Any suggestions for how to go about getting starmetal when none of the PCs in your group are Sidereals? A player is interested in crafting starmetal artifacts, but I'm unsure how to plausibly get them the materials without going "oh, here's a starmetal daiklave you can melt down".
A chunk of it could simply fall from the sky at any time for no apparent reason, then happen to land in their backyard. Follow-up plot hooks: who saw that happen and now wants to steal the stuff? Which god died? Why didn't sidereals get to it first?
 
You could guide them towards some Sidereal contacts (maybe a Sid needs something and is willing to make a trade) or have them find some hints for ruin diving. It fits best if you're in the scavenger lands of course but they could always stumble upon a lead for an ancient artifact or star crashsite somewhere remote and dangerous that keeps attracting treasure hunters that never return.
 
My solar party is so close to being able to summon second circle demons. And I as a ST am a little unsure how to play this out. Cause they are that stunning mix of actually being competent with handling demons but also utterly incompetent. And it shifts between the two rapidly.

First one they have in mind is Ulaan, the Cat Who Is Not There. And they are smart enough to do it blind folded. They are going to throw her at Lookshy to grab a magical stamp set that will let them freely spin up temporary identities when interacting with other city states.

Pretty smart plan huh? Well next thing they are throwing her at is the secret recipe of the best pies of nexus. All cause of some throwaway fluff line I did. After that they are going to send her back to Malfeas.

It kinda of back and forth with this group.


Clearly, the next logical step is to unleash a baking conspiracy upon your players the likes of which they've never seen: Hounded by both the Court of the Glazed Crust (the grand body of Terrestrial baker gods who govern all affairs sugar and starch throughout the Scavenger Lands) and a Sidereal strike team from the Bureau of Endings (who are a little miffed that Nara-o can no longer bring his legendary pie to the bureau potluck), they must evade them and the Emissary of Nexus (who really just wants to deliver a modest fine for intellectual property theft) long enough to flee the city.

The risk is heavy, but the artery clogging prize is worth any price. :V
 
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Any suggestions for how to go about getting starmetal when none of the PCs in your group are Sidereals? A player is interested in crafting starmetal artifacts, but I'm unsure how to plausibly get them the materials without going "oh, here's a starmetal daiklave you can melt down".
If one of them has the relevant background in astrology you could have them introduce a fact that at some point a star fell from the sky somewhere not too far away but not too near to be overly convenient. If nobody has such a lore background, they could seek out an augur of the stars or a great bearded serpent what watches the heavens and ask them if they've seen any fallen stars recently.

Or, if they've switched to the empire-builder stage of Exalted, and your crafter PC has made a name for themselves, they could throw a fabulous tournament for fighters across the Direction, where the entrance fee is a palm-sized piece of Starmetal and the prize is anything the contestant's heart desires, manufactured by the crafter's expertise.

The latter is what the crafter PC is my game is doing.
 
IIRC stars fall from the sky when a god dies. For a more... murdery group, manufacturing starmetal is possible.
 
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Depends on the edition. In 3e, starmetal is generated via the collective anima expenditures of every god clumping up and forming a meteor within the constellations that will eventually strike the earth. It's still extremely rare but you can no longer game the system by going on a killing spree.

Anyway, my suggestion is that, sometimes, a star can fall into an inconvenient location, delaying or driving off any Sidereals from claiming it. If it, say, lands within Lunar territory, the shadowlands domain of an Abyssal who is aware of the Sidereals, or a Fair Folk freehold, that's going to make a Sidereal think twice about just going in and getting that precious starmetal.
 
Depends on the edition. In 3e, starmetal is generated via the collective anima expenditures of every god clumping up and forming a meteor within the constellations that will eventually strike the earth. It's still extremely rare but you can no longer game the system by going on a killing spree.

Anyway, my suggestion is that, sometimes, a star can fall into an inconvenient location, delaying or driving off any Sidereals from claiming it. If it, say, lands within Lunar territory, the shadowlands domain of an Abyssal who is aware of the Sidereals, or a Fair Folk freehold, that's going to make a Sidereal think twice about just going in and getting that precious starmetal.
Oh neat I didn't know that had changed. That actually sounds really cool.
 
