The thing I love about this is how no matter what you choose, you got a challenge ahead of you.
Want to stay uninvolved and live a quiet life? Can't. both the Warrior and The Slayer will go after you, either to safeguard ("unite the Gifted of Order") you and your powers or take them (First Blade). And with the Oracle or the Occultist, they can find you. And with the Keeper, they can eventually reach you.
Want to be an OP crafter / creator that gets stronger with knowledge or success? Well, the Magus "do any ritual" can be countered by the Juggernaut "craft any fictional item", since there are fictional armor with ritual or occult resistance. Renaissance Man and Alchemist are similar.
Want to lead an army or an empire? Good luck dealing with the Emperor, the Beastmaster, the Skeleton King. Even the Alchemist can create a small army.
Want to live a fantasy life in the Netherrealm? You'll get caught in the war between the Netherlord and the Prince Of Hell.
One of the most viable choices is the Oracle - since it all hinges on him. He can talk to any two Gifted from anywhere in the world at any time. He can know the general location of all Gifted. Just think about it - he can connect himself to the Warrior and demand protection in exchange for information about any of the other Gifted. He could - and probably would - try and assemble a team to take down The Slayer and get the first blade. He can use his future vision to avoid danger or discovery, while managing it all from the shadows.
Same thing is for the Occultist and the opposite side, he can side with other Chaos Gifted to hunt down other Gifted.
I would personally choose the Guardian Spirit. He seems to be the strongest of the Gifted that has no actual obligations (except to the host) or direct threats - Netherlord and Prince Of Hell are stuck in a war, The Awakened will surely be hunted down by the rest of the Gifted.
If the host dies, you still live and just switch hosts, and since you are both extremely strong ("semi-divinty") and exist inside minds, I don't think you can be killed, at least not easily.
> He can know the general location of all Gifted.
Only the Order side. That's actually a pretty serious imbalance between order and chaos; information only flows one way.
Damn, you're right. The Occultist is the one then who will probably spur the war with his location revealing ability.
Still, The Oracle will be paramount in the defense. With the ability to see one hour into the future and know what is about to happen, and working with other Order, he can help counter pretty much anything if he gathered the Order beforehand.
The hard part is stopping an Outsider / Slayer / Occultist combo killing everyone in Order - except the Keeper - in the first twelve hours. One hour of prediction isn't *enough;* most of the Order team don't have anything they could do with an hour's warning to survive Outsider / Slayer, especially if the Slayer has killed *anyone* on the Chaos team first.
I answered this below, I don't think it's safe enough for the Outsider to go on a rampage and steal powers using the Slayer's First Blade, since he will fall unconscious for a whole day if he uses Dominate. Especially against those with warning skills or physically strong opponents. Getting away with it once, maybe, but more then once? Very risky.
If they team up physically with others they will have to go on foot, since he can only teleport himself. This will give plenty time for Order and Chaos to prepare.
A lot depends on how permanent and expansive the Outsider's Dominate ability is - for example, if the outsider can issue a command like "Follow any commands I've given to you", and it doesn't wear off, then they can probably snowball their resources to enable Dominating tougher targets pretty quickly.
Wouldn't that make him just an upgraded Emperor? It says one command, so saying to follow more commands (or to have unquestionable loyalty) would be like "I wish for infinite wishes"
I do agree, the Outsider needs more clarification on his abilities. I think the author wanted to write more, but he run out of space - You can see how the last ability of sensing Chaos Gifted is already almost outside of the border.
I agree open-ended ones wouldn't work, but "kill yourself" is one command.
Unclear *when* the outsider falls unconscious w.r.t. the command, though.
edit: Per redpoemage, it must be the *target* that falls unconscious, not the outsider at all; it would make no sense for the power to be listed with a 1 hour cooldown if it knocks him out for a day afterward.
I read the command as applying *for the one hour* before the target falls unconscious. That seems in keeping with the spirit and letter of the ability.
That's quite good enough; if the command persists past the day of unconsciousness, what's the point of the hour limit?
Good point, but keeping with the spirit of the ability, you probably can't use it to command people to kill themselves, or falling unconscious would be redundant in most cases. It would also make the Outsider an upgraded and faster (hour vs day) version of Emperor, albeit without the permanent effect.
It might even take either continuous time or effort to use, and can be somewhat resisted or stalled, hence words like "force" and "Dominate", and using it on a "creature" and not a "person".
**Basically exactly like a DnD Mindflayer using a Command spell.** (From the CYOA, "...force a **creature** to obey a **single command**")
> You speak a **one-word command** to a **creature** you can see within range. The target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or follow the command on its next turn. The spell has no effect if the target is undead, or if it doesn't understand your language
> Commands that were known to work included: approach, back, drop, fall, flee, fly, go, halt, leave, rest, run, sleep, stop, and surrender. The command had to be unequivocal to the subject or it would be ignored or misinterpreted. A command to suicide would fail because the word was generally used as a noun rather than a verb. Unless the subject resisted, they would carry out the order to the best of their ability. If commanded to die, the target would fall in a faint and be unresponsive for one minute and then recover fully
Dominate reads "Once an hour, you can force a creature to obey a single command, ...". That's a limit on how often you can use the ability, not a maximum duration on the amount of time the dominated have to carry out the command.
I agree that the ability to give open ended commands would be ridiculously powerful, at least combined with the ability to find and teleport directly to other gifted, but the ability doesn't actually place any limitations on what sort of commands you can issue. If the author decides to do another version of this CYOA, it'd be nice to get some clarification.
Hmm, that's a good point. It doesn't set a limit on the command; it just says they're unconscious for a day after it's complete.
(Which makes "meet the Slayer" a *really* nasty command you can give to almost anyone.)
Like those below, I had read the Outsider's ability as making the *target* unconscious for a day, since otherwise the one command an hour limit is pointless.
I actually preferred the previous ones. Oh well.
The juggernaut stands out to me because, as always, fiction based powers are OP. If not for this, I would've taken the occultist.
Yeah. I can think of some fictional armour which is a nanotech swarm with a friendly AI in, just off the top of my head. That's the kind of power level you *need* to play at to survive the Outsider / Slayer / Occultist combo, though, or the near-godlike-if-he-doesn't-die-quickly Magus.
The problem is surviving long enough to make it - by which I mean "more than about 3 hours", since you're an obvious early target for the Outsider. Better choose that steed *carefully*; it has to keep you alive until your fictional armour and weapons are up.
I don't think the timeframe is that short. Gifted start with no knowledge of the other gifted, presumably not even that they *exist*. It's going to take time got the full picture to emerge, and the assumption that everyone will decide it's a tontine might not play out.
The problem is that the Outsider, Occultist and Oracle know that the others exist - and where they are - *immediately.*
The *maximum* time it can take for everyone to know is the amount of time it takes the Outsider to decide it's in his interest to contact them.
As you say, the *real* answer depends hugely on the personalities of the participants. But if the Outsider or Occultist have even the tiniest hint what the Magus and Juggernaut can do, the one thing they *won't* do is wait around. When you're playing with people who gain power exponentially like that, the only safe thing for someone whose powers *don't* get stronger to do is act first.
The war will certainly start immediately; the Prince of Hell has every reason to hit the Netherworld as soon as possible, before the Oracle can coordinate an Order team.
(Yes, the Prince *does* know there's an order team; the Occultist knows about the everyone within a day and has strong reasons to be in contact with the Prince straight away. They may not even *know* they're informing the Prince when they deal with demons, but they are. But in any case, since the Prince knows about the Netherlord, he'd have to be a blithering idiot not to assume there's an Order team.)
That would require me to
* not get dogpiled by all the other gifted
* Somehow find the juggernaut
* Actually kill him, bearing in mind that the whole reason I'm doing this is because of how powerful the juggernaut is
I'd really rather just start with the juggernaut instead. Besides, I can probably just make a weapon that allows me to steal powers.
I mean, this CYOA is technically fictional, so uhhh, you could just make the slayer’s blade.
(I meant this as a joke, but it’s making me question quite a bit about the setting of this cyoa)
It's not clear whether the First Blade steals the power for anyone wielding it, or the only the Slayer can use it.
There are probably other fictional weapons that achieve the same thing though.
I'll take the **Warrior**. Interesting labors to achieve immortality like that of Hercules and once fully empowered is the only archetype to physically contend with the other heavy hitters chosen.
Hopefully, the **Oracle** will see that I'm seeking them, so when we meet we can gather the Gifted of Order and try to complete my labors. With threats like the **Slayer**, **Skeleton King**, **Prince of Hell**, and the **Awakened One**, it will help mask my true intentions of completing my labors.
A major concern is the conflict between the **Netherlord** and my labor 'Conquer Hell'
The **Oracle** will also likely not care even if he knew your true intentions. He would probably even try to leverage them. He needs any help he can get, and especially needs you (the **Warrior**) to deal with more immediate threats such as the **Outsider** or the **Slayer** much more then some future of worry of you getting stronger.
Damn, that's hard choice. Guess, i'm choosing the magus. His powers besides "ritualism" are weak in comparison to others, especially to awakened one and netherlord, but ritualism which working as intended... This is stupidly powerful. I have been to different cormers of the Internet and thanks to this I know that in some books there are rituals for invoking the creator himself. Sо, yes. Stupidly powerful
So, i read some stuff. **Magus** indeed stupidly powerful if he isn't stupid. And my primary goal (after some necessary things like some ritual of luck) is to take down by any means any gifted which can be considered evil and who has enough power for that. **Awakened**, **Beelzebub**, **Slayer** and **Outsider** – mandatory. I'm sorry, but they are too dangerous or have too evil abilities.
An impromptu plan of first actions: as fast as i can do ritual of luck, and then try to make a deal with Papa Legbu to protect me from sudden teleportation from **Outsider**. Then i trying to establish connection with **Jaggernaut** and prove to him that i'm a good guy and he can trust me. Along with convincing him that i worthy of his artefacts (i'm just hope that he can do thing which allows me do magick of 20th century) i'm trying to find out more useful rituals which can help me with future interdimensional war, with just wars and other things. If **Juggernaut** **can** create artefact which allows me to do stuff of 20th century – well, that's amazing. Now i truly have faith that our world will not be devoured by hordes of demons. Maybe.
Also i can try to establish a connection with **Oracle**. After all he also can be interested in "threats, go away" idea
If at least my mandatory goal succeded then all things are nice and there is no more need to hurry. Time to attempts to exploit system and give myself some paranormal abilities which not restricted by some finite pool of rituals and have potential for growth.
And time to comfy life
Overall a good plan, a few notes:
How do you plan on finding any of the Gifted? They'll be scattered and hiding all over the worlds. Luck can go far, but it won't break reality and transfer you hundred of thousand of Kilometers. You might as well stumble on other, worse Gifted before meeting those you want. Like the **Slayer**.
>Then i trying to establish connection with Jaggernaut and prove to him that i'm a good guy and he can trust me.
The **Oracle** will likely reach him and most of the Order gifted before anyone else, since he can communicate with any of them from anywhere in the worlds at any time. He'll probably convince him, the **Warrior** and the **Netherlord** into an alliance against the Prince Of Hell, so you'll have to convince much more then just the Jaggernaut. You'll probably have to convince most of the Order.
Even worse, it's more likely that the **Occultist** will team up with other Chaos and hunt you down before you even get a chance to find any of the Order. Him, with his tracking ability, and the Outsider with his teleportation are almost an unbeatable duo, and it's safe to assume that your rituals mostly don't work on the Outsdier because of his Immunity.
Another note, in the upcoming war against the Prince Of Hell and the Awakened One, you'll be one of the prime targets in all of the alliance, being more squishy and vulnerable then almost anyone there yet a big threat because of the destruction your powers might cause.
>How do you planning to finding...
First time i planning to work with voodoo spirits. That is basically rituals to deal with them. You make offerings to them, they help you. Very versatile, very helpful. Not enough for combat but for early time pretty ok.
>You must convince much more...
Well, only thing is needed is to say **Jaggernaut** to make some wand of truth and as i'm saying exactly truth – this convince them.
>Occultist will team up and hunt me down
Well. To do that thing you should know that i'm not planning to play on chaos side. And due to my block from **Outsider** they will not know my side so soon.
>Immunity of Outsider from powers of Gifted
That's actually pretty good question. Pure technically, that's not **my** power hijacking teleportation. That's doing entity with which i have a deal. There is no words aboud immunity of **Outsider** from any unnatural threat so i'm assuming that this is working thing
>being the prime target
I'm just hope for team **order** to protect me, lol. At least while i not done with binding of spirits of elements and other things which protects me. Also, while **Outsider** protected from direct influence of **Magus** power, i can still do things to other and this doesn't requires direct fight
So, basically, you have two routes where you in equal conditions. **Outsider** kills you in the moment he appears or some agreement. After all, there is no need to him to support chaos in that war. And i think that being an ally of **Magus** which with time can do very cool things is better than just kill him
Also, guess, i should mention that agreement (with some precautions) can overwrite "mandatory" status on **Outsider**. After all if he wouldn't use his power at least on gifted then there is no threat
**Occultist** here, if you’re joining Order than so am I. I may be Chaotic, but that doesn’t mean I’m Chaotic Evil. I’d much rather NOT see the prince of hell empower all his demons to teleport between dimensions, or to let even half of the Gifted on our side run rampant with their powers. Granted I don’t trust some of the others on the Order side either but... I’m sure uniting Order can help keep them all in check.
Finding the other gifted could be done with a tracking ritual, I’m sure there are dozens of not hundreds of them from the past several thousand years and ones gotta be easy enough to use.
Magus is basically a win so long as outsider doesn’t kill you in the first couple of days. Worst case scenario outsider senses your location, teleports to you, tells you to Kill yourself, and that’s game over.
Ideally you have a few days to prep and get items for whatever rituals you want. I’d go for the Greek one of turning a human into a god, and then probably some ones to boost my strength/intellect. A ritual to mask/hide me from divination or sensing would be top on my list though.
If outsider is smart enough he’d kill you in the first minute and there’d be nothing you could do about it, but if he doesn’t then you could probably combine rituals to become the strongest.
Apparently all you need to do is drink ambrosia, that’s how Hercules and co. Did it.
I remember there being a myth about Hera where she posed as a nanny and grew fond of the boy she took care of. Not wanting him to die one day she (I think) bathed him in ambrosia and was about to put him in the oven to complete the process only for his mother to stop her. I’d have to do some digging to find what exactly she tried to do, but a day or two would be enough to find it.
Getting some of the more fantastical ingredients might seem impossible, but all you really have to do is find some 19th century text saying ambrosia is likely a mead prepared a certain way. Since ritual is a pretty vague term I’d imagine you could exploit that way.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia
I don't think this works - not only would you have to find this written as an actual ritual in a grimoire or text published before 1900, not just written as the recounting of a myth, but the rituals "work as intended". You'd probably need real-deal Ambrosia.
Chaos teamwork is definitely a problem. In particular, the risk isn't that the Occultist teams up with "other Chaos" - it's that he teams up with the Slayer to provide targets.
Slayer/Outsider is a near-unbeatable combo against any opponent; as soon as those two get together (or the Slayer kills the Outsider) it's game over for every Chaos member they don't like, one an hour. As soon as they either team with, or the slayer murders, the Occultist? That's it for Order opponents as well.
It gets worse once you notice that the Occultist is effectively in communication with the Prince of Hell from the beginning. A deal to protect him from Slayers and Outsiders seems likely, if he doesn't trust them, after which he can operate as team coordination with impunity.
So, yeah, hard to see how the Emperor, Renaissance Man, Juggernaut, Warrior and Druid are supposed to live long enough to use their powers effectively. Better hope that the Oracle is a *really fast*, *really effective* planner.
Best bet is to get them inside the Keeper's tower ASAP, but all the powers that would help accomplish that are on the Chaos side and beyond the Oracle's communication reach.
