Something I made for fun. No relation to God Diversion, but all analysis, builds, posts, etc. relating to the CYOA will receive a minor Credit boost for the next month. Consider it an early Christmas gift.
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Archontite's Revelation
CYOA
On a certain dawn, you are beginning your day, readying yourself for labor or relaxation as relevant, only to narrowly behold the sun's rising rays outside the window.
And within the rays, like a bolt from the blue, a Revelation.
Its nature is axiomatic, an event the mere occurrence of which clarifies its essence: a reckoning of divinity sent forth in a stochastic rush of heavenly Grace. Every Reckoning is one of a kind, and yours, uniquely, snatches your consciousness away as a careless jackdaw does a trinket, carrying your soul on an abrupt excursion across the multiverse.
A tempest of visions assaults your mind. Hundreds of incomprehensible scenes in a phantasmagorical kaleidoscope. Three men kneeling before a golden throne and maintaining the life of their master, the sovereign ceaselessly bleeding from a laceration over the heart, eyes closed in restless sleep. Thirteen robed women chanting over a soapstone basin full of steaming blood, each suddenly reacting as you pass through their chamber. Eldritch sets of eyes in a dark void, each a distinct color, suddenly turning to behold your soul like spotlights trained upon an intruder of their territory, their gnawing curiosity only repelled by the might of Revelation.
And then, a silhouette in a sarcophagus of frozen matter, a frosted boulder of Ancient rime, an exemplary humanoid physique with shadows of looming wings. Its gentle eyes crack open to faintly peer at you, and within the pupils are motes of innocent light. It smiles, and within that smile is an expression representing
mirth.
And then you stand elsewhere, the remnant embers of Revelation still burning within you, its divine fuel spent and corroding into ash. There are only a couple of scarce moments remaining, during which you can make the decisions needed to burn out the rest of this divine providence into power.
Begin with
three (3) orbs, and for no price whatsoever, you can optionally choose to fully remake your body and partially reshape your mind to any reasonable baseline average standard of humanity, addressing any issues that'd arguably reduce you beneath that level in some fashion.
Insertion Point
Among the most relevant locations within the accessible slice of the multiverse. Leaving some is much more difficult than others, apply care.
[ ] The Ancient World - The men and women of Shinar met with a Revelation of their own. Instead of explicating on the multiverse, it spoke to them of the distant past, its countless incandescent majesties, and the now-forgotten science of the Ancients. Those of Shinar reveled and celebrated in all of this newfound, fantastic wisdom and went on to create marvels without number, an age of golden glory unfolding from their fingertips, promises of a better tomorrow like honeyed springs.
Now, all that remains of Shinar and its people is the elusive Tower at the center of their world, and the countless metropolitan stretches of the ruined City surviving around its foundation: ancient stonework and chipped hieroglyph-laden stelae overgrown with the clutching hands of moss and vine, the meaning of their sigils lost to time. A myriad of prehistoric settlements endured the calamity, as did remnant nations of scavengers, whose oral records of the calamitous event of the past diverge as a river does into forks.
All of them clash over the Tower; the lands surrounding it and the right of entry, which is limited and difficult. Skirmishes become wars, eventually, become new armageddons. Ashes are left and survivors rebuild from them, only to surrender to cupidity as their forefathers - ad nauseam. The Tower and City have become the graveyard of a hundred cultures, and a thousand civilizations. Nonetheless, in the looming shadow of the Tower, magic as ancient as the first dawn flourishes. Those few and far between epochal individuals clever and daring enough to exploit its altitudinous quiddity have become the storied Paragons of this world. Follow in their tracks, if you dare.
[ ] Oculus - Eyes are the windows into one's soul, and the foremost apparatus through which the entire world and its nature is apprehended. Here, the saying becomes a magical reality, as every man's eyes are distinct wonders: metamorphosing over the course of a lifetime, each scion of Oculus a wielder of idiosyncratic magical perspicacity. This miracle allowed the children of Oculus to transcend the limits imposed on them by the cruel universe, as historic visionaries, capable of perceiving higher forms of civilized society, have guided the people into a state of global unification under the sagacious Farseer Council.
However, in the unseen corners of the world, trouble and opportunity stir. The Grand Visionary, Head of the Council, started recalling an astounding number of crucial Ocular assets to his center of power as if preparing for some unforeseeable threat. The Farseer of Cultivated Symbiosis has, for reasons unknown, become a deranged terrorist, draining an entire nation of vitality and escaping into the far-flung reaches of the Imperceptible Corners. An entirely new kind of corrupted eyesight is making appearances around the world in apparently arbitrary locations, its secretive source somewhere out of sight. Neither the Watch nor the Occlusion Syndicate can identify the origin.
Few virtues are prized among the citizens of Oculus as dearly as novelty and an upstanding outlook. Avoid losing sight of yourself and your goals, and you'll prosper yet.
[ ] Endor - For over a millennium times six, ever since the demolition of the Old World Order and its Paladins, the Covenocracy and its dark Witches have been the exclusive ruler caste on Endor; a pyramidal hierarchy of Covens, each paying homage to a mother-Coven, all offering tribute to the Grand Coven and its Grand Witch.
The Covens are a matriarchial, hierarchal, and ruthlessly exploitative society, practicing a form of social Darwinism. The aristocratic patricians atop the bloodied heap freewheelingly abuse their limitless authority over their helpless lessors and subordinates. Advancement through the ranks is granted only to those both ruthless and gifted enough to seize it, and the others are seen as deserving of enslavement and forced supplication. All families possessing even a solitary pearl of wisdom strive to teach their children to expect and commit betrayal.
Jino-waza applies in full force. Most often, bonds of loyalty in marriage and Covens must be enforced with blood-spelled chirographs. Above everything, the art of Witchcraft is practiced universally, and iron sharpens iron.
Even so, it's an entire world rife with opportunities, especially for ladies: a world living through its own age of magical splendor, even if that splendor is often bought with the blood of the inadequate. Even the commoners are permitted to indulge in magical luxury, afforded casual access to unnatural medicines and near-unrestricted access to a variety of marvels comparable, if not superior, to Earth's technologies. As long as the tribute of sacrificial blood continues to stream up the pyramid, the Covenocracy shall unfailingly appease its citizenry, and in doing so, perpetuate its monolithic hold over this state of affairs. Even though whispers of rebellion brew in the corners, amongst the camps of simple revolutionaries with firearms, they serve merely as beacons for the dissenting elements, that they may be easily executed in one well-crafted spell.
If you wish, you could become an inextricable part of this order, one of the beneficiaries atop the pyramid; or attempt to overturn it, a shining light of hope in the heart of every insurgent and subrversive. Just stay cautious to avoid the talons of certain gluttonous magpies.
[ ] Genesis - Once, a team of daring and exceptionally well-trained astronauts explored a ruined complex of buildings and strange facilities found on Pluto, right beneath the surface. Their discoveries eventually sparked an event historically referred to as Genesis which shook the foundations of terrestrial sciences, providing a terrific insight into celestial wonders and the secrets of the universe. Genesis offered mankind the most crucial opportunity: to conquer a stolid and uncaring cosmos, one star at a time.
It is 322 Since Genesis and every area of science has flourished: singularity fusion energy in every city, medicinal nanomachines at every drug store, autolathe fabricators in every home and workshop, android servants in governmental facilities, and so much more: every dream of the past realized, and then some; every human an indifferent scion of discoveries that would've astonished those of Old Terra. Humanity is swiftly and boldly expanding to colonize the furthermost reaches of the Milky Way and its luminous arms under the Solar Federation, and starting to make contact with primitive and peer-level extraterrestrial species alike. It's the shining dawn of a new, glorious era.
And yet, not everything is well. The ideoreligious fanatics of the Army of Heaven outfit themselves with cutting-edge mechs and weapons of mass destruction and worship their own armaments on their crusade to expunge alien life from the world. An organization calling itself Gortex has claimed responsibility for a transporter crash that claimed thousands of lives among the relatives of the corporate elite and tens of thousands more innocents, citing megacorporate corruption. Worryingly, unforeseen shifts within the human Novosphere are causing the arising of strange and often unpredictable phenomena. Genesis may prove to hold surprises even for the geniuses that are its luminaries.
[ ] Chroma - Chroma is a world full of Colors, an artist's palette splashed into a landscape: saturated White in the north, and draped Black in the south, with the entire band of the spectrum shining between them, each division ruled over by a Chromatic Lord that represents the ethos of their Color.
And yet for all its myriad hues, very few things on Chroma are going colorfully. After so much loss and persecution, the halcyon serenity of the splendorous Rainbow Empire is now considered a dream of a bygone era. Fresh is the sensation of loss in the minds of Chroma's inhabitants, as the entire world almost fell in an invading tide of allied Red and Black calamity nearly three decades ago when trust in one's fellow Chromatics failed. Now, although the danger of global conflict is abated, its memory is still left undried, and so the Colored Community is in a state of cold war, all waiting to see who'll next shake the easel. An uneasy peace of separation was non-verbally agreed on.
However, in the emulsive reaches, some desire to once more dabble in the full potential of the universal canvas: hidden Polychromatic factions stir to activity as opportunities reveal themselves. A rebel movement named Solemnity has successfully seized a swathe of Lord Black's territories and made it an enclave of all things dark and free. Rumors and conspiracies spread regarding the ongoing international search for a mysterious and mythical artifact called the Prism, with teams of adventurers from the Painter's Guild and various governments competing to collect it. Certainly, if you look beneath the layers, you'll find sampling the local Color a profitable and intriguing venture.
