Coal runes, maybe deathweapon and the night/moon skills.

Thank you sooooo much!

How useful/critical are cartels? I'm approaching trans tailoring (splendors!), but I've never responded when somebody asks for a tailor. I assume they are going to want a design that isn't public, and I'm not in a cartel. I know they might want proofing, but the risk they might want a fancy greatrobe I can't make outweighs the potential of them needing something mended. I can't imagine tailoring generating the kind of income I get from bashing, but I feel silly not ever using the skill outside of wearing the clothing I want (instead of what's available in shops). Also, despite my ability to design clothing (it's actually an IRL interest) I lack the desire to.

Anyways, do I need to be in a cartel to really be of use outside of proofing/mending?

While I'm here, are cartels more important for other trades? Less important?

I like cartels, but then again, I like being the trademaster of one, since it means I'm adding shinies to lusternia. The more shinies I can add, the better! I like making lusternia grow, if even with just silly designs. I find my book customers to be quite picky with what designs they want, quite a few want me to make either specific designs, or create new ones just for them. Then again, I can spend years without ever seeing a customer.

Have you looked at the whole whooping list of public greatrobe designs? Unless that person already had a particular private design in mind, that person should be able to find one that he/she likes, even if you aren't in the same org as your customer.

For me, income from tailoring depends on how generous the customer is, I get tips varying from 1000 to 5000, even when I tell them 500 will be fine. In terms of effort, often the customer will go look for the commodities themselves, so that is minimal as well.

And please do design more awesome public designs.

Are you able to forget skills permanently when they're dormant? I mean without switching to them first.

Are Empower/Charity the only influence types that have their strength scaling with the prestige of your appearance?

Nope, all influence types scale with prestige. Only Charity has an inverse relationship with prestige.

I now have credits. And I now want a dweller. Can dwellers follow me, or just wander around the manse or my inventory? I see the command for follow in pets, but it doesn't say in dweller. Wanted to make sure before I start designing pretty dwellers.

You should forward questions regarding pets and dwellers to artifacts@lusternia.com.

That said, I'm like 99% sure dwellers can, indeed, follow you. Since you can upgrade a dweller to sell goods from your aethershop.

I would, but I send a lot of questions there, and it makes me feel bad

But yay, following! Now, to get to...making it look all proper.

What is the best pay to describe 'spirit' or souls in Lusternia? Does it have to do with the immanidivinus pathways in a creature? Do all sentient beings, except Soulless, have spirit? Do creatures only gain a spirit from having a Great/Collective spirit like Stag?

'Spirit' seems to be an intangible quality possessed by essentially everything, as far as I can tell. When the Elders managed to create a species/thing/phenomenon whose spirit had some other intangible quality (not explained; possibly relates to Dynara), the species/thing/phenomenon formed a Great Spirit, either Phenomenological or Collective. Elders don't seem to possess 'spirit' as we would know it, nor do Soulless; these run on Immanidivinus and Excoroperditio, respectively. This makes me think that spirit may be related to Immidivinus in some fashion, but that's merely speculation.

'Souls,' on the other hand, are little bitty shards of Elders, so they're definitely Immanidivinus-related. Soulless don't have those. Illithoid have... Excoroperditio-shards, or something. They definitely aren't empty shells, at any rate.

I know that when an illithoid dies, their worm is there instead of a soul. I assumed that souls and spirits were identical in that regard. I think the immanidivinus is just a way of giving substance and purpose to sentient life. The reason Soulless hunger from the excoroperditio so much is because they just lack a soul. They want one so bad and are completely misguided from it, so they consume everything unchecked.

So it wouldn't be safe to associate immanidivinus with spirits then? I think dreambody counts as part of spirit too?

That is a question I may not be able to answer perfectly but I'll try my best at. The "spirit" of a creature is a little piece of the spark that Dynara was able to imbue into Her creations with the help of the Son of Yudhe. Elder/Primal Gods were able to create/awaken Spirits like Crow or Moon by giving it a bit of that spark. When some of the Gods sharded, each member of that new race also carried that spark, and I think it says somewhere that by fostering it mortals can become Demigods.

But I'm completely unsure.

That actually makes a lot of sense, thank you. I think someone told me essence from creatures and essence of demigods were different. But they should be the same...?

Everything that has a soul/spirit came from Dynara, who got it from the Son of Yudhe.

There's some misinformation.

Moon/Night are awoken from the latent spiritual energies of the First World.

Crow/Hart are communal spirits that formed from animals created by Elder Gods. They discuss in one of the Elder Wars Books as to how it's done, but it isn't using the latent spiritual energy like the fae.

Clarification made. :x Resume your debate (though it'd be interesting to see it carried out IC!)

Demigods gain essence from killing creatures, I'd assume they were the same. Though this makes me wonder how Illithoid Demigods work.
Eventru! Give us more lore!

I've had the idea of a discussion on the 'hive-souls' of organisations, using Maeve as my main case for it, but I've not fleshed it out yet.