[ ] Palimpsest - "Which when awakened provides genius-level holistic cognitive enhancement and a metaphysical pluripotency, the latter allowing you to initiate into nearly all local magic systems given the opportunity, even ones normally limited by bloodline, birth location, or other circumstantial prerequisites, while the former virtually guarantees you'll excel with in whatever intellectual endeavors you engage in, including any arcane research and development which finds your interest;"
"or alternatively"
[ ] Pure Pearl - "Which when awakened provides a blessing of good fortune and great destiny and an incorruptible purity, the latter perfectly shielding you from the most insidious forms of death-dealing or domination which you might encounter at the hands of your summoner's foes, whether magical or mundane, while the former will ensure that neither machination nor misadventure will interrupt your projects and pursuits, untrammeled by risk and presented with a surfeit of opportunity as you will be."
Hmm. Power I understand, or protection I don't? Can the Pearl be overruled? It seems isomorphic to faith, so it's probably what I end up with.
[ ] The Stirred Pot - Uncontrolled chaos. "—key-shards that weren't successfully assembled into a Skeleton Key remain present on Sceptiron, scattered across the world and weighing on its of web of cause and effect, creating possibilities unpredictably, opening paths that were closed and bringing parts of the world together that were previously alien to one another, increasing the 'temperature' of the world's narrative 'climate' significantly."
Does this make Pearl
weaker or
stronger?
[ ] The Director's Cut (+1 drop) - A meddlesome auteur. "—an elevated being from the Black City has taken a personal interest in the stories of you and the other Heroes who will be summoned, and has broadcast intentions to sculpt those stories to suit a grander narrative of their own design. This direct attention will likely bring you considerable trouble, and may bring you into conflict with the other Heroes more often and more intensely than might be ideal, but they've at least provided an extra drop of pure uranydra to help set you and the other two apart from previous Heroes."
Turns this story Obnoxiously Meta, which may be my sort of jam. Probably manipulable if I'm good enough at heckling, which
is one of my core competencies. Hmm.
[ ] The Recruitment Drive (+1 drop) - Petty villains and thrill-seekers. "—a small group of powerful and violent people from the Black City have entered Sceptiron physically and begun to wreak havoc, seeming to seek only two things: entertainment and to acquire new potential members for their band of mercenaries from among this world's 'worthiest' people. As a Hero, you will likely be among those to be judged for worthiness, and thus subject to their sadistic 'tests', which will no doubt be a dangerous and exhausting prospect. Since the group's arrival, those who have passed their tests and joined them have also grown massively more dangerous thanks to the group's aid and access to their exotic resources. Fortunately, their entrance into the world precipitated astral currents that have allowed for the refinement of surplus uranydra, affording you an extra drop to fuel your metamorphosis."
Slaughterhouse Intergang, with a sybarite aesthetic. Why are these so popular? Well, I suppose they make for interesting villains. (And it's not like you're choosing them in-character.)
[ ] The River-Damming Stone (+1 drop) - The world's ending, slowly. "—an individual of singular strength and titanic stature from the Black City has blocked the primary uranydra intake conduit of Sceptiron's underlying ontological infrastructure, the main input into the first stage of the world's uranydra and astricone processing systems, redirecting the flow to fuel their own ascension to a higher state of being. This won't have any immediately disastrous impact, as there are significant reserves of both pure uranydra and astricone in all its most common variations, but as time passes, the lack of new raw elements entering the system will cause the steady break down of various natural processes, starting with the most magically intensive fading away in a matter of years, progressing through the less magical ones after a few decades, and eventually the mundane world beginning to slowly die off after about a century, eventually leaving Sceptiron a barren, lifeless husk.
"That fate is not inevitable however, as information received from Warden-aligned paracosmic agents indicates the intruder is extremely cautious, even cowardly. While genuinely forcing them out of the conduit is not feasibly within reach without gathering further outside assistance, it may be possible for you to scare them off by managing to inflict some small injury. Regardless of how you handle the situation, though, the intruder's push into the primary intake conduit briefly forced more uranydra through the purification matrix, resulting in enough of a surplus to make an extra drop of pure uranydra available for your use."
Huh. How much uranydra is needed for a 'drop', in terms of world-lifespan? This particular cultivator is a selfish jerk, but possibly possible to convince to just take
less? On consideration I'm not sure I like letting a callously-mundicidal hyperbeing get even stronger, though.
[ ] The Chief Thaumaturge -Provides the Hero's Regalia for free, with a purchasable upgrade. An ancient and holy country, blessed and ordained by the gods in a previous era, its holy men grown corrupt and complacent, its hegemony now under threat by anathema within and without. "Aulus Vindicius Claustario, the director of the department of miraculous works in the Magisterium of the Divine Mandate, summons you at the command of his Pontiff to aid in the defense of the Mandate, from the great coalition of neighboring states and rebellious provinces that have broken free in these godless latter days, from the growing unrest of the lay masses and displeasure of the secular leadership in the territories still under the Magisterium's control, and in his heart, perhaps even from his own Pontiff."
