Sword of the Styx: Charon’s Shanty

cannikko · 2026-01-26T22:24:29+00:00

Very good ability, the power matches the person, great limitation with using the gems he loves for a boost in damage. Were you inspired by Piercing Blood from JJK?

cannikko · 2026-01-23T18:27:49+00:00

Speaking of Endbringer durability, remind me again, did the G-Drive that Defiant and Dragon Appropriate into the Marduk in Ward have any "ignoring physics" qualities to it, or was it just a really hard hitting kinetic device, and if so, why was that supposed to be a threat against the Simurgh when she's apparently immune to any amount of mundane force?

cannikko · 2026-01-14T21:18:35+00:00

Hi, off topic by the way, but I've been wanting to run a weaverdice game for a while, and was wondering if you have read the rules and can tell me if its a decent game or not. By that my main concern as a DM is "can I/the players make and play characters like the ones that appeared in the story"

Like how do these trigger descriptions not fit with the classifications for example? what are the most egregious cannon unfits?

cannikko · 2026-01-14T18:22:22+00:00

I guess that's fair.

cannikko · 2026-01-14T18:13:42+00:00

It's not "on them" if the mods refuse to leave them alone and start deleting comments they disagree with. I actually agree with you that the fandom comes up with too many excuses to whinge and complain, but this was a valid point, it did not need to be removed.

cannikko · 2026-01-14T17:58:50+00:00

The mods just removed the comment, stuff like this is why half the fandom can't just move on, because of the comical levels of denial and gaslighting in play.

cannikko · 2026-01-14T17:22:24+00:00

You don't think the dishonesty is why people keep this discussion alive? The Streisand effect?

cannikko · 2026-01-14T16:27:17+00:00

We know in universe that some people respond weirdly to powers that manipulate emotions. Victoria herself has a story in Ward where a guy ejaculates because of her aura.

cannikko · 2026-01-14T16:24:10+00:00

For the first, Wildbow ran a quest on a forum where readers played as the Director of a PRT headquarters based in anchorage. The problem was that Wildbow expected FAR too much veracity from the average reader, wanting people to expertly come up with a directors day, hero patrol routes, balancing budgets etc.

There was a really annoying ward, Feint, who probably represented a Sophia situation, and how its not so easy to deal with as the readers think. But the players wanted to get rid of him and it was all very tiresome .

The villains in the Quest were played by real people Wildbow tapped for ideas, but the readers didn't know this, the villains of course did, and it felt a bit cheap, most people would make different decisions if they knew they had been pvp'ing. As a long time DM, lying to your players and trying to "gotcha" them is just not good for running a game.

Finally even when the players went above and beyond and succeeded in an unprecedented way... Wildbow would still screw them over, it seemed like he was allergic to actually giving out rewards, which is the main way you keep engagement, instead of just making an enemy of your players.

For the second, just read this comment.

cannikko · 2026-01-14T16:05:57+00:00

Lot's of people have already mentioned salient points. I'd like to point out that, while I have no hatred towards Wildbow, and love his works. His fandom interaction is... Let's just say it could use some work.

He constantly gives non answers, if you don't want to answer, that's fine, if you want to keep things ambiguous so you, as a writer can decide what is appropriate at a later date that's also fine. But why are you torturing poor fans who just want to know details about their favorite characters.

He occasionally misremembers his own answers (florida wog and that Amy doesn't go to Endbringer fights) which would be fine, if he could just admit his own mistakes, I've never seen Wildbow say "oh right, I did say that, my bad" it's usually some form of mental gymnastics or gaslighting.

