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But aren't Benediction of archgenesis, Rain of doom, and total annihilation big, sweeping, effects?
Exalted Questions Thread
- Thread starter Chehrazad
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Total Annihilation had a range of less than a thousand feet, and utterly destroyed everything in that AoE, no save, just die. Benediction of Archgenesis grows plants out to 500 miles. Rain of Doom can melt small cities over hours, or wreak hideous damage and destruction on large cities without actually completely covering them.
None of them let you cast them, and enslave tens of thousands of people, and then do the same with the next city, and the next city, and the next city. Sapphire kill spells can kill everyone for literally miles. Sapphire Mind Control can perfectly enslave one person at a time, while having failure conditions. Adamant Sorcery, to my knowledge, has no mind control effects at all. There is a reason for this, and that is "mind-controlling someone is a wildly different case than killing them."
If you want "I create an effect that slowly bends the people of this place to my will" you want a Working.
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An Adamant Circle mind control spell would probably not be more powerful than the sapphire circle love spell, but it would probably propagate throughout the descendants of the initial person it's cast upon. that way a adamant circle sorcerer could be able to bind a whole bloodline to them, but if that bloodline was full of, say, dragon blooded, you for sure wouldn't get all of them and they'd know that an evil sorcerer had enslaved their family.
Yeah, I'd allow that in my game. Seems like an epic enough improvement, while drawing strongly from mythical source material and not shattering the setting the way "I add 50,000 more loyal slaves to my cult-army" does.
Probably some restrictions on casting, either in who you bind or when you can cast it, idk.
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- Singapore
Question. Can you simply task bind elementals to refill the mine you have, or is it better to just make a sorcerous working?
It's more that elementals can't really do that? Like, if you found a species that could generate new materials, sure I guess, but Creation doesn't have Sorcerers refilling mines nor elemental slaves toiling in grand magical autocracies which makes me think you aren't going to find an elemental that can do this. You'd be better off probably finding a new mine?
Like, for the effort put into binding a ton of elementals as miners, you could probably just bind a ton of greenmaws and vrackti or whatever and just go in and steal someone else's mine, and set up your own little mini nation around it.
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- Location
- Texas
Elementals have jobs, and can only be task-bound for a year at a time. If you bind hundreds of weak earth elementals to spend all their time moving minerals from other parts of Creation to your mine, you're going to be spending your whole life casting and re-casting summon spells. If you bind fewer, more powerful elementals to do it, someone's going to notice all the elemental dragons not doing their actual jobs in favor of making you rich and start raising a stink about it.
More pressingly, though, what's the point? If you can summon elementals to fill your mine up with copper, you could just have them fill your warehouse in Nexus up with copper instead, and cut out that whole tedious "mining" step. Or, if mining is your thing, instead of summoning a bunch of elementals to refill your mine, summon ONE elemental and task him with finding you a new deposit of minable ore nobody knows about, so you can buy the land cheap and start mining.
And beyond that, why don't you just buy that copper? If you're a good enough sorcerer to reliably bind elementals over and over, you have a lot of ways to make money. Instead of spending your time summoning elementals to give you lots of copper, spend your time summoning elementals to make yourself rich, then buy what you need. As a sorcerer, you're in an elite group of merely thousands of people across the whole world who can do what you do. Leverage that. Figure out how to transmute materials, or start selling elemental labor to the Guild, or something.
Refilling a mine via elemental labor just seems very Rube-Goldberg-esque as a solution to problems.
- Location
- Singapore
I apologise.
1. I thought that elementals were in charge of various natural processes in creation - i.e. replenishing lost minerals and metals extracted, so they never run out
2. I thought 3e means you can summon elementals out of nothing.
3. True. Maybe just summon mercury ants?
1. I thought that elementals were in charge of various natural processes in creation - i.e. replenishing lost minerals and metals extracted, so they never run out
2. I thought 3e means you can summon elementals out of nothing.
3. True. Maybe just summon mercury ants?
- Location
- Texas
Nothing to apologize for.
Maybe 3e has changed how elementals work, but in earlier versions elemental summoning, like demon summoning, actually pulled specific individuals to you. More important and powerful elementals could send flunkies if you tried to summon them. Many elementals joined courts and did collective bargaining with sorcerers, where they would agree to not resist summoning attempts in exchange for good treatment or favors.
Minor elementals are mostly similar to each other, so you don't usually care which mercury ant you summon, but in theory you could ask an ant its name and keep summoning the same guy over and over. And it was specifically a thing that elementals are the discriminated-against underclass of the spirit world, and mostly you can do whatever you want to them, but if you are excessively cruel or start keeping too many tied up for long enough to start inconveniencing somebody with clout, eventually it'll bounce back on you.
I don't know of any elementals that have "replenish a mine" as a specific power of their, but they might exist. The Kukla restores the land to health, as I recall, but there are downsides to that plan. It seems like the sort of thing that would require a powerful earth elemental, though, which are also the ones most likely to hold a grudge or be missed if you bind them to a job for a year.
Maybe 3e has changed how elementals work, but in earlier versions elemental summoning, like demon summoning, actually pulled specific individuals to you. More important and powerful elementals could send flunkies if you tried to summon them. Many elementals joined courts and did collective bargaining with sorcerers, where they would agree to not resist summoning attempts in exchange for good treatment or favors.
Minor elementals are mostly similar to each other, so you don't usually care which mercury ant you summon, but in theory you could ask an ant its name and keep summoning the same guy over and over. And it was specifically a thing that elementals are the discriminated-against underclass of the spirit world, and mostly you can do whatever you want to them, but if you are excessively cruel or start keeping too many tied up for long enough to start inconveniencing somebody with clout, eventually it'll bounce back on you.
I don't know of any elementals that have "replenish a mine" as a specific power of their, but they might exist. The Kukla restores the land to health, as I recall, but there are downsides to that plan. It seems like the sort of thing that would require a powerful earth elemental, though, which are also the ones most likely to hold a grudge or be missed if you bind them to a job for a year.
- Location
- Singapore
I'm afraid that things have changed in 3e. Demons are.... mostly the same. But for elementals, you basically create an element imbalance that forces an elemental into being.
The elemental exists for a month, or a year and a day. By which point, it dissipates. If you want to make it a character, just pretend that the creation of intimacies or friendships will cause the elemental to 'solidify', making it permanent.
The elemental exists for a month, or a year and a day. By which point, it dissipates. If you want to make it a character, just pretend that the creation of intimacies or friendships will cause the elemental to 'solidify', making it permanent.
- Location
- Singapore
Wait. You don't know about 3e's new sorcery system?
- Location
- Texas
I know a few very vague tidbits I've picked up here and there, but I've never looked at a 3e sourcebook. I bailed out when the 3rd edition corebook was being kickstarted.
That's why I don't comment on stuff like "Sorcerous Workings", for instance; I get the distinct impression that those are not at all like what existed in 2e. Or dice mechanics in general. But I didn't expect them to make big changes to the elemental fluff.
That's why I don't comment on stuff like "Sorcerous Workings", for instance; I get the distinct impression that those are not at all like what existed in 2e. Or dice mechanics in general. But I didn't expect them to make big changes to the elemental fluff.
- Location
- Singapore
Well, my friend, you've missed out!
The spells are kinda the same.... but man, the casting. The casting is different.
You remember how sorcery always took a huge amount of your motes? Well, its different now! Now, there's such a thing as sorcerous motes. You gather them from creation, using one willpower. You use that willpower, spend it, and gather sorcerous motes. Gather them fast enough, and get the spell off, and you fire off a spell.... and the act of casting a spell gives you back one willpower.
That means that the casting time is the same... but now you can spam them all day, until you get killed, or you use too many of the spells that require 2 or 3wp to cast.
Yes, this applies to mortal sorcerers too. Now that mortal sorcerer, that in 2e, couldn't cast obsidian butterflies twice? Well, now he can cast it as many times as he likes, as long as he doesn't fail his rolls!
edit: Check out the latest post on the general exalted thread. I just posted a summary on sorcerous workings.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
There is a demon that can produce gems and precious metals ex nihilo, which have been put to significant use in Inksgame.
Honestly, I'd say that making an elemental that can generate valuable materials, especially ores and the like, is possible but requires a lot of thaumaturgical knowhow and/or specialized Sorcery. The people who have cracked the formula guard it jealously so that they can maintain their monopoly.
Also a Rod of Verdant Minerals can cause any metal to grow as is it were a plant.
I honestly would just make them not grow enough, and also it's because they're lava monsters oozing molten gold or something. Dangerous and difficult, and not super worth it.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Yeah but like, Exalted is the kind of setting where discovering an ancient Canteen of Endless Water is the kind of thing that you can found a city on because hey, free fresh water, power for waterwheels, these are big deals. If you can summon lava monsters that ooze molten gold then, okay, that might be dangerous and difficult, but it is still a big fricking deal that gives you a lot of strategic power, the kind of thing you could build a nation around, and this is the sort of story the Exalted should be totally on board with telling.
No, I totally agree, I just am saying that it should be hard enough to make it a rare, important thing that defines the story of the area, rather than like, something every Sorcerer ever does, and now no one mines gold because every kingdom has magic gold elementals, you know?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Mm, that did not come across well. "I honestly would just make them not grow enough ... Dangerous and difficult, and not super worth it." mostly sounds like you think it should be something that's possible but like, nobody sensible would do it if they could get materials naturally.
No, my bad. I just don't want it to result in "Why doesn't every kingdom hire a Sorcerer to summon one of these for endless gold, why is gold valuable at all". Hence "it's difficult, dangerous, and most Sorcerers have way easier ways to get rich so it just tends not to come up. If you have one and the equipment to use it, good for you"
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- Pittsburgh, PA
Because the Sorcerer would have them by the balls, and know it? "Hiring" the Sorcerer would be pretty indistinguishable from "selling our sovereignty to him for gold" unless he was exceptionally altruistic for a Sorcerer.
Most Sorcerers are a lot more Thulsa Doom than Merlin, and their reputation among most people is even worse than that statement would suggest. Especially the ones who can conjure up wealth, because the easiest way to do that is infernalism. Also, the Realm would likely have problems with someone flooding the economy with demon-tainted riches, so it's something that's either kept very hush-hush or practiced well outside of the reach of the Immaculates.
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- Singapore
Woah. Where did you get this?
Thulsa Doom is an explicit inspiration for Sorcerers. The ape they summoned to kill Conan is pretty much the reason Blood Apes exist, IIRC.
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- Singapore