A quest about a simple transaction and the consequences that follow.
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A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
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User Total Lealope 2 Orm Embar 1 Rihaku 1 HoratioVonBecker 1 Magical_Duck 1 Threadmarks Reader mode RSS -
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Statement Index
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The below is an outdated version. Look here for the current version.
- The Foremost
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The Foremost
General
So we have a dungeon town. Also I've got a really drawn out God damn for what the Foremost pulled off.
Dungeon universe, yeah. It's only about the size of Jupiter on the outside, though. The human megacity on the unwarped space is pretty large too, about 30 miles a side.
The Foremost were hardcore.
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Well, it's a magic dungeon. Not really sure what it's for, though humans have speculated as to a number of reasons. The Foremost trolling by making a literal isekai verse is one of the more prominent theories.
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Now, speculation: Cursebearers live a really long time. A million years doesn't even get you a billionth of a billionth of the way through the Geas after all! Could the Foremost have had an ancient cursebearer who forged the Armaments, as a duplication of his own powers? That would explain where they came from. Perhaps the Accursed put us here because our ancient predecessor left things behind which would be helpful for a Progression-type that's dealing with the Apocryphal? We should seek out Foremost ruins if any exist. And communing with Verschlengorge just became higher priority.
Foremost ruins... an easy way to get yourself killed! Which means plenty of sweet, sweet Experience... and Apocryphal procs!
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Now I wonder if the Forebearers were founded by an ancient Cursebearer, who himself aped the Accursed by passing parts of his curse along to others in exchange for power. Except those others were giant mechs.
The Foremost are certainly an enticing mystery! Be careful not to end up dead by it. You don't have New Game+!
The Voyaging Realm
On another note, are all these worlds really just dimensional variants of Earth? The Manifest Realm changed irrevocably by the presence of findross, this world by these Foremost,
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It's good but I don't think it's a significant enough improvement to spend 2 arete on it. Especially considering no drain for a month means a month where we aren't weakened if there's nothing living around us.
You're in the Voyaging Realm, though! There's life all around you!
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Looking back, I'm curious how that high medieval city state is able to function or even arose in the first place. Even if they face drastically less monster attacks do they not get lost when going out to their fields? Does the space warping function more like you can travel freely in one tile but then you get a semi-random result when crossing to another? Did they get picked up wholesale as well or what?
An interesting question that Hunger was rather unconcerned with! It seems like the scale of locales that shift are probably greater than "a city-state and its environs," though. Like a massive 4-D jigsaw puzzle with pieces of varying size rather than churning pandemonium.
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You're in pretty bad shape, but you're certainly still stronger than the vast majority of wild beasts! Especially if you pick up some exhaustion mitigation or just enough raw stats to compensate for your injuries.
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I remembered something. Money can be traded for goods and services. Like people helping us accelerate our healing process. Presumably this is Voyaging Realm currency.
It's the currency of the traders' society, but given that they're traveling around the Voyaging Realm it's presumably accepted in many places.
Astral Beings
And these monsters seem to be hive minds of sort looking at the coordination or at least pieces of the same mind separated from the main body. At least that's my reading. In which case, it might just be better to go after the main monster.
It's very much the case that the hive mind is mostly unconcerned with the loss of individual bodies, but the individual bodies are causing most of the mayhem and slaughter in the city below, so there's still value in killing them... as long as the wurm beast doesn't, say, disgorge more.
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The classic giant robot versus Kaiiju. Both seem biological; the monster reminds me more of Getter Robo, while piloting a humanoid abomination is the classic EVA twist. Both seem to fly despite not emitting any obvious thrust; unfortunately given the capabilities of "Science" in Super Robot shows they could still technically be scientific.
They're not flying, they're just really tall! And the walls themselves aren't massively high.
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Well, given the starting scene, it would have been RIP the Hero otherwise.
Mm, he would have been strong enough to beat these guys with good tactics and decent rolls, movement kiting etc. They're individually pretty weak. But Scepter was strong enough to steamroll them without involving tactics.
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A bit of an anticlimax, honestly? What a disappointing dance parter, no stamina at all! It didn't score a hit on us, or try to explode, or really turn out to have any nasty surprises. Still, a satisfying victory on the whole. Without Gisena and the Devourer, this could've been a tremendous pain to deal with. Maybe it did have a trump card up its sleeve and died without a chance to display it because of Nullity?
Yes, much harder without Gisena, though not insurmountably so. If anything her knowledge was even more valuable than her powers, as going directly for the head is much more efficient than trying to wound its more accessible body.
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I don't disagree that she's doing work, but Cat would have also been able to fight. Where Gisena is showing her worth is in closing the rifts.
The rifts do close by themselves eventually, but speeding it up is very useful indeed! And debuffing the special abilities of one's foes.
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Actually I wonder if it's the Decimation that's attracting the monsters or is it just a result of having a sufficiently large rank?
No, Astral denizens prefer to attack Armaments when Rits occur, and the Rifts created by Astral travel tend to occur around active Armaments. This is what Letrizia knows.
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The explanation we were given is that Armaments stabilize space with their presence - I assume the Astrals monsters don't like being prevented from invading the real world and can sense the source of the barrier. Whether that's the actual truth is a different question, maybe Armaments simply look super-tasty to them.
- The Human Sphere
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The Human Sphere
General
I mean we could try conquering each world personally but even if we just have to control 90% of the inhabited worlds we'd have to conquer each one in under 2 months in order to make it in time for our 1500 year deadline. If we have to take over the uninhabited worlds as well we'd have something like 20 days per planet which seems a bit rough.
The uninhabited ones not just worlds, but star systems! You'd technically only need to control the resource extraction stations, which are usually owned by commercial or government interests of one of the three polities, however.
Oof does that mean that even if we somehow control the three governments we still won't be done because some of the systems are controlled by corporations instead?
As long as the corporations are under the control of the government to a decent degree, no. You don't have to nationalize them or anything, just have the authority to do so if you wanted and have your orders carried out reasonably well.
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If Gisena agrees to become our lackey and we maneuver her into become empress does that count as us controlling it for the purposes of our Geas? If so we could use devourer and enough strength to pose as the villan forcing the polities to unite against us while the valiant Gisena champions the cause of overturning our evil?
Hm... is Gisena anybody's lackey? But sure, if you control it from behind the scenes or whatever, that still counts as controlling it. The appearance of rule is not irrelevant, but the practicality of rule is paramount. Thus being a puppet emperor would not qualify, but the absolute power behind the throne (if you truly are such) certainly could.
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And yet she doesn't have a mobile device of some kind at hand?
Not every society is as obsessed with cell phones as our own!
These people are more technologically advanced, after all.
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Regardless, this place is inhabited and interaction with it is relegated to a third party. Why? It is natural for nations to want power and influence. Why give up such a resource rich place with goddamn magic in it?
Well, the resource density is not very high, the place is impossible to navigate except for Armaments, and it's quite dangerous to navigate as well! Exploitation may not scale very well, and they already have sophisticated technology for effects...
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The Houses aren't individually great enough to comprise nations. Remember, the Amarlt main line doesn't exist anymore aside from Ceathlynn alone!
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It's interesting that Armaments have been around for Millennia which I think means they had FTL that long, but Terra still seems to command a pretty strong cultural influence.
Preservation of information and broad distribution lead to cultural continuity... though the life imitates art aspects of it may have played a major role for that specific piece of media.
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Huh. Well, first of all we'd be a pretty valuable test subject for these guys, especially if we can teach them about Accretion. It's clear they don't know all that much about the powers they're toying with. The Shroud is pretty reminiscent of the Monarch. If Rank is the primary relevant factor in these fights and humans can only reach Rank 3 at most, we might actually have the highest personal power among all humans, other than other weirdo outlanders. It'll become a lot more certain once we've gotten a chance to progress for more than a few days.
Well, they do have those mid-Rank Armor Prototypes... and whatever whacky abilities outlanders might bring to the table!
Vershlengorge
I still find the connection with the mecha weird, it seems like it's also a depleted icon so there's a similarity but why it engendered this response seems odd. It started before we had settled on accretion anyway so it doesn't have to do with that.
Maybe it's broadcasting something.
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That was a bit anticlimactic. What kind of monster doesn't have another Phase to fall back on? But then Sword slashes and Nullity bolts to the brain probably aren't good for one's health.
DRAGON: Foolish Devourer, you teeter on your last legs but this isn't even my final form!
DRAGON: BEHOLD, my wounds now spawn countless hyena-beasts, and the very act of their creation restores my health! I am invincible! The rake of my arms is tenfold scythes, my scales battlements, shock of my tail a hurricane wall, my blood the stuff of life itself!
THE DEVOURER: I'll admit, this looks bad. But you forgot one thing, Dragon.
DRAGON: And what is that?
THE DEVOURER: He who reveals his trump card first...
THE DEVOURER: *Calls out across the infinite cosmos for a Cursebearer that shares a perfect affinity for itself. Watches the ensuing battle.*
THE DEVOURER: ...always loses.
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Bloody greenskins, you just can't escape them! But seriously, is this a coincidence or did some absolute madman create a hybrid orc EVA? If so, how? The affinity's a little worrying given how, ah, obviously evil it is? But I suppose we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, given how tattered Hiro's own is. They're similar in having been through the wringer if nothing else.
If it resembled an orc, Gisena would likely have commented so!
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I'm tossing in a search for artifacts, because three is a great number, we lack defensive options, and I want to have at least one option that encourages a bit of ranging about and scouting this strange world. Accretion needs time, consistency, and something worthy of a legend. I'd like to see if we can find two out of three here by getting that third item early.
Well, you do have an object of power right next to you! One of the most powerful you may ever have access to in this universe!
Though it does already have a pilot...
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I would argue that the lesser amount of votes is proportional to the lesser amount of shinies.
Now on votes...
[X] Plan Your Trip
[X] Speak with Gisena I
[X] Speak with Letrizia I
[X] Seek Worthy Opponents
[X] Zee
Honestly, the only reason I'm voting for Lettizia is because the idea of Hunger giving someone a nickname is hilarious.
Hunting monster's is important for Huger's build and Gisena social is always nice. For us. Fairly straightforward vote.
Note that you do get fights automatically regardless of option picked, since Astral Rifts will spawn monsters targeting Verschlengorge regardless!
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How strong is the devourer compared to other mechs in the Human Sphere? Is it a super mech or just a run of the mill one? Or are there not very many of them and each one is a custom job?
Letrizia's willingness to answer detailed tactical / strategic / political questions is finite, depending on how deep your relationship with her is. She's not certain you don't have ill intentions, after all! Even if your help is necessary.
But you get the sense that Armaments, when fully operational and working to their potential, are at the high end of strategic-grade weapons for her civ. They're Foremost tech, after all! Presumably they're at min. more powerful than nukes by a substantial margin?
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It's a legitimate question whether or not the robot could get low enough to actually reach a ship meant for the river.
It can, though it'd be fairly clumsy at doing so. Verschlengorge is capable of far more agility but not when its internals, Rank and support systems are this badly damaged.
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It's also interesting that we now feel less affinty to the mech than before. I guess it's always hungry?
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I'm pretty sure our affinity to it is related to the curse given that's it's lessened immediately after we mitigated it for a time.
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Given the mech is related to our curse somehow and possibly would make it even worse or has a similar effect I'm not sure piloting it is a good idea even if it's stronk.
Verschlengorge's affinity for you can only be a good thing! For you.
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Sure they know about it but they're apparently so okay with it they built and pilot a mech that does it. It's not like we can hide the massive decimation aura anyway, at best we can blame it on her mech as long as we're nearby but they'll figure it out eventually.
Well, humanity didn't build Verschlengorge. But yes, they're keeping it around and in a populated area as well.
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[X] Spill
[X] Of Fishermen, A King
We need that curse information. And this is a fairly safe environment for testing telling people about our thing. Picking King of Fishing mostly for the fun of it TBH.
Yeah, it's definitely safer for Affliction disclosure than say, in civilization itself. Especially since her giant robot is (presumably) dealing with the same problem!
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Impressive, but we already knew that Verschlengorge was no laughing matter. Getting in the robot was called out as another Arete spending point, one reason I'd like to save our juice for a later date.
Mm. I'll note that you don't necessarily have to pilot Verschlengorge to benefit from its Curse-related... attributes. Though of course the compound synergy of Accretion with Verschlengorge itself would be interesting to discover. Would its overwhelming Rank render yours effectively superfluous, or would there be a beneficial dynamic there?
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That was a great scene, nothing like having the Armament speak and bow its head to make an impression. In hindsight, Spill was worth it for the plot hooks alone; when the pigeons inevitably come home to roost, we'll deal with them. But for that, we need power.
[X] Of Fishermen, A King
[X] El Stats
Getting in the robot constitutes an Arete expenditure opportunity, so reserving some for that would be nice. Call me callous, but I don't think we can afford to take Conclusion here, not in any sense but the most literal. The opportunity costs are just too painful. This is apparently something the Human Sphere has experience with, so they're likely to have options. We have a month of total reprieve already, before even seeing what Gisena brings to the table in terms of mitigation.
You're investigating Verschlengorge, but you didn't take Commune With It, so any Arete expenditures coming up will be a while yet.
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Oh hey, Verschlengorge can Truthsay.
[X] Of Fishermen, A King
[X] A Curse, Deferred
Double mystery box. One more and we get a free toaster!
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We aren't communing yet I think. We need more exposure to commune.
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How much storage space does Letrizia have in there anyway. 3 peoples supplies for at least two months. Plus all the munitions Gisena's messing with. Is this stuff just in the part of the aftermarket modifications/repairs we saw done to the armor or does it dig space into the flesh itself like the piloting system?
The mech's 250 feet tall and quite the lighting bruiser, with a juggernaut-like frame that's heavier than most Armaments without sacrificing mobility. It's got plenty of storage space, especially with her hypertech food that's both reasonably appealing and extremely nutritious per unit volume!
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Oh, so the robot was magical after all, what a shame. And for shame, Versch, losing to this pretender! Where is your pride as the most powerful Foremost Armament?!
It's high ranked even among Armaments, but I wouldn't say it's the foremost!
Mech Piloting
Rihaku, is there synergy between Learn to Pilot and Seek Out Worthy Foes? Would it allow us to train Piloting by fighting using the mecha?
Potentially. Learn to Pilot alone is still pretty basic, you can of course raise the piloting skill in actual combat as well once you know the basics. Communing with the mech could also be important to the process if you seek true mastery.
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That's we are training to be a mecha pilot and not just training to punch people in the face tho. These mechas are some real shit.
You can do this geas quest without ever gaining substantial mech piloting skill, but mech piloting has fairly decent synergy with Accretion and is a good lever for multiplying your power. It's also safer in the short term. Either path is viable.
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If we go with communion is Zea going to be okay with us stealing her mecha? Presumably we'll have to return it at some point unless we murder her or something. If not is piloting going to be useful without a super mecha to drive around in? Or will we just attune to it with accretion and Zea won't be able to do anything about it?
I mean... someone's got to pilot it while you're sleeping. Or maybe you can engineer a dual-piloting setup! Plenty of lateral ways around it with the power of Progression!
In fact, the latter could even be a useful project for improving your science skills, since there are actual stakes!
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If we fight using the mech presumably we'll only level up our mech fighting skills. I mean I guess we'll get a little stronger over two months thanks to slumber and raise our accretion rank some but we won't have any better fighting skills outside of it than before.
You'd improve your Agility and Wits, plus get Accretion progress for defeating notable foes.
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I also question whether the mechs will even function in the next world, as it might not have the Astral. Our Accretion has been augmented to work in more worlds, but that doesn't necessarily carry over to all the functions of the mech even if we take it as an artifact.
Perhaps it's not a matter of whether or not the mech will work, but whether you devote enough energy to making it work! Such is the case for many fields in the journey of a Progression-type.
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Turning back and continuing to adventure until we can kill a full strength mech seems like a viable plan
Maybe, depending on the exact mechanics of the Voyaging Realm. But it would take a really long time.
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I wonder why they bothered with the doublespeak when it was an Astral Rift? Can the monsters that come out be sentient? Or was she just having fun? I'm also curious to see the commonalities between Nullity resealing the rifts and the Armaments forcibly restabilising reality. As a sidenote, how much do you want to bet that part of the plot is gonna end up being about the overuse of Astral technology potentially leading to mass reality failures in the future, giving a real humanitarian purpose to our conquest as we try coordinate humanity so that they can avoid a full blown Astral invasion.
Mm, fully powered Armaments are strong enough to repel even the strongest of Astral invaders that would bother with the effort, as far as anyone knows.
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Oh, additional question for you @Rihaku! If the Verschlengorge corresponds to the Affliction of the Decimator, is there/could there be an Armament for The Apocryphal Curse?
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Our stats aren't that relevent since we're just going to get in the giant mecha, aren't we?
You didn't pick Learn to Pilot, so you're only entering the mech to investigate it. Hunger intends to continue fighting outside for the foreseeable future. And stats (Agility especially) would still be highly relevant inside it! - Isekai World
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Isekai World
General
Strange that the hero would immediately jump to fey as the explanation for Gisena beauty when we know that Accretion can boosts the appearance of its users. Plus, in any case, using explanations from his previous world to judge that kind of thing doesn't seem very sensible.
She has an inhuman hair color. The people from his world have normal hair!
Not very anime, I know. But Accretion isn't.
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I wonder what the alternate universe versions of hunger are doing?
Assuming they're not dead? Probably something very interesting...
Dead Companions
Something to consider for Accretion in the case of Forsaken mask, the Hero's wife should also have it.
@Rihaku can you tell us what the wife's archetype would be?
I feel like if I start giving any details about the wife then waifuism will start to grip the thread and it'll disrupt the vote. She'd have a unique Soul Evocation if Seven Seals is picked as well, the only system with broadly available commonalities is Battle Magic.
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The People
Uhm, Vengeance leaves as well. Geas of Indenture and all. The People on his current world are in all likelihood never going to see the hero again. That he will try to hunt down whatever vague higher power that wronged him and him specifically throughout the multiverse will almost certainly have no impact on the world he leaves behind.
To be fair, their lives are a lot better than they were under the Tyrant. Even if he should abandon them, he's still saved them billions of QALYs!
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Basic human rights, protections for the common man, educational opportunities, and a buyout clause for serfs? That's too a high price for salvation? Seriously?
Well, infrastructure for enforcing basic human rights would actually be kinda expensive... far cheaper to just assassinate one man! At least five times cheaper! Maybe even seven!
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Presumably that was the words of the Nobles talking about justice. If they knew not their caste, would they be born into this world voluntarily? Would it pass the test of a Veil of Ignorance?
Perhaps they might argue that stripped of their essential characteristics they would not consider such a being to be themselves. An answer that certainly elides the question of consciousness.
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This is an example of his affinity for the forbidden surpassing the Tyrant, who apparently also jacked others' artifacts. But how many data points was he working with, here? Just the one abduction? Maybe the Forebear was simply disappointed in his descendant. Hiro's eye color did change when he stole it, which could be indicative of other alterations.
The Tyrant had his own weapon, no need for that of his Forebear's! Whether or not it was a mistake given the Forebear's greater power would be a matter of compatibility.
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What the fuck was the hero even calling himself between the years of killing the Tyrant getting assassinated? Did people call him by his name, it registered for a while and then just disappeared? Or did people just call him the Hero?
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You know, if over rank 7 is hero at 75% full power, and the tyrant was also high rank 7, it really makes you wonder how the hero who entered the world as a newb with destiny protection disabled, managed to keep the game afoot (Even engaging him in directly multiple times before the last fight) and stayed alive for the eleven years. That took some doing indeed.
Destiny was still active when the hero first entered. The Tyrant had to deal with them in real time!
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Yes, how dare we defend ourselves from random attacks. How horrible of us.
The Hidden Ones
We acted yes, we failed yes. Now we have the opportunity to get back to track, fix our world and then enjoy our Freedom. We also have a choice of abandoning our world, dooming ourselves to eventual death or at least misery for virtual eternity in search for bloody vengeance from those who are the root of this.
Freedom will depart from this world just as Vengeance does, since Freedom lacks the power to oppose the hidden masters. Best leave as soon as you can, especially if the Accursed's not around.
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So in the end,The Tyrant that we spend everything to defeat is just a pawn for this greater mastermind?
It's left vague. The implication seems to be that the structure of the hero's entire life was more or less engineered by these hidden ones.
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Poor, dumb bastards. The truth is worse than they could ever imagine. Or maybe better? Its not like they'll be alive by the time the Hero's strong enough to return for vengeance and unless something drastic changes along the way, he won't genocide their descendants or anything.
Linear time is of little concern to beings of such power as the hero avenged would have to be.
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You know, I just realized... we've only been promised freedom from the hidden masters if we pick Combat Cursebearer, presumably by either putting us far enough away distance-wise from their reach or just by marking us as off-bounds. So what if they're not as limited now? Maybe they can still reach us - especially with the Apocryphal Curse working in the background. Is that how we're going to fight them (initially) despite the Geas restricting us?
The Forebear
It's not really a matter of wishes, is it? Having passed up on more conventional heroism, we'd do well to take charisma when offered, no mattered the form in these early days where the protagonist's character is still in flux enough for them to be offered. Competence upgrades are basically impossible to come by, and if the Forebear's anything like the Tyrant he was extremely successful.
Many would argue he was more successful by far! He didn't die to a hero, after all.
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Getting stabbed in the back by your son is not a considerable improvement!
The Forebear is actually the tyrant's distant ancestor, and it is said he died peacefully at a very advanced age!
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Our hero is currently a hollow husk of his former self, missing a lot of memories, what do you think is going to happen when we take thick as thieves twice right now? I would be more willing to take it if our hero had an stable mental foundation with an strong personality but taking TAT now means that a lot of his personality might be adversely effected by the former tyrant. This is literally the worst time to take it in my opinion.
Come now, the Forebear was not nearly so puny and constricted a thing as that middling Tyrant! Good and evil, oppression and heirarchy, these are tools to frame how we see the world! But the world is as it ever was, perspective merely the angle from which we examine it. Why not entertain a grander perspective and take a truly long view? Even time itself must yield to Progression, so it's only permanent if one says so.
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Yeah, on reading the name I wondered if these 'Echo' skills aren't leading up to us getting the option for a Forebear simulacrum in our head or something. You said it doesn't give memories 'to an appreciable extent', but that it's possible at all's interesting! If the sword's something like a phylactery, does that make him a lich? What an absurd advantage, with this voterbase.
That would be too overpowered, I think. Perhaps you might call upon the Forebear one day... if you somehow managed that, you'd potentially gain a tremendous amount of insight into the nature of the Hidden Ones! - Hunger
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Hunger
Mentality
With regards to the Praxis, I'll say this -
It's most suitable for those who are exceptionally capable of hard work and willing to spend selfhood for power. Granted the hero is quite good at this, but his past experiences in that very vein have left him a broken shadow of a man. Is that really the well he would return to when given an actual choice?
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How very... rational. Kind of reminds me of Jeanne, who could ignore her own feelings, even those caused by the Brand, and work past them.
Conflict forges a man. Regardless of initial disposition a decade of guerilla warfare will focus them on strategies that work, and discard those obstacles to their implementation.
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Vendetta is the maximum fights, tension and power levelling path.
Hm... Vendetta will probably have the most fights, but it wouldn't be constant tension and battle. Vendetta with King's Scepter probably resembles playing First Age Odyssial immediately post-exaltation. Consumed with hatred of the titans, faced with incredible danger, but possessed of the will and the power to see his mission through. Not as capable as Odyssial was, but the power of Progression advances more quickly than a baseline Solar Exalt as well.
It's been a while since we've had a really determined protagonist. Nameless was spoiled and easy-going, Seram was isolated and neurotic, Arthur plain and ordinary.
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I am completely uninterested in playing a revenge-driven madman, especially one suicidal enough to take the Praxis with Progression and the Geass. I think the only reason Vengeance+Praxis is even a thing is people voting Praxis for meta reasons, which I dislike.
I don't think you need to vote tactically at this juncture. Vote your true preference and switch over later if necessary! All that needs to happen for Balance to have a chance is for a few large fanwork creators to select it!
That said, I wouldn't say Vengeance is a madman (perhaps an absolute madman). Many people are obsessed with things while still navigating life in a functional manner. There's nothing precluding healthy relationships if you put in the effort.
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Oh snap, another nameless protagonist. At least this one need not remain so. Seems like a very traditional isekai protagonist before he got turbofucked by the Tyrant. Interesting that he'd sooner forget the face of his father than the the ideals of his home. Shit, he can't even remember where he's from, except for probably being a 21st century liberal democracy.
He probably visited America at some point. Or read their comic books.
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vali's write in was gold. Its like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. You know this guy is gonna live a life of constant, unremitting violence against an endless calvacade of enemies. Its on a mountain of their corpses that he'll reach the heights necessary to avenge and then revive his companions.
Oh, he intends to revive them fairly quickly. Once he has cheap easy cross-dimensional resurrection, probably. Could theoretically be well within the scope of this quest.
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What they said. Also, Accretion means we can accidentally meme ourselves into comedic flaws.
Thinking a bit of Mr. Extrusion from EFB, with the pointed criticism, but more of a forced character development/degeneration depending on our deeds.
I'm betting the first thing tied to our legend is the inability to say no to a prettyfootface.
Really? I don't think the hero is particularly susceptible to feminine wiles.
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I'd been assuming he was American, going by the western ideals in the absence of cosmetic details. But that even he doesn't know is just painful. It's surprising he remembered enough religion to ask if the Accursed was the devil, though I guess he didn't get to finish the question. We've underestimated the toll his past took on him, which is not an error I thought possible. He lost his name? Surely someone reminded him in the wake of the tragedy? My expectations for that wretched realm are low, but... wow. We should get this guy to a mirror, maybe we can guess nationality from the appearance and give artists some details to work with.
Searing your name and identiy from your soul has consequences that cannot be trivially undone merely by being reminded of it! Else why would such fuel have value at all, in the language of metaphors?
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Interesting that the Hero would feel all these things so viscerally. The Accursed did say that the user interface of a cursebearer adapts to take a form the user would find intuitive and comforting, so it's probably a symptom of that.
Often one grows to enjoy what one is good at. And the skills of battle were something the hero was forced to hone quite extensively.
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Also, raw force of personality may help deal with... Gisena. I'd almost forgotten how annoying she was.
The hero's doing better than most. At least he's not simpin'. Perhaps a bit paranoid, but that's quite justifiable under the circumstances!
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I'm surprised Hunger remembers. But if commitment to the sciences was high enough on his priority list to be included in the post-sacrifice reforms, maybe he prioritized its retention alongside epic fights and the names of his comrades? Also, it occurs to me that Hunger has literally forgotten the face of his father.
He remembers general knowledge, background stuff. That isn't as profitable to burn for attack power as one's personal identity!
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I do suppose the maximum fight options are the ones which guarantee the most safety if we succeed. We are getting a ride here and can't set our own pace; we should take the power when it's offered.
You took the greedy option of long-term INT and CHA with long-term scaling over short-term physical power; would immediately engaging in repeated physical contests play well to those strengths? Remember, you are determining not just Hunger's response to this enemy but also setting his level of risk tolerance for this journey.
Or, put another way: why would the Apocryphal Curse put you in this situation?
More power would be very helpful when we reach civilization, but apparently we need to worry about long-term conditioning from the Curse, so let's condition ourselves to be "wise".
It's not conditioning from the Curse, it's retroactively determining Hunger's characterization.
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Hmm, if we want to start a mercenary band now would be the best time to begin recruitment. We're likely to find people with useful skills that are currently rather helpless. The best time to make an offer. It'll also likely help our sales pitch in the future to have more than 1-2 people.
Hm... but the Decimator's Affliction makes such things truly dangerous for any prospective recruits. You have it sated for now, but would Hunger even allow himself to stay around people long-term without some more advanced mitigation?
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Hunger: I forgot my name and my origins, burned my life and memory on the pyre of victory.
Hunger: Only the dearest memories I held onto, skill and knowledge only so much timber for the fire.
Hunger: But never! Would I forget the fine culture of the East (or was it West?) that brought us such rich memes!
Indeed. A man of Culture to the very, very end...
Or rather, he just didn't have perfect control of which memories he lost!
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She never stood a chance, did she? This can't be said to be social combat anymore, he's completely steamrolling Letrizia and has her eating out of his hands. She's so desperate for acknowledgement and he is such an obvious role model (on the surface) that this result was inevitable with the social skills of the Nightmare Praetor.
Mm, I wouldn't call it social combat per se. Hunger's not really trying to impose his agenda on her, just give her some advice while he's resting!
unless this is secretly an attempt to brainwash letrizia into the Dao of Fishing
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This is a bit curious, was he just putting on a strong front when he first started using the title due to the uncertain situation which he can now relax on due to knowing them better, or has his mindset actually changed? His egalitarian values poking through once more perhaps, or just the shame of bearing such a tryhard name.
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My interest in Hunger was seriously linked to how he could justify Decimator, but the in narrative weaving of it in the quest as well as the ring's options for mitigation have won me back, so let's slay this beast a little bit.
The reason he took it is because the Accursed told him this one had some of the most varied Mitigation options. "So I just have to TRY HARDER? I can do that."
What a tryhard.
Physique
Remember that the hero only has one hand, one eye, and is missing half a lung.
Oh yeah, can we recover them or are we stuck with them like Odin after his hanging?
There's nothing stopping you from healing them if you have the means. They just don't come pre-healed!
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Our character has lost half a lung and "all the natural vigor of his youth", so I doubt we'd be able to run very fast for any extended period of time...
Ironic that he's actually somewhat younger than Seram! Not remaining pure in body and mind really does a number on ya...
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It's a relatively piddling detail, but are the Hero's missing eye and arm on the same side of the body, or on opposite sides?
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Also, livid gold eyes? A fanged maw? Is this thing part-orc or something? I wonder if it's calling out for a pilot.
Actually, the hero has yellow eyes as well. They used to be a different color, but changed when he abducted the Forebear's Blade.
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Mainly hoping the extreme regeneration in Feast of Lives will restore the Hero's missing body parts.
Hm... wouldn't that be distracting during battle, though? Regaining an entire arm would throw your balance right off. And he's adjusted to hampered depth perception...
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She's also got some interesting tastes if a half-cripple qualifies as handsome in her eyes.
High Accretion rank increases majesty, supernal and (to a degree) physical! Given his former apex, the hero's facial structure could probably rival a high king of the Dunedain!
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Initial reaction was that Gisena's engaging in disingenuous flattery, but if Accretion Rank comes with physiological changes maybe she can derive his features pre-maiming. As a Sorceress she's familiar with cosmetic augmentation, the source is even somewhat similar.
Why discard the possibility that the hero is rather handsome even if maimed? Scars are the in thing.
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Nnnn I'm still not quite settled on a look for our boy Hunger, I just know I'm really attached to having that cape on the side with the missing arm??? Great for drawing attention away/sleight of hand bullshit?
Not satisfied, but Priest said something along the lines of "but RihaKredits tho" so here we are
Nice! I like 1 and 3 best, maybe 3 slightly more. He looks a bit older than either, with more gray in his hair. Possibly full gray. Some facial scarring as per 1 makes sense. Forebear's Blade has a straight guard and normal colored blade, but I like the cracks, as if there's forge-light shining through.
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Like, do people just sort of forget what we voted for? Last choice was No Quarter vs Prudence Dictates. We choose No Quarter specifically to get more short term power - and now, we have a minor wound vs Hunger proc boost(say Echo+Fell-Handed Strike). We are massively stronger than we would be with Prudence Dictates, and Prudence Dictates was supposed to be safe enough to allow us to finish the journey.
Prudence dictates would have lowered your risk tolerance as well, though there's never a true guarantee from the Apocryphal Curse. And I wouldn't classify your wound as minor, fighting at 91% efficiency is a noticeable debuff, especially with only 82% of your health.
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That had me rather concerned when I read it for the first time. Thankfully, we actually escaped with a minimum amount of damage.
Mm, I wouldn't consider it minimal. Even a modest wound drags down your future performance, and your health doesn't recover that quickly. Without magical healing you'll be carrying even that relatively unserious wound for days or weeks.
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This begs the question of just where the 'skilled thug' got that armor. Just luck or connections? Either is possible in a dungeon like this, but with Apocrypha in play I would tip on the latter.
Well, a skilled thug to Hunger's like is well into "capable knight" for the average person. Hunger's standards are those of an endgame melee protagonist, after all!
Beliefs
God, I missed build votes. Just reading all the shinies on display makes me all giddy!
Okay, now onto more useful commentary. Someone or something shattered fate and made the job harder for the hero, huh? Do I sense a connection to previous quests? Also, I admit I am very tempted by the Combat Type cursebearer, even if it means less ramping up and less build votes. Some comfy empire building/waifuingsounds fun, and it is what the poor hero was denied. Let him build his dream of a true democracy!
Freedom's great, it's even one of the ideals he was fighting for! He can work on realizing his dream immediately instead of carrying endless baggage from his past life
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Just think about it our dude can have all his dreams. His wife back and he can forge an democracy on a world which will than be tested on the crucible of the apocalypse, he can than leave for another world and repeat the process all the while increasing his power by impressing Accursed-sempai and using the wishes for shinies. What's not to like? The only sacrifice he will have to make is that he will have to face a great trial once in a while. A fair price I would say for everything he will get.
If we take this path we can spread FREEDOM and FREE MARKET all over the universe!
Making the multiverse a better place one world at a time!
His goals weren't really that ambitious, they'd be more on the level of like,
Justice:
Basic civil / legal protections for all citizens
Legal protections for commoners against noble abuse, and the actual enforcement thereof
Truth:
Some form of reasonably decent education available to a good fraction of the general public
Investing in science
Freedom:
Giving serfs and the like a reasonably achievable option to purchase / acquire their freedom, or at least that of their kids
They're fairly dramatic reforms from the perspective of a medieval society, but he was trying to balance realistic expectations with ideals.
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Kind of tragic that the ideals that he held to through years of brutal guerilla war are the first things he casts aside on his quest for vengeance. He gave up so much to keep those memories intact. Wonder what else he'll feed to the fire before all this is done.
Perhaps he let them go after seeing where such good intentions lead.
Nightmare Praetor
Well, Thick as Thieves is out as a choice immediately. Mental contamination with the Hero's current barely healed mind and soul? No thanks.
Some of the Forebear's influence may be profitable for he who wishes to rule.
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I don't think I would pick Might's Repose either, despite it being an easy immortality and growth option, as while we only have the option thanks to not taking Affliction of Slumber, it takes up too much time. Well, might still be worth it since it can probably be combined with time manipulation unlike Slumber. Hmm, that would be a really potent combination, but we don't have time manipulation at the moment, and neither does our companion.
Might's Repose also makes time dilation considerably more useful for you, since you only receive marginal benefits from personal training! Still have to deal with Decimator's Affliction of course. On the other hand, the rate at which reverse aging improves your stats is fairly modest. Nonetheless it's an additional form of progression, and one that deals with the pesky matter of age.
I also wouldn't count out the attribute boosts! This is a way to slightly improve intelligence and charisma without personality modifiers besides having to sleep a lot! And the physical buffs are relevant too.
Thick as Thieves does grant a larger boost than Repose, however.
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Might's Repose grants "immediate" boosts to our mental stats after our first sleep. It also gives us "significant" physically stat buff.
Rihaku, how does Repose counts sleep for the buff? Do we need to give nine hours of sleep in last 24h, or nine hours of sleep in current day?
Sleeping for at least 9 hours grants the buff for about 15 hours.
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Largely uninterpreted nine hours or would bunch of short naps work too?
Uninterrupted is most efficient, else you wouldn't get the buff for the inter-nap periods.
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I'm pretty sure Nightmare is the riskiest build in the set. It requires time to ramp up. It requires planning to be dangerous. Most of the time the real danger is the stuff we don't see coming.
Well, Nightmare does have the ability to see more things coming / prep more efficiently for those things and ramp up slowly over time with Might when there aren't opportunistic enemies to slay. It's not that great in a direct fight without prep but it's not any worse than you currently are. Even without Fell-Handed Stroke you still have the power of Ruin infusing every strike, etc.
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I would say the detrimental effects of mental pollution are overstated, but we don't even know what they are, so it's hard to argue. I don't think they would be problem exactly because the hero is so early in his characterization; being influenced by the Tyrant now would be far less jarring. It also would give him more time to settle and readjust should those memories rattle him rather than harm him should he take it at a desperate moment.
It doesn't give memories to an appreciable extent, just characteristics.
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Btw guys, if you're voting to fight (or any of the riskier options), do realize you don't have any magical healing options or Immortal Sheathe. You have some baseline power and Gisena's backup but the build you took has less direct combat strength than any of the other builds. It's very possible for risky engagements to land you into hot water! Now, when you reach civilization in 2 (or however many) months, the increased mental and social stats may serve you well as they did this update, but it may not be prudent to act greedily here if you're not comfortable with risk.
Or, at the very least, you'll need to kill something strong fast so you can get more power so you can add more combat capabilities to your build. Or pilot the robot instead of fighting outside where your vulnerable flesh can be wounded.
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Hm... I wouldn't put the hero's charisma at 'superb,' he's still not on Gisena's level, but he's definitely more capable than most. "Very competent," perhaps; a bit above that when well-rested.
Of course, if you can take Evening Sky it's a different story!
The Evening Sky
Sevenfold just lets us punch so much farther up, The Evening Sky does have quite the coolness factor though. Charisma only takes you so far, being able to Fell Handed Strike from range though... there will be other cool Artifacts eventually I'm sure.
Though if I knew The Sky would let us make our own crew via the power of Nakama, it would still probably be the wrong choice but one I might be compelled to take.
Well, they provide different kinds of advancement. The Evening Sky is a defensive asset without peer among those you presently have access to, preventing you from losing to a variety of conditions that might otherwise disable you.
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Rihaku mentioned us having access to an artifact made by a progression type cursebearer right now.
That's the Evening Sky in the sense that Hunger himself would be 'making' it - or rather extracting it and subordinating it to his purpose!
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Well, not that steep. Losing 18% of our health isn't nothing, but it could be a lot worse. Also, it's kind of sad that the Evening Sky mantle straight up abandoned him rather than staying attached to the armor and now we need to pay 7 Arete, which we don't have, to get it back. Would have been too easy otherwise, I suppose.
The version you can buy is considerably better than his, not to mention more loyal!
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If we can style all over Letrizia in social combat this badly then think how fucking amazing Hunger'll be with Evening Sky? That puts us at like Gisena level, minimum. Plus it defends against everything.
Well, +Charisma is simplified somewhat; the actual effect is a boost to physical appearance and raw presence, so the hero would be more attractive / authoritative / commanding, but not necessarily any better at manipulating people. He would be considerably better than Gisena at things like staring down an enemy or making foes cower, but not any better at witty comebacks, for example. But yes, the halo effect would certainly smooth the way for Hunger in many social situations, at least when they don't consider him an offensive superstimulus!
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In all seriousness though, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that my originally aesthetic-driven choice is the best one. Remember in EFB Nameless's early game got carried hard by two FB purchases, and 7 arete is about the equivalent to a FB. Between the two choices, Evening Sky provides better defenses, and survival is paramount! Our charge is to live and grow strong. Star-Cloaked Shroud provides the protection to live, and the long-term potential to grow strong.
It also gives you more thematic availability in your Accretion advancement! Convert that combat Experience into an even broader array of effects!
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Is the thunder of midnight effect of the cloak toggleable or will we sound super dramatic in every scenario?
Seram was also dogshit at start, while we started with full anime level of power.
Right now, we are likely overall weaker than Seram as he was when he fought Gisena, although we should eke out a victory due to Evening allowing us to resist direct effects of his aura.
Well yeah, Seram had at least two major grinding sessions by that point and had also killed hundreds of level-appropriate encounters in the orcs! More than two, actually, since that was well after he'd started optimizing with training with Jeanne's assistance.
As to whether you could kill him, well, he still has kinetic Amplitude so your only real edge would be Accretion Rank and Charisma, since Evening Sky's resistance isn't immunity. Remember that he survived Witch Slayer attacks throwing axes at hundreds of miles per hour. I imagine he'd win almost every time unless you engaged him under very favorable circumstances. Plus, he's only got the one Curse to deal with.
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I'm wondering if the Unmoving Plaid trope would be in order for his new cloak?
Hm... probably not. The sky within does move, so if it's a window then it's not a static window!
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...So we can resist nuclear explosions. Not that such forces are that big of a deal in Rihakuverses, but goddamn, we've barely started and are already at a level where WMDs have to be deployed against us. Though we were told that while Armaments are rare, the current civilizations have managed to produce cheap knockoffs that have middling Accretion Rank, so magical opponents won't be rare even there.
You can resist the pressure wave and kinetic damage from a kiloton-grade atom bomb if it's non-magical, yes. But remember that even an Astral Rank 2 soldier using a signature weapon counts as slightly magical. There's a huge difference between 100% and 99% resistance to damage.
Fell-Handed Stroke
There is potential in this. A single great strike could breach defenses normally far too strong for the Vengeful One, the anti-spiritual property means that foes with no physical corpus won't be safe from it and counters regenrative factors.
You'd have to land a hit first, but that's not impossible with a decent Rank.
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Feast and Fell handed seem like a great combo, burnout to make the kill then 1-up back to full ready to do it again from the juice.
Somewhat. It's not just physically draining on its wielder, though killing powerful enough foes could infuse you with enough power from Hunger's base effect to pay it off if you buy the right things. At least for a little while.
Depending on what we're burning I'm a lot less enthused then. Gotta go green.
You're not burning anything permanent like selfhood or whatever, it's just tiring on a physical and spiritual level. Not spammable now, but in the future...
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Just tell her fuck up all the magic in the area and we can destroy our opponent through FELLHANDED SORD!
Fell-Handed Stroke is really cool... you don't even have to use it on enemies, it can also be used to destroy obstacles!
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Fell-Handed Stroke is interesting. It's an option whose value increases geometrically the better your physical stats are, but if you're up against an enemy you can't land it on, it's kind of useless. Taking alongside King of Thieves would be decent synergy, since you get ++Agility and +Stealth to strike from ambush.
Once and Future
Ah yes, good old trans level stats. This is especially good if "military matters" includes personal combat which it likely does. If we get to 8.1 and get this we will fight at 10.1. Maybe even better than Cultivation buffs due to how Rank works, although it's more expensive too. I implies that this would unlock more of the same, so there could be a way to discount this?
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I'd almost say it was unfair and completely unbalanced if it wasn't for the painful price.
Almost certainly the strongest direct combat buff of the three, especially at higher Ranks.
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This is utterly ridiculous at high Astral Rank, as each cumulative rank is higher value then the last. This is a strong lategame purchase.
It's quite formidable even at your current rank! Going immediately to the high 5s in Accretion Rank would vastly increase your might.
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Once and Future is the most immediate power of the three. It's straightforward and hits like a truck. And I think there's a hidden benefit as well - the description says we'll catch a glimpse of the Forebear's true history - that might give us lore on the Isekai world, and possibly information on the Hidden Masters who we are sworn to defeat!
True. An important in-character consideration, if deliberating which path to research!
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The last two are there just because they're good. Once and Furure King is the equivalent of a pure power EFB, while Ruling RIng is more of Progression/power Hybrid. Both are good, buoth are thing I want huger to have, but they are less essential than the above two. They'd still be a worthy goal to pursue.
They're both hybrids to a degree, as Once and Future grants implicit scaling via the nature of the Rank system at high+
Age and Treachery
Immortalizing your battle this update as a Feat is something you may want to pursue for character considerations regardless of mechanics - it doesn't do anything to the character sheet, but treating this episode as significant can definitely affect Hunger's psyche in a variety of ways. More willing to use deception in combat, more willing to use literal social combat, more careful, more aware of lateral means of attack, but also somewhat more ruthless, etc. It's slight, but could be relevant down the line if tendencies are reinforced.
One question I would pose to you guys is: given your current level of power, is it the proper time to be chasing utility effects, or should you make a serious effort to raise your baseline stats? There is a strong case to be made for the latter. Echo of the Forebear has not been offered so many times just because it's simple! Whether it's brute physical power or the highly-encompassing Rank, fundamentals are key to strength early game and late.
Pristine Star
[X] The Plumed Offering
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
We're quite injured as is. Let's just recover first. Progression means that survival is the most valuable thing, after all.
Note that Pristine Star does not enormously improve speed of healing, so you'll be injured and Letrizia will be injured for at least several more days. Impairing not only your mobility, but your time free of the Decimator's Affliction!
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@Rihaku: Hunger has several permenant injuries including a lost arm, and eye.
...does pristine star have the ability to fix that?
No, they were made by the Tyrant's blade. "Enemy effects may contest this" would certainly apply to a weapon of such power!
Expected as much but good to know. I'm assuming a sufficiently powerful ability can break that, but that's the kind of thing we'll find at higher Rank.
Pillars of Creation certainly could, or a specialized 3-pick effect. Some 7 Arete effects may be able to as well.
Second Form
Broadly speaking, I think Second Stage is an important form of damage mitigation in that it allows survival through an avenue that is neither healing nor protection. While it is unclear how long of a cooldown it has (and I expect an ability as useful as this to have a fairly long cooldown), it doubles our effective healthbar, provide a lethal surprise attack with increased speed and a chance to catch enemies off guard, prevents overflow damage (which is useful in withstanding a catastrophic blow far above our level), and provides progression for an ominous sounding Rage Form and the chance to say "This isn't even my Final Form!". This is the kind of benefit I would be willing to spend 2 Arete for and then stop investing in (probably to spend on Astral Rank) because of the sheer personal safety it provides.
It doesn't have a cooldown. Giving you twice the effective health and some utility benefits is good, but it's not that huge a buff in the long term compared to something like King of Thieves. It still doesn't offer any combat-speed healing, only healing you after a day has passed!
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Actually now I have to ask this: @Rihaku: Forebear's Blade - Second Stage gives us a second form and reversion to full health. Does that include fixing our lost body-part injuries? I'm assuming not given it's only 2 arete, but it's also a forebearer effect, and those seem like exactly the kind of thing that could beat the Tyrant at his own game.
No, you don't even have those limbs in ghost form! The Tyrant's power is not to be underestimated! - Companions
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Companions
General
But seriously, Vanguard's not that bad. High survivability, a hedge against betrayal and potential teamwork synergies, it does a little of everything. Not trusting Gisena just feels like a waste when we spent a Lesser Remittance on her and there are material rewards for it. The other builds make good use of that fourth pick and we can't use the Null Resistance tactics without her collaboration.
You are voting for the option yourself, you know! Though I do think the Gisena relation is overblown, she's your ally either way, it's more a matter of their personal feelings rather than compromising practical effectiveness. A good relationship might lead to increased effectiveness; it would be in areas more subtle than "use the obviously best strategy in a given life-or-death fight."
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[X] Spill
This would put Letrizia at ++++. For reference sake, that was enough for Suizhan to offer us her eyes, so if there is any parity between this and EFB it would be rather massive.
Mm, it's not quite the same system as EFB, no. +Relations are still valuable, but it's not a 10 point scale and the +s you see on screen are just an indicator for their more nuanced complete feelings towards you. Nor is a high numbers of +s necessarily romantic!
But, a reasonable loyalty analogue nonetheless.
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Given we didn't spend the extra arete to get a mitigation this update we aren't exactly strapped for it at the moment. Relationship +'s normally also have a mechanical effect at certain milestones as well as a narrative one. Plus since we need Gisena quite a bit more than she needs us I'd prefer she like as much as possible.
