u/TheCrimsonFire121

I've been mulling over this kind of character for a while, I've always thought that if used correctly the "Death" essence could be a force for good.

In the same vein as Jason being a "Ninja Warlock" I imagine this character to be a sort of "Mystical Monk" type, with the Bo-staff and robes and spells, but with the "power of life and death against the undead" kinda vibe.

This build is iron rank, and I fully realized that some of it is probably a bit overpowered so I'm open to constructive criticism.

Let's call the character "John" to keep it simple.

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The inspiration for the character was a combination of factors, but the main one was the line "Life to the living, death to the dead" which is the core oath of the spirit-hunters Red and Antea in the video game "Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden" which is a fantastic game btw.

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Life, Death, Balance and Eclipse.

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Outworlder racial abilities:

1. Cosmic Wanderer(Language ability. Skillbook, essence, awakening stone absorption).

2. Healing Touch(Life affinity, Spend mana to impart healing magic through touch).

3. Tools of the Magister.

4. System Interface.

5. Quest system(becomes "Finality of Death" because of "Reaper Token")(Ghost Fire affinity, Ghost fire ignores resistance and can be applied through healing effects/abilities).

6. Astral affinity.

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Life:

Life bolt (no cooldown, low mana)("Imbue with Life")(Delivers life energy though a projectile, giving a small burst of instantaneous healing. Damages certain targets that are inimical to life force, such as most forms of undead).

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Grand Renewal (Ritual, cost extreme mana, Cooldown: 1 hour)(Conduct a powerful healing ritual that cleanses all non-wound afflictions. This ability takes the place of the ritual’s material components).

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Eyes of Opportunity (perception, perceive auras)

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Revitalize (aura, passive healing energy spread throughout and can be targeted onto specific entities to concentrate the healing energy, highly effective against undead(blows up undead at silver rank, book 5))

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Cornucopia (Boon, bestow very strong mana and stamina recovery effects on all nearby allies, with a moderate duration)(cooldown 1 hour, cost is low mana)

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Death:

Ghost fire (special attack/ability)(All "attacks" inflict Ghost fire damage as well as an instance of the "Burning Ghost Fire" affliction. Ghost fire cannot hurt living things and only hurt undead and incorporeal entities. The affliction falls off after a short time if not sustained).

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Reap the Harvest (looting and storage ability).(Awakening stone of the Reaper w/ Reaper Token)

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Defender of the Mausoleum (skeleton familiar, name: Wolnir)(when not subsumed into the summoner's skeleton, is a "skeleton" astral construct with high strength and durability(is "massively resistant" to normal rank damage and effects and is "resistant" to iron rank damage and effects) can use any of the summoner's abilities(aside from racial abilities, spells and anything requiring speech or biology) and has a single special attack of its own "Power attack" see stats below.

("Power attack" special attack, cost low stamina, 5 second cooldown, do a single melee attack of "resonating-force" damage. Damage scales with level strength, momentum and weight of the "weapon"(unarmed works too)).

The skeleton has health and high mana, but no stamina, uses mana as a substitute for stamina).

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When subsumed into the summoner's skeleton, summoner gains the increased strength, mana and special attack(s) as well as an increased mass/weight(heavy bones). Their skeleton gains the damage resistance(damage resistance does not apply universally, it is exclusively to their skeleton/bones).

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Brand of the Divine Flame of Death (curse/brand, spell)(Periodically applies an additional instance of "Burning Ghost Fire" and refreshes existing instances. This is a holy curse/brand effect, can be cleansed by normal curse cleanse effects, unless afflicted target is undead then it cannot be cleansed while any instances of "Burning Ghost Fire" remain.)(Moderate mana, no cooldown)("Burn with the flame of Death")

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Death's Finality(execute)(deals a small amount of "Transcendent" damage)(damage scales with the number of instances of "burning ghost fire" consuming/converting all instances into transcendent damage)(moderate mana, cooldown 30 seconds)("Embrace the finality of death").

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Awakened abilities 2-5 all at once while at the church of death due to concerns about what the death essence could awaken, abilities are focused on "the finality of death" and are mainly anti-undead due to the "Reaper Token" that John had on him as a necklace when he woke up.

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Balance:

Cleansing Burn("life to the living, death to the dead")(If target is a living thing, all instances of "Burning Ghost Fire" becomes "Cleansing Ghost Fire" and consumes each curse, disease, poison and unholy affliction the target is suffering from, including "Brand of the Divine Flame of Death," on a 1-to-1 basis with the "Cleansing Ghost Fire" instances and leaves a shortlived minor healing effect in its place for each instance cleansed.

If target is undead or incorporeal, converts/consumes all instances of "Burning Ghost Fire" and any of the other listed "afflictions" above, into a burst Ghost Fire damage.)

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Blood Magic(consume your own life force for mana).

