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A Simple Transaction I

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ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA​

You have, as the Thousand Nights(or Disney's Aladdin) described, stumbled across an old lamp, which upon being rubbed, released a cloud of colorful smoke, which formed into a figure whose lower half was still smoke, while the upper half was human...ish. The proportions were a little off.

"You have freed me from the lamp. I will grant you five wishes, with four exceptions." he raised four fingers and began ticking them off. "I will not directly kill anyone. I will not directly revive anyone. I will not directly interfere in matters of the heart. I will not grant you more wishes. Beyond that? Endless riches, an intellect to make the greatest geniuses in the world as simpletons, immortality of both the eternal youth and resurrective types, and so on, all available. Alternatively, you could free me, and I could in return grant you a number of smaller boons. The choice is yours. I should note that if you do not free me, my lamp and I will vanish elsewhere like the Dragon Balls. Yes, I know what those are. I need to have some understanding of the modern world to properly grant various wishes. Receiving a billion dollars in the currency used by the Byzantine Empire would likely be a problem for you, for example."

You have 4 Wishes. In exchange for using one to free the Genie, you may select three of the following boons at half strength, or 6 at one quarter strength. You can simply take the same Wish multiple times if you choose. True Immortality can be gifted to others, for example.

[W] Wealth. Become the world's first trillionaire. This Wish will avoid collapsing the world economy, though being too careless in your spending, buying all the food exports from a given country and then leaving them to rot, for example, can still lead to mass chaos and death. Similarly, the various governments will be strangely lax in investigating how you obtained these funds. It would take prodigiously wasteful spending to ever run out of money, as the amount will adjust with inflation and the like. It should not be underestimated in terms of providing you means to obtain a powerbase outside of yourself.

[W] Power. Become a world leader. Your planet will be, as you lack the understanding of higher dimensional physics to properly understand, 'expanded' with a new nation roughly the size of the Madagascar. Perhaps Atlantis will rise from the ocean depths, or the Pacific equivalent, Mu, or maybe Doggerland, the now-flooded landbridge that connected the United Kingdom with the main European landmass. Maybe Central America will sprout a sub-continent. Or Europe will undergo a shift and a new country some 600,000 square kilometers in area will appear. Regardless of the placement and exact origins, which you are free to specify within reason, you are to be it's leader. Plot world domination with an entire country backing you like one Victor von Doom, turn it into your own personal vacation home, or simply rule as best you can. If you select this for all five of your wishes, the resulting country is likely to be somewhat notable on the world stage, being roughly 90% the size of India.

[W] True Immortality. Sometimes when a type of immortality is talked about, it refers merely to eternal youth, and conventional killing is still a viable means of disposing of the entity in question. Not so here. You will not age, you will not die of natural causes. The fog of ages and the insanity and mental stress that might be inflicted by your eternity of existence will utterly fail to affect you. While spells and cybernetic implants can remove memories, and this does not defend against hypnotic suggestion and the like, your memory will become perfect where the ravages of time are concerned. You will likely remember your childhood better than you did before. Similarly, losing your mind from seeing your family murdered in front of you will not be safeguarded against, but simply outliving them will over and over will not drive you to madness. Bitterness possibly, but not madness. As Time is often regarded as the closest accomplice and ally of Death, it makes sense that conquering one will mean gaining significant resilience to the other.

Should your mortal body be slain, you will immediately 'respawn' in the nearest location where you will not immediately perish. If you are thrown into a volcano, you will reappear some distance away, for example. Similarly, if tossed into a black hole, you will reappear on the nearest habitable planet or spaceship whose crew will not attempt to kill you. Should you wish to die, a 'switch' will be available to you. It cannot be activate if your mind is being tampered with, so a suicidal depression aura will not be able to make you pull it. This can lock you out of using it if significant mental alterations are made, such as large swathes of your memories having been edited in some fashion by outside influence, but relatively minor compromises to your judgement like a glass of wine will not block it.

[W] Improvement. Choose a facet and add 10 points to it. The common human has Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, Agility, Wisdom, Luck, Appearance. This can also be used to unlock Attributes, such as Prowess, Protection, Charisma, etc. Due to the workings of the Attributes, this is one of the few Wishes that actually become worth more as you stack the same one.

[W] Growth. Each year you live following this, you may add a + to an Attribute of your choice. You cannot unlock Attributes in this manner, but even 60 or so from a normal human lifespan from this point onward would be enough to make you akin to a god to the average human. Combined with Immortality, and feats out of comic books are more a matter of when than if.

[W] Knowledge. Your scientists would be quite interested in the Unified Field Theory and the math behind it, among other such secrets. It should not be difficult for you to prove it works, though your intellect will not be enhanced in any way, and you will in essence be reading off a textbook when explaining it. While there are definitely benefits to having this sort of knowledge, this is a Wish heavily dependent on others to achieve it's full value. As I mentioned, humans are rather slow-minded by the standards of entities such as myself.

[W] Benevolence. At the end of the day, people are often apathetic and cruel. This Wish would change that. Would lean humanity a little more toward Star Trek as opposed to Warhammer 40K. This is a relatively minor effect, given it's spread out across an entire species, and unlike yourself I do not have their consent, so I can only change them a little without causing personality death. Still, the rate of sociopaths will notably drop, as will most forms of crime, and the various governments of the planet might gain some competence from those within it actually caring about their constituents. Potentially extremely valuable. A small amount more kindness from every direction can have huge knock-on effects. Repeated use of Wishes on this option will noticeably affect the population, though you can exempt yourself from any and all uses of this.

