That's going to be some quite possibly literally legendary levels of bad decision making in that case.
An Offer She Couldn't Refuse [Exalted]
- Thread starter Pale Wolf
- Start date
Olive
Silent Princess
Even the Dragon Bloods easily surpass mortal men in all forms of action.
Look, as @ManusDomine can tell you, Dragonblooded are the equal of Celestial Exalts when it comes to making bad decisions. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just a Celestial supremacist.
- Location
- Canada
Second Edition had this thing where crossbows were considered a major military secret known only by a single nation after they recovered ancient first age weapons that work on similar principles.
Considering that crossbows aren't really all that complicated, the fact that Balistae and similar siege weapons based on crossbows already commonly exist elsewhere in the setting, and the fact that crossbows existed irl in the places and time periods that Exalted is supposed to draw inspiration from, this was considered to be really dumb by a lot of people.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I see you there, EDdy. ...for once, it's nice to see you.
Nah. EDdy is black.
This is gray. Pure, blank gray, leeched of all colour.
Omnomnom.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Bah! I see the bad decisions made by the Celestials and I spit on them, I haven't seen any come close to what I do whenever I wake from sleep yet!
I mean, the fletches Aindriu blew through were sent there to buy a bunch of them in the first place...
And in the end, they didn't have to pay! Whoo!
Aindriu has one of the best charms for hostage negotiations: Factual Determination Analysis.
Yeah but Chiming Minaret is a miracle of the universe.
At a narrative level, I'd strongly recommend making Factual Determination Analysis, Judge's Ear Technique and all other perfect lie-detectors into Instant charms, rather than scenelongs. It means the character has to focus to know whether someone is lying to them, and casual statements can slip past them (also, means characters don't casually walk around with them perma-on, which is just very toxic for both storytelling and gameplay alike. Lying is too important for storytelling and human interaction to allow it to just be dismissed like that).
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
FDA already is instant, though, or was that errata'd?
I believe Pale Wolf is using @Revlid's SWLIHN Charmset (which is rather better written, because it isn't a patch job rushed out to cover the loss of the original SWLIHN charmset due to not keeping proper backups), and that balances FDA with JET (because the version of FDA in Infernals is just plain inferior in every way to JET).
Really, the problem is with JET. The Infernals version of FDA is a better done Charm, but unfortunately is a badly balanced Charm because it's just plain worse in every way than its Solar equivalent.
Yes, I'm operating under that assumption. Aindriu basically has to activate it independently for each statement she wants to verify. She's not perfectly lie-immune but as long as the lies come in slower than her mote regen she's good, and she has to know whether or not she wants to actually test a given statement.
(Granted, she's socially paranoid enough she totally would use it on an invitation to a meeting to make sure it's not a prank or something, and did... The legacies of a bullied child are deep, or something)
I'd actually missed that Revlid rebalanced it, so I guess it's good I wasn't actually taking it into a game or anything
The quick answer would she looted a freshly built Hummer in great shape compared to the beat to crap Toyato Hilux made from splicing three trucks together.
Both are fuctional but ones just flatout superior to the other
Why's that? It clearly wouldn't be hard for her. She's put in literally 0 effort towards converting people into cultists and a bunch of them are already ready to defect and split the party in the middle of hostile wilderness to follow her. One of them, at least, already thinks of her as a goddess!
Seems like a very real threat worthy of serious concern.
To note, Julen used the term 'demigoddess'. It's more along the lines of a term for godblooded, which is the general region most people think she's in right now (since no one knows of Infernals). Arguably the term is applicable as a plain description of basically any human-origin essence-user, since they've all got at least a touch of the divine going on.
Though yes, people willing to use tremendous divine power on the behalf of others do tend to get at least a reasonable bit of loyalty from said others.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
They don't realize that she's really close to the Immaculate legends/historical tales of Anathema?
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Infernals are super new in Creation (like, Aindru might be one of the first batch if she's just 2 years past participating in the war against the Bull), so no, they don't.
Yet.
Slaves are incredibly grateful to the person who freed them, and want to stay close to the powerful person who wants them to stay free.
Clearly, this is a sign they've been brainwashed by the vile Anathema.
They're familiar with the Solar sigils, but she's literally never gone anima in front of them so they haven't seen the Dawnmark. (If she were using canon Slayer 'crossed swords' sigil there would be literally no way for any observer to tell she had anything to do with Solars)
'Demigod' still works for Exalted too, of course - they still have the touch of divinity going on there.
