It really doesn't. I refuse to let the story outcome be based on oversimplified "economy" part of the game. As you already know:
Why would having a choice bother you ?
You've got about 4 major political summits, 2 wars and a few incubus kings to defeat before you can ask that.
<= THIS is core value of this game.
Actually it is the other way around, the material plane is the core, "the Tower" is a perceived spectrum of two directions one can take to distance themselves from the material plane. Changes in the material plane greatly alter sections of the Tower, this is mentioned serveral times (when first visiting the Tak'Kan part of the tower the group discusses that a year before that section of the Tower would have looked completely different since it wasn't an orc country yet, when first visiting the holy part of the Tower Robin reminds Simon that they can't keep all areas of the Tower stable enough to re-explore them, the Fucklord tried to gain power from the Tower by causing people in the material plane to fear him, etc). There are effects that originate from the Tower and influence the material plane, but those are generally more rare and of a lesser magnitude than the other way around.
I agree with most of this. I think Lilith's purpose is to be the paradox of "controlled chaos", if chaos is supposed to be an universal force that unwinds the universe into "less solid" states, someone had to put in place the system that allows the current "more solid" material plane to exist, someone designed the current system of reality and also designed the "gears" that keep it working. Lilith keeps reality "fluid" enough so that the material plane doesn't become "too solid" and stagnates, Ginasta hunts down tyrants that could gain the power to change the system.
The implication to me seemed to be more that the shards have an influence over their owner, but their owner will also imprint their own influence over the shard over time. The issue is that someone that receives a big shard will have their will completely overwhelmed by the shard's influence, Simon had a lot of willpower and only received a small shard at the start, so he was able to overcome the influence and with time the shard attuned to his personality, the other shards he has acquired since then have been "magically sealed" inside of him so that they can't have influence over him, but he can influence them into changing according to his will.
I don't think this is impossible, but I don't see it playing out that way. I really do think Tanurak is more of a distraction from the real oponents and just focused on getting more power and doing more damage, Ulrissa is just retired, maybe they were shard holders in the past but I don't think that's very likely either. Ulrissa is from the Givini realm and I feel that if the Givini had their own goddess, we would have found hints of it already.
ginasta words there are three power at play, simon is one, the anak is another and [probabily] the ivala's captor(s) the third.
https://f95zone.to/threads/the-last-sovereign-v0-55-2-public-sierra-lee.616/post-4391056
xerces obviously lied in that part. going up you will reach the divine, the goddesses, but he don't want simon's know it, so he obfuscate the true. (and think, 'down' you find demons, basicaly a race of sort, and going up you will find a person with a certan birth date e a possibile one date for is demise? it doesn't make any sense)
as my post above ginasta e lilth are tool to keep the roll of the ages, they are in place to avoid two pitfall for the wheel, one absolute rulrer blocking any future generation to rise in power, or all apathetic power leaving the reality languish in an infinite static present.
gianasta is a person, it's not born by whim of reality, but she is the most suited to embody the force stopping an assolute ruler to appear [mostly IK's becasue they cannot die by old age], it's not the same, but teria said if the wolrd is unbalanced something wil 'born' to fill te gap, if ginasta will lose her connection with the tower fundamental the fundamental will find another vessel. but she haven't severed her connection yet, in the moment of LL demise she regain for a split of second her old power.
alonon is the apathy made manifest. he doesn't have all the form of power and trascend them. he is powerful, yes, but he don't had any drive to change a wolrd disgusting him, he want die, but he haven't stop to care the people watching him for protection and guidance, so he groom a successor before he will go.
Just think, Ivalan religion popped up when the first Arclent war happened against the IK. The only one old enough to remember that time is Hester. She probably also worked closely with a certain Givini mage who ascended in power in the tower and captured Ivala. They work out the nature of the divine, form the religion around her and as a result, have a bulwark against IK.
In your opinion.
Grinding does not equal enjoyment.
Why doesn't it make sense for Simon?
The religion existed before the war against the Incubus King (during the Gawnfall Council the succubus ivalan priestess can mention theology of early Ivalan missionaries trying to convert the people of Erosia when they first got there). The church of Ivala did grow a lot in terms of power and influence during the war for being able to provide holy spells and things like the Unpeople for the war effort, but the religion already existed.
tertia said ivala build a protection around herself between the end of the last cycle and the start of this. she is captive, but not i a physical way, her power is gathered (perhaps in theoson like xerces do) and used for big magic thing.
