A Simple Transaction I

Fayhem · Dec 7, 2021

I want to talk about a few of our existing abilities that synergize exceptionally well with Imperishable Night. These have been mentioned already, but I want to highlight them more explicitly.

Lealope said:
Fifth Sign: Armor of Midnight [Evening Sky] - The Cloak of Sky is the heavens and all their intervening vastness unfurled, yet that which was the Shroud of Evening has not forgotten the form of its predecessor. He who dons the Armor of Midnight becomes nigh-invincible to harm or ill, for the aegis of his panoply is as vast and unconquerable as the universal void.

Returns now the Evening Sky - not merely of twilight, but of all darkness, king!

Casting time: 10 minutes
Duration: 8 hours
Cooldown: 1 week
Reagents: If below Rank 11, burn .1 Rank, otherwise burn .01 Rank.

The wielder is nigh-invincible. Treat his Protection as effectively infinite for purposes of defending against any form of harm incapable of destroying the entire universe, otherwise treat his Protection as increased by one thousand. Non-damaging hostile conditions and unwanted esoteric conditions have their impact mitigated by three orders of magnitude or by a degree appropriate to the effect if it had attempted to target all interplanetary space within the entire universe, whichever mitigation is greater. This grants effective Stage II mitigation of all Curses while active. Returns the appearance of the Cloak of Sky to that of the Evening Sky while active; the disguise function of Skyveil may not be used for the duration.

[Gird the Champion] - Armor of Midnight can be pre-cast, then summoned at will. Duration does not diminish while the Armor is un-summoned.

Emphasis/text size boost mine.

Lealope said:
[Refinement of War] - 1 + 7 Praxis picks / 25 Arete, Req. Refinement of Purpose, Refinement of Quickness or Prowess, Refinement of Battle

The caster for an instant embodies the supreme war-making version of themselves, triumph distilled and made incarnate. Extremely draining, for emergency use only. Like a controlled Shattering Blow.

*Apply half the numerical benefits of the Refinement of Battle, and half the ISH elevation of the Refinement of (Quickness/Prowess), to the character's Might, Agility, Wits, Prowess, Luck, Protection, and Wisdom (Combat) for one action or brief sequence of actions. Does not stack with the benefits inherent to the pre-requisites of this Advancement.

-If possessing Attainment of Quickness: Highly Draining, apply 7/10ths the benefits and elevation instead.
-And possessing Attainment of Battle: Duration increased to "one full exchange of blows or the equivalent," apply full benefits and elevation instead.
-And possessing Attainment of Purpose: Unlocks Subordination of War

That's +.7ish to that laundry list of stats, which hilariously includes Prot again.

Lealope said:
*Unlocks the Imperial Praxis technique, Closing the Fist (1p, 7 Praxis picks), whereby a group of individuals or artifacts may temporarily fuse to attain exponentially greater power. This technique is exhausting to use, but can be counted on in truly dire exigence to exceed even the Hour of Reckoning in might. Effects such as this are useful for handling the more dangerous Apocryphal activations...

The reason I'm highlighting all these powerful effects with painful CDs is that this is crazy good when you've got a fallback point that the enemy flatly cannot bring down in a timely manner, because you can exponentially multiply your power for a fight and then chill while you recuperate worry-free. Normally, the big risk of a nova strategy is that if your nova doesn't bring the enemy down then you're left in a weakened/vulnerable state and they can pick you off. With IN, we can get the benefit without the risk.

This plays directly into an IN strategy because it means that we can exponentially boost our power with Refinement of War and Closing the First, then fight to apply permanent/long-term debuffs to the Maiden while benefiting from functionally infinite Protection that is further extra-guaranteed by IN to apply against literally anything the Maiden could try to do to us (I don't think she's at the level of being able to destroy the entire universe - a galaxy or two sure, but not the universe). Then we fall back, recuperate virtually risk-free, and rinse and repeat until she's a shambling wreck of debilitating wounds. At that point we could finish her, or simply make her easy prey for Wolfy's capture plan (which I still like).

