OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[X] Mercy
[X] Upgrade Crimson Lord to the King In Crimson (5 Import)
[X] Upgrade Crimson Lord to the King In Crimson (5 Import)
The Streetwalker's Guide to the Hierarchy
- Thread starter Birdsie
- Start date
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Maximum Power
The Unchosen One
- Location
- The Ormulum
Do they know, chat? They don't know!! 🤭
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Talaces talk of incentive structure and further prey hunting to feed our lions got me on
[X] Cut
[X] Upgrade Crimson Hunter to The Huntsmaster (5 Import)
[X] Cut
[X] Upgrade Crimson Hunter to The Huntsmaster (5 Import)
So lets talk builds. Once we get Lions, they will get Pawn abilities from the start, and afterwards we can buff them with Viscerality and make them Masks. There are three main builds we can focus on, and don't forget that we do have two Lions so we can have them have different builds if we so desire. The first one is obviously just STATS build; Lions start at about 37 stats each, then you buff them with Visc(say about +7 stats or so), then you Pawn them with Brawn Pawn(so another 7 or so stats) and finally you make them CL equivalent, although for them it would be more something like Pride of the Wild or some such, which would give them another 20-30 stats depending on certain factors. In total they would have upwards to about 80 stats of pure carnage with relatively minimal investment on our part, which is to say we can probably do this before we fight Lieutenant. Very relevant, especially when backed with Rank.
Second build would be the one that focuses on lion roar aspect of their abilities. Viscerality wouldn't be as useful here, although we should have some ability to enhance their ability to roar, air capacity and similar parameters, however it should be very easy to make Mask such as Troubadour and then have also something sound related with Pawn abilities. This would trade pure stats for overwhelming ranged firepower, which is always useful. This should also branch nicely into buffing with roar abilities, which Lions already do to an extent. Potentially a powerful build, for sure.
Final one is BUFF build, where we just give then supportive Pawn ability and build some kind of support Mask from them to carry. In this build they are much weaker when it comes to pure combat ability, however these buffs can potentially have higher impact if they enhance us in correct ways. For example, give one of the Lions Pawn ability that enhances aspect of our own Rank, by adding honor or endurance.
In theory a build that focuses on Rank build, but it probably makes more sense to let Rank alone and instead have a powerful build that will get enhanced by Rank instead.
On the topic of Rank itself, I suspect that there are other ways to gain it. We would have to venture into this world and find out what those ways are, but given how Rank seems to function it seems that it is similar to Masks, just do stuff. We'd probably want to get some Rank for all our guys, and perhaps see if there is a way to have Masks develop their own Rank, given how similarly they accrue power.
Second build would be the one that focuses on lion roar aspect of their abilities. Viscerality wouldn't be as useful here, although we should have some ability to enhance their ability to roar, air capacity and similar parameters, however it should be very easy to make Mask such as Troubadour and then have also something sound related with Pawn abilities. This would trade pure stats for overwhelming ranged firepower, which is always useful. This should also branch nicely into buffing with roar abilities, which Lions already do to an extent. Potentially a powerful build, for sure.
Final one is BUFF build, where we just give then supportive Pawn ability and build some kind of support Mask from them to carry. In this build they are much weaker when it comes to pure combat ability, however these buffs can potentially have higher impact if they enhance us in correct ways. For example, give one of the Lions Pawn ability that enhances aspect of our own Rank, by adding honor or endurance.
In theory a build that focuses on Rank build, but it probably makes more sense to let Rank alone and instead have a powerful build that will get enhanced by Rank instead.
On the topic of Rank itself, I suspect that there are other ways to gain it. We would have to venture into this world and find out what those ways are, but given how Rank seems to function it seems that it is similar to Masks, just do stuff. We'd probably want to get some Rank for all our guys, and perhaps see if there is a way to have Masks develop their own Rank, given how similarly they accrue power.
Providence - Choice of Fealty
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
[X] Mercy
[X] Crimson King
---
Choice of Fealty
You've acquired new Pawns! Adopting these Lions as Pawns - on top of Linneas and Japhris - has caused you to reach the ceiling of your capacity to maintain and induct Pawns, although this'll be even further expanded with time. Your choice of King's Attainment will help you choose a method of further advancement.
To start, choose the abilities of your newly inducted Pawns. You can choose a different ability for each, but there'll be a minor symmetry effect bonus if the same abilities are chosen for both of them.
[ ] Beast Incarnadine - Grants auto-biokinesis to the Lion, about half as powerful and one-fourths as fast as Dorian's current Visceral refinement. Immediately increases strength and durability and heals some of the inflicted wounds. Grants the Lion a fiery-red mane and crimson fur, although biokinesis permits change from this baseline.