Which gods? The... Wardens? It's not at all cheap, but stopping the war is probably easiest by taking this guy and Dragonblood.
[ ] The Undead Emperor - Provides the companionship and aid of Berya Mendyetko, an apprentice of the Undead Emperor and terrifyingly talented sorceress, fascinated by the nature of Heroes, and discounts Worldly Powers by 1 drop as long as you do not choose the Worldly Impression sub-option. A new nation, born from the refuse of the world, struggles to survive. "Ekabod Ambaqshi, an ancient lich, grand strategist, and reluctant leader of the coalition to destroy the Mandate, summons you to help prosecute the war, whether as a vanguard or figurehead, and for your counsel in how to rule the throngs of scattered and disorganized undead ex-slaves that have declared him their emperor."
Sad necromancer revolutionaries and happy necromancer mad scientists! I think if I wasn't being given the choice I'd enjoy this posting the most, but since I am, it's not ideal.
Can you take Worldly Powers twice, actually? That would change my opinion.
[ ] The Heathen Haruspex - Provides access to an Earthblood Codicil, which once absorbed will attune you to the primordial essences sealed within the land and the life that springs from it, and discounts Blood Anointment by 1 drop. The lone priestess of an old and dead-slumbering god, just trying to protect the world her god became. "Irxnóm, elder half-dragon and the last living devotee of the Earthblood Wyrm, summons you to aid in her mission to forestall the world's death, whether from the thoughtless wars and waste of its other inhabitants or, perhaps more pressingly, from the otherworldly interference that has arrived from the Black City."
Straightforwardly good goals, approximately zero social cachet. I guess she does have the draconic aura, though? I just don't know that I can actually help her best by going to her directly.
[ ] Heroic Stature (1 drop) - Idealization and beyond. "One of the cheapest and simplest imbuements to apply to a Hero, despite its relative rarity among Sceptiron natives. Its benefits are two fold in nature, one immediate and one ongoing: the immediate is a comprehensive and complete overhaul of your physical form, providing a body as close to your personal ideal as possible within the remit of humanity, including the heightened body-control to fully utilize the improvements; the ongoing is an alteration and expansion of your semiosoma, interweaving its fibers with your new material body, allowing your physical prowess and other augmentations to grow alongside the scope of your story. Your story will especially gain from conflicts with others of similar Stature, and given the soon-coming arrival of two more Heroes, either or both of whom may choose this as well, and who you will likely come into at least occasional conflict with given the summoners at hand, the growth potential here is quite high."
Seems very Heraclean, with an antisocial growth method. I don't like it. Possibly I should take it anyway.
-[ ] Augury - Birds tell and birds toil. "The most straight-forward form of divination available, relying on a combination of dedicated training to work with birds and a peculiar but not incredibly rare innate ability to link their minds to one's own. This allows for the sharing of senses and limited telepathic control over birds so bound, greatly enhancing the complexity of tasks they can be entrusted with. Perhaps more important, it also grants the user access to the bird's own oracular senses, which while individually weak, can be combined with other birds in a flock to great effect, particularly for detecting events on the largest scale, such as the movements of weather systems or the coming and going of natural disasters."
This is delightful. Straightforward and a little silly. Probably you need to actually find
Flying-type Pokemon powerful birds in order to make this a direct combat power, but that seems possible.
and durable enough to make a lightning bolt feel like a static shock, a gigawatt laser like summer sunlight, and a hail of high-caliber bullets like little more than warm rain;
Wait, is this meant to imply a much greater vulnerability to bullet damage? No, static can be painful. Probably the damage vulnerabilities go electricity > force > light?
"Your soul's evolution is just as stunning, as it becomes able to imbue psychic programs of a sort into your noometal, allowing you to automate the application of its force, following its programming even if you disconnect the programmed noometal from the rest of your body, though the more complex a program is, the more mass will be needed to store it.
Oh, I
like Psyren-style programmable telekinesis. This seems to be self-only, which is less aesthetic, but that should be changeable with effort.
Does being all the colors of the sky interfere with noometallic mirror schemae?
Outsiders to Sceptiron will be minimally affected, including the other Heroes, but native humans or other sophonts will be powerfully inclined to at least deeply respect you, whether as friend or foe, requiring a display of truly incredible willpower from them to do more than either follow or flee from you in the face of your aura when flared to its fullest extent
So the minimum Comfy-ish Option is Stirred Pot - Haruspex - Dragonblood? And Pearl.
"And finally, a bodily tie to the slumbering Wyrm themself, providing enormously enhanced strength, agility, endurance, and perception, a body enough to make you an apex predator among any of Sceptiron's magically augmented ecosystems on its own
How does this stack up against anything else? Architect or Heroic Stature, for example?
