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A Simple Transaction I

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Enohthree said:
My only regret with the Rihaku CYOA is that while it paints a vivid nightmare fairytale realm, its hard to picture what civilization looks like inside of it. Presumably there is some, but I can only wildly speculate with a seed to start from.
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i think it looks a lot like the Old Kingdom from Abhorsen, right when Sabriel visits during the first book. Towns are besieged by monsters, and relics of previous glory are all falling to ruin one by one.
 
Enohthree said:
My only regret with the Rihaku CYOA is that while it paints a vivid nightmare fairytale realm, its hard to picture what civilization looks like inside of it. Presumably there is some, but I can only wildly speculate with a seed to start from.
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I've always assumed it to be a lot like Ravenloft all told. A lot of classic horror stuff floating around, cities ruled by exceptionally powerful individuals or organizations, darklords, the works.
 
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Gifts of Plenty
  • Threadmarks
    • Gifts of Plenty

    The winners were [X] Always Forward and [X] Plowshares to Swords. Hunger will also accompany [X] Aeira on her spelunking adventures. Since you guys picked [X] Always Forward, you will have to spend the associated picks...

    This build vote would be huge if posted in one go, so we'll split it up. The update and second half of this build vote, as well as the results of Aeira's mystery bonus, will be in 1-2 days. This half of the vote will also close then. You have 47 Arete.

    Choose what Hunger spent the first half of his training on.     Unused picks at the end of this build vote will be spent on Echoes.

    [ ] Majesty: Fisher King + Sword in the Stone. 37 Arete, 2 + 1 picks. Fisher King is a potential Decimator mitigation Advancement that also offers valuable Wisdom and priceless Accursed Favor. Sword in the Stone finally grants Hunger some form of insurance if his Second Stage is slain, a safety net woefully lacking for a being of Hunger's strength. While the domain-limited mental Attributes from SitS don't correlate perfectly to control over the Realm of Evening, they do improve Hunger's power of rulership, including those components of Realm manipulation related to direct rule. Also empowers his companions somewhat, though not to the degree of the option below:

    [ ] True Champions: Fisher King + Companions of the King. 37 + 6 Arete, 2 + 1 picks. Elevating all your companions to Rank 9, and improving your Mental and Physical attributes by 50%, will dramatically increase the overall effectiveness of your entire party. Gisena will be able to squeeze out another Major Grace for only 6 additional Arete before you have to return to the external world, allowing you to achieve one of the Amazing Grace builds from last update. Adorie won't benefit much, as she already has greater than 10 effective Rank, but Letrizia should see enormous improvements to her out-of-Armament effectiveness. Should also make Aobaru stop complaining, though he'll have mixed feelings about being simply 'handed' such enormous power...

    *Now Hunger can have others fish for him!
    *Or fish aside him with a modicum of competitiveness.
    *Don't let the shininess of the new options obscure the solid value of these FK choices.

    [ ] Exalted Battle Array (3 picks, 26 Arete). 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.

    Requires Hunger to engage in a 3-pick fight during this training session, for which you will have to roll to survive. That said, chances of survival are great. Strengthening your Echoes means future pick-farming sessions will be vastly more productive. Would also synergize heavily with the likes of Refinement of Battle, or 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.

    [ ] November Sky (2 picks, 28 Arete). 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.

    *Overlapping auras don't stack, but this would help Adorie fend for herself while Hunger is absent.
    *++++INT is a lot. The APP and WILL are good too.
    *Addresses the overwhelming AGI advantage that enemy Armaments present against Hunger, allowing him to fight Armaments without spamming Refinement of Quickness.
    *Fairly 'cheap' Mental Stability, and one of the few ways to receive Mental Stability directly through an Advancement.

    [ ] The Ring of Power - Ring of Essence [5 picks, 50 Arete, Defining Advancement].

    Requires Chief Dominion: Blood, Crimson Flare. Incompatible with Ruling Ring.

    Hail Nameless king, of shadowed throne, your golden glamours tell
    of Winter's maze, your sloven's gaze, was steward for a spell.
    Thy Essence raised, by sage's thews,
    by hated toil grasped;
    Now heeds the world, of distill's news:
    comes Grail and Fire, clasped!

