Legacy of the Forgotten Ground (Original)

[siflux]

The words you groggily hear as you struggle to consciousness do not fill you with confidence.

Systems Damage Critical. Activating Emergency Deployment.

Something's wrong. Beyond what the alarm is blaring through your tank, you mean. You feel significantly weaker than you expected.

Mana Tank Offline. Mana Collector Destroyed. Biomass Shaper Offline. Transmigration Error.

Oh. Not only are you stuck in your current body, but without the mana collector the whole experience was pointless.

Beginning Resucitat--

The sound abruptly cuts off, allowing you to hear what it was masking. That's talking. You can't understand the language, but that's definitely talking you're hearing. You force open your eyes, giving you a glimpse of the chatterers. Three humanoids, but there's something wrong with them. Apart from you, monsters aren't supposed to be sapient. Experiments started after your long sleep began? But then why are they speaking some gibberish tongue? It has the cadence and intonation of proper speech.

Spoiler: Winged Humanoid

Spoiler: Horned Humanoid

Spoiler: Feline Humanoid

Regardless, if they've spotted you, they don't seem to be reacting your presence, unless that's what they're discussing right now. Maybe they just don't think you're important while you're still your tank. Maybe they just don't think your current limbless, amorphous body is a threat. The initiative is yours to seize.

[ ] Stay motionless in your tank until they leave. You think you can repair some of the equipment if you're given time to work.
[ ] Whatever they are, they must have destroyed the lab's self-defense systems. With the Mana Collector destroyed, you'll need to gather enough power to do your job the hard way, and that means revenging yourself on these interlopers and consuming their souls.
[ ] You're outnumbered, and they're bound to find you if they're being thorough. With the Biomass Shaper unavailable, your slime-body may not be able to defeat them, and the lab can't build you another replacement body right now. Let discretion be the better part of valor and sneak away to rebuild your strength.
[ ] You're panicking. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. The first options that come to mind are not the full world of possibilities open to you. You'll… (Write-in)

 

[siflux]

Mana: 3,752
Unspent XP: 157,225
Language: 151/1000 (Level 1: Common Nouns)

Derived Sheet Body Soul

• HP: 3010/3010 [+5/round]
  MP: 1010/1010 [+1/round]
  Atk: 125
  Def: 76
  
  Hidden Claw: Damage 300
  Dragonbreath: Damage 264
  'Legendary' Battleaxe 「Dragon's Ascension」: Damage 351
  
  Clothing Armor: DR 2
  
  Flying: 87.5
  Smell: 27
  Venom: Deal ATK damage per round for 1 round
  Non-Armor Damage Reduction: 6
  DoT Reduction: 1
  Grazing: 10 Mana/hour
  Light Resist: 5
  Fire Resist: 19
  Earth Resist: 1
  Dark Resist: 5
  Ice Resist: -8 (Vulnerable!)
  Air Resist: 1
  
  <Bug 10>
  <Beast 25>
  <Devil 1>
  <Dragon 14>
  <Plant 5>
  <Slime 1>
  <Undead 1>
  
  <Light 5>
  <Fire 10>
  <Earth 1>
  <Dark 5>
  <Ice 1>
  <Air 1>
  
  <Adaptability 3>
  <Armored 1>
  <Armourer 1>
  <Bladesmith 1>
  <Bioweapon 6>
  <Cultivore 1>
  <Dragonbreath 5>
  <Dragonflight 35>
  <Dragonmagic 1>
  <Dragonscale 1>
  <Flight 35>
  <Herbivore 10>
  <Illusionist 20>
  <Mage Initiate 25>
  <MP Regeneration 1>
  <Regeneration 5>
  <Scent Tracker 17>
  <Venomous 1>
  <Winged 35>
  
• Spoiler: Current Body

  Take an androgynous young teenage human, standing about a meter and a half tall. Replace the ears with a fluff-filled pair spiking vertically off the top of the head. Add a sinuous, fluffy tail. That's what a One-Tail Kitsune looks like.
  
  HP: 1500
  MP: 500
  Atk: 75
  Def: 40
  
  Hidden Claw: Damage 300.
  
  <Beast 20>
  
  <Bioweapon 5>
  <Dragonflight 15>
  <Flight 15>
  <Illusionist 10>
  <Mage Initiate 15>
  <Scent Tracker 7>
  <Winged 15>
  
• HP: 1500 [0/50 XP]
  MP: 500 [0/50 XP]
  Atk: 50 [0/50 XP]
  Def: 20 [0/50 XP]
  
  <Bug 10> [0/1100 XP]
  <Beast 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Devil 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Dragon 14> [0/1500 XP]
  <Plant 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Slime 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Undead 1> [0/200 XP]
  
  <Light 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Fire 10> [0/1100 XP]
  <Earth 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Dark 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Ice 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Air 1> [0/200 XP]
  
  <Adaptability 3> [0/400 XP]
  <Armored 1> [0/20 XP]
  <Armourer 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Bladesmith 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Bioweapon 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Cultivore 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Dragonbreath 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Dragonflight 20> [0/600 XP]
  <Dragonmagic 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Dragonscale 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Flight 20> [0/400 XP]
  <Herbivore 10> [0/1100 XP]
  <Illusionist 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Mage Initiate 10> [0/1100 XP]
  <MP Regeneration 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Regeneration 5> [0/600 XP]
  <Scent Tracker 10> [0/1100 XP]
  <Venomous 1> [0/200 XP]
  <Winged 20> [0/400 XP]
  

 

[mrttao]

[x] Whatever they are, they must have destroyed the lab's self-defense systems. With the Mana Collector destroyed, you'll need to gather enough power to do your job the hard way, and that means revenging yourself on these interlopers and consuming their souls.

 

[CKirk]

[x] Stay motionless in your tank until they leave. You think you can repair some of the equipment if you're given time to work.

 

[Zediekiel]

[X] Stay motionless in your tank until they leave. You think you can repair some of the equipment if you're given time to work.

 

[kinglugia]

[X] Stay motionless in your tank until they leave. You think you can repair some of the equipment if you're given time to work.

 

[siflux]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[x] Stay motionless in your tank until they leave. You think you can repair some of the equipment if you're given time to work.

You hold yourself motionless, closing your eyes to avoid any involuntary movements giving yourself away. Smashing and crashing noises come from the room with the humanoids, then more talking. It gets quieter and quieter, until it's silent. Still, you wait a little longer before daring to open your eyes again.

They're gone now. You hit the emergency release button on the inside of the tank to get out.

Nothing happens. Power must be out. Explains why the alarm cut off. With a frustrated sigh, you begin the much longer process of manually getting out of the tank without destroying it. Most of the difficulty comes from the fact that you currently lack hands, or in fact any manipulator limbs, so you're forced to wrap your entire body around things to grab them.Twist this valve, pull this floor lever, open the drain here, then push the whole thing sideways. Stupid human-centric designs. Hydraulic hinges gently catch the tube before it hits the floor, leaving you open to air.

Okay, so no power. Deal with that first. Primary backup power should have turned itself on, but since nothing's on, it clearly didn't. Secondary backup is manual-activation. Fortunately, you were taught how to handle this before you were put into hibernation.

Geothermal: ERROR TIMED OUT
Solar: 80% Nominal Capacity. Check For Physical Damage.
Fuel: 2% Fuel Remaining. Generator Functional.
Accumulator: 10% Nominal Capacity. Check For Physical Damage.

That's… good? You review generation versus output while the computer boots and runs system diagnostics. You think solar can run the Biomass Shaper and connected mana systems indefinitely during the day, but you'll need to see about repairing another power system if you want to transmigrate to a new body at night. Sufficient for now.

A much bigger problem is that, like the geothermal generator, the Biomass Shaper and the Mana Tanks are simply not responding to ping. You'll need to physically check them next. Worse, the Mana Collector array is responding, and it's physically destroyed. There's no way you're fixing that, which means hibernation is pointless.

You finally notice something that you should have seen earlier: system time says you've been out for two and a half millennia. You were told that the charge cycle was only supposed to take eight hundred years! What happened?

That settles it. Mana tanks next. They should have filled three times over by now! You hop out of the room at top speed, jarring to an abrupt halt when you see what those vandals have wrought.

'Fido' was a robotic drone, programmed to protect the main lab and the experiments. Fido has huge gashes rent through it. Fido has been hacked into four pieces of varying sizes, plus a mess of small debris. Fido's lights are off. No part of it moves.

