HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Joke's on you, I choose
[+] Omnipotence
[+] Omnipotence
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Are you sure that God would be happy with that choice?
Rihaku
The Internet
Build: Option Fork
Difficulty: Normal (7 Points, 2 Seals)
Role: The Paladin -5
Drawback Shoppe: Mosswort +1, Paramount +2, On the Run +3, Impulse (Taste) +3
Binding Casino: Jackpot [+3 Seals]
The idea behind this build is simple: maximize for both comfort and an interesting story within the limits of a one-roll Normal Mode run (two rolls if Sick Ride is the first). If Procession or Perchance are rolled, a 5-Seal total means I can take Save Slots for safety while still getting Grand Servant / Hidden Dragon. Otherwise I can proceed with the original plan, which requires no more than 4 Seals and produces a comfortable, yet still fun and interesting experience as Paladin Koji:
Allies:
Quartet: Miala -2
-Party: Furo, Asuna [-1 Seal]
Panoply:
Stone Rings -7
Feather of Favor [-2 Seals, Comprehensive Boost]
Self:
Static -2 [Paramount Turbocharge]
Exponential II: Vancian Set [-2 Seals]
Quest:
The Turning [+0 Points]
If Jackpot is not rolled, then drop Party. It's pretty superfluous. On the Run is taken because I intend to conquer the local reality anyway. Paramount grants immense personal safety through the Eternal upgrade to Static, and also qualifies me for the Turning. Given the defenses of the comprehensive-boosted Rings and turbocharged Static, alongside the scaling of a Feather-boosted Pillars System, Rings, and Exponential II, I have both extreme initial safety and rapid growth in both power and versatility, making that conquest a near inevitability, if perhaps a slow one. The uncapped Functional Set is not taken because Rings grant theoretically uncapped potential already. I do intend to leave the local meta-ontology when possible even if the Stone Rings would prevent Splintering.
If Procession or Perchance (swap to Procession) are rolled, then the build is instead:
Allies:
Qilin -5
-Hidden Dragon [-1 Seal]
Panoply:
Stone Rings -5
Self:
Exponential III: Save Slots [-4 Seals]
Pretty simple, the plan is to use save scumming + the Pillars System's immense magical and Attribute-based versatility to scale long-term through my Qilin's Cultivation. The Rings will allow me to access the Cardinal System and train off its weaknesses on top of my Pillars access, potentially allowing wacky synergies that can be brute forced through more save scumming - or simply to exceed the Pillars themselves, in time. Rings + Save Slots will also allow me to investigate slightly lower worlds in the Procession for additional scaling if I'm feeling really, really adventurous.
Difficulty: Normal (7 Points, 2 Seals)
Role: The Paladin -5
Drawback Shoppe: Mosswort +1, Paramount +2, On the Run +3, Impulse (Taste) +3
Binding Casino: Jackpot [+3 Seals]
The idea behind this build is simple: maximize for both comfort and an interesting story within the limits of a one-roll Normal Mode run (two rolls if Sick Ride is the first). If Procession or Perchance are rolled, a 5-Seal total means I can take Save Slots for safety while still getting Grand Servant / Hidden Dragon. Otherwise I can proceed with the original plan, which requires no more than 4 Seals and produces a comfortable, yet still fun and interesting experience as Paladin Koji:
Allies:
Quartet: Miala -2
-Party: Furo, Asuna [-1 Seal]
Panoply:
Stone Rings -7
Feather of Favor [-2 Seals, Comprehensive Boost]
Self:
Static -2 [Paramount Turbocharge]
Exponential II: Vancian Set [-2 Seals]
Quest:
The Turning [+0 Points]
If Jackpot is not rolled, then drop Party. It's pretty superfluous. On the Run is taken because I intend to conquer the local reality anyway. Paramount grants immense personal safety through the Eternal upgrade to Static, and also qualifies me for the Turning. Given the defenses of the comprehensive-boosted Rings and turbocharged Static, alongside the scaling of a Feather-boosted Pillars System, Rings, and Exponential II, I have both extreme initial safety and rapid growth in both power and versatility, making that conquest a near inevitability, if perhaps a slow one. The uncapped Functional Set is not taken because Rings grant theoretically uncapped potential already. I do intend to leave the local meta-ontology when possible even if the Stone Rings would prevent Splintering.
If Procession or Perchance (swap to Procession) are rolled, then the build is instead:
Allies:
Qilin -5
-Hidden Dragon [-1 Seal]
Panoply:
Stone Rings -5
Self:
Exponential III: Save Slots [-4 Seals]
Pretty simple, the plan is to use save scumming + the Pillars System's immense magical and Attribute-based versatility to scale long-term through my Qilin's Cultivation. The Rings will allow me to access the Cardinal System and train off its weaknesses on top of my Pillars access, potentially allowing wacky synergies that can be brute forced through more save scumming - or simply to exceed the Pillars themselves, in time. Rings + Save Slots will also allow me to investigate slightly lower worlds in the Procession for additional scaling if I'm feeling really, really adventurous.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
It'd possess the same strength.
Assuming your soul trap has the capability to annul the countermeasures, sure.
KidFromPallet
Pokemon Fan
- Location
- Pallet Town
Well, discussion for the discussion god, words for the word throne, and all that.
Making a new post to further describe my Ineptitude build.
Reposting self and Nemesis builds for convenience.
Alright, so I mentioned in my initial post that I was just going to use Kazuma as a placeholder Subject K insert while I looked back at what options the Stone Rings opened up. Having done so, I've decided to instead be inserted into Kanata Kanzaki from the web novel Disciple of Immortal. I'll try and give a short summary of the story's premise:
Guy gets isekaied, annoys the god doing the isekai and so is sent to a super-dangerous area, Kanata is found and saved by a lich, said lich is really lonely and so agrees to train Kanata to get him to stick around, the lich (Lunaere) greatly inflates the danger of the outside world to Kanata to make him stay longer, Kanata eventually leaves and starts journeying around the world, where he's super strong comparatively.
So why am I looking to insert into him? Well, there's a few reasons.
First is that the place he's sent to, a dungeon called Cocytus, is a really good starting place for me. The enemies there are extremely strong, which means it's the perfect grinding spot. It was supposed to be a death sentence for the original Kanata, but with Turbo-Static nothing there should be able to harm me, and with the initial power provided by the Stone Rings I should be able to at least harm the monsters. I should be getting a lot of EXP from the enemies there, allowing me to raise my level quite quickly. Cocytus also happens to be filled with super strong items and crafting materials, allowing me to gear up quite quickly as well.
The second reason I've chosen to insert as Kanata is because of his mentor, the lich Lunaere. Even if I wouldn't be in as dire a situation as Kanata due to everything I'm getting here, he was able to convince her to train him with base human social and mental attributes. Given how much EXP I'd be able to get even from a short time grinding monsters, I feel confident in being able to get social and mental attributes up enough to convince her to take me under her wing, which is great because she seems to be the person in setting with the most knowledge of the world's magic system. Well, besides the gods, anyway.
Speaking of which, that's the third reason I've chosen him as an insert target: the magic system. To give a short explanation, magic there is divided into categories and ranks; flight might be a Rank 3 Wind spell, a wide-area healing spell is Rank 8 Light, and so on. Anyway, the thing that caught my eye was that the means of Kanata getting iskeaied wasn't just left as 'A god did it', the story seems to call it out as a magic within it's system. More specifically, Kanata is isekaied with Time-Space Magic Rank 28: Dimension Gate.
While Lunaere doesn't seem to be capable of that spell, given she was surprised Kanata had been sent directly there using it, she is capable of using Time-Space magic up to at least the 24th Rank, iirc. So between her tutelage and putting stat points in mental attributes, it should be feasible to learn how to cast that quite quickly. From there, I send myself to a new universe to get the timer on the Stone Rings rolling. If I have the ability to choose my destination then, I'd probably shoot for the Price of Power quest's RWBYverse, given it has some more fantasy ubermetals to collect and weapon infusion to help make sure my Evendark Sword doesn't break in battle (if that was an issue, anyway, but the Cloak's description seems to imply Panoply objects can be broken), plus the various soul effects.
And on the topic of strengthening the Sword, Kanata's isekai world has alchemy capable of turning metal into stronger metals and a fantasy-typical 'unbreakable' metal, so doing such to my Sword of the Evendark would be a good first step in mitigating the chance it gets broken in battle.
With that, I think I have at least a chance against my Nemesis. Hopefully, anyway.
My Overlord would probably be the initial god who isekaied Kanata, now tasked to wipe the world clean and make it anew while operating in the vague but constricting limits gods have to follow. They're supposed to keep things interesting as a god of stories, so their superior deciding that the current crop of isekaied people and powerful natives are boring and a total reset is needed could be plausible.
Making a new post to further describe my Ineptitude build.
Reposting self and Nemesis builds for convenience.
Alright, so I mentioned in my initial post that I was just going to use Kazuma as a placeholder Subject K insert while I looked back at what options the Stone Rings opened up. Having done so, I've decided to instead be inserted into Kanata Kanzaki from the web novel Disciple of Immortal. I'll try and give a short summary of the story's premise:
Guy gets isekaied, annoys the god doing the isekai and so is sent to a super-dangerous area, Kanata is found and saved by a lich, said lich is really lonely and so agrees to train Kanata to get him to stick around, the lich (Lunaere) greatly inflates the danger of the outside world to Kanata to make him stay longer, Kanata eventually leaves and starts journeying around the world, where he's super strong comparatively.
So why am I looking to insert into him? Well, there's a few reasons.
First is that the place he's sent to, a dungeon called Cocytus, is a really good starting place for me. The enemies there are extremely strong, which means it's the perfect grinding spot. It was supposed to be a death sentence for the original Kanata, but with Turbo-Static nothing there should be able to harm me, and with the initial power provided by the Stone Rings I should be able to at least harm the monsters. I should be getting a lot of EXP from the enemies there, allowing me to raise my level quite quickly. Cocytus also happens to be filled with super strong items and crafting materials, allowing me to gear up quite quickly as well.
The second reason I've chosen to insert as Kanata is because of his mentor, the lich Lunaere. Even if I wouldn't be in as dire a situation as Kanata due to everything I'm getting here, he was able to convince her to train him with base human social and mental attributes. Given how much EXP I'd be able to get even from a short time grinding monsters, I feel confident in being able to get social and mental attributes up enough to convince her to take me under her wing, which is great because she seems to be the person in setting with the most knowledge of the world's magic system. Well, besides the gods, anyway.
Speaking of which, that's the third reason I've chosen him as an insert target: the magic system. To give a short explanation, magic there is divided into categories and ranks; flight might be a Rank 3 Wind spell, a wide-area healing spell is Rank 8 Light, and so on. Anyway, the thing that caught my eye was that the means of Kanata getting iskeaied wasn't just left as 'A god did it', the story seems to call it out as a magic within it's system. More specifically, Kanata is isekaied with Time-Space Magic Rank 28: Dimension Gate.
While Lunaere doesn't seem to be capable of that spell, given she was surprised Kanata had been sent directly there using it, she is capable of using Time-Space magic up to at least the 24th Rank, iirc. So between her tutelage and putting stat points in mental attributes, it should be feasible to learn how to cast that quite quickly. From there, I send myself to a new universe to get the timer on the Stone Rings rolling. If I have the ability to choose my destination then, I'd probably shoot for the Price of Power quest's RWBYverse, given it has some more fantasy ubermetals to collect and weapon infusion to help make sure my Evendark Sword doesn't break in battle (if that was an issue, anyway, but the Cloak's description seems to imply Panoply objects can be broken), plus the various soul effects.
And on the topic of strengthening the Sword, Kanata's isekai world has alchemy capable of turning metal into stronger metals and a fantasy-typical 'unbreakable' metal, so doing such to my Sword of the Evendark would be a good first step in mitigating the chance it gets broken in battle.
With that, I think I have at least a chance against my Nemesis. Hopefully, anyway.
My Overlord would probably be the initial god who isekaied Kanata, now tasked to wipe the world clean and make it anew while operating in the vague but constricting limits gods have to follow. They're supposed to keep things interesting as a god of stories, so their superior deciding that the current crop of isekaied people and powerful natives are boring and a total reset is needed could be plausible.
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- Location
- Europe
Try Before you Buy (2/2)
This took forever. Multiple Reflections and multiple Nemesis are too much. To minimize thread clutter I've put them in folders.
So, what's the strategy? We use Hyperdimensional Fortress Novahkron to defeat these extremely early game focused Nemeses as soon as possible, abusing turbo-charged Save Slots, Shroud derived hunting ability, Exalted tracking charms, and Augustine + Realm of Evening effects to find them and kill them in the hour Novahkron is summoned.
These Nemeses are then looted for Panoply items and, if possible, they are imprisoned in the Realm of Evening, if not they are removed. Perhaps, between Augustine and the Realm of Evening their Exaltations may be preserved and their potential infused into the Exaltations of the different Reflections.
Defeating the Overlord should be possible given time. Conquering the Culture and overcoming the five different Solar Deliberatives will be a challenge, though hardly impossible with save slot assistance. Save slots will also be essential to compensate for Perchance.
I expect that eventually the different reflections and the original will separate, whether due to death or otherwise.
The main risk of this build is Novahkron not getting both Nemesis. They're nuts and a good reminder why Paramount, Nemesis, and Enemy Mine should never be taken together.
There's far too much going on in this build. I don't actually enjoy it, personally. But, once I opened the Pandora's Box of Reflections, I really didn't have much choice.
This took forever. Multiple Reflections and multiple Nemesis are too much. To minimize thread clutter I've put them in folders.
- Gold (OG)
- Murder (Reflection 1)
- Realm (Reflection 2)
- Nemesis 1
- Nemesis 2
So, what's the strategy? We use Hyperdimensional Fortress Novahkron to defeat these extremely early game focused Nemeses as soon as possible, abusing turbo-charged Save Slots, Shroud derived hunting ability, Exalted tracking charms, and Augustine + Realm of Evening effects to find them and kill them in the hour Novahkron is summoned.
These Nemeses are then looted for Panoply items and, if possible, they are imprisoned in the Realm of Evening, if not they are removed. Perhaps, between Augustine and the Realm of Evening their Exaltations may be preserved and their potential infused into the Exaltations of the different Reflections.
Defeating the Overlord should be possible given time. Conquering the Culture and overcoming the five different Solar Deliberatives will be a challenge, though hardly impossible with save slot assistance. Save slots will also be essential to compensate for Perchance.
I expect that eventually the different reflections and the original will separate, whether due to death or otherwise.
The main risk of this build is Novahkron not getting both Nemesis. They're nuts and a good reminder why Paramount, Nemesis, and Enemy Mine should never be taken together.
There's far too much going on in this build. I don't actually enjoy it, personally. But, once I opened the Pandora's Box of Reflections, I really didn't have much choice.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Would God have allowed it, otherwise?
You've missed the first roll bonus Seal! That might make things easier - apparently Grand Master: Solomon offers infinite training time?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
It's God's prerogative to let humans make mistakes, is it not?
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Fair enough, but why would it be a mistake? As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Fair enough as well, I supose.
- Location
- Europe
Thank you for checking, it's easy to make mistakes. However, he rolled Arcane first so the numbers do work out. I just didn't put things in the order he rolled them.
Solomon would have made things easier in the short term. But in this case it wouldn't be where it counts, because the turbo-charged Shining Armor Nemesis just one shots the universe they start in moments after they arrive. Solomon needs time to set-up, which is why this build relies on Novahkron.
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
So, I don't think there's many Ormulum builds that use the Nemesis options from Da Boyz' From Hell's Heart DLC. While this is mostly a variant of Rihaku's Wellspring build(the growth rate is roughly half what's indicated in the build according to Orm, but the milestones are otherwise accurate), it also incorporates elements of Lealope's super-Litanist build with the addition of Lethe and Practicioner, and of course the DLC Nemesis makes it very different. For one thing, while Litanies get weaker further from the Dominion, I still have the talents of the Six, with Exemplar as a general buff to magics, specifically my talent with them and any relevant Attributes. Practitioner further boosts basically any skill I practice at, including ones that give general magic buffs a Streetwalker can take advantage of, such as Scholar or Mage. Not to mention the upward swing of Wellspring may well compensate for the weakened Litanies by virtue of the rising tide or benefits to synergistic magics(Bard/Minstrel powers, for example) though there is the possibility that I unintentionally allowed the Cancer Divine to become a thing in the first place via Wellspring's boost to everyone having only a minor positive valence, and the examples of Wellspring being largely instances of a degraded realm returning to a brighter, grander form.
I mean, since Lethe has removed my memories of the Ormulum(though it notably doesn't say anything about, say, EFB) that would include the Cancer too, so I'd have no goddamn idea that was a thing unless some similar thing had happened, and it sounds like this happens relatively early on, so CD can ramp up too. On that note, part of the idea is to have the General and CD get into a fistfight on occasion to keep some of the heat off of me. The General is completely uninterested in any sort of truce with her, and CD is no friend of Hell, so I don't have to worry about them teaming up. Additionally, I may not have the Avenger's 'if you screw up, she gets all 13 Authorities' as a possibility, but I might be able to get Voyaging via Streetwalker, and Practitioner should allow for significant development of Anti-Skills. That is, skills and powers specifically for keeping them off of me until I can either Wellspring power up to the point I can kill them, or try bringing back the Cancer Divine's fallen comrades(I got the implication she'd had a bunch of crap happen to her before the player's insert killed her knight, so I expect at least a couple tragic deaths besides that one, which, based on that first paragraph, read to me like she got manipulated or mindcontrolled, and the CYOA player couldn't bring her down without killing her) and leveraging that to at least make her less crazy.
If all else fails, I might propose that she keep me alive such that the Wellspring can continue to benefit people. Expressions stop if you die, so she has a vested interest in my continued living. She wants to make a brighter world still, it's just being viewed through a lens of grief and trauma. Otherwise, she wouldn't bother trying to make the people she's gone all New Devourer/Cancerverse on comfortable. So, putting me in a coma and using me as an anti-Waning gun shouldn't be impossible to convince her of, especially if I've kicked the legs out from under her trauma by un-killing the people she lost, most of which weren't killed by me in the first place!
If I were to do a Greed build of this, I'd probably add Ancient with those other 3 Orbs, because while it might not accelerate Expressive, it would set me to an extremely high level of Litanist accomplishment, as the Litanist and Ancient can cover all 6 Litany schools together, with benefits from Litanist and Exemplar's talent buffs. Litanist might have more raw talent, making it somewhat unsynergistic, but getting dragged higher along the power-curve would make it so that the initial period until my Expression flared to life much less dangerous despite Somber trying to screw me over in various ways, up to and including poorly recreating Apocryphal and leading the General right to me. It also means I won't need to spend much time practicing any of my Litanies, and can instead focus on training up any magics the Street introduces me to. Well, barring stuff like using Reaping(one of my Ancient picks, alongside Reciprocity and Revelation, thanks to Exemplar) as a pseudo-Red, any time I kill something. It's not like I want to lose any Practitioner benefits related to the Litanies here, and even with the distance from the Hierarchy, the Litanies and Ancient-acquired artifacts will probably be my go-to stuff for quite some time. Most likely backstory is that the Ancient felt the Street calling, grabbed their stuff, and left, not feeling particularly inclined to humor the Hierarchy and it's boot stamping on a human face forever. Plus the issue of dreaming about Hell's premier fighter and concerns that might raise. I might have figured out what that's about with Revelation in spite of Lethe's interference, and decided to get the hell out of dodge, pun intended.
Insertion (+3), Streetwalker
Magics
Practitioner (-1)
Litanist (-2): Reinforcement, Revelation, Repulsion. Prioritizes maximum survival in the early game; Reinforcement for general attributes, Revelation for competence, Repulsion for unconditional raw power.
Exemplar (-1)
Expressive (-4)
Drawbacks
Lethe, Somber, Nemesis(The Cancer Divine), Dreams of Distant Fire (+5)
930 words, discounting this line.
I mean, since Lethe has removed my memories of the Ormulum(though it notably doesn't say anything about, say, EFB) that would include the Cancer too, so I'd have no goddamn idea that was a thing unless some similar thing had happened, and it sounds like this happens relatively early on, so CD can ramp up too. On that note, part of the idea is to have the General and CD get into a fistfight on occasion to keep some of the heat off of me. The General is completely uninterested in any sort of truce with her, and CD is no friend of Hell, so I don't have to worry about them teaming up. Additionally, I may not have the Avenger's 'if you screw up, she gets all 13 Authorities' as a possibility, but I might be able to get Voyaging via Streetwalker, and Practitioner should allow for significant development of Anti-Skills. That is, skills and powers specifically for keeping them off of me until I can either Wellspring power up to the point I can kill them, or try bringing back the Cancer Divine's fallen comrades(I got the implication she'd had a bunch of crap happen to her before the player's insert killed her knight, so I expect at least a couple tragic deaths besides that one, which, based on that first paragraph, read to me like she got manipulated or mindcontrolled, and the CYOA player couldn't bring her down without killing her) and leveraging that to at least make her less crazy.
If all else fails, I might propose that she keep me alive such that the Wellspring can continue to benefit people. Expressions stop if you die, so she has a vested interest in my continued living. She wants to make a brighter world still, it's just being viewed through a lens of grief and trauma. Otherwise, she wouldn't bother trying to make the people she's gone all New Devourer/Cancerverse on comfortable. So, putting me in a coma and using me as an anti-Waning gun shouldn't be impossible to convince her of, especially if I've kicked the legs out from under her trauma by un-killing the people she lost, most of which weren't killed by me in the first place!
If I were to do a Greed build of this, I'd probably add Ancient with those other 3 Orbs, because while it might not accelerate Expressive, it would set me to an extremely high level of Litanist accomplishment, as the Litanist and Ancient can cover all 6 Litany schools together, with benefits from Litanist and Exemplar's talent buffs. Litanist might have more raw talent, making it somewhat unsynergistic, but getting dragged higher along the power-curve would make it so that the initial period until my Expression flared to life much less dangerous despite Somber trying to screw me over in various ways, up to and including poorly recreating Apocryphal and leading the General right to me. It also means I won't need to spend much time practicing any of my Litanies, and can instead focus on training up any magics the Street introduces me to. Well, barring stuff like using Reaping(one of my Ancient picks, alongside Reciprocity and Revelation, thanks to Exemplar) as a pseudo-Red, any time I kill something. It's not like I want to lose any Practitioner benefits related to the Litanies here, and even with the distance from the Hierarchy, the Litanies and Ancient-acquired artifacts will probably be my go-to stuff for quite some time. Most likely backstory is that the Ancient felt the Street calling, grabbed their stuff, and left, not feeling particularly inclined to humor the Hierarchy and it's boot stamping on a human face forever. Plus the issue of dreaming about Hell's premier fighter and concerns that might raise. I might have figured out what that's about with Revelation in spite of Lethe's interference, and decided to get the hell out of dodge, pun intended.
Insertion (+3), Streetwalker
Magics
Practitioner (-1)
Litanist (-2): Reinforcement, Revelation, Repulsion. Prioritizes maximum survival in the early game; Reinforcement for general attributes, Revelation for competence, Repulsion for unconditional raw power.
Exemplar (-1)
Expressive (-4)
Drawbacks
Lethe, Somber, Nemesis(The Cancer Divine), Dreams of Distant Fire (+5)
930 words, discounting this line.
