bleeding hearts: an exalted story

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Lunars can be really really fun to play as. Not sure how well it play out as in a quest, but Infernal is fine by me. Going full Lunar Witch and turning people into Frogs or being giant rampaging beast is always fun.

Sidereal path would have been pretty interesting though.
 
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Broken25 said:
Well, honestly i am a bit dissapointed. I was hoping for a Lunar.

Infernal exaltations bring a whole lot of baggage that distracts from the main plot. But apparently i am the only one that finds hell politicking incredibly boring so wharever.
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You'll only have to deal with the Infernal politicking to the extent that you want to. And if you don't vote to, it won't be relevant.
NormalSightMan said:
I might be misremembering things but isn't Adorjan generally analogous to Night Castes? Because He Who Was Once Tesaki's skill set has a lot of Night going for him. I also thought Adorjan's themes were less about letting go and more about...well, the opposite, really. Adorjan's Urge is to obsess over something. I guess you can say she lets go in a sense: she utterly ignores whatever isn't the single thing she clings to.
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It's Complicated, but yes, your past life was a Night Caste.

I'm playing fast and loose with Infernals. Things are getting remixed - bits of ES's/Aleph's approach, bits of 1e, 2e, and things I like that I've heard about where 3e may be going. I'll explain everything you need to know as we go.
 
veekie said:
I'm thinking could By Rage Recast be used to adjust to fit the dysphoria?
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I'd think so? If not we need only visit a Neomah or other flesh-shaper of some sort, it's not like Hell is short of ways to change bodies.
NormalSightMan said:
I might be misremembering things but isn't Adorjan generally analogous to Night Castes? Because He Who Was Once Tesaki's skill set has a lot of Night going for him. I also thought Adorjan's themes were less about letting go and more about...well, the opposite, really. Adorjan's Urge is to obsess over something. I guess you can say she lets go in a sense: she utterly ignores whatever isn't the single thing she clings to.
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Adorjan is linked to them, but not directly analogous. And while Adorjan is definitely tied to obsession, she is also tied to release, as Freedom Lets Go attests. She's fickle, in a way Tesaki isn't. She briefly feels very intensely about something, then forgets when she gets bored. She ties to Nights in her stealth and speed and thievery, sure, but her worldview and motivations hew in a very different direction.
 
I'm really not a fan of Infernal Exalted, especially as a story's viewpointy protagonist. But the story so far has been very good, so I think I'll continue to read (at least the next few updates) regardless.
 
The Yozis are many-souled and grant their Green Sun Princes power in myriad ways. Receiving power from a Yozi comes as an affinity for one of their Aspects. Purchasing an Aspect grants you all of its skills. You may purchase five Aspects, and no more than two from a given Yozi; purchasing two Aspects from a Yozi makes them your Favored Yozi.

In the future, you can purchase more Aspects and Skills, and upgrade existing Skills. It will be easier to do this for your Favored Yozis.

This is the first of two character generation votes; the next will come with next update.

Malfeas Aspects:

[] The Prison Within Himself
Skills:
Streets-as-Scars Strengthening: You may draw from your stamina reserves to regenerate at high speeds, scabbing wounds and healing bones with hellish bronze, leaving the wounded area temporarily harder than it was before. Usable two times per scene before passing out.
Self-Loathing Cityscape: You will not break under all the world's pain and hate; you will simply use it as fuel, no matter where it comes from. Your blows grow stronger the more punishment you take.

[] Prideful Hellfire Prince:
Skills:
Raging Flames Strike: You turn your anger into a thing that burns. Your can channel Malfeas's calamitous green fire in your melee attacks, unarmed or otherwise, to incinerate your foes and any mundane material.
Holy Tyrant Corona: You are a Green Sun Prince and you will make the world kneel. Activate to be engulfed in a coruscating aura of hellfire, terrifying all in your presence and physically pressing them down with the weight of your authority.


Kimbery Aspects:

[] Spiteful Acid Mother:
Skills:
Paranoid Urchin Body: You turn every wound, perceived or real, into a way to hurt those that inflicted it. You may secrete highly acidic poisons from anywhere in your body at will whenever insulted, offended, or assaulted. It is colorless, odorless, and entirely undetectable, but can be shot reflexively out of wounds at pressure.
Wave-Borne Sadism: You can choose to feel the pain of your foes in combat and draw power from that pain. When using this power, become faster in body and mind the more you, personally, are contributing to your foe's current mental and emotional pain.