Spoiler: Fido, in better days

You force yourself to calm down. You can't do anything about it right now. Revenge later. Seeing how well you can do your job comes first. You hop over to the Mana Tank room.

It doesn't look like there's any physical damage on the tanks, but readouts say they're all but empty. How? Did the Mana Collector not work properly even before it was destroyed? Has it been broken for even longer than whatever triggered your emergency deployment? Are the tanks leaky? Fortunately, you're able to find the reason the tanks are offline: a freaking battleaxe sticks out of the wall, going right through some power lines. You may not be a technician or even someone with an understanding of the technology involved, but you do know how to reconnect two split cable ends. You manage to twist the wire ends around each other. A generous coating of electrical tape even stops the sparks! Good enough, especially for a freaking blob of gel.

This lack of limbs is really getting out of hand. There better be enough left in the tanks to print a better body.

Feeling more confident, you hop over to the body printing room. Yeesh, there's even more damage here. Freaking luddites. No actual weaponry lying around, but plenty of signs of it being used. The Shaper has some superficial damage, but not enough to prevent it from being able to print replacement parts to upgrade it back to body-replacement capability. Unfortunately, that drains the last of what's in the Mana Tank.

You mull over the situation as you head back to check out the completed diagnostics, which confirm that the Mana Tank and Biomass Shaper are properly functional. The lab is still properly synchronized to you, so you can remotely collect Mana yourself and the tanks will store it just fine. If your body takes enough damage that your soul detaches, you'll be pulled back here where another replacement emergency Slime body will be printed off, at least assuming there's enough Mana for that. Which there currently isn't. Also, no power at night, so don't die then. And those weird, nonhuman barbarians who killed Fido and smashed up the lab also need to be dealt with eventually. You've got your work cut out for you before you can fix everything.

First up, you're going to:
[ ] Get some Mana, and you know what that means: killing stuff. Whether you're going to Transmigrate into a less useless body or just make sure you have a safety net in case you die, you need more mana
[ ] Track down those savages who broke your stuff. You haven't quite decided what you're going to do when you find them, but you're leaning towards 'turn them into Mana'.
[ ] See what you can do about the power systems. Your knowledge on replacing damaged stuff may be limited to 'print out spare parts' which requires Mana that you don't currently have, but geothermal had a different error message and you can probably find fuel somewhere.
[ ] Explore. It's been well over a thousand years since you were initially projected to wake up, and even in the best case you were hibernating through an apocalypse. You need to get your bearings outside the lab and see if rebuilding a biosphere is going to be as tough as expected.
[ ] Do something else (Write-in)

 

[kinglugia]

[X] Get some Mana, and you know what that means: killing stuff. Whether you're going to Transmigrate into a less useless body or just make sure you have a safety net in case you die, you need more mana.

 

[CKirk]

[X] Get some Mana, and you know what that means: killing stuff. Whether you're going to Transmigrate into a less useless body or just make sure you have a safety net in case you die, you need more mana.

 

[Winged One]

[X] Track down those savages who broke your stuff. You haven't quite decided what you're going to do when you find them, but you're leaning towards 'turn them into Mana'.

 

[siflux]

Beast Family Bug Family Devil Family Dragon Family Plant Family Slime Family Undead Family

• Overview Floofball Horned Bunny Armoredillo Brown Raptor Red Raptor Fluffy Fox One-Tail Kitsune Two-Tail Kitsune Three-Tail Kitsune

  • Best known for their overwhelming physical attacks, Beast family monsters tend to have weaker magic.
  • HP: 200
    MP: 10
    Atk: 18
    Def: 10
    
    Weapons:
    Claw: Damage 100
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 1>
    <Bioweapon 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 150
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • HP: 800
    MP: 50
    Atk: 50
    Def: 15
    
    Weapons:
    Horn Attack: Damage 250
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 10>
    <Bioweapon 8>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Beast 5>
    <Bioweapon 2>
    From Floofball
    
  • HP: 2000
    MP: 100
    Atk: 50
    Def: 100
    
    Weapons:
    Rollout: Damage 400
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 40>
    <Armored 50>
    <Bioweapon 10>
    
    Mana Cost: 2000
    Requirements:
    <Beast 20>
    <Armored 5>
    Def 50+
    From Horned Bunny
    
  • HP: 600
    MP: 50
    Atk: 40
    Def: 20
    
    Weapons:
    Claw Dive: Damage 200
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 10>
    <Bioweapon 5>
    <Winged 10>
    <Flight 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Beast 5>
    <Winged 1>
    From Floofball
    
  • HP: 1117
    MP: 312
    Atk: 93
    Def: 59
    
    Weapons:
    Hawk Talons: Damage 516
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 25>
    <Fire 3>
    <Bioweapon 15>
    <Winged 50>
    <Flight 30>
    
    Mana Cost: 5000
    Requirements:
    <Beast 20>
    <Winged 30>
    <Flight 3>
    From Brown Raptor
    
  • HP: 1000
    MP: 200
    Atk: 75
    Def: 15
    
    Weapons:
    Pouncing Bite: Damage 200. Deals double damage when used as the first attack in a fight.
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 10>
    <Bioweapon 5>
    <Mage Initiate 10>
    <Scent Tracker 5>
    
    Mana Cost: 1000
    Requirements:
    <Beast 5>
    <Scent Tracker 1>
    MP 100+
    From Floofball
    
  • HP: 1500
    MP: 500
    Atk: 75
    Def: 40
    
    Weapons:
    Hidden Claw: Damage 300.
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 20>
    <Bioweapon 5>
    <Illusionist 10>
    <Mage Initiate 15>
    <Scent Tracker 7>
    
    Mana Cost: 2000
    Requirements:
    <Beast 15>
    <Mage Initiate 15>
    MP 250+
    From Fluffy Fox
    
  • HP: 3000
    MP: 1000
    Atk: 150
    Def: 80
    
    Weapons:
    Fox Paw: Damage 500.
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 30>
    <Earth 10>
    <Bioweapon 5>
    <Illusionist 20>
    <Mage Initiate 25>
    <Scent Tracker 10>
    
    Mana Cost: 7500
    Requirements:
    <Beast 25>
    <Earth 5>
    <Illusionist 15>
    <Mage Initiate 20>
    MP 750+
    From One-Tail Kitsune
    
  • HP: 5000
    MP: 2500
    Atk: 250
    Def: 150
    
    Weapons:
    Fox Feint: Damage 1000. When adding elemental damage to this attack, treat the relevant <{Element}> as <Illusionist> levels higher.
    
    Traits:
    <Beast 30>
    <Earth 15>
    <Air 10>
    <Bioweapon 5>
    <Illusionist 30>
    <Mage Initiate 35>
    <Scent Tracker 15>
    
    Mana Cost: 7500
    Requirements:
    <Beast 35>
    <Earth 10>
    <Air 5>
    <Illusionist 25>
    <Mage Initiate 30>
    MP 1500+
    From Two-Tail Kitsune
    
• Overview Crawlie Purple Papillon Butterfly King

  • The Bug family is known for its potent venoms and for a lack of notable weak points.
  • HP: 180
    MP: 100
    Atk: 16
    Def: 16
    
    Weapons:
    Consume: Damage 50. Heals one-quarter damage dealt.
    
    Traits:
    <Bug 1>
    <Venomous 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 150
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • HP: 2500
    MP: 300
    Atk: 100
    Def: 70
    
    Weapons:
    Slam: Damage 400.
    
    Traits:
    <Bug 40>
    <Flying 20>
    <Venomous 20>
    <Winged 40>
    
    Mana Cost: 5000
    Requirements:
    <Bug 30>
    <Venomous 10>
    From ?
    
  • HP: 2000
    MP: 400
    Atk: 50
    Def: 120
    
    Weapons:
    Emperor's Orders: Damage 200. If damage is dealt, target's Def counts as 1 lower for each creature attacking it this round.
    
    Traits:
    <Bug 40>
    <Acidic 15>
    <Flying 20>
    <Venomous 15>
    <Winged 40>
    
    Mana Cost: 5000
    Requirements:
    <Bug 30>
    <Venomous 10>
    From ?
    
