John_Doe_777

I appreciate the idea, but unfortunately, I have already decided on Frostmourne's runes. However, I may use this idea later in the story for a character or a monster. By your permission, of course.

I plan to have William gain advance as both a human awakened and a nightmare creature. If you noticed, every ability he got when his spul cores increased up till now resonates with the nature of different nightmare creature classes. So when he becomes a tyrant, he will have an ability that makes use of having minions around. Frostmourne has a total of 7 runes to unlock. Each rune functions to enhance the basic abilities of the MC. For inspiration, I search different fandoms for abilities used or associated with liches and other undead, then I try to integrate them into them into the MC's arsenal while keeping balance in mind. (It is no secret that I use both Pathfinder and DnD for several aspects of the story.)

Think of it like cold flame. Quite oxymoronic.

The thing with attention is that you need a face to associate it with. Also, stay patient for future developments.

The number of Royal Guards is three per Soul Rank. So, as a Sleeper, he has 3 slots, and then when he becomes awakened, it becomes 6 and so on and so forth. The maximum number of Royal Guards he could potentially have is 21 (following G3's trend of using multiples of 7). Also, the mechanics of how a Royal Guard is formed are a secret until the first one is created, but I tried making the process as balanced as possible. Moreover, in regards to how the Royal Guards are different from normal raised undead creatures? That is also for a future chapter.

Okay, let me break it down for you according to the rules set by the noghtmare spell: Sleeper/Dormant ---> Have soul core & can use memories Awakened ---> Can sense and use essence to power enchantments. Master/Ascended ---> Rudimentary Essence control and manipulation. etc... I played with the idea of him Awakening the ability to sense and use essence naturally via the old advancement method. However, I am not sure how the Nightmare Spell reacts to its hosts skipping steps through its advancement framework. I don't know if my ramblings make sense, but I try to stick as much as possible to the established lore so that I don't have to retcon my chapters when G3 finds it suitable to throw another lore drop for us.

Can't break established lore. Plus, if he used essence, things would become ridiculously unbalanced.

=)

Oh, royal guards are coming. Expect at least 3 by the end of the Forgotten Shore arc.

Unfortunately, yes. It was an Awakened Armor. It was good but it couldn't possibly compete with Fallen nightmare creatures.