#pb mc

Though I suppose my sociopath is more focused on power than romance 😅 you know who I imagine the my MC as? Alastor from HH or even Bakura from Yugioh. Kinda Antihero (helps the main cast sometimes) but just waiting for their full on villain arc 😈

On another note, do you have any recommendations for which stats to boost? I played with intelligence and charisma as highest but honestly it seems harder than strength? I looked through the code a few times and there were checks that could be passed with higher Finesse or strength but not these two together. So would you recommend staying with charisma and intelligence (I just picked them because it made the most sense for a sociopathic power hungry university kid 😅) or maybe alternating as in one of charisma and intelligence and one of strength and finesse. I suppose I have to account for which mastery too? A lot of combinations 😮‍💨

Anyway sorry for the long ask! ❤️

Hi - thanks for the ask!

A few answers below cut (mild prologue spoilers re: how to find the 'early' Alice route):

Thank you! I have to admit this was me being self-indulgent; whenever I'm reading a book with magic in and the MC finds out there's a character who has lived forever, or that there's a way to extend one's life or become immortal, they're almost always so disinterested in it, and I hate it!

Probably less dramatically than you might think! When you break down what a transplant normally is - an illegitimate descendant of a mage family in whom the Gift spontaneously manifested - and combine that with the fact that nobody knows who the PB is or who they're descended from, it's a fairly natural assumption for the cast to make that the PB / OT might have had a tough life before coming to Hightower.

Adelais wouldn't really react to something like this at all. She'd mentally file it away and never speak of it again, unless the PB seemed like they wanted to discuss it, in which case she'd be happy to talk it through with them.

Eleanor and Finlay, our sheltered duo, would be understanding and sympathetic, but would have slightly different angles on it. Finlay wouldn't understand and he wouldn't pretend to, or try to pry - he'd assume it's a door the PB has closed behind them, and doesn't want opened. Ellie, meanwhile, might start to draw a lot of conclusions about how this explains why the Pactbinder is so capable in a crisis. She'd be intrigued, excited and worried all at once.

Layla would want to know everything about gang life - she'd be super intrigued, maybe insensitively so (albeit with good intentions). The PB's already the most interesting person at Hightower, then they go and add a mysterious criminal past to the mix!?

I won't go into exact ages for most, but Lizbet is probably the youngest Antioch / Devereux student at 20 - the rest are in the 21 to 23 range, which is normal at Hightower; mages tend to take a couple of years out before going to university, to go on extended gap years and generally live a leisurely life before going to university. Long city breaks, resort stays, etc - very curated to avoid Witch awakenings, but enough for young mages to pretend at being well-travelled and urbane individuals.

Gap years are common in the UK already, but normally it's just a year - mages kind of culturally skew towards longer gap years both for socio-economic reasons (they can afford the time off!) and for mage reasons (old wisdom says that the Gift is more stable and prone to safe awakenings in one's early twenties than as a teenager - there's no science for this, but the tradition has stuck).

Going to have to call a RAFO for this one, sorry!