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I always scratch my head at the weird Devil-Tiger shit in 2e. I've never been interested in stories where the goal is to become less human in Exalted since the drama is "oh you're human but what you do as an individual actually matters and you can do shit on your own" so the whole concept of becoming, I dunno, a new Primordial of the concept of Me comes off as wanky and dull. Then again, I really have never been interested in Infernals period, so maybe I just don't get the draw.

Like in general the whole 2e paradigm of Infernals having their Yozi's charms just makes it seem like you're either stuck LARPing as Malfeas/Adorjan/etc., doing weird shit that comes off as meta-game stuff to get around the restrictions of having your charms only work if you act like an inhuman being, or you wait until Essence 6 and suddenly you can just do your own thing.
 
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I always scratch my head at the weird Devil-Tiger shit in 2e. I've never been interested in stories where the goal is to become less human in Exalted since the drama is "oh you're human but what you do as an individual actually matters and you can do shit on your own" so the whole concept of becoming, I dunno, a new Primordial of the concept of Me comes off as wanky and dull. Then again, I really have never been interested in Infernals period, so maybe I just don't get the draw.

Like in general the whole 2e paradigm of Infernals having their Yozi's charms just makes it seem like you're either stuck LARPing as Malfeas/Adorjan/etc., doing weird shit that comes off as meta-game stuff to get around the restrictions of having your charms only work if you act like an inhuman being, or you wait until Essence 6 and suddenly you can just do your own thing.
Speaking as someone on the other side of it, who finds Infernal really cool but doesn't see the appeal in Solars, I think it's just that different splats are about playing into different flavors of power fantasy, that have a fundamentally different appeal to different folks. In the case of Infernals, I've read that the transhumanist fantasy is a big part of it, and that take feels about right to me. In which case the Devil-Tigers serve as basically a capstone to that fantasy.

That said, yeah, the Devil-Tiger mechanics have major problems that have been discussed before, the core of which is that it's massively hindered by being bolted on as an endgame thing that came out of nowhere, rather than something players can build towards for most or even all of their campaign with that character.
 
It's less "LARPing as Yozi" and more "I draw power from this philosophy/entity." Malfeas is Might=Rulership, Adorjan is Love=Pain/Freedom=Joy=Uncaring^3, and so on.

Or my personal favorite, "I no longer need to sleep because I sorta gave up the ability to sleep. I mean, I can, but it's not really SLEEPING so much as my mind tumbling through non-euclidean nightmares while I try to such motes from the architecture."

And while the transhumanism of Infernals is a definite theme, what are you talking about? "oh you're human but what you do as an individual actually matters and you can do shit on your own" ?

A solar can STAND UPSIDE DOWN AND HIT PEOPLE WITH STICKS, or RUN ALONG SNOWFLAKES IN THE MIDDLE OF DRIFTING DOWN. They can leap over mountains, shriek so loud a person's bones break, and create LEGIONS of people out of wild magic! They aren't "human beings" so much as "human-themed flesh-containers for avatars of the Sun's Might," and they're the focus of the game! And Terrestrials have "dragon" in their Exalt-type name! AND LUNARS ARE ANIMAL-PEOPLE AS MUCH AS FACE-STEALERS! OR TREES AND RIVERS!

I mean, if you want to play a mortal with Supernatural Martial Arts or Sorcery or Destiny 5, you can. But it's not what the game is about; the game is about people with power and what they do with it. The fact that they're rooted in their past humanity (before Exaltation) and are largely concerned with humans as 'their people' (barring Sidereals, who hang out in Yu Shan with the gods in their many, many inhuman form) doesn't mean that they're intrinsically 'human.' That there's a splat that allows lovers of, say, Pact's (by Wildbow) bogeyman, who give up their humanity (don't want to eat? NEVER EAT AGAIN!) to sorta mimic those free trade-aways (Don't want to eat? EAT THIS ROCK INSTEAD! STAB A COW TO DEATH! Don't want to breathe? BREATH IN THESE BODIES! Don't want to sleep? SLEEP BY RUNNING/SWIMMING IN A SEA!/HAVING NIGHTMARES IF YOU DO!) never really bothered me, especially since it's nice to explore transhumanism from time to time. (I actually really love alien or flavorful stuff- there's a reason "Death By Obsidian Butterflies" draws me to Exalted over D&D's "cloudkill") Hell, is there a problem with Abyssals, another "obvious villains" splat, and their ability to wander around as corpses or command armies by falling into a coma?

