A Simple Transaction I

[ilbgar123]

Hm, here's hoping my big Omake pushes us past the 25 Arete mark. We had like 10 pages of discussion with doubling, so I'm hopeful.

 

[Rihaku]

Some interesting guesses as to Hunger's whereabouts... though it certainly would take a lot of juice from Apo-chan to elevate Catherine and Etrynome to levels relevant in this clash! Novakhron was already mightier than a dozen Armaments on its own: multiplied by the Refinement of Battle, Attainment of Quickness and Refinement of War it has grown exponentially stronger, on top of Totality with a Praehihr that wields the Power of Ruin with All-Defeating Stance and King of Winter, all supplemented by the comprehensive reality manipulation of Archmage...

 

[Zampano]

We know that Hunger + Nova were on hand in the Shogun's system to Pierce Through the Limb. No mention of Verschlengorge, however.

It is difficult to speculate where Hunger might be, considering how brief our tour of the Human Sphere has been. The Association's response to Dien's contagion hasn't been described, but their handful of Armaments don't seem like a game changer. The Astral Lords might be able to contribute a diversionary feint, but with a billion Echoes of the Imprisoner jumping around the Galaxies even an Astral Onslaught seems like a minor concern. I suppose that a full incursion by the Astral Lords could be a distraction that requires Hunger's personal attention?

No, the law of narrative conservation seems to favor something like an uprising in the Empire - whatever conspiracy sabotaged Letrizia might be making a play. That would be interesting on a personal level. If Hunger tries to intervene, Letrizia might fully despair of having a meaningful existence outside of his shadow. But if Hunger does not intervene, Verschlengorge might be taken & Letrizia killed (or suborned). An Apocryphal activation that tugs on the social link we need to unlock SJUC would earn Hunger's full attention.

Sovereignty, Temple Remnant, and Nilfel all seem wildly outclassed by Dien's agents, so Hunger Prime might be visiting the VR to defend his holdings. Considering the mitigation vote we just suffered through, this option seems least likely.

Maybe Hunger went to try and preserve the Republic's chain of command, since the Geas of Indenture is such a serious threat right now?

 

[Da Boyz]

Spoiler: Prelude

So for anyone who liked Orm's CYOA here's a small expansion on one of the starting locations offered. Intended as a bit of a more ground level look at the history and all that's happened. Probably not going to continue it but I'm curious as to what people think.

In a Gadda Da Vida
A Post-Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy quest.​

Twenty-seven years ago, the world died for a second time.

It was not in the exchange of Voidwood missiles as had once been feared, mutually assured destruction preserving the fragile balance of powers. The Tenders of the Planet did not rebel as the concerned elders of the Grove Compact had planned against, humanity and honor keeping those greatest of cultivators loyal. The end did not come as a blight upon the cities and crops, the ecosystem of technology which maintained civilization standing strong against plague. No mutated monstrosity emerged from the Firewastes to finish what their creator had started. Ultimately, the second end did not come from any internal source.

Nor even from the sea of Fire which had once drowned the world.

Instead the fertile fields of civilization were devoured by the Locust which had snuck amidst it.

The Two-Legged Locust's first move came as a knife slipped between the ribs of civilization. A Tender slain by her wife in her sleep, a general picking up his grandson with a smile only to find the child's arm shifted into a keratin scythe heading for his neck, esteemed senators clutching at their necks as loyal servants watched on dispassionately at the poison's spread. Ten thousand scenes of betrayal playing across the Rosegold continent as trust in one's fellow man became the first casualty of the war.

And as the world staggered back bleeding the thing known as the Hand began its true assault. Tears in the world opening up in missile silos as waves of silent monstrosities poured through to secure them. The walls of noble estates scaled or torn down as strange colossi of flesh and metal stole away the senescent cultivators who had put down roots there. Armies of silent green eyed men tearing apart cities and stealing away what few relics of the past remained. Wood stronger then titanium splintering as shells of metal were spat with thunderous sulfurous roar from coldblooded snipers miles away.

In some places resistance boldly roared defiance only to be made silent: A secret Voidwood silo firing its apocalyptic payload at a city which had been overrun by the sudden menace. The paranoid army of House Lin-Atar cleansing their ranks of infiltrators only to die in a mushroom cloud of fire. A half dozen last stands from the Tenders who had survived the first dreadful moments of the war, as heroic as they were doomed.

But within a week the last of the Grove Compact's forces had fallen.

Then began the Harvest.

Those fortunate enough to live outside or flee the urban centers found the apocalypse branching out to greet them. Glades which had lain unspoiled for centuries torn apart as their secrets were vivisected and treasures stolen. The Firewastes emptying out into civilized lands as the beasts within ran away from the arch-predator which preyed on mutant and pure alike. Seemingly random attacks made at communities to drag away into the night screaming targets into the night. The Worldroots themselves flayed layer by exponentially thicker layer at as samples were taken of the ancient wood.

For seven months and thirteen days, hell reigned in the Garden once more as only those who abandoned everything in pursuit of survival managed to cling to life.

And then as suddenly as it had come, the Hand left.

Even as the last of metallic transports left through the portals they had entered no-one dared believe them gone. Communities huddled in the wilderness incapable of understanding that the horror was gone. Believing that at most the reprieve they had been granted would last only a few days before the next blow fell.

Yet gone the Locust was, its objectives fulfilled and target ruined beyond repair.

Leaving behind a ruined Garden.

A place where the secrets of the past had been lost and Fruitlines stolen. Countless cultivars gone, with hopes for peace and progress deracinated just as thoroughly.

A world of anarchy and horror.

The world which you live in.

But who are you?

[ ] The Remnant - You were a person of some import in the Grove Compact so many years ago. Someone with the skill, tenacity or luck to manage to survive the early days. An official heartless or cowardly enough to survive all the days which followed. Every colleague which you knew is dead, and with them almost certainly your family. Yet somehow you have managed to come into a position of authority once more as leader of some settlement, bandit gang or forgotten military outpost. The world which you had once known is gone and the years which followed have left you numb. But there is still a chance to regrow from the ashes.

Your innate potential with cultivation is average yet despite this you may have come into possession of a Fruit of your own. The details, rarity and strength of which will be balanced against your own personal traits and starting situation in a follow-up votes. You've trained with this Fruit for decades and had to rely on it to save your life more times then you count leading you to the apex of its potential. Yet with that apex and age comes the lethargic urge which all cultivators feel. To put down more literal roots, sprout Fruit for the next generation and sleep the sleep of ages. This could possibly be delayed with the consumption of a second Fruit but with your potential your odds of surviving are uncertain.

Pick this if: You want to play a world weary veteran who doesn't so much have a chip on their shoulder as a shoulder on their chip, you think playing a post-apocalyptic rebuild quest would be fun, you want to run Bartertown, want to explore the societal and technological elements of druidpunk, don't mind the protagonist 'dying' and passing on their wisdom to a successor.

[ ] The Urchin - You were born into this world of deprivation having never known the bounty prior generations strove for. Your parents either abandoning you or dying at a young age and leaving you to scrabble in the dirt. By fortune or fate you managed to survive to a teenage age and now are making your way in the world. Be it as fieldhand in one of the few remaining settlements, a hanger-on maintaining the chariots of some raiders or even a slave you are at the bottom rung in society. Yet your wits are quick, your body strong if malnourished and your will to live undeniable. You know with the certainty that only the very young can have that you are destined for greater things.

