Hogwarts Sect of Witchcraft and Wizardry

[FriedIce]

Disciples are also expected to branch out a bit, Hogwarts requiring that you have at least three of your subjects - excluding History, Defense and the electives - at the intermediate level. You're well on your way to apprentice competency in Charms, and the paper you're holding proves that you've achieved that stage for both Potions and Transfigurations.

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Since we have to hit Intermediate in three of the five subjects by the end of the year (and given we've started doing planning for the new year) I figured I'd make a comparison of our options including absolutely all of my subjective opinions:

Transfiguration

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to throw a fireball at it. Well we can't do that yet but with another Transfiguration level we might be able to make a rainbow

- For people who've read Xianxia, this is our Arts subject
- 4774 xp to Intermediate
- Success roll bonus of +10 a level is very strong
- Affects all success dice, not just cultivation
- Techniques are cool and thematic, including everything from anti-light to cut harder
- They also have some good mechanical bonuses but that's not the point
- Uses meridians
- Transfiguration lets us throw ice at people, which is required if we're to be the jadelike icy beauty

Charms

What better way to style on someone than to show off your bling and Charms is how we acquire bling. By making it, not stealing it, to be clear - what do you think this is, a Xianxia novel?

- For people who've read Xianxia this is Artefact Crafting
- 5365 xp to Intermediate
- Increasing the size of our pool dice per level is pretty good
- Affects all pool dice, not just cultivation
- Crafting scenes are cool and the bonuses from the Charms are good
- Uses Meridians
- Might eventually allow us to craft a 64 wooden time sword eternity sword

Potions

People say that hard work leads to success but Xianxia taught me that the real path to success is drugs. Do all the drugs. Potions lets us make drugs.

- For people who've read Xianxia this is Alchemy, if the drugs you took didn't help your cultivation but instead made you much better at punching people
- 4428 xp to Intermediate, currently our highest Skill
- DC reduction for Physical cultivation on alternate milestones, so slightly worse than Charms
- Potions directly affect combat, and therefore our ability to not die
- Also our primary method of Sect Point generation last year is tied to a combat mini-game which Potions is very helpful for
- Levelling Potions means new potions. New potions means more drugs. More drugs mean more success.

Astronomy

An excuse to let the QM do exploration rolls, you keep rolling that Gacha and eventually you'll roll a SSS rated site which you can use as a cheat because you lacked the drive to actually train your cultivation

- For people who've read Xianxia this is… actually, you know, I don't think I've ever read a traditional Xianxia where cultivation sites are a thing. Is it a Xianxia quest thing which Forge did and so everyone just copied?
- Well it's cultivation sites. We think. We've not actually studied it.
- 6000 xp to Intermediate
- Seems like it's Potion's Spiritual cultivation mirror, DC reductions to Spiritual cultivation is pretty great
- The mystery box calls to me
- Doing Rituals in the dead of night in front of a grove of withered trees sounds cool as all hell
- More likely though we'll end up doing a ritual which involves making a daisy chain and leaving it on a standing stone on the solstice at noon. We're a terrible indie!protag

Herbology

You know what your gratuitous power fantasy about ascending to the heavens and wreaking completely disproportionate levels of vengeance on anyone who crossed your path in the street needs? Taste? Good writing? No! It needs Gardening.

- For people who've read Xianxia this is the skill for those hunts that Xianxia protagonists always seem to go on for obnoxiously old herbs or rare animals to turn into pills
- Alternatively it's the gardening that is weirdly common in Xianxia stories. Like Xianxia protags garden a lot. It might be their second favourite hobby behind only murdering the entire family of anyone who ever said something mean about them
- Again, we think. We've not actually studied it. It's named Herbology though - what else is it going to be about?
- 6000 xp to Intermediate
- Lowers Potions DC, which is fine I guess, since we'll probably have Potions as one of our Skills we take to Intermediate
- Also improves the quality of our Potions, might improve the quality of our artefa- sorry I mean Charms - too
- Might give us social action mini quests to look for herbs
- Mystery Box
- What sort of Xianxia protagonist are we without our own collection of million year Ginseng?

 

[Karnax626]

Without the knowledge of what the elective milestones will give us beyond the threshold reductions, I'm currently leaning towards something like this for the first 3 months:

September: 4x Physical, 1x Charms
October: 3x Astronomy, 3x Herbology
November: 4x Spiritual, 2x Meridians

It gets us the first two milestones in both Spirit and Physique; Apprentice level Astronomy, Herbology and Charms; and 95%+ odds of opening 6 meridians even before our current two meridian bonus/familiar bonus.

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One reason to get all three of these skills to Apprentice early is that it'll show us all their milestones on the way to Intermediate, which could help us decide what we want to be our third main skill.