I wouldn't go that far! You're a Progression-type Cursebearer with an extremely broad set of powers whereas she's a highly specialized support-type mage with only moderately superhuman stats. She's hardly helpless by herself but she benefits much more from synergy than you do.
Gisena
Is Seram's story actually affected at all if we take Gisena, for example the Accursed just clones her, or is it actually significantly affectrd, and Seram suddenly is an Amplitude User since she never used her Ultimate?
Could be a version of Gisena from a Manifest Realm that Seram never visited!
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Balance honestly seems the most suitable for me to enjoy playing the more I think about it, we should be able to get its first slumber mitigation in not too hellishly long a time period
If you get Gisena, her Graces make it straightfoward to achieve first mitigation of any non-Doom Curse within a reasonable period of time. She's a highly specialized Third Coalescence Sorceress, basically the definition of a powerful archmage with respect to this specific application!
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By the way, there are some synergy bonuses! For example, if you get both Gisena and Prolessarch, they will commiserate about how much they both hate elves, increasing group morale!
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If we went with The King's Scepter I'd want the Forebear's Blade. While I'm quite keen on Praxis, I'm tempted by something like:
Interesting synergy, though you can probably afford to drop Intensify for Talon/Retinue/Relinquishment or a Companion. Gisena's fast Curse mitigation attacks the same problem that Intensify does (early survival) if you target the Apocryphal Curse, and with less variance.
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Is this the same Gisena we knew in a simple transaction or an alternate universe version?
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Gisena can only be said to have the strongest effect on our early survivability if she is specifically tasked on mitigating the Apocryphal Curse, which A) means that we need to provide some impetus for her to help us basically nigh-constantly, and B) means that she is not doing anything else, including help mitigate our other Curses or help handle the concrete situation-on-the-ground, which, if we pick Praxis and don't pick something that adds additional combat abilities on top of it, could be bad enough to kill us both, even without Apocrypha.
Gisena mitigates all your other Curses too, given some more time. She offers a reasonably fast First Stage Mitigation for every Curse on top of her winning personality!
That said, I do think people are sleeping on the other companions and not just a little bit. I will say this. Given the characteristics of the thread, you will probably regret not taking Ceathlynn when you had the chance. Though that would make for a better story... hm.
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[X] King's Knights
-[X] The King's Scepter
-[X] Accretion
-[X] Gisena Allria, the Nullity Sorceress
-[X] Forebear's Blade
-[X] Retinue
I like Seals a lot, but I really want to take Gisena here and I can't figure out a build with the two I like, so, given all this great info about Accretion that's come to light, I'll switch over. I've warmed up to it and it's starting to sound pretty cool!
Forebear's Blade is great with Accretion for smooth progression and Retinue+Gisena gives us a potential route to 2nd mitigations on our Curses.
There are ways to induce Coalescence as well. Just gotta get some findross or findross-equivalent energy!
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Sure thing!
[X]Plan Maximum Curse Mitigation(Gisena Edition)
-[X]The King's Scepter
-[X]Seven Seals
-[X]Gisena Allria, the Nullity Sorceress
-[X]Forebear's Blade
-[X]Retinue
Would it be possible for Talon to "drop" some findross for Gisena?
Hunger has it's uses, yeah, but as with Relinquishment I am trying to make Remittance agnostic vote; having Hunger with Praxis sounds somewhat impractical.
The easiest way by far to get a findross-equivalnt substance would probably be through Accretion.
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Last game ended with us buffing blue girl to the gils and letting her solo Fates. Besides, if you are at point where you are advancing too fast for your allies to follow you are already winning anyway.
Hmm, Gisena's own superhuman social should allow us to Retinue people we otherwise wouldn't, now that I think about it.
I wouldn't say she's superhuman overall, unless you mean plebs who simp for her superhuman Appearance. She's probably like... CHA 4 MAN 4 APP 7?
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Ahh, maxing out Appearance. Truly an exemplar Exalted character.
It's more that Sorceress Form boosts APP more than CHA and MAN, especially without a relevant Grace. Gisena's base form (before she attained Third) was probably something like CHA 3 MAN 3 APP 4.
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Might actually be synergistic, since the Grace of the Maiden comes through acting in accord with Duty rather than studying. Fighting to defend the helpless (i.e. us) could count?
Fighting to assist a chosen hero, no less! Or would that actually penalize her Graces given the nature of her realm's Hero?
Gisena is not exactly the exemplar of Implicate Duty that Jeanne or Porcelain might be, but she does take her Sorcerous advancement seriously. She'll have a fairly good idea of what needs to be done for her to advance in power, both in terms of actions and artificial findross concentration.
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[X] Luna Conquerer
It's nostalgic to be shooting for the moon again! Relinquishing Relinquishment hurts, there's no doubt about it, but Gisena gives us Curse mitigation and can pay her own way with the Geas of Indenture. With two avenues of thwarting dreaded the Apocryphal Curse, maybe we won't drown in our ideals and die? I say we're living in interesting times, and then this Curse crops up? Feels bad, man.
Anyway, this is the shonen murderhobo build from earlier, just with Gisena to mitigate Curses and provide social utility... and also presumably us kicking ourselves however many decades-to-centuries down the line that we have no vacation time. Its synergies are simple but potent: the blade which laid low the Tyrant, growing alongside us, and strategic displays of Hunger to try and coax Accretion into upgrading it.
Don't forget the synergy between high levels of Accretion and Gisena's advancement! Just as with Twice-Great, you get "free" advancement for your companion out of your inherent power combinations! Though it doesn't scale quite as quickly or seamlessly, Sorcerous boosts are very comprehensive!
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Finnneeee. Though, Gisena can also do some SCIENCE eventually?
She's actually very good at science, having superhuman Wits and all!
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I thought Wits only gave superhuman thinking speed and acuity?
Which, combined with her natural intelligence, makes her an excellent researcher!
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Gisena's three Graces are her tech affinity, bolts of energy and her nullification, right?
Her Graces are purely nullification-based. The energy bolts are bolts of nullification. She also has a very powerful aoe nullification, and a more precise close-range nullification ability.
Feels like the Maiden's trying to tell her something. But what?
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It does pair well with our man's backstory. Speaking of, this was an impressive first showing, plowed through the enemy lines like an ambulatory meteor and got the kill. I wonder what Gisena thinks of this, her previous experience with golden-eyed enhanciles with absurd martial prowess hasn't been great.
His magic is closer to that of a Sorceress than an orc, so she's probably not bothered at all! But even if she were, would she show it? The hero is not the only one who must decide how much to trust their erstwhile ally, after all.
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Think though we take a hit to our relationship short term long term it will help us fight by Gisena if we have some resistance to her ability.
It's true that she can't use her Tides of Nullity Grace indiscriminately while you're around, only able to unleash it in directions you're not or rely on her bolt attack. Get your Null Resistance high enough and you're basically looking at an asymmetric antimagic field situation!
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That's not just ballsy anymore, she's completely entrusting her safety to the Hero. If he fails, she'd be the weakest target in vicinity of the giant monster. Yet she still offers a plan with such high risks to herself. Either she trusts him that much, has a trump card or two up her sleeve, or just plain doesn't care about the risks.
Once again, it's hard to tell with Gisena.
What's risky for Gisena is not necessarily what's risky for other people, both because of her nihilistic outlook but also because she rarely has to deal with anything above a peak human while she herself is superhuman. If the monster presumed to attack her, perhaps it would suddenly find itself dealing with the inconvenient mechanics of the square-cube law and all the other problems of behemoth physiology! Similarly, she's unafraid of most orcs (save those of Warlord class or higher) since she can reduce them to barely better than men.
Gisena is the master of dragging the fight down to the lowest level and beating you with experience!
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I don't quite remember if that was a thing for Sorceresses. Did they have regeneration?
Well, Gisena does have superhuman CON, so she may have a Radiant Health-like effect. Or it may just be difficult to develop callouses due to said CON!
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It is a bit annoying to have Force Unto lose and suddenly encounter problems it would've solved, but maybe this update wouldn't have gone so smoothly without the charisma boost. So it goes, live and learn.
Yeah, Gisena might have pwned you even more frequently if you hadn't gotten that +Charisma!
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Thinking about Gisena, @Rihaku , how does her null powers work in the grand scheme of things?
Does she nullify what she considers supernatural, or what the "universe" considers supernatural? If, say, we go to a universe where the laws of physics are different, would nullify work according to it's laws? Does nullifying work in sufficiently advanced technology?
She doesn't know yet, she's only used it in 1.01 universes so far! It seems she can sense the nature of things she can nullify to some extent, since she was aware of the exact distribution of magical energy in the dragon-jackal's physiology?
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Burning out a Grace sounds like the diegetic representation of an Ultimate's cooldown. It's promising that Nullity's capable of this at all. If she did it once, she can do it again. Perhaps the process can be reversed, letting her return home? But without severe time dilation, there might not be anything left by the time we're done with our task.
The Geas would make that difficult, moreso if she is heavily bound to Hunger. But it would theoretically be possible for one or both of them to go, with sufficient mitigation.
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Perhaps we should ask Gisena to speak Joanian at us at some point to see if we understand it?
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Gisena appears to have never lost composure in front of us so far. Personally I think her mask isn't far off how she really feels, but we can in no way be certain of that.
You don't think she's keeping anything major and immediately relevant from you, no. But she has her secrets!
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That said, kissing wounds like that is deeply unsanitary Gisena. Please don't even joke about that, you're not a vampire-elf.
She has CON 50, she'll live. And so will Hunger! Unless he dies of embarassment first...
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I stopped thinking of Gisena in terms of points once she became a character, but we did in fact use one of our lesser remittances on her. She's doing serious work, and we haven't even had curses mitigated yet. Fighting gribblies and pirates at the same time would've sucked. Was a good choice.
To say nothing of the work she's doing for team morale! Much as they'd protest otherwise, it's good to have someone with bright energy around, even if she is annoying...
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That said, a question for you @Rihaku. I haven't read the original quest, so I'm not sure the answer, how long will Elves in general and Gisena in particular likely live, without the Decimation Curse factoring in?
Depends on a number of factors, Sorceresses of her power usually don't age much and she's still young (only a few years older than Jeanne, who was 19). If she continues to grow in power, it's possible that she can outscale the drain for a time. She's got CON 50 under Quantified World, which is a fair bit beyond peak human, so her natural lifespan is probably 2-3 hundred years.
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omg you guys pls
I don't know that even the Accursed can protect us from the hammer that is Sanrio's lawyers
also are you SURE you guys don't regret picking Gisena now
Hm... I suppose she does have superhuman lung capacity for playing the trumpet. And, being a Renaissance Woman, might have taken the time to learn. But the real question is, where would she hide a trumpet? Certainly not in the Backpack of Starry Nights if it's Hunger's artifact!
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One thing to think about if we're voting Keep, we already voted to tell Gisena about our curses last chapter and sought her help in mitigating them. So unless we social Gisena so that she's firmly in our corner we don't really have any guarantee she won't just tell Letty.
She does seem like a gossip, though a noble gossip!
You are pretty sure that Gisena would keep your secrets if you asked her to and/or made it a precondition to disclosing them in the first place. Not absolutely certain, but you do trust her with your life already...
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Damn Gisena, how hard have you been hitting the books? If you weren't so gorgeous and charismatic, I'd call you a total fucking nerd. Seriously, she went from "wow guns are real neat" to "hold my beer and watch me dismantle this mortar". Sure, her nihilism plays a role but for Zia to not be freaking the fuck out, she must have displayed some serious knowledge.
She has superhuman wits and near-peak human intelligence, so her rate of learning is exceptionally quick! She was able to deduce something of the nature of your Curses just with her Grace's senses, after all!
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Helping Gisena Coalesce might have something to do with getting a locale bonus for Accretion and giving it properties similar to the Manifest Realm. Easier with Rank, but... probably not going to happen here? The +Gisena's curious, though.
Why stop at incremental advancement when Sorcerous Evolution is on the table? The power of Progression knows no bounds!
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It's amusing that Gisena disapproves of doing what you could claim is our duty!
Is that what she disapproves of? It could be as simple as working on something that will keep as opposed to something that is time-sensitive! There's no penalty for passing out, after all.
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My, so solicitous of Gisena! I'm sure she'd be touched... but ultimately the subject of contention is still a fish. Might she get upset over such a thing? Perhaps, it is potentially of scientific interest and you did exhaust yourself procuring it. But there's no real risk of your actual cooperation being impeded.
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More fuel for my spirit theory though, that its power was described as holy. Considering the name of the previous chapter, was this the pond Excalibur was thrown into? Did this fish have a bit of Excalibur in it or otherwise absorb a fraction of its power? Truly irrespressable vitality though, to recover so quickly from Gisena's nullification. I'm curious to see how it would fare against the Tide.
That wide-area attack was a Tide of Nullity! Just a smaller one.
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Finally, since I cut Tyrant mitigation due to a more conservative Curse mitigation philosophy, I'm no longer taking an option that makes +Gisena tactically necessary. In light of that, I find Abstraction's point that it's better to get the + from choosing to interact compelling. Let's try to keep our relationships supported by on-screen scenes so our hero's sentiments and ours can grow together!
Hm... what the +Gisena bonus actually does is re-interpret the scene that happens this update to be ++Gisena instead of +Gisena. If you are interested in Gisena's character, it's a rather substantial difference.
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She only has one dress, though, how's she supposed to spare another for the fish?!
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At least empirical self-assessment means she's aware of her 'exceptional' cooking skills. Can't help but note she went from accepting defeat to dragging us off to assist with the fish in a short exchange.
She accepted defeat in one exchange and swiftly began another! Speed, the essence of battle.
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And also I think this is a good in to findross research, considering that we didn't save Total Eclipse. Going to need to happen sometime. As-is, Gisena is...too squishy. I mean, in a good way, but also in a bad way. Healing is only relevant when your companions can survive attacks.
Letrizia
We've fortunately dodged Doom of the Tyrant problems, so I think we need to seize this opportunity to forge closer connections so we'll have good intros into society down the line. I think we'll have plenty of time and opportunities for the other tasks. Repose is a patient build, so we should be patient.
Yeah, double +Charisma means that Letrizia was too intimidated by the hero to assert herself overmuch. She's actually got quite a fiery personality when speaking with her peers...
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Runes? Glyphs? *Salt intensifies* Also, if that's a manual, we may have a literal case of the falling into the cockpit trope in action here people. Also for whatever reason I don't fully get I'm drawing Crest of the Stars connections now.
She's looking at the manual to see the proper protocol for dealing with Riftborne outsiders inside the Voyaging Realm! Isn't that adorable?
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Someone with one of the most powerful mechs, even if it is injured and weakened, in this setting is undoubtedly Important. We'll pilot it yet! Preferably after learning to in the middle of an important fight. She's also a Duchess, so her support could mean more resources inclined in our direction when we join civilization.
Letrizia is actually a very important person! Her rank alone, plus being one of the few Armament pilots. Too bad her first on-screen social combat was against Gisena Allria and the hero!
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Impressive that she's willing to trust the Hero on his word and isn't worried he would try to steal her mech or something. Can it act on its own or maybe remote controlled? That would explain some of her confidence, assuming she isn't just trusting blindly.
She's a Duchess! It's possible to live in battle and still be sheltered... by the likes of a giant robot!
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'First Contact For Dummies'? They must encounter this sort of situation very often for such a book to simply be at hand inside the capsule. Even high-ranking military officers don't seem to have hand-held computers and are still using paper books for information storage.
Reliability has advantages that convenience can't match, for independent field units! Plus, books are cute!
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Whether she can be trusted once we reach the city depends, I think, mostly on her incentives. We will need to keep those in mind as the decision of how or if we enter society approaches.
Good thing you guys voted to speak to her twice! Though as you've noted, there's nothing truly stopping you from dissolving your compact with her once she's reached her destination.
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Hmm, if we drop her off at the city, go back in and get caught in a trap of not finding enough enemies to advance in Rank enough to navigate the area then wasting our time trying to get out for years that could be very bad. So convincing Letz to make this a summer joyride and delay getting back the corporate grind for as long as feasible seems like the better option. Especially since we chose to build a rapport with her.
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The hero does outclass Letrizia fairly substantially on the social scale. If you guys are telling Gisena everything about your Curses (which you are, assuming she doesn't already know, since that was already voted for), what's the marginal harm in telling Letrizia? Now you and Gisena will be able to discuss it openly as well!
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While content-wise this may be the most attractive, I do still think that Spill+Fisher King is too risky; even if we prioritize Letrizia+s in the future, and she reaches sufficient loyalty to both spill any mitigation secrets she knows and not spill that we also bear the Decimator's Affliction to the governments, it changes how someone looks at you when they know that you're slowly killing them by being anywhere near remotely close to them
And she's already concerned about running out of time! However, the fact that you've mitigated this Curse and are making mitigation a priority (if you indeed are doing that) would certainly help a lot!
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That said, anime white hair being more professional? What the hell is with the fashion trends of this century? Or is that her just being completely and utterly out of touch as a noble? Good to hear that she's actually got people willing to talk smack about her; she's not completely isolated.
"Isn't white hair cold, imperious and distant? Noble too. That's what all I shows I watch tell me."
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Really don't know what to pick now, it'll depend heavily on just how much influence Letrizia actually has. She's really, really young though, can't be too much.
She's past her age of majority and has access to the privileges of her title plus personal wealth. Plus, it's not like just anyone can pilot Verschlengorge!
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So the anime hair isn't natural, what a relief to know! I'd been worried we would develop some of our own if we spend too much time here - after all, Seram didn't expect to become a male Sorceress, but these universes have a strange habit of infecting invaders with their particularities.
You still could, the implants are cheap enough and not very intrusive. Get a thick head of your old hair, or your money back! For real this time.
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That reaction was far better than I was even thinking to hope for. Sure all this talk about study to advance astral science could lead to bad places, but overall it turned out excellent so far.
Her Armament did just bow to Hunger. Power needs no prerogative.
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Zee is just... not reacting to the Decimation thing. Even if she carts it around and is used to it, more unease feels warranted. Admittedly there's a lot going on.
She had a response, you just couldn't hear it over the Elder Implement awakening! Given that she's lived with knowledge of it for... a while, the fact that you have it is probably stranger to her than the damage it does...
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Seriously, now that we know that they apparently already made peace with living with the Decimator's Affliction and that the Armaments are indeed connected to Curbearers, mitigation of Decimator became far less of a priority. If they hunt us down, it's because we would be an interesting specimen, not because of the damage we'd cause.
You don't know for certain, as Letrizia is not exactly a representative member of their society. And you did tell her that your Curse had receded.
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It emerges from the water with a grace bordering on the obscene-- a sinuous thing of white scale, pink fin, and luminous eyes, like shattered rubies scarcely eclipsing a cold alien sun. Toroids of diaphonous metal, brighter than gold and lighter than air, serenely orbit its frame- buoyed by some manner of formless emanation.
It also... couldn't have been more than a meter long.
[You.] it intones, wordless, absent of any motion beyond refocusing its gaze upon Gisena.
[You have the potential to become a magical girl.]
For once, the Nullity Sorceress seemed at a loss for words. Perhaps taking her silence as implicit agreement, it wobbled about in the air from its place on your line; jockeying with gravity for a better view, maybe?
"But I'm already-"
Somehow, mouth still clamped shut around your Bait, the bizarre bass-like creature emits a noise of scarcely-veiled contempt before continuing to speak over her, unabated.
[Make a contract with me, and you can become a real magical girl.]
It may have also mentioned something about granting a wish, but it was hard to hear its disembodied voice over the violet-haired witch beside you.
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The Legendary Kyubass
191 words
drawing? never heard of it
anyway what gisena needs is more transformation sequences, clearly
Tho honestly Letrizia would be more likely to be a candidate. The selection criterion is having strong emotions, after all!
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Getting mitigation for tyrant can save us from one big social blow-up, and Gisena's the one I trust to actually know when best to use this. Letrizia might spend it on something less then vital because it seems important to her, which is bad.
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The Duchess having a palace isn't a surprise, exactly, but it raises my estimate of her importance.
One has to hold a lot of territory to be a Duchess in an empire of twenty-seven hundred worlds!
Conditions
General
[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Forebear's Blade - What Rains May Come
[X] Fury - +1 pick above
New build after the clarification on What Rains May Come works. Eliminates wound penalities for us, essentially a better version of gamers body in that we no longer care about hp until we reach 0 and we get stronger the closer we are to 0. Neatly resolves Zea's injuries while giving a substantial power boost, letting us then hunt for healing to bring Gisena and us back to full health.
Pillars of Creation because after the revelation of how useful rank is when we're tired i.e not at all, I don't particularly care for an option that does nothing but boost our rank. I weep for the far superior Total Eclipse though. Now we can never have eye lasers.
Just because an option is not picked for Long-Term Planning doesn't mean it's eliminated!
Anyway, Rank is not very easily depleted, you only became Exhausted because you chose to pursue a legendary feat almost immediately after overexerting yourself by spamming dozens of high-powered blade winds in order to break your enemy's Evening Sky. The Tired condition is uncommon and the Exhausted condition is very rare unless you do something incredibly reckless, and Tired is very much preferable to Exhausted.
Exhausted
It's a matter of spiritual force (which you're low on due to blade winds), so unfortunately yes.
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If exhaustion goes away in two days... I would say it's an amazing trade for something worth 1 Arete, if not for the Apocryphal Curse taking every opportunity to be a dick. Still, not as bad as I thought. Which leaves a lot of room, 'cause I thought it was gonna be really bad.
It is really bad. If attacked by that pirate captain at this stage you would have had a significant chance of death.
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[X] King's Blood
Not sure about the rest, but I think we want that full heal
While it will cure your wounds, it will not remove the Exhausted Condition! But none of the effects will achieve that.
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If you shill Sealing at least do it right. It allows us to seal tiredness caused by Edge, allowing us to both spam it and apply that same tiredness on opponent - which, apparently, stops them from using Rank at some point.
The Exhausted condition refers to spiritual exhaustion - that caused by spamming too many Pressure-intensive effects i.e. blade projection and uber fishing.
Arete Debt
Well we've seen what 'fiscal responsibility' has done to real world countries: fucked them over super ultra hard forever. We're acountry with military that can se FU to debt collectorsprogression class cursebearer, we can write checks, default on them when they come due, then outscale whatever auditors come in to investigate our marinated and well-done balance sheets.
Since you're writing checks of Arete, there's no audit involved, and the only way you're getting funny money is by paying metributediscussion and omakes!
Or cold hard cash I guess, but the exchange rate on that would be pretty fucking heavy.
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You'll probably want 7, instead of 6, if you're going with Fisher King. Exhaustion plus Arete Debt is not a combination I'm going to allow you to take because it would be suicidal.
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How bad would a 19 Arete debt be? I think convincing people to go for Dead not Dreaming might be doable! Is it compound interest or....
More than 1 Arete debt = instant death.
But you can't take it on without my permission anyway! So no need to worry.
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Is Spill that dangerous? Who is she gonna tell? Even her mom ignores her in favor of a doll!
Not Spilling gives Arete, which could alleviate Arete Debt or prevent it. And Arete Debt is quite dangerous, though not to the degree where you'd end up net weaker after taking a 7 Arete option.
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Even in combination with Fisher King? Or is Arete debt a worse debuff than Exhausted?
- Magic
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Magic
Accretion
[ ] Accretion
This sounds like the most disconnected from physical stats. More depending on mentality and will. It's probably best with either of the Vengeance paths and Dread but not Forsaken.
It's more to do with the achievements you make with the object and how well the two of you fit into a mythic archetype or compelling legend.
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I would take it if I were voting Freedom, but it seems less good as Progression.
All arts are viable with the builds presented. Progression + Accretion means you would build links with items faster and get more results per iota of shared legend, for example. In a sense it's actually very good for Progression because of its indifference in the face of overwhelming firepower. Kind of like having access to perfect defenses.
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With high levels of Accretion it's also possible to create links to techniques, habits, and even locations! From Tsubame Gaeshi to Elrond's guardianship of Rivendell, or even (eventually) replicating the effects of an EFB Ring!
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[X] Accretion
Good point about us wanting a power that still works well if we go berserk. Wonder if it can help when protecting someone important to us? Protagonist becoming more powerful when protecting someone is a really common trope.
[X] The Forsaken Mask
The mythic archetype of a berserker, while perhaps conducive to your overall power level while berserk, would not assist in reducing the collateral damage thereof, which would the the Mask's main concern. Since the Doom of Lunacy can be mitigated only by turning it into the Geas, none of the magical arts would particularly help in resolving its downsides.
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Leaving aside any synergies/external powers, how much control do we have over Accretion's development? Are we stuck with a primarily defensive one, or can we respec into restoration?
One of Accretion's main weaknesses is lack of control. You'll get something fitting your thematics and the story you tell yourself / people tell about you. On the other hand, fewer build votes. But you're not allowed to complain if you don't like what you get - you chose this, after all!
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Given that the thread is gunning towards Accretion, and looking ahead at the example Lesser Remittances we would get, I've really got to recommend picking up the Ring of Hunger. Just think about it: The Ring massively multiplies all experience earned in battle, which is then partially fed via Accretion into the Ring, thus strengthening it and increasing the EXP multiplier for the next fight, which would then feed more EXP into Accretion, which loops back to strengthen the Ring of Hunger...
Depends if Hunger is an iconic part of your core panoply. You don't really want to go past 2-3 signature items/techniques/locales until you get really high up there. People have limited memories and you don't have full control of what they will choose to associate with your legend. You can nudge things by prominently bringing up the ring at critical moments and displaying it openly, but it's not completely your say.
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[X] Vendetta
-[X] Remittance: The Sword
[X] Seven Seals
Swapped back to Seals because I'm indecisive. While Accretions is undeniably powerful, being stuck with only 2-3 effects that we don't have real control over is kinda suboptimal. Even though Seals don't have quite the power available to them that Accretions do, the ability to have access to lots more effects definitely offsets that.
With Seals, a Vendetta Protagonist at least has some easy seals to cast and effects that he could use to bootstrap himself up. But with Accretion, there doesn't seem to be a way of training it naturally, relying on the slow speed of a Legend to congeal around you.
Seals gives us growth quicker, gives us access to sorely needed utility options, and still has room to grow via conceptual affects. Sorry, Accretion, but the lure of functional utility magic is too strong.
While I don't think Accretion is quite as convenient or powerful as its supporters may espouse, the primary benefit is not the 2-3 utility tricks but rather the increased metaphysical potency when hero and object are united. In White Wolf terms, it'd be comparable to raising your Essence / Arete / Blood Potency / Gnosis in a world where most people have a value of 1 or 0 in that stat. Your shit works well on them, their shit doesn't work well on you, even if on face it's numerically superior, and you have access to effects that just trump them in certain situations.
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I'm surprised Accretion is so popular given the lack of control you would have. Its passive benefits are broad but building any sort of reliable special effect takes time, experience and notable feats, something that may be less practical to accomplish than simply training / studying or fighting enemies (with a Hunger build). Plus, with both Battle Mastery and Seals you can direct that progress the direction you desire, instead of being forced to simply accept the powers that unfurl. As a Cursebearer you don't lack for other options to establish conceptual primacy in the mid to long term either.
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Interesting. Is Accretion actually falling behind? I will say that sufficient quantities of Accretion can act as a natural check to the horribleness of the Apocryphal Curse. The curse is basically all the bad parts of being the Main Character with none of the good parts, whereas Accretion allows one to literally develop a Plot Armor.
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[X] Trustworthy Enough
Eh, how useful can magic resistance be really?
Resistance to your own magics being suppressed? It's quite a valuable hedge, given how dependent you can be on them. Of course you have some degree of natural resistance from your Accretion Rank but it's nice to have a more reliable defense too.
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Keep Your Distance+Feast of Lives: Decimator's Affliction Mitigation and Meta Protection for our magic. Also Regeneration/lifesteal if you find that relevant compared to Decimator's Affliction
You do somewhat lack other forms of healing at the moment... not only does it grant lifesteal, but the out of combat regeneration should patch you up between fights! Though Rank would cause you to be less hampered by wounds than you ought.
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400% Growth and ability to break conceptual limits to Accretion is rather massive.
On the other hand, Accretion is one of the magic systems with the fewest limits to break!
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Yeah but how much harder is it to pilot a mech with 1 arm and 1 eye? Think of all the causalities from firing the super duper missile with that depth perception! We'd need a lot of Heartlessness to go with Shattered in that case.
It doesn't matter as much as you'd think with a high enough Rank...
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Based on the comment about rank having a good chance of inducing coalescence, I wonder if that means Accretion can do things like create a scaling sub-boss if you set things up properly, Palpatine and Vader, reactor shaft optional.
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Ah, but if people show they will vote for combat regardless of the risks then they enforce incentives to vote for combat enhancing upgrades to our magic powers!
But if you get wounded and can't fight then it'll create a death spiral where you're unable to get combat enhancing upgrades because you can't fight!
Accretion does lack outright magical healing unless you have a relevant power or artifact, unlike Battle Magic and Seals, so the risk of something bad happening to you is significantly higher. Of course, your Rank makes it hard to land telling blows on you and lets you heal more completely from most types of wounds, but there are limits to both and you can certainly be ground down over time and repeated engagements!
Since you're fighting a considerable number of enemies regardless of which option you pick, it may be wise to avoid picking options that cause you to fight even more enemies unless you are willing to risk it all on getting a useful effect!
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I guaran-fucking-tee that Undying's gonna be super relevant, don't want to rely only on Accretion bullshit for survival. This update proves that it's good shit, don't get me wrong, but you can't be a glass cannon with our Curse selection. Also with this build we no-sell attacks while sleeping, shit'll be hilarious.
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Evening Sky's unique to this update, but King of Thieves is as well. If we somehow manage to afford the former, it'd dovetail nicely with our charisma boost and make us less squishy. It has an amazing aesthetic, though if either of our resident artists don't find it appealing, it should be avoided no matter what. Hunger is by his own admission a shadow of his former self, but he could just be a shadow in general! Our nameless adversary managed to imbue his crew with shadows of the Evening Sky, maybe we could turn it into a bargain-bin Retinue?
Hm... the Evening Sky wouldn't shroud him completely, nor would it need to to provide its protective effects under Accretion's influence. Can't have a single object take over the impression of the panoply, after all!
One consideration would be available panoply slots, but the three artifacts you've got on hand are plenty versatile. Two objects imbued with a spark of power from the Accursed and one spun and clotted through the efforts of a Progression-Type Cursebearer!
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Remember we're still a pathetic scrub even compared to our peak, who is a pathetic scrub compared to Verschlengorge's peak, and Verschlengorge's peak should end up being at best a scruffy youngster with potential compared to a hard working decently optimized Progression Cursebearer at the end of their stay in this realm.
There's actually an important element of your advancement that hasn't been touched on yet - your physical (and other stats) are mostly buffs from the Forebear's Blade, while the actual basis for your power is your Accretion Rank. Raising Accretion Rank allows you to perform mighty feats even without the corresponding stats, though stats are of course helpful (often very helpful) to have!
However, Accretion Rank is also one of the harder attributes to raise.
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I'm curious that the phenomena she was describing this update are still so unexplored that she as a youngster in her 20s thought it was reasonable she'd be able to present novel insights into the field relatively soon. The fact she mentions that studies have only recently proved humans can gain rank makes me wonder if there's been some sort of background shift. Otherwise you'd think this would have been covered hundreds of years back.
Perhaps the instruments required to measure such things objectively only became available recently! Theory needs data to advance.
I'm impressed they're still making real progress at all despite the sheer scale of their empire. No method of storing information is infallible, after all.
Well, isolated or concentrated research clusters exploiting economies of scale (when applicable) can certainly help!
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I guess it depends on how significant rank 3 is, the way she talked didn't give me the impression that it was previously some widely known/accepted phenomenon that just hadn't been fully quantified but everyone accepted was a thing. If rank three is still potentially within human norms
3.0 isn't blatantly superhuman in a provable way unless you've got them under pretty comprehensive surveillance, and even then most of the time they just seem like a really powerful normal human. Like a young Exalt with no peripheral, conserving motes and only using Excellencies, though that's an imperfect analogy.
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Well, performing a legendary feat of some kind is one of the more reliable ways to raise Accretion Rank...
Note that most Accretion Rank gains will be fractional, especially as you approach the higher tiers. Kind of like EFB Stages but without flat stage buffs.
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That we live in a mass media society is great for this because it makes it possible to fuel Accretion through resources. I don't think we've ever had a hero whose also been a sci-fi!Hollywoood superstar celebrity. We've even got the shitty attitude to go with it. Get the organization to pay for the promotion of our image, the countless battles we've been through would be a spectacular story. Movie deals, videogames, HBO TV shows, push our image as far as it will go. With out gorgeous face, solid charisma and incredible physicality, we'll rise to the top in no time. Imagine how far our Accretion Rank will advance when our name is on the lips of an entire interstellar civilization. When our face is on every billboard and poster. Gisena could be our co-star!
Careful that you're not branded a memetic hazard for taking too many +Appearance choices in the meantime! Imperia's problem could become your own!
And think of the fangirl swarms... *shudder*
Btw, fame is relevant to Accretion Rank but it's not necessarily an integral part, you can get just as much by painstakingly working on your weapon and manually improving it over time with ingenuity/craftsmanship, or by accomplishing great feats with it even if unnoticed. Though, the nature of the powers you would be offered may differ!
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I want to be at 3.75 when the next opportunity comes! Accumulation happens one step at a time.
Well, if you fight a powerful enough enemy then you might get it all in one go, theoretically...
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At least Saber helps us in that interim. Y'all saying that Rank ups are easy to get and will how up naturally in our adventure, but we got exactly zero Rank from killing a giant monster, not to mention all the critters and pirate crew we defeated along the way.
Killing a giant monster wasn't particularly difficult, however. In fact the fight itself was almost trivial with Gisena's aid! And neither was the pirate truly a match for the hero.
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But that just confirms we need to put our ass into the fire for Rank increases. We have made it out of this with our behinds only a bit singed, so we should take it now unless we want to spend even more for it later.
But when you do something really difficult, you may gain back all that Rank or more! Assuming you don't have access to alternate means of Rank development at that juncture.
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Given we have Hunger and Forebear's Blade, it was 'worth' killing 10 giant monsters and 10 pirates as a Progression Cursebearer. What a crazily synergistic pick. Seram was, what, level 30 at this point in time?
Yup, and you received Experience appropriately. But Experience does not translate into Astral Rank without some means of conversion!
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This really impressed me. Did you come up with it on the fly following the arrete choices, or did you have it in the wings, waiting to mix it up until there were three things chosen?
Thanks! The former, but the idea that the hero would be constrained to three Accretion slots (unless Progression was used to improve that parameter) was planned for this system.
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That said, I think our artifact set up is pretty good right now. We've got the Blade for offense and stat ups, the Cloak for defense and social and Hunger for scaling and utility. I've been working on something that could hopefully unify them thematically too but I think we're honestly good as far as elements on our panoply go. Better to develop what we have right now than think about messing around with anything else; once our Rank is higher then perhaps we could add Gisena?
You can't add a person to your panoply! Unless that person is an aeons-old biomechanispiritual horror utilized to suborn the nature of physical reality to its pilot's will, or something...
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Now we shall become the archetypal adventuring party: fighter, mage, and giant robot pilot.
You really need a healer, though! Accretion's one weakness... at this point you basically have to hope for another pertinent Hunger proc after turning down Feast of Lives, find/hire a healer, or get access to another magic system!
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The existence of Conjunctional Advancements is interesting. If we get Verschlengorge as part of our panoply, could we develop some for him?
One doesn't see a reason why not... the power of Progression is not bound by such limitations, after all!
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Speaking of ways to buff Gisena, the Tyrant's Rank buff would certainly get you closer to a relevant Rank for Accretion-based findross manipulation... this on top of the Arete and Curse mitigations!
The Praxis
So, how does being a Combat Type affect the Praxis? Apparently all that matters to advance with it are effort and self sacrifice, so a Progression type should not advance faster with it than the same person as a Combat type. So either it doesn't advance fast enough to keep up with Progression, or it effectively makes a Combat type a Progression type.
Weird.
They can both grow in the Praxis, but the Progression type will grow faster. This will become increasingly apparent at higher levels.
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Rihaku, is it incidental that [ ] The Sword That Ends The World is described as 'the Praxis' rather than 'the Imperial Praxis', or will this remittance be granting us access to a different tier or version thereof?
The Praxis is the Imperial Praxis, yes. It's the lesser forms that have to include the prefix for clarification.
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Hm... if one really wanted to be the Hulk, King's Scepter should be taken instead of Sword. That would perhaps make more sense since Praxis usage while berserk isn't a great combination tactically or morally.
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With regards to the Praxis, I'll say this -
It's most suitable for those who are exceptionally capable of hard work and willing to spend selfhood for power. Granted the hero is quite good at this, but his past experiences in that very vein have left him a broken shadow of a man. Is that really the well he would return to when given an actual choice?
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And sealing sound really interesting. What kinds of things would the hero start out being able to seal? What kinds of things are valid categories, outside of fire, stone, and self? It sounds like this magic can lead to some really fun potential for exploits and creative idea gathering.
But the Praxis is so demanding, if you go full Sword you won't have many opportunities to explore other arts, especially if you want to ramp up quickly!
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I wonder if the reason that option was stated to be unimaginable hubris wasn't because of the Accursed himself, but because Nameless was using time-travel to steal a power set that's probably protected from that brand of nonsense. Why do I get the feeling he would've walked away with different Passions and orb choices because Cursebearer Nameless from the alternate timeline would have stolen his power, killed him, and then casually taken his place?
It's a kaleidoscope, but also a mirror. What do you do when every reflection gazes back?
Cursebearer Nameless would be a lot weaker unless Thrice-Great Nameless fucked up the temporal polarity and got something from the opposite direction (the very far future), so there wouldn't be any way to do so even if that's something he were willing to do! Besides, it's just the Noble Praxis, there are plenty of species that have access to that.
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Interesting. There are entire species that have access to the Noble Praxis? We know of three levels - Imperial, which is implied to be cursebearers only, Royal, which can be gotten via lesser wish from a combat type, and Noble. I wonder if Noble is the lowest level or if there is more?
So, speculation time! How did entire species gain access to the Noble Praxis? I can think of a few scenarios.
A cursebearer spending Accursed favor or a wish to give an entire species magic?
Perhaps cursebearers who take the Imperial Praxis can get a lesser remittance that lets them teach a lower form of Praxis to people?
Maybe the Accursed has favorite nations or peoples who are given access en mass?
I did have an idea a while back about a hypothetical cursebearer Nameless who took Cultivation and the Praxis - if such a person ever developed a titanic inner world, perhaps the inhabitants would be able to use the Noble Praxis? A Dao of the Cursebearer could be really interesting.
Perhaps it's simply a dream of (somewhat) fairness, defiant against an uncaring universe? After all, even the Noble Praxis in time commands power enough to make the cosmos care!
Progression
Hmm, are stats boosts additive or linear increase? I.e. if we pick three, are we getting three times +10 or three times *1.1.
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Force unto is just incredibly linear in comparison; good at fighting and killing, but not anything that comes before and after. It would be even worse had it had no charisma, so we will still be more socially competent, just less so than Praetor and we wouldn't have the intelligence to back that up.
Mm, I wouldn't say it's purely linear. Having high physical parameters can help out a lot in various matters like reconstruction, delivery, fetch quests and so on. It's also not terribly linear in combat, just look at the variety of tactics our hero already displayed in the two fights he's participated in! Most fights at this level are about manipulation of physicality with the studied use of a few trump cards or special rules so having a great baseline and consistent sustain are very nice.
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Interesting, Seram needed a title to unlock Presence: Intimidation, since social skills were beyond the remit of his Progression.
Seram didn't have a magic system that boosted social ability! Luckily the Forebear's Blade provides.
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That's not really how it works though, we just got a full charisma build out of killing a jackal dragon, it had tangential relationship at best. We'd get some mech progression and some other generalized stuff, except due to the far higher tempo the mech grants us even the generalized stuff could end up being more than the total gains of some other potential outcomes
Yup, you can get a reasonable degree of control over your advancement even with Hunger because of how versatile Accretion is. Not as easy as the ability to train whatever you want, but that's the price of power.
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Also, something I just thought of, may have already been mentioned in the thread(updates tend to take place at sleep o clock for me, so I get here for the later ends of discussion.)
Ten Thousand Inhabited Worlds. Just take a nice long look at that.We've only got 2.5K Years here, so if we personally were trying to conquer worlds 1 at a time we'd have to manage 4 every year including this one. More and more I'm finding myself quite happy with Nightmare Praetor, because this setting is large enough that personal power might just take a backseat to the ability to set up and run a faction.
Well, the nature of Progression is that it is far less subject to diminishing returns than ordinary forms of advancement...
There are many possible routes, some faster and safer than others! But personal power can yield victory, eventually, if clever decisions are made.
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@George Agility is the equivalent of Seram's Dexterity stat, yes. It covers physical speed (to an extent, alongside Strength) and bodily coordination / control.
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Sounds really powerful! As a Progression-type Cursebearer this would eventually make us, pretty much, literally Azathoth (except smarter and, hopefully, less evil, of course). Plus, not dying when we're killed is, indeed, very nice. But look a that cost!
You wouldn't need an ability such as this to become greater than that! If you survive, and grow strong.
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Azure moon doesn't provide healing in a relevant time frame. We'll have to pay 7 arete to get the magic system then spend precious time studying like a pleb and even then the better healing options will probably cost even more arete because that's just how Rihaku does things. The healing probably also won't be as convienant as "stab enemy feel better".
Advancement from Experience is different from Arete-based advancement, and not necessarily inferior. Consider Unshattered. How many Arete would it cost to replicate this effect? Unshattered would have taken you from Rank 3.5 to over Rank 7 at the cost of all your Experience (+To Shatter Heaven, +Permanent Maiming) from the dragon fight.
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But we actually do want be fighting all the time. If we could find a way to stay in combat constantly we'd skyrocket in power.
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Feast of Lives vs Pitiless Maw is an instructive comparison. Feast of Lives, gained from Experience, cost 2 picks and significant opportunity cost. Pitiless Maw costs 1 pick and 7 Arete.
In most combat situations, Pitiless Maw is categorically superior, and by a fairly large margin
In terms of utility, Feast of Lives is superior (moderate regen even when not fighting, rare Decimator's mitigation)
On balance we can say the Pitiless Maw is better, but not strictly so. Even in combat there are situations where Feast of Lives would be superior (ranged duels). If one had to make a direct analogy, how much Arete do you think Feast of Lives would be worth? Assuming you're not bound by the 2/7/25 cost structure.
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I mean, issue is that 0.75 Arete is not that good to be taken over Fury. Like, I think that standard minimal value of Arete is 1.5 stats(2 Arete for 3 stats with Undying Echo*), while minimal value of Fury here would be Echo(2 stats) instead of 0.75 Arete.
And we are not quite in position to save.
*Working under assumption that Con is "base" stat, similar to Might and Agility, as opposed to Wits, Charisma and Protection which appear to be "advanced" stats that are twice as expensive as base ones.
Might is Strength and Constitution. In isolation, Agi is considered more valuable than Con which is considered more valuable than Str. Remember, Undying Echo cost 0 picks and is a pre-req for more advanced options!
Int is considered more valuable than Cha which is considered more valuable than Wits, but all of this depends on the specifics of your build.
Astral Rank
What. Do we have to worry about being sacrificed to make a giant robot now? Or is it something like the Shadow Remittance Nameless could get? What a plot twist. What the fuck were the Foremost planning with the Armaments to artificially create something with a Accretion Rank?
Their method is actually not identical to Accretion, though the effects are basically similar to those of Accretion Rank.
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With a fairly high Accretion Rank too considering the scale given. Its quite possible those Armaments surpass Hunger at his peak against the Tyrant. @Rihaku could you tell us what Hunger would guess his current self and peak self on the scale given for Accretion Ranks?
Rank 10 is to the Tyrant what the Tyrant would be to a toddler. It's vastly, almost immeasurably greater. Imagine if no physical force in the universe (or even arbitrary levels of physical force) were unable to so much as bruise the Tyrant, that's Rank 10. It's the point where things below a certain Rank just can't fight you at all.
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I think Spilling would have more social consequences in terms of the civs rather than for Letrizia. If we tell her we can continue to accumulate power and Rank endlessly in return for being Cursed, she might understand us to be some sort of mini-Armament. That's something quite shocking, but maybe immensely valuable to the civs, especially if we can teach our own magic and break the Rank 3 cap humans of this universe seem to have.
It's already apparent that you can achieve Ranks higher than the humans of her society can, whether through expertise (perhaps Accretion is more efficient than the methods they're trying) or innate capability. Such Rank would you make an unparalleled tactician, administrator, general, etc... if they have no way of enhancing humans to match you.
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It looks like Rank 10 = Stage 15 in Cultivation-verse. Infinite Power!
Mm, not quite. They do different things. A Stage 15 Cultivator is literally throwing around transfinite levels of force, while a Rank 10 being could have theroretically the stats of a normal human but the power of their spirit is so immense that they're able to defeat Stage 15 Cultivators (depending on matchups, Reality Effects and the like).
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It doesn't work on the Rank system, but a Rank 10 would utterly stomp the Monarch. Challenging a competent Rank 10 in direct combat would probably require access to at least the... 20th Ordinal or so.
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Also that thing can still fucking talk. These thing are less EVA-like by the minute.
Of course it can talk, it's (theoretically) Rank 10! There's very little in this universe it cannot do, if properly motivated.
How does it feel to be reduced to merely another Implement in the Foremost Catalogue? ALegendaryProgression-type for their ImpleDex, as was preordained!
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Sure, for a whole day. I know immediate power can sometimes be weighed above long term growth, but are we really so hard done for that we need to sacrifice for a single day of better safety?
The Curse in question doesn't need a day, it only needs an instant! But you're not sacrificing all that much in the first place, it's not like .25 Ranks is that huge!
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Non-outsider humans in this setting typically have a Rank between 1 and 3. If each whole Rank represents gains analogous to a full Cultivation Stage, we definitely want to get to 4 as fast as possible. Crown puts us within striking distance, so next time we do something heroic we're eligible for a Rank-up.
Mm, they're not quite like Cultivation stages. The early Ranks are smaller in distance, the later ones are greater. For example, a single peak Organ Refiner can slay dozens or hundreds of Ego Barrier experts, not so for Rank 2 versus Rank 1. To kill hundreds of trained and reasonably well-armed men in single combat would require Rank in the 3s, where our hero started.
In terms of actual combat results, it would be something like:
Low Ranks (1 to 3) - A 1 point difference in Rank is noticeable, 2 points is overwhelming (90%+ favored if other stats equal)
Middle Ranks (3.1 to 8) - A 1 point difference in Rank is overwhelming, 2 points is nigh-unwinnable
High Ranks (8.1 to 10+) - A .5 point difference in Rank is overwhelming, 1 point is nigh-unwinnable
Both the Hero and the Tyrant were around the high end of Middle Rank by the end of his journey.
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Also unclear is why anyone would use this weird-ass scale, unless power increments naturally come in fixed units of Rank. If so, we should definitely go for Rank increases wherever possible, because they will compound on themselves and give us ever more returns for a given level of challenge. Rank+0.25 is nothing to sniff at now, but it'll be worth much more once we're in the higher levels, even allowing for our much greater power at that point.
