Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories/Dark Assembly

The Dark Assembly, also called the Dark Senate, is used for many actions, from creating characters to opening extra stages. To access the Dark Assembly, talk to the Rune Knight at the corner of Holt Village (the character with a wooden mallet speech bubble above her head). This Rune Knight will appear on any base map, not just Holt Village. (Although, if playing in Axel Mode, she will be replaced by a Wood Golem instead. Nothing changes, though.)

After speaking with her, a menu will come up asking you to select a character, and shows their current mana amount. Nearly all actions that can be performed in the Dark Assembly cost mana, which can be earned by defeating enemies (including chests and Geo Symbols) in any stage. Mana is earned only by the character giving the finishing blow and not collectively like HL (money). If a team attack or tower attack finishes off the foe, all participants in the attack will gain equal divisions of the earned mana. Stronger enemies and larger numbers of enemies will yield more mana.

Whichever character is selected from the Dark Assembly menu will be using up their mana to perform actions. Aside from renaming characters, deleting characters, or attending an Assembly meeting as Adell, all actions cost mana. The first action you will do or have done, and probably the one you will do most often, is create characters for your group.

Creating
To create a new character, simply select "Create a New Character" in the Dark Assembly menu after selecting a character to address the assembly. This will open a large array of characters you can create, separated into monster and human groupings.

After selecting which character to create, a menu will come up asking how great you want the character's potential. Essentially, potential determines how much of a boost (or subtraction) to stats you will give your character upon creation, and how much mana you spend on creating it. Potential ranges from "Good-to nothing" which costs from 1 to 3 mana, to "Genius" which costs anywhere from 5000 to 15000 mana. Characters created in the top two potential levels, Distinguished and Genius, require approval from senators, but there is no need for approval when reincarnating characters with any amount of potential.

After potential for the character is selected, a name is assigned for it, and bonus stats received from potential are distributed. Next comes the status screen for the created character, which serves as the final confirmation screen. Press psx: S to cycle through the character's stat pages, psx: C to cancel creation, or psx: X to go ahead and create it.

Coincidentally, all characters created this way start at Lv1 with no equipment. In addition, the created character becomes the pupil of whoever chose to Create a New Character.

Reincarnation
To Reincarnate a character, select the "Reincarnate" option and prepare to pay the extra 100 mana price in addition to the standard character creation cost. The process of reincarnating a character can easily be related to creating a character. The main difference is that instead of creating a separate character, the selected character instead re-creates itself. Excluding Special characters, who can only reincarnate into themselves, all characters can reincarnate into any available monster or human on any available tier.

While levels, stats, and mana amounts are reset (although stats can be affected by a minor degree if a character reincarnates to a different class), weapon skill levels, equipment, special moves, and special move levels are kept. The main appeal of reincarnating is giving certain classes spells they wouldn't normally have, or advancing a character onto a higher tier of its class.

During reincarnation, weapon skill levels and Special levels will be lowered, the amount depending upon the skill level select. The amount lost is exemplified in the "Inheritance Rate" statistic under each potential choice. Genius potential has a 95% inheritance rate, meaning 5% will be lost upon reincarnation.

Reincarnation into a Prinny is a separate selection, costing 200 mana instead of 100 mana, and is essentially the same as standard Reincarnation. The key difference is that all felonies are erased, and the character can only reincarnate as a Prinny-type character. This excludes special classes, who instead have the option "Reincarnate to Atone for Sins" which costs 400 mana instead of 200, and only permits them to reincarnate into themselves.

Unlocking more Classes and Tiers
The requirements for unlocking new human classes depends from one to another (as explained individually in the Human Classes section), but each requires a bill to be passed before any characters of this type can be created.

To unlock new monster characters, simply defeat a monster of the type you want to create in any stage, and they will become available to create under the Create a New Character selection.

To be able to create a Tier 2, simply level up a Tier 1 character to a specified point (ranges from one class to another), and the next-highest tier will become available. You can either Reincarnate to the next tier and level that one up to the quota and repeat the process until satisfied, or keep leveling the current tier character you are using to the next quota point.

Special characters only have a single tier.