[W] Thirteenth Hour. Time is the most precious of things, and the one resource it is impossible to produce more of. Every twelve hours, you obtain a thirteenth hour, one in which time does not flow. This hour can be customized so that you essentially have an hour to move unopposed, to tinker, to train, to watch TV. Who is aware and capable of acting besides oneself can be changed at will. Regardless, aging is halted unless specified otherwise. This can stack indefinitely, and the 'settings' of a given hour can be changed at will. In a week, you would build up 14 such hours. In a year, 730, or roughly one month. This can be abused to give oneself time to plan 'mid-combat' and the like. You will remain aware of how much time you have left whenever the effect is active. Do note that Thirteenth Hour does not contribute to it's own timer.

[W] Needless. You do not need to eat, sleep, drink, breathe, dispose of waste, maintain a given temperature, your muscles will not deteriorate with disuse, etc. In addition to dramatically lowering the cost of living and extending your free time by eight hours a day, it makes modifying your body relatively simple, as you can selectively choose to burn body fat or retain the necessary proteins indefinitely for muscle-building purposes. You are not Plastic Man by any stretch, but you can self-modify quite a bit.

[W] Cast Through Time. You may select a point in time, and I will send you there. Be sure you wish to do this, as no method of returning beyond taking True Immortality and waiting will be provided. I will allow you to collect some belongings and, in recognition of how long you might spend waiting, allow you to access modern amenities, though you can only receive. For example, you can use Netflix, but anything that hasn't come out when you go back will not come out until you've reached and passed your original point in time. A bunker may be provided if you simply wish to wait to take advantage of Growth, specifically for this purpose.

[W] Pocket Dimension. A space roughly 10 square kilometers across with 5 kilometers of soil beneath and 5 kilometers of atmosphere above. You can enter and leave it at will. While you cannot remove anything found inside, you can use it to store things from the outside world and retrieve them at will. You have complete control over this space, including who can enter or leave, granting a sanctum you are completely safe in. While it defaults to a grassy field that abruptly terminates at it's edges, a beach, a volcano, a city, any environment you wish can be constructed. If you wish, you can make an Arcology of 10 cubic kilometers. The flow of time is not halted, and you must leave in the same place in the outside world you entered from.

[W] Other Self. There are infinite parallel universes. While not all of them contain a version of you, unlike Jon and Garfield, there are many of you. This Wish can grant you their aggregate experience and skills without compromising your sense of identity. This is a potentially enormous boon. Do note that this does not change your own Attributes. A version of you who is a supergenius will not grant you supergenius, merely access to their knowledge and inventions. Similarly, a black belt in karate will grant you some understanding of fighting technique, but you will lack the muscle memory they possessed. The sheer life experience and skill you have to draw on is still no small matter. Not to mention potential benefits to being able to use other versions of yourself to target other realities.

[W] X. A superpower tailored to your specifications. It will cap out at being able to destroy a moderately sized country in a relatively short timespan, such as a few days, at least with human capabilities of direction and control. Unless specified otherwise, this does not qualify as magic.

[W] Free the Genie. Wish the Genie free. Mark your chosen options for the broken up Wish with [3] or [6], depending on your choices.

AN: Figured I'd push out one last Omake for the Quest's End, whatever that might be.

This (somewhat) works off of the Dreams CYOA's Stat system. Humans average 1-3 in a given Attribute, and each point in it is valued at 1.618 times that of the previous. 10 points in any Attribute is enough to make besting someone without that advantage trivial, at least in that field. Points are worth about 122.96 times as much by then.

Personally, I'd go for Thirteenth Hour, True Immortality and 2 Growths, with a broken up Wish divided between Improvement(Protection, Prowess, Willpower, Charisma, Theft, Wits) to unlock those for me. The mystical protection would guard against essentially the only way to kill me, attacking my soul. Prowess is a general skill boost, which could be said to bolster the worth of any skill I collect. Willpower makes it easier to stick to my goals, and with eternity to work at them, that's incredibly valuable. Charisma is not to be underestimated, given the value in people being willing to listen to you. Theft can eventually become conceptual, and when I'm 1000 years old, I'll probably have a few points to spare to dump in that. Wits giving a boost to processing speed has been shown to be potentially very valuable by Dien, though at 2 it's mostly a supplement for Intelligence. For the moment, well, I'll be dumping points in Intelligence, and a me that much smarter a decade down the line might as well be a completely different being, but I think I'd probably start averting Reed Richards Is Useless. Pretty much everything else I might want would eventually follow from that. Thirteenth Hour is never a bad choice, and that extra month per year will eventually add up. Although 5 instances of Benevolence and counting on the next person to find the genie to Wish them free would probably be the most benevolent option.

I suppose one could go for True Immortality, Growth, Thirteenth Hour, and Cast Through Time to 50,000 years ago and then dig a hole somewhere and wait, with the fifth choice being largely irrelevant with Attributes like those. Even if you divided it evenly between the seven base ones(and Thirteenth Hour would give you roughly 4166 extra years to work with) that's still over 7000 apiece, which is... well, not exactly competitive with the Armaments but still massively superior to basically anything not expected to singlehandedly roll over entire planets, and if it's between the 13 unlocked by my method that's still 4100+, which might work out. Killing yourself on a regular basis prevents starving to death, so if you have a sewer that lets out to the ocean, you might not need to ever go up to the surface, especially if you take Thirteenth Hour as that can be used to keep time, and browsing the billion or so fanfics and anime I keep wanting to look at but either forget or don't have the time for should be more than enough to keep me occupied.. All that extra biomatter might cause weird changes to the timeline though...