 

[Yun]

Hm. The issue I see with Herbology is that the utility from it is limited at best until we want to grind potions to intermediate, and thus it seems like we can sorta ignore it until that point? That being said I very much so want to come back for it after Rei is in the third realm, and drag it to intermediate to get 2-3 more threshold reduction for potions, or more importantly for third year CoMC.

Technically dragging Astronomy to intermediate might be more useful, but the overall point is I'd very much so like a month, or two remaining in the school year to grind something that helps with whatever low hanging fruit we want Rei to go for in September. That, or shore up existing skills in preparation for losing 2 milestones over the summer, but the obvious ones for that are advanced skills that we have no trainer for, or physical cultivation, which would require Rei to hit two milestones in the third realm to keep the extra action.

In short I'm willing to delay learning about Herbology in the hope that Rei finishes early, and we can have the opportunity to go deeper into it in the long-term, or something else if that is the will of a majority of voters.

 

[Karnax626]

Herbology also has crossover with Care of Magical Creatures, in that both reduce each other's threshold DC. And our familiar is literally a plant spirit. I'm not completely convinced it's the best choice for the third skill, but there's enough going for it that it should be a contender.

 

[Epic Bygones]

snip

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Things to also consider:

-Transfiguration, with its bonus to result rolls, is probably the most impactful for Quidditch, even over Potions. It also helps that using its techniques was the biggest way through which we've affected the threshold for our matches' pools, so far.
-Charms created seem to have a turns-countdown attached to them, after which something (negative? positive?) happens.
-Astronomy rituals/sites likely require meridians to be slotted in like techniques and charms.
-Herbology seems to be the moneymaker. Whether the skill introduces a currency-based system into the quest or it plays into this idea some other way, many signs point towards Ingredients being a source of income of some kind.

 

[KreenWarrior]

Harry Potter has Herbology be useful for more than just Potions, too. Not necessarily a *lot* but using Gillyweed in OotP comes to mind.

 

[Yun]

Herbology also has crossover with Care of Magical Creatures, in that both reduce each other's threshold DC. And our familiar is literally a plant spirit. I'm not completely convinced it's the best choice for the third skill, but there's enough going for it that it should be a contender.

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Not particularly given the CoMC isn't relevant until foundation realm, and Herbology is rather niche for our current goals as in presuming a potions/Transfiguration/Charms trio we've got 4428/29838 that it works on. This remains grows slightly worse if Rei takes it as the third school by 635 if it replaces Charms, and in general seem like it'd be more difficult given the synergy between Charms/Transfiguration makes training in general much more reliable.

So like there is utility for coming back to grab it in preparation for third year, but beyond potions it seems like a case of limited utility this year from what I can see.

Things to also consider:

-Transfiguration, with its bonus to result rolls, is probably the most impactful for Quidditch, even over Potions. It also helps that using its techniques was the biggest way through which we've affected the threshold for our matches' pools, so far.
-Charms created seem to have a turns-countdown attached to them, after which something (negative? positive?) happens.
-Astronomy rituals/sites likely require meridians to be slotted in like techniques and charms.
-Herbology seems to be the moneymaker. Whether the skill introduces a currency-based system into the quest or it plays into this idea some other way, many signs point towards Ingredients being a source of income of some kind.

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Where is the turn timer for Charms coming from? Because there is nothing in the library noted, and I'm not seeing anything in the turn mechanics at a quick glance

In regards to a monetary system... Rei has a literal giant vault of gold, and nothing is added from it, which makes sense as the rumor for Harry mentioned things that involved pills being vault from previous generations. Furthermore the one example we have from that is somebody getting raw ingredients from the forbidden forest to sell for cash to support her family, and is making use that school grounds themselves as they're a rich source for exotic ingredients that are found within sects, but what use does Rei have for more gold?

In theory there is the potential for favor trading if Rei can from producing rare resources for her peers, but that seems like the sort of thing that starts happening at intermediate, and really shoot off at Proficient where personalized experimentation starts.

Apprentice
-Occasionally needs help
Intermediate
-Capable of autonomous practice
Proficient
-Able to conduct personal experimentation

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Harry Potter has Herbology be useful for more than just Potions, too. Not necessarily a *lot* but using Gillyweed in OotP comes to mind.

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Yep, and to add to this there is likely narrative utility in being able to identify plants while exploring the castle similar to what I speculated with Ancient Ruins. There is utility in CoMC as well if we want to try forming a contract with a particular creature knowing what foods they like will help find them, or say knowing where to find foods a Unicorn will like as part of an offering.

