LoTC's Next Top Model

youll be back in like three months [REDACTED] lol also yeah keep me out i’m not bitter hahahaha

This is just like thirty new abilities with no real thematic link for the explicit purpose of making ascended way stronger. There’s no universal identity here. It’s all just “Okay Ascended can do ice stuff now, and also pull some anime enhancer moves out, also they can turn into ghosts and touch ghosts, oh also they can do bard things to regenerate all of their mana, making them effectively able to cast infinately, also they can do bard things to buff themselves and other” Why? This just seems like an excuse to go ‘Our magic is ran by a god so it can do literally anything’!

popped a bonner innit, blud ran down the tackies, no lorry ta pick me up gobsmacked in Britannia, shoulda stayed a gypsy fer the community left alone now, me mum ain’t called pour un out fer me, love

when zarsies originally made the update with pacting and boons and everything, originally the five pactlords were dragons. eventually he decided to remove that, after me and some others had problems with the “it’s dragons at the top of the food chain even for warlocks for some reason” thing, and he retro-actively re-added that here. the zar’rokul are the things you make pacts to, and they’re now all un-retconned to be dragons again.

whys it always gotta be “dragons did it”

we’ve already has spaceships, the internet, and teleporters but guns are too far lol idiot have you ever even heard of techlock phil lol you goddamn moron hahahah fr tho you have a habit of not really teaching things outside of your immediate circle, and when you’re trying to add something as broad as “firearms”, i see no point when only the magic-and-construct-and-ca stacking squad of regulars will likely be the only benefactors. the lore is good and all, but if it gets accepted it should be broadly available, instead of “you need an ma to do this even though literally anyone could if they just followed an ikea manual”, which would make it extremely limited and by extension irrelevant, and by farther extension shouldn’t be added given the lore team’s current “everything inactive gets axed” approach.