Your innate potential is immense as some quirk of lineage has led to royal genes resulting in a pale shadow of the Originator. Despite this however you possess no Fruit, and even if you were to somehow happen upon one it would likely be of poor strain in this fallen world. Though you know it not your body can handle the weight of two Fruit and perhaps even a third if you are willing to roll the dice. In another life you may have been scouted as a potential Tender, but those days are gone and methods of judging potential almost entirely lost.

Pick if: You want to live the #HelotLyfe, are prepared to things to kick into high danger, want a more individual quest exploring the setting, don't mind starting at a very low level, want to test the limits of a little bit of plot armor and possibly die horribly.

[ ] The Mutant - Be it a day, a year or ten decades ago does it matter when you were born? All that matters is that from birth you were cursed. A deformed freak to the civilized society that once was, and a clear danger to the scattered remnants that remain. More then your body your thoughts are twisted in some manner as well leading to obsession, sadism or worse. In your dreams you can see the first death of this world and the shattered ruins of so many others. You are an abomination and do not belong upon this world.

Your innate potential is scorched away and the best case scenario were you to eat a Fruit would be emesis. Despite this you have managed to achieve extraordinary symbiosis with the Fire that burns in your veins and can develop powers with it. As this power progresses your grip on sanity and the world you live in will become increasingly more tenuous. A happy ending for your tale seems almost impossible.

Pick if: You like hardmode, you don't mind a short quest, you want to play as a horrific heartless abomination, you don't like One Piece, you want to play as a good person stuck in the shittiest of situations, you want to #420BlazeAndPraiseIt.

[ ] The Locust - Disregard all that has been said previously, for you are the monster of this tale. Made to die for a purpose which has been cut from your mind yet which you hold above all others. You are a Finger of the Hand, the Two-Legged Locust who brought ruin to this world, and it is your directive to act as one of the final scavengers left behind to pick over the corpse. Be it infiltration, warfare or scouring the world for further lost wonders you are highly specialized and bear the gifts of alien worlds to help you in this task.

Your innate potential with cultivation is abnormal from the hybridization of royal genes plundered from a thousand unwilling recessive relatives. Powers start at 1.5 times their base strength and improve 50% quicker; yet the bloodline rebels against this abomination and prevents a second fruit from being consumed. Your own superhuman attributes, peak human skills in every trade and obscenely fine-tuned shapeshifting will have to carry the day with the help of the tools you've been given.

While desynched from the standard network you are fully aware that sufficiently detrimental personality drift will result in correction from the Oath. This does not bother you.

Pick this if: You appreciate being on both sides of sudden but inevitable betrayals, like starting strong and don't mind a goal focused and possibly short quest, think playing as the terminator would be cool, want some bio-horror in druidpunk, appreciate not having to wonder if your teammates are the alien horror which destroyed your civilization.

 

[Pittauro]

ok, before the reaction, a thought that suddenly came to mind:


IF COMPANION WINS/WON, THE OPTIMAL MOVE IS ACTUALLY NOT TO SPEND THE MITIGATION ON IT UNTIL IT'S VACATION TIME, AND KEEP IT IN RESERVE IN CASE WE SEE DIEN BEING ABOUT TO TARGET THE HS FOR DESTRUCTION, IN WHICH CASE WE CAN POTENTIALLY REACT BY HAVING GISENA GIVE US TASK LEEWAY.

basically, while task leeway is the safest choice, there's no actual reason to take companions right now compared to not taking it at all.. unless, I suppose, we fear Gisena might die without having applied the mitigation.

and now, the reaction.

"RAGNAROK" REACTION

Ragnarok

Novakhron groaned under the weight of its burdens.

Hunger had not taken much time with his Armament of legend, the spell-forged behemoth he had conjured into being at the apex of his mastery of Myth. It had served him well as steed and protector for the lesser members of his party - for though they lacked in power, they were no less crucial to the project overall, and their potential demise no less harrowing.

Briefly he frowned. That, was the coldly analytical evaluation that the Hero of old (or, more appropriately, Catherine) might have assayed, when appraising his forces for survival against the Tyrant. Now he was that Tyrant in full - infinitely greater along every avenue of measure, even - and sought also to quell a Hero with utter finality.

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well, I can immediately notice two things from this

1)Nova and Aobaru share another thing in common in their feeling themselves being underestimated/overlooked. They both want to do more!

2)Nova is kinda saying Hunger is now the Tyrant. That cuts deep! (but it's NOT inaccurate, I suppose...but we're a NICE tyrant!)

Dien Bravo had suborned a great part of the Human Sphere with fetters of technology and flesh; Hunger had broken it to his will through brute power and supernatural command.

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To be fair Dien is ALSO using magic, though in a less "wizardy" fashion.

For a society that lived and died on the backs of its smattering handful of Armaments, a billion Armament-level combatants was a Biblical deluge; such overwhelming force that it might as well have been an outside-context problem, and equally as decisive. The probability-smoothing aspects of Rank only further served to enforce that hegemony.

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well, you know what they say, if you want something done do it yourself. (or have it done by Gisena)


Of course there wasn't quite enough ourself to do them, so we had to find a solution

Each of Hunger's echoes was but the cloud-shadow of his true might, but even that passing oppression could smother whole worlds beneath the obliterating press of his will. Much less when multiplied a billionfold! Had his intentions been ill, it would have been a cataclysm of desolation unimaginable: what resistance was possible, or even thinkable, in the face of a world that flowed only and ever towards the purpose of a single master, the merest quantum fluctuation snapping unerringly to attention beneath his incidental regard?

The Forebear had commanded power such as this: power of such indestructible totality that even the preconditions of opposition spoiled and withered away. Hunger wielded not even an infinitesimal speck of his prior self's might; and could only hope he would possess more than a speck of its wisdom, if he should survive the eons ahead.

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yeaaaah.... when even our minions are as strong as the very best the universe can offer, and the whole universe bends to make our will be done in the most minutes of ways, down the quantum fluctuations level...

well, resistance is not even futile, it's quite clearly not allowed to exist.

Of course Apocryphal will find a way. Presumably it will bring threats from outside the range of our rank, be it the rest of the universe outside the HS, the VR (if we haven't sent enough minions in there to do the same as the HS), the Astral Realm, or from even further beyond whistle those...

As I said before, I think we're quickly approaching the point in which we're simply too powerful for a good story and interesting conflicts... though I'm keeping an open mind for now.

And in matters of survival, the chief implement was strength. Dien would not permit any other means; he would not sit back and allow Hunger's billion-man armada to blanket the cosmos like a tide and drown him beneath its weight. Nor had negotiation in good faith ever been possible or desirable: Hunger would not deign to speak to the monster who had so callously 'liquidated' trillions, and the Hero was constrained to opposition by his fundamental nature.

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...so Dien's killcount is officially in the trillions?

ouch.

yeah, negotiations weren't really possible.

Still, the Peckish Legion got some nice hits in before Dien could change his plans, and they can secure everywhere else while we go for the final confrontation.

Dien Bravo would strike - was preparing already to mount his attempt, a single monumental deathblow - before Hunger could fully master the reality manipulation afforded by his Soul Evocation. Already the threads of Dien's cosmic spider-web were turning inwards: resources quantized and funneled back to their origin, assets converted into raw potentiality to forge a god-beast that could rival the Imprisoner's might.

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well, yeah, this is what we expected. He really has no other choice than betting it all on one final fight while his at his strongest, before we overwhelm him completely

Hunger's echoes were tracking his efforts, of course, but the Foremost had conjured contingencies like signal flares: a bewildering array of contagions, incubators, constructs and simple oddities each of which might have been a crucial component of some precipitous scheme, sprinkled like dizzying shrapnel across ten dozen galaxies and sub-dimensions.