[ ] Savannah Prowler - Ancestral might and predator's instincts; the Lion develops a Hunting Skill of near-supernal potency. It does not develop beyond that on its own, unless further Ranks as a Pawn are attained. This is still a tremendously helpful faculty to have; decades of training condensed into one power package.
[ ] Lionized - Increases all of the Lion's natural abilities evenly, including a minor investment of Barakah. Allows the Lion to eventually attain a Heterodox Promotion into a Lion Piece, similar to a Knight Piece, albeit with the addition of powerful stealth, awe, and explosive strength boons.
[ ] Write-in (no stronger than at most eight-tenths of either of the above)
And secondly, choose your First Attainment of the King:
[ ] King Crimson - Whose hands shape wonders.
Grants the ability to channel Viscerality through your Pieces as if you were physically present inside of them. As long as you aren't separated by more than a city's worth of distance, your tissues are one. The uses are obvious: via emotional examination and emanation, receive information and deliver orders. Heal and enhance subjects who require aid. Enhance those you most care about without necessitating physical presence. There is also offensive potential: attacking with Visceral pathokinesis counts as if several Visceralists were working in tandem, allowing for psychic onslaught of potentially mind-crushing strength. However, such actions still require passion and the ability to focus on the task: doing three different things at once is not viable. The potential of such a power is awesome, as is its potential for abuse.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with acts of incredible, world-transforming creation or change; no amount of minor crafts or acts will contribute to your growth, but instead, you must create marvels that astonish the world, even if the nature or value of these marvels is mostly metaphorical, such as turning around the life of a great hero.
[ ] King Scarlet - Whose words conjoin blood.
Makes Pieceship hereditary with no additional costs to yourself or your faculties. If one parent is a Pawn, the odds of a child being a Pawn are about those of a successful coin toss. If both of the parents are Pawns, the child shall always be a Pawn. Any Piece higher than a Pawn increases the odds of Pawnship at birth even more; sufficiently powerful pairings could even spawn children with several starting Ranks. The abilities of such a 'child Pawn' are nebulous, undecided and fully mutable until no earlier than a minimum level of maturity is attained; for most species, this'd be puberty, or about the time of the tenth birthday for an average human being.
Ridiculously potent in theory - near the apex of a starting King's powers, as you could eventually rule over an entire Kingdom of nothing but paranatural Pawns rather than baseline mortals - yet so very unlikely to find use in a short-term.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with official acknowledgment and the formation of a prosperous and orderly society. This cannot be a mere village or a township, although it can certainly begin as one, but rather a true nation capable of standing on its own merits and earning the recognition of its neighbors.
[ ] King Carmine - Whose blade is cold strife.
Alters the abilities of your Pieces, forevermore and retroactively: all Pieces and their abilities are significantly better at - and more versatile in - combat, and slightly although not monumentally worse at all tasks unrelated. Conquest of other nations and the slaying or enslavement of their 'hero units' can pool the defeated's excellence and might in your own hands; your fields become more fertile as theirs are made fallow with salt and fire, and your court enchanter's wisdom and sagacity show a redoubtable magnification when the enemy kingdom's sorcerer is ritualistically burned at the stake.
Furthermore, should a person ideologically aligned with you, who knows of you, and genuinely believes in your ethos - advance your cause in any of the manners described above, or a manner which'd naturally expand your Kingship, they'll be automatically inducted and Promoted to a Knight, at no further cost to yourself. Strife is power.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with meaningful conflict, defeat of adversaries, subjugation of monsters, and conquest.
Other configurations of Attainment are not, at present, possible.
Your new mask:
[a color-soon-to-be-determined] King [100 Potential]
Hunter-King [100]
*Elevation of all corporeal Attributes as well as one's Charisma and force of personality. +50 Strength, Constitution, and Agility when donned, as well as +25% to their worth. +20 Wits and +15 Charisma. +15% to their worth as well.
*Instead of a dull brute hemokinesis, the dominion of the King is more conceptual and indirect, wielding power over genomes and life-force, but it synergizes well with the fleshcrafting aspect of Viscerality. It can even raise the parameters of others to a moderate degree in a limited but permanent fashion.
*Grants enhanced healing when in proximity of those who've sworn loyalty or friendship to you. Number of companions, as well as salience of the bond, accelerates recovery. This effect is stronger and more conceptual than casual Visceral healing or hemokinetic absorption, and can even aid you from recovering from various Conditions.
*Grants, while worn, supernal skill: Taming [7.2]. No supernal techniques developed yet, but you can develop them yourself.
*As long as the Mask is donned, your Viscerality's an effective tier higher in execution [2.0 - Apprentice -> 3.0 - Journeyman, etc]. Your Viscerality also improves noticeably faster, as if you were practicing the craft or pursuing interests an extra hour for each two mundane hours spent doing so.
