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A Simple Transaction I

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Windlass said:
Also it's a SORD option, iunno if that meme's still a thing but it's a priority for me. Hun-kun's gone full Forebear every time the option was offered so why stop now. Kinda curious how assuming the title will work too, realizing he was the Forebear the first time was a good scene. Gimme that sick Rihaku powerup sequence fix~
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That's arguable. We're at like 2.5 ISH sword tech right now from sanctum, Cut Through, and OAF 2.

You want ISH 3+ Sword Techs you want Blood Halo. It even gives 10k prowess so Hunger will actually be superhumanly good at swordfighting. Blood Halo is the most Swordy option.
 
Lealope said:
Maybe I'm too sensitive to word choice
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You may parse "totally countered" as "effectively countered", but I suppose I did get a bit carried away with the intensifier in that post. Consider it retracted.

(Insert grumbling about charitable readings…)
 
Lealope said:
I've got no doubts she's got a specific anti-ruin power, along with specific counters to five fucktillion other things. That's one of the benefits of infinite training time. I just doubt it will be anywhere near enough to totally nullify Ruin-Rank the way people have been suggesting. If you wanna bet that it will, then I'm happy to wager 3 vote markers.
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Why? We already saw powers that hard counter Rank - King Stands Alone, which is ironically the entire point of Inheritance, and HDS, especially when buffed by Bastion. Such things are evidentially possible. Likewise, we know that Maiden already has a Grace whose entire purpose is to completely deny entropy as a process so she just needs to juice is it up, which she can easily do.

"She has bajilion powers" misses the point; it is incredibly likely that she will purse to consolidate all of her Graces into a couple of very specific abilities in order to intensify her powers in those areas and if she does that, countering Ruin will be one of the first three things she would do. We know that she has the means, thanks to Renew, and we know that she has the oomph to do it.

And while powerful enough Ruin can beat Maiden regardless of her powers, I'm sure it is obvious that we are not at point where we can just overpower her. I would be very surprised if anything but RoW backed Ruin affects Maiden.

Although another thing Ruin has going to it is range, so things that are outside of Maiden's sphere of influence, such as her attacks or allies, would be more susceptible to our Ruin.
 
Birdsie said:
In order to cash in this marker, you gotta duel Zampano in the ring of honor (heh, ring). Man's already got a claim to my soul. I'll change my vote if you both can come to a satisfactory agreement between yourselves. Although between you and me, given how the winds are blowing, it's likely Zampano will change votes anyway cuzza his deal.
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lmao I CHECKED the state of marker usage and still missed that Zamp called a marker on you
well, I'm pathologically allergic to debt, so I guess it will have to be SAVE'd
shady backroom marker gang strikes again
 
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Zampano said:
@Birdsie will remain on BH, unless I can have a 1-veto marker each from @Lealope & @Genesys.
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Vote counter shows @Birdsie on Inheritance. I'd assume because he namevoted you and you namevoted someone who voted for Inheritance. The perils of cascading namevotes, basically.

Anyway, I still favor IN, but it looks like its not gonna make it at this point. So, assuming Birdsie switches to voting BH, I'll try to consolidate omake power there. I... think I've written second-most after him? If we count build discussion.

[X] The Ring Crimson - Blood Halo
 
The following is a reaction to Birdsie's Real Last CYOA for Real This Time. That's Underworld's Pearl, to be clear. It gets fairly rambly at times and puts more of the logic in the specific option commentary than the build descriptions, mostly because I wrote it over the course of like 3 days, so I hadn't actually made the builds while I was writing the commentary.
Broad-Spectrum Commentary
[ ] Fabled Form [2 Obols] - There isn't much to say about this- it seems like a good choice for its price, though it's mutually exclusive with what follows. 'self becomes better'. The protective fate thing is potentially useful but how much so depends on exact mechanics(do you know if it's exhausted, does it work no matter how overkill the 'kill' would've been, is 'being killed by your opponent' one event that would kill you or is 'being stabbed in the heart after a slight break in your guard during a specific part of the fight with your opponent' one event, etc), how greedy you plan to get with power levels, etc.

[ ] Celestine Form [2 Drachmas] - Fabled Form but better, physically speaking. More discussibly- and I'd get the impression more Importantly- it gives broad conceptual powers over a concept sort-of-of-choice up to a quite substantial power level. I don't see any options which look like they're better at providing that specific type of utility at a similar price point, though of course Primordial Form and the Staff are superior. If selecting this, my purely-tactic inclination- with no regard to the 'close to your heart' line- would be something like Progression. Taking that line into account but in a similar vein, I'd select 'Achievement', meant in a sense similar to Arete or doing the intended-as impossible. Like, not literally doing the impossible because that's a concept which can't apply to anything that happens, but as close as reasonable to that. various examples of this would be a video game character who beats a Hopeless Boss Fight not at the end of their adventure when it becomes not-hopeless, but the first time it comes around, be it through unexpected tactics, level grinding, lots of items, or anything else. In a Forum Game/Quest context, this would be when a player does something the QM actively intended would be impossible- Zane surviving the Lotus Flower option to the point of becoming a full Knight, Me sequence-breaking an ARG and making an indestructible shield powered by the big bad. In a book with only one author, this might be a character who was supposed to lose, but the author realizes it doesn't fit their character and rewrites everything accordingly- though that doesn't include the implication of it being difficult, since the character doesn't do anything difficult to get there.
This concept isn't just the 'Screw Destiny' or 'Immune to Fate' tropes. In both cases, there's simply a layer of abstraction between the real 'Fate'- the writer, generally- and the in-story 'fate' which can be defeated. This is like Screw Destiny iterated a layer of conceptual escalation, I suppose.
...back to the option proper, the memory-blurring is unfortunate, but sounds like it's very minor and probably counteracted-on-average by the improved memory of the option. I might be misreading this and maybe it's a lowballed disclaimer I dunno.

