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A Simple Transaction I

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[X] His People Need Him
[X] The Ring of Power: Ring-Lord

1 free easily controllable, no self-defeating or self-sabotaging hero unit?

Sure.
 
[X] Star of Grace
[X] An End to Misery

This is my pick for now, though I'm still processing the options, and strong math arguments could sway me to the Assault Halo.

Rihaku said:
[ ] Imprisoner's Vestige - The light of the soul, awakened and intensified. Discounts Heavenly Tomb by 7 Arete, unlocks it, and augments it.

Evening Sky: Heavenly Tomb [Conjunctional: The Ring of Power, The Forebear's Blade] - 25 Arete (1 pick)

No paradise is this,
no splendid Realm of Evening's kiss;
but its colder distaff face -
a prison spun from time and space.

The heavens are vault and spectacle, vastness and sea; entombed among those countless points of light are elder beings and heralds of strange design. Trapped upon a pale green speck of planetary earth, it can be hard to grasp the enormity of that perilous ocean surrounding, but it would be unwise to forget: earth and sea and sky were never equals. The sky is more than a window and darkness, the stars more than the natural lighting of the cosmos. Beyond the far reaches of mortal grasp lie wonders and horrors as to remake the philosophies of man, contained by mere distance from their revelatory conquest.

*Walls of Night: ++++++++++Protection, ignore Protection penalties.
*Endless Depths: Massively increases the effective health and health regeneration of the Evening Sky before depletion.
*Imprisoner's Might: Grants immense but highly specific power over the interior Cloak of Evening, permitting the effects below:

*Enemies defeated completely may be consigned to the Heavenly Tomb, absorbed into the Evening Sky & frozen in the bleak nothingness beneath time and space. There is no limit to the number of foes that can be so contained; entire civilizations can be preserved in the amber of time.
*You may also store and retrieve inanimate objects so long as they are under your control.
*An enemy once trapped in the Heavenly Tomb becomes categorically incapable of ever defeating the wearer again. They may be released for rehabilitation, further punishment or annihilation at the wearer's leisure. Note however that this is not an absolute guard; those trapped are not preventing from resisting or inconveniencing the wearer, merely from ever defeating him.
*If you have Pillars of Creation, you may within the Realm of Evening unfreeze and interact with defeated foes from a position of perfect safety, employing the implements of the Realm of Evening as you please.
*Time and training may expand and revise these effects with no effective upper limit, including esoteric imprisonment effects such as the sealing of aspects or ideas.
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I wish I liked Imprisoner's Vestige, but a great deal of it's value is tied up in it's Amber of Time effect, and I find that mostly worthless. The fact that it's conceptual potency is capable of growth is interesting, but the only two things about the EFB I'm drawn to are the Subspace Pocket, and the protection increase, and that's not enough value for 25 Arete.

Rihaku said:
[ ] Forebear's Blade: Assault Halo - The Ring Azure understands that this is but one step of many in the conquests of the Crimson. To that it lends its severity, its alacrity, and its tenacious strength.

*Increase by half again the numerical effects of one 7-Arete Stance the character is using, or by one-third the the numerical effects of one 28-Arete Stance.
*Gain 10% Crit Chance, 30% Attack Speed, and 50% resistance to enemy magics (halving their effects).
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The Assault Halo is more interesting, I'm a huge fan of ADS, so this has some appeal, but it's a bit limited, if it effected all currently in use stances it would be more of a lock, but for now I'm going to have to say no.

Rihaku said:
[ ] The Ring of Power: Ring-Lord - The best lies have foundation in the truth. The Azure Ring knows well the value of irony. A Ring-Lord you are proclaimed; a Ring-Lord you shall become.

Extends the purview of Chief Dominion to the social domain, with the themes of lordship, nobility, conquest, serendipity, and rule. The effects of Crimson Flare upon the Chief Dominion are applied to this augmented purview.
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Urg, pure social power, I cant actually describe the level of hate I feel for this option, in my world view it has absolutely no use, and while I know I'm alone in that feeling, it's still my thought process, HARD PASS.

Rihaku said:
[ ] Star of Grace - A jewel of pure edeldross, representing grace unasked for and undeserved. When all else had failed, when all hope had died, when all others had turned their backs, the Hunger Ring took up his sword and cut a path. Few are the debts between Rings and fewer still their moments of sentimentality. But perhaps if a Ring could shed tears of gratitude, then still it would shed only one - and this unquestionably would be its form. Discounts Silver of Evening by 7 Arete and augments + unlocks it.