yeah well now we have both well only vampires now but still

can you stop breathing

Hate to say it Zarsies, but I don't really like this at all. This is three or four completely unrelated ideas stapled together under the new concept of "but evil dragons tho". None of the new abilities added relate to each other or Naztherak in any meaningful way. Hell, the original draft of Naztherak was denied for having a weird enchantment/forging component, which is why malices were added in the first place. 'The divines' destroyed the dragons every time they attempted to invade, which I'm assuming to mean the gods themselves did, and the term 'Swatted them away' being used to describe it makes me think it was ridiculously easy for them. If it was so easy, how does this communion not get the Naztherak in question immediately and unquestionably destroyed in their entirety? Surely these divines would be able to feel a connection to the plane of all evil in which they originally banished these dragons from being opened, or their presence in the form of familiars being around. If they can't be innately felt, what's keeping these ultra-demons from invading again, and trying to be sneaky about it? Surely, these corrupted high powered former dragons would be able to form some kind of plan that doesn't immediately completely reveal themselves to the public. And I know the answer to all of these questions. It's because, 'You can't have massive super-powered dragons around ******* **** up, that'd be overpowered and disruptive!'. And, of course, you cannot actually have dragons floating about and ******* **** up, but I'd like some actual substantive reason as to why they literally cannot enter the so-called material plane, but they can send re-reinforcements and icons of themselves but still be totally fine. I noticed this as I was writing, but one of these demons is Setherien. Setherein. This means one of two things. He was corrupted in the last century and a half or so ic, and was immediatly the same power level as all the other demons. Or, this means Setherien was always one of these things since being corrupted, and was therefore able to successfully invade and **** up an entire world, as the many demon-dragons apparently are entirely unable to do. It is, assumedly, the former, given his new name, but still. Another poster said you shouldn't have used named dragons for this, and I agree. Gladuos said you shouldn't add in dragons for literally no reason other than that they're cool even if it bloats the **** out of the lore, makes it confusing, and makes it less connected to the original lore this is supposed to be adding to, and I also agree to that. Dragons being here adds a lot of problems, both this problem and the ones I listed above. Now, to better refine my former point. Three of the four additions seem pointless and tacked on, or a product of 'Hey wouldn't this be cool' or 'Demons in folklore have these powers so lets give them to Naztherak too!', those being boons/curses and familiars, and by extension pact malices. Firstly, boons and curses. The process to give one of these to someone is simply too easy, in my opinion. It just takes tattoo'ing someone. While tattoos do play some significance in Naztherak already, I just feel like there should be something more required. Some extra fluid added to the blood for each tattoo or something, I don't really have any concrete ideas, but I know it just doesn't sit right with me. Secondly, there is literally nothing stopping anyone from just getting a shitload of tattoos up their back to get the benefits of every single boon at once, and that simply feels abusable. Thirdly, I dislike that these are one-and-done fire-and-forget kinds of affairs. I feel like they should have to be maintained somehow, even if it's through a minor token gesture, like needing to find the person at least once a week to clap some maleus into 'em. Something to keep them actually being /something/. Fourthly, all of the boons are kinda insignificant and weak to the point of not really being worth going out of your way for. Other than that, they're all just so /bland/. "I can read faster!" "I'm slightly warm!" "I have... Household magic but only for torches!". Curses, on the other hand, I actually quite like, though that might be because I find them really, really funny. Cursing someone with being unable to read and being a smoke magnet is so petty in power level yet also forces them to play their character differently. It's inherently amusing, and I think they're actually quite good. Fifth, while I do hate holy magic being a be-all end-all that completely and utterly invalidates all spook magics... Why doesn't it work here? Holy magic is one of the few reliable ways to put out Malflame, so it's not like there's no precedence for it within the magic. Relating to the former point, if this magic is immune to holy magic, then it shows the demon-dragons have powers the divines can't **** with, and makes them seem even more pathetic in being unable to actually invade. I'm going to assume that this is just an oversight. My final point regarding boons and curses, moreso a question. One of the boons/curses is based around pactlord animals, can you only perform the boon/curse of your own pactlord, or can you make all five pactlord boons/curses? And, an extension of this question, why can non-pact Naztherak /not/ do this? It's described as merely being a tattoo of maleus, which literally /anyone/ could do. And I do mean anyone, if Phil Nomagics finds a canister of Maleus in the middle of the woods and decides, out of the blue, to draw a fancy sketch on his arm with it, and that sketch happens to correlate exactly with the sigil to not be hurt from malflame, his arm would be completely fine when whoever owns that canister finds him and tries to light him up. It is /just/ writing something in the infernal tongue, nothing more, which is literally the basis of the entirety of the magic. /Why/ do you need to have a pact for this? If someone who /is/ a Pactherak tells you exactly how to do it, why wouldn't it work? I'm assuming the answer is 'Because you don't have an MA for it!', which isn't a satisfying answer for a lore related question. Remember, Naztherak doesn't corrupt you inherently. Naztherak is just knowing how to use specific materials, and there's no reason anyone couldn't do it. It doesn't affect your soul at all, unless you decide to become a demi-demon, or if this passes decide to sell part of it to a demon. Actually, this brings me to a /new/ question. Within Naztherak, malflame damages the soul, though it's not explicitly permanant. If you fix it up real quick, your soul heals and it's like nothing ever happened. I'm assuming becoming a Pactherak has a