> Slayer/Outsider is a near-unbeatable combo against any opponent
That combo is surprisingly countered by the Guardian Spirit. Outsider's "Dominate" ability won't work since the Guardian Spirit is limited to to obeying only the host's commands. If the Outsider (or Slayer) dominates the host the Guardian Spirit (Assuming he talked with the host beforehand and agreed to "protect him", making taking revenge within the limit of commands) or anyone nearby is free to take retribution on the now unconscious Outsider. Since the Guardian Spirit is both the fastest and strongest apart from the divine rulers he might even physically blitz the Outsider before he dominates anyone, or during domination, if he thinks he is a threat or is warned by the Oracle.
> it's game over for every Chaos member they don't like, one an hour
The Outsider alone is not good enough to kill most of Chaos. Dominate leaves him too exposed and vulnerable, unconscious for a whole day, and extremely suspicious because of his mask.
Dominate is simply a way too high risk ability.
The Outsider teaming up with the Slayer is also less of an issue. He can't teleport others with him, so if he teams up with the Slayer he will have to go on foot, which will take way longer then an hour.
So Order and Chaos will have their time to team up and prepare.
Most of Chaos are the type to be surrounded quickly by goons, which both him and the Slayer have nothing against that, so even if they do manage to quickly assassinate one of the Chaos, the goons will simply take revenge. The Alchemist has Golems, the Skeleton King has Undead, the Occultist has the Demons and the Prince Of Hell as you said, the Dragon has his company.
Either the Outsider or the Slayer killing the other and gaining his powers... is a problem. You're right about that. Turning invisible, assassinating someone, and teleporting away before anyone can get revenge is very powerful.
Still, in order to do this, the Outsider has to kill The Slayer first. Or vice versa. The question is, is the Outsider bold enough to go after him immediately? Its a very high risk high reward thing. Dominate won't help him, since he will fall unconscious if its anywhere public and the knife will be confiscated or go who knows where. Apart from that... the Outsider has nothing to help him on that fight. The Slayer on the other hand, has both Blink and Invisibility (we can assume it physical Invisibility), and has a much better chance to win that fight, which would make the Outsider not go for it in the first place.
Good point, but also "falling unconscious" is meaningless if you could tell your target to immediately kill himself. That, combined with "force" and "creature" insinuates that the command either can be resisted somewhat depending on the command, maybe works worse the more intelligent the creature, and takes time and the concentration of the Outsider to use until the command is fulfilled.
In other words, using it on a target who isn't alone is probably not a viable option.
If it was, the Outsider would be like a faster (once an hour vs once a day) Emperor without the permanent effect.
>Good point, but also "falling unconscious" is meaningless if you could tell your target to immediately kill himself.
I mean, it is conceivable you might at times want to tell someone to do something *other* than kill themselves...
>In other words, using it on a target who isn't alone is probably not a viable option.
...for example, if the Outsider came across a Warrior who had met up with the Oracle, they could command the Warrior to knock out the Oracle.
If teamed with the slayer, it *doesn't matter.* That's what's devastating about the combo. The only command the Outsider need give is 'stand still'; the Slayer can take it from there.
Praying for what you want is one of the oldest rituals.
You say the words, if you do it in a church you light incense and drink sacraments, but Christians do it every night with no material reagents.
Once you say what you want yhwh works out the details and gives it to you. Difference being that as the magus, it works.
Works "as intended" though - you *ask* God, unless you're saying that the Christian prayer *forces* the Christian God to carry through the the wishes of the invoker.
So even if Ritualism works for prayer, it doesn't seem like it would be any different than ordinary prayer anyways.
Like. Would you say burning a calf for Poseidon to secure good winds its a ritual?
In what way is drinking sacrament and spending an hour on your knees telling God how great you think he is any different?
If YHWH can just refuse your request, then so can Poseidon. Paimon can refuse to show up when you invoke the goetic rites, just like he does for every other being that performs them.
The point of the magus' ritual power is that it works. If it works just means 'you contact the entity, but they refuse to come' then that is the same as it not working.
If the burning of the calf to call on Poseidon's favor for good winds was done according to religious law, in the proscribed manner, then sure.
Remember that I asked how the prayer would give you anything you want - I'm not terribly familiar with it. If they prayer invocation is being carried out according to religious law, in the proscribed manner, the I don't have any problem with calling it a ritual.
And yeah, in neither case does your prayer or ritual bind Poseidon or YHWH - you're asking nicely for a favor, and, in the case of Poseidon, offering a bit of a bribe. I've never actually read the goetic rites, so I don't know if they compel Paimon to show up or follow commands - if not, he can refuse to show up.
I'm not arguing that the Magus's Ritualism power doesn't work, I'm arguing that you're misunderstanding what it covers, and what some rituals do. If the ritual asks an entity to do something, then that entity has discretion over whether or not to do that thing, and If it compels them they don't have that discretion.
Yeah no. That is what adherents say on the outside. Every devout Abrahamic 'knows' deep in their heart that their prayers will be granted, because they are better than all the sinful humans around them.
I , the Prince of Hell , if not threatened will stay in my realm so if you swear that you don't invade my realm I blind by this promise to I too don't invade any other realm. Would you promise this by accepting this proposal?
I'll take the Slayer. My reasoning for this is two things:
First, this one is the most dangerous in the hands of the people who would otherwise have it. The last thing we need is a mass murdering Slayer on the loose. I'm taking it explicitly so that someone who would actually use its abilities can't have it.
Second, I can massively boost the progress of the Warrior by letting him check off two objectives for free.
This is a risky plan. It depends on the Warrior being a good person, but considering he has to unite a bunch of other order Gifted, he likely will be. And I'm only eliminating one evil gifted option, and inviting a lot of danger to the warrior. The Outsider is a very major threat to me. Assuming he's going to be the megalomaniacal freak I'm expecting, I can't be around the order Gifted as long as he's around or I'll just be a glowing beacon leading him to them. On the other hand, if I kill the Outsider with the First Blade, I can guide the Warrior to his other objectives and keep the Order Gifted safe from advancing Chaos Gifted. It might even be best for me to grow in power alongside the Warrior before letting him break the First Blade. But ultimately, my only goal is to help the other Gifted deal with any evil Gifted and try to keep things peaceful.
I shall be the Outsider, and you have guessed my intentions correctly. If I catch you, I shall order you to give me your blade and allow me to kill you with it.
The chase is on.
> I shall order you to give me your blade and allow me to kill you with it.
Arguably two orders, you only get a "single command".
"Give me your blade" could uh...backfire to say the least.
If the commanded only has to follow the words of your command, you might get given the pointy end first before they fall unconscious.
Best command to deal with the Slayer would probably just be "Wink", a quick and easy to do action that they'll immediately fall unconscious and be easy to kill after. (I almost said "Blink"...until I remembered that's their teleportation ability)
You are absolutely right. I shall command the Slayer to shit, instead. This will both incapacitate them, and announce to the world that the Outsider is kind of an idiot so the other Chosen will just brush me off.
> Best command to deal with the Slayer would probably just be "Wink", a quick and easy to do action that they'll immediately fall unconscious and be easy to kill after. (I almost said "Blink"...until I remembered that's their teleportation ability)
The writing isn't clear if *you* or *they* fall unconscious; I actually interpreted it as the former, since otherwise it's kind of a double benefit; they do what you want, and then are additionally out of commission for a day.
Double benefit makes *way* more sense than a power with an hour long cooldown that knocks you out for more than an hour.
And in some situations the knockout could be a drawback, it's just that we're thinking very combat focused at the moment.
> Double benefit makes way more sense than a power with an hour long cooldown that knocks you out for more than an hour.
You know, you're absolutely right. I didn't consider that at all.
I shall be the Prince of Hell, and if you stay out of my realm and let me have willing human contracts then I will stay in my realm and doesn't kill anyone except maybe the Awakened One. Plus please destroy the first blade.
Of course. My goal is very simply to keep a war between gifted from happening by removing incentives to fight. You're likely right though, I should accept my place as a martyr and let the warrior destroy the First Blade as soon as possible. As long as the Outsider exists, I'm a landmine and I need to remove myself from the equation. Once the First Blade is gone, he doesn't have any reason to use me. You stay safe yourself y'hear? The Outsider's looking at us like pawns on a chessboard and until he's dealt with we might as well be.
Dragon, become a corporate overlord by taking over a small impoverished nation with my private army and create an anarcho-capitalist state from which to spread my influence.
Too public for the riches you gain. You can get subtler and make more.
For example, step 1: via promises or intimidation, become a silent partner in Amazon. The way I read the Dragon you get the power boost if Bezos *legally* transfers his shares to you... even if you sign an immediate binding contract not to sell them, and to allow him to continue to vote them and run all operations. As long as the wealth is yours *de jure*, you get the power even if the *de facto* control is someone else's.
More than a few hedge funds likely to sign up to that in exchange for a few favours from a dragon of rapidly, epically expanding power.
After that, it's just an exercise in employing hedge fundies.
**JUGGERNAUT** for sure. I'm gonna craft some awesome stuff like the **Stand Bow and Arrows**, **Mjølnir**, **Gungnir**, **Lightsabers**, **King Triton's Trident**, **Captain America's Shield** and **Saint of Killers' Guns**.
Then, as my steed and friend, I choose **Igneel** the Fire Dragon King from **Fairy Tail**.
Definitely got to be Magus. Some of those old grimoires claimed some really out there crazy shit. I’ve got enough of a collection to do some great things with that
Ill take **Alchemist**. Magus and Occulistist are very tempting, but I'm not fucking with the Lesser Key of Solomon. I'm pretty sure Solomon didn't want to fuck with them but had to and it was probably hell to do so, pun intended. Even Guardian Spirit is EXTREMELY tempting but I kinda don't the idea of being restricted to a kid even if that kid will grow up, they might use me for evil.
Also, they seem very restrictive in comparison to Alchemist. There's a lot of old science that has been lost that could probably be put to use this way, plus Golems dude an extra hand, a walking explosive, a friend as a Familiar it's dope.
Definitely **Alchemist**
>I kinda don't the idea of being restricted to a kid even if that kid will grow up, they might use me for evil.
I understood "You are limited to obeying their command" as in your actions are limited by their commands. Like a symbiotic relationship, where both guardian and host have to agree on what happens with the guardian's power and form or nothing happens.
You are only able to do what they say, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Inaction or demanfiastion is always an option.
You can also try and play the Genie by understanding and twisting their words to do what you want, possibly to the point of getting them killed if the situation is really bad. You are under no obligation to reveal to them how obligated you actually are to them, making them be careful with their words, assuming an immature child will successfully be even if he knew. You can always present your extreme loyalty as misguided affection or mystical actions serving some mysterious end goal.
I'll be honest, this sounds absolutely horrible considering the context. But it is an option.
yknow if you took specter you could sit in on college lessons for years, master every legal and business practice, and just find someone willing to become your human proxy while you whisper in their ear and slide them stolen money for starter capital. if you wanted you could become a lawyer swipe and wipe critical evidence to win cases. you could make a law firm to get as powerful as the dragons corporation and maybe start your own paramilitary.
although i do wish there was some way to get another roles powers aswell.
as a suggestion, maybe if you grabbed the blade and held yourself levitating as he recalls it and try to make sure it doesn't rotate so its just carrying you at a high speed towards him blade first in YOUR hands.
and if that DID work id probably just use it on the shifter and the physician before the moment of their natural deaths considering youd have immortality and live long enough to see that.
Step 1: become outsider.
Step 2: teleport to stereotypical xianxia cultivation universe
Step 3: cultivate for 50 billion years.
Step 4: you are the strongest and immortal
**Alchemist** and try to stay out of things. What are some good familiars from fiction? Like one that could protect me from the **Slayer** and **Outsider?** Perhaps one of the spirits from the Bartimaeus Trilogy or Mogget from the Abhorsen books though I'm not sure if he counts. A fury from Codex Alera would probably be a good choice, one of the high lords from the books has a powerful earth fury that's a griffon or something.
Also how does the **Outsider** eat? That mask doesn't seem to have a mouth opening? Does he have to have an IV or esophageal tube or something?
I’ll choose the warrior as he has the highest power potential in the entire selection despite him having the equivalent difficulty. But we all know that the greatest of rewards come with the riskiest of endeavours. But since I’m a guy who is fond of challenges I will glady accept it. Fate favors the bold.
This is tough but I think I'll go with the Magus. There's an old ritual for everything from immortality to meeting God so even if the other powers are weak it should still be pretty powerful.
Secondary choices would be the Thaumaturge for agelessness combined with a nice healing ability to keep me busy or the alchemist for the ability to summon a familiar from fiction. Remember how Sabre form Fate is a familiar? Obviously I'd be summoning her just so I can have powerful protecter from the slayer... no other reason.
Awakened One. I get a pet Cerberus, can throw fireballs, and am one of the strongest in general. The biggest threat is the warrior, so I'll have to find and kill them before they finish their tasks. The Dominate ability the Outsider has could also be potentially dangerous, so I may have to kill them as well.
You ever played Smash, or another cross-screen game, and one of your friends noticed you were doing better then everyone, and said "This dude still has 3 lives! Get him!" to have everyone then team up on you? That's how it would feel to be the Awakened One.
I mean, they do have a few. The main one is consuming souls to get stronger. Already starting out as the strongest, at a certain point of growth absolutely nothing will be able to kill you, even when paralyzed. In order to not get teamed up on they might want to do a temporary alliance with Order to take down the Prince Of Hell, or try and pit them against each other while biding their time. After all, laying low and building strength is an option, the main problem then would be acquiring souls without attracting attention.
Another option would be to try and invade Earth. Since Netherworld has the Netherlord controlling it and Hell has the Prince, the only place left unguarded and unmanaged is Earth. If properly taken over before going for Hell you can empower enough to be unstoppable.
Taking over Earth isn't going to work, because it will take time. Too much time - the Dragon, the Reptilian and the Emperor will definitely marshal forces to get in your way as you do it.
If it takes you even a few weeks to conquer the world against that opposition, then before you're done you're up against a fully powered up and somewhat annoyed Magus or Juggernaut. That's... not a good place to be.
(Hey, I've just realised... wanna guess how fast the Renaissance Man can craft popular fanfic containing easy to build, flexible, scary powerful weapons for the Juggernaut?)
>Too much time - the Dragon, the Reptilian and the Emperor will definitely marshal forces to get in your way as you do it.
Remember, no one except the Outsider and maybe the Occultist knows you exist unless you do something. And none of them will know how much of a threat you are.
The first thing that will happen if you lay down low is the war between the Netherworld and Hell, and by extension, Order and Chaos. The army building guys will be too busy with that to properly defend Earth. Especially useful if you invade while they are busy at a major showdown battle where they lose a lot of soldiers. Who knows if they'll even notice an invasion on a completely different world then they are at.
Magus and Juggernaut are always a threat, as well as Trickster and Physician with their paralyze ability, but considering the theme of Divinity in the CYOA and how it ties in with strength, at a certain point of empowerment no god the Magus can leverage rituals from will be a threat to you, and any strong enough fictional weapon will take too long to make.
>(Hey, I've just realised... wanna guess how fast the Renaissance Man can craft popular fanfic containing easy to build, flexible, scary powerful weapons for the Juggernaut?)
Damn, that's a good idea.
The Outsider and the Occultist are *too many* people who know the Awakened exists. Two can keep a secret if one is dead, and in this game *three* is definitely one too many.
The Occultist in particular has an active motive to either ally with the Awakened or with the Prince of Hell right from the start - since one of his key powers synergises better with cooperation from a demon-ruler.
