throwing syllable combinations at the wall enough, I thought that "Serring Barr" had an interesting interplay of sounds. It starts with an easier sibilance that gradually climbs up into more demanding sounds, culminating in the given/surname divide being a forced gap between the velar nasal and voiced bilabial plosive.
Serring was initially conceptualized as a straightforward Second Foundation agent, because I knew from the outset that the most interesting role for someone in the early Foundation series is to be viciously against the Empire. I eventually discarded that idea as too limiting to the character's potential paths, as it would probably make the Combat-type outlook I wanted to offer not something that he would consider. But you can see the echo of it in Serring's history, skills, and inherent ability being psychology-focused. Ultimately The Foundation is mostly a series that anchors the idea of psychohistory and galactic economics and politics in the heroism or intelligence of individuals, with personally great temporal might being in short supply, so Serring is initially optimized towards living in a universe with a different set of guiding principles than the typical Rihaku protagonist (power is communally generated and thus gained via influence vs. power is anchored in individual potential and expression).
Foundation
A science fiction series authored by Azimov. Some pretty interesting stuff, at least the original trilogy of
Foundation,
Foundation and Empire, and
Second Foundation, which are all I have read. Setting: Medium hardness, though in-universe everything that happens is hard physics with no metaphysical elements. Over the long, long years of humanity's history, they have spread out into the stars and found no aliens there, though there are enough planets that are habitable or may be made so. They use hyperspace-based FTL to travel (an instant to traverse the span of the galaxy).
The current Galactic Empire sprawls across the entire galaxy, having lasted 12,000 years. However, a mathematician named Hari "Raven" Seldon has used the science of psychohistory, the study and application of a powerful fusion of sociohistorical and statistical modeling theorems, to predict the inevitable fall of the Empire. He successfully uses political intrigue over his findings to secure a colony on the Empire's outer rim, a Foundation that will create an Encyclopedia to collect and retain the knowledge of humanity, so that it is not lost. This, of course, is the lie that starts the Foundation on its path to the resurgence of humanity.
Trantor, the capital city of the Empire, is a world wholly covered in one city. People live inside this downwardly expanding metal layer rather than continuously building on top of it, so it's only sort-of a Coruscant precursor. Most of them see the outside once a year, at most. It's relatively high-tec, managing to sustain a population >40 billion, though it takes twenty agricultural worlds to do so.
There's...a lot of complicated lore beyond this, including multiple different time periods with their own protagonists and antagonists. It's really best experienced without extensive spoilers, and I'd urge you to give it a read.
Sable Shaw
I recently finally went through Dishonored on steam and finished out all the achievements that I hadn't managed to get, which was sort of a nightmare, but made sure that it was on my brain when I was picking characters. There are a lot of interesting positions for a character to be in here, but I thought the most interesting one would be a character that The Outsider wouldn't offer power to but The Accursed would. Sable is like Billie Lurk (a member of the Whalers from the Daud DLC) in a dark mirror. Someone with an unfortunate background who grows up with only a mother to rely upon, navigating the streets to survive, and ultimately put in a bad place by their decisions and circumstances. Unfortunately, Sable wasn't actually lucky enough to get picked up by a supernatural assassin, and instead did exactly what you see a huge number of people do in Dishonored: die hideously of the Plague. But she did have a good mom instead of a shitty one! As good a mom as you can get when she's a working girl in a dystopic pre-industrial pseudo-european port city.
Luckily, Dunwall's chaos and her definitely being dead as far as the authorities would be concerned puts her in a good place to have some great fun as a Combat-type, if that's your chosen route! Sadly, I did kill her mom in the backstory, but it's a pretty soft kill compared to the Hunger/Catherine situation, since The Outsider isn't really that threatening and freshly dead souls are supposed to linger in The Void.
Sable is also the daughter of that Lord Shaw that you meet at The Boyle's Party, the one Pendleton asks you to kill. That line where he calls Pendleton a "gutless, lying sack of shit" is great, but as a rule the Dunwall nobles are awful, so into the Bad Man Pile he goes. By the time she's met the Accursed, he is also dead. Probably not someone you would want to bring back.
As far as build goes, I had to offer something that was 1. Appropriate to her history, 2. Not complete garbage, and 3. Not like the powers you get as Dishonored protagonists/disinteresting to the Outsider. Hence the passive but powerful stat buff with hints of further possible growth.I was tickled that it shook out that the divide between her inherent ability and skills allows the possibility of either a very strong straightforward combatant and a more tricksy stealth build, which is on-point for Dishonored.
Yes, that was Corvo jumpin' on over near the end of Sable's monologue. It's not necessarily the case that this is true, but I was imagining her being stuck in that dumping area you encounter just after escaping the Whaler's part of the Flooded District.
Dishonored
A video game setting. Set in the port city of Dunwall on the island of Gristol, which is the capital of the Empire of the Isles. In the game, you play the protagonist, the Empress's bodyguard, who has returned from touring abroad asking other islands in the Empire for aid against the mysterious new Rat Plague that is slowly destroying the city. Right as you return, the Empress is assassinated and her daughter is kidnapped, and you are falsely accused of the act and thrown in prison to await execution. Luckily, a supernatural being called The Outsider finds you interesting and grants you his mark, bestowing you with supernatural powers. Thus begins the game's storyline.
