Adhoc vote count started by Orm Embar on Oct 5, 2020 at 2:52 AM, finished with 75 posts and 27 votes.
 
[X] Liberation
[X] Synthesis

[X] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky]
[X] Fourth Sign: Skywards Claim [Vast Empyrean]


I think people are undervaluing Skywards Claim. One of the methods we know that can solve "solve" our apocryphal problems is having companions as strong or stronger than us. That way Apocryphal scales to Hunger but the strength of his friends exceeds it regardless.

That is, as we saw with Augustine, it can be very useful to have comparable companions when dealing with peer opponents.
 
It's surprising that Skywards Claim isn't getting more love! Sure, only one person can benefit at a time, but buffs of that level are exorbitantly valuable. Hunger could take a leaf from Nameless' book and start charging for Skywards services (letting him make claims about the Claim). I don't know how you'd price that in platinum, but it'd go a long way toward absolving Hunger's debt to Adorie. Plus, he can switch the beneficiary during downtime with only a thirty minute window of vulnerability, creating the illusion of having multiple supercombatants as long as the Claimant's going on solo missions or fighting alongside Hunger. Stacking with other enhancements is already broken and only gets better if Gisena gets access to buffing Graces.
 
[X] Liberation

We're going to be conquering people anyway, given our Geas task. The only way to justify that on a moral grounds is by improving the lot of those we rule, much as the Forebear would do. Might as well get a head start here.

Cancel the apocalypse by marshaling power greater still.

Sounds good to me:

[X] Fourth Sign: Deathly Star [Evening Sky]

Get Hunger a Death Star laserbeam to take out even an Armament. The spectrum of damage it offers is just so neat, especially considering the precision its capable of. I'm especially excited to see what this will look like once we've elevated it 0.2 steps along the ISH with OaF 2. Even more excited to see it being used when the Hour of Reckoning is at hand. The fact that this means some special Evening boost later down the line is just icing on the cake.

there was much unnecessary capitalization.

but how else will you know its True Magicks tho???????
 
Hunger: Complains that his power is all combat-related and hopes to receive utility from the Signs
Thread: Votes for the Sign with the least non-combat utility

+5 unconditional Intelligence is no small matter! +Int/Wis can improve the execution of your plans and help Hunger access more viable or inherently advantageous options in the first place! And consider the utility of Claim, not merely now, but in the future when Hunger has even more general Rank...
 
Letrizia was, by experience, an combatant first and a duchess second

An interesting look here at the priorities of Letrizia's family.

I don't think we know enough to say why she ended up focusing on combat over being a duchess. Maybe her lifespan was shortened enough that they felt it best to focus soley on combat ability. Maybe she's not in the immediate line of inheritance and they don't expect her to ever rule anything. Maybe her family believes that power alone matters, that you can hire as many able ministers and assistants as you want but there can only ever be only 1 pilot.

Even bereft of Augustine's runes or Hunger's raw power, Nilfel was by its Legions alone the sole hegemon of the Realm of Myth - at least so long as Augustine's mother still slept.

Even when the Apocryphal curse is busy elsewhere it still looms menacingly, with constant reminders that all it takes is one alarm clock to bring our peaceful age to an end. And really, what sort of fantasy realm would this be without an ancient sleeping evil(?).

At times like these, it was all he could do to channel the all-defeating stance of the Forebear and embody stillness, grateful that the energies which it harnessed fortified not only his body but his spirit and mind. It was the master of Ruin, so much so that Ruin could safely infuse his form, eradicating flaws and imperfections on a modest but comprehensive scale. It was a swifter and more concrete power than Rank, and the form of the stance itself implicitly conveyed to all who beheld him the sheer might embodied by its vessel.

The Blade was the Forebear's instrument, and perfected towards that purpose: with it physically present he needed only to align his internal energies, body free to take any action it pleased. The process was difficult but somewhat self-maintaining, Ruin itself destroying the pathways of causality by which carelessness or inattention could disrupt its alignment.

