The mysterious fugitive is male.

Girl

>>301102
And so the Great Gender War begins...

Hermaphrodite

>>301117
Unisex.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)00:06 No. 301130 ID: e911d6
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>>301117

I'm flipping a coin for what you're voting for.

Tails girl, heads boy.

>>301119

And that's a vote for Androgyny.

Coin came out Tails. Our fugitive is a girly.


“The bitch is female,” says Nikolaus, “This was included in my report. Did the Unkindled fop you use as an aid loose a report again?”

“Language Nikolaus, this rage is unnecessary,” chides the Paragon, “Mary has not made her report yet. The Legates stopped her again, they don't approve of us, perhaps your talents would be better used guarding the Sparked?”

"Sir, the Legates wouldn't dare act against us, I'm unnecessary here. If you don't have the report, will you require a briefing on her abilities, or is my judgement trusted here."

The Paragon slapped the man on the back heartily, sending him careening forward before the Paragon hauled him back into place, "You're still on probation Nikolaus, indulge a bored drunkard who's run afoul of the blessings of the Tenders and Arsonists."

"Well my Lord, the Abomination was born in the Shar Main Line. Hezagh Secondary. This means that her fields of magic, and her evident specializations are...."

And now the meat of our Mystery Woman. The spells and fields selected will decide our protagonists personality, spells and physical, mental and social abilities. A rundown follows:

>>301117
Hermaphrodite

Necromancer, all the way. We must raise armies of the dead and conquer death itself.
Our necromancer chick is cute but pale and morbid, has no modesty (physical or otherwise) and no bravado, but also only moderate interest in the living. She is obsessive about her craft and her overriding goals are primarily to perfect her craft and secondarily protect and supply herself so that she can do that. Her apprentices, if she ever gets any, will find her instead of the other way around.
She is somewhat sheltered and naive but strong-willed, and never falls for the same manipulation twice. Over time she will probably become observant and cynical instead of naive due to the disturbingly clinical and dispassionate way she relates to social interactions, violence, sexuality, and reality in general.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)00:42 No. 301134 ID: e911d6
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"She is a Necrourge my lord, you know exactly how dangerous that makes her."

Necrourgy is the magic of Death and Undeath, and it's our heroines specialization. Her skill as a Necrourge, and therefore constantly on the run of those less than enamored with her birth-given skill, has taught her how to hide, survive in the wilderness and be a decent shot with a crossbow.

Abilities:
Reanimate: Reanimate allows you to create and control undead. As you increase your skill in the field you are able to command more and more complex undead, eventually imbuing the undead with sentience through the trapped souls.

Despite what Pathists, Zevad and Ig-vhakhan would have the world believe, Reanimation neither destroys souls nor causes them to undergo a cathartic hellish battle gauntlet forged by the most devious, assholish part of the God-Mountain itself. It's actually rather cathartic, the soul takes a backseat and is able to recuperate during its tenure, making it more likely to be able to successfully cross to a godly domain or make it to a guidance spirit in order to cross to an afterlife.

In order to create undead she needs a corpse and to recall a soul. Normally, the soul must have died in the area, but as she develops her skill it does not necessarily have to be the have inhabited the body she put it in.

Due to her natural skill at reanimation, she can carry souls around in a pseudo-hivemind while looking for a suitable corpse. She can currently control eight undead. You have input into the hivemind, but everyone's confused as to how it works.

You can create more undead, but they are uncontrolled and only react to basic verbal commands. Later ranks give the ability to program the undead.

Current Level: 2

Life-Sight: Life sight is a pseudo-echolocation ability. It sends a visible though low powered wave of necromantic energy through the area and serves as a pseudo-radar that detects life signs and their strength. At higher levels it can be made more discerning, giving rough mass, species, and even names. Alternatively, it can be made lethal, focused into a beam of anti-life energy at whatever managed to annoy you or used to surgically remove bacteria from a wide area.

At her current level it allows her to detect all life signs in a 30 foot range, and it's stopped by walls that are at least eight feet thick or enchanted to resist magic.

Dependent Abilities:
Dependent Abilities require access to other areas of magic to use. This is normally due to dangers involved or both Necromancy and the other type of magic being necessary for the ability to work. Luckily, as a daughter of the god/goddess/god-thing Shar you can give our fugitive a total of three fields of magic, one of which is Necromancy.

Necro-Magnetism: This gives her limited telekineses over dead or undead matter, and allows her to imbue undead flesh with a a pseudo-magnetic field that attracts or repulses dead flesh instead of metals. Higher levels allow greater control over the Necromagnetic fields and your TK abilities. It also allows you to create undead that are not physically connected, giving them floating limbs or the like. Requires Force Magic as the combination between Gravitic Control and Necromancy is required for the field of spells. Extremely heretical to Pathists, as Force Magic is holy to them. It gives knowledge of Physics and Augments her Mind attribute.

Bone-Forge: This ability allows you to duplicate her own bones or flesh and separate them from her body for use as tools, weaponry or armor. Higher levels allow the modification of the body parts as she detaches them and the creation of more complex machinery. Requires Biomancy, as it does not come with the ability to regenerate the wounds caused by creating and then ripping out duplicate limbs, bones or organs. Not particularly heretical, though creepy. Gives proficiency with Light Armor and Augments her Resistance attribute.

Dread Hive: The connection with Sharchild-35 'Six Rivers Dreaming' gives her increased capacity to control the undead, giving her an extra 4 controllable undead per rank in Dread Hive. In addition, it allows her to use harvested Xenological matter to augment the undead, allowing new and interesting mutations to be added to them later on. It requires Xenothurgy in order to communicate with the Xenological beings necessary for the mutation and increased control. Gives knowledge of Logistics and Augments Deception

Hive Channel: Allows your undead to channel spells. Requires Thermomancy in order to learn the basics of chaining spells together. Gives proficiency in Tactics and Augments Perception

Mutilate: Allows her to imbue your blows and those of her most powerful undead with Corruption. It also allows her to destroy the bodies of those corrupted internally, causing outgrowths of crystal and rock to rip them to shreds. Requires Terramancy for the control over Rock and Metals necessary for the required spells. Gives Proficiency in Brawling and Augments Body

Birthright: The Right to Rule is ours! This gives you increased control over how others see you, allowing you to convince reality itself that you look a certain way and rotting the senses of the beings that audit these things in order to make them unable to stop you. This gives you increased control over your appearance and environment, making your words near irresistable and allowing you to change your body while in a place hallowed by necromantic energy. Requires illusion in order to begin the process to fool reality itself. Gives skill in Oratory and Augments Appearance

Idiocy on my part: Life Sight is currently rated at 1.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)00:53 No. 301136 ID: e911d6
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She is also a....."

"....Biomancer"

Biomancer are masters of the flesh. They augment themselves in order to push themselves far past human limits and they infect those who would oppose them with virulent plagues. Though they are valued healers, their abilities do not work well against diseases unless paired with Necromancy.

Making the Fugitive a Biomancer will give her Surgical and Medical knowledge, as well as combat relevant knowledge of Human, Grakh and Animal anatomy. Higher ranks in Biomancy abilities allow you to apply their effects to others.

Abilities

Regenerate: This spell increases the regeneration rate of the human body manifold, causing otherwise fatal injuries to close up before ones very eyes. Augments Resistance.

taking Biomancy as a secondary school automatically gives us one rank of Regeneration.

Streamline: The Fugitives body streamlines itself, making itself as aerodynamic as possible and shunting excess energy and muscle mass to the legs, increasing speed, jump height and resistance to falling. Augments Speed

Plague: Infects a touched target or item with a virulent, flesh eating plague. Though non-contagious and relatively slow at first, it can become virulent enough to wipe out cities and potent enough to kill within seconds. Excellent way to weaken an enemy that is trying to pursue you or to take an enemy out of a fight. Augments Mind

Change: This allows The Fugitive to change her appearance to be more appealing to those around her. Augments Appearance

Bolster: Makes you stronger and tougher than you were before. Augments Body

Enhance: Causes The Fugitives mental processes to accelerate, allowing her to react much more quickly and effectively to stimuli. Augments Reflex

Note: Which schools you choose affect the Fugitives personality.

For example, Biomancy would cause her to be more outgoing, risk-taking and physical than she would otherwise be.

Xenothurgy would cause her to be more scholarly and inclined to talk to others.

Force Magic would make her a magnetic Demagogue.

Oh, oh nifty. She needs to take illusion magic so that she can hide in plain sight with birthright and force magic so that she can be mega-heretical, smart and have the ability to blow up problems her servants can't handle.

suggest you finish putting up the classes before throwing in author notes.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)01:18 No. 301142 ID: e911d6
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"....Xenothurge, she is doubly blasphemous."

Xenothurges are unlike normal mages. They are not simply born with access to magic. They have a mental door that opens to the untold numbers of the bastard children of Shar, caring for her more mundane spawn even in her absence.

Xenothurges are revered by their connection to the God/Goddess/Thing Shar by some, but they are reviled for it by most. Nonetheless, they are excellent at hiding their true nature and are often wandering Teachers and Storytellers or leaders of small tribes away from Erstelands reach.

Taking Xenothurgy as a secondary school gives the Fugitive all sorts of new and interesting Knowledge as well as a hidden Support Network of Xenological part-siblings and other Xenothurges. Higher ranks in Xenothurgy allow her to punch larger holes in reality, pulling her half-siblings farther into reality and allowing her to liberally assault the laws of physics more and more flagrantly.

Note: Most Xenothurges are not descended from Shar, the Xenological beings defend other Xenothurges because they're awesome abomination-people like that.

Abilities:

One for All: The Voice of The Fugitives half-siblings sing to her from across a million half-angles in reality. They give her clairvoyance into various situations, and allowing her to stun or even drive insane those near her by shunting the voices into their heads. Augments Mind

Taking Xenothurgy automatically gives us one free rank of One for all.

Love of the All-Mother: Shar loves all, even those who hate her. And when her children express their love, it's hard not to love them back. This spell makes it difficult for even enemies not to want to befriend The Fugitive and makes her far more effective when seducing her enemies. Augments Charm

Blessings of Shar: Shars children are irresistable to their own kind. To deny their beauty is folly, for they will actively change to cause their form to be beautiful to you. Blessings of Shar allows you or one of your possessions to look like what someone expects you should. Higher ranks make the enforced disguise be more and more beneficial. Augments Appearance

Hateful, Wretched Noise: The Sound of lies is actively hurtful to Shar, these pathetic creatures are unable to convincingly manipulate the All-Mother, and she provides the ability to show these poor, forsaken beings true manipulation to her chosen. Hateful, Wretched Noise allows The Fugitive to change the perception of those around her to make them suspicious of what she wants them to be suspicious of, and trusting of what she wants them to be trusting of. Higher ranks allow the spell to have more specific triggers, and make the false deception harder to see through. While lower ranks simply try to convince all in an area that everything said about a subject or by a person is a lie. Augments Deception

The Flesh is Weak: Unfortunately, even the Shar born Fugitive must suffer the weak confinements of human flesh. Fortunately, she has so many brothers and sisters willing to make donations to upgrade her. The Flesh is Weak allows The Fugitive to fill wounds with Xenobiological matter or to temporarily mutate limbs in Xenobiological upgrades. Augments Resistance

They Give me Strength: When The Fugitive is distraught her true mother warms her, and when Shar is not available the Xenothurges siblings will fill in. They Give me Strength invites a Xenobiological being to share The Fugitives flesh, providing a cathartic, euphoric mental experience to help deal with whatever social or mental problems she is suffering through and a second pair of eyes and ears to increase her reflexes. They Give me Strength erases fear and psychological problems, and higher ranks allow its effects to be transfered to others or to give her other upgrades depending on her favored sibling. Augments Reflex

Illusion and xenothurgy sound like they would give us the best ability to hide what we are. Waiting for the rest of the stuff to be posted, though.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)02:10 No. 301151 ID: e911d6
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"....Force Mage, she perverts all that is holy with her evil."

Force Mages control gravity and telekinetic force. The magic, originally found by the man who developed Pathism, was consecrated as holy with the blessing of the Divine Alaruk. It spread out of control of the Pathist theocracies nearly 1200 years ago, and though most modern Force Mages are still Pathists, a growing minority are independent mages using their ability to become incredible smiths, carpenters and architects. The Divine Flames of Pathism, and Especially Alaruk have the ability to bless their faithful with Force Magic that grows in potency with their belief. Though they have the ability to take the magic away, often violently, in case of disobedience or doubt.

Taking Force Magic as a secondary school gives The Fugitive a growing stockpile of theological and architectural knowledge, as well as some skill at spinning a tale. Higher ranks in Force Magic allow more and more complicated constructions and manipulations of space and gravity and synergy with other types of magic.

Abilities:
Assemble the Noble Steed: This spell assembles a contraption of Force, Gravity and whatever raw materials are convenient. It is normally used as a travel device or temporary armor, as the creation falls apart when the spell ends unless it would stay together anyways. Higher ranks allow more complicated creations. Augments Mind

Taking Force Magic as a secondary school automatically gives us one rank of Assemble the Loyal Steed.

