It's not actually Anesidora's fault that they have had to build a civilization out of exiled teenagers but they are sure leaning into it.

She can get into politics later. Now she needs to get advice from the forums.

The big pinned advice post has this to say:

--This is a forum for discussing skills, talents, spells, equipment and other aspects of your choices as an Avowed. We don't discuss trading or politics here.

--Here is a proposed-build-template-maker plugin! It's handy.

--Here is the Master Link List of Reference Materials

--Everyone should know that what they are accepting from the System, they are permanently making a part of themselves. Choose things that you can actually live with and imagine how you would use it in your daily life as well as in heroing/Avowed work/emergencies. There are lots of stories of "optimal builds" that end in tears because they were poorly thought out or didn't end up working for their owners.

--Keep in mind that the choices you make might make you more or less appealing to be summoned by the Artonans.

--Keep in mind that many powers are restricted in many places, even on Anesidora. Someone with volatile and destructive abilities has a harder time getting travel permits.

--Discussion about the Chainer class is officially banned. It inevitably derails. We don't care. Talk about it somewhere else.

--The Sway Discourse is relegated to the Sways subforum. Bring it up elsewhere at your own peril.

This will handily eat her day so it's a good thing that Reena is letting her cut school about it.

She inputs what she's got so far in the template-maker thing, makes sure she's looked at all the relevant reference materials - is there a list of things that make you more or less appealing for summonses? What's her own personal Unique delay time on answering summonses?

The System tells her she has a minimum of 48 hours to answer non-emergency summons, but some may be issued further in advance, and prompt acceptance may carry bonuses in some cases.

Things that probably make you more appealing for summonses:

Specific wizards knowing about you and looking for you by name (See: Boaters[link]).

Certain classes or skills, especially the Rabbit class, and especially the following list of skills.

Official System-recognized commendations and awards of any kind. Artonans almost never issue empty/pointless awards though, you have to seriously impress them.

Choosing the 'volunteer' option in the system interface for reduced pay (you typically do this to start building up a reputation and contacts list, or gain experience with your talents).

High power rank

Having a non-combat class

Things that might make you more appealing for summonses:

(A whole lot of speculation.)

Okay, so she's a non-combat thingamajig - probably - actually she might be specifically good at apprehending rogue Sways? Sheeeeee should probably read up on the discourse about that before she does something like wear "ask me about apprehending rogue Sways" on her system profile. Skim of the Sway containment zone.

You want to trade Sway for basically anything else unless your lifelong dream was to be Vega from Falling Stars or something. They get treated terribly. (Well, some people think low-rank Meister is just as useless and at least Sways get taken seriously.) They have far more restrictions on their powers than anyone else, even though some guy with super strength could sure punch someone to death just as easy as a Sway could make them jump off a building, maybe easier. On the other hand, mental stuff is creepy and has WAY more potential for subtle bad shit than physical stuff! Mind control is especially evil when it could be subtle and thereby utterly annihilate the social trust and whatnot. On the third, morphed hand peoples' careers have been ruined by false accusations of Sway-hood before - look up Bridgit Fairfax, hero name Morgana, retired 1988 due to persistently low public opinion polls even after she was cleared of Swaying at a sports riot in the process of de-escalating it. On the fourth hand, Sways with specific limited powers can earn a lot of money if they are willing to put up with intrusive verification and the like. The big one is lie detection, but some Sways have also gone in the direction of something like an unofficial Healer of Mind.

The people who have a Sway (Verified) badge in their name seem hesitant to talk about it too much but consistently say that there's a real sense of community among Sways, if only because of the common enemy effect.

Wow. It's not like the Artonans run a central clearinghouse where you can return your Sway assignment if you don't like it, somebody has to be them. Probably she will not be running a one-girl rogue-Sway-apprehension arrangement, especially since she doesn't have lie detection and would just be bringing people in on suspicion or something. What... is she for, then.

She makes a forum post with her fixed characteristics and tentative picks on it and asks if anybody can help her figure out what this power is meant to even do and where her heap of stat points should go.

The posters in this forum are (mostly) helpful and polite!

Wow, Unique! U types are cool!

Oh, U-types are ALWAYS weird. It's really hard to figure out what they're for. Some alternate theories: Maybe some demons are Sways? That's a scary thought. Or maybe there are wizard labs that are mind bending just to exist in, like some kind of nuclear reactor situation.

Forum agrees that Refusal of Gravity is better than the other two combined; It has more potential for constant use and sounds more trainable. 

