Essence of Thematic Builds
This essence looks like three different things, tastes like three different things,and conjures three different dreams of power. Drinking it grants you the following:
○You may select three 'Themes' to apply to this document, in the following order:
○A Racial Theme: a mythical beast, race, species, or generic form of life, as general or specific as you desire. Examples include: Dragons, Dwarves, Kaiju, Aliens, Robots, Humans, Sharks. Something specific like a Xenomorph works too.
○An Object Theme: a weapon, tool, or object of choice, as general or specific as you desire. Examples include: Crossbows, Guns, Shortswords, Hammers, Shields, Wands, Amulets, Armor, Missiles, Boats.
○A Concept Theme: a concept or element, as general or specific as you desire. Examples include: Speed, Entropy, Gravity, Fire, Creation, Lightning, Destruction, Building, Adventure, Nomadism, Piloting.
○At base, you possess an unrivaled affinity for your chosen Themes. You receive a 50% discount on any future purchases in CYOAs or Jumpdocs that cater to those Themes. If the entire document caters to that Theme, you receive this discount on all purchases. It applies before any other discounts you can access.
○Energy expenditure (actual bodily energy, mana costs, etc.) for abilities related to those Themes is reduced based on their specificity. Destruction, being extremely broad, would be about 35% reduction. Piloting, being extremely specific, would be about a 90% reduction. 30% off is the least the discount can go for the most broad topics, but regardless of specificity these discounts can actually grow with time.
○The potency of your use of your chosen Themes is double that of even a specialized master. If you took Armor as an Object Theme, any armor you built or wore would be 2x in all its beneficial capabilities compared to the same or similar armor made by a master armorer, and take half the time and resources to make. If you took Human as a Racial Theme, you would be double the peak of human, and with other Racial Themes you would stand out as an extremely powerful example of them. This pattern applies to all your chosen Themes.
○Your Themes and associated abilities are uncapped in their potential growth as well, and your skill in wielding or training abilities associated with your Themes can grow with insane speed. This is a 10x learning/training booster at base that can, itself, grow.
○You possess some means of traveling to new universes or settings based on your Object and Concept Themes. An Object Theme for swords could allow you to learn an extremely precise method of cutting that slices portals between universes, a Concept Theme for lightning allowing you to travel to new universes harmlessly by being struck by lightning. It can only be performed once every ten years per Theme at first, but you can reduce that timeframe by making more frequent jumps.
○You possess a few new alt-forms based on your Racial Theme, and you can express parts of your lineage in any other form as well. A dragon Theme would, if you began in normal earth, grant you a four-legged, hulking dragon form that without training could take a shot or two from a modern tank, a middle bipedal form that could stand up to machine gun fire, and you could express horns, scales, wings, claws, tails, and fire-breathing even when otherwise human. A shark Theme would grant you a huge megalodon-like form covered in thickly armored plates, a large but mostly normal shark form like Jaws, an anthropomorphic shark form capable of surviving on land, and the ability to express a tail to boost swimming and shark-like teeth. These forms are largely of your choice of design.
○Members of these races weaker than you will generally see you as a physical manifestation of everything good about them, and bow before you (or at least are instinctively awed). Examples of these races that are stronger than you will also see you as examples of their own purity, and will never be hostile to you on first meeting. You can also communicate with any of them flawlessly.
○You are not a deity of your Themes, at least not yet, but have some dominion over them to start even without other powers you might achieve later on. You have a wide array of starting abilities based on your chosen Themes, with the most easily definable ones being some way of manipulating your Concept Theme, like a low-level magic system, bonuses to all actions made involving your Themes, a summonable example of your Object Theme that you can import future examples into to access all their features from a single Object, or racially appropriate bonuses like smithing for dwarves or a natural form of element breathing for dragons.
○You possess Thematically appropriate forms of immortality and healing, and have immunities or resistances to your chosen Themes. A broader Theme like destruction might only grant resistance to being physically destroyed rather than immunity, but could also give you a form of resurrection that 'destroys' nearby material to fuel your return, or healing that 'destroys' wounds. Fire might let you expend nearby sources of fire to resurrect or heal, a dragon might have accelerated healing and be reborn through an egg, a dwarf could forge a rune on their body that restores them when it's broken, a lich might have a phylactery, that kind of thing.
○Every time you use your aforementioned multiversal travel ability, you can access the local source of powers for the purposes of adding to your own repertoire. Most easily, this will be Thematically appropriate things, such as access to the local fire magic system in a fantasy setting, or pyrokinesis as a superpower in a superhero setting. This will give you access to three starting branches in the local power system, one apiece for your Themes, which cannot be drained, copied, removed, or altered in any way you do not want even by that setting's strongest power manipulators. Even in settings where you should only really have one power (such as Worm's typically singularly focused power system) you will receive one power for each of your Themes. They run off a separate, internal power pool compared to locals, but interact normally with them otherwise.
