[X] Foment Rebellion
[X] Feat: Shameless - +.25 Rank
Because social worked so well here
we decided to improve the society of the magical fascist
We'll be improving the lot of the semi-downtrodden, not the actual magical fascists- and we'll drag the rest of the downtrodden with us, I'm sure, it's just that only the semi-downtrodden are useful to us as foot soldiers until we get done empowering the fully downtrodden.
But more generally, our social would probably work better if we weren't out-Ranked by our opponent and if we had something to offer them that's farther beyond (heh) what they already have.
To do some devil's advocating of my own, Foment Rebellion plays to Hunger's historical strengths as a rabble-rousing hero. It's nothing he's not done before and with Vigor Incarnate or Ennobling he'd be very good at it here. Plus, we improved Aeira's facility for Combat and Gisena's just about to emerge from her metaphorical chrysalis! Are we such Rank-hungry glory hounds that we can't share the victory, even when waiting increases our overall odds of achieving it? Cutting Through has its memetic appeal and there is something to be said for seizing the day, but slow and steady wins the race for a reason.
I think I agree with all this.
It's another piece of damningly reckless characterization, relying on rushing into the unknown and hoping that pulling the plug will cripple the Immortals.
Also a good point. Reckless!Hunger, who thinks not of allies and only of maximizing his own power, speed, and ability to CUT... eh. I don't want to play that guy forever. Having him slow down and use a little of his
Hero skill set, rather than just impersonating the Forebear or some other stone-cold killer with more of a 'swift assassin' focus, appeals to me.
Plus, we get counter-caster and ninja support, which could be very useful against the Inner Temple's upper echelon. As of right now they may be only vaguely aware Gisena exists, and utterly ignorant of Aeira. A stealth character is exponentially more dangerous when the enemy doesn't know she's operating in the area, and exponentially more dangerous than
that when the enemy doesn't even know your side has a stealther.
Also, we might be able to gain some intelligence on what the Inner Temple guardians are capable of before directly fighting them, which would give us time to prepare if any of them have esoteric abilities or big nasty magic or whatnot.
Bleed them.
In fairness, that could just be propaganda intended to paint them as the dutiful protectors of civilization. But I'd expect to have at least one Immortal guarding the Treasure around the clock, that's the bare minimum of expected vigilance.
Oh definitely.
I mean, if nothing else, a Ring isn't like a normal natural resource that takes huge facilities to process. It can potentially be wielded in all its might by
one person. You can just, y'know, grab it, and it will make you significantly stronger. Probably the worst crises the Inner Temple has faced to date came from the temptation of some sufficiently ruthless and already-strong individual whose power surpassed the others to simply take the Ring for themselves and leave Temple civilization to collapse.
So they probably keep a fairly badass guard force located somewhere very close to the Ring, and those guards are probably pretty vigilant, if only to keep an eye on each other. I suspect they could hold us off long enough that more powerful enemies would start dogpiling in.
After all, we're not that much stronger right now than the Marshal. There's no plausible way that the Inner Temple
didn't have defenses around the Azure Ring powerful enough to ensure that they could cope with "the Marshal or someone like him goes rogue in a sudden fit of decisive betrayal and seizes the Ring." But such an attack could happen with no warning, at any moment! So I doubt we'll be able to speedblitz them as easily as all that.
Maybe if we'd gotten Avecarn to let his guard down and escort us into the inner sanctum or something. But not this way.
As we once again pass up on opalescence, a thought.
Going straight from not picking Opalescence to Pillars would be like saying "Invest in better armor? Nonsense. I'll buy a house."
This amuses me
If we were just fighting monsters I'd probably be stumping for Opalescence, but since we're planning either a
very risky assault or a rebellion, we need something a bit more versatile, something that adds weight to our plotting and our punching and not just our protection.
So, rank. This time.
I just realized:
Foment Rebellion will proc Nightmare Praetor's "As Planned" bonus to planning and preparation!
Oooh, good thought! Remind me what that does? Be nice to have a plan for a change.