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- Location
- Europe
Just once I wanted to try a Hero's Journey build, so here, a Valiant Hero.
Hard Mode: Begin with 3 Points and 1 Seal.
Supreme Commander [+0 Points] - Choice: 1 Point - Immersion
Wicked +5 P:
Hero's Journey +7 P:
4: Procession. +3
8: Mutilated. +1
Guardian of the Heavenly Scales 2 P - Caster
Grand Master [1 Seal] - Solomon
Reflection 2 S -
Qilin 5 P -
Party 1 S - Reflection
Sword of the Evendark 2 P -
Stone Rings 7 P -
Exponential 1 S I
Epic +2 P
Valiant Blessing -
Now, the approach is obvious, just stack every possible non-purchase advantage. With Novahkron or Wolber the Overlord could have been chosen as well, since they could deal with them for you and get you positive perchance. Both the sword and the Rings can synergize well with companions, providing them protections and multipliers. The primary power is in the Reflections, so long as none of them take perchance.
This build should be able to manage Hero's Journey, the real question is just how many of the companions you could give up and still have a solid chance.
I tried to cheese Quilin by empowering them with a Nemesis (ideally Thrice Great-er) abilities, using a Linear + Ring + Advurent Blade advancement. But I couldn't really find a solidly optimal build worth using it on.
Hard Mode: Begin with 3 Points and 1 Seal.
Supreme Commander [+0 Points] - Choice: 1 Point - Immersion
Wicked +5 P:
Hero's Journey +7 P:
4: Procession. +3
8: Mutilated. +1
Guardian of the Heavenly Scales 2 P - Caster
Grand Master [1 Seal] - Solomon
Reflection 2 S -
Qilin 5 P -
Party 1 S - Reflection
Sword of the Evendark 2 P -
Stone Rings 7 P -
Exponential 1 S I
Epic +2 P
Valiant Blessing -
Now, the approach is obvious, just stack every possible non-purchase advantage. With Novahkron or Wolber the Overlord could have been chosen as well, since they could deal with them for you and get you positive perchance. Both the sword and the Rings can synergize well with companions, providing them protections and multipliers. The primary power is in the Reflections, so long as none of them take perchance.
This build should be able to manage Hero's Journey, the real question is just how many of the companions you could give up and still have a solid chance.
I tried to cheese Quilin by empowering them with a Nemesis (ideally Thrice Great-er) abilities, using a Linear + Ring + Advurent Blade advancement. But I couldn't really find a solidly optimal build worth using it on.
- Uttermost - Ineptitude
- Rush - Downloaded
- Peckish - Ineptitude
- Twilight - Ineptitude
- Spiral - Ineptitude
- Trio - Ineptitude
- Can't Touch This - Downloaded
- Preempt Infinity - Downloaded
- Nine Fold Resistor - Downloaded
- Tool User - Downloaded
- t-minus 10 to titan fall - Downloaded
- Acceptance - Downloaded
- Wizard Slayer - Downloaded
- Shardslayer - Downloaded
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
If we're cheesing Qilin, the Omniscificer trick grants ISH 2-3 Prowess in like thirty seconds tops. By a fairly restrained reading. Before Epic Magic. Kalymitous Runes are frankly overpriced.
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
Immortal Feast Build
[F] Welkin Arts (2)
-[F] Blue Welkin <0>
-[F] Pale Welkin <1>
-[F] Gold Welkin <2>
-[F] Dark Welkin <3>
[F] Diachronic Alchemy (1)
-[F] Chronicle of Kairos <1>
-[F] Chronicle of Aion <3>
[F] Crystal Conduit (1)
[F] Sympathetic Strings (1)
-[F] Major <0-1> Free first Summon.
Okay, according to Discord, the Welkins buff their preceding level by about *10. Meaning *1000 for Blue(so all my senses are massively superhuman, to the point I could probably hear a fly break wind in Africa, with command over air spirits presumably sufficient to control the weather on a planetary scale, and of course flight), *100 for Pale(so multiply my base form's strength by 10000 and heal from total annihilation in 1% of a lunar month, or a little less than eight hours, and much, much less conserved shapeshifting), Gold gets a *10(*10 to the willpower of a destined hero would probably be something crazy like Hunger pre Refinement of Purpose, nevermind the sword/shield, judgement of character, or gravity of my soul) and then my Conduit can further buff it. Dark Welkin's immunity to deep time and deep space strongly implies I'm immune to most negative time effects, including regular old aging, assuming my healing factor didn't make that irrelevant.
Diachronic Alchemy, meanwhile, has immense potential in terms of allowing me to build a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, at least with Kairos and Aion to educate me, respectively, on alternate timelines and taking Alchemy beyond the limits of time. With the senses and stamina boost offered by Pale Welkin *1000(I might as well have infinite stamina under mundane circumstances) and Gold Welkin *10, performing epichronic formulae should be at least theoretically possible on my lonesome. The Dark Welkin also offers some defenses if I mess it up. Once again, Crystal Conduit is also of use in boosting this art, though actually learning/performing a formula would be really hard... for me. My Major Summon, on the other hand, doesn't have that problem, and can offer me some insights towards doing it myself. Since I have *10 heroic willpower, I'm assuming something like 3 hours of summoning per week is workable. I can also pursue discovering more Welkins in hopes of further buoying my extant ones, and that's something Gold and the 'surpass one of the concepts that ostensibly limit the art' aspect of Aion would be really helpful for. Major can also offer insights here, though that will be less true as time passes. Still, I don't actually know how long my world has until Feaster-mageddon.
Now, I believe I mentioned something about making a Gifted One build...
Elemental Interest build
[E] Power
[E] Determination
[E] Clarity
Power acts a lot like offensive Rank, from what I understand, with higher Ranks allowing Rube-Goldberg machines to turn the world to your will, among other things. Determination, meanwhile, allows for stuff like inserting a soul in my soul, and in that soul, and so on, which, in addition to armoring me against soul-based attacks, will improve my parameters. It functions similarly to the Conduit in terms of boosting pretty much everything. Giving sub-souls to my limbs and organs to allow for things like my heart manually restarting itself shouldn't be difficult. Finally, Clarity starts off as a budget-Describe, but evolves into a fuller version.
Power seems like it's incredibly useful for an alchemist, allowing transmutations to hit above their weight class in a variety of ways. Hitting up my Major Summon with Determination might extend the manifestation time, potentially allow me to access some of the other Summons, and Clarity can sub in for Describe to various degrees, allowing dramatically improved research and exploration of other worlds from afar. Probably simplifies finding timelines I want to mess around with a great deal.
Fifth Quarter build.
[F] Vastitas, the Trash Heap
[F] The Doppelganger
-[F] Lapidea, the Divine Palace
-[F] The Four Senses
-[F] The Skeleton's Closet
[F] A Grand Design
[F] Time's Favorite
[F] Luminous Scroll
Knowing me, my Doppleganger would probably want to ask the Descendant for their memories back. Still, some paranoia remains, which is where the sensory upgrade comes in, such that they cannot be pickpocketed by any mere beginner, especially when working off of the Welkins. The Skeleton's Closet offers a hiding place, as anywhere that forestalled Death for even a small period must be truly difficult to find.
As for the main-me, Blue Welkin*1000 offers ready means of thoroughly searching Vastitas, and it's status as the point of least resistance for this multiverse probably offers some interesting data points for Kairos' to make use of. A Grand Design offers +Int, Wis, and Wits over time while blocking direct mental manipulation of any kind, and Time's Favorite, in addition to the obvious synergy of Time with Diachronic Alchemy(and who knows, maybe I could teach Time a thing or two as thanks one day) offers me the chance to immediately jump ahead a year in it's growth. Then there's the Luminous Scroll. Even baseline, it offers access to the Light magic of Elemental Interest, and even if it's primarily Radiance, having Grand Design and Time's Favorite will eventually allow you to learn Purity and Emergence too. Radiance allows simple generation of Light, though in large quantities. Purity provides protection, as if you were a lucid dreamer just brushing off anything bad that happened(to a degree). Emergence allows you to transform things into their true selves, making them into potent artifacts or blessings.
Once and Always build.
[O] Horn of Evocation
[O] Ace of Cups
[O] Nine -nine gulps of Azoth. Nine soundings of the Horn on Aabcehmu's advice.
[A] Membership Card
Let's work under the assumption I can't just grab Once/Always tokens from versions of me who will never access the shop/are evil/both via Aion. If I've already implanted a bunch of souls inside of my normal one with Determination, then the Horn might give me a bunch of soulsongs per sounding anyway. Then there's the cup's Azoth enhancing me in a manner similar to Bright Realm energy. The Membership Card ensures I have access to the place, and if I get stupendously lucky, I might find some way of grabbing Once tokens en masse. This all assumes there's no way to use Alchemy to mint/grab some, of course, which would be really, really useful in terms of giving me another growth engine/expanding my general capabilities.
Five Wishes build
[W] Growth. X9
[W] Free the Genie.
-[6] Improvement. Battle, Prowess, Nullity, Stealth, Theft, Magic
[W] Genie's Benevolence. +5 Wishes.
So, Gold Welkin should unlock Willpower(because no duh *10 heroic willpower from a Welkin would unlock Willpower as a Stat), so I don't need to worry about that, and while Purity will eventually unlock Protection, that's quite a ways off. Doesn't matter because Storm CYOA unlocks it first. Battle is sort of like Hunger's Battle Domain with a dash of Battle Magic. Great at boosting fighting, crap at bolstering anything else. Prowess makes me better at anything skill-based, particularly combat skill. Nullity is essentially Magic-focused Protection, while Magic boosts basically everything I do. Stealth and Theft help counter people using them, and give me more options. Not much else to say. 6 Growths is an uncomplicated growth mechanism, giving +459 Stats over the next 50 years.
Status Screen build.
Currency tripled by 7.5K breakpoint.
All currency converted into 9 Core Features total.
[Y] Prestige- 1 Core Feature. X9
Not a lot to say. Prestige allows for eventual hitting of High Cursebearer levels. Someone had a legitimate strat of just having ten instances allowing them to get more out of each conversion step than they lost for a few tiers, so...
I had considered using Complicated Transaction to run through Ineptitude with Easy Mode resources X4, but that's a little against the spirit of the Gifted One, considering how Ineptitude happens. Might do a build for it another time.
Illustration build.
[C] Wishcraft
[C] Super-Serum X2
[C] The Investment
[C] Cursed - Tyrant.
Seeing as I've already gotten a Genie Wish, I feel like Wishcraft is only fitting. Plus it's hard to compete with this kind of versatility without Emperor Red. 12 synergistic street-level superhero powers sounds pretty sweet, especially when given the at least vague guidance of 'improve magic use/training' to direct them. Getting a share in Illustration for a Curse at 75% strength sounds like a pretty good deal when I don't have, like, Apocryphal.
Gift CYOA
Remain on Earth.
Break Commendations into another Approbation. Break extra currency from 2.5K breakpoint into 3 more Approbations.
[G] Personalized Surgecraft - 2 Good Turns. X4
[G] Vertex - 2 Good Turns.
[G] Legendary Magic - 1 Ascendant Approbation. X4 Wishcraft, Welkins, Surgecraft, and Light.
In this case, I think I'll just go with Exavolt. I'm actually a little short on magical firepower over casting fist with a magically augmented body. Inksky to bolster my defenses is also nice. Third is actually an inverted Supportstream, Followerforce, which boosts me based on my number of followers, with a general buff for them as well, with some 'knights' singled out like Companions of the King. Which will be very important in a couple builds. Fourth, Edelross, I think. Vertex is a nice buff to my preptime memes, especially with Grand Design and the like to boost me up, and was noted to have some Evening Sky synergy, so Inksky should provide some aid in that department.
Now for Legendary, after some thought, I decided to boost Wishcraft, Welkins, Surgecraft, and . Wishcraft should be obvious. Get a month's work +1 ISH every month, and a year's worth of effort +1 ISH every year? With all this craziness? Hell to the yes! The second is actually going on Welkins, because I want to unlock more powers on that front, which I might be able to teach Illustration. Who knows, if I push it far enough, I might pay off that favor early. Also because each higher Welkin would increase the power of it's predecessors by an order of magnitude, on top of the +1 ISH to their basic power. Surgecraft because it's basically the Legendary boost applied to four different magics with four Elements. Light because the Luminous Scroll allows all three Elemental Interest magics to be learned, and even if +1 ISH isn't enough to get to the Deep type, it should be enough to get a lot closer than the surface level stuff.
Wish Upon A Star Build
[W] The Conflux [+5 Sparks]
[W] Pearl Necklace [3 Sparks] Given to Ectonconara.
[W] Diary of Adventures [4 Sparks]
[W] Ectonconara [5 Sparks]
[W] Quest: Verdict Heart's Notation [+1 Spark]
[W] Quest: Striking Them Down [+2 Sparks]
[W] Burden: Accursed Name [Special] Plenary Brand. +3 Sparks.
I'm reasonably confident that Kairos Alchemy could just transport me to the top of the tree more or less immediately, with Ecto protecting me until I can finish the invocation, since it's probably not something I can do while contributing to the fight myself even with all the buffs I've accumulated, but in the interest of actually playing this build right, I won't try to game this CYOA to produce more Sparks in this manner, and just content myself with getting back to my Earth/donating any such Sparks to the Star Guardians, with some research going into bootstrapping their power, particularly the last of the Sun Lords via hyperspeed sun-dipping. If nothing else, Bright Realm energy is probably really, really well-suited to boosting them. Ecto is able to basically slap 1/2 Spark powers onto me without much issue, and I'd be actively working to make her stronger. If WUAS was created by me, then logically the Welkins should be something I could spread around to the Star Guardians, since if I can use a magic, they should be able to, and Welkins are explicitly a state of mind. They don't need special equipment like the Conduit. Teaching them Alchemy might be harder, but if a baseline human can learn it without too much trouble, an average of four times human baseline mental faculties should make it relatively simple to learn. All of this is no substitute for an Elixir-boosted Wish, but it's probably enough that 3-Spark options can be somewhat mass-produced. Being able to regenerate from total annihilation in roughly 8 hours certainly makes a number of magics less dangerous to use, and Light from Elemental Interest should be very much capable of fulfilling Illuminosan needs, and the Luminous Scroll can explicitly teach any idiot the basics.
Speaking of Elements, Determination should be simple to empower them with. Followerforce, meanwhile has a minimum of tens of thousands of Star Guardians who will immediately benefit from and benefit me, knighting Ectonconara to further bolstermy loot pinata her. Vertex is an option for at least some of the general Illuminosan population.
They might wonder if I sensed the Feasters subconsciously and the Devourers are a 'nightmare' intruding upon the Wish, or if perhaps there's some kind of time loop going on, given Alchemy's link to Time, and the bizarre similarities between the Feasters and the Devourers, given my lack of conscious knowledge of either. Anyway, with heroic willpower *10, Bright Realm buffs, nine gulps of Azoth, any Willpower-boosters Ectonconara can slap onto me, and possibly having my Major Summon read it if that proves more efficient, reading the Diary shouldn't be too hard. I can then tap it for powerups both for Ectonconara and myself, and possibly for the Star Guardians.
Fitting for the Wish Upon A Star Maker to have Wishcraft, don't you think? With as powerful as I'll be by this point, I might well be able to buff Ectonconara into Mitigating Plenary and Tyrant to Stage 3 without issue, either directly or by burning my yearly Least Wish.
Galaxia One Year Experience build.
Spring
[G] Goldenvale
-[G] Activity: Feast with Thunder and Sea in the Immortals' Longhouse
[G] Dreaming Tree
-[G] Souvenir: A dose of reality venom from the Green Dragon
Summer
[G] Three Circles
-[G] Activity: Study the Three Arts under the tutelage of the First Master
[G] The Shining City
-[G] Souvenir: A free copy of The Classic
Fall
[G] Heaven's Raft
-[G] Activity: Exchange stories and souvenirs with fellow cruise-goers
-[G] Souvenir: A small Star Ocean-faring vessel of your own
-[G] Souvenir: An antediluvian scripture
Winter
[G] Star-on-Horizon
-[G] Activity: Help guard the World's Edge
-[G] Activity: Learn to navigate the Star Ocean by eye and ear and hand
-[G] Souvenir: A Lost Treasure retrieved from the Abyss - Sword from Furthermost Reaches
Gold Welkin(funny, eh?)+Azoth+Bright Realm+Power sounds like it would be an incredible booster for Goldenvale's Mythos, or maybe it happens first, so as to avoid winding down the WUAS clock without having the Feasters notice and eat me. Perhaps something could be done with Aion to make the previous CYOAs contribute to it. The venom would further compound this. I wonder what synergies the First Master's Alchemy might have with my own Diachronic, not to mention Theurgy and Astrology? The Classic is to be my nation-building blueprint, first in the Tree of my own making, then in the general Star-Ocean, for which my skimmer and navigational skills will be very helpful. Similarly, with this kind of power, I might be beating back a pretty major incursion from the Abyss, which is probably how I get the Sword from FR. As it's not very strong on it's own, being a Potential option beyond 'good sword' among the group that you have to feed Essence to get major use out of.
I wonder how the scripture interacts with the whole A Wish Upon A Star thing?
Anyway, I'll append my Storm CYOA build to end this exercise.
Rolled Slayer on the Class, so I have to take it. ++All Stats (and +5%), ++Endurance, ++Strength, ++Agility, +Willpower, and the Black List. +1 Orb.
[ ] Genetic Lottery - 1 Orb. Full 6 rolls.
Okay, Weakness to Wood, double-strength laser eyes(ie: take half a second to cut through a car), RGB value(rolling momentarily: 67, 118, 53) of my irises is whatever the three 255 rolls I'm about to do come out to, Wolverine regeneration, ++Strength, Agility, and Endurance, +1 Luck, +1 Intelligence, +1 Wits, +1 Wisdom, Reroll Weakness for second laser eyes.
[ ] Implement - X7 to create Slayer's Solution. A sheathe that allows 1/1000 Storm Orb fragments to be harvested from any being of sufficient metaphysical weight. Civilians count due to their souls. Magical creatures will, by and large, count. Stormchosen and Slayer's work as normal.
[ ] Salient Target +1 Orb
[ ] The Abomination +1 Orb
[ ] The Nameless [+4 Orbs]
I think the doc and Nameless entity have bitten off more than they can chew here. First order of business, figure out how to feed the Slayer's Solution to the mutated FR sword so I can eat Essence and harvest Orbs with the same weapon. Hunt Abyss creatures due to their extreme metaphysical weight allowing for Orbs to be harvested in significantly greater quantities than 0.1% per entity.
My main goal would be to earn enough Orbs to grab the Slayer-compatible boons, then just keep rolling the Gacha until I get a 100 and annul my Wood weakness. From there, I can just keep racking up +10% All Stats, general +s to my Stats, superpowers, layer immortality like Sun Wukong, and psychic disciplines of various kinds.
Edit: I have been informed that Determination could grant the Powers of Mage-Recruit with a modicum of research. All the Powers. So let's see what we have to work with.
Sensitivity grants the ability to sense MR magic and Workings, which, given MR magic is the drawing of Idealspace essence into the real, should allow some ability to sense general Idealspace shenanigans, which may aid Welkin research, Bright Realm manipulation, and so on. Transmigrator allows the bearer to jump into other bodies if they die, though I'm fairly certain I won't get the past lives benefit unless my baseline soul was already a Transmigrator, though given MR's powerset, that's not impossible. True Form idealizes my body, and improves my affinity for magical/cybernetic augmentation, which might give a minor buff but won't do much at this point. Unbreakable makes destroying my soul impossible for MR's denizens, and should make it a tough nut for most of the other stuff in the Gifted One cosmology, not to mention incredible willpower, bottomless reserves of effort and executive function, general immunity to attacks on my soul, magical mental influence, or magical surveillance. Considering this runs off of Idealspace, that's a pretty broad immunity. Storm CYOA's psychics have some major issues thanks to this.
Now for the 2-pointers. Tasteful allows me to absorb essence from realspace, both allowing me to immediately recoup any inefficiencies in Essence use regardless of the scale of Working, and to drain other Workings, including by force to rip apart it's framework. Once again, with it's Idealspace connections, Tasteful could be of use in a huge number of circumstances, though according to Aab on Discord, for example, a hostile Welkin user doesn't draw on Idealspace quite the same way. Plus, I can skip out on eating, drinking, and air via essence. Admittedly sort of minor, but everything helps.
Aura Aureola allows Lesser Workings to be spammed and maintenance of a single Greater Working, while it's upgrade, Splendor Solares, pushes that to Greater Workings and Grand Workings. A Greater is enough to enact the creation of habitats of relevant scale to planets. Given Wishcraft with Legendary applied, I could make some crazy things, like hypergate networks. Wisdom and Perspective, on the other hand, allow for direct viewing of the Ideal, which should dramatically ease finding Welkins and similar magics, as well as dramatically improving my ability to discern the correct action to achieve any given future I desire. Trinity, meanwhile basically gives me 3 different minds to research things and examine my mind with, dramatically improving self-augmenting capabilities. It also negates any need for sleep and triples my mental stamina.
With multiple souls, Familiar Bonds can align with all three choices. With the Ideal Spirit(enhances my mind and Idealspace-based divination) seems like it'll multiply with Grand Design. Gray Matter will develop according to my desires into an ideal companion, though this is improved with essence, something Sol would excel at. Then the Dark Shard possesses a mastery of manipulation of spacetime via Workings, expanding my remit in the creation of things like wormholes. A Minor Wish being fed into a hypergate network should allow for some truly insane mobility and connection among the Humanities, not to mention the possibilities offered by using Determination to generate souls in people, including the Illuminosans, Ectoncorona in particular. If any of them get Sol(which I can probably guarantee with a modicum of further research) then they'll gain a ridiculous amount of versatility, to say nothing of making all the Powers from Mage-Recruit standard for them, which as their Maker, should be something I can arrange. Punting the Devourers should be utterly trivial with the kinds of buffs I'd be handing out to them.
Edit Edit: Consultation of Lealope's list of further Welkins, alongside confirmation on Discord that Pearl Necklace and Mage-Recruit's Powers alone could make Ectonconara competitive with Rihaku's Simp build for her, offers a plethora of relatively direct boosts.
