Dice rolls are 1d10 + Stat + Proficiency + any applicable bonuses, such as Boons.
You may spend 3 Tension to Overdrive for a retroactive +5 to your roll (a Determination Overdrive), or +3 to an ally's roll (a Teamwork Overdrive). I will also automatically overdrive to avoid exhaustion or unconsciousness.
It is possible to critically succeed (on +5 on skill checks and +10 on combat rolls) or critically fail (by the same margins), but rolling a 1 or a 10 does not automatically crit in either case. It is possible to crit retroactively by Overdriving.
Your stat bonuses have names:
Vigor grants a Strength bonus.
Agility grants a Dexterity bonus.
Spirit grants an Aura bonus.
Mind grants an Intuition bonus.
Resolve grants a Guts bonus.
Dice are rolled on a first come, first serve bonus. You only roll for Deedee.
And that "food may object to being eaten" line is amusing. The way you wrote the wiki entry implies that some people have indeed mistaken that for just being flavor text rather than a very flavorful warning.
That's exactly the implication I intended, yes. Have you ever seen a moose? "Objects to being eaten" is an understatement. Now add to that the fact that some of the things you can eat are very literally monstrous on top of that...
As tempted as I am to make this the Arian Divine Beast of Scherzo, unfortunately because it's Arian/Sherzo is a weird blend of Germanic and Extremely Mongolian, it has to be a ram.
Least Boon:
Scent Prey - Not to be confused with the combat boon Most Dangerous Game(acquired further down the Thornite tree), Scent Prey grants a +3 bonus to locate edible game and highlights radii for nodes where you can obtain wild food (such asForest Blackberries, Pungent Truffles, Ears of the Eldest, game watering holes, etc); the higher your Mind+Perception and Resolve+Survival, the tighter the radius.
The disclaimer that "the food may object to being eaten" is not an idle threat, as huntable animals in this are frequently monsters that require combat to take down, though power correlates to the value of the ingredients you can loot.
While valuable in a pinch or to save on rations, a properly equipped team will never find this necessary. If you're not doing a full Thornite build, take this only if you'd like to do the hunting and gathering minigames to get your brewing, cooking and tanning ingredients.
I mean you're not wrong. She's much friendlier than their Artemisian inspiration.
(And now you guys have a visual reference for picturing Dr Durante's halfway-shed cosplay from interlude one—she'd taken off the wings and quiver and put down the bow, but she still had the dress and some of the flower/vine accessories on. And she'd already dyed her hair to match. Heck, age Thorne up a couple decades and make them human and you've basically got Dr Durante herself—it's not quite as obvious now that she partly modeled Thorne's appearance on her younger self, but if you'd ever seen pictures of her in her early twenties...)
You wrench the neurohelmet off your head and get up, pulling yourself from the wreckage, heavy and clumsy and ugly and ungainly in your exosuit. You may have cracked something from that landing, parts of your Frame on fire before you, sickly pink and teal and gold from exotic matter and plasma and you pull yourself up and look behind you
and oh it's bad. it's worse than you expected. the helm is heavy in your right hand.
your heart stops as you see the enormous white and gold monorail shikansen smoking and sparking and lodged in the i/o tower, neatly intersecting where one of the beams used to project, 12 around it like spokes of a wheel or hours on a clock but this one in the air and up in one of the two projecting into space, the Jacob's Ladder sparking and sputtering. the tower sways. Behind you, you see a chunk of what used to be the doorframe of a space elevator in ruins, a freestanding wooden doorway on a beach full of crabstrocities.
You look into your right hand and the key to that door was snapped clean in half, you are not getting back that way.
Doggerel from your wingmate flows through your head: dadachick dadachee so much for the fuckin key, dadachum that's real keen all things serve the fucking -
"Hey."
You look up at your wingmate. As they were. Rail-thin and tan, studs in their ears and nose, dark mischevious eyes and short-cropped hair; walking with a limp even in her exosuit with the PILOT 00 insignia where you're 01. Jules is safe and you could kiss them and you feel ashamed for how much you ache to and then they take your hand.
