Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Very much, thank you.
Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
That makes sense but in that case I feel like there should be like a DC 0 or something action to inquire about what STAR Labs is up to with the higher the success is the more in-depth information we get and the more projects we learn about
Of course is there is an action like that and I've just forgotten then my bad and just ignore me
On a semi-related note, I really want to try and recruit Jenet Klyburn next turn, I've advocated for her for a while but to outline my points again:
1) She's a high ranking STAR Labs scientist who already likes us
2) We don't really have a lot of dedicated Learning heroes, especially ones without issues or narrow focuses
3) It's a relatively low DC action that just about any of our Diplomacy heroes would automatically succeed at, though it's worth noting that meeting with her doesn't automatically mean recruitment
4) In a lot of continuities she has a relationship with William Magnus which would give us a potential in with the Metal Men
5) A new development, her place of employment just got totally demolished by an alien invasion
Sirrocco
Pedantic
STAR Labs as a physical facility just got utterly wiped out, including most of the ongoing work, and we saved all of the scientists. While I agree that we should take a "recruit from the steaming maybe-revivifiable corpse of STAR Labs" action, we should be doing it to the scientists in general, rather than just focusing in on one. I suspect that we'll be able to get Janet, plus a few others alongside her.
That's fair and I wouldn't say no to any of their scientists but for me Jenet is the real prize, not to mention that we don't know if a "recruit from STAR Labs" action will be available, especially since there are other facilities they could be shuffled off to
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Alright I have some awful news to share. Everything I worked on ended up getting deleted because of computer issues. Furthermore this week has been hell for me as I've had to work overtime every single day. I am well and truly sorry for this disastrous turn of events. I can recover the Brain portion of the update no problem since I posted the teaser but a lot of work is gone and I need to work to recoup it. I'm going to work like crazy to try and get it done over the weekend (especially since all the skeletoning is done which means it should be easier), but this is a not insignificant delay.
I'm sorry for what's going on and I hope that I can fix things. This has become the single worst update for me to work on and at this point I just want to get it over with considering it's been giving me hell for over a month now. I apologize for it and I hope to get things running smoothly again soon. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.
I'm sorry for what's going on and I hope that I can fix things. This has become the single worst update for me to work on and at this point I just want to get it over with considering it's been giving me hell for over a month now. I apologize for it and I hope to get things running smoothly again soon. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.
That sucks but again don't worry, we can wait
Do what's best for yourself and take care, we got all the time in the world and don't worry too much
This does seem to be happening rather often.
Maybe writing in google docs or having an autosave feature would help?
I'm not blaming you or anything mind you, but I can't imagine how frustrated I would be if this happened to me.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Just to be clear, you've lost your current draft, but not, like, your entire notes for the quest, right?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
It's incredibly frustrating for me but I don't want to write in google docs since it causes issues in formatting as I transfer things back and forth. I do keep all of my skeletons, drafts and mechanical stuff on separate documents that are auto-saved so I've lost none of that.
The problem is just that because of how I'm actually physically writing the actual update in order to make the formatting work as good as possible, when I have computer problems I can sometimes lose it.
Thank you for the suggestion but I think my current setup is fine, it's just that with these past few updates I've been struggling to stick to any kind of schedule because of IRL complications.
Just the current draft. All of my notes are still safe and intact.
On a completely different note, can someone remind me what action we were thinking of for getting Cassandra's next trait?
EDIT: Oh by the way @King crimson something that just suddenly struck me, didn't you say something a while ago about Paige's trait improving if she keeps succeeding at actions or am I totally making that up?
EDIT: Oh by the way @King crimson something that just suddenly struck me, didn't you say something a while ago about Paige's trait improving if she keeps succeeding at actions or am I totally making that up?
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I can remind the thread in general that Cassandra's trait will be associated with a specific science action taken but not much more than that. I'm also willing to throw out hypothetical traits that could be earned through certain actions (so long as people keep in mind that these are mere possibilities and not at all guaranteed and likely would require a good roll and potentially a subvote victory to get).
Also, as for your point addressed specifically to me, I believe that I said something along those lines, though boiling it down to just "Paige's trait can improve if she keeps succeeding" is a little misleading. All traits can be evolved over time through taking certain actions and sufficiently succeeding at them (or repeatedly failing). I believe I mentioned that Paige's negative trait Image Issues, could be altered/improved through sufficient successes. Granted this could happen a fair few different way (this trait is specifically tied to Paige's mental issues and so it could develop a few different ways) and barring a large success on her own, it's likely to take a very long time to happen (it's sad to say but people don't exactly recover from this stuff quickly. Something like Paige's mix of depression, existential dread, body image issues, eating disorders and more doesn't go away quickly even when you are doing better and recovering). The trait can improve if Paige continues to succeed, but don't expect it to get better especially quickly any time soon.