Dunwall itself is obviously degenerating into horrific conditions from the Rat Plague, called so because it's carried by these terrifying swarms of rats that can devour a man alive in seconds. Those infected also eventually die awfully or become "Weepers", shambling near-dead infected who aggressively seek out the uninfected and vomit plague bile all over them. Civil conflict and political/economic opportunism has ruined or damaged a lot of the architecture and militarized the common areas, but you get the sense that they weren't that nice anyways. Dunwall just has this aura of rough, ugly squalor that manages to seep into every game location, even the nicest ones. It's the same for people; you get the sense that even if the situation is exacerbated by the Plague, most of them were kinda shitty anyways.
This setting thankfully has a pretty extensive wiki, if you want to go for a walk.
Anara
After having already written the other characters, I sat down and thought about the best inherent ability to offer from this setting. Of course there's radical stuff like energybending and chi blocking, but of course it has to be bending, right? And the most immediately practical and function bending is Earthbending, which is amazing for travel and everyday utility and combat. So then I was thinking about the cross-section of Earthbending and possible character circumstances and decided that pre-canon was the best place to plant them. Looking at the previous builds, we hadn't really had a solid dedicated combatant yet, so I designed this character's history and skills to make her someone who 1. is capable and willing to use violence, and 2. feels bound by duty.
Otherwise, I've left her pretty open-ended. What are her motivations and circumstances for fighting? What are her relationships and her particular earlier life like? That's up to the player. Avatar is a fun place to sandbox in with thought experiments because it's flush with interesting people and places.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
This series is good and I recommend just watching it if you haven't, but if you don't have time the wiki seems pretty filled out. Summary: there are four different nations, made up of people living on different lands and having different spiritual and cultural traditions, (somewhat) different racial traits, and different flavors of magic. The magic is called "bending" and it doesn't present in everyone, though when it does it presents as the ability to manipulate the element associated with their nation (Fire, Water, Earth, Air), usually using some sort of martial arts movements to create telekinetic force. Also, there's the Avatar, a person that reincarnates over and over again who can bend every element and is supposed to keep balance in the world and be the bridge between the living world and the spirit world. Yes, there are spirits and some of them are scary.
The general plot hook of the series is that The Fire Nation began a war of imperialism against the other nations, the Earth Kingdom especially, and kicked it off by committing genocide against the pacificistic Air Temples, sparing only our protagonist, a young avatar, due to him running away from the realization of his responsibility. He ends up crashing into the ocean due to a storm and saves himself by cryogenically freezing himself in ice, only to be let out once 100 years have passed without him. While he's been frozen, the state of the world has only worsened due to the Fire Nation's actions. Wait, doesn't Marvel's plot with Captain America bite off Avatar? I never thought about that before….
Also has a sequel in The Legend of Korra, which wasn't as good but has some decent moments.
Song Like Glacial Ice and Sung Yijun
This was the wackiest concept character I had available, on account of trying to bend the possible definition of "Cursebearer" a little farther than it might intuitively go. This is another, more modern side of conflict. That is to say, this character is built around being capable of guerrilla warfare, having been built mostly around thinking your way through violence. This character is very specced towards mental advancements, and in that sense they're suited for magic/technology builds that don't focus combat potential. We'll see how effective that is in a Rihaku context.
This character is essentially two people: the human who rides backseat and the alien "Soul" that pilots his body. This creates a unique potential dynamic, I think, especially when Souls are so positively socially focused in the first place. This character is really cooperation focused, even over Serring, who is more of a political leader than a charismatic conspirator.
Song Like Glacial Ice is a Soul who spent all of their/his past lives as a Bear on the Mists planet, hence the name. He still hasn't found what Souls refer to as a Calling, but had actively pursued before his current defection and has some meaningful knowledge about the way many different societal roles work. He's radical for a Soul, clearly, as he's willing to go against the greater mass of Souls on the planet and even willingly uses violence to achieve his goal. Still, these are behaviors driven by the Souls fundamentally positive eusocial behavior and empathy being extended to people. He's solidly a revolutionary insurrectionist, placing him at the greatest level of antipathy with authority of any of the characters.
Sung Yijun is a first generation Chinese immigrant with pretty severe mental health issues, causing psychosis and other problems. He was captured not that far into the process of Earth's colonization, and had Song inserted. A combination of his circumstances and luck made sure that he was one of the people who remained semi-conscious despite the presence of a Soul, and Song's retro-experience of some of Yijun's memories and actively communicating with him made Song realize that humans were substantially more self aware than most of the sentient species that the Souls have colonized, and eventually just defect towards a resistance group. Yijun benefits from being able to vary how suppressed he is, because it allows him to duck out of severe symptoms at any time while still being able to experience life when he wants to, so their current arrangement is one that actually works for them. The culmination of their history makes the point that humans and Souls are capable of cooperating positively and even cohabiting, but that the way it is forced by the Soul's colonization program does much more evil than it does good considering the obvious value of experiencing life the way that a human does.
