Alright, throwing a build together for Witch Awakening. This took a bit of doing.
Class: Sorcerer
True Form: Nymph/Hannya/Dravir (Beast, Water, Mind,)
World Shifts: Masquerade 1, True Names 2, Monsters 2, Bonk 1
Game Mode: Story Arc (Max Power 156)
Faction: Arcadia
Chimera for the synergies. Nymphs are ideal for hybridizing, they can give three affinities with their perk and they have massive mana reserves but trouble charging them, so adding another way to choose is a big boost for them.
Complications:
Restriction (Consortation) (160)
Hunted (168)
Black Swan (174)
Eye Catcher (178)
Witch Mark (182)
Fit Witch (186)
Defeated (192)
Betrayal (196)
Monster Bait (200)
All Natural (210) (Maxxed Possible Power)
Sorceresses have a better payoff over time than Academics, and I also like the perk a bit better even though by inclination I'm probably more of an academic. Being beholden to some other power doesn't appeal so Warlockry is right out. It's worth noting now, I'm building for over 50 power the reason for which will become apparent when I take quests. As far as complications, I prefer ones that are going to be a single issue and then done so defeated, betrayal, and all natural are good fits. Monster Bait is probably going to be no issue, I have a lot of firepower and 20 years to develop it before any serious attacks can happen. Fit Witch synergizes with the build I'm going for.
It's worth noting, you can take every single non-faction magic to level 5 for 285 power, assuming you have no affinities and no class. However, in practice, this is impossible because one-third of your magics must be at level 3 and one-third at level 4, so available spellcasting is going to max out at 172 power. This is ignoring faction magic and quest/racial magic like wishgranting, but also assumes no affinities and no class bonuses which makes the equation too variable to work with. Two-hundred and ten power is thus sufficient for all the spells you may want, pretty much all the perks you may want, and there will still be some left for artifacts and companions. RP from quests, which are tracked separately, should never be used for Power in this mode since they can't exceed the cap and will reduce overall results.
Perks:
Hannya Racial (4)
Nymph Racial (6)
Witchflame (6)
Elephant Trunk (10)
Hybridize (11)
Hybrizide (12)
Taking this slightly out of order to keep all perks together. It'd be nice to get the Dravir ability right off the bat but that's too pricey. As is, I want Hannya to hulk out in a fight, Elephant Trunk because I don't want to turn into a girl, Nymph Racial to get an extra affinity I really want, and Hybridize to snag extra benefits later.
The Magic
Waterworking 4 (0)
Psychotics 4 (0)
Alchemy 3 (4)
Runes 3 (8)
Witchery 3 (12)
Portals 3 (16)
Curses 3 (20)
Familiarity (Bear) 4 (22)
Windkeeping 2 (22)
Earthmoving 2 (22)
Naturalism 2 (22)
Lifeweaving 4 (28)
Waterworking and Psychotics are free for me thanks to the Sorcerer benefits. As I acquire more affinities, my free elemental magics can grow. Psychotics is critical for protecting my mind from all the hostile stuff out there, Waterworking synergizes nicely with being able to breath fire as a Dravir, I suspect relatively few enemies will be immune to both opposing elements and if I accidentally set something on fire I can easily put it out.
However, I can't be fighting all the time. Actually, I can't be fighting most of the time. Only building for combat with elemental firepower will leave me bored. My Water and Mind affinities let me get a nice discount on Alchemy and Runes so I have something to do during downtime. Portals is just plain handy, familiarity gets me some shapeshifting and boosts to power. My grizzly bear familiar grants increased strength and toughness.
Quests:
Folk:
Domesticated (3)
House Fire (5)
Street Racer (8)
Introductions (12)
Noble:
Vital Lotus (15)
Familiar Trouble (21)
Moonlit Serenade (27)
Heroic:
Tournament Arc (34)
So these are the adventures I'll go on before I reach the level 50 barrier during my time of domestic peace. Moonlit Serenade plugs directly into Domesticated for extra RP. Vital Lotus doesn't pay well, but does open up a useful kind of magic and grants a decent companion which pays for the difference. Domesticated is the single most valuable Folk quest possible because it promises 20 years of power growth before you need to do anything dangerous. Street Racer has the best payoff of 3RP though a couple others match it. Introductions pays off even more as long as it's applied only to Companions, which it's going to be.