Evening Sky: Silver of Evening - 25 Arete (1 pick)

Inset in the crown of evening is a star of purest edeldross; its wearer becomes swift as nightfall after the sun's passing, beautiful as the naked stars, and sacred as midnight itself. For all spheres of magic in Evening reside: its wearer their master, and champion besides.

Double the Magnitude of present and future Edeldross enhancements.
Edeldross-derived abilities now count as full Graces (don't require upkeep or corporeal structure to maintain)
+100% to the value of AGI and Charisma +s
+1 Defensive Rank
Once per sidereal month, perfectly defeat any one hostile effect to which the wearer would otherwise be subject. Applied against a Curse, grants two stages of mitigation for one day and one night. May apply even to the Doom of the Tyrant.
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Now, I was not wild about Silver of Evening when we first saw it, I always liked Total Eclipse the best of the ES EFB's and this seemed to put Edeldross in it's place, without adding enough value to be worth disincentivizing Total Eclipse.

The bonuses added to the option change that somewhat, the language is much more evocative, it gives us true, permanent graces at double the power, the agility bonus continues to be nice, and having a perfect defense once a month is a good panic button.

Added to that is Renaissance Woman waiting in the background, if Gisena's getting Total Eclipse, we aren't, and I agree that narratively it makes more sense for that to be her power up, especial now that we can craft full graces out of Edeldross, the fact that they wont be directly offensive is immaterial, Praxis is much better at that anyway.

When it comes down to it, making a EFB even stronger is a better use of the reward, and the Arete, then taking a more limited option, and I just love the text of star of grace. I was never wild about Pilars anyway, I prefer more tangible power over time skip buffing, and taking a pure power EFB gives us more options when it comes to maximizing Trinity.
 
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Projectile said:
It's not just blood when being spilled, but also the blood in all life. Without life, what meaning is there in rule? Crimson knows this well, which is why he is the best Ruling Ring. (This is racist against robots, but I won't say that because I'm trying to argue here. Shh.)
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Even without the malus incurred by institutionalizing anti-robot bigotry, conceptually linking Rule to Blood sets up an aristocracy or Nobility that I immediately chafe under. The Ennoblement descriptions have skirted the line of eugenics by appealing to Tolkien's legendarium but this option seems icky in a way I might eventually be able to articulate
 
Don't forget, Walls of Night is substantially better than the +Cha from Silver of Evening for protection purposes, since it's Evening Sky Protection which is affected by the domain expansion of Iridescence!
 
[X] His People Need Him


[X] Star of Grace

Evening Sky: Silver of Evening

I like Assault Hero and Ring Lord but that agility and charisma buff from Silver is crazy. Tho Assault Hero with ADS would buff all of our stats. Great choices.
 
Rihaku said:
[ ] Star of Grace
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Hoo boy, full Graces? That we don't have to maintain? And whats more access to new ones rely on Gisenna thats about to be buffed up by the Azure Ring? Discount towards EFB and Trinity? Stats enhancement out of the whazoo? A perfect defence above the conceptual realm? I mean what kind of crazy shenanigans is this?

Rihaku said:
[ ] Imprisoner's Vestige
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Oh god the protection bonus plus removing all penalties to it even non-Evening Sky derived ones. Perfectly neutralize and safely subdue all opponents. Sealing techniques without the Seven Seal limitations. Turn broken enemies into pokemons, strip powers from others that we could not harvest with the Ring of Hunger the list goes on and on. The amount of abuse a superhumanly smart person could do with this...

Rihaku said:
[ ] Forebear's Blade: Assault Halo
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Ahahaha an even more powerful All-Defeating Stance! Or maybe invest all its power into Magic or Hero-Defeating Stance. Like that is good but the permanent buffs are the real power up of this advancement.

Rihaku said:
[ ] The Ring of Power: Ring-Lord
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7+ Rank Crimson Flare buffed up reality warping power over a broad range of social effects. We saw already with words and Treachery that even stronger beings can be broken and have them kneel and serve us. It might be easier to reach the level where we have enough Rank and social powers to subvert and dominate the Human Sphere especially its arnament pilots...

[X] His People Need Him
[X] Star of Grace

A magic system that we don't need to train and research plus a perfect defence? Sign me up chief!
 