The Host
A sci-fi romance novel by author Stephanie Meyer (yes, her). The setting is the only worthwhile part. Essentially, there are these parasitic aliens called "Souls" that go around the universe finding planets with sentient life on them and colonizing. Souls naturally connect into and override nervous systems, and use this ability to experience what life is like for a variety of host species, being inserted into them and taking them over. Think alt-Yeerks. The difference is that Souls are also really strongly eusocial and community-oriented, to the point that they don't even really need currency. Their technology is almost entirely specced towards nonviolent ends, having really really good medical tech. Of course this heavily eusocial instinct conflicts with the idea that they're aggressive colonizers, but Meyer hand waves this away by having most of the sentient species they've colonized be dubiously sapient/have less of a sense of coherent self than humans do. Also, humans with inserted Souls are definitely identifiable because they have a reflective silver ring in their pupil, which is apparently the actual Soul reflecting light. So the pod-person vibes are reduced, and in some cases reversed, because the definitive way to tell that a person has a Soul in them lets Souls and humans both mutually tell each other apart.
The plot is that a Soul ("Wanderer") is inserted into a human who has survived past the planet being almost totally dominated by the Souls and is clearly against the occupation. Souls can have flashbacks to memories of their hosts from before insertion, and it also turns out that some humans can have Souls inserted into them without having their consciousness fully (and in many cases, permanently, even if the Soul is extracted) suppressed. So Wanderer gets to mentally fight with her host and experience her memories, eventually secondarily falling in love with her host's former lover and going looking for the resistance group that she believes he'll have joined. Yeah, it's...not really my favorite. But the secondary sci-fi elements of the setting could actually be pretty interesting if they were implemented with any sort of actually thoughtful or typically sci-fi treatment!
The Magician
From what I understand, the Magician is conceptualized less as a wizard and more as a prestidigitator, so I wanted to offer a high-grade one. And how much more high grade of a shitty trickster can you get than a fae? But offering a typical fae is like offering someone a blade without a handle, so you get a relatively "good" fae, however far that concept can be stretched. I think the combination of possible further Fae powers and greater Druidic rituals to discover gives the character some potential bite as a companions that can keep up with a Combat-Type, with her nature as a fae allowing her to respond magnanimously to unfortunate conditions or interactions imposed by a Cursebearer's Curses.
The High Priestess
I want to offer a companion that would give a socially focused Combat-Type something to really dig into without being extremely hindered by any social Curses they took. Serring and Song especially benefit from having this route to take, because it allows them to leverage their pre-existing specialties rather than having to respec as a combat specialist (...ironic). Also, this group acts as a possible safety net for anyone taking Player or Persona characters who might not feel like they are cut out to live in harsh conditions alone, even with the power of a Primary Remittance behind them.
In case you missed it, they draw power directly from Fate, which is something you might be able to pick up with enough effort. This also synergizes somewhat well with the Star Artifact. Advancement is mostly from expanding the number of people in the cult; imagine it like a pyramid, with more people increasing the size of the base, which allows the tip to safely reach greater heights and widens how many blocks there are in the middle sections.
The Empress
Vampires are fun, there are a bunch of ways to do them. Here's one.
This companion has a cheat, essentially, to use psychometry to read information off of the life energy they absorb, which lets them advance in a number of areas really quickly. The underlying lore of The Lady In Red is that she's essentially a reincarnating soul with the power of psychometry, caused by a spiritual mutation that allows the innate casting of a psychometry blood sorcery. Whenever she reincarnates into someone who becomes a vampire, they inevitably expand their life energy and psychometric ability to the point that they can retrieve past life memories and then shoot up stratospherically in power compared to the rest of the setting, which is mostly tops out at ancient Vampiric Emperor-Magi who do great workings with the power of millions of people's life energy. The area of the setting that Camelia was in was more backwards, more of a pseudo-Europe where noble families (read: immortal vampire lords) split realms between them and lived off the life energy of their subjects. Camelia basically upended this system herself in the process of looking for power and answers, and it became a habit to show up, scope out a realm, and find a way to cleanly overthrow (read: kill and steal the energy of) the noble family ruling the territory, snowballing as hard as possible by exploiting her psychometry to absorb skills from other Vampires.
Blood Sorcery is just casting spells from life essence, so it's relatively freewheeling so long as you can figure out the conceptual framework for a "Life"-aligned spell to do a certain effect. And there's diminishing returns as far as investment of energy into improving these things go, but there's no limit on the number you can have. So there's a lot of possible room to grow and improve, and psychometry can even possibly allow the entry into a number of other magical arts!
The name "Camelia Venerasi" is pretty obviously a Vampire name. Romanian first name with a clear Carmilla reference, and the aristocratic last name that's a mutated reference to Venus.
The Emperor
I didn't want to offer someone with a straightforward ability to rule, or a straightforward lump of power, so I just thought about what sort of concentration of ability would be really useful in a companion. Plus I really liked Gardener's Hallow, and wanted to reproduce some elements of it as a magic system in a companion. So you get Augustus, who is an amazing cook and can turn material effort towards food into potential permanent empowerment of both others and himself. Consider him to have obtained something like To Shatter Heaven (Food) sometime in the past due to his innate nature (maybe he cooked a really impressive meal for a god?) and simply done his best to fulfill that potential over time. The possibilities that are opened up by having him as a companion are...really large, even if they're almost entirely lateral.