    The wielder acquires a restricted version of the Colour Magic, the Emperor Red, as mediated by his Ring of Power. This reduces the personality-warping effects of the Colour, but ensures the Colour may only be channeled directly through his Ring. Its chief function is to broaden the Chief Dominion of the Ring, incorporating Essence into the nature of Blood such that any sort of being with a foundational essence can be affected by the Chief Dominion, including modifiers from other Advancements (chiefly, Crimson Flare). Advancements acquired by slaying enemies gain +Progression if those enemies are absorbed by the Emperor Red.

    This Advancement does not grant any skill with Colour Magic on its own, but in time the wielder will be able to use most of the facets of the Red with the proficiency of a native: He may drain the essence of foes by touch, and eventually affect first nonliving, then even abstract or conceptual objects: depleting a fireball as it strikes his skin, unmaking magics that target or encompass him, even reducing the effects of plagiarism upon his repute, or age upon his form.

    Effects that physically touch his blood are much easier to affect in this way. Conversely, by expending essence he may reinforce the fundamental existence of his body, implements or allies, augmenting their physical and spiritual power to superhuman heights. This effect is similar to, and does not stack with, the blood augmentation Hunger already possesses, though with a greater spiritual component. Infusing essence into an attack, he may amplify its effective damage; into a verbal argument, its emotional salience.

    *As the Colour suffuses, and is directed, by the Ring of Power, the wielder cannot directly employ the compounding function of the Colour. Though he and the Ring are one and the same, the Colour simply is not present within those body parts that are 'not the Ring.'
    *Allows Hunger's Second Stage to benefit fully from Quickening and subsidiary Advancements.
    *Can pretty much fix Versch.
    *With training, Hunger's disgustingly powerful Bloodcasting can now be applied to enhance or diminish all sorts of phenomena. An absurdly, almost unfairly versatile ability that can eventually be leveraged into full scale reality alteration.
    *That said, at present this doesn't offer 50 Arete worth of power. Much of its cost is justified only by potential.
    *Still, an Ascendant Ring cannot be Ruled, and is free from the petty strife of the Ringwar.
    *Only your ability to buy Defining Advancements piecemeal allows you to take this, so:
    *You'll basically have wasted the Fisher King Arete until you get more Defining Advancement slots.

    ---

    Some miscellaneous options that can be selected:

    [ ] Buy Fisher King regardless - Some options don't have particular synergy with Fisher King, either mechanically or thematically, but perhaps you just want to finish it. If you select this option and it receives at least a majority of the total votes, Hunger will buy Fisher King regardless. Note that this may prevent you from getting two new EFBs this training session, since the Arete cost would be prohibitive. Incompatible with Ring of Essence, for obvious reasons.

    [ ] Ambrosial Tinge [2 picks, 7 Arete] - Converts Hunger's blood to acquire certain properties of the Ambrosia of this place, a nectar of divine palate that extends youth and lifespan indefinitely when ingested. Given Hunger's regeneration, he can produce a vast and bounteous supply with modest effort.

    Useful for increasing the health and lifespan of a populace exposed to the Decimator's Affliction, or simply creating dependents to leverage in the future. Habit-forming functionality can be disabled if one simply wants to provide delightful sustenance to one's allies. You can also sell it for enormous quantities of material wealth if economic warfare is preferred.
     
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    • [X] Majesty: Fisher King + Sword in the Stone. 37 Arete, 2 + 1 picks

    [X] True Champions: Fisher King + Companions of the King. 37 + 6 Arete, 2 + 1 picks

    [X] Exalted Battle Array (3 picks, 26 Arete)

    [X] November Sky (2 picks, 28 Arete)

    [X] The Ring of Power - Ring of Essence [5 picks, 50 Arete, Defining Advancement]

    [X] Buy Fisher King regardless

    [X] Ambrosial Tinge [2 picks, 7 Arete]
     
    Rihaku said:
    [ ] The Ring of Power - Ring of Essence [5 picks, 50 Arete, Defining Advancement].

    Requires Chief Dominion: Blood, Crimson Flare. Incompatible with Ruling Ring
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    ...Impressive, but can we not just get Ruling Ring? My intention here was to finish Ruling Ring and Fisher King, and then decide what to spend the remaining picks on after we had both.
     
    I like November Sky a lot, both for actually being our first Tears of Winter Advancement, getting a solid counter to Armaments, and most of all, that +++Mental Stability included. Nowhere else can we get such bounties of Mental Stability without spending actions.

    Exalted Battle Array is potentially hilarious if we get the follow-up EFB "Closing the Fist", but that's a death chance and I hate those. Also a lot of Arete, although perhaps I could do what all the cool people are doing and write a massive CYOA...