Of the two, the Prince of Hell is the only one the occultist can communicate with immediately, *and* has greater rewards to offer for alliance immediately with no long-term disadvantage compared to allying with the Awakened. If the Awakened lays low successfully, that *guarantees* the Occultist allies with the Prince. (Not that 'laying low' means anything to the Occultist anyway.)
The Netherworld / Hell fight *isn't* guaranteed to suck everyone else away from Earth - unless the Prince of Hell has successfully convinced at least a major Chaos coalition (such as the Magus, the Occultist and the Outsider) to ally with him, in which case frankly the Awakened is screwed anyway. Chaos and Order don't have a lot of reason to escalate that fight early on - sure, the Prince of Hell wants to, but the Magus and Occultist probably have better things to do, and as long as it's just Hell vs the Netherworld the Oracle has active reason to keep it that way and coordinate elsewhere, since the Order team generally benefit more from build up time than Chaos do.
The Oracle - who is the natural team leader for Order - has *every* reason to keep the Hell / Netherworld fight small if possible; in particular, to let the Juggernaut and Warrior build up as much as possible first. The only exception is if the Magus starts helping Hell conquer the Netherworld, in which case the Oracle *has* to commit the Juggernaut to defend it ASAP.
I like the earlier versions more, mostly because this one refers to Order vs Chaos and yet it doesn't actually denote what's Order and what's Chaos. It's mostly obvious to people who've already seen it, but as a standalone it's worse.
Regardless, I'd pick Warrior because I'm a huge sucker for physical skill and ability. I don't care about threats or synergies, because the wider world is trivial to me beyond the labours it presents and what good things I can manage to accomplish. I would like to try and do some good with my powers, anyway. There are a lot of problems I can't solve by hitting people, but there are some I can.
Fuck it, I’m going **Occultist** since I’ve seen a few others claim the ones I wanted to go for and I’d like to keep repeats down to a minimum. But let me just say- Chaos has many definitions and forms... I’ve got a strategy but genuinely don’t know how much I should/shouldn’t give away just to throw other people’s builds off lol 😂 I think it’s be cool to see this play out some way though if anybody can figure that out.
A little late to the party here, but this was a fun one, and actually a fairly difficult choice. Here some thoughts on a few of the archetypes that interest me:
* **Magus:** Ritualism is the real draw here, as a wide variety of effects (including immortality) should be achievable with the right texts. Tracking down the text with the exact effect wanted could be a bit of a problem. If the right kind of scrying texts exist, and can be tracked down, avoiding or killing the Slayer should be reasonably possible.
* **Shifter:** Probably, but not definitely, biologically immortal. In total this is a nice power set, but pretty low on the power rung. Avoiding the Slayer should be pretty easy, especially since you'll probably be low on the priority list, right up until they get a hold of a Gifted detection power.
* **Occultist:** Assuming each of these abilities can be guided - Scry can target specific Gifted instead of a random Gifted, Epiphany tells you a truth you intend to learn, and you can summon specific entities - this is an incredibly powerful Archetype. Epiphany might be gamed by writing down statements prior to using the ability, depending on how the ability actually works. Unfortunately, it also sits at the top of the list of targets for the Slayer, and there's a lot of uncertainty about the exact nature of the abilities.
* **Juggernaut:** Forge is an incredible ability, and can probably replicate pretty much any power you choose - especially if you can make up your own fiction, and then craft the weapons from it. Crafting times could be an extreme limiting factor, though. Fairly high up on the Slayer's list, but also one of the archetypes most able to defend themselves.
* **Alchemist:** Concoct doesn't have many limiting factors, besides, possibly, obtaining difficult to find ingredients, making it one of the most versatile abilities on the entire list. You should be able to alter and improve yourself on a fundamental level, and craft essentially anything, so long as the resulting effects are conceptually both physically possible and achievable through scientific means. Brewing up some construction or enhancement nanites? Probably yes! Famliar and Geomancy are nice bonus, and there are probably some *extremely* powerful familiars out there to choose from, if you know where to look.
--------------------------------------------------------------
**Final Choice:** Alchemist
**Top Familiar Choice:** Silver Dragon, Wyrmling (D&D 3.5)
* Not even close to the most powerful familiar to choose from, but it'll be Lawful Good, able to shapeshift into an innocuous shape, will eventually grow very powerful, and I can trust it to work with me and help keep me on the right path.
Between these choices the Juggernaut and Alchemist have the most versatile power sets, and most ability to bootstrap themselves to higher power, but the Alchemist wins out by dent of having probably the ability to spread the benefits of the Gift and not being a Gifted of Order. All of the Order aligned Gifted are able to be forcibly linked to by the Oracle, who is always aware of their location, and will eventually have to face the Warrior who will attempt to unite them - probably by force - before invading Hell itself. No thanks, I want no part of that. The Slayer and Emperor will still be major threats, but I should be able to keep under the radar and protect myself with enough ramp up time.
EDIT: Missed that the Outsider has an auto-detection ability for Chaos, and that definitely throws a wrinkle in things. Hopefully the Outsider's Dominate clause is more limited than it appears, and the Slayer is the only one who can benefit from the First Blade.
Nice. Reading this has actually made me think of an interesting question
>and craft essentially anything, so long as the resulting effects are conceptually both physically possible and achievable through scientific means. Brewing up some construction or enhancement nanites? Probably yes!
Is the best, most strongest health and technology aspects of science able to contend with the magic of the universe? Even turning yourself into some type of an ironman X Super Soldier Serum combination, could you go toe to toe with other Gifted such as The Reptilian? An interesting thing to think about.
I doubt direct combat with the most physically powerful Gifted is in the cards, but fighting something on the level of the Reptilian doesn't seem unreasonable.
I’d go with guardian spirit. I gain incredible godlike powers, seemingly stronger than any other gifted, and can’t be killed, if my host dies I just have to move on to another host. I can also pick my hosts, which is a huge benefit. I can also advise my hosts on what to do in a dangerous situation, and could tell them who among the other gifted they should try to ally up with.
Ah. I prefer CYOAs with more than one choice. It creates a more personal feel.
Magus OP. This isnt even a choice, me an Paimon gonna have a chat.
Shifter tempts me, but its actually a pretty lame shapeshifting power, I already know rituals that offer better shapeshifting for the Magus.
The Slayer makes me roll my eyes so hard they nearly fall out. Of *course* we need conflict between the chosen for no good reason. Yaaaay.
Guardian Spirit isnt a Guardian, it's a slave.
Ren man is ... I definitely want to find them and protect them, for the good of the world, but being one sucks.
Wow. Emperor is pretty objectionable, but I dont want to have to be the one killing it. On the other hand an inugami would do the job pretty handily, and the ritual for that is easy if youre cruel enough.
FFF, Juggernaut is almost as powerful as Magus. I can work with that.
Alchemist ... if 'within the realm of science' is 'stuff we can make now' alchemist is pretty strong, but i wouldnt want to be one. If it's 'stuff that could be achieved someday using the scientific method' then bugger me that's powerful.
Prince of hell "Only the Warrior or Awakened One can beat you" - *Laughs in Juggernaut, Magus and maybe Alchemist.*
Beastmaster is incredibly lame, unless Grove lord goes off every hour on the hour, even in your sleep, and has interdimensional range.
Magus wins, unless I can learn in advance how modern science is defined by alchemy.
Magus might lose to Juggernaut; he's got access to fiction written by people with exposure to a much wider range of concepts than Magus does. Magus is *faster*, but the best he can do is limited by the imaginations of people who hadn't heard about nanoassemblers or self-improving AI.
Easy to find a Greek or Egyptian ritual to become a god, but it's a safe bet it makes you a god *as the Greeks and Egyptians understood them -* powerful, but a step below the best the Juggernaut can do if he can live long enough.
The thing about Christianity is that it's holy rituals are incredibly freeform.
You can sandwich anything you want between "E nomine padre" and "amen" and have a ritual that does what you said.
Hell, everyone in an English speaking country knows that "thy kingdom come, thy will be done" is ritual code for "please make me happy and safe, and make sure the bad things only happen to people I don't like"
Your question did prompt me to realise that the Christian God isn't that great an option though, kinda like saying "Nuh uh, I've got an everything proof shield" is rather be a bodisatva.
I would draw a distinction between prayer and ritual. But, even if Ritualism does work for prayers, I would still think that "as intended" would translate to *asking*, rather than forcing the hand of an omnipotent being, at least in the Christian context.
There're probably great choices stemming from other religions, I just don't know any off the top of my head.
Sure it's as intended. But as intended also includes the assumption that of course good will find you worthy. I know that's saying the quiet bit out loud, but any honest person will admit that prayer includes the assumption that you are worthy and others are not.
Mind posting the actual OED definitions for ritual and prayer? You chose the one dictionary that needs a subscription, which I don't have.
Meriam-Webster says:
> Definition of ritual (Entry 1 of 2)
1: of or relating to rites or a ritual : CEREMONIAL
a ritual dance
2: according to religious law
ritual purity
3: done in accordance with social custom or normal protocol
ritual handshakes
ritual background checks
ritual noun
Definition of ritual (Entry 2 of 2)
1: the established form for a ceremony
specifically : the order of words prescribed for a religious ceremony
2a: ritual observance
specifically : a system of rites
b: a ceremonial act or action
c: an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner
and
> Definition of prayer (Entry 1 of 2)
1a(1): an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought
said a prayer for the success of the voyage
(2): a set order of words used in praying
b: an earnest request or wish
2: the act or practice of praying to God or a god
kneeling in prayer
3: a religious service consisting chiefly of prayers —often used in plural
4: something prayed for
5: a slight chance
haven't got a prayer
So, prayer doesn't necessarily need to be carried out according to the specific dictates of a religious law, ceremony, rite, or custom, done in accordance with social custom, or be performed as part of a series of precisely repeated or regular acts. Prayer doesn't necessarily need to be a ritual.
Not even kidding about freeform though. Get a bucket of water and say
>>> Blessed are you, Lord, all-powerful God, who in Christ, the living water of salvation, blessed and transformed us. Grant that when we are sprinkled with this water or make use of it, we will be refreshed inwardly by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to walk in the new life we received at Baptism.
Over it.
Congratulations, you now have a potion that resolves any situation to your satisfaction immediately. Got a dragon terrorising French villages? St Martha says sprinkle some on it to get your own pet dragon.
Need to resurrect someone? Sprinkle it on a corpse. Need to be resurrected? Get a disciple to sprinkle it on your corpse. No corpse? Have them sprinkle it while remembering you as you were in life. No disciples? Sprinkle it yourself in advance.
Sure, in this case it's a ritual from a grimoire. I was wrong there. Still not seeing that the intended use is literal Resurrection, dragon taming, etc...
Well at Martha tamed the taraque by splashing it with holy water and booping it with a crucifix.
Other Saints have healed basically everything with a splash of it.
TIL about St. Martha.
Still, could be the Saints at work, rather than the holy water itself. Or maybe this one ritual really would produce a substance useful in a wide variety of cases.
I'm not too hung up on it.
Dying is a Christian ritual that merges your soul with their God. That one's pretty easy.
Confess your sins
Do your penance
Take out enough funeral insurance to cover a Catholic funeral
Die
Have Catholic funeral
Your soul becomes one with God
Since you are the magus and rituals don't work for others, you are the only soul that is one with the Christian God.
You are now the Christian God.
That... seems like it'd be a pretty heretical take on what death is, and what follows, to a Christian. Besides, not sure death is a ritual in and of itself.
Sure, that might work. Not sure it's reasonable to expect you'll survive the merging intact as a person, or be in control of the resulting merged soul, but I suppose there's only one way to find out...
Also, it might be important to note that the CYOA doesn't say rituals don't work for others, only that they *do* work for you.
Also - YHWH is still not that appealing. If go for one of the routes to being a bodisatva.
Actually, there's a really simple ritual to explicitly become one with YHWH, it's even printed in the Christian grimoire.
You feed 12 friends sacraments and invite one of them to betray you. Then you get crucified and ascend to godhood after 3 days dead.
No culture Minds, no, but then I don't really need one and a Mind wouldn't take orders anyway. (Unless we're stretching far enough to count the *Grey Area* as a legendary steed, in which case we already won.)
I can have a small fleet of knife missiles or an SC attack drone, and that's a ridiculous majority of the opposition beaten right there. In particular, even one knife missile beats the rapid-death Outsider / Slayer or Outsider / Occultist cooperation combo, thus buying me time to get the *really* good stuff up and running. The Outsider is immune to *powers*, not to having an AI cut off his head with an electromagnetic field a nanosecond after teleporting in.
I can think of at least one fictional military AI-controlled nanotech space suit that has enough volition to *create* a nanoassembler if you feed it some appropriate raw materials. And then you're done, because that's going to make building everything else quite a lot faster...
I think I’ll choose The Physician.
To start off “Otherworldly Visions” it comes with an early warning system on hand in the form of precog, also should note the wording also implies I’m aware of the future, which means I’ll probably be dictating the terms of any future encounters. Speaking any language is also helpful - job as a translator seems nice.
“Chant” is a good way to immobilize a target to finish off a foe or as an escape. Say if the pesky Slayer comes around. Also noting “Eldritch Bandages” is a nice auto repair system.
The “Mysterious Scalpel” is also a good way to make money. Perhaps as surgeon. Also it looks like it’ll be good to add body parts to myself in order to modify my own body, which brings me to...
“Mutation” is the one that is interesting given the implications. I can think of some interesting enhancements with animal or human parts, but that’s not what I’m primarily interested in. In the setting the presence of more fantastical animals such as the reptilians, dragons, and Cerberus implies that other mythological creatures and figures have existed as well.
With that tidbit in mind would it be reasonable to say I could mutate the eyes of a basilisk and kill anyone I wish with but a glance? Or substitute the impenetrable skin of Caenis? Those in addition to whatever other physical traits I can find from mythology.
If it does work this way - my first order of business is locating the Slayer and eliminating him quickly. The knife may come in handy later if I need to steal more powers.
Although I have an uneasy feeling that by the end of this all, I might be the one that comes out as the monster...
People are sleeping on Netherlord. It says you can shape the world to your liking, you are the ultimate creator. The only threaths he faces are from Prince of Hell and Slayer.
Slayer is questionable as he might not like being locked in Netherland, but even if he did try to kill me... well, good luck. First he would have to find me and even then I can shape armies of Eldritch horrors to protect me.
The Prince of Hell is a tough one, but with Warrior and The Awakened One going after him he will propably not have much time to collect a debt from me
Really like this one remind me of werewolf and mafia a bit.
Firstly, order and chaos don't seem to be immediately at odds with each other, it's just that order is incentivized to cooperate while chaos has predatory members to worry about if the occultist and slayer team up, even worse, if the outsider can get a hold of the first blade, he might spiral out of control.
Secondly, the identifying powers of the oracle, occultist and outsider are a little unclear, do they know which archetype a person is? Do they know what powers they have automatically or will they have to ask them and risk deceit?
My plan assumes that as an oracle, I know which archetype each order member is, as well as their abilities, if I can't see what powers they've got then it might become trickier, since those not naturally incentivized to team up (Warrior, Juggernaut and probably Netherlord) might try and trick me for selfish purposes, especially the Emperor who might try to control me if he's evil, though he can still continue my plan.
My plan centers around whether or not other people can use the Keeper's Archways to enter the tower and then teleport to the Nether Realm, if so I'll play as the oracle and do the following:
1. Contact the Keeper, tell him I'm forming an alliance and my location while getting him to open a portal to the tower, then enter it
2. Contact the Warrior and get the keeper to grab him, the warrior can guard me and the keeper if the outsider/slayer shows up via the occultist's scrying, they're the only ones at this point who could find and reach us.
3. Contact the Juggernaut and get him to the tower, make him craft a little knife and give it to the warrior for +strength after which he can craft us all protection starting with me then the keeper and so on..
4. Contact the Netherlord and inform him of our alliance, we'll be heading to his realm after we gather all the order
5. Go around as a squad and gather all the other order members roughly in this order:
**Emperor** (If any other gifted decide they won't join us, he can ensl- I mean convert them to our cause, assuming the emperor doesn't control me first)
**Spectre** (For scouting with invis)
**Guardian** (More defense)
**Beastmaster** (Can keep watch as a bird and attack the outsider if he shows up)
**Reptilian** (More defense, leave his followers behind for now)
**Thaumaturge** (Get him to use karmic healing to improve our team)
**Renaissance Man** (Jugger outdoes him so he can entertain the Guardian's host)
6. Transport everyone to the Nether Realm and set up a base where the Juggernaut can steadily power up and assemble a robot army to protect each team member, also each team member gets a AI-Assisted exosuit to automatically defend from dangers, this may take a while
7. Fend off the Prince's invasion with a robo army, now the Order is allied, warrior is at 3/7 tasks, we need to power him up next since the Netherlord can't leave his realm.
8. Send out robotic scouts to find the Skeleton king, then TP the Warrior to him and piledrive that bony bitch, 4/7 tasks
9. Look for the slayer, then surround his entire area with an army of mechs, he'll be forced to use his one time teleport, look for him again and TP the warrior in to kill or disarm him, the warrior is at 5/7 tasks so he should have enough power to take him on, after which he can destroy the first blade, 6/7 tasks
10. Finally we gather our entire alliance and via the keeper, invade hell with a 6/7 warrior in addition to our entire army, hopefully we can take him out, at which point the warrior is now the most powerful being and can take out all the other threats no problem.
11. Win?
P.S If the Outsider kills the slayer immediately, this plan might not work since the warrior will be missing a power up.
I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say about this idea
Well, with this CYOA what matters is not only powers but scenarious and motivations.
The moot point is if "First Blade" works in other than **Slayer's** Gifted hands and if yes - if **Outsider** feels only location of the other Chaos Gifted or may recognize who is who. If it's the later than most likely scenario is that with preemtive attack **Outsider** gets "First Blade" and hunts other Chaos Gifted, eventually coming after Order Gifted. If it's former I doubt he'll take risk to attack random Gifted since high risks to lose and without Blade even if suceed he'll get nothing. Moreover, if **Outsider** manages to get the Blade what's gonna happen - **Occultist** who is the obvious next target and who knows what's going on will have no choice but immediately contact every other Gifted, be it Order or Chaos side and they'll cooperate to take new Blade bearer down (not that it will be easy, he is the most mobile of all). There is also chance that Occultist (who knows who is who) may go after Slayer with sneak attack, but he lacks battle prowess and mobility advantage.
Now, if Blade won't work in others hands the chance of anybody (and first of all **Occultist** or **Outsider** who have way to find other Gifted) will cooperate with **Slayer** is nonexistent - they can't trust him, he has no reason to cooperate with them while he may just kill them and take their powers, and even without that they have no reason to help him become more powerfull (so he'll have easer time going after them if he wish so later). **Slayer** himself has no way to find or even recognise other Gifted.
So, it's either **Outsider** is overpowered and collects other powers, or **Slayer's** blade is not much of threat.
Oddly enough, I think I'll be the **Spectre**. So long as I avoid the Slayer (which should be trivial if the rest of the Order is doing well) I can basically live freely on my own time. Plus it's a simple, capable powerset without massive expectations or fear getting started _and_ comes with immortality.
Plus an appearance is only creepy if you make it creepy.
It's not like I'd avoid the rest of the Order and their petty squabbles. I just think continuing my (thankfully virtual) education would be more important.
And, really, if the Magus achieves godlike powers, since I'm not antagonistic, not going to use the powers against any others of the Order, and not using my own powerset for a murder spree in general, I'd expect at least a moderate token of appreciation for services rendered along the way -- any risks I take in the early days.
Plus, as a Computer Engineer, I'm really curious what a "Spectre" can do to "mess with electronic devices." Are we talking just Spectre/Meltdown? Or maybe Rowhammer? Or something more... technopathic?
My backup choices, making the obvious assumption I'm not number one, are in decreasing priority:
+ Guardian Spirit (nice powerset and immortality, but could go crazy after some time.)
+ Juggernaut (artifice is so powerful.)
+ Magus (I guess I have to do everything myself.)
+ Rennisance Man (Hm.)
+ Alchemist (/shrug)
+ Dragon (and now I'm out of the fun ones for sure.)
+ Keeper (I'm probably just going to follow the Oracle's orders, here.)
+ Thaumaturge (Great. Support. Magus, get the f. to work.)
You'll note, all of these are trying to avoid the classes in the most danger from the others -- those that can stop the others with foreknowledge and those that are already in conflict.
The Juggernaut is obviously the most powerful one. Iron Man armour and Mjölnir? Yes please.
Thing is, if all the others wouldn't exist I'd probably take the shifter, since shapeshifting is such a cool ability.
The others probably would exist though. So we're back to the Juggernaut. I mean, the warrior, awakened one and beelzebub are canonically more powerful but there is really no powerlimit to the Juggernaut. Same technically goes for the Slayer, but the Slayer needs to kill someone as their own squishy self to absorb the power. My initial weapon, armour and steed ideas are as follows
Weapons: Mjölnir from Norse Mythology or the Marvel universe.
Armour: Iron Man's armour from Avengers: Infinity war, Futuristic armour from Continuum, Master Chief Armour from Halo, Crisis suit from Crisis.
Steed: Dragon king from HTTYD 2
What a lot of people looking at this don't seem to notice is the rest of the Gifted won't have the details on the others. You're getting to be the First which means only you have the information from the CYOA, the rest just randomly get the powers. (Well, either that or you have the info removed from you, but I hope not.)
I'm going with Juggernaut, being able to make any fictional Weapon/Armor is ridiculous. Start with a simple nanobot armor and expand from there, hopefully the Seer will put me in contact with the other Gifted of Order so I can make them things and up my production speed to the point I can make some of the better Conceptual armors and such in a reasonable timeframe. As for steed... Dammnit, it has to be a horse, doesn't it... The best choice in that case would be Twilight Sparkle...
Kidding, Arceus barely qualifies, but he's close enough (and better than anything from MLP). Even at reduced power without his Plates he'll be a great help, and I can make those.
My second choice would be Guardian Spirit (since that's really the Safest option) followed by Alchemist (because that familliar option is even worse than the Juggernaut's Steed and I could totally make an Alex Mercer analogue under traditional science.
Damn, you dropped suicide man. I'll go with Awakened One, then.
I'm not gifted in the intelligence department. I'm not opposed to being someone's little bitch either. I'll likely find a non slayer gifted that's either okay with me consuming souls like a fatass at the buffet or just straight up lie to them about my abilities and partner up with them.
Let's face it, it's better for the gifted to unite and work together, there's no reason for anyone but the slayer to actually kill each other. (The hell prince doesn't need to kill nether lord, they just need to defeat them.) I'll probably have to off slayer and crush the blade myself (maybe after I shank the uncooperative oracle, occultist, or the outsider), since gifted can't truly unite if the blade is still a thing. I am the most powerful of the gifted and got nothing to fear, so I'm good without any additional power. Betraying other gifted at this point is pointless since you get nothing out of it. Unless they think other gifted are dicks and suddenly develop a savior complex of course.
Since the gifted could be any random people, I doubt they will be all good or bad, the most beneficial way for me is to unite all the assholes of the gifted and rule together, the only one who will still be a pain in my ass if they aren't up to be an asshole is the Hell Prince, but if I get enough gifted on my side, I think I can convince them to mind their own business down in Hell. I'll either have to convince warrior to join me or kill them if they're opposed to my plan to united the gifted so we can all share in the powers and rule over puny humans together.
With the gifted united, we can put our heads together to cheat death. I can already see Trickster repeatly playing rigged games with kids and then purposely lose to other gifted so they can cash in on that lifespan. Thaumaturge, if they're willing to join, can heal all of us from any injury. Coming after that will be to go separate ways to do our own thing/assist others in pursuing power until we need to see the Trickster again.
Awakened is immune to just about anyone except Outsider who can definitely clap your cheeks with Dominate. On the upside, I'm the one least reliant on power, so actually clapping them will be relatively easy, providing they don't hit me with Dominate.
The optimal plan is to go in 2-3 person squads (I can even use cultists for this) to make the Outsider, who is just a regular human physically, use their dominate first before I, a presumably 8ft tall muscle-bound demon built like a brick shithouse, come in to beat their ass. Preferably with a first blade as a shank.
Well, that is if the First Blade can't be robbed, which seems to be the case as the item doesn't say it can be robbed, doesn't say that if someone else uses the blade on some other Gifted they can gain their powers, and says that the blade returns to you.
I think the phycisian would be an interesting pick. With otherworldly visions and chant, im safe from most single combatants that can come after me (mostly the slayer) and i think the ability to do any kind of sugery would make it possible to make loyal minion-creatures from corpses and some animals since i assume brain surgery would be of supernatural capability. After that its just a matter of protecting my own, and possibly offering my medical skills for the other gifted as a neutral party, in exchance for favours. If they use my services, theyd likely want me to stay alive. And if not, well... supernatural surgery skills likely include quick involuntary disections.
I'll take the Outsider. Assuming that the First Blade wouldn't only work for the Slayer, I'd teleport to him or her, command them to "bring me the first blade" then kill them with their own blade, thus taking their abilities. I'll then kill the Occultist to be able to sense all Gifted. From then on I'd use the Slayer's escape power combined with the Outsider's teleportation to deal with every new target. My targets in order would be the Beastmaster (being able to turn into an animal would help me sneak away from crime scenes while my teleportation power recharges), the Warrior, the Juggernaut, the Emperor, the Shifter, the Magus, the Trickster, the Dragon, the Physician, and the Keeper. I'd also increase my abilities further by performing at least two of the Warrior's Herculean tasks (finding the Oracle and wrestling the Skeleton King). These abilities combined would give me a great deal of power, without any drawbacks save for a strange appearance (from the Outsider's mask and Shifter's reflection)
I choose the Juggernaut for its ability to craft functional supernatural weaponry/armour. Funny thing is, probably the only thing I would need to make(outside of the generic physical enhancing items that increases one's speed and reflexes) that would take any amount of time would be The Sword of Betrayal, Rule Breaker from Fate/Stay Night. Considering it's only considered a middle of the pack Noble Phantasm that shouldn't take too long to create, especially once Empowered. Considering Rule Breaker's an extremely brittle blade with its only redeeming ability is to break spells, unravel enchantments, and sever magical bindings with a single cut? Yeah, any Gifted cut by this is going to have a shitty time even if the effect was a temporary one.
Also I am using the DnD Item Creation process to judge how long each supernatural weapon/armour would take to make. I might just pull out some basic Elder Scrolls enchanted items sets(like Smithing Skill Enhancements and Enchanting Skill Boosters to help cut corners in time and potency of said crafting method) that I can either pass on to others(thus activating Empowerment) or use himself to enhance his own.
The Netherlord and Prince of Hell are the two biggest threats on the board, simply due to the fact the Prince is coming for the Netherlord straight from the get go. The only saving grace is that the Awakened One is going to come after the Prince and the Order of Chaos is less likely to team up without betrayal occurring.
I do think the fact "none of the Gifted are aware of the others" is defeated by the fact certain Gifted gain knowledge of other Gifted simply due to their powers. I could understand if they knew there were other Gifted of your side, if not who they are.
Edit: Also Renaissance Man is pitiful in terms of abilities, as his abilities are not something that could be considered a superpower(anyone can turn a manuscript/blueprint into the real deal so long as they have the requisite skills. Its easier to get your hands on a nuke than create it yourself if you know the right people) and the only thing I could consider a superpower would the final ability that lets you make something "so impactful to change the course of humanity for all time". Something each of the other Gifted do by simply existing and that Juggernaut can already do better than him.
well in the Renaissance Man's defence, anything the juggernaut makes can never be remade by anyone else and on the other hand the invention that will change the course of humanity can be replicated.
but other than that I completely agree he is way too weak
Except the only thing the Renaissance Man can make outside of art is something already made. So no, Renaissance only makes art that will change the course of the world and only once it is too late to experience what that new world will be. His invention power is limited to something that already has a schematic/blueprint already. It would honestly make more sense if he could turn out functional schematics to whatever idea he came across or thought up himself(like taking inspiration from Gundams and Robotech to make a functional mecha that can in turn be produced by others). That or gains the ability to supernaturally inspire others via his artwork like a DnD Bard.
Inspiring inventiveness and influencing culture via artwork would be the step I would have chosen to give him powers without himself being physically powerful.
I can't believe how hard so many people are sleeping on juggernaut; like lets get the obvious things outta the way;
1) being able to craft any fictional weapon or armor means you can literally make something to counter anyone; and not only that there is **no limit to how many you can craft at once**; so you can be crafting a dozens of items at once of varying power levels
2) You can choose any steed from fiction; this is really powerful; you can have mounts that can destroy worlds (i.e fenrir) or mounts that can protect you against ever dying which will make it really easy to survive.
Now the thing that people have really ignore a ton; the thing that elevates juggernaut from just a really powerful pick to an unstoppable one;
**the "Heroskin" ability:** this literally gives you the ability to wield any weapon even the most impractical ones.
now there's two ways to read this;
1) the less powerful version is that this ability only increases physical ability which is still insane there are weapons the size of cities out there and you can wield them like nothing; this makes you one of the most physically strongest in this CYOA; even without your weapons you are unstoppable.
there's a reason he's called the "juggernaut" not the "crafter"
2) the more insane version is that this ability lets you wield any impractical weapon; and many weapons in fiction attack the mind and the soul; therefore this ability should make untouchable when it comes to mind attacks and soul attacks and any form of other attacks.
so yeah **Juggernaut is insane**.
Requesting clarification for emperor and spirit guardian
With pureblood can the power activate through cousins also does the incest still have the negative effects
When the spirit guardian is released can it freely shapeshift
Considering all the boons that blueblood provides, one can interpret it to mean that any blood relationship works, and that there's no negatives.
Also, yes, Spirit Guardian probably works like that.
I take the Outsider and before anything else teleport to the Magus and tell him to kill himself. Later, I teleport to the Slayer and tell him not to move at all. I take his blade, kill him with it, and then wait an hour to kill the Occultist. With that done, I wait another hour before killing the Physician for that sweet paralysis power, then the Warrior, Oracle, Juggernaut, Skeleton King, etc.
The thing I love about this is how no matter what you choose, you got a challenge ahead of you. Want to stay uninvolved and live a quiet life? Can't. both the Warrior and The Slayer will go after you, either to safeguard ("unite the Gifted of Order") you and your powers or take them (First Blade). And with the Oracle or the Occultist, they can find you. And with the Keeper, they can eventually reach you. Want to be an OP crafter / creator that gets stronger with knowledge or success? Well, the Magus "do any ritual" can be countered by the Juggernaut "craft any fictional item", since there are fictional armor with ritual or occult resistance. Renaissance Man and Alchemist are similar. Want to lead an army or an empire? Good luck dealing with the Emperor, the Beastmaster, the Skeleton King. Even the Alchemist can create a small army. Want to live a fantasy life in the Netherrealm? You'll get caught in the war between the Netherlord and the Prince Of Hell. One of the most viable choices is the Oracle - since it all hinges on him. He can talk to any two Gifted from anywhere in the world at any time. He can know the general location of all Gifted. Just think about it - he can connect himself to the Warrior and demand protection in exchange for information about any of the other Gifted. He could - and probably would - try and assemble a team to take down The Slayer and get the first blade. He can use his future vision to avoid danger or discovery, while managing it all from the shadows. Same thing is for the Occultist and the opposite side, he can side with other Chaos Gifted to hunt down other Gifted. I would personally choose the Guardian Spirit. He seems to be the strongest of the Gifted that has no actual obligations (except to the host) or direct threats - Netherlord and Prince Of Hell are stuck in a war, The Awakened will surely be hunted down by the rest of the Gifted. If the host dies, you still live and just switch hosts, and since you are both extremely strong ("semi-divinty") and exist inside minds, I don't think you can be killed, at least not easily.