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An interesting spread of initial votes! Note that .05 Astral Rank at this juncture represents significantly more than when you only had 3.5 Astral Rank!
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An interesting spread of initial votes! Note that .05 Astral Rank at this juncture represents significantly more than when you only had 3.5 Astral Rank! - Mitigation
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Mitigation
General
Hmm, does the Decimator's 1 year count time objectively or subjectively? IE if you use time magic to speed yourself up by a factor of 2, does that mean you now decimate all life every half year? Either way time manipulation would allow for some mitigation.
When were things that simple with the Curses? Unless we can time-freeze the Curse itself as mitigation (all but impossible given the blurb's "none of them are pleasant or easy"), it's bound to count the time in the most inconvenient way possible.
Yes, it's the most inconvenient framing, but there are ways to mitigate that. Direct conceptual assault is usually the cleanest method, it varies from Curse to Curse, but other ways are viable and often cheaper but not as broad.
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If our affinity to the Devourer is linked to our Decimator's Affliction Strength, and communing with it gets us the opportunity to spend Arete points, what are the odds it gives us either
A. A way to turn the Affliction into a focused weapon
B. Decimator's Mitigation.
If the mech is somehow able to cause a third impact analogue we may get a lot of mitigation eventually.
An interesting question! Weaponizing the Affliction is a popular idea, but the concept that a Curse will allow you to use it for your own benefit... well, that'd take some serious B)!
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Amazing that a Curse can be held at bay for 2 entire years through just mortal effort, even from a Progression-type Cursebearer. Makes me wonder about the nature of the Affliction. For it to be sated by by something like that indicates that the key to mitigation might now just be in growing infinitely stronger and attacking them with increasingly sophisticated and powerful forms of conceptual+++ assault.
Perhaps! For some cases the latter really is what's required...
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@Rihaku, are there no individual Affliction mitigation? I don't want Gisena or Zee to lose her life force.
It's theoretically possible, as almost any form of mitigation theoretically is. But you've never been offered any options like that.
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That said, since it's a part of mitigation as opposed to an implicit part of the curse itself... @Rihaku, if we do eventually get to a point where we think getting 40% better conventional mitigation is more useful to us than being able to hunt things down to Sate Hunger, can Gisena undo this mitigation? And if she does, would that "reset" mitigation process on the curse by one degree, or would that stage of mitigation be lost forever with no long term benefit?
You're not certain, but Curses being what they are, it would probably be optimistic to think so.
If you don't spend the 2 Arete here, it means Gisena is still working on the un-mitigated Curses in the background, but she's not making good progress on them for one reason or another. Time taken up by greater priorities, or just finding the Curse resistant to mitigation (Tyrant, Apocryphal). If you do, it means Gisena has a flash of genius and makes good progress on mitigating all three immediately dangerous Curses.
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@Rihaku you missed my question: If we take both Decimator mitigations at once right now does the hunter one reduce the effect of the direct one, or does that only apply to future efforts?
You can't, that would be 2 stages of mitigation. Gisena's not that strong. If she could Nullify the whole universe...
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Most importantly though, it has super-high synergy with Huntress's Moon. This can be used once a month, and can probably generate a hunger sated target. Guess what, Decimator's is done with permanently. This is super increasing my enthusiasm for Huntress's Moon, I hope the vote hasn't closed yet. If we get Huntress's Moon this is absolutely the best 25 Arete option.
Like most forms of non-mainline mitigation it will probably work well at first, then slowly spawn fewer and fewer Huntress targets over time. Still, an incredibly valuable asset in the long run.
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We are on a timer thanks to Decimator and don't progress much from training besides. I wouldn't hold out on developing non-combat applications for it. We also need to Hunt, and this would be a pretty good provider.
Would it not be better to reserve the game of Pillars until you've reached some degree of depletion from natural targets? That way you won't invoke Curse-based efficacy degradation until you need to.
Decimator Mitigation
These are major mitigations; that means per curse the next one costs the energy output of a whole universe while the first can be done by a skilled archmage like Gisena. It's very important we take the right one because we won't be getting a second any time soon. We're moderately delaying our first major/permanent Decimator mitigation to explore our options, not giving up a bargain.
The Decimator's does have means of mitigation that are adjacent to the mainline mitigation, as seen with A Hunger Sated and Feast of Lives. It's "easier" to mitigate in that you can combine those with mainline mitigation to get a good result if you're willing to put in the time / effort.
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This is an oblique but emphatic warning against Huntress, which impedes other mitigation approaches. If Huntress only interfered with Decimator mitigation I might be willing to consider arguments, but given the information we have now my vote will have to change.
Huntress' Moon Technique does only interfere with Decimator mitigation, yes.
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Apocrypha and Hunger already exist though. Murdering level-relevant opponents is what we are doing anyway, so we don't really need to change our gameplan to benefit from Hunter.
Being a murderhobo solves everything, basically.
Note that the requirements for Huntress' Moon do include notability or challenge, but by themselves do not suffice. For example, you could have to target a highly guarded nobleperson, or a prominent artist of some kind.
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Or, the pirate reminded us of the Tyrant and triggered a response from us, which ultimately sated Hunger. So the Moon increases the chances of provoking a visceral response from us that also leads to Hunger being sated with killing the reflection of our enemy.
Tyrant Mitigation
I do think people are underestimating the value of having some Tyrannical mitigation at this stage - while you're not in civilization yet, there are still societies within the Voyaging Realm that have their own internal laws and customs, and many would be capable of taking you as you are now! If you want to leverage your power of Thick as Thieves and +CHA from Evening Sky most effectively, either of the Tyrant mitigations could help. Direct Mitigation is quite useful when you already have overwhelming personal presence and force of spirit, and people are more likely to be polite and deferential in the first place! And Counsel has obvious uses as well. As a Progression-type, power is often the easiest thing to gain over time. Mitigation however is a precious near-irreplaceable treasure.
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A Hunger Sated
Honestly I think that this is rather a downgrade. We don't know about its additional effects be they positive or negative, but what we do know is that it no longer prevents Decimator's Affliction from draining the world. Hunger Sated at the moment, so long as we rigger it monthly, will straight up stop Decimators Affliction. So long as we can do 6ish battles against worthy foes per year it matches Quelling without us having to bother spending Arete, and its possible to get even greater effect.
You don't know whether Hunger Sated is repeatable, or under what conditions it triggers. You weren't offered it for beating the dragon, which actually gave more base power than this guy.
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Hmm, we were offered it implicitly in Time and Tides.
The big question, really, is: Does selecting an Arete benefit for Hunger Sated affect future procs of Hunger Sated? Because this would be highly helpful in mitigating that curse.
You don't have any concrete information on the mechanics of A Hunger Sated. Probably best to assume it will occur infrequently if at all.
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Hmm. @Rihaku, question: does Quelling start ticking down immediately or only after hunger sated fades? Because if its immediately its not a good choice at this point in time, given we can probably earn enough arete before hunger sated fades to buy it then.
Well, this is your only chance to spend Arete on A Hunger Sated for this proc. You don't yet know how common the procs are but it's perhaps safest to assume they're not very common!
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By default, we can kill and consume one mini-boss tier enemy to suppress the curse entirely for 1 month.
The specification needed to qualify as a valid Hunger Sated target is far more narrow than just "mini-boss!" Without Huntress Moon you have no idea of when you'll encounter a Hunger Sated target again. Even with Huntress Moon it's possible it could be very infrequent. - Curses
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Curses
General
The mentor occupational hazard's universal. With the mortality rate in these quests it's a wonder anyone but the already-Doomed ever take on apprentices.
The Preceptor's Doom
*You will meet a talented apprentice who is eager to learn your ways. They possess potential the equal or greater of yours, follow reasonable orders, and are likely to carry your teachings, both practically and morally, with them on their continuing adventures. Loyal, resolute, and capable, a well of incalculable power lies within them, just waiting to be awakened.
*... Why is this a Curse?
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Interesting thought, we would thus submit to our own rules and customs. Which, if our hero still has modern world sensibilities internalised, could mean that he largely refuses to haggle or bargain on prices, treating initial offers as the only possible sticker price. Absent sales and coupons, and not counting buying cars, real estate, or other such exceptions as make sense in his head and/or emotions.
Possibly with the occasional demand to see someone's manager, if service is not to his satisfaction.
Doom of the Karen
You will always receive substandard service. The person you speak to about it will always be the manager, and will always be unhelpful. Any attempts to escalate this will always end up with your roundly mocked and humiliated in a public arena. You feel compelled to escalate nonetheless, but will never successfully escalate beyond line management. Before employing other methods of conflict resolution, you always sincerely attempt complaining first, even in matters of violence, even if your interlocutors have been unresponsive before.
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Yes. I'd take the three wishes option, and use one wish to resolve my current life in some satisfactory manner that doesn't leave my parents and loved ones grieving my disappearance for the rest of their lives. Not sure on the exact build, but it wouldn't matter that much. Compared to real-world curses like watching someone you love get dementia, or things like anxiety and depression, the ones offered by the Accursed just aren't that bad.
The versions he offers are only what mortals can bear and remain effective Cursebearers with!
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Brand of the Champion would work well with Doom of the Matyr.
We might not even notice.
That would be terrible! Brand provokes quests and Doom makes you unable to resist them from a subset of the population.
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Given that Curses are a level "below" the Accursed, how would Doom of the Tyrant interact with Doom of Lunacy? Would it just lock Lunacy in "Doom" mode and prevent the transition to "Geas of Lunacy", or would there be a more complicated interaction?
The Geas transforms your values such that the target of your devotion is more important to you, so you'd do things "for their own good" while refusing to acknowledge any boundaries or rules they set up. It would probably lead to an extremely dysfunctional relationship.
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I mean, Tyranny and Decimator are kinda the best to take together as their downside is more or less the same, which is to say being enemy of the world and stuff. Then you have something like Sleeping and Lunacy which directly exacerbate each other, with sleep giving you less time to train and Lunacy dropping your stats on top of that
The Decimator's Affliction has far more practical consequences than that, if unmitigated. Slowly killing everyone around you, requiring you to stay in life-rich areas or die yourself, the entirely justifiable and non-existential angst of being a literal Wound that Walks, etc. And since Decimator has many mitigation options, you may want to keep the capability of peaceful cooperation in case one of the better ones requires it!
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Between Slumber and Lunacy, my instinct is Champion+Slumber or Plenary+Lunacy, because Lunacy is a more severe nerf but offers less room for our enemies to exploit it, though then again Sword offers an element of progression and presumably curse-mitigation regardless and thereby is anti-synergestic with Lunacy. Or we could go Champion+Plenary and just sacrifice social.
Plenary + Lunacy actually does have a real synergy in that the Plenary Brand broadcasts the truth that this isn't even your final form. Makes threats a lot more credible!
Affliction of Slumber
I also thought like that but then, well most people already give half of their existence to sleep. Sleeping 16 hours every 24 hours is basically sleeping 8 hours every 12 hours. Which is the recommended amount for a human.
It's true that people can do it with less but humans still give 1/3 of their existence to sleep even with the best case.
So the curse is...well not that bad. Especially if you have the power to make sure you are safe. We can even lower it to 14 hours easily, which means 7 hours of sleep every 12 hours if we do the previous math.
Slumber's most restrictive aspect is that it stops you from benefiting from time dilation. Its second most restrictive aspect is how badly it weakens you if you lose sleep, creating a vulnerability that intelligent enemies can target. Of course, the latter matters less if you're a Combat type that outscales most opposition, but your enemies really only have to succeed once... unless you have the Regalia or Three Wishes.
In conclusion: Consider the Remittances that come with inbuilt plot armor!
Decimator's Affliction
So, it's not explicitly spelled out, but I'm guessing Decimator absorbing 10% of the life force of an area every year would be very bad for the people and things actually living in that area? Will everyone and everything start dying off if we drain too much life force? If so, I can't really justify taking that.
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I prefer decimation thought.
Why paid the price yourselves when you can haveMexicoother people paid for it?
Well, depending on the sophistication of the society you're interacting with, they may discover the source of the decimation afflicting their world... the Curse doesn't provide any special means of concealing what you're doing, after all.
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What sort of mitigation is available? If we are in a subspace-like realm, are we treated as in the absence of such, or does it depend on the amount of life in the sub-realm? So we could create for example a dedicated lush realm that regenerates itself of all life constantly as a mitigation method.
There are many types of mitigation, but no such realm is likely to survive multiple decimations intact. Remember, the Curse affects total life force. It doesn't matter that only 1% of that life force is being expressed in the realm with the rest held as resevoir for regeneration. There is no sustainable low-effort way to mitigate the Curse indirectly!
Huh, what if we gained a way to restore, create or convert life force? Think that was one of the abilities of the Scepter. Would the Curse just automatically expand its region, so we don't "gain" on it?
Depends on the conceptual weight of the power itself. Either the life force wouldn't fully qualify or the fundamental basis of the power would erode over time. You'd get some use out of it, just not sustainably.
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Additionally, Is the absorption as such:
100->90->81->... (*0.9)
or as such?
100->90->80->...(-0.1)
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The Decimator's Affliction sounds like it'd pair well with the Geas of Indenture. An Afflicted Cursebearer's presence is a sword of Damocles hanging over the world entire; if they don't comply with our demands, cede sovereignty over whatever territory the Geas has charged us with conquering or offer up the hero's head on a platter... well. The matter's not up to us, the Curse is an effective precommitment if the radius is large enough; only they have the power to let us move on and become somebody else's problem. Utility would vary world-to-world and it'd be more of a headache with longer task durations, but it'd be manageable.
It varies heavily. Some civs wouldn't be able to confirm your claims or wouldn't believe you. Most civs that can take you would probably prefer to kill you, much simpler than transferring their government over. And if they're weak enough to capitulate anyway, the Affliction itself provides no gain.
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This does raise the question of how the multiverse survives when the Accursed has the Affliction of Decimation. Who would have thought applying that to the Accursed would be a good idea!?
Who says it does? Because the affliction is multiplicative, it won't ever quite run down to zero - we might just be living in the impoverished remaining (0.9)^n % of reality that's left after an axiomatic and retroactive destruction effect repeatedly destroyed a full tenth of all concepts that once were possible but now are not, and will only continue to exist until the next XK Class Reality Restructuring event again decimates us.
The answers to this particular matter are actually quite accessible if you take the Curse in question. Suffice to say there are plenty of options besides letting the decimation run its course!
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I'm worried that this will directly kill off 10% of people, or worse, if there are a few super strong people and their friends and family, it might take all the life force from the latter, leaving us with many powerful enemies.
It will reduce everyone's lifespan in the radius by 10% per year. Very unhealthy people could die, yes.
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I don't get people picking [ ] The Decimator's Affliction on either the freedom or vengeance paths. It doesn't follow at all from the character introduced in the opening post and just smacks of mechanics based bullshit. At the end of the day, the hero still held to his idealistic dreams of a better world. This is at minimum a 1/2 a continent scale wide (up to solar system wide for combat types) death effect that @Rihaku literally says can kill weaker people and will shave 10% of the lifespan off of everyone else in range per year. Imagine how many dead children, elderly and just plain unwell people that is per year. The hero is actively choosing to kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people by his very presence each year. And mitigation is explicitly called out as being really hard and really unpleasant.
All forms of mitigation are difficult, unpleasant, or come with some type of drawback. The Decimator's Affliction is actually one of the easiest to mitigate in that it offers lots of mitigation options that are at least somewhat effective. Basically you're paying a time and effort tax to reduce the damage the Curse does. Or you could live somewhere with only villainous inhabitants.
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[X] Balance
As much as I like the combo of Vengence and Praxis, having my cake and eating it too isn't worth the risk. So long, Praxis.
I picked this over Vendetta because slowly killing the world is kinda shitty, especially given the protagonist clearly cares about the common people. I like a bit of EDGE, but cold rage and plotting appeals to me more than fury and daring the gods to strike us down. Though they both have their appeals.
Also because it lets us pick our battles. Vendetta, simply by existing, demands that the world come to him and strike him down before he kills them all. Balance on the other hand is free to engage or disengage as he pleases. One enemy at a time please.
The lack of time is a problem, but the the artifact Hunger shows that this is a problem we can solve, though not easily.
Hunger also makes sleeping comfier! The best of both worlds!
I will say that the Decimator's Affliction does not necessarily provoke people to attack you - they have to figure out that you're the source first, the speed of which depends on a number of factions including the sophistication of their civilization. And by the time they've determined that, you may have mitigated the Affliction in a way that transfers the costs elsewhere.
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Rihaku, given that we have the Decimator's Affliction, do we have a sense for the amount of life-force in our target area (even if only on the level of 'sufficient/insufficient'), or is it hidden barring another ability?
You'll start feeling the drain yourself if the life force is insufficient. So it's a binary thing.
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The other reason why Retinue is especially useful is that our companions don't suffer Curses, so they are well equipped to handle our problems. Diplomacy, curse mitigation or effort expenditure on our behalf - If getting other people to do the work for you appeals, then this is the option for it. In particular with the Apocryphal Curse and Decimation Curse, they scale to our level, not to our companions, so that can be considered mitigation in of itself already.
That's one way of mitigating the Decimator's Affliction! Just never be strong enough to increase its range and have loyalty-pledged Companions do all the work for you! A Nameless-level strat!
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...Plus, it'd be possible to chuck all our companions into a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, as they wouldn't be affected by our Curses that make that kind of thing bad for us to do.
You don't have the Affliction of Slumber, so you can use Time Chambers. Just gotta find a way to deal with Decimator's drain.
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Well, I was more referring to Decimation with Time Chambers. I suspect it would be difficult to be safe in a similar concentration of life energy of monsters compared to people, plus monsters don't usually clump together as much unless they have a form of community? And guaranteeing we had say, one continent of people-free space loaded with enough monsters to Decimate would probably be time consuming, to say the least.
Decimation doesn't care about type of life, only about total life energy. If you live on a planet with only animals and trees then you'd be just as healthy as if you lived on a civilized world.
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This seems like it's not going to matter much soon. Unless we get a weird Xanxia world that's thousands of times bigger than normal once we hit the whole planets range which will be soon if we haven't already (Or solar system if it's got orbital colonies and such) further increases in AoE will still be doing intrinsic damage to the space, but it's on a level no one will really be able to notice or see any effects of until we increase into galaxy relevant sizes.
The actual focus on mitigation seems like it's more productively set on how to slow the life drain of what's going on in our range rather than slowing the increase in size. Worrying about what happens when we're a galaxy drainer can wait until we have a better idea of how it actually works.
Unmitigated, the life force requirement would continue to increase, however!
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I don't think a difference in magnitude will really help. Gisena is useful for the other Curses but when we're talking about something on the scale of the Decimator, the change needs to be qualitative, not quantitative.
Luckily the Affliction of Decimation is one of the Curses with the largest variety of mitigation methods, both in terms of means and end function!
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The Ring offers nice Reaper mitigation, but arguably the worse case for the Reaper is we get put into a place with not much lifeforce and Reaper starts to cannibalize us.
Reducing the drain rate does reduce the energy requirement overall (though the arrow of causality is actually in the other direction), so it would help with this unless you also run out of food as well.
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And what does 10% fundamental life force even mean? Do we suck about people's lifespans? Prevent fertility?
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Oh yeah... Show's where that was at in my priority list. Looking at it, 50% for 6 months (Plus Mystery) for 2 arete is kind of an awkward middle ground. It's hard to get too excited about it, partially probably because the way Decimator works is kind of abstract to begin with, you don't see that visceral reaction of having Gisena wasting away before our eyes as an example. So even though there's a big impact in drain rate it doesn't feel all that significant.
Externalities just aren't that sexy.
Indeed, the fact of the matter is that the Decimator's Affliction is doing more damage to both environment and inhabitants than almost any ecological disaster or resource-extracting megacorp... and yet the response is to do the bare minimum from the majority! Interesing how priorities go, of course one can make the argument that your survival will instigate a greater good but who doesn't say that?
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If they have a similar curses to our affliction, they may have specific solutions and mitigations too. I say Spill but will vote for it later.
Perhaps... Letrizia isn't dead or unnaturally aged to a noticeable degree, but they may just have vastly higher lifespans in the Human Sphere!
Brand of the Champion
[X] Brand of the Champion
It's time to collect 20 bear asses.
Repeatedly.
Champion is in some ways even worse than Wretched - a powerful Cursebearer can simply browbeat people into doing as he demands, even if he is hated. A Champion must perform the requested task regardless. No amount of coercion or even common-sense willingness to avoid conflict can compel them to do as you say with the inane task unfulfilled. It's less risky than Wretched and less harmful to one's ego (for those who care), but also much more inconvenient when it matters.
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It just seems like it would be annoying to be unable to do something as simple as buy food or ask for directions without undertaking some task first. I would expect that this would eventually lead to a very high degree of isolation or reliance on intermediaries simply in order to avoid being overwhelmed with tasks.
You can't get around it with intermediaries unless they're immune to the Brand. The intermediary will typically ask of you a task that incorporates the difficulty of tasks to be delegated.
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It's a side quest, so killing unrelated creatures to clear the way to the quest giver doesn't affect it.
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I wonder if Brand of the champion can be partially mitigated by simply allowing one of our potentially immune partners to do most of the talking or act as the intermediary while we stay far away. But that sounds too easy?
You can have them do anything they would normally be able to do, but if they need outside help for a task on your behalf then the sidequests will occur at that stage. But we are talking a mostly unmitigated Brand. The Doom of the Tyrant is very difficult to mitigate, but the Brand is not especially so. You can ease into society from side-quest hell if you put in the effort.
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[X] The Forsaken Mask
Just grab your waifu and have a happy laifu.
1/4 the power of a Combat Cursebearer is nothing to ignore either, to be frank, and with this we can, like, actually talk to people and society and not be an asshole?
We'll still probably be stronger than we were at our peak in the previous world, especially once we actually heal our injuries, so I don't see much reason we couldn't use that power to still progress towards building that better world, should our new home require such efforts.
You could do that with Balance as well! Honestly I'm not sure why the Champion's Brand gets such hate. It can be mitigated and there are people naturally immune! The simple fact of its mitigation means that it's probably less annoying than Tyrant in the long run.
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Also, people falling for Rihaku's devil advocacy, smh. Balance is the option which literally most limits our contact with the world thanks to Champion+Slumber without giving anything unique like Scepter or Sword. It's versatility ultimately falls short of Three Wishes, and the minor powers and extra lesser Remittances are not especially relevant given the escalation and acquisition capabilities of a Progression-type. The most relevant effect it has is the rewind; which is there to compensate the lack of raw power. But we can just get power. We can get ludicrous power. Especially with Sword. I'd rather have a single, key power than a butch of minor advantages that may or may not be useful.
I really don't see why people keep thinking Champion's Brand is more isolating than Tyrant's Doom. Given mitigation it's certainly not true in the long run, and even in the short run there are people who are immune. If you just want to socialize you can just do some minor task for a character to have them be willing to socialize normally for a week. And it's less dangerous than Tyrant as well, since you're less likely to go around making enemies everywhere!
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Plenary Brand
Do note that taking the Plenary Brand without Progression will eventually force you into some form of progression in order to keep up with its scaling! That's not very comfy.
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Doom of the Tyrant is probably the next best option, although it definitely harms our ability to negotiate for power. Plenary is probably still fine if we take effort to mitigate it to some extent. And take care not to broadcast attention to us, although the curse makes that pretty problematic..
Plenary is still pretty inconvenient from a quality of life standpoint, just not as bad as something like Brand of the Wretched. But you'd still basically be like an A-list celebrity who has to walk around in their most recognizable getup all the time. Either develop a reputation as an asshole or have fun being swarmed!
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Plenary Brand and a defensive Accursed True Wish that could stop H.P. Lovecraft's worst nightmares trying their level best to kill us seems like a great combination honestly. Even Lunacy has the upside that people seem to be skipping over, namely that we can suppress the change from Doom to Geas if we put in the effort, in case the target of it would cause more problems than having a Hulk for would solve. Not without effort of course, but some discussion was having it be a sure switch over.
Plenary Brand broadcasting 'hey we could kill you' without actually having to go Lunacy Hulk and risk people around us to prove it also works as great synergy as noted.
You don't know whether Plenary Brand would advertise the True Wish to characters remotely near your level. It may be beyond their comprehension. The power of a Combat-type, sure, but it may also include definitive weaknesses like "can't actually use his power without killing everything on the planet, including his wife and child, and therefore won't use his full power unless absolutely necessary." There's a lot they can get away with before reaching that boiling point, especially if the hero is the type of personality to choose Forsaken Mask in the first place.
Brand of the Wretched
If Seram had made the choice to scram immediately I think he probably would have lived so I don't particularly agree that the starting scenario would definitely have changed.
Seram also had the Brand which caused the orc to attack him. There are many decisions he could have made to survive that encounter, like taking Pay to Win or New Game Plus.
Apocryphal Curse
I waa wondering, can Aprochral Curse be mitigated, and if so what are the forms?
Yes, the Apocryphal Curse can be mitigated. Common forms are, "make it so that it only triggers every X years," causing catastrophic events every time but giving you some peace of mind in the interim, or just "make it less bad / less frequent."
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Relinquishment has some interesting uses. Activate it before your confrontation with the Apocryphal-granted nemesis and ensure they don't get a helping hand from the Curse,
Should you survive, you'll have many! Sometimes multiple at once!
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Wow no wonder the Apocryphal curse is worth two regular curses if it spontaneously generates nemeses. We should probably mitigate it first.
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Interesting. Is Accretion actually falling behind? I will say that sufficient quantities of Accretion can act as a natural check to the horribleness of the Apocryphal Curse. The curse is basically all the bad parts of being the Main Character with none of the good parts, whereas Accretion allows one to literally develop a Plot Armor.
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I mean isn't that a good thing. Instead of spending our time grinding in isolation, we can actually go out, deal with the plot, fight our enemies and do awesome shit.
Hunger + Accelertion synergize pretty damn well.
Plus, even if you tried to grind isolated, you'd still live in interesting times! Grinding is just asking for trouble...
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Keep Your Distance Builds(I realized this may have potential as a form of insurance against Apocrypha Bullshit):
Indeed, encountering some form of power sealing at some point is almost inevitable with the Apocryphal Curse!
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He means we've been promised a regular supply of nemeses from the Apocryphal Curse. Though I don't think it means they'll be automatically as strong as we are, so advancing swiftly still has value.
Correct, similar to the Geas (though not as permissive) the Apocryphal Curse only has imperfect scaling, and some of its challenges aren't scaled at all or are disruptive in a way that doesn't risk your personal safety. It's possible to get ahead of the curve if you do well, or fall behind if you do poorly. Considerably less forgiving if you do fall behind, though.
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I wasn't really considering that kind of risk at all, just whether fighting this convenient Tyrant stand-in right as we both need progression and want emotional resolution is a good thing or not.
It's definitely a substantial coincidence or Apocryphal Curse proc. The time you spend here could well see either you or Gisena get injured, which would set you back the rest of your trip, complicate matters further down the line, etc.
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The Apocryphal Curse is already putting us into trouble lol
Grabbing power will always be risky because of Hunger; we can't just sit and train. We have to take the risk anyway.
Not quite. You do have the opportunity to seek out worthy opposition independent of Apocryphal Curse procs. This is preferred as you won't be laboring under the "interesting" circumstances of the Apocryphal Curse. Example - if you'd found this ship when not under attack by Astral Beasts, your chances of being injured while fighting this particular Experience-granting opponent would be much lower, as you would have Gisena's backup and possibly the mech's.
The Apocryphal Curse is the test. Endeavours you seek out are the prep.
That said, if you guys wanna try making some severe demands and see if he caves, there's nothing stopping you from writing that in as a suboption. "Throw your sword and scatter your armor into the ocean," "Have your crew disarm," "Your GP or your HP" etc.
Well, if this is a test, we have already met a success condition with his offer; the choice is to push further for more gains or fold now.
That's a pretty good metaphor; the gains are certainly higher if you push through and win, but the expected value may not be depending on the probability of loss or injury. It's complex because there's also the situation where you win and gain significant power from Hunger, but are injured - either to a degree that counters your gains, or one that doesn't.
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Now that we know that things we seek out usually don't benefit from Apocryphal Curse; skipping this for a planned expedition is much safer.
Mm, I would say that your independent expeditions usually aren't affected by the Apocryphal, but there's no hard rules. It is the nature of interesting times to create changing circumstances!
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I'm also following the trend of saving up our Arrete. Who knows, maybe we'll have enough discipline to purchase exclusively EFB equivalent picks this time around? Given that they provide the most bang for your buck, that might be the best way to stay ahead of Apocraphya's level curve!
You could do that with Progression alone! Right now you need the power to survive!
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Our early game in EFB was completely carried by a couple of FBs. Here, too, saving a 7APs should be the most efficient way to go.
Depends how badly injured you get in the course of saving 7 Arete! Assuming you survive to that point. Why not spend some Arete now to improve your odds substantially?
You're under the Apocryphal Curse, there's literally nothing that could be thrown at you and be unfair!
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The apocryphal curse only promises "interesting times", which encompasses more than just being randomly attacked. Could it perhaps have drawn us here, that we might in our hubris contest with some god-fish, interupt the sleep of some wayward celestial carp with our foolish antics? Perhaps it considers such a thing interesting.
Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
The Apocryphal Curse typically (though not always) waits longer between worse 'procs.' Since you just had a proc it's most likely not the Apocryphal Curse, and if it is it's likely not one of the bad scenarios. But who knows?
Well, you will. If you choose the option to become a King among fishermen!
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The Apocryphal Curse has recently procced, but ultimately it obeys no single rule. Such is the nature of interesting times.
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Do you guys have any plans to deal with Exhausted? Seriously, it's implied to be pretty crippling. We don't know how long it lasts either; if Apocrypha prods again before we recover, we are screwed. We can't go to Arete debt this update, so I urge anyone voting for a 7 Arete option to vote for Substantially so that our moment of weakness is diminished. It's wise to take no chances when it comes to the Apocryphal Curse. And it's not like we don't benefit substantially from +Letrizia now that we have decide to spill.
So let's try to avoid disaster, hm?
True, there is no real or pressing need for you to achieve a legendary feat of fishing at this juncture, especially not at such a cost when you've just gotten a major power boost and need only survive long enough to take advantage of it! Substantially also increases your Letrizia rank! And improves your nutrition, all relevant factors for good performance and morale.
Gotta get those omega-3s!
More importantly, you guys can't get into the habit of yoloing every vote and relying on luck or Arete to bail you out. There are some risks that those things just don't work very well against! To succeed against the tribulation that is the Apocryphal Curse will require not just determination, but planning and wisdom as well!
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Sure, for a whole day. I know immediate power can sometimes be weighed above long term growth, but are we really so hard done for that we need to sacrifice for a single day of better safety?
The Curse in question doesn't need a day, it only needs an instant! But you're not sacrificing all that much in the first place, it's not like .25 Ranks is that huge!
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It's getting late, but you guys should really consider switching to Saber. Remember, the Apocryphal Curse doesn't follow rules; just because it usually waits between procs and longer waits are deadlier doesn't mean it can't hit you with an overwhelming proc right now - that would, in fact, be quite interesting!
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If 'Ber' isn't killed, does he remain 'the apocryphal curse's attack', or does he just become 'a guy that hates you', such that Apocryphal could hit us again the moment he attacks, basically doubling it's power?
You don't know how the Apocryphal Curse works, but it's safest to assume that it can always hit you again, even if someone is currently its attack.
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Mm, there are two concepts at play there. Firstly, the Apocryphal Curse does not follow any absolute rules. It always can throw yet another thing at you, even in the middle of throwing three things at once at you, with no regards to timing or circumstance. Now, such travails are typically unlikely (though see the caveat above). However, usually the Apocryphal Curse does not attack you with problems you are completely unequipped to handle. Not always, because that wouldn't be interesting, but usually.
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Long term with the Apocryphal Curse a bigger fish will always show up who defeats our preparations if they aren't updated
Medium term, we can seek findross production to empower Gisena; she held him off for hours as it is, who knows what she would manage with a Fourth Coalescence.
If you grow in power (or ability) above a certain base rate, you will outscale the Apocryphal Curse to a limited degree. Not as easily as one can outscale the Geas, but it's definitely possible to get a noticeable or even near-overwhelming advantage against Apocryphal procs.
Doom of the Tyrant
We chose Vengeance above all. Let's act like it.
If Luna Conqueror wins (which seems reasonably likely, at the moment) then we have a build uber-specialized to advance through battle with Notable foes... and due to the Doom of the Tyrant, we're terrible in social situations. Instead of indulging our heroic sensibilities (and quite possibly saving fewer people, ultimately), begin as we mean to go on: rapidly acquiring power in the interests of taking that sweet sweet revenge. This vote determines a great deal about our character -- let's not waste this opportunity to specialize in what's most useful to us.
Hm... I wouldn't say you're terrible in all social situations necessarily, the hero's reasonably experienced even with all the holes in his memory. He's not going to have Seram levels of dropping his spaghetti in typical scenarios. Tyrant makes social interaction inherently dicey, though. It's probably best modeled as an environmental modifier (X% chance of things going horribly wrong dependent on the dynamics of authority / legitimacy / custom relevant to a given conversation) than a lack of skill per se.
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The solution is combo between wretch and Tyrant so there are no misunderstanding.
But Wretched turns off supernatural influence, so you wouldn't even have the Tyrant's recourse of legitimately dominating society with unsurpassed charisma!
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Yeah, that charisma and probable opinion boost is going to be essential in dealing with Tyrant's Doom.
The best way to go about conquering things eventually is to first act as an Hero for a while, win there trust and when we eventually take over for there own "Good", They might actually cheer us.
Well, even with increased Charisma the Tyrant's Doom is a pretty major impediment to social interaction. As soon as someone hits one of your red lines it'll be difficult not to be seen as rude. Of course, if you have the power to back that up it may not matter. Kind of like being Malfeas!
Are we allowed to explain that Curse of not being able to accept authority to our companions, or does it block it somehow? Mainly asking because at least they might be more understanding of our assholery when we do so.
Yes, you can explain it to anyone, but you probably won't want to because you don't give a shit about their customs or authority. And if you do, they're unlikely to believe you or will just think you're crazy and/or unreasonable. To some degree, they're right!
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Quite possibly, yes.
[X] Humanitarian Efforts
[X] King of Sorcerers
If this does look like a sci fi verse, which it may be, personally I'm kind of looking forward to telling people we're a wizard, and our good friend here is a sorceress. Sadly, the descriptions of our new target realm aren't really giving enough info, and it is probably not that likely that we're a completely unprecedented phenomenon like that.
But there is also the aspect that our goal is to gain and maintain political power. Much of the challenge will not be biggatons, most likely. High utility seems like a good plan for accomplishing that.
Biggatons do convert to political power... eventually. Power flows from the tip of a sword, after all! But there are often difficulties in the exact details of that process. Especially if one is a rigid and inflexible tyrant!
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This seems quite solid, just need to raise our profile as a strange vigilante hero that comes and goes like the wind capturing the imagination of the populace (I.E. fight monsters and look good, but never talk to anyone so they never realize what an asshole you are) until we've grown enough we can start taking over.
Actions that care nothing for law or custom are often provocative as well! To the authorities if not the populace.
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[X] The Decimator's Affliction
[X] Doom of the Tyrant
[X] Doom of Lunacy
Seems like the optimal build to me. As long as it's not the Champion, almost anything is okay.
Tyrant's pretty bad too, unless you avoid civilization you may be constantly getting into completely unnecessary conflicts! Cutting lines, taking whatever you please... it's the behavior of a barbarian, or a king.
Brand of the Wretched: Everyone thinks you're an asshole
Brand of the Champion: Everyone's kind of an asshole to you
Doom of the Tyrant: You are an asshole
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I'd like to call out this scenario as an Argument for Unburdening, specifically using the Decimator's mitigation we get from Name of the Curse and Putting Gisena on Doom of the Tyrant.
Mm, it's difficult to mitigate the Doom of the Tyrant, moreso than the other Curses. You'd have better luck just delaying the return to civilization so you can scale up more before interacting with society!
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Thinking about the political system, it'd be great if the fact she's a Duchess might mean her polity is basically space feudalism. As that would work well for us considering feudalism in some periods is one of the political systems we might actually be able to operate decently in. If a rebellious vassal had a strong fortification in a suitable locale and said "Ah no, I don't think I'll be paying any taxes or providing you any support or basically acknowledging your authority at all" very often there was basically nothing to be done about it and that was a relatively accepted state of affairs.
They might still require an oath of fealty even if they had no practical control, which would still be untenable. No, best to just become Emperor.
Captain of a mercenary band is viable as well. Or wandering murderhobo.
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Maybe if we make sure to insulate ourselves from our backers properly so they can't trigger us this would be a good strategy. Would mean we don't benefit from our charisma as much though.
You'd pretty much require the same rules as with Letrizia - you kill stuff for money and they don't give you orders or expect you to coordinate with their forces in any reliable way. Charisma (and the raw power to justify such freedom) would be helpful in securing that latitude of action.
Doom of Lunacy
[ ] Doom of Lunacy
Losing 75% of our power is meh, although it depends on the nature exactly. Levels are exponential, after all.
(Hyper)exponential progression only matters if you're a Progression-type, and Progression-types have to take a Curse that makes the un-mitigated Doom of Lunacy very, very bad. For a Combat-type, losing 75% of your power can be highly relevant indeed, especially if you're going for versatility over raw might.
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What is the nature of the power-sealing? For example, with Nameless, would he have lost 0.75 of temporal acceleration, 0.75 of physical strength, so on and so forth, or would he effectively have just lost a stage of power instead, or something along those lines?
It's a Curse, so it will be in a way that's extremely inconvenient for the affected. Perhaps something like, "Nameless doesn't benefit from Cultivation or Binary Magic or 33% of his Diagram spells, and all skills and fated protection above those of a baseline human are reduced by 75%, while in his sealed form."
It's most safe to assume that the wording which is worst for the Cursed individual is accurate.
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There's still an ambiguity about "forcefully emerges under conditions of extreme duress" vs "You may voluntarily enter this form but doing so causes you to go absolutely berserk". Under extreme duress conditions we may be able to use the battle form while lucid.
Yes, you're sane if it's induced non-voluntarily. Lunacy is already crippling enough, and its immunity to mitigation except by one specific method makes it unusual. However, I will note that inducing it non-voluntarily is extremely difficult and there's basically no way to do so reliably. What qualifies as 'extreme duress' the first time may become 'been there, done that' after a while.
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It's only annoying if you let it be annoying. There's a dynamic to it that I think most questers would enjoy; being a knight to a lord, the proverbial monster on the leash. The task is to find someone worthy of your services.
You don't even have to serve them, if they're not particularly ambitious you just have to cater to their whims (which could be easy) and protect them. That said, finding a compatible individual, much less one with those traits, can be very near an exercise in futility.
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[X] The Forsaken Mask
The way the two curses work together here interests me.
How people will react to the MC's 'threat' of Hulking out will be fun.
I doubt the story will be a fluff piece for long, there will always be someone who has to poke the sleeping dragon.
Were that the case, you would be poorly prepared for the ensuing battle! Being unable to employ coherent tactics while using your strength (and also wiping out all life in a massive radius) are not conducive to the dragon's quality of life!
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Forsaken Mask seems to me like it's asking for the Wife and Child to get killed again. It will be so much more tragic when we do it ourselves, I guess?
Well, there are ways to avoid it - strongly commit never to go berserk while they're in range (though this does effectively cripple your power), find a Geas compatible character, become really fucking good at using the 25% of your power you can access, etc.
Geas of Indenture
I don't think the possibilities of us refusing either Vengeance or Praxis are very great.
You're free to pick one of the two, it's the combination that's especially risky! Imagine if Seram had had to fight that Orc Weakling without Amplitude.
The hero is stronger than Seram, but his tasks are commensurately more dangerous as well!
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Mm, you're in each world for a substantial amount of time per mission, plenty of time to explore each given setting and even put down roots. Especially for conquest-type missions.
I don't expect your character to leave the initial Geas universe for a substantial amount of time, if it is chosen. Both in-character and out. Future Geas worlds will either have a similar level of focus or be summed up quickly.
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I'm liking Twice Great and Luna Conqueror. I'm also liking that we didn't my worst-case scenario, VSword, and given our landing site I feel vindicated in opposing such.
Fun fact: You would have gotten different 'landing sites' depending on the Curses you chose!
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I'd be really interested in being Prog, but I don't know if I could handle Indenture. I would want to know if I were able to significantly reduce the duration via mitigation.
Not more concerned about the Apocryphal Curse? A confident one, aren't you!
But yes, duration mitigation is available for the Geas. You're still looking at scientific notation time in all but the unlikeliest of scenarios though.
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With diplomacy made impossible, how does one do Conquest quests?
Conquest Geas missions are always at least 1,000 years, very frequently longer, so there will be plenty of time to build up Brand mitigation. Surviving the Apocryphal for that long is a more pressing concern.
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@Rihaku, do we have an intrinsic understanding of whether a territory is conquered or not? For example whether or not swearing someone to a certain standard of vassalage would be enough to count their territory?
You have an intuition for when things qualify as advancing your progress to completing your Geas, and a sense of when ruled territory is considered sufficient to start the countdown, yes.
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I will say that the curses we've see are a mixed bag, which makes me wonder if the "Cursebearer" thing is a positive multiversal trend. On balance, you have to wonder how many of the Accursed's interferences are like Seram's first Task: undo a world's terrible destiny by handing a bunch of power to an OCP and tasking them to kill the crux of it.
Terrible for whom? To an outside observer it may well be that a world run by Heroes is far grander than one ruled by arrogant fools or the Maiden's simpering cousins.
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In fact, if we could mitigate by only going to terrible worlds I'd make this my first choice. Maybe throw in Doom of the Tyrant; it would be both fitting and funny if we showed up and immediatly started disrespecting and simultaneously draining whoever runs the place..
Alas, you are unable to see the world you'll be visiting before you choose your Curses! So it was with Seram.
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Okay just found that this exists but legit question. Is there a current "build" post? Also wouldn't the life sucking curse kinda be a road about way of fullfilling the geas? 10% of 0 is 0.
You don't know whether killing everyone in the target area would qualify as ruling or not. You could try it, but if it doesn't qualify because you don't control the territory because you have nothing to control it with, for example, you'd be shit out of luck! Nor do you know whether the range of the Affliction is equal to the range of the target area you must conquer! - Remittances
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Remittances
General
Though it seems his Remittances were also initially weaker due to his low level?
Hm... I'd say they were different, not necessarily weaker. Pay to Win is basically a stockpile of defensive True Wishes. New Game Plus is a more powerful but narrower Regalia. Game of the Year is King's Scepter, weaker in absolute terms but proportionally pretty much the same. And Admin Privilege is The Sword That Ends the World.
Fortune doesn't recharge, Wild is one-time use, yup.
The King's Sceptre
I wasn't pleased with Arthur in general, but crossing that bridge heralded the end of the quest. Glib remarks aside, yeah, Slumber's a serious disadvantage. But the additional three Lesser Remittances can likely pay for an increase in our growth that outweighs the lost time. To Shatter Heaven cost Seram 1 RV for a 400% rate of increase in his GotY power training rate. Sure, he was Progression-type, but I'll eat my hat if there aren't blurbs aplenty to make it worthwhile. Healthy, baseline humans already accept spending a third of their total time asleep.
The King's Scepter already has To Shatter Heaven built into its Progression-type version! You won't get the same Lesser Remittances as Seram. He couldn't even select companions!
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Maybe not only we can learn something from the Armaments, but their civilization can also learn quite a bit from us. I didn't think much about it before, but our Cursebearer's presence might not only lead to societal and technological upheaval, it could lead to massive changes in magical systems or even the introduction of completely new ones when applicable! A sort of cross-pollination between the magics of different worlds.
Hm... depends whether others can use Accretion as you can. Is it a superior method of Rank Cultivation, or simply an anomaly preserved via the King's Scepter? You'll find out in time! - Lesser Remittances
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Lesser Remittances
General
You see, the biggest weakness of Vengeance plus Sword is the lack of immediate power. Therefore, we would want to maximize any offerings of such here in chargen, by picking up as many Lesser Remittances as possible.
Important PSA: Lesser Remittances do not grant immediate power. The best they can do is strengthen your Primary Remittance some, but if your Primary Remittance has a starting power of 0 due to being purely potential-based, like The Sword, that would not solve your problem.
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But Lesser Remittances can be allies/minions, no? How would having a powerful ally to protect us not grant immediate power? Do we need to work hard to get their favour before they'll fight for us, even if just to save our life from a stray wandering ork?
The companions on offer are usually not primary combatants. It's assumed the Cursebearer will fill that role. And yes, they're not automatically loyal to you, though the Accursed wouldn't offer them if they weren't compatible at all.
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You wouldn't be able to. Unless you manually travel there and convince her to join you and pay the Geas mitigation to allow that, etc.
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On that note, @Rihaku what actually is it we get by buying someone as a companion? Their presence, or cooperation, or obedience, or what?
Their presence. The Accursed has determined that they would be compatible with the hero.
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Some other synergies of note:
*Most Scepter builds have great synergies with Hunger! You're good at fighting, so exploit it to get better scaling!
*For example, Scepter Accretion + Hunger + Forebear's Blade + Intensify gives an incredible amount of scaling. Intensify gets you the highest starting point, then you have a multiplicative scaling factor (Hunger) on top of a geometrically compounding one! Now that's synergy.
*Scepter Seals + Hunger + Forebear's Blade + Talon does not scale in raw power quite as hard, but offers a great amount of utility (Seals + Talon = resources to seal and recombine, plus the utility of the equipment itself) alongside your growth. Or take Gisena to get Curse Mitigation and social utility.
*Hunger + Talon = ultimate blood knight, get multiplied xp and drops from killing enemies!
*Forebear's Blade + Seals + Ceathlynn = You can try to awaken Ceathlynn's Soul Evocation!
*Seals + Forebear's Blade + Prolessarch = Rapidly improve the esoteric foundation of your Seals rather than their raw power!
Forebear's Blade
Forebear's Blade doesn't start off any more powerful under Accretion, it's just got the ability to grow and scale with you (geometrically, since the blade itself and the Accretion partnership are both expanding in might / finesse).
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Accretion get us a guaranteed useful artifact, but Seven Seals is the real winner here. Better initial combat power and long-term scaling are fantastic. Incompatible with Intensify.
Accretion has the better scaling of the two options with Forebear's, but they're both pretty good.
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The Sword That Was Stolen serving as a visible metaphor for Hiro's recovery as a person is one reason why I don't want Unshattered. Fun as it would be, acceptance of and deriving power from his current state's more of a Freedom thing, and I want to see what other Forebear's Blade forms we'll unlock down the road. Concerning that theft is an integral part of its legend, though, we need to steer it away from that as soon as possible or the Apocryphal Curse is going to run roughshod over us.
The Forebear's Blade is more resistant to theft than most. It can leap to your hand from some distance if necessary, after all!
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It's about as courteous as asking him to surrender a limb, and he can't afford to lose another of those!
The Forebear's Blade would be more important than his right arm!
After all, he can still wield it in his teeth.
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I was thinking about that, I don't think we'd want to do so repeatedly because he could get wise to it and trap the blade. Doing it once at a crtitical moment could be good though.
You don't really benefit much from thrown attacks, either, since you already have a short-range option with blade winds!
