Decided to do a little reread to see if I notice anything interesting with the knowledge we have now.
Still, sometime between now and her 16th birthday, the world itself will go through a tremendous change. Depending on how the dice fall, that could be far off or very soon indeed.
Huh I wonder what kind of change this is assuming our current situation is still relatively normal for the world. Is the Change the Maw winning its battle against Flower which would definitely qualify as a tremendous change? Whatever it is I'm really wondering how time will pass in this quest given how besides the 3 month long tree nap we seem to play day by day which would take forever for the quest to go through years.
In the day it is warm in the clearings and cool under the canopies. If you could you would wander for days just watching and feeling everything and nothing in particular. There is life here everywhere around you that you've always felt somewhat connected to.
This is probably Lilly's Super Low Essence Awareness that she had even before the events of the first chapter.
It is certainly more free than you.
Feels weird for someone with Medium +++ Innate Source
Freeform then again I have no idea what Freeform could be so I should probably not make snide comments based off of it.
Tonight you will choose your Ethos; the destiny that you will cleave your future too.
Is this wording connected to the meaning of Cleaver of Fortune? I'll have to double check the wording it had during the Ethos selection
Your family wished to conduct the ceremony in father's workshop, around his tools and symbols of his trade. A pity that you hate working on dead timber. The fact that you have the beginnings prodigious skill at the art of woodwork makes it worse, for making something beautiful out of what was already beautiful before it was cut down seems an ironic mockery to you. You would not dishonour your father or family by sharing such thoughts. You do not want to be seen as a childish silly girl who is overly sentimental about trees. What's worse is that your father might convince you he is right if you actually told him, you don't want to entertain the possibility that you are wrong about something so close to your heart.
Feels really sad that Lilly doesn't explain her love of nature to her family because she doesn't want to dishonor them. Though that last part about being convinced by her father makes me wonder what would happen if we picked Duty of Wood and what impact that would have on Lilly's character.
You have been a good daughter for so long and you take no small pride in the fact that you have been able to swallow your own ambitions of a bolder life and play the part of the dutiful firstborn all these years.
This is a little sad to see given how Yolun's thoughts towards Lilly where despite Lilly trying her best to be a good daughter her father still saw her adventurous spirit and was afraid of where it would lead.
It will be any momen-[crunch]
Blood pours from your mouth, ears and eyes. Pain worse than any you have ever felt or even thought to consider wracks your body as bones break and reform to then simply break again. Fingers bend backwards in the wrong direction. You float in the air before slamming back into the ground. Your eyes pop and regrow a number of times. You do not scream, for your lungs are already empty of air and perforated with holes. Something reaches into you from a place that is nowhere, gorges out a part of you that you didn't know was there and replaces it with something similar but different in a way you have no words to describe.
Did the Maw literally bite us in the soul? Like how the Wolf bit the immaterial link between us and dad? Wonder what was scooped out of us and if what was put in was the Maw bits and Boundless Ethos? Wonder if this would had happened if Lilly had stayed home since iirc that was a possibility and we know there's some Maw stuff in the forest with Rapid Iterators' beasties.
Namesake (Lesser):
On the day you were born, your mother declared your name to be Lilly for reasons neither of your parents have chosen to share with you in the years since. It was a bit of scandal, a woman insisting on the right to name her child, but your father was a gracious man and allowed it. Besides, your mother never pushed her luck with the naming of the brothers that followed you. To pursue one's own name as an Ethos grants incredible freedom, but often little actual direction or aid. There is perhaps some promise to choosing this given the mysterious origins of your own name, but it is more likely something quite boring you think.
Yeah quite boring indeed Lilly! But anyways I still wonder what kind of powers this Ethos would give us and what power source it uses. Maybe Legend? Cause you're borrowing power from presumably a legendary person you're named after. Is this the Ethos that we were 'meant' to have? Cause this is the only thing we currently know of that would be effected by having a specific name like the one our Mom was forced to give us.
Speaking of our Mom how is Sarah connected to this? Cause we suspect that Lilly and the thing with her family is connected to Flower which makes the choice of Lilly as a name obvious. But why would this power pick our mom's name to be Sarah?
Skipping Service to Man since I don't have anything else to save about the 'your identity is Housewife" ethos that hasn't been said before.
Nihilist Roots (Lesser):
On your more melancholy days, simply giving up on worrying about the challenges of life has seemed quite appealing. To simply become as air, uncaring and aloof to the concerns of life. It is an answer to your life in a manner of speaking, though you wonder if you could ever actually be happy simply accepting contentment in apathy and meaninglessness.
Honestly forgot we had this one. Seems closer to True Nihilism in that 'Nothing Matters' is a postive thing rather than the straw man most media tend to use the belief. Would only be real useful if Lilly gets too stressed about things she can't change rather than focusing on what she can do and I think Bedrock is all we really need for that kind of problem.
