Congrats dex, you've made a bandwagon.
Which band will be playing in his wagon?
An obscure band that appeared in several presessions that came to be known as "The Illuminati".
DUCKAs a Beast of Hope, he will have to go into what many call the Beast's major downside "The Primal Instinct". Essentially destroying Duck's hesitance, his rationality and calmness to be replaced with being unhesitating, instinctuality and a primal rage. They go fully into their aspect and in Duck's case it is Hope, he will go completely into denial as Hope is denial.
Hope is the concept of rejection or denial as it conceptually denies things and is physically interpreted as pushing things away so the Strife of Hope boils down to SPITE. It increases in strength in retaliation to the adversity that it meets because then it gets to reject and defy situations. For that reason, many Hope abilities are weird, unintuitive and backward so the aspect is also notorious for having some of the most broken minor abilities while its major abilities have too many activation conditions to be useful. Hope really just wants to spite you.
It’s probably due to Hope interferences: the attraction field that confines dreamselves to their dream kingdoms until they do the Dream Quest [Earn Your Wings] does not work on Hope Players. Duck flew right off his moon before the game even starts. I guess it’s a useful perk.
The aspect symbol that glows on your body (it’s called an [Ideograil] if you care) is also bugged for Hope. It doesn't stay on the skin so for one reason or another, the glowing mark will brand your clothing. The symbol slips over whatever fabric you’re wearing and stays there even after the ability is done.
It's not a problem when the aspect symbol doesn't appear over any clothed body parts. For example the basic "crushing force" ability, [Here Comes The Arm], makes the symbol appear on your palm. No problem here. The ability to scan people’s Pluck Meter [When Your Eyes Shine Just Like Mine] makes it appear on the eyes so no problem there either.
Once you learn [Light Up The Night], you’re gonna want to cast it at the start of every boss battle. It makes Hope’s ideograil appear huge and wide on your back. You’re going to brand ALL of your shirts with the big dopey white wings on the back.
Hope players are going to be clean and pretty while while everybody else is roughed up and dirty. You can blame their whisperings The Strife for that: they make up a really minor rejection effect around them so specks of dust and dirt won’t stick to them. After a big event they’re going to look like perfect little angels while everybody looks shit.
Don’t get into any debate with Hope players. They win the argument, alright? They just win. Let them win, please.
Here are some abilities.
[Eject] is an inventory management ability so what it does is pretty simple. It auto-ejects something from your Sylladex.
This is the most broken low-level ability in the game. Period.
I didn’t understand at first why Duck filled his high-yield Sylladex to max capacity with washing machines in another timeline. I knew that some people weaponize their Sylladex but I never expected that a simple sylladex trick like [Eject] could be so... drastic. Did anybody do play testing for that ability? It didn't occur to anyone that ejecting large items on-demand is ridiculously broken? I don't think Duck ever hit a single Underling, he just threw washing machines everywhere as if it’s like he had a personal railgun for household appliances.
Why would you need any other fighting ability than being able to throw washing machines with a finger snap?
I had another timeline where Duck alchemized titanium dishwashers. I don't think ANY situation ought to call for fifty titanium-reinforced dishwashers, that's too much for my brain. I saw Duck pull some crazy stunt once with [Eject], he ejected his entire sylladex’s worth of knives all at once. Well he used a modified version of [Eject], a custom ability that he called Gate of Something but you get the idea.
[There Are No Heroes Left in Man] is a buff that is also a taunt. That’s right, it’s a taunt that you fire at your own team mates. It imbues them with the Strife of Hope and makes them want to prove you wrong. That’s just... backward and weird.
[Light Up The Night] gives an all-around stat bonus that is inversely proportional to how much you feel hopeful. The bigger you are in a "OH FUCK" situation, the stronger it will boost stats in retaliation so when things are calm, it barely does anything since you aren’t contradicting any situation. Duck needs a trigger finger on that ability: as soon as something big and horrible happen, he can get off a [Light Up The Night] with maxed out efficiency. It's pretty much a signal flare.
[The Will Of One] gives a moral boost inversely proportional to low moral so Hope Players always want to wait until the last second to cast it. During our big battle with the Black King, Duck is probably going to sit on it forever and only fire it off right before everyone dies
like the hesitant shit he is, meaning that your moral levels will jump up and down like crazy.
[Here Comes The Arm] causes the caster's arm to be super-strong because denying something by crushing it makes so much sense.
[When Your Eyes Shine Just Like Mine] lets the caster see boss, player or special monster pluck meters because they can't deny you the privilege of seeing how much power you have, you'll just deny them back or something.
[Dreams Don’t Die] is such a powerful rejection-based defensive ability that it even blocks friendly abilities from helping the target, that’s some pretty intense denial effect. Keep that in mind Duck before your own denial manages to hurt you it also keeps you from getting wet at all when walking in the rain so useful for certain Lands.
[Hope Rides Alone] is a passive ability that basically negates the Audience Effect from the roleplay system so it makes Hope Players count as if they aren’t alone even when they are stranded. They have "Hope" with them, [Hope Rides Alone] is both a blessing and a curse. It gives an increased range for both positive and negative roleplay effects and it also means that Hope Players are much, much better at soloing the game since they don't need to actively seek an Unbreakable Union to obtain greater roleplaying advantages.
[Either Way It's All Gonna Burn] isn't broken but requires the ability [Cut Me Down or Let Me Run] first. The first ability lets you store all the negativity and damage that you receive while the second one lets you reject all of it and return the favor in your next action. So yeah. Basically, you want to cast [Cut Me Down Or Let Me Run] first and and then you HOPE TO BE BEATEN UP in order to power up [Either Way It's All Gonna Burn]. It packs one hell of a punch when you do it right.
Also, because of a weird bug, [Either Way It's All Gonna Burn] always auto-cast when the Hope Player dies. That rejects… a whole lot of hurt. When Hope Players go down, they often leave a crater behind.
[Sepulchritude] is supposed to be cast but it rejects being used. It has a billion activation conditions and it's impossible to meet them,
ever. You might as well forget about it, it’s never gonna fire off.
Here are the denizens.
Pandora is too curious for her own good. The underlings she sends are often researchers instead of fighters but will defend the areas that you need to go to because "you would ruin the science at work here". These scientists underlings will report back to her and she will often berate you because "don't you hope that science makes everything better?" like a five year old.
Abraxas
is like /fringe/ and /x/ had a baby. This guy basically does rituals all the time and they either have a chance of Angel corruption or Horrorterror corruption. His underlings have wands and staffs, did I also mention they dress up in really fucking stupid robes. Apparently the color of the robes indicate strength but Duck in another timeline had no time to check because he was using [Eject] to throw washing machines and dish washers.
Eris is basically the edgiest person and
might even be edgier than Tim. She bitterly talks to you and says that you are "worthy" but she doesn't want to give up hurting the land. She sends psionic attacks onto random villages instead of underlings to cause chaos and strife. She constantly talks about how this land isn't worth being the owner of and how she is only having fun fucking it up.
