It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

[Deuterium Dawn]

We know we're going to be in grave danger--this is a fact. [Brave Blood]--of our options--is one that is excellent at handling danger. It is never bad to have excellent athleticism, and we've already been told that [Brave Blood] is so broad in scope that it locks out almost nothing.

Furthermore, we have a very rare opportunity to train with someone who has a Rare Ethos that decided to go full ham on training. Excelling in that field doesn't just maximize our gains. It increases the chance that we'll have an opportunity to gain even more out of it by potentially becoming a direct disciple instead of a pity favor.

Nobody ever became a Hero by ignoring the opportunities that good mentors offered them, or by just going "Let's just make sure we're okay at everything." [Intuitor] would be a nice choice... If we didn't have an opportunity to skyrocket Lilly's survivability by seizing a potent confluence of events with both hands. Because what are the odds that we'll get better attunement to a martial adventure Ethos right as we have an opportunity to learn from someone who has a Rare Ethos that they bent towards training people?.

Specialize First, branch out once your specialty is secure. And events have conspired to let us gain a solid specialty in martial adventuring. Take it

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I feel "pity favor" is a bit harsh, especially considering this guy's noted character. But overall, you're not wrong, I'm just not sure it's our best option, it's certainly not the only option for dealing with the upcoming dangers. We already have increased strength and athleticism, and will continue to develop that as our other Ethea grow and with this training. Also, covering a wide variety of skills when we're likely going to end up far from a base of support at some point is not entirely without merit. But it's not my preferred choice for practical purposes, Lilly's character or just generally being interesting. Going to put in a word for Heartsworn.

[Heartsworn] (Common):
"The promises we make ourselves, they bind us to our own future. Give us the push to reach higher than our own span." It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end.
Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings. Weave armour from hope, and a weapon from courage.

This literally lets us make Lilly's strength and courage manifest. Providing us with likely above average or above mortal equipment, make possibly unbreakable oaths, and who knows what else might be covered by "rendering the conceptual into something manifestly physical" as well as further drawing upon strengthening Lilly's resolve and character, which is probably what interests me the most and will likely be sorely tested in the days to come, and seems to connect with it more directly than Brave Blood, though she definitely has that. Finally, Brave Blood has popped up at least twice now, and given our training and likely future course isn't going away any time soon, so I'd like to seize this opportunity while we have it.

 

[Alectai]

I feel "pity favor" is a bit harsh, especially considering this guy's noted character. But overall, you're not wrong, I'm just not sure it's our best option, it's certainly not the only option for dealing with the upcoming dangers. We already have increased strength and athleticism, and will continue to develop that as our other Ethea grow and with this training. Also, covering a wide variety of skills when we're likely going to end up far from a base of support at some point is not entirely without merit. But it's not my preferred choice for practical purposes, Lilly's character or just generally being interesting. Going to put in a word for Heartsworn.

[Heartsworn] (Common):
"The promises we make ourselves, they bind us to our own future. Give us the push to reach higher than our own span." It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end.
Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings. Weave armour from hope, and a weapon from courage.

This literally lets us make Lilly's strength and courage manifest. Providing us with likely above average or above mortal equipment, make possibly unbreakable oaths, and who knows what else might be covered by "rendering the conceptual into something manifestly physical" as well as further drawing upon strengthening Lilly's resolve and character, which is probably what interests me the most and will likely be sorely tested in the days to come, and seems to connect with it more directly than Brave Blood, though she definitely has that. Finally, Brave Blood has popped up at least twice now, and given our training and likely future course isn't going away any time soon, so I'd like to seize this opportunity while we have it.

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Yeah.

Honestly? I like [Heartsworn], I like it a lot. But the problem here it's another esoteric boost when we've got two of those already--you need to ground your esoteric stuff in something physical for them to really shine. It's the force multiplier problem if you will--having a bunch of conditions where your impact doubles or triples sounds like a bargain, but when you're dealing with a baseline of 1-5 or something it's inferior to a "+30 in martial contests".