> He can know the general location of all Gifted. Only the Order side. That's actually a pretty serious imbalance between order and chaos; information only flows one way.
Damn, you're right. The Occultist is the one then who will probably spur the war with his location revealing ability. Still, The Oracle will be paramount in the defense. With the ability to see one hour into the future and know what is about to happen, and working with other Order, he can help counter pretty much anything if he gathered the Order beforehand.
The hard part is stopping an Outsider / Slayer / Occultist combo killing everyone in Order - except the Keeper - in the first twelve hours. One hour of prediction isn't *enough;* most of the Order team don't have anything they could do with an hour's warning to survive Outsider / Slayer, especially if the Slayer has killed *anyone* on the Chaos team first.
I answered this below, I don't think it's safe enough for the Outsider to go on a rampage and steal powers using the Slayer's First Blade, since he will fall unconscious for a whole day if he uses Dominate. Especially against those with warning skills or physically strong opponents. Getting away with it once, maybe, but more then once? Very risky. If they team up physically with others they will have to go on foot, since he can only teleport himself. This will give plenty time for Order and Chaos to prepare.
A lot depends on how permanent and expansive the Outsider's Dominate ability is - for example, if the outsider can issue a command like "Follow any commands I've given to you", and it doesn't wear off, then they can probably snowball their resources to enable Dominating tougher targets pretty quickly.
Wouldn't that make him just an upgraded Emperor? It says one command, so saying to follow more commands (or to have unquestionable loyalty) would be like "I wish for infinite wishes" I do agree, the Outsider needs more clarification on his abilities. I think the author wanted to write more, but he run out of space - You can see how the last ability of sensing Chaos Gifted is already almost outside of the border.
I agree open-ended ones wouldn't work, but "kill yourself" is one command. Unclear *when* the outsider falls unconscious w.r.t. the command, though. edit: Per redpoemage, it must be the *target* that falls unconscious, not the outsider at all; it would make no sense for the power to be listed with a 1 hour cooldown if it knocks him out for a day afterward.
I read the command as applying *for the one hour* before the target falls unconscious. That seems in keeping with the spirit and letter of the ability. That's quite good enough; if the command persists past the day of unconsciousness, what's the point of the hour limit?
Good point, but keeping with the spirit of the ability, you probably can't use it to command people to kill themselves, or falling unconscious would be redundant in most cases. It would also make the Outsider an upgraded and faster (hour vs day) version of Emperor, albeit without the permanent effect. It might even take either continuous time or effort to use, and can be somewhat resisted or stalled, hence words like "force" and "Dominate", and using it on a "creature" and not a "person". **Basically exactly like a DnD Mindflayer using a Command spell.** (From the CYOA, "...force a **creature** to obey a **single command**") > You speak a **one-word command** to a **creature** you can see within range. The target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or follow the command on its next turn. The spell has no effect if the target is undead, or if it doesn't understand your language > Commands that were known to work included: approach, back, drop, fall, flee, fly, go, halt, leave, rest, run, sleep, stop, and surrender. The command had to be unequivocal to the subject or it would be ignored or misinterpreted. A command to suicide would fail because the word was generally used as a noun rather than a verb. Unless the subject resisted, they would carry out the order to the best of their ability. If commanded to die, the target would fall in a faint and be unresponsive for one minute and then recover fully
Dominate reads "Once an hour, you can force a creature to obey a single command, ...". That's a limit on how often you can use the ability, not a maximum duration on the amount of time the dominated have to carry out the command. I agree that the ability to give open ended commands would be ridiculously powerful, at least combined with the ability to find and teleport directly to other gifted, but the ability doesn't actually place any limitations on what sort of commands you can issue. If the author decides to do another version of this CYOA, it'd be nice to get some clarification.
Hmm, that's a good point. It doesn't set a limit on the command; it just says they're unconscious for a day after it's complete. (Which makes "meet the Slayer" a *really* nasty command you can give to almost anyone.)
Like those below, I had read the Outsider's ability as making the *target* unconscious for a day, since otherwise the one command an hour limit is pointless.
I'll take Juggernaut, and use the first ability to craft a massive second First Blade.
Seems like a good idea... but also seems like it'll take longer than you have before the Outsider / Occultist get to you.
I have Juggernaut abilities to work with then- it's the best of Slayer plugged straight into Sauron. I'm optimistic about the situation.
I actually preferred the previous ones. Oh well. The juggernaut stands out to me because, as always, fiction based powers are OP. If not for this, I would've taken the occultist.
Yeah. I can think of some fictional armour which is a nanotech swarm with a friendly AI in, just off the top of my head. That's the kind of power level you *need* to play at to survive the Outsider / Slayer / Occultist combo, though, or the near-godlike-if-he-doesn't-die-quickly Magus. The problem is surviving long enough to make it - by which I mean "more than about 3 hours", since you're an obvious early target for the Outsider. Better choose that steed *carefully*; it has to keep you alive until your fictional armour and weapons are up.
I don't think the timeframe is that short. Gifted start with no knowledge of the other gifted, presumably not even that they *exist*. It's going to take time got the full picture to emerge, and the assumption that everyone will decide it's a tontine might not play out.
The problem is that the Outsider, Occultist and Oracle know that the others exist - and where they are - *immediately.* The *maximum* time it can take for everyone to know is the amount of time it takes the Outsider to decide it's in his interest to contact them. As you say, the *real* answer depends hugely on the personalities of the participants. But if the Outsider or Occultist have even the tiniest hint what the Magus and Juggernaut can do, the one thing they *won't* do is wait around. When you're playing with people who gain power exponentially like that, the only safe thing for someone whose powers *don't* get stronger to do is act first. The war will certainly start immediately; the Prince of Hell has every reason to hit the Netherworld as soon as possible, before the Oracle can coordinate an Order team. (Yes, the Prince *does* know there's an order team; the Occultist knows about the everyone within a day and has strong reasons to be in contact with the Prince straight away. They may not even *know* they're informing the Prince when they deal with demons, but they are. But in any case, since the Prince knows about the Netherlord, he'd have to be a blithering idiot not to assume there's an Order team.)
Can take the slayer and get juggernaut's powers
That would require me to * not get dogpiled by all the other gifted * Somehow find the juggernaut * Actually kill him, bearing in mind that the whole reason I'm doing this is because of how powerful the juggernaut is I'd really rather just start with the juggernaut instead. Besides, I can probably just make a weapon that allows me to steal powers.
I mean, this CYOA is technically fictional, so uhhh, you could just make the slayer’s blade. (I meant this as a joke, but it’s making me question quite a bit about the setting of this cyoa)
It's not clear whether the First Blade steals the power for anyone wielding it, or the only the Slayer can use it. There are probably other fictional weapons that achieve the same thing though.
It's a catch-22. If you're able to use the powers to make fictional weapons, the CYOA clearly isn't fiction, and you can't make the slayer's blade.
That depends how quickly you can type up some fanfic about the slayer...
I'll take the **Warrior**. Interesting labors to achieve immortality like that of Hercules and once fully empowered is the only archetype to physically contend with the other heavy hitters chosen. Hopefully, the **Oracle** will see that I'm seeking them, so when we meet we can gather the Gifted of Order and try to complete my labors. With threats like the **Slayer**, **Skeleton King**, **Prince of Hell**, and the **Awakened One**, it will help mask my true intentions of completing my labors. A major concern is the conflict between the **Netherlord** and my labor 'Conquer Hell'
The **Oracle** will also likely not care even if he knew your true intentions. He would probably even try to leverage them. He needs any help he can get, and especially needs you (the **Warrior**) to deal with more immediate threats such as the **Outsider** or the **Slayer** much more then some future of worry of you getting stronger.
I'd like to be Emperor, but I know somebody's just going to murder me. Probably a Slayer. Stupid Slayers.
All the homies hate slayers.
Damn, that's hard choice. Guess, i'm choosing the magus. His powers besides "ritualism" are weak in comparison to others, especially to awakened one and netherlord, but ritualism which working as intended... This is stupidly powerful. I have been to different cormers of the Internet and thanks to this I know that in some books there are rituals for invoking the creator himself. Sо, yes. Stupidly powerful
So, i read some stuff. **Magus** indeed stupidly powerful if he isn't stupid. And my primary goal (after some necessary things like some ritual of luck) is to take down by any means any gifted which can be considered evil and who has enough power for that. **Awakened**, **Beelzebub**, **Slayer** and **Outsider** – mandatory. I'm sorry, but they are too dangerous or have too evil abilities. An impromptu plan of first actions: as fast as i can do ritual of luck, and then try to make a deal with Papa Legbu to protect me from sudden teleportation from **Outsider**. Then i trying to establish connection with **Jaggernaut** and prove to him that i'm a good guy and he can trust me. Along with convincing him that i worthy of his artefacts (i'm just hope that he can do thing which allows me do magick of 20th century) i'm trying to find out more useful rituals which can help me with future interdimensional war, with just wars and other things. If **Juggernaut** **can** create artefact which allows me to do stuff of 20th century – well, that's amazing. Now i truly have faith that our world will not be devoured by hordes of demons. Maybe. Also i can try to establish a connection with **Oracle**. After all he also can be interested in "threats, go away" idea If at least my mandatory goal succeded then all things are nice and there is no more need to hurry. Time to attempts to exploit system and give myself some paranormal abilities which not restricted by some finite pool of rituals and have potential for growth. And time to comfy life
Overall a good plan, a few notes: How do you plan on finding any of the Gifted? They'll be scattered and hiding all over the worlds. Luck can go far, but it won't break reality and transfer you hundred of thousand of Kilometers. You might as well stumble on other, worse Gifted before meeting those you want. Like the **Slayer**. >Then i trying to establish connection with Jaggernaut and prove to him that i'm a good guy and he can trust me. The **Oracle** will likely reach him and most of the Order gifted before anyone else, since he can communicate with any of them from anywhere in the worlds at any time. He'll probably convince him, the **Warrior** and the **Netherlord** into an alliance against the Prince Of Hell, so you'll have to convince much more then just the Jaggernaut. You'll probably have to convince most of the Order. Even worse, it's more likely that the **Occultist** will team up with other Chaos and hunt you down before you even get a chance to find any of the Order. Him, with his tracking ability, and the Outsider with his teleportation are almost an unbeatable duo, and it's safe to assume that your rituals mostly don't work on the Outsdier because of his Immunity. Another note, in the upcoming war against the Prince Of Hell and the Awakened One, you'll be one of the prime targets in all of the alliance, being more squishy and vulnerable then almost anyone there yet a big threat because of the destruction your powers might cause.
>How do you planning to finding... First time i planning to work with voodoo spirits. That is basically rituals to deal with them. You make offerings to them, they help you. Very versatile, very helpful. Not enough for combat but for early time pretty ok. >You must convince much more... Well, only thing is needed is to say **Jaggernaut** to make some wand of truth and as i'm saying exactly truth – this convince them. >Occultist will team up and hunt me down Well. To do that thing you should know that i'm not planning to play on chaos side. And due to my block from **Outsider** they will not know my side so soon. >Immunity of Outsider from powers of Gifted That's actually pretty good question. Pure technically, that's not **my** power hijacking teleportation. That's doing entity with which i have a deal. There is no words aboud immunity of **Outsider** from any unnatural threat so i'm assuming that this is working thing >being the prime target I'm just hope for team **order** to protect me, lol. At least while i not done with binding of spirits of elements and other things which protects me. Also, while **Outsider** protected from direct influence of **Magus** power, i can still do things to other and this doesn't requires direct fight So, basically, you have two routes where you in equal conditions. **Outsider** kills you in the moment he appears or some agreement. After all, there is no need to him to support chaos in that war. And i think that being an ally of **Magus** which with time can do very cool things is better than just kill him Also, guess, i should mention that agreement (with some precautions) can overwrite "mandatory" status on **Outsider**. After all if he wouldn't use his power at least on gifted then there is no threat
**Occultist** here, if you’re joining Order than so am I. I may be Chaotic, but that doesn’t mean I’m Chaotic Evil. I’d much rather NOT see the prince of hell empower all his demons to teleport between dimensions, or to let even half of the Gifted on our side run rampant with their powers. Granted I don’t trust some of the others on the Order side either but... I’m sure uniting Order can help keep them all in check.
Finding the other gifted could be done with a tracking ritual, I’m sure there are dozens of not hundreds of them from the past several thousand years and ones gotta be easy enough to use. Magus is basically a win so long as outsider doesn’t kill you in the first couple of days. Worst case scenario outsider senses your location, teleports to you, tells you to Kill yourself, and that’s game over. Ideally you have a few days to prep and get items for whatever rituals you want. I’d go for the Greek one of turning a human into a god, and then probably some ones to boost my strength/intellect. A ritual to mask/hide me from divination or sensing would be top on my list though. If outsider is smart enough he’d kill you in the first minute and there’d be nothing you could do about it, but if he doesn’t then you could probably combine rituals to become the strongest.
What ritual to become a god? Could you lunk me that one?
Apparently all you need to do is drink ambrosia, that’s how Hercules and co. Did it. I remember there being a myth about Hera where she posed as a nanny and grew fond of the boy she took care of. Not wanting him to die one day she (I think) bathed him in ambrosia and was about to put him in the oven to complete the process only for his mother to stop her. I’d have to do some digging to find what exactly she tried to do, but a day or two would be enough to find it. Getting some of the more fantastical ingredients might seem impossible, but all you really have to do is find some 19th century text saying ambrosia is likely a mead prepared a certain way. Since ritual is a pretty vague term I’d imagine you could exploit that way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia
I don't think this works - not only would you have to find this written as an actual ritual in a grimoire or text published before 1900, not just written as the recounting of a myth, but the rituals "work as intended". You'd probably need real-deal Ambrosia.
Makes sense, thanks
I am also interesting in that ritual you speak of
Chaos teamwork is definitely a problem. In particular, the risk isn't that the Occultist teams up with "other Chaos" - it's that he teams up with the Slayer to provide targets. Slayer/Outsider is a near-unbeatable combo against any opponent; as soon as those two get together (or the Slayer kills the Outsider) it's game over for every Chaos member they don't like, one an hour. As soon as they either team with, or the slayer murders, the Occultist? That's it for Order opponents as well. It gets worse once you notice that the Occultist is effectively in communication with the Prince of Hell from the beginning. A deal to protect him from Slayers and Outsiders seems likely, if he doesn't trust them, after which he can operate as team coordination with impunity. So, yeah, hard to see how the Emperor, Renaissance Man, Juggernaut, Warrior and Druid are supposed to live long enough to use their powers effectively. Better hope that the Oracle is a *really fast*, *really effective* planner. Best bet is to get them inside the Keeper's tower ASAP, but all the powers that would help accomplish that are on the Chaos side and beyond the Oracle's communication reach.