• Overview Imp Esh

  • Devil family monsters have long been involved in human religion due to the humanoid appearance of weaker members and an adaptation that allows them to consume freely-offered desire as Mana. Powerful monsters of the Devil family have at times styled themselves as gods, performing tasks for humans in return for worship.
  • Spoiler: Notes

    Standing at less than a meter tall, Imps are not imposing figures. Instead, what they have going for them is an usually large well of MP, the ability to draw Mana from worship, a humanoid body plan compatible with child-sized human equipment, and human-standard hands, complete with opposable thumbs. Nobody's going to mistake you for not being a monster, but the existence of all human religion proves that doesn't mean they won't be willing to talk.
    HP: 150
    MP: 250
    Atk: 20
    Def: 12
    
    Weapons:
    Horn Gore: Damage 80
    
    Traits:
    <Devil 1>
    <Cultivore 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 250
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • HP: 500
    MP: 500
    Atk: 40
    Def: 100
    
    Weapons:
    Wings of Light: Damage 150. When used, double your Def for the turn. Deals double elemental damage with Light.
    
    Traits:
    <Devil 10>
    <Light 10>
    <Fire 5>
    <Ice 5>
    <Cultivore 1>
    <Praise 5>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Light 5>
    <Fire 1>
    <Ice 1>
    Def 50+
    
• Overview Wyrmling Heavenly Hatchling Dragon Elementalist Sky Dragon Sorcerer

  • Powerful and durable, Dragons tend to be more than a match for other monsters at a similar developmental level. However, their slow rate of advancement leaves them easy prey for older monsters of other families.
  • HP: 1000
    MP: 350
    Atk: 25
    Def: 15
    
    Weapons:
    Claw Swipe: Damage 200
    Nibble: Damage 150. Heals one-quarter damage dealt.
    
    Traits:
    <Dragon 1>
    <Dragonscale 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 1000
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • Spoiler: Notes

    A serpentine body. It flies with no wings, has claws yet destroys enemies with its breath, lords over Light and Dark in equal measure. Though still young, this is doubtless the future ruler of the skies in miniature.
    HP: 5000
    MP: 1500
    Atk: 100
    Def: 80
    
    Weapons:
    Dive Slash: Damage 500
    
    Traits:
    <Dragon 50>
    <Dragonbreath 25>
    <Dragonflight 15>
    <Dragonscale 10>
    <Fire 25>
    <Light 15>
    <Dark 15>
    
    Mana Cost: 10000
    Requirements:
    <Dragon 15>
    <Dragonbreath 5>
    <Fire 10>
    <Light 5>
    <Dark 5>
    From Wyrmling
    
  • HP: 2000
    MP: 3000
    Atk: 75
    Def: 75
    
    Weapons:
    Magic Blast: Damage 750. When magic is used to enhance this attack, add double the elemental damage.
    
    Traits:
    <Dragon 30>
    <Dragonmagic 50>
    <Dragonscale 10>
    <MP Regeneration 10>
    <Light 25>
    <Fire 25>
    <Earth 25>
    <Dark 25>
    <Ice 25>
    <Air 25>
    
    Mana Cost: 5000
    Requirements:
    <Dragon 15>
    <Light 10>
    <Fire 10>
    <Earth 10>
    <Dark 10>
    <Ice 10>
    <Air 10>
    MP 1000+
    From Wyrmling
    
  • HP: 7500
    MP: 5000
    Atk: 150
    Def: 125
    
    Weapons:
    Magic Burst: Damage 1000. When magic is used to enhance this attack, add double the elemental damage.
    
    Traits:
    <Dragon 75>
    <Light 30>
    <Fire 30>
    <Earth 30>
    <Dark 30>
    <Ice 30>
    <Air 30>
    <Dragonbreath 30>
    <Dragonflight 15>
    <Dragonmagic 60>
    <Dragonscale 20>
    <MP Regeneration 25>
    
    Mana Cost: 15000
    Requirements:
    <Dragon 50>
    <Light 20>
    <Fire 20>
    <Earth 20>
    <Dark 20>
    <Ice 20>
    <Air 20>
    <Dragonmagic 10>
    From Heavenly Hatchling, Dragon Elementalist
    
• Overview Seed Bloody Begonia Rabid Redwood

  • Uniquely, Plant family monsters are capable of drawing sustenance and trace amounts of Mana from non-monstrous plant matter. Because of this, they tend to be drawn to forests, where they can camouflage themselves as their prey.
  • HP: 250
    MP: 15
    Atk: 15
    Def: 20
    
    Weapons:
    Slam: Damage 50
    
    Traits:
    <Plant 1>
    <Herbivore 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 200
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • HP: 800
    MP: 75
    Atk: 35
    Def: 50
    
    Weapons:
    Stem Constrict: Damage 100. Damage increases by base Damage amount every turn it attacks without taking damage in return.
    
    Traits:
    <Plant 15>
    <Earth 5>
    <Herbivore 10>
    <Paralyzer 10>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Plant 8>
    <Herbivore 2>
    <Paralyzer 5>
    Seed
    
  • HP: 8000
    MP: 750
    Atk: 150
    Def: 400
    
    Weapons:
    Bough Smash: Damage 500.
    
    Traits:
    <Plant 50>
    <Fire 30>
    <Camouflage 20>
    <Herbivore 25>
    
    Mana Cost: 8000
    Requirements:
    <Plant 40>
    <Fire 10>
    <Camouflage 10>
    From ?
    
• Overview Slime Slime Sapling Drake Slime

  • The Slime family is typically viewed as the weakest of all monster families, and for good reason. Slimes have a marked tendency towards lower stats and cheaper Mana costs. This is made up for by faster advancement into new forms, an incredible ability to easily learn new traits, and a stunningly high rate of reproduction. Furthermore, the Slime family possesses the ability to voluntarily merge with other Slimes into powerful gestalt minds. Though initially thought to be the same as a monster consuming another, this process is both more Mana-efficient and allows the gestalt to combine traits from all precursors.
  • Spoiler: Notes

    A non-specialized Slime body. Usually viewed as the weakest of all monsters, and not without reason. Unlike more advanced Slime bodies, this one lacks any kind of limb, can only spread itself so thin, and has no elemental affinity. This cyan, gel-like body weighs about 50kg, and is about half a meter across. Its primary redeeming value is that it's cheap to remake. You were left in this body after Transmigration testing, as the lab lacked the Mana to rebuild your original body.
    HP: 100
    MP: 10
    Atk: 10
    Def: 10
    
    Weapons:
    Slime Slam: Damage 50
    
    Traits:
    <Slime 1>
    <Adaptability 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 100
    Requirements:
    Root
    
  • HP: 500
    MP: 100
    Atk: 30
    Def: 40
    
    Weapons:
    Slime Slam: Damage 100.
    Sleepy Sap: Damage 0. Targets may be affected by Sleep.
    
    Traits:
    <Slime 20>
    <Plant 20>
    <Herbivore 1>
    <Adaptability 25>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Slime 10>
    <Plant 10>
    From Any Slime
    
  • HP: 1000
    MP: 100
    Atk: 50
    Def: 30
    
    Weapons:
    Slime Slam: Damage 100.
    
    Traits:
    <Dragon 20>
    <Slime 20>
    <Adaptability 25>
    <Dragonbreath 5>
    
    Mana Cost: 750
    Requirements:
    <Dragon 10>
    <Slime 10>
    From Any Slime
    
• Overview Corpse

  • Unlike other families of monsters, new Undead are formed by humans and other non-animavorous beings that gain the ability to process souls into Mana, usually on or shortly after death.
  • HP: 500
    MP: 150
    Atk: 20
    Def: 10
    
    Weapons:
    Heavy Punch: Damage 75
    
    Traits:
    <Undead 1>
    <Regeneration 1>
    
    Mana Cost: 500
    Requirements:
    Root
    

 

[siflux]

For all traits, X is the trait's level. Traits have no maximum level unless specified in their description. {Element} traits are actually six different traits, existing separately for each element.