Aindriu is pretty early. The Reclamation is a little accelerated from the normal assumption - Kimberry, Isidoros, Elloge, and Metagaos have all signed on already, and honestly if they wanted to they could have all fifty Exaltations shotgunned out within the first year, let alone the third. Creation isn't exactly direly short of mortals who have a need for overwhelming power, over almost a thousand days and a population of about a billion there have almost certainly been more than fifty qualifiers, even with Solar and Abyssal Exaltations taking their own candidates.
But they could also be doing it pretty slowly, Unquestionable can afford to let a year or five pass by a lot easier than mortals can, and there are valid reasons to delay, mostly in A: carefully nurturing their Infernals and making sure they get set up well and not Wyld Hunted; and B: coming to an agreement on who gets to implant an Urge into which Exaltation and what missions get assigned first.
(Unquestionable committee meetings are hilarious. They literally needed to use an Infernal as seneschal because anything lower is either an already-partisan 2cd, or a 'casually-convinced/threatened 1cd' and no order can be kept otherwise. The First Circle Demons of the Conventicle are very grateful to the Orchid-Consuming Guardian for taking up that role)
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Grounders10
Nine-Tailed Kitsune
- Location
- British Columbia, Canada, Mars
I've never bothered to think about it before, but yeah on second thought they're almost perfect set ups for comedy.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
OCG: Ligier, I don't care how shiny your pecks are, let Ululaya finish her proposal!
OCG: Contrary One! I know its your nature to literally defy all expectations and definitions place upon yourself, but could you at the very least show up on time?
OCG: Balando, the Leech Lord, please desist in attempting to duel the Green Sun Princes, we all know what you're about, you are not fooling anyone.
OCG: I swear to the Yozi!Erembour, please desist in trying to seduce the entire contingent of Green Sun Princes, there is less than an hour left of the All-Thing, you can your orgy later.
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Part 19: Parlay
More or less.
X X X X X X X X X X
Leonce would have been perfectly happy to just wait here for weeks, blocking off the Anathema until his reinforcements arrived (hopefully they were actually coming), without ever once actually having to introduce his face to that overwhelming power.
He may or may not have been able to do it. His Grand Order was impressive, ranks of ordered, lamellar-armoured men and women, fully armed with glaives, bows, and lances, standing at the ready in the forest. Against a ragtag group of escaped slaves, they wouldn't be seeking victory, they would be seeking to keep to zero casualties. But Anathema were something entirely different, and he'd seen far too much of what they could do during the War.
Which was why his mood immediately soured as he saw the short, curvy girl striding between the pine trees and the undergrowth between the two forces, idly working her faded-white hair into a braid that brushed against her knees as she walked. She matched the description he'd been provided of the Anathema's host - short enough to reach up to his chin, stacked, incredibly pale, with fairly pretty features about halfway between Pretannic and Lyric.
It wasn't particularly well-dressed - swimming in an ill-fitting light dress, barefoot without the Hydic moccassins that were so popular for distance travel in Pretannia, unarmoured - but it was well-armed, with a sword at its hip, an oddly-cheap bronze spear in its hand, numerous dart pouches at its waist, and a crossbow and two ironshaft javelins slung from its back.
It probably wanted to talk, if it were attacking it'd bring its followers along. Leonce nudged Ichigo to move forward through the underbrush, away from his own troops to meet the Anathema in no-man's land. He'd like to just sic his entire force on it, but he couldn't guarantee that was enough, and he didn't want to let it speak clearly enough for them to hear. Anathema were good at spreading spiritual pollution, he didn't want to risk what its words might do to his Order.
It was still best to see what it had to say. The longer it was talking, the longer he had before testing his mettle against an Anathema without backup.
Soon enough, they were in a conversational distance. Leonce did not dismount, nor did he pull off his mask, simply staring down at the compact girl as she came to a halt, leaves crunching underfoot.
The Anathema didn't keep him waiting. "I assume you came here to kill me."
That wasn't any particular secret, nor was it at all hard to guess, so Leonce nodded. "You assume correctly." It was a conversation starter.
"Not now, though. Later. When we've starved and your backup arrives."
Leonce shook his head. "I don't have backup coming. It's just us." His face was hidden behind a dragon-faced mask, so at least it wasn't easy to -
"If you're going to waste our time with lies, put some effort in."
Strike it. Leonce sighed. "You knew already."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to call it off?" The Anathema sounded less 'hopeful' and more 'had to ask'. "I'm not your enemy. You'll suffer no harm if we just go our separate ways in peace. Nothing you care for will be hurt."
"Now who's wasting time? What about the fletches at Cat Lake, do those just not count?" Aside from the whole 'Anathema, will corrupt the world the longer it remains in it' thing.
"They were in my way," the Anathema stated, voice calm, almost regal, somehow looking down the bridge of its nose at him despite him being a meter higher. "Right now, so are you. Are you sure you don't want to change that?"
Leonce swallowed, meeting its cold, disinterested gaze. "Pretty sure."
"That doesn't leave me with very many options." The Anathema folded its arms across its chest, and Leonce had to admit he looked - he was a man, and the motion had drawn attention!
"... You could always surrender yourself to the justice of the dragons," Leonce suggested, only half-seriously. It'd be pretty nice if she did though. If it did It. It. "You exist to tempt men away from the proper ways of living."
"You could go back home and fuck yourself there," the Anathema suggested, voice chirpy. "But since neither of us is getting our favourite outcome, we're going to have to take each other into consideration." Its voice dropped back to a serious tone. "We're under a time limit. Every moment we wait gets worse for us. So we're not waiting. We're going to have to break you until you can't stop us, nor follow us."
Strike it. He'd hoped to avoid a direct confrontation until more forces arrived, but the moment the Anathema had figured out reinforcements were coming - if it was any consolation, it had figured that out well before coming to talk to him - that had ceased to be an option. Still... "I have a professional army. You have ex-slave rabble. It takes more than a few days to make them into Tiger Warriors."
The Anathema smiled, a thin, grim expression. "They're no Grand Order, but they just had a taste of freedom, and you cut off their escape back home. They're desperate, and they hate you. They're more motivated than your men will ever be. I don't know who'll win, but it'll be a pyrrhic victory at best."
She was threatening him. She - it - was probably right, morale counted for a lot, and, well, that side had an Anathema to boot. It matched his judgement, this was not a safe battle to commit to. But it was threatening him, which meant it wanted him to accept a different course of action. "If you're suggesting we settle this with a duel, you're deranged." He'd like to keep his men from suffering the horrid casualties of this sort of conflict, but he'd also like to survive it and getting into duels with Anathema was not a route to that, or accomplishing anything meaningful.
The Anathema's thin smile broke into a full grin. "I actually was going to suggest just that. A simple duel. You. Me. And your army."
"No, no - what?" Leonce was shaking his head before she finished, so it took a while for him to notice what she'd actually said.
"They're going home." She hooked her thumb to indicate the armed escapee camp behind her. "Northward. One way or the other. But if you follow me, I'll go west. I'd recommend you bring your army," she chuckled. Her voice was a very nice one - clear, smooth, sweet. But her laugh was more of a half-cackle.
Behind his mask, Leonce frowned. "What's the meaning of this?"
"They're not my tools. I'm here to protect them, I'd have been long gone otherwise." The Anathema shrugged. "They get safely home if you and your army are dueling me. My goal is accomplished. And so's yours - you're here for me, not them. They're just in the way, and I'm offering to get them out of your way. Win-win."
Now Leonce really did not want to let the escapees go. Dragons knew what the Anathema had done to them, or what kind of spiritual pollution they could spread if they escaped. But his heart still quailed at the thought of what 'not letting them go' actually entailed. Butchering them. Every last one, before any corruption they'd imbibed from the Anathema could spread. It might be the kinder option - them being alive played into the Anathema's plans, which meant it was probably a bad thing. But his arm shivered at the thought of loosing those arrows. He didn't want to do that either. He couldn't possibly order his men to do it.
And... even if it factored into the Anathema's desires, they could at least take down the Anathema itself. Accomplishing anything at all in a direct battle alongside her support was dubious. "... Perhaps." It hadn't had time to trap the woods. It might be leading him into an ambush, though. Could he manage it? Run it down before it reached the possible other forces it wanted to link up with? Spot the threat ahead of time, deal with the Anathema along with whatever forces it had brought?
The Anathema sighed, rubbing its face with one hand. "Right, having trouble deciding? Let me simplify." It squatted, laying a hand on the undergrowth and fiddling with a few leaves, possibly just to amuse itself with the crinkling. "Let's say I don't give you a chance to decide. I'm every bit as fast as your mounts, if you give me a head start you will never, ever see me again. Let's say, all of a sudden, you have to choose between going after me, or going after them. You only get one - it'll take long enough to get either that the other will have too much of a head start for you to ever catch up. Which do you go for?"
Leonce leaned forward slightly, knees tensing to control his sicklebird, hands reaching to his bow. "You know the answer to that." She was about to move. That was hardly just theory. He just didn't understand why she was telling him, and giving up any advantage of surprise. If she hadn't mentioned her speed, he might have forgotten it, and wasted enough time putting down the escapees that she could escape.
"Humour me."
Leonce rolled his eyes. "I'm here for you." The question of the escapees was fraught, but it'd be a pointless exercise to stop the Anathema's plans by killing pawns and let the Anathema itself go. He just had to hope the Anathema was being overconfident, that his soldiers were enough. "Everything else is secondary to that."
The Anathema grinned up at him. "See? Simple." Then a green-flame-wreathed stick was rocketing towards his face, and the Anathema was off like a shot to the west, white hair streaming behind her.
X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X
Leonce would have been perfectly happy to just wait here for weeks, blocking off the Anathema until his reinforcements arrived (hopefully they were actually coming), without ever once actually having to introduce his face to that overwhelming power.
He may or may not have been able to do it. His Grand Order was impressive, ranks of ordered, lamellar-armoured men and women, fully armed with glaives, bows, and lances, standing at the ready in the forest. Against a ragtag group of escaped slaves, they wouldn't be seeking victory, they would be seeking to keep to zero casualties. But Anathema were something entirely different, and he'd seen far too much of what they could do during the War.
Which was why his mood immediately soured as he saw the short, curvy girl striding between the pine trees and the undergrowth between the two forces, idly working her faded-white hair into a braid that brushed against her knees as she walked. She matched the description he'd been provided of the Anathema's host - short enough to reach up to his chin, stacked, incredibly pale, with fairly pretty features about halfway between Pretannic and Lyric.
It wasn't particularly well-dressed - swimming in an ill-fitting light dress, barefoot without the Hydic moccassins that were so popular for distance travel in Pretannia, unarmoured - but it was well-armed, with a sword at its hip, an oddly-cheap bronze spear in its hand, numerous dart pouches at its waist, and a crossbow and two ironshaft javelins slung from its back.
It probably wanted to talk, if it were attacking it'd bring its followers along. Leonce nudged Ichigo to move forward through the underbrush, away from his own troops to meet the Anathema in no-man's land. He'd like to just sic his entire force on it, but he couldn't guarantee that was enough, and he didn't want to let it speak clearly enough for them to hear. Anathema were good at spreading spiritual pollution, he didn't want to risk what its words might do to his Order.
It was still best to see what it had to say. The longer it was talking, the longer he had before testing his mettle against an Anathema without backup.
Soon enough, they were in a conversational distance. Leonce did not dismount, nor did he pull off his mask, simply staring down at the compact girl as she came to a halt, leaves crunching underfoot.
The Anathema didn't keep him waiting. "I assume you came here to kill me."
That wasn't any particular secret, nor was it at all hard to guess, so Leonce nodded. "You assume correctly." It was a conversation starter.
"Not now, though. Later. When we've starved and your backup arrives."
Leonce shook his head. "I don't have backup coming. It's just us." His face was hidden behind a dragon-faced mask, so at least it wasn't easy to -
"If you're going to waste our time with lies, put some effort in."
Strike it. Leonce sighed. "You knew already."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to call it off?" The Anathema sounded less 'hopeful' and more 'had to ask'. "I'm not your enemy. You'll suffer no harm if we just go our separate ways in peace. Nothing you care for will be hurt."
"Now who's wasting time? What about the fletches at Cat Lake, do those just not count?" Aside from the whole 'Anathema, will corrupt the world the longer it remains in it' thing.
"They were in my way," the Anathema stated, voice calm, almost regal, somehow looking down the bridge of its nose at him despite him being a meter higher. "Right now, so are you. Are you sure you don't want to change that?"
Leonce swallowed, meeting its cold, disinterested gaze. "Pretty sure."
"That doesn't leave me with very many options." The Anathema folded its arms across its chest, and Leonce had to admit he looked - he was a man, and the motion had drawn attention!
"... You could always surrender yourself to the justice of the dragons," Leonce suggested, only half-seriously. It'd be pretty nice if she did though. If it did It. It. "You exist to tempt men away from the proper ways of living."
"You could go back home and fuck yourself there," the Anathema suggested, voice chirpy. "But since neither of us is getting our favourite outcome, we're going to have to take each other into consideration." Its voice dropped back to a serious tone. "We're under a time limit. Every moment we wait gets worse for us. So we're not waiting. We're going to have to break you until you can't stop us, nor follow us."
Strike it. He'd hoped to avoid a direct confrontation until more forces arrived, but the moment the Anathema had figured out reinforcements were coming - if it was any consolation, it had figured that out well before coming to talk to him - that had ceased to be an option. Still... "I have a professional army. You have ex-slave rabble. It takes more than a few days to make them into Tiger Warriors."
The Anathema smiled, a thin, grim expression. "They're no Grand Order, but they just had a taste of freedom, and you cut off their escape back home. They're desperate, and they hate you. They're more motivated than your men will ever be. I don't know who'll win, but it'll be a pyrrhic victory at best."
She was threatening him. She - it - was probably right, morale counted for a lot, and, well, that side had an Anathema to boot. It matched his judgement, this was not a safe battle to commit to. But it was threatening him, which meant it wanted him to accept a different course of action. "If you're suggesting we settle this with a duel, you're deranged." He'd like to keep his men from suffering the horrid casualties of this sort of conflict, but he'd also like to survive it and getting into duels with Anathema was not a route to that, or accomplishing anything meaningful.
The Anathema's thin smile broke into a full grin. "I actually was going to suggest just that. A simple duel. You. Me. And your army."
"No, no - what?" Leonce was shaking his head before she finished, so it took a while for him to notice what she'd actually said.
"They're going home." She hooked her thumb to indicate the armed escapee camp behind her. "Northward. One way or the other. But if you follow me, I'll go west. I'd recommend you bring your army," she chuckled. Her voice was a very nice one - clear, smooth, sweet. But her laugh was more of a half-cackle.
Behind his mask, Leonce frowned. "What's the meaning of this?"
"They're not my tools. I'm here to protect them, I'd have been long gone otherwise." The Anathema shrugged. "They get safely home if you and your army are dueling me. My goal is accomplished. And so's yours - you're here for me, not them. They're just in the way, and I'm offering to get them out of your way. Win-win."
Now Leonce really did not want to let the escapees go. Dragons knew what the Anathema had done to them, or what kind of spiritual pollution they could spread if they escaped. But his heart still quailed at the thought of what 'not letting them go' actually entailed. Butchering them. Every last one, before any corruption they'd imbibed from the Anathema could spread. It might be the kinder option - them being alive played into the Anathema's plans, which meant it was probably a bad thing. But his arm shivered at the thought of loosing those arrows. He didn't want to do that either. He couldn't possibly order his men to do it.
And... even if it factored into the Anathema's desires, they could at least take down the Anathema itself. Accomplishing anything at all in a direct battle alongside her support was dubious. "... Perhaps." It hadn't had time to trap the woods. It might be leading him into an ambush, though. Could he manage it? Run it down before it reached the possible other forces it wanted to link up with? Spot the threat ahead of time, deal with the Anathema along with whatever forces it had brought?
The Anathema sighed, rubbing its face with one hand. "Right, having trouble deciding? Let me simplify." It squatted, laying a hand on the undergrowth and fiddling with a few leaves, possibly just to amuse itself with the crinkling. "Let's say I don't give you a chance to decide. I'm every bit as fast as your mounts, if you give me a head start you will never, ever see me again. Let's say, all of a sudden, you have to choose between going after me, or going after them. You only get one - it'll take long enough to get either that the other will have too much of a head start for you to ever catch up. Which do you go for?"
Leonce leaned forward slightly, knees tensing to control his sicklebird, hands reaching to his bow. "You know the answer to that." She was about to move. That was hardly just theory. He just didn't understand why she was telling him, and giving up any advantage of surprise. If she hadn't mentioned her speed, he might have forgotten it, and wasted enough time putting down the escapees that she could escape.
"Humour me."
Leonce rolled his eyes. "I'm here for you." The question of the escapees was fraught, but it'd be a pointless exercise to stop the Anathema's plans by killing pawns and let the Anathema itself go. He just had to hope the Anathema was being overconfident, that his soldiers were enough. "Everything else is secondary to that."
The Anathema grinned up at him. "See? Simple." Then a green-flame-wreathed stick was rocketing towards his face, and the Anathema was off like a shot to the west, white hair streaming behind her.
X X X X X X X X X X
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Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, at least Leonce seems to have enough conscience to feel terrible about the thought of going full knight templar and killing all of 'the Anathema's slaves'. I suppose that's something to be thankful for.
Nope.
And she just pulled this stunt because this pings as truthful; she knows he's not going to risk letting her loose by leaving enough troops behind to actually matter.
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