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The Streetwalker's Guide to the Hierarchy

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Oooh now I really want to see the aftermath of the zombie world. Especially if it had a timeskip and whatshisname is now a grizzled old survivor.

"You!"

Masked zombies go so hard. Now throw in the inevitable faceless zombie horde..

Or what happens when a vampire becomes faceless?
 
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Is there any reason why are we not swapping over to Facelessness vote? If you are concerned about Facelessness = evil, it is basically just a magic radiation we are already immune to, and outside of that any hostile creatures or people shouldn't be worse than hostile creatures or people we would meet in any other world. And there is no easier and safer way of getting a powerful ability than just crafting Artificer and putting our starter tier magic we have 7.9 skill in online. Especially since we don't really have to do much, find some supplies, craft the Mask and we can just fuck off whenever we want afterwards.

With some luck we might even find some local ~20 Potential craft mask to jumpstart starting Potential of our masks.
 
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Alright, lets make a definitive list of masks to craft in order of relevance:
  1. Artificer: Our current Gordian Knot, which we are trying to cut through by going to Facelessness world. This one is rather obvious. We could consider crafting a spare, given the rate at which we are losing this one
  2. Screen: Probably our strongest mask thus far, just a ton of value. It could be that we lack materials to make it here, in which case we should skip it
  3. Musurov's Mask(s): Something for our boy. Realistically we can play support until we are fully back, so just get utility and directly support Musurov's abilities in the meanwhile
  4. Social mask: Our new default mast to wear when talking to people
  5. Specter: It performed very well before, so no reason not to make it. Maybe we should make a second one for Musurov?
  6. Mask of Masks: Our new swap solution
  7. Storage Mask: Generically useful
  8. Bard: For Street Attunement
That's eight. Assuming 30m-1h for each, that's a day of straight work, although we would need materials. Musurov might help there.

Mooneater and Crimson Angel are two missing here - I'm mostly not sure that they bring enough power over just making more generically useful abilities.
 
Wolfy said:
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Mooneater's true utility is as a moonlight battery if we choose to do the lycantrophy-Visceral graft thing. Or the lunacy to passion conversion. If we are in a position where Dorian needs immediate physical prowess. Mooneater's blaster function isn't important while we have Musurov in the party, or the summon. We can forgo them entirely in favour of a pure battery.

I would put it over Specter at the very least. Moonlight powered Visceral feats are not to be underestimated..

Edit: If we had the spare Artificer we could set Musurov to participate on mask making too. He'd bound to have some mad science ideas for them..
 
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Wolfy said:
Is there any reason why are we not swapping over to Facelessness vote? [...] And there is no easier and safer way of getting a powerful ability than just crafting Artificer and putting our starter tier magic we have 7.9 skill in online. Especially since we don't really have to do much, find some supplies, craft the Mask and we can just fuck off whenever we want afterwards.

With some luck we might even find some local ~20 Potential craft mask to jumpstart starting Potential of our masks.
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We already have crimson lost, which makes the power jump from getting maskcrafting back not as big as it seems. Sure if we spent all the 2-4 weeks on the next world just grinding masks back up, it would be pretty strong, but may be considered boring. And the creativity problem would hinder any quicker maskcraftings.

Also a new magic system, possibly one that may be very hard to get without the Wish, is just going to seem more interesting (and shiny!) than getting the old magic system back on track quicker.
 
fame said:
We already have crimson lost, which makes the power jump from getting maskcrafting back not as big as it seems. Sure if we spent all the 2-4 weeks on the next world just grinding masks back up, it would be pretty strong, but may be considered boring. And the creativity problem would hinder any quicker maskcraftings.

Also a new magic system, possibly one that may be very hard to get without the Wish, is just going to seem more interesting (and shiny!) than getting the old magic system back on track quicker.
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Crimson Lost is a combat mask, while true power of maskcraft lies in utility(i.e. Screen) and ability to support Musurov.

I've got no idea why creativity keeps getting brought up, it will affect everything, i.e. we had issues healing werewolf in this very update. Masks offer a possible immediate remedy.
 
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Wolfy said:
I've got no idea why creativity keeps getting brought up, it will affect everything, i.e. we had issues healing werewolf in this very update. Masks offer a possible immediate remedy.
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Healing was about emotion. I think where creativity was mentioned was with the "steam -> pressure -> force". I'd expect creativity to be more important in mask crafting than with many other endeavours.
 
I'm not going to lie, if whatever ability we end up getting turns out to be weaker than just Screen precog I will be livid. To say nothing if we get monkey pawed into this being some kind of "trade soul for power" demon deal world.
 
[X] Resting Place

Voting as a game, some kind of power consolidation makes sense. But voting as a narrative, Dorian just got clobbered by some dream psychoanalysis and then had his entire identity stripped and re-varnished. It would be good to circle the wagons and recover a bit. Also, as a travelogue it makes more narrative sense to have a beat of "high luxury" right after seeing multiple apocalypses.
 
Even if our Creativity ends up turning out to be so bad it keeps us from making Masks to order- which I don't think is plausible, after a certain point you can get effectively-analogous 'creativity' via rigid-logical-expansion-processes, so at most it should lower the quality rather than limit breadth- we could just ask Musorov or some random person we encounter on the street or Street for the basic theme and expand on and execute it using our high technical skill.
(Plus once we have Mask-craft back up we can probably make a Mask for +creativity, design the masks while wearing it, and then actually craft them without. Making a mask for creativity is easy you just dump rainbow paint all over it. Even if steam turbines are 'strangely imaginative', that's not imagination, it's retrieving a cached lookup for 'something associated with art and creativity'.)
 
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Post-World Report (Demimonde) + Destination Choice
  • Threadmarks
    • Post-World Report (Demimonde)

    Conditions

    Dreamless (Near-Absolute)
    *Your Second Aspect is severed from the oneiric. You cannot experience dreams.
    *Your Second Aspect is heavily drained of creativity and innovation; difficulty of non-iterative action is raised dramatically.
    Remaining Duration: Permanent.

    Stress (Moderate)
    *A constant trend of exposure to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic worlds is starting to paint an ugly picture of the multiverse.
    *Compounded by failure to achieve your goals on Drethir.
    *Compounded by failure to achieve your goals on Demimonde.
    *Compounded by recent temporary Facelessness.
    *Is the Street trying to tell you something?
    *Decreases overall effectiveness, especially cognitive and social. Decreases happiness.
    Remaining Duration: ???, may soon upgrade to Stress (High).

    Faceless (Lingering)
    *Your self-schema is weakened and more malleable.
    *Fixation may occur faster with certain masks, may not occur whatsoever with others.
    *Minor feeling of confusion and psychodynamic uncertainty.
    Remaining Duration: ~3 days to downgrade to Faceless (Residual); can be accelerated with identity-affirming actions and environmental influence.

    Import: 3.2

    Attributes
    STR: 4.5
    CON: 5.5
    AGI: 6.5
    WIT: 4.5

    Available Skills:
    Craft (6.8, near-Master - Masks)
    Deception (6, Elite - Acting)
    Socialize (5.2, Expert - Noble Etiquette)
    Stealth (4.2, Adept)
    Fencing (4.1, Adept)
    Singing (4.1, Adept)
    Linguistics (4.1, Adept)
    Anatomy (1.5, Novice)

    Mask: Crimson Lost [33 Potential]
    Battle Tendency (17) - Increases all combat-applicable skills and attributes. +10 STR, CON, and AGI when worn, and +20% to their worth.
    Blood Hunter (16) - Blood control and hemokinetic regeneration. Total control in arm's range, diminishes swiftly beyond that. Hemovoyance. Hunter instincts; grants boost to associated actions, enhances efforts to slay wild creatures.