    Love Essence Ring, Hate wasting Fisher King. Getting Defining Advancement slots is not easy, and we spent 3pick 12 Arete on it. That's a lot of waste.

    For the time being, November Sky is my favorite. Maybe with Fisher King if we have enough Arete.
     
    [X] Exalted Battle Array
    become megazord or
    [X] The Ring of Power - Ring of Essence
    this option has 2 different red colors - way too powerful.
     
    [X] November Sky (2 picks, 28 Arete)

    [X] Buy Fisher King regardless

    Sky let's us not worry as much about getting jumped by Armaments when we get to the HS, Fisher King lets us avoid decimation and get that sweet sweet Accursed Favor.

    Though I can see the sense of saving some Arete for the 2nd round build vote.
     
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    vali said:
    'You are an outlander. I know this land. I have been to the courts of the spirits, and seen the Parliament of stars. I know their signs and sigals. Fortune is useless if you lack the knowledge to exploit it. But if your power of fortune is so great, then you already know this. You know that finding me was an act of great fortune.'
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    This is great! Extremely evocative. Ten Thousand doesn't multiply Seven's total capacity by ten thousand, however. You can still only control one body mass' worth of each Element total, because there's really only still one of you, it's just that you have perfect multitasking up to 10,000 times with the concomitant mental stamina. You could wield all seven Elements simultaneously, but the power of Seven doesn't really verge on the epic scale without the help of either Sigil or Colour: Red.

    I look forward to seeing Abe Step Up!

    Sickul said:
    Getting the Companions powered up makes OverLady much more attractive. Quite the Force to multiply.

    The only question I have is whether the build gives enough short term power that we can go the Long Term Gisena research build to quickly gather up Graces, or if we need a more combat capable Gisena to survive with this build.
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    Hunger does already have a considerable amount of short term power, though more would never hurt. Still, +50% All Stats is nothing to sneeze at, especially strategically.
     
    Byzantine said:
    While I do not oppose november sky, I would recommend grabbing Fisher King as well.
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    ...Is Fisher King good for SMRT? Can we have both? I got so confused by all the talk about builds for characters who are not Lord Hunger in settings that are not Lord Hunger's settings that I no longer understand things.

    Is why I vote for SMRT. Everything is too complicated. Only hope of survival is for main character to become smarter than voter-base, myself especially included.
     
    Dread it. Run from it. The 40+ arete-costing build votes come anyway. ><
    Rihaku said:
    [ ] True Champions: Fisher King + Companions of the King. 37 + 6 Arete, 2 + 1 picks. Elevating all your companions to Rank 9, and improving your Mental and Physical attributes by 50%, will dramatically increase the overall effectiveness of your entire party. Gisena will be able to squeeze out another Major Grace for only 6 additional Arete before you have to return to the external world, allowing you to achieve one of the Amazing Grace builds from last update. Adorie won't benefit much, as she already has greater than 10 effective Rank, but Letrizia should see enormous improvements to her out-of-Armament effectiveness. Should also make Aobaru stop complaining, though he'll have mixed feelings about being simply 'handed' such enormous power...
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    Huh. So... Elevating all your companions to Rank 9... Wow, that's all thanks to Adorie, isn't it?

    Because Hunger's "true" or "base" or "unmodified" rank is somewhere... uh, around 8.1 or 8.3 or 8.7 or 9-point-something, I think. Even if you factor in that "+1 Rank in general for all stuff" from Once and Future 1. Which means that on its own, Companions of the King would get like Rank 7-8 or so.

    But Adorie's EFB brinks Hunger to Rank 10. So with this, everybody gets a flat Rank 9.

    ... On the other hand, Hunger is shockingly fast at advancing in Rank, so he could probably break "base" Rank 10 in a surprisingly short amount of time anyway. Still, that "surprisingly short amount of time" can be weeks or a month or two, depending on what life throws our way, and how much time skipping is involved, so. And with this, we get them at Rank 9 now.

    ... Huh. Heh. Since it's thanks to Adorie and her Winter's Champion that they are at Rank 9, rather than 7 or 8... Does that make them effectively Knights of Winter? Companions of Winter's Champion. And the original blurb for Companions of the King mentioned Knights. So... ... Or, from another perspective, since we've joked about Aobaru being a theme park manager... Not Knights of Winter but istead...

    Ho ho ho, everyone. The Elves of Santa's Workshop are here!

    Tis the season, after all.

