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The Streetwalker's Guide to the Hierarchy

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[X] Plan TAAANK
-[X] Muscular and Osseous Refinement
-[X] Hardness of Iron
--[X] Distort, 3.5 Import (effectively 7)
-[X] Organ Refinement
--[X] Ears

[X] Plan Learn Our Lesson

Yeah we are not doing that yolo thing. Riiight?

edit:
Ears should give minor improvement to awareness of surroundings and potentially useful for listening to the street
 
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I assume TAAANK is only distorting by 3 because 4 wastes half an import? If so, I'd suggest putting 3.5; Import is gained in decimal amounts, so I don't think there's any in principle reason you wouldn't be able to pay decimal import in this case. (And if not, there's still no cost to having said '3.5, or 3 if 3.5 isn't a valid number' just in case!)
 
fame said:
[X] Plan TAAANK
-[X] Muscular and Osseous Refinement
-[X] Hardness of Iron
--[X] Distort, 3 Import (effectively 6)
-[X] Organ Refinement
--[X] Lungs

Yeah we are not doing that yolo thing. Riiight?
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I think this would be more popular with Good Looks! Dorian shouldn't need much energy from O2 given his myriad supernatural energy sources.
 
I think Distorting the Refinement of Eyes has the potential for extremely interesting synergy with Masks; relatedly we could refine the Face instead of just the Eyes.
@Birdsie, are we supposed to be voting by plan here? Also, what are your rules on approval voting? Does it dilute argument power?
Rihaku said:
I think this would be more popular with Good Looks! Dorian shouldn't need much energy from O2 given his myriad supernatural energy sources.
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I'd expect Lungs to be more about vocalization - and thinking about it, we should be investing in our singing ability, because that helps with Street Attunement. (I thought there was a good reason to consider Ears.)
 
Dorian shouldn't need much energy from O2 given his myriad supernatural energy sources.
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I assume TAAANK is only distorting by 3 because 4 wastes half an import? If so, I'd suggest putting 3.5; Import is gained in decimal amounts, so I don't think there's any in principle reason you wouldn't be able to pay decimal import in this case. (And if not, there's still no cost to having said '3.5, or 3 if 3.5 isn't a valid number' just in case!)
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Good points, edited plan. I'm slightly against good looks since in my mind it might make dorian look less authentic to beings with very strong senses or other things that would cause them to ignore the charisma effect (and as "general beauty" is to a significant part about having a more "average" and symmetric face, especially if it's tailored towards being attractive towards the most people possible, it may make him less "distinctive"), so I'd pick ears for now as it may be helpful with the street

eyes may also be good, though I think it overlaps a bit more with the oracle of midnight than ears (*because I expect better eyesight to be used less in situations where we shouldn't be wearing the oracle of midnight)
 
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HoratioVonBecker said:
I'd expect Lungs to be more about vocalization - and thinking about it, we should be investing in our singing ability, because that helps with Street Attunement. (I thought there was a good reason to consider Ears.)
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If that's the point, then it'd be better to put 'Write in: all Organs related to signing' or a write in on the general level for whatever singing enhancement Dorian thinks is best. The lungs have other purposes, such as respiration.
HoratioVonBecker said:
I think Distorting the Refinement of Eyes has the potential for extremely interesting synergy with Masks; relatedly we could refine the Face instead of just the Eyes.
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I'm not sure why distorting the eyes would do that. I can see the connection for distorting the face, but you only mention Refining it (and I expect mundanely refining it would have little effect.); is that just an omission?
(It should be noted that the connection of Masks to faces is more practical than fundamental; even a consistent online persona can qualify as a Mask under the right circumstances (per discord), so the system is fundamentally about your identity, the world, and concealing the former from the latter, not about the mundane task of placing objects between the front of your head and most nearby locations at head-height. If Dorian interpreted it that way (and blasted his face with Facelessness like a moron), Good Looks could probably turn his face into a Mask!)
 
It's interesting since I assume it is fairly common for (at least drethirian style) masks to obscure every part of the face except for the eyes, despite eyes being considered quite important to identity - think of how eg. wearing sunglasses changes the perception of a person. That combined with eyes having many magical / similar cultural associations makes it sound very plausible, though it still seems speculative.

As an aside it may interact with the alteration his eyes already have - the x-ray vision
 
Some other observations:

*Dorian's boldness is one of his more interesting character traits that Solomon and Ishida (to a degree) lacked. Rather than retreating into timidity, I would prefer he undertake calculated risks with concrete and potent rewards such as these. This one is almost unique in that it directly improves competence too, pushing the acceptable risk envelope for everything he does.
*If we don't fix Dreamless we'll keep getting bombarded with options that partially fix Dreamless rather than interesting proactive votes.
*Speaking of, the conceptual healing granted by Crimson King will further mitigate any downsides of a risky plan here.
*The comparison to Am Not is somwhat unfair: this risk utilizes a system explicitly called out as possessing innate safeguards that will prevent a tragic fate. It also presents an immediate, concrete and enormous reward (increased intelligence) that we can directly spend Import to proactively improve!
*Improving Dorian's physical parameters via Osseus + Mineral is tempting, but Dorian took Crimson King rather than the combat mask because we wanted to focus on more humanitarian themes; King Crimson requires us to construct world-shaking biological systems which improved competence will help with massively. On the other hand, making Dorian stronger and tougher does very little to advance that goal.
 