 

[FriedIce]

I just thought of one potentially excellent (albeit meta) argument to get some levels in Herbology. Herbology might let us get access to mandrake roots which are needed to cure petrification.

Why is that important? We're going into second year. The year where the giant snake petrifies anyone who Ginnymort thinks is a muggleborn and we're the highest profile 'muggleborn' in our year.

 

[PipThePenguin]

I just thought of one potentially excellent (albeit meta) argument to get some levels in Herbology. Herbology might let us get access to mandrake roots which are needed to cure petrification.

Why is that important? We're going into second year. The year where the giant snake petrifies anyone who Ginnymort thinks is a muggleborn and we're the highest profile 'muggleborn' in our year.

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A very good reason to get some herbology levels, if a bit meta for my taste.

Also I need me some astronomy dammit, I mean come on, who doesn't want to form magical contracts with war reenacting paintings and magical disappearing moonlit towers?

 

[Estro]

I think people are undervaluing the value of an early option in Spiritual given just how close we are to the next milestone and how much that would give us. One action in it has better than even odds at giving us what we need, especially if it's later in the order. Sure, it's DC 15 so far, but it'll provide another action's worth of progress, more or less. Especially if the alternative is double meridians - while we need ten, we shouldn't expand more than we need, and on average we'll get enough to have everything up and running on one action if my maths is right.

 

[Yun]

Charms

What better way to style on someone than to show off your bling and Charms is how we acquire bling. By making it, not stealing it, to be clear - what do you think this is, a Xianxia novel?

- For people who've read Xianxia this is Artefact Crafting
- 5365 xp to Intermediate
- Increasing the size of our pool dice per level is pretty good
- Affects all pool dice, not just cultivation
- Crafting scenes are cool and the bonuses from the Charms are good
- Uses Meridians
- Might eventually allow us to craft a 64 wooden time sword eternity sword

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Great now I want Rei to make use of her creative impulse, and artistic flair to solve the obstacle of not having enough time in the day by making a Time-Turner. That would make interaction between Rei, and Hermione absolutely hilarious during the third year.

Like Hermione is given a heavily regulated magical artifact, and swears to never tell anyone to resolve when faced with the possibility of not learning what she wants. Meanwhile Rei when faced with the same thing decides to make her own artifact, and like she tells Elder Flitwick as an afterthought that she broke who knows how many laws.

Well to be completely serious I imagine for lower realm cultivators beyond the ability for time to horribly mess them up when a mistake is made it likely needs a source of power, but that seems like it would be one plausible use for meridians that are being used for palaces of power within Hogwarts.

I just thought of one potentially excellent (albeit meta) argument to get some levels in Herbology. Herbology might let us get access to mandrake roots which are needed to cure petrification.

Why is that important? We're going into second year. The year where the giant snake petrifies anyone who Ginnymort thinks is a muggleborn and we're the highest profile 'muggleborn' in our year.

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Honestly I doubt it'd much of a difference as the primary limitation is the amount of time Elder Sprout needs to grow adult mandrakes with them already growing some at Hogwarts in canon, and for Elder Snape to brew the potion.

That being I agree with you that the stupid snake is on the bad luck encounter table, and we thankfully have a way for it to not be an instant lose encounter due to petrification.

--[] The Chroma-caller Technique
You'll tread the middle path - between white and black is a myriad of beauty, and it'd be a shame to leave the twin halves separate. If you can emit every color, or none, then it stands to reason that you can also pick and choose which wavelengths get absorbed and which can reach your eyes. A transfiguration of color is the natural endpoint of the humble law of light.

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Emphasis is mine.

 

[Epic Bygones]

Where is the turn timer for Charms coming from? Because there is nothing in the library noted, and I'm not seeing anything in the turn mechanics at a quick glance

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In The quidditch cup II threadmark:

The little towel that could

Engraving runes for wood, metal and earth on a hand-towel should get you a rag that cleans for you. Whether it's your own person after a vigorous work-out session or spills from a potions experiment or just the occasional ink blot, you figure it'll serve well enough for practice and a proof of concept for something that would attend to your needs.
Earth aspect pool dice rolls count as one higher.

-4 turns until ???

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In regards to a monetary system... Rei has a literal giant vault of gold, and nothing is added from it, which makes sense as the rumor for Harry mentioned things that involved pills being vault from previous generations. Furthermore the one example we have from that is somebody getting raw ingredients from the forbidden forest to sell for cash to support her family, and is making use that school grounds themselves as they're a rich source for exotic ingredients that are found within sects, but what use does Rei have for more gold?

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There's more than that one example, and the QM has also mentioned it in some of his explaining/answering posts. And my argument is that it's likely to be a feature of the system, not the narrative, meaning that this moneymaking will translate into the mechanics side of things and give Rei/us a certain/dependable "use for more gold", if that's what it translates to.