The average man weighs a little under 200 pounds. Assuming you kill yourself every day because of the effects of starvation(presumably you'd be dumping into Willpower first to make that easier to deal with) and dehydration, that adds up to 18.25 million bodies over 50000 years. That's not all that much compared to the lowball 100+ billion suspected humans to have ever lived. Still, it would probably have some effect on the place the sewer lets out. Might become known as a great fishing spot because of how nutrient-rich the area is for some reason, leading to all sorts of butterflies.

Funny, now I have another Omake idea.

2500 words, discounting this line.
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Hm… I'd likely go True Immortality, Growth, X (Nerfed Emperor Red focused only on the domains of Life and Enhancement, max scale county-sized to start, scales with Int), free the genie (Needless, Thirteenth Hour, Pocket Dimension).
 
ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA​

You have, as the Thousand Nights(or Disney's Aladdin) described, stumbled across an old lamp, which upon being rubbed, released a cloud of colorful smoke, which formed into a figure whose lower half was still smoke, while the upper half was human...ish. The proportions were a little off.

"You have freed me from the lamp. I will grant you five wishes, with four exceptions." he raised four fingers and began ticking them off. "I will not directly kill anyone. I will not directly revive anyone. I will not directly interfere in matters of the heart. I will not grant you more wishes. Beyond that? Endless riches, an intellect to make the greatest geniuses in the world as simpletons, immortality of both the eternal youth and resurrective types, and so on, all available. Alternatively, you could free me, and I could in return grant you a number of smaller boons. The choice is yours. I should note that if you do not free me, my lamp and I will vanish elsewhere like the Dragon Balls. Yes, I know what those are. I need to have some understanding of the modern world to properly grant various wishes. Receiving a billion dollars in the currency used by the Byzantine Empire would likely be a problem for you, for example."

You have 4 Wishes. In exchange for using one to free the Genie, you may select three of the following boons at half strength, or 6 at one quarter strength. You can simply take the same Wish multiple times if you choose. True Immortality can be gifted to others, for example.

[W] Wealth. Become the world's first trillionaire. This Wish will avoid collapsing the world economy, though being too careless in your spending, buying all the food exports from a given country and then leaving them to rot, for example, can still lead to mass chaos and death. Similarly, the various governments will be strangely lax in investigating how you obtained these funds. It would take prodigiously wasteful spending to ever run out of money, as the amount will adjust with inflation and the like. It should not be underestimated in terms of providing you means to obtain a powerbase outside of yourself.

[W] Power. Become a world leader. Your planet will be, as you lack the understanding of higher dimensional physics to properly understand, 'expanded' with a new nation roughly the size of the Madagascar. Perhaps Atlantis will rise from the ocean depths, or the Pacific equivalent, Mu, or maybe Doggerland, the now-flooded landbridge that connected the United Kingdom with the main European landmass. Maybe Central America will sprout a sub-continent. Or Europe will undergo a shift and a new country some 600,000 square kilometers in area will appear. Regardless of the placement and exact origins, which you are free to specify within reason, you are to be it's leader. Plot world domination with an entire country backing you like one Victor von Doom, turn it into your own personal vacation home, or simply rule as best you can. If you select this for all five of your wishes, the resulting country is likely to be somewhat notable on the world stage, being roughly 90% the size of India.

[W] True Immortality. Sometimes when a type of immortality is talked about, it refers merely to eternal youth, and conventional killing is still a viable means of disposing of the entity in question. Not so here. You will not age, you will not die of natural causes. The fog of ages and the insanity and mental stress that might be inflicted by your eternity of existence will utterly fail to affect you. While spells and cybernetic implants can remove memories, and this does not defend against hypnotic suggestion and the like, your memory will become perfect where the ravages of time are concerned. You will likely remember your childhood better than you did before. Similarly, losing your mind from seeing your family murdered in front of you will not be safeguarded against, but simply outliving them will over and over will not drive you to madness. Bitterness possibly, but not madness. As Time is often regarded as the closest accomplice and ally of Death, it makes sense that conquering one will mean gaining significant resilience to the other.

Should your mortal body be slain, you will immediately 'respawn' in the nearest location where you will not immediately perish. If you are thrown into a volcano, you will reappear some distance away, for example. Similarly, if tossed into a black hole, you will reappear on the nearest habitable planet or spaceship whose crew will not attempt to kill you. Should you wish to die, a 'switch' will be available to you. It cannot be activate if your mind is being tampered with, so a suicidal depression aura will not be able to make you pull it. This can lock you out of using it if significant mental alterations are made, such as large swathes of your memories having been edited in some fashion by outside influence, but relatively minor compromises to your judgement like a glass of wine will not block it.

[W] Improvement. Choose a facet and add 10 points to it. The common human has Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, Agility, Wisdom, Luck, Appearance. This can also be used to unlock Attributes, such as Prowess, Protection, Charisma, etc. Due to the workings of the Attributes, this is one of the few Wishes that actually become worth more as you stack the same one.

[W] Growth. Each year you live following this, you may add a + to an Attribute of your choice. You cannot unlock Attributes in this manner, but even 60 or so from a normal human lifespan from this point onward would be enough to make you akin to a god to the average human. Combined with Immortality, and feats out of comic books are more a matter of when than if.

