globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
with scion being the mote in god's eye
prophet dad is a bad element and is unionized damn...
Pretender (Worm/Dominions 4)
- Thread starter TotalAbsolutism
- Start date
with scion being the mote in god's eye
TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
Not yet.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
So... never ? She hasn`t demonstrated a path beyond 3, and is obviously a very spread Rainbow Mage, so it kind of makes sense for her not to have a bless. She obviously wasn`t dormant or imprisoned, and while she can get away with a minimal domscore, being the only pretender, that isn`t THAT many points freed up if you`re going for everything but Blood, which I can`t see Taylor doing even if she could.
Unless she tanked her scales. It would be so unfortunately appropriate for Taylors Dominion to have a Misfortune 3 scale and a Turmoil 3 scale.
Hang on imma figure this out.
EDIT :
Okay so going off any mage template other than Freak Lord or Great Sage, both of which seem... unlikely, Taylor could have two minor blesses without negative scales and a piddly domscore of 3, assuming no Blood. I stand corrected.
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TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
Not yet.
Well, I mean...
It will probably only make it worse if I say her Dominion score is >10, her Paths are X and her Scales are neutral except for Magic 3?
Lord_Asmodeus
Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour:
- Location
- I AM A TIME MACHINE
I might have missed this in the previous visions (been trying to check but not much luck finding it) but what sort of Pretender was her divine spark before it became the latest Pantokrator (and presumably the last one since I suppose it existing here means that world was utterly destroyed)
TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
There were enough hints here and there to piece it together.
And here they are gathered in one place for you. But also I'll just say it in case you or others would like to know without having to hunt through Pretender God descriptions.
She was an Oracle. A stone fountain attended to by a blind girl that acted as her eyes and ears, only to be ritually drowned in the fountain when she turned thirteen.
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hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Nah, it means that, despite how gamey the gems and crafting are handled, I don`t have to think about actual mechanics and just go with the flow. Which I probably should have realized when Taylor did something actually impossible within the game mechanics. Also I guess she`s kind of Pantokrator by default, so that kind of makes sense ?
So long as it isn`t arbitrary either handling of the game mechanics works. It`s all good, I just tend to fixate on stuff like that.
TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
Well, a few people have figured it out and I think I outright said it eventually but the only really incorrect bit of that statement is 'by default'.
Otherwise, mechanics are bent for good story but even then I shall strive to maintain consistency.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Also on another note, this omake still needs threadmarking.
TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
Done, thank you.
It's so lonely. There may be other little things, I will scour the thread.
W1S2
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Hm, yes. Let`s fix that.
Fair warning : I do not write a lot, or well. Quality is not assured.
---
The fight against Leviathan had not been going well.
The second Endbringer was a daunting opponent at the best of times, but his attack this time had come with a ferocity and ruthlessness previously unwitnessed. In the face of its raging waves, rending strikes and crushing blows even the many, many gathered parahumans seemed like so much wheat before the reaper.
The initial attack had quite literally decimated the defenders, and even now, with the Triumvirate fully engaging the beast the list of casualties did not seem to even slightly abate.
Aegis down. Chubster deceased. Kaiser deceased. Narwhal down. Dauntless deceased.
Grim and determined, Colin fought on. While he felt a certain, sick satisfaction at enduring where Dauntless had failed, he did not allow that to distract him. Even with all his technology and skill he was physically only human, and the slightest distraction, the faintest error, would have been potentially deadly against even the previous, more subdued, less merciless Leviathan. Against the current attack it was all he could do to not die immediately, sacrificing gear, bones, even an arm to stay alive, stay in the fight, present a credible threat, wait for his chance.
Clockblocker down. Fenja deceased. Velocity deceased.
'There !'
A crushing blow by Alexandria, along with a coordinated ranged strike from Legend and Eidolon left Leviathan momentarily distracted. The combat algorithm gave the best chance for a succesful, survivable strike it had throughout the battle; 34%.
His wordless battlecry drowned in the rain and waves, Armsmaster struck, shearing the Nanothorn blade clean through a third of Leviathans tail. He paid for it almost immediately, the water shadow on him in a sundering torrent, but even as pain exploded throughout his chest, his weapon torn away by the waters force, the satisfaction of hearing the Endbringer roar in pain and fury was as all encompassing as the darkness of unconciousness.
Armsmaster down.
A automatic stimulant injection system returned his awareness in short order, but Armsmaster knew he was out of the fight. One arm missing, the other broken so thoroughly it may as well be paste, no feeling in his legs.
As he noted the absence of the Endbringer, Armsmaster utilized rarely used muscles to smile. It was gone. He`d driven it off. Not just him, of course, but his weapon, his technology and his skill had been instrumental in dealing a hitherto unmatched blow to Leviathan, and the beast had fled with its now much shorter tail between its legs.
Leviathan in retre... Leviathan attacking again. Tidal wave incoming.