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That makes sense, I also imagine that some combinations are more likely to help than others
For example if Paige and Rene were assigned to an action together and succeeded well enough they might have gotten some impromptu counselling out of it or Rene could come away with a better idea of how to treat Paige
Also a completely separate question, if we were to use the language spell on someone can we only use it on one person per turn?
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I currently have it set up so that you can use it on multiple people per turn but that does come with potential costs. One at a time is the better way to do it (there is always, always, always a chance of side effects and doing it one at a time allows you to catch and minimize them.) but you can do it en masse if you want to.
Edit: So, I figured that an example might be best to use here. Cassandra for example managed to pick up Spanish from the language learning spell. However, she speaks like a Spaniard and not like someone from Latin America would (and there is a strong distinction there). I've never commented on it because I never felt it was relevant to discuss but that is a thing that is canon. This occurred because of how Cassandra learned the language. All of the languages she's learned are fundamentally filtered through how she learned them and what she was exposed to when learning them.
Now let's say hypothetically you used language learning spell on Jinx, Jade and fifty unnamed individuals all at once. Because of the way the language learning spell works by stimulating the Wernicke's area of the brain (and to some degree Broca's area) cross-contamination is massive and so you can have people end up learning Spanish with a massive bizarre accent caused by feedback loops in understanding of pronunciation. It could hypothetically get bad enough that things like lisps and accents start bleeding over into people's native language.
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That makes sense, honestly there's three people I really want to use the spell on, Marie, Rene and Janus, but it's really tricky finding a turn where we can spare them
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Sorry for being awful at getting this update out. I am working on it and getting it worked into something I like. I will be getting it out soon. Sorry for the repeated delays. Expect something to land this week.
Who is the Best at Each School of Magic?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So, here's a fun thing to hopefully tide you over a bit while I work on the update (sorry stuff involving paychecks and law school acceptance has come up and delayed me, though I'm still confident I can get out something this week). This list is based mostly on the "incomplete list of the types/schools of magic and as such it's very much misleading if taken as an objective concrete fact. Every point being made here can be debated even if I am putting forth my own arguments for it. I hope you guys enjoy.
Who is the Best at Each School of Magic?
Before I get into the list I do want to make a few disclaimers regarding how the list works.
Firstly, and foremostly the list is restricted solely to human entities currently alive by the time of the quest. Including gods, demons, aliens and other such outside context entities in the list felt a little disingenuous and it would make some categories incredibly hard to determine. Furthermore, I wanted to keep it focused only on individuals who are alive by the time of the quest and who are active magic users in order to both simplify things and make it more relevant to quest planning.
Secondly, this list is all in good fun and as such I will be pointing out that ranking "the best" is a little arbitrary when the divisions between schools of magic are very much not clear cut and don't go cleanly at all. As such a lot of the arguments put forth here could be made for ranking someone as the best in another category.
Thirdly this list is not a "power ranking" and is not to be taken as a sign that these individuals are the best in a fight necessarily. I prioritized ranking breadth and depth of knowledge, ability to use, scale of magical ability and individual innovation over "who can X the hardest". As such the individuals listed here are not necessarily the greatest human magic users in terms of power level but rather in terms of knowledge level.
With those point illustrated I'd like to get to the fun stuff. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions
Necromancy: Felix Faust
In my opinion the person I would rank as the best necromancer is Felix Faust. While he did kind of pervert a lot of the discipline and bias people against the art, as well as blending in a good deal of diabolism and such, Felix Faust's contributions to the field of necromancy and his understanding of the soul and ease of use in working with it are enough that I would consider him the best at the subject.
Felix Faust is an utter and absolute shitbag of a human being and is not someone to be admired but he has cheated death for so long and effectively done "horcruxes on crack" to the point where it can be argued that almost everything he does is to some degree or another necromancy because he's mostly dead. Granted he is still "alive" enough to count for this list, but Felix Faust's track record managed to beat out other contenders in the running, especially considering he's one of the few people to specialize primarily in necromancy and thus get a leg up on most magic users who only lightly dabble in it.
