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Rock the Cradle: A cultivation story
- Thread starter VagueZ
- Start date
- Fantasy Action
For some reason reading over this again makes me think; would Poison/Light be basically a Radiation Path?
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- She/Her
What is the difference between Forged armor and Enforced armor? Could Forged Armor be Enforced like how Argen enforces his sword?
I read all of Cradle (twice) but I never really got that good of a feel for why certain techniques were what they were. Why is Yerin summoning small swords to slash at enemies a striker technique but her summoning massive huge sword is Forger?
As for what Icon we think Keras looks like they might qualify for in time? I don't think Strength is what I'd put any vote towards. Had we pursued our father's path maybe, had our first technique been our Enforcer and we went for the toughest strongest person. As is, we went for a clever and speedy person who cheats a bit at automatically raising strength every so often via our Jade cycling. I do not think we are approaching a goal of representing pure bodily power.
I don't think any of the Canon Icons super fit, though we don't know all that much about some Icons.
Edit; Maybe something like the Scribe Icon, since that represents Learning and one thing I feel like Keras has in spades that has always been central to them is a desire to Learn. Not to Improve or Get Stronger like Lindon, but to Learn. And sometimes learning means improving, but sometimes it means knowing pre-calc at 11 years old.
Edit 2: Joy could also fit, since even when s told theyre going to fight someone or is presented with someone as a rival or enemy, they have as always tried to make friends out of anyone vaguely near age. Clearly we pick up the non canon Friendship Icon and can literally say friendship is our power.
I read all of Cradle (twice) but I never really got that good of a feel for why certain techniques were what they were. Why is Yerin summoning small swords to slash at enemies a striker technique but her summoning massive huge sword is Forger?
As for what Icon we think Keras looks like they might qualify for in time? I don't think Strength is what I'd put any vote towards. Had we pursued our father's path maybe, had our first technique been our Enforcer and we went for the toughest strongest person. As is, we went for a clever and speedy person who cheats a bit at automatically raising strength every so often via our Jade cycling. I do not think we are approaching a goal of representing pure bodily power.
I don't think any of the Canon Icons super fit, though we don't know all that much about some Icons.
Edit; Maybe something like the Scribe Icon, since that represents Learning and one thing I feel like Keras has in spades that has always been central to them is a desire to Learn. Not to Improve or Get Stronger like Lindon, but to Learn. And sometimes learning means improving, but sometimes it means knowing pre-calc at 11 years old.
Edit 2: Joy could also fit, since even when s told theyre going to fight someone or is presented with someone as a rival or enemy, they have as always tried to make friends out of anyone vaguely near age. Clearly we pick up the non canon Friendship Icon and can literally say friendship is our power.
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If we where to have a striker technique I think making a death/life attack that does a ton of damage would be interesting. I like Damir as a character he's just naturally ambitious and hungry but very pratical about if for a kid.Fair, my bad. Still applies. Tiny tree child slipping on their skeleton mask dramatically.
But i do agree on raising our other techniques. We should spend some actions on them when/if we can. I'm sad Mireya won out over Damir striker training time.
You don't need to be a Sword specialist to be a melee monster, Keras has a path that can work for it between their Enforcer technique and possible scary life/death techniques they could make, along with developing Axe and 4 hands combat skills more.
Keras can take an action to make a new technique if they want to, this whole experience with Enohel could inspire Keras to push more into combat after seeing how scary people can get and how Death can be very dangerous.
Attacking the Prince is attacking the idea of the Crown's power and invulnerability which is one of the Pillars upholding the rule of the King Dakata who rules by right of being the strongest.
The Kingdom was formed at swordpoint and is held together by Dakata's strength and him playing nobles against each other and rewarding them for support. If he and his line looks vulnerable then there's blood in the water and the sharks start taking bites.
Having the Vines as an interrupt to create an opening would be useful and fix the weakness of faster opponents.