[W] Knowledge. Your scientists would be quite interested in the Unified Field Theory and the math behind it, among other such secrets. It should not be difficult for you to prove it works, though your intellect will not be enhanced in any way, and you will in essence be reading off a textbook when explaining it. While there are definitely benefits to having this sort of knowledge, this is a Wish heavily dependent on others to achieve it's full value. As I mentioned, humans are rather slow-minded by the standards of entities such as myself.

[W] Benevolence. At the end of the day, people are often apathetic and cruel. This Wish would change that. Would lean humanity a little more toward Star Trek as opposed to Warhammer 40K. This is a relatively minor effect, given it's spread out across an entire species, and unlike yourself I do not have their consent, so I can only change them a little without causing personality death. Still, the rate of sociopaths will notably drop, as will most forms of crime, and the various governments of the planet might gain some competence from those within it actually caring about their constituents. Potentially extremely valuable. A small amount more kindness from every direction can have huge knock-on effects. Repeated use of Wishes on this option will noticeably affect the population, though you can exempt yourself from any and all uses of this.

[W] Thirteenth Hour. Time is the most precious of things, and the one resource it is impossible to produce more of. Every twelve hours, you obtain a thirteenth hour, one in which time does not flow. This hour can be customized so that you essentially have an hour to move unopposed, to tinker, to train, to watch TV. Who is aware and capable of acting besides oneself can be changed at will. Regardless, aging is halted unless specified otherwise. This can stack indefinitely, and the 'settings' of a given hour can be changed at will. In a week, you would build up 14 such hours. In a year, 730, or roughly one month. This can be abused to give oneself time to plan 'mid-combat' and the like. You will remain aware of how much time you have left whenever the effect is active. Do note that Thirteenth Hour does not contribute to it's own timer.

[W] Needless. You do not need to eat, sleep, drink, breathe, dispose of waste, maintain a given temperature, your muscles will not deteriorate with disuse, etc. In addition to dramatically lowering the cost of living and extending your free time by eight hours a day, it makes modifying your body relatively simple, as you can selectively choose to burn body fat or retain the necessary proteins indefinitely for muscle-building purposes. You are not Plastic Man by any stretch, but you can self-modify quite a bit.

[W] Cast Through Time. You may select a point in time, and I will send you there. Be sure you wish to do this, as no method of returning beyond taking True Immortality and waiting will be provided. I will allow you to collect some belongings and, in recognition of how long you might spend waiting, allow you to access modern amenities, though you can only receive. For example, you can use Netflix, but anything that hasn't come out when you go back will not come out until you've reached and passed your original point in time. A bunker may be provided if you simply wish to wait to take advantage of Growth, specifically for this purpose.

[W] Pocket Dimension. A space roughly 10 square kilometers across with 5 kilometers of soil beneath and 5 kilometers of atmosphere above. You can enter and leave it at will. While you cannot remove anything found inside, you can use it to store things from the outside world and retrieve them at will. You have complete control over this space, including who can enter or leave, granting a sanctum you are completely safe in. While it defaults to a grassy field that abruptly terminates at it's edges, a beach, a volcano, a city, any environment you wish can be constructed. If you wish, you can make an Arcology of 10 cubic kilometers. The flow of time is not halted, and you must leave in the same place in the outside world you entered from.

[W] Other Self. There are infinite parallel universes. While not all of them contain a version of you, unlike Jon and Garfield, there are many of you. This Wish can grant you their aggregate experience and skills without compromising your sense of identity. This is a potentially enormous boon. Do note that this does not change your own Attributes. A version of you who is a supergenius will not grant you supergenius, merely access to their knowledge and inventions. Similarly, a black belt in karate will grant you some understanding of fighting technique, but you will lack the muscle memory they possessed. The sheer life experience and skill you have to draw on is still no small matter. Not to mention potential benefits to being able to use other versions of yourself to target other realities.

[W] X. A superpower tailored to your specifications. It will cap out at being able to destroy a moderately sized country in a relatively short timespan, such as a few days, at least with human capabilities of direction and control. Unless specified otherwise, this does not qualify as magic.

[W] Free the Genie. Wish the Genie free. Mark your chosen options for the broken up Wish with [3] or [6], depending on your choices.

AN: Figured I'd push out one last Omake for the Quest's End, whatever that might be.

This (somewhat) works off of the Dreams CYOA's Stat system. Humans average 1-3 in a given Attribute, and each point in it is valued at 1.618 times that of the previous. 10 points in any Attribute is enough to make besting someone without that advantage trivial, at least in that field. Points are worth about 122.96 times as much by then.

Personally, I'd go for Thirteenth Hour, True Immortality and 2 Growths, with a broken up Wish divided between Improvement(Protection, Prowess, Willpower, Charisma, Theft, Wits) to unlock those for me. The mystical protection would guard against essentially the only way to kill me, attacking my soul. Prowess is a general skill boost, which could be said to bolster the worth of any skill I collect. Willpower makes it easier to stick to my goals, and with eternity to work at them, that's incredibly valuable. Charisma is not to be underestimated, given the value in people being willing to listen to you. Theft can eventually become conceptual, and when I'm 1000 years old, I'll probably have a few points to spare to dump in that. Wits giving a boost to processing speed has been shown to be potentially very valuable by Dien, though at 2 it's mostly a supplement for Intelligence. For the moment, well, I'll be dumping points in Intelligence, and a me that much smarter a decade down the line might as well be a completely different being, but I think I'd probably start averting Reed Richards Is Useless. Pretty much everything else I might want would eventually follow from that. Thirteenth Hour is never a bad choice, and that extra month per year will eventually add up. Although 5 instances of Benevolence and counting on the next person to find the genie to Wish them free would probably be the most benevolent option.