Blood Magic: Brother Blood
Blood magic was a tough one to figure out. There are a lot of individuals who gain magical power through a bloodline of some sort so it wasn't clean. That being said I think Brother Blood just barely manages to come out on top.
Admittedly the ritual murder of a father by a son so that the son can inherit the father's knowledge and power is a dark act but it's a whole lot more active than most blood magic being practiced, it's something that potentially gets exponentially stronger. It's also very clearly blood magic that's being involved and by extension it turns everything he does into an act of blood magic. Beyond that Brother Blood has other tricks he can use Blood Magic for. Using Raven as a conduit for Trigon, using Beast Boy as a conduit to the animal kingdom and more. I mean it might be a bit of a copout to say that Brother Blood is the best user of blood magic but at the same time I feel he has the name for a reason.
Animation: Kraklow
Here's another tricky one. Morgaine Le Fay was actually in the running for this for her creation of multiple homunculi children. However, while Morgaine could certainly turn sticks act like serpents and perform other feats of animation, I wanted to give the top spot to a magic user who more clearly animates inanimate things and thus makes more use of it in a clean sense of it. As such Kraklow ended up on top.
Kraklow is the best at "pure" animation due to his extensive work in bringing clay to life and using it to have various forms. Kraklow isn't notable for his magical expertise in much else but his amount of knowledge on how to animate virtual armies of clay entities is enough to earn him this spot in my opinion. It wasn't a clean victory but considering he's nominally a part of a group known as the "forgotten villains" I think it's still a win for him
Divination: Madame Xanadu
Madame Xanadu is the character who in my opinion is most clearly linked to divination. Her whole schtick is tarot reading and seeing the future. If aliens were allowed on the list Atrocitus would arguably out match her and Madame Xanadu is by no means a perfect seer but she's up there. She naturally can scry and use more mundane divination but I felt the sheer amount of peering into the future and gaining revelations about people through magic Madame Xanadu could achieve earned her a spot above most others. Morgaine Le Fay's sister does clearly have her beat in this category and while Madame Xanadu kind of has a tendency to not user her prescience very effectively she is the character who I believe qualifies as the greatest human at divination.
Enchantment: Merlin
So, get ready to see Merlin's name pop up again and again because he's both not dead and arguably the greatest in many, many fields of magic. What earns him his place as the greatest at enchantment is the creation of his swords. Those alone can potentially let a mortal human take on a god through the strength of their enchantments. And if that wasn't enough almost everything magical or enchanted about Camelot can probably trace its way back to Merlin (and if not Merlin then someone Merlin taught). Merlin's skill at enchantment is so head and shoulders above the rest that even insanely powerful entities would struggle to get around his work or even attempt to replicate it. When you're able to match the entities removed from the running in order to make the list a little fairer, you've more than earned the spot.
Exorcism: Merlin
Hello here's Merlin as the best at something again. There aren't a lot of people who purely work in exorcism. As such Merlin kind of one this one as he has numerous feats of banishing souls to other dimensions and such. As such he kind of won this one by default even if he didn't contribute a lot to the field and hasn't shaped a lot of modern exorcism. All that being said he is still quite capable of it. The man was quite literally conceived as a way to get back at incredibly powerful demons so naturally he's very good at exorcising them.
Transmutation: The Wizard Shazam/Mamaragan
The wizard Shazam also kind of one this by default. Not a lot of magic users have very clean feats of transmutation and while Shazam isn't a name that comes to mind when it comes to the development of Transmutation, he is quite capable of it. Beside physically altering the shape of the champions he empowers to creating and maintaining the Rock of Eternity, Shazam has incredible feats of transmutation and is quite capable of incredible things with it. This is one I would be interested in seeing who people would challenge as potentially "better".
Curses/Black Magic: Morgaine Le Fay
Morgaine Le Fay finally earns her spot as the best in something. Morgaine Le Fay throughout all of DC comics and DC related media is nigh universally remarked upon as a master of black magic. In the DCQU this has translated to her excelling at curses and destructive magic.
Her skill in this kind of sorcery enabled her to bring down Camelot and is one of the branches where she innovated on her own instead of learning from Merlin. Morgaine has had centuries to improve her skills and as such she's only gotten better at it with time.
Restoration/White Magic: Wotan
Wotan is a weird one, but I feel that he still is arguably the greatest Restoration/White Magic user in the DCQU for the simple fact of their feat of self-resurrection. Self-healing is still healing after all, and Wotan is effectively immortal due to the fact that no one has figured out a way around their white magic to permanently put them down. Wotan can also do wards and most other more unique forms of white magic but I feel that achieving a level of immortality greater than powerful older sorcerors like Felix Faust is more deserving and earns Wotan the top spot here.