---
Although sentient, the Lions are poor at communication (unlike some of their elders, these ones can't casually produce speech.) However, given your visible confusion over the forces at their commands, they'll still convey some very rudimentary information about the native magic system of this world.
The commonly accepted name of that force which saved the Lion from your blood-bolts is Barakah, and its nature is nothing less than a form of heroic providence - not heroic in moral sensibility, so much as in the narrativistic sense of how certain creatures have an excellence or greatness, an inherent and characteristic larger-than-life quality, that allows them to stand heads and shoulders above others. For this reason, an individual's Barakah is most often measured by how many men's worth of destiny one bears. Apparently it can either be an inborn quality - conferred via random kismet, or because one's ancestors were also great - or acquired through worthy deeds.
It seems there's a lot more to Barakah than what is described above, but that's about as much as your Lion servants can communicate via crude pantomime, Barakah-laden impressions, and Visceral empathy. To receive more data, you'll have to ask someone more educated and, potentially, human-like.
Coincidentally, you've acquired about eighty men's worth of Barakah, hued with concepts such as rulership, mastery, and hunting - in that rough order of priority, enhancing actions taken appropriately. However, it should be noted and accounted that Dorian isn't aware of this or its value beyond the most instinctive sense of having gained some kind of favor or protection, and won't have any idea how much Barakah he wields until he's actually been looked at with a moirometer.
---
After this is all over, you'll return to camp and finally confront Japhris about the entire Arcanist business (finding her miserable but surprisingly not as angry as you'd expected), so what's your approach there?
[ ] Follow the Plan - Just allow the Mask Without Name to do the brunt of the talking and impromptu therapy and only intervene when necessary. You were skeptical at first, but your new companion hasn't failed in any of its endeavors yet. Distancing yourself temporarily might even be preferable.
[ ] Moral Appeal - Assuming you're in a somewhat more gambling mood, you could also spin your mercy towards the Lions in a more benevolent fashion.
[ ] Write-in
[X] Crimson King
---
Choice of Fealty
You've acquired new Pawns! Adopting these Lions as Pawns - on top of Linneas and Japhris - has caused you to reach the ceiling of your capacity to maintain and induct Pawns, although this'll be even further expanded with time. Your choice of King's Attainment will help you choose a method of further advancement.
To start, choose the abilities of your newly inducted Pawns. You can choose a different ability for each, but there'll be a minor symmetry effect bonus if the same abilities are chosen for both of them.
[ ] Beast Incarnadine - Grants auto-biokinesis to the Lion, about half as powerful and one-fourths as fast as Dorian's current Visceral refinement. Immediately increases strength and durability and heals some of the inflicted wounds. Grants the Lion a fiery-red mane and crimson fur, although biokinesis permits change from this baseline.
[ ] Savannah Prowler - Ancestral might and predator's instincts; the Lion develops a Hunting Skill of near-supernal potency. It does not develop beyond that on its own, unless further Ranks as a Pawn are attained. This is still a tremendously helpful faculty to have; decades of training condensed into one power package.
[ ] Lionized - Increases all of the Lion's natural abilities evenly, including a minor investment of Barakah. Allows the Lion to eventually attain a Heterodox Promotion into a Lion Piece, similar to a Knight Piece, albeit with the addition of powerful stealth, awe, and explosive strength boons.
[ ] Write-in (no stronger than at most eight-tenths of either of the above)
And secondly, choose your First Attainment of the King:
[ ] King Crimson - Whose hands shape wonders.
Grants the ability to channel Viscerality through your Pieces as if you were physically present inside of them. As long as you aren't separated by more than a city's worth of distance, your tissues are one. The uses are obvious: via emotional examination and emanation, receive information and deliver orders. Heal and enhance subjects who require aid. Enhance those you most care about without necessitating physical presence. There is also offensive potential: attacking with Visceral pathokinesis counts as if several Visceralists were working in tandem, allowing for psychic onslaught of potentially mind-crushing strength. However, such actions still require passion and the ability to focus on the task: doing three different things at once is not viable. The potential of such a power is awesome, as is its potential for abuse.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with acts of incredible, world-transforming creation or change; no amount of minor crafts or acts will contribute to your growth, but instead, you must create marvels that astonish the world, even if the nature or value of these marvels is mostly metaphorical, such as turning around the life of a great hero.
[ ] King Scarlet - Whose words conjoin blood.
Makes Pieceship hereditary with no additional costs to yourself or your faculties. If one parent is a Pawn, the odds of a child being a Pawn are about those of a successful coin toss. If both of the parents are Pawns, the child shall always be a Pawn. Any Piece higher than a Pawn increases the odds of Pawnship at birth even more; sufficiently powerful pairings could even spawn children with several starting Ranks. The abilities of such a 'child Pawn' are nebulous, undecided and fully mutable until no earlier than a minimum level of maturity is attained; for most species, this'd be puberty, or about the time of the tenth birthday for an average human being.
Ridiculously potent in theory - near the apex of a starting King's powers, as you could eventually rule over an entire Kingdom of nothing but paranatural Pawns rather than baseline mortals - yet so very unlikely to find use in a short-term.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with official acknowledgment and the formation of a prosperous and orderly society. This cannot be a mere village or a township, although it can certainly begin as one, but rather a true nation capable of standing on its own merits and earning the recognition of its neighbors.
[ ] King Carmine - Whose blade is cold strife.
Alters the abilities of your Pieces, forevermore and retroactively: all Pieces and their abilities are significantly better at - and more versatile in - combat, and slightly although not monumentally worse at all tasks unrelated. Conquest of other nations and the slaying or enslavement of their 'hero units' can pool the defeated's excellence and might in your own hands; your fields become more fertile as theirs are made fallow with salt and fire, and your court enchanter's wisdom and sagacity show a redoubtable magnification when the enemy kingdom's sorcerer is ritualistically burned at the stake.
Furthermore, should a person ideologically aligned with you, who knows of you, and genuinely believes in your ethos - advance your cause in any of the manners described above, or a manner which'd naturally expand your Kingship, they'll be automatically inducted and Promoted to a Knight, at no further cost to yourself. Strife is power.
Your Kingship is henceforth expanded with meaningful conflict, defeat of adversaries, subjugation of monsters, and conquest.
Other configurations of Attainment are not, at present, possible.
Your new mask:
[a color-soon-to-be-determined] King [100 Potential]
Hunter-King [100]
*Elevation of all corporeal Attributes as well as one's Charisma and force of personality. +50 Strength, Constitution, and Agility when donned, as well as +25% to their worth. +20 Wits and +15 Charisma. +15% to their worth as well.
*Instead of a dull brute hemokinesis, the dominion of the King is more conceptual and indirect, wielding power over genomes and life-force, but it synergizes well with the fleshcrafting aspect of Viscerality. It can even raise the parameters of others to a moderate degree in a limited but permanent fashion.
*Grants enhanced healing when in proximity of those who've sworn loyalty or friendship to you. Number of companions, as well as salience of the bond, accelerates recovery. This effect is stronger and more conceptual than casual Visceral healing or hemokinetic absorption, and can even aid you from recovering from various Conditions.
*Grants, while worn, supernal skill: Taming [7.2]. No supernal techniques developed yet, but you can develop them yourself.
*As long as the Mask is donned, your Viscerality's an effective tier higher in execution [2.0 - Apprentice -> 3.0 - Journeyman, etc]. Your Viscerality also improves noticeably faster, as if you were practicing the craft or pursuing interests an extra hour for each two mundane hours spent doing so.
---
Although sentient, the Lions are poor at communication (unlike some of their elders, these ones can't casually produce speech.) However, given your visible confusion over the forces at their commands, they'll still convey some very rudimentary information about the native magic system of this world.
The commonly accepted name of that force which saved the Lion from your blood-bolts is Barakah, and its nature is nothing less than a form of heroic providence - not heroic in moral sensibility, so much as in the narrativistic sense of how certain creatures have an excellence or greatness, an inherent and characteristic larger-than-life quality, that allows them to stand heads and shoulders above others. For this reason, an individual's Barakah is most often measured by how many men's worth of destiny one bears. Apparently it can either be an inborn quality - conferred via random kismet, or because one's ancestors were also great - or acquired through worthy deeds.
It seems there's a lot more to Barakah than what is described above, but that's about as much as your Lion servants can communicate via crude pantomime, Barakah-laden impressions, and Visceral empathy. To receive more data, you'll have to ask someone more educated and, potentially, human-like.
Coincidentally, you've acquired about eighty men's worth of Barakah, hued with concepts such as rulership, mastery, and hunting - in that rough order of priority, enhancing actions taken appropriately. However, it should be noted and accounted that Dorian isn't aware of this or its value beyond the most instinctive sense of having gained some kind of favor or protection, and won't have any idea how much Barakah he wields until he's actually been looked at with a moirometer.
---
After this is all over, you'll return to camp and finally confront Japhris about the entire Arcanist business (finding her miserable but surprisingly not as angry as you'd expected), so what's your approach there?
[ ] Follow the Plan - Just allow the Mask Without Name to do the brunt of the talking and impromptu therapy and only intervene when necessary. You were skeptical at first, but your new companion hasn't failed in any of its endeavors yet. Distancing yourself temporarily might even be preferable.