Other
To delete a character, simply choose any character other than the one you want to delete, select "Delete a Character" from the Dark Assembly menu, and then choose the character you want to have deleted. Any equipment on the character will be deleted too, so unequip it first if you still want that stuff. To rename the character, choose the character who name needs changing, and select the "Change the Name of this Character" menu item.

Special characters cannot be renamed or deleted.

Bill Proposals
Bill Proposals are the secondary function of the Dark Assembly, and can help (or potentially hurt) you in various ways. To activate them, select a character in the Dark Assembly menu, and then select the bill you wish to pass with that character. Some characters can pass bills that others cannot, and some bills only affect whoever passed it. Bills will not appear in the selection unless the chosen character has enough mana to request them to the Dark Assembly. Below is a list of all bills you can propose to the Dark Assembly, their mana cost, what they do, and any other important details.

Aside from Character-type bills, Improvement-type bills, "More Expensive Stuff, or "Less Expensive Stuff", all passed bills are reset with the start of a new cycle.

Senatorial Bills
By having Adell pass the "I want to become a Senator!" bill, a new option to "Attend a Dark Assembly" becomes available. This allows an entire new range of proposals, but now there is no mana cost, and you have a stronger say in whether or not the bills pass. Unlike normal proposals, you cannot see the chance of approval beforehand.

As a Senator, you can extort whoever is proposing the bill to give you bribes. You can choose any item from their selection, but they are less likely to give you more valuable items. To increase your amount of chances to obtain items, pass the "I want a stronger voice!" bill.

Below is a list of Senatorial bills, who proposed them, their requirements, and their function.

Senators
There are seven different types of senators, divided into six parties and a separate group of "Legendary Senators". The titles of the six main parties imply who would be found in that party, i.e., only Wood Golems would be found in the Wood Golem Party. If you get one member of a party to like you, the rest of that party will like you a little more as well (and thus be more willing to vote for your cause), but members of the opposing party will like you a little less.

Because of the opposing parties factor, it's best to generally stick with one side or the other in each grouping of weak, normal, and high voting power. Petite Orcs are more reliable than Ghosts, Holy Dragons don't accept bribes so you're better off with Mothmen, and Baciels make too many mistakes when compared to Wood Golems.

The higher tiers of parties are likely to have stronger; Wood Golems and Baciels are the only ones to have a Lv700 Senator. So on a particular bill, if you're looking to only bribe off one party, and take down the rest, you're usually better off going with Wood Golems. But the weakest Wood Golems are still weaker than the strongest Mothmen, so it's best if you take the time to compare each present party's attendees and stats.

Legendary Senators
Aside from the six parties, there are four Legendary Senators who boast a high voting power. Their voting power seems to vary on appearance, and can range from 50 to 500. Each one is a rather rare occurrence, and more than one never appears at once. A legendary's level is usually, if not always, 1000.
 * Legendary Senate Venus is an Archer. She forces those around her to vote the same as her, regardless of their decisions beforehand. If Adell is under Venus's spell when voting, he will receive the "Archer's Guard" title from her after the voting session.
 * Legendary Senate Morpheus is a Red Skull. He casts a sleeping spell on all members of any party present that opposes his decision, and cancels out their votes.
 * Legendary Senate Ares is a Heavy Knight. He knocks all senators on either his left or right side before making a vote, canceling out their decisions.
 * Legendary Senate Tengan is a Geomancer. He asks for a specific type of item before the bribing process begins. If you give him the type of item he requests, he will always vote Aye. If you don't give him an item he wants, Tengan will always vote Nay, despite what any other indicators may suggest.

Bribing and Getting Bills Passed
Bribing works by giving senators items that they either want or do not want. If they want the item, their favorably increases, and likewise if they do not want the item their favorably decreases. Whether or not a senator likes an item is based solely on the item's rarity value. Nothing else matters. Because of this, there is one easy way to get the most bribery from every senatorial bill you pass:
 * Move all your standard battle inventory into your warehouse. It may help to put the items at the bottom of the inventory so that they can easily be moved back into the item bag.
 * Go to the General Shop.
 * Buy the cheap stuff: Mint Gun, Unopened Soda, Fairy Dust, etc.
 * Leave and repeat, until the inventory is full. It'll take about 6-8 or so visits to fill up.