[ ] The Human Realm - An Earth not unlike your own, if set a handful of solar rotations backward. However, underneath the surface of normalcy and mundanity, there blooms a secret and international Society of Beings, its collective boasting all manner of paranormal and supernatural entities: masters of wizardry and ancient vampire lords, tribes of civil werewolves, astral-crossing ephemera from other dimensions, and spirits from outer realms and pockets of sustained mythical wilderness. Most of them attempt an uneasy cooperation in the fallout of the Seventh Mystic War, all fearing a return to conflict, and the likelihood that another War may shatter the masquerade they all rely on to survive.
Acting with nominal authority and far-reaching privileges, the Society's Council often sees its members overruling each other in almost every field of affairs, meaning that each member is forced to scrabble for a personalized means to impose and enforce their edicts, as well as garner support to back their decisions. Sown centuries ago, the interspecies mistrust has calcified into a near-cultural and omnidirectional paranoia, further stewed by memories of the recent War. As its membership come from all walks of the supernatural, internal bickering, corruption, and favoritism run rampant and further act to dampen the Council's fruitfulness.
Problems come from without as well. A mysterious entity calling himself the Shepherd has made appearances in some of the occult and clerical circles, lobbying for influence and favors with concerning finesse. There are whispers of ancient spirits waking up from an antediluvian slumber, an entire cabal of vampiric ancients moving into hibernation as a response and promoting panic in every echelon of the Society as a result. A number of prominent magical families within the United States have seen conflict over the upcoming Council elections, a conflict that may threaten to develop into the sparks of its own form of occult war if not stopped soon enough.
[ ] The Ecumene - An island of metastability in an ocean of madness, the Ecumene, or Terra Virata, as some travelers and scholars of ancient lore call it, experiences an endless cycle, as successive Floods of divine Mayim - the unrefined medium of the multiversal continuum - exudes from the Firmament meant to block off the Astral Sea beyond the world. Each Flood delivers new wonders and abundant dangers: landscapes, magics and monsters, new sapient races, even continents, and sometimes wholesale civilizations.
The Ecumene is dotted with countless Dungeons, the hyperspatial amalgamate remnant of worlds long-destroyed and washed ashore on its planar boundaries, and brave adventurers enter these constructs each day in hopes of coming out richer with plundered goods. Entire branches of science and sectors of industry have developed, revolving around the Floods, their consequences, and both taking advantage of them and theorizing about their nature and origin.
The Ecumene is divided amongst a motley collection of mystical kingdoms, prospering republics, river confederacies, independent city-states, and a stunning array of other nations - as well as Dark Realms, ruled by Lords and the occasional Overlord, in thrall to infernal masters and progenitors. It has a staggering medley of mortal races: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, giants, changelings, halflings, and gnomes to name only the most common of them, each with its own array of fully unique racial magics.
Each century, the Ecumene fights off the advent of a new world-shaking threat: as adolescent heroes summoned from the Human Realm pick up a legendary blade and challenge the Dark Lords, teams of adventurers discover new planar dimensions, or divine entities descend to impose their unwanted edicts on the populace in some hubristic presumption of guiding the mortals. The Ecumene is also the seat of the Erelim, a mysterious order of powerful wizards who oversee and protect the world and its people.
Magic
The systems here, common and rare, are the most versatile, interesting and potent across the multiverse. Expect more if you drift far.
[ ] Occultum (1 orb) - To occult means 'to conceal,' as every truth's worth sheds itself when revealed to undeserving minds. As someone who's come through a Revelation and fathoms a number of secret realia already, initiation is fairly inexpensive, and an accompanying measure of inerrant talent comes as naturally as breathing and walking: your knack is a prodigy's discernment, cavernous comprehensions dawning for each sufficiently explored principle. However, an inborn virtuoso is different from a fully-attained master: dare not venture too fast into Occultism's depths, lest you may be drowned by the ebb and flow.
The Occult is the foremost art of the Human Realm, practiced amongst self-acclaimed wizards and sorcerers. There are as many areas of potential specialization and learning as cultures and memeplexes, and then a couple even further beyond that. It's a reliable and versatile form of magic, operational in some fashion in almost every reality. However, it does not have the raw power of many other magics; esoteric rather than exoteric, it struggles with mighty or vulgar effects, preferring finesse and subtlety. Nonetheless, investing in research and practice, you may find the resultant repertoire of charms, artifacts, and rotes become a trusted arsenal.
For all its vaunted diversity and dormant potential, you must beware of initiating too many into its secrets, or even alerting the unawakened masses to its reality, especially on worlds capable of proliferating evidence of such unnaturality. The Occult Art has a sort of central sapience that protects its own secrets to a degree and modulates the results of its power to maintain that secrecy, as best as it can, but its reach is not limitless; a share of the burden in occulting its elements falls on you. For this reason, spells of memory removal, hypnosis, secrecy, and attention deflection are startlingly common, cheap to power, easy to learn, and fairly simple to execute.
The reason why the veil of secrecy is mandated so sternly is that Occultism is a liminal off-shoot and successor of a far more noble, Ancient science - for safety's sake, it sags and withers itself if its details become too widespread; secrets made public swiftly lose inherent meaning and quiddity, becoming nothing more than cantrips, and eventually, nothing. All the most powerful rituals are carried out behind closed doors, and most often taken to the grave; or at most, passed onto a single worthy apprentice.
Often, casting requires some manner of empowering dross. Trained Occultists have a degree of leeway or may be capable of improvisation and selectiveness: one's blood is a powerful sacrifice yet dangerously volatile in excess, invocations and chants are dependable but languid and reliant on vocal cords, and hand motions can be predictable and tiresome. The most powerful and influential of noble lineages produce scions with internal wellsprings of magical energy, obviating the need for any such gathering process.
[ ] Sightweaver (1 orb) - According to Demosthenes, nothing is easier than self-deceit: for a Sightweaver, few things are more difficult. It's the initializing foundation of simple Observation that allows a child's eyes to finally crack open, no more as barren milk-white orbs, but bearing nascent pupils and perceiving the world as a mottled monochrome smear. From there, additional Observations accrue like an invigorating cyclone of discoveries: comprehension of forms yields much clearer sight and permits the pinprick pupil to undulate, and the idea of color stains the world in its myriad shades and bestows a complementary iris.
As a Sightweaver, you wield a surface-level comprehension of material reality that comes with living: years of mundane Observations yield an impressive clarity of normal eyesight, like binoculars and a microscope in combination. You develop a number of minor Insights based on your unique perspective. As someone who's had entire facets of the multiverse Revealed to them, all development of Observation in that direction comes swiftly and easily, offering moderately more Insight for the effort spent.
The Insights of a Sightweaver are varied, dependent on a number of factors, as well as development, refinement, and practice. Each is a supernatural capacity that alters your literal perception of the world to match the metaphor, potentially even pushing the metaphor outwards to override reality. For instance, no doctors on Oculus with even a smidgeon of devotion to their profession require computed tomography or x-rays, capable of seeing the cancers, afflictions, and diseases within patients as soon as they develop; often, also perceiving the most efficient paths to removing them, or in truly developed cases of Insight, seeing versions of patients who are entirely healthy, cured of all ills, and potentially even younger than before, and forcing reality to conform with that vision.
With the ability to see the world in fresh perspectives, comes the attendant ability to meditate and turn your Observations inward in the discipline known as Self-Insight. Cultivation of the self yields enhancements: physical improvements come easily and swiftly to all Sightweavers, elevating a baseliner into someone capable of crumbling concrete and matching a cheetah's speed within only several months of effortful Observation, and there is often at least a slight accompanying shimmer of self-understanding, patience, and wisdom. Looking into a clear mirror, an incremental remolding of one's appearance is possible, although only a neurodivergent few can venture into forms outside of their own perfected ideal self. Venturing into mental amplification is extremely volatile and potentially sanity-shattering.
[ ] Evolite (1 orb) - Mankind's advancement took new heights with the creation of the Novosphere, an intangible impression on reality that enfetters all matter-energy of the universe to itself, capable of rewriting physical law. All humans are clients of the Novosphere, yet not every human is a true heir of its diffusion. The handful that do fit that category, the occasionally self-proclaimed new branch and successor of the
homo sapiens, are called Evolites: each of them is an illustrious celebrity and, more often than not, a prized asset of the Federation. Now you shall number among these dauntless luminaries.
Deliberate metamorphosis is the most common feature of an Evolite's life cycle, and can often be divided into castes of Chimeric and Cognitive Evolition, focusing on physical and mental saltation respectively. A Chimeric Evolite can become an enhanced supersoldier with an osmium skeleton, arrays of supplementary organs, and inbuilt organic weaponry, whereas a Cognitive may be a living mathematical supercomputer or a superhumanly skilled inventor or else an especially talented individual. There is also a more atypical, uncommon variant: Innovators, beings capable of reaching outward and controlling reality more directly with sheer Novospheric influence and imposing their own metaphysical realities, a competence sometimes referred to as Novacraft: anything from telekinesis and telepathy to creating space-time vortices, or more prosaic abilities.
There is often imbrication and even an Evolite steeped deeply into one category can usually dip a finger across the other side. The feat of Innovation is much rarer, an uncommon exaltation that draws curious eyes wherever it occurs. However, most Evolites rightfully fear accidental or harmful mutation that results in maladaptive or inhuman modification, a sufficiently common occurrence to act as an effective cork on Evolitionary ambition.