I believe that at least AFAIK our +Progression from IN should also apply to Praxis grinding, which would be extremely helpful for getting the additional Attainments that would make the Refinement of War even better.

Lealope said:
*Exalted Battle Array now comes with a limited form of Closing the Fist that can be used by two individuals or artifacts for semi-permanent fusion, reducing total stamina rather than acting as a continuous drain.

This is useful both for combat, and IMO for progression out of battle. In particular, right now I like the idea of fusing with the Ring to try to advance to a version of BH's "unhealable wounds" effect, as that has great synergy with the IN strategy outlined above.

Lealope said:
Finally, so long as even one companion is alive, you can always be revived from death via an incredibly difficult ritual.

This isn't necessarily an IN-specific thing, but I do want to note that IMO this has good synergy with Aeira. She's not a viable combatant, but she's a good hider. So we could theoretically have her hide away in some godforsaken corner of wherever just in case we die so that she can do the Companions of the King ritual to revive us if necessary.

Unelemental said:
Another question that hasn't been fully answered is how Decimation is going to be dealt with. Wolfy wants to just turn on the Grail and produce food out of thin air ourselves, but I'm far more pessimistic about this possibility. I expect this expression of the Curse to disable all food production within our domain, no matter its origin, and as such we'll either have to turn on Decimator for the length of time it takes to grow new food or continue to diminish the Realm by hunting for targets there.

I also wanted to come back to this. Grail Keeper might disable food production (I emphasize might, since the actual text says that it renders the "land barren" which doesn't actually mean stopping all forms of food production unless we're getting real metaphorical), but even if so it's not gonna touch stockpiles. We can stockpile, say, a year's worth of food in advance, then turn on Grail Keeper. By the time people are close to getting hungry this should already be resolved one way or the other anyway.

JOEbob · Dec 7, 2021

Fayhem said:
(I don't think she's at the level of being able to destroy the entire universe - a galaxy or two sure, but not the universe)

...Procyon was strong enough to break the armor of midnight(though, technically not the universe because of Rank Drop-off with range). We are well beyond universe-scale. The only way in which this ability can be relevant- which admittedly Is a notable one- is that one might argue that if the maiden can't destroy the full expanded Sky which is in the universe, then the Maiden also isn't able to destroy 'the entire universe', and so make our Armor Of Midnight protection infinite unless IN instant-dies anyway.
But I doubt that argument is actually valid as far as Rihaku is concerned. (Like, if I were writing something with that advancement, I'd either interpret it that way from the start or- considering how much weaker Hunger was when he got it- rule he's strong enough to make it work that way now. But I think Rihaku meant 'incapable of causing enough harm to destroy a universe', and not 'incapable of destroying this particular universe in its entirety'.)

Fayhem · Dec 7, 2021

JOEbob said:
...Procyon was strong enough to break the armor of midnight

IIRC, Procyon broke the Cloak of Evening's baseline protection, not the Armor of Midnight's "fuck off it's Infinite Prot" protection. I'm too lazy to go digging through the threadmarks though. But if I'm right then that's very, very, very different. And also makes much more sense.

Unelemental · Dec 7, 2021

Technically Procyon didn't break the Armor, I think? He just almost turned the Hunger inside into fine bloody mist. Ofc Hunger (repeatedly) got better and showed him the error of his ways afterwards.

JOEbob · Dec 7, 2021

Fayhem said:
IIRC, Procyon broke the Cloak of Evening's baseline protection, not the Armor of Midnight's "fuck off it's Infinite Prot" protection. I'm too lazy to go digging through the threadmarks though. But if I'm right then that's very, very, very different. And also makes much more sense.

Unelemental said:
Technically Procyon didn't break the Armor, I think? He just almost turned the Hunger inside into fine bloody mist. Ofc Hunger (repeatedly) got better and showed him the error of his ways afterwards.

well...

