Harry Potter and the Scabbard of Excalibur [AU]
[X] Yes - How could you not? He'd never actually and seriously betrayed you in any capacity as far as you can remember; the most he did was prank you and make annoying remarks, but he's been nothing less than very helpful for the remainder of the time. What happened in his past life isn't relevant - at least for now, you can trust Geist...
[X] Des - An alteration of his first word. One that isn't a weird name but you will know the meaning of.
[X] Des - An alteration of his first word. One that isn't a weird name but you will know the meaning of.
- Location
- USA
For those not on Discord, Birdsie dropped some fresh details on Astrology that has really made it look like a stellar choice as one of our Trismegistus picks. Enough so to make the Child of the Stars build I proposed a while back shoot all the way to the top of my list.
Child of the Stars
Astrology is also useful for advanced divination/clairvoyance so it is a really useful pick as a Trismegistus choice. Charms goes well with it...because Charms + Astrology is broken as hell. Transfiguration is useful as hell in a variety of ways so it makes for a good pick anyways but I wouldn't be surprise if some Transfiguration can work well with Astrology. I'll leave you all with the following statement from Birdsie regarding Astrology:
"It's what you'd go for, should you, hypothetically, say - desire to change the very existential fabric of how magic works, or conceptually alter what spells count as "Charms," or something like that. Though, obviously, such feats would demand Archmastery."
Astrology is absurdly broken at the high end.
Child of the Stars
- Charms
- Transfiguration
- Astrology
Astrology is also useful for advanced divination/clairvoyance so it is a really useful pick as a Trismegistus choice. Charms goes well with it...because Charms + Astrology is broken as hell. Transfiguration is useful as hell in a variety of ways so it makes for a good pick anyways but I wouldn't be surprise if some Transfiguration can work well with Astrology. I'll leave you all with the following statement from Birdsie regarding Astrology:
"It's what you'd go for, should you, hypothetically, say - desire to change the very existential fabric of how magic works, or conceptually alter what spells count as "Charms," or something like that. Though, obviously, such feats would demand Archmastery."
Astrology is absurdly broken at the high end.
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- Location
- USA
Yep. But it is going to be super hard to get to that level lol.
But smaller/weaker effects would be doable very doable. But potentially...if we are lucky and manage to cheat we could potentially get archmastery in both astrology and charms and get us another Tris slot.
Birdsie did also say that Dark Arts Mastery would get us a fourth Tris slot as well with just a Mastery...the problem is that it will likely require a heinous act. Not sure the rest of the thread would be willing to go for that.
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
What Son Et Lumiere said.
With... 10-15 years of training assuming I interpreted certain Birdsie remarks correctly(Dumbledore is Archmaster in virtually everything, Grandmaster in Alchemy and a few spells) and probably more than 25 gnosis(25 gnosis is a chance to research a Philosopher's Stone in terms of value).
As awesome as that looks, it seems like a bragging rights reward unless we can secure some high end growth multipliers. We'd already have a matured, high end fighting style 10-15 years into the quest and found other opportunities to improve our magical growth. We'd presumably be at least on the level of a Hogwarts Graduate in whatever our 4th Trismegistus pick is too, so we'd be trying for some super high level synergy.
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- Location
- USA
Yeah, it's not as great a reward as it seems unless we really focus on say an individual spell for the crazy absurd growth rate such a spell would get under Tris along with allowing it to be broken in some really interesting ways. But that said, we likely will have some other really nice ways to enhance ourselves with Charms + Astrology before that point.
It's just one example of how powerful Charms + Astrology is. Astrology is really really good at targeting abstracting things such as the position of the DADA teacher.
It's just one example of how powerful Charms + Astrology is. Astrology is really really good at targeting abstracting things such as the position of the DADA teacher.
- Location
- Louisiana
I think that's more of an example of how powerful wizards can get, and the value of gnosis. 25 gnosis is extremely potent, especially when combined with two nearly maxed out fields of study. I feel like basically any trismegistus field can get ridiculous, especially with 25 gnosis, and especially when combined with another synergistic field.
Edit: there's also probably better fields of study for self improvement, like say potions.
Edit: there's also probably better fields of study for self improvement, like say potions.