When it comes down to it, demons in Exalted have always been more interesting than "imp from the pit," and Solars can summon them easily. People were always going to be interested in playable demon-beings on the level of the PCs.

Hell, let's ignore the fact that Infernals are designed to lose to Holy even harder than Abyssals, given TED's perfect defense. What I can't understand (and I genuinely mean this; I'm not trying to make a point so much as lay my cards on the table and figure out where you're coming from) is why Infernals are bad for being "transhuman" when there are rules for playing RAKSHA. (Who, given their absurd stats, are the Fighter to a Celestial Exalt's CoDzilla; once the motes run out, their lack of perfects stop mattering, and they have enough 'weird' 'become a landscape'-style charms (make a body double, make easy minions, easy wealth, etc) to matter in a Celestial Exalt game.) Why is playing a living story/eldritch horror/weird amoral elf person treated as "underpowered" where infernals are bashed as "bad design, and irrelevant to Exalted to begin with?" Is it because infernals are new special snowflakes? Is it because of the Terrestrial-Celestial-Solaroid tier? Is it because of their design (ignoring some of the fluff, I loved the charm design, and found the chapter incredibly evocative)? Why is it bad to be "transhuman" in Exalted? THAT'S THE BASIC PREMISE!


Edit: Ninja'd. And, yeah, I'll acknowledge the Endgame as tacked-on. Still, they do need one, and Abyssals have their own (which, unlike freeing the Yozis, doesn't matter as to whether it'll work, since they'd have to KILL EVERYTHING to test their 'theory')

And transhumanism - having enforced side-effects for ignoring sleep, for instance - can be interesting to explore. It's certainly better than Solars, who have "spend energy to ignore sleep" with only Insanity as their cost. With devil-tigers as a possible endgame, since low-essence solars and infernals can still design their own charms, Yozi or otherwise; devil-tiger-hood is immortality and choosing what parts of you, as a character, are your core and focus, what you're transcending humanity to become, or what parts of your humanity you're embracing to the utmost. "Giving up" death, and the enforced need-for-a-legacy, in exchange for infinite time and potential. Giving up sleep, to allow for utmost focus, for an uninterrupted consciousness that doesn't die a lesser death with every nap, only changing and evolving, 'dying' in the sense of no longer being a past self. Giving up the need for something, gaining something else, choosing what is important and not... something that, I think, many of us wish we could do, or maybe even hope for, depending on our ideals.

Hell, my avatar is a dragon made out of spacetime! I want wings and the ability to breath fire-that-heals-paradoxes, damn it, and needing a bigger house is a price I'm willing to pay! (Partial joke, since tech, but immortality would be nice. Exploring the issues of real life is part of what games and stories are about- especially if we can't, yet or ever, IRL)
 
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I always scratch my head at the weird Devil-Tiger shit in 2e. I've never been interested in stories where the goal is to become less human in Exalted since the drama is "oh you're human but what you do as an individual actually matters and you can do shit on your own" so the whole concept of becoming, I dunno, a new Primordial of the concept of Me comes off as wanky and dull. Then again, I really have never been interested in Infernals period, so maybe I just don't get the draw.

Like in general the whole 2e paradigm of Infernals having their Yozi's charms just makes it seem like you're either stuck LARPing as Malfeas/Adorjan/etc., doing weird shit that comes off as meta-game stuff to get around the restrictions of having your charms only work if you act like an inhuman being, or you wait until Essence 6 and suddenly you can just do your own thing.
I was onboard for grabbing control of your exaltation and certain conversations with Morke may have shaped what was in Broken Winged Crane.

My Infernal had a particularly antagonistic relationship with the Ebon Dragon and his way of getting under her skin was to treat her like his daughter. All that morality was just something she'd outgrow as she gained in power and delved deeper into his charms and that she'd see his side of things eventually. It wasn't about becoming a Primordial for me but a sort of Infernal redemption path without becoming a Solar.
 
