Hogwarts Sect of Witchcraft and Wizardry

[X][Plan] Prep Work

[X][Social] You remember your promises, and a Colin Creevey was in fact sorted to Gryffindor. Find him once he's had a few days to find his footing and make good on your deal.
[X][Social] Ravenclaw tower is freshly host to a new batch of first-year disciples. While the second year students in your own time mostly kept to themselves, there's no rule against being friendly. Who knows who you could meet.
[X][Social] Although neither of you has said so out loud, you're pretty sure you have not just one, but two members of your extended family in the house of Slytherin. Perhaps you could try to consolidate your on-again-off-again contact with Tracey and touch base with Daphne at the same time.
[X][Social] Although neither of you has said so out loud, you're pretty sure you have not just one, but two members of your extended family in the house of Slytherin. Perhaps you could try to consolidate your on-again-off-again contact with Tracey and touch base with Daphne at the same time.

Karf said:

As usual, you also make sure to jot down your current thoughts in detail, so that when you next get the chance to really push Rex, you'd be starting with a good and organized mindset.

• Parachute

With just how light and... elastic Rex can be, you do some research on the proliferation of mosses. It turns out that spores that get carried on the wind are absolutely a thing for most species, and athelas is no exception. If the symbolic link exists, and the physical capabilities seem present, perhaps your familiar can go so far as to slow himself down mid-fall, rather than on impact. Vague ideas are starting to take root in your head of moving around on a floating pillow of luxurious greenery.

For every even wood aspect die (pool or result), add 4 to all result dice of the next action as bonus.

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This new adaptation got edited in the update and Library.

Flavor-wise, it's yet another mean to get around in the air, with the advantage of being relatively immediate and guaranteed, at least once Rex can come in and out of our dantian at will (a Core Formation stage ability, it looks like). However, it's unknown how much maneuverability it will provide, but it sounds worse than our sword, the proto-bludger and what a future White Feather's Flight Law technique could be. Still, there are more adaptations after it, so we'll have to see what direction it evolves towards.

Mechanics-wise, it's very good, and in a way, a better version of the Wing Floating technique's benefit, but they can complement each other (and combo with other stuff, as well), so having both would not be a problem, at all.

[X][Social] You remember your promises, and a Colin Creevey was in fact sorted to Gryffindor. Find him once he's had a few days to find his footing and make good on your deal.
[X][Social] Ravenclaw tower is freshly host to a new batch of first-year disciples. While the second year students in your own time mostly kept to themselves, there's no rule against being friendly. Who knows who you could meet.
[X][Social] Although neither of you has said so out loud, you're pretty sure you have not just one, but two members of your extended family in the house of Slytherin. Perhaps you could try to consolidate your on-again-off-again contact with Tracey and touch base with Daphne at the same time.

[X][Social] Properly touch base with the members of your own house, see what they were up to over the summer and reestablish the erstwhile study group.
[X][Social] Quidditch season is not starting until November - or in other words, it's right around the corner. A mere mention of the idea of an early gathering would probably light a fire under Cho to get any organization taken care of, and you could see your teammates again.
[X][Social] You remember your promises, and a Colin Creevey was in fact sorted to Gryffindor. Find him once he's had a few days to find his footing and make good on your deal.

[X][Divination] Aeromancy - 69

[X][Social] You have no patience to wait until you arrive at Hogwarts, you want to find out who made it through and who didn't. Give your best impression of a social butterfly and get a brief overview of where your peers stand - and which of them join you at all.

[X][Social] Properly touch base with the members of your own house, see what they were up to over the summer and reestablish the erstwhile study group.

[X][Social] Ravenclaw tower is freshly host to a new batch of first-year disciples. While the second year students in your own time mostly kept to themselves, there's no rule against being friendly. Who knows who you could meet.

[X][Social] Although you managed to solve your own issues with the muggle world, you feel it would be a good idea to check in with the other members of Justin's group of muggleborn disciples.

Damn, we killed Dad. At least we will have our trauma power-up.

Detailed thoughts on the last couple of updates coming later.

Epic Bygones said:

This new adaptation got edited in the update and Library.

