- Location
- Texas
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
The Centipede's Dilemma [Exalted Kung Fu Quest]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That flashback segment was genuinely, really difficult to read -- it's deeply unsettling to think about someone's entire self-image being forcefully destroyed while they know what's happening but can't actually stop it. It wrings out a lot of sympathy for a character who spends most of her word count being a huge jerk.
[x] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
I am a woman of simple but trashy tastes.
[x] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
I am a woman of simple but trashy tastes.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oddly enough, this isn't entirely true. Arms of the Chosen, page 120.
[x] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
TenMoreMiles
rotating 梅长苏 in my head 24/7
- Pronouns
- It/Its
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Okay, I am not well versed in Exalted mechanics, so I just need to double check something:
When Golden Road says "It did not - until today. And now - it always did happen this way. It always will have", is she speaking literally? I know that such things are possible within Exalted mechanics, but at the same time Soul-Scarring Embrace is only noted to create a traumatic vision which I assume means the effect is "only" mental.
When Golden Road says "It did not - until today. And now - it always did happen this way. It always will have", is she speaking literally? I know that such things are possible within Exalted mechanics, but at the same time Soul-Scarring Embrace is only noted to create a traumatic vision which I assume means the effect is "only" mental.
- Location
- Elsewhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Golden Road did not reach back in time to change the events that took place. That would actually be a violation of one of the few hard rules of the setting. She "merely" changed the memories of one person, even then not fully.
Clearly our victim is still aware of the true course of action or at least of the fact that the memories were changed. But that doesn't change the ultimate impact of the changes.
- Location
- Canada
Exalted is a world where very few things are truly impossible, particularly for the titular Exalted who were designed to achieve the supposedly impossible
But there are very notable exceptions to this, things that flat out cannot happen no matter what
True Resurrection does not exist, you can bring someone back from the brink of death, you can reincarnate, but there is no truly bringing someone back once they've died
Time Travel does not exist, you can't change events that have already occurred, you can absolutely avert the prophesied future but there is no undoing what's already happened
There is no "De-Exalting" someone, unless "De-Exalting" is an unusual euphemism for killing them
Nothing is truly invincible, there's always a catch, some vulnerability of some kind
So long story short no, Road did not reach into Nashai's past and change what happened
Somewhere out there that merchant's remains are still decaying wherever they've been buried after Nashai beat him to death with her bare hands, just like how the Hound Goddess is still badly injured and recovering
What Road did is take away Nashai's perception of herself
Last edited:
Hampsterpig
I write stuff.
- Location
- Somewhere in my own head
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
She literally can't - goddesses are unkillable while their domains exist, barring a few very exclusive (like, effectively Exalted-only) techniques, some specifically limited artifacts, or edge-case magical BS. And snake style, something any mortal can learn, isn't strong enough Kung-Fu to kill the immortal.
Worst case scenario, she wakes up in a year with a hangover and a demotion.
Last edited:
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A side note, has someone noted: Ta-Sepa and Kegare are homebrew, but Ruvia is actually canon. Not only is he canon, he is, in theory, one of the most important and most powerful gods in all of Heaven, governing over the entire House of Journeys (as far as Mercury doesn't, anyway) as well as being the god of all roads. He is the kind of person Exalts answer to - specifically Sidereals (although their relationship is not one so simple as a straight hierarchy).
That said, he is one of the many, many characters in Exalted (especially when it comes to spirits) who is introduced in one book, given a station which should hold tremendous influence over the setting, and then never mentioned again. While the books (in prior editions, anyway) will bring up the same three Deathlords and five Exalts over and over again as movers and shakers of global geopolitics (in a premodern setting...), 99% of Heaven is treated as completely irrelevant, even gods who are explicitly noted as invested and engaged in Creation's future as opposed to reclining on their cushions drinking ambrosia.
All this to say, I'm not surprised people haven't heard of Ruvia before.
One of the key components of the Abyssal and Infernal narratives is that they are given "evil-flavored" powers, and if they wish to do good, they must often struggle with a toolbox full of violence and horrible things which they have to somehow apply to good ends.
Solars don't have that issue. Their powers are broad, and they can often choose not to engage in terrible deeds. In that sense, violence has to be a choice for them - the choice to recognize when peaceful means have failed and people have to be hurt. This is the privilege of Golden Road, to have powers that build, not just powers that twist and destroy. More than this, she can choose the degree of violence she inflicts in a way many cannot. Unlike those of her kind whose Exaltations were twisted by monstrous or dead titans, she can engage in the greatest battles without having to wield radioactive flame, or raising the bodies of her enemies' friends as undead monsters, or turning her every victim into a grotesque display of horror to strike fear in the hearts of her foes.