[ ] Moral Appeal - Assuming you're in a somewhat more gambling mood, you could also spin your mercy towards the Lions in a more benevolent fashion.
[ ] Write-in
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Pawn abilities seem mostly similar, a relatively minor buffs to overall effectiveness. Unless we have specific reason to get different Pawns getting same ones for bonus makes sense, and I am interested in heterodox promotion promised by Lionized.
Carmine is too edgy and Scarlet is perhaps too unobtainable. The absurd potential when combined with Viscerality and Mask is hard to overstate; we could engineer beings that breed fast and mature even faster, augment them Viscerality and craft Masks for them, to gain a mighty host we would command. Yet while powerful this doesn't seem like something easily done given the context of the Street - although this would perhaps make leaving the Street a viable strategy.
In either case it leaves Crimson as sort of default choice.
Finally, lets just stand back and let Mask cook.
[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Crimson
[X] Follow the Plan
Carmine is too edgy and Scarlet is perhaps too unobtainable. The absurd potential when combined with Viscerality and Mask is hard to overstate; we could engineer beings that breed fast and mature even faster, augment them Viscerality and craft Masks for them, to gain a mighty host we would command. Yet while powerful this doesn't seem like something easily done given the context of the Street - although this would perhaps make leaving the Street a viable strategy.
In either case it leaves Crimson as sort of default choice.
Finally, lets just stand back and let Mask cook.
[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Crimson
[X] Follow the Plan
I'm still mulling over our color. Crimson is obvious, but it is also perhaps the least powerful out of the three. We have other ways of obtaining communications, remote healing is only ever of use when you need it and mental attacks have tendency of being resisted by people who really matter. Not to say that having casually long range communication is bad, but it doesn't wow me that much. It's useful.
Its kingship is about doing stuff, which is not that hard to accomplish. Given out powers creating great works is relatively simple, as we can build great artifacts or even conjure mighty bloodlines with ease. Still this does require a degree of effort. Notably however, Crimson doesn't have in built way of generating Pawns, which is perhaps the biggest weakness of this color.
Scarlet, on the other hand, kinda doesn't do anything. It has a great deal of potential, but much of it requires us to do thing we probably won't be doing. Creating a sort of Alien invasive species that goes around laying its eggs inside people to create "children" that mature quickly and do the same would be a easy way to use this to its fullest potential, and yet it is clear that we won't do something like that. Worse still, its kingship of creating lasting societies is even harder to accomplish, which would make leveling up our Kingship even harder.
Still, this is a powerful "epilogue option" kind of choice. If we pick this as "do nothing" option, sometimes way ahead we have an opportunity of seeing amazing super kingdom come to fruition. In the same manner, one could see its kingship as useful challenge, something to strive for. Creating orderly nations is something worthwhile, after all.
Finally, Carmine. It too does nothing at start, outside of making Japhris' Pawn power more useful, but its ability to evolve Kingship with ease by just killing stuff, and its ability to easily acquire Knight pieces make it very potent mid term. The true issue lies in its absorption powers which, while undoubtedly potent, are also rife with potential of leading us astray.
Mm:
[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Scarlet
[X] Follow the Plan
To be clear, Scarlet does nothing here, and its advancement requirements are the weakest out of the three by a good margin. But this is precisely why I pick it; my ultimate desire is to have Dorian be a force of good in this wretched multiverse of countless apocalypses, and limitations of Scarlet will force us to evolve in a way I find most agreeable. It will not be easy, to turn into a forger of dynasties in truth, but with clear goal laid out by Scarlet the effort can be leveraged and that is the first step to the true success.
As such it is not a option that gains us value, but rather challenge to overcome and be better for it.
Its kingship is about doing stuff, which is not that hard to accomplish. Given out powers creating great works is relatively simple, as we can build great artifacts or even conjure mighty bloodlines with ease. Still this does require a degree of effort. Notably however, Crimson doesn't have in built way of generating Pawns, which is perhaps the biggest weakness of this color.
Scarlet, on the other hand, kinda doesn't do anything. It has a great deal of potential, but much of it requires us to do thing we probably won't be doing. Creating a sort of Alien invasive species that goes around laying its eggs inside people to create "children" that mature quickly and do the same would be a easy way to use this to its fullest potential, and yet it is clear that we won't do something like that. Worse still, its kingship of creating lasting societies is even harder to accomplish, which would make leveling up our Kingship even harder.
Still, this is a powerful "epilogue option" kind of choice. If we pick this as "do nothing" option, sometimes way ahead we have an opportunity of seeing amazing super kingdom come to fruition. In the same manner, one could see its kingship as useful challenge, something to strive for. Creating orderly nations is something worthwhile, after all.
