#pain thereshold

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[viridiansunlight]

my take on Cultist Simulator’s Knock Ascension:

It’s basically a compassionate/selfless take on the standard victories - while Heart, Moth and Forge are merely selfish, Grail and Lantern are outright demanding of you to kill and devour people for your ascension, victimizing others for your gain. Meanwhile the Mother of Ants has you earn your seven marks of ascension in form of painful scars inflicted on you by your congregation and in the final Ascension you ultimately take the 36th intensity of Knock (22 + 14 (7 scars, Knock 2 each), just like in a normal ascension, and become a Thereshold through which your congregation can pass into the Mansus, into the Merciful arms of the Mother of Ants.

You’re both the gate AND the key and you’re the least assholish person of the Cultist Simulator

(of course you probably done some dirty business to get your cult running but your ultimate goal at least justifies that morally compared to, again, purely selfish ascensions offered by other aspects)(IMO at least)

[viridian-trolls]

Fun Trexat Facts:

He’s in the same subcaste as Rakleo, except he represents a typical member of it.

He’s actually “survived Alternia and then Fleet bootcamp” level of fit, which is pretty fit - though it’s normal for trolls his age.

Also? About 7′2, which is, again, normal for tealbloods his age.

He doesn’t have any vision deficiency, the glasses are standard uniform, and protect the personel from gaze-based psychic attacks.

Iximab bloodline was famed for general resilience and endurance, and Trexat proves it by having high pain thereshold and ability to not sleep for a few days straight. Usually this happens on the rare occassions when he actually can experiment on people.

He actually treats the mutants, failed experiments and dissidents under his watch far more humanely than his ancestor, which is why they didn’t rebel yet. The mutants (at least those who aren’t horribly scarred emotionally) know that the alternative for Trexat WILL be worse.

[rigzoxo-blog]

Watched your live stream yesterday. I'm feeling so worry for Jess right now :( she looks like she's in so much painz(physically! I mean I know her current flare up or bpd is giving her mental pain too but the physical pain is making her face drawn and her eyes sad and I hate to see her like that)

She is in a hell of a lot of pain. Which worries me because her pain thereshold is staggeringly high so this must be agony :( Thank you guys for caring and asking after her, you all seem to care a lot more than her actual friends!

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[viridiansunlight]

Yanko the Penance, a Warmain

THIS is the enemy of the world, who treats the world as his playground.

To Yanko, Creation is nothing more than a safari zone, and he’s a big game hunter - he scoffs at those puny Excrucians who resort to Abhorrent Weapons to punch a hole in the defenses of the world, finding his fists and feet, weighted down by an punitive Imperial Miracle - an old attempt to slow him down with the weight of his sins, on his march against the world - to be more than enough.

He wields the Test Overwhelming, a very simple - some say, primitive, others, primeval - expression of the Warmain philosophy. He will not test your pain thereshold, or the ability to remain yourself when transformed into your own anathema. No, he’ll simply fight you. Luckily, most of us is beneath his notice he’s not unlike a tiger that refuses to hunt mice, or an eagle that ignores houseflies. Even most Powers and Imperators are ignored by him. He wants the strongest, the most obviously dangerous - the monsters, the ogres, the giants, and the Nobilis mighty in Aspect, and against them he strives, he destroys, and, if they survive his onslaught, he takes their face.

For this reason, I refuse to make a moral judgement against him. Most Warmains I fear or hate, but Yanko... I saw him enjoy this world. He is an ogre of a man, but he eats ice cream, deigns to play with little children, and the actual damage he does to the world is... well, he WAS interested in hunting the Aaron’s Serpents, but after finding out they’re the least belligerent Ymerae out there he’d decided to chill out with them instead. What kind of a Warmain does that? He’s not well-regarded by the Excrucian Host as the result of this attitude, though sometimes they use him as some extra muscle, a proposition fraught with peril as he frequently strays off the objective, or outright ignores those he’s ought to listen.