I suppose one could go for True Immortality, Growth, Thirteenth Hour, and Cast Through Time to 50,000 years ago and then dig a hole somewhere and wait, with the fifth choice being largely irrelevant with Attributes like those. Even if you divided it evenly between the seven base ones(and Thirteenth Hour would give you roughly 4166 extra years to work with) that's still over 7000 apiece, which is... well, not exactly competitive with the Armaments but still massively superior to basically anything not expected to singlehandedly roll over entire planets, and if it's between the 13 unlocked by my method that's still 4100+, which might work out. Killing yourself on a regular basis prevents starving to death, so if you have a sewer that lets out to the ocean, you might not need to ever go up to the surface, especially if you take Thirteenth Hour as that can be used to keep time, and browsing the billion or so fanfics and anime I keep wanting to look at but either forget or don't have the time for should be more than enough to keep me occupied.. All that extra biomatter might cause weird changes to the timeline though...

The average man weighs a little under 200 pounds. Assuming you kill yourself every day because of the effects of starvation(presumably you'd be dumping into Willpower first to make that easier to deal with) and dehydration, that adds up to 18.25 million bodies over 50000 years. That's not all that much compared to the lowball 100+ billion suspected humans to have ever lived. Still, it would probably have some effect on the place the sewer lets out. Might become known as a great fishing spot because of how nutrient-rich the area is for some reason, leading to all sorts of butterflies.

Funny, now I have another Omake idea.

2500 words, discounting this line.
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I'd go for:

Wish 1: X

X: Alter Outcome. Effects similar to Focusing Incision (Accretion). Have sense of most likely outcome of events and capability to adjust probabilities at will. Rapidly develops into both generalized and focused foresight. Effects scalable between effective reality manipulation within an extremely small scale (ex: kill someone by adjusting quantum outcomes of each part of their body such that they spontaneously disintegrate), or broadly adjusting outcomes if used on a larger scale (ex: adjust global opinion on a topic by +/- 5%).

Scales with Mental Attributes.

Wish 2: True Immortality

Wish 3: Growth

Wish 4: Free the Genie [3]
Needless
Pocket Dimension
Thirteenth Hour

What happened to the 5th Wish? Idk.
 
ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA
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I wish for:

*True Immortality - A must-pick. I can better leverage my newfound power to change the world if everyone understands that resistance is futile. According to some people I know, I do a lot of reckless things on a daily basis, so this seems reasonably necessary.

*Growth - It wouldn't take long (only several years in my immortal lifespan) to obtain superhuman intellect or even luck. That's a no-brainer.

*Superpower - A generic but powerful, broad-spectrum system of Vancian magic, akin to D&D Arcane Magic, with a prodigious capability of making new spells past a certain level of experience. Even as a fumbling novice, a one-word incantation may produce a man-slaying bolt of lightning, personalized flight, or shielding effects to protect against small-arms military armament. It may also be used for the creation of magical items, the brewing of potions, and the raising of magical creatures and chimera of all sorts. It may be spread by means of passing it onto one's offspring or initiating apprentices using special rituals. Scales largely off of experience with the system and Intelligence.

*Free the Genie

**Wealth - At half-strength, instead of a trillion dollars, I receive around five-hundred billion, or slightly less if the wish must expend more power to ensure the paranatural origin can't be traced. This extreme loss of wealth compared to the full-strength option doesn't greatly matter, as I'm still many times wealthier than the likes of Jeff Bezos.

**Power - According to my rough calculations, a nation at half the size of Madagascar would be around 290 square kilometers. That's actually not much smaller than Poland, so I'd be comfortable and familiar with the territory size available to me. If the population is also half of Madagascar, then I'll have over ten million natives to rule over. If I have any control over its placement, I'd prefer for my country to appear somewhere in the vicinity of Europe. I'm most leaning towards the Doggerland scenario, but I can't deny I've considered the deeply amusing prospect of having the nation be a straight territorial line that separates Russia and Ukraine with an incredibly large mountain chain. It'd make for some exotic views, that's to be sure.

**Knowledge - Knowledge is power, and who knows what I'd learn?

Also, I had a question about Improvement - can a single use of Improvement at half-strength (as per Free the Genie) be used to unlock Attributes, or is that limited only to its full application? If so, I might alter my build to include Improvement as my third pick in Free the Genie and unlock Charisma (and if possible still, Willpower as well.)
 
Birdsie said:
I wish for:

*True Immortality - A must-pick. I can better leverage my newfound power to change the world if everyone understands that resistance is futile. According to some people I know, I do a lot of reckless things on a daily basis, so this seems reasonably necessary.

*Growth - It wouldn't take long (only several years in my immortal lifespan) to obtain superhuman intellect or even luck. That's a no-brainer.

*Superpower - A generic but powerful, broad-spectrum system of Vancian magic, akin to D&D Arcane Magic, with a prodigious capability of making new spells past a certain level of experience. Even as a fumbling novice, a one-word incantation may produce a man-slaying bolt of lightning, personalized flight, or shielding effects to protect against small-arms military armament. It may also be used for the creation of magical items, the brewing of potions, and the raising of magical creatures and chimera of all sorts. It may be spread by means of passing it onto one's offspring or initiating apprentices using special rituals. Scales largely off of experience with the system and Intelligence.