Finally, Carmine. It too does nothing at start, outside of making Japhris' Pawn power more useful, but its ability to evolve Kingship with ease by just killing stuff, and its ability to easily acquire Knight pieces make it very potent mid term. The true issue lies in its absorption powers which, while undoubtedly potent, are also rife with potential of leading us astray.
Mm:
[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Scarlet
[X] Follow the Plan
To be clear, Scarlet does nothing here, and its advancement requirements are the weakest out of the three by a good margin. But this is precisely why I pick it; my ultimate desire is to have Dorian be a force of good in this wretched multiverse of countless apocalypses, and limitations of Scarlet will force us to evolve in a way I find most agreeable. It will not be easy, to turn into a forger of dynasties in truth, but with clear goal laid out by Scarlet the effort can be leveraged and that is the first step to the true success.
As such it is not a option that gains us value, but rather challenge to overcome and be better for it.
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[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Crimson
[X] Follow the Plan
[X] Plan Majesty
[X] Plan Carnage
[X] King Crimson
[X] Follow the Plan
[X] Plan Majesty
[X] Plan Carnage
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Rihaku
The Internet
Wouldn't Dorian not be much constrained by 'ability to focus on the task' given his Mask gives +23 Wits? I imagine mental processing would only become an issue when attempting to coordinate hundreds of emotional attacks.
Carmine is cool and potentially competitive but the name is lame. Petition to change it to Incarnadine and switch the Lion sub title to Carmine… or perhaps, given Dorian's new taming focus, just Red (much like a certain Pokemon protagonist) King!
If the names stay as they are, I'll likely vote Crimson.
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Speaking of stats, our Charisma(probably 3~4 base, some amount from Cloak(+5?), +15 then additional x1.15) should be around 27, which combined with our Barakah being primarily command based in nature should allow us to command baseline humans quite well. We have glasses as well as yet another social implement. All in all we should be able to handle speaking very well going forward. Pity that our social is likely to be crippled still in the upcoming confrontation.
I want to say that the Mask seems somewhat less impressive than most 100 point masks, but I guess it does have a bunch of various powers, many of which are either conceptual, stage breaking or rare.
I want to say that the Mask seems somewhat less impressive than most 100 point masks, but I guess it does have a bunch of various powers, many of which are either conceptual, stage breaking or rare.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Here are some plans that make use of write-in Pawn powers to reduce character bloat and improve synergy:
[X] Plan Majesty
-Lion 1: Majesty - Straightforwardly increases unit's Barakh. The unit's King may utilize its Barakh themes when convenient. Unit may channel up to half its Barakh to its King, increasing his Barakh in a linear fashion (assume it is always doing this except when alone). Magnitude of Barakh increase is the maximum allowed given these other constraints and the 80% power limit.
-Lion 2: Symbiote - The unit may shapeshift into a powerful symbiotic being that somewhat resembles the Carnage symbiote, with its Barakh flavoring tinged with themes of symbiosis, augmentation and healing. It may merge with a being to very substantially boost the power, control and versatility of their Viscerality, to a degree determined by the GM (this grants them weak biokinesis for the duration of symbiosis if they lack it). It's still conscious and shares senses with beings when merged, and this state is pleasant for it. When combined with Able Pawn II and the Crimson King, this makes Dorian a veritable hurricane of Visceral force.
-[X] King Crimson
-Regarding Japhris, generally follow the plan, but make use of your now enhanced Charisma and already above-peak-human social instincts to aid the Mask whenever possible. Talk to it about strategy beforehand so you don't get in each others' way, use the earphones to scry Japhris, have Linneas hype you, etc.
-When you have time, craft a Symbiote Mask for the Symbiote Lion and a Majesty Mask for the Majesty Lion. These masks enhance their Pawn abilities to the greatest extent practical, by means direct or indirect.
[X] Plan Carnage
-Lion 1: Pride - The unit's King receives a bonus halfway between the DeMar Pill and Japhris' Indomitable Self: he is capable of withstanding moderate levels of Fixation without personality changes, is highly resistant to external mental influence (especially hostile / supernatural), and has a powerful kingly will that strengthens his clarity, objectivity and decisiveness in all things.
-Lion 2: Symbiote (as above)
-King Carmine
-Change the name 'King Carmine' to just 'Red King'
-Regarding Japhris, generally follow the plan, but make use of your now enhanced Charisma and already above-peak-human social instincts to aid the Mask whenever possible. Talk to it about strategy beforehand so you don't get in each others' way, use the earphones to scry Japhris, have Linneas hype you, etc.
-Time permitting, craft a Symbiote Mask for the Symbiote Lion and a powerful defensive Mask for the Pride Lion. The former enhances Symbiote to the greatest extent practical, by means direct or indirect. The latter focuses on making its user extremely resilient in the face of harm.
