Opening the Modifiers tab, Max saw:
Direct damage to non-human magical factions results in a charge-reduction penalty.
Only one superpower can be active at a time.
Universe type: amalgamation.
Song of Ice and Fire no longer exists.
All female Named Characters are ≥18 years old.
?
?
After seeing new text lines Max let out a relieved breath.
“Interesting. Looks like the modifiers are shown to me only after my discovery of them.
And, thankfully, the first three discovered aren’t as severe as the last two.”
”Probably,” he added after a little more consideration.
“So. First, ’Universe type: amalgamation.’
This must mean that this universe is a mix of book and show elements.
Which could be or a massive boon, if, for example, the local Others have at least some of the show White Walkers’ limitations.
Or an FUBAR disaster if all the problems are taken from the book, while all the characters behavior - from the show.
So far, the only major discrepancy I noticed is between book-sized Winterfell and show, a few years older, age of Stark children.
If I had actually read the books, I’d probably have spotted more by now. But alas. Everything I remember involves either later plot points or things I can’t verify yet: Tyrion’s ugliness; the existence of Patchface, Val, Talisa Maegyr; character appearances and their tendency toward melodrama and jokes, and so on.
Again, except for the Night King and the Ice Queen. But asking random people about Others just a few days before I would probably reveal myself as some sort of mage doesn’t seem like the best idea.
”Second: ’Song of Ice and Fire no longer exists.’ Just... Fucking fuck.”
Though Max already been expecting something like this before talk with Toren, the actual confirmation hit him rather hard.
"It’s still much less important than charge receiving mechanics, but it’s still an enormous, cataclysmic, clusterfuck.
If you imagine the GoT TV show as a distorted view of a real world somewhere in the multiverse, then in that reality the White Walkers were defeated not so much by Arya as by the forces that guided her and the other characters.
By invisible undercurrents of prophecies, magic, wills of spiritual entities. By metaphysically real luck and destiny.
How much they influenced events is debatable.
Perhaps they literally build a deterministic chronological Rube Goldberg machine and then pushed the main characters through it like puppets.
Perhaps they merely cut corners. Smoothing absurdities such as characters teleporting; the lack of mass uprisings after the blowing up of the Great Sept of Baelor, essentially Vatican with the Pope inside; the submission of the Dothraki and Unsullied after the death of Daenerys; magical food logistics, and so on.
Either way, in the GoT universe — that is from a certain point of view antithesis to Practical Guide to Evil’s universe and its revolt against gods, magic, and fate — exactly such metaphysical invisible hand won the war with the Others. Not a broody and idealistic teenager and a few hundreds of thousands of normal people, but exactly 'Chosen One' bullshit.
In the SHOW.
In the book?
In the book — with far more problems, realism, and dangers — victory over Others should have been even more luck-fate related than it was in the show.
Much more resembling Star Wars' Death Star destruction. By one and only one possible way.
Via the weakness created by the Prince That Was Promised prophecy. And the guiding hand of that same prophecy.
Just two fucking facts to make a point.
First. During normal North winters, temperature sometimes drop up to -40-60C. Therefore,it's logical to assume that during fights with ice mages — OT THEIR FUCKING DOMAIN TERRITORY — it should have been even lower!
But during such cold people cannot even properly breathe, let alone fight.
Second. First Long Night — the same that likely was LONG and ended in a stalemate — happened during the Age of Heroes.
A time when best warriors could fight several Barristan Selmys at once.
And mages wielded not pathetic cantrips like Melisandre’s, but continent-scale destruction spells.
Of course, assuming the legends are even roughly true…
But the book HAS shown they’re at least very plausible.
Just swap unmagical ingredients of Melisandre’s rituals on life of Balerion dragon, or stronger Age of Heroes beings, and Ta‑Da... The same legendary level of destruction as it was mentioned in case of Neck and Stepstones!”
”Anyway...” Max I took a little break from thoughts and massaged his eyes.
”I don’t know what kind of compensation could possibly replace the absence of A Song of Ice AND Age of Heroes bullshit on the side of humanity — especially given the restriction on direct damage to the Others — but whatever it is, it must be fucking enormous.
Or via many smaller bonuses, like ’RWBY aura for officers’, ’all known cities united by portal network’, and so on.
Third: ’All female named characters are ≥18 years old.”