"Hey, Crybaby, focus," she - they. they! - say, bringing you into a hug you need you ache for it it's been so long since you touched someone not through a hologram, and then they wipe the blood off your forehead and they start to pull all 325 fucking pounds of you along away from the beach and you can't help following after them, trying to look at the back of their head instead of their ass.
You can barely stutter it out. "Where - where are we -"
Your voice is alien and deep and scratchy and speaking with it hurts. How long were you out?
"Away, so you can heal, so you can make it here," they say. "Before the thing on the train finds you, it's free."
You hear a horrible ululating wailing howl and look up and
run faster as the thing swims through the air, wings buzzing, it's moan echoing and turning to static and snow the sound of a dead TV channel, the radar dish on it's head spinning faster and faster and you know it's not hearing anything because that beam is gone, one down thirteen to go -
You shake your head. "Safe is good, you're safe. I'm just glad you're okay, Jules, just -"
They shush you and smile and take you deeper into the jungle and oh.
Oh there's a town here, a shrine here, Jules is leading you there; a pool under a gazebo (it's pastel colored and friendly, it won't bite), spring fed. Pure.
"You're beat up, and hurt, and you've been fighting. You need to clean off to stay here," Jules says, and they start helping you out of your suit, and you don't want them to see what they're doing for you but you're too tired and hurt to object. You're naked before them and sweaty and sooty and bloody and fat and ugly and -
- and they're stripping down too and you don't know what you were worried about, as you walk to the pool. Your mother did this, she talked about it, you know how to do it. You need to immerse yourself completely, go under for it to be kosher, to be purified and reborn. Under and holding your breath to remind you that this too will pass, that all moments are fleeting, that life is short but good works endure.
You sink into the cool cleansing waters of the mikvah with your eyes closed for one long instant and you feel the sweat and grime and tears and blood and pain and ugliness float away and drift off, and it somehow tastes sweet as strawberries as you rise up.
Your head breaches the water, long red hair flowing, your ears popping up and listening for the soft scuttling of mice as it filters out the wail of the Glatisant, water rolling off your face and down your breasts and belly and hips and your three tails and you feel beautiful and at peace.
You see Jules sink behind you, for a beat, and rise up again - all tawny fur and shaggy dreadlocked mane, sleek feline muscles. You sigh and take her by the cheeks and kiss her forehead and hug her, and for all that you feel drowsy and needy and happy this is enough, you think, this is enough love and the right kind for your wingmate and roommate and constant friend and you're finally at peace with that -
Sekhmet chuckles and gives you a soft accolade on the cheek and pushes you forward into the cathedral, murmuring blessings of good hunting, and there is -
oh
Steadfast and unconquerable Alesha presses your head against her bosom and strokes your hair, and you feel Ace press up against your back and cup your breasts, and both of you just stay there and breathe each other in, you smelling of strawberries and Alesha of sunlight and bread and honey and Ace of cinnamon and iron and forge-char.
"Doesn't it feel better like this?" Ace asks. "I could do this, so can you."
"You can take this home with you," Alesha murmurs. "Once we find a way. These blessings, this baptism."
You kiss Alesha and turn to kiss Ace, and see that Ace is hurt so you start laying on hands, and Alesha sees how very hurt you are and you feel her press healing into your hips; your tails try to curl around Alesha and you kiss Ace again as your hands trace downward, you hear the scratch of Hikaru's pen as he notes this down for reference and that's good, it means he can add these Techniques to his sheet when you two level up again -
"I didn't even mean to come here but I'm glad I met you," Ace murmurs in your ear.
"I don't know how we got here but surely we'll find out," Hikaru says to you, resting his face against your belly.
"We'll find a way home and take your blessings with you," Alesha says.
"Or make a place here," Sekhmet says, looking on, "escape who you were trapped in."
You kiss Ace and Alesha and Hikaru and Sekhmet and
You feel your neck crack and spit goosefeather out of your mouth. You're blinking and aching and feel hungover, and there's a beam of hot light hitting your face.
You slowly roll over and pull and thin blanket off of you. Shapes are moving in the dim dusty light above you.
