Three Goddesses Appear Before You

[Shai-Hulud]

Three goddesses appear before you. They want you to decide which among them is the most beautiful.

You deeply consider each in turn: facial proportions, aesthetic ratios, hair and eye color, the shapeliness of their bodies, their sense of style and grace….

“Not like that, silly! We’re going to offer you bribes!”

Ah, so! Very well then….


“Choose me and I will give you the gift of compassion!”

• You get the ability to cast the following spell-like abilities at 20th level: Heal/at will, Neutralize Poison/at will, Regenerate/7 week, True Resurrection/3 week. In your case, Heal also works to repair damaged minds, and remove madness and mental illness. The only person you cannot heal is yourself; the spells are solely for others.
  
  
• The ability to slip into a meditative state within which your heart opens up with the love of all living things. You become acutely aware of the beauty of a perfectly ordered universe. You come to possess the “peace which surpasses understanding.” Even when not meditating, you have the equanimity of a Buddha.
  
  
• Despite having an open heart, you are by no means naive. In fact, just the opposite. You have an increased ability to recognize falsity, deception, malice and negativity for what they are. You have Wolverine-level instincts and gut-feelings that enable you to size people up and understand what they are all about. Your compassion in no way impedes you from making rational life decisions and assessments.

“Choose me and I will give you the gift of power!”

• You very quickly become wildly successful at business. You become the CEO of a major global corporation, a mega-billionaire, and an invitee within elite circles. You regularly attend the Bilderberg confrences; all doors open for you. Presidents and Prime Ministers seek your council and defer to you.
  
  
• Your limitless wealth buys vast influence. Your corporation has massive influence on the international stage. You create numerous tax-free foundations and NGOs that influence the direction of the world and pull the strings of nations and great powers.
  
  
• You have a Machiavellian genius for plotting, planning, scheming and subterfuge that rivals such luminaries as Lex Luthor, Wilson Fisk, Baron Harkonnen and Mandor of Chaos. You easily recruit a network of useful allies and disposable lackeys. You’re the most devious man alive.
  
  
• You find the schemes of your enemies as transparent as the fibbing of a six year-old child. They hang themselves; their women weep and go mad; their children become drug-addicts. You laugh uproariously and proceed with your plans.
  
  
• Even nuclear war can’t stop you. You have an underground bunker, fully stocked, so that you can live out the full allotment of your hundred year life span in opulent conditions. When you finally do die, it’s with a gleeful smile, as none of your enemies survive you.

“Choose me and I will grant you the gift of knowledge!”

• You gain the ability to clairvoyantly read books. You lightly touch a book’s cover with your fingers, and in a few seconds the contents download into your consciousness, just as if you had read it with full presence of mind.
  
  
• You gain the power of full recall. You know what you know, and can remember everything you’ve ever learned. Your I.Q. now tests out at 200 points. There’s no concept—scientific, mathematical, or otherwise—that you can’t grasp, provided only that a real-world human can potentially grasp it.
  
  
• You may enter a trance state and “probe history” from a higher-dimensional perspective. So if you want to know the truth about, say, JFK’s assassination, or any other historical event, the true history of that event unfolds before your mind’s eye like a movie.
  
  
• You may enter a trance state and learn the full truth about what happens to people after they die… if you dare to do so.

So…

Which one do you choose…?

[Tami]

Just printed books? What about the internet? E-books? Other information sources?

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Knowledge.

Best bang for your buck, as it were. Can even give you certain aspects of the other three.

[Shai-Hulud]

Just printed books? What about the internet? E-books? Other information sources?

I suppose you could use your super-brain to devise some kind of virtual reality helmet that enables you to speed read stuff on the internet. But you don't get any of that to start out.

Just old school at the beginning.

As with any super-power, however, there's the potential to cultivate new, related feats so that the power grows as you do.

[Confuzzled]

Shouldn't knowledge encompass compassion AND the means of getting power?

[Nik Hasta]

Power seems pretty empty and seems include losing your moral compass.

Knowledge is cool but... eh, I worry it would alienate me from people.

I think the most moral choice is compassion. I choose that and point me and some hospitals. That said, I don't reveal that I can bring back the dead, nor do I do that because that opens all kind of wild doors.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Power seems pretty empty and seems include losing your moral compass.

Knowledge is cool but... eh, I worry it would alienate me from people.

I think the most moral choice is compassion. I choose that and point me and some hospitals. That said, I don't reveal that I can bring back the dead, nor do I do that because that opens all kind of wild doors.

Nik stop being compassionate. You're a Pirate God!

[Tami]

I'd go with information because I am already compassionate. Knowledge can make me rich and powerful if I want it to.

[Shai-Hulud]

Shouldn't knowledge encompass compassion AND the means of getting power?

What's presented is the basic package that you start out with. As with any gift, each person will take it in their own direction, after their own, unique fashion. You develop your gift as you choose.

For example, if you were to choose Power, there's no reason why you couldn't fund some scientific project with the goal of, say, clearing the ocean of plastic, or transmuting nuclear waste into glass, or any other endeavor with potential for good. Some persons choosing Power would do that, others would not.

So the proper answer to your question is: that depends upon you and what you do with it.

[Farealmer]

If it was just me I'd pick knowledge, but power or compassion would allow me to help my friends better.

[Tami]

If it was just me I'd pick knowledge, but power or compassion would allow me to help my friends better.

Thought about that, but with Knowledge, you can help Medical researchers discover new cures and treatments for all sorts of problems, which would not only help those close to you but a whole lot more people as well.

[The Chou Lives]

I WOULD rather have compassion. Due to my head damage I lack empathy in the real world, I could use that.

[Alan2099]

I'm going with knowledge. I've got a big stack of books I've been meaning to get around to reading.

[Nik Hasta]

Nik stop being compassionate. You're a Pirate God!

From a purely piratical standpoint, I still think that compassion is the best choice.

Power is partaking in the system, it is capitalism writ to its largest extreme and a pirate does not partake in the system, we live outside it. Pirates want money but they want it to spend on booze, partying and experiences. Or you bury it and never actually use it. The soul of a pirate is tied to a kind of consistent self-imposed ever-replenishing poverty. I cannot, in my role of deity of the privateers, take the gift of power in good conscience.

Knowledge is useful and certainly would be welcome in pirate circles. But, and this is a big but, pirates do not survive on the accumulation of knowledge. We bury stuff, hide things behind fiendish clues and then get drunk and forget the whole thing existed. We dally with magical forces without learning the ramification and acquire curses and vengeful foes. We don't negotiate, we extort. People don't love us for our minds, they love us for our charm. We are quick witted but we are not smart. We are charm, glamour and charisma. We are not knowledge, wisdom and patience. We are impulse and action, not consideration or measure. So I cannot, if I am true to myself, choose the gift of knowledge.

Compassion though. A pirate feels connection with the sea, the world and their crew. They fight to protect their way of life because it is theirs and that is enough. They will do the "right thing" mostly spite the expectations of them and to thwart the system. Allowing me to feel as others feel and heal them no expense to myself? That creates leverage and allows me to exploit the goodwill of others to fight the power even more effectively. Ergo, my feeling is that compassion is the most appropriate choice.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Well I can't at all argue with that.