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- Location
- USA
The biggest and main benefit of Trismegistus is the absurd speed growth with whatever it is boosting. You can do in a year what would take others years. Lets take Apparation and its skill classifications at the high end. Mastery, Archmastery, and Grandmastery. Mastery would allow us to use Apparation in combat situations to be able to reliably dodge spells and we can use it to traverse Britain with a few hops. But lets say we have Apparation as a Tris slot. After one year with Tris Apparation we could go from Hogwarts to Paris (likely a single jump but might need clarification) and we would be able to bypass the wards of Hogwarts which is an interesting twist. So we get something better than Mastery with Trismegistus boosting a single spell for one year.
Now Apparation Archmastery? That's global range with apparation which matches the range of Trismegistus with apparation after a few years of working on it. Apparation archmastery might not include the bypassing wards of Hogwarts bit as Trismegistus seems to add a special twist to whatever it is boosting. Bypassing the wards of Hogwarts seems to be that twist for Apparation. For Tris conjuration it would be our conjurations being semi-stable on the atomic and molecular level and as such wouldn't fall apart/dissolve like some magical conjurations tend to do though it would have some flaws.
I didn't bother asking about Grandmastery apparation but naturally one can make an educated guess as to what it could do.
Regarding Potions being better for self-improvement...probably only in certain aspects. Say you want to improve your strength and reflexes then Potions would be a viable path. But if you want to affect something more esoteric or abstract such as magical talent you would likely need Astrology knowledge. Heck, I can see Astrology being necessary for making potions such as Felix Felicis since luck is rather abstract.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
News from Discord, Birdsie has provided some builds Geist would Endorse
Ancient Runes + Astrology + (any diverse)
Dark Arts + Potions + [Charms or Battle Magic]
Unlocking Charm + Apparition + Astrology
Dark Arts + (any specialized offense) + (any diverse)
Dark Arts + Divination + [Battle Magic or Defense Against the Dark Arts]
Herbology + Potions + Divination
Care for Magical Creatures + Herbology + Potions
Arithmancy + Divination + Dark Arts
Muggle Studies + Potions + Ancient Runes (Artificer Build, aims to create magical nukes and conquer UK)
Alchemy + Transfiguration + Potions (Alchemist Build, aims to make Philosopher's Stone)
Dark Arts + Potions + Felix Felicis (Slacking-Off Build, where all the work is done for you)
Divination + Astrology + Xylomancy
Ancient Runes + Astrology + (any diverse)
Dark Arts + Potions + [Charms or Battle Magic]
Unlocking Charm + Apparition + Astrology
Dark Arts + (any specialized offense) + (any diverse)
Dark Arts + Divination + [Battle Magic or Defense Against the Dark Arts]
Herbology + Potions + Divination
Care for Magical Creatures + Herbology + Potions
Arithmancy + Divination + Dark Arts
Muggle Studies + Potions + Ancient Runes (Artificer Build, aims to create magical nukes and conquer UK)
Alchemy + Transfiguration + Potions (Alchemist Build, aims to make Philosopher's Stone)
Dark Arts + Potions + Felix Felicis (Slacking-Off Build, where all the work is done for you)
Divination + Astrology + Xylomancy
Personally, I'm thrilled that CoMC + Potions + Herbology is on the Geist-approved list. Very interested in going the "maximum support build" route.
- Location
- USA
Alright, so with the updated preferences from Geist (not that we can fully trust him 100% to have the best possible choices) I think that I'm changing my Child of the Stars build to this:
Child of the Stars
Child of the Stars
- Charms
- Ancient Runes
- Astrology
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
It's a maximum potential build with low immediate combat power and low to medium utility compared to other setups we could use in year 1(I'd call Charms+Transfiguration+Potions an example of a high Utility in year 1 build with no idea how to classify the power/potential). Nothing wrong with it so long as you're aware that's what you're going for. The Power/Utility/Potential Dichotomy is an important part of quests like these.
We've gotten some news from Birdsie on stuff like Diffindo, more material on what Ancient Runes does, etc. So here's my Runes Build accounting for the new information(I'd consider it high immediate combat power low utility medium potential in year 1)
Runes Everywhere
1. Ancient Runes
2. Diffindo
3. Defense Against the Dark Arts
This build leverages the considerable combat power provided by Trismegistus(Diffindo) and Trismegistus(DADA) for year 1 safety/ability to take paths to more power necessitating significant combat skills for an early snowball until the builds Rune Skills can go online. Diffindo should go online fast considering it was part of the Standard Book of Spells Grade 1 in canon, though it was also taught in 2nd and 4th year charms per the wiki.