But, because she lives in the Age of Sorrows and in a kung fu movie, oftentimes she will have to choose to employ violence nonetheless if she wants to do good. That's the key reason behind the Hands of Ruination. They are finishing moves which she can decide not to use. She can beat people up and leave them unconscious, she doesn't have to destroy their ability to fight. But the world is full of people who have taken the martial arts and misuse them to selfish ends, and sometimes they cannot be allowed to keep that art. The Soul-Scarring Embrace is not a curse - the curse is that she chose to learn a martial art whose entire reason for existing is to punish those who have tainted the art as a whole.
It echoes the choice to be a magistrate. She has been entrusted, both by the divine powers who chose her and by her masters in the Centipede school (both entities whose righteousness will always be in question), with the ability to mete out punishment under her own cognizance. Just as a horseback judge, far away from Prasad who grants them her authority, must often trust in her own insight to decide who is innocent and who is guilty, and what degree of punishment the guilty deserve and what degree of compensation the innocent should receive.
So this is her core dilemma: to seek the wisdom to know when such violence is necessary, and the strength to wield it when wisdom says she must.
For what it's worth, it wasn't easy for me to write either, and it took me some time to work it out and decide whether that story warranted telling.
Although it is an often-repeated truism that changing the past is impossible in Exalted, it depends on what one considers "the past." The greatest and most esoteric powers might very well reshape the world such that it stands as if events had unfolded differently in every respect, even though causality itself was not broken. If you want a metaphor, the Exalted cannot unbreak a vase, but they might have the power to fix it flawlessly, or to produce an identical vase and sweep away all debris of the first so that none might tell the difference.
That said, in the case of the Soul-Scarring Embrace, you are correct. It only affects the victim's mind and memories.
It is indeed very difficult to kill a god, though their temporary "death" is still treated seriously in the setting for the same reason that someone beating you into a temporary coma would be treated seriously in the real world. It is not a pleasant experience to go through, and being out of commission can do quite a lot of harm to the domain a god should watching over, and therefore to their status and power. It's generally a good idea to not go around treating gods like FPS players who will just respawn if you stab them.
Thank you all for reading, and I am glad this update had such a positive recemption.
Okibruez
(Verified Mid-Boss)
- Location
- Dreams
As Golden Road herself has noted: That technique is super forbidden and heretical. Those sorts of techniques tend to either be user-unfriendly or extremely cruel and vile in some form. Or outright risks to the stability of reality, given the nature of an Exalted. Using it should not be the first choice Golden Road jumps to, and it's not the sort of thing we should feel good about seeing.
That is, exactly, the point, I think.
Unfortunately, this is sort of true. Due to the fact that the Exalted were created with the express purpose of destroying and actually killing beings of power equivalent to gods, there's not alot that the Celestial Bureaucracy can do to stop the strongest Anathema from barging into their homes, setting fire to the linens, smashing up the place, and stealing all the booze on the way out.
This is almost literally the thing that happened before, and the reason that the Solar and Lunar exalts were named Anathema in the first place.
That being said, the Celestial Bureaucracy is a Bureaucracy in the first place, and one modeled after the ancient Chinese Bureaucracy. So it's hide-bound traditionalist, corpulent, slow to move, slow to change, and very corrupt.
So that doesn't help either.
This is going to sound slightly ominous, but knowing yourself... how open would your muse be to criticism?
Don't get me wrong, I liked it, and I love your build up and stake setting, but there's a hollowness to this showdown that Shay vs Marrow did not have. Like, in an anime, the production values would have been higher for this fight than the preceding one, but...
Well, don't feel obliged to let me ramble, a quest and a fic have different needs, but it feels very much like the first draft of the fight (it ends like this, but I need this scene, and this showy bit here, and that cool-ass image here) and part of me is itching to talk shop about anime fight scenes.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure, go ahead.This is going to sound slightly ominous, but knowing yourself... how open would your muse be to criticism?
Don't get me wrong, I liked it, and I love your build up and stake setting, but there's a hollowness to this showdown that Shay vs Marrow did not have. Like, in an anime, the production values would have been higher for this fight than the preceding one, but...