There's an interesting parallel to Findross here. Findross uplifts things, conceptually elevates them, while Ruin conceptually removes things. Hunger with both powers at the same time could certainly be interesting.

Also, we know from the Forebear's interlude that there is/was a universe where all causality was dependent on Ruin. Perhaps even this universe. It would be interested if that could be guided, ruin slowly carving away at reality, taking away 'bad' and leaving only 'good'. Not an ideal outcome in my opinion, but certainly preferable to an evenly distributed Ruin that just slowly rots away at everything.

One more power in a litany of powers. He stared down at the Ring on his finger. In less than two months he'd grown far beyond the Tyrant's might, if not the Tyrant's prowess. There was little question in his mind that he would convincingly prevail against even that foe in the majority of circumstances. With a few days' spare effort he could wield the Ring of Blood with effect against the cursed wounds that troubled him, enacting with brute force what he lacked the skill to unweave. And yet like the Forebear his powers were unbalanced, focused almost-unceasingly on combat or wide-scale devastation, utility emergent but mostly incidental to the true purpose of war.

It was the Tyrant's ring once, worn on his finger, so it makes sense that out of all Hunger's artifacts the ring would remind him of the Tyrant the most.

Hunger's thoughts here are understandable, but I don't agree. It's literally only been 2 months out of a journey that's expected to last some absurd length of time. And while Hunger might feel like all his powers are combat based us voters have seen plenty of unpicked powers that were not. The Ring also is quite capable of creation, and the upcoming Pillars of Creation are very much creation themed, since this seems to be a place where you can literally just create stuff.

But at the same time I can understand his frustration. His decade-long campaign against the Tyrant was an endless hunt for more power with no time or space to build. And now it's replaced with a campaign of indefinite length against the Hidden Ones, and he sees the same pattern repeat.

There's also the fact that in this immediate vote we're being offered a pure offensive power once used by our enemy. "Take care that you do not become that which you despise."

At least unlike the Isekai Realm he isn't being asked to sacrifice himself or his companions. Or rather, he IS being asked but we keep voting against it.

"Verschlengorge is as close to fully-healed as he has been. I think he really likes the new weapons and armor we've installed. I've been thinking of asking Miss Gisena to take a look at him as well. According to her, the Foremost used magics similar to the Graces of her Maiden. Maybe she could fix him with the Ring of Artifice!"

What, no +Versch relationship? I guess we'll need to get some better toys for him then.

It's been hinted that Letrizia's rival/enemy payed for an Astral Lord to banish her into the Voyaging realm and then finish her off with Ber. We haven't gotten any additional assassins sent after us other than Ber, but I think it would be best to assume more preparations are being made, especially once they realize Ber is dead.

Imagine; our enemy has set up some grand ambush meant to finish Letrizia off if she somehow manages to make it to the exit point to the Human Sphere. Countless elite commandos and armor prototypes, all readied and waiting to strike.

Then Letrizia shows up with a FULLY OPERATIONAL MECH that's also loaded out with crazy magical weapons from deep, deep in the Voyaging Realm. And also Hunger, the guy who's only a couple of orders of magnitude of power away from being equivalent to a mech himself. And also they're trying to extract a mage and there's a full-blown apocalypse going on hot on their heels.

Rihaku said:
"That's right," The presumptive queen said, slamming tome on to desk with a satisfying thud. "I spent all morning looking through my library and finally found these! If your Cloak of Sky does wield sorceries incipient to the Realm of Myth, you should be able to find reference materials in here."

...

"The Sigils of the Arcanist are an expression of Form, by which energies Arcane are bent to her purpose. Hers is magic as Science, the technical manipulation of symbols with control over underlying reality, expressed ideally through the medium of appropriate energies but imperfectly through runes of air, stone, ice, steel, or flame. It is nothing more or less than a Language of marvelous intricacy and surpassing access, and any with the Arcanist's Knowledge could in theory wield her Science, though comprehension of her runes is beyond the Logic of our plainer minds..."

