Prelude (under construction)

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Preface)

Index

Prelude (under construction)        1

Index        3

Basic Rules        7

Intensity        7

Your Starting World        7

Your Starting Budget        7

Your Contractor Smart Device        8

Purchases        8

Followers and Familiars        9

Captures        10

Capturing Extras        11

Extending Your Build: Sales        12

Imaginary Tiers        13

Glossary        14

Negotiations (Difficulty)        15

Intensity Buybacks        15

Intensity Options        15

Other Contractors        22

PvP Glossary        22

General PvP Rules        22

Shores in Flames: Invasion PvP        23

Invasion Victory Conditions and Prizes        24

Counter-Invasions        24

Come Out and Play: Arranged PvP        24

Company Services        26

Missions        27

Origins        29

Bindings        31

General Binding Rules        31

Binding: Company Stamp        32

Binding: Tempest Jewelry        33

Binding: Hypnosis App        41

Binding: Tantric Arts        45

Binding: Alterzelu Symbiote        50

Alterzelu: Basic Larva        51

Alterzelu: Phases        53

Alterzelu: Structures        53

Alterzelu: Units        58

Alterzelu: Expansions        63

Binding: Shroud of Power        67

Shroud Elements        71

Lures and Other Controls        74

Lures        74

Lure Expansions        76

Space Truckin’        76

Other Controls        80

Heritages        82

Dragon        84

Pirate        88

Transhuman        94

Outsider        106

Catch-A-Ride Replica Showroom        110

Environment: Land        110

Environment: Sea        110

Environment: Amphibious        111

Environment: Sky        112

Environment: Space        113

Catch-a-Ride Perks        115

Demiplanes & Dungeons        116

Basic Perks        116

Advanced Perks: Demiplane or Dungeon?        119

Mechanic: Laws        120

Demiplane        120

Mechanic: Retinue Devotion        123

Dungeon        123

Talents        126

Defenses        129

Other Perks        133

Calibration Perks        133

Navigation Perks        135

Travel Perks        135

Miscellaneous Perks        136

Waifu Perks        139

Generic Waifu Perks        139

Anime, Manga, Light and Visual Novels        148

Gaming        156

Western Animation, Comics, Literature        162

Honkai Impact 3rd        163

Nasuverse DLC        172

Magical Girls DLC        182

Additional Rules        185

Setting-Specific Rules        188

Anime, Manga, Light and Visual Novels        188

Gaming        193

Western Animation, Comics, Literature        199

Nasuverse DLC        200

Magical Girls DLC        202

Credits        204

The WC Team        204

Content Contributions        204

Embedded Art        205

Content Creators        207

Basic Rules

Intensity

Your Intensity is the first step to creating a build. Intensity is a single number that reflects your desired tone, from a cozy retirement at Intensity 0 to a grueling struggle against insurmountable odds at Intensity 10. At lower intensities, your starting budget will be higher, but your ongoing gains from captures and sales will be much lower, to a minimum of zero at Intensity 0.

To find your Intensity value, go to Negotiations and make your choices from among those options.

Your Starting World

The second step to creating a build is determining your starting world. Every world has a Danger Rating (DR), measured on a scale from 1 to 10. These reflect our estimates of how dangerous the world is, taking into account the power of the typical combatants, the average danger level to ordinary people living in that world, and especially the actual cost of which of our perks might be the basic necessities to survive in that world. Entering a world during a major crisis or active apocalypse may raise a world’s rating by one or even two ranks, and some specific locations within a world may have their own DRs.

DR1 worlds are typically paradises, where even the local inhabitants are at little risk of trouble. DR2 is equivalent to the developed countries on an Information Age Earth. Danger and hardship still exist, but at the relatively low levels that most of our contractors are familiar with. DR10 reflects the worst hellworlds, where life is brutal and short. Specific worlds and their ratings are listed in the page 3 of the main listing.

If your world is not on the list, compare it to the ones that are and use your best judgment. A world’s danger rating can be affected by AU elements, but any characters’ metaknowledge should not cover these changes.

Your Starting Budget

Now that you know your Intensity and the DR of your starting world, you can match the two on the chart below to find your starting budget. This budget is only granted once. Traveling to a new world, region, or time period will not grant you additional credits, not even the difference between the lower DR and the higher. The following chart shows the budget for each DR at each of the major Intensity intervals.

Now that you know your budget, pick your Origin, one Binding-type control, and as many of the Lures, Other Controls, Perks, Companions, and Followers as you desire or can afford.

Your Contractor Smart Device

No matter your choices, you will receive one and only one complimentary smart device of your choice, preloaded with the company’s shopping app so you can manage your purchases and trade-ins on the go. The exact nature of your device is fixed. You may, however, trade in your current device and request a replacement at any time. Your current device will disappear immediately, and the new one will arrive after seven days (168 hours).

The company shopping app’s listings include descriptions of each listed character, including all major ability and skill tags and a short summary of their personality, so you know exactly what you’re paying for. Rule 63, humanized, kemonomimi-ized, and other variants are available for every character at no extra cost, unless the new form’s abilities would be too different from their listed tier: the perk Power Swap covers those cases. You and your companions are the only ones who can perceive or use any company app, but only you can make any transactions through this one.

Your company smart device cannot be hacked. If it is ever broken, it will repair itself completely the next time it isn’t observed. If it is ever more than 10m away from you or any of your companions for more than 15 minutes, it will teleport into your pocket or somewhere else on your person. If the local space is too warped for that distance to be accurate, you may also recall it manually. The same principle applies in digital worlds, even if you have a physical body “outside” in meatspace. If one of your companions is using this device for any purpose and you ask for it back, she'll hand it over immediately without question.

Your smart device will automatically disintegrate upon your account’s closure. If you have zero subjects, this will happen immediately upon your death. Otherwise, we will wait until your R.I.P. timer runs out.

Purchases

The company’s Companions and Followers are all clones manufactured on demand, except where noted. They come packaged with their iconic outfits, personal equipment, and familiars or treasured pets, when appropriate. The largest equipment normally allowed are motorcycles, but there are some rare exceptions. For your own ease of accounting, you may only purchase one copy of any distinct entry at a time.

Most companions are sorted into ten tiers, each of which has a different cost. See the table to the right for details. The waifu lists properly begin on page 3 of the spreadsheet. Third-party lists of companions are also allowed and may be found elsewhere.

All purchase prices are rounded up. Some Controls and Heritage perks include free copies of lesser perks, primarily Talents and Defenses. These can ignore the normal prerequisites. If you’ve already purchased a perk before getting a free copy, you may take a discount on the new purchase equal to the free perk’s value. The total of all discounts applied to a single perk, unless it’s a Talent or Defense, is capped at -80% of the list price.

No powers found in this catalog will directly impact a Contractor’s own mind without an explicit warning otherwise (such as in Memoria). The company is not responsible for any power’s indirect effects on a Contractor’s decision-making.

For any member of your retinue whose powers come from an external, (semi-)sapient source, their connection will be severed at the moment of capture and those powers replicated as innate abilities.

If they have powers that rely on a background magical field, the connection to you will act as an adapter in worlds with a different field. In worlds or regions that lack any such field, their powers will still be usable, but at a reduced capacity when outside of your presence.

Many retinue members have powers that come with a crippling categorical weakness. This is more than just an unwanted limitation or inconvenience; green Kryptonite’s effects on a Kryptonian clearly qualifies, while Baldr’s vulnerability to mistletoe was from the plant being the only known thing that he lacked immunity to and thus does not. Altered dietary needs, such as many forms of vampiric thirst, are also not weaknesses in this sense. These individuals will be no more affected by qualifying weaknesses than an ordinary human.

Followers and Familiars

Broadly speaking, a Follower is any individual in your retinue that isn’t a member of your harem proper. This can include beloved pets, support staff, adopted children, people important to your harem that you aren’t interested in maintaining an emotional and sexual relationship with, or more traditional magical beasts such as Pokémon or magical girl mascots.

Many purchasable companions are packaged with their personal familiars and specified as such in the setting-specific rules; this is by no means a comprehensive list. Some personal familiars named in the setting-specific rules are also present in the catalog listing as companions. If you capture a familiar’s master first, you’ll get the familiar too and receive the full value for both. Much like with humanoid captures, only the first copy of any type of generic magical or other beast is worth capture or sale credits.

Followers and Familiars can be captured using local familiar bonding methods, such as rituals or Pokéballs, or Binding or Other controls like anyone else, and are not subject to the romantic or sexual interest that your Bindings instill in your companions. If a Follower or Familiar is bound to you by local methods, they will count as captured for all purposes. No special methods are needed to distinguish a companion binding from a Follower binding; intent is enough. Companion and Follower statuses are not permanent and may be changed in the app at any time. This change will always be intentional.

Captures

Additional companions may be acquired by “capturing” them in their homeworlds. This is typically achieved by using a Binding or certain Other Controls, or when a target gives you a sincere love confession - usually romantic, but false positives occasionally happen and trigger a capture that isn’t entirely merited. This love may be assisted by any means, including the use of Lure-type controls or third-party mind control.

Confessions must either be delivered in-person or by a two-way live feed of any sort. The target does not need to be aware that you received their confession at the time it was given, but a target with full awareness of their surroundings should be reasonably expected to know that you could. The exact wording of any confession varies greatly with the target’s personality and cultural context.

When you capture a Tier 1-10 target, we’ll pay you a certain fraction of their purchase price of their effective tier at step 1a, rising with your Intensity and then rounded down to the next full credit. If, due to your retinue’s actions, their effective tier at step 3 is less than step 1a, we’ll use that value instead. Capture credits are not granted for local versions of targets that you’ve purchased or alternate versions that you’ve already captured once, unless they’re a unique entry in the lists proper or as a waifu perk. If a target is only listed as part of a group entry, you will only get the credits after capturing every member of the group.

If you capture a character “early,” before they’ve achieved the potential reflected in the version available for purchase, you will still receive their full capture value. As compensation for the subject’s relative weakness, we at the company will download the missing abilities and a framework for the missing skills into your capture target at no charge. This framework will also guide the capture to any missing equipment or personal familiars, but you must hunt those down, and provide the subject with the training needed to master their new power, on your own time.

Regular Capture Prices

Capturing Extras

Subjects not named on any list may also be captured for credits, provided they have at least three of the following in their original canon: name, personality or backstory, abilities or skills or powers, and appearance or design. As an author, you must be able to assert that the character definitely existed in canon, even as an extra in a crowd scene, and then rate their tiers yourself. Individuals who fail this test are worth 5% of the purchase price for their tier at step 1a. On low intensities, when the regular capture value is less than 5% of purchase price, they will be worth that instead.

Because captured extras lack a standard model for comparison, unlike listed entries, any additions that would normally be accounted for in steps 3 or 4 will instead be included in the newly-created standard model and calculated accordingly. If an extra is the first example of a generic entry that you’ve captured, they will still count for the full price of that entry, if it’s higher than the above.

The following chart shows the capture values for each tier at each of the major Intensity intervals.

Extra Capture Prices

Extending Your Build: Sales

If you only wanted a capture for their credit value, you may ship them to us at the company. We’ll pay you a certain fraction of the purchase price of their effective tier at step 3, rising with your Intensity and then rounded down to the next full credit. This applies regardless of whether step 1a or step 3 has the higher value. Personal familiars gained for free from an Origin choice will not count for capture credits, but may still be sold at the normal rate. As with captures, payouts for sales are not granted for local versions of targets that you’ve purchased or alternate versions that you’ve already sold once, unless they’re a unique entry in the lists proper or as a waifu perk. Extras have no additional sale value.

Selling a subject only takes a single button press in the company app on your smart device. We’ll reprocess the captures and send them where they need to go. Otherwise, captures are yours to keep.

The following chart shows the sale values for each tier at each of the major Intensity intervals.

Sale Prices

Imaginary Tiers

Three more tiers exist beyond the normal ten: tier χ/X, Ψ/Y, and Ω/Z. These companions instead cost varying amounts of Imaginary Tickets (IMG), only available for starting builds on Danger Rating X. Both the Greek and Latin names for these Imaginary Tiers are acceptable. Imaginary Tier companions that are listed as Perks or Waifu Perks have further details in the appropriate sections. All Imaginary Tier companions are freely capable of multiversal travel, even if they showed no such abilities or explicitly could not in their original canons.

If, after your starting build, you ever find yourself with spare IMG and nothing or nobody you want to buy with it, you may exchange the tickets for 1000 credits each. This cannot be undone.

Captured Imaginary Tier companions may be shipped back to the company like any other. These follow similar capture and sale rates as regular companions, including the effects of Wage Slave, but are measured in both IMG and credits and convert every 1000c to 1 IMG. If you are not on Wage Slave, and your intensity is above 0, all sale values will also be worth 1 additional IMG. The full charts are on page 2 of the spreadsheet.

Tier χ/X

Tier Ψ/Y

Tier Ω/Z

Danger Rating X Build Rules

When creating a Danger Rating X build, ignore the basic build creation rules found above. You will instead start with the following:

• One companion of Tier χ/X or Ψ/Y. Power Swapping a different companion to one of these tiers is allowed, as are Heavenbuilt Proto and Piece of Silver. You and your companion will have a Couple’s Account, following all of that option’s rules.
• Any Origin, free of charge. Your effective tier at step 1a must be 6 or less.
• A single basic Binding-type control.
• As many official basic Lures as desired.
• All official Talents and both purchases of all official Defenses
• A 400-credit budget for your Heritage.
• A 545-credit budget for Catch-a-Ride.
• A 500-credit budget for Demiplanes & Dungeons.
• A single 600-credit budget for all other official perks found in this catalog, including Binding and Lure expansions.

Once your build is finalized, any leftover credits will carry forward to your regular account. This remainder may not be accessed before seven days (168 hours) have passed, but may be used for any purpose. Any Waifu Perks purchased for yourself in the initial build, including Power Swap, cannot raise your tier above 6; this only applies at that moment and not afterward.

You may start in any world you like, regardless of the above Danger restrictions. If you start in your companion’s homeworld, Yoink will automatically be applied at no cost. The prices of your captures and sales will be locked at their Intensity 10.0 values. Go anywhere you want, follow the special rules, and have fun.

Glossary

• Contractor: You.
• Retainers or Subjects: All living things you own.
• Companions: Your waifus and/or husbandos, i.e. subjects that you intend to have intimate relations with.
• Followers: Any subject that is not a companion.
• Familiars: Typically non-humanoid, personal pets of your own or your subjects..
• Retinue: The group of you and all subjects, including Familiars.
• Chargen: Character Generation, your starting build.

Negotiations (Difficulty)

The options in this section will permanently alter your contract, affecting the potency of company perks and how you interact with the worlds you visit - drastically changing your employment experience with the company. All difficulty selections are both chargen-only and permanent, with the explicit exception detailed below. To find your intensity value, add the value of each selected option, plus a base value of 1.

Intensity has a hard lower limit of 0: if your calculated intensity is below 0, you must take additional options that add intensity until the value is within the allowed range.

Intensity has a soft upper limit of 10. If your calculated intensity is above 10, you do not need to take additional options to lower your intensity. It will simply be capped at 10 for your starting budget and payment values.

Intensity Buybacks

Once you’ve been an active contractor for six months (180 days), you will earn the ability to pay off all difficulty settings that add intensity, to a minimum of +0 in each category. This will remove the difficulty effect, without lowering the values of your captures and sales. The fee for this is 500 credits per point of intensity, plus an additional 500 credits per point you’ve previously paid off: 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, etc. If you pay off multiple intensity points at once, each point will be counted separately.

Intensity Options

Unless specifically noted, each option within a subsection is mutually exclusive.

Team Play

Me and My Girlfriend(s) (PvE)

Intensity: +0

You are a solo contractor. You may still encounter other contractors, if you choose to engage with the Eye Orbs, but the multiverse is big, really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to the multiverse.

Couple’s Account (Cooperative)

Intensity: -1

Compatibility: With A Little Help From My Friends

Your spouse or significant other is a contractor like you, but the two of you are tied much more closely than the friends option below. Your partner must be someone from your homeworld that you know personally. The two of you share full access to a joint account tied to both of your smart devices. You and your partner cannot sell each other. A member of your retinue may be a companion to one of you and merely a Follower to the other.

You will only pay for the more expensive of your two Origins. The chosen binding method treats you as equal masters, ensuring that your love never fades. (If you have the Symbiote, one of you will usually, but not necessarily, be the queen.) Heritages are purchased separately, but the other of you can buy any Heritage that one of you has at half-price, after all discounts and ignoring the usual discount cap. This does not apply to the IMG costs of Heritage capstones.

The control aspects of Bindings, Lures, and any Heritage hierarchy mechanics will only affect your relationship if the two of you are into that. Template Stacking and relevant waifu perks are purchased individually. All other items need only be purchased once to benefit the both of you equally. Your shared retinue will not enter R.I.P. mode unless you both perish.

With A Little Help From My Friends (Cooperative)

Intensity: -1

Compatibility: Couple’s Account

You aren’t the only player in your game. Another contractor walks alongside you, visiting the same worlds in the same order. Your progress meters for Exit Stage Left and Rainbow Bridge are synchronized and charged by both of your activities. No matter how many teammates you have, the budget adjustment remains the same. Remember, “friendly fire isn’t,” so try not to antagonize your teammates too much.

Payment

These options do not affect the +1 IMG from selling any imaginary tier individual.

100%/0%

Intensity: -5

All payment for individuals comes from captures, not sales. As an example, a Tier 8 individual captured on intensity 5 will now earn you 160 credits up-front instead of 40, while an immediate sale will earn you 0 additional credits instead of the standard 120.

75%/25%

Intensity: -3

The standard compensation for your captures and sales is flipped. As an example, a Tier 8 individual captured on intensity 5 will now earn you 120 credits up-front instead of 40, while an immediate sale will only earn you an additional 40 credits instead of the standard 120.

50%/50%

Intensity: -1

Captures are more valuable relative to sales. Half of the total value of a listed individual’s total capture+sale value now comes from capturing them. As an example, a Tier 8 individual captured on intensity 5 will now earn you 80 credits up-front instead of 40, while an immediate sale will only earn you an additional 80 credits instead of the standard 120.

25%/75%

Intensity: +0

The standard compensation for your captures and sales applies. As a reminder, a Tier 8 individual captured on intensity 5 will earn you 40 credits up-front, while an immediate sale will earn you an additional 120 credits.

0%/100%

Intensity: +1

All payment for individuals comes from sales, not captures. As an example, a Tier 8 individual captured on intensity 5 will earn you 0 credits up-front instead of 40, while an immediate sale will earn you an additional 160 credits instead of the standard 120.

General Binding Rules

Standard

Intensity: +0

Follow the written General Binding Rules.

Only Followers

Intensity: +1

All of your subjects will be Followers. If you want a subject to become your waifu or husbando, you must use other means instead. For the purpose of R.I.P., you may choose one sapient subject to manage your account as Executor after your death. Your chosen Executor will keep that title until their own death or departure from your retinue. You may also manually choose a new Executor, if at least 1 week (168 hours) has passed since your last choice.

No Loyalty

Intensity: +2

In addition to the effects of Only Followers, none of the mental effects described in General Binding Rules will apply to your subjects. You may still use other means to win or compel your subjects’ trust, obedience, and willingness to participate in the captures of their friends and loved ones.

No Bindings

Intensity: +3

In addition to the effects of No Loyalty, you will be locked into Empty Hand and unable to switch to a true Binding. Lures, Other Controls, Heritage-based capture methods, and third-party mind control are all still viable.

Heritages

Ancestral Diversity

Intensity: -1

The perk Ancestral Diversity is available for purchase, allowing you access to additional Heritages beyond your first. You may also acquire additional Heritages through other means, such as PvP rewards or other contractors using their Heritage-spreading perks (Dragon Thrall, Philosopher’s Transmortality Engine, An Answer to Reason, etc.) on you.

Only One

Intensity: +0

Once you have your first Heritage, you may not gain a second by any means. Heritages may not be refunded, so choose wisely.

Heritages Banned

Intensity: +1

Heritages are not available for purchase.

Global Leveling Systems

Automatic Connection

Intensity: -2

For any world with a globalized diegetic leveling system, such as Disgaea or I’m a Spider, So What, your retinue will connect to that system if there are any members who are from that world or have visited it in person.

Potential Connection

Intensity: 0

Your retinue may not connect to a globalized diegetic leveling system merely by having someone from that world. Individuals from that world will still be able to level as normal, but retinue members who are not must either visit the setting or have Added Potential, Power Swap, or Template Stacking.

Manual Connection

Intensity: +1

Globalized diegetic leveling systems may not be purchased via Added Potential and will not be earned simply by visiting such a world. Power Swap and Template Stacking will still work, or you can find a system admin (or other applicable method) and have your retinue added manually.

Personal World

Standard

Intensity: +0

Everything in the Demiplanes & Dungeons section is available as normal.

Nomad

Intensity: +1

Pocket Apartment is not available for purchase. While this modifier is active, All Roads Lead to Home, Rainbow Bridge, and Demiplane and its upgrades (but not Dungeon) will all still be available for purchase, provided you have a company-provided space such as Dragon Cabin or enclosed Ride. Multicore Neural Leyline’s normal requirement of Pocket Apartment will similarly be waived, as the Jouten is itself a company-provided space.

Lawless

Intensity: +2

In addition to the effects of Nomad, Demiplane and its upgrades are also unavailable. The Outer Shell rule (in the Defenses section) still applies.

Template Stacking

Standard

Intensity: +0

Follow the written rules for Template Stacking.

One Each

Intensity: +1

Each individual in your retinue may have no more than one purchased copy of Template Stacking I. This will not conflict with mission rewards.

None

Intensity: +2

Template Stacking may not be purchased. Templates are still available as rewards for missions.

Defenses

Immunity

Intensity: +0

Defense perks work as advertised. They may be purchased twice, giving you full immunity to what each Defense covers.

Resistance

Intensity: +1

Only the resistance level of each Defense perk will function. The immunity level may still be purchased, or obtained for free from Binding or Heritage perks, for use as prerequisites. Any immunity-level Defenses on your account will activate automatically if this modifier is removed.

None

Intensity: +2

All Defense perks will not function. Defense perks may still be purchased, or obtained for free from Binding or Heritage perks, for use as prerequisites. Any resistance-level Defenses on your account will activate automatically if this modifier is removed.

New Worlds

Open Exploration

Intensity: -2

Your retinue’s ability to travel between universes is only restricted by their own abilities. If you have a universal traveler, they may scout the multiverse freely, without needing to spend any notable time in each new world beyond their ability’s recharge or cooldown times (if applicable).

Delayed

Intensity: +0

While in your starting world, you cannot unlock a new world without doing at least one of the following: filling an Exit Stage Left progress bar (regardless of whether or not you have that perk), accepting a Standard or Grand mission in a new world, or opening a portal from your Dungeon to a capture’s homeworld.

Limited

Intensity: +1

The restriction from Delayed now applies to every world visited, not just your starting world.

Warranty Plan

Brick and Mortar

Intensity: -2

Instead of counting the number of amazons that you have as subjects, the time reduction on respawns relies on your total count of all subjects.

Standard

Intensity: +0

Warranty Plan functions normally.

À la carte

Intensity: +1

Warranty Plan must be purchased for each individual in your retinue. As compensation, the price for each warranty is only 40 credits. Express Delivery still applies to all copies of Warranty Plan.

Expiry

Intensity: +2

In addition to the effects of À la carte, each copy of the perk will only work once and will need to be purchased again afterward. As compensation, the price of each warranty is only 20 credits. Express Delivery still applies to all copies of Warranty Plan.

Disabled

Intensity: +3

Warranty Plan and Express Delivery are unavailable.

Death

Standard

Intensity: +0

R.I.P. rules function normally.

Hustle

Intensity: +1

The time limit for R.I.P. is reduced to 1 day (24 hours).

Peril

Intensity: +2

The time limit for R.I.P. is reduced to 1 hour.

Hardcore

Intensity: +3

Your account is removed from R.I.P. eligibility. Should you ever die in a way that triggers R.I.P. rules, you will permanently lose your contractor status and all company perks and functions. If you also have Only Followers or higher, an Executor will have no purpose and you may not choose one.

Randomization

All randomizer options are mutually compatible. Randomizers that do not affect intensity have a 1% chance of applying to any new world visited (after a contractor’s starting world) even if they are not chosen. This applies separately for each randomizer.

Alignment

Intensity: +0

In each world visited, the people’s personal morality and factional membership is randomized on an individual level. Individuals in the same factions will tend to have similar morality, but their lineups and goals are likely to be wildly different from what you remember. Purchases are not affected.

Power Swap

Intensity: +0

In each world visited, the people’s skills and abilities are randomized on an individual level. This is effectively a global Power Swap on every individual, with no respect for setting boundaries. These swaps obey the star color system, so someone who is normally Tier 4 may be swapped to a Tier 6 power, but not a Tier 3. Purchases are not affected.

Homeworld

Intensity: +0

The local populations of each world you visit are shuffled. They are all fully native to their new worlds, not isekai transplants. This shuffle obeys the star color system, so a local Tier 4 may be swapped with a Tier 6, but not a Tier 3. Purchases are not affected.

Dialogue

Intensity: +1

A wordfilter hampers your retinue’s ability to understand local languages. If the local language is one that you speak, you might understand the words just fine, but the overall meaning will be nonsense. This applies to both speech and the written word, and cannot be bypassed by Communication Talent or other means. Capturing a local will bring them to your side of the filter, while filling an Exit Stage Left progress bar will remove the filter for that specific world and (should you use Meta Shift or Blank Slate afterward) all direct parallels.

Item

Intensity: +0

The local artifacts, treasures, and rarities of each world you visit are shuffled. This can include combat equipment, though mass-deployed gear will be shuffled as whole groups, not individually. Plot-relevant items will always remain in their home worlds, though they could be anywhere within those worlds. This shuffle obeys the star color system, so equipment that makes its user a Tier 4 may be swapped with a Tier 6, but not a Tier 3. Purchases are not affected.

Entrances

Intensity: +1

Divide a world into discrete zones: outdoors within a planet’s atmosphere, the interior of a cave system, a single-family house, individual suites within a high-rise, etc. The doorways and entrances between each of those zones are now shuffled for your retinue only, bypassing Paradox Defense. Instead of the outdoor side of Passage A leading to the indoor side of Passage A, it might instead lead to the indoor side of Passage B or outdoor side of Passage C. These entrances are coupled: if you retrace your steps, you will then return to the outdoor side of Passage A. The set of entrances that are actually just the edges of a planet’s atmosphere will always be shuffled separately from the general pool.

This randomization is fixed upon any of your retinue members’ first visit to a new world; filling an Exit Stage Left progress bar will remove the randomization for that specific world and (should you use Meta Shift or Blank Slate) all direct parallels. Your own portals into a world, from Pocket Apartment, We Will Meet Again, and their upgrades, will not be affected. Note that sufficient environmental destruction can erase the boundary between two zones, forcefully integrating the smaller zone (usually indoors) into the larger (usually outdoors). The Mapper and related perks will account for the effects of this randomizer.

Decoupled Entrances

Intensity: +2

Requires: Entrances

Entrances are not merely randomized, but decoupled. If you enter Passage A from the outside, you might emerge on the inside of Passage B, but retracing your steps instead takes you to the inside of Passage D, not back to the outside of Passage A. The Mapper and related perks will account for this effect and are highly advised.

