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Pretender (Worm/Dominions 4)

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Vani said:
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.
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There's an argument to be made in favour of Horror Marks targeting the soul mean that they follow him wherever he goes. Though, then perhaps anyone from Worm is then immune to them due to lacking a soul? Could go either way.

Regardless, Scion vs. Doom Horror is a losing prospect for everyone in the vicinity.
 
TotalAbsolutism said:
Though, then perhaps anyone from Worm is then immune to them due to lacking a soul?
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That... Sounds as ridiculous nerf.

Sure worm if used alone is not setting where you need to care of soul. There is mind uploading like Butcher or S9000 by way of replicating structure of brain. Soul, afterlife and so on not needed to exist for this or other abilities of entities.

But then to mix worm with fantasy or other setting where souls are real and there are peoples affecting them, but somehow worm peoples do not have soul and so are immune...

No.
 
I would argue - that this isn't a Vs. thread. Make one and I'd participate though.

As for the story; glad to see this back.
 
Void spirit said:
That... Sounds as ridiculous nerf.

Sure worm if used alone is not setting where you need to care of soul. There is mind uploading like Butcher or S9000 by way of replicating structure of brain. Soul, afterlife and so on not needed to exist for this or other abilities of entities.

But then to mix worm with fantasy or other setting where souls are real and there are peoples affecting them, but somehow worm peoples do not have soul and so are immune...

No.
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Apart from Horror Marks I can think of maybe two or three other spells that rely on the target being in posession of a soul to function so it's not that big a deal.

It may not even be that they don't have a soul, as such, but that it doesn't exist in the same form as Dominions. It's not like I'm envisioning, in my head, that the Dominions realm is just another layer of the same universe or is off there in the galaxy somewhere. Rather, it's all quite a bit stranger than that. Apart from certain unspecified events in the past this is the first time the two paradigms are interacting at length.

Similarly, a number of magical defenses from Dominions likely have no way to deal with ways some Shard abilities operate. If there's that lack of transparency it should go both ways.
Gelly³ said:
I would argue - that this isn't a Vs. thread. Make one and I'd participate though.

As for the story; glad to see this back.
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True, it's not a VS thread. It's my story, which means it works how I want it to and in the end I'll pick the interaction I think makes for the most interesting story. But I still enjoy musing about how X would or wouldn't affect Y. Well, that's mostly because I don't have any particular investment in the idea of either side winning.
 
Well, this continues to be a wonderful fic regardless of time between updates. You've done a good job picking up where you left off, we just have to hope the next chapter doesn't take as long.

I wonder whether Taylor would be willing to explain at least in part the 'Master' style effect she has if the PRT thought to ask her about it instead of guessing in the dark. "It lets me ask people who use my stuff for help, but doesn't force anything." is pretty damn benign as far as Mastering people goes.
 
Franklymydear said:
I wonder whether Taylor would be willing to explain at least in part the 'Master' style effect she has if the PRT thought to ask her about it instead of guessing in the dark. "It lets me ask people who use my stuff for help, but doesn't force anything." is pretty damn benign as far as Mastering people goes.
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The real trick is proving that's true. Which would have been easier if she'd opened with an explanation of it, but she kept quiet about it and now they're suspicious. Rather shot herself in the foot with her own caution, there.
 
Really glad you're continuing writing this.

It's been a long time since I've brushed up on Dominions 4, and I'm only familiar with it through other fanfiction. But it seems like Taylor's problem is she got so swept up in things she hasn't had the chance to hunker down and acquire power by collecting gems and moving up the elemental paths. Near as I can tell she's only at stage 1 in all the paths she's used so far.

And now she has enemies and responsibilities. Not sure what gems would be most common in Brockton Bay, probably water, which is a shame because nature seems the most useful with the parameters she has to work within.

It's hard to tell where things will go from here, it's quite the cliffhanger. And I don't know a lot of the mechanics for gods, never mind how it will translate as things develop.

If I had to guess, worshippers will be key now, and ever more so moving forward. At this period of time for the ephemeral 'divine power' it provides, and because many of Taylor's remembered spells are supposed to be used to buff soldiers.

How all this will be sold to the public...well, Taylor can continue to grab the downtrodden and desperate into her cult. Once there's enough members it can gain momentum on it's own, and Taylor does have the power to protect her followers in at least one city. She just needs to learn to Astral port if she can't already.