I don't think it's going away either, the key here is take something that gives us a good base of survivability and is explicitly called out as "This will synergize very well with what you're about to do".

And yeah, ultimately, [Heartsworn] comes off as another force multiplier when we've already got two (Turns your willpower and ideals into tools that help you). It's gambling on nothing going wrong until we get something perfect to give us that linear boost to our foundation for the force multipliers to trick off of. We've already been warned once that there's background rolls that are 'Really good in general but bad for your survival chances'.

So yeah, I feel like [Brave Blood] best takes advantage of our current position--and as things stand, we've got a lot of gimmicky stuff but not a lot of baseline capability to go with it. I feel this is very dangerous--so a chance to get that baseline capability and an initial understanding of how it works feels priceless to me.

 

[Nando]

Yeah, the thing is, we're already going to have an embarrassment of options. Jack of All Trades sounds good on the forefront, but failing to focus when we know that we're going to be in grave danger down the line is folly. First, gain the tools to survive--it's literally the hierarchy of needs as I understand it--[Intuitor] is great at improving quality of life by ensuring you're never completely out of your depth in any given field, but when we know there's Scary Shit out there and that [Cleaver of Fate] is going to annoy some of them, and we don't know when they'll find us. The sooner we're at least in a position to defend ourselves, the safer we'll be.

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It's also gonna help us make the best out of all those abilities we don't understand right now.
If it was the only Ethos we're getting, I'd agree. Even if it was the last one, right now.
But it's not. It's going to help us be better at everything - and we'll be able to specialize later on.

Specialize First, branch out once your specialty is secure. And events have conspired to let us gain a solid specialty in martial adventuring. Take it

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I don't think we're going to get into a life-or-death situation right away. We've had some pretty good rolls, as we were told, that will help us be better prepared than we should have expected to be.
Take advantage of that, through maximizing our gains.

We know we're going to be in grave danger--this is a fact. [Brave Blood]--of our options--is one that is excellent at handling danger. It is never bad to have excellent athleticism, and we've already been told that [Brave Blood] is so broad in scope that it locks out almost nothing.

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I'm also expecting this option (or at least something similar) to come up again.

Furthermore, we have a very rare opportunity to train with someone who has a Rare Ethos that decided to go full ham on training. Excelling in that field doesn't just maximize our gains. It increases the chance that we'll have an opportunity to gain even more out of it by potentially becoming a direct disciple instead of a pity favor.

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Which is why making sure we understand his lessons is important.
And I'm not sure that the kid he's not happy to teach is gushing about how awesome he is and reminding him of the fact that he could be doing some "real work" instead of babysitting a 12-year-old girl is the right choice...

Lilly's Father is definitely an ally--and the whole point of parents is that you're supposed to trust them with everything. Because they know more than you do. Giving half assed information is worse than staying completely mum because they might draw different conclusions then you did. And the fact you couldn't bring yourself to tell them the whole story makes it look that much worse

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Hm, yeah. I'd favor a "well, there's more, but even knowing it might be dangerous - are you sure you want to know?" option...

Again, it's been hammered in several times that 'Lilly's lack of knowledge is going to be her greatest weakness in this story'. Leaning on the experience of your elders is literally what you're supposed to do.

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Lack of knowledge get's very nicely countered by making sure we understand stuff better, no?


Concerning Heartsworn: this one feels kind of brittle to me, like...failing to muster your willpower and you loose out on stuff. Not sure I want to bet on that right now...

 

[Alectai]

... [Intuitor] doesn't give special knowledge you realize. It just makes sure that 'Whatever activity you decide to set yourself out to do, you won't be completely useless'. It's not a 'Pull knowledge from the ether' ability.

..

 

[Edgedancer]

And I'm not sure that the kid he's not happy to teach is gushing about how awesome he is and reminding him of the fact that he could be doing some "real work" instead of babysitting a 12-year-old girl is the right choice...

