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Accursed Citrine - Yet another Dark Soul/Madoka Magica Crossover

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[x] Ask some more questions
-[x] The hell is this place?
-[x] Wait, undeads?
I mean the fact that there are men in a place meant to host the undead should make it clear this isn't just a magical girl thing so the whole undeath thing does warrant a few questions even if she is in the know.

Now I'm wondering how the hell the whole soul gem cleansing is gonna go here, are you gonna follow in the footsteps of Red Soul and have purging stones be the grief seed equivalent or will you try something different like how you could reverse hollowing in DS2 by getting summoned to help someone with a boss battle. Considering there was a piece of Oriko's soul gem has more than Kirika been brought over to this world meaning she might actually be able to hunt witches?

Would leveling up INT/Faith power up her normal magic as well or would it just let her use the native magic of the world? Would she be able to use the normal magic here without corrupting her soul gem given magic here doesn't normally have consequences like that or is it going to taint her gem the same as her normal magic does?
AClassyBunny said:
Desterity: 12
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Also you seem to have a typo on Oscar's character sheet. Also is there a reason you excluded attunement from the list of stats? You included resistance which is practically the least useful stat in the game but you ignored one of the major stats involved in any magic build.
 
John Sandman said:
Now I'm wondering how the hell the whole soul gem cleansing is gonna go here, are you gonna follow in the footsteps of Red Soul and have purging stones be the grief seed equivalent or will you try something different like how you could reverse hollowing in DS2 by getting summoned to help someone with a boss battle. Considering there was a piece of Oriko's soul gem has more than Kirika been brought over to this world meaning she might actually be able to hunt witches?
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For now, Purging Stones will indeed act in a similar way to grief seeds. I'm still undecided about whether Humanity can be used to do it and honestly can't think of anything else that could work. That said, I've actually only played through the Dark Souls series once, so I might be forgetting some item that would fit as a cleansing source.

Of course, there will also eventually be other means to clean your soul gem. Some in Lordran, some from elsewhere.

John Sandman said:
Would leveling up INT/Faith power up her normal magic as well or would it just let her use the native magic of the world? Would she be able to use the normal magic here without corrupting her soul gem given magic here doesn't normally have consequences like that or is it going to taint her gem the same as her normal magic does?
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Leveling Intelligence and Faith will only effect non-Kirika magic. Soul Arts type magic will drain from Kirika's soul gem, with the degree it does so being dependant on the power of the spell and how high your INT is. This will be "balanced" by Soul Arts spells not requiring attunement slots and being more powerful due to the whole soul thing of being a magical girl.
Faith and Pyromancy, meanwhile will not effect her soul gem.

John Sandman said:
Also you seem to have a typo on Oscar's character sheet. Also is there a reason you excluded attunement from the list of stats? You included resistance which is practically the least useful stat in the game but you ignored one of the major stats involved in any magic build.
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Thanks for pointing that out, writing out Oscar's info was a bit rushed on my part.

As for Attunement and Resistance, I've decided to add and remove them. I don't really know why I did it how I did, since I wrote out the info sheet about half a year ago and only made minor modifications before starting this quest. I also didn't realise just how pointless Resistance is in DS1. Did they make it better in later games or am just imagining things?
For Attunement, I think I left it out because of Soul Arts not needing slots to use, as mentioned above. I'd honestly forgetten Pyromancy was a thing and no idea why I didn't think about Miracles.
 
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AClassyBunny said:
Did they make it better in later games or am just imagining things?
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They didn't even bother with a resistance stat in the later games.

AClassyBunny said:
or now, Purging Stones will indeed act in a similar way to grief seeds. I'm still undecided about whether Humanity can be used to do it and honestly can't think of anything else that could work. That said, I've actually only played through the Dark Souls series once, so I might be forgetting some item that would fit as a cleansing source.

Of course, there will also eventually be other means to clean your soul gem. Some in Lordran, some from elsewhere.
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Given purging stones affect curse how about other sources that affect curse having relevant effects like the NPC Ingward being able to free you of curse in exchange for a humanity or the spell curse resist stopping curse build up? The cursebite ring could make it taken longer for her soul gem to fill up for example.
 
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Full resistance build was the ultimate meme. You'd invade people and literally just fling shit at them to win, because all it did was raise your physical defense and poison/toxic resist, which meant you could throw more dung pies without getting the toxic effect applied to yourself.
Unfortunately, I don't think Kirika is planning on relying on literal shitflinging to fight, so that option is out the window.
 