<Beast>	All traits that increase Atk provide an additional X Atk. All traits that increase Def provide an additional X Def. Neither of these effects can more than double the Atk or Def provided by the original trait.
<Bug>	Increases Def by X. Increases the effects of any traits that improve or add senses by X.
<Devil>	Increases the damage of non-natural weapons by X. Increases the damage reduction of defensive, non-natural equipment by X. Neither of these effects can more than double the base Damage or damage reduction provided by the original equipment.
<Dragon>	Increases the effects of all traits with Dragon in the name by X.
<Plant>	Increases the effect of any traits that provide passive HP recovery, such as <Regeneration>, by X. This cannot more than double the effect of the original trait. Reduces final damage taken by X.
<Slime>	Increases damage of weapons with Slime in the name by X. Increases HP by 10X.
<Undead>	Reduces the damage taken from sources that deal damage over time, such as <Venomous>, by X per round per instance. Increases MP by 10x.
<Light>	Improves damage of Light attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Light attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Dark attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Light magic by X (min 0).
<Fire>	Improves damage of Fire attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Fire attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Ice attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Fire magic by X (min 0).
<Earth>	Improves damage of Earth attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Earth attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Air attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Earth magic by X (min 0).
<Dark>	Improves damage of Dark attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Dark attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Light attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Dark magic by X (min 0).
<Ice>	Improves damage of Ice attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Ice attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Fire attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Ice magic by X (min 0).
<Air>	Improves damage of Air attacks by 2X. Reduces damage from Air attacks by 2X. Increases damage from Earth attacks by X. Reduces MP cost of Air magic by X (min 0).
<{Element} Resistance>	Provides X Damage Reduction against {Element} Damage.
<Acidic>	Attacks apply X points of Acid. Acid reduces the target's Def by X. Acid fades at a base rate of 1 point per round.
<Adaptability>	Decreases XP penalty for learning a new trait that isn't on body by X. This trait only reduces penalties; if it exceeds all penalties it does not discount trait cost.
<Armored>	Increases Damage Reduction by X.
<Armourer>	With materials, can create armor that provides damage reduction of up to 100x.
<Bladesmith>	With materials, can create melee weapons with a base damage of up to 100x.
<Bioweapon>	Decreases the cost of increasing Atk by X XP. Decreases the cost of increasing Dmg by (X/5) Mana, rounded down. This cannot reduce the XP cost of increasing Atk below 25 XP or the Mana cost of increasing Dmg below 5 Mana.
<Camouflage>	A vision-based form of stealth.
<Cultivore>	Nearby sapient beings can voluntarily sacrifice HP or Mana, causing you to gain X% of the HP or Mana sacrificed as Mana. A given being cannot sacrifice more than 1% of its max HP in this manner per day, but can sacrifice any amount of Mana. HP sacrificed in this manner cannot be regained except through resting or the expenditure of Mana. This trait cannot have more than 100% efficiency.
<Dragonbreath>	Adds a natural weapon with base damage 50X.
<Dragonflight>	Provides a form of magical flight. Adds X to derived <Flight> if the highest-level means of flight, or 0.5X if a higher-level mode of flight is known.
<Dragonmagic>	Increases maximum MP that can be spent on an attack by 3X.
<Dragonscale>	Increases Def by +2X.
<Flight>	Generic skill with flight. Serves as a base for derived <Flight>, but another trait must provide some form of flight in the first place to actually fly. Flight is an unusual mode of movement -- when you can exploit it, the difference between it and your enemy's highest relevant unusual mode of movement may be applied in combat. Flight also provides an island-hopping range of its derived level in km.
<Herbivore>	Generates X Mana per hour when consuming living plants (foraging)
<Illusionist>	?
<Mage Initiate>	Reduces the XP cost of increasing <Light>, <Fire>, <Earth>, <Dark>, <Ice>, and <Air> by X%. This cannot reduce the total cost of increasing these traits below 50% of the base cost.
<MP Regeneration>	Recover X MP at the end of each round.
<Paralyzer>	Attacks apply X points of Paralysis. Paralysis reduces the target's Atk by X. Paralysis fades at a base rate of 1 point per round.
<Praise>	When you sacrifice HP or Mana to someone else with <Cultivore>, treat their <Cultivore> as being X levels higher.
<Regeneration>	Recover X HP at the end of each round.
<Scent Tracker>	Adds an unusual sense based on smell. If this sense exceeds the enemy's relevant ability to prevent detection, the difference can be exploited in combat by adding to attack. Scent Tracker can also be used out of combat to find enemy encounters identical to those you have previously faced, or to follow the trails of specific individuals who have been present no more than X hours prior.
<Venomous>	Attacks apply stacks of Venom. At the end of each round of combat, each stack of Venom deals Atk as damage, bypassing defense. Venom stacks last X rounds.
<Winged>	Provides a form of flight. Adds X to derived <Flight> if the highest-level means of flight, or 0.5X if a higher-level mode of flight is known.

 

[siflux]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[X] Get some Mana, and you know what that means: killing stuff. Whether you're going to Transmigrate into a less useless body or just make sure you have a safety net in case you die, you need more mana.

You're too angry to focus right now. Fortunately, you have a way of blowing off steam that's both productive and unambiguously good: wanton violence.

Sapient or not, you're still a monster. By definition, that means you naturally consume the soul of anything you kill, turning it into Mana. Like all monsters, you can use Mana to spackle over the gaps in your abilities, allowing you to prematurely advance into a stronger body. Unlike most monsters, you have access to a machine that lets you swap your soul into entire other monster families and build less developed bodies that can develop in totally different ways. You rather doubt all monsterkind has gone extinct, so you can probably find some of your non-sapient cousins to destroy. Should be good practice getting the hang of your current body too.

Sun's about halfway down. Sky is blue, with white clouds. No sign of the toxic, irradiated mist you were expecting outside. It has been a few centuries. Maybe it cleared up on its own. Maybe one of the other anti-apocalypse projects worked. Maybe there's a good reason the lab is now only a few hundred meters from the edge of a cliff.

No, wait, there's the death clouds. At the bottom of the sky. Easily a klick of empty air lies beneath you, just ahead. This was... probably intentional? It doesn't really fix the problem, but at least this area isn't inside the miasma. You hop away from the abyss in search of monsters to harvest.

Spoiler: Combat

Round 1:
Deal 52 Dmg * 60 Atk / 10 Def = 312 Damage.
Floofball is killed with no chance to attack!

First thing you run into is a Floofball, the weakest of monsters in the Beast family. You launch yourself bodily at it, slamming into it with your gooey body. You may be just a lowly Slime, but you're a Slime with the soul of a dragon. With the power you retained from your first life, this battle is trivial, rather than suicidal. It dies immediately, and you can tell why as soon as you absorb it.

One measly Mana? What was it, newborn? Grumbling, you search for more victims.

Your inauspicious start proves prophetic. Excepting yourself, you can't find anything on this island that grants you more than five Mana. You'd normally expect to see stronger monsters simply due to them fighting each other, especially after so long. Something must be eliminating any strong monsters. Something not thorough enough to completely wipe out all monster life. As you're still weak, this works to your immediate advantage, but it also means farming for Mana like this will be an arduous process.

You commit to harvesting until nightfall, consuming a total of 106 Mana over the course of the intervening 5 hours. That leaves you with enough to rebuild an emergency Slime body (100 Mana), but not to swap into something more comfortable like your original Dragon body (1000 Mana). The original plan was to directly build a body that had the <Dragon of Rebirth> Trait, but the cheapest such body weighs in at a cool billion Mana. You may be able to develop the Trait yourself, but that's not going to be cheap without switching back to a Dragon body. Heck, even with doing that.

+106 Mana
+1176 XP

You have a safety net now, but murdering monsters is not a viable long-term solution to your problems. Humanity's original planned shortcut for you to gain power has failed, backfiring so badly it stole centuries from you that you could have used to try to solve things on your own. You're going to need to think up a plan of your own to fix everything…

END DAY ONE

[ ] Write-in

 

[siflux]

Mana is gained primarily from killing things. All that matters is getting the finishing blow. Other methods of gaining Mana exist, but as a monster murder will likely remain your best source of Mana. Fortunately, other monsters make just as good a source of Mana as humans do -- better in some ways, as most monsters neither participate in any form of society nor care about their offspring, so nobody will mind if you kill most monsters.

Mana is spent primarily on improving your body. HP, MP, Atk, Def, Damage, and Traits can all be improved for a body by spending Mana, at a base cost of 10 Mana per point. Spending Mana on stats or damage is likely to be inefficient, however. Once you gain a new form, your natural weapons will be replaced, and any of your body's stats that are below the stats of the new body will improve to those scores. Thus, Mana spent improving those values is lost forever.

Wild monsters can use Mana to spawn offspring. However, you've had this function of your biology co-opted. Your soul is tied to the machinery in the lab where you hibernated, preventing it from being absorbed and consumed as Mana if your body is slain by a wild monster. The lab's Biomass Shaper can print replacement bodies for you, allowing you the unique ability to regress in your monster family and to switch families altogether: tests took you from Dragon to Slime family.