That kinda feels like a technique that straddles the line between Enforcer and Forger. But it's also a very interesting technique idea to explore and would make Keras a scary melee fighter and they even have multiple sources of inspiration for it.
Icons need to be something that a person embody, it's possible to become someone who embodies an Icon at a later date but it's much much easier to have it be something that fits a person throughout their whole life.
Life, Scribe, Joy, Death, Hunger, Oracle, Axe/Strength. In that order for connection and ease of manifestation.
Life is fitting because Keras's whole life has been heavily impacted by being a farmer, someone aware of the Cycle of Life and their path uses it as a primary element. Scribe captures that Keras has always been a very curious and studious person, they where one of Than's most eager students, they love learning as their main life passion and this has only been reinforced by being a Refiner. Joy is fitting because Keras is someone how is very happy and tends to bring joy to others as well. Death is fitting because Keras has been looking into how Death interacts with life and has been brushing with it for a while, I don't think Keras's connection to it would be traditional but I can see Keras getting it. Keras for all that they're a nice person is very hungry for strength, power, knowledge and all that good stuff, Keras understands hunger in themselves and others. Oracle is fitting due to Keras's senses and focus on learning how things work, plus I'm pretty sure they're going to be trained in oracle arts soon, but it's also something Keras hasn't really chosen to purse deeply yet which is telling. Axe and Strength are something I put in the same place because while Keras has put emphasis on gaining physical strength and combat ability it doesn't feel like ti's as much of a core part of their identity.
Forged armor is armor you create purely out of magic. An enforcer technique would strengthen existing armor. You could probably run an enforcer technique through a forged weapon or armor, but it'd probably be more efficient to just spend the madra boosting the forger technique.
Honestly though, the 4 types of techniques are more guidelines than hard rules. They blur the lines a lot as things go on.
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This is more what I was questioning regarding the blurring of lines here:
Enforcing ourselves with skeletal armor was mentioned, thus my question. What are rhe trade offs/benefits of Enforced skeletal armor vs forged? It is confusion.
Ah. I suppose the difference would be whether the armor technique actually buffs your body's durability beneath it or if it's just armor.
Quest
The Great One
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- Everywhere
So the way I think of it is:
If it's momentary, focusing on projecting madra outward for any reason, it's a Striker technique. This is usually an attack, but there is no reason it can't be a healing beam or the madra equivalent of a remote.
If it's persistent, stable, and functions as a tangible object, it's a Forger technique. Classifications get a bit tricky sometimes, because these are less hard rules of the setting but general guidelines people use IC. It's entirely possible what one person calls a Forger Technique, another calls a Striker.
If it's enhancing something like the body's strength or the sharpness of a weapon, it's an Enforcer Technique. It also depends on your madra type. You are usually making something more of what it is, so boosting healing via life madra or making a sword sharper via sword madra. Or you are applying the properties of your madra to something. You might become tougher using earth madra, or as in Lindon's Flame Cloak, you might be overclocking your body by essentially boosting it's cellular processes.
Notably, enforcement or at least the effects of enforcement can be persistent. Lindon's first cycling method Enforced his Core so that he could split it.
If it controls ambient aura, manipulating the environment to your will, it's a Ruler Technique. This us really the only one that's really distinct.
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It really depends on what exactly you are doing.
Forged Skeleton Armor? You can summon it whenever you want, maybe even use it like power armor but it's doesn't make your body stronger and someone might bypass the armor by grabbing you and shaking you very hard against it.
Enforced Body? *You* are stronger. Depending on your madra type, this may be more or less efficient. For example life madra is good at boosting healing but not strength/durability. Without the armor, you might also miss out on ablative defences or scripts integrates into the armor.
Enforced Armor? Well, the armor is probably tougher than you are, but it also means you need to be wearing an armor all the time.
Never forget the chads that fight by conjuring bricks and yeeting them at people.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Fun thing. The Kazan explicitly conjure bricks of red stone and are iron miners, so they might actually be shooting bricks of iron ore at you.