Something I tend to do is to never have the Yozi directly talk with any of the infernals (With rare exceptions here and there, basically how one would handle the maidens interacting with sidereals) . Yeah they can be fun characters, but third circle demons are way better methods of interaction towards infernals rather than Yozi.
 
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Something I tend to do is to never have the Yozi directly talk with any of the infernals (With rare exceptions here and there, basically how one would handle the maidens interacting with sidereals) . Yeah they can be fun characters, but third circle demons are way better methods of interaction towards infernals rather than Yozi.

I agree! The Yozis are unknowable and vast beings, and Exalts will probably find their Third Circle Souls much easier to interact with.

That said, if one did wish to interact with a Yozi directly, my friend Zaleramancer suggested that the interaction ought to play out in a strange psychodrama, like a Chuubos ritual. To illustrate his point, he wrote this:

SEEKING THE DESERT'S WISDOM

There is a desert that has devoured time and consumed space. There is a desert so vast in its enormitude that the mere scope of it shames the gods into their rightful places. The queen of the desert is the name of the titan who embodies it. Her flesh is this silver sand; her bones the unbroken stone beneath. This is her philosophy and law made manifest; this is her place of absolute dominion.

You survive here only by her will.

Time and space touch you here only by her will.

The oasis is ever distant in this wasteland; all you can eat is made of praise to her.

To speak with the endless desert you must kill six and sixty lawbreakers; rebels to their betters; deserters to causes; blasphemers to the gods of gods. You must lay their corpses, one by one, in a place where nothing should be able to live.

And in this place you will fall to your knees; speak your question in desperate prayer; and… the ritual begins.

Beginning with the GM, each player other than the petitioner takes one of the following ritual actions:
  • Describe how the silver sand is whipped up by unfelt winds. The petitioner describes how it swirls around them and forms the shapes of their dreams and desires.
  • Describe how the petitioner waits as hours turn into days turn into years. Describe how long they walk trying to find a way home. The petitioner describes the mirage they see just out of reach.
  • Describe how silver sand, prayers and flakes of dark amber fall from the petitioner's mouth. The petitioner tells us what they pray for.
  • Describe how strips of tanned leather inscribed with cuneiform spool out from beneath the corpses, and then stretch out to infinity. The petitioner tells us what they fear the words say.
  • Describe how the horizon falls away into an infinite abyss; how the sky is a uniform azure blue; how there is green light but no sun. The petitioner tells us what is torn away from them by the growing endlessness.
  • Describe a danger that threatens to destroy the petitioner; describe how suddenly, there was a miracle and they were saved. The petitioner tells us what they sacrifice in return.
  • Describe the sound of distant locusts; the darkness in the sky. The petitioner tells us how long it's been since they've eaten.
  • Describe a battle between a scorpion and a serpent. The petitioner tells us which of them wins; tells us which of the animals they hope represents them.
Once every player has spoken at least once; no more than three times, then the ritual changes. The GM describes how more and more of the world is replaced by endless sand and heat and desert creatures. A thousand whispered prayers rise up around you and your blood feels like the venom of a thousand serpents. The chorus rises and you… hear the commandments of the endless hierophant.

Each of the players besides the petitioner may select one of the following:
  • The answer is something you want to hear, but the cost is so high.
  • The answer is easy to understand, but it reveals a terrible truth.
  • The answer is easy to actualize, but forbidden by the laws of heaven and hell.
  • Your heart's deepest wish can be granted, but if you accept you will never truly escape the sand.
  • You have broken the laws of heaven, but the desert can give you the power to survive.
Once at least one player has selected a response, then the ritual comes to a close.

You awaken in a pile of desiccated corpses. Rivulets of silver sand pour from their mouths and form a complex mandala with you at the center. You hurt. You feel so dry, so hungry, so small. You are too unfathomably small to be real.

What did the desert take from you? The petitioner chooses one:
  • In my prayers, I cannot speak the names of any god save her.
  • In my dreams, I wander her wastes even now.
  • In my words, I cannot help but condemn the excesses of the traitor gods.
  • In my actions, I cannot help myself but to uphold her laws.
Once you awaken and witness your loss, you and the other players must work to interpret what the desert's answer to your question really was. Look at what her commandments were; choose a course of action the petitioner and others feel excited for.

And remember, the will of the desert is absolute; the answers she gives are always real paths forward. But they are never without trial, price or danger.

She is with you now, in dry winds and sand like fine silver and the sting of the serpent in your heart. Your vast, all-encompassing, inescapable queen and messiah. Speak: Holy, Holy! Praise to the highest! Praise to the heart of all law!
 
I guess it's worth bringing up that from what the 3e devs have said so far, the focus is moving away from the primordials, in line with what @MiracleGrow outlined in a sense.

"Subservient" isn't really the right term for Abyssals. They're the right hand of the Deathlords, not slaves. Infernals have a different relationship with the Yozis, because a Deathlord is capable of essentially human interaction in ways that Yozis really aren't.

> Any direct communion you have with a Yozi as an Infernal is going to be a transcendent, numinous experience. Profoundly spiritually meaningful, but not good for communicating concrete goals about what the Yozi wants. If you want to serve a Yozi's will, you're going to have to go to its Third and Second Circle souls to get a concrete expression of what they want you to do.
That's from Vance, though I imagine this is already familiar to most of you.
 
I agree! The Yozis are unknowable and vast beings, and Exalts will probably find their Third Circle Souls much easier to interact with.

That said, if one did wish to interact with a Yozi directly, my friend Zaleramancer suggested that the interaction ought to play out in a strange psychodrama, like a Chuubos ritual.
There's a thought!

I think I'd probably use a Transition rather than a Ritual, though.

For non-Chuubo's players in the audience, Rituals and Transitions are how Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine handles stuff that doesn't translate well to the tabletop format, like montages, stock footage, magical girl transformation sequences, spiritual visitations, etc.

A Ritual works as KymmeSeventh describes above: the ordinary process of play stops, in favor of sort of round-robin formalized improv exercise.

A Transition likewise breaks the ordinary flow of play, but instead of the interactive back-and-forth, in a Transition, the HG/GM/Storyteller reads a bit of thematic poetry -

then there is a pause -

and then play resumes.

The idea with both of these is to elide the actual situation - so instead of the Storyteller having to actually ... have the Yozi speak, or whatever, the whole thing is safely hidden behind a veil of poetry which conveys the overall experience of this profound and confusing spiritual moment without having to actually try and RP that at the table.

So, anyway, I guess I'd handle "a player wants to speak to a Yozi" something like -

The Infernal expresses the intent to ...speak? to the Silent Wind. They consult with omen clocks and such to find a layer that Adorjan is currently happening to. Ordinary play continues, as they journey to this layer, fight through the throng of fleeing demons, see the pitiful efforts of chimes and bells fail in the face of Adorjan's coming -

and then there is Silence.

Play stops.

The Storyteller reads a bit of poetry - maybe they found some vaguely-appropriate poem in a book or on the web or something; maybe they wrote one themselves, whichever works. Something which expresses, in some fashion, the experience - of standing before something vast and strange and alien, of drawing the attention of Adorjan. Of her emptiness, all ties cut away without care. Of how that's a lie, of how she hates and loves with such passion, and how her hatred is so much safer than her love.

Possibly some wind imagery for good measure.

There's a pause.

And then Adorjan has left. Play resumes. The Infernal is - left bloodied and scarred? Hypersensitized to sound, or unable to speak? Maybe they get to learn an Adorjan charm without the training time, whatever, these are all details to be worked out at the actual table.

The point is, play resumes on the other side of the meeting. Adorjan does not appear 'on screen'. The players, and probably the character, don't know quite what happened in the middle there. It remains a strange and numinous mystery.
 
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That's quite a bit more thought into it than what I did. When describing TED flying over the city. The dark blobs of darkness giving rise to first circle demons, the silent screams of those taken by darkness, and the horn that slowly but surely wraps its fingers around your heart and mind. But that is not all what TED does upon this world, sometimes he speaks. But more often, he laughs to himself. A deep thunderous roar like laugh that echoes across the demon city. Cause ya see, Ted got plans. More plans than he knows what to do with, so many that even he tends to forget them. But when thinking upon a particularly dastardly deed that he wishes out, he can't help but laugh of thinking of that possible future.