"Ah, you're awake. I was starting to become worried," you hear in a familiar and pleasant baritone.
...You realize you were dreaming about the owner of that voice kissing your stomach (among other things) a second ago and groan, running your hands down your burning face. You're so stupid and why are you this horny and...
God, you can only remember scattered images, like that pink moth thing and the baths, and the fact that your subconscious really wants you to fuck your entire party.
Great.
You try to ask if it's Hikaru there and instead mumble "hkru?" and your attempted sigh turns into a thankfully pained moan.
"Take a moment," says another, higher voice, alto brass to Hikaru's cello. "You were out of it for a while. Do you need water?"
You need water. Ace helps prop you up and you shiver as her hand cradles your head and you hate yourself for it, what is wrong with you right now. You take the offered glass and down it in one long draught.
Your consciousness gets a little sharper and you sit up straighter on the thin bedroll, hold out the glass again and look up at Ace's worried face as she refills it and tries to smile. "Hi."
"...How long was I out?" you ask. "Uh... is, is there food?" you add, because you've gotten like this before and hunger really adds fuzz to your brain.
Well, more and more pernicious fuzz than still being a goddamn foxgirl punchcleric does.
"Two nights, one day," Hikaru answers, closing his book with a dull resonant thud. "You're on the good ship Leon del Aurora, bound for Viacruz at all speed with a hull full of silver, rum and Adventurers."
"And cannons," Ace adds, a grim satisfaction in her voice, as she places some kind of brown wafer where you can reach it.
You take it, eating a bite.
You regret it. It apparently got softened in bacon lard and it's otherwise bland, mealy extruded calorie product.
You keep eating.
"And the PC pirates?" you ask, after swallowing.
"Some captured, some fled." Hikaru pauses, then sighs. "One dead. Hopefully not permanently."
"At this point, I wouldn't lose sleep over it," Ace mutters.
Neither did you, apparently. You munch your hardtack. "And Strawberry Shortcackle?" you ask.
Hikaru hesitates.
"Out with it," you sigh.
"Was retrieved by the ones that escaped, while we were doing much the same for you," Hikaru says. "Which was not your fault."
"Bullshit," you say, sighing, leaning over and curling up, the sheets falling away to show your blue underskirt. (God, you can touch your tits to your knees like this, that'll never stop getting weird.)
"Bullshit to your bullshit," Ace says, softly. "None of us knew what we getting into."
"Begging your pardon, Ace, but I did know what we were getting into," you say. As softly. Looking at your knees. "I knew we were going to be up against people as powerful as us while we were all tired from fighting, and I talked four angry, cranky people into joining me anyway. And then I literally passed out from it. There's no way to tell this story without making me sound foolish."
"They were assholes who had it coming," Ace snarls.
"And we gave them a fair fight. Instead of, you know, one we could win," you say, and sigh.
Hikaru's eyes flit between you and Ace. His wings, involuntarily, flit as well.
"What I asked you to do wasn't fair," you say, looking straight in Hikaru's eyes as you say it. "I asked you all to bite off more than we could chew, and Hikaru's Vigor 1 ass literally had to pick me up when I fell down. I'm sorry."
Hikaru closes his eyes and puts a hand over his mouth. For a long moment, none of us say anything.
"While you're less heavy than perhaps you're used to," Hikaru murmurs, "I... appreciate the apology. And the recognition that we shouldn't get into that habit."
You allow yourself to relax and unfold yourself. You want to cry, but you're very tired.
"Where are my clothes?" you say, after a while. "Clean ones, maybe. Don't want to flash the crew when I go topdecks," you joke. "Especially since I'm not really, well. You know."
You indicate your chest.
You thought it would break the ice, clear the tension. It didn't.
"Guess we're all exhausted," you say, and finish your cracker.
Ace and Hikaru exchange a glance.
"What?" you say through crumbs.
Hikaru gets up, shaking his head, and walks for the stairwell to the deck. You turn, a little hurt, to Ace. "What?" you repeat.
Ace puts her hand on your shoulder and your stupid sensitive skin shivers again at her touch, her proximity. You could handle it better with the context of healing her, even if she was half-naked, but now you're painfully aware of how close she is.