"An expression of Form" makes me think of the Realm of Forms, which has been mentioned a number of times now. It seems the Arcanist created a language written in the source code of reality. It also makes me wonder what the Realm of Forms is like. Would we find magical structures there, rune-interpreters like computer programs, a dictionary with definitions for the meaning of her runes carved into Form, built by the Arcanist to make her magic possible?

If the Arcanist can create one language it stands to reason that other people can create their own magical languages. Perhaps the Logos is one such language, a language of words to the Arcanist's language of runes.

Rihaku said:
'...the Sorcery of the Well is an altogether different phenomenon, not science but Art: Will rather than Mind, Spirit rather than Reason directing the purpose of the magic, and it is the substance of the Well itself which is the essential component, that which responds to the workings of the Will and instantiates the sorcerer's implicit design. Our Art is not so precise, but of grandeur and spontaneity unmatched, not mere Iron to her Bronze but Water to her Stone, and it is not the tide that falters eventually in that contest..."

"Our modern techniques are nowhere near either the Arcanist's runes or the fabled Well Sorcery," Adorie said, "But just as Princess Gisena has theorized she may embody the former, though through a lens of her personalized design, I feel your Cloak of Sky may embody something like the latter. Perhaps something more ephemeral still, Air to its Water, but following the natural progression within! Or maybe the Waters of the Well came first from the rains which are contained within the full expanse of the Sky? Such wondrous possibilities!"

"The description of Well Sorcery does seem to match my own experience," Hunger replied. "I needed to travel to my Decimation target and developed teleportation. I needed information on the Lord Protector and summoned an Astral Entity that could provide it. But wells run dry, and the inherent potential of the Cloak to respond to my arbitrary demands has a while to go before it recharges. Nor does it have the power to do anything I desire, it's still constrained by its mysterious reserves. It could transport me across the Voyaging Realm, but only once a day. It could summon a being specialized in divination, but only one whose overall strength was much weaker than my own."

"Hm..." Adorie frowned. "By what means is the Cloak's potential recharged? Only the passing of time, or are there other ways? "

"I assume the Well of which this text speaks has already long run dry," Hunger said. "If not, that sounds like the first place to look."

Adorie nodded. "The times when we had a physical Well to call upon are mythical even to us. The power of House Mirellyian is merely to preserve the workings of that sorcery against future degradation, though it's not clear to us which are the results of Well Sorcery, versus the spells of the Arcanist. We've lost so much..."

"A well of myth, whose waters respond to the will, and do whatever you need..." Letrizia said thoughtfully. "A wishing well?"

"Good thinking," Hunger raised his head. "The Wishing Well, perhaps, since this is the Land of Myth. Maybe we need to look at the lore of old Earth for inspiration as well."

Adorie blinked, innocently tilting her had in confusion, while Letrizia preened.

"Let's try it!" The duchess said excitedly. "I know lots of Old Terran lore, like the archetypical cliche of cross-dressing swordswomen. How do you charge a wishing well? By throwing physical currency within, usually in the form of coins! Let's see if your Cloak can absorb any of the platinum we've got stored in Versch!"

Research continued apace.

Adorie's mention of the rains contained in the full expanse of the sky reminds me of that weather magic we passed up.

The cloak's limited innate potential reminds me a bit of how the Praxis has Investiture. Maybe all the really good magics have some sort of limitation like that?

As for the wishing well, my guess is it still exists, is mostly or entirely dry, and the Arcanist is currently camped out inside it, deep inside the Final Vestige at the heart of the Realm of Myth. The Arcanist is going to be sleeping in the place of greatest power in this Realm of Myth, hoping to gather whatever scraps of power she can to recover, and that means she's resting at the bottom of the well. That also explains why no one has seen the well in ages; we were told no one's even gotten past the first floor of the Final Vestige. Though perhaps Adorie and Augustine's father might know more.

