- Location
- Singapore
actually, if you want to make this for a game, make Adjoran's winds weaker... and then make it so that it shreds souls upon them dying, so there is no ghosts left behind. Just one *swoosh*, and then they just cease to exist.
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Sorry, I was dredging up some old scratch notes from my "Creatures of Death" document. He'd absolutely work as an antagonist, though.
On the topic of Exalted & Spirit-Killing Charms, I hold the view that the Exalted should naturally have Spirit-Killing as a native ability[1] without needing to buy it as a Charm due to who the Exalted where meant to fight. If there were Spirit-Killing Charms then they'd be an upgrade on this native ability improving it and perhaps offering unique and interesting effects. Of course other splats shouldn't have easy access to Spirit-Killing Charms being something you have to be moderately powerful and actual invest in to get which still doesn't match up to the Exalted version.
[1] Similar to a Caste Power
[1] Similar to a Caste Power
- Location
- Singapore
What about spirit sight?
It'd be folded into the native Spirit-Killing ability that the Exalted would possess.
Yes, they are both a byproduct of his theme of "Transgression", which lets him bypass natural limitations...both to his benefit and detriment.
Or make it so that beings killed by a Primordial, either directly or indirectly, get pushed immediately into Lethe and reincarnation rather than having the opportunity to form a Ghost?
The end of the Shogunate was the Great Contagion. Which should be refluffed as what the Neverborns' subconscious influence and all the work of the Deathlords for that entire period achieved, so they all actually matter while also not making it the work of a single Deathlord. But it has nothing to do with Solars. The only other thing that should be large enough to replace it is making it the Shoguns' own fault.
- Location
- Singapore
Oh. That works. Question. If, say, Heaven and the few surviving dragonblooded and lunars wished to repopulate creation, what would they do?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Plus it's great PR. Every Immaculate Monk wants to be The Avenger of Innocence to the locals - even just from a brute pragmatist standpoint, it really gets bums on seats in the temple sermons!
Too open-ended. To quote Aleph,
Right, very good point, there's the personal glory and the glory of the temple to consider! that god is in trouuuuble
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Not so much glory as goals. The Immaculate Order wants to maintain what they see as the spiritual health of humanity - that is, they want to convert as many people as possible to their faith, and they want to maintain the investment of their worshippers in that faith. To that purpose, clearcut cases of "Look at this Cool Lady Monk who did an Unambiguous Good Thing by beating seven shades of shit out of this Evil Jerk God," are wonderful things for the Immaculate Order, since they're great stories to tell other people to convince them to attend sermons and, basically, buy what the Order is selling.
All of which means, yes, the God is in deep shit, because the local branches of the church are probably going to muster as much overkill as they practically can, because they have a vested interest in making a spectacle of resolving this matter - witness the power and righteousness of the Immaculate Order! See how easily we avenge this wrong! See how the fullness of our enlightened fury is roused to your aid! Are we not mighty and wonderful saviours? Here, have a pamphlet!
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Eh, I'd say that it also depends on the power, influence, and conncetions of the God in question. The Immaculate Order may very well not decide to pursue the issue if they don't view it as worth their effort or time.
Right, yeah. Glory was the wrong word. but yes this is very cool
I imagine vicariously seeing asshole gods get beat up is one of people's favorite things about the Temple
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Say, @EarthScorpion, what's your opinion of the Nocturnals document? Considering it involves a significant revamp of the Dome of the Sky, adds a new type of Exalt to the setting, and raises the concept of "lost Incarnae", do you think it's a bad move, or are the ideas in it good enough to justify using it (or cannibalizing it for parts, at the very least)?
- Location
- Ottawa
Presumably the Church is not too strong in Koli's area, though. We want him to need to do scary stuff with his ghost cult in order to get revenge.
I did envision his faith being pretty sincere, though. Makes it more meaningful that he's willing to consort with ghosts. Maybe his local abbot, who came to Koli's land from the Realm to spread the good word, has been making a pretty strong effort but has only been able to inconvenience Yukgo-Vefar because the god stays in Yu-Shan. Koli's not going to be satisfied by a reduction in Y-F's prayer allocation, even if Y-F feels it's a ridiculously heavy punishment.