She gets suggestions for alternate spells to pick- One creates an updraft, maybe she can use a glider with it- But they're kind of stretching.

Someone notes that both her Skills are active, meaning that she should look for some way of alerting herself to things before she needs the mind shield. Maybe a warning will be available on a level up, or grow out of Fortress of Mind as an upgrade? Lots of Shaper skills turn into fractal upgrade flowers like that.

People suggest a fairly even spread of Foundation points if you don't know what you're going to do in the future. Strength and Stamina and Agility are all good for general health.

Whoa, mindbending magical reactors sound strangely cool actually.

Some kind of warning would be good, she makes a note to keep an eye out when she gets level-up options.

What stats will be best for navigating by moonbounce? Probably mostly Agility but she was surprised by the distribution to nix her dyspraxia.

It kind of makes sense? Agility tends to go towards improving muscles and tendons and flexibility, dexterity more specifically towards control. Ballet dancers and gymnasts need DEX more than AGI- Soccer players or pole vaulters the reverse.

Oh, huh. Are there any stats that are like Processing in that you don't want to whack them too high all at once or is that one special?

It's considered best practice to do them a bit at a time (like, four at a time at most) and get used to it, but Processing is the only one the system actively waves you away from blasting all at once.

Okay. With eighteen points to add on top of her presets...

Processing got none as a preset but it gets +1.25 (with the .25 being antidyspraxia specialized and the 1 spread out), plus four scheduled to come in over the next year. Appeal can sit at .5 minus the don't-fuck-with-her-brain parts. Agility gets the dyspraxia extra half point on top of the preset one. Dexterity has half a point out of the box and she'll stick three on top including the dyspraxia stuff. Two to speed. One and a quarter to stamina on top of her two default, maybe she'll be able to leap small buildings in a single bound with the moonbounce skill. Two strength on top of her one default. Four in the bank. That's eighteen. What does the forum think?

Does she want to try to be summoned often? If so, more Appeal and some Sympathy for Magic help with that. As a starting point it's probably fine if it sounds comfortable to her. You don't really ever need more than ten or so in the really physical stats unless you want to be a hero, but she has a lot of points to throw around even before the signing bonus. They might come slower in future. Saving some is a good idea, the System doesn't always let you do that.

Does anyone on the forum want to make a case for Sympathy for Magic? She has heard it doesn't help with wordchains or spells or anything and mostly just makes magic swag a little more user-friendly or something but maybe it lets you sense wizards in action or... something?

Doing work for the Artonans sometimes involves a LOT of interacting with magic swag. It gets kind of essential if you can't remember where 30 unmarked buttons on mystery magic appliances are. It is pretty niche though. Most people don't get much, just a point or two for convenience. 

Eh, she has banked points if she decides she needs supernatural button-identification help.

Oh, speaking of summonses, she knows it's expensive to do System calls between planets, but does anyone carry hard copies (possibly of digital content, like, a USB stick) to and fro, is that a thing?

This forum is pretty harsh about staying on topic but yeah! Long term stays are much improved by someone bringing a laptop with a buncha movies. More info on this other forum about dealing-with-summons tactics.

She will go make an account on the other forum, sure. She's not so much thinking about entertainment while on summon, though, she's thinking about correspondence and trade. She's never seen, say, an Artonan movie. Why not?

Artonan film is... Really weird??

The go-to example is a coming-of-age type movie where the hero achieves his dreams of heroic importance but ends up utterly miserable, and the lesson is that he should have just stayed on his bean farm and been thankful for a peaceful life. This is one of the more comprehensible ones.

Well, anime is weird until you get used to it, too. And summonses would be less onerous if it were easier for people to have, like, Artonan pen pal, classified ads, that kind of thing. There should be more correspondence is her point.

The System seems to default to keeping secrets, when it can. And talking to random Artonans won't get you anywhere, it's the wizards you have to make nice to if you want the shinies. They consider non-wizard Artonans second-class compared to Avowed, you know! Well, sort of. Things Artonans say about Avowed conflict a lot: That they're blessings from the universe, that they're immature and in need of guidance, that they're honorable for their sacrifices...

The Artonans should have stayed away from Earth entirely, one person opines. Her forum thread threatens to derail quickly after that.

Does she have moderation powers or is it a loss?

She can report him and threadban, as thread creator at least.

That's good enough, yeah. She'll post a chirpy little admonishment about how this is not the place to argue about space colonialism, it's about interplanetary correspondence! She wants media and pen pals on other resource worlds too!