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Ascensions and Transgressions: the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht (Exalted game)

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My immediate thought was that this group trip seems like a perfect opportunity for Keris to start corrupting Asarin by showing her how Keris's children manage their relationships and contrasting this with Asarin's profoundly unhealthy relationship with her greater self.

I think that there could be some particularly interesting interactions with Oula given the way that Moon-maidens like her are largely defined by their obsessive love, but can still free themselves by taking back their heart from people who have proven unworthy of it.

Also, Is it just me or does it seem like there are some hints of a developing romantic relationship between Eko and Asarin?
 
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Just finished. Nice to see the Eko/Asarin is still blossoming.

That said I'm pretty sure I missed the parallels the flashback was meant to draw
 
horngeek said:
Eko is shocked, shocked, that you imply there might be anything l-lewd going on between two pure maidens like that.
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Look, we all know that the two of them getting together will be what catalyzes both of their ascents to the Third Circle.

I do find it interesting that Kejak himself was Yamal's teacher. Especially since Yamal was a Solar for only, what, a century or two tops before the Usurpation?

I suppose the question is which side of that relationship Keris currently falls on in her own life.

It also vaguely makes me hope that a Sidereal embassy to Hell ends up being a thing just so that we can see Keris's reaction if she recognizes the old man.

I note that Haneyl's sense of fashion tends to the tacky and overdone as much as it does towards concealing the bare minimum needed for her clothes to still be fun to take off. I can see Zanara being immensely frustrated when their attempt to do a fashion consultation runs into Haneyl's lack of taste. Or Rathan's laziness. Or Vali's indifference. Or Calesco's overwroughtness. Or Eko's nature as a compressed razor-wind making the whole thing moot.

There's the real reason Zanara's going to encourage Keris to tie Ney down the instant she meets him again: he's the only one she can talk fashion to and not have it be an exercise in futility.
 
Regarding Atiya, and how Keris says that she doesn't like being touched and doesn't smile when smiled at - those are big early-warning signs for Autism, or at least the smiling bit is. Another early-warning sign (and a related one at that) is not making eye contact.
 
The Sandman said:
There's the real reason Zanara's going to encourage Keris to tie Ney down the instant she meets him again: he's the only one she can talk fashion to and not have it be an exercise in futility.
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Gospel truth from the mouth of babes.

Also I said it once on the discord and I'll say it again. ES is a meanie.
 
The Sandman said:
I note that Haneyl's sense of fashion tends to the tacky and overdone as much as it does towards concealing the bare minimum needed for her clothes to still be fun to take off.
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It's actually entirely dependent of the relative balance of her aspects; Fire, Hunger and Humanity.

When her Humanity is running strong, she's neurotically worried about what people will think of her and desperately trying to be a "proper" princess. When, as it is right now, she's gone too long without losing (as has Keris) and she's running very high on her Malfean and Metagoyin sides. And thus she's being really trashy in a super expensive way.

It's part of her homeostatic balancing mechanisms - when she's hungry and weak, she's servile, vicious and desperate and willing to bow and scrape to get a win. By contrast, as she is now when she's flush with victory after victory, she's arrogant, sloppy, and flaunts what she has and generally gets on people's nerves and makes her siblings want to slap her.
 
Very nice gut punch with Golden Child.

I'm looking forward to the family road trip. Will Eko be the one constantly asking if they are there yet, or will there be a surprise contender?
 
"... but you didn't actually sit back and behave yourself, did you?" asks Haneyl sceptically. She's browner than ever, and laden with trinkets, new jewellery, and gem-studded ties in her hair. She's wearing something that pushes even Keris's tolerant standards of dress. It seems to largely be comprised of gaudy feathers and gold. Her thigh-high boots are crocodile-skin with tiger-fur trimmings.
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"Oh, trust me, I've thanked her plenty," Keris agrees, smiling. At least she's back to making catty comments about Haneyl, which are frankly comments Keris has thought herself. "They're so much better than agatae - faster and quieter! Did you have any luck in looking around?"
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........
Which is why she reclines on the satin-wrapped divan in an outfit comprised almost entirely of bare, dusky skin. Tattoos of gold and silver wind all over her - real precious metals laced into the soil of flowers to be absorbed into the dyes. They're hypnotic and organic in how they follow the lines of her body; asymmetrical and maddening. Those who stare at them too long will find their lusts raging out of control and their reason waning.
Her sole nod to modesty is a pair of garments that give her the very least limit of decency; a breechcloth and low-hanging necklace comprised mostly of her own feathers. Other than those, she's wearing only jewellery and body oil, which gleams in the light of Ligier and tints the gold in her tattoos to a greenish hue that will no doubt please him to see.
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Keris, do you really have that much room to talk?
 
Look, at least Keris's outfit was classy-seductive and tantalising with hypnotic beauty. A bikini and thigh-high croc leather boots trimmed with tiger fur? That's just tasteless.
 
Well Infernals are supposed to be Rockstars of Hell.