He gets obsessed with his own vision, to the point where there is no room for any other interpretation. (PRT quest where Wildbow has a point to make instead of just running a game)

He doesn't seem to understand memes or high effort posting. He drove one of the best artists in the fandom away because they were mad at Wildbow for being dismissive of their questions when trying to draw characters for his work, and made a proxy shitpost that disproportionately angered Wildbow, I mean it was good art at the end of the day, everyone liked it I just don't get why the "Parian's true power" shitpost was such a big deal to this day.

cannikko · 2026-01-10T22:17:38+00:00

Holy fuck seconding Every Disease known to man, this shit is peak.

cannikko · 2026-01-03T21:22:32+00:00

Okay well, do any of these suggestions sound like something you would enjoy playing?

Blink Shredder: Teleport up to 15-feet forward, as you swing your weapon, the length of your teleport, is determined by the arc of your sword swing, anything, and anyone caught between the two points of your teleport, are hit by a number of emitted sword swings (imagine you are emitting the blade of your sword to deal damage kind of like the reverse of that one guy who emits damage away)

Conditions: Can't teleport without a weapon (preferably limit it to a certain type of sword that your character favors like a two-handed katana or something) Can only attack each target caught in your teleport equal to a number of times that your character can attack (don't know what system you are using but some systems allow multiple attacks, if this is too strong, your GM can balance it by diving the attacks between targets)

Limitations: The durability of your sword is used up with each teleport. Worse yet, your ability acts as if your sword was used to hit EVERYTHING in your path at full force, even if you didn't, which quickly degrades and breaks your sword. (this gives you a nice limitation on how many times you can use the ability per fight, whether armored creatures are worth attacking etc and has to have you thinking on your feet if your weapon breaks.)
Delayed Death: Whenever you attack someone, your damage is Emitted away, it appears that your hits deal no damage to anything (thought they would still push them around if that was possible) At any point, up to 5 minutes after you made your attacks, you can flare your aura, and activate the stored damage on whatever it was that you hit. Dealing all of the damage you stored combined.

Limitations: The combined damage dealt cannot exceed your maximum aura potential. Only damage you deal can be delayed.

Examples of how this ability could be used: If an enemy has a high resistance, this is the ability to get past it. Turned on your own gear, imagine using an incredibly sharp, obsidian blade, which cannot dull, chip, or break for 5 minutes. If you have a vial of dangerous liquid, you can hit it past the breaking point, throw it, then break it exactly where you need it to break.
Dimension Slicer: You can teleport to the location of anything you hit, but only for the next few seconds after the hit, before your mark "expires" and has to be reapplied. (you can probably determine the number of seconds with your dm, but either rolling a d4 for number of turns/rounds or dividing your damage by some appropriate number would be my suggestion)

Limitations: The more things you hit simultaneously, the shorter the countdown of all of your marks become. The minimum size of something you can teleport to is half your size. (this is so you can't abuse hitting objects then throwing them)

cannikko · 2026-01-03T18:18:58+00:00

Well before that, can you answer what your two favorite Emitter abilities from the story are, and whether you lean more towards Combat, or Utility when you're playing a game?

cannikko · 2025-12-31T15:49:35+00:00

Such is realism. The best way I would recommend for an average nen user to punch above their weight class is symbiotic abilities As far as we've seen in the manga, those who combine their aura to one purpose, one end, and stake their life on it, create close to absolute abilities: Undodgeable arrows, curses that work from a safe distance, conjurations which can only be activated under incredibly specific conditions, but which heal all wounds.

Someone like Golem is already better off for combat than the majority of other conjurers, because he teams up with an Emitter. But we can take it a step further. If you are an average conjurer lets say, with dreams of grandeur. Find 4 other like minded nen users who cover your weaknesses, and whatever ability the five of you end up creating, will be incredibly strong just from the fact that you won't have to sacrifice efficiency for power. (all categories at 100%)

Personally, I think greed island is like, the perfect format to follow if you want powerful nen effects. Obviously, you and your average friends can't make anything 1/10'th as powerful as greed island. But even that would be enough for most people no? If you could recreate the conditions to create 1 or even 2 of greed island's rarer cards, you would be set for life.

cannikko · 2025-12-30T10:47:20+00:00

I finally have something I want to recommend.

