So... Can we use it to pretend to be Justeaze reborn in the Fourth War and come to claim the one to become her heir (Ilya)?
In the Mind of a Green Sun Prince (Exalted/Nasuverse)
- Thread starter Walker of the Yellow Path
- Start date
I was basically joking there. Should have added a smiley I guess. Having us suggest that would make Kiritsugu distrust us like hell (for obvious reasons).
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Hmm.
"Why don't you take the appearance of someone who lives in the castle? There is an improvement to Loom-Snarling Deception that lets you assume the characteristics of any being. Wait until the ideal target is out, capture it, copy its appearance and then go back to the castle."
How can we copy an appearance, when Eldritch Secrets Mastery does not do that? It fakes magical traits, and thats it. It does not allow us to copy someones appearance. Disguises must remain of fictional characters. Or is the idea to just to make ourself look and feel like a random homunculus and hope no one notices?
Be the fictional twin of the person, or their fictional doppleganger. And we could just be a random homunculus, if it came down to that.
Does being a "fictional doppleganger" really work? I mean there is explicitly a higher essence charm who turns you into a doppleganger. Why would that exist if you could just use the loom charm and say "Oh I look and feel EXACTLY like this other guy, but I am still fictional despite being identical replica of the real person, honest!".
Eh, I guess it fits the idea of Ebon Dragon. We are cheating even on his own charms.
Whats the plan after we infiltrate the castle? Just find Ilya and walk out?
Does being a "fictional doppleganger" really work? I mean there is explicitly a higher essence charm who turns you into a doppleganger. Why would that exist if you could just use the loom charm and say "Oh I look and feel EXACTLY like this other guy, but I am still fictional despite being identical replica of the real person, honest!".
Eh, I guess it fits the idea of Ebon Dragon. We are cheating even on his own charms.
That Charm also makes you mirror the other person's abilities though, I think. This would be a doppleganger with our own abilities. I don't have the manual convenient, so I can't be sure.
Hmm, point. I guess it depends on GM how close to a real person a "fiction" can be, and I think GM of this quest has already ruled its ok.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
Basically this. Black Mirror Shintai lets you prove that you are actually who you say you are. You have information your character shouldn't know, you literally have that dudes powers and skills. For the brief time you are being their double, you ARE what they are for that time.
Alexander89
Pet the pretty kitty? Y/N
- Location
- Italy
Except with opposite Motivation, so it's more like Shadow Selves from P4.
...Wow, and now I am imagining TED dabbling in Shadows...
Yeah. Thinking about it a bit more, it seems likely that the reason for the whole "fictional person" limitation in the charm text is due to the whole destiny thing. I mean its called Loom [of fate] Snarling [looms threads] Deception. You don't just create a fake appearance. You create a fake destiny, which is a major thing since GSPs naturally exist outside fate. It even mentions how Pattern Spiders scream in horror after you end the charm. By using this, you literally hack into and modify fate itself (pretty sweet for an essence 3 charm).
So if you copied someone perfectly, you would not just be stealing their appearance, but also their very destiny, which is a bit too much for the first charm in the tree. But I guess it would be ok to look like someone else, so long as you made sure that your destiny was totally different and did not try to steal the targets destiny too.
I assume we are also taking "Essence-Dissecting Stare" (basic magic vision)? I mean we presumably need a way to perceive what the magical nature of our target looks like, so we can properly replicate it? That would presumably also reveal any magical traps and such, which would be handy to see?
Finally, would we want to suggest that Kiritsugu does something else while we are in the castle? Perhaps steal any homunculus research or whatever in the hopes of being able to better help Ilyas condition? I mean I believe she was designed from birth to be the holy grail container or somesuch (wiki says so anyway), which caused health problems? Knowing how that was done might help reverse it.
- Location
- Canada
I'm not sure about from birth, but what I do know is that the Einzbern's put her through invasive soul surgery after Kiritsugu's betrayal. the process is designed to allow her produce the maximum amount of prana possible in order to supply her Servant, and also makes her magic circuits suitable for holding the energy required to summon the greater grail. the trade-off is horrible torture preformed on an 8-year old girl (which the Einzberns don't give a damn about), and that she has at best 15 years to live after the process is complete (which they, once again, don't care).
Can we get good enough in time for the assault to murder everybody present? Except for Illya and any homunculi that would obey us/her, of course.
Cause I'm not really seeing a reason to leave them alive, and this way we'll have more time to steal all their research.
Cause I'm not really seeing a reason to leave them alive, and this way we'll have more time to steal all their research.
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
That sort of magic surgery probably takes years to complete so the sooner we rescue Ilya the better. Also I'm not sure if she's got 15 years after the surgery or one year after the 5th Holy Grail War. It's the same practical result but the causes are different. Seeing as how she was made to be the Grail being used as such might have burnt her out somehow?
- Location
- Canada
eh, its within about 2 years of the 5th that she would die, so more like ten years to live if it takes a while for them to do the process (I had my numbers off a bit). and no, being used as the grail is insta-death with no take backs. she lives for 2 years after if no-one wins or someone uses a fake grail (like Sakura) to substitute.