Crush those who Dare Oppose Me: This ability causes a crushing sphere of force to surround an enemy, slowly crushing or restraining them unless they can break free. Augments body

You May not Kill the Messiah: Those who dare attempt to strike down the Avatar of Shar shall feel her wrath. A wave of Force smashes into those around her, throwing them away from her as they feebly attempt to scratch her. Augments Resistance

Fell the Disobedient: Those who will not leave The Fugitive be or join her must be showed the error of their ways. If they refuse to step aside or bow, make them bow. This spell creates a field of vastly increased gravity, knocking down those foolish enough to defy The Fugitive and stopping arrow volleys cold in front of her. Augments Charm

Bring it To Me: Pulls an object, or a field of object, to the Fugitives hand, where she catches them neatly. Augments Reflex.

Soultakers Blessing: The Soultakers are immaterial and inconceivably fast. This spell allows The Fugitive to create a moving field of force and lessened gravity, propelling her in one direction at great speeds. Augments Speed

Thermomancy Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)02:21 No. 301152 ID: e911d6
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"....A Thermomancer, we must have a large group for even her mindless servants can perpetrate mass havoc."

Thermomancers are the most common type of mage in Xyn Dum. Unlike most mages they do not have individual spells, instead their spells augment other spells or are modified by each other in order to create a wide variety of spells.

Taking Thermomancy as a secondary school gives the Fugitive a thorough of smithing, enchantment, runes and proficiency with a hammer. It also improves her ability to socialize effectively.

Taking more ranks in Thermomancy merely directly upgrades their effects and gives the spells more versatility.

Abilities:

Ignite: Ignite raises the temperature of an object, often causing it to catch fire. unmodified it is transmitted by touch or through a melee weapon with no wood or flammable parts. Augments Speed

Taking Thermomancy automatically gives us one rank of ignite.

Project: Project causes one other spell to be projected at range, if it is a spell that normally only effects you it can affect someone else, and if it is an effect that its centered on an area or must be transmitted by touch, it can be centered or transmitted with Project. Augments Perception

Freeze: Lowers temperature of whatever is effected. Works as ignite mechanically. Augments Reflex

Wall: Creates a wall out of a spell. Can be used to create domes at higher ranks. Augments Deception

Enchantment: Semi-permanently enchants a weapon, object or all ammunition fired from a weapon with a spell. Augments Mind

Call: Calls a spell from above, normally causing a rain of the spell effect or a bolt of the spell effect. Augments Charm

Terramancy Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)02:33 No. 301155 ID: e911d6
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".....A Terramancy. I recommend that my replacement does not close with her."

"You aren't being replaced boy."

Terramancers are coveted and feared. They have the ability to accelerate building of cities by an almost obscene amount. Entire construction firms can be put out of business by two terramancers dedicated to their craft. They can raise cities, lift incredible weights and rend steel with their bare hands.

They can also destroy cities almost as easily.

The Fugitive gains a prodigious skill in riding, brawling and sword fighting if she becomes a Terramancer. She is also trained in investigation and is a skilled seductress.

Like Thermomancy, increasing ranks in Terramancy generally results in a straight increase in power.

Abilities:

Twist: Twist allows the Fugitive to create weakpoints in normally impervious structures and armors. Increasing the invested ranks allows more powerful alloys and materials to be weakened and warped. Augments Speed

Taking Terramancy automatically gives a free rank of Twist.

Smash: The Fugitives arms become covered in rock, spikes, pistons and steel. A series of blows become incredibly destructive, razing all in her path or allowing her to move truly prodigious loads. Augments Body

Animate: The Fugitive animates a golem to work for her for a while. The more ranks the spell the longer the golem lasts and the more durable it is. Augments Mind

Armor: Armors the fugitives body in supernaturally flexible rock and metal. Augments Resistance

Rise: Causes the earth to rise in a line of The Fugitives choosing. Can be used to create walls, stairways, etc. Augments Perception

Fling: Animates boulders and shards of metal and flings them at The Fugitives enemies. Augments Reflex

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)02:56 No. 301159 ID: e911d6
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".....I don't think she has a second secondary, which is a lucky fluke for us."

Illusionists are not well known. Though the field of magic is often studied, most illusionists are loathe to give up the secrets to their craft and therefore tend to try and convince the curious that someone else is the local illusionist. They normally also try to convince the someone else.

Being an illusionist gives The Fugitive Stealth, Investigation, Persuasion and Bullshitting skills.

More ranks in Illusion abilities increase their range and the control and amount of simultaneous illusions that The Fugitive can maintain.

Abilities:

Pheremone: The Fugitive can manipulate pheremones in order to influence a crowd. She can cause a crowd to become lethargic, stopping a lynch mob from forming, or become enraged, possibly igniting a flash mob against her enemies. Augments Charm

Upon taking Illusion, we automatically gain Pheremones.

Visual: Creates visual illusion. these range from simple things, creating or hiding small details, creating an indistinct shape in the corner of someone's eye, to convincing someone that they are in a different landscape entirely or hiding an armies current position. Augments Deception

Auditory: Creates auditory, varying from vague ghost sounds to simulating all the sounds of battle. Augments Mind

Suggestion: Plants an idea in someone's head, it cannot be wholly out of character for them, but it is still a potent suggestion. Augments Appearance

Obfuscate: Creates an explosive, distracting cacophony of sounds, lights, smells and smoke. Varies in sophistication, depth and difficulty to pierce. Only works for obvious distractions. Augments Reflex

Consummate Falsehood: Ties illusions together in order to create a grander, more convincing illusion. Augments Perception

And that's all of them.

After choosing which fields you want to grab you have three points to spend in each of your secondary schools and five to spend in necromancy.

It costs points equal to the number of the next rank in order to raise your rank in a spell/ability. You may not skip over ranks.

e.g. It costs 1 point to go from 0-1 in Bone-Forge. It costs 3 to go from 2-3 in Reanimator. You cannot save points by paying 3 points to go from 0-3 in Bone-Forge. You have to buy the intermediate ranks.

The Fugitives Name is Fatima Khan. Her stats will be decided based on what schools and spells you pick (Any spell that augments an attribute gives +1 to it per rank in the spell)

I foresee Death walking, pestilence forming wherever she walks, twisting the living into nightmarish forms and making them her unliving servants.

Secondary Magics: Biomancy, Xenothurge

Spells:
Necrouge:+ 2 Dread Hive
+ 2 Boneforge
+ 1 Life Sight

Biomancer: + 1 Regeneration
+ 2 Plague

Xenothurge: + 2 Flesh is weak
+ 1 They give me strenght

>>301160

Screwed this up. You can skip intermediate ranks at the beginning. It's during the story where you can't skip intermediate ranks.

Proper example:
Fatima currently has one rank in Life Sight. Therefore it costs her two point to upgrade it.

But she has zero in Bone-Forge. Therefore it costs 2 to upgrade it from 0-2 at character creation, but it would cost three afterwards, as you'd have to buy rank one first.

You cannot buy any ability other than reanimator above three at character creation. Reanimator can be raised to four.

Dhar, life sight starts at one. It costs two to upgrade it to rank two.

Also, same with Regeneration, since you start with a free rank in it.

Ok, I kinda misread that part, change it now.

Spells:
Necrouge:+ 3 Dread Hive
+ 2 Boneforge


Biomancer: + 1 Bolster
+ 2 Plague

Xenothurge: + 2 Flesh is weak
+ 1 They give me strenght

Secondary schools:Xenothurgy, Illusion

Necrourge points:
+3 Birthright
+2 Dread Hive

Xenothurge points:
+1 Love of the All-Mother
+1 Blessings of Shar
+1 Hateful, Wretched Noise

Illusion points:
+3 Visual

The world will believe anything we tell it.

>>301170
I'm supporting this. Personally, I want to convince a god we're their master, but I somehow doubt that we'll get to do that for awhile.

>>301170
Yes, this. Dark messiah is the best. I'd change the illusions to auditory, suggestion, and consummate falsehood.

>>301175
The idea being that while visual illusions are flashy and all, suggestion and the sounds of others agreeing can stir a crowd far far better. Plus, it synergizes with our other stuff.

>>301176
Visual augments Deception, which I assume is related to our ability to deceive people the mundane way, and might have an effect on our ability to lie magically. Visual illusions would also probably cover things like invisibility. They don't have to be flashy, either. Sometimes the subtle visual stuff is most important, and human beings rely more on vision than any other sense. Plus it is cheaper to buy it this way and get those three later than to buy those three and get this later.

>>301177
Those're good reasonings. I support this plan. Besides, we've already got manipulative abilities from other schools.

A consensus has been reached.

"She is a Necrourge and Xenothurge my lord. She is incredibly blasphemous, though she shows no sign of a third school of magic. I request eight more men for the hunt."

"Naturally Nikolaus. Good luck." Nikolaus left the room, and a small, pale woman climbed out of The Paragons desk after the door was closed. She stuck her hand in the fire for a moment and color returned to her face.

"You know, if you'd learn how to read, we could cut the length of these meetings by half at least," said the girl, "And I really don't approve of you constantly hunting down the Sharborn."

"Shush dear," said the Paragon as he went to take her hand, "And I know. But hotter heads make up the Path now. To call off the hunts would result in us shaking ourselves apart in the backlash, I can't do that.

It would be more bearable for you if you hid in the pyre."

"That would be cheating," said the woman as she stuck her tongue out at him.
------


Fatima is now a Harbinger of the Mother's Will. (Necromancer, Illusionist, Xenothurge). She is a skilled tactician, brilliant manipulator, well loved storyteller and has a great relation with her half-siblings in her head. She is inhumanly manipulative, and no mere mortal may unravel the webs of lies and plots that she can weave on a moments notice.

Attributes:
As a Shar-Born Fatima is much more than normal humans. In addition to the benefits given from your chosen spells she gains extra attributes due to her part-god nature.

As a Necromancer she gains +1 Resistance and +1 Mind

As an Illusionist she gain +1 Deception and +1 Charm.

As a Xenothurge she gains +1 Mind and +1 Appearance.

Total attributes:

Resistance: 3. Fatima is slightly more durable than most people.

Reflex: 2. Fatima has average reaction times.

Speed: 2. Fatima is of average speed and manual dexterity.

Mind: 4. Fatima is noticeably smarter than most people

Appearance: 7. Fatima is the peak of human beauty. Despite what certain franchises would have you believe, this does not mean an absurd bust size. She is, in almost every way, near perfect. No blemishes mark her brown skin, and she can cause men to go limp with a well aimed look. Men fall crash into each other in the street when you walk by.

Deception: 9. Many spirits and Augmented have a hard time telling if you're lying. Mere mortals stand no chance to untangle your web of lies. You can entangle entire nations in a merry dance if it wasn't for other high level mages.

Charm: 4. She's a rather charming woman to talk to.

Body: 2. Fatima is rather average in strength and stamina

Perception: 2. She has average eyesight.

Skills:
Tactics
Knowledge
Seduction
Speechification
Storytelling
Bullshitting
Diplomacy
General Knowledge
Theological Knowledge
Crossbow
Survival
Education
Sneaking
Lockpicking

Profession: Fatima has alternately been a thief and a storyteller wherever she's gone. People came for miles in order to hear her tales, so subtly upgraded by her magic. Plots enveloped villages where she passed, keeping her fed and causing those around her to be happy.

She also managed to pull off the hero thing once via Undead horde and her Half-Siblings helping her with strategy.

Fatima is a rather sociable, happy person who's good at hiding her necromancy. She enjoys using it to help people, and she uses her unnatural charisma and manipulation abilities to make it so. She isn't averse to killing others, though she prefers to get them to leave of their own volition.

At her current level in Birthright she can: cause almost all mortals to find her words utterly irresistable and she can change almost everything but her gender while in an area hallowed by Necromantic energy.

At her current level in Dread Hive she can: Control eight extra undead and create minor Xenobiological mutations in up to four of them. Examples are chitinous hide, barbed quills or sharp claws armoring or arming the chosen undead.

At her current level in Visual she can create a complex illusion that simulates a sentient, conscious human as well as up to a 15x15 room they are in. She can also make herself invisible and create fake firework shows as long as she paces herself.

At her current level in Blessings of Shar she can form herself to be oh so slightly more correct for an occasion. Hair fixes itself, clothes straighten and bad forgeries become passable ones.

At her current level in Love of the All Mother Fatima can make people believe that she is friendlier and more beneficial to them than she actually is. It also makes people assume that she is friendly if they have never met her before.

At her current level in Hateful, Wretched Noise Fatima can make people instinctively untrustworthy of anything said about a given topic or by a single person.

Screwed up skill list. Ignore it temporarily

At her Current Level One for All allows her to temporarily stun a being with less then Mind 3 near her. It lasts for two-three seconds before the half-siblings must pull their presence back.

At her current level Pheremones allows her to cause everyone in a 50 by 50 foot area to become more susceptible to mood swings towards a chosen mood and more resistant to all other mood swings.

Charm 5: Fatima is incredibly charismatic. Saying no to her is actively difficult and it's almost impossible not to like her.

Mind 5: Fatima is a genius, she can figure out even complex problems with ease and attempting to push into her mind is either a fools errand or only for the strongest of mages.

And that's everything.

I wake up, groggy, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. There was that prick that smelled of blood and they figured out I was using necromancy due to that damned spirit.

Then what? My eyes clear and I begin to feel out the floor, what's left of it, around me.

Oh, right, the temple. I'm in a cellar I think, sunlight's streaming in, and one of the bastards who was pursuing me has a crossbow bolt stuck in his back and is hanging from a half-collapsed chandelier.

My crossbow is a couple of feet away from me, and there's a really steep hill of rubble going back to the main floor.

The walls are lined with lit torches, which is odd, since this place was abandoned after the Ig got kicked out, and Molrathi is being quiet right now. There's a non-blocked path going down to the left, and another to the side of that rubble pile.

The entire area's made of stone and has various praises of Ig or Ig-Vhakhan carved into the walls in Erste.

>>301223
First, grab your crossbow and make sure it is loaded, then check whether you are injured. If you are okay to move, try the left path first, but you might want to keep yourself invisible for now, since the people pursuing you could still be around.

>>301226
Also, reanimate the dead guy if possiple. I think you'll need the backup. Use your command over illusions to make him look like you. Such a decoy could be greatly usefull.

>>301226
>>301241
both of these

>>301226
>>301241
All good demagogues have body doubles, do these things.

To think, we're a necromancer and don't have more than a single body to animate. This must be remedied.

But for now, yeah, make the double.

Havocfett 2011/05/03(Tue)22:56 No. 301346 ID: e911d6
File 130448857422.jpg - (172.06KB , 1000x629 , undead_knight_imaginefx.jpg )

Holy shit. I have head voices. And you aren't the Siblings.

Can concussions drive you insane? That might be worth looking into.

But the advice seems sound, so I'm co-operating.

....For now.

I walk over and scoop up my crossbow, it's not loaded, but the emergency rounds are still in it and I've got my the rest of the bolts attached to my-

SONOFABITCH! My bolts are gone! Probably got knocked loose in the fall. Crossbow isn't loaded right now, I don't think I reloaded after shooting our future friend here. Still got three bolts in the cartridge that smith attached to it.

I send out a pulse of Necromancy, grabbing the Pathists soul and attaching it to his corpse. It struggles for a moment and then relaxes, the union with its dead flesh connects it to both my Hivemind and to the All-Mother. A wave of euphoria as the soul adjusts to having a direct mental link to a god flows through me. The newly reborn undead begins spasming as its soul attempts to achieve sentience.

It stops far short of the breakthrough point, and as it finishes being absorbed into the hivemind and turning into a revenant I shunt the final waves of euphoria through the Dread Hive to Molrathi. I need his help, and that euphoria is....mildly incapacitating for humans, right now isn't a good time for it.

The hell? You hallowing Sparkboys Fatima? That is not a good idea.

"I don't have much of a choice Molrathi," I say as I channel some of his essence into the undead, "I need some help here, I can't pull you through yet and I'm crap at fighting people. There were a lot more of those guys earlier. And they had a torch-sprit." The Revenant grows a small set of tentacles where it has been impaled by part of the chandelier.

It uses them to pull itself to the end of the chandelier and then it jumps to the debris ramp and hops across the rubble to reach me. It bows deeply, something ingrained from its past life, as I put the illusion over it.

And that's when I realize the problem with the plan, the guy wasn't just a pathist, he was devout. Four stylized torches are glowing across fake-me's forehead, through the illusion. I might be able to hide it, but hiding an enchantment that powerful with the illusion means that I'll have to drop my invisibility. I take a moment to swear at vain knights who have to enchant their forehead to remind all of their blessings while I consider my options.

I could probably Sneak around most threats without invisibility, and most things I meet here will be out to kill me anyways, either because they're part of the Pathist kill team, or because they're one of the 'Self Improvement Tests' Ig-Vhakhan spawns for his visitors. I could probably Deceive any large groups of enemies into fighting each other. I could also stay invisible by staying close enough to the Revenant to be disguised as part of the 'scenery'.

Also, Ig-Vhakhan has a bad habit of booby trapping his temples as a 'test to the faithful'. He supposedly rewards survivors and victors, but I'm not totally sure about taking that risk. Going deeper into the temple increases the likelyhood that he takes notice of me and traps me in one of his stupid little games.

You have gained:
Revenant! A powerful undead made from the corpse of a former augmented human, Revenants are slightly smarter than most undead at the equivalent level of ascension, and they keep a measure of their former personality when carrying out your orders.
Crossbow! Fatima's crossbow is light and effective. She convinced a smith to add an inbuilt bolt compartment to attempt to offset its formerly crappy balance. It can hold eight bolts inside of it, and Fatima can normally hold another twenty or thirty. It currently holds three.
Heavy Armor! Your Revenant came with a set of heavy armor, it currently has a crossbow hole in the neck, courtesy of you. To bad you aren't trained in using the stuff.
Goedendag! Your revenant came with a well made steel Goedendag, a massive steel hammer, you are untrained in using it and you'd need a higher strength score to even carry the damn thing.
Torches! You could grab one, it helps light the way and read notes or whatever is carved onto the wall.

((Should I put setting information here in infodumps, or in a discussion thread?))

>>301346
Hmm. I would suggest deception before mundane sneaking. You are a lot better at it. Is Ig-Vhakhan worse than the people after you?

>>301346
quest-dis.

So you can hear us, eh? Happy to meet you, then. And before you ask, no, we also don't really know what exactly we are. But we'll offer helpful advise, if you take it.

Like the one before me said, you should use Deception, it is always funnier to have them kill themselves. Sad that my illusion idea doesn't work out as I envisioned, but had least you have now a hardy bodyguard.

On a side note, why is it bad to hallow a "sparkboy"? Anything we should know abouit?

>>301379

Sparkboys are kind of Pathist holy men. They're extremely devout (Or fanatical, really a toss up) to whatever path they've dedicated themselves to, and as a result they almost always magically tattoo themselves to show it to everyone else.

They make good undead, revenants are probably the strongest thing I'm going to pull off for a while, but they're really, really obvious, people hunt you down for them and they have a bad habit of breaking down after a few days.

Also, it results in Torch-spirits hunting you down, but I'm almost certain that won't be a problem in here.

>>301357
>>301379

Nice to meet you to.

Got it, Deception it is.

And Ig-Vhakhan might be worse, it depends on what he decides he wants to throw at me down here.

I could probably make the Revenant a permanent addition, but I'd have to develop more powerful Re-animation spells for it.

>Holy shit. I have head voices.

*Sigh*


Everyone is schizophrenic these days. Is this some kind of new fad or what?

>>301430

((There is a plot reason you guys are around. She isn't insane. She just thinks she is until you guys prove otherwise))

>>301438
[That was a joke. And I want her to hear that:) ]

>>301430
>Everyone is schizophrenic these days. Is this some kind of new fad or what?

Once you go schizophrenic, you'll never be alone agian. Join the club.

Some warnings about us; we voices are not all helpful--some are downright rude, lewd, sarcastic, dishonest, obnoxious or even moronic. Humouring our... stranger impulses sometimes helps though, and may empower us to act further on your behalf. As well our memory of your particulars may be fickle as the inside of your head is not the only place we are manifest. This grants us much useful knowledge but its price is a permanently fractured perspective. Discretion is the word.
With those warnings given, this voice wishes to request information. At least some of us are not especially familiar with your world. It may help us plan to know who Ig-Vhakhan and Ig may be, how you ended up in this temple, what the volume surrounding it is like, and what other resources, allies and enemies you have.
Also, a suggestion couched in a query: If we make it out of here with the undead reasonably intact can we stow it on ice or something to make better use of the body once you've become better at necromancy? If the decay is a foregone conclusion at this point that would be sad, and if this undead is as notable as you say it is we may be best off leaving it somewhere once we are out of this hazardous situation.

>>301457
"Well, my subconscious has a sense of humor. At least being insane isn't all screaming and paranoia.

...Warn me if you're about to break into screaming and paranoia, will you?"

>>301459

I'm somehow not surprised that your subconscious has self-destructive and absurdly horny sides. You are one Shar's children after all

"Fuck you Molrathi.

Anyways, if I pull the soul out of it, putting it on ice will preserve the body until I need it or gain the ability to animate a Revenant permanently. Unfortunately I can't repair it from already received damage or decay it without Surgery skills or knowledge of Anatomy

Ig-Vhakhans a god out Counter-Spinward, obsessed with 'testing' to 'improve' his followers, those who live near him and those stuck in his temple. Unfortunately he doesn't really get the limits of most humans. Most people caught by him die.

He also tests people who try to burn down his temples. I heard he once created a Drake from thin air for every man coming to demolish the temple and said that if the men defeated the Drakes they'd be allowed to tear it down.

Poor bastards had hammers and torches. Some of those Drakes are still running around."

I can confirm that last bit. Though the one I ran into isn't running around anymore.

"Shush you. I'm explaining things to the fragmented portions of my subconscious.

And after that little interruption, Ig is the nation made of people badass enough to survive living in Ig-Vhakhan's land. No-one's really sure if Ig-Vhakhan forced them to take on his language and named them, or if they managed to force a name upon him.

They also invaded a few centuries ago, Molrathi's your go to guy if you want more information on that though. I know they left these temples all over the place.

Any other questions, or do you want to pick a path? I'm tempted to try and climb the rubble-pile. I think I might be able to pull it off."

>>301561
Go deeper. Rewards are nice, but it's mostly that you're more likely to survive the traps than your pursuers.

Ha, ha, ha... no. I'm sorry, but each of these voices has little impact on the others, so none of us could truthfully make such a promise to give warning before any of us freak out. I can promise that I am not prone to freaking out unless it would be funny though.
So let me make an inference; you have no idea how you came to this temple? Initial consideration of your situation suggests you need a way to leave this place and make the trail to your pursuers go completely cold. This suggests that evading through the hazards of the temple may be useful, but only if you are reasonably confident you can do so and also if that would sufficiently disrupt your trail.
Without knowing the extent of your allies and enemies I cannot advise further ahead than that, can your allies grant certain protection even if the enemy were to grasp your location or is secrecy the only long-term protection you can rely upon?

>>301564
This could work, and your siblings would be able to provide some advice, wouldn't they?

>>301564
No, no... we don't have enough information to suggest that. How do we know that choosing to run the gauntlet doesn't just net us confrontations with both the dangers of this temple and these Pathist pursuers as well? We are being hunted, discretion is the better part of valour.
Caveat: Unless you are suggesting that confrontation with the dangers of this temple might somehow prepare us better to deal with that pursuit? Conventionally I'd think that absurd but this is an unfamiliar world and this is a necromancer we are dealing with so I will defer to the host and her planar-local allies.

Counter-Spinward?

...Are you on Discworld? By which I mean, what shape is your world.
Not that it's particularly relevant, just OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.
...Just kidding. Anyway, I promise not to do that again, I just couldn't resist.

Hi.

Havocfett 2011/05/05(Thu)07:57 No. 301619 ID: 8c2f6c
File 130460742946.jpg - (174.20KB , 800x920 , necromancy.jpg )

I at least remember how we got in here. A Torchsprit managed to figure out you were creating those Zombies that were saving people from burning buildings and brought a hunt after you. Y-

"The fall wasn't that bad Molrathi, I know what happened. Local hunt chased me into here. Vhakhan collapsed the place since he wanted to test the hunts abilities. Our new friend got impaled on a chandelier while the top floor was collapsing, I took the opportunity to shoot him before he could pull himself off and go at me with his huge hammer."

Goedendag

"No, I'm not having a good day, what the hell are you-"

The hammer, it's a Goedendag. And it's really more of a giant mace.

"It's an enormous spiky hammer Molrathi. Now shush. After I shoot him the floor beneath me collapses and then I wake up with you lot in my head. I don't think I was out more than a couple of minutes, so they're probably still in the building somewhere.

The tests would be useful to get rid of pursuit, the hunt is fanatical, not suicidal. I'd say my siblings could help, but Molrathi’s Molrathi, and Rivers is still asleep. She ever wake up?"

Not really. She seems kind of busy being a half-god river system. I don’t like the idea of braving the tests, but there’s normally some substantial reward for succeeding inside of a temple.

"Well, unless there's some disagreement, then I guess we go deep-"
>>301574

".....You're not one of those flat-domers, are you voice? That would suck. I'm talking about the sheet-spin. Duh.

Please don't tell me I have to explain geology to you guys. I fucking hate geology."

((Ignore the picture. My computer is being stupid right now))

Soooo.... deeper we go? Deeper we don't go?

Question for our necromantic host, what sort of gifts could we get out of doing this Temple of Puzzle-Traps?

So the tests would get us rid of othe,? Deep we go.

Oh and geology can wait. THAT one can always wait.

I am used to geology of a sphere on which the lands curve around the surface of it. Other voices may come from different places and times, but as long as you're pretty sure it's not relevant I'd agree with waiting for that explanation.
This is how I balance your two described options: If going through this test would definitely make your pursuit either give up or be unable to follow your trail you've traded likely death for likely death plus possibility of treasure. If you can't judge the possibilities of death against each other I'd say go for the treasure since you've got risk either way.
This does not mean you should not look for other options if they are reasonably likely. For instance underground tunnels or caves that lead you away from both dangers, or finding some means of travel that would allow you to evade your pursuit without confrontation.

>>301619

You probably will, but just the basics, and it can definitely wait. Just go on in.
...Even though I am extremely curious. Sheet-spin? But no, I can wait...

Here we go... Havocfett 2011/05/05(Thu)22:25 No. 301789 ID: e911d6
File 130465953527.jpg - (61.36KB , 322x458 , catacombs photo.jpg )

>>301701

"Molrathi probably knows more about that, but legend has it that he gives out magical items and raw power to those who succeed."

Survive. Success isn't necessary, just get to the throne room and sit in the skull. You get more things if you impress him. He was getting more generous before the Ig were pushed out. He may be beginning to understand that humans cannot commit dynamic evolution.

"....That seems a bit too easy. And you're going into concepts that don't make sense Molrathi."

Trust me, it isn't.

The concepts do not exist yet among your people. Visit the university atop the Throne of Bone sometime. They're great teachers.

....I'll have to guide you there won't I?

"What? Nevermind, you can explain when we're out of here."

>>301673

"....How do you survive without sunli-"

My query is interrupted by yelling from above.

"Did anyone see the bitch? I think Hans was following her!" says an authoritative, deep, male voice from somewhere above me.

"I haven't seen her, has anyone seen Hans?" says a higher pitched, though still male, more concerned one.

"No, I think they were on the second floor, but I can't find a way out of this room," says a feminine voice.

"I lost Jacques as well. The ceiling collapsed and he went missing," says one that reeks of magic even through the walls. That one's their torch spirit.

"Look, everyone group up, we can look for them after we're sure we're not going to be picked off by whatever the blasphemous spirit wants to throw at us," says the first voice.

"Understood!" say the others. I can hear footsteps and I order the Revenant before me before slinking down the left path.

You know, I'm glad I have Molrathi, and you guys I guess, around. I'd be fucking terrified if I was alone here.

The walls are lined with inscriptions in Ig. I don't know the language, but the convenient little pictures beneath them have a crapload of scenes of people battling monsters. and some sort of giant volcano-thing. I think that might be Ig-Vhakhan, based on Molrathis history and Theology lessons. It's a long walk, and I take the time to use the Revenants eyes to see how I look.

And to check on its illusion, naturally.

....I might be a bit vain. So what, I'm a direct daughter of the god of beauty, undeath and cross-species relations. I'm allowed to be a bit vain.

The Leather Armor Ibsen made for me fits surprisingly well, even if I do need bindings to wear it. Shows off my hips, tight on thighs and it worked damn well against that fall. Going to have to apologize about snapping at him next time I see him. Maybe buy him a drink or two to make it up to him.

Still look as brown as ever, bit of a scrape over one eye. It'll heal, luckily for me Sharblood means no scars. Boots are doing well. Hair got messed up, but it's short so it won't be a problem to deal with.

After looking myself over I continue down the hallway, there's a fork overhead. Flashes of light, screaming and the sounds of battle are pretty damn obvious from the route going forward. The other route is pretty much barren, but the heat wafting out of it is oppressive.

I'd say, follow the hot one. We try to get away from our pursuers, which are currently figthing something up ahead.

Should it get too hot down there, we'll simply turn around and use the other one.

>>301855
I suppose this, though I figure it's likely there's something nasty down there. Still, not sure if the other path would be much safer, we might not have enough resources to take advantage of whatever fighting there is (like siccing our Revenant on the winning side).

Oh, and I suppose take the illusion off for now, save your energy.

You know your pursuers are confident in attacking you by yourself but not so confident alone: This means that a battle ahead could be both a great place to acquire enough help to overpower many of them and an obstacle in which you can lose your pursuit. The hot path instead is a place that I might expect their torch spirit can protect their followers against heat or fire, so it is likely just a death-trap that is more likely to harm you than them. Until proven otherwise assume they have a means of tracking both your trail and yourself, which suggests trying to lose them in the battle.
For Molrathi: Humans do commit dynamic evolution, both as groups by evolving behaviours and as gene-pools over generations. The timescales involved are not short by human reckoning however and the process is usually by negative selection of the genes of inadequate individuals, with gene diversity otherwise increased by mutation over time.
Hypothesis: If Ig-Vhakhan is a volcano god the hot path may lead to the throne-room.
Suggested behaviour modification: Vanity subtracts from the effect of beauty and hinders the charm of the vain. Stop that!

>>301875
Yes, but unlike Vhakhan's spirits, humans don't evolve within hours.

When that is necessary to survive a test, problems are created.

Like lots of dead humans and grakh. Let's try and avoid that bit.


>>301869

"Good idea." I drop the illusion and, with some hesitation, move down the heated corridor.

It grows steadily hotter, though not unbearable. I round two corners before running into something mildly unexpected.

A small thing pinned to a wall. It was maybe two feet tall, made of charred wood. It had absurdly sharp claws and a shield dangling out of one hand. It looked like the top of tis head was still partially on fire.

It was impaled on a crossbow bolt. The Pathists didn't have crossbows on them.

Ig-Vhakhan Flame Sprite. Minor spirit thinks Molrathi, Not particularly dangerous, they tend to swarm. They die shortly after creation due to being set on fire, except for the ones that manage to put out their own fire. They tend to be used on suicide missions to set supplies on fire, or spawned as disposable guards. They're armed until the fire reaches their arms, then they just go beserk and rush you with claws.

This one is dead, but I really hope you knew that already.

"And the person who killed them isn't one of the Pathists after me. Which means they may be worth meeting."

You thought this already.

"Shush you."

I continue on, passing a few more dead Sprites. I grab an intact crossbow bolt off of one and get up as I see something flash on the corner of my vision, Molrathi and the Revenant are screaming at me through the hive to duck.

I hit the floor again and watch our new friend soar over me, Goedendag in full swing. A one armed Sprite, its flame doused and one arm missing, flies towards him.

Poor Sprite never stood a chance. With a guttural roar the Revenant's spiked hammer smashes into the spirits shield. The frontal spike rips through it, and the Sprite behind it. The Revenant cleans the Sprite off of the spike and then offers a hand to pick me up.

Took control of your pet for a moment, you need to pay more attention!

"It was armed with only a shield, I cold affo-

Nevermind. I should probably make sure everything we pass is actually dead. Thanks Molrathi."

I have the Revenant stab all the Sprites we come across before I reanimate them to build up my forces. I manage to re-animate 6 Charcoal Spirits with the relatively intact bodies before I figure out why the area is so damn hot.

If anyone knows why the fuck you build a bridge over molten lucky tell me now. I assure you, I'm all ears.

I, despite some degree of common sense, continue on. Someone's out here, and someone who isn't trying to kill me would be a great thing to meet.

I stop when I hear voices. Someone talking, I can't quite make out what they're saying or a second voice, if there is one. I've got my crossbow out, just in case they're hostile.

So, any advice voices?

>>302102
Have a charcoal spirit scuttle forward and check it out. They're tiny and not on fire, so they should be good for that. Plus, even if they're spotted the person will assume it's just a native one.

>>302150
If the sprits can relay info then go with this, with some added illusions over it.
Otherwise go ahead yourself with the same.

Bear in mind that whoever it is, if they're not hostile to you yet has shown they're hostile to the charcoal spirits. This means that having them see you with them could raise their hostility and suspicion to you.
Unless perhaps you shot these earlier, and you're following your own footsteps?

>>302208
I think I'd remember shooting the things.

Or a bridge that's suspended over FUCKING LAVA

I could probably get around suspicion around hte Charcoal Spirits by claiming I took control of them. Most people around here can't tell the difference between Ignans and a triber. Should work.

I use the Hive to borrow one of the Spirits sight and send it forward. It creeps out around the corner and spots a the rear end of something brown and furry disappearing into a duct. It has yellow, webbed feet and very short legs, but not much else is seen. I'm pretty sure it's a Grakh, short playtpi people. Poison barbs on their arms. Very angry.

Still outside is a woman, local, female and pretty damn tall. She has a crossbow, rope, fedora and longsword. She's wearing armor. Bald. Scarred and burned heavily. Looks young. Professional Adventurer?

The illusion over the spirit held. Should I reveal myself?

before revealing yourself, can you use an illusion on your reavanant to make it appear alive (rather then a duplicate of yourself with a glowing forhead)? It could be your sparky (and living) friend to any who aren't specifically looking for you.

as a biomancer + illusionist w/birthright she could go around healing people and setting herself up as a holy woman :). And use biomancy to keep the zombies fresh enough to pass for living; plus regen = surviving... its still doable, get that boon for surviving and use it to learn biomancy

>>302695
We're not a biomancer. We should pick it up, if possible. But yeah, reveal ourselves.

>>302720
I know she isn't a biomancer, I meant to say that this would be possible if she was one, so gaining biomancy should be a goal.

Since she is already setting herself up as the "dark messiah" figure. Illusions, mind control, etc are all awesome. Now lets add "miracles" to it too.

>>302747
Plus, biomancy+xenothurge=delicious.

I have the spirit scuttle backwards, behind the corner, redirect the illusion so that the Revenant looks alive, and round the corner.

Naturally, I get a crossbow pointed at me for my troubles.

"Who's the sparkboy? What does he serve?" yells the woman, "Is it the damn path itself!"

"It's an illusion you thick!" I reply, enhancing the illusion to block the sparks, "He's mute, and I figured it would get us through here more quickly, Pathists are assholes about the 'looting abandoned temples business'!"

Crossbow goes down.

"Sorry, paranoid about the damn Law. Legates out Spinwise, Pathists here and the Tribes spikewards. Seems Ig is the only place where they don't try and arrest you for Treasure Hunting. And frankly, Ig just isn't worth it," said the Woman, "I'm Marisol. The bird'll introduce itself once it's turned off the traps."

"Ther! The pronoun is ther you ape!" yells a voice from the duct, "There are only four of them, it's not that hard!"

"Says the duck who still can't figure out what a man is half the time!"

"Your argument is fascinating, but why are you disarming traps if there's no door?"

"It's illusioned. You can't see it until you're within five feet.

....I really don't see the point of the illusion."

"I think it's meant to keep people from pursuing this path," I say, "Make sure the unobservant or those only giving it a casual once over don't get through the door?"

"Then why trap it?" asks the lady, "And it's supposedly trapped pretty thoroughly to.

...Oy! How long in there?"

"'Nother minute perhaps?"

since Ig tests and rewards people, the illusion is probably to test your observation ability and attention to detail. The traps are to test your caution if you managed to find the door. Probably gonna be more tests beyond that, like guardian monsters and the like... with rewards for the victorious

>>302764
Chance of these people being part of the test? I would guess... 70%.
Of course, if they are, there's nothing saying what part of it exactly, so I guess it doesn't really matter. But be wary.

>>302764
Well! The more eyes the better if he's throwing out things like this. Join them as if it's a done deal. If they act doubtful or anything, pump up the Love of the All-Mother.

>>302948
quick question, does Ig award everyone in a team equally or does he penalize for having people with you on his challenges?

Ig awards everyone on a team equally.

.....He also scales up the challenges. You aren't actually a professional adventurer, so you aren't sure if the scale up is worth the help.

>>303002
Yeah, but do THEY know that? 9 deception, bluff like the fist of the north star!

>>303016
do you actually need to bluff? you are a demigod, if anything you should be concerned that they are not powerful enough to justify the difficulty increase of teaming up with them.

>>303256
Demigod that is best at dealing with sentient beings. Trapped doors are not our area of expertise. Stick with the treasure hunter.

>>303287
Demigod with an army of undead at her command, trapped doors? throw zombies at it until all the traps have been sprung :)

Speaking of, this is how the infamous tomb of horrors was finally defeated. (well, not exactly, it was actually thousands of mind controlled commoner underlings who were alive, not zombies... but still disposable minions)

>>303295
We have one zombie and a bunch of tiny spirit things. We aren't exactly swimming in bodies.

>>303295
((Am I the only person who didn't use an exploit for that?))

>>303256
Diplomacy specced demigod. Not so great at the physical combat thing.

Ig Vhakhan likes physical combat. So these lot will be useful for now.

Fortunately I could probably wrap them around my finger in my sleep, so getting them on my side will be easy.

>>303295

I've got SEVEN UNDEAD. One of them is rather valuable, none are replaceable or repairable. Having help seems like a good idea.

When the Grakh, a short, brown furred biped with a large, wide beak visible spikes on its short forearms, pulled itself out of the vent I cemented my opinion. It was dragging behind it the innards of the traps it had just disabled.

I'm reasonably sure it's the fourth gender, the two spikes means it's either second or fourth, and brown fur is damn rare in seconds, but I'm really non comfortable assigning a pronoun yet.

"The new one's a girl, right?" asked the Grakh, "I'm Miles Gradat, lady. Kalherd.

.....Fourth Gender if you didn't know that."

"Miles doesn't seem to be a normal name for-"

"Former slave."

.....Well, that could have gone better.

"Don't worry, pretty obscure piece of lore," says Miles, "You aint empire, I don't give a shit. And they tend to keep knowledge of their slaves pretty well surpressed.

Now, I'm going to sit here and look through the scrap for anything useful. If you can do something useful new girl, and other new girl, I recommend doing it soon if you want a cut."

Oh, it's on small platypus-thing. It is on.

"Watch me," I say as I walk up to the door. I pulse Life-Sight and wait as the Miles and Marisol look in awe at the waves of illusion changed-blue-green

"What the hell was that!" yells Miles.

"That's a damned good illusion," asks Marisol, "but what does it do?"

"Human. Now, there are 14 living things beyond this door. 13 are in the range to be Flame Sprites. 1 is Larger. Probably the size of a large bear.

If you don't want to be in the middle of their charge, my friend can rip the door off of its hinges to use as a shield."



So, judging by the awed looks on their faces my undead minions are reporting, I've secured my place on the team.


......Fuck that was stupid. What now?

How does Ig feel about Shar? Would he mind terribly if we offered those little charcoal sprites new life? You said they aren't especially fond of their short lifespans...

I want to have the door opened with us beyond it and people in ambush to both sides. We make them an offer for life, and if they refuse and rush us, we ambush them.

>>303596
I was not suggesting we do not work with them, merely playing the devil's advocate.
And the army of undead power is indeed more hypothetical since you only have seven right now.

As for current conundrum... don't the sprites charge at their enemies? if you could place one of yours near the door to open it on command, then have your new companies reuse the recovered traps to set traps right near it... go back some and have it open the door.
the enemies will charge right into the traps.

>>303614

Depends on who you ask. According to Shar they use Anthromorphic avatars to date.

And no, I will not ask her for more details for you. I made that mistake once, it's not happening again.

>>303624
So you can steal minions? Steal minions!

>>303596
I'm sort of confused as to what you just did? Some kind of illusion thing? And then you said 'Human' but I don't know why?

>>303633

Used Life-sight to see what was behind the door. Used an illusion to make it not look necromantic.

Marisol was trying to figure out what I was and how I did that. I answered. Mostly for intimidation effect, which I think was a terrible idea in hindsight.

Out of curiosity, have you ever tried using your ridiculously magically boosted persuasiveness to convince someone that necromancy and shar aren't evil? that necromancy actually helps the souls heals from the stresses of life and improve their afterlife?

>>303663

It works on normals, but even Spark level pathists have inbuilt resistances, I can get a Spark to believe it isn't harmful, but they'll still try to kill me on the grounds that it's part of a Gods magic, even if it is benign.

So....pseudo-success? I've managed to get Sparks to ascend to Torches, fall and then screw with their minds. But it's kind of risky, and you're sometimes forced to engineer accidents if their Torch ascension upgraded something annoying.

She isn't persuasive enough yet I guess. What are the odds on trying to take control of the opposition in the next room?

>>303746

If it's sentient? Damn good. As long as I can get it to not immediately attack.

And I can hear you!

It wasn't an insult: Not persuasive enough for the purpose of convincing the Pathists to stop it with their silly war is what I meant.
Do you have other ways of gathering intelligence that would be useful for figuring out if they're intelligent without tipping them off that there's red-team waiting on your side of the door?

>>303770

I might be able to project an illusion on the other side of the door. But I'm not sure what to do, and if it's complex I'd have to drop the illusions over here.

.....Though they aren't looking at the Revenant, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Wait, wait, I've got it. The revenant is an expendable resource, right? We'll be lucky if it lasts a week no matter what? Send it through and if blue-team (what's on the other side) is Pathists we probably couldn't have persuaded them anyway. If blue-team is intelligent but not Pathists we can threaten them with the revenant and then slay the revenant as a show of alliance. No need for more illusions on top of the difficult stuff you're already doing to keep the damn torch hidden.

have you ever tried convincing normal pathists that the path is a false religion?
Also, if convincing them necromancy isn't evil makes them attack you for usurping divine magic, you could point out you are a demigod... actually do that before convincing them about necromancy.
This is something to try out next time.

For now, I suggest you use illusion to make one of the sprites invisible, say you have used magic to summon an unseen servant. Then do the trick I suggested with the traps. :)

>>303794

It works on normal Pathists, there's a rather nice town near here that I'll show you that's pretty much all under my thrall.

And Pathists hate demigods! Part god! They hate gods!

The Spirits have not become less dispensable in the last five seconds.

>>303790

Great idea!

It might take some work to explain that the Revenant is not actually alive to the group right here, but that won't be a problem. Normals.

On the other hand, I might be able to make the Revenant permanent with the boon from the temple.

It's still a permanent trouble-magnet, listen to Molrathi about these risks if you are less able to judge what they are I figure. Setting up traps and an ambush on this side in case it is Pathists is something you do BEFORE instead of AFTER it goes in the room though.

>>303812
yea, not worth it... if you use the boon to boost your necromancy just make another permanent permanent... one without a glowing face tattoo

>>303809
Eh, a permanent revenant sounds less useful than say, picking up Thermomancy. You could enchant invisibility cloaks! And heal people by Projecting The Flesh is Weak! Or mutate them! And your zombies could throw fireballs!

>>303911
Ooo, thermomancy is nice but Ig-Vhakhan doesn't seem to like necromancy much for all that he and Shar may be dating. I don't really want to ask for too much from someone who may think letting us live is a major gift.
On the other hand, who better to ask than a volcano god? I just worry he'll cheap out and take our illusionist power or necromancy away to do it, if he could and would at all.

Oh sonofabitch. I thought I put it in there.

Is something going here in place of the moved infodump? I wouldn't have objected to it being here personally.
So, uhm... since we're the only person with intelligence-gathering ability I strongly suggest we get our allies to try setting up traps and an ambush on this side of the door. Once that is done we then send the torch-revenant in to investigate, with us prepared to assault it from behind as a way of convincing any non-Pathist hostiles in the room we're on their side.

"Miles, can you set up a trap, I'm going to have the mute pull the door off and use it to shield himself from whatever's on the other side. Before I do that, can you set something up that'll screw them up when they come through, and won't hurt the mute?" I ask.



"One moment, sit tight little girl," says the Grakh. He grabs some scrap from the pile of traps he'd disarmed, something out of a pouch he'd hidden under his shirt and began wiring up....something near the door.

I'm not sure what it is, but judging by the amount of spikes, I'm going to guess it's a trap.

I turn to talk with Marisol as we wait, "So....how long have you been doing this?"

"A couple of months, Miles picked me up when I helped him deal with a Slave Hunter on his way to a tomb of an ancient Spirit-King. We managed to gain it's favor by eliminating a host of Thrane that had decided to infest it's valley, and I saved Miles life in the attempt. After it gave us some evidently disappointing boon, judging by Miles' description at least, we left to make our next big hit. We were in the tunnels when the entire entryway collapsed behind us, burying our gear," said Marisol, "If you mean a warrior in general, it's because I was always a rabble-rouser, and the village was convinced that the Ignans were going to come back any day now. They had pretty much everyone go through military training, and anyone who was good at fighting got extra training as a reward. I got sick of waiting for an invasion that never came and bailed, figured that if the Ignans came, I'd just sign up with the guard wherever I was. I was a...

Sorry, don't know the term. Knight Errant I guess? Before I met Miles. What'd you do?"

Oooh. Lies. Need a big one....

Idea. "Family were traders from the tribe, supposedly. Slaver group hit them on their way back, figured no-one would miss some Tribesmen. They were wrong, family line of Xenothurges, one of my parents bonded creature hit the group. It was....awe inspiring. I was six, don't remember much. Tentacles, screams, blood. The prayers of the saved who new what was coming, the screams of the saved who didn't. The last stands of the guards, futile attempts from slavers to defend themselv-"

Now you're just ripping me off

Shush you

"-es or surrender. The fat lead slaver attempting to surrender to the enraged Sharspawn.

My family didn't have enough resources to pay for the trip back. We settled down. Parents became merchants, brother dragged me into merc work eventually. He's doing well for himself as 'The Hound of Iberia' up Spikewards. I went into treasure hunting when I started hating the merc jobs. Picked up Mute along the way, poor guy's illiterate. Just goes along with what I say."

"I'm done here! Tell your boy to pop this thing and get ready for adventure!"

Well, looks like it's go time. Wish me luck.

>>304337
Do you actually need to kill the revenant, anyways? You could probably just illusion up something convincing, as long as it wouldn't be particularly noisy, since you can't do the noise. You still might not be able to get it out of here, but it might be useful to have it still functioning later.

Miles moves away from the door and I have the revenant grab the thing and rip it from its hinges. It backs up a couple of steps and whatever's beyond the door charges. Miles winds the ropes he's holding around his hands, and Molrathi reaches out, smashing into the things mind with the full might of his psyche. It stumbles, just a second or two of hesitation and very little speed loss due to its momentum, but enough for the Revenant to brace itself and Miles to pull when he wants to.

Three of the five blades slam down as me and Marisol move around the door. The other two fall, evidently not attached securely enough in the minute Miles had.

The Creature is an enormous bull. It's snout is on fire, though slightly crushed. It has enormous horns made of unmelting ice and it's torso is covered in scaffolding, which a dozen Torchsprites and two similar looking spirits made of ice are hanging on to. The bull tries to push forward, but the blades dug into its neck and ripped off a section of scaffolding. Torchsprites leap at me and Marisol more quickly than we can react. Marisol manages to deflect the first one with her arm and shoots the second, I miss and get a nasty scratch across my inner arm for my troubles, though the other two sprites that leapt at me are tackled from the side by Charcoal Spirits.

I loose track of the battle as I try to fling the spirit away from me. It drops its shield in an attempt to grab on and hack at me, and I use the moment to take control of an idle Charcoal spirit, use Dread Hive to augment its legs with denser muscles and have it leap, grabbing onto the torch spirit and gouging out what passes for a brain. I have the spirit move to re-enter battle as I re-animate my former attacker.

I barely duck in time to dodge an enormous icicle that flies past my head. It melts as it passes the edges of the bridge, and a second impales a charcoal sprite.

I drop all illusions I had up and create a double of me, as well as some extra sprites, and have them scatter. I manage to get the Icicle thrower to waste four shots before it figures out which me is real.

I've managed to reload my crossbow, and send an arrow flying before Molrathi assumes control of the Revenant and has it diver the bulls charge at a group of illusions. It slams the door into the ground, embedding it upright and I use the opportunity to take cover and assess the situation.

Miles is brawling, using the chaos of the Charcoal Sprites to sneak in and poison something, then bug out and activate the poison when the spirits are trying to hold a formation. He managed to figure out that the Torch Spirits were on our side pretty quickly, and the Icicle Thrower Spirits have been ignoring him.

The Charcoal Spirits have assumed one of the Skirmish formations I've prepared. It's meant to work with Grakh Zombies, but it works fine for the Spirits. I've been controlling them from the back of my mind, and they've taken three losses, though I replaced one. There are currently 4 left, and they've taken out that many of the Torch Spirits with Miles help.

The current plan for them is to dodge the Icicles, let the Torch Spirits take their formations and then stun one of them and have a Charcoal spirit pull it out of formation, use the exploit to cause some havoc and maybe poison another one, and kill the one pulled out. If possible I'll re-animate it.

Marisol is holding her own behind the Spirits. She's swatting Icicles out of the air with a long sword, and is fending off Torch Spirits with an axe. She killed one, the others are mostly focusing on keeping her where she is instead of causing major damage.

I can't really do much for her without illusions, and the enemy already knows that I'm an illusionist.

The Bull is dueling with the Revenant, which has the partial attention from one of the two Icicle Thrower Spirits. The Revenant has Icicles through its skull and one shoulder, and it's pretty damn obvious its undead if anyone looks. It's managed to get a good blow in with the door before throwing it away, but the bull seems to have ignored it.

I'm hoping the Goedendag has more effect, but in the worst case scenario taking out the scaffolding with the Icicle Throwers on it would be fine.

So.....cunning plan?

>>304344
Flame sprites are nearly irrelevant, bull is important, icicle sprites are important. Squid up the revenant and have him extend his arms to throw the icicle sprites to your charcoals, then grow hooks and burrs to attach itself to the bull. Take out the ears and nose so that it depends upon its eyes, then use illusion to lead it back into the trap. Finally, have the revenant drill as deep as it can in search of something vital.

This boar is potentially very very valuable.

If you can't do that, then just concentrate on getting rid of the ice fuckers.

While all this is going on promise the flame sprites life. There is more than just Ig's tests, you can provide them life and purpose. Remember, they have no way of knowing it's you controlling the undead and such, so if you pump out Mother's Love you might be able to get some trust.

can an illusion be used to blind the bull by creating an illusory black scarf around its eyes?

gain it's favor... infest it's valley... I loose track... obvious its undead...
Four bad mistakes is actually low to normal for over thirteen-hundred words of first-draft writing, but I'm picky.
Blinding the enemy sounds like a good idea. Another idea is to try to convince the enemy that you're really on the other side of the door and that they have to charge through to get to you or else you'll get away. A third idea is to create illusionary duplicates of your enemies and have them appear to attack the other enemies, but I don't know if either of these two more involved plans are likely to be effective enough to be worth the effort.
Blinding the susceptible enemy players sounds like the winning move to me, and maybe have your torch-revenant stab that minotaur with the icicle?

>>304351
>>304372
We don't want to blind the bull, visual illusions are the only ones we have. Also, he's not a minotaur.

Wait, blinding a bull means we can make it charge face-first into a wall and maybe squash the dudes on his back in the process. Why don't we want to blind it?
If it were still enough I'd suggest hamstringing it--cutting the muscles on the backs of its legs, but we're probably low on sharp things for our coal-spirits to use unless we can use some more xenothurgical enhancement.

>>304372
((Dammit, need to check my grammar more. Thought I caught all of those, thanks for pointing them out.))


>>304393

We're on a bridge, there are no wa-

Oh, I could get it to run into the lava. Nice one.

>>304348

.....You brilliant, brilliant figment of my shattered consciousness.

I have the Charcoal Spirits move the battle into a stalemate, attacking anything that gets close to them but no longer moving to pick off flame spirits. I yell for Miles to help Marisol move away from her corner and then disengage, which it seems to manage admirably while I put the second part of the plan into motion.

I try and get Rivers to stir, she’s going to be useful with the amount of undead we’re planning on bringing up, and I still need to introduce you, and-

-I assume direct control of the Revenant, that way you lot can focus on your speechifying while I beat the crap out of the bull.

Don’t worry, I can hear the voices. I remember-.

>>Hello there.
-ohshitohshitohshitohshit

Oh, this day just keeps getting better. I ignore the voice, as I’m pretty sure I know who it is, and stand up to deliver the speech. “Spirits! This battle is pointless!” I yell as I turn Love of the all Mother and Birthright up as far as I can, “You fight for nothing! An inevitable death in service of an uncaring god!”

>>That’s harsh lady.

Quiet you.

“I offer you an alternative! Serve me! I have already shown your brethren their folly, each of them is extinguished and safe!” And dead, but let’s not mention that bit. Need a clincher, they’re spirits, something basic, appeals to their nature, I can follow it up with a demand for an oath-

>>I’m almost certain you’re cheating.

Quiet you.

>>Hey, I like cheating. It’s like evolution, except skipping the middle bits. Continue on, you have my blessing.

Don’t need your blessing Vhakhan. Not until I get past this lot. Now shut up you’re interru-

-That’s part of the challenge, isn’t it?

>>Clever girl

This isn’t going to-

>>Though I do think you should hurry up, a second or two of delay could be-

“Do you want to live Spirits! Truly live? Beyond this pathetic existence of murdering travellers and idiots? Join me! Become part of something greater than some speedbump on a nobodies path as he goes to claim his reward!”

>>That’s rather harsh.

It’s working. Several of the spirits raise their hands and switch sides, I have Marisol smother the flame with a leather bag as they join, and one of the Ice Spirits flies into the clearing, already dead.

>>I see you’ve taken over my sprites. Interesting work. I think that deserves a little extra reward.

…..What?
>>The reward at the end is normally rather small, especially for the side paths. Most rewards are gained through impressing me during the trials. Which is why the Ghrakh just leapt at my charger to save your revenant.

>>Also, I shut off your connection with Molrathi. I thought it would be fun.

I check the hive, realize that Molrathi and the Revenant are not currently connected and check on them in the normal manner.

…...What bullshit is this? The fucking bull turned it’s icicle-horns into branching, razor sharp icicle-antlers and impaled the Revenant. It’s also breathing fire. The revenant has the other Ice Spirit in its newly betentacled grasp and, as I offhandedly tell my new converts to rip a imb off of the dead Ice Spirit and use it to douse themselves, begins to use the grown barbs to pull itself forward on the antlers in an attempt to get back into hammer range.

>>Enjoy your gift Sharspawn

((You now have an Boon! You get them when you either think of a use for an ability that I completely forgot about or didn't realize or manage to impress me with creativity used to make a situation use Fatima’s natural skills when it naturally shouldn't. Or for utterly breaking the story/setting through awesome ideas. Or for completing God/Major Spirit Challenges like the one you’re currently in.

They can be used to supplement Spell Points for raising rank, Experience for creating Skills or simply be used for immense boosts to a type of action for a scene, which can also be used on your allies, or to do things that are not normally possible [gaining new fields of magic, etc.]. More information in the discussion thread or when you guys can actually use them.))

Miles is airborne, I think it had Marisol throw it judging by its flight path. I doubt that Ghrakh can leap like that. It has its arms out and looks like it’ll hit the thing in its flank.

>>Also, remind your mother of our date next week if you’re in contact with her before then.

The bull spins around, trying to use the Revenant as a shield, and tilting in an attempt to roast the Platypus. It grabs the helmet and uses it as a handhold to pull himself over the Bulls breath and then as a springboard to jump past the Ice Spirit. The Ice Spirit attempts to stab Miles from between the coils of the Revenants new tentacle, but it slides a knife into the spirits neck, killing it instantly.

>>I don’t want her to be rutting a mountain when I swing by.

It runs to the Bulls left side and slides down his flank, landing on one of the blades. The bull twists frantically in an attempt to shake of the Ghrakh, and as he moves his concentration from keeping the Revenant pinned Molrathi spawns another tentacle, grabbing the hammer and slamming it into one of the blades on the other flank. The blade drives itself further into the wound, and as the Bull roars in pain Molrathi smashes one of the icicle-antlers holding him.

It begins to regrow its horn, and I have my new thralls rush it to distract it. They clamber over each other, leaping and crawling up the things sides as they slash at it, hamstring it and begin to hack away at its horns.

Miles jabs its claws into it, and the Bull begins to collapse under the assault.

Fatima, what the hell just happened? This things ears got burned off pretty quickly.

...Also, I think they figured out you’re a necromancer.

Oh bugger me, I’m getting that look from the mortals

>>That’s supposed to happen after the date.

Bugger you too asshole.

((Also, if someone has a better idea for Ghrakh gender pronouns, mention it here or in the discussion thread. It is getting confusing and annoying to use, and I’d like some input on either my ideas, or ideas for the pronouns in general.))

>>305206
Circle behind the bull and resurrect it.

"Why yes, I'm a xenothurge and a necromancer. Would you like to discuss this like adults or?.."

>>304372
it's lose track. Loose = the opposite of tight. Lose = the opposite of find

>>305217
((FUCKING A! I need to find a proofreader. Keep making stupid mistakes!

Might try smaller updates that are easier to proofread.))

>>305242
((I recommend just typing it up in word for the spelling and grammer check and then copy pasting it into thread.

Its really no big deal and if you do care about it we can point out errors (maybe it would be better to do so in questdis?)

I was actually trying to point out that the person correcting you had himself made mistakes. Of the four "bad mistakes" quoted, The first two: gain it's favor, infest it's valley are just fine. "obvious its undead" should have it's instead of it's, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice. This made me assume that these are supposed to be correction he is posting, not quotes of the errors. And that he is "correcting" you wrongly (telling you that you should have used loose when lose was indeed correct). The assumption was wrong on my part, he was quoting verbatim errors. But as I said, I see no errors in 2 of the 4 quotes. And I see no reason to fret over it, we can perfectly understand it and errors are understandable; I personally like being corrected since it means I learn, if you wish we can do the same, or just not mention it at all if that is your preference))

>>305209
Also pump up the Love of the All-mother.

>>305387
gain it's favor, infest it's valley are both wrong, actually.
You don't use an apostrophe in "its" unless it is a contraction.

>>305209

I walk around the Bull, ignoring the stares until Miles begins to open his mouth, I then pump Love of the All-Mother and begin to respond pre-emptively, "Why yes, I'm a xenothurge and a necromancer. I do hope you don't have a problem with this, we were doing so well together."

"We-

....No problem," says Miles, "None whatsoever. I take it the bull's going to be our newest addition?"

I prepare the spell, re-animating the bull's far less complicated than the Revenant was. Partially because I know that I can't bring it back at anything approaching full strength and settle for creating an abomination.

The bull collapses, muscles disconnecting from bones and pulling themselves into a rough mass. Bones move to form a pseudo-armored shell just underneath the skin. The flames over the skull went out and the icicle horns dropped off as the skull was pulled into the center of the mass. It joined the hive mind and one of the now doused fire spirits brought me the intact icicle horn and handed it to me, evidently for use as a blade.

"What does thi-"

"Did you feel that?" interrupts Marisol, "Low rumbling." I stop and listen for a moment, I don't hear anything, and am about to continue talking when the bridge begins to audibly shake.

A wolf rounds the corner, running furiously away from something, and it's soon followed by one of the bastards who were pursuing me, a tall male, blond hair. Visor's over his eyes.

"RUN!" he yells as I ready my crossbow, "Run for you lives!"

He isn't slowing down....



>>305387
((I prefer being corrected, otherwise I won't improve))

>>305443
Do what he says!

Which corner? Where we came from or where we're going? If where we're going no, don't do what he says quite yet. Prepare to do what he says though, while keeping an eye out for what's chasing him. If what's behind him is something you should run from, do so then. I don't want to take the chance that the guy is either a pansy or trying to force us into a trap. Probably is something we should run from, but the chance to see whatever the fuck it is and potentially avoiding a trap seems like a good idea.

If it's coming from where we came from, yes run the fuck away immediately. Less chance of a trap, and the hell if it's from outside the testing area we do not want to be part of it's test.

Either way, when you pretty much assuredly retreat, see if you can destroy the birdge in the process.

>>305443
Move up to the bridge, the former bull in front. Revive the ice sprites and have them ready to wreck the bridge. Remember, Ig-vhakhan is watching. ACTIVELY. Risks WILL have their rewards. If you can't handle whatever is coming, destroy the bridge, otherwise...

We don't know that what's coming isn't a landslide or cave-in. Get to the other side of the bridge and give me an assessment on trying to call a truce with the Pathist; we need to keep him from being a problem and the main ways of that are forming a truce or forming a new member of the crew.
If discussion seems reasonable it would be nice to know what he's running from but don't waste time on the impossible while the cave might be coming down around your ears.

"Visor's over his eyes" is arguably valid grammar but I'd use, "There's a visor over his eyes," or, "...me. This one is a tall male with blond hair and a visored helmet concealing his eyes." depending on what exactly he's wearing. Aside from being specific about what he's wearing there's the other issue of the capitalized word Visor suggesting that there may be someone or something named Visor holding on to his head. This is the sort of thing a substantive editor catches and copy editors may query but you're not writing a book with months worth of production schedule here so don't worry too much.

>>305672

Visor's is 'visor is'. It shouldn't be capitalized yet though, screwed up notes on what you already know



>>305494

Corner we came from.

>>305450

After sparing a glance at the others and the Spirits, we leg it. I have one of the Flame Spirits grab the intact Ice Spirit corpse, and the Revenant grabs the door with one hand, for use as a shield, as we retreat.

I put off destroying the bridge as a lost cause, I don't have demolition equipment

The rumbling and shaking becomes louder and more violent as we go through the door, the last of the Spirits is just past the former doorway when I point my crossbow at the Pathist's back and laid down the terms of the truce.

"We evidently have a bigger problem than each other right now, so you are not going to do anything stupid while we get out of this temple. After we get out, you're going to be giving me a head start before you find your friends and start tracking me again, clear?" I say as he stops.

"Why would I accept those terms?" he says as he draws a blade, "How do you think your friends will react to learning that you are a necromancer!"

"I think we'll take it pretty well," says Miles, "It's not like she's been hiding the Revenant."

"Because if you don't accept, I shoot you, and throw the corpse to whatever's following you to placate it while the Flame Spirits eat your wolf. I've killed one Pathist today, not all that keen on killing another if I can avoid it."

"Terms accepted!"

"Good, now what was following you"

"Drake"

"HOW THE THRONE DID YOU FIND A DRAKE!" I say as I spin around. Sure enough, following what I imagine is Ig-Vhakhan's sense of style, the Drake rounds the corner as we turn, preceded by a stream of flame. Small flames stick to the walls and bridge as it makes a motion reminiscent of a blind cow attempting to run.

It's enormous, scaled bulk slams into a wall and mostly slides off the bridge, it uses both its foreclaws and wings-talons in order to stop itself.

It's a medium sized Drake, probably thirty feet long, and almost a third of that high. It's got a pair of foreclaws and hindclaws, as well two jutting spikes that it stabs things with or unfolds into wings. It's highly resistant, has bright red scales and generally has one or two other mutations due to a limited form of situational evolution.

Supposedly they can only breath fire five times in an hour, but the scientist who claimed that got roasted by a sixth shot.

"How many times has it flamed?" asked Marisol.

"Three, including this one," says the Pathist, "Shouldn't we keep running?"

"Give me a moment," say me and Marisol almost simultaneously, I continue, though the mercenary doesn't bother explaining herself, "Thinking."

Well, you earned a boon you haven't spent yet, asking for the right ability might help you with this.
Killing it is sure to be worth another boon...
But if you can't figure out a way to do that, then run through an opening too small for it.

Hmmm, you have an icicle, that thing has a throat that could choke on the icicle. Are we good enough at throwing things to pull that idea off, or if that's a no-go could we get one of our tinier dudes to j-j-j-jam it in?
Making it go in sideways works better but go for whatever stops it from breathing fire and has a chance of giving it lethal indigestion.

It's enormous, scaled bulk --you got the its/it's thing right a lot of times though.

>>306165
Can you prepare a ton of bone spikes under the skin of the former boar? Get the drake to chomp down on it then have the spikes thrust out so he chokes.

Even better if you can start filling it full of gas, so that if Mr. Rathalos here flames he gets a face full of his own medicine.

>>306203
Oh, and order the charcoal sprites to retreat, with the dead protecting the living and the dead icicle sprite to be used to put out any of them that get re-lit. They'll be next to useless against this thing and it'll help secure their loyalty.

>>306165
Are drakes immune to lava?

>>306329

Not normally, but it's a common enough mutation that Ersteland units began to account for it when fighting Drake Cavalry during the Ignan invasion.

Y'know, another alternative method of dealing with this drake is taking one of the better high-fire-survivability minions and have them play designated target and harass the drake. While they're doing that have someone stab the drake in the neck/throat with the icicle. Bonus points if your dodgeball-contestant and stab-dude between them time it so the drake blows its own head up with a backwashed flame-breath.

((Got sick, threw up over computer, nearly died. Trying to reboot quest and will likely have an update tomorrow.

Will attempt to dive through archive and find the /Questdis/ thread tonight.))

>>316683
You have my sword.

>>306387
Good idea, hopefully the door is fireproof.

>>306203
That could work. Not much of a Biomancer though, gas thing is a no-go.

>>306205
Sounds like a plan

>>306190
I’ve never tried to use throwing knives and their ilk in combat, I’m terrible at darts and this thing is the size of a sword. Probably not a great idea. One of the Sprites might be able to pull it off though. Or Marisol, she seems pretty good with makeshift weaponry.

“Marisol, try and jab this into its throat,” I say, tossing the fractal icicle blade to her. She catches it and gives it a practice swing before I continue, “I’m praying that the Door is fireproof. It should be able to catch a shot or two and give you an opening. The Sprites are flammable, so they’re bugging out. Everyone, gather near me. And stay near me if you want to get out of this alive.”

The Drake patiently waited outside of the doorway we were waiting behind. It realized that it couldn’t fit through the door into the significantly smaller portion of the passage we were hiding in, and seemed to be waiting for its delicious, delicious meal to come out of hiding before doing anything. It didn’t seem to regard the Sprites I was using to watch it as dangerous, which was good. I had them pull back a bit, and had the abomination crawl….squirm…..

I’ll decide on what to call the form of locomotion when we aren’t dealing with enormous fire-breathing lizards. It moved in front of the doorway, all bones that even seemed pointy pointed towards its surface. The Revenant, at this point more mutations dedicated towards holding it together than actual revenant, stood to the side with the door at the ready for use as a shield in case the Drake decided to fry the abomination instead of eating it.

A couple of moments later, that proved to be a good idea. As the Drake opens its mouth and prepares to roast the abomination, I have the revenant slide into the doorway, temporarily replacing the door. As I weave an illusion over the area around me, making it look like no-one was there, the room heats up and tongues of flame began to flicker around the edges of the door. After a few seconds, the flames stop and the revenant pushes the door forward, swinging the Goedendag with its free hand as it charges.

We move back onto the bridge as the revenant grazes the drakes head, leaving a long scratch along the beasts scales. I throw the Icicle Blade to Marisol as we move, and the group manages to stay close enough to me for the illusion to cover them as we move around the Revenants duel. I have the abomination move forward as I plan the assault.

Current Plan: Get the thing to try and grab onto the door-shield to pull it away, have the Revenant move the shield out of bite range, and the abomination force itself into the Drakes mouth. Have the abomination try and get into the throat and then extrude the bones in an attempt to suffocate it. If it attempts to breathe fire, have Marisol charge in and gore its neck in an attempt to force the flame back into its guts with hopefully explosive consequences. Hopefully Miles poison can weaken the thing if these plans don’t work, though I don’t give it much of a chance of killing the drake outright. Me, the wolf and our Pathist friend mostly exist as a distraction, a well timed illusion might save someones life.

Any suggestions?

>>317438
No, you seem to be doing well on your own.

I have the abomination rush forward immediately while the Revenant tries to ensure that the Drake goes for the door by clubbing the overgrown lizard with the thing. It goes for the bait, both of its wing-claws shoot forward, and it attempts to grab the thing with its jaw. The Revenant steps back and throws the door like a discus, breaking one of the wing-claws and causing the Drake to roar in pain as the abomination tries to force itself into the things mouth.

The Revenant damaged itself in the throw, most of the tendrils that were holding it together have begun to snap, I’m not keeping it intact for more than maybe three minutes, tops.

I drop the illusion and gesture for Marisol to go for its throat while the rest of us distract it. It’s unable to retract the broken claw, and as it tries to force the Abomination out of its mouth with its tongue, the Pathist draws a blade and hacks at it while Miles leaps onto the claw in an attempt to break scale with his barbs, the wolf innefectually scratches at its flank. Meanwhile, I think my hardest at Molrathi to get him to pay attention.
The fuck are you calling about? Trying to talk to a rather important-

-HOW THE FUCK DID YOU ATTRACT A DRAKE? HOW? I LEFT YOU ALONE FOR FIVE MOTHER-DAMNED MINUTES!

It doesn’t matter how, I think at him, I just need you to crush its mind on my mark.

You better as hell have a-it’s trying to fry your abomination.

I swear quietly as the Drake begins to breathe fire again. Marisol moves to stab it in the throat, but it raises its neck, causing her to shatter a section of scales instead of impaling it. The Abomination extrudes its bones, impaling large portions of the Drakes mouth before it fries. The Revenant moves forward again, and the Drake throws us off of it via shaking like an enormous, man-eating dog. I go flying, and Miles bounces off of me as we skid to a stop. I don’t manage to spot the Pathist or his pet before we start scrambling to avoid a swipe from one of its claws.

I think I broke a rib there. Shit.

I run forward, trying to get between its ruined wing-claw and its arm where it can’t swipe me off of the bridge. The Drake attempts to bite the Revenant, but I manage to get it to dodge. Marisol appears in front of it, but it manages to leap backwards with speed that is utterly unfair. It pounces, a wing-spear jutting towards her. She ducks, and its actual target is revealed. The Pathist is behind her, trying to edge his way around the thing, though I can’t imagine why. He leaps sideways, but one of his pauldrons is torn off and I can see profuse bleeding where it ripped open his shoulder. He starts screaming and it goes for the kill.

I fire, the crossbow bolt doesn’t do much more than annoy it, but it gives me the fraction of a second I need for an illusion. I drop all of my illusions, the Revenant begins to lurch forward, on a final mission of some sort as I give up control of it to squeeze a bit more power into the illusion I’m forming. As the drake snaps its head towards me, presumably to gore me for my insolence, the front half of an illusory drake bursts through the wall behind me. The Drake acts on reflex and flames, and I have Molrathi slam into its pathetic animal mind as it rears its head back, stunning it long enough for Marisol to stick a blade in its throat. The Flame is stuck, unable to get around the unmelting ice, and parts of the Drakes chest explode.

Miles and I run forward, the Revenant gets there first and pulls Marisol out from underneath the dying Drake before collapsing. I move on to the Pathist, and his wolf begins to drag itself over, one leg snapped by the force of the Drakes throw.

>>Impressive, I expected someone to die. Pity you fought it here, this area plays to your strengths more than its. Or should I say played? Congratulations.

((One boon gained. Two Necromancy points gained. One general point gained. Two Illusion points gained. Tactical Novice gained. One Xenothurgy point gained.))

... Okay, I have at least two broken bones, the wolf is near dead, Marisol had an arm crushed, I've lost my two most powerful undead, Miles is still dazed and the Pathist is unconscious.

The sprites have found a small crystal thing in a shrine and what they think is an exit. Should we go for it, or do something else first?


((The entire fight was decided on when you created the original plan. It was posted in two sections to see if you wanted to change anything dramatically part way through.

The drakes mutations were:
Immunity to Lava (Mildly annoyed you didn't try that...)
Extra Flame (8 shots instead of 5. You didn't try an endurance game, so it didn't matter)

Of course, loot was distributed assuming you'd go for the drake first, so you wouldn't get the Fractal Unmelting Ice Blade until after you killed the Drake.

On boons, traits and points:

Boons can be exchanged for a random trait, three points in a field of your choosing or fields of magic you don't have access to yet. It takes Four boons to gain access to an entire field, and two to gain access to one spell from a field. Using two, you can gain access to god exclusive fields you can't gain otherwise, but you don't know anything about the field or type of spell you'll get before you get it.

Traits are labelled as boons and skills in the NPC character sheets in the discussion thread. Skills are nonmagical abilities that are learned through practice, Tactical Novice, Fatimas only trait right now, allows her to give a summarized version of your assets, odds and known information on a potential battlefield in a useful manner. It also means that carefully laid plans are more likely to succeed. As Tactical Novice is used more, it will develop, making Fatima a better tactician, able to more easily list potential assets, and eventually making bad 40K references with troop placement.

Magical traits are generated effectively randomly, though if you suggest one it, or a watered down version, is more likely to be given.

Points are basically EXP for Magical Abilities. They work as described in character creation, though you have to buy each and every rank, no skipping from 0 to 4 in a spell in order to save 6 points. General points can be used in any field, and field specific points can only be used in that field.

As a note: Raising Reanimate and Lifesight in rank allows you to pick two (Or one) attributes. Every time you raise the rank of those spells, both attributes go up by one. Or one attribute goes up by two if you choose.

If I forgot something, tell me.))

I think the One Xenothurgy point should go into the flesh is weak, and i think we should put both necromancy points into create undead, with three ranks going into undead complexity and one into how many.

I agree with The Flesh is weak, But I think instead of getting MORE undead, we should instead use the point we were going to use to increase the power of Life-Sight, and improve Deception and Charm, so that she can conceivably convince any Pathists following her that they are actually really clever double agents of Shar, and then convince them to ally with her.

>>318903
Life sight is worth less than more and more powerful undead, and I don't see how life-sight
would help us manipulate people.

>>318958
He did just say that we could pick an attribute to increase with Life Sight. And maxing out Deception would allow us to pull of some seriously CRAZY shit. On the level of "You don't work here" and "I am not here. Go away."

More and more powerful undead only works IF WE HAVE CORPSES TO RAISE. Have you SEEN any corpses round here? We have a Bull, some sprites, and MAYBE a drake. But do we NEED more? Quality over quantity is my philosophy. Who needs ten thousand one-hit-kill zombies when you can simply send one MEGA REVENANT to go punch out a Drake?

then spend 4 pts on increasing undead complexity. that'll let us make some very nasty creatures. as we are i think we can wrap anything not specked out to detect lies and deception (or just fare more powerful than us) already.

But we can always be BETTER at lying. It says we are almost on par with GODS in being able to conceal our intent.

That should be our goal. To be able to truthfully say we can bullshit IG VAKHAN.

we can already talk out way out of almost anything that can be talked out of. We do not need to be able to outdo the god of deception. there is a drake corpse in fairly good shape right in front of us. if we up undead complexity by 3 or 4 ranks we could turn that into something really nice. Also if you want to make use better at deception we have illusion points for that.

We have two boons. I say we either pick up regenerate now or wait until we have two more boons to get access to the entire Biomancy tree

>>318958

Lifesight's interesting, it's not actually that useful (For your powerset at least) until around rank 4, at which point it starts developing new and interesting side abilities.


>>318967

You turned the bull into an abomination. The Abomination got incinerated, there is no bull. So you've got a bunch of sprites that are either already undead or already loyal to you. And a crossbow.


>>318989

At no point did I say you were godlike in scheming ability. You are above human, in verse there are a lot of things above human. I'll elaborate in the /dis/ thread.

And yes, there are more boons available in the temple. I won't tell you where they are, but they're pretty easy to find.

>((One boon gained. Two Necromancy points gained. One general point gained. Two Illusion points gained. Tactical Novice gained. One Xenothurgy point gained.))

Alright, so with the previously earned boon, current XP or XP like things are:
2 boons
2 necromancy
1 general (spells I presume?)
2 illusion
1 Xenothurgy

So... I get the feeling that getting boons is CRAZY HARD... so while spending them on things like healing or improving magic we know looks attractive.
>Using two, you can gain access to god exclusive fields you can't gain otherwise, but you don't know anything about the field or type of spell you'll get before you get it.
We can use 2 boons to gain a field of magic that otherwise we have no other way of getting. Any of the other plans, while cool, we could acquire by spending general spell XP (like the 1 point we already got) to gain.
I vote boons are used exclusively for that, at least for now.

Also, I am curious as to what our allies will spend THEIR boons on.

Now, how to spend...
I am looking through and I see a description of what she can do "at her current level" but not an actual numeric breakdown of her levels in various spells. We need that to decide on spending.

>>319075

Shit, forgot to put that down.

>>301170

This is the build consensus was reached on. Including free points that means that you have:

Reanimate: 2.

Lifesight: 1.

Birthright: 3

Dread Hive: 2

Pheremones: 1

Visual: 3

Love of the Allmother: 1

Hateful, Wretched Noise: 1

One for All: 1

Blessings of Shar: 1

There's a breakdown of what exactly you can do at these ranks earlier in the thread.

>then spend 4 pts on increasing undead complexity.

As far as I can see, Reanimate determines both quantity AND complexity of animated dead.
>Reanimate: Reanimate allows you to create and control undead. As you increase your skill in the field you are able to command more and more complex undead, eventually imbuing the undead with sentience through the trapped souls.
And at skill level 2, it will cost 3 points to reach level 3, and 4 additional points to reach level 4.
And she only has 2 points in necromancy and 1 general to spend.

>Make yourself MORE persuasive
You are already persuasive enough to convince random people to work with you and even make a temporary peace pact with a pathist priest...
What you should improve is your combat and survival ability, especially considering that this is a temple of Ig.

>What to spend.
If people agree on my idea of using the 2 boons for the "pay 2 boons for a random secret magic school that isn't available for learning normally" then I would rather see what that gave us before spending the rest of the points. Don't want to get redundant here.

lets go with using the two boons to get a random magic school and increasing Reanimate by 1 level.

I made a detailed chart of all spells in our schools with current level, prereqs, links to descriptions, etc
>>/questdis/348609

This should help people with choosing how to allocate the points
right, now that all the legwork is finally done and I know what I am doing... votan time.

2 boons - unlock god's unique school otherwise unavailable whose details are secret unless taken. (I called it random in a previous post, but looking at author quote he said secret, not random)

1 general - if the unlocked school from above has a really awesome spell we can take, get that. Otherwise use it with the 2 necromancy to get level 3 reanimate.

2 necromancy - if used with 1 general point get reanimate 3, otherwise save them towards reanimate 3.

2 illusion - 1 auditory, 1 Consummate Falsehood (ties together various illusions to create a whole greater then the sum of its parts)

1 Xenothurgy - save for One for All level 2 (the stun we used on the drake)

i vote we use the universal point to get reanimate 3, and then use the two boons to get a new field of magic. I'm willing to bet Ig-Vhakhans has some nifty magic, probably focusd on evolution or self improvement.

>>319098
This, but save the boons.

>>319098
I agree with your build, but I think we should save the boons. We haven't even finished the temple yet...

>>319145

but if we don't spend them we might not survive to actually finish the temple.
As per >>/questdis/>>348613 and based on it this >>/questdis/348616

I suggest we use the 2 boons for Ig-Vhakhan's own magic school. Boons are the only way to get it, and it would shore up our one weakness (our own personal body is frail and lacks combat skills... we have awesome social skills and awesome minions, but we are weak. Lets become a superwoman)

>>319153
Instead of gambling, I want to use the boons to get regeneration. We don't get to choose which gods school we get.

>>319155
If I understand correctly. We get to choose which god's school we get. We don't get a list of their actual spells... only "general knowledge about the school".

>>319159
>>319155

No matter which school you choose, you do not get to choose the gained spell. You do get to choose which school you get (EX. you can decide if you want a spell from Ig-Vhakhans school or Biomancy, and you can ask for a specific Biomancy spell, but you can't ask for a specific spell from Ig-Vhakhans school as you don't know what they are.)

You can also gain access to the entire school, but that costs four boons instead.

>>319159
>>319155

You may choose the school, but possibly not the gained spell. You do get to choose which school you get (EX. you can decide if you want a spell from Ig-Vhakhans school or Biomancy, and you can ask for a specific Biomancy spell, but you can't ask for a specific spell from Ig-Vhakhans school as you don't know what they are.)

You can also gain access to the entire school, but that costs four boons instead.

>>319159
Ahh, I think you're right, but I still think Regerenation is the best buy right now.

>>319165
Right now we're proof against pretty much everything but bad luck. With our armies we can defend against most anything, but one lucky blow can pretty much take out Fatima. The absolute best defense against that is taking Regeneration.

Also! Instead of trying to revive the drake see if you can use xenothurgy to make suits of armor for the charcoal elementals. Fireproof charcoal elementals? Fuck yeah! Even better if you can bond the scales to the elementals themselves.

If you guys could post point breakdowns with your votes, it would be appreciated.

>>319187
what? right now she has AWESOME social skills, good necromancy skills. and illusions.
In combat she attacks with a regular crossbow, she is as volnerable to injury as any mortal woman, she has no healing capability or super powers or durability or superspeed.

Bad luck is most certainly not the only thing that can do her in.

>>319245
Exactly why we need regeneration.

>>319301
I agree, we do need it and my idea was to get it ASAP, get the ability to heal others as well, and play the messiah figure, going town to town healing the sick, the poor, the blind, etc. Thing is, the Ig Vakun magic school can only be acquired via boons and it sounds like its really awesome powerful.

I am changing my vote to save the boons until we have 4 to fully unlock a spell field (to be determined later via vote). based on the detailed back and forth I have been having with the author on questdis, detailing exact costs and interactions between boons and XP.

I recommend checking it out.

All other points remain placed as before. so the new placement for me is:

2 boons - save.
1 general - add to necromancy
2 necromancy - upgrade reanimate 3 with the 1 general
2 illusion - 1 auditory, 1 Consummate Falsehood (ties together various illusions to create a whole greater then the sum of its parts)
1 Xenothurgy - save for "One for All" level 2 (the stun we used on the drake)

>>319324
I like this, except spend the Xenothurgy point on The Flesh is Weak. We currently are wounded, and it could help. Assuming it can affect broken bones, that is. If it can't do that at level 1, save the point.

>>319360
Oh, and attach the attribute points from Reanimate to Mind and Resistance, so that whenever we raise it we get a boost to our mental and physical resilience.

((So, voting is closed. Upgrades are: Re-animate 3, Auditory 1, Consummate Falsehood 1. You have 1 Xenothurgy point and two boons remaining)

We rest for a bit before continuing. I use the opportunity to listen to your suggestions, and put to work the stored up magi-

You have me put it to work. Let's be honest here.

I, by proxy put to work the built up magical energy to increase my control over my spells. Despite the amount of bullshit we tell non-mages, learning new spells is more about getting a breather to think about how to apply a branch of magic you already now about in a new way instead of some sort of dramatic revelation of new power at a crucial moment. That only happens in plays. And to Ignans.

It's oddly re-invigorating. Feels like a nap combined with a healing crystal.

And then I move and realize that my rib is still broken. Fuck.

The Pathist is bandaged up, and we made a sled out of the Drakes scales so that the wolf could drag him after us. Now we just need to find an Ignan composite bow and start making Fried of the Barbarians references. Loved that play. Always wondered why the wolf never went beserk with the amount of blood they sprayed around.

We limp on, meeting the sprites at the giant crystal-shrine. It glows red, ominously, and the shrine around it is littered with skulls. I can feel the magic radiating off of it, and am about to suggest running when Miles waddles forward and touches the thing, then motions for everyone else to do the same. After he decidedly doesn't explode, I limp over and put a hand on it as Marisol drags the near-unconscious Pathist over to help him do the same.

There's a glow of power, and a skull made of ice and flame appears over it.

>>You've found the first shrine! Congratulations. You've earned the boons I am gifting you.

>>There's an exit through that hall, nothing will attempt to kill you if you leave now. You are wounded after all.

>>Or you could go back in, there's a larger shrine with a much more impressive treasure elsewhere. I don't guarantee your safety if you try it though.

>>1 boon gained.

...Wait, how do we use these things?

>>I can read your mind

That was a response to me, correct?

>>Yes

There's a short pause, followed by the pathists shoulder wound closing and blushing on the pathists part.

>>....No

There's another pause, and one of the non-undead sprites reaches forward and touches the crystal

>>That's sick, and you're sick for thinking of it.

Wait, if that sprite got a boon, does that mean that I can give the charcoal sprites-

>>Undead do not get boons.

>>319819
Absolutely continue on, we still need another boon. Also spend that Xenothurgy point on The Flesh is Weak so you can continue on without worrying about your broken ribs. Also does the wolf get a boon? The wolf should get a boon.

>>319821
What? No we don't. The only reason she was in here in the first place is because she was chased here and had no choice. And 'The Flesh is Weak' only fills wounds like cuts and such, it doesn't fix broken bones. (Unless it does shore them up, in which case ignore this part, but my vote will still be the same.) Thank him for the boon, and let's get the hell out of here before our luck runs out.

>>319825
agreed. No to the flesh is weak.

Also, go back and use your reanimate 3 on that delicious <DRAKE CORPSE>! I bet it will make an awesome undead. as much as I would like leaving, you have 3 boons, meaning you are 1 boon away from being unable to unlock a whole school of magic. So I recommend staying.

Counterpoint: bumping The Flesh Is Weak would increase overall resistance, making our necromancer harder to hurt. Also, useful for some patchwork.

This isn't really a vote for The Flesh Is Work, just a counterargument. I'm actually neutral on the matter.

As far as actual suggestions go, we're already pretty beaten up. Probably best to make our escape while we can. And animating the drake sounds great.

>>319825
I'm pretty sure The Flesh is Weak does affect broken bones, given that Havocfett said the primary difference between it and Regenerate is that Regenerate is faster and The Flesh is Weak does mutations, and that higher levels of Regenerate let us use it on others. I don't know why you guys want to have broken bones for the next couple months, though. We don't really have anything to speed up healing right now, and spending a boon on it seems really wasteful.

check questdis, author confirmed that "the flesh is weak" does not heal broken bones at the early levels.

The main difference between the two is that Regeneration increases natural regeneration, meaning that any wound that would naturally heal will eventually heal even at the lowest ranks, while The Flesh is Weak replaces open wounds with mutations, meaning that it has a hard limit on what it can heal at each level.

I vote we put the xenothurgy point into the flesh is weak, go back and get the drake corpse, and then leave this crazy temple. If we ever find ourselves in dire need of power we can come back and face the trials.

>>319919

There will be brand new trials if you come back, and they'll be harder next time.

Yes, THE FLESH IS WEA- Wait. Will these mutations ever leave? Otherwise we're gonna look a mite silly preaching love and friendship from our evergnashing-killmaw.

Ok, miles and marisol have 2 boons each now. And the pathist just healed himself so he has 1 left and an injured wolf companion.

We need to convince them that we should aim for more treasure and boons. And for that we need a healer. You have saved up 3 boons that you intended to spend on ig's magic of self improvement... but you see that the needs of all is that we need a healer, bad. So you will switch those 3 boons, and add 1 boon from each for you to get biomancy fully unlocked (with regen 1 included), +6 point of which 5 will go towards upgrading to regen 3. At regen 3 heal ourselves and our companions.

For the pathist, it will be his last boon, since he used one to heal, but it will allow us to save the life of and fully heal his wolf companion.

For the other two, it will help them greatly in getting the treasure and the extra boons in the temple. And we would be glad to travel with miles and marison further and continue to act as their healer.

If the bulk you can point out how there are plenty of boons to be had here, you got 3, they got 2 each (at least, that you know of), and then there is the treasure itself.

If they continue to bulk, you can offer to pay back said boons with whatever boons you get in this temple later on.

>>319819
I'm still arguing for regeneration. Then going deeper. Deeepeeer.

>>319924
Oh fuck yeah. Use all your magical whiles to this purpose.

>>319924
If this is possible it is the BEST IDEA.

oh, start with "wait, don't spend the rest of your boons yet I have an idea".

we should tailor our negotiations with each, with the pathist focus on his companion wolf's well being and that if he stays, he could keep some of the magic artifacts (aka the treasure) we find out of our hands and in the hands of the loyal.

With miles and marisol, focus on all the remaining treasures and boons for us to find here, and long term healing on their future missions as well.

BTW, if we pull this off we would be at regen 3 with 1 biomancy point unspent. That is one boon off from biomancy 4. which we should spend our next boon on if they go for this plan.

This is actually also something to mention btw, that you also commit to spend the next boon you get earn on making your ability to heal others even better.
And again, point out that this is something you do for the good of all. Self healing / durability is very much cheaper but you are aiming to healing your companions too, which is why it is expensive. (you could take "flesh is weak, maybe add a boon or two. You could use a boon on a trait rather then a spell that lets you regenerate yourself only, you could just walk away")

oh, how many surviving sprites are there and have not used their boons?

Same logic could be used, they are free to leave if they want, to go out the door and live out their lives. But they could choose to continue deeper into the temple with you for boons and treasures, and there a healer will help.

But appealing to more people you get a higher chance of getting enough boons

Fatimas upgraded attributes (Non upgraded attributes are higher in thread):


Perception 3: Fatima has above average eyesight and hearing, and tends to pick up on things others wont.


Resistance 4: Fatima is increasingly durable, on par with a trained (Though non-veteran) soldier at this point.

Mind 6: Fatima would be considered for MENSA, if it existed, and is close to as smart as you can possibly be without magical assistance.

Reanimate 3: Fatima can control 10 Normal Undead and 1 Advanced Undead at any given time. (Details will be provided in /dis/ upon request)

Auditory 1: Fatima may artificially create one source of sound at a time, lasting up to three minutes, though it cannot have much subtle variance.

Consummate Falsehood 1: Fatima may use two illusion spells simultaneously, treating each of their levels as the lowest of the two.


Update coming soon.

we can make one advanced undead, and we have a drake corpse to work with. I think what we do next is pretty obvious.

>>320014
Use boon to summon unlimited popcorn for life?

No. Just no.

alright. based on questdis >>/questdis/348780
Monsterous undead can be made into carriers (a little more powerful, can carry you, lose some abilities) or stalkers (significantly more powerful)

Considering how awesome strong that thing was I say we make it into a stalker. I shudder with glee at the thought of a significantly more powerful drake.

>>319998
I think technically we should be at Mind 7? We were at 5 before and it looks like the Reanimate points went to Mind and Resistance, because nothing else we picked went to Resistance. Auditory raises Mind, so that should be two points to Mind, leaving us at 7.

>>320176
I agree. a carrier would be useful but having a power house on hand would be more useful.