At first he didn`t, couldn`t believe it. Far from driven off, Leviathan had simply momentarily disengaged only to return on the crest of a towering wall of water, rising high into the sky and deceptively slowly but inexorably finally rushing towards the demoralized defenders. Armsmaster had made his peace already, so he simply stared defiantly at his end, unwilling to give in.
Then he saw her. Pretender.
Somehow she`d appeared, quite suddenly, on the water between the oncoming wall of death and what remained of the city and its defenders, almost relaxed, like she was simply having a sunday stroll in her resplendent blue dress and silvery cap.
He wanted to scream, to chastise her, that there was nothing even she could do here, not to throw her life away in such a foolish, doomed endeavour, but his throat was unwilling to cooperate, so all he could do was watch and behold a young womans brave, final stand.
And then everything changed. What happened next was so fundamentally impossible, so unbelievable that Armsmaster, no, Colin knew he would never look at anything quite the same way.
Pretender spoke, and it resounded throughout the battleground. Not loud as such, but as if the sound had simply bypassed the normal mechanisms of hearing to resound directly in his sou... brain.
"No."
And against all odds the wave calmed and receeded, Leviathan seemingly puzzled before it was charging through the water at Pretender for the insult of daring to supercede its authority over water.
It did not get far; a endless shower of starlight struck its mass, while its greatest ally, greatest tool, the waters themselves rose and carried it off in defiance of its will.
"Begone."
Under the unceasing stellar assault, denied its hydrokinesis, Leviathan obeyed, and this time it stayed gone.
And as Pretender fell backwards into the ocean, Alexandria already swooping down to rescue her from an ignoble drowning death, Colin Wallis, for the first time in a long, long while, believed.
---
Oracles are natively W1S2 after all.
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TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
I don't mind at all. That was well amusing.
Personally, I think the best solution to Endbringers is Soul Slay or Disintegrate. There was also a discussion held somewhere at some point as to how Leviathan would stack up against the Queens of Elemental Water.
It's an amusing quirk of Dominions in general that it's easier to kill 10% of the world in one shot than it is to totally kill most lategame armies.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Glad you liked it.
Either could work, depending on how Entity bullshit stacks up against Pretender bullshit.
Why bother with killing them all if you can drop a Master Enslave and let them do the work for you ?
...I wonder if you could Hellbind Heart an Endbringer. Or Scion. It`s nigh well guaranteed Cauldron could drum up a volunteer blood 'slave', assuming that`s a thing Worm humanity blood can still do.
I dunno, it might take way, way too long for a Horror capable of slaying an Endbringer to even be summoned from a Horror Mark, and any deliberate direct summoning not only involves at least two blood slaves, it`s also a really, really bad idea. Unless you Wish it, Horrors are 'fuck everyone' aligned after all, and even then there`s a decent chance it`ll go wild at any moment.
All of which assumes Horrors even exist still, but if the Elemental Nobility does there`s no reason to assume the other summonables don`t.
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TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
She intends to avoid giving anything any amount of Horror Marks.
That's just asking for trouble. Also, regardless of what they may look or act like I suspect that Endbringers count as 'mindless' as far as Dominions magic is concerned.
This is why you don't Horror Mark. There is no way to control them. Never pick up a weapon you can't put down again.
Well actually, Horror Mark is an Astral 2, 20 fatigue spell in Dominions 5 with absolute precision and decent range, so Pretender could drop 5 marks on someone in a single fight before Fatigue becomes problematic. This brings a 5% chance of a marked target being attacked per month, going by mechanics and estimates. Endbringer fights last a while so she should be able to rest and recover and drop some more, so that's a higher per month chance of being attacked.
Horror attacks happen in the mind of the target, and more marks both increase attack chance and the power of the horrors summoned, so they are actually quite precise. It's just a strategy that generally takes a while to come to fruition.
Wise. Mostly because Horror Marks are really sticky. Apparently the only way to get rid of them is by dying and staying dead for a while.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Which, all else aside, is the biggest sticking point. Horrors, especially plain 'Horror' Horrors, are scary powerful and resilient but Endbringers are too, possibly significantly more than the Horror. So unless the Horror figures out the whole core mechanic AND a way to destroy the core without itself being banished or simply consistently evaded too much to do a killshot, Endbringers are pretty much unkillable, and the last thing you want is giving the Endbringers their own personal Horror wake. Even if it does or even can do all that, and that`s a big if, there just isn`t enough time left until Gold Morning for it to be a viable strategy against the, may I remind you, twenty Endbringers. Even 20% isn`t a huge chance per month, there`s no guarantee of getting a powerful Horror, and even if you do the outcome is anything but certain. It could take decades to kill any one specific Endbringer like this, and then you might STILL have the Horror to deal with.
Unless you`re saying 'drop a mark, manually summon Horrors' in which case I would like to know what made you think that was a good idea.
She`d be better off surreptitiously marking Eidolon if you`re set on the whole 'Horrors solve everything' idea. They`re worthy foes, and he actually stands a chance at defeating them.