[X] King Crimson
Strength of the Pride allows us to safely (?) get moderate levels of Fixation in our new uber Mask, which should be a greater single power buff than anything else. It also prevents Dorian from total moral decay at the incentives presented by the Red King. If Dorian can maintain his sanity & ethics, Red King offers the most straightforward path to liberation of Drethir: imagine the Imperial Visage broken before us, its powers and potential absorbed by our own Mask to bring this entire matter full circle!
[X] Plan Majesty
-Lion 1: Majesty - Straightforwardly increases unit's Barakh. The unit's King may utilize its Barakh themes when convenient. Unit may channel up to half its Barakh to its King, increasing his Barakh in a linear fashion (assume it is always doing this except when alone). Magnitude of Barakh increase is the maximum allowed given these other constraints and the 80% power limit.
-Lion 2: Symbiote - The unit may shapeshift into a powerful symbiotic being that somewhat resembles the Carnage symbiote, with its Barakh flavoring tinged with themes of symbiosis, augmentation and healing. It may merge with a being to very substantially boost the power, control and versatility of their Viscerality, to a degree determined by the GM (this grants them weak biokinesis for the duration of symbiosis if they lack it). It's still conscious and shares senses with beings when merged, and this state is pleasant for it. When combined with Able Pawn II and the Crimson King, this makes Dorian a veritable hurricane of Visceral force.
-[X] King Crimson
-Regarding Japhris, generally follow the plan, but make use of your now enhanced Charisma and already above-peak-human social instincts to aid the Mask whenever possible. Talk to it about strategy beforehand so you don't get in each others' way, use the earphones to scry Japhris, have Linneas hype you, etc.
-When you have time, craft a Symbiote Mask for the Symbiote Lion and a Majesty Mask for the Majesty Lion. These masks enhance their Pawn abilities to the greatest extent practical, by means direct or indirect.
[X] Plan Carnage
-Lion 1: Pride - The unit's King receives a bonus halfway between the DeMar Pill and Japhris' Indomitable Self: he is capable of withstanding moderate levels of Fixation without personality changes, is highly resistant to external mental influence (especially hostile / supernatural), and has a powerful kingly will that strengthens his clarity, objectivity and decisiveness in all things.
-Lion 2: Symbiote (as above)
-King Carmine
-Change the name 'King Carmine' to just 'Red King'
-Regarding Japhris, generally follow the plan, but make use of your now enhanced Charisma and already above-peak-human social instincts to aid the Mask whenever possible. Talk to it about strategy beforehand so you don't get in each others' way, use the earphones to scry Japhris, have Linneas hype you, etc.
-Time permitting, craft a Symbiote Mask for the Symbiote Lion and a powerful defensive Mask for the Pride Lion. The former enhances Symbiote to the greatest extent practical, by means direct or indirect. The latter focuses on making its user extremely resilient in the face of harm.
[X] King Crimson
Strength of the Pride allows us to safely (?) get moderate levels of Fixation in our new uber Mask, which should be a greater single power buff than anything else. It also prevents Dorian from total moral decay at the incentives presented by the Red King. If Dorian can maintain his sanity & ethics, Red King offers the most straightforward path to liberation of Drethir: imagine the Imperial Visage broken before us, its powers and potential absorbed by our own Mask to bring this entire matter full circle!
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We tried using Pawn to halt ravages of Fixation already, and it had proven to be remarkably useless at that. We have better avenues to pursue, such as Hammer or Contamination, although these would require time and removal of Dreamless. In either case Fixation only becomes an issue above 1.3, so for now we should focus on healing up Dreamless. Once that is done and we have time to train, we can start on figuring out how to reliably tweak Fixation using Contamination or some such.
Ultimately Pawn buff abstracts to +4 physical stats(Pawn > Heavy Pawn diff), its not potent enough to enable that big of a change.
Ultimately Pawn buff abstracts to +4 physical stats(Pawn > Heavy Pawn diff), its not potent enough to enable that big of a change.
Rihaku
The Internet
No, it explicitly prevented further negative changes to Japhris but couldn't revert the existing changes. That's overkill for what we want - merely to strongly mitigate the changes of a lower level of Fixation.
Wouldn't that just prevent Fixation, instead of effects of Fixation? Having stronger character would mean that we can withstand the personality of the Mask without Fixating, but to get boost from Fixation you need to actually Fixate. The Hammer solution with Mask of X works because the Fixation would change our character into our character, so you didn't have to fight it.
Perhaps it would be better if we focused on this:
Perhaps it would be better if we focused on this:
Give Lions something like an ability that would increase the potency of this ability by increasing our comradery on some conceptual level or just have them count as multiple companions(i.e. Unity/Gemini Pawn or some such). If it stacks we can give it to both so we gain symmetry bonus as well.