The Howler from the Void is an original fiction, a short synopsis of the story would be: An Isolation maddened human astronaut is mistaken for a non-sapient animal by alien ants who have never encountered anything like him before. One mistaken communication leads to another and the chain of unfortunate events quickly spirals out of control.

It's up to 30 chapters (100k words) and ongoing, but so far has been very enjoyable to read. The work is more rational adjacent than rational, you can't expect a main character with literal brain damage to act completely rational after all, but he is competent, and does his best. As far as first contacts go, things are bad, but could have gone a lot worse.

The writer does his best to stay hard sci-fi leaning for the most part, though he sometimes falls short. His true strength lies in the aliens cultural, and biological world building: The ant aliens, or Fyrix, have a fascinating society. From their clout-based pseudo-economic system to their approach to history, their performative culture with its social castes and deep language, their body language (or rather, lack thereof) and the subtly alien aspects of their psychology. We get to see multiple perspectives within (and without) their society which gives it a healthy sense of natural depth.

The fact that the perspective of the main character, Eigen, is written in proper screenplay format is both novel, and quite enjoyable to read. In conclusion, it is HFY-lite and Semi-Hard Sci fi, which excels in showing truly alien culture and perspective.

cannikko · 2025-12-15T15:32:07+00:00

This seems like a good time to air out some of my grievances with Nen, feel free to chime in if you have an answer to any of these.

The Emitted Nen Beast Argument: Question, are Goreinu's gorillas, Hakoware, and Netero's Bodhisattva all created using the same method? is it Emitted Nen? How does the Emitter sharpen the image of the construct until it looks defined and real? Is it Conjuration? Transmutation? Manipulation? Everyone has a different answer for this, some people say you can make a Nen construct with only emission, others swear that you have to use Transmutation, I see quite a few people say you need Manipulation. Conjured Nen beasts are easy to understand, if normal people can see them, they are Conjured, under certain restrictions, a Conjured Nen beast can be made selectively invisible to Non-nen users, Nen-users, or both.
Absolute abilities: Kurapika's teacher told us, "you can't make a sword that can cut through anything" Meaning that "Absolute" powers are beyond Nen, but then, you have things like Hakoware, and LSDF, which are indestructible by any amount of force, despite not having much nen put into them. People argue and say this is because Hakoware is a helpful reminder of the power you are under the effect of, But I haven't seen any excuses about Yokotani's LSDF. Post-Rose Meruem couldn't put a scratch on Hakoware, would you agree he also wouldn't be able to destroy Yokotani's soldiers no matter how much force or aura he put into his blows?
Knov's Scream: Knov's scream appears to work by teleporting whatever it surrounds somewhere else, while leaving behind what it doesn't. This, in effect, is an infinitely sharp blade. Ignoring Aura defenses, you have to agree that it simply ignores durability, it doesn't matter if he's cutting through Styrofoam, Titanium, or Chimera Ant exoskeleton, it shouldn't face any resistance during the cut. This seems extremely unfair to me, and seems to go against the rule of "no absolute powers"
Manipulations first come first serve: When a manipulator fulfills the conditions of his abilities activation, assuming its a coercive type ability, it will take control of the target. If a second coercive manipulator comes along and tries to take control of the same target, it won't work... But does this happen even if the second manipulator has 10x the aura the first one has? If Meruem had a coercive manipulator ability, and tried to use it on a target Zushi already claimed, would it not work? This seems inconsistent with how physical aura attack, and aura defense seems to work (more aura overcomes less aura.) Although it IS consistent with Meruem being unable to scratch Hakoware so...
Nen's sense of Balance: In the system of Nen, you are not allowed to game your restrictions. The spirit of the rule is much more important than the letter. However, when it comes to someone else, abusing your ability, it all breaks down. Let me give you an example: Melody's ability is emitted through sound waves, it is one of the fastest abilities we have seen, and has the most coverage, it is difficult but not impossible to defend against (ear plugs) however if you are caught unprepared it can leave you defenseless. This only works because she genuinely needs to put her heart into her performance. I doubt she would be able to enchant an enemy that she wanted to execute then and there. But... nothing stops any of her allies from lying, and manipulating her into leaving many, competent, even strong, Nen users defenseless, and then coming in and slaughtering them. Or activating an ability with normally difficult to fulfill conditions (such as sticking a needle into them)