Other

All of these options are mutually compatible.

Intact Weaknesses

Intensity: +1

Crippling Categorical Weaknesses, as described in the Purchases section of Basic Rules, are left as-is for your entire retinue. Many qualifying weaknesses can be mitigated by an appropriate Talent or Defense. Using vampires as an example, Wild Defense protects them from the sun and running water, Body Defense protects against garlic and salt, Blessed Talent protects from holy symbols and locations, Stress Defense eliminates the need to obsessively count small objects, etc. You may still find your own methods to mitigate any such weaknesses that are not addressed by any Talent or Defense.

Defense Rebates Disabled

Intensity: +1

All defense rebates are disabled.

Power Swap Banned

Intensity: +1

Power Swap is not available for purchase.

Cash Still Rules

Intensity: +2

Your signing bonus… isn’t. Whatever you spend from it will instead be a loan, subject to the rules in Loans and Credit Debt. Your starting world will not necessarily have enough available credits to pay back your loan or even the interest, but Missions and Invasion PvP can help cover that. Your baseline interest rate will also increase to 20%.

If your starting budget is below the starting loan limit for your intensity, you may take additional loans to that limit after chargen, as normal. Budgets above that limit will be overcapped until you’ve paid enough of the principal to fall beneath the limit and/or visited enough new worlds to raise the limit above your principal. No additional loans may be taken while overcapped.

Wage Slave

Intensity: +0

We aren't a charity, Contractor. We've decided you need to put in some more effort to earn your keep. While your starting budget is not negatively impacted, from here on out, you can only gain credits for completing missions, winning arranged PvP matches, or by completing other similar activities on behalf of the company. All credit and ticket income from captures and sales will instead be converted into cold, hard cash, at a rate of 1 credit to 500 USD, in addition to the standard monetary bonus. Captures will still provide their rebates to Defense costs, as appropriate. We do not advise taking Cash Still Rules with this, as that mode provides no benefits with this mode active. However, if you wish to start heavily indebted to us, without any easy ways of paying us back… we won’t stop you.

Calming Up

Intensity: +2

Things will not calm down, contractor. The Danger Rating of every world you visit will always be equal to the highest Danger Rating of any world your retinue has visited (while they were in your retinue). This even applies to worlds you’ve already been to since your contract began, but not different eras of the same world, and may manifest as a new plot development, incursion from one of your other worlds, or reveal of a new element that was “always” there. People from each adjusted world will maintain their former roles in the new circumstances, with appropriate increases to their tier ratings and list prices - and, in turn, the corresponding effects on capture and other values - as necessary. Waifu perks may still be applied to captures or Yoinks from these worlds, with no change to their list prices. Tier changes from waifu perks may or may not apply in these cases.

Interest Enforced

Intensity: +1

Interest will be charged on your loan balance every month without fail, regardless of how much you pay toward the principal in that month.

No Skill Framework

Intensity: +2

The skill framework for Substitutes, Templates, and early captures, that normally helps them reach their baseline potential, is not available. Talents and appropriate trainers are highly recommended. If purchased templates are allowed under your contract’s terms, the initial prices of Template Stacking I and Template Stacking II are reduced by 50%, to 10 credits each.

Other Contractors

The company is a multiversal organization. You are hardly their only contractor, though the multiverse is certainly expansive enough that you can live many lifetimes and never once meet one of your peers. The company offers a variety of means for non-allied contractors to interact, beyond random chance encounters in the vast multiverse. Some of these interactions will even be friendly, but others… less so.

Green Eye Orb

Cost: 10

This is your invitation to any one of the company’s exclusive clubs for contractors. You can bring up to three members of your retinue to eat, drink, game, make new friends and rivals, and do business with other contractors and retinues at these neutral grounds. Both indoor and outdoor environments and services are available.

Conflict between contractors, including poaching each others’ retinues, is actively prevented in real time via Demiplane Laws. Note that the company does not enforce fairness in trades between contractors, so take care to watch your own back.

PvP Glossary

• Home Territory / Turf: This includes all company provided spaces (Pocket Apartment and upgrades, Dragon Cabin, space claimed by Creep, etc.), plus any locations in a local world that you or your retinue have possessed for at least 24 hours.
• PvP Asset Value: The sum of the list prices for your retinue’s effective tiers after step 4, plus the combined list prices of your Catch-a-Ride vehicles. Imaginary Tiers are valued according to the exchange rate of their IMG value. If you only bring a limited force into a PvP match, only they will count towards this.
• PvP Credit Value: Your total PvP Asset Value, plus the combined list prices of your Controls, Talents, Demiplanes & Dungeons perks, and the first level of every owned Defense.

General PvP Rules

Not all of these rulesets apply to every form of PvP, but each applies to more than one, and will be referred back to as necessary. All debuffs in these rules are in place for any interactions between you (and your subjects) and your opponent (and their subjects). These debuffs do not apply to interactions between yourself and natives of your current universe.

Home Territory Integration

Enabled for: Invasions (Defending Side)

If you have a Pocket Apartment or higher, the location is integrated into the local environment for as long as you’re connected to that world. The locals will not notice its appearance or disappearance. Conjunction, Apportation, and Warranty Plan’s killswitch are all disabled while on your opponent’s home turf.

Defense Perk Restrictions

Enabled for: Invasions (all), Arranged

The often-necessary Defense perks made available to Contractors for PvE activity are also strong enough to cause excessive frustration in PvP. To answer this concern, the immunity levels of all Defenses are disabled.

D-Travel Restrictions

Enabled for: Invasions (all), Arranged

        To ensure that a match actually occurs, participants may not leave until the end, whether the intended destination is a parallel of the same world or part of a different multiverse cluster entirely.

NTR is a Trash Fetish (PvP Capturing)

Enabled for: Invasions (non-Phantasms)

If a member of a retinue is captured by an enemy and held in their territory (whether that territory is purchased from the company or acquired locally) for a period of 24 hours, the hostage loses the benefits of Creature, Stress, Mind, Addiction, Wyldscape, and Corruption Defenses until rescued. The timer begins only when the hostage is both defeated and restrained, and it will reset if they are touched by their master or leave enemy territory unrestrained. The timer will pause if they leave while still restrained by the enemy.

Once the timer has run its course, the kidnapper is free to use any bindings, lures, or third-party mind control methods they have, as if the hostage were free. Targets stolen from another contractor are worth 0 capture credits, but may be sold at the usual rate, adjusting for their effective tier after step 3. Recapturing one of your own companions does not grant any credits.

Shores in Flames: Invasion PvP

Invasions are the only form of PvP that occur in the “wild,” outside of dedicated arena realms. Any contractor who owns a Red Eye Orb may participate, as either the invader or the defender, or a White Eye Orb, as an ally of the defender.

In an invasion, any member of the invading force or non-local forces allied to the defender will appear as a translucent phantasm. Invaders have a dark red tint, while allies glow white or gold. Red Phantasms cannot harm any local forces that are not part of the defender’s retinue, even the defender’s local allies; White and Gold Phantasms can only harm Red Phantasms. All harm done to phantasms is temporary: a “slain” phantasm will dissolve into motes of the same color, be sent back to their contractor’s home world, and return to active duty after a solid week (168 hours) of recuperation. All Phantasms that remain in a battle zone at the end of an invasion, regardless of the outcome, will automatically return home.

Red Eye Orb

Cost: 100

Hardly different at all from the original items, as they were used in the many parallels of an ashen world, ownership of one of these orbs lets you and a strike force invade another contractor’s world and ruin their hard work.

To qualify as an invasion target, the enemy contractor must first own a Red Eye Orb of their own. Yes, this means you may find yourself the defender in this scenario. This is your warning. Second, they have visited a parallel of at least one world that you’ve visited. The battle will take place in that parallel. Third, their PvP credit value must be in the same ballpark as your force’s PvP asset value, with the higher of the two no more than 25% more than the lower. Invasion targets are randomly selected by company systems; contractors have no influence on the process.

An invader’s strike force will appear as Red Phantasms, as explained in the Glossary. All harm or other effects done to the defender’s retinue will be real, however, including PvP Captures; see that section for details. Invaders may retreat at any time, as individuals or a group, though any who do so will suffer the full recuperation period as if they were slain outright.

White Eye Orb

Cost: 75

When the defending side of an invasion calls for help, this orb allows you to answer, and demonstrate the value of Jolly Cooperation. The PvP asset value of the force you send must be within the same range as the defender and attacker: between 80% of the higher value and 125% of the lower value. Similarly to the invading force, your strike force will appear as shining White Phantasms in the invaded world.

The defender may call up to three allied forces if they want, though this will affect their prize payout if they win (see below). Answering calls to arms is optional; White Eye Orbs have a Do Not Disturb function that can make refusals automatic. You do not need to have visited your own parallel of a world to answer a call to arms there, but a call to arms will not count as visiting that world for We Will Meet Again, Rainbow Bridge, and other dimensional travel purposes.

A contractor whose retinue maintains a win ratio of at least 90% after at least 20 calls-to-arms will instead have Gold Phantasms. This change has no in-battle effects, but the prestige of success comes with responsibilities: a gold-rated retinue cannot actively refuse a call to arms. This does not include auto-refusals from Do Not Disturb, but keeping that function on for more than two continuous weeks (336 hours) will forfeit your gold rating. You can re-qualify after at least 20 new calls-to-arms, provided your win ratio remains over 90%.

Invasion Victory Conditions and Prizes

As an invader: You win by regicide (killing the enemy contractor) even if the target doesn’t remain dead long enough for their retinue to dissolve. A self- resurrector’s temporary death still counts.

As a defender or ally: You win if the invading force retreats or is annihilated. Mutual kills default to the defender.

The winner of an invasion attempt will always earn 25% of the sum of all Phantasmal forces’ PvP asset value and the defender’s PvP credit value. If the defending side wins, this will be split evenly between the defender and each ally - each additional ally called reduces every defender’s share of the pool.

There are no financial penalties for losing an invasion. Phantasms are immune to capture, but may still be detained and their Defenses disabled. Captured members of the defender’s retinue will not become phantasms and may be recaptured by the defender’s forces, or on the defender’s behalf by their phantasm allies. However, if an invader captures any of the defender’s forces and goes on to win the overall battle, they may keep those captures permanently. Otherwise, the captures will be returned to their owner.

Counter-Invasions

A successful defender has seven days (168 hours) to mount a counter-invasion, following much the same rules but with the roles reversed. Red Eye Orbs may not be refunded while any counter-invasion timer is still active. The target of a counter-invasion may not call for aid from White Eye Orb owners. Counter-invasions cannot themselves be retaliated against, unless the invader is lucky enough to get the same target twice in a row.

Come Out and Play: Arranged PvP

Smaller-scale PvP matchmaking is available for contractors who don’t wish to get involved with a career-defining project. This is accessible through a specialized app on your smart device, provided you are not currently participating in PvP and are not in debt..

Contractors choose their desired match settings themselves, that is, the desired number, strength, and experience/ruthlessness/skill of their opponents, and the environment that the match will be fought in. “Random” options are available for each opponent’s skill and strength, as well as the environment. (Note to authors: it’s not actually random on your end.)

Up to twelve contractors may participate in an arranged match, including yourself. No replacements will enter after the match starts.

Opponent skill is sorted into three broad categories: Casual, Average, and Hardcore. Each of these correlates to one of the opponent types in continuous PvP: Negotiable, Rival, and Enemy, respectively.

Strength values are measured on a scale from 1 to 9, as shown in the table to the right. These multipliers are applied to your PvP credit value, with the result rounded to the nearest multiple of 5, to approximate the designated opponent’s budget. Both strength and skill are determined separately for each opponent.

Arranged PvP matches take place in pocket dimensions similar to a contractor’s Demiplane. Any biome for this may be chosen as a preference, whether a cityscape, forest, plain, desert, ocean, mountain range, or even a colonized asteroid or other space setting. The size of an arranged match’s arena and number of usable structures scales to the number of participants, so that every contractor has a starting home turf, all spaced roughly equally far apart from each other. Sufficiently large arenas are likely to have multiple biomes, to accommodate the many contractors’ varying preferences.

Arranged Match Wagers, Victory Conditions, and Risk

Each participant in an arranged match wagers a percent of their PvP credit value upon entering a match. Casual opponents will wager 5%, Average opponents 10%, and Hardcore opponents 15%, all rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. Player contractors are assumed to be Average and thus wager 10%. This is taken out of their accounts when the match starts.

The default victory method in arranged matches is regicide: defeat (capture or kill) all opposing contractors. Their retinues are only a concern as far as they can protect their contractor and will be ejected from the arena. Other styles are also available, including but not limited to:

• Domination: A retinue loses when <% between 66 and 90> of its PvP asset value is defeated.
• King of the Hill: capture and hold <territory>.
• Capture the Flag: capture and hold <people or items>.
• Race: Be the first to complete <mission>.
• Assassin: can only attack <participant> until the target is defeated, then you get a new target. Participants’ targets are hidden from each other. Can still defend against others.
• Mission competitions. Normal credit pay becomes points instead. Winner is the retinue with the most points after the final round.
• Shooting Gallery: Waves of enemy mooks descend on the participants’ positions. Has Limited (winning retinue has the highest score after a set number of rounds) and Survival (winning retinue is the last one standing) variations.
• Presentation: Can be applied to any other ruleset. Points are awarded to each retinue based on style, with a bonus for winning the match according to the normal rules.

Defeated participants in an arranged match are merely ejected from the arena, losing only the credits they wagered. All harm or enslavement done to a contractor or their retinue is reversed upon ejection, to up and including death.

Arranged Team Matches and Prizes

Team play is compatible with arranged PvP as well. A team only loses when all of its members are defeated. Unlike in continuous PvP, arranged teams do not necessarily have equal strength or skill.

The total of all of a match’s wagers, plus 50% rounded down, is awarded to the winning contractor. A winning team splits the pot evenly, regardless of how many of them remained active to the end. The match’s winner(s) may keep a clone of any one member of their opponents’ retinues that the winner or winner’s retinue defeated during the match - no more than one to each winner. Retinue members that are sold as pairs or trios count as one for this purpose, and only one member of the set needs to be defeated in such cases.

Alternatively, if the winner has the Ancestral Diversity modifier, they may decline all cloned retinue members for a match in favor of the Heritage of an opponent that they or their retinue defeated personally. This grants the winner the root Heritage perk only, bypassing the Ancestral Diversity perk.

Special Arranged Match Rules

Selling an opponent’s retinue member that you captured will merely eject them from the match, with no budgetary effect. All purchases from the company’s store app are blocked during arranged matches. Body, Wild, and Drain Defense are disabled for the duration of the match.

Blue Eye Orb

Cost: 15

More similar to the red soapstone or dragon eyes from the many parallels of an ashen world than the original blue eye orb, ownership of this item allows you to specifically invite another contractor to a duel between your two teams, skipping the normal matchmaking process. This otherwise follows the regular Arranged PvP procedures.

You can only challenge contractors that you’ve met in person. This may happen by any means, including Green Eye Orb use, regular Arranged PvP, or Invasions.

Company Services

Clientele

We the company do actually have regular clients. Clients use their own local currency or property to buy clones made from the companions, followers, and familiars that Contractors pick up in their operations. These products are stamped with company tattoos keyed to their new owners. A Contractor encountering a Client and their purchase during the course of their operations is rare, but not unheard-of.

Contractor Salary

As one of our contractors, you are entitled to a monthly salary of 10,000 USD or the equivalent in your homeland’s currency. This will be deposited directly into your smart device’s account, so you can convert it to the local money systems of the worlds you visit. On-the-spot fabrication of physical currency or coinage is included at no extra cost.

Bonus pay is also available for each month. This is valued at the sum of the list prices of all captures you’ve made for that month, including earned waifu perks. Imaginary Tier characters are valued according to the exchange rate of their IMG value. For this purpose only, 1 credit is equal to 100 USD.

Help Desk Hotline

If you, a contractor, have questions about any company function, perk, a retinue member’s capabilities, or even is just in a bind locally and doesn’t know what to do next, you need only call the Help Desk and ask. Trained operators are standing by at all times to hear you out. A dedicated app on your smart device allows you to access this free service with just a single tap. Just give a detailed description of your current situation and how it relates to your question, and the operator will answer and (if you’re in a bind) offer some possible solutions. A direct scan of your last seven days of activity will be made - ignoring your Information and Trace Defenses - for our records and to help our operators understand the full context, but don’t worry. Your information is strictly confidential. Not even our operators will remember your situation between the end of one call and the start of the next.

Loans

You may take loans from the company at any time after chargen. In some situations, you may even find yourself forced to do so. All loans are treated as a single value, your loan balance. This is a separate value from your credit balance.

A starting build on Intensities 0-1 has a loan limit of 500 credits. Intensity 2 reduces that limit to 400 credits; Intensity 3 reduces it to 300; and Intensities 4-5, 200. On intensities 6 and higher, your starting loan limit is 100 credits. For each new world your retinue visits, your loan limit will increase by 100 credits, to a maximum of 5,000.

Interest on your loans is charged every 30 days, from your POV as the contractor, at a fixed rate of 12.5%. You will always have 7 days’ notice before the end of a loan interval. Only the current balance when interest is charged matters, not the peak balance for the month in question. If the interest due at the end of a month is less than half of the total payment you’ve made toward your principal in that month, you will instead not be charged interest for that month.

Interest payments are automatically paid from your credit balance. If you lack sufficient credits, the interest will be added to your loan. If you hit your loan limit or are overcapped, the excess interest will be converted into debt.

Debt

While your credit balance is below zero, you are in debt. While in debt, you may not make any additional purchases. You may not enter Arranged PvP. Any or all of your Controls and Perks may be disabled, up to and including the basic loyalty effects common to all Bindings. You may be assigned mandatory missions and face additional penalties for failure. All such penalties will only last until your credit balance is no longer below zero.

Refund and Return Policy

Origins, Heritages, and your other half in a Couple’s Account (including as part of Danger Rating X starts) are all non-refundable.

All items in the Bindings, Lures and Other Controls, Demiplanes & Dungeons, Talents and Defenses, Catch-a- Ride Perks, Other Perks, and Waifu Perks sections may be refunded at any time, for 80% of the full price you paid. If you return a Control or Perk that gives other items for free, but wish to keep the bundled items, their list prices will be deducted from the standard refund value.

If you return a purchased subject or Ride within two weeks (336 hours) of purchase, you will be refunded the full price you paid, including any waifu perks or Ride add-ons applied to the returnee. Waifu perks applied to the returnee will only be refunded up to 80%.

If you return a purchased subject or Ride after that point, you’ll only receive 80% the price you paid, including the total cost of waifu perks and Ride add-ons applied to the returnee.

If you use Evolutionary Engine Array or other means to copy the purchase’s abilities, or otherwise bought that person with the intent of returning them after a task or time, the original purchase will be treated as a rental and capped at 60%.

Like with captures, if a returned subject is damaged or robbed, such that her effective tier at step 3 is less than her tier at step 1a, the return value will instead be relative to the purchase price of her new tier, not her listed tier. This applies to all three of the previous contexts.

IMG refunds are all calculated the same way, but valued in IMG instead of credits. If an IMG refund is not measured in whole tickets, the remainder will be converted into an equivalent number of credits.

Missions

Contractors who wish to take a more active role in company operations may accept special missions that serve its interests. These are strictly optional and may be found in an app on the smart device.

Up to nine missions will be available at any time, outside of an active Invasion. A contractor may accept up to three missions at a time. Missions not accepted will not remain indefinitely. If you have at least one empty mission slot, you may reset the list of available missions up to three times per day. Options you turned down when you accepted your third mission will not necessarily still be there when you see the list again.

All missions have a scope, a location, an objective, a reward, and at least one condition. Many missions will have additional objectives nested within them that can variously point toward the overall mission’s next steps or add additional complications with bonus rewards. The mission app’s GUI does not distinguish between a helpful nested objective and a bonus one. Missions can range from somewhat challenging to very, but all missions offered to a contractor can be completed by that contractor and/or their retinue. Some additional purchases may be required or recommended for a given mission, but not anything beyond the contractor’s budget at the time the mission is offered, plus the estimated value of all required nested objectives. Failing a mission means you lose out on the reward, in addition to any casualties your retinue took in the process.

Scope is an estimate of how much time and effort a mission will take, and comes in three broad categories. Quick missions are simple milk runs that can be completed in a single chapter or short story arc (no more than 5,000 words). Standard-length missions are significantly more complex, with a small number of Quick objectives contained within them, and may demand up to 50,000 words to be told properly. Grand missions are the subjects of epic sagas, with a large number of Quick and Standard-length objectives. You may only accept one Grand mission at a time.

A mission’s location may be in any world. If you do not have access to that world, its dimensional coordinates and/or transportation there will be provided for you. Quick missions will always be in a world that you can already access.

Mission objectives vary widely. Sample objectives include:

• Capture <target>.
• Capture all canon love interests of <character>. Let <character> know you’ve enslaved them.
• Help <faction> achieve <goal>.
• Defeat <individual/entity/faction> in <conflict type>.
• Your retinue is an antagonist faction. Defeat <setting’s heroes>.
• Find and obtain <object>.
• Defeat <threat>.
• Resettle <population> to a suitable new home.
• Defend <subject> against <threat(s)>.

Conditions are added complications that apply to a mission and all nested objectives within it. Nested objectives may have their own conditions as well. Sample conditions include:

• Leave no trace. No captures, no kills, and no detection allowed.
• No personal involvement. Your retinue must do everything.
• If you want it done right, do it yourself. Your retinue can’t help.
• Forage: Only local captures may help.
• <Company function or perk> is disabled.
• Nerf: All retinue members limited to <tier value> while in <mission setting>.
• Inside Context: Use only powers/technology native to <mission setting>.
• Time Limit, hard: “<Mission> must be completed within <time>.”
• Time Limit, specific: “<Mission> must complete at <time>,”
• Time Limit, soft: “You must complete <mission> before <competition>.”
• Surprise: At least one additional complication may arise part-way through.

Mission rewards come in two parts. First, completing a Standard or Grand mission in a world you already have access to will always, immediately, open a new one through the Rainbow Bridge or Exit Stage Left systems.

Second is the choice between a raw credit value and a specific item in the catalog, whether a companion, perk, or what-have-you. The item prize is typically valued around 20-30% higher than the credits, and always in the +15% to +50% range. This second reward is highly variable, dependent on not just the difficulty of the mission (as modified by conditions) but a contractor’s speed and technique. A mission’s scope is highly correlated to its difficulty, while some objectives are naturally harder, and thus more rewarding, than others.

Origins

Pick one and only one of these five options at the start of your build. This choice is permanent. With Extra and Substitute, any companions that you purchase as part of your initial build will have valid documentation, as necessary, and a local backstory. Later purchases will not benefit from this, nor will you have such benefits in later worlds - unless you or your companions make it yourselves.

Like all company-supplied powers, abilities gained through Substitute, Possess, or Extra cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen. The two perks Power Swap and Memoria are also available, as optional modifiers to your Origin..

Drop-In

Cost: 0

You are you. You have no documentation, no social advantages, nothing in your new world save the clothes on your back, your knowledge of fiction, personal skills, and of course any Company products you purchase.

Walk-In

Cost: 0

Instead of yourself, the contractor in your story is a canon character from some established work, starting in either their homeworld (at its original DR) or somewhere else. Canon characters don’t see this as a distinct option from Drop-In, nor do they need to pay extra to be themselves. However, their only knowledge of any world they might visit comes from any works they may have experienced personally and whatever spoilers they’ve encountered while browsing Company systems.

Extra

Cost: 1 (10) (100)

You reincarnate into a non-canon “normie” character from your starting world, the equivalent of a tier 1 companion, an alternate you who grew up in your starting world. (If you’re naturally a T2 or T3 instead, your IRL skill set will not be removed or otherwise reduced.) Your original memories are downloaded into the new you’s head at some point before the start of your story, but not before the new you is the equivalent of 13 human years old. You can distinguish between the two sets of memories without difficulty.

If your starting world is one where even the “normie” characters have in-born special abilities equivalent to a copper-star companion, the local you will have some low- superhuman ability that fits the setting and this origin costs 10 credits. If the “normie” characters are instead equivalent to silver- star companions, you will be equivalent to them and this origin will cost 100 credits.

Substitute

Cost: 0 (Variable)

You reincarnate into a canon character from your starting world, whether that’s a waifu or husbando, at a time when they’re alive. You will be them, for all intents and purposes, with your original memories adding to theirs at some point before the start of your story, but not before the equivalent of 13 human years old. You can distinguish between the two sets of memories without difficulty. Rule 63 variants of substitution targets require Universal Calibration, unless the target is androgynous or customizable. If the target is part of a set that are purchased together, choose one to insert into and take the others as free retinue members. If the target has any number of personal familiars, take them as free retinue members as well.

You will keep all of your substitution target’s skills, powers, and special traits, as they were at the point of substitution. All adjustments described in Basic Rules: Purchases will still apply to your substitution choice.

 You must purchase your substitution target as if they were a companion. Their price will be adjusted to their ability at the time you enter and will often be lower than their listed price. Abilities that require no material effort to awaken or develop should be treated as though they are already awakened/developed for this purpose. You may not spend more than 20% of your intensity-adjusted starting budget on this perk, after accounting for any waifu perks applied at chargen (including Power Swap).

Possess

Cost: 0 (Variable)

Be the companion. Your self will be downloaded into the body of a companion, completely replacing theirs. Rule 63 variants are available for every choice imaginable. You must purchase that companion’s body at their full price. Take this perk if you want to start in a world other than the one your target calls home. If you ever enter your target’s homeworld, even as your first world, an original version of the character will be present. If the target is part of a set that are purchased together, choose one to insert into and take the others as free retinue members.

Everything that your target would have if you bought them outright, you keep, except for their episodic memory and emotional connections - because the original personality was never present. All adjustments described in Basic Rules: Purchases will still apply to your possession choice.

Bindings

[The witch] begins at first with doing tricks rather strange then hurtfull: yea some of them are pretty and pleasing. But it is dangerous to gather floures that grow on the banks of the pit of hell, for fear of falling in; yea they which play with the devils rattles, will be brought by degrees to wield his sword, and from making of sport they come to doing of mischief.

-Thomas Fuller, The Profane State: The Witch

General Binding Rules

All bindings ensure a companion's loyalty, friendship, and romantic and sexual interest in you, and nudge them in that direction toward your other companions. Bonds between your companions grow more quickly with increased interaction, but will not override familial relationships without significant pressure.

Companion obedience is not absolute. In general, they put the spirit of your orders over the letter. Strong-willed companions may elect to ignore disliked orders and follow their own initiative. More often, a competent companion whose moral alignment conflicts with an order’s means or ends will raise an objection and the two of you will have to argue it out.

Bound companions are also somewhat more likely, depending on their moral alignments, to consider “Just bind her and make her one of us” a valid solution to any problem involving a companion candidate. Even the purest of heart can find themselves seduced by the power to turn any enemy into a friend.

All bindings work equally well regardless of the user’s or target’s sex, gender, or orientation. If you change your binding method, any expansion you bought for the old one will be refunded at the standard rate. Like all company- supplied powers, bindings cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen.