I think people are undervaluing the value of an early option in Spiritual given just how close we are to the next milestone and how much that would give us. One action in it has better than even odds at giving us what we need, especially if it's later in the order. Sure, it's DC 15 so far, but it'll provide another action's worth of progress, more or less. Especially if the alternative is double meridians - while we need ten, we shouldn't expand more than we need, and on average we'll get enough to have everything up and running on one action if my maths is right.

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Depending on its odds, it could be great to have it in September, alongside 3 in Physical, but pretty much the same applies to the next Transfiguration milestone, too, no? The problem is... Does this stop there? You'll always be tempted to go back to those, because they are what improves future odds the most. They can't be undervalued on that front. You could easily make an argument that October should be Transfiguration x5 and Meridians x1, then. And after that, well, if you run the numbers, you'll find that going full-throttle on Spiritual gives us 12 more dice which is better than anything else. And after that, why, more Transfiguration would make our progress skyrocket. And so on.

All I'm saying is: let's not put the most odds-improving actions in front of the most basic information-giving actions (especially when there's way more than just info to be gained from them), or at least not too much.

Let's take Astronomy, Herbology and Charms to Apprentice before we go all the way on the most optimal path.

 

[FriedIce]

Let's take Astronomy, Herbology and Charms to Apprentice before we go all the way on the most optimal path.

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Whilst my post above is somewhat (very) tongue in cheek I think there's a very solid use case for a September (or October if we do Physical Cultivation in September) turn getting Herbology and Astronomy to Apprentice:

1) The information gap is real - better information means better decision making.
2) There's the chance that the mini-skills are cultivation game changers (Astronomy giving us cultivation sites, or Herbology letting us turn our potions into Pills)
3) We need ~7700 xp in Spiritual and banking the DC decrease from Astronomy will help a lot with that
4) We're probably going to have Potions as one of our three Intermediate skills and we need ~4500 xp for it, which the DC reduction will help with

That said, unless Astronomy turns out to be spectacular (or we get an amazing Sect Point bonus) I don't think I'd choose it as one of the skills we push to Intermediate. I don't really see a world where we push Herbology to Intermediate even if the mini-skill is outstanding. Mechanically, Charms, Potions and Astronomy are just more valuable.

Personally the skills we take to Intermediate are looking like:
1) Transfiguration (hard lock)
2) Potions (soft lock)
3 Astronomy or Charms (tossup leaning Charms)

-Herbology seems to be the moneymaker. Whether the skill introduces a currency-based system into the quest or it plays into this idea some other way, many signs point towards Ingredients being a source of income of some kind.

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It feels weird to be prioritise Herbology on the basis of it being a money maker when we have a vault full of gold which we haven't touched.

Like, I agree that we're likely to end up with gold as a parallel currency to Sect Points but there's a much easier way to access that than throwing xp at Herbology. Just take the Diagon Alley social action next turn.

That being I agree with you that the stupid snake is on the bad luck encounter table, and we thankfully have a way for it to not be an instant lose encounter due to petrification.

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The basilisk is terrifying enough that I'd want multiple levels of protection. Being able to affect what light waves touch you is a good start but there's likely something more mystical than just light going on, since glass or mirrors blunt the effect.

 

[Epic Bygones]

Just to be clar, all my arguments pro Herbology (and my discussion of skills in general) are about getting the unknown skills to Apprentice, not to Intermediate. We lack too many pieces of information to decide on what to raise as our 2nd year goal subjects, already. We can have opinions, sure, but since they lack the full data to back them up, they're just speculation that we will need to revise once we do have it.

 

[Falliant]

I forget the exact timing of Chamber of Secret's plot, what are the chances that when we go to visit Harry he will have already been barred in his room by Uncle Vernon? Maybe we can rescue him instead of the Weasleys

 

[StarJaunter]

I forget the exact timing of Chamber of Secret's plot, what are the chances that when we go to visit Harry he will have already been barred in his room by Uncle Vernon? Maybe we can rescue him instead of the Weasleys

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He is locked in on his Birthday which is July 31st so visiting him in July should be before the lock in when they Dursely are still afraid of "magic"

 

[Pittauro]

I've caught up! I've been reading this quest for the last few days, and I'm really enjoying it. I was admittedly in the mood for a potter quest (and while I was catching up to this I've also noticed another one, surprisingly enough), and the xianxia touch is also interesting.

I wonder what are the chances of maxing everything by graduation time... winning the cup would certainly be a big help for that, allowing for better training during the summer... And the nature of climbing exp requirements paired with higher pools, lower tresholds and better bonuses means it's actually relatively easy to catch up on older subjects from the previous year.