A good description for someone who rolled 7 success on a demon lore roll. Which I than played the sound of his laugh over my laptop, causing every single of my players to tell me to go fuck myself in unison. Anyways after that little prank I did voice it out, but evil laughs are hard as shit yo.
 
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There's a thought!

I think I'd probably use a Transition rather than a Ritual, though.

~~~cool shit~~~

The point is, play resumes on the other side of the meeting. Adorjan does not appear 'on screen'. The players, and probably the character, don't know quite what happened in the middle there. It remains a strange and numinous mystery.

That's a really interesting way to do it, and can work really well! I think having some moments or scenes occur 'offscreen' is actually a really good idea, and in my game there have been a few moments where we've left scenes ambiguous in that way.

This has my mind racing about what kinds of poetic interludes might suit the Yozis and other numinous beings in Creation. I feel like I'd give Adorjan Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

That's quite a bit more thought into it than what I did. When describing TED flying over the city. The dark blobs of darkness giving rise to first circle demons, the silent screams of those taken by darkness, and the horn that slowly but surely wraps its fingers around your heart and mind. But that is not all what TED does upon this world, sometimes he speaks. But more often, he laughs to himself. A deep thunderous roar like laugh that echoes across the demon city. Cause ya see, Ted got plans. More plans than he knows what to do with, so many that even he tends to forget them. But when thinking upon a particularly dastardly deed that he wishes out, he can't help but laugh of thinking of that possible future.

A good description for someone who rolled 7 success on a demon lore roll. Which I than played the sound of his laugh over my laptop, causing every single of my players to tell me to go fuck myself in unison. Anyways after that little prank I did voice it out, but evil laughs are hard as shit yo.

Yeah, 'Big Snake What Flies Across the Demon City' menacingly, is pretty much exactly what I did in my first Exalted game when my players were in Malfeas. There as a big chase sequence and they ducked into his shadow to escape their foes for a little while. They were certainly menaced, but I'm not sure I'd do the same thing again were such a situation to arise.

I agree that evil laughter is hard to do right.
 
Anyways, my solar game finished up today. We kind of agreed that it would be a good stopping point. They stole a warstrider, killed three separate wyld hunts, and did a bunch of other shit. So we agreed on the next campaign I'm running for them is another DB game. This time set in Yu-Shan. Players voted on that since their last DB game spent a lot of time in hell, so they think this would be a fun idea.

Kind of need ideas for some fun plot stuff though.
 
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Anyways, my solar game finished up today. We kind of agreed that it would be a good stopping point. They stole a warstrider, killed three separate wyld hunts, and did a bunch of other shit. So we agreed on the next campaign I'm running for them is another DB game. This time set in Yu-Shan. Players voted on that since their last DB game spent a lot of time in hell, so they think this would be a fun idea.

Kind of need ideas for some fun plot stuff though.
Do a bureacratic hell scene where people are driven back and forth between uncaring bureacrats who tell them that they have the wrong form but make it more wuxia. Make up ridiculous requirements to file requests and make them go on quests to achieve those requirements. If they don't have to fistfight a god or two to steal their special ink or acquire blackmail to wrangle a signature you're not being over-the-top enough. The key is to make the characters feel worn down and frustrated while making the players feel amused.
 
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Anyways, my solar game finished up today. We kind of agreed that it would be a good stopping point. They stole a warstrider, killed three separate wyld hunts, and did a bunch of other shit. So we agreed on the next campaign I'm running for them is another DB game. This time set in Yu-Shan. Players voted on that since their last DB game spent a lot of time in hell, so they think this would be a fun idea.

Kind of need ideas for some fun plot stuff though.
Heavens Dragons are neat in that they occupy the slum part of Yu-Shan you typically don't see in Sidereal games, their enclaves are a great place to have a story like Kung Fu Hustle where an extended family group might become the target of divine racketeers.
 
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