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While I doubt that the guy that decided himself to training others is going to be significantly bothered by enthusiams, I do admit that I'm coming around to the confident option. Less because I think gushing is bad in and off itself and more because I do agree that Lily can do great and focusing on that to help her come into her own might be the most important part about the situation. That and even if he doesn't mind, I'm going to hope here that Mathew is going to appreciate a student taking his lessons to heart without requiring them to gush about it.

Concerning Heartsworn: this one feels kind of brittle to me, like...failing to muster your willpower and you loose out on stuff. Not sure I want to bet on that right now...

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I mean, as a general rule, if your willp is broken in a serious situation, you're kind of screwed to begin with. Things are bound to become bad, perhaps even before the ominous background events rear their head. If she can't maintaining the willpower she's currently displaying to push her through all those hardships, she's unlikely to push through them with anything else. Having a physical reminder of the importance of said willpower is—if anything—going to help remind her why she needs to keep hanging in there.

 

[Alectai]

The point is not exposing your willpower to actual physical attack I think.

It's a Common Ethos, it's not going to bring shit up like "Willpower generated constructs are invincible and don't include backlash"

 

[Nando]

I'd also like to advocate for
[ ] (Power) You're physically stronger now. What are you limits? How far can you push things?
again.
Having an idea about our limits is certainly going to be helpful when we're going into intensive physical training.

Also, another point with Heartsworn, that I failed to put into words earlier: It also feels pretty restricting. Like, we'll have to bind us to certain ideals etc. - and compromising those would most likely come with consequences. That's also something I'd like to avoid...

 

[Alectai]

I'd also like to advocate for
[ ] (Power) You're physically stronger now. What are you limits? How far can you push things?
again.
Having an idea about our limits is certainly going to be helpful when we're going into intensive physical training.

Also, another point with Heartsworn, that I failed to put into words earlier: It also feels pretty restricting. Like, we'll have to bind us to certain ideals etc. - and compromising those would most likely come with consequences. That's also something I'd like to avoid...

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We have a Rare Ethos teacher who went hard in on the teaching. It is his job to find our limits

 

[Nando]

We have a Rare Ethos teacher who went hard in on the teaching. It is his job to find our limits

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Nah, it's his job to teach the guard and other important people.
He got badgered into going out of the town to humor a young girl as a repayment of a favor.

People were all about maximizing the benefits of the training - that action does that. I'm not buying that it's a trap option, and even if it were, not a debilitating one.

 

[Alectai]

Nah, it's his job to teach the guard and other important people.
He got badgered into going out of the town to humor a young girl as a repayment of a favor.

People were all about maximizing the benefits of the training - that action does that. I'm not buying that it's a trap option, and even if it were, not a debilitating one.

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...

"Mathew has an Ethos of rare quality which he calls '[Blessed Armsman]'. He just had his 19th​ birthday and has spent the years since his awakening focusing [Blessed Armsman] on aspects of mentorship and training, in service to his fellow citizens," there is a good deal of respect in your fathers voice as he speaks. You can guess why, not many boys would choose to develop an Ethos to make others stronger when instead they could be that much more potent themselves.

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You want to try that again?

Because the one who should know better is literally saying "Yeah, he optimized for teaching and mentorship"

Are you suggesting Lilly's father is lying to her face? Or that this guy literally is lying to everyone convincingly enough that everyone believes it? That he's just going to do the least possible work he can for this so even if he has the technical skill he won't actually employ any of it and so if we commit hard to getting the most out of the instruction as we can we're literally wasting our time?

You want to know what a militia head, talented enough to get a Rare Ethos and cool headed enough to engineer it towards maximizing the assets he has to do his job does when he sees an enthusiastically, ludicrously talented kid?

They make sure to foster that talent. Because if she only goes so far she's still liable to be an able lieutenant for home defense. If she goes really far he gets to have the credit of being the one who got us started.

My goal with this spread is to fish for actually becoming a permanent disciple. Because this is the best way to maximize our survivability--by leaning into the opportunity chance has given us.

The game is too blackboxed to just try and speculate an Optimal Build. Which means we should be taking the acceptable prize that falls in front of us instead of holding back and hope we find something better later.