Rihaku said:
[ ] Imprisoner's Vestige - The light of the soul, awakened and intensified. Discounts Heavenly Tomb by 7 Arete, unlocks it, and augments it.
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The light of the soul huh... It seems this is indeed Soul Evocation, but different. Oriented around the Evening Sky instead of Seals, and with a bunch of immediate power bonuses. Also makes buying the Opalescence tree good, although we should probably do that after Trinity.

[X] Imprisoner's Vestige

It appears I'm waffling. Two different Evening Sky EFBs, both with mage cutouts, providing progress towards Trinity as well... This is a good vote.

Also @BrainInAJar calling in a marker. Objective is Imprisoner's Vestige or Star of Grace winning, I don't care which.
 
Imprisoner's Might make finally make Evening sky pearlscence upgrades relevant again and completely fixes our weakness of low protection while giving us an alternative to killing our enemies, which might be very good for Hunger's mental state in the long run. No more being forced to kill Vanriers or other actual heroic types. We can recruit them!
 
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Let's see. We're currently at 5.4 Rank, so 7.4 rank for Blood.

Without knowing the full extent of what Ring-Lord offers it doesn't really appeal to me. Higher rank there is nice but replicable in other ways. On the other hand the boosts to Silver and Tomb are likely unique.
 
ImperatorV said:
The light of the soul huh... It seems this is indeed Soul Evocation, but different. Oriented around the Evening Sky instead of Seals, and with a bunch of immediate power bonuses. Also makes buying the Opalescence tree good, although we should probably do that after Trinity.

[X] Imprisoner's Vestige

It appears I'm waffling. Two different Evening Sky EFBs, both with mage cutouts, providing progress towards Trinity as well... This is a good vote.
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I recommend Star of Grace because we still have that training malus; Gisena can not only research Edeldross for us, she will now do it with the power of the Azure Ring! Meanwhile, we'd still hack away at developing Tomb at slightly sub-human pace.
[X] Star of Grace
 
[X] His People Need Him

If we went with Treachery, might as well make use of him.

No real opinion on the Ring benefits yet, though I'm leaning slightly to the Sky EFB discounts. I could be convinced otherwise to side with anything though.
 
[x] Imprisoner's Vestige
[X] An End to Misery
Wall of night --> Pearlescence stronk. Buff ourselves into not playing rocket tag anymore!

Edit: also, long term non lethal options! We can avoid killing with edeldross, but we don't really have a next step for restraint. Truly a shame for the Imprisoner...
 
[X] Imprisoner's Vestige

I feel immediately drawn to this, not only does it unlock heavenly tomb, but it sounds like it might unlock our soul evocation or at least strengthen it. Also tomb has synergy with pillars and also shores up our protection and gives us a much better version of the mantle regen effect from inksky. This is combined with infinite storage and all the stuff about in-prisoning enemies. Also it is a nice aesthetic.
 
If we were willing to forfeit the singularity, we may be able to apply Philosopher's Wreath to the power of the Heavenly Tomb. Truly a painful conundrum.

@Zfglx Imprisoner's Vestige provides notable enough levels of Function overlap with Azure Moon that it gets called "The light of the soul, awakened and intensified. " when the Light of the Soul is a Soul Evocation. It's called Imprisoner's Vestige like our Soul Evocation. It's essentially Azure Moon but without the Fuinjutsu aesthetic.
@Rihaku Tally incoming if someone hasn't beaten me to it.
Adhoc vote count started by Byzantine on Jul 9, 2020 at 1:52 AM, finished with 71 posts and 32 votes.
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Consensus on discord is it's very unlikely we can use Tomb to imprison dead foes, as that would be way too cheap a way to revive people. So it wouldn't have worked on Vanrier anyway, as we had no means of subduing him that was not lethal, as his offensive power was too great to defeat any other way.
 
Sliver of Evening synergizes with the All-Defeating Stance. Higher baseline stat buff combined with strength scaling Ruinous Valor and counterattack-everything-with-Ruin ADS means it might even be better or beat the Assault Halo. Or maybe keep Sten alive for now then later with the Heavenly Vault strip him of his Soul Evocation. We know Evokers get stat buffs with the package so combine that with Stranglethorn to send our Might to the stratosphere and whatever exotic powers he has.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Byzantine on Jul 9, 2020 at 1:52 AM, finished with 71 posts and 32 votes.
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[X] His People Need Him


[X] Star of Grace

Forging graces is impressive. Someday we may be a maiden too. I like Wall of Night, but I like the grace path more.
 
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