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A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest

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Hexxart said:
I love how the author makes it a circle of violence. The Wyld Hunt is a constant threat to the other Exalted so they look for ways to strike back. The Dragon-Blood's biggest advantages are the infrastructure and bureaucracies they have built up over the centuries, but trying to destroy those inevitably results in mass causalities. Which in turn reinforces the need for Wyld Hunts in the first place. no one ges to have clean hands, everyone equally perpuates the cycle. It doesn't matter who threw the first punch, everyone's trapped in a war that cannot have a victor.
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When you're someone who grew up in the West, under the thumb of or the threat of the Imperial Navy and the Water Fleet, and then become a Solar and have a couple run-ins with Peleps backed Wyld Hunts, it becomes very easy to think "hurting the Water Fleet would save more lives than it would take". And also it becomes very easy not to empathise very much with, say, Clever Sparrow the dockside tailor who has lived all his life in Bittern.
 
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Yep, not helped at all by the fact the Empress has made it a personal point of pride to make the setting as shitty as possible in order to make sure she had no realistic competition for hegemony.
 
Alectai said:
Yep, not helped at all by the fact the Empress has made it a personal point of pride to make the setting as shitty as possible in order to make sure she had no realistic competition for hegemony.
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Medieval real-politic and sensibilities are a hell of a thing.
Edit: There is probably some Great Cures influence in their to but I don't want to give that too much credit.
 
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Gonna be real, I hollered for the ambush from underwater with three Water Aspects. No such thing as a cheap shot in a Wyld Hunt!

[X] A dark passage ahead, with little room to maneuver and less room for error

Where their animas glowing will stand out all the more in the thick of the tension.
 
YOLF said:
Gonna be real, I hollered for the ambush from underwater with three Water Aspects. No such thing as a cheap shot in a Wyld Hunt!

[X] A dark passage ahead, with little room to maneuver and less room for error

Where their animas glowing will stand out all the more in the thick of the tension.
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"If you're not cheating at every turn, you're not really trying to win"
 
YOLF said:
Gonna be real, I hollered for the ambush from underwater with three Water Aspects. No such thing as a cheap shot in a Wyld Hunt!
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This combination would probably genuinely work against a number of melee supernal Dawn Caste builds.

If you actually used it on a real PC, the player would be within their rights to beat you to death with the corebook, but this is the price we must pay, sometimes.
 
Gazetteer said:
This combination would probably genuinely work against a number of melee supernal Dawn Caste builds.

If you actually used it on a real PC, the player would be within their rights to beat you to death with the corebook, but this is the price we must pay, sometimes.
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That's why you remember that Brawl doesn't get insta-ganked by surprise grapple, but instead uses them as nuclear tipped missiles.

(Seriously never do Solar Brawl, that is equally a breach of the NAP as ganking you with three water aspects jumping out of the lake)
 
Honestly in a pure math sense, this fight is survivable technically. But what really fucks up the Solar's chances is the Demon Battle Group and Mortal Archer Battle Group. That just destroys a lot of movement options. Never ever underestimate basic ass troops in how disruptive they can be. I seen a Zenith and a Eclipse clean house five DB's before cause their basic Size 2 mob was so disruptive. Zenith just rolled good initiative and woopsie all the DB's just crashed.

What really throws the entire fight for them is the Twilight getting ganked cause they couldn't take a hit. That tosses out any surprise demons they got hiding in their caste mark and any form of quick battlefield clear.

Pardon for me spouting off on this, my brain just locks in on the mechanics and I can't get it out of my head.
 
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MiracleGrow said:
What really throws the entire fight for them is the Twilight getting ganked cause they couldn't take a hit. That tosses out any surprise demons they got hiding in their caste mark and any form of quick battlefield clear.
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Getting party wiped because your twilight really wanted to min-max magic and seduction and didn't take ox-body is one heck of a way to go. Also an extremely funny one.
 
[X] The very edge of the Blue Chimney, on the far side of it from the support pillar, offering you space and light but also bringing Flotsam close to his goal

I want the most dramatic fight possible.
 
[X] The rickety walkway, with any misstep threatening to send either of you plunging into the water below

As well as a fun fight setting in its own right, this opens up the possibility of either side of the underwater clash interrupting from below.
 