Not even with Gisena's aid could they hope to unravel the true thread in time; the Surgeon had been producing his grand array of complications since the very moment of his inception, while Gisena had focused all her efforts on perfecting Hunger's Soul Evocation.

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really? 1 billion Peckish (I love this name ) and even THAT is not enough to check all his possible contingencies?

I'm surprised. Also I'm calling Hax.

In many ways her strategy had succeeded: with regards to density of power, they were unassailable, far beyond even the mightiest of Dien's deployed horrors, and that Soul Evocation itself had helped Hunger project his power across the galaxy entire. But if Dien in his desperation pulled out every stop, took every desperate risk and burned every resource, counting on the Apocryphal Curse to support his reckless drive... would the gulf between their powers be unassailable still?

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And that's why Apocryphal is SUCH a nice narrative tool: you're basically given an easy justification for "why the enemy's mad schemes work in the best way possible".

Hunger had no inclination to underestimate his Crowning Curse, and so endeavored always to climb higher. Novakhron was the swiftest instrument of that ascent, its reality-bending might supreme among manifest Armaments, with power and speed that eclipsed even the fiercest of its kin. If it could be modified to become compatible with his Sword Praxis, even the Foremost Shards combined would pose little threat in direct battle.

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well, that's admittedly true. For all that I didn't want to get in the Robot, even I can't deny that it was by far the option that gave the most immediate power.

But that was no trivial task.

The etchings of the Praxis in cramped microscopic script covered every panel and crevice of the towering Armament, each rune and sigil painstakingly carved by Hunger and Gisena with the full support of Evening's Realm; yet according to Verschlengorge this was but the first in an interminable list of components necessary to achieve full compatibility. The Devouring Armament had been smugly laconic as usual, offering mere tidbits after continuous prodding from Letrizia.

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I'm honestly just surprised Verschle helped at all. He doesn't talk much usually...

Maybe he enjoyed his vacation in the RoE?

But he did not resent the thing; Hunger had a sense that the monumental difficulty of the task, its will-denuding immensity, was itself an step along the Praxis. An offering to, and meditation on its deepest principles. There were arts where efficiency was a matter of formalism, and every shortcut existed to be wholly exploited - and arts where the toil itself was the process of true actualization.

Verschlengorge had confirmed that it was definitively possible, given their tools on hand: in honesty, that had been more generous than Hunger's wilder dreams.

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yeah, just knowing FOR CERTAIN that it's possible it's enough.

Still, this is why I'd NEVER choose the Praxis as a remittance for myself. There are much easier paths to power, though they're admittedly not as omnireliable.

Novakhron listed again, swaying as if in a breeze, and fell from its support frame to one knee. It was currently being subjected to a process of mythic re-forging beneath the harshest and most transcendental of Aobaru's Vigorflames: its very essence spooled and folded and unmercifully hammered by the Realm of Evening to draw out and eradicate every trace of impurity. Afterwards it would be doused in waves of conceptual Nullity, compressed and scoured bare of even abstract imperfection before Hunger would attempt Totality again - hoping it could withstand merger, even temporary, with the Forebear's Blade.

Hoping it could become his implement, his cosmic sword, his murder-weapon in truth.

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Aobaru, fulfill your destiny, o mighty hero!

Help us forge the weapon the TRUE HERO will actually use, because you're just not good enough!

Hunger sighed. All this, merely to cement their already-colossal lead over Dien. Was it worth it, such iron certainty?

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Yes. Yes it is. After Augustine I'd expect Hunger to have learned his lesson...

But the Apocryphal Curse demanded no less diligence than this. Victory each and every time, with such consistency as to rival the inevitability of the Forebear; nothing less would produce vengeance against the Hidden Ones.

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good boy

It was a cruel and fearsome tempering, which the Armament bore with stoic resolve, constraining its moans of pain as form and soul alike were relentlessly smelted down and remade. Time, however, marched with equal relentlessness. Before Dien arrived, Novakhron had to be made ready, else all it had endured would be for naught. There was no chance for respite nor room for hesitation. Only the Work.

---

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well, our heroes are doing their best. Letrizia and Aeira are providing moral support, Verschle is giving a few tips here and there, Nova is bearing the process, Aobaru is fanning the flames, Gisena is using Nullity, and Hunger is, as usual, carrying about 80 to 90% of the team

but what about our favourite murderer?

Dien was out of time.

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well, he's doing fine it seems

Under-prepared, ill-equipped, outgunned and even outnumbered, now that he had consolidated the majority of his forces into himself. He bestrode the cosmos like a primeval nightmare; doom of country and civilization both, endless flesh compressed yet refracted outwards, tendrils like the roots of a methuselah pine. Burrowed so deep into the fabric of this reality, and the countless textural layers above and below, that he simply could not be torn loose; each gradient reinforcing the others such that harm on one level would be wiped away by reinforcement from its kin. Ten thousand magics in a faultless feedback loop sufficed to power the inordinate requirements of that superstructure, though even together they were feeble rejoinder to the enemy's Imperial Praxis.

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well, this seems to imply that only our Artful Thorne (pierce version, I can't remember the name right now) and the Deathly Star should work well, as they'd target all layers at once.

well, that and Ruin seal I suppose. At least we have more than one way of counteracting him, just in case.

Nonetheless it was a miracle of engineering, some of his finest work: he had always operated well under pressure! And yet before the foe that he went to confront, it was little and lacking, almost nothing at all. There was meagre room for growth left in him; all had been truncated, repurposed to the end of this single confrontation, this single moment in time where Lord Hunger would be - relatively - vulnerable still. He had sacrificed so much, burned away entire horizons and vistas of possibility, only to grasp this moment.

A moment before Progression left Dien behind, as it had every one of 'they who had presumed to defy Lord Hunger.'

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damn, how does he do it? I NEARLY feel sorry for him, for taking his chance to reach even higher!

A Cursebearer, is a King. It can be no other way. Struggle all you like, Praehihr. Not even you can fight your intrinsic nature.

For Kings were not heroes, but what heroes became, when they allowed their ideals to twist them into imposing their will upon the world. And why should the world yield to will, merely because its vessel possessed strength?

To engender what you prefer. To abolish what you despise. Enacted on a great enough scale, these were nothing more than the actions of a Tyrant, well-meaning or not.

Dien readied himself. It is the fate of Heroes to die, that a grander world may be born, or a grander purpose fulfilled.

And what purpose could be greater, than the toppling of such a King as this?

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..Dien sort of has a point, in that it's basically unavoidable for a Cusebearer to impose their ideals and will upon the worlds they visit.

I can agree with that.

but.. how is what he's doing any different?

He's talking like he was the heroic being fighting for justice and free-will, when he was actually the first one to deprive trillions of people of both!

I didn't take Dien for such a hypocrite. A monster, sure, but I thought he was an honest one, at least to himself!

This was the end, one way or another. If by miraculous advent he survived what came, in all likelihood he would be little more than a blasted ruin of his self, a shattered husk bearing slight resemblance to the Hero-that-had-been. He had awakened as a Shard and would return to that state, should he persist at all.

It was not that he underestimated Lord Hunger. By calculated reckoning his chance of victory was minuscule, but what did that matter in the end? It would not change his path; all he could do, all he had ever done, was give his absolute effort no matter the odds.

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..well, it seems like there's no last-second surprise. That's nice, for once.