Rihaku said:
Swiftly he interposed his own body between fist and Walls, allowing Procyon's blow to crash against the Armor of Midnight that his Cloak of Sky had become. Even the vast fortitude of that Empyreal plate buckled beneath the onslaught

Seems pretty unambiguous! Even if the armor wasn't entirely broken, that it buckled at all shows it wasn't Effectively Infinite for that purpose; or else that Effectively Infinite is paltry at our level, whichever. And it's only reasonable it would be the Armor and not the Cloak; Procyon was at the time more than worthy a foe to warrant it.

Box Lunch · Dec 7, 2021

Unelemental said:
Not sure how much of a connection to the original Odyssial remains, but he could have something of a grudge against the Fair Folk? So 'unraveling stories' could be literal here, and findross' effects have reminded me of Fae and storytelling on more than one occasion. Maybe there is some crazy combination of Praxis technique and Nullity that would be especially effective at dispelling the Maiden's narrative? Grasping for straws here...

I figure it's probably already been mentioned, but Graces were a kind of power that Lunars got by hunting Rakshasa.

Not entirely sure why it was limited to just hunting them, but White Wolf really liked gating their content.

beowolf · Dec 7, 2021

Box Lunch said:
I figure it's probably already been mentioned, but Graces were a kind of power that Lunars got by hunting Rakshasa.

Not entirely sure why it was limited to just hunting them, but White Wolf really liked gating their content.

Graces were Rakshasa powers. Lunars could get them by hunting because that's how they steal power from hostile beings, but I'm pretty sure at least some Rakshasa could use higher level ones to give weaker Graces to mortals they had enslaved.

BrainInAJar · Dec 7, 2021

Man I just remembered about Closing the Fist. Will we finally see the Gisena-Hunger fusion? It's basically now or never!

Fayhem said:
IIRC, Procyon broke the Cloak of Evening's baseline protection, not the Armor of Midnight's "fuck off it's Infinite Prot" protection. I'm too lazy to go digging through the threadmarks though. But if I'm right then that's very, very, very different. And also makes much more sense.

Rank 10 is roughly equivalent to a 15 Stage Cultivator by @Rihaku:

Rihaku said:
Mm, not quite. They do different things. A Stage 15 Cultivator is literally throwing around transfinite levels of force, while a Rank 10 being could have theroretically the stats of a normal human but the power of their spirit is so immense that they're able to defeat Stage 15 Cultivators (depending on matchups, Reality Effects and the like).

And, of course, Stage 15 has infinite physical stats:

Rihaku said:
Unfortunately, increased physical strength just isn't very useful once you get past Stage 15 (infinite strength), unless you have some way to apply higher cardinalities of infinity in battle it just doesn't offer the same comprehensive stage-leaping ability as before.

Rihaku said:
Remember, any attack without a heavy magical / essential component is not going to be too relevant past Stage 15, Infinite Physical Strength!

Considering even a normal guy with Rank 10 is able to match a Stage 15, Procyon with its insane stats being able to breech the Armor of Midnight is no surprise at all.

OctarineShrike · Dec 7, 2021

BrainInAJar said:
Man I just remembered about Closing the Fist. Will we finally see the Gisena-Hunger fusion? It's basically now or never!

Yeah that fusion may be good for using Sophont Halo to counteract immanence maybe.

TooSlow · Dec 7, 2021

[X] The Tears of Winter, the Dog of War, the Evening Sky - Imperishable Night

OctarineShrike · Dec 7, 2021

Ok. So Inheritance has Infinite Physical Stats and Willpower. Infinite Rank/Power of Ruin, they're merged, we end up slow motion entropying everything, and Archmage is escalated to Ludicrous heights. This is not enough to stomp the Maiden.

So what does Blood Halo give us that Inheritance Does not?

Broad Spectrum ISH Elevation for all Direct Offensive actions and Defensive purposes, including the Praxis.

*+1 ISH in battle, applied to all direct offensive actions and relevant forms of defense.