This is me doing that.
I did envision his faith being pretty sincere, though. Makes it more meaningful that he's willing to consort with ghosts. Maybe his local abbot, who came to Koli's land from the Realm to spread the good word, has been making a pretty strong effort but has only been able to inconvenience Yukgo-Vefar because the god stays in Yu-Shan. Koli's not going to be satisfied by a reduction in Y-F's prayer allocation, even if Y-F feels it's a ridiculously heavy punishment.
This is me doing that.
I never had any time for Nocturnals, because I found the Nox plothook in MOEP:Sidereals to be dumb. And what I saw of their mechanics wasn't something I was a fan of.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Ah. I was mostly wondering about how they've pretty much made the Dome of the Sky into a its own region to explore*, with pride of place in the writeup given to the Caelian City where Nox once dwelled - and which is now a vast ruin inhabited primarily by godblooded** clans, each one descended from a different member of his former court, who have a chaotic and sprawling history that have seen one of the original clans wiped out entirely, two others blended together, and borne witness to five separate empires' rise and fall since the Caelian City was abandoned by the gods.
I haven't actually looked at the mechanics for them.
* With significant difficulty.
Namely, it doesn't have a breathable atmosphere, the plants and animals that exist there aren't very nutritious for ground-dwellers, it's riddled with insane gods, feral behemoths, and other horrors, the "geomancy" is fucked beyond imagining and nothing besides the parts that regulate the constellations has been repaired since before the Incarnate Rebellion, it was never really intended for habitation by mortals, various astronomical features are actually pretty dangerous up close, and Exalted visitors who aren't properly cautious could end up being spotted by argentim and reported to Heaven. Also, don't go near where the Mask is, stay away from any entrances to the "deeper" regions of the Empyrean Expanse, and don't fuck with the stars.
** Although they're pseudo-behemoths at this point, after thousands of years of thaumaturgic alterations to maintain the benefits of their divine heritage, which are all that allows them to survive in the harsh environment of the Firmament. They still occasionally give birth to mortal infants (which immediately asphyxiate), and they are capable of becoming full gods (who help maintain the clans' godblooded status), but they're not exactly "normal" anymore.
- Location
- The end of all things
So it is commonly said around here, and I understand the logic, but that doesn't really answer the question of whether canon explicitly states this, and if so, where. I don't recall it doing so, but I'd love to know if I missed something somewhere.
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- Location
- Singapore
Ok, I got a small snippet working up, but... what should I say?
1. Politicking.
2. Corruption
3. People trying to fuck over each other
4. Gods going insane from the loss of their domains.
5. Sidereals trying to make sure the Loom doesn't crash
6. The Gold faction trying to... salvage their reputation?
Darmani
Cast in the name of Pod, Ye Go Ninty
- Location
- Lansing
I once read admittedly on Tumblr so take it with a grain of salt that the generally well-off tend to assume that they're much more like the 10% upper class of Western Society than they are the homeless. With even the homeless or the impoverished feeling as if they are what was the term embarrassed millionaires as opposed to someone who genuinely needs to change. Now this was said in the context of Prosecuting how socialism is awesome and or how nobody really understands how Marxism really is
but it is something to keep in mind. To be fair that's a feature of exalted the fact that if you shine with power and Excellence people will assume virtue that you may not actually have accomplished or practiced. The question is do you take that assumption and let it drive you crazy or do you try to live up to it or low down to it or do something entirely different.
- Location
- Singapore
Or people just run from you.
- Location
- Singapore
You know what? I'm just going to post this, since its so hard to read Pdfs on my phone.
Sorcerous workings
Without extra means, you have 5 rolls.
Terrestrial Circle workings (Goal number 5, 10, 20):
Celestial Circle workings (Goal number 25, 30, 35):
Sorcerous workings
Without extra means, you have 5 rolls.
Terrestrial Circle workings (Goal number 5, 10, 20):
- Transforms, enhances, or weakens pre-existing elements of the natural world, rather than directly invoking supernatural forces
- When supernatural exists, it is usually limited or constrained
- Limited to minor blessings - augments natural properties of that area
- Most powerful workings work on either a small chamber, or on a single character
Celestial Circle workings (Goal number 25, 30, 35):
- Miracles of outright supernatural power
- Either rewrites the laws of the natural world on a relatively large scale or instills supernatural power into the mundane world
- Powerful blessings or curses
- Affects entire villages or a particular neighbourhood
- Power is obvious, or a dramatic or drastic change to the world
- Rewrite laws of reality or add new ones
- Encompasses entire cities at Ambition 1, or entire cosmos at Ambition 3
- Can bend time, space, or boundaries of worlds to the sorcerer's will
- Can change a being's very soul
All right, so Geist 2e krewe rules and mechanics, I will use an Exalted style ancestor cult (~) as an example later on. I believe that this structure can be used for non-ghost related organizations, but I'm going to use the ancestor cult to hew as close to the proper process as possible so that I don't have to homebrew anything on the fly.
What is a Krewe?
A krewe is, in essence, a group of individuals who have come together to piece together and develop their understanding of death and the afterlife, united by common beliefs and/or goals. It is a cult and religion, even if none of the members recognize it as such. A krewe made up of hyper-rational atheist scientists would still have rituals within their experiments and investigations, gospels made up of their publish theses. A krewe has understanding, it has belief, and from the mixture of those two resources, it has power.
I could probably wax on a bit more, and probably will later, but thats the gist of it.
Krewe "Character Generation"
The Cast
The first step of Krewe Creation is to create some characters, these being the PCs and a handful of important NPCs.
Sin Eaters The PCs
Make your dudes. Its assumed that the PCs will be the leaders of the krewe, but its not required. Then you are supposed to do Session Zero stuff, introducing your characters to each other, brainstorming some connection between them, why these people came together to found a death cult in the first place, etc.
The Dead
Now you go around the table and have everyone come up with an idea for at least one ghostly "celebrant," as members of a krewe are called. This is a group where life and death meet, so you need to have celebrants from both sides. You generally stat out your ghosts and give them powers, and then repeat the Session Zeroesque process.
The Living
Repeat the round robin chargen thing you did with the ghosts to create living celebrants. They get a name, a concept, and an Aspiration, to set them apart from the faceless masses. Living celebrants then get three actions that support their concept, general tasks that they're good at. These actions get 5/4/3 dice respectively, and any other actions they take unaided get 2 dice.
Background Players
The rest of the faceless masses that make up a krewe that you still want to give some detail to; if part of a PC's gang came with them when they founded/joined the krewe, for example. It is recommended that you give these groups an iconic character to be their face for when you want to interact with them.
Actual Chargen
Krewe Archetypes
Krewes get Archetypes, which honestly aren't really relevant in the long run, since all they do is provide some thematic grounding and define which Ceremonies your krewe starts off knowing. I admit, I sort of skimmed over their lengthy descriptions.
The PC archetypes are:
Furies, who are judges and vigilantes for the dead. They start with the Ishtar's Perfume, Skeleton Key, and Black Cat's Crossing Ceremonies.
Mourners, who seek out the lost and forgetten dead and preserve the knowledge and traditions they have to pass on. They start with The Diviner's Jawbone, Gifts of Persephone, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Necropolitans, the socialable party archetype. They start with The Lover's Telephone, Crow Girl Kiss, and Dumb Supper Ceremonies.
Pilgrams, who explore and study the Underworld and sometimes act as guides through it. They start with the Dead Man's Camera, Gifts of Persephone, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Undertakers deal with death and dead related problems. They start with the Go With Love, Crow Girl Kiss, and Death Watch, the first of which doesn't appear to exist and the last is a 1-dot Ceremony instead of 3-dot
The Antagonist archetypes are:
Elysians, people who feel entitled to having dodged death. They start with the Ishtar's Perfume, Ghost Trap, and Black Cat's Crossing Ceremonies.
Bonepickers, who are basically the Guildman archetype. They start with the Dead Man's Camera, Ghost Trap, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Thanatologists, the guys who want to science death. They start with The Diviner's Jawbone, Skeleton Key, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Gatekeepers, who work to maintain the current status quo. They start with the Death Watch, Ghost Trap, and Crow Girl Kiss, which is supposed to be a 2-dot Ceremony and not 3-dot.
Doctrines
Krewes start with 3 Doctrines, which are the core tenets of a krewe, the pillars of its faith. They are powerful but restricting, the source of the krewe's growth and unity, but violating them has consequences. For each one the krewe has lived by or advanced during a session, it gains a Krewe Beat. If a Krewe Action or one of the krewe's leaders openly breaks one of its Doctrines, it gains the Shaken Faith Condition, which limits the restorative effects of abiding by Creed and Virtue, and if enough time goes by without it being resolved, turns into the Coup de Etat Condition, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Virtue and Vice/Virtue and Creed
This part is a bit odd, because chargen uses Virtue and Vice, while the mechanics section has Virtue and Creed. I will be assuming the latter is correct. If Doctrines are the religious and dogmatic pillars of the krewe's faith, then Virtue and Creed are the spiritual pillars. Creed is the easy, surface level devotion and affirmation of the krewe's values, while Virtue is the deep commitment and self-reflection that helps you become a better person. When a krewe fulfills its Creed, all participating celebrants regain 1 Willpower or Plasm/Essence, and if it fulfills its Virtue, the celebrants regain all Willpower or Plasm/Essence.
Attributes
Krewes have simplified Power, Finesse, and Resistance traits, much like CoD spirits. They start with one dot in each, and have six more dots to distribute between them. Power is the krewe's ability to do things by itself, or induce change through direct action. Finesse is the krewe's soft power. Resistance represents its celebrant's loyalty and dedication to the cause. Dice pools are generally formed by Attribute + Esotery.
Merits
Krewes get 7 dots of Merits, which must have the Krewe or Krewe Only tag, and all krewes have one free dot of the Safe Place Merit, representing their place of worship.
Using a Merit is not a Krewe Action, and is not bound to the constraints that those are. Krewe Merits represent the collective capability of the krewe, not a general statement about it. A krewe with high Resources wouldn't mean that all of its members are wealthy, it could just mean that they are capable of paying regular due that add up to a decent war chest, or have a single wealthy member who bankrolls the entire group.
At this time you are to design a unique Mystery Cult Initiation Merit for your krewe, which you can assume most celebrants have at least one dot of. A Mystery Cult can be any esoteric society, from a frat house to an actual Sin-Eater led krewe, and depending on the cult different dot ratings can mean different things in-universe. For example, in said frat even the leaders might only have two dots, at best.
With each dot in MCI, you gain another advantage. 1 dot gets you a Specialty or a 1 dot Merit. 2 dots gets you a 1-dot Merit. 3 dots gets you a Skill dot or a 2-dot, often supernatural, Merit. 4 dots in MCI gives you a 3-dot, often supernatural, Merit. 5 dots gives you either a 3-dot Merit or another major advantage not represented in game traits.
Ceremonies
Krewes start with a 1-dot, 2-dot, and 3-dot Ceremony as determined by their archetype, and the Bestow Regalia Ceremony.
Ceremonies aren't just thing krewes can have, they can be learned and used by individuals just fine. The difference and advantage of krewe Ceremonies is that all celebrants know all the Ceremonies their krewe has with a rating equal to or less than the celebrant's Mystery Cult Initiation rating. Thus, krewe Ceremonies sort of represent a group power, a collective of knowledge and ability that the celebrants can tap into with MCI. They make the krewe something a little bit more than just a collection of individuals moving in the same direction.
On a related note, Regalia are basically a thing that has taken significant trappings of the krewe's mythology of how the afterlife should be. By ritualistically bestowing the Regalia upon one of the krewe's members, they become a focus of the group's faith and mythology and are thus empowered, gaining a particular Regalia Effect. This can grant effects ranging from getting 8-again on a particular Skill, increasing Rank by 1 for spirits and Sin-Eaters, or gaining access to a Key. A Krewe can only have one of each Regalia Effect, and a character can only have one Regalia at a time.
Advantages
Krewes have Esotery, the krewe Power stat, representing how well the krewe's religious tenets convey mystical understanding of the Underworld and the cycle of life and death. Esotery determines the number of simultaneous Krewe Actions the krewe can undertake without backlash, the maximum number of Tasks that can make up a Krewe Action, the Attribute Maximum, and the number of Regalia a krewe can possess.
They also have Congregation (basically the health track), which is 5 + Resistance. Losing Congregation can represent either celebrants dying, or losing faith and breaking away from the krewe.
When a Krewe takes damage, it represents either the deaths of its celebrants or members abandoning the krewe as they lose faith in its goals and leadership. Once a krewe's Congregation track is filled with Lethal damage, it enter into a period of schism, where the krewe's core ideologies are threatened and/or its leadership is contested.
A schism can be mitigated in three ways:
Purge, where the leadership uses force to silence dissent, clearing the Congregation track of damage at the cost of a Power dot.
Resolve, where the leadership and the dissenters achieve a resolution, clearing the Congregation track at the cost of a Finesse dot
Splinter, where the leadership allow the dissenters to go their own way, clearing the Congregation track at the cost of a Resistance dot.
Experience Cost
Krewes get Krewe Beats that turn into Krewe Experience, like everything in the CoD. Attributes are 6/dot, Merits 1/dot, additional Ceremonies 2/dot, and increasing Esotery is 5/dot.
Krewe Actions
The core of a Krewe Action is to generate Effort. Krewe Actions can span geographical space and time, and are always long-term projects. Essentially, they're a special kind of Extended Action. They are not supposed to occur "off-screen," and should show the crew's interconnectedness to the PCs, as well as to the world around them.
Step 1: Determine the Desired Outcome
Pretty straightforward, decide what it is you're trying to do.
Step 2: Determine Complexity
Determined by the GM, Complexity is part how long a task is expected to take and part how many steps are expected to be involved. Simple, straightforward actions might only take a couple scenes and only have a handful of steps to complete, and thus have low Complexity. Grander scale Actions might take multiple Sessions to complete.
Step 3: Determine the Tasks
Each Krewe Action is made up of a series of Tasks; the players must define a number of Tasks equal to the Complexity of the Krewe action. You may need to divide up a goal over several smaller Krewe Actions if a single Action's Complexity exceeds the krewe's Task Limit.
Step 4: Establish the Structure
Now that you have the steps that must be taken, you translate those steps into mechanical actions, and decide what order the Tasks must be accomplished in, if necessary.
Structure
For each Task, decide:
Action: simple or contested
Time Required: how long a Task takes to complete, but should usually be at least an hour.
Task Order: decide which Tasks, if any, must be done first
Dice Pool: Usually Krewe Attribute + Esotery, but if a PC or major NPC is undertaking the Task, they can use their dice pool instead.
Step 5: Generate Effort
The meat of a Krewe Action. Successful Tasks generate 1 Effort, and Exceptional Successes generate 2 Effort along with a beneficial Condition. Failed Tasks do not generate Effort, and the Storyteller applies a Complication immediately. If a failed Task was a prerequisite for later Tasks, those Tasks take a -2 penalty. If a Task suffers a Dramatic Failure, then the krewe suffers a negative Condition, and if the Task was a prerequisite, then the krewe's Task Limit for the action is reduced by 1 and the celebrants look for alternate Tasks.
Effort is exclusive to the Action that generated it, and can be used to complete the Action, spent at one for one on dots of temporary Social Merits that last a chapter, usually Retainer or Staff to represent calling in experts in relevant fields.
Step 6: Repeat
Repeat the process for the other Tasks in the Action. If a Task seems particularly interesting, then players should feel free to "zoom in" on it and resolve the Task using normal rules, and the GM determines whether the PC's performance counts as a success or not.
Step 7: Resolve Action
Once the krewe has resolved all of its Tasks, the Krewe Action is complete. Krewe Actions always succeed unless they are abandoned, so this step is about determining the cost of the final outcome to the krewe. If the Krewe accumulated Effort equal to the Action's Complexity, then the krewe was successful in their efforts and suffer no further complications. For every point of Effort the krewe was short, the GM adds a complication, which can range from the krewe taking damage to undergoing a schism.
A/N: So this isn't as complete as I'd like, but its complete enough to get across all the most important information, and I felt myself spiraling downwards into a neverending spiral of minutae. I'll start working on the example krewe tomorrow.
What is a Krewe?
A krewe is, in essence, a group of individuals who have come together to piece together and develop their understanding of death and the afterlife, united by common beliefs and/or goals. It is a cult and religion, even if none of the members recognize it as such. A krewe made up of hyper-rational atheist scientists would still have rituals within their experiments and investigations, gospels made up of their publish theses. A krewe has understanding, it has belief, and from the mixture of those two resources, it has power.
I could probably wax on a bit more, and probably will later, but thats the gist of it.
Krewe "Character Generation"
The Cast
The first step of Krewe Creation is to create some characters, these being the PCs and a handful of important NPCs.
Make your dudes. Its assumed that the PCs will be the leaders of the krewe, but its not required. Then you are supposed to do Session Zero stuff, introducing your characters to each other, brainstorming some connection between them, why these people came together to found a death cult in the first place, etc.
The Dead
Now you go around the table and have everyone come up with an idea for at least one ghostly "celebrant," as members of a krewe are called. This is a group where life and death meet, so you need to have celebrants from both sides. You generally stat out your ghosts and give them powers, and then repeat the Session Zeroesque process.
The Living
Repeat the round robin chargen thing you did with the ghosts to create living celebrants. They get a name, a concept, and an Aspiration, to set them apart from the faceless masses. Living celebrants then get three actions that support their concept, general tasks that they're good at. These actions get 5/4/3 dice respectively, and any other actions they take unaided get 2 dice.
Background Players
The rest of the faceless masses that make up a krewe that you still want to give some detail to; if part of a PC's gang came with them when they founded/joined the krewe, for example. It is recommended that you give these groups an iconic character to be their face for when you want to interact with them.
Actual Chargen
Krewe Archetypes
Krewes get Archetypes, which honestly aren't really relevant in the long run, since all they do is provide some thematic grounding and define which Ceremonies your krewe starts off knowing. I admit, I sort of skimmed over their lengthy descriptions.
The PC archetypes are:
Furies, who are judges and vigilantes for the dead. They start with the Ishtar's Perfume, Skeleton Key, and Black Cat's Crossing Ceremonies.
Mourners, who seek out the lost and forgetten dead and preserve the knowledge and traditions they have to pass on. They start with The Diviner's Jawbone, Gifts of Persephone, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Necropolitans, the socialable party archetype. They start with The Lover's Telephone, Crow Girl Kiss, and Dumb Supper Ceremonies.
Pilgrams, who explore and study the Underworld and sometimes act as guides through it. They start with the Dead Man's Camera, Gifts of Persephone, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Undertakers deal with death and dead related problems. They start with the Go With Love, Crow Girl Kiss, and Death Watch, the first of which doesn't appear to exist and the last is a 1-dot Ceremony instead of 3-dot
The Antagonist archetypes are:
Elysians, people who feel entitled to having dodged death. They start with the Ishtar's Perfume, Ghost Trap, and Black Cat's Crossing Ceremonies.
Bonepickers, who are basically the Guildman archetype. They start with the Dead Man's Camera, Ghost Trap, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Thanatologists, the guys who want to science death. They start with The Diviner's Jawbone, Skeleton Key, and Bloody Codex Ceremonies.
Gatekeepers, who work to maintain the current status quo. They start with the Death Watch, Ghost Trap, and Crow Girl Kiss, which is supposed to be a 2-dot Ceremony and not 3-dot.
Doctrines
Krewes start with 3 Doctrines, which are the core tenets of a krewe, the pillars of its faith. They are powerful but restricting, the source of the krewe's growth and unity, but violating them has consequences. For each one the krewe has lived by or advanced during a session, it gains a Krewe Beat. If a Krewe Action or one of the krewe's leaders openly breaks one of its Doctrines, it gains the Shaken Faith Condition, which limits the restorative effects of abiding by Creed and Virtue, and if enough time goes by without it being resolved, turns into the Coup de Etat Condition, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Virtue and Vice/Virtue and Creed
This part is a bit odd, because chargen uses Virtue and Vice, while the mechanics section has Virtue and Creed. I will be assuming the latter is correct. If Doctrines are the religious and dogmatic pillars of the krewe's faith, then Virtue and Creed are the spiritual pillars. Creed is the easy, surface level devotion and affirmation of the krewe's values, while Virtue is the deep commitment and self-reflection that helps you become a better person. When a krewe fulfills its Creed, all participating celebrants regain 1 Willpower or Plasm/Essence, and if it fulfills its Virtue, the celebrants regain all Willpower or Plasm/Essence.
Attributes
Krewes have simplified Power, Finesse, and Resistance traits, much like CoD spirits. They start with one dot in each, and have six more dots to distribute between them. Power is the krewe's ability to do things by itself, or induce change through direct action. Finesse is the krewe's soft power. Resistance represents its celebrant's loyalty and dedication to the cause. Dice pools are generally formed by Attribute + Esotery.
Merits
Krewes get 7 dots of Merits, which must have the Krewe or Krewe Only tag, and all krewes have one free dot of the Safe Place Merit, representing their place of worship.
Using a Merit is not a Krewe Action, and is not bound to the constraints that those are. Krewe Merits represent the collective capability of the krewe, not a general statement about it. A krewe with high Resources wouldn't mean that all of its members are wealthy, it could just mean that they are capable of paying regular due that add up to a decent war chest, or have a single wealthy member who bankrolls the entire group.
At this time you are to design a unique Mystery Cult Initiation Merit for your krewe, which you can assume most celebrants have at least one dot of. A Mystery Cult can be any esoteric society, from a frat house to an actual Sin-Eater led krewe, and depending on the cult different dot ratings can mean different things in-universe. For example, in said frat even the leaders might only have two dots, at best.
With each dot in MCI, you gain another advantage. 1 dot gets you a Specialty or a 1 dot Merit. 2 dots gets you a 1-dot Merit. 3 dots gets you a Skill dot or a 2-dot, often supernatural, Merit. 4 dots in MCI gives you a 3-dot, often supernatural, Merit. 5 dots gives you either a 3-dot Merit or another major advantage not represented in game traits.
Ceremonies
Krewes start with a 1-dot, 2-dot, and 3-dot Ceremony as determined by their archetype, and the Bestow Regalia Ceremony.
Ceremonies aren't just thing krewes can have, they can be learned and used by individuals just fine. The difference and advantage of krewe Ceremonies is that all celebrants know all the Ceremonies their krewe has with a rating equal to or less than the celebrant's Mystery Cult Initiation rating. Thus, krewe Ceremonies sort of represent a group power, a collective of knowledge and ability that the celebrants can tap into with MCI. They make the krewe something a little bit more than just a collection of individuals moving in the same direction.
On a related note, Regalia are basically a thing that has taken significant trappings of the krewe's mythology of how the afterlife should be. By ritualistically bestowing the Regalia upon one of the krewe's members, they become a focus of the group's faith and mythology and are thus empowered, gaining a particular Regalia Effect. This can grant effects ranging from getting 8-again on a particular Skill, increasing Rank by 1 for spirits and Sin-Eaters, or gaining access to a Key. A Krewe can only have one of each Regalia Effect, and a character can only have one Regalia at a time.
Advantages
Krewes have Esotery, the krewe Power stat, representing how well the krewe's religious tenets convey mystical understanding of the Underworld and the cycle of life and death. Esotery determines the number of simultaneous Krewe Actions the krewe can undertake without backlash, the maximum number of Tasks that can make up a Krewe Action, the Attribute Maximum, and the number of Regalia a krewe can possess.
They also have Congregation (basically the health track), which is 5 + Resistance. Losing Congregation can represent either celebrants dying, or losing faith and breaking away from the krewe.
When a Krewe takes damage, it represents either the deaths of its celebrants or members abandoning the krewe as they lose faith in its goals and leadership. Once a krewe's Congregation track is filled with Lethal damage, it enter into a period of schism, where the krewe's core ideologies are threatened and/or its leadership is contested.
A schism can be mitigated in three ways:
Purge, where the leadership uses force to silence dissent, clearing the Congregation track of damage at the cost of a Power dot.
Resolve, where the leadership and the dissenters achieve a resolution, clearing the Congregation track at the cost of a Finesse dot
Splinter, where the leadership allow the dissenters to go their own way, clearing the Congregation track at the cost of a Resistance dot.
Experience Cost
Krewes get Krewe Beats that turn into Krewe Experience, like everything in the CoD. Attributes are 6/dot, Merits 1/dot, additional Ceremonies 2/dot, and increasing Esotery is 5/dot.
Krewe Actions
The core of a Krewe Action is to generate Effort. Krewe Actions can span geographical space and time, and are always long-term projects. Essentially, they're a special kind of Extended Action. They are not supposed to occur "off-screen," and should show the crew's interconnectedness to the PCs, as well as to the world around them.
Step 1: Determine the Desired Outcome
Pretty straightforward, decide what it is you're trying to do.
Step 2: Determine Complexity
Determined by the GM, Complexity is part how long a task is expected to take and part how many steps are expected to be involved. Simple, straightforward actions might only take a couple scenes and only have a handful of steps to complete, and thus have low Complexity. Grander scale Actions might take multiple Sessions to complete.
Step 3: Determine the Tasks
Each Krewe Action is made up of a series of Tasks; the players must define a number of Tasks equal to the Complexity of the Krewe action. You may need to divide up a goal over several smaller Krewe Actions if a single Action's Complexity exceeds the krewe's Task Limit.
Step 4: Establish the Structure
Now that you have the steps that must be taken, you translate those steps into mechanical actions, and decide what order the Tasks must be accomplished in, if necessary.
Structure
For each Task, decide:
Action: simple or contested
Time Required: how long a Task takes to complete, but should usually be at least an hour.
Task Order: decide which Tasks, if any, must be done first
Dice Pool: Usually Krewe Attribute + Esotery, but if a PC or major NPC is undertaking the Task, they can use their dice pool instead.
Step 5: Generate Effort
The meat of a Krewe Action. Successful Tasks generate 1 Effort, and Exceptional Successes generate 2 Effort along with a beneficial Condition. Failed Tasks do not generate Effort, and the Storyteller applies a Complication immediately. If a failed Task was a prerequisite for later Tasks, those Tasks take a -2 penalty. If a Task suffers a Dramatic Failure, then the krewe suffers a negative Condition, and if the Task was a prerequisite, then the krewe's Task Limit for the action is reduced by 1 and the celebrants look for alternate Tasks.
Effort is exclusive to the Action that generated it, and can be used to complete the Action, spent at one for one on dots of temporary Social Merits that last a chapter, usually Retainer or Staff to represent calling in experts in relevant fields.
Step 6: Repeat
Repeat the process for the other Tasks in the Action. If a Task seems particularly interesting, then players should feel free to "zoom in" on it and resolve the Task using normal rules, and the GM determines whether the PC's performance counts as a success or not.
Step 7: Resolve Action
Once the krewe has resolved all of its Tasks, the Krewe Action is complete. Krewe Actions always succeed unless they are abandoned, so this step is about determining the cost of the final outcome to the krewe. If the Krewe accumulated Effort equal to the Action's Complexity, then the krewe was successful in their efforts and suffer no further complications. For every point of Effort the krewe was short, the GM adds a complication, which can range from the krewe taking damage to undergoing a schism.
A/N: So this isn't as complete as I'd like, but its complete enough to get across all the most important information, and I felt myself spiraling downwards into a neverending spiral of minutae. I'll start working on the example krewe tomorrow.
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- Location
- Singapore
I just had an idea. Potentially stupid.
Are there such things as... rods from god? Can you use them?
Are there such things as... rods from god? Can you use them?