    And they are exiting a realm of wonder.

    And we do have the "Season's Greetings" bonus from Tears of Winter. So... yeah. Heh.

    This is an incredibly-heavy party-buffing thing. But. It does a hell of a lot of what we want, to make our friends be able to scale with our power. It's incredible utility -- and safety, too, for Aobaru what with his challenge; with this, we just need to make sure Hunger remains Ranks ahead of Aobaru, and Aobaru will benefit from that! ... Also, huh. Aobaru could just focus on grinding up his Stats, rather than his Rank, and it would be highly effective, wouldn't it?

    ... And Aobaru's Surgecrafting element is, to begin with, highly focused on buffing Stats to begin with.

    With this EFB active, Aobaru doesn't need to worry about his Rank, and can just fully focus on Stats. Which will be nice for everybody else, too; because him advancing his Vigorflame to buff Stats, obviously means that everybody else benefits from those Stats boosts too.

    ... And Gisena can pick the Archsmith or whatever Grace combo it was. Which means that, she can work on repairing and adding all the stuff to Verschlengorge. Hell. With that Grace combo, she could work together with Adorie, and see if we can get that Foremost Maker status for them!

    ... This is a highly effective way to make all your companions useful. Make them safe. Make them able to specialize without worrying about needing to do too many things.

    BTW, here's the blurb for Companions of the King from when it showed up in the update "The Contest of Kings" here.
    ===========================
    [ ] Companions of the King [5 + 25 Arete] - 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.

    *Source: From Connections
    *Bonus: Dearly Departed - Never Again. Discounts Once and Future I by 5 Arete.
    *Bonus: Chains of Fate - Font of Legends. +Int, +Cha, +Wits, +Luck.
    *Obviously massive synergy with a given companion whose Element itself commands Pressure...
    ===========================
    I don't think we're getting the "Font of Legends" bonus though. :V (Though, it sounds like it might have been something that had something to do with the Wells of Myth or whatever? Or, from elevating Aobaru to a really high rank; as Aobaru is connected to the future of the Voyaging Realm in some way, and so...)

    So... +50% all stats, and +100% all Rank gain. Together with Fisher King's +50% Rank gain, we get a total of, what... +250% Rank gain? i.e. Before this, we had +100% Rank gain, I think. Double Rank gains. With this, it's "multiply by 3.5." That's hefty.

    Of course, we're kind of absolutely bloated on Rank anyway...

    I wonder what the other Advancements do.

    One of them is likely to be the Aeira Advancement of some sort. Probably something Conjunctional with the Evening Sky.

    Probably something that makes the Realm of Evening way more convenient for us to use, in some way. Maybe ways to make use of the Realm of Evening in the real world. Maybe a way to exit the Realm of Evening early instead of being stuck for 3 weeks, and thus being able to split when you get to use your 21-days-per-month and use a little bit of it at a time. Maybe some way to use the Realm of Evening for stealth, in the real world. Who knows.

    Being able to use the Realm of Evening more frequently would be huge though. Visiting it once per week, for 21-divided-by-4 days each? Instead of once a month for 21 days? It would be far less of an Apocryphal bait. It would also be way more useful as a way to heal, as we'd have super duper healing available to use once a week, rather than once a month.


    And maybe there's something from the Praxis, too. That is, some kind of Advancement regarding the Praxis.

    ... Doh. Imagine if we have enough to get an upgrade to Imperial Praxis, right here and now. Oof -- would that tempt people a lot?

    How many people would go for the Imperial Praxis, here and now, if it was up on offer?

    I mean, we've had 3 weeks of recovering from our fight, we've healed up, we've had a bunch of Advancements and a Heroic Upgrade, we finished off Fisher King... Now could be a safe time to take Imperial Praxis in the Sword, no? How would people feel about that?
     
    Rihaku said:
    [ ] Ambrosial Tinge [2 picks, 7 Arete] - Converts Hunger's blood to acquire certain properties of the Ambrosia of this place, a nectar of divine palate that extends youth and lifespan indefinitely when ingested. Given Hunger's regeneration, he can produce a vast and bounteous supply with modest effort.
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    I think we really shouldn't overlook this, tbh. This is some solid Decimator mitigation to those who we can feed, since we can at least get them defended against the lifespan drain.
     
    Wait, are the stat boosts of November Sky permanent for us or do we just benefit from it while in the Realm? I assume it's the former, but it's just ambiguous enough for me to ask.
     
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