Ectonconara can trivially produce 2-Spark options, 3 with modest effort, 4 with sustained effort, and 5 at some permanent cost, and this is without any of the other boosts. Meaning she can make me a Sunlord(meaning +25 Might, +10 Agility, +10 Intelligence, +10 Wits, +10 Wisdom applied before the *7 to strength, speed, and agility with requisite durability, and *4 to intellect, speed of cognition, and charisma, also gain eternally youthful immortality, with the option to triple this buff within 50 years on the Starworld(which optimal training may reduce by 20% at maximum), with the time to the next such benchmark being 20% greater, multiplicatively with each benchmark, as opposed to 50% for a baseline Illuminosan. Also grants access to Hour of Glory, which grants a +0.7 ISH(for comparison, Feather of Favor is +0.9 ISH to upsides, -0.9 ISH to downsides) to all axes for one hour, before sealing away Sun Lord powers and rendering the user a regular Illuminosan, as a get out of jail card.), Exalted Spirit(provides the general capabilities of a classic magician/wizard scaling up with practice and intellect and a boost to Int, Wits, and Willpower, the former pair being further increased as the system is trained, with a penalty for overextending on one's MP in the form of injuries up to and including lethal ones, 70 years of high-effort training and research are enough to cap out the normal system, though with a breakthrough, 70 more(assuming superhuman intellect) one would be capable of capturing World Eaters and distilling them into 500 years of Starworld training for an Illuminosan and similar feats, and after 500 more years, capable of feats along the lines of burning a few hundred years of progress in this system out in exchange for bolstering the Star's lifespan another 5000 years while doubling Illuminosan progress globally and similar feats, as well as passing out 1-Spark powerups to others without much issue), Half-Devourer(+20 Might, +10 Agility, +10 Protection, +10 Wits, +5 Intelligence, +2 All Stats. Can eat anything to obtain something related, with living things and things with powerful souls offering more power), Hope(+15 Luck, +15 Willpower, +10 Wisdom, +10 Appearance, +10% to the value of +s regarding these. Gain a charge of Hope every 200 years(may be accelerated up to 100% with outsides aid), which allows a reversal of fortunes, such as having a World-Eater thrashed by a sudden ambush, with more dire circumstances allowing for greater turnarounds, but is not capable of turning 0% odds into a victory, start with 3 charges.), Astaroth the Great-Devourer(symbiotic World Eater that has learned self-restraint and an appreciation for things besides eating everything. Grants +10 All Stats, +20 Agility, +40 Might, and a comprehensive +.2 ISH boost, which may be collectively doubled by externalizing him, though as a Devourer he must consume things to do so. Pale Welkin resolves this issue, as even 8 hours to recover from total annihilation is enough to be visibly regaining lost flesh, and offers advice.), Unification Module(allows meditation to 'capture' spirits(though this is somewhat luck-based), which may offer a variety of powers, starting with four of significant utility. Normally only a single soul union is possible at a time, but Determination allows the creation of souls, which makes this a moot point. So, +20 Might, +20 Agility, and +120% to their respective +s. +++Wisdom, +++Wits, empower a team of four to eight individuals(so the benefits can be duplicated for Ectonconara and myself), giving them overall +5 All Stats, and +15 Physical Stats, as well as +15 Wits, +5 Manipulation, +++Agility, ++All Stats, and that's ignoring the auto-dodge, illusions that can appear selectively different to every observer, including cameras, and become intangible and invisible as long as one's breath is held in a manner anti-magic cannot block), raw Might(120 +s among your Attributes (Might, Agility, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits, Wisdom, Luck, Will, Protection.) All of them except Might, Agility, and Protection are double cost. Also, for every five points spent on a given Attribute, apply a +2% to the total worth of its +s. Think I'd put 20(technically 40) each on Int, Wits, and Wis, which means +8% to their value. Additionally, +.25 ISH to a total of five physical actions every day, albeit this stacks in a diminishing manner with other ISH boosts. It's possible to gain more physical action uses per day with extensive training to as many as a few hundred, and extend the ISH boost as high as +.5, but this would be a process requiring multiple centuries of practice, and Diachronic Alchemy and it's compatriots qualify as physical actions due to how they're carried out, technically.), and last of the 3-Spark powers is the Perfect Number. While it's slow to progress, the Gifted One has intellect and Willpower in spades. So eventually, it provides ISH 2 abilities across the board, when you hit the decimal, and while nobody's gotten even 15% of the way there, this version of me is already quite improbable, to say the least.
Now for the artifacts Ecton can hand out. The Empowerment Phial(a superpower chosen/designed with slight scaling, equivalent to a baseline human getting +30 Might), Manifold Scroll(After a decade of study, select a benefit; after a century of study, select a second benefit. After a full millennium, select the final benefit. Cannot double up. Freedom - A permanent and comprehensive reduction of a single flaw or drawback of your choice, by a value of 33%, but growing to 50% mitigation over the course of five hundred years. After a thousand years, pick a second flaw or drawback to mitigate by a value of 10%, growing to 20% over the course of a millennium. Probably taking this last. Arete - Appends a single +Progression bonus to any discipline or power of your choosing, including slightly esoteric but limited disciplines such as "punching," or "science," as well as a 10% boost of raw capability and versatility in said discipline, no matter how unlikely. Allows you to develop minor superpowers in said discipline if it doesn't have any. I'd probably go for a general 'Magic' discipline, since science is an option, and take this first for a variety of reasons. Mastery - Select one skill or discipline, but not magical system, and treat it as if you'd trained with your present capabilities in its use for a single human lifespan (circa 100 years.) Also gives you an immediate 200% boost of raw power and potential versatility to any power or other choice you've made, except for A Wish. Actually, I'd take this first and select buffing for myself and Pearl Necklace for Ectonconara, seeing as that would probably be the biggest buff I could give her by that point.), A Savior's Chalice (fills with a miracle liquid, and while a week of it would extend someone's lifespan by a day, Diachronic Alchemy and it's upgrades make that a laughable prospect as a real barrier), Armament(customized weapon a step above common enchanted gear), Orb of Insight(significant divination which gets stronger and gains utility over time, +5 Willpower and +7 Wits, +Wits for every twenty hours of use, adding an hour for each such benchmark. Sounds like Kairos would have a field day, and one of the Trinity Minds can just keep using it indefinitely if Diachronic Alchemy can't just hyperaccelerate it's buffing of Wits), Elixir(high level of resistance to hostile magic and esoteric effects, pushing their entire being a tenth of a step along the Infinite Singularity Husk, and then applying an external and separate 10% modifier to all of their physical Attributes which is counted after any and every other consideration involving said Attributes. And lastly, the drinker applies 25 +s to any Attributes of their choice. Also, +++Progression, and +.5 Physical Attribute ISH for a single week after ingestion, and lets you make rapid and incredibly relevant breakthroughs in most systems of power. It's not as if I don't have a lot to study), Ring of Power(drains the Star to use, but allows general reality-bending, dependent on Willpower, spiritual power and Wisdom. Also, +10 Willpower, and slowly accumulates more as long as the Ring of Power is worn and used (+Willpower after a full month as a moderately active wielder, then +Willpower after month and half, then +Willpower after two months, and so on.) +++Luck), Marosian Instruction(burn parts of reality to warp reality, with one large-scale alteration or three moderate ones being the practical limit), Pear Necklace is probably a no-go. No idea if it would be willing to help Ectonconara duplicate, but I doubt it.
1 Sparks and 2 Sparks can be handed out like candy, so pretty much every Illuminosan will have Exalted Spirit, Half-Devourer, Hope, Unification Module and the 2 Spark variant of Might(80 +s among your Attributes (Might, Agility, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits, Wisdom, Luck, Will, Protection.) Charisma, Manipulation, and Appearance are double cost; Wits, Wisdom, Intelligence, Luck, and Willpower are triple cost) on the Powers side, and Empowerment Vial, Manifold Scroll, Savior's Chalice, Armament, Orb of Insight, Elixir, (Ring of Power is too dangerous to mass-produce, drawing directly on the Star and all, so only Ecton and I get one, and even if 3-Sparks could be trivially made(which all these buffs make an option) Marosian Instruction would be similarly restricted, and I expect the Pearl Necklace would resist duplication because the Maker can't have multiple favorites).
Now for the Welkins. 6 more Welkins would add another millionfold multiplier to the extant 4. Blue jumps to 1 billion times it's baseline sensory power, command of air spirits, and flight. Pale hits me up with a hundred million times it's normal stamina boost, and drops from 7 hours and about 12.5 minutes to regenerate from total annihilation to 2.55 seconds, not to mention 10 billion times my baseline strength after all these other boons. Gold is outputting 10 million times heroic willpower, the sword and shield, judgement of character(so some ridiculous 'absolutely certain whether this person could become a saint or a demon' to the point I might as well have character-based precog), and gravity of the soul. Dark is granting a million times it's normal protection. The Fleet Welkin's offering *100000 to it's influence over spatial and temporal circumstances, profit-instinct already superior to a merchant prince, keen insight, and guidance from the Norns. From the Dust Welkin, I'd be getting the power to rule human, natural and metaphysical law(so general Rulership abilities in the vein of Hunger's law manipulation), incisive intellect, lightning swift thought and a crystalline clarity of mind *10000. The Whole Welkin simply provides a holistic elevation of all lesser capabilities to match it, provided they're weaker than the Whole Welkin, and between +1 ISH and *1000, I think that's going to apply to quite a bit. The Torn Welkin would be giving me *100 on teleology("the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise/the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world") which sounds like metaphysical understanding of my locale, adamant composure, and the ability to reduce force/effects/value. The Bridge Welkin ensures my powers translate across ontologies so long as any Welkin can exist, and with +1 ISH and *10 on it, that's quite a few locales. Finally, the Blind Welkin allows me to survive existential annihilation and keep my essence unaltered by any external forces. With +1 ISH on that, dying at the hands of anything humanly comprehensible is unlikely, to say the least.
5570 words, discounting this line.
[F] Welkin Arts (2)
-[F] Blue Welkin <0>
-[F] Pale Welkin <1>
-[F] Gold Welkin <2>
-[F] Dark Welkin <3>
[F] Diachronic Alchemy (1)
-[F] Chronicle of Kairos <1>
-[F] Chronicle of Aion <3>
[F] Crystal Conduit (1)
[F] Sympathetic Strings (1)
-[F] Major <0-1> Free first Summon.
Okay, according to Discord, the Welkins buff their preceding level by about *10. Meaning *1000 for Blue(so all my senses are massively superhuman, to the point I could probably hear a fly break wind in Africa, with command over air spirits presumably sufficient to control the weather on a planetary scale, and of course flight), *100 for Pale(so multiply my base form's strength by 10000 and heal from total annihilation in 1% of a lunar month, or a little less than eight hours, and much, much less conserved shapeshifting), Gold gets a *10(*10 to the willpower of a destined hero would probably be something crazy like Hunger pre Refinement of Purpose, nevermind the sword/shield, judgement of character, or gravity of my soul) and then my Conduit can further buff it. Dark Welkin's immunity to deep time and deep space strongly implies I'm immune to most negative time effects, including regular old aging, assuming my healing factor didn't make that irrelevant.
Diachronic Alchemy, meanwhile, has immense potential in terms of allowing me to build a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, at least with Kairos and Aion to educate me, respectively, on alternate timelines and taking Alchemy beyond the limits of time. With the senses and stamina boost offered by Pale Welkin *1000(I might as well have infinite stamina under mundane circumstances) and Gold Welkin *10, performing epichronic formulae should be at least theoretically possible on my lonesome. The Dark Welkin also offers some defenses if I mess it up. Once again, Crystal Conduit is also of use in boosting this art, though actually learning/performing a formula would be really hard... for me. My Major Summon, on the other hand, doesn't have that problem, and can offer me some insights towards doing it myself. Since I have *10 heroic willpower, I'm assuming something like 3 hours of summoning per week is workable. I can also pursue discovering more Welkins in hopes of further buoying my extant ones, and that's something Gold and the 'surpass one of the concepts that ostensibly limit the art' aspect of Aion would be really helpful for. Major can also offer insights here, though that will be less true as time passes. Still, I don't actually know how long my world has until Feaster-mageddon.
Now, I believe I mentioned something about making a Gifted One build...
Elemental Interest build
[E] Power
[E] Determination
[E] Clarity
Power acts a lot like offensive Rank, from what I understand, with higher Ranks allowing Rube-Goldberg machines to turn the world to your will, among other things. Determination, meanwhile, allows for stuff like inserting a soul in my soul, and in that soul, and so on, which, in addition to armoring me against soul-based attacks, will improve my parameters. It functions similarly to the Conduit in terms of boosting pretty much everything. Giving sub-souls to my limbs and organs to allow for things like my heart manually restarting itself shouldn't be difficult. Finally, Clarity starts off as a budget-Describe, but evolves into a fuller version.
Power seems like it's incredibly useful for an alchemist, allowing transmutations to hit above their weight class in a variety of ways. Hitting up my Major Summon with Determination might extend the manifestation time, potentially allow me to access some of the other Summons, and Clarity can sub in for Describe to various degrees, allowing dramatically improved research and exploration of other worlds from afar. Probably simplifies finding timelines I want to mess around with a great deal.
Fifth Quarter build.
[F] Vastitas, the Trash Heap
[F] The Doppelganger
-[F] Lapidea, the Divine Palace
-[F] The Four Senses
-[F] The Skeleton's Closet
[F] A Grand Design
[F] Time's Favorite
[F] Luminous Scroll
Knowing me, my Doppleganger would probably want to ask the Descendant for their memories back. Still, some paranoia remains, which is where the sensory upgrade comes in, such that they cannot be pickpocketed by any mere beginner, especially when working off of the Welkins. The Skeleton's Closet offers a hiding place, as anywhere that forestalled Death for even a small period must be truly difficult to find.
As for the main-me, Blue Welkin*1000 offers ready means of thoroughly searching Vastitas, and it's status as the point of least resistance for this multiverse probably offers some interesting data points for Kairos' to make use of. A Grand Design offers +Int, Wis, and Wits over time while blocking direct mental manipulation of any kind, and Time's Favorite, in addition to the obvious synergy of Time with Diachronic Alchemy(and who knows, maybe I could teach Time a thing or two as thanks one day) offers me the chance to immediately jump ahead a year in it's growth. Then there's the Luminous Scroll. Even baseline, it offers access to the Light magic of Elemental Interest, and even if it's primarily Radiance, having Grand Design and Time's Favorite will eventually allow you to learn Purity and Emergence too. Radiance allows simple generation of Light, though in large quantities. Purity provides protection, as if you were a lucid dreamer just brushing off anything bad that happened(to a degree). Emergence allows you to transform things into their true selves, making them into potent artifacts or blessings.
Once and Always build.
[O] Horn of Evocation
[O] Ace of Cups
[O] Nine -
[A] Membership Card
Let's work under the assumption I can't just grab Once/Always tokens from versions of me who will never access the shop/are evil/both via Aion. If I've already implanted a bunch of souls inside of my normal one with Determination, then the Horn might give me a bunch of soulsongs per sounding anyway. Then there's the cup's Azoth enhancing me in a manner similar to Bright Realm energy. The Membership Card ensures I have access to the place, and if I get stupendously lucky, I might find some way of grabbing Once tokens en masse. This all assumes there's no way to use Alchemy to mint/grab some, of course, which would be really, really useful in terms of giving me another growth engine/expanding my general capabilities.
Five Wishes build
[W] Growth. X9
[W] Free the Genie.
-[6] Improvement. Battle, Prowess, Nullity, Stealth, Theft, Magic
[W] Genie's Benevolence. +5 Wishes.
So, Gold Welkin should unlock Willpower(because no duh *10 heroic willpower from a Welkin would unlock Willpower as a Stat), so I don't need to worry about that, and while Purity will eventually unlock Protection, that's quite a ways off. Doesn't matter because Storm CYOA unlocks it first. Battle is sort of like Hunger's Battle Domain with a dash of Battle Magic. Great at boosting fighting, crap at bolstering anything else. Prowess makes me better at anything skill-based, particularly combat skill. Nullity is essentially Magic-focused Protection, while Magic boosts basically everything I do. Stealth and Theft help counter people using them, and give me more options. Not much else to say. 6 Growths is an uncomplicated growth mechanism, giving +459 Stats over the next 50 years.
Status Screen build.
Currency tripled by 7.5K breakpoint.
All currency converted into 9 Core Features total.
[Y] Prestige- 1 Core Feature. X9
Not a lot to say. Prestige allows for eventual hitting of High Cursebearer levels. Someone had a legitimate strat of just having ten instances allowing them to get more out of each conversion step than they lost for a few tiers, so...
I had considered using Complicated Transaction to run through Ineptitude with Easy Mode resources X4, but that's a little against the spirit of the Gifted One, considering how Ineptitude happens. Might do a build for it another time.
Illustration build.
[C] Wishcraft
[C] Super-Serum X2
[C] The Investment
[C] Cursed - Tyrant.
Seeing as I've already gotten a Genie Wish, I feel like Wishcraft is only fitting. Plus it's hard to compete with this kind of versatility without Emperor Red. 12 synergistic street-level superhero powers sounds pretty sweet, especially when given the at least vague guidance of 'improve magic use/training' to direct them. Getting a share in Illustration for a Curse at 75% strength sounds like a pretty good deal when I don't have, like, Apocryphal.
Gift CYOA
Remain on Earth.
Break Commendations into another Approbation. Break extra currency from 2.5K breakpoint into 3 more Approbations.
[G] Personalized Surgecraft - 2 Good Turns. X4
[G] Vertex - 2 Good Turns.
[G] Legendary Magic - 1 Ascendant Approbation. X4 Wishcraft, Welkins, Surgecraft, and Light.
In this case, I think I'll just go with Exavolt. I'm actually a little short on magical firepower over casting fist with a magically augmented body. Inksky to bolster my defenses is also nice. Third is actually an inverted Supportstream, Followerforce, which boosts me based on my number of followers, with a general buff for them as well, with some 'knights' singled out like Companions of the King. Which will be very important in a couple builds. Fourth, Edelross, I think. Vertex is a nice buff to my preptime memes, especially with Grand Design and the like to boost me up, and was noted to have some Evening Sky synergy, so Inksky should provide some aid in that department.
Now for Legendary, after some thought, I decided to boost Wishcraft, Welkins, Surgecraft, and . Wishcraft should be obvious. Get a month's work +1 ISH every month, and a year's worth of effort +1 ISH every year? With all this craziness? Hell to the yes! The second is actually going on Welkins, because I want to unlock more powers on that front, which I might be able to teach Illustration. Who knows, if I push it far enough, I might pay off that favor early. Also because each higher Welkin would increase the power of it's predecessors by an order of magnitude, on top of the +1 ISH to their basic power. Surgecraft because it's basically the Legendary boost applied to four different magics with four Elements. Light because the Luminous Scroll allows all three Elemental Interest magics to be learned, and even if +1 ISH isn't enough to get to the Deep type, it should be enough to get a lot closer than the surface level stuff.
Wish Upon A Star Build
[W] The Conflux [+5 Sparks]
[W] Pearl Necklace [3 Sparks] Given to Ectonconara.
[W] Diary of Adventures [4 Sparks]
[W] Ectonconara [5 Sparks]
[W] Quest: Verdict Heart's Notation [+1 Spark]
[W] Quest: Striking Them Down [+2 Sparks]
[W] Burden: Accursed Name [Special] Plenary Brand. +3 Sparks.
I'm reasonably confident that Kairos Alchemy could just transport me to the top of the tree more or less immediately, with Ecto protecting me until I can finish the invocation, since it's probably not something I can do while contributing to the fight myself even with all the buffs I've accumulated, but in the interest of actually playing this build right, I won't try to game this CYOA to produce more Sparks in this manner, and just content myself with getting back to my Earth/donating any such Sparks to the Star Guardians, with some research going into bootstrapping their power, particularly the last of the Sun Lords via hyperspeed sun-dipping. If nothing else, Bright Realm energy is probably really, really well-suited to boosting them. Ecto is able to basically slap 1/2 Spark powers onto me without much issue, and I'd be actively working to make her stronger. If WUAS was created by me, then logically the Welkins should be something I could spread around to the Star Guardians, since if I can use a magic, they should be able to, and Welkins are explicitly a state of mind. They don't need special equipment like the Conduit. Teaching them Alchemy might be harder, but if a baseline human can learn it without too much trouble, an average of four times human baseline mental faculties should make it relatively simple to learn. All of this is no substitute for an Elixir-boosted Wish, but it's probably enough that 3-Spark options can be somewhat mass-produced. Being able to regenerate from total annihilation in roughly 8 hours certainly makes a number of magics less dangerous to use, and Light from Elemental Interest should be very much capable of fulfilling Illuminosan needs, and the Luminous Scroll can explicitly teach any idiot the basics.
Speaking of Elements, Determination should be simple to empower them with. Followerforce, meanwhile has a minimum of tens of thousands of Star Guardians who will immediately benefit from and benefit me, knighting Ectonconara to further bolster
They might wonder if I sensed the Feasters subconsciously and the Devourers are a 'nightmare' intruding upon the Wish, or if perhaps there's some kind of time loop going on, given Alchemy's link to Time, and the bizarre similarities between the Feasters and the Devourers, given my lack of conscious knowledge of either. Anyway, with heroic willpower *10, Bright Realm buffs, nine gulps of Azoth, any Willpower-boosters Ectonconara can slap onto me, and possibly having my Major Summon read it if that proves more efficient, reading the Diary shouldn't be too hard. I can then tap it for powerups both for Ectonconara and myself, and possibly for the Star Guardians.
Fitting for the Wish Upon A Star Maker to have Wishcraft, don't you think? With as powerful as I'll be by this point, I might well be able to buff Ectonconara into Mitigating Plenary and Tyrant to Stage 3 without issue, either directly or by burning my yearly Least Wish.
Galaxia One Year Experience build.
Spring
[G] Goldenvale
-[G] Activity: Feast with Thunder and Sea in the Immortals' Longhouse
[G] Dreaming Tree
-[G] Souvenir: A dose of reality venom from the Green Dragon
Summer
[G] Three Circles
-[G] Activity: Study the Three Arts under the tutelage of the First Master
[G] The Shining City
-[G] Souvenir: A free copy of The Classic
Fall
[G] Heaven's Raft
-[G] Activity: Exchange stories and souvenirs with fellow cruise-goers
-[G] Souvenir: A small Star Ocean-faring vessel of your own
-[G] Souvenir: An antediluvian scripture
Winter
[G] Star-on-Horizon
-[G] Activity: Help guard the World's Edge
-[G] Activity: Learn to navigate the Star Ocean by eye and ear and hand
-[G] Souvenir: A Lost Treasure retrieved from the Abyss - Sword from Furthermost Reaches
Gold Welkin(funny, eh?)+Azoth+Bright Realm+Power sounds like it would be an incredible booster for Goldenvale's Mythos, or maybe it happens first, so as to avoid winding down the WUAS clock without having the Feasters notice and eat me. Perhaps something could be done with Aion to make the previous CYOAs contribute to it. The venom would further compound this. I wonder what synergies the First Master's Alchemy might have with my own Diachronic, not to mention Theurgy and Astrology? The Classic is to be my nation-building blueprint, first in the Tree of my own making, then in the general Star-Ocean, for which my skimmer and navigational skills will be very helpful. Similarly, with this kind of power, I might be beating back a pretty major incursion from the Abyss, which is probably how I get the Sword from FR. As it's not very strong on it's own, being a Potential option beyond 'good sword' among the group that you have to feed Essence to get major use out of.
I wonder how the scripture interacts with the whole A Wish Upon A Star thing?
Anyway, I'll append my Storm CYOA build to end this exercise.
Rolled Slayer on the Class, so I have to take it. ++All Stats (and +5%), ++Endurance, ++Strength, ++Agility, +Willpower, and the Black List. +1 Orb.
[ ] Genetic Lottery - 1 Orb. Full 6 rolls.
Okay, Weakness to Wood, double-strength laser eyes(ie: take half a second to cut through a car), RGB value(rolling momentarily: 67, 118, 53) of my irises is whatever the three 255 rolls I'm about to do come out to, Wolverine regeneration, ++Strength, Agility, and Endurance, +1 Luck, +1 Intelligence, +1 Wits, +1 Wisdom, Reroll Weakness for second laser eyes.