Rihaku said:
Which is precisely why we spend 7 Import mitigating those risks!
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Indeed; the nature of Distortion means we should buy maximum safety, and maximizing gains on that probably means going cheap (subdermal armor) or going big (mutate our brain mutations into a reflection of our subconscious).
Uh. That probably won't cure Dreamless, actually.

[X] Cerebrospinal Refinement [Takes 2 Refinements]
-[X] Distortion; 7 Import
[X] Organ Refinement - Choose a specific organ to enhance in a more focused manner:
-[X] Face
[X] Organ Refinement - Choose a specific organ to enhance in a more focused manner:
-[X] All organs related to singing
[X] Organ Refinement - Choose a specific organ to enhance in a more focused manner:
-[X] Eyes
[X] Muscular and Osseous Refinement
[X] Hardness of Iron
-[X] Distortion; 3.5 Import
-[X] Craft and wear The Taurean first, with the goal of replacing our lost power armor
JOEbob said:
(It should be noted that the connection of Masks to faces is more practical than fundamental; even a consistent online persona can qualify as a Mask under the right circumstances (per discord), so the system is fundamentally about your identity, the world, and concealing the former from the latter, not about placing objects between the front of your head and most nearby locations at head-height.)
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Huh. I thought Masks were a lot more closely tied to the face-as-communicative-organ, not just face-as-personal-identifier. That implies that a properly prepared makeup kit - or uniform, or handpuppet, or even vocal persona - could be used the way Masks are.
I really want to try the Muppet thing now - it sounds very relevant to my background project of figuring out parallel masking. @Birdsie, does Drethir have ventriloquists? Do their powers change based on current puppet? I'd expect yes to both, though not necessarily in a way easily distinguished from a mask that, like, switches powers based on the environment.
 
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[X] Plan TAAANK

I would strongly prefer Good looks here, but the two +stats % options are my top priority.

[X] Plan To Boldly Go
I also support this gambit.
 
Wait a sec guys, this is our chance! Our chance to have... special eyes.

[X] Plan To Boldly Go
[X] Cerebrospinal Refinement
[X] Distort Cerebrospinal Refinement. Spend 7 Import, focusing on mitigation of the outcomes Dorian would personally consider worst.
[X] Muscular and Osseus Refinement

[X] Plan The Honored One
[X] Muscular and Osseus Refinement
[X] Write-In: Blood King's Sight (2 Refinements) - Eyes, ocular nerves, and attendant visual processing cortex with incredible, bordering-on-impossible levels of perceptiveness, analysis and hypnotic appeal. The eyes develop a clearly unusual hue and signature tessallated pattern as a result. An almost ideal channel for Visceral power through eye contact; an iconic emblem and memetic attractor for Barakah accumulation.
[X] Distort Blood King's Sight. Spend 3 Import. Mangekyo Sharingan Distortion takes these themes into the realm of the openly supernal. Viscerality Example:

*Further enhances Visceral effectiveness by a half-rank, stacking with the Crimson Lord bonus, so long as the target is either yourself or in eye contact with you. Eye contact counts as touch when it would be convenient for your use of Viscerality.
 
[X] Plan To Boldly Go
[X] Cerebrospinal Refinement
[X] Distort Cerebrospinal Refinement. Spend 7 Import, focusing on mitigation of the outcomes Dorian would personally consider worst.
[X] Muscular and Osseus Refinement

Let's, fucking, gooooo!

What is Import for, if not to make awesome the tremendously risky? The ability to retain skill over longer stretches of time, combined with increased ability to acquire skill, should not be underestimated.
 
Thou livest but once.

Tbh my main issue is that I don't really find whole competence thing interesting enough to vote for it. Although skill boost is neat. Tank is good but ears are like whatever. Mmm. I mean, we are told to experiment, so lets try some cool shit

[] Plan Adonis
[] Good Looks
[] Hardness of Iron
-[] Distortion(3.5 Import)
[] Adonis: An advanced Viscerality technique that combines Distorted Hardness of Iron with Good Looks. By imbuing specific Distorted Materials you can gain certain personal qualities: a look at you can invoke terror, or peace of mind or your personality might seem (literally) magnetic

A neat plan that focuses on expanding Good Looks by combining it with Hardness. Should probably just have some cool in story descriptions as well.

That being said, while making this I realized the best way to go about this:

[X] Plan Vulcan
[X] Hardness of Iron
-[X] Distortion(3.5 Import)
[X] Vulcan(2 Refinements): Advanced version of Hardness of Iron. You can imbue enough of worldly materials to render a targeted limb or an organ unto "biomechanical artifact". This in turn allows you to use Hammer to fuse items with such parts of your body as per Hammer's own rules

I think that this is probably the way to go. Integrating Hammer into our Viscerality should enormously expand its scope. Not only would this let us just fiat effects well beyond remittance of our current Viscerality skill, but it will also serve as an incredible way to increase our Viscerality skill as we try and understand what the fuck is Hammer doing to make things tick. In practice it will also let us make a very cool looking "this right hand of mine" and we will get some cool scenes with Musorov as we are doing cool magi-bio-tech shenanigans.
 
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