Hmm, would it be possible to have a variant Dandelion Rain that shoots off a Clinging Vine instead of a Striker attack?
Or for that matter, dropping a Desiccated Valley in the same manner while Keras remains mobile.
Or for that matter, dropping a Desiccated Valley in the same manner while Keras remains mobile.
Yeah at higher levels the 4 types of techniques blur. Honestly the 4 techniques are kinda introductory training wheels and becomes less true at Lord Realms and with insane amounts of training.
That's a very good way of describing things.
I'd prefer the Forged Skeleton Armor idea.
Never forget those glorious bastards.
Honestly I was more thinking about a Dandelion Rain to cause a cancer or attack lifeforce. Training Desiccated Valley so Keras could use it while moving is a good development.
As far as I can tell, the big difference tactically is just:
-Forged stuff is inherently expendable, you don't mind much if your opponent breaks it, you'd just forge another, or forge enough quantity to drown them in ammo.
-Enforced stuff is there to buff a weapon you already have. Its more efficient if you already have a good weapon but it does rely on having a workable weapon to buff already at hand.
While you COULD Forge a super badass weapon, its cheaper to Enforce a good weapon to the same level, but on the flip side its usually more versatile in theory, you don't have to Forge it all the same after all. In practice, you probably won't be messing around with variable blueprints in a fight.
So if you are a dedicated combatant you probably want a really good weapon that you Enforce, which you can expect to usually be with you at all times and which can endure the punishment such a weapon would be subject to.
If you aren't a dedicated combatant the Forger technique means you're never unarmed, and won't run dry like you would if you were spamming Striker techs the whole fight.
-Forged stuff is inherently expendable, you don't mind much if your opponent breaks it, you'd just forge another, or forge enough quantity to drown them in ammo.
-Enforced stuff is there to buff a weapon you already have. Its more efficient if you already have a good weapon but it does rely on having a workable weapon to buff already at hand.
While you COULD Forge a super badass weapon, its cheaper to Enforce a good weapon to the same level, but on the flip side its usually more versatile in theory, you don't have to Forge it all the same after all. In practice, you probably won't be messing around with variable blueprints in a fight.
So if you are a dedicated combatant you probably want a really good weapon that you Enforce, which you can expect to usually be with you at all times and which can endure the punishment such a weapon would be subject to.
If you aren't a dedicated combatant the Forger technique means you're never unarmed, and won't run dry like you would if you were spamming Striker techs the whole fight.
Getting good at Forging also lets us conjure money out of thin air, which is always a neat trick, even if our scales probably aren't as valuable as pure ones. Hm, could we make scales actually? I remember that weird bit in canon about life madra only being a liquid not a solid. Guess we could make death ones?
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
IIIRC that's not completely canon here. And personally, I always took that as a limitation of Fisher Gesha, not the setting. The lady is clearly good at what she does, but let's not forget that she's from a backwater's backwater.
If you can forge dream tablets, then you can probably forge life. IIRC the invention of the dream tablets or at least a major innovation of them was actually attributed to Emriss in Uncrowned and Meira also has a technique for a forged scythe. So I don't see why it couldn't just be a matter of the fishers just not knowing how.
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Personally I'd prefer to make a technique that can work as a Forger and Enforcer technique, making Forged Weapons and armor and Enforcing armor and weapons when Keras has them. It would likely take a lot of development to do that though.
Potent Sacred Artists are rich for a reason though the economy is interesting and I imagine the stuff that Keras really wants can't just be easily purchased with scales.
Fisher Gesha is very impressive especially considering her origins but she's still very much limited by that until she learns how the winder world does things.
Dream Tablets are pretty impressive and I'm curious if Keras could learn how to make them.
unObservant
Just drifting along, really
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My favorite variant on Dandelion Rain has definitely got to be 'planting' some of those Forged seeds rather than just scattering them around, and letting them sprout into something more potent once enough time passes and/or Life Madra gets drawn in. Heck, maybe the technique could even be formed around an actual seed to reinforce the theme at hand and potentially influence the resulting construct - we've still got that renewed collection of useful seeds from our birthday, after all, that hasn't been touched on-screen since.