[ ] Implement - X7 to create Slayer's Solution. A sheathe that allows 1/1000 Storm Orb fragments to be harvested from any being of sufficient metaphysical weight. Civilians count due to their souls. Magical creatures will, by and large, count. Stormchosen and Slayer's work as normal.
[ ] Salient Target +1 Orb
[ ] The Abomination +1 Orb
[ ] The Nameless [+4 Orbs]
I think the doc and Nameless entity have bitten off more than they can chew here. First order of business, figure out how to feed the Slayer's Solution to the mutated FR sword so I can eat Essence and harvest Orbs with the same weapon. Hunt Abyss creatures due to their extreme metaphysical weight allowing for Orbs to be harvested in significantly greater quantities than 0.1% per entity.
My main goal would be to earn enough Orbs to grab the Slayer-compatible boons, then just keep rolling the Gacha until I get a 100 and annul my Wood weakness. From there, I can just keep racking up +10% All Stats, general +s to my Stats, superpowers, layer immortality like Sun Wukong, and psychic disciplines of various kinds.
Edit: I have been informed that Determination could grant the Powers of Mage-Recruit with a modicum of research. All the Powers. So let's see what we have to work with.
Sensitivity grants the ability to sense MR magic and Workings, which, given MR magic is the drawing of Idealspace essence into the real, should allow some ability to sense general Idealspace shenanigans, which may aid Welkin research, Bright Realm manipulation, and so on. Transmigrator allows the bearer to jump into other bodies if they die, though I'm fairly certain I won't get the past lives benefit unless my baseline soul was already a Transmigrator, though given MR's powerset, that's not impossible. True Form idealizes my body, and improves my affinity for magical/cybernetic augmentation, which might give a minor buff but won't do much at this point. Unbreakable makes destroying my soul impossible for MR's denizens, and should make it a tough nut for most of the other stuff in the Gifted One cosmology, not to mention incredible willpower, bottomless reserves of effort and executive function, general immunity to attacks on my soul, magical mental influence, or magical surveillance. Considering this runs off of Idealspace, that's a pretty broad immunity. Storm CYOA's psychics have some major issues thanks to this.
Now for the 2-pointers. Tasteful allows me to absorb essence from realspace, both allowing me to immediately recoup any inefficiencies in Essence use regardless of the scale of Working, and to drain other Workings, including by force to rip apart it's framework. Once again, with it's Idealspace connections, Tasteful could be of use in a huge number of circumstances, though according to Aab on Discord, for example, a hostile Welkin user doesn't draw on Idealspace quite the same way. Plus, I can skip out on eating, drinking, and air via essence. Admittedly sort of minor, but everything helps.
Aura Aureola allows Lesser Workings to be spammed and maintenance of a single Greater Working, while it's upgrade, Splendor Solares, pushes that to Greater Workings and Grand Workings. A Greater is enough to enact the creation of habitats of relevant scale to planets. Given Wishcraft with Legendary applied, I could make some crazy things, like hypergate networks. Wisdom and Perspective, on the other hand, allow for direct viewing of the Ideal, which should dramatically ease finding Welkins and similar magics, as well as dramatically improving my ability to discern the correct action to achieve any given future I desire. Trinity, meanwhile basically gives me 3 different minds to research things and examine my mind with, dramatically improving self-augmenting capabilities. It also negates any need for sleep and triples my mental stamina.
With multiple souls, Familiar Bonds can align with all three choices. With the Ideal Spirit(enhances my mind and Idealspace-based divination) seems like it'll multiply with Grand Design. Gray Matter will develop according to my desires into an ideal companion, though this is improved with essence, something Sol would excel at. Then the Dark Shard possesses a mastery of manipulation of spacetime via Workings, expanding my remit in the creation of things like wormholes. A Minor Wish being fed into a hypergate network should allow for some truly insane mobility and connection among the Humanities, not to mention the possibilities offered by using Determination to generate souls in people, including the Illuminosans, Ectoncorona in particular. If any of them get Sol(which I can probably guarantee with a modicum of further research) then they'll gain a ridiculous amount of versatility, to say nothing of making all the Powers from Mage-Recruit standard for them, which as their Maker, should be something I can arrange. Punting the Devourers should be utterly trivial with the kinds of buffs I'd be handing out to them.
Edit Edit: Consultation of Lealope's list of further Welkins, alongside confirmation on Discord that Pearl Necklace and Mage-Recruit's Powers alone could make Ectonconara competitive with Rihaku's Simp build for her, offers a plethora of relatively direct boosts.
Ectonconara can trivially produce 2-Spark options, 3 with modest effort, 4 with sustained effort, and 5 at some permanent cost, and this is without any of the other boosts. Meaning she can make me a Sunlord(meaning +25 Might, +10 Agility, +10 Intelligence, +10 Wits, +10 Wisdom applied before the *7 to strength, speed, and agility with requisite durability, and *4 to intellect, speed of cognition, and charisma, also gain eternally youthful immortality, with the option to triple this buff within 50 years on the Starworld(which optimal training may reduce by 20% at maximum), with the time to the next such benchmark being 20% greater, multiplicatively with each benchmark, as opposed to 50% for a baseline Illuminosan. Also grants access to Hour of Glory, which grants a +0.7 ISH(for comparison, Feather of Favor is +0.9 ISH to upsides, -0.9 ISH to downsides) to all axes for one hour, before sealing away Sun Lord powers and rendering the user a regular Illuminosan, as a get out of jail card.), Exalted Spirit(provides the general capabilities of a classic magician/wizard scaling up with practice and intellect and a boost to Int, Wits, and Willpower, the former pair being further increased as the system is trained, with a penalty for overextending on one's MP in the form of injuries up to and including lethal ones, 70 years of high-effort training and research are enough to cap out the normal system, though with a breakthrough, 70 more(assuming superhuman intellect) one would be capable of capturing World Eaters and distilling them into 500 years of Starworld training for an Illuminosan and similar feats, and after 500 more years, capable of feats along the lines of burning a few hundred years of progress in this system out in exchange for bolstering the Star's lifespan another 5000 years while doubling Illuminosan progress globally and similar feats, as well as passing out 1-Spark powerups to others without much issue), Half-Devourer(+20 Might, +10 Agility, +10 Protection, +10 Wits, +5 Intelligence, +2 All Stats. Can eat anything to obtain something related, with living things and things with powerful souls offering more power), Hope(+15 Luck, +15 Willpower, +10 Wisdom, +10 Appearance, +10% to the value of +s regarding these. Gain a charge of Hope every 200 years(may be accelerated up to 100% with outsides aid), which allows a reversal of fortunes, such as having a World-Eater thrashed by a sudden ambush, with more dire circumstances allowing for greater turnarounds, but is not capable of turning 0% odds into a victory, start with 3 charges.), Astaroth the Great-Devourer(symbiotic World Eater that has learned self-restraint and an appreciation for things besides eating everything. Grants +10 All Stats, +20 Agility, +40 Might, and a comprehensive +.2 ISH boost, which may be collectively doubled by externalizing him, though as a Devourer he must consume things to do so. Pale Welkin resolves this issue, as even 8 hours to recover from total annihilation is enough to be visibly regaining lost flesh, and offers advice.), Unification Module(allows meditation to 'capture' spirits(though this is somewhat luck-based), which may offer a variety of powers, starting with four of significant utility. Normally only a single soul union is possible at a time, but Determination allows the creation of souls, which makes this a moot point. So, +20 Might, +20 Agility, and +120% to their respective +s. +++Wisdom, +++Wits, empower a team of four to eight individuals(so the benefits can be duplicated for Ectonconara and myself), giving them overall +5 All Stats, and +15 Physical Stats, as well as +15 Wits, +5 Manipulation, +++Agility, ++All Stats, and that's ignoring the auto-dodge, illusions that can appear selectively different to every observer, including cameras, and become intangible and invisible as long as one's breath is held in a manner anti-magic cannot block), raw Might(120 +s among your Attributes (Might, Agility, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits, Wisdom, Luck, Will, Protection.) All of them except Might, Agility, and Protection are double cost. Also, for every five points spent on a given Attribute, apply a +2% to the total worth of its +s. Think I'd put 20(technically 40) each on Int, Wits, and Wis, which means +8% to their value. Additionally, +.25 ISH to a total of five physical actions every day, albeit this stacks in a diminishing manner with other ISH boosts. It's possible to gain more physical action uses per day with extensive training to as many as a few hundred, and extend the ISH boost as high as +.5, but this would be a process requiring multiple centuries of practice, and Diachronic Alchemy and it's compatriots qualify as physical actions due to how they're carried out, technically.), and last of the 3-Spark powers is the Perfect Number. While it's slow to progress, the Gifted One has intellect and Willpower in spades. So eventually, it provides ISH 2 abilities across the board, when you hit the decimal, and while nobody's gotten even 15% of the way there, this version of me is already quite improbable, to say the least.
Now for the artifacts Ecton can hand out. The Empowerment Phial(a superpower chosen/designed with slight scaling, equivalent to a baseline human getting +30 Might), Manifold Scroll(After a decade of study, select a benefit; after a century of study, select a second benefit. After a full millennium, select the final benefit. Cannot double up. Freedom - A permanent and comprehensive reduction of a single flaw or drawback of your choice, by a value of 33%, but growing to 50% mitigation over the course of five hundred years. After a thousand years, pick a second flaw or drawback to mitigate by a value of 10%, growing to 20% over the course of a millennium. Probably taking this last. Arete - Appends a single +Progression bonus to any discipline or power of your choosing, including slightly esoteric but limited disciplines such as "punching," or "science," as well as a 10% boost of raw capability and versatility in said discipline, no matter how unlikely. Allows you to develop minor superpowers in said discipline if it doesn't have any. I'd probably go for a general 'Magic' discipline, since science is an option, and take this first for a variety of reasons. Mastery - Select one skill or discipline, but not magical system, and treat it as if you'd trained with your present capabilities in its use for a single human lifespan (circa 100 years.) Also gives you an immediate 200% boost of raw power and potential versatility to any power or other choice you've made, except for A Wish. Actually, I'd take this first and select buffing for myself and Pearl Necklace for Ectonconara, seeing as that would probably be the biggest buff I could give her by that point.), A Savior's Chalice (fills with a miracle liquid, and while a week of it would extend someone's lifespan by a day, Diachronic Alchemy and it's upgrades make that a laughable prospect as a real barrier), Armament(customized weapon a step above common enchanted gear), Orb of Insight(significant divination which gets stronger and gains utility over time, +5 Willpower and +7 Wits, +Wits for every twenty hours of use, adding an hour for each such benchmark. Sounds like Kairos would have a field day, and one of the Trinity Minds can just keep using it indefinitely if Diachronic Alchemy can't just hyperaccelerate it's buffing of Wits), Elixir(high level of resistance to hostile magic and esoteric effects, pushing their entire being a tenth of a step along the Infinite Singularity Husk, and then applying an external and separate 10% modifier to all of their physical Attributes which is counted after any and every other consideration involving said Attributes. And lastly, the drinker applies 25 +s to any Attributes of their choice. Also, +++Progression, and +.5 Physical Attribute ISH for a single week after ingestion, and lets you make rapid and incredibly relevant breakthroughs in most systems of power. It's not as if I don't have a lot to study), Ring of Power(drains the Star to use, but allows general reality-bending, dependent on Willpower, spiritual power and Wisdom. Also, +10 Willpower, and slowly accumulates more as long as the Ring of Power is worn and used (+Willpower after a full month as a moderately active wielder, then +Willpower after month and half, then +Willpower after two months, and so on.) +++Luck), Marosian Instruction(burn parts of reality to warp reality, with one large-scale alteration or three moderate ones being the practical limit), Pear Necklace is probably a no-go. No idea if it would be willing to help Ectonconara duplicate, but I doubt it.
1 Sparks and 2 Sparks can be handed out like candy, so pretty much every Illuminosan will have Exalted Spirit, Half-Devourer, Hope, Unification Module and the 2 Spark variant of Might(80 +s among your Attributes (Might, Agility, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits, Wisdom, Luck, Will, Protection.) Charisma, Manipulation, and Appearance are double cost; Wits, Wisdom, Intelligence, Luck, and Willpower are triple cost) on the Powers side, and Empowerment Vial, Manifold Scroll, Savior's Chalice, Armament, Orb of Insight, Elixir, (Ring of Power is too dangerous to mass-produce, drawing directly on the Star and all, so only Ecton and I get one, and even if 3-Sparks could be trivially made(which all these buffs make an option) Marosian Instruction would be similarly restricted, and I expect the Pearl Necklace would resist duplication because the Maker can't have multiple favorites).
Now for the Welkins. 6 more Welkins would add another millionfold multiplier to the extant 4. Blue jumps to 1 billion times it's baseline sensory power, command of air spirits, and flight. Pale hits me up with a hundred million times it's normal stamina boost, and drops from 7 hours and about 12.5 minutes to regenerate from total annihilation to 2.55 seconds, not to mention 10 billion times my baseline strength after all these other boons. Gold is outputting 10 million times heroic willpower, the sword and shield, judgement of character(so some ridiculous 'absolutely certain whether this person could become a saint or a demon' to the point I might as well have character-based precog), and gravity of the soul. Dark is granting a million times it's normal protection. The Fleet Welkin's offering *100000 to it's influence over spatial and temporal circumstances, profit-instinct already superior to a merchant prince, keen insight, and guidance from the Norns. From the Dust Welkin, I'd be getting the power to rule human, natural and metaphysical law(so general Rulership abilities in the vein of Hunger's law manipulation), incisive intellect, lightning swift thought and a crystalline clarity of mind *10000. The Whole Welkin simply provides a holistic elevation of all lesser capabilities to match it, provided they're weaker than the Whole Welkin, and between +1 ISH and *1000, I think that's going to apply to quite a bit. The Torn Welkin would be giving me *100 on teleology("the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise/the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world") which sounds like metaphysical understanding of my locale, adamant composure, and the ability to reduce force/effects/value. The Bridge Welkin ensures my powers translate across ontologies so long as any Welkin can exist, and with +1 ISH and *10 on it, that's quite a few locales. Finally, the Blind Welkin allows me to survive existential annihilation and keep my essence unaltered by any external forces. With +1 ISH on that, dying at the hands of anything humanly comprehensible is unlikely, to say the least.
5570 words, discounting this line.
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Have another CYOA. Crossposted in Immersion.
A few years ago (or maybe more like a decade and change now?), when you were still just a young teen, you had a friend, or at least an acquaintance. He was a wallflower, or really a recluse, but you still talked with him occasionally, and when there were group projects in school you usually ended up with him when you were in the same class. He was so sad so often, the kind of sad that could suck all the air out of the room sometimes, but when you were feeling down yourself he was always there for you. When he did manage a smile, it felt like seeing the sun again after a long and cold night. He was a creative type, too, or at least you got the feeling he was. You saw him writing or sketching things in various notebooks often enough. You never learned much about what he made.
Eventually, though, he went missing. He didn't leave a note, didn't take anything with him, but there wasn't any sign of a struggle either. Everybody thought he must have gone off and killed himself. The police never found out what actually happened, but it's not hard to imagine they just didn't try. You were beat up about it, for a while, but his disappearance didn't make your own problems go away. They never found a body, so you always hoped he just ran away, maybe to a better life. You never forgot about him, but in time he faded into the background. Life went on.
As you were checking your mail earlier today, you found a crisp black envelope with neither your nor a return address on it. That on its own is kind of weird, but what you found inside was considerably weirder. Written with shiny gold ink on more black paper was a letter, addressed to you personally, and signed in fancy cursive with your old friend's name.
My best friend,
First, let me apologize for any distress my disappearance caused you all those years ago. If I had any warning that I'd be kidnapped into a portal fantasy, you would have been the first person I told. I've been very busy since then, but things are peaceful enough nowadays and the stars have aligned such that I'm able to send you this letter, and what's more, through it I can even bring you here to this lonely island of Togress. There's really so much to show you, I couldn't hope to fit it all in one measly missive. Suffice to say, magic is very real. I've had quite the adventure, having narrowly avoided becoming the dark lord of Togress, instigated a political and industrial revolution, and made more friends than I probably ever would have back home. I look forward to discussing it all in much more detail with you, whether in person or in future letters.
Now, about coming to Togress: first, you should gather your things. The summoning can only bring so much, so I wouldn't pack more than a good-sized suitcase. I'll provide your room and board once you're here but you should probably pack at least a week's worth of clothes, including some good cold-weather clothes, your toiletries, maybe some food you'll miss otherwise, plus any electronics you want to bring. You should bring some books or games too, the internet isn't really a thing on Togress yet, and even if it were I haven't figured out how to connect to Earth's from here, hence why I'm sending you a letter rather than emailing you like a normal person. You should also leave a note or tell people you'll be gone, of course, don't want people to get worried. You should be able to bring a plus one if you want, or maybe two if they're both very small, like little kids, but don't push it, the summoning is very sensitive to how many souls are in transit.
Once you're all packed up and have whoever you're taking with you on hand, hold this letter and light it on fire. If it burns blue, everything is working and if you let it burn up completely without letting go it'll take you and whatever you're holding or wearing to Togress. If it burns a normal color, put it out before it burns too much and wait, I'll be sending another letter as soon as I can if the summoning doesn't return anything and we can figure out what went wrong from there.
Also, don't worry if you don't want to come. I've got the whole set-up I'm using to send this letter ready to send you back to Earth when you're done here, so you won't be stuck here or anything, but I understand visiting another world might be a big leap of faith to take anyway, especially since you've always had more things tying you down than I did. If you don't want to come, or can't find the time away from your obligations, write a response on the backside of this letter and burn it without holding onto it and I'll get your reply. I'll keep sending letters, and once I figure some things out and know that stuff won't fall apart while I'm gone I'll try and come back to Earth myself so we can have a proper reunion.
Your friend, always.
After a lot of consideration, and maybe a few more rounds of letters with your friend over the following weeks and months, you eventually decide to... (Feel free to stop here, or at any time during the CYOA, and ask me questions. I'll answer them to the best of my limited ability and effort.)
[ ] Accept the invitation.
[ ] Reject the invitation. (Do not continue playing.)
After working through the beginner language-learning material your friend sends you, enough that you feel ready for basic communication at least, you gather up all your people and things, set your affairs in order, and perform the letter-burning ritual. The paper burns blue, and after a long moment the flames reach your fingers. It doesn't hurt, it's not even really hot, there's just a gentle warmth that washes over your body and a brief sense of vertigo. Then you are somewhere else.
You've only just processed that you're now standing on a circular dais under the open sky when you're all but tackled off your feet and lifted up into a hug by a giant of a man. "It's so good to see you again!" he exclaims, and while his voice is deeper than you remember and filled with an unfamiliar joy, you instantly recognize it as your friend's.
"My god, you're huge! What have they been feeding you?" you ask as you wrap your arms around him, only half joking. When you were teens, he was a bit chubby and only average height, while now he must be at least seven feet tall and is covered in muscle. He's undergone quite the transformation.
He sets you down and gives you a bashful smile. "Well, I've changed my diet and exercise quite a bit, but that's only part of it. I really have so much to explain, but first let's get you settled."
The whirlwind of activity that follows is as exhilarating as it is exhausting. You encounter lots of people as your friend leads you through his mansion, but none of them are exactly human. There are two broad categories: people with snouted faces, long and expressive ears, a digitigrade stance, usually with black or brown fur but sometimes just a mane of blond or red hair, most with a pair of horns but some not, and who vary significantly in size; and smaller folk with smooth and shiny black or navy blue skin, stocky builds, short and wiry white or silver hair when they aren't entirely hairless, and thudding footsteps that betray a great weight despite their smaller size. Your friend describes the former group as a mixture of local 'cussidda' and 'ruddocks' from the neighboring region of Eatrue, with a few 'melgod' and 'thuzar' from further afield, while the latter are indigenous 'smayvinn'.
You can recognize some of what the people you pass by are saying, from the Cusidun lessons that your friend gave you during your pre-summoning correspondence, though only snippets. Cusidun has been much harder to pick up than Etruish, though only because the latter is close enough to your native tongue that you almost don't need to translate, aside from all the loanwords from other Togressan languages.
Your first day in Togress is spent mostly just situating yourself. You and whoever you brought find your rooms and familiarize yourself with the mansion's layout and staff (many of whom thankfully speak Etruish or even your own language, albeit with a distinct accent), which takes until evening with how big the estate is. As the twin suns set (you are still getting used to there being two, though collectively they aren't any brighter than Earth's one), everyone all has dinner together at the longtable and your friend begins to tell you all about Togress and what he's been up to since he disappeared.
You learn a lot that evening, and even more over the following days, and eventually a plan begins to form in your mind.
Before you actually go anywhere, though, there's the matter of Island Light, as your friend calls it. While it shouldn't become relevant soon, if you plan on staying on Togress for at least a year you should know what to expect. After that first year, you will begin to experience spontaneous magic, the character of which will be determined by your immediate surroundings, the physical and spiritual environments you have spent the most time in while on Togress, your own temperament and emotions, and your skills and knowledge (especially skills and knowledge gained on Togress, and doubly so for magical skills or knowledge). These magical phenomena will initially be subtle and unconscious, prone to stopping as soon as you take notice of them. Over time, the magnitude of this magic will increase, and if this increase ever stops or slows down, your friend hasn't found the point at which it does even in all his years here.
As your magic grows, so will your awareness of it, expanding your 'eerie-sense', the natural ability to perceive magic that arriving in Togress has instilled in you. This will give you a sense for when this phenomena is about to happen, and with practice will allow you to stop or direct it. With more time and more training, you will achieve greater control, as well as the ability to summon up the magic rather than waiting for it to come on its own. Your power, stamina, and control for magic will all continue to increase once you establish them, faster if you train but even if you don't. The nature of your magic will also continue to evolve, incorporating any new abilities or attributes you develop and expanding into new and different applications as it does.
When (and if) you return to Earth, almost none of your magic will survive. The Island Light and any magic it has sparked in you will be the only exception. Aside from that, anything which couldn't be sustained entirely by mundane physics will dissolve into base matter and energy, potentially quite explosively. It's possible to guide the Island Light's magic specifically to encompass and support other magics you have, which is part of how your friend was able to send the letter that brought you here. It took him years to develop that, including all the research and experiments it took to figure out how the Island Light works in general, but with his help you should be able to replicate it much more quickly.
There are four main transinsular hubs of travel, which will be necessary stops in your travels regardless of wherever your exact destinations may be. Take as many options at each one as you like, for as long as you like. You can take options more than once, you can travel back and forth between locations, and your friend is bankrolling your activities so unless an option explicitly mentions costs, you don't need to worry about paying for things. The only thing really limiting your schedule here is how much time and toil you're willing to put in.
The nearest is the mountainous city-state of Zarnascus, nestled atop and around the volcano Dhoumblot at the heart of the island. You can actually see the glow of the city along the mountain slopes at night from your friend's manse. As you've already seen, it's primary populated by the local cussidda, who might be likened to horned wolf-people, though the direct translation of 'wolf-man' is both a slur and euphemism for rapist, so don't go calling anyone that unless you're spoiling for a fight. There's also a large minority of smayvinn people, blue-black fantasy dwarves to characterize them with equal indignity, who have historically had a somewhat tense relationship with the cussidda, though that's improved considerably in recent years, in no small part thanks to the political and economic revolutions that your friend has helped spark. Zarnascus is also the most thoroughly electrified city on Togress, the epicenter of technological progress in most fields, and one of the only places where you'll be able to find something similar to modern comforts without breaking the bank.