 

[Deuterium Dawn]

Also, another point with Heartsworn, that I failed to put into words earlier: It also feels pretty restricting. Like, we'll have to bind us to certain ideals etc. - and compromising those would most likely come with consequences. That's also something I'd like to avoid...

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I'm not really sure where you're getting this? "It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end. Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings." There's nothing about being sworn to some kind of code in there, unless we choose to do so. And I don't think any of our Ethea are going to punish us for not acting perfectly in concert with them, they're just stronger and gain more experience when we do so.

 

[Nando]

You want to try that again?

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Not sure what you're aiming at, but I feel like you've missed my point.
That being: yes, Mathew is an awesome trainer. No, he's not happy about having to take care of us. His job is training people,yes, and he's really good at that. But it is not taking care of a random young child.

"Yes, well, see to it that you do not waste his time. I imagine Sullivan will have had to do quite a bit of convincing to get his son to come."

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I'm not really sure where you're getting this? "It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end. Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings." There's nothing about being sworn to some kind of code in there, unless we choose to do so. And I don't think any of our Ethea are going to punish us for not acting perfectly in concert with them, they're just stronger and gain more experience when we do so.

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Even if the first part of the description is in quotation marks, I'm still counting them as valid: "The promises we make ourselves, they bind us to our own future. Give us the push to reach higher than our own span." Also, the part that you quoted: "You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings."
Sounds to me like we'll have to "bind" us to something *shrugs*

 

[Edgedancer]

Also, another point with Heartsworn, that I failed to put into words earlier: It also feels pretty restricting. Like, we'll have to bind us to certain ideals etc. - and compromising those would most likely come with consequences. That's also something I'd like to avoid...

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I'm not really sure where you're getting this? "It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end. Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings." There's nothing about being sworn to some kind of code in there, unless we choose to do so. And I don't think any of our Ethea are going to punish us for not acting perfectly in concert with them, they're just stronger and gain more experience when we do so.

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It's not an entirely unreasonable concern. The line "You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings" does suggest that some commitments might become more permanent than they'd usually be. Although it's vague on what exactly these bindings consist of. However, I do agree that we'll be able to decide that we swear by and it's not like we'll be able to go through life without ever commiting to anything anyway. I wouldn't exactly call it a non problem, but I'm not sure it's a big enough deal to actively avoid.

Though, as somewhat of a sidenote, this train of thought does make me curious how Heartsworn might interact with Cleaver of Fate. Not just in the sense of Cleaver potentially being useable to unmake the bonds from Heartsworn when we need to rid ourselves of them (which would almost definetly come with some kind of backlash, so I'm not trying to suggest it as a potential get out of jail free card), but the potential of them being able to build on each other. The description of Cleaver isn't just about throwing the future of, but also being able to use that blank slate to create something new. So I'm wondering if that could serve as a fertile ground for the bonds Heartsworn draws on.

 

[Kaboomatic]

Right
Alectai's judgement is normally pretty frickin sound, and I really like his rationale, so I'm just gonna go with his plan-stuff

[X] The whole truth. Both of your Ethos and of what reached out to you in the Forest that night. Swear your father to silence.
[X] (Family) Chariot can be put out to graze, feedstock for the pigs can be replaced and bails can be moved. Unlike anyone else, you'll still be fresh and ready when you're done.
[X] Gushing. You are incredibly grateful and will make sure both your father and Mathew know it.
[X] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[X] Claw scratched and tail lashed, but the bark remained unmarred.
[X] Brave Blood (Common)

 

[Alectai]

Not sure what you're aiming at, but I feel like you've missed my point.
That being: yes, Mathew is an awesome trainer. No, he's not happy about having to take care of us. His job is training people,yes, and he's really good at that. But it is not taking care of a random young child.

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... It's literally telling us 'Don't waste his time'

That's why I'm pushing for getting a class that gets the most impact from it and closes off virtually no options, and pushing it as hard as I can.