○You can incorporate aspects of the local example of your chosen race purely by exposure. Your generic alt-forms will evolve over time to be able to achieve any ability or feat the race can perform, which is massively sped up through witnessing them perform those feats and abilities. Your versions of these abilities will eventually be double in every respect as the same ones wielded by the peak of the local species, and then from there can be trained past them.
○You may grant others access to your Themes or more specific/lesser Themes under the purview of your chosen ones. For example, with a fire Concept Theme you could grant them an Ash Theme, with a dragon Racial Theme a Wyrm Theme, with a sword Object Theme a Shortsword Theme. They will start with much, much lower strength versions than yours, but could eventually reach your level of skill… and at any point you may retract these Themes from them.
○Of course, this is all toggleable, or a sliding scale adjusting to your liking, so long as it stays at or below the original stated strength.
○Optionally, be inserted into a specific or generic setting that focuses heavily on one of your chosen Themes, including fanfiction or non-canon media.
Essence of the Super Academy Teacher
The nebulous beverage in this "#1 Teacher" mug tastes like inspiring the next generation. And pencil shavings. Drinking it grants you the following:
○A self-designed body that is functionally peak for your species, no matter what species you are, and with no regard to its visible attributes.
○Your real specialty lies in your ability to use your powers in just about any situation. Yours is the multitool, even something purely offensive at first glance, like shooting lasers from your eyes somehow being used to save someone falling from a building. This extends to any future and past abilities or those from other essences, drastically improving their versatility. This is not really additional functions, just a huge boost to your creative ability with your powers.
○The ability to teach beyond the level of a pro. While this includes basic school subjects, your on-the-fly training skills let you teach an ability or subject you could have just learned yesterday as though you had ten years to plan the curriculum.
○Even when teaching a subject you don't have strong knowledge on, fate will conspire to keep your lessons valuable. Maybe you're locked as a firebender, but the fluidity of your control teaches something to your water-bending students? Who knows! You'll have something to teach them, no matter what.
○Any students in your tutelage learn with a similar boost; in a year, you could take inexperienced sidekicks and elevate them into global fame. You may also potentially teach them abilities they did not have before, including granting lesser or equal versions of your own.
○Anyone you teach will learn inspiring situational 'lessons' merely from working with you. Teach humility by risking yourself to save a bystander, train their public speaking skills by giving an inspirational speech… basically, you grant Miyagi-Do style life lessons without even trying.
○While you teach, your own abilities will train as though you had devoted to training yourself, not the students, and in fact you gain a boost to your own improvement if it's even remotely part of a lesson.
○Charisma beyond peak for your species, well into the supernatural. Perhaps it's a contemplative but truly stirring charisma like Xavier, dead serious but cheeky when necessary like Ozpin, or a pure beacon of hope like All Might. You can take even the most eclectic and dysfunctional classes from interpersonal drama to perfect team cohesion.
○Perfect, infinite memory and recall. Never forget a lesson plan again, and never have to remind yourself of your students' names!
○Of course, this is all toggleable, or a sliding scale, adjusting to your liking.
○Optionally, be inserted into a specific or generic supernatural school setting.
Essence of the Super Academy Student
The light-pink drink in this water bottle tastes like bubblegum in the back of class, heroism, and erasers. Drinking it grants you the following:
•A self-designed body that isn't peak for your species, but strong in all areas, with no regard to its visible attributes.
•No more limits. While returns might diminish over time, there are only 'soft-ish' caps now for you, never hard ones. That body you just received? It could easily surpass peak for your species eventually, and sail off into the absurd. This applies to all abilities, including those from other essences. No training boosters here, though…
•…Unless someone else is training you, that is. When learning under a teacher your gains are multiplied a hundredfold, potentially even higher as you go on. As long as they can still teach you something, you'll see that part of you improve with lightning speed compared to its normal rates.
•In the toughest situations, your ability to persevere will be uncanny, and when you think you might be alone, it's as if reality itself has something to teach you. Surrounded by enemies, outgunned, or otherwise losing the fight, your training booster will be ten times its student values mentioned above. 1000x is just the beginning.
•You can be taught anything by the right teacher. Maybe even the wrong ones. Even abilities you shouldn't be able to reproduce, or have no natural ability to produce, you could at least begin to grasp and make use of with enough lessons. They might advance slightly slower than abilities you could have produced normally, but they will still advance. You could learn four-armed combat while only having two to begin with, and it'll work somehow. Exactly how you express these new abilities is up to you.
•A natural aptitude for making friends, school politics, and finding strong teachers. Part charisma, part luck, but making you the greatest Class President ever, although you need not be one. Your classmates will only respect you more for politely declining!
