They couldn’t stop their own death because their human body just couldn’t deal with the energy. And they also couldn’t change their body to somnething else because that way the soul automatically would have left the body as the deal seems to be that the soul needs a human vessel. It’s not primary because they couldn’t use the Essence.
Now we have a situation which is different from other Bearer’s. The MC is a demigod, still a human body but also powered by the source of their godly parent, something could even have a protective nature against the destructive energy of the Essence. The MC also did practice the Essence since a young age, they already know how it is to use it.
Even when the Bearer may doesn’t know how to use it, them being just unable to do so seems contradicting to the whole Bearer/Bestower system for the Essence. Cronus did create them. Do you really want to tell me that Cronus didn’t wanted also a possebility to use the Essence through it’s vessel?
I wouldn’t say that the specific assumption that MC will be able to use the Essence is so odd. They have different circumstances as every Bearer before them, that’s the point of making them a demigod.
I think that their gamble also is strongly influenced by the fact that in the end the Essence anyway will be on Cronus side. By influencimg them while they still are on the side of the gods they hope to also influence how them working together with Cronus will work out. The alternative is to anyway have the Essence on Cronus side.
I guess the god’s on MC’s side are also not sure if killing the Bearer would prevent the prophecy from happening, otherwise they wouldn’t have much ground to argue for giving them a chance. It’s not about having a better weapon alone, it’s about preventing them to end up on the other side of the war.
Then you normally should die. The Essence is your soul. You only could try to reject the power that comes through it, but I wonder how that would work without also rejecting the soul part of it.
Barely have the vaguest inkling of how to begin to use it would be more apt, Like I said my mage mc apparently knows a grand total of two applications for his “essence” powers by now, a rather weak shield and a way to blow open doors/locks. Somewhat useful in hard-knuckle survival situations like the ones we found ourselves in while being chased down by packs of psychotic killers, next to useless on a real battlefield or for winning a war.
From Cronus’ pov it would be best if the Bearer and Bestower themselves couldn’t use the essence powers due to their vessels (nature) but he or the other Titans could.
Without omniscience or at least greatly expanded knowledge to go with it upon reaching that 18th birthday it seems likely that it would take the Bearer millennia to figure it out with his/her puny human brain, if they ever do and changing ourselves to something with a more able brain is apparently out of the question.
We already have the part that forms our soul, I mean to try and reject the additional power that Aeson is apparently going to transfer to us upon our birthday, maybe by envisioning a white hole just beyond the (visible) edge of the universe and trying to channel most of the essence there instead of into our demigod form.
Of course the amateur scientist in me says that such a thing is likely to fail in the absence of a complete understanding of the theory of everything or omniscience on my character’s path, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try.
From his pov the essence has ruined his life enough as it is.
Of course my mc absolutely loathes the demigod part of himself, knowing where it comes from and who it’s connected to.
It’s a beginning and more as the person in our first flashback could do. The point was the difference to other Bearer’s not how good we already are with a - by now - still limited grasp on the powers.
But in that case why even the Bestower? If the Bearer anyway couldn’t use the Essence why care for a fail-safe like the Bestower? (Also the other titans are already dead). Maybe there is an artefact that makes it possible for Cronus to control the Essence, but the Bestower’s existence alone shows that Cronus had enough reason to fear for the Bearer to become powerful, even with their limited lifetime.
Aeson seems pretty apt already in using the Essence though. And he didn’t had a millennia. And MC’s first use of the Essence was triggered through instinct. They may don’t need to understand it to use it.
Also, at least mage MC should understand it? The use of the Essence is seemingly similar enough to normal magic (what is no wonder as it only is a energy source, no specific device or anything) that MC did learn to use it through general knowledge about magic.
Aeson had years of actual self-training and practice that we didn’t and to be fair the things Aeson does/has done or tries to do with it are probably nowhere near in the same league as altering laws of physics that humanity barely understands would be.