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wetodet said:
They made it better, sorta.

By which I mean they dropped it entirely, in favor of Adaptability in 2 and Luck in 3.
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Adaptability was a weird stat, if it didn't have an effect on how many invincibility frames you got while rolling I doubt anyone would really use it. Luck in DS3 at least has scaling with certain weapons and boost item drop rates.
 
John Sandman said:
Adaptability was a weird stat, if it didn't have an effect on how many invincibility frames you got while rolling I doubt anyone would really use it. Luck in DS3 at least has scaling with certain weapons and boost item drop rates.
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I mean, the idea that if a stat didn't do what it was there to do nobody would pick it is kind of an odd one. Having good I-frames and using your items faster as an idea for a character build direction probably felt like a level tax to some people, but you could make do without going all out on them, and it was really nice to have more of them than average. As a stat, Adaptability was a respectable choice, and a great way to feel that your character was becoming more competent.
 
chocolote12 said:
I mean, the idea that if a stat didn't do what it was there to do nobody would pick it is kind of an odd one. Having good I-frames and using your items faster as an idea for a character build direction probably felt like a level tax to some people, but you could make do without going all out on them, and it was really nice to have more of them than average. As a stat, Adaptability was a respectable choice, and a great way to feel that your character was becoming more competent.
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Though if Agility gets too high jumping is basically impossible... or, uh, even more impossible than it already is.
 
AClassyBunny said:
For now, Purging Stones will indeed act in a similar way to grief seeds. I'm still undecided about whether Humanity can be used to do it and honestly can't think of anything else that could work. That said, I've actually only played through the Dark Souls series once, so I might be forgetting some item that would fit as a cleansing source.

Of course, there will also eventually be other means to clean your soul gem. Some in Lordran, some from elsewhere.
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That depends on what you want Grief to be? Is it a (probably unbreakable/constantly applied) Curse? Is it the Darkness of a human soul? Is it something inbetween? Or even something else altogether?

Let's say its something qualified as both. In that case its basically a build up of human darkness that is trapped in her soul and unable to be bled off, so the Purging Stone suppresses/eats the curse part and the Grief gets shoved out (this is viewing the "being trapped in her soul" part as the Curse rather than the Grief/Darkness itself, but that would work too).

Or a humanity could pull on the darkness, like calls to like, and absorbs it through the entrapment.

Could even make an argument for Bonfires trying to burn it out and choking on it or something.
 
ShadowAngelBeta said:
Purging Stone suppresses/eats the curse part and the Grief gets shoved out (this is viewing the "being trapped in her soul" part as the Curse rather than the Grief/Darkness itself, but that would work too).
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Something interesting to keep in mind is that the only thing a purging stone does is change the target of a curse.
Ash-colored stone encasing a skull. Secret treasure of Arstor, the Earl of Carim. Reduces curse build-up and breaks curse.
Humans are helpless against curses, and can only redirect their influence.
The Purging Stone does not dispel curses, but receives them as a surrogate. The stone itself was once a person or some other being.
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A purging stone is someone rather than something. If I remember right wasn't there something in one of the madoka spin offs that could turn normal people into witches? I wonder if something will happen if Kirika gets a purging stone used on her while running high enough on greif will the purging stone be enough of a person to have something bad happen?
wetodet said:
Granted, it doesn't exactly specify what 'other being' means.
Could be that someone out there is mass-converting basilisks into purging stones for irony's sake.
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That would be funny but I'm gonna lean on the slightly more horrifying side given the only thing in game that drops them normally is clams that have mouths full of human skulls.
 
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AClassyBunny said:
As for Attunement and Resistance, I've decided to add and remove them. I don't really know why I did it how I did, since I wrote out the info sheet about half a year ago and only made minor modifications before starting this quest. I also didn't realise just how pointless Resistance is in DS1. Did they make it better in later games or am just imagining things?
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As others have mentioned, Resistance is mostly the designated Trash Stat of DS1 and was removed in later games; it also stands out as the only Trash Stat that was actually useless in the series, since DS2 Adaptability is more "trash" because it's nearly mandatory for the i-frames unless you go full defensive shield build or Git Gud levels of dodging, and DS3 Luck at least has the affect of buffing your status effect buildup like Bleed and item droprates. In comparison, Resistance slightly buffs your status resistances but not enough to matter especially considering how accessible moss is, and buffs your defense each level up... but only slightly more than any other stat, and the buff is so tiny that a single point of vitality will have more overall effect on your survival anyways.

As for how you're using stats, well now I'm not sure if I want to go full bore Dex Claws for Kirika to take full advantage of her already existing magical girl weapon and speed, or pump up intelligence and attunement to take full advantage of soul arts being tied to her soul gem, along with pyromancy being. Well, DS1 Pyromancy. Depending on how you've balanced it narratively, it might be worth investing in attunement if just because DS1 Pyromancy gets pretty ridiculous for minimal investment - there's a good reason DS1 has what is probably the easiest Soul Level 1 challenge in the series.
 
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John Sandman said:
Something interesting to keep in mind is that the only thing a purging stone does is change the target of a curse.

A purging stone is someone rather than something.
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Granted, it doesn't exactly specify what 'other being' means.
Could be that someone out there is mass-converting basilisks into purging stones for irony's sake.
E: Suppose the only one who'd know for sure would be this 'Earl Arstor' guy, and he's not exactly present in Lordran to ask.
 
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McFluffles said:
As for how you're using stats, well now I'm not sure if I want to go full bore Dex Claws for Kirika to take full advantage of her already existing magical girl weapon and speed, or pump up intelligence and attunement to take full advantage of soul arts being tied to her soul gem, along with pyromancy being.
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Considering that with the right set up you can outright one shot certain bosses with magic Kirika would be a god damn monster. The only part of that set up thats actually hard to get is the manus catalyst given you have to beat the dlc before you can get it.
 
John Sandman said:
Considering that with the right set up you can outright one shot certain bosses with magic Kirika would be a god damn monster. The only part of that set up thats actually hard to get is the manus catalyst given you have to beat the dlc before you can get it.
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Don't need to tell me twice; my last playthrough of DS1 was both my first time actually bothering with NG+ and my first time going hard on DS1's magic by pumping everything into Intelligence and Faith; lategame was just "Dark Bead Crystal Soul Spear Crystal Homing Soulmass Greater Lightning Spear whoops I melted all the bosses". It's a close call if DS1 or Demons Souls is where magic is at its most overpowered in the series; probably Demon Souls on account of farmable MP restoration items and running Firestorm glitch, but the amount of damage buffers and zero stamina cost in DS1 can get pretty insane as well.
 
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John Sandman said:
Given purging stones affect curse how about other sources that affect curse having relevant effects like the NPC Ingward being able to free you of curse in exchange for a humanity or the spell curse resist stopping curse build up? The cursebite ring could make it taken longer for her soul gem to fill up for example.
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ShadowAngelBeta said:
Let's say its something qualified as both. In that case its basically a build up of human darkness that is trapped in her soul and unable to be bled off, so the Purging Stone suppresses/eats the curse part and the Grief gets shoved out (this is viewing the "being trapped in her soul" part as the Curse rather than the Grief/Darkness itself, but that would work too).
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Seeing as the Darkness in DS is more or less the base state of humanity, I'm going to have it lean more towards being akin to Curse. Of course, Humanity sprites are something kind of like tiny souls themselves, from what I can gather, so I think I will have them work as grief seeds. Other sources of removing Curse will also work.

John Sandman said:
Given how the gods freak out over the dark it probably is a war crime in universe to use dark magic.
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And then most of the gods were forgotten about and Hexes became a thing.
 
wetodet said:
Oddly, some of DkS2's hexes are actually reskinned miracles
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That does make sense though, doesn't it?
I always saw them as a collection of Humanity-based magic and miracles of the Dark. The magic ones tap into the Darkness of the human soul and the miracle ones are tales of great feats of Darkness in the same way as normal miracles are tales of great feats of the divine.
 
AClassyBunny said:
the miracle ones are tales of great feats of Darkness
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Maybe, maybe not. It can't exactly be a coincidence that the miracles which got tossed into the hex spell list included Velka's, but as far as we knw she had no special connection to the Dark proper - the most we know about her are her role, Goddess of Sin, her followers, the Confessors, and that she is - or, well, was - apparently somewhat distrusted by the gods of Anor Londo back when that was an actual group rather than just being Gwyndolin trying to convince himself things weren't falling apart around him.