You can also use the Biomass Shaper to create equipment from blueprints. Traits such as <Bladesmith> can be used to determine the best equipment you can design, or you can obtain premade blueprints. Weapons and armor printed from Mana have a cost of 10 Mana per point of Damage or Damage Reduction. The Biomass Shaper is not currently capable of sufficient precision to make electronics, even if you have blueprints for them.


XP is gained primarily from overcoming challenges. The obvious source is the physical challenge of combat, but unlike with Mana, you don't need to kill things to get XP. Non-combat challenges such as quests and exploration can also reward XP. Time can be spent to directly train Traits, granted them XP without going through the intermediate medium of unspent XP.

Like Mana, XP can be spent on improving stats and Traits. Unlike Mana, XP cannot be spent on improving natural weapon damage. Also unlike Mana, improvement made via XP expenditure are permanent. They are scribed into your soul; known by you and not just remembered by your biology.

 

[mrttao]

Ok, so looking at it all, mana is spent on what is basically temporary upgrades to our current body (lost when transmigrating). while XP is spent making those things permanent.
We can use mana to make XP costs cheaper. The biggest discount is to have a body that has a trait we want to inscribe into the soul. Then we can get further discount if our body is much higher level than our soul.

While all the traits are good. Two traits especially caught my eye. Herbivore lets us gain mana from eating plants, that should be far more efficient than hunting monsters. Cultivore lets us gain mana from having a cult of sapient beings follow us! A renewable source of mana!
With the fact we have seen the locals are swinging medieval weapons around, this shouldn't be too hard to arrange once we have some measure of power to our name.

So, I am thinking my current goal is to get the mana needed to switch to seed, grab herbivore and start generating mana, then use that seed mana to switch to devil and start developing cultivore and a cult. Possible just snagging the necessary traits from the devil and then going back to dragon body, or possibly remaining as a devil and letting the body evolve into higher tier devils to see what kind of goodies we unlock...

So with that in mind

[x] Plan economy rough draft
-[x] Spend 100XP scribing Adaptability 1 unto your soul
-[x] Keep hunting until you have 300 mana, and then switch to Seed body.
-[x] Start eating plants to see the efficiency of mana it generates. Then spend 100XP each to scribe Plant 1 and Herbivore 1 into our soul. This would raise our effective level in both to 2, which we should test to see how raising said levels affects the generation of mana and calculate how much it is worth investing into said abilities in the future,
-[x] Once sufficient mana has been generated from herbivore, switch to foofball for the bioweapon trait (makes future body upgrades cheaper). Scribe both traits, then switch to imp. Scribe devil and cultivore. And start upgrading body with the purpose of eventually starting our own cult.

siflux what happens to unspent XP we have when we switch bodies?
Based on the answer there I would make some adjustment to XP expenditures with each body

 

[kinglugia]

[x] Plan economy rough draft

 

[siflux]

what happens to unspent XP we have when we switch bodies?

Click to shrink...

Mana and unspent XP are retained until spent, regardless of advancement into stronger forms or transmigration into different base bodies.

Your summary of how to use Mana and XP is pretty much spot-on, but please note that Body traits purchased/upgraded with Mana are retained while advancing into later forms as a normal monster; they're only lost when transmigrating to an earlier-stage monster within your family or swapping to a different family.

 

[mrttao]

Mana and unspent XP are retained until spent, regardless of advancement into stronger forms or transmigration into different base bodies.

Your summary of how to use Mana and XP is pretty much spot-on, but please note that Body traits purchased/upgraded with Mana are retained while advancing into later forms as a normal monster; they're only lost when transmigrating to an earlier-stage monster within your family or swapping to a different family.

Click to shrink...

Alright, thank you.

In the above plan, will we timeskip until the end of the plan? if so I should add in what to spend all the XP on now. but if we don't timeskip then it works as a rough plan that we will execute step by step over multiple updates...

do you see any problems with the plan btw?

 

[siflux]

will we timeskip until the end of the plan?

Click to shrink...

The world continues to exist independently of your actions. If nothing interesting happens in the intervening time, I'll gloss over it; if something significant enough happens to cut part of the plan short, I'll post for a vote. Please also be aware that the protagonist is explicitly not a blank-slate avatar -- while he will follow direct plan instructions, he'll fill in the gaps with his own personality.

Current plan looks fine. Unless a sudden wave of votes comes in with a new option (unlikely, given the size of my current playerbase -- I'm currently expecting no more than two additional votes at most), I'll likely be writing up its results in a few hours.

 

[mrttao]

Current plan looks fine. Unless a sudden wave of votes comes in with a new option (unlikely, given the size of my current playerbase -- I'm currently expecting no more than two additional votes at most), I'll likely be writing up its results in a few hours.

Click to shrink...

I just noticed this quest is in the non lewd section of QQ. which has very little activity sadly
Most of QQ activity is in NSFW section. while for non lewd quests people mainly go to SB or SV

I am going to be really amused by a vegetarian devil. well, vegetarian + souls + sacrifices...
so maybe not vegetarian after all

 

[siflux]

vegetarian + souls + sacrifices

Click to shrink...

vege-sacrifici-animatarian?

I picked QQ SFW knowing I was going to get a tiny player population. I like QQ's players best (then SV, then SB), and I felt it worth the massive hit in numbers. Started on SFW rather than NSFW because I honestly have no plans to take this quest NSFW at this point. That stuff just isn't a driving motive for any currently relevant major characters in the world nor for the setting itself. If you guys decide you want to take it NSFW, I'll move the quest to the NSFW board when NSFW starts happening. Until then, I'm fine with having a small but active playerbase. After all, half the reason I write is for myself.

 

[mrttao]

vege-sacrifici-animatarian?

I picked QQ SFW knowing I was going to get a tiny player population. I like QQ's players best (then SV, then SB), and I felt it worth the massive hit in numbers. Started on SFW rather than NSFW because I honestly have no plans to take this quest NSFW at this point. That stuff just isn't a driving motive for any currently relevant major characters in the world nor for the setting itself. If you guys decide you want to take it NSFW, I'll move the quest to the NSFW board when NSFW starts happening. Until then, I'm fine with having a small but active playerbase. After all, half the reason I write is for myself.

Click to shrink...

That is pretty cool.
Well, I won't be pushing for a tone shift. If you ever decide you want to you will, I am perfect fine enjoying a SFW quest

 

[siflux]

Spoiler: Plan Economy Rough Draft

[x] Plan economy rough draft
-[x] Spend 100XP scribing Adaptability 1 unto your soul
-[x] Keep hunting until you have 300 mana, and then switch to Seed body.
-[x] Start eating plants to see the efficiency of mana it generates. Then spend 100XP each to scribe Plant 1 and Herbivore 1 into our soul. This would raise our effective level in both to 2, which we should test to see how raising said levels affects the generation of mana and calculate how much it is worth investing into said abilities in the future,
-[x] Once sufficient mana has been generated from herbivore, switch to foofball for the bioweapon trait (makes future body upgrades cheaper). Scribe both traits, then switch to imp. Scribe devil and cultivore. And start upgrading body with the purpose of eventually starting our own cult.

If you're going to have to learn a bunch of intermediate traits to unlock <Dragon of Rebirth>, might as well invest immediately into making them cheaper. Not that XP is your limiting factor right now, but that'll change quickly as you need higher-level traits to make stronger forms available. No, your current problem is Mana generation. This area lacks strong enemies to harvest, but some monster families have alternate means of gaining the stuff.

Today, you hunt once more.

-90 XP (100XP base cost, no penalty due to trait already on body, 10% discount for trait on body 1-9 levels higher than on soul): Gained <Adaptability 0 → 1>

Yesterday, nothing around here was a threat to you. Today, that's no longer true. Whatever was preventing the local Floofballs from getting stronger no longer seems to be in effect. They've already begun advancing into Horned Bunnies and Brown Raptors. You can't outdamage either of them, but your <Dragon> soul enhancing your <Dragonscale> and sheer bulk means you can take either monster in a one-on-one fight. Fortunately, that's still possible, as all the monsters you encounter are acting in a fiercely territorial manner. Any given fight against one of the stronger monsters takes out about a third to half your health, but you're smart enough to rest up between hunts.

Spoiler: Combat - Horned Bunny

Round 1:
Deal 52 Dmg * 60 Atk / 15 Def = 208 Damage.
Receive 250 Dmg * 50 Atk / 44 Def = 284 Damage.