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Also, does anyone think that Vershlengorge gets anything about of eating Astral beings? I can't tell what's worse, if it does and is slowly recovering its strength by doing so or it doesn't and just eats shit for fun. I'm not even going to entertain the idea that its purely for combat effectiveness because look at the fucking thing. As a sidenote, just noticed the foreshadowing of pommel strikes being useful against armour, rip. Even if it wasn't intentional, I still feel dumb for not thinking of that kind of tactic.
The Mordschlag is a formidable blow! And with the power of ruin, far more devastating than a mundane warhammer.
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No, every weapon you wield (including your fists) is infused with the power of ruin as a consequence of carrying the Forebear's Blade.
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If no choices are picked to repair it, will the Forebear's Blade still fix itself in time?
If the answer is no, I really think we should pick it. There will likely be more options to keep fixing it until we have the whole blade once more.
You don't know for sure how the Forebear's growth will manifest itself.
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How would we expect to repair the blade just based on Accretion rules? (As opposed to accretion + progression.) Could we just take it somewhere suitably dramatic and reforge it with minimal loss? Would a person's Rank cause their panoply to repair itself?
Depends on the nature of the Blade's legend / history and your combined powers. Some would naturally regrow, others would repair themselves. Your Blade is independently growing in power alongside your own Experience track, but we've just been consolidating that into the build votes for simplicity's sake. Basically you've been getting your effective Experience multiplied by your Ring and then the results doubled by the Blade every time, which is why Hunger has gotten notably stronger despite only fighting two (now three?) moderately challenging opponents.
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By movement I am mostly referring to super speed, combat relevant teleport, interplanetary teleport(of us and others) etc. I'm sure that we can go full Bleach and just stand on air after certain Rank without needing artifacts for that.
Now, I could see Evening allowing us to teleport or turn into mist, so there is that.
Hunger
I think that this is overall most efficient combination. Gisena protec while Blad attac, Curse mitigation for days, Gisena can cover our dogshit social, Retinue allow us to get a cadre of trusted Lieutenants despite our Tyrant curse and so on.
Hunger vs Retinue is an interesting consideration. Retinue is probably stronger late-game assuming good decision making, but Hunger offers much more power and utility in the early to midgame. Assuming you guys are appropriately aggressive, Hunger should increase growth rate to 300-500% of baseline, plus it improves motivation and makes your character less depressed.
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Speculation for opposition to Hunger: Fear of getting hit by Nameless tier heroic passions and the ensuing social penalties combined with Doom of the Tyrant.
Hunger's boost to visceral pleasures is mostly a good thing for the hero. It's not remotely close to the Spoiled Heroic Passion.
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That sounds pretty interesting. Not only is it a significant boost to our advancement speed, but it can also function as a form of therapy. The Hero had burned his self away on the pyre of vengeance and there is little else left in its wake, but this can help him relearn the simple joys of life.
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[ ] Learn to Pilot - As you are bound to the Ring Hunger, your learning speed outside battle is slightly worse than an average mortal's. The intricacies of the Armament are easy to learn, difficult to master, and many functions are incomplete or unavailable due to its state. Still, there is time enough for the fundamentals of movement.
Oh wow, that is a bigger decrease to noncombat learning than I was expecting. Good for raw power still, but that really cuts into our utility.
=You can advance through genuine endeavor as well. For example, making speeches to real crowds with real stakes, or working on research where the outcome is personally important and you have something to lose.
As Rihaku mentioned earlier, Hunger benefits from any goal when pursued with sufficient desire and vigor, not only combat.
oo good point, if we can work with Doom of the Tyrant we could be a badass at politics
It requires real stakes to the endeavor in question, but certainly!
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Worried about interacting with an interstellar empire... but at least we have this lady help us out on this front.
[X] Speak with Gisena I
[X] Speak with Gisena II
Gisena may be a true Renaissance Woman, but is even she capable enough to manage interstellar politics of this scale? Perhaps if she underwent some form of Sorcerous Evolution, then in time...
You'll need to substantially improve your Accretion Rank for such a feat, however!
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It's plausible that if somebody somehow manages to pull it off we'd lose it. Of course, all the powers are Artifact/Ring linked so there's no way around this stuff no matter what you vote for.
To deny you Hunger they'd have to cut off your fingers or something! What dark lord has anything to fear from something like that!?
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I don't understand the focus on No Querter's Curse Mitigation - I'm here for some Hunger procs and that bitch ass armor.
You could get Hunger procs from normal Worthy Opponents without the inconvenience of the Apocryphal Curse!
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I like the arguments for Undying. For a progression-type cursebearer, survival is the most critical thing. As long as you survive you keep scaling up, and there's not really anything that can outscale a Progression-type. Essentially, high-risk high-reward plays are less good because we always have high rewards anyway, the proportion of gains relative to risk is not great.
Yup! Though this is somewhat different for you since you have Hunger requiring you to fight level-appropriate enemies to advance. But in exchange your total growth rate is absurd... just a matter of creating a build that can fight level-appropriate enemies with minimal risk, or that can expend resources to deal with highly challenging enemies on your own terms.
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Going for A King for a couple reasons. One, reeling in a Legendary Fish and all the effort therein might count as a Hunger proc, given it could be described as a "battle" of a sort.
Hm... an interesting thought. Hunger rewards genuine endeavor, after all, and not just battle!
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Analysis Summary: The more effort we put on mitigating Decimator's Affliction through alternate means, the less valuable direct mitigation is, but if we don't put considerable effort anyway, the Human Sphere is still in trouble. A very convincing argument for Moon in my opinion.
Weirdly enough, just a single activation every four months makes Sated have double the efficiency of Direct mitigation. That's pretty huge, and tells how good Sated is.
Don't forget, it does somewhat nerf your growth rate in the meantime! Perhaps not terribly relevant if you don't use it often, but in the long run it all adds up...
Somewhat like in a clicker game, where a 2x can feel like nothing on paper, but then you realize that to hit the true endgame numbers you need every. single. multiplier!
Luckily Verschlengorge may have its own means of mitigation to offer you!
Intensify
Scepter + Intensify eliminates our Scepter's non-combat utility, which likely means that it can no longer be used as a General Buff to our underlying magic system, and in particular either means our Scepter is entirely disjoint from Sealing or else significantly hampers our ability to use Seals out of combat (and thus, hampers our ability to use them to Mitigate).
It doesn't eliminate noncombat utility, but vastly reduces it.
Relinquishment
I wonder how the volunteer system for Relinquishment works, getting on the list eventually seems like it might be pretty valuable.
Certainly. One gets to experience novel Curses in a semi-controlled environment! It's like training weights for your badass level. And you get the gratitude of knowing "at least I don't have to deal with this Curse all the fucking time!"
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[ ] Relinquishment - For each decade of service as a Cursebearer, gain one week of freedom from your Curses. Your burdens will be transferred to volunteering Cursebearers for that time. You are free to travel even with the Geas but must be back before the week is over. You may improve the term and frequency of Relinquishment by mitigating your Curses more.
Oh my god. While this is unlikely to be chosen since it doesn't have practical benefits in quest, out of quest this is the sort of thing that a Cursebearer would kill for. It gives a respite from an otherwise eternity living with your Curses, which is otherwise essentially an impossible dream, since complete Mitigation would only occur in scientific scales of time forward.
It's also quite useful on a tactical level, like, if your enemies think a particular Curse is your weakness, or if you REALLY need to conduct diplomacy to stop your empire from disintegrating around you, etc. Or want to visit another world for some quick-to-acquire power up.
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I assume the weeks of freedom can be 'stored' up? Do they need to be used in discrete quantities, or in a continuous manner?
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Which is amazing, a decade is an eyeblink in the eon-spanning journey of a Cursebearer. Better yet, time off stacks. Tactically duck our Curses, trigger this during a period of Apocryphal upheaval or if we've been politically outmaneuvered while wearing Tyrannical blinders.
Relinquishment has some interesting uses. Activate it before your confrontation with the Apocryphal-granted nemesis and ensure they don't get a helping hand from the Curse, use it in conjunction with super speed + dimensional travel to get large amounts of prep done during the week, prove to the peoples of the galaxy that you can compromise, it's just that your opponents' proposals are usually too stupid for you to yield, etc.
Retinue
My scepter build is similar to this, but if we're going with Scepter/Accretion, we're going to be relatively strap for versatility, which Intensify would hamper us even further with. Retinue meanwhile lets us expand the abilities of our overall party if not ourself (without having to entangle us with the remnants of any former quests).
What if you don't find anyone suitable to include in your Retinue? Conversely, Gisena or Catherine + Retinue would both be incredibly strong! Extremely fast scaling of a power highly specialized in nullifcation of things like Curses, or of a soldier with masterful combat skills who just needs superhuman stats to excel!
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Yes, but that's unlikely to yield any sort-term results of significance. Retinue only works on their primary focus.
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Forebear's blade provides immediate power, meager as it might be compared to the threats we face, with the attendant bonus to survival. Also we better slap a bandaid on the Apocyphal Curse ASAP.
Retinue gives us a bribe to help attain Gisena's service, as well as making sure that our immediate purchase of a Companion remains a useful investment in the mid-term. It also means we can have actual loyal companions, which will obviously improve survival chances.
Relinquishment really is fantastic, but if we're going to be grabbing the Sword, I don't think we can afford to grab an option that will only provide benefits years from now.
Hm, while Retinue pledges do prevent betrayal, they don't force your Retinue to listen to your commands necessarily. They can still refuse orders and do nothing under most circumstances (standing by while you're being assassinated would probably not be allowed, but refusing to go on a given mission is usually fine). Of course, it's nice having people you trust to watch your back. Or people you don't trust, whose possibility of betrayal has been removed by the Accursed.
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Retinue with Sword is not only good because it lets us offer something to any companions we get so they follow us; it also gives us something to offer to the people of the world we go to. And since we retain a majority of the progression factor and get even more exponential progress thanks to the Praxis, the chance of betrayal is low, especially if we demand the loyalty ceremony as a requirement for joining.
You can't, pledges only work after you add them and removing them is costly. You could try to enforce it after the fact, but the pledge itself must be voluntary so coercion wouldn't work well.
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One worry I have regarding Retinue is that it might still be short term.
Nah, it's great in the long term as long as you pick your companions correctly. You're basically getting the cross-system synergies of an Xth-Great, where X is the number of characters in your Retinue. Like, would it be worth losing 77% of Cultivation speed in order to get access to the Diagram and Artifice? And that's not taking into account character-specific multipliers like Intensify Praxis, Ordinal Purist, unique conditions, etc.
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After all, I doubt that a 33% Cultivator focused Thrice Great + a 33% artificer focused Thrice Great + a 33% Diagram Mage focused Thrice Great would stack up to a 100% Nameless.
Again, the most important caveat is "if you choose your companions correctly." For example, in the presented scenario, who are the Cultivator, Artificer/Naturalist and Diagram Mage in question? If it's Zang Kong With Progression + Aurelia With Progression + Tyranshal With Progression, then I would expect them to outscale Nameless at some point, sure. If it's like... Taishan, Amouthanos (who has no essence left) and Xylitemerral, probably not.
The point is there are character-specific multipliers beyond that 25%, and some systems are only attached to certain characters.
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I am not criticizing the last quest, but Retinue and the thread attitude. Last time we assumed that the one stage thing was an absolute statement instead of one dependent on in game entities. I fear we might be making a similar mistake here. What does "Advances with one fourth the potencyof our own" actually mean? It clearly doesn't that they will advance fourth as fast as we will, or you would have written that.
Just as an example, I'm not sure if it would account for one time fortuitous encounters that boost the Avengers skill level. What happens if we discover an outrageous synergy that boosts our primary skill exponentially? Can Retinue really contrive equably ridiculous Synergies for our companions skillsets? Advancing at one fourth of an exponential growth is still exponential after all.
All character-unique multipliers remain character-unique, but that's true for them as well as you! If they have some innate talent or access to special multipliers, they would benefit from enhanced learning speed that you might not. I do think on balance that Hunger is preferable to Retinue in terms of getting a good start and even well into the midgame. You already have the massive greed of being a Progression-Type Cursebearer with 5 Curses; why push it?
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Imagine if we stumble upon a combat cursebearer. With how difficult it is for them to grow, would they join our Retinue in order to be able to.?
You can't Retinue other Cursebearers.
It's beneath their dignity!
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Could she Nullify a Retinue connection if we make a bad choice? (Please ignore the possibility of her Nullify a loyalty oath to us)
- Meta
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Meta
General
If manually calculating, you can cut the voting power of approval votes in half. Basically they're counted as half supporting each of the two options.
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Since a Catherine Based build doesn't seem to be picking up any steam...
[X]A Simple Transaction
[X] The Sword That Ends the World
[X] Seven Seals
[X] Gisena Allria, the Nullity Sorceress
[X] Forebear's Blade
[X] Retinue
Advocating for Catherine might still get her in the consolidation vote as a secondary option, though!
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Surreptitiously advertising for the Accursed now are we? Now I know what to look for if half the questers suddenly disappear.
You truly believe 50% of questers have remained pure in body and mind for 30 years?
Regardless of how we might or might not feel, we can't just say such things!
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Assuming relevant Omakes/Reactions for this vote start at Teach me Eyepatch Sensei and BraininAJars Reaction afterwards, Things look like this from a word count angle. King of Sorcerors voters who are primarily in it for the Seals may want to consider switching to Twice Great.
It starts at Nature of Magic with a decay function, but don't bother manually counting it for this vote. It would be too troublesome for you to get a non-misleading number now that there are two confounding variables (subjective quality and decay).
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Allowing Approval voting has literally brought Auspicious Vanguard from the brink of defeat to the leading option. Interesting.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I thought approval voting would do. The option that few really like but everyone can compromise on tends to win. But what a bland and dreary quest that would make if every vote was such! And something like ranked choice voting is just a logistical nightmare...
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Why did we even pick Hunger via Luna Conqueror if we aren't going to be fully exploiting Hunger's benefit to powerlevel by killing monsters?
There is still a way to kill monsters somewhat safely despite your not taking any healing effects. But it requires you to develop some new skills!
Get in the robot, hero.
(To be clear, it's entirely viable to win this mission without substantially developing your piloting skills. However, not developing piloting while also trying to greed the combat-focused journey part of this mission while also having no healing is probably not the wisest decision. There's already some degree of risk from the monsters you'll passively be attacked by for traveling with Verschlengorge in the first place!)
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Hey guys, don't forget that the consolidation vote is important too and even more open to arguments!
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I think one issue you guys may be running into is an overestimation of how much mitigation Unburdening is going to get you, and furthermore the value of the mitigation you are getting. What's important in a time- and safety-limited environment like this is spending every resource you get in an efficient way that directly contributes to your chances of overall success. If you're going to mitigate the Decimator's for some time by (presumably) killing this guy, why then triple down on Unburdening as well when half of its mitigation will be less relevant for some number of days?
Conversely, getting physical power or political knowledge are areas with low-hanging fruit. While I know it can be difficult to maintain strategic focus across the voterbase for prolonged periods of time, that is one of the benefits of argument and omake power! It's true that curses are bad. Their badness can be addressed by mitigation (on a superexponential curve) or having enough power (personal, political, mental) to deal with their shit. Ideally you combine the two solutions for compound reward.
Similarly, your vote on No Quarter vs Prudence Dictates will decide the degree of aggression Hunger demonstrates against the continuous threats Verschlengorge attracts. A more aggressive posture here could result in great rewards as the ring feeds and Hunger resolves some of his trauma, but it also means he's the type of person to take such risks. A favorable risk in isolation will still grind you down if you take too many coinflips, or injure you for truly critical fights. You were lucky that this Apocryphal proc was easy enough to deal with and you can certainly fight worthy opponents outside of Aprocryphal procs that are designed to dredge up Hunger's traumas and provoke him under unfavorable circumstances. Consider carefully!
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You guys may want to start thinking about long term plans, as @George has... while it's likely not sustainable to remain in the Voyaging Realm indefinitely, due both to your time limit and the increasing slim chance of finding worthy opposition (to say nothing of what the Decimator's Affliction might do), you don't have to stick with Letrizia once she makes it back to the city. Alternatively you could delay the final return and extend your time with Letrizia so that you're more powerful when the time to interact with her civilization finally comes. Or, if you've plenty of +Intelligence and +Charisma, simply waste no time and go directly!
Ruling the Human Sphere is one thing. Getting a reasonably maximal amount of power from this universe is another!
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You guys are pretty low on Arete. Besides choices which themselves give Arete, don't forget you can get additional bonuses for discussion unrelated to the vote at hand!
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But the problem is that Rank doesn't seem to "independent" of ourselves so to speak; that is, if we make things easier for ourselves, we will gain less Rank too. So taking survivability might actually make Rank ups harder to find by making us have to search for stronger foes. It just seems safer to me take the Rank now. Especially since we are Exhausted for now and have that whole thing with the Devourer later, we might not actually get time to build our legend for a while.
Well, in the short term it's definitely safer to take Saber now!
There are a number of ways to approach the problem of fighting foes stronger than you. Offensive supremacy (Lord Reaper) to kill them before they can act too many times, defensive supremacy (Evening Sky) to neutralize their attacks and outlast them, lateral supremacy (Nightmare Praetor) to overcome them with circumstance, and so on and so forth! And more powerful enemies, regardless of difficulty, do still yield more Experience, which still translates directly into power if not Rank...
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What I'm off put by is the idea that (Is this arete for guaranteed availability thing a trap?) is a question that can't be answered satisfactorily without mind reading; will Rihaku slot things around quickly enough that you'd basically have access to spare, or will the cups spin to the exact tune such that we'll only see EFB equivalents when we're at 18.4 arete in a one day gap between chapters? Not to mention the proportion of upgrades likely to disappear permanently is similarly unknown.
The way it works is: there is a model of the world which responds to the actions of Hunger. The model does not level scale whatsoever, so for example - if you are attacked by a group of enemies which the model says should attack you, there will be no accounting for your Exhausted Condition making you weaker than usual. Similarly, if you are powerful enough to just dumpster the opposition (such as, for example, Nameless vs the Fates), that is what will happen.
Similarly with access to any Arete purchase conditions, though I may stretch things out so that you have more time to accrue Arete for a given purchase if I feel the thread both wants that purchase and is making a good effort.
Tactics
Btw, you guys can write in tactics to increase your survivability. Both in and outside of combat. Second Thoughts is also an entirely valid option! Would allow you to better control the tempo of fights so you can play to your strengths (prepped fights with research) rather than being forced on the defensive. Letrizia has already given you plenty of context about this place and the Human Sphere, and Gisena needs a tank and dps so she'd stick with you.
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Non-combat tactics can be relevant too! For example, is there anything you might be able to do right now while you're in this city to reduce the risk of injury in the future?
You guys should compile the actions you want into a write-in, ideally with prioritized list since you may not have time / ability to do them all!
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'Kay, might want to keep the tactics straightforward, or at least frontload anything complicated, because I'm not sure how well Hunger can follow anything that isn't directly violent. Combining the fights as @Wolfy says might be too much for his mental state, even though I agree that the voidspawn would probably not avoid fighting him.
He can fight intelligently, though only tactics with some degree of support will be used.
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It'd be easier to argue for Prudence if we knew what sweet shinies Arete can give us, if any. Right now the option is basically to content ourselves with survival, but most people want to gain stuff. Shit, I want to get stuff. Power will be crucial in the days ahead, so I might still switch back before this done.
If either No Quarter (w/ sufficient tactics - remember, tactics for this fight must receive support to have a chance at inclusion, aside from those tactics generated by the hero himself) or Commune With Verschlengorge win, you'll get an opportunity to see what Arete can buy, and will probably deeply regret not having more!
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As for tactics, so far the most popular one seems using the deck to our advantage, by having our opponent drop his foot through the floor and lose his balance. One thing we could try is tying the rope around him, throwing the other side to Verse and then having mecha yeet us to it.
The most legible way to indicate support would probably be to:
1) quote the tactic(s) you are supporting
2) mention in bold that you are supporting them and
3) include any commentary on said tactics.
Remember, I have to review the thread for these things and usually don't have time to go in depth, so visibility and ease of communication are key!
=
The following were all the explicit tactics posts I found. Can we trust the Hero to distinguish between what is feasible or not or will he try to perform any tactic as long as we support it, not matter how impractical?
It's a compound function of feasibility (in his opinion) and support. A great tactic with no support will not get used; a bad tactic with lots of support will get used unless it's obviously suicidal.
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Well let's do this. By those standards, we benefit the most from every tactic having a similarly mild amount of support. That way, the value will be decided by the Hero who's presumably smarter than us.
Maybe, maybe not. It depends on his mental state among other things. He may favor tactics that are objectively unwise if they have certain attributes. For example, No Quarter inherently implies a more aggressive mindset, or at least one that is more emotionally compromised. Recklessness, risk-taking, etc.
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Hm... most tactics don't have a characterization element, but pretending to honor the flag of truce and then immediately defecting would, yes.
Arete
Given Rihaku's earlier remark A Simple Transaction I Original, I wanted to say communing with the robot and seeking worthy opponents will either go horribly or be utterly awesome.
Too bad the hero doesn't get re-rolls like Seram! Though Arete can improve results in some situations.
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Oh, note also that the Arete bonus for discussion increases as the number of posts within the span of a given major update goes up (vote consolidations and non-major vote updates don't truncate your progress, but major votes like Jotunheim / Elysium would). So you get considerably more for your last marginal post than your first, etc.
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Is Arete like BP in that buying more expensive options is better value for money than buying cheap options?
=
Going from EFB, we generated ~1 BP/ update, with extremely intense fanworking. Equating to Arete, we'd generate ~2.5 Arete/update.
They don't use the same formula, so it wouldn't be equivalent, but it's 2.2 Arete to 1 BP.
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Quite an interesting fight! It also shows that Hunger has... quite a bit of anger inside of him.
Now, question, if we take an option without arete, can we upgrade it later, or does it work like EFB?
=It depends. King of Thieves and Evening Sky are both unique to this update. As for the others... upgrading an existing parameter to achieve a given function is within the remit of Progresison, though it may not be as efficient as an intuitive leap that achieves it wholesale.
There is one crucial difference between Hunger and Nameless that I'd like to elucidate - while Nameless' Thrice-Great progression was exceptional due to its inherent synergies, he only had Beyond Points to serve as further stimulus. Hunger has Experience and Arete, and even if he never spends his Arete in an efficient manner, if it lets him survive so that he continues to gain Experience, he can scale up without limit. It's not just about getting the best bang for your buck with your Arete, but rather how Arete expenditures affect your journey as a whole. If they help you survive a perilous time, that can be much more valuable than some incremental efficiency here or there, because no matter what you do with Arete you'll still be a Progression-type Cursebearer on top of that.
=
Given our lack of access to healing abilities, this would probably be remarkably useful. On the other hand, Rihaku as confirmed that higher expenditure of Arete are generally more efficient, so it's bound to be somewhat inneficient.
Efficiency in isolation is not necessarily efficiency in combination! There are certainly effects which in synergy are worth more than the sum of their Arete cost.
=
I see them pretty regularly, and from what I remember only from you. I would guess you use a different word editor?
I see the King of Thieves as weaker than it appears. It gives 1 Agility more than Echo, which is nice. And it does give long term benefits. But it's hard for me to believe that they are actually that great. I feel like the thieving abilities are probably going to need further powerups to be very useful against things our level, and I'm not sure I want to devote choices to making it useful.
It gives a lot of benefits, but I'm not sure most would want to further spread from Warrior to Thief, especially because I feel like Mage is going to be the choice for most voters as soon as we get the opportunity.
A Thousand Cuts could be the great basis of a build meant to destroy foes your own level. But I'm not sure on the chances of us getting to 7 in time, I would guess low.
Hm... if we have decent thread activity and a few omakes I think 4 is very possible, and 6 if we have great participation over a number of days (since the escalating value per post doesn't drop until a major update). With the value of a 7 cost you can go into 1 Arete debt reasonably safely, which gets you there.
=
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Forebear's Blade - Fell-Handed Stroke
Financial responsibility, saving for our college etc.
You played EFB, you know how this works.
Not quite! There's a difference between a Cultivator hoarding their BP for the best moment when they already possess overwhelming strength, and a Cursebearer with unlimited Progression trying their best to survive some dire circumstances!
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Translation: We aren't killing our way to indefinite total mitigation.
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@Rihaku Can we choose whether we spend 1 Arete or gain Exhausted for Of Fishermen, A King? If so it might be worth going for, Accretion grows as we accomplish legendary actions, which means that'd boost us.
If you have enough Arete left over, you'll spend it to avoid the Exhausted Condition, yeah. It's pretty punishing.
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The escalating Arete bonus per post did reset, as it counts as a major update, yes. Which was unfortunate, because you guys were pretty close to an even larger bonus, but I had already delayed the update by that point and couldn't countenance delaying it much further. Still, if we keep up the same level of activity as the last update your Arete troubles should be very manageable.
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I'd like to see the full effect of the 2 Arete Ring of Blood's healing before I consider Pitiless Maw. Though it is quite the powerful healing effect. It's the kind of thing I'd kill for in most games.
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As an aside, I'm really not liking this tying of powerup options to omake and discussion. It's much better in AST, when our options were ancillary, supporting to the main options (EXP) as opposed to overpowering and far superior.
EFB ended successfully, and AST did not, so we're using EFB's system. That said, though the system has been nearly transposed wholesale, there are substantial differences - you've been offered Arete almost every single vote option this week, so the amount of Arete Hunger generates himself can be substantial if you choose. Nor do you really need 25 Arete options to win if you are prudent, intelligent, and use the power of Progression to scale strategically.
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Wow, all three top options are 25 Arete now. I should've expected it would swing this way. Frigging long-term planning memes.
Well, no amount of Arete will actually help you if you're to fight at this stage!
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Too bad an additional pick is so useful, Wolf Moon would have been a neat prize for this debacle and Arete options seem to fall by the wayside much like BP options did so often in EFB.
Indeed. I hope people aren't taking the thread's Arete generation for granted! Taking more general Arete would at the very least give normal voters more say, as right now omake power is a huge determinant in spending decisions since almost all the Arete is from omakes!
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The second best option for getting ourselves back online while still helping Letrizia would be Offering/Vanguard, which I guess is why you're pushing it so hard. The problem with that is it puts us into Arete debt, which I believe exhausts us again? We just did that and it didn't work out so well.
Arete debt doesn't exhaust you, but it is a fairly punishing condition. Not as bad as Exhausted though. Still, you'd only need to earn 1.5 Arete before the next update to avoid it. Probably less since there have been fanworks since I last updated Arete, and with sufficient discussion you don't even need the fanworks.
Unsorted
Speak with Gisena I: 19
Speak with Letrizia I: 19
Errantry: 12
Seek Worthy Opponents: 9
The Name of the Curse: 6
Learn to Pilot: 5
Speak with Gisena II: 3
Speak with Letrizia II: 3
Errantry II: 3
Seek out Artifacts: 3
Commune with Verschlengorge :1
Here.
At least we've learned that options with "Plan" are trouble
PS. If someone changed their vote and voted twice I counted both times. Since I will be doing tally manually, please make sure that when you change your vote you either delete or edit previous one too.
Interesting! It really is a lot more efficient to double social one character, though. You're getting three +s for 2 actions instead of 1 + per action, that's a 50% increase! Plus their respective II benefits. Almost any stage II option is considerably more efficient than stage I, though. Sometimes (as with Errantry II), this comes with risk. And sometimes it mitigates risk!
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Hoh. I thought it was + for one choice and ++ for both, not that second option carried ++ by itself. This changes a lot.
Hm... maybe I'll edit the option to make it clearer. But yeah, committing / specializing yields greater basic results for any given stage II, in addition to any hidden benefits.
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To clarify Rihaku, does selecting an arete suboption count as taking a second option?
=
You can take one more option, the Curse Mitigation ones below the divider aren't part of that section and don't take picks.
=
My reason is this; first we need some more combat power. Second, the sooner we take the increased strength gain from aging, the more we will benefit from it. Plus storing excess sleep for rainy days is a great preparation tool.
Yup, that's correct. You can take any suboptions you can afford along with 2 main options. - Temporary
-
Temporary
Current Mission
Ignoring Arete options for now because we might want to bank those for stronger options though a good long term option for Arete is the Slumber of Aeons - allows for banking of sleep, increases threshold, perfect for the monotonous interludes that will inevitably pop up once we're a few years into ruling. If we're going to go for short term, Undying Echo isn't bad, increasing constitution massively.
I wouldn't ignore Arete expenditures entirely this vote. You guys already took a greedy build last vote, and Hunger has to get through dozens or hundreds of encounters before this escort mission's over. Most of them won't be as hard as this one, but some may be harder.
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This definitely isn't bad, but on the other hand we're on like day 2-7? right now and consider our growth so far. Even though that will also slow down it's still going to be quite major, might end up making sleep gains almost irrelevant.
Yeah, a lot depends on how you guys play the pace of this quest. There are all sorts of leads you could chase down during this escort mission with Gisena! Verschlengorge's too bulky.
The Gamer
MMO players but in real life. How terribly obnoxious. I feel we should put them to the sword for that alone, even if they weren't keen on randomly assaulting people for wholly arbitrary and probably stupid reasons.
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Don't you know it's every Tyrant's destiny to be pursued by an intrepid hero and his party?
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I mostly pity them, they're only children, really. They know not what they do.
Only one of them is a Gamer, the rest are his 'beloved' and faithful companions!
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I can't believe we're this pressured by a fucking generic OP Isekai Harem Protagonist.
It's not your fault that his game skills translated near perfectly to life in the Voyaging Realm!
It is your fault for being Exhausted though. Still, even at full strength actually killing this guy would have been quite the feat.
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Oh, man. There's no way these guys are as ridiculous as they come off, their dignity is yet another casualty of the Apocryphal Curse. As is our naptime. At least we're not Very Exhausted?
Not super into hunting Ber, don't want to deal with his patron. Hunt for Healing... risky, unless we go all-in on stat boosts rather than the other shinies.
I absolutely want Amaranth Star, especially right now, because duh. But as an El Stat voter I also like that +++. Age and Treachery is coooool, but we're exhausted, but I'll probably vote to rest anyway, so.
What Rains May Come is weird. There's gotta be cheaper healing, and while reversing wound penalties is some wacky hax I wound prefer if injury didn't happen in the first place. Purple votes for me, I think.
Fury over Calculating, 'cause Exp seems to have more relative value when it pays for basic bitch stuff like immediate stats, and Arete is for cool stuff.
[X] Recuperate
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Feat - Age and Treachery
[X] Fury - +1 pick above
Elizabeth, Seralize, 'Mercenary,' and Ber... should have taken the hint after your first hundred teleports failed. Hunger well knows that anyone is "allowed" to die. I feel bad for these guys. Pawns to the Astral Lord, the Curse, each other?
The Curse foremost, surely! One almost feels sorry for them. They had such a promising start, and now one bad decision has put them in the crosshairs of a greater power. But don't underestimate this guy's short-term growth curve. It's entirely possible, though not likely, that he can match or exceed your own rate of growth for a few weeks or months.
=
Not a chance, I'm already tired of being Exhausted, and with the Curse and a tiring supermove, bleh. Numbers going up speaks for itself.
On another note, it was nice to see Hunger being a Master Baiter, really exposing his... Charisma and Intelligence to Seralize at the moment of penetration.
Edit: Even if it did only last a single stroke.
Terrible to see such a nice girl heartbroken like that. So courageous, and loyal to her friends...
=
oh my! Really cool scene with lots of interesting moments and a complicated vote. Let's take our time and discuss in detail to see what bases we can cover and how we can blunt the risks we face.
I do think Press the Attack is being prematurely discarded, your enemy is exhausted and currently has zero companions. You could save yourself a lot of trouble later by nipping this problem in the bud. You're in bad shape but so is he, and you do have Gisena to tip the scales...
=
Nothing says 'interesting times' as much as being an unwilling MMO Event Raid Boss
That being said, too bad they picked on someone their own size, huh
=
He's literally an Isekai protagonist. And a fairly recent one. This is likely the first time Destiny has ever failed him. So... yeah, he honestly thinks his companions couldn't die... because short of us they couldn't.
Poor Seralize. She had it all planned out, and then she ran into Hunger...
=
This guy is overconfident and overreliant on his system for tactical decisions. He's gonna show up later, thinking that he's outleveled us in the interim (can't read our info and therefore can't tell the difference), and THAT is when we'll beat his ass.
Or maybe he'll actually have outleveled you! He's sure to pull out all the stops against an unknown level threat, and without his party tohold him backsuggest the path of prudence there's nothing to stop his relentless optimization!
=
I found it funny none of them basically reacted at all to the first one we killed in comparison the dramatics later. Poor fodder, no one cared about you. Seralize on the other hand based on Ber's reaction gives me the impression she was potentially the equivalent of a GMPC. It seemed like her sword lost whatever force was powering it at the end, was that the case with all the rest of the enchanted gear we noticed I wonder? There's also still the King Fish stuff Gisena got interrupted examining... Sheesh the inventory is piling up and we don't even have a Gamer power!
She was a real person! It's not her fault her entire life was engineered for this purpose! It's pretty horrible if you think about it.
It looks like her sword is non-magical now, yeah. The power of Ruin often destroys lesser artifacts but it seems this one was just tied to her life force in some way.
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You don't know whether he actually has backing from an Astral Lord, or whether the Astral Lord is just a "quest-giver" that offered him some reward for killing Verschlengorge. Now, is it likely that an Astral Lord would be opposed to the existence of Verschlengorge? Certainly. Are they necessarily allied to this Gamer character? Possibly not.
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And sure, you're always welcome, mister walking bag of experience.
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Is Ber his actual name, or is it short for something? Some suggestions for possible names: November, Amber, Ember, Bertrand, Kimberlee, Bernard? Ember sounds suitably gamer, so that would be my guess.
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He's a teleport-spamming Gamer with the ability to launch skyscraper-sized energy blasts that your most powerful current artifact (Evening Sky) could only barely redirect after Gisena had hit it with a focused Nullity. The only reason he left was because his Assess failed against you!
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Also I just re-read Age and Treachery and realized both groups consist of two sexy women, one machine, and one man, and that in both cases the single man is the most powerful. Lol.
Three women in his case, and the machine is the strongest in yours! It just can't use that power - it's broken.
And Gisena's effective level under Quantified World is a bit higher than yours!
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Bolding is mine. Again, I'm only a little worried about this guy. He cautious, so much so that when he couldn't see our power level he ran. His allies are dead and he'll need to hire new ones. He mentioned leveling up, so given his caution I assume that means going to some zone and grinding, rather than some crazy instant level-up plan where he fights monsters with a 10% chance of killing him. Our fight with him exhausted him.
Hunger believes it's likely, yes. But on what time scale will you outpace him? And what does "likely" mean? It could well represent a greater than 10% chance, which the voters already aren't willing to take. A 70% chance could be in the range of "likely."
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I'm not sure what the mono-Pristine Star plan is... just wait and hope that you'll still be able to outscale Ber after gaining no combat-relevant abilities and taking five+ days off to heal? If he attacks you when you have 17 Arete stored up and kills you (or Gisena / Letrizia, which would be much easier), that Arete won't have helped at all!
If you want to take an incredibly greedy option in exchange for serious risk, the Tyrant Beast offers much better odds!
With Second Stage, you can full heal every day which vastly improves your risk-reward posture. With Pitiless Maw, every battle. With Undying Vanguard, you have much higher stats and your companions can tank and heal. Your speed of Experience gain is faster (or much faster) in all cases. If you'd had Azure Moon on long term planning I could see the logic, but you don't so you're not guaranteed any 7 Arete options with great potential in the next (however many days/weeks before Ber attacks again).
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Hm... if you do get Second Stage, you're not too far off from Form of Rage Arete!
BER: A THIRD Stage? Shit, how many forms has this guy got!?
BER: Right. Hidden boss. I better retreat and grind to level cap or something.
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Going full Inigo Montoya, not even once. This declaration betrays both her inexperience and initial objectives. And really, money and glory? She's going to try and claim the moral high ground after coming here on an assassination mission? Rage isn't rational, but there's serious hypocrisy here. If this story has a moral, it's that if you come at a Cursebearer, you better not miss.
Solipsistic entitlement from nobles? It's more likely than you think!
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So, this is what the receiving end of Pressure feels like. Sera's Rank is impressive enough by the standards of the Human Sphere that I wonder if she and Ber aren't outsiders too? The Voyager's Realm has no end of ammunition for the Apocryphal Curse to throw at us. That we're taking wounds from a random swordswoman, not even the primary thrust of this Apocryphal proc, isn't a great sign. If Hunger had access to his own Pressure the bout would be more even, but this encounter leaves me with the worrying feeling that we need to get good fast.
Mm, Seralize is skilled, moreso than the pirate captain, and her speed is her strength. Even were Hunger not Exhausted she wouldn't be a pushover.
Last edited:
Fanwork Index
Not currently being updated as of December. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
FANWORK INDEX.
Please let me know if I've missed anything you think should be listed here. All word counts contain only original words.
FANWORK INDEX.