Flavor-wise, it's yet another mean to get around in the air, with the advantage of being relatively immediate and guaranteed, at least once Rex can come in and out of our dantian at will (a Core Formation stage ability, it looks like). However, it's unknown how much maneuverability it will provide, but it sounds worse than our sword, the proto-bludger and what a future White Feather's Flight Law technique could be. Still, there are more adaptations after it, so we'll have to see what direction it evolves towards.

Mechanics-wise, it's very good, and in a way, a better version of the Wing Floating technique's benefit, but they can complement each other (and combo with other stuff, as well), so having both would not be a problem, at all.

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Notably, this also confirms that (assuming the Care Skill tree Karf shared remains accurate) we need all pre-reqs to access advanced Care techniques, as we've unlocked one (but not two) techniques.

This means if we want to focus on Care in the medium term we're going to need to go wide (unlike say Transfig where we can focus).

In terms of opening up new unlocks we probably want Water Retention I next, as that opens up Water Retention II (which unlocks two further techniques by itself) and a further unlock off of Natural Sprint Ball II. Parachute, whilst a high tier technique doesn't unlock anything by itself, so we'd be getting it just for the effect.

Edit: and an idea for a combat tactic for our Mossball.

Natural Springy Flubber - our delightfully springy Mossball flings itself around the battlefield at speed, occasionally smacking into our opponent. This won't do much damage - it's a ball of moss - but it will be annoying and distracting. And maybe it'll hit someone's eye.

FriedIce said:

Notably, this also confirms that (assuming the Care Skill tree Karf shared remains accurate) we need all pre-reqs to access advanced Care techniques, as we've unlocked one (but not two) techniques.

This means if we want to focus on Care in the medium term we're going to need to go wide (unlike say Transfig where we can focus).

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With this as confirmation, I'm guessing going wide for Care actually means something different than it would for Transfiguration.

For the latter, wide means more techniques, but less depth on each, whereas tall means a few mastered techniques.
For Care, wide means multiple familiars with a few techniques each, whereas tall means going all in on one familiar (with maybe one utility familiar with a couple of techniques on the side).

[X][Plan] Prep Work
[X][Social] Properly touch base with the members of your own house, see what they were up to over the summer and reestablish the erstwhile study group.
[X][Social] Quidditch season is not starting until November - or in other words, it's right around the corner. A mere mention of the idea of an early gathering would probably light a fire under Cho to get any organization taken care of, and you could see your teammates again.
[X][Social] You remember your promises, and a Colin Creevey was in fact sorted to Gryffindor. Find him once he's had a few days to find his footing and make good on your deal.
[X][Social] Ravenclaw tower is freshly host to a new batch of first-year disciples. While the second year students in your own time mostly kept to themselves, there's no rule against being friendly. Who knows who you could meet.
[X][Social] Although neither of you has said so out loud, you're pretty sure you have not just one, but two members of your extended family in the house of Slytherin. Perhaps you could try to consolidate your on-again-off-again contact with Tracey and touch base with Daphne at the same time.

I caught up to the quest and I really like how unique it is. I really like a lot of these options so big approval vote. And for my vote of social dice

[X][Divination] Aeromancy - 69

Haha funny number

Karnax626 said:

For the latter, wide means more techniques, but less depth on each, whereas tall means a few mastered techniques.

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To use the proper nomenclature, wide means more Laws, but less depth on each. The number of techniques is the same whether you go wide or tall. Also worth pointing out are the facts that there are Arts as well (which are groupings of Laws), hints at even more categories beyond them, and Arithmancy modifications on techniques. Considering all of this, I think going tall is generally preferable, but some flexibility/utility could make sense.

As for CoMC advancement, we still don't know when and how (and maybe even if) we will be able to get a second familiar. Being limited to new adaptations for the same friendly creature makes me want to go wide, here, but if we did get access to different familiars with different skill trees, then going tall would once again be better, in my eyes.

What does this mean for the short term? For me, it means continuing down either the Separating Void Paradigm Law or the White Feather's Flight Law (whichever makes the most sense, flavor and mechanics-wise) for Transfiguration, and once the option to train it comes back around, starting down the Water retention path for CoMC (which I'm hoping will eventually lead to some form of healing/warding adaptation).