As he ignores most magic in favour of very direct Miracles, I doubt he really has any pseudo Domain to speak off, but I think it’s something like ‘Test of Your Mettle’ or ‘Overwhelming Power’ I’ve seen him use Aspect, but, again, it might be Gifts, since I hadn’t seen him perform feats of above-average (or hell, even average) intelligence. This Miracle that weights him down, I think, he’d turned into a Treasure, which makes it a weapon rather than a liability. Ultimately, I think he’s got

Aspect 1 Domain 0 (though his natural Warmain Edge is probably as high as 2-3), and Treasure 5

With Gifts such as True Immortality, a variant on Paramount Strength and Speed to represent his overwhelming hunting prowess, and possibly Soul-Cutting Sword, though it might be a function of the Weight of His Sins.

Abyssals and Excrucians share a fuckton of conceptual space so of course I had to make a Warmain!Hours. He’s another one of those ‘not-totally-evil’ Warmains I seem to like making, so he’s got a pretty restrictive set of targets, and other than that he’s not particularily dangerous - as dangerous as a tiger who doesn’t consider you his prey, I guess. Of course, the Weight of His Sins is a stand-in for the Bloody Design here, a curse that he turned into a source of power.

In Chuubo’s his redemption arc is well on the way, as he’s squatting in Yataskaya Temple in Fortitude. He’s probably got Indomitable 2+ and probably Wounded Angel 1+ to represent him taking power from the Weight of His Sins, though I don’t know what his Blasphemy would be (perhaps his sins crushing a large part of the Town as he stops being able to bear them?). I can’t see him on Red arc so he’d not have Creature of the Fable, even though he’d probably have Superior Hunter (perhaps as the Indomitable’s Inhuman Skill?)

[viridiansunlight]

Watchers at the Shore (Legacy)

“I’ve gazed at the Abyss, and it gazed back at me. Now what?”

The Watchers at the Shore are one of the ancient Legacies - their origins can be traced to the Awakened who first reached the Watchtowers post-Fall. Many of the even more primordial Legacies relying on the free connection between the Astral and Supernal were shocked, quickly fading as their members lost their power overnight, their remnants bonding over the shared loss of power. Recognizing that their former wisdom was now a mere mutilation of the soul, they casted it away into the newborn Abyss - hoping their vain sacrifices would at least appease it. Instead, it did shrink a bit, and the mages found themselves transformed, the void where their legacies used to be carved by the unmoving waters into new Attainments. Those were the first Watchers at the Shore, and they pledged to watch over the growing ocean of black blood, to perhaps bridge it one day.

The Gazers’ didn’t have a single origin place. In any city where humanity lived at the shore of a vast sea, they were there, contemplating similarity of the waters of the Fallen world and the primordial chaos of the Abyss, before using their insights to battle against the forces of the unmaking with knowledge, bringing the beings of the deepest darkness into light. They weren’t interested in politics, although they did join the Orders - a gesture meant only to ensure they weren’t hunted down for their suspicious practices and affiliations.

During the times of upheval surrounding the Great Refusal, the horrid practices of the Scelesti were more common, as was using the Abyssal shock troops, and the Watchers were needed more than ever - they did accept the Nameless, and later on, the Free Council amongst them, but for some time the youngest of Orders was treated with suspicion, as the veterans of the Nameless War were unsure if they won’t use the Ouroboreans’ knowledge to contact the Abyssal entities, as some of the worse of the Nameless did in the past.

Today, the relatively small Legacy still thrives, perhaps more vibrant than it ever was. The ease of travel, the need to learn, the enroaching Abyssal intrusions, all of them are refreshing the membership of the Watchers at the Shore - although, the borderline Left-Handed reputation doesn’t help their prospective students to find them, and find acceptance of their choices amongst the others, more mainstream Legacies.

(More under the cut)

Nicknames: Ouroboreans, Gazers

Origins:

Path: Any. Majority of the Watchers are Moros, Thyrsus or Mastigos, with Obrimos being vastly in minority due to incompatiblity of the Path’s symbols with that of the Legacy’s focus - ironically enough, Ouroborean Attainments use Prime.

Order: None. Watchers at the Shore are a Legacy that dances on the edge of becoming denounced as a Scelestus Legacy, but mages of all Orders, including the Seers, are welcome. Pentacle and Apostate mages still form a vast majority of the Legacy, although they keep to the periphery of the magical society, with the few Seers that worship the Gate but not want to commit to Her Prelacy use the Fishers’ Attainments as the poor substitute of the real authority of the Lone Exarch.

