Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Do we even have material needs? We have our gear, we have food and such taken care of...I think?
The Lighthouses and the Pit (Fantasy Mage Quest)
- Thread starter occipitallobe
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- PA
[X] Sell Them, Aid the People
Jagged Edge demands that you live in a harsh world. You accept this, but you do not accept the world must always be harsh. Sell these shards you have acquired, take the money to give it to those you will drive the city. Give them food, tools, and weapons to defend themselves with. Perhaps they will die, but you will do your very best to ensure they live. Accept the world in all of its cruelties, but do not accept that it must remain cruel.
Frankly...They basically turn into gold, that's their worth as far as we're concerned right? What else are we going to do with that gold? Even if buying better swords is a thing I get the impression what we REALLY want in terms of getting stronger is to simply train and hone our skill, so that we can actually take rough fights and win, and not tie down another mage like Grand Axe to baby-sit us.
...Though I suspect we're gonna get baby-sat for a bit just to be sure we don't go off the rails since we established that we do that with our last outing.
Jagged Edge demands that you live in a harsh world. You accept this, but you do not accept the world must always be harsh. Sell these shards you have acquired, take the money to give it to those you will drive the city. Give them food, tools, and weapons to defend themselves with. Perhaps they will die, but you will do your very best to ensure they live. Accept the world in all of its cruelties, but do not accept that it must remain cruel.
Frankly...They basically turn into gold, that's their worth as far as we're concerned right? What else are we going to do with that gold? Even if buying better swords is a thing I get the impression what we REALLY want in terms of getting stronger is to simply train and hone our skill, so that we can actually take rough fights and win, and not tie down another mage like Grand Axe to baby-sit us.
...Though I suspect we're gonna get baby-sat for a bit just to be sure we don't go off the rails since we established that we do that with our last outing.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm not really sure what we could use the money for to be honest. That said, I'm also not sure how much we can help them apart from making their demise slightly more comfortable. Maybe they'll make it to an encampment but neither the trip nor their haven will be particularly safe. We might even end up chasing them off again if they're too close.
This option, it rings of false kindness and dishonesty. At least with the execution there'd be no pretending we weren't killing people...
[x] Keep Them
This option, it rings of false kindness and dishonesty. At least with the execution there'd be no pretending we weren't killing people...
[x] Keep Them
- Location
- Straya
Your material needs are ultimately power curve/survival needs. Even minor magical artifacts can be traded for favours (no small thing from a Spellthief), or potentially other useful items that would help Swallow survive. Helping people comes with a cost, which is expressed as a worse time versus power tradeoff, and ultimately a lower survival rate in riskier situations.
Madalgia is wealthy in the context of a devastated continent and a near-extinct humanity, but this isn't a society so abundant material goods are going to cease to be a concern any time soon, so you'll always be able to trade wealth for favors/artifacts.
Money translates directly into power in reality. To give some context, the artifact you could've started with (had the thread opted for the Pit Scavenger start) would have put you well above Grand Axe in terms of power from the get-go (once you had magic), though your power curve would have suffered as as result.
- Location
- Brazil
[x] Keep Them
- Location
- PA
I figure it might be plausible for a spell thief to just constantly bottle the magic from their second pool, yes, but the flipside I imagine is that Spell-thiefing your own magic has it's limitations. Spell-thief is probably most solid as a solo art, frankly, especially since I'm willing to bet it doesn't 'play nice' with internal magics like the Bladebound thanks to how you need skill to go along with the magics, assuming such things wouldn't do things like permanently swipe some of a Bladebound's personal investment of magics from themselves...
- Location
- The Geth Collective
[X] Sell Them, Aid the People
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Certainly interesting to think of synergies.
Canceller/Bladebound is potent, muting the capabilities of Darkspawn while killing them. Or muting the abilities of opposing mages and killing them. Runesmith/Bladebound has a simple, power synergy of making items and using those items. Shaderunner/Bladebound is probably the most optimal for Pit-Diving. Pity third/fourth ascension has been lost - Imagine the capabilities of a Shaderunner/Bladebound/Runesmith...