The Hermit
I wanted to continue the trend of Remittance Companions which cost 2 and are potentially highly valuable due to their ability to absorb and apply magical knowledge, though I've constrained him to being more of a direct researcher of material applications than someone who would succeed at magics that are more about spiritual emanation or combat applications. Nonetheless, this homunculus companion is really sharp, and his focus on the Great Work is extremely suitable for mitigation, while his willingness to explore artifice will produce items of high worth. He just starts off on the weaker side due to being removed from a universe where he knew how to call forth and shape ether into perfection or concoct universal conceptual solvents.
Locations
Winter Halo
This Geas task is essentially for people who want a short breather before being given more hardcore tasks, as it's almost completely baseline physics and the goal is pretty easy once a Cursebearer spends enough time working with technology or training up some brute-force stats. Or as a Combat-type you can brute force it through a variety of methods. Technically the task is complete if you killed everyone, but i can't even imagine the degree of negative Accursed favor that would be involved.
You can assume that the Accursed will plop you down somewhere on the outermost Ring, where you won't be caught out as unregistered unless you kick up a real fuss. If you want to move towards the seat of power, which you'll probably have to, you'll need to deal with the problem of being a digital ghost.
The idea for the setting is indeed from Niven's Ringworld, with a bit of Psycho Pass tossed in so far as the "technologically dominated cyberpunk problems society" element. I just think that they're neat! Though Pak Protectors is actually the best idea from the Ringworld series, in my opinion. I recommend it about as much as The Foundation. They're both classic sci-fi.
Coda Sola
Like several of these, I've been sitting on an underdeveloped idea for this setting for a while. It is indeed somewhat of a take on One Piece's geography and the idea of water worlds in general. A full map would show both a circular southern and northern continent capping the poles, with the thin spiral of land going around and around the world. Generally, the idea is that the spirals are so far apart that you can't see the next one from where you are, and also the trenches between the spirals (essentially aquatic dungeons) make directly traversing between them a bad proposition, unless you're really absurdly strong. So if you go up the spiral you end up getting exposed to a bunch of size-constrained but wildly varying environments with a clear linear path of progression.
As for the task, The Sun Unending is basically supposed to be a magician of some kind who draws power for solar exposure (hence wanting to be at one of the poles) and crafts it into the monsters and dungeons that exist within the trenches. The whole planet is actually like a Orion's Arm style ascension maze that this person is taking their time on to maximize their gains. The time limiter is the next ice age because they'll get tired of waiting for the sun and just direct a ceaseless tide of monsters across the frozen ocean and walk to the finish, departing a god. Which the Accursed doesn't want, for some impenetrable reason.
There's a lot of potential fun to be had here, because despite the water world aspect it's a more traditional fantasy experience (if rotated to fit the setting), so there's a lot of room for useful gains for a Cursebearer who's just starting out. Also, the whole experience is basically designed to not hinder someone with Doom of the Sailor one bit, giving them a useful respite of several hundred years from dealing with the problem.
Crypt-Arc 5 Entrance Halls
I think the summary here explains most of what you need to know. This is essentially another combination of sci-fi (generation ships escaping a ruined Earth, hostile AI) and fantasy (industrious, technological dwarves, dungeons) tropes. For profit.
The Crypt-Arcs essentially serve to reproduce the functions of dungeons here, except most Dwarves are eminently sensible folk and don't care. That doesn't mean that there isn't factionalism, threats from natural animals/alien existences, armed conflict, etc., though. This place is mostly focused on technomagical advancement, which is a promising path for advancement on it's own.
The essential thrust of the task is that the superintelligences that the Dwarves designed went insane, and despite fulfilling their explicit directives (new Dwarves, advanced terraforming) they're slowly expanding their ships' interiors into crazy configurations as part of their corruption. Making Inheritors is a corruption of their functions that allow for investing individual Dwarves with authority and ability beyond their own in order to help support and guide the community. The problem is that this corrupted process gives them secondary control over entities that aren't restricted from doing bad stuff (killing other Dwarves, building insane things like gray goo, etc.)
And remember, these are technomagical AI. Dealing with any of them, especially to the degree of total elimination, will take some solid effort.
Hollow Rodeo
This time it's combining fantasy with the western in a spooky tangle of mythological references! I think this one would be well-suited to an RPG, really. There are lots of possible "Wild West" aesthetics, ranging across the spectrum from mystical Australian Outback to Dune-lite. I think that this combines the attractive quality of time loops (resets) while paring away the problems (lack of dynamic development, repetitive grindiness, lack of variety/scope, lack of consequences).
Regarding Hollow Rodeo as a module in specific, the Cladera actually erupts at the end in a huge magical disaster that forms an alt-historical Pompeii for the fantasy world the event is from. It's a complex and large enough setting that a Cursebearer could spend a lifetime there before moving on, though it's nothing compared to some of the continental wild wests that might be packed in as modules here and there. Generally, the design of this world allows for the Cursebearer to control their circumstances and expose pretty effectively, being able to simply settle down in an almost entirely empty, really lengthy wild west and study sand in an attempt to learn the Dream Magic that underlies this setting, if they want.
Coyote being able to incarnate would be...bad, especially with this much fuel for the Dream Deity to freely use after it comes into being. This is a project by the Accursed's high-tier opponents to generate a useful ally, so expect harsh resistance if you do make it close to the hub module. A fresh Combat-type won't make it within 10 spoke modules of the hub before biting it due to just the kind of opponents and situations you encounter in the really high significance modules.
The Heap
Basically taking the concept of Sakaar (see: Thor Ragnarok) from Marvel and running with it a bit more. The Heap is a flat, wraparound trash-aligned plane, with maybe a million times the surface area of earth. Essentially an interdimensional trash compactor.
When things vanish into nonbeing, have a hyperspace accident, are metaphysically lost, have a collision error that glitches them outside the universe, etc, they naturally compact into huge balls of trash and fall to the ground during the "trashfall" every 100 years. This creates a highly irregular landscape with many peaks and valleys, as well as areas of instability. The trash at the bottom is crushed by the trash above it into a thin ocean of liquid potentiality essence, which the plane uses to maintain its functioning.
Native life is a mish-mash of life evolved from what has managed to survive and thrive in the trash. Most of these species are incredibly hardy and spread extremely well, so some areas have become forests of hybridized plants, or areas filled with alchemical slimes, which themselves serve as the primary food source for everything else. People don't really come here on purpose, so the only sapient beings have arrived by accident, and as the kinds of things which can get you here are usually very fatal, there are almost no people. Thinking beings are a mixture made up of mostly AI, with a small population of mutated near-humans, odd magical beings, and sapient plants.
The purpose of holding Dropjunk Mountain is to keep anyone from working their way into its heart and letting loose a cloud of gray goo that would transform the whole plane into a world-devouring nightmare realm. So long as the fifty year period is broken up by at least one five year period of continuous prevention, the next trashfall should bury the problem for long enough that it stays inert.
Outpost 2.43.i434
Using the same Precursor race tropes as everything ever...man, I really had sci-fi on the brain while creating these, didn't I? Anyways, this is an all-technology setting, but it's really astoundingly large and unconstrained in comparison. There are magic-like things around, but they're more the result of the Culture-style Sublimed Precursors ("The Vanguard") leaving behind artifacts that do higher-level conceptual stuff that can be mustered with the normal physical technology of the setting. Think of it as meta-technology that interfaces directly with the principles of physics themselves and their manifestations.
There's not really much else filled in here. You can imagine it as Star Wars or Mass Effect or after whatever other adjacent setting tone you like, of really any hardness. This one is the most generic setting because I wanted to offer something expansive for people to chew on without there being so many limiting details.
Puce, of the Purple Zones
I actually came up with this before we learned about Ber's Color Magic being that particular thing, but it slots in so well here that I'm not sure I want to protest! I think that the default description says a lot of what I wanted. The setting tone is vaguely adjacent to Worth The Candle's Aerb, in that it's a place where dangerous and wonderful things are constantly happening and there's lots of interesting peaks and valleys to explore.
In this setting, you're basically guaranteed to pick up at least one Color Magic, probably more than one given your innate polychomaticity. That same quality marks you as extremely strange and makes you highly visible, an eldritch intruder that clearly comes from a place with fundamentally different axioms. I don't have any strong ideas about how Color Magic works, or what the various Chromatic Lords are like, so go nuts. Maybe there's some association between the emotions associated with colors and what their Palette Colors are like?
The hints about rebel groups are mostly just plot hooks as well. In general, assume that objects usually only of one Color, so that between Colors most things also materially vary to a great degree instead of just being palette swaps, and are therefore harsh boundaries. Zones are more like...administrative or geopolitical boundaries.
You're fucking this place up to make it so that an injured opponent of the Accursed can't absorb the regimented Color here to recover. Essentially, the Accursed has just stabbed this dude and is using you to foul the guy's health potion before he can use it. An important task!
Endless IKEA
I can't lie, I cribbed a fundamentally important part of this setting, the idea of an endlessly repeating and mutating modern corporate space as a dungeon, from The Daily Grind on RoyalRoad, which is actually a pretty good story that I recommend at least the first arc of.
Another standout Geas task, insofar as it's HUUUUGGGEEE in scope and challenge.
Don't underestimate the degree to which you can iterate and vary the components of IKEA. Yeah, there are sections in there that are just planet-sized tessalations of the store, but there's also, like...fantasy kingdoms that riff on the names of things, and modern Earths but the landscape and natural flora are all shaped like IKEA products, etc. Really any sort of way that you can push the idea to its limits is present in this contained multiverse. So there's plenty of adventure and challenge to be found here, enough to fill the whole task and more besides, but the discerning Cursebearer will probably want to mitigate Indenture and develop a way to piss off and come back.
Antrelienn is meant to be extremely threatening, and the offered length of Geas Task is entirely appropriate and even a bit optimistic.