But she'll really need a PR person (or maybe a 'head priest', heh) so her cult is not touted by everyone everywhere as a cult. Cults headed by shady parahumans are bad. The problem isn't surviving what Brockton Bay can throw at her—if she can survive the next few weeks, she'll be powerful enough to handle the E88 and anyone else who wants to get in her grill. The problem is public perception and how those with real, national power react to her. Because she's going to be in the public spotlight in a few months at best, unless she deliberately tries to curtail the growth of her cult.
 
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TotalAbsolutism said:
Crystal Shield only works in a fight, so she'd need someone to stand behind her and slap her every few minutes or so. Which isn't very conducive to research.
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I had forgotten about the "in-combat only" part of it.

Requiring her to be actually fighting for it to apply seems really weird, though. Simpler to just have the boost apply to combat spells whether she's in combat or not, and never apply to rituals. The game doesn't give you the opportunity to cast non-ritual spells outside of combat at all but Taylor can.

TotalAbsolutism said:
Incidentally, only the Owl Quill would really be all that helpful for her and even then... she already has a very high 'Research' speed for a lone individual because what she's actually doing is untangling her memories of what she used to do and how; rebuilding the foundations from existing bricks.
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Earlier you mentioned 25 RP/month, which is great for a single researcher but quickly becomes useless in the face of steeply escalating research costs. The game expects you to be hiring researchers left and right, but that doesn't seem to be an option here. Maybe you've got it planned for her followers to contribute somehow, or just have it change according to her own self-awareness and recollection of her past life as a Pretender. Dunno.

Applying the Dominions mechanics as a power in Worm is super interesting, though, and the slow research speed makes every research decision much more meaningful because it's such a time investment. Given that she's accumulating followers through their faith in her, that makes some spells really useful. For example, Healing Touch (Enchantment 1) is low hanging fruit and probably would get her a ton of believers, and also gives Windrunner (Enchantment 1). A little higher up is Flight (Enchantment 2) which would indirectly boost her gem income by increasing the amount of territory she can cover on top of the utility of being able to fly. There are other spells that are seriously scary shit: Thaumaturgy 1 gives Curse, which applies permanent bad luck, always hits, and can't be resisted or removed. Seven Year Fever is permanent, eventually fatal, and prevents any wound from healing. On the less terrifying side of things, Thaumaturgy 1 would also give her Blink.

There are a number of buff spells that are low power in Dominions due to the small number of affected targets, but in Worm they basically make her a better version of Othala. Gift of the Hare (Enchantment 2) hastes a stack. Earth Might (Alteration 1) grants a stack enhanced strength. Gift of Flight (Enchantment 3) allows others to fly, and Regeneration comes at the same research level. These can be big force multipliers in fights on the scale of Worm, where half a dozen parahumans is a force to be reckoned with even before you start turning them into hasted flying regenerating Brutes.

TotalAbsolutism said:
She intends to avoid giving anything any amount of Horror Marks.
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A can of terrifying extradimensional spaceworms that is better left unopened, really. Worm has enough of those already.
 
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Hazard said:
Horror marking is bullshit. It takes time, especially against things as powerful as the Endbringers, but they'll succumb eventually. Really, in Dominions Horror marking is the greatest equalizer.
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What do you do when the Simurgh touches the mind of Hruvur or Kurgi and amplifies their auras (implied from their special abilities and design) of death causing screams and mind control respectively?

Every Doom Horror is potentially worse than an Endbringer depending on interpretation. Play it safe, break the seal to Tartarus, summon the Eater of the Dead in a wrecked New York, cast Utterdark and make pacts with as many Demon Princes as you want but do not fuck around with Horror Marks.
 
Bob Saget said:
Near as I can tell she's only at stage 1 in all the paths she's used so far.
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I think I remember WOG here being that Taylor is rank X in all paths; she can cast any spell she knows and has gems for, but has to take the full fatigue cost. Boosters add to her effective level while casting the spell; Say she had a Bag of Winds. All air spells are now half fatigue while she has it equipped it, wether they`re A1 or A7 required.

Bob Saget said:
If I had to guess, worshippers will be key now, and ever more so moving forward.
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Eh, at the scope she`s currently working at, not really. If she intends to spread her Dominion then yes, but I wager she`s content with a few candles in BB for now. Although if she pushed her Dominion across the world she`d be the best Behemoth warning system ever.