    Note: Blood Hunter is an evolution of Hemokinesis, and can eventually be merged with Battle Tendency to form a superior aspect. This can evolve the Crimson Lost into the Crimson Hunter; no more a lost soul amidst seas of bloodshed, but one who stomps through them with confidence; an avatar of blood and war. This might cost Import.

    Viscerality - Novice [1.0]
    *Improved regeneration speed; unemotional baseline healing speed is now three times that of a mortal.
    *Reduced basic needs. Requires only three-fourths the food, water, and oxygen to operate at optimum as an organism; raw survival instinct and desperation once deeply starved means death can be postponed moderately.
    *Can make slightly more drastic alterations to self: eye color, relative size of limbs, height. Minor physiological improvements; +.5 to all Physical Attributes.
    *Can evoke basic emotions in all individuals in visual range, strength is moderate.
    Viscerality
    Viscerality has two components: a tactile magic by which the body of any being can be altered, and a facility for manipulating the passions that rule the body. The first allows for regeneration, shapeshifting, creating custom organisms, and gradual alteration of ecosystems. The latter starts with a sense for the most primal emotions: fear, anger, ardor. Discernment blossoms into the ability to evoke such feelings with increasing intensity and subtlety. Stoking is always easier than suppressing.

    Warping others is more difficult, as physical influence diminishes with distance from the body. Preexisting biomass and biological knowledge are helpful, but one's own passion can be substituted for either in a pinch. Visceralists gain instincts corresponding with their emotional investment. Progress in the art's rapid as long as you pursue your interests. A laborious combination of gene therapy and implanting symbiotes can initiate others into Viscerality, proliferating the magic. Any children you have will be natural users unless you desire otherwise.


    ---

    After making your request of the Street - to be delivered somewhere with a power you can attain safely and easily - three destinations revealed themselves:

    [ ] The site of a massive Tower, ancient stones glowing, with its siblings not too far off
    *The nature of the power you can gain feels heavenly: celestial phenomena made truth

    [ ] A sterile white chamber somewhere underground with several observers present
    *The nature of the power you can gain feels mysterious: its oddity drives its strength

    [ ] One of the final vestiges of Life, a copse of trees amidst a wasteland of Fire
    *The nature of the power you can gain feels alive: it wishes to grow alongside you
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] The site of a massive Tower, ancient stones glowing, with its siblings not too far off
    [X] A sterile white chamber somewhere underground with several observers present

    All else being equal maybe we should avoid the world on the brink of collapse, since part of one of our conditions is that Dorian feels like the multiverse is shit.
     
    I think I know what the first and last is, but I'm not sure it's permissibly usable information. Fortunately, I like the vibes of the middle one as a location about as much as Towers, and the Life I don't really want* (and what knowledge I do have doesn't guide my choices strongly one way or another.)
    [X] A sterile white chamber somewhere underground with several observers present

    *...I can't honestly be sure that's not influenced by knowing what's up with that, though. Looking self-objectively, it's pretty plausible I'd favor 'living power that grows with you' equally if I didn't already (think I) know it's nature. This is all vibes-wise anyway, though.
     
    [X] A sterile white chamber somewhere underground with several observers present
    *The nature of the power you can gain feels mysterious: its oddity drives its strength
     
    Discord info: Birdsie says that all three worlds are largely safe as long as we don't "step off the rails." So do not be discouraged to buy the Life power just because of the world description - as long as we don't do anything crazy they are all pretty safe!

    Life does also have good synergy with CL and Viscerality. We should consider aggressively fixating CL while we have the buff from Faceless.
     
    so only problem with life is probably the "stress: constant trend of exposure to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic worlds is starting to paint an ugly picture of the multiverse" (though there's no guarantee that the other choices don't have similar problems)
     
    It seems we're leaning heavily towards the second option! If nothing changes, I'll see if I can't write another update later today in a couple of hours. Until then, voting continues to stay open.
     
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