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A Simple Transaction I

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Uurgh.. people are slowly swaying me to pick S A V E. Could we at least pick the RANK option instead of FIST? I guess I'm splitting hairs on a one-pick option here, but the RANK option at least makes us better for healing which synergizes with the vacation.
 
Rihaku said:
NO ONE DISSES STATS AND GETS AWAY WITH IT.

SIC 'EM, STATS GANG
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It feels a bit late to do this after out right crippling the primary stat gains we get from one of our artifacts is favor of sord gud, making some of our stats pretty unattractive to take. I mean sure the rest of our stats are still fine but if people are invested in stat growth we would have put off taking the option that cripples grow in half our stats until we had actually invested significantly in them. Honestly it is considering that the other options in the vote were also significant power gains and Uttermost seemed likely to come again, taking it right at this juncture makes it hard to not let bitterness to creep into my comments because it makes non sword options much less attractive and makes the Evening mantle options feel not worth taking which is a shame cause we haven't even really invested in it much yet. It felt too early to take such a focus but we did because memes, shinies, and an EFB we haven't even seen the description of yet.

There is a significant difference between swords being the solution to all our problems and choosing to solve all our problems with a sword, and to me Uttermost felt much more like the latter which is honestly not great.

So why support stats when we have decided that their growths is less valuable than more sword.

I honestly am just holding out hope for another opportunity for Gardener because maybe with our new found offensive power we will be willing to spend the necessary time to explore it and see how making plants with arbitrary properties is hugely shiny and useful in ways that more sword is not. Maybe we can even get a defining that fixes the stats we traded away for more killing power at this early juncture despite there being perfectly good alternatives that may have been slightly less shiny or powerful overall but didn't put as much of a damper on our growth and had their own utility.

[X] Heal Verschlengorge
[X] The Ring of Power - Dominion
-[X] War
 
George said:
How we cast the magic is a real difference. It changes the character archetype including stuff like what attributes we want to improve and how the fights are written.
Your statement here is like saying it'd be the same shit as now if we swung our sword with telekinesis that we manifest by being super smart, dodged by teleporting, and were super frail - as long as we kill enemies with the Forebear's Blade and A Thousand Cuts. It's just utter dismissive nonsense that refuses to empathize with the opposing viewpoint.
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Well yes, some ways of doing mechanically identical feats are aesthetically different from each other. But Blood Domain is both aesthetically and mechanically different from what came before it, in the same way that magic is normally different from sword swinging! Did you miss when Hunger gained the ability to win a fight by sensing the blood of his enemy, or potentially exsanguinating him despite not landing a telling blow?

The truth isn't that Ring of Blood shenanigans don't constitute a "mage archetype". It does. It's just that we're a "magic swordsman" no matter what.

You know we won't turn into a traditional caster at this point, with our insanely sword-focused build. From the beginning Hunger was a sword-focused character, and we aren't going to abandon that. Any magic we have is going to be suborned to sword tactics.

It's not that there's a non-mechanical sharp line with "magic" or "mage" or whatever on one side, and "Blood Dominion" on the other. It's just that Ring of Blood is a kind of magic that you personally find unsatisfying.
 
Speaking of magic, I'd like to pose a few questions about Accretion:

  • Accretion is described as this ability to integrate experiences and legendry between wielder and object. Do the effects of Accretion still manifest if you use, say, your fists to kill most of your enemies? Does the legend still accrete in that sense, or is there something special about there being an object to do things for you?
  • What happened to our suit of dark grey plate?
  • Can one become a master of Accretion without intending to? As in-- not try very hard to become a legend, but end up becoming one anyway. The reason I ask this question is because if there's no special rite or initiation into Accreting a legend, but rather it is something that you naturally accumulate over time without regard for whether or not you deliberately cultivate it, that implies that there is EITHER a 3rd party force allocating narrativium power arbitrarily to the noteworthy, or that people can "invest" some level of narrative power in their recognition of another's legend. Thus, I put forward that with enough time and research, it may be possible to systematize and derive from first principles a coherent and logical way to harness this powersource more effectively and efficiently.
  • Does one's legend have an influence on one's mindset and the preferences (ala Dao Cleaving) one has?
  • How can there be hidden masters of Accretion we don't know about? Wouldn't the logical consequence of acquiring power through fame be that the most powerful are the most famous?
  • Does this relate to the memeplexes of Vitalism in any way? And if so, is there a way to exploit these interactions?
 
I can answer a couple of these.

Accretion can be applied to our body with the help of the intensify remittance
[ ] Muscle Wizard

Accretion, Intensify, Retinue, Relinquishment

*The ultimate option, the destined path
*Just look at the thread tags
*Use Intensify to magnify the power of Accretion while narrowing its scope...
*Allows the power of Accretion to be applied to one's body itself, at the cost of locking it otherwise. Grants a broad and powerful defense against esoteric and mundane attacks.
*The hero's missing bodyparts make his body more unique and recognizable, and thus most suited to this unique path.
*Lategame, uses Retinue synergies to magnify his training in the pursuit of supreme perfection of body.
*Retains the fighting style he displays in this update, though with higher parameters when he gets serious (otherwise, this update is just the hero fooling around)
*Very powerful early and late, but weak midgame. Will more effectively complete present objectives.
*Extremely degenerate
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Our armor was stolen from us in the hours leading up to our assassination per Heart of the Matter

A shame his armor had been stolen from him in the hours leading up to his assassination.
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Talace said:
Accretion is described as this ability to integrate experiences and legendry between wielder and object. Do the effects of Accretion still manifest if you use, say, your fists to kill most of your enemies? Does the legend still accrete in that sense, or is there something special about there being an object to do things for you?
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To expand on Conjured Blade's answer, Accretion can work on things like specific techniques as well, so I think it would work with barehanded martial arts and so forth.