So, Maths. Using a
Sigma calculator I've determined I can hit 50 power with 8,200 might. Assuming I practice 5 days a week, for 4 hours, and take 2 weeks a year off for a vacation, I'll gain around 500 points a year. Across the 20 years of peaceful life I get from Domesticated, I can thus expect to gain 10,000 might and will hit 54 total power. This means I get more perks and can take level 4 magics before SHTF and I have to handle any dangerous quests. Incidentally, I should end up hitting the 100 Power benchmark at around 82 years old. Hitting 210 power at this rate of gain will require around 450 years.
Relics
Cosmic Pearl (8) (power used)
Treasurer's Mint (6)
Sun Shard (8)
Hydron (10)
The Cosmic Pearl is being paid for with power, it being something I unlocked through meditating on my Dravir nature while drunk rather than an artifact early on. Treasurer's Mint because very useful for somebody with high power gain, Sun Shard for killing things, Hydron won't appear until later but quite nice for an alchemist.
Companions:
Alex K. Halls (0)
King Damien Kain (0)
Bethadonna Rosebaum (0)
Xiao Liena (0)
Melissa Vincimvitch (0)
Nova (0)
Megan Minosine (8)
Mandy Hunts (9) (paid with power))
Ester Reisha (16)
Ophelia Reisha (24)
This leaves 5 power banked.
Alex is free due to her low cost and type, and also a treasure. Jack of all trades. She's a regional/state champion at every non-magical skill. That's... insanely useful. Every weapon you can think of from a knife to a rocket launcher, she's champion level with. She can fly an airplane, operate a boat,
any vehicle at a champion racer/stunter level. Languages are skills so she can read, write, and speak every language that isn't magical. She can cook any meal, knows every martial art, can pilot any vehicle, can program any kind of computer, can operate every form of machinery, raise and care for every kind of animal, and navigate her way through any nation's bureaucracy.
Story to follow:
So, the story goes easily enough. Meet up with Penelope, only to get gate-crashed by King Damien Kain who's excited to finally find a male cousin, 27 times removed. Unfortunately, his making a grand flashy entrance while Penelope is performing the awakening botches it all and I wind up with brief amnesia. This is why, Penelope informs him tartly, she's supposed to handle awakenings herself.
Penelope winds up hiring Alex to watch for my awakening which takes several months, but eventually comes through in a painful accident. Kain winds up giving me a Sun Shard as an apology for the trouble. At this point, we also jointly save Mandy Hunts putting our initial group together. Needing an inordinate amount of alcohol to fuel my powers, we wind up starting a micro-brewery.
Fortunately, Alex is an expert at brewing, advertising, and managing micro-breweries. Unfortunately, Black Swan keeps triggering and giving us frequent monster attacks that keep the brewery from making a profit. However the brewery itself is a cover for Alex and my own burgeoning interest in alchemy, and we make enough selling cheap potions to barely scrape by, and the brewery cover helps preserve the masquerade as it doesn't seem suspicious at all that many people are coming and then leaving with bottles. Kain gives us advice on how to launder money, also fortunately Alex is an expert at creative accounting. In exchange I start regularly babysitting his kids for him.
Kain throws an introductory party once it's clear my magic is stabilized and tries to induct us into the Hespatian Coven on the spot. This causes a drunken brawl as other factions call foul. Alex and I wind up crawling out through the window to escape. This sadly triggers Mandy's unstable powers and she gets pulled into the shadow dimensions, but Ophelia Reisha, who is climbing out another window trying to avoid the brawl, saw her leave and we wind up following her to the shadow again. Well, at least we got one friend out of it. Ophelia soon introduces us to her sister and, as Hannya themselves, they're extremely interested in the Brewery business and wind up joining us.
Five years in, we get an invitation to the Hawthorne Tournament. Believing I'm much tougher than I really am after five years of a strict exercise regimen, I enroll and promptly get squashed because nobody with only five years of training is winning in that environment. Fortunately, Alex is an expert at gambling strategy, and also bet heavily against me so we wind up with a nice profit. Her strategy of managing to win by betting against her own team and using mathemagical equations to predict the outcomes of fights attracts the attention of Melissa Vincimvitch. Alex strikes up a friendship when she finds out we're using Alchemy to bolster the microbrewery business and we get an invitation to visit Arcadia and find a new market for magical booze there.