Well this just turned the Kingship and "power at a price" moral dilemmas up to eleven didn't it.. At least on second read the Crimson channeling probably isn't really a panopticon kinda deal.
And man, imagine the salt if we had picked the tower of dusk when something that is so much better was just around the corner. Bullet dodged. (well, if we trust the claimed OOC knowledge about dusk's downsides that someone posted)
As for the picks, I see two 'obvious' paths:
Doubling down on potential and long-term payoff by picking 2x Lionized and Scarlet, as a natural continuation of the empowered "indirect" mask pick. Scarlet seems by far the least morally problematic form of evolved kingship, and Lionized probably will result in the most desirable pawn upgrades. (More fate boosts!) The downside is missing out on raw power and utility from the other kingship choices and leaving the lions heavily injured for the upcomong confrontation.
Or maximum synergy with 2x Beast Incarnadine and Crimson. And oh boy is that a lot of synergy. The mask we already have seems almost perfectly tuned individually for pretty much every aspect of viscerality, from physical self-boosting, to (the subtler forms of) fleshcrafting, to mental manipulation and healing. On top of just the raw "++viscerality skill". And Crimson expands it to function at a much larger fraction of the full self-directed power to pawns and across great distances, with the lions being tailored specifically to enhance that effect upon them.
Scarlet gives me the idea of "seeding" outposts of the kingdom across the multiverse. In a way that kind of reminds me of The Wise King.
The ability for pawns to create more pawns may allow them to be self-sufficient. It's kind of funny how Crimson would allow (probably, eventually, maybe at epilogue-only timescales) to remotely boost and communicate with the "kingdom outposts" from multiversal distances, but we can't have both Scarlet and Crimson at the same time (presumably.)
And man, imagine the salt if we had picked the tower of dusk when something that is so much better was just around the corner. Bullet dodged. (well, if we trust the claimed OOC knowledge about dusk's downsides that someone posted)
As for the picks, I see two 'obvious' paths:
Doubling down on potential and long-term payoff by picking 2x Lionized and Scarlet, as a natural continuation of the empowered "indirect" mask pick. Scarlet seems by far the least morally problematic form of evolved kingship, and Lionized probably will result in the most desirable pawn upgrades. (More fate boosts!) The downside is missing out on raw power and utility from the other kingship choices and leaving the lions heavily injured for the upcomong confrontation.
Or maximum synergy with 2x Beast Incarnadine and Crimson. And oh boy is that a lot of synergy. The mask we already have seems almost perfectly tuned individually for pretty much every aspect of viscerality, from physical self-boosting, to (the subtler forms of) fleshcrafting, to mental manipulation and healing. On top of just the raw "++viscerality skill". And Crimson expands it to function at a much larger fraction of the full self-directed power to pawns and across great distances, with the lions being tailored specifically to enhance that effect upon them.
Scarlet gives me the idea of "seeding" outposts of the kingdom across the multiverse. In a way that kind of reminds me of The Wise King.
The ability for pawns to create more pawns may allow them to be self-sufficient. It's kind of funny how Crimson would allow (probably, eventually, maybe at epilogue-only timescales) to remotely boost and communicate with the "kingdom outposts" from multiversal distances, but we can't have both Scarlet and Crimson at the same time (presumably.)
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Packmate - Increase the theme of Lion Barakah to include fellowship, allowing Lions to use their aura to foster and enhance camaraderie between King and his subjects
[X] Packmate x2
[X] King Scarlet
[X] Follow the Plan
The idea is to make the most out of conceptual healing of our new Mask, so we can finally start undoing Dreamless. As its healing is based on number of companions and strength of their bond, this should be a great way to relatively cheaply boost the power of our recovery
[X] Packmate x2
[X] King Scarlet
[X] Follow the Plan
The idea is to make the most out of conceptual healing of our new Mask, so we can finally start undoing Dreamless. As its healing is based on number of companions and strength of their bond, this should be a great way to relatively cheaply boost the power of our recovery
Rihaku
The Internet
We proposed making a Mask of Dorian Croft a while ago and Birdsie said that previous extant examples of such masks resulted in extremely adverse side effects. The DeMar pill, which this Pawn ability mimics, explicitly lets you benefit from some degree of Fixation without personality change.
Scarlet can be made viable by giving the Lions a Pawn ability that allows them to quickly spawn beings that qualify as children. Binary fission is probably the most promising path, though there would need to be a cooldown or generational degradation to balance the ability. But King Scarlet sounds lame so I'm strongly against it.
- Location
- Louisiana
[X] Lionized x2
[X] King Carmine
[X] Follow the Plan
Strife is goated
[X] King Carmine
[X] Follow the Plan
Strife is goated
