Given Saber's unfortunate position in the voting ranks, I guess I'll switch to my second choice.
The Ring really deserves some attention and I'm uncertain that Ruling Ring will be acquired any time soon, given both the Arete cost and the difficulty of acquiring 4 picks (which also have to qualify for Dominion advancements, which are fairly hard to trigger). That Crimson Flare offers literal millennia of experience in the manipulation of Blood sounds pretty awesome to boot.
Given that Myth and Legend is probably one of the weaker builds we could have taken following the Procyon fight and the fact that I'm not really super interested in just pumping mechanical bonuses like Ruin multipliers, I'd rather invest in an effect that is interesting and has been a core mainstay of Hunger's fighting style. Though all options are quite excellent in terms of value nonetheless, as befitting a Heroic Upgrade.
Our best likely lead on Foremost Maker is Architect of the Age though! As for the others, why does she need any of them when she's got Rank 10? The only real benefit there is the Condition resistance and that's assuming she isn't already immune to Exhaustion due to her bloodline.
Rank 10 does not mean auto-win, we kinda proved it with Hunger vs Procyon. Still I am not unreasonable - I understand the logic behind Ring. But I am a fan of RoB - so here is what I propose. I still have 2 more omakes that are almost done. I switch to ring and you support me to get RoB in the Pillars training montage. I know you wanted comfy but we both have to make sacrifices.
On an unrelated note, we should arrange for Adorie to get a Ring of Power, presumably taken from the corpse of some hostile Ringbearer once we start that plotline. She's loyal to us, very talented and is at the absolutely wild Rank 10. If the Ring is compatible with the Shroud, that seems like it would give her absolute control of her Dominions within that range and her bloodline powers might have some worthwhile interactions, much as Renaissance Woman has with the Ring of Artifice. It's a very good avenue of further development for her, especially if we can get her this universe's equivalent of the Ring of Might or something.
And we really should start the Ring War soon; subordinating the Azure earned us a free and powerful 7 Arete option; depending on how many Rings are in this universe, that could represent quite a decent powerboost on top of the Ruling Ring. It's not like the Human Sphere could be substantially more on fire than it currently is.
an application of Pierce Through that I don't think has been considered: Pierce Through is undodgable, which means it by necessity has infinite range; otherwise you could dodge it by moving away from its point of origin faster then it goes out from that point. It also pierces all forms of physical defense, so it's not occluded by mundane materials. It is unerring, meaning we can't aim wrong Ourselves, either.
Therefore, we could use Pierce Through on any armament we want, right now, without knowing where it is, and keep using Pierce Through until the cumulative damage is enough to put the Armament down, something we can almost certainly do without significant exhaustion due to the Praxis bonuses from Adorei and the linear costing from Pierce Through. For the Armament to stop us, it would need to be able to quickly understand why there's suddenly a hole in it, determine our location by observing the direction the hole came from, and then travel from its current location to our current location in less time then it takes us to repeat Pierce Through another few dozen times. by using Nightmare Flight to ensure we're in a particularly distant portion of the Voyaging Realm from them before we start, and our and Adoreis considerable Ranks to substantially inhibit or completely prevent their navigation capabilities, we should be able to take down any Armament with minimal risk if we have the initiative (or, well, even if not we can still flee with Flight if we have a bit of forewarning then hit them with our infinite-range thrust.)
Though, I'd still say to go into Pillars for our 21 days before trying anything such as this, since even if it seems reasonable one of them might have a curse-specific ultimate of relevance or other ability which would mitigate the effectiveness of such an attempt enough for them to somehow still enter dangerous combat with us.
Rank 10 does not mean auto-win, we kinda proved it with Hunger vs Procyon. Still I am not unreasonable - I understand the logic behind Ring. But I am a fan of RoB - so here is what I propose. I still have 2 more omakes that are almost done. I switch to ring and you support me to get RoB in the Pillars training montage. I know you wanted comfy but we both have to make sacrifices.
Rank 10 is an autowin against anything other than Apocryphal chosen opponents and Armaments but see my previous posts for what I think on that. As for your offer, that's really generous of you but honestly, I'm fine with whatever wins here. It feels weird to me but I genuinely care a lot more about Hunger proving that he's physically capable of resting than I do about the results of this specific build vote. Both options are pretty cool, after all.
Letrizia was enjoying the life. After Procyon defeat Lord Hunger got them together and they entered the weird time dilation zone that he had absorbed from the Lord Protector.
It was divine, opulent beyond belief and also responding to her wishes. According to the voice that boomed when they entered the so called "Pillars of Creation" they need to stay here for 21 days. No time will pass outside.
Lord Hunger summoned rooms for everyone to enjoy and somehow configured them to obey the wishes of the person who was using them. Nothing and she meant nothing was beyond the power of those Pillars. Even some special elixirs of immortality could be summoned. Lord Hunger specifically tested it and gave it to her after that. According to his ring her lifespan was now in the thousands of years – the decimation effects erased like a stain from her body.
She could not believe her luck, the past two months got her a pair of extremely capable (and beautiful) bodyguards that pampered her and solved all of her issues. She had reconciled herself to the situation that she will die young, but perhaps now she had a life after everything. Her Super Juggernaut Undead Chimera bodyguard will take care of everything.
Still, she had to make something – no amount of thanks would ever be enough but she was a Duchess and noblesse obliged. She summoned a fish similar to the one Lord Hunger caught three months ago. She used her pressure to cook and prepare a fish similar to his.
She routinely summoned some snacks but after a while she thought it was ready. It was nowhere near the level of the original but perhaps it would bring a smile to his sullen face. If he smiled more often he would be able to woo every woman in the imperial court.
She exited her room, dish in hand and went to the room that had sign – Lord Hunger. But what she saw was not something she expected.
Massive machines, forges and conveyer belts as far as the eye could see. They went in every direction, ignoring every law of physics and logic. Looking at it was looking at the end of nature – her eyes itched at the mere sight.
The factory, Letrizia realized, was an embodiment of madness incomprehensible even to the men or beings who built it, laid every unholy circuit of conveyor belt, a thousand arms madly spinning every second, countless plates of what looked like platinum in a complex dance the likes of which is unseen in the realm of mere mortals.
And it was growing, she saw people at the fringes, doing the unholy act of expansion. But the expansion segments had no reason behind it, rather it was just a pile of fixes piled upon piles of errors who were once fixes themselves. This is what her SharpBright element was screaming at her. This was a clusterfuck beyond reason and understanding. Honestly Letrizia looked at the sky waiting for the lightning strike of a divine being, as the last time something was this FUBAR-ed God smote the town and turned the inhabitants into salt. But perhaps there was no god to save her now from this …thing.
A pair slender hands snuck behind her and put a mask on her face and when she turned she saw Lady Gisena smiling at her.
"Hey Letrizia, young Duchesses should not breath the polluted air"
Letrizia could only open her mount and use her free hand to gesture at the ever growing eldritch scar that violated the natural order.
"Ah, I hope you like it. Hun wanted a way to generate massive amounts of Mythic Platinum so to access the 6th sign. The Pillars are limited to how much quantity of one thing they can generate but it seems they have no limit on the total amount of different items. So I started a factory that transforms the different ores and metals into Mythic Platinum"
"…how?"
"Oh that is easy, first I summoned multiple copies of myself to work" several clones of Lady Gisena stopped working on the nearby machines and waved at Letrizia who was just gaping.
"After that I started abusing using the Artifice Ring and things went a bit out of control"
Suddenly the voice of Lady Gisena boomed from a nearby speaker:
"The divination Truth team has detected a leakage in 13.6 minutes on conveyer number 9518845 at junction 563586. Gisena clone #45646, please tend to it immediately."
"What is going on here?" Letrizia tried to scream over the cacophony of sound from the nearby machines.
"Well the factory grew too much to handled normally so I started using divinations to see where the next blockage or problem will occur. It work wonderfully. "
"Where is Lord Hunger, I prepared a dish for him"
"Oh, Hun is in meditation and his cloak is eating everything. Let me show you. Just look at the center of the factory"
She pulled out a telescope and gave it to Letrizia. The Duchess took it and what she saw froze the blood in her veins. In the middle of the factory where nearly every conveyers converged was a giant funnel. Underneath it was the Evening Sky cloak but it shape was different. It resembled a massive maw with rows of teeth. Despite it being made from thread it looked even more menacing than Versch's maw.
"It is also singing" Gisena said with a bit of a broken smile.
"What?!" Letrizia thought she misheard but Gisena pushed a button on the telescope and suddenly she could hear what she saw in the distance.
"Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!
Feed me, Hunger
Feed me all night long
That's right, boy
You can do it
Feed me, Hunger
Feed me all night long
'Cause if you feed me, Hunger
I can grow up big and strong
Would you like a Sixth Sign?
You gonna git"
Letrizia dropped the dish and the telescope and escaped this madness. She went back to her room and wished for the Realm's strongest alcohol. Hopefully alcohol poisoning could clear the short term memory. She made a note to herself: Lady Gisena is scarier than Hunger.
[X] The Ring of Power: Crimson Flare
EDIT:
Why I switched:
I think the Ring needs some love (and the arguments are pretty great) as well and finally make Blood Great Again. Also I realized something. Voting for Tears indirectly supports MAEG gang and the sign madness. So Ring it is - miss me with that MAEG shit.