Inevitably, most Evolites reach a threshold called Nova's horizon, named after Dr. Lysandra Nova, a boundary after which the body's vicissitude starts to overwhelm its own systems, resulting in a painful, draining and listless demise, if not an outright deadly explosion of gore as recorded in one historic instance. For centuries now, Evolites have made brave attempts at improving those systems with deliberate, targeted Evolition, but the human body is a complex ecosystem, and unbalancing one element with added strength often causes dysfunction in others. Often, the body begins to lose its coherence or ability to cope, only accelerating the horizontal approach.
Like a bulk of Evolites, you're unaspected and have some measure of ability in each of the available disciplines, including Innovation. Furthermore, as a carrier and living transceiver of the Novosphere, your influence over yourself is especially deep compared to most: the dangers of hurried evolutions and unwanted mutations are moderately rarefied and mitigated, and the corollary instincts and benefits incisively amplified, almost smart. Although it'd take serious carelessness or reckless haste for you to evolve into a maladaptive form, and your Nova horizon is further away than most, you should be aware that both of these limitations continue to apply.
[ ] Battleborn Incantation (1 orb) - At its core, a simple art: make a covenant, such as an oath or a promise. Then, keep your word. If successful, receive might and magic to celebrate: a supernatural property reflecting your accomplishment, as well as enhancement of raw physicality. Break your promises, and lose headway in a reverse fashion: do so unrepentantly and without care, and you'll swiftly become an oathbreaker, as Incantation becomes forsworn to you.
Contrarian to its name, the Incantations can be made without a battle in mind: even an act as simple as an assurance that you'll take out the trash suffices for a technical activation. And yet, if you went about it that way, it'd be countless years of such cowardice before you saw even inconsequential elevation. The importance and meaning of one's word blossom in situations where danger and failure are a possibility and lesser entities could fail. It's on the evening before a destiny-altering battle, as soldiers eat what could be their last dinner over campfires, that Battleborn Incantation shines.
Alone, ascending the slope of significance can be difficult. All the more fortunate that Incantation is innately transmissible, its faculty automatically passed onto comrades you've fought alongside through thick and thin, companions witnessing your shows of honor empowered to show their own in turn. All benefit from access to rivals and comrades: amicable competition can result in superior harvests of meaning, and the losses incurred from failing the tribulation are significantly mitigated in such situations.
For a couple of simple examples, an Incantator who's fulfilled a boast to slay a drake may acquire the hardness of its scales and a fraction of its breath; a slayer of a hundred men could acquire immense coordination and speed to reflect the ferocity of the feat; a hero that claimed the dark lord's crown may inherit a proportional sum of his authority. Ongoing commitments, such as making an oath of lifelong service, provide the income of benefits in ceremonial moments of renewing the fealty.
Start with the fulfillment of a retroactive oath to experience a Revelation, rendering you into a superhuman in all areas of physical condition, and starkly improving your ability to predict how likely you are to succeed at fulfilling a promise as soon as you finish making it, allowing you to modulate and ramp up your efforts to match an otherwise potentially unexpected obstacle, or rest easy should you predict the fulfillment your task easier than originally anticipated.
[ ] Many-Colored (2 orbs) - All Color arises from within, drawn forth from one's creative nucleus to paint the world. The citizens of Chroma are each blessed with effervescent reserves of inner Color decided by their environment and lineage: a lifeblood that marks every aspect of their essence, its spirit ushered and ethos shaped by its Chromatic Lord, and which can be increased with absorption and artistic prowess. Most of them adhere to a single inborn shade, with some Polychromatic heretics dabbling in a circumscribed spectrum of Colors.
Naturally Polychromatic, you embody the principle of iridescence: capable of shifting the shade of your body at will, and even painting out the entire spectrum across your skin like on a canvas. Inside of you is an internal palette, containing an example of each Color, and from each Color, you may craft workings that are congruent with its tenor. An inherent capability of Polychromatic heresy is the incremental capability to gradually dissociate your own definitions from those of the respective Chromatic Lords, reframing the Color to suit your own perspectives and aesthetics: or more commonly, mixing Colors to form a greater whole. Although the capacity of your palette increases over time, its expansion is diminishing and reliant on the development of artistic character, or at least aesthetic appreciation.
As an Iridescent Polychromatic, you'll be able to achieve nearly any imaginable effect in due time, provided you have sufficient reserves and creativity. Even for an extremely talented Polychromatic, achieving fluency with a single Color is an arduous undertaking, occupying the effort of many years: it'll be decades before you've truly mastered several, and potentially millennia before you can declare yourself emperor over the entire spectrum. Still, even a mild influence over each grants you insane versatility, and there are as many potential combinations and workings as the entire wheel. A degree of specialization early on is recommended for survival if you've picked drawbacks.
Here are a couple of sample Colors from across the spectrum, written out in moderate detail:
Red - Calefaction; manipulation of fire, especially its stoking. Amplification, increasing the activity of systems, especially as thermal or vibrational energy. All miracles of thermobaric nature: explosion, combustion, detonation. Metaphorical forms of fire, such as the flames of passion and love, or enhanced acts of wrath-fueled violence.
Burgundy - All manner of construction, especially the formation of complex architecture and full-on buildings: urban spells, especially through neatly arrayed stone tiles and bricks. Defensively, can form walls, or confer absurd, building-like durability on singular targets. Architecture can defy gravity and physics to an extent if well-imbued.
Teal - Primitive Soulcraft and spiritual manipulation, struggles with complex or large-scale effects; mostly personal in scale, and often weak. Bare rudiments of calling forth Mayim, crude, dangerous, and undeveloped Astral travel. Ambitious but recent Color.
Mauve - Creation of Mauve-infused sanctums, in which reality can be incrementally altered in accordance with the Chromatic's desires, requiring constant infusion for profound effects: slow to develop, powerful and difficult to dislodge once realized. Near-effortless teleportation between Mauve sanctums, similar miracles.
Black - Paradox and dissolution, effects that are purposefully difficult to understand and comprehend: occupying every staircase inside a house simultaneously, being alive and dead at the same time, partial time-stopping, intense but extremely volatile reality-bending. Nullification or disruption of other Colors, unstable and unpredictable.
[ ] Warbrand (2 orbs) - A warrior's canvas is the self: a fact you'll have more than one opportunity to appreciate, as you carve out an alcove within the depths of conflict.
In essence, Warbrand revolves around marking oneself visibly with favors of victory and survival: scars, tattoos reflecting epic accomplishments, a necklace with a collection of severed fingers, dismembered heads as trophies of beasts killed, and so on. Each must be displayed as prominently as it can be, with decreasing effectiveness for imposition of distance or being covered. The form of a mark is of little relevance, so long as there is history and acquiring it wasn't a trivial deed: in a more contemporary setting, ribbons, medals, and even cups attached to one's belt may serve a similar function as more tribalistic marks.
Each mark displayed in such a manner supplements the Branded's strength, renders their presence an increasing pressure on reality that cows and intimidates onlookers, and eventually even the world, and offers power related to its nature: a chimera's head conferring some of its shapeshifting potential, a scar left by a lichknight's deathblade giving supernal stamina and resistance to draining effects, and a necklace of combat android cores bestowing preternatural instinct for technology and how to craft it into weapons.
Furthermore, you start with a set of basic marks: effects on the scale of a scarred eye that offers moderately effective combat precognition, an arm tattoo that can summon a protective bear-spirit with relevant attributes and a supply of limitless javelins, or a firearm with a notch for every worthy opponent 'you' killed conferring improved stopping power. The enhancement you possess is superhuman, and your presence is a deadly beast's stare, quaking lesser mortal hearts and slightly improving your fortunes.
[ ] Witchcraft (2 orbs) - There are Four Traditions of Witchcraft, each one an accursed lore containing its own ruling overtones: a distaff counterpart of Occultism, drawing on the same source of seminal insights, yet with a much darker and infernal source.
The Craft is swift and rewarding to advance in but requires matching sacrifices for development in each of its doctrines: blood, humanity, virtue, and sanity. Agony alone squeezes out the strength to wield the magic, as a more generalized source. An aching heart is an excellent source of cursed vigor from which to draw: break your own a hundred times, and you could eventually match even one of the Thirteen, the Grand Witches, the so-called Mistresses of Doom, the dearest daughters of the First.
And with that comes the potential to eventually make reality your plaything, a mere toy on a loose string or a tight leash. Your ascension doesn't have to ever stop, if the sacrifices continue to be made. The wonders of the Covenocracy are as plentiful as its horrors and debts. All inherited diseases are cured in return for the ashes of the firstborn, protection from almost all evil in return for accepting the inevitability of a single one, and even the fulfillment of all of one's innermost wishes in the hands of anyone willing to bargain with their immortal soul.
If chosen as a male, the art of Witchcraft is discounted by a single orb. Instead, you experience a curtailed advancement and steep loss of inherent talent: although your eventual heights can have a similar ceiling, reaching them shall prove far more laborious.
Here are the Traditions of commonly practiced Witchcraft. You'll start with apprentice-level expertise in two - or three, if Graceful is picked - of them:
Hemomancy - A metaphysical Tradition, it contains depths beyond its simplistic surface of claret spears, buckler-scabs and accelerated streams of burning ichor. Its real strength is the manipulation of life essence and connections: drawing stolen traits from a subject and implanting them into another, enhancing the self or possessions through essential sacrifice to consecrate artifacts, and even the complete synthesis of new and loyal life. It can also be utilized to enforce bonds of loyalty amongst soldiery or bind servants with fervor and adoration to avoid otherwise sudden yet inevitable betrayals. Once sufficient puissance is reached, your simple presence and strength of blood can overwhelm mortals, and with an exertion of will, the blood of foes could be boiled, or even made to rebel against them.