Epic Bygones said:

As for CoMC advancement, we still don't know when and how (and maybe even if) we will be able to get a second familiar.

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The question of it's possible at least was answered during the initial explanation of what exactly CoMC entails as a discipline:

Karf said:

Cultivators who pursue this discipline will make lifelong commitments with up to three spirit beasts...

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No clues as to what level our second and third potential contracts open up, and even then there may be large differences in what abilities those later contracts bring to the table as compared to our moss ball since some of the phrasing from the options such as unicorns not being an option at our current skill level imply that they will be an option later. Thus, our later contracts are likely to be with beasts of greater power as we grow in power ourselves, meaning their skills may be sufficiently different that going wide for each beast would still be valuable.

Yeah, I remember the 3 familiars limit, but I also recall the QM saying he wasn't sure about it, as in that it could be higher or lower. Maybe he ended up settling for 3, though.

As for later contracts, it's possible that more "glamorous" creatures, for lack of a better adjective, will also have more powerful effects compared to our original 3 options, Mossball included, but I'm not sure about that. It would make getting CoMC early, and then improving our first familiar, something we are kinda punished for, rather than rewarded (as I'd argue it should be). So I'd much prefer it if creatures just scaled with us, but were virtually equal compared to each other, if different.

I'm assuming the option to pick a second familiar is locked behind Apprentice Care, which would be Foundation Establishment for us, though I'd prefer to stick with just Rex ideally.

For Transfiguration, one thing I'm not sure on is whether skill ranks past Apprentice will still give us technique levels, or whether we'll reach a point where we have to go over what we already have and iterate on that. Seeing as how we can't tell until we get there, I'd say it's worth planning ahead a bit to see what we want to get out of it?

Wing Feather has 4 levels, to Void Severing's 5, and with Whip Shear already taken we have 5 levels to split between 8 ranks. So either we master Void Severing and take just 1 level of Wing Feather, we master Wing Feather and take 2 levels of Severing (so Horizon Slicing), or we mix both and master neither.
I figure we pick up Wing Feather level 1, then Horizon Slicing, and then decide which to master based on what the upgrades for both look like from there? Winning the House Cup again would help, but that's not something that can be guaranteed.

Karf said:

"It is good you've come," the woman whispers, "Although I'm afraid it'll be too late. You will lose yourself at a crucial moment, and there's nothing left to do but fix and fix and fix."

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Huh, Trelawney predicted our Nat 1 with our dad. This does indicate that he isn't going to die though, the fact we even can fix this indicates that it's nothing too permanent.

Karf said:

For each improvement past omen unlock, add a fire aspect pool die to the lowest divined roll. The die to add is selected in ascending order, with the first improvement picking the lowest possible die, the second the second lowest and so on.

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So one thing that Fire Omen does really well which IMO we didn't give enough respect to is it protects us against crit-fails.

I don't think it's an auto-pick for future divination lessons, but when mastered this is effectively 1d23 (or whatever we get up to by next summer) added to our social rolls, which is actually pretty decent.

Edit: @Karf, if we were to sink four levels into Fire Omen past Omen unlock would it wrap back around and let us roll 2dX for our lowest omen roll (as it's capped at three Omens)?

Karf said:

And a significant chunk of that underworld is ruled over by the Goblin Empire. You are not, however, knowledgeable enough to say which side, if either is perceived as the stronger one, seeing as there have been more 'rebellions' than you have fingers on your hands.

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Interesting that the goblins are very much a peer here, compared to their portrayal in canon.

Karf said:

Whoever this Gilderoy Lockhart fellow is, apparently he has some deep insight to offer,

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Yeah, his lessons are going to be a sight to remember!

Karnax626 said:

For Transfiguration, one thing I'm not sure on is whether skill ranks past Apprentice will still give us technique levels, or whether we'll reach a point where we have to go over what we already have and iterate on that. Seeing as how we can't tell until we get there, I'd say it's worth planning ahead a bit to see what we want to get out of it?