Spoiler: Combat - Brown Raptor

Round 1:
Deal 52 Dmg * 60 Atk / 20 Def = 156 Damage.
Brown Raptor uses its Flight advantage to dive for extra damage.
Receive 211 Dmg * 40 Atk / 44 Def = 191 Damage.

Bestiary Updated! Horned Bunny and Brown Raptor added.

With your self-enforced downtime between fights, you explore along the cliff edge near the lab. Your lab is near the southwest edge of -- you're honestly not sure if this is a mesa or a flying island. If it was an island, how would it stay aloft? Humanity probably could have pulled this off, somehow, but you can't help but feel like a giant pillar of rock would be an easier and cheaper way to keep an entire small island aloft.

Whatever. Sky mesa or sky island, you can't get off it without flying or descending vertically into the death zone either way. The place is roughly circular in shape, and more than a few kilometers around the edge. You don't feel comfortable going deep enough afield to get a full perimeter, and judging distance without tools is hard. Hills prevent you from being able to tell if the land goes to the horizon or not. You can climb them tomorrow, see if that'll get you vision to the horizon.

+292 Mana
+2447 XP

You still managed to find enough Floofballs to kill and get enough extra Mana and XP from eating Horned Bunnies and Brown Raptors that today was more productive per hour than yesterday, plus you spent twice as long out there, but you're definitely unsatisfied with how much you were slowed down by having to avoid serious fights for hours at a time as you healed up. Fortunately, you're already planning on transmigrating into a more combat-capable body before you next go slaying, and the power of your soul already puts you on par with everything you fought today even before factoring in your body's instincts.
No vote, current plan still being executed
END DAY TWO

 

[siflux]

Spoiler: Plan Economy Rough Draft, Continued

[x] Plan economy rough draft
-[x] Spend 100XP scribing Adaptability 1 unto your soul
-[x] Keep hunting until you have 300 mana, and then switch to Seed body.
-[x] Start eating plants to see the efficiency of mana it generates. Then spend 100XP each to scribe Plant 1 and Herbivore 1 into our soul. This would raise our effective level in both to 2, which we should test to see how raising said levels affects the generation of mana and calculate how much it is worth investing into said abilities in the future,
-[x] Once sufficient mana has been generated from herbivore, switch to foofball for the bioweapon trait (makes future body upgrades cheaper). Scribe both traits, then switch to imp. Scribe devil and cultivore. And start upgrading body with the purpose of eventually starting our own cult.

-200 Mana: Transmigration to Seed

Never before in your life has an apple tasted so good.

You grab another and eagerly devour it, seeds and all. You've eaten fruit before, of course, but until now it didn't taste of souls. It's thinner than a fresh kill, especially of something strong like another monster, but now that you understand how to draw it out it's definitely there. It's fading fast, though. Like any other kill, you'll need to eat your plants fresh to get Mana out of them.

-180 XP: <Plant 0 → 1>, <Herbivore 0 → 1>

You much a leaf, then an entire branch, then some grass. All good, with a bitter, twangy aftertaste. You could get used to this. And will, since you now permanently understand a little about what it's like to be a Plant family monster.

Alright, enough of that. Time to transmigrate into something a little more combat-capable.

-150 Mana: Transmigration to Floofball
-180 XP: <Beast 0 → 1>, <Bioweapon 0 → 1>

Sadly, being a Floofball is a significant upgrade over your hibernatory Slime body. Solidly twice as damaging just due to having actual claws again rather than being forced to smash things with a gooey surface that absorbs half the blow. You weren't originally planning on spending much time in this body, but it would have taken you… two mana an hour, two hundred mana deficit… about four days without sleep of continuous grazing to make up the difference on <Herbivore> alone as a Seed. More realistically, something like a week to a week and a half including sleep. <Herbivore> isn't enough to work as a primary source of Mana without a lot more investment in it.

Fortunately, you already had an activity planned for today. You're going to climb the highest hill around and confirm whether you're on a peninsula or an island. Mesa. Whatever, it's effectively the same thing if you can't get off it. You need to find out whether you're trapped by an ocean of air and the miasma you've been tasked with eliminating, or if there's something else out there. You'll kill whatever monsters you find on the way for Mana, and if you spot those non-human, non-monster vandals who messed up your lab and killed your dog you'll decide what to do about them then.

Spoiler: Combat - Horned Bunny

Deal 100 Dmg * 68 Atk / 15 Def = 453 Damage.
Receive 250 Dmg * 50 Atk / 45 Def - 1 = 276 Damage.

Spoiler: Combat - Brown Raptor

Deal 100 Dmg * 68 Atk / 20 Def = 340 Damage.
Brown Raptor uses its Flight advantage to dive for extra damage.
Receive 211 Dmg * 40 Atk / 45 Def - 1= 186 Damage.

Now that's more like it! The claws hiding in your adorable floof are able to destroy Horned Bunnies and Brown Raptors in two hits, leaving them only one to hurt you. And their development seems to have plateaued for now. No new monsters out in the wild today, although there are notably fewer Floofballs around. You grab grass and shrubbery by the clawful between fights and munch on them as you go.

Something in the neighborhood of two hours later, you're on top of a hill. It actually isn't the highest one around, but it's close and you can see enough around the next hill over to be reasonably certain: you're on an island. A sky island. In an ocean of air. Land ends something like a tenth of the distance out to the horizon away from your position.

There's a pair of other landmasses visible out there too, not connected to yours. Each is somewhere in the neighborhood of halfway out to the horizon. One lies roughly to the North, and the other in a generally Easterly direction of you. You can't really make out any details from this distance except that they exist, though.

Just to be completely sure, and also because you don't have anything other on your immediate to-do list except killing more monsters, you climb the actual tallest hill around. It just confirms what you saw a few hours prior. Apart from your lab and the wild monsters, your island is completely uninhabited.

+330 + 10 Mana (killing + grazing)
+2069 XP

You head home, then Transmigrate one last time before sleeping. You don't know anyone yet, but the jerks who broke your stuff acted sapient. That implies more sapients out there who you don't want revenge on. Could form the base of a cult. More Mana. You need more Mana...

-250 Mana: Transmigration to Imp
-180 XP: <Devil 0 → 1>, <Cultivore 0 → 1>

END DAY 3

[ ] Write-in

 

[mrttao]

your island is completely uninhabited.

Click to shrink...

Huh... then where did those sapient vandals come from? this is a very curious thing...
So we are trapped on an island until we get flight (and wings). although we know of one beast that has that, I am pretty sure evolved demons will as well. So, I am guessing just fight monsters and evolve until we have wings and then explore off this island?

----

siflux Questions:

1. So, we seem to have unlocked beast evolution paths by killing evolved beasts. Can we evolve our imp body (or whatever other creature we transmigrate into) into something higher by pumping mana into it (or maybe by adding traits to said body? like adding wings to an imp body might be a prerequisite for discovering a higher demon evolution?). Or is the only way to unlock new currently unknown evolutions to kill and eat one? If the latter, then imp is probably a dead end for now.

2. With us being trapped on an island lacking in sophonts, the plans to use cultivore hit a wall. I am thinking of switching to plant family long term and focusing heavily on herbivore.

3. How big is our island? is depleting the local plantlife an issue if we go with heavy grazing?

4. If I am reading it right, if we max out bioweapon trait at level 25, and our body has an ATK that is 41+ higher than our soul, then raising ATK on our soul would be free until it soul is at 40 less than body? (-25XP cost from bioweapon, 50% discount from learning the known). Or is the 50% discount applied to current price (25XP) rather than the base price (50XP)?

5. Now that we have hands, can we do some repairs on our lab? and if so what are the costs of doing so? Also, of the various species, which of them count as having hands for repair? my guess is undead, dragons, and devils? but I am not sure about the others

6. When horned rabbit says its upgrade requirements are: beast 5, bioweapon 2, floofball.
Does it means our effective level (body + soul) has to reach those numbers. Or does it mean our floofball body has to be upgraded until the body has those scores.

7. When MC says "humanity could have X".. is MC a former human whose soul was bound here to transmigrate between monsters? or was MC always a monster?

---

Spoiler: math and analysis

ok so, if I am reading it right. HP, MP, ATK, DEF scores cost a level independent 50XP per point to raise in soul, 10MP to raise in body, with adjustments (bioweapon gives discount, learning the known should give discount too).
While traits cost scales based on the current level. That is, level 1 costs 100XP/10MP, level 2 costs 200XP/20MP, level 3 costs 300XP/30MP, etc. For optimal XP discount the level should be 41 more on the body than on the soul when spending XP to raise it in the soul. We can also train to generate and auto apply XP to a specific trait.

