[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Elegant Rooted Stance - The willow is not uprooted by the gale. With effort, Rena can stand or run along things too slender to support her, and can only be knocked down by superior techniques practiced by hostile martial artists. Additionally while exerting herself in this way, her garments will never be dishevelled or left out of place for any reason, unless she consciously wishes it.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Chaos Coaxing Trick - The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm.
[X] [Viper Style] Unfolding Fang Practice - The fangs of the viper are hidden away when not in use. It is hard for unobservant onlookers to notice if she carries a form weapon of Viper Style. With effort, she can banish and recall such weapons from the state of existence known as 'Elsewhere', precluding their discovery by anyone else. This technique is compatible with Disturbed Snake Stance.
Was initially going to go with Uncoiling Brutality Technique as an effective mob-disperser and a way to push Zed off his game by showing him exactly what we plan to do to him using his minions as a demonstration aid, but Maugan makes an excellent point re: sneak attacks while gloating. The viper hides her fangs until prey steps close, then strikes and lets her venom flow.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
I was extremely tempted by the "your clothes always look perfect" bonus of Elegant Rooted Stance, but a) dodging killing blows matters more and b) laughing at Rena is funniest when she's all dusty and sweaty and ragged and whining about how she deserves better than this.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
Sei, her golems and her handsome gentlemen all establish Rena as a minion-master, and I'm actually really interested in developing that. So far she has a single intelligent and loyal familiar who will absolutely fuck her over if he ever gets free and is dubiously and somewhat unreliably active in how and when he helps her, dumb muscle drones that aren't useful for anything other than brute force labour (in the form of her golems) and intelligent skilled assets who need careful management (in the form of her handsome gentlemen). I'd quite like to see her with clever, loyal, sneaky servants whose downside is that they're limited-duration; they'd fill a really useful gap in her skillset - she could have sent one of them sneaking around Zed's stuff while she distracted him, for instance.
Rena's golems and her handsome gentlemen both establish her as a minion-master, and I'm actually really interested in developing that. So far she has dumb muscle drones that aren't useful for anything other than brute force labour (in the form of her golems) and intelligent skilled assets who need careful management (in the form of her handsome gentlemen).
I think there can be such a thing as overdoing the 'wicked sorceress' bit, and graphic murder for the purposes of inducing terror is skirting that line to me.
Especially when one of the alternatives to it is 'I turned off your special technique,' which is absolutely incredible.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
Gazellecarp style is the best martial art don't @ me
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Chaos Coaxing Trick - The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Chaos Coaxing Trick - The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
While I don't think Rena would do "I have observed your Kung Fu and therefore cannot be harmed!", she would definitely like a technique that requires ogling some toned martial artist and say "I now know your worth!"
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Elegant Rooted Stance - The willow is not uprooted by the gale. With effort, Rena can stand or run along things too slender to support her, and can only be knocked down by superior techniques practiced by hostile martial artists. Additionally while exerting herself in this way, her garments will never be disheveled or left out of place for any reason, unless she consciously wishes it.
A staple of any self-respecting martial artist and every person that wants to look good while doing said martial arts. There's nothing more humiliating than having your opponent judge you for falling off the clothesline.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
I want you to picture in your mind's eye a classic scene in japanese kinography, the Fireworks Viewing! Now, you can certainly do cool things like use some regular fire to make a tiny gremlin, but imagine a sky filled with them even for just an instant. That's prime intimidation material, doubly so for a demon summoner! It'd be like you summoned an entire layer all at once!
[ ] [Viper Style] Unfolding Fang Practice - The fangs of the viper are hidden away when not in use. It is hard for unobservant onlookers to notice if she carries a form weapon of Viper Style. With effort, she can banish and recall such weapons from the state of existence known as 'Elsewhere', precluding their discovery by anyone else. This technique is compatible with Disturbed Snake Stance.
Brutal kills SOUND nice and I can see Rena loving getting to social slam fools after landing it… it given her style I think she's rather not let the blades come out if she can help it.
[x] [Graceful Willow Style] Elegant Rooted Stance - The willow is not uprooted by the gale. With effort, Rena can stand or run along things too slender to support her, and can only be knocked down by superior techniques practiced by hostile martial artists. Additionally while exerting herself in this way, her garments will never be dishevelled or left out of place for any reason, unless she consciously wishes it.
I'll admit my reason for wanting this is it just feels like a solid character note for Rena to be able to shed her clothing at the drop of a hat with some preparation.
[X][Fume Serpent Style] Chaos Coaxing Trick - The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm
Wyld Sorceress is gonna Wyld Sorceress. Though the Homonculius is tempting. Not a fan of making more enemies as we go as the fire and ashes trick suggests we do.
I mean, so, firstly, to answer "what counts as polluted enough", the effectiveness varies on how wyld-tainted the land is, just as it would be for wyldlife. Basically, if the land is visibly wyld-tainted, it's tainted enough for her to manage something.
As for what she can do, well, again, in its default mode, the charm lets what a minor wyldlife could do in Wyld-tainted land. So basically she can manipulate the ambient "chaotic weirdness", influencing it or changing how it manifests. In a minor bit of polluted land, she could, say, get rid of weird toxic mould by channelling it into strange faerie lights that sparkle in the air. In the middle of a wyldstorm (such as the one that hit in Arc 2) she could do more, but in such a circumstance her control is limited by the sheer power behind the storm and it's more that she could basically ask the storm for, say, a dramatic display of lightning and it might well oblige.