It'd dovetail nicely with Keras's background and provide an outlet for our relatively neglected physical-plant-growing skills; and could allow us to develop those basic delayed-shot seeds into a range of 'plants' with some fun related effects for different situations. Like, maybe something along the lines of a fruit tree that acts as a turret and doesn't just disappear after one attack, or a thorny bush that shifts the Striker beam output closer to an extended Enforcer effect so that anything that gets near the construct takes damage, or a Kudzu-equivalent that rapidly spreads itself further for area denial and/or building itself up to fuel a single massive blast. Maybe we'd be able to incorporate some wider Life-affecting aspects like from our Vines and Valley, or have the sprouting seeds put down roots and convert soil nutrients like a real plant, so that they could supplement their upkeep using their surroundings?
And though it's not just limited to this idea, something I've been wondering lately is whether Beti could eventually reach through our bond to take or share 'ownership' of a construct we've created, fueling it from her much larger reserves and effectively granting her some more Technique options besides the Enforced vines that make up the bulk of her repertoire. (Though the challenge, as ever, would be getting her to actually understand or care about that through her treelike mindset. Who knows, though - maybe our friendly neighborhood walking tree'll end up shockingly enthusiastic about getting to swing around some particular form of the Technique).
Obviously the full range of possible variants would be up to VagueZ themself, and there'd probably be limits on it besides just the availability of certain seeds to keep the possibilities from being too extensive or widely-applicable; but I just feel like it'd be a really fun idea to see in practice, and that it'd provide a potential way to tie together a decent number of our Techniques and aspects of our character into a more coherent theme.
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Make Dandelion Rain plant the equivalent of Plants vs Zombies peashooters.
I hadn't really thought about pulling on themes for things but that would be very interesting. And the idea of having a Construct reminds me of Living Techniques (not sure but I think they're called that). I like the idea of constructs/living techniques that work as plants that's an interesting idea and fits Keras's symbology and themes.
That would be really awesome.
Instead of owls like Charity, Forest Sage Keras has a horde of carnivorous tree constructs seeded through the forest feeding them information and devouring trespassers while soaking up life aura to sustain themselves.
Ferb_Ancos
The one under the table
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I like this one. Instead of planting a seed-like proyectile that shoots itself, Keras would plant a seed that grows a little semi underground plant that shoots those proyectiles repeatedly and can be activated at Keras' will.
I think it could work by mixing Keras' understanding of his Verdant Valley Ruler technique of growing plants with the Striker stuff. It would definetly be a pure Life technique
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I'm pretty sure this is something that Keras can already do with Verdant Valley, and that it's literally the first thing they learned?
Since it's the foundation of their family's Path.
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The only real problem is making it be a viable tactic mid-combat.
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The problem is, a turret plant technique would require you to pump in enough Madra for *all* the shots it's gonna take, and Keras isn't Lindon or Eithan with their ridiculous reserves. You could maybe create a seed technique that could draw in life aura to power itself, but then it's some kind of ruler/striker combo and would likely require Keras' active attention or a much much more complicated initial technique to perform, and I dunno if they're capable of either as is.
I suppose the closest counterpart in canon would be Sophara's moon ruler techs that autonomously debuffed her opponents with water and fire aura?
I suppose the closest counterpart in canon would be Sophara's moon ruler techs that autonomously debuffed her opponents with water and fire aura?
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Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
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We could probably develop some sort of root network technique in order to feed madra into a set of turrets, but I can't imagine that helping with our speed. We'd probably also need to go into soul smithing if we want to learn how to make a proper launcher construct for the turrets. It feels like spreading ourself too far in my opinion.
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Wouldn't Verdant Valley as it is already be enough to "reload" said hypothetical turret plant? So it'd only need to be created with a bit of ammo.