Provoking the Fates

Tired of getting ashes for an altar that's already fully upgraded? Got more bones than all of Tartarus? Tell the Fates that you don't want their scraps anymore! Upgrade your room rewards with the Provoking the Fates mod! A Hades II mod that upgrades minor reward doors into Boons, Hammers, Centaur Hearts, and more! But be warned. The Fates don't take kindly to rejection.

Unlocking the Mechanic

The provocation mechanic doesn't kick in the moment you install the mod. To enable it:

1. Defeat Chronos at least once. This unlocks the Oath of the Unseen in vanilla and makes the incantation visible in the Cauldron.
2. Visit Hecate's cauldron in the Crossroads and cast Provoke the Fates (costs 3 Marble + 2 Shaderot).

Until you do, doors behave exactly like vanilla.

Prefer to skip the ritual? Set RequireIncantation = false in r2modman's config editor and the mechanic activates from the first run.

How It Works

When you approach a door offering a minor reward (Bones, Ash, Nectar), a secondary prompt appears:

Hold Interact to Provoke the Fates

A short tap uses the door normally. Hold for ProvokeHoldSeconds seconds (default 0.5) and a selection menu opens with three random options drawn from the reward pool. Close and reopen the menu to reroll.

The pool holds nine reward types, grouped into three Fear tiers:

Options that require an unlock are hidden until you meet the vanilla prerequisite. Hex needs Selene unlocked; Hermes Boon needs you to have picked up a Hermes boon at least once in a prior run; Pomegranate needs at least one upgradeable boon. Anything whose Fear cost exceeds your remaining vow room is hidden too. When nothing fits, the Fates turn you away.

The same prompt also appears on the Mourning Fields pickups (Bones, Ashes, Nectar) that stand in for doors in that biome. Fields pickups only offer Boon / Enhanced Boon / Hammer (the minor-resource rewards don't fit the cage flow).

Transient Fear

Provocations are never free. Their price is Transient Fear: random Oath of the Unseen vow ranks that hang over the next few fights before fading.

Each provocation's Fear cost is Cost_<Type> + ceil(n × GreedMultiplier_<Type>), where n is a shared counter that advances on every pick of any type. With default settings (Cost_<Type> = 0), the first three provocations at Tier 1 / 2 / 3 charge 1 / 2 / 3, then 2 / 4 / 6, then 3 / 6 / 9 Fear. Mixing tiers lets you steer between cheap and steep.

Provoke vs The Enchantress

If you've equipped The Enchantress Arcana card (Circe), you already know the trick of swapping a door's reward: spend a Reroll token and the door's icon shuffles to a different reward of roughly the same tier. That's a sideways shuffle. A Bones door might become Ash, an Ash door might become Nectar.

Provoking the Fates pushes in a different direction. Instead of trading a Reroll token for a same-tier swap, you trade Transient Fear to upgrade the door. A minor reward door becomes a Boon, Hammer, Hex, Hermes Boon, or any of the nine richer rewards in the pool.

The two stack and don't interfere. Re-roll a door first and provoke the result, or provoke first and re-roll the result. Provoking never consumes a Reroll token; re-rolling never consumes Fear.

Configuration

All values are configurable via r2modman's config editor. Each reward type has four knobs (Cost_<Type>, GreedMultiplier_<Type>, Duration_<Type>, Weight_<Type>) for the nine types: RegularBoon, EnhancedBoon, Hammer, Gold, CentaurHeart, Magick, Pom, SeleneBoon, HermesBoon.