While at the Tournament, trying to heal my ego after being beaten soundly in under ten seconds, a familiar Corgi Inu leads me to the murdered corpse of Megan Minosine and I'm required to stop a huge magical beast from eating her. I'm up to at least this challenge given years of killing monsters, and beat it to death, after which I rescue Megan who'd been there running security for ORC.
The tournament ends weirdly when Nova declares a blood feud against me for wrecking her house's plan. As the house is run by Kain, he's obligated to destroy me. However, as Kain's cousin I'm also an honorary member of another house... also run by Kain... so he selects himself as my champion. The final duel of the tournament displays just how far I really have to go as two clones of Kain go full-nuclear-war on each other destroying the ring, a wide surrounding area, half the audience who didn't get shields up in time, and ultimately one of the Kains though nobody's quite able to prove which side won in the end and have to take Kain's word for it. Nova expresses suspicion that Kain threw the fight against Kain because good babysitters are hard to find.
With Alex's winnings, we're able to finally afford to buy a Hydron and kickstart a more profitable phase of activity. As it turns out, Alex always had an interest in racing and now that the brewery is doing more than barely scraping by, she can afford to build a real racecar and engage in street racing. Improbably, her search for the perfect fuel reveals that her car runs well on my used bathwater which I find deeply suspicious. Investigating this leads us to discover I have Nymph heritage along with the Hannya and Dravir. This leads to an alchemical project where we collaborate to find the best way to make enhanced bathwater, which turns out to be brewing bathtub Gin and using it as an actual bath, thus combining the best aspects of magical liquor and magical bathwater into our secret super fuel. Already equipped with champion racing skills, Alex competes for several years and winds up eventually a national champion street racer.
Soon after I first breach the 50-point barrier, we wind up encountering Xiao Liena, searching for the Flower of Life. Ashley Lovenko and Hannah Grangely are on vacation from Hawthorne and wind up joining us in the hunt as Grangely's extremely interested in new magic... and Ashley's bored. A confrontation with six Necromancers goes really poorly... for the necromancers. Zombies turn out to be no match for a magically enhanced Grizzly Bear and Megan throwing explosions whenever they try to form an army, while their attempts to burn the field are thwarted by the rank 4 water magic. Ultimately the prize is ours.
Disaster strikes just a year later when a Witch Hunter who's been stalking me for some time attacks. And this guy? He's complete BS. It is not normal for a non-witch human to win a bare-knuckle fight with a grizzly bear in under five seconds without taking a scratch. I wind up kool-ade manning him through the wall but take enough stab wounds in the process to bleed out, after which he decapitates my corpse to make sure they don't have an intact body to resurrect me.
In a turn of luck, he wasn't aware of my Dravir ancestry and doesn't think to crush the dragon egg inside. Mandy Hunts vivisects my body to get it out while the Reisha sisters hit him with fire... and then more fire... and then all the fire trying to hold him off a few more seconds. It barely works and Alex using her regional champion skills at throwing knives to hit him with the entire kitchen's worth of cutlery buys less than a second, but it's enough time to open a portal to the garage.
At this point Black Swan actually pays off and we get a lucky break. Nova, still angry over our saving Megan, and bolstered by angry Necromancers, shows up to exact her revenge. While she hadn't expected to move so soon, seeing all the fireballs being thrown around excites her and she detonates things prematurely, vaporizing the entire Microbrewery with the Witch Hunter still inside. Alex's race car is, improbably, fast enough to outrun the fireball.
In the aftermath Megan smooths things over with ORC while Kain handles Nova. He's bitterly disappointed since we'd just put in a playground and he was expecting a whole week of babysitting upcoming. Also Nova disobeyed him as head of house, but mostly the playground getting wrecked. He winds up punishing her with a slave brand and making her obey me for 100 years turning her into another companion.
With the brewery gone and our income stream ruined, we wind up making our way to Arcadia to rebuild in a safer zone, knowing we have only a couple of weeks before the Witch Hunter revives. Hopefully Melissa can shed some light on how to kill him in a more permanent fashion...