I was under the impression that the essence is the thing that mage mc and Aeson already use for their “magical” abilities. Though in the case of “mage” mc those abilities are practically non-existent at the moment as the only things the can consciously do with it are generating that weak shield and blowing open a door, not exactly the stuff of legends.
The occasions where the mc suddenly does more spectacular things with it are done both unconsciously and involuntarily making them worse than useless when it comes to the trials and beyond as no viable strategy can be build around them since they are by definition unreliable.
I think we are talking past each over somehow…I just argued that it seems unlikely that MC will not have the potential to use all of the Essence once they get 18…And I honestly thought that much if the limits that MC had by now are lacking training and that they still don’t access the full of the Essence power, which will be much more as they can use by now. So we pretty much are saying the same??
I also wonder if the story will even cover the time of MC’s 18th birthday - considering only the 2016 part of the July 20th thing is a typo - because it would be a little bit less than a year for the game to span in that case and that seems a little bit long? Or it will be very late into the game, maybe even only during the endings…
Partially maybe, what I’m thinking is that our human or demigod brains make having all that power pretty much useless since they’ll never be up to the task of figuring out a way to undo what Cronus did or allow us the understanding we need to alter the laws of physics in ways that please us (warp drive!) or to use them to subvert what Cronus did even if we cannot directly reverse it.
In effect the essence will be nothing more than a curse for the mc because we can forget about doing anything useful or fun with it.
I’m half convinced that even if the mc were to try something far less grand than altering the laws of physics in his favour with it, like say trying to create money with it in order to live independently away from Olympus it would saddle us with stacks of comically worthless three dollar or euro bills or something.
Well that has not much to do with being able to use the Essence or not but with it’s limits.
The Essence also can have enhancing effects on the body, given that said body can withstand that much energy first. Maybe that’s a way to bypass at least that limit?
If this were a game made by someone as pessimistic as you and me probably. But Rohie has said there will be good endings with ua as happy masters and mistress of universe. How it could be possible I have no idea either!! But would be awesome reading it. Though I hope a suicide ending looking to gods and say i prefer die to helping so Failures like all of you Vultures are!! So say goodbye to your little glittering shield pet. and them Viagra pill to the head.
Hey there, I’ve been following this WIP for a while now and have to say it has become easily my favourite on the forum…together with Team Zero.
But there’s one thing I wanted to ask: Is our MC considered really good-looking or is he considered to be kind of average? Cause I have this picture in my mind where these super handsome but polar opposite devils (Aeson and MC) have this kind of love-hate relationship going on but in the end they work together and overthrow the Gods together. And since Aeson is described as totally handsome my MC has to look the part too right? I mean he has to be a good competition for Aeson.
You can largely decide the appearance of the mc for yourself, however for me personally no matter what you choose there, even if it’s the classical ideal of male beauty the mc will always be inferior to Aeson in physical (demigod) appearance who is apparently so cute he brings his own glitter and sprakles wherever he goes.
Which is the main reason why my mc loathes his “new” demigod body as it really rubs it in there that Aeson is “daddy’s” favourite, making the mc the clear unfavourite and his body is a constant reminder of that.
If you have ALLURE you are ultra sexy model if not you are average.
Allure is sex appeal and charisma
Wit is cunning and intelligence
Strength is well combat and resilience
For me allure is more charisma, not physical appearance. Ghandi and Martin Luther King were both not the most handsome of men but they were incredibly charismatic.
Aphrodite text and Others reactiong is clearly PHYSICAL how Beautiful you are! I am really envious and comparing us with NARCISSO . Includes sex appeal. Daddy Viagra also said something about how great looking his children are or something really too full of himself
Hmm…okay maybe allure does include a measure of physical appeal, in which case it’s unfortunate that we cannot have both intelligence and appearance, like Aeson, yet another thing that makes the mc inferior there.
Or it could have been empty flattery on Aphrodite’s part when she likes you because of your high charisma/allure which she would never do to mc’s she likes less, because they are less charismatic.