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- Location
- Can't read map
Hmm for some reason have feeling that those parts should be reworked then
Mixed up perspectives of two different persons
her tears (of girl sacrifice)
into waters of her stone basin (spirit living in fountain to whom waters belong and waters so belong)
Might work by spirit being trapped in fountain, and can see just future (starts with astral path and name oracle) for blind.
Should probably being something about manipulating peoples around her to provide her a vessel to possess, blinding and killing it periodically as test of loyalty or some other purpose like to more easily control body.
Not like Taylor was person experiencing all of this.
Am not sure, but wouldn't entities and lovecraftian astral horrors, especially doom variety, be similar kind of creatures?
IIRC Horros in Dominions were inspired by ones in RPG Earthdawn.
IIIRC You can go to kill horror or find special kind of mage as way to remove mark... good luck with that however...
Then there is being able to hold only one mark, so get marked by another stronger horror...
And effect of mark is usually worse, of course, not just periodical attacks.
Not in Dominions.
You can kill horrors, but there's a lot of them and they'll keep coming (a horror mark is just a lure), horrors tend to drop more marks on whomever they are attacking (they stack) and the horrors lured in become both more numerous and more powerful. Sufficiently so in fact that Horror Mark is a spell that's a sufficient answer to Super Combatants in the game.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
I dunno if you could even really compare an Entity and a Pantokrator. Both Powers and Dominions Magic are bullshit, but differ a lot in scope and particulars.
OTOH, if you asked me if a Horror, any Horror could take on Scion solo, that`d be a hard 'No'. If an Entity is a whale, then even the mightiest horror is a trout at best.
By the by, Panaceas Healer trait must be OMGhuge. What I would not give to have her as a commander.
Almost though. She`d just have to sacrifice 40 virgins for the 6th booster, which still gives her exactly 14 Thunder Strikes from full fatgiue. 2 Less than pure A10 would.
A3 + Ring of Wizardry + Staff of Elemental Mastery + Bag of Winds + Winged Helmet + Tome of High Power + Robe of Wizardry = effectively A9
With Summon Storm Power she`d be effectively A10 when casting Thunder Strike with that gear. Even without, Boots of Antaeus would reduce her effective fatigue cost per Thunder Strike to ~2.7, and Boots of Calidus the Druid would put her at positive fatigue regen with or without both Storm Power and the Robe of 40 dead virgins.
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TotalAbsolutism
That One Guy
- Location
- New Zealand
Nope.
She was, in point of fact. At least at the time.
See, I can see why you think that. But the thing about that is most Horrors are immortal in a way that's difficult to grasp. Much like the Scion vs. Space Whale conundrum, what you see isn't the full picture.
More than that, though, is that they have no reason to fear the destruction of their physical forms and four out of six have some level of Damage Reversal; of which Kurgi has the strongest. That ability basically means that if you hit them and you don't have good Magic Resistance yourself then actually you hit yourself. It violates cause, effect, space and time to say, "Stop hitting yourself, nerd".
Kurgi, the Slave to Unreason, also has only two attacks; one which adds Horror Marks and the other of which Feebleminds if your Magic Resistance isn't up to snuff. While I'm not acting on the assumption that things have no resistance to magic, their MR probably isn't amazing. So in other words, Kurgi would spend the few seconds of the fight that he gets to exist trying to magically lobotomise Space Whale while said Space Whale tries to figure out why his "Fuck you and your entire planet" attack keeps hitting himself instead.
Scion could still win, but Kurgi will keep coming because he's found a tasty fucking snack; not just Space Whale, but also the entirely new universe he exists in.
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
Scion Is a Nuke but horrors are entropy itself. One is scarier right now but the other will get you eventually.
Vani
(Verified Squid)
- Location
- Europe
All joking about critical dev forgetfulness and the wonders that are broken stat effect skills aside, I'd argue that while it's possible to make Zion lose to a Horror, making him die to one is quite a bit harder, and likely to involve having to wait his lifespan out.
Zion is used to Entity battle tactics. They're his One Job. If he sees that his hits are doing no damage to something he can identify as not being of the host species and that keeps "respawning," he won't just keep mass-one-shotting bodies like he did against Khepri. Rather, because he's not creative, he'll assume that a similar setup to his own is in effect. So chances are he'll default to fighting as he would fight an enemy Entity: go for the big guns right away, try to Sting the Horror's actual source, or outright try to close down the dimensional rift the Horror is coming through rather than bother fighting it before that's done. Then if all else fails, he'll abandon Bet entirely and simply go wait in one of the dimensions he previously locked off.
Having a Horror win through Zion retreating and basically leaving it free reign is easy enough, but that golden space whale is difficult to harm when he's not deciding to just sit there and commit suicide, and you can't horror mark his real body (and marking the fake one is only going to work until it next "refills"). So, yeah. Without fanwank or arbitrarily putting the Dominions rules above the Worm ones, chances are you're getting a draw and a long-ass waiting game.