Divine Ascendancy Quest

Month 2
The War of the Sundering lasted approximately one century, though this is disputed among scholars. It is generally agreed that after this the state of total war ended, but many consider the many raids and conflicts between the three groups to be a continuation of this. Nonetheless, after the nominal ending, the deities of all sides ceased to directly fight. Instead, the three leaders agreed that they would punish any who directly interferred with the war, which is considered to be the start of the modern Pax Caelum. This book will examine the events of this war, and analyze the factors that lead to it.
-Excerpt from a book in the Library of Oham

The weather begins to warm, bringing with it heavy rain. It feels as though you cannot step foot outside without becoming drenched, even with your umbrella. Worse, the palace leaks through one thousand tiny holes. While you manage to plug the ones that are near your living chambers, doing it to the entire palace would take you months of continuous work. The village begins planting various crops, and hold a festival celebrating the end of the winter.

[] Fix the traps.

It takes a bit of work, but you manage to reset the traps. Any intruders will have to face pits of spikes, arrows flying from the walls, spears shooting from the floors, and walls that slide together or change to prevent trap intruders. The rain may begin to damage the traps over time, but you have sealed any visible leaks near the mechanisms in order to prevent this from happening soon. Only time will tell if the traps will remain functional though.

[] Study Shapeshifting

WIth some additional practice, you learn how to radically alter your size, though you are still constrained by a vaguely elvish form. You can be short or tall, fat or thin, and you can grow your teeth to fangs or your nails to claws, but you cannot radically alter yourself. Despite great effort, you cannot turn into an animal, grow additional limbs, or anything of the sort. The one problem you have is that your clothes don't change with you, which can quickly become awkward. You feel like you've reached the end of the easy progression in this area of your powers, and that any additional progress will take a great amount of work.

[] Learn to heal

Though you don't have a readily available test subject, you practice on some plants. You learn to sustain a plant with only your essence, and you repair several scratches on yourself over the course of an hour. It's not very effective, but it could help if used alongside mundane healing. You feel like you could also improve this skill with additional effort.

[] Practice your Stealth Skills

This goes much easier than the other methods of using your powers. You quickly learn to enhance your physical abilities so that you can move swiftly and surely, and your senses so that you can see others without them seeing you. This is of great help, both with hunting food for yourself, and for spying on the village.

You have four actions. What do you do?
[] Travel towards your home, to the Northeast. This will take multiple actions.
[] Explore the local area.
[] Travel away from your current location (Specify a direction)
[] Interact with the town
-[] How?
[] Fix the traps.

[] Study Shape-shifting
[] Study healing
[] Learn to give blessings
[] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[] Advance your stealth skills

Current Rank: 10
Current Reserves: 10
Current Upkeep: 0
 
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[x] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Study healing
[X] Sneak into the town to study the population.
 
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Study Shape-shifting
[X] Sneak into the town to study the population.
 
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Study Shape-shifting
[X] Sneak into the town to study the population.

Now that we've safeguarded the temple from casual intruders, I feel like we should start heading home sometime soon. Before they send someone to check on what happened out here, given we never reported back from an official mission to get an artifact that can turn someone into a god and all that.

So maybe next turn, we start to head back? Hopefully with advanced stealth and speaking skills.
 
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Study Shape-shifting
[X] Sneak into the town to study the population.

So I'm all for us getting this town worshiping us, but we might want to take our time to make sure we don't cause any problems while doing so.
 
[X] Travel towards your home, to the Northeast. This will take multiple actions.
[X] Travel towards your home, to the Northeast. This will take multiple actions.
[X] Learn to give blessings
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
 
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Study Shape-shifting
[X] Sneak into the town to study the population.
 
[X] Study healing
[X] Learn to enhance your speech skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
[X] Advance your stealth skills
 
Month 3
And this is where I'd put my vote count!

IF I HAD ONE!!

Anyways, on to the update.