I wonder if they still give Time Turners for the overachieving students (or something similar, because actual time travel seems too much for a student, but something that allows you to better use your time makes better sense. All they'd need, really, would be something like a way to get access to the jade chits even during the school year).

"Of course, forgive my implication," he doesn't sound like he agrees, "You know that ascending isn't an euphemism, right? Graduating Hogwarts means leaving this plane of existence, but there's still a vibrant immortal community of adults around. Most of them are not like Ancestor Dumbledore or the Elders, who choose to stay behind through great skill and sacrifice. Most of them are like me - taking fifty years to reach the core refinement stage instead of five. If you remember me when you win the seventh quidditch cup in a row, my stay in these halls hasn't been a waste."

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FINALLY it's brought up! I was wondering about the ascension bit. I mean, how could DUMBLEDORE not be someone capable of ascending? They were talking about it like it wasn't THAT rare or hard for immortals to ascend, with mentions of people accomplishing it before their twenties...

and yet there's still Immortals like Lord Malfoy or the teachers around...

Still, I suppose that even for those not driven enough to succeed, even a half-assed year at hogwarts is priceless. After all you get an introduction to al subjects by the Elders AND access to a really extensive library, plus the chance to network and make friendships with both fellow future dropouts and future ascended...

And Immortals likely have a long memory. 7 year or 700, having a friendly ascended to greet you whenever you manage to ascend is probably worth something...

I'm still curious about the details of what ascending actually means, and what exactly it means to stay behind instead though...

Also what "demonic cultivation" means here, and what did Voldemort want with the world left behind.


On a secondary note, I imagine that "mudblood" racism has to be harder here. After all, if a muggleborn manages to keep up to the end of the 7 years, that automatically marks them as an elite of immortal society, and even just surviving the first year would be relatively impressive. Maybe impressive enough to gain a sponsorship from a minor clan?

"Copying over the whole library," he groans in response, "Feels like my hand's about to fall off from all the note-taking, but I need the material for the summer."

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...Immortals could really use a copy machine though.

Here's a funny idea, a student petition to add a copy machine to the library

I suppose that a second year student could probably just make a charm for that, though.

1. Ravenclaw - 38 + 11 from Rei = 49
2. Slytherin - 40
3. Gryffindor - 31
4. Hufflepuff - 8

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...it's nice to win, but having 8 whole extra points going unused is the slightest bit annoying.

Still, better to have the extra insurance.

6 actions without malus... this means that it will quite literally never be as "cheap" to use free actions for social instead of training than right now...

Is it possible to train previously untrained skills while in the Muggle world though? I mean, the descriptions for "Basic" and "Beginner" imply we need supervision...

 

[Pittauro]

quick check: to reach first year's passing grade in the remaining subjects, all we need is

Spiritual and Physical Cultivation: already done, they were mandatory anyway.

Herbology: we need all 750 points, it will bring down potions treshold by 4 points (from 15 to 11). We should do this before proceeding with Potions.

Potions: already done.

Charms: we're 635/750, one training action is probably all that's needed, it should give another pool die and another charm.

Transfiguration: already done.

Astronomy: we need all 750 points, it will bring down Spiritual Cultivation treshold by 4 points (from 15 to 11). we should definitely do this before continuing spiritual/history training.



So, apparently the plan for the two summer months is to complete as much of the electives as possible, which is fine.

In September (and maybe October), unless there's something special going on, we'll probably want to catch up in Herbology and Astronomy, and get those last few points in Charms (that should really only take one action).

 

[Yun]

In The quidditch cup II threadmark:



There's more than that one example, and the QM has also mentioned it in some of his explaining/answering posts. And my argument is that it's likely to be a feature of the system, not the narrative, meaning that this moneymaking will translate into the mechanics side of things and give Rei/us a certain/dependable "use for more gold", if that's what it translates to.

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Fair enough I missed that it had that, and I'd like to note that the other charm Rei picked up didn't have it, which makes sense as I'm pretty sure that is a reference to the Little Engine that Could.

That is a fair read of the post below albeit I get the impression such a system remains to be worked out.

This is the crux of the issue I'm currently struggling with. I want each skill to have a niche, both in application and in advancement. For potions, that's alkahest and combat. For transfig, it's meridians and bonuses to progress. For herbology (since I've given enough away about it already), it's other skills' results, which is broad enough to stand on its own, or potentially a profit motive (it's been mentioned a few times that herbology can be lucrative). For charms it's manipulating the pool dice and... I don't really know yet.