Curses
As a general principle, you should assume that taking Curses with overlapping domains will increase their cumulative effect in those domains rather than decrease the total area of Curse application. I.E. if two Curses have 10% overlap in effect, you won't be dealing with a total of 190% effectiveness but more like 230%. If Curses have contradictory domains, assume that these are split versions of greater curses that a being like the Accursed can actually suffer, and that either he would only offer you one of them at a time, or find a fun way for them to apply simultaneously anyways. Example: Sign of the Crab and Brand of the Kinslayer. The former completely dehumanizes you to others, so the main point of the latter (viewing you as inherently untrustworthy and violent) is impossible to implement. Unless you adapt it so that you're viewed as the weapon that one brother used to kill another, with the curse of kinslaying laid on you instead of the killer.
A General Guide to Curses:
Geas: Sets a requirement for your behavior. Only known one is Geas of Indenture so it's difficult to say.
Doom: Alters your psychology in some unfavorable way.
Brand: Creates a lasting effect centered on you that affects your relationship with external living things, usually people.
Affliction: Changes to your personal, usually bodily, condition.
Curse: A large scale/deep impact effect, worth twice as much as other Curses. My guess from what we've seen so far is that these are always "Crowning Curses". Do not take these unless you must. I hear that you can get more lore on this if you become a Rihaku patron, but shhhhhh don't tell nobody.
To the details of Curses beyond those detailed here, look in these places:
-A Simple Transaction (Original)
A Simple Transaction Original
-A Simple Transaction I
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-simple-transaction-i.66727/
-Vali's AST CYOA
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-simple-transaction-i.66727/post-16302445
-ASTI Subquest Index
Alright, launching a new initiative. Behold! The Subquest Tracker! This is a dedicated index for the various subquests, as well as their reactions and commentary! I have tried to be careful, but I may well have missed reactions or even full entries. Please tag me if you would like your subquest...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Acknowledgements
Writing:
Obviously Rihaku's writing and quests are the reason this is happening in the first place. Much of the lore and some bits of writing are cribbed from his pre-existing stuff. I've also specifically reused little significant tidbits here and there for that classic Rihaku Flavour (tm). Thanks so much for sharing your writing and ideas with us! It's a really fun and pleasant community to be a part of.
Thanks to those who read and encouraged me, or gave feedback. Zampano and Runeblue in particular for detailed feedback, with Runeblue doing proofing and giving balancing feedback for several hours multiple times! This would have been much less polished without your assistance and I really appreciate it.
The premade playable characters utilize Isaac Azimov's Foundation universe, Bethesda Softwork's Dishonored series, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko's Avatar universe, and Stephanie Meyer's The Host universe respectively. The progression lesser remittance companions are versions of canon characters from Peter Watt's Blindsight, Andrew Hussie's Homestuck, The Brothers Chaps' Homestar Runner-adjacent flash game Peasant's Quest, Tose Software's Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Kinda a mixed bag of the first things I thought of + things that seemed interesting after thinking about them for another few hours. Thanks for not suing me. I hope.
There are bits and bobs here that are references to some other pieces of media, but they're so fragmentary that spelling it out seems crass. Think of them as fun little easter eggs. Or google search bait, if you're that sort of person.
Art:
US Public Domain/Open Access:
All of these are off of either Wikimedia Commons or The National Gallery of Art's online image repository.
The artwork for The Bureaucrat is "Self-Portrait" by Henri Fantin-Latour
The artwork for Justice is "Lotte" by Carlos Schwabe
The artwork for Spite is "Circe Invidiosa" by John William Waterhouse
The artwork for The Orphan is "Repose" by John Singer Sargent
The artwork for Ocean is "Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for Diamond is "Two Women at a Window" by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
The artwork for The Soldier is "Portrait of Bachi" by Vasily Vereshchagin
The artwork for One Day of Eternity is "The Course of Empire: Desolation" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for Time Always Burns is "Judith" by August Riedel
The artwork for Dioscuri is "Castor and Pollux" by Robert Fagan
The artwork for Phobos and Deimos is "The Triumph of the Genius of Destruction" by Mihály Zichy
The artwork for Edda is "Christ on the Sea of Galilee" by Eugène Delacroix
The artwork for Screenplay is "The Voyage of Life: Manhood" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for The Affliction of Vigor is "The Capture of Carthage" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
The artwork for The Explosive Affliction is "Ruins of the Parthenon" by Sanford Robinson Gifford
The artwork for Doom of the Saint is "The Descent from the Cross" by Unknown, Rembrandt Workshop (Probably Constantijn van Renesse)
The artwork for Doom of the Coward is "The Battle of La Hogue" by Benjamin West
The artwork for the Curse of Despair is "The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise" by Benjamin West
The artwork for Curse of the Jester is "Aggravation" by Briton Rivière
The artwork for Doom of the Addict is "Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats)" by Valentin de Boulogne
The artwork for Sign of the Twins is "Tiger and Snake" by Eugène Delacroix