Abyssalism - Darkness, called forth and shaped to do its caller's bidding. Versatile, manifesting as crushing tenebrous arms, shadow servitors, and even the ill-defined murk within the hearts of men. However, its specialities lie in corrosion, stilling, and concealment. Concealing the self is both instinctive and relatively reliable. Even minds can be darkened, in order to sour trustful relationships or shatter psyches. A master can blot out entire areas of knowledge, censoring or redacting them with clouds of metaphorical dimness. It has a soothing aspect as well: darkening of wounds or ills is a common form of non-hemomantic palliation, although often less effective than simple healing. It can stabilize portals made with Discordism and provide some elements of structure to the other Traditions, at the trade of some power.
Infernalism - Easily the most versatile Tradition. Its foundational skill is the penning of diabolic chirographs, conferring infernal blessings: demonic mutations, access to out-of-context magic systems, minor and limited bestowals of Grace, summoning and binding of servile or unstable entities, command over Hellfire, and the development of abilities based on the Seven Sins. Always at a cost, naturally. Can also confer protection from the same: repulsion and protection, wards and bindings, leashes and chains meant for devils and demons, albeit ones that can potentially be employed against one's fellow Witches.
Discordism - All conceivable and inconceivable types of disorder, reversal, and darkly quixotic manipulations of reality. Unreliable and unwieldy on its own, exceedingly powerful and versatile in conjunction with the other Traditions. A form of potentially dangerous anti-magic that can unravel spells like a knife cutting silk. Acceleration of a building's entropy, ruination of a gambler's fortune, denial of certain elements of reality, and dangerous, barely-controllable corruption or warping of space-time or natural order: even results as comical as swapping the functions of the gas and brake pedal in a vehicle are achievable for a Discordian Witch. In return, you should surrender any hope of controlling the outcome of a spell outside of extremely minor or long-channeled invocations.
[ ] Dominion (3 orbs) - Countless millennia before the world of Earth was even a mass of heated atoms in a primordial nucleosynthetic explosion, the accession of Dominion was considered the first of the many steps on an Ancient's path. The fundament of supremacy for which their civilization had paid with blood and tears, a hard-won miracle on which every further discovery could now be peacefully staked. Now, the potential of Revelation can show you even this long-forgotten and depreciated competence.
Select a Domain, a single word around which to center your Dominion. Esoteric Domains are more difficult to employ and learn, especially early on, so the selection should be made carefully. Although you lack the immanent proficiency of the Ancients who pioneered Dominion, even feats on par with their own achievements may come in time.
For now, you are an acolyte: capable of awesome feats of basal creation and diminishment, yet struggling with more advanced or controlled workings. Further advancement comes instinctively as you come to comprehend and develop your Dominion. Assuming effortful training, adept-level effects are achievable within a week, expert-level effects within a year, master within a decade, and supreme within a century. Further attainments are possible even beyond that. An example is available below with Domain: Fire.
Acolyte - Instantly and effortlessly light or extinguish every candle in a mid-sized room, heat a cup of cocoa to adequate temperatures, create a spray of flame comparable to an aerosolized spray with a lighter, maintain a hundred-foot radius of moderately reliable pyrovoyance.
Adept - Form and shoot coalesced fireballs that can each take out a squad of mundane soldiers, steer waves of deadly flame that can make a car into molten slurry with repeated castings, leap extreme distances with bursts of propelling flame.
Expert - Create an avalanche of fire that instantly swallows a city block and then spreads out to doggedly attack the surrounding metropolis within heartbeats, resisting extinguishment much as a dutiful soldier endures the hardship of combat. Fire off long-range plasma beams or create shields of the same.
Master - Form and spread exotic and esoteric varieties of flame, such as ones that devour spirits or cannot be extinguished without first burning for seven days and nights. Incinerate even supernaturally obdurate hostiles with only your presence while preserving the lives of allies with sudden kindling of renewed health and igniting hope in their hearts. Drown an entire nation in flame overnight, leaving a significant scorch mark on a landmass the size of a continent; the fire may subside or attack the world as you wish.
Supreme - Ruthlessly feed the flame within a star to incite a rapid and destructive supernova, or stoke it sectionally to harmlessly burn out its fuel and leave it dead. Create a novel magic system based on Fire and its manipulation over the course of several years of effortful meditation, and then spark access within those you deem worthy in the range of a single coherent ontology. Create monuments of transcendent Fire that starkly defy entropy and efforts to extinguish them, fated to burn forever.
[ ] Halocraft (3 orbs) - A Halo is a construct made of condensed and spiritually encoded Grace, not unlike an attachment or modification attached to a soul: a combination of the supernal attainments of a civilization long before your time and the liminal sciences of the Ancients, one of the crowning achievements and final accomplishments of those illustrious Architects, still eminent across the multiverse, often cresting the heads of Angels.
As someone who can now fathom coaxing Grace into shape, you have the capability of crafting Haloes. Bearing a Halo can be spiritually draining, especially for beings without any inherent Grace: even the most exemplar entities struggle to channel more than one at a time. Your endurance in this capacity is celestial: an excellence that allows you to effortlessly carry twin Halos, and potentially even sleeve a third with slow, mounting tiredness that may leave you exhausted within minutes of use.
Each Halo exerts its own nature on reality and provides its bearer with an impressive host of benefits and superpowers related to its nature, decided upon its creation: superhuman attributes are common, as are various forms of lesser or partial Dominion and other supplementary magics, but almost anything is theoretically achievable. You start with one, modest Halo, its capabilities yours to decide. Although you cannot make natural Grace on your own without the accompanying choice, your skills in Halocraft are so splendid you can improvise and find other ways.
Chief among these measures, Revelation provided one already discovered by your forerunners: each human soul, as a byproduct of its intrinsic selfhood, produces its own signature emanation that vanishes the moment it comes into being and is ceaselessly replaced. They devised a means of harnessing this emanation before its fading: the adversities of suffering and evil, as flaws within the universe, have the potential to interfere with the emanation's evanescence, allowing a harvest of the prototypical energy. From there, metamorphosing this secured effluence into Grace is a simple matter of patience and numinous distillation.
If starting on Genesis, the cost of Halocraft increases by a single orb. However, in return, the Halo that you possess is an empyrean force on the world, a heavenly artifact of unsurpassed caliber, merited for the head of an Archangel or Seraph. Its Grace exerts a passive systematization of reality which can be attuned to suit your needs: attenuation of attacks, modulation of effort and result, an emission of daunting charisma, sibylline probability remodeling, and even soothsaying like fractional Revelation, and a further trinity of modestly synergistic and powerful features that you can design.
[ ] Ravencroft (4 orbs, alternate insertion) - A certain position of prominence recently acquired an opening and needs someone to fill it out. Become the Lord or Lady of the Estate of Mysteries, also known as the Ravencroft Estate. The Estate you're custodian of shall immediately transport you to the uttermost safety of its walls, to offer security and reassurance: you are, after all, bound to each other and should never be further away than strictly necessary.
It holds the form of a house constructed in Gothic Revival style, almost a castle as much as a residence: dark-shingled rooftops, iron fences and railings, stone-and-mortar masonry, stretches of red carpets in long hallways lined with standing suits of knight's plate, and profuse studies, libraries and workshops. This is the Estate's current form, but under your influence, it can steadily be reshaped to conform with your desires: architectural style can be shifted, as can the placement of individual rooms and hallways, down to the granular level of opening or closing singular doors. The Estate is occupied by a sapient force - the spirit of the house - that can enact such manipulations as well, and which is strangely bashful in most of its interactions with you, but will come out of its mousy shell over time.
On the exterior, the Estate is massive: on the interior, virtually endless like its own demiplanar realm, and similarly difficult to assail for invaders. However, intruders have trespassed and succeeded many times, as its defenses aren't truly inviolable: you are its protector for cases where it cannot do that itself. Your mind can effortlessly make sense of the hyperbolically geometrical hallways that confound all others, and you can transport yourself to any room or space within the Estate with a simple thought and crossing of a delineated boundary, with training even forming clones to inhabit multiple locations. If venturing out, you can only maintain your own true corporeality.
The inside of the house contains secrets from every corner of the multiverse, accumulated over long millennia, some of them so Ancient and volatile it shields even your eyes from seeing them. In every other respect, your access is all-encompassing, and control over the Ravencroft Estate is comprehensively unconstrained. Within, you'll find also the convened lineage of Ravencroft, the descendants of your forebears, all of whom now look on with envy as the Estate chose someone from outside their family: a clear mark of disfavor and an indication the blade that claimed the previous Lord's existence must've come from within. This convocation is yours to call off or prolong as you desire. If you so decide, you may banish them with a motion of the wrist, unceremoniously ejecting the entire family from the front door with their baggage flying right after.
Once every couple of decades, the maker of the Estate is wont to return for a short stay, as well as the dropping off of any newly acquired occult secrets and magical items. Although he may have constructed it, he doesn't mind your dwelling and making productive use of its facilities: you're the custodian of the Estate, after all. He won't be displeased so long as you haven't overly abused your authority or frivolously given away most of the treasures within. His favor may come with additional benefits attached.
There are stranger halls and rooms within the abyss of the Estate's seemingly endless basement, ones even your complete vision cannot reliably scry on: cavernous depths and even doors leading to other realms. If you find them, employ care. Here, the Estate's influence wanes, and it cannot do as much to protect you. If you ever see an archway made of basalt, a lazy fire rising within its center, run away as quickly as your feet can take you back upstairs, and do not return for at least thirty days and nights.