[ ] Return to Earth - The most important feature of Zarnascus, for you at least, are the ritual grounds that your friend has constructed on his estate. These are, at the moment at least, the only such construction in the world that are sufficient to contact Earth. If you ever wish to return home, this will be how you do so. Remember, every minute you spend on Togress is a minute you're not on Earth. Things will keep happening while you're gone, and even if you can prove that you have the chance of a lifetime, your family or your friends or your boss (or your boss's boss) might not appreciate you disappearing for weeks, months, or even years, no matter how much warning you give. The ritual itself also takes about a day of continuous work, though you don't need to be personally present for anything but the final sending, so make sure you remember that when scheduling things. (Do not continue playing.)
[ ] Enjoy Modernity - Immediately following your arrival on Togress, you probably won't be missing the comforts of modern living too much, but after a few months or years of living in a world that is still mostly without electricity (as hard as your friend is trying to change that, among many other issues) that may well change, in which case spending some time just resting and recuperating in Zarnascus may help you out. There isn't an internet, or television, but there are radios and movies (though locally they're called 'picture operas', since they're apparently inspired by and modeled after the magical operas shown in 'glass theaters' far to the southwest), there's electric lighting and heating, there's air conditioning and refrigeration. Plus, especially under the considerable cultural influence of your friend, there's some not-inconsiderable cultural familiarity. Nobody's sending other people memes on the non-existent internet, but it's egalitarian and liberal in a way that other places on Togress mostly aren't (yet, at least).
[ ] Explore the Undercity - Zarnascus is an old city, an ancient city. It's been continuously inhabited for centuries, maybe even millennia, and like any city of similar age, its roots go deep, the deepest tunnels sweltering with the heat of Dhoumblot's molten blood coursing through the earth only meters behind the tunnel walls. Shallow delves are a common pastime among the more adventurous sort in the city, drawing tourists even from distant Taryath Athuz and Sfinahuu. Anything found down in the undercity belongs to the government, and the shallows are picked clean anyway, but if you brave the deeper depths and risk encountering the feral machines that have grown beyond their finite purpose in the heat and the dark, the city will pay you a pretty penny for anything you bring back to the surface, and if you make a strong enough case they might even let you keep what you find..
[ ] Educate Yourself - There are several quality universities and trade schools in Zarnascus that would be honored to teach you.
-[ ] Mundane Topics - Any of the sundry fields of study you might encounter on Earth. The state of the art in Zarnascus is ahead of just about everywhere else on Togress, but it's still a bit behind Earth even with your friend's help. Still, this is an opportunity for a high-quality education, and maybe to get a degree if you want to.
-[ ] Magical Theory - Togress has undergone something of a scientific renaissance recently, along with all the other sorts of revolution that have been going on, and magic hasn't escaped the people's new eye for scrutiny. While Magical Theory is still in its infancy, it's a subject of great interest to both the local Zarnascusan government and the Parliament Congress and thus is flush with funding, so beyond just taking classes there are also plentiful opportunities to participate in experiments and go on folkloric surveys.
-[ ] Ironcraft - Also called zarnazant in Cusidun, or farzilson'a in the A'um-zmi language, is the traditional magic of the smayvinn. Your friend is also personal friends with a master ironcrafter, a wizened old smayvinni named Sadjayul who has mostly retired from the industry to focus on teaching the next generation, and who will make for an excellent tutor. All metals naturally grow in shu'um, nobility and might, by absorbing magical power through geomantic vortices, and chief among the metals stands iron, which, though slow to grow, can reach the greatest heights of shu'um. The lands of Zarnascus are not only rich in iron and other metals, but possess the most densely and intricately woven geomancies of the entire island, and have had such since time immemorial, vastly enriching the land's mineral wealth at the expense of rendering it otherwise magicless. A single twelve-week semester of tutoring is enough to instill the skill of appraisal, honing your innate eerie-sense to let you detect high-shu'um metals and intuit the shape of their magic, but it will take at least a year of dedicated training to develop the strength needed to break the weakest metal's spirit and bend its magic to your will.
[ ] Commission an Ironcraft - Sadjayul is mostly retired, but not completely. He has many junior ironcrafters to help him run the forges but nothing short of death can truly strip an ironcrafter of their hammer for good, and whatever relationship he has with your friend affords you a special consideration, if you want it. Sadjayul is one of the premier ironcrafters in all of Togress, a veritable master of the art though old age has robbed him of some of his strength. Nonetheless, it would require facing great adversity to acquire a magical item of greater quality and power than what Sadjayul could create, given time to gather the appropriate material and beat them into submission. Give the old man a king's ransom and a year to spend it and he'll be able to furnish you with something of truly heroic worth, or even more if you can gather some priceless materials yourself that he would otherwise be unable to acquire. Anything of primarily metallic make could be commissioned, Sadjayul's workshop is equipped with the state of the art when it comes to fabrication equipment and employs more than one machinist to operate it, but the simpler the design and the more room for artistic expression the more efficiently he will be able to transform time and effort into magical power.
[ ] Travel to Oskragd - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast then sailing north and then back up the Talea to Castle Oskragd will take about a week. This is a well-sailed route, and well-patrolled, so there's no chance of encountering bandits or pirates along the way unless you actively go looking for them.
[ ] Travel to Andelin - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast, then sailing north around the island until you find port in Rogyavint Bay will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as twelve nights or as many as sixteen depending on how the weather turns. The Shechtorm and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast, then south around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, then north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take about three weeks, maybe four if the weather is uncooperative. While the Shechtorm river is well-patrolled and benefits from Zarnascus's relatively uncorrupt legal system, the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets occupied by pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
Not too far to the east of Zarnascus, across the hills separating the Shechtorm and Talea river-basins, lies the fortress-city of Oskragd, the present seat of the Parliament Congress and economic center of Eatrue, the breadbasket of northeastern Togress. Eatrue as a whole was unified fairly recently, only about sixty years ago, and just a few years ago the Eatruish Federation accepted both Zarnascus and the even-more-recently unified Taryath Athuz into their Parliament Congress, ushering i an unprecedented era of unity to this corner of the island, and creating a nation that, while still uncertain, at least has the potential to rival the richest Nimbanshi kingdoms, even Sfinahuu, in time.
Oskragd itself, like many cities in Eatrue, has many rings, as its population grew beyond its walls, only to build new ones and then to outgrow them again. The oldest parts of the innermost keep are a little over three hundred years old, one of the oldest still-standing fortifications in the Talea river-basin. Unlike in Zarnascus, the geomancy of Eatrue isn't conducive to ennobling its earth, but this does leave the atmosphere itself far more saturated with magic, leading to a much greater variety of magical flora (and to a lesser degree fauna), many of which have a wide variety of domesticated strains. This bountiful abundance characterizes Eatrue's many traditions of witchcraft and herbalism, as well as fuels its magical textiles industry, which is the largest and most advanced on Togress.
Demographically, Eatrue is predominantly populated with various clans and tribes of ruddocks, who have a similar general shape to the cussich people of Zarnascus but almost always lack horns and fur, except for the clans directly abutting the Sheckmord hills in the west and south. Ruddock hair is also much more often red or blond rather than brown or black. Ruddocks are also often shorter than cussidda, especially along the eastern coast where there's consistent intermarriage between local clans and the diminutive melgod maritime nomads. There's a small contingent of northern thuzar sailors in most coastal cities at any given time as well, and there's a single pasitji ambassador from Sfinahuu, an alabaster giant of a man, currently staying in a rented manse next to the congress building who is surprisingly pleasant but extremely overworked.
[ ] Attend the Congress - Despite having declined election to the Parliament Congress on multiple occasions over the years, your friend still holds considerable sway therein, especially through Hampfris, the representative of the Zarnascus gravate. She is an elder stateswoman and a close ally of your friend's, having helped him implement his numerous ambitions and served in many ways as a mentor and perhaps even mother figure to him since his displacement to Togress all those years ago. Regardless, through these contacts, you will find a spectator's chair reserved for you in the Congress's public chamber, letting you witness the goings-on at your leisure and one of the earliest opportunities to speak to Congress during forum sessions. The Parliament Congress is bicameral, composed of the popular and gravate houses. The popular house is elected through a proportional representation vote that extends across the entire congressional federation (at least to the degree that vote-takers are able to travel, which may fall short of the ideal especially with the addition of Taryath Athuz to the federation). The gravate house is seated by representatives from each federal gravate (a nebulous concept of 'federation member polity', comparable to states or provinces but without any principled basis beyond historical circumstance), with voting power in proportion to their gravate's estimated population and appointed by the government of their gravate in accordance with their local laws and customs. Given that your forum chair is reserved by a gravate rep, you'll only be guaranteed a spot in the weekly gravate fora, but you'll be well-positioned to request speaking time at the popular fora as well, if you're willing to wait through the potentially months-long queue.
[ ] Suit Yourself - While Zarnascus is certainly the best place for traditional arms and armor, and even for more modern bespoke tools of war like firearms, ironcraft is not well-suited to industrialization due to the intimate relationship between the ironcrafter and their metal, something which soulless machines cannot reproduce (yet!), and thus the mundane and magical markets remain largely separate. The nature of spinwork, however, is much more amenable to automation. With fibers from the same source, spun in the same way, and braided or woven with the same pattern, the resulting rope or cloth will carry the same magic, every time. This replicability, combined with the still-burgeoning industrialization of Eatrue, has created an incredible surplus of high-quality magical textiles. This has in turn had numerous secondary and tertiary impacts that extend to essentially every facet of life in Eatrue and its surrounding territories. Your friend already has a sizable collection of such items himself, and has shared what he can of them with you so far, but for magical clothing in particular, a level of personal tailoring is not only eminently practical but often necessary for their proper functioning. All sorts of potential magical garments exist, ranging from armor-clothes that can shield you from harm (not as well as a masterwork of ironcraft, but for a small fraction of the cost and greater comfort and style) to night-cloaks that blend with shadows, from fencer's gloves that fill your limbs with instinctual swordplay to ettin-shirts that grant you enormous strength, endurance, and appetite. More garments, and more powerful garments, will tend to be more expensive, and a truly epic ensemble might drain even your friend's pockets, but unless you're designing whole new magical weaves from scratch it shouldn't take more than a week of requisitions and fittings before you've got your complete suit.
[ ] Wander Eatrue - Zarnascus's undercity is ancient, and quite large for what it is, but it's still just the underground of a single city. Eatrue is an entire country, with cities and villages, farmland and wilderness of all kinds. The riverboat services of the region are excellent and fast, so it would take scarcely a week to go all the way from one side of the country to the other, and you would be traveling in comfort as you do (perhaps even close to that of Zarnascus, since the riverboats have been quick modernize in their competitive market). Depending on where you go, you could participate in local celebrations and contests,hike through the hills and valleys, go hunting or fishing for magical beasts, or collect the bounty on some slaver outlaws, just to name a few.
[ ] Study Witchcraft - Unlike spinwork, witchcraft (or folk medicine, as the Zarnascusan academics tend to call it) has not caught the rising tide of industrialization, suffering from a similar issue as ironcraft, though not an identical one. While the magic of flora and fauna is not as adamant as the magic of metal and could, in theory, be brewed by a machine, the soul of the witch serves as a critical organizing principle for the magic of their potions. This process of influencing the magic of the brew through more than just observable factors like recipes and procedures is difficult to decipher. Witchcraft traditions have long and complicated histories as a rule, and it is a tedious and expansive project to untangle what things are critical to the brew's magic and what things are not. There's great interest in pursuing this research, but for now, if you want to learn how to brew potions, you'll need to find a witch who's willing to take you on. Your friend knows of a few, and while it's unlikely any of them are looking for a student and would accept you if they were, at least some of them will be willing to help you find someone else to teach you. It'll probably be the work of a month or two to find a teacher unless you're a remarkably suitable witch-in-training, and at least another year after that before you're equipped to brew basic potions (as well as performing all the other duties of a novice witch, like diagnosing injuries and illnesses, identifying useful plants and animals in the wild, gathering and preparing potion ingredients, providing advice on matters of health, gardening, and romance, and sundry other mundane tasks).
[ ] Get Your Sea Legs - The boat-rides up and down the various rivers of Eatrue, and to a lesser extent over the river Shechtorm, have all been comfortable and steady. If you plan on traveling to Andelin in the north or Sfinahuu to the southwest, though, you'll be traveling across the ocean for at least a week, maybe more, during which you will have many fewer luxuries and significantly rougher sailing. It may be better to get your sea legs now, and you can always get some training in various sailor-skills at the same time, which may come in handy on a long voyage. You'll have basic seaman competencies like swearing, knot-tying, rope-climbing, sleeping in hard conditions, familiarity with the cangomprom (the quiet and not-quite-secret language which the melgod sailors employ when speaking amongst themselves), and similar skills after about a month of keeping up with your practice.
[ ] Crash a Black Gate - Scattered across Eatrue stand four enormous Black Gates. Each one is a monolith of night-black basalt, solid stone doorways jutting out of the landscape and over fifty meters into the sky. They aren't necessarily the tallest structures around, especially with recent improvements in construction techniques and materials, but they are still notable for being utterly ancient and completely indestructible, having stood unchanged and unopening since time immemorial, local oral histories often claiming that they existed even before the rest of the world, the lands of Eatrue and Togress as whole coalescing around these four immutable doorways. Or at least, they were immutable until your friend came along. A couple years after he first arrived in Togress, after he'd started to grow into his magical powers (which he promises he will explain to you soon), he visited one of the Black Gates on a hunch and used his powers on it. He was able to open it, which was the first time anyone could remember that happening, but that wasn't all. He kept experimenting with it, and when he opened it during the sunset, rather than revealing the other side of the gate, it opened into an inky blackness which promptly sucked him in. On the other side was a lightless place, full of monsters far stronger and more magical than any he'd faced in the daylit world, occupying a labyrinth of shifting corridors and chambers that seemed almost as alive as the monsters. After fighting for his life for several hours, he eventually found a chamber full to brimming with treasures, so powerfully magical that he could feel it radiating off of them even with the poor quality of his eerie-sense. He'd found the Night Realm (as he has since dubbed it) to be as full of traps as it was of monsters, so he took a long while to check as well as he was able given the circumstances. He did eventually touch one though, a papyrus that he has safely squirreled away in his manor even now. As soon as he made contact with it, the room was flooded with light from behind him, and he was sucked back out into the daylit world, and the scroll with him. Later, after finding the scroll untranslatable but imbued with a preservative enchantment that surpassed all others, beyond even the theoretical limits of the time, he realized how much of an opportunity the gates presented. It was another few years full of preparations later, but he eventually gathered a group of fellow powerful and dangerous individuals cleared through all the other gates, and discovered that he could open each one to the Night Realm once, after which opening it again would simply lead to the normal other side of the gate. His magic has grown even more since then, and he's done a great deal of research on the Black Gates with Zarnascusan magical theorists and knowledgeable Nimbanshi scholars, and he's fairly confident that with your arrival, the Night Realms will be reachable again. Your friend doesn't want to go immediately, certainly not before he's explained the Island Light to you and preferably not before you've seen what it sparks in you, if anything, but in the future, he'd like to take you to the Night Realm with some of those same compatriots and see what sort of treasure you can pull back with you.
[ ] Travel to Zarnascus - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast then sailing south and then back up the Shechtorm to Zarnascus will take about a week. This is a well-sailed route, and well-patrolled, so there's no chance of encountering bandits or pirates along the way unless you actively go looking for them.
[ ] Travel to Andelin - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast, then sailing north around the island until you find port in Rogyavint Bay will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as ten nights depending on how well the weather behaves. The Talea and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast, then sailing south around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, and then north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take about three weeks, maybe four if the weather is uncooperative. While the Talea river is well-patrolled and benefits from Eatrue's relatively uncorrupt legal system, the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets infested with pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
In the north of Togress, on the far side of the tall Shadowback mountains, lie the snowy and darkly forested lands of the thuzar folk, or Taryath Athuz in the local dialect of Athuzhuin in Andelin, the wide-ranging language family of the region. Historically a quilt of alternatingly allied and enemied clans, Taryath Athuz was united into a single tribal federation just a couple years ago by a charismatic warrior-woman and another close contact of your friend, one Sharinsa of Erinshin. Sharinsa currently sits as First Speaker at the Thuzathing, a meeting place for clan heads and other powerful people from across Taryath Athuz and which Sharinsa has co-opted into something like a government. Andelin, the traditional home of the Thuzathing and de facto capital of Taryath Athuz, is also the largest and broadly wealthiest city in the country, the shores of the uncommonly peaceful Rogyavint Bay serving as the closest proper port to Eatrue and thus the path through which economic prosperity flows as it travels from Eatrue to the rest of Taryath Athuz.
As befits its massive territory, the people of Taryath Athuz are widely varied, but there are nonetheless some trends. There are scattered enclaves of zhriya'ari, cousins to the smayvinn of Zarnascus, who make their homes in small geomantic vortices found in the Shadowbacks, magicless zones plentiful in high-shu'um ores similar to the environs of Mount Dhoumblot. These mountainfolk only make up a tiny fraction of the overall population of Taryath Athuz however, the vast majority of which is the same broad sort of beast-people as the cussich Zarnascusans, ruddock Etruans, and melgod seafarers. Thuzar skew significantly taller and wider than cussidda, let alone the smaller ruddocks or minute melgod, with the largest being similar to or even larger than your friend's great size, built more like bears than wolves. They almost always have fur, often grey or black in color, and horns, though it's common to see trimmed or cut horns among thuzar city-folk.
[ ] Entertain the First Speaker - As befits a stateswoman of her caliber, Sharinsa is a charismatic and sociable person, accustomed and experienced with living the life of a celebrity and spending almost all of her time in the public eye. This makes finding her quite easy, but actually entering her social circle presents its own challenges and obstacles. She and your friend are still in regular communication, and may even be something of an item? That could just be unfounded tabloid rumors though, or else it is one-sided given that your friend refutes any such implication on his part. Regardless, your friend can give you the pretext of meeting with Sharinsa, or even facilitate a conversation if you give him a week to set things up, but it's up to you to provoke her interest. She's an incredibly skilled fighter and user of the Warform magic of Taryath Athuz, as well as a consummate politician, and if presented with projects in either of these fields she may be enticed to offer advice or even her direct participation, and if you show promise she might even be convinced to serve as a tutor, in which you will struggle to find a better teacher. Just make sure you don't do anything you would hate to see on the front page of the city newspaper.
[ ] Play Ball - Ballsport, or blaya in the Andlinisk dialect, is one of if not the most common pastime in Taryath Athuz, especially in the last decade as other, more bloody sports have shrunk in popularity thanks to growing prosperity and the influence of modern Etruish and Zarnascusan culture. Coming from a wide family of ball games, as varied as the many clans of Taryath Athuz, modern Ballsport possesses a unified federal association, the executive board of which is actually a significant political party at the Thuzathing, such is the power of this cultural institution. The game itself is something like rugby or gridiron football, two teams vying for control of a ball on a long field, attempting to bring the ball across a goal threshold at the end of the opponent's side of the field, often with some amount of violence employed to reach it. Weapons, armor, and tools aside from the ball itself are not allowed, though there are two separate leagues, the 'lesser league' in which warforms and other witchcraft are forbidden, and a 'greater league' in which they are accepted as part of the game, the latter league being significantly more popular and receiving the lion's share of the association's funding. Getting into the lesser league (or the greater, if you possess a warform) at a low level is easy, there are droves of local teams that are always looking for talent at the beginning of each season, but rising above the regional circuits will require exceptional skill both on your part and from your teammates, as well as excellent teamwork to bring those skill-sets together. With your friend's backing, you can also engage with the association at the level of a sponsor, getting a word in on matters of administration and general procedures, though that will require a significant investment into the association's coffers.
[ ] Learn to Fight - While blood sport is on the decline in Taryath Athuz, it isn't completely gone, and is unlikely to ever disappear completely. Professional dueling of many sorts still has a significant presence throughout the country, with even underground fighting rings in Andelin (where it is illegal at the municipal level). Looking beyond sports, violence is in general much more common in Taryath Athuz, with rampant banditry and internecine conflicts contradicting the image of unification commonly presented in Andelin or by the thuza representative at the Parliament Congress. There are an abundance of reasons why one might encounter violence in the northern countryside, and an equal abundance of ways to prepare. While the ironcrafts of Taryath Athuz are lesser than those of Zarnascus, the wielders of those weapons are often of a far higher quality, battle-tested and fire-hardened. You can always hire guards, if your friend's own considerable fighting skill proves insufficient or unavailable, but you can also easily find many teachers willing to impart the many traditional martial arts of their clans onto aspiring warriors. Starting at your age may not strictly be ideal, but you will prove to be an at least acceptable, if not outright exceptional student regardless, thanks in part to the same mysterious phenomenon which birthed your friend's unique magic, what he calls the Island Light..
[ ] Consider Prayer - Oakprayer, or igben in Andlinisk, is a unique form of magic native to the forests of Taryath Athuz, and in particular to Elyirshin, a valley far to the west where the oldest wind-oak groves lie. Though wind-oaks are now coppiced all across Taryath Athuz, and even more recently in the northernmost climes of Eatrue, Elyirshin remains the center of the wind-oak and broader oakprayer industries. The wind-oaks possess powerful magic properties, not found in any other species, which make them unsuitable for witchcraft or medicine but do allow for the wood to be cut and carved into prayer-staves, devices which can channel the wishes and desires of others into the atmosphere and bend the magic there to an incredible diversity of effects. Prayer-staves are incorporated into every building, ship, or other construction that can afford them (which admittedly still is not too many, as wise-oaks are slow-growing and temperamental). Altering the weather, long-range divination, generating blasts of wind, hail, or lightning, limited forms of healing and other biomagic, the ability to bend or guide other forms of magic, and numerous more niche functions are all possible with prayer-staves, though more powerful and large-scale effects will generally more and stronger wishing than a single person can provide (though again, the Island Light may make you an exception in time). As an example of how prevalent prayer-staves are, the ship that sailed you to Andelin likely had prayer-staves lashed to its mast that the sailors would pray to for wind, and staves in its hull that they prayed to preserve it against wear and tear. You can likely purchase prayer-staves of many sorts in just any large city other than Zarnascus, but the further you are from Shrannabern in Elyirshin the more expensive it'll be. Traveling to Shrannabern itself from Andelin will take probably a month, as it's not easily accessible by boat, and will have some moderate chance of encountering brigands, maybe one in five, they're almost certainly unprepared for your friend, and possibly for yourself and any other dangerous traveling companions you may have. Actually purchasing prayer-staves is unlikely to take much time unless you commission a custom carving, in which case it might vary from later that same day to over a year depending on the scope of your ambition and the amount of research the prayer-carvers need to do in order to meet your design goals. Learning to be a prayer-carver yourself would likely be the project of half a year to get the basics, while learning to grow wind-oaks yourself would likely take a year, maybe two, and would require your friend to pull some strings and provide some financial lubrication.