I could get at least just keeping things under our hat for a while in regards to him, what I'm focused on are the swarm of people pushing [Intuitor] when we could achieve a high level of martial competence from this opportunity as long as we lean into it--in a context that is good no matter what future options come up.

Being a Jack of All Trades can be very handy, but specialization is key. There's a reason that omnibuilds tend to lose out to people who focused on one aspect of their abilities, because in the process of closing your weaknesses you often find yourself without strengths.

Which makes Jack of All Trades stuff really good until things are actually important, at which point it just makes you lose slightly slower.

 

[Nando]

That's why I'm pushing for getting a class that gets the most impact from it and closes off virtually no options, and pushing it as hard as I can.

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And I'm talking about not being a village-bumpkin-fangirl gushing about him, or not even knowing how much we can lift, before we start training.

I get your arguments for Brave Blood, but I feel like it's gonna be open later on again, while Intuitor feels like it might close of sooner/easier.
And, still, the second would also help in learning how to fight.

And, in the end, I'm fairly deep in the "linear warriors, quadratic wizards"-mindset...

 

[Alectai]

And I'm talking about not being a village-bumpkin-fangirl gushing about him, or not even knowing how much we can lift, before we start training.

I get your arguments for Brave Blood, but I feel like it's gonna be open later on again, while Intuitor feels like it might close of sooner/easier.
And, still, the second would also help in learning how to fight.

And, in the end, I'm fairly deep in the "linear warriors, quadratic wizards"-mindset...

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We're already off that track by way of 'We can literally cleave causality in half' and 'Weird vaguely druidy stuff' as our first two.

More importantly, the other thing about 'Quadratic Wizards' is that they take time to spin up. Wizards don't definitively start outpacing warriors until level five or so. We've been regularly told that "We have no guarantees of even making it to the next year, let alone eighteen"

And we picked an Ethos that explicitly warns us that powerful people are going to be very annoyed by its existence.

Yes, you're right in that [Brave Blood] will probably show up later, the problem is opportunity cost. Right now, it's an Ethos that very heavily rewards the opportunity we're about to experience. While [Intuitor] seems to function as a general "You get a shitton of Skill Points" if we're carrying on the DnD comparisons. Skill Points aren't nothing, but they're not what a Level 0 character desperately wants to survive contact with danger. For that, you want either the ability to run away, or the ability to ensure you're fighting on favored ground--which is covered in my desired Ethos pick here--general athleticism boost to nigh supernatural levels is Never a bad thing

I want [Brave Blood] because it gives us that linear kickstart that gives us that baseline foundation that we can hang our other esoteric stuff off of.

A relatively small added draw to it I'll admit is that I like my martially focused heroines instead of rogues or casters, but that is aesthetic taste when I'm currently focusing on applying reason. In a black boxed system, the absolute last thing you want to do is assume you have a better read on how it works than anything else--you seize opportunities when they come to build up, and once you have at least a moderate assurance of your stability, you can go from there.

And I'm sorry to say, we are far from reasonably stable.

 

[Nando]

In a black boxed system, the absolute last thing you want to do is assume you have a better read on how it works than anything else--you seize opportunities when they come to build up, and once you have at least a moderate assurance of your stability, you can go from there.

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This, for me, is the point why I'm firmly in favor of Intuitor: helping us/Lilly make sense of the various abilities. As well as the rest of the system.
The opportunity cost is mitigated, I hope, by getting improved learning, thus making better use of the lessons.

And, well, we already do have that improved physicality, so I feel like we do have a "linear boost". Also, I'm not really convinced about needing to be able to fight right this moment/the next day.

 

[AlphaDelta]

[X] The whole truth. Both of your Ethos and of what reached out to you in the Forest that night. Swear your father to silence.
[X] (Family) Chariot can be put out to graze, feedstock for the pigs can be replaced and bails can be moved. Unlike anyone else, you'll still be fresh and ready when you're done.
[X] Gushing. You are incredibly grateful and will make sure both your father and Mathew know it.
[X] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[X] Claw scratched and tail lashed, but the bark remained unmarred.
[X] Brave Blood (Common)

It's not as if we're giving up a Mythic for Brave Blood over Intuitor. The latter will probably come up again. Still not sure what Ethos unlock conditions are, though. I have a couple theories, but…

 

[Alectai]

This, for me, is the point why I'm firmly in favor of Intuitor: helping us/Lilly make sense of the various abilities. As well as the rest of the system.
The opportunity cost is mitigated, I hope, by getting improved learning, thus making better use of the lessons.