For safety reasons, all purchased companions, followers, and familiars are bound with one of the Stamp’s tattoos before delivery, unless you opt out of having any bindings. You can have no more than one binding method at any time. Perks listed as Other Capture Methods are not bindings, and are thus compatible with each other and all bindings. When you buy a new binding method, your previous one will be automatically refunded and disappear from existence. Any physical or mental effects that the former binding actively maintained will fade over the next few days. Long-term “set and forget” effects, such as from Tempest Jewelry, the Hypnosis App, or Tantric Arts, will remain in their current state.

All of your subjects have a dormant, invisible tattoo, to mark them as yours and act as a conduit for the appropriate level of general binding rules, as determined by your intensity choices and the individual’s status in your retinue. Dormant tattoos turn active when Canvas is applied or you have the Stamp.

Empty Hand

Cost: 0

        This is not a true binding, but instead the lack of any binding implements. All other capture methods are still available, including the use of third-party mind control or Familiar bonds.

Binding: Company Stamp

Cost: 0

This permanent magical tattoo instills only the mental effects common to all bindings. To capture targets, you may apply this tattoo using a thumb-sized ink stamp. You can only have one stamp at a time, and only you and your retinue members can perceive the stamp when it’s not in use. The inked part, on one end, contains the tattoo’s core, a circular design that serves as your emblem.

Stamping requires 3 seconds of sustained contact with the target’s skin, from the stamper’s perception, to start the tattoo-creation process. You must apply enough pressure to make the ink transfer properly. The most popular stamping sites are typically the pubic region, lower back, or back of the neck. Newly-applied tattoos require 72 hours to ramp up to their full effect, from the perception of the person stamped.

During the ramp-up period, additional ink will fill itself in around your emblem to form a much more elaborate design, about the size of the subject’s palm, that represents her history and personality. Captured subjects and people they know will not notice a tattoo-in-progress until it completes itself, at which point they’ll rationalize away its sudden appearance. If a tattoo’s location is ever damaged or severed, its effects will continue and it will reappear when the skin is regenerated or the body part replaced.

Stamped targets only count as captured at the end of this period, when the tattoo completes. Completed tattoos are always perceptible. A stamp’s location on a target’s body may be repositioned after the fact through the company app; a generated 3D model of the target serves as a reference.

The stamp never runs out of ink and cannot be used accidentally. If you are stamped, by yourself or another, it will only have cosmetic effects. If one of your subjects marks someone new with it, the newbie will feel its effects as if you had used it on her yourself. The anti-loss, -theft, and -destruction measures on the company’s smart device also apply to this stamp.

Binding: Tempest Jewelry

Cost: 10

These magitech jewels reward obedience through pleasure. You receive one new piece of jewelry each day, up to a limit of 5 unused pieces at a time. This limit increases by one for each member of your retinue, including yourself, currently wearing this jewelry. This binding will be applied to purchased companions before delivery.

When you purchase this binding, select one type of jewelry to give to your companions: choker, ring, (bracelet and anklet), (armlet and thighlet), (headpiece: crown, tiara, hood, etc.), or (facepiece: mask, veil, visor, etc.). The other options may be purchased with a later perk. Tempest bands may be leather, silk, or metal, depending on jewelry type. Aside from the facepiece, all Tempest items have a central mounted gem: ruby, orange topaz, citrine, emerald, sapphire, amethyst, alexandrite, and clear and black diamonds are all available. Facepieces are highly variable, but generally have your emblem on the front. Tempest Rings are designed to be worn on the fingers, not anywhere else.

Wearers’ libido is highly enhanced, as is submissiveness to both their masters and any more dominant members of the same retinue. Several options are available for punishing disobedience, including induced emotional numbness or release denial for a set time. You are your own master and not subject to any unwanted side- effects of your own equipment.

When a Tempest item’s latch (if it has one) is first closed around a wearer, the latch disappears and manual removal becomes impossible as the jewelry automatically activates. If an active jewelry piece is ever broken, it will repair itself completely the next time it isn’t observed by anyone who isn’t in your retinue, and may not otherwise be warped away. If a wearer dematerializes, swaps bodies, or otherwise transforms away from a standard humanoid height and build, the jewelry will disappear with, into, or otherwise follow the wearer for the duration.

Intentional damage or removal of a wearer's own Tempest item becomes unthinkable after one full week (168 hours), via a gradual process of rationalization, physical comfort, the automatic reward and punishment system, and, in extreme circumstances, short-term memory loss. Captures are finalized at this point if no other effort is spent. The process can be accelerated to as few as three days (72 hours), however, if the wearer loses all will to resist. Removing a jewelry from a subject before that point will stop their capture process, voiding all progress. Any punishment system you program for jewelry wearers will start working from the moment the latch is first closed, not just when the capture is finalized. If you (the contractor) wear a Tempest item, you may deactivate and remove it at any time.

You may deactivate any of your retinue's jewelry through the associated software, installed as an app on your smart device. The latch will reappear and may then be undone (and the jewelry removed) normally. Your retinue may use other app features added by expansion perks, but cannot perceive the deactivation option. (They may still use it if directly ordered.) This app will uninstall itself if you trade in the Jewelry for a different Binding. This is company software and benefits from all such protections.

Luxury Goods

Cost: 5 (25)

Requires: Tempest Jewelry

Select an additional jewelry type for your Tempest items. This may be repurchased until every jewelry type is available to you. Additionally, you will receive an additional Tempest item each day with each purchase, with your reserve cap increasing by 5.

Additional Stock

Cost: 5

Requires: Luxury Goods (maximum)

You will receive an additional Tempest item each day with each purchase, with your reserve cap increasing by 5. This may be repurchased for the same effect any number of times.

Shackles

Cost: 10

Requires: Luxury Goods (1x)

Chains are now available as a special jewelry type. These are usually worn as necklaces or around the waist, but can also link a pair of bracelets or anklets. We also offer special harnesses that are designed to be worn over the front of the torso. Depending on the wearer’s setup, these can attach to a necklace or choker, a belt or belly chain, nipple caps or piercings, or navel or genital piercings. Tempest chains are just as durable as any other jewelry piece.

Additionally, any of your Tempest bracelets or anklets in use will now have a pseudo-magnetic lock, allowing you to quickly hobble and restrain any of your subjects or capture targets. If a chain already links a pair of bracelets or anklets when you enable the lock, it will simply retract at both ends.

A chain that’s attached to a bracelet on only one end can have combat utility, whether the other end remains loose (as a whip) or is attached to a weapon. Either way, chains used as whips are just as retractable as the handcuffs-type use described above, with a maximum length of five times the wearer’s height. Chain-whips require a great deal of skill to use and Martial Talent is highly recommended.

This perk also increases your daily Tempest stock by 1 and reserve limit by 5.

Designer Set

Cost: 35

Requires: Luxury Goods (1x)

Each worn Tempest piece can now project invisible, semi-permeable barrier shields. These shields are accompanied by purely-aesthetic “armor” projections, matching the Tempest pieces they’re projected from: leather to leather, metal to metal, as well as the gemstone color. Within that determined color scheme, the projected armor can have any appearance. This can be changed manually in the app. As the actual protection comes from the shield, it remains just as effective regardless of how much skin is concealed. These projections are physical and can catch on thick or loose clothing. For best results, skintight undersuits or outright nudity (aside from the Tempest pieces) are recommended.

The shields from this perk do not benefit from any durability added to the Tempest pieces that project them. If a shield section takes too much damage too quickly, the shield will fail and the accompanying “armor” will shatter into light. A broken shield will only reactivate once it has a full charge.

Shields have three basic settings. At the weakest level, a shield will evenly cover the entire body, which can withstand direct fire from a high-caliber heavy machine gun for three seconds before failing. Without additional stress, a broken shield will recharge after ten seconds.

At the middle level, the shield will concentrate around a single body part that one of its components is projected from: headpiece and facepiece to the entire head, bracelets separately to each hand and forearm, necklace or waist chains (from Shackles) to the torso, etc. A full set will cover the entire body and allow the full use of this mode. Rings can assist with this mode if a non-ring piece is worn, but will not protect the hands individually. At this level, a shield can withstand a single direct hit from a modern battleship’s main cannon before failing. When this shield breaks, it will recharge after three hours.

The highest level is an emergency barrier that requires at least 6 worn Tempest pieces to activate. This barrier can take only a single strike before failing, but will always take that strike, no matter how powerful it is. The barrier will then linger around the user, providing 1 second of temporary invincibility before it fades completely. This barrier must be manually triggered or programmed with Expert Runes: Logic, and takes a full day (24 hours) to recharge.

On the lower two modes, each additional Tempest piece that an individual wears will add its base protection to the first, as well as a +5% modifier to the total shield protection. In these two modes, all active shields will break and recharge as one. The emergency barrier has a different form of durability: each additional shield is simply another hit that the wearer can take. Emergency shielding will fail as individual layers, with only a single layer recharging at a time. Individual shields that break in this mode will remain broken for the other two modes as well and not contribute to them until they’ve fully recharged.

Aggressive Initiations

Cost: 20

Requires: Tempest Jewelry

The minimum time required to confirm a Tempest capture may now be reduced to zero, through the target’s sexual submission to yourself or more dominant members of your retinue. The more and stronger orgasms the subject experiences at their dominator’s hand, the faster the capture will progress. Otherwise, the capture will still take the normal amount of time.

Absolute Order

Cost: 40

Requires: Aggressive Initiations

Disobedience is no longer allowed. Captured jewelry wearers will perform any intentional, direct order you give them, within the realm of physical or mental possibility. Orders do not need to be consciously possible. Will-saves, intelligence-saves, or reinterpretations are not allowed. Even if a wearer wants to resist, their body or mind will perform as ordered regardless. Unlike other controls, this enforces your exact words, not your intent: “Do X” and “Make and follow a plan to do X” can have vastly different results.

Assuming Direct Control

Cost: 50

Requires: Luxury Goods (maximum), Shackles, Designer Set, Absolute Order

You can now project your consciousness to bodyjack any of your subjects who wear a full set of Tempest pieces: at least one bracelet and armlet for each arm, at least one thighlet and anklet for each leg, one piece each on the head and face, and at least one each on the neck and torso. Rings are optional. Take one copy of Possession Defense for free.

This perk is limited by your mental multiprocessing ability: at baseline, you can only take over one subject at a time, leaving your own body idle. Multicore Neural Leyline and Distributed Intellectual Devotions are recommended for simultaneous control of multiple bodies.

Depending on the settings you choose in the Tempest app, any mental programming you’ve already performed on them, and what you actually use their bodies for, your actively-puppeted subjects may experience that time as a pleasant dream, a helpless locked-in nightmare, or remain unaware as they sleep right through. More cooperative and aware subjects are more likely to give feedback and advice through the link so your puppets can act more like their normal selves.

Active uses of this perk count as soul links for the purpose of Inexhaustible and allow you to use your own psychic techniques and magical abilities through the link. Additionally, the central gemstones in each Tempest piece that your puppet wears will visibly shine while this perk is active, as will any Stamp tattoos from Canvas.

Jewels of Discord

Cost: 25

Requires: Tempest Jewelry

Tempest items can now adjust their styles to better match the rest of the wearer’s clothing, with no changes to their type. A ring will always be a ring.

Anyone attempting to remove a Tempest item will not notice their failure, nor the fact that the item is still there afterwards. This applies to both used and unused items.

With unused jewels only, you may reverse this effect and make the item (one item at a time) unusually interesting to potential targets. This applies to all potential targets who see it in person and may spark fights over the item. When a potential target touches the item, they will be overcome with an urge to wear it. This effect lasts 48 hours or until the item is worn, whichever comes first. The more selfish a target (the less control they have over their base desires), the stronger the pull becomes. Imaginary tier targets are not noticeably affected.

Potential targets affected by this attractor, who fail to wear the specific jewelry piece themselves, will remain affected after it finds a wearer and transfer their desire to future jewelry (with this effect active) they see without any cognitive dissonance.

This attractor fails at the appropriate stages for targets who lack a sense of sight or touch. Strong-willed targets can choose to resist the attractor, periodically negating its effect before it needs to be resisted again. A stronger will increases the duration of this resistance, to an initial cap of 24 hours. After the passive resistance expires, if a target actively resists the attractor again before the target sleeps or 24 more hours have passed, whichever comes first, the duration of their resistance will be doubled. Each of these doublings will stack until the streak ends and the duration cap resets back to 24 hours.

Golden Idol

Cost: 65

Requires: Jewels of Discord

Any retinue member wearing at least one Tempest piece can be transformed into an inanimate object between 10% and 100% of the person’s normal height. This can be purely ornamental, such as a statue, body pillow, or figurine, or functional as a tool or weapon. For functional items, the function will always reflect the retinue member’s skills or abilities and scale according to their tier: someone with fire powers and is transformed into a sword would most likely become a flaming sword. Take one copy of Polymorph Defense for free. You can transform your objectified subjects back to normal through the app. If you instead used this perk on yourself, you can return to normal at will.

The objectified retinue member will benefit from both the protections given to active jewelry and the lure effect of Jewels of Discord; the more pieces they were wearing before the transformation, the stronger the effect. If the object is meant to be worn, it will benefit from the same anti-loss features as regular Tempest items; handheld objects instead benefit from the same anti-loss features as the Company Smart Device.

Objectified subjects experience a flow state for the duration, aware of their surroundings but not affected by natural needs or boredom. Basic Runes is suggested for communication with your subjects and tactical use of this feature. Objectified retinue members’ thoughts, that they intend to transmit, will automatically be converted into comms, bypassing the need for physical speech. If a retinue member is pregnant when this perk is applied, the pregnancy will be put on hold until they return to living form. Fertility Calibration cannot affect objectified individuals.

Finally, love confessions aimed toward your subjects will count as captures. The targets who do so will be marked with stamp tattoos, so you can give them Tempest pieces at a later time. These follow all of the same rules as confessions aimed toward yourself.

Backseat Driver

Cost: 30

Requires: Golden Idol, Assuming Direct Control

Your objectified retinue members may now control their users. When worn or held, as appropriate to their form, they can exit their flow state to wear their user’s body as their own. Depending on the difference in willpower between the two, the user might have any of the same experiences while possessed as in Assuming Direct Control. Only one object may seize control of their user at a time. While in this state, if the host remains aware, the possessor can accelerate their capture using the methods of Aggressive Initiations, at reduced efficiency relative to both individuals having their own bodies. The possession by itself is not enough for this effect.

After the user is captured, you can shift which mind is in control at any point along sliders from one to the other. Gradients along this slider represent fusion states between the two subjects. With Body Runes and Mind Runes, you can also control which individual aspects of the two subjects are emphasized, with each perk enabling physical or mental fine-tuning, respectively.

Basic Runes

Cost: 10

Requires: Tempest Jewelry

Tempest items now have a variety of mundane uses. The bracelets are now smart, with many electronic functions beyond a basic clock (digital or analog, depending on taste) and calculator. Automatic translation gives a wearer the ability to speak any language that you also speak, plus the standard and/or trade languages of any place they visit. This knowledge persists after they leave the area where the language is spoken.

Any Tempest facepiece in use by your retinue will now have a heads-up display with a variety of features and layouts that you can enable, disable, or modify as desired. As a contractor, your own facepiece may also wirelessly connect to your company smart device. If you have Designer Set, the heads-up display displayed from a Tempest facepiece will also show the wearer’s current shield integrity and remaining recharge time. This may be disabled.

A communications and monitoring app allows you to track your subjects’ locations and vitals and speak with them (and them with each other) remotely from any distance, even between different multiverses. These comms are not telepathic and will not work without actual speech or third-party thought-to-comms devices, limiting their use with thighlets and anklets. Tempest facepieces are highly recommended for this purpose. If you have Assuming Direct Control, the comms will become quasi- telepathic, converting intended thoughts to comms, and vice versa, for any retinue member who wears at least a Tempest facepiece.

A disguise app can temporarily shift the wearer’s apparent race (human, kitsune, vulcan, etc.) and phenotype to blend in better with the local populace. This app cannot emulate abilities that the wearer cannot perform normally. These disguises are not customizable and simply reflect what the wearer would look like if they were born as that race. You may only save one disguise at a time into each wearer’s profile.

Advanced Runes: Body

Cost: 35

Requires: Basic Runes

Tempest items may now apply direct physical transformations to your retinue. Take Body Tune-Up, Everlasting Talent, Athletic Talent, and one copy of Body Defense for free. Every valid physical parameter for a member of the wearer's race (human, kitsune, vulcan, etc.) may be altered, from age, height, and gender to muscle density and sexual characteristics. This also applies to you, if you wear a Tempest item, and wearers who are counted among your subjects. The disguises created using Basic Runes may now be customized.

A wearer's race may also be changed, on a deeper level than the disguises from this perk’s prerequisite, but only if you already have a natural example of the target race in your retinue. “Natural example” includes the results of Power Swap, but not examples created through Template Stacking or this feature. This perk cannot emulate the effects of party-wide Heritage perks such as Dragon Thrall.

The jewelry app now includes configuration pages for every wearer of active jewelry. Parameters may be adjusted here, mostly using sliders from 0% (typically the minimum value for a healthy human) to 100%. A jewelry piece’s central gem will visibly glow while a transformation progresses, and more brightly if the transformation is faster or more intense. Aggressive Initiations will hasten this perk’s effects on all targets, regardless of the subject’s capture state.

For example, hair length uses a linear scale of 1% = 2 cm, while other assets scale exponentially: +100% = 20x the mass. For the average adult human female, a breast measurement of 0% is about 100 g for each breast, 50% is about 350 g, and 100% is about 1.5 kg; full charts for Tempest sizes are available elsewhere. Height instead uses a multiplier relative to 168cm, with an initial range for humans from 7/8x (147 cm) to 1.25x (210 cm).

You may save an unlimited number of presets for each wearer and switch between them at any time. If a wearer has a defined alternate form (not a generalized shapeshifter), all of their forms will automatically be saved as presets. Additionally, any number of disguises made by this perk’s prerequisite may now be saved as presets. "Exactly how the wearer appeared when the jewelry was first worn, even if the wearer’s original sizes were beyond this perk’s normal limits," is always available as a default preset. Any changes made to this preset will instead output an otherwise- identical copy as a new preset. Deactivating a Tempest item will restore the wearer to their original appearance, unless you desire otherwise.

Any sufficiently-disabling transformation that is applied to you will have an automatic time limit of 48 hours so you don’t get stuck. If you reactivate that transformation within 10 minutes, the time limit will be doubled each time until your streak ends. You may set a shorter limit if you like.

If you have Absolute Order, the limits of this perk’s body modification are vastly raised. The more often and determinedly any wearer resists your orders, the higher the upper limit for all wearers’ parameters will increase. This will also decrease the lower limits for certain parameters, such as height. This limit’s increase has no hard cap, only a soft cap from your capture targets’ ability to maintain resistance to your orders. These effects apply even if the wearer is not yet fully captured. Absolute Order also allows this perk’s regular transformations to apply to wearers who are not yet captured.

Absolute Order also makes racial hybridization viable, with no theoretical limit on how many races you can hybridize into one individual. However, the result having all of the strengths of both sides and none of their weaknesses is only guaranteed when there are only two donor races present. More complex combinations are increasingly unreliable. Party-wide Heritage perks such as Dragon Thrall will not count against the hybridization limit, nor will pseudo-races that already freely hybridize, such as most varieties of cyborg, demigod, vampire or lycanthrope. Fandom-specific pseudo-races are noted in the relevant Setting Specific Rules.

Most measurements become physically unwieldy past 160% and very little testing was performed beyond 300%. Some form of weight reduction or strength boost, whether magical, technological, or otherwise, is highly recommended for such hyper sizes.

Advanced Runes: Mind

Cost: 35

Requires: Basic Runes

Mental transformations for all retinue members are now unlocked in the jewelry app. In addition to libido and submissiveness, attention span and intelligence may also be altered, as well as hobbies, likes and dislikes, fetishes, personality traits, memories, fashion preferences, etc. This is extremely useful for anyone who wants to fine-tune their close harem or play around with individual members’ roles. Your retinue members cannot modify their own orders or apply mental transformations to your profile without express permission. These functions otherwise work the same as their physical counterparts. Aggressive Initiations will hasten this perk’s effects on retinue members. Additionally, take one copy of Mind Defense for free.

Expert Runes: Logic

Cost: 25

Requires: Advanced Runes: Body OR Mind

Your jewelry app now has a fully-functional programming suite. Instead of only inputting changes by your own will, the suite lets you create macros for Tempest pieces. A wide array of conditionals, operators, flags, triggers, scopes, variables, and anything else you might need are all included.

The types of effects available are determined by which other Tempest Rune perks you have. You might set your waifus’ races to shift with each year of the Eastern Zodiac, program new sub-personalities with set triggers for when each one is in control, or filter their common sense to believe that hentai-isms are the normal way of things. If you can imagine and code it, you can do it.

Previous experience with programming is not required. The suite contains clear tutorials, tooltips on everything, and a simple and intuitive interface, and will walk you through debugging with exactly the right amount of detail to fit your skill level. Take Science Talent for free.

If you have Advanced Runes: Mind, standing orders may also be edited, deleted, or copy-pasted to new subjects quickly, cleanly, and across any distance. This also applies to the issuing of new orders, but cannot be used on wearers who are not yet fully captured.

If you have Designer Set, you can program changes to the “armor” projections in the app instead of just relying on manual edits. Shield Break status is additionally useful as a trigger for other effects, including the Tempest piece itself detaching from its wearer. If enabled, detachment can occur any number of times, until the wearer only has one piece left. If you also have Jewels of Discord, detached Tempest pieces will gain that perk’s lure effect, counting separately from the one-at-a-time limit for unused jewels. The lure effect will continue to apply to the detached jewelry until it is worn.

Advanced Runes: Spark

Cost: 15

Requires: Basic Runes

Tempest pieces now accept enchantments. These effects can be outright magical in nature or simply the capabilities of “Sufficiently Advanced” technology, but must be transferred from existing third-party items that are meant to be worn or handheld. This will destroy the original. Each Tempest piece has a limit of one discrete enchantment at a time; “the entire capability of a single existing item” counts as one for this purpose.

If you have Jewels of Discord, you may also take the opposite route and merge a Tempest piece into an existing enchanted item, applying all Tempest properties to the latter at the cost of the former. You can only do this once per target item. As with Golden Idol, items that are meant to be worn will benefit from the same anti-loss features as regular Tempest items, while items that are meant to be handheld will benefit from the same anti-loss features as the Company Smart Device. This cannot be undone manually. If you switch away from the Tempest Jewelry system or no longer have the item and its primary user (most likely from a sale or to a Red Eye Orb invader), the item will lose its Tempest properties.

Expert Runes: Dream

Cost: 60

Requires: Designer Set, Advanced Runes: Spark

The Tempest enchantment suite is now fully open for use by your retinue’s enchanters and artificers. In general, the creation of stronger effects demands more skill and personal power from the enchanter, while their use requires more personal power from the wearer. A recipe library for all of your retinue’s known enchantments is also included. The native capabilities of every enchanter and artificer within your retinue will automatically be added to this library.

Each tempest piece can now have up to three discrete enchantments. As with Spark Runes, our systems count the capabilities of “Sufficiently Advanced” technology as enchantments, often multiple distinct ones on the same item. If “the entire capability of a single existing item” would be three or more discrete enchantments when rebuilt from scratch, it will instead take up the Tempest piece’s entire enchantment capacity.

Previous experience with enchanting is not required. The suite contains clear tutorials, tooltips on everything, and a simple and intuitive interface, and will walk you or your subject(s) through debugging with exactly the right amount of detail to fit your skill level. Take Soul Talent and Engineering Talent for free.

All enchantments that we’ve documented across the multiverse tend to fall into a few distinct categories: passive, automatic, toggles, and active abilities, as well as procs (see below). Dream Runes is compatible with all five. Most common passive effects are redundant with Body or Mind Runes or Designer Set. New options include, but are not limited to, elemental and status resistances. Common automatic effects include “Slow Fall” and “Reflect Projectiles;” these are inactive unless needed. Toggled and active abilities are generally direct spell-like effects. These can be defensive, such as “Bunker” or “Shell,” supportive, such as “Inspire” or “Scan,” or offensive, such as “Icicle Spear” or “Tornado.”

If you have Golden Idol, you can deconstruct an objectified subject of Tier 3 or higher into an enchantment recipe in your library. The subject-turned-recipe is neither alive nor dead, only data that can be freely copied into any number of Tempest pieces. Recipes cannot be sold, will not trigger Warranty Plan, and cannot be restored to a body while even one copy of their enchantment remains in place. Recipes are not aware of any time that passes while they remain in that state. If you have the relevant Talent Sharing, and restore a recipe to physical form, any use of a recipe will count as training for the original subject in the recipe’s associated ability.

Binding: Hypnosis App

Cost: Free

An additional app is added to your company provided Smart Device, which is capable of entrancing, hypnotizing, and subverting the minds of targets. Individuals caught in this hypnosis become increasingly more suggestible, and will be entranced, losing conscious awareness of things outside of the screen and not consciously remembering anything experienced while so entranced, staring blankly at the screen with rapt attention. People that are entranced can be broken out of it by a physical or social shock, such as someone calling their name loudly, shoving them, or severely needing to go to the bathroom. It takes a few moments of awareness of the display to entrance someone, and thus individuals resistant to looking at the display can look away.

Every hour someone is being actively entranced will increase their Hypnotic Depth by 1. Hypnotic Depth is an abstraction of a target’s susceptibility to further suggestion and control. The Contractor themselves are inoculated against the viewing of their own hypnotic displays.

At every ten Hypnotic Depth an individual’s psyche will reach a Breakpoint, a barrier to accessing and controlling more of their consciousness. An individual’s Hypnotic Depth will not increase past this point until the target does something they would normally be resistant to while outside of the trance. Each additional Breakpoint past the first requires a more ‘severe’ infraction than before, as perceived by the target. At every breakpoint, new methods of control over a target's psyche will open up. New orders or changes to a target’s psyche requires that they are in the entranced state at the time.

While the Hypnosis App is described in terms of an app on a phone, the exact form it takes is as varied as the available forms of Smart Devices, such as mystic orbs, omnitools, and magic books are all perfectly viable conveyors of the effects of the Binding.

• At Hypnotic Depth 1-10, you are able to Compel the target, nudging them towards a preferred outcome, but one they could feasibly do. While they are entranced, they will answer questions as if you were a trusted confidant.
• At Hypnotic Depth 11-20, you have further control over the target, as if you had significant authority over them which they respect and/or fear. You may leave commands for the target to ignore specific stimuli outside of the trance, unless it actively shocks them out of such a state, such as ignoring a friend until they shout their name from up close, or ignoring someone groping them until they’re spanked.
• At Hypnotic Depth 21-30, the ease of inducing the entranced state, and the difficulty of breaking them out of it, increases significantly. You are able to create emotional states in the target based on specific stimuli, as well as induce triggers in general. Including those that can slip them into the entranced state, such as the snap of fingers. Their hypnotic depth while entranced does not increase unless exposed to some method of doing so, but additional changes may be made.
• At Hypnotic Depth 31-40, you are able to directly, if gradually, alter aspects of a target’s personality, relationships, beliefs, or morals, making them more or less important to them. You may also switch the target of such relationships, making them believe that their beloved is their bitter rival and vice versa. This must be a gradual process. The more important or closely held the thing changed, the more sessions it will take to fully erode or create.
• At Hypnotic Depth 41-50, you are able to completely rewrite memories of beliefs, time, relationships wholesale, changing their nature entirely. The ability to entirely add or remove aspects of a person’s psyche still eludes you.
• At Hypnotic Depth 50 or higher, the target is fully yours. They are considered Captured, with the funds deposited into your account. You are able to make or unmake aspects of a target’s mind. This is the point of mindbreak and complete personality rewrite. Purchased Companions automatically come at this stage.

