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[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Randino Treviani said:
My personal take on Idelle is that she's struggling with the fact that Ambraea, who protects Amiti from the broader consequences of her actions and has personally wronged her in the name of doing so, as well as aiding her lover and hearthmate in concealing her part in a murder, is ultimately accomplishing more good for the realm and vanquishing the evils that threaten it than Idelle has.
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She just thinks that Ambraea is a bad person whose good deeds do not make up for them, and worries that she is going to continue to do bad things in the same way as she has been as she gets older.
 
[x] Instructor First Light
[x] Simendor Deizil and Mnemon Keric

Deizil because... it's Deizil. I wanna see more of him. First Light is the one who bluntly told Ambraea about how she might need to adapt her plans and intentions because she's not guaranteed to get given her own Great House, and instead she'll have to meld into existing power structures.

I think Ambraea needs to hear from First Light a lot more than she needs to hear from Bhagwei.
 
[X] Dominie Ragara Bhagwei
[X] Simendor Deizil and Mnemon Keric

Gotta say I feel for Idelle. Not a single thing she said was wrong, any more than she was wrong to want to tell the instructors about Amiti's little indiscretion (I love you, Amiti, but you're a menace to everything around you) way back when. And people may want to write her off as unrealistic and rigid, but there's no shame in holding to your morals; there's certainly shame in ditching them. She's just gotta be a lot smarter about how she puts those beliefs into action.

And yeah, wow. Ambraea and Sola both are just determined to rack up some enduring grudges before they leave, aren't they? Stress will do that to you, I suppose.
 
VagueZ said:
First Light is the one who bluntly told Ambraea about how she might need to adapt her plans and intentions because she's not guaranteed to get given her own Great House, and instead she'll have to meld into existing power structures.

I think Ambraea needs to hear from First Light a lot more than she needs to hear from Bhagwei.
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My take is that Ambraea already heard from first light, and she just spoke aloud uncomfortable truths Ambraea was already somewhat aware of. The person Ambraea hasn't heard from is Ragara Bhagwei.

As a far more established individual of the realm who, unlike first light, actually practices the stratagem of being loosy tied to a major house while operating somewhat separate from it in his capacity as a practitioner of sorcery, he has a good perspective from which to share wisdom with Ambraea and likely a longer tenure in the position as a instructor of sorcery granting him more experience providing advice to young houseless graduates uncertain of what course of action to take after graduation. First light no doubt has experience as well, but she likely has less.
 
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[X] Dominie Ragara Bhagwei

Might as well build up those connections while we still can.
 
Oooof that was one tense chapter. Honestly... I understand Idelle.

She may be a little excessively self-righteous but she illustrates something important that has mostly existed in the periphery of this quest due to its focus on Ambraea and our own tendency to prioritize personal relations: The Realm is a horrible empire that encourages a horrible hierarchy that produces horrible people. Sure, like we have seen here, Dynasts can love each other, protect each other, do good in favor of others, feel bad in the face of injustice, and in general develop their own system of ethics. But it's all filtered through the hypocrisy and self serving unawareness that is encouraged amongst them to sustain the bloody status quo.

In a sense, Idelle is a great foil to Ambraea: both have foreign fathers influencing both their upbringing and the way they are treated by their peers, and experienced great pressures due to the circumstances of their birth. But while Ambraea internalized those pressures into a conviction to make use of that status quo and the resources it avails her to one-sidedly get the best outcome for herself and those she loves (and thus, never really cast away the cultivated unawareness of her treatment of others); Idelle spent her whole life bristling under that same status quo, making compromises and twisting herself into the shapes she thinks will finally, finally make her strong morals fit the system that produced her (and thus give her a place to belong) and being unable to ignore the turmoil and discomfort it causes her to witness that hypocrisy in others.

All this to say, while I was on team Dragon of Smoke and Flame, I am really liking the possibilities that arise from having her as this kind of potential antagonist.

also I want to make Hylo swallow his glasses so so so much lmao you DON'T say that about someone's mom

VagueZ said:
First Light is the one who bluntly told Ambraea about how she might need to adapt her plans and intentions because she's not guaranteed to get given her own Great House, and instead she'll have to meld into existing power structures.