In a 'proper' Pretender fight you need lots of worshippers as grist for the mill. Here so long as there`s SOME in a given 'province' that`s all she really needs, as there`s no hostile Dominion to counter, and scales don`t care about how strong the Dominion is. She`s pretty far away from empowering somebody to help with gem collection too. In fact, it doesn`t seem to have occured to her yet to drop some Death Gems on Danny or whoever so she doesn`t have to find and gather all the gems solo. What with the general 'ickyness' of most Death spells she doesn`t need many, I`d guess, and Alchemy hasn`t been mentioned yet.

Although once it becomes known she can act as a Trump that grants permanent Trump/Blaster/Striker/Master/Breaker/Shaker/Mover/Stranger powers everyone will be on her like white on rice. Like @Pax_Empyrean said, even a lot of the low level Dominions magic is scary powerful in a parahuman combat rather than a Ascension Wars context.

Bob Saget said:
Cults headed by shady parahumans are bad.
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How dare you imply there`s anything shady about Taylor ? Her church is entirely non-shady.

Franklymydear said:
It says something when that's your 'play it safe' option.
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For once I find myself agreeing with you completely.
 
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hghwolf said:
Like @Pax_Empyrean said, even a lot of the low level Dominions magic is scary powerful in a parahuman combat rather than a Ascension Wars context.
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The main reason for this is scale, I think. Worm has things like the Manton limit, so even if you have pyrokinesis you still have to throw fireballs or whatever instead of just igniting people. You can't just get rid of somebody that easily. Dominions doesn't treat the ability to just set one person on fire whenever you want as all that big of a deal, since there are so many targets. Setting everyone on fire is a big deal, but still within the scope of a Pretender.

Looking at low level items, we have things like the Sceptre of Authority (Construction 2), which gives an aura of authority and the ability to cast Combustion, which just straight up sets somebody on fire. Costs 5 fire gems. Taylor could make it for 3 thanks to the Dwarven Hammer.

Might not be a bad idea, actually. Setting them on fire at will is a hard counter to the majority of capes and the aura of authority would be useful while reinforcing the idea that her powers for influencing others are of the softer, non-compulsory kind. The PRT knows she can be scary with her helmet and she can ask people for help if they are grateful to her; a leadership boosting item is something along similar lines. As long as she doesn't ever use any kind of compulsion power, stuff like this just reinforces the argument that her mind-affecting powers aren't particularly worrisome.
 
Roadie said:
With the timeline stuff...

...is Taylor learning to savescum?
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You do not learn to savescum, you embrace it.

It's a bit odd for me, because I'm enjoying this fic without any knowledge of the game so practically every part of it comes as an amazing surprise. I have absolutely no idea what the time shenanigans are or how they work, so I get to be invested in Taylor figuring it out herself.

It makes things a little strange to read, but not unenjoyable.
 
Roadie said:
With the timeline stuff...

...is Taylor learning to savescum?
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She's experiencing mild temporal decoherence due to suddenly having access to a fairly powerful but basically uncontrollable form of foresight with a rather narrow yet also incredibly broad focus. At the same time as that happened the vast majority of her inherited memories were forced to the forefront by her experiencing true worship for the first time. So she had a bit of 'out of self' experience. In reality what happened is that she acted out the events of the past few weeks on a sort of autopilot; guided by her 'remembering' what was going to happen.
Less spoilery answer; the temporal shenanigans are a matter of perception rather than motion.
 
Pax_Empyrean said:
As long as she doesn't ever use any kind of compulsion power, stuff like this just reinforces the argument that her mind-affecting powers aren't particularly worrisome.
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Okay, but we`re talking about Taylor Hebert. Oh sure, she STARTS all well meaning and 'no turning people in my permanently mind controlled puppets' but somehow I don`t see that lasting.

She might, for example, get the bee in her bonnet that she could totally save all of Heartbreakers victims, and all she needs is Thaumaturgy 6.
 
hghwolf said:
Okay, but we`re talking about Taylor Hebert. Oh sure, she STARTS all well meaning and 'no turning people in my permanently mind controlled puppets' but somehow I don`t see that lasting.

She might, for example, get the bee in her bonnet that she could totally save all of Heartbreakers victims, and all she needs is Thaumaturgy 6.
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Divinity will both help and hinder here. She cares more about Brockton Bay in general because she thinks of it as hers, and more specifically those people within it that she more directly considers 'her' people. So long as the atrocities are out of sight, out of mind the Divine part of her really won't care. But if someone tries to hurt her worshippers, on the other hand...
 
TotalAbsolutism said:
'her' people.
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...I am not sorry.

