Name |
<Kizuami of Trickery> |
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Elin:Kizuami of Trickery
The capricious and playful guardian God of Mifu, known for overseeing blessings and curses, is also widely worshiped among the fox tribes as the caring older brother of the Moonshadow goddess Horome. Always seeking new and interesting experiences, he is fascinated by the unpredictability of humans and enjoys interacting with the mortal realm as much as divine rules allow. His brotherly and caring nature, coupled with a fox-like disdain for seriousness, is well-acknowledged.
Overview
Entice, invite, incentivise! It's easy, just entrust everything to this fox!
Kizuami's bonuses appear to be all over the place at first, but what joins them together is a focus on party play. Charisma allows for a player to control more companions and summons, speed helps to offset the penalty for having too many allies, memorisation provides the stocks you'll be needing to cast party-wide spells, and control magic helps prevent your spells from hitting your entourage. The nether and holy resistances are more of a head-scratcher: while nether-element damage is common on undead creatures, almost nothing in the game uses holy-element damage against the player. However, enemies bearing Kizuami's faith will be resistant to holy-element spells used by the player, where almost no monsters in the game innately resist holy, either.
It's of note that with Kizuami's addition, Lulwy and Ehekatl are no longer the only Ylvan deities who grant speed and luck; however, Kizuami only grants speed and luck at about half the rate, so those seeking to be specialists in each stats should stick to these goddesses. Memorisation is useful to any spellcaster, but control magic is more situational with the ride and host actions allowing you to take up to two pets with you into your tile where there's no chance of your own spells hitting them.
The random nature of Kizuami's Trick makes it unpredictable; you might get the effects that are perfect for the situation, or they might all be irrelevant. On average, you'll get one or two useful buffs out of it.
Apostle
Compared to the single-target focus fire of the Exile, the White Vixen is a corridor and room-clearer with her bolts, an aggressive pet for the support archetype a Kizuami worshipper is expected to be. Her ability to draw strength from cursed equipment is more of a novelty since you can't decide to which spell the XP is applied, but lucky rolls can train a few levels on rare spells like meteor and healing of Jure.
Kogitsunemaru
Kogitsunemaru is an artifact that bestows a curse that prevents players from dealing direct damage and instead greatly strengthens your allies. The player will therefore inevitably leave the battle to his enhanced companions and concentrate on supporting and thwarting the enemy. Since Kogitsunemaru imposes very strong restrictions on the player, it is a good idea not to use this artifact until you are more confident in the strength of your allies. Note that Kogitsunemaru has no useful enchantments other than the faction effect. The only thing that an infidel who only receives the artifact and abandons faith can get is a curse from Kizuami.
How to gain piety
Kizuami accepts Corpses, Short Swords, Rice Meal, Noodle Meal, Rice cake, Round rice cake, Sake, Sake barrel as offerings. Of these, the sake barrel is the easiest to gain piety, because it is heavy and valuable.
Sake barrels can be found in Nefu Village, and if you raise your carpentry skills and learn the recipe, you can craft them yourself.
If you don't have the recipe for the sake barrel, you can make sake in a brewing barrel. Another tricky option is to bake bread with crim or bone powder and then dismantle it with a hammer and convert it into noodles.
Incidentally, as a special feature when converting from Horome to Kizuami, the player does not receive a conversion penalty, and in addition, they can retain half of their piety from before the conversion. If you want to switch between the faiths of both siblings, you could try gaining piety with Horome first, and then starting to worship the Kizuami.
Mechanics
Bonuses
It should be noted that when speed bonus from faith exceeds +100, any additional speed bonus will be subject to rapidly diminishing returns.
The maximum resistance bonus obtainable from Kizuami's faith is +20.
Kogitsunemaru
When Kogitsunemaru is equipped by someone in the faction, the player will not be able to inflict any damage on others, but instead your allies will benefit from bonuses to various statistics, enhanced magic, and massive damage against all races (see Kogitsunemaru for details). The only exception to this is damage caused by status effects such as miasma, poison, and burning, which are not directly caused by the player. Normally, if no elemental damage is inflicted, no status effects will be inflicted, but due to the effect of Kizuami's faith, elemental status effects will be inflicted even if Kogitsunemaru is equipped.
Another point to note is that this weapon is automatically cursed when equipped, and automatically unequipped when uncursed. Therefore, players cannot easily unequip Kogitsunemaru if one's situation takes a turn for the worse.