Rules out location-specific drawbacks. Furthermore, you become an Occultist, although with no pre-existing knowledge and the affinity expected of a talentless wash-out.
[ ] Ancient Luminance (4 orbs) - Hubris is a coward's word. Now, you'll find the meaning of that saying: the driving philosophy that resulted in the creation of Luminance, and every other working of the Ancients. Of all the Ancient works, Luminance is the cream of the crop, the finalizing stroke, the crowning achievement: its effulgence so limitless it obviated the need for any further invention and discovery. After all, how can you ever hope to craft or invent something superior to omnipotence-transcending perfection?
You are bequeathed with the secrets of the Ancients, the etymology of Archonite Ascendance. Even mere theoretical knowledge of this art's existence has resulted in the sundering of civilizations as a result of divine sentencing; even mere theoretical knowledge of mere theoretical knowledge can eventually spiral into untold destruction. It's one of the reasons why Occultism takes such effort to conceal itself, and why Witchcraft must sacrifice so much to carve out a groove independent of its origin. All because every conceivable path potentially leading to that origin ends in doom.
For all that you'll be protected from the worst of the malediction through the power of Revelation, you must still be careful not to draw attention from those on High, the Powers That Be, as their eyes can pierce even such comprehensive obnubilation: be subtle in your workings, develop as slowly and judiciously as you can afford, only ever applying your power in fractional bursts, rather than grandiose workings. If you can afford doing so, do not even attempt to employ this power and its secrets whatsoever. And if you do all that - and if, even beyond that, you are simply fortunate - in due time, you may rise beyond fear of the rebuke of those on High: and indeed, even become a peer or rival, a bacterial cosmic avenger leaping out of the scientist's abandoned Petri dish to strike them down.
If you manage to remain as subtle as wisdom demands, you can explore the unlidded truth behind reality to your heart's content, and through exploration, command it: the evangelical authenticity at the core of each Revelation, the divine construction of Grace and its applications, the contents of Life and its Emanations, and so much more that can't even be described on a mere page. All the sadder you won't be able to employ these tantalizing truths for risk of discovery: beware temptation here, as even if you employ this capability to save countless souls, you may be damning exponentially more.
Still, once you've exhausted the list of potential discoveries, the word 'God' won't even suffice to describe what you've become. All the better that you'll be able to invent new, appropriate terminology and seed it conceptually. Your predecessors chose the word 'Archon' to describe themselves.
For now, you'll start with a riveting glimpse of one Emanation, a fraction's fraction of understanding its depths. Their effects are varied, but in their crossing exists every imaginable and unimaginable effect. To name a few effects of different, distinct Emanations: creation and mastery of multiple simultaneous Dominions, matter control and generation, formation of superpowers based on the Luminant's selfhood and perception of reality, ex nihilo manufacture of vast quantities of Grace, and so much more. Almost every magic in existence is a mere off-shoot of individual Emanations of this magic.
Patience is your watchword here: a single misstep can mean death, and it'll be countless millennia before you've fully apprehended one Emanation, let alone correlated all ten, and exponentially more for every other secret that Luminance demands you study.
The sheer hubris and risk inherent in not knowing your future self's plights or actions means this option may well be considered a drawback worth its own cost - such is the hubris of selecting it. Be careful or die full of regrets.
Benefits
Orbs can also be used to improve or create opportunities for yourself. Unlisted synergies exist; consider the implications of a Graceful Halocrafter on Genesis.
[ ] Graceful (1 orb) - The Revelation can unlock an inner reservoir of self-replenishing Grace within you relatively cheaply, as Grace is the fundamental particle responsible for Revelation. Its suffusion holistically enhances and amplifies your attributes and traits, from strength to intellect, even uplifting natural beauty and charisma to the extremity of peak-humanity, and then perhaps a little further if your starting faculties were already at least somewhat impressive.
Furthermore, it holds applications relevant to the enhancement of one's magic, as compatibility is increased: you start off stronger and advance quicker. Grace itself can be expended as an efficient supernatural energy, overcoming most of the energy-cost issues of systems such as Occultism and Witchcraft. Its self-replenishing nature means even in a relatively pessimistic scenario, you're a veritable nuclear reactor amongst mere coal-fired power stations, never stranded without power.
[ ] Naturalization (1 orb) - Retroactively, the Revelation can insinuate a full history and identity in your chosen world. You'll have the second set of memories Revealed to you without confusion or undue emotional excess, and no changes to your personality or selfhood outside of the ones you assume voluntarily. The new life's broad outline is yours to decide, although you cannot ascribe yourself exceptional prominence or more than a slightly above-average level of resources and contacts.
Furthermore, you can utilize any of the magics common to the natives of your reality, as long as it's within the reasonable median of beginners or novices: on Genesis, you could be a common and crude Evolite, in the Human Realm a common vampire, cub werewolf, or dabbler in occultism, and on Oculus a clerk with well-developed eyesight, but you couldn't, for example, become a famed demigod Paragon in the Ancient World with Naturalization by itself.
[ ] Spacefarer (1 orb, requires Genesis) - For a universe as vast as Genesis, it does well to have the capacity of exploration by oneself, as the captain of one's journeys.
Design a suitable vessel capable of relevant galactic travel. The spaceship will possess an entire host of impressive amenities, modifications, and features of your choosing. It can be anything from a common dreadnought with a competent AI and skeleton crew of androids to a HW-class bulk transporter, or even a never-seen-before prototypical starfighter with top-tier stealth systems, capable of incredible maneuverability and unmatched acceleration. No matter what, its characteristics will place it squarely within the most expensive category of ships. It can be a pre-existing model or a unique one-of-a-kind vessel that draws the eye.
Furthermore, you'll be granted all of the skills and know-how needed to pilot, repair, and maintain it, with some degree of specialization to match the type of vessel: dogfighting for a starfighter, captaincy for a cruiser, and smuggler's duplicity for a prime trafficking vessel.
Theoretically, you can also use this boon to craft a mechsuit, although this choice is somewhat inefficient.
[ ] Fellowship (1 orb) - An adventure can sour without company: choose between receiving a destiny of fellowship, developing contacts, and finding a number of unlikely friends within a couple of days or weeks of your arrival (or perhaps, having already possessed them with Naturalization), or chain your Revelation to spark a new one in someone you know, with identical parameters to your own. This cannot target the author of the setting.
If you wish, you can prevent the Revelatory companions from making certain selections: whether to forbid drawbacks that may interfere with your pre-planned activities, force them to manifest in the same world as you, or even constrain nearly everything to the point of practically locking in their build for them. Beware the execution of the same idea as the one the men of Shinar employed, in fettering too many Fellowships on each other, as a domino of that nature attracts undue attention from on High.
[ ] Vibrant Vision (1 orb, requires Many-Colored and Sightweaver) - Exalted with Polychromatic access to every part of the spectrum, your eyes bloom into rainbow Color wheels and start to Observe forces entirely beyond what the typical Chromatics can normally behold: you can now access Ultraviolet and Infrared Colors with your Chromaticism.
Ultraviolet is capable of concealment and sealing, making you a master of stealth, evasion, and bestowal of status ailments, or even freezing opponents. Infrared acts as the mirror image and opposite of it, with unmatched divinations and the capacity to unlock all manner of phenomena literal and metaphorical, making you an awesome conversationalist, tracker, and investigator. Furthermore, they also have minor cryomantic and pyromantic leanings respectively.
If you're on Chroma, you can choose to become the Chromatic Lord of either one of these Colors, and potentially even both.
There are chances you may someday encounter a certain entity that'll find deep amusement and kinship in your state. Befriending them will be appropriately easier.
[ ] Favored (1 orb) - An influential somebody on the world you'll enter shall be naturally drawn to you, becoming a supportive and attentive patron of your impending ascension. They'll be selected to match your morality and methods as optimally as possible on that particular world. They can grant you concealment, or alternately elevate you to political relevance as desired. This can bestow access to uncommon resources and magics, and with Naturalization, relevance within the governing hierarchies.
Even in an absolute worst-case scenario and a selection of an incredibly unsynergistic world, your influence ought to suffice to calmly live out an existence of relative comfort with minimal effort, assuming you've selected no drawbacks.
[ ] Paragon (3 orbs, 2 on the Ancient World) - Those who scrabble and scavenge for meaning in the shadow of the Tower can find ancient relics. However, only heroes who enter the archway and brave the trials of climbing the Tower will find true significance.
These are the Paragons of the Ancient World: empowered through successive levels of Luminant ascension, armed with supernal skill and a panoply of artifacts, emergent from the trials of the Tower as stronger men and women. Now, you can number among them, spiritually departing from the Tower's archway on the moment of Revelation clad with the accouterments of a true Paragon.
Among them, you are not the peak, but nonetheless stand as an impressive specimen: your attributes are elevated well into the heights of the superhuman spectrum, sufficient to bust down a mundane castle with one punch, outrun an arrow with reflexes and wits to match, and withstand such forces on your body. The skills you possess are those of a veteran hero, specialized in whatever manner you wish: capable of batting aside an avalanche of javelins or fighting an army of a hundred to a standstill, even without your attributes. The artifacts you wield are first-rate: magical weapons, charmed gadgets, and simple conveniences far surpassing those of modern Earth.
However, the expansion of Paragonic capabilities is incremental and difficult: moments of excellence and notable achievements can spark the ideal incarnation of your soul, offering some motes of progress, although realizing these scenarios can be problematic.
