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[Maximum Spin]

2, given that it hasn't been clear what the fallout of negation usage actually IS, other than "leaving negative energy lying around if you are not careful", which is essentially the same thing as leaving monsters lying around if you are not careful.

That said, I'm open to the monsters thing too. A sensible game would allow us to specifically choose to make monsters that are minmaxed for being beasts of burden and not dangerous. If I were more confident that would happen here I'd vote for it.

Never mind. I was always pretty evenly balanced between the two, and Glass asked me to switch, so why not.

[brewer bob]

4

[King Zultan]

2

[Yellow Pixel]

3

[Atomic Chicken]

2

[Glass]

Guys, please remember, while we are fairly good at Negation, we are not as good at it as we are with Automation or Vivomancy. Those two are more likely to have more effective outcomes.

[Maximum Spin]

Yeah, sure, 3. I hoped negation would provide more energy but this is fine.

[Enemy post]

Monsters.

"Your Majesty, I think there is another way," you say. "Every living thing can get its power from food, and better foods mean more power. I think I can design beasts that will do much of the heavy lifting in our foundries and factories, and I can make them strong with magically designed greens that carry all the energy they need."

"Isn't vivomancy often unpredictable in its results?" Queen Thecla asks skeptically.

"I've had relatively good success with it so far," you say truthfully. "It seems not so unpredictable as the stories suggest."

"I concur, Your Majesty," Sam says. "I have quite a bit of experience with vivomancy now, and I must say that its unpredictability seems to have been exaggerated. And the results can often be quite charming." You can tell he's thinking of his pet dragon, Thomas.

"If even the Church recommends it, it must be so," Queen Thecla says, surprised.

You think the hierophant will not be pleased, but perhaps she would be less pleased if the kingdom used any other source of magical power. (Decreased Church Relationship.)

You fall silent for a moment to listen to the excited murmurs of the courtiers. Apparently, what they got from your interaction with the queen is that the fabulous steeds of the ancients might be coming back, and they are all filled with excitement and pleasure at your emergence at court. They seem to believe that ingratiating themselves to you might result in their procuring some of the most prestigious beasts first.

Well, let them think that. (Increased Adoration.)

"It will not be easy to convince the people that magic is suddenly acceptable," the queen says. "Perhaps some glamor magic is in order to ensure that the people are willing to follow where I lead."

"The Church would not approve of a secular ruler impersonating a saint with magic," Blessed Advisor Sam says. "Please, let the people be in awe of only the saints, so that they may hold goodness in the highest regard instead of power."

You weigh whether to warn the queen about the effects of rot, and decide she would find out soon enough anyway.

The queen blanches at your explanation of rot but murmurs, "I am prepared to do whatever it takes to lead the kingdom. But will it be worth it? What do you think?"

1.Suggest using a glamor, rot and Church be damned.
2.Suggest using divination to communicate with her subjects, building bonds of trust.
3.Tell the queen she needs no glamor; she's already strikingly beautiful. (Flirt.)
4.Tell the queen she needs no glamor; she's already most impressive.
5.The drawbacks of glamors aren't worth it—old-fashioned charisma must win over the people.

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Royal Sorcerer Foo

Appearance

A bookish, spectacled man wearing a shimmering cloak and a noble duelist's uniform

Magic
  Negation:8
  Automation:11
  Glamor:1
  Divination:4
  Vivomancy:10

Skills
Ancient History: 8 (Fantastic)
Fighting: 1 (Bad)
Subtlety: 3 (Decent)
Charisma: 7 (Excellent)

Personality
Optimism:60%/Caution:40%   
Humor:49%/Solemnity:51%   
Empathy:45%/Calculation:55%   

Relationships
Romances (Interested romantically, but not sexually, in men and women)
Tal

Tal: 56 (Good)
Cos: 46 (Bad)
Sam: 75 (Great)
Vera: 54 (Fine)
Thecla: 50 (Fine)
Church: 31 (Bad)

Kingdom

Kingdom Power: 2 (Decent)
Adoration: 60%/Vilification: 40%

Inventory
Gold: 677 gold
Sword
Alchemy Set
Torc of Life and Death
Clutch of Dragon Eggs
History Book, True Life of Abraxas
Golem Manual

Students
Blessed Sam

Pets
Verdigris the Baby Dragon

The Dead
The Academy Inquisitor

Plot Points

Chapter 1

You and Tal stumbled on an ancient magic academy.
You discovered a book of vivomancy, and an inquisitor chased you.
You found an ancient dueling ground.
You killed the inquisitor with negation magic.
You explored the academy library.
A divination revealed a potential ally in the form of a golem, so you took a manual on the operation of golems from the library.
You animated a serving tray to retrieve an alchemy set, but in the process, you released some dangerous chemicals.
You found a laboratory with a trapped specter.
You destroyed the specter.
You obtained a clutch of dragon eggs from the crow's nest of an ancient airship.
It became clear that the spilled chemicals were going to consume the whole academy.