It had not been a full life, nor a long one. But it had been good; filled with invention, observation, dominion and adversity, never a dull moment in the months that he'd had. He had conquered much of the known universe, nearly brought humankind to heel, before Progression had reduced his works to ash.

A good life, deserved a glorious death. He was but a shard still, but he would endeavor to present a defiance, worthy of the Foremost.

Dien smiled, inasmuch as his horror-body could, and prepared his first volley. Thus always to Tyrants.

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And I'm again forced to like him... except for that last quote. He's as much of a Tyrant as us, even in the best interpretations possible.

Except we're, at least, a good Tyrant.

...mostly.

It will be cathartic to see him die. Especially if we manage to deny him the glorious death he seeks.

He struck through the sun of Hunger's present system, where his incubator-parasites allowed a pinhole stream of data from the otherwise impenetrable domain of Hunger's Soul Evocation. Livid white cracks erupted across the surface of that sun, wounds that dwarfed planets: through which extruded a single titanic tendril, splayed like forked lightning, overturning and destroying, star-body rupturing like a pulped pumpkin as it yielded to that horrible emergence.

The tendril's glow was blinding, a terrible light that out shined the now-eviscerated star, a ghastly radiance like every painful truth, every grotesque revelation, impossibly combined. Marshaling strength, Dien's tendril became a proper Limb, enormous against the sun of its birth, an implement with the outside chance of actually harming Lord Hunger.

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..well, that's moderately impressive.

Also terrifying for every not-Hunger person around.


...are we filming this? I kinda want to make a movie out of it and show it in all of the HS! We're facing a tentacle mosnter spawning from the Sun like it was an egg!

Every moment he placed himself in his opponent's presence cost him, untold spillage of essence to counter the all-subduing aura of... Winter? the man exuded. Interesting! The Tyrant had not been idle, nor complacent in further developing his faculties. Had Dien not consolidated so rapidly, or quantized all his subordinates, perhaps he would have been better informed of this development.

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..well, he even knows of Winter.

Really, Dien knows a LOT of interesting things.

Such a shame we can't get that knowledge for Hunger and Gisena...

The Praehihr was, curiously, in his actual Armament for once, a colossus of green and gold whose every surface had been re-patterned with runes of Praxis blue. It blazed with glory ineffable, enough not merely to subdue but overrule lesser minds. A curious electricity played across its surface, static keening and hum of delusion that stretched all reality about it to contain its mere heft.

Dien chuckled. So you've created an abomination, just as I have.

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Hey, Nova is no abomination! He's a good boy, unlike you!

As if in answer to that thought the Armament howled, more blast wave than roar, sheer distortion that whipped and roiled the cosmos like an unquiet sea; all-burying thunder which stilled even the tempest of Dien's own thoughts, and then - vanished.

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See, you offended him! He's a sensitive soul, you know!

Simultaneously, Dien's emergent Limb splintered, split in twain by an all-piercing bolt, then smashed into glittering residue by the wake of Ruin that accompanied it. Ghostly Hungers began to corporealize, winking into existence by the tens of millions, pursuing him along the path of emergence to pare his tendrils and strike at his core. With swiftness he manifested another tendril, spasm of destruction butchering the contingent of echoes, but their numbers swelled even greater in response, a seemingly endless provocation of forms. The full billion were swiftly present, pruning his extrusions with eerie coordination.

It was foolish to invest heavily, so early, especially as he had failed to track Hunger's main body, but Dien had no choice. A small infinity of tendrils now deployed, inundating the system entirely, destroying and harvesting the swarm of clones in full.

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..how can an infinity be small?

yeah, yeah, I'm not thinking like a proper cursebearer, or any being above 2.0 on the ISH.

my bad.

The morass of their carnage, he hoped, would conceal or distract from his first serious contingency: a three-pronged effort to assimilate Shogun, Emissary, and Arcanist at once. He merely had to hold Hunger's attention here for a few long moments, before his efforts in the Voyaging Realm would come to fruition. Loathe as he was to dilute his Heroism, Dien could not afford the luxury of ontological coherence anymore!

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I KNEW IT!

Let it be known that I CALLED IT!

..please tell me we left a few Peckish to guard Shogun and Nilfel, just in case!

Already his extrusions were breaking into the Arcanist's lair, while Hunger's clones prepared a valiant but meaningless offensive against his in-system tendrils. But Dien could not shake a feeling of unease, the anxiousness of a worthy opponent's regard: what exactly was his foe doing, if he wasn't here? The Ereadhihr was swift enough that Dien could barely react, yet had only struck but once...

Am I so far beneath you, Lord Hunger, that you won't even kill me yourself?!

---

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..that WOULD have been quite the terrible insult. If only we could afford it I would have LOVED for Gisena to be the one to kill Dien...

Yes, what exactly is Hunger doing, while his clones and allied Shards are fighting for their lives? How irresponsible, allowing Dien to simply overrun the Shogun's system like that! Is he preparing a tremendous counterattack, or was he distracted by other affairs?

Vote update tomorrow!

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and then we learn that "surprise, you've been summoned right in the middle of the final boss fight!"

..well, hopefully not.


1097 words

 

[Wolfy]

That's not how it works. We already have Indenture Mitigation, we just don't know what it is because up to now it was completely irrelevant. We basically voted to retroactively make it this or that.

 

[Rihaku]

really? 1 billion Peckish (I love this name ) and even THAT is not enough to check all his possible contingencies?

I'm surprised. Also I'm calling Hax.

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Does it matter whether you send a thousand Watsons or a million to uncover Moriarty's schemes? Without Sherlock they're all equally helpless!

I KNEW IT!

Let it be known that I CALLED IT!

..please tell me we left a few Peckish to guard Shogun and Nilfel, just in case!

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That would achieve nothing! Echoes are useful against Dien's forces, but now that he's retracted them all into his upgraded Main Body they're little better than a distraction without overwhelming numbers. He killed ten million with a single maneuver of a single tendril!

 

[JOEbob]

Well, time for retaliatory omakepower. I'm limited to an IPad keyboard at the moment, so pardon any typos!

Truthbringer
A TRPG-shaped writing tool inspired by the fighting-as-a-series-of-trick-reveals genre. Its' focus and lucidity owes a great deal to David J. Prokopetz, while its' worked examples draw heavily from Rihaku lore.
Or rather, they would, if I didn't have to post this so quickly. More worked examples will follow soon enough, I expect.

What This Is About
This game is a tool to help you write progression fantasy characters, and make sure their powerups always have some texture. Actual playability is more or less left as an exercise for the reader, I'm afraid.

Ability Levels
Any ability this game considers - which mostly boils down to martial arts and combat magics - is assumed to have three relevant traits: Stage, Power, and Quirks. How you define a character - or, for that matter, non-character - abilities as an 'ability' for this purpose All other traits are considered a matter of aesthetics, and left to the players' discretion.

Stage is the context in which the ability is expected to be worth talking about, and by extension, where it isn't relevant. Stages are almost always left implicit in media, and as such they're one of the most common places to trip up when writing - especially in crossover fanfic, which typically lacks convenient measuring sticks like an enemy-and-obstacle roster.
So long as in-universe abilities (powers/skills/resources/etcetera) share a Stage and user, they should all be treated as one 'ability' by these mechanics. You may want to divide them further for bookkeeping purposes, however.

Power is how strong the ability is on a relevant Stage. Because this game assumes that revealing a new trick will usually result in a turnaround, an ability's Power is more-or-less equal to the number of Quirks it has.