• Cost_<Type>: flat Fear tacked on top of every provocation of that type before greed (default: 0 for all)
• GreedMultiplier_<Type>: how much more each provocation of that type costs than the previous one. Defaults match the tiers: 1 for Gold / CentaurHeart / Magick; 2 for RegularBoon / Pom / SeleneBoon; 3 for EnhancedBoon / Hammer.
• Duration_<Type>: how many combat encounters each type's Fear hangs around. Defaults: 1 for Tier 1, 2 for RegularBoon/Pom/SeleneBoon/EnhancedBoon, 3 for Hammer.
• Weight_<Type>: how likely this type is to appear in any given 3-option roll (default: 1 for all, equal weighting). Set one to 0 to exclude that type entirely.
• EnableGreed: when on, each provocation costs more than the last. Turn off to charge only the flat Cost_<Type> above (default: true)
• GreedExtendsDuration: when on, later provocations stick around longer. Each one after the first adds an extra encounter (default: true)
• ThemedSplitThreshold: at or below this Fear cost, all ranks go onto one vow; above it they split across two (default: 6)
• ProvokeHoldSeconds: how long to hold Interact before the provocation menu opens (default: 0.5)
• RequireIncantation: when off, skip the cauldron unlock and activate the provocation mechanic from the first run (default: true)
• LogLevel: log verbosity. TRACE / DEBUG / INFO / WARN / ERROR (default: INFO)

Installation

1. Install r2modman and select Hades II from the game list.
2. Search for ProvokingTheFates in the Online tab and install. r2modman pulls the dependencies automatically.
3. Launch Hades II through r2modman.
4. (Optional) Open the mod's Config in r2modman to tune costs, durations, or hold-time.

Dependencies

• Hell2Modding
• ModUtil
• SJSON
• Chalk
• ReLoad
• ENVY
• IncantationsAPI

Troubleshooting

The "Hold to Provoke" prompt doesn't appear at doors. Cast the Provoke the Fates incantation at Hecate's cauldron first. It only becomes visible after defeating Chronos at least once. To skip the ritual entirely, set RequireIncantation = false in r2modman's config editor.

The Hex option never shows up. Hex requires Selene's vanilla unlock. Pick up a Selene Hex at least once in a regular run; the option appears after that.

The Hermes Boon option never shows up. Same as Hex but for Hermes. Pick up a Hermes boon at least once in a regular run, then Hermes provocations become available.

Pomegranate options never show up. Pomegranate hides until you have at least one upgradeable boon in the current run.

The provocation menu won't open even when I hold Interact. Either every eligible vow is already at its native max rank (the "Fates Satisfied" rejection screen will appear instead), or the hold duration is shorter than ProvokeHoldSeconds.

Where is my config file? r2modman's config editor manages 1andonlyWeaver-ProvokingTheFates.cfg directly. Changes apply on the next run start (or immediately for hot-reloadable values like LogLevel).

I want more verbose logs for bug reports. Set LogLevel = "DEBUG" (or "TRACE") in the config. Logs go to Hell2Modding's standard log output.

Compatibility

Nightmare Fear (ReadEmAndWeep-Nightmare_Fear). When both mods are installed, Provoking the Fates extends its eligible-vow pool with Nightmare Fear's Vows of Naivety, Riposte, Arrogance, Secrets, Taxes, and Panic, and skips Selene-boon provocations while the player holds Nightmare Fear's Eclipse vow. No configuration is required; detection is automatic.

Feedback

Bug reports and feature requests go on the GitHub issues tracker.

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

Unreleased

1.0.4 - 2026-05-02

Changed

• Enhanced Boon's base Fear duration is now 3 encounters (up from 2), so all three cost tiers line up cleanly: Tier 1 rewards last 1 encounter, Tier 2 rewards last 2, and Tier 3 rewards (Enhanced Boon, Hammer) both last 3.
• Bumped the Chalk config schema to version = 1 so the new Enhanced Boon default reaches existing installs. Heads up for upgraders: this resets your .cfg to defaults — re-apply any custom Cost_*, Weight_*, LogLevel, or other tweaks after updating.