As I've written it so far, a charm is a one-and-done object, but at the same time I want to have a way to incorporate bigger projects for Rei to tackle. The current fore-runner is a sort of banking system, where you can choose to add more to a charm, with progressively more impressive benefits at the cost of not having access to it until it's finished. Pulling that off, however, is proving quite tricky to me.

So for the moment, it's somewhere inbetween transfig and potions, which I realize isn't in any way a satisfying answer, sorry.

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The basilisk is terrifying enough that I'd want multiple levels of protection. Being able to affect what light waves touch you is a good start but there's likely something more mystical than just light going on, since glass or mirrors blunt the effect.

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Hm. The simplest explanation for why indirect viewing of the eyes fails to outright kill, and instead petrifies the victim would be that those objects are grounding the Qi that the eyes of a basilisk naturally emit. For this quest it seems likely the Elders, and 6-7 year disciples sufficiently bend Qi around them that they just no sell the ability, but that is speculation on my part, which just leaves the poison with only one known cure.

Another avenue for protection to explore would be to make use of Athelas being know for warding properties, and have it server as a filter over her eyes that wards off any Qi outside of the normal visual spectrum.

A third level of protection would be to have a place of power where Rei can flee to, and reinforce her efforts to redirect the Qi that is stopping her from properly seeing that basilisk, or more importantly the incredibly lethal venom tipped fangs.

Oh, and if/when the Chamber open Rei should ask her team, or Elder Flitwick if there is any trick to making the Quidditch locker belonging to a member of the team appear in a convenient location when you need it. Because a flying weapon seems rather useful for getting, and staying out of reach of a basilisk's fangs.

 

[Karnax626]

This time, most elders, with the exception of Elder Quirrel, are present again, and Elder Binns goes first.

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In May only McGonagall showed up, and in June it was everyone except Quirrel, so it certainly seems like things went similarly to canon. Harry didn't mention anything at lunch, so either he wasn't involved or he didn't want to say anything in public/isn't close enough to Rei to tell her.

I put together a table for the progress we need for the first 10 meridians below:

Meridian Number	Progress needed	Cumulative progress
1	20	20
2	30	50
3	60	110
4	90	200
5	130	330
6	160	490
7	190	680
8	210	890
9	240	1130
10	270	1400

 

[Pittauro]

I put together a table for the progress we need for the first 10 meridians below:

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we need as many meridians as we have techniques, so there's also that to keep in mind. Every time we're about to unlock a technique we also need to open a meridian.

We actually don't need much. We opened 2 already, and those don't count for the cost, so we actually only need 890 total for the requirement... though we might need more if we unlock lots of techniques from all the various subjects.

We also want, for the low hanging fruits, 750 points for 1st year Herbology, 750 points for 1st year Astronomy, and 115 points for Charms.

...We were told we were third place in our year for overall progress at one point, with Draco and Harry being actually fairly ahead, but by choosing optimal classes we can probably catch up pretty quickly in the second year.

 

[veekie]

- For people who've read Xianxia this is… actually, you know, I don't think I've ever read a traditional Xianxia where cultivation sites are a thing. Is it a Xianxia quest thing which Forge did and so everyone just copied?

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All the way back to Wuxia roots and Journey to the West.
They're FAR rarer than in Forge but Forge is much more magical

 

[Epic Bygones]

He is locked in on his Birthday which is July 31st so visiting him in July should be before the lock in when they Dursely are still afraid of "magic"

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To be fair, xianxia Harry could break out pretty easily on physical strength alone, and we don't even know if there is any sort of ban on "magic" use in the mortal world like in canon (in fact, we willed a candle to light up the last time we were there in January, and though a minor feat, that could imply we're free to use our abilities even around muggles). So if the QM wants to mirror that imprisoning story-line, he probably needs to change it somewhat extensively for it to make sense.

FINALLY it's brought up! I was wondering about the ascension bit. I mean, how could DUMBLEDORE not be someone capable of ascending? They were talking about it like it wasn't THAT rare or hard for immortals to ascend, with mentions of people accomplishing it before their twenties...

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It was already mentioned that Dumbledore is a Bodhisattva, which is a Buddhist term that, adapting it to Taoism, would indicate someone who could ascend but chooses not to, so as to help those they would leave behind otherwise (and in this setting, maybe for other reasons too?) (Edit - Maybe, to continue translating concepts from a religion to another, the reason is always "to follow one's Dao", which is different for everyone).

On a secondary note, I imagine that "mudblood" racism has to be harder here. After all, if a muggleborn manages to keep up to the end of the 7 years, that automatically marks them as an elite of immortal society, and even just surviving the first year would be relatively impressive. Maybe impressive enough to gain a sponsorship from a minor clan?