Quirks are important details about the ability. ('Traits' might be more accurate, but I've decided 'Quirks' sounds better, so.) The typical use is to define the ability quite broadly, such as 'movement' or 'swordsmanship', and have its' Quirks be major components of those, such as wallrunning, charge shot strikes, or only having one arm.
How broadly you define an ability is dependant on how many types of conflict you want in your story. Some stories benefit from having a strong distinction between chase scenes and fight scenes, even if both involve considerable violence. Others may prefer to make philosophical arguments the primary arena of conflict, with more visible means of conflict being mere set dressing with which to highlight them.

Sidebar: Social Traits​

It's common, in a lot of media, to have what the characters want - and their philosophy of how to get it - be even more critical than their physical toolset. (I believe the standard term for this is 'character thesis'.)​

For purposes of this game, this is just another type of ability. It uses a much more generalisable Stage than most, though, which is a large part of why comic book villains look the way they do.​

-Example Abilities: Violence-

Elusive Shrike Style
A martial art focused on baiting one's opponents into traps, hazards, and crossfires. It's focus on aggressive opponents and last-minute evasions make it a style only for the daring, but its' feats make it attractive to the same.
+Gain advantage when attacked unwarily.
+Gain advantage when you have time to set up traps.

Blind Swordsman Style
Rarely, one who cannot see in the normal fashion will take up the blade. The will to fight by hearing, or by scent, or by any means necessary, is a first step of the Praxis.
If it can be perceived, perceive it. If it cannot be perceived, strike true regardless.
+Gain advantage in low-visibility areas.
+Gain advantage when interrupting the fancy or incomprehensible.

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after some thought, I've come to a generalized question: how does this system handle things like time-acceleration or having higher base stats for everything, which seem like they would be relevant for nearly everything (debate? more time to plan your argument and think things through. running? you're faster. combat? you're faster, and everything else feels slower so it'll have harder times with you. forging? you can exert yourself less, handle the heat easier, and forge somewhat faster. war command? same as debate. spellcraft? you have more time to catch lapses in the design and more attention to spare.) Is their stage just 'Everything'? Or do they not get included at all because you don't really Reveal higher base stats?

 

[Pittauro]

That's not how it works. We already have Indenture Mitigation, we just don't know what it is because up to now it was completely irrelevant. We basically voted to retroactively make it this or that.

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That doesn't really defeat my point: with Indenture in particular it doesn't make sense to mitigate it for "companions" until you're in vacation time, UNLESS you fear you might lose access to the source of mitigation in the first place.

With Leeway having it active obviously helps. Mitigation is explicitly useless until we change world.

 

[Fayhem]

Into the Ormulum CYOA

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Build name: "I Sure Hope You Like Plants"

Insertion:
[*] The Thousand Estates
Build:
[*] Practitioner (1 orb)
-Title: Gardener. You don't have a green thumb, you have two green hands. You have instinctive, savant-level intuition of exactly what conditions will enable any plant to not just grow, but thrive beyond all expectations. Anything you plant will grow with enhanced speed and health; this can enable plants to grow even in conditions normally inhospitable to them. The sheer perfection of plants you personally tend to is so great that they can provide supernatural benefits related to their normal function; resting beneath a shade tree you've grown will actively replenish people mind, body, and soul, while a single fruit can provide all the nourishment a full-grown adult needs for a year. Once per year, reflecting the time 'you' single-handedly grew enough food to feed an entire city under siege, you can bring an entire garden's worth of plants from seeds to their full growth in a single day, with all the benefits attendant to being personally tended to by you. The definition of "a garden's worth of plants" is variable and can be expanded with sufficient Practice.
[*] Final Scion of Water (2 orbs)
[*] Originator Resurgent (3 orbs)
Drawbacks:
[*] Nemesis (+1 orb)
[*] Dreams of Distant Fire (+2 orbs if outside the Dominion, +1 otherwise)

This build is something of an extended gamble on whether taking overlapping effects from multiple sources produces synergy or redundancy. The Title chosen for Practitioner might be largely superfluous in the presence of Originator, or it might enhance it further. The "one day to full growth" 1/year ability should be useful regardless, however, as the greatest (relative) weakness of Originator is the lag time before being able to capitalize on the host of powers that your various supernatural plants can theoretically grant you. That 1/year ability, however, lets you completely bystep that once every year; notably, "full growth" rather than "a year's worth of growth" has important implications regarding the relative utility of planting things like trees that would normally take some time to come to meaningful fruition. The likely ideal initial play would thus be to essentially plant an Orchard of Power and then immediately bring it to full growth.

Final Scion of Water, meanwhile, will likely find the Thousand Estates to be an ideal environment for growth, as a chaotic and splintered political landscape should offer many opportunities for claiming territory. Its regeneration powers may be redundant with Originator, or may just take the absurdity of your unkillability to even more ludicrous heights. In addition to providing arbitrary quantities of water to nourish plant life, the ability to offer fruit from your Orchard of Power in exchange for helping you claim more territory provides one hell of an incentive for potential assistants in that endeavor. The ability to develop additional powers from the territory you claim actually works with the broad-scope potential for gaining powers that Originator offers, as it allows you to focus your cultivation efforts more tightly as Final Scion covers its own areas.

Between Final Scion and Originator, this is essentially the build for when you want to continually design, refine, and enhance your own synergies rather than trying to find them in the default options listed. The immediate threat of your Nemesis and the long-term threat of the General will put pressure on you, without a doubt. But the endless and immediate versatility, and scope for new potential synergies, offered by being able to essentially speed-run the path of cultivation while simultaneously (and likely synergistically) developing Final Scion should give you good prospects for outscaling them.

A slightly more ambitious version of this build would add:

[*] Labyrinthian (1 orb)
[*] Lethe (+1 orb)

You need territory to claim for Final Scion? Create your own from a personally crafted dimensional pocket, or claim the abandoned ones left behind. You need a safe place to plant your various supernatural cultivars, and the ability to eventually access it from anywhere? The same. And I'd imagine you should theoretically be able to grow something to give you powers to speed your progress at creating your realm with Labyrynthian. If the title from Practitioner was ruled to be largely redundant with Originator rather than synergistic, you could also simply replace it with Labyrynthian without the necessity of taking another drawback.

Alternately, you could completely refocus the build as:

Build Name: "Degenerate Isekai Bullshit That Deserves No Name"

[*] Ancient (3 orbs)
-[*] A Reinforcer and Revelator, who sees trouble and challenges coming, and tailor-makes the servants and equipment required for triumph. Prep time is all a true Reinforcer requires for victory, and a Revelator will never lack for it.
[*] Originator Resurgent (3 orbs)

With the same insertion point and drawbacks. Build name chosen in homage to a certain quest whose protagonist exemplified the MO of this Ancient configuration, of course. The Dominion would obviously be an even better insertion point for Ancient, but then you'd pretty much have to add either Lethe or Dissident as the value of Dreams of Distant Fire is halved. That would be an option, however. Potentially a quite good one in fact, as having Revelator in your Ancient configuration (with the boost from being located in the Dominion, to boot) could do a lot to make up for Lethe costing you your outside-universe knowledge that the General is coming for you.

The synergy here should be obvious. The downside of Originator, as aforementioned, is the lag time required to develop relevant abilities. When you can see the need for [x ability] coming in advance, this downside becomes nearly meaningless, so Revelator covers your weak spot. Meanwhile, Reinforcer means you can create your own supersoldiers and/or kaiju, then feed your magical plants/fruit to them to create your own army of hilariously overpowered magical super-kaiju armed with magitech weaponry and gear to serve you.