*Free the Genie

**Wealth - At half-strength, instead of a trillion dollars, I receive around five-hundred billion, or slightly less if the wish must expend more power to ensure the paranatural origin can't be traced. This extreme loss of wealth compared to the full-strength option doesn't greatly matter, as I'm still many times wealthier than the likes of Jeff Bezos.

**Power - According to my rough calculations, a nation at half the size of Madagascar would be around 290 square kilometers. That's actually not much smaller than Poland, so I'd be comfortable and familiar with the territory size available to me. If the population is also half of Madagascar, then I'll have over ten million natives to rule over. If I have any control over its placement, I'd prefer for my country to appear somewhere in the vicinity of Europe. I'm most leaning towards the Doggerland scenario, but I can't deny I've considered the deeply amusing prospect of having the nation be a straight territorial line that separates Russia and Ukraine with an incredibly large mountain chain. It'd make for some exotic views, that's to be sure.

**Knowledge - Knowledge is power, and who knows what I'd learn?

Also, I had a question about Improvement - can a single use of Improvement at half-strength (as per Free the Genie) be used to unlock Attributes, or is that limited only to its full application? If so, I might alter my build to include Improvement as my third pick in Free the Genie and unlock Charisma (and if possible still, Willpower as well.)
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Improvement can unlock Attributes at half or one quarter strength.
 
ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA
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All right, let's go.

True Immortality.

Growth. (Prot)

X. A superpower tailored to your specifications. (Encompassing Aegis)

Free the Genie.
Improvement. (Prot)
Improvement. (Prot)
Improvement. (Prot)

The Encompassing Aegis arises from, internalizes, and expands the effects of Protection. An emanation of the user's defenses it shields against undesired imposition, esoteric and not, whether bullet or blade, spell or sorcery, insult or implication, fate or causal circumstance, the Aegis guards against them all. Of interest to more proactive users is the temporary investiture of defense against particular impositions. Set your shield against the universe and you may, for moments, cast aside the shackles of gravity, guard yourself against the limitations of language, and achieve temporary intelligibility across language barriers.
* Investiture takes temporary +'s of Prot. If overcome by resistance they are unavailable until they return. If not overcome the investiture remains until dissolved.
* The Aegis, naturally, guards against the loss of temporary +'s.
* The Aegis scales with Prot.
* Wise combinations of temporary investiture may create otherwise impossible effects permanently. A statue carved with your bare hands remains carved, even after you remove the investiture defending against its hardness.

Basically, become a Mage the Ascencion character that scales off Prot, rather than Arete.



[ ] A Quest [+1 Gift] - 2 - Exalted (Age of Glory)
[ ] The Mandarin [1 Gift] - Obols of Paradise
[ ] A Debt [+2 Gifts] -
[ ] Obols of Paradise [5 Gifts, requires Your Choice or A Quest] - High End Solar
qwolfs threw 1 20-faced dice. Reason: A Quest: Total: 2
2 2
 
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ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA​
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Alright, I'm back and I have my build.

[W] True Immortality
[W] Growth
[W] Needless
[W] Free the Genie
-[6] X (Cultivation)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Cast Through Time (as far back as possible)

Going for pretty extreme greed here, though Needless is a minor concession to comfy. X is to grant me access to a style of cultivation that is all about steadily accumulating omnipresent cosmic energy and then using it to instigate various transformations of the body and soul, similar but not identical to cultivation in Even Further Beyond. Improvement x4 to raise my talent for cultivation by 10, to help counteract the fact that my X wish is at quarter-strength. Cast Through Time to have the maximum time to cultivate and grow, though at quarter-strength I don't know exactly how far back I can go, or whether I'll get that free bunker to wait in.
 
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ilbgar123 said:
Five Wishes CYOA
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Hmm. I think I'd take:

[W] Growth. x2
[W] X. The abilities of a powerful Spark, as per Girl Genius. In other words, the capacities of a highly capable mad scientist. The abilities of a Spark scale with Intelligence, with their available material resources, and with the preexisting base of scientific knowledge they have to draw upon. With only medieval-era technological knowledge, a powerful Spark may still be capable of producing biologically immortal supersoldiers who only become stronger with age, albeit with a non-negligible mortality rate for the creation process. With modern-day knowledge, a Spark may produce a functional set of fully armed power armor even if locked in a cave with a box of scraps. With sufficient knowledge and/or resources, the abilities of the Drs. Doom or Apocalypse are not out of reach - or perhaps even more.
[W] Free the Genie. [3]
-[W] Improvement. Split the +s up between Willpower, Protection, and Charisma to unlock the Attributes (2 +s into Willpower and Charisma and 1 + into Protection).
-[W] Knowledge.
-[W] Thirteenth Hour.

I wanted to pick something different from the other builds I've seen already. While the benefits of True Immortality and its synergy with Growth are obvious, a strong Spark with rapidly and limitlessly scaling Intelligence and the ability to skip up the tech tree with even a half-strength Knowledge should be able to replicate all of them in time. The benefits of Needless should be achievable even sooner. While obtaining fantastic wealth and political power should be outright trivial in a mere few years. With Growth selected twice, my Intelligence would increase more than twice as fast thanks to the nature of Demon of Dreams stats, so at least basic biological immortality should be achievable quickly, so I wouldn't need to worry about old age bringing me down.