I think Ambraea needs to hear from First Light a lot more than she needs to hear from Bhagwei.
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Agreed! I really want a chance to bookend that first conversation, because it ended up being really prophetic, even if not in the way First Light intended it, and it feels like it would play on the conflicts that were illuminated in this post: Ambraea still faced her conflict with her usual bulldozing approach even after a whole school year of the effects of her mother's disappearance.

And of course, we need to give a chance to clear the air with Deizil one last time before school ends (plus Keric being there means we get a peek into the Mnemon side of things, which aside from Rulinsei has mostly passed right by us)

[x] Instructor First Light
[x] Simendor Deizil and Mnemon Keric

Also, are we gonna get a chance to get more snek? that's the only item in our goals list we are missing!
 
[X] Dominie Ragara Bhagwei
[X] Instructor First Light

I don't want to know what disaster could happen in the world to make Deizil's words memorable.
 
Ambraea and her Hearthmates are out here making enemies instead of friends and it's really not going to end well once they're out of school, not that I blame Sola for reacting like that. It feels like Hylo courts death every time he opens his mouth.

With the talk to Diamond-Cut Perfection coming up, I can't help but wonder if Ambraea will be able to afford to hold up their bargain.

[x] Instructor First Light
[x] Simendor Deizil and Mnemon Keric
 
[X] Dominie Ragara Bhagwei

They can bond over their shared aversion to social shenanigans.
 
soranoyume said:
With the talk to Diamond-Cut Perfection coming up, I can't help but wonder if Ambraea will be able to afford to hold up their bargain.
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I don't see why not. Nothing specific was agreed to. The agreement was knowledge for favours, with an undertone of perfection hoping for someone well placed, and while Ambraea is not so well placed as she might have been if she had graduated the daughter of a present and still ruling empress, she is an accomplished and useful exalted with not insubstantial ties to two great house and a hearth of two sorceresses.
 
Randino Treviani said:
I don't see why not. Nothing specific was agreed to. The agreement was knowledge for favours, with an undertone of perfection hoping for someone well placed, and while Ambraea is not so well placed as she might have been if she had graduated the daughter of a present and still ruling empress, she is an accomplished and useful exalted with not insubstantial ties to two great house and a hearth of two sorceresses.
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They *could* feel entitled to make Ambraea more indebted to them or make further demands now that she may have to lean further into their support than viceversa but I don't think they would like... retaliate or cut ties or sth, he still has much to gain from her status as an Imperial daughter sorceress (plus there's that demesne that was gifted to her which they could like as a summer house lol)
 
HBInquirer said:
Oooof that was one tense chapter. Honestly... I understand Idelle.

She may be a little excessively self-righteous but she illustrates something important that has mostly existed in the periphery of this quest due to its focus on Ambraea and our own tendency to prioritize personal relations: The Realm is a horrible empire that encourages a horrible hierarchy that produces horrible people. Sure, like we have seen here, Dynasts can love each other, protect each other, do good in favor of others, feel bad in the face of injustice, and in general develop their own system of ethics. But it's all filtered through the hypocrisy and self serving unawareness that is encouraged amongst them to sustain the bloody status quo.

In a sense, Idelle is a great foil to Ambraea: both have foreign fathers influencing both their upbringing and the way they are treated by their peers, and experienced great pressures due to the circumstances of their birth. But while Ambraea internalized those pressures into a conviction to make use of that status quo and the resources it avails her to one-sidedly get the best outcome for herself and those she loves (and thus, never really cast away the cultivated unawareness of her treatment of others); Idelle spent her whole life bristling under that same status quo, making compromises and twisting herself into the shapes she thinks will finally, finally make her strong morals fit the system that produced her (and thus give her a place to belong) and being unable to ignore the turmoil and discomfort it causes her to witness that hypocrisy in others.