Invocation: The Wizard Shazam/Mamaragan
Shazam easily takes the top spot here. The empowerment of Black Adam alone requires drawing upon the powers of multiple gods and Shazam has managed that several dozen times over without actually ever negotiating with any of these entities. His feats in this realm are so insane that no one else even comes close.
Conjuration: Merlin
Merlin is back for the third time and this time he's taking home the gold in conjuration. Merlin is someone who has an argument for almost any school of magic but in the case of conjuration, I feel the creation of his swords is a feat that required it and coupled with his quasi-immortality that let him learn and live for centuries, he's almost certainly the very best at conjuration
Order Magic: Kent Nelson
This one might be a bit of a cop out but there is a reason why Kent Nelson is the ideal host for Nabu. Additionally, he's been the host of a Lord of Order since WW2 and as such he's been able to more than pick up a bit of understanding in how order magic works. He's not incredibly powerful but he is someone who deserves the spot simply for how much he knows and understands.
Chaos Magic: The Curse
Chaos magic was incredibly hard to find my pick for, due to how all the greatest users of it are almost always very, very non-human, but in the end I settled on The Curse as my pick. The Curse is an ancient Mesopotamian warlord who learned magic and has since made himself immortal (though he's stuck in a helmet and needs to possess people). The Curse does know chaos magic and I figured time would ultimately give him the edge to win out in this regard as he's one of the few humans noted to specialize in it and he's certainly the longest lived individual of that group.
Diabolism: John Constantine
Constantine's placement is weird. He's definitely not the most powerful and he's definitely not the most knowledgeable. What I believe earns him the spot as "the best" is the fact that most diabolists end up being screwed over or controlled by demons and John Constantine tends to avoid that much better than most while still making deals with powerful entities. More famous diabolists like Felix Faust or Brother Blood have knowledge and skills but are entirely on the back foot when working with demons and arguably are constantly needing to work to not have things blow up in their face. John Constantine on the other hand is able to mostly come out on top if not always unscathed.
On top of that while Constantine is not the most powerful nor the most knowledgeable, he's not exactly a weakling and he's got a lot of knowledge including old Sumerian stuff that most people don't use. He's probably a leading expert in Diabolism if not the leading expert (which is probably either Merlin or Jason Blood or Felix Faust) and that coupled with his other traits is what I feel makes him the best at diabolism.
Transposition: Ian Karkull
Ian Karkull is interesting. He wasn't very notable when he was active in WW2 though he was powerful. However, he became exponentially more powerful after Vandal Savage attempted to "dispose of him" and he got trapped in the Shadowlands. Ian Karkull has the usual bevy of transposition powers (flight teleportation etc.), but what I think clinches him the top spot is his use of magic to enter and exit the Shadowlands, a whole separate dimension that most people don't touch. It's not exactly willingly but I do think it counts and it puts him a step above most other people especially considering he can also drag other people back in.
Thaumaturgy: Merlin
Initially I'd put the winner of this category as Rama Khan but after a review by GhostKing 666 which pointed out a mistake in the understanding of events I'd been working with, I had to reassess my evaluation as most of the modern day Rama Khan's achievements were passive in nature. While I could make the argument that Jarhanpur's power was Rama Khan's due to how Jarhanpur's magic work and that the first Rama Khan likely set up magic to make it work that way, the fact of the matter is that feels a little too iffy for me to be solid on it and the first Rama Khan is very definitively dead so unless I'm willing to make the case that Billy Batson's feats are Hercules' then I'm not exactly in a great position.
As such I had to review the many list of candidates that I had for this category. I did think it over for a few minutes but in the end it came down to being between Merlin and Shazam. And while Shazam has some impressive feats, he's ultimately a lot less impressive in the more overtly thaumaturgical department. Both he and Merlin obviously know a lot about magic but Merlin has a lot more obvious dabbling in various other disciplines and has also taught magic to a lot more people which suggests that he is comfortable working with magic that isn't inherently his own. And each of his students went on to be incredibly good at what they do (Morgaine made the list and Jason Blood was a solid candidate in a few categories). None of the people Shazam taught were nearly as impressive. Even beyond that Tim Hunter, arguably the character with the most magical potential and one who is considered to be tied incredibly closely to thaumaturgy due to his nature, is actively compared to Merlin and not Shazam. As such Merlin ends up edging out Shazam as it seems more logical to me that the character who is widely believed to be the greatest mortal magic user ever with feats of thaumaturgy and various evidence suggesting he's very good at it beats out the opposition.