Wing Feather has 4 levels, to Void Severing's 5, and with Whip Shear already taken we have 5 levels to split between 8 ranks. So either we master Void Severing and take just 1 level of Wing Feather, we master Wing Feather and take 2 levels of Severing (so Horizon Slicing), or we mix both and master neither.
I figure we pick up Wing Feather level 1, then Horizon Slicing, and then decide which to master based on what the upgrades for both look like from there? Winning the House Cup again would help, but that's not something that can be guaranteed.

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I think we're still gonna get techniques once we're at the Intermediate stage and after, but at some point I expect we'll be able to mix Laws together into an Art with our milestones, or something like that. So like I said, planning to get a second Law to completion sounds good to me (and I might lean towards the White Feather's Flight one simply because it'll be faster, but I'm not too fussy about that).

As for the House Cup, while it cannot be guaranteed, we can try to improve our odds to win it in a number of ways. The best and most obvious one is to gain sect points ourselves, with Quidditch (our biggest advantage on this front) and the top scorer positions (the most constant and reliable way). Helping our housemates in winning sect points is also a good idea, although obviously we have less control over that, and their points count less than our own. Still, for that and other reasons, social actions like the ones we have available this turn (our Quidditch team, study group and first-year Ravenclaws) will be high in my priority list, in the hope that they will have a positive effect on them.

FriedIce said:

Huh, Trelawney predicted our Nat 1 with our dad. This does indicate that he isn't going to die though, the fact we even can fix this indicates that it's nothing too permanent.

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I'm not excluding it, but how do you figure that's what she was referring to? I don't find it nearly as obvious and clear as Lavender's prediction of our fire-related issues, and that's saying something.

FriedIce said:

So one thing that Fire Omen does really well which IMO we didn't give enough respect to is it protects us against crit-fails.

I don't think it's an auto-pick for future divination lessons, but when mastered this is effectively 1d23 (or whatever we get up to by next summer) added to our social rolls, which is actually pretty decent.

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It's fantastic to avoid crit fails, but I'm more interested in crit successes, so that's why I don't rate it so high. The one thing that makes the Fire Omen more appealing for future Divination advancement, though, is that it's only 3 max die, which is much easier to reach and then discover what comes after, compared to Aeromancy's 9 and Haruspexy's 5.

All in all, I'm not sure yet which Omen I prefer to invest on in the future, to be honest.

FriedIce said:

Huh, Trelawney predicted our Nat 1 with our dad. This does indicate that he isn't going to die though, the fact we even can fix this indicates that it's nothing too permanent.

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Your so right. We lost ourselves in our work. And now all we can do is fix, fix, fix.
It's hard to remember but everything she says is always true. In the books, and likely doubly so here with cultivation

Karf said:

"It is good you've come," the woman whispers, "Although I'm afraid it'll be too late. You will lose yourself at a crucial moment, and there's nothing left to do but fix and fix and fix."

"Fix?"

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Is the natural 1 rolled when we painted the locket what Trelawney was referencing here? If so, that just makes it more ominous. (also ninja'd while writing this)

Just found and caught up on the quest (I love it, the fusion of Potterverse and Cultivation is brilliantly done) and was wondering about the general plan for the next few turns. What are we focusing on and why?

Also, given the setting, does that mean that Lockheart is actually competent? Or was he a second/third year drop out that feigns competency (much like canon, but I'd love to see a competent yet still narcissistic Lockheart).

Finally, given the whole immortal ascension thing if you graduate Hogwarts, does that mean that the parents of major characters (Lucius Malfoy/James Potter/Frank Longbottom etc.) didn't manage to do so and had to drop out at year 5 or 6? Did Voldemort fail to ascend somehow? Is that why he's messing around on the mortal plane when, given his talent, he should have easily graduated from Hogwarts? Or did he ascend but decide to stick around for some reason (or be unable to change realms because horcruxes, assuming things went similar to canon)?

Molten Thunder said:

Also, given the setting, does that mean that Lockheart is actually competent? Or was he a second/third year drop out that feigns competency (much like canon, but I'd love to see a competent yet still narcissistic Lockheart).