Convenient for the Apocryphal; all she has to do to wake the Arcanist up is to get the well working again for a bit. But that's a problem for another day.

I also think that this is the magic we'll find in the Pillars of Creation. Perhaps there will be a well there that we can draw upon in order to create the armor, food, and enemies. Or perhaps a river, or at the least a small creek in a once-mighty river-bed, flowing down from the Realm of Evening into the Voyaging Realm and powering all sorts of magic there.

The winner was [X] Consolidate Power, [X] Regency and [X] Intensive Research. You have unlocked the 4th-5th Signs of the Empyrean and gained 1 Cursebearer's Strain. The means by which these Signs were unlocked shall remain classified.

Classified huh? Now I'm imagining Hunger scowling while everyone throws handfuls of money at him like he's a stripper. You better bet that's going to be classified!

[ ] Liberation - Bring these benighted peoples the glorious freedom of Nilfellian citizenship by liberating them from their current unenlightened governments. Nilfel will only conquer the areas surrounding the mines, and will not make use of reaver-squads or forced conscription of subject populaces. Compared to Augustine's wars, this is downright beneficent, and the Nilfellians do enjoy a generally higher standard of living than the Mountain-Holds.

Rihaku luring us into further conquests. It's certainly tempting! Quick, cheap, supported by lots of people, and there's even everyone's favorite "they'll greet us as liberators" justification, that our rule will be better. Somewhat hypocritical coming from the nation that had reaver squads just last week, but eh. The parallels between the US conquering Iraq for oil and Hunger conquering these mines for platinum aren't surprising. "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." Such are empires everywhere.

Normally I'd be wondering what would happen should the miners delve too deep, but I'm pretty confident we already know it's the Shard of the Arcanist down there. So delve all you want.

[ ] Territorial Commission - Sell back the lands Augustine conquered to their original nations in exchange for their platinum reserves. Will be deeply unpopular among many of the powerful Nilfellian constituencies, somewhat reversing the political effects of your previous Consolidate Power action.

The thread would never go for this. Never. Once something is ours it never goes away, and every loss, no matter how slight, hurts. There is also the risk of empowering enemies that later receive Apocryphal support.

[ ] Reformation - Abandon platinum-backed currency entirely (despite its magical protections against strong inflationary/deflationary shocks and concept-level maintenance of a prosperous economy) in favor of a state-issued fiat currency. With proper management, could in theory approach the pro-social efficiencies attained by the previous system, but this is unlikely.

I'm not a fan of making the realm of myth less mythical. Though this does have the advantage of not requiring us to conquer and subjugate a bunch of innocent people against Adorie's wishes.

[ ] Synthesis - Attempt to generate a solution via magical means. Very difficult.

*Consumes research time & priorities
*If successful, resolves the matter fairly easily
*Responsive to tactics
*Unlikely to work on the first few tries; myth-infused platinum could not be manufactured in any relevant quantities even by Augustine at the height of her power

Not going to vote for this unless we get a decent supply of good tactics. I'll try and think up some of my own later.

[ ] Fourth Sign: Skywards Claim [Vast Empyrean] - To they who aimed always heavenwards, make right their claim.

Casting time: Fifteen minutes
Duration: Indefinite or until dispelled
Cooldown: Fifteen minutes after dispellation

The caster elevates the direct physical-combat related Attributes (Might, Agility and Wits) of one character to a level roughly appropriate for the caster's Rank.

Does not work on the caster himself. Does not benefit from the military Rank bonus of Once and Future, but does stack with Vigorflame or Ring of Blood augmentation.

The uses are varied and potent. Enhance Gisena or Aobaru to staggering heights, or make Aeira relevant again in direct combat... perhaps even augment Adorie to create a potent military force ex nihilo! Could also serve as a half-measure for keeping Aobaru in the Voyaging Realm - Skywards Claim + Undying Vanguard means that the space of opponents capable of slaying him becomes much narrower.

The limitation of only one person is frustrating. Obviously I wasn't expecting something as good as Companions to the King but still.