E: Also, not all hexes are sourced from Dark entities - the Giant Lord's soul is used to make one, but as far as I know DkS2's tree-giants aren't Dark-aligned.
 
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AClassyBunny said:
Seeing as the Darkness in DS is more or less the base state of humanity,
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Ah, but what is the base state of humanity?

Extra answered that question in his quest when I hadn't even thought to ask it ever, but the only humanity we know in DS is the one after Gwyn bound their Darkness in his Fire.

Even Manus.

Again, your decision, but I'd be a bad player to not at least pose the question.
 
ShadowAngelBeta said:
Ah, but what is the base state of humanity?

Extra answered that question in his quest when I hadn't even thought to ask it ever, but the only humanity we know in DS is the one after Gwyn bound their Darkness in his Fire.

Even Manus.

Again, your decision, but I'd be a bad player to not at least pose the question.
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To complicate things further, while the Sable Church claims Hollowing to be a uniquely human trait, the initial purpose of the Dark Hand // Art of Lifedrain, according to Kaathe himself, who as was mentioned to me in the QM's other thread is their founder, is to assist you in staving it off by taking Dark from others... and Gwyn himself - as the Lord of Cinders - appears Hollow.
Granted, this might just be a symptom of each game seeming to have a different definition of what 'Hollowing' is, not to mention having different ideas of what it looks like - DkS1 Hollows are charred corpses, DkS2 Hollows are green and rotting, and DkS3 Hollows - assuming the generic enemies are meant to be Hollow in that game, which I'll grant may not be the case - are unnaturally pale.

E: I mean, I guess one could also argue that the Humanity sprite enemies in Manus' Abyss are as close to 'purely human' as we can find, but, uh, that kind of relies on the pedantry of 'they're literally pure Humanity' and/or that one 'show your humanity' pun / puzzle in DkS3.
 
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ShadowAngelBeta said:
Ah, but what is the base state of humanity?

Extra answered that question in his quest when I hadn't even thought to ask it ever, but the only humanity we know in DS is the one after Gwyn bound their Darkness in his Fire.

Even Manus.

Again, your decision, but I'd be a bad player to not at least pose the question.
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Technically nothing with a soul is actually in its natural state in this series given that all souls were found among the flame, even the dark soul.
 
John Sandman said:
Technically nothing with a soul is actually in its natural state in this series given that all souls were found among the flame, even the dark soul.
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Oh yeah, on that note:
- DkS1 Dragons don't drop Souls-the-item, the only drop type they have is the tail cut. The only Dragon weapon obtained from converting a Soul is the Dragon Bone Fist, from the Iron Golem... and even then considering the golem's core is a converted dragon bone - though how exactly one goes about converting a single bone into a functional equivalent to a Soul is a question I have no answer to - already, that's.. basically just the Giant Blacksmith taking the bindings off a caestus, attaching them to the core, and telling you to go have fun with your new weapon.
-- Similarly, boss Demons don't drop Soul items either, with their drops being their weapons, which you have to grind out in most cases. [E: Just remembered the one exception, the Centipede Demon, which drops a ring... which you can also get by tail cut, making it the only non-Dragon to have such a reward.]
- There is exactly one DkS1 boss whose Soul-item can be used for literally nothing other than converting to Soul-currency, the Sanctuary Guardian. Y'know, that manticore thing that gatekeeps the entirety of the actually interesting DLC content behind it? No idea why it gives no meaningful rewards, other than to highlight the incredibly arbitrary nature of its existence.

And I'm not sure about the 'the devs didn't want you to get two items from one boss kill' explanation for the first point, either, considering Priscilla has both a Soul weapon - the Lifehunt Scythe - and a tail cut reward - called Priscilla's Dagger, but, uh, I'm hesitant to say that's a proper name for a weapon she only 'owned' in the sense that it's made from one of her body parts.
Notably those two weapons are the only remaining sources we have on what the Lifehunt ability she apparently has is, and her Soul's description calls her both a 'crossbreed bastard child' and 'antithesis to all life', the second descriptor being more eyebrow-raising than the first.
Granted, Priscilla is the only boss to drop an item in both categories, and she's by far the least mandatory fight in the entire game given she's non-hostile, in an optional zone, and has an exit right past her - plus she was originally intended to be a player ally - so who knows why she's one of the two weird exceptions to the rule of 'one boss, one reward' the rest of the game operates under.
 
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