And, well, we already do have that improved physicality, so I feel like we do have a "linear boost". Also, I'm not really convinced about needing to be able to fight right this moment/the next day.

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Okay, stop

Right there, Re-read [Intuitor]

" A thousand years and every tutor under the sun, still you could not begin to scratch the surface of the sum total of possible knowledge. You accept this fact, but nevertheless will never stop your upward climb. A knack for learning and mastery of diverse or tricky talents. The Jack of All trades empowered by a dedicated Ethos. "I may not be the best juggler, dancer or singer, but I can do all three at the same time better than most." Your already sharp mind shall be honed and polished to a truly deadly point. From this starting point, your Ethos could develop into a truly strange and unique thing. "

You see what that says? Doesn't say anything about 'Being a better warrior', doesn't say anything about 'Being a better mage', it doesn't say anything about 'Being stronger or faster'.

What it says is that you're really good at picking up little miscellaneous tricks and that it sharpens the mind further. These aren't nothing, but if it was a straight up "You are better at literally everything you could possibly set your mind to, considerably so". It's be rated a lot higher than Common

My read on this? It's the equivalent to "You get lots of Skill Points every level and everything is a Class Skill for you". That's not nothing, but it's a supplement rather than something that can carry a build in and of itself. More importantly, it's also not something that's likely to go away in the future. Between being a Common Ethos and tying in with our innate 'Can have multiple Ethos' trait that I see it as coming up damn near all the time.

Let's be real here. Given how incredibly broad you seem to be projecting the effects of [Intuitor] as, while still having the 'Point Budget' as an Ethos like "Engrave Runes" The individual effect for any given skill of [Intuitor] must be nigh insignificant. "I can perform at reasonable amateur levels at everything" doesn't help you much when your risk is against professionals and experts--if anything, it just encourages people to get cocky and think they can do things outside of your talents by assuming you'll just manage to feel your way through it.

 

[dolcevita]

[X] Acknowledge there is more. Try to persuade Father that you have very good reasons for not sharing them.
[X] (Power) [Cleaver of Fortune] has gained a new feature. But you still don't really understand what it could do before that. Experiment and try to suss out how to actively put it use.
[X] Confident. You're going to do great, now that someone is finally willing to give you a chance.
[X] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[X] The roots sank deep, searching, yearning, until finally, water.
[X] Intuitor (Common)

The way I read Intuitor personally was less 'lets you be kind of good at everything' and more 'lets you be good at multiple normally disparate skill sets and put them together in ways you ordinarily think of/be able to'. The reason it synergizes well with us isn't because of it's access to information, but because it'll let us be better at using all our ethoses together in ways we wouldn't consider doing so without.

 

[Deuterium Dawn]

This, for me, is the point why I'm firmly in favor of Intuitor: helping us/Lilly make sense of the various abilities. As well as the rest of the system.
The opportunity cost is mitigated, I hope, by getting improved learning, thus making better use of the lessons.

And, well, we already do have that improved physicality, so I feel like we do have a "linear boost". Also, I'm not really convinced about needing to be able to fight right this moment/the next day.

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I'm not really seeing this in anything other than the name. The description pegs it as Jack of All trades, master of none. We'd have "a knack for learning and mastery of diverse or tricky talents", not learning in general, it isn't going to make us better at anything we do.

It's be rated a lot higher than Common

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Just going to point out the information post like two posts into the thread, and something the author has brought up more than once, that rarer Ethos aren't strictly better or more powerful. Dreamer has been damn powerful and diverse and it was only common.