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On this front at least, the fact he's explicity noted to not hold the title of 'Elder' as the rest of the professors do I feel is rather telling. However, this doesn't preclude other changes to his chartacter. For example, in a world where competency can be much more directly measured by examining the level of one's cultivation, I expect it'd be far harder for him to pass off the accomplishments of others as his own.

On the whole parents thing, I got no clue, though that horcrux theory holds promise. There is a long history of evil sects/demonic cultivators in the genre that Voldemort does slot quite nicely into, so I'm not that worried.

FriedIce said:

Huh, Trelawney predicted our Nat 1 with our dad. This does indicate that he isn't going to die though, the fact we even can fix this indicates that it's nothing too permanent.

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I personally took this as a warning about the bloodline curse potentially coming our way via our mother. Going back and seeing as this happened during the first half of the turn with the disaster with dad however, I'm more inclined to believe it's about that now that it's been pointed out. Such is the wooly nature of prophecy.

BearWolfBoar said:

Your so right. We lost ourselves in our work. And now all we can do is fix, fix, fix.
It's hard to remember but everything she says is always true. In the books, and likely doubly so here with cultivation

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Ohhhhh, I see it now and am pretty convinced. Good catch, guys.

Molten Thunder said:

Just found and caught up on the quest (I love it, the fusion of Potterverse and Cultivation is brilliantly done) and was wondering about the general plan for the next few turns. What are we focusing on and why?

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Short term, we want to get Charms to 750+ (only around 100 points away), as well as Herbology and Astronomy (currently at 0, but pretty easily done next turn), so that we reveal what they give/will give.

Longer term, we want to hit our yearly goals, which are to breakthrough to the next Stage (so raise Spiritual and Physical cultivation by around 7k+ points each) and to get 3 non-elective skills to the next stage (around 5k+ each). On this latter front, we have yet to decide which ones to pick, but Transfiguration is by far the most popular, so it basically is guaranteed a spot, and we'll see about the others when we have more info on all of them (i.e. the short term goals).

And generally speaking, we want to be magical artists in order to improve people's lives and reduce their suffering, as well as good Quidditch players because we enjoy it and the attention/prestige that come with it.

Finally, we just discovered that our mom was from the Greengrass clan and possibly kicked from it, and (also possibly, but not certainly) killed by a bloodline curse that was thought defeated.

That about sums it up, I think?

Epic Bygones said:

I'm not excluding it, but how do you figure that's what she was referring to? I don't find it nearly as obvious and clear as Lavender's prediction of our fire-related issues, and that's saying something.

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It's something that's already decided, but that Divination could have helped with if we'd come earlier. So it's social roll related, and to do with the social rolls from the turn just gone, as it was already decided but hadn't happened.

The Nat 1 with our dad is the only option IMO.

Edit: the point about the bloodline curse is well made and that could be it too.

Epic Bygones said:

It's fantastic to avoid crit fails, but I'm more interested in crit successes, so that's why I don't rate it so high. The one thing that makes the Fire Omen more appealing for future Divination advancement, though, is that it's only 3 max die, which is much easier to reach and then discover what comes after, compared to Aeromancy's 9 and Haruspexy's 5.

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Maybe I'm misinterpreting Karf, but my understanding is that after we unlock our last Omen (3 max for Fire Omen) we get to start adding pool dice to our social rolls and they're not all added to the lowest roll, but rather the second 1dX gets added to the second lowest roll and so on. And three levels after Omen unlock would mean we get to add 1dX to all three of our social rolls, including our highest.

If I am misinterpreting and Omen Unlock means unlocking the first Omen rather than the last that just makes it an even better investment because we only need three levels to get 1dX to all our social rolls, not five.

1d23 (or higher, it'll be higher by then) to all our social rolls has the potential to be really good and help with 90+ rolls. And it synergises nicely with Charms. That feels worth ~5 levels in it. It could even let us find out what a 100+ social roll looks like

Molten Thunder said:

Just found and caught up on the quest (I love it, the fusion of Potterverse and Cultivation is brilliantly done) and was wondering about the general plan for the next few turns. What are we focusing on and why?