Well, don't feel obliged to let me ramble, a quest and a fic have different needs, but it feels very much like the first draft of the fight (it ends like this, but I need this scene, and this showy bit here, and that cool-ass image here) and part of me is itching to talk shop about anime fight scenes.
Ultimately I was aware writing this fight that it lacked the emotional togetherness of the Marrow fight, but mostly I wanted cool choreography, and with Nashai and Road lacking an established relationship and being knives out for each other it left little room for real character interaction, so it suffered in that department. It was me indulging because I hadn't written an anime fight in a while
But I'd be interested in your thoughts.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just to be clear, "hard to read" in this case does not mean bad or that it's something I actively disliked. The technique that won the previous vote was the most fraught option for me personally, but, like... The text acknowledged this as a horrible thing to do to someone that is at best a grim necessity that brings no one any joy. You're not framing this in a way that's like, genuinely upsetting.
Obviously there's a balancing act, but I'm pretty firmly of the opinion that some things need to take the form of an emotional gut punch in order to actually land, and making us really feel why this is a terrible, forbidden technique is probably one of them.
Not exactly. The Celestial Bureaucracy is unlikely to care overmuch about some local bureaucrat getting the shit beaten out of them, but if you hurt their operations enough or actually barge into the palace of a major power...well, in the Age of Sorrows theres a lot more potent gods networked together than potent Exalted networked together.
Do enough damage and they might stop caring about the collateral damage of getting payback.
Or they might just keep spamming petty shit I suppose.
Sure, go ahead.
Ultimately I was aware writing this fight that it lacked the emotional togetherness of the Marrow fight, but mostly I wanted cool choreography, and with Nashai and Road lacking an established relationship and being knives out for each other it left little room for real character interaction, so it suffered in that department. It was me indulging because I hadn't written an anime fight in a while
Alright, let's get to it.
Preface: there is a terrible limitation when it comes to Exalted: from the outset, the protagonist is expected to win. This is true for most media, but it's especially pernicious in Exalted. You can't have your protagonist feel mortal and lose as much as they win: they gotta be super shounen anime all the time because they are defined in their relation to the setting - not a part of it, but in a certain sense above it. Those who prefer to play dragonblooded probably implicitly acknowledge this failing and work around it by purposefully limiting themselves to the 'weakest' exalt. One whose peers are numerous enough to form an actual working society.
Now, limitations are something to be worked around, but the fight here seemed - not phoned in, but stylistically at odds with the rest of the quest. It had to look/sound/feel a certain way because this is Exalted.
And because it has to look and feel a certain way we get this sentence:
This is an odd sentence in the context of the quest, and about what we know of Golden Road. She is a magistrate - and someone on the road to redemption. From what we're not entirely sure, but an assumption can be made about a limit break or limit break-like event.
However, this sentence seems like a betrayal on two fronts: one, it is not the role of the magistrate to lord themselves above others; two, if it is a small clue planted about her past indiscretion that got her crippled it seems... both petty and lacking. It's a sentence that luxuriates in the power-fantasy aspect of Exalted and really kind of comes out of nowhere. You can't imagine Marrow thinking it, though you could imagine Shay or Nashai doing so.
If it is Nashai's thought I'd get rid of it: it's confusingly placed and her subsequent flare of anger makes it all too clear what she thinks of Golden Road. It's unnecessarily heavy-handed.
A good shounen battle is ultimately a conversation where in there's an aspect of spectacle but also an aspect of progression. Things are heading to some sort of resolution and we learn more about the characters as it happens. With exalted and shounen in general we already know what the resolution is: the good guy wins, so it's absolutely necessary that at least one of those things be awesome, and if possible, both.
Now, Nashai is a starter boss. We can all see that. Her being a starter boss is not a bad thing. Like I said, you did an excellent job setting up stakes and building her up. We know what she is doing and why she is doing it and we know why Golden Road must stop her.
What we did not get was a sense of what Golden Road was capable of. And thus we come to what's probably the weakest part of the scene itself: the explanations. There's a rhythm to your writing that is unfortunately not the rhythm of combat, but rather a pause like a commentator explaining what just happened and then un-pausing as the scene continues. I'll call it the 'A happened because of B which allows for C'.
In an effort to be clear, you undercut the momentum of the fight. Like, I'm not going to tell you how to fix it because you're you and your quest/story is yours, but I will tell you that this is a pretty common pattern. The problem is, that because it's Golden Road's first fight it kind of sets the tone of all her subsequent fights which gotta get written in a somewhat similar manner.