Shareware

Cost: 50

Requires: Hypnosis App

This app may now be sent to other, similar smart devices, where it can be opened as an app, program, spell, or similar. The initial sending of the program must be accepted, though you may customize the program’s icon via the Company App.

Your personal app comes with settings to help determine how people viewing this downloaded version view it while entranced, such as viewing time spent with the app as time spent playing a particularly interesting gacha game or reading a developing story in a magical book.

The app otherwise functions identically on all devices, increasing Hypnotic Depth at a rate of one per hour as per normal. Additionally, your personal Smart Device increases Hypnotic Depth by 2 per hour.

Shovelware

Cost: 100

Requires: Shareware

You are now able to upload and display the App on any appropriate system that you are able to get root or admin access to. Your smart device will display all locations which the Hypnosis App is uploaded to, and allows for remote access, control, activation, and deletion of the App on these device’s displays.

Subliminal Audio

Cost: 15

Requires: Hypnosis App

Your Hypnotic Display may now include or even simply be Audio. This audio includes subliminal messages that will increase a listener’s Hypnotic Depth by 1 for every hour it is listened to. This audio must be audible and distinguishable, the same way closing one’s eyes can prevent the visual display from affecting you, earplugs can block the subliminal audio. Just as a sufficiently distant display can’t entrance someone as they can’t properly perceive the screen, the subliminal audio’s effect has limited range, particularly in noisy environments.

This audio cannot, by itself, entrance an individual, only increasing their Hypnotic Depth while listened to. At and beyond Breakpoint 2, suggestions or commands may be implanted into the subliminal messaging. Though targets with sufficiently superhuman hearing may be able to pick out the specific commands, use caution when utilized against such targets that are not entranced.

Someone Else’s Fetish

Cost: 25

Requires: Subliminal Audio

You may now create Hypnotic Media that temporarily alter the common sense of those who perceive them, changing what they believe to be "normal" under a given set of conditions. Multiple changes and conditions can be defined in a single piece of Hypnotic Media, but these cannot be altered after its creation, nor can they be individually targeted. Additionally, since Hypnotic Media only change what a person believes to be normal, it cannot compel them to take specific actions.

Hypnotic Media cannot entrance someone or increase their Hypnotic Depth, but it does treat their breakpoints as one level higher for purely passive behaviors. For example, you might create a piece of Hypnotic Media that causes people to believe it's normal for waitresses to work with their breasts exposed and that they should just ignore it if it doesn't turn them on. This would be able to alter the perception of patrons who have yet to cross any breakpoints, because it does not require them to do anything, but the waitresses would need to have crossed their first break point, if you want them to ignore the fact that their breasts are exposed.

By default, Hypnotic media may take the form of either video or audio content and may be mixed into or layered on top of normal media, but it must be played by a device running your Hypnosis App. Once no longer exposed to your Hypnotic Media, its effects will gradually fade based on the duration and frequency of exposure. This will not affect how they perceive their past behavior, unless they carefully examine their memories

Mind-Altering Concoctions

Cost: 25

Requires: Hypnosis App

This perk is a subscription to our mind-altering substances shop. In addition to the recipes for specific concoctions, you will be able to order up to 5 doses of varying substances at a time. These may be returned or more ordered once they are used, and come in several major categories: Aromatics, Topicals, Ingestibles, and Injectables.

Aromatics are aerosolized chemicals which will increase a target’s Hypnotic Depth by 1 for every hour exposed, and are available in a variety of delivery methods. Frequent favorites include incense sticks, candles, and censers and may come paired with a wide variety of common scents. These may include the inducement towards an emotional state, such as joy, bravery, confidence, desire, lust, or fear.

Topicals are creams, poultices, slimes, soaps, or other viscous fluids or pastes which increase a target’s Hypnotic Depth with direct contact. At a minimum of 5% coverage, topicals will increase the target’s hypnotic depth by 1 every 2 hours, 1 per hour at 10% coverage, and increasing to 5 per hour at full coverage. If the target has reached a Breakpoint and the topical has full body coverage for an hour, the topical will break through by increasing the target’s Hypnotic Depth by 1. Topicals may alter cosmetic traits or have minor physiological effects, such as changing skin or hair color or texture, to alter the sensitivity of skin, cleaning, lubricating, minorly accelerating healing, protecting from UV rays, or similar.

Ingestibles come as a powder which may be consumed in a variety of methods, such as being mixed into a drink or cooked into a meal, or snorted directly. A single ‘dose’ is a line of powder and will increase a target’s Hypnotic Depth by 5. Ingestibles are able to induce specific emotional states as per aerosols, or may instead subtly and gradually alter an ingester’s physiology as per Advanced Runes: Body, such as increasing or reducing breast size or hair length up to a certain point. Partial doses have proportionally lesser effects.

Injectables are drugs which must be directly introduced to tissues or the bloodstream, most commonly via direct injection. A full dose of an injectable will increase a target’s Hypnotic Depth by 10 or, if at a Breakpoint, will break through it by increasing the target’s Hypnotic Depth by 1. In addition to being able to force an absolutely debilitating level of emotional inducement, or significant body alterations, injectables are able to apply a single Hypnotic Depth 31-40 level or lower command or forcibly entrance a target for 1 hour.

While doses are calibrated for roughly human-sized targets, custom orders for larger or smaller targets may be ordered. Ordering an oversized dose is not recommended, as overdosing on Mind Altering Concoctions risks complete, permanent, irreparable mindbreak scenarios without Warranty Plan.

Note that targets with the appropriate superhuman senses may be able to detect Mind Altering Concoctions. Additionally, the Contractor is not immune to direct applications of them, exempting Defenses.

VR Helmet

Cost: 20

Requires: Hypnosis App

You gain access to a set of three VR Helmets, which are protected by the usual Company Smart Device assurances. In addition to their other effects, these VR Helmets may be used to interact with digital systems and  virtual realities directly, either via augmented reality or by metaphorically ‘jacking in.’

The specific shape and form of the device is customizable, but is always at least the size of two large hair clips. When placed upon the head of a target, it will expose them to extremely targeted and high fidelity stimuli, significantly increasing the speed at which their Hypnotic Depth increases. This triples the amount of Hypnotic Depth earned per hour after all other factors. Additionally, the VR helmet may apply pre-programmed and selected commands and adjustments during its hypnosis.

EVE Chip

Cost: 15

Requires: VR Helmet

Catch-and-release your targets with these control chips. EVE Chips can vary in size, up to that of a person’s head, but must be visible to the naked eye at minimum. You will receive one new chip each day, up to the limit of 5. This limit increases by one for each member of your retinue, including yourself, that have a chip implanted on or in them. The chip always possesses the same mark as the core of your stamp, and its circuitry are clear fractals of that design.

In order to operate, an EVE Chip must be pressed to, or otherwise implanted in, direct or extremely close contact with the central nervous system or equivalent of a target. This can include the forehead, base of the skull, spine, primary motherboard, or anchoring crystal for a spirit.

EVE Chips come in two forms, Follower Chips and Companion Chips. Follower Chips will cause discomfort and headaches in an individual when thinking or acting against the Contractor’s stated desires, or reward them with appropriate pleasure stimulation. Companion Chips perform similarly, nudging the individual to love and obey the contractor and to consider them in a sexual sense. Additional criteria may be added or removed from a chip when it is not implanted in an individual.

Every time an individual goes through with a compelled action, their Hypnotic Depth increases by 1. Due to their direct nature, the use of these chips bypasses Breakpoints. This effect is initially weak, though larger chips have stronger effects, and is similar to the effects at Hypnotic Depth 1-10. The intensity of the effect and range of things that may be rewarded/punished increases with the target’s Hypnotic Depth.

Physical Access Is Total Access

Cost: 25

Requires: VR Helmet

This modifies your Smart Device to include an extendable pair of cables. These cables must be put in direct or extreme close contact to the central nervous system or equivalent of a target in order to take effect. This can include the inner ear canal, upper end of the nose, any direct wire to the CPU, etc.

This direct (or nearly so) interface quintuples the speed at which your Smart Device applies Hypnotic Depth through all available sensory vectors simultaneously, and requires no actual sensory input. This also allows for the modification of memories and implantation of commands regardless of current Hypnotic Depth. Due to their direct nature, the use of these cables bypasses Breakpoints.

Megapixel

Cost: 150

Requires: VR Helmet

Your smart device’s hypnosis app display is now capable of digitizing and de-digitizing individuals. Digitized individuals are dropped into a small digital world within your smart device, and may be paused, or apply any purchased Hypnosis App expansions applied to them as desired. Confinement in this digital world eliminates the risk of overdose from Mind-Altering injectables.

Digitizing or de-digitizing a target requires them to be entranced by your Smart Device, and happens over the course of several seconds. While there is no theoretical range limit for this effect, there are functional limits based on a target’s sensory fidelity and their ability to perceive your Smart Device and be entranced. A subject’s recreation from the digital world occurs over several seconds, within several meters of the active hypnosis app display on your smart device. Subjects are vulnerable during this process.

You possess significant control over this small digital environment and may alter it or the scenario as desired. The space can only hold one digitized individual at a time, but may simulate any number of individuals desired. Additionally, if you possess VR Helmets or other means of interfacing with digital worlds, any number of others such as yourself may enter this digital realm as an admin.

This area counts as Company provided space for the purposes of the likes of Demiplanes and Dungeons.

Binding: Tantric Arts

Cost: 15

Grants an innate ability to use ritualistic, sympathetic sexual arts. By using mystically resonant materials and actions, you are able to cast spells of binding. These arts may be taught to others, though safeguards to prevent them from affecting the Contractor are detailed below. These spells are compulsions on the target’s mind, body, and soul. Resisting them causes the target to become exhausted and weakened, whereas following along with the compulsion will invigorate and strengthen the target. The more specific the compulsion and the shorter its duration, the stronger the boost and according compulsion, and vice versa.

Every spell requires both intense concentration and some other form of mystically resonant way to manipulate the energies involved, such as chanting, delicate hand movements, intense dancing, or dedicated sexual maneuvers, which may be mixed even in a single casting. Aside from runes inscribed upon the target or a physical circle to enclose an area, the targeting of an Art requires an Arcane Link, which must have a physical or metaphysical connection to the corresponding target.

All Arts have a minimum amount of resonance, with more powerful Arts requiring greater amounts. Resonance in excess of the minimum for the Art may be used to increase its power or add additional Arts to the casting of the spell. Mystic Resonance is acquired primarily through effort and preparation. The more specialized the preparations, the greater their sympathetic or conceptual connection to the spell. The more strong links can be made between the preparation and the target and/or the spell itself, the more resonance is generated.

Arcane Links

These are items, individuals, or actions with a strong metaphysical connection to the intended target of the spell, and one of the primary ways of acquiring Resonance. Common arcane links include a lock of the target's hair, a few drops of their blood, having heard their true name from their own lips, close relationships, or being their superior in a shared organization. The arcane link must have the appropriate level of metaphysical significance, particularly for larger targets. A piece of cobble from a street may allow you to target the street itself, but wouldn’t target the buildings, a city map wouldn’t let you target the city, but the key to the city could, a printout of a flag doesn’t have the mystical weight to target the associated nation, but the original, physical flag could. While line of sight and outright contact are several such links, they are ill suited for the greater arts.

One object, subject, or action can act as multiple kinds of Arcane Links, either to different potential targets or due having multiple significant connections to a single target.

Resonance

Resonance is the abstraction of the mystical power that has been gathered for a spell. Most forms of preparation will grant +1 Resonance, but particularly well attuned ones, such as a beloved mother of the target trying to hand over her daughter could provide +3 Resonance. Additional factors that can empower a ritual include, but are not limited to, active sex with the target, the taking of an individual’s virginity as part of the casting, the impregnation of the target, the target’s willingness to engage with the ritual, having an Element that aligns with the particular spell, or having someone with official authority over the target assist in casting the spell.

The strength of the most powerful caster in the Art has a meaningful impact. A silver-star (T7-9) caster would have +1 Resonance, while a T10 or Imaginary Tier would have +2 Resonance. While the primary caster - generally the most powerful individual - must maintain their effort for the duration of the casting, additional people actively assisting in the casting may increase its power. 2-9 additional casters grants +1 Resonance. Every additional Magnitude of casters grants an additional Resonance. For example, 10 - 99 additional casters would grant +2 Resonance, while 100 - 999 would grant +3.

Another common form of gaining mystic resonance is a prepared space for that specific type of spell. A ritual altar, intricate circles drawn upon the ground, or similar could grant +1 Resonance. An entire dedicated structure built to empower the ritual would grant +2 Resonance. Specific preparations upon the target themselves, such as inscribing specialized runes on them, or ritualistic purification or bondage, can also grant Resonance.

The final major source of Mystic Resonance are additional or particularly significant Arcane Links: things such as a direct blood relative of the target being involved in the casting, a beloved item/person of the target, a full pint of blood rather than a few drops, all the hair from a haircut rather than a single lock, or the entire City Hall to target a city. Each additional, significant Arcane Link is worth another +1 Resonance. A particularly significant amount of the arcane link increases the Resonance it grants by 1. These must be actively used in the casting in order to add their power, such as dancing through the halls of a building, or praying over blood.

If the Arcane Link is sacrificed, consumed, or otherwise destroyed as part of the casting, it counts for an additional +1 Resonance. Being able to involve the target directly in the ritual casting would count for +4 Resonance. Arcane links that require a meaningful amount of effort from the caster may also grant additional resonance.  While a billionaire could purchase an item for $1,000 for no additional Resonance, the same item for the same price could grant +1 Resonance if it’d been purchased by someone in poverty, where that price represents a month’s labor. Artificial constraints to increase effort function appropriately, as it is the effort involved that matters.

While spells take one hour to cast by default, more Resonance may be gained by spending longer to work the spell. A 2-8 hour ritual would grant +1 Resonance, whereas a ritual from Sunrise to Sunset (Or vice versa, about 9-12 hours) would grant +2 Resonance, and a ritual from Sunrise to Sunrise (24 hours) would provide +4 Resonance. Alternatively, by spending Resonance, the casting time for a spell may be reduced to 30 minutes for 1 Resonance, 10 minutes for 2 Resonance, or 1 minute for 3 Resonance.

All Arts may be improved in the following ways with excess Resonance.

• Arts will normally only target a single individual, object, or structure. Resonance may be spent to target everything near the target. Spending 1 Resonance may also be spent to allow the spell to affect everything within 1 meter of the target(s). Additionally, 1 Resonance may allow a spell to target both the arcane link itself and the thing which it acts as a link to.
• Resonance may be spent to force an arcane link to connect to an ill-suited target or one several conceptual steps away. The weaker the conceptual connection between the link and the intended target of the spell, the more Mystic Resonance is required. For example, 1 Resonance could allow someone’s blood to act as a targeting link for one of their close relatives. 2 Resonance could allow a piece of brick from a building to target every building on that street. 7 Mystical Resonance may be spent to target an entire world from a clod of dirt from said world. Additional resonance based on arcane links must be related to the intended target, not the source of the inappropriate link.
• Adding exceptions or specific targets to standing or area of effect spells. Every Resonance spent on this allows for another such filter. The caster must possess an arcane link related to the filter applied, such as a deed to target buildings owned by someone on the paper, a tuft of red hair to target redheads, or a computer to target AIs.
• Spells with an appropriate Arcane Link may target anyone in the same dimension or reality by default. Targeting someone from a connected reality (such as one in the same local multiverse or from your Pocket Apartment) requires an additional 3 Resonance, while targeting someone from an entirely unrelated reality requires 5 Resonance.
• Spells, once cast, may not be changed or altered. However, non-instantaneous spells may be canceled by the caster (and the Contractor, if they are not the caster). Arts with limited durations may have 2 Resonance spent to make their duration indefinite.

Art of Binding

The initial perk comes with the knowledge of the Art of Binding. These Arts compel the target to take or avoid a certain kind of action. The more specific the action, the more powerful the compulsion. For example, a compulsion to have sex is not as effective as a compulsion to give blowjobs, and aiming these compulsions at specific subjects requires an arcane link. A target resisting the compulsions of the Art will only cause them to increase in severity. If the compulsion is to perform an action, the spell ends once they complete it, or within a week otherwise. The same compulsion cannot be stacked, though overlapping compulsions will have increased effect. Recasting the same spell using more Resonance to give it greater strength may supplant the original. What follows is a list of common uses and Resonance costs for the Art. Skilled Contractors often devise their own Arts following the themes of Binding.

• Art of Shackles: 1-5 Resonance to directly prohibit or require an action. The widest variance in Resonance occurs here, as greater compulsions and broader categories of action demand greater Resonance costs.
• Art of Chastity: 1 Resonance to affect a target’s sexual ability or responses. This Art is most commonly used to prevent orgasm, prevent arousal from decreasing, or to find certain stimuli/situations arousing.
• Art of the Leash: 1 Resonance to give the target an urge to travel to a location or subject
• Art of the Blindfold: 4 Resonance to prevent the target's awareness of a specific stimulus unless it actively interacts with them or is deliberately brought to their attention.
• Art of Bonds: 3 Resonance to apply a compulsion towards a certain emotion.
• Art of Enslavement: Costs 3 Resonance for blue- star targets, 5 Resonance for copper-stars, 7 for silver-stars, 9 for gold-stars, and 11 for Imaginary Tiers. Experiencing this Art is emotionally intense for the target during the casting process. Upon completion of the spell, the completed Stamp will appear on them in a place of the casters choosing and the target will be captured. You have +5 Resonance for arts targeting that individual from now on, as they are mystically always willing and involved in the ritual.

Art of Awareness

Cost: 10

Requires: Tantric Arts

For 1 Resonance, the caster may perceive a target as if with their own senses, and gain a good understanding of their distance and direction relative to the target. After initial casting, this spell can be sustained with far less focus, allowing for the casting of other spells. For an additional 2 Resonance, the Art will reveal any illusions or other attempts at concealment.

Additionally, 1 Resonance may be spent to instead view the past of the target. Finally, for an additional 3 Resonance (for a total of 5), the art will enable the caster to cast a spell while scrying the past, most commonly using a visual link to leapfrog scrying between targets, but potentially to apply other spells.

In settings without established temporal mechanics, spells cast upon the past will ripple forward. Spells cast further into the past take more perceived time for the timelines to adjust and accommodate the changes. Events have a form of temporal inertia, and certain, typically “plot- relevant,” things are unlikely to be altered by the Butterfly Effect. Which events these are varies by setting. The caster(s) and Contractor are immune to the temporal changes, and are able to remember both the original timeline and the altered one (as appropriate).

Art of Summoning

Cost: 15

Requires: Tantric Arts

The Art of Summoning requires at least two Arcane Links. By spending 3 Resonance you are able to bring a target to a targeted location or before a targeted individual, which may be the caster. This is an instantaneous effect upon completion of the Art. As a reminder, emotional attachments to places may act as arcane links, and arcane links for portals between two locations would involve things resonant to both of them.

For an additional Resonance, you may instead create a gateway between the two locations that will stay open for an hour. As per normal, this may be made indefinite for an additional 2 Resonance. For 1 Resonance, a portal may be set to toggle on and off with a selected trigger, such as a specific trait or phrase.

Art of Sympathies

Cost: 10

Requires: Tantric Arts

These arts create strong connections between the targets. The more tangible and deeper the connection, the more Resonance it takes, though most uses of this art cost 2 to 6 Resonance. Linking thoughts, sensations, or subconscious desires takes 2 Resonance. Linking the internal energies of two targets such that they may be pooled and shared freely costs 3 Resonance. Linking the physical states of two targets requires 4 Resonance, but more broad, potentially damaging or altering links require 5 Resonance. Linking a target’s state or sensations to that of an inanimate object requires an additional Resonance, as does creating a one way link. These Arts generally last one week.

Art of Transformation

Cost: 15

Requires: Tantric Arts

These Arts allow for the alteration of a target’s physiology. The more significant, extreme, or delicate the changes, the more Resonance it requires. Cosmetic changes will generally only require 1 Resonance. Changes that alter the bone structure or fat distribution of the target require 2 Resonance. Changes to reflexes, the sensitivity to responses, or reactions to poison, or alterations to mass cost 3 Resonance. Extreme changes in a target’s mass, by a factor of more than four, cost 4 Resonance.

Changes to the target’s species, fundamental body plan, or other significant changes require an appropriate arcane link for the intended state (such as an extant example of the species or their blood, for turning someone into a different species), and 4 Resonance. Transforming a target into an object requires 5 Resonance. Sapience and awareness are optional.

Any changes to a target’s Tier require additional Resonance, equal to the numeric difference in Tier. Changes that are immediately lethal to the target at the time require 1 additional Resonance.

These arts are normally instantaneous, though they may be given a limited duration for +1 Resonance. At an additional cost of +2 Resonance, the Art may add the new form as a triggerable transformation that they are able to switch between within a minute of concentration.

Art of Warding

Cost: 15

Requires: Tantric Arts

The Arts of Warding may only be placed on structures or locations. They create a threshold that cannot be crossed or acted across, such as via movement or attacks, esoteric or otherwise. Wards may be keyed to only block certain targets provided the appropriate arcane link, or made to allow certain targets to pass through them. Otherwise, Wards affect all potential entities attempting to cross or act across them equally. All wards last one week by default.

The Resonance cost of a Ward is equivalent to the Binding cost for the power of targets it will block the passage of:

• 3 Resonance will prevent the passage of blue- star targets, but not prevent them from acting across it.
• 5 Resonance will prevent the passage of copper-star or lower targets, and prevent blue-star targets from acting across the threshold.
• 7 Resonance will prevent the passage of silver-star or lower targets, and prevent copper-star targets from acting across the threshold.
• 9 Resonance will prevent the passage of gold-star or lower targets, and prevent silver-star targets from acting across the threshold.
• 11 Resonance will prevent the passage of even Imaginary Tier targets, and prevent gold-star targets from acting across the threshold.
• 13 Resonance will prevent even Imaginary Tiers from acting across the threshold.

Wards may be keyed to block only specific things or prioritize avenues of attack of similar breadth to the Defense perks. This requires less Resonance. Wards keyed to prioritize one avenue of attack (such as magic) but still prevent passage cost 1 less Resonance. For example: A ward meant to contain a mystically powerful but physically frail spellcaster could cost 2 or 4 Resonance if their magic is T4-6 or T7-9 respectively. Wards that only prevent an avenue of action across them rather than preventing movement cost 2 less Resonance.

Magic Focus

Cost: 25

Requires: Tantric Arts

These foci are items specially built to empower rituals and magic, enjoy Company protections like your Smart Device once made. They will only add mystic resonance if their acquisition required effort from the Caster and they are actively used in the casting in some way. Destroying or sacrificing the ritual implement, as part of the ritual, increases the resonance granted by it by 2.

Foci require 5 Resonance and often a significant period of time to attune to, as the only appropriate Arcane Links that may be used must relate to the caster themselves and major experiences they have undergone. Beloved items, handcrafted works, or other things that have deep personal meaning to the caster are often the best options for this. Ways to apply effort to increase the weight of a potential focus include, but are not limited to, consecration of the item, multiple purification rituals, carefully hand-inscribing the phrases or words of the ritual upon the item, or things such as speaking the words of binding over the tallow of the candle as it sets.

The following is a list of some of the most common forms of foci and the power they would grant.

• Mirrors: things such as polished plates, reflecting pools, or modern mirrors represent sight, soul, and the self. A mirror reduces the cost to apply Arts to yourself, as well as all Arts of Awareness, by 2.
• Coins: Paper money, banker bonds, or even actual coins represent material wealth, construction, repair, and inanimate or intangible things that last beyond human lifespan. A spell may be cast and stored into the focus to be released at a later time. If the focus is consumed upon the release of the spell, the initial casting upon it gets the +2 Resonance bonus of destroying the focus.
• Cups: Often a way to spread a spell among a group, they are not just cups, but also plates, pots, bowls, or urns. They are the way to contain and provide. Cups remove the Resonance cost to apply a spell to multiple targets, provided they all partake of the vessel or are otherwise anointed by it in the ritual.
• Athames: These are knives, blades, tools of carving, cutting, and thought made action. Arcane Links or other things sacrificed as part of a ritual for greater Mystic Resonance provide double the total bonus that they would otherwise.
• Hammers: These are drivers, mallets, or other types of hammers, used to strike at a thing time and again to cause change or to construct and reshape. Every additional casting of the same Art on a subject (successful or otherwise) provides an additional +1 Resonance, up to +3 Resonance.

Art of Domains

Cost: 10

Requires: Tantric Arts, Dungeons and/or Demiplanes

You may claim the target item, location, or area as part of your owned space, not only granting yourself metaphysical ownership but also ownership by Company authority. Treat it as either your Home Dungeon or your Demiplane. This Art requires 3 Resonance as a base, but items or locations of significant power require additional Resonance based on the effective Tier they could empower an individual to. Possible arcane links include things such as the deed to a building in the caster’s name, the blood of a family that owned the land for generations, or the former owner ceding control of the space during the course of the casting.

Dungeons created this way maintain their current size and create an appropriate structure, which may then be increased in size as per normal.

Art of Destruction

Cost: 15

Requires: Tantric Arts

Not merely a compulsion, this art actively damages, destroys, or suppresses targets and their abilities. As a general rule, reducing a target’s tier costs an amount of Resonance equal to the reduction in tiers and only lasts for 24 hours, while killing a target would generally require a value of Resonance equal to their Tier.

1 Resonance is required for mundane, physical materials; 3 for supernaturally or extremely durable materials/targets; 5 for intangibles such as morals, disease, or heat; and 7 for abstract concepts such as good, death, or magic. Intangibles and concepts still require an arcane link to target them, such as the bounding of a circle or runes, or an arcane link to target them at an individual. Things are gradually destroyed over the course of the casting.

Once destroyed, the targets may be rebuilt or otherwise refill the space, such as magic flowing back into an area after its destruction or a person gaining new morals after they are destroyed. Alternatively, the target of the Art may be suppressed, for a default duration of one month.

Binding: Alterzelu Symbiote

Cost: 45

Build your own swarm using this engineered species of alien symbiotes. Take Body Tune-Up and Athletic, Martial, and Wild Talents for free. Take one copy each of Body and Wild Defenses for free as well.

Alterzelu hosts can, at will, form an environmentally- sealed suit of bio-armor, with Gigeresque black chitin aesthetics, a retractable helmet, sharp claws, and a long tail for combat and maneuverability. This includes you. Hosts also gain superhuman senses, strength, agility, and durability; this is enough to push any blue-star subject up to Tier 4 or any copper-star up one tier, but is not a significant gain for higher tiers.