If we had taken Companions to the King this would be a lot more attractive. Imagine someone with Hunger's Rank AND appropriate stats for that rank! But as it is I don't think this solves our problems effectively enough to be worth it.

[ ] 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.

The five heartbeat cast time is interesting since that means it's subjective time rather than anything objective. I'd imagine with a bit of work we could make the casting time effectively instant. The fact that it scales, the hint that it can "cancel the apocalypse" and solve our mage extraction problem, and the fact that this is the first mention of a power actually relevant when used against Armaments, all make it a solid pick.

Generally I'd prefer to get our offensive power from the praxis but this is really, really good.

[ ] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky] - Like the sun swallowed by clouds, his light is no blinding glare but a simple radiance suffusing; revelation without anguish, illumination without searing heat.

Casting time: Five minutes
Duration: Indefinite or until dispelled
Cooldown: None

Knowledge of this spell grants +++++Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and Appearance.

The recipients of this spell may make full use of their superhuman power-type Attributes, even if unbalanced, without the negatives consequences typical of such (insufficient durability, collateral damage, addiction, values warping, sensory burnout, etc). Each casting affects one recipient, but this spell may be maintained on up to one billion recipients at once.

Frees up some of Gisena's research time. Also you can be smug at her for having discovered a flawless solution to one of her research topics well before she did.

Permanently solving all excess power issues for everyone we interact with, along with giving stats, is a pretty good magic.

...

[X] Reformation
[X] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky]


Liberation, as in we are "liberating" their platinum for our own use, has the virtue of simplicity with no drawbacks for us, which is very appealing. But I would rather that we NOT become nothing more than a more powerful version of the Lord Protector. We'll be restoring the entire Voyaging Realm anyways, so this is entirely trivial.

I'm split pretty evenly between the death star and the veil, but in the end being better than Gisena and not being the Lord Protector v2 pushed me over the line.

1540 words.
 
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In more miscellaneous thoughts, it surprises me once again how heavily curated this Realm of Myth is; its artificiality is very blatant at times. I wonder how does the Realm of Myth views its own history considering that, that this is all made by the Foremost is painfully obvious at times.

[X] Reformation
[X] Fourth Sign: Skywards Claim


Hey, remember when we conquered the Temple and reduced the higher caste's quality of life significantly when we destroyed their civilization? Remember that we then later conquered Niefel, who quality of life for normal folk rivaled the Temple anyway? Yeah, I'm comfortable leaving this stuff to future Hunger; it's gonna be something much easier to solve then. Especially if we develop our Ennoblement more! Delaying problems for later is actually a good idea for a Progression-type Cursebearer.

Skywards Claim because people (including me) are very unwilling to lose companions, and something that protects them more directly seems like a better answer to that than a super-move. But Deathly Star is good too. Don't like Grandeur because I view it as redundant with the capabilities we already have; we don't need magical protections for 1 billion people.
 
Hunger: Complains that his power is all combat-related and hopes to receive utility from the Signs
Thread: Votes for the Sign with the least non-combat utility
We didn't get to the point where most of our power is combat-related because we did it for the lulz, we did it to survive. Ultimately, getting pure power and then branching out into utility seems to be vastly superior choice. Besides, we just saw power of Rank leveraged to non-combat tasks, and Hunger already has buffing/healing powers and teleport and summoning and social powers and Pillars etc. It's unfair to say that we are just a brick.

Still, the fact remains that most of our upcoming trials are all combat related - Aobaru's Nemesis, Apo's empowered proc and possibility of Armament-tier combat all loom over the horizon. Fuck off beamu is not the most imaginative way to solve problems that need to be blown up, but it's certainty the most expedient way of doing just that.
 
I think the choice I most want to work is Synthesis, but I'm not seeing anything that Conjured Blade's 'tactics' missed tonight. And, with all due respect to CB's efforts, I don't see how smashing together pieces of Team Hunger's character sheets is going to generate 1 trillion units of Mythic Platinum.

With that option tabled, we're left to choose between Liberation and Reformation. Liberation does not explicitly impose a relationship malus with Adorie, so the loss of her EFB is not guaranteed. If she joins us in the Realm of Evening, I'm confident that three weeks with Hunger and Gisena will be enough to plaster over any damage to the relationship. (The teenagers are darling, but Hunger and Gisena are charismatic enough to be memetic hazards; winning over one Queen is hardly beyond their capabilities.)

Reformation imposes a price that I'm not willing to pay: Aobaru's task is difficult enough even without allowing Existential Diminishment in the realm protected by the Mirellyian bloodline. By contrast, a rising tide lifts all ships. Buoying Nilfel's power and prosperity will have spillover effects on the surrounding polities just from the regular diffusion of economic activity. There's also the direct effects on the Elixir Sovereignty and the Temple Remnant to consider. Allowing Nilfel to slip from its mythic status would mar the jewel of the Voyaging Realm. The costs could propagate to everybody else in the VR.


As far as Signs, I'm very happy with any of them.
 
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Yeah, I'm comfortable leaving this stuff to future Hunger; it's gonna be something much easier to solve then.

The more I think about it the more trivial solving the money problem becomes. So what if we lose out on an extra couple legions? Just research another couple signs or Praxis, we'll have utterly triviliazed the legions in a couple months anyways. So what if they're a tiny bit poorer? We'll probably pick up the Sword in the Stone power in a couple months and utterly transform their society. Or we'll turn them all into Fairbrights. Or maybe fixing the entire Voyaging realm with Aobaru will restore their Well, among other things, just as a trivial side effect.

We appointed Adorie to rule this place. So let her rule it, without us coming in and overriding all her decisions. Becoming a bigger and better Lord Protector doesn't just go against Hunger's characterization, it's pointless. We'd be subjugating a bunch of innocents and abandoning our morals for trivial levels of power and prestige. It's not worth it.
 
The more I think about it the more trivial solving the money problem becomes. So what if we lose out on an extra couple legions? Just research another couple signs or Praxis, we'll have utterly triviliazed the legions in a couple months anyways. So what if they're a tiny bit poorer? We'll probably pick up the Sword in the Stone power in a couple months and utterly transform their society. Or we'll turn them all into Fairbrights. Or maybe fixing the entire Voyaging realm with Aobaru will restore their Well, among other things, just as a trivial side effect.

We appointed Adorie to rule this place. So let her rule it, without us coming in and overriding all her decisions. Becoming a bigger and better Lord Protector doesn't just go against Hunger's characterization, it's pointless. We'd be subjugating a bunch of innocents and abandoning our morals for trivial levels of power and prestige. It's not worth it.
Adorie's feelings about this decision point don't seem to be intense enough to generate a +/- relationship shift. I don't think that you can pitch this as "overriding" her decisions, because she hasn't made one yet.

We asked her country for its national monument, its crown jewels, and now for one trillion units of mythic platinum. I think there's a strong argument to be made that we have an obligation to replace what we took. Appealing to 'Progression' as a solution only works if we have plans to be in the area & share the wealth associated with progression unbound. As it stands, Reform essentially pays for the Fourth Sign with the Existential Diminishment of the Realm of Myth.

Reform also does not solve the problem of paying Aobaru and Aeira. They can't feed their families with fiat currency from a far away monarchy!
 
Reform also does not solve the problem of paying Aobaru and Aeira. They can't feed their families with fiat currency from a far away monarchy!

I mean, Hunger is the absolute ruler of the place where their family lives. Can't we just make these two Agents of the Throne and include a stipend from our taxbase that involves giving their families a rather cushy lifestyle along with their pay?
 
I mean, Hunger is the absolute ruler of the place where their family lives. Can't we just make these two Agents of the Throne and include a stipend from our taxbase that involves giving their families a rather cushy lifestyle along with their pay?
This seems like a pretty clear cut solution to the problem, with exception to some concerns about nepotism and perception. Alternatively, they're also probably the 2nd and 3rd most powerful Surgecrafters to exist, so maybe I'm overblowing things.
 