 

[JOEbob]

The downside of Originator, as aforementioned, is the lag time required to develop relevant abilities

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It also turns you into a tree unless you pick up Fiat-powered Immortality

 

[OctarineShrike]

It also turns you into a tree unless you pick up Fiat-powered Immortality

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Or work out a Litany plan.

 

[Fayhem]

It also turns you into a tree unless you pick up Fiat-powered Immortality

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Unless there's an Official Ruling on this that I haven't seen, it reads more like Immortality would just make you an immortal tree to me.

Or work out a Litany plan.

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This is probably the better plan IMO, assuming you aren't into really committing to your Giving Tree cosplay.

 

[Aabcehmu]

Unless there's an Official Ruling on this that I haven't seen, it reads more like Immortality would just make you an immortal tree to me.

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Orm confirmed it on the discord a while ago.

 

[Zampano]

Unless there's an Official Ruling on this that I haven't seen, it reads more like Immortality would just make you an immortal tree to me.

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This seems like a distinction without a difference. Discord WoG notwithstanding, what is the point you're trying to make here?

 

[Fayhem]

Into the Ormulum CYOA

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Decided to try an 8-orb build, pretty happy with how it came together.

Build name: "So You Say You Want a Revolution"

Insertion:
[*] The First Dominion

Build:
[*] Labyrinthian (1 orb)
[*] Final Scion of Water (2 orbs)
[*] Ancient (3 orbs)
-A Reaper/Reciprocator/Revelator who sees the threat coming and prepares for it. Then, discontent with mere victory, Reaps its power to add to your own. If worst comes to worst and defeat befalls you anyway, there's always your Reciprocal phylactery (suffused with Reaped power) for a backup. And if your enemies believe the one they know about is actually your only one of those, they should really have invested more into Revelator themselves...
[*] Exemplar (1 orb)
[*] Naturalization (1 orb)

Drawbacks:
[*] Dissident (+1 orb, requires Dominion or Unified Earth)
[*] Nemesis (+1 orb)
[*] Dreams of Distant Fire (+2 orbs if outside the Dominion, +1 otherwise)
[*] Oathbound (+2 orbs)

A Naturalized Exemplar Ancient turns against the Dominion itself, with the power of the Final Scion of Water (with Water being spread by fellow adherents of the Unbroken Oath) for a kicker. Should make for interesting times, as one of the foremost figures of the Dominion decides to bring it all down and makes a dangerous bargain for the additional power to (perhaps) do so. Residing in the Dominion grants protection against the General, but if the power structures of the Dominion all fall will that still hold true? This build must walk a dangerous path, as it must be wary of the consequences of both failure and success. But the power it offers should make that more than viable.

Final Scion should also synergize nicely with being a Naturalized Exemplar Ancient, as it would be difficult to construct a plausible history for such a figure that didn't include rights to some significant span of territory in the Dominion. It also synergizes with almost all of your drawbacks. Besides the previously alluded to synergy with Oathbound, it's also probably the best-tailored power to take in concert with Dreams of Distant Fire as your mere existence weakens your eventual foe (if I'm reading that right), and presumably gaining more power as the Final Scion will further lessen him. And hey, wouldn't it be hilarious if an Exemplar Reciprocator Ancient could deliberately exacerbate and intensify that weakening connection? Or, more hilariously still, Reap power through that Reciprocally-strengthened connection?

It also synergizes with Dissident, because you can grant access to your paradigm through an effort of will, allowing you to instantly empower any and all revolutionary allies you make - and equally instantly revoke that power, if they prove to be traitors or infiltrators. Powers of evasion, stealth, and regeneration (those are just the starting powers, mind) are also exceptionally well-suited to revolutionary activities. The ability to share access to your paradigm also gives your fellow Oathbound a very concrete reason to help you strengthen Water, even beyond the bond of your common Oath, as sharing that paradigm with them means that strengthening you directly strengthens themselves.

The obvious synergies of Labyrinthian with the build are already significant - the ability to claim territory for Water in your personal pocket plane, and shape that plane into the perfect hiding place and HQ for your Dissidents (that can be accessed from anywhere, at any time), is already tremendously beneficial. But when you also factor in Ancient, Exemplar, and Naturalization, it becomes overwhelmingly likely that you already have an extensively developed pocket plane. Indeed, "pocket" may no longer be apt. Labyrinthian states that there is "[no] limit on the number of planes that can be crafted save that imposed by your patience." Ancient states that the skills and powers it grants are the product of "thousands of years of optimization." And Naturalization means that every one of those years is retroactively inserted into the true history of the world. Together, this means that you have had thousands of years to develop a power that is limited only by the amount of time devoted to it, with an Exemplar's skill and affinity for using it. So you don't, truly, have a "pocket plane." You have your own pre-constructed Labyrinth, ready to claim (or more likely, already claimed) with Final Scion. With the very properties of the plane itself expertly crafted to enhance the power of Water. And it would be trivially easy to justify inserting discovering the way to access the original Labyrinth into your retroactively inserted personal history, so you can get started on claiming and reshaping that any time you please - or simply have your history state you've spent a thousand years or more already doing so.

The really interesting synergies, though, come when you start thinking about what this configuration of an Exemplar Ancient might be able to do here. Can such an advanced Reciprocator forge a connection between your Labyrinth and your own person such that you can selectively manifest its powers and particular properties anywhere - or at least anywhere that likewise falls within your territory or paradigm of Water, even if it lies outside your Labyrinth? Can you Reap the very properties of a realm or plane, and Reciprocally feed them into your Labyrinth? Let's suppose so, for the sake of discussion. If the Litanists are the upholders of the Dominion's regime, a Dissident might find it superlatively advantageous to Reap the Dominion's affinity for the Litany, and feed it into his own Labyrinth instead. Particularly as your Reciprocally-established connection to your Labyrinth means you can benefit from that Litanal affinity anywhere - as can anyone you share your paradigm of Water with. Imagine the confusion and dismay of regime loyalists as they find that the only remaining way to preserve any of their carefully-hoarded power is actually to switch sides and join the revolution, even with all the changes your new order will impose on them.

On reflection, I think this is also the build I'd take for Into the Fire (swapping out Dissident, Nemesis, and Dreams). Thousands of years to prepare your own Labyrinth suffused with Water and Reciprocally tie its power to yourself, the backing of your fellow Oathbound, and the overall ridiculous level of resources and personal power at the disposal of an Exemplar Ancient even before getting into the ludicrous potential synergy with Labyrinthian will probably prepare you to survive and perhaps even triumph in that scenario better than anything else could. Especially since the very existence of a Final Scion of Water weakens Fire, and you're retroactively inserting a history of thousands of years of the power of Water growing at the expense of Fire. It seems likely that the suffering damned of the Pit would be intensely interested in sharing in the paradigm of Water and joining the war against their torturers, as well.

Edit:

This seems like a distinction without a difference. Discord WoG notwithstanding, what is the point you're trying to make here?

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Well, if we're saying Discord WoG notwithstanding, the difference between "stops you from turning into a tree" and "doesn't stop you from turning into a tree" seems pretty self-evident to me? You're going to have to explain how that's "a distinction without a difference" to me, because I'm not following you there.