So yeah, Merlin ends up cracking this four times (twice as much as his competition) which should let you know both how absolutely bonkers he is, and by extension the utterly insane potential of Tim Hunter.
Who is the Best at Each School of Magic?
Before I get into the list I do want to make a few disclaimers regarding how the list works.
Firstly, and foremostly the list is restricted solely to human entities currently alive by the time of the quest. Including gods, demons, aliens and other such outside context entities in the list felt a little disingenuous and it would make some categories incredibly hard to determine. Furthermore, I wanted to keep it focused only on individuals who are alive by the time of the quest and who are active magic users in order to both simplify things and make it more relevant to quest planning.
Secondly, this list is all in good fun and as such I will be pointing out that ranking "the best" is a little arbitrary when the divisions between schools of magic are very much not clear cut and don't go cleanly at all. As such a lot of the arguments put forth here could be made for ranking someone as the best in another category.
Thirdly this list is not a "power ranking" and is not to be taken as a sign that these individuals are the best in a fight necessarily. I prioritized ranking breadth and depth of knowledge, ability to use, scale of magical ability and individual innovation over "who can X the hardest". As such the individuals listed here are not necessarily the greatest human magic users in terms of power level but rather in terms of knowledge level.
With those point illustrated I'd like to get to the fun stuff. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions
Necromancy: Felix Faust
In my opinion the person I would rank as the best necromancer is Felix Faust. While he did kind of pervert a lot of the discipline and bias people against the art, as well as blending in a good deal of diabolism and such, Felix Faust's contributions to the field of necromancy and his understanding of the soul and ease of use in working with it are enough that I would consider him the best at the subject.
Felix Faust is an utter and absolute shitbag of a human being and is not someone to be admired but he has cheated death for so long and effectively done "horcruxes on crack" to the point where it can be argued that almost everything he does is to some degree or another necromancy because he's mostly dead. Granted he is still "alive" enough to count for this list, but Felix Faust's track record managed to beat out other contenders in the running, especially considering he's one of the few people to specialize primarily in necromancy and thus get a leg up on most magic users who only lightly dabble in it.
Blood Magic: Brother Blood
Blood magic was a tough one to figure out. There are a lot of individuals who gain magical power through a bloodline of some sort so it wasn't clean. That being said I think Brother Blood just barely manages to come out on top.
Admittedly the ritual murder of a father by a son so that the son can inherit the father's knowledge and power is a dark act but it's a whole lot more active than most blood magic being practiced, it's something that potentially gets exponentially stronger. It's also very clearly blood magic that's being involved and by extension it turns everything he does into an act of blood magic. Beyond that Brother Blood has other tricks he can use Blood Magic for. Using Raven as a conduit for Trigon, using Beast Boy as a conduit to the animal kingdom and more. I mean it might be a bit of a copout to say that Brother Blood is the best user of blood magic but at the same time I feel he has the name for a reason.
Animation: Kraklow
Here's another tricky one. Morgaine Le Fay was actually in the running for this for her creation of multiple homunculi children. However, while Morgaine could certainly turn sticks act like serpents and perform other feats of animation, I wanted to give the top spot to a magic user who more clearly animates inanimate things and thus makes more use of it in a clean sense of it. As such Kraklow ended up on top.
Kraklow is the best at "pure" animation due to his extensive work in bringing clay to life and using it to have various forms. Kraklow isn't notable for his magical expertise in much else but his amount of knowledge on how to animate virtual armies of clay entities is enough to earn him this spot in my opinion. It wasn't a clean victory but considering he's nominally a part of a group known as the "forgotten villains" I think it's still a win for him
Divination: Madame Xanadu
Madame Xanadu is the character who in my opinion is most clearly linked to divination. Her whole schtick is tarot reading and seeing the future. If aliens were allowed on the list Atrocitus would arguably out match her and Madame Xanadu is by no means a perfect seer but she's up there. She naturally can scry and use more mundane divination but I felt the sheer amount of peering into the future and gaining revelations about people through magic Madame Xanadu could achieve earned her a spot above most others. Morgaine Le Fay's sister does clearly have her beat in this category and while Madame Xanadu kind of has a tendency to not user her prescience very effectively she is the character who I believe qualifies as the greatest human at divination.