Transcendent Cognition and skill(10,000 int, wits, prowess) that's even stronger in battle because Honing.

Mastery of Fate Manipulation within battles backed by our rank, with symbolically meaningful effects getting more elevation.

*Add the Domain of Battles to the wielder's repertoire and maximize his ability therein. Within the context of battle he can easily manipulate virtually any circumstance, phenomenon or outcome. Effects of symbolic importance are heightened further still.

The ability to train like a normal person due to losing the rings training penalties.

The ability to make wounds that amplify themselves over time, combined with exotic attack vectors

*The wielder's attacks cleave the blood and essence of his foe. Wounds he inflicts are ever-bleeding and unhealable, amplifying themselves over time. Damage so inflicted applies even if the target would not be harmed by bleeding, or lacks blood to spill. The wielder may classify any form of offensive interaction - insults, scheming, wearing garish clothing - as an attack utilizing his full physical parameters.

Army Buffs

Aobaru buffs.

Here's an example of a potentially relevant effect under the relevant forms of defense clause.

Sanctum: Within a 3-meter radius of Hunger (immutable to spatial alteration), he receives the following modifiers -
*Invincible - +0.3 ISH to all abilities, -0.5 ISH to enemy abilities, effects below base ISH 3.0 cannot oppose the wielder. A vigintillion point-blank supernovas would be no more troublesome than a breeze.
*Paradox Seal - Triple all Attributes after modifiers, instead septuple all Attributes against Heroes
*Domination - Save by his leave, entities within radius cannot act counter to wielder's desires. Against beings who would resist this ISH 3.5 effect, gain +200 Charisma and +100% to Holy Shit Modifier
*Titled - Enemies suffer -10%, and Hunger gains +10%, multiplicatively to All Attributes per exchange. Applies to all contests. Permanent until target leaves radius. Reduce by 10% multiplicatively the effects of any debuffs upon Hunger per exchange (or per attosecond, outside of contests). Does not appreciably mitigate Curses.

Maybe we could force her to blind herself due to conceputally elevated garish clothing aided by domain of battles hax(maybe symbolically significant because of her laser eyes grace), then setup an astral interdiction via law so she can't use rank instincts but we can(assuming she has rank), then get within 3 meters of her to finish her, either socially or via combat.

Edit: Another thing is that if the Maiden has to damage her own vision, that puts her closer to the Crone symbolically.

Valkhir · Dec 7, 2021

Blood Halo looks to me like it would be suited to hit and run style combat due to scheming and such also being elevated as if a physical offense, the Battles manipulation and the unhealable forever bleeding and worsening wounds.

A return to Hunger's guerilla warfare days, except he has a huge army of his own clones now. Either hit her with Artful Thorn (or Shattering Blow...?) to leave meaningful unhealable wounds and kite, or just bleed her with endless tiny cuts?

I am not sure if Praxis turning red is actually meaningful. Aobaru gaining these benefis seems a bit weird to me.

I am assuming since Inheritance is the option where its possible to more directly contest her, then Blood Halo should be a different track. Try to social her, and if we can make her deafen herself so it would be a mirroring of the Forebear doing so agains the Ur-Mother for that symbolic importance bonus...?

Symbolic importance in battle is probably an imporant part of BH, but how...

Tyrant_Rayne · Dec 7, 2021

Just to remind people but BH doesn't just affect the Hunger clones.

Rihaku said:
*Armies of the Shogun: Absorbs the Shogun to acquire the following ability - no matter how powerful the wielder becomes, the military forces under his personal command will always represent a significant contribution to his overall strength. This operates by empowering the wielder's subordinates so long as they exist within the context of an army, squad or military corps. Informal associations thereof (furious mob, adventuring party, hive-mind creature swarm) also qualify. The force in question must receive the wielder's personal leadership in combat; but once it has done so and is recognized as such, will persist with a significant fraction of its newfound strength even should the wielder fall. Only one force may benefit at a time, be it single yojimbo or limitless self-multiplying horde.

Forces of greater size, cohesion and quality enjoy a larger increase: the leader of a squad might find them empowered only to half his own strength, while the Shogun of a millions-strong army would see its combined might eclipse his own 100 times. Diminishing returns apply beyond that level.

So the regular forces of the human sphere will also benefit from it.

The power of the army will be at least 100x that of Hunger himself. Probably more seeing as how the army would be billions strong but with the diminishing returns I can't properly say.

200x seems like a good guesstimate?

Obviously Inheritance Hunger would be stronger in direct combat than Blood Halo Hunger and Army but we wouldn't be combating the Maiden directly.

The benefits of a large army is that it doesn't have to act as a single force. Divisions with there own tasks can be created.

A magic division meant to counter the Maiden's abilities.

A stealth division meant to track and sabotage her.

An artillery division meant to destroy her from afar.

A close combat division meant to fight her head on and protect the others.

All of whom thanks to being empowered will make non-insignificant progress in defeating her.

BH, out of all the options, gives us the greatest amount of versatility to take her down.

OctarineShrike · Dec 7, 2021

Valkhir said:
Blood Halo looks to me like it would be suited to hit and run style combat due to scheming and such also being elevated as if a physical offense, the Battles manipulation and the unhealable forever bleeding and worsening wounds.

A return to Hunger's guerilla warfare days, except he has a huge army of his own clones now. Either hit her with Artful Thorn (or Shattering Blow...?) to leave meaningful unhealable wounds and kite, or just bleed her with endless tiny cuts?

I am not sure if Praxis turning red is actually meaningful. Aobaru gaining these benefis seems a bit weird to me.

I am assuming since Inheritance is the option where its possible to more directly contest her, then Blood Halo should be a different track. Try to social her, and if we can make her deafen herself so it would be a mirroring of the Forebear doing so agains the Ur-Mother for that symbolic importance bonus...?

Symbolic importance in battle is probably an imporant part of BH, but how...

I agree with you about symbolism shenanigans being important for Blood Halo, but am under the impression Inheritance is an attrition fight. Use titled and Kingdom range sanctum to add more cardinalities to our physical stats until we can stomp the maiden.

Like, trying to focus on what makes each option unique:

Inheritance: Infinite physical stats/rank(which in spite of the archmage boosts isn't enough to stomp the maiden), combined with kingdom range sanctum. Likely victory path: Attrition via titled
Blood Halo: Exotic Attack Vectors, Battles fate manipulation, party buffs, and symbolism shenanigans. LIkely victory path: Setting up one or more symbolic attacks through fate manipulation, party buffs, maybe fusion and exotic attacks
Imperishable Night: The ability to meaningfully stall the maiden and scale up. Likely victory path: Training to outscale the maiden, via paths such as getting Refinement of War:The Iron fist, magical research with Gisena/Adorie, fusion, etc(Credit to Aabcehmu in discord for the inspiration in training methods)

Valkhir · Dec 7, 2021

OctarineShrike said:
I agree with you about symbolism shenanigans being important for Blood Halo, but am under the impression Inheritance is an attrition fight. Use titled and Kingdom range sanctum to add more cardinalities to our physical stats until we can stomp the maiden.

Like, trying to focus on what makes each option unique:

Inheritance: Infinite physical stats/rank(which in spite of the archmage boosts isn't enough to stomp the maiden), combined with kingdom range sanctum. Likely victory path: Attrition via titled
Blood Halo: Exotic Attack Vectors, Battles fate manipulation, party buffs, and symbolism shenanigans. LIkely victory path: Setting up one or more symbolic attacks through fate manipulation, party buffs, maybe fusion and exotic attacks
Imperishable Night: The ability to meaningfully stall the maiden and scale up. Likely victory path: Training to outscale the maiden, via paths such as getting Refinement of War:The Iron fist, magical research with Gisena/Adorie, fusion, etc(Credit to Aabcehmu in discord for the inspiration in training methods)

Honestly, due to the

Rihaku said:
victory though at grievous cost and the might of Hunger alone.

bit and the Forebear similarities, I think the victory condition, outside of just hitting her or trying to do tricks with the increased control over the Ruin/Rank hybrid to somehow ablate the source of her power or mind, is to do what the Forebear did and what Hunger did against the Ur-Mother, the Tyrant and to a lesser extent Procyon. Manoeuvre the Maiden to the point where she is weakest, and if we can't deliver a good enough blow ourself, then Shattering Blow.

The Forebear went into deep sleep a lot, and I seem to remember that something like that was also a possible complication for us after Procyon, so maybe this is simply part of the...strategy? Since the Ruin/Rank works even if you aren't as active, and Fault-Defeating should also work even if we are asleep.

Rihaku said:
[ ] Least Foresleep: Suffer the Affliction of Slumber at full strength for one year, then at half-strength for another year. Can't be mitigated. With powerful companions the consequences of Slumber can themselves be reduced, however.

Wear down the opponent and then deliver a final blow through any means, then just sleep it off/heal it off or whatever.

I guess that the reason Haeliel prefers Inheritance, outside of maybe something to do with the Forebear himself, maybe losing the Tyrant's Doom, is that it places all the weight and expectation onto Hunger. It doesn't ablate our kingdom and populations as armour or even seek more ablative populations/kingdoms by integrating others via quality of life promises to be struck down by the Maiden, and it doesn't rely on armies or companions or Aobaru to do work or put themselves in danger per se.
Heroic responsibility.

Rihaku said:
[ ] Follow Through - You talk a big game, but when it comes down to the wire, can you truly follow through? As per His Shroud Was Down, but also use The Shattering Blow. Not even the lineage of the Forebear in his place of power could withstand that uttermost strike, and that was from a Hunger vastly lesser than today's. If even this supreme assault cannot bring forth a conclusion, then he never had any chance at all. +Recklessness, +++Willpower, +3 Haeliel Points, +1 Haeliel Favor.

Edit: Though it is interesting that Inheritance requires Haeliel, and doesn't just get her approval.

Edit 2: It may be important that if Equinox Lacing means the Maiden cannot wield Foremost sorcery, by using findross in runes. It may be possible to ruin the shapes of her Graces? Since all Graces seem to be patterns of findross. Or to reduce findross itself. Become the findross negative wastes, but infinite.

GenericName · Dec 8, 2021

Inheritance is just the perfect mixture of so many of our core build options. It mega charges archmage, it merges ruin and rank for insane multiplier, it gives infinite willpower for extreme praxis endurance. It takes every really cool thing about our build and maxes it to 11 then synergizes it. The other options might be stronger in certain spheres of influence, with blood halo being better at battle and nothing else, and imperishable night scaling better and being safer, but inheritance is such a perfect capstone that seems so holistically powerful.

Fayhem · Dec 8, 2021

BrainInAJar said:
Considering even a normal guy with Rank 10 is able to match a Stage 15, Procyon with its insane stats being able to breech the Armor of Midnight is no surprise at all.

Man, I can literally never get a mental handle on how the power scaling in Rihaku quests works lol. Okay, so even at the power level we obtained it at the "infinite Protection" part was apparently more flavor text than something actually meaningful, but the +1000 Prot combined with IN's guarantee that Prot defends against basically everything the Maiden can do is still relevant. The Armor of Midnight is certainly less fuckoff good than I'd imagined, but it's still relevant to the "pop high-CD abilities, attack, inflict increasingly crippling wounds, and refresh our cooldowns in safety" cycle I'd proposed as a core IN strategy.

Valkhir · Dec 8, 2021

Fayhem said:
The Armor of Midnight is certainly less fuckoff good than I'd imagined, but it's still relevant to the "pop high-CD abilities, attack, inflict increasingly crippling wounds, and refresh our cooldowns in safety" cycle I'd proposed as a core IN strategy.