[ ] Primordial Form [1 Denar] - You only get 1% power instantly, but 'punch with the force of a planet' and 'run as fast as light' means that, in that regard, you're going to have far more trouble actually making use of your newfound physical gifts than worry for improving them. And the description only says you gain these gifts physically, but that's... well, utterly implausible. you wouldn't be able to even tell your legs to move at the speed of light, never mind avoid running into a forests worth of trees per jaunt, if you didn't have Some degree of mental acceleration. all the more so if relativity applies, but I'll be reasonable and assume that is not relevant here, in part because that requires literally infinite mental acceleration and in part because it's only hugely relevant at the higher levels. You're still going to need literally at least six orders of magnitude of improved mental speed to manage this (Higher, even. I'm being conservative by using a number based on people totally focused on paying attention for a single thing and only needing to react to that one thing with mental preperation, as opposed to the actual requirement of being able to see holes in the ground, trees in the way, nails on the floor- well, I guess not that since your skin is too hard- hills, people you don't want to kill by running through them, etcetra). It can't just be reactions speed, and- well, the point's made. It's sort of very barely reasonable for Hunger to not have that acceleration because his speed is like 99% conceptual, but that just doesn't work for Actually Being Fast, and this is 'improved parameters', not 'conceptual enhancements'.

Anyway, next. it's a bit ambiguous, but I get the impression that as soon as the transformation begins, you are technically a titan, albeit only 1% of one. 1% of absolute immortality is still absolute immortality, suggesting the dangers are mostly sealing even off the bat- though that is indeed a danger, especially if they fire a gun into your remains periodically, and honestly it doesn't change much unless some other option, or a property of this one, would lead to escalating regeneration until you regain consciousness and sufficient scaling to overcome any obstacle in the locality... Perhaps the sign of the bear- a titan which has been attacked with sufficient force 'Sleeps', and that is when you have dreams. Although you'd need to end up occasionally having Lucid dreams so you can spend enough time identifying connections to actually gain the powers in question.
I assume the Gods don't have divination capabilities strong enough to reliably identify a titan at entire-underworld range, because otherwise 'even if they can't be sure where it happened' is almost entirely meaningless and utterly misleading. It's hard to know more than that, but that's enough. Why? because the underworld has no border. Suppose their range is only slightly smaller than the underworld, they're all crammed inside of the middle, and you- wait, no, then they know you're on the border... eh, whatever. In fact, let's be super unfair to my argument and say their range is the entire underworld and this guy is trying to get us caught and sealed/killed. You can Still escape them, because you don't need to drink the cup immediately. Take your other options, run away until you're not in the... main?... underworld and are out of their range- admittedly, you don't know their range, but I'm already being generous to the gods in the first place given the framing here. Anyway, once you drink the blood and they know there's a Titan, let's also say they immediately fan out from the middle of the underworld in all directions. Including up, but not including down. In other words, for every [Detectionrange] of distance the Titan has traveled, they need to travel [Detectionrange]^3 or something like that, with slightly less as the base. They can split that distance between themselves, but I doubt there's... hm.
Okay, so this doesn't actually work, but I can fix it. For the cost of two Drachmas (or, considering it's a bundle, 0.28 of a Drachma.), I can equip the Band of Infinity and travel anywhere I desire- in this case, several million light-years away from the rest of the Underworld using a number generated from my past history to randomize the precise number of millions of light years (2700. That's not a natively-round number, it's the addition of 3 numbers of absolutely no significance to this world but which also aren't mental random Or computerrandomized because you don't have a computer. It ended up round, but that doesn't matter- what matters is that they can't predict it without being able to read my mind from a place I've been (and then I'm screwed anyway), and accepting round numbers if they come only helps that) and another one to determine the exact angle (30.45630 degrees from my initial facing.). After That hop, and after the portal is closed, drink the blood, run in a random direction. Each day, use the Ring to teleport ten times further than last time(So even if you go in the opposite direction the second time you still end up further from Hesed proper). The Gods can teleport too, more than likely. But that doesn't matter. Even if I take a number much larger than scale I've gotten the impression of from the description- a 10 lightyear underworld- and every God can scan a 314.1 square lightyear area around that god for Titans flawlessly once every 0.000001 seconds, With a pantheon of 1000 Gods as a highball and every god able to teleport as frequently as they can scan with no timecost, that leaves the Gods able to scan 314.1*10^6*1000=2.71e16 Square Light-years per day- Compared to the 7.29e18 square Light years they need to search to catch me before I teleport again and add another 7.21e20 Square Light Years of space. Let's be clear here, the problem the gods are facing is not that the titan is faster than them- The problem is that they can't check where the Titan is fast enough. Actually, let's remove Another failure point. Maybe they can track the Band Of Infinity if it teleports me 'through' an area one of them can detect. The likelihood of my doing so is vanishingly small- they are covering increasingly small(relative) areas and I'm probably not so lost I end up going back towards them by accident. But who knows, it's possible. It's even possible they can track the Band whenever it's transporting a titan! Let's go overkill and say not only that, but they're able to figure out where it was used last and so will have a search pattern where they start with the places 10, 20, 30, etc Light-years away from my starting point across the directions of 1, 2, 3,(...) 1.1, 1.2, 1.3(...) etc degrees from my start location. So, I'll randomize my original heading by several more orders of magnitude and increase the distance similarly. 30.45630 is good and all, but lets append to that something else meaningless and meaningful I can remember from memory. what's a good randomizer... hm... Story/fiction stuff, sure why not. using 'Godcard', 'efb', 'Pokemon', and 'Enochiscoming' gives the additional decimal places of 715431184562... well, you get the picture. And then also randomize the distance according to that sort of logic, taking care here that the minimum is high enough that they won't find me for literally a millennia. In this extremely-uncharitable version, that means that I need a number with 3.1536e19 possibilities. Except, I have 4 numbers here(I'll get to that) so actually I'm already going way overkill here- it was 10 digits so the numbers before I appended more decimals were already enough precision-wise- Just need to raise the light-years count to 'trillions' for good measure. So, portal a quadrillion (2700 trillion) light years away, wait a day, portal again 10 times as far, ingest the blood.
At this point they shouldn't be able to find you* before you're a full titan, but start running anyway for good measure, in case the Gods Also have the ability to Eventually track where you arrived at- If you aren't in detection-range by the time they manage this (So, as long as it takes them a good (detection range in light years*10) or so years), they'll probably assume the Titan can spoof magical traces. Which some plans could certainly do!
The main problem with this plan is that you can't grab any Spectralhunter Geas- Wait. maybe it can. Okay, yeah, it can. Theoretically.