I can try to invent different theories to no end, but let's be honest, this almost certainly refers to Earth’s age of consent highest point.
Which implies importance of sex with named characters.
Which in turn leads to the obvious question: ’why would sex with named characters be so important?’
And the most obvious answer to that is: to earn charges.
Let’s imagine that it’s true...
Something like this is probably worth considering from two perspectives: moral and practical.
Morally speaking, earning charges through consensual sex with adult main characters is… Fine?
People are created for consensual sex. Men are created to want a lot of consensual sex. Why would something like this not be fine?
Let’s assume that earning charges really does exist as a reward for some classic quests.
What kind of quests is actually more moral than consensual sex?
Power-grabbing and hoarding wealth ones?
“Knightly” feats ones, which, in medieval reality, sooner or later will lead to killing of people who don’t really deserve to die?
Food-related ones, with mass-slaughter of tasty animals?
Related to spreading knowledge and technology which inevitably lead to enormous social upheavals?
Life is unpredictable, cruel, and unfair. Therefore, ANY important deeds have own substantial sacrifices, compromises, risks, errors, and so on.
And among important deeds — due to perhaps one of the most clever deception of nature in existence - contraception — fucking is the least amoral one.
No, not fucking, which cost a few hours of bar offers; 50 bucks; or long term investments and commitment of your resources for the sake of another person.
Heroic fucking.
Fucking of the most healthy, important, unique people of your own plane of existence. Like with Cleopatra. Or with someone who has noticeably better natural breast's geometry and proportions than young Little Capric ones. Or with a famous actress who use her famous role during a sexual role-play.
Such — in this world Daenerys-fucking-like — type of things. Things which from the perspective of statistical probabilities, necessary skills and resources not much easier than princess-rescuing and millennial ginseng search and chewing.
Another moral dimension: how sex is achieved.
But that one has a clear and universal ’sex golden rule’ answer - ’anything that is safe and voluntary is moral.’
This is a feudal world, so the 'safe and voluntary' part could be tricky.
Still… right now all the named characters close to me are connected to the Starks, who are basically the moral paragons of this world.
So, if I really can earn points through sex with named characters, and if I approach Stark about this and my knowledge of the Others, I have no doubt that they would never force anyone into sex with me.
Almost certainly they would use an alternative which is as old as sex, and perfectly fits into the ’sex golden rule’ - bribery.
For me, bribery would also be the most efficient route.
All other options would either take orders of magnitude more time and lead to long-term relationships I don’t need.
Or just bribery with extra steps.
From trading the oldest and most desirable type of entertainment-commodity in history for services and safety. To state-backed long-term children-related contracts and all sorts of “no sex until the dishes are washed” relationship deals.
Essentially - negotiations about mitigation of imposed by nature taxes: “physical weakness and pregnancy” on one side, and “physical discomfort without regular ejaculation” on the other.
In short, if I really can get charges from sex with 18 female named characters and if I do it safely and without coercion — including condemning coercion by others — then there is nothing wrong with it by any standard I know.
Because of the abundance of the book's fucking, and similarities with activities of Westeros’s most famous legendary hero - Garth Greenhand, it even fits ASOIAF world.
Unfortunately, the practical side is much worse than the moral one.
Level 7 powers costs 127 charges. And I very doubt that I can get them just from 127 quickies with the same named character. No, if such mechanics even exist, they should be qualitative rather than quantitative.
Which a big problem. Almost all named female characters I know are noble ladies from rival noble houses scattered across a North-America-sized continent.
Some are already married or betrothed, some are tightly controlled by their families, some have very strong ambitions and vices, and some certainly have rather poor hygiene.
I don’t remember a single named female character near me who would be easily approachable by someone as plain as Max Northson.
Even if Talisa Maegyr exists in this universe, she probably isn’t nearby.
And to compensate this I have only my knowledge and one measly charge.
Which I probably should... no, it’s too early to think about that.
At first, I need to check whether I get points at midnight. Or maybe at forth and eighth days after transmigration.”
Max looked around again and raised his eyes to the stuffed direwolf.
“If, during its life, the combat rating of this beast was 1, what would it be as an ice zombie? 3? Due to its almost invulnerability to ordinary piercing weapons, 10?“
Then he sighed, stood up from his now so much familiar cozy seat, and headed for the exit.
Into the unknown. But far less unknown than it had been just two hours ago.