[ ] Acquire a Warform - Warform, or simply the Form (fiktaskaf or Skavith), is a special sort of warrior-witchcraft that is endemic to Taryath Athuz. While many traditions south of the Shadowbacks have recipes for various sorts of combat drugs and skinchanging elixirs, none are as devoted to the concept and possess such a broad and deep grasp of martial shapeshifting as the form-warriors of Taryath Athuz. There are as many varieties of the warform supplement (skavvet) as there are mundane medicines, different recipes to provide precise control over the parameters and particulars of the warform, to prepare for all possible variations in available ingredients, to account for any deviations in the warrior's baseline physiology, and countless other circumstances. Every form-warrior's supplement is unique to them, and this applies especially to you given your status as a human and as such have a radically different anatomy from everyone on Togress other than your friend (who is not and cannot become a form-warrior due to the nature of his unique magic). You will need to invent all of your formulas essentially from scratch, though there will doubtlessly be many form-warriors and other witches who will happily offer advice or aid in the R&D process. It will take quite a lot of time, probably one to three years depending on how fervently you pursue your experimentation and training, but if you keep at it you will eventually be able to achieve just as puissant a warform form as any other novice form-warrior, and likely even more so. Given your human nature, your warform will likely possess weaker natural weapons and armor than a thuza's, but much greater endurance and the ability to more easily wield artificial weapons and armor. If you possess magical garments or prayer-staves, you can also develop your warform to incorporate them, which doesn't simply preserve their magic but actually enhances it, much as it enhances your innate physical abilities.
[ ] Hunt Monsters - There is a plague upon Taryath Athuz, a species of vile air or unclean spirit known as the Death-Thirsters (Lethranir). These spirits invade the bodies and minds of animals and folk alike and twist them into evil mockeries of life, desiring solely to kill and, ultimately, die, only to release the spirit back into the air with their dying breath, freeing it to afflict a new victim. These spirits are, broadly, indestructible, though your friend is fairly certain that his magic would prove to be an exception. Aside from him, though, the only reliable solution to an infestation of Death-Thirsters is to kill its current host, use a prayer-staff to prevent the disembodied spirit from escaping, and force the spirit to inhabit the body of a skilled and prepared form-warrior who has taken a supplement designed for this purpose, who will enter their warform and use its magic to imprison the Death-Thirster. Through a further supplemental regimen, the form-warrior will steadily pacify the spirit, allowing it to be safely released when the warrior dies, and providing a considerable enhancement of the warrior's warform in the meantime. Many of the oldest and most powerful form-warriors, including First Speaker Sharinsa, contain several bound spirits of this sort. Hunting monsters is dangerous but necessary work, and each Death-Thirster bound is potentially dozens of lives saved, but if the moral victory is insufficient reward, it also pays exceptionally well in both financial and social currency, and if you're a form-warrior of sufficient skill you might be chosen to imprison the spirit and benefit from its magic. Hunts vary wildly in length, depending on how crafty and subtle the Death-Thirster is, ranging from a single night for the most obvious monsters to potentially months of tracking and investigation for the stealthiest.
[ ] Travel to Zarnascus - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south down the eastern coast, then turning west and traveling up the Shechtorm river to Zarnascus will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as 12 nights or as many as 16 depending on how the weather turns. The Shechtorm and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Oskragd - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south down the eastern coast, then turning west and traveling up the Talea river to Oskragd will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as 10 nights depending on how well the weather behaves. The Talea and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight..
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south. down the eastern coast then around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, and finally north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take at least a month, and longer if the weather is uncooperative. Given the size of the fleet you'll be traveling with, there's essentially no chance you'll encounter trouble anywhere north of Eatrue, but the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets infested with pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
Sfinahuu, the City of Waterfalls, located on and around the delta of the great Ya'arnaafi river which pierces through the wide Nimbans desert, is without a doubt the largest and richest city on Togress, and even outshines the grandeur of the greatest cities of Earth. This wealth is sustained by the city's hegemony over the enormous entirety of the Ya'arnaafi river-basin, all the way up to the Ubna'arut mountains in the south, Nimshkaw hills in the northeast, and Yamna plateau to the northwest, a land as wide as Taryath Athuz and as deeply interconnected as Eatrue. As stated in the travel options leading to the city, its bureaucracy is a hopelessly tangled web of corruption and intrigue, dominated by its seven Lords of the Troubles (rebpahuu in the local Sfinawi dialect of the Arnuut language), ancient and powerful warrior-heros and the founders of the city, who control all travel up and down the seven waterfalls or 'troubles' for which they and the city are named, with Zirfeh Ghedjitafi foremost among them as lord of the highest trouble and quite possibly the single most powerful individual on Togress. Zirfeh is one of scant few fighters who your friend is confident would defeat him in single combat even if he fully unleashed his unique magic. Fortunately, while the Lords of the Troubles are a martial lot, this can help you and your friend as much as it harms, as proving your mettle can be a quick path to their good graces and thus a effective way to slash through the thickets of red tape and bureaucratic bullshit that will otherwise obstruct your travels in Sfinahuu and the rest of the Nimbans locked behind it. You can probably let your friend handle this, if you haven't developed much personal combat ability, as long as you're willing to be seen as something between a servant and a pet by most of the locals.
The people of Sfinahuu, and the Nimbans more broadly, are a diverse group, though maybe not quite to the same degree as the numerous clans of Taryath Athuz. In the Sfinawi language they are called pasitjim, the shining ones, but this a rare designation, since one's city of origin is often the more salient distinction. Lineally, they are distantly related to the smayvinn of Zarnascus and zhriya'ari of the Shadowbacks, sharing their smooth and blue-toned complexion, but are much taller on average, most being at least as tall as your friend if not taller, and their proportions are slender and gracile rather than stocky and robust like their northern relatives. Additionally, almost all pasitjim possess an innate magical ability, often called variations on 'the Heavens-Ingesting' (Pifuu'aym in Sfinawi Arnuut) which allows them to absorb magic from the atmosphere and through geomantic channels in process similar to the growth of shu'um in lifeless metal. The Heavens-Ingesting and the progressive metamorphosis it induces in the people who pursue it forms the basis of societal hierarchy. As more magic is absorbed, numerous and varied physical alterations can result, though the orthodox practice of the Heavens-Ingesting carries some strong trends as magic continues to accumulate, such as an alteration of the skin tone from azure to white and from white to silver, or the steady increase in physical size, might, prowess, and longevity. Zirfeh and the other Troublesome Lords are all incredibly advanced in the Heavens-Ingesting, far more so than even the most assiduous city-masters further inland, simply for being the oldest and having had the longest time to gather and consolidate power.
[ ] Court the Troubles - Some amount of interaction with officers and officials of Sfinahuu, and all the associated graft and time-wasting, will be unavoidable no matter what you plan on doing in Sfinahuu, but you could also choose to lean into it and see what sort of good can come of this travesty of a government. Your friend is quite well-positioned to take advantage of the situation, as both a seasoned politician and dangerous fighter, though his general preference for honesty and forthrightness presents a distinct disadvantage. Depending on what sort of preparations you've made before arriving in Sfinahuu you might be able to contribute to either the social or martial sides of the equation as well. Regardless, it'll probably take a month of ongoing paperwork and occasional duels to get access to most of the city (rather than just the areas open to foreign travelers) and passage into the Nimbans interior, and if you and your friend dedicate another year or two establishing yourselves, you could worm your way into the personal entourages of the more publicly-conscious Troublesome Lords, perhaps even gaining the favor of Zirfeh himself.
[ ] Attend an Opera - While there are many luxuries in Sfinahuu, in unmatched abundance, the most remarkable and unique are the Glass Operas. Glass Magic is an ancient art, and all but unheard of in the north, that possesses a staggering variety of effects and essentially limitless scaling, rising as far as the glass-mage's dexterity and skill at shaping the glass will allow, a scaling which naturally synergizes with the endless growth of the Heavens-Ingesting. At the apex of the art lies the Glass Opera, an orchestration of every facet of glass magic to produce a false reality to enrapture the viewer. While these false realities are not necessarily perfect, and certainly not inescapable, they do serve as an incredible medium to convey all sorts of experiences. Four of the seven Troublesome Lords spend almost all of their times ensconced in the deepest and most intricate Glass Operas, almost entirely disconnected from outside reality except for their obligations to the other three (and especially Zirfeh, who demands that all of seven of them dedicate at least a modicum of time to advancing with the Heavens-Ingesting so as to remain the undisputed sovereigns of the land). If you're able to enter into one of their courts, you might be able to partake of their grand operas, but even if you aren't, there are many lesser opera houses which, while still having utterly exorbitant ticket prices, are not so exclusive.
[ ] Obtain Spelled Glass - Glass Magic (Ghikumbaqruu in Sfinawi) is, unfortunately, utterly beyond your capacity to learn, at least anytime soon. The levels of skill and dexterity needed to create glass that is suitable for inspelling generally requires significant advancement in the Heavens-Ingesting to reach. Combining all your other options might allow you to bridge that gap, especially if you turned the Island Light to that purpose, but gaining the necessary skills would still require years or even decades of training and careful teaching, which none of the extremely secretive master glassmakers of Sfinahuu or the other major Nimbanshi cities would be willing to provide to a stranger, not without the direct order of Zirfeh or another Lord, and even then they would only give the absolute bare minimum, and take any opportunity to skimp on lessons, teach you wrongly, or simply expel you as soon as your patron's attention wandered. That doesn't mean that you can't buy some spelled glass, though! The Troublesome Lords have first pick from all the greatest glassworks of the Nimbans, and the lesser city-masters have the second, but once they've taken their piece, there are still numerous items available to the broader public for purchase. If you're looking for only the pettiest example of glass magic, such as the magically corrective lenses which your friend already wears, they might even be affordable (at least with the budget your friend is working with). The effects of spelled glass run the gamut from minor to miraculous, though spelled glass that doesn't require the user to possess even the rudiments of the Heavens-Ingesting are much more limited in scope, higher in cost, and harder to find. Depending on the parameters of what you look for, finding a suitable piece of spelled glass might be the work of hours (if you can find someone who's already selling something that satisfies you) or weeks (if you need to travel to a relevant glassworks and commission a glassmaker).
[ ] Visit Paraghtip - Far to the east, if one follows the northern branch of the Ya'arnaafi for about a month to the garden city of Qaghurdji, then takes a caravan over the desert roads to the south, after another two days of traveling, the glistening azure glass palace of Paraghtip will become visible on the horizon. The so-called House of Satisfaction is unique in the Nimbans, and on Togress as a whole, a marvel of glass magic constructed to contain the Pit of Chaos, a fire-belching abyss whose unnatural blue flames are refracted and reshaped through the hallways and vaults of Paraghtip, transmuted from infernal to exalted. This transmutation is one of the ways in which Paraghtip 'satisfies', satisfying its creators desire to tame and harness the power of Chaos. What exactly Paraghtip turns that power towards, aside from perpetuating itself, is unclear, but at least a part of its function is to sustain a powerful glass magic effect inside its walls, creating a persistent dreamlike atmosphere and allowing for people inside to divest themselves of not only physical possessions but also spiritual ones. The oldest and still most common purpose of visiting Paraghtip is to shed one's curses and banish them into the Pit of Chaos. The gambling den which has grown to inhabit the chambers of Paraghtip exists to exploit the often desperate or foolish people who bear those curses, and the people who travel with them, to garner physical and spiritual rewards for the 'caretakers' of the palace, who in turn pay fealty to the city-master of Qaghurdji and to the Troublesome Lords. In this way, it also satisfies Chaos, transforming Chaos into Order and Order into Chaos. While you're here, you can freely remove any supernaturally maladies or afflictions you've picked up, such as witch-poison, Death-Thirster spirit, or a curse laid on you in the Night Realm, in a ritual that produces a brief feeling of vertigo, similar to what you experienced when you were first summoned to Togress. Your friend isn't going to wager any of his own money on games, and will caution you to do the same, but he won't stop you from playing with your own wealth, physical or spiritual, as long as it doesn't look like you're about to beggar or destroy yourself.
[ ] Greet the Suns - If you travel following the southern branch of the Ya'arnaafi, up into the Ubma'arut mountains and even further, to the all-surpassing peak of Djuuhasbadji, you will find the clearest skies on Togress. It's a bit hard to breathe, with how thin and cold the air is. The journey will likely take months, maybe a year, depending on how long it takes to find guides who will bring you safely to the peak and make all the other necessary preparations. Here, on the roof of the world, an oddity will become more clearly visible. Though there are two Suns in the sky, only one sheds light that you can see with your eyes. The other sheds the mysterious Island Light which nourishes your friend's unique personal magic, and which is now growing your own. Now that the Ghost Sun is known to, your own eerie-sense will naturally begin to expand, steadily alloying with your sight and other senses, enhancing them and greatly improving your talent for magic and your ability to consciously sculpt how your own personal magic evolves and expands. Additionally, as your group travels to the peak, you will have the opportunity to enter the abode of the Blue Dragon, the one who the Nimbanshi call Aafi and the namesake of the great river. Aside from being a generally excellent conversationalist, Aafi can also give an otherwise inaccessible view into the deep history of Togress, revealing things even your friend doesn't already know, such as information regarding the now-extinct dragon civilization, their war with the predecessors of the modern Nimbanshi states, the conjuring of the Outsider Beast from the Pit of Chaos, who ended that war and was the progenitor of the cussich, ruddock, melog, and thuza peoples. Aafi can even translate the mysterious scroll which your friend looted from his first Black Gate excursion, though it unfortunately doesn't contain any great revelations, being a manual for an advanced magical technique for a draconic magical tradition and which is utterly untransferable to non-draconic existence.
[There should be travel options out of Sfinahuu and to Zarnascus, Oskragd, and Andelin, but I forgot to write them and am too lazy to do so now. It's cheaper to leave Sfinahuu, but only once you've established yourself in the troublesome courts.)
The Invitation
A few years ago (or maybe more like a decade and change now?), when you were still just a young teen, you had a friend, or at least an acquaintance. He was a wallflower, or really a recluse, but you still talked with him occasionally, and when there were group projects in school you usually ended up with him when you were in the same class. He was so sad so often, the kind of sad that could suck all the air out of the room sometimes, but when you were feeling down yourself he was always there for you. When he did manage a smile, it felt like seeing the sun again after a long and cold night. He was a creative type, too, or at least you got the feeling he was. You saw him writing or sketching things in various notebooks often enough. You never learned much about what he made.
Eventually, though, he went missing. He didn't leave a note, didn't take anything with him, but there wasn't any sign of a struggle either. Everybody thought he must have gone off and killed himself. The police never found out what actually happened, but it's not hard to imagine they just didn't try. You were beat up about it, for a while, but his disappearance didn't make your own problems go away. They never found a body, so you always hoped he just ran away, maybe to a better life. You never forgot about him, but in time he faded into the background. Life went on.
As you were checking your mail earlier today, you found a crisp black envelope with neither your nor a return address on it. That on its own is kind of weird, but what you found inside was considerably weirder. Written with shiny gold ink on more black paper was a letter, addressed to you personally, and signed in fancy cursive with your old friend's name.
My best friend,
First, let me apologize for any distress my disappearance caused you all those years ago. If I had any warning that I'd be kidnapped into a portal fantasy, you would have been the first person I told. I've been very busy since then, but things are peaceful enough nowadays and the stars have aligned such that I'm able to send you this letter, and what's more, through it I can even bring you here to this lonely island of Togress. There's really so much to show you, I couldn't hope to fit it all in one measly missive. Suffice to say, magic is very real. I've had quite the adventure, having narrowly avoided becoming the dark lord of Togress, instigated a political and industrial revolution, and made more friends than I probably ever would have back home. I look forward to discussing it all in much more detail with you, whether in person or in future letters.
Now, about coming to Togress: first, you should gather your things. The summoning can only bring so much, so I wouldn't pack more than a good-sized suitcase. I'll provide your room and board once you're here but you should probably pack at least a week's worth of clothes, including some good cold-weather clothes, your toiletries, maybe some food you'll miss otherwise, plus any electronics you want to bring. You should bring some books or games too, the internet isn't really a thing on Togress yet, and even if it were I haven't figured out how to connect to Earth's from here, hence why I'm sending you a letter rather than emailing you like a normal person. You should also leave a note or tell people you'll be gone, of course, don't want people to get worried. You should be able to bring a plus one if you want, or maybe two if they're both very small, like little kids, but don't push it, the summoning is very sensitive to how many souls are in transit.
Once you're all packed up and have whoever you're taking with you on hand, hold this letter and light it on fire. If it burns blue, everything is working and if you let it burn up completely without letting go it'll take you and whatever you're holding or wearing to Togress. If it burns a normal color, put it out before it burns too much and wait, I'll be sending another letter as soon as I can if the summoning doesn't return anything and we can figure out what went wrong from there.
Also, don't worry if you don't want to come. I've got the whole set-up I'm using to send this letter ready to send you back to Earth when you're done here, so you won't be stuck here or anything, but I understand visiting another world might be a big leap of faith to take anyway, especially since you've always had more things tying you down than I did. If you don't want to come, or can't find the time away from your obligations, write a response on the backside of this letter and burn it without holding onto it and I'll get your reply. I'll keep sending letters, and once I figure some things out and know that stuff won't fall apart while I'm gone I'll try and come back to Earth myself so we can have a proper reunion.
Your friend, always.
After a lot of consideration, and maybe a few more rounds of letters with your friend over the following weeks and months, you eventually decide to... (Feel free to stop here, or at any time during the CYOA, and ask me questions. I'll answer them to the best of my limited ability and effort.)
[ ] Accept the invitation.
[ ] Reject the invitation. (Do not continue playing.)
⁂
After working through the beginner language-learning material your friend sends you, enough that you feel ready for basic communication at least, you gather up all your people and things, set your affairs in order, and perform the letter-burning ritual. The paper burns blue, and after a long moment the flames reach your fingers. It doesn't hurt, it's not even really hot, there's just a gentle warmth that washes over your body and a brief sense of vertigo. Then you are somewhere else.
You've only just processed that you're now standing on a circular dais under the open sky when you're all but tackled off your feet and lifted up into a hug by a giant of a man. "It's so good to see you again!" he exclaims, and while his voice is deeper than you remember and filled with an unfamiliar joy, you instantly recognize it as your friend's.
"My god, you're huge! What have they been feeding you?" you ask as you wrap your arms around him, only half joking. When you were teens, he was a bit chubby and only average height, while now he must be at least seven feet tall and is covered in muscle. He's undergone quite the transformation.
He sets you down and gives you a bashful smile. "Well, I've changed my diet and exercise quite a bit, but that's only part of it. I really have so much to explain, but first let's get you settled."
The whirlwind of activity that follows is as exhilarating as it is exhausting. You encounter lots of people as your friend leads you through his mansion, but none of them are exactly human. There are two broad categories: people with snouted faces, long and expressive ears, a digitigrade stance, usually with black or brown fur but sometimes just a mane of blond or red hair, most with a pair of horns but some not, and who vary significantly in size; and smaller folk with smooth and shiny black or navy blue skin, stocky builds, short and wiry white or silver hair when they aren't entirely hairless, and thudding footsteps that betray a great weight despite their smaller size. Your friend describes the former group as a mixture of local 'cussidda' and 'ruddocks' from the neighboring region of Eatrue, with a few 'melgod' and 'thuzar' from further afield, while the latter are indigenous 'smayvinn'.
You can recognize some of what the people you pass by are saying, from the Cusidun lessons that your friend gave you during your pre-summoning correspondence, though only snippets. Cusidun has been much harder to pick up than Etruish, though only because the latter is close enough to your native tongue that you almost don't need to translate, aside from all the loanwords from other Togressan languages.
Your first day in Togress is spent mostly just situating yourself. You and whoever you brought find your rooms and familiarize yourself with the mansion's layout and staff (many of whom thankfully speak Etruish or even your own language, albeit with a distinct accent), which takes until evening with how big the estate is. As the twin suns set (you are still getting used to there being two, though collectively they aren't any brighter than Earth's one), everyone all has dinner together at the longtable and your friend begins to tell you all about Togress and what he's been up to since he disappeared.
You learn a lot that evening, and even more over the following days, and eventually a plan begins to form in your mind.
Before you actually go anywhere, though, there's the matter of Island Light, as your friend calls it. While it shouldn't become relevant soon, if you plan on staying on Togress for at least a year you should know what to expect. After that first year, you will begin to experience spontaneous magic, the character of which will be determined by your immediate surroundings, the physical and spiritual environments you have spent the most time in while on Togress, your own temperament and emotions, and your skills and knowledge (especially skills and knowledge gained on Togress, and doubly so for magical skills or knowledge). These magical phenomena will initially be subtle and unconscious, prone to stopping as soon as you take notice of them. Over time, the magnitude of this magic will increase, and if this increase ever stops or slows down, your friend hasn't found the point at which it does even in all his years here.
As your magic grows, so will your awareness of it, expanding your 'eerie-sense', the natural ability to perceive magic that arriving in Togress has instilled in you. This will give you a sense for when this phenomena is about to happen, and with practice will allow you to stop or direct it. With more time and more training, you will achieve greater control, as well as the ability to summon up the magic rather than waiting for it to come on its own. Your power, stamina, and control for magic will all continue to increase once you establish them, faster if you train but even if you don't. The nature of your magic will also continue to evolve, incorporating any new abilities or attributes you develop and expanding into new and different applications as it does.
When (and if) you return to Earth, almost none of your magic will survive. The Island Light and any magic it has sparked in you will be the only exception. Aside from that, anything which couldn't be sustained entirely by mundane physics will dissolve into base matter and energy, potentially quite explosively. It's possible to guide the Island Light's magic specifically to encompass and support other magics you have, which is part of how your friend was able to send the letter that brought you here. It took him years to develop that, including all the research and experiments it took to figure out how the Island Light works in general, but with his help you should be able to replicate it much more quickly.
⁂
There are four main transinsular hubs of travel, which will be necessary stops in your travels regardless of wherever your exact destinations may be. Take as many options at each one as you like, for as long as you like. You can take options more than once, you can travel back and forth between locations, and your friend is bankrolling your activities so unless an option explicitly mentions costs, you don't need to worry about paying for things. The only thing really limiting your schedule here is how much time and toil you're willing to put in.
Zarnascus
The nearest is the mountainous city-state of Zarnascus, nestled atop and around the volcano Dhoumblot at the heart of the island. You can actually see the glow of the city along the mountain slopes at night from your friend's manse. As you've already seen, it's primary populated by the local cussidda, who might be likened to horned wolf-people, though the direct translation of 'wolf-man' is both a slur and euphemism for rapist, so don't go calling anyone that unless you're spoiling for a fight. There's also a large minority of smayvinn people, blue-black fantasy dwarves to characterize them with equal indignity, who have historically had a somewhat tense relationship with the cussidda, though that's improved considerably in recent years, in no small part thanks to the political and economic revolutions that your friend has helped spark. Zarnascus is also the most thoroughly electrified city on Togress, the epicenter of technological progress in most fields, and one of the only places where you'll be able to find something similar to modern comforts without breaking the bank.[ ] Return to Earth - The most important feature of Zarnascus, for you at least, are the ritual grounds that your friend has constructed on his estate. These are, at the moment at least, the only such construction in the world that are sufficient to contact Earth. If you ever wish to return home, this will be how you do so. Remember, every minute you spend on Togress is a minute you're not on Earth. Things will keep happening while you're gone, and even if you can prove that you have the chance of a lifetime, your family or your friends or your boss (or your boss's boss) might not appreciate you disappearing for weeks, months, or even years, no matter how much warning you give. The ritual itself also takes about a day of continuous work, though you don't need to be personally present for anything but the final sending, so make sure you remember that when scheduling things. (Do not continue playing.)