Well, the wiki kinda says both.
It first says this:
Implying that Ilya always had the modifications to become the grail. However Kiritsugus betrayal did piss them off, and so it also says this:
So if thats right, Ilya was modified from birth, but things got a lot harsher and crueler for her after Kiritsugu blew up the grail, as the Einzbern took out their anger on her.
Now there are lots of healing charms available to us (Cecelyne, She Who Lives In Her Name, Metagaos, Even Malfeas if you use EarthScorpions homebrew), but figured stealing all the Einzbern research could not hurt? If nothing else, we can sell it all to the highest bidder.
Easily enough I figure. Malfeas Mythos Exultant + cool stunts = lots of motes. Killing everyone also resonates with Malfeas excellency so we do everything brilliantly. Throw in the fact that Kiritsugu is already a highly experienced lethal killer, and now also an exalt that favors stealthy kills and all the caste/favored-charms we can get and I figure it can't be that hard to wipe out the entire place. Heck, we can even finish by blasting the whole place with Green Sun Wasting (Sun-Salted Fields, Gifts Of Invisible Flame).
Wiping them all out will probably get us a lot of attention though? On the other hand, they would probably come after us anyway.
Loktarogar
The Apex of Cuddling
- Location
- Brazil
Kill them all route it is then, no one will miss the Einzbern anyway.
Exactly. They can probably make another vessel, but that's immaterial in the face of their pride. Unless we deal with them decisively, they'll continue hounding Kiritsugu, potentially involving the Association if they realize how in over their head they are.
- Location
- Canada
as long as we make sure to get all of them, and do it in a way that leaves little evidence for the Muggles, we probably won't have much to worry about from the Association. The Clocktower is notoriously cutthroat, and as long as we don't expose the secret of magic, only the einzbern's closest allies will give a damn that we wiped out a fallen noble clan...
Yeah. Makes sense. The only question is how will Ilya feel about that? Does she care about the Einzberns in any way? Though we could hide the truth from her easily enough.
@Walker of the Yellow Path, will you allow us to learn Fourth-Soul Devil Domain? : The Fourth Soul - A Rewrite of the Unwoven Coadjutor
Mostly because if we had that, we could loot literally EVERYTHING and just have Kiritsugu throw it all into his soul for later sorting (sorry, cant help my looting tendencies).
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
However, if we do wipe the Einzbern of the map the Clocktower will care that there's a new player on the field with a massive amount of power and is willing to use it. And if the Clocktower knows it then the Dead Apostle Ancestors will know it too. They won't want us disrupting the balance of power and will hunt us down or at least investigate us. So while it's true no one will care about the Einzbern's personally, if we blow up their castle people will care in the political sense. It's probably a better Idea to rescue her in away that could be passed of as Kiritsugu's ussual Mage Killer Modus Operandi.
She hates them. At least she hates them after they torture her for years and twist her mind against Kiritsugu. Right now she doesn't care either way so long as she has her daddy. She'll be sad her mom's dead though.
On the other hand, no one needs to know who it was? I mean we are going in disguised so well that both magical detection and fate itself have no clue who it actually is? So if we kill everyone in a way that no one would attribute to the Mage Killer, then no one will realise it was Kiritsugu? They will know someone wiped out the Einzbern, but any attempt to find out who it was will fail miserably. No one knows we are an exalt, and so no one would attribute this to Kiritsugu?
Heck, we could even frame someone else if we wanted to? Take the appearance of someone like say Zouken Matou and "accidentally" allow ourself to be seen in the surrounding towns just before the massacre.
We can disguise Ilya without too much trouble. I think theres a Cecelyne charm that allows you to grant mutations via wishes, and one such mutation is cosmetic changes. Change the color of hair and eyes and no one will make the connection. Heck, Malfeas also allows that if we get by rage recast.
Its possible to wipe them all out, get everything valuable, and then go into hiding until the heat dies down.
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
From an OOC stand point disguising as Zouken is a bad idea. If he gets punished for this Sakura'll get wraped up in it. I'm not familiar with Exalted so I'm not sure how easy it is to disguise ourselves and how complete the disguise would be. I'm just saying that we should be careful not to get the Dead Apostle Ancestors to send Primate Murder after us for being too powerful.
- Location
- Canada
actually, I think we could pull this off without screwing over Sakura if we do this fast. Sakura wasn't being subjected to the Makiri training methods until a while after the war, if we screw things over for zouken, maybe drop some hints to Rin (she is the second owner, even if she is 8), and we might be able to do this in a way that zouken gets slammed and Sakura goes back to her sister...
or it could go much, much worse. still, Sakura's soul surgery mods were worse than Illya's, so I kinda want to prevent that...
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
Ok, but how do we get Kiritsugu to care about that in-character?
Are we human enough for Primate Murder to exercise its advantage, - whatever that is, - over us though? Not that it (and the rest of DAAs) isn't horrifically dangerous anyway.