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Welcome to the quest!

The currently winning plan for this turn is to wrap up some loose ends from last year - we're very close to another level for Transfiguration and we don't have enough meridians unlocked atm to slot all our techniques - whilst pushing for the extra action from Physical Cultivation.

Next turn I think everyone is broadly agreed that we want to take Herbology and Astronomy, mostly to find out what they do and if they're good (whilst probably also picking up a level of Charms and Spiritual cultivation as we're close to break points on each). We need to get three skills to intermediate by June to not fail out and whilst Transfiguration is probably a lock we're not committed to any of the others, hence seeing if Astronomy and Herbology are good.

After that no-one has anything agreed. I want to focus on potions in November because Quidditch but I know a lot of people have other stuff they want to focus on. Epic was talking about Spiritual Cultivation and I think Karnax mentioned Transfig for example.

Molten Thunder said:

Also, given the setting, does that mean that Lockheart is actually competent? Or was he a second/third year drop out that feigns competency (much like canon, but I'd love to see a competent yet still narcissistic Lockheart).

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I'm sure Lockhart is quite the expert at Memory Transfigurations!

Honestly, not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Molten Thunder said:

Finally, given the whole immortal ascension thing if you graduate Hogwarts, does that mean that the parents of major characters (Lucius Malfoy/James Potter/Frank Longbottom etc.) didn't manage to do so and had to drop out at year 5 or 6? Did Voldemort fail to ascend somehow? Is that why he's messing around on the mortal plane when, given his talent, he should have easily graduated from Hogwarts? Or did he ascend but decide to stick around for some reason (or be unable to change realms because horcruxes, assuming things went similar to canon)?

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We know that there was a demonic cultivator who screwed over Harry as a child, and that Neville's parents are in St Mungos but otherwise we've no clue! Karf has been playing a lot of stuff close to their chest.

We should find out more this year if Chamber of Secrets plays out at all like in canon.

FriedIce said:

Maybe I'm misinterpreting Karf, but my understanding is that after we unlock our last Omen (3 max for Fire Omen) we get to start adding pool dice to our social rolls and they're not all added to the lowest roll, but rather the second 1dX gets added to the second lowest roll and so on. And three levels after Omen unlock would mean we get to add 1dX to all three of our social rolls, including our highest.

If I am misinterpreting and Omen Unlock means unlocking the first Omen rather than the last that just makes it an even better investment.

1d23 (or higher, it'll be higher by then) to all our social rolls has the potential to be really good and help with 90+ rolls. And it synergises nicely with Charms. That feels worth ~5 levels in it.

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My understanding was that "Omen unlock" was basically what we first got with the Fire Omen, and in the last update, Aeromancy and Haruspexy: just 1 pre-rolled social die for each. Then "Improvement past Omen unlock" just refers to any milestone spent to improve/further them, and that's how we get their special benefit (on top of another pre-roll): in the Fire Omen's case, the 1 pool die added to the lowest social roll (picking the lowest fire die from our training actions). Then, after a rite's max is reached, we can still continue to improve it, but we don't know what that entails: in the Fire Omen's case, after the third omen, or 2 more milestones.

Perhaps @Karf could clarify?

FriedIce said:

@Karf, if we were to sink four levels into Fire Omen past Omen unlock would it wrap back around and let us roll 2dX for our lowest omen roll (as it's capped at three Omens)?

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Sounds fun, so sure, I guess it could work more or less like that (see below).

FriedIce said:

Maybe I'm misinterpreting Karf, but my understanding is that after we unlock our last Omen (3 max for Fire Omen) we get to start adding pool dice to our social rolls and they're not all added to the lowest roll, but rather the second 1dX gets added to the second lowest roll and so on.

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This is mostly correct. Barring the fact that I'll very likely be reworking the Fire-Omen extra benefit very soon, I'll try to give an example (which I've come to understand I'm notoriously bad at):

Lets imagine that you've unlocked all 3 fire omen dice, and have then used a further 2 milestone rewards to improve it.