A Godshead is one of the most versatile and useful components for spells or artifacts. Every artifact that incorporates a Godshead is either an important part of a major nations culture, or is lost to time. They have been known to destroy armies, raise the dead, and to transform deserts into verdant grassland. Spells incorporating Godsheads have destroyed nations, radically altered the magic of an area, and in one case caused major earthquakes across the entire world. A single Godshead has been sold for a massive amount of land, a noble title, and a marriage to a princess. As such, many people are willing to kill for one, and most who find one die long before they receive a reward.
-Treatise on the history of Godsheads.

It continues to rain, though there is a greater amount of sunlight. The people of the village plant their crops, and continue to hunt. Various flowers bloom, and the air smells sweet. You see a large number of young deer, as well as the young of squirells, birds, and other woodland creatures. If the trees weren't so large, if would almost remind you of home. All is not well however. You begin to see the tracks of bearlike humanoids, indicating that a tribe of Wendigo has arrived in the area. Perhaps they are merely passing through, perhaps they were forced out of their old home and are planning on settling here. You can't know without further observation.

[] Shape-shifting

You make some progress, but you find yourself unable to hold an animal form for more than a minute before it collapses back to the last elfoid form that you were in. It's not painful so much as uncomfortable. Whats worse is trying to grow additional limbs. Your attempt at becoming a centaur left you unable to properly stand for a solid half hour.

[] Speech

Though you easily figure out how to put power into your words, without someone to practice on, you have no way of knowing how its going. You feel like you need someone to talk to before you can progress.

[] Stealth

Though you continue to sneak up on various animals, its just not the same as sneaking around people. Which is weird, as it should be pretty much the same. Apparently your power differentiates like that. Who knew? No matter the reason, you don't make progress this month, and you will need to risk being seen if you continue to practice.

[] Spy on the Village

You have heard that it is typical that people in this area worship spirits rather than true gods. You don't know if that's really true, but you do know that if they do worship gods, they are gods of common natural features of the area. They are most likely spirits, however. Other than that, you learn that they are lead by an elderly man, who has several children, including at least two grown sons. However, you knock over a jar, and are almost caught, forcing you to hide in the forest.

You have four actions for next month. What do you do?
[] Travel towards your home, to the Northeast. This will take multiple actions.
[] Explore the local area.
[] Travel away from your current location (Specify a direction)
[] Interact with the town
-[] How?
[] Interact with the Wendigos
-[] How?

[] Study Shape-shifting
-[] Learn standard shapeshifing
-[] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[] Study healing
[] Learn to give blessings
[] Advance your stealth skills (Increaced chance of detection by the town or the Wendigos.

Current Rank: 10
Current Reserves: 10
Current Upkeep: 0
 
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[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here


My reasoning:
  1. Shape-shifting seems like it will be useful. I'm not too particular which version we figure out first so I figured that blending in might be useful in getting out of a situation if we get in over our head.
  2. Healing also seems like it could be useful. Healing ourself would help keep us alive, and healing others would both help us keep people alive if we want to and win people over.
  3. I figure that if we interact with the town we could use them to practice our abilities.
  4. Want to figure out what is up with the Wendigos. If we study blending in with shape-shifting we should be better equipped to interact with them without things going horrible awry.
Edit: Neatened up the formatting of my vote.
Edit 2: Adjusted vote based on new info
 
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[X] Explore the local area.
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn standard shapeshifing
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
 
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here
 
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here
 
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here
 
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here

I'll edit one in, so it counts my vote.