"Hey, Deedee?" she says.
You drop your shoulder, roll it, not sure if you want her to break contact or not. You hear a pop and wince. "Ace?"
"So, uh, Hikaru and I have been talking at your bedside," she says, "and it turns out we have something in common. Besides the three of us being trapped in this hellscape free trial that apparently includes the award winning King Under The Mountain expansion."
That gets a weak chuckle out of you. "What, being Kikaiser nuts?"
"I'm a trans woman, doofus."
You hiss in a breath. "Oh," you say.
And then, "I guess the 'this is fake' routine is less funny for people who aren't trying to fool anyone, and - jeez, I'm sorry, I absolutely didn't mean it like that," you say.
"Are you trying to fool anyone?" Ace asks you.
You shudder fullbody. You wince. "I - like, not on purpose, but I'm not."
"You're not what?" Ace asks, again, softly.
You start breathing, deliberately, two in, two hold, two out, two hold.
"Not really a..."
Why are you crying?
Why is Ace hugging you?
(You're much more okay with Ace hugging you than your crying.)
As per Ace's orders, you're still thinking about what she murmured into your ear while you're looking over the top of the deck, out to sea.
Do you want to be a girl?
Sekhmet comes up next to you, pressing a bottle and a napkin-wrapped box into your hands from one of many in a sack.
"Eat," she says.
- They say. They.
"Sekh," you say, taking the package, "Is it just me or are like half of my friends some kind of genderqueer?" you ask.
"I'd say at least half," they say. "Gets closer to all of them with just plain queer. I know that 'Leesh is cis and was extremely a Wife Guy before the divorce, and Ralph..." They shrug. "Even odds on his being the token straight or figuring out he's bi."
God. Ralph. "Can't believe I miss that guy," you say as you undo the knot on what you presume is your bento.
"Would you wish the giant enemy crabs and squatting behind a tree to shit on him?" Sekhmet says, stretching.
You let yourself watch them. The character creator has been kind to Sekhmet. Androgynous options would perhaps be kinder, but like the potato said: everyone here has good art direction now.
"Just because I miss him doesn't mean I want Truck-Kun to make a detour to his block," you say. "...Oh, sweet, there's bacon in this."
Sekh laughs. "That's salt pork," they say. "Cooked in stuff that needed the salt more."
It's still better than hardtack and you eat it gladly, along the dried vegetable and rice rations.
"Why does this remind me of taiwanese bentos?" you say between bites.
"Cause the history here is weird and we're in a convoy with a dude named Han Liu Wang."
Ah, yes, that would be the reason. You nod and eat another bite, feeling much better for it.
And take a deep breath.
"Sekh?"
"Yeah, Deeds?"
"I've kind of been panicking for the last three-four days, and thoughtless, and... okay, let's not pretend that the attack on the pirate fort wasn't a disaster," you begin.
Sekhmet holds up her hand and you shut up.
"Deeds I would have extremely made the call you did because I'm the same kind of idiot. Fuck griefers, fuck slavers, fuck people who should know better," they say. "We made it out, we'll do better next time. We're cool, Deeds."
You laugh and hug them, and they're startled by the gesture.
"When did you get this affectionate?" they say, though they hug you back.
You nuzzle their cheek before you realize that's what you're doing and then you realize you don't care. Besides... "I'm happy you're alive. That we're alive. That we still have each other, here."
"Love you too, sheesh," they say, pushing you away. "Warn me next time, okay?"
"Sorry, sorry," you say, and laugh again, and whoop. "Fuck you, Strawb! Get fuckin banhammered!"
Some of the crew turn to look at you and Sekh rolls her - their - eyes at you, but smiles about it.
You're helping the sailors with knotwork when you see a familiar face among the people from Mundus.
(The locals? The Mundanes? NPC seems disrespectful.)
The girl you rescued has been utterly transformed by a bath and her proper clothing; literal rags to silks and wool, in bright white and blue and golden geometry, with a blue scarf around her head and a lovingly embroidered skullcap over that.