All this to say, while I was on team Dragon of Smoke and Flame, I am really liking the possibilities that arise from having her as this kind of potential antagonist.
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Pretty much this. Idelle serves to highlight that while the Realm is far from the worst polity in Creation at the moment (and many of the groups that PCs routinely back are no better/worse) that doesn't change that is is indeed horrible and that much of that is a side effect of both the Scarlet Empresses need to play her children against each other. The fact that the Realm both works alongside and struggles against the Sidereals only adds to the problems (even before adding in everything tied up in the SE's disappearance).
 
Idelle is very sincerely religious, and takes the values espoused by the Immaculate Order seriously. That a Prince of the Earth should look after those beneath them and shield mortals from the supernatural, should fight the evils of the world, should be strong but temperant, kind but authoratative. And like, she doesn't embody those virtues perfectly -- no one does -- but she is brave, honest, filial, and tries to hold true to her convictions even when they're deeply inconvenient.

These are traits that the Scarlet Dynasty genuinely prizes, they're traits that are considered heroic and valuable. The Great Houses, on one hand, will teach their daughters that they want them to be this way. On the other hand, most of the Great Houses also at some point want you to be able to put away these virtues when they're inconvenient, to engage in mundane corruption or the brutalities of war, to look the other way on certain kinds of lawbreaking or about petty injustices, to put the house's needs first over what may feel morally right. All of these things are true at once. The things that the Dynasty demands of its scions are messy and sometimes contradictory, although I don't think that hypocrisy or moral compromise is unique to the Realm.

House Ledaal in particular, though, collectively view themselves as like, the hard women making hard decisions to keep the Realm safe from Anathema and the dead and other dark forces. The only ones out of the houses who are willing to make the important sacrifices necessary to make that happen, who will get their hands dirty in the name of achieving a greater good, who claim to prioritise fighting their "Shadow Crusade" over petty house politics and social maneuvering. Sometimes you have to give up personal virtue as a luxury, when you're adopting that mindset.

Sometimes it almost seems like the Dynasty, for all the wealth and privilege and staggering luxury that it showers on its scions, is not a very healthy environment to grow up in 🤔
 
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Randino Treviani said:
I don't see why not. Nothing specific was agreed to. The agreement was knowledge for favours, with an undertone of perfection hoping for someone well placed, and while Ambraea is not so well placed as she might have been if she had graduated the daughter of a present and still ruling empress, she is an accomplished and useful exalted with not insubstantial ties to two great house and a hearth of two sorceresses.
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Part of the bargain is that Ambraea buries gems for power, right? Without a set source of income and no backer (for now) and--as she is painfully finding out--no real social standing, I don't know how useful they would view Ambraea as.
 
soranoyume said:
Part of the bargain is that Ambraea buries gems for power, right? Without a set source of income and no backer (for now) and--as she is painfully finding out--no real social standing, I don't know how useful they would view Ambraea as.
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Even in the absence of her mother Ambraea has still has the demesne bequeathed to her before the empress disappeared which has a great wealth of Gems in the ravine below it, and ties to Sesus who has significant sway in the area and force of arms, and good sense to understand the strategic value in controlling a set of dragon lines. gems won't be an issue, before the wealth Ambraea is easily capable of accumulating as an accomplished Anathema slayer and sorceress with expertise in elementals and skilled in rarer forms of combat magic.
Gazetteer said:
A demesne is a wellspring of geomantic power created by a confluence of the dragon lines that run through the ground beneath Creation. Most are aspected toward one of the five elements, with a rare handful instead brimming with the otherworldly Essence of the Sun, the Moon, or the Stars.

Yours is an elemental demesne. At first, it's deceptively normal looking. A patch of scrubby foothill covered in rocks, grass, and hardy flowers. A tiny road winds through them toward a small canyon. As soon as you set foot in it, however, you feel the magic in the air, wild and untamed.

The canyon is lined with fantastical caverns formed naturally into the stone, each a riot of pale purple crystals. It looks like nothing quite so much as a series of massive geodes, split apart all at once by a giant's chisel.

"It's beautiful," you say, watching the noonday sun play off of the crystals.
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