Canceller/Bladebound is potent, muting the capabilities of Darkspawn while killing them. Or muting the abilities of opposing mages and killing them. Runesmith/Bladebound has a simple, power synergy of making items and using those items. Shaderunner/Bladebound is probably the most optimal for Pit-Diving. Pity third/fourth ascension has been lost - Imagine the capabilities of a Shaderunner/Bladebound/Runesmith...
- Location
- PA
*Crosses arms*
...These colouration choices worry me. Because as much as some of you in the thread might be looking forward to trying for ascension yet again, I personally believe if we make the wrong choices we'll need to burn fate points like candy to actually make it work as opposed to going one woman-murdertrain like the queen that ruined Orthia...
[x] Keep Them
So, IDK if going too far one way or another with Orange Greed will be a problem but...We'll just have to see.
...These colouration choices worry me. Because as much as some of you in the thread might be looking forward to trying for ascension yet again, I personally believe if we make the wrong choices we'll need to burn fate points like candy to actually make it work as opposed to going one woman-murdertrain like the queen that ruined Orthia...
[x] Keep Them
So, IDK if going too far one way or another with Orange Greed will be a problem but...We'll just have to see.
- Location
- scrabbling
[x] Keep Them
[X] Keep Them
I honestly really wanted to sell the artifacts and help them, as even just a little bit of food to make travel easier, weapons to defend oneself or hunt, and tools to get started are invaluable time savers to set up. Then I remembered the previous vote, and we were told that all those negative options are going to be taken. This includes burning out the settlements, and that's where those people we force out are most likely to go. While it would still be valuable, I don't doubt that the statement that forcing people out into the wilds is usually a death sentence to be untrue or exaggerated.
I honestly really wanted to sell the artifacts and help them, as even just a little bit of food to make travel easier, weapons to defend oneself or hunt, and tools to get started are invaluable time savers to set up. Then I remembered the previous vote, and we were told that all those negative options are going to be taken. This includes burning out the settlements, and that's where those people we force out are most likely to go. While it would still be valuable, I don't doubt that the statement that forcing people out into the wilds is usually a death sentence to be untrue or exaggerated.
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[X] Sell Them, Aid the People
I know it's probably not going to make a big difference, but I want Shallow to at least try to help people. Yeah, it might somewhat hamper her in the moderate run (don't think either option will have an impact on the really long run), but I don't want Shallow to accept this blood money.
I know it's probably not going to make a big difference, but I want Shallow to at least try to help people. Yeah, it might somewhat hamper her in the moderate run (don't think either option will have an impact on the really long run), but I don't want Shallow to accept this blood money.
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Keep Them
- Location
- Lost!
[X] Sell Them, Aid the People
Small kindnesses, I guess?
Small kindnesses, I guess?
- Location
- scrabbling
Is money you don't spend to help someone really blood money? While we don't know about the ultimate origin of the shards, Swallow got hers from saving the merchants. That doesn't seem like blood money to me.
ChildishChimera
A umbran summon
- Location
- New York
[X] Sell Them, Aid the People
- Location
- Straya
Spellthieves have storage limitations as their 'pool' of magic, though those limits do tend to be *significantly* higher than a regular mage of the same longevity. A fully-charged Spellthief might be able to cast ~7-8 times (depending on how they've distributed their power) as much as a mage of the same class. Their primary weakness is that they're D&D wizards to some extent - they have to 'prepare' spells and can't simply cast what they want.
A Spellthief can steal a Bladebound's spell (like Severing Distance) - they steal effects, not spells as such, so they don't need to have a blade to recast it. In fact, once Swallow gets going, Severing Distance is something Spellthieves *love* to trade for because it's a cheap (Bladebound have no casting limitations) escape spell. Admittedly they're not super interested in ~50 cm of movement right now. This is why these shards are so valuable - they let Spellthieves duplicate what they already hold, meaning they have much more flexibility at their fingertips until they use the shards.
Runesmith gets some really cool synergies if it happens to be on a Second Ascension mage - even beyond the obvious.
- Location
- Straya
It is a possibility. There is a path, (though extraordinarily unlikely for most of the more tremendous accomplishments), for Swallow to do everything up to and including restoring the Age of Light.
The answer to that would be incredibly difficult to find, though Swallow could definitely start looking at these sorts of things if she had an academic interest at some point.
[X] Sell Them, Aid the People