Enchantment: Merlin
So, get ready to see Merlin's name pop up again and again because he's both not dead and arguably the greatest in many, many fields of magic. What earns him his place as the greatest at enchantment is the creation of his swords. Those alone can potentially let a mortal human take on a god through the strength of their enchantments. And if that wasn't enough almost everything magical or enchanted about Camelot can probably trace its way back to Merlin (and if not Merlin then someone Merlin taught). Merlin's skill at enchantment is so head and shoulders above the rest that even insanely powerful entities would struggle to get around his work or even attempt to replicate it. When you're able to match the entities removed from the running in order to make the list a little fairer, you've more than earned the spot.
Exorcism: Merlin
Hello here's Merlin as the best at something again. There aren't a lot of people who purely work in exorcism. As such Merlin kind of one this one as he has numerous feats of banishing souls to other dimensions and such. As such he kind of won this one by default even if he didn't contribute a lot to the field and hasn't shaped a lot of modern exorcism. All that being said he is still quite capable of it. The man was quite literally conceived as a way to get back at incredibly powerful demons so naturally he's very good at exorcising them.
Transmutation: The Wizard Shazam/Mamaragan
The wizard Shazam also kind of one this by default. Not a lot of magic users have very clean feats of transmutation and while Shazam isn't a name that comes to mind when it comes to the development of Transmutation, he is quite capable of it. Beside physically altering the shape of the champions he empowers to creating and maintaining the Rock of Eternity, Shazam has incredible feats of transmutation and is quite capable of incredible things with it. This is one I would be interested in seeing who people would challenge as potentially "better".
Curses/Black Magic: Morgaine Le Fay
Morgaine Le Fay finally earns her spot as the best in something. Morgaine Le Fay throughout all of DC comics and DC related media is nigh universally remarked upon as a master of black magic. In the DCQU this has translated to her excelling at curses and destructive magic.
Her skill in this kind of sorcery enabled her to bring down Camelot and is one of the branches where she innovated on her own instead of learning from Merlin. Morgaine has had centuries to improve her skills and as such she's only gotten better at it with time.
Restoration/White Magic: Wotan
Wotan is a weird one, but I feel that he still is arguably the greatest Restoration/White Magic user in the DCQU for the simple fact of their feat of self-resurrection. Self-healing is still healing after all, and Wotan is effectively immortal due to the fact that no one has figured out a way around their white magic to permanently put them down. Wotan can also do wards and most other more unique forms of white magic but I feel that achieving a level of immortality greater than powerful older sorcerors like Felix Faust is more deserving and earns Wotan the top spot here.
Invocation: The Wizard Shazam/Mamaragan
Shazam easily takes the top spot here. The empowerment of Black Adam alone requires drawing upon the powers of multiple gods and Shazam has managed that several dozen times over without actually ever negotiating with any of these entities. His feats in this realm are so insane that no one else even comes close.
Conjuration: Merlin
Merlin is back for the third time and this time he's taking home the gold in conjuration. Merlin is someone who has an argument for almost any school of magic but in the case of conjuration, I feel the creation of his swords is a feat that required it and coupled with his quasi-immortality that let him learn and live for centuries, he's almost certainly the very best at conjuration
Order Magic: Kent Nelson
This one might be a bit of a cop out but there is a reason why Kent Nelson is the ideal host for Nabu. Additionally, he's been the host of a Lord of Order since WW2 and as such he's been able to more than pick up a bit of understanding in how order magic works. He's not incredibly powerful but he is someone who deserves the spot simply for how much he knows and understands.
Chaos Magic: The Curse
Chaos magic was incredibly hard to find my pick for, due to how all the greatest users of it are almost always very, very non-human, but in the end I settled on The Curse as my pick. The Curse is an ancient Mesopotamian warlord who learned magic and has since made himself immortal (though he's stuck in a helmet and needs to possess people). The Curse does know chaos magic and I figured time would ultimately give him the edge to win out in this regard as he's one of the few humans noted to specialize in it and he's certainly the longest lived individual of that group.
Diabolism: John Constantine
Constantine's placement is weird. He's definitely not the most powerful and he's definitely not the most knowledgeable. What I believe earns him the spot as "the best" is the fact that most diabolists end up being screwed over or controlled by demons and John Constantine tends to avoid that much better than most while still making deals with powerful entities. More famous diabolists like Felix Faust or Brother Blood have knowledge and skills but are entirely on the back foot when working with demons and arguably are constantly needing to work to not have things blow up in their face. John Constantine on the other hand is able to mostly come out on top if not always unscathed.
