100 Transformations (2/2)
”No silly! Our marriage will be fine. Unless... 'Zelda' wants to separate? In that case we'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. But I want to stay married. It's not like I love her or anything, but it's a convenient marriage. Separating wouldn't be convenient.” Qu'Ren explained, dismissing anything like ”Love” with startling ease. She looked at me and then laughed. My shock at her comment must have been visible to her.
”Oh Althos, are you from the surface or something? Dark elves don't marry for love. We marry either for power or for convenience. I like power but my arrangement with Zelda, I didn't know that was her real name, by the way, is one of convenience. For both of us. Zelda no longer being Behemoth doesn't change that.” Qu'Ren told me, revealing a lot at once.
I considered her words and chuckled. All of the married couples I knew were surface-dwelling couples. I even knew some married former slaves. All of them had married for love.
”I don't care for love. Zelda is pretty. 'Behemoth' was handsome. I can slake my lusts with either form.” Qu'Ren told me, speaking oddly dismissively about this whole thing. I mulled over her words and considered what to say next before opting to hint at the true power of the gods.
”Well... If Zelda wants to split and you still want someone... I can create Behemoth.” I told my companion. And for the first time aside from when I came to her in the first place a few minutes ago I got to see Qu'Ren be truly surprised. Her eyes widened and I could tell she wanted an explanation.
”Okay fine, you're practically begging for more information. I've never seen someone do that with their eyes before...” I muttered.
”I am a god of enchantments, souls, and life. By mixing those things together I can create life. I mean I can create life in other ways too, but I can absolutely give you a 'Behemoth' that can be your husband if Zelda wants to end your marriage.” I told the dark-elf, and in doing so revealing a way that gods were extraordinary and world-changing beings.
Qu'Ren gazed at me, newfound awe and respect in her eyes. I chuckled at that. She couldn't even speak, she was that stunned by the awe-inspiring powers I could use. I felt her emotions radiating off of her, and grinned as I absorbed them into myself.
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[Dual domain and subdomain details:
Your method of acquiring influence over this domain and subdomain was unusual but that's not your fault. Your handling of a delicate situation was enough that these two entities felt you earned your influence over them.
Personally, I feel as though you have earned your influence over the domain of peace, not so much for the subdomain of gender and sexuality, but their choices are their own.
The domain of peace and the subdomain of gender and sexuality have awarded you their first tiers of influence. You're also the first deity to ever earn influence over this pair in a single series of events.
The domain of peace governs peace, tolerance, and absences from conflicts both big and small. It is an exceedingly powerful domain, especially for a deity as relatively non-violent as you.
The subdomain of gender and sexuality is the actual subdomain that governs sex, sexual desire, and the components of charisma that relate to physical attractiveness, sexuality, and attraction. It is also the subdomain that governs gender and the physical component of someone's sex.
It is a subdomain of the biology domain. It does not govern love. Love is governed by the emotion domain. Beauty is also not governed by this, beauty is governed by the art subdomain.
These are both conventional and to gain increased influence over them use their powers and build cults that worship you in ways that incorporate them. These powers also bounce well off of each other and a single cult could easily worship you in ways that incorporate both sets of your new abilities.
Special note:
Many of these powers are either direct or indirect upgrades to powers you already possess. This is because this domain and subdomain are effectively either a more generalized version of something you already have powers over, in the case of the virtue you have powers over and the domain or a more specialized version of something, in the case of the vice you have powers over and the subdomain.
Dual-domain and subdomain passive powers:
Attraction mastery: Your powers over lust, the mind, and sexuality have granted you the ability to detect the sexual attraction a creature feels and manipulate it. You can increase it, decrease it, or even transfer it to someone else. You cannot transfer it to someone the creature cannot be attracted too.
Attractivity: Your form adopts subtle shifts that maximize how attractive people who can be attracted to you find you. Some of these are subjective, such as how you smell, while others are less subjective. For example: in your base human form your hair will begin to silver, making you a 'Silver fox'.
Aphrodisiac creation: This is a synergistic power mixing your powers over lust, biology, and alchemical with your powers over sexuality. It allows you to create foods, drinks, vapors, and drugs that stimulate sexual desire. This power turns your bodily fluids into aphrodisiacs unless you will it otherwise.
Beauty manipulation: You can modify how conventionally attractive someone else is for their species.
Bliss inducement: You can cause someone to experience bliss. By making them experience bliss they lose all desires to harm others and instead are filled with a desire to share the bliss they feel. This is a mind-affecting power but it works on the living and the undead. Not on extraplanars though.