Ultimately our most precious resource is not XP or MP since both are renewable. But time.

So we are trapped on an island until we get flight (and wings). although we know of one beast that has that, I am pretty sure evolved demons will as well.

I am seeing several optional paths
A. Take the XP hit, just scribe wings 1 right away, explore beyond our island.
B. Switch back to plant and start pumping mana and XP into herbivore to get our mana generation up via grazing. This will give us a backup source of mana in the future going forward, even if our cult crashes and burns.
C. Switch back to beast family and focus on generating XP/MP via slaughtering monsters

If we do go with option B. It will cost 200 mana to become a seed again. 20 mana (pays for itself in 20 hours via grazing) will push body to be 1 higher than soul in herbivore, giving the 10% discount meaning 20XP less to get herbivore to level 2. Then 30 mana more for 30XP discount to raise it to level 3. Then 40 mana more to raise it to get a 40XP discount to raise it to level 4... if we wanted the max XP discount. its 200 MP to transmigrate then 902 MP to raise herbivore to level 42, then only 100XP (a 100XP discount) to raise it on soul to level 2. Then 430 MP to raise body to level 43, and 150XP (150XP discount) to raise it on soul to level 3... at that point we would be generating 46 mana per hour from grazing... Assuming normal sleep of 8 hours a day we are looking at 736MP a day from grazing.

Our victory condition is reaching 1 billion mana or 10 billion XP (with maxed out adaptability) to get dragon of rebirth trait. From just grazing at that intensity it would take us 3722 years to get that mana. We can increase grazing of course but it is not the most efficient.

Cultivore on the other hand should be more efficient if we have a large enough cult sacrificing their MP to us. But we are not really in a position to do so at the moment. And in retrospect probably want to do build one as a dragon anyways instead of as a devil. Also, we need wings to continue exploring. So, either scribe them and take the XP hit (not too bad a hit to be honest, a few hours of grinding). And/or go beast and gain them naturally. (or evolved dragon)

It seems though that the most efficient source of both MP and XP is killing monsters. At the moment there are several limiting factors to us killing monsters. Our travel speed (get and upgrade flight to improve), our healing downtime after each kill (scribe regeneration to vastly improve. since regeneration gives HP regeneration in mid combat measured speeds. So out of combat it will vastly improve it), and our killiness (we want to 1 hit kill enemy monsters, beast is a good choice here).

So... all in all I am leaning towards optimizing our combat as a beast where we level up the beast body. While also spending some XP on the side to levelup traits as needed.

I have been considering maxing adaptability to eliminate the need to body hop to gain new traits I would like to max out adaptability. This would either cost us 5400XP to do so outright... or if we become a slime and get it to level 10 for the slime body, it would cost 640 MP + 4860 XP + cost of whatever new body we switch to.... nah, the slime upgrade thing is just not worth it for the amount of XP involved at the rate we are getting both XP and MP. Either way we can't really afford it right now. But we can afford a cheaper upgrade.

Ok, so a plan is forming in my head based on all the numbers I ran above. I just need the answers to the questions.

 

[mrttao]

[x] Plan need answers
-[x] Upgrade adaptability to level 3. (costs 500 XP. 5562 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe regeneration with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5392 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe wings with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5222 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe flight with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5052 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe venomous with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4882 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe undead with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4712 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe bug with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4542 XP remaining)
-[x] Upgrade wings to level 3 on soul. (costs 500 XP. 4042 XP remaining)
-[x] Upgrade flight to level 3 on soul. (costs 500 XP. 3542 XP remaining)
-[x] Try to locate the vandals from before, you owe them.
-[x] See if you can fix anything now that you have hands.
-[x] Try to figure out why the sudden jump in monster level.
-[x] Explore further now that you have wings and flight.


Upgrading adaptability avoids XP wastage when scribing NEW traits from a body that we are not currently occupying. Body hopping is just too wasteful of mana to keep doing (especially once we start investing additional mana in said body). In retrospect it was a mistake to body hop before as we did. level 2 of adaptability pays for itself after buying 20 new traits. level 3 pays for itself after buying 30 new traits, etc. While we might one day possible get enough traits to justify going full bore adaptability 10 (max), and it would indeed be a wastage of XP to not have had it ASAP...

but since we can just generate more XP by spending time, it is more important to focus on more profitable abilities in terms of XP/day rather than XP spent ever. If we spend the XP on other traits we can earn more XP per day than we lost by spending it without adaptability. Especially since adaptability only applies to the level 1 purchase. Honestly even the level 3 is pushing it, since we only have 6 new traits currently even available for purchase. And who knows when we will get 24 more new traits discovered?

Speaking of optimizing income. Immediately getting wings and flight will increase our speed significantly and allow us to hunt faster (less time spent finding a victim). Regen will boost HP regen a lot and venomous will effectively double our damage, both mean less time spent recovering HP after fights, as well as being able to fight tougher opponents. Actually with us currently taking 2 hits to down an enemy, venomous will mean 1 hit kills, and we dive bomb them from the air to achive said kills. Massive increase to MP/XP generation rate.

Getting bug and undead because I am curious as to what those actually provide, which is unknown at the moment. We have seen a lot of family traits give bonuses even if you are not from said family. Also because I want to scribe all available traits because every trait seem useful and level 1 is cheap.

If QM says we can do some repairs, then we should focus on that with our imp hands. Otherwise I am thinking dump our XP on wings and flight upgrades to increase our exploration rate and hunting speed until we start finding enemies that are too powerful, then start boosting combat to kill them easier... or until we find sophonts to make into a cult.
With further choices depending on what we find. As well as whether we can unlock new species within a family by spending MP on its traits

----

Spoiler: more maths

Oh, more math. To get maxed out bioweapon (level 25) would cost us 32,400XP. Unlike adaptability which only applies to level 1, bioweapon gives a discount on improving ATK for all levels (both on MP for body and XP for soul).
If we switch to floofball (150MP) then upgrade...

siflux when "horned bunny" says its requirements to upgrade are Beast 5, bioweapon 2, and from floofball. Does it mean our floofball BODY has to have beast 5 and bioweapon 2. Or that our body + soul put together have to reach this value?

Assuming the latter. the costs would be upgrading its beast (90 MP) along with our soul bonus we should qualify for horned bunny (750MP). Then upgrade the body's bioweapon from 4 to 25 (max) which costs 3150 MP. Total MP cost is 4140 MP and it gives us maximum possible discount for XP to upgrade bioweapon. so that will be:
980 XP (30% off) to upgrade soul bioweapon to level 5.
8400 XP (20% off) to upgrade soul bioweapon to level 15.
18450 XP (10% off) to upgrade soul bioweapon to level 25 (max).
Total XP = 27830

So all in all we are looking at spending 3150 MP to get a 4570 XP discount, more MP if its the floofball BODY needing the prereq stats to upgrade... huh... that is not nearly as attractive as I thought considering we seem to be getting 10x more XP than MP per kill. And killing is still the most profitable method to get both. I am thinking we should just focus on being the most killy (dragon). As for body hopping, that should be done for the purpose of discovering new traits by unlocking evolutions that are hard to find in the wild (since if we find kill and eat a creature we unlock their evolution autoamtically and as such the ability to scribe their traits)

 

[siflux]

Questions

Click to shrink...

Answers

1. So, we seem to have unlocked beast evolution paths by killing evolved beasts. Can we evolve our imp body (or whatever other creature we transmigrate into) into something higher by pumping mana into it (or maybe by adding traits to said body? like adding wings to an imp body might be a prerequisite for discovering a higher demon evolution?). Or is the only way to unlock new currently unknown evolutions to kill and eat one? If the latter, then imp is probably a dead end for now.

Click to shrink...

I'm lazy, and as such avoiding adding things to the Bestiary and Trait Library before they come up. I really should have at least finished out the family traits. it's really bugging me to look at those ?s there. Anyway you can make suggestions of what kinds of things you want to become and I'll add options in that direction off the relevant-most leaf of whichever tree. Given the setting, wings will probably be useful on any body.

2. With us being trapped on an island lacking in sophonts, the plans to use cultivore hit a wall. I am thinking of switching to plant family long term and focusing heavily on herbivore.

Click to shrink...

This is not a question.

3. How big is our island? is depleting the local plantlife an issue if we go with heavy grazing?

Click to shrink...