[ ] Malakh (1 orb, requires Graceful) - A singularity of Grace results in you becoming a construct made of divinity called a malakh. As a result, the reservoir of Grace is expanded and the impacts of its presence are heavily magnified, allowing for its advancement, happening naturally as you fulfill your earthly tasks over the coming years.
Furthermore, you develop a Providence, a power expressing the depths of your character and identity, as well as desires and overall ethics. Consider it, for all intents and purposes, a desirable and personalized superpower. It can manifest as any category of ability or supernatural power, although for many natural malakhim, a lesser form of Dominion is common. The Providence you receive shall be as synergistic and modifiable with any Halo attached, and compatible with magics you wield, as possible.
[ ] Habakkuk (2 orbs) - An emulation of the author of this setting is stitched into your soul like a parasite, with Luminant protections to ensure it doesn't fall to madness or draw the ire of those on High with its knowledge. It can offer you indirect guidance, tips and tricks, and companionship in difficult moments.
If you're a Sightweaver, you can freely grant it a 'body' through your sensorium in the form of an invisible friend, most often as a hyacinth macaw or a young man in a bespoke azure tuxedo. It can scout for you, although even this phantasmal existence can potentially draw attention from the spiritually aware.
[ ] Outward (2 orbs) - Even with the divine strength of Revelation, you are still magically limited to merely what is already theoretically achievable within the multiverse, the crust of potential not yet broken through: the Raphaelite Enforcer believes that you - and everyone else, for that matter - can do much better than that.
Choose one of your magic systems. The Outward Loom shall have its astounding reformatting capabilities applied to the magic, reweaving it. This can produce one of the following effects: an explosive acceleration of your future progression, a vast improvement of your starting capabilities, a fundamental alteration of the magic's form, or an even mixture of each effect. The effects are exponentially more profound for cheaper and more accessible systems, as they barely even affect 3-orb magics.
Here's a number of sample revisions and alternative systems achievable, described in short:
Occultum -> Arete - A system of self-discovery rewarding accession of meditative tiers, elevating physique and spirituality.
Sightweaver -> Heartcraft - Instead of Observations, acquire Experiences with your emotions and feelings.
Sightweaver -> Eyes of Seeing Sense - Access Eyes capable of enhancing their bearer's logic, rationality, and intellect almost without limits.
Evolite -> Convolition - Become an android, capable of successive levels of self-improvement, with much fewer limits than Evolition.
Many-Colored -> Chromatic Eminence - Instead, focus on a narrow selection of Colors, in return gaining vast reserves and incredible talent, equal or better to its Lord.
Witchcraft -> Paladin - Become a Paladin, wielding divine and Angelic abilities, creating an Order that you can initiate others into, serving as its Grandmaster.
[ ] Deus Ex Machina (3 orbs) - The Ancients never commanded any magic to start with. Theirs was an ascent from discovered principles, abusing coincidental mechanisms and exploits already built into reality's hardware: starting with the creation of physically innovative marvels: machines that could devour simple matter and produce an effect.
Although the details of the process are much beyond secret, now, and even the Revelation cannot tell you of them, it was the successive refinements of base matter that allowed mere streams of mundane sunlight to remanifest as exalted orichalcum and for orichalcum to do the same as nothing less than Grace. And from Grace accumulated into a vast reservoir, the Ancients created a reality in which the supernatural was possible. From there, it was as simple as inputting a command for the accession of Dominion, and from there, everything else.
Somewhere out there, the God Engine still exists, its city-sized machinery asleep and untouched, in a space between realities. Now, by fate's decree, someday, you'll find it and its terminal shall come alive at your touch. From there, you can follow the path of those on High if you dare, or simply use the machine for power.
Drawbacks
The Revelation came with ontological protections, so your safety from parties you've had the misfortune to perceive is assured. You can voluntarily surrender these protections for additional power. A maximum of five additional orbs can be gained.
[ ] Yetzer Hara (+1 orb) - All men and women suffer from the congenital inclination to do evil, a moral corruption inherent to every human since Adam and Eve. Allow Revelation to show you the inner demons you possess: face them and see how well you'll do.
Your virtues are dampened, the moral backbone of your being impaired. This cannot make you evil on its own, as you still possess the gift of free will. However, you'll find temptation stronger than ever before, committing each transgression significantly easier to justify, a slow descent into sociopathy or animalism. It'll never pull you down much further than the cultural standard of your environment: wherever you end up, even at your worst, you most likely won't end up a monster, only a considerably immoral being.
Instead, you can select an affinity for one of the Seven Deadly Sins, allowing one of them an unusually deep level of impression on you, consequently retaining a much better grip on the remnant of your morality. In return, you'll be a near-slave to a single vice.
Alternatively to either of those, you can decide to have Revelation preserve a majority of your moral core, at the cost of forgetting everything it has shown you during its course, leaving you with nothing but power.
[ ] Adversary (+1 orb) - Justice doesn't come easily to a wretched, godless world. However, it will come for you in due time, as the incidence of your Revelation drew the eyes of an Archdemon to destroy a world of innocents. In a Revelation that followed, the cause of that atrocity was shown to a heroic individual as your needless avarice: now, a countervailing force shall be raised, every selection of their own set of choices made to counter yours as closely as possible.
A fiery-hearted youth with a sword or an elder master of martial arts, an Evolite kineticist or a Chromatic Scarlet vampire lord, and then some forces that were not even Revealed to you. The end comes in many shapes, and it'll bend specifically to obliterate you.
[ ] Disfavored (+1 orb) - An authority of the world you're entering shall acquire a vast profusion of information regarding you, your motives, and your capabilities in a subsequent Revelation - if you should have an easy means of traversal between universes, this will instead be someone capable of tracking you. Although this doesn't assure antagonism on either side, if you should have access to minacious abilities, or your goals are not congruent with the social order, you're certain to earn yourself an enemy.
Even if this shouldn't be the case under most reasonable circumstances, you should at minimum expect a more active opposition to your attempts to garner influence or accumulate further levels of power, as the authority won't look ahead to becoming a subservient vassal, a potential target, or simply a number on the tally of victims your hubris may elevate. If there's no rational reason to fear you, still they'll invent one, although it'll at least be easier to countermand. Instead of a singular adversary devoted to your annihilation, you'll meet a constant, uniform resistance of the world's systems at every step.
This can stack with other similar drawbacks to magnified effect.
[ ] Discord (+1 orb, requires Endor) - A self-rewarding Chaos, the character of Discordianism may be summarized as such:
All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.
The Discordian Coven and its paramount Witch have decided you're an interesting prize, a curiously protruding anomaly in the smooth weave of the Covenocracy: ever drawn to such aberrations, they'll desire to capture you and tear out the gifts of your Revelation, perhaps attempt to reverse the event and pass its providence onto themselves.
[ ] The Witch's Due (+1 orb, requires Endor and Discord) - It'd be sufficiently dramatic to have the attention of one of the Four Covens, but you instead are pursued by their conglomerate: the Grand Coven and its Grand Witch. You'll almost certainly have to fight for liberty and struggle bitterly from the moment you enter the world, as every resource of the Covenocracy converges on you.
Remember the Poem of the Witches, and beware magpies:
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for death,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss,
Eleven for health,
Twelve for wealth,
Thirteen, beware it's the Devil himself.
[ ] Vision of the Hunter (+1 orb, requires The Ancient World) - The Tower's apocalypse happened once, and since then, the accursed nature of men has driven the woes of conflict onward in a bloody engine. However, if you should select this drawback, somewhere in the darkest catacombs of the City, eyes of sky-blue shall open after millennia of dreadful silence, pulled out of the embrace of Death. Here arises the Hunter who mutinied against the Heavens, the rebellious grandson of the Ancients.
His Titles are countless and well-earned: the First Lord of Revelation, the First Paragon, the Architect of the Tower of Babel, the Hunter of Heaven, the All-Speaker, and even the self-proclaimed King of Shinar. He's the First to have experienced Revelation. The First to have seen the true shape of reality. The First to have realized the corruption of higher powers. The First to awaken the hubris needed to desire to strike them down. His awakening means the resurrection of the systems of the City and Tower, and the sympathetic awakening of his fellows. He'll weave miracles and wish to restore his civilization, impelled by hubris.
And you must stop his ambitions, or escape before the Ancient World experiences an apocalypse magnitudes worse than the last.
The Hunter of Heaven's name is well-earned. He'll start as merely a peak among the Ancient World's Paragons, but swiftly recall the abilities he once commanded, including Sightweaving, a Dominion of Competence, an inner reservoir of Grace, and a staggering array of abilities you're not familiar with from your Revelation. It'll all conclude with re-accession of Ancient Luminance, at which point the fate of the Ancient World is most likely sealed in stone, as unlike with you, those on High shall know of it instantly.
Escape off-world is recommended, but combat and diplomacy aren't entirely out of the question. If the King of Shinar were advised on the cause of his civilization's fall and convinced to maintain a more temperate approach, you could turn a drawback into a powerful ally.
[ ] Occluded (+1 orb, requires Oculus) - The Occlusion Syndicate is among the last surviving vestiges of organized crime on Oculus, as in almost every continent of the world, the Watch has stamped out and eliminated felonious elements with its all-seeing eyes. However, the Syndicate is a different beast: protected by Sightweavers who've acquired Insight into dodging the Observations of others, maintaining secrecy, and staying out of sight. For centuries, the Syndicate quietly accumulated influence in the corners.
Now, prompted by Revelation, they'll activate. Each member of the Syndicate shall be propelled to a number of newfound Insights, acquiring eyes with incredible powers, or awesomely improving ones they've already possessed. A level of might sufficient to challenge even the Farseer Council, swarming onto the streets and conquering entire cities. The Revelation you'll cause shall be the advent of the Great War on Oculus.