Blissful creatures worship you as their source of bliss and obey your commands unless they involve harming someone else in anything other than self-defense.
Bloodlust dismissal: You can reduce the amount of bloodlust a creature feels. You cannot do away with it entirely, but you can reduce it and make it easier for a target to be talked out of committing violent acts.
Dream manipulation: Even without walking into a dream yourself you can now cause sleeping creatures of any kind, even those whose dreams you can't walk into, to experience sexual dreams.
Gender and sex transformation: If the target is willing you can cause someone's gender and sex to change. This transformation is permanent unless you undo it and not only swaps someone's sex, but it also causes them to be truly perceived by others as the other gender.
Hormone mastery: You can increase or decrease the hormones in someone's body. Hormones do a wide range of things, and this power is a synergistic one stemming from your influence over biology and sexuality.
Enhanced allure: This togglable power causes you to exude an aura of sexuality that rouses desire in others. Even creatures not attracted to you that are capable of sexual attraction feel enhanced desires in your presence, though those desires are not aimed at you.
Kiss: Your kisses can now cause a number of effects on targets. They can cause them to fall asleep, be filled with an urge to commit violence, to cease violence acts committed in front of them, inflict pain on themselves, pleasure themselves, and a number of other things.
Non-violence: You can hit a creature with a curse that makes them less effective at violence, reducing their effectiveness in battle and also making it more amenable to efforts to end violence.
Peace aura: Creatures who want to fight in your presence must resist an incredible urge to cease violence. It can be overcome, but it is difficult to overcome especially if you apply other status effects on targets.
Pheromone mastery: You can create pheromones, and will them to have a variety of effects on those who smell them. Pheromones are exuded by the body and affect other living things.
Pleasure manipulation: This grants you the ability to induce pleasure in someone and to manipulate it as you see fit. Too much pleasure can cause other effects.
Sexual soothing: You can cause creatures to be healed by performing sexual acts. This power can also be applied to areas, creating zones in which creatures who have sex are healed.
Sexuality detection: You can determine someone's sexuality at a glance.
Siren's song: You can unleash a sound that causes creatures who could be attracted to you to temporarily lose themselves unless they possess indomitable wills and be filled with a desire to be close to you. This power can be excellent for crowd-control.
Violence detection: Creatures in combat and acts of violence are automatically detected by you.
Dual-domain and subdomain active powers:
Lust manipulation: You can manipulate the amount of lust someone feels. This allows you to make them more suggestible and can be also be used to enhance the effects of the mental conditions you can inflict on someone. This can be used three times per hour.
Peaceful persuasion: You can speak to someone and prevent a violent clash before it happens. Synergistic power fusing the domains of enchantment, peace, purity, and the mind. This power can be used once a day.
Unholy radiance: Once per week you can transform yourself into a vision of handsomeness and sexuality so potent that it overwhelms anyone who sees it. Doing so causes anyone who beholds you to worship you as an embodiment of divine sexuality. This power is also moderately mind-breaking. This power lasts for an hour.
Blessing and curse details:
By blessing someone with the peace domain you make them twice as likely to engage in peaceful behavior or end violent conflicts peacefully. By cursing them with it you doom their attempts to cause peace altogether.
By blessing someone with the sexuality subdomain you increase their attractiveness, and you increase their sexual stamina. By cursing them with it you doom their efforts to have sex with others by lessening their attractiveness to anyone they're attracted too and tearing apart their sexual stamina.
Second special note:
Now you can bless or curse someone's charisma in a way that actually affects their physical appearance.]
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The notification alerting me to the new powers I had gained made me feel conflicted. Many of these new powers were astoundingly powerful, and I felt that I could use them in legitimately amazing ways.
I felt their power within me. I could tell by the way that Sombra was looking at me that my physical changes were significant. But these powers, at least the sexuality ones, were corruptive and felt... wrong.
That said, I already knew how I'd test them. These new powers, all of them really, gave me incredible tools with which I could easily free the slaves who were stuck in the Ardor family's property. They deserved to be free, and I enjoyed knowing that I'd be taking these powers for a test run.
I quietly bid Qu'Ren farewell and departed from her family's property minutes later. It was time for me to pay the Ardors a visit. And for me to make good on my promise to free the enslaved peoples of Aronms.
Every step I took filled me with a quiet determination. There was a smile on my face as I began to approach the massive property owned by the one family I was ardently opposed too. I was ready for whatever came next.