For a given turn, you roll a fire omen divination of: [60, 30, 32]. Because of how the voting timing works out, this would be the pool you vote for. For now, lets just assume that this is the one that gets selected.

For that same turn, you have a bunch of pools as usual, for the sake of clarity, lets say that they contain the following fire aspected dice (all together, grouped from all pools for convenience): [5, 15, 20]

The lowest fire-omen die is 30, so we'll start there. For the first improvement past omen unlock, we add 5 to it, giving us a divination pool of [60, 35, 32]. For the second improvement past omen unlock, we pick 15. The lowest divination die is now 32, so that's what we'll add to, giving us [60, 35, 47].

Since there's no more improvement, we're done, and that's the pool I'd use for the story.

Example over. Given that you'll likely have more than 3 fire aspect pool dice (unless you work to make it not so, in which case that's on you), I'm doubtful you'll want to go so deep in fire-omen that there will be less fire dice than levels in the rite, but if it does happen, looping around is as good a solution as any.

Epic Bygones said:

Then "Improvement past Omen unlock" just refers to any milestone spent to improve/further them, and that's how we get their special benefit (on top of another pre-roll): in the Fire Omen's case, the 1 pool die added to the lowest social roll (picking the lowest fire die from our training actions). Then, after a rite's max is reached, we can still continue to improve it, but we don't know what that entails: in the Fire Omen's case, after the third omen, or 2 more milestones.

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See above. The additional benefit kicks in once you have all the dice unlocked. For a Watsonian explanation, it's when Rei has achieved sufficient understanding to recognize when her actions fall in line with prophecy and nudge things (very carefully) in her favor.

I don't think I've mentioned it anywhere yet, but there's a tentative idea to have 7 total rites, beyond which Rei simply has no time for to conduct. AKA at most 7 pools you can pick up (1 per element and an extra 2 for... reasons). Past that, you'd be improving them (no more new rites), if divination as a skill is something that continues to appeal.

Karf said:

AKA at most 7 pools you can pick up (1 per element and an extra 2 for... reasons).

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My money's on those extra 2 being for the two polarities, yin and yang. Since I've already put out one guess, I guess (heh) that I'll also throw out my personal theory about the extra benefits Astronomy will get us.

Since Astronomy's specifically about finding ritual sites/chi nexuses (nexi?), my guess is that the element of the site will either gurantee a minimum number of dice from a specific primal element/polarity in a roll, or convert dice of other elements into the element aligned with the particular site, maybe from the element that feeds the site's element. I'll also conjecture that particularly powerful sites would also boost dice of a given element as well - either the element the site's aligned with, or the element it supports/enhances. In any case, it seems we'll be finding out relatively soon.

Karf said:

But fire has never been the most 'you' element.

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I wonder what the 'us' element is. Preciously I'd probably have said fire, but nowadays I'd say wood. It's the element of creation and what is art, if not creation?

Karf said:

Lavender's tea-leaf reading is a form of divination called tessomancy, even if she does her schtick by instinct alone. Tessomancy itself however, is merely one form of haruspexy - or in more familiar terms, reading the future from entrails.

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Look, as long as we don't need to make our divinations rhyme…

Karf said:

Knowing yourself, you'll be experimenting for quite a while to see what exactly works best for you, but examining the sear patterns on fried eggs doesn't sound nearly as gruesome when phrased as such, rather than dissecting the burnt remains of once potential baby chickens.

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This is a cool call out to auguries, and I love how you've taken the principles of them and applied it to such a delightfully mundane case. A more edgy quest (or indie!Harry story) would have us killing our beloved pet rabbit in cold blood. Instead we just boil an egg.

Karf said:

For reading the weather you sneak onto the roof of your apartment complex. Next month, you'll have the great lake at Hogwarts to tap into, but you doubt that you could find a suitable place to observe the Thames. Instead, you bring a blanket, a bottle of water for Rex and lay down to watch the clouds.

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Again, I love that reading the weather turns into cloud watching. It's a wonderful way of mixing the mundane and magical. It's very Harry Potter.