Given the style's paradigm, her influence over the wyld is based around desire and emotions, and so it's not particularly finely controlled; it's about wanting something and coaxing the raw energies into fulfilling those desires.
Also, as mentioned in the Charm text, she can also protect small areas from things like wyldstorms or heavy wyld pollution by shunting the energies that would be changing the area around her to somewhere else nearby, thus giving her a crude form of protection against heavy wyld influences like a heavy wyldstorm or a dangerous bordermarch.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
The setup for this technique sounds fun by itself and we already have a fight against the kind of boss enemy we would love to have this against scheduled.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
This is a nice straightforward combat boost with a cool flair. The other styles already provide enough excitement.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
These things are a really cool addition to Reina's toolbelt.
[X] [Viper Style] Unfolding Fang Practice - The fangs of the viper are hidden away when not in use. It is hard for unobservant onlookers to notice if she carries a form weapon of Viper Style. With effort, she can banish and recall such weapons from the state of existence known as 'Elsewhere', precluding their discovery by anyone else. This technique is compatible with Disturbed Snake Stance.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Elegant Rooted Stance - The willow is not uprooted by the gale. With effort, Rena can stand or run along things too slender to support her, and can only be knocked down by superior techniques practiced by hostile martial artists. Additionally while exerting herself in this way, her garments will never be disheveled or left out of place for any reason, unless she consciously wishes it.
Rena will probably always be better suited to an sudden sneak attack than a fair fight. UFP is obvious, and Elegant Rooted Stance plays into an ambush focus by letting her take unexpected routes into a high-value area - and by making it easier to run away afterwards. And it lets her look good while doing it.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
[X] [Viper Style] Unfolding Fang Practice - The fangs of the viper are hidden away when not in use. It is hard for unobservant onlookers to notice if she carries a form weapon of Viper Style. With effort, she can banish and recall such weapons from the state of existence known as 'Elsewhere', precluding their discovery by anyone else. This technique is compatible with Disturbed Snake Stance.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
Hard choices. These are all brilliant. But we chose Viper and Graceful Willow because we wanted Rena to be able to die less against powerful opponents, and much as I do like the gloating thing, "allow me to demonstrate the flaw in your technique" is just too delicious to pass up.
The arguments for Chaos-Coaxing Technique are good, but a mostly-invisible, reasonably-intelligent, totally-loyal subterfuge-servant has so many possibilities.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Chaos Coaxing Trick - The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm.
[X] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
Unfolding Fang Practice may be more useful on a day-to-day level, since it lets us go armed wherever we want... But this is more useful against boss-level enemies, especially ones who already know Rena has sleight-of-hand bullshit. Like, say, Zed.
[X] [Graceful Willow Style] Weeping Branches Technique - Channelling her essence into her garb and hair, they move around Rena like a living thing. Deadly blows that think they found her will often turn out to merely have hit a flowing sleeve or passed harmlessly through her hair. Loose flowing garments and the use of implements such as ribbons or fans will accentuate this effect. Even if not dressed suitably, when she calls on her anima it serves to protect her.
I'd be fine with Elegant Rooted Stance too, and it definitely has more out-of-combat utility, but I feel like this one is more useful in my vision of our combat paradigm. Plus, I love being infuriatingly hard to land a hit on, and I love the mental image of an enemy thinking they've killed us, only for us to reveal "No, and also I turned off your Fire Punch Technique because fuck you."
[X] [Fume Serpent Style] Cinders-and-Smoke Homunculus - Granting a little bit of will to the smoke from a fire, Rena calls a vaporous creature from the fumes, not-quite-elemental and not-quite-wyldlife. These creatures last only as long as the fire they were born from, and obey her without question. They are physically weak, but subtle, able to obey relatively complex commands, and nearly invisible when not directly illuminated.
Wouldn't it be great to have a minions who are small, stealthy, intelligent, and most importantly, not fuckin' Sei?
Also off topic, but does anyone get big Miette vibes from how Rena reacts to disappointments and inconveniences? At least, once you account for the fact that Miette is still a cat, and thus would absolutely commit murders if capable of doing so?
[x] [Viper Style] Weakness Unveiling Eye - By studying and interacting with an opponent, Rena can understand flaws in their stance or techniques. With that understanding, a more specific application of venom with Nerve-Crippling Strike can accentuate the defect, allowing her to disable techniques she identified a flaw in. This is a demanding technique which requires uninterrupted scrutiny to use.
[x] [Graceful Willow Style] Elegant Rooted Stance - The willow is not uprooted by the gale. With effort, Rena can stand or run along things too slender to support her, and can only be knocked down by superior techniques practiced by hostile martial artists. Additionally while exerting herself in this way, her garments will never be dishevelled or left out of place for any reason, unless she consciously wishes it
[x] [Fume Serpent Style] Needy Ember Offering - Imbuing an object with a little flame of desire, Rena greatly elevates its perceived value in the eyes of others. While the flame remains alight, the weak-willed will do nearly anything to get their hands on it and even stronger wills will over-pay. However, when the flame dies out, it leaves ashen disgust in its wake; the less valuable the object, the greater the disgust and resentment.