Not going over Dream either since we know a lot about it already and nothing in its initial description strikes me as anything new besides "Oh so that's what that phrase meant"
Brave Blood (Common):
You have always dreamed of being a noble fighter, wading into lines of horrible unspeakable terrors and being utterly unmoved. A knight of legend. It is only a wish of the heart though, you lack any experience or ancestry in such a thing, leaving you with a tenuous connection at best to such an Ethos. In fact, as a girl of no repute it is a mystery why this is even a common level choice; Perhaps your deep yearning for adventure was enough to raise it from a Lesser Ethos.
Hmm even Lilly goes "why do I have this choice I like it but how". Why is this called Brave Blood? Certainly it's abilities help a brave warrior shed blood but so far besides maybe Song none of its abilities have anything to do with Bravery and definitely not anything to do with Blood. Is there something in Lilly's blood that makes this ethos drawn to her?
Also I think this shows Lilly's lack of knowledge about ethos since as far as we know you can't raise an ethos to a common ethos since ethos seems pretty standard with that they are. Like maybe if you consider something like Striker to be a lesser version of Brave Blood but I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as Brave Blood (Lesser) or Brave Blood (Rare). If anything I would imagine such differences would be be seen via the divergence or sync meters.
Deviant Wanderer (Common):
You have played the part of the good daughter whilst guarding the true feelings of your heart and desires for the future carefully. Though it was never your deliberate intention, you are in fact a well practiced and expert lier. Capable of convincing even yourself that every lie is a necessity and burying any guilt that might expose you. To embrace a life of deception in many forms big and small would be a tremendous departure both from what direction you expected your life to take and from what you consider an honourable path. It would however give you immediate and potent tools to become a free roaming woman beholden to no-one. This is an extreme option, could you even really return home with such an Ethos? Could you break your parents heart by having them behold a daughter holding such an ignoble future?
Another ethos I had forgotten. First thing I notice is that liar is misspelled as lier. My second thought is this feels kind of almost inverted-esque in how it could go. Cause using the powers of lies and deception to become a lone woman feels like it could easily go down dark paths.
Duty of Wood (Rare):
Your father is a carpenter. His parents also plied the trade. The line stretches back an unknown number of generations. This is the path you would be expected to take. Your relationship with your ancestral family trade is a cold and distant one, you possess little natural affinity on an emotional level. You are actually quite surprised the choice is even an option, perhaps your deep sense of familial duty and raw technical skill has allowed you to just barely pass the necessary muster. To counter-balance your hesitance, the legacy of family is a powerful source of Ethos itself. You are perhaps one of a handful of children within the village capable of gaining a Rare Ethos through their families' trade. While it would give you little personal satisfaction, it would likely be a comparatively potent and prosperous path to follow. You also would feel far less shame for running off alone on your return home in the morn.
The family and Dad Ethos. Seems very powerful given the praise Yolun has gotten. While Lilly obviously doesn't like this due to her love of nature I have to wonder how this would stack with Dream cause I imagine being able to flood wood with essence would only help with magic carpentry.
Foṟ̴͍̇m Fr̵̠̂̓ạ̷̾cture (̶̩̲͒͂A̷̡͆pō̵͕t̵̨̃heoti̶̦͛c):
Whatever has granted you your unique nature to choose additional Ethos in time has also linked you to something otherworldly. It calls and stirs at the edges of your mind. It is magnitude personified, limitless in scope, inhuman in nature. To do anything other than resist any further incursion would likely turn you into something perhaps not even recognizable to friends, family or even yourself. Even considering the option seems to minutely erode part of your self-identity. Still, such power, if only you give it just a little more…
Whatever gave us Boundless Ethos also gave us this and this seems very much Maw related. As I mentioned before it seems to be trying to mind fuck us even just thinking about it. Makes me wonder how much of Valerie's insanity is her own and how much is it her ethos since iirc she has her own Apotheotic ethos (which is a very scary name). I wonder how Form Fracture would had competed against Rapid Iterator given how they both seem to be "It is magnitude personified, limitless in scope, inhuman in nature."
You narrowly made the roll for Lilly to be compatible enough to be fully healed from whatever just happened to you by rolling an 87 on a DC85.
Wow I forgot this bit. Man the Maw (or whoever it was) is certainly not nice if we needed an 85 or higher to be healed after the literally soul shredding experience.
Even with the boost to personal autonomy, You still had a less than 10% chance of getting the Apotheotic tier 'Form Fracture' that hints at the eldritch forces behind some of the events that are going to occur as an option. So now Lilly (and you readers) is aware of the perhaps not quite benevolent benefactor behind things much sooner than I originally planned. Oh well
Yeah this certainly showed that whoever gave us Boundless Ethos is certainly not nice in that it mangled our soul and body and wants us to take the become a monster ethos.
And that's the opening update. I'll do the rest later since I think this is a good stopping point.