The problem is still the same though, if Inheritance level of stats and Rank or Blood Halo's everything is needed to enter contest with the Maiden directly, then our current abilities high cooldown or not, aren't going to do much of anything. Even if we wound her, like with Artful Thorn if it works, then she would just regen with her anti-entropy, which Inheritance contests directly and BH with unhealable wounds, while Night seemingly can't wear her down at all.

I don't think Night Hunger can directly contest the Maiden at all, that is, without camping in the center of his kingdom, and even then only in a survival sense. Its purely a hope to directly outscale her.

OctarineShrike · Dec 8, 2021

Judging from FormalAI talking about Infinite Rank being ISH 4.x, and this word of Rihaku

A Simple Transaction I Original

Indeed, considering that Inheritance Hunger's Rank suffices to contest endgame Nameless, and that this is insufficient alone to overcome the Maiden, it may be unwise to rely on optimistically proactive projections for those versions of Hunger who have less total dominion over reality...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Indeed, considering that Inheritance Hunger's Rank suffices to contest endgame Nameless, and that this is insufficient alone to overcome the Maiden, it may be unwise to rely on optimistically proactive projections for those versions of Hunger who have less total dominion over reality...

Nameless is ISH 3.9 in everything for reference, Rihaku mentioned that in discord.

and how the ISH elevation means Sanctum presumably protects us from all effects below ISH 4, the fight against the Maiden is an ISH 4.x battlefield. If you don't have at least one effect of ISH 4 or higher you have no business there. Hunger's ISH 3.5 for sword techniques(Possibly more depending on how prowess works) with Blood Halo and offensive usage of Archmage, but the part that's interesting is the Battles Domain. Effects of symbolic importance being heightened further stlll suggests the possibility of ISH elevation for symbolically significant battles effects until presumably, they're in ISH 4 territory.

Imperishable Night lets Hunger Use Nova for .3ISH worth of elevation if the Apo mitigation is sacrificed. It also elevates protection into the ISH 4 realm in the later stages of damage. However, that still leaves acquiring ISH 4 attack vectors. Archmage's Elevation is 2.5 minimum, maybe 2.9 or 3 in Nova with sacrificing mitigation. That leaves us to make up an entire step or more of ISH via Praxis grinding, research shenanigans, fusion, etc.

Valkhir · Dec 8, 2021

OctarineShrike said:
Imperishable Night lets Hunger Use Nova for .3ISH worth of elevation of the Apo mitigation is sacrificed.

Isn't this a permanent sacrifice that the thread would willingly undertake? I base this on the fact that it would require sacrificing Accursed Favor but it would be real weird if his favour would fluctuate as we used Nova or not. It would also make IN even more vulnerable to Apocryphal than it already is, which is no mean feat.

Rihaku said:
You may choose to dispense with the Apocryphal Mitigation and corresponding Accursed Favor to instead receive +100,000 All Stats, +1000% All Stats, +5 Rank and +0.3 ISH to all abilities while wielding Hyper Novakhron in combat. This is not very efficient but the enormous boost to combat-type actions may be helpful imminently.

OctarineShrike · Dec 8, 2021

Valkhir said:
Isn't this a permanent sacrifice that the thread would willingly undertake? I base this on the fact that it would require sacrificing Accursed Favor but it would be real weird if his favour would fluctuate as we used Nova or not. It would also make IN even more vulnerable to Apocryphal than it already is, which is no mean feat.

Yeah I have my concerns about the likelihood of us being willing to do that if it's actually necessary and a good idea(this is not a conclusively established thing).

BrainInAJar · Dec 8, 2021

Giving up Apocryphal mitigation is a horrible idea. The biggest risk of Imperishable Night is that it gives the Apocryphal more time to interfere. Not hedging against that in favor for more raw power to fight the Maiden seems very misguided.