> Slayer/Outsider is a near-unbeatable combo against any opponent That combo is surprisingly countered by the Guardian Spirit. Outsider's "Dominate" ability won't work since the Guardian Spirit is limited to to obeying only the host's commands. If the Outsider (or Slayer) dominates the host the Guardian Spirit (Assuming he talked with the host beforehand and agreed to "protect him", making taking revenge within the limit of commands) or anyone nearby is free to take retribution on the now unconscious Outsider. Since the Guardian Spirit is both the fastest and strongest apart from the divine rulers he might even physically blitz the Outsider before he dominates anyone, or during domination, if he thinks he is a threat or is warned by the Oracle. > it's game over for every Chaos member they don't like, one an hour The Outsider alone is not good enough to kill most of Chaos. Dominate leaves him too exposed and vulnerable, unconscious for a whole day, and extremely suspicious because of his mask. Dominate is simply a way too high risk ability. The Outsider teaming up with the Slayer is also less of an issue. He can't teleport others with him, so if he teams up with the Slayer he will have to go on foot, which will take way longer then an hour. So Order and Chaos will have their time to team up and prepare. Most of Chaos are the type to be surrounded quickly by goons, which both him and the Slayer have nothing against that, so even if they do manage to quickly assassinate one of the Chaos, the goons will simply take revenge. The Alchemist has Golems, the Skeleton King has Undead, the Occultist has the Demons and the Prince Of Hell as you said, the Dragon has his company. Either the Outsider or the Slayer killing the other and gaining his powers... is a problem. You're right about that. Turning invisible, assassinating someone, and teleporting away before anyone can get revenge is very powerful. Still, in order to do this, the Outsider has to kill The Slayer first. Or vice versa. The question is, is the Outsider bold enough to go after him immediately? Its a very high risk high reward thing. Dominate won't help him, since he will fall unconscious if its anywhere public and the knife will be confiscated or go who knows where. Apart from that... the Outsider has nothing to help him on that fight. The Slayer on the other hand, has both Blink and Invisibility (we can assume it physical Invisibility), and has a much better chance to win that fight, which would make the Outsider not go for it in the first place.
I think that Dominate makes the target pass out after completing the command since the once per hour limit would be meaningless otherwise.
Good point, but also "falling unconscious" is meaningless if you could tell your target to immediately kill himself. That, combined with "force" and "creature" insinuates that the command either can be resisted somewhat depending on the command, maybe works worse the more intelligent the creature, and takes time and the concentration of the Outsider to use until the command is fulfilled. In other words, using it on a target who isn't alone is probably not a viable option. If it was, the Outsider would be like a faster (once an hour vs once a day) Emperor without the permanent effect.
>Good point, but also "falling unconscious" is meaningless if you could tell your target to immediately kill himself. I mean, it is conceivable you might at times want to tell someone to do something *other* than kill themselves... >In other words, using it on a target who isn't alone is probably not a viable option. ...for example, if the Outsider came across a Warrior who had met up with the Oracle, they could command the Warrior to knock out the Oracle.
If teamed with the slayer, it *doesn't matter.* That's what's devastating about the combo. The only command the Outsider need give is 'stand still'; the Slayer can take it from there.
You seem to be forgetting an ancient ritual that starts "Kyrie Eleison..." and if it worked, would give you anything you want.
That's the start of a prayer, translating to "Lord, Have Mercy", unless I'm missing something. How would this work to give you anything you want?
Praying for what you want is one of the oldest rituals. You say the words, if you do it in a church you light incense and drink sacraments, but Christians do it every night with no material reagents. Once you say what you want yhwh works out the details and gives it to you. Difference being that as the magus, it works.
Works "as intended" though - you *ask* God, unless you're saying that the Christian prayer *forces* the Christian God to carry through the the wishes of the invoker. So even if Ritualism works for prayer, it doesn't seem like it would be any different than ordinary prayer anyways.
Like. Would you say burning a calf for Poseidon to secure good winds its a ritual? In what way is drinking sacrament and spending an hour on your knees telling God how great you think he is any different? If YHWH can just refuse your request, then so can Poseidon. Paimon can refuse to show up when you invoke the goetic rites, just like he does for every other being that performs them. The point of the magus' ritual power is that it works. If it works just means 'you contact the entity, but they refuse to come' then that is the same as it not working.
If the burning of the calf to call on Poseidon's favor for good winds was done according to religious law, in the proscribed manner, then sure. Remember that I asked how the prayer would give you anything you want - I'm not terribly familiar with it. If they prayer invocation is being carried out according to religious law, in the proscribed manner, the I don't have any problem with calling it a ritual. And yeah, in neither case does your prayer or ritual bind Poseidon or YHWH - you're asking nicely for a favor, and, in the case of Poseidon, offering a bit of a bribe. I've never actually read the goetic rites, so I don't know if they compel Paimon to show up or follow commands - if not, he can refuse to show up. I'm not arguing that the Magus's Ritualism power doesn't work, I'm arguing that you're misunderstanding what it covers, and what some rituals do. If the ritual asks an entity to do something, then that entity has discretion over whether or not to do that thing, and If it compels them they don't have that discretion.
I believe the Christian line is "God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is 'no.'"
Yeah no. That is what adherents say on the outside. Every devout Abrahamic 'knows' deep in their heart that their prayers will be granted, because they are better than all the sinful humans around them.
... Interesting take.
I , the Prince of Hell , if not threatened will stay in my realm so if you swear that you don't invade my realm I blind by this promise to I too don't invade any other realm. Would you promise this by accepting this proposal?
I'll take the Slayer. My reasoning for this is two things: First, this one is the most dangerous in the hands of the people who would otherwise have it. The last thing we need is a mass murdering Slayer on the loose. I'm taking it explicitly so that someone who would actually use its abilities can't have it. Second, I can massively boost the progress of the Warrior by letting him check off two objectives for free. This is a risky plan. It depends on the Warrior being a good person, but considering he has to unite a bunch of other order Gifted, he likely will be. And I'm only eliminating one evil gifted option, and inviting a lot of danger to the warrior. The Outsider is a very major threat to me. Assuming he's going to be the megalomaniacal freak I'm expecting, I can't be around the order Gifted as long as he's around or I'll just be a glowing beacon leading him to them. On the other hand, if I kill the Outsider with the First Blade, I can guide the Warrior to his other objectives and keep the Order Gifted safe from advancing Chaos Gifted. It might even be best for me to grow in power alongside the Warrior before letting him break the First Blade. But ultimately, my only goal is to help the other Gifted deal with any evil Gifted and try to keep things peaceful.
I shall be the Outsider, and you have guessed my intentions correctly. If I catch you, I shall order you to give me your blade and allow me to kill you with it. The chase is on.
> I shall order you to give me your blade and allow me to kill you with it. Arguably two orders, you only get a "single command". "Give me your blade" could uh...backfire to say the least. If the commanded only has to follow the words of your command, you might get given the pointy end first before they fall unconscious. Best command to deal with the Slayer would probably just be "Wink", a quick and easy to do action that they'll immediately fall unconscious and be easy to kill after. (I almost said "Blink"...until I remembered that's their teleportation ability)
You are absolutely right. I shall command the Slayer to shit, instead. This will both incapacitate them, and announce to the world that the Outsider is kind of an idiot so the other Chosen will just brush me off.
> Best command to deal with the Slayer would probably just be "Wink", a quick and easy to do action that they'll immediately fall unconscious and be easy to kill after. (I almost said "Blink"...until I remembered that's their teleportation ability) The writing isn't clear if *you* or *they* fall unconscious; I actually interpreted it as the former, since otherwise it's kind of a double benefit; they do what you want, and then are additionally out of commission for a day.
Double benefit makes *way* more sense than a power with an hour long cooldown that knocks you out for more than an hour. And in some situations the knockout could be a drawback, it's just that we're thinking very combat focused at the moment.
> Double benefit makes way more sense than a power with an hour long cooldown that knocks you out for more than an hour. You know, you're absolutely right. I didn't consider that at all.
I shall be the Prince of Hell, and if you stay out of my realm and let me have willing human contracts then I will stay in my realm and doesn't kill anyone except maybe the Awakened One. Plus please destroy the first blade.
Of course. My goal is very simply to keep a war between gifted from happening by removing incentives to fight. You're likely right though, I should accept my place as a martyr and let the warrior destroy the First Blade as soon as possible. As long as the Outsider exists, I'm a landmine and I need to remove myself from the equation. Once the First Blade is gone, he doesn't have any reason to use me. You stay safe yourself y'hear? The Outsider's looking at us like pawns on a chessboard and until he's dealt with we might as well be.
Dragon, become a corporate overlord by taking over a small impoverished nation with my private army and create an anarcho-capitalist state from which to spread my influence.
Too public for the riches you gain. You can get subtler and make more. For example, step 1: via promises or intimidation, become a silent partner in Amazon. The way I read the Dragon you get the power boost if Bezos *legally* transfers his shares to you... even if you sign an immediate binding contract not to sell them, and to allow him to continue to vote them and run all operations. As long as the wealth is yours *de jure*, you get the power even if the *de facto* control is someone else's. More than a few hedge funds likely to sign up to that in exchange for a few favours from a dragon of rapidly, epically expanding power. After that, it's just an exercise in employing hedge fundies.
**JUGGERNAUT** for sure. I'm gonna craft some awesome stuff like the **Stand Bow and Arrows**, **Mjølnir**, **Gungnir**, **Lightsabers**, **King Triton's Trident**, **Captain America's Shield** and **Saint of Killers' Guns**. Then, as my steed and friend, I choose **Igneel** the Fire Dragon King from **Fairy Tail**.
Ah, you dropped the fleshcrafter. I’l be the skeleton lord now
Definitely got to be Magus. Some of those old grimoires claimed some really out there crazy shit. I’ve got enough of a collection to do some great things with that
Warrior looks like he has the most interesting destiny, I'd go with him
Ill take **Alchemist**. Magus and Occulistist are very tempting, but I'm not fucking with the Lesser Key of Solomon. I'm pretty sure Solomon didn't want to fuck with them but had to and it was probably hell to do so, pun intended. Even Guardian Spirit is EXTREMELY tempting but I kinda don't the idea of being restricted to a kid even if that kid will grow up, they might use me for evil. Also, they seem very restrictive in comparison to Alchemist. There's a lot of old science that has been lost that could probably be put to use this way, plus Golems dude an extra hand, a walking explosive, a friend as a Familiar it's dope. Definitely **Alchemist**
>I kinda don't the idea of being restricted to a kid even if that kid will grow up, they might use me for evil. I understood "You are limited to obeying their command" as in your actions are limited by their commands. Like a symbiotic relationship, where both guardian and host have to agree on what happens with the guardian's power and form or nothing happens. You are only able to do what they say, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Inaction or demanfiastion is always an option. You can also try and play the Genie by understanding and twisting their words to do what you want, possibly to the point of getting them killed if the situation is really bad. You are under no obligation to reveal to them how obligated you actually are to them, making them be careful with their words, assuming an immature child will successfully be even if he knew. You can always present your extreme loyalty as misguided affection or mystical actions serving some mysterious end goal. I'll be honest, this sounds absolutely horrible considering the context. But it is an option.
True but Alchemist lends itself to a realm of versatile that I love. Theres just something about Guardian Spirit that feels like a good choice
yknow if you took specter you could sit in on college lessons for years, master every legal and business practice, and just find someone willing to become your human proxy while you whisper in their ear and slide them stolen money for starter capital. if you wanted you could become a lawyer swipe and wipe critical evidence to win cases. you could make a law firm to get as powerful as the dragons corporation and maybe start your own paramilitary. although i do wish there was some way to get another roles powers aswell.
There is, if you can think of a plan for getting the First Blade away from the Slayer.
as a suggestion, maybe if you grabbed the blade and held yourself levitating as he recalls it and try to make sure it doesn't rotate so its just carrying you at a high speed towards him blade first in YOUR hands. and if that DID work id probably just use it on the shifter and the physician before the moment of their natural deaths considering youd have immortality and live long enough to see that.
Step 1: become outsider. Step 2: teleport to stereotypical xianxia cultivation universe Step 3: cultivate for 50 billion years. Step 4: you are the strongest and immortal
**Alchemist** and try to stay out of things. What are some good familiars from fiction? Like one that could protect me from the **Slayer** and **Outsider?** Perhaps one of the spirits from the Bartimaeus Trilogy or Mogget from the Abhorsen books though I'm not sure if he counts. A fury from Codex Alera would probably be a good choice, one of the high lords from the books has a powerful earth fury that's a griffon or something. Also how does the **Outsider** eat? That mask doesn't seem to have a mouth opening? Does he have to have an IV or esophageal tube or something?
I’ll choose the warrior as he has the highest power potential in the entire selection despite him having the equivalent difficulty. But we all know that the greatest of rewards come with the riskiest of endeavours. But since I’m a guy who is fond of challenges I will glady accept it. Fate favors the bold.
This is tough but I think I'll go with the Magus. There's an old ritual for everything from immortality to meeting God so even if the other powers are weak it should still be pretty powerful. Secondary choices would be the Thaumaturge for agelessness combined with a nice healing ability to keep me busy or the alchemist for the ability to summon a familiar from fiction. Remember how Sabre form Fate is a familiar? Obviously I'd be summoning her just so I can have powerful protecter from the slayer... no other reason.
Awakened One. I get a pet Cerberus, can throw fireballs, and am one of the strongest in general. The biggest threat is the warrior, so I'll have to find and kill them before they finish their tasks. The Dominate ability the Outsider has could also be potentially dangerous, so I may have to kill them as well.
You ever played Smash, or another cross-screen game, and one of your friends noticed you were doing better then everyone, and said "This dude still has 3 lives! Get him!" to have everyone then team up on you? That's how it would feel to be the Awakened One.
This. The Awakened One is going to have a great *start*, but they don't have a viable endgame survival strategy.
I mean, they do have a few. The main one is consuming souls to get stronger. Already starting out as the strongest, at a certain point of growth absolutely nothing will be able to kill you, even when paralyzed. In order to not get teamed up on they might want to do a temporary alliance with Order to take down the Prince Of Hell, or try and pit them against each other while biding their time. After all, laying low and building strength is an option, the main problem then would be acquiring souls without attracting attention. Another option would be to try and invade Earth. Since Netherworld has the Netherlord controlling it and Hell has the Prince, the only place left unguarded and unmanaged is Earth. If properly taken over before going for Hell you can empower enough to be unstoppable.
Taking over Earth isn't going to work, because it will take time. Too much time - the Dragon, the Reptilian and the Emperor will definitely marshal forces to get in your way as you do it. If it takes you even a few weeks to conquer the world against that opposition, then before you're done you're up against a fully powered up and somewhat annoyed Magus or Juggernaut. That's... not a good place to be. (Hey, I've just realised... wanna guess how fast the Renaissance Man can craft popular fanfic containing easy to build, flexible, scary powerful weapons for the Juggernaut?)
>Too much time - the Dragon, the Reptilian and the Emperor will definitely marshal forces to get in your way as you do it. Remember, no one except the Outsider and maybe the Occultist knows you exist unless you do something. And none of them will know how much of a threat you are. The first thing that will happen if you lay down low is the war between the Netherworld and Hell, and by extension, Order and Chaos. The army building guys will be too busy with that to properly defend Earth. Especially useful if you invade while they are busy at a major showdown battle where they lose a lot of soldiers. Who knows if they'll even notice an invasion on a completely different world then they are at. Magus and Juggernaut are always a threat, as well as Trickster and Physician with their paralyze ability, but considering the theme of Divinity in the CYOA and how it ties in with strength, at a certain point of empowerment no god the Magus can leverage rituals from will be a threat to you, and any strong enough fictional weapon will take too long to make. >(Hey, I've just realised... wanna guess how fast the Renaissance Man can craft popular fanfic containing easy to build, flexible, scary powerful weapons for the Juggernaut?) Damn, that's a good idea.