 

[Orm Embar]

Build name: "I Sure Hope You Like Plants"

Insertion:
[*] The Thousand Estates
Build:
[*] Practitioner (1 orb)
-Title: Gardener.
[*] Final Scion of Water (2 orbs)
[*] Originator Resurgent (3 orbs)
Drawbacks:
[*] Nemesis (+1 orb)
[*] Dreams of Distant Fire (+2 orbs if outside the Dominion, +1 otherwise)

Click to shrink...

Interesting strategy, you've correctly identified the synergies between Originator and Practitioner! Even something like Taste of the Fruit's pretty good with it, the Hand makes use of Practitioner Fingers (one could call them fieldhands) to cultivate for this very reason. Selecting an irrigation-related ethos focused on the life-giving properties of Water will also further increase your rate of cultivation. Less gifted gardeners can be recruited with your abundance of Fruit and then endowed with access to Water's Paradigm to assist you. With incentives alone it would be possible to shape the Estates' growth as you might a climbing plant with a trellis, to say nothing of your own rapidly-burgeoning bouquet of powers.

As for the drawbacks, Nemesis in the Estates isn't as dangerous as it is elsewhere; the safest combination's Garden with Oathbound (high chance the Hand just assassinates your Nemesis), with the riskiest non-ItF route being a Dissident in the Dominion (proccing on one of the Six). You'd still want to watch out for the various Authorities, with particular attention paid to Expunging Wickedness, as its conceptual offensive capabilities counter you. Fortunately it's the rarest, with the mantle currently lacking a bearer, and against other enemies Water + Originator compounds to confer obscene levels of regeneration. In some cases you could just flat-out ignore attackers, as they'd be incapable of dealing lasting harm to you.

However, DoDF is a much harder hurdle to clear. The weakness here is a lack of dimensional travel; you're pretty much forced to stand and fight in the Estates unless a Voyager gets Acknowledged or you manage to develop another means of transport. I'd say "you win or you die," but door number two is considerably worse than death. Success or failure will be dictated by how well you spend what years you have.

For various reasons the Estates haven't yet come under attack by the General, so the grace period will be on the high end of the estimate (40-50 years if you're lucky), but he'll find you eventually. World conquest would be a good start, but one planet - even one as valuable as the Estates - is but a drop in the bucket when compared to your adversary's achievements. Your choices are potent and synergistic, but there may simply not be enough multipliers in that universe alone. At the very least, you'll need to integrate multiple Authorities; go beyond the World's Rim and kill the bearer of Unbridled Valor for a straightforward-if-difficult Klingon promotion, somehow convince Idris Selwyn to choose you as a successor over his own kin, trigger a Primal Descent while retaining your agency, etc. Water and ad hoc applications of cultivation can help with this, but aren't as well-suited as, say, an Ancient Reciprocator would be.

Yet as anyone who's followed Hunger's exploits would know, with risk comes reward: repelling the General in the ontological vicinity of the Estates would confer a tremendous bounty of Acknowledgment, unprecedented in the history of their civilization.

A slightly more ambitious version of this build would add:

[*] Labyrinthian (1 orb)
[*] Lethe (+1 orb)

Click to shrink...

Ah, the triple grudge match combo platter! The magics of three dead civilizations, all of which met the same end, now find their culmination in you: a true Final Scion. The Dreams mean you won't be totally blindsided by your foe, but you'd have to be confident in weighting them heavily to ensure sufficient scaling. Still, Labyrinthian does allow for exploration of neighboring worlds and the territory generation/greenhouse dimensions are really good. You could also use Lethe's added point to swap Practitioner for Voyager; the cultivation engine would take longer to come online (losing the annual ability's painful), but it does allow the possibility of Practice and you'll no doubt be earning Acknowledgments along the way. And you could escape, should the worst come to pass.

Orm confirmed it on the discord a while ago.

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Yep, Immortality potentially allows you to avoid the sessile phase of a cultivator's life cycle with the right self-image. Or you could not do that, let someone pluck you, and then regenerate to duplicate the Fruit of Origination. Ideally you'd want some way to accelerate the process to not take a thousand years and would need trustworthy allies who can pull you out of the arboreal torpor, but think of the possibilities!

 

[Aabcehmu]

Yep, Immortality potentially allows you to avoid the sessile phase of a cultivator's life cycle with the right self-image. Or you could not do that, let someone pluck you, and then regenerate to duplicate the Fruit of Origination. Ideally you'd want some way to accelerate the process to not take a thousand years and would need trustworthy allies who can pull you out of the arboreal torpor, but think of the possibilities!

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As a tree, would you be able to use the annual ability from Practitioner: Gardener on yourself to spawn a FOO once per year?

 

[Lealope]

Burrowed so deep into the fabric of this reality, and the countless textural layers above and below, that he simply could not be torn loose; each gradient reinforcing the others such that harm on one level would be wiped away by reinforcement from its kin.

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Hmm. Very curious what the other textures are. Perhaps accesses a similar defense would've been locked behind the full Form tree and the Iron Dreadnaught combo.

are we allowed to know yet how the other Strategy Blurbs would have worked out? Foundational Syncretism would've given the Clone Hungers more of a dampening effect, but that main Limb attack totaled a star.

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untold spillage of essence to counter the all-subduing aura of... Winter?

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Even with a higher Rank, Dien has to burn essence to keep going. If we closed the Rank gap between us by two overwhelming points and then added another net 0.2 ISH difference for combat purposes, it would be less dampening and more withering.

 

[Orm Embar]

As a tree, would you be able to use the annual ability from Practitioner: Gardener on yourself to spawn a FOO once per year?

Click to shrink...

No, a single Acknowledgment lacks the requisite power. Ordinarily, the FoO being plucked results in the unavoidable death of the cultivator, the same withering described in the Originator option. But since Immortality runs on isekai protagonist powers, you can recover even from that and grow another. Hopefully whoever's tending to your grove in this scenario doesn't come to value your utility as a tree over you personally, or you could be trapped in that cycle.

 

[Rihaku]

The winner was [X] Heavy Weapons Array with [X] Companions II.

What exactly was Hunger doing after his initial shot at Dien? You have enough Arete to afford any of these options.

[ ] Charging His Laser - The Refinement of War is no trivial upgrade, no power-up to be toggled on or off at will. The immense power it grants lasts mere moments, and though its channeller may well be a juggernaut war-god for its invocation, the costs are very much commensurate to the rewards. Thus it behooves Hunger not to invoke this utmost component of his arsenal until all the circumstances are aligned. Using the powers of his Soul Evocation, he has imprisoned countless volleys of Novakhron's cannon-arm within its charging chamber, awaiting the perfect moment to strike. When overwhelming force may fall like a thunderbolt, only then will he loose the Dog of War.

*Apocryphal is not intervening here, it will retain its own charge for later.
*By conserving activations of the Refinement of War, Hunger maximizes his Praxis stamina to deal with unforeseen contingencies
*The reality-sundering blast of Novakhron's stacked cannon shots, amplified by War, will deal horrific damage to whatsoever it strikes. High win probability.

[ ] Composing a Seal - The Seal of Ruin has an almost-prohibitive cast time at the speed this battle occurs, but its effects are all too worthwhile against an opponent of Dien's type. Stave off the vast majority of his abilities pre-emptively, and victory is all but assured. When one possesses unassailable conventional power, the surest route to victory is to close off all unconventional paths. Make this a contest of direct strength, with no room for ingenuity or pluck; what Hero could challenge the Tyrant then?