[ ] Enjoy Modernity - Immediately following your arrival on Togress, you probably won't be missing the comforts of modern living too much, but after a few months or years of living in a world that is still mostly without electricity (as hard as your friend is trying to change that, among many other issues) that may well change, in which case spending some time just resting and recuperating in Zarnascus may help you out. There isn't an internet, or television, but there are radios and movies (though locally they're called 'picture operas', since they're apparently inspired by and modeled after the magical operas shown in 'glass theaters' far to the southwest), there's electric lighting and heating, there's air conditioning and refrigeration. Plus, especially under the considerable cultural influence of your friend, there's some not-inconsiderable cultural familiarity. Nobody's sending other people memes on the non-existent internet, but it's egalitarian and liberal in a way that other places on Togress mostly aren't (yet, at least).
[ ] Explore the Undercity - Zarnascus is an old city, an ancient city. It's been continuously inhabited for centuries, maybe even millennia, and like any city of similar age, its roots go deep, the deepest tunnels sweltering with the heat of Dhoumblot's molten blood coursing through the earth only meters behind the tunnel walls. Shallow delves are a common pastime among the more adventurous sort in the city, drawing tourists even from distant Taryath Athuz and Sfinahuu. Anything found down in the undercity belongs to the government, and the shallows are picked clean anyway, but if you brave the deeper depths and risk encountering the feral machines that have grown beyond their finite purpose in the heat and the dark, the city will pay you a pretty penny for anything you bring back to the surface, and if you make a strong enough case they might even let you keep what you find..
[ ] Educate Yourself - There are several quality universities and trade schools in Zarnascus that would be honored to teach you.
-[ ] Mundane Topics - Any of the sundry fields of study you might encounter on Earth. The state of the art in Zarnascus is ahead of just about everywhere else on Togress, but it's still a bit behind Earth even with your friend's help. Still, this is an opportunity for a high-quality education, and maybe to get a degree if you want to.
-[ ] Magical Theory - Togress has undergone something of a scientific renaissance recently, along with all the other sorts of revolution that have been going on, and magic hasn't escaped the people's new eye for scrutiny. While Magical Theory is still in its infancy, it's a subject of great interest to both the local Zarnascusan government and the Parliament Congress and thus is flush with funding, so beyond just taking classes there are also plentiful opportunities to participate in experiments and go on folkloric surveys.
-[ ] Ironcraft - Also called zarnazant in Cusidun, or farzilson'a in the A'um-zmi language, is the traditional magic of the smayvinn. Your friend is also personal friends with a master ironcrafter, a wizened old smayvinni named Sadjayul who has mostly retired from the industry to focus on teaching the next generation, and who will make for an excellent tutor. All metals naturally grow in shu'um, nobility and might, by absorbing magical power through geomantic vortices, and chief among the metals stands iron, which, though slow to grow, can reach the greatest heights of shu'um. The lands of Zarnascus are not only rich in iron and other metals, but possess the most densely and intricately woven geomancies of the entire island, and have had such since time immemorial, vastly enriching the land's mineral wealth at the expense of rendering it otherwise magicless. A single twelve-week semester of tutoring is enough to instill the skill of appraisal, honing your innate eerie-sense to let you detect high-shu'um metals and intuit the shape of their magic, but it will take at least a year of dedicated training to develop the strength needed to break the weakest metal's spirit and bend its magic to your will.
[ ] Commission an Ironcraft - Sadjayul is mostly retired, but not completely. He has many junior ironcrafters to help him run the forges but nothing short of death can truly strip an ironcrafter of their hammer for good, and whatever relationship he has with your friend affords you a special consideration, if you want it. Sadjayul is one of the premier ironcrafters in all of Togress, a veritable master of the art though old age has robbed him of some of his strength. Nonetheless, it would require facing great adversity to acquire a magical item of greater quality and power than what Sadjayul could create, given time to gather the appropriate material and beat them into submission. Give the old man a king's ransom and a year to spend it and he'll be able to furnish you with something of truly heroic worth, or even more if you can gather some priceless materials yourself that he would otherwise be unable to acquire. Anything of primarily metallic make could be commissioned, Sadjayul's workshop is equipped with the state of the art when it comes to fabrication equipment and employs more than one machinist to operate it, but the simpler the design and the more room for artistic expression the more efficiently he will be able to transform time and effort into magical power.
[ ] Travel to Oskragd - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast then sailing north and then back up the Talea to Castle Oskragd will take about a week. This is a well-sailed route, and well-patrolled, so there's no chance of encountering bandits or pirates along the way unless you actively go looking for them.
[ ] Travel to Andelin - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast, then sailing north around the island until you find port in Rogyavint Bay will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as twelve nights or as many as sixteen depending on how the weather turns. The Shechtorm and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Traveling down the Shechtorm river to the eastern coast, then south around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, then north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take about three weeks, maybe four if the weather is uncooperative. While the Shechtorm river is well-patrolled and benefits from Zarnascus's relatively uncorrupt legal system, the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets occupied by pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
Oskragd
Not too far to the east of Zarnascus, across the hills separating the Shechtorm and Talea river-basins, lies the fortress-city of Oskragd, the present seat of the Parliament Congress and economic center of Eatrue, the breadbasket of northeastern Togress. Eatrue as a whole was unified fairly recently, only about sixty years ago, and just a few years ago the Eatruish Federation accepted both Zarnascus and the even-more-recently unified Taryath Athuz into their Parliament Congress, ushering i an unprecedented era of unity to this corner of the island, and creating a nation that, while still uncertain, at least has the potential to rival the richest Nimbanshi kingdoms, even Sfinahuu, in time.Oskragd itself, like many cities in Eatrue, has many rings, as its population grew beyond its walls, only to build new ones and then to outgrow them again. The oldest parts of the innermost keep are a little over three hundred years old, one of the oldest still-standing fortifications in the Talea river-basin. Unlike in Zarnascus, the geomancy of Eatrue isn't conducive to ennobling its earth, but this does leave the atmosphere itself far more saturated with magic, leading to a much greater variety of magical flora (and to a lesser degree fauna), many of which have a wide variety of domesticated strains. This bountiful abundance characterizes Eatrue's many traditions of witchcraft and herbalism, as well as fuels its magical textiles industry, which is the largest and most advanced on Togress.
Demographically, Eatrue is predominantly populated with various clans and tribes of ruddocks, who have a similar general shape to the cussich people of Zarnascus but almost always lack horns and fur, except for the clans directly abutting the Sheckmord hills in the west and south. Ruddock hair is also much more often red or blond rather than brown or black. Ruddocks are also often shorter than cussidda, especially along the eastern coast where there's consistent intermarriage between local clans and the diminutive melgod maritime nomads. There's a small contingent of northern thuzar sailors in most coastal cities at any given time as well, and there's a single pasitji ambassador from Sfinahuu, an alabaster giant of a man, currently staying in a rented manse next to the congress building who is surprisingly pleasant but extremely overworked.
[ ] Attend the Congress - Despite having declined election to the Parliament Congress on multiple occasions over the years, your friend still holds considerable sway therein, especially through Hampfris, the representative of the Zarnascus gravate. She is an elder stateswoman and a close ally of your friend's, having helped him implement his numerous ambitions and served in many ways as a mentor and perhaps even mother figure to him since his displacement to Togress all those years ago. Regardless, through these contacts, you will find a spectator's chair reserved for you in the Congress's public chamber, letting you witness the goings-on at your leisure and one of the earliest opportunities to speak to Congress during forum sessions. The Parliament Congress is bicameral, composed of the popular and gravate houses. The popular house is elected through a proportional representation vote that extends across the entire congressional federation (at least to the degree that vote-takers are able to travel, which may fall short of the ideal especially with the addition of Taryath Athuz to the federation). The gravate house is seated by representatives from each federal gravate (a nebulous concept of 'federation member polity', comparable to states or provinces but without any principled basis beyond historical circumstance), with voting power in proportion to their gravate's estimated population and appointed by the government of their gravate in accordance with their local laws and customs. Given that your forum chair is reserved by a gravate rep, you'll only be guaranteed a spot in the weekly gravate fora, but you'll be well-positioned to request speaking time at the popular fora as well, if you're willing to wait through the potentially months-long queue.
[ ] Suit Yourself - While Zarnascus is certainly the best place for traditional arms and armor, and even for more modern bespoke tools of war like firearms, ironcraft is not well-suited to industrialization due to the intimate relationship between the ironcrafter and their metal, something which soulless machines cannot reproduce (yet!), and thus the mundane and magical markets remain largely separate. The nature of spinwork, however, is much more amenable to automation. With fibers from the same source, spun in the same way, and braided or woven with the same pattern, the resulting rope or cloth will carry the same magic, every time. This replicability, combined with the still-burgeoning industrialization of Eatrue, has created an incredible surplus of high-quality magical textiles. This has in turn had numerous secondary and tertiary impacts that extend to essentially every facet of life in Eatrue and its surrounding territories. Your friend already has a sizable collection of such items himself, and has shared what he can of them with you so far, but for magical clothing in particular, a level of personal tailoring is not only eminently practical but often necessary for their proper functioning. All sorts of potential magical garments exist, ranging from armor-clothes that can shield you from harm (not as well as a masterwork of ironcraft, but for a small fraction of the cost and greater comfort and style) to night-cloaks that blend with shadows, from fencer's gloves that fill your limbs with instinctual swordplay to ettin-shirts that grant you enormous strength, endurance, and appetite. More garments, and more powerful garments, will tend to be more expensive, and a truly epic ensemble might drain even your friend's pockets, but unless you're designing whole new magical weaves from scratch it shouldn't take more than a week of requisitions and fittings before you've got your complete suit.
[ ] Wander Eatrue - Zarnascus's undercity is ancient, and quite large for what it is, but it's still just the underground of a single city. Eatrue is an entire country, with cities and villages, farmland and wilderness of all kinds. The riverboat services of the region are excellent and fast, so it would take scarcely a week to go all the way from one side of the country to the other, and you would be traveling in comfort as you do (perhaps even close to that of Zarnascus, since the riverboats have been quick modernize in their competitive market). Depending on where you go, you could participate in local celebrations and contests,hike through the hills and valleys, go hunting or fishing for magical beasts, or collect the bounty on some slaver outlaws, just to name a few.
[ ] Study Witchcraft - Unlike spinwork, witchcraft (or folk medicine, as the Zarnascusan academics tend to call it) has not caught the rising tide of industrialization, suffering from a similar issue as ironcraft, though not an identical one. While the magic of flora and fauna is not as adamant as the magic of metal and could, in theory, be brewed by a machine, the soul of the witch serves as a critical organizing principle for the magic of their potions. This process of influencing the magic of the brew through more than just observable factors like recipes and procedures is difficult to decipher. Witchcraft traditions have long and complicated histories as a rule, and it is a tedious and expansive project to untangle what things are critical to the brew's magic and what things are not. There's great interest in pursuing this research, but for now, if you want to learn how to brew potions, you'll need to find a witch who's willing to take you on. Your friend knows of a few, and while it's unlikely any of them are looking for a student and would accept you if they were, at least some of them will be willing to help you find someone else to teach you. It'll probably be the work of a month or two to find a teacher unless you're a remarkably suitable witch-in-training, and at least another year after that before you're equipped to brew basic potions (as well as performing all the other duties of a novice witch, like diagnosing injuries and illnesses, identifying useful plants and animals in the wild, gathering and preparing potion ingredients, providing advice on matters of health, gardening, and romance, and sundry other mundane tasks).
[ ] Get Your Sea Legs - The boat-rides up and down the various rivers of Eatrue, and to a lesser extent over the river Shechtorm, have all been comfortable and steady. If you plan on traveling to Andelin in the north or Sfinahuu to the southwest, though, you'll be traveling across the ocean for at least a week, maybe more, during which you will have many fewer luxuries and significantly rougher sailing. It may be better to get your sea legs now, and you can always get some training in various sailor-skills at the same time, which may come in handy on a long voyage. You'll have basic seaman competencies like swearing, knot-tying, rope-climbing, sleeping in hard conditions, familiarity with the cangomprom (the quiet and not-quite-secret language which the melgod sailors employ when speaking amongst themselves), and similar skills after about a month of keeping up with your practice.
[ ] Crash a Black Gate - Scattered across Eatrue stand four enormous Black Gates. Each one is a monolith of night-black basalt, solid stone doorways jutting out of the landscape and over fifty meters into the sky. They aren't necessarily the tallest structures around, especially with recent improvements in construction techniques and materials, but they are still notable for being utterly ancient and completely indestructible, having stood unchanged and unopening since time immemorial, local oral histories often claiming that they existed even before the rest of the world, the lands of Eatrue and Togress as whole coalescing around these four immutable doorways. Or at least, they were immutable until your friend came along. A couple years after he first arrived in Togress, after he'd started to grow into his magical powers (which he promises he will explain to you soon), he visited one of the Black Gates on a hunch and used his powers on it. He was able to open it, which was the first time anyone could remember that happening, but that wasn't all. He kept experimenting with it, and when he opened it during the sunset, rather than revealing the other side of the gate, it opened into an inky blackness which promptly sucked him in. On the other side was a lightless place, full of monsters far stronger and more magical than any he'd faced in the daylit world, occupying a labyrinth of shifting corridors and chambers that seemed almost as alive as the monsters. After fighting for his life for several hours, he eventually found a chamber full to brimming with treasures, so powerfully magical that he could feel it radiating off of them even with the poor quality of his eerie-sense. He'd found the Night Realm (as he has since dubbed it) to be as full of traps as it was of monsters, so he took a long while to check as well as he was able given the circumstances. He did eventually touch one though, a papyrus that he has safely squirreled away in his manor even now. As soon as he made contact with it, the room was flooded with light from behind him, and he was sucked back out into the daylit world, and the scroll with him. Later, after finding the scroll untranslatable but imbued with a preservative enchantment that surpassed all others, beyond even the theoretical limits of the time, he realized how much of an opportunity the gates presented. It was another few years full of preparations later, but he eventually gathered a group of fellow powerful and dangerous individuals cleared through all the other gates, and discovered that he could open each one to the Night Realm once, after which opening it again would simply lead to the normal other side of the gate. His magic has grown even more since then, and he's done a great deal of research on the Black Gates with Zarnascusan magical theorists and knowledgeable Nimbanshi scholars, and he's fairly confident that with your arrival, the Night Realms will be reachable again. Your friend doesn't want to go immediately, certainly not before he's explained the Island Light to you and preferably not before you've seen what it sparks in you, if anything, but in the future, he'd like to take you to the Night Realm with some of those same compatriots and see what sort of treasure you can pull back with you.
[ ] Travel to Zarnascus - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast then sailing south and then back up the Shechtorm to Zarnascus will take about a week. This is a well-sailed route, and well-patrolled, so there's no chance of encountering bandits or pirates along the way unless you actively go looking for them.
[ ] Travel to Andelin - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast, then sailing north around the island until you find port in Rogyavint Bay will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as ten nights depending on how well the weather behaves. The Talea and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Traveling down the Talea river to the eastern coast, then sailing south around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, and then north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take about three weeks, maybe four if the weather is uncooperative. While the Talea river is well-patrolled and benefits from Eatrue's relatively uncorrupt legal system, the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets infested with pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
Andelin
In the north of Togress, on the far side of the tall Shadowback mountains, lie the snowy and darkly forested lands of the thuzar folk, or Taryath Athuz in the local dialect of Athuzhuin in Andelin, the wide-ranging language family of the region. Historically a quilt of alternatingly allied and enemied clans, Taryath Athuz was united into a single tribal federation just a couple years ago by a charismatic warrior-woman and another close contact of your friend, one Sharinsa of Erinshin. Sharinsa currently sits as First Speaker at the Thuzathing, a meeting place for clan heads and other powerful people from across Taryath Athuz and which Sharinsa has co-opted into something like a government. Andelin, the traditional home of the Thuzathing and de facto capital of Taryath Athuz, is also the largest and broadly wealthiest city in the country, the shores of the uncommonly peaceful Rogyavint Bay serving as the closest proper port to Eatrue and thus the path through which economic prosperity flows as it travels from Eatrue to the rest of Taryath Athuz.As befits its massive territory, the people of Taryath Athuz are widely varied, but there are nonetheless some trends. There are scattered enclaves of zhriya'ari, cousins to the smayvinn of Zarnascus, who make their homes in small geomantic vortices found in the Shadowbacks, magicless zones plentiful in high-shu'um ores similar to the environs of Mount Dhoumblot. These mountainfolk only make up a tiny fraction of the overall population of Taryath Athuz however, the vast majority of which is the same broad sort of beast-people as the cussich Zarnascusans, ruddock Etruans, and melgod seafarers. Thuzar skew significantly taller and wider than cussidda, let alone the smaller ruddocks or minute melgod, with the largest being similar to or even larger than your friend's great size, built more like bears than wolves. They almost always have fur, often grey or black in color, and horns, though it's common to see trimmed or cut horns among thuzar city-folk.
[ ] Entertain the First Speaker - As befits a stateswoman of her caliber, Sharinsa is a charismatic and sociable person, accustomed and experienced with living the life of a celebrity and spending almost all of her time in the public eye. This makes finding her quite easy, but actually entering her social circle presents its own challenges and obstacles. She and your friend are still in regular communication, and may even be something of an item? That could just be unfounded tabloid rumors though, or else it is one-sided given that your friend refutes any such implication on his part. Regardless, your friend can give you the pretext of meeting with Sharinsa, or even facilitate a conversation if you give him a week to set things up, but it's up to you to provoke her interest. She's an incredibly skilled fighter and user of the Warform magic of Taryath Athuz, as well as a consummate politician, and if presented with projects in either of these fields she may be enticed to offer advice or even her direct participation, and if you show promise she might even be convinced to serve as a tutor, in which you will struggle to find a better teacher. Just make sure you don't do anything you would hate to see on the front page of the city newspaper.
[ ] Play Ball - Ballsport, or blaya in the Andlinisk dialect, is one of if not the most common pastime in Taryath Athuz, especially in the last decade as other, more bloody sports have shrunk in popularity thanks to growing prosperity and the influence of modern Etruish and Zarnascusan culture. Coming from a wide family of ball games, as varied as the many clans of Taryath Athuz, modern Ballsport possesses a unified federal association, the executive board of which is actually a significant political party at the Thuzathing, such is the power of this cultural institution. The game itself is something like rugby or gridiron football, two teams vying for control of a ball on a long field, attempting to bring the ball across a goal threshold at the end of the opponent's side of the field, often with some amount of violence employed to reach it. Weapons, armor, and tools aside from the ball itself are not allowed, though there are two separate leagues, the 'lesser league' in which warforms and other witchcraft are forbidden, and a 'greater league' in which they are accepted as part of the game, the latter league being significantly more popular and receiving the lion's share of the association's funding. Getting into the lesser league (or the greater, if you possess a warform) at a low level is easy, there are droves of local teams that are always looking for talent at the beginning of each season, but rising above the regional circuits will require exceptional skill both on your part and from your teammates, as well as excellent teamwork to bring those skill-sets together. With your friend's backing, you can also engage with the association at the level of a sponsor, getting a word in on matters of administration and general procedures, though that will require a significant investment into the association's coffers.
[ ] Learn to Fight - While blood sport is on the decline in Taryath Athuz, it isn't completely gone, and is unlikely to ever disappear completely. Professional dueling of many sorts still has a significant presence throughout the country, with even underground fighting rings in Andelin (where it is illegal at the municipal level). Looking beyond sports, violence is in general much more common in Taryath Athuz, with rampant banditry and internecine conflicts contradicting the image of unification commonly presented in Andelin or by the thuza representative at the Parliament Congress. There are an abundance of reasons why one might encounter violence in the northern countryside, and an equal abundance of ways to prepare. While the ironcrafts of Taryath Athuz are lesser than those of Zarnascus, the wielders of those weapons are often of a far higher quality, battle-tested and fire-hardened. You can always hire guards, if your friend's own considerable fighting skill proves insufficient or unavailable, but you can also easily find many teachers willing to impart the many traditional martial arts of their clans onto aspiring warriors. Starting at your age may not strictly be ideal, but you will prove to be an at least acceptable, if not outright exceptional student regardless, thanks in part to the same mysterious phenomenon which birthed your friend's unique magic, what he calls the Island Light..
[ ] Consider Prayer - Oakprayer, or igben in Andlinisk, is a unique form of magic native to the forests of Taryath Athuz, and in particular to Elyirshin, a valley far to the west where the oldest wind-oak groves lie. Though wind-oaks are now coppiced all across Taryath Athuz, and even more recently in the northernmost climes of Eatrue, Elyirshin remains the center of the wind-oak and broader oakprayer industries. The wind-oaks possess powerful magic properties, not found in any other species, which make them unsuitable for witchcraft or medicine but do allow for the wood to be cut and carved into prayer-staves, devices which can channel the wishes and desires of others into the atmosphere and bend the magic there to an incredible diversity of effects. Prayer-staves are incorporated into every building, ship, or other construction that can afford them (which admittedly still is not too many, as wise-oaks are slow-growing and temperamental). Altering the weather, long-range divination, generating blasts of wind, hail, or lightning, limited forms of healing and other biomagic, the ability to bend or guide other forms of magic, and numerous more niche functions are all possible with prayer-staves, though more powerful and large-scale effects will generally more and stronger wishing than a single person can provide (though again, the Island Light may make you an exception in time). As an example of how prevalent prayer-staves are, the ship that sailed you to Andelin likely had prayer-staves lashed to its mast that the sailors would pray to for wind, and staves in its hull that they prayed to preserve it against wear and tear. You can likely purchase prayer-staves of many sorts in just any large city other than Zarnascus, but the further you are from Shrannabern in Elyirshin the more expensive it'll be. Traveling to Shrannabern itself from Andelin will take probably a month, as it's not easily accessible by boat, and will have some moderate chance of encountering brigands, maybe one in five, they're almost certainly unprepared for your friend, and possibly for yourself and any other dangerous traveling companions you may have. Actually purchasing prayer-staves is unlikely to take much time unless you commission a custom carving, in which case it might vary from later that same day to over a year depending on the scope of your ambition and the amount of research the prayer-carvers need to do in order to meet your design goals. Learning to be a prayer-carver yourself would likely be the project of half a year to get the basics, while learning to grow wind-oaks yourself would likely take a year, maybe two, and would require your friend to pull some strings and provide some financial lubrication.