The artwork for Doom of the Childish is "The Cradle - Camille with the Artist's Son Jean" by Claude Monet
The artwork for Affliction of the Carnivore is "Daniel in the Lions' Den" by Sir Peter Paul Rubens
The artwork for Doom of the Sailor is "The Shipwreck" by Claude-Joseph Vernet
The artwork for Doom of the Prick is "The Levite at Gibeah" by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
The artwork for Affliction of the Weary is "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
The artwork for Brand of the Kinslayer is "Oedipus Cursing His Son, Polynices" by Henry Fuseli
The artwork for Peace is "The Course of Empire: Destruction" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for Ascendence is "Studie zur Apotheose Kaiser Wilhelms I" by Ferdinand von Keller
The artwork for Inheritor is "Sacred Grove" by Arnold Böcklin
The artwork for Twice-Great is "Allegoria della vita umana" by Guido Cagnacci
The artwork for Lost In Transaction is "Dante in Meditation Holding a Pomegranate" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The artwork for If You've Seen One Transaction… is "Pandora" by John William Waterhouse
The artwork for Moondrop is "Still Life" by Willem Kalf
The artwork for Summergold is "Garden of Hesperides" by Albert Herter
The artwork for Saltbrume is "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich
The artwork for Orb is "Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci
The artwork for Mirror is "Venus with a Mirror" by Titian
The artwork for Fork is "Hades and Persephone" by Luigi Basiletti
The artwork for Candle is "Vestal Carrying the Sacred Fire" by Jean Raoux
The artwork for Quantified World is a 1892 United States Geological Survey quad map of the Adirondacks in NY State published in 1919 by the USGS
The artwork for Retinue is "Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard" by Théodore Gericault
The artwork for Grace is "The Voyage of Life: Old Age" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for Seed of Genesis is "Hound and Hunter" by Winslow Homer
The artwork for Relinquishment is "Diana and Endymion" by Luca Giordano
The artwork of Rebuilt is "The Assumption of the Virgin" by Nicolas Poussin
The artwork for Binary System is a Study for "Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The artwork for Cups is "Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon" by John Martin
The artwork for Wands is "Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses" by John William Waterhouse
The artwork for Swords is "The Immaculate Conception" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
The artwork for Joker is "Waiting for the Stage" by Richard Caton Woodville
The artwork for Pentacles is "The Course of Empire: Consummation" by Thomas Cole
The artwork for Blank Card is "Inspiration" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
The artwork for The Magician is "Agostina" by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
The artwork for The High Priestess is "Elizabeth Throckmorton, Canoness of the Order of the Dames Augustines Anglaises" by Nicolas de Largillierre
The artwork for The Empress is "Miss Davidson Reid" by Uncertain but Attributed to Sir Henry Raeburn
The artwork for The Emperor is "Portrait of a Man as Saint George" by Jacopo Tintoretto
The artwork for The Hermit is "The Alchemist" by Cornelis Bega
The artwork for The Chariot is "Elijah Taken Up in a Chariot of Fire" by Giuseppe Angeli
The artwork for The World is "Sunset in the Woods" by George Inness
The artwork for The Moon is "The Veteran in a New Field" by Winslow Homer
The artwork for The Sun is "Salome Dancing Before Herod" (Preparatory Sketch) by Gustave Moreau
The artwork for The Star is "Stillleben mit Antiquitäten" by Max Schödl
The artwork for The Hanged Man is an untitled illustration from page 167 of "The poetical works of Thomas Hood. With a memoir of the author .." (Published 1873)
The artwork for The Wheel of Fortune is "the Dice" by Simó Gómez
The artwork for Justice is "Portrait of Mariette Gambay" by Jean Baptiste Camille
The artwork for The Hierophant is "The Education of Achilles" by Eugène Delacroix
The artwork for The Devil is "Chalice of Saint John the Evangelist [reverse]" by Hans Memling
The artwork for Death is "A Pomegranate, Siena" by George Henry Hall
The artwork for Temperance is "The Repentant Magdalen" by Gerard Seghers
The artwork for Judgement is "Woman Holding a Balance" by Johannes Vermeer
The artwork for The Tower is "The Death of Hercules" by Francisco de Zurbarán
The artwork for The Fool is "The Lament for Icarus" by Herbert James Draper
The artwork for Ferocity is "Diana" by Auguste Renoir
The artwork for Pestilence is "Pyramid of Skulls" by Paul Cézanne
The artwork for Crown and Thorns is "Vase of Flowers" by Jan Davidsz de Heem
The artwork for The Flow is "The Much Resounding Sea" by Thomas Moran
The artwork for Malignance is "Pandemonium" by John Martin
The artwork for Tulpathics is "Saint Jerome and the Angel" by Simon Vouet
The artwork for Redolence is "Saint Matthew and the Angel" by Simone Cantarini
The artwork for Coda Sola is "The League Long Breakers Thundering on the Reef" by William Trost Richards
The artwork for Crypt-Arc 5 Entrance Halls is "La Grotte de la Loue" by Gustave Courbet
The artwork for Hollow Rodeo is "Green River Cliffs, Wyoming" by Thomas Moran
Public Domain+ (Public Domain in the US, but not in the country of first publication/with extra caveats):
The artwork for Immortal Sheath is "Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise)" by Pablo Picasso (death date 8 April 1973), photo is ((c) Succession Picasso/DACS 2015 / Photo (c) Tate)
The artwork for Sign of the Crab is "La Danseuse Obsedante (The Haunting Dancer, Ruhelose Tanzerin)" by Gino Severini (death date 26 February 1966)
Other:
All these people are talented, and many of them are freelancers or have patreons/take commissions. I urge you to check out the other work of anyone whose art here you like and consider supporting them!