MiracleGrow said:
Honestly in a pure math sense, this fight is survivable technically. But what really fucks up the Solar's chances is the Demon Battle Group and Mortal Archer Battle Group.
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That is certainly a key effect to the chances for the Solar's defeat, but I'm pretty sure the infiltrating Sidereal disabling the Twilight Caste before she could summon counter spirits or demons and firebomb the mortal Archers position was pretty critical.

Edit: actually they might not be mortals. 5 arrows to the chest specifically is pretty accurate for a thrown to the ground Solar. L'nessa and her bow maybe?
 
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Alectai said:
Solars are bad news for anyone who isn't part of their In-Group.
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That's honestly kind of a wild comment to make in the context of a group specifically trying to disarm the imperial oppression of an entire Direction.

Like, I get it, I too enjoy how Gazetteer presents the default protagonists of the setting through the eyes of people who fear and revile them with good reason, but like... the Realm, and Heaven backing it, explicitly acts as an engine to immiserate most of the world to benefit a tight-knit core who aren't just an "in-group" but the literal extended family of an immortal(?) tyrant. Grace is in the position of defending this status quo as better than the alternatives, and she surely has good arguments on her side, but it's hardly a moral failing of Solar Exaltation that those who suddenly have a lot of power and direct knowledge that the hegemonic force in Creation is built on lies about that power might decide that they get to count all the murdered, enslaved, destitute, and downtrodden on their side of the equation when working out what counts as acceptable collateral damage when doing something about it.
 
This is also a setting where like, a city being captured by force in war usually results in it being sacked. Where surrendering or captured soldiers are usually either executed or enslaved, because people just do not have the capacity to conveniently keep and feed large numbers of prisoners of war at any one time. What the Solar Circle is doing here is particularly extreme, and they are doing it like, with a callousness that horrifies and sickens Grace, but it's not coming from nowhere, especially where House Peleps and the Water Fleet are concerned. People in real life come to the decision that mass civilian casualties are acceptable in war to achieve a larger objective all the time, unfortunately. Solars are just able to make good on that more than most people.

If I'm making a commentary on the Solar host as a group, it's more about their tendency to like, bull their way through any obstacle in their path like a kid kicking over a sand castle at a beach, whether that be a person or an army or, yes, a city. That doesn't always look like a mass casualty event, but it's just sort of in the character of their magic. Even when they're being subtle, they're doing so with overwhelming might. And that this contributes to the kind of vicious cycle you see with them and the Bronze Faction and the Dragon-Blooded Host. A Solar is a potential threat to Dragon-Blooded hegemony, and through the Realm's actions, they frequently get rid of the "potential" part themselves.

When I'm running a quest about a Dynast or a Bronze Faction loyalist, I am inviting you to like, read about Creation from a perspective that I hope is interesting and compelling, not one that I think is the most correct or morally defensible.
 
kamikasei said:
That's honestly kind of a wild comment to make in the context of a group specifically trying to disarm the imperial oppression of an entire Direction.

Like, I get it, I too enjoy how Gazetteer presents the default protagonists of the setting through the eyes of people who fear and revile them with good reason, but like... the Realm, and Heaven backing it, explicitly acts as an engine to immiserate most of the world to benefit a tight-knit core who aren't just an "in-group" but the literal extended family of an immortal(?) tyrant. Grace is in the position of defending this status quo as better than the alternatives, and she surely has good arguments on her side, but it's hardly a moral failing of Solar Exaltation that those who suddenly have a lot of power and direct knowledge that the hegemonic force in Creation is built on lies about that power might decide that they get to count all the murdered, enslaved, destitute, and downtrodden on their side of the equation when working out what counts as acceptable collateral damage when doing something about it.
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If I had to put a finger on it, what's sort of characterizing this Circle the most is a kind of thoughtlessness which is a really interesting note to strike. They're introduced casually bulling through one moral quandary (what do you do with a mortal Immaculate monk who's just barely past being an initiate and isn't a real threat, answer: "enh kill her, she's got it coming"), and the next couple of updates expand on two others. Firstly: the fact that murdering Bittern might break the back of House Peleps but at the low, low cost of killing tens of thousands whose greatest crime is, in the main, being ordinary citizens of the Realm (and leaving entirely open such questions as "what will a mortally wounded House Peleps and an Admiralty Board do in their death throes, with four full fleets elsewhere in Creation and the Water Fleet still in the West"). And then also the fact that…

These are interestingly all people who seem to themselves come from privileged backgrounds in some capacity. Warrior-priestesses, men of Azure, dispossessed princes, and Raki being the child of a pekumi. As self-professed champions of the abject and wronged they're sort of dubious, and it's borne out by how they treat the mortals (or, well, "mortal" in Grace's case) around them. Rather than consciously cruel, they read as careless, casual, and blithely untroubled by their own callousness. Idle godlings who recognize no limits set upon them or their actions, if it feels morally congruent. And as a thematic note it's all very…illustrative I think? They don't have a solution to the Realm, to what it is, why it is, and who makes it up.