LA Brockton
Race : Mostly humans, rare mutants. Less gold income and higher unrest growth due to prevalent criminal culture.
Military : Weak, mostly undisciplinend troops, powerful ranged weapons, confoam sprayers. Many powerful heroes, few sacreds.
Magic : None, use very specialized and unique 'powers' instead. Not affected by Drain scales.
Priests : Weak and few.
(Cheapgod : Queen of Escalation)

Capital unique sites
The Boat Graveyard : -50% income, 2 Water, 1 Air, 4 Death.
DWU Headquarters : +10% Income Allows recruitment of Dockworker, Union Boss.
PRT HQ : -2 Unrest per turn, Allows recruitment of PRT trooper, confoam trooper, PRT officer, Parahuman.

National Spells
I am a Dragon, you are now Asian
Enchantment 7
Path Reqs E4 F6
Combat, 5 Earth 5 Fire

Calling on the memetic energy of the 'hero' Lung, this spell inspires great courage in a large amount of soldiers, while also subtly changing their features towards an Asian ethnicity. The caster takes on the form of a large, winged, silver metallic scaled dragon with great control over fire and a berserker rage. The troops will follow the dragon into any situation, and fight on for as long as it does.
All effects end if the caster dies or the combat ends.

Contact Triumvirate
Conjuration 8
Path Reqs S8
Ritual, 20 Pearls

The caster summons forth one of the Triumvirate, parahumans of overwhelming strength and PR. They will fight for one battle on the casters side against any threat, before absconding to commit more human rights violations and atrocities.

The Road not Taken
Thaumaturgy 8
Path Reqs S10
Ritual, Global, 50 Pearls

Emulates the power of the parahuman 'Coil'. For as long as the enchantment persists there is a 80% chance for any bad event applying to the gods followers to be prevented, and enemy fortune teller and luck bringer traits only have half efficiency due to timeline shenanigans. The spell lasts until it is dispelled, or the caster dies. Anyone casting this spell turns into a complete asshat while it lasts, so the latter tends to happen fairly quickly.

Summon Glenn
Conjuration 4
Path Reqs B2
Ritual, 1 Blood Slave

Glenn Chambers is magically brought forth to tut and whine at the caster about how 'Virgin sacrifice is REALLY bad PR'. While in a province Glenn works to make prominent figures more PR friendly, making any commander reduce Unrest, or at least not cause as much.

National Items

Confoam Grenade
Construction 0
E1, 1 Earth

A confoam grenade can be used to... well cover something in confoam. Basically a ranged, unresistable but dodgeable paralysis effect with a slight AOE. They can`t all be pithy you know ?

Halbeard of the Master
Construction 8
E5, 40 Earth
Two Handed, unique.

The Halbeard of the Master does everything it could possibly need to, in a relatively compact two handed package. Also slices and dices, wielder grows socially incompetent and more beardly the longer he or she wields it.

REALLY not sorry.
 
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Some random possible-inconsistencies:

As Amy can't look at/effect her own body, the way her testing of the helmet is described seems implausible? Like, that she feels better is fine, that she seems to be looking at herself with her power is not.

Since Crusader's ghosts interact with organics and Bitch's dogs are amped up organics, they should probably be able to rip the ghosts to shreds no problem, or at least give them a good thrashing?


Also, the way things shift from Taylor as Pretender, indie hero to Taylor selling items to Taylor leading a church are a bit jarring at times, especially with how all the identities start swirling around later on. It's not bad, I think, just not as good as it could be?



Overall, though, things are good and interesting. I feel like the prose itself might use a little work to flow nicely, and the way you transitioned between perspectives for the battle, while neat, could sometimes be a bit jarring or leave a lack of information- see Glory Girl suddenly seeming to exist three paragraphs into a new perspective. Some of my confusion might just be my own lack of reading comprehension, admittedly, and like I said, it's good overall. :V
 
Twei said:
As Amy can't look at/effect her own body, the way her testing of the helmet is described seems implausible? Like, that she feels better is fine, that she seems to be looking at herself with her power is not.
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This was brought up somewhere else... SB, I think. In the end I decided I didn't care enough to change it.
Twei said:
Since Crusader's ghosts interact with organics and Bitch's dogs are amped up organics, they should probably be able to rip the ghosts to shreds no problem, or at least give them a good thrashing?
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I'm not entirely clear on that; the limit was implied to be in his favour, I believe, so maybe not? Still, it worked for what I wanted to do.
Twei said:
Also, the way things shift from Taylor as Pretender, indie hero to Taylor selling items to Taylor leading a church are a bit jarring at times, especially with how all the identities start swirling around later on. It's not bad, I think, just not as good as it could be?
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This and other quirks are probably the result of me not really trying all that hard. I like Pretender well enough but it's my downtime funtime story so you could say that I'm not taking it all that seriously? There's a lot of experimental shit in here I don't use in my other work, like Dwarf.
 
hghwolf said:
...I am not sorry.