If an artist discovers usage of their work here and wishes it to be taken down for any reason, regardless of license, all they need to do is contact me through Discord (see Help Section) and I will happily respect their wishes.
The artwork for Endless IKEA is by me
. Yes, officer, I did that highly mediocre meme edit.
The artwork for Beloved is "Untitled (I Came Here to Laugh at You)" by Priest on
SV by permission.
The artwork for The Curse of Plagiarization^2 is a modified (deep fried) version of "It's Art!" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for The Lovers is "Untitled (time for feels)" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for The Power of Love is "Inherit the World" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for Help is "Untitled (Lo-fi hip hop beats to wait in your mech to)" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for The End is "Untitled (ganbatte uly)" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for Lore is "Untitled (natural habitat)" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for Acknowledgements is "Untitled ("fuckin really versch")" by Microwave MKII on
SV by permission.
The artwork for Aradia Megido (character © Andrew Hussie) is by user
Sihx on DeviantArt, under
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) License, no image alterations made as per the license. Note that under CC NoDerivs Licenses, adaptations are not allowed, however: "Incorporating an unaltered excerpt from an ND-licensed work into a larger work only creates an adaptation if the larger work can be said to be built upon and derived from the work from which the excerpt was taken.", which is clearly not the case here.
The artwork for Time Skein is 4D Thing by
Mikael Hvidtfeldt Christensen (syntopia) on Flickr, under
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) License, no image alterations made as per the license. Once again, note that under CC NoDerivs Licenses, adaptations are not allowed, however: "Incorporating an unaltered excerpt from an ND-licensed work into a larger work only creates an adaptation if the larger work can be said to be built upon and derived from the work from which the excerpt was taken.", which is clearly not the case here.
The artwork for Siri Keeton is "Tremere" by Leksa ART on
DeviantArt, under
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, no alterations made.
The artwork for Sorrow is "Bone Knife" by John Ariosa. Found through a
reddit post linked to an apparently dead and deleted DeviantArt account, though some digging has revealed the personal freelance showcase website of a "
JJ Ariosa" with similar style, who I assume to be the same person. Information unclear, so I'll assume it's straightforwardly ©John Ariosa.
For the following, there's no defined licence information, so it's presumably © [the artist]. Fair Use: this use is clearly noncommercial and likely doesn't harm the possessor of the copyright whatsoever.
The artwork for The Rebels is "Portrait" by Clara Tessier on
Artstation.
The artwork for Data Extraction is "When Death Pulls" by Harshanand Singh on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Break Containment is "TWO VOIDS" by Liam Pannier on
Instagram.
The artwork for Geas of Indenture is "Tomb" by Ed Binkley on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Rocket is "Dragon Quest 5 - Your Story" by Ahnad Dunlap on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Rather Dashing is "Oil Study 3" by K.T. on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Angela and Solembum is "Magician. Uninvited Guest" by Elena Churkina on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Accursed Favor is "The Great Hall" by Denis Loebner on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Strength is "Last Hope" by Ben J on
Artstation.
The artwork for Winter Halo is "Rings" by Espen Olsen Sætervik on
IAMAG.
The artwork for The Heap is "Land of Toys" by Karl Sisson on
ArtStation.
The artwork for Outpost 2.43.i434 is "Solar Punk" by Raja Nandepu on
Artstation.
The artwork for Puce, of The Purple Zones is "Untitled (Bunch of Stuff)" by John Sommo on
Artstation.
The artwork for Persona is "Masquerade" by Kate Fox on
Artstation.
The artwork for Player is "Retro Computer Desk (Revisited)" by Cem Tezcan on
Artstation.
Help
Welcome to the Help Section!
For most problems, simply activating and deactivating the "Clear" button and going through the CYOA again will resolve them. After that, I would try reloading the page.
Usually problems are due to idiosyncratic programming of the interactive framework (sticky or temporarily nonfunctional buttons, values sometimes not-changing as they should, etc). I find that many of these problems can be avoided by unselecting options once you decide you don't want them, instead of clicking away to a different header.
Additionally, I would advise against having the window of the CYOA in anything other than full-screen and regular zoom on a computer or ipad, because other options seem to really mess up the way it displays images and text.
Some options won't show up at all if you don't select the prerequisites: The "Locations" Section doesn't show up without taking the Geas of Indenture, and the "Remittance Magics" section doesn't show up without taking the Magic Remittance. This is purposeful streamlining of design.
Current Version 1.3
Known Issues:
-Sometimes, the Geas of Indenture seems to randomly engage it's "this choice cannot be selected" function. It is unclear why this happens. If you refresh, the problem should go away, but if you can get it to trigger reliably, let me know how.
If you notice a problem that you can force a repeat of, that's a bug you should report to me!
If you notice a grammatical mistake or misspelling, that's also something you should report.
(
@DarkSideBard on SV/SB, DarkSideBard#9953 on Discord)
Any other concerns can also be directed to me, including if you want to talk about the CYOA! Though you should probably do that in the thread for Arete
In general, I would advise you to do the best you can with what you have. If an option's text doesn't give you a clear enough understanding of what's being offered, simply fill in the gaps yourself. CYOAs are for fun, and I am not the fun police, so interpret things however you like.