Chapter 2


You flew up the coast of the Negative Sea back to Akriton.
You created two horses and freed them in the woods.
You made your parents think your finds in the academy were purely of historical interest.
You read in True Life of Abraxas that those who follow orders regularly are more likely to be glamored.
You learned the location of the Magisterian capital from True Life of Abraxas.
You met a hat seller but bought nothing from her.
You allowed a thief to steal from Fruitseller Fran.
You agreed to hunt a dodecapede with Tal.
You kissed Tal.
You restarted the automated mine that was the dodecapede's lair.
You restarted Akriton's giant fans after the death cloud passed.
Cos and you agreed that you would secretly work for Akriton.
Though you thought you kept a low profile, you heard inquisitors are coming to town anyway.

Chapter 3

Two inquisitors came to your door: the more aggressive Blessed Jacob, and the kinder Blessed Sam.
An old man intervened, claiming you weren't home.
You waited until the inquisitors left.
The old man revealed himself to be Mayor Cos, who is a shapeshifter.
You went to a House of Sun service, led by Blessed Sam.
In the middle, your vivomancy disguise wore off, but Blessed Sam did not take any action to pursue you.
Blessed Sam asked you to heal his pet dragon, Thomas.
You agreed and healed Sam's dragon.
You offered to teach Sam vivomancy, and he agreed.

Chapter 4

You rode to the capital in a wagon with Sam and Jacob.
While Sam and Jacob fought, you sneaked into the basement.
You found a university student held in the Cathedral dungeon—the last mage left there.
You decided to leave the student in the cell.
You found a secret passage that avoided a somewhat terrifying room.
You found a room that looked similar to a vision of a pleasant afterlife.
You found the Cathedral's library.
You found an old statue of Abraxas that promised to answer questions about the Church.
You learned that an item called the Great Oracle lies in the Magisterian palace, and that it could be used to join all minds into one.
You learned some designs that may help scour the sky from True Life of Abraxas.
You read in True Life of Abraxas that Abraxas became an immortal specter, and that you might become one yourself given enough negative energy.
The hierophant came to make an offer of sainthood to you.
Inquisitors and Church guards pursued you out of the capital.
You escaped the Cathedral and headed home.

Chapter 5

You blasted all but one of the guards pursuing you, leaving the lone survivor to report that you are not to be trifled with.
You headed back to Akriton.
On returning to the market, you discovered it had burned down due to a lightning strike.
Tal's house was marked for destruction by the Twilight Band, a group of shapeshifter haters.
The queen offered you a position as an advisor, which you accepted.

Chapter 6


You returned to the capital, summoned by the queen for an interview.
You became the official court wizard for the queen.
You moved into the royal palace.
Spymaster Dol reported sightings of the Neighbors' airships near the Negative Sea.
The queen asked you to determine in what ways the kingdom should adopt magic to stay competitive with the Magisterians.
Blessed Sam became Blessed Advisor Sam when you arrived at court.
You recommended using vivomancy-created beasts to supply the kingdom's labor and enhance its military.

[Glass]

Hi fuck glamor.

5

4 is also a viable option, but, eh. I feel like it's better to take a hard stance against glamor in general than to say "oh, you just don't need it". Nobody needs it. Glamor is bullshit magic that shouldn't exist.

More settings should have the literal mind-control magic be more widely disliked than they frequently are.

[Maximum Spin]

5
It's a shame because 2 could actually have been interesting.

[Glass]

Yeah, but we only have 4 divination. It was always too risky to practice that one, what with the fact that it would tip people off to the fact that we were very much a wizard, and likely give away information that was dangerous for us to reveal.
It would have been nice, but oh well.
(Also, I'm slightly worried what the queen would reveal with her divination use.)

[King Zultan]

1 If the queen wants to use glamour and slowly rot to death than let her, so far I'm not liking her character enough to care if she dies.

(I don't much care if the queen reveals state secrets with divination , as they're not our secrets.)