Fayhem said:
Man, I can literally never get a mental handle on how the power scaling in Rihaku quests works lol. Okay, so even at the power level we obtained it at the "infinite Protection" part was apparently more flavor text than something actually meaningful, but the +1000 Prot combined with IN's guarantee that Prot defends against basically everything the Maiden can do is still relevant. The Armor of Midnight is certainly less fuckoff good than I'd imagined, but it's still relevant to the "pop high-CD abilities, attack, inflict increasingly crippling wounds, and refresh our cooldowns in safety" cycle I'd proposed as a core IN strategy.

Come on, without Armour of Midnight we'd have fucking died. That's very meaningful, wouldn't you say? I know I and many others were quite surprised at the passage, but we shouldn't have been since all the information was there. There's a certain humour in decrying "infinite Protection" as mere flavor text is amusing, and it will still likely deliver it's "maximum value" since the Maiden is unlikely to target civilians, even as collateral damage to her main attacks.

Unelemental · Dec 8, 2021

By the way, were there any Graces that depended on speech in AST0? Reading this part from the Implicate Veil option that we didn't take:

Rihaku said:
*She becomes unable to speak, though she may still communicate by other means. This may affect the magics she has access to.

makes me wonder whether speech is a major part of her power (that she keeps in check by staying silent most of the time) and we're about to witness something like the Forebear vs Ur-Mother fight again, possibly with both opponents reincarnated.

There was also this from Equinox Lacing:

Rihaku said:
*She becomes unable to wield proper Foremost Sorcery, using findross and the Higher Runes together.

Can we somehow take advantage of her lacking this capability now? Is she less flexible with her powers, or do they have some weaknesses due to not being proper Foremost Sorcery?

Aabcehmu · Dec 8, 2021

I don't think that we can really speculate on what sort of weaknesses that her lack of Foremost Sorcery might create.

Our local Foremost Sorcery specialist Gisena, however, will probably have numerous ideas once she finds out.

BrainInAJar · Dec 8, 2021

Anyway, since I'm voting for Inheritance, l should give an argument for it, shouldn't I? And one I haven't seen anyone bring up, though I suppose it's been over a year.

Rihaku said:
"If you wish only to survive," it continued, "I will grant you a modest portion of my burdens, and power enough to be free of this realm and its shackles. But if you seek vengeance against the powers truly responsible for your suffering here, then you must take on a far more onerous burden. In exchange, you will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease."

[...]

[ ] Vengeance - "...If that is what you wish."

"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."

The very first vote of the quest. Brings you way back, doesn't it? Though Hunger hasn't had the Hidden Ones in his mind for quite a while, it is still his main motivation for embarking on this journey at all.

We need to be at least be High Cursebearer to be able to contest them, that has been well established. And even as a Progression-type, making it that far is extremely unlikely, requiring incredible talent, dedication and probably a bit of craziness. Even having rose to this much power, the odds are still incredibly against us.

So why not take the power take gives us the best chance to get there? The implication with the Haliel ending being unlocked by the option is that we make it with this option; the fact that the Forebear was one of the ones to curse the Accursed supports this and gives credence to this being the level of power being offered.

Conquering this universe, ruling all these people, they are simply requirements to the goal we set at the very start. That doesn't make them less important, but when we put buffing our companions or eeking out a bit more comfort for our polity in front of the actual main objective we set out in chargen there's a problem.

Indeed, why should we choose anything else? Our conflicts don't end with this, even the Maiden is merely a start. To prevail over the Hidden Ones, our epoch must be beyond time and logic itself. We must surpass whatever limits we have, and strike beyond.

And to Inherit the power of one who challenged even the Accursed, who always surpassed what was arrayed before him in his own Procession, what better chance could we get?

A Simple Transaction I

Definitely not an escaped SCP

Definitely not an escaped SCP

Avatar of Mandos

Avatar of Mandos

Probably Not Evil… Maybe

Avatar of Mandos

Definitely not an escaped SCP

Avatar of Mandos

Avatar of Mandos

Confusion as a Natural State of Being