Background: Many prospective Gazers find their mentors after a traumatic Awakening -  often, due to almost drowning at the sea, or due to a tsunami wave. Others recruit from the Astral explorers frustrated with the limits of their ken, thinking that they should plumb the mysteries of Ocean Ouroboros at the edge of the World’s Soul to perhaps, one day, traverse it and reach the Supernal, and believe that the gentler, shamanistic Legacies such as the Dreamspeakers or the Imagineers won’t get them there. Finally, a third large group is drawn from the mages who want to understand the Abyss, while not succumbing to it and still remaining in a somewhat acceptable social position in relation to the Pentacle. Many an abyssal investigator/hunter in the past walked the path of the Watcher at the Shore.

Appearance: As with similar Legacies which live halfway in the Astral, the Watchers tend to stop putting much stock in the worldly appearance, although their fondness of water means that they at least maintain basic hygiene. Still, the long beards, unshaved legs, untamed hair and clothes that look like the Gazer put them over their pyjamas are common. An unnerving calling sign of many Ouroboreans, though, is their deep, black pupils that seem to swirl with chthonic waters whenever they use their Attainments, including the very first one. Many a Sleeper had mistaken a Watcher as being on drugs as a result, a judgement that certainly was influenced by their usual clothing style and enigmatic behaviour.

Doctrine:

Prerequisites: Prime 2, Occult 2. The prospective Watcher must’ve beheld the Ocean Ouroboros in the past, before seeking tutelage, and talk about their experience with their tutor in depth - the Watchers will know if the student is merely citing someone else - it should come from the heart, rather than the mind.

Initiation: The tutor beckons for her student to arrive at the shore of the Abyss. The student has to cast one thing that burdens them - for example, a painful memory, a toxic addiction, a broken relationship - into the unmoving water, spending a Willpower point to excise it from their soul. During this process, their Supernal Gnosis touches the Ocean Ouroboros and is forever transformed, aided by the tutor’s own Gnosis to not allow the Abyss to truly take root in the new Gazer’s soul.

Organization: The Ouroboreans are surprisingly well-connected. Many of the Astral travellers were surprised to meet a small seminar on what looked like a shoreside picnic, where the Gazers were comparing notes, checking on one another and planning investigations into chthonic mysteries. Those groupings are rarely formal, but foster the sense of familiarity and mutual help that connects the Legacy like few others do.

Theory: One of the secrets of the Ouroboreans is that they accept the common doctrine of some of the Scelesti - that all existance was ultimately born from the Abyss, and that the Supernal and it’s Fallen shadow are only a faint light floating on it’s surface. The Ocean Ouroboros, thus, is infinite in depth and scope, and the journey of the soul through the Astral is not as much upward movement, as downward, to the greatest depth - and greatest darkness.

The major difference between the Watchers and the Nefandic mages is that they don’t want to return the cosmos to the Void, but rather learn how to bridge the Ocean, observe it’s depths, and oppose the chaos of the Abyss. The Supernal might’ve been born from the dreams of the vast and uncaring Annunaki, but it’s light and order is still a more worthy ideal than the dreams of unmaking - and, the elder Watchers say, when one looks further, beyond the Abyssal Ocean, they might see the faint glimmer of Truth on the other shore - the Truth all Awakened aspire to.

Magic:

Ruling Arcanum: Prime

Yantras: Standing at the shore of a natural body of water (+1 for sweet water, +2 for saltwater); Standing at the shore of Ocean Ouroboros (+3, although only for the purposes of casting in the Astral); Using saltwater as a Sacrament, if it’s relevant to the spell’s purpose - usually contextualized as cleansing, divination or consecration (+1 if it’s just water with sea salt, +2 if it’s actual water from the sea); Presence of an Abyssal entity or phenomenon, with magic in question used to bind it, banish it, harm it or learn about it for those purposes (+2).

Oblations: Submerging in and swimming in the sea at the evening or morning hours, sitting on the shore of the Ocean Ouroboros in Astral for an hour while remaining mindful of your surroundings at all time, ritual bathing in a specifically consecrated pool with salt water.

Attainments:

First: Swimming in the Shallows.

Prerequisite: Initiation

The Watcher at the Shore gains the ability to remain in Astral while being awake in the material world. This functions exactly like a Dreamspeaker First Attainment, except the Gazer is immune to the Ecstatic Wind whilst in the Sidereal Wastes, and only in there - the Shore of the Ocean Ouroboros is as safe to them as Temenos (well, not exactly as safe, as anything that might come from the Abyss is deeply dangerous), although the rest of the Anima Mundi still requires for them to form an Amnion as usual. The Watcher needs not to spend Mana to meditate into the Astral, or pass the thereshold, and each roll on that extended action lasts merely a turn. Finally, they can instantly move from their Astral path to the Shore without the need to pass any of the Ordeals in Anima Mundi, although they need to pass Ordeals to access any other part of the Dreamtime from there.

Optional: Space 1

The rare Seers amongst the Ouroboreans call this Attainment the Parametric Vision. If the Watcher so desires, they can add this component to their Active Mage Sight as an Instant action - it never costs them Mana to do so, although it is a concious act of will, and for a good reason. The Parametric Vision unveils the influence of the Abyss on the world - the Gazers see it as erosion caused by the black, acrid waters.

Something unspoiled by the Abyss, like Artifacts or Supernal secrets would be pure and clean, but almost everything else is brackish, darkened and erode, Sleepers looking vaguely water-logged or half-drowned, and the Verges of the Abyss appearing as holes through which the endless, foul-smelling brine spews into the world. This is not a comforting sight, and the initiates’ training is partially meant to condition them to accept the true extent of the Fallen World’s corruption by the Void - but most avoid using this technique unless actively hunting an Abyssal intrusion, lest they’d forsake their hope in the world’s goodness.

Second: Stormproofing.

Prerequisite: Prime 2, Occult 3

The Watcher is considered to be constantly under the effect of Wards and Signs with Potency equal to her dots in Prime. This effect offers even greater protection against the powers of the Abyssal phenomena and Intruders - it adds the Gazer’s Prime to the relevant Resistance Attribute if the power is Withstood by that attribute, or to any relevant Clash of Wills roll if not. If the Clash of Wills already uses Prime, double this benefit instead.

Optional: Space 2

If an Abyssal Intruder or anomaly would use the Watcher’s sympathetic connections against them, they’re considered to be veiled as if by Veil Sympathy with Potency equal to their Prime dots. This also includes any magic touched by the Abyss, including any magic cast by Scelesti, but not any spell cast by another Watcher.

Third: Brave the Depths.

Prerequisites: Prime 3, Occult 3, The Watcher must’ve solved at least one Mystery involving the Abyss or the Ocean Ouroboros in the past.

Brushing against the dark waters of the Abyss brings out the worst in the most of the people - but not in the Watchers. Their commitment allows them to use one Mana to duplicate the effects of Ephemereal Enchantment, able to confine any being on the other layers of existance, as all in the Fallen World are touched by the Abyss. Against the Abyssal beings or intrusions, this effect is especially potent - each Mana spent allows the Watcher to deal Aggravated damage to their Corpus with weapons subject to this Attainment, as per the Reach effect of the spell. The wounds dealt to the Intruders manifest as cuts or bruised flowing with the acrid, dark water eating away their false flesh.

Optional: Space 3

If the Watcher’s Astral form is standing at the Shore of the Ocean Ouroboros, they may command a defeated or subjugated Abyssal intrusion or creature to leap back from the Fallen World to where they came from. This requires a point of Mana and a Willpower Point, expended as the Watcher establishes overlapping space between the borders of the World’s Soul and the location of their physical body - it appears to all onlookers as a human-sized verge into the Shore. Only the Abyssal being may leap through it, and the experience leaves the Watcher harrowed - their Astral body instantly disappears, and they gain Soul Shocked Condition. Logically, it means they cannot use any Attainments that rely on standing on the Shore as long as the Condition persists, including this one, but many Watchers see it as a worthy sacrifice.

Fourth: Dousing

Prerequisites: Prime 4, Occult 4

This is one of the powers of the Legacy that makes the other Awakened mistrustful of them. With an act of will, the Watcher can summon the weight of the Ocean Ouroboros to bear against an effect created by Supernal magic, suppressing the spell as per Supernal Dispellation, with Potency equal to Gazer’s Prime and Duration of a Scene. Against the abilities of Intruders or specific instances of malignant influences of the Abyssal Anomalies, this is a Lasting effect instead. Either way, it costs 1 Mana per effect suppressed.