[Atomic Chicken]

5

[brewer bob]

I'm a bit conflicted whether to choose 1 or 5. I'm with Zultan on wanting the queen to rot, but it'd take too long a time,  and in that time she'd probably manage to do lots of damage to innocent people. 5 seems like the way to go then, though I don't like that the option is laid out in a manner as that our character is concerned about the queen's well-being.

So, a reluctant 5.

[Enemy post]

Glamor isn't worth it.

"Unless you want your health to deteriorate, I suggest you stick to old-fashioned charisma," you advise the queen. "Everyone who uses glamor will eventually die from it."

"So then the saints are all dying as well?" the queen says.

"Just so," you say.

Sam nods in sad agreement.

The queen purses her lips, seeming upset.

"What about you?" the queen asks you. "Have you used this magic, too?"

"I mostly avoid the stuff, myself," you say.

"Very well, then no glamors for me," the queen declares. "Thank you for warning me." (Increased Thecla Relationship.)

"Of course," you say.

"Very wise, Your Majesty," Blessed Advisor Sam says, looking relieved.

Over the next few months, as the days get colder and the first snow begins to fall, you furiously work in private on new spells powerful enough to change the fate of a kingdom. With your newfound experience in magic, the advanced book you took from the sunken library, Megali Mageia, or "Great Magic," now seems at least somewhat intelligible to you, and you concentrate on the parts that deal with vivomancy magic.

In a barn on a royal ranch an hour's ride from the capital, you conduct magical vivomancy experiments to create animals with more power and endurance than any tame animal since the time of the ancients. (Gained Vivomancy.) The queen supplies you with ever more exotic caged beasts—nightmares, pseudodragons, chimeras, red-tusked catoblepae—and you draw their essences and infuse them into more familiar animals, such as horses and elephants.

You also experiment with taking the more promising wild monsters, such as a shaggy white dodecapede, and rendering them a bit more docile.

Actually, you aren't entirely certain whether you've successfully tamed these beasts, or if they're all just a bit lethargic from the cold. You suppose you'll find out in the spring.

As a final benefit of all these experiments, having a variety of animals and monsters on hand is useful for your alchemical experiments. From some peacock feathers, rabbit fur, and baby-dragon scales, you brew a potion that permanently enhances your glamors. (Gained Glamor.)

Something else you realize, as you study the Megali Mageia more and more, is that the ancients knew tricks to make magic safer that are lost to you. The book makes passing reference to the precautions every wizard takes: apparently, wizards are supposed to draw runes and magic circles before casting big spells that reduce the negative side effects of the magic. But you have no idea what these runes and circles should look like or how they work.

Oh well. The ancients were a whole civilization that used magic. Surely one person can't be as dangerous as that, even if that person doesn't really know how to use magic safely.

Right?

Meanwhile, the queen continues her official business largely as before, as if denying that anything big is about to change in the kingdom.

Determining who the factions are at court is a fascinating logic puzzle. If noble X insults noble Y, then you carefully watch noble Z: does the noble join in the criticism, or come to Y's support? In this way, you build a mental map of the nobles at court and their alliances. Most importantly, you figure out which alliances you're implicitly in.

It's perhaps no surprise that some of the oldest and most powerful guilds don't like you. You represent a threat to their monopolies and influence; magic is an axis on which they can't fight. The oldest dames and dukes also lean conservative, and therefore your implicit heresy does not sit well with them either.

On the other hand, many of the younger nobles and smaller guilds welcome your threat to the established order. They hope you'll use magic to upend monopolies, bust trusts, and essentially bring the destabilization that the old guard fears, so that they can have a shot.

You could play their games—it might bring you a bit more security at court to reduce the power of the old guard.

1.Use glamors to build bridges between the old guard and new.
2.Sow the seeds of discord among the old guard. (Requires calculation.)
3.Cast tricky divinations that reveal the old guard's secrets to each other.
4.I don't need to get involved in this.

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Royal Sorcerer Foo

Appearance

A bookish, spectacled man wearing a shimmering cloak and a noble duelist's uniform

Magic
  Negation:8
  Automation:11
  Glamor:2
  Divination:4
  Vivomancy:12

Skills
Ancient History: 8 (Fantastic)
Fighting: 1 (Bad)
Subtlety: 3 (Decent)
Charisma: 7 (Excellent)

Personality
Optimism:60%/Caution:40%   
Humor:49%/Solemnity:51%   
Empathy:45%/Calculation:55%   

Relationships
Romances (Interested romantically, but not sexually, in men and women)
Tal

Tal: 56 (Good)
Cos: 46 (Bad)
Sam: 75 (Great)
Vera: 54 (Fine)
Thecla: 54 (Fine)
Church: 31 (Bad)

Kingdom

Kingdom Power: 2 (Decent)
Adoration: 60%/Vilification: 40%

Inventory
Gold: 677 gold
Sword
Alchemy Set
Torc of Life and Death
Clutch of Dragon Eggs
History Book, True Life of Abraxas
Golem Manual

Students
Blessed Sam

Pets
Verdigris the Baby Dragon

The Dead
The Academy Inquisitor

Plot Points

Chapter 1

You and Tal stumbled on an ancient magic academy.
You discovered a book of vivomancy, and an inquisitor chased you.
You found an ancient dueling ground.
You killed the inquisitor with negation magic.
You explored the academy library.
A divination revealed a potential ally in the form of a golem, so you took a manual on the operation of golems from the library.
You animated a serving tray to retrieve an alchemy set, but in the process, you released some dangerous chemicals.
You found a laboratory with a trapped specter.
You destroyed the specter.
You obtained a clutch of dragon eggs from the crow's nest of an ancient airship.
It became clear that the spilled chemicals were going to consume the whole academy.

Chapter 2


You flew up the coast of the Negative Sea back to Akriton.
You created two horses and freed them in the woods.
You made your parents think your finds in the academy were purely of historical interest.
You read in True Life of Abraxas that those who follow orders regularly are more likely to be glamored.
You learned the location of the Magisterian capital from True Life of Abraxas.
You met a hat seller but bought nothing from her.
You allowed a thief to steal from Fruitseller Fran.
You agreed to hunt a dodecapede with Tal.
You kissed Tal.
You restarted the automated mine that was the dodecapede's lair.
You restarted Akriton's giant fans after the death cloud passed.
Cos and you agreed that you would secretly work for Akriton.
Though you thought you kept a low profile, you heard inquisitors are coming to town anyway.

Chapter 3

Two inquisitors came to your door: the more aggressive Blessed Jacob, and the kinder Blessed Sam.
An old man intervened, claiming you weren't home.
You waited until the inquisitors left.
The old man revealed himself to be Mayor Cos, who is a shapeshifter.
You went to a House of Sun service, led by Blessed Sam.
In the middle, your vivomancy disguise wore off, but Blessed Sam did not take any action to pursue you.
Blessed Sam asked you to heal his pet dragon, Thomas.
You agreed and healed Sam's dragon.
You offered to teach Sam vivomancy, and he agreed.

Chapter 4

You rode to the capital in a wagon with Sam and Jacob.
While Sam and Jacob fought, you sneaked into the basement.
You found a university student held in the Cathedral dungeon—the last mage left there.
You decided to leave the student in the cell.
You found a secret passage that avoided a somewhat terrifying room.
You found a room that looked similar to a vision of a pleasant afterlife.
You found the Cathedral's library.
You found an old statue of Abraxas that promised to answer questions about the Church.
You learned that an item called the Great Oracle lies in the Magisterian palace, and that it could be used to join all minds into one.
You learned some designs that may help scour the sky from True Life of Abraxas.
You read in True Life of Abraxas that Abraxas became an immortal specter, and that you might become one yourself given enough negative energy.
The hierophant came to make an offer of sainthood to you.
Inquisitors and Church guards pursued you out of the capital.
You escaped the Cathedral and headed home.

Chapter 5

You blasted all but one of the guards pursuing you, leaving the lone survivor to report that you are not to be trifled with.
You headed back to Akriton.
On returning to the market, you discovered it had burned down due to a lightning strike.
Tal's house was marked for destruction by the Twilight Band, a group of shapeshifter haters.
The queen offered you a position as an advisor, which you accepted.

Chapter 6


You returned to the capital, summoned by the queen for an interview.
You became the official court wizard for the queen.
You moved into the royal palace.
Spymaster Dol reported sightings of the Neighbors' airships near the Negative Sea.
The queen asked you to determine in what ways the kingdom should adopt magic to stay competitive with the Magisterians.
Blessed Sam became Blessed Advisor Sam when you arrived at court.
You recommended using vivomancy-created beasts to supply the kingdom's labor and enhance its military.
You told the queen glamors were not worth the health risks.