[ ] Acquire a Warform - Warform, or simply the Form (fiktaskaf or Skavith), is a special sort of warrior-witchcraft that is endemic to Taryath Athuz. While many traditions south of the Shadowbacks have recipes for various sorts of combat drugs and skinchanging elixirs, none are as devoted to the concept and possess such a broad and deep grasp of martial shapeshifting as the form-warriors of Taryath Athuz. There are as many varieties of the warform supplement (skavvet) as there are mundane medicines, different recipes to provide precise control over the parameters and particulars of the warform, to prepare for all possible variations in available ingredients, to account for any deviations in the warrior's baseline physiology, and countless other circumstances. Every form-warrior's supplement is unique to them, and this applies especially to you given your status as a human and as such have a radically different anatomy from everyone on Togress other than your friend (who is not and cannot become a form-warrior due to the nature of his unique magic). You will need to invent all of your formulas essentially from scratch, though there will doubtlessly be many form-warriors and other witches who will happily offer advice or aid in the R&D process. It will take quite a lot of time, probably one to three years depending on how fervently you pursue your experimentation and training, but if you keep at it you will eventually be able to achieve just as puissant a warform form as any other novice form-warrior, and likely even more so. Given your human nature, your warform will likely possess weaker natural weapons and armor than a thuza's, but much greater endurance and the ability to more easily wield artificial weapons and armor. If you possess magical garments or prayer-staves, you can also develop your warform to incorporate them, which doesn't simply preserve their magic but actually enhances it, much as it enhances your innate physical abilities.
[ ] Hunt Monsters - There is a plague upon Taryath Athuz, a species of vile air or unclean spirit known as the Death-Thirsters (Lethranir). These spirits invade the bodies and minds of animals and folk alike and twist them into evil mockeries of life, desiring solely to kill and, ultimately, die, only to release the spirit back into the air with their dying breath, freeing it to afflict a new victim. These spirits are, broadly, indestructible, though your friend is fairly certain that his magic would prove to be an exception. Aside from him, though, the only reliable solution to an infestation of Death-Thirsters is to kill its current host, use a prayer-staff to prevent the disembodied spirit from escaping, and force the spirit to inhabit the body of a skilled and prepared form-warrior who has taken a supplement designed for this purpose, who will enter their warform and use its magic to imprison the Death-Thirster. Through a further supplemental regimen, the form-warrior will steadily pacify the spirit, allowing it to be safely released when the warrior dies, and providing a considerable enhancement of the warrior's warform in the meantime. Many of the oldest and most powerful form-warriors, including First Speaker Sharinsa, contain several bound spirits of this sort. Hunting monsters is dangerous but necessary work, and each Death-Thirster bound is potentially dozens of lives saved, but if the moral victory is insufficient reward, it also pays exceptionally well in both financial and social currency, and if you're a form-warrior of sufficient skill you might be chosen to imprison the spirit and benefit from its magic. Hunts vary wildly in length, depending on how crafty and subtle the Death-Thirster is, ranging from a single night for the most obvious monsters to potentially months of tracking and investigation for the stealthiest.
[ ] Travel to Zarnascus - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south down the eastern coast, then turning west and traveling up the Shechtorm river to Zarnascus will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as 12 nights or as many as 16 depending on how the weather turns. The Shechtorm and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight.
[ ] Travel to Oskragd - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south down the eastern coast, then turning west and traveling up the Talea river to Oskragd will take about a fortnight, maybe as little as 10 nights depending on how well the weather behaves. The Talea and the waters of Rogyavint are well-patrolled, but much of the intervening coast is relatively lawless. The chances of a well-armed convoy being attacked is small, maybe one in twenty, but if you are attacked, expect a considerable fight..
[ ] Travel to Sfinahuu - Sailing out from Rogyavint Bay, south. down the eastern coast then around the island's inhospitably mountainous sunward shores, and finally north up the western coast until you find port in the Ya'arnaafi delta will take at least a month, and longer if the weather is uncooperative. Given the size of the fleet you'll be traveling with, there's essentially no chance you'll encounter trouble anywhere north of Eatrue, but the southern shores are utterly lawless and speckled with islets infested with pirate strongholds and petty kingdoms lousy with corruption. Sfinahuu itself is less chaotic, but no less unfair, with its numerous bureaucratic offices all filled with entitled nepots and sociopathic game-players, any of whom would be happy to wield the law like a cutpurse's knife. With your friend at your side, you're unlikely to come to any physical harm, but expect a trip to cost a significant amount even for your friend.
Sfinahuu
Sfinahuu, the City of Waterfalls, located on and around the delta of the great Ya'arnaafi river which pierces through the wide Nimbans desert, is without a doubt the largest and richest city on Togress, and even outshines the grandeur of the greatest cities of Earth. This wealth is sustained by the city's hegemony over the enormous entirety of the Ya'arnaafi river-basin, all the way up to the Ubna'arut mountains in the south, Nimshkaw hills in the northeast, and Yamna plateau to the northwest, a land as wide as Taryath Athuz and as deeply interconnected as Eatrue. As stated in the travel options leading to the city, its bureaucracy is a hopelessly tangled web of corruption and intrigue, dominated by its seven Lords of the Troubles (rebpahuu in the local Sfinawi dialect of the Arnuut language), ancient and powerful warrior-heros and the founders of the city, who control all travel up and down the seven waterfalls or 'troubles' for which they and the city are named, with Zirfeh Ghedjitafi foremost among them as lord of the highest trouble and quite possibly the single most powerful individual on Togress. Zirfeh is one of scant few fighters who your friend is confident would defeat him in single combat even if he fully unleashed his unique magic. Fortunately, while the Lords of the Troubles are a martial lot, this can help you and your friend as much as it harms, as proving your mettle can be a quick path to their good graces and thus a effective way to slash through the thickets of red tape and bureaucratic bullshit that will otherwise obstruct your travels in Sfinahuu and the rest of the Nimbans locked behind it. You can probably let your friend handle this, if you haven't developed much personal combat ability, as long as you're willing to be seen as something between a servant and a pet by most of the locals.The people of Sfinahuu, and the Nimbans more broadly, are a diverse group, though maybe not quite to the same degree as the numerous clans of Taryath Athuz. In the Sfinawi language they are called pasitjim, the shining ones, but this a rare designation, since one's city of origin is often the more salient distinction. Lineally, they are distantly related to the smayvinn of Zarnascus and zhriya'ari of the Shadowbacks, sharing their smooth and blue-toned complexion, but are much taller on average, most being at least as tall as your friend if not taller, and their proportions are slender and gracile rather than stocky and robust like their northern relatives. Additionally, almost all pasitjim possess an innate magical ability, often called variations on 'the Heavens-Ingesting' (Pifuu'aym in Sfinawi Arnuut) which allows them to absorb magic from the atmosphere and through geomantic channels in process similar to the growth of shu'um in lifeless metal. The Heavens-Ingesting and the progressive metamorphosis it induces in the people who pursue it forms the basis of societal hierarchy. As more magic is absorbed, numerous and varied physical alterations can result, though the orthodox practice of the Heavens-Ingesting carries some strong trends as magic continues to accumulate, such as an alteration of the skin tone from azure to white and from white to silver, or the steady increase in physical size, might, prowess, and longevity. Zirfeh and the other Troublesome Lords are all incredibly advanced in the Heavens-Ingesting, far more so than even the most assiduous city-masters further inland, simply for being the oldest and having had the longest time to gather and consolidate power.
[ ] Court the Troubles - Some amount of interaction with officers and officials of Sfinahuu, and all the associated graft and time-wasting, will be unavoidable no matter what you plan on doing in Sfinahuu, but you could also choose to lean into it and see what sort of good can come of this travesty of a government. Your friend is quite well-positioned to take advantage of the situation, as both a seasoned politician and dangerous fighter, though his general preference for honesty and forthrightness presents a distinct disadvantage. Depending on what sort of preparations you've made before arriving in Sfinahuu you might be able to contribute to either the social or martial sides of the equation as well. Regardless, it'll probably take a month of ongoing paperwork and occasional duels to get access to most of the city (rather than just the areas open to foreign travelers) and passage into the Nimbans interior, and if you and your friend dedicate another year or two establishing yourselves, you could worm your way into the personal entourages of the more publicly-conscious Troublesome Lords, perhaps even gaining the favor of Zirfeh himself.
[ ] Attend an Opera - While there are many luxuries in Sfinahuu, in unmatched abundance, the most remarkable and unique are the Glass Operas. Glass Magic is an ancient art, and all but unheard of in the north, that possesses a staggering variety of effects and essentially limitless scaling, rising as far as the glass-mage's dexterity and skill at shaping the glass will allow, a scaling which naturally synergizes with the endless growth of the Heavens-Ingesting. At the apex of the art lies the Glass Opera, an orchestration of every facet of glass magic to produce a false reality to enrapture the viewer. While these false realities are not necessarily perfect, and certainly not inescapable, they do serve as an incredible medium to convey all sorts of experiences. Four of the seven Troublesome Lords spend almost all of their times ensconced in the deepest and most intricate Glass Operas, almost entirely disconnected from outside reality except for their obligations to the other three (and especially Zirfeh, who demands that all of seven of them dedicate at least a modicum of time to advancing with the Heavens-Ingesting so as to remain the undisputed sovereigns of the land). If you're able to enter into one of their courts, you might be able to partake of their grand operas, but even if you aren't, there are many lesser opera houses which, while still having utterly exorbitant ticket prices, are not so exclusive.
[ ] Obtain Spelled Glass - Glass Magic (Ghikumbaqruu in Sfinawi) is, unfortunately, utterly beyond your capacity to learn, at least anytime soon. The levels of skill and dexterity needed to create glass that is suitable for inspelling generally requires significant advancement in the Heavens-Ingesting to reach. Combining all your other options might allow you to bridge that gap, especially if you turned the Island Light to that purpose, but gaining the necessary skills would still require years or even decades of training and careful teaching, which none of the extremely secretive master glassmakers of Sfinahuu or the other major Nimbanshi cities would be willing to provide to a stranger, not without the direct order of Zirfeh or another Lord, and even then they would only give the absolute bare minimum, and take any opportunity to skimp on lessons, teach you wrongly, or simply expel you as soon as your patron's attention wandered. That doesn't mean that you can't buy some spelled glass, though! The Troublesome Lords have first pick from all the greatest glassworks of the Nimbans, and the lesser city-masters have the second, but once they've taken their piece, there are still numerous items available to the broader public for purchase. If you're looking for only the pettiest example of glass magic, such as the magically corrective lenses which your friend already wears, they might even be affordable (at least with the budget your friend is working with). The effects of spelled glass run the gamut from minor to miraculous, though spelled glass that doesn't require the user to possess even the rudiments of the Heavens-Ingesting are much more limited in scope, higher in cost, and harder to find. Depending on the parameters of what you look for, finding a suitable piece of spelled glass might be the work of hours (if you can find someone who's already selling something that satisfies you) or weeks (if you need to travel to a relevant glassworks and commission a glassmaker).
[ ] Visit Paraghtip - Far to the east, if one follows the northern branch of the Ya'arnaafi for about a month to the garden city of Qaghurdji, then takes a caravan over the desert roads to the south, after another two days of traveling, the glistening azure glass palace of Paraghtip will become visible on the horizon. The so-called House of Satisfaction is unique in the Nimbans, and on Togress as a whole, a marvel of glass magic constructed to contain the Pit of Chaos, a fire-belching abyss whose unnatural blue flames are refracted and reshaped through the hallways and vaults of Paraghtip, transmuted from infernal to exalted. This transmutation is one of the ways in which Paraghtip 'satisfies', satisfying its creators desire to tame and harness the power of Chaos. What exactly Paraghtip turns that power towards, aside from perpetuating itself, is unclear, but at least a part of its function is to sustain a powerful glass magic effect inside its walls, creating a persistent dreamlike atmosphere and allowing for people inside to divest themselves of not only physical possessions but also spiritual ones. The oldest and still most common purpose of visiting Paraghtip is to shed one's curses and banish them into the Pit of Chaos. The gambling den which has grown to inhabit the chambers of Paraghtip exists to exploit the often desperate or foolish people who bear those curses, and the people who travel with them, to garner physical and spiritual rewards for the 'caretakers' of the palace, who in turn pay fealty to the city-master of Qaghurdji and to the Troublesome Lords. In this way, it also satisfies Chaos, transforming Chaos into Order and Order into Chaos. While you're here, you can freely remove any supernaturally maladies or afflictions you've picked up, such as witch-poison, Death-Thirster spirit, or a curse laid on you in the Night Realm, in a ritual that produces a brief feeling of vertigo, similar to what you experienced when you were first summoned to Togress. Your friend isn't going to wager any of his own money on games, and will caution you to do the same, but he won't stop you from playing with your own wealth, physical or spiritual, as long as it doesn't look like you're about to beggar or destroy yourself.
[ ] Greet the Suns - If you travel following the southern branch of the Ya'arnaafi, up into the Ubma'arut mountains and even further, to the all-surpassing peak of Djuuhasbadji, you will find the clearest skies on Togress. It's a bit hard to breathe, with how thin and cold the air is. The journey will likely take months, maybe a year, depending on how long it takes to find guides who will bring you safely to the peak and make all the other necessary preparations. Here, on the roof of the world, an oddity will become more clearly visible. Though there are two Suns in the sky, only one sheds light that you can see with your eyes. The other sheds the mysterious Island Light which nourishes your friend's unique personal magic, and which is now growing your own. Now that the Ghost Sun is known to, your own eerie-sense will naturally begin to expand, steadily alloying with your sight and other senses, enhancing them and greatly improving your talent for magic and your ability to consciously sculpt how your own personal magic evolves and expands. Additionally, as your group travels to the peak, you will have the opportunity to enter the abode of the Blue Dragon, the one who the Nimbanshi call Aafi and the namesake of the great river. Aside from being a generally excellent conversationalist, Aafi can also give an otherwise inaccessible view into the deep history of Togress, revealing things even your friend doesn't already know, such as information regarding the now-extinct dragon civilization, their war with the predecessors of the modern Nimbanshi states, the conjuring of the Outsider Beast from the Pit of Chaos, who ended that war and was the progenitor of the cussich, ruddock, melog, and thuza peoples. Aafi can even translate the mysterious scroll which your friend looted from his first Black Gate excursion, though it unfortunately doesn't contain any great revelations, being a manual for an advanced magical technique for a draconic magical tradition and which is utterly untransferable to non-draconic existence.
[There should be travel options out of Sfinahuu and to Zarnascus, Oskragd, and Andelin, but I forgot to write them and am too lazy to do so now. It's cheaper to leave Sfinahuu, but only once you've established yourself in the troublesome courts.)
- Location
- Europe
The Invitation: With these eyes I see the dawn.
[1] Accept the invitation.
[4] Travel to Sfinahuu -
The plan: Aim for Greet the Sun and it's magical talent + scaling supernatural senses + personal magic curation boost as early as possible. To do this we acquire a Travel focused outfit in Oskragd, cutting down the time needed for Greet the Sun to allow for reaching the Summit, also making the trip much safer.
You can now worry much less about getting a sub-optimal Island Light foundation, learn magic much faster, and have scaling, superhuman senses. You can now go learn all the fascinating magics of this world and acquire some desperately needed combat skills.
In universe, naturally, you'd want to discuss your itinerary more with your friend. How dangerous is the climb or the trip, how expensive is it, how good would a learning/drive/training focused suit or steel artifact be instead, what do they want to do?
This is the goal I'd aim for without input, though.
[1] Accept the invitation.
⁂
Zarnascus
[2] Travel to Oskragd -Zarnascus
Oskragd
[3] Suit Yourself - Travel Suit / Learning Suit[4] Travel to Sfinahuu -
Sfinahuu
[5] Greet the Suns -The plan: Aim for Greet the Sun and it's magical talent + scaling supernatural senses + personal magic curation boost as early as possible. To do this we acquire a Travel focused outfit in Oskragd, cutting down the time needed for Greet the Sun to allow for reaching the Summit, also making the trip much safer.
You can now worry much less about getting a sub-optimal Island Light foundation, learn magic much faster, and have scaling, superhuman senses. You can now go learn all the fascinating magics of this world and acquire some desperately needed combat skills.
In universe, naturally, you'd want to discuss your itinerary more with your friend. How dangerous is the climb or the trip, how expensive is it, how good would a learning/drive/training focused suit or steel artifact be instead, what do they want to do?
This is the goal I'd aim for without input, though.
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
I don't know if your Island Light is ever going to be sub-optimal per se, or maybe that it's ever going to be 'optimal', but rushing for it does still make sense especially given the other benefits. Plus it gets you a chance to talk Aafi and get some of the oldest lore in the setting.
Going anywhere in the Nimbans is going to be extremely expensive, especially since you aren't going to have more than a hunch and some dubiously true rumors about the Blue Dragon's location to go from initially, but especially if you're able to take some time during the trip to focus on some political maneuvering, maybe strike up some trade deals in Sfinahuu before heading into the interior, he could be swayed. He wouldn't benefit much from greeting the Suns, unfortunately, he's spent long enough on Togress that his eerie-sense and Island Light already fairly mature, but he will potentially benefit a lot from talking with Aafi, especially if you plan on crashing a Black Gate after returning to Eatrue.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
First correspondence: I'll need proof, obviously. What magics can be relayed by letter?
Also, do you want books, seeds, a 3D printer? It sounds like I should be able to send packages, even if they have to include a snail or something so it'll have a soul for you to latch on to. (Biosecurity might be an issue. Snails are convenient, but I won't use them if there's a risk it'll be an invasive species. Just, like, send payment if you need something expensive.)
If you are, in fact, for real, cool. Let's change the world.
Islandlight looks like it's something everyone gets, but also like it isn't. Is Childhood Friend actually the one who named it?
Presuming I get a decent primer on this stuff beforehand, I definitely want to optimize the power I get from it. I should be able to send my measurements over, even limited to ink-on-paper, so planning and prepping for the mountain trip should be possible we'll before I go over.
What are long-range comms like over there, by the way? Would pigeons be a helpful stopgap while they're getting radio infrastructure off the ground?
Climate control is excellent and lifesaving, and refrigeration is useful even if it does allow the modern problems with food logistics, but I really hope he isn't wrecking everyone's sleep schedules and by extension health. Electric lights have important uses, but their ubiquitousness is probably comparable with lead poisoning for health crises of the twentieth century.
Would this count as 'bolstered by islandlight'? Could it? A magic 3D printer would be really cool, earthside, and less vulnerable to 'too glass-heavy' than a supercomputer.
Ah, the reason that spending so much effort summoning me and then turning me into a dungeon-delver *isn't* a horrendously irresponsible waste of resources. Okay.
Why aren't they available in Zarnascus? Aren't these people some of our closest allies? Do the staves just degrade fast in the Zarnascan atmosphere?
What can glass magic do? Just light manipulation? Is that really enough to turn African Cultivator El Dorado into a city greater than New York or Tokyo?
Huh. Blue fire. Did Childhood Friend harness it for the summoning spell, or is it just that same type of magic?
Curse-removing shrine has become infested with casinos. That's bad. No mention of the things one can obtain here, which at minimum probably means tame-or-tameable Lethranir, and might possibly include Heavens-Ingesting access. I despise gambling, but if it's possible to get stuff like that through honest trade, it might be worth stopping by.
This place needs to be reformed, badly. Need to not provoke the Troublesome Lords in the process, though. Or at least have a way to not die or destabilize the country if we do.
I wonder what scheduling Islandlight to break through while in the Night Realm would do? Or is it actually determined by spirit-sun exposure, not time in general? Hmm.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Taking this blow-by-blow.
No magics that aren't immersed in his Island Light (or your own, eventually), like what he's using to sustain the letter's summoning magic, will survive the trip to Earth. As for things to send him, any advanced engineering, mathematics, science, etc. textbooks you can send that won't be missed would be good for the uplift, and he has a small list of personal knicknacks and memorabilia from his childhood home that he's appreciate on an emotional level. He's avoiding bring any animals or plants though, for reasons similar enough to your biosecurity concerns.
Island Light is what he calls it, he hasn't seen anyone else mention it. It has some characteristics in common with the Heavens-Ingesting and he might be able to learn more about that from the Sfinawi ambassador, but even he doesn't really understand what's going on with your friend (or with you, if/when you come to Togress). You can also definitely ask for him to get some magical items for you before you arrive, which will be useful for carefully sculpting your Island Light manifestation. In the Zarnascus region messenger pigeons are a thing, and radio is close to but not yet commercially viable thanks in part to your friend's patronage. In Eatrue long-range communication is mediated by specialized witches using bewitched animal messengers which are generally more effective than mundane pigeons. In Taryath Athuz, messenger animals are common in the east, but are steadily replaced by prayer-staves with message spells as you go west and get closer to Shrannabern. The Nimbans does, in fact, have its own sort of internet whose infrastructure is based in Glass Magic rather than radio.
Zarnascus actually had those technologies even before your friend arrived. He's been helping increase awareness of potential health risks, as well encouraging the development of sustainable power generation and providing other advice from a world that's experienced the downsides of those technologies. Some specific texts on that sort of thing would actually be another good thing to send.
You could cultivate your Island Light to strengthen ironworks, if that's what you mean? Making a magical 3D printer would be pretty rough, though. It wouldn't strictly be impossible, especially if you brought over some mundane examples from Earth, and maybe a computer to run CAD and slicer software on, but it would be a major project and would have significant research and development costs, both in terms of money and time, because Sadjayul could even begin making the final product.
You can technically buy prayer-staves in Zarnascus, they're just incredibly expensive and you can't use them there because there's no magic in the air for the prayer-staves to manipulate.
Light manipulation is the most basic form of Glass Magic, but in combination with advancement in the Heavens-Ingesting it expands to included generalized divination and illusionism, and at the very high end even a sort of reality warping.
Your friend didn't know about the Pit of Chaos, but he'll agree that the similarity is suspicious, and given the chance he'll look into the people who built the summoning grounds that he used to summon you (and which were used to summon him, all those years ago). If you go find Aafi in the mountains, you and he can probably figure out that the people who summoned him must have heard legends of the summoning of the Otherworldy Beast from the Pit of Chaos and attempted to replicate that feat of magic, which resulted in them summoning your friend.
It's technically possible to make honest trades with people there, but a lot of the people who are offering are scammers or otherwise malicious, and the casino enforcers will attempt to break up any significant markets that open up that they don't control. As for Island Light in the Night Realm, you are correct in postulating that it's dependent on exposure to the ghost sun, so your progress is paused while you're in the Night Realm.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
...Ooh. Could we build a ghostlight collector? That's probably Glass Magic, and quite possibly already exists as a Pifuu'aym booster. But maybe a more antenna-like version could be made of metal. Shame all the Glass Magi are too rich and snobbish to come spend a decade revolutionizing the theory of magic.
We can't just ask them? Was the original summoning catastrophically explosive, or something?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
If you mention it, your friend will be interested in the idea and will work on learning Glass Magic himself, though he's still got all the uplift stuff to do back in Zarnascus, Eatrue, and Taryath Athuz. He's almost certain that it could work, at least in concept, but he has no idea if there's already a technique he could adapt for it if he'd need to invent something for it.
The people who summoned your friend are all either dead or in hiding. They were a cabal of fascists who were trying to perform a coup in Zarnascus and then use your friend (who they thought would be as powerful as the legends said the Otherworldly Beast was) to conquer the rest of the world.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
What was the Otherworldly Beast, best we can tell? Humanoid, shoggoth, robot?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
It was a shapeshifter, though the legends generally say that was enormous, mountain-sized at a minimum, and that it generally took on the traits of various large mammals, especially (but not exclusively) large predators. If you talk with him, Aafi can mention that it often looked like a horned wolf, at least when they observed it from over the horizon.