Domain choice is largely irrelevant to this plan. It bets everything on. Uh. Titanhood being even theoretically survivable without guessing about what's a possible counter to divine detection. So in the most-possible-worlds where that's the case, it becomes a Titan, and can then return to Hesed- or leave for greener pastures. Or make greener pastures where it is, with magic. Whatever, really.

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Necromancy

The Necromancy section prompted me to consider another way for a Titan to escape notice: doing common house-work in the mortal world. But it assumes the rather risky assumption that the Gods don't go to the mortal world... Though if you assumed a less punishingly huge auto-detect range and that the Gods both wouldn't expect a Titan to demean himself and wouldn't know the titan even could (owing to a lack of records of you signing a contract with the Unseens priests), it could be a servicable hiding spot, specifically with the last two tasks lasting for many years. It's also depicted as a fairly reliable path to power growth... but not a sizeable one. you can get halfway to specter territory with a job, but only a job which is life-threatening on a weekly basis and lasts decades- in other words, only at substantial risk of dying.
It's also something you might take as just. a job. for money. Okay sure, I guess. I think you're probably going to be set after this transaction anyway, but sure. there's also the option of trying to use those 'various abuses' that the Unseen stops in Hesed, but I'm not sure what that means precisely. Maybe it's the way you get souls of power from tasks? If only there was a spell option for 'sudden and overwhelming might lasting definitely a short period' to best leverage the strengths of someone who made this Transaction. Spirit doctor and the Ferryman's spell are roughly the only options that wouldn't give you either immediate or eventual combat power in large doses and the doctor Still might. almost no matter how you spend your money you're going to end up with something for that.

[ ] Unseen Servant [1 Obol] - this is the 'so you want a regular job for money' option. I don't think there are any builds you'd really need it for, but it's a thing. maybe you can get a higher pay if you go above and beyond and completely remake the house the task takes place in into a masterfully-crafted and tasteful, well-warded, structurally stable mansion in the blink of an eye or something. "Hey I rebuilt your house to be several times better and more valuable, can I have a 50% tip on this laundry folding?"

[ ] Advice From The Ancestor [1 Obol] - This is sort of a 'so you want a regular job for money' option, except it gives and requires more, so it also has an incredibly niche use for 'so you don't have any combat strength and want to slowly start scaling without risk of death'. Theoretically you could speedrun this with mind reading and being extremely knowledgeable, but in practice you won't be able to do this faster than the 'ordinary' speed without utterly ridiculous advantages over the spell and then why bother.

[ ] Undercroft Guardian [2 Obols] - this is more solidly in the ballpark of the 'you want to scale up' options, though 'you might have to sit in one place for millenia' is both a deal-breaker for some builds (anything with a Geas) and likely to result in utterly hillarious outcomes for other builds (anything with Titan or particularly good scaling. They summon a freshly-minted, decently imposing ghost and then over just the first hundred years the location you're guarding becomes the most well-defended place on the entire planet with all the best amenities etc etc.). For other builds, I guess it maybe has a niche, but on the whole I don't get the impression that necromancy spells are balanced with CYOA-takers in mind. There just Isn't a Denar option that doesn't make the payment for any long-term assignments rapidly undershoot what's relevant to you(Well, maybe not Rapidly, I dunno how fast the Noble Praxis scales for people who aren't Hunger, but with hundreds of years of progress in it...), and you start with one Denar.

[ ] Knight of Death [2 Obols] - The minimum task-length and type here is reasonable for a CYOA-taker. Not so much the rarer cases. I guess you Can refuse the task since the ferryman is cheating, though. And I still get the impression you'll outscale even the possibility of being paid enough eventually, though I might be underestimating the mortal world or maybe this is a spell type which exists on higher realms too or something.

[ ] Renaissance Man [3 Obols or 1 Drachma] the only use case I can see for this is if you're trying to hide by not being in the underworld 99% of the time; The sort of build which benefits from Knight is pretty different from the one which benefits from Undercroft is completely different from Advice is completely different from Servant. I'd actually find this option more appealing if it was vaguer and simply said you were the target for 'all necromantic summons' and not 'all the above' summons, because then there's the implication that if none of this matches your build, there's another spell out there that does.

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Abilities

[ ] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol] - The very existence of this spell suggests the underworld is less than a light-day half-around, assuming the Ferryman species isn't entirely composed of Titanic entities. This particular Ferryman is clearly preposterously powerful, wealthy, and influential, but I don't think that's true of Every ferryman. It's not particularly important unless you end up, as he said, 'fabulously wealthy'- Considering this is being said by a man who can sell you the blood of a titan, and wants the Spectral Kings thinned out because they're annoying, I think fabulous wealth is going to be exceedingly hard to attain. And if you Can attain it, you can probably track him down too. It is cheap, though. A good convenience for people who aren't planning to run away from the underworld and never look back, relative to its price, though there are a fair amount of builds which can't realistically use it (anyone with the Band of Infinity, for instance, has a better transport item. But that Is priced in Drachma).

[ ] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols] - Considering the low price point and the proclivity of magical powers it'll eventually grant, this seems like a good choice. Especially enhanced by the possibility of Titanic 'death' qualifying- though on a reread that seems more dubious, since it says 'in such a manner'- and as a useful benefit that makes it less likely you'll die while sleeping. From my perspective specifically the opportunity cost and efficiency are respectively lower and higher, as I already keep a journal of my dreams (had one a while ago, for instance, where the Mangler was trying to... get me arrested for trespassing, but not actually kill me. he did kill a bunch of other people, though. And try to get me framed for it.). Being able to fall asleep at will is also a slight boon, though very minor in relevance considering the level of power here. This is also an effectively free (1.8^attribute count) multiplier to peak performance, though for simple cumulative things like 'distance you can run in a day' the multiplier is merely 7.5%. Nonetheless, I imagine I'll put this in all by builds.
I'm not sure why there's a note that this can never stack or overlap in any way- Even if it Could stack or overlap, it wouldn't be able to apply to the main buff so the most you'd be able to do is... add 10% to your two-hour buff for 30 minutes at the cost of an hour off its duration, I guess? just sleep longer, that's almost strictly superior.
The buff is also useful for any build which expects to deal with a major battle of some sort which it can plan for. For instance, Titans who need to cow the gods, or others who need to kill a Great Specter King before the next millennia. Before that battle, have yourself a nice week-long nap for an almost 18x multiplier to all your attributes.