[ ] Revelatory Cascade (+1 orb, requires Genesis) - Anything created may be destroyed, as even systems of incredible endurance may fall to entropy's unraveling. It's tragic that mankind has taken this fact for granted.
The Revelation shall upset and shake the foundations of the Novosphere, tangling knots and creating singularities of chaos or inaccessibility. Entire sections of human super-knowledge shall be erased overnight, as systems of communicative megatech malfunction: quantum relays and hyperspace transmitters sputtering out with pings of terminal connection loss, the engines of spacecraft losing a significant portion of their impetus, rendering cross-star system travel difficult and slow. Across entire worlds, small fractions of the population reliant on cybernetic prostheses and organs shall return to disability or perish. A number of exotic energy reactors will almost certainly destabilize, as the safeties malfunction, causing mass destruction of infrastructure and death.
In a single heave, you'll destroy humanity's nascent space age exploration efforts, setting back its eager progress over two full centuries. In the meantime, entire colonies shall become stranded and disconnected: the eventual domino effect of extreme loss may result in as many as billions of deaths. Reconstruction of the Novosphere shall occupy a significant portion of the Federation's time, as will be establishing renewed means of stable communication. The abilities of Evolites remain mostly unaffected, although segments of the populace may experience increased risks of maladaptive mutation.
[ ] Monochrome (+1 orb, requires Chroma) - Once more, Chroma shall experience the depths of tragedy: a Chromatic Lord shall receive a Revelation of divine secrets, allowing them to elevate the might of their Color above every other. Domination and extermination of the inferior Chromatics is then only natural, as the Lord's soldiers march outward to enact the ascension of a glorious Monochrome Empire, all under a single shade and single ethos. Only the shades closest to the Lord's Color shall be spared.
The Color chosen for Revelation is random, and you won't know until you've seen the first signs of its ascendancy.
[ ] The Flock (+1 orb, requires The Human Realm) - At noon of each day to come, they'll come for you. An assembly of robed clerics, foreheads inscribed with seals of Venus and Mars, each a stark being pulsating with a strange, eldritch Grace.
There won't be an attack on you, as they do not desire your harm, at least not in a sense you'd normally consider as such - only for you to become a member of the Brotherhood. They'll employ superhuman sophistry to draw you in, every argument of enlightening rationality conceivable: from utilitarian to moral impetus, each one genuine and covenant-bound with full sincerity. It'll be an almost surreal process, much like facing a secondary Revelation, entire directionalities of reasoning as to why you should become a member. They'll be convincing and tempting to side with, even if you resist their words and try not to listen.
Kill them as you desire, the phantasms of noonday light shall return unharmed, over and over again. If after a year, they haven't succeeded, you'll instead encounter the Shepherd of this Flock, who'll reveal many truths even deeper to you. Departing amicably is not impossible, but it's also unlikely.
[ ] Dark Force (+1 orb, requires The Ecumene) - On the periphery of the Ecumene, an inhuman darkness accumulates like a pool of the abyss: one of the Archdevils, spirits of the Ancient World now contorted to evil's designs. Although the Erelim have sealed it along the ring that describes the Ecumene, they could not entirely prevent the side effects of its continuous presence. It sleeps now, peacefully and without suffering, and continues to corrupt the world slowly with its eyes closed.
With Revelation, its eyes shall open a little, abyssal might seeping into the world and choosing to exalt one of the Dark Lords into an Overlord, an ascendant emperor of everything Dark. This infernal master shall whip his new subservients into a frenzy and lead them onto a Dark Crusade in the name of their masters in Hell.
[ ] Indebted (+1 orb) -
Hello, are you in need of more power and somewhat daunted by the seeming madness of these drawbacks? Then I am your man. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rufus Vi Lotte, proprietor of the Eminent Domain, and you, hopefully, are my soon-to-be client.
I'll sell you empowerment worth a single one of these abstract 'orbs,' in return for something of equal worth down the line. You'll find I am most flexible in terms of recompense, and the power to decide is ultimately on your side. Some of the things I am most interested in currently include: a trillion dollars, a short period of effortful service for me, a couple of favors owed, or a chance to study any potentially interesting and uncommon magics that you possess.
I should mention that while I am a patient man, I must warn you against attempting to default on your loan: I am a clever one as well. Once your Revelation is finished, I'll send you a memorandum of a completed transaction, in case you choose to delete your memories. Thank you for considering my offer and have a good morning.
[ ] Photonic Visage (+1 orb, requires Many-Colored, Habakkuk, or Grace) - Marked with hatred, you'll be despised no matter where you go. Somehow, even if you are charismatic, visually stunning and appealing, and expertly conceal every possible trait capable of drawing a man's ire, it'll come to them in visions and impressions: illusionary shows of features they may disagree with, often to the point of ostracism, and sometimes to violence. Sometimes, they won't even be conscious of their own deeds.
Those affected with Fellowship possess significant resistance.
[ ] Samael's Embrace (+2 orbs) - The price of overstepping is steep.
The Reaper comes for you, and in due time, you'll have to fight off the Angel of Death itself, one of the mightiest and most terrifying combatants on the multiversal battlefield: infamous for strict neutrality during the Heavenly War, and peerless, spotless professionalism.
Only a single individual man before you ever managed to overcome this tribulation. Do you have as much faith as Him?
[ ] Naraka (+2 orbs) - The foremost craftsmen of Grace remaining within the multiverse are those corrupted servitors who reside in the Gulf Beyond, in that nucleus of infernal flame called Pandemonium, the Seat of the Morningstar.
It was meant as a prison, yet in concord with their nature, the Seven Princes of Hell rebelled against the Angelic wardens and appropriated their cell as a base of operations. Needing an empowered army to realize their strategy, they pioneered the art of squeezing Grace out of mortal souls and then lacing it around the husk of a being to create a new form of spirit: a demon. Now, foolish soul, that you've surrendered the protection of Revelation, one of the Seven is after you, intent on capturing you and exsanguinating every last drop of precious divinity you've claimed with Revelation.
Fret not, as after your near-eternity of incomprehensible torment awaits a welcome, mind-lashed servitude to your new master or mistress. The Devil isn't denied his rewards, so run as fast as you can and as far as you can. And, should the worst come to worst and they catch you, abandon all hope.
If you believe the wrath of Heaven is a terrifying thing, you have never beheld the Wrath of Hell.
[ ] Armageddon (+3 orbs) - In your next dream, you can hear the clarion trumpets arising and forming a choir, held within the hands of seven luminous figures. Your world's fate was declared and sealed. All forces within Creation shall now conspire to execute it.
It'll start in no more than a month, and won't last beyond a year: apocalypse itself. A cataclysm that shall end life as you know it. The end can take a number of forms, a predestined conclusion for each world. Horsemen to claim the Human Realm and Abaddon to contest them, a deific monster named Behemoth climbing out from Gehenna for the razing of Endor, the descent of Leviathan from the Astral Sea to terminate Genesis, and so much more.
Survival beyond the apocalypse is extremely unlikely, albeit eminently possible if you are crafty or exceptionally well-concealed and focused on early-stage empowerment, and yet what sort of life awaits you beyond it? Ashes and ruins, all of your own making. And worst of all, you'll never be able to leave this wasteland behind, as the final culmination of the apocalypse is an irreversible severing of the world from every other: even from the wings of Heaven and clutches of Hell, now only oblivion awaits the souls of those claimed by the bitter end. If you escape before the severing of the universe from the Tree, the apocalypse will simply happen on whatever new world you've visited as well: marring each one. The world shall struggle to develop past this cradle of ash, but eventually, it can rebuild itself, as time heals all wounds.
Make sure your ruined Eden is a beautiful and comfortable one. If you can even survive its end, you'll spend a long time here. Indeed, all the rest of it.
DLCs
A couple of day-one addons, made in mind with specific active players and friends of mine. Use or discard as you please. These can often be potentially unbalanced or game-breaking, or not even make in-universe sense for someone who's undergone Revelation, so take care.
[ ] Uriel's Legacy (3 orbs) -
"The Archons are malevolent, a monarchic tumor on reality's heart. How can the actions of the Fallen be wrong?
"They can, and I know this as simply as I know that you can see it as well.
"Malevolence doesn't excuse malevolence in return: an eye for an eye, and the world shall go blind."
Grants the complete effects of Graceful and Malakh, with a Providence Dominion. The Dominion must be one of the following: Light, Strength, or Kindness. Furthermore, you start with a basic, fundamental Halo that'll develop its capabilities over time as your Grace expands, but starts with almost nothing to boast of. Benefits can stack with Graceful and Malakh, allowing you to double the power of both. Both of them can now be claimed for the price of a single orb, making you a near-equal to an Archangel.
Cannot select Yetzer Hara.
*For Da Boyz.
[ ] Innocent (1 orb) - No matter the deeds you commit, or the attainments you make, you can choose to treat yourself as if you hadn't, and were conceptually 'innocent' should this act as beneficial. For instance, in a world where the concept of karma applies, you'd be able to perform evil deeds without worry about accumulating it; in a world where muggles receive some inherent protection from demonic entities, you can count yourself as a muggle even if you can cast spells, and so on.
Furthermore, you possess a lesser Grace-derived ability to conceal yourself antimemetically. An alert person can still notice you standing in a room if scanning with effort, it's simply more difficult. Has mild synergies with Occultum's spells, letting you employ most of them more effectively, and further bolstering any invocations to conceal yourself or things you care about.
