- Location
- Gladstone, OR
One thing on my to-do list is to get a better read on why Piercing Sun is a patriot of Gem- like what about Gem's culture has inspired this level of investment and loyalty into the nation. Why does Sun give a damn about what is essentially a despotic mining town with a huge slave economy- setting aside any moral or ethical compunctions about this. It's something I hope @Aleph is interested in discussing when we play next.
It's good that you point out how Rankar and Sun tend to ignore each other, I hadn't caught that.
As for the armor, it could definitely be Gunzosha, but no matter what it is, the more important takeaway is that Aleph subscribes to a much higher degree of Scavenger World than I am used to in playing/running. Most of my experience with Exalted have been Artists, not Writers. This means we spend more time on getting an iconic Look, which often results in something too polished or cohesive- this is especially true with Inks, because Chronicle is actually meant to compliment her bodacious figure, and have similar swooping feminine curves.
But logically, why would Alakananda, an artist-elemental dragon of water, have a random fuckoff huge Daiklave hanging around that just so happens to jive neatly with Inks's aesthetic, and why would she give it to Inks (other than 'Nanda not really caring about it). Maji is also evidence of this, because a lot of 'Inks before Sunlit Sands' design work was ported forward into Maji, and then 'Inks of Sunlit Sands' in turn derived a lot from Maji's aesthetic.
But regarding the armor, Aleph just as I understand it wants those big legacy feats of engineering like Dragon Armor and the like to stand out for their exceptionalism, but more importantly, she approaches Creation as having been thoroughly picked over. For her, as I understand it, the cooler story is about a man who makes swords out of first age combine blades, vs finding a trove of untouched Daiklaves.
As counterpoint, I as Inks am playing the Crafter, so finding rare artifacts is usually less fun for me than building them, and we have had to strike balances in our planning of the game. Aleph wants to incentivize Scavenger Behaviors, I want to play up Infrastructure, so I can skip the 'Search the wilds for scraps' in favor of 'Make Exactly what I want, Right Now'. (Not so blithely literal, though). It's the same basic logic that is ensuring Aleph doesn't drop a fully functional Factory Cathedral somewhere in the setting- it'd be too good to ignore and it would cheapen my own personal arc of Making My Own. (I'm using FC as an example, not a representation of actual inskgame canon).
But yes, the more wider 'scope' of the area round Gem, Cahzor, Moto's territory and so on, makes it clear that this area was a well-settled and developed First Age beacon of civilization, for good or ill. Gem stands out for being largely built from the ground up during the Second Age entirely- and I really do hope there's no lingering First Age Mystery under Gem itself specifically. It's neighbors? Sure, go nuts. But like how people get tired of 'Solars do everything in the backstory' I get tired of 'FA does everything' and 'Yozis do everything'.
As for the assassins- it's this weird sort of thing, I don't want to be overly paranoid as a player or character, because that rapidly gets un-fun for me. It is a meaningful mystery, and I haven't developed the kind of diagnostic magic to really figure out what's going on. 1e of all places has some fantastic investigation Charms for this kind of thing, which I'd be porting to 2e format when the time comes.
Fortunately though, it's a plot that doesn't so much need progress as much as adaptation- I as a player can afford to shore up Assassin-Defenses, instead of spending a lot of time/effort on stopping the assassins entirely. This keeps me secure from Other Assassins (as my defenses are stronger anyway), and I can engage with this plot when time/assets permit.
Speaking for myself, my thinking is that it's either Rankar, wanting to remove a potential headache, or as Sun said, Moto or Pantsugatri- or possibly even Rankar via the latter two, as I would not put it past him. I doubt it was Tatter's old master though. My logic for Rankar's case is that his whole THING is being exceptionally good at keeping talented people close to him and getting rid of them the second they're not worth the trouble. If Inks died in Coxati, he would've lost a fine piece of ass to stare at, but not much else.