The Swarm Queen

One single waifu in your initial purchase will be the queen to your king. You and she both will already be merged with your symbiotes when you arrive in your first world, and gain an additional +1 tier, capped at 10. If the queen is already T10, her power will double, but her effective tier will not rise any further. Imaginary tiers are unaffected. Your queen benefits from all purchased Talents, even without Talent Sharing. Symbiosis alters a subject’s mind, making them see you as a mate (Companions), king (Followers), or both, whose orders are to be obeyed and whose survival is paramount to the species. All symbiote hosts besides yourself will see the queen as the first among them, regardless of previous relationships, and arrange themselves into a pyramidal hierarchy under her. If you do not already have a queen, the first female subject that you capture using any Symbiote- related method will automatically become your queen.

 The queen must always be female. If you are naturally female or Possessed or Substituted a female vessel, you may act as your own queen, with no need for a king - only consorts. A lone female in an otherwise all-male swarm will always be the queen, while a primarily male swarm still requires at least one female Follower for the role. If your queen is part of a set that can only be purchased together, the actual queen will be the most dominant one according to their natural personalities; if the members of the set are truly co-equal, then they’ll serve as co-equal queens.

The King and Queen are visibly distinct from the rest of a swarm. Their initial blending with their symbiote is accompanied by non-optional physical growth, affecting the peak of their physical maturity. Swarm royals who are not yet physically mature will grow into this state naturally over time. Both king and queen experience significant increases in muscle definition, particularly in the arms, abdominals, glutes, and legs, as well as height. The queen also experiences severe non- muscular growth of the breasts, rear and thighs, while the king instead gains even more muscle and increased genital size. These changes all go beyond existing improvements from Body Tune-Up.

Regardless of gender, the target sizes for any trait are roughly 130% on the scales defined in Advanced Runes: Body, with up to 10% error in either direction. If desired, this growth may recede down to the royals’ baseline sizes at a rate of 3% every 5 hours. The full extent of this recession, if any, depends on the contractor’s desires. This growth may be manually re-triggered, with the aid of a larva or swarm member, at any time.

You and your queen may always capture a target in person by transmitting a transformative fluid from your mouth, genitals, or tail. You or your queen can let your tail out without the rest of the armor, make out or have sex with the conversion target, and then leave. This transformation takes about two hours to complete; the target will experience a gradually-building surge of lust during that time, which will only fade when satisfied by you or another symbiote host whose lust surge has previously been satisfied. Capture credits are rewarded once this lust has faded. Targets that are not sexually mature cannot be captured in this way.

Creep

Hatcheries and Fortresses will slowly infect the stationary solid matter in their environment with an organic substrate called creep. Creep is not a solid mass; rooms and corridors will naturally form inside it and will not be blocked off by further expansion. Creep will not assimilate your retinue’s things nor sapient beings (even inorganics). Non-sapient plants and fungi are not so lucky. If a Creep-generating structure is dismantled, the creep it supports will recede over the course of 1 week (168 hours).

The presence of at least a Lair in a Creep zone allows the Creep to assimilate stationary, non-sapient creatures that are otherwise capable of mobility, converting them into your familiars and enforcing your swarm’s aesthetics upon them. Standard reproduction for assimilated species will continue within your swarm, allowing you to take advantage of any useful traits their evolution creates without micromanaging their populations.

Creep provides an alternative food source for symbiote creatures of all sorts, including your retinue. Creep provides all necessary nutrients for creatures who feed on it to reach maturity. Any food sources assimilated into your creep zone will continue to grow naturally. These foods will become especially tasty and nutritious for your retinue members, with no added effects on outsiders - at least, not with only a basic Hatchery.

When the Creep zones of two separate swarms meet, the precise border between the two depends on the strength of the local sources of Creep. If the strongest sources on each side of a border section are equal, the border will be halfway between the two; if one is stronger than the other, the stronger source will push the border closer to the weaker one in proportion to their strengths, up to a core radius around the building itself: 25% of the building’s baseline Creep spread. This is usually combined with a stronger push around the weaker source’s flanks. Border push will continue to occur elsewhere around the weaker source as the difference between the two increases, until the weaker source is completely encircled and cut off from the rest of its faction’s Creep zone. This leaves all freestanding structures in the overrun area vulnerable to the overrunner’s whims.

Alterzelu: Basic Larva

One of these two larva types is granted for free with the basic symbiote package, as the Binding is only barely usable as a binding without one.

Regardless of your chosen larva type, you will always begin with two full clutches of mature specimens, ready to bind your starting companions and followers, though the number of individuals per clutch varies wildly. In addition to their basic effects, the default binding tattoos will prevent your subjects from lethally harming any of your symbiote units, and they will usually accept the conversion outright if they know you want them to.

Additional eggs, and thus larvae, come from your queen. First, you must fertilize your queen in the traditional human fashion. If you have Fertility Calibration, you may choose between egg production (for each type of larva), live humanoid births (see the Offspring section under Additional Rules) and contraception. Results are otherwise random. A symbiote host’s tail may act as a phallus substitute for this purpose, but queens cannot self-impregnate. Fertility Calibration’s normal effects will only apply to live humanoid births.

Either way, the queen will produce a clutch of eggs over the next four weeks. All symbiote eggs will hatch after two weeks of incubation in ideal (warm) conditions, but can take up to four weeks if too hot or too cold.

Skitterers

Type: Basic Larva

The original Alterzelu larva type, these long-tailed pseudo-arachnids generally resemble a small Xenomorph, but always have the strongest similarity to a symbiote host’s bioarmor, no matter the queen’s theme. Skitterers are comparable in size to a small dog or wild cat, such as a beagle or lynx. They can climb up walls and across ceilings with ease and use their tails to reach surprising speeds underwater. Though not truly sapient, living only to merge with a future host, Skitterers are dangerously clever, capable of using teamwork, tactics, and trickery. They cannot be fought off by any target of effective tier (after step 5) 5 or below. Outside of a theoretical “white room” scenario, they can leverage their advantages to pose major threats against even some Tier 7s and 8s.

One clutch of Skitterers has 8 eggs, with each one roughly the size of a goose’s. Skitterers are obligate carnivores, preferring small mammals and fish, and require one week to feed and grow large enough for practical use.

When a Skitterer strikes, it will latch onto its target - typically the head or torso - and find at least one orifice to violate with its tongue or tail. As it pumps its transformative fluid into the target, it will attempt to align its spine with the target’s and engulf the target’s head. The skitterer will also clamp its legs around the target, piercing their skin and allowing the entire creature to liquify itself and flow into the target to become the new host’s bioarmor.

The full transformation process usually takes no more than five minutes. As the transformation completes, the new subject’s libido will skyrocket, sending them into a haze that will not fade until they have sex with an existing sapient swarm member. Skitterers cannot capture sexually immature targets. The capture will be confirmed, and the appropriate number of credits awarded, only after this sex occurs.

Globsters

Type: Basic Larva

These slime creatures, roughly the size of a watermelon, can spread themselves thin to flow across solid surfaces undetected, including walls and ceilings. Together with a limited form of camouflage, to mimic the appearance of a single surface that they have contact with, they have the most functional stealth of all larva types, though they can still be detected by supernatural means. Globsters cannot be fought off by any target of effective tier (after step 5) 4 or below.

One clutch of Globsters has 16 eggs, with each one roughly the size of a chicken’s. Their eggs don’t so much hatch as melt into the newly-born Globster when the time is right. Globsters are omnivorous and will devour whatever is small enough for them to engulf. They require one week to feed and grow large enough for practical use.

When a Globster strikes, it flows over the target’s body until it makes skin contact. Any part of the skin will do. The Globster then melts into the target’s body, merging with it in a non-sexual manner to directly transform the target over the course of about five minutes.

After the transformation completes, the new subject will experience a mental haze that compels them to seek either the nearest existing sapient swarm member or Hatchery-line structure, whichever is closer. It will not fade until they succeed and make skin contact. Only then will the capture be confirmed and the appropriate number of credits awarded.

Alterzelu: Phases

The Alterzelu symbiote is a five-phase ecosystem. This includes a variety of units, buildings, and expansion perks. Phases and expansion perks are the only additional use for company credits in this ecosystem; it otherwise uses Devotion, which is calculated identically here as it is for Dungeons.

Hatchery Phase

Type: Phase

Cost: 30

Requires: Alterzelu Symbiote

The foundation for the entire Alterzelu ecosystem, this enables construction of your first Hatchery, as well as Nurseries, Groves, and Dens. Your first creep will develop in this phase, as you begin to build your economy and automate production.

Lair Phase

Type: Phase

Cost: 85

Structure requirement: Hatchery, at least one Den

The second phase of the Alterzelu ecosystem, this immediately upgrades your starting Hatchery into a Lair, provided you have the devotion to spare. You may now build Burrows, Nests, Reefs, Evolution Chambers, Guard Spires, and additional Hatcheries. Skitterers and Globsters may now be used for Devotion: 4 Skitterers and 8 Globsters are each worth 1 Devotion point. Finally, take Talent Sharing (Athletic), Talent Sharing (Martial), Talent Sharing (Wild), and one copy each of Wild and Creature Defenses for free.

Colony Phase

Type: Phase

Cost: 115

Structure requirement: at least two different Lair-stage buildings (Evolution Chamber, Burrow, Nest, Reef)

The third phase of the Alterzelu ecosystem, this immediately upgrades your starting Lair into a Hive, provided you have the devotion to spare. You may now build Nexuses, Fortresses, and additional Lairs, and produce the second larva type from your Queens and Hatcheries. Finally, take Psychic Talent, Talent Sharing (Psychic), and one copy of Environmental and Creature Defenses for free.

Hive Phase

Type: Phase

Cost: 145

Structure requirement: at least one Nexus or Fortress

The final planetary phase of the Alterzelu ecosystem, this immediately upgrades your starting Colony into a Hive, provided you have the devotion to spare. You may now build additional Colonies. Finally, take one copy of Environmental Defense for free.

Alterzelu: Structures

When Alterzelu structures cost Devotion, unlike with Dungeons, the bodies of your non-queen, sapient, subjects are themselves the building materials, not just workers at the site. This construction process begins when the designated subjects huddle together as their symbiote bio-armors manifest, flow into one another, and grow to encompass the group. The individuals within will lose consciousness and become one with the new structure. If the structure is destroyed, they die as well. Artistic effigies of the component subjects will remain visible somewhere on or inside the structure, whether a mural, carving, statue, or other feature. Defacing or destroying an effigy will do nothing to free the depicted subject. Structure descriptions state the default dimensions, but all can be grown as any contiguous shape, not exceeding the defined space.

If you have Conjunction, you can choose for the Devoted subjects to no longer be unconscious, but instead form a single mind that represents the will of the building. This mind can communicate its status and (for production buildings) follow lengthy build orders with complex conditions.

Humanoid subjects Devoted to a swarm structure cannot be disconnected from it casually, but disconnection is still possible. Replacement components must be provided in advance, however, or else the structure will dismantle itself completely. A 24-hour transition period will see the new component swapped in and the old component emerge, free to move once more. Devotion is permanent for Larvae; they will die if removed. If the building is destroyed, the components will die with it.

 Individual subjects with high enough Devotion values may be used to construct multiple buildings at once. All such buildings grown out of single individuals will be grown together as a single contiguous mass and can only be dismantled together as well.

Hatchery

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 20 Devotion

Requires: Hatchery Phase

Your queen no longer has to carry the burden of new eggs herself. This fixed structure can do so instead. Any queen within your swarm may sexually interface with the spawning organ at the center of the Hatchery. This tall and narrow pool, shaped like a champagne flute and filled with water, will lock itself around the queen’s waist after she enters, leaving her upper body exposed. Any of a queen’s clothes that are caught within the organ when it locks will be heavily damaged or worse, so it’s important that she either enter while nude or banish any clothes that she wants to keep into a Pocket Space.

Once in place, the organ will continuously ravish the queen as she produces a new clutch of larval eggs immediately after each orgasm, skipping the gestation period and automatically depositing each clutch into a spawning pool below the organ, until that pool is filled to capacity. Spawning pools are ideal environments for the eggs’ incubation and can hold up to 160 clutches at a time. The rest of a Hatchery’s interior may be dedicated to a variety of roles as needed.

After 24 hours of growth, a new Hatchery will reach its maximum size of 25 meters tall, and an additional 10 vertical meters of basements underground, with a 2,000 square meter footprint. A finished Hatchery will spread Creep to about a 1 kilometer radius, centered on the spawning pool, reaching its maximum extent another 7 days (168 hours) after construction.

Nursery

Type: Add-on (Hatchery)

Build Cost: 5 Devotion

Requires: Hatchery

Nurseries increase the efficiency of your unit production buildings and provide additional incubation space. Nurseries can only be built attached to a Hatchery, Burrow, Nest, Reef, or another Nursery. Even if a large mass of Hatcheries and Nurseries flow together, each Nursery will only accept eggs from a single production building at a time. A Nursery will grow to full size in 8 hours, reaching a maximum size of 5 meters tall with a 250 square meter footprint.

Each Nursery can hold up to 20 egg clutches from the attached production building. This capacity increases with the highest-upgraded Hatchery in the same creep zone: 40 clutches (+20) with a Lair, 60 clutches (+20) with a Colony, and 80 clutches (+20) with a Hive.

Each Nursery present within a Creep zone also decreases the incubation time for all units produced in that zone by 2.5%. After the first 20 Nurseries are present in a single Creep zone, additional Nurseries will still have an effect, but are subject to Diminishing Returns. See the appropriate section in Additional Rules for details.

Grove

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 5 Devotion

Requires: Hatchery

Groves serve as parkland for any wildlife in your Creep zones or sapient subjects who enjoy the outdoors. Groves also make a Hatchery’s creep more nutritious, decreasing the maturation time for all units produced in that Creep zone.

Every 5 Devotion Points dedicates 40,000 square meters of land to Groves and reduces the maturation time for larvae by 2.5%. The dedication process takes only 3 hours. After the first 100 Devotion Points are invested into Groves in a single Creep zone, additional Groves will still have an effect, but are subject to Diminishing Returns. See the appropriate section in Additional Rules for details.

Units produced at Burrows, Nests, and Reefs require ten times as much Grove land in a single Creep zone to achieve the same reduction.

Den

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 10 Devotion

Requires: Hatchery

Dens provide shelter to your sapient subjects and act as structural foundations for later, larger structures.

After 12 hours of growth, a new Den will reach its maximum size of 10 meters tall, and an additional 5 vertical meters of basements underground, with a 500 square meter footprint.

Lair

Type: Upgrade (Hatchery)

Build Cost: 200 Devotion

Requires: Lair Phase

The Lair is a direct upgrade to the Hatchery, with all of the features and abilities of its predecessor. It can incubate up to 1600 clutches at a time, plus the effects of attached Nurseries. Upgrading a Hatchery to a Lair requires an additional 180 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Lair’s new footprint.

After 3 days (72 hours) of growth, the new Lair will reach its maximum size at 50 meters tall, and an additional 20 vertical meters of basements underground, with a 10,000 square meter footprint. A finished Lair will spread Creep to about a 5 kilometer radius, centered on the spawning pool, reaching its maximum extent another 2 weeks (336 hours) after construction.

You may install a mature female subject, not already Devoted in a building’s construction or elsewhere, into the spawning organ of a Lair on a longer-term basis. If a non-queen is installed, her clutches will take 50% longer to hatch than the queen’s clutches: at the base rate, +7 days. Either way, new clutches will be produced as room allows.

Queens may remove themselves from this organ at will, but removing a non-queen takes 24 hours, requires your consent, and will halt all new egg production at that site during that time. The spawning organ is a very intense experience, with sustained installation causing both physical and mental side-effects. Stress, Addiction, and Mind Defenses are highly recommended.

Burrow

Type: Upgrade (Den)

Build Cost: 60 Devotion

Requires: Lair

The Burrow is the primary production building for non-sapient land units. Upgrading a Den to a Burrow requires an additional 50 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Burrow’s new footprint. After 48 hours of new growth, a new Burrow will reach its maximum size of 15 meters tall, and an additional 20 vertical meters of basements, with a 4,500 square meter footprint.

Burrows have much the same spawning interface as Lairs, with a specialized organ that a mature female subject can install herself into and create new eggs. A Burrow’s eggs are limited to non-larval land units only, whether the pre-designed options, local species assimilated into your swarm, or creatures that your geneticists and bioengineers have custom-designed at an Evolution Chamber.

Nest

Type: Upgrade (Den)

Build Cost: 80 Devotion

Requires: Lair

The Nest is the primary production building for non-sapient air units. Upgrading a Den to a Nest requires an additional 70 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Nest’s new footprint. After 48 hours of new growth, a new Nest will reach its maximum size of 65 meters tall, and an additional 10 vertical meters of basements, with a 2,100 square meter footprint.

Nests have much the same spawning interface as Lairs, with a specialized organ that a mature female subject can install herself into and create new eggs. A Nest’s eggs are limited to non-larval air units only, whether the pre-designed options, local species assimilated into your swarm, or creatures that your geneticists and bioengineers have custom-designed at an Evolution Chamber.

Reef

Type: Upgrade (Den)

Build Cost: 80 Devotion

Requires: Lair

The Reef is the primary production building for non-sapient sea units. Upgrading a Den to a Reef requires water access and an additional 70 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Reef’s new footprint. After 48 hours of new growth, a new Reef will reach its maximum size of 20 meters tall, and an additional 10 vertical meters of basements, with a 5,250 square meter footprint.

Reefs have much the same spawning interface as Lairs, with a specialized organ that a mature female subject can install herself into and create new eggs. A Reef’s eggs are limited to non-larval sea units only, whether the pre-designed options, local species assimilated into your swarm, or creatures that your geneticists and bioengineers have custom designed at an Evolution Chamber.

Evolution Chamber

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 50 Devotion

Requires: Lair

Evolution Chambers are specialized workshops for your geneticists, fleshcrafters, and bio-manipulators, where they can create new breeds of warbeast for your armies. After 48 hours of growth, an Evolution Chamber will reach its full size of 15 meters tall, and an additional 10 vertical meters of basements, with a 6,000 square meter footprint.

At an Evolution Chamber, your design teams may freely mix, match, and customize biological features from any species that your creep has assimilated, in addition to features from any of the default larva types available to your swarm, any pre-designed symbiote units available to your swarm, and your queens’ inborn supernatural traits. Upgrades are not auto-applied to all eligible recipients. Sapient subjects must visit an Evolution Chamber as individuals for their modifications. Major units are instead recycled at the same type of production building (not necessarily the exact building) that spawned them.

 The basic symbiote biosuit can also be customized, whether for general use or individual preferences. Biological traits that have been integrated into a biosuit can always be copied to other swarm members, depending on the bioengineer’s skills. Psionic traits can be copied if you have a Nexus, while technological and mystical traits can only be copied if you have a Hive, again depending on the engineer’s skills. These traits will breed true.

Previous experience is not required for personnel assigned to your Evolution Chambers. The design interface is simple and intuitive, with clear tutorials, and allows for extreme creativity. If you have Science Talent, the interface will count as a trainer of Tier 5 in this field. The presence of a Colony in the same Creep zone raises this tier level to 6, a Hive raises it to 7, and a World Tree raises it to 8.

All designs are filtered through the theming of the queen whose portion of the swarm actually produces them as units. If you have multiple queens, individuals in your swarm may also come to an Evolution Chamber to be reassigned and rethemed from one queen’s part of the overall swarm to another.

Guard Spire

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 30 Devotion

Requires: Lair

This is your basic defensive emplacement, a tower 60 meters tall, with an additional 10 vertical meters of basements underground and a 250 square meter footprint. Spires are suitable sites from which swarm members can observe their surroundings or use their own weaponry against intruders.

With an Evolution Chamber, your swarm’s bioscientists can adapt any special abilities allowed at that structure into new Spire variants. With a Nexus, psionic abilities become viable as well, and mystical and technological traits with a Hive. The more complex or esoteric the ability, the harder it is to adapt and the more expensive the variant becomes in Devotion Points.

A basic Guard Spire can support abilities that are appropriate for a combatant of up to Tier 4. The Colony stage allows Guard Spires to be upgraded to support abilities that are appropriate for a combatant of up to Tier 5. This requires an additional 420 Devotion Points over the basic Guard Spire. The Hive stage allows Guard Spires to be upgraded to support abilities that are appropriate for a combatant of up to Tier 7. This requires an additional 6,300 Devotion Points over the Colony-stage version.

Colony

Type: Upgrade (Lair)

Build Cost: 2,000 Devotion

Requires: Colony Phase

The Colony is a direct upgrade to the Lair, with all of the features and abilities of its predecessor. It can incubate up to 12,000 clutches at a time. Upgrading a Lair to a Colony requires an additional 1,800 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Colony’s new footprint.

After 9 days (216 hours) of growth, the new Colony will reach its full size at 100 meters tall, with an additional 40 vertical meters of basements underground, with a 50,000 square meter footprint. A finished Colony will spread Creep to about a 25 kilometer radius, centered on the spawning pool, reaching its maximum extent another 3 weeks (504 hours) after construction.

Nexus

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 400 Devotion

Requires: Colony

The Nexus is a focal point for your swarm’s psionic power and foundation for further growth. It is required for most psychic Expansions and allows all supernatural abilities present in your swarm to be added to your unit and structure designs. After 7 days (168 hours) of growth, a new Nexus will reach its full size at 30 meters tall, and an additional 20 meters of basements underground, with a 24,000 square meter footprint.

A Nexus is always a suitable training site for psionic abilities. With a Hive, it becomes suitable for training mystical abilities. If a sapient member of your swarm trains a supernatural ability at one, the appropriate Talent will instead scale to the most potent sapient swarm member in the field being trained, regardless of whether or not they are physically present or actively participating in any training exercises.

Fortress

Type: Freestanding

Build Cost: 3,000 Devotion

Requires: Colony

This is your mid-level defensive emplacement, about 85 meters tall, with an additional 40 vertical meters of basements underground, and a 24,500 square meter footprint. A fully-grown Fortress will spread Creep to about a 20 kilometer radius, reaching its maximum extent another 3 weeks (504 hours) after construction. Fortresses must be grown on existing Creep beds.A Fortress’s interior has an excess of internal space, so feel free to dedicate it to a variety of administrative or military roles as needed.

Like Guard Spires, Fortresses are always suitable sites from which swarm members can observe their surroundings or use their own weaponry against intruders. With an Evolution Chamber, your swarm’s scientists can adapt any special abilities found in the biology of your swarm members - both the non-sapients assimilated by your swarm’s Creep and your sapient subjects - into new Fortress variants. With a Nexus, psionic abilities become viable as well, and mystical and technological traits with a Hive Fortresses can support abilities that are appropriate for combatants of up to Tier 6.

Additionally, Fortresses impose an attrition debuff on intruders who enter a radius of 5 kilometers around them. Without additional upgrades, blue- and copper-star intruders will find their tiers reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1. This applies at step 5 and does not stack with additional Fortresses or Redoubts.

Hive

Type: Upgrade (Colony)

Build Cost: 20,000 Devotion

Requires: Hive Phase

The Hive is a direct upgrade to the Colony, with all of the features and abilities of its predecessor. It can incubate up to 80,000 clutches at a time. Upgrading a Colony to a Hive requires an additional 18,000 Devotion Points as construction material, minus any recycled from other swarm structures within the Hive’s new footprint. At this stage, you may build additional Colonies, but only upgrade a single Colony per planet to a Hive.

After 27 days (648 hours) of growth, the new Hive will reach its full size at 200 meters tall, and an additional 80 vertical meters of basements underground, with a 250,000 square meter footprint. A finished Hive will spread Creep to about a 125 kilometer radius, centered on the spawning pool, reaching its maximum extent another 4 weeks (672 hours) after construction.

Alterzelu: Units

Non-larval units are produced at the buildings that unlock them. Unlike larvae, each of their clutches only has a single egg, which requires far more time to hatch and mature to a combat-ready state. With an Evolution Chamber, your geneticists and bioengineers can customize these defaults to suit your force’s needs. The growth acceleration functions of Nurseries and Groves apply to all non- humanoid units, whether larvae or larger. Neither larvae nor larger units will benefit from Warranty Plan.

Junior Lingoth

Role: Tank

Requires: Burrow

A Lingoth is a modified ankylosaurus, a muscular, thick-skinned quadruped with a heavily-armored spiked shell and long, clubbed tail. Lingoths are vegetarian, focused on low- growing shrubs and fruits, and will make great use of any Groves within your creep zone.

With Maru Mari, Lingoths will grow a round hatch where humanoid swarm members can access it, allowing them entrance to an internal passenger space while in ball form. Junior Lingoths may carry a single passenger in this way, Adult Lingoths 20, and Elder Lingoths 400. While inside a Lingoth, swarm members must remain in ball form, but can remain aware of the outside world by tapping into their ride’s senses. With Presence, they can project ghostly avatars anywhere within 2 m of the Lingoth’s shell and use their own senses instead.

A newly-hatched Lingoth will become combat- ready, as a Junior Lingoth, about six months (180 days) after hatching. Junior Lingoths measure about 6-8 m long and 1 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 2 m. Bony spikes on their head and neck make them a threat in melee range. Chemical sacs in their throats allow them to spit and ignite a mixture very similar to napalm. This “breath” weapon has an effective range of about 50 m with a focused stream, or 40 m with a wide spray. Careful use of this weapon is advised: the sacs can only hold up to five minutes of fuel, and once emptied require 1 week to refill, assuming the creature maintains a normal appetite.

Adult Lingoth

Role: Tank

Requires: Colony, Junior Lingoth

With a Colony, Junior Lingoths that reach 2 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Adult Lingoths. Adult Lingoths measure about 18-24 m long and 3 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 6 m. They are even beefier, spikier, and more armored than their younger selves, but the main threat is now ranged. The chemical sacs they used before no longer hold conventional incendiaries, but a superheated plasma fluid that can be ejected at relativistic speeds toward any target in the Lingoth’s line of sight. This weapon can only be active for up to 30 seconds before the Lingoth needs to stop and let the flesh in its mouth literally cool down for at least 3 minutes.

Elder Lingoth

Role: Tank

Requires: Hive, Adult Lingoth

With a Hive, Adult Lingoths that reach about 10 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Elder Lingoths. Elder Lingoths measure about 54-72 m long and 9 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 18 m. They will barely notice most conventional melee threats, and their mouths can, finally, fully endure the stresses of plasma breath use. Fuel becomes the limiting factor once more: though an Elder Lingoth’s plasma sacs can hold up to 12 hours (720 minutes) of fuel, emptied sacs will only refill after 4 weeks, assuming the creature maintains a normal appetite.

Junior Linkor

Role: Artillery

Requires: Burrow

The Linkor is a modified giant scorpion, with the stinger replaced with a quill launcher for indirect fire. Linkors are pack-hunting carnivores: one grapples a prey and the rest shoot their quills at the prey until it dies. Linkor exoskeletons are relatively light, offering much less protection than a Lingoth shell and no interior space for Maru Mari or cargo. Any would-be passengers must ride on a Linkor’s back.

The standard quill, used by all Linkors, measures 140 mm across and 35 cm long, and takes 30 seconds to grow within the launcher. Chemicals inside the launch tube keep quills malleable so the Linkor can move its tail properly. After launch, with those chemicals no longer present, quills rapidly harden into a more recognizable 105 cm spike, with small fins for more stable flight.