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I don't think it makes any difference. You could easily point to muggleborns acing their OWLs and NEWTs in canon, as well as going on to have remarkable careers in the wizarding world, and that's never stopped the racists from believing what they believed. (Edit - That's just to remain in the fandom. We could, unfortunately, point to real life too.)

...Immortals could really use a copy machine though.

Here's a funny idea, a student petition to add a copy machine to the library

I suppose that a second year student could probably just make a charm for that, though.

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I did propose a charm like this for Rei's personal use. It could very well appear among future options, who knows.

Fair enough I missed that it had that, and I'd like to note that the other charm Rei picked up didn't have it, which makes sense as I'm pretty sure that is a reference to the Little Engine that Could.

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What's the 4-turns countdown a reference to, sorry?

we need as many meridians as we have techniques, so there's also that to keep in mind. Every time we're about to unlock a technique we also need to open a meridian.

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Meridians are also needed for charms and likely Astronomy's sites/rituals, as well.

 

[Soup]

[X][Social] You receive a letter inviting you to "Trade pointers" with "Young Mistress" Daphne Greengrass. Also in the envelope is a single-use transport talisman you're starting to become quite familiar with.

[X][Social] The address you got from Harry really isn't that far from you. If you wanted, you could incorporate a dozen or so miles into your morning run with little issue and swing by.

[X][Social] Hermione has invited you and Dad to meet her own parents, to tell the adults comforting stories about your time at Hogwarts and set their minds at ease.

 

[CedeTheBees]

[X][Social] You receive a letter inviting you to "Trade pointers" with "Young Mistress" Daphne Greengrass. Also in the envelope is a single-use transport talisman you're starting to become quite familiar with.

[X][Social] The address you got from Harry really isn't that far from you. If you wanted, you could incorporate a dozen or so miles into your morning run with little issue and swing by.

[X][Social] Hermione has invited you and Dad to meet her own parents, to tell the adults comforting stories about your time at Hogwarts and set their minds at ease.

Click to shrink...

[X][Social] You receive a letter inviting you to "Trade pointers" with "Young Mistress" Daphne Greengrass. Also in the envelope is a single-use transport talisman you're starting to become quite familiar with.

[X][Social] The address you got from Harry really isn't that far from you. If you wanted, you could incorporate a dozen or so miles into your morning run with little issue and swing by.

[X][Social] Hermione has invited you and Dad to meet her own parents, to tell the adults comforting stories about your time at Hogwarts and set their minds at ease.

Click to shrink...

The vote has been closed for a while now.

Scheduled vote count started by Karf on Jan 31, 2022 at 7:02 AM, finished with 115 posts and 33 votes.

[familiar] [name] [plan] [social]

• Total voters in this category

  29

  ---

  14 people have voted

  [X][Familiar] Athelas Mossball

  • Chlof
  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Karnax626
  • Tomlado
  • GlassMask
  • The Meddler
  • FriedIce
  • Yun
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • BearWolfBoar
  • Maladictus
  • Neptune

  11 people have voted

  [X][Familiar] Azure Floatvine

  • Madsamurai
  • LotusPocus
  • Rah13
  • FriedIce
  • KreenWarrior
  • CedeTheBees
  • WhoTheHeckity
  • TimEd
  • Happerry
  • Edkose
  • PipThePenguin

  5 people have voted

  [X][Familiar] Oolacile Myconid

  • Falliant
  • incama
  • Metalbard
  • KarmaA
  • sleepypanda

• Total voters in this category

  5

  ---

  1 people have voted

  [X][Name] Ask our familiar what they would like to be called

  • Falliant

  1 people have voted

  [X][Name] Rex

  • Karnax626

  1 people have voted

  [X][Name] Grisette

  • KarmaA

  1 people have voted

  [X][Name] Dapperling

  • KarmaA

  1 people have voted

  [X][Name] Fuzzy Wuzzy

  • GlassMask

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Name] Florilegium

  • Maladictus

• Total voters in this category

  23

  ---

  9 people have voted

  [X] Plan Max All the Electives

  • FriedIce
  • Yun
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • CedeTheBees
  • Maladictus
  • Happerry
  • Neptune
  • Sara

  5 people have voted

  [X] [Plan] Everything but Runes
  -[X][Training] Arithmancy 2x
  --[X] 2 tokens
  -[X][Training] Divination 2x
  -[X][Meridians] Adjust
  --[X] 1. The Rainbow Brush
  --[X] 2. Whip Shear Technique

  • Falliant
  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Karnax626
  • KarmaA