Vote tally:
##### 3.19
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
[X] Interact with the town
-[X] Introduce self
-[X] Offer healing services if we can heal others
[X] Interact with the Wendigos
-[X] Talk to them, and find out their plans here
No. of votes: 5
Anaja
veekie
Ridiculously Average Guy
Dark Ness
notmi

[X] Explore the local area.
[X] Study Shape-shifting
-[X] Learn standard shapeshifing
-[X] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[X] Study healing
No. of votes: 1
x2ero
 
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Month 4
They come from the darkness from beyond the campfire. Born from men who eat the flesh of their fellows, they don't have hearts or souls. These they have traded away to their dark masters in exchange for powers beyond the ken of mortal men. They are little better than animals. If you see one, you should track it to its nest, then bring a war-party to burn the whole lot of them to ashes.
- Chief Hiawat, on Wendigo

The days grow long, and with the long days comes heat. It is not a dry heat, like you would experience in your homeland, but a wet, muggy heat that leaves you lacking energy. Later in the month, the local river floods, sending the village Wendigo to higher ground. More unfortunatly, the Wendigo are now closer to the village. The village seems to have driven the Wendigo off, killing at least one of them with no casualties. The village is not affected by the flood beyond an increase in hunting and some intermittent conflict with the Wendigo.

[] Shapeshifting (Camouflage)

Despite great effort, you are unable to manage to blend in with the greenery of the forest. If it were less verdant, you would probably have been able to work with browns earth, black soil, or white snow, but plant green remains beyond you. You feel like you will be able to manage it if you keep at it.

[] Healing

You make small amounts of progress on your healing. It is now somewhat easier for you to do, though it is not nearly as effective as you had hoped. It is somewhat unfortunate, as you had thought that you could have made a good impression on the human village if you had been able to wave your hand and heal their wounded in an instant.

[] Introduce yourself to the village, offer healing services.

You choose to forgo revealing your full power as a god for the time being, at least until you have something to show for it. This is less risky, but probably less rewarding as well.

You go towards the village wearing the face of an older human male, apparently of the ethnicity of the people of the village. You introduce yourself as a traveling wise man, who has taken up residence in the temple after finding it abandoned. Luckily, you learned the local language on your journey hear, so you can easily communicate with them. They seem rather suspicious at first, especially after hearing that you are staying in the cursed temple, but after accelerating the healing of several of their wounded warriors you they become more willing to talk. You receive several trade goods for your trouble, and find out that the village is planning a raid to eliminate the Wendigo on the night of the full moon.

[] Speak with the Wendigo, determine their plans.

You honestly thought it would be harder. As it turns out, the Wedigo's native language is the same as that of the villagers, so all you need to do is transform into one of them, and introduce yourself as a passing Wendigo. When you meet them they are feasting. You can barely keep you composure when you find out that they are feasting on their fallen tribe-mate. He is young and has no children, so his father consumed his heart, and the rest of the tribe consumed portions of his body. You ended up needing to partake, finding that it tastes like a predator, similar to bear. Consumed with apples and honey, it's surprisingly good, not that you would seek it out.

You find that the Wendigo were forced from their previous home after years of drought, and this area is fertile and good, aside from the humans currently staying in the highland. With the lowland flooded for now, they intend to drive out the humans, eat them, kill them, or some combination of the three. To accomplish this, their shaman is apparently cooking something up.

They seem to practice some form of ancestor worship, though you aren't able to dig deeper for fear of blowing your cover. You tell them that you are staying in the temple for the time being, though you will need time to think about joining in on their attack on the humans.

[] Travel towards your home, to the Northeast. This will take multiple actions.
[] Explore the local area.
[] Travel away from your current location (Specify a direction)
[] Interact with the town
-[] How?
[] Interact with the Wendigos
-[] How?
[] Intervene in the conflict
-[] How?

[] Study Shape-shifting
-[] Learn standard shapeshifing
-[] Learn how to blend in to your environment
[] Study healing
[] Learn to give blessings
[] Advance your stealth skills (Increaced chance of detection by the town or the Wendigos.

Current Rank: 10
Current Reserves: 10
Current Upkeep: 0
 
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[X] Intervene in the conflict
-[X] Tell the villagers that they must leave, if they won't listen, try to scare them off, if they still won't go, do nothing.
 
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