Jon Chung
=][=
Because they weren't very good at their job: the Eclipse anima has had a massively damaging effect on the game's mechanical development, and we're three editions deep with the thing still alive.
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General Exalted Thread
Because they weren't very good at their job: the Eclipse anima has had a massively damaging effect on the game's mechanical development, and we're three editions deep with the thing still alive.
Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
RPG developers seem to have issues with balancing stuff in general.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
To avoid spaghetti posting-! Thanks for commenting @uju32
- Hinna's fate is a good catch- I actually spaced out and forgot that she went through the botched summoning alive. I was confusing it with one of Aleph's unused ideas that would've pulled her soul out instead of all of her.
- Simya and Bidaha are going to be fun to explore, both as characters and as potential assets; if they're both capable of fleshweaving, they're going to be extremely handy as part of well, medicine, along with certain bio-crafting. On my to-do list is bee-keeping. (Friendship With Animals would work on the bees), so I could in theory fleshweave Better Bees and thus corner the market on honey and beeswax.
- I thought Inks and Pesala's relationship was more big s[ister/favored aunt. Pesala however has abandonment issues and Inks is pretty much the most awesome lady figure in her life after her mother.
- I'm not sure what you mean, re: mafia family, please expand if you can.
- The rumors are indeed interesting because of their cohesive nature- something I sort of spaced on as the session progressed and time pressed in. A failing on my part, I admit.
- Related to that,you also raise a good point regarding the investigation opportunities. I suppose I'm just not playing paranoid enough to run down all those leads, and our mental overhead is already quite high to be asking us to flesh out a lot of potentially tangential information. Pro to my PC-goal focused attitude is that I don't expect my ST to immediately and at-demand generate new information about some random thing. I want to get back to what I want to do, usually.
- Inks does indeed have Wiles, feminine and otherwise. Though amusingly I am considering getting Hypnotic Tongue Technique pretty soon- and I'm classy enough to admit that yes, Ink's might indeed use it as expected.
- I will admit there was an element of manipulation involved in staging the talks with Gion like that. But more seriously, the juxtaposition of alliance-building, court management and sex was a deliberate aesthetic and characterization choice on my part. You'll note that Inks approached that whole sequence with an 'everybody wins' mentality. I wasn't going for 'teehee lookit the sexytimes' (even if you can laugh).
I wanted to make a statement about how Inks did things, how a Solar or PC in general can do things. That you don't have to be locked into dry, empty spaces or barren meeting rooms when doing court intrigue and so on. I also feel that a lot of people aren't properly equipped to convey 'larger than life' in Exalted. Big appetites, big passions, big dreams. How to walk and act with grandeur, and not be obnoxious about it at the table/playable level. - I agree to a point regarding Gloria, though I do't think a diminished god is reduced that far. You're right though that it's very interesting that she was given a direct order as opposed to the baths being picked up by another god or one emerging ex nilho.
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greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
I really don't know why they still keep it. Its not like the Eclipse Anima power isn't already strong; diplomatic immunity and their oath-binding powers are already exceptional. Like seriously, they're very powerful abilities, the Eclipse-oids don't need an extra ability that doesn't really sit well within their themes.
(Like seriously, if charm-share has to be a thing, it should belong to the Twilights.)
If my knowledge doesn't fail me, the original Mafias was a Sicilian ethnic organization.
Their recruitment was almost exclusively intraethnic, and often along familial or friend of the family lines.
Children of the bosses would grow up knowing Uncle X or Brother Y as a member of the family, and playing with their kids, and so on. So even only children would have an adhoc extended family.
Now I don't know if the Nexian crime family she hails from assumes quite that form.
But when you mentioned mafia princess, that's where my thoughts ran.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It's interesting, though strangely peaceful. I have no specific problems with it, it just seems almost... provincial. The kind of place where nothing bad goes wrong, the place you send a fledgling Dynast who needs experience but is too valuable to risk. So of course there's something horribly, horribly wrong going on underneath the surface. Is there some kind of evil ancestor cult? Is some remnant of the Contagion festering in the depths of the Summer Mountains, the inevitable resurgence of which will lead to the Realm collapsing the canyons and abandoning the inhabitants to die?
I think their current version of the power actually sits rather well within their themes. Making a pact with an allied spirit, learning some of its unique magic, that all fits pretty well under the umbrella of what Eclipses are supposed to do.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Maybe their possession of the charm should only last as long as their pact, or good relations with the spirit?
Good. Now how is that more Eclipse than a Night Caste stealing the fire of the gods and demons and wielding their secret magics herself, a Zenith priest who's so holy that the magic of the gods comes naturally to him, or a Dawn conqueror taking such powers in victory?
Because you don't have to just argue how it's in Eclipse themes. You also have to argue how it's uniquely within Eclipse themes.
RedV
Refuelling
- Location
- Right here
I sort of dislike the concepts of Castes, they're only really relevant for Sidereals and DBs. I'd much rather prefer everybody else to simply favour certain attributes/abilities and remove Anima powers entirely except for a generic kind of bonus.
I mean, it's not like I've tested this out in play yet, but I don't really see how Castes (or Magical Materials) are really contributing to the game. Castes were good for introducing "roles" for beginner me, but they wore off on me after a bit.
I mean, it's not like I've tested this out in play yet, but I don't really see how Castes (or Magical Materials) are really contributing to the game. Castes were good for introducing "roles" for beginner me, but they wore off on me after a bit.
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- Location
- New York City
There is a power in the Occult Tree that allows other Solars to access eclipse tagged Charms on a more conditional basis.
I think the notion is that the Eclipse have a uniquely easy affinity for other beings, and can use that relational power to learn some of their magic. Since this only works with very specific Spirit Charms that are designed to be usable by Solars besides the spirits, and most of them have incorporated extra limitations when used by the Eclipse versus the native spirit, the power isn't really that difficult to balance anymore.
I suppose if you could liken it to a more mundane phenomena, think of the traveler who has learned all sorts of unique tricks from the people he's lived with. A way to clean freshwater learner from farmers in Botswana, a talent for calming herd animals learned from a family in Tibet, a particular technique for fast rock climbing practices by a family in Khazakhstan and so on.
So I suspect it's intended to evoke that. Given the Occult Charm represents an alternative but more conditional means of accessing this power, I don't believe it's particularly necessary to argue why others shouldn't have it, since they can have it, but rather that they innately have this capacity is reflective of their role as adventurerers who make friends and diplomats who forge pacts.
I think the notion is that the Eclipse have a uniquely easy affinity for other beings, and can use that relational power to learn some of their magic. Since this only works with very specific Spirit Charms that are designed to be usable by Solars besides the spirits, and most of them have incorporated extra limitations when used by the Eclipse versus the native spirit, the power isn't really that difficult to balance anymore.
I suppose if you could liken it to a more mundane phenomena, think of the traveler who has learned all sorts of unique tricks from the people he's lived with. A way to clean freshwater learner from farmers in Botswana, a talent for calming herd animals learned from a family in Tibet, a particular technique for fast rock climbing practices by a family in Khazakhstan and so on.
So I suspect it's intended to evoke that. Given the Occult Charm represents an alternative but more conditional means of accessing this power, I don't believe it's particularly necessary to argue why others shouldn't have it, since they can have it, but rather that they innately have this capacity is reflective of their role as adventurerers who make friends and diplomats who forge pacts.
Why can't Zeniths sanctify oaths and call down literally divine judgement on those that dare break them like Eclipses? Why can't Nights disappear into a crack between the world only to reappear at a place of power like Twilights?
With the right flavour justification, you can fit anima powers to several castes, that's almost impossible to prevent.
The real answer to "why" on Eclipses is a metatextual one, not thematic, and goes back to the 1e corebook.
Flat-out, they get access to everyone else's Charms because like 1e Twilights having contextually-applicable powers demanding a huge defensive buff, Eclipses have the "bad" Caste Abilities, the leftover ones that have extremely niche applicability, widely broad-scaled and without the dedicated systems to back it up. Ride was not a combat skill, and was an entire tree of minor functions which would eventually be rolled together into Master Horseman's Techniques. Sail was Survival but more narrow, because it required already owning an expensive tool to be useful like Melee did, but with none of the universal applicability of punching guys in the head. Linguistics was not nearly as strong as it would become, because Write Good wasn't about convincing people of anything socially, but a rudimentary powerset of information-control condensing coded communications down into single pages, limiting who could successfully read those communications, and cramming several weeks of laborious contract-reading down into barely a scene.
Bureaucracy was a unicorn, the great unrealized dream of Exalted to be more than a combat game, but the knock-on effects were so sweeping and so disconnected from many player-scaled conflicts they would regularly get sidebarred while the Dawn and Zenith get to play out the Mahabharata. Socialize was comparably hurt by the lack of a hard-and-fast social system, and the lack of detailed courts and cultural structures to interact with outside of major cities, mostly because none had been written into the setting yet. You could throw a dart at the map and hit someone you could fight, persuade, steal from and learn more things about, but rare was the one you'd be having a tactful business dinner with, especially if the rest of the circle was planning to fight/persuade/steal/learn more things about at the same time.
So with all their available options being either self-centric "support" powers or social meddling that often ignored the narrative impact of compelling individual actors, they were given their own take on "sorcery." Instead of having an entire character brought into things to shore up your perceived Caste-flaws like the Twilight, you simply took the strongest power of your erstwhile mentor like Principle of Motion, Hurry Home, or Dragon's Suspire the same way the Dawn would buy better Martial Arts and combine them together. And that was generally the Eclipse deal, going around making sweet deals and taking the best spirit-scraps they could wheedle into thanks to their sweeping diplomatic immunities.
But no one thought to consider that basing this in Charms rather than some form of legalese contract-magic meant they could co-opt other Exalt powers too. It was barely even a consideration, because it was a rules-mandated that all other Exalts were weaker than Solars, right? What could possibly be the benefit to buying up weaker, less applicable powers than your Solar kit? They had no idea that the ability to write superior and functional Charm sets would happen over the course of the line and overshadow the corebook entirely, and Eclipses only Truely came into power when Abyssals in many ways codified "Solars+" in combat ability and Sidereals laid out a huge table of powerful, easy-dip toolbox effects like World-Shaping Artistic Vision, Wise Choice, Force Decision and the Compassionate/Stern/Heroic/Slick Essence-Replenishment Charms. 2e made this worse by giving some Exalts strictly-better options to Solar staples, like Claws of the Silver Moon, with low/zero investment required.
Basically, the better the base Eclipse Charms become and the more other Exalts are allowed to have their own powers and strengths, the less Eclipses NEED to be something else but what they are and can benefit more from the bevy of Favored Abilities they have to utilize other Solar trees.
Flat-out, they get access to everyone else's Charms because like 1e Twilights having contextually-applicable powers demanding a huge defensive buff, Eclipses have the "bad" Caste Abilities, the leftover ones that have extremely niche applicability, widely broad-scaled and without the dedicated systems to back it up. Ride was not a combat skill, and was an entire tree of minor functions which would eventually be rolled together into Master Horseman's Techniques. Sail was Survival but more narrow, because it required already owning an expensive tool to be useful like Melee did, but with none of the universal applicability of punching guys in the head. Linguistics was not nearly as strong as it would become, because Write Good wasn't about convincing people of anything socially, but a rudimentary powerset of information-control condensing coded communications down into single pages, limiting who could successfully read those communications, and cramming several weeks of laborious contract-reading down into barely a scene.
Bureaucracy was a unicorn, the great unrealized dream of Exalted to be more than a combat game, but the knock-on effects were so sweeping and so disconnected from many player-scaled conflicts they would regularly get sidebarred while the Dawn and Zenith get to play out the Mahabharata. Socialize was comparably hurt by the lack of a hard-and-fast social system, and the lack of detailed courts and cultural structures to interact with outside of major cities, mostly because none had been written into the setting yet. You could throw a dart at the map and hit someone you could fight, persuade, steal from and learn more things about, but rare was the one you'd be having a tactful business dinner with, especially if the rest of the circle was planning to fight/persuade/steal/learn more things about at the same time.
So with all their available options being either self-centric "support" powers or social meddling that often ignored the narrative impact of compelling individual actors, they were given their own take on "sorcery." Instead of having an entire character brought into things to shore up your perceived Caste-flaws like the Twilight, you simply took the strongest power of your erstwhile mentor like Principle of Motion, Hurry Home, or Dragon's Suspire the same way the Dawn would buy better Martial Arts and combine them together. And that was generally the Eclipse deal, going around making sweet deals and taking the best spirit-scraps they could wheedle into thanks to their sweeping diplomatic immunities.
But no one thought to consider that basing this in Charms rather than some form of legalese contract-magic meant they could co-opt other Exalt powers too. It was barely even a consideration, because it was a rules-mandated that all other Exalts were weaker than Solars, right? What could possibly be the benefit to buying up weaker, less applicable powers than your Solar kit? They had no idea that the ability to write superior and functional Charm sets would happen over the course of the line and overshadow the corebook entirely, and Eclipses only Truely came into power when Abyssals in many ways codified "Solars+" in combat ability and Sidereals laid out a huge table of powerful, easy-dip toolbox effects like World-Shaping Artistic Vision, Wise Choice, Force Decision and the Compassionate/Stern/Heroic/Slick Essence-Replenishment Charms. 2e made this worse by giving some Exalts strictly-better options to Solar staples, like Claws of the Silver Moon, with low/zero investment required.
Basically, the better the base Eclipse Charms become and the more other Exalts are allowed to have their own powers and strengths, the less Eclipses NEED to be something else but what they are and can benefit more from the bevy of Favored Abilities they have to utilize other Solar trees.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
Not quite, I haven't written it up yet, but there is a Shogunate Dragon fighting a losing battle against a double legion of Raksha. The reason they are still here? First Age weapon, of the kind that caused the Time of Cascading Years. That Dragon has been fighting the Raksha since before the Realm existed, and the effects are wearing off.
Also, there's a yozi cult with Second Circle beckoning for Asarin, and the Dhin'e live in the ass end of nowhere.
Lastly, if say an Abyssal or were to get together and slaughter the whole town a shadowland big enough for the First And Forsaken Lion's army to form a beachhead would form.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Ah, I get what you're going for. Technically Inks is a Mafiya princess- her family and her personal attitude borrows more from the Russian mob than the Sicilian; I'm sure there's a hint of the Triads in there too. None of it's come up in-game, but Inks is the middle daughter of three, and she's the 'black sheep' of her family. Her mother is keyed as a Northerner, mapping to Icelandic and Slavic features- tall, willowy and super-thin. (If @Aleph sees this, I suddenly realize she might look like a much slimmer Evil Elsa).
Her father is more of a regular Scavenger-lander, broader, more olive skinned, and Inks takes after him a lot more, because if I ever drew Inks standing next to her mother, you'd be like "Okay so the mother is built like a runway model, and Inks is built like a brick house." Her sisters are spoiled rotten and had no greater ambition than to continue the family and marry rich or powerful husbands. Inks wanted to be a doctor or financier or anything that was more constructive than protection rackets and criminal enterprise. (A lot of what frustrated her as well was her family's willful adherence to short-term gain versus long-term strategy).
More seriously, I characterized a lot of her family based on bladed weapons- her mother is a stiletto, her father is an axe/kukri. Her older and younger sisters are both more like daggers, and Inks herself is like a greek/roman sword (Spatha or Gladius, I can't find which) with the widened leaf-shaped blade. (And because it's symmetrically curvy).
Now, Inks's family was the 'leadership' clan. The branches of the family were the 'blue collar' workers and locked into more of a caste system. If you were born into the branch family, you were destined to be a fighter, thief, agent of the main family and so on. Across those lines, Inks's main family valued the 'nobility' of their appearance, taking pride in no scars, piercings and definitely no tattoos, while their branch families could do whatever they want.
And then Inks ran way for a week and came back with a full-body work of art that to her mother's eye, ruined her.
Whew, that went on longer than I thought. Hope you liked it.
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- Location
- my house
As someone not versed in the mafiya, how do the differ from the mafia?
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Less classy, more brutal. Note that the current popular conception of the Mafiya is from Black Lagoon, as in, Balalaika.
More seriously, the historic difference is that the Sicilian mob grew out of family interests and attitudes, while the Mafiya came into its own with the collapse of the soviet union and all of those suddenly jobless, well-trained KGB and ex-military types coming together to use those skills for personal gain.
In context of Inks's backstory, her family I would describe as unreasonably brutal, moreso than necessary for what they're actually doing.
RedV
Refuelling
- Location
- Right here
Does anyone know any canonical way of purifying the infernal-taint/vitriol taint from an Artifact? The Artifact in question is a first age and it has most of its original parts intact, though there may be additions by the infernals.
I was thinking of a smaller scale version of the Adamant Circle spell that purifies Shadowlands, but aspected towards Hell and modified to remove an Artifact's taint. However, I am not sure if that will be allowed for a Celestial Circle Sorcerer. The spell is much more small scale, so ideally it will get accepted as an celestial spell, but just in case, are there other ways to remove/hold back infernal taint?
I was thinking of a smaller scale version of the Adamant Circle spell that purifies Shadowlands, but aspected towards Hell and modified to remove an Artifact's taint. However, I am not sure if that will be allowed for a Celestial Circle Sorcerer. The spell is much more small scale, so ideally it will get accepted as an celestial spell, but just in case, are there other ways to remove/hold back infernal taint?
That should be a xiphos
- Location
- Ottawa
At this point, charmshare itself is an Eclipse theme. Castes are mostly defined by self-reference.
Jon Chung
=][=
Yes, well, at this point sucking and having no shapeshifting in the Charmset is a Lunar theme. "It's always been this way" is not a good reason to keep a bad mechanic.
BP/XP, anyone?
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- Location
- Ottawa
If you think it's gotta go, even in its neutered 3e form, fine. But consistency with previous editions is a good enough reason to make it an Eclipse thing, and not a Night (or whatever) thing.
For the record, I think 3e fixed the Eclipse anima. Unfortunately, it also added even worse charmshare (through Integrity Charms, of all things).
For the record, I think 3e fixed the Eclipse anima. Unfortunately, it also added even worse charmshare (through Integrity Charms, of all things).
Jon Chung
=][=
It's like for some inexplicable reason they thought the problem was the Eclipse anima specifically and not what it allows you to do, which is charmshare.
Jon Chung
=][=
I think it's worth pointing out the blind spot, since many people here like to try their hand at homebrew. It's critical to know why something is broken, because then instead of thinking "Okay, I'll ban the Eclipse anima, that will solve the issue, right? That's what everyone complains about, right?", you would think "Okay, I'll ban charmsharing, then my not spending the massive amount of effort it would take to make sure everybody's charmsets are cross-usable without creating degenerate builds won't break the game!".
The 3E Eclipse anima with its strictly controlled whitelist is actually a good step forward because you only need to do the crazy "test this with every combination possible and accept the restriction on all future charm publication so that it does not break nor can anything new be made that breaks with this added" process for a small list of controlled bits. They just blew it by not doing that with any of the other charmsharing pathways for some reason.
For another example, take the Twilight Essence Reactor. Essence Gathering Temper specifically isn't the problem, mote gain is the problem. If a hypothetical homebrewer or GM doesn't recognise this fact, he's going to make landmines for his players to step on for my eternal amusement.
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FYI I am pretty sure this is why official Magic the Gathering set restrictions only allow a certain preselected bunch of sets at official games, so they don't have to go "will this thing interact super weirdly with this card we published literally 20 years ago?" By 'aging out' exceptions to the basic rules you greatly reduce the number of degenerate combos that are created-and even so, Magic has repeatedly had to ban/restrict cards.