They are literally our bodyguards, so we might just pay them as such.

Not that I'd be against sending Aeira away, of course.
 
[X] Synthesis
[X] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky]


Realizing that big-fuckoff attacks are not that important. +5 intelligence is surprisingly rare, so I'm voting Veil on that consideration alone. This frees up some time for Gisena, which makes Synthesis, the most morally palatable option, more viable.
 
I mean, Hunger is the absolute ruler of the place where their family lives. Can't we just make these two Agents of the Throne and include a stipend from our taxbase that involves giving their families a rather cushy lifestyle along with their pay?
Yes, good point. We absolutely can solve the problem of paying our teenagers. A solution exists, but is it a mythic solution?

Reducing treasure within the Realm of Myth to a mundane system of financial instruments seems like a pretty steep price to pay. Compare that to a limited bit of expansionism that will ultimately protect the locals from Fisher King's weaponized Decimation and imo you will see that Reform isn't a great trade.
 
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[X] Reformation
[X] Synthesis

[X] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky]
[X] Fourth Sign: Skywards Claim [Vast Empyrean]
 
Realizing that big-fuckoff attacks are not that important.
Que? Are we reading the same quest? Because in my version of AST last two fights were all about managing Thorn as our most relevant combat tool. Not Quickening, not Crimson Flare, not Outer Shadow, but Thorn, as it was the thing which allowed us to actually defeat our foes.

Not only that Star adds another super relevant vector of attack, thus heavily reducing burden we put on Thorn to actually defeat foes, but they work together very well. Flat(but high) damage of Star vs % damage of Thorn, ranged attack vs melee attack, very good against defenses such as spatial fuckery and dodging vs very strong penetration. On top of everything, Star scales well with our Rank, securing it's relevance for foreseeable future, as it will directly benefit from upgrades granted by Once and Future II, Sword in the Stone and Super Juggernaut Undead Chimera.

I guess someone could look back at Armament Fish or Augustine fight and go "man, +5 int would be so much more useful here than ability to one-shoot them", but that's not the sentiment I necessary agree with. And we do have number of difficult confrontations ahead of us - Aobaru's nemesis, enhanced Apo proc, mage extraction, potential Armament fight etc. While Veil could solve theoretical issue of unbalanced attributes in future, Deathly Star solves concrete issue of not having fuck off magic beams to vaporize enemies with we have right now.
 
[X] Liberation
[X] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky]



I don't want to pass up Int boosts, since we have committed to ruling an empire much more complex than this one - Int is directly relevant to solving the empire related problems we have to solve ourselves. It would have made the issues we faced in this update much easier, and it's not like this is irrelevant combat wise anyway. In the end our endgame is to manage our empire for hundreds of years and the choices we seem to be committed to (Fisher King, OaF2, Sword in the Stone) reinforce that theme, so we should become more able to work like that while the chance is offered to us.
 
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But is our rulership INT the issue? Or the fact that we are about to run into Nemesis/reinforced Apo proc/extraction issues/etc?
 
I don't think that just because we deposed the Lord Protector we get to have a little Imperialism, as a treat. There's no actual objective metric that says Niefel remaining more Myth-like is better for all involved; certainly that didn't protect its neighbors from Reaver-squads! Human foibles exist in stories too, there's just a bit more narrative to it to spruce things up. If Adorie prefers Reform, then as the most qualified ruler an the one that's actually going to end up managing Niefel I'm inclined to respect that. Should we desire more Myth from the Realm I'm sure there will be another solution later down the line, especially since Aobaru's whole mission is to restore the Voyaging Realm. I don't think we are losing anything permanent by choosing Reform here, far from it. Let's have a decisive break from the Lord Protector here and solve our problems by not stealing the stuff from other people.
 
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