  5 people have voted

  [X] [Plan] Everything but Runes

  • sleepypanda
  • GlassMask
  • The Meddler
  • BearWolfBoar
  • Edkose

  3 people have voted

  [X] Plan Max All the Electives
  -[X][Training] Ancient Runes x3
  --[X] 2 tokens
  -[X][Training] Care of Magical Creatures x2
  -[X][Meridians] Adjust
  --[X] 1. The Rainbow Brush
  --[X] 2. Whip Shear Technique

  • Hex123
  • Epic Bygones
  • WhoTheHeckity

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Plan] Max Social and Ancient Magic v2
  -[X][Training] Meridians
  -[X][Training] Ancient Runes 2x
  --[X] 2 tokens
  -[X][Meridians] Adjust
  --[X] 1. The Rainbow Brush
  --[X] 2. Whip Shear Technique

  • TimEd

• Total voters in this category

  27

  ---

  25 people have voted

  [X][Social] You receive a letter inviting you to "Trade pointers" with "Young Mistress" Daphne Greengrass. Also in the envelope is a single-use transport talisman you're starting to become quite familiar with.

  • Falliant
  • incama
  • Chlof
  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Metalbard
  • Bloodalchemy
  • KarmaA
  • sleepypanda
  • GlassMask
  • The Meddler
  • FriedIce
  • KreenWarrior
  • Epic Bygones
  • Yun
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • CedeTheBees
  • BearWolfBoar
  • TimEd
  • Maladictus
  • Happerry
  • Edkose
  • PipThePenguin
  • Neptune

  22 people have voted

  [X][Social] You've decided to set apart a day to be the model daughter. Starting with breakfast a-la-Qi, followed by a trip to the art exhibition at the local gallery, a picnic lunch, then a free afternoon to do whatever he'd like. In short, spend time with dad.

  • Falliant
  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Metalbard
  • Bloodalchemy
  • Karnax626
  • KarmaA
  • sleepypanda
  • GlassMask
  • The Meddler
  • KreenWarrior
  • Epic Bygones
  • Yun
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • CedeTheBees
  • TimEd
  • Maladictus
  • Happerry
  • Edkose
  • PipThePenguin
  • Neptune

  20 people have voted

  [X][Social] The address you got from Harry really isn't that far from you. If you wanted, you could incorporate a dozen or so miles into your morning run with little issue and swing by.

  • Falliant
  • incama
  • Chlof
  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Bloodalchemy
  • KarmaA
  • sleepypanda
  • GlassMask
  • The Meddler
  • FriedIce
  • KreenWarrior
  • Yun
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • CedeTheBees
  • TimEd
  • Happerry
  • Edkose
  • PipThePenguin

  13 people have voted

  [X][Social] Hermione has invited you and Dad to meet her own parents, to tell the adults comforting stories about your time at Hogwarts and set their minds at ease.

  • Falliant
  • incama
  • Metalbard
  • Bloodalchemy
  • KarmaA
  • sleepypanda
  • dbRevned
  • Jrin
  • CedeTheBees
  • WhoTheHeckity
  • TimEd
  • Happerry
  • PipThePenguin

  9 people have voted

  [X][Social] The central hub of immortal activity in London is Diagon Alley. Now that you're much more knowledgeable about the world of Qi, you'd like a second look at the place. Perhaps put a number to your actual wealth and do some window shopping.

  • zinay
  • StarJaunter
  • Karnax626
  • sleepypanda
  • FriedIce
  • Epic Bygones
  • TimEd
  • Maladictus
  • Neptune

  2 people have voted

  [X][Social] Although the streets of London aren't exactly Hogwarts, there's still adventure to be had. Bring your new familiar on a tour of the suburbia, who knows what you might find - perhaps there's a fragment of the magical right in your backyard.

  • Falliant
  • Happerry

  2 people have voted

  [X] [Social] You visit Kew Gardens with your dad. Your mum loved the Japanese garden there, and your dad likes to visit regularly. Additionally you suspect that there may be herbology research taking place there under the noses of the muggles. Your love of Sherlock Holmes stories compels you to investigate this further.

  • KarmaA
  • Maladictus

  1 people have voted

  [X][Social] You've managed to bring a doodle or two off the page - literally, in some cases - but you'd like to strive for more. Find a model and really put your skills to the test, both artistically and in the realm of Qi animation.
  -[X] Dad.

  • Falliant

  1 people have voted

  [X][Social] Although the time you can spend at Hogwarts is precious, so is the opportunity to actually get to know some of the elders. At worst, they'll just tell you to leave them alone. See what happens when you try to take your lunch at the head table.
  -[X] Albus Dumbledore

  • Epic Bygones

  1 people have voted

  [X][Social] You've got Dad to agree to a weekend trip to the countryside for you, visiting Mandy's clan and reservation.

  • Metalbard

A close one, but I believe there are 12 votes for plan Max All the Electives.

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