•Perfect, infinite memory and recall. You'll never have to study too much, unless it's something physical.
•Of course, this is all toggleable, or a sliding scale, adjusting to your liking.
•Optionally, be inserted into a specific or generic supernatural school setting.
Essence of the Remnant
The liquid in this silver canteen tastes like unrealized potential, gin, and soul. Drinking it grants you the following:
○A self-designed functionally peak human body, with beautiful and cohesive aesthetics. Closer to comic book peak human than real world.
○Optionally, you may possess one or two traits of an animal of your choice, such as a tail or pair of extra ears atop your head, marking you as a Faunus. This grants you minor and creature-specific stat boosts, like night vision for cats. You may choose a mythical creature to be a Faunus of, which will grant you potentially powerful and unique abilities and slight dominion over lesser faunus, because I know you horny bastards are into that.
○Your soul's power is materialized outside your body in the form of an Aura. While appearing to just be a thematically colored force field at first glance, it can be used to increase your strength, speed, healing, and even extend to the weapons you wield and the clothes you wear for various purposes.
○Your Aura, alone and untrained, could make you a solid match for most of the hunters in Remnant from the get go, through sheer reserves and strength. If you really trained yourself, you could soar to the top and beyond quickly, as yours is uniquely limitless in how much you can grow it through training.
○Aura's basic expressions are just the kindling for a much brighter flame, though. Known as a Semblance, this ability is largely unique between each person, with a few notable exceptions. You may copy any canon Semblance in RWBY, or create your own either from another CYOA or by freeform design. Remember that most Semblances shown so far have been simple concepts that possess surprising versatility. At its base, yours is around the strength of any of Team RWBY's own, but will grow from there easily with training like your Aura. With your starting Aura reserves, you could fire off an active semblance at full power for the better part of half an hour, and a toggleable semblance could be left 'on' for twice that.
○You may Awaken Aura, and Semblances as a result, in other people. Their reserves and strength cannot surpass yours, but you may choose roughly how strong their Aura is compared to yours, with a cost on your own Aura based on that.
○Combat and wilderness survival skills such that you could find a good job as a Huntsman from the moment your boots hit the ground.
○A unique weapon, connected to your soul on an even deeper level than those of the other warriors on Remnant. It doesn't have to be mechashift capable, but it helps. When wielding this weapon, your skill in combat skyrockets through your mastery of it alone. Even if you haven't chosen a secondary (or further) shifting form for this weapon, it folds down into a relatively tiny wearable form, discrete against all forms of scanning. It also loads infinite ammo of any kind of dust mixtures you want if it has ranged functionality. It will reappear within 24 hours if destroyed.
○A unique outfit, or set of thematically similar outfits, that slowly regenerate from any damage done to them, are extremely easy for you to modify and use your Aura on, and may contain Dust weaved into the threads for a variety of effects when your Aura is pumped through them. They also happen to be extremely beautiful, if maybe a little cluttered. Expect lots of zippers and belts in weird places, although you can change into or out of them at the drop of a hat.
○You may optionally be a Silver Eyed Warrior. These orbs give you the ability to channel your emotions (most easily, the painful ones) into Grimm-vaporizing or petrifying flashes of bright light. They will be relatively 'shotgun' at the start, triggering only under strong emotions, but can be trained to the level of needing only a glance to instantly turn a Grimm to stone. Each time you enter a new universe, these eyes will become attuned to similar threats to the Grimm present there, such as any dark or evil creatures, and have the same effects on them. These WILL stand out, if you're in the RWBY universe.
○You may opt to be 'cursed' with the ability to transform into a small, probably flying creature if not directly observed. How this qualifies as a 'curse', I have no clue.
○If you so desire, you may develop access to the Magic that Ozpin and Salem possess. The exact capabilities of this magic system are unclear, so be responsible when determining what you can do with it. At the very least, you can quote-unquote curse people with the above transformations, and wield the dust elements innately, not relying on the crystals.
○Charisma that allows you to come up with solid quips on the fly, bullshit your way through damn near anything, and get in the pants of others rapidly. This can be directed in many different ways, such as smug Yang charisma or brooding Qrow charisma.
○A mechashift briefcase with a larger unfolding inside that contains:
■The purest raw crystals of every kind of dust imaginable (potentially including Fanon ones), reloading infinitely every time you close and open the case.
■Easy to understand schematics for all of the setting's technologies, that can also be copied into any data format you understand.
■An untraceable Atlesian bank card with a balance of "Yes.", convertible into standard currencies.
■A Scroll that can connect to the internet in any reality, and that reforms itself inside the briefcase if ever destroyed or sufficiently damaged.
○Of course, this is all toggleable, or a sliding scale, adjusting to your liking.
○Optionally, be inserted into a specific or generic RWBY setting, including fanfiction or non-canon media.