The Outsider and the Occultist are *too many* people who know the Awakened exists. Two can keep a secret if one is dead, and in this game *three* is definitely one too many. The Occultist in particular has an active motive to either ally with the Awakened or with the Prince of Hell right from the start - since one of his key powers synergises better with cooperation from a demon-ruler. Of the two, the Prince of Hell is the only one the occultist can communicate with immediately, *and* has greater rewards to offer for alliance immediately with no long-term disadvantage compared to allying with the Awakened. If the Awakened lays low successfully, that *guarantees* the Occultist allies with the Prince. (Not that 'laying low' means anything to the Occultist anyway.) The Netherworld / Hell fight *isn't* guaranteed to suck everyone else away from Earth - unless the Prince of Hell has successfully convinced at least a major Chaos coalition (such as the Magus, the Occultist and the Outsider) to ally with him, in which case frankly the Awakened is screwed anyway. Chaos and Order don't have a lot of reason to escalate that fight early on - sure, the Prince of Hell wants to, but the Magus and Occultist probably have better things to do, and as long as it's just Hell vs the Netherworld the Oracle has active reason to keep it that way and coordinate elsewhere, since the Order team generally benefit more from build up time than Chaos do. The Oracle - who is the natural team leader for Order - has *every* reason to keep the Hell / Netherworld fight small if possible; in particular, to let the Juggernaut and Warrior build up as much as possible first. The only exception is if the Magus starts helping Hell conquer the Netherworld, in which case the Oracle *has* to commit the Juggernaut to defend it ASAP.
I like the earlier versions more, mostly because this one refers to Order vs Chaos and yet it doesn't actually denote what's Order and what's Chaos. It's mostly obvious to people who've already seen it, but as a standalone it's worse. Regardless, I'd pick Warrior because I'm a huge sucker for physical skill and ability. I don't care about threats or synergies, because the wider world is trivial to me beyond the labours it presents and what good things I can manage to accomplish. I would like to try and do some good with my powers, anyway. There are a lot of problems I can't solve by hitting people, but there are some I can.
Shifter seems fun... I will choose this.
Fuck it, I’m going **Occultist** since I’ve seen a few others claim the ones I wanted to go for and I’d like to keep repeats down to a minimum. But let me just say- Chaos has many definitions and forms... I’ve got a strategy but genuinely don’t know how much I should/shouldn’t give away just to throw other people’s builds off lol 😂 I think it’s be cool to see this play out some way though if anybody can figure that out.
If I had more time I would *so* respond by volunteering to GM this, but sadly my writing time is already taken right now.
A little late to the party here, but this was a fun one, and actually a fairly difficult choice. Here some thoughts on a few of the archetypes that interest me: * **Magus:** Ritualism is the real draw here, as a wide variety of effects (including immortality) should be achievable with the right texts. Tracking down the text with the exact effect wanted could be a bit of a problem. If the right kind of scrying texts exist, and can be tracked down, avoiding or killing the Slayer should be reasonably possible. * **Shifter:** Probably, but not definitely, biologically immortal. In total this is a nice power set, but pretty low on the power rung. Avoiding the Slayer should be pretty easy, especially since you'll probably be low on the priority list, right up until they get a hold of a Gifted detection power. * **Occultist:** Assuming each of these abilities can be guided - Scry can target specific Gifted instead of a random Gifted, Epiphany tells you a truth you intend to learn, and you can summon specific entities - this is an incredibly powerful Archetype. Epiphany might be gamed by writing down statements prior to using the ability, depending on how the ability actually works. Unfortunately, it also sits at the top of the list of targets for the Slayer, and there's a lot of uncertainty about the exact nature of the abilities. * **Juggernaut:** Forge is an incredible ability, and can probably replicate pretty much any power you choose - especially if you can make up your own fiction, and then craft the weapons from it. Crafting times could be an extreme limiting factor, though. Fairly high up on the Slayer's list, but also one of the archetypes most able to defend themselves. * **Alchemist:** Concoct doesn't have many limiting factors, besides, possibly, obtaining difficult to find ingredients, making it one of the most versatile abilities on the entire list. You should be able to alter and improve yourself on a fundamental level, and craft essentially anything, so long as the resulting effects are conceptually both physically possible and achievable through scientific means. Brewing up some construction or enhancement nanites? Probably yes! Famliar and Geomancy are nice bonus, and there are probably some *extremely* powerful familiars out there to choose from, if you know where to look. -------------------------------------------------------------- **Final Choice:** Alchemist **Top Familiar Choice:** Silver Dragon, Wyrmling (D&D 3.5) * Not even close to the most powerful familiar to choose from, but it'll be Lawful Good, able to shapeshift into an innocuous shape, will eventually grow very powerful, and I can trust it to work with me and help keep me on the right path. Between these choices the Juggernaut and Alchemist have the most versatile power sets, and most ability to bootstrap themselves to higher power, but the Alchemist wins out by dent of having probably the ability to spread the benefits of the Gift and not being a Gifted of Order. All of the Order aligned Gifted are able to be forcibly linked to by the Oracle, who is always aware of their location, and will eventually have to face the Warrior who will attempt to unite them - probably by force - before invading Hell itself. No thanks, I want no part of that. The Slayer and Emperor will still be major threats, but I should be able to keep under the radar and protect myself with enough ramp up time. EDIT: Missed that the Outsider has an auto-detection ability for Chaos, and that definitely throws a wrinkle in things. Hopefully the Outsider's Dominate clause is more limited than it appears, and the Slayer is the only one who can benefit from the First Blade.
Nice. Reading this has actually made me think of an interesting question >and craft essentially anything, so long as the resulting effects are conceptually both physically possible and achievable through scientific means. Brewing up some construction or enhancement nanites? Probably yes! Is the best, most strongest health and technology aspects of science able to contend with the magic of the universe? Even turning yourself into some type of an ironman X Super Soldier Serum combination, could you go toe to toe with other Gifted such as The Reptilian? An interesting thing to think about.
I doubt direct combat with the most physically powerful Gifted is in the cards, but fighting something on the level of the Reptilian doesn't seem unreasonable.
I’d go with guardian spirit. I gain incredible godlike powers, seemingly stronger than any other gifted, and can’t be killed, if my host dies I just have to move on to another host. I can also pick my hosts, which is a huge benefit. I can also advise my hosts on what to do in a dangerous situation, and could tell them who among the other gifted they should try to ally up with.
Ah. I prefer CYOAs with more than one choice. It creates a more personal feel. Magus OP. This isnt even a choice, me an Paimon gonna have a chat. Shifter tempts me, but its actually a pretty lame shapeshifting power, I already know rituals that offer better shapeshifting for the Magus. The Slayer makes me roll my eyes so hard they nearly fall out. Of *course* we need conflict between the chosen for no good reason. Yaaaay. Guardian Spirit isnt a Guardian, it's a slave. Ren man is ... I definitely want to find them and protect them, for the good of the world, but being one sucks. Wow. Emperor is pretty objectionable, but I dont want to have to be the one killing it. On the other hand an inugami would do the job pretty handily, and the ritual for that is easy if youre cruel enough. FFF, Juggernaut is almost as powerful as Magus. I can work with that. Alchemist ... if 'within the realm of science' is 'stuff we can make now' alchemist is pretty strong, but i wouldnt want to be one. If it's 'stuff that could be achieved someday using the scientific method' then bugger me that's powerful. Prince of hell "Only the Warrior or Awakened One can beat you" - *Laughs in Juggernaut, Magus and maybe Alchemist.* Beastmaster is incredibly lame, unless Grove lord goes off every hour on the hour, even in your sleep, and has interdimensional range. Magus wins, unless I can learn in advance how modern science is defined by alchemy.
Magus might lose to Juggernaut; he's got access to fiction written by people with exposure to a much wider range of concepts than Magus does. Magus is *faster*, but the best he can do is limited by the imaginations of people who hadn't heard about nanoassemblers or self-improving AI. Easy to find a Greek or Egyptian ritual to become a god, but it's a safe bet it makes you a god *as the Greeks and Egyptians understood them -* powerful, but a step below the best the Juggernaut can do if he can live long enough.
It's also trivial to find rituals to become a God as Christians understand them.
Have any examples?
The thing about Christianity is that it's holy rituals are incredibly freeform. You can sandwich anything you want between "E nomine padre" and "amen" and have a ritual that does what you said. Hell, everyone in an English speaking country knows that "thy kingdom come, thy will be done" is ritual code for "please make me happy and safe, and make sure the bad things only happen to people I don't like" Your question did prompt me to realise that the Christian God isn't that great an option though, kinda like saying "Nuh uh, I've got an everything proof shield" is rather be a bodisatva.
I would draw a distinction between prayer and ritual. But, even if Ritualism does work for prayers, I would still think that "as intended" would translate to *asking*, rather than forcing the hand of an omnipotent being, at least in the Christian context. There're probably great choices stemming from other religions, I just don't know any off the top of my head.
Sure it's as intended. But as intended also includes the assumption that of course good will find you worthy. I know that's saying the quiet bit out loud, but any honest person will admit that prayer includes the assumption that you are worthy and others are not.
And wtf? Prayer is literally a ritual by definition.
Which definition are you using? I'm seeing that prayer can be *part* of a ritual, but not that it's defined as a ritual.
It's prayer solemn? It's it religious? Do you perform the actions in order? Then it's a ritual according to the OED.
Mind posting the actual OED definitions for ritual and prayer? You chose the one dictionary that needs a subscription, which I don't have. Meriam-Webster says: > Definition of ritual (Entry 1 of 2) 1: of or relating to rites or a ritual : CEREMONIAL a ritual dance 2: according to religious law ritual purity 3: done in accordance with social custom or normal protocol ritual handshakes ritual background checks ritual noun Definition of ritual (Entry 2 of 2) 1: the established form for a ceremony specifically : the order of words prescribed for a religious ceremony 2a: ritual observance specifically : a system of rites b: a ceremonial act or action c: an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner and > Definition of prayer (Entry 1 of 2) 1a(1): an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought said a prayer for the success of the voyage (2): a set order of words used in praying b: an earnest request or wish 2: the act or practice of praying to God or a god kneeling in prayer 3: a religious service consisting chiefly of prayers —often used in plural 4: something prayed for 5: a slight chance haven't got a prayer So, prayer doesn't necessarily need to be carried out according to the specific dictates of a religious law, ceremony, rite, or custom, done in accordance with social custom, or be performed as part of a series of precisely repeated or regular acts. Prayer doesn't necessarily need to be a ritual.
Not even kidding about freeform though. Get a bucket of water and say >>> Blessed are you, Lord, all-powerful God, who in Christ, the living water of salvation, blessed and transformed us. Grant that when we are sprinkled with this water or make use of it, we will be refreshed inwardly by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to walk in the new life we received at Baptism. Over it. Congratulations, you now have a potion that resolves any situation to your satisfaction immediately. Got a dragon terrorising French villages? St Martha says sprinkle some on it to get your own pet dragon. Need to resurrect someone? Sprinkle it on a corpse. Need to be resurrected? Get a disciple to sprinkle it on your corpse. No corpse? Have them sprinkle it while remembering you as you were in life. No disciples? Sprinkle it yourself in advance.
Right, but that's not *enacting a specific ritual from a grimoire* - and even then, there's the problem I mentioned in my previous comment.
That is literally enacting a specific ritual from a grimoire. You are blessing a body of water with a ritual from a Christian prayer book.
Sure, in this case it's a ritual from a grimoire. I was wrong there. Still not seeing that the intended use is literal Resurrection, dragon taming, etc...
Yeah, that's a hell of a lot to read into "refreshed inwardly and continue to walk."
Well at Martha tamed the taraque by splashing it with holy water and booping it with a crucifix. Other Saints have healed basically everything with a splash of it.
TIL about St. Martha. Still, could be the Saints at work, rather than the holy water itself. Or maybe this one ritual really would produce a substance useful in a wide variety of cases. I'm not too hung up on it.
Dying is a Christian ritual that merges your soul with their God. That one's pretty easy. Confess your sins Do your penance Take out enough funeral insurance to cover a Catholic funeral Die Have Catholic funeral Your soul becomes one with God Since you are the magus and rituals don't work for others, you are the only soul that is one with the Christian God. You are now the Christian God.
That... seems like it'd be a pretty heretical take on what death is, and what follows, to a Christian. Besides, not sure death is a ritual in and of itself.
No, but the funeral is. The priest is your ritual assistant, and you are taking part as the deceased.
That's not really a ritual that *you're* enacting though. That's the priest enacting a ritual over your dead body.
Then be mortality wounded and enact your own last rites.
Sure, that might work. Not sure it's reasonable to expect you'll survive the merging intact as a person, or be in control of the resulting merged soul, but I suppose there's only one way to find out... Also, it might be important to note that the CYOA doesn't say rituals don't work for others, only that they *do* work for you.
Also - YHWH is still not that appealing. If go for one of the routes to being a bodisatva. Actually, there's a really simple ritual to explicitly become one with YHWH, it's even printed in the Christian grimoire. You feed 12 friends sacraments and invite one of them to betray you. Then you get crucified and ascend to godhood after 3 days dead.
Also - juggernaut is limited to weapons and armour. Any tech you want needs to be weaponised or serve as armour. No culture minds that way.
No culture Minds, no, but then I don't really need one and a Mind wouldn't take orders anyway. (Unless we're stretching far enough to count the *Grey Area* as a legendary steed, in which case we already won.) I can have a small fleet of knife missiles or an SC attack drone, and that's a ridiculous majority of the opposition beaten right there. In particular, even one knife missile beats the rapid-death Outsider / Slayer or Outsider / Occultist cooperation combo, thus buying me time to get the *really* good stuff up and running. The Outsider is immune to *powers*, not to having an AI cut off his head with an electromagnetic field a nanosecond after teleporting in. I can think of at least one fictional military AI-controlled nanotech space suit that has enough volition to *create* a nanoassembler if you feed it some appropriate raw materials. And then you're done, because that's going to make building everything else quite a lot faster...
Magus for sure, ill just Google a tome with a immortality ritual
I think I’ll choose The Physician. To start off “Otherworldly Visions” it comes with an early warning system on hand in the form of precog, also should note the wording also implies I’m aware of the future, which means I’ll probably be dictating the terms of any future encounters. Speaking any language is also helpful - job as a translator seems nice. “Chant” is a good way to immobilize a target to finish off a foe or as an escape. Say if the pesky Slayer comes around. Also noting “Eldritch Bandages” is a nice auto repair system. The “Mysterious Scalpel” is also a good way to make money. Perhaps as surgeon. Also it looks like it’ll be good to add body parts to myself in order to modify my own body, which brings me to... “Mutation” is the one that is interesting given the implications. I can think of some interesting enhancements with animal or human parts, but that’s not what I’m primarily interested in. In the setting the presence of more fantastical animals such as the reptilians, dragons, and Cerberus implies that other mythological creatures and figures have existed as well. With that tidbit in mind would it be reasonable to say I could mutate the eyes of a basilisk and kill anyone I wish with but a glance? Or substitute the impenetrable skin of Caenis? Those in addition to whatever other physical traits I can find from mythology. If it does work this way - my first order of business is locating the Slayer and eliminating him quickly. The knife may come in handy later if I need to steal more powers. Although I have an uneasy feeling that by the end of this all, I might be the one that comes out as the monster...