- Text
-
Cursed thoughts (748 words, Orm Embar)
THOU MUST (1180 words, Addio)
Initial decision point analysis (1054 words, Crimson Moon)
A Simple Transaction reaction (2284 words, runeblue360)
JUST (219 words, Salty)
UltimateVengeanceWaifu Quest (1383 words, Unelemental)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (2670 words, Unelemental)
A Poem About Vendetta + Sword (758 words, KidFromPallet)
Bad Decisions (695 words, ImperatorV)
GenericYoutubeGuy Presents: A Reaction To: My Isekai Adventure Couldn't Possibly Be This Simple Of A Transaction! (797 words, KidFromPallet)
Fanwork: An Explanation (622 words, KidFromPallet)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (1463 words, BrainInAJar)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (1046 words, Orm Embar)
The Leviathan Breaks the Epilogues (227 words, Conjured Blade)
The Leviathan Has Come (567 words, Conjured Blade)
Daily Life of a Husband: Teach me Master! (1029 words, Maragas)
THE REAL CHAMPION (470 words, Salty)
THOU MUST reaction (841 words, runeblue360)
Curse classification thoughts (581 words, runeblue360)
Curse opinions(475 words, Maragas)
Sword Without a Hilt (1194 words, Sickul)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (1465 words, Maragas, overrides Curse opinions because it contains the same text)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (1873 words, Birdsie)
That which begins in flame, ends in flame (1246 words, Cerillian)
Who Is Next? (537 words, Enohthree)
A Cursed Legend (1239 words, Unelemental)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (1331 words, Conjured Blade)
Despite Everything (1125 words, BrainInAJar)
How it Really Went Down (600 words, KidFromPallet)
Lesser Remittances analysis (361 words, Conjured Blade)
A Simple Transaction Reaction (932 words, formalAI)
ODDLY FATHER BEYONDER (3266 words, runeblue360)
The Astral Eye (1195 words, Unelemental)
Teach me Eyepatch Sensei! (746 words, Conjured Blade)
Vote Update 1 to Lesser Remittances reaction (1466 words, BrainInAJar)
Compelled to Battle reaction (471 words, Conjured Blade)
Goin' Anywhere (1524 words, Box Lunch)
Compelled to Battle reaction (2464 words, runeblue360)
Wizard, Muscle Wizard! What can you do? (1040 words, Maragas)
The Last Alchemy Montage (615 words, Conjured Blade)
Humanitarian tactics (553 words, runeblue360)
Compelled to Battle reaction (2742 words, Unelemental)
Compelled to Battle reaction (1566 words, Orm Embar)
Compelled to Battle analysis (927 words, formalAI)
Compelled to Battle reaction (1342 words, BrainInAJar)
Why Utility Builds Are Great (1125 words, KidFromPallet)
Heart of the Matter reaction (447 words, Conjured Blade)
Heart of the matter decision analysis (1020 words, Crimson Moon)
Build combination analysis (570 words, Conjured Blade)
Heart of the Matter reaction (2440 words, runeblue360)
Heart of the Matter reaction (2899 words, Unelemental)
Lexicon of the Fingers (400 words, Aabcehmu)
Heart of the Matter reaction (2040 words, Orm Embar)
Heavenly King of Curses: Lucky Day Indeed (1000 words, Maragas)
HotM consolidation analysis (526 words, runeblue360)
Not a Simple Transaction (1182 words, Unelemental)
Heart of the Matter analysis (1024 words, formalAI)
Heart of the Matter reaction (826 words, Maragas)
Heart of the Matter reaction (1029 words, BrainInAJar)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (409 words, Conjured Blade)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (2110 words, Orm Embar)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (2984 words, Unelemental)
Times and Tides reaction (332 words, Conjured Blade)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1952 words, runeblue360)
Times and Tides reaction (1962 words, runeblue360)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1425 words, BrainInAJar)
Speculation on Armaments and the Astral (1039 words, BrainInAJar)
Times and Tides reaction (1358 words, Orm Embar)
Evening Sky reaction (864 words, Conjured Blade)
Evening Sky analysis (718 words, formalAI)
Evening Sky reaction (2563 words, Unelemental)
Evening Sky reaction (1922 words, runeblue360)
Evening Sky reaction (747 words, Projectile)
You (Isekai) Get What You (Isekai) Pay For (1275 words, DarkSideBard)
Fisher King reaction (564 words, Conjured Blade)
Project Candle Light Hate Date (630 words, Conjured Blade)
Fisher King reaction (2436 words, runeblue360)
Fisher King reaction (1704 words, Orm Embar)
Fisher King reaction (2278 words, Unelemental)
Life Goals (1214 words, runeblue360)
Passing Out After a Major Battle is Cliche (1000 words, Aabcehmu)
The Legendary Kyubass (191 words, Priest)
Fan Curses (705 words, ImperatorV)
Praehihr & Aloft to Murder reaction (476 words, Conjured Blade)
Aloft to Murder reaction (2155 words, runeblue360)
Aloft to Murder reaction (2264 words, Unelemental)
Thoughts on Rank & Mitigation (531 words, Projectile)
Lady of the Lake decision point analysis (1011 words, Redshirt Army)
Decimation mitigation analysis (2003 words, Skelm)
A Hero's Panoply analysis (973 words, Unelemental)
Lady of the Lake reaction (1757 words, Orm Embar)
Lady of the Lake & Hero's Panoply reaction (899 words, Conjured Blade)
Lady of the Lake reaction (2549 words, runeblue360)
Enduring and Fleeting analysis (1337 words, Orm Embar)
Ephialtes (2151 words, Unelemental)
Age and Treachery reaction (700 words, Conjured Blade)
Combinatoric Build analysis (1149 words, Conjured Blade)
WHERE ALL YOUR INFINITE DREAMS COME FINITELY TRUE (3848 words, Addio)
Age and Treachery reaction (2985 words, Unelemental)
Analysis of Curses and Remittances (1321 words, ImperatorV)
Hero (3317 words, vali)
Age and Treachery reaction (2370 words, Orm Embar)
Age and Treachery reaction (1572 words, formalAI)
Flawlessly Typical Creature (578 words, Fumbles)
Temple of the False Moon (1211 words, Conjured Blade)
Wolf Moon reaction (403 words, Conjured Blade)
GHOST STORIES: BLATANT WISH FULFILLMENT: RIHAKU PLEASE DO A HORROR QUEST (2355 words, Addio)
Wolf Moon reaction (1215 words, Orm Embar)
Wolf Moon reaction (1426 words, Unelemental)
Temple Temptation (311 words, Redshirt Army)
A Drake of Empty Night (666 words, Byzantine)
Complication analysis (852 words, Wolfy)
Synchronization Complete reaction (1621 words, Unelemental)
Twilight Throw-Down (1417 words, Fumbles)
A Moment's Reprieve build analysis (470 words, Genesys)
Synchronization Complete reaction (1508 words, Orm Embar)
Age and Treachery reaction (2646 words, runeblue360)
(Isekai) 2, Eccentric Ingenue (2580 words, DarkSideBard)
Seems Legit (259 words, LordOfMurder)
A Moment's Reprieve reaction (1109 words, Orm Embar)
Maw of the Moon (946 words, Hirorubie)
Heart of the Matter reaction (1246 words, Byzantine)
The Solitary Moon reaction (1036 words, ImperatorV)
The Solitary Moon reaction (1617 words, Orm Embar)
The Solitary Moon reaction (1844 words, Unelemental)
Regiment/Conservative contingencies (1137 words, Projectile)
The Solitary Moon reaction (803 words, Projectile)
Wolf Moon reaction (1681 words, runeblue360)
Ghost Stories reaction & vote (2922 words, runeblue360)
Synchronization Complete (2409 words, runeblue360)
War and Wind reaction (412 words, Conjured Blade)
War and Wind reaction & vote analysis (913 words, Genesys)
Strategic analysis (1098 words, DarkSideBard)
Vote & plan analysis (587 words, cheesyme)
War and Wind reaction (1101 words, Byzantine)
On Form of Rage's appeal (692 words, runeblue360)
Just Imagine (336 words, Wolfy)
War and Wind reaction (1335 words, Orm Embar)
War and Wind reaction (2707 words, Unelemental)
Temple of the False Moon Real-Estate Listing (440 words, vali)
War and Wind decision analysis (451 words, formalAI)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (1185 words, Bilbo Baggins)
The Winnowing Garden vote analysis (1174 words, DarkSideBard)
Plants vs. Astral Monsters (809 words, Harried)
Totally Not a Dune Reference (934 words, Box Lunch)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (2522 words, Unelemental)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (667 words, Conjured Blade)
Ordinalist build for Hunger (802 words, Conjured Blade)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (1361 words, Orm Embar)
Cutting Through reaction (644 words, Conjured Blade)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (1038 words, Byzantine)
To Sunder Everything (501 words, Byzantine)
The Myriad Paths (532 words, Byzantine)
Synchronization Complete to Solitary Moon reactions (1359 words, Conjured Blade)
A Moment's Reprieve reaction (1727 words, runeblue360)
Moon mercenary blurbs (1306 words, Conjured Blade)
Cutting Through reaction (2275 words, Unelemental)
Ordinalist Gisena build (451 words, Conjured Blade)
Blumenkranz (569 words, Conjured Blade)
The Mountains of Reflection (1515 words, DarkSideBard)
Promenade of Glories decision analysis (960 words, DarkSideBard)
Promenade of Glories decision analysis (389 words, ImperatorV)
Atop a Throne of Stars (1789 words, Xalvitor)
Dreadbeast tactics (551 words, BrainInAJar)
Rank Q&A (495 words, Wolfy)
Magus tactics (464 words, Orm Embar)
Dreadbeast tactics (524 words, Projectile)
Magus tactics (626 words, Unelemental)
Power and Speed: Splitting a Moment. (557 words, Byzantine)
The Dreadbeast (179 words, Redshirt Army)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (856 words, ImperatorV)
Heart of the Matter (Twice Great Edition) (2147 words, Conjured Blade)
For She Trod Upon the Stars (857 words, Sickul)
Gardener's Choice (657 words, ImperatorV)
Ordinalist Letrizia build (502 words, Conjured Blade)
The Solitary Moon reaction (2387 words, runeblue360)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (3601 words, Projectile)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (2471 words, Orm Embar)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (923 words, Fumbles)
Build analysis along three axes (833 words, runeblue360)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (4153 words, Unelemental)
Chad and Thad, the Rad Lads (292 words, Redshirt Army)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (716 words, Prospalz)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (2435 words, Conjured Blade)
Coin and Realm decision analysis (810 words, DarkSideBard)
Coin and Realm decision analysis (580 words, Unelemental)
Camp vs. Gisena analysis (533 words, Zampano)
Outrider tactics (615 words, Fumbles)
Knight-Commander tactics (573 words, Fumbles)
Knight-Commander tactics (517 words, Talace)
Knight-Commander tactics (505 words, Unelemental)
Red of Sky and Fang reaction (1723 words, Zampano)
VR Valor (739 words, Taka)
Knight-Commander diplomacy tactics (326 words, BrainInAJar)
Bad Life Choices (650 words, Unelemental)
Knight-Commander tactics (576 words, Projectile)
Coin and Realm reaction (627 words, Conjured Blade)
Immediate & short term plans (676 words, runeblue360)
Red of Sky and Fang reaction (2352 words, Unelemental)
Red of Sky and Fang reaction (929 words, Conjured Blade)
Fending Off reaction (724 words, TwistedJester)
Fending Off reaction & vote analysis (1621 words, Genesys)
Fending Off reaction (1189 words, Prospalz)
Fending Off reaction (3161 words, Projectile)
Fending Off reaction (2491 words, Unelemental)
Hypothetical Knight-Commander Defining Advancements (553 words, Talace)
Dao of the Reckless Fool (308 words, formalAI)
Titanic Ascension (1942 words, Xalvitor)
Heedless analysis (724 words, Talace)
Meditations on the Sword vote analysis (1720 words, Zampano)
Learning to Select a Thematically Coherent Powerset (1686 words, Talace)
Fisher King reaction (1702 words, Projectile)
Bloodslayer argument (452 words, Xalvitor)
CursedLand omake reaction (5897 words, runeblue360)
Temple of the Moon's Tail: Part 1 (1689 words, Unelemental)
Fending Off reaction (772 words, Conjured Blade)
Cutting Through reaction (1010 words, Byzantine)
Fending Off reaction (1256 words, Enohthree)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (1352 words, Byzantine)
Coin and Realm reaction (911 words, Byzantine)
Throne and Alter vote analysis (941 words, Talace)
Throne and Alter vote analysis (666 words, Genesys)
Knight of Holly analysis (472 words, Box Lunch)
Throne and Alter vote analysis (781 words, Taka)
Throne and Alter vote analysis (423 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Fending Off reaction (1264 words, Gerrou)
Throne and Alter reaction (2156 words, Projectile)
Throne and Alter reaction (2388 words, Unelemental)
Throne and Alter reaction (512 words, Genesys)
Opportunistic Raiding argument (471 words, Box Lunch)
Breach the Middle tactics (668 words, Projectile)
Breach the Middle tactics (853 words, Unelemental)
Coin and Realm reaction (1620 words, Orm Embar)
Red of Sky and Fang reaction (2074 words, Orm Embar)
Fending Off reaction (2408 words, Orm Embar)
Throne and Alter reaction (2156 words, Orm Embar)
Throne and Alter reaction (1877 words, Conjured Blade)
Lady of the Lake (1276 words, vali)
Honor Unstained reaction (872 words, TwistedJester)
Once and Future reaction (1809 words, Orm Embar)
Honor Unstained reaction (1507 words, Box Lunch)
Honor Unstained reaction/tactics (2635 words, Projectile)
Honor Unstained reaction (2708 words, Unelemental)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1876 words, Fumbles)
Sky Above Sky vote analysis (1117, DarkSideBard)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1860 words, ImperatorV)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1132 words, TwistedJester)
Honor Unstained reaction (1309 words, Prospalz)
Once and Future reaction (1556 words, Conjured Blade)
Honor Unstained reaction (1070 words, ImperatorV)
Sapling (882 words, Maragas)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1686 words, Projectile)
Sky Above Sky reaction (2236 words, Unelemental)
Coin and Realm reaction (1400 words, Prospalz)
FEAST (761 words, Hirorubie)
A Moment's Reprieve reaction (981 words, Prospalz)
Circle (511 words, Hirorubie)
Post-Uttermost build planning (779 words, ImperatorV)
Arisen Again reaction (1833 words, Projectile)
Arisen Again reaction (2241 words, Unelemental)
Thunder of Blood vote analysis (1059 words, Unelemental)
Arisen Again reaction (993 words, Prospalz)
Mercenary Company Report (706 words, Taka)
Thunder of Blood vote analysis (565 words, Zampano)
5.75 Rank argument (698 words, Wolfy)
Thunder of Blood vote analysis (587 words, ImperatorV)
A Successful Operation (911 words, Taka)
Combinatorial path analysis (500 words, ImperatorV)
No Breaks (831 words, Hirorubie)
Arisen Again reaction (1283 words, Conjured Blade)
Vacation tactics (866 words, Projectile)
Thunder of Blood reaction (2139 words, Unelemental)
Impunity reaction (1611 words, Prospalz)
Thunder of Blood reaction (1732 words, Conjured Blade)
Sky Above Sky reaction (2093 words, Conjured Blade)
Ghost Stories reaction & build (2698 words, Conjured Blade)
Honor Unstained reaction (1838 words, Conjured Blade)
Rihakuverse A Simple Transaction AI Dungeon Session (2602 words, Conjured Blade)
Impunity reaction (1094 words, Strange9)
A headpat for your efforts (759 words, Taka)
Impunity reaction (1927 words, Byzantine)
Headpat reaction & vote (591 words, runeblue360)
Throne and Alter reaction (2360 words, Prospalz)
Moths to the Flame (581 words, Byzantine)
Thunder of Blood reaction (2514 words, Projectile)
Honor Unstained reaction (2023 words, BrainInAJar)
You Cannot Escape Your Fate (784 words, Sharkey_smt)
Evening Sky reaction (1329 words, Prospalz)
Your Next Directive (764 words, Taka)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (741 words, TwistedJester)
A Simple Transaction reaction (2535 words, agumentic)
Impunity reaction (1390 words, Conjured Blade)
Thunder of Blood reaction (1420 words, Byzantine)
Praehihr reaction (490 words, Prospalz)
Impunity reaction (2610 words, Projectile)
Impunity reaction (2231 words, agumentic)
Impunity reaction (926 words, Enohthree)
Your Next Directive analysis & vote (636 words, runeblue360)
Impunity reaction (4024 words, Unelemental)
Genre Shift (1422 words, Fumbles)
All Along the Watchtower vote analysis (486 words, ImperatorV)
The Tide (476 words, Byzantine)
Surgecraft (1165 words, Talace)
Negaverse: Erii Quest (839 words, Genesys)
Lady of the Lake reaction (1540 words, Prospalz)
All Along the Watchtower vote analysis (1221 words, Unelemental)
Fishing is the answer to everything (1195 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1716 words, Prospalz)
Bait (534 words, Sharkey_smt)
Naptime (1306 words, PurposefulZephyr)
Surge samples (1117 words, Unelemental)
Expendability (1100 words, Taka)
All Along the Watchtower vote analysis (1679 words, Projectile)
Bloodwraith thoughts (996 words, Hirorubie)
Accretion interactions speculation (608 words, ImperatorV)
Imaginary Elements (251 words, Box Lunch)
Experience (3160 words, Zfglx)
CRASH COURSE: INTRODUCTION (1050 words, Priest)
Genre Shift vote & analysis (557 words, runeblue360)
GHOST STORIES 2 (933 words, Addio)
Introduction & questions (2198 words, Raydom)
Accursed Implement reaction (2166 words, ImperatorV)
Accursed Implement reaction (2827 words, Projectile)
Thunder of Blood reaction (1208 words, ImperatorV)
Checkup musings (773 words, Hirorubie)
Accursed Implement reaction (1239 words, Conjured Blade)
Just According to Plan (826 words, Redshirt Army)
Elementary School (3617 words, Fumbles)
Erii Quest reaction & vote (726 words, runeblue360)
Travelers, and Caravans (1439 words, Zfglx)
Heart of the Matter reaction (1668 words, Projectile)
Accursed Implement reaction (2457 words, Orm Embar)
Accursed Implement reaction (4213 words, Unelemental)
Accursed Implement reaction (498 words, Genesys)
The Imperial Numerals (633 words, ImperatorV)
Rihaku - The Heart of Magic (706 words, Sara)
QUIRK MECHANICS (7 YEARS OF PRACTICE) (930 words, Priest)
Vertiginous Heights analysis (1104 words, DarkSideBard)
Vertiginous Heights analysis (1163 words, Duquette7)
Vertiginous Heights analysis (1032 words, Unelemental)
Findross & edeldross speculation (461 words, vali)
Inksky arguments (1299 words, DarkSideBard)
Accursed Implement reaction (3473 words, Prospalz)
The Fishing Lesson (3176 words, DarkSideBard)
The Solitary Moon reaction (2056 words, Prospalz)
Aloft to Murder reaction (1140 words, Prospalz)
Accursed Implement reaction (1685 words, formalAI)
All That Glitters (1293 words, Unelemental)
Yet another simple transaction (1800 words, Xalvitor)
Impunity reaction (1258 words, formalAI)
Stay and Train characterization commentary (421 words, Taka)
Farm, then Clear arguments & tactics (1564 words, Talace)
Stay and Train arguments & tactics (833 words, Projectile)
Edeldross training theories (474 words, ScalesLikeCinder)
Expendability reaction & vote (529 words, runeblue360)
Stats with multipliers (466 words, BrainInAJar)
Spreadsheet Overdrive (404 words, Talace)
High Glades vote analysis (1665 words, Zampano)
Yet another simple transaction reaction & vote (511 words, formalAI)
Yet another simple transaction part 2 (1302 words, Xalvitor)
Scarlet Legion vote analysis (617 words, Fumbles)
Ennobling argument (417 words, Raydom)
Vigor/Transfusion/Experimentation argument (496 words, ScalesLikeCinder)
Scarlet Legion vote analysis (1465 words, Zampano)
High Glades reaction (2003 words, Projectile)
Philosopher's Wreath argument (522 words, Sara)
Valor or Discretion (765 words, Taka)
Yet another simple transaction part 2 reaction & vote (1616 words, formalAI)
Lord of the Fish (1061 words, Sharkey_smt)
Scarlet Legion reaction (3650 words, Unelemental)
YAST Pt. 2 vote reaction (1033 words, Xalvitor)
Infiltration & Tyrant interactions speculation (446 words, Garlak)
Negotiating concerns (429 words, Garlak)
Subtle and Quick vote analysis (394 words, vali)
Subtle and Quick recruit analysis (354 words, Orm Embar)
Methodical farming tactics (402 words, Talace)
Subtle and Quick vote analysis (1579 words, Unelemental)
Cutting into the Temple (1289 words, Hirorubie)
Scarlet Legion reaction (1870 words, Projectile)
Subtle and Quick reaction (3150 words, Projectile)
Victoryash (187 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Crash Course: Introduction reaction & vote (778 words, runeblue360)
Subtle and Quick reaction (2592 words, Unelemental)
Valor or Discretion reaction & vote (591 words, runeblue360)
Brief Respite vote analysis (889 words, Fumbles)
Least Curses (682 words, Orm Embar)
Dominion: War argument (570 words, Kurowari)
Negaverse Erii Quest: Part 2 (1212 words, Genesys)
Fleeting Respite vote analysis (2687 words, Unelemental)
Edeldross Adept argument (581 words, Sara)
Not a Man; Not a Hero (1211 words, Taka)
Time and Tides reaction (1870 words, Box Lunch)
Evening Sky reaction (2850 words, Box Lunch)
Argument for Adept/against flashbuying (936 words, Sara)
Fleeting respite option analysis (481 words, Taka)
Learning to Prepare for Enemies with Obvious Abilities (3218 words, Talace)
High Glades reaction (2197 words, Prospalz)
Fleeting Respite reaction (2887 words, Projectile)
Fleeting Respite vote analysis (488 words, formalAI)
A Weighty Transaction (1668 words, Unelemental)
Major build vote analysis (1139 words, ImperatorV)
Gondar & Crimson Flare argument (626 words, Dark Abstraction)
Soteriological Conqueror (371 words, Talace)
Gondar tactics (514 words, Taka)
Silver of Evening argument (1145 words, ImperatorV)
The Self-Defeating Stance (272 words, Xalvitor)
Fleeting Respite reaction (2013 words, Prospalz)
Second Silver of Evening argument (444 words, ImperatorV)
The 360 Blue Runes (411 words, Xalvitor)
Promenade of Glories: II tactics (4951 words, Projectile)
Promenade of Glories: II analysis (936 words, Hirorubie)
Avecarn diplomacy tactics (393 words, Orm Embar)
Subtle and Quick reaction (1953 words, Prospalz)
Promenade of Glories: II vote analysis (393 words, formalAI)
Silver of Evening argument (428 words, runeblue360)
Scarlet Legion reaction (mistitled as Subtle and Quick) (1092 words, Prospalz)
Archetypical Classhood (528 words, TwistedJester)
The Emanations of Age (531 words, TwistedJester)
High Glades reaction (978 words, Conjured Blade)
All The World's A Joke (250 words, Talace)
Sactomancy (172 words, Aabcehmu)
Harlequin (171 words, Shard)
Fumbleborn (220 words, Talace)
Competence (152 words, Shard)
Scarlet Legion reaction (2046 words, Orm Embar)
Accursed Implement reaction (2013 words, Byzantine)
Force of Nature reaction (1755 words, Sharkey_smt)
Force of Nature reaction (1147 words, Simon_Jester)
Force of Nature reaction (2737 words, Projectile)
Force of Nature comments (560 words, Sara)
Onward, For Everyone's Tomorrow (1221 words, Taka)
Promenade of Glories: II reaction (891 words, Sharkey_smt)
Force of Nature reaction (2521 words, Talace)
A Minor Transaction (280 words, Taka)
Sky Above Sky reaction (2033 words, BrainInAJar)
Force of Nature reaction (3353 words, Prospalz)
Fleeting Respite reaction (1189 words, Sharkey_smt)
Scarlet Legion reaction (776 words, Sharkey_smt)
Avecarn tactics (1043 words, ScalesLikeCinder)
All for Nothing (1207 words, Sharkey_smt)
Unelementalism & Valiance (642 words, Orm Embar)
Welcome, Apostle (1270 words, Taka)
Subtle and Quick reaction (1002 words, Sharkey_smt)
A Simple Transaction partial reaction (928 words, Prospalz)
The Trials (754 words, Zfglx)
Flip / A Fist Of One's Own / A Mirror, Darkly (627 words, Talace)
High Glades reaction (1527 words, Byzantine)
The Universe (599 words, Byzantine)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 3 (1116 words, Genesys)
A simple transaction: Part 3 (2298 words, Xalvitor)
Marshal social combat tactics (449 words, Hirorubie)
Force of Nature reaction (2629 words, ImperatorV)
Avecarn tactical flowchart (1350 words, Projectile)
Welcome, Apostle analysis & vote (671 words, runeblue360)
Build planning & budgeting Arete for the future (739 words, Redshirt Army)
Fleeting Respite reaction (1526 words, Orm Embar)
Accursed Implement reaction (2002 words, agumentic)
Age and Treachery reaction (3945 words, Projectile)
Trials Askew (1711 words, Zfglx)
Force of Nature reaction (8271 words, Unelemental)
Scarlet Legion reaction (1536 words, Byzantine)
Inner Edifice (299 words, TwistedJester)
A Simple Transaction reaction (1654 words, Projectile)
Shaping, Origins (1103 words, Zfglx)
A Simple Transaction reaction (1302 words, Sara)
Shardcraft (290 words, Talace)
Argument against Renaissance Woman (527 words, Kurowari)
A Simple Transaction reaction (3868 words, Kurowari)
Vote Update 1 reaction (2293 words, Kurowari)
Fisher King reaction (4281 words, Box Lunch)
Validation Vindication (620 words, Taka)
Sovereigngun (151 words, HoratioVonBecker)
A Wind Full of Knives vote analysis (502 words, formalAI)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (1630 words, Prospalz)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (805 words, formalAI)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (1330 words, Sharkey_smt)
A-DS argument (571 words, Orm Embar)
Shaping, a not so brief guide (1268 words, Zfglx)
Force of Nature reaction (1369 words, formalAI)
Doomed Quest (1686 words, Unelemental)
Shaping, mastery (1367 words, Zfglx)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (1130 words, Mannan)
Star-Forge reaction (1493 words, Fumbles)
Star-Forge analysis (1265 words, Garlak)
Temple civilization speculation (894 words, Garlak)
Nature of Magic reaction (2407 words, Kurowari)
Burdens of Our Authority (1360 words, Taka)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (1977 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (1110 words, formalAI)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (2258 words, Projectile)
A Place That Is Destroyed (490 words, Aabcehmu)
FormalAI (589 words, Xalvitor)
Hunger's Soul Evocation: An Explanation (546 words, vali)
Thoughts on rebellion (575 words, Simon_Jester)
Rank argument redux (418 words, Wolfy)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST (2391 words, Addio)
A Promise Kept (1025 words, Taka)
To Battle's Close reaction (5823 words, Hirorubie)
Genesys (459 words, Xalvitor)
Meet the Tyrants (1780 words, Sharkey_smt)
Thoughts on strategy (668 words, Taka)
Princess's Grace (440 words, Xalvitor)
Scarlet Legion reaction (1498 words, Conjured Blade)
Hero's Ruby (420 words, Xalvitor)
To Battle's Close reaction (7445 words, Kurowari)
GHOST STORIES 2 reaction & vote (1346 words, runeblue360)
To Battle's Close reaction (2554 words, Projectile)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 4 (1435 words, Genesys)
The Provinces, Roused vote analysis (544 words, Fumbles)
The Provinces, Roused vote analysis (992 words, Zampano)
The Provinces, Routes ally analysis (729 words, Taka)
Larissa & the nature of heroism argument(694 words, Sara)
Lances And Marks (1150 words, Taka)
The Provinces, Roused vote analysis (429 words, formalAI)
To Battle's Close reaction (1820 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Provinces, Roused reaction (720 words, Sharkey_smt)
Edeldross analysis (402 words, vali)
Sarandipity & The Vermilion Legion (626 words, Orm Embar)
Yet another simple transaction: Part 4 (2173 words, Xalvitor)
The Apocryphal Garden (1431 words, vali)
The Black End (573 words, Xalvitor)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (1342 words, Byzantine)
Rot In Peace (976 words, Taka)
Scorched Earth tactics (1814 words, Projectile)
AST Part 4 reaction & vote (483 words, formalAI)
Analysis of Projectile's tactics (1335 words, Byzantine)
Ruby vs. the Gaoler Beast (801 words, Aabcehmu)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (5093 words, Unelemental)
Day of Independence reaction (3245 words, Projectile)
Tactics for Sten fight (958 words, Talace)
Sten tactics (383 words, BrainInAJar)
Lesser Remittances reaction (7313 words, Kurowari)
Build thoughts (793 words, Wolfy)
Analysis of parallels between Sten & Hunger (1076 words, Unelemental)
Against All Odds (1454 words, Taka)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (4272 words, Projectile)
Steva thoughts (545 words, Projectile)
Speaking Of Rhetorical Displays (124 words, Box Lunch)
Yet another transaction part 5 (3517 words, Xalvitor)
Subtle and Quick reaction (1694 words, Conjured Blade)
Treachery omake (800 words, Orm Embar)
Fleeting Respite reaction (1252 words, Conjured Blade)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (1452 words, Conjured Blade)
Tactics for Treachery (520 words, Talace)
Force of Nature reaction (1161 words, Conjured Blade)
A Mercenary's Bearing (1321 words, Taka)
Build arguments (537 words, formalAI)
YAST Pt. 5 reaction & vote (609 words, formalAI)
Day of Independence reaction (2927 words, Unelemental)
The Ultimate Price reaction (843 words, formalAI)
The Ultimate Price reaction (2812 words, Projectile)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (1358 words, Conjured Blade)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (3383 words, Orm Embar)
Forefront reaction (2998 words, Zampano)
Arguments for all builds (1005 words, Zampano)
A Spineful of Bravery (679 words, Taka)
Letrizia von Artriez, Hero of the Empire (985 words, Sharkey_smt)
Day of Independence reaction (1107 words, Sharkey_smt)
Beauty And The Beasts (1695 words, Taka)
Ruby's Meal Plan (730 words, Aabcehmu)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue Sequence (370 words, Talace)
To Battle's Close reaction (1366 words, Conjured Blade)
Forefront reaction (1265 words, Projectile)
Shaping, Taboos (1167 words, Zfglx)
In Wake of Silence vote analysis (753 words, Box Lunch)
In Wake of Silence reaction (439 words, noliar)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Names (879 words, Talace)
The Ripper Mage (749 words, Shard)
Something To Protect (1294 words, Taka)
Yet another simple transaction part 6 (3151 words, Xalvitor)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (2892 words, Unelemental)
Shaping, Shapes and Shaping (1460 words, Zfglx)
In Wake of Silence vote analysis (505 words, formalAI)
In Wake of Silence reaction (2601 words, Projectile)
The World Your Oyster vote analysis (427 words, SpectatingRaven)
The World Your Oyster vote analysis (650 words, ImperatorV)
The Ripper Mage: Lost Glories I (473 words, Shard)
The World Your Oyster vote analysis (793 words, formalAI)
YAST Pt. 6 reaction & vote (582 words, formalAI)
The World Your Oyster vote analysis (3318 words, Zampano)
Lunar Coronet vassalization analysis (500 words, Zampano)
Negaverse: Adrift - Names reaction & vote (239 words, formalAI)
Ruby's Gorging (660 words, Aabcehmu)
The Ripper Mage: LG 1 reaction & vote (177 words, formalAI)
Seeds Unthawing (1651 words, Taka)
The Māragagan & Ferry Magic (736 words, Orm Embar)
YAST Pt. 5 reaction & vote (4209 words, UDwarf)
Response to UDwarf's reaction & vote (712 words, Xalvitor)
The Lord of the Rings vote analysis (792 words, ImperatorV)
Gangs of AST (2050 words, Sharkey_smt)
My life as an otome heroine didn't go as expected. (1173 words, Xalvitor)
Retrospective on the Temple and Apocryphal risk assessment (561 words, DarkSideBard)
The Zampano (730 words, Xalvitor)
Lord of the Rings reaction (1150 words, Zampano)
Footsteps Beneath Yellowed Skies (590 words, Taka)
Other groups, locations and notable individuals in the world of AST (1082 words, Sharkey_smt)
A Letter of Appreciation and A Letter of Challenge (635 words, runeblue360)
An Oath To Heroism (3425 words, Taka)
Reply to the honored R. Blue – Official Archivist of AST (502 words, Sharkey_smt)
Sharkey_smt (450 words, Xalvitor)
Negaverse: [A]drift - I Did Say This Would Get Surreal (1105 words, Talace)
The Lord of the Rings vote analysis (537 words, formalAI)
The Lord of the Rings reaction (2127 words, Projectile)
Subtle and Quick reaction (2056 words, Byzantine)
Day of Independence reaction (579 words, Conjure Blade)
LotR tactics (1605 words, Projectile)
LotR vote analysis (935 words, Zampano)
The Ultimate Price reaction (3583 words, Unelemental)
Fleeting Respite reaction (2017 words, Byzantine)
Nine White character sheet (518 words, runeblue360)
Praxis vote analysis (429 words, Duquette7)
Errantry write-in (730 words, Projectile)
The Staircase of a Broken Sun (999 words, Taka)
Threefold Meditations reaction pt. 1 (1808 words, Zampano)
Why You Should Spend On the Praxis (1022 words, runeblue360)
Love in the Fire's Light (1013 words, runeblue360)
Monkey Talk (1127 words, Aabcehmu)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 5 (1312 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 6 (2732 words, Genesys)
A Path Untaken: A Business Trip (1391 words, Taka)
Threefold Meditations vote analysis (1022 words, formalAI)
CRASH COURSE [UPDATE 2] (523 words, Priest)
Accursed Pact chapter 1 (2889 words after subtracting copied Curses & Remittances, ImperatorV)
Threefold Meditations reaction (1649 words, formalAI)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST reaction & vote (2903 words, runeblue360)
Accursed Pact reaction & vote (443 words, Da Boyz)
Accursed Pact reaction & vote (411 words, formalAI)
Cursed Cat (1821 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Threefold Meditations reaction pt. 2 (1357 words, Zampano)
Threefold Meditations reaction (3581 words, Projectile)
Yet another simple transaction part 7 (3059 words, Xalvitor)
Palatial Tyranny (123 words, Aabcehmu)
YAST 6 (First half) beta/response (2975 words, UDwarf)
HEAVENS: DEFIED|EARTH: UNCARING (2331 words, runeblue360)
Aabcehmu's Magic Repository (436 words, Xalvitor)
Threefold Meditations reaction (5571 words, Unelemental)
The Tyrant's Authority (555 words, Xalvitor)
Shaping, Shaping Methodologies (1173 words, Zfglx)
Negaverse: Vanreir Interlude (1100 words, Genesys)
An Even Simpler Transaction (1914 words, formalAI)
Threefold Meditations reaction pt. 3 (1317 words, Zampano)
An Even Simpler Transaction reaction & vote (659 words, runeblue360)
Radiance (754 words, Zfglx)
Threefold Meditations reaction (712 words, TwistedJester)
Threefold Meditations reaction pt. 4 (1163 words, Zampano)
A Simple Transaction CYOA (6164 words, vali)
Forefront reaction (1748 words, Pechum)
Curselike CYOA playthrough (475 words, Projectile)
A Dream of a Transaction (1345 words, zinay)
Response to UDwarf's comments on YAST Pt. 6 (649 words, Xalvitor)
More Curses (336 words, Enohthree)
vali's CYOA build (410 words, vali)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (1720 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Lord of the Rings reaction (1709 words, Prospalz)
Meditations on the Praxis (3037 words, Projectile)
Weighing The Scales (1311 words, Taka)
Austerity CYOA build (806 words, runeblue360)
Forefront reaction (1001 words, Sharkey_smt)
Dwarven Craftsmanship (678 words, Xalvitor)
Quality of Life CYOA build (594 words, HoratioVonBecker)
YAST Pt. 7 reaction & vote (506 words, formalAI)
Various builds (2483 words, UDwarf)
A Simple Transaction reaction (2283 words, Dieb)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (3025 words, Prospalz)
Nocturnal CYOA build (1025 words, Orm Embar)
The Ageless Hour vote analysis & tactics (1942 words, Fumbles)
The Ageless Hour vote analysis (623 words, formalAI)
A Curse, Twice Given (1291 words, Byzantine)
A Curse, Twice Given Part 2 (1050 words, Byzantine)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST: EVEN MORE MAGIC (2147 words, Addio)
A Call for Aid Tactics (2655 words, Projectile)
Wild Intelligence (1164 words, Taka)
The Ultimate Price reaction (1940 words, Sharkey_smt)
Catacombs of AST (1140 words, Sharkey_smt)
Negaverse Quartet (2556 words, Xalvitor)
Saving Private Mizuku speculation (528 words, Garlak)
Hand Held Opportunities + Path addendum (1772 words, Taka)
Mists of Quickening reaction (3563 words, Projectile)
Mizuku tactics (663 words, Unelemental)
Mists of Quickening vote analysis (504 words, formalAI)
Build & Pearlescence commentary (857 words, UDwarf)
A Lonely Flight (592 words, runeblue360)
Pests (468 words, Aabcehmu)
Alternative builds in Hunger's place (885 words, ImperatorV)
A Choice of Import vote analysis (916 words, Talace)
Response to ImperatorV's prompt (1223 words, Conjured Blade)
A Choice of Import vote analysis (600 words, runeblue360)
A Choice of Import vote analysis (2852 words, Unelemental)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue End, Motherfuckers (908 words, Talace)
A Triumphant Roar (1433 words, Taka)
An Even Simpler Transaction part 2 (1585 words, formalAI)
Reverse Allotment argument (702 words, Kurowari)
Apocalypse Now analysis & vote (639 words, Fumbles)
A Theatre Of Heroes (1624 words, Taka)
In Wake of Silence reaction (1850 words, Sharkey_smt)
EFB Isle of pleasure brief overview (992 words, Sharkey_smt)
MIKE ALPHA GOLF INDIA CHARLIE (770 words, Aabcehmu)
A Triumphant Roar & An Even Simpler Transaction Pt. 2 reaction and vote (907 words, Xalvitor)
Crisis of Faith (840 words, Sharkey_smt)
Do It All tactics (482 words, noliar)
Shaping, Ascendant Grand Shapers (1210 words, Zfglx)
Shaping, The Truth Seeker School (1211 words, Zfglx)
Choose your Sacrifices (1287 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Praxis, a Theoretical Approach (502 words, vali)
A Wind Full of Knives reaction (2394 words, Projectile)
Eidolon of the Grand Travail reaction (4003 words, Projectile)
Poll response (987 words, Kurowari)
Pyres For Our Dawn (1219 words, Taka)
Poll response & future build analysis (889 words, Unelemental)
Team Rotbeast tactics (559 words, Projectile)
The Chivalry of Nothing (772 words, runeblue360)
Negaverse: low effort minipost quest (862 words across multiple posts, Talace)
GPT-2 AST test run (680 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Ten GPT-2 AST snippets (7780 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Frontal Assault + Outer Sky tactics (382 words, Talace)
At The Cost of Survival (2316 words, Taka)
Outer Sky tactics + arguments (812 words, Projectile)
Mathemagical vote analysis (772 words, Conjured Blade)
Ambush Rotbeast tactics (1009 words, Projectile)
Arisen Anew reaction (3349 words, Box Lunch)
Fan Curses 2.0 (572 words, ImperatorV)
Nine AST 1 GPT-2 snippets (6840 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Rank maximization & anti-Hold Back argument (600 words, Zampano)
A Farewell to Arms reaction (1349 words, Conjured Blade)
EFB AI shitposting (580 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
EFB AI shitposting 2: Electric Boogaloo (9640 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
GPT-2 build vote (1153 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Rotbeast tactics (546 words, Projectile)
GPT-2 power generation (7200 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Against Shackled Impossibility (1881 words, Taka)
Endless Tides reaction (1980 words, Projectile)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 7 (863 words, Genesys)
Yet another simple transaction part 8 (2714 words, Xalvitor)
Sea of Nullity argument (475 words, Zampano)
A Simple Transaction reaction (1734 words, HeWhoAdds)
Scaling Heights (857 words, Taka)
Most High GPT-2 shitposting (8273 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
In Wake of Silence reaction (3407 words, Pechum)
The Ageless Hour reaction (4472 words, Unelemental)
Mists of Quickening reaction (4667 words, Unelemental)
Eidolon of the Grand Travail reaction (6063 words, Unelemental)
Endless Tides reaction (3337 words, Unelemental)
Apocalypse Now reaction (2000 words, Zampano)
Mists of Quickening reaction (2476 words, Prospalz)
The Ageless Hour reaction (3485 words, Zampano)
Eidolon of the Grand Travail reaction (2040 words, Prospalz)
YAST Pt. 8 reaction & vote (542 words, formalAI)
Endless Tides reaction (1474 words, Hirorubie)
Endless Tides reaction (1000 words, Prospalz)
YAST Pt. 8 vote responses (828 words, Xalvitor)
Kindness Rendered (2658 words, Unelemental)
SWIPE RIGHT FOR REMITTANCE (675 words, Addio)
A Fire Woken reaction (1954 words, Prospalz)
Decay, Cleansed (1738 words, Taka)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST reaction (2157 words, Conjured Blade)
EFB Narrative and Character Analysis and Speculations Part 1 (1713 words, Zfglx)
A Fire Woken reaction (3147 words, Projectile)
Horatio's updated CYOA build (1783 words, HoratioVonBecker)
A Fire Woken vote analysis (493 words, formalAI)
A Fire Woken vote analysis (2939 words, UDwarf)
Heart of the Matter reaction (1852 words, HeWhoAdds)
Trinity speculation (1224 words, Projectile)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1680 words, Prospalz)
A Fire Woken reaction (6930 words, Unelemental)
Thoughts on long-term planning (605 words, ImperatorV)
A Fire Woken reaction pt. 1 (1222 words, Zampano)
Horatio's CYOA build, second update (874 words, HoratioVonBecker)
To Battle's Close reaction (2280 words, Prospalz)
A Fire Woken reaction pt. 2 (1138 words, Zampano)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1134 words, HeWhoAdds)
The Words of the Hills (2333 words, BrainInAJar)
A Fire Woken reaction (3426 words, Hirorubie)
A Bloody History (1355 words, Unelemental)
Synchronization Complete reaction (3167 words, Projectile)
A Simple Transaction reaction (1747 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Yet another simple transaction part 9 (2725 words, Xalvitor)
In Wake of Silence reaction (1746 words, Prospalz)
Forefront reaction (779 words, Prospalz)
Negaverse: Vanreir Interlude Part 2 (564 words, Genesys)
The Halls of Astone (337 words, ImperatorV)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (813 words, Enohthree)
YAST Pt. 9 reaction & vote (814 words, formalAI)
APK argument (501 words, DarkSideBard)
Sovereign Jewel vote analysis (483 words, ImperatorV)
Trinity analysis (3723 words, UDwarf)
Sovereign Jewel vote analysis (749 words, formalAI)
Threefold argument (969 words, Orm Embar)
SJUC analysis (727 words, Byzantine)
Brand-name Genes I (2914 words, Addio, Priest, and Microwave MKII)
Aobaru's Squire Curriculum (2091 words, Projectile)
Quirk: Absolute Body Control (365 words, Priest)
Sovereign Jewel reaction (7241 words, Unelemental)
GPT-2 Bleach Quest shitposting pt. 1 (1850 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
GPT-2 Bleach Quest shitposting pt. 2 (1277 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Illustrious Stage (268 words, PurposefulZephyr)
Dawn and Thereafter analysis & strategies (1345 words, Hirorubie)
Dawn and Thereafter vote analysis (400 words, formalAI)
GPT-2 Jounin Quest shitposting (2175 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
A Simple Transaction: Gabrielos Gaiden (4637 words, Birdsie & his friend Gabriel)
Dawn and Thereafter vote analysis (2273 words, Unelemental)
The Wave (1771 words, vali)
Doom of the Piscine (131 words, Aabcehmu)
Dawn and Thereafter reaction (5522 words, Zampano)
Tactics for the Tower, Contest, and trip to either (3450 words, Projectile)
Realms of Myth vote analysis (737 words, ImperatorV)
Realms of Myth vote analysis (1320 words, Kurowari)
Reform brainstorming & tactics (787 words, Fumbles)
Realms of Myth vote analysis (1613 words, Orm Embar)
Pre-government brainstorming (2048 words, Projectile)
GPT-2 Projectile-posting (772 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
GPT-2 Projectile-posting pt. 2 (5850 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Eidolon of the Grand Travail reaction (2250 words, agumentic)
GPT-2 Zampano zingers (7149 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Realms of Myth reaction (3515 words, Zampano)
The King's Speech (1201 words, Enohthree)
Jewel of Artifice (1006 words, Box Lunch)
Endless Tides reaction (1530 words, agumentic)
King Hunger tactics (1832 words, Enohthree)
Brand-name Genes II (3219 words, Addio, Priest, and Microwave MKII)
Hypothetical no-Arete playstyle (2150 words, Zampano)
BNG II reaction & vote (1152 words, Unelemental)
Hypothetical No-Arete playstyle (676 words, BrainInAJar)
Public Access TV Rant (1105 words, Zampano)
So, Challenges of Democracy! (1234 words, Fumbles)
Magical musings (896 words, Xalvitor)
Magefire (417 words, ImperatorV)
Soul Evocation: The Accountant (338 words, Talace)
Dreambog (585 words, ImperatorV)
On the Crown analysis (3165 words, Unelemental)
Pro-Constitution argument (575 words, BrainInAJar)
Imaginary Element crafting guidelines (982 words, ImperatorV)
Soul Evocation: The Fool (302 words, Xalvitor)
Liberty discussion (1253 words, Zampano)
Constitution of the Elixir Sovereignty (1908 words, Rah13)
Bioalteration & Cometwake (425 words, Talace)
Constitution feedback (801 words, Elero)
Forgestar (286 words, Talace)
On the Crown vote analysis (660 words, SpectatingRaven)
Cannonshadow & Constitution thoughts (385 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Wyrmspite (378 words, Talace)
Shattershock (253 words, Orm Embar)
Shattershock & Voidchain (545 words, Talace)
Brokenpromise (687 words, Duquette7)
Sing of the Ring (223 words, Projectile)
The Platinum Expanse advancement analysis (1173 words, Projectile)
Dawn and Thereafter reaction (4306 words, Unelemental)
The Dissatisfied (2474 words, Zfglx)
Praehihr reaction (1677 words, Box Lunch)
Vertiginous Heights reaction (2909 words, Box Lunch)
Opalescent Tower tactics (1342 words, Projectile)
The Shadow of Nilfel reaction (518 words, vali)
Scenic Route tactics (1012 words, Projectile)
Entrench tactics (500 words, Projectile)
Smoke and Miren vote analysis (794 words, SpectatingRaven)
On the Crown reaction (2724 words, Projectile)
Esoteric Way psychology of learning tactics (2261 words, Conjured Blade)
Smoke and Miren reaction (5224 words, Hirorubie)
Work From Within argument (720 words, BrainInAJar)
Survey response (1090 words, Zampano)
KindGrace (884 words, Xalvitor)
Smoke and Miren reaction (869 words, Conjured Blade)
Smoke and Miren reaction (3200 words, Projectile)
Response to survey responses (1035 words, BrainInAJar)
Martial/Compact tactics (908 words, Projectile)
Independentaction (319 words, Duquette7)
Dulldrums (282 words, Duquette7)
Cloud-Shadow's Key vote analysis (588 words, SpectatingRaven)
Sovereign Jewel reaction (2231 words, Prospalz)
Uttermost Focus (169 words, Xalvitor)
Sorceress Banner comments (645 words, Xalvitor)
Gangs of AST with a pinch of Salt (3328 words, Sharkey_smt)
Bleach Quest GPT (19530 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Jounin Quest GPT (19480 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
AST Noir - The Big Debt Part 1 (980 words, Sharkey_smt)
Cloud-Shadow's Key vote analysis (2200 words, Zampano)
The Shadow of Nilfel reaction (1211 words, Enohthree)
Mindrail & Stormgrace (900 words, ImperatorV)
AST Noir - The Big Debt Part 2 (1518 words, Sharkey_smt)
Sovereign Jewel reaction (3044 words, Projectile)
Cloud-Shadow's Key vote analysis (488 words, formalAI)
Riceappearance (451 words, PurposefulZephyr)
Shaping and its effects on practitioners (1688 words, Zfglx)
Heavycrew (504 words, Projectile)
Mirrorhour (452 words, ImperatorV)
OrthodoxWord (689 words, Xalvitor)
Cloud-Shadow's Key analysis (2690 words, Projectile)
Fisherman by any other name (423 words, Enohthree)
Tactics for the Princess Tower Tumble (671 words, Enohthree)
Random Word Generator Elements (568 words, PurposefulZephyr)
Bearcanvaslegmuffinpresidentshoot (707 words, ImperatorV)
DeclarationTheory & NuclearNo (476 words, Redshirt Army)
Letter to the Editor of AST Times (591 words, formalAI)
Cloud-Shadow's Key vote comments & Praxis pining (784 words, Kurowari)
Attempted positivity (451 words, runeblue360)
Brand-Name Genes III (3446 words, Addio & Priest)
The Contest of Kings reaction (4513 words, Kurowari)
Scarlet Legion reaction (7518 words, Box Lunch)
The Contest of Kings analysis (3567 words, Zampano)
Eidolon of the Grand Travail reaction (3314 words, Orm Embar)
Endless Tides reaction (1642 words, Orm Embar)
On the Crown reaction (1950 words, Orm Embar)
The Platinum Expanse reaction (1452 words, Orm Embar)
The Shadow of Nilfel reaction (2741 words, Orm Embar)
Smoke And Miren reaction (2566 words, Orm Embar)
The Contest of Kings analysis & vote (1566 words, Unelemental)
The Contest of Kings analysis (1450 words, vali)
Response to Unelemental's analysis (860 words, Zampano)
Argument against Tears & for the Tower (748 words, Zampano)
Response to Zampano (758 words, Talace)
Wretched Essay (1542 words, vali)
The Contest of Kings reaction (1411 words, DarkSideBard)
The Big Debt - Part 3 (2260 words, Sharkey_smt)
Firescythe (452 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Gangs of AST addendum (620 words, Sharkey_smt)
Compelled to Battle reaction (3836 words, Zampano)
Morningwave (260 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Contest of Kings reaction (1370 words, Sharkey_smt)
Artful Thorn analysis (780 words, Sharkey_smt)
Yet another simple transaction part 10 (2583 words, Xalvitor)
The Contest of Kings reaction (3632 words, Projectile)
Heart of the Matter reaction (3548 words, Zampano)
The Words of the Hills part 2 (3903 words, BrainInAJar)
Analysis of attitude implications in Contest's vote (1024 words, Zfglx)
Questing World (840 words, Aabcehmu)
TWotH pt. 2 vote analysis (1003 words, Projectile)
Heart Vote 1 reaction (1260 words, Zampano)
Mortalclay (388 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Aberration-slaying speculation (869 words, vali)
Gird for Battle & Contest of Kings reaction (850 words, noliar)
Ring, Tears, and Sky speculation (652 words, Unelemental)