It's just another problem that they can easily smash through. I almost think they don't have a real conception of what they're actually doing or see any reason to spare it a thought.
 
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TenfoldShields said:
If I had to put a finger on it, what's sort of characterizing this Circle the most is a kind of thoughtlessness which is a really interesting note to strike. They're introduced casually bulling through one moral quandary (what do you do with a mortal Immaculate monk who's just barely past being an initiate and isn't a real threat, answer: "enh kill her, she's got it coming"), and the next couple of updates expand on two others. Firstly: the fact that murdering Bittern might break the back of House Peleps but at the low, low cost of killing tens of thousands whose greatest crime is, in the main, being ordinary citizens of the Realm (and leaving entirely open such questions as "what will a mortally wounded House Peleps and an Admiralty Board do in their death throes, with four full fleets elsewhere in Creation and the Water Fleet still in the West"). And then also the fact that…

These are interestingly all people who seem to themselves come from privileged backgrounds in some capacity. Warrior-priestesses, men of Azure, dispossessed princes, and Raki being the child of a pekumi. As self-professed champions of the abject and wronged they're sort of dubious, and it's borne out by how they treat the mortals (or, well, "mortal" in Grace's case) around them. Rather than consciously cruel, they read as careless, casual, and blithely untroubled by their own callousness. Idle godlings who recognize no limits set upon them or their actions, if it feels morally congruent. And as a thematic note it's all very…illustrative I think? They don't have a solution to the Realm, to what it is, why it is, and who makes it up.

It's just another problem that they can easily smash through. I almost think they don't have a real conception of what they're actually doing or see any reason to spare it a thought.
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Pretty much what I was trying to say, but a lot more eloquently than I shot out, it's the thoughtlessness and sheer not-giving-a-damn about the collateral damage that makes me go "Ah, a richly deserved comeuppance."

It's not that the Realm is great, but if you extend personal culpability to everyone who's ever benefited--no matter how tenuously--to their stewardship, you're going to be hip deep in blood by the time you're through killing even if you win every battle somehow. That's not a mindset I can applaud, since it's very much "The cure is worse than the disease"
 
TenfoldShields said:
low cost of killing tens of thousands
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The city has a population of hundreds of thousands actually and Rika Estimates that this pillar will suck in half the city alone as it collapses, with the rest of the city likely to follow as the water and debris of the fleet knocks down others.

This ignores of course, the potential millions of casualties as the west erupts into first rebellion and then open conflict between newly risen and old rulers over wealth that even in the absence of the realm is still something people will be fighting and spilling blood over, now that the realm can't easily project force into the West.
Gazetteer said:
Major: Replacing one flawed system with another is not an improvement
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Which is part of Singular Grace's entire stance on why the realm should stand.
Gazetteer said:
Defining: I embody my name
Major: V'neef Ambraea (Conflicted sisterly affection and resentment)
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On another note, given her part in choosing that name, I'm surprised Ambraea isn't Defining instead of major.
 
MiracleGrow said:
What really throws the entire fight for them is the Twilight getting ganked cause they couldn't take a hit. That tosses out any surprise demons they got hiding in their caste mark and any form of quick battlefield clear.
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As a longtime designated 3e ST (i could count the number of Exalted PCs i've actually *played* on one hand, and three of them would be Dawns or Dawn-equivalents), seeing someone get put in crash and then pinioned by a battlegroup whose damage has suddenly turned lethal gave me an overpowering sense of satisfaction. Not quite Trash Mobs when you've got no Initiative, huh!?

There's a lot that I want to say about this sequence, but I think what might be getting lost in the awesome action are Grace's Ambraea flashbacks. Man... reading those got me misty-eyed.
 
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