Outrageous, tasteless outfits are pretty par for the course. If Elton John once had a pair of thigh high croc leather boots I wouldnt be shocked.

What was neat to see was how little effort and attention was paid to the action of the kill team. It just speaks to how effortlessly lethal Keris is against mortals
 
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Sirelmiya, the Heart-Guardian, the Chimerical Priestess
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    • Number three of Keris's Psyche souls, keeping in with the thing that they're much less... human than the Progeny souls:

    Sirelmiya, the Heart-Guardian, the Chimerical Priestess
    Demon of the Second Circle
    Thirteenth Soul of Keris Dulmeadokht
    I Will Protect My One True Love     (Nemone Sasimana), My Long-Distance Boyfriend's An Asshole (Ney Adami)

    In the dark places of Krisity, where the gnarled swamplands meet the tarry meadows, stands a softly radiant shrine of white stone, and in that shrine dwells Sirelmiya. She is a chimeric beast, with the head and upper body of a woman, the haunches of a tigress, and great soft feathery white eagle wings. On her brow she wears a diadem - over her shoulders are draped lavish vestments; her chest and arms and lower body are daubed with crimson love poetry. In one arm she holds a red-thread whip; in the other, a staff. In proportions she is some great beast of legend. Wherever she goes, water boils to form low-hanging steam and the sound of her voice extinguishes mortal flame.

    Sirelmiya is a calm beast, seldom given to flights of fantasy and eternally chaste. It is for the best, for her red-thread whip is a weapon of love and so it can tear apart families, cast down empires, and turn peace into bitter war. She can cast out her staff where it forms a swarm of biting insects that curse souls to restlessness and agitation. When she plucks a thread from her whip, and ties two hearts together, such a love wrenches at Fate - for there is no serenity in the tempestuous passions that Sirelmiya venerates.

    Within the pantheon of her greater self, the Chimerical Priestess holds the best part of the terrible love of the Silent Wind within her temple, which is both shrine and prison-vault. Two great unclad figures stand flanking the gates; beautiful, vulnerable Sasimana who calls the heart to protect her, and many-faced Ney whose expressions makes onlookers want to slap them and then kiss it better. The Midnight Whisper once contained it all but Sirelmiya relieved her of that burden. Sirelmiya builds new statues for each love, and tears down the ones abandoned, leaving them in the deadly vaults below the soft-glowing stone where all is red and sticky. It is the ichor of former loves she daubs herself in and it from those heartstrings she weaves new strands for her whip.

    Sorcerers call on Sirelmiya to create or destroy love - for themselves, or for their enemies. The presence of those who deny love by their actions - though not by their words - angers her, and she gains one Limit a scene she must stay in their presence. She can escape to Creation when certain astrological phenomena happen on a Venusday, or a Saturnday; comets, eclipses, and novas.
     
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    Pride & Envy (NSFW Side Story)
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    • ... so. Ah.

    We got into some discussion of how to resolve the Keris-Testolagh thing. We didn't want to resolve it off-screen, because that seemed to trivialise it, but on the other hand plot stuff is happening and that means that we kind of couldn't take the time off to focus on it. And also, uh, it would be kind of hard to play it out given the emotional complexity and given that it's our Friday game session and we're usually exhausted from the week and generally not feeling up for complex nuanced relationship drama.

    So there was the idea of progressing things in a side story, which could be written at our leisure and had time for proper editing and thought about where things were going, and so on and so forth.

    Somewhat later, a 22k-ish short story of a distinctly explicit nature had been produced. It slots nicely in (if you know what I mean) after the current chapter, and before the next session. It is fully canonical to the main work.

    Let's get the warnings out of the way - under the spoiler block is a link to a story with pretty notable NSFW content. The AO3 tags are there to help you. They are not jokes.

    (I mean, "Paperwork" is kind of a joke, but also something that's in it. But the rest aren't)

    Kerisgame Side Story - Pride & Envy

    It was co-written, but it's left up to you to work out who did what bits. :p
     
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    • Ok, I so I'm probably not going to actually read this, not a smut fan. But looking at the tags something just stood out to me:

    Strong Millennial Energies
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    First: WTF. Second: I'm now very amused and extremely curious as to what exactly could have prompted that being included as a serious tag.
     
    ImperatorV said:
    Ok, I so I'm probably not going to actually read this, not a smut fan.
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    For those who feel similarly, chapters 3, 4 and 5 are the ones with explicit smut in them. The rest might mention or reference it, but don't have any of the actual onscreen stuff - and they're where most of the plot and character stuff is, too.
     
    ImperatorV said:
    First: WTF. Second: I'm now very amused and extremely curious as to what exactly could have prompted that being included as a serious tag.
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    To quote ES in the Discord:

    Keris is a single mother in her early 20s whose love life is a disaster, who hates the paperwork at her job and has been promoted out of her comfort zone, and hates most of her bosses
    the only unrealistic thing is that she can afford to buy a house
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