Discord GPT shitposting (4600 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Devildoor (254 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Analysis of Tower in conjunction with other EFBs (1576 words, Zampano)
Tower defense, Rossian deontology vs. consequentialism (1700 words, Zampano)
Reaction to the Entire Fucking Thread (3243 words, Callidus)
Response to Zampano's Tower defense (827 words, Strange9)
Realms of Myth reaction (1283 words, Pechum)
The Contest of Kings reaction (2638 words, Hirorubie)
Contest vote & Decimation analysis (678 words, Xalvitor)
Surge of Surgecrafting ideas (2092 words, Aabcehmu)
Hero preferences (825 words, Callidus)
Who Dares, Wins vote analysis (1432 words, Callidus)
Who Dares, Wins vote analysis (661 words, Duquette7)
AUH argument (483 words, Duquette7)
Who Dares, Wins vote analysis (1983 words, Conjured Blade)
Dawn and Thereafter reaction (2621 words, Prospalz)
Conspiracyworm, Noiseheart, and Burnquota (838 words, Talace)
Starsand (234 words, HoratioVonBecker)
On the Crown reaction (2118 words, Prospalz)
Who Dares, Wins vote analysis & argument (2717 words, Projectile)
EotS argument & vote commentary (3038 words, Zampano)
Gird for Battle reaction (1301 words, runeblue360)
Tower defense & commentary on Cursebearer morality (607 words, BrainInAJar)
Post-EotS planning (2151 words, Projectile)
AUH vs. EotS comparison (1882 words, Conjured Blade)
Who Dares, Wins vote analysis (1075 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Smoke and Miren vote analysis (1030 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Who Dares, Wins analysis (1250 words, Hirorubie)
EFB analysis part 1 (1272 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Gird for Battle reaction (1060 words, Enohthree)
EotS argument (1199 words, Three1415)
Necrochaos & Soulflag (402 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Empyrean Spread vote analysis (662 words, Mannan)
The Empyrean Spread vote analysis (665 words, ImperatorV)
Evening Spread argument & tactics (690 words, Orm Embar)
Indomitable Dominion arguments & planning (1075 words, Zampano)
Issues & Goals (736 words, Conjured Blade)
Anti-Bastion argument (656 words, Zampano)
Astral hunting ideas for Affliction suppression (615 words, Unelemental)
Indomitable Dominion arguments 2: Electric Boogaloo (1000 words, Zampano)
Singularity Shell, Phantomweight, Brand of the Alien, Rocketsurgery, and Surgecrafting notes (1298 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Empyrean Spread reaction (2365 words, Zampano)
The Empyrean Spread reaction (4435 words, Unelemental)
Shaping, Intro to Shaper Street (1656 words, Zfglx)
Rubblethrone (395 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Lion Before Winter reaction (3617 words, Orm Embar)
Tripartite Evening reaction & tactics (3567 words, Projectile)
Argument against Cutting Through & Procrastinating (1600 words, Zampano)
Tripartite Evening vote analysis (1297 words, DarkSideBard)
All-Defeating Stance argument (1677 words, Projectile)
Gird for Battle reaction (3674 words, Projectile)
Adorie tactics & diplomatic considerations (1212 words, Zampano)
Voyaging argument(950 words, Zampano)
The Lion Before Winter reaction (1435 words, Enohthree)
The Words of the Hills Pt. 2 Curse analysis (1550 words, Zampano)
The Lion Before Winter reaction (4853 words, Unelemental)
Agents of the Throne New Intake Memos (2337 words, Enohthree)
TWotH authorial commentary (646 words, BrainInAJar)
Empyrean Sign tactics (1077 words, Enohthree)
Omake enthusiasm (556 words, Zampano)
TWotH setting information (1429 words, BrainInAJar)
The Lion Before Winter reaction (5895 words, Projectile)
Anti-Decimation strategies (1002 words, Unelemental)
Decimation thoughts (787 words, vali)
Priority Two vs. Voyage comparison(1615 words, Zampano)
Anti-Voyaging argument (575 words, Raydom)
The Hungering Veil reaction (4172 words, Projectile)
Casualty comparison (1420 words, Zampano)
Desperately typed Decimation tactics (1976 words, Projectile)
Supplementary Surges (403 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Argument against Stalks (602 words, Raydom)
Armament Fish tactics (1239 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
Pro-Stalks propaganda (638 words, Orm Embar)
Gird For Battle reaction (5156 words, Unelemental)
High-octane fishing tactics (741 words, vali)
Armsmaster, Icarid Invocation, Whispers of Yore (537 words, Box Lunch)
Fleeting Respite reaction (8101 words, Box Lunch)
Armament-Fish speculation(830 words, Zampano)
Comeuppance & Curses Negaverse (859 words, HoratioVonBecker)
C&C reaction and vote (1400 words, Zampano)
Responde to Zampano's reaction (721 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Hour of Reckoning analysis (1030 words, Orm Embar)
Hour of Reckoning reaction (4773 words, Projectile)
More Armament Fish tactics (630 words, Projectile)
Heavenlathe & Stormbone (474 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Shattering Ice vote analysis (2626 words, Zampano)
Gangs of AST1 CYOA Thing (1954 words, ImperatorV)
Exploration of Never Better's mindset (2009 words, Unelemental)
The Shattering Ice reaction (4365 words, Projectile)
Voice of the Tower (5965 words, Orm Embar)
Gilded Revelry, Raiments of Heaven, Elemental Sigils, and Invasive Paradise (1013 words, TwistedJester)
Stats listed by update, accounting for modifiers (1758 words, Conjured Blade)
The Lord of the Rings reaction (775 words, Conjured Blade)
Pursuit to the Utmost reaction (954 words, Conjured Blade)
Shaping, Magic versus Technology (1166 words, Zfglx)
Armament Fish tactics (2596 words, Projectile)
Further Fishing tactics (2624 words, Unelemental)
Tactics going into the fish fight (851 words, Enohthree)
Nine Quest: Time Waits For No One (1819 words, Taka)
Training With Ruby (646 words, Aabcehmu)
Eve of Devastation reaction (1308 words, Enohthree)
Titanomachy reaction (1000 words, vali)
Eve of Devastation reaction (5059 words, Unelemental)
Titanomachy reaction (4154 words, Projectile)
Titanomachy stat & advancement analysis (1361 words, Conjured Blade)
A Simple Transaction reaction (1070 words, vali)
Nine Quest: Jungle Run (833 words, Taka)
Devildoor Me (840 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Fisher King debate commentary (886 words, Sara)
Eve of Devastation (5348 words, Projectile)
Devildoor Me reaction & analysis (1352 words, Projectile)
Titanomachy reaction (5357 words, Unelemental)
Argument against combining Oblique with Vanguard (707 words, Zampano)
Astral negotiation tactics (324 words, Enohthree)
Build Option Analysis & argument for Rescuing Versch (1745 words, Zampano)
Boarding Call (940 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Oblique tactics (1220 words, Projectile)
Vendetta analysis (778 words, vali)
Shelter argument (550 words, Zampano)
Analysis of Shelter in conjunction with Silver & Nightmare Flight (510 words, Zampano)
Vendetta reaction (3575 words, Unelemental)
Azure AU build ideas & followup (1037 words, Zampano)
Ticket Punched (1068 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Argument for Diplomacy (854 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Diplomacy tactics (794 words, Orm Embar)
The Star-Forges of Plerion reaction (8689 words, Box Lunch)
Vendetta reaction (3929 words, Hirorubie)
Akashic Palimpsest (1172 words, Zampano)
The Hungering Veil reaction (1014 words, Conjured Blade)
The Ultimate Price reaction (1443 words, Conjured Blade)
Sea of Nullity speculation & tactics (487 words, noliar)
Microwave Magic & Navidsonism (753 words, Orm Embar)
Ticket Punched vote analysis (1038 words, HoratioVonBecker)
A Simple Transaction reaction (2060 words, Pittauro)
Vote Update 1 reaction (429 words, Pittauro)
Phoenix Rising reaction (3618 words, Hirorubie)
Unknown Devil (1141 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Nature of Magic reaction (470 words, Pittauro)
Argument for Absorb (767 words, HoratioVonBecker)
CYOA Book Supplement & build update (822 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
Lesser Remittances reaction (895 words, Pittauro)
The Truth Manifest reaction (1013 words, vali)
Current considerations (812 words, Wolfy)
The Truth Manifest reaction (3350 words, Hirorubie)
Compelled to Battle reaction (611 words, Pittauro)
Analysis of current goals (661 words, Conjured Blade)
Wings of Horn and Silk (653 words, Aabcehmu)
A Mind Amongst SORDS (2215 words, Sharkey_smt)
Speculation about the Realm of Evening & Ring (522 words, vali)
A Collective Bargain (2700 words, Zampano)
Crimson Devil & character sheet (1132 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
Things to Do Before Leaving the Voyaging Realm (585 words, noliar)
Speculation about the Azure Moon and links between AST I & EFB (523 words, vali)
Deliver Her in Grace (777 words, Enohthree)
Grail Keeper analysis (576 words, Wolfy)
The Truth Manifest reaction (5592 words, Unelemental)
Heart of the Matter reaction (1001 words, Pittauro)
A potential timeline (648 words, vali)
Heart Vote 1 reaction (558 words, Pittauro)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1320 words, Pittauro)
Goals Analysis, take 2 (886 words, Conjured Blade)
Terrascape GPT shitposting supreme (19850 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
The Odyssey GPT-posting (19820 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
TCMM GPT-posting (3900 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Times and Tides reaction (839 words, Pittauro)
Unnamed Quest GPT-posting (16400 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Evening Sky reaction (868 words, Pittauro)
Intensive Research advocacy (725 words, Zampano)
Boss Gate (281 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction (1646 words, Zampano)
Policy Brief: A Mining Union? Selected Evidence from Omake Power Exchange Rates (380 words, Zampano)
An Age of Dreams reaction (4342 words, Unelemental)
Thoughts on Plot and Characterization with Intensive Research +Strain (2875 words, Zampano)
Fisher King reaction (642 words, Pittauro)
Synthesis tactics (667 words, Conjured Blade)
Liberation & Star arguments (800 words, Orm Embar)
Tales Without Number reaction (1540 words, vali)
Tales Without Number vote analysis (2400 words, Zampano)
Praehihr & To Catch a Fish reactions (774 total words, Pittauro)
Tales Without Number vote analysis (2596 words, Unelemental)
Cloak & Well Sorcery speculation (570 words, Conjured Blade)
Analysis of findross and Surges (724 words, Conjured Blade)
Aloft to Murder reaction (632 words, Pittauro)
More tactics for Synthesis (1126 words, Conjured Blade)
Synthesis questions (522 words, Unelemental)
Synthesis strategies pt. 1 (741 words, Zampano)
Synthesis strategies pt. 2 (460 words, Zampano)
Lady of the Lake reaction (1075 words, Pittauro)
Platinum & Noble Materials: An Assessment of Economically Relevant Ritual Components (743 words, Tristepin)
Forced Induction vote analysis (669 words, vali)
A Hero's Panoply reaction (701 words, Pittauro)
Forced Induction vote analysis pt. 1 (582 words, Conjured Blade)
Hypothetical Ordinal choices for our companions (726 words, Orm Embar)
Forced Induction vote analysis pt. 2 (811 words, Conjured Blade)
Enduring and Fleeting reaction (791 words, Pittauro)
Analysis of Cursebearer sponsors (771 words, Kurowari)
Sponsor analysis (2485 words, Zampano)
Age and Treachery reaction (1400 words, Pittauro)
DarkSideBard's AST CYOA (33805 words, DarkSideBard)
Maximum Greed (1650 words, Zampano)
An Early Morning In Empty Vaults (445 words, qwolfs)
Hunter Hunted reaction (1276 words, Pittauro)
Initial Build (544 words, HoratioVonBecker)
CYOA Build and Discussion (2350 words, DarkSideBard)
Qwolfs' Progression Build (727 words, qwolfs)
Wolf Moon reaction (1056 words, Pittauro)
Synthesis posts that received a reaction (516 words, vali)
Potential Advancements Expanded reaction (440 words, Pittauro)
Argument in favor of Catherine's resurrection (593 words, Kurowari)
Hirorubie's DSB CYOA build (856 words, Hirorubie)
DSB CYOA: Anara and the Song of the Stars (1337 words, Zampano)
Fifth Sign analysis (417 words, Wolfy)
Argument for saving Arete with Daylian (415 words, Zampano)
First Light (788 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Welcome to Town (311 words, Aabcehmu)
Haeliel vs. SAVE Vote analysis (1300 words, Zampano)
Cost/Benefit analysis of Haeliel (926 words, Conjured Blade)
Synchronization Complete reaction (701 words, Pittauro)
Sable Shaw Quest OP (Approximately 1100 original words, HeWhoAdds)
Garden Party & Be The Dragon builds (3270 words, DarkSideBard)
The Devouring Wyrm DSB CYOA build (1423 words, Orm Embar)
Dunwall's Daughter (342 words, runeblue360)
Unsuitable, Unworthy, Undeserving (759 words, qwolfs)
Arete Expansions reaction (888 words, Pittauro)
Bellgone One (Ruby Quest) (548 words, Aabcehmu)
CYOA fixes & Jebus build (537 words, DarkSideBard)
Alienation Sorcery (1032 words, Zfglx)
Power of Love: Infernal Charms CYOA build (519 words, beowulf)
Final Destination: The Praxis Build (1052 words, runeblue360)
Petrina's choice of Lesser Remittances (TWotH quest) (1785 words, BrainInAJar)
To Write The Future (361 words, qwolfs)
The OP(?), Self-Mitigator (487 words, Birdsie)
Argument for Catherine's resurrection and the Dooms of Shadow & Dementia (546 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
A Moment's Reprieve reaction (1052 words, Pittauro)
Flow & Corsage interaction commentary & Gamer Purgatory Sable build (900 words, DarkSideBard)
The King's Scepter: Authority (277 words, qwolfs)
A Foolish Transaction (714 words, Shard)
The Knife of No City (1024 words, Orm Embar)
A Foolish Transaction: Powers (533 words, Shard)
+++MESSAGE FROM THE GOD-EMPEROR'S HOLY INQUISITION+++ (5655 words, Birdsie)
Terra Firma & Interregnum Incarnate (1337 words, Orm Embar)
Bovine Lumina (3179 words, Birdsie)
Gangs of AST1 CYOA Thing DLC: Seraph Special (1326 words, ImperatorV)
Indenture Free Progression (887 words, beowulf)
Justice vote analysis (935 words, DarkSideBard)
A Foolish Transaction: Planning (704 words, Shard)
A Far Bastion reaction (960 words, Pittauro)
Thoughts on Haeliel & Wishes (633 words, Unelemental)
Seraph Special DLC build (436 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Solitary Moon reaction (623 words, Pittauro)
Bellgone Two (Ruby Quest) (1055 words, Aabcehmu)
War and Wind reaction (1008 words, Pittauro)
Dedicate Crane of the Winding Circle (DSB CYOA build) (3950 words, Zampano)
Forced Induction reaction (635 words, TooSlow)
Stipulated: Some More Arguments (1978 words, Zampano)
A murder amongst SORDS (3850 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Winnowing Garden reaction (1312 words, Pittauro)
Cutting Through reaction (1130 words, Pittauro)
God's Curses On This Wretched World!! (Konosuba Quest) (6540 words, Birdsie)
Curses on this Wretched World reaction (1592 words, DarkSideBard)
A Foolish Transaction: Power's Perspective (768 words, Shard)
DSB Analysis Reaction (Birdsie, 637 words)
agumentic's CotWW builds (agumentic, 349 words)
Crimson Moon's CotWW build (Crimson Moon, 384 words)
Rihaku CotWW build reaction (Birdsie, 660 words)
Tyrant_Rane's vote and commentary (Tyrant_Rayne, 211 words)
Promenade of Glories reaction (1138 words, Pittauro)
Ah, My Useless Goddess... (Konosuba Quest) (4234 words, Birdsie)
Rihaku AMUG build reaction (891 words, Birdsie)
Ah, My Useless Goddess reaction & vote (1644 words, DarkSideBard)
The Ritual Grounds reaction (2263 words, Pittauro)
Ah, My Useless Goddess reaction & vote (1368 words, Crimson Moon)
Coin and Realm reaction (1267 words, Pittauro)
An Unsuitable Arrival (1112 words, qwolfs)
Red of Sky and Fang reaction (1352 words, Pittauro)
Reincarnation Into This Accursed World!! (Konosuba Quest) (5046 words, Birdsie)
Accursed World thoughts & vote (414 words, Crimson Moon)
Accursed World reaction & vote (1479 words, DarkSideBard)
Blessed Attributes analysis (769 words, DarkSideBard)
Doom of the Debtor & Curse of the Emergent and Oracular Series: 46,656,000 Degree Vision & Curse Series: Vampirism (551 total words, HoratioVonBecker)
Fending Off reaction (1565 words, Pittauro)
Nameless' Crown of Duplicity (353 words, Shard)
Argument against Blessed Luck (1041 words, DarkSideBard)
Set, Start!! (Konosuba Quest) (6615 words, Birdsie)
Plans for Set, Start (462 words, beowulf)
A Simple Transaction, Gabrielos Gaiden, Part 2 (4997 words, Birdsie)
A Foolish Transaction: Shardcraft-Curse Interactions (765 words, Shard)
Secrets of the Sword & Ring (669 words, Birdsie)
Harry Potter-themed Curses (1128 words, Birdsie)
The Furthermost Reaches reaction, part 2 (1711 words, Zampano)
Set, Start reaction & vote (4187 words, DarkSideBard)
Rune Knight Kazuma build (684 words, Crimson Moon)
Reaction: Reaction - The Reactioning (4212 words, Birdsie)
A Simple Transaction: Gabrielos Gaiden, Part 3 (4041 words, Birdsie)
Times and Tides reaction (2035 words, Zampano)
Excel in Truth (Konosuba Quest) (5166 words, Birdsie)
Konosuba's magic, classes available to Kazuma, and The Curse of Morgan Freeman (1109 total words, Birdsie)
Curse of the Humanoid Typhoon (107 words, Zfglx)
Evening Sky reaction (1193 words, Zampano)
'Quick' Omake roundup (516 words, Zampano)
Elder Scrolls-themed Curses (1231 words, Birdsie)
Acausal Reaction Technique (5200 words, DarkSideBard)
Stats for Nerds (Konosuba Quest) (3120 words, Birdsie)
Geas of the Hero & Curse of the Brocktonite (498 words, Orm Embar)
Stats for Nerds analysis & vote (912 words, Crimson Moon)
Super-Counter Reaction Golden Reply no Jutsu! (5100 words, Birdsie)
Shadowcord Shenanigans (1273 words, Fumbles)
Meditations on the Sword reaction (795 words, Pittauro)
A Simple Transaction: Parahuman Elite Edition (2128 words, Birdsie)
Another Candidate (4431 words, Talace)
AC build (389 words, Kurowari)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 1 (1646 words, Genesys)
Forbidden Technique: Boundless Reaction Triad Reincarnation! (4524 words, DarkSideBard)
ULTIMATE EX-CLASS TECHNIQUE! Mangekyou Omakegan: Infinite Fanworkyomi! (1123 words, Birdsie)
Gabrielos Gaiden: Swiftness Wins, Speed Wins, Knife Wins (4031 words, Birdsie)
Gabrielos Gaiden reaction (232 words, Gabriel97)
Parahuman Elite Edition #2: Electric Boogaloo (1032 words, Birdsie)
Scholomance Project (3710 words, Crimson Moon)
Aabcehmu's Self-Insert Cursebearer Negaverse (833 words, Aabcehmu)
Omake roundup, 2nd Edition and Argument in favor of Favor (689 total words, Zampano)
Sequential Confrontation, Shadowcord Battle, and Another Candidate reaction (5600 words, DarkSideBard)
A Split Spool of Spirals (5328 words, Tristepin)
Needs Must (2028 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Swift and Subtle! (1414 words, Tristepin)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 2 (1128 words, Genesys)
A Sense of Wonder (Konosuba Quest) (5038 words, Birdsie)
Evening Sky reaction part 2 (1789 words, Zampano)
AST: Gabrielos Gaiden (4570 words, Birdsie)
Fadeless Spirit (Konosuba Quest) (5010 words, Birdsie)
Speculation about the Diagram, Well Sorcery, and EFB's setting (864 words, vali)
A Simple Reaction (2629 words, DarkSideBard)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 3 (1088 words, Genesys)
Analysis and categorization of magics (1150 words, vali)
A Calculated Infraction (Konosuba Quest) (4005 words, Birdsie)
A Calculated Infraction reaction (1618 words, DarkSideBard)
A Foolish Transaction - Advanced Shardcrafting Techniques (737 words, Shard)
Throne and Alter reaction (739 words, Pittauro)
Throne and Alter - Vote reaction (597 words, Pittauro)
Gabrielos Gaiden X: Glad Bromance (10050 words, Birdsie)
Never-Ending (4350 words, Birdsie)
To War reaction (730 words, vali)
Alternative Armament approaches (453 words, Zampano)
Adorie and Tears speculation (1452 words, Garlak)
Anti-Armament tactics (500 words, runeblue360)
Thoughts on the platinum problem (648 words, Garlak)
Thoughts on Penitent & Triumphal Gleam (610 words, Garlak)
Once and Future reaction (1016 words, Pittauro)
More anti-Armament tactics (558 words, runeblue360)
Inner Business (Konosuba Quest) (2350 words, Birdsie)
Anti-Armament tactics (522 words, Orm Embar)
Pros and cons of fighting Procyon (428 words, Wolfy)
Thoughts on Hold the Line & Inner Business (1687 words, Garlak)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 4 (1204 words, Genesys)
Argument for Hold the Line (745 words, Kurowari)
Chicanery (Gabrielos Gaiden) (5306 words, Birdsie)
Argument again Hold the Line (354 words, vali)
Morality of Holding the Line (456 words, BrainInAJar)
Armament Choices: Character Beats (2200 words, Zampano)
Anti-Armament tactics (722 words, Wolfy)
Consequences of Republic incursion into Nilfel (570 words, Zampano)
Argument for the 6th Sign (882 words, Wolfy)
Honor Unstained (893 words, Pittauro)
Analysis of the relative benefits of Signs vs. Rank (739 words, DarkSideBard)
DSB response (1037 words, Zampano)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 5 (1638 words, Genesys)
Sky Above Sky reaction (1793 words, Pittauro)
Rank Computations for Signs Acceleration (600 words, Zampano)
Aggressive Research and 6th Sign Tactics (1740 words, Three1415)
Comparison of characteristics (1035 words, Zampano)
Heroic Upgrade candidates (558 words, Wolfy)
General tactics (519 words, runeblue360)
Climbing Further In This Accursed World!! (Konosuba Quest) (3511 words, Birdsie)
Possible Procyon fight (760 words, JOEbob)
The Stranger Things (Gabrielos Gaiden) (7954 words, Birdsie)
Valve-themed Curses (2517 words, Birdsie)
Potential advantages against Procyon & Armament weaknesses (1109 total words, GenericName)
Other possible Progression starting abilities (618 words, TwistedJester)
Arisen Again reaction (727 words, Pittauro)
Argument for Follow Through (627 words, Wolfy)
Shroud tactics & Ferveinwerr speculation (1145 total words, Garlak)
Measure the Pleasure (Konosuba Quest) (3350 words, Birdsie)
Plenary weaponization & the Armor of Midnight (626 words, Zampano)
Ghost Master (2235 words, Birdsie)
Measure the Pleasure vote & argments (529 words, Prospalz)
Four Times Aeira was a YA Novel Protagonist (and one time she wasn't) (899 words, Zampano)
Secret diary of Aeira, the secret YA protagonist of AST: (Part 1) (1025 words, Sharkey_smt)
Interpreting Truth (Gabrielos Gaiden) (8130 words, Birdsie)
Secret diary of Aeira, the secret YA protagonist of AST: (Part 2) (1100 words, Sharkey_smt)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 6 (1455 words, Genesys)
The Cardinal Geometer (1282 words, Birdsie)
Secret diary of Aeira, the secret YA protagonist of AST: (Part 3 Finale) (1600 words, Sharkey_smt)
The Second Cardinal (533 words, Shard)
The Third Cardinal (1172 words, JOEbob)
Omake tactics for Procyon (950 words, JOEbob)
Triggerfinger (425 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Tactics using Artful Thorn mechanics (853 words, Zampano)
Argument for Seize the Day (490 words, Wolfy)
Thunder of Blood reaction (1227 words, Pittauro)
Titanhood (Gabrielos Gaiden) (4410 words, Birdsie)
Ally participation brainstorming (555 words, Zampano)
Avant-garde tactics (1036 total words, Garlak)
Veritas Odit Moras (Harry Potter and the Sheath of Excalibur) (2540 words, Birdsie)
Put Down (1494 words, runeblue360)
Woe to the Conquered (848 words, Prospalz)
Impunity reaction (1099 words, Pittauro)
Opposition (Konosuba Quest) (2179 words, Birdsie)
Meanwhile... In The Depths of the Cosmic Plane of Discord (1418 words, Birdsie)
Crushing a Pleb (Konosuba Quest) (3450 words, Birdsie)
Meta-Cardinal (288 words, HoratioVonBecker)
All Along the Watchtower reaction (399 words, Pittauro)
The Fourth Cardinal (1388 words, JOEbob)
You're Finally Awake (1365 words, Birdsie)
Rihakuverse Musical: The Maids of Fray (322 words, Birdsie)
Forward thoughts (1389 words, Garlak)
Condensed blurbs for Glory (610 words, Conjured Blade)
Emerald Blood (Harry Potter and the Sheath of Excalibur) (3540 words, Birdsie)
Forward reaction (3874 words, Orm Embar)
Accursed Implement vote & argument (581 words, Orm Embar)
Armory of Night advocacy (423 words, runeblue360)
AKFAS & Pierce Through commentary (528 words, Kurowari)
Anti-Armory argument (561 words, Resonant)
Goals Check-in (839 words, Conjured Blade)
AST 0 World Record Speedrun any% (1858 words, Birdsie)
EFB (short-lived) World Record Speedrun any%, Glitchless (914 words, JOEbob)
Glory vote analysis (1051 words, vali)
Tales Without Number reaction (1421 words, Conjured Blade)
Armament mitigation theories & Myth and Legend argument (992 total words, Garlak)
Population Nine (623 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Glory vote analysis (499 words, Conjured Blade)
Analysis of Apocryphal actions as they relate to the Glory vote (1813 words, Garlak)
Level reset speculation (623 words, Garlak)
Resident of the Great Basin receives an Accursed offer (3962 words, Conjured Blade)
Harry Potter and the Gift of Modern Weaponry (6683 words, Sharkey_smt)
Forward reaction (1235 words, Conjured Blade)
Unrelenting (Noble Scion) (1537 words, Birdsie)
Decimation math (514 words, Conjured Blade)
Crimson Flare arguments (413 words, Zampano)
Saber arguments (451 words, Kurowari)
KoW arguments (509 words, Resonant)
AST Noir - Vote DEATH or Die Trying (2203 words, Sharkey_smt)
Arete Miner-themed Curses (1420 words, Birdsie)
Accursed Implement reaction (1248 words, Pittauro)
Cost-benefit analysis of Crimson Flare & King of Winter (1202 words, Zampano)
A Meeting With Sisyphus (790 words, qwolfs)
Analysis of initial Curses in relation to the Forebear (884 words, vali)
Budgeting Arete for EFBs(652 words, runeblue360)
Industry in Pillars of Creation (1042 words, Sharkey_smt)
Vertiginous Heights reaction (416 words, Pittauro)
Kingdom Hearts Remittances (1632 words, ilbgar123)
Yu-Gi-Oh Curses & Remittances (1390 words, ilbgar123)
Companion stats (794 words, Conjured Blade)
Awakening (Devil May Cry Quest) (3125 words, Birdsie)
REVENGEANCE (Gabrielos Gaiden) (7280 words, Birdsie)
Nilfellian GPT snippets (12396 words, Sharkey_smt & GPT-2)
Galatea, Human Devil Golem (322 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Potential Pillars builds (705 words, Zampano)
A Wish for Power (1021 words, zinay)
Considering Pillars of Creation (828 words, Wolfy)
The Power of Bearing Curses (760 words, ir_fane)
EFB Tier List (2496 words, Wolfy)
Another Goals Check-in (499 words, Conjured Blade)
The Fifth Cardinal, Flame/Falsity/Festive/Fae (1450 words, JOEbob)
The 6th Cardinal, Angelus/Antithesis/Advance/Abraxas (1808 words, Birdsie)
Fisher King Curse, Leveraged Into Artifice (1575 words, ilbgar123)
The Seventh Cardinal, Magic/Merge/Moss/Muscles (1199 words, JOEbob)
Alternative build proposal (765 words, Zampano)
High Glades reaction (847 words, Pittauro)
Unbounded Horrors and Vampires & Eagles (Gabrielos Gaiden) (7920 total words, Birdsie)
Character & lore-based argument for Plowshares to Swords (708 words, Sara) - Images
-
Without Getting Closer (Priest)
Five Fingers, Made a Fist (Priest)
Protagonist Sketch/Sketchy Protagonist (Microwave MKII)
Molten Hero (Priest)
Hunger drafts (Microwave MKII)
Hangry (Microwave MKII)
I'll Keep Coming (Microwave MKII)
Voidspace Hello Kitty Backpack (Microwave MKII)
The Allrian Affliction in action (Microwave MKII)
Allrian Affliction with music (Microwave MKII & Priest)
Family Fishing Trip (Microwave MKII)
Family Fishing Trip, finished (Microwave MKII)
Make a Contract With Me! (Microwave MKII)
New Threads (Microwave MKII)
Verschlengorge designs (Microwave MKII
More Verschlengorge (Microwave MKII)
Family Dinner (Microwave MKII)
Gisena sketch (Priest)
Hunger: Shadows Die Twice (Microwave MKII)
A Simple Transaction I: Vengeance (Microwave MKII)
Shadow of the Craven Knight (Microwave MKII)
In the Name of the False Moon (Microwave MKII)
Magic: The Nullifying (Microwave MKII)
Lo-fi hip hop beats Letrizia (Microwave MKII)
CALL: Push Select (Addio)
Marshmallow Hell (Microwave MKII)
Evening Gown (Microwave MKII)
Hunger & Gisena attacking the elderly (LordOfMurder)
Angry Birds crossover (LordOfMurder)
King Fish (LordOfMurder)
Superwhateverman (LordOfMurder)
If Only (LordOfMurder)
Buff Gisena (LordOfMurder)
THE FOUR-BEAR (Dark Abstraction)
Gisena Beam (LordOfMurder)
Gisena commission sketches (Microwave MKII)
Domestic Violence (LordOfMurder)
Sword goes BRRR (LordOfMurder)
Uttermost Blade (Priest)
Sir Arm Unrelated (Priest)
Lady Gisena Allria (Microwave MKII, commissioned by Dark Abstraction)
Piskel Panoply (HoratioVonBecker)
Found a Way (Priest)
Evening Sky (Talace)
Hunger's face pixel art (Talace)
Uttermost (Microwave MKII)
Unnatural creature in its natural habitat (Microwave MKII)
I want to fish in peace (Talace)
Cool Guys Cut Explosions in Half (Talace)
UNTIL YOU LIKE IT (Microwave MKII)
Bearic (Microwave MKII)
Resort Town (Microwave MKII)
Water's tolerable (Priest)
I wanna see! (Microwave MKII)
Magesight perks (Priest)
Fuckin' really, Versch? (Microwave MKII)
Cursebearer LVL 200 (Talace)
I'm... sorry (Priest)
HUNGERWATCH (Talace)
Could be worse; could be the Three Wolf Moon Temple (Priest)
Lady Gisena Allria, latest edition (Microwave MKII, commissioned by Dark Abstraction)
AST JRPG (Talace)
Legendary Elixir Spring Carp (Microwave MKII)
"What is a man, Letrizia? A miserable little pile of XP!" (Addio)
A Simple Transaction banner (Redshirt Army)
AST: AtLA Edition (Redshirt Army)
Age and Treachery (Priest)
Today's Menu for the Hunger Family (Microwave MKII)
o o f (Priest)
Don't let it set in! (Priest)
Cut Through (Talace)
Forebear's Blade (Talace)
Cutting Through (Microwave MKII)
Cold, fathomless blue (Talace)
Lightspeed headpats (Microwave MKII)
Look, a fish! (Talace)
Hunger Light Drifter (Talace)
Cut through, even if it's the name of the option (Redshirt Army)
Catherine's last words (Microwave MKII)
THE SHRINE (vali)
The Kaguya (Microwave MKII)
"You ever wonder who that pirate was?" (Talace)
Staring into the sunset (Priest)
When the fish aren't biting (Priest)
Grayscale Hunger (Talace)
Cooking Halo (Microwave MKII)
Grayscale Hunger (adjusted) (Talace)
"If you wish." (Talace)
"At last, the Ring!" (Talace)
Distillation (Priest)
Trainingnap time (Priest)
Trainingnap time (updated) (Priest)
Really gets your blood flowing (Priest)
Inksky (Redshirt Army)
Really gets your blood flowing (adjusted) (Priest)
Quickwater (Redshirt Army)
Edeldross (Redshirt Army)
Lady Fairbright (Talace)
It (Didn't) Have To Be This Way (Microwave MKII)
Forgotten name and voice (Talace)
"I'M A WIZARD, HUNGER!" (Microwave MKII)
Portrait of the Future King (Priest)
To reach the Moon! (Talace)
To reach the Moon (tophat)! (Talace)
Rest, and dream of fish (Microwave MKII)
Dream of fish (Microwave MKII, coloured by Conjured Blade)
MAGIC!!! (Redshirt Army)
Dream of fish (Microwave MKII, coloured by Rotekian)
Lady Gisena Allria, complete (Microwave MKII, commissioned by Dark Abstraction)
ASCII fish (vali)
"Vanreir, I will avenge you." (Talace)
Approval meme template (Microwave MKII)
Verschlengorge's cockpit (Talace)
Hunger sprite (Talace)
Voting for the Fish (Maragas, template by Microwave MKII)
More ASCII fish (vali)
Smol Hunger moving (Talace)
Catherine (Priest)
yeeea boiiiyeee (Microwave MKII)
Aobaru (Talace)
Outer Temple Entrance (Talace)
The Ring, Hunger (Redshirt Army)
The Sword, the Forebear's Blade (Redshirt Army)
Aeira, called Shadowcord (Talace)
The Mantle, the Evening Sky (Redshirt Army)
Hunger as a bouncing slime (Talace)
Big Eaters (Priest)
A Hungry Head (Microwave MKII)
Unlimited Power (LordOfMurder)
Captain Accursed (LordOfMurder)
Four Bear Alignment Chart (PurposefulZephyr)
The Forebear (Talace)
Snail Hunger (Talace)
tea time (Priest)
Chibi Letrizia (Redshirt Army)
Chibi Aeira (Redshirt Army)
Chibi Gisena (Redshirt Army)
eat up (Priest)
Gisena Katsuragi (Priest)
Hunger WIP (Priest)
Groundskeeper Prelairn (Talace)
Prince carry (Microwave MKII)
Daily teasing (Sharkey_smt)
The Middle Temple (Talace)
Cut Through (ft. Forebear) (Talace)
Picturesque Lake (Talace)
Seated Swordsman (Priest)
Aeira (Microwave MKII)
Immortality-Severing Swordfish (Microwave MKII)
Aristeia Fairbright (Talace)
Sunset fishing (Talace)
The Inner Temple (Talace)
Give me the Moon (Talace)
Younger (Talace)
Rihaku (Microwave MKII)
The Tyrant (Priest)
The All-Carrying Stance (Microwave MKII)
A very good boi (Versch WIP) (Microwave MKII)
The Final Showdown (Tyrant vs. Hunger WIP) (Priest)
Cut o'clock (Sharkey_smt, template by Microwave MKII)
Inner Ring & Winter Moon (Talace)
Thus Always Unto Tyrants (updated) (Priest)
Verschlengorge grows (Microwave MKII)
Thus Always Unto Tyrants (final) (Priest)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue Sequence (Talace)
Moments before disaster (Microwave MKII)
Cooking with your giant robot (Microwave MKII)
Gisena's Swimsuit Testing (Priest)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Names (Talace)
Stained Glass (Talace)
Hunger not choosing to cook the fish (Microwave MKII)
Inherit the World sketch (Priest)
Inherit the World commission (Priest & Microwave MKII)
Stained Glass Hunger (Priest)
Sten the Shattered (Addio)
The Elixir Sovereignty (Talace)
Inherit the World commission (updated) (Microwave MKII & Priest)
Negaverse: [A]drift - I Did Say This Would Get Surreal (Talace)
Cold Light (Talace)
Present for the Praehihr (Priest)
I See You (Talace)
Taka's Broken Sun (Talace)
Hunger vs. Groundskeeper Prelairn commission (Microwave MKII)
Vanta's arrival in the Manifest Realm (Priest)
In Her Arms (Microwave MKII)
Just Do It (Microwave MKII)
Hungirl (Priest)
Artful Thorn (Talace)
Shatter the Pane (Talace)
Propaganda brochure number 3453-RW (Sharkey_smt)
Tyrantfish (Talace)
Tyrant, ??/100 Affection (Priest)
Protect Hunger's smile! (Microwave MKII)
Eat that fish! (Maragas, template by Microwave MKII)
Maybe we can... talk this out? (Priest)
Hungirl album (Priest)
Sand, sea, sun, swords, and suffering (Priest)
"Got ya!" (Microwave MKII)
Prof. Versch assigns reading & Letrizia loses at Jenga (Microwave MKII)
"Cursebearer, huh? Must be nice." (Priest)
Promise (Talace)
Gisena NO (Microwave MKII)
Letrizia & Verschlengorge (Priest)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue End, Motherfuckers (Talace)
The Accursed (Priest)
Seram staring at his iMango & R63 Vanta (Priest)
Praxis Runes (Projectile)
Refinement of Quickness (Priest)
The Accursed and/or Sleepy Uly (Microwave MKII)
Manifest Realm photorealism & Hunger's dreams, also posted here (Talace)
Once upon a time (Talace)
Make a contract with me! (Priest)
'Larissa' (Priest)
Hunger Gets Into The EXTREME Fishing Scene (Dark Abstraction)
Hunger vs. Groundskeeper Prelairn commission, updated (Microwave MKII)
Evening at the Kaguya (Talace)
Minipost mirror (Talace)
The Forebear's Blade, limned by liminal blue (runeblue360)
The Refinement of Shitposting (runeblue360)
Cut Through o'clock (Microwave MKII)
Cute Rotbeast (Talace)
You can never go home again (Talace)
A Noble WarcryBeeeyaaatch! (Microwave MKII)
Hunger vs. Rotbeast (Priest)
Companion staring contest (Microwave MKII)
Voyaging News (Sharkey_smt)
Isometric Hunger (Talace)
Second approval meme template (Microwave MKII)
Unlimited Meme Works (Xalvitor, template by Microwave MKII)
An Enemy Stand (?) (Priest)
Metal Gear Party Lineup (Microwave MKII)
New AST Times (Sharkey_smt)
Brown tone resort (Talace)
The Imprisoner, imprisoned (Priest)
GIMP memes (DarkSideBard)
Apocryphal-chan (Redshirt Army)
The Hunger Game WIP (Schmurf)
Belly of the Beast (Microwave MKII)
The Runes of the Royal Praxis (Redshirt Army)
Animated Aobaru (Talace)
Rihaku's profile phoenix (Talace)
Pixelated Alba (Talace)
Unelemental Avatar State (Talace)
Aobaru (Microwave MKII)
Letrizia exerting peer Pressure (Microwave MKII)
vali (Talace)
Rotslime vs. Hungerslime (Talace)
Addio (Talace)
All I need to do... is kill the hero, right? (Priest)
A bit too slow (Priest)
A quack of a better world (Talace)
Brand-name Genes I (Art by Priest & Microwave MKII)
Finished farming (Sharkey_smt)
Jiko's Quirk image (Priest)
Strategically placed Star of Grace (Sharkey_smt, original image by Microwave MKII)
Let us engage in friendship! (Priest)
All Might (?) (Priest)
Hunger's résumé (Projectile)
Do it for Fish (Sharkey_smt, component pictures by Talace & Microwave MKII)
The Tower of Sky (Talace)
Armament-Fish (Talace)
He had a school, once. A city, friends, neighbors... (Talace)
Hunger vs. Groundskeeper Prelairn commission, completed (Microwave MKII, commissioned by LordOfMurder)
Brand-name Genes II (Priest & Microwave MKII)
Streamline & a midnight drive (Talace)
lo-fi hip hop beats to write your constitution to (Microwave MKII)
Gisena pillow (Sharkey_smt, art by Microwave MKII)
Lilea Alabaster (Priest)
What happened to that pirate? (Talace)
Lucent Thorn, crash landed! (Talace)
Live2D Letrizia (Microwave MKII)
Industrial Realm & animated Tower (Talace)
Faceless Hunger (Talace)
It's ALIVE... 2D Letrizia! (Microwave MKII)
Yandere Apocryphal-chan (Priest)
Stained-Glass Hunger (Priest)
Rare images of Younger mid-Isekai (Talace)
The shield that guards the Realms of Myth (Talace)
Procreate shitposting (Microwave MKII)
The Forebear's Catacomb (Talace)
SSR Sorceress Aeira (Microwave MKII)
Elementalist training grounds (Talace)
Sky above Nilfel (Talace)
Leaving the Sovereignty for Opalescent Pastures (Talace)
Younger take two, demonic lancer edition (Talace)
Sorceress Gacha Banner (Microwave MKII)
Fellspite (Talace)
Swordspam (Talace)
Roilweft (Talace)
Aeira's headphones (Talace)
All a dream? (Talace)
New AST Times & Voyaging News (Sharkey_smt)
Network graph of voting choices (Zampano)
Brand-Name Genes III art (Priest)
More GIMP Memes (DarkSideBard)
Summoned Astral Denizen (Aabcehmu)
New AST Times (Sharkey_smt)
Old AST Times (Sharkey_smt)
Voyaging News (Sharkey_smt)
Rihaku's OCSIArcher Aobaru (Microwave MKII)
Perfectly Normal Child (Priest)
Off the coast of Nilfel (Talace)
King and Court Round Table meme (Enohthree)
Break of Storm (Talace)
CAKE (Talace)
Ulyssian/Moon (still say Elyssian's a great ship name) sketches (Microwave MKII)
Horrified Solidarity (Sharkey_smt)
Elyssian sketches with a side of shitposting (Microwave MKII)
Lilea on the Hunt (and also Seram, I suppose) (Microwave MKII)
Voyaging News: Armament Fish Round 2 (Sharkey_smt)
Sow the Wind commission draft (Microwave MKII)
Armament-Fish description diagram (Zampano)
LordKing Hunger (also doodles) (Microwave MKII)
B O B A, aka. bubble tea party (Microwave MKII)
New AST Times (Sharkey_smt)
New AST Times: Special 4Bear Edition (Sharkey_smt)
Metanoia (Conjured Blade)
Moon Presence (Microwave MKII, commissioned by Aabcehmu)
Breaking bread with Versch (Microwave MKII)
His First Salvation (Talace)
The Lord of Stalks (Talace)
Sword in the Stone (Talace)
New AST Times: Cut Through the Truth (Sharkey_smt)
Voyaging News: Juicy Gossip (Sharkey_smt)
Sow the Wind (complete) and Hunger sketches (Microwave MKII, the former commissioned by Orm Embar)
Voyaging News: My Dictator Can't Be This Cute (Sharkey_smt)
New AST Times: I Cannot Believe This Shit (Sharkey_smt)
Enough ruin to destroy the world (Talace)
Gisena vs. Aobaru meme (Sharkey_smt)
Moon Presence with added lighting (Microwave MKII, commissioned by Aabcehmu)
A door overgrown by a trellis of vines (Talace)
Some Strange Sky (Talace)
Procession & Album Cover 2 (Talace)
New AST Times: It's A Trap Edition (Sharkey_smt)
New AST Times: Gisena Edition (Sharkey_smt)
The Renaissance Woman (Microwave MKII)
Stone the Sword (Sharkey_smt)
The Forebear & Vesperikles (Addio)
New AST Times: Impostor Scandal (Sharkey_smt)
Voyaging News: Purple Bitch Edition 1, LP 0 (Sharkey_smt)
TheLordLady Protector, Augustine (Priest)
Princess Adorie Mirellyian (Microwave MKII)
New AST Times: Arete Bonfire Edition (Sharkey_smt)
VoyagingNews: Accursed Offers Waifus (Sharkey_smt)
Gang vs. Gang chart (Sharkey_smt)
The Cursebearer's Association team photo (WIP) (Microwave MKII)
New AST Times: Intense voting and polls (Sharkey_smt)
VoyagingNews: 50 Arete to be spoiled (Sharkey_smt)
The Outer Shadow, Cups + Steeple Remittance, and the Walls of Myth (WIP) (Zampano)
New AST Times: Omake power levels > 9000 (Sharkey_smt)
Lady Crimson, Legionnaire's Blade, and Plerion's Laboratory (Talace)
Voyaging Times: Can we take him down? (Sharkey_smt)
Haeliel & Sharp Line (Talace)
New AST Times: Peace and Favor at last! (Sharkey_smt)
Art of Hunger (JOEbob)
Second Stage Hunger (JOEbob)
Gisena omegalul and Aobaru with Aeira (Birdsie)
New AST Times: Komm Süsser Tod (Sharkey_smt)
New AST Times: Verschlengorge - best boi? (Sharkey_smt)
Studying the Blade (JOEbob)
The Procyon Fight (JOEbob)
Dramatically Staring at the Moon (Talace)
Hunger on the stairs gif (JOEbob)
New AST Times: Five pick fight (Sharkey_smt)
Voyaging News: Fight to the death! (Sharkey_smt)
Nilfellian mines and Sunset on the Surgecrafters (Talace)
A Nameless Tower (Talace)
Hunger creating Edeldross animation (JOEbob)
Please let me know if I've missed anything you think should be listed here. All word counts contain only original words.
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PSA: Signatures
Rihaku
The Internet
Would you like to sell out your signatures for power? Then I've got a simple transaction for you. Within the next few updates I'll introduce the mechanics for advancement, including the two progression resources Experience and Arete. The latter is the equivalent of Beyond Points from Even Further Beyond, at a rate of ~2.2 Arete = 1 Beyond Point.
You may receive .05 Arete per month for advertising this quest in your signature, or .1 Arete per month if you post a lot in threads other than this one. Indicate which type you are applying for when you make your post. We are on the honor system here but it's pretty easy to check posting history. If someone volunteers to aggregate these and keep signature counts updated, I'll double their personal Arete per month from this source.
Fanworks, thread participation (posts, likes, etc) and the like will grant Experience or Arete as well, with a bonus for misc discussions unrelated to the current vote.
You may receive .05 Arete per month for advertising this quest in your signature, or .1 Arete per month if you post a lot in threads other than this one. Indicate which type you are applying for when you make your post. We are on the honor system here but it's pretty easy to check posting history. If someone volunteers to aggregate these and keep signature counts updated, I'll double their personal Arete per month from this source.
Fanworks, thread participation (posts, likes, etc) and the like will grant Experience or Arete as well, with a bonus for misc discussions unrelated to the current vote.
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Character Sheet References by Update
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Current
-
Lord Hunger, King of Winter
500% Health
Conditions
Well Rested
- Duration: 9 hours.
- Effect: Provides a substantial bonus to physical attributes and a minor bonus to mental attributes.
- Duration: <16 days
- Effect. Halts Decimator's Affliction. Reduces Hunger progress by 10%.
Attribute Upgrades
- Strength: 857 +16 (210% value) +[Willpower]
- Constitution: 803 +16 (210% value) +[Willpower]
- Agility: 813 +16 (280% value) +[Willpower]
- Intelligence: 38 (160% value)
- Wisdom: 99 (130% value)
- Wits: 28 +9 (160% value)
- Charisma: 48 +5 (250% value)
- Manipulation: 27 (160% value)
- Willpower: 127 (460% value)
- Protection: 56 (180% value) [+Charisma]
- Luck: 45 (130% value)
- Appearance: 9
Current Stances: All-Defeating, Hero-Defeating (x2), Fault-Defeating
Cursebearer (Progression) - This character has agreed to serve as one of the Cursebearers for the Accursed. The character's nature is that of a Progression-type Cursebearer. Link to the Accursed provides comprehensive protection against mental and spiritual interference above the Allowable Threshold. Protection is rated 100% effective for intrusions of less than NaN strength and valid through NaN transfinite escalations of cardinality originating from continuums of less than NaN dimensions. decoupled from physical processing substrate. Link to the Accursed provides comprehensive protection against hostile physical or metaphysical influence upon the . Protection is rated 100% effective for known intrusion parameters.
The Apocryphal Curse
- First Mitigation: Direct Mitigation - Reduces the difficulty of encounters by roughly 10%.
- Second Mitigation: Grand Nullification - Reduces the difficulty of encounters by a further 10%, stacking linearly.
- Area affected: Unknown
- Life force consumed: 9.375%
- First Mitigation: Huntress' Moon - Impairs all conventional mitigation attempts by 40%, but dramatically increases the number and availability of targets for A Hunger, Sated. Targets will always be at least minimally challenging or in some way exceptional.
- Second Mitigation: Artemisinin - Reduces the median difficulty of Huntress' Moon targets by 20%, increases the variety of Huntress' Moon targets by 40% and increases mitigation duration of a successful Huntress' Moon by 100%.
- Baseline mitigation: acknowledges specific instructions from the Accursed
- Time remaining: 937e27 solar years.
- Tasks accomplished: 0
- First Mitigation: Companions I - Allows the Cursebearer to take one companion with them across Geas worlds.
- Second Mitigation: Companions II - Allows the Cursebearer to take two companions with them across Geas worlds.
I. Accretion - A farmer's boy. A sword of fable. A perilous quest. Death or glory.
- Base Rank: 10
- +1 General Rank
- +1 Military Rank
- +1 Defensive Rank
- +2 Blood Rank
- Mirellyian Rank: 11
- +250% Rank Gain
- x60 Refinement of Battle
The power of Accretion is rarely replicable and never easily defined. Its greatest masters turn the tides of battle simply by taking the field, their presence an inexpressible radiance, sharp light beyond sense or reason, that erodes the existential basis of those who would oppose them. You will find them at the crux of fate, the critical point of inflection; there does that power reach its apex, starshine become a blazing sun, light and fire and fury as to bring the world to its knees.
*A power that is somewhat agnostic to the strength of one's foes. Battle Magic will never deflect a supernova; a master of this art might, though they'd have near equal difficulty deflecting a tank shell.
*Operates on a level beyond physical causality. With few exceptions, does not enhance physical parameters at all.
*With time and many shared tribulations, some of a union's powers may become relatively consistent and explicable. For example, the hero wears a suit of dark grey plate, and nothing may slay him short of annihilating the armor entire.
*Forbidden Art: Abduction. The forceful seizing of another's armament, inconsistent in applicable and terribly risky, as aspects of the prior wielder may impose themselves upon you. The hero stole into the Tyrant's Catacomb and emerged bearing the sword of the Tyrant's progenitor. That blade now lies broken, and with it its wielder.
[As Planned] - Competence bonus to creating and adjusting schemes.
[Crown] - +.25 Astral Rank
[Fierce Vigor] - The terrible might of [the King Fish's] thrashing sinews, fit to part wave from shore. Gain one copy of [Echo of the Forebear], granting +Might and +Agility.
[Feat: Age and Treachery] - Gain +.25 Rank.
[Feat: Apex] - +.2 Astral Rank - Who is King? Who else but he who suffers the Tyrant's Doom?
[Feat: Knife] - Adds .15 Rank, .2 with Uttermost.
[Feat: Reckoner] - Adds .15 Rank, 0.375 after bonuses.
[Feat: Crown] - Unlocks the potential for Feat: Saber and Feat: Orb. You may find an opportunity to acquire this Feat again, but it is rare and dependent on circumstance...
If you survive, no power will be beyond you.
The Accursed had told him that. These three short weeks have felt like a lifetime, filled with harrowing challenge, foes and travails over every horizon. He has never worked so hard or so furiously in his life, even against the world-pervading crush of the Tyrant's presence. But the reward of discipline is power, and power has been attained at last. Power enough, in some ways, even to eclipse the Hero who stood against that Tyrant of yore, all those long months ago... power to triumph where he failed.
Now, child of Earth. How will you use that power?
At last attain the outcome that Hunger died for, what he set out to do before age and treachery taught him what may have been his final lesson, but for the intervention of the Accursed. Gain +.25 Base Rank; +.5 with modifiers. Rank gain may be reduced (with partial Arete refund) if reforms are not successful. This Feat would normally put you into pick debt, but Be the Change covers the difference.
[Feat: Saber] - He who is willing to die by the sword, must also have the skill to live by it. +0.5 Rank.
Feat: Orb - In a rather literal culmination of its namesake, Hunger has acquired the Feat: Orb by destroying Dien's Green Sun Incubator. This has yielded a formidable .3125 Rank after multipliers, completing his second Special Advancement in the form of Trinity!
Trinity II: Breaker of Suns - Fear will keep the other systems in line. Fear of this battle, and of the terrible force at its victor's command. For he who can extinguish the very stars, lamp-lights of the universe, who dares chance his fury and see their own light snuffed out?
*The Advancement of the Saber, which above all else prizes power. An incredibly potent advancement, by far the greatest among these in strength both abstract and temporal. But take care, for he who lives by the sword...
Gain 50 base +s in Strength, Willpower and Wisdom, and upgrade Triumphal Gleam to Conquerer's Nimbus:
II. Soul Evocation: The Imprisoner
[Inherit the World] - The Worldkeeper's power, yielded to the Imprisoner's. Shattered in mind, whole in body, their spirit given over to the grasp of their successor.
Defining Advancement. You may only have three Defining Advancements.
*Acquire the Soul Evocation of the Penitent, whose shadow is a thing of stained glass and light, and whose figure can absorb punishment unending yet burst forth with ceaseless might. Ignore wound penalties; the user's body is held together by its shadow and cannot be slain short of total annihilation.
*The Penitent may call forth his shadow in an expunging tide. Those fallen beneath are physically encased and magically suppressed, though some arts of power vastly greater than that of Soul Evocation as a whole are immune to this effect. Overuse may decrease the user's WITS, WISDOM and finally INT, but would require many years of continuous deployment; penalties imposed are reverted once the shadow is recalled.
*Outrageous destruction and sober atonement are writ into the Penitent's place within the cosmos. Halve the social penalty from, and double the effective forgiveness for, escalating to violence in otherwise inappropriate situations. This is bound into the fabric of reality and is treated as a 'natural' social phenomenon, the expected baseline.
*Combined with high Charisma, the above effect is exceptionally useful for those possessing the Doom of the Tyrant. Mechanically it's represented as halving/doubling; in-universe the difference in actual sentiment can be an order of magnitude or greater. Still, a dangerous power to possess - and not to be used lightly, lest one be tempted to abuse it.
*+50% to the value of Might +s.
*+50% the value of Protection +s.
*+400% Health.
*+20% to the value of future Rank +s; you may train Rank manually.
*+++Mental Contamination. The wielder disdains cowardice, has little patience for torturers, and easily flies into a violent rage against those he considers morally repugnant. Willpower + alternate Mental Contamination to resist.
[Gilded Cage] - Sequestration so exquisite that one never desires to leave. This, too, is imprisonment of a kind.
An Advancement of the Imprisoner Soul Evocation. The character may manifest sub-substructures within the Realm of Evening, wherein the already paradisaical opulence of his domain is magnified ten-thousandfold. This is a holistic augmentation that enhances all attributes of the Realm - from the invigorating essence of the air, to the quality of the victuals, to the direct multiplication of pleasure experienced by the inhabitants - that sums to a ten thousand-times amplification of the fortunate recipient's hedonic and qualitative experiences. Even the meaning attributed to said experiences is amplified.
Those imprisoned within the Gilded Cages will often go to any lengths to extend their stay, actively cooperating with their jailer in order to preserve the objectively happiest experience of their lives. With the already-deific splendor of the Realm elevated by several orders of magnitude... well, who would blame them?
Nor is the Cage an empty tool of mere bribery and indoctrination. The anagathic, restorative and augmentative effects of Realm-crafted cuisine are also multiplied, and their ultimate limits expanded, such that any lucky prisoner can experience a steady improvement in their Physical and Spiritual Attributes during their sentence, if their warden so desires.
The Imprisoner and up to five designees are free to enjoy Gilt amenities without the risk of addiction or alteration of their value structure. ++Mental Stability to such characters. +Might, +Agility, +Willpower, +Luck, +Wisdom for every week spent in a Cage, to maximum of ++++++++++++++++++++ to those Attributes. Those below Rank 10 receive +0.1 Rank as well, up to a maximum of +3.0 Rank. Those beyond the prime of their biological youth cease to age while within, and revert towards that prime at a rate of 25 years per week.
[Fault-Defeating Stance] - Aspect of he who surrendered, and was bound. Who more appropriate to contrive access to such power than the Imprisoner himself?
An Advancement of the Imprisoner Soul Evocation, and Stance of the Forebear's Blade. Requires Archmage. By committing to advance only one of Archmage's numerous domains for one sidereal year, the character experiences a rapid and transcendental improvement in the purview of their chosen focus. Even without taking any actions at all, a character within the Fault-Defeating Stance advances within their focus at a rate one hundred times that of the same character training diligently for every waking moment. Additionally, the character eliminates both external penalties and self-inflicted errors relevant to their utilization of the focus domain. However, they may not advance in the Archmage's other domains for that year, and other skills or abilities beyond its remit are unaffected.
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, and additional training performed by him would only yield its ordinary results: if he employed the Fault-Defeating Stance and further trained Space all day without respite, he would advance at 101x rather than 100x his prior speed. Advancement from non-training sources is unaffected. He cannot make errors in employing the effects of the Space domain (re-roll natural 1s), and is impervious to penalties (poisons, magical or situational debuffs, etc) that would affect his use thereof.
He would be barred from advancing in the other domains of Archmage, and the advancement rate of his remaining capabilities would be unaffected.
Stance Mastery (Req. 25 Wisdom) - If employed in conjunction with the All-Defeating Stance: double the Attribute bonus from that Advancement, and the character may select two foci to experience the full benefits of this stance, instead. He may advance both those domains at the accelerated rate, but is still barred from advancing the remaining domains.
III. Surgecraft: Edeldross
This precursor component of findross embodies redemption, perfection, restoration and the renewal of cycles. It is the liminal gloss between real and ideal, whereby the purposeless matter of the corporeal world becomes the refined substrate of supernal augmentation. Blasts, voids and shields of solidified edeldross convey the principle of 'transference without harm,' allowing the character to re-position allies and scatter enemies with minimal possibility of collateral damage. Kinetic flight is possible through continuous burst releases, but its greatest benefits are found in augmentation. Pure edeldross is semi-corporeal and swiftly fades beneath the withering indifference of the real, but contained within a person's body it holistically augments all elements of the self, supernal excellence beyond the reach of the mundane.
Though mastery is a long and arduous process, precise configurations of Edeldross can be arranged so as to replicate nearly one-tenth of all Sorcerous Graces.
Hunger's Imaginary Element is determined by his relationships. Gisena's art, shaped by Letrizia's language and technique, conferring Catherine's benevolence. +Gisena, +Letrizia, +Catherine (?)
Discounts Total Eclipse by 1 Arete
-Solidified edeldross can be used as a form of damage-preventing energy blast, which, while unable to slay enemies on its own, can be actively spammed due to its negation of harm. Can ablate away to cancel equivalent quantities of Nullity, allowing for easy combat alongside Gisena with a bit of practice. Pacify a city undergoing a zombie apocalypse with a minimum of innocent life lost, scatter both sides in a pitched battle without slaying any of their number, etc.
-Beings within the radius of a release of pure edeldross receive a 20% bonus to all Attributes. The magnitude of this bonus can be improved over time. Take care not to buff your enemies as well. Pure edeldross is considerably more draining to use.
-By working with Gisena's mage-sight, Hunger may slowly over time develop specific Patterns of edeldross that can temporary replicate the effects of various Sorcerous Graces. Perhaps developments even further than this can be achieved in time...
[Edeldross Adept] - Conjunctional [Ring of Power, Evening Sky] Through a surge of genius, Hunger vastly accelerates the growth of his proficiency with Edeldross.
*Substantially improves the effects of Hunger's Edeldross training session, increasing Magnitude to +30% and imparting significant bonuses to control. He can now consistently form barriers, blasts, and basic shapes (spear, sword, boxing glove) from Edeldross.
*Hunger can now maintain close to 100% uptime on basic self Edeldross enhancement.
*Unlocks advanced Edeldross enhancement, a time-limited technique that increases his effective Magnitude by half again.
*Doubles the rate of pseudo-Grace creation in the future. This benefit is unique to the Advancement.
IV. The Classical Form - The hand outstretched. Runes of blue like a sudden parapet, quill-strokes carved into reality's unresisting face. Multitudinous are the manifestations of the Praxis, yet the classical form is most commonly encountered. From its sigils of impossible elegance flow the culmination of all powers and things, for the scope of the Work is without limit, and so too must be its Art.
*A wall of runes is homologous to a succession of strokes, tip of the sword as fitting a tool as the will-sharpened mind.
[Refinement of Quickness] - When this rune is executed, temporarily elevate the practitioner's speed one step along the Infinite Singularity Husk. Duration depends on your skill in the Art, but is comparatively brief. Highly draining.
[Artful Thorn]- When this rune is executed, briefly afterwards the practitioner's attack is guaranteed to cause a truly meaningful wound if it lands, no matter the scale of the enemy or the inapplicability of his weapon. Even a beast the size of a multiverse will be equivalently impaired to a human's losing of an eye or hand. At this level, only works on coherent enemies (can target the Rotbeast, but not "all Rotspawn"). Increasingly draining. [Suborned by Pierce Through]
[Inheritance: Pierce Through] - Hunger may now perform the perfected version of Vanreir's Thrust technique: an unerring and inescapable lunge that pierces all forms of physical defense. Negates target inapplicability: if incorporeal, the thrust will damage their spirit; if physical harm is meaningless, it will strike their very essence. Does not commit Hunger into a continuous attack if it somehow fails. This is tiring to use, drawing from the same pool as Praxis Techniques - but see Oath of Winter above. +++AGI, ++Might.
Integrates and upgrades the Artful Thorn: in exchange for limitations on form, the cost is now linear rather than exponential.
[Twofold Refinement of Battle] - Increase the practitioner's offensive and defensive parameters to 1400% of their previous level; applies if necessary to weapons or vehicles personally operated. Degree of increase can improve without upper bound. Permanent once executed; causes slight Investiture, decreasing your ability to use other draining techniques by a small degree.
[Flight of Falling Stars] - As many stars in the sky, as there are enemies to receive them.
A technique of the Royal Praxis which modifies an existing ability, Praxis-related or no.
For one effect which has a substantial cooldown, resets that cooldown when the wielder encounters a new opponent. At current level of mastery, this technique can be used twice per day for a total of three uses, but this number can be increased with a moderate amount of training. Hunger has attached this to the Deathly Star, which with a 14x multiplier inflicts immense destructive force, though lacking granularity. Now he can use it against three enemies in the same engagement, such as if he's encircled by Armaments!
[Exalted Battle Array] Conjunctional [Forebear's Blade + Seraph's Favor].
Far reminiscence of a technique that was ancient when the dust of stars was still young, repurposed now towards an unforeseen purpose, though no less fierce.
*Panoply slots set to five, or increased by three if already five or greater.
*The Cursebearer may now link with up to five different Armaments, should he bear the requisite Curses. This subsumes the Curses of the Armaments as usual. Why take hostage their Armaments when you could take them entirely?
*Unlocks the Imperial Praxis technique, Closing the Fist (1p, 7 Praxis picks), whereby a group of individuals or artifacts may temporarily fuse to attain exponentially greater power. This technique is exhausting to use, but can be counted on in truly dire exigence to exceed even the Hour of Reckoning in might. Effects such as this are useful for handling the more dangerous Apocryphal activations...
*The endurance cost of persistent Praxis techniques is reduced by four-fifths.
*Upgrades Echo of the Forebear: Now grants ++Might, ++Agility. Applies to existing purchases, though does not stack with other sources of +Progression.
Strengthening your Echoes means future pick-farming sessions will be vastly more productive. Also synergizes heavily with the Refinement of Battle and King of Winter, which you already have. Closing the Fist offers power greater than the Hour of Reckoning and more flexible in activation - so long as you have someone, or something, to fuse with.
An Armament of the Foremost has fallen. The Might of Ages confers additional advantages onto the gained ability:
*Exalted Battle Array now upgrades Echoes of the Forebear to grant +++Might and Agi, rather than ++
*Exalted Battle Array now comes with a limited form of Closing the Fist that can be used by two individuals or artifacts for semi-permanent fusion, reducing total stamina rather than acting as a continuous drain.
*The full form of Closing the Fist is discounted by 50%, should you care to buy it.
[Blade & Favor] - I-Isn't this just tying the Favor around the Blade!? Doesn't appear to do anything except increase Haeliel's mortal-form visitation rate. Of course, that could be considered the most powerful benefit of all...
[Refinement of Purpose]
The stars could yield, the sky could yield, the Walls could yield, the world could yield, but it was not within him to yield.
++++++++++++++++++++Willpower, +300% to the value of all Willpower +s. Praxis endurance now scales directly with Willpower if that would be better for the practitioner.
In Hunger's case, this increases his current Praxis endurance by half again, though note that this techniques with exponentiating costs, such as Artful Thorn, may not yield extra invocations.
[Imperial Refinement] - Attain the Imperial Praxis in the domain of the Sword.
[Seal of Ruin] - A wall of runes descending; destruction focused, become a cage. Conjunctional (The Favored Blade)
By executing a sequence of runes, Hunger may temporarily invert and direct the power of his All-Defeating Stance upon a particular target. Thereafter, all actions the target attempts to take will be directly opposed by the All-Defeating Stance's magnified power of ruin, as if that action were an attack upon Hunger himself. An extremely potent and encompassing anti-exotic technique that can be used to fully counter any opponent incapable of overcoming Hunger's massively amplified power of Ruin. Inexpensive but moderately slow to perform, and does remove the 'Ruin Armor' aspect of the All-Defeating Stance for its duration.
Does not prevent the target from performing basic actions of sustenance, such as breathing, but does oppose the effects of such actions beyond basic sustenance. For example, if the exhaust of a target's breath would propel them away from Hunger's clutches, they would continue to breathe but unmoved.
Unlocks further Sealing-type Praxis Runes, with which Hunger has sufficient affinity to perform unhindered with a Sword. Unusual among Cursebearers.
[Subordination of Quickness] - Mind, body and spirit in singular unison with the rune of Quickness. At your level of practice, only one Subordination may be active at a time. Several seconds of concentration are required to achieve Subordination, after which it persists for two full hours. Highly draining, but no cost to maintain.
Benefit indefinitely from the Refinement of Quickness at half-strength (0.5 ISH) while the Subordination of Quickness is active.
[Attainment of Quickness] - To those for whom speed is king; comes the prerogative of emperors. Req. Subordination of Quickness.
Subordination of Quickness now persists indefinitely until deactivated, and grants the Refinement of Quickness at full strength.
[Refinement of War] - 1 + 7 Praxis picks / 25 Arete, Req. Refinement of Purpose, Refinement of Quickness or Prowess, Refinement of Battle
The caster for an instant embodies the supreme war-making version of themselves, triumph distilled and made incarnate. Extremely draining, for emergency use only. Like a controlled Shattering Blow.
*Apply half the numerical benefits of the Refinement of Battle, and half the ISH elevation of the Refinement of (Quickness/Prowess), to the character's Might, Agility, Wits, Prowess, Luck, Protection, and Wisdom (Combat) for one action or brief sequence of actions. Does not stack with the benefits inherent to the pre-requisites of this Advancement.
-If possessing Attainment of Quickness: Highly Draining, apply 7/10ths the benefits and elevation instead.
-And possessing Attainment of Battle: Duration increased to "one full exchange of blows or the equivalent," apply full benefits and elevation instead.
-And possessing Attainment of Purpose: Unlocks Subordination of War
[Imprisoner's Refinement]
Req. Refinement of Purpose, Seal of Ruin, Inherit the World
Absorbs and re-purposes the Outer Shadow by way of the Praxis to more accurately express the Soul Evocation of its present wielder, the Imprisoner. No longer a stained-glass sprawl, now a tide of intricate blue runes, in movement like calligraphy graven across reality's flesh.
Practitioner may permanently inscribe other techniques of the Praxis into the Imprisoner's Shadow, thereby locking them "into place" within conceptual reality; reinforcing their strength and binding them to the practitioner, at some cost in utility and flexibility. Inscription is permanent save for the intercession of highly potent entities, well beyond any natives to this Geas world. There is no practical limit to the number of inscriptions that can be made, but each beyond the first requires a significant investment of effort and time. Mentally-focused techniques are usually less suitable. The mechanical benefits of Inherit the World are still retained.
Seal of Ruin: Flood of Runes - Cast time and endurance cost removed. Range reduced to the physical reach of the Imprisoner's Shadow, but can now affect any target it touches at 30% strength without reducing Hunger's Ruin Armor. Can still be used to wholly cocoon a target, thereby applying the full effect.
V. Empyreal Signs
First Sign: Nightmare Flight [Evening Sky] - As sudden and total as the onset of night.
Casting time: Fifteen minutes to charge
Duration: Once charged, persists up to 24 hours or until used
Cooldown: Until Next Evening
The caster and up to four additional individuals immediately teleport to any location under the same sky. The location must be familiar to the caster. Can pierce wards created by lesser magics. The Empyreal Signs sit only modestly below the Royal Praxis in potential power, though such is difficult to realize...
Can act as perfect defense against attacks of insufficient range / area or spatial penetration, should the caster react in time. Allows the traversal of far greater distances in the Voyaging Realm than the Noonday version of this sign.
Second Sign: Bastion of Myth [Evening Sky] - Ineluctable and unconquerable as a neutron star; merely to approach is to be bent into his sway. Hostile gravitation finds little purchase against such deeper might.
Casting Time: Instant Upon Acquisition
Duration: Permanent
Synergy: Hero-Defeating Stance - Doubles the effects of Hero-Defeating Stance in all parameters. Hostile Rank greater than the caster's has its respective difference halved, then halved again. Increases Rank by a total of +0.4 (does not stack with Once and Future). Discounts Once and Future by 2 instead of 1. Grants additional commensurate Might, Agility, and Wisdom.
Third Sign: Supreme Enclosure [Evening Sky] - The Luna Conquerer extends his reach, and within his grasp finds clutched a minion or servitor from beyond the arc of the physical.
Casting time: 1 hour
Duration: 1 Lunar month or until dispelled
Cooldown: 1 day after dispellation
Summons an Astral Entity of Rank no greater than the caster's own, minimum 7. The entity is incapable of directly harming the caster but is otherwise free to act, unless binding negotiations are entered into. If so, then both caster and entity will be bound to said conditions by the power of this sign; the summoned entity is by default unaware of this, but sufficiently powerful or capable entities may have means of making themselves aware. Entities can be dispelled by slaying them, or by waiting out the duration of this spell.
The summoned entity will tend to be useful for the caster's current short- and medium-term purposes, but this is not always the case. Their powers, tendencies and skills can vary wildly. Take care that you do not call forth what you cannot put down.
Fourth Sign: Deathly Star [Evening Sky] - 'Such force as to reduce entire worlds to ash, a pantheon-slaying strike of truly foremost malice.'
Casting time: Five heartbeats
Duration: Instant
Cooldown: Until Next Evening
The obverse reflection of Augustine's supreme offense, absorbed and now reflected by the Cloak of Sky. This is an onslaught of sheer destroying force that strikes across every level of the physical and conceptual gradient, targeting Health as well as the target's Attributes, both fundamental and emergent. Virtually no defense short of perfection absolute can shield against all the vectors by which this strikes. Cancel the apocalypse by marshaling power greater still.
Naturally, though imperfectly, scales with the caster's Rank. An attack that will almost never be irrelevant by virtue of its immense destructiveness, stellar precision and comprehensive scale. Theoretically useful even against Armaments in a direct contest.
Fifth Sign: Armor of Midnight [Evening Sky] - The Cloak of Sky is the heavens and all their intervening vastness unfurled, yet that which was the Shroud of Evening has not forgotten the form of its predecessor. He who dons the Armor of Midnight becomes nigh-invincible to harm or ill, for the aegis of his panoply is as vast and unconquerable as the universal void.
Returns now the Evening Sky - not merely of twilight, but of all darkness, king!
Casting time: 10 minutes
Duration: 8 hours
Cooldown: 1 week
Reagents: If below Rank 11, burn .1 Rank, otherwise burn .01 Rank.
The wielder is nigh-invincible. Treat his Protection as effectively infinite for purposes of defending against any form of harm incapable of destroying the entire universe, otherwise treat his Protection as increased by one thousand. Non-damaging hostile conditions and unwanted esoteric conditions have their impact mitigated by three orders of magnitude or by a degree appropriate to the effect if it had attempted to target all interplanetary space within the entire universe, whichever mitigation is greater. This grants effective Stage II mitigation of all Curses while active. Returns the appearance of the Cloak of Sky to that of the Evening Sky while active; the disguise function of Skyveil may not be used for the duration.
[Gird the Champion] - Armor of Midnight can be pre-cast, then summoned at will. Duration does not diminish while the Armor is un-summoned.
VI. High Evocation: The Archmage
Science constrains itself to the realm of the possible; magic, to the impossible. What can be said of he who masters the impossible, save that he defies conceptualization itself?
An aberrant path, not wholly in Hunger's nature or the Forebear's. But when one's opponent is the Foremost master of biological sciences, what better implement to his unmaking than the unconstrained manifestation of wonder itself?
A Soul Evocation of outrageous power and versatility; so disgustingly (some would say, unfairly) potent that it would require Rank sufficient to suborn an infinite multiverse to mandate its forcible awakening in one's self. Subsumes and incorporates Surgecrafting, the Empyreal Signs, and the Domains of the Ring. Their existing benefits continue as individual spells within the Archmage's array.
The character becomes an archmage, possessing a collection of spells of both terrifying might and breadth; if they already possess might in excess of a typical archmage, the sum of their wondrous powers is equal to their total prior might. Thus do they double in force while enormously expanding the esoteric and exotic horizons of their influence.
For Hunger, treat him as effectively possessing a Ring of Power with Chief Dominion in Magic, with sub-domains of Time, Space, Life, Energy, Mind, Matter, Death, Spirit, Law, Chaos, Nature, Artifice, Union, and Essence. However, he no longer benefits from the Rank bonus of Crimson Flare. Discounted for this reason.
Power *** - Grants an archmage's power to the ordinary; doubles the might of the extraordianry
Utility ******* - What the actual fuck.
Potential **** - Immense multi-disciplinary potential within the enormously versatile domain of 'Magic'
Could be said to be ultimate mage option hence offered. Nigh-unconditional versatility with the full power of Hunger's Rank behind it.
[Spark of Prowess] - While suffused with findross, Hunger will gain a broad baseline level of proficiency within all of his domains, substantially increasing the complexity and sophistication of his magical effects. Adds a flat bonus to Hunger's current level of skill regardless of how capable he is, short of true mastery.
[War Across the Stars] - Hunger will focus his initial training on a specific array of domains intended to enable the creation of a truly staggering number of wraith-constructs. Each holding his visage and a small fraction of his overall power, this phantasmal menace will spread throughout Republic space to reclaim territory and effectively proliferate the effects of Supreme Commander. Each phantasmal wraith possesses 10% of Hunger's physical and 50% of his mental and social parameters before Praxis use, and can wield Pressure at his Rank -2 levels, or at the present level of Supreme Commander in their locality. They do not benefit from the Praxis except that they receive 0.1 ISH elevation to speed from the Attainment of Quickness and one-tenth the benefits of the Refinement of Battle (currently x2.1 to their offensive and defensive final parameters).
Similarly muted versions of his other magics exist on each such clone, save for his Soul Evocation; given Might Alone, each should be near to a match for an Armament outside its shroud. Hunger estimates he can maintain roughly ~1 billion of them at a time; with Spark of Prowess, losses will be replenished in short order.
[Imprisoner True]
Sanctum: Within a 3-meter radius of Hunger (immutable to spatial alteration), he receives the following modifiers -
*Invincible - +0.3 ISH to all abilities, -0.5 ISH to enemy abilities, effects below base ISH 3.0 cannot oppose the wielder. A vigintillion point-blank supernovas would be no more troublesome than a breeze.
*Paradox Seal - Triple all Attributes after modifiers, instead septuple all Attributes against Heroes
*Domination - Save by his leave, entities within radius cannot act counter to wielder's desires. Against beings who would resist this ISH 3.5 effect, gain +200 Charisma and +100% to Holy Shit Modifier
*Titled - Enemies suffer -10%, and Hunger gains +10%, multiplicatively to All Attributes per exchange. Applies to all contests. Permanent until target leaves radius. Reduce by 10% multiplicatively the effects of any debuffs upon Hunger per exchange (or per attosecond, outside of contests). Does not appreciably mitigate Curses.
Space: Near-arbitrary warping of space. Essentially anything that an unrestricted mid-multiverse level reality warper can perform using spatial manipulation alone, Hunger can replicate with effort. Wrap the Human Sphere in powerful dimensional shields that displace all incoming attacks; allow for trivial inter-sphere Travel for all planets; cover the entire universe in Flood of Runes.
Law: Laws supernaturally enforced. Perfect construction of laws. Can adjust laws of physics and, to a degree, metaphysics. Can fiat otherwise impossible effects within one's legitimately controlled territory. Can adjust definition of legitimacy. Targets that oppose the wielder's legitimate decrees suffer massive penalties, while those who seek to impose the appropriate legal consequences receive massive bonuses.
Sealing: Can perform all feats described under Seven Seals easily, though stat modifiers are abstracted into Invincible.I. Gisena Allria, the Nullity Sorceress
- Relationship: ++++
Modestly superhuman strength, speed, constitution, appearance, and quickness of thought. Her Sorcerous Graces allow her to nullify, negate, or weaken a very broad range of supernatural effects, or, in theory, aspects of reality. Well-suited to Curse mitigation. Can continue to advance by attaining Coalescences.
[High Sorceress] - Through her examination of Letrizia's research into the nature of Pressure, Astral Rank and the Foremost, Gisena has transformed herself into a High Sorceress, findross integrated indelibly into her spirit so that her Sorcerous state is now the default. Her separate Graces have been merged and expanded into an overarching power of Nullity, though she remains conversant only with a few functions identical to her previous power-set at the current time. Still, the potential for future growth is tremendous, and she's already made a breakthrough in one area:
[Sublime Attainment] - It is said that this Sorceress' only lot is to nullify, but that is false. The powers of the Maiden are but one aspect of her Grace; her supernal perfection is the other. For is it not the province of the Maiden to excel at all things? And who better to embody that legacy than Lady Gisena Allria, genius of her age? Fitting that a genius would so adeptly play to her strengths.
Sharply increases the Attribute bonuses granted to Gisena from Sorcery, increasing Gisena's physical attributes, Wits, and Appearance to levels competitive with Hunger's higher stats.
*Very high initial utility, medium potential
*Makes her existing arsenal much more accurate and improves her powers in social combat
[The Azure Ring]- Destroyed to produce Archmage
[Decimation Lens]- A simple but powerful Artifact that halves the time needed to locate Huntress' Moon targets. Highly relevant to your immediate situation! Offers no combat utility.
[Renaissance Woman] - Not merely a genius of one generation, nor of only one era; here is a greatness of mind and spirit that arises perhaps only once in the lifetime of a species. All-conquering talent that bestrides all fields and masters them beyond compare: only this genuine polymath can be said to embody the complete essence - the true quintessence - of humanity in the Maiden's image. Only so exalted a paragon can glimpse the mortal facings of Heaven's Lathe and depart with mind unshattered.
A singularity of findross births a Sorceress. A meta-singularity of findross, births a Maiden.
*Gisena immediately acquires the Maiden-level Graces: True Perfecting Blade, True Nullity, and True Quintessence.
*Gisena, through observation of the mortal-perceptible components of Hunger's Progression, may replicate the effects of the Lesser Remittance, Retinue, for up to one cardinality of infinite escalation.
*True Perfecting Blade: Massively improves Gisena's STR, AGI, CON, WITS and APP. Her physical parameters are still below Hunger's, however her Wits and Appearance are notably superior to Hunger's own. Parameters will continue to increase over time.
*True Nullity: Gisena applies the effects of Grand Nullification upon all of Hunger's Curses; her nullity strikes with absolute force. This may improve over time.
*True Quintessence: Gisena is treated as if possessing the Total Eclipse Advancement. With time and research she can develop Graces encompassing virtually any archetypically 'magic' effect.
*Her outrageously superhuman Appearance, Charisma and Wits can be classified as a high-grade memetic hazard.
[Mythology Halo] - A Halo-type Advancement.
Gisena Allria gains +300% All Attributes and may merge three of her Graces into a Halo, a ring of patterned light at her back which manifests effects of surpassing scale and eldritch complexity. The exact suite of effects created depends on the Graces employed in the merger.
The Halo is a semi-physical object, purest information imbued with purpose and substance. It is only somewhat more durable than the Sorceress herself. If destroyed, it must be recreated in a process of immense intellectual effort. During its absence the Sorceress will be deprived of its Attribute bonus and lose access to its constituent Graces. The Halo's existence is maintained by the Artifice domain; destruction of the Ring of Artifice would cause it to slowly unravel, with eventual consequences of similar scale.
[Sophont Halo] - Consciousness, in its arising, immanetizes the relevance of its bearer, at the cost of consigning all else to consequence and casualty.
Evoker's Panoply, True Nullity, True Perfecting Blade. Draws in all available findross within the character's vicinity to dramatically increase the power of her Graces; treat the character as possessing one greater level of [Sealing Protocol] mastery than she has, even if her mastery is maximized. Increases the Attribute bonus of Mythology Halo to +375%, but the massively overloaded superstructure of the semi-corporeal Halo structure renders it somewhat less durable. Denies Grace and findross usage to any others in the character's vicinity.
II. Duchess Letrizia von Artriez, pilot of the Devouring Armament, Verschlengorge
- Relationship: +++++
[Sharpbright] - The sharp bright sword of will that brings mere physical law to heel! A focused form of Pressure itself that allows Letrizia to improve her effective Rank in situations where being "sharp" or "bright" would be relevant. Both literal and metaphorical interpretations fall within its remit. With sufficient control, Letrizia can even permanently increase her actual Rank by such means, though this is a slow and arduously difficult process...
*Doesn't work if she tries to buff other people, though she can still fight on the same side as other units with Rank
*Reaching the apex of Low Rank is trivial, reaching the apex of Middle Rank extremely difficult, and anything involving High Ranks involves legendary levels of mastery
*Allows her to advance her research into the nature of Pressure and Astral Rank!
III. Aeira, Wielder of the Imaginary Element Shadowcord
- Relationship: +++++++
This soft-spoken girl is diligent and quietly professional. Her power makes her an unparalleled assassin and duelist among Elementalists, and she cares primarily for money. With her family's blessing, she has decided to strike out into the Voyaging Realm upon her age of majority, seeking fame and (mostly) fortune. She would be a competent sparring partner (with handicaps) and valuable ally, capable of cloaking the entire party (even Verschlengorge) in attention-deflecting darkness, and performing various feats of aural magic with her synesthesial Element. [Mercenary; costs 7 currency / month to hire]
[Combat] - The assassin. This involves not only direct martial expertise but all aspects of the killing arts, including a poisoner's expertise and the logistical peculiarities of infiltration and murder. With this specialty, her control over the raw physical component of her Element improves to the point where it's safe and relevant for her to contribute in combat as an ambush / buffing asset. Also improves her rate of growth overall, making it feasible for Aeira to keep up with Hunger if properly supported and invested in. Grants effective +Progression (Combat), +++Element Control, +++Agility, ++Might.
Bonus: Antitoxin - Aeira's comprehensive understanding of Voyaging Realm-native plant life allows her to produce the cure to Hunger's damaged liver. Healing is slow, but even a first-stage treatment reduces all penalities (and amplified damage) by half.
[Greater Shadowcord] - As if responding to its caster's will, the Element re-purposes itself to better suit her desires. Slightly weakens the power and intensity of shadow cloaks placed on others, but massively increases the ductility, range, tensile strength, and overall durability of the Shadowcord Element itself, and dramatically improves the degree of Agility and Stealth enhancements granted to the caster.
[Superior Shadowcord] - Cloaks of shadow placed on self or others now grant two discrete Stealth bonuses: a flat bonus proportional to the caster's power, and a percentage bonus proportional to the target's overall power. Massively increases Shadow-cloak utility for purposes of Stealth, though still not to the degree of a dedicated Stealth specialist of equivalent power to the target, assuming the target is as powerful as Hunger.
[Advanced Technique: Shadow Puppetry] - Twined strings of shadow can now manipulate the caster's body directly, acting as nerve and muscle-fiber rolled into one. Allows Aeira to reduce the effects of wound penalties on herself by 75%. She may now apply Shadowcord's bonus to her Strength and Protection, and her burst Stealth (for purposes of assassination or quick thievery rather than, say, surveillance or prolonged skulking) is substantially improved.
[Complete Technique - Shadow Mastery]
Hunger and Gisena will actively help cultivate Aeira's developing talent, spending a considerable amount of time and effort on training in days to come. Grants all the above techniques and evolutions, including any synergies or interactions inherent to the set, then further increases all bonuses by an additional 100%. For example, Greater Shadowcord increases the magnitude of her AGI bonus by a great deal, while Shadow Puppetry applies that bonus to Strength and Protection as well, and then all three bonuses are doubled. She gains both enhanced Stealth, and further enhanced burst Stealth for exceptionally effective assassination technique!
*Aeira becomes a vastly more capable support magus and individual combatant, in both open warfare and operations-based conflict
*Unlocks True Shadowcord.
*Unlocks Threnody Sorceress.
*She can do it all!
*Aeira will be happy. ++Aeira Loyalty, +Aeira Potential (Elite -> High Elite). Aobaru will be inspired by her and their rivalry will escalate in earnest, increasing his own power and skill in response! +Aobaru Power.
IV. Chen Aobaru, Wielder of the Imaginary Element Vigorflame
- Relationship: ++
[True Vigorflame] - Vigorflame is treated as a 25-Arete Element. Grants +70% to Physical Attributes and scales upward without limit. Can eventually elevate targets by fractional amounts along the Infinite Singularity Husk. Can be safely imbued into targets for extended durations (up to one day). Causes targeted substances to explode if overloaded. This can't be resisted and works on substances with conceptual or abstract parameters, though training and practice are required to utilize this effectively.
[A Blazing Sun] - It is not Rank that serves as measure of greatness; it is greatness itself which produces Rank. Born of the Voyaging Realm, invigorated of its waters, and set to his purpose by the Foremost themselves; is it any wonder that the Chosen One would be as a nexus in the Astral, a singularity by which the course of fate itself is bent?
Elevates Aobaru to Rank 6. Increases his rate of future Rank gain.
[A Burning Spirit] - The elemental surges command power beyond limit, but lack fluency of command. Not so for this Elementalist, whose gift and diligence are sufficient to attain microscopic control of both Vigor and Flame, seeing clear through to the truth beyond concept or Element, the Ideal itself made manifest at his will.
Grants surpassing control of Vigorflame, able to perform an extraordinary variety of feats beyond other Elementalists, elevating his personal buffs to levels capable of rivaling Hunger's own Attributes.
Vigorflame now grants +.1 ISH to Strength, Constitution and Dexterity, with further improvements according to future development.
++++++++++Aobaru Willpower, ++Aobaru Wisdom, ++Aobaru Intelligence, ++Aobaru Wits
[An Awesome Power] - The strength of the Elements is their raw incontestable might, and of all peoples is this talent greatest in the Chosen One. Strength enough to matter, no mere sea of flames but a universe pouring forth, primordial Fire in a tide without surcease.
Massively increases the amount and density of Vigorflame Aobaru can summon, while retaining the level of control demonstrated in this most recent episode.
Aobaru somewhat relevant against enemies capable of annoying Hunger. An enormous increase to the party's overall strength.
[A Chosen Purpose] - Power is not granted to one who was chosen. Rather, one is chosen, who is most suitable to the task. Out of all the countless trillions residing within its expanse, one was deemed capable of restoring the Realm to glory.
Grants the benefit of all options above, and massively increases their effects. For example, A Burning Spirit now grants +.3 ISH to physical Attributes.
Aobaru now capable of rivaling Hunger himself on the battlefield, and stronger in certain matchups.
A small but manageable number of Apocryphal procs will now target Aobaru instead. Barring catastrophically bad rolls, he will take care of them himself. ++Aobaru Progression.
[Legendary] - The burning star which heralds the end of eons; the supernova eruption of power which emerges at world's close. Select one strain of magic no more potent than Accretion. At the cost of emotional instability, the target's immediate ability and ultimate potential within the context of that magic are elevated by one stage along the Infinite Singularity Husk.
V. Adorie Mirellyian, Queen of Nilfel
- Relationship: +++++++
Current Advancements
Trueheart Phial. Doubles the Attribute and Rank bonuses provided by the Tears of Winter. Guarantees Adorie as a companion if desired (starts with +++++Adorie). Adorie's bloodline allows her to absorb and resist existential diminishment; empowered by the active Tears of Winter, she reduces your Praxis Exertion to 1/4th its previous level.
Oath of Winter - To Might alone, it is given, to decide who shall rule.
Sets Adorie's Rank to 10. Grants Adorie ++++++++++All Stats.
The powers of Winter are preservation and destruction, and its purpose is Might. Let the glories that once bestrode this Realm, arise again.
Preservation: Considerable in-setting effects, unlocks a multitude of options. In battle, may negate the effects of any Condition less severe than a Lesser Shattering Blow upon herself or allies. Octuples Hunger's Praxis endurance while in her presence.
Destruction: Those who oppose House Mirellyian are cast into the cold and storm. Her opponents in any endeavor suffer a 0.5 penalty to Astral Rank. This applies to any working against her interests and objectives, even if not fighting her directly.
Might: The Mirellyian may designate one champion to share the Rank and All Stats bonuses conferred by the Oath of Winter. This would not affect Hunger's Combat or Blood Ranks at all, as those already exceed 10 with Feat: Saber, but would improve his general and casting Ranks substantially.
Synergies:
*Alongside Renaissance Woman, may unlock Status: Foremost Maker for Adorie and Gisena given sufficient time and research. Among other things, this would prevent Armaments from directly attacking them.
*Alongside Feat: Saber, unlocks Inheritance: Pierce Through.
*Alongside the Empyreal Signs, further accelerates Sign development
VI. The Seraph of Heroism, Haeliel
Type: Progression
Primary Remittance: The Regalia
Curses: The Geas of Indenture [Complete Mitigation], The Affliction of Slumber [Mitigation Stage VII], The Doom of the Martyr [Mitigation Stage VII], The Doom of Ineptitude [Mitigation Stage VII], The Apocryphal Curse [Mitigation Stage VII]
"Bane of Heroes! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"
The Seraph of Heroism, the Vitalizing Flame, the Ever-Bright Sword, the Aspirant Ideal, All Creation's Oriflamme.
In time before reckoning she was maiden and magus; mastering the Ordinal Spiral, she achieved the Twenty-Sixth and final Ordinal. As Cursebearer she acquired the power [To Shatter Heaven], permitting her to retain Ordinal Purity through countless epochs of successive ascension. Now her Golden Path rings endlessly with Attainments beyond number, power beyond the furthermost reaches of mortal comprehension, exceeding the Spiral itself as the Heavens exceed the Earth.
Clumsy, vivacious, free-spirited and compassionate, Haeliel typically adopts her Herald appearance of a six-winged angel with hair the color of flame. It goes without saying that the transcendent glory of even this highly-circumscribed visage would instantly shatter ordinary minds. The Doom of Ineptitude makes it difficult for her to wield her powers with finesse; even now she still accidentally kills a few of the more fragile heroes she watches over (typically via traffic accident or falling piano), reincarnating them in more glorious worlds to compensate.
As a Seraph, Haeliel more-or-less embodies the classical virtues of temperance, chastity, diligence, charity, patience, humility and kindness. She is entirely capable of tolerating and working around Hunger's Doom of Tyranny; there is no chance she will intentionally kill him for mouthing off.
[High Cursebearer]: In this reality there are horrors beyond measure; realms cold and cruel devoid of purpose or hope, gods mad and ravening whose depredations stretch eons.
But also, there is good.
Where alights Haeliel, comes hope to even the dimmest corners of creation. For to stand against her Chosen, is to meet the fate of every untimely oppressor who has faced a plucky hero with more courage than sense. Tremble, O gods of gods. For the visitation of justice is nigh, and she carries a sword of flame.
Haeliel is a High Cursebearer, very nearly omnipotent in every facet of endeavor. She is perhaps the most powerful Ordinalist alive, certainly mightiest among those that would classically be described as "good." In her remit is power beyond logic, circumstance, sanity or reason; Heroism itself, which bursts through all limits and casts down all ills, virtue so bright as to outshine the infinite dark.
No enemy you encounter short of the Hidden Ones themselves will be capable of so much as inconveniencing her. However, she does not have an enormous amount of leeway to spare in directly aiding Hunger.
[The Seraph's Guidance] - Allows Haeliel to open up her Advice Corner from time to time. You should pick this one.
[The Seraph's Favor] - How forward. Haeliel will give Hunger her handkerchief, an oriflamme to be worn wrapped around his right arm or the Forebear's Blade. Takes up a Panoply slot, but does not provide Advancements on its own.
Grants +Heroic Progression: Hunger will always benefit from the next stage of [Once and Future], currently [Once and Future] II, without fulfilling the requirements or taking the Mental Contamination from that stage.
Enhances Holy Shit: Some entities will recognize Haeliel's favor and thus refrain from meddling with the bearer. Especially likely to deter foes that might otherwise be unassailably potent. This will sometimes (~5%) foil the plans of the Apocryphal Curse.
VII. Novakhron, the Apocryphal Armament
- Relationship: +
[Dog of War] - Better to be a dog in times of peace, than a man in times of war; but if one must be a dog in times of war, then let one become the most terrible hound ever loosed upon the world. A Crowning Curse imparts peril beyond measure, and the Armament that bears it shall be forged with the strength necessary to overcome those perils. Raw unmitigated might shall be the Armament's province, the power to withstand the end of eons and emerge unscathed and harder still.
*Special: The Armament possesses no Ultimate, but is incredibly powerful at all times, even stronger than Fervenweirr in the throes of its own Ultimate. While most Armaments possess Rank 10 and Attributes in the 800-950 +s range, the Apocryphal Armament possess Rank 11 and Attributes in the 2000-2500 +s range.
*This is further multiplied by the Refinement of Battle, of course.
[Emerald] - The iconic color of the Curse itself. Vibrant green like fields untilled on the precipice of war.
Primary Attribute: Charisma
Preferred Engagement Range: Diplomatic / Long-Range
Dealthy Star mounted as a single high-powered cannon replacing the right arm
[Novakhron] - A name with a cadence like Procyon (Nova-CRON). Straightforward and vigorous. Emerald, White and Royal Gold, with themes of royalty, glory and sheer might. Modest synergy with effects like Fisher King, Sword in the Stone and the like.I. The Forebear's Blade
Tenfold strength and speed, and the resilience to withstand such exertions
Infuses all attacks made by the bearer with the power of Ruin
The power of Ruin ravages and destroys without leaving trace, penetrating - at least partially - almost all defenses
Grows steadily in power and refinement alongside its wielder (abstracted as an extra Experience multiplier)
[Thick as Thieves] II - The Forebear's cunning and force of personality. Highly likely to cause mental contamination. [+Intelligence, +Charisma, +Heartlessness]
[Echo of the Forebear] CCXXXXVII - Cloud-shadow of the Forebear's might. Legendary strength and speed, and the resilience to exert them.[+Might, +Agility][+++Might, +++Agility] due to Exalted Battle Array
[Undying Echo] - The Forebear could withstand unbelievable punishment, only to rise again. [+++Constitution]
[Fell-Handed Stroke] - A devastating blow of unutterable magnificence from which no recovery is possible. A powerful, but draining strike that inflicts cursed wounds from which spirit and will leak as freely as blood. Resists healing.
[Second Stage] - Those who believed the Forebear felled were in for an unpleasant surprise. Upon reaching 0% health, instead of dying manifest as your Second Stage, a being of wraithflesh and shadow that pierces the curtain of the real. If your Second Stage is not slain, revert to your ordinary human form, fully healed, after a night has passed. Second Stage has [-Strength, +Agility], weakness to certain uncommon types of damage, and minor phasing abilities. Your Artifacts phase with you.
Pre-requisite for Form of Rage. Pre-requisite for Final Form. Second Stage prevents most forms of overflow damage.
[Form of Rage] - When flesh and spirit both have abraded away, what remains of a man?[Suborned by Uttermost]
His essence at last stands bare and alone, free of the armor that presumes to shelter the world from its glory. A silhouette, bare outline of a figure, through which pale light pours forth without end.
If the form of flesh and the form of spirit are both felled, and if he should still be compelled to fight on, then he may assume the form of Rage, which is pure light and thunder, heft and raw Pressure, the forces of the world arrayed as a fist to strike down his enemies.
The form of Rage can only be entered if one has a compelling reason to fight on, else one dies instead. While in this Form, triple all Attributes for purposes of battle and increase Astral Rank by a significant* amount. The wielder moves like living lightning: the wake of his blows is the crush of thunder, the blaze of his eyes like furious stars, his merest regard like a mountain onrushing.
Use of this Form is taxing in the extreme. Should the wielder avoid annihilation, after the battle concludes he emerges, human once more and fully healed, but diminished as well. Choose one Advancement to revoke or lose 1 point of Arete after re-emergence, and become Tired, or Exhausted if already Tired.
*+1 if Low-Ranked, +0.5 if Mid-Ranked, and +0.25 if High-Ranked
Pre-requisite for Final Form.
[A Thousand Cuts][Upgraded to Cut Through]- In the Forebear's grip could even a common knife blaze with fell power. All melee attacks made with the Forebear's Blade now apply cursed wounds. Septuples the power and speed of the Fell-Handed Stroke and allows it to be used with blade projections. Such horrific offensive power allows one to challenge foes vastly stronger.
[Fall of Night] - The stroke of his blade is the fall of night, to every foe the sun of hope extinguished
Conjunctional Advancement with the Evening Sky. ++Strength, +Agility. Blade projections of all kinds deal one-third more damage with a one-tenth chance to inflict critical damage, tripling the harm done and applying half again the power of ruin. Control and manipulation of blade winds becomes far less taxing. The surcharge in power for stronger blade-winds is substantially reduced.
The wielder becomes capable of manipulating the properties of his falls; falls whose nature is languid but whose movement is swift, gentle falls that strike with magnified weight and heft, falls from great distance that do no harm, and so on.
[Uttermost] - Focus beyond absolute focus. To cut what cannot be cut. To pierce what cannot be pierced. To go further and even further beyond in the unrelenting pursuit of perfection. To exert every iota of self, turn every faculty of purpose, bind every testament of will towards a single, unswerving ideal: that is what it means to do one's uttermost. There are no compromises for he who walks the path of the blade.
Do, even if it cannot be done.
Defining Advancement. You may only have three Defining Advancements.
Cannot mitigate the Doom of the Tyrant beyond its original state
Expends and sacrifices the Form of Rage
Increase by 30% the value of all Rank +s
Reduce by 30% to the value of Luck, Protection, Wisdom and Charisma +s
+++++++Willpower, ++All Other Stats
First Blade: Restores the Forebear's Blade. Apply the effects of the Fell-Handed Stroke, including modifiers, to all basic attacks with no surcharge. You may upgrade [A Thousand Cuts] to [Cut Through] for the difference in their Arete costs.
[Cut Through] - Add the character's Willpower to his effective Might and Agility. Elevate the character's sword techniques by one step along the Infinite Singularity Husk.
The character may develop a set of techniques that are equivalent to those of the Sword Praxis, that sliver of the Royal Praxis focused on techniques of the blade. If a Cursebearer, the character may eventually develop techniques equivalent to the Imperial Sword Praxis instead. Naturally, almost any conceivable effect can eventually be realized even through the medium of swordplay, if one's canvas is the Imperial Praxis itself, though the strengths and weaknesses of the Praxis continue to apply.