[ ] Sign of the Lion [4 Obols or 1 Drachma] - Now, this ability... It's a good defense if you're. uh. not fighting strong foes? It's 'complete invulnerability' but Not against specters or even semi-divines, which for a fair amount of builds is going to be the main danger anyway. Actually, I consider the second effect more relevant specifically for its relation to Greedy builds. If you want to become a titan, while hiding out in the middle of nowhere, And take on a Geas or two, this is one possible solution. Spawn the lions before leaving the underworld, then run off into the middle of nowhere. The Lions will have the invulnerability to anything-under-a-strong-Specter effect, so they can be safely left to handle a Lesser Geas with orders to hunt only the weakest specters- Although their initial power won't suffice to down a Specter, they will be safe from retaliation and can continue on. For the longer-term Greater Geas, the Lions don't actually have a cap, so an applicable Titanic Domain should be able to accelerate the training process at least to the point where they can reasonably harry the forces of one of the Kings, after six years of pushing the force of a 10% Titan- It's Subordinates against Subordinates, after all, and a 10% titan is a match for a Great Specter King. This does require one of several further assumptions, however; Either the Titanic domain must be sufficient to empower the ability without Actually summoning any new lions; or it must be possible to cast the ability without disrupting existing lions so long as the maximum current quantity is larger than the summoned current quantity; or the Titan must accept the occasional(increasingly sparse, but probably at least a few times in the first year) need to use the Band of Infinity to transport a new set of Lions into the underworld proper after some intensive training; or 'the lions are killing things elsewhere' must qualify as experience with this ability. Regardless of the specifics, some number of highly durable lions will be killing random Wraiths and Specters for you for the first nine years, then spend a year on targeting the operations of a specific Great Specter King, hopefully suffering no attrition. Regarding actually killing the King to fulfill the Geas- this can be safely achieved before the time runs down because the Titan will then be able to outrun gods even with no modifiers and be 4 times stronger than the King at minimum. Full Titans have died to the gods, but I imagine that's because the titans actually tried to, ah. Fight Them. As opposed to running away. Having ten times as many people doesn't let you run ten times as fast etc etc.

[ ] Craftsman's Constellation [1 Drachma] - Useful. the ability to turn prep time into power always is, all the more so when the time scale is measured in millennia. It's not really clear how powerful this is, but I think a good estimate- considering the cost of the Celestine Form, and the limited ability to invoke the Constellation- is probably Godly capability in Crafting for the act in question. This is probably added on to any existing Crafting capability, but not necessarily. Also autoskill I guess is there too. Not sure how useful that can really be considering Magic.

[ ] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma] - Sounds like an extremely dangerous and risky ability, and restricted by the realm of the dead as much as expanded- you can't add in new ectoplasm unless it's sufficiently 'coherent' and whatnot. I suppose it's probably useful, but I don't really know what the use cases are. I know it's not good enough for Ghost Wounds.

[ ] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma] - Although this Sign does not have the ability to kill Gods in a single cast, I do get the impression that repeated castings would suffice; it weakens their defenses, so by repeating the cast they ought suffer more grievously again. On the whole, useful for early safety I suppose, but only dubiously helpful at higher levels- for a Titan, for instance, the danger is a dogpile of gods, not a solitary entity, and the increasing time-per-extra-cast means there won't be enough for the later game.

[ ] Sign of the Dragon [6 Obols and 2 Drachmas] - Now, as to the Sign of the Dragon.
uh.
Well, for one thing, it's perfect safety for, if I am reading this correctly, a span of 5 days in total. Very valuable. It can, theoretically, stop all the gods, so yes, Perfect safety. The Moderate Boost option is mostly useless for a Titan for obvious reasons, but potentially helpful for other options. The 'flaw' removal is esoterically effective, which makes It a potential training boost at the higher levels- remove flaws of 'unwillingness to train', 'being tired', 'having no control over [Thing]', etcetra. It's also a useful defensive measure; If you're hiding from the Gods like the titan plan way above, 'divine progress towards finding you' seems reasonably similar to 'nasty rumor about yourself'.
I'm not sure the lambent crystal is good for anything. I mean obviously it is, but it's not clear what they do. Probably helpful for a Craftsman Constellation thing, though. The Demon is permanent, or at least has no listed time limit, so there's another way you can scale time into power.

Most interestingly, travel back in time up to seventy hours. I am interested in this for one reason. Reversing the transaction. No being can resist this would include the Ferryman, unless he's lying. So, if there's any powers here whose effect is predominantly mental or would not be reversed by the time travel (Sign of the Accursed, potentially, and Sowilo for almost 3 days worth of path hints, but that's mostly it now that I've looked.)

[ ] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar] - It's the Praxis. Points in favor: Is the Praxis (Limitless Potential). Is the Praxis (reliability). Particularly likely to stack hyperexponentially with existing enhancements (Refinements and Subordinations and whatnot).
Points against: Is the Praxis(will require effort). Is the Praxis (will require extreme effort). Is the Praxis (effort quantity will not be reduced by Domains). Is the Praxis (Will Be Really Hard).
On the plus side, having a lower natural Willpower than Hunger may mean the total quantity of actual difficulty will be lower for me than him, though the relative advancement won't improve.
So yeah, on the whole, all the advantages and disadvantages of being The Praxis. Also, like the staff of echos, since it's from a broader ontological context from this underworld, it's particularly likely to let you outscale the entire place.

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Artifacts

[ ] Orphean Hymn [2 Obols] - Sounds like it's sufficient for entrance into Elysium, for relatively unambitious comfy builds (probably ones focused around the Staff of Echos, since Titanhood means you're on the run and The Praxis Is Hard.). Other then that... it might be useful, it might not. It's not clear how effective the Music is, or whether you'd be able to play enough to matter before being killed by anyone high-level anyway.

[ ] Winged Sandals [3 Obols] - This item is absolutely useless to even a 1% Titan, but it could be a convenient benefit for a Celestine. Probably more for 'flying' than 'travel', since they cost 3 times as much as the travel option earlier.

[ ] Sowilo [5 Obols or 1 Drachma] - a Useful information-granter, it can be used to check if a plan is even viable in the first place or to do it better. It also works for stopping conflict but that's mostly relevant if you get into fights with people who aren't Specters and aren't irreconcilably opposed and you can't beat trivially, so... I'm not really sure when that part's useless. It's also a handy torch-

[ ] Apple of Discord [4 Obols and 1 Drachma] - Good distractor, useful if the Gods are collectively getting you, but decidedly useless for the Specter Kings because they won't be surrounded by equals. One thing that's unclear- is the user Always 'the person who bought the apple', or would the person who manages to grab it be able to use the Apple themself? In the second case, if you use it as a distraction, the gods can just force you back... though at personal cost.

[ ] The Neverblade [2 Drachmas] - Not really much to say other then that it's an immediate power option. It's not, however, useful in specter or titan-tier battles on its own; You need comparable base stats. As a hiding titan, it's ambiguous if it's able to also cut tracking spells as they near you or something.

[ ] Seven Bands [2 Drachmas] - The Band of Infinity is potentially the most useful here, but of this I have already spoken. Regarding the others, the Band of Agony is... Well, I guess it's good for distracting your foes in combat. kinda an 'evil' sort of power, though. The Band of Hatred is a social still-evil effect, but I guess if you were lower-power than any of the three Denar options it's useful. Or if it works on the god level, it'd be good for a Titan. the Band of Oblivion is mostly useful if you're doing questionable things, though there are theoretically good uses for it. Also useful if the Gods find out you're a titan and immediately attack you or whatnot. the Bands of Flame and Frost are Combat things. One's Specter-level so I bet the other is too, which is I guess a good immediate thing. Lastly, the Band of Nothingness. ah yes, with this power-... Wait, there's no cooldown. Incredible. That makes the Band of Nothingness the strongest of the rings. Walk up to one of the great spectral kings and proc the Band a quadrillion times, targetting one of their composite souls per proc- well, you can't because of soul drain, but still, the general principal applies. It's a good thing it's effectively unlimited because, unlike the other rings, you can't bathe it in the waters of its River complication-free once you gain simple telekinesis (or by using the Band of Infinity for retrieval). (If the Band of nothingness has a cooldown effect, than it's more of an 'ah yes, with this power, I can kill ordinary people without leaving a body! Woo! this will surely be useful after all the other things I can buy.').

[ ] Armor of Terror [2 Drachmas] - Haha Godcard ReferenceHonestly, I don't think it's worth this price point. Maybe I'm misreading this, but it doesn't seem like it provides any esoteric protection, progression, or offensive power. Considering the default enemy progression gets a passive soul draining aura and the rest would be Gods with conceptual enhancements, that is a big problem for an armor. Maybe it's specifically for handling mooks en mas? Dunno, still costs more than the Apple.

[ ] The Aegis [2 Drachmas] - The sheer broadness of its protective effect makes the Aegis useful. I don't know how strong that effect is exactly- is the 99% to other non-physical things too?- but owning this shield literally makes you luckier. And everything else. As a Titan in hiding, being seen by gods is something this would protect you from. You don't need to even hold it, but it literally becomes ten times better if you do(and can tell where your problems are coming from). That said, I don't think I can fit it into the budget for the gradually forming build- but that's more of a specific matter of exactly what I'm considering.

[ ] Dog's Helm [3 Drachmas and 5 Obols] - Hyperultrastealt- wait.
...is this a reference to that time I said helmets are antimemetic.
If not that's one heck of a coincidence. Anyway this helmet makes you antimemetic. although it requires superhuman insight to notice the wearer is there, it's not clear if that's specifically, like, 'if you do things which should make your presence obvious' and the 'wearer is lying down in a corner asleep' version is even stronger, or if that's a general ballpark. considering the price, though, probably it's stronger while not attracting attention.

[ ] Red Gun [4 Drachmas] - If I understand correctly, this is The Gonne + Emperor Red + Forebearer's Blade. Thematically, anyway. It's a Red Essence-draining Adaptable Gun which is infused with Ruin. It's explicitly God-level and scales over time. It also costs too much for my greedy plan(Titan + Geas+Praxis+rings), my safe plan(Titan+Rings), or my Really Safe plan(Staff+Celestine+I Dunno, Other Stuff). Very Is Kill, though.

[ ] Staff of Echoes [1 Denar] - I can only assume this is a reference to nudge nudge the auditor. The Maker, then, would indeed be a good person who is way stronger than this place... I think, I haven't actually looked to check, but he's an end-of-quest protagonist, so. It's divine-surpassing at base and control can scale that effect into any domain. It doesn't intrinsically attract attention and it doesn't have Being Really Hard To Train as a fundamental part of its conceptual structure. It is the Safest Comfy option here, as far as I can tell.

---

Drawbacks

I am willing to imbue you with a few rather troublesome maladies that I picked up from other customers, as I tire of bearing them. Don't take more than four of the below.

[ ] A Ghost's Wound [+2 Obols or +1 Drachma, can be picked multiple times] - Obviously, pick a type of death with only minor visible wounds, and one you don't expect to run into. My first thought was guns- this isn't a technological setting- but the Red Gun, so not that. You could set this against a Specter-Hunter Geas by having your previous death be at the hands of a Specter, making your 'situations in which this seems extremely dangerous or suicidal' area expand. Alternatively, dying from slowly bleeding to death from an unhealable wound caused by a cursed literal backstabbing- combining the properties of 'extremely rare scenario' and 'something you should be avoiding anyway'- or picking anything already feared.
Its repeatability makes it a convenient way to tie any build together by focusing on things irrelevant to it- an Crafter/Fighter with wounds from a freak boating accident, for instancethough it might force them to craft several shields against Water of all kinds.