"You look much better," you say. "Like a million bucks."
They seem a little confused. "What are 'bucks?'"
You blink, then laugh. "Crowns," you amend. "Like a million Crowns in your pocket. Or purse."
"I would like to think I'm more beautiful than the gold in my purse," she says, smiling. "Deedee, was it?"
"Yeah," you say, exhaling. "I, uh, could have thought your rescue through a little better. I put you in danger. I'm glad you're safe."
"If you had waited a day, I would be on a ship bound for a mine," she says, face solemn. "If you were foolish, it was the foolishness that the Gods protect us from."
"Given that Slyphan apparently gave me the power to kick people into orbit, I guess they do," you agree. "Honestly, there's a whole string of miracles since I got here. I'm just glad one of us gets to go home."
She looks at you for a moment, thoughtful, playing with her skirts.
"Don't worry about that," you say. "That's my own problem to deal with and I shouldn't have mentioned it."
"It won't be your home," she says, "but you should come to mine. My father... my father will want to meet the adventurers that saved me from worse than death. To see your faces, and to thank you." She takes your hand, and squeezes.
You sigh, and smile down at her, a little homesick.
"I'll talk with the others about it, but I don't think we can refuse an offer like that," you say.
She opens her hand, fully, spreading the fingers to make a sign of benediction - which she presses against your breastbone, just below your bust.
It feels warm.
"Dawn come for you," she says.
"And you as well," you say, because it feels right.
She nods, and finds whatever she was doing before she saw you.
It's late, and you come on deck for the last bit of daylight you'll get before laying out your pad to sleep; it's cramped and full of barrels down below, so most of the adventurers and a good deal of the crew will be sleeping topside, so you want to find your place early and you head is buzzing from even the watered rum and juice that they serve to stop scurvy, and from telling and hearing the story of your rescue a dozen times while the crew tried to top your competitive bragging.
You're not alone, either; to your surprise you see the tiger-striped alky-catte from before. It's not terribly surprising that she's on the ship, you figure with a bit more thought, this is the one that picked up all the adventurers. More that you expected to be alone.
You whistle to her, wave at her. She, a little startled, waves back, and you approach.
"I feel like I should apologize," she says, fidgeting with a potion bottle. "For not going with your group that night."
"Huh?" You look up at her, wondering why she's apologizing.
So that's what it's like for my team, your brain unhelpfully comments.
"I don't - I mean, we all had a lot going on. This world is a lot less fun on this side of the screen, I mean, and." Eloquent as ever, you shake your head and listen. "You were in a fight. You were tired. I was tired."
You fucked up.
"It wasn't that I was tired," she says, with a sigh. "It was that I was busy freaking out. I barely even registered what Sekhmet was asking."
"You and me both," you say.
She's quiet for a moment, looking out over the sea, before she says, "Did you know that when we're playing AWO we're more or less amphibious?"
That came out of nowhere, and you try to think of what she could mean by that. For all you've recovered, thinking isn't easy for you when you're still recovering from passing out in Hikaru's arms.
"Uh?" Your eloquence strikes again. "I'm pretty sure you need Meredar boons for that?"
"Not air and water amphibious," she says. "Earth and Mundus amphibious. Usually when we're playing our minds are enough in the 'real world' that we can do things like register basic needs or hear emergency sirens and so on. But mostly our minds are here. On the server. Piloting around our player characters."
She frowns. "Am I making sense so far?"
There's a word at the edge of your memory that you're groping for but can't find.
"So... what, now we've been swept under?"
"Maybe," the tiger-catte says. "Kind of. Sort of. That's what I thought at first. I mean, there's a reason there's those warning stickers on the neurohelms about what not to do if the user goes unresponsive. But equipment failure happening to so many people at once...? It didn't make sense. And once I finally got that long stretch of downtime after the fight, I finally realized what did."
She looks back out over the water and says, "If our minds are here and on Earth, what happens if our bodies aren't there anymore?"
You don't answer for a long, long time.
Then you say, "Alesha would be devastated, for starters."
You don't want to think about this. You have to think about this. You have to ask Hikaru what he thinks about this.