On top of that while Constantine is not the most powerful nor the most knowledgeable, he's not exactly a weakling and he's got a lot of knowledge including old Sumerian stuff that most people don't use. He's probably a leading expert in Diabolism if not the leading expert (which is probably either Merlin or Jason Blood or Felix Faust) and that coupled with his other traits is what I feel makes him the best at diabolism.
Transposition: Ian Karkull
Ian Karkull is interesting. He wasn't very notable when he was active in WW2 though he was powerful. However, he became exponentially more powerful after Vandal Savage attempted to "dispose of him" and he got trapped in the Shadowlands. Ian Karkull has the usual bevy of transposition powers (flight teleportation etc.), but what I think clinches him the top spot is his use of magic to enter and exit the Shadowlands, a whole separate dimension that most people don't touch. It's not exactly willingly but I do think it counts and it puts him a step above most other people especially considering he can also drag other people back in.
Thaumaturgy: Merlin
Initially I'd put the winner of this category as Rama Khan but after a review by GhostKing 666 which pointed out a mistake in the understanding of events I'd been working with, I had to reassess my evaluation as most of the modern day Rama Khan's achievements were passive in nature. While I could make the argument that Jarhanpur's power was Rama Khan's due to how Jarhanpur's magic work and that the first Rama Khan likely set up magic to make it work that way, the fact of the matter is that feels a little too iffy for me to be solid on it and the first Rama Khan is very definitively dead so unless I'm willing to make the case that Billy Batson's feats are Hercules' then I'm not exactly in a great position.
As such I had to review the many list of candidates that I had for this category. I did think it over for a few minutes but in the end it came down to being between Merlin and Shazam. And while Shazam has some impressive feats, he's ultimately a lot less impressive in the more overtly thaumaturgical department. Both he and Merlin obviously know a lot about magic but Merlin has a lot more obvious dabbling in various other disciplines and has also taught magic to a lot more people which suggests that he is comfortable working with magic that isn't inherently his own. And each of his students went on to be incredibly good at what they do (Morgaine made the list and Jason Blood was a solid candidate in a few categories). None of the people Shazam taught were nearly as impressive. Even beyond that Tim Hunter, arguably the character with the most magical potential and one who is considered to be tied incredibly closely to thaumaturgy due to his nature, is actively compared to Merlin and not Shazam. As such Merlin ends up edging out Shazam as it seems more logical to me that the character who is widely believed to be the greatest mortal magic user ever with feats of thaumaturgy and various evidence suggesting he's very good at it beats out the opposition.
So yeah, Merlin ends up cracking this four times (twice as much as his competition) which should let you know both how absolutely bonkers he is, and by extension the utterly insane potential of Tim Hunter.
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It hurts that almost all of this list is made of people that would never work with/for us, though I'm curious what version of Doctor Fate we have here, the DCAU genuine hero or the Young Justice bodysnatching asshole?
Also I'm so used to the Teen Titans version of Brother Blood that thinking of him as a magician feels really weird
Also I'm so used to the Teen Titans version of Brother Blood that thinking of him as a magician feels really weird
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- Location
- USA
@King crimson How does John Constantine bloodline a part or that not in this universe?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I mean I feel that it's most symptomatic of the fact that a lot of magic users are very, very individualistic and that this list is further made up of very long lived individuals removed at large from society. In all of the listed individuals only three of them were born in the last century (Kent Nelson, John Constantine and Ian Karkull).
As for what version of Dr. Fate is in quest, I feel like it's a hybrid between the two. Kent Nelson is a genuine hero and a morally upstanding person. Nabu is an inhuman Lord of Order who fundamentally doesn't get a lot of things about humanity and normal morality but still tries and is way kinder and more considerate than some of his contemporaries like Kingbutcher. Notably while Nabu is willing to possess Kent Nelson in certain situations (like if Kent is knocked out in a fight Nabu is immediately going to puppet his body and make use of it until Kent comes to) and will force Kent to not act or act in certain situations and manners, Nabu always leaves Kent the option to take the helmet off provided it's not a potentially world ending crisis. Kent and Nabu are ultimately partners and sort of friends and so even though Nabu is arguably an asshole he does reign in the worst aspects of himself in to some degree or another.