Yet, Aeson being a child of Hades looks better than the everyone else.
No because everyone talks about my looking and no with other stats. Also you could have nearly balance intelligence with Allure. I have 62 Allure 50 wit.
Also in classic dungeons and dragons charisma is both good looking and speechcraft. and in many rpg and if. So it has sense.
Edit Aeson main stat is Glittering allure Second is City Shielding
Well in that case she likes pretty and dumb MC better as a smart one…considering her snide reaction when talking to smart and high-allure MC…And even a not so good looking MC is at least “slightly above average” (her words, not mine…). So even the ones with no allure can live with the knowledge that they aren’t the most ugly duckling.
Making them immortal and counteracting that seems relatively easy for the gods. If the bearer with the full essence is supposed to be so much stronger than the gods, it seems a little odd they couldn’t make themself immortal. I suppose it could be another limitation Cronus have put in place, but it seems easier to me to assume that the bearers simply never figure out how to do it.
I never meant to suggest that the bearer won’t be powerful when they reach 18, only that they won’t be all powerful. I’m sure the bearer will be a force to be reckoned with, I’m just doubting that the bearer will be able to use the full extents of their power without extensive training.
Let’s say you’ve never held a gun before and someone handed you an assault rifle. You now hold a weapon of great destructive power. You could certainly do some damage by pointing it in a direction, holding it steady and pulling the trigger, but you’d require a lot of training to be able to use it effectively to do what you want.
To continue my analogy: Imagine instead that from a young age you have been training with handguns and become fairly proficient with them. When you are now handed the rifle, this will surely make it easier for you to use it, but it’s still a vastly more powerful weapon with stronger recoil that will be harder to aim accurately.
My point is that the essence is a source of great power, and while just unleashing it in great blasts probably won’t be very difficult, carefully directing it in constructive ways might be much more so. Making a nuclear detonation is (relatively) simple: just slam two pieces of fissionable material together and let exponential energy generation run its course. Using a nuclear reactor to generate power, however, require much more carefully constructed systems to ensure that a consistent, stable process takes place where at no point is there too much or too little fission taking place.
Because they never before were in a situation similar to the one MC is, that’s it. As far as we know none of the other Bearer’s did know so early in their life that they are the Essence, if they ever knew about it. I also wouldn’t try to make myself immortal if I hadn’t any idea, that I could do it or that otherwise my lifespan would be largely limited.
MC’s situation is different that’s the whole point of their story.
And i just really doubt that they really will need millennias to learn using their powers. Especially when they will train them already to a huge extent during the upcoming war and the trials. Swim or Sink. And in this case swimming means: Learn to use your power!
Also who says they didn’t figure out in one of their other lifes? Some of the Bearer’s did live past their 19th birthday. Maybe in that case they only died because the Bestower got killed? Eventually from the gods themselve? We already got told that MC will have different means to extend their lifespan, so maybe other Bearer’s did discover them too?
I at least would interpret that as immortality granted by the gods is not the only way to stay alive.
That is a fair point. We certainly are in an unprecedented position. To be honest, my initial argument was directed more towards the whole “when we turn 18, nothing is gonna be relevant anymore” notion I was seeing thrown around, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration. I personally don’t belive the moment the MC turns 18 they will be able to take on all the gods and do whatever they want immediately, but that’s not to say they won’t be at that level towards the end of the game. I might have been a bit too assertive in my opinions, but I strongly doubt that the MC is going to become near omnipotent overnight.
That certainly is an interesting point. If I recall correctly, the gods told us that if we don’t win the trial, they’ll kill us. So that would only leave two options: Immortality from the gods or death. Based on Rohie’s statement there, that might suggest that something will happen upon the conclusion of the trials, or possibly interrupting them, to render the result somewhat moot.
). So even the ones with no allure can live with the knowledge that they aren’t the most ugly duckling.