Alternately, I could increase my Intelligence every year while still building a more balanced stat distribution. Even basic Spark creations should provide an incredible level of durability against any attempts to bring me down from any power that Earth is capable of bringing to bear when combined with boosts to Protection and Luck. Anything that didn't kill me instantly and without warning could be easily evaded with the use of banked time from Thirteenth Hour. And Spark creations could absolutely be devoted to providing warning against any threat capable of doing that - as an example, building sensors capable of detecting nuclear weapons from a distance outside their prospective blast radius.

It's true that this build provides no native access to magic, which is a shame because I love magic. But it has, after all, been said that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, and a Spark with these abilities is more than capable of producing sufficiently advanced science. Moreover, scientific access to other worlds and dimensions can certainly be attainable, and a strong Spark is also capable of putting a cheeky spin on the aforementioned maxim and declaring that sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. And a Spark is the unquestioned master of science.

512 words.
 
HoratioVonBecker said:
The title and speech say five wishes, but the pre-options text says four. Which is it?
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Five? I just looked at it and the pre-option text says five.

Aabcehmu said:
Alright, I'm back and I have my build.

[W] True Immortality
[W] Growth
[W] Needless
[W] Free the Genie
-[6] X (Cultivation)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Improvement (Talent)
-[6] Cast Through Time (as far back as possible)

Going for pretty extreme greed here, though Needless is a minor concession to comfy. X is to grant me access to a style of cultivation that is all about steadily accumulating omnipresent cosmic energy and then using it to instigate various transformations of the body and soul, similar but not identical to cultivation in Even Further Beyond. Improvement x4 to raise my talent for cultivation by 10, to help counteract the fact that my X wish is at quarter-strength. Cast Through Time to have the maximum time to cultivate and grow, though at quarter-strength I don't know exactly how far back I can go, or whether I'll get that free bunker to wait in.
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The furthest back the Genie can send you with the full Wish is 10 million years. It drops to 2 if you want the bunker, or 2.5 if you don't want to bother with it.
 
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ilbgar123 said:
The furthest back the Genie can send you with the full Wish is 10 million years. It drops to 2 if you want the bunker, or 2.5 if you don't want to bother with it.
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Nice! 2 millions years is plenty of time, so I'll take the bunker. I also was under the impression that I only had four wishes, so I'll go for an extra purchase of Growth.

All in all, I think I'll be able to achieve something similar to ADIP!Nameless after the first 2000-ish years of buffing Talent and cultivating.
 
ilbgar123 said:
This (somewhat) works off of the Dreams CYOA's Stat system. Humans average 1-3 in a given Attribute, and each point in it is valued at 1.618 times that of the previous. 10 points in any Attribute is enough to make besting someone without that advantage trivial, at least in that field. Points are worth about 122.96 times as much by then.
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...I don't know why no-one has pointed this out, but Progression is explicitly an Attribute in that system. So here's my build.

[W]Plan Gamer Time
-[W]True Immortality
-[W]Growth
-[W]Knowledge
-[W]X (Ontological Coherency from Status Screen. None of the actual choices in that CYOA, just the base ability to jump into the world's of video games and learn their powers.)
-[W]Free The Genie (6)
--[W]Cast Through Time (maximum time this can get me with a Bunker)
--[W]Improvement (Progression)
--[W]Improvement (Protection)
--[W]Improvement (Willpower)
--[W]Improvement (Prowess)
--[W]Benevolence

Assuming my use of X works, I took Cast Through Time for the guaranteed access to video games to jump into, unlocked the Attributes I actually want, since I actively don't want Charisma or Manipulation and will probably be neglecting Appearance, and threw my remaining weakened wish at Benevolence because I don't need any of the others with what I can access in video game universes.

Edit: ... Bolding the words actively don't somehow replaced them with a single q. That's fixed now.
 
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Progression in the Demon of Dreams is a 'special' attribute, it doesn't represent a single abstract 'ability to progress' like it does in AST, it was just a way of letting me tell the player which options had baked-in growth and what approximate level of growth that was. But I'm not ilbgar, maybe he will rule differently.
 
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It looks like Blood Halo has a nearly overwhelming lead, so I'll begin planning as if that's the case. The vote will close in 24 hours.

Remember, Imperishable Night has been eliminated!

Man, I'm still rather surprised you guys didn't take Task Leeway for the Geas. Making things so much easier for the Maiden, especially with Blood Halo in particular…
 
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I see it's 'produce tactics or die' time again:
  • Consolidate all Human Sphere armies under a single command, to ensure maximum benefits from Armies of the Shogun. Depending on the form of their empowerment they may be able to project Hunger's power and protect the Sphere.
  • The period before this scaling kicks in is dangerous. However, we see Letrizia manipulate time in the latest interlude, so it may be possible to grandfather in this remilitarization and training. Playing Syndics could count.
  • Speaking of training, if the Sphere Defense Force is able to hold the line Hunger can now benefit from regular Progression. Sparring with the upgraded troops en masse might also generate picks given the stakes.
  • Mentioned on Discord, repeated here for redundancy's sake: the Maiden is inhabiting Catherine of Amarlt (aka. Bad Cat), the last descendant of a defunct Dynasty. The Ring of Blood and/or authority as the Forebear could potentially exploit this.
  • Play the woman, not the ball. The Maiden's morality is a mystery, but according to Faeliad the stated reason she'd agree to this is that Hunger's trampling all over her ancestral Realm. It's possible Faeliad is referring to a step on the Forebear's Procession where he destroyed the Foremost, but the most straightforward reading is that she has principled objections to what Hunger's currently doing.
  • Principled objections imply principles. If she cares so much for the Sphere and the Realms within, perhaps she's unwilling (or reluctant to a degree that'll manifest in her tactics) to destroy it if that devastation would be difficult to reverse. Taking one's own fiefdom hostage is audacious, but eh. Desperate times, desperate measures.
  • Consider invoking Fisher King and letting the Decimation run. This is more of an Imperishable Night tactic, but if Hunger's composite forces exceed his own power by orders of magnitude then he doesn't need to do all the fighting himself. The twin Afflictions could be a worthwhile tradeoff if the Decimation hits the Maiden and not Hunger's own legions/territory. Could also be synergistic with attrition-based bleed stratagems. I'm aware there's a huge splash radius, but with the situation being what it is, I don't particularly give a shit.
  • Don't get betrayed by Aobaru again. Blood Halo places a lot of weight on someone whose loyalty has proven tenuous in the past. Once more, the Hero finds himself in a position to bring about Hunger's downfall. What happens if the Maiden makes him an offer?
  • Visit Nilfel or whatever part of Hungertopia has the most continuity with it. I have no idea if it's even a discrete polity these days, but we did spend a Heroic Advancement on Season's Greetings and then never used the Apocryphal leeway. Now is the time to cash in.
  • Closing the Fist, or some permutation thereof. Fuse with all Companions, or even the entirety of Hunger's forces if that's feasible! Striking the Maiden down as one composite entity would be a comprehensive rejection of both her and Catherine's ideals.
Alternatively, just fucking swap to Inheritance, applying True Sanctum to the entirety of Hunger's territories and obviating this problem. Much of the quest up to this point has been about how Hunger's sheer power carries the party past trials that would have destroyed them. In those few situations where strength fails, Gisena steps in to provide a solution. Inheritance is the most fitting final build for the quest we actually played: embracing the Forebear's identity at every turn, cutting through every challenge, and shouldering every cost through sheer will.

It also allows Arete generated over the course of the hiatus to contribute to Hunger's victory % directly, instead of just bolstering the odds of companion survival. Given the length of time elapsed the arsenal of content created is immense, so even the 'modest' conversion rate would be an enormous boon. Having come so far and triumphed so many times, it would be a shame to stumble at the final step, especially when it's in truth only the first of Hunger's Indenture.
 
*We could put Aobaru on defense. Even before his upgrade, it seemed like he had universal scale reach with his Vigorflame, being the embodiment of the principle of fire. Having him shine his light through all the stars in the sky to shelter the entirely of the Human Sphere while using the Domain of Battles to further minimise damage. With +10,000 INT, he could likely find a way to make this act into something of symbolic importance, assuming it isn't already, to further heighten his defensive capabilities.

*We could swap the permanent fusion from the Favoured Blade to creating Adorena. Alternatively, of course, we could fuse with Aobaru, which would also preempt any betrayal on his part, but we might just need superior esoteric effects here, along with additional versatility.

*We need to close the distance to the Maiden. Between Domination and Invincible, we'd be running with ISH 4+ effects within 3 meters of us. Maybe using our Armies to herd her in some fashion and then just latch on for a final, climatic duel for maximal symbolic importance bonus. Or maybe challenge her to honourable combat between champions.

*On that note, a single, decisive battle might be better than playing a game of hit and run. The latter allows her to do chip damage for a Condition spiral, which is a massive concern given Blood Halo's lack of healing.

*Seduction???????????? We do have +10,000 APP, we might as well try get some use out of it. And given our irreversible wounds for offensive purposes, well... as another Tyrant once said, "Beauty is an attack."

*Or maybe threatening to sear our appearance to the basic fabric of this reality, such that anyone within it automatically gets hit with that. The sheer memetic hazard involved would render her attempts at rescuing these people to be largely pointless, since we'd still be ingrained on their basic essence.

*Maybe a full 5 Companion fusion for swift Mitigation of the Geas and maybe Apocryphal? That would give us a decent bit more leeway than what we've got currently

Or yes, just pick Inheritance, unlock the Haeliel Ending, win the game and fix any unsatisfactory factors retroactively, instead of empowering someone who has already betrayed us once for much the same reason the Maiden is trying to kill us.
 
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It should be well within Hunger's ability to stab whatever metaphysical affect defines a creature as a Maiden. Accordingly she can't afford to project personal force, she'll need to use her grace to manifest dangers. We should expect her to be the one trying to bait and switch, since it's gotten dangerously close to working before and Hunger's already begun to acclimate to being the big fish.

Can't be certain if our stats will be within arm's length of hers though. Graces probably have an upper limit on +s, right?
 
Man inheritance is really so much better when you take into account the amount of arete we've likely accumulated. Almost half a year of a trickle of content and discussion. It's the only option where that Arete can directly improve our odds of beating the maiden. Blood halo explicitly only increases the chances of our companions survival, not our own. Inheritance would allow arete to increase both of our survival rates, since hunger having a better showing against the maiden means our companions have a better chance as well. Not to even mention the haeliel ending, which is likely a better ending than others we could get.
 
Under the effects of Blood Halo, would drafting the entirety of humanity into the imperial army provide some decent protection for the human sphere? Law should make it easy to do, and the shogun buff should see the collective forces made pretty tough.
 
Wasn't there a ritual that Hunger's companions could do to rez him in the event of his death? If so, in that case Hunger's companions surviving is technically a respawn for Hunger.
 
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