*Apocryphal is not intervening here, it will retain its own charge for later.
*While less aggressive than the former option, and arguably less decisive, this is a safe and conservative play that will cripple Dien in the long term.
*You might be able to capture him, and see him subdued by means of the Imprisoner. His aid would be invaluable - though by no means critical, given Hunger's current array of effects - in reversing the harm done by his 'policies.'
*Who better to correct this galactic malady than Dien himself? Maybe a lecture from Haeliel, Heroism Incarnate, can convince him that his path of heroism is grotesquely misguided. Or perhaps he can find some measure of delight in serving as the dread right hand of the Tyrant's regime. It's a classic role for the greatest heroes, after all.

[ ] Look, A Distraction - The Apocryphal Curse had heard Dien's pleas and deployed inclement chaos to aid his assault. At this precise moment, outrageously reckless experiments deep within Association space have caused an Astral false vacuum event - the collapse and annihilation of the entire Astral plane in a bubble expanding at the speed of causality. If Hunger does not intervene, the universe's spiritual layer will be annihilated, destroying all souls and consciousness alongside. While he, Adorie, and Letrizia will be safe within the Realm of Evening or Verschlengorge's Shroud, respectively, the Human Sphere will certainly collapse unless the false vacuum is dealt with immediately. Only the high conceptual speed of the Refinement of Quickness allows him to react at all; in the instants he has, he must leverage the Imprisoner or his other abilities to counter, neutralize, or at least delay this apocalypse of spirit.

*Apocryphal has emptied its charge for the moment.
*The Emissary has burned out its body to deliver this information and will not be available to smooth over future Shard conflict.
*This should not be too hard to deal with, and if Hunger succeeds the Astral Realm will owe him an immense debt of gratitude. Though this may not be binding upon all, it will weigh heavily with most - to more or less the same degree as if he had saved each of their lives. Because, in fact, he will have.
*Does require some level of tactics or ingenuity to successfully contend with.
*In the unlikely event of failure, this will kill Hunger via the Geas of Indenture.

[ ] All That Matters [25 Arete] - So he rejected ShogunCat and is about to crush the prohibitively useless Dien? It's time to pull out all the stops, before he grows to a level where he can simply swat your interventions aside! Bring out the big guns! Bring out... CatCat.

Having resurrected Catherine (Hunger's wife) in ephemeral form, the Apocryphal Curse now moves to merge her spirit with the Ceathlynn of Amarlt, her alternate-dimensional self! She has all the knowledge of Catherine, and all the dislike Ceathlynn has mustered towards Surgeon and Anomaly both. While she won't be on Dien's side, it's very much in the interests of her current self that both parties be destroyed in this clash of the titans, so effectively she'll be assisting him until he gains the upper hand. That said, it's certainly not impossible for Hunger to convince a being that was his wife to side with him unequivocally, though his near total lack of memories and drastically altered state, plus the Doom of the Tyrant, make it a chancy proposition at best.

By the power of the Apocryphal Curse, Ceathlynn's hatred of the Anomaly and the tyranny it represents has been inflamed to fanatical levels. While she cannot condone Dien's horrors, she see's Hunger's subjugation by Rank to be no less total in effect. And while she would be no threat to Hunger under normal circumstances, the Justice Blade Lucenthorne has found its way to Etrynome's hand. What matters power in the face of such unwavering principle as this?

After all, it is not the ideal that has to change.

*Apo-chan will be unlikely to act for quite a while afterwards. This is a truly ridiculous turn of events...
*If you manage to talk down Catherine, or nonlethally subdue her, it should not be difficult to bring her on side, though the Doom of the Tyrant will present serious, potentially intractable, problems here. Catherine is not so flexible as Gisena. She will do what she believes is right, no matter the cost.
*Her compatibility with Lucenthorne is close to maximum, and its synergy with Etrynome immeasurable. For it embodies that impossible shining ideal, that might alone cannot hope to prevail against justice.
*Alongside the Justice Blade and Etrynome, Catherine possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Hunger; his habits, tactics, strategies and values. It will be more than enough to pose a threat even to you, though Hunger should still be the mightier all considered, and certainly more versatile in mustering exotic vectors of attack.

[ ] Mordred [28 Arete] - It has always been the goal of the Shogun to dominate all reality. Dien was a threat to that purpose; Hunger, no less so. Exercising its own Rank and peerless cunning, it maneuvered in secret to water the seeds of resentment in Aobaru's heart, stoke the flames of both his genius and his impetuous youth. Playing both sides against each other, it contacted Dien to arrange for an upgrade of its own, then excised that portion of the Hero's memory with its restored strength.

It should not have worked. And it would have failed, had the Apocryphal Curse not nudged parameters in all the right places. But the result... the result was truly magnificent, peerless in drama! Should not all Heroes unite, before the Tyrant's power casts this world into shadow unending?

What was that you were always saying, Lord Hunger? ...Age and treachery?

Rise, Chen Aobaru, Shogun for a new Age. The hour of opportunity is come. And if you stay your hand, it shall pass by forevermore.

*The Apocryphal Curse has emptied its charge, expending a great deal of credibility. +1% Apocryphal Mitigation (Direct) for the next ten billion years.
*Dismayed at his growing irrelevance, and the loss of his role as Novakhron's pilot, Aobaru was easily influenced by the Foremost Shard, especially given its curseborne assistance. A Chosen One reduced to mere casual support, never sits well with the system of the world.
*Haeliel's next two visitations are delayed, as the Apocryphal exploits your connection to forcibly activate her hero-empowering function.
*Aobaru gains the powers of Legendary and A Chosen Purpose, then fuses with the Shogun. In overall capability he is not considerably greater than Dien, but his skills and inclinations are much more focused towards individual combat, and he possesses the Shogun's indispensable well of battle experience, skill enough to close nearly any gap in physical ability.
*If you kill him, you'll still have to deal with Apocryphal Onslaught, as the Chains of Fate enemy has not been slain.
*If you talk him down, or defeat him without humiliating him, Aobaru can be fairly easily convinced to join Hunger once more. His new powers make him nearly an ideal lieutenant for maintaining control of the Human Sphere for fifty long years of Apocryphal activations...

 

[ReaderOfFate]

...

I'm so fucking confused right now.

This is gonna take a bit of thought.

EDIT: So, my initial reaction was, why the hell would we want to pay Arete for an Apocryphal Proc?.

However, on successful resolution of said proc, we would get some tremendous bonuses.

All That Matters would have us get Catherine back and in combat-capable state, which would be absolutely wonderful for Hunger's mental stability, I'd imagine. Plus, it is supposed to quell the Apocryphal Curse for apparently, "quite a while". That's not a small deal, because then we'd have plenty of unobstructed time for Hunger to escalate in preparation for the next proc, in addition to doing some work setting up the infrastructure for an empire that can tank future Procs.

Mordred would be hilarious. Just saying. But if we got him back to our side, we'd Aobaru with Legendary, A Chosen Purpose, and all the Prowess and Power of the Shogun. For people who care about him, I'd say that actual meaningful screentime is a big deal too.

 

[Aabcehmu]

[X] Charging His Laser
[X] Composing a Seal
[X] Look, A Distraction
[X] All That Matters [25 Arete]
[X] Mordred [28 Arete]

Something important to note: We apparently have >28 Arete! So, SAVE GANG has stake in this fight.

 

[ilbgar123]

I'm thinking Distraction or Matters. Distraction burns Apocryphal credibility, unlike the prior options, but doesn't burn Arete. Matters restores Catherine, and enormously empowers her. If we can get her onside... Meanwhile Mordred pushes back Haeliel's visits. That's almost immediate disqualification for me.

 

[Shard]

W-Why would we ever.. pick the Arete-consuming options for this event?