LA Brockton
Race : Mostly humans, rare mutants. Less gold income and higher unrest growth due to prevalent criminal culture.
Military : Weak, mostly undisciplinend troops, powerful ranged weapons, confoam sprayers. Many powerful heroes, few sacreds.
Magic : None, use very specialized and unique 'powers' instead. Not affected by Drain scales.
Priests : Weak and few.
(Cheapgod : Queen of Escalation)

Capital unique sites
The Boat Graveyard : -50% income, 2 Water, 1 Air, 4 Death.
DWU Headquarters : +10% Income Allows recruitment of Dockworker, Union Boss.
PRT HQ : -2 Unrest per turn, Allows recruitment of PRT trooper, confoam trooper, PRT officer, Parahuman.

National Spells
I am a Dragon, you are now Asian
Enchantment 7
Path Reqs E4 F6
Combat, 5 Earth 5 Fire

Calling on the memetic energy of the 'hero' Lung, this spell inspires great courage in a large amount of soldiers, while also subtly changing their features towards an Asian ethnicity. The caster takes on the form of a large, winged, silver metallic scaled dragon with great control over fire and a berserker rage. The troops will follow the dragon into any situation, and fight on for as long as it does.
All effects end if the caster dies or the combat ends.

Contact Triumvirate
Conjuration 8
Path Reqs S8
Ritual, 20 Pearls

The caster summons forth one of the Triumvirate, parahumans of overwhelming strength and PR. They will fight for one battle on the casters side against any threat, before absconding to commit more human rights violations and atrocities.

The Road not Taken
Thaumaturgy 8
Path Reqs S10
Ritual, Global, 50 Pearls

Emulates the power of the parahuman 'Coil'. For as long as the enchantment persists there is a 80% chance for any bad event applying to the gods followers to be prevented, and enemy fortune teller and luck bringer traits only have half efficiency due to timeline shenanigans. The spell lasts until it is dispelled, or the caster dies. Anyone casting this spell turns into a complete asshat while it lasts, so the latter tends to happen fairly quickly.

Summon Glenn
Conjuration 4
Path Reqs B2
Ritual, 1 Blood Slave

Glenn Chambers is magically brought forth to tut and whine at the caster about how 'Virgin sacrifice is REALLY bad PR'. While in a province Glenn works to make prominent figures more PR friendly, making any commander reduce Unrest, or at least not cause as much.

National Items

Confoam Grenade
Construction 0
E1, 1 Earth

A confoam grenade can be used to... well cover something in confoam. Basically a ranged, unresistable but dodgeable paralysis effect with a slight AOE. They can`t all be pithy you know ?

Halbeard of the Master
Construction 8
E5, 40 Earth
Two Handed, unique.

The Halbeard of the Master does everything it could possibly need to, in a relatively compact two handed package. Also slices and dices, wielder grows socially incompetent and more beardly the longer he or she wields it.

REALLY not sorry.
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If someone makes sprites I'll mod this in.
 
TotalAbsolutism said:
I'm not entirely clear on that; the limit was implied to be in his favour, I believe, so maybe not? Still, it worked for what I wanted to do.
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If the ghosts could affect organics but organics couldn't affect them, that would honestly be kinda weird. And seem to make Crusader slightly OP? So, yeah.

I'll agree neither of them ruin the story. And the idea of Bitch just being with Oracle to take care of (summoned) dogs is actually pretty cool, so props for that.
 
Twei said:
I'll agree neither of them ruin the story. And the idea of Bitch just being with Oracle to take care of (summoned) dogs is actually pretty cool, so props for that.
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Pax_Empyrean said:
Oracle: "Unlimited Dog Works!"
Bitch: "This is my new life now."
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Summoned, yes; but also real. They're permanent and exist forever. Logically they come from somewhere, so the question is where.

My personal answer was that the first X unowned dogs that could be collected. Strays, wild dogs... basically, ones Bitch would care about. She may well have found the church in the first place by following the dogs. She has to do something with the Undersiders caput.
 
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