[ ] A Sacrifice to Lethe [+3 Obols and +2 Drachmas] - So this is the option foNo.
Taking this option meaNo.
Practically, it reNo.
It does leNo.
Still, peNo.
So, No.
No.

[ ] Specter-Hunter Geas [+4 Obols or +2 Drachmas] - I assume henceforth that if you kill every Specter and Wraith in the entirety of Hesed, this Geas dissolves, because the alternative is a Specter-hunter geas that will eventually force you to create new Specters so you can kill them.... doesn't make much sense.
That aside, this Geas is a huge inconvenience... for people who remain inside of Hesed proper. Because if you see a specter, you have to drop what you're doing and go kill it unless it's really dangerous. this also makes it a risk, because 'barring situations where doing so would be extremely dangerous' is not 'barring situations where doing so would be somewhat dangerous'. But if you leave Hesed and will never see a Specter again (at least, until you're a full Titan), that part doesn't matter (and when you return you can just wipe out all the Specters as a Titan who is an order of magnitude stronger than the Great Kings.).
But you still need to kill the 10 Wraiths and 1 Specter per year. And so, Enter the Sign of the Lion, I've been over that. Or, enter anything with multilightyear range. Sign of the Dragons demons. Artifice creations. Probably the Red Gun, eventually. the Praxis. Staff of Echos.
And once the Lions start outperforming the required amount the Ferryman will start rewarding you too, so one could even call this an Uncurse, like Stonesnouts.

[ ] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas [+1 Denar] - This is pretty similar to the above. Sorta. the Demons from the sign of the dragon might not be strong enough, for instance, but you get 9 extra years before you need to get started, and the duration of this Geas is only slightly shorter than full Titanic ascension. With +1 Denar, you are flatly guaranteed to have a non-Titan way of scaling, though, and Both of those methods are very probably good enough to get the king down in 1 Millennia of training. That said, the Kings aren't going to just stand there once you make it clear- there is the risk that, for instance using the sign of the lion, the Kings' mooks will gang up on your seemingly ever-strengthening lions and cull them, which could be a problem depending on the specifics of Divine attention and whatnot.
He says not to take the task lightly, but... When I know One of the options available will suffice to match a King... and it gives the option to get a Second one... It doesn't seem plausibly dangerous.
Build - Greed
.
[De] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas
[Dr Dr] Specter-Hunter Geas
[De] Primordial Form
[De] Sign of the Accursed
[OO] Sign of the Bear
[DrDr] Seven Bands
[OOOOOO DrDr] Sign of the Dragon
[Dr] Sign of the Lion
[Dr] Craftsman's Constelation
Two Obols left over.
(Considerations were:
Dragon ( 6-2), Lion(4/1), Craftsman(0-1), Aegis(0-2), Dog's Helm(5-3... Almost out of price range.), Sowilo(5/1)
possibilities (Dragon, Drachma-Geas, Lion(dra), Craftsman, leaving 2O)
(Drachma-Geas, Lion(Dra),Craftsman, Aegis, Sowilo, leaving 3O))

The basic structure of the build is to cast the Sign of the Lion Pride-summon immediately, maybe a few times to get it up to 3 Lions depending on the assumptions being made here, then use the Band of Infinity to teleport Faaaaaaaaar away. After a day of sleeping(to pass the time, mostly), use the Craftsman Constellation for a trail-masking effect, single-use, and teleport even further away in a different random direction. (even if ghosts get hungry, which is ambiguous, one day of hunger will not kill you. And if it would, well, you have 2 Obols to buy some normal food from the Ferryman with. It's not his wares, but I rather doubt he'd pass up the chance to get 2 obols 'enriched with life history' for like, a backpack full of food. Then drink the Titanblood. The gods now know you exist and have no idea whatsoever where you are. Nor can they find you. Start rapidly training the Sign of the Lion using the Titanic Domain (if my Celestine domain is probably achievement, the expanded generalization is [Anything that opposes or supports a goal]- I think that's about the same sort of shift as 'water' to 'All Matter'- and considering how it starts, is a valid training multiplier.), which depending on assumptions is either used to train up the Lions so the two left behind can fulfill the Geas, or to train up quantity and quality to send more through the Band. Getting the lions stronger is the method for fulfilling both Geas...es?, and hopefully Titanhood+the monthly Draconic Progression-ups will be enough to get it to Specter level in a year, and a mix of that and the bear and 8 more Craftsman's artefacts will get them to 'harrying GSK's forces'. (Also, depending on the form the Geas takes, drop the band on the floor the start of year nine, run away from it by day during year nine, be compelled to run back during year nine, have to repeat this every time the 10-year cycle happens. Or if the geas can understand tactics, that year is just, being spent on getting better at the Sign of the Lion.). Throughout, there's also the Sign of the Bear for powerups and whatnot.
After the Lions are strong enough to fulfill both of the Geasae(???), Then Praxis training can start. Also, hopefully by the time 10 years have passed, Sign of the Bear has granted some kind of minor superpower which will let you make an actually nice place in the barren wasteland you're hiding out in. Like, I dunno, plant conjuration, stone-shaping, video-game summoning- sitting in a barren wasteland to train for several millennia is not my picture of a good outcome even for a Greedy build. The closest thing this plan has to recreational activities you can perform otherwise is sleeping for the Sign of the Bear.
Build - Safe
[De] Primordial Form
[OO] Sign of the Bear
[DrDr] Seven Bands
[OOOOOO DrDr] Sign of the Dragon
It's the above build, minus any pressure to train or accomplish things. Just go off into the middle of nowhere and do whatever for a millennia. it also has the Sign of the Dragon, so if it turns out you can't even safely reach an accord with the Gods as a fully-fledged titan nor stop them nor whatever else, you can have the Dragon protect you. Maybe while you go down the River of Infinity and leave to somewhere with civilization but Not these Gods- I imagine a fully transformed Titan can beat up the guard dog of the river.
Build - Actually Safe
[De] Staff of Echos
[DrDr] Celestine Form
[OO] Sign of the Bear
[Dr] Craftsman's Constellation.
[OOOOO]Sowilo
[OO] Orphean hymn
[O] Ferryman's Spell
[Dr]Spirit Doctor
This build isn't so tightly made; It's a mix of 'obvious'(Staff, Celestine, Sign of the Bear), 'comfey'(Orphean hymn) and 'what else am I gonna spend this on' (Sowilo, Craftsman's, Doctor). There isn't much to say about it- no notable risks(if you want to be Really safe, just earn more than one Obol a day and spend literally all your time being ferried by the implausibly powerful ferryman.), has the unavoidable high potential, doesn't take on the difficulty of the Praxis, doesn't have any Obols left over. Knows how to make cool toys, has nice dreams, and has clairvoyant movement. An alternate version of this build takes the Sign of the Dragon in the place of the Spell, Sowilo, Constellation and Doctor, for those 5 defensive triggerings.

7034 Words, Counting all the pasted things, Slide/Accordian tags, etc. probably above 6800 without those, though.
 
The worst part of blood halo to me is the nerf to every non combat related problem. If we're not directly fighting we're a lot worse than the other two option. -.2 ISH isn't nothing, and I just see us running into more Dien type problems where we get massively powerful but our enemy just never directly engages us so we can't win. Ruin and defense both passively help against that sort of thing, blood halo gets weaker to it.
 
@Birdsie was told to namevote me, but that was when I was on BH. I want to tell him to still vote BH now that I've been marked, but Lea used her one-of-a-kind collectible Zampano Marker Classic. I'll revert this post if the consensus is that this qualifies as bad-faith marker-teering here at the end of the quest, but:

@Birdsie please vote for BH.

GenericName said:
The worst part of blood halo to me is the nerf to every non combat related problem. If we're not directly fighting we're a lot worse than the other two option. -.2 ISH isn't nothing, and I just see us running into more Dien type problems where we get massively powerful but our enemy just never directly engages us so we can't win. Ruin and defense both passively help against that sort of thing, blood halo gets weaker to it.
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We just spent more than three hundred thousand words resolving every possible problem that the Apocryphal Curse threw at us via combat & battle. The BH option applies +10,000 Prowess (immediately) and hits 2 domains with no Training Malus Fault-Defeating Stance (in the long term). Hunger will have a better non-combatants toolkit than ever before.



On the other hand, as I am contractually obligated to note: Infinity Big.
 
I should note that Prowess applies only to matters of physical combat unless explicitly stated otherwise. Prowess (Bloodcasting) is not a subset of Prowess, for example.
 
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Zampano said:
hits 2 domains with no Training Malus Fault-Defeating Stance (in the long term).
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Is this really such a great change? Since it would merely turn Fault Defeating from 100x training to 101x times iirc.

Fault-Defeating isn't really what would benefit.

Edit:As I understand, it doesnt scale off our learning speed, just whether we learn or not.
 
Valkhir said:
Is this really such a great change? Since it would merely turn Fault Defeating from 100x training to 101x times iirc.

Fault-Defeating isn't really what would benefit.

Edit:As I understand, it doesnt scale off our learning speed, just whether we learn or not.
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No. FDS scales off the amount of advancement we'd get from a year of intensive study, which is mediated by the Ring malus.
Rihaku said:
For example, if Hunger were to activate the Fault-Defeating Stance selecting the domain of Space, he would advance his spatial manipulation at one hundred times its prior rate, including the effects of Progression, Ascendancy Halo, etc - even if he did not so much as lift a finger to perform actual training for the full duration of that year. He would still suffer the training malus imposed by the Ring Hunger
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Lealope said:
I should note that Prowess, applies only to matters of physical combat unless explicitly stated otherwise. Prowess (Bloodcasting) is not a subset of Prowess, for example.
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o.0
oh no. did i know that? i think i did know that. But I definitely made at least one Prowess (Archmage) argument upthread.

BH still grants Maximized Prowess (Battle Domain). That's a level of control far beyond what we have in Law+Space, which granted Sanctum. Inheritance gets to brag about infinite Rank-Ruin powering Sanctum across the entire kingdom, but the timeskip + FDS granted about 15 years worth of study to reach Sanctum's ISH 3+ effects. Blood Halo will have effects even more sophisticated than that, elevated by +1 ISH during battle.

If the Maiden wants to arm-wrestle about ISH elevation, maximized battle domain + flat ISH elevation seems like the better loadout imo
 
Birdsie said:
= CYOA =
Underworld's Pearl​
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Without even reading further I can tell this CYOA will generate a ton of Titanic builds. So in the spirit of doing something completely different, here's:

The Archsmith

Ferryman's Toll -1O
Alteration: Celestine Form (Craftsmanship) -2D
Abilities: Sign of the Bear -2O, Sign of the Lion -4O, Craftsman's Constellation -1D, Spirit Doctor -1D, Sign of the Accursed -1 Denar
Artifacts: Winged Sandals -3O
Drawbacks: Imagine exchanging pain for power when you could be comfy instead

Humans are fundamentally tool-users. Since the first time a cave dweller heeded Prometheus' advice and struck flint against flint, mankind has struggled to master our environment. From the chaos of nature we carve order and safety, forever seeking means to gather resources and conserve labor. To quote a previous protagonist, "laziness is nothing less than the cradle of innovation," and this build has some serious Nameless energy. Far from his heroic namesake, the Archsmith is an absolute and unapologetic sellout, concerned primarily with his own comfort. He just wants to live well despite his death and spend this unexpected afterlife creating wonders; is that so wrong?

The Archsmith claims the divine domain of Craftsmanship as his own. Compounded by the Constellation, this should allow for some impressive artifacts, though the upcoming forging opportunity will sadly have to be spent on survival. The Archsmith's first creation depends on the materials available and his circumstances: armor to protect him when his Nemean invulnerability falters, a bow to complement his fighting style, or perhaps a cloak to hide his Celestine countenance. Yet necessity's prosaic constraints won't dictate his repertoire forever. This initial masterpiece will always hold a special place in his heart, but more can be made annually.