Three things happened here: 1) Nashai joined her swords together, 2) she swung it at Golden Road, 3) the attack hit Golden Road.
Was it necessary for Golden Road to understand every single part of Nashai's attack here? Like, real-time, this would have taken a second. Two seconds if we did it slow-mo. This paragraph is 120 words. If you gotta have this particular image you have to figure out how to make it tighter. After all those words we don't even have a vague sense of how Golden Road felt about the attack, only that it happened.
Like, this should be a tense fight. But because we all know what will happen at the end, it kind of isn't and your combat prose for Golden Road doesn't let the spectacle of the fight play out in its full glory.
I think there's a lot of promise in this fight scene, but it kind of didn't have a direction other than 'it's gotta be cool' so it kind of just became that?
- Location
- Library
No, no, no. Boo this man. I protest.
Akhm. I know where that thing come from: the 2ed ridiculous fluff power creep. The less we say about it, the better. Third edition tries to rein it in, but the damage for the Exalted fandom is done: from "the Dragon-blooded are weak bitches of Celestials" to ignoring the fact that Ligier was supposed to take on full circle of Solars and have favorable chance to win and that Deathlords were supposed to be most powerful beings in the Creation orther than elder Celestials (100+ of experience). The Scarlet Real was supposed to dispatch quickly every Solar that reincarnated before Jade Prison broke and that only now when all of them are free and Realm is in chaos, the new Solars have breathing room at all.
The first Exalted set the power rather lower: the Solar exalted are powerful, yes, but the world is not assumed to bend over backward to make it safe for them. I mean, they do have rest: there is no Solar who will win three day running battle against mounted archers , because they do tire (this is called in the Introduction to the first ed!). The demons, dragon-blooded, Lunars, gods and deathlords are entrenched and do not tolerate growing Solar power and will challenge it. To quote:
"High and low" First Edition core rulebook p. 21 said:
Now, I know that the mechancs of the game can barely hold the themes set like that and that Second Edition conviced people that the Exalted is high, high and higher and is all about being on power level over 9000 in world of cardboard. It should not be. Exalted, especially Solar Exalted, have tools to do the impossible, but doing the impossible even for them carry great risks; this is way the Exaltation signature and first trait is respawing.
Last edited:
How do I put this...
That's nice? It doesn't change the fact no one expected Golden Road to lose here. As an author you're working with a handicap: acknowledging that no one in the audience (except possibly yourself @changeling) believes that Golden Road will lose takes the tension out of the fight. That means you need to find ways to put it back in.
Sure, Golden Road can lose: it is manifestedly possible given she lost her legs.
However, any fight whose conclusion is obvious needs to justify its screen-time and as far as I can tell this entire scene exists for one purpose: to show off the soul-scarring fist.
And, sure, okay, Nashai beat up a god. Stole their boots. Refused to break bread. Is essentially a gangster.
I'm still not 100% sure she deserved it which is kind of the point of the Soul Scarring Fist, but where the scene fails for me is that that moral conundrum isn't really present in Golden Road's thoughts or actions either. This was Glorious Solar Judgment and the entire fight was just a way of delivering it as flashily as possible.
Like, hammer away at that if you want, I'm not sure how profitable the umpteenth discussion of How Exalted the Game Should Be is given its hundreds if not thousands of incarnations without resolution.
That's nice? It doesn't change the fact no one expected Golden Road to lose here. As an author you're working with a handicap: acknowledging that no one in the audience (except possibly yourself @changeling) believes that Golden Road will lose takes the tension out of the fight. That means you need to find ways to put it back in.
Sure, Golden Road can lose: it is manifestedly possible given she lost her legs.
However, any fight whose conclusion is obvious needs to justify its screen-time and as far as I can tell this entire scene exists for one purpose: to show off the soul-scarring fist.
And, sure, okay, Nashai beat up a god. Stole their boots. Refused to break bread. Is essentially a gangster.
I'm still not 100% sure she deserved it which is kind of the point of the Soul Scarring Fist, but where the scene fails for me is that that moral conundrum isn't really present in Golden Road's thoughts or actions either. This was Glorious Solar Judgment and the entire fight was just a way of delivering it as flashily as possible.
Like, hammer away at that if you want, I'm not sure how profitable the umpteenth discussion of How Exalted the Game Should Be is given its hundreds if not thousands of incarnations without resolution.
Last edited: