Embodiment of Pride (And Co.) [Written]

[drowsyCoffee]

Hierarchy of Divinities

Field Spell

"Embodiment" and "Incarnation" Monsters you control cannot be targetted or destroyed by effects, and they cannot be destroyed by battle

Once per turn, if this card would leave the field: You can remove 1 "Divinity" counter on a card you control instead

If an "Embodiment" or "Incarnation" Monster card is summoned: You can add 1 "Authority" Spell from your deck to your hand whose name shares one word with the summoned card

 

Embodiment of Pride, the Bottomless Sage

LV 7

Spellcaster/Light

Atk 2700/Def 700

When a Spell or Trap card is activated: Add 1 Divinity counter on this card, then, if it was a "Divinity" card, add a second counter

While this card has 7 or more Divinity counters, you can activate Spell cards and their effects as Quick Effects

If this card has 7 or more Divinity counters on it, at the end of each turn: Banish every Monster card you control, except this card. You cannot summon any monsters while this card has 7 or more Divinity counters

 

Authority of Pride: Infinite Grimoire Library

Normal Spell

If you control 1 "Embodiment of Pride" Monster card: discard every Monster card in your hand; For the rest of this turn, you do not pay the cost to activate Spell cards and their effects

During the turn you activate this card, you can only Special Summon "Pride" Monster cards, and you cannot set Spell/Trap cards

 

Im gonna be honest with this, this card has been made with next to zero concern to balance and the like, and was mainly designed with flavor in mind. This card is pretty much based of off the Embodiment of Pride, one of the main(ish? I guess they are more of a bg threat now that i think about it, they dont really clash with any of the main characters directly. Huh) of Trinity, which is just a dumb as hell setting i like to write about from time to time (Maybe i will post a bit of what i've done here, if i ever make the revisions the short story about a guy making guns needed based on the changes to the magic system i came up with at some point). As you could tell, this is just, an edgy chuuni mess, to no one's surprise given that im just a random isekai fan. My taste in stories is, uh, not very good. Im a sucker for trashy, chuuni as hell isekai settings a la Eminence in the Shadows, so this kind of thing is just to be expected. Big chuuni skill names 'nd all of that, a la Tensura

 

Lets go with a bit of the ideas behind the flavour. In the whole setting of Trinity, Divinity is one of the different power systems going on there, one of the more relevant ones. In short, it is akin to admin priviledges. Its a structure that has been designated by The Creator to allow them to subordinate their creations to the different beings they made, with different positions given to them based on their ammount of Divinity, from the lowest, minimum amount that every being is being given to be able to interact with reality, to the amount necesary to grant someone the "Guardian" status, what within the setting is known as "Gods". Essentially, reality just looks at how much Divinity you have, and based on that amount it follows whatever order you give it to some degree

The Hierarchy of Divinity is a system the gods of one of the many different universes out there had devised to artificially raise the amount of Divinity a being has, for some long lore reasons related to the world kind of being in the verge on death and the Gods having given up on actually doing their job. Through this system, they choose people based on certain traits of their personality and such, and grant them a part of their own Authority over the universe, under a specific set of rules that define how they can make use of it. Embodiments and Divinities are the highest beings withing the Hierarchy, the BBEGs of the setting (And some of the protagonist, because, lets be honest, its trashy isekai nonsense, of course the protag is gonna join the Demon Lord gang, its at this point just yet another cliche trope)

 

Since the Hierarchy is something external to Pride as a character, i decided to make the part related to the Hierarchy an independant card, and i've set it up in a way so that if i ever feel like making another of the Embodiments, it could be easily work with it. The protection part of the Field spell is related to one of the traits inherent to Embodiments. By using one's Divinity, within this setting, one can bend reality to their will. In a way, a strong desire to live can allow Divinity users to resist death to some degree, as the damage they have received needs to overcome the strenght of their own Authority to overwhelm their own influence in reality and make so their body finally gives up. Embodiments and Incarnations, as the highest beings within this hierarchical system, are really tough due to the sheer influence they hold over the world, and as such, i've decided to give them some of your good ol' protection. The search bit is related to how the powers they hold as Embodiments, to some degree, are not their own, but rather something given to them through the System

 

Pride's signature skills are his innate ability to use magic. Within Trinity, one of the main deciding factors for one's ability for using magic is one's ability to do multiple tasks simultaneously, as magic is vaguely something to "reading" something, to not go into much detail. Pride's own power as an Embodiment is centered around self replication, and the ability to multiply his own conciousness, allowing them to cast more different independant spells and in less time than any other person possibly could, by virtue of essentially being a few million different independant beings within a body cooperating together to cast those spells. To replicate this within YuGiOh, i've decided to grant him the ability to turn the usually spell speed 1 Spell cards into speed spell 2, allowing any of them to be used to interrupt an opponets plays, or maybe to circumvent HOPTs by using the spells in question during both players turns, trying to emulate how in the setting Pride would be able to continuously interrupt and prevent their opponents from actually casting any spells, by virtue of outspeeding them in terms of casting time and constantly reacting to their spells before they could finish their casting. 

The counters requirement was added to play a bit into his signature skill (And the actual Authority of pride, as IGL is a skill granted to him through another title, but whatever who cares) which allows him to rapidly multiply in an exponentially increasing pace over a short period of time (A minute, to be more exact). Within YuGiOh, the counters would represent the time it would take for his overall processing power to reach the level needed to become overwhelming to his opponent, the treshold in which spells become speed spell 2 to represent that mechanically. The downsides restricting the presence of other Monsters on field, on the other hand, while exist to have some vague semblance of balance, are still more centered on flavour. One of Pride's main themes was how his ability to self replicate was the result of his own feelings of superiority and disdain towards other people being pushed to the degree where he decided that himself was the only company he could ever need, to quite a literal degree. So, by that theme, the card is Xeno as all hell

Finally, IGL, the skill granted to the YuGiOh version of Pride through the form of its on Spell card is centered around his other signature skill (Often used in conjuction with the first, as Pride used the sinergy between them to cast pretty much the meanest spells ever used in the setting) which allowed him to use his own Divinity, his Authority over reality, to will into existence the energy needed to power up his spells, allowing him to ignore the need to pay in any way to use magic at the cost of processing power during a short period of time. So, easily enough, i translated that ability into allowing you to activate Spell Cards for free. Probably a good way to set up the necesary Divinity counters needed to turn on Pride. On the other hand, the second effect is there just to make so you actually need to use Pride's eff to set up any interactions out of the spell

 

So, yeah. That was, uh, something. I might do some of the other Embodiments at some point, if i feel like it. Chastity in particular was kinda simple to make into a yugioh card, as i've managed to think some of the effects it could have. Mainly a big union monster protecting the target they equipped themselves to, to try to represent their own ability to merge with Humility, her partner, the Sword Lesbian herself

[drowsyCoffee]

In retrospective, IGL is, uh, kind of a really problematic card. In general, its just a quite effective Exodia FTK enabler, as depending on how they are worded a lot of your traditional Discard 1 Draw 2 cards could become Pot of Greed out of it. Perhaps more problematic, though, are Magical Stone Excavation (Non-opt add a spell from GY, without any restrictions on its target) and Left Arm Offering (Non-opt add any spell from deck to hand) as potential combo pieces for an Exodia FTK. Ignoring whatever crazy combos you could do with other cards, a singular Left Arm Offering could be used alongside Royal Magical Library for a Butterfly Dagger-esque FTK under IGL. The line would be, Left Arm add Excavation, Excavation get back Arm in GY, Left Arm add another Excavation, Excavation add back Excavation and proceed to infinitely loop those two cards while Library just draws an infinite amount of cards. I dont know how consistent it would be as an FTK, but i feel like i definitely did an oopsie with that card. Oh well, i kinda went on how i didnt really meant to make them with any sense of balance in mind, i guess this was just bound to happen at some point, nvm

I probably could make it a Sekka's light kind of deal instead, but at this point, i think that the cards probably are beyond saving. Guess it was fun to figure out "wait no these are absolutely not f*cking okay what are you doing drowsy"