Now you have a whole inventory worth of dirt cheap items to play charity with. Go to the Dark Assembly and select your bill of choice, and proceed to pass out all your items. Try to get as many nonsupporting senators on your side first, and then give out whatever remaining Must Have's you can find, to whomever wants them. You can prioritize the high level senators before lower level if you want, but it doesn't really make that much of a difference. Make sure to give stuff out even if senators already Love you. It won't affect the outcome of the immediate bill being passed, but it will sway them more toward your side for the tougher bills to come later in the game.

You should be able to give out nearly every item at either Must Have or Interested bribery level. Don't even bother giving anything away at the Slightly Interested bribery level, unless you sober up one of the members of the Baciel Party and need to ink every bit of bribery from him while you can. A typical session will usually leave you with around 3 to 7 items that no one really wants.

If you're facing a tough bill to open that's also pretty expensive, such as the Cave of Ordeals bill (700 mana), you can use the Raise Military Funds (10 mana) bill to sway some cheap favoritism toward you. You'll be assuredly denied, but not before you get to hand out another 16-20 items.

Special Bribery Items
All items can be purchased from special shop keepers that you can randomly encounter via Mysterious Rooms in the Item World. Items can also be obtained from bonus rank gauges and treasure chests of maps with low bonus rank, such as early story mode stages and the Item World of other low-rank items.

Using Bombs
The best way to use a bomb is to try and wake up several senators at once. The radius of a bomb is like that of an exploding Prinny. Any senator within three squares of the target area will be woken up and will also receive some measure of disapproval -- approximately the equivalent of two Does Not Want items. Even awake senators in the blast radius become unhappy, so be wary of its use. Fortunately, the approval drop is only for the current bill only.

Usefulness of bombs is pretty limited unless you have a whole bunch of Ghost Party members whole love you dearly all huddled in a corner taking a snooze (and it does happen sometimes). Other than that, there's not much use to them. I find the best time to take a bomb with me to the Senate is when I've used a Cellphone to call the Ghost Party before hand. Otherwise I leave the bombs behind in favor of more useful senatorial items.

Using Medicine
The best way to use a Medicine is to find a drunken senator for whom you have a lot of good bribery items in your pack. That way once you've sobered him up you can bribe the crap out of him, which in addition to boosting his favoritism, will also boost the favoritism of any other Baciel Party members in that session. Medicine will have a bribing effect on the senator, the same as any other item. There's no way to know what that effect will be though, unless you find out what rarity values each Baciel member likes, and match the rarity of your medicines to them.

If you've managed to get the Baciels to favor you, and have several Medicines hanging around along with a Baciel Cellphone, then you can give the Baciel Party a call and tote the medicines into the Assembly with you. A sober Baciel senator is more likely to vote favorably, so being able to sober them up for the vote should help you get the most of your cellphone use.

Item World Assembly
The Assembly in the item world appears inside of innocent towns that appear every 10 levels (although, they don't always appear). To be more precise, the chance that the Item Assembly will be useable depends on three factors: What floor your last boss was on, What type Item is being strengthened, And whether you have utilized the Item Assembly previously.

If within a normal Item, you can only use the Assembly once. If within a Rare Item, you will gain two uses. If in a Legendary Item, you gain three uses.

However, a "use" is only counted if the Roc that takes you to the Assembly is within the Town. If you enter an Innocent Town and the Roc is not there, it does not count, and you will be able to acess the Assembly the next time you see him. (If you have not already ran through your uses.) Note that a "use" is counted if you see the Roc in Town for any reason. You do not have to use the Assembly, but it will still count against you. Keep this in mind when powerleveling your Items.

The Assembly in the item world allows you to upgrade your item. You can select one stat to increase either a little or a lot (more mana and harder when doing the larger change), or you can add/enhance a feature of the item regardless of if that item was able to affect that before (for example, adding one counterattack for your character by passing a bill on a pair of glasses). You can also change the Item's name by choosing to do so in the menu. (This can only be done in the Item World.)

You can only use the assembly in the item world a certain number of times. Once you use up all of these chances, you will not be able to even enter the Innocent Town for that Item ever again. Also note that once you enter the Assembly and leave for any reason without doing anything, or if your bill is denied, you cannot re-do any mistakes you have made without resetting the game or entering the Town from a different floor.