[Ruinous Valor] - Where he advanced, so did the tide of entire wars, the shock of his blade like a hurled epicenter, the trail of his passage but wasteland and rubble.
[+++++Strength]
Power of Ruin now scales upwards depending on your Strength.
Zweihander - Regrow your left arm. Your barehanded strikes now carry the full destructive power of the Forebear's Blade. Unlocks Martial Stances: Forebear's Blade
[Guile-Defeating Stance][Consumed by All-Defeating Stance] - A martial stance of the Forebear. Where comes the craven, who by shadowy pacts, scheming and circumstance seeks to undermine the wielder's unquestionable authority, they will find that age and treachery have already usurped that domain, and were lying in wait all the while. There can be no power behind the throne but he that sits the throne itself, if that sovereign is wise enough to adopt this stance of the Forebear. A pre-requisite for All-Defeating Stance.
++Wits, ++Wisdom, ++Charisma.
+2 Rank, ++++++++Manipulation for purposes of detecting, subverting, and overcoming hidden schemes, illusions, and deceptions. Apply the Power of Ruin against such efforts if hostile to the wielder. Be it a rapier feint or the meticulously calculated plot of eons, all forms of mistruth are laid bare before the Forebear's gaze.
[Weapon-Defeating Stance][Consumed by All-Defeating Stance] - A martial stance of the Forebear. He who would presume to wield force of arms against the Forebear dooms himself to inescapable plight, and well-deserved. No blade that crosses the Forebear's can help but shatter before its unbound might; neither fist nor bolt nor meteor strike can impel its steely aegis. A pre-requisite for All-Defeating Stance.
+++++AGI, +++++Might
5x Power of Ruin to sunder, intercept or destroy all weapons, natural or constructed
+++++Protection against all weapons, natural or constructed
[Hero-Defeating Stance] - A Martial Stance of the Forebear.
++Might, ++Agility, +Wisdom, +0.2 external Rank.
Halve the effects of enemy Rank if it is greater than your own.
Halve the effects of being outnumbered, if you are outnumbered.
This Stance is permanently active until switched for another [Enemy]-Defeating Stance. One of the pre-requisites for Foe-Defeating Stance. You may have [Rank/2, rounded down] Stances active at one time.
[All-Defeating Stance] - Woe to he who would presume to resist the Forebear, for neither spell nor song nor storm of swords would find purchase against his impervious guard. Bowed kings, bowed wizards, bowed warriors of legend and worlds themselves, for there was no chance of triumph without knowing the form of victory, and to stand against the Forebear was to know only defeat. Consumes and replaces its pre-requisite stances.
+++++All Stats
5x Power of Ruin against all targets.
Powers deriving from the Forebear's Blade are perfectly defended from nullification of any kind, even that stemming from a lack of fundamental metaphysics.
All-Defeating: All external effects natural or supernatural which would harm, impede or negatively alter the wielder must contest the amplified Power of Ruin or be destroyed before reaching the wielder. Effectively the character automatically applies an incredibly powerful conceptual-level counterattack against all hostile effects.
In practice, this mitigates all Curses as per Magic-Defeating Stance and renders the character nigh-immune to most forms of harm, as all attacks are intercepted by an imperishable well of ablative Ruin. Only the mightiest of effects can even hope to pierce through, and often with severely reduced outcomes. Even the effects of enemy Pressure are largely nullified unless that Pressure is substantially mightier than the wielder's Pressure and Power of Ruin combined.
Holy Shit: To stand against the wielder is to know only defeat. The wielder's enemies know when they are beaten. Double the wielder's Charisma and Manipulation against characters individually weaker than him. Innate awareness of the character's strength penalizes any attempts to form organizations or conspiracies opposed to him.
[Undying Vanguard] - Where tread the Forebear, his men would not fall, for the shadow of his presence could turn even death aside. And for his most stalwart servants, the reach of his shadow spanned continents and worlds.
Choose up to 5 companions whose true Astral Ranks do not exceed your own. They receive bonus Protection, Constitution and regeneration depending on both your relative power levels and their level of loyalty to you. A highly loyal companion would be about as difficult to kill as you yourself are, including the effects of your Artifacts.
You personally don't receive any healing from this, though the extra Constitution will increase your effective health. While this offers comprehensive protection to your companions, it is expensive protection that does not really help you scale.
[Companions of the King] - A hero out of myth deserves a company of legends, but what foremost company could withstand the presence the Forebear's presence itself? No mere shadow these; not his callously-refracted light, but true champions of power everlasting - for a King must have his Knights.
Requires Undying Vanguard, which can be purchased for 5 Arete and 0 picks. The character may ignore the other requirements for this Advancement during this experience spending point. You may designate up to five companions each of which is treated as possessing active Rank no lower than [Your Rank - 1]. This includes your base Rank as well as any permanent external modifiers to general Rank. Once designated, a companion cannot be replaced until they are slain beyond the possibility of recovery; take care that you do not raise up a Mordred or Lancelot.
So long as you are accompanied by a given anointed companion, your teamwork is effortless and masterful; you both receive +10% All Stats. The exploits of your companions redound on your own mythic history; receive +20% Rank gain for each companion anointed, so long as they are either directly assisting you or participating in tasks of legendary import. These effects can both stack. Finally, so long as even one companion is alive, you can always be revived from death via an incredibly difficult ritual.
[Once and Future] I - The power of Kings is no slumbering frivolity that dwells meekly within the personage, awaiting only destiny's call to awaken and adorn its bearer in triumph everlasting. No: it is a hard-fought, hard-won power, bitterly extracted from trials of abject cruelty. Only the coliseum of the uncaring world can confer the painful experience that makes a sovereign worthy of his crown; only its unending travails can carve away the mortal man to leave the King behind.
Channel a fraction of the Forebear's true might, and glimpse a small fraction of his true history. +1 Astral Rank, applied externally after all other factors. Does not raise the difficulty of improving Rank. +2 Astral Rank in matters military.
[Once and Future] II - A King must conquer. A King must rule. Is there more to the personage of the King? Yes, but that person is not the King. He is merely the entity who holds the title, of King. Separate the human from the role, as the Forebear separated his self from his Blade, and allow both to unfurl like a standard in the wind, unbound by limitation or custom.
Heavy lies the crown, save for he who has the strength to bear it.
The character becomes unable to manifest a Shroud. In exchange, elevate all the character's Attributes and abilities by +0.1 tier along the Infinite Singularity Husk, +0.2 tiers in matters military.
The objective amount of Attributes this Advancement is worth compounds massively as the character's native ISH tier is raised, and stacks with other sources of ISH improvement to offer transcendental improvements to the character's fighting strength.
The enhancement of physical Attributes is quite relevant, but the improvements to military-related Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma and Luck may be even more important.
However this Advancement much resembles [Once and Future] I on its merits - on its own without further ISH elevation it may underwhelm, just as [Once and Future] I relies on high base Rank to effectuate hyper-exponential scaling. The mighty grow ever mightier, is that the lesson of the Forebear?
[Fisher King] - The hand that steadies the rod, rules the world.
Or perhaps that is not always so. If not, then make it so.
Fish, even if it cannot be fished.
Costs five picks total. One of the Defining Advancements that could have been unlocked by [Feat: Crown].
*Double the proc rate and mitigation effect of Huntress' Moon against fish-based targets
*+50% to All Stats for purposes of fishing. Only works on literal fishing.
*++Wisdom, +Int, +Wits, +50% Rank growth
*Wait for it
*+10 Accursed Favor
*Holy fuck
*Grail Keeper: At any time while within a land he rules the wielder may take on the Decimator's Affliction into himself. For the duration, the Decimator's Affliction merely poisons the land, rendering it barren and and its residents infertile, rather than claiming lives. Territories not under the wielder's rule are not affected by this mitigation. This causes him to suffer the Affliction of Leprosy and the Mutilating Affliction for the duration.
[Once and Future] III - When the world and an ideal exist in disharmony, it is not the ideal that has to act. It is not upon the ideal to bring change to the world.
It is the King.
O dream of fairness, become his blade, that he may enact your impossible wish upon all that were raised against you.
The wielder gains eternal access to +1 metaphysical ontology, which may encapsulate capabilities no greater than those of the limited Royal Praxis. The Forebear used this to employ a series of techniques equivalent to those of the Sword Praxis.
II. Hunger
Imparts noticeable spiritual vigor and a thirst for life's pleasures
Cripples non-combat, non-conflict advancement, but dectuples progression from any conflict with serious stakes
[Ring of Power] - Asserts bearer's will upon the world, bending it to his designs.
[Might's Repose] - Only grow stronger, more glorious and more capable with age, so long as bearer sleeps 9+ hours per day. Life- and healthspan can be indefinitely extended in theory. Modest bonus to physical actions, minor bonus to mental actions when well-rested. Immune to hostile sleep / tiredness effects.
[Dominion] - A ring of power does not exert influence casually. It has its own will, its own preferences, and if that will should be inseparable from its owner's, its sway thereby shall be greater for it.
Select a domain of influence. While acting within its domain, [Ring of Power] effects are substantially less taxing and more potent; the effects of this can be abstracted as follows: treat the owner's Rank as if it somewhat* higher for related actions. You may select this advancement multiple times, choosing a different domain each time. If multiple domains apply, their bonuses do not compound.
*+0.5 if Low, +.25 if Mid, +.1 if High.
The available domains for Hunger are: War, Passion, Life.
War - Applies to any conflict with real and serious stakes
Passion - Applies whenever in the throes of a powerful passion, or to inflame the passions of others
Life - Applies to the manipulation, augmentation, or restoration of biology or life-force[Suborned by Chief Dominion]
[Chief Dominion]
Awaken now, O Hunger ring; from blackest myth abjure:
thy band once stained, now un-profaned, to shine forevermore.
O Ring of Blood, O Ring of War, thy tide of battle fades;
cast down Their thrones in crimson gloam: unfurling of thine Age!
The Heart-Ring, the Battle-Brand, the Ring of Fury, Ambition's Grip. The ruby face of the Ring of Blood unsealed exalts its foremost dominion: blood, the true and concerted essence of all vigorous things. Its band of grey, like twining smoke smoten into filigree, carries the furious gleam of power unconstrained.
Vastly improves the strength and finesse of the [Ring of Power] effect when exerted upon the domain of blood, allowing for direct and outright influence over reality. Applies to the manipulation, alteration, creation or destruction of blood or life-force. +Progression additionally within this purview.
Requires either [Ring of Blood] or [Dominion: Life]. Suborns and deactivates the domain of life.
He who attains pre-eminence over the lesser domains of Hunger, and awakens its Chief Dominion, shall wield the Ruling Ring and incite the contest of primacy thereby.
*You can trade all three Dominions, both Pre-eminencies, and Chief Dominion for [Ruling Ring], allowing you to buy it piecemeal at an effective 2 Arete surcharge. Primacy may be uncontested if no other Ruling Rings exist.
[Quickening] - The power of Progression made manifest in blood.
While in any form with corporeal blood, gain +++++++Agility, +++++++Might, ++++Wits, and triple the rate of passive healing performed by the Ring of Blood. Halve wound penalties in any such forms. Currently, this applies only to Hunger's first form.
Ensures that [Final Form] will possess corporeal blood. This may not necessarily be an advantage.
[Vigor Itself] III - The primordial might and glory of Blood resplendent. Let all who witness its form tremble, and be subject. Adds [++Might, +Charisma] to the bonuses from Quickening, subject to the usual conditions. Can be taken up to 3 times.
[Vigor Incarnate] - The glory of Blood triumphant. Let those who would stand against him cower, or be undone. A simple but exceptionally powerful option.
Adds [+++Might, ++Charisma] to the bonuses from Quickening, subject to the usual conditions.
Add your Charisma to your Protection.
[Fierce Quickening] III - The absurd violence of Blood unleashed. Let all that falls within its dominion be spilled, if it be in service to the Ringbearer. Adds [++Agility, +Wits] to the bonuses from Quickening, subject to the usual conditions. Can be taken up to 3 times.
[Crimson Flare]
Call'd the ring in direst hour;
Azure's brethren faces turned.
Yet came the Lord its cause to flower;
then saw its keepers, to ruin burned.
Forgotten not, the debt of Time
when all its kind had turned their backs;
Not Hunger ring, its steed to ride,
brought Temple low, rapine and sack.
And debt unpaid shall not abide.
The crimson jewel blazes with a hallowed, piercing light, its glory to outshine sun and stars, all made abject by its presence. This is attainment of a height that disdains mere power, the Jewel of Blood unveiled in truth.
Elevates the wielder's Rank by a variable amount [Currently: to 5]
+2 Rank for purposes of wielding the Chief Dominion.
If the Azure Ring is saved:
Further increases the scope, power, and control of the Chief Dominion, beyond even the limits of the Ruling Ring.*
Obsoletes and refunds: Augment Dominion: Blood, Sublime Transfusion, Ennobling
The Azure Ring will submit to the Crimson in the next contest of primacy.
[Hungry Vim] - Some fraction of the Armor's talent for battle. +++AGI, ++Wisdom (Combat).
[Honing] - The swift sharp blade that frees blood from body. Requires 3x Fierce Quickening (presently have 3x).
+++Agility, ++Wits. Add half your Wits to your Intelligence for purposes of combat.
III. Evening Sky - Star-stuff and velvet darkness in a mantle like billowing clouds. The power of this mantle withstands supernal force and deflects the merely mundane, granting comprehensive protection against many of the ills of the mortal realm and beyond. Abducted by he who hungers, cast now into his thrall. He who dons this mantle speaks with the voice of Evening and shares its haunting majesty. Progression can unlock further abilities.
[++Protection, ++Charisma, grants superior resistance to a wide array of status effects such as poison, mental interference, suffocation, bleeding out, etc. Somewhat vulnerable to dispellation, but acts as an ablative layer to protect the wearer from such.]
[Amaranth Star] - Swift fury of vengeance unshackled, and its unremitting resolve. Exhausted and Tired Conditions are 25% less severe. [+++Agility]
[Pristine Star] - The wearer and those regularly in his presence will always heal completely, without complications or scarring, even from grievous or amputating wounds. Grants resistance to illness and disease. Healing is somewhat accelerated, in that one may expect to recover from even the worst of survivable injuries in about two weeks. Enemy effects may contest this.
[Conquerer's Nimbus] - Far or near, journeyman or sage, all admire the same Evening Sky. Why should he who wears it atop his shoulders not benefit from that same world-spanning acclaim? The wearer should bestride the world, be it with his physical swiftness or the long shadow of his influence. Can only be taken immediately after the attainment of a great victory. [Upgraded from Triumphal Gleam]
+++++++++Charisma, +++++AGI and Might, +150% Rank gain
*Apply the character's full military Rank to all actions taken while on a campaign of conquest or defense, including social interaction or the use of Empyreal Signs.
*Note that Rank becomes increasingly difficult to improve naturally as it increases.
*Vastly increases the wielder's innate memetic appeal, and reframes all acts he performs into their most positive interpretations - even his minor exploits will blaze with adulation unending, while his disappointments and shames are charming foibles or relatable tragedies that inspire sympathy and aid.
*Such a power can justify even tyrannical behavior, and insulate one from the consequences of tyranny. Charisma improves your personal presence, but this Advancement helps people know of you beforehand, and ensures your reputation is one you would be proud of.
*The reputation-burnishing power can be de-activated if the character wishes to fall on their sword for some particular event.
*Take care that you do not become what you despise. An unlikely prospect for Hunger, but the allure is greater when the consequences of overreach are so easily dispersed.
[Silver of Evening] - Inset in the crown of evening is a star of purest edeldross; its wearer becomes swift as nightfall after the sun's passing, beautiful as the naked stars, and sacred as midnight itself. For all spheres of magic in Evening reside: its wearer their master, and champion besides.
Double the Magnitude of present and future Edeldross enhancements.
Edeldross-derived abilities now count as full Graces (don't require upkeep or corporeal structure to maintain)
+120% to the value of AGI and Charisma +s
+1 Defensive Rank
Once per sidereal week, perfectly defeat any one hostile effect to which the wearer would otherwise be subject. Applied against a Curse, grants two stages of mitigation for one day and one night. May apply even to the Doom of the Tyrant.
[Sky Veil] - Just as the sky emblazons one's majesty, so too can it do the inverse, serving as a curtain drawn against the solar blaze of superhuman will. In addition to allowing the wearer to voluntarily decrease his Charisma +s in increments of 25% (without affecting associated Attributes like Protection from Vigor Itself! A rare trait), it also increases Protection by +++++ and AGI by ++. Allows the Evening Sky to disguise its appearance, taking on the semblance of the morning or noonday sky, or even of an ordinary cloak - much as it may despise such diminishment. Unlocks stealth- and disguise-based Advancements, including Conjunctional effects with Aeira.
The Opalescent Tower[25 Arete] - That which is long united, must divide; that which is long divided, must unite. Fold the Opalescent Tower into the Cloak of Evening and return the Cloak of Sky to its uttermost glory, the Empyrean Mantle restored at last. Requires Sky Veil.
Grants ++++++++++++++++++++++Protection, ++++++++++Charisma, and perfect modular control of Charisma and Charisma bonuses granted from the Cloak of Sky. Grants three Signs of the Empyrean Mantle, each a spell of tremendous power with manifold applications for adventurer or sovereign. You will vote on the exact Signs taken later, but example effects include: swift transport across the entirety of the Voyaging Realm, indomitable protection against enemy Rank or esoteric effects, mastery over weather and light, or the summoning and recall of powerful Astral denizens.
Upgrades all Evening Sky Advancements of 25 Arete or higher.
[Pillars of Creation] - At the end of each lunar month, wearer and companions may steal away to the realm of Evening, during which no time passes in the mortal world. Divine opulence and every conceivable luxury await the fortunate interlopers, restoring wholeness of mind, body, and spirit.
The realm of Evening responds to the desires of the wearer and can be shaped to induce a variety of effects at nigh-deific scale - worthy enemies, fields of unique reagents, anagathic peaches, arms and armor of myth. Only one rule is absolute: that each stay lasts twenty-one days, no more and no less. Items typically cannot be carried out, though the effects of items consumed within the realm remain after departing it.
All Curses save the Geas of Indenture are only at one-third severity within the realm, though this does not stack with other forms of mitigation, nor impede their function outside.
[Supreme Commander] - [Special Advancement]
Upgrades Conquerer's Nimbus, appending the following ability:
*The character is master of every battlefield, all-seeing general whose omnipresent strategies are as conclusive as they are inescapable. Wheresoever word spreads of the character's feats within a conflict, the character's Rank is as well. With fame enough it is as if he were physically present at the site. At its greatest, this may encompass the entire theatre of said conflict regardless of scope. Now at last does the reach of his Astral gravitation come to match its force, so long as there are subjects - or enemies - to bear witness. The terror and despair of an overmatched foe are just as potent a catalyst as the admiration and trust of one's partisans.
*Note that the effectiveness of Rank normally falls off with distance. Properly utilized, this Advancement allows the character to wage war at nearly unlimited scope, as one-many army and occupying host; war across whole realms and realities, connected or disjoint, fending off infinite fronts so long as his exploits are known.
*The character's projected Rank reaches full intensity with one epic feat, three notable feats, or a steady pattern of moderate but impressive feats of martial achievement. This is relative to the context of the conflict; what may seem epic to inland barbarians is trifling to the Foremost, for example.
IV. The Tears of Winter
The Crown Jewels of Nilfel are myth crystallized and spun into sharpness and light; they are pinnacle treasures beyond mere power or worth, transcendent droplets of pure creation rained down from the empyreal. Yet what is the value of a treasure, no matter how priceless, for a House that has lost the wherewithal to wield it, and the position to display it forth? Thus they are given to you, to rest in a Princess' crown, or a Duchess' necklace of jewels.
You may give the Tears of Winter to any titled noble with the power to wield them; channeling your own Accreted Pressure through the jewels to empower yourself and their bearer. Valid targets are Princess Regent Gisena I, Duchess Letrizia Artriez or Princess Adorie IX.
The Tears grant ++INT, ++APP, +AGI and +0.3 Rank to both bearer and beneficiary. Their dominion includes: ice, cold, rulership, intellect, calculation, beauty, finesse, quickness, overwhelming power, the season of Winter, grandeur, truth, and purity. In addition, they grant unique bonuses depending on the character they are granted to:
Adorie Mirellyian - Trueheart Phial. Doubles the Attribute and Rank bonuses provided by the Tears of Winter. Guarantees Adorie as a companion if desired (starts with +++++Adorie). Adorie's bloodline allows her to absorb and resist existential diminishment; empowered by the active Tears of Winter, she reduces your Praxis Exertion to 1/4th its previous level.
[King of Winter: Overwhelm] - A surfeit of might overwhelming. Increases Health, Damage Resistance, Condition Resistance, Damage Dealt and Attack Speed by 25%. Modifiers from this source stack multiplicatively with those from other sources, such that this Title offers scaling benefits virtually regardless of how high your base parameters become. Combined, these effects improve the wielder's damage output and resilience to 156%; compared to his pre-Title self the wielder would be roughly 245% as potent in direct combat. Good synergy with Uttermost and Inherit the World; compounding multipliers will set up an especially powerful Refinement of Battle. Damage Dealt modifier applies to the Power of Ruin in All circumstances. Uttermost already increased his Attribute-based damage scaling by a factor of seven, which this will improve to 8.75x, and Overwhelm will also improve his effective Power of Ruin multiplier from All-Defeating Stance to a fearsome 6.25x!
[Whiteout] - The avalanche strength that buries resistance; the howling swiftness of a winter storm. Increases Damage Dealt modifier to +125% and Attack Speed modifier to +30%. 11.25x PoR with ADS...
The Tears of Winter: King of Winter - For she who risked everything to save him, ensure they are repaid in kind.
The Oath of Winter is dangerous indeed, for if any one of the prospective Sovereign's subjects should have both the power and inclination to overthrow her, their essences would be pit in a battle to annihilation; and neither allies nor companions would be afforded to assist her, for Might in the proving must stand alone. For the thief of all platinum and Champion of her nation she gambled everything; and though she won the day in the end, still the magnitude of that venture ought be registered.
Upgrades and extends King of Winter: Now increases Health, Damage Resistance, Condition Resistance, and Attack Speed by 75%, and Damage Dealt by 250%. The Sovereign of Nilfel shares these benefits in full, and the nation of Nilfel by two-thirds.
Re-awaken the Fonts of Myth, slowly restoring Nilfel to its glory of old and repairing the wound in the Walls. Quells the Arcanist Shard and advances Aobaru's mission. One day the Kingdom of Winter may rise anew. +++++++Adorie, +Aobaru, may unlock Bear Curse - Winter's Brand.
[November Sky] - Conjunctional (Tears of Winter + Evening Sky). Hark the first night of winter, whose harrowing cold brings crush of frost, whose clarion sky is bedecked with stars, their light chill and sharp as ice.
*The Artifacts providing this Conjunctional Advancement now emanate an aura of transcendent chill, which passes through allies without harm but which dampens, deadens and slays the enemies of their wielders. Radius of chill is determined by the wielder's Rank; at Rank 9+, multiple star systems can be affected. Effects are dependent on the respective Rank of the wielder versus their targets:
*Wielder of lesser Rank: Chill - Target's Agility and Wits are penalized substantially. This effect becomes massively more powerful and difficult to resist the greater the target's Agility and Wits exceed that of the wielder's, such that even an overwhelming Agility advantage only translates to a modest edge in speed.
*Wielder of equal or greater Rank: Dampen - Reduce the effectiveness of all the target's Attributes and abilities by 20%, +5% per time period of exposure (second, minute, hour, day). Max 40%. Useful both in and outside of combat.
*Wielder of vastly greater Rank (2x Overwhelming threshold): Kill - Reduce's the target's CON or equivalent durability Attribute by 50%, +50% per time period of exposure, max 250%.
*Wondrous Winterland: The Realm of Evening may now manifest a special 'Winter mode.' Allies within the Realm of Evening benefit from an optional aura of fruition, generosity, thanks-giving and good cheer. +++Mental Stability, ++++INT, +++++APP, +++++WILL to wielders, and to allies when within. Wielders always count as hydrated and well-fed.
[Ascendancy Halo] - A Halo-type Advancement.
Double the Attribute bonus granted by Oath of Winter and raise its granted Rank to 11. The Oath-taker gains access to the magic of Naturalism. The Champion gains +Progression, though this does not stack with Ruling Ring, Exalted Battle Array, etc.
Even in circumstances where Astral Rank is not applicable, such as in realities devoid of an Astral Realm, the character may still engage the benefits of their Rank to a degree commensurate with their Charisma and Willpower. Fate, luck, narrative, or raw quantum probability will yield somewhat to the primacy of Winter's anointed and her Champion.
Substantially increases power of the Advancement, November Sky.
Previous update character sheets here [Heart of the Matter to Titanomachy]
And also here [Forward to Ragnarok]
And here too [A Hero's Resolve onwards]
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Subquest Index
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Alright, launching a new initiative. Behold! The Subquest Tracker!
This is a dedicated index for the various subquests, as well as their reactions and commentary! I have tried to be careful, but I may well have missed reactions or even full entries. Please tag me if you would like your subquest reaction featured, as the ones small enough not to reach Orm's index are still valid here.
Oh, and if my name for your subquest is not to your preference, feel free to tag me about that as well.
EDIT: And it turns out that @Xalvitor's wordcount is actually quite comparable, just more concentrated! This also deserves recognition.)
Update as of 2021/July/31: I lost track of this. Sorry. I know for a fact that @Aabcehmu and @OctarineShrike have written new subquests since I last updated this, and there are almost certainly others. Maybe better omake-tracking mechanisms will be available in the future, and I'll be able to update this - or maybe it won't even be necessary.
This is a dedicated index for the various subquests, as well as their reactions and commentary! I have tried to be careful, but I may well have missed reactions or even full entries. Please tag me if you would like your subquest reaction featured, as the ones small enough not to reach Orm's index are still valid here.
Oh, and if my name for your subquest is not to your preference, feel free to tag me about that as well.
- Probably One-Offs
-
ODDLY FATHER BEYONDER (3266 words, runeblue360)
You (Isekai) Get What You (Isekai) Pay For (1275 words, DarkSideBard)
(Isekai) 2, Eccentric Ingenue (2580 words, DarkSideBard)
Heart of the Matter (Twice Great Edition) (2147 words, Conjured Blade)
For She Trod Upon the Stars (857 words, Sickul)
Gardener's Choice (657 words, ImperatorV)
Temple of the Moon's Tail: Part 1 (1689 words, Unelemental)
Genre Shift (1422 words, Fumbles)
Genre Shift vote & analysis (557 words, runeblue360)
Surgecraft (1165 words, Talace)
Naptime (1306 words, PurposefulZephyr)
Just According to Plan (826 words, Redshirt Army)
The Fishing Lesson (3176 words, DarkSideBard)
The Trials (754 words, Zfglx)
Trials Askew (1711 words, Zfglx)
Doomed Quest (1686 words, Unelemental)
My life as an otome heroine didn't go as expected. (1173 words, Xalvitor)
Accursed Pact chapter 1 (2889 words after subtracting copied Curses & Remittances, ImperatorV)
Accursed Pact reaction & vote (443 words, Da Boyz)
Accursed Pact reaction & vote (411 words, formalAI)
Cursed Cat (1821 words, Tyrant_Rayne)
HEAVENS: DEFIED|EARTH: UNCARING (2331 words, runeblue360)
Choose your Sacrifices (1287 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Questing World (800 words, Aabcehmu)
Mosquito Quest, by runeblue360
Intro (226 words, runeblue360)
AST: Parahuman Elite Edition (Birdsie, 2143 words)
Parahuman Elite Edition #2: Electric Boogaloo (1032 words, Birdsie)
Scholomance Project (3710 words, Crimson Moon)
Aabcehmu's Self-Insert Cursebearer Negaverse (833 words, Aabcehmu)
Ghost Master (2235 words, Birdsie)
You're Finally Awake (1365 words, Birdsie)
Attack on Transaction (many words, Birdsie) - Probably Dead
-
GHOST STORIES: BLATANT WISH FULFILLMENT: RIHAKU PLEASE DO A HORROR QUEST (2355 words, Addio)
Ghost Stories reaction & build (2698 words, Conjured Blade)
GHOST STORIES 2 (933 words, Addio)
GHOST STORIES 2 reaction & vote (1346 words, runeblue360)
Atop a Throne of Stars (1789 words, Xalvitor)
Titanic Ascension (1942 words, Xalvitor)
Learning to Select a Thematically Coherent Powerset (1686 words, Talace)
Learning to Prepare for Enemies with Obvious Abilities (3218 words, Talace)
CRASH COURSE: INTRODUCTION (1050 words, Priest)
QUIRK MECHANICS (7 YEARS OF PRACTICE) (930 words, Priest)
Crash Course: Introduction reaction & vote (778 words, runeblue360)
CRASH COURSE [UPDATE 2] (523 words, Priest)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST (2391 words, Addio)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST reaction & vote (2903 words, runeblue360)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST reaction (2157 words, Conjured Blade)
MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST: EVEN MORE MAGIC (2147 words, Addio)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue Sequence (370 words, Talace)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Names (879 words, Talace)
Negaverse: Adrift - Names reaction & vote (239 words, formalAI)
Negaverse: [A]drift - I Did Say This Would Get Surreal (1105 words, Talace)
Negaverse: [A]drift - Prologue End, Motherfuckers (908 words, Talace)
The Ripper Mage (749 words, Shard)
The Ripper Mage: Lost Glories I (473 words, Shard)
The Ripper Mage: LG 1 reaction & vote (177 words, formalAI)
Ripper Mage Spell Suppliment (Shard, 378 words)
Additional Spell Suppliment: Unname (398 words, Shard)
A Curse, Twice Given (1291 words, Byzantine)
A Curse, Twice Given Part 2 (1050 words, Byzantine)
Negaverse: low effort minipost quest (862 words across multiple posts, Talace)
The Adventures of Nine White, by Taka
Mercenary Company Report (706 words, Taka)
A Successful Operation (911 words, Taka)
A headpat for your efforts (759 words, Taka)
Headpat reaction & vote (591 words, runeblue360)
Your Next Directive (764 words, Taka)
Your Next Directive analysis & vote (636 words, runeblue360)
Expendability (1100 words, Taka)
Valor or Discretion (765 words, Taka)
Valor or Discretion reaction & vote (591 words, runeblue360)
Not a Man; Not a Hero (1211 words, Taka)
Onward, For Everyone's Tomorrow (1221 words, Taka)
A Minor Transaction (280 words, Taka)
Welcome, Apostle (1270 words, Taka)
Welcome, Apostle analysis & vote (671 words, runeblue360)
Validation Vindication (620 words, Taka)
Burdens of Our Authority (1360 words, Taka)
A Promise Kept (1025 words, Taka)
Lances And Marks (1150 words, Taka)
Rot In Peace (976 words, Taka)
Against All Odds (1454 words, Taka)
A Mercenary's Bearing (1321 words, Taka)
A Spineful of Bravery (679 words, Taka)
Beauty And The Beasts (1695 words, Taka)
Something To Protect (1294 words, Taka)
Seeds Unthawing (1651 words, Taka)
Footsteps Beneath Yellowed Skies (590 words, Taka)
An Oath To Heroism (3425 words, Taka)
Nine White character sheet (518 words, runeblue360)
The Staircase of a Broken Sun (999 words, Taka)
A Path Untaken: A Business Trip (1391 words, Taka)
Weighing The Scales (1311 words, Taka)
Wild Intelligence (1164 words, Taka)
Hand Held Opportunities + Path addendum (1772 words, Taka)
A Triumphant Roar (1433 words, Taka)
A Triumphant Roar & An Even Simpler Transaction Pt. 2 reaction and vote (907 words, Xalvitor)
A Theatre Of Heroes (1624 words, Taka)
Pyres For Our Dawn (1219 words, Taka)
At The Cost of Survival (2316 words, Taka)
Against Shackled Impossibility (1881 words, Taka)
Scaling Heights (857 words, Taka)
Nine Quest: Decay, Cleansed (1738 words, Taka)
Nine Quest: Time Waits For No One (1819 words, Taka)
Nine Quest: Jungle Run (833 words, Taka)
Yet Another Simple Transaction, by Xalvitor
Yet another simple transaction (1800 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction reaction & vote (511 words, formalAI)
Yet another simple transaction part 2 (1302 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction part 2 reaction & vote (1616 words, formalAI)
YAST Pt. 2 vote reaction (1033 words, Xalvitor)
A simple transaction: Part 3 (2298 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction: Part 4 (2173 words, Xalvitor)
AST Part 4 reaction & vote (483 words, formalAI)
Yet another transaction part 5 (3517 words, Xalvitor)
YAST Pt. 5 reaction & vote (609 words, formalAI)
YAST Pt. 5 reaction & vote (4209 words, UDwarf)
Response to UDwarf's reaction & vote (712 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction part 6 (3151 words, Xalvitor)
YAST Pt. 6 reaction & vote (582 words, formalAI)
YAST 6 (First half) beta/response (2975 words, UDwarf)
Response to UDwarf's comments on YAST Pt. 6 (649 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction part 7 (3059 words, Xalvitor)
YAST Pt. 7 reaction & vote (506 words, formalAI)
Yet another simple transaction part 8 (2714 words, Xalvitor)
YAST Pt. 8 reaction & vote (542 words, formalAI)
YAST Pt. 8 vote responses (828 words, Xalvitor)
Yet another simple transaction part 9 (2725 words, Xalvitor)
YAST Pt. 9 reaction & vote (814 words, formalAI)
Yet another simple transaction part 10 (2583 words, Xalvitor)
Never-Ending, by Birdsie
Never-Ending (4350 words, Birdsie)
Unrelenting (1537 words, Birdsie)
Harry Potter and the Sheath of Excalibur, by Birdsie
Veritas Odit Moras (2540 words, Birdsie)
Emerald Blood (3540 words, Birdsie)
Alt-Rihaku's Devil May Cry Quest, by Birdsie
Awakening (3125 words, Birdsie)
Galatea, Human Devil Golem (322 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Pokemon Cursebearer Quest, by Zinay
A Wish for Power (1021 words, zinay)
Unbounded Horrors, by Birdsie
Unbounded Horrors (5475 words, Birdsie)
Erii Quest, by Genesys
Negaverse: Erii Quest (839 words, Genesys)
Erii Quest reaction & vote (726 words, runeblue360)
Negaverse Erii Quest: Part 2 (1212 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 3 (1116 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 4 (1435 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 5 (1312 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 6 (2732 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Vanreir Interlude (1100 words, Genesys)
Negaverse: Erii Quest Part 7 (863 words, Genesys)
Erii Negaverse: Vanreir Interlude Part 2 (564 words, Genesys)
A Dream of a Transaction, by zinay
A Dream of a Transaction (1345 words, zinay)
An Even Simpler Transaction, by FormalAI
An Even Simpler Transaction (1914 words, formalAI)
An Even Simpler Transaction reaction & vote (659 words, runeblue360)
An Even Simpler Transaction part 2 (1585 words, formalAI)
A Triumphant Roar & An Even Simpler Transaction Pt. 2 reaction and vote (907 words, Xalvitor)
Brand-Name Genes, by Addio, Priest, and Microwave MKII
Brand-name Genes I (2914 words, Addio, Priest, and Microwave MKII)
Quirk: Absolute Body Control (365 words, Priest)
Brand-name Genes II (3219 words, Addio, Priest, and Microwave MKII)
BNG II reaction & vote (1152 words, Unelemental)
Brand-Name Genes III (3446 words, Addio & Priest)
Tower of Vesperikles, by Orm Embar
Nocturnal CYOA build (1025 words, Orm Embar)
Voice of the Tower (5965 words, Orm Embar)
Vesperikles Fanart (not actually pornographic) (Addio)
A Collective Transaction, by Zampano
A Collective Bargain (2700 words, Zampano)
Sable Shaw Quest, by HeWhoAdds
Intro (2570 words, HeWhoAdds)
Horatio, Philosopher of Hell, by HoratioVonBecker (me!)
Devildoor Me (840 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Devildoor Me reaction & analysis (1352 words, Projectile)
Boarding Call (940 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Ticket Punched (1068 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Ticket Punched vote analysis and background (1036 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Ticket Punched analysis and vote (369 words, Hirorubie)
Unknown Devil (1121 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Crimson Devil (778 words, HoratioVonBecker)
The Philosopher in Question (363 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Subquest engagement and parahuman naming speculation (760 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Boss Gate (281 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Fight Tactics (380 words, Aabcehmu)
Fight Tactics response (227 words, HoratioVonBecker)
First Light (801 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Needs Must (2028 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Enhancement Tactics (95 words, Aabcehmu)
Population Nine (623 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Fight Tactics (109 words, Aabcehmu)
Gabrielos Gaiden, by Birdsie and Gabriel97 (votes occasional)
A Simple Transaction: Gabrielos Gaiden (4637 words, Birdsie & his friend Gabriel)
A Simple Transaction, Gabrielos Gaiden, Part 2 (4997 words, Birdsie)
A Simple Transaction: Gabrielos Gaiden, Part 3 (4041 words, Birdsie)
Gabrielos Gaiden: Swiftness Wins, Speed Wins, Knife Wins (4031 words, Birdsie)
Gabrielos Gaiden reaction (232 words, Gabriel97)
AST: Gabrielos Gaiden (4570 words, Birdsie)
Gabrielos Gaiden X: Glad Bromance (10050 words, Birdsie)
The Stranger Things (8067 words, Birdsie)
Chicanery (5306 words, Birdsie)
Interpreting Truth (8130 words, Birdsie)
Titanhood (4410 words, Birdsie)
REVENGEANCE (7280 words, Birdsie)
Vampires & Eagles (2368 total words, Birdsie)
A Foolish Transaction, by Shard
A Foolish Transaction (718 words, Shard)
A Foolish Transaction: Powers (546 words, Shard)
A Foolish Transaction: Planning (733 words, Shard)
A Foolish Transaction: Power's Prespective (807 words, Shard)
A Foolish Transaction: Shardcraft-Curse Interactions (Shard, 783 words)
A Foolish Transaction - Advanced Shardcrafting Techniques (7371060 words, Shard)
God's Curses on This Wretched World, by Birdsie
Intro (6540 words, Birdsie)
Curses on this Wretched World Analysis (DarkSideBard, 1591 words)
DSB Analysis Reaction (Birdsie, 637 words)
agumentic's CotWW builds (agumentic, 349 words)
Crimson Moon's CotWW build (Crimson Moon, 389 words)
Rihaku's CotWW build (Rihaku, 249 words)
Rihaku build reaction (Birdsie, 660 words)
Tyrant_Rane's vote and commentary (Tyrant_Rayne, 211 words)
Ah, My Useless Goddess... (Birdsie, 4285 words)
Tyrant_Rane's second vote and commentary (Tyrant_Rayne, 205 words)
AMUG reaction + immediate-power-Primary-Remittance rules (Rihaku, 669 words)
Reaction to Rihaku's AMUG reaction (Birdsie, 895 words)
Reaction Reaction Reaction (Rihaku, 286 words)
Reaction Reaction Reaction Reaction (Birdsie, 424 words)
Second DSB reaction (DarkSideBard, 1646 words)
Crimson Moon's second vote + analysis (Crimson Moon, 1368 words)
Reincarnation Into This Accursed World!! (Birdsie, 5048 words)
Crimson Moon's third vote + analysis (Crimson Moon, 417 words)
Third DSB reaction (DarkSideBard, 1527 words)
RITAW reaction (Rihaku, 89 words)
RITAW reaction response (Birdsie, 92 words)
Attribute Series: Blessed Wisdom Write-In (beowolf, 58 words)
Cheat Power Analysis (DarkSideBard, 756 words)
Oracular Series: 46,656,000 Degree Vision and Curse Series: Vampirism write-ins (HoratioVonBecker, 384 words)
Further Cheat Analysis (DarkSideBard, 305 words)
Author Commentary (Birdsie, 346 words)
Affliction of Misfortune Analysis (HoratioVonBecker, 108 words)
Reaction (DarkSideBard, 1036 words)
Set, Start!! (Birdsie, 6616 words)
Commentary (runeblue360, 243 words)
Analysis (Rihaku, 443 words)
The Reaction Of Escalating Rivalry (DarkSideBard, 4553 words)
Thoughts (Crimson Moon, 689 words)
Rivalry Accepted: REACTION REACTION (Birdsie, 4242 words)
Vote Pre-planning (beowolf, 319 words)
Excel In Truth (Birdsie, 5018 words)
Konosuba Magic (478 words, Birdsie)
Class Choice Preview (512 words, Birdsie)
Class Analysis (Rihaku, 479 words)
Canon Character Analysis: Darkness (beowolf, 246 words)
Reasoning (Prospalz, 148 words)
Behold, my Acausal Reaction Technique! (DarkSideBard, 5273 words)
Growth Rate Notes (Birdsie, 100 words)
Stats for Nerds (Birdsie, 3122 words)
Analysis (Crimson Moon, 912 words)
EX-CLASS TECHNIQUE! Mangekyou Omakegan: Super-Counter Reaction Golden Reply no Jutsu! (Birdsie, 5109 words)
Analysis and Feedback (Rihaku, 415 words)
Forbidden Technique: Boundless Reaction Triad Reincarnation! (DarkSideBard, 4524 words)
Mitigation Thoughts (Da Boyz, 113 words)
ULTIMATE EX-CLASS TECHNIQUE! Mangekyou Omakegan: Infinite Fanworkyomi! (Birdsie, 1123 words)
There's a COTWW reaction in here somewhere (5600 words, DarkSideBard)
A Sense of Wonder (5038 words, Birdsie)
Class Analysis (Rihaku, 479 words)
Fadeless Spirit (5010 words, Birdsie)
A Simple Reaction (2629 words, DarkSideBard)
A Calculated Infraction (4005 words, Birdsie)
A Calculated Infraction reaction (1618 words, DarkSideBard)
Inner Business (Birdsie, 2399 words)
Climbing Further In This Accursed World!! (Birdsie, 3599 words)
Spell Upgrade Notes (prior to a Gabrielos update, Birdsie)
Measure the Pleasure (3350 words, Birdsie)
Measure the Pleasure vote & argments (529 words, Prospalz)
Opposition (2179 words, Birdsie)
Crushing a Pleb (3450 words, Birdsie)
Another Candidate, by Talace
Another Candidate (Talace, 4435 words)
Builds (Kurowari, 402 words)
Thoughts (qwolfs, 162 words)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance, by Genesys
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 1 (1646 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 2 (1128 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 3 (1088 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 4 (1233 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 5 (1696 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 6 (1455 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 7 (1406 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 8 (2462 words, Genesys)
Quick Transmigration Record of Cursebearer Fodder's Record of Resistance Pt. 9 (2030 words, Genesys)
Evolving Killbot Cursebearer Quest, by Birdsie
Metamorphosis (7065 words, Birdsie)
Praxis Assembly (1450 words, Birdsie)
Build and name write-in (255 words, HoratioVonBecker)
Horatio argument reaction and own build (209 words, Fumbles)
Alt-Rihaku's DC Quest, by Birdsie
Injustice (2088 words, Birdsie)
Doctor Apocalypse Write-in (188 words, Rune-who-was-Runeblue360)
Court of Order (2830 words, Birdsie)
Negaverse: Adrift, by Birdsie
Adrift (many words, Birdsie)
Minor Remittances (many words, Birdsie)
ilbgar123's plan (some words, Ilbgar123) - Probably Active
- Nothing!
- Official Hiatus
-
Ruby Quest, by Aabcehmu
A Place That Is Destroyed (490 words, Aabcehmu)
Ruby vs. the Gaoler Beast (801 words, Aabcehmu)
Ruby's Meal Plan (730 words, Aabcehmu)
Ruby's Gorging (660 words, Aabcehmu)
Monkey Talk (1127 words, Aabcehmu)
Pests (468 words, Aabcehmu)
MIKE ALPHA GOLF INDIA CHARLIE (770 words, Aabcehmu)
Training With Ruby (646 words, Aabcehmu)
Wings of Horn and Bone (~600 words, Aabcehmu)
Welcome to Town (~300 words, Aabcehmu)
Bellgone One (~500 words, Aabcehmu) - Status Unclear
-
The Words of the Hills, by BrainInAJar
The Words of the Hills (2333 words, BrainInAJar)
The Words of the Hills part 2 (3903 words, BrainInAJar)
The Words of the Hills Part 2 reaction and vote (1000 words, Projectile)
The Words of the Hills Pt. 2 Curse analysis (1550 words, Zampano)
Lesser Remittances (1785 words, BrainInAJar)
EDIT: And it turns out that @Xalvitor's wordcount is actually quite comparable, just more concentrated! This also deserves recognition.)
Update as of 2021/July/31: I lost track of this. Sorry. I know for a fact that @Aabcehmu and @OctarineShrike have written new subquests since I last updated this, and there are almost certainly others. Maybe better omake-tracking mechanisms will be available in the future, and I'll be able to update this - or maybe it won't even be necessary.
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CYOA Index
Magical_Duck
The One Who Quacks
- Location
- A Pond
- Pronouns
- Duck
- A Simple CYOA Compendium -
Aabcehmu
- The Demon of Dreams
- DOPPELGANGER CYOA
- Elemental Interest
- Once & Always
- The Galaxia One Year Experience
- Mage-Recruit
- The Fifth Quarter
- Immortal Feast
- The Invitation
- Tournament Arc
- A Magical Dream
- Alight the Stars of Darkness and Fire
- Herotide's Arrival
Addio
- MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST
- MAGIC FANTASY TERTIARY INSTITUTE DATING SIM QUEST: EVEN MORE MAGIC
- CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE: MY SLICE-OF-LIFE LIFE
Archon
Birdsie
- The Games In Silver CYOA
- Games In Silver CYOA: Melicau Edition
- Games In Silver CYOA: Alheria Edition
- An Unkindness Untolerated
- Angels of Charity
- All Hallow's Eve
- Never-Ending
- Underworld's Pearl
- A Wish Upon A Star
- Hatred Internalized
- Defeating the Darkness
- Eminence
- Eminence 2
- Hunger CYOA
- Illustration (CYOA)
- All-Storm
- Grand Ordination
- Archontite's Revelation
- Prince of Vindication
Crimson Moon
DarkSideBard
Enohthree
Fayhem
Gabbie
HoratioVonBecker
ilbgar123
- The Lost Realm
- CYOA: Status Screen
- Status Screen CYOA DLC: Enemies and Allies, Equipment and Duties
- Second DLC: Too Linear For You?
- Five Wishes CYOA
- JRPG CYOA
- A Gift CYOA
- Reincarnation CYOA
- PCUG CYOA
- Antinarrator CYOA
- Redeemed Villains CYOA
- Civilization CYOA
- Extra Aspects CYOA
ImperatorV
Lealope
Orm Embar
- Into the Ormulum
- From Hell's Heart: An Into the Ormulum Nemesis DLC (Da Boyz)
- Out of the Infinite Morning
qwolfs
Rihaku
- The Furthermost Reaches
- A Winter Dynasty
- A Winter Dynasty [DLC] - Patrons of Sanctuary (Birdsie)
- Prototype
- Downloaded
- Ineptitude
- Epic of the Foremost Realms
- Epic of the Foremost Realms I
They Who Watch
vali
- A Simiple Transaction
- The Book Suppliment (HoratioVonBecker)
Wolfy
Zampano
zinay
"Quack"
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