Talace said:
Does one's legend have an influence on one's mindset and the preferences (ala Dao Cleaving) one has?
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Rihaku said:
To give up now merely because the threat was dire would be a refutation of everything he was, the personal legend that comprised his supernal shadow, his much-vaunted "Astral Rank." Faced with a threat like this, he could only rise to the occasion or die trying. To cut through, even if the problem could not be cut.
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This seems to indicate otherwise.

Talace said:
How can there be hidden masters of Accretion we don't know about? Wouldn't the logical consequence of acquiring power through fame be that the most powerful are the most famous?
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Fame isn't the sole method of secondary Rank ups. Craftsmanship and care for your bonded item is another path to slow accumulation.
 
Poor Battle Magic. It's had its supporters but generally lived in the shadow of both Seven Seals and Accretion. Perhaps a consequence of its meta-level aesthetics being fundamentally opposed to those of Rank and Accretion!
 
Talace said:
Can one become a master of Accretion without intending to?
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It might be that the magic system isn't purposeful, but does "spread" according to specific things. Like a virus that transmits between people, or a virtue that is granted to anyone who enters the Isekai dimension. No need for a constant 3rd party, just someone to initiate, which makes sense given that Hunger isn't there anymore. And the power all of the Magics share is presumably that they rely on the soul somehow.

I've been thinking of Accretions as a magical framework. It's a softer, more traditional version of the mythic idea of deed->power that things like Danmachi's Falna and Fate's Noble Phantasms make even more systematized. The magic attaches to the soul (clearly, from Rihaku's comments), and allows it to grow in power naturally via deeds.

In my opinion, it could be possible to gain Rank without purposefully accumulating it, but you'd have to be trying hard to accomplish your own non-rank goals to progress even a little bit. In a non-modern world, it's difficult to get a meaningfully lasting and impactful memeplex going. And you wouldn't be able to ignore the power you gained; exerting Pressure is a technique so basic that animals can do it.

Plus, I'd imagine that it's impossible to accumulate Rank up to a high amount without becoming famous, unless you have some sort of hack like our TSH boost. Otherwise you're committing a lot of legendary deeds over a long span of time, which...gets noticed.
 
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Rihaku said:
Poor Battle Magic. It's had its supporters but generally lived in the shadow of both Seven Seals and Accretion. Perhaps a consequence of its meta-level aesthetics being fundamentally opposed to those of Accretion!
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My guess is that Bers has battle magic and we'll get offered it if we beat him. Given he's a literal video game character his battle magic should be pretty good.
 
[X] Vacation
[X] Vigor Itself

So I was thinking how does the Foreear`s blade fit into our theory(him being a bear) and I got it. Mighty as he was, he had one weakness - he could not scratch his back. So he strapped a random blade onto his back and used it as a scratching stick. Basically this. And before each battle the enemy will see the 4Bear contemplating whether to pull his blade or use his paws. Hunger thought he needed two hands to wield it, which is logical as it was used to reach the lower back of the 4Bear.
 
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Update in ~20-30. Vacation time, guys!

[ ] A Republic Kill-Team - Surely this could only be a coincidence. Just as you and Letrizia were discussing the black ops extraction teams of the Republic, you encounter a badly ravaged force limping alongside the road, their Armor Prototypes charred and smoking from some recently unpleasant encounter. Wounded, weary, and far from resupply, nonetheless these represent very nearly the cutting-edge of human-scale combat capability in the Sphere. It would be unwise to provoke them.

*Diplomatic Difficulty: Medium, but Tyrant proc possible (10-20%)
*Combat Difficulty: Extreme. The group contains experimental-grade Armor Prototypes with effective Combat Rank 6.5, outfitted with bleeding-edge Astraltech augs and the finest armor-portable weaponry that modern science can produce. Crippled as they are, they would still be a formidable opponent... or irreplaceable ally.
*Bitchin': Hunger thinks these powered armors are cool and is more likely to enter negotiations with an amiable disposition. Letrizia remarks that Empire designs are cooler.
*Custody: The Kill-Team is "escorting" a hermetically sealed cocoon within which a magic user resides, "for their own protection."
 
They're not trying to fight you, they just want to go home T_T

That said, if provoked they will stand and deliver. For Freedom, Justice, and the Glory of the Republic!
 
Also, that power armor has Rank 6.5. Is this what penis envy feels like? I won't accept his numbers being bigger! Now we have to grab Rank no matter what! We just have to!

Rihaku said:
They're not trying to fight you, they just want to go home T_T

That said, if provoked they will stand and deliver. For Freedom, Justice, and the Glory of the Republic!
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Huh, can we convince them to help us with the Temple? They'd be a great help as long as they don't take the Moon Ring. That's ours. Our Precious!
 
Even if we want to fight these guys can we even win? The rank difference is obscene even if we disregard any active Rank use as they probably don't have a unlocked Astral Rank. That's not to mention the sheer numbers they hold.

Although, that prisoner they have could be a good ally. Plus, it's not like we can't snipe them afterwards if they turn out to be terrible morally.

This is of course if they proc Tyrant.
 
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