As a soul is sought out which possesses one of the two desiderata, a sort of complementary soul is simultaneously constructed, autonomously composed from alternatives and corollaries encountered 'along the way' to finding a Hero, and whose existence remains as a latent potential borne by your own, easily realizable with a single drop of uranydra.
Wait, does this summoning spell steal scraps of random souls as part of its search function!?
"In contrast to the Impression, the ring can be quite slow to come back if separated from you, though it will do so eventually, its weight on the narrative fabric of Sceptiron ensuring that, as long as it's not being actively guarded by those with the knowledge and power to counteract its fateful return, a long sequence of accidents and coincidences will bring it back to your hand. Still, it may save you quite a bit of annoyance to be careful in not letting it get away from you."
The armor can be only partly manifested, right?
The staff is, fortunately, also much more durable than its construction would normally allow, and even if it's destroyed or lost to some other fate, recalling previous keys you've generated can guide you to an appropriate limb of hazelwood and let you carve it anew.
So this can be proliferated very broadly? ...Why
hasn't it? Identity concerns?
This includes an appropriately vast amount of experience, covering an incredible diversity of skills, including numerous magical styles, even some which are not native to Sceptiron,
Okay, so this is extremely synergistic with Palimpsest.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, whichever desideratum which you do not have, your Impression will instead possess, and so long as the two of you both remain within reality, and in close physical proximity, both of you will benefit from both desiderata."
Hm.
[ ] First Person Perspective (+1 drop) - You are the hero, after all. "The first Hero, in personality, held none as equal to himself, and never held to counsel from others which he did not first seek out. Even his acquiescence to the interests of the Architects was a matter of convenience and circumstantial alignment, the disintegration of which lead to his raising as the first Warden and the Architects' subsequent departure from Sceptiron.
"By accepting this drawback in return for one drop of uranydra, you too will find yourself all but incapable of accepting the authority or superiority of any other over yourself, even when such takes an entirely benign or outright helpful form."
I can see why she'd be reluctant to do this. The Architects do not seem like smart people.
[ ] Heavenly Tears (+1 drop) - Let open the flood gates. "Upon his descent from the arrival platform where you now stand to the surface of Sceptiron, interactions between his unexpectedly expansive semiosoma, his instance of Heroic Stature, and some of the weather-generating uranydrous systems of the lower heavens produced a truly massive storm, which was also intensely and chaotically magical due to being infused with significant amounts of incompletely synthesized uranydra and astricone. The storm was self-sustaining, and actually still exists in the present, though it was later shepherded away from inhabited areas by the Wardens.
"By accepting this drawback in return for one drop of uranydra, your descent will be modified to induce a similar, albeit significantly smaller, storm over the place of your summoning. It will not resolve itself naturally, and will cause significant damage to both property and nature while it rages, but it will not be impossible to withstand for the locals, at least for the near future, nor is it an intractable problem to solve if you choose to make an attempt."
They're spending a significant part of the ontology budget making a perpetual horrible magic storm.
Multiple perpetual horrible magic storms.
That seems like the sort of thing that can be
prosocially used as a cultivation resource, though.
While this didn't end up impairing him much, his actions and the actions of later Heroes has, unfortunately, prompted the formation of a long-running and well-hidden conspiracy to find, slay, and harvest the corpses of Heroes to acquire the remnants of their desiderata and uranydrous enhancements.
Fun. Do they have a way off-world, for when this inevitably gets the planet killed?
[ ] Avarice (+1-3 drops) - Why not just take it? When you think about it for a moment, and take another (brief, so as to avoid giving yourself another headache) look around, you notice that there doesn't actually seem to be anything forcing you to take any of these drawbacks along with the other three drops. You could just take three more drops' worth of imbuements and accessories, and you don't think anything would stop you. You don't know what sort of ramifications that might have afterwards, other than probably negatively influencing what this voice says about you to the other two Heroes who are on the way, but given what's on offer, and what sort of problems you'll be dealing with, the extra power may be worth it?
I'm going to
ask the voice if I can just take them. My initial read was that it wants that fuel to keep the world running, and would thus prefer I not take Drawbacks. My reread, which wasn't presuming the Stone was in play, thinks it might be somewhat less
incredibly crazy than its makers with regard to making their troubleshooter both shootier and more troublesome.
[ ] Red Eyes Alight (+3 drops, limit-breaking)
Hmm.
It's likely that the increased chaos in the Black City, a primary instigator of their present interference, was caused by this change, and utilizing these anomalous red drops may be inviting that chaos into your story. Thus, caution is likely wise, but…they are nonetheless available, if you deem their expenditure necessary."
The Black City seems to produce moderately horrible supervillains as a fairly normal output for 'any two of bored, young, and dispossessed', so a proper revolution is a great idea, but a crimewave or a recession is a terrible one. Which one seems closer to what's happening in the Black City?
