[X] His Shroud Was Down
[X] Foe-Defeating Stance


Actually was thinking that the update was slated for tomorrow. Oh well.

This sounds good to me. I am not going to cry bitter tears if Shattering does win, but I prefer this.
 
Oh yeah forgot about FDS. Follow through almost guarantees victory but I'm willing to gamble on FDS saving the day.

[X] His Shroud Was Down
[x] Foe-Defeating Stance
 
[X] Follow Through

This isn't the Hunger I wanted or voted for or argued in favor of, but that Hunger became impossible the moment Hold the Line won. If this is how it has to be then let's explore this character arc all the way to its inevitable conclusion without any backsliding or vain attempts to salvage the situation.

Identity isn't all that important, really. It's just a story your mind tells itself to make sense of the world, a hallucination that persists for reasons we can only speculate on. This identity has caused him only pain. Memories of friends lost, of hardship and pain and failure. There's nothing of value here.

Most of us change slowly, old memories slipping away and new ones being born, habits and friendships being born and dying, while only a few memories linger forever. A self that changes like the ship of Theseus. But Hunger can do it all at once, burn away a lifetime of pain in exchange for a single moment of heroism, and then from the ashes will come something new and better. Or at least different.

Hopefully people will vote somewhat differently for Hunger 2.0 but I'm not holding my breath.

Not voting for foe-defeating stance, I figure there will be plenty to spend arete on after.
 
[X] His Shroud Was Down
[X] Foe-Defeating Stance


This will put us at 17 Arete, which will mean in order to get an EFB on the post-fight picks, we'll need to generate 8 Arete over the next two updates.

Miners, do you all feel up to it?
 
FDS is the "fight someone stronger than me" kit, as opposed to ADS's more generalist "fight everyone else" kit.
FDS is more like specialization agains more powerful opponents at the cost of everything else. HDS is useless against same or lower Rank opponents. MDS is only useful if the enemy has 1000% more Might than us.
I think this is better than Seize on second read.
[X] His Shroud Was Down
[X] Foe-Defeating Stance


Miners, do you all feel up to it?
Hell yeah baby
EDIT: Make that 11 Arete, I bet Rihaku would throw a curveball with a 28 Arete cost
 
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"So the Republic has somehow allied with the Astral entities." Hunger said. "Concerning, but a problem for a later date.
That seems a bit of an abrupt conclusion to make (seems guided by destiny or Rank, to be able to make a logical leap of intuition like that, perhaps?), but... To go with that, have an equally abrupt or random conspiracy tree guess of mine.
[ ] Ring War - That's a nice Ring you got there. Would be a shame if someone... ruled it.

*Have Asterios experience a truly massive and unjustifiable breakthrough, starting the contest of Primacy!

*Our Hero must war, lest he bow to the new king among Rings!
*Force him into the Human Sphere where all manner of complication awaits!!
*Especially the thing with Letrizia's - oops, can't think about that.
*Requires [ ] One. There can only be one Ruling Ring.
Could the reason for the Republic-Astral alliance, be tied to a contest of Primacy? Of Asterios making a breakthrough in the ring progress, leading to him being able to compel Astral beings -- maybe there were 3 Astral Lords, bearing rings of power, who because of their defeat, had to pledge their forces to Asterios' banner :V. This supposes that Asterios is in the Republic of course... Alternatively... Asterios could be from the Empire, and the Republic-Astral alliance is a reaction to this newly-risen Ring Lord!

Hrm. Hunger's ring did glow bright red during this update. I wasn't sure why it was doing that. It was dramatic, sure. But what of his dominion over blood was he calling upon at the time, in order to do something? (Maybe it was just a simple "Applying buffs to himself and everyone via the ring, because duh. Especially Adorie." Boring but practical answer.)
 
Hrm. Hunger's ring did glow bright red during this update. I wasn't sure why it was doing that. It was dramatic, sure. But what of his dominion over blood was he calling upon at the time, in order to do something? (Maybe it was just a simple "Applying buffs to himself and everyone via the ring, because duh. Especially Adorie." Boring but practical answer.)

It is the Ring of Passion and War. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply reacting to Hunger's own mental state, shining brighter as the fires of Hunger's spirit were stoked.
 
It is the Ring of Passion and War. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply reacting to Hunger's own mental state, shining brighter as the fires of Hunger's spirit were stoked.
Huh. I guess this means it's appropriate to be able to buy Dominion: Passion and War, as well as Preeminence: Passion and War, then?

That means it might be possible to buy Ruling Ring entire from this, then. While that would feel appropriate and narratively dramatic -- Hunger, full and cured, and resolving to master himself and take a stand... then going on to master his ring as well, and proclaim and start the contest of primacy here and now, with the defeat of an Armament... -- it'd almost feel a waste to not use this battle's picks on whatever the 5-pick Advancements end up being... Hmph.