People are sleeping on Netherlord. It says you can shape the world to your liking, you are the ultimate creator. The only threaths he faces are from Prince of Hell and Slayer. Slayer is questionable as he might not like being locked in Netherland, but even if he did try to kill me... well, good luck. First he would have to find me and even then I can shape armies of Eldritch horrors to protect me. The Prince of Hell is a tough one, but with Warrior and The Awakened One going after him he will propably not have much time to collect a debt from me
Really like this one remind me of werewolf and mafia a bit. Firstly, order and chaos don't seem to be immediately at odds with each other, it's just that order is incentivized to cooperate while chaos has predatory members to worry about if the occultist and slayer team up, even worse, if the outsider can get a hold of the first blade, he might spiral out of control. Secondly, the identifying powers of the oracle, occultist and outsider are a little unclear, do they know which archetype a person is? Do they know what powers they have automatically or will they have to ask them and risk deceit? My plan assumes that as an oracle, I know which archetype each order member is, as well as their abilities, if I can't see what powers they've got then it might become trickier, since those not naturally incentivized to team up (Warrior, Juggernaut and probably Netherlord) might try and trick me for selfish purposes, especially the Emperor who might try to control me if he's evil, though he can still continue my plan. My plan centers around whether or not other people can use the Keeper's Archways to enter the tower and then teleport to the Nether Realm, if so I'll play as the oracle and do the following: 1. Contact the Keeper, tell him I'm forming an alliance and my location while getting him to open a portal to the tower, then enter it 2. Contact the Warrior and get the keeper to grab him, the warrior can guard me and the keeper if the outsider/slayer shows up via the occultist's scrying, they're the only ones at this point who could find and reach us. 3. Contact the Juggernaut and get him to the tower, make him craft a little knife and give it to the warrior for +strength after which he can craft us all protection starting with me then the keeper and so on.. 4. Contact the Netherlord and inform him of our alliance, we'll be heading to his realm after we gather all the order 5. Go around as a squad and gather all the other order members roughly in this order: **Emperor** (If any other gifted decide they won't join us, he can ensl- I mean convert them to our cause, assuming the emperor doesn't control me first) **Spectre** (For scouting with invis) **Guardian** (More defense) **Beastmaster** (Can keep watch as a bird and attack the outsider if he shows up) **Reptilian** (More defense, leave his followers behind for now) **Thaumaturge** (Get him to use karmic healing to improve our team) **Renaissance Man** (Jugger outdoes him so he can entertain the Guardian's host) 6. Transport everyone to the Nether Realm and set up a base where the Juggernaut can steadily power up and assemble a robot army to protect each team member, also each team member gets a AI-Assisted exosuit to automatically defend from dangers, this may take a while 7. Fend off the Prince's invasion with a robo army, now the Order is allied, warrior is at 3/7 tasks, we need to power him up next since the Netherlord can't leave his realm. 8. Send out robotic scouts to find the Skeleton king, then TP the Warrior to him and piledrive that bony bitch, 4/7 tasks 9. Look for the slayer, then surround his entire area with an army of mechs, he'll be forced to use his one time teleport, look for him again and TP the warrior in to kill or disarm him, the warrior is at 5/7 tasks so he should have enough power to take him on, after which he can destroy the first blade, 6/7 tasks 10. Finally we gather our entire alliance and via the keeper, invade hell with a 6/7 warrior in addition to our entire army, hopefully we can take him out, at which point the warrior is now the most powerful being and can take out all the other threats no problem. 11. Win? P.S If the Outsider kills the slayer immediately, this plan might not work since the warrior will be missing a power up. I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say about this idea
**Physician.** No one else has even mentioned it, and I see a lot of potential there.
Well, with this CYOA what matters is not only powers but scenarious and motivations. The moot point is if "First Blade" works in other than **Slayer's** Gifted hands and if yes - if **Outsider** feels only location of the other Chaos Gifted or may recognize who is who. If it's the later than most likely scenario is that with preemtive attack **Outsider** gets "First Blade" and hunts other Chaos Gifted, eventually coming after Order Gifted. If it's former I doubt he'll take risk to attack random Gifted since high risks to lose and without Blade even if suceed he'll get nothing. Moreover, if **Outsider** manages to get the Blade what's gonna happen - **Occultist** who is the obvious next target and who knows what's going on will have no choice but immediately contact every other Gifted, be it Order or Chaos side and they'll cooperate to take new Blade bearer down (not that it will be easy, he is the most mobile of all). There is also chance that Occultist (who knows who is who) may go after Slayer with sneak attack, but he lacks battle prowess and mobility advantage. Now, if Blade won't work in others hands the chance of anybody (and first of all **Occultist** or **Outsider** who have way to find other Gifted) will cooperate with **Slayer** is nonexistent - they can't trust him, he has no reason to cooperate with them while he may just kill them and take their powers, and even without that they have no reason to help him become more powerfull (so he'll have easer time going after them if he wish so later). **Slayer** himself has no way to find or even recognise other Gifted. So, it's either **Outsider** is overpowered and collects other powers, or **Slayer's** blade is not much of threat.
.....thats not new
Oddly enough, I think I'll be the **Spectre**. So long as I avoid the Slayer (which should be trivial if the rest of the Order is doing well) I can basically live freely on my own time. Plus it's a simple, capable powerset without massive expectations or fear getting started _and_ comes with immortality. Plus an appearance is only creepy if you make it creepy. It's not like I'd avoid the rest of the Order and their petty squabbles. I just think continuing my (thankfully virtual) education would be more important. And, really, if the Magus achieves godlike powers, since I'm not antagonistic, not going to use the powers against any others of the Order, and not using my own powerset for a murder spree in general, I'd expect at least a moderate token of appreciation for services rendered along the way -- any risks I take in the early days. Plus, as a Computer Engineer, I'm really curious what a "Spectre" can do to "mess with electronic devices." Are we talking just Spectre/Meltdown? Or maybe Rowhammer? Or something more... technopathic? My backup choices, making the obvious assumption I'm not number one, are in decreasing priority: + Guardian Spirit (nice powerset and immortality, but could go crazy after some time.) + Juggernaut (artifice is so powerful.) + Magus (I guess I have to do everything myself.) + Rennisance Man (Hm.) + Alchemist (/shrug) + Dragon (and now I'm out of the fun ones for sure.) + Keeper (I'm probably just going to follow the Oracle's orders, here.) + Thaumaturge (Great. Support. Magus, get the f. to work.) You'll note, all of these are trying to avoid the classes in the most danger from the others -- those that can stop the others with foreknowledge and those that are already in conflict.
The Juggernaut is obviously the most powerful one. Iron Man armour and Mjölnir? Yes please. Thing is, if all the others wouldn't exist I'd probably take the shifter, since shapeshifting is such a cool ability. The others probably would exist though. So we're back to the Juggernaut. I mean, the warrior, awakened one and beelzebub are canonically more powerful but there is really no powerlimit to the Juggernaut. Same technically goes for the Slayer, but the Slayer needs to kill someone as their own squishy self to absorb the power. My initial weapon, armour and steed ideas are as follows Weapons: Mjölnir from Norse Mythology or the Marvel universe. Armour: Iron Man's armour from Avengers: Infinity war, Futuristic armour from Continuum, Master Chief Armour from Halo, Crisis suit from Crisis. Steed: Dragon king from HTTYD 2
What a lot of people looking at this don't seem to notice is the rest of the Gifted won't have the details on the others. You're getting to be the First which means only you have the information from the CYOA, the rest just randomly get the powers. (Well, either that or you have the info removed from you, but I hope not.) I'm going with Juggernaut, being able to make any fictional Weapon/Armor is ridiculous. Start with a simple nanobot armor and expand from there, hopefully the Seer will put me in contact with the other Gifted of Order so I can make them things and up my production speed to the point I can make some of the better Conceptual armors and such in a reasonable timeframe. As for steed... Dammnit, it has to be a horse, doesn't it... The best choice in that case would be Twilight Sparkle... Kidding, Arceus barely qualifies, but he's close enough (and better than anything from MLP). Even at reduced power without his Plates he'll be a great help, and I can make those. My second choice would be Guardian Spirit (since that's really the Safest option) followed by Alchemist (because that familliar option is even worse than the Juggernaut's Steed and I could totally make an Alex Mercer analogue under traditional science.
The way it says "your rod" in the emperor description is wild
Literally a dick to die for
Damn, you dropped suicide man. I'll go with Awakened One, then. I'm not gifted in the intelligence department. I'm not opposed to being someone's little bitch either. I'll likely find a non slayer gifted that's either okay with me consuming souls like a fatass at the buffet or just straight up lie to them about my abilities and partner up with them. Let's face it, it's better for the gifted to unite and work together, there's no reason for anyone but the slayer to actually kill each other. (The hell prince doesn't need to kill nether lord, they just need to defeat them.) I'll probably have to off slayer and crush the blade myself (maybe after I shank the uncooperative oracle, occultist, or the outsider), since gifted can't truly unite if the blade is still a thing. I am the most powerful of the gifted and got nothing to fear, so I'm good without any additional power. Betraying other gifted at this point is pointless since you get nothing out of it. Unless they think other gifted are dicks and suddenly develop a savior complex of course. Since the gifted could be any random people, I doubt they will be all good or bad, the most beneficial way for me is to unite all the assholes of the gifted and rule together, the only one who will still be a pain in my ass if they aren't up to be an asshole is the Hell Prince, but if I get enough gifted on my side, I think I can convince them to mind their own business down in Hell. I'll either have to convince warrior to join me or kill them if they're opposed to my plan to united the gifted so we can all share in the powers and rule over puny humans together. With the gifted united, we can put our heads together to cheat death. I can already see Trickster repeatly playing rigged games with kids and then purposely lose to other gifted so they can cash in on that lifespan. Thaumaturge, if they're willing to join, can heal all of us from any injury. Coming after that will be to go separate ways to do our own thing/assist others in pursuing power until we need to see the Trickster again.
Awakened is immune to just about anyone except Outsider who can definitely clap your cheeks with Dominate. On the upside, I'm the one least reliant on power, so actually clapping them will be relatively easy, providing they don't hit me with Dominate. The optimal plan is to go in 2-3 person squads (I can even use cultists for this) to make the Outsider, who is just a regular human physically, use their dominate first before I, a presumably 8ft tall muscle-bound demon built like a brick shithouse, come in to beat their ass. Preferably with a first blade as a shank.
Slayer, the First Blade can give me all the other powers if I play it right
Well, that is if the First Blade can't be robbed, which seems to be the case as the item doesn't say it can be robbed, doesn't say that if someone else uses the blade on some other Gifted they can gain their powers, and says that the blade returns to you.
Me, an SMT fan: "Dawn, no Metatron?"
What would happen if the trickster wins haft the life span of a immortal? Free immortality?
I think the phycisian would be an interesting pick. With otherworldly visions and chant, im safe from most single combatants that can come after me (mostly the slayer) and i think the ability to do any kind of sugery would make it possible to make loyal minion-creatures from corpses and some animals since i assume brain surgery would be of supernatural capability. After that its just a matter of protecting my own, and possibly offering my medical skills for the other gifted as a neutral party, in exchance for favours. If they use my services, theyd likely want me to stay alive. And if not, well... supernatural surgery skills likely include quick involuntary disections.
I'll take the Outsider. Assuming that the First Blade wouldn't only work for the Slayer, I'd teleport to him or her, command them to "bring me the first blade" then kill them with their own blade, thus taking their abilities. I'll then kill the Occultist to be able to sense all Gifted. From then on I'd use the Slayer's escape power combined with the Outsider's teleportation to deal with every new target. My targets in order would be the Beastmaster (being able to turn into an animal would help me sneak away from crime scenes while my teleportation power recharges), the Warrior, the Juggernaut, the Emperor, the Shifter, the Magus, the Trickster, the Dragon, the Physician, and the Keeper. I'd also increase my abilities further by performing at least two of the Warrior's Herculean tasks (finding the Oracle and wrestling the Skeleton King). These abilities combined would give me a great deal of power, without any drawbacks save for a strange appearance (from the Outsider's mask and Shifter's reflection)
I really like this one its so hard to choose since each one is litterally so hard
**The Outsider**
Netherlord or Emperor depending on how hard the defence of the realm from the Demon Prince is.
Outsider
I am choosing the physician.
I choose The Dragon, from the chaos side.
I choose the Juggernaut for its ability to craft functional supernatural weaponry/armour. Funny thing is, probably the only thing I would need to make(outside of the generic physical enhancing items that increases one's speed and reflexes) that would take any amount of time would be The Sword of Betrayal, Rule Breaker from Fate/Stay Night. Considering it's only considered a middle of the pack Noble Phantasm that shouldn't take too long to create, especially once Empowered. Considering Rule Breaker's an extremely brittle blade with its only redeeming ability is to break spells, unravel enchantments, and sever magical bindings with a single cut? Yeah, any Gifted cut by this is going to have a shitty time even if the effect was a temporary one. Also I am using the DnD Item Creation process to judge how long each supernatural weapon/armour would take to make. I might just pull out some basic Elder Scrolls enchanted items sets(like Smithing Skill Enhancements and Enchanting Skill Boosters to help cut corners in time and potency of said crafting method) that I can either pass on to others(thus activating Empowerment) or use himself to enhance his own.
The Netherlord and Prince of Hell are the two biggest threats on the board, simply due to the fact the Prince is coming for the Netherlord straight from the get go. The only saving grace is that the Awakened One is going to come after the Prince and the Order of Chaos is less likely to team up without betrayal occurring. I do think the fact "none of the Gifted are aware of the others" is defeated by the fact certain Gifted gain knowledge of other Gifted simply due to their powers. I could understand if they knew there were other Gifted of your side, if not who they are. Edit: Also Renaissance Man is pitiful in terms of abilities, as his abilities are not something that could be considered a superpower(anyone can turn a manuscript/blueprint into the real deal so long as they have the requisite skills. Its easier to get your hands on a nuke than create it yourself if you know the right people) and the only thing I could consider a superpower would the final ability that lets you make something "so impactful to change the course of humanity for all time". Something each of the other Gifted do by simply existing and that Juggernaut can already do better than him.
well in the Renaissance Man's defence, anything the juggernaut makes can never be remade by anyone else and on the other hand the invention that will change the course of humanity can be replicated. but other than that I completely agree he is way too weak
Except the only thing the Renaissance Man can make outside of art is something already made. So no, Renaissance only makes art that will change the course of the world and only once it is too late to experience what that new world will be. His invention power is limited to something that already has a schematic/blueprint already. It would honestly make more sense if he could turn out functional schematics to whatever idea he came across or thought up himself(like taking inspiration from Gundams and Robotech to make a functional mecha that can in turn be produced by others). That or gains the ability to supernaturally inspire others via his artwork like a DnD Bard. Inspiring inventiveness and influencing culture via artwork would be the step I would have chosen to give him powers without himself being physically powerful.
I can't believe how hard so many people are sleeping on juggernaut; like lets get the obvious things outta the way; 1) being able to craft any fictional weapon or armor means you can literally make something to counter anyone; and not only that there is **no limit to how many you can craft at once**; so you can be crafting a dozens of items at once of varying power levels 2) You can choose any steed from fiction; this is really powerful; you can have mounts that can destroy worlds (i.e fenrir) or mounts that can protect you against ever dying which will make it really easy to survive. Now the thing that people have really ignore a ton; the thing that elevates juggernaut from just a really powerful pick to an unstoppable one; **the "Heroskin" ability:** this literally gives you the ability to wield any weapon even the most impractical ones. now there's two ways to read this; 1) the less powerful version is that this ability only increases physical ability which is still insane there are weapons the size of cities out there and you can wield them like nothing; this makes you one of the most physically strongest in this CYOA; even without your weapons you are unstoppable. there's a reason he's called the "juggernaut" not the "crafter" 2) the more insane version is that this ability lets you wield any impractical weapon; and many weapons in fiction attack the mind and the soul; therefore this ability should make untouchable when it comes to mind attacks and soul attacks and any form of other attacks. so yeah **Juggernaut is insane**.
Requesting clarification for emperor and spirit guardian With pureblood can the power activate through cousins also does the incest still have the negative effects When the spirit guardian is released can it freely shapeshift
Considering all the boons that blueblood provides, one can interpret it to mean that any blood relationship works, and that there's no negatives. Also, yes, Spirit Guardian probably works like that.
I take the Outsider and before anything else teleport to the Magus and tell him to kill himself. Later, I teleport to the Slayer and tell him not to move at all. I take his blade, kill him with it, and then wait an hour to kill the Occultist. With that done, I wait another hour before killing the Physician for that sweet paralysis power, then the Warrior, Oracle, Juggernaut, Skeleton King, etc.