We can train Diffindo through joining the art club and developing an interest in sculpture/engraving to balance the creepiness factor of us being known to be supremely good at Diffindo. The Sculptures are also a source of supplemental income/potential future rune canvases. Be a comfy artist type who happens to be really good at fighting and likes Hansen's Soda.
Hopefully by the time our Rune skills go online we will have attained wandless and/or wordless diffindo. Which is where the build starts coming into its full potential. This build can make functional runes anywhere without touching them once we hit Mastery of Ancient Runes, presumably in combat time.
When we reach year 5 we're projected to be able to cut through walls like we used the gouging charm. If we go for precision we should be able to sever individual veins inside a person to kill them with internal bleeding with no outside marks so long as we knew where the veins were, though the cutting charm in general is a bad idea against a dark wizard who knows a wounds transference curse and we should use Runes/DADA jinxes instead.
As Birdsie put it in Discord "chaining runes via physical inscription and imbuing them with your magic lets you write 'programming' for reality to perform."
As for what Ancient Runes is capable of? Ancient Runes is enchantments stronger and harder to learn relative. It can do Astrology type things but not as well, however it is massively synergistic with Astrology.
Example Applications Quoted from Discord
Continued:
Ancient Runes also has potions/alchemy advantages via Alchemical Runes.
- Location
- USA
Yeah, this is a build for maximum potential and synergy. Takes longer to really get going than some other builds but it is the kind of build that spirals into a monstrous beast when we start hitting the mid and end game. Ancient Runes + Astronomy is as Birdsie put it "absolutely, utterly tormented and wicked. it has synergies that are just straight-up insane" and Charms + Astronomy is bonkers insane as is.
And we could probably pull off what you want to do with Diffindo + AR with Charms + AR easily not. Create a charm (maybe spell modification) that can create lines on surfaces as we will instead of relying on a Tris Diffindo spell.
Ancient Runes + Astrology + Transfiguration seems like another good combo of those above. We could make our own Stonehenge. 👀
- Location
- USA
I don't think Transfiguration would be involved or necessary. Ancient Runes + Astrology alone should do the trick. Heck, perhaps even Charms might be needed for whatever effect Stonehenge has.
Transfiguration would be more to help build it, or a similar massive, magical structure.
- Location
- USA
Architectural designing seems like a bad reason to pick it as a Tris slot lol. We can get a similar massive magical structure without being crazy good at transfiguration.
Corvus Black
The Inestimable
- Location
- England
Conjuration rather than Transfiguration. It's a narrower field than full Transfiguration, and has excellent crossover with both Charms and Transfiguration.
The Astrology effects for Conjuration can also be seen in canon. Peter's silver hand, for example.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
I got from that the idea that we can create or modify a spell to replicate the Runes anywhere strategy with Tris Charms. I'm skeptical about us being able to do that with the same speed and precision(Scribing functional runes in combat time) as Tris(Diffindo) without notable effort. However I wouldn't be opposed to the idea in a Charms+AR+Astrology build.
In other news, I realized an angle that hasn't came up recently if it has. The Patronus Charm. Our current spell list is Levitation Charm, Drying Spell, Softening Charm, Unlocking Spell, Patronus Charm(Beyond NEWT Level in canon). The Patronus Charm can be used for messaging but the wiki suggests the technique is only known by Dumbledore and the OOTP.
The Patronus could fall under Charms or DADA for synergy purposes.
Edit: Perhaps Conjuration?
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- Location
- USA
We really really should have taken it but it can't be helped now.
I would say that a modified Tris spell to create runes that we envision might be quicker than using a Tris Diffindo to do it. One is a spell designed to cut and the other to essentially "draw/scribe" what we want.
The Patronus would fall under DADA/Charms. It "conjures" an animal/creature but not sure it would actually be a conjuration as it isn't conjuration like say a solid object or something like fire.
Corvus Black
The Inestimable
- Location
- England
What Birdsie has said specifically about Conjuration as a Trismegistus pick on Discord:
Birdsie — Yesterday at 02:04 said:
Birdsie — Yesterday at 02:04 said:
Birdsie — Yesterday at 02:05 said:
Birdsie — Yesterday at 02:05 said:
less — Yesterday at 02:06 said:
Birdsie — Yesterday at 02:06 said: