All four (or five, depending on how you count them) characters are amazingly compelling, but in terms of pathos Sable's story is a clear frontrunner. I wanted to make a build for her and have fun with the CYOA without the need to optimize as obsessively as a Combat-type trying to survive breaking containment. Not starting so deeply in the red leaves room for thematic exploration. Thanks again for making this!
The Knife of No City
Character (The Orphan)
Ocean (Progression-type)
Crowning Curses: Sable's suffered enough
Major Curses: Geas of Indenture, Doom of the Tyrant
Lesser Curses: Brand of the Kinslayer, Doom of the Sailor
Primary Remittance: Twice-Great (Pestilence, Redolence)
Lesser Remittances:
Artifacts: Sorrow, Saltbrume
Upgrades: Immortal Sheath, Relinquishment
Location: Coda Sola
Pestilence: Wired, Dysthymia
Redolence: Alter, Metal
A saint would stay and solve Dunwall's problems. A better woman could at least select Peace, sacrificing her Remittance on the altar of the world's well-being, Dooming herself to end the Doom of Pandyssia. Dark as Dunwall seems, the city still contains potential, seeds of glory just waiting to be watered, so many bright minds and hearts filled with yearning for something better. The Outsider cares for nothing but his own amusement, yet in the moment of Sable Shaw's offer the world is cradled in the hand of a being possessed of both power and compassion. All she would have to do is say the words.
Justice, prosperity, and even the order that Lord Regent Hiram Burrows so desperately desires could be brought about. But when did Dunwall ever offer Sable a choice? This broken and failing darkness masquerading as a city, where the future is a forever-collapsing cage, every horizon of promise eventually revealed as an illusion? She gave up a lot to live in Dunwall, but it never yielded in the slightest to be her home. That a scion of the city wouldn't choose to save it isn't justice, but could perhaps be called its ironic echo. The only person who ever cared for Sable is gone; there's nothing left for her here.
And so, the Ocean. In what would've been her last moments Sable wished for more, not to have to die here. Now? She doesn't have to die at all. The sea encircling the Empire of the Isles is an apt metaphor for freedom from its privation. She wouldn't be the first daughter of Dunwall to take to the waves, but the Ocean offered by the Accursed is infinitely greater. Curse-wise, she's suited to the Doom of the Sailor. It pairs well with the effectively-eternal voyage of Indenture and exemplifies desire to escape her origins. It also pays for Saltbrume; the idea that if she never abandons the sea, its shroud will never abandon her is appealing given Sable's backstory.
Saltbrume might also provide partial mitigation of the Sailor's Doom since she's always 'adjacent' to its mists, or at least get there with some effort invested. The Knife build specifies Coda Sola as her first Geas task, a world where she'll never be more than five miles from the sea anyway. The Doom of the Tyrant's likewise logical. Sable's been living in the gutter, but willpower's one of her core stats. Her sheer persistence and tenacity in clinging to life are admirable; even in death's shadow, she still struggled. Having been failed so thoroughly by the government, why should she answer to any authority other than the Accursed and her own conscience?
Brand of the Kinslayer's kind of the odd Curse out, but if Sailor's tied to Saltbrume, it's paired with Sorrow. The Knife of No City's a riff on the title of Daud's DLC, but works better with the eponymous weapon. Sorrow's name and powers are nothing if not fitting. Of course Sable'd get a weapon that conveys only fatigue and danger, she's known nothing else! Sable's homeworld has a long history with talismans carved from bone, making it doubly suitable. This way mastering Sorrow can mirror her personal growth and a distinctive weapon gives the Brand something to play off of; Sable is defined by a death in the family, though not in the way it claims.
And now we come to the magics. Pestilence is just pitch-perfect, way too thematically appropriate to pass up. Sable should still be infected with the Doom of Pandyssia, having intentionally avoided taking Rebuilt. Being able to bring her will to bear on the rat plague, subjugating and deriving power from it? Delicious. Dysthymia reflects her determination and the ++Will's valuable with her Pandyssian Blood; Wired as a negative symptom's manageable with the aforementioned willpower and it's a nice little nod to the City of Wires, which seems... not entirely dissimilar to Dunwall.
The way I see it, Sable's defined by the effort to escape from and overcome her past, at least at first. Having pared away everything not essential for survival, she has to discover and recreate herself. Redolence builds on that theme of sovereignty over the self. Sable can Alter her perceptions, expanding the sensory input from Sorrow, or inflicting conditions on herself to be overcome through Pestilence as a means of growth in the absence of enemies. Metal's a misnomer since Sorrow's made from bone, which I figure has advantages as a Redolent medium. It's risky to invest so much of herself in an externality, but better an Artifact than a person. The latter have a nasty habit of dying, after all.
Immortal Sheath means she can pile on afflictions to be subsumed by Pestilence without being debuffed by them. Sable's streetwise enough to know the appearance of weakness often creates it in actuality. It's also a safeguard against initial risk. Between the Sheath, Sorrow, and her mistcloak, she ought to be able to survive arriving on Sand Spiral. In the worst case she can run and hide, nothing she hasn't done before. The final Lesser Remittance goes to Relinquishment, so she'll never be trapped even in her new life. Trust comes slowly to her and while in the long Sable's probably going to be pretty grateful to the Accursed, the guarantee of even a temporary reprieve makes the transaction more appetizing.