Alonon did explain his cause in the past, he's asexual. Being of royalty means that it was expected of him to have to marry and make heirs, because of that his asexuality always made him feel like a freak and people judging him only made matters worse. He went into magical research to try to prove there was nothing unnatural about him not caring about sex, but ended up finding out "lust" is litterally one of the fundamental energies in the TLS world. Naturally he hates the fact a shard of pure "lust energies" gives someone the power to become an Incubus King."
The Anak couldn't identify Alonon, but he knows there are 2 Tower Walkers in Arclent he couldn't identify. We know one of them is Alonon, the other one has to be either Cold Light or someone working with Cold Light. Also worth mentioning the Anak didn't identify any of the goddesses while going through his list of Tower Walkers, nor any of the Tower's "gears". Hard to say if he omitted them for any reason and if he was lying about any of this information. We did get pretty close to Alonon twice now and no one noticed anything that could have felt like a divine shard in him, we know it isn't impossible but I do think that makes it even more unlikely.
He was a researcher with a purpose. He wanted to feel normal and so he wanted to understand how lust works across different species to see if he was alike any of them. He understood how "Lust" was one of the fundamental energies and realized no species can truly exist without it, which means his asexuality will always mean he was refusing a "natural" part of his being.
This actually does make some sense, I'm not sure about the exact timeline, but it could be possible he was involved with the creation of Unpeople, it is pretty advanced magic and it would be related to his research. The trial during the first summit does seem to indicate he isn't really happy with the desecrationist branch of the church or with their actions of secretly creating more Unpeople, so I think that maybe he regrets his research and people being unwilling turned into asexual golems wasn't his intention.
bad choice, nothing keep a thread clean like a forest of wall of texts, better thing in life, in my opinion.
alonon think the wold is a joke because is build from to opposite essence, lust and purity, and anything can be explained from this. there are a lot of emergent propreties (like arcane magic), but the building block are a de facto a yin-yang duality. and he find this repulsive, expecialy because his beign utterly repel one of the two.
alonon want fade from the history, but he know if he do this without set any succession ardoheim will fall in chaos and a lot of bad thing will happen, he care for the people, if not for the world. the same people he defended during the war, he doesn't want watch the world burn, the opposite, so he need to put in place a lot of thing to make his death irrilevant for the world.
alonon don't had any sexual deisre, nothing at all, and his exploration fo the tower only solidifing that trait.
in arclent he know two tower walkers. but they are cloaking their identity so he can only sense they presence and the indirect effect or their actions, one of the two is alonon, he is aware of other tower walkers, but his words "I have not discerned their identity. Like me, they have cloaked themselves in the Tower's ambiguity." the other is the one creating the chosen and the crystal of ivala.
create a unman/unwoman mean manipulating souls, it isn't a simple thing, but it's in reach of normal people. [think about trin, she take a piece of sould to create her copies] there are some high magic research involved, for sure, but they don't need to have deep tower understanding for doing that. the IE was able to replicate the process working only by instinct, his shard granted him power to manipulate souls, but he figured how strip any sexual compontent fo the soul without any high knowledge or understanding. {and working alone}
Two reasons.
Doylist: the spiders are a optional fights, the LL a mandatory one. so the figth should be doable without to much rng involved even by a underleveld/underequipped party
I am not 100% sure. Usually, if you don't invest right away, the cost goes up and/or the benefits suffer. Some crucial investments might get lost forever. Unless someone more knowledgeable provides a clearer answer, I recommend that you check the wiki page.
you can make the ardford invesmtnet starting to mid chapter 4 (i think only the supplier is unaviable later, but it's utility is in chapter 3, after will be for sure skipped, even if aviable) most of the reunion-yhilin will be inaviable (to my memory only the bank can be done later). but for the whole chapter 3 the ProN system will be put 'on hold' and will be replaced by another system, in chapter 4 (well, the very end of the third) you will receive the ProN return of past investment, and in chapter 4 and 5 you will receive regular return to specific story points.