similar situation, though admittedly I know little of soul lore, and noone else knows anything about soul lore, because it's very very strange and split across like ten lores, like i'm trying to find out the history of a dark souls character. That aside, is this a permanent chomp that never heals, or a permanent connection that constantly saps some of your soul away, as fast as it's regenerated? Next, I'll cover the malices. One of these I think is really good, four I think are really bad. Firstly, Gluttony. This one is just really good, I don't think it needs any changing at all. I really like it. Not much else more to say. Secondly, Dread. This one causes people to either fight randomly or run away randomly. Let me introduce you to an old friend, an already existing malice, Rage. Rage does almost exactly the same thing... Just better. This is a direct downgrade to an existing malice that doesn't require an extra slot to use. Third, Venom. This one's... Alright. The power level is about right, it's almost unique. The problem comes with... Forth, Pestilence. Also known as 'Better Venom'. This one's power level is ******* ridiculous. It causes extreme damage, on contact, immediately. People were mad at me for using ******* immolations, because you can't dodge them. Pestilence makes it so that if you don't dodge you immediately take permanent damage that cannot be easily healed. "Immediate Necrosis". This cannot be healed. All of the cells in your arm are instantly dead if this hits it. That is so ridiculously ******* absurd I need to continue dwelling on it. You can make a three emote fireball with necrosis, and if you hit someone in the head, their brain will be almost immediately melted. This only takes one emote more than the emote I did that got immolations removed, for an undeniably stronger ability. That's nuts, and the fact the person I hit with that particular emote is supporting this blows my mind, and makes me think most other people here wern't exactly looking at this as critically as I am. Beyond all that stuff about it's power level, it is just a direct upgrade to venom. Both cause vague 'Illness', though this one is directly better. Each of them do the same job, though venom does it far worse. That's just bad writing. Finally, calamity. This one's power level is just way too low. It only really helps in roll-based combat, something most people try desperately to avoid, and beyond that is likely to just be forgotten about a few hours after it happens if people do roll after being hit by it. Introducing something not related directly to mechanics would be a better replacement. Next, familiars. Why do these need to exist? Why complicate maleus even farther by making five additional types of it? Why add something directly worse than what already exists in lore? This, more than anything, comes across as "i wanted an evil cat so i made evil cat lore". Either they act like normal animals and therefore don't really have a point, or they act like not normal animals and therefore go against the point they were supposed to have, covertness. Also, how does the telepathy work? It has to be within eyesight, sure, but by what magic does this communication happen? Can it be disabled? Does glass block this eyesight, or can they still look through it and give commands? If glass works, and it's not matter being placed in the way that blocks the communication, then why can't you do it through a brick wall? If you close your eyes, like someone being tormented probably would, does the telepathy end because you no longer have eyesight on them? What if you don't have eyes? There's that one seer lore that lets you see through a blindfold, would a theorhetical seertherak be able to communicate with them telepathically even though a blindfold is over their eyes? Is it based on vision, or direct eye-to-eye contact? Would a blind person be able to communicate with them? If the familiar makes eye contact with someone else, why can't it communicate telepathically with them? Is it because it has some kind of connection to your soul? My point with all of these questions is that it kinda doesn't make sense that it needs to be within eyesight. It would make better flavour, and be a better tormenter, if that wasn't the case. I do understand, however, that this is to keep people from metagaming and seeing **** outside their view... But what's stopping someone from ordering the cat to go look at something around a corner, see what's up, and come back and tell the Pactherak what's going on? Literally nothing, though that would be a fun way to rp info gathering, admittedly. Here's a scenario I imagine when I think of a hostile relationship with a demon tormenter you have a mental link with: You have this evil cat guy, he's pretty rude. You decide to melt him down to demon essence in order to cast some super sick new malice spells. He burns in agony, eventually dying. He takes a week to resurrect, and for the entire duration of his reformation in hell, you cannot sleep. You are kept awake. This pissed off cat demon with a mental link to you torments you endlessly, every waking hour, screaming, insulting, describing horrid acts in the hellscape he dwells within. When he comes back, you're so shaken and tired of it, your will weakened, you listen to whatever it says, just to be able to sleep again. You never burn it again. You are a puppet of it, and by extension, your dragon god. This makes sense. Being tormented by something that literally cannot talk to you if you don't open your eyes? The familiar, much like the dragon demons above them, comes across as entirely pathetic and ineffectual once you actually look at their abilities. The familiar moreso, however, as it was nearly purposely designed to be repeatedly culled with no ill effects, which reduces them to a timer and not much else. For all these reasons, familiars come across to me as being entirely pointless and just there for fluff. That's not inherently bad, but fluff should be robust, at the very least. And finally, forging. I actually like this. I still don't understand the requirement of a magic slot for all of this, considering it gives less and weaker stuff than full naztherak does, especially considering this is all done using exactly the same methods as the base magic. Regardless, I like this. It adds something new, and it adds something more or less required. Also this filthy plagiarist Zarsies used all the language stuff I wrote without crediting me like a rude little white boy. Anyways, that's the problems I have with this. Overall, the lore doesn't really add much of substance, in my opinion. Everything here has potential but none of it is explored beyond surface level, especially the familiars. 2,360 words bois