Fuck.
"Fuck."
"Yeah," she says. "I was really fucked up about it that night. Still am. But at the same time... I mean, it's not like they store the servers on Earth, right? It's all satellites. So if World War Three did happen..."
"Do you have any proof it could be that?" you snap.
The tiger-catte flinches. "No," she says. "Not yet. I'd have to be able to leave Mundus to get it. Which I can't. None of us can. But we don't have proof that it's not, either."
She smooths down her fur. "I'm sorry," she says. "I— I shouldn't have said anything. It's just been eating me up since then. Feeling shitty I didn't help and feeling shitty because we might be all that's left here. I shouldn't have put that on you too. It was a real asshole move."
You reach out for her. To her. Wincing.
Least Boon of Eranda said:
give someone +3 to a Resolve roll to push through and start processing trauma.
"It's possible," you say. "It's - not the kind of thing we should have to think about and it's not the kind of thought you should deal with alone. And, honestly, doing what I did was extremely stupid even if it worked. We don't... we can't begrudge you time to deal with everything continuing to happen, okay? You don't - you don't have to finish the job, you just have to keep working on it," you say, echoing your mother.
Your Father, who agreed, and converted.
A small part of you points out that this is advice you should listen to more often yourself and you sigh. "Fixing the world is too big for one life, let alone two days."
After a long moment, the tiger-catte nods. "You're right," she says. "I just... have to do my part. And if we are the only ones left, if we are stuck here... then we're going to have to plan for the long term. Which is definitely more than one catte can handle. Even in anime, it takes a village to speedrun the industrial revolution."
"Hopefully it won't come to that," you say, exhaling all of a breath you didn't realize you were holding. "If it does, well, I have a friend you should talk to."
She smiles. "I've met Hikaru. He's not what I expected 'Administrator Bluesky' to be like."
You stop yourself, from gushing about him, barely by noticing the coastline.
"Hey, look!" you say, pointing. "I think we're pulling into Viacruz!"
She turns to look too, sighing relief - before her face falls.
"Uh?" you say, again. "Look, miss - er -"
"Bacon," she says. "Frankie Bacon."
"Frankie," you say, wondering if this makes her the second enby catgirl you know. "Frankie, what's wrong, what do you see that I don't?"
She points at the city as a beam from the Great Lighthouse of Viacruz sweeps over you both, and you hear the crew and adventures come up just in time to hear what they say next.
"Why are there lights outside of the city walls?"
You shake your head, and look - and see them flickering out to the north. "I don't - I can't see why," you say
Hikaru is there in an instant, handing you a spyglass.
You raise it, look to the city as night falls.
Outside of it, at the main gate to the north, is a sea of tents and shacks - a shantytown.
A refugee camp.
And it's huge.
You wordlessly pass the spyglass to Frankie.
"Oh, fuck," you whisper.
End of Chapter One:
At The Shores Of Awakening
Please Look Forward to
Chapter Two:
Expedition to the Lost Temple of [$NULL POINTER ERROR]
So, fun fact, as long as I'm complaining about how low the playerbase in SAO is, you know, like a hypocryte doing research:
An FF14's server's peak capacity is around 5,000 players. I'm talking about the named ones under the Aether/Crystal/Primal ones, the ones with names like Balmug or Cactuar.
FF14 is also a game hitting it's stride at, uh, 27 years before this Quest takes place.
Deedee gains the flaw "Violent:" if she can attack, she must, or else lose 2 Tension (this can go into the negatives, inflicting Poor Morale). This only applies when her allies or innocents are in danger, not to pure self defense.
Vote on a plan for levelling up that spends up to 9 Skill Points and 4 Tech Points from the options below. You can save both between levels.
[] Skill Points (9):
- [] Bravado (6, begin each fight with 1 Tension and has story repercussions.)
- [] Cover (6, you may take blows meant for nearby allies)
- [] Crisis Mode (4, you deal more damage at critical health.)
- [] Desperation Mode (5, you gain +1 to evasion rolls at critical health.)
- [] Flash The Crimson Tail (4, draw aggro from one enemy, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [] Teamwork Tactics (5, you gain a flanking bonus of +1 to hit)
- [] Traveller's Cloak (3, you may use Spirit to cloak your presence, making Stealth spirit-based, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [] Trickster's Revenge (4, you deal more damage from knockback and environmental effects, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [] Sorcerer's Discretion (2, shapes AoE attacks to have -3 to hit allies)
- [] Any Proficiency you don't have (2, see below, can take multiple times)
- [] Any Least Boon you don't have (3, see below, can take multiple times)
[] Proficiencies. All of these are +1 to d10 when they come up.
- [] Composure (Keep calm and carry on.)
- [] Empathy (Feel what others feel.)
- [] Hostility (Insult and intimidate.)
- [] Investigation (Leave no stone unturned.)
- [] Leadership (Lead by example.)
- [] Lore-Wise (Know Mundus as Mundanes do.)
- [] Mysticism (Matters of faith and sorcery.)
- [] Perception (Quickly read the scene.)
- [] Science (Deduce the possible.)
- [] Stealth (Hide from prying eyes.)
- [] Survival (Live, off the land.)
- [] Wiki-Walk (Knowledge and trivia from IRL.)
[] Least Boons. These get the attention of the Gods, for better or for worse, but grant +3 to d10 under a specific circumstance.
- [] of Aurora (Physically exert yourself, in the light of her sun.)
- [] of Mutan (Sleep well, dream deep, and express yourself.)
- [] of Thorne (Be at home in these lands, if you take only what you need.)
- [] of Delvar (Know what can be bought, and strike down those who dare sell souls.)
- [] of Meredar (Respect the seas and the skies, and know thier ways.)
- [] of Jae'eun (Know the price of everything, and what is priceless forever.)
- [] of Ubastdjet (Know the myriad curses and maladies, so you may cure them.)
[] Techniques (4).
- [] Whirlwind Talon (up to 2)
-- [] Fox Leap (1. Add a short dash before or after attacking.)
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Whirlwind Talon.)
- [] Gryphon Kick (up to 1)
-- [] Claw Claw Bite (1. This attack counts as a Throw, and can chain onto another enemy.)
-- [] Gryphon's Wings (1. Add a short dash before or after attacking.)
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Gryphon Kick.)
- [] Wind Cutter (up to 2)
-- [] Gale Blast (1. Improve Wind Cutter to an AoE attack, turning it to Gale Blast.
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Wind Cutter.
-- [] Swift Winds (1. Increase the range of Wind Cutter.)
- [] Healing Zephyr (up to 1)
-- [] Winds of Growth (0. Change Healing Zephyr to a weaker HoT effect. Total healing is increased slightly.)
-- [] Increased Range (1. Improve the range of Healing Zephyr.)
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the base healing of Healing Zephyr.)
- [] Zephyr's Grace (up to 2)
-- [] Improved Initiative (1. The buff also improves the target's initiative by 2.)
-- [] Mass Zephyr's Grace (1. The buff is applied in an AoE.)
- [] New Buff Spell (choose one)
-- [] Hunter's Precision (4, the target gets +1 to hit rolls)
-- [] Bend Like Reeds (4, the target gets +1 to evasion rolls)
-- [] Gale's Fury (3, the target does improved physical damage)
The vote will open at midnight and extend to 6 PST on Tuesday let's make it Wednesday, to allow for more arguments and speculation!
[X]Sylphan Monk -[X] Skill Points (9):
- [X] Traveller's Cloak (3, you may use Spirit to cloak your presence, making Stealth spirit-based, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] Trickster's Revenge (4, you deal more damage from knockback and environmental effects, a Boon of Sylphan) - [X] Stealth (Hide from prying eyes.) -[X] Techniques
- [X] Whirlwind Talon (up to 2)
-- [X] Fox Leap (1. Add a short dash before or after attacking.)
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Whirlwind Talon.)
- [X] Wind Cutter (up to 2)
-- [X] Gale Blast (1. Improve Wind Cutter to an AoE attack, turning it to Gale Blast.
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Wind Cutter.
So much lovely stuff to vote on! Well, I'm in favor of Thorne's boon, for its practicality, and Mutan's for helping us sort out our dreams... although they're actually pretty fun in nonsense mode, so maybe not.
I'm also into our new skill possibility, Lore-Wise, because I do love me some Mundus Lore.
If this were really a Valor game, I'd be into Bravado, because being able to OD earlier than your opponent is always good, but I'm not sure I'd want to use up most/all our new skillpoints on it. Same with Teamwork Tactics. Maybe if we bank some we don't use?
Traveler's Cloak is neat. I like the ones that go with our god in general.
(As far as the techs go, I'm here for anything that makes us even more Kamen Rider Kikaiser than we already are.)
[]Sylphan Monk
- [] Traveller's Cloak (3, you may use Spirit to cloak your presence, making Stealth spirit-based, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [] Trickster's Revenge (4, you deal more damage from knockback and environmental effects, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [] Mysticism (Matters of faith and sorcery.)
- [] Stealth (Hide from prying eyes.) [] Techniques
- [] Whirlwind Talon (up to 2)
-- [] Fox Leap (1. Add a short dash before or after attacking.)
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Whirlwind Talon.)
- [] Wind Cutter (up to 2)
-- [] Gale Blast (1. Improve Wind Cutter to an AoE attack, turning it to Gale Blast.
-- [] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Wind Cutter.
here my plan for leveling , also we have 9 skill points and not 6 right?
God, you can only remember scattered images, like that pink moth thing and the baths, and the fact that your subconscious really wants you to fuck your entire party.
I mean, that's not actually how it manifested, that's Deedee kicking her own ass for little to no reason (and having a crush on every single party member, yes. Though she seems to be getting over/disentangeling aesthetic appreciation from the one to Jules/Sekhmet.)
She's now someone who will fight like a cornered fox for her friends, as per our new Violent flaw.
... Given we've got a lot of knockback on out Single Target, maybe Trickster's Revenge isn't such a bad choice.
That said, if we invest in Trickster's Revenge, we probably want Claw Claw Bite and as much other knockback as possible. (I love the pinball builds of Valor and I will gladly stump for them at every opportunity.)
I really do want Mutan's least boon, but much much more than that, I want Lore-Wise.
Lore-Wise has already given us an edge once, and will probably continue to do so-- and it's clear already that we ignore it at our peril.
Given we have a drain on our ST now thanks to Violent, we need to be more careful with our Stamina skills-- Since we have to attack every turn, and every attack needs Stamina, that's something we're going to need to check on. Mind you, we main Spirit, so it's not too too bad (Spirit is one of the... Two? Attributes that pumps Stamina), but we're definitely going to need to be a little bit careful.
Given we have a drain on our ST now thanks to Violent, we need to be more careful with our Stamina skills-- Since we have to attack every turn, and every attack needs Stamina, that's something we're going to need to check on. Mind you, we main Spirit, so it's not too too bad (Spirit is one of the... Two? Attributes that pumps Stamina), but we're definitely going to need to be a little bit careful.
Single target is assumed and not noted - say rather that the RIDERKAISER GRIFFON KICK is our opener. SP is stamina points, I renamed Skill Points to CP (character points).
[X] Pinball Priest
- [X] Skill Points (6):
- [X] Trickster's Revenge (4, you deal more damage from knockback and environmental effects, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] Lore-Wise (Know Mundus as Mundanes do.)
- [X] Least Boon of Mutan (Sleep well, dream deep, and express yourself.) - [X] Techniques (Up To 4) - [X] Gryphon Kick (Up To 1)
-- [X] Claw Claw Bite (1. This attack counts as a Throw, and can chain onto another enemy.)
- [X] Wind Cutter (up to 2)
-- [X] Gale Blast (1. Improve Wind Cutter to an AoE attack, turning it to Gale Blast.
- [X] Healing Zephyr (up to 1)
-- [X] Increased Range (1. Improve the range of Healing Zephyr.)
- [X] Zephyr's Grace (up to 2)
-- [X] Improved Initiative (1. The buff also improves the target's initiative by 2.)