With Conjunction, all Linkors can use nearby swarms of Ailspids as spotters, to more effectively aim at targets beyond their lines of sight. This extends a Junior Linkor’s effective range to 14 km, an Adult Linkor’s effective range to 84 km, and an Elder Linkor’s effective range to 378 km.

A newly-hatched Linkor will become combat-ready as a Junior Linkor, about six months (180 days) after hatching. Junior Linkors measure about 3-4 m long to the base of the tail and 1 m tall; the tail adds another 3-4 m in length. Junior Linkors’ tails are only large enough to shoot a single quill at a time, can hold up to 3 quills in reserve. Junior Linkors have an effective firing range of about 4 km.

Adult Linkor

Role: Artillery

Requires: Colony, Junior Linkor

With a Colony, Junior Linkors that reach 2 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Adult Linkors. Adult Linkors measure about 9-12 m long to the base of the tail and 3 m tall; the tail adds another 9-12 m in length. Adult Linkors can continue to shoot solid quills like their younger selves. They may also shoot a second quill type, this one hollow and filled with a binary liquid explosive. When the quill hits its target, the shock of impact causes the two parts to mix and detonate. An Adult Linkor’s thicker tail allows it to effectively handle its 6 individual launchers, each of which can hold up to 18 quills in reserve. Adult Linkors have an effective firing range of about 12 km.

Elder Linkor

Role: Artillery

Requires: Hive, Adult Linkor

With a Hive, Adult Linkors that reach 10 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Elder Linkors. Elder Linkors measure about 27-36 m long to the base of the tail and 9 m tall; the tail adds another 27-36 m in length. Elder Linkor quills, whether solid or explosive, contain small, sub- sapient nervous systems that allow a quill to track a moving target on its own and adjust its course with psionic power. An Elder Linkor’s tail has 36 individual launchers, each of which can hold up to 54 quills in reserve. Elder Linkors have an effective range of 36 km.

Junior Linguu

Role: Support

Requires: Burrow

The Linguu is a close variant of the Lingoth, but with a taller dome, closer to a tortoise’s, and a short neck and tail. They share the same diet as their Lingoth cousins. They have no inherent offensive abilities, beyond simply being large creatures that can ram or trample smaller creatures that get in their way. They make up for that in defense, with a significantly tougher shell than a Lingoth’s.

A Linguu shell is hollow at all stages. Linguu bellies have a loading ramp that can drop down to the ground below, allowing humanoids or cargo to enter on foot. Specialized ligaments between the main cabin and the outer part of the shell act as a suspension system, ensuring a smooth ride. With Maru Mari, this space between the outer shell and the cabin wall will be accessible to ball forms, allowing them to remain secure while the individuals sleep, project their Presence outside (within 2 m of the Linguu’s shell), or enter the local Mindscape.

A newly-hatched Linguu will become large enough to carry useful loads, as a Junior Linguu, about five months (150 days) after hatching. Junior Linguus measure about 9-12 m long and 2 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 8 m. A Junior Linguu’s main cabin offers standing room for up to 40 humanoids, while up to 200 ball forms can enter the Maru Mari storage area.

Adult Linguu

Role: Support

Requires: Colony, Junior Linguu

With a Colony, Junior Lingus that reach 19 months (570 days) of age may enter a new growth stage to become Adult Linguus. Adult Linguus measure about 27-36 m long and 6 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 24 m. An Adult Linguu’s main cabin offers standing room for up to 600 humanoids, while up to 1,800 ball forms can enter the Maru Mari storage area. Additionally, Adult Linguus can see ten seconds into the future. Using that ability together with the spikes on their shells, they can deflect incoming projectiles or detonate them prematurely to minimize any harm.

Elder Linguu

Role: Support

Requires: Hive, Adult Linguu

With a Hive, Adult Linguus that reach 8 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Elder Linguus. Elder Linguus measure about 81-108 m long and 18 m tall at the shoulder, with an overall height of about 72 m. An Elder Linguu’s main cabin offers standing room for up to 15,000 humanoids, while up to 16,200 ball forms can enter the Maru Mari storage area. Elder Linguus’ future sight reaches up to a minute into the future, and their shell is nearly impenetrable to conventional attack.

Ailspid

Type: Special Larva

Requires: Nest

These wasp-like creatures, as large as an adult human’s fist, can fly to a local altitude of 100m. Ailspids’ mandibles and stingers are laced with transformative fluid, allowing them to infect a target through any open wound or fluid. This dose is quite small, and thus requires far more time to take effect than those of other larva types. One Ailspid carries enough transformative to dose 12 targets before it falls to the ground, dead.

One clutch of Ailspids has 24 eggs, with each one roughly the size of a quail’s. Ailspids typically feed on fruits, but can cultivate their own type of honey as a more stable food supply. They require three days to feed and grow large enough for practical use. Ailspids are otherwise produced identically to basic larvae.

An Ailspid’s fluid takes two weeks (336 hours) to thoroughly transform a target on the inside, with no external side-effects. Resistance to Ailspid fluid is increasingly common in higher-tiered targets: at effective tier (after step 5) 6 or above, most targets are too resistant to the transformative, or can detect and kill Ailspids too easily, for Ailspid-based capturing to remain viable.

After that process completes, the target will transform into a member of your swarm upon skin contact with another member of your swarm. Only then will the capture be confirmed and the appropriate number of credits awarded.

Junior Ailgoth

Role: Air Superiority

Requires: Nest

The Ailgoth is a modified eagle, with additional traits from bats and pterosaurs. Ailgoths hunt in pairs over land and at sea. The talons on both their feet and wings allow them to carry heavy loads back to their nests, though especially large prey must still be eaten on site. These are not necessarily mated pairs; an Ailgoth is as likely to hunt with a humanoid rider as another Ailgoth.

An Ailgoth’s airspeed is greatly limited when carrying anything in its talons. When one is not loaded down, it can tuck its feet and wings into its body, cutting its apparent wingspan by two-thirds and allowing it to reach its full speed. Conversely, untucked Ailgoth wings are a highly effective airbrake.

While its sharp claws and beak are suitable for melee, an Ailgoth’s primary ranged weapon is a wing- mounted quill launcher. These launchers operate on the same principles as their Linkor counterparts. Ailgoth quills are far smaller, at 20 mm wide and 10 cm long, but 20 quills can be launched every second and 6 replacements regrown in that same time. Older Ailgoths can launch Linkor quills as well. The exact number of quill launchers and their ammo capacities are both dependent on an Ailgoth’s life stage.

A newly-hatched Ailgoth will become combat-ready, as a Junior Ailgoth, about eight months (240 days) after hatching. A Junior Ailgoth’s main body measures about 2-2.5 m long and 1 m wide, and its wingspan is about 4-5 m across. It can release a sonic burst to disrupt its targets’ balance, knocking the enemy or prey to the ground or a water’s surface and leaving them prone to the Ailgoth’s other natural weapons. It has a single 20mm quill launcher in each wing, can hold up to 400 quills in reserve for each launcher, and reach a maximum airspeed of 600 km/h.

Adult Ailgoth

Role: Air Superiority

Requires: Colony, Junior Ailgoth

With a Colony, Junior Ailgoths that reach 32 months (960 days) of age may enter a new growth stage to become Adult Ailgoths. An Adult Ailgoth’s main body measures about 6-7.5 m long and 2 m wide, and its wingspan is about 12-15 m across. Adult Ailgoth wings sport 4 quill launchers each, with up to 1,000 quills in reserve for each launcher, as well as a single large (Linkor) quill launcher on each side, with up to 3 large quills in reserve. Both large and small quills can be filled with the same binary liquid explosive that Adult Linkors use. Adult Ailgoths can reach a maximum airspeed of 1,500 km/h (mach 1.2).

Elder Ailgoth

Role: Air Superiority

Requires: Hive, Adult Ailgoth

With a Hive, Adult Ailgoths that reach 13 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Elder Ailgoths. An Elder Ailgoth’s main body measures about 18-22.5 m long and 4 m wide, and its wingspan is about 36-45 m across. Elder Ailgoth wings sport 8 small quill launchers, with up to 2,500 quills in reserve for each launcher, and 4 large quill launchers each, with up to 18 quills in reserve for each launcher. The large quills have the same sub-sapient nervous systems that Elder Linkors use. Elder Ailgoths can reach a maximum airspeed of 3,750 km/h (mach 3.0).

Junior Ailkor

Role: Ground Attack

Requires: Nest, Ailspids

The Ailkor is a modified giant moth that feeds exclusively on Ailspid honey. Ailkors can release chemical powders on command, from their four wings, that can inflict a variety of different effects on whatever living things are unfortunate enough to be caught in such clouds. The older and larger the Ailkor, the wider the cloud it can produce on its own.

A newly-hatched Ailkor will become combat-ready, as a Junior Ailkor, about 12 months after hatching. A Junior Ailkor’s main body measures about 5-6 m long and 2-2.5 m wide, and its wingspan is about 7-8 m across. They can only release a single type of powder, a mist that dampens sound and reduces local visibility to less than 10 m.

Adult Ailkor

Role: Ground Attack

Requires: Colony, Junior Ailkor

With a Colony, Junior Ailkors that reach 4 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Adult Ailkors. An Adult Ailkor’s main body measures about 15-18 m long and 6-7.5 m wide, and its wingspan is about 21-24 m across. Adult Ailkors can selectively release any of three different powder types, including the kind they could release as Juniors. The second powder jams most wireless communications and disables most sapient species’ sense of direction. This effectively shuts down a hostile force’s ability to coordinate and navigate within the affected area. The third powder type is a fuel-air explosive. An organ at the end of their tail will ignite the thermobaric cloud, with just enough distance that the Ailkor isn’t harmed.

Elder Ailkor

Role: Ground Attack

Requires: Colony, Adult Ailkor

With a Hive, Adult Ailkors that reach 20 years of age may enter a new growth stage to become Elder Ailkors. An Elder Ailkor’s main body measures about 45-54 m long and 18-22.5 m wide, and its wingspan is about 63-72 m across. Elder Ailkors can release both disabling powders at once as a single cloud. Their explosive powder is now made of microscopic plasma balls, which function just as well in vacuum environments as in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Ailguu

Role: Air Transport, Special Larva

Requires: Nest

These jellyfish-like creatures, with main bodies large enough to hold a human within, move as their name suggests and can reach anywhere in a local atmosphere. Their tentacles carry a chemical sedative that most creatures absorb on skin contact and can knock out a tier 2 adult human within twenty seconds. Ailguu have the same tier limitations as Ailspids: at effective tier (after step 5) 6 or above, most targets are too resistant, or can fight back too well, for Ailguu-based capturing to remain viable. They can escape an Ailguu’s grasp (or even kill it outright!) before the sedative can fully affect them.

Ailguu clutches have only four eggs each, but the egg is very large, roughly the size of an ostrich’s. Ailguu are obligate carnivores and prefer large game. They require two weeks to feed and grow large enough for practical use, but can continue growing beyond that point, with no hard limit. Ailguu are otherwise produced identically to basic larvae. Multiple Ailguus can join together to abduct especially large or numerous targets. When this occurs, they cannot separate until the capture completes.

Ailguu approach their targets from the air, but do not directly convert their targets on-site. Instead, their tentacles reach down to grab and sedate the target, then reel them into the Ailguu’s main body. Ailguu can abduct as many targets as their bodies can hold. Once full, the Ailguu returns to the nearest Hatchery-line structure and attaches itself to the structure’s exterior surface. At that point, the Ailguu hardens into an opaque cocoon before finally transforming and converting the target into a member of your swarm. If you lack any Hatcheries, a tree or pond will also work, doubling the base conversion time.

Conversion takes 48 hours after the cocoon hardens. The target is already in physical contact with part of your swarm, and thus does not need additional confirmation to count as a capture. The Hatchery’s exterior, and the side of the cocoon that touches it, will open for the new subject, allowing them to slide or crawl into the nearest open space within the Hatchery and then walk outside on their own. The Ailguu remains intact, so it can be reused.

Breaking the cocoon early will halt the target’s conversion. The process may be continued if the target is recaptured at any time before they exit your creep’s zone, at which point all progress is lost.

Alterzelu: Expansions

Expansion perks for the Alterzelu are paid for with regular credits and often include a Alterzelu structure as a prerequisite. If you only have an upgraded form of the listed prerequisite structure, it still counts.

If you buy an Expansion that requires a structure, and all examples of the structure are dismantled or destroyed, the Expansion’s effects will persist until you take a refund for the Expansion. At that point, repurchasing the Expansion will require building a new version of the appropriate structure.

If an Expansion applies a specific type of structure (e.g. Hatchery), all upgraded versions of that structure (e.g. Lair, Colony, and Hive) will also benefit.

Transfer Spawn

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Structure requirement: Hatchery

 The sympathetic connection between the queen and the rest of the hive allows her to transfer her new eggs directly to the nearest Hatchery that has room to spare in the same creep zone. This ability will fail if all Hatcheries within that zone are already full.

Corruptive Ooze

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Structure requirement: Lair

The fluid in a Lair’s spawning pool is highly viscous and mutative. Anyone who touches the surface, who is not already part of your swarm, will be pulled under, then transformed, converted, and captured into a new member of your swarm within a minute. Wyldscape Defense protects against the transformation, though Environmental Defense is also recommended for anyone attempting to crawl out the hard way.

Maru Mari

Type: Expansion

Cost: 15

Structure requirement: Evolution Chamber

Larva requirement: Skitterers

Sapient, human-sized swarm members may now curl themselves into a spherical ball, roughly 1m in diameter. This ball form has no distinct internal bits and a fully-armored exterior. Swarm members may roll around freely in ball form, but often have trouble on slopes.

Active Burrows, Nests, and Reefs now have a second entrance to the spawning organ, appropriately sized for the ball form to roll into. This entrance leads into the core of the spawning organ, where a swarm member in ball form will be reconfigured into a major unit’s egg and eventually be reborn as the new unit’s animate intelligence.

Animate intelligences can regain their humanoid forms through Bifurcation, as a side-effect of Warranty Plan, or by entering the spawning pool at any production building to shed the excess biomass and wade back out in humanoid form.

Collective Burden

Type: Expansion

Cost: 15

Structure requirement: Colony

Many hands make light work. Your Lairs now have multiple spawning organs, allowing more than one individual to contribute new clutches to the building’s shared spawning pool at the same time. Each Lair now has 3 spawning organs, each Colony has 9, and each Hive has 27. The new spawning organs function identically to the original. Burrows, Nests, and Reefs do not benefit from this perk.

Presence

Type: Expansion

Cost: 15

Structure requirement: Nexus

Individuals installed into a Lair, Burrow, Nest, or Reef can now project a psychic avatar anywhere in the structure, allowing them more options to mingle with other members of your swarm. This does not help them ignore the sensations that their flesh body experiences. Individuals who have not yet cultivated that ability tend to exhibit erratic behavior - similar to, as our beta testers frequently reported, “clubgoers on ecstasy.”

If you have Maru Mari, animate intelligences may use this perk to continue to interact with others while their bodies are reconfigured.

Panspermia

Type: Expansion

Cost: 50

Structure requirement: Colony, (Nest or Reef)

You may now build mobile Hatcheries, Burrows, Nests, Reefs, Evolution Chambers, and Nexuses into air, sea, or space units that are large enough to hold them. These may be used to resupply forces in transit or act as seeds to colonize distant lands.

Psi Gate

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Structure requirement: Colony, Nexus

Your Colonies and Fortresses now include portals that enable instant travel from one to another. This is part of the same network as Rainbow Bridge, if you have that perk. Psi Gate portals cannot be larger than the structure they’re built into.

White Rabbit

Type: Expansion

Cost: 50

Structure requirement: Nexus

The presence of at least a Colony in a Creep zone applies the effects of any of the five sensory Lures to any/all connected creep. This Expansion cannot apply the effects of sensory Lures that you haven’t purchased.

Faerie Feast makes any food that creep zone produces, whether plant or animal, as addictive as food you prepared. Love Spot and Alluring Whisper allow for visual and auditory hallucinations, respectively, with hypnotic effects. Potpourri allows fine control of scents throughout the entire region. Finally, Sticky Fingers allows the creep’s flora to detain and ravish intruders.

Second-Generation Symbiote

Type: Expansion

Cost: 30

Structure requirement: Nexus

This adds a number of upgrades to the symbiote’s functionality. The lowest tier of targets that can fight off a symbiote larva will increase by 1 for each effective tier (after step 5) that the queen is above 7: Tier 6 targets can no longer fight off a Tier 8 queen’s Skitterers, for example, while only Tier 10 and Imaginary targets can fight off Skitterers produced by a Tier X queen. On the target side, use their effective tier after step 5, skipping step 3 (and, in PvP, step 4).

Additionally, symbiote larvae now emit a weak psychic field that reduces a target’s willingness to resist future attacks every time that individual fights one off. Each stack of this effect will last 7 days (168 hours), but there is no cap on the number of stacks that can be applied at once.

Royal Honey

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Structure requirement: Colony, Evolution Chamber

Larva requirement: Ailspids

Your Colonies now produce a highly-nutritious honey-like substance, a vital material for the promotion of new queens. Ingesting one half-liter of Royal Honey over the course of a single day will apply the same physical transformation that marks your king or queen to any humanoid of the appropriate gender who does so, following all of the same rules. This includes the extra +1 tier. Under normal conditions, this effect only lasts for 14 days (332 hours) after the initial sip and then recedes the next time the drinker sleeps.

However, a female humanoid who experiences this effect while installed into a Hatchery, whether or not she was already affected when she stepped in, will become a Support Queen, equal in rank and benefitting from all of the same rules as your original queen. The promotion to Support Queen is permanent. The number of support queens you can have at any time is equal to 1 for each Colony, plus 10 for each Hive.

Universal Bus

Type: Expansion

Cost: 50

Structure requirement: Nexus

Larva requirement: Skitterers

Skitterers may now target digital entities. A Skitterer changes the shape of its “tongue”  to interface with any external computer port, then projects itself into a representation of virtual space. If a virtual space already exists, the Skitterer will simply enter that instead. Once there, it may stalk and convert the locals as normal.

Conversion will pull a software AI or brain upload into a new physical body at the real-world location of the Skitterer, skipping to the penultimate stage of the normal process. These bodies are often natural cyborgs or technopaths, with no loss of ability compared to their previous selves, though the exact end-states after conversion are highly variable. Again, your Evolution Chambers may only copy technological abilities from one member of your swarm to another if you have a Hive.

End-users of consumer VR products are also vulnerable. Their physical bodies will be transformed on-site, and they may log out and search for their new master’s physical location on their own time. The conversion will disable any anti-logout prevention or punishment systems. Finally, existing symbiote hosts may log in and use their swarm-granted abilities in digital worlds.

Mindscape

Type: Expansion

Cost: 30

Structure requirement: Hive

Expansion requirement: Presence, Conjunction

You, your Queens, and all individuals installed into a Lair, Burrow, Nest, or Reef can now project their minds into a virtual space within the swarm’s Conjunction network, allowing for face-to-face communication and activities. Lucid dreaming rules apply: if someone in this space can imagine it, they can manifest it. However, this space cannot accurately represent scenes or places that the swarm has never observed, whether directly or via existing supernatural abilities. Separate mindscapes are also available to Maru Mari individuals riding inside Linguus and other passenger- carrying units.

If you have Maru Mari, animate intelligences may use this perk to continue to interact with others while their bodies are reconfigured.

Stained Glass Sky

Type: Expansion

Cost: 40

Structure requirement: Hive

Expansion requirement: White Rabbit

Hives now alter the climate in your Creep zone to better fit the aesthetics of your symbiote theme. Your swarm will be able to shrug off any extreme weather or other hazards that this produces. Intruders will not be so fortunate, and will all find their tiers reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1. This stacks with the tier debuffs from Fortresses.

Additionally, if you have Demiplane Laws, you may now apply them to your Creep zone.

Imperial Honey

Type: Expansion

Cost: 40

Structure requirement: Hive, Evolution Chamber

Expansion requirement: Royal Honey

This variant of Royal Honey, produced only in Hives and in far smaller amounts, is even more nutritious than the regular kind. The same half-liter dose will instead take its drinker to target sizes of 180% on the scales defined in Advanced Runes: Body, with up to 20% error in either direction. This transformation will last for 14 days (332 hours) after the initial sip and then recede down to Royal Honey levels the next time the drinker sleeps. The drinker will only return to their original proportions after another two weeks.

The first swarm queen, whether your starting Queen or a Support Queen, to consume 20 liters of Imperial Honey will become your swarm’s Empress, ranked above all other queens in your swarm’s hierarchy. This can only happen once, so make it count. The Empress gains +1 to her effective tier, stacking with the queen bonus. If she is already Tier 10, her power will double, but her effective tier will not increase any further. These permanent benefits will also apply to a swarm king who has this perk and consumes enough honey. Like your starting and Support Queens, your Empress benefits from all purchased Talents, even without Talent Sharing.

Any clutch that an Empress lays, whether personally or while installed in a Lair, will hatch in half of the usual time. If a support Queen qualifies for her own symbiote theme as per the regular rules, but your Empress has already imposed her own theme on the entire swarm, the two themes will hybridize in a natural way, but only in the lesser queen and her subordinates.

Additionally, take Everlasting Talent for free.

Third-Generation Symbiote

Type: Expansion

Cost: 40

Structure requirement: Hive, Nexus

Larva requirement: Globsters

Expansion requirement: Second Generation

The Globsters’ ability is now part of the basic functions available to all of your humanoid swarm members, bringing them a step closer to the original wild shoggoths that were used to create Globsters. All humanoid swarm members may now melt into a semisolid amoeboid form for better infiltration, whether by flowing through vents, along a ceiling or wall, or hitching a ride on a person.

The slime form may be maintained indefinitely, obey conservation of mass, and must remain contiguous. A swarm member otherwise has full control over the form's shape, texture, and coloration. Symbiote hosts that have innate supernatural abilities of biological or genetic origin (ex. X-gene, Quirks, hereditary magic potential, alien racial abilities, etc.) retain them in their slime form. If they have enough room, they may revert to their original or symbiote forms at will.

From their slime form, a humanoid swarm member may also assume a solid "armor" form around another similarly-sized being. By doing so, any symbiote host who comes into contact with a capture target can bind them on their own, without aid from a larva.

The slime form flows under the target's clothes and equipment, fully encasing them and keeping them compliant with sexual stimulation while injecting symbiote transformative fluid into blood vessels close to the skin and pumping into the digestive or (for female targets) reproductive systems. In this state, the slime form can also mentally converse with the target and speak with their voice, use their slime body as natural weapons, etc., until the target is converted (captured and symbiote-bound).

This conversion method obeys the same timeframe and interruption rules as a full-cocoon Shroud binding and may be hastened with all-the-way-through penetration. This will allow symbiote transformative fluid to be absorbed by every part of the target’s digestive system at once. After conversion, the two may separate to reveal the new capture's symbiote form with the same body growth as the other types of symbiote capture. Additional sex is not needed to confirm this type of capture.

A slime-form may also overload their wearer's mind by spiking their libido and sensitivity. This overloads their own mind as well, cannot be undone manually, and will only reverse itself when the duo are fully satisfied.

Slime Fusion

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Structure requirement: Hive

Expansion requirement: Third Generation

If more than one member of your symbiote swarm has entered their slime form, they can combine into a larger slime with one body, multiple minds, and one will. A gestalt slime may freely take solid form - whether the symbiote bioarmor or even a civilian mode - with the combined mass of all components. Gestalts may freely separate without negative side effects, but any separation requires at least one component to be in slime form. With training, it is possible for only select members of a gestalt to return to slime form and leave the collective while the rest remain solid. Separation while the entire collective is in slime form, however, is much easier.

If any members of such a gestalt have innate biological or genetic abilities, this will catalyze the appearance of those in the others. The specific expressions of these gifts will not always be consistent between subjects. For example, a Quirk user in such a gestalt would cause others in it to gain Quirks of their own, and not necessarily similar ones. This feature cannot copy Heritage powers.

Binding: Shroud of Power

Cost: 60

You gain a semi-sapient cape of solidified magic that acts as an extension of your will. It shifts and transforms at a thought, even unconscious ones. By draping it over or wrapping up a waifu with it, you are able to infuse your target with your will and bind them to it.

This cape is subject to the same protections as the company smart device. It can shift its form and texture into a wide variety of shapes and imitate any other outfit, ropes, tendrils, hands, blades, and similar forms. The constructs of the Shroud may have the textures and forms of textiles like leathers, latex, or other forms of clothing. The shroud is extremely durable and capable of significant amounts of strength and speed, and you gain a form of tactile feedback from it.

Once completely infused, the waifu becomes one of your Shroud-bound. A newly Shroud-bound waifu’s clothes and makeup are absorbed into a cloak of her own, subordinate to your Shroud, and replaced with a new thematic style in line with your tastes and the personal mark of your stamp. A Shroud-bound waifu will always consider her cloak her most comfortable outfit, but she may still dismiss it and wear normal outfits at any time.

Both you and the waifu will be able to manipulate her outfit much like you can with your Shroud, though your will supersedes hers in such manners. These powers are innate abilities, granted by the Shroud, and do not require any magical talent. Altogether, this is enough to push any blue-star subject up to Tier 4 or any copper-star up one tier, but is not a significant gain for higher tiers. Your own rating immediately increases to Tier 5, if it wasn’t already, and can increase further as you train with the Shroud and discover new uses.

A new Shroud capture gains a subconscious awareness of your activity and needs. They may even respond to orders you haven’t consciously given yet. They will greatly struggle to go against your direct orders, and even the strongest-willed subjects will be unable to go against your intent once bound. Additionally, the infusion will shift Shroud-bound companions’ figures to your tastes.

Shroud: Capturing

To capture a target, you or your Shroud must maintain contact with them or one of their projections until you’ve infused enough of your will, whether through the target wearing an outfit your Shroud has been transformed into, being cocooned by your Shroud’s constructs, or similar. As a general rule, the more of your Shroud is focused on, inside of, or otherwise in contact with your target, the less time it takes. The greater the power, will, or resistance your target has, the longer it will take.

With the entirety of your Shroud around a target, even if they put their all into the struggle, it will usually take less than a minute for a blue-star subject, under ten minutes for a copper-star subject, an hour for a silver-star subject, three hours for a gold-star subject, and 12 hours for a TX subject. Lesser amounts of your Shroud in contact with a target, or only intermittent contact, will extend the time required, up to years.

Other factors can reduce the required time. Examples include the number of orifices your Shroud has penetrated, any of your essence/fluids you have inside her, or if she’s unconscious, been recently defeated by you or your retinue, having sex with you or your retinue, or consenting to the bind. As a general rule, each additional factor reduces the time required to complete the infusion by half. A willing and aware (but not necessarily informed or ‘unassisted’ consent) target can make the process functionally instantaneous regardless of their personal power.

Until she is bound, your accumulated will within her will slowly dissipate whenever she loses contact with your Shroud. It takes approximately a month for the process to completely reset for a waifu who’s just short of being fully captured. Shroud-bound do not count as your Shroud for the purposes of binding new targets. Direct contact with one will, however, delay the fading of any will you've already built up within her.

If a target has an already-existing mental or spiritual connection to other bodies or people, the shroud can follow that connection to bind everyone on it at once. Examples of this include the Misaka Network, divine avatars or those who’ve taken mortal hosts, and multi-summon Servants like Gemini, the Valkyrie squads, or Anne and Mary. Mere followers or even clerics of a god do not count.

