Hm, does Rune King apply to Sword Praxis techniques? Because if so, there's really no excuse for picking Sharp of Eye if we take Dreadnought. Also, The King Stands Alone is the name of an option from
An End to Innocence back in Most High. More Odyssial references and details about the nature of reality, the firmament-blue that lies beyond the ephemera of the Lower World.
Hm. Man, it's been a while since that quest... old memories and feelings, huh. Though when I read the King thing, my mind actually immediately went to a different part of that old quest. Not about an option in that update. But rather, I remembered Rihaku talking that one of the things Odyssial was trying to accomplish or build or work on or achieve, was... erm... like a defensive thing that would force anybody to 1v1 him if they wanted to attack him. I forget what it was in reference to, if it was the Lathe or something related to the Singularity Husk or just a Solar Circle Working, but I remembered that -- that one of the things Odyssial was working on, was a way to prevent defeat by being outnumbered. "Force everybody to fight me one on one." While also holding Ambition and thus being able
to 1v1 anyone and win. It would have been an unbeatable combo.
Rereading a few of the things in there though, did make me wonder how much of what came up in later quests was homage and reference, merely the re-use of themes and turns-of-phrase that were good and dramatic and so had a place in being told in another story... and how much might be actual backstory or lore. Connections across quests and across the years. Wondering if the Forebear was Odyssial, or Ulyssian, or somebody related to them or their tribe.
For example, the way the update The Wages of Syn talk about Odyssial, as "the Tyrant, the Destroyer." ("That man, that Solar, the greatest enemy, the fiercest and final foe. Strength enough to unmake all Creation, to break the Sun, who was for a brief moment no longer Unconquered. That Solar, the Tyrant, the Destroyer...")
Or -- from the very first update, the very first post -- how Odyssial's littlest sister Nio wanted to become "a mighty sorceress and protect all of the People."
Idly he toyed with the talisman on his arm. Woven of weeds, flowers, and reeds, it was Nio's creation, her first thaumaturgical work. She was his littlest sibling, an inveterate brat, but already precocious in the mystical arts. The stubborn hint of a smile worked its way past his facade. He had no idea what the talisman did, if it even did anything.
"For good luck!" She'd proclaimed, as she'd pinned it on his sleeve. "One day, I'll be a mighty sorceress and protect all of the People. Until then," she'd sighed, patting the thing, "you'll have to make do with this."
Down to the mannerisms of the sigh, it was the same way their mother had spoken. Odyssial had never seen Nio cry. She didn't complain, even when the tribe force-marched at paces that made grown men groan. Tragedy had only made her work harder, learn faster. She may well have become a sorceress, one of the rare mortals to rise above the lot of mortality, if their civilization and its libraries had survived.
Huh. A fragmentary reference to his mother, too. Did Odyssial have a surviving brother, too? I mean, at the point at which his tribe was. Did he have family other than Nio? What were they like?
I wondered if the Maiden of Gisena's world, who held the power of True Quintessence, was a Sidereal for a while. Perhaps The Fairest? But after rereading the first post of that thread, I wondered about Nio instead.
(Sure, there was the Fiend Caste in a previous Exalted thread who reminded him of her... but then, we also mused 'Wait, doesn't something that'd remind you of your greatest regret or sorrow, or take up a face that you'd never wish to harm, sound a lot like an Ebon Dragon Charm?' Which I thought was both paranoid but also reasonable... So anyway yeah.) I also was surprised when I came across the line "Fourteen brothers and sisters he'd had before that day, and now they were three." I remembered Odyssial had a surviving sister. But
another family member too? I never remembered that. Did we ever even hear anything of them?