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Astral Dash(Special ability (dimension, movement)(Cost: Low stamina and mana. Cooldown: 20 seconds. Move nearly instantaneously to a nearby location in a magical dash(momentum can be carried). (Edit: this ability replaced "Mana Tide").

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Moment of Oneness (special ability)(Cost: Extreme mana-per-second, Cooldown: 2 minutes)(Become immune to all damage and afflictions for 1 second. The next melee attack within four seconds inflicts all damage and afflictions on the struck enemy. If no enemies are attacked, the damage and conditions are suffered retroactively).

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Enforced Bedrest (Special attack)(Cost, extreme mana. Cooldown, 24 hours)(Do a large burst of necrotic damage immediately followed by an overwhelming burst of magical healing, causing the target to pass out from "Healing Exhaustion")("Healing Exhaustion" effect, causes target to go unconscious while their magical matrix safely distributes excess Healing Energy)(cannot raise the dead).

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Eclipse:

The Staff of Duality (conjured bo-staff/roots and ivory)(Functions like a magic staff)(By itself is simply a bo-staff, however all special attacks/abilities and spells channeled through the staff have twice the effect).

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Robes of the Mystic Moon(conjured robes)(gives resistance to normal and iron rank damage)(Has three modes, "Normal", "Mystic" and "Grounded" expend low on-going mana to activate modes other than "Normal")("Mystic" mode has reduced gravity(slow fall) and gains increased resistance to magical attacks, but loses resistance to physical attacks)("Grounded" mode has increased gravity(heavy/resistance to effects that move the target against their will), and gains increased resistance to physical attacks, but loses resistance to magical attacks)(White, Grey and purple robes, loose loops of fabric hang around chest/arms/legs connected at various points, in Mystic mode fabric becomes looser and flows, in grounded mode fabric tightens to the wearer).

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Fist of the Eclipse (special ability)(Unarmed attacks do not trigger retaliation effects. Negate any non-damage effects from actively intercepted attacks and suffer no damage from making unarmed strikes against objects and negate all damage from actively intercepted attacks. Not all damage from very powerful attacks and effects will be negated).

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Karmic Warrior (Gain an instance of [Agent of Karma] when subjected to damage or any harmful effect, even if the damage and/or effect was wholly negated)([Agent of Karma] (boon, holy): Bonus to the [Power] and [Spirit] attributes. Additional instances have a cumulative effect, up to a maximum threshold).

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Avatar of the Eclipse (Spell, self-boon, extreme mana cost, cooldown 5 hours, lasts 1 minute)(Increases strength of Aura, Recovery attribute, healing abilities and Ghost Fire damage (does not work retroactively) and engulf yourself in on-going "Burning Ghost Fire" for the duration of the spell, any physical attacks made against you give the attacker an instance of "Burning Ghost Fire" which cannot be resisted)("Light and Dark, Death and Life, behold the Avatar of the Eclipse").

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I would love feedback and constructive criticism, as well as how you would write the abilities and what changes you would make, if you're so inclined.

It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time into the series my first listen through to realize her name was "Dawn" and not "Dorn"

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Anyone else mishear parts of the book for a long time, or just me?

I always get emotional in book 4 when Ken finds out Jason is alive and how he is throughout the book, he's the dad I wish mine was...

(I've listened to the whole series a few times)

In book 3, chapter 56: faith and glory, the builder says that purity's goal is essentially; let the builder cause mass damage and casualties by taking the astral spaces and then do a purge of it's own and make the world "pure."

But later in the series, book 8 I think, it's revealed that "Purity" has been "Disguise" this whole time and he's the one who had a deal with the builder.

So either; The builder was lying/wrong about purity's intentions, or Disguise lied to the builder about what it's end goal was.

So my confusion, is what does Disguise get out of letting the builder cause all this damage? I guess just a general level of damage and chaos to the world? Why form a deal with the builder?

Unless the original purity is the one who made the deal, in which case I really have no idea.

I've been "work-shopping" a bunch of ideas and ways I can put together a functional ttrpg for the essence system, but I was curious if anyone else was already ahead of me or had any specific suggestions.

Friend group composition:

Everyone in the group is in their 20s to 30s.

Mostly guys, but a couple girls too.

The issue:

This main group of friends have been together since about 2020, some of us have been friends longer as usual.

Over the last couple years I've been feeling increasingly unliked, tolerated, manipulated and/or ignored.

Granted, I have depression, so my judgement might be compromised, I'm medicated, but obviously that doesn't fix everything.

But every time I've tried to bring up how I feel about it, I'm just told some variation of either "it's not that deep" or "how dare you be upset"

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Some examples of why I feel this way:

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We had a shared dnd campaign where we would take turns running the sessions, we would meet up every couple weeks or maybe once a month, and then I ran a session and we completely stopped after that.

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Any time there is a "command structure" in something we are doing, it is automatic that I'm not in a position of command because no one listens to me anyway.