I want to see what kind of Haeliel's Favor/Oriflamme (is there a particular name for this Panoply artifact Rihaku?) might come from this battle. Since, depending on what we pick, we would have just Big Damn Hero'd our way through the fight. So. An Oriflamme EFB Advancement would be cool...
 
Hmm. Isn't it better to buy some of the individual components (we can use four including ADS IIRC) of the FDS without the stance itself? Unlike FDS, they could be used simultaneously with ADS. I wouldn't gamble on FDS being so much better than ADS in this situation that it alone would let us pull through.

...though I guess this whole situation is one giant gamble. Still, the Shattering Blow's costs are too great. This isn't our last fight by far.

[X] His Shroud Was Down
 
I'll be real, I'm just hoping for another shot at Slice Fate. If there was any time to be able to get it, it would be now, with Hunger deciding that he'd rather Cut Through all the obstacles in his path than give an inch. It's one of the few things that would improve our odds of surviving our boy's new philosophy.
 
I'll be real, I'm just hoping for another shot at Slice Fate. If there was any time to be able to get it, it would be now, with Hunger deciding that he'd rather Cut Through all the obstacles in his path than give an inch. It's one of the few things that would improve our odds of surviving our boy's new philosophy.

...Huh. Slice Fate was a conjunctional advancement with Letrizia, who is the target of this attack. Might be possible, if we win. That's an if for sure, even with FDS.

Still, I'm not going to complain. I voted and advocated for, among other things, Breach the Middle that lead to the Vanrier fight, and Shard of the Arcanist back when we first came to the Realm of Myth. I can't find fault in those that chose to Hold the Line.
 
Hmm. Isn't it better to buy some of the individual components (we can use four including ADS IIRC) of the FDS without the stance itself? Unlike FDS, they could be used simultaneously with ADS. I wouldn't gamble on FDS being so much better than ADS in this situation that it alone would let us pull through.

...though I guess this whole situation is one giant gamble. Still, the Shattering Blow's costs are too great. This isn't our last fight by far.

[X] His Shroud Was Down
afaik we don't have names for all the components of FDS. I'd be down to lay out 28 Arete for four separate stances + ADS instead of being forced to alternate between FDS/ADS. Overall, I trust Hunger & Rihaku to efficiently manage the details of the various Forebear stances. If we authorize 28 Arete in spending, Hunger will use it efficiently.
 
afaik we don't have names for all the components of FDS. I'd be down to lay out 28 Arete for four separate stances + ADS instead of being forced to alternate between FDS/ADS. Overall, I trust Hunger & Rihaku to efficiently manage the details of the various Forebear stances. If we authorize 28 Arete in spending, Hunger will use it efficiently.
FDS is 21 because we already have HDS which is one of the components.
Also we cannot use more than 4 stances atm
 
*If this first strike fails to do meaningful damage Hunger will have committed almost all of his trump cards for little gain. Victory would be exceedingly unlikely thereafter.

This worries me a lot. I'm not sure if we should buy the full FDS or just stick with ADS + whatever two stances are best suited to fighting this guy because that INT and WIS might be quite helpful when it comes to executing on this ambush.
 
FDS is 21 because we already have HDS which is one of the components.
Also we cannot use more than 4 stances atm
I will defer to the expertise of a Magus of the Sword. No surprise that you know more about this kind of spellcraft than I do.


This worries me a lot. I'm not sure if we should buy the full FDS or just stick with ADS + whatever two stances are best suited to fighting this guy because that INT and WIS might be quite helpful when it comes to executing on this ambush.
The description of Apocryphal Curse says that the bearer will be forced to "dig deep" to overcome certain obstacles. I refuse to believe that Rihaku would penalize us for digging too deep with a snap-purchase of stances that's sub-optimal because we specified too many of them. If nothing else, we'd get a Hunger interrupt because his thought process just got a conceptual improvement via Oriflamme.
 
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[x] Follow Through

Fuck yes. This is the only choice as far as I am concerned. Death or Heroism!

Anyway, we can also maintain a good chunk of Hunger's memory through arete expenditure.
 
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Hmm. For justification, we could highlight Nilfel's connections with the Foremost and offer to share whatever data we've derived from Verschlengorge through the magics of myth as a carrot, with the threat to simply teleport them elsewhere while killing all the Republic's divination mages as a stick, which would delay the assassination far more than simply agreeing. The latter wouldn't make much sense for a purely self-interested polity but for a nation so high on their own supremacy as Nilfel was until very recently, the spite of the prideful is much more believable.
 
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Note that while Follow Through has higher initial cost, it also has higher chance of succeeding. If His Shroud Was Down fails, the price might very well be even higher.
 
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