As the Archsmith intends to create his own panoply, this build takes no artifacts save for the Winged Sandals. Flight's useful for escaping marauding specters and securing resources; two starting artifacts are better than one. If necessary, combat's handled with a combination of aerial kiting and siccing spectral lions on the aggressor. Celestine Form grants stamina, which is useful for both managing the Sign and the exertions of protracted forging sessions. Despite fighting not being a focus, Celestine's parameters would pair well with something like a bow possessing supernaturally enhanced draw weight and magical projectiles.

Injuries incurred while adventuring can be healed with Spirit Doctor. Charitably interpreted, that could synergize with creation to expand his domain into custom organisms or augmenting his pride of lions. It also gives him more services to barter; between Craftsman's Constellation and Spirit Doctor the Archsmith's too useful to actually kill. Forging sessions or surgical operations are preceded by a lengthy nap to invoke the Sign of the Bear. Stealth shields him when sleeping, stacking with the aforementioned cloak, and the symbolism could inspire artifacts. But honestly, the Archsmith would take this Sign for lucid dreams alone. Comfiness should not be confined to the waking world!

In the long run the Archsmith aspires to ascend from the bleak tableau of toil that constitutes most of the underworld and enter the Elysium, where he might dwell in eternal splendor, safe in the Unseen's shadow. With memory's sting blunted by Celestine, there's no reason to keep in contact with the living world, so he eschews necromancy entirely. Why waste time performing chores or making enemies by embroiling himself in mortal politics? Those he knew in life will either arrive eventually or not. If word reaches him of someone he remembers, then he'll extend a helping hand, but until then it's none of his concern.

Needless to say, the Archsmith doesn't have much affinity for the Praxis. Passive Refinements only came after Hunger attained the Imperial version. Since he only has access to the Sword Praxis, we haven't seen how it can interact with artificing. With the Noble version and no preexisting prowess, the Archsmith's prospects are pretty limited to start with, but there are only three options to spend the denar on. Primordial's ruled out not only by taking Celestine but the massive target it'd paint on the Archsmith's back. The Staff of Echoes has no particular synergy with his build.

Unfortunately there's no money-changer on Agony's banks, otherwise I'd have swapped it for more obols or drachma. But the Praxis at least gives the Archsmith a unique advantage and avenue of advancement beyond creating artifacts and spiritual self-surgery once Celestine and the Lion's Sign cap out. Speaking of obols, it's not clear whether the toll referenced in the introduction's accounted for in the available currency. But when in doubt, always tip the driver, so this build only spends nine. If that's unnecessary I could snag the Ferryman's Spell or sign up to dispense ancestral advice.

There are potential variants that take Sowilo rather than the Sandals, or stretch their budget by accepting the amnesia as a sunk cost. Add Lethe, either drop the Sandals or spice up Celestine Form by adding Lichtenberg scars for a Wound with a manageable phobia, and suddenly Dragon's affordable. Accelerated training, time travel to undo gaffes, conjured crystals as reagents... a Sign Language build that takes all of them except Skull would be potent, but it flies in the face of the Archsmith's ethos: death's a release from the pains of life. The 'Great' Specter Kings have critically missed the point. Fuck off with the spiritual cannibalism; Hueco Mundo's not something to aspire to!

896 words.
 
Orm Embar said:
Without even reading further I can tell this CYOA will generate a ton of Titanic builds. So in the spirit of doing something completely different, here's:
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Hate to tell you, but the core concept is actually very similar to my first build. You do embellish on that concept in a fairly different direction, though, so it's not quite full convergent evolution here. Besides our divergent takes on the value of combining artifact purchases with this build, the specific reason I didn't go with the Praxis is that as an effort-based magic I'd expect progressing it to be highly time-consuming, and high-grade artificing I would expect to also necessitate a substantial time commitment. So I didn't want to split focus for that.
 
Fayhem said:
Hate to tell you, but the core concept is actually very similar to my first build. You do embellish on that concept in a fairly different direction, though, so it's not quite full convergent evolution here. Besides our divergent takes on the value of combining artifact purchases with this build, the specific reason I didn't go with the Praxis is that as an effort-based magic I'd expect progressing it to be highly time-consuming, and high-grade artificing I would expect to also necessitate a substantial time commitment. So I didn't want to split focus for that.
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Yeah, the Praxis doesn't play well with others and its crafting applications are entirely speculative. It's just the only option apart from snagging the Staff of Echoes. That has the obvious endgame of grinding your mastery of it until you can summon the protagonist of A Mask of My Own Face, so Danny boy can overturn the entire deific power structure. Which the Archsmith is uninterested in, because his whole shtick is carving out a comfy niche in the aforementioned order.

Once he's spent a decade or two on fleshing out his panoply and filled all the most lucrative Elysian commissions, I guess he can spend any spare diligence grinding the Praxis until the stars are right once again? It's not fast or efficient, given his personality, but it is a theoretically uncapped magical system that he's the only local practitioner of. Your approach of taking preexisting artifacts, then using the Staff to get ahead of the curve on the Geas and earn further rewards works well for a more proactive playstyle.
 
Orm Embar said:
Yeah, the Praxis doesn't play well with others and its crafting applications are entirely speculative. It's just the only option apart from snagging the Staff of Echoes.
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Yeah, I don't mean to sound critical of a free CHYOA that I quite enjoyed, but it would have been nice to have more options for our Denar, especially since 2 of the 3 don't work well with other build foci (for different reasons).

As far as crafting applications of the Praxis... hmm. I think it might be easier to apply crafting to the Praxis than to apply the Praxis to crafting, if that makes sense? Like, I could imagine maybe being able to craft something that lets you "bank" Praxis endurance. Not reducing the total amount of endurance required to use an ability at all, or perhaps even requiring more in total, in keeping with the inherently effort-requiring and uncheatable nature of the Praxis. But letting you pay some of that endurance cost upfront, giving you higher burst potential.

Also, I hadn't seen that quest before, and it does sound like it might be up my alley. I'll have to save it for later.
 
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