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Some friends of mine like playing WOW hardcore classic, so I told them I wanted to join them because they sounded like they were enjoying it, so they got me onto the correct server to join them and one of them made a new character to play with me, and then they never played with me again despite my asking, and eventually they just said "dude we aren't going to play that faction or with new characters right now, we are in deep with these characters"

Meaning I just wasted hours of playing by myself trying to work up to their level only to find out that they had essentially no intention of playing with me, and when I told them that I didn't enjoy playing it by myself and that the whole reason I started playing was to join them, they told me that clearly just I didn't like playing the game.

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If I'm ever put in charge of a task, others will almost immediately start doing aspects of my task, usually undoing whatever I'm doing and then get upset with me when I get frustrated.

Example; Pulsar lost colony, I'm usually in charge of engineering and do a good job of managing it, but the captain usually just stops whatever he's doing, makes changes on the engineering board without saying anything, and then gets upset when things start going wrong.

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The same friend who is usually the captain in Pulsar likes playing stellaris in coop mode, but then just undoes whatever I do and then gets upset when I don't want to play coop with him.

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Early into our friendship, one of the friends told me(as a joke) that one of his friends was 4ft tall, and looped in most of the others in the group into the joke. We would be online in our discord and they'd start bullying him for how short he is to the point that he left the call in anger(obviously he was in on the joke, but he wanted to sell it) and I reached out to him and apologized on behalf of the others since I knew their ribbing can get a bit much and he "appreciated" me reaching out, only to find out he's like 6ft when he arrived at our apartment.

Basically they will look you in the eyes and lie to your face about anything, if they think it's funny.

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I've had beef with one of the girls for years, because when I tried to introduce my sister to her she just wordlessly turned her back on us and pretended we weren't there, and according to couple other friends in our group, I'm the asshole for being upset about it.

My sister isn't still "upset" about it, as it was years ago, but does think it was a terrible first impression to make and she just doesn't associate with her.

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That girl who turned her back on us, I'm still "friends" with because she's part of the group, but I've come to see her as akin to a "political ally" in the group, we aren't friends anymore, and the final straw for me was;

The dryer in my apartment was broken, so I asked my friends in the neighborhood if I could do laundry at their place a couple times until it was fixed, to save money and avoid using a laundromat, and that girl and her two roommates(a brother and sister pair) said yes, but the brother would be at work so he wouldn't be there to hang out, which I thought was fine as I'm friends with the 2 girls and they have lots of pets so I figured I'd do my own laundry and hang out with them and their pets.

On my way there, the girls text me and they're like "hey since he's not here, you have no reason to stay, so drop off your laundry in the garage and leave, we'll do it and leave it for you in the garage to be picked up, don't come in."

So as insulting as that is I tried to find somewhere else to do laundry, but it was a holiday and most places were closed and I had work the next day, so I dropped it off and went home and did basically nothing for a couple hours by myself and then went back and picked it up, and then removed both the girls from my contacts list and removed them from my socials.

It may not come across from this story alone, but the general understanding I came to from this woman was essentially "if there isn't a guy here to protect us from you, we don't want you here" and as someone who feels I have never given them or anyone else a reason to worry about their safety with me, I was incredibly insulted.

I thought I was friends with them, but evidently they didn't feel that way.

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I was much more recently trying to run a new ttrpg system after it was requested by my friend group and despite everyone saying things like "thanks for running the session it was great" everyone seemed to not enjoy it, and almost every time I introduced something someone would always have something sarcastic to say about it.

We were pretty consistently going on an "every other Saturday" schedule when suddenly almost everyone was always "busy" every single time we tried to get together regardless of how much time I tried to plan in advance, even if I was trying to plan for something other than a game night, to the point that I kinda blew up and asked if they were "trying to tell me something" and one of them blew up back on me and told me that not everything is a personal attack on me and to stop being a dick, and that he was only attending at all to be supportive for my "half pieced together boring campaign"

The rest didn't say anything and just watched the group chat in silence(I knew they were there because they were just saving chats, and not responding)

And when I asked the others separately why they didn't say anything, they never answered.

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If we play anything competitive (CS2 or for honor) one of my friends gets really judgemental and rude if anyone isn't doing incredible.

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I'm a bit overweight, thankfully not morbidly obese, I'm in the high 200s, but still under 300 and working to be in better shape, but hunger is very loud in my head, and most of my friends don't have to deal with being overweight, so being "fat" is a basically accepting that you're going to be belittled or mocked a little.

The only thing they understand is being out of shape, to most of them being overweight is something worthy of mockery.

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Obviously I can cherry pick every single thing that has upset me, but in our day to day friendship it's not so bad, but it's just years of things building up and any time I try to explain to them that I'm upset, my feelings are discounted or I'm told that I'm wrong for being upset by almost all of them.

I get I'm probably the "high maintenance" "overly emotional" friend, but I don't know what to do anymore aside from just cutting contact with half of them.