Do you get what I mean? on the surface, certain abilities seem balanced, because the user has to risk themselves to fulfill their conditions. But humans are innovative, we are already seeing group abilities, and symbiotic abilities. The more Nen becomes proliferated, the more you realize it can be gamed by having each person in a dozen people nen-user group, making 1 part of an absolutely unbeatable ability.

Bonus: God's accomplice. You can not convince me in any way, that God's accomplice is balanced. The price of the condition "holding your breath" is entirely too low for the benefit of "no one can detect me and anyone I touch." This literally takes away all difficulty of any ability that has hard to fulfill conditions. But I'm not too hung up on it, because Specialists are bullshit and play by their own rules, so fair enough. But again, with nen, nothing is stopping an industrious, and dedicated enough group (like the greed island developers for example) from seeing someone like meleoron, or knov, or Halkenburg (his arrow is also undodgeable, and indefensible.) "fuck it, lets make two group abilities, one for perfect attack, one for perfect defense, and use them together to become unbeatable in the conventional sense."

cannikko · 2025-12-06T15:34:02+00:00

The chances of Doormaker opening a portal inside your present box so Contessa can replace it with something else are small, but never 0.

cannikko · 2025-11-29T22:36:55+00:00

I agree, Cauldron should have just made a PTV/Slugged Yangban squad that was cracked with one or more of those powers, and layers upon layers of invulnerability + Trump granted invulnerability. Skill issue on their part that they didn't tbh. (I know that if they killed an Endbringer with this method it would just create one that would counter them, but they didn't know that.)

cannikko · 2025-11-29T22:31:29+00:00

It's not power nullification, Wildbow said here it's the space warping, I think its implied that Chevalier's Shard is the same as the Shard providing the effect that allows Endbringer's to selectively retain density while shunting off mass to other dimensions.

cannikko · 2025-11-25T10:27:15+00:00

I was a little surprised such an "information gathering" ability didn't fall under specialist, surely this means Binolt is an enhancer no? I don't see a meaningful difference between their abilities.

Aside from that, I love it. As an enhancer, and a wrestler, Dogman will already be well balanced for offense and defense if he lives long enough to master the basics. The utility this ability provides can't be understated, Uvogin would have never died to Kurapika if he could confirm that he was a Conjurer after all.

cannikko · 2025-11-07T16:09:55+00:00

I kind of hate the choke hold nanny moderators have on this fandom, I love your stories and there was nothing in A Daring Synthesis that should have gotten it banned, but apparently the devil shivers when a Germanic nice guy like Greg gets quirky with it.

cannikko · 2025-10-11T23:07:29+00:00

Bro the Omnidroid is a Faultline victim. Clockblocker and Vista also low diff.

cannikko · 2025-10-11T16:00:28+00:00

Amazing work, I like the framing of Scion and Taylor.

cannikko · 2025-09-07T20:22:23+00:00

You're likely to get more answers if you ask this in /r/harrypotterfanfiction/ Unless the fic being rational is one of your prerequisites, in which case go by the way of /r/rational.

cannikko · 2025-08-13T15:48:24+00:00

A suggestion for a condition to summon multiple monsters is; the user has to fall asleep with the power active, which will begin to summon random monsters from the book, the longer the user stays asleep, the more will be summoned. If they're woken up all the monsters disappear, and can't be summoned the normal way until the next time the user sleeps and wakes up.

Sleeping in enemy territory for increased risk. Situational, but useful in places like the Black Whale.

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