Shroud: Failure?

With only the basic Shroud, the bind can fail to take in subjects that have too much personal power, compared to your own, at the moment of attempted binding. This will ignore the subject’s consent and even purchase status.

Consenting subjects whose bindings fail will still be captured and marked with a stamp tattoo, so you can make a later attempt with the Shroud. Non-consenting subjects will break free completely, denying you their capture credits until a successful attempt is made.

Subjects who are already shroud-bound will remain so, even if they become strong enough that you would be unable to re-bind them. This includes the upgrades from capturing a character “early” and the expiration of any step 5 modifiers to effective tier.

Three-Piece Suit

Cost: 15 (135)

Requires: Shroud of Power

Your Shroud may now be split and sectioned off, such that you functionally have multiple Shrouds. You could give a target an article of clothing to wear while still retaining the power of your personal Shroud. If your Shroud is elemental, you may separate one portion of it without worrying about it dissolving. This can only be created from yourself or extant manifestations of your Shroud.

These always retain the standard company protections on devices and may be recalled at any time. You may control these pieces separated from yourself, but must be directly aware of them in some manner, such as a line of sight or more exotic senses. You do not receive the tactile feedback from separated pieces as you do with your primary Shroud.

This Perk may be repurchased multiple times. With the ninth purchase, your Shroud will develop to the point that you may separate as many portions from it as you would like.

Elemental Shroud (___________)

Cost: 96

Requires: Shroud of Power

Congratulations! Your Shroud has been upgraded to the elemental manifestation type! Choose one element for your personal Shroud from the list in the Shroud Elements section. (Your retinues’ cloaks are not affected.) No longer purely physical, the Shroud is an elemental manifestation of your will, granting you a noticeable buff to your affinity with that element, as well as allowing you to generate and control significant amounts of it.

Your Shroud’s manifestation is always intense and obvious, such as a black void for Fearful Shrouds, burning flames or magma for a Volcanic Shroud, or a seemingly star-filled cosmos for the Void Shroud. As an extension of your will, it will only harm that which you wish it to harm. You may take control of a natural manifestation of your element by mixing in some of your Shroud into it. Manifestations of the element with a will of their own must be infused with your will the same way a waifu must. However, a willing manifestation may allow you to manipulate them, such as using a Cyber Shroud to repair a willing gynoid. Willful manifestations must either be bound like any other capture or released when you have no further need of their substance.

These elemental shapes and tendrils must be contiguous with you or each other. Portions of Shroud that lose contact begin to dissipate, generally within ten to thirty seconds. Your waifus, their Cloaks, and waifus in multiple bodies all count as “you” for the purposes of Shroud sustenance. As an example, you can create a ring with the Xeric Shroud that would quickly crumble into nothingness if it left your body, but it would not if one of your waifus wore it.

Your Shroud can only be damaged by things which could feasibly harm the element itself, such as water affecting the Volcanic Shroud while physical strikes cannot, or gravitational effects damaging the Void Shroud. Even non-physical elements such as light and shadow are capable of becoming tangible, such as by becoming the physical cloak once more, though by doing so they can be damaged by physical forces.

Finally, you get Body Tune-Up and Athletic and Soul Talents for free. Each specific element, additionally, provides additional free Talents and/or Defenses, as specified.

Prismatic Shroud (___________)

Cost: Special

Requires: any Elemental Shroud

Choose an additional element for your Shroud. It may now express either of these elements or themes, but only one at a time. True mergers of multiple elements are not possible, but practice will let you rapidly switch between them and keep the previous element’s manifestations active for longer afterwards. Doing so with directly-conflicting elements, such as the Volcanic and Boreal or Primal and Burial Shrouds, requires much more practice.

This expansion may be repurchased as many times as desired, until all listed Shrouds are acquired. Each purchase costs 54 credits, plus 10 credits for each element you already have, including the element from Elemental Shroud.

Complementary Colors

Cost: 25 (250)

Requires: any Elemental Shroud

Select one of your subjects. They are now shroud-bound, bypassing any failure chance, with a cloak that has elemental properties much like your own. Unless you deign to allow them an element you personally possess, one will be extrapolated from their current affinities and hypothetical developmental trajectories. Your subjects may have unique elements not found on the standard list, whether hybridized from standard elements or entirely new. Any subjects that you apply this perk to at the time of their purchase will be shroud-bound before delivery, again bypassing any failure chance.

In this way, your subject will gain all the benefits like your own Elemental Shroud, that is, aesthetic harmonization for their constructs and cloak, an affinity for the element in other power systems, and the ability to generate and control said element. Unlike you, your subjects may only have a single element. This increases the Shroud tier boost for your subjects to +3 for blue-stars, +2 for copper, and +1 for silver. Imaginary-tier subjects are not affected. Your subjects who benefit from this perk do not receive the free Talents or Defenses that you would normally get from an Elemental Shroud of each particular element. If you have Pocket Space, each of your shroud-bound subjects will gain their own personal pockets, equal to the initial size offered by that perk.

Additionally, with the first purchase of this perk, you can project your own Shroud through shroud-bound subjects. This bypasses the usual limitation against your retinue members binding others using your shroud, but requires a powerful multitasking ability or extreme amount of practice to do so effectively.

Once you’ve purchased this perk ten times, all new shroud-bound subjects will automatically receive an Element without any further purchases. Your ability to bind targets stronger than yourself is now more forgiving. Additionally, all new purchased subjects will be shroud-bound before delivery. This removes the failure chance for all purchases and consenting captures. If you buy ten copies of this perk in your starting build, this will apply to all subjects purchased at that time as well.

Grand Tapestry

Cost: 100

Requires: Complementary Colors, Conjunction

You and your waifus with elemental shrouds can access each other’s elements through the sympathetic bond your Shroud represents. On a basic level, drawing on another’s Element allows you to generate and manipulate things within their purview as if the element was your own, complete with aesthetic palette swaps and altered material profiles as appropriate.

Affinities granted by someone else’s element, however, are capped by the intimacy (or at least, the intensity) of one’s relationship with them, which can complicate attempts to squeeze waifus for power. Conversely, maximizing social links through careful harem management (or blunt mind control) will allow even diametrically opposed and incompatible themes to be reconciled and harmonized with each other as one through the strength of shared affinities. These bonds also support your ability to bind more powerful subjects. If you also have ten purchases of this perk’s prerequisite, this will remove the failure chance entirely.

Take Psychic Talent and a copy of Talent Sharing for all eligible Talents you own, for free. Previously- purchased copies of Talent Sharing will continue to apply to non-shroud retinue members.

Skill at manipulating constructs and phenomena is tracked separately and individually for each theme. Juggling and utilizing multiple themes at once is another skill that you can master.

Finally, this perk enhances your ability to project your own Shroud through shroud-bound subjects, to the point of being able to, temporarily, completely override their elements with your own, whether your original element or additional purchases from Prismatic Shroud. This only applies to subjects who benefit from Complementary Colors.

Elemental Loom

Cost: 50

Requires: any Elemental Shroud

Your Shroud has been upgraded into a gaseous aura and its manifestations no longer need to be obvious and intense. A Volcanic Shroud no longer needs to create flames, but instead be a temperature change; the Primal Shroud can create and manipulate bacteria and viruses, the Cyber Shroud can affect purely digital code, etc. The benefits of this perk only apply to you, not your Shroud-bound subjects.

You gain an additional sense related to the element(s) of your Shroud within your aura, though reading and understanding it will take practice. The Cyber Shroud may let you access wifi and bluetooth devices, or you can feel spatial distortion with the Void. You may infuse yourself with your element, increasing your strength, speed, and durability significantly.

While the rules for contiguous manifestation are still in effect, the Shroud does not need to have the same intensity across the entirety of it. As long as you are able to understand how your element can be expressed in non-obvious ways in the air around you, such as changing a room’s humidity or brightness or creating slight spatial distortions, you will be able to manifest intense examples of your element in apparent midair around you.

To reiterate, with an intense manifestation of your Shroud enveloping a target, no matter how hard they resist, binding them will generally take a minute, ten minutes, an hour, three hours, and twelve hours for a blue-star, copper-star, silver-star, gold-star, and TX waifu respectively. Waifus within your ambient aura are still in contact with your Shroud and may still be bound by it, but the process will take much longer. If a waifu is exposed only to these milder effects, binding a member of each category will generally take hours, days, weeks, months, and years, respectively.

Deep Weave

Cost: 25

Requires: Elemental Loom

Your Shroud is no longer merely an extension of your will, but part of your being. You are able to transform portions of yourself into your element(s) and heal or recharge yourself by absorbing manifestations of said element that you didn't create. If you or any shroud-bound subject were not already capable of flight with your Shroud, you are now capable of such; the other benefits of this perk only apply to you.

Once again, controlling an elemental manifestation that has a will of its own involves usurping said will with your own like any other sapient target. This process is based on the Possess Origin. Individuals absorbed in such a manner, such as a gynoid via the Cyber Shroud, or a normal human via the Primal Shroud, may be bound like anyone else, recreated and released from your service, or their form stolen. This process is instant if performed on a shroud-bound retinue member and has the same possibility of failure as standard Shroud capturing.

The target’s skills, and any traits and abilities that match a Shroud or Heritage Element that you’ve purchased for yourself, will be copied to your true form. This also holds true for abilities that are generic in source but expressed uniquely, such as Sacred Gears, Noble Phantasms, Quirks, or X-gene mutations. Additionally, you will gain the target’s episodic memory, as if you had Substituted into them. All other traits and abilities, including any purchases of Template Stacking that you made for the target, will remain tied to the target’s form.

Manifestations whose forms were merely stolen but not bound are also not captured and you do not get a credit reward for doing so. You may still sell a stolen form to the company afterward, like any other target, for the intensity- adjusted sale price for the target’s effective tier after step 3. This will remove the form from your library.

Shroud Elements

Glorious (Light)

Elemental Ability: Light and plasma generation and control. Constructs made from it glow intensely and tend to be very crisp hard light. Intense usage tends to be plasma or brilliant lasers. Subtle usage can be nearly imperceptible changes in brightness or electromagnetic fields.

Body Effects: Glowing golden sclera, glowing tribalistic tattoos over face and body.

Streamlined costume features: A formal suit, dress, or robes in a consistent white and gold color scheme.

Heavy costume features: Full coverage hard light armor with shoulder-attached cape. Masculine and feminine styles only differ in curvature.

Freebies: Communication Talent, Performance Talent, Blessed Talent

Fearful (Shadow)

Elemental Ability: Shadow and silence generation and control. Constructs made from it tend to be hazy and semi-transparent. Intense effects tend to involve black voids and inky clouds of shadow, while subtle usage can be dimming of ambient light, or subtle shifts in acoustics.

Body Effects: Black sclera and lips, dark facial tattoos, sharpened black finger- and toenails.

Streamlined costume features: All gothic black leather and fishnet. Often has black leather gloves and boots.

Heavy costume features: Dark overlord style full armor with menacing spikes, shoulder-attached cape, and a full face-concealing helmet. Feminine design only differs in curvature.

Freebies: Covert Talent, Performance Talent, Blessed Talent

Volcanic (Fire)

Elemental Ability: Fire and magma generation and control, with practice also able to inflame passions and emotions. Intense manifestations are things such as embers, flames, and magma, while subtle usages can alter ambient temperatures, ashes, and embers.

Body Effects: Constantly-flushed skin, heightened body temperature. Faint smell of smoke, incense, or ash. Eyes glow like embers.

Streamlined costume features: Glowing oranges, orange trim on black backgrounds, flame patterns.

Heavy costume features: Full body armor, seemingly melted into place with a burning inner glow.

Freebies: Martial Talent, Wild Talent, Wild Defense (2x), Environmental Defense (1x)

Boreal (Ice)

Elemental Ability: Ice and snow generation and control, with practice also able to cool passions and emotions. Intense usage involves things like snow and ice. Subtle usage can lower ambient temperature, be the misting of breath, or hints of rime and frost.

Body Effects: Skin tinted blue from lower body temperature. Faint smell of pine needles. Eyes glow like ice.

Streamlined costume features: Lace, white and blues, sheer materials.

Heavy costume features: Fur, heavy materials, layers of silks.

Freebies: Martial Talent, Wild Talent, Wild Defense (2x), Environmental Defense (1x)

Xeric (Land)

Elemental Ability: Earth, stone, and gem generation and control. These materials last the longest of the Shroud-generated materials when separated from the Shroud. Intense manifestations involve soil, rock, stone, gemstones, or mud, while subtle manifestations can be such as imperceptibly spread through the ground beneath your feet, dust in the air.

Body Effects: Richly tanned skin if otherwise lighter. Smell of moist clay or loam. Eyes sparkle as gemstones of the same color.

Streamlined costume features: Brightly-colored silk, veils, jewelry-as-lingerie.

Heavy costume features: Metal plating, gemstones.

Freebies: Martial Talent, Wild Talent, Wild Defense (2x), Environmental Defense (1x)

Pelagic (Sea)

Elemental Ability: Water and natural fluid generation and control. Constructs tend to be surprisingly solid and slightly springy shapes made of water or coral. Obvious manifestations include torrents of water, fresh or otherwise, as well as other more natural liquids such as oil. Subtle manifestations include dew, mist and dampness. You may ‘harden’ portions of the Shroud into ice.

Body Effects: Mermaid alt-form automatically activates when entering water - can be based on any sea creature, not just fish. Skin tinted blue-green, sometimes a deeper black. Smell of salty ocean spray. Can have watery eyes or perpetually damp hair. Presence leaves condensation on nearby surfaces.

Streamlined costume features: Neck-down bodysuit matching mermaid form. Kelp-like materials. Bathing suits.

Heavy costume features: A diving suit with attached helmet, a full wetsuit, coral plating

Freebies: Martial Talent, Wild Talent, Wild Defense (2x), Environmental Defense (1x)

Storm (Sky)

Elemental Ability: Wind, lightning, and cloud generation and control. Constructs tend to be compressed wind or semi-solid clouds. Intense manifestations tend to be clouds, lightning, or howling winds, while subtle manifestations of the Storm Shroud are some of the most versatile out there, able to alter the weather, and manipulate the very air currents.

Body Effects: Smell of fresh breeze or ozone. Eyes crackle with lightning at times. A dramatic wind always occurs when needed. Head wings.

Streamlined costume features: Both designs have a leather coat and winged boots. Feminine design has a bikini and thigh-high boots. Masculine design has tight pants and no shirt. Fishnet and scarf optional.

Heavy costume features: Scarves, tassels, flowing robes

Freebies: Martial Talent, Wild Talent, Wild Defense (2x), Environmental Defense (1x)

Primal (Fauna)

Elemental Ability: Animal biomass generation and control. Constructs tend to be actual living creatures or masses of tendrils and tentacles. Intense effects tend to be flesh, muscles, spines, and biomass alteration. The line between intense and subtle effects is particularly blurry for the Primal and Jungle Shrouds and is primarily found in the fidelity of control. Both elements gain the ability to control fungi and, thus, spores and mycelium once Elemental Loom is purchased.

Body Effects: Individual gets a kemonomimi mode based on a natural animal, from your or the individual’s homeworld and appropriate to the individual’s personality. Kemonomimi mode shifts to a bestial warform as the volume of active constructs increases.

Streamlined costume features: Slight amounts of tendrils or bone, form-fitting bodysuits with support

Heavy costume features: Interweaved exoskeletons, heavy leather with fur trim

Freebies: Everlasting Talent, Wild Talent, Body Defense (1x), Wild Defense (2x), Creature Defense (2x)

Jungle (Flora)

Elemental Ability: Floral generation and control. Constructs tend to be actual living creatures, or masses of roots, bark, and vines. Intense effects tend to be vines, flowers, leaves, and trees. The line between intense and subtle effects is particularly blurry for the Primal and Jungle Shrouds and is primarily found in the fidelity of control. Both elements gain the ability to control fungi and, thus, spores and mycelium once Elemental Loom is purchased.

Body Effects: Green-tinted skin, hair, lips, sometimes blood. Often green eyes. Smell like flowers, fresh fruit, or other plants. Can have leaves and flowers grow in hair. Extreme cases develop a layer of bark on skin, usually along the back and shoulders.

Streamlined costume features: Leaves and vines, green lace. Cotton.

Heavy costume features: Flowers, bark, and petals as well as thick vines.

Freebies: Everlasting Talent, Wild Talent, Body Defense (1x), Wild Defense (2x), Creature Defense (2x)

Burial (Death)

Elemental Ability: Ectoplasm, soul, and entropic generation and control. Constructs tend to be translucent ectoplasm. Intense manifestations tend to be ectoplasm or intense visual distortions of concentrated entropy, while subtle effects are gentle alterations to entropy or ambient soul field around oneself.

Body Effects: Several hitodama orbit you. Can turn intangible at will, also become monochrome for the duration.

Streamlined costume features: Veils and shrouds, bone jewelry or lingerie

Heavy costume features: Bone plating, tattered shrouds, robes, and veils, original outfits but tattered and ragged

Freebies: Everlasting Talent. Body Defense (2x), Stress Defense (1x), Drain Defense (1x)

Cyber (Technology)

Elemental Ability: Nanite/Technology/Digital generation and control. Constructs are built from liquid nanite metal, which often has digital circuitry designs along it unless compressed into a known technological form such as a gun or tablet. Blatant uses generally involve the creation and manipulation of technology via the nanites that make up the base of the Shroud, or interfacing with technology being indicated by glowing circuit-designs appearing on the item, while subtle uses involve manipulating the digital space or accessing technology at a distance.

Body effects: Seam-like skin indentations over the entire body from neck down. Symbol-shaped pupils; bilateral symmetry recommended but not required. Pupils can instead be the same design as your tattoo’s central emblem.

Streamlined costume features: The most common form is a skintight leotard, elbow-length gloves, and knee-high stiletto heels for the feminine, and a full neck-down bodysuit with flat soles for the masculine. An earpiece and something for the heads-up display to be projected upon are mandatory. Neon patterns resembling circuitry are standard across all body pieces.

Heavy costume features: Both designs have a neck-down bodysuit beneath shoulder pads, wrist-to-elbow gauntlets, torso and hip armor, and knee-high boots. Feminine design’s boots perfectly hide tall wedge heels. Masculine design armors thighs as well. Heads-up display projected onto a bulky head mount, completely hiding eyes. Headpiece completely attached to headset, with aesthetic antenna spikes pointed up and behind ears (at least two spikes on each side). Neon patterns resembling circuitry are standard across all body pieces.

Freebies: Science Talent, Engineering Talent

Void (Space-Time)

Elemental Ability: Spatial warping and temporal generation and control. Constructs appear to be starry voids. Intense effects tend to visually involve those starry voids, loud ticking of a clock, or even dancing stars around the user, while subtle effects can involve simple effects like flight and temporal acceleration, or shifts in gravity without any obvious signifiers. The Void Shroud has been consistently rated as the single most difficult Shroud to master by 4.231638 * 10^97 users, as the automatic defenses against harming unintended things with the Shroud make it difficult to fully utilize. Purchase with caution!

Body effects: My god, it’s full of stars! Specifically the pupils, which seem to go on forever. The insides of orifices may also seem to hint at further cosmos within, and the user appearing larger or smaller than they truly should out of the corner of one’s eye.

Streamlined costume features: Semi-sheer material that glitters and sparkles, feminine designs tend to involve deep cleavage, while masculine tend to involve black latex.

Heavy costume features: Dark, spacesuit-like outfit, the material glittering with pinpricks of light like stars.

Freebies: Paradox Defense (1x)

Lures and Other Controls

Lures

Lure-type controls are more subtle than bindings, but cannot directly capture targets. All lures work equally well on male, female, and other targets, and instead only obey the user’s orientation. You may purchase any number of lures. Like all company-supplied powers, lures cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen.

Warning: Use of lures on targets who are hollow inside or do not understand love is known to have additional side-effects, most notably yandere feelings instead of the intended results. This risk is not inherent to the lures, but from inducing love in such targets regardless of method.

Sticky Fingers

Cost: 5

You know all the points that make a waifu melt. You can play her like a piano. Your very touch is electrifying. You are also a sexual savant. Keep a waifu on the edge long enough, and she’ll promise anything to make it stop. With your skills, she’ll be sure to keep that promise. This lure cannot affect targets who lack a sense of touch.

Faerie Feast

Cost: 10

Your cooking is supernaturally good, capable of making miracles from the worst ingredients. Just one taste is enough to hook a waifu for life - assuming, of course, that she can taste. Even if she doesn't like you, she'll be unable to imagine a world where she can't eat your cooking every day, and stay with you for that alone. Over time, you can leverage this dependence into obedience through simple operant conditioning and, in turn, create real affection by enforcing faked affection.

The quality of your ingredients doesn’t matter, but they must be real ingredients. This lure will not let you cook without the proper tools, unless you have an adequate substitute. This lure also covers drink-mixing, butchery, and chemical food processing, but does not help with gardening, farming, animal husbandry, fishing, etc. - that’s biology, not chemistry. If you want to use this lure’s gifts as a professional skill, you can dial your ability down to world-class-chef levels, enough to ensure great business (and plenty of repeat customers) without tripping any "this food might be literally addictive" alarms.

This lure cannot affect targets who lack a sense of taste.

Don’t Stand So Close to Me

Cost: 15

Targets that either teach you or are taught by you, no matter the subject, will start to fall for you. They’ll find themselves thinking about the subject matter, about your instruction, about the next lesson, and you yourself will worm your way to the forefront of their thoughts, even as worrying about their next lesson, getting good grades, or encouraging learning twists itself into a more romantic or sexual nature.

The longer, more personal, and more intense the instruction, the greater the effect. Students already interested in the subject matter are particularly susceptible. This perk is optimized for 1 on 1 instruction.

Arlo

Cost: 15

Requires: at least one retinue member whose apparent age is younger than yourself.

The sight of a cute kid calling a new haremette “mama” has real power. Select a retinue member whose apparent age is younger than yourself to act as bait and approach the target together. This need not be the same individual every time. The bait acts as your child or younger sibling, playing the target’s parental/nurturing instincts against them by signaling that you have a need for a caretaker in your household - and the bait would prefer that caretaker to be the candidate right in front of them. This lure is stronger if:

• The target has stronger parental/nurturing instincts.
• The bait is your direct descendant or younger relative, or registered as adopted through our systems.
• The bait is cuter or more vulnerable - or at least appears so.
• The bait’s apparent age is sufficiently younger than the target’s real age.

This lure will not affect targets whose race (human, kitsune, vulcan, etc.) is naturally incapable of having children.

Alluring Whisper

Cost: 20

Your voice is supernaturally alluring. Merely whisper in a target’s ear, and her heart (and panties) will turn to goo. Better results will come with vocal training and improved phrasing. (You can also use this perk to become an ASMR superstar. We won’t judge.) Beings with sufficient willpower can resist or even block this lure. It will never affect someone who lacks a sense of hearing.

Love Spot

Cost: 20

Just like Diarmuid's in Fate/Zero: you gain a mole under one of your eyes that fascinates any woman who sees it and makes them infatuated with you on the... spot. If you already have a mole in such a location, you don't get a second one. If you’d rather not have a beauty mark, this lure can be re-fluffed to make any one body part supernaturally alluring. The charm effect relies on line-of-sight: it may be blocked by covering up the alluring asset, but not turned off. The effect intensifies with exposure.

This lure may be reduced or nullified if the target has enough magic resistance. It will never affect targets who lack a sense of sight.

Potpourri

Cost: 20

Your sense of smell is more acute than most, detecting and cataloging scents and their origin, and studying others to see their reactions to them. You have also gained some control over how you smell, letting you manipulate others on a level that most would never notice and the rest might just think unusual. From the scent of roses to call up some passion in a romance, to that of freshly baked cookies to aid in relaxing others, you have figured out how to use those scents to alter their emotions, often convincing them to let their guard down or spark conflicts between others. This also allows you to pick up on pheromonal cues and scent based languages/markings, if you have some experience with them. You can also choose to "tune out" specific scents after some experience.

This perk cannot affect targets who lack a sense of smell.

Zenryoku Zenkai

Cost: 20

Full Power! Total Destruction! Targets you defeat in combat or another contest, whether physical, mental, or social in nature, will fall for you all the harder. You’ll be at the forefront of all their thoughts as their wish to meet you again to even the score twists itself into a more romantic or sexual yearning. The more decisive and dramatic your victory, and the higher the perceived stakes for each of you, the stronger this lure’s effect. Defeating a target in a training spar will have only negligible results, but stopping a villainess in a life-or-death battle for the fate of a universe will add her to your harem practically the moment she wakes up.

This lure is optimized for symmetric 1v1 duels in the target’s specialty field. The contest must be initiated or otherwise freely accepted by the target, even implicitly. This lure drops in effectiveness the more you rely on equal teammates; in contests of leadership ability, from team sports to military command, any unit who follows your instructions or plans will not count as a teammate. If your target catches you cheating in a match that has strict rules, this lure will not apply to the result even if you nominally win. If you catch your opponent cheating in such a match, this lure will still apply to the result even if you nominally lose.

Tsundere Service

Cost: 20

Requires: Alluring Whisper or Zenryoku Zenkai

“No, I don’t want to see you again! I just want a rematch, b-baka!” While this lure is active, any aggression towards you by someone you find sexually appealing, regardless of the original cause, will be twisted into the aggressor just being tsun-tsun towards you. Once the aggressor is alone, their pendulum will swing back to create an equal amount of dere-dere (lovey-dovey) feelings. This lure is stronger with deliberate provocation or if the target was already a tsundere, and stacks with the effects of its prerequisites.

Lure Expansions

If you ever trade in a lure, any expansion you bought for it will be refunded automatically at the standard rate. Like all company-supplied powers, the powers granted by these perks cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen.

Sticky Fingers: Brown Sugar

Cost: 15

Requires: Sticky Fingers

A natural aphrodisiac flows through your veins, further enhancing any sexual experience in which your fluids are involved. You are immune to this aphrodisiac even without Body Defense. Additionally, if you have male genitalia, you can secrete a natural lubricant from it when aroused. This aphrodisiac will be included in that as well.

Faerie Feast: Master Chef

Cost: 10

Requires: Faerie Feast

When you are in charge of, or at a minimum supervising, the staff of a cooking facility, the benefits of your Faerie Feast perk will apply to the end product as though you had personally produced any food cooked there. If the staff primarily consists of your waifus, you don’t even need to be present, provided they follow a specific menu and set of guidelines that you’ve instructed them in. These guidelines can include extraneous non-food related steps. This does not apply to industrial-scale food production or ingredients that are not themselves edible.

Faerie Feast: The Secret Ingredient is Love

Cost: 5

Requires: Master Chef

Members of your retinue that are already skilled at cooking no longer need your guidance to benefit from Faerie Feast, provided at least part of the meal is intended for consumption by you or other members of your retinue.

Alluring Whisper: Dirty Minds

Cost: 20 (30)

Requires: Alluring Whisper

        That’s not what you said…? When speaking in person to someone you find sexually appealing, they may miss your actual words entirely, hear lewd suggestions instead, and then agree to them. These suggestions will never be activities that you or the target would never do or would interfere with either of your professional duties. Other individuals present may hear either a normal conversation or the same suggestions as the target, only, but not always, hearing the latter if they’re a valid target as well. This perk is a psychic effect and can be resisted by skilled psychics or those with sufficient social density. Targets with crippling self-image issues or sufficient purity will still be affected, but the full impact will only be felt with repeat applications as they rationalize the actions they took while under the influence.

For an additional 10 credits, you have full control over this ability’s activation and can trigger it at will against any number of valid targets in a scene.

Alluring Whisper: Siren’s Song

Cost: 80

Requires: Alluring Whisper

Your voice is supernaturally compelling. As an active effect, you can empower your words to give specific commands to individuals, or rally a crowd with a song. Additionally, take Performance Talent for free. Beings with sufficient willpower can resist or even block this lure. It will never affect someone who lacks a sense of hearing.

Space Truckin’

Type: Other Capture Method

Cost: 100

Requires: At least one of each of the following:

• Land vehicle purchased or registered through Catch-a-Ride
• Retinue member who is a deity or capable of true resurrection

The legendary Truck-kun is your vehicle. When you or one of your retinue members drives a land vehicle that’s been registered with us as yours, anyone you run over with it will be captured, marked with a dormant tattoo, and sent to a random world that you do not already have access to. Your target must actually die from the impact, but not necessarily immediately, and must not already be part of your retinue. The capture will fail if the target evades your vehicle or survives the impact.

The maximum number of active isekai victims you can manage simultaneously scales with the number and tier of deities in your retinue after step 4, as shown in the chart. Your total cap is the sum of the individual caps of each deity in your retinue.

Worlds your isekai targets are sent to will not become accessible to the rest of your retinue through Exit Stage Left or other company perks until the target completes a local storyline (charges Exit Stage Left to completion). This will count as you charging Exit Stage Left yourself. If the target dies before they can do so and you have Warranty Plan, they will respawn in your demiplane (if you have one) or otherwise near you, where they can be bound through your other means. If you have We Will Meet Again or Rainbow Bridge, they can then return to the world they were sent to, with any reinforcements or other support you choose to give them. Neither successful nor failed isekais are “active” and will not continue to count against your cap above.

Space Truckin’: Highway Star

Type: Expansion

Cost: 100

Requires: Space Truckin’

Active isekai victims from Space Truckin’ will now act as proxies for your own captures. Until the victim completes a local storyline or dies in the process, sincere love confessions delivered to them will bind the confessor to you just as one that you received directly. Your isekai victim will also experience the full benefits of your Lures and Lure Expansions for this duration, as if they were you.

Space Truckin’: Strange Kind of Woman

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: Space Truckin’, Paper Trail

You may extend the benefits of Paper Trail to your victims, granting them any needed basic documentation and a place in their new world. This is only a temporary copy of the perk and will no longer apply after the victim’s isekai comes to an end. You may pay additional credits to have them integrated more thoroughly into their destination world, making them a part of it in the process and adjusting the local ‘history’ as per the Extra origin. This fee will change according to that origin’s normal rules.

If you have Demiplane Laws, Art of Transformation, or Advanced Runes: Body, you will be granted a grace period, prior to your victim’s arrival, to further customize their new body within the limits of those perks. Exotic changes beyond the possible, or normally feasible, within the destination world require Meta Shift I and can cause unpredictable changes in the victim’s new background.

Space Truckin’: Anyone's Daughter

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: Strange Kind of Woman, Universal Calibration

You gain a grace period during which you may specify your victim's history, and connections, within the world specifically rather than allowing their Paper Trail to write itself. This does not grant any abilities which are not paid for via other perks such as Strange Kind of Woman or Demon's Eye.

However, by paying the appropriate number of credits, you may 'write' the victim into the place of a canonical character as per the Substitute origin rather than leaving them as an Extra. If you do so, you may selectively decide how much influence the character's memories and personality have on the victim as they are merged.

Space Truckin’: All The Time In The World

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: Space Truckin’, Meta Shift

During a grace period after the death of your victim, a new company app will appear on your smart device, displaying their destination world. Using this app during that time allows you to adjust the ages, sexes, and beauty levels of canon characters per Universal Calibration, as well as alter the age of your victim. If you, or a member of your retinue, possess the capacity for time travel, the app will also allow you to adjust the victim's arrival point, so long as it abides by the normal limits of Universal Calibration.

Space Truckin’: Demon's Eye

Type: Expansion

Cost: 30

Requires: Highway Star

The retinue member responsible for a victim of Space Truckin' may opt to interact with them during a grace period prior to the victim being sent to their destination world. The victim will be highly accepting of any explanations given to them during this period and unable to harm the retinue member meeting them.

During the grace period, you may purchase perks (including Talent Sharing and/or Template Stacking) to apply to the victim, as though they were being purchased from the Catalog. The benefits of these perks will apply only after the victim arrives in their destination world. In the case that the isekai is unsuccessful, all such perks are automatically returned to the Company for a full refund.

Space Truckin’: Mistreated

Type: Expansion

Cost: 40

Requires: Space Truckin’

You may invoke Space Truckin' to isekai on any or all fatalities of a vehicular accident (be it a train derailment or a plane crash) which you or a retinue member has deliberately caused for this purpose.

All victims of a single incident must be sent to the same destination world. However, separate grace periods are granted by perks which provide such for individuals. If you have Anyone’s Daughter, you may not send more than one isekai victim into the same Substitute target.

Space Truckin’: Time For Bedlam

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Requires: Space Truckin’, Pursued by a Bear

When using Space Truckin', you are provided with a 'grace period' after the death of the victim and a list of worlds to choose from. One option will be the random selection provided by Space Truckin', while the others will be those worlds normally offered via Exit Stage Left (as enhanced by other perks that you possess).

Choosing to send someone to any destination rather than the random selection removes it from your own list of potentially available worlds until the isekai finishes, whether success or failure.

Space Truckin’: Pictures of Home

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: Space Truckin'.

Your isekai victims will be monitored, with a continually archived live stream of their activities made available on your company smart device. This archive will also be available through the media systems of the Pocket Apartment, for those who possess that perk.

Contractors who possess a Grand Manor will find that the systems of their residence will automatically create a curated and edited synopsis of events which are notable and/or relevant to your interests.

Space Truckin’: I Got Your Number

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: Pictures of Home, Communication Talent

The company will provide a setting appropriate way for the divine subject and the isekai victim they are responsible for to communicate with each other. This defaults to prayer, followed by a mental response from the retinue member, but other methods such as e-mail have manifested. The retinue member may block such communications when desired, but the victim gains no such ability. If you have Demon’s Eye and the victim and the retinue member responsible for them interacted prior to their arrival, then they will have a large degree of trust for the retinue member initially.

Space Truckin’: Child in Time

Type: Expansion

Cost: 15

Requires: Space Truckin', Arlo

Potential victims of Space Truckin', whom you focus on while driving, will find their protective and heroic instincts working against their chances of survival. So long as a child is nearby who would qualify as 'bait' (as per Arlo), targets will place themselves in danger, or even step into the path of your vehicle, while attempting to keep said child safe or 'rescue' them.

This psuedo-suicidal urge is strengthened by the same conditions as Arlo and by the percieved danger to the child by your vehicle. Those immune to the base Lure are also immune to these feelings.

Space Truckin’: Not Responsible

Type: Expansion

Cost: 20

Requires: Space Truckin’, Destiny Defense

Your victim, as a member of your retinue, will normally and selectively be protected by your Company provided Defenses, according to your desires. However you may, during a grace period before their arrival in the destination world, may choose to invert your Destiny Defense so as to enforce predestination in regards to any given canonical event or events.

This perk typically manifests through chance, luck, and happenstance conspiring towards the desired end. However with a second purchase of Destiny Defense, the victim is forced to act, or not act, in ways to ensure the events occur.

Space Truckin’: Perfect Strangers

Type: Expansion

Cost: 5

Requires: Space Truckin’, Information Defense

Unless explicitly told, your victims cannot make the connection between you (or your retinue) and their deaths.

Space Truckin’: Hush

Type: Expansion

Cost: 30

Requires: Pictures of Home, Meta Shift

The extra-dimensional nature of your isekai victims ensures that their more creative musings inherit that property. Any idle speculation, or even internal narration, recorded by Pictures of Home is now considered to be valid doujin material for Meta Shift on the isekai victim’s new world.

The ability to apply such materials to an isekai victim’s world is, by default, delegated to the victim’s supervisor, although the contractor always retains a veto. Any changes still cannot directly solve any problems without introducing at least an equal number and degree of new ones. Due to an observer effect, any change made after the isekai victim’s arrival also must not directly contradict the victim’s personal memories.

Other Controls

These perks are either expansions to multiple Bindings or serve as alternative methods to capturing or controlling your retinue. Like all company-supplied powers, the powers granted by these perks cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen.

Apportation

Type: Expansion

Cost: 25

Requires: Art of Summoning, Basic Runes, or Shroud of Power

You and the retinue members you’ve bound, through the method you used to unlock this expansion, are now capable of teleporting yourselves, or anything in hand, to anyone else within your retinue as a whole with a few moments’ concentration. Doing this without some method of advance warning may be ill-advised. If you have Pocket Apartment or higher, you may teleport objects into appropriate spaces in the apartment instead of dropping directly in on someone else. If you have Rainbow Bridge and teleport into the apartment, the destination of your next portal out will be reasonably close to your previous outside-world location, as if you had opened a temporary portal instead.

Teleporting something you have in hand does not require ownership, but certain conceptual limitations and the time required to initiate and complete the teleportation prevent this ability from being used as an attack or defense vector. You can’t strip your enemies of their Infinity+1 armor by grabbing hold of them, let alone telefrag people, nor shunt incoming bullets into a containment unit back at home.

A person or item held by your or a retinue member’s telekinesis, Shroud, or insides (or some other method) may be teleported as if it’s literally in hand. Merely encompassing it with subtle manifestations of the Shroud (as enabled by Elemental Loom) doesn’t count. The Tempest Jewelry version of this perk uses the jewelry pieces themselves as beacons and cannot work through any deactivated pieces.

Conjunction

Type: Expansion

Cost: 25

Requires: Second-Generation Symbiote or Shroud of Power

In addition to its other effects, the Binding method you use now adds its subjects to an empathic and telepathic group mind centered on yourself. This group mind operates on two levels: the higher, active, level allows everyone connected to participate in the telepathic equivalent of a chatroom, regardless of distance or barriers, such that you could even communicate between different multiverses. Your retinue members may actively share and experience each others’ senses through this network. The deeper, passive, level gives your waifus a full awareness of your activity and needs, such that they may even respond to orders that you haven't consciously given yet.

This is only a group mind, not a hive mind. You and all your waifus retain your full individuality within the network and have no risk of forgetting whose life is whose. Any morality shifts that your waifus may develop are simply the result of close mental proximity to, and enforced empathy for, people with vastly different backgrounds and life experiences than their own.

If you have the Symbiote, higher-ranked hosts in the swarm’s hierarchy will have more privilege in this network than lower-ranked hosts. As the person at the top of the hierarchy, you can demand access to the sensory feeds of anyone in the network and receive it without question. If you have the Shroud, only subjects who are actually shroud- bound will benefit from this perk. Additionally, your ability to read the minds of your waifus and access their senses is not so intuitive - at least not with this perk alone.

Additionally, retinue members bound through the method you used to unlock this expansion, whose powers rely on a background magical field and are operating outside of one, will no longer be hampered when outside your presence. With this perk, they are always in your presence, no matter the distance.

Command Seals

Type: Other

Cost: Special (5 per set)

Requires: At least one Nasuverse Servant

These sets of three Command Seals each will appear somewhere on your body, forming an abstract design unique to you. Each Command Seal allows you to give one unbreakable order to a Servant under your control, along with a power boost for the duration of the order. The more specific the order and the shorter its duration, the stronger the boost and according compulsion, and vice versa. General orders with indefinite durations can, eventually, be ignored, but a specific command with an instant duration will offer the Servant no chance to resist.

One spent Command Seal will regenerate every 24 hours. You may have as many sets of seals as there are Servants in your retinue, counting only the characters denoted as Servants in this CYOA. The first set of seals is free.

If you purchase or capture an eligible Master from a published Fate/ work, and have at least one Servant per Master, you can delegate a single Servant to each. Canon Master-Servant pairs take priority. Delegate Masters' Command Seals are free and regenerate independently at the same rate as yours, but still count against your total and cannot be directly used by you. If you ever find yourself in an actual Holy Grail War, and all of your Command Seals are delegated, you will still have an inert set of Seals that may be used to summon, or contract with, a Servant locally. A locally summoned or contracted Servant will not be bound unless you apply a Binding-type control.

Each Ruler-class Servant you summon may carry six additional sets of Seals on their body. These extra Seals must be paid for, regenerate independently from any others, and may be used by yourself or any delegate Master.

Command Seals: General Seals

Type: Expansion

Cost: 10

Requires: At least one set of Command Seals. Retroactively removes the previous control’s Nasuverse Servant requirement.

Command Seals may now be used on any purchased or captured waifu, not just Servants. Additionally, all non-canon Servants of any tier and all non-Servants of tier 6 or higher within your retinue are now treated as canon Servants for all effects that target or count the number of Servants, including the Command Seals purchase limit and certain Noble Phantasms. This ignores all effective tier changes after step 3.

Divine Marking

Type: Other Capture Method

Cost: 20

Requires: At least one deity from the Danmachi setting.

Any deity in your service who grants or updates a Falna, including non-Danmachi deities who’ve learned how to do so, is considered to be applying a Stamp to the Falna’s holder, even if you lack that binding. The Falna itself will seem no different than normal. This Falna-Stamp requires the normal three-day period to fully bind the recipient.

Heritages

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, Motley and Monarch

The root choices in this section are mutually exclusive. You don’t have to pick one, but you may not pick more than one without the Ancestral Diversity perk. If you purchase a Heritage Root after chargen, you must first activate it in-character before it will take effect. If your Origin has a matching archetype to a Heritage, you may subtract the list price for their effective tier after step 1a from the Heritage’s price, carrying the remainder forward to later perks in the Heritage’s tree until you run out. Drop-ins and Walk-ins who did not take Power Swap will not benefit from this discount, as they pay nothing to be themselves. Imaginary Tier characters are valued according to the exchange rate of their IMG value. This discount is also subject to the 80% cap. Like all company-supplied powers, the powers granted by these perks cannot be nullified, copied, or stolen.

Heritages modify a contractor’s tier rating at step 1b. Not all Heritage perks have a noticeable effect on a contractor’s tier, or would lift their tier to below what it already is. See the specific perks for details. If you spend IMG on any Heritage’s capstone perk, you will become a TX yourself.

Ancestral Diversity

Cost: 1000

Requires: Ancestral Diversity intensity modifier

You may now purchase the perks in a second Heritage tree. You must still spend the credits as normal. This perk may be purchased multiple times, once for each Heritage capstone perk you own. Each new heritage after the first, whether opened by this perk or other means, will raise the price of repurchasing this perk by 1000 credits.

Divine Spirit: Celestial (under construction)

Divine Spirit: Kami (under construction)

Divine Spirit: Infernal (under construction)

Ninja (under construction)

Dragon

Dragon Heart

Type: Root

Cost: 80

You have a dragon’s blood. In addition to your basic humanoid form, you can transform into a bipedal dragonoid. (If you lack a humanoid form, one will be provided for you.) This form is roughly 3 m tall, with a bestial head, clawed hands and feet, and separate wings, and maximizes your improved strength and protection at that size without sacrificing any finesse or maneuverability. Its color scheme and aesthetic reflects your elemental affinity, which you must also choose.

Take Body Tune-Up and Everlasting, Athletic, Martial, and Wild Talents, and two copies each of Body Defense and Wild Defense for free. This perk immediately raises a contractor’s effective tier at step 1b to 6.

Available "elements" include the classical western set (Earth, Fire, Wind/Air, Water, Aether), the classical eastern set (Metal, Wood, Void), chemical elements (Carbon, Mercury, Plutonium…), and those found in modern fantasy (Light, Darkness, Ice, Lightning, Poison…). This element will affect your dragon armor’s design and loadout, including the breath weapon that all dragons have. If you have a Shroud that matches your dragon element, the two bonuses will stack. This affinity is fixed without additional purchases.

Dragon Scale

Type: Self

Cost: 95

Requires: Dragon Heart

Dragonhood is fully a part of you. You now have a second alt-form, a full-sized quadruped that measures 10 m tall at the shoulder (around 25 m from the nose to the base of the tail). It offers even more physical power than the first form, with a massive buff to your chosen affinity and all the other supernatural abilities you've acquired and trained.

Take Soul Talent and two copies of Environmental Defense for free. This perk immediately raises a contractor’s effective tier at step 1b to 7.

If you flare your power, you’ll trigger a fear reflex in those nearby who can sense it. This will happen automatically whenever you defeat an opponent yourself, or manually for a short time. Some individuals may have… different… reactions to your unleashed aura.

The sizes of your two dragon forms are not set in stone: the more ki, psi, or magic power you have, the larger you can make them. This has no upper limit, but still requires significant time investments, longer than any mortal lifespan. Your dragonoid form can become large enough to wrestle Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann on an equal footing, and your dragon form can eventually swallow galaxies whole, but it’ll take you billions of years to get there. Before you think of using time magic to accelerate that process, first consider that more people would’ve done it if it was that easy.

When you buy this perk, you get one chance to change your dragon element: use it or lose it. In addition to the mundane choices offered by Dragon Heart, conceptual elements are now available. Literally anything can be a conceptual element, provided you maintain a consistent theme, whether that’s Love, Time, Imagination, a season, Surprise, Heavy Metal, or even Infinity. The more esoteric and exploitable your chosen element, the more time you’ll need to develop and master its full potential. This time starts at tens of years for the basics and can stretch into the millions of years for the truly exotic ideas.

Dragon Aura

Type: Lure

Cost: 200

Requires: Dragon Scale

You are a dragon. Dragons are power. Ladies love power. Thus, ladies - rather, anyone compatible with your orientation - love you. Your supernatural aura now tells ki- and magically-sensitive waifus that there's only one person they should be with to have the strongest offspring: you. Take two copies each of Stress Defense and Destiny Defense, and one copy of Mind Defense, for free.

Targets of Tiers 1-3 are immune to your aura. For Tier 4 and above, your aura’s effects on uncaptured targets scale with sustained proximity (closer is better), your physical exertion (more is better), ventilation (less is better), and, most importantly, the waifu’s power as measured by her effective tier rating after step 3. Purchased and captured subjects are used to your aura and can ignore its passive effects without effort.

Further conditional modifiers are available for your waifus’ effective tier rating for the purpose of this lure’s compulsion. This “Aura Tier” (for clarity) does not affect the targets’ actual abilities and does not obey the standard tier cap. Characters with serpentine and feline traits get one point added to their Aura Tier; full serpents in humanoid form, actual cat kemonomimi and hybrids, and characters with draconic traits get two points; full dragons (that are sapient) instead get three. Waifus who share a theme with your draconic element get one.  Flaring your aura adds +1 to the Aura Tier of all waifus in the local universe for the duration, overriding the basic fear response. Exposure to any of your other lures will add one Aura Tier each to the affected targets for the following week (168 hours); additional exposure to the same lure, including expansions for that lure, will only reset this timer.

When a target is exposed to your aura for long enough, they will be overcome by lust for you and seek your location like a horny missile. Kidnapping attempts by powerful waifus that this lure turned into temporary yanderes are not unknown, but you should be able to handle it and turn the tables. You are a dragon, after all.

Beings who are not compatible with your orientation can also sense your aura. If you have Zenryoku Zenkai, they will instead see you as a rival or threat, depending on your relative power. Beings who are sufficiently weaker than you will cower and flee. Beings of roughly equal power will feel themselves pulled in to attack you and your subjects, rationalizing your aura’s effect on their thoughts all the way. Beings who are sufficiently stronger than you will dismiss you, as long as you don’t provoke them or close the gap. This functions identically to the aura’s pull on waifus.

The behind-the-scenes mechanics of this perk are described in detail in the Additional Rules section.

Dragon Thrall

Type: Party

Cost: 150

Requires: Dragon Scale

Every part of a dragon is infused with the concept of power, including their bodily fluids. Taking in large amounts of your fluids, over long periods of time, will make your waifus more powerful and slowly raise their effective tier. This is calculated after any tier changes from waifu perks, but before cross-training, equipment - including the waifu’s own equipment - or bindings, and only affects the attraction bonus from Dragon Aura until the drinker is captured. Take one copy each of Polymorph Defense and Wyldscape Defense for free.

On a Tier 1 waifu, the first dose (120 mL) will improve her physical fitness by a noticeable, but still mundane, amount and grant her a burst of inspiration that she can funnel into any one field of expertise, elevating her to Tier 2 on the spot. A Tier 2 waifu will experience the same effects for the course of five doses, until she becomes Tier 3. Over the course of twenty-five doses, a Tier 3 waifu’s skills and fitness will become supernatural enough to qualify her for Tier 4, with the exact manifestation dependent on your element and her personality and themes. Every tier boost after that requires five times as many doses as the one before it.

Waifus of Tier 7 or above cannot be boosted higher with this perk alone. Those whose tiers have been raised to Tier 7 by this perk will instead begin to manifest draconic traits, with the specifics dependent on your element and their personalities and themes. Waifus with pre-existing draconic, serpentine, or feline traits will experience this effect sooner. Waifus with pre existing elements, whether from their own history, an Elemental Shroud, or a previously-applied Heritage perk, will retain those elements and not gain a new one. Costume animal parts are not enough to qualify a waifu for the transformative effect unless they’re worn for significant and ongoing timespans, while permanent augmentations (organic or otherwise) always do. Affected waifus may always shapeshift obvious draconic traits back to their original forms.

PvP note: If you have the Ancestral Diversity intensity modifier active and another contractor has used this perk on you often enough to make you manifest draconic traits, take Dragon Heart for free the next time you have an account to access. The remaining Dragon Heritage perks must be bought using your own funds.

Dragon Blood

Type: Party

Cost: 150

Requires: Dragon Thrall

The tier cap on Dragon Thrall is now lifted. Waifus may now be boosted by it all the way to Tier 10. Further doses after that will strengthen them, but without further tier-ups. Dragon Thrall’s transformative effect now affects all waifus of Tier 7 or higher. Take one copy each of Polymorph Defense and Wyldscape Defense for free.

PvP note:  If you have the Ancestral Diversity intensity modifier active and another contractor has used this perk on you often enough to make you manifest draconic traits, take Dragon Scale for free the next time you have an account to access. The remaining Dragon Heritage perks must be bought using your own funds.

Treasure Hoard

Type: Other Control

Cost: 20

Requires: Dragon Scale.

You may now capture a subject by biting them, drawing blood, and swallowing a small amount. The bite itself is important to establish dominance, but where you bite doesn’t matter. The core of a tattoo will appear at that spot, just the same as using the Stamp,  and may be moved to a more ideal part of her body using the company app, just like with the stamp. This is not a binding method and may still be purchased under No Bindings. Again like the stamp, tattoos created by this perk will remain visible until they’re superseded by higher bindings, but only take 5 minutes to settle instead of the full 3 days.

Dragon Cabin

Type: Party

Cost: 30

Requires: Dragon Scale

Your dragon form now contains a pocket dimension for passengers and cargo, akin to the interior of an airliner, airship, submarine, or spaceship. This dimension is typically accessed via at least one airlock hidden in the abdominals or lower or upper orifices. The dimension still exists while you’re in other forms, but the airlocks do not, trapping anything inside until you change back. Apportation and other methods of dimensional travel are not affected. The size of this cabin grows with your dragon form, but does not perfectly match the torso’s exterior dimensions.

Your interior’s aesthetics may follow any theme you can imagine. You may learn to freely manipulate its layout and furnishings or manifest an avatar inside it; these are easier if you already have experience with similar abilities. Holding any uncaptured subject within this space counts as extremely close contact for the purposes of Dragon Aura. Anyone inside your cabin, including people who are not part of your retinue, will be protected from the outside by your Defenses as if they had them personally.

Dragon Bifurcation

Type: Self

Cost: 25

Requires: Dragon Cabin

Your full-size dragon form now benefits from both the waifu perks I’m on a Boat and Bifurcation: you may manifest an avatar with your humanoid appearance outside of your full-size dragon form. You can dedicate your full attention to both the full-size dragon form and this avatar simultaneously without issue. It can physically enter your full-size form’s Dragon Cabin and use all of your abilities except transform into a second copy of your full-size dragon form. This counts as a single purchase of both I’m on a Boat and Bifurcation, reducing the number of purchases of those perks needed to reach their price caps by one.

Dragon Break

Type: Self

Cost: 50

Requires: Dragon Cabin

You no longer need your app to transition between worlds; your nature is enough. You and everything within your cabin dimension will blink out of one world and into your destination. Anyone whose weight is only supported by your exterior may be dragged along as well. This form of D-travel can accurately target any world in a local multiverse and any world previously visited. Traveling to a specific new world, outside of a local multiverse, is far less reliable, but you’ll always end up in a place where you needed to be, even if it isn’t where you wanted to go. It cannot target near-identical parallels of the same worlds without Blank Slate. This perk is discounted by 10 credits if you’ve encountered a world-traveler who is neither one of your subjects nor a company contractor. If one of your subjects can travel between worlds, the discount increases to 30 credits. This discount is not available on DRX starts.

Double Dragon

Type: Self

Cost: 200

Requires: Dragon Scale

You may select a second dragon element. If you switched to a conceptual element with Dragon Scale, you may choose your old element or something new. Your training with one element will not usually carry over to the other, unless your level of understanding allows you to harmonize them as one. This perk also adds +1 effective tier to all waifus in your local universe for the purpose of Dragon Aura and immediately raises a contractor’s effective tier at step 1b to 8. Additionally, take two copies of Fatality Defense and one copy of Corruption Defense for free.

Elder Dragon

Type: Self

Cost: 1 IMG

Requires: Double Dragon, Dragon Thrall, Dragon Aura

You may select a third dragon element. Your ability to master each of your elements is vastly accelerated: you can achieve the same results in only one-thousandth of the total time. All waifus in your local universe gain another effective tier for the purpose of Dragon Aura.

Pirate

Under Jolly Roger

Type: Root

Cost: 60

The Black Flag drapes from your shoulders and the thirst for plunder burns in your veins. You gain just a bit of the wild luck of such a rogue, which manifests most when you are at your most daring. The more flamboyant, dramatically, over the top, ridiculously, and/or generally dynamically you perform an action in the presence of non-retinue members, the better you perform the action.

Take Athletic, Martial, Performance, and Covert Talents for free. This perk immediately raises a contractor’s effective tier at step 1b to 4.

A Pirate isn’t a Cap’n without their ship. (In the case of broader ‘seas’ like dunes of sand or the vacuum of space, any crewed vehicle will do.) Any purchased, captured, or claimed Catch-A-Ride that you have marked as Brigand, Pirate, or Outlaw vehicle is subject to Company Protections like your Company Smart Device, so long as it retains its markings and is not currently boarded by hostile forces. It may be summoned to you, within any environment it could normally operate in. Finally, appropriately marked Catch-A-Rides may be remote controlled by the Contractor.

Bling, Booty, and Chests

Type: Party

Cost: 60

Requires: Under Jolly Roger, Pocket Space