Karf said:

• Aeromancy

Number of omens: 9As the world determines weather, weather determines Qi, and Qi determines the world. Global quantities of water Qi can hide within itself information about the changes that the Qi of mutability is going to cause. A wide-reaching rite with many moving parts and different aspects, mastery of Aeromancy can take a long time indeed.For each improvement past omen unlock, switch around the digits of the roll for which it would lead to the greatest change in magnitude.

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Fitting that the Divination system focussing on the archetypical chaotic system is incredibly chaotic at its higher levels.

@Karf I assume that if the greatest change in magnitude involves the result decreasing, then decrease it will?

Karf said:

• Haruspexy

Number of omens: 5There is power in all endings, and each of those ends is a new beginning for something in the future. The art of haruspexy deals with creating and recognizing the process in-between those states, and the extraction of information relevant to the practitioner from that. In theory, the more wood Qi gets released, the more there is to glean, but some lines are not meant to be pushed, let alone crossed.For each improvement past omen unlock, a wood aspect result roll has a 50% chance to replace the lowest haruspexy roll (even if it would reduce that roll).

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Interestingly this divination is more about death than life, despite being wood natured. I wonder if Death qi is something we can access like Life Qi is. Maybe Wood/Metal?

Karf said:

For a given turn, you roll a fire omen divination of: [60, 30, 32]. Because of how the voting timing works out, this would be the pool you vote for. For now, lets just assume that this is the one that gets selected.

For that same turn, you have a bunch of pools as usual, for the sake of clarity, lets say that they contain the following fire aspected dice (all together, grouped from all pools for convenience): [5, 15, 20]

The lowest fire-omen die is 30, so we'll start there. For the first improvement past omen unlock, we add 5 to it, giving us a divination pool of [60, 35, 32]. For the second improvement past omen unlock, we pick 15. The lowest divination die is now 32, so that's what we'll add to, giving us [60, 35, 47].

Since there's no more improvement, we're done, and that's the pool I'd use for the story.

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So my question is sortof different to that.

Say we have 7 levels in Fire Omen, so we've improved it post Omen unlock 4 times. We roll 10, 20, 30 for our Omens. That turn we've rolled a 5, 10, 15, 20 for Fire Aspect Pools.

I assume we end up with 10+5, 20+10, 30+15 for the first three post aspect levels but for the fourth does that swing back around so we actually end up with 10+5+20, 20+10, 30+15 for our Omen rolls?

Karf said:

I don't think I've mentioned it anywhere yet, but there's a tentative idea to have 7 total rites, beyond which Rei simply has no time for to conduct.

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I'm very down for this, I like the idea of there being a set number of total rites that we can specialise in as we like. It means we're not constantly rolling for newer and better rites.

FriedIce said:

@Karf I assume that if the greatest change in magnitude involves the result decreasing, then decrease it will?

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The divination mechanics aren't my best work, because I don't have a measuring stick to compare to. As an excuse, you won't be touching them for at least a couple of months yet, so I can make changes as I see fit. I had the effect of switching digits in mind, and because it's divination and socials, it can be a bit weird, rather than balanced. Case in point, it's one of the first times when the bonus can be negative at all. I'd also come to accept by that point that it doesn't have to be possible to invest infinitely in a rite. Once you're done with all the swaps (9), the whole thing is done, nothing left to gain from further investment.

That said, magnitude is pretty much the exact wrong word to use in this case. Positive changes happen first, as 1 > -100, but once you're out of positives, then yes, decrease it will.

FriedIce said:

So my question is sortof different to that.

Say we have 7 levels in Fire Omen, so we've improved it post Omen unlock 4 times. We roll 10, 20, 30 for our Omens. That turn we've rolled a 5, 10, 15, 20 for Fire Aspect Pools.

I assume we end up with 10+5, 20+10, 30+15 for the first three post aspect levels but for the fourth does that swing back around so we actually end up with 10+5+20, 20+10, 30+15 for our Omen rolls?

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You end up with 10+5+10+20, 20+15, 30. 30 is never the lowest omen roll (until the end), so nothing gets added to it. 10+5+10 is bigger than 20, so the 15 gets added to 20, making it bigger than 25 again, so the last bonus goes to what started out as 10.