Strategy
- Like Lulwy's faith bonuses, Kizuami's speed bonus is ineffective if the player is riding. However, it is not entirely meaningless, since the player's speed determines the speed of the parasitic pet.
- Because control magic has been strengthened in the patches leading up to version 22.58, Kizuami believers can now safely use pets and summons with area of effect attacks like hounds, wisps and shadows without fear of being accidentally hit.
- Kogitsunemaru is a strong god artifact; however, it places severe restrictions on the player, which no other god artifact does. Kizuami appreciates mortals who are clever enough to thrive despite or even get around his rules:
- Kogitsunemaru ought to be equipped by someone else in the player's party, preferably a spellcaster who will not attack with it. Also, party members do not have to have them; any resident can have them. This way the player can equip a more useful weapon, such as the elemental staff.
- In order to make the most of Kogitsunemaru's bonuses, the player should have as many allies and summons as possible and should take feats relating to such. However, this also precludes the use of lonely soul.
- Miasmas and statuses can still deal damage, since they do not refer to the player as their origin. However, this damage is often too little to be seriously considered.
- Not being able to deal direct damage is a considerable change of playstyle, and the player may feel there is not much for the player character to do. However, there are still useful actions that the player can take:
- Healing allies through potions, rods, and spells. It is important to remember that magic can not only be cast on the entire group by holding down the icon, but can also be cast on a single ally by holding it in the hand by holding down the middle click.
- Buffing allies, and debuffing enemies either with hexes or through elemental effects of attack spells, which are still effective. Especially, slowing, silencing, and wetting (against self-destructive enemies) are also important roles of the Kizuami believers.
- Summoning allies:
- Shadows are useful as a main attack spell for the summoner. Since the buffs to control magic, Kizuami believers can use shadows safely. They do not only deal area of effect damage, but can be summoned beforehand in anticipation of incoming enemies. Anyone who has fought executioners will understand how deadly a swarm of shadows can be.
- Bits are useful in that they constantly cast elemental arrow spells until their mana runs out. They are always good for damage, but mind and chaos bits can inflict powerful status effects.
- Animals are summoned in multiples at a time, and it's possible to draw reasonably powerful animals like mammoths, shivas, cerebrus and hounds. They're useful as a melee force.
- Undead little sisters are the weakest summon as they have low life, high mana cost, are summoned one at a time and have no special abilities.
- Using Rest. Since regeneration bonuses to health and mana apply to all members of the player's party, resting allows a Kizuami believer to costlessly serve as a source of regeneration if there truly is nothing else to do.
- It's possible to increase one's stamina with Kogitsunemaru while doing work around the base so more work can get done each rest.
Signals from God
Action | Message |
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Converting | "Welcome, welcome. I will ensure that you are never bored." |
Turning Apostate | "Leaving already? Pity, it was just getting good…" |
Turning Horome worshipper | "If you are going to see Horome, then bring her some sweets and my regards."
"Please be kind to my little sister. She truly tries her best." |
Taking Over An Altar | "You are my most favorite follower... for today." |
Failing to take over Kizuami's altar | "Watching you try is so amusing, it will have been worth it even if you do succeed." |
Offering items worth high value | "Well then, it would be impolite to refuse."
"Excellent taste you have there." "Your eagerness to please is quite fetching." "I will gladly accept. Thank you." |
Load Game/Entering Home | "Did you miss me?" |
Sleeping | "Well, you certainly look peaceful. May your life be as vivid as your dreams." |
Praying | "They say that when you pray to me, you might be blessed... or you might be cursed."
"You must be very brave, clever or desperate. Either way, I appreciate it." "A little something from me to keep the show going." "Your call does not go unheard. But will it be answered?" "Allow me to lend you a hand." "Do not worry, you can trust a fox." "You are full of surprises. What will you do next, I wonder?" "You have caught my attention. Let us make it worthwhile." "Horome is such a child. Is she still accepting sweets as offerings?" |
Killing | "Magnificent showing back there."
"My, you have made quite the mess…" "Never a dull moment with you, hmm?" "You did it! I am proud of you." "I hope this is as entertaining for you as it is for me." |
Activating Ability | "Trick or treat? Let us see!"
"Here goes, expect the unexpected." "As you wish." |
Granting Pet | "This moral has served me well, daughter. Please, keep him company and attend to his every need." |
Granting Artifact | "You have been amusing and useful. Do you not think you deserve a reward?" |
Lore and Trivia
- Kizuami of Trickery is a backer god; you can read some of his backer's thoughts on his character design below.