Known information, gathered in one place: You're at least 1km up. From the middle of the island, the island ends about 1/10 of the distance out to the horizon. You have seen no monsters on this island (apart from yourself) outside the Beast family so far.

Previously unspecified information: You're on a planet roughly the same size as real-world Terra. The island's terrain is mostly low scrubland near your lab, which is in the SW of the island. The middle of the island holds some hills, extending in a ridge off to the SE edge of the island, where they abruptly end because the island runs out of land. The highest peak, which is still pretty low, is a bit off-center from the middle of the island. On the far side of the hills, terrain is open, grassy plains. There are a handful of wild fruit trees near the lab in what was a garden or small orchard when you went into hibernation, but now contains only a few descendant trees. You raided it for apples when you were testing <Herbivore>, but the leaves and branches you ate were from shrubs.

4. If I am reading it right, if we max out bioweapon trait at level 25, and our body has an ATK that is 41+ higher than our soul, then raising ATK on our soul would be free until it soul is at 40 less than body? (-25XP cost from bioweapon, 50% discount from learning the known). Or is the 50% discount applied to current price (25XP) rather than the base price (50XP)?

Click to shrink...

There is no discount for base stats based on being in a stronger body. That discount is only for having traits catch up to your body. If you max out Bioweapon at 25, then raising ATK on soul costs 25XP.

To make things more clear about mechanics intent: bonuses and penalties to cost are additive, and the 50% is a maximum change relative to base price. If you have a trait 100 levels ahead of soul on body, but have some other 40% penalty to it, you'll still get Learning the Known to reduce that down to 50% base price. The maximum reduction thingy is intended to be an ultimate cost floor relative to original price, because otherwise things spiral out of control with free stuff.

5. Now that we have hands, can we do some repairs on our lab? and if so what are the costs of doing so? Also, of the various species, which of them count as having hands for repair? my guess is undead, dragons, and devils? but I am not sure about the others

Click to shrink...

The primary limiting factor on repairs are a lack of knowledge and a lack of parts. If you're willing to burn Mana on it, the Biomass Shaper can do a lot to deal with the latter, but it very much doesn't print at a fine enough level to handle nm-scale electronics. You don't know if there's any society around or working old industrial machines that could make new electronics. And you'd need to have direct replacement parts to do repairs, unless you got a bunch of textbooks and spent a few years studying the material. You were taught how to replace parts from a small stockpile of spares, but you really don't understand in depth how the lab's machinery works. You know what this stuff does, not how it does it.

Presence of hands varies by individual monster species. Most Undead and Devils have hands. Dragons tend to have claws, which can function acceptably as manipulator limbs. On a more meta level, the Bishonen Line implies that many powerful monsters are humanoid and likely have hands.

6. When horned rabbit says its upgrade requirements are: beast 5, bioweapon 2, floofball.
Does it means our effective level (body + soul) has to reach those numbers. Or does it mean our floofball body has to be upgraded until the body has those scores.

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The latter: derived scores are sufficient. If your current body meets the mins, mutating into your new form is rapid and free. You can either spend 750 mana to print yourself directly into Horned Rabbit from nothing/a different family altogether, or you can have <Beast 4> and <Bioweapon 1> on your soul, spend 150 Mana to swap into Floofball, then immediately advance for free into Horned Rabbit.

7. When MC says "humanity could have X".. is MC a former human whose soul was bound here to transmigrate between monsters? or was MC always a monster?

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The protagonist was born a monster (specifically, a Wyrmling), and has never been anything but a monster. Unusually, but not uniquely, the protagonist was sapient from a very young age. Most monsters tend to develop sapience when they're much older, if ever. If you check the math based on the original character sheet (now lost to the mists of editing to keep it updated), you'll note that it had less than 100k lifetime XP spent on traits, mostly invested into <Dragon 12>, plus a bunch into stats.

MC was impressed by humanity, so he initiated contact with him. It ultimately went well, resulting in him learning how to speak and read human language, becoming a lab subject (he was the nearest friendly monster available for the project on an emergency basis), and getting a little relevant domain knowledge there. MC has seen humanity at the height of the their civilization and was awed and envious of it. In the brief time you knew them, those in the lab were your friends and teachers. They gave you power and purpose, asking only that you use the tools you were given to solve a problem those tools were made to fix. Those tools are now damaged, but you won't let that stop you from completing the one task they laid out for you.

 

[siflux]

-[x] Try to figure out why the sudden jump in monster level.

Click to shrink...

Mu: the question is flawed. Monsters in an area that doesn't see predation will become stronger over time by fighting each other. In the early days of human history, before they truly ruled the world, monster populations tended to be weaker closer to civilization as stronger humans would wipe out stronger monsters. It doesn't take much for Floofballs to qualify for something stronger. The question you should be asking here is why there was nothing stronger than Floofballs around after you woke up. The jump in monster level is expected. The lack of stronger monsters is not.

 

[mrttao]

Thanks for the answers

This is not a question.

Click to shrink...

I goofed

Known information, gathered in one place: You're at least 1km up. From the middle of the island, the island ends about 1/10 of the distance out to the horizon. You have seen no monsters on this island (apart from yourself) outside the Beast family so far.

Previously unspecified information: You're on a planet roughly the same size as real-world Terra.

Click to shrink...

Well, now that we know the planet is the same size as terra I could in theory calculate the island's size from knowing its 1/10th of the distance to the horizon. But I completely forgot how to. So how many KM or miles wide does it come out to?

The primary limiting factor on repairs are a lack of knowledge and a lack of parts. If you're willing to burn Mana on it, the Biomass Shaper can do a lot to deal with the latter, but it very much doesn't print at a fine enough level to handle nm-scale electronics

Click to shrink...

Partial repairs are better than no repairs at all. Even just repairing the walls to delay break ins by murder hobos would be welcome. How much mana would it cost to enact the repairs we can do?

The protagonist was born a monster (specifically, a Wyrmling), and has never been anything but a monster. Unusually, but not uniquely, the protagonist was sapient from a very young age. Most monsters tend to develop sapience when they're much older, if ever. If you check the math based on the original character sheet (now lost to the mists of editing to keep it updated), you'll note that it had less than 100k lifetime XP spent on traits, mostly invested into <Dragon 12>, plus a bunch into stats.

MC was impressed by humanity, so he initiated contact with him. It ultimately went well, resulting in him learning how to speak and read human language, becoming a lab subject (he was the nearest friendly monster available for the project on an emergency basis), and getting a little relevant domain knowledge there. MC has seen humanity at the height of the their civilization and was awed and envious of it. In the brief time you knew them, those in the lab were your friends and teachers. They gave you power and purpose, asking only that you use the tools you were given to solve a problem those tools were made to fix. Those tools are now damaged, but you won't let that stop you from completing the one task they laid out for you.

Click to shrink...

My feels. Well, if MC was always a dragon then I am leaning more towards returning to being one soon for our main body. and then just collecting traits from other body types without transmigrating to them.

 

[mrttao]

Mu: the question is flawed. Monsters in an area that doesn't see predation will become stronger over time by fighting each other. In the early days of human history, before they truly ruled the world, monster populations tended to be weaker closer to civilization as stronger humans would wipe out stronger monsters. It doesn't take much for Floofballs to qualify for something stronger. The question you should be asking here is why there was nothing stronger than Floofballs around after you woke up. The jump in monster level is expected. The lack of stronger monsters is not.

Click to shrink...

fair enough, removed that line.

You were taught how to replace parts from a small stockpile of spares

Click to shrink...

Have we checked if the spare stockpile still there?


[x] Plan need answers 2
-[x] Upgrade adaptability to level 3. (costs 500 XP. 5562 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe regeneration with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5392 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe wings with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5222 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe flight with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 5052 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe venomous with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4882 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe undead with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4712 XP remaining)
-[x] Scribe bug with XP immediately. (cost 170XP (adaptability 3). 4542 XP remaining)
-[x] Upgrade wings to level 3 on soul. (costs 500 XP. 4042 XP remaining)
-[x] Upgrade flight to level 3 on soul. (costs 500 XP. 3542 XP remaining)
-[x] Try to locate the vandals from before, you owe them.
-[x] Do whatever limited repairs you can on the lab.
-[x] Explore further now that you have wings and flight.
-[x] Transmigrate to Dragon when enough mana is accumulated


Made some adjustments, mainly the addition of switching to dragon. It is the most powerful combat option, it is pretty majestic so it would be good for a cult (eventually). And it is our original race.