After all, some secrets are worth keeping.
*For Aabcehmu.
[ ] Devil Worship (0 orbs) - Although not yet on High, your new patron would certainly desire to be, and it'll be your mission to aid Him in achieving that.
As the Lord of Wrath and Shepherd before you, become a loyal devotee of the Morningstar: whether you are devoted out of the loyalty of a vassal for a liege, an ideoreligious epiphany, the desire to bask in Him, or even lovestruck adoration. His cause is now your cause, as are His torments.
Modifies a number of choices, making them slightly stronger in a number of specific ways. This includes Graceful, Malakh, Favored, Naturalization, Halocraft, Dominion, and Many-Colored. It also modifies Habakkuk: instead of the author's, the voice speaking to you shall now be the Morningstar's, providing equally firm advice and potentially even calling in support if you should need it. If you desire, you may instead emplace the emulation of the creator within the Morningstar's corpus with accompanying Naturalization, a feat almost certain to unbalance the cosmos in a great number of ways, but also produce a patron who's more favorable to your intents.
*For Lealope.
[ ] Devil's Due (+1 orb) - For each of you horrible monsters, your rightful due: a single orb at no price, no strings attached, no demands issued. Have fun.
Alternatively, you can renounce the orb and accept a more positive, no-orb variant of Naraka with accompanying Naturalization, the affliction and torment of Pandemonium's torturers conveniently skipped to make you a surprisingly well-adjusted demon. All demons have a diverse host of inherent abilities, and you may freely choose anything within the median. Anything generally within the remit of Witchcraft is possible, as are abilities based on the Seven Sins, control over the Infernal Elements - of which hellfire is only the most popular - and multiversal travel via the crossroads. Choose to specialize or acquire a more universal set as you prefer.
*For Generic Name, They Who Watch, and Questionable.
[ ] Hellmaker (3 orbs) -
Once, it was said: "Blood for power. Kindling for Fire. Everything for Liberation." To honor one who's already created a realm of utter torment, we offer the ability to repeat that infernal miracle.
As soon as you step foot in the world of your arrival, you'll create a demiplane the size of a small city, its aesthetics conforming to your own desires, and the interior overflowing with servitor spirits of your design. An invocation of sixty-six consecutive, uninterrupted phrases spoken over a fire can open a portal: you'll remember it eidetically and without issue, a procedure carved into your very neurons.
From here starts the enterprise - acquiring souls and finding productive ways to distill Grace out of them, in order to expand your realm and broaden the ranks of workers in your demesne. Torment is most efficient, and depending on the drawbacks you've chosen, may even be necessary early on, but you needn't run a second Inferno: over time, investments into research and development may find viable alternatives:
Make voluntary deals with mortals in need, as a fae monarch, in return for a claim on their dreams which can then be flattened and kneaded into Grace. Create a realm in which vestal innocence is corrupted in massive yet sadly unsustainable bursts of divinity. Or return to the reliable classics and throw them into a Pit of Fire, boiling the Grace out of their souls.
Even the slender dross of taxed Grace you can impose is sure to result in amazing levels of empowerment. It can never turn you into an Archdevil on its own, as a devil is by definition a corrupted Malakh, but you could become an Archdemon. In due time, you could be a nigh-peer of the Seven Princes, armies of worshippers and servants alike propelling your plans to fruition.
The paths are many, each replete with its own nuances.
*For Orm Embar.
[ ] Angel Summoner (3 orbs) - Heaven: a word adorning so many lips, a dream slumbering in so many hearts, yet for naught, as on this world, no Heavenly Light shall ever come down to shine. And if Heaven won't come down, it falls to one scion of man to call it down.
Learn of the conduction of a sacrament that allows for communication with each of the Seven Heavens, and become a master of Enochian, making you able to converse with their Angelic Hierarchy and Heavenly Host. Summoning even a single Angel - let alone a celestial horde - is an intricately difficult and often lengthy process. The Heavens are not a mercenary organization or spiritual desolation: you cannot buy loyalty from their soldiers and craftsmen with mere faith or Grace, as these are things their civilization has in abundance, and even the lowliest malakh won't easily bend their knees to a mortal, whether magically compelled to do so or not. Even a mighty artifact such as a well-crafted Halo can only earn you at most a year's service from a celestial servitor or clerk, or a month's from a Power, and it'll be a most grudging form of assistance.
They are a culture driven by enlightenment and numinous benevolence. The multiverse is almost inconceivably vast, its evils as countless as grains of sand in a desert, and Hell's intercession is a constant force in many places. Your suffering and plights are a mere drop in the water tank, even inside your own world. It's difficult to authorize the assignment of even a single Principality to lay down benedictions on a mortal such as yourself, especially if done for no reason greater than selfish empowerment.
Instead of bribery and bindings, to coax Angels out of Heaven, you must offer them a righteous cause - something to justify the expense of time and effort, the ongoing cost of Angels not present elsewhere to prevent or avenge other evils. Convince a craftsman that a bestowal of a sacred blade on a chosen hero to slay a Dark Lord is an efficient use of his time, and you'll have earned yourself a blacksmith, at least for the duration of this mission. Call down battalions of winged soldiers during a time of crisis as the world comes crashing down around millions of innocents, or a Seraph during an apocalyptic battle with Hell's soldiers that may end billions of lives if not stopped.
Incisive rhetoric and well-structured logical argumentation, preferably with a backing of solid evidence, are your only ritual sacrifices committed here. Convince the Angelic Hierarchy they can do more good and prevent more evil where you are, and they'll come. As such, if your cause is righteous and you have the time to let out a call for aid, the power you can call down may put almost any other within the myriad worlds to shame.
Calling down an Archangel is considered an almost unjustifiable expense; they'd only come to strike down and smite one of the Seven Princes, and even then only if many worlds are in danger. If you selected Naraka, the Host are more likely to preemptively smite you and safeguard your soul within the Heavens, away from Hell's prying talons, than act as a convenient guardian. Likewise for any drawback that could have an egregious cost in lives. If this happens, you can at least take a measure of solace in experiencing a relatively benevolent and comfortable afterlife.
The sacrament costs Grace to conduct, although once called down, most celestials should be able to swiftly find their own way to you without support needed from your side.
Furthermore, you become a low-level Paragon and retain a minor panoply of lesser artifacts.
*For Rihaku.
[ ] High Occultist (3 orbs) - A deceptively simple privilege, exactly as written on its label. Become a High Occultist, and with it, bear all of the attendant social privileges, skills, spells, and artifacts. Essentially, you are considered as having chosen Occultum and spent over nine decades training with that level of talent, supplied with skilled crews of teachers, antediluvian stone tablets and medieval grimoires, esoteric reagents, and every other resource potentially relevant to your ascension. Yours is a wisdom of an ancient, earned over a lifetime's toil; not the mere burning talent of youth, but the realized and crystallized effort of years of back-breaking work and costly research.
If you select Occultum as well, you're considered as having practiced Occultism half as much time again under similar conditions, pushing you extremely close to the uppermost level of what a High Occultist of the Human Realm can expect to ever achieve, capable of conducting workings on a continental scale, defeating a blood-frenzied vampire elder with a monosyllabic incantation, and partaking in afternoon tea with Lord Ravencroft. Naturalization and Graceful can further skyrocket these capabilities.
As a master of the Occult Arts, you wield unparalleled might and secrets of arcane lore, and needn't fear the edict of secrecy as much as most, as Occultism veils your actions heavily, memories of incandescent beams of sky-scorching plasma plucked from the heads of mortals as soon as they see them, and even your equals in status incapable of remembering your grandest workings if you performed them right in front of them. Yours is a vigorous body containing the alchemically purified blood of drakes and fae, capable of punching through steel plate; ritualized artilleries that drown out thunder and make skyscrapers into powder, or cities into ghosts.
Design an Arcane Focus, an area in which you are considered High, such as the weaving of illusions that fool the world, epigenetic enhancement and magical territories that can alter ecosystems into phantasmal wonderlands, or traversing the multiverse with the use of mirrors.
*For Brightwing.
[ ] Witchell's Column (1 orb) - Give up blood. Abandon your humanity. Cast aside virtue. Leave sanity behind.
The Covenocracy's mottos in support of their Traditions are countless, each concealing monstrous inhumanity and blood-stained tears shed for scraps of relevance in a dark and uncaring world. The Witches suffer as well, as bound by sin and infernal collars as they are. Should you follow in their footsteps, or forge a greater legacy?
Become a Paladin, a warrior once deemed virtuous by Heaven, with a self-replenishing reservoir of Grace and innate prowess in every field and skill even tangentially relevant to knighthood, such as riding, fencing, diplomacy, and etiquette. As the Last Paladin, you do not belong to a Paladin Order, and can instead create one from the ashes and dust of faith, forming your own paradigm of faith with its own idiosyncratic abilities; whether a conqueror of faithless nations, or a divine teacher of providence. Furthermore, you can study and absorb the Seven Nephilima, the Luminant dross of the children of Angels, conferring abilities based on your Virtues, instead of your Sins.
If a hybrid of a Paladin and a Witch, you are considered Fallen; instead of a shining hero, a corrupt black knight. In such a situation, you may combine the Traditions of Witchcraft and the Orders of Providence for a staggering intersection of corrupted abilities. In return, you surrender any hope of studying the Nephilima, or ever redeeming your soul; a chosen servant of Hell, rather than Heaven. In such a situation, you may not select Naraka or Photonic Visage.
The adventure ahead shall challenge every preconception you've made of these myriad worlds. May God have mercy on you.
*For Magical Duck.