Hmm. As far as PR tactics for stealing Adorie from Nilfel goes with Crimson Flare, could we spin "fix the Walls yourselves, you lazy bastards" as an inspirational sentiment? Like something something new age dawning in Nilfel something something Adorie and Champion going to reckon with the Republic something something fix the Walls with your power, the glories of your elder days are not lost something something golden forever.
As I've said when this was brought up on discord, we can just play nationalistic card and sell it as Adorie going to personally kick Republic's ass for daring to scratch the Walls of Myth and so on. You also get to placate Augustine's crowd in process.
She's going to fix the walls and make Republic pay for it, pretty much.
Can we not just say that she is leaving because she has become so strong and so surpassingly competent that they would overly depend on her Rank 10.5 power? Also encourage them to realize the potential bestowed on them by the First Flare etc.
I wonder if Gisena can certify our words as true or something with the Azure Ring of Truth (assuming they are the truth)?
E: Nationalistic revenge sounds way better, scratch what I said
Beside, it does explain the party. We are escorting Letrizia to Voyaging City, so along the way we can also escort Adorie so she can go and tell republic that she wants to see their manager, while we flex on that notShinji guy in the background.
Note that Apo will have ~9 days of charge by that point, so getting double-teamed by Armaments is, in fact, a possibility.
*Renders his powers of restoration and suppression both fantastically mighty and subtle; mere physical harm now can never overcome the regenerative power of the Ring,
Hmm. re: our need for Sated, do you think we can look up the Sovereignty again? We should relocate them to Nilfel anyway and the benefits of Crimson Flare would be far better than the losses that come with the waters being drained. Who knows, it might even be another shot at Elixir!
Flowery prose, or does this carry in-setting effects?
In EFB the ending of one age and the beginnings of another was the driving of the entire setting, similar to Ruling Ring, is this setting wheels into motion?
Well, Procyon did start the Astral Age and honestly, the Human Sphere all becoming Numenorians would be just as big of a change as humanity leaving Earth. A world in thrall to Blood indeed.
Hmm. re: our need for Sated, do you think we can look up the Sovereignty again? We should relocate them to Nilfel anyway and the benefits of Crimson Flare would be far better than the losses that come with the waters being drained. Who knows, it might even be another shot at Elixir!
If anyone would have the ability to safely transport the spring waters while retaining its power, it would be Adorie with her new powers of Preservation. Perhaps within the Walls it may even be buoyed be the nature of the place. Especially if the Font of Myth restarts.
If anyone would have the ability to safely transport the spring waters while retaining its power, it would be Adorie with her new powers of Preservation. Perhaps within the Walls it may even be buoyed be the nature of the place. Especially if the Font of Myth restarts.
Sorry, I jumped ahead without explaining myself. If it doesn't look like an appetizing target for Hunger anymore , we may be able to give it a boost by transplanting it and letting it soak up some of that good ol' Myth. Probably would take a bit to kick in though.
Hmm. If we take Crimson Flare and decide to transport the waters, that might be a worthwhile start to restoring the Fonts of Myth. Perhaps that's overly literal of me but I think the Realm of Myth is the sort of place that appreciates that kind of thinking.
An offhand thought and not something I'm advocating but I wonder if we could integrate the Decimation Core (and by extension Verschlengorge) into the Ring. Their aesthetics seem pretty similar and we've already gotten an Advancement from it that connects with him. Considering the impact that the Decimation has and the fact that it doesn't seem like they can consistently mitigate it, it might be the best thing we could do for him, at least towards the end of our Geas task. I think he'd quite enjoy an eternity of battle, which is pretty much what Hunger is going to be doing.
Is this an extremely complicated fandom that was not specified?
I tried reading the first chapters to catch up but just can't follow the sheer level of fantasy abstraction. How can so many people tune into it? Proceeding slowly with patience, I guess
More seriously, you should be able to jump in without any background knowledge but yeah, this quest does have a bit of optional background reading in the form of Rihaku's other quests to provide context and understanding of some of the references. If you find you enjoy this quest, you might want to check those out.
I tried reading the first chapters to catch up but just can't follow the sheer level of fantasy abstraction. How can so many people tune into it? Proceeding slowly with patience, I guess
Yeah, some of this stuff can be hard to grok before it clicks. If you're having issues with anything in particular, you can ask the thread or the Discord and I'm sure they'd be happy to help. I'm not sure what you mean by fantasy abstraction though.
Thanks for the answer. Probably it's better to start from the beginning, I remember that things like Sunless Sea / Fallen London can seem complicated if you jump in "in medias res", in the middle of things.
By abstraction, I mean: a magic system that can not be immediately understood (Praxis, breaking reality, "sealing" attacks, 7 Seals, "the scepter of kingdom" (so you are automagically a king?) that seems more complicated than the lore of Dark Souls (that I know well at this point), plus references to Things In Capital Letters that are not so clear (remissances? does it do anything for you, does it mean you acquire the companions specified, etc.)