Misc Info:

Higher Tiers of Ethos are not necessarily more powerful. Some are stronger, some are weaker. They are more specific and unusual; which is sometimes a benefit and sometimes will make advancing in them very difficult. Lily is vaguely aware of this, there is a popular recently retired female hero who did some pretty epic feats with a Common Ethos.

Consider this info my gift to you to stop a horde of votes for Rare+ options on the assumption they are x10 better.

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[Alectai]

[X] Acknowledge there is more. Try to persuade Father that you have very good reasons for not sharing them.
[X] (Power) [Cleaver of Fortune] has gained a new feature. But you still don't really understand what it could do before that. Experiment and try to suss out how to actively put it use.
[X] Confident. You're going to do great, now that someone is finally willing to give you a chance.
[X] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[X] The roots sank deep, searching, yearning, until finally, water.
[X] Intuitor (Common)

The way I read Intuitor personally was less 'lets you be kind of good at everything' and more 'lets you be good at multiple normally disparate skill sets and put them together in ways you ordinarily think of/be able to'. The reason it synergizes well with us isn't because of it's access to information, but because it'll let us be better at using all our ethoses together in ways we wouldn't consider doing so without.

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I... Disagree?

I mean, you're not wrong, but the way I read it, it's less "Make us better at using our Ethos together" and more "It'd synergize with your nature to unlock some really bullshit stronger Ethos down the line."

I mean, don't get me wrong, [Intuitor] is Good, I just don't feel we'll only see it this one time and never again, and the opportunity cost of not capitalizing on this training opportunity is making my toes curl.

Just going to point out the information post like two posts into the thread, and something the author has brought up more than once, that rarer Ethos aren't strictly better or more powerful. Dreamer has been damn powerful and diverse and it was only common.

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My impression is that less common Ethos deal with more abstract things, or things that you can't really wrap your head around normally. But it doesn't require a giant leap of logic to assume that if this was a universal "Do everything in the universe better" Ethos, that it'd be well known enough that even we would know about people who use it.

Since, uh, if that's the case, it would be common knowledge that 'If you get [Intuitor], you should take it.'

The fact it's obscure does sort of suggest that it's generally not considered a viable choice. While our muti-Ethos stuff does mean that it'd potentially do some real heavy lifting in the late game. I want to ensure we survive to that point.

And super athleticism coupled with a shot at training to capitalize on that by someone supernaturally talented at training people? This is exactly what goes a long way towards making your life a lot safer. While [Inutitor's] strength is only liable to come out far later on in the game, assuming we even get that far in the first place.

There's already been two picks for the Long Term so far, we need some short term survivability before the shit starts to hit the fan. [Brave Blood] plus this training opportunity gives us that.

 

[Nando]

snip

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Sheesh, you're having intense feeling 'bout this...

"A knack for learning and mastery of diverse or tricky talents."
Learning is...everything? Like...Lilly doesn't know much, besides wood carving and being a Neophyte Rune Smith. Basically everything of importance that she'll need for survival she'll have to learn.

Also "rarity is not equal power".

And, that said, I don't really care for this discussion anymore.

I still feel like other parts could be done better, but people seem not to want to change their mind anyway, so whatever.

Huh, people posted more.

Okay. So, my understanding of the quoted part of Intuitor might be flawed (English not being my first language), but even if it's "learning of diverse or tricky talents", that's still "fighting in a way that optimizes our abilities".

And the thing with opportunity costs is: we have them on both sides, and I think we might get another good "martial" option after we've started training... *shrug*

 

[Deuterium Dawn]

Eh, as long as we're doing approval voting.

[X] The whole truth. Both of your Ethos and of what reached out to you in the Forest that night. Swear your father to silence.
[X] (Power) Seeing the 'memory' in wood is actually a lot of fun. How else could such an ability be put to use?
[X] Confident. You're going to do great, now that someone is finally willing to give you a chance.
[X] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[X] Claw scratched and tail lashed, but the bark remained unmarred.
[X] Heartsworn (Common)
[X] Brave Blood (Common)