1.0.3 - 2026-05-01

Fixed

• Nightmare Fear's Panic, Naivety, Taxes, and Secrets vows now actually fire on transient Fear ranks. These four vows are checked at lifecycle points outside the StartEncounter→EndEncounterEffects window where Provoking the Fates writes to ShrineUpgrades, so they previously read baseline ranks and silently ignored a provocation's contribution.
• Successive Pom (Pomegranate) provocations in the same run no longer offer the same three upgrade choices. Vanilla bakes a Pom's upgrade options at loot-spawn time and CreateBoonLootButtons reuses that cache when the hero already owns every option (always true for Poms), so the seed advancement on pickup never reached the visible choices. The mod now flags provoked Pom exits and clears the cached options on the next OpenUpgradeChoiceMenu, letting vanilla re-roll under the freshly incremented LootTypeHistory["StackUpgrade"] seed.

1.0.2 - 2026-04-25

Added

• Nightmare Fear compatibility — when ReadEmAndWeep-Nightmare_Fear is installed, the eligible-vow pool extends with Vows of Naivety, Riposte, Arrogance, Secrets, Taxes, and Panic. Selene-boon provocations are skipped while Nightmare Fear's Eclipse vow is active.

1.0.1 - 2026-04-25

Added

• Helm-wheel provocation in the Rift of Thessaly — hold-Interact on a ShipsSteeringWheel spoke whose reward is Bones, Ashes, or Nectar (small or big variants) to open the Provoke the Fates menu. Picking a choice transforms the spoke and immediately starts the wheel encounter with the chosen Fear applied. The unified meta-resource whitelist also now covers the Big variants of Bones / Ashes wherever they appear.

Changed

• Doors leading into Rift of Thessaly rooms (biome O) no longer prompt for provocation; the wheel inside the room is the provocation point.
• Trimmed the em dash from the package description for consistency.

1.0.0 - 2026-04-24

Added

• Hold-Interact on minor reward doors (Bones / Ash / Nectar) to open a Provoke the Fates menu offering richer rewards — Boon, Enhanced Boon, Daedalus Hammer, Selene Hex, Boon of Hermes, Pomegranate, Gold, Centaur Heart, or Magick — at the cost of temporary Oath of the Unseen Fear.
• Same flow on Mourning Fields reward cages (Bones, Ashes, Nectar). Cages support Boon, Enhanced Boon, and Hammer only; committing a choice auto-starts the cage combat.
• Transient Fear — each provocation injects extra ranks into a randomly chosen subset of Oath of the Unseen vows that decay over the next few combat encounters. Non-combat encounters (shops, NPCs, Devotion trials) pause the decay.
• Themed vow split — each provocation concentrates its Fear on one vow at low cost, splitting onto two vows above the ThemedSplitThreshold. Over-cap overflow redistributes to other eligible vows.
• Greed counter — every provocation, of any type, costs more than the last. Cost formula is Cost_<Type> + ceil(n × GreedMultiplier_<Type>) with a shared counter n. Defaults map rewards to ×1 / ×2 / ×3 multipliers.
• Cauldron unlock — gated behind a new Provoke the Fates incantation (3 Marble + 2 Shaderot), unlocked once Chronos has been defeated. Bypassable via RequireIncantation = false.
• Re-provoke and revert — re-holding Interact on a provoked door reopens the menu with Keep / Revert options.
• Over-capacity filtering — options whose Fear cost exceeds remaining vow capacity are hidden. If no option fits, a "Fates Satisfied" rejection dialog replaces the menu and no Fear is charged.
• HUD — encounter-start "The Fates have been provoked" banner with a per-vow effect summary, plus a persistent top-right cluster showing active vows and remaining encounter count.
• Per-type config knobs for all nine reward types: Cost_<Type>, GreedMultiplier_<Type>, Duration_<Type>, Weight_<Type> (RegularBoon, EnhancedBoon, Hammer, Gold, CentaurHeart, Magick, Pom, SeleneBoon, HermesBoon). Set Weight_<Type> = 0 to exclude a type from the menu entirely.
• Global config knobs: EnableGreed, GreedExtendsDuration, ThemedSplitThreshold, ProvokeHoldSeconds, RequireIncantation, LogLevel (TRACE / DEBUG / INFO / WARN / ERROR).