[] All-Encompassing Dark Waters:
Skills:
Ichor Flux Tendrils: You may turn any body of liquid within a hundred feet, with more than a cup's volume, into a swarm of razor-sharp tentacles, up to four. Can only be maintained for short periods of time.
Mother Sea Mastery: You are at home in the water, able to breathe water and swim at high speeds. You also can enter a healing trance while submerged, meditating for half a day.


Szoreny Aspects:

[] Thousandfold Reflections Prince:
Skills:
Mercurial Sap Embrace: Your body becomes unnaturally flexible, able to fit through things a fraction of your body size. You're fully double jointed, and also unnaturally resilient to poison.
Thousand Shattered Selves: You may make mirror clones of yourself. These clones only last a scene, and at the end of it (whether dead or alive) they melt into a pool of glass and quicksilver. They can't attack normally, and drop dead if they only take a little damage.

[] Envious Silvered Heart:
Skills:
Mercury-in-veins Method: When competing in some way with an opponent you may ingest quicksilver sap to aide your performance. This has the effect of making you violently, wildly hateful toward the opponent in question. If you win the competition, the mercury passes from your body with no harm done and the feelings abate; if you lose, the feelings stay and you suffer from intense poisoning.
Indelible Toxic Truths: You speak words that are true; that is why they hurt. Tell someone you hate, or resent, or are jealous of, exactly what you think of them and how you feel - the longer they hear you, the more the words seep into their very souls, corroding them from the inside out.
 
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[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters

I call this plan 'oh god everything is on fire and their are like twelve of us'.
 
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So do we pick five now, or are we leaving slots open for later? Because if so we're basically just choosing which aspect among the six not to take. Unless I'm missing something.
 
NormalSightMan said:
So do we pick five now, or are we leaving slots open for later? Because if so we're basically just choosing which aspect among the six not to take. Unless I'm missing something.
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Yeah, that's exactly it. There'll be more stuff next update - chargen isn't done with this vote.
 
[x] The Prison Within Himself
[x] Prideful Hellfire Prince:
[x] All-Encompassing Dark Waters:
[x] Thousandfold Reflections Prince:
[x] Envious Silvered Heart:
 
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

If it has to do with weaponizing our pain and our anger, we take it. And Thousandfold Reflections is just cool so we'll throw that in too.

Question: do Self-Loathing Cityscape and Wave-borne Sadism synergize? Like, injure opponent > feel opponent's pain > gain speed and blows grow in strength?

Edit: I'm removing sets I don't feel strongly about from my vote. I think it's absolutely imperative that we get a Malfean specialty and if I just throw things in it adds votes for sets competing with The Prison Within Himself, which I think is the absolute most appropriate set for our dude.
 
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NormalSightMan said:
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

If it has to do with weaponizing our pain and our anger, we take it. And Thousandfold Reflections is just cool so we'll throw that in too.

Question: do Self-Loathing Cityscape and Wave-borne Sadism synergize? Like, injure opponent > feel opponent's pain > gain speed and blows grow in strength?
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You're not taking physical harm from Wave-Borne Sadism, so no; Self-Loathing Cityscape only responds to physical harm.
 
God, I wanted to do a longer post but I've got work in like all of 10 minutes and I reeaaaaally don't wanna miss the wagon for this.

[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

There's gonna be a longer post with, like, really indulgent thematic elaboration and shit Later but for right now the rough idea is that I like favoring Kimbery for how it builds on our boi's themeing of an aquatic predator, who's adapted to the crushing, toxic depths he lives in and who has become something super fucking scary in this metaphorical ocean of life. And Szoreny for how it builds on Tesaki's favored weapon being- well being whatever goes iirc, but the garrote and wire now especially after using it to maul and maim a Prince of the Earth. The thin, precise, flensing edge that severs the artery. And the sheer BDE of casually brushing past someone on the street, hands-in-our-pockets and killing them with a single sentence before walking on, not even breaking our stride as per Indelible Toxic Truths.

And then Prideful Hellfire Prince for the angry nuclear ranting 'cause you just gotta have that.
 
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[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

Really, the one I really, really wanted was Envious Silvered Heart.

Mostly because the concept of Indelible Toxic Truths is fucking terrifying. And also I want to slowly corrode someone from the inside out with w o r d s, and the idea of Tesaki just

being so full of hate that his words fucking kill someone alone is just

*chef's kiss*
 
TheOneMoiderah said:
Mostly because the concept of Indelible Toxic Truths is fucking terrifying. And also I want to slowly corrode someone from the inside out with w o r d s, and the idea of Tesaki just
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Fun fact: Indelible Toxic Truths was inspired by reading about cases of dimethylmercury poisoning.

Please don't look that up if you'd like to sleep tonight.
 
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
 
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

The Malfeas aspects are just so perfect, we're not going to bow under the world's pressure, it will bow under ours. The Szoreny aspects also look like a lot of fun. Between poison and tentacles I really just want to go with tentacles, even though Spiteful Acid Mother feels really fitting.

This chapter was hype, I'm excited to see what our boy's gonna do.
 
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Hmmm. While I like all of the available abilities, I think that the combo of "gain power from your injuries", "gain power from the pain you inflict" and "gain power because your blood is a toxic magical mercury performance-enhancer" is especially to my liking, both thematically and mechanically for their sheer face-smashing potential.

For the choices, I'm for favoring Malfeas/Szoreny, as I don't think that Kimbery completely fits Tesaki. That would be someone like Masumi, who just sits and takes all the abuse their father gives, because they believe that you don't raise your hand or your voice against your parents, no matter what. Which as we saw in the last update, is a belief Tesaki really doesn't respect, even if it concerned an adoptive parent in this case. Besides, The Prison Within Himself just feels so damn fitting for Tesaki and his issues with his body.

[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
 
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
 
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
 
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[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

Tesaki's good enough at violence already that we might as well pick what seems thematically appropriate. Malfeas is obvious - Tesaki is a small angry bundle of violence and stress, trapped in an infuriating situation with (previously) no escape. There's a lot of parallels. For the other Yozi, however, I would argue that Szoreny fits Tesaki better than Kimbery does. Kimbery is all about hiding cruelty and ugliness beneath a veneer of beauty and kindness, socially or in combat. She also has a strong emphasis on blood ties and family above all else, regardless of the healthiness of that relationship (it's worth noting that in her Beloved/Reviled mechanic, only the Infernal's intimacies matter - and Reviled trumps Beloved). Tesaki's not a big family guy. He wants one, sure, but in the decades nine years he's been with the Vashra, he's managed a significant positive intimacy with exactly two (2) people. Szoreny, on the other hand... Envy, spite, deception, these are all things Tesaki holds near and dear to his shriveled little heart. Also, Tesaki's just had his "family", such as they are, cast him out. He wants that family and the benefits associated with it - but doesn't belong, knows he doesn't belong, and envies them that belonging as much as he hates them for imprisoning him outside the family.

tldr; Tesaki is angry and jealous, & so should be Malfeas/Szoreny.

Although I can't shake the feeling that we're going to say something very unfortunate to Masumi with Indelible Toxic Truths.
 
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[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother:
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
What a lovely mix of spite and anger and bile we have here.
 
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart

Hmm, this works.
 
Walker said:
[X] The Prison Within Himself
[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince:
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother:
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince:
[X] Envious Silvered Heart:

Tesaki's good enough at violence already that we might as well pick what seems thematically appropriate. Malfeas is obvious - Tesaki is a small angry bundle of violence and stress, trapped in an infuriating situation with (previously) no escape. There's a lot of parallels. For the other Yozi, however, I would argue that Szoreny fits Tesaki better than Kimbery does. Kimbery is all about hiding cruelty and ugliness beneath a veneer of beauty and kindness, socially or in combat. She also has a strong emphasis on blood ties and family above all else, regardless of the healthiness of that relationship (it's worth noting that in her Beloved/Reviled mechanic, only the Infernal's intimacies matter - and Reviled trumps Beloved). Tesaki's not a big family guy. He wants one, sure, but in the decades he's been with the Vashra, he's managed a significant positive intimacy with exactly two (2) people. Szoreny, on the other hand... Envy, spite, deception, these are all things Tesaki holds near and dear to his shriveled little heart. Also, Tesaki's just had his "family", such as they are, cast him out. He wants that family and the benefits associated with it - but doesn't belong, knows he doesn't belong, and envies them that belonging as much as he hates them for imprisoning him outside the family.

tldr; Tesaki is angry and jealous, & so should be Malfeas/Szoreny.

Although I can't shake the feeling that we're going to say something very unfortunate to Masumi with Indelible Toxic Truths.
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Small correction: it's been about ~nine years, maybe a little more. Tesaki is 19/20.
 
Pretty much everything on the list is thematically appropriate for Tesaki, but I like @TenfoldShields' reasoning so I'll go with his vote.

[X] Prideful Hellfire Prince
[X] Spiteful Acid Mother
[X] All-Encompassing Dark Waters
[X] Thousandfold Reflections Prince
[X] Envious Silvered Heart
 
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