Teen Titans Brother Blood is the best Brother Blood when looking at personality and costume design. That being said the Teen Titans Brother Blood always felt a little lacking to me (they dropped all of the cult leader and magic stuff which makes his name and costume feel a little odd to me. If he's a headmaster of a school why is he very clearly riffing on the design and motifs of clergymen?). As such I wanted to bring in some of that stuff and as such the Brother Blood in quest is a composite of the Teen Titans and comics version (he's got the Teen Titans version's powers appearance, demeanor and goals but derives his power from magic, is a cult leader and is part of a lineage of "Brother Bloods").
Also, on an unrelated note but one I found kind of funny, ever since I realized who played Brother Blood in that show, I couldn't help but hear him as Dr. Drakken whenever he yells and that's something I just sort of found really funny.
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.
Like Constantine's ancestor Johanna Constantine exists in quest. His hypothetical children currently do not. His father and mother were nobody special and the Upside-Down Man (really anything to do with the Dark Multiverse) doesn't exist in quest.
John Constantine does have "demonically tainted blood" but that was caused by him messing around with things he shouldn't (the fact that only his blood is tainted is a miracle as otherwise he'd probably be dead) and while it does give him certain advantages it also comes with its fair share of weaknesses and disadvantages (for example a lot of wards meant to keep out demons would also work on Constantine). That's his blood and not his bloodline but it is something that does affect things (and generally further tanks his reputation with people who know of him).
Does that answer your question?
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
That wasn't Rama Khan, that was Wonder Woman. See Jarhanpur is a "living land", who's magical protector(the one that holds the name Rama Khan) is basically a Fisher King tied to the health of the land. When the current Rama Khan found the boy who was to be his spiritual protector, he kidnapped him from his mother so that he might educate the boy for his future position. Shit happened, the justice league intervened, Wonder Woman got him with the lasso and demanded Rama Khan tell the truth about the situation. He did, including the necessity of his actions of separating the boy from his mother, Wonder Woman denied this truth and her denial caused the Lasso to break and with it the concept of "truth" itself(since the Lasso was basically the embodiment of said concept).
It wasn't even Rama Khan's personal actions that protected the land of Jarhanpur, but merely the land's own "living" nature. And as for fixing the lasso, that took Wonder Woman accepting her part in what caused the Lasso to break, as well as Jarhanpur helping Diana restore the broken Lasso and restoring "truth" as a fundamental concept of reality.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
This is fair. While I think that there is some wiggle room in determining the degree of difference between Rama Khan and Jarhanpur (Rama Khan's power is Jarhanpur's power and as a fisher king vice versa is also true) once I looked into the matter on a deeper level and rechecked the comic stuff that I'd read a while ago I realized that I was wrong (I conflated Rama Khan and Jarhanpur too directly in my notes which lead to my mistake).
I'll update the list with an alternate candidate and reasoning that would be applicable.
Edit: Quest mechanics would likely dictate that Jarhanpur did not begin as a "living land inherently" and thus likely the first Rama Khan enchanted it in some way and thus all of its feats could arguably be attributed to him but because the first Rama Khan is dead by the present day he's discounted from the list.
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Oh yeah it was always going to be an unfortunate probability that the people at the top of their magical fields would be too proud or individualistic to join us, after all you don't become a master magician by doing what people tell you
That's good to know, I suppose you could argue that Nabu only became an asshole after years of Kent never wearing him and he's probably the most human Lord of Order
While he definitely wouldn't work for us he theoretically might be willing to work with us in the right circumstances
I wouldn't say that they dropped the cult leader stuff, it just wasn't a religious cult, HIVE Academy was just an excuse for him to brainwash and indoctrinate vulnerable young metahumans into his servants
They definitely dropped the magic aspect of things though
EDIT: Actually looking back on it @King crimson Brother Blood does seem to have some magic in Teen Titans, at least in his final fight with Cyborg he seems to pull some weird shit
What I'm hearing is that if we want a bunch of impressionable young metahumans to either recruit or give to DOMA then HIVE is the jackpot
I thought he sounded familiar!
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- Location
- Singapore
On the other hand the our best allies (Dall Moss) and employees (Rebbeca) are those who are not the best but are willing to be team-players for resources. Though it results in less ambitious projects (no AMAZOs) the results have been more stable with less drama.
Yeah, our occultists probably fall into the John Constantine school of more skill and knowledge than power, though I wouldn't call Dall Moss and ally yet since we've yet to actually do anything with him
Also with Dekan gone I would very much like to take the Recruit more Occultists action soon but we'd need a good team on it and it would have to include either Jinx or Rebecca