Optional: Space 4

Whilst standing on the Shore, the Ouroborean can bless or curse another Awakened with Perimetric Vision. In the waking world, they make a mark on their forehead, and in the Astral, they will the merest drop of the Ocean to pass past them. This costs them 1 Mana, and is similar to the the effect of Apocalypse spell.

If the target was unwilling, or wasn’t excessively forewarned by the Watcher about the sheer extent of the Fallen World being half-drowned by the Abyss, the target suffers a Breaking Point against Understanding Wisdom, just as if she’d commited an act of Hubris. If that’s the case, the Gazer is treated as if they had commited an act of Hubris against the Falling Wisdom, with all it implies.

Most of the advanced Watchers, who want to make sure their allies will be prepared for the Abyssal intrusion, try to make their allies as ready for the bleak truth as possible, but the time isn’t always in their favour. the Ouroboreans that had fallen deep into Hubris sometimes ‘enlighten’ other mages so they’d see the extent of their Legacy’s burden, but usually this results in another Mage being merely traumatized.

Fifth: High Tide

Prerequisites: Prime 5, Occult 4. If the Ouroborean doesn’t have the Occult speciality in ‘Abyss’, ‘The Intruders’ or similar phenomena already, she must purchase it before attempting to learn the Attainment.

This is a bleak power, although used to the great effect against the beings of the Abyss. The Gazer’s Astral form must stand on the Shore, and by drawing on the connection of the death of all meaning, she supresses all Awakened magic in the area centered on her, as per Dead Zone spell. This effect doesn’t include the Legacy Attainments, including the Watcher’s own, but excluding any of the Scelestus Legacy Attainments. Powers of the Abyssal beings and all of the Abyssal phenomena are suppressed as well.

The effect lasts for a scene per 1 Mana spent, and affects everything within the radius in yards equal to Gazer’s Gnosis. Both during and after the effect concludes, the area appears to be scoured of colour, and smells faintly of brine, although the Fallen World heals this effect within a scene.

Optional: Space 5

Expending on the power of the Third Attainment, the Gazers can invoke this horrifying power, although always at a cost. Most moral Watchers would only consider using it against the beings and artifacts of the Abyss, or other most dangerous and evil things of the Fallen World, although the horror stories about the blasphemers of the Legacy who use this power selfishly make it all that harder for them to sleep at night. Most people within the Orders don’t know of this power. If they would, the Watchers would likely face much greater persecution than merely being relegated to the borders of magical society.

While invoking the Space 3 effect of Brave the Depths, instead of casting a being of the Abyss into the Ocean Ouroboros, the Watcher can let the black waters flow through the ‘window’ they create. Everything the water touches is annihilated, gone into the Void, as it usually happens when something touches the waters of the Ocean. The tide creates an eroded patch in whatever substance compromises the ‘floor’ - if it’s concrete, there wil be a hole, if it’s earth, then there will be a barren pit, salted and unable to support any life. All living creatures are annihilated, Abyssal creatures vanish and usually don’t come back again within the Watcher’s lifetime.

There’s one use that doesn’t require for the dark waters to raise through the ‘window’, however. Someone may cast something into the Ocean Ouroboros using the connection provided by the Gazer, and it works just as well as making a journey to the Shore on their own, using the same mechanics.

At any rate, opening such a window to let the Abyss through costs the Watcher 1 Mana and dot of Willpower instead of a point and causes Soul Shaken Condition in the Watcher as usual. Using this powerfor anything but the Abyssal creatures, or letting someone cast away their burdens into the Abyss is an Act of Hubris against the Falling Wisdom. The blasphemous or the desperate in the Legacy may forfeit the Willpower dot cost, instead spending a Willpopower point - but this comes from accepting the power of the Abyss instead of violently rejecting it, and results in an automatic loss of Wisdom. A mage who loses their remaining dot of Wisdom that way turns not merely into one of the Mad, but into a Qlippoth, a living, pulsating and tortured verge into the Abyss, blasting the area with the Fifth Attainment indiscriminately until they’re put down.