- Location
- United States
normal mortals, the kind that make use of millstones, tend to object to the presence of demons.
General Exalted Thread
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
- Location
- Singapore
Elementals, then. Or just keep it as a black box.
- Location
- USA
Hey guys, I am trying to get into Exalted, is anyone an experienced DM?
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
If you are looking to play, you probably can find it in Tabletop subforum.
- Location
- USA
Which I am posting on right now?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
There aren't any open games running at the moment, seeing as Aranfan's is just about full up.
- Location
- Singapore
EXQUISITE INGOT OF UTMOST SUSTENANCE
Delicious squares of a strange sweet and solid substance, this brown square of food can be placed within a mortal's mouth during a march. During that time, the square will melt into a sweet liquid, which can be swallowed. It is delicious, invigorating, yet nutritious. When by a human being, this square of food counts as a full day's meals, and works whether it is done during an entire day of relaxation or hard marching. Of course, this cannot work for mortal life forever. After 5 days of consuming the squares of sustenance, it no longer works for the mortal, no longer nourishing it. This can be remedied by eating regular food for 2 days.
The squares, made in batches via thaumaturgy, can be made in a ritual of difficulty 3, with every excess success being enough squares to feed 10 people for 5 days. Using the nuts and leaves of a particular tree in the East will give a +2 bonus to the production of the squares of sustenance.
The food only works on mortal humans. It is poisonous to animals.
A/N: Thoughts?
Delicious squares of a strange sweet and solid substance, this brown square of food can be placed within a mortal's mouth during a march. During that time, the square will melt into a sweet liquid, which can be swallowed. It is delicious, invigorating, yet nutritious. When by a human being, this square of food counts as a full day's meals, and works whether it is done during an entire day of relaxation or hard marching. Of course, this cannot work for mortal life forever. After 5 days of consuming the squares of sustenance, it no longer works for the mortal, no longer nourishing it. This can be remedied by eating regular food for 2 days.
The squares, made in batches via thaumaturgy, can be made in a ritual of difficulty 3, with every excess success being enough squares to feed 10 people for 5 days. Using the nuts and leaves of a particular tree in the East will give a +2 bonus to the production of the squares of sustenance.
The food only works on mortal humans. It is poisonous to animals.
A/N: Thoughts?
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Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Needs more locust candy.
All creation food needs more locust candy.
A taste so good, its sinful!
- Location
- my house
Needs a different name. Brownish squares is too blandly descriptive.
- Location
- Singapore
Sorry. I'm not too good at exalted-style names.
- Location
- United States
Elementals can't be bound endlessly, I believe? And regardless, they are living beings, eventually they will grow exhausted from constantly pushing this heavy millstone around in circles, even in a black box. All this is assuming that the mortals don't get suspicious and break into the black box to find the demon inside and then freak out because you're making them used what they now assume to be cursed flour.
I think you're underestimating the mortals, here. Spirits are everywhere in Creation, and everyone knows the basics of dealing with them. The secrecy would be more off-putting than anything else. Are you trying to keep these moderately-powerful spirits as slaves? Are you crazy? What if they get loose and wreak havoc?
However, if you're a little more open about things, it becomes straightforward. Build a windmill and bind an air elemental to turn it. Be sure to include a shrine to the spirit in question. Openly tell everyone about the spirit. Benefiting from the favor of spirits is a common, time-honored strategy in Creation. No one will be upset by your knack for attracting friendly minor spirits; they'll be impressed.
- Location
- United States
No, people DON'T know the basics of dealing with spirits, that's what shamans are for. And while these demons are moderately powerful compared to the chosen, they are decidedly more powerful than rando mortal that lives in the village. The average mortal is going to be afraid of demons because they're demons and everyone knows demons are bad news. And the problem with summoning more acceptable air elementals is that they can't be bound forever, which is the point of wanting a eternally milling mill in the first place.
That depends on what you consider to be basic.
Generally, most people know that spirits like prayer, even if they don't know which prayers to say to what spirits. They know that spirits like offerings, and probably a few common offerings that they were raised to give to certain spirits. They know that angry spirits are very bad news, and that they should get a shaman if they find out that spirits are being offended.
These are the kind of unspoken basics that mortals in Creation learn as kids. They don't know all the details, but they know that spirits exist and how to exist in the same world as them without being too offensive.
You're wrong. That may be true on the Blessed Isle, where such interaction is encouraged to be left to the order.
Out in most of Creation, where skilled help is much rarer, people need to know how to propitiate field gods and
For example:
Roll of Glorious Divinity I pg 126 said:
There's the Tya, whose entire society rests on the patronage of storm mothers, who otherwise sink ships with attractive or redheaded women on board. Or the baiji dolphin gods, who specifically save people from drowning in order to increase the number who pray to them.Roll of Glorious Divinity I pg 126 said:
Shamans handle disputes, and difficult shit. Not routine interactions.
Seriously, where do you think God-Bloods come from?
- Location
- United States
Honestly? One flavor of divine rape or another. The spirits are not your bros, they are not your neighbors. The spirit courts are corrupt as fuck and the vast majority of god bloods come from some kind of spirit who took a fancy to a mortal and took them because they were more powerful than the mortal. People make sacrifices to weird things, without being prompted in the hopes they will leave them alone and not steal their children.
Most mortals? They have their hands full focusing on survival in a post-apocalyptic bronze age world that is full of magical monsters that see people as some kind of snack. When dealing with the Sobeksis, it's the shaman who does all that because it's their job. It's the shaman's job to find out what rivers have belligerent spirits that you have to sacrifice things to so you are allowed to pass safely. It's their job to figure all this stuff out because it's a super dangerous task, fraught with peril. Rando farmer? They're going to learn the very specific prayers to the known local gods and they're going to perform them by rote because if they don't they are going to suffer. People are going to avoid the gods because if a god wants something it will take it and there is nothing you can do about it.
Look at the opening comic in the 2e corebook, they have a mostly benevolent river god that FLOODS the village because one day the girls don't sing to him. And the villagers don't understand why. That is the relationship that most people in Creation have with the spirits.
The thing is though; how i interpreted that comic was less of being malicious and more the kind that spirits are weird and their power being directly linked to their emotional states in some way; there's a similar blurb in the 3e book where a god's grief causes a ton of problems because he isn't doing his job due to said grief rather then actively trying to bring harm.
- Location
- Singapore
Yeah.
I think its more like the gods are alien. Not as alien as demons. But still aliens. They aren't mortals. They may think quite similarly, but they're mindsets and thoughts are quite different. I think that the village being drowned is the first time the god ever really hurt someone. I mean, seriously? If you're an immortal being who can't die outside of spirit-killers, you tend to forget that other people are more squishy.
You're thinking of the actually powerful spirits, but those aren't the only ones around. The spirit courts are one thing, but household gods are another thing entirely. Spirits are totally your neighbors, just not the big ones. There's a spirit for everything, and if rando farmer can't leave an offering to a local field-god when he plows it, he's less of a god-fearing peasant and more of an incompetent fool. Now, if he's unfortunate enough to run into the Marchioness of the White Cedar Valleys he'll be in way over his head, but he can deal with the spirits of his hearth and fields reasonably well. They're small spirits, with small powers and small expectations. Anyone who flees from them in ignorant terror of "demons" is quite literally too stupid to live - as in, their inability to deal with spirits in any way will quickly lead to their demise. Now, actual demons - or at least the type of demons that sorcerers bother to summon, and therefore the ones that get stories told about them, are both more powerful and more alien, but distinguishing between powerful spirits and tiny harmless spirits is Basic Life Skills 101 in Creation.
It certainly does happen a LOT, but we see it mentioned repeatedly in canon that seduction is a thing.
As well as people offering themselves to spirits as part of ritual, as tradition, as attempts to improve their lot.
Exalted is an animist society. Spirits are everywhere.
They may not be your bros, but they are explicitly your neighbors.
The quote from the text EXPLICITLY states that you're wrong.
It would be like claiming that all ancestor worship requires shamans and priests.
Yes?
I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. For every one of those, you have the storm mothers who basically created the Tya in order to have them play messengers. You have the baiju who rescue drowning sailors in order to increase their worshippers.
All spirits are a little bit Other; some much more than others,depending on why they were created. But we explicitly have communities negotiating and working with them. Shamans are no more essential for routine interaction than doctors are for cleaning up a scrape on the knee.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Of course, most little spirits are either under the sway of a greater one (e.g. the spirits of fields under the god of an estate) or the divine equivalent of illegal immigrants. This means you don't have to pray to every spirit, just a lot to the big one and any he designates. Of course, respect is something you need to have for every spirit you meet, just in case they can be bothered fucking you up, unless you're a X-blood, Exalt, martial artist or sorcerer.
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Yeah; the 3e blurb with Prince Diamond was a really good example of that; the reason why the grief was so traumatic was because the idea of mortality was so foreign to him that he didn't even consider that his wife could actually die from age as a thing.
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- Location
- Singapore